On Epistemology

On Epistemology

How do we know what it is that we know and how do we find what it is that we do not know but wish to know?

There are several ways to rationalize what we know, or rather what we think we know. We could attribute that knowledge that we have to Divine Providence, much like Augustine and Aquinas have done. We can admit that we know nothing, such as Plato/Socrates did. We can strive to understand through love and infinite resolution as Kierkegaard did. But it seems as though all these views of epistemology are devoid of a real answer. In the following I will survey three ways in which we think that we learn and provide a philosophical look at some of the most common way that we learn.

We learn by being taught, either by parental figures, or by professional teachers, or by peers. In this case we assume that our parents/teachers/peers have learned these things from someone or somewhere else. It may have been a book for instance. In this book are ideas that were written by its author. The author there for must have learned it from their teacher/parent/peer, and so on ad infinitum. This present the problem of an eternal regression. In order for there to be knowledge there must be a genesis. This starting point is either the starting point for all knowledge or the hope that there is a starting point for all knowledge, as knowledge cannot simply spring into existence. Or maybe it can.

Perhaps the genesis of knowledge is not in the idea that there is a definitive starting point, but in the fact that there is an infinite set of genesis points for knowledge. Here I mean the individual. Now many will say that the set of individuals is not infinite but is in fact finite. While at any one time there is a finite set of individuals in existence, there is the potential for an infinite number of individuals to exist in the future, hence an infinite amount of genesis points for knowledge albeit spread throughout time. So how does the individual become a genesis point for knowledge? We shall see.

The Darwinian idea of Natural Selection is a prime example of creating something new out of something that is, thereby creating something new. While the critical will ask where the first thing then came from, this essay will not attempt to answer that questions as it is best to let theologians and physicists to argue about it. We can imply that through our existence here there must have been a ‘first thing’ and this will be enough to work with without bothering with where it came from. Therefore, this first thing had the ability to create and to change itself over time. Much like a fish might grow larger fins to swim faster; this first thing would adapt and change over time to attempt to achieve a status of steady stability which is what all things desire, as opposed to chaos.

Given the penchant for thought that all the individuals have, the idea of self-genesis of knowledge is a completely justifiable thing in the sense that individuals, who have the power to adapt to their environments, would also have the ability to both adapt their ideas the encompass different ideas within them, and the genesis of new ideas, either new in totality or being derivative of older ideas. Throughout the course of western philosophy we see this happening. Commenting and critiquing another thinker, or another person in general, allows the individual to create new ideas. In fact it is the spark that drives all greater thought. You must look no farther than the Socratic Method that was applied in the Polis of Athens during the age of Pericles and the Thirty Tyrants.  In asking questions the dialecticians are refining a thought or idea. In refining this idea they are intrinsically changing the idea. If you change an idea then it is no longer the same idea. It has become a new and separate idea. This idea then has the ability, based on its interpretation and based on debates and discourses, to propagate more ideas. And so on in an exponential factor to the effect of . A single idea has the ability to spawn an infinite amount of subsequent ideas, much the same as an individual has the capacity to spawn a single idea or thought that will perpetuate into a long string of ideas. This only begs the question as to what spawns the original idea. 

Here is where Darwinism is applied. Much as the fish is able to grow larger fins to swim faster, so to the ability for humans to evolve the power to create ideas. To be the genesis of ideas. We are Creators in every sense of the word, giving ideas life, then the products of ideas a reality. With this ability the propagation of ideas is guaranteed. As long as there are people, there are ideas. We have the power to create knowledge and the power to change knowledge. Quite a scary spectacle. 

Foucault and Greek Sexuality (Paper)

Greek Sexuality

Greek sexuality in the ancient period can be seen in two distinct ways: that of Foucault as being devoid of sexual discrimination and that of John Boswell as being sexually defined. Between these two historians lay many examples pointing to a clear emphasis is the classical period on understood and socially constructed homosexual relationships that differed dramatically in clearly defined ways. These examples will be used to support John Boswell's illustration of sexuality in the classical Greek period as superior to Foucault's. There are two distinct areas within this sexuality that illustrate the existence of homosexuality in the classical period, in light of Foucault's insistence that this distinction is not possible. The first area is in overturning the assumption that passivity and activity in homosexual relations were necessarily different than in heterosexual ones. The second is in determining that age does define the appropriate context of a homosexual relationship.

Defining passivity and activity in the Greek classical world as a tool to be used in determining the socio-sexual determination of the participants involved is shaky at best. In need of even graver consideration is the defining of homosexual men as members of a lower class than heterosexual men based on the socio-sexual determination of activity and passivity. In his work The History of Sexuality Foucault paints a picture of homosexual men as being regarded as inferior to heterosexual men due to the perceived effeminacy that homosexuals are supposedly labeled with for their 'passive' acts. Farther from the truth Foucault could not get. Plato states in the Symposium,

“Those who love men and rejoice to lie with and be embraced by men are also the finest boys and young me, being naturally the most manly. The people who accuse them of shamelessness lie;...A clear proof of this is the fact that as adults they alone acquit themselves as men in public careers.”¹

Plato, one of the most accomplished and respected citizens of Athens, goes on to reason that homosexual soldiers would make the best army in the world.² To limit the understanding of sexuality in the classical world to socially relative terms such as activity and passivity is academically inaccurate when there is first hand accounts that clearly show the existence and celebration of the homosexual lifestyle. Even in Greek mythology there are myriad examples of homosexual action.³ The heterosexual love of ancient Greece was even displayed as something that was transcended by homosexual love. According to Boswell, ”The Attic law-giver Solon considered homosexual eroticism too lofty for slaves and prohibited it to them.”⁴

The other area in which Boswell draws a distinction between modern historical study and the actuality of the period is in the age discrimination that was purportedly applied to same sex relationships. Foucault portrays these relationships as occurring almost solely between young boys and old men. He seems to encourage the idea that same sex relationships (homosexuality) between two older men would result in those parties becoming social outcasts. However the opposite is actually true. Apart from the quotes above, Boswell also portrays this discrimination between age as against what Foucault is implying. The ageism here means that now Foucault is further distinguishing male on male sexuality not just as homosexual (a term which is supposed to subsume all other archetypes of male on male sexual relations but) act but now as a homosexual, age dependent act. For example, Euripides at age seventy was loved by and in love with Agathon.⁵ This is just one among many example that Boswell is able to provide. Furthermore, with respect to activity/passivity, there is no unambiguous document that defines age as a criterion for determining who was the one to be loved and who would love the beloved. Because of the lack of factual evidence, Foucault appears to be using later texts of the Middle Ages when attempting to explain the clearly homosexual-friendly reality of the classical Greek world.

In all Foucault is wrong in assuming that homosexual relationships in classical Greece were generally considered socially unacceptable with the only exception being based on a different age dynamic. Instead, classical Greece was a place of homosexual acceptance and even celebration with homosexual relationships being held, in many instances, in a higher regard than heterosexual relationships. Furthermore the idea that homosexual relationships were looked down upon is clearly dispelled by Boswell.

1Plato, Symposium. 192A cf. Phaedrus's Speech

2 Boswell, John. "Introduction." In Christianity, social tolerance, and homosexuality: gay people in Western Europe from the beginning of the Christian era to the fourteenth century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980. p 25.

3ibid (see Hercules)

4Boswell, Christianity et al. p 27

5Boswell, Christianity et al. p28 n.52