Subject: Objective knowledge
From: Crispin Weston (crispinw@dircon.co.uk)
Date: Mon 17 Apr 2000 - 21:55:31 MEST
From: "Crispin Weston" <crispinw@dircon.co.uk> Subject: Objective knowledge Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2000 20:55:31 +0100
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Thank you to Nick Kearney for his response on objectivity.
Nick writes <<The experts do appear to be getting better at making
predictions over the years(!), but they remain predictions.>>
I can only understand the force of this point if Nick is using 'prediction'
as a synonym for 'guesswork', so that he means that the truth of a true
prediction is accidental. I accept that there are many complex areas in
which our predictions remain uncertain: in particular anything which affects
society, or even individual human beings, continues to defy accurate
prediction. But there are large areas in which our predictions are both
accurate and reliable: a structural engineer can look at a design of bridge
and tell you whether it will stand or fall; notwithstanding their recent
problems, NASA routinely perform astonishing acts of prediction, calculating
that a particular amount of acceleration applied to a spaceship of a
particular mass will allow it to intercept a particular planet billions of
miles away. Even experts whose science is less exact: doctors, lawyers,
business consultants, economists; routinely make predictions as to the
*probable* outcome of particular courses of action. If these predictions
amount to no more than guesswork, then there are not only a huge number of
people being paid money for old rope, but the achievements of modern
medicine, business and engineering have to be put down to the most
extraordinary set of coincidences, as they cannot be the result of any human
expertise. Prediction is not something that gypsies do, looking into their
crystal balls: it is something that all experts do, and in their ability to
predict lies the essence of their expertise.
Nick continues: <<Whatever, at the moment, though there may be evidence, as
Crispin maintains, it isnt conclusive evidence, we still require a hop of
faith to believe in objective truth!>>
Empirical evidence only ever delivers probable knowledge: I can watch a
million apples fall downwards, but it is still *possible* that the millionth
and first will float upwards. So I accept that the evidence is not
conclusive: but the weight of empirical evidence for certain scientific
propositions is so overwhelming that one would have to be very eccentric not
to accept that these propositions are very likely to be true. There is
indeed a hop of faith required, but the hop of faith involved in accepting
the existence of absolute truth is vanishingly small: a very much larger hop
is required to deny it.
I have always accepted "the concomitant caveats regarding the provisionality
of that discourse". But there is a big difference between accepting the
provisionality of knowledge, and accepting the relativity of knowledge. In
my view, the two positions are actually incompatible: why bother to wait for
Godot, when you can at will pull any number of Godots out of your hat?
Nick refers to <<nuggets of unalterable knowledge>>. Do not transpose
"unalterable knowledge" for "objective truth". Truth and knowledge are quite
distinct and to argue for the existence of truth is certainly not to argue
for some kind of privileged, absolute knowledge. I have pointed out the
importance of this distinction in previous posts.
Nick also deals with the ethical consequences of this epistemological
debate:
<<The problem with the idea of objective truth is that it isn't very
helpful, it can make people think that there is such a thing as an endlessly
right
answer,(and try to impose that answer on others) and it can stifle doubt,
exploration, and debate. >>
As I have argued above, this formula confuses truth and knowledge. Believing
in the existence of truth does not imply that anyone has 'the right answer'
(knowledge).
On the ethical point, I would argue the exact reverse to Nick: if there is
no such thing as truth, then there is no possibility that one can be wrong,
the basis of all doubt. It is this attitude which leads to intellectual
arrogance. *Without* the idea of objective truth, all discourse is
pointless. It was in Soviet Russia, founded on a relativistic ideology which
denied the existence of abstract truth, that intellectual life was stifled
and subjected to the materialistic authority of government institutions.
Conversely, the great liberal, J S Mill, argued passionately for freedom of
speech and intellectual tolerance, not on the ground that no-one's view
could ever be right, but precisely on the grounds that we *could* be right,
but we could never be *sure* that we were right. It was therefore essential
to continue to test your position in debate.
<<The former leads to autonomy, the latter to dependence.>>
I am very suspicious of a dichotomy which sets up 'autonomy, good;
dependence, bad'. Autonomy without competence is a very doubtful advantage.
Competence is impossible without knowledge. In acquiring knowledge we are
very dependent on the intellectual achievements and traditions which form
the basis of our education. It is a nice paradox that those who insist on
the paramount importance of 'autonomy' demonstrate, in so doing, their
actual dependence on the liberal capitalist society from which they have
inherited these values.
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