ev-uh-NES-unt, adjective
Liable to vanish or pass away like vapor; fleeting.
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I often wonder why so many people I meet are attracted to or in many cases fully immersed in the idea that all of knowledge is subjective, that seeking truth is futile, and that those who claim to have it are pretentious and wrong. At first I thought it merely intellectual lethargy, but I think it goes deeper.
As explained in the previous post, it is easy to make the leap from a diversity of stupid opinions (our world is full of them, else we would not be arguing so often) to a doubtfulness about the existence of truth. It might even seem that humans on average are incapable of grasping some of the universe's greater truths, and in some respect, they are. I do not hesitate to claim we are at a very low tier in the wealth of potential knowledge--examining the bounds beyond the Earth alone can humble one into silence and even despondency.
But to me, the wealth of unknown is no criteria for forgoing explanation of it. If anything, the amount left to be known in the universe is exciting--imagine how boring the universe (and our intellectual lives) would be if there was nothing left to find. Similarly, I would be a very despondent person myself if I didn't believe that there is WAY more objective truth existing in the world than subjective truths that really do depend on the observer.
I suppose my conclusion is that the advances of science and even merely curious minds have produced startling correct observations about humans and the universe in the very short time humans have been on this planet, and researching (if only on wikipedia!) this information is a great boon to confidence about human potential and human reason in general. Reading many of the blogs, it seems to me a general infection of doubtfulness proliferates--I felt exactly the same when approaching philosophy, and occasionally, I feel the same now. But I hope very much that this mindset will not remain by the end of the course, or else we are in for 15 weeks of people shrugging and defending prefabricated points of view.
Not that I will be innocent of the same for the course of the semester (I have already occasionally noticed instinctual, rather than reasonable defense), but I too will strive for an open mind, and retain my understanding that truth does exist, and that we'll be able to find it even in the ludicrously wide bounds of human nature.
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3 comments:
Hi Derek,
I'm not sure I understand your observation about others' ideas about knowledge being subjective. Are you equating knowledge with truth?
In a psych course I took we learned there are four ways of knowing: authority (someone tells you it is so), experience (you find out it is so), art (you perceive it is so - this one was the most difficult for me to understand and I'm not sure I do even now), and finaly, reason (you logically conclude it is so)
But knowledge is a funny thing: it seems to be adaptable over time. For example, the world used to be flat; now it's round. But I do not think knowledge is necessarily "truth"
I think "truth" is even more slippery than knowledge. People who work in the field of journalism know this quite well: there is accuracy, and then there is truth. The latter is rarely reached satisfactorally.
Human nature is such a complex question, with all its many layers of behavior, belief, conditioning, intellect, etc., that it may indeed be impossible to ever reach an absolute certainty about what it is (at least, this may be so at our present level of consciousness). But I do not feel that means we should not pursue the question.
For me, the benefit of seriously considering what human nature is includes the fact that it forces me to consider what my own nature is, given that I am human too. But its almost like asking a drop of water to consider the nature of the ocean: the deeper it immerses itself into the ocean, the harder it becomes to see itself as an observer of the ocean, and how else might one consider what human nature is than by observing human nature in its native habitat, namely oneself?
I'm not sure that was a good analogy. It is 5am and I am on my way to deliver papers, so I've got to scoot right now. But I was captivated by your post, and I want to give it more consideration when I have time to contemplate without interruption (ah, there lies the rub!) [g] Thanks for posting this. It is both insightful and thought provoking.
Ciao,
Mariah
In epistemological terminology, for one to have knowledge is to have a justified, true belief. While there are exceptions to this (I'm looking at you, Goettier), I have come to understand it that to have knowledge is to hold a belief that corresponds with reality.
The objection that you levy seems rather more like common belief (such as the world once "being" flat--such is not nor has ever been a truth, but was a prevailing belief).
As you also mention, truth is difficult to find in the field of journalism, but I think you will find much less skepticism (about truth) in the field of science. Surely the investigations of journalist are much less concrete than scientists, but what I was suggesting is that we seek out similar truths in the denominations less likely to have concrete answers, at least until we can be reasonably sure there is no set answer.
Which the remainder of your post seems to agree with. I think you and I are relatively on the same page.
Now we just need to figure out the whole human nature thing.
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