I have been concerned for a very long time with questions regarding epistemology, or the study of knowledge. How can we be certain of anything? What do we really know? Everything we think, from our most cherished beliefs to our most mundane assumptions, seems to be subject to at least some level of rational doubt. How can we know when we've thought enough? How can we know when we are certain, versus when we are merely ignorant or
As of now, I still do now know the answer to any of those questions, which I suppose is fitting.
But one uncomfortable conclusion which I have reached is that the very nature of inquiring, or trying to figure out what we know or don't know, is itself something that is necessarily stunted, and involves the need to ignore most blind-spots at any given moment.
At least part of the reason for this consistent and overwhelming blind spot is time. All inquiries are made in time, and all answers are found in time. The nature of our experience of time means that we are always exclusively occupied with any given concern; time limits our range of capacities to whatever we're doing now. Much could be said of this, but as it relates to our concern right here, right now, about knowledge, the impact is that we can't get outside the moment of our inquiry about one element of experience to inquire about all the rest of our experience.
Of course, at first this might seem trivially true, and non problematic. I mean, of course inquiries exist in time! Everything does! And, let me be clear, I'm not using some esoteric definition of "inquiry". I just mean "asking questions about stuff".
However, I think that the fact that all of our questioning takes place embedded in time actually adds worrisome and important complications our efforts to understand the world. To see some broader implications we need to look first at language.
There is a thought that I had while thinking about the ways in which language reflects the problem of knowledge. It is not a new thought, nor a unique observation, but that is rather besides the point. It's a problem that I want to explore for a moment.
Consider this; by the time we are of a sufficient age to critically think about our own language, we are already steeped in it. We cannot help to treat it as being given; that is, just being an obvious and unquestionable element of the world, like the ground beneath our feet or the sky above our heads. Of course, language is not wholly given as a directly obvious true element, like the existence of ground and sky. Rather, it is pseudo-given. I say this because we can of course isolate words and bracket them for further, rigorous analysis. We do this already with dictionaries.
To ask a question about any given word, we have to take essentially the whole rest of the language, and all the words therein, as granted. If we ask what the word "tree" means, the answer might be something like "A woody perennial plant, typically having a single stem or trunk, growing to a considerable height and bearing lateral branches at some distance from the ground." Of course, to accept that answer, you have to accept the meanings of all the words used in the explanation. And, to ask what the meaning of any of the words involved in that answer is, you would have to accept the words involved in that answer.
And so on and so forth.
So it is obvious that one cannot doubt the totality of language all at once. Such a thing would be cognitively impossible. To do it, one would have no words whatsoever remaining with which they could express their subsequent thoughts as answers. They would have no ability to actually scrutinize language, for the vary tools necessary to do it would have been lost in their sweeping, universal doubt.
So language can be taken apart piecemeal, but only if one takes the greater bulk of any given language at face value while any particular investigation is taking place.
There is an unsettling parallel here with our capacity to interrogate the world. Just as it is impossible to coherently inquire as to any segment of a language without taking the greater whole of it for granted, so too is it impossible to coherently inquire as to the nature of the world without taking most of it for granted.
Take the question about trees again, but know lets make it not about the definition of the word 'tree', but a question about what trees actually are. If we ask "What are trees?" we again get the answer: "A woody perennial plant, typically having a single stem or trunk, growing to a considerable height and bearing lateral branches at some distance from the ground." Now, the answer can only be satisfactory to the inquiry if we accept at face value the existence of some other things, like 'wood', 'perennial plants', 'ground', and things like 'height'.
Just as we must take for granted the rest of language if we ask for the definition of a given word, we must also take for granted the rest of the universe any time we attempt to ask for the truth about a given segment of it.
But what does this have to do with time? Well, we (of course) don't have infinite time. We're all going to die, for one thing. For another, the time between now and our death (however long it may be) is going to necessarily be divided into sequential and mutually exclusive processes. We cannot do two things at once; I cannot try to find the ultimate grounding of all Being to answer my philosophical curiosity while at the same time working at my day job to support my material being, managing relationships, navigating through the world, staying caught up on the news, doing mundane chores, and so on and so forth.
So even if it were in principle possible to reach an epistemic rock bottom upon which to ground all knowledge absolutely (and I am quite skeptical that such a thing is possible in principle), in practice it would be functionally impossible due to the constraints on my being-in-time.
This fact has little impact on the sciences. It is no problem for them to suspend critical inquiry of the totality of the world around them so as to focus on the precise topic of their study. Science has no problem taking the world in piecemeal. It has little impact on our ordinary life as well, we we tackle the world in piecemeal as well. I don't need a fundamental understanding of all existence to make dinner, drive to work, or order a coffee.
However, what does it mean for philosophy? Can there ever be some great and final system building exorcise in, say, metaphysics? How could one inquire in one fell swoop as to the nature of the world as a whole; on what basis could they ground any observation that came after that first sweeping question? It would be akin to asking what an entire language meant all at once, without recourse to any elements of the language to use in its own explanation.
Of course, one possible answer is simply to shrug and admit that we cannot have grand answers to sweeping questions. Philosophy, like science, is confined to precisely delineated questions, and thus precisely delineated answers. Any questions about the world as a whole, which is to say all of Being Itself, is simply incoherent, for to inquire as to the nature of all Being at once is to deprive yourself of any of its possible elements so as to form an answer.
