Stumble it!Epistemological backwardity
posted in Philosophy by themaiden |The following was written for an environmental ethics class I completed in fall. The class was led by Holmes Rolston III, hence the frequent reference. I’ll get a proper citation up later today.
Rolston’s epistemological problems stem, according to Christopher Preston, from a failure to recognize any of a series of post-modern theses. In his words these are “the theory dependence of observation thesis, the mix of analytic and synthetic components in every belief, the critique of what has been called the ‘Myth of the Given’ in empiricism, the web-like nature of our systems of belief, the value biases present in epistemic claims, the fallibility of perception, understanding scientific empiricism as interventionist rather that representationalist, and the operation of language as a system” (Preston, p. 33). Recognizing these theses, in turn, should force an abandonment of his staunch realist position.
I’d be very surprised if Rolston’s epistemology were as unsophisticated as the list above suggests. In fact, Preston notes that Rolston has acknowledged the theory of dependence of observation (Preston, p. 34), as well as the idea that our claims have both analytic and synthetic components (Preston, p. 35). That Rolston admits to the theory dependence of observation seems to entail at least enough representationalism to justify dismissing the charge that he sees science as interventionalist rather than representationalist. To deny the fallibility of perception would be to deny much of the science of perception, and Rolston is too well versed in such things, not to mention that the fallibility of perception is as close to common sense knowledge as it is possible to get. Likewise with value bias. The statement that preconceived notions effect a person’s evaluations and conclusions is almost trivial. This leaves only three of Preston’s points of contention– “the critique of what has been called the ‘Myth of the Given’ in empiricism, the web-like nature of our systems of belief… and the operation of language as a system” (Preston, p. 33).
These three related issues can be addressed by reference to a single, I think, unassailable fact, with the conclusions drawn from reflecting upon that fact preserving a kind of realism that I believe Rolston would accept. That observation is this: something restricts action. Something prevents my slipping through the floor like a ghost. No conceptual scheme will change that fact. No understanding of ‘language as a system’ will change the fact. Everything in experience points to it. No ‘web of ideas’ will allow the entering of a room without first opening the door. It doesn’t matter at this juncture what that ’something’ is that limits action. It could be pictured in the framework of a Berkeleyan empirical idealism as well as it could be pictured as some kind of classically conceived ‘matter’ or ’substance’. All that matters is that this ‘limiter’ is inescapable.
With this in mind the human experience, even the experience of all life, can be likened to the adventure of person suddenly locked in a dark room. Being unable to see, that person would stumble around the room bumping into things, making mental notes and slowly ‘mapping’ the room. These mental maps– these descriptions and inferences– then, are the world we experience. The maps can be flawed. They can at times be strikingly wrong, but they never lose that connection to ‘out there’ or if they do lose that connection they lead us, or mislead us, to smash into ‘out there’, and the map must be adjusted.
This ‘out there’, this unavoidable and sometimes mysterious ‘thing in the way’, is, I argue, the conceptual backbone of the term ‘real’. By real we mean– by the question “Is it real?” we mean– “is it something we cannot avoid or is it a consequence of one of our broken maps? Is it the result of a bad description?” This conception of ‘real’ leaves open the possibility that our descriptions, our understanding, may be imprecise or even in some cases patently wrong but it still allows for the claim that ‘things’ are in a very commons sense way ‘real’.
In short, I’d argue that Rolston has no critical epistemological problem with his position when considered in light of the epistemological system outlined above, and, of course, assuming that he considers said system to be compatible with his thought, as I believe it is. Returning to the three elements of Rolston’s epistemology not yet defended, this account avoids the problem of the ‘Myth of the Given’– “that there are such sensory episodes that by their mere occurrence give us knowledge of themselves”The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (2007, October 1). Retrieved 22:27, October 6, 2007, from http://www.iep.utm.edu/s/sellars.htm– by proposing that we are guided only by ’something unavoidable’ and not something that is known immediately and in itself. This means that while we do have a very real world to contend with, there is significant room for discrepancy between that real world and our descriptions of it. There is, for example, certainly something like a cat out there in the world even if our labels and our concepts are imprecise– subject to the biases of culture, language, and our human conceptual systems. This last consideration acknowledges and accepts “the web-like nature of our systems of belief” and “the operation of language as a system” but it does so without abandoning at least an minimal, but reasonable, form of realism. Specific beliefs, specific knowledge, can be seen as complicated webs of propositions heavily dependent upon language but ultimately anchored to the ’something unavoidable’, to reality.
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