I Know What I Know — I Think March 23, 2007
Posted by ocmpoma in : other , trackbackA recent “proof of god” post in the forums makes the following two assertions about knowledge:
“A fundamental principle about knowledge is that it is always the product of the mind of a rational being. Another fundamental priciple is a mind can only receive knowledge from another mind.”
Which I agree with generally, with an alteration to the plural and some quibbling over details:
A fundamental principle about knowledge is that it is always the product of the minds of rational beings. Another fundamental principle is a mind can only receive knowledge from other minds.
Now, you might be asking yourself, “What the fuck is he on about?” A reasonable question, indeed.
Knowledge is reached, in my view, by consensus. In other words, a person doesn’t know anything, people do. Or, as I put it to myself some years ago: Truth is personal, knowledge is social.
Now, don’t get me wrong: this isn’t some post-modernist deconstruction of knowledge, and I’m not saying that we create reality or something. Reality is out there, and there are indeed facts — facts which are quite cold and hard.
But we don’t know about those facts without having a community, at least two rational minds, which can discuss them. Knowledge changes as we become aware of new information, and as new ways of looking at old facts and new facts themselves are discovered.
A lone mind (with senses) can certainly perceive the world. It can certainly think about the world. But it doesn’t know anything without at least one other mind to compare notes with, so to speak. It is this comparison and consensus-building which allows us (emphasis on the plural aspect) to build knowledge from the facts of which we are aware.
Take an example of one hundred people and a free-standing wall on a lawn. Imagine that they are discussing the colors of the wall, sky, and lawn. They all agree the lawn is green. They all agree the sky is blue. One of them says the wall is blue. The rest say it’s red. Odds are, the lone person is incorrect. Probably has some sort of mental issue, since agreement exists as to the color of the lawn and the sky.
But what if thirty say it’s blue, and seventy red? How about forty / sixty? Fifty / fifty? The wall exists; it reflects some wavelength of light in the visible spectrum. The wavelength can be measured, its effect on the nervous system of our people can also be examined. But the knowledge of what color the wall is — that is arrived at by a consensus, just as a knowledge of what the wavelength is, and even the knowledge that the wall is there.
Now, the first objection is that it’s ridiculous that a person in isolation cannot know anything. But that’s what I’m saying. A person in complete isolation — mind you, that means having never had any contact or communication at all, whether via speech, vision, language, writing, whatever, with another person or rational mind — cannot [i]know[/i] anything. Such a person can perceive, can certainly think, can conclude, can even debate with itself. But the person cannot test those thoughts, conclusions, or judge those internal debates. They might all be incorrect. A mind in complete isolation exists without the only means to verify its perceptions of reality — independent tests. Without a group that can build consensus, the individual does not know.
Of course, the consensus is not automatically correct. What color is the wall in the example above? It’s entirely possible that the lone person is correct. If the wavelength reflected corresponded to that of the sky, it could be demonstrated. But, without some group of people to see that correspondence, the fact is not known, because it is not testable.
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I’ve got to disagree with you OCM.
Take the coffee cup example I used in my post. Do I really need another mind to confer with to know it’s sitting on my coffee table? If I do, then we’ve reached the absurd point where I can never know anything on my own, and I should start waking my roommate in the morning in order to know if my toast is done.
But I do understand what you’re saying in your post. Knowledge in the strict epistemological sense does have some flaws, and can lead to certain paradoxes. But what I think you working towards is a theory of justification, which is one of the conditions of knowledge. Take the coffee cup again. I, in the epistemological sense, know that it is yellow. How do I know this? Well, I believe it to be yellow, and this belief is justified by the general agreement on what constitutes the color “yellow”. So yes, in a sense, there needs to be some sort of community agreement prior to knowledge (in some cases), but this community agreement is not needed for every instance I “know” I’m perceiving the color “yellow”.
Also, what of internal states? For example, I “know” that I’m hungry right now. How would I even begin to confer with another mind on my own internal states? If the ability to build a consensus is required for knowledge, and it is impossible to build a consensus on my own internal states, the only conclusion is it is impossible to “know my own mind”. If that’s the case, how could a group of individuals who can’t even know themselves come to consensus on knowledge outside of themselves?
Looking at the coffee cup example, at least from your post on the forums, the first thing that leapt out at me was that, in your list of requirements, you stated that something must “be true” in order to be known.
What about things people know that aren’t actually correct?
Knowledge changes over time, and does not always accurately reflect reality. Looking at the wall on the lawn, if it’s a 50-50 split, how do we determine what color it is? How can we claim that 50 people know what color, and the others do not?
It’s hard for us to imagine a person in total isolation — someone who has never interacted with another mind. I think that such a person would have nothing like the concepts of knowledge, or even of its own internal states, as we do.
So, I’m still of the position that one cannot actually know anything on one’s own — even internal states. Humans learn over time what their internal states are, and some languages, for example, don’t have words for certain internal states, concepts, and emotions — and even colors. Do we need a meeting for every decision or thought? No, but all of our knowledge is based on this interaction.
So, looking again at the yellow cup — you say it’s yellow, your roomate says it’s black, both of you agree that the book next to it is yellow with black poka-dots. What color is the cup? What if you asked a third person, and they said it was yellow? What if they said it was grue? I think that, in order to move from a belief, which is personal and emotional, to actual knowledge, which is (to me) social and rational, even with internal states, communication between minds is required.
There’s lots more to this, tied up in language and psychology and development, and I freely admit that I’m far from an expert in the field. But, grounded as I am in Western thought, and considering one of the bases of the scientific method, the closest we can come to accurately mapping reality, is testability, I’m (as of now) standing by this position.
First, this is Rhino. It says I’m logged in as Rhino, but it never displays. Now to business…
OCM said: “So, I’m still of the position that one cannot actually know anything on one’s own — even internal states.”
What about the Cogito? The whole point of the Cogito is one can have certainty of knowledge of ones own existence. All the rest of existence could be a delusion, yet you could remain grounded in the knowledge of your own existence. This seems to defeat you claim that knowledge requires consensus.
First off, I’m sorry about the comment bug… for some reason, if one is logged in, it puts you down as Anon. There’s nothing I can do about it, except alter the author after the fact.
More importantly, regarding the Cogito… I’ll have to give it some though, since my initial response is basically semantics.
Well, having mulled it over… I can’t really rebut without going into a semantic argument. I’ve though of knowledge as a social construct for over a decade now, so it’s admittedly difficult to alter that. I tend to think of self-awareness as not really “counting” as knowledge — perhaps philosophy has a term used (besides ‘justification’) for what I’m referring to as knowledge?
What you’re talking about almost sounds like Reliabilism, which is a theory of justification (sort of but not, see below). Here’s a link to a general-look at epistemology from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/
The link also goes into reliabilism a bit, you might find it interesting.
Reliabilism is a counter-theory to justification, where knowledge does not need justification, but reliable belief-forming processes, which is what I think you’re talking about. No need to change your thinking on the matter, you’re just endorsing a theory I’m not overly familiar with (I only took enough epist. to get my degree; metaphysics was my bread and butter). Just think of yourself as ahead of your time man. :)