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What bothered me most about perfect procedural was that it stated that anything that passes the credibility test is credible forever. This seems extremely limiting. Yes, it is nice to say that you are certain something is true, but to say that a fact is completely irrefutable does not allow for much growth. Imperfect still seeks knowledge and would still prefer that knowledge to be as close to "correct" as possible, but it allows for so much more openness. It allows us to pursue knowledge from every possible angle, even as Elgin claims through "analogies, metaphors and emotion." This makes sense to me, because even thought it is more difficult to say that knowledge gained in this way is in fact knowledge, it seems closer to how people actually function. People view things through an emotional lens and we connect ideas to our other experiences. To make the search for knowledge follow strict guidelines limits possibilities for what knowledge we can gain.
On a different note, I did not make it far into chapter two, but I did find a section I could understand (for the most part) because it reminded me of something. The section on pages 26 and 27 where Elgin discusses whether or not we know something is "pink" just because it "looks pink" was very familiar to me. When I was little, my favorite color was pink and because he thought it would be fun, my older brother decided to try and convince me that pink did not exist, that I was just perceiving it to be pink. This is similar to what Elgin brings up, that many argue that something looking like pink cannot be evidence in proving that it is pink. Apparently my brother was pretty advanced for a seven year old, and this all still makes my head spin a little.
What is your favorite color? My debate professor/coach from high school was a great man. He loved to teach his students and was a kind hearted man, worked well with students and loved to challenge his students and make them think in new and different ways. This man was smart beyond belief and he had many different interesting quirks about him; he generally was just a quirky man. My first year in his debate class he presented to us an idea to think about. My debate coach was color blind and his sense of color was much different then the sense of color of other non-color blind individuals. He asked us which way is right and how do we know for certain that our perception of color was better or more correct then his. Laura's example of her cruel brother made me think of this experiment my coach conducted. This experiment made me and the rest of the class look at 'knowledge' and 'truth' much more differently and frankly shook our sense of core beliefs. As our coach continued to lecture about the truth, knowledge and whether or not we are certain that they exist or that we can find them he was basically touching on the ideas of perfect procedural and imperfect procedural. While no conclusion was drawn in that class period (as I am sure no conclusion will be drawn in our class as well) it is interesting to talk about these theories and how they can dramatically affect the way in which we approach our lives and how we live our lives.
ReplyDeleteKevin Kuhle