Sunday, December 14, 2008
Conniry #8: Nobody Comes as a "Blank-Slate"
8) We observed that in the absence of any rational way to establish our “basic beliefs,” scientists, philosophers, and sociologists—as well as the better part of popular culture—came to acknowledge the influence that human sociality plays in our formation of meaning and that it is now is generally agreed that none of us comes to look at the world the way we do apart from the social structures of which we are part. Be prepared to explore the truthfulness of this point.
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This is kind of a shot in the dark. My notes were pretty suspect on this one. Can anyone else add to this?
ReplyDeleteHuman sociality plays a significant role in the formation of meaning. None of us can completely extricate ourselves from the social structures that we are a part of. Even science, which modernity has esteemed as the most objective of all enterprises, does not function independently of its observers’ social acculturation, especially in terms of HOW he or she interprets what is observed and what language is understood and used to relate those observations.
For example: a scientific experiment’s “hypothesis” and “conclusion” are deeply enmeshed with the individual scientist’s language, epistemology, faith in their own sense’s reliability and cognitive ability to apprehend what those senses yield. Any observation has to be processed through the human mind, and that has demonstrated to be anything but 100% logical 100% of the time for 100% of the people. And if peer reviewers' senses are just as flawed as the original researcher’s, then of course they would get the same results, but they haven't "verified" anything except their similarly corrupted interpretive frameworks. As such, a high degree of (non-verifiable) faith is incorporated and required, even for the most allegedly “rational” of knowledge structures.
-CL