[lit-ideas] Re: Muslim Prejudice/99%

From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2011 17:32:56 +0000 (GMT)
--- On Thu, 27/1/11, Mike Geary <jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>In fact, I would argue that 99% of what we believe and how we conduct our 
>lives is through prejudice.
We were taught how to conceive the world and we experience it as we were 
taught.>

Though '99' has always had a firm place in post-decimal popular culture [take 
pricing, the ice cream flake, spooning and Nina's red balloons] its use in 
epistemology has lagged behind. Nevertheless KP in "Towards an Evolutionary 
Theory of Knowledge", at p.46 of "A World of Propensities", also adopts a 99% 
guesstimate:

"I think that, say, 99% of the knowledge of all organisms is inborn and 
incorporated in our biochemical constitution."

This claim is made in the following longer excerpted passage:-

"Using this Kantian terminology with the modifications I have just indicated, 
we can now say that Kant's own position - highly revolutionary at the time - is 
this.

(A) Most knowledge of detail, of the momentary state of our surroundings, is _a 
posteriori_.

(B) But such _a posteriori_ knowledge is impossible without _a priori_ 
knowledge that we somehow _must_ possess before we can acquire observational or 
_a posteriori_ knowledge: without it, _what our senses tell us can make no 
sense_. We must establish an overall frame of reference, or else there will be 
no context available to make sense of our sensations.

(C) This _a priori_ knowledge contains, especially, knowledge of the structure 
of space and time (of space and time relations), and of causality (of causal 
relations).

I think that, in all these points, Kant is right. (Incidentally, I also think 
that he had hardly a real successor in this except Schopenhauer). In my 
opinion, Kant anticipated the most important results of the evolutionary theory 
of knowledge.

But I am going much further than Kant. I think that, say, 99 per cent of the 
knowledge of all organisms is inborn and incorporated in our biochemical 
constitution. And I think that 99 per cent of the knowledge taken by Kant to be 
_a posteriori_ and to be '_data_' that are 'given' to us through our senses is, 
in fact, not _a posteriori_ , but _a priori_. For our senses can serve us (as 
Kant himself saw) only with yes-and-no answers to our own questions; questions 
that we conceive, and ask, _a priori_; and questions that sometimes are very 
elaborate. Moreover, even the yes-and-no answers of the senses have to be 
_interpreted_ by us - interpreted in the light of our _a priori_ preconceived 
ideas. And, of course, they are often _misinterpreted_." 

Incidentally, these two last published lectures, "Dedicated to the memory of my 
dear wife, Hennie", were somewhat sniffily dismissed (afair in _Mind_) as 
reminding the academic reviewer of the last gasp of a dying supernovae. In the 
"Preface", Popper expressed his "wish to convey to my readers that I have 
worked hard to make them the best....grateful to have been able to do this in 
my 87th and 88th year, despite the drawbacks of failing memory."

D
Recalling the legal firm that had "without prejudice" on all their headed 
notepaper




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[lit-ideas] Re: Muslim Prejudice/99%

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