Here, as promised in class [CLA/ENG 310], are two questions for your further consideration and discussion. They may look quite similar, and doubtless share much common ground, but I maintain that they are [philosophically speaking] not identical.
1. Is knowledge unequivocally good/worthwhile?
2. Are there limits to the value of knowledge?
As we discussed in class, these questions have far-reaching implications for all of our lives. For one thing, the 'yes' response to no. 1 is taken as more or less an axiom for the academy: though you might actually want to investigate that 'more or less' bit. [are there types or fields of knowledge that are not unequivocally good/worthwhile?]
There are plenty of other things to consider here as well, and I invite you to put on your thinking caps and ponder these questions some more. Some possible topics:
--- are there things that it's just better for us not to know?
--- does knowledge [as Socrates sometimes says in the dialogues of Plato] invariably conduce to virtuous behavior?
--- pushing the previous question further: is it even possible for knowledge to make you a better person?
--- are there realms of study that are not worth devoting a college course [much less a career] to? i.e. a field of study that you would effectively prohibit a person from investigating, even if s/he wanted to?
--- is practical knowledge [such as the ability to distinguish a bacterium from a virus] philosophically more important than theoretical knowledge [such as the ability to distinguish and categorize types of love-song]? If so, should every human devote h/erself only to the study of practical knowledge?
These questions should at least get you started, but please do not feel you should limit your comments only to the topics raised here.
3 comments:
One of these days, I'll figure out how to use a blog without mussing up pasting and edits.
Knowledge’s practicality is at least as mutable as the humans involved in assigning the qualifier. Hey, look – a simile. Human ignorance of the usefulness of knowledge is not an indication of its superfluity. Likely, an assumption of uselessness is an indication of human ignorance. Though incomplete knowledge can be and has been dangerous to humanity, the potential for achieving more complete knowledge continues to lure. I do not think there are limits to the value of knowledge. ‘Value’ is an assigned attribute entirely dependent on the people involved. So far, humanity’s ability to perpetually categorize, qualify, and prioritize has not been limited. I do not think knowledge is unequivocally good or that the pursuit of knowledge is unequivocally worthwhile. ‘Good’ is another assigned attribute entirely dependent on the people involved. It has no objective meaning or usefulness. 'Worthwhile' is most likely a reference to some form of practicality, yet another assigned attribute dependent on people. Knowledge is; it is neither good nor worthwhile. Humans assign knowledge such attributes as attempts to begin categorization according to varying degrees of ambiguity. That knowledge alters those in contact with it seems unequivocally true. Whether or not that alteration enhances the human in a way other humans qualify as ‘better’ is dependent in part on how the human regards the knowledge, how it is altered, and how that alteration is qualified by both the human itself and others. Acceptance of consensus reality can only exist in a system of communication based on consistently incomplete knowledge.
This comment has diverged so far from the original topic that I will stop letting my hands run free. Cheers!
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