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I think your three examples are all subjective statements, and not objective knowledge. You can't know that something is intrinsically aesthetically pleasing. Y

I think your three examples are all subjective statements, and not objective knowledge. You can't know that something is intrinsically aesthetically pleasing. You can say that a painting is aesthetically pleasing to someone (or many people) but without opinionated viewers, it cannot be described as such. Gravity, on the other hand, works even if nobody is present.

robonerd 4y ago
> I think your three examples are all subjective statements, and not objective knowledge. They aren't empirical knowledge, which is the point. They are nevertheless knowledge in the sense that is relative to humans. Another example: I accidentally rear-end somebody at a traffic light. He jumps out of his car hopping mad and storms towards me. I know he is angry, but how do I know that? I know that because of my qualitative assessments of the situational context and his body language. There is no objective empirical analysis going on in this situation, but nevertheless I know what's going on.
- cycomanic 4y ago
  How did you acquire that knowledge? Are you saying we are born with that knowledge? That certainly requires emperical evidence to confirm, hence the only way we can confirm this knowledge is emperical.
  - robonerd 4y ago
    > Are you saying we are born with that knowledge? Some of it, yes. Some of it seems to be encoded in our genes. It may also be culturally acquired. Furthermore, there exists a priori knowledge, without which you can throw away most of mathematics. Given a set of mathematical axioms, you can derive truths through deduction and pure reason, independent of experience. > That certainly requires empirical evidence to confirm Most people do not require such confirmations; they go about their lives without it.
    - cycomanic 4y ago
      > > Are you saying we are born with that knowledge? > Some of it, yes. Some of it seems to be encoded in our genes. How do you arrive at that conclusion? > It may also be culturally acquired. Furthermore, there exists a priori knowledge, without which you can throw away most of mathematics. Given a set of mathematical axioms, you can derive truths through deduction and pure reason, independent of experience. Yes and mathematics is not science. You can build all sort of logical constructs that have absolutely no relation to the real world. > > That certainly requires empirical evidence to confirm > Most people do not require such confirmations; they go about their lives without it. I thought we talk about acquiring knowledge? Sure lots of people do not question anything they do, but I don't think we should use that as a standard.
      - robonerd 4y ago
        > > Some of it, yes. Some of it seems to be encoded in our genes. > How do you arrive at that conclusion? Instinctual behaviors are simple to empirically observe. It's easy to demonstrate an instinctual fear of snakes in people or animals that never saw a real snake before and have no empirical knowledge of snakes. This shows there is knowledge about the danger of snakes encoded in the genes of vertebrates. That we can study these instincts through empirical means does not mean the individual's instincts are empirically informed. The individual gets this knowledge not through observations of the world, so that well-founded fear of snakes isn't empirical knowledge.

robonerd 4y ago

> I think your three examples are all subjective statements, and not objective knowledge. They aren't empirical knowledge, which is the point. They are nevertheless knowledge in the sense that is relative to humans. Another example: I accidentally rear-end somebody at a traffic light. He jumps out of his car hopping mad and storms towards me. I know he is angry, but how do I know that? I know that because of my qualitative assessments of the situational context and his body language. There is no objective empirical analysis going on in this situation, but nevertheless I know what's going on.

cycomanic 4y ago
How did you acquire that knowledge? Are you saying we are born with that knowledge? That certainly requires emperical evidence to confirm, hence the only way we can confirm this knowledge is emperical.
- robonerd 4y ago
  > Are you saying we are born with that knowledge? Some of it, yes. Some of it seems to be encoded in our genes. It may also be culturally acquired. Furthermore, there exists a priori knowledge, without which you can throw away most of mathematics. Given a set of mathematical axioms, you can derive truths through deduction and pure reason, independent of experience. > That certainly requires empirical evidence to confirm Most people do not require such confirmations; they go about their lives without it.
  - cycomanic 4y ago
    > > Are you saying we are born with that knowledge? > Some of it, yes. Some of it seems to be encoded in our genes. How do you arrive at that conclusion? > It may also be culturally acquired. Furthermore, there exists a priori knowledge, without which you can throw away most of mathematics. Given a set of mathematical axioms, you can derive truths through deduction and pure reason, independent of experience. Yes and mathematics is not science. You can build all sort of logical constructs that have absolutely no relation to the real world. > > That certainly requires empirical evidence to confirm > Most people do not require such confirmations; they go about their lives without it. I thought we talk about acquiring knowledge? Sure lots of people do not question anything they do, but I don't think we should use that as a standard.
    - robonerd 4y ago
      > > Some of it, yes. Some of it seems to be encoded in our genes. > How do you arrive at that conclusion? Instinctual behaviors are simple to empirically observe. It's easy to demonstrate an instinctual fear of snakes in people or animals that never saw a real snake before and have no empirical knowledge of snakes. This shows there is knowledge about the danger of snakes encoded in the genes of vertebrates. That we can study these instincts through empirical means does not mean the individual's instincts are empirically informed. The individual gets this knowledge not through observations of the world, so that well-founded fear of snakes isn't empirical knowledge.