Tuesday 30 September 2008
ON ONTOLOGY, PHENOMENOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY AND HOW THEY APPLY TO THE FACULTY OF REASON
As living beings existing in this world of matter and forms we go through second after second of conscious and subconscious cognitions of perception and experience. Our sensations, feelings, images and ideas flicker before us like a kaleidoscope of endless possibilities, yet as we all come to find out and know, I am sure, is that it is up to us to put our lives and our minds into finely tuned working order if we are ever to make any sense of this world that we happen to live in. Now as our lives tick on and on we order our lives within space, time and the laws of causality and so find ourselves pursuing all that is within our own power to accomplish that leads onwards and is constructive or valued by us somehow. Our being is existence, life and energy continually going forward in time always and ever seeking for meaning and purpose as well as joy and happiness. Some people deny the existence of meaning and purpose altogether and claim reality to be irrational and groundless. I have mentioned in my essay entitled "On The Rational And Irrational Aspects Of Consciousness And How It Relates To Reality" that what we call the rational, arational and irrational must all be aspects of reality depending on how we perceive the different stages of the processes that occur within reality itself. Ultimately there is a type of order to all universal processes, but the minds of human beings are of such finite and limited capacity and there are so many people that are so biased, prejudiced and deluded that it will never be within our own power as humans to fully comprehend these universal processes in their entirety. In the subject of ontology from the standpoint of values and one's subjective existence, we consider questions like the following: is constant change necessary in our lives or is some repetition and consistency important? Do we need continual growth in our lives and if so, of what kind should it be? Are attainable ideals necessary? Do we need the hope that ideals give us? Is the ultimate aim of our lives simply to enjoy every moment of it or should there be more to it than this? As an ontologist myself I can go on and on asking questions of this kind, but yet I have no room to do so in this essay because it will distract me from the purpose and goal of this current essay. Most people do not care about such ontological questions as have been mentioned above because it deters them from their own self-interests, narrow views and societal conditioning. Now the answer to a lot of ontological questions cannot be answered without some element of one's personal values and needs being part of the answer, the exact nature and needs of my existence is not the same as it is for another person and so on and so this must be taken into consideration when assessing a great number of ontological questions. Phenomenology concerns the subject of perception and how it functions as well as pointing out how percepton either aids us or at times lets us down when we are not truly aware of the process of perception itself and how we perceive things. Ontology in its obvious and general form as well as in the matters concerning its findings, it can be observed, cannot be understood aside from its grounding in phenomenological and epistemelogical categories of perception and knowledge. In ontology, when one asks the question, what is existence? Surely the answer is that it is a process that stems from other processes as an extension of them, right! So when one is considering the matter of existence and its essence one is dealing in processes of becoming that have a sequence from the past that have led to the present but yet are aiming towards the future. The essence and nature of reality and existence itself cannot be understood apart from an analytical and scientific explanation of processes and their results and continuations; these processes in nature are an outcome of energy and matter vibrating within space and so the knowledge of facts and things in nature when they have been analyzed and a synthesis has been arrived at of these things with other knowledge is something that cannot be fully comprehended without regarding these things as a result as well as a part of other process in nature and so it is important and necessary (cannot be emphasized too much) to think in terms of processes and how they function for any given fact or thing as well as generally. Anyone will find by examining my writings generally that I find it difficult to avoid using the two words process and processes and this is because I think that these two words most adequately sum reality and its nature. As organisms our existence consists of and contains certain properties and qualities of experience, for example, chemical and material properties, physical properties, sense and faculty properties, mental properties. How properties