Those three things you just listed aren't epistemologies. They beg the question, really. They've already assumed what the epistemology is and leapt to a conclusions.
For instance, Plantinga would say that belief in God is knowledge, because this is the proper function of your mind, to believe in God. You would disagree, and say that belief in God isn't knowledge because the belief isn't justified in any way.
It's not ivory-tower intellectualism that we beer-swilling plebs can safely ignore. The character of civilisation and even empires is determined partly based on these ideas.
If it seems we're much more rigorously scientific and rational in our approach to life than the Roman Church in the middle ages, or the Greeks of antiquity, that would be why.
Yeah, I meant it more as a joke than anything else, but fair point.
I think what the US is trying to do right now with pushing an international IP monoculture is in pursuit of exactly that sort of hegemony.
The reason I think they're doing that isn't malicious or anything, it's just that the really bright people who determine US foreign policy understand that empire as such doesn't work, but that empire is a natural state (following Niall Ferguson's line of thinking). So they've decided to take the approach of hegemony, the one that Chomsky takes such exception to.
Whether this will work in the long term is far from clear, though. Hegemony is pretty damn hard work, and without the benefit (relatively speaking, of course) of being able to simple crush and absorb any pretenders, countries China, India, Russia, and Brazil are a lot more successful than they otherwise would be.
I wonder if it would, though. If there wasn't widespread anti-biotic over-prescription, would a strain even have a chance to develop? There'd be no selective pressure for such a strain. I'd question if even one out of every thousand would become antibiotic-resistant. That's a LOT of bacteria still!
That may be the etymology of "third world" but it's not the accepted usage. Third world means less privileged, backwards, etc, now. Definitions change.
That's not to say the gp was right -- the US as a superpower is far from done for.
And isn't hegemony the new empire? I think I read that in a magazine or a Chomsky book or something.
Depends how you define knowledge, doesn't it? If your epistemology revolves around justified true belief, sure. That's very scientific and proper and testable but almost completely circular.
Remember that there are other competing definitions of knowledge that seek to embrace certain sticky situations JTB can't handle (the infamous clock right twice a day example, for instance) and that there are epistemological issues regarding faith and the limits of knowledge still being hashed out. See, for instance, Plantinga's "Reason and Proper Function" for an elementary look into the issue.
And so I'm not off-topic, blasphemy laws are idiotic. That's something we can know for certain.
You read the discussions on this site (who cares about news, really? and have they ever?) and you can't think of anything to recommend Slashdot? Look, I know this site used to be way cooler back when everything was way cooler, but Slashdot is doing just fine, thanks, and if you want to have a really, really good discussion about anything (including the good old days when Heathkit was the shit and we were all building our own shortwave radios) this is the place to go. Where else? Engaget? Gizmodo? Not even close. Not even in the same universe.
Slashdot Mirror
This is what the rest of the world thinks about American Football... http://www.vennding.com/2010/06/americans-sometimes-its-hard-to-take.html
Thanks, I totally just tweeted that.
Those three things you just listed aren't epistemologies. They beg the question, really. They've already assumed what the epistemology is and leapt to a conclusions.
For instance, Plantinga would say that belief in God is knowledge, because this is the proper function of your mind, to believe in God. You would disagree, and say that belief in God isn't knowledge because the belief isn't justified in any way.
It's not ivory-tower intellectualism that we beer-swilling plebs can safely ignore. The character of civilisation and even empires is determined partly based on these ideas.
If it seems we're much more rigorously scientific and rational in our approach to life than the Roman Church in the middle ages, or the Greeks of antiquity, that would be why.
Yeah, I meant it more as a joke than anything else, but fair point.
I think what the US is trying to do right now with pushing an international IP monoculture is in pursuit of exactly that sort of hegemony.
The reason I think they're doing that isn't malicious or anything, it's just that the really bright people who determine US foreign policy understand that empire as such doesn't work, but that empire is a natural state (following Niall Ferguson's line of thinking). So they've decided to take the approach of hegemony, the one that Chomsky takes such exception to.
Whether this will work in the long term is far from clear, though. Hegemony is pretty damn hard work, and without the benefit (relatively speaking, of course) of being able to simple crush and absorb any pretenders, countries China, India, Russia, and Brazil are a lot more successful than they otherwise would be.
I wonder if it would, though. If there wasn't widespread anti-biotic over-prescription, would a strain even have a chance to develop? There'd be no selective pressure for such a strain. I'd question if even one out of every thousand would become antibiotic-resistant. That's a LOT of bacteria still!
That may be the etymology of "third world" but it's not the accepted usage. Third world means less privileged, backwards, etc, now. Definitions change.
That's not to say the gp was right -- the US as a superpower is far from done for.
And isn't hegemony the new empire? I think I read that in a magazine or a Chomsky book or something.
Depends how you define knowledge, doesn't it? If your epistemology revolves around justified true belief, sure. That's very scientific and proper and testable but almost completely circular. Remember that there are other competing definitions of knowledge that seek to embrace certain sticky situations JTB can't handle (the infamous clock right twice a day example, for instance) and that there are epistemological issues regarding faith and the limits of knowledge still being hashed out. See, for instance, Plantinga's "Reason and Proper Function" for an elementary look into the issue. And so I'm not off-topic, blasphemy laws are idiotic. That's something we can know for certain.
You read the discussions on this site (who cares about news, really? and have they ever?) and you can't think of anything to recommend Slashdot? Look, I know this site used to be way cooler back when everything was way cooler, but Slashdot is doing just fine, thanks, and if you want to have a really, really good discussion about anything (including the good old days when Heathkit was the shit and we were all building our own shortwave radios) this is the place to go. Where else? Engaget? Gizmodo? Not even close. Not even in the same universe.