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In the reading a few weeks ago,
"By making the avoidance of error our sole or primary epistemic objective, it overlooked the importance we attach to sensitivity, relevance, informativeness, and cognitive efficacy. We regularly risk error to achieve such ends." pg 59
We asked the question in class, how do we rethink knowlege?
I think that this chapter adds a layer to just how we can rethink what we know and why we know it... with new evidence and new informationcertain aspects of reality start to make more sense. This is what epistimologyis all about, or at least what I have begun to deduce from Elgin's arguments
"For in shifting its focus from knowledge to understanding, epistemologydevalues truth." pg 171
As we saw early in the last chapter on the value of emotions, and now on these exemplars which bring out certain features of beliefs, there is more to knowlege and understanding then certainty and coherent facts.Cognitive emotions shape our beliefs and the system of beliefs just asseemingly false experiments or art can be helpful to cognition if they fit in and facilitate a system of beliefs.
Exemplification is not only a mechanism for shaping our cognition, but italso provides a way of understanding and categorizing features. As Elgin described in earlier chapters, this categorization is essential to knowlege.
"Exemplification is a mode of reference, so anything that exemplifies is a symbol.Not only do experiments exemplify theoretically significant features, and works ofart formally significant features, ordinary samples and examples exemplify the featuresthey display." pg 172
These categories can also help us to better understand the world, bringing different aspects into focus and thus shaping our view of the world or even creating a new world. This goes back to the idea of world-making. Under different exemplification or different categories of signifigance, our beliefs may change. This is not necessarily sayingthat these exemplars cause our beliefs to be more or less true, but rather that they add to our understanding of reality.
This is the main point that I take away from todays reading as well as yesterday's.
The picture that Picasso paints of Gertrude Stein may not be her exact likeness, however it does not make the painting less true or less important. Some of the features it bring to focus may tell us more about Stein than a physical likeness, and this is more important than straight forward truths.
Mental Models of Purpose of College
2 years ago
This is one of the things I was thinking of writing about. Exemplars and metaphors are often much easier to understand than direct words that may cut closer to what something really "is." If we're editing a DrakeMag story and our writer is having trouble describing something or we just can't understand what message they're trying to convey, we'll tell them to stop trying. Instead, we'll tell them to describe something else and then tell us how what we want to know about is like that other thing. Through that likeness we have a much easier time understanding.
ReplyDeleteAnd really, Elgin's own writing is a perfect example of this. Remove all her exemplars (though I may not be using this term right) and I would understand next to nothing. Jackson Pollack's Number One was about the viscocity of paint; how is that related to exemplars and the concept of understanding? I believe the answer is that, for us right now, it actually means something entirely different in that it's an exemplar of an exemplar (rather than normally being an exemplar of the viscocity of paint). But such exemplars illuminate my understanding of the subject Elgin is writing about, an understanding I wouldn't otherwise have. So in a way, her writing proves her points about as much as any of the examples she uses in the writing.
Our class discussion today really helped shape my understanding of this in sofar as the "real" reality is not something we can actually get at. The reality that causes our stimuli would be impossible for us to connect to so the only way to really create reality is through the exemplars because the "real" truth is beyond our ability to understand and holds no real meaning without these ways of understanding and dissecting the world we perceive into these useful categories and relationships.
ReplyDeleteCommenting on Matt's comments specifically I wanted to say that I felt the same way but about a different topic. Using examples in writing could potentially be considered 'less true' then just using words to describe a situation. While it may be considered 'less true' by some it actually can do a better job of relaying a message or 'painting a picture' for the reader. The example that I kept thinking about while in class and reading today is the idea of caricatures. While penciling a ridiculous sketching of a person may not reflect the 'reality' of a persons physical appearances, it can communicate other meanings or messages that are more true in other ways. Drawing someone with a crazy smile, huge/wide eyes and giant teeth may not be a very accurate representation of that persons physical appearance but it does represent that this person is fun, energetic and generally a humorous individual. Does this making that penciling less true?
ReplyDeleteKevin Kuhle
I agree with much of what has been said above, but in a way I want to play devil's advocate. So we know that what we know is at best, at best mind you, an approximation of what actually is the case. Is it the human condition to acknowledge this, and to live on regardless of this fact?
ReplyDeleteWell, as Elgin notes, we certainly seem to nonetheless. We function in society, in relationships, and even in our own daily mental life with notions that we take as true or as our best bet at the moment. I would like to point out what we all hopefully notice, and that is that this state of being is one of radical ignorance of what actually is the case.
But we're humans, creatures, subjects, so it's part of our identity. So we move on from this radical ignorance and make up our own games and use conventional language, and the world happens. It's really quite amazing! I have enjoyed reading Elgin's work because I did and still to some extent do feel this radical ignorance, but it has shown me a path out of the real dark into some light.
This situation is such a confound in my head for another reason. My whole above discussion undermines itself. If we are radically ignorant, then we can't know that this is the case, therefore maybe we do know what actually is the case from time to time; or, maybe there is no "actual case" to be known, and each individual rendering of the case is as substantial as what we take as the "actual case." Well, more later.