Larry Sanger wrote:
"This question--who authorizes the authorities--really lies at the heart of
social epistemology, and reminds me of an essay I read in grad school,
"Egoism in Epistemology" by Richard Foley (in *Socializing Epistemology*--I
just pulled the book off the shelf). Among other things Foley distinguishes
"derivative" and "fundamental" authority, which is roughly the difference
between authority for which I have reasons to believe a person is a reliable
source of knowledge, and authority for which I have no such reasons. A
central issue in social epistemology is whether--at some point--we must
simply take what others say on trust, or whether it is always possible in
some deep way ultimately to justify our reliance on testimony. "Epistemic
egoists" (Foley's term) say it is possible."
Dear Folks-
Peirce speaks of reliance upon authority as one way of fixing belief . But
I believe he recommends the method of science as perhaps the better way to
settle questions of fact if one's goal is primarily to learn the truth of
the matter. Unfortunately we are not always in a position to conduct
scientific investigations and must rely on less direct ways of acquiring the
sort of information science can provide. In such case it would be nice to
have access to some representative sample of scientific results succinctly
summarized in a way we could understand them without ourselves having the
scientific background and resources necessary to do the research ourselves.
Similarly it would be nice to have access to information about all sort of
topics categorized and summarized in a felicitious and transparent way --
by which I mean accessible, comprehendable and traceable to its source so
that we could make a judgment as to its bias (deliberate or otherwise).
I say bias because this what we seem to fear --- that the information will
be distorted or falsified because of some prejudice or ulterior motive of
those who have provided it. But what I really want to say is merely POV.
The usefulness, comprehensiveness and ultimately truth of all information is
limited by the fact that it represents from a particular point of view.
What we seek (and what the scientific method is expresessly set up to
provide) is a representative sampling of all possible points of view.
There are no priviledged points of view. Truth is that which is common to
all points of view.
What we seek from so called experts is their access to this "common"
knowledge or POV. What makes one an expert is not that they know something
unique to a special POV but that they know what is common to all points of
view of a particular topic. This, it seems to me, is the uncommon common
sense we speak of as being the domain of wisdom. An expert knows a lot
about a particular topic. What's rare about an expert's knowledge is its
scope. The expert distills the conceptual essence of a subject matter from
many points of views. Expertise is a reliable access to truth, not because
it is based upon a unique or rare POV, but precisely because it is not
dependent upon or limited to a particular point of view. And the measure of
what is not dependent upon a particular POV (or of POV in general) is that
which is common to all points of view. What all POVs have in common is the
truth. What is unique to every POV is error. What is unique to the truth
is that it is what is common to all POVs. What is common to all error is
that it uniquely expressed in every POV. Truth and error are common and
unique in exactly opposite ways.
And how do we collect and provide access to the sort of expertise we seek?
I'm not sure but I would look to the scientific investigation of the
question as the best way to provide answers. What is the most reliable way
to collate scientific information, or expert summation of scientific
information, in a easily accessable fashion is itself a scientific
question. Does some sort of citation count procedure (such as google etc)
provide the most representative sampling of the information domain? And
what sort of "expert" information domain do we want to sample -- maybe
some way of providing more transparancy about the domain sampled coupled
with broad and representative sampling is the best way to categoriize and
make accessible what folks are seeking. Somehow though, I doubt that
committees selected on the basis of academic standing (judged by some
committee of academics) is going to provide the sort of broad and
comprehensive expertise we deseve and are capable of providing with the
tools of the internet. Seems to me we need to come up with some less value
laden selection criteria. Something more tied to the mere quantitative
dimensions of the information domain being sampled -- as opposed to being
tied to the particular values of those designing the information system.
Ha -- I suppose my values rather than the values of those doing the work!
In any case I agree that it would be helpful if information were somehow
tied to it's source as well as its content so that folks could properly
evaluate the sources of its variance. To partition the sources of variation
among observations into those which are are assoicated with the object
observed and those which are associated with the POV of the observor
constitutes the crux of the scientific methods (in my view) and what makes
science a more reliable guide to truth than other approaches such as taste,
tradition and other POV laden (ie subjective rather than objective)
approaches. Suppose contributers were categorized by education, age sex
religion, nationality and location of residences -- and suppose we could
sort the information we were seeking according to who provided it according
to these criteria. Might this be helpful? And what if we were to find that
information does not vary as a function of these criteria (which after all
can be lied about in any case) but does vary as a function of some more
objective criteria such as what pre-existing (already published) sources
from which it was gathered? Might this suggest that what we need is not
some committess making up new summaries of existing information but merely
some more efficient computer assisted way of sorting through existing
information summaries (long and short, complex and simple) that provide a
particular user with the particular kind of search he or she is seeking
through the world wide web of information that already exists.
