What do we know--and when did we know it?
When someone tries to prove something to me and I don't agree I always ask "Were you there? Was I there?" If we were not there to experience the facts I suppose it is simply an assumption.
You could take that skepticism a bit further along couldn't you? Will the sun come up tomorrow? If you say yes and your criteria for knowing something is that you are there and experience it yourself, then how could you say that it will? You aren't there in the future right now to be able to make that statement are you? (And if you say that the past is the key and that you were there for past incidences of the sun coming up, how is it that past incidences of a thing happening necessarily means that the thing will happen again? If a chicken is fed every day at a poultry farm, wouldn't his expectation be that the very next day he will be fed again? That day just might be the dressing out the meat day. This is the induction problem that Hume identified. And, by the way, how many times have you actually seen the sun come up?) If I were to ask you if the sun will come up tomorrow in the Ukraine, could you tell me it will based on your experience? Or will you even be able to say that I am in Ukraine or that there is even a Ukraine at all?
This is the problem not only for history but also for just about every piece of knowledge that we say we know. Was the atom split? Do you really know? Have you ever seen one split? How could you tell if an atom is split even if you were there to experience it? And if you see the mushroom cloud from an atomic explosion, an explosion, by the way, which not many have seen in person, can you be sure that it is because of the splitting of the atom? Aren't you taking people's word for that? The same thing can be said about: anatomy (how many have ever seen a human heart in person--pictures don't count because they can be falsified); geography (how do you know that there is such a thing as a France or a Russia, even if you are there on the ground?); the birth of babies you haven't seen yourself; illness ("That cold is caused by a virus" says the doctor. How do you know? Have you ever seen a virus? Does a microscope count? Is it a direct experience? Isn't there an assumption that the microscope actually lets you see microscopically small things? Do you know that is true from your experience? And even if you have seen a virus how do you know that the cold is caused by that virus or a virus?); political history (how do you know that George Washington defeated the British, that there was a Revolutionary War in the first place, or that there was even a "British" or a George Washington? His home is there with his pictures in it but how do you know that it was really his home? or how do you know there was a Constitutional Convention or that there was even a signing of the Declaration of Independence at all? If we have a document does that prove that it was in fact signed as is purported to have happened?); psychology ("The brain is the seat of the mind." Have you ever seen a brain, in person that is?--pictures can be falsified and if you see a brain without having seen it in relation to a person, that is, having been exposed from a cutting into the skull, how do you know that it in fact comes from the skull?); love (how do you know that your husband or wife loves you? You can't get into their minds can you to know?); or any other thing that we do not know from firsthand experience, which is about everything we know.
The point is that we have to rely on others and, to some extent, on the honesty of others for the very knowledge that we have. If we had to rely on firsthand experience for it, that knowledge would be severely limited.
All of the information that you have learned in school, for example, has been information that you yourselves have not verified or experienced firsthand. All of it. (If you say, "the same thing happened to me at work that I learned about in class" is that the same thing as being able to generalize about it? The knowledge you have learned is generalized and generalizable to most other situations. If you weren't there for these other situations then you can't say firsthand.)
If that sounds a lot like a sort of faith, guess what? It is impossible to be an absolute skeptic and learn. You must have faith in someone's abilities or someone's knowledge or his truthfulness to start learning in the first place. Every discipline, including science, requires the learner to suspend skepticism and to accept things because "they just are" for the beginner to begin learning. In my critical thinking class, I take the position that we are a little too believing in our school experience, believing too much in the absolute nature of our knowledge and our discipline and our instructors, for our own good. This is because knowledge tends to change quite a bit even in the sciences. But the fact is that it is believing nonetheless.
You could take that skepticism a bit further along couldn't you? Will the sun come up tomorrow? If you say yes and your criteria for knowing something is that you are there and experience it yourself, then how could you say that it will? You aren't there in the future right now to be able to make that statement are you? (And if you say that the past is the key and that you were there for past incidences of the sun coming up, how is it that past incidences of a thing happening necessarily means that the thing will happen again? If a chicken is fed every day at a poultry farm, wouldn't his expectation be that the very next day he will be fed again? That day just might be the dressing out the meat day. This is the induction problem that Hume identified. And, by the way, how many times have you actually seen the sun come up?) If I were to ask you if the sun will come up tomorrow in the Ukraine, could you tell me it will based on your experience? Or will you even be able to say that I am in Ukraine or that there is even a Ukraine at all?
This is the problem not only for history but also for just about every piece of knowledge that we say we know. Was the atom split? Do you really know? Have you ever seen one split? How could you tell if an atom is split even if you were there to experience it? And if you see the mushroom cloud from an atomic explosion, an explosion, by the way, which not many have seen in person, can you be sure that it is because of the splitting of the atom? Aren't you taking people's word for that? The same thing can be said about: anatomy (how many have ever seen a human heart in person--pictures don't count because they can be falsified); geography (how do you know that there is such a thing as a France or a Russia, even if you are there on the ground?); the birth of babies you haven't seen yourself; illness ("That cold is caused by a virus" says the doctor. How do you know? Have you ever seen a virus? Does a microscope count? Is it a direct experience? Isn't there an assumption that the microscope actually lets you see microscopically small things? Do you know that is true from your experience? And even if you have seen a virus how do you know that the cold is caused by that virus or a virus?); political history (how do you know that George Washington defeated the British, that there was a Revolutionary War in the first place, or that there was even a "British" or a George Washington? His home is there with his pictures in it but how do you know that it was really his home? or how do you know there was a Constitutional Convention or that there was even a signing of the Declaration of Independence at all? If we have a document does that prove that it was in fact signed as is purported to have happened?); psychology ("The brain is the seat of the mind." Have you ever seen a brain, in person that is?--pictures can be falsified and if you see a brain without having seen it in relation to a person, that is, having been exposed from a cutting into the skull, how do you know that it in fact comes from the skull?); love (how do you know that your husband or wife loves you? You can't get into their minds can you to know?); or any other thing that we do not know from firsthand experience, which is about everything we know.
The point is that we have to rely on others and, to some extent, on the honesty of others for the very knowledge that we have. If we had to rely on firsthand experience for it, that knowledge would be severely limited.
All of the information that you have learned in school, for example, has been information that you yourselves have not verified or experienced firsthand. All of it. (If you say, "the same thing happened to me at work that I learned about in class" is that the same thing as being able to generalize about it? The knowledge you have learned is generalized and generalizable to most other situations. If you weren't there for these other situations then you can't say firsthand.)
If that sounds a lot like a sort of faith, guess what? It is impossible to be an absolute skeptic and learn. You must have faith in someone's abilities or someone's knowledge or his truthfulness to start learning in the first place. Every discipline, including science, requires the learner to suspend skepticism and to accept things because "they just are" for the beginner to begin learning. In my critical thinking class, I take the position that we are a little too believing in our school experience, believing too much in the absolute nature of our knowledge and our discipline and our instructors, for our own good. This is because knowledge tends to change quite a bit even in the sciences. But the fact is that it is believing nonetheless.
posted by Scott W. Clark at 10:25 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home