dear ken,
i am glad the paper alfredo introduced in our discussion and my post gave you pause and i am pleased you affirmed many things i stated from the origin of the word fact to copernicus finding simpler descriptions of the movements of planets not facts.
you quote the "economist" for defining an etymological fallacy which consists of believing that one has to continue the original meaning of a word in the present. i have never heard anyone insisting on that and i never dreamed of that suggestion. i merely take the liberty to define how i like to use a word and going back to the root of "fact" is a preference that opens ways of seeing what is otherwise closed. to me it makes sense to say that facts are made when i read ludwik fleck's famous book titled "genesis and development of a scientific fact" or bruno latour and steve woolgar's "laboratory life; the construction of scientific facts." it makes also sense to say that facts are made when wittgenstein writes of "tatsachen," loosely translated as "things done by deeds" even when it translated as "facts" in the english text. i grant that your use of the word fact an undisputable truth is not unusual, but it is what we call a conversation stopper: someone who claims that something is a fact (in your sense) is not willing to question its validity. this is unfortunate, also in view of the paper that alfredo introduced in our discussion.
quoting the "economist" you also say that nobody thinks of persons as wearing a mask although this is the original meaning of the word person. in much of social scientific writing the distinction between a person and its self is precisely one of playing a role, hiding one's self behind a mask worn for others, being not one's true one's self. etc. similarly, the japanese are very much concerned with their face, doing face work, attending to the image one wants the public to sees, not who someone really is, metaphorically wearing a mask. maybe one should not ask the "economist" but the "ethnographer" or "social scientist" what it means to be a person.
my whole point of objecting to the universalist view that terry advocated was to bring the conversation back to what humans experience, talk of, and design, making terry and you aware that we can't observe the universe without being an observer, that there is not content in a text without reading, that claiming the ability to see the universe from the perspective of a god who has no body, now standpoint, and no perspective is delusional and certainly not helpful for human-centered designers.
i don't see how you can agree with me that there is external reality that escapes our observations and simultaneously claim to know that gravity exists regardless of how we describe it.
what i find unfortunate is that you are not willing to resolve these contradictions and instead shifty gear to an abstract concept, knowledge, that entails the same contradictions but perhaps makes them less transparent.
let's face it, knowledge is a noun that externalizes the process of human knowing. nounification enables you to talk of knowledge in the abstract and as separate from human beings and actions. in one of your posts, you realized that this isn't quite kosher and so you introduced the distinction between objective knowledge and subjective knowledge inviting the cartesian binary back into the picture. with that you have arrived where we disagreed with a supposedly superior universalist conception and a somewhat inferior human-centered conception.
ken, you haven't escaped from your strange epistemology challenged by alfredo's paper.
klaus
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ken Friedman
Sent: Monday, April 21, 2014 1:20 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Knowledge
Dear Klaus and Alfredo,
For several days, I have been reading the thread titled "Human-centred and universe-centred perspectives in discussions about design." The articles from Alfredo raise several issues clustered around the meaning of the word "knowledge." Rather than carry on with the thread on human-centered or universe-centered perspectives, I want to focus on these issues.
Klaus's etymology of the word "fact" is correct. Etymology describes how words evolved and what they meant at different times. Etymology does not bind contemporary meaning to the origins of a word.
The Latin origin of the word "fact" begins with "factum," a thing done, the past participle of the verb "facere," meaning "to do." This involves something made, but it does not mean that we make the things we refer to as "facts" (OED Online 2014: fact, entry 67478). As Klaus notes, this word is related to such words as factory and manufacture. Nevertheless, most people use the word fact in a different way.
Despite the fact that the word "fact" had early meanings relating to things made or done, the common current meaning of the word is different, and it also descends from classical Latin usage:
"Something that has really occurred or is actually the case; something certainly known to be of this character; hence, a particular truth known by actual observation or authentic testimony, as opposed to what is merely inferred, or to a conjecture or fiction; a datum of experience, as distinguished from the conclusions that may be based upon it.
[In classical Latin factum had occasionally the extended sense of 'event, occurrence'; hence in scholastic Latin was developed the sense above explained, which belongs to all the Romanic equivalents: French fait, Italian fatto, Spanish hecho.]" (OED Online 2014: fact, entry 67478).
In this sense, there is no contradiction in saying "I describe gravity as a fact." The point is not that I describe gravity as being made, but rather that I describe gravity as a fact while I acknowledge that we make our descriptions of gravity.
