Philosophy as representations

[Peter Kropotkin]

I am still deep into reading Rorty’s ‘‘Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature’’
In part one, he attacks the philosophers use of representations…
Which got me to thinking about the idea of representations itself…
What exactly is ‘‘representations?" The idea of representations is an old
one in Philosophy… recall the title of Schopenhauer’s book
‘‘The World as Will and Representation’’ and so, what exactly does
the word "Representation’’ actually mean?

Representation: the action of speaking or acting on behalf of
someone or the state of being so represented…

The description or portrayal of someone or something in particular
way or as being of a certain nature…

The depiction of someone or something in a picture or other work
of Art…

Our congressmen, who we have voted for, are supposed to represent us
in the creation of official government policy… Gandhi is suppose to
represent good… and Hitler is supposed to represent evil…
a Map is supposed to represent or be a picture of a city…
I have used a map to find the local London Tube station…
the map represents the tube station location in relation to
other streets or objects…a successful map allows us to
accurately find the tube station and an unsuccessful map prevents us
from finding the station…

So, a representation is a map or a model of something else…
it could also stand for us in certain situations as in a lawyer or
a congressman…

Now one of the interesting things about maps or models,
they are not the thing themselves, they are representations
of the thing itself… a map is not the city, it represents the city,
which allows us to move around in a city, but it is not a city…

let us take a model or map that we commonly see…
a map or model of the Atom… we have all seen this model of an atom…
but is it an accurate map/model? Current science suggests that it is not
an accurate map/model of an atom… that that current map/model
gives us, at best, a vague idea of what an atom actually looks like…

now the next point that Rorty writes about in regard to representation,
is the word Ontological… he quite often refers to ‘‘ontological representation,’’
well, we have a sense of what the word representation means, but how
does the word representation work with the word ‘‘ontological?’’

Ontological: relating to the branch of metaphysics dealing with
the nature of being: Ontological arguments…

showing the relations between the concept and categories in a subject
or domain… an ontological database… an ontological framework for
integrating and conceptualizing diverse forms of information…

ontology is the study of existence…

so, it looks to me, and I could be very, very, very wrong, but
it looks to me like ontology is the overall field of study
and representation is a part of that field of study…
representation is a subset of ontology…
and both of which are maps/models of something…

this question of ‘‘Being’’ has dogged Philosophy since Heidegger…
but what if, what if we simply take it for what it is, simply a map/model
of something…for when I describe something, I am creating
a representation of something…a map/model of something…
‘‘He was an idiot manager’’ I am talking about a manager, I am
representing him, creating a map or model of him…
but and this is important, I am talking about him, it is not
him…

and this is exactly the point that Rorty makes about Philosophy
and representation… when we talk about philosophy, we are talking
about a representation of something philosophical, not about the thing
itself… when we refer to German Idealism, that is an representation of
the idea of German Idealism, a map/model of Idealism, not about Idealism
itself…and maps/models can be wrong, just as the map/model of the atom
is severely wrong… it gives us a clue, but a really bad clue about it…

and that is why philosophy is basically wrong… because it deals with
maps/models, and not philosophy itself…

and how do we get back to philosophy itself and not a map or model?

Instead of describing it, we live it… Philosophy as a way of life, not
as a description… and describing something is creating a map/model
of something, but it isn’t the something itself…
so, if we were to, as Socrates and Plato and Aristotle, actually
intended, we should be living our philosophy, not describing it…
philosophy as a way of life…

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

Now comes the tricky part… is our representations or maps, the ''TRUTH?"
I believe that part of the problem of ''finding the ‘‘TRUTH’’ in Philosophy
comes from the fact that we use maps and models to describe the ‘‘TRUTH’’
and map/models can be and I am willing to bet, are usually wrong…
we can’t find the ‘‘TRUTH’’ because we use inaccurate maps/models
to describe reality… and the ‘‘TRUTH’’ and reality can’t match if we
are using inaccurate maps/models…

so, let say, I state my job as being a checker in a grocery store…
and that is a real statement… but it doesn’t give you the
reality of what being a checker really means… being a checker
in a store is my actually job classification, and thus is ‘‘TRUE’’
but it doesn’t give us the reality of being a checker in a grocery store…
I can make a ‘‘TRUE’’ statement and not state the reality of any given
situation… there is not much connection between what is ‘‘TRUE’’ or
‘‘TRUTH’’ and what is reality… for being a ‘‘checker’’ is just a job
description… a map or model of what I do, but it doesn’t give the reality
of what I do… and most people, including philosophers, mistake
the ‘‘TRUTH’’ with the reality of an given situation…

it is ‘‘TRUE’’ if it gives us the reality of the situation…
but what map or model actually gives us the reality of
the situation? what map/model actually give us the ‘‘TRUTH’’
of any given situation? Let us try our map of the London Tube again…
the map/model doesn’t tell us what is the reality of the area around
a specific London Tube station…

when the wife and I were in London several years ago, we were trying to find
a specific station…Charing Cross station… but the map/model didn’t inform
us of the specifics about the Charing Cross station… what it looked like,
what was around it, the number of people using it, what other stores were around it…
our map/model just told me about where it was and what other lines were
connected to that particular station… and so, the reality of that map/model
was not really the ‘‘TRUTH’’ of the Charing Cross station…
it gave at best, an approximate idea of the situation at the Charing Cross
station…

so, what is the ‘‘TRUTH?’’ depends on the map/ model we use and how
close to reality that map/model is to the ‘‘TRUTH’’ or reality…
so, the bottom line understanding of the world is this,
at best, we have a second hand (a map/model is second hand)
understanding of the world or the reality around us…

