Epistemology 101

The word, "epistemology" is defined by Webster as, "the study of the nature and grounds of knowledge, especially with reference to its limits and validity."

I did get to thinking about not so much the "how " of acquiring knowledge but the, "why". I suppose there is a myriad of reasons but some or many of them may be somewhat akin to, "looking for love in all the wrong places."

For instance, there is the basic instinct expressed in, "knowledge is power." This may in fact be the prime motive summed up in the first three of the four levels of happiness. We like knowledge because, first, it helps us to get food and shelter and to protect ourselves from the raw elements. Second, we especially like it for competitive reasons, so that our food and shelter is better than the food and shelter of others, so we can get ahead, and leave the others behind implication. Third, which is simply and usually an extension of competition, we like it because it builds our self-esteem, and on our self-esteem we can build altruism. But."Is that all there is??"

The fourth level, which would be defined as, "to know Him is to love Him," is a different species of knowledge altogether. There are those of course who find happiness in religion; however this sort of happiness can easily be accounted for by the second and third level; happiness in any event tends to be quite transient. The religious Sadducee usually will cloak his will to power in altruistic words while the religious Pharisee will exercise his will to power by turning to the requirements of the law and knowledge of the law then is power. Clearly, these are joyless alternatives; the happiness found in comparing oneself to others, whether appealing to revolution or a broad-based compassion, does not bring anything resembling contenment; and the closer one attains to the top dog position, the less genuine contentment/absolution is found.

As Schindler found out, it is never enough. That is, not only can we not satisfy ourselves at the first three levels, we can't satisfy anyone else either. Cooler than thou,holier than thou, greener than thou. lefter or righter than thou; you name it, there is whole host of categories, perhaps all of them, in which we continually fall short. This is the problem with religion per se; no matter how you play it, from left, right, or middle, one can never attain wholeness, unless one settles for complete denial; but in medicine I observed there always seems to be creeping doubt manifested by strong defensiveness when the self-satisfaction or its motives/dysfunction are brought into question. We are rife with," unmet expectations." ;and tend to project those upon others. And never satisfied with any level of knowledge or power unless we practice overwhelming self-deception. There are people who just don't want to go on with it but people do go on learning in spite of themselves and enlarging their defense systems for our ever-more-frail egos.

There is of course what is called pure knowledge or pure science; but these are entirely hypothetical constructs. As is the admonition to acquire knowledge for the sake of knowledge itself. This would have to assume that human beings are a lot less complex than we see empirically. People always have mixed motives; four of them I have already mentioned and those are the ones that can be relatively healthy. I could easily again suggest that science now is now simply an extension of politics and culture, I might add, without any type of ethical reference point. So the falsification of data and outcomes are ever more common and metaphysics have now come to dominate physics and all the rest; people of course are not too upset with this! If their, "bull," is not being, "gored". Puns intended although admittedly they are cheap and bad!

The fact that our level of discourse politically speaking is really no higher than level II suggests that it has as much to do with selling books and having a large audience as compared to "higher" motives; such that much of what seems like altruism is really more of a cue for sarcasm, and sarcasm actually sells better than sex! In many ways I think we are addicted to sharp words and judgments of others that are both harsh and all too clever. And this is referential more to entertaining the troops than sticking to the facts. Compare Ann Coulter and Sat Night Liver Al Franken to, say, Nat Hentoff or Neil Postman and what I am saying will be much more obvious. These are not "Christian Thinkers," to whom I refer but rather those who follow where the evidence leads as honestly as they can and hence are largely ignored while partisans are on the best seller lists continually. Really, we must read either Camus' "The Rebel" or Dostoevsky's, "The Possesed," or better yet, "The Idiot" Then we might attain to some real knowledge and not merely refer to our own opinions; which is largely what I am doing right now.

As the great philosopher Maxwell Smart would always say, "Sorry about that, chief."