Too late to be posting... WARNING: Incoherence may be a consequence

Constellation Building: Spirituality Through Creative Narratives

Working definition of spirituality:

Spirituality is a way of life that affects and includes every moment of existence. It is at once a contemplative attitude, a disposition to a life of depth, and the search for ultimate meaning, direction, and belonging. The spiritual person is committed to growth as an essential ongoing life goal. To be spiritual requires us to stand on our own two feet while being nurtured and supported by our tradition, if we are fortunate enough to have one (Teasdale, 1999, 17-18).

The Armstrong definition that we reviewed last week made me a little uncomfortable as it seemed to diminish the validity of religious experience. The last thing I want to do to anyone is to diminish (or even to appear to attempt this) the faith that they have in their beliefs. What I do think is important in this area of research is creating a community on university campuses that offers an opportunity to share values across cultural, religious, and identity boundaries that will afford individuals the opportunity to broaden their experience in these areas. The aim of offering these types of experience to students is to pose an opportunity for a filling in of the blank line of spirituality that has existed in higher level institutions for quite some time. As JMc stated last week, more or less, there is a dichotomy that exists between intellectualism and spiritualism in the collegiate and greater academic world. Bridging that gap, while most certainly is questionable project, is certainly something that must be explored with due process in order to get an understanding of what higher education is for or, at least, could be for. If one of the goals of higher education is to develop well rounded individuals capable of fulfilling of perceived and desired potentials (and this could very well include more than just those perceived and desired potentials of the students), and I think it is, then it is an imperative that the university offer experiences to broaden students exposure to cultural, religious, and identity groups.

One of the problems that I’ve run into that led me to this conclusion is that colleges feel as though they are against indoctrination of any kind. Anything that has the slightest connotation of a spiritualist bent (outside of philosophy and religion departments, generally) is regarded as taboo. However, in that move colleges are indoctrinating people into an ideal of non-spirituality if not anti-spirituality. “A great Irony is that while spiritual indoctrination, in particular, has been banned from our classroom, indoctrination and imposition continue unimpeded. Students aren’t indoctrinated into religious liturgy but instead into dualism, scientism, and most especially consumerism. We have been indoctrinated into a severely limited, materialistically biased world view” (Glazer, 1999 – Chickering, Dalton, Stamm, 9-10). I feel as though this irony is damning our generation and those that follow to a void that will be addressed by organizations and groups looking to recruit to accomplish their own ends rather than those of the common good. I don’t know whether that is an exaggeration of the problem or not, at this point. However, the potential for such a calamity appears to be there. I’ll ultimately need to find some sort of statistical data to bare this point out. Regardless, not addressing this problem falls beyond the consequences themselves and into the realm of responsibility. We simply must find a way to offer a complete experience to students on university campuses. If you consider everything else that campuses offer, it becomes rather clear that a student could have a moderately meaningful life without leaving the campus for four years (cut me some slack here, for the moment) with the exception of the spiritual experience.

On a different note, I’m still committed to this idea of storytelling as a very important piece of spirituality. I haven’t found any real texts that speak to this subject so I’m going to end up having to pull together disparate texts in order to find a cohesive system here.

A major problem that I’m working on now (internally, at least) is that this idea of storytelling as spirituality is not as operationally conceivable as I originally thought. There are two very important people involved in the process of storytelling: the speaker and the listener. My original focus was on the listener as authenticating the validity of stories with which the listener can connect to in some foundational way. But that hermeneutic is a shallow one that I think we all maintain already. Further, the problem here is that the listener has a foundation that already exists in which they glean from the experience of the story only that which they already subscribe to. I think that finding a way to expound upon the meaning of a foundation in one’s life is crucial. However, if that’s the only goal, there seems to be a lack of understanding in the sense of expanding one’s horizons, of understanding what was not once understood. To me, at least, the original hermeneutic doesn’t really focus on the appreciation of the right for everyone’s story to be validated and understood (in as far as they can be). I think that I need to shift focus from this foundational view to a more complex and integrating hermeneutic. This new hermeneutic means that we can learn from all of our encounters with the other through an appreciation of vantages that we may not have any experience in. In order to do this there must be a cultivation of empathy and desire to connect with all of those stories that not only illustrate shared foundations in some real way, but also those stories that lay outside the domain of our foundational beliefs. If anything, it is a project to develop within each person an appreciation (or possibly a desire to appreciate the idea) that all the speakers at the table of the conversation of life have input into that conversation that shouldn’t be ignored.

In closing, I have to admit something that may damn this project… or may make it some of the best work I’ve ever done. I’ve always maintained this idea that some of those that the world would consider to be the dredges of society because of their station in life are ignored simply because they were born into the wrong place or the wrong class, race, gender, sex, etc. Further, I’ve made it one of my missions in life to pay attention to people who otherwise might be overlooked as a testament to this idea and to be able to point out that I was right. If there was ever an example of reasoning after the fact, this is a good one to use. However, I still feel very strongly about this idea, especially in relation to spirituality. I think a good example of this is illustrated in the opening scene of O’ Brother, Where Art Thou? After a group of inmates escape the chain gang they end up hitching a ride on a handcar that is being powered by a blind, black man. This iconic figure, who is not only diminished in communal value because he is blind but further because he is black, prophesies to the escapees about their upcoming trials. While most would point out that this character, in a sense, is appropriated by the outlaw white males (which could be extended to the Western white male [or patriarchal] class in general) who bear the fruits of his labor, I tend to see this character as an exemplification of what I’m talking about here. He offers some real insight into the situation of these escapees that they could not have perceived themselves. His particular situation as the subjugated (or, more realistically, the marginalized) offers a real world consequential interpretation of the subjugation that all humans have to the experiences that they endure. In his words, although they are portrayed as prophecy, he endeavors to give a richer value to the meaning of life itself. He exposes the frailty of what it means to be human, no matter what our station in life is. He, being the “lowliest” of people on the planet, has a special understanding of that which no one else could comprehend unless they were to experience his life as their own. But his words, nonetheless, can have some kind of essential meaning, if we are willing to stop and listen to him and take him seriously. We can appreciate his ability to pierce the veil that exists between the stories that we tell ourselves and the real world.