relate to each other and influence each other is a process also that needs to be understood more fully. In the subject of phenomenology one considers the fact that perception is either self-conscious perception or it is a perception of things (objects) or it is a reflection on the ideas and concepts that things have invoked in us due to the impressions that things have given us; then again peception consists also of all the imaginary things of our own devising, this aspect of perception is self-delusion. Unless we are able to know exactly where the different ideas and notions that form our own perceptions and thoughts have come from due to our past experiences then we will never be competent enough to account for our own thoughts properly, our minds will be disorganized and uncertain. The honesty and the willingness to admit doubt about some of one's own thoughts enables one to clear certain types of self-deception from the mind, in time one may be able to remember where exactly it is they got a certain idea from or the reasons why they think the way they do about things in general. In the subject of epistemology the main questions that we tend to ask ourselves are: What is knowledge? How is knowledge acquired? What do people know? How can I know something for sure? How do we know what we know? How much can we rely on our senses? How much can we rely on logic? Who or what is this "I" that wants to know? Also in epistemology the differences between "knowing that" something is a certain way and "knowing how" it is this way as well as "knowing why" something is a certain way are important factors in the analysis of truths. The "knowing why" aspect of epistemology closely ties in with ontological type questions and are both closely related factors in our desire to find meaning and purpose in things. When it comes to knowledge, there is always a difference between believing something to be true and knowing it to be true for sure, one should always be aware of this distinction between these two ways of knowing. Situations do arise sometimes in which we cannot tell for sure whether we know something for sure or whether this thing that we think that we know for sure is actually an aspect of reality in the way that we think of it. I am certain that for something to count as real knowledge, it must actually be true for sure; this is so because you cannot know something that is not real for sure, without in a sense deluding yourself. An honest and sincere person cannot delude themselves for very long without at some point noticing that he or she is doing it. Intellectual honesty is a quality that not all people possess, but it is a quality that all people with a genuine sense of integrity do possess. People who have integrity value integrity even more when they realize that it is a means at their own disposal in which to navigate through a world that is either full of stupid dishonest affectless people or a bunch of dishonest power hungry people. One of the main aspects of ontology is the desire for a feeling and knowledge of self-identity with one's own nature; this can also include a desire to really know the nature of reality, things and other people. We cannot argue against the fact that self-knowledge in the sense of a deep understanding of oneself is important; anyone who thinks that this is not so and that there is not much to discover in oneself and one's own behaviour must be a very shallow and empty person. If we are to truly understand ourselves and our behaviour, it is required that we can figure out the patterns of our own subconscious impulses and desires because it is these things that drive our consciousness.
Sunday 14 September 2008
ON HOW WE RESPOND TO SENSE-IMPRESSIONS AND HOW THEY AFFECT US SUBJECTIVELY
As human beings we find ourselves in a world that is constantly open to us and our senses as long as we are alive and so we mostly rationalize the things and experiences that we encounter based on how these things and experiences make us feel, for instance, we do not rationalize things first and then feel afterwards. All the opinions, beliefs and values that we find ourselves focusing on in life is a form of intentionality on our part due to the impressions that things give us in our feelings based on the pleasure, pain, avoidance of pain as well as survival and adaptation principles that shape the interior subjective world of our organism in response to our environment and its stimuli. A feeling can be experienced as either a physical instinctual response or as an idea or both together. Now what it is exactly that determines how we respond to the stimuli in our environment is a subjective condition that depends on a natural design issue in the sense of how we use our brain as well as depending on the exact type of organism the brain houses. When I mention a natural design issue, I do not mean intelligent design as such, but I do mean the contingent and necessary facts that led to the uniqueness that is our organism.
