Tag: knowledge

Knowledge is born out of problems

Vierte These: Soweit man überhaupt davon sprechen kann, daß die Wissenschaft oder die Erkenntnis irgendwo be­ginnt, so gilt folgendes: Die Erkenntnis beginnt nicht mit Wahrnehmungen oder Beobachtungen oder der Sammlung von Daten oder von Tatsachen, sondern sie beginnt mit Problemen. Kein Wissen ohne Probleme – aber auch kein Problem ohne Wissen. Das heißt, daß sie mit der Spannung zwischen Wissen und Nichtwissen beginnt: Kein Problem ohne Wissen – kein Problem ohne Nichtwissen. Denn jedes Problem entsteht durch die Entdeckung, daß etwas in unserem vermeintlichen Wissen nicht in Ordnung ist; oder logisch betrachtet, in der Entdeckung eines inneren Wider­spruches in unserem vermeintlichen Wissen, oder eines Widerspruches zwischen unserem vermeintlichen Wissen und den Tatsachen; oder vielleicht noch etwas richtiger ausgedrückt, in der Entdeckung eines anscheinenden Wider­spruches zwischen unserem vermeintlichen Wissen und den vermeintlichen Tatsachen. [80-1]

Letting our theories die in our stead

As opposed to this, traditional epistemology is interested in the second world [World 2]: in knowledge as a certain kind of belief—justifiable belief, such as belief based upon perception. As a consequence, this kind of belief philosophy cannot explain (and dos not even try to explain) the decisive phenomenon that scientists criticize their theories and so kill them. Scientists try to eliminate their false theories, they try to let them die in their stead. The believer—whether animal or man—perishes with his false beliefs.[122]

On auxiliary hypotheses

As regards auxiliary hypotheses we propose to lay down the rule that only those are acceptable whose introduction does not diminish the degree of falsifiability or testability of the system in question, but, on the contrary, increases it. … If the degree of falsifiability is increased, then introducing the hypothesis has actually strengthened the theory: the system now rules out more than it did previously: it prohibits more. We can also put it like this. The introduction of an auxiliary hypothesis should always be regarded as an attempt to construct a new system; and this new system should then always be judged on the issue of whether it would, if adopted, constitute a real advance in our knowledge of the world. An example of an auxiliary hypothesis which is eminently acceptable in this sense is Pauli’s exclusion principle. An example of an unsatisfactory auxiliary hypothesis would be the contraction hypothesis of Fitzgerald and Lorentz which had no falsifiable consequences but merely served to restore the agreement between theory and experiment … . [62]

The evolution of problems

This consideration of the fact that theories or expectations are built into our very sense organs shows that the episte­mology of induction breaks down even before taking its first step. It cannot start from sense data or perceptions and build our theories upon them, since there are no such things a sense data or perceptions which are not built upon theories (or expectations—that is, the biological predecessors of linguistically formulated theories). Thus the ‘data’ are no basis of, no guarantee for, the theories. They are not more secure than any of our theories or ‘prejudices’ but, if anything, less so (assuming for argument’s sake that sense data exist and are not philosophers’ inventions). Sense organs incorporate the equivalent of primitive and uncritically accepted theories, which are less widely tested than scientific theories. …

Thus life proceeds, like scientific discovery, from old problems to the discovery of new and undreamt-of problems. And this process—that of invention and selection—contains in itself a rational theory of emergence. The steps of emergence which lead to a new level are in the first instance the new problems (P2) which are created by the error-elimination (EE) of a tentative theoretical solution (TT) of an old problem (P1). [146]

The bucket theory of the mind

The commonsense theory is simple. If you or I wish to know something not yet known about the world, we have to open our eyes and look around. And we have to open our ears and listen to noises, and especially to those made by other people. Thus our various senses are our sources of knowledge — the sources of the entries into our minds.

I have often called this the bucket theory of the mind. …

In the philosophical world this theory is better known under the more dignified name of the tabula rasa theory of the mind: our mind is an empty slate upon which the senses engrave their messages. But the main point of the tabula rasa theory goes beyond the commonsense bucket theory: I mean its emphasis on the perfect emptiness of the mind at birth. For our discussion this is merely a minor point of discrepancy between the two theories, for it does not matter whether we are or are not born with some ‘innate ideas’ in our bucket — more perhaps in the case of intelligent children, fewer in the case of morons. The important thesis of the bucket theory is that we learn most, if not all, of what we do learn through the entry of experience into our sense openings; so that all knowledge consists of information received through our senses; that is, by experience.

In this form, this thoroughly mistaken theory is still very much alive. It still plays a part in theores of teaching, or in ‘infor­mation theory’, for example … . [60-1]

The greatest obstacle to education

But I think that the greatest obstacles to education for an open society are our own ignorance of how little we know, and our own unwillingness to acknowledge it even to ourselves.

