{"id":8539,"date":"2013-08-23T14:51:37","date_gmt":"2013-08-23T14:51:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/08\/23\/memory-and-the-operations-of-reason\/"},"modified":"2013-08-23T14:51:37","modified_gmt":"2013-08-23T14:51:37","slug":"memory-and-the-operations-of-reason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2013\/08\/23\/memory-and-the-operations-of-reason\/","title":{"rendered":"Memory and the Operations of Reason"},"content":{"rendered":"

"Memory is necessary for all the operations of reason." (Blaise Pascal, Pens\u00e9es<\/em>, Krailsheimer, #651) <\/span><\/p>\n

This seems right.  Consider this quick little argument against scientism, the philosophical, not scientific, view that all knowledge is natural-scientific knowledge:<\/span><\/p>\n

1. I know by reason alone, a priori<\/em>, and not by any natural-scientific means, that addition has the associative and the commutative properties and that these properties are distinct.<\/span><\/p>\n

2. If scientism is true, then  it is not the case that (1).<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore<\/span><\/p>\n

3. Scientism is not true.<\/span><\/p>\n

I grasp (understand) this argument and its validity by reason.  To grasp any such argument, it is not sufficient that a succession of conscious states transpire in my mental life.  For if the state represented by (1) falls into oblivion by the time I get to (2), and (2) by the time I get to (3), then all I would undergo would be  a succession of consciousnesses<\/em> but not  the consciousness of succession<\/em>.  But the consciousness of succession is necessary to 'take in' the argument.  And this consciousness of succession itself presupposes a kind of memory.  To grasp the conclusion as a conclusion<\/em> — and thus as following from the premises — I have to have retained the premises. There has to be a diachronic unity of consciousness in which there is a sort of synopsis of the premises together with the conclusion with the former entailing the latter.<\/span><\/p>\n

But of course something similar holds for each proposition in the argument.  The meaning of a compound proposition is built up out of the meanings of its propositional parts, and the meaning of a simple proposition is built up out of the meanings of its sub-propositional parts, and these meanings have to be retained as the discursive intellect runs through the propositions.  ('Discursive' from the L. currere<\/em>, to run.)  This retention — a term Husserl uses — is a necessary condition of the possibility of understanding.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so while I do not grasp an argument by memory (let alone by sense perception or introspection), memory is involved in rational knowledge.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Pascalian aphorism bears up well under scrutiny.<\/span><\/p>\n

Example of associativity of addition: (7 + 5) + 3 = 7 + (5 + 3).  Example of commutativity:  (7 + 5) + 3 = (5 + 7) + 3.  The difference between the two properties springs to the eye (of the mind).  Now what must mind be like if it is to be capable of a priori knowledge?  Presumably it can't just be a hunk of meat.<\/span><\/p>\n

But if the below companion post is right, not even sense knowledge is such that its subject could be a hunk of meat.  We are of course meatheads.  But squeezing meaning out of mere meat — there's the trick!<\/span><\/p>\n

Companion post: Pascal on the Immateriality of the Subject of Experience <\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

\nRelated articles<\/legend>\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>Rosenberg's Definition of Scientism and the Problem of Defining 'Scientism'<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Steven Pinker on Scientism, Part One<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Eric Voegelin's 1948 Definition of Scientism<\/a><\/div>\n
\"\"<\/a>Jerry Fodor's Idiosyncratic Understanding of 'Scientism'<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

"Memory is necessary for all the operations of reason." (Blaise Pascal, Pens\u00e9es, Krailsheimer, #651)  This seems right.  Consider this quick little argument against scientism, the philosophical, not scientific, view that all knowledge is natural-scientific knowledge: 1. I know by reason alone, a priori, and not by any natural-scientific means, that addition has the associative and … Continue reading “Memory and the Operations of Reason”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[353,206,287,219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8539","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-knowledge","category-memory","category-pascal","category-scientism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}