Dialogue ~ 48

The question “Can an idea be right and wrong at the same time?” was put to ChatGPT, to which it responded with, “An idea can be perceived as right or wrong depending on the context and perspective of the person evaluating it. For example, some people may believe in the idea of free speech, while others may find that idea to be harmful and oppressive. Additionally, an idea that is considered to be right in one context may be considered wrong in another. In other words, what is considered ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ can change over time and across different cultures.”

I am interested in the correlation between holding that an idea is right or wrong and of one’s concept of truth. If what appears as being truth (or true) for a person is also an idea, then logic suggests that it too will fluctuate according to the context and perspective of the person evaluating it. Why do disputes arise between people, particularly of differing cultures, as to who is ‘right’ and who is ‘in truth’? Do these disputes arise because of a difference of ideas, pertaining as to what constitutes morality or of upholding of ‘one’s values’? Or are these disputes even less complex than that, in that people are simply fighting over available resources?

Emotionally, any given prize is discerned through a perspective of need or want and which the mind is interpreting as being one of necessity. Is that necessarily an indication of one’s truth?

On some level of what it means to be human, it is likely that we are capable of experiencing a greater truth of our being than we are individually given to comprehend; rather than of bringing us closer together, it is the ambiguity of this idea that is stifled in the midst of a worldview of materialism.

It has been popular in recent times to suggest that a schism exists between religion and science. I do not see a schism but that they both persist with trying to interpret life through differing schematics and language. Reality doesn’t need to win votes.

In its earliest formation, philosophy was guided by a ‘love of wisdom’. Its tenet was ‘the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality and existence; a theory or attitude that acts as a guiding principle for behaviour’.

The Renaissance revolutionised ideas about what humanity is able to experience of itself in the world; the massive advances in the natural sciences of the early 19^th century brought about changes in ideas about knowledge and of what constitutes progress in the world. Philosophy was inevitably going to become a casualty of this ‘enthusiasm’, in that philosophers were encouraged to apply the ‘scientific method’ (consisting in systematic observation, measurement, experiment and the formulation, testing and modification of hypotheses) not only to their own domain of thinking but to others. It was not simply that philosophy in itself became specialised, but that it did so in accordance with an impetus of how or where to apply ‘wisdom of thought’ in the world.

Positivism is a philosophical school that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positive (meaning a posteriori facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience).

Auguste Comte, the founder of modern positivism, was particularly influential in advocating that the scientific method must replace metaphysics in the history of thought. He first advocated the epistemological perspective of positivism in a series of texts published between 1830 and 1842. He followed these with his 1844 work ‘A General View of Positivism’ which dealt chiefly with the physical sciences already in existence but also emphasised the coming of social science.

Epistemology is a branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. It is derived from ancient Greek ‘epistēmē’, meaning ‘knowledge, understanding, skill, scientific knowledge and the English suffix –ology, meaning ‘the science or discipline of..’. In 1854, the Scottish philosopher James Frederick Ferrier first used the word epistemology. In the first section of his ‘Institutes of Metaphysics’ he wrote: “This section of the science is properly termed the Epistemology – the doctrine or theory of knowing, just as ontology is the science of being… It answers the general question, ‘What is knowing and the known? – or more shortly, ‘What is knowledge’?”

Another offshoot of philosophy, that of ‘Pragmatism’, began in the United States in the 1870s. It has been attributed to the philosophers Charles Sanders Peirce, William James and John Dewey. Pragmatism can be considered as a tradition that ‘considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving and action and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent or mirror reality’. Indeed, pragmatists contend that the nature of knowledge, language, concepts, meaning, belief and science are all best viewed in terms of their practical uses and successes.

Arguably then, the topic of philosophy together with the context in which it is considered, has given birth to a plethora of ideas about what is knowing, what is known, what is knowledge, as well as how such insights can be appropriated into the service of what is determined as being valid or useful, predominantly in a materialistic way. It is unsurprising then, that this somewhat disciplined approach to thought has meant that other ways of knowing such as intuition, introspection or religious faith were to become increasingly rejected or considered meaningless.

Interestingly, the philosopher Ferrier, as well as coining the word epistemology as representative of the study of knowing and knowledge, devised the word ‘agnoiology’; this refers to the theoretical study of the quality and conditions of ignorance and in particular, what can be considered ‘unknowable’.

According to Wikipedia, “Agnotology (formerly ‘agnatology’) was introduced in 1992 by linguist and social historian Iain Boal at the request of Stanford University professor Robert N. Proctor. The word is based on the Neoclassical Greek word ‘agnōsis (ἄγνωσις, 'not knowing'; cf. Attic Greek ἄγνωτος, 'unknown' and -logia (-λογία). It refers to the study of deliberate, culturally induced ignorance or doubt, typically to sell a product, influence opinion or win favour (particularly through the publication of inaccurate or misleading data) or of where more knowledge of a subject creates greater uncertainty.”

In Proctor’s book ‘The Cancer Wars: How Politics Shapes What We Know and Don’t Know About Cancer’ is the footnote: “Historians and philosophers of science have tended to treat ignorance as an ever-expanding vacuum into which knowledge is sucked – or even, as Johannes Kepler once put it, as the mother who must die for science to be born. Ignorance, though, is more complex than this. It has a distinct and changing political geography that is often an excellent indicator of the politics of knowledge. We need a political agnotology to complement our political epistemologies.”

Did the classical Greek philosophers explore their topic to further their quest as to what constitutes a universal wisdom of thought so as to improve the human condition? What a contrast then, if in the last couple of hundred years or so, the science of mind and of what it means to be human has not only become quantified but appropriated by lobbies and vested interests, whose goals have been in the management of information and of language.

Most modern educational establishments excel at covering set materials for students to digest and to be examined with regards to how proficient said students have become in embedding the set materials into their cognitive ability. Critique of some pillars of academic excellence can result in punitive consequences, even more so if powerful establishments are relying heavily upon donations from vested parties.

It has become generally accepted in today’s mechanistic worldview that knowledge happens through time and it requires not only consensus but effort and specialisation in order for progress (momentum) to occur. It is as if Newton’s second law of motion (F=ma) in that net force is equal to mass times acceleration is being put into effect.

In recent writings, I have been exploring the Greek myths of Prometheus and Epimetheus as well as of my speculating on the roles of Theia, Rhea and Cronus as relating to cycles (or aeons) of human consciousness on Earth. I have considered the Egyptian Ogdoad and the myth of Osiris as being representative of the generative capacities of the cosmos and beyond that of the writings of Parmenides and of one’s being in relationship with truth.

How are these seemingly disparate interests related not only to knowledge but are providing for a glimpse into the nature of time?