ARE THERE REASONS TO BE SKEPTICAL OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE CLAIMS?
I wasn't there last class so I didn't hear the full discussion, but I say that you should be skeptical of your knowledge claims. We talked about the Allegory of the Cave the other day, and how we don't even know if we are in a cave or we somewhat know we are. No one knows everything and everyone can be unsure of themselves. In the video about the sheep, the expert was wrong. We assume the expert should know everything but not necessarily. The expert just has a lower chance of being wrong because they know a lot about a certain subject but they still have the chance of being wrong. I believe perspective is the best fact checker because we as Americans (for example) can believe something is right but if you look at something from another country's perspective they could think differently.
Perspective could be a good way to "check" our claims (it could sometimes be worse), but I believe there are many reasons to be skeptical for what we know or consider a part of our knowledge. Senses (Seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling, and smelling) are a big part of how we know the world around us. But we also know that senses can be false which means many of our thoughts, theories and conclusions we rely on could be false as well. Another reason why we can be skeptical is due to our dependence on physical concepts or examples. We generally have a hard time understanding or even thinking about concepts we cannot see so make examples for almost every abstract concept. We make equations and laws to put our knowledge in abstract form but we encourage the use of uncertainties and exceptions (Proving ourselves wrong in a way). Although there is a possibility for what we consider knowledge, but there are also many good reasons why be should be skeptical for our knowledge claims.
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ReplyDeleteI understand where you are coming from when you say that the expert has a lower chance and being wrong. However, I think that they have just the same amount of chance and being wrong because it is unknown whether or not the information or data they based their information off of is even true. How do we even know that the very basic of information is even true at all? Other than that point, I liked how you wrote that it is all about perspective, because it is about perspective. Other countries or environments have different beliefs and it is important to acknowledge that.
ReplyDeleteWhat makes an expert? How do we manage information of which we are not certain?
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