>>> Richard Buchanan <
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08/14/01 07:44AM >>>
Folks,
I have found it very interesting
to follow the discussion of knowledge
and understanding in recent
posts. However, the conversation seems to
have become a bit frozen
around the idea of "knowledge," and this
puzzles me. I believe it may
be useful to back away a little bit and
consider a different point of view on
the matter. In short, I think it
is useful to avoid becoming entrapped
in a single term like knowledge.
It is quite gnostic!
To me, the idea
of knowledge has a vaguely Platonic coloring. It is
knowledge as
something existing eternally--though always subject to
misunderstandings and
ambiguities among human beings. In short, it
means "truth." While
I have high regard for knowledge and truth, I do
not believe that many folks
reach a level of understanding that is so
exalted and pure. More to the
point, I always doubt whether I have ever
come close to the "truth," much as
I try.
For this reason, I find it very useful to think about knowledge
in
slight variations of the term which I learned from a wise man many
years
ago.
I like to explore what is "known" and has been "known" in
the present
and in different periods of history. Thinking about what is
"known"
makes us modest and modestly proud, as fits our human
nature.
I also sometimes reflect on what is "knowable" in the world that
I
inhabit. Seeking what is "knowable" may seem less exhalted, but
it
keeps my feet on the ground and attentive to the little twists and
turns
of experience that I may encounter. It reminds me that my
personal
experience may be only a glimpse of what is more serious and
persistent
in the world.
Finally, I also think about the "knower" and
the limitations of
perspective that "knowers" always have. I think
about the "terministic
screens" that people employ as expressions of personal
quests as
"knowers." In fact, I am struck by how often the perspective
of the
"knower" colors what he or she regards as "knowable" or as
"known."
Indeed, it significantly colors what he or she thinks is
"knowledge."
For the community of design researchers it may be well to
remember
Kant's comments on his own efforts to build a tower of
knowledge. The
story comes late in the Critique of Pure Reason--at the
opening of a key
section--and I do not recall it completely. But he
says that he started
out to build a tower to the heavens and discovered, when
he was through,
that he had only built a small house for himself.
Kant's pluralism
becomes evident when he looks around and finds many other
small houses
built by others. It was a village--what we today would
call a community
of inquiry.
While I am not a "Kantian," I think that
Kant is a very wise man.
It is not bad to talk about knowledge, but it is
wise to keep in mind
what is known, what is knowable, and the limitations
that always attend
the knower. I wonder how this could affect our
discussions in a
positive way?
--just some thoughts for our
village.
Dick
Richard Buchanan
Carnegie Mellon
University