Klaus's argument to one early Latin meaning of a word from which we derive our word "fact" is a case of etymological fallacy. The Economist explains this nicely:
"A word need not mean exactly what its Greek and Latin roots once literally meant. A persona literally meant a mask, through (per-) which a character in a drama would speak (sonare). That's not what it means today. To decimate originally meant "to destroy a tenth of", but how often do you need to say that? It's quite all right to use it to mean "to destroy a large portion of". Circumstances stand around (circum-) a thing, and so The Economist's style book prescribes "in the circumstances" and not "under the circumstances". But the fact that many people's usage has wandered on to "under" tells us that words will do what they will do, especially if they are derived from ancient languages most people don't know" (Johnson: 2011).
For more, see:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2011/08/word-origins-and-meaning
Wikipedia provides a reasonable discussion of the etymological fallacy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymological_fallacy
While we make facts in one sense of the word facts, we do not make them in the other sense. Unpacking these meanings sheds light on the philosophical issues I describe in earlier posts as layered arguments and concepts.
We make the facts that we perceive, describe, and understand in the sense that we are the makers of our perception, description, and understanding.
We do not make the underlying reality that we refer to by the facts that we perceive, describe, and understand.
No matter how we perceive, describe, and understand this underlying reality, there is a reality that exists outside each of us. No human being can ever fully perceive, describe, and understand reality except through our existential engagement in the world of being and the language that we use. Despite this state of affairs, a world exists outside us and outside our own perception. Some aspects of this world depend neither on our perception nor on the intersubjective agreement that scientists use in the effort to determine which descriptions are best.
Herbert Blumer (1969: 22) speaks of the obdurate character of the empirical world. The symbolic interactionist perspective that began with George Herbert Mead's philosophical psychology acknowledges that we create our perceived world though our language behavior. We do not see or understand the world directly - this is impossible. Rather, we see the world through our constructed understanding of the world.
This is an impossibly thin summary, and it fails to describe the mechanisms by which each of us builds such a world. Nevertheless, as Blumer (1969: 22) writes, "the empirical world can 'talk back' to our pictures of it or assertions about it -talk back in the sense of challenging and resisting, or not bending to, our images or conceptions of it. This resistance gives the empirical world an obdurate character that is the mark of reality. The fact that one can accommodate or resolve the resistance only by forming a new image or conception does not free the empirical world of its obdurate character. It is this obdurate character of the empirical world - its ability to resist and talk back - that both calls for and justifies empirical science."
In using the word and concept of gravitation, I attempted to describe a state of affairs in the natural world.
I agree that we may describe gravitation in several ways. Nevertheless, we do not make the universe we attempt to describe and we do not make the phenomenon we describe by the word gravitation. Rather, we make our descriptions.
There is no contradiction in describing gravitation as a fact while saying that we do not "make" gravitation.
The problem emerges in unpacking the way we use words. It emerges from using the same words to describe several different issues, it emerges from the fact (or case or situation) that we sometimes use the same word in different ways, and it even emerges when we use the same word to mean different things.
The slippage here arises from using the word "fact" in two different ways." In one usage, the word fact indicates the descriptions that we make about the world. In the other usage, the word fact indicates "something that has really occurred or is actually the case."
This is why I have in every post stated my discomfort in addressing issues of this kind in a brief note to a discussion list.
To summarize my position, I assert that there are states of affairs in the universe that exist independent of observation. These states of affairs exist, whether we call them "facts," "situations," or "x."
If we were to vanish tomorrow, I assert that the planet we now inhabit would still be here. This would be the case whether or not we are here to observe, describe, or enjoy the planet or anything on it. Our planet and the rest of the universe were here before we arrived. If you wish to describe this state of affairs by the word "fact" or by any other word, the case that I describe does not depend on my perception. This neither a "bird's-eye view" or a "god's-eye view," but rather a description of our existential condition in the universe we inhabit, observe, and attempt to describe. This is the universe within which we live, create our lives, and attempt to design things.
The articles Alfredo posted were quite interesting. I agree with a great deal in them, but I note that these articles jump between different levels of analysis and different kinds of concepts. Bringing them together into a single discussion requires greater attention to detailed inquiry than has been the case in this conversation.
This is, in great part, because the word "knowledge" has been used in several different ways.
To write about knowledge in a way that is clear and meaningful in epistemological terms, we should not use the same word in several different ways without indicating the changes in meaning that occur as we write in different ways.
There are distinctions between the entities to which we refer when we use such words as "knowledge" and "know." There are differences between and among data, information, and knowledge, and we require distinctions between and among different kinds of knowledge.
The Greeks had a range of words for different kinds of knowledge - techne, episteme, sophia, phronesis. We also use many words to describe different kinds of knowledge - tacit knowledge, explicit knowledge, embodied knowledge, skill, capacity, capability, wisdom, understanding, situated understanding, situated knowledge. We also use specific words to describe forms of knowledge that we see as wrong or misguided - folly, for example, is the antithesis of wisdom.
That which we may "know" requires distinction. Information and facts are external to and independent of the knower. Knowledge inheres in human beings and the specific form of knowledge is often situated and contingent on specifics of learning and knowing.
