A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing*

Back in college, I took a great class called Fantasy and Philosophy. The first half of the course, we sped through the Elliatics --early Greek thinkers, discussing all is numbers, all is atoms, all is air or fire, and then Aristotle and Plato, all is understood dimly, we grasp at the shadows thinking them the real. Then, the professor took us through Berkley --all is perception, Kant, all can be divided into that which we can know only through experience (aposterori), and that which can be understood absent experience (apriori), and finally, more modern methods of understanding the universe --via science, and one ancient one, animism --where all things are infused with spirit.

Then, the teacher asked a question. What world would you WANT to live in, if one of these, but none of the others, must be true. 97% of the class voted for scientific materialism. Some even argued that it was true. The remaining 3% voted for animism. Like the other two who voted with me, I figured, a world without feeling or meaning was harder to bargain with than rocks and trees that might be moved by music or a good story.

So today, when the car didn't seem to want to go, I gave it a little pat and lo, it started. My little son has a plant that his father gave him from Florida. He watches it grow on the hour. We get regular reports that it has gotten bigger. My older son received a palm tree plant too. I went into his room to vacuum. He does not give us hourly reports. You know what; his brother's plant is decidedly larger, leafier and greener.

Then, our youngest daughter lost one of her shoes. Hunting all around the house, I finally demanded of the other shoe, “Where is it?" as I fumed and tossed it in irritation. The shoe bounced under the couch. As I went to retrieve it, feeling foolish, of course, there were the two shoes underneath.

Now, as I ponder what all these inexplicable situations mean, I'm eyeing my house and furniture with a tad more wariness and respect. Maybe it's a case of perception being being, but just to cover my aposterori, I've asked my purse to please stop wandering when I need to get out the door!

*Originally run on 3/15/09

Yes, I'm Still Mad, and I know it.

Back in 1993, I took a course on Epistemology; that is the study of knowing ways of knowing. There was a woman’s way of knowing, an African-American way of knowing, and emerging gay and lesbian ways of filtering the world that were based on collective norms gathered from within the designated strata or population being scrutinized.

The problem with epistemology is two-fold.

1) If one is not a member of the designated group’s way of knowing, one is presumed either to not be aware of how things might be filtered, or unable to comprehend fully what they might mean. Thus, truth is only discreetly revealed to those in the specific filtered class of people, and it is not necessarily able to be transferred.

2) The line which creates the filter by which one knows something –male/female, gay/straight, is to this middle aged Catholic educated Texas female mother of nine’s mind, arbitrarily set by those who wish to draw the lines, but maybe I’m just limited that way.

The question, how does defining one’s reality by one’s collective experience and as unknowable to someone not of that experience, not slip into defining reality only by one’s own individualized experience? How does epistemology not simply collapse into solipsism?

The professor thought I was trying to be cute with the question.

But either truth is knowable or it is not Truth. If it is not Truth, it is merely perception. If reality is merely perception, then the demarcations by which one filters one’s perceptions are almost without limit, such that no one can claim to know what another experiences or comprehends.

Knowledge is not transferable because no one can be certain of what knowledge is, or what should be conveyed, or how much of it is comprehended by the recipient.
Language eventually breaks down in this radically individualized filtering of the world. “You wouldn’t understand,” becomes the natural barrier and explanation for any disagreements.

One’s gender, religion, economics, orientation, I.Q, geographic location, all can be applied to create an impasse from one human being to another as a means of negating any validity in opposing viewpoints. “You’re from the south so you wouldn’t understand.” The accusation of “Lack of comprehension” connotes to the other side, an innate unworthiness to be part of the discussion. The accusation renders any criticism by the side not able to sport a more sympathetic demographic epistemology, impotent by sheer lack of specialized status. Everyone’s argument for their point of view has been reduced to NIMBY status, save the one with the most momentum behind it. (Think loudest and most organized voice).

To get an “A” in the class, one had to come to embrace the concept of epistemologies as legitimate representations of whole groups of people. One had to also identify one’s own misconceptions, biases and intellectual scaffolding that impeded comprehension of other epistemological templates. It also helped to have a thesaurus handy.

“We see but through a glass darkly, but then, when the perfect comes, we shall see face to face.” I think sums ups all epistemologies fairly accurately, but then I simplistically believe that we are understandable and knowable to each other. I’ve since discovered St. Augustine and love his take on things in City of God, wherein he talks of the difference being not what we suffer, but the way in which we suffer.