I certainly hope I haven’t waxed too much here. I offer my deepest inclinations to pursue this project only to exhibit why it interests me as much as it does. I may be ending up here with an idealist kind of approach, but can’t that be an instrumentalist (pragmatist) approach, too? Ultimately, if it serves the end of perceiving all others as having some fundamental role in the process of communal life, I think it’s worthwhile. Further, if it gives meaning to others who might have not found any before this, I think it serves the same purpose.

Schedule for Conversational Leads

I'm going to assume an hour of facilitation from each leader to make things easier. If we end up with spare time, we can all, then, contribute what we are working on or discuss what we think is important to the project we are working on.

As we've already had leaders (myself, Carmine, and Blake), I'll start with those left, in order from the volunteer list as discussed today, and build out the calendar from this point on.

Apr. 1
Ernie
Jacob

Apr. 7
Dustin

Apr. 8
John
Carmine

Apr. 14
Blake

Apr. 15
Ernie
Jacob

Apr. 21
Dustin

Apr. 22
John
Carmine

Apr. 28
Blake

Apr. 29
Ernie
Jacob

I'm not going to schedule out any further than this because I think we'll all be in a place to have at least written our individual papers and looking at how we can conjoin all of our work, hopefully. At this point, I would think that we are working on our group project with some earnest; at least looking to get everything into one package that is AWESOME! or whatever.

Please look over the schedule and let me know if there's any problems with the dates assigned to you (check for errors in my order, too, please).

Thanks all!

Crisis and Revision

Hey all,

I've done a substantial amount of reading over break regarding my topic for our class and come to the conclusion that I've failed to find anything interesting (to me) in the area that I had hoped would be such. I did some soul searching and consulted with JMc this morning on my thoughts and have found a new topic. Since I'm in this new situation, I'll throw in my hat to lead the discussion tomorrow so that we can discuss my new ideas and I can get an idea of how I will proceed. Further, the question of how this fits into our group project is essential as well.

The gist of the questions: How does spirituality fit into education? To what degree should an educational institution promote spirituality and in what ways should it do so?

Obviously, these probably aren't the final question I'll be asking... That never seems to be the case. However, I feel this is a good starting point to promote discussion for tomorrow.

So, if there's no objection, come to our meeting with this post in mind.

“Modern Self and Curriculum”

          John Quicke, of the University of Sheffield (England), discusses the implications of modernity on the self and the resultant impact that this should have on curriculum reform in “Self, Modernity, and a Direction For Curriculum Reform” (1996). To begin with, the self is examined in light of modernity. And the very first sentence of the article highlights the main thought here most sufficiently when Quicke states, “Basic to the project of modernity is the idea of freedom from traditional authorities giving rise to widening opportunities for self development and self fulfillment” (364). With this of course comes specifically a greater opportunity for individual autonomy. From here, then, a goal of an educational institution ought to be increasing autonomy.

            Before moving on to how this enhancement of autonomy could be achieved I want to look more specifically at the modern self and its distinctive feature(s) from, say, the pre-modern self. While I’ve already mentioned that the modern self is noted as having wider opportunities for self-definition, what seems to be specifically going on within this widening is one’s ability to “keep a particular narrative going” (366). Creating a stable, fulfilling narrative is key in more fully actualizing one’s own self-identity.

            Now in terms of educational curriculum Quicke saw Personal and Social Education (PSE), with more emphasis on Personal, as key in developing the self. Now admittedly what particular classes/educational subjects would fall under Personal curriculum remains vague within this article. Quicke, however, highlights the values of both Personal and Social Education. For Social Curriculum an emphasis is placed on “environmental, multicultural, economic, or citizenship practices” and Personal an emphasis on “social, psychological, and philosophical practices which provide insights into our definition and understanding of the autonomous self.” (372). Some particular teaching/learning methods are mentioned that would be present in Personal Curriculum such as group work, personification in history texts, and the teaching of novels. Through these particular practices it seems that a student is given significant opportunity to more fully examine and define his or herself through reflections of the self via others.

            In conclusion, I have to begin to ask where to take this. We see an emphasis on creating opportunities for the self to become more fully defined. And of course this lends itself the autonomic goals of a liberal education. But if we take for example Drake University’s own mission statement, creating “meaningful personal lives” is just one-third of the university’s objective. How do we also make room in a curriculum for “professional accomplishments, and responsible global citizenship?” Or is it the case that by expanding a more “personal curriculum” we’re also providing for all of the values of the mission statement and not just the aspect that focuses on personal lives?

continental contributions

I will take this post to share some of the key points from the essay I discussed in class today. What Standish discusses in this essay is what the term "Europe" means, particularly how it relates to the Philosophy of Education today; he discusses some of the main currents of philosophical thought that have shaped the Philosophy of Education today; the distinction between postmodernity and poststructuralism; and the institutionalization of the field in Europe.

