A Theory about Theories of Knowledge
I have a theory about the various people who use the word 'know'. Most of them don't know how tenuous the idea of 'know' is. In various cultures, at various times, the idea of knowledge has been one of arriving at a destination, becoming aware of a path, finding out where the boundaries are, differentiating one thing from another, and so on.
In most cases, there are two main processes. The first one is that of covering ground or uncovering the hidden. You traverse a space (whether real, literal, abstract, metaphorical, procedural or whatever). If it has not been traversed before in the way you have traversed it, something different has entered the world (kosmos, universe).
The problem then is getting others to traverse the space in the same way. If you can, then it is replicable, it is reliable, people are more inclined to accept this traversal as new knowledge. In some disciplines, this is not easy, or may be completely impossible.
In mathematics, if I can get you to accept my axioms (statements about the universe without proof), then the subsequent paths are in theory all replicable. Anybody can in theory follow mathematical reasoning; it is completely transparent within the limits of understanding the processes involved in traversal, and in the universality of the symbols used to communicate such processes.
In the arts, dependent as they are on the emotional response to sensory perception, the paths of traversal are by definition impossible to replicate. Everybody has senses that are slightly different.
In vision, this ranges from the difference between blindness and sight to the difference between the inability to see a particular shade of colour and being able to see it. Some women have a fourth colour pigment that gives them the ability to see more colours than the rest of us; some men lack a pigment and see fewer colours. Analogous phenomena exist for hearing, touch, taste, balance, smell and all the other senses that we have.
It is all about paths, in the end. Whether there are rules for the paths, we do not know. But when someone says something that seems to make sense, sometimes we are moved to say, "Ah, that makes sense!" or "This is indeed justified!" ("这是有道理!")
It means that a reasonable path has been found, one that we think can be traversed as someone else has already done.
In most cases, there are two main processes. The first one is that of covering ground or uncovering the hidden. You traverse a space (whether real, literal, abstract, metaphorical, procedural or whatever). If it has not been traversed before in the way you have traversed it, something different has entered the world (kosmos, universe).
The problem then is getting others to traverse the space in the same way. If you can, then it is replicable, it is reliable, people are more inclined to accept this traversal as new knowledge. In some disciplines, this is not easy, or may be completely impossible.
In mathematics, if I can get you to accept my axioms (statements about the universe without proof), then the subsequent paths are in theory all replicable. Anybody can in theory follow mathematical reasoning; it is completely transparent within the limits of understanding the processes involved in traversal, and in the universality of the symbols used to communicate such processes.
In the arts, dependent as they are on the emotional response to sensory perception, the paths of traversal are by definition impossible to replicate. Everybody has senses that are slightly different.
In vision, this ranges from the difference between blindness and sight to the difference between the inability to see a particular shade of colour and being able to see it. Some women have a fourth colour pigment that gives them the ability to see more colours than the rest of us; some men lack a pigment and see fewer colours. Analogous phenomena exist for hearing, touch, taste, balance, smell and all the other senses that we have.
It is all about paths, in the end. Whether there are rules for the paths, we do not know. But when someone says something that seems to make sense, sometimes we are moved to say, "Ah, that makes sense!" or "This is indeed justified!" ("这是有道理!")
It means that a reasonable path has been found, one that we think can be traversed as someone else has already done.
Labels: Epistemology
etched with acid at 1:41:00 pm
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