Epistemology

what I'm gonna do now is move into a brief discussion of a very complex subject in philosophy to set the stage for this discussion that we're going to have about objectivity I want to talk a bit today about epistemology don't be intimidated by the term yeah epistemology is a branch of philosophy that concerns itself with the search for a theory of knowledge comes from the Greek knowledge and theory very simple epistemology you'll hear this term both in sort of formal philosophical debates but sometimes even in general conversation we want to think about epistemology generally and we are at some point gonna want to think about the epistemology of journalism what's the the theory of knowledge behind the way journalists work and you might say to yourself well I don't have a theory of knowledge I just go out and try and figure things out right but we all have a there's always a theory behind the way we approach these things and if you stop and think about it it's a fascinating set of questions to ponder about knowledge how do we know what we know we make knowledge claims all the time everybody does on a daily basis you are constantly claiming to know things how do you know them that's what epistemology tries to get at the underlying principles that guide our claims to know things now epistemology is a very dangerous thing to study because the more you study it really the less you realize you truly know and it can make for a very destabilizing life to constantly question yourself but we're gonna do it anyway because it's important so today what we're gonna do is very quickly go through some basic concepts in epistemology again to set the stage for a discussion about the practices that journalists use to try and know things journalism like any other profession has a set of practices a set of rules formal and informal written and unwritten that guide the way journalists work and we're gonna examine those but first we're going to look at some of these background questions let's start with what we mean by the term knowledge as I said I'm summarizing a complex set of questions if you took a philosophy class in epistemology you'd spend a whole semester wrestling with these things we're gonna run through them very quickly over email I'll send you some links if you want to read more deeply if you get intrigued by this but let's start with just some of the basics traditionally in philosophy knowledge has been defined as justified true belief there's a lot of debate about this within philosophy philosophers of course debate everything what's the point of being a philosopher if you don't argue about everything that's what they do but for some time now there's been an assertion that that knowledge what we mean when we say we know something is that we have justified true belief so let's just take those three words think about what we mean by them we all have beliefs yes I mean everybody has belief in something but we all know that people often have beliefs that are a little wacky yes you've met people who have beliefs that don't quite make sense to you so a belief itself is not knowledge to believe something is not to know it that we believe things often with you know incomplete knowledge we believe to be human is to believe and and some things we believe we can't really claim that we know the most obvious is things that we take on faith not just religious faith but faith in general we believe certain things on faith without really claiming that we know them but to get through life you often have to believe without knowledge but knowledge is not just any belief it's a special kind of belief it's justified true belief so you're believing in something that you know to be true and you are justified in that belief that it is true justified true belief you know it to be true and you have a good reason for knowing it's true you know just claim it came to you in a dream there's some basis for this belief some basis for your claim that it is true so when we talk about knowledge we're talking about a very specific kind of belief a very specific kind of claim again philosophers will argue and have argued and continue to argue about whether this is definition of knowledge but it gets us going for purposes of what we need to do in this class so we want to know the truth we want are not we want to know things in other words we don't just want to believe we want to know what is true so in philosophy they talk about approaches to truth or theories of truth and again you might say to yourself oh come on it's true or it's not true right I'm in this room right now that's true it's true it's obviously true forget about you know don't make it more complicated than it is but in fact it is complicated whether you want to deal with these kind of questions are not so better to try and organize your thinking and there are in philosophy there have been in general three ways people approach the concept of truth three theories of truth now obviously I'm simplifying I'm taking a complex field in philosophy and rendering it into a list of three so you know obviously there's much more detail and debate about these questions but for purposes of organizing our thinking as we go forward and try to understand how journalists operate we're going to talk about three different approaches to truth correspondence coherence and consensus or what is sometimes called pragmatism I'll get to that in a minute correspondence approaches to truth what does that mean again nothing fancy about this a correspondence approach to truth says that something is true when the claim that you make corresponds to reality when I say that this table is made of wood that statement is true if in fact the material used in the construction of this table is in fact wood the category of materials we define as wood so correspondence approaches to truth say that we can be secure in our truth claims our claims to have knowledge to have justified true belief when there's a correspondence between the claim we make and the reality in the world that is independent of us and our perceptions so correspondence theories of truth map most clearly on to what we would call science yes science tries to make claims that explain the way the worlds works that that can argue successfully these claims correspond to reality are a good description of reality now you might at first glance say well that's the beginning and end of the story that's what truth means knowledge claims mean that what we're were asserting is what is real in the world but again when you start to think about this you realize it gets complicated there's another approach that says really truth is about coherence that it's a complex world far more complex than any of us can understand and so what's most important about truth claims we make is not that they correspond directly to reality usually or often we don't even know how to go that