I will discuss what I took to be some of the most significant points. The first point of emphasis is the relationship of language to thought. He shows how after Kant, the analytic and continental traditions began to arise, or rather became distinguished from one another, by Kant distinction of noumena and phenomena with the analytic tradition delving more into phenomena, and the continental tradition delving more into the noumena. This distinction gave rise to heightened sensitivity towards language in the twentieth century, with Wittgentstein being a major player in the analytic tradition, and people like Heidegger and Lyotard advocating the continental tradition.

As the continental tradition flourished, the distinction between Philosophy and Literature became more blurred with narrativism and poststructuralism developing. With narrative landscapes mapping reality, the importance of language heightened, and with heritage in Nietzche and his philosophy, the continental tradition gave rise to the poststructuralist viewpoint of the relationship between knowledge and power. As we became "better" with words, we gained power in the world, making very important what is taught and how it is taught.

All this to say, and hopefully more clearly now, that what may be gained in the Philosophy of Education from the Continental Tradition is an attentiveness to the power of language to create reality, and the need to allow the space for this to occur. How does this happen? When we look back to Nietzsche, for example, we identify ourselves as radically homeless in the world, in the sense of not really knowing where we come from, where we're going, or which myth to paint our horizon with, and given this starting point, we should remain open to many varying possibilities in the world. This relates to Philosophy of Education because keeping this in mind may open the door for innovative ways of educating.

Lastly, what the Philosophy of Education can gleam from the Continental Tradition is radical love for the Other, thus rehoning focus in education on morality. We have an absolute relation to the Other and to one another, and with this comes a sort of moral responsibility for the Other. We ought to be concerned with community, with society, because though in some senses we are radically alone in the world, we are alone together.

Cultivating...phronesis? through art

I read two articles for today. The first was by Patricia Werhane. She focused largely on the way we approach morality inside of systems. Her argument was that solutions focusing just on individuals tend to miss the larger picture. Systems are connected, organic; solutions must take account of the relationships that exist between different parts of the system. A common example of a system is a corporation.

After establishing what a system is, she contends that moral imagination is necessary to avoid immorality (or amorality) when dealing with systems. Moral imagination differs from moral reasoning; she contends that moral imagination is tantamount to thinking outside of the box (where the box = the system) whereas moral reasoning is what helps us avoid moral fantasy.

She references the South African electrical corporation Eskom, which existed during apartheid and thereby denied services to non-white South Africans. Upon reflection (she doesn't describe how this reflexive process began) they started hiring non-white employees and expanding services. This approach extended to all parts of the business.

I found this article interesting, but had a few questions. First, I still don't understand how Eskom was an example of the use of moral imagination. I don't doubt that it was, but the process isn't clear to me. Second, it seems to imply that there originally existed some desire for change. The more interesting question for me is how we facilitate change in people who otherwise would have no such desire. She talks about how identifying the parts of the system most prone to change is imoportant, but I think more work could be done here.

Second, I read Art, Imagination, and the Cultivation of Morals by Andrew Kieran. This article was really interesting. He seems to be making a fine distinction: Art is not merely a way of getting at knowledge we already have of morality--it isn't purely instrumental--but is actually apart of the formative process. It shapes our understanding. Art is a way of seeing morality. He uses the term "imaginative understanding" to describe this process. He mentions Aristotle, but does not focus too much here--would it be a misinterpretation to say the process he is describing is that of cultivating phronesis?

He tries to avoid pure aestheticism in favor of ethicism; one argument he makes is that art that misrepresents really is flawed, even if the part of really it misrepresents is ethics. He describes Nazi propaganda here. The take home point is that philosophy and art are not at odds with each other--one still needs moral reflection through reason and philosophical texs--but that art should not be considered a mere subsidiary. Art and philosophy are in conversation with one another.

Statement of Intent

The main question I wish to pursue in this seminar is “What is the value of a liberal education?” This entails, then, my own thoughts of what education (institutionally speaking, i.e. curriculum, etc.) ought to be as I’ll be making an argument as to why one should pursue a liberal education as opposed to the a more narrowly focused education. I do recognize, however, that this is my preliminary intent and perhaps my view on the topic may change with further research. 

My interest here is quite frankly the result of my own educational experience and the fact that I’m nearing its end. I suppose I’m looking for some affirmation that my educational experience was the best that it could have been, or at least that the various institutions I was enrolled in afforded me the best possibilities for my own intellectual growth. 

Imperfect Procedural Epistemology

This will be brief, yet potentially helpful (it was for me). We have discussed knowledge and truth to some extent in class, and as Elgin has clarified distinctions about these topics for me, I will share these clarifications with you.

When we talk about knowledge in class, I often am thinking in absolutes and universals, and I would say our language often insinuates absolutes and universals, at least in part. What Elgin distinguishes is that there is a type of epistemology that deals with reality this way, and it is called perfect procedural epistemology. In this way of thinking, roughly speaking, the world is more or less black and white. There is right and wrong, moral and immoral. Few systems of thought fit well within this epistemological style.

So we may benefit in our conversations in class to think in terms of imperfect procedural epistemology rather than perfect procedural epistemology. This is the case because if we operate within this epistemological schema, we can approximate knowledge via coherence and correspondence, albeit we are indeed left with questions about whether our way of valuing knowledge is founded.

We can talk in class by referring to history and to the various fields of inquiry that exist, and what has been the standard for counting something as knowledge. We get somewhere by doing this, though we could be wrong. I'm okay with this right now, and I hope you all may be okay with this also.

