While I'm waiting for my lunch to finish cooking, I'll spend a few minutes and talk about how we can come to know what we know. [As a side note, this is more exciting than doing physics problems, but less exciting than opening up my copy of The Screwtape Letters and reading a bit, but will probably take about the same amount of thought as either.] We all know things, right? Well, let's just assume that everyone does know at least something, but how do we, as people, come across that knowledge?
There are actually at least four ways (categories, actually), but I'm really only going to cover two of them because in my opinion, they're the two most interesting. Just because they're worth mentioning, the other two are authoritarianism (ie, learning from textbooks or what people say) and innatism (something that all humans know).
The first way I'm going to talk about is empiricism, which is through observation of ones own senses. This seems to be the favoured way in the modern world. People are comfortable with what they see, hear, touch, taste and smell and they rely on their senses to relay accurate information to their brains and then they can logically form conclusions based on those perceptions. Empiricism is especially common in science, where measurements must be made.
The second way I find noteworthy enough to talk about a bit is intuitionism. This one is a bit trickier because it can't apply to every situation. Commonly called a "gut reaction" or "sixth sense" or (as I often put it) a "hunch", this way of knowing things can't usually be rationalised and it varies from person to person, though I have witnessed at least one situation where two people had the same intuition, though in very different ways. For one person, it came all of a sudden and hit like the force of a soccer ball to the stomach and to the other person, it was that sneaking suspicion that something wasn't right, but without knowledge as to what was the problem or why (or how) he knew. [Yes, by default, I use masculine pronouns when I refer to people. The people I'm talking about when I do this aren't always male. Sorry if that bothers you. Deal with it.]
From personal experience (empiricism!), I've found that most people rely more on empiricism than on intuition. Why? It's able to be verified by other sources and it gets things done. Which is important in modern day America (and Canada and Europe, etc.). However, I've actually found that I prefer intuition (when it is available). This is because it has helped me immensely in a lot of ways, namely solving scientific problems and dealing with people.
But as many things in life go, one aspect relies on another. If you just had empricism, this would be slow and you'd probably never get much of anything done! If you relied solely on intuition, you wouldn't have a way to back up your claims; people wouldn't believe what you have to say. [If you don't believe me on that, go try explaining to your science teacher that the reason why you think feeding salt water to pea plants is because "it feels right"!] No, how I believe that it should work is that you observe something (ie, people who eat apples are healthier than those who don't). Your intuition provides what some scientific types may call a "leap in logic" (ie, that apples reduce the risk of heart disease). But not many people would believe you if you just went on the news and said that. [At least, I hope they wouldn't, even if it is true!] You need to rely on empiricism to come up with evidence (ie, study patients at risk for heart disease and feed some of them apples and some of them oranges and then see if there are any differences in prevalence of heart attacks).
Does that make sense? That's how intuition can be applied in a scientific manner, where science is a field that is littered with empiricism. The field of interpersonal dynamics (ie, how people interact with others) is an area much better suited for intuition, but unfortunately not everyone has that. Yet another failure of my favourite epistemology... for all its failures and possible shortcomings, intuition has provided me with the valuable insight that I wouldn't be able to get otherwise.
Ironically, many things in the universe exist in dichotemies, like Faith and Science, Pathos and Logos (this one is fun because Ethos creates a third player), Truth and Love... the list goes on and on. I'll have to make this a separate blog entry (at another time!) and talk about ways these pairs (and pairs like them) can interact.
Well, I'm off to finish eating and do a few more things before I head back to class. Anyhow, if you have any ideas that you'd like me to cover on blog topics, please leave a comment and let me know! Since the majority of my classes this term are philosophy-related, I'll probably be drawing inspiration from class discussions and the like, but I'm always open to new ideas. <3
There are actually at least four ways (categories, actually), but I'm really only going to cover two of them because in my opinion, they're the two most interesting. Just because they're worth mentioning, the other two are authoritarianism (ie, learning from textbooks or what people say) and innatism (something that all humans know).
The first way I'm going to talk about is empiricism, which is through observation of ones own senses. This seems to be the favoured way in the modern world. People are comfortable with what they see, hear, touch, taste and smell and they rely on their senses to relay accurate information to their brains and then they can logically form conclusions based on those perceptions. Empiricism is especially common in science, where measurements must be made.
The second way I find noteworthy enough to talk about a bit is intuitionism. This one is a bit trickier because it can't apply to every situation. Commonly called a "gut reaction" or "sixth sense" or (as I often put it) a "hunch", this way of knowing things can't usually be rationalised and it varies from person to person, though I have witnessed at least one situation where two people had the same intuition, though in very different ways. For one person, it came all of a sudden and hit like the force of a soccer ball to the stomach and to the other person, it was that sneaking suspicion that something wasn't right, but without knowledge as to what was the problem or why (or how) he knew. [Yes, by default, I use masculine pronouns when I refer to people. The people I'm talking about when I do this aren't always male. Sorry if that bothers you. Deal with it.]
From personal experience (empiricism!), I've found that most people rely more on empiricism than on intuition. Why? It's able to be verified by other sources and it gets things done. Which is important in modern day America (and Canada and Europe, etc.). However, I've actually found that I prefer intuition (when it is available). This is because it has helped me immensely in a lot of ways, namely solving scientific problems and dealing with people.
But as many things in life go, one aspect relies on another. If you just had empricism, this would be slow and you'd probably never get much of anything done! If you relied solely on intuition, you wouldn't have a way to back up your claims; people wouldn't believe what you have to say. [If you don't believe me on that, go try explaining to your science teacher that the reason why you think feeding salt water to pea plants is because "it feels right"!] No, how I believe that it should work is that you observe something (ie, people who eat apples are healthier than those who don't). Your intuition provides what some scientific types may call a "leap in logic" (ie, that apples reduce the risk of heart disease). But not many people would believe you if you just went on the news and said that. [At least, I hope they wouldn't, even if it is true!] You need to rely on empiricism to come up with evidence (ie, study patients at risk for heart disease and feed some of them apples and some of them oranges and then see if there are any differences in prevalence of heart attacks).
Does that make sense? That's how intuition can be applied in a scientific manner, where science is a field that is littered with empiricism. The field of interpersonal dynamics (ie, how people interact with others) is an area much better suited for intuition, but unfortunately not everyone has that. Yet another failure of my favourite epistemology... for all its failures and possible shortcomings, intuition has provided me with the valuable insight that I wouldn't be able to get otherwise.
Ironically, many things in the universe exist in dichotemies, like Faith and Science, Pathos and Logos (this one is fun because Ethos creates a third player), Truth and Love... the list goes on and on. I'll have to make this a separate blog entry (at another time!) and talk about ways these pairs (and pairs like them) can interact.
Well, I'm off to finish eating and do a few more things before I head back to class. Anyhow, if you have any ideas that you'd like me to cover on blog topics, please leave a comment and let me know! Since the majority of my classes this term are philosophy-related, I'll probably be drawing inspiration from class discussions and the like, but I'm always open to new ideas. <3
2 comments:
Excellent... and very interesting reading. Intuition is definitely a way of learning and I see it all the time ;)
It's a bit surprising that even as a scientist, this is my preferred method. One would think I'd prefer empiricism, but apparently not. <_<
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