Reason Not The Only Source of Knowledge
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With an account, you can revise, criticize, and comment on ideas.Ayn Rand claims that "the virtue of rationality means the recognition and acceptance of reason as one's only source of knowledge." This is wrong, mainly because reason can only be used as a method of choosing between knowledge/ideas, not as a source of knowledge.
What do you think is the source of knowledge if not reason?
The source of knowledge is myths. Reason criticizes them and we get myths that are testable (if knowledge about the physical world), hard to vary and make some assertion about reality. Popper highlighted the myth and testable nature of scientific knowledge, and Deutsch highlights hard to vary and explanation/assertion nature of knowledge.
Criticism is a form of knowledge. How does reason have access to criticism if reason is not the source of knowledge?
Religion is a form of knowledge, but it is not reasonable. It holds some truths, but it is not reasonable. Knowledge can come from myths, which are not reason.
This misses the point of the post before it. Knowledge starts as myths and contains myths. Reason makes it hard to vary, thus reasonable to take as true until the myths in that theory itself are corrected.
I pointed out a circularity in #1655. Instead of resolving the circularity, you posted another idea repeating the same circularity. That makes no sense.
Even if I was somehow mistaken about there being a circularity, repeating the same idea doesn’t correct that.
Please read the discussion ‘How Does Veritula Work?’ in its entirety before continuing here.
Dreams can be a source of knowledge. But dreams aren't always reasonable. Sometimes, dreams are lies.
In that statement, I am looking at reason as a mode of criticism. You might get ideas and potentially knowledge from all sources and reason tests weather they are right or not.
And if I understand you right, what you're saying is if an idea isn't from 'reason' than how can we criticize it using reason. But we can and do all the time. Religion is irrational, but we criticize it and take what is good from it and discard the rest.
Say someone said "I had a dream that {insert something true}" or "god told me that {insert something true}," what is the source of knowledge here?
That doesn’t belong here because you didn’t actually comment on my thoughts re circularity (I’m not requesting to do so now). You either did not read ‘How Does Veritula Work?’ or you did not understand it. You need to post ideas in the appropriate place. Discussions on Veritula shouldn’t be treated like linear chats.
Don’t post another idea in this discussion (the one titled ‘Reason Not The Only Source of Knowledge’) until you understand how Veritula works. If you think you understand how it works, post a summary of your understanding as a new top-level idea using the form located at the bottom of ‘How Does Veritula Work?’. I can then criticize your summary to help improve your understanding.
You can also study Edwin’s activity for examples of how to do Veritula well. He’s fairly new to it but learned it quickly.
Don’t let this discourage you. Veritula has a learning curve. It takes some upfront investment but it’s worth it.
That’s technically a misquote of Rand. https://www.quote-checker.com/diffs/checking-ayn-rand-quote-re-rationality
How did that happen? Did you not copy/paste?
I didn't copy/paste, no. I try not to whenever possible. It helps with paying attention to the detail.
In other situations, I would agree. For example, back when I was first learning how to code, I made it a point to type code from tutorials manually to retain it better.
But with quotes it’s different because retaining the literal letter matters. Typing it manually is too error prone and there’s no compiler (except Quote Checker) to catch errors.