Well I guess all of this is just my long winded way of saying I agree that
it would be helpful to be able to sort information by both content and
source. We are interested not only in what is being point to but also from
where it is being pointed from. The only way we can understand a topic apart
from its context is to understand the context as well as the object.
Intrepretation is just as much a leading or formulating apsect of
representation as it is a concluding or analytical aspect. All objects are
embedded in an interpretive context. Interpretation is the passing of an
object's meaning from one context to the next. What we perceive surely
depends in part upon what is there to be seen, but what is there in front of
us equally depends in part upon where we are standing. The true or
essential quality of an obect is that which constitutes the object
independent of its spatial temporal location. The essential quality of a
location is what it brings to an event independent of whatever object occurs
there. Such is also the case with objects and POVs. If in fact there even
are such essential qualities of either objects or locations as is commonly
taken to be the case.
Just some questions stirred up for me by your interesting discussion. And
writing this (with a more than usual consciousness of the source and purpose
of what I'm writing) makes me want to add that I know I'm partly just
rambling and that this is not expert information or even particularly well
organizied or usefull information for some purposes -- but also that on the
other hand it is part of a a communal ramble and pondering whose goal is
closer to the fomulation of the question than the answering of it. Getting
clear as to the nature of our puzzlement before we jump ahead to the matter
of removing our specific doubts as the best course of action. What do we
want from an encyclopedia and from experts -- that is my question. And
are experts and standard enclyopedias the best source of what we want from
either? All said with great admiration for those actually doing the
difficult and creative work of thinking through and developing such tools --
Including of course both Larry, Steven and others.
An after thought -- what makes scientific information more reliable and
valid than so called mere popular opinion is that scientific information is
based upon a representative sample of observations (with data as to their
source) whereas popular opinion or even expert opinion is not necessarily
based upon such representative sampling of all POV. The reason data as to
source of the observations is important is because this allows for
determination of the representativeness of the sample and allows for further
testing and expansion of this sampling . The issue is not merely the
transparency of the data or whether it has been manipulated or lied
bout -- this can happen among scientists as well as experts and the general
public. Indeed, IMHO, lieing occurs more often among so called experts and
other "authorities" than among the general public. Far less often among
contributers from the general public to Wekipedia than from contributions
from various so called authorieties. And from what I've experienced
Wekipedia is often more accurate and useful than so called more
authoritative encyclopedias that routinely grossly distort political and
social information without even an acknowledgement and perhaps awareness of
the possibility that they might be doing so. The spotlight of attention
regarding bias is perhaps Wikipedias greatest virtue -- it knows its
limitations. An sincere acknowledgment of one's limits is far more
valueable than false modesty about fallibity while one comits gross
blunders. Who on the TV millionaire quiz show would choose to call an all
purpose expert (even one they know well) when they can poll the anonymous
audience. So yes, know the source -- but the issue is getting a
representative sample of POVs --not that some, many or perhaps even most
authorities are notorious liars and propagandists. That we are all lieing
to one degree or another most of the time is, I thought, the one small
concession to the truth that we all made. So what we seek is representative
scientific sampling of the data obtained from mulitple points of view --
whether we are sampling the data directly or indirectly by sampling the
knowledge of experts.
Ultimately what authorizes a so called authority as an accepted authority is
the effectiveness of the so called authority (in the hearts and minds of
those who take it as such) in accomplishing what it purports to accomplish.
We act upon what we believe. What we merely suppose or perceive but do not
yet act upon is apparently what we do not quite yet believe. And what we
say, I suspect, is some strange waystation between thought and action
designed to persuade, recruit and sometimes at least delay if not outright
deceive both ourselves and others as we engage in that communal experience
of being a part of the human organism we call society. And thought --
thought, I imagine, is what societies do. Strickly a group activity not to
be confused with the private individual stirrings we mistake for it. Or
so it all seems to me just now ...
Best wishes,
Jim Piat
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