Philosophy - Science 'The truth'

The three themes are Hume and empiricism, logic and science, Freud's modern art and cultural pessimism. The definition of Science is 'the truth' however the human condition is that we can not know the truth. 

Kant said the universe is ultimately unknowable. the phenomena are true only from a certain view. Kant's categories of the a priori (definition) are the truths (including geometry) and a posteriori (facts and observation od the world) as a matter of motion. Aristotle, Bacon and Newton believe the world exists as things (like a clockwork) where you eventually find out everything as a perfect picture 'the truth'. This idea has now been abandoned by scientists since Einstein as 99% of people are still Newtonian. 

Before Kant and his idea of 'causes' there was a mirror theory of mind and reality where the truth correspondence to objectivity reality in a cosmo composed of objectivity independently existing things. Plato thought forms existed independently of human consciousness (in an imperfectly perceived realm of eternal perception) where the perfect form exists somewhere in another world. 

Bacon, Newton and the other empiricists are mechanistic and see the cosmos as a big machine where it is thought that the cosmos is much more like a computer game where object, landscape, space and time are created in consciousness and then fade away again, first into the apparent distance and then disappear entirely. This is the idea that a colour or an object can look different from the way you are looking at it for example the distance in which you look at something can differ its size depending how far away or close up to it you are.

Kant was not a pure idealist or a solipsist- things really are there but in a noumenal form 'potential'. He used the idea that each object is defined by category and has its own independent noumena, the 'unperceived object' (cant be seen) like an immortal soul or essence (Aristotle). 'We see space and time because as humans we wear space and time goggles.' Bertrand Russell on Kant.

Schopenhauer decided that there is only one universal noumena (the object in itself) which is 'the will' of the universe as a thing in itself. From Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche we inherit the idea that existence is not a predicate of any possible object, nothing 'causes' existence as it is a necessary precondition of perception or consciousness. The idea of scientific revolution has remained submerged throughout the 19th Century which was dominated by the empiricist experiment derived from Aristotle. 

At the start of the 20th century, Aristotle and Newtons clockwork universe of 'matter and motion' and the universal laws of causation (law and gravity) were part of Einsteins revolution in psychics. This in the theory of relatively lead to the elevation of doubt and uncertainty to the central and most reliable principles of scientific experimentation. 

The electronics and explosion of innovation in technology form medicine to space and travel are based on the foundation that we know virtually nothing where humanity has the capability to strive to know more. This is like Nietzsche's 'will to power' that is useful for journalists as it is important that we play 'dumb' and that we know nothing for certain, never know the truth, don't jump to conclusions even though (since Kant) induction is seen as scientifically valid. 

Aristotle invented logic where logic is categorised into Deduction (a general proposition to a particular) VS Induction (a particular proposition and generalising it). The most characteristic idea of the Greco -Roman world describes the regions who were for many generations subjected to the government of the Greeks and then the Romans and accepted or forced to embrace them as their masters and teachers. Deduction preserves truth and respects authority above all else. Deduction- a priori 'all men are mortal, Socrates is a man therefore Socrates is mortal'- Aristotle. 

 Deduction depends on a series of indisputable axioms known to a religious hierarchy of priests (Christian neo-platonism) produces singular or particular truths from general principles. 'All swans are white, this is a swan, therefore it is white.' The Aristotelean system was a straight jacket for the western mind and was the cause of backwardness we see in Islamic civilisation today. 

Frances Bacon's 'New Organon' is critical because it attempts a review of the axioms by appeal to sense data and to the experimental method. After Bacon the idea was to deny or refine the logic e.g. black swans but not to change the structure on the basis of evidence and evidence.

From Newton to Einstein 

Perception is essentially subjective as the colour blue is different depending on the light or the time of day. The Copernican revolution where it is said that Jerusalem and the sun are the centre of the earth . Newton was regarded as objective fact for 200 years independently of perception. Einstein in the introduction to the general theory of relativity on the two dimensional being and the conceptual schemes (Kant= categories of perception). 'We see the universe in 3d as we are 3d beings' (Russell on Kant). If Newtons laws of motion can scribe motion from one point to another can there be any motion if there are infinite distances (e.g. the modernist revival of pre-socratic ideas such as Zeno's paradox (achilles chases tortoise).

Time is a mental theoretical synthesis phenomenum where different types according to Einsteins experiments (confirmed by space travel) time elapses at different rates not only at different theoretical points in the universe e.g. the black holes but in empirically observable points (tall buildings) where the actual time is passing more slowly. 

Chapter 1- Wittlgenstein- The Tractus- 'the world consists of facts' is the way modernists think. There is no object truth only 'language games' where even logic is one. There is always of course the subtext for modernism of Freud and psychology. Marxist skepticism, Nietszche's corrosive ideas about the will to power and truth as domination of those with superior will etc. The verification of principle, the truth of any proposition is it's method of verification. If one cant be verified then its neither true or false as it is viewed as a form of poetry or art just like the quacking of a duck for example it cannot be verified therefore it is neither true nor false. The philosopher Karl Popper who has only recently died stated that even the verification of principle cant be verified. It was also known that the falsification principle explains that something isn't true unless it can be verified and falsified.