Defining Understanding

Richard Mason, pg 1
"The title of this book is reflexive because the subject matter is. Anyone presenting a theory about understanding must be aiming to understand it: surely a philosophical task. But there is need to tread carefully, to avoid begging the question. To set off by trying to define understanding would be a poor start. Can we assume that a definition--or theory--offers a route to understanding?"

After rereading this, I thought understanding is quite ineffable, and nailing it down to a single definition or theory would be narrowing, if not obfuscatory. If any theory applies to understanding it must be one that preserves, or even enhances and furthers the diaspora of definitions or theories, that is encourages a variety of understandings.
The end of chapter 3, Mason writes, "A more positive conclusion might be that liberation from a model of understanding based on epistemology might be beneficial. Instead of looking for a fundamental, reductionist theory of understanding, we could simply try to understand it, in its manifold forms," (pg 49).
I agree with Mason on this, and would like to hear your thoughts; if you haven't fallen asleep yet.

***

On pg 25 of Mason's book he discusses how capacity as a model for understanding is rather inadequate. Critiquing Ryle's suggestion, "overt intelligent performances are not clues to the workings of minds; they are those workings," Mason goes on to posit that "to understand--in a case where what happens, is entirely private within someone's mind." (pg 26). This seemed, to me, to fit nicely with Nelson Goodman's understanding of understanding; "comprehension and creation go on together," (pg 72). Yet Goodman seems to purport that capacity is a natural consequence of understanding; "Perceiving motion often consists in producing it. Discovering laws involve drafting them. Recognizing patterns is very much a matter of inventing and imposing them." And Mason, as well, recognizes that there must be "some cases where a capacity to do something would be a necessary condition for understanding." However, Mason then contrasts how one must speak a language to understand it, with the example of a translation machine and its inability to understand the words it translates.

Capacity seems central to our discussion on education considering most, if not all, education consists of judging a student's capacity to do something, and not whether a student understands beyond that task. Moreover, considering Mason's thoughts on understanding being a private matter, and also Goodman's 'comprehension-creation,' it would be difficult, if not impossible, to balance judging or grading a students capacity with the possibility or probability of suffocating the creativity inherent with understanding. In other words, to steal Mason's quote from WE Johnson: "If I say that a sentence has meaning for me no one has a right to say it is senseless," (pg 26).
I feel going one step further, and saying that our current systems of education are counterproductive to the interests of furthering understanding (insofar as grading/judging, what is correct understanding and what is not), is not to much of a stretch considering Goodman's and Mason's articles thus far. Though, Mason has a lot of work to do still in his book.

"Power of Pictures" and what not

Regarding the “Power of Pictures,” Robert Schwartz discusses Picasso’s portrait of Gertrude Stein. Initial reaction to the portrait was that it didn’t even look like Stein. Picasso’s reaction, however, was simply, “Everybody thinks she is not at all like her portrait, but never mind, in the end she will manage to look just like it.” What’s really being said here is that the portrait will literally change the way Stein looks, or at least how she looks to us. This is accomplished by accenting certain features that are typically outside of our typical perception of Stein, and ignoring others that are typically a subject of greater focus. Features aren’t being actually created here, nor are some features being erased. All of these features are always present in a physical sense. What is happening is that Picasso is shifting our focus. And since we come to determine and understand reality through our perceptions, this shift in focus seems to actually change reality.

            Schwartz also mentions that he may also argue that scientists and theorists are also makers of reality. For example, theories of the sun inform our perception of it and essentially shape our personal realities. And it’s this point that weighs very heavily for the philosophy of education to me. How much power does an instructor really have regarding the education of his or her students? My initial inclination was to view the instructor as being a conduit to knowledge and reality for the student, but now it seems impossible to ignore the power to create reality that an instructor may have. 

Art/Literature and moral education

First off, I'd like to note that I feel neglected. Our blog does not have a link from the front page of JMc's main blog. Are you ashamed of us?

I'll use this post to describe and comment on an article I read, "The Wheel of Virtue: Art, Literature, and Moral Knowledge." At first, I read his post completely the wrong way. Arrogantly, I treated him as an outsider to philosophy, bitter for one reason or another. I realized that Carroll was quite well read as I continued, however.

Carroll first describes the three main arguments against the idea that literature and art can provide moral knowledge. They are as follows:

(1) The knowledge gained from art or literature is trivial.
(2) When does not learn anything from art or literature; it merely implies or suggests.
(3) Art or literature does not debate or defend claims, thus making it a deficient (or, even, nonexistent) form of knowledge.

After reading these arguments, I found the third to be the most compelling in light of the reading I've been doing in other classes. It seems like good arguments (which form the basis for knowledge) ought to stand up to criticism. But who is to stand up for a novel?

The minor argument presented, though one I find entirely compelling, is that literature is same in many respects to a thought experiment in philosophy. When we talk about a veil of ignorance, or the Ring of Gyges, we are trying to draw from one's apriori knowledge, something intuitive to them. Novels often have just as much intention as a philosopher has in using a particular thought experiment or example.

The primary claim advanced is that art and literature have much more conceptual discrimination than they are given credit for. By this, he means that there are distinctions between characters drawn--largely in the form of virtue or ethics--that allows us to analyze, scrutnize, and form judgments. He gives the example of several novels to demonstrate this. The dialogue I discuss as important to philosophy above comes into play when individuals engage in dialogue about the characters in the play.