So, instilling scepticism and the critical attitude in ourselves and in our students will not be enough. We will also need to instill the self-critical attitude in ourselves and in our students. And we will need to reverse the contemporary wisdom that says that ignorance is bad, but admitting it is stupid. This is perhaps the greatest obstacle to education that I know. It infects all levels of society, and especially the professorial ranks of academia. [64]

Knowledge without dogma

I have tried to show that the most important of the traditional problems of epistemology — those connected with the growth of knowledge — transcend the two standard methods of linguistic analysis and require the analysis of scientific knowledge. But the last thing I wish to do, however, is to advocate another dogma. Even the analysis of science — the ‘philosophy of science’ — is threatening to become a fashion, a specialism. Yet philosophers should not be specialists. For myself, I am interested in science and in philosophy only because I want to learn something about the riddle of the world in which we live, and the riddle of man’s knowledge of that world. And I believe that only a revival of interest in these riddles can save the sciences and philosophy from narrow specialization and from an obscurantist faith in the expert’s special skill, and in his personal knowledge and authority; a faith that so well fits our ‘post-rationalist’ and ‘post-critical’ age, proudly dedicated to the destruction of the tradition of rational philosophy, and of rational thought itself. [xxvi]

Our devastating system of education

Institutions for the selection of the outstanding can hardly be devised. Institutional selection may work quite well for such purposes as Plato had in mind, namely for arresting change. But it will never work well if we demand more than that, for it will always tend to eliminate initiative and originality, and, more generally, qualities which are unusual and unexpected. This is not a criticism of political institutionalism. It only re-affirms what has been said before, that we should always prepare for the worst leaders, although we should try, of course, to get the best. But it is a criticism of the tendency to burden institutions, especially educational institutions, with the impossible task of selecting the best. This should never be made their task. This tendency transforms our educational system into a race-course, and turns a course of studies into a hurdle-race. Instead of encouraging the student to devote himself to his studies for the sake of studying, instead of encouraging in him a real love for his subject and for inquiry, he is encouraged to study for the sake of his personal career; he is led to acquire only such knowledge as is serviceable in getting him over the hurdles which he must clear for the sake of his advancement. In other words, even in the field of science, our methods of selection are based upon an appeal to personal ambition of a somewhat crude form. (It is a natural reaction to this appeal if the eager student is looked upon with suspicion by his colleagues.) The impossible demand for an institutional selection of intellectual leaders endangers the very life not only of science, but of intelligence.

It has been said, only too truly, that Plato was the inventor of both our secondary schools and our universities. I do not know a better argument for an optimistic view of mankind, no better proof of their indestructible love for truth and decency, of their originality and stubbornness and health, than the fact that this devastating system of education has not utterly ruined them. [ch. 7, 147-8]

Falsificationism, 1850s style

Why is it, then, that there is on the whole a preponderance among mankind of rational opinions and rational conduct? If there really is this preponderance—which there must be, unless human affairs are, and have always been, in an almost desperate state—it is owing to a quality of the human mind, the source of everything respectable in man either as an intellectual or as a moral being, namely, that his errors are corrigible. He is capable of rectifying his mistakes, by discussion and experience. Not by experience alone. There must be discussion, to show how experience is to be interpreted. Wrong opinions and practices gradually yield to fact and argument: but facts and arguments, to produce any effect on the mind, must be brought before it. Very few facts are able to tell their own story, without comments to bring out their meaning. The whole strength and value, then, of human judgment, depending on the one property, that it can be set right when it is wrong, reliance can be placed on it only when the means of setting it right are kept constantly at hand. In the case of any person whose judgment is really deserving of confidence, how has it become so? Because he has kept his mind open to criticism of his opinions and conduct. Because it has been his practice to listen to all that could be said against him; to profit by as much of it as was just, and expound to himself, and upon occasion to others, the fallacy of what was fallacious. Because he has felt, that the only way in which a human being can make some approach to knowing the whole of a subject, is by hearing what can be said about it by persons of every variety of opinion, and studying all modes in which it can be looked at by every character of mind. No wise man ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but this; nor is it in the nature of human intellect to become wise in any other manner. The steady habit of correcting and completing his own opinion by collating it with those of others, so far from causing doubt and hesitation in carrying it into practice, is the only stable foundation for a just reliance on it: for, being cognisant of all that can, at least obviously, be said against him, and having taken up his position against all gainsayers—knowing that he has sought for objections and difficulties, instead of avoiding them, and has shut out no light which can be thrown upon the subject from any quarter—he has a right to think his judgment better than that of any person, or any multitude, who have not gone through a similar process. [ch. II, 27]

Dogmatic knowledge

Ohne einen „archimedischen Punkt“, so meint [Husserl], müsse man „alle Vernunft und Erkenntnis preisgeben“. Offen­bar konnte er sich keine Alternative zur klassischen Idee des Wissens und zum klassischen Erkenntnisideal vorstellen und glaubte daher, um jeden Preis an seiner Evidenzthese festhalten zu müssen. Wer so denkt, ist aber auf dem besten Wege, dieses Erkenntnisideal zu dogmatisieren. Wer ohne sicheres Fundament der Erkenntnis nicht auskom­men zu können meint, der wird sich darum bemühen, ein solches Fundament – und sei es auf noch so künstliche und willkürliche Weise – zu installieren. [12]