vol III Development:
Chapter 1: Epistemology
page 1: Trust
Epistemology is the ancient Greek term for the study of knowledge, truth, trust and trustworthiness. Here we are particularly concerned with the application of epistemology to the study of communications of all sorts. Our question is: can this message, product or person be trusted? Epistemology - Wikipedia
Trust is generated by consistency. If the milkman comes every day without fail for years, we rate the service trustworthy. We trust the Sun to rise every morning, but a politician who breaks all his promises as soon as he is elected is deemed untrustworthy.
The need for epistemology
Why do we need epistemology? Can't we just look and see how things are? The problem here for science, as for life in general, is that there is more to everything than meets the eye. Everything has a 'personality' which is only revealed to us by long observation. It takes time to get to know the people around us, the animals, the materials, the sea, the weather and all the other features of our world.
Our problem is that there is no direct route from experience to understanding. Scientific method is an attempt to deal with this
dilemma. Its key ingredients are observation and imagination. Fortun & Bernstein: Muddling Through
One begins with a set of observations,
imagines as many explanations of the observations as possible, and
the seeks to discriminate between the imagined models by further
observation. Popper described this process as conjecture and refutation. As the history of science has shown, it is often difficult to conjecture wildly enough
to hit upon the true nature of our world, but we are gradually
expanding our minds toward the boundaries of the Universe that
created us. Popper
This is an iterative process that continues throughout one's life,
and carries on across space and time through literature. This method is not confined to science. It applies everywhere in a continual cycle of look, think, act, look . . . . As I assemble each component of a structure, I must reassure myself that it is going to do its job. After all, I am the person climbing on it as I build it, and if it fails, I will be the first to suffer. The
same applies to all other arts: if we are close to what we do, we are
likely to suffer from our own poor workmanship.
Is it safe to use this insecticide on food crops? Does this machine work without danger to the operator? Will this nuclear reactor withstand an earthquake? These questions can only be answered by careful research and testing. The results of this work is often embodied in standards which establish specifications for trustworthy products and processes. Standards Australia
Theology
Theology is at once the most important and the most difficult of
the sciences, because it deals with all human experience, the whole
world. This is reflected in the fact that it progresses much more
slowly than the other sciences.
Globally, theology is still in the prescientific stage of development. It is based on ancient texts rather than contemporary observations. For me, and for many, classical theology is not trustworthy. I want to expand classical
theology to scientific theology, based on imagination and
experience.
At present we have to take theology completely on trust from organizations like the Roman Catholic Church. The Church holds that God is not only invisible, but completely beyond our understanding, so there is no way to check what the Church tells us. The only contemporary evidence that the Church can present to support its claim for contact with the supernatural is miracles. Driscoll: Miracle - Catholic Encyclopedia, Miracle - Wikipedia, John Paul II: Apostolic Constitution on Canonization
Miracles, if they occur, are exceptional events and so, to my mind, no real foundation for trust precisely because they are exceptional. I am more inclined to trust things that are consistent with everyday experience. The extraordinary and miraculous often turn out to be the product of showmanship and deception.
The alternative, which I propose here, is that there is no need to distinguish God and the world: the world is itself divine, and our everyday experience is experience of God. The Universe is trustworthy because it is consistent. Current science tells us that anything possible also has a certain probability. We may not understand it, but that does not mean that we need to go outside the world to find an explanation. The divine world, as it stands, is marvellous enough for me.
(revised 7 August 2014)
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Copyright:
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Further reading
Books
Click on the "Amazon" link below each book entry to see details of a book (and possibly buy it!)
Damasio, Antonio R, The Feeling of What Happens : Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness , Harcourt Brace 1999 Jacket: 'In a radical departure from current views on consciousness, Damasio contends that explaining how we make mental images or attend to those images will not suffice to elucidate the mystery. A satisfactory hypothesis for the making of consciousness must explain how the sense of self comes to mind. Damasio suggests that the sense of self doe snot depend on memory or on reasoning or even less on language. [it] depends, he argues, on the brain's ability to portray the living organism in the act of relating to an object. That ability, in turn, is a consequence of the brain's involvement in the process of regulating life. The sense of self began as yet another device aimed an ensuring survival.'
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Ford, David, The Modern Theologians : An Introduction to Christian Theology in the Twentieth Century, Blackwell 1997 Preface: 'The main aim of this volume is to introduce the theology of most leading twentieth-century Christian theologians and movements in theology. . . . The contributors are mostly based in Europe of North America and come from a wide range of institutions, denominational backgrounds, and countries. Most are themselves constructively engaged in modern theology, and their purpose has been to produce a scholarly account of their subject and also carry further the theological dialogue in each case.'
