Carnap’s parable of the blind man fails itself
Greetings and blessings to the Rabbi, good night, at the end of the lesson I wanted to point out a really contradictory argument in Carnap’s teaching. I was unclear, I said we’ll present it more clearly.
Carnap attacked the approach that there are concepts that we do not perceive, and yet they do exist.
He presented the appeal to his words, that perhaps *there is an omniscient entity that can give us information about this concept (and what that means is that it exists even without our permission), and then the concept does exist*, even though we are unable to perceive it in our consciousness. (Just like a blind person whose sense of sight is not working, but an external person who sees can indicate the existence of objects).
He then tried to refute this appeal, by saying that in the parable of the blind man… the type of information given to the blind man can be assisted by other senses (such as touch). Therefore, it is understandable why the blind man can accept his friend’s visual system as valid, because he was able to confirm it once.
But here, it is not possible to adopt a metaphysical concept on any perceptual scale. Therefore, even if such an entity were to tell us about such a new concept, we cannot accept it.
My criticism is that Carnap uses science as something acceptable, he does it in a distinctly rationalist way (as the rabbi elaborated nicely in the meeting). If so, Carnap did indeed have a new rationalist concept.
So in his own way, why don’t we accept the entire rationalist (metaphysical) arsenal, just as a blind man would trust sighted people, after being confirmed once (by his sense of touch)? From then on, it’s an acceptable concept.
I may not have written clearly enough, but in principle this is the contradiction I wanted to point out (this is not just an a priori contradiction to the subtext of logical positivism, but it is a contradiction from within its own musings, to its method) with the parable of the blind man.
I don’t understand the argument. Are you going to argue against him on the strength of his belief in science? That’s what I was talking about. What is there in the discussion about the blind man that supports this argument? This is another example of using science.
The truth is that there really is nothing new here, that's what the rabbi said.
This is simply a point about the absurdity of his method, from his article. (Because if he believes in science, then there is already *meaning* to a rationalistic data. Therefore, the category of rationalistic meaning was opened, and this is not nonsense. And the same is true for all metaphysics, etc.).
And by the way, the things I wrote are against the background of these things of his:
“Where there is no question, even an omniscient being cannot provide an answer. Now the objector may say: *Just as the sighted can impart new knowledge to the blind, so a supreme being can impart metaphysical knowledge to us*…..
*Here we must consider the meaning of “new knowledge”. It is indeed conceivable that we will meet animals that will tell us about a new sense. If these beings prove Fermat's last theorem to us, invent a new physical device, or discover a law of nature that was previously unknown, our knowledge will increase with their help. We can examine this, just as the blind can understand and examine the entirety of physics (and consequently any claim given to him by those who see)”.
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