What is this thing I call Epistemaesthethics?
Briefly: Why Philosophy Ought to Learn from Physics
If you believe you observe a nonsensical typo in the title, I am afraid you are probably incorrect: Epistemaesthethics is intended to be written that way—with no (conscious) intention to recruit only wind players (with their diversity of skilled tonguing). But an explanation of the term is warranted.
Simply, it is constructed by the union of epistemethics and aesthetics, the study of beauty. But what is the first term, epistemethics? That term decomposes into the union of epistemology and ethics such that one seeks to understand the meta-ethics of epistemic theories; in other words, it is a study of how ways of knowing may detract from the Good (assuming moral realism, the belief that there are mind-independent morals). The further union of those two terms with aesthetics yields a field that yearns to express epistemethic findings within theories of beauty in order that one may understand the most moral forms of knowledge through forms of beauty (here, beauty is ostensibly taken as a primitive experiential quality). Voila! Epistemaesthethics. You might as well be eating peanut butter while mouthing it out, I reckon.
The importance of this field to the entrepreneur is exhilarating to point out: the potential of objectively approved user interfaces, interior design, architectural builds, city-lights, streets, bridges, and so on and so forth. Could we discover a mind-independent account of how our human worlds should possibly be? Cue the importance of multiplicity in mathematical solutions, as the theoretical practice can imply, despite its uniform semantics, diversity of origin, end, and direction. Perhaps, therefore, epigenetic solutions to epistemaesthethics exist depending on effective (and civil) survival habits. The truth is I’ve been sitting on this idea for years, because I was confused: how am I among the few defining the unity of originally philosophical theories? But I think I can explain why this may have happened (as briefly as possible).
The explanation centers on the philosophical tension between purely linguistic metaphysical theories and the apparent rational impossibility of purely linguistic truth. An example of the first idea can be found in the first work of reluctant philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein who published his debut Tractatus-Logico Philosophicus in 1922. The book attempted to describe the structure of the world using language, a kind of mystical experiment as to how language might serve as a microcosmic tool to derive the sum-total properties of Nature. Surprisingly, he reveals to the reader by the end of reading his work that one will realize that it was all simply nothing but nonsense.
As for the second idea, over the next few decades, four different logicians (Kurt Gödel, Alonzo Church, Alfred Tarski, and Stephen Kleene) arrived to a certain metalogical result, a result that was meant to generalize for all logics agreeing to certain constituent elements: all language we would find useful to truth is relativistic. In other words, language could prove no inherent truths about its own content, given a certain logical basis to a language. The acceptance of this result has led to what can be called deflationary accounts of truth: truth cannot be possibly known through a certain kind of practical language.
Since then, it seems to me, philosophy has branched out by intellectual “capillaries”, as language had appeared to be shown as a false “heart” to the “mind” of thought. Instead, questions have grown the discipline into whichever small and specialized “organs” are served by a thinker’s curious self-interest, a resource that has gotten smaller and less inspired over time (though not in uniformity).
“My, your heart doth not carry much largesse, philosophy.”
“But it extends, my dear science.”
“Like a small-brained spider, I must say.”
“Then a small-brained spider I may be.”
“And will you not say that forever to avoid error?”
“I cannot say.”
On the other hand, what modern physics does enormously well is to unify its own theories. In that regard, physicists have not abandoned universal discourse and the idea that language can avoid contradictions so as to guarantee the existence of only those theories that describe a single natural Universe. Standard scientific methodology accordingly asks for one to define internally valid constructs before preparing measurable and corresponding external constructs (though many often skip these steps, preferring scientific facts of less sophistication). Philosophy of science helped build such a methodology, of course. But philosophical culture often betrays this desire for universality by virtue of perceived linguistic limitations.
So physicists discover thermodynamics, electromagnetism, classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, general and special relativity, string theory, quantum loop theory, or whatever it may be. Where the theories “hinge” together (as in a double-door), where they can tell a coherent “story” without contradictions when all put together, a unity is implied and made possible to the physicist. Where the “doors” come together but seem to create multiple “houses”, a more general theory that resolves contradictions is sought. And this all seems, in practical life (the motivational source for logical reasoning in the first place), to do well! We store food longer, heat it up as we like, warm our feet despite the cold night, move on robotized wheels great distances to work on a digital, dynamic book (called a “computer”), and the list goes on. Physics is a success to those of us who see it or not.
Yale University founded its Physics Department in the early 1800s, the Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1865, Princeton University in 1872, Harvard in 1884, and Columbia’s legendary graduate program in 1892. Physics, it looks, is a relatively new field in a formal academic sense (as most universities precede the invention of physics as a separate field). But much of what we count as physics today predates these times, as the same topics were considered under titles like Experimental Philosophy or Natural Philosophy. (One can read about the history of institutionalized physics here.)
So why does philosophy not unify their own broadest theories like physics does (rather than attempting to meta-theoretically organize everyone else)? I blame the fact that few universities require philosophy of logic as a class for the major (Since Brown University has an Open Curriculum, I was able to design my major or “concentration” in philosophy in such a way). Instead, philosophy students are forced to “advance” by only needing to learn a single system of logic as the end-all-be-all. Slapping a grade on reinforces some affinity or aversion towards a kind of thinking that can narrow one’s creativity or else broaden it to the point of becoming a leech. Simply pairing logic courses with philosophy of logic courses and giving joint grades would, I imagine, nourish students to the possibility of seeing arguments about different logics (or about studying logic at all) while also experiencing the systems themselves through problem-set “laboratories”. Reward students in the direction of their original strengths, but don’t demean them for their apparent misunderstandings. Otherwise, caution can throw the singularity of truth to the wind.
“If you hold a belief in truth, your mind would be forever mistaken.”
“But if you refuse doubt doubt, you would retain a heart that could never mend.”
Back to Epistemaesthethics: How will it be involved in Earcake Sounds?
The field is essential to discovering progressive universality in sonic health (or musical nutrition). Without the field, the foundations or necessary beginnings of this project could never be fathomed; in fact, a goal of Earcake Sounds is to eliminate musical genocide altogether. And so that’s why I invite all onlookers to work on this field and publish. Because if we are able to capture the artistry necessary for a moral and knowing world, who knows what we could accomplish? For instance, perhaps there is a way to calibrate the tastes of traumatized individuals to a “baseline” that truly heals them or gives them a firmer place by which to judge reality civilly. Perhaps violence (notably rape, a beauty-seeking excess, a violation of another’s aesthetic objectivity) could be reduced sustainably for eternity. All by methodical unification of these three fundamental philosophical concepts: epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics.
To close: it seems to me the Universe is of a fundamentally moral character. There is no other path to a certain meta-epistemology, as a generalizing humanistic reasoning or meta-ontological reasoning about Nature can only take us — by themselves — to the necessities of possibility, not of possible normativity through which we all accelerate each others’ flourishing. It also seems to me that the structure of morality can be discovered. I’ve been contemplating a plan for many years now, only deciding to move these days after much second-guessing and pruning, cleaning up, etc. The “ingredients” are all prepared, and a first “recipe” (after much tinkering) has been “sniffed” out. Now it’s just “cooking” time.
Morally yours,
Shehrose, Sound Chef @ Earcake Sounds