Now seeing as though our senses at all times are open to the world even when we are asleep, it is likewise true that our perceptions are always at work observing anything that catches our inner desires whether we are dreaming or fully awake, but in either case we are never without a perception of some kind and this perception is always where we are at present. Our perceptions when we are asleep are mostly taken over by feelings, desires, values and meaning, whereas when we are awake these basic feelings are supplemented by rationalizations of a certain kind. Normally whether it is consciously or subconsciously we tend to shape perception to fit our desires because the nature of reality in of itself is difficult to comprehend, so we need conscious rationalizations as a means to fit our desires and needs as well as to understand reality in some form, although imperfectly and incompletely. The more we are able to understand the objective world and its nature the less necessary it is to fulfil our inner desires and whims and this is because it takes a lot of overcoming and transcending of oneself to truly understand the nature of reality in any form. Normally it is the case that we as organic beings do not show much interest in any thing other than when it fits our desires and obvious needs due to the basic organic principles that I have mentioned earlier. So feelings based on impressions are mostly what we as organic beings are used dealing in that have their foundation on these basic organic principles. All of our basic judgements are combinations of these feelings that we are very used to having, very rarely do most people transcend these feelings to accommodate others or to pursue the objective knowledge of reality and its nature. The concept of intentionality that is found in phenomenology in which perception is fully taken up by a focused pursuit of desire or sensation as the motive of our behaviour is one of the levels of the evolution of consciousness that is most basic, for instance, this is intentionality is most evident when a person is intensely interested and caught up in something to the exclusion of everything else or other things and will not notice people walking past them or will not notice what time it is and so on. As I have mentioned elsewhere in my writings and will now point out again is the simple fact that perception and consciousness in organisms generally becomes more integrated and expansive over time as it evolves in organic beings from generation to generation and occurs as societies evolve also and is what I call "multi-perception". Intentionality is only a basic form of consciousness and is not the essence of all that consciousness is capable of being or becoming.
Consciousness in organisms as many writers have shown evolves and progresses within organisms that are capable of progressing, evolving and adapting to nature. Many evolutionists and paleontologists always take the opportunity to point out that not all organisms are making progress in evolution; they are also always showing the fact that progress is not a general theme in evolution, but this does not take away from the fact that some organisms are capable of progressing and in fact do. Desire itself in the different ways in which it expresses itself in organic life is a very crucial and vital aspect of organic existence and is something that needs to be investigated further so as to assess what it really means as a motive and as a necessary aspect of life and evolution. Without a desire for pleasure, happiness, meaning, values and purpose it would seem that life would not be worth living. Desire is a strong feeling of wishing, wanting and having. Why do we desire things? Because we think that these things that we desire will give us pleasure, joy, happiness or power. Desire in all its manfestations makes us imagine and rationalize all as well as anyting that fits the criteria of what things are worth desiring, so these developments have become part of organic existence as it has progressed. The most basic sense of desire that we all feel within us is an obvious aspect of nature's way of wanting us to procreate our genes in organic life and all other desires are modifications and extensions of this initial desire, but this feeling is latent in young children. Homosexuality exists because the initial desire for procreation has been modified to such an extent that it no longer exists simply for procreation alone, but exists for pleasure and happiness. Desire for pleasant things and experiences as well as a need to find meaning seems to be nature's way of making us pursue things as well as attain worthwhile goals beyond simply just procreating. Without the pleasure, joy and happiness that things can give us we would not be motivated to do things. When we are considering how the senses receive sense-data as well as in how the mind produces ideas and the truths concerning them we always arrive at the age old problem that exists between the so-called subjectivists and the empirical objectivists and how they view reality. The subjectivists for example, claim that all truths are subjective, which is a very strange and false assumption in itself, whereas the empirical objectivists who are influenced by Locke or the scientific method or both accept that there is both subjective and objective truths because you cannot have one without the other or because of the fact that both are part of our experiences as well as being an aspect of the learning process itself.
It is not too far of a stretch to suggest that with the subjectivists there is a psychological discrepancy between their own knowledge of what are truths and of how this knowledge relates to sense-data and the ideas they get from it; this discrepancy exists to such an extent that they have deluded themselves into thinking that there is no correlation between these two things and so they seem to think that all ideas of truths come purely and completely from some internal place within themselves. All scientists, mathematicians, empiricists and genuine philosophers know that our ideas of the truth can only be arrived at through objective and subjective means and that to come upon external truths requires a high element of objectivity and freedom of thought without distortion. Ontology, epistemology and phenomenology are the primary subjects for understanding existence, knowledge, truth and how we perceive it and how it affects us also as well as figuring out what we can or cannot know for sure. The ideology of positivism claims that only the knowledge that one gets from sense experience is real and credible, but the problem with this one-sided ideology is that it does not account for all the truths that exist that we cannot detect directly with our senses; positivism is therefore a one-sided and flawed ideology and of no real use to anyone who values an extensive knowledge of truths.
