[lit-ideas] Re: What, then, is wanting to know?

  • From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 10:49:39 +0900

On 2/27/07, Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx> wrote:


Why do you want to know things, in general? is a strange question. Why
do you want to know how to change a light bulb, or what the
conjugation of 'savoir'  won't ordinarily be puzzling. Why do you want
to know anything at all? seems hopeless.



It's a strange question, but not a bad one.  I take on board Professor
Paul's comment that the answer will often be specific. When knowledge
has an instrumental value, failure to know may imply the inability to
perform the task at hand. And Walter is right that, logically
speaking, the answers suggested have nothing to do with the epistemic
quality of knowledge.

They may yet have some pedagogical value. How does one answer a
student who asks, "Why do I have to know that?"  Or a legislator or
funding agency that asks, "Why should this be taught or researched?"

If nothing else, an answer might be used in the way that Virginia
Satir recommends using sensory modes in The Art of Verbal Self-Defense
(for a brief description see http://adrr.com/aa/overview.html).

It is easy to note, for example, on e-mail lists like this one the
difference between people who are sharing delight in something they
enjoy and those who use their "knowledge" as a weapon, in an effort to
dominate the conversation.

And, of course, it has been a central theme in late twentieth century
critique of Enlightenment aspirations to universal and objective
knowledge that these too often turn out to be masks for domination,
the "facts" in question being all and only the ones that those in
power allow to be considered.

It is interesting that of the comments so far, Eric's is the one that
takes the question most seriously.

"I'm not sure about a "will" to know, but I think the desire to know has
a strong erotic component. Else why would people write so much when they
are in love? Eros is play as much as power isn't it?"

Play or power?

Is to frame the issue in this way a sign that we have finally sent the
True and the Good to the same limbo where Beauty now resides? A space
in the library reserved for dustry tomes about issues that are, as
Willliam James put it, no longer alive for us? A space where collapse
of consensus leaves once imposing topics batted around like
shuttlecocks by those content to walk away at the end of the day
saying only, "Well, that's just your opinion"?

John




--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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