57 thoughts on “Knowledge Sucks!”

1. First, the disagreement: I do think that the stable correlations between sensory input and motor output (bodily movement) are sufficient to introduce structure into perceptual consciousness. It’s not a constant flux. (And I’m ambivalent about whether there really are “sense-impressions”.)Whether these stable structures of sensory-motor coordination are concepts depends on what one thinks concepts are.

   Second, the agreement: whatever the sensorimotor coordination turns out to be like, whether it is better described as “conceptual” or as “non-conceptual” and whatever kind of primitive or basic knowledge that it makes possible — the knowledge that a crow might have of how to make a tool to get at food that otherwise be inaccessible, for example — knowledge of that sort is going to be necessary but not sufficient for the distinctive kind of empirical knowledge that is of interest to epistemologists.

   That kind of knowledge requires a special kind of concept: concepts that aren’t just sensorimotor correlations but rather also nodes in an inferential nexus that is shared across body-minds through a public language.

   It’s a bit more complex than “no percept without concept” but I think the basic idea is clear.

   Well, we can still make explicit those rules and norms. They are usually implicit because we don’t pay attention to them explicitly.

   I’m not well-read in Brandom (yet!), so I’m not adept at Making It Explicit 😉

   Since it appears we largely agree, perhaps we should try to flesh what exactly we mean by ‘concept’ out a bit, since a good deal of this issue appears to turn on just what we mean by ‘concept’. This seems to me to be a fairly large problem space; we can think of traditional abstract concepts or universals or whatever you like to call them, Kantian regulative concepts, the more Brandomish idea of normative concepts in semantics – I see a place for each of these ideas. Forgive me if I ramble!

   Lakoff and Johnsons book ‘Metaphors We Live By’ was greatly helpful to me in drawing out a coherent ’embodied’ doctrine of concept formation – as well as Johnson’s other book, The Meaning of the Body (of which I’ve read excerpts). James KA Smith, a philosopher/theologian, has elaborated on the whole ’embodied’ aspect of concepts, intentionality, etc that Merlau-Ponty, Johnson et al pushed, and I think they are quite helpful in getting to grips with just *how* the ‘public-language’ bit cashes out. If I remember, Johnson/Lakoff basically push for the idea that our embodied experience in the world ‘imprints’ categories onto us, which we apply via metaphor.

   That’s fine as far as it goes – but the traditional idea of abstract concepts is a bit trickier IMO. John Haldane noted in his debate with JJC Smart that neither innatism (not that anyone really defends innate ideas or concepts too much anymore) or abstractionism work for concept-formation – he argues via Geach, against abstractionism, that to attend to concept is to exercise a concept – and argued for the Thomistic-Wittgenstein picture I mentioned earlier. Abstract concepts, to me anyway, present a bit more of a problem for the rule/norm picture of concept, is what I’m driving at.

2. whitefrozen,

   I agree that the inferentialist picture of concepts has a hard time with abstract or formal concepts. There’s no Sellarsian philosophy of mathematics (yet).

   I also like the Johnson/Lakoff stuff, and Merleau-Ponty is a hero of mine. My book is basically an attempt to tie together Sellars on discursive concepts and Merleau-Ponty on bodily meaning, with some help from Wittgenstein. I would say that discursive practices (the Sellarsian/Brandomian bit) are a specific mode or form of sensorimotor capacities (the Merleau-Ponty, Johnson/Lakoff bit).

   So I appeal to Sellars and Brandom on inferential patterns instituted by social practices, and Merleau-Ponty (and many others) on bodily teleology, in order to flesh out the idea that a normal mature human being is a rational animal (and one that needs the cultivation of the virtues in order to thrive, etc.). I’m severely critical of Aristotle in specific ways but I’m also very much an Aristotelian in many others.

   I don’t know this James KA Smith you mentioned. Book or article you’d suggest? I can see how that could really illuminate the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, yes?

3. KN,

   That strikes me as a case of knowing-how, only it is not a knowing-how that is immediately available to subjective reflection because it was not explicitly taught.

   Which is exactly why I said it depends on your definition of “knowing how”.

   A related example is newborns’ attraction to faces and face-like objects. It’s clearly wired into their brains, since they have no prenatal exposure to the sight of faces.

   If you count that as “knowledge” (which seems like a stretch to me), then “knowing how” to see faces precedes “knowing that” there are faces out there.

   Otherwise, “knowing that” comes first, and it’s the result of hard-wiring — not actual “knowing how”.

4. Kantian Naturalist:
   whitefrozen,

   I don’t know this James KA Smith you mentioned. Book or article you’d suggest? I can see how that could really illuminate the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, yes?

   My bad, I thought I referenced one of his books in that comment – the book I’m thinking of is ‘Imagining the Kingdom’ – http://www.amazon.com/Imagining-Kingdom-Worship-Cultural-Liturgies/dp/0801035783

   His work focuses more on how ritual/liturgy/habits/etc form us as social, embodied creatures, though he has a series of books on thinkers like Rorty, Derrida, Charles Taylor, et al. I’m less than thrilled with his charcterization of the ‘cartesian’ traditin – which is little more than a boogey-man for him – but his work on the embodied-ness of knowledge, social practice, narrative, metaphor, emotional intentionality, etc is really just great.

5. whitefrozen,

   Thank you for the reference! I doubt I’ll read it — it’s not quite my cup of tea, to be honest — but I have friends who would really enjoy it.

   I noticed that he draws on Taylor — about three weeks ago I got into a heated (and continuing) conversation here at TSZ about Taylor’s idea of “disclosive” language, as distinct from “assertoric” language. That is, language that discloses some dimension of one’s experience as distinct from language that asserts some claim about reality. I wanted to say that I no longer wanted to identify as an atheist (as I had up until recently) because I wanted to stress this idea that religion is a disclosive rather than assertoric language — more like poetry than like science, if you will.

   Needless to say, this proposal did not go over well. But that’s OK — we learn more about our views by submitting them to mutual criticism and correction, and that’s why we’re all here.

6. Knowledge sucks. Ignorance blows. Choose your poison.

7. Kantian Naturalist:
   Thank you for the reference! I doubt I’ll read it — it’s not quite my cup of tea, to be honest — but I have friends who would really enjoy it.

   All the talk about language, I’d think liturgy would be right in there. 🙂

   Also by the same author:
   Who’s Afraid of Postmodernism?: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church

   The philosophies of French thinkers Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault form the basis for postmodern thought and are seemingly at odds with the Christian faith. However, James K. A. Smith claims that their ideas have been misinterpreted and actually have a deep affinity with central Christian claims.

   Who’s Afraid of Relativism?: Community, Contingency, and Creaturehood

   A leading Christian philosopher introduces the philosophical sources behind contemporary theology, offering a fresh analysis of relativism and pragmatism.