Not all truths can be known through the senses alone and so the use of reason, logic and mathematics must be employed to account for all the truths that exist that the senses cannot detect directly.
Truths from sense experience and truths from reasoning must be integrated together to attain to a fuller knowledge of the truths of phenomenon as well as things, but whether it is possible to attain to complete (absolute) truths of phenomenon and things is highly unlikely and this is because there is always aspects of the things-in-themselves of phenomenon and things that escapes our reasoning abilities; the complete nature of reality itself is not fully comprehensible to finite limited beings such as ourselves no matter how confident that we think we are in our ability to figure out truths. The ideology of perspectivism takes the view that any estimation and judgement of truths takes place from particular perspectives and therefore cannot be taken as definitively "true". The problem with perspectivism is that it claims that an incomplete knowledge of a truth due to one's perpective somehow renders your truth invalid because it is not complete. An incomplete truth without the unknown elements to make it complete is still a partial truth and is therefore still a truth nonetheless. The knowledge of truths become more complete over time as new insights are added to them and so they become more valid and certain. The ideology of perspectivism was developed by Friedrich Nietzsche in the 19th century and it suggests that no purely objective science or philosophy that observes things to be a certain way can exist as an objective truth because no ideation, conceptualizaion or thought as such can exist outside the influences of an individual perception. Nietzsche is pointing out that the ideation or conceptualizion of any single perception or thought is limited not only by its existence in our perceptions and bodies, but also by the assumptions and beliefs that are made by and which are formed by the perceiver's unique culture and history and particular situation. Nietzsche in his observation is only pointing out the obvious fact that we as humans are finite beings that only
understand our own ideas and knowledge and not things-in-themselves or the entirety of a phenomenon in a complete (absolute) sense. The whole point about the two words "objective truth" is that it means and also represents a truth that is observed to exist in nature independently of our tastes, opinions, desires, prejudices, feelings, beliefs and personal ideas. Nietzsche is attempting to make out that no singular human being is capable of observing truths in nature without subjective elements leaking in to contaminate it, but I think that he is wrong especially if a person rigorously eliminates all subjective elements from an observed truth. As long as an observer eliminates all subjective elements from an observed truth it can be considered to be an objective truth and for Nietzsche to suggest that this is not so simply because we cannot separate ourselves from our own thoughts is a very subtle and petty sophism. According to perspectivism the earth orbits the sun for some people and not for others or then again some people live forever while others don't from my perspective or point of view. Do you see how silly perspectivism can seem when you take it too far! Introspection is a very useful tool for understanding our own mental states, cognitive processes and behaviour. In the method an act of introspection we can analyze our own mental content as well as the nature of our usual mental processes and also the way that we usually respond to stimuli and so on and how it influences our behaviour; this is achieved by abstracting and objectifying these things out distinctly in isolation for analysis without personal feelings or desires interfering with our assessment of ourselves. In introspection we analyze the reasons why we get the thoughts and feelings that we do and also why we behave the way that we do; so the method of introspection concerns itself with both the form and the content of our psyche as well as our behaviour generally. Psychology is only useful when it analyses both our minds and our behaviour also, rather than just our minds alone which is only half the picture. When examining the philosophical concepts that are used by thinkers generally one will find that Nietzsche's concept of perspectivism is very similar to the concept of relativism. The concepts of perspectivism and relativism as ideologies that represent statements of truths, I must add, apply mostly to judgements of value and also to truth statements of a very specific aspect of temporary phenomenon and not to universal and eternal truths. Statements that are put forward that come under the category of perspectivism and relativism do not alter the obvious objective truth claims that are universal, eternal or general of which I gave a couple of examples earlier in regard to