Just some thoughts.
As of now, I still do now know the answer to any of those questions, which I suppose is fitting.
But one uncomfortable conclusion which I have reached is that the very nature of inquiring, or trying to figure out what we know or don't know, is itself something that is necessarily stunted, and involves the need to ignore most blind-spots at any given moment.
At least part of the reason for this consistent and overwhelming blind spot is time. All inquiries are made in time, and all answers are found in time. The nature of our experience of time means that we are always exclusively occupied with any given concern; time limits our range of capacities to whatever we're doing now. Much could be said of this, but as it relates to our concern right here, right now, about knowledge, the impact is that we can't get outside the moment of our inquiry about one element of experience to inquire about all the rest of our experience.
Of course, at first this might seem trivially true, and non problematic. I mean, of course inquiries exist in time! Everything does! And, let me be clear, I'm not using some esoteric definition of "inquiry". I just mean "asking questions about stuff".
However, I think that the fact that all of our questioning takes place embedded in time actually adds worrisome and important complications our efforts to understand the world. To see some broader implications we need to look first at language.
There is a thought that I had while thinking about the ways in which language reflects the problem of knowledge. It is not a new thought, nor a unique observation, but that is rather besides the point. It's a problem that I want to explore for a moment.
Consider this; by the time we are of a sufficient age to critically think about our own language, we are already steeped in it. We cannot help to treat it as being given; that is, just being an obvious and unquestionable element of the world, like the ground beneath our feet or the sky above our heads. Of course, language is not wholly given as a directly obvious true element, like the existence of ground and sky. Rather, it is pseudo-given. I say this because we can of course isolate words and bracket them for further, rigorous analysis. We do this already with dictionaries.
To ask a question about any given word, we have to take essentially the whole rest of the language, and all the words therein, as granted. If we ask what the word "tree" means, the answer might be something like "A woody perennial plant, typically having a single stem or trunk, growing to a considerable height and bearing lateral branches at some distance from the ground." Of course, to accept that answer, you have to accept the meanings of all the words used in the explanation. And, to ask what the meaning of any of the words involved in that answer is, you would have to accept the words involved in that answer.
And so on and so forth.
So it is obvious that one cannot doubt the totality of language all at once. Such a thing would be cognitively impossible. To do it, one would have no words whatsoever remaining with which they could express their subsequent thoughts as answers. They would have no ability to actually scrutinize language, for the vary tools necessary to do it would have been lost in their sweeping, universal doubt.
So language can be taken apart piecemeal, but only if one takes the greater bulk of any given language at face value while any particular investigation is taking place.
There is an unsettling parallel here with our capacity to interrogate the world. Just as it is impossible to coherently inquire as to any segment of a language without taking the greater whole of it for granted, so too is it impossible to coherently inquire as to the nature of the world without taking most of it for granted.
Take the question about trees again, but know lets make it not about the definition of the word 'tree', but a question about what trees actually are. If we ask "What are trees?" we again get the answer: "A woody perennial plant, typically having a single stem or trunk, growing to a considerable height and bearing lateral branches at some distance from the ground." Now, the answer can only be satisfactory to the inquiry if we accept at face value the existence of some other things, like 'wood', 'perennial plants', 'ground', and things like 'height'.
Just as we must take for granted the rest of language if we ask for the definition of a given word, we must also take for granted the rest of the universe any time we attempt to ask for the truth about a given segment of it.
But what does this have to do with time? Well, we (of course) don't have infinite time. We're all going to die, for one thing. For another, the time between now and our death (however long it may be) is going to necessarily be divided into sequential and mutually exclusive processes. We cannot do two things at once; I cannot try to find the ultimate grounding of all Being to answer my philosophical curiosity while at the same time working at my day job to support my material being, managing relationships, navigating through the world, staying caught up on the news, doing mundane chores, and so on and so forth.
So even if it were in principle possible to reach an epistemic rock bottom upon which to ground all knowledge absolutely (and I am quite skeptical that such a thing is possible in principle), in practice it would be functionally impossible due to the constraints on my being-in-time.
This fact has little impact on the sciences. It is no problem for them to suspend critical inquiry of the totality of the world around them so as to focus on the precise topic of their study. Science has no problem taking the world in piecemeal. It has little impact on our ordinary life as well, we we tackle the world in piecemeal as well. I don't need a fundamental understanding of all existence to make dinner, drive to work, or order a coffee.
However, what does it mean for philosophy? Can there ever be some great and final system building exorcise in, say, metaphysics? How could one inquire in one fell swoop as to the nature of the world as a whole; on what basis could they ground any observation that came after that first sweeping question? It would be akin to asking what an entire language meant all at once, without recourse to any elements of the language to use in its own explanation.
Of course, one possible answer is simply to shrug and admit that we cannot have grand answers to sweeping questions. Philosophy, like science, is confined to precisely delineated questions, and thus precisely delineated answers. Any questions about the world as a whole, which is to say all of Being Itself, is simply incoherent, for to inquire as to the nature of all Being at once is to deprive yourself of any of its possible elements so as to form an answer.
Just some thoughts.