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

Language itself, is pure representations...
a word represents something... use the word dog...
that represents the canine species we refer to as dogs...
as a universal... not a specific dog, but all dogs....
Now when I think of a dog, I think of a very specific dog
name Troubles... the dog I grew up with.... so, refer to a dog
around me, and I think of just one dog... a specific dog....
an individual dog...

so, language is representational... it refers to something but unless
specified, it refers to the general class of something....but each
of us has a different representational idea of that class...
for example, I say dog, and you might think of dog in general,
but you also might think of a specific dog, as I do...
but the word dog is not actually a dog.... it stands for or represents
an actual dog or the class of dogs...

let us try this.... I am thinking of an animal... it has 4 legs, sharp teeth,
a tail, it is a carnivore.... one might be thinking ok, just another
description of a dog.... but no, I am thinking of a cat.....
in describing something, we could be describing one of several things
related to what we are describing.... I say, I am thinking about something
sharp.... now, one might naturally think about sharp objects... a knife,
scissors, a needle, razor blade, a sword...... the word sharp, can stand
for any number of objects... it was the word object that sent one to
think about those objects....I could have been referring to a person's
sharp wit if I don't use the word object... the word sharp represents
or stands for, objects we might consider to be sharp.... including one's wit....

let us use this German word... spitz..... or perhaps scharf...or this,
steil....... Er hatte einen scharfen Verstand.....or perhaps
aufegwckt..... if you don't know German, which I know vaguely,
"Er hatte einen scharfen Verstand"" means he is sharp witted...
he has a sharp wit..... once again, representing something....
not the actual thing, just like language, philosophy can only
see things, objects, idea's, second hand.... He was an existentialist's....
that is second hand knowledge..... and it may or may not be ''true''
or ''reality''... we can't be sure until we ourselves investigate if he
is or isn't an existentialist's....based on other second hand knowledge
as to what an existentialist is or isn't......

the entire gig of a philosopher is knowledge that is second hand.....
or knowledge that is represented.... which stands for something else.....
and this is true of math, science, history, economics, social studies,
and of course, philosophy.....virtually all our knowledge is second hand
or representational.... stands for something else....

Ceasar was a great leader.... we don't have any first hand knowledge about
Ceasar.... all our knowledge about Julius Caesar is second hand, all of our
knowledge.... and in many cases, even third hand... literature about Ceasar
that was written by contemporaries of Ceasar are third hand reports...

''I saw Ceasar on this day and he seemed to be tired''...

third hand knowledge....

so, the question becomes, what direct knowledge of our world
or of our universe that is first hand, direct knowledge of the world,
do we actually have?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

K: so, the question becomes, what direct knowledge of our world
or of our universe that is first hand, direct knowledge of the world,
do we actually have?

K: is this actually an epistemological question or, is this something else?
Rorty makes the argument that epistemological questions, based on
what others like Quine has thought about... that epistemology questions
are really just psychological questions... that we want to know because
that is kinda what we human beings do.... we are, psychologically,
happier with unity, with seeking the one, that we are happier with
the nature of the universe being one with itself.... diversity and multiplicity,
psychologically, make people unhappy... our need for unity is strongly
built into human beings.... it is a psychological thang....
which means it is true of most, but not necessarily all of us.....

I would suggest that part of the ''modern malaise'' stems from our current
inability to unify existence as part of Einstein's ''Theory of Everything''
to name just one attempt to unify existence.... and that is not epistemology,
that is psychological...

which leaves us with another question, just exactly how much
of philosophy is really just psychology, by another name?
My answer is really nothing more than guesswork, but I would
say that the existence of philosophy stems from psychological
reasons... the need for unity in human thought.....

so, I would remove epistemology as one of our philosophical
priorities, to replace it with psychological reasons....
why is it so important to us psychologically?

Not epistemological, but psychological... even the
motto of Socrates, ''To know thyself'' stems from
psychological reasons, not epistemological reasons....
the entire quest of philosophy stems from psychological reasons,
not epistemological reasons... thus to make philosophy more
scientific has failed because we are not, for the most part,
reasoning or logical animals.... we are driven in large part,
by psychological reasons, not philosophical reasons or
epistemological reasons.... to achieve reason or to become logical is
a goal to be desired, not the base camp of human beings....
it will bring less chaos into our lives if we are logical and can
be in control of our reason....
but that puts us in collision with a million years of
psychology....

Kropotkin