So we come to today. I have to say, I’m starting to comprehend something of how an epistemology works to convey a sense of import and validity of feeling, without discerning or declaring truth. I must admit freely, I do not understand how it is that President Jenkins can authentically reconcile his Catholic faith and the Catholic identity of the University, with honoring President Obama, (despite his explanations), I only know it is spiritually wrong to honor a man who supports the antithesis of Mary’s Yes in all forms. I know it is not Catholic to honor a person whose policies deny the fundamental humanity of some people based on their level of physical development, and who supports the willful destruction of some people at the hands of others, in the name of research.

I only know this platform weakens the Catholic voice of the faithful to say clearly, Embryonic Stem Cell Research is deliberative destruction of nascent human life for the satisfaction of scientific curiosity. It is wrong. I don’t care if it turns lead into gold and brews the elixir of life, the cost is too high. Catholicism is not about “my way of knowing,” it’s about following HIS WAY, and knowing that is the way, the Truth and the Life.

I also do not understand declaring via a letter to the alumni, that he is not honoring President Obama’s policies by honoring the man, but merely the office and thus the man in the office. If President Fr. Jenkins were to disinvite the man holding the office as a matter of honoring Catholic faith over political policy, perhaps then Fr. Jenkins could say to the media that he wasn’t dishonoring the man holding the office, merely the policies held in firm conviction by the man in office. But I don’t think that would sell with the media any better than the current spin is selling with me.

But then, epistemologically speaking, what do I know?

College Post Modernist Thinking Students declare Disagreement only the result of Ignorance on the part of Others

It happened at the University the other day, when a group of very hip modernists who understood that no truth is knowable but were smart enough to declare anyone who pointed out that such a statement could be perceived as a statement of a universal truth were just being clever, decided that debate itself indicates ignorance, misunderstanding and stupidity on the part of anyone who advocates any “traditional” position about knowledge. (Truth being identifiable, knowable, and even transferable via such an unwieldy tool as language).

When asked if they weren’t simply adopting a Berkley stance, being is perception, they scoffed at such a simplistic understanding of the universe. “No, what we understand is that all information is biased and therefore innately untrustworthy as accurate or even valid. No actual reality can be verified as actual, as 100 people seeing the same accident will each see the accident differently and no one person saw the whole accident.”

Additionally, another young slim woman sipping Starbucks offered, “The consensus of a large group of people in one proximity or even across a nation or over time, is not a validation of a reality, only the result of collective norms, societal pressures and the clumsiness of our own English Language to provide sufficient levels of nuance to everyday observations.”

“But,” offered one hapless professor, attempting to provide a touch of guidance based on his own study, something the students considered inadequate to substantiate his authority on things over theirs, regardless of the extent of his research, “If I hold up an apple, you know it is an apple, and 100 or 1000 people looking at it would know that it is an apple.”

“Hah!” up jumped one of the more gothic looking youths with multiple piercings, his appearance and quick action made the professor startle, something which gave the clever young bohemians present a great bit of glee, “But an alien arriving here would not know it is an apple unless you told them, and a Frenchman would not call it an apple, but a pomme, and someone who never before seen an apple would not know what that object in your hand was. Further, a blind man would not know appleness from your hand holding it, and a color blind man would not know the red quality of that apple, and therefore see an apple as meaning something different than you. You cannot claim the apple would be known to all, because it would not be perceived by all or comprehended by all. We believe all perception is all we can know and that all perception is deceptive in nature.”

“But then you believe nothing is knowable.”
“Yes.”

“How do you know nothing is knowable?”
“We can’t know, that would be proving it and that would go against our central thesis.”

“So you can’t even know if anything is knowable? Why learn anything then?”


“Exactly!” the slim girl smiled. The other students nodded their heads in demur affirmation of the professor's sudden enlightenment.

And the professor smiled as his goth student teacher praised how he had finally come to comprehend the ignorance of his own ignorance, the prejudice that prevented him from understanding how to deconstruct everything into meaninglessness. “Now you’re getting it man. Have a Starbucks.” and handed him a Venti Mocha Latte.



For thinking that is even more post modern than the most post modern deconstructionist theories of deconstruction, and humor that allows us to cope with such nonsense, try http://www.humor-blogs.com/!