[lit-ideas] Re: Is the dog as important as Popper and Grice?
- From: Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2017 07:30:45 -0700
Chuckle, chuckle. ☺
Lawrence
From: <lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> on behalf of "Donal McEvoy (Redacted
sender "donalmcevoyuk" for DMARC)" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Date: Wednesday, April 5, 2017 at 6:12 AM
To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Is the dog as important as Popper and Grice?
Is our knowledge of the symbiotic relationship between man and dog more
important than our knowledge of the teachings of, say, Popper and Grice? Many
would say that it is.>
This is the kind of question that, if not handled carefully, quickly leads to
confused discussion.
Hm. I'll not speak up for Grice here, but, as regards Popper, much depends on
what we value knowledge for.
First thing to bear in mind: the question begins "Is our knowledge..." etc. So
the question is not whether "the symbiotic relationship" itself is "more
important", but whether our knowledge "of" it is.
Second, in what way "of" - i.e. what relationships, say between "our knowledge"
and the "symbiotic relationship" itself, are we concerned with?
Now, we may have had such a "symbiotic relationship" but without much knowledge
that we were having such a relationship: if it is the fact of such a symbiotic
relationship that is important (say to human evolution in cultural terms) then
this may only render our knowledge of that relationship important to the extent
that such knowledge was involved in sustaining that symbiotic relationship.
It is very unclear how much "such knowledge" was involved, nevermind how.
Clearly it would have to be "such knowledge" as existed in the times of the
evolutionary importance of the symbiotic relationship (and so we may discount
latter-day "knowledge" as having importance in this sense).
From this perspective, much of Lawrence's post seems confused.
It seems that Lawrence is suggesting that it is this latter-day "knowledge"
that may be considered for its importance (compared to what we learn from
Popper) - but this is surely just confused thinking, if that latter-day
"knowledge" played no role in the "symbiotic relationship"?
An analogy: we may look back at human evolutionary history and state the
importance of humans' developing malarial resistance in certain climates (given
that humans not developing adequate resistance were slowly decimated), but it
would be confused to argue that "our knowledge" of this important correlation
(between malarial resistance and evolutionary survival) was consequently
important to evolutionary history. Our latter-day knowledge may have played no
part in the evolutionary history, and nor may anything corresponding to it have
played a role - the genetic 'luck-of-the-draw' may have been decisive for who
survived malaria, and "knowledge" of this may have played no role.
Knowing something is important does not (necessarily) mean that "knowledge" is
important (and certainly does not mean the knowledge acquires the same
importance as what it 'proposes' is important). This is especially true of
backwards-looking historical knowledge - such as of the "symbiotic
relationship" between humans and dogs in their evolution. It may now be "known"
how important it was that the British broke the Nazi military codes, but this
latter-day knowledge does not play any causal role in the winning of World War
II.
(Btw, Lawrence for years wrote posts that, to me, smacked of "historicism" in
Popper's sense: but if Lawrence has better things to do than read Popper (e.g.
dog research) why should any post of mine about "historicism" help put him
right on his use of history?)
Let us grant, however dubious, that human evolution depended on the "symbiotic
relationship" between humans and dogs: how much did it depend on human
knowledge, and what kind of knowledge? We can't rightly wade in to Lawrence's
initial question without getting specific about the "knowledge" involved at the
relevant important stages of evolution.
Lawrence may be somewhat confused about importance differences between (1) the
importance of the "symbiotic relationship" and (2) the importance of our
knowledge of that relationship: as indicated, the first might be of great
evolutionary importance without the latter being of any great import.
In fact, Lawrence's post doesn't really sustain a cogent argument why our
_knowledge_ of the symbiotic relationship is very important.
Consequently, it is very hard to discern, from the post, a cogent basis from
which to compare the importance of Popper's work.
That said, it is obvious that the specifics of our knowledge re our "symbiotic
relationship" with dogs are less important to our knowledge generally than
Popper's contributions to the 'theory of knowledge'.
Only joking - nothing here is so "obvious": partly because we need to clarify
what kind of "importance" we are interested in; and partly because getting
accurate measures (of, say, the causal efficacy of different kinds of
knowledge) may be very difficult; and partly because "knowledge" may be part of
a framework, and comparing the importance of frameworks may therefore be
involved in assessing the importance of specific items of "knowledge". And for
a host of other reasons, too many to mention.
But then Lawrence's initial question is, arguably, 'dog-whistle'
philosophising, barely smart enough to confuse slam-dunking horse-whisperers.
What I might suggest is this: at least in political terms, our knowledge of the
so-called "symbiotic relationship" is less important than our knowledge that
the Electoral College system should be replaced - but ardent dog-lovers may not
agree that either.
D
L
From: Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, 4 April 2017, 16:48
Subject: [lit-ideas] Is the dog as important as Popper and Grice?
Is our knowledge of the symbiotic relationship between man and dog more
important than our knowledge of the teachings of, say, Popper and Grice? Many
would say that it is. Many like Gaston Phebus have argued that it is – at
least I would assume Phebus would say that if he had all the words that we have
today. With genetic research telling us that Canis Familiaris (the
“familiaris” pertaining to its being a familiar of Humans) mitochondrial DNA
(peculiar to canis familiaris) originated at about the same time as that of
humans – with lots of pluses and minuses, but long enough ago to demonstrate
that we grew up together as species.
It isn’t hard to find articles on this matter, e.g.,
http://www.sciforums.com/threads/is-the-relationship-between-humans-and-dogs-classed-as-symbiotic.29993/
Dr. Lou Natic, the writer of this particular article (in one of the forums on
Sciforums.com) presents one argument I hadn’t read before: “No other animal
has the in built peace of mind to sleep like they're in a coma for 8 hours, we
can do this because we evolved with dogs watching our backs.”
How important is it that we as a species were able to sleep for 8 hours
unworried about a predator sneaking up on is while we did so? Natic writes
“The common misconception that is generally assumed with the historical
induction of canines in to human society, is that they started scavenging on
the fringes of our successful cities and we felt sorry for their puppy dog eyes
and let them join us.
“But we couldn't be more wrong. It’s more likely that we owe these cities to
dogs. It is only recently that dogs have been anything other than hard working
partners helping us survive in countless ways. Who knows exactly how big a role
dogs played in our evolution? What would we be if we never had the time and
peace of mind to comfortably dream? Well I for one am not confident sciforums
would exist for starters, it seems unlikely the written word would even exist.”
Natic concludes, “For many people owning a dog is more than a decision they
make, its an instinctual unexplainable urge. They feel empty without one.
Probably similar to the feeling a clown fish with no anemone to rest in has, or
the itch that the ox with no oxpecker's endures.
“Some people don't want a dog at all, but are they really human according to
the homo-sapien standard? Well not really, they are more like a modern
off-shoot, that perhaps could be referred to as the traitor-sapien.”
Lawrence
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