I am compelled by his argument. In relation to our discussion, I think that there is something important. Children (and teenagers) are often incapable of engaging in and understanding in depth philosophical discussion. While I personally think they should be exposed to it, not everything will sink in. Literature can provide a way of engaging issue of ethics at a more real world level. The connections are clearer, and if there really is conceptual discrimination in the novel, adequate discussion can take place. I think novels are particularly important if one believes in virtue ethics. This is a prime way to develop the character necessary for moral decisionmaking. In some ways, the vagueness of novels also lends to the development of critical self reflection.

Truth as Relative

Blake Daniel Brown
Philosophy Senior Seminar
7 February 2009

Truth as Relative

Nelson Goodman shows us that the worlds or paradigms that we live in and operate out of are always relative and in the process of being created. He describes “truth” as a possibility of meaning making in language. In the case of beholding something as beautiful, we don’t say that it is “true” in the sense of propositionally so; we may say it is “true” in the sense of “right” or “good”. Therefore, to say that science has truth “right”, or that religion has the corner on the market, is erroneous in the sense of language. This is the case because the propositions indicate a universal sense of “truth” that simply is not apprehensible apart from operating from within a particular world, where “given X criteria for truth, Y”. We are not gods, so we know from within a world, and our knowledge is at best proximal.
I take Goodman to be advocating for many avenues of inquiry into the ways of worlds. Which world is “right” is a bad question, but we can say, “Given X goal, which world is most expedient for achieving this goal?” Then there can be a right or wrong answer, based on agreed upon modes of measurement and valuation. This is a license to be rigorously creative. We need not quibble about who’s right in many cases, and we benefit from valuing various ways of being-in and creating worlds.

Proactive Knowledge, Understanding & Education

Having read nothing more on these topics since our last meeting, here are some thoughts that I toss out for you all to consider and comment on

I think that Proactive Knowledge comes in two varieties (and there probably isn’t a strict boundary): skills and information

Skills

To proactively know a skill one would recognize when the skill was relevant and be, in some sense of the word, compelled to use the skill

For example, reading this is something that you can’t avoid doing if you look at the words. It’s impossible for you to experience an opportunity to read without, in fact, reading. Sadly, there are few other skills that are as unavoidably prompted.

Information

Proactive knowledge of information would involve the ability to recognize when information is relevant in context outside of the domain in which information was learned – the Ohm’s law example would be an example of this.

Understanding

Okay, a way that I’ve been thinking about this is to see if I can figure out what I mean when I say “I don’t understand.” Against what I suggested Thursday, I’m now thinking that we only use “understand” in one way – “have the entire picture.” When I say that I don’t understand the causes of the VietNam War, I think I’m saying that I don’t have the entire picture – which would be all the pieces (which would come from may different realms) and how the pieces fit together (or the multiple way in which the pieces might fit together)


Back to Education

As a teacher, I want students to gain proactive knowledge (of both skills & information) and I also want students to want understanding and to have some tools for pursuing it. I think that the desire for understanding is curiosity.

Articles/Questions

I am particularly interested in reading articles surrounding understanding and art, literature, and morality. I also think more general discussion of what it means to understand would be helpful, which will require reading more articles on that topic.

What are you all interested in reading? Has anyone figured out what our question is?

Relevence of 'Truth Matters' to our needs

What are we doing in this Senior Seminar? Epistemology, or metaphysics or...what?

In Lynch's preface he writes "This book is about why truth matters in our personal and political lives. The last hundred years have seen a considerable amount of writing on truth by philosophers, but much of it has been preoccupied with formal questions of definition and paradox," (pg xi; italics added for emphasis).
Are we not 'preoccupied' with formal questions of definitions and paradoxes concerning truth in this class?
I was told, in email exchanges, that I was confusing metaphysical questions of truth's connection with reality, while we are concerned with epistemological questions of...whatever, not that apparently. Also, I infer from page 38, "But it may also indicate that Foucault just isn't worried about metaphysical questions of the nature of truth..." that Lynch is concerned with metaphysics and the nature of truth. Are we concerned with metaphysics, or epistemology, or both?

"While this work is of considerable importance, it can leave the average person feeling rather nonplussed; it rarely addresses the concerns that cause us to worry about truth in the first place. One of the aims of this book is to correct that," (pg xi).

So, I gather from this that Lynch is concerned with that which causes the average person to worry about truth in the first place. It would seem then, Lynch's book assumes that the average person is worrying about truth, and therefore is already in agreement with Lynch's proposition that Truth Matters (otherwise they wouldn't be worrying about it, ay?)
So, it appears to me that this book functions as a self-help for those who are drowning in "simple minded, cynical, false, unhappy, sweet lies," (titles of various chapters and sections of Lynch's book).
Very scholarly, indeed.
Please note the sarcasm, which I assume is valid argument, since Lynch's book is riddled with ad hominems and the like.
I mean this in jest, and will try to reserve judgment until the end of his little novel, but I would like to know what relevance this has to our discussion? What are we to get out of Lynch's book except for a good laugh at his expense, or mine considering I bought the book. Oh, dear god, he got me! I bought the book so truth must matter to me, damn you Lynch!
Oh, yeah and what is our discussion focus, exactly?

James on Pragmatism

Here are two pieces by James that might help you to get a sense of his position. One's here and another is here

Chapter 5

Of course, the chapter on pragmatism caught my eye and I read it very closely for Lynch's critiques of the system. He levels some basic charges at pragmatism including relativism, self-contradiction, the past depends on the future, and the aim of truth is different than the aim of justification (pragmatically). I'll try to deal with each as briefly as I can.

