Epistemological Dilemma

[fccool]

Here's a question that I hope will humble you as much at it does myself. The reasoning behind it goes along these lines:

1) Human beings are born with blank slates and have to learn most of the things second hand

2) Things of the past are difficult to verify factually

So, the question is... how can we know that what we believe IS the truth if we can not factually verify it and ending up relying on secondary sources?

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

huh. Tabula rasa. Psychology 101.

If you cannot factually verify something, then you are taking something on faith in the person who wrote or tells you it.

[Bravus]

There are all sorts of arguments about whether we really are 'blank slates', and Jung has some very interesting ideas about shared knowledge and a 'collective unconscious', but let's let that slide for the moment.

Our knowledge of the past, other than our knowledge of our own past (and to some extent even that, as un-now reprocesses and attempts to understand things experienced by us-then), is all second-hand. Ideally it comes from multiple sources that tend to corroborate one another (ideally without their own axes to grind, but that's an impossible ideal).

Apart from that, yeah, history is written by the winners, and most conflicts and events would look different if seen from a different perspective.

As with any form of knowledge (and things like scientific knowledge right now are similar in that we tend to have to trust specialists on things rather than do the experiments ourselves), my argument is that our response should *not* be therefore to throw up our hands and say 'we can know nothing about the past'. It should be rather to carefully, critically, thoughtfully assess and judge the evidence we do have, including looking at what particular axes those who wrote it had to grind, and trying to put together our best possible understanding.

[fccool]

I guess the reason that I'm pointing this out is that we tend to arrogantly blabber about the "truth that we have" yet we really speak about it in context of "knowledge" and "information" rather than truth.

I understand the concept of "knowing by faith" and accepting some things as "the truth" by faith. Because otherwise it's very hard to live, if you can't trust people that the continent of Australia is really there... unless you visit it first-hand .

But this fact should make us humble, instead of arrogant. We've had a guy in church doing a presentation and the church crowd laughed at him for saying that the Earth is millions of years old. I could not help feeling embarrassed.

Both the audience and the presenter have a "faith belief", yet one laughs at the other because of the position taken with no respect for such choice.

I understand that this may smell of "post-modernism" a bit. I.E. the idea that all truth is relative, but I don't think that this is the essence post-modern mentality.

The truth obviously can't be relative... maybe to a degree, because all of us have our own interpretation of "words in our mind". Other than that there are natural constants that we call "truth". What's relative is in fact how we get to know, theorize, understand and believe it.

In this case it's not even a "tabula rasa" concept, but rather our natural inability to verify certain presently-related information... during our life-time. If we can't do so in the present, then we can be certain that what we believe of the past is based on faith.

With that said, shouldn't we adapt the spirit of humility, while presenting people the best evidence that we have for our belief?

I know this is the original "thoughts forum", but I can't help but to think how we come across to the people who can and do think analytically when we knock at their door?

http://techref.massmind.org/techref/other/hank.htm

[abelisle]

Wonderful point in your last two paragraphs! I agree wholeheartedly. When I speak to fellow academics and people who are professionals in their careers (think Harvard, Columbia, Stanford degrees et al) I find myself saying things like "I''m not sure." "I can't explain this." "I believe it on faith." "This is my personal experience"

And you know what? My friends respect me more for being intellectually honest and I have been able to have continuing theological discussions.

BTW, here's a secret way of opening up theological inquiries. Go with them to art museums and watch how much explaining you end up doing about the Biblical stories behind much of classical art.

Alex (and I think a separate discussion of archetypal symbolism/consciousness is waiting in the wings

[Gail]

TU

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

Alex, you certainly like Karl Jung, don't you?!! :)

[abelisle]

Actually I don't like the man but rather his ideas. If you read any of his biographical info, he had all sorts of issues and his personal belief system was skewed.

But I'm fascinated by his writings on archetypal symbolism and I see it played out in much of modern poetry, literature and art. Northrop Frye's The Educated Imagination opened up a whole new school of literary criticism.

But since this forum encourages personal and independent thought, I simply ask "Why do we as humans dream the same kinds of dreams?" "Why and how does Nature reveal the platonic ideals of a possible creator?" "Why does epistemological inquiry make more sense when revealed through symbols than through words?" "What are the implications of epistemological analysis on soteriological issues?"

Jung opened the door for me and I gladly pushed it open and stepped inside

Alex