Mental Models of Purpose of College
2 years ago
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Monday, February 2, 2009
Ch. 6/7
I thought it was interesting that Lynch spent a bit of time in Chapter 6 discussing verificationism. I found myself thinking that this theory was easier to understand and believe than some of the ideas that Lynch has proposed. Lynch himself says that many people do accept a verificationist attitude. I think that the reason some people feel comfortable with this theory is because of the view that anything that is true can be scientifically verified. I think that this allows for a degree of certainty that makes people feel comfortable. I think a lot of Lynch's ideas may be hard to accept because they come along with a degree of uncertainty and the possibility of fallibility that a lot of people don't want to accept.
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I agree with that. And then you've got the opposite--those who acknowledge that uncertainty that exists with truth and don't like that either, so they throw their hands in the air and declare it all a loss--truth is either unattainable or irrelevant. Now I'm probably grossly oversimplifying the positions of a whole big group of people or totally getting it wrong, but that kind of stuck out to me as I got through chapter 6, and while I was just thinking of all the different philosophies Lynch has analyzed so far--they've fallen into one of the two groups.
ReplyDeleteMatt, I find it interesting that you've lumped truth into those two categories. I agree with you, but I also agree that this is an oversimplification. Can some truths be both unattainable and irrelevant? Or vice versa. I would argue that Lynch's star example of truth is both. I don't see any purpose for knowing that there are even or odd number of stars in the Universe now. I would say that the irrelevant group is only irrelevant becuase we have found no reason to question the truth about certain things. Some day we may find that when there are an even number of stars it leads to natural disasters (an exaggerated idea, I know) and the truth wouldn't be so irrelevant anymore. It might still be unatainable, but that's when people start to search for the truth...when it has an effect on their lives.
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