Lynch says that James' pragmatism (or classical pragmatism) is relativist in that the conceptions that we hold are beneficial to us individually. What Lynch confuses here, I believe, is the concept of truth-value (that's what I call it) and Truth. Truth (capital T) is what the universe is composed of, also called matter or nature (I don't think James would have a problem with this). For us, being only a very small part of the universe, obtaining Truth is monumental (if not impossible) task. When James talks about truth he is equating it with the feedback (truth-value) we get from the universe when we act based upon the beliefs that we maintain. The example that I always use to explain this is that if we maintain a belief that we can walk through walls, the truth-value of that belief is that we end up with a lot of bruises when we test the belief. If we don't modify that belief, it is detrimental to us (unless we happen to find the bruises useful in some fashion). Beliefs that have no truth-value, meaning that they don't change the way we act, are meaningless. When viewed in this way, all beliefs have a truth-value, that which occurs in the world when we act based on a belief. James applied this largely to questions that we have no answer for such as whether God, free will, etc. exists. The instrumentalist expands this view to the rest of the questions that we think we have (universal) answers for.

What Lynch would like to say is that if there is no independent method for determining what justifies beliefs, then the danger is radical relativism. How he does it is by ignoring a very important piece of James' pragmatism. That is that the reality in which we live contains other beings that not only share in the feedback that we experience (same type of, not the exact same) with which we can share (James would say that we are obligated to share) these beliefs to be critiqued and examined. These critiques either assist in justification or diminish the justification. And there is the independent method.

As for the past depending on the future, this was an argument that I could make no sense of. I can tell you that James would say that there is a reality in which time passes and that time before now is fixed. In essence, once events have occurred there is no way to change them. The only malleable thing in this equation is our reflection upon those events and the beliefs that we maintain about them. What Lynch is trying to say is that there is some connection between what is real and what is true. I don't think James would say that he has a problem with that insofar as we don't claim that we can get unrestricted access to either. To assert that pragmatism maintains some implication on the past that changes it based upon our current conceptions is a step far afield from what James believed.

For Lynch on Rorty, we would not aim at justification if Truth wasn't what we are after. Rorty says that when we go about looking for Truth, justification is all we get. Therefore, there is no difference and it is really justification that we are seeking. The difference here is that Lynch still ideally wants to believe that his ideas are true and that we (universally) want to believe that our ideas are true. The pragmatist rejects this (and thusly, proves the universality of the claim as false). The pragmatist doesn't ultimately care about what is true because of the questionable nature of such assertions being applied to statements. The pragmatist cares about resolving the problems that we face right now in the context of right now (who we are, what we "know", where we've been, and where we are looking to be).

I hope that's a good summarization and compelling argument against what Lynch is claiming as faults in pragmatism. It seems to me to be a failure of an idealist approach to appreciate a realistic one. Lynch appears to maintain that there is truth out there (and I don't think many pragmatists would disagree) and that we should be continuing the struggle to obtain it (whereas pragmatists look to place value in concepts where it could be more effective).

truth as objective and good

Blake Daniel Brown
Paths to Knowledge/Sr. Seminar
31 January 2009

Truth: What is the Case?

In True to Life, Michael Lynch discusses the concept of Truth. From the beginning he argues that our understanding of truth affects both our personal and our political lives. Without going any further into the book, I reflected on that opening statement. I contemplated what I took to be true beliefs that I had and considered their implications for my life and prima facie agreed with Lynch. Then I delved deeper into the text and he began to discuss the four truisms of truth. My red flags immediately went up and my highly skeptic side came to the fore. Truth is “objective,” “good,” “worthy of inquiry,” “worth caring about for its own sake”; I was concerned because of the many possible pitfalls I thought of concerning each proposition. But I was intrigued, so I read on (plus, it’s an assignment, and I value the “good” of successful and rigorous studentship). In this post, I will discuss truth as “objective”, and truth as “good.”
“Truth is objective.” When I first thought of the objectivity of truth, I couldn’t help but immediately think in absolutes and universals, so I was worried. Lynch apparently holds the same worries though so I was calmed. What I took away from his discussion of the objectivity of truth was essentially that truth is something against which we measure and value. Though we do not know in most any case what the case is absolutely or universally, we are capable of approximating, and it is against lower case “t” truth that we approximate. We are taught, for example, in mathematics that two and two is four. Based on justifiable reasons, i.e. mathematical laws and principles, we can assert and maintain that when two and two occur together, their sum is four. We can tell someone that they are incorrect if they maintain anything else to be the case. Even though we don’t know if universally two and two is four (because we do not have a universal [Godly] perspective) we can justifiably say that according to mathematical laws and principles that two and two is four.
So we conceptualize truth as objective in the sense of reference. Referring to x given principle, or to x justified principle, then y. I have no problem with this, for the most part. Briefly, my problem with this notion is it appears to be asserted on an ineffable ground. What does this mean? We know two and two to be four based on mathematical laws, which are based on what? Consensus; scientific rigor? Maybe my concern is unwarranted, and in many ways I see how my concern is not necessarily a live problem; like, I still maintain that two and two is four anyway. For now, I will let my problem rest and continue on.
Lynch then discusses truth as good. He asserts truth as good based upon the evaluative dimension it necessarily entails. Basically, we value wrong ideas/beliefs as “bad” and right ideas/beliefs as “good.” Lynch discusses that “good” and “bad” aren’t necessarily moral categories; they can be cognitive categories also. Two and two equaling five is a bad cognitive idea/belief. Why? Because in real life two and two do not equal five, and it could even cause harmful side effects to maintain this as the case. In engineering and construction, we must adhere to the “good” cognitive principles of mathematics; otherwise buildings may be improperly constructed, leading to a cave-in or something worse.
What I continue to struggle with in Lynch’s text, is upon what grounds are these truths asserted? Is there an epistemological category I am unaware of that makes possible these assertions? Do we base truth on our experiences of trying out hypotheses until we find one in accord the desired outcome? Is truth based on semantics? Whatever the answer may be, I am interested in further study of this text, and further considerations of truth.