perspectivism. One could compile a long list of truths that are not altered or invalidated by the claims of perspectivism and relativism if one chose to do so. The epistemological concepts of externalism and internalism are two ways of categorizing the difference between ideas and knowledge that is either objective or ideas that are subjectively intuited as inventions and are thought out as a combination of objective ideas pieced together. Objective ideas are externally perceived to exist as coming from objective facts and things that give us knowledge as sense-impressions on our senses. Internal knowledge is a subjective combination of objective ideas pieced together in such a way as to yield original knowledge as inventions or creative acts of our own devising. Internalism in traditional epistemology is very different to how I have defined it myself for my own use and this is because I think that internalism in traditional epistemology as it is defined can lead to a type of relativism or perspectivism; this is bad because it makes epistemology subjective and circular rather than being a satisfactory definition of external (objective truths) and internal (subjective truths) that either become actual or are actual whether internally or externally. All one's inner tastes, preferences, values, needs and feelings, etc., that people feel generally can be classified also as subjective and internal truths. The exact classification of subjective and objective truths as well as internal and external truths overlap in many places and requires meticulous analysis to describe it; I know how to do it myself, but the method of understanding it is by dealing with one idea at a time and then first asking whether it is an objective or subjective idea; we also ask whether it only applies to internal subjective reality or whether it has a greater application also, for example, a subjective internal idea that begins as an invention or creation in our mind can end up becoming an invention or work of art in the external world. Also a subjective internal idea can remain internal and subjective if it is simply something that we feel or need, such as we prefer the colour red to the colour blue or we need soft music rather than loud heavy music, etc.
Now seeing as though our senses at all times are open to the world even when we are asleep, it is likewise true that our perceptions are always at work observing anything that catches our inner desires whether we are dreaming or fully awake, but in either case we are never without a perception of some kind and this perception is always where we are at present. Our perceptions when we are asleep are mostly taken over by feelings, desires, values and meaning, whereas when we are awake these basic feelings are supplemented by rationalizations of a certain kind. Normally whether it is consciously or subconsciously we tend to shape perception to fit our desires because the nature of reality in of itself is difficult to comprehend, so we need conscious rationalizations as a means to fit our desires and needs as well as to understand reality in some form, although imperfectly and incompletely. The more we are able to understand the objective world and its nature the less necessary it is to fulfil our inner desires and whims and this is because it takes a lot of overcoming and transcending of oneself to truly understand the nature of reality in any form. Normally it is the case that we as organic beings do not show much interest in any thing other than when it fits our desires and obvious needs due to the basic organic principles that I have mentioned earlier. So feelings based on impressions are mostly what we as organic beings are used dealing in that have their foundation on these basic organic principles. All of our basic judgements are combinations of these feelings that we are very used to having, very rarely do most people transcend these feelings to accommodate others or to pursue the objective knowledge of reality and its nature. The concept of intentionality that is found in phenomenology in which perception is fully taken up by a focused pursuit of desire or sensation as the motive of our behaviour is one of the levels of the evolution of consciousness that is most basic, for instance, this is intentionality is most evident when a person is intensely interested and caught up in something to the exclusion of everything else or other things and will not notice people walking past them or will not notice what time it is and so on. As I have mentioned elsewhere in my writings and will now point out again is the simple fact that perception and consciousness in organisms generally becomes more integrated and expansive over time as it evolves in organic beings from generation to generation and occurs as societies evolve also and is what I call "multi-perception". Intentionality is only a basic form of consciousness and is not the essence of all that consciousness is capable of being or becoming.