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Fortun, Mike, and Herbert J Bernstein, Muddling Through: Pursuing Science and Truths in the Twenty-First Century, Counterpoint 1998 Amazon editorial review:
'Does science discover truths or create them? Does dioxin cause cancer or not? Is corporate-sponsored research valid or not? Although these questions reflect the way we're used to thinking, maybe they're not the best way to approach science and its place in our culture. Physicist Herbert J. Bernstein and science historian Mike Fortun, both of the Institute for Science and Interdisciplinary Studies (ISIS), suggest a third way of seeing, beyond taking one side or another, in Muddling Through: Pursuing Science and Truths in the 21st Century. While they deal with weighty issues and encourage us to completely rethink our beliefs about science and truth, they do so with such grace and humor that we follow with ease discussions of toxic-waste disposal, the Human Genome Project, and retooling our language to better fit the way science is actually done.'
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Jackson, Roger, and Roger Makransky (editors), Buddhist Theology: Critical reflections by contemporary Buddhist Scholars, Curzon Press 1999 Jacket: 'This volume is the expression of a new development in the academic study of Buddhism: scholars of Buddhism, themselves Buddhist, who seek to apply the critical tools of the academy to reassess the truth and transformative value of their tradition in its relevance to the modern world.'
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Lonergan, Bernard J F, Method in Theology, University of Toronto Press for Lonergan Research Institute 1996 Introduction: 'A theology mediates between a cultural matrix and the signifcance and role of religion in that matrix. ... When the classicist notion of culture prevails, theology is conceived as a permanent achievement, and then one discourses on its nature. When culture is conceived empirically, theology is known to be an ongoing process, and then one writes on its method. Method ... is a framework for collaborative creativity.'
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Marks, Bernard, and Robert Baxt, Law of Trusts, CCH Australia Limited 1981 Preface: 'The object of this book is to provide a general statement of the equity and statutory rules governing trusts and trustees in Australia. The book is intended primarily as a handbook for professional advisors to trustees. It is hoped that this book may usefully serve as a basic text for students studying trust law.'
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O'Neill, Onora, Autonomy and Trust in Bioethics (Gifford Lectures, 2001), Cambridge University Press 2002 Amazon book description: ' Onora O'Neill suggests that the conceptions of individual autonomy (so widely relied on in bioethics) are philosophically and ethically inadequate; they undermine rather than support relationships based on trust. Her arguments are illustrated with issues raised by such practices as the use of genetic information by the police, research using human tissues, new reproductive technologies, and media practices for reporting on medicine, science and technology. The study appeals to a wide range of readers in ethics, bioethics and related disciplines'
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Popper, Karl Raimund, Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge, Routledge and Kegan Paul 1972 Preface: 'The way in which knowledge progresses, and expecially our scientific knowledge, is by unjustified (and unjustifiable) anticipations, by guesses, by tentative solutions to our problems, by conjectures. These conjectures are controlled by criticism; that is, by attempted refutations, which include severely critical tests.' [p viii]
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Sereny, Gita, Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth, Diane Publishing Company 1998 Amazon book description: 'Albert Speer was not only Hitler's architect and armaments minister, but the Fuhrer's closest friend--his "unhappy love." Speer was one of the few defendants at the Nuremberg Trials to take responsibility for Nazi war crimes, even as he denied knowledge of the Holocaust. Now this enigma of a man is unveiled in a monumental biography by a writer who came to know Speer intimately in his final years. Out of hundreds of hours of interviews, Sereny unravels the threads of Speer's personality: the genius that made him indispensable to the German war machine, the conscience that drove him to repent, and the emotional wounds that made him susceptible to Hitler's lethal magnetism. Read as an inside account of the Third Reich, or as a revelatory unsparing yet compassionate study of the human capacity for evil, Albert Speer: His Battle with Truth is a triumph.
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Williams , Michael, Groundless Belief: an Essay on the Possibility of Epistemology, Basil Blackwell 1977 Introduction: 'In this essay I shall be concerned with the philosophical problem of perceptual knowledge and, especially, with an approach to that problem which I shall call 'phenomenalism'. I understand this term in a broad sense to be explained and defended as my argument proceeds. My interest in the topic is both philosophical and metaphilosophical: philosophical in that I shall argue that any theory of perceptual knowledge which is phenomenalistic in my senses is radically defective; and metaphilosophical in that I want to use my discussion of phenomenalism to raise, in a fairly concrete form, the question of whether epistemology, as traditionally conceived, constitutes a coherent intellectual discipline. I shall argue that it does not.' page 1.