What is the Sea

I am running with the poetics left at the end of our professor's emails, which you all should be familiar with by now; "If you want to teach someone to build a boat, don't give them plans;
help them to love the sea." -- unknown.
Beautiful. Yet, as Professor McCrickerd pointed out, quite meaningless for our needs.

By the title you know what I am attempting to do here, but first I will describe what spurred me to attempt this, so indulge me for the moment (or skip it and read John's post which ain't half bad).
Political Economics 2049, a course I took abroad, approached the material and issues involved with economics in a way that I feel could shed some light on what education should be like. When I was asked earlier today if I had an understanding of 'political economics' I answered, "No, I don't think so." But after flipping through the texts from the course I realized how much I retained, and wondered why I answered this way; it was because the implicit point of the course was there existed no definitive understanding of political economics, the title of one of the texts, which was written by one of the lecturers, is Political Economy: the contest of economic ideas. This contest of ideas is what I believe makes up the Sea.

You see, the instructors within the economic department realized the existence of such a disparity of ideas and felt the issues pertained so strongly, and immediately to their students that they felt it a disservice to explicate any one concept over another, even though each argued fervently, almost desperately, in favor of their own view. More concretely, the issues were/are global warming, sustainable economic growth, globalization of the job market, unsustainable ultra-consumerism, and the increasing tendency of nation-states towards what one instructor called 'socialism' and what another called 'social-capitalism.' Rather than forcing one instructor to dilute their beliefs on the subject or skew the education of the students, they collectively taught, giving me such an understanding that I dared not even claim to fully understand the subject when asked. It was as if someone asked me if I understood the sea. How could one with confidence answer yes to this question? No surfer in the world would claim to understand the sea in its entirety, only their beach, only the ebb and neap of their own tides but not the sea in general. But love of the Sea, indeed, any surfer would answer a resounding 'Yes!' No matter how many times they've cracked their head on unbeknownst coral, been crushed by a wave they should never have caught, the love for the sea remains, though they may never fully understand it.

How? Why? What the hell am I going on about? Wait for it.

The course functioned as 2 one-hour lectures, with a 'tutorial' (small group meeting) once a week as well. The lecturers would rotate; one week with an 'orthodox economist,' one with a 'social economist,' and one with what I can only label as a 'radical.' The last one actually lived what he preached. His house was fully 'sustainable' meaning economically sustainable (ie solar panels, wind power, minimal consumerism of reusable materials...etc). He argued that if we did not take immediate action, within our life-times we would experience great catastrophe economically, environmentally, as well personally--as far as heath factors. His hands were callused from working on his home, his voice broken at times, and his evidence and materials were wheeled in on a cart (which I wouldn't be surprised if he rode home to save on the commute).
At the end of the each instructor's lecture, presentation, or seminar, the seated instructor not presenting would banter the other with what seemed to be questions they had encountered in they're own conversations with each other, judging by the responses. The tutorial functioned as what might be called a lab, where we had to demonstrate both proactive understanding of the material by presenting assigned chapters nuanced in favor of one's own economic view, as well as performative understanding through a formal group debate (my group had to defend the Kyoto Treaty as sufficient for sustainable economic growth in Australia, which I did not agree with but none the less had to perform).
This is how I feel we can get students to love the sea--that is, the contest of ideas--by showing them the deep ends and tossing them in the water with only a life-preserver connected to whichever instructor they might feel akin to in case they can't quite swim on their own.

And no Professor McCrickerd I don't have any evidence:)

Knowing and Understanding

I won't spend a lot of time balking at the definitions of knowing and understanding, but I feel that the definitions that are used (where creative application of knowledge is understanding and the lack of that is considered knowing) become jargon for developing teaching methodology that escapes what I consider to be the general connotations of the two words. I'll explain my definitions of these two words and why I think the language should be revised. However, I don't intend to ford that stream as these terms are generally accepted as such in the context that we are using them. I'll accept them the way they are, but I'm going to complain a bit first. :)

Knowing is associated with Truth to me. Traditionally, it is a step past understanding and exists in the realm of the universal. To know something is to understand the intricacies and subtleties of a particular meme. Further, it is the appreciation of the multiplicity of views that exist pertaining to that meme and a selection of the appropriate view. William James shows us that this is a faulted idea with his introduction of pluralism. A carpenter, physicist, and a cook all view a table differently. The carpenter sees the grain of the wood, feels the hardness of the wood, looks for defects in the workmanship. The physicist sees the table more conceptually in the realm of atoms all bound to form the shape that the table takes. The cook looks at the dimension of the tabletop and considers how many can eat at the table and how much food can the table hold while there are people seated there. All of this merely displays that there is no universally applicable "right" view. In light of this we can slightly change this definition of knowing to selecting the appropriate view given the context. In this way we remove it from the universal and place it firmly in the hands of the particular. Knowing no longer becomes associated with Truth but with truth of the matter at hand.

