Post by Purple Cat on Jan 28, 2011 17:19:09 GMT
Jan 28, 2011 15:29:15 GMT DT said:
2. Maslowy's hierarchy So the Knights seek to present the various human needs as a web with self-actualisation/learning/rationality the keypoint in the centre. That's an interesting perspective. However it seems to me that you acknowledge the need for humans to also experience at least some degree of physical comfort and security if they are also to experience knowledge. In that case the PKs modus operandi still seems to threaten some parts of the web in order to throw attention on the centre point and I remain dubious about the efficacy of that strategy. Surely it would be better to seek to reinforce all parts of the web simultaneously?
Does it threaten those points? Of course. That's the point - we briefly remove the physical comforts of life and health, and of psychological security, in order to give the Ignorant little reason to avoid a Rational, Self-Actualizing existence.
This is also the reason we do not kill anyone save our specific enemies (and zergs) in Centers of Learning. In these places, the Ignorant can safely seek to further their minds.
But this is, essentially, the ideology that ignorance can be beaten out of someone. I continue to view this as the self-justification of an abuser.
Heh.
Shows how much use you've been getting out of that account you have on our forums.
Shows how much use you've been getting out of that account you have on our forums.
I don't have an account on your forums. Last time I looked into the eligibility requirements for getting one it was clear I didn't meet them. I did post anonymously a couple of times but last time I looked the response to my post was the equivalent of "Google it" followed up with the implication that, had I studied philosophy at all, I wouldn't even have to ask.
I find the attitude elitist, as well as being factually incorrect.
*snip... detail of the educative works of the philosophe knights which apparently consisted of a comic sketch followed by violence... which rather makes it sound like the next installment of the Evil Dead franchise. This is apparently what counts as education in Malton these days*
I note that the Philosophe Knights own web pages have both policies which refer only to crime and punishment (firstly) and alliances (secondly) and Philosophy in which the conclusion that the ignorant should be killed appears before the conclusion that education should be provided. I still see no reason to alter my opinion that the Knights are known firstly for killing and only tangentially for educating.
I don't think you understood what I meant, which means I might not have understood what you initially meant in your previous post.
I'm saying that trying to apply the scientific method to concepts like the greater human good and true happiness through rationality, balance, and self-improvement is probably a waste of time. How would one maintain a Control, and how would one know if their test was faithfully applying reason and balance throughout their lives, rather than slipping into vice? Certainly, I've never heard of anyone attempting to prove a philosopher right through lengthy experimentation.
I'm saying that trying to apply the scientific method to concepts like the greater human good and true happiness through rationality, balance, and self-improvement is probably a waste of time. How would one maintain a Control, and how would one know if their test was faithfully applying reason and balance throughout their lives, rather than slipping into vice? Certainly, I've never heard of anyone attempting to prove a philosopher right through lengthy experimentation.
My brief observation of PK discourse, and writings, is that it has an emphasis on the pithy quotation over actual debate and a positive antipathy towards the formation of hypothesis, collection of data and careful drawing of conclusion. Your own response seems to support this.
While it may not be possible to codify everything that constitutes "greater human good" we can state and measure many things that contribute towards it, ditto rationality, self-actualization &tc., without even making the attempt to define and measure such things we are simply trading rather bald assertions of fact. You say that hurting people contributes to their education, I maintain that there are better ways to do this (I'm inclined to believe I have approximately 100 years of educational theory on my side of the debate but since no one seems to care about educational theory I've not actually gone and looked). You claim above, for instance, that PKing causes the survivors of Malton to focus upon more abstract concepts. While not amenable to conclusive proof there are studies that could be undertaken to justify this, the literature on corporal punishment could be brought to bear on the subject. Other methods of education should be tried and measures of outcomes decided upon and then measured. Obviously that would all be work and probably not as much fun as killing people.
Originally science was a branch of philosophy, called natural philosophy and the assertions of those philosophers eventually came to be proved or disproved through experimentation. The very formation of scientific method and the understanding of how theory, mathematics and experimentation combine in order to draw conclusions is itself a philosophical achievement and arose from the very attempts of philosophers to bring evidence to bear in relation to philosophical problems. Many important philosophical questions of past ages such as the nature of time and space, man's position within the universe, the formalisation and nature of reasoning, the way information about the world is conveyed to our senses have been answered by scientific and/or mathematical means and/or are now considered appropriate topics of scientific study (in some cases these questions are tackled by both the scientist and the philosopher working either separately or together). The fact that we no longer consider such questions as purely philosophical ones does not mean they were never a branch of philosophy nor that philosophers have not and do not draw conclusions about them that may at some point be overturned by evidence. To ignore the ways in which philosophy and science are intimately related does disservice to both disciplines.