Pragmatism and Feminist Epistemology both challenge the view of knowledge as a detached, intellectual activity. Do you think they are right? How do you think we should think about knowledge?Yikes! Now that I've read some different philosophical theories and views of knowledge, I feel more confused than ever about what I think it is. I used to think knowledge was possession of the truth about something. And truth was just a fact. Opinion didn't really come in to it, something was true or untrue, whether you liked it or not. Seems like that was a pretty simplistic idea! I still feel like in most cases the truth is the truth, no matter what your opinion about it is, and so knowledge is knowing that truth. Mostly. I am making room for the new ideas of truth and knowledge that I've read about in the last few weeks, though, so I have to acknowledge that I've been taking the easy approach when it comes to thinking about reality, knowledge and truth.
I see where the Feminist philosophers are coming from when they say that generally accepted truths are not necessarily true for everyone because they've been told to us for centuries from the male perspective. What might be true, in general, for (or about) men is probably not true, in general, for women. In using the male perspective to apply a standard truth for everyone across the board, we are probably distorting what is considered "truth", and therefore distorting knowledge. Consider the source, because everything may have to be reconsidered...:)
What was a little bit harder for me to wrap my head around was the Pragmatists idea of truth and knowledge. There's a part of it that just doesn't seem right, to me - the idea that something can be considered "true" until the truer version emerges, just because it served the needs of the people well, up until that point....? Am I misunderstanding that? (the example given in the book was about the medieval beliefs about the motions of the planets, which they got wrong). If it's not true, it's just not true! Never mind that they were able to use the wrong info in a lot of useful ways - that was lucky for them, but it didn't make it true! Aside from that bit, I actually think their idea of knowledge makes total sense. The idea of knowledge as this static thing that you either possess or don't possess seems a very dead way to think about it, now. Instead, the idea of knowledge as being an active part of your day or your life, something to be used and tested and modified, sometimes rejected in favor of a better or more useful belief that doesn't contradict things you already know are true, it just seems so much more interesting - and useful. It sort of makes the whole concept of knowledge and truth more relevant, in a way, and brings it right into the lives of every person, instead of just the intellectuals who spent their lives studying these things.
1 comment:
Very good post, I like the way you make sense of pragmatism here. I agree with what you say that it makes much more sense to think of it like this.
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