Understanding to me is merely the first step in the process of knowing. It can be singular in that it appreciates a particular view or it can be plural in that it appreciates multiple views. The failure of understanding is that it doesn't regularly apply appropriately. It may be able to perform a task in the right context but may not recognize the same opportunity in a different one. This also applies in a different way. The understander may appreciate how something is done but is unable to do it. This is kind of the opposite of the definition that we received in the texts. Understanding, in my terms, is best illustrated by John Dewey's notion that knowing is the equivalent of doing. One can understand how to ride a bike (the physics, the mechanics, and/or the aesthetics) without knowing how to do so. While understanding might enhance one's ability to know, it still lacks the ability to produce the perceivable result (in many cases).

The consequences of altering terms in a fashion that is contrary to general public consensus makes concepts opaque for all but the few who are willing to invest the time to engross themselves in the subtleties of technical jargon of the field. Fortunately, I happen to be one of those people in this case. But the problem remains for those who are not as interested. Why should we make things more difficult than they already are? I understand the need to unpack ideas to reduce ambiguity and communicate effectively. However, doing so in a manner that causes an ambiguous term to exit its original domain offers no benefit to communication. That's why we invent new words.

Blake Daniel Brown

Philosophy Senior Seminar

27 January 2009

Possessivity, Performativity, and Proactivity

Perkins discusses forms of knowledge and understanding in the three essays we read. He talks about ways we obtain and use knowledge and how it correlates to understanding, and he does it in a nice, systematic fashion.

To begin, Perkins describes a sort of rudimentary form of knowledge/understanding, which he terms as possessive. The possessive form of knowledge consists of essentially information storage. This type of knowledge is exemplified by such phenomena as mathematical knowledge, political knowledge, knowledge of ethics, etc. What I mean by these exemplifications is that we know that there is a thing that exists called mathematics, and there are rules that govern the discipline, and it is the same with each other discipline and myriad other data bits. Possessive knowledge precedes performative knowledge; it is the building block upon which understanding is built.

Performative knowledge is the sort that allows for responses to questions. So what is the answer to 2 plus 2? Four. Pretty straightforward, I would say. When we perform knowledge, we express the possessive knowledge that we have. But what differentiates performative knowledge from proactive knowledge?

Proactive knowledge demonstrates a more well-rounded and full understanding of the information stored in the brain. Proactive knowledge sees problems that performative knowledge misses. This explains to some extent the difference between knowledge and understanding—when we know something we don’t necessarily use that knowledge, whereas understanding occurs when we apply the knowledge we have to some phenomena to cultivate further knowledge. What this means is that given 2 and 2 equal four, we can recognize that 2 consists of 2 one’s, and therefore, 3 consists of 3 one’s and we can perform higher functions to quandaries we may not have known existed previously. This is still obtuse.

Rather than continuing to unfold my understanding of the difference between knowledge and understanding, let me get back to Perkins’ point of his essays. Perkins advocates teaching for understanding rather than for the purpose of stockpiling data. While compiling information can be useful, we should try to teach and learn in a manner that is conducive to proactive knowledge—knowledge that can apply to many more circumstances than mere possessive or wrote performative knowledge.

I must say I concur with Perkins admonition. When I feel like I know something best, I feel like I can apply that knowledge to many situations rather than typical situations. So I read Philosophy and try to gain a deep understanding of the idea asserted, and try to understand the idea from many angles for the purpose of a more enriched understanding, which corresponds to a more rich life (I hope). These are some preliminary considerations.

Some Preliminary Thoughts...

To begin with, it seems best to start with our definition of understanding. Here I especially like what David Perkins said in “Teaching for Understanding” about knowing being equivalent to the ability to “parrot” information and understanding, in contrast, being the ability to “perform” using information and applying it in unique ways.

This contrast seems crucial for examining understanding as I can imagine it to be quite common for most people to equate understanding something with having knowledge of it. We can also look at the difference as being similar to that of hearing vs. listening. We’ve all been scolded at a young age (and I’m sure probably in adulthood), “I know you hear me, but you’re not listening to me!” This is the difference between knowing and understanding. Hearing happens naturally, reflexively. Listening implies active cognition and focus, however. Here one is taking what is being heard and doing something with it. This doing of something with knowledge is what Perkins is referring to with understanding.

        And perhaps to lead us into our seminar, we could think about this contrast and how it should/shouldn’t guide our educations. Is it good enough to just know, or should understanding be a greater focus in the classroom? How does this apply to areas of study other than philosophy?

Welcome

Okay then, here's a blog for us to post our continuing thoughts brought up in the Senior Seminar. I continue to think about the direction this course is going to take and I'll push things off and toss out where I am and what I'm interested in but then I expect that you all will work to steer this in the direction that we collectively want it to go. So, the first book we have to read is Elgin's Considered Judgment. If you want a quick spin through epistemology, you may want to get the book that I've ordered for the Paths to Knowledge class called True to Life. We'll also, I expect, want to read Understanding Understanding. The task that I'm interested in is trying to figure out what understanding is (how it differs from knowledge, among other things) and then also how to cultivate this in others.

So. one article that I'd like for us to read is called "Beyond Understanding" and then I'm also intrigued by Korsgaard's The Constitution of Agency. I'm not sure it's related, but I think it may be. I've also ordered for the Paths class Tomasello's The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition which we may, or may not, want to read.

Anyway, here's the blog. I'm working on finding a day when we can meet and it looks like we're down to Tuesday or Wednesday. We may, if anyone has conflicts on these days, have to consider either 8am meetings or Sunday meetings.