Guiding
Note:
Touching the
subject in available perspectives: "Metaphysics, which includes both
epistemology (science of
knowledge) and
ontology (Science of being and reality), is an observational science".
Peirce (1839-1914) Am.
Physicist, math
& logician is ranked among germinal thinkers like Socrates, St. Augustine whose fertile minds
reached out in
many directions and provides the leading ideas for later more systematic
western philosophers.
Logical
positivism has in the course of its brief development undergone many radical
transformations. It has
investigated
both the formal and the empirical aspects of knowledge.
Every
determination of the understanding, with regard to what is true or false, is
judgment. Man thinks he is
conscious that
he judges them to be true propositions; and his consciousness makes all other
arguments
unnecessary
with regard to the operations of his own mind. He ought to judge this way; or
he ought not to judge
this way: Dr.
Johnson in his Dictionary explains the word "ought" to signify, being
obliged by duty; this appears
to be better
explication. The word has a concern for moral relation; it uses the faculties
of seeing and listening
and testing. By
seeing we judge of visible objects; by taste, another part of our fabric we judge
edible, inedible
may be
medicinal objects. In a combined effect, we judge of abstract truths; and by
that part of our fabric, which
we call the
moral faculty, we judge of virtue and vice. God''s understanding of truth,
wisdom, virtue and vice are
infinite
therefore he is the only judge, the ultimate judge. Epistemology is defined as
the theory of knowledge.
German
philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)''s successors. Kantians developed his
epistemology further.
He deals with
the task of unification of its principles, the solution of the problems
following from the dualism
between the
intelligible and phenomenal worlds'' knowledge and faith; and the removal of the
inconsistencies
introduced by
the notion of the thing-in-itself, which can be termed “Jnyana Mimamsa”.
Realism as a
constructive
epistemological position asserts that the object of knowledge is distinct from,
and is independent of
the act of
awareness; the object of awareness. "When we are aware of, is precisely
what is would be, if we were
not aware. In
his book "Status of Sense-data" Moore says: "A vast number of sensible
exist at any moment,
which are not
being experienced at all, this applies to only ordinary sense perception.”
Peirce''s account of
cognition is
"semiotic" or theory of signs. He advocated a correspondence theory
of truth "proposition is true in
so far as there
is a correspondence between the proposition considered as a sign, and the
object of which the
proposition
refers.
The pursuit of
truth is one of progressive approximation to an ideal truth. If the
investigators are carried far
enough
everything is knowable even though it is impossible to know everything. As
knowledge progresses, we
come to know
more and more with ever-increasing certitude, though we can never know anything
with absolute
certainly. No
number is large enough "to express the relation between the amount of what
rests unknown and the
amount of the
known. Yet, there are two variable here. 1) All knowledge starts with the
senses. 2) All knowledge
starts with the
mind. Could data of the knowledge come to us through our senses, may be only
certainties come
through that
which is known by mind. What Western philosophy taught during the past two
centuries helped
Indians to
understand and probe more into Vedic scriptures and learn more and benefit from
it. Philosophy
existed with
Aryans since the "thought" came to ancient sages. It is the
characteristic of philosophy that it goes
back to where
most osubjects begin and then probe still further back in its inquiries.
There are problems,
which arise
(enduring problems) from life and thought. It is one of the attractions of
philosophy that it connects
thinkers of
otherwise different historical ages and finds in them the same fundamental
problems.
Natural
definitions to make cognition easy to understand: the natural and Supernatural
are two orders within the
Reality; when
the humanist admits the ultimate ness of values, he is implicitly accepting the
spiritual view of the
universe;
Humanism is concerned with value; religion relates value to Reality, and human
life to the ultimate
background
against which it is set; There is no conflict between Religion and Reasonable
Humanism. The inner
feeling of the
relation between God and man is bound to issue in the Service of Humanity. In
the West theosophy,
i.e. teaching
about God started late, following chiefly evolution and reincarnation.
Philosophical
terms can be now easily explained with the aid of modern science comes to
rescue: A unique
occurrence
(i.e. some previously unobserved event in a distant galaxy) is not called a
miracle. It does not so much
violate a law
of nature as offer a spur to science to workout why it has occurred. It lacks
the sense of personal
relevance and
purpose required for it to e a miracle. Philosophers and scientists tend to
think, to search around in
the mental
jungle for ideas, concepts, theories and evidence. Hence, their problem in
locating the self strayed
away. By
contrast, those who practice meditation, who still the mind until it is gently
focused on a single point,
become aware of
something very different. The self becomes empty, becomes nothing and
everything at the
same moment, as
if there is no "self'', and as if there is "self''. The self continues
its ever-changing patterns of
thought,
feeling and response.
For scientists,
a theory which may be deemed inadequate on the basis of lack of evidence may
find that
subsequent
evidence of a very different kind can make it again a theory of choice. In this
way, a theory survives
when it adapts
to new situations yielding new evidence. Theories may have to adopt in order to
survive; a kind of
natural
selection in the scientific world (Darwin''s approach) if fact, further evidence for
the general validity of
Darwin''s approach; now comes from the present. Jonathan Weiner wrote:
"The Beak of the Finch" after studying
several song
birds on one of the Gals-Pagos Islands. He was at it for twenty years. He
observed that in times of
drought only
those finches with longest beaks could succeed in getting the toughest seeds,
and therefore
survived to
breed. At the same time, DNA studies of blood from various finches corresponded
to their physical
abilities and
characteristics.
When man does
not find explanation for some phenomenon in nature, it is deemed as a miracle
created by God.
Science has
explained many such miracles. Modern physics seeks to find images, in dealing
with mystical
cosmology, by
which to express events (including that of the "Big Bang"), so unlike
anything experienced on
Earth.
Physicists feel they find it easy to follow the lines of Vedanta in dealing
with cosmology. When ancient
sages dealt
with cosmology, (modem term) to them it was the word of God that came to them
through meditation
for soul
searching exercise. To the modern physicists these are termed as imaginative
leaps beyond evidence,
and are
required to form new paradigms within which detailed work and calculation can
subsequently find its
place.
There is a
place for intuition too in this exercise. Like an eye which sees everything
other than itself, intuition
may underpin
much of the scientific endeavor without ever itself featuring directly. The