ONTOLOGICAL SKEPTICISM or AGNOSTICISM
| Collection | International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 |
| Vol. (num.) | 2(2) |
| ID | ◀ 2348 ▶ |
| Object type | Epistemology, ontology or semantics |
Classical science is founded on the firm belief in our possibility to observe nature in an objective way, which is not the same as the postulate about the objective existence of nature.
The difference lies in the classical standpoint that adscribes an absolute objective value to the observed “facts” without being aware that these “facts” are constructed through perceptive and conceptual filters, in accordance with human physiological and cerebral characteristics.
This point — already made by BOSCOVICH in 1758, in his “De spatio et tempore”!, as quoted by R. FISCHER (1991, p.96) — is neatly stated by E.von GLASERSFELD: “The fact that we can coordinate our own sense data (very low-level mental structures) into recurrent structures (low-level mental structures) can never prove that these structures are ontologically real — it only proves that the individual data occur frequently enough in our experience for us to establish invariant co-occurences” (1988, p.13).
von GLASERSFELD himself quotes this significant paragraph in L. WITTGENSTEIN's “Tractatus logico-philosophicus”: “In order to discover whether the picture is true or false we must compare it with reality (…). How could one possibly carry out that comparison?”
And he concludes in a rather radical way: “Ontological reality is a matter of belief” (1991, p.115)
According to M.C. LE DUC “mental structures” should be understood as concrete structures in the nervous system“ (1992, p.918). We cannot know anything if not in a physiological way.
This also justifies A. EDDINGTON observation that we only can see what our epistemology allows for, i.e. on the base of the value we recognize to our own perceptions.
It seems anyhow natural and even unavoidable to postulate the objective existence of nature (i.e. our environment). E. SCHWARZ writes: “… human knowledge is a gradual human construction, shaped in interaction with the environment; it is thus a co-construction which reflects the attributes of the knowing subject as well as these of the object of knowledge” (1994, p. 582). It is thus certainly foolhardy to attribute an absolute value to that which we believe we know about our surroundings.
Similarly, St. KATZ observes that: “Though the subject may attach ontological significance to the items it knows, those who see the subject-environment relation within the framework of neural computation believe differently” (1976, p.44).
Ontology of knowledge is definitely a slippery subject. The systemist seems thus doomed to a prudent ontological agnosticism or skepticism, but should avoid nihilism altogether (FEYERABEND's for example).