Archive for the ‘subjectivity’ Category:
Three Epistemic Options and Garden State
In my last post, I tried to outline how the need for certainty leads us to believe we cannot know anything at all. The bar many of us set for truth is so high nothing seems to be able to pass it. Sometimes it seems reason leads us to believe there is no reason (in the old model’s definition). So what the heck do we do with this?
We really only have three options. We can stay in the old model. We can admit that nothing can be known (what I call epistemic nihilism). Or we can scrape the old model and save knowledge.
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Certainty and Knowledge
In our culture, the need for certainty is often held up as the norm, skepticism is even praised. The default position in the Scientific Method is doubt. We seem to believe that if something is true, it will be able to stand up to any test (without even questioning the validity of the test itself).
Until a few months ago, I also embraced this view.
I thought truth was something that could be put into nice neat propositional statements and always could be proved with absolute certainty. The first time I read Descartes’ Meditations, I soaked it up like a sponge. I thought that here was how I could know, with absolute certainty, that I exist, and subsequently that God exists. I could build a firm foundation and be certain of anything that comes from this foundation. After all, this foundation was built form the idea of radical doubt. But our need for certainty is misplaced and leads to epistemic nihilism (the inablitiy to know anything, and a sense of loss in this).
Lost in Translation, Part 2
Last week, I wrote about the challenge of communicating relationally in the blogosphere. Now I will discuss the importance of applying this same principle in understanding the Christian faith.
Disclaimer: I do not believe Christianity can be fully communicated in this medium, but I do believe that some understanding can be obtained with hard work and patience. I certainly do not hold to an agnostic epistemology (belief that one cannot know truth or knowledge). However, there are relational limitations to this medium.
In truth, I am ecstatic to be confronted with these limitations! Here’s why…
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Lost in Translation Part 1
I have come to have a renewed appreciation for the “glass ceiling” that limits relationships in the blogosphere. Yes, we can exchange ideas, beliefs, and opinions with many to spare, yet it is a different story when we cannot be so personally invested in relationship. Because of the limits to personal interaction, there is a limit to shared experience as well. And while we exchange “ideas,” we do so in a sterile environment, bereft of the richness and depth of experience each of us has to offer.
A friend of mine was recently talking about how she was able to put 8 years of learning French to use at work. Her employer often deals with another company in Canada. While they normally have an English option, they received an email that was entirely in French, so her co-workers called her over. She sat down and started reading the email, some of it out loud. She explained that for some reason, this company couldn’t respond at this time, they weren’t there anymore, etc. She was excited that she could understand what they were writing and hadn’t lost many of her hard-earned skills.
Towards the bottom she realized that it was an automatic “out of office reply” sent by the system. Read more »
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