way it's really about coherence it's about our truth claims fitting together in some sort of coherent arrangement and if you think about this just like you know the correspondence approach has some obvious resonance with our daily experience so does this because often you have competing truth claims one coheres with other things you believe the other one doesn't which one are you likely to believe you have to completing two competing claims to truth one fits in with your existing way of understanding the world one doesn't you're more likely to choose the one that fits in with your existing truth claim so if you look back to one of the great examples in science when the majority of folks believed that the earth was the center of the solar system claims that didn't cohere with that idea of earth being at the center tended to fall away that's why Galileo was such a controversial figure he was suggesting an entirely new way of seeing things and once that shift happened then all those claims that seemed to make sense with the idea that the earth was the center of the solar system even the center of the universe fell away so coherence approaches to truth also resonate with us because we do see that we we don't believe individual truth claims this one that one separately the way our minds work the way human beings work is we we believe them as part of a system another approach to truth I'm calling consensus although you'll also see this referred to as a pragmatic theory of truth I chose consensus because I like alliteration basically I love lists of three that are alliterative so consensus theories of truth really our approaches to truth that say in the end what we decide is true is what works what we together collectively decide that works for us as a group this is a theory of truth most clearly identified with the school of thought in philosophy called American pragmatism and again we could spend a whole course we could spend a whole life on pragmatism but here pragmatism doesn't mean just you know that the common sense term of pragmatism it's a whole school of thought and it focuses on truth claims that work for us in the world that we can use to solve problems the great social philosopher John Dewey in the early 20th century one of the important figures in pragmatism said things are true if they help us solve problems if you make a truth claim and it helps people come together form a consensus solve problems then it's true doesn't matter whether it corresponds to something in the real world doesn't matter if it coheres with other something is true when it works something is true and we as a social unit reach a consensus about it so you can see how each one of these approaches to truth resonates with our daily experience and you can see how each one of them presents a challenge to the others but these are the ways philosophers talk about truth hang with me because I think it'll become increasingly clear why this is relevant to us thinking about journalism but before we get to that keep that list of three in mind correspondence coherence consensus and let's go back to something I said earlier in their system the earlier in the semester about levels of inquiry I said that when we go about trying to understand the world we look at basically three different levels the empirical the analytic the analytical and the normative we ask and answer questions that are empirical in nature about what we might call the facts of the world we want to know about the world in a very empirical way we want to know facts we want to know things about what happens in the world and we collect data about that we also want to know how things work we've made the point over and over that just knowing facts doesn't help you really move through the world because to move through the world you have to understand how things work you have to put those facts together analytically so we understand these things and so we're constantly not only collecting facts we're processing all that to try and understand how the world works and finally we want to understand how the world works not simply for amusement it's often very enjoyable to learn how the world works but in the end we want to know these things because we have to make judgments we have to set norms we have to make political and moral judgments we have to make normative claims as well so let's keep these three levels of inquiry we're trying to understand the facts of the world we're trying to understand how the world works and we're trying to make judgments about how the world should work to set norms well you can see that if you go back to those approaches to truth they kind of map on to those levels of inquiry that when we talk about the facts when we talk about empirical inquiry we're talking most about correspond or exceeds yes correspondence about being able to to claim that the facts that were identifying correspond to the reality of the world when we're talking about analysis we're really talking about bringing all of those facts together in a way that coheres that make sense that helps us analyze how things work and when we're talking about the normative we're talking about reaching a consensus about coming together and using our empirical and analytical knowledge to come to some judgment about how the world should be so these three approaches to truth complexity that I'm simplifying are all in some ways relevant to us I'm not asking you to choose which theory of truth you're going to align yourself with because in some sense all three of these it seems to me are always operating we're always trying to establish a correspondence between the facts that we assert and the real world we're always trying to come up with a coherent analysis that helps us understand how the world works and we're always looking for consensus about norms so that we can live in a reasonably decent social environment so all of these things are gonna play into how we approach these things okay so think about theories approaches to truth think about those levels of inquiry and then we're going to come back later to apply these two journalism but if this is still seeming a little abstract let me give you an example okay it's an example I've alluded to before but I think it's a really useful one let's say we're trying to understand the truth right that's our goal here we want to understand the truth of a particular moment in history so I'm going to suggest we apply these ideas to the US invasion of Iraq in March of 2003 it's on my mind because we just passed the anniversary of it this past weekend okay March 2003 the United States launched an invasion of Iraq I don't think that that's you know a question we all probably remember that even if we were younger as you were okay now we want to ask a question the question is was the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 lawful was it legal did it conform to