musingsonwomenshealth.com

Reflections on 40 years as a doctor in Women's Health

There is no darkness but ignorance


Although I vaguely remember studying epistemology in university, I am still confused about Knowledge nevertheless; I am especially confused about its acquisition. Is it my experience that produces it, and therefore may be a need to question my interpretation of that experience? Or, given the extent of things about which I have presumed knowledge, is it mostly acquired from the experience of someone, or something, else? Leaving aside for the moment the issue of whether or not the source is worthy of trust, there is still the matter of its interpretation. Is any analysis, any understanding of it, knowledge? Or, to stretch it even further, how much of that knowledge is correct -is true?

Take a rather far-fetched example: how much knowledge is contained in the growth rings of a cut tree trunk? That may seem like a trivial question: count the rings and you’ve established its age; it’s almost cause and effect isn’t it? 

But, can the tree age that the rings seem to indicate, be accepted as knowledge, or simply information, data? Or are the rings indicating something different: a chronology, to be sure, but is that the purpose of their presentation? Rings are not designed to inform; they just are. It is us that assign them a function -a meaning: knowledge. If a change in climatic conditions affects the number of rings -or at least their ability to be accurately counted by an amateur such as myself- am I being deceived? Deception implies intent. Whoa -the labyrinth beckons…

Can those rings really be said to contain knowledge? Data that is not simply ‘noise’ is information, and information can be classified as to whether it is significant or trivial I suppose; but although its validity is in a Magisterium above mere information, it is surely not yet knowledge… A stopped clock can give me knowledge of a time, but not about the actual time; fake news may also give me knowledge, but it is not reliable. Value is something different; how much value resides in knowledge that is not trustworthy? Or meaningless…?

So, how does an assertion, a claim, acquire this authority? Is it merely accepted as knowledge until it’s not -until it’s disproven? Or until the societal Weltanschauung changes and the paradigm moves on to another view, relegating old knowledge to a seldom-opened closet? Of course, it could be that what are actually hidden are opinions that are no longer popular… Perhaps you see why I am confused.

But I don’t want to suggest that Knowledge is merely a binary -something present or absent- nor do I wish to fall back on the excuse of it existing on a spectrum like, say, the colours of a rainbow, or maybe the average height of members of a population -because then, particular examples of it would not be particularly useful. No, perhaps I should be more concerned about the reliability of how it is acquired. Can we know something only by experience -whether our own, or that of somebody else- or are there other valid ways of knowing that we know? I’m beginning to suspect that some knowledge is actually, in the end, an autology: a term that requires itself as part of its definition. An ouroboros -a snake eating its own tail; a silent Grace.

Can intuition be involved in the acquisition of knowledge, or is that usually only a serendipitous retrospective byproduct? What about other feelings? When I know that I am in pain, does that count as knowledge? My pain is obviously something to which others are not privy -it is self-knowledge- but because others do not experience it, and likely cannot prove its existence, is it something other than knowledge: just a sensation, an experience? Could I even prove it to myself…?

And, how about emotions –love, for example? Do I know I love my children? My partner? Blueberry pie…? To avoid diluting the value of the concept, should I be using another word, even though in my mind, they all seem to involve the same process: knowing?

Asking these questions takes me back to my university days when small groups of us would sit in one of the dorm rooms, backs leaning against the walls, hands gripping slices of pizza and bottles of beer, with time slipping away like the night. All questions were fair, even if their answers produced good natured groans and eye-rolling sighs. But we were young then -untutored in the official academic Zeitgeist.

As I recall it, God featured prominently in our discussions, but the nature of knowledge was never far behind. What could we know about God, and why did we know it? And if our knowledge was valid -ie correct– how could we know that for certain? Even if we could be sure, then how could there ever be any disagreement with it? The only conclusion we could ever reach was that all knowledge, including ours, was contextual, and left it there. Well, left it at least until dawn coloured the eastern sky, and we realized we had to make it to our classes again that day, not so confident that what we were about to learn should make us truly thankful. Not as reassured by the unwritten Grace before the meal to come…

But, maybe we were right in those days; maybe all we can ever hope to know about knowledge is that it is sometimes a circulus in probando -a proving circle in which we begin with what we are trying to prove. And, since we think the premises are true, the conclusion must be as well.

In a way, that’s a rather satisfying result, much like a student’s version of the famous lines in Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself: ‘Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)‘

Is there really anything more to know about what we know, except that we know it? After all these years, I still don’t know…

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gozzter

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