|
|
|
Is knowledge an end in itself? 2 Years ago
|
Karma: 10
|
|
Bits and pieces of knowledge may often have value to different people as useful for various goals and projects these people have also. But now does knowledge have ethical value, too? It seems to me as if aiming for knowledge in general is sort of self-justifying. Before arguing for this intuition, though, I'd like to know(!) if anyone shares it, and if so, have they already argued in its favor?
|
|
|
|
 Logged
|
|
|
¡¿
|
|
|
The administrator has disabled public write access.
|
|
|
|
Re:Is knowledge an end in itself? 2 Years ago
|
Karma: 4
|
|
I did not share such beliefs. I think... we seek knowledge to improve ourself, and it is not self-justifying to seek knowledge that can jeopardize our potential. Therefore, it is better to seek knowledge from trustworthy sources, the one which did not contain any malicious (self-damaging) content.
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
Last Edit: 2010/04/28 14:58 By Msafwan.
|
|
|
The administrator has disabled public write access.
|
|
|
|
Re:Is knowledge an end in itself? 2 Years ago
|
Karma: 1
|
|
A great advance in humanity was when the ancient Greeks, and other ancient cultures, studied the properties of figures and numbers without any idea or notion regarding what they could apply it to. They certainly found important applications for these things, but I think that this just suggests that we can create an end for any knowledge. However, just as in ethics, just because we can formulate an end, doesn't mean that one is implied in the thing itself.
Knowing that 4 + 4 = 8 doesn't also give us an end for its application, just as
"STOP!" tells us to atc (by not acting), but doesn't tell us why, or to what end. These applications are given a posteriori, while the knowledge of this sort from evaluating concepts is known a priori.
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
The administrator has disabled public write access.
|
|
|
|
Re:Is knowledge an end in itself? 2 Years ago
|
Karma: 4
|
|
Maybe such knowledge is just an expression of our own intuition about nature? We know 4+4=8 because it is in ourself, in our soul. Expressing such intuition into a real form enable real work to be done on it, which consequently lead to an improvement in such intuition.
Hence, the goal is still to improve our own.
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
Last Edit: 2010/04/28 15:55 By Msafwan.
|
|
|
The administrator has disabled public write access.
|
|
|
|
Re:Is knowledge an end in itself? 2 Years ago
|
Karma: 1
|
|
Just because knowing something admits of a possible application, doesn't mean that knowing it guarantees we can or will do something with it. Maybe we will never find the right application, or maybe there is no proper application and we are just thinking things about the relations of concepts.
If improving is to be the result of any knowing, even if we can't and don't apply it, then it seems that knowing is an end itself because knowing is improving.
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
The administrator has disabled public write access.
|
|
|
|
Re:Is knowledge an end in itself? 2 Years ago
|
Karma: 10
|
|
Erosopher wrote:
If improving is to be the result of any knowing, even if we can't and don't apply it, then it seems that knowing is an end itself because knowing is improving.
This brings up an interesting point of discussion that I'd probably have a better handle on if I knew more about Korsgaard's distinction between intrinsic and final value. If an object is an end in itself not because of all of its properties together but because of one of those properties, is it really that our approval of the object depends on its having that property, making support for the object instrumental to the support of the intrinsically valuable property, or would it better to say that the object itself is an end in itself by virtue of having an inherently valuable property?
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
¡¿
|
|
|
The administrator has disabled public write access.
|
|
Facebook.com
Twitter.com