While the thread has been interesting because it clarifies positions and brings issues forward, it is difficult because the posts relied on generalizations and unclear terms. The lack of time for careful writing and a clear framework within which to respond is one reason for my repeated note that such a conversation on the list is problematic. This response has taken me several days, and over 2,000 words, even after cutting words in the process of editing what I wrote. At some point, one must ask how much effort to give a post on a discussion list, and one must ask how many words the average subscriber will read. One friend says 500 words is the maximum, so I'm already well over the limit.
While I agree with Alfredo that knowledge requires a knowing subject, we must speak about different kinds of knowledge more carefully than we have done here. To discuss epistemology in a meaningful way requires careful distinctions and it requires clarity.
Alfredo writes that, "'knowledge without knowing subject' is not a reasonable premise of socio-scientific praxis, because all knowledge - including scientific - is inescapably carrier of knower's features and therefore irrevocable and intrinsically subjective."
Without taking the time to clarifying the different meanings of the word knowledge as I should do, I will say that this proposition is simply inadequate for some of the issues that we might describe as what we know about some states of the world. Some aspects of reality do not carry the features of a knowing agent in the sense that they reflect subjectivity.
When we use the word "knowledge" to mean things that 1) knowing agents 2) understand about the world 3) in such ways that they can apply their knowledge to the world, then there is no knowledge without a knowing subject. It is important to recognize that in this sense, much of what people "know" may be incorrect, inadequate, or wrong. Since I am not going to examine the many kinds of knowledge, how they arise, or what they mean, I will not give a full explanation of these issues.
But there are other forms of "knowledge" that do not necessarily entail a knowing subject whose subjectivity affects what is known. To return to that problematic words, "facts," there are many "facts" that we know that do not depend on us as knowing subjects. While scientific knowledge depends on intersubjective agreement, there are some issues so widely known and universally accepted as true that there is no point speaking about "subjective knowledge" or "intersubjective knowledge."
Without distinguishing between and among the several kinds of knowledge, we can loosely say that what human beings "know" about such matters as chemistry, metallurgy, communication systems, or medicine, create a reasonably predicable world. In this world, we synthesize materials, planes generally fly, telephones generally work, and smallpox is no longer a disease in nature.
With respect to some issues, human beings can be said to have a bird's-eye view or a god's-eye view as they choose. All atoms of any element are the same as any other atom of the same element. Barring mechanical defects, every engine of the same make and model is identical to all other engines of the same make and model. Whichever side of the steeple the moon appears to be on when you walk past the church, human beings have walked up on it and human beings may conceivably walk again where the moon is without respect to the church.
Now, I concede that Klaus gives a better and more accurate history of the way that Copernicus developed the Copernican model of the solar system than I did. But much of what we've been writing here involves short descriptions of issues that require longer and more careful statements. This is not possible on the list.
And even Klaus and Alfredo describe their positions on knowledge using such words as "is" to describe states of affairs. So even Klaus and Alfredo seem to argue that they know something about how people know. Klaus and Alfredo seem to argue that their descriptions are better or more accurate than descriptions in which other people make claims.
Once again, I note that I agree with many of the points that Klaus and Alfredo raise within a limited frame and without accepting all the entailments of each point across all frames. Each of these descriptions and issues require more careful framing and clarification than is possible in the short frame of a discussion list post.
If we are going to inquire into knowledge and epistemology, there is a great deal to unpack to understand what there is that can be known, what we know, how we know it, and how we understand and describe the act of knowing. In my view, none of the conversations here have offered more than a brief and unsatisfactory outline of issues. While Breuer and Roth (2003) raise interesting and significant issues, they fail to address or frame key aspects of these problems, especially not with respect to scientific knowledge. Some things do not depend on which side of the church we stand as we observe the moon.
Yours,
Ken
Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | University email [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]:[log in to unmask]>> | Private email [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]:[log in to unmask]>> | Mobile +61 404 830 462 | Academia Page http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman
Guest Professor | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| Adjunct Professor | School of Creative Arts | James Cook University | Townsville, Australia
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References
Blumer, Herbert. 1969. Symbolic Interactionism. Perspective and Method. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Breuer, Franz, and Wolff-Michael Roth. 2003. Subjectivity and Reflexivity in the Social Sciences: Epistemic Windows and Methodical Consequences. FQS. Forum: Qualitative Social Research. Vol. 4, No. 2, Art. 25.
The Economist. 2011. Johnson: Language. "Word origins and meaning. The etymological fallacy." August 2, 2011. RLG. URL: http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2011/08/word-origins-and-meaning
Accessed 21 April 2014.
OED. 2014. OED Online. "fact, n." March 2014. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/67478
Accessed 20 April, 2014.
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