international and domestic law it's an important question when any nation-state goes to war it's important to ask a question does that the act of war conform with both international and domestic law so we want to ask a question was the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 lawful we want to know the truth of that correct you want to know the truth true it's it does that seem like a question about which the truth is important you can odd yeah I mean again lots of different opinions in the room about the nature of US military involvement in the Middle East that's that particular military engagement but it seems that the question is relevant and wanting to know the truth about that question is important so what is the truth we have a question on the table was the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 lawful did it conform with both international and domestic law that's a question that is not you know academic not abstract it's very real and rel and we want to know the truth of it okay so how do we determine the truth of that well first of all we need to know something about the facts yes we have to engage in some sort of empirical inquiry now the fact that the United States launched that invasion in 2003 really is not controversial US troops were deployed u.s. airpower was used if you're old enough to remember it it's quite a momentous day let's shift not from the facts of the actual invasion which are fairly well established two facts about the law what does the law say if you're gonna ask an answer the question was the US invasion of Iraq lawful you have to know something about what the law is that is relevant and the relevant US or the relevant international law in fact we can examine it comes from the UN Charter excuse me let me go to that the United Nations Charter the UN Charter is the the document that structures international law today it was 1945 the post-world War 2 era the attempt to create a new approach to international law the UN Charter which the u.s. is not only a signatory to but the u.s. essentially drafted the UN Charter looks the way it does for the most part because of folks in the United States who were central in the drafting of it all right so the UN Charter is the controlling document in international law that sets the conditions under which one nation state can engage in military action against another lawfully the UN Charter is the foundational document so if we're gonna ask is the u.s. invasion of Iraq in 2003 lawful we have to go to the foundational document that sets this out now this is long and complex you have to take my word for it you can investigate more on your own later but the UN Charter does set this framework and it makes it very clear there are two conditions under which one nation-state can engage in military action against another there are two and only two conditions the first is when the UN Security Council votes to authorize the use of military force the UN Security Council a group of fifteen Nations five permanent members the five permanent members of the UN Security Council are anybody want to guess I'll give you a hint one of them is United States Russia previously the Soviet Union but after the fall of Soviet Union Russia China France and Great Britain okay five permanent members there are ten other members that are elected in rotation five permanent members ten members the five permanent members are important because they have a veto any one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council can veto a resolution this has been in the news lately because there was recently a UN Security Council resolution to authorize a use of force against which country Libya all right so there are two conditions under which a nation state can engage in military action against another one is when there is a resolution of the UN Security Council authorizing that military action the question then would be asked was there such a resolution in place when the u.s. invaded Iraq in 2003 say no the answer to that was there a resolution no there was no resolution the u.s. requested a resolution the UN Security Council declined to pass such a resolution so there was no UN Security Council resolution in place when the United States invaded Iraq in March of 2003 the other condition under which a militant state can engage in military action against another state is handled in article 51 of chapter seven if you go down you can see it I'll send you this link to what article 51 says listen you you only go to war when there's a UN Security Council resolution that authorizes it but that doesn't mean you can't act in self-defense so if the Canadians were about to pore over the border and invade the United States there was an imminent threat from Canada the United States would not have to wait for a UN Security Council resolution to defend itself so the exception to the rule that military action must require a UN Security Council resolution the exception is the the right to self-defense and there's nothing in the UN Charter which undermines the right to self-defense but those are the two and only two conditions under which one nation state can commence military action against another we've established that there was no UN Security Council resolution the question then would be was Iraq about to threaten the u.s. militarily was there an imminent threat that gave the right the u.s. the right to respond in self-defense that would be the question and I think the answer to that one from my point of view is fairly clear the answer's no there were a lot of discussions about about weapons that Iraq may or may not have there were lots of discussions about connections to other groups that might want to attack the u.s. that Iraq may or may not have now it turned out that Iraq didn't have those weapons it turned out that Iraq didn't have those connections to other groups but even with those assertions that there might be such things it doesn't appear that any of that rose to the level of an imminent threat covered in article 51 so for the sake of argument you may not agree with this but but stay with me the two conditions required for a state to go to war with another state either a UN Security Council resolution or an imminent threat that could engage the right to self-defense either one was present the United States invaded Iraq without a Security Council resolution and without a credible claim to be defending itself in the context of article 51 so if there are two conditions under which the US can go to law kid Gordon could could go to war lawfully and neither of those conditions was met what would one conclude that the US invasion of Iraq was unlawful now that's the international law the domestic law that might be relevant comes from article six of the US Constitution which makes it clear that treaties signed by the u.s. acquire the status of what the Constitution calls the supