I'm Making Some Progress on "Knowledge in a Social World" Despite My Ridiculous Isolation

I am ridiculously isolated; isolated enough to go crazy.  This comes partly from being self-employed in the business of selling (mostly used) books via internet and the mail.  It wasn't always like this.  At my wedding about 25 years ago, there were two large groups of friends, maybe 20-30 in each category: A folk-dance circle based in Redbank NJ, and another group of volunteers for a subgroup of something called "Breakthrough Foundation - Youth at Risk" that I was leading.  Back then I spent a few nights out most every week which involved hanging out and talking with friends.  I won't try to deal with how I got from there to here -- just giving a sort of "full disclosure".  Maybe I'm a social person; maybe not so much.

But I can't remember a time when I didn't see knowledge as a very social phenomenon.  What kind of firm foundation for knowledge is it to crawl into ones head wondering "How do I know anything? How can I know anything?" and then to say "Hey I sense these words going around.  What can that be but myself, and therefore 'I think, therefore I exist'".

Thomas Berger, The Social Construction of Reality  has been an idea in the wind for at least half a century.  My reaction to the title was "Yes, of course!"  My reaction to the book a big disappointment.  I never tried to summarize that book and it's been a long time since I read it, but my first posting in my first attempt at a blog, "The Ontological Comedian", on the author's 's other famous book, was "Berger's Sacred Canopy". I wrote it in December 2005.  It was short, and like so many of my other postings, ended with [to be continued].

My second idea for a blog was called "The Real Truth Project".  Its manifesto, as presently stated, is:

 What is "The Real Truth Project"?
Understanding of the world around us is a survival need -- as much so as food or shelter. Yet we seem barely concerned by the fact that all but the tiniest portion of what we think we know comes packaged and delivered to us from .. other realms that we hardly know even exist. I don't mean some kind of supernatural realms -- I just mean hundreds of thousands (at least) of academics, reporters, teachers, government spokesmen, and sometimes friends, family, and neighbors.

Considering this, it is remarkable that our sense of reality has protected and served us to the degree that it has. In North Korea, to take an extreme example, people are totally controlled through the picture of reality they receive. It is such a radical distortion of reality that a mini-encyclopedia of basic facts about the rest of the world has been made to present to those few who get out, or who visit China. It is called "Welcome to the World", and generally comes on a PC thumb drive or memory card. (SOURCE LINK)

Philosophers of truth/knowledge ("epistemologists") have long debated what we know and how we know it - but under the unconscious unquestioned assumption that we must act as individuals and must take the world just as we find it.

Today, I think we must ask "How can we adjust the world so we might tell at least the most important truths from falsehoods? As an ultra-simple metaphor, think of adjusting a telescope to bring something into focus. It sounds presumptuous, but otherwise, I fear, we are headed toward a brave new world of perfect counterfeiting of reality which will make it far more difficult to maintain our freedom.

I named this blog the Real Truth Project because "The Truth Project" was already appropriated -- by TWO entities. One, a "Focus on the Family" project to promote a "biblical world view"; the other advocating a sort of leftest paranoia -- that the 9/11 attacks were faked by the U.S. government. They call themselves "truthers". It is strange how the phrase the truth is made to serve one or another particular (often obsessive) idea, rather than suggesting the whole staggering business of making words reflect what is going on around us.

 It certainly has not to date turned into a "project", and it sort of largely drifted into debunking of political nonsense, esp on forwarded emails, sort of summarized in "My Not-really-right-wing Mom and her adventures in Email-Land".

I also wrote a longish rant about "Epistemologies of the Right - a slapdash prospectus", a much more ambitious attempt at profundity.

Finally, about a year ago, I felt I was maybe zeroing in on something with an "Epistemology of Consensus".  Partly, it was Daniel Boorstin who opened my eyes with Daniel Boorstin, The Discoverers; in particular revelatory comments on the Enlightenment as a cluster of social phenomena one of which centered around the Royal Society [of London for Improving Natural Knowledge], and its "Transactions", the prototype of all peer-reviewed scientific journals.  Getting to know the "Early Modern Period", esp. the English, as key to understanding the ideas of the American Revolution, and some classes at Rutgers in the History of Ideas kept some of my thinking circling in the same vicinity.

When an odd concept pops into my mind which I think may be a useful distinction, yet I've never heard anyone use it, I have from time to time experimented with "googling" phrases that attempt to express it, to see if what if anything has been said about it, and see if I might join in the conversation.  So far joining in the conversation hasn't worked out too well.  "Ontological Comedian" was one such phrase.  I think there might have been only 1 or 2 hits, but it lead me to accidentally discover Ricky Gervais, creator of the original "The Office" series and the IMHO better series "Extras".

And Then Something Happened

My interest in "Epistemology of Consensus" was growing, in part due the Climate Deniers' (some people are infuriated by the associations they make to "Holocaust Deniers" when the phrase comes up.  I can only say that there are all sorts of deniers: evolution deniers, God deniers, consciousness deniers, ..., and it is useful to distinguish the deniers from the true skeptics.) frequent use of the meme "science is not based on consensus".

When I tried "Social Epistemology", voila, there was something there.  Prior to discovering the Wikipedia article, I found it was the name of a book and a journal by Steve Fuller, and I got the book Social Epistemology. I was disappointed with that book, however.  Fuller seemed to be, despite his protestations, too close to a post-modernist.  Post-modernism has, by the way, some popularity with religious intellectuals, and, wouldn't you know it, Fuller is a defender of "Intelligent Design".

I was learning that "social epistemology" had been taken in "two divergent directions" by Fuller and Alvin Goldman, and have just today started to look into Goldman and
                       this really seems like what I've been looking for!!

 The decription in its Amazon entry says he creates

"a thoroughgoing social epistemology, moving beyond the traditional focus on solitary knowers. Against the tides of postmodernism and social constructionism Goldman defends the integrity of truth and shows how to promote it by well-designed forms of social interaction. From science to education, from law to democracy, he shows why and how public institutions should seek knowledge-enhancing practices. The result is a bold, timely, and systematic treatment of the philosophical foundations of an information society."

 [to be continued]