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Links
| Book of Nature - Wikipedia Book of Nature - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'Frequently deployed by philosophers, theologians, and scholars, the “Book of Nature” is a metaphorical device derived from the Latin Middle Ages that provides form, order, and intelligibility to the study of nature. Early Greek philosophers viewed man as part of a unified and coherent universe, who was endowed with reason and capable of reading and understanding the design of the natural world. In other words, as one reads a book for knowledge and understanding, man can also know the natural world by studying or “reading” nature as if it was a book. Early theologians believed the Book of Nature was a source of God’s revelation to mankind as well, and when read alongside sacred Scripture, provided a true knowledge of Him through the things He has made.' back |
| Cathy Caridi How Many Miracles are Requires to Canonize a Saint |CanonLaw Made Easy '. . . Today, the norm is that one proven miracle is required for beatification, and one for canonization. . . . ' back |
| Epistemology - Wikipedia Epistemology - Wikipedia,the free encylopedia 'Epistemology . . . (from Greek ἐπιστήμη (epistēmē), meaning "knowledge, science", and λόγος (logos), meaning "study of") is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge. It addresses the questions:
What is knowledge?
How is knowledge acquired?
How do we know what we know?' back |
| Galileo Il Saggiatore (The Assayer) 'The pages of The Assayer contain Galileo's famous affirmation that Nature, though "deaf and inexorable to our vain desires", though producing its effects "in a manner unthinkable for us" has within it a harmonic structure and an order which is essentially geometrical: "Philosophy is written in this great book of the Universe
which is continually open before our eyes but we cannot read it without having first learnt the language and the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics and the characters are triangles, circles and other geometrical shapes without the means of which it is humanly impossible to decipher a single word; without which we are wandering in vain through a dark labyrinth."' back |
| John Paul II Apostolic Constitution Divinus Perfectionis Magister ' It is the right of diocesan Bishops or Bishops of the Eastern Rite and others who have the same powers in law, within the limits of their own jurisdiction, either ex officio or upon the request of individual members of the faithful or of legitimate groups and their representatives, to inquire about the life, virtues or martyrdom and reputation of sanctity or martyrdom, alleged miracles, as well as, if it be the case, ancient cult of the Servant of God, whose canonization is sought.' back |
| John T Driscoll Catholic Encyclopedia - Miracle 'The wonder of the miracle is due to the fact that its cause is hidden, and an effect is expected other than what actually takes place. Hence, by comparison with the ordinary course of things, the miracle is called extraordinary. In analyzing the difference between the extraordinary character of the miracle and the ordinary course of nature, the Fathers of the Church and theologians employ the terms above, contrary to, and outside nature. These terms express the manner in which the miracle is extraordinary.' back |
| Literary criticism - Wikipedia Literary criticism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals. Though the two activities are closely related, literary critics are not always, and have not always been, theorists.' back |
| Miracle - Wikipedia Miracle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'A miracle is an event not ascribable to human power or the laws of nature and consequently attributed to a supernatural, especially divine, agency.' back |
| Richard Ackland From prince of print to tsar of tweeting 'Reality and fantasy, illusion and disillusion, frauds and bona fides are all holding hands and running riot through the open media - or as some call it, ''the social media''.
As we plough deeper into the 21st century it is more difficult to distinguish between fakers and truthers and, in truth, the distinctions are becoming more fantastic.'
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| Science - Wikipedia Science - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'Science (from Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.' back |
| Scientific method - Wikipedia Scientific method - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning. The Oxford English Dictionary says that scientific method is: "a method or procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses." back |
| Sense about Science About us 'We are a charitable trust that equips people to make sense of scientific and medical claims in public discussion.
With a database of over 5,000 scientists, from Nobel prize winners to postdocs and PhD students, we work in partnership with scientific bodies, research publishers, policy makers, the public and the media, to change public discussions about science and evidence.' back |
| Standards Australia Standards Australia 'Standards Australia is the nation's peak non-government Standards organisation. It is charged by the Commonwealth Government to meet Australia's need for contemporary, internationally aligned Standards and related services.
The work of Standards Australia enhances the nation's economic efficiency, international competitiveness and contributes to community demand for a safe and sustainable environment.
It leads and promotes a respected and unbiased Standards development process ensuring all competing interests are heard, their points of view considered and consensus reached. back |
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