Consciousness in organisms as many writers have shown evolves and progresses within organisms that are capable of progressing, evolving and adapting to nature. Many evolutionists and paleontologists always take the opportunity to point out that not all organisms are making progress in evolution; they are also always showing the fact that progress is not a general theme in evolution, but this does not take away from the fact that some organisms are capable of progressing and in fact do. Desire itself in the different ways in which it expresses itself in organic life is a very crucial and vital aspect of organic existence and is something that needs to be investigated further so as to assess what it really means as a motive and as a necessary aspect of life and evolution. Without a desire for pleasure, happiness, meaning, values and purpose it would seem that life would not be worth living. Desire is a strong feeling of wishing, wanting and having. Why do we desire things? Because we think that these things that we desire will give us pleasure, joy, happiness or power. Desire in all its manfestations makes us imagine and rationalize all as well as anyting that fits the criteria of what things are worth desiring, so these developments have become part of organic existence as it has progressed. The most basic sense of desire that we all feel within us is an obvious aspect of nature's way of wanting us to procreate our genes in organic life and all other desires are modifications and extensions of this initial desire, but this feeling is latent in young children. Homosexuality exists because the initial desire for procreation has been modified to such an extent that it no longer exists simply for procreation alone, but exists for pleasure and happiness. Desire for pleasant things and experiences as well as a need to find meaning seems to be nature's way of making us pursue things as well as attain worthwhile goals beyond simply just procreating. Without the pleasure, joy and happiness that things can give us we would not be motivated to do things. When we are considering how the senses receive sense-data as well as in how the mind produces ideas and the truths concerning them we always arrive at the age old problem that exists between the so-called subjectivists and the empirical objectivists and how they view reality. The subjectivists for example, claim that all truths are subjective, which is a very strange and false assumption in itself, whereas the empirical objectivists who are influenced by Locke or the scientific method or both accept that there is both subjective and objective truths because you cannot have one without the other or because of the fact that both are part of our experiences as well as being an aspect of the learning process itself.
It is not too far of a stretch to suggest that with the subjectivists there is a psychological discrepancy between their own knowledge of what are truths and of how this knowledge relates to sense-data and the ideas they get from it; this discrepancy exists to such an extent that they have deluded themselves into thinking that there is no correlation between these two things and so they seem to think that all ideas of truths come purely and completely from some internal place within themselves. All scientists, mathematicians, empiricists and genuine philosophers know that our ideas of the truth can only be arrived at through objective and subjective means and that to come upon external truths requires a high element of objectivity and freedom of thought without distortion. Ontology, epistemology and phenomenology are the primary subjects for understanding existence, knowledge, truth and how we perceive it and how it affects us also as well as figuring out what we can or cannot know for sure. The ideology of positivism claims that only the knowledge that one gets from sense experience is real and credible, but the problem with this one-sided ideology is that it does not account for all the truths that exist that we cannot detect directly with our senses; positivism is therefore a one-sided and flawed ideology and of no real use to anyone who values an extensive knowledge of truths.
Not all truths can be known through the senses alone and so the use of reason, logic and mathematics must be employed to account for all the truths that exist that the senses cannot detect directly.
Truths from sense experience and truths from reasoning must be integrated together to attain to a fuller knowledge of the truths of phenomenon as well as things, but whether it is possible to attain to complete (absolute) truths of phenomenon and things is highly unlikely and this is because there is always aspects of the things-in-themselves of phenomenon and things that escapes our reasoning abilities; the complete nature of reality itself is not fully comprehensible to finite limited beings such as ourselves no matter how confident that we think we are in our ability to figure out truths. The ideology of perspectivism takes the view that any estimation and judgement of truths takes place from particular perspectives and therefore cannot be taken as definitively "true". The problem with perspectivism is that it claims that an incomplete knowledge of a truth due to one's perpective somehow renders your truth invalid because it is not complete. An incomplete truth without the unknown elements to make it complete is still a partial truth and is therefore still a truth nonetheless. The knowledge of truths become more complete over time as new insights are added to them and so they become more valid and certain. The ideology of perspectivism was developed by Friedrich Nietzsche in the 19th century and it suggests that no purely objective science or philosophy that observes things to be a certain way can exist as an objective truth because no ideation, conceptualizaion or thought as such can exist outside the influences of an individual perception. Nietzsche is pointing out that the ideation or conceptualizion of any single perception or thought is limited not only by its existence in our perceptions and bodies, but also by the assumptions and beliefs that are made by and which are formed by the perceiver's unique culture and history and particular situation. Nietzsche in his observation is only pointing out the obvious fact that we as humans are finite beings that only
understand our own ideas and knowledge and not things-in-themselves or the entirety of a phenomenon in a complete (absolute) sense. The whole point about the two words "objective truth" is that it means and also represents a truth that is observed to exist in nature independently of our tastes, opinions, desires, prejudices, feelings, beliefs and personal ideas. Nietzsche is attempting to make out that no singular human being is capable of observing truths in nature without subjective elements leaking in to contaminate it, but I think that he is wrong especially if a person rigorously eliminates all subjective elements from an observed truth. As long as an observer eliminates all subjective elements from an observed truth it can be considered to be an objective truth and for Nietzsche to suggest that this is not so simply because we cannot separate ourselves from our own thoughts is a very subtle and petty sophism. According to perspectivism the earth orbits the sun for some people and not for others or then again some people live forever while others don't from my perspective or point of view. Do you see how silly perspectivism can seem when you take it too far! Introspection is a very useful tool for understanding our own mental states, cognitive processes and behaviour. In the method an act of introspection we can analyze our own mental content as well as the nature of our usual mental processes and also the way that we usually respond to stimuli and so on and how it influences our behaviour; this is achieved by abstracting and objectifying these things out distinctly in isolation for analysis without personal feelings or desires interfering with our assessment of ourselves. In introspection we analyze the reasons why we get the thoughts and feelings that we do and also why we behave the way that we do; so the method of introspection concerns itself with both the form and the content of our psyche as well as our behaviour generally. Psychology is only useful when it analyses both our minds and our behaviour also, rather than just our minds alone which is only half the picture. When examining the philosophical concepts that are used by thinkers generally one will find that Nietzsche's concept of perspectivism is very similar to the concept of relativism. The concepts of perspectivism and relativism as ideologies that represent statements of truths, I must add, apply mostly to judgements of value and also to truth statements of a very specific aspect of temporary phenomenon and not to universal and eternal truths. Statements that are put forward that come under the category of perspectivism and relativism do not alter the obvious objective truth claims that are universal, eternal or general of which I gave a couple of examples earlier in regard to perspectivism. One could compile a long list of truths that are not altered or invalidated by the claims of perspectivism and relativism if one chose to do so. The epistemological concepts of externalism and internalism are two ways of categorizing the difference between ideas and knowledge that is either objective or ideas that are subjectively intuited as inventions and are thought out as a combination of objective ideas pieced together. Objective ideas are externally perceived to exist as coming from objective facts and things that give us knowledge as sense-impressions on our senses. Internal knowledge is a subjective combination of objective ideas pieced together in such a way as to yield original knowledge as inventions or creative acts of our own devising. Internalism in traditional epistemology is very different to how I have defined it myself for my own use and this is because I think that internalism in traditional epistemology as it is defined can lead to a type of relativism or perspectivism; this is bad because it makes epistemology subjective and circular rather than being a satisfactory definition of external (objective truths) and internal (subjective truths) that either become actual or are actual whether internally or externally. All one's inner tastes, preferences, values, needs and feelings, etc., that people feel generally can be classified also as subjective and internal truths. The exact classification of subjective and objective truths as well as internal and external truths overlap in many places and requires meticulous analysis to describe it; I know how to do it myself, but the method of understanding it is by dealing with one idea at a time and then first asking whether it is an objective or subjective idea; we also ask whether it only applies to internal subjective reality or whether it has a greater application also, for example, a subjective internal idea that begins as an invention or creation in our mind can end up becoming an invention or work of art in the external world. Also a subjective internal idea can remain internal and subjective if it is simply something that we feel or need, such as we prefer the colour red to the colour blue or we need soft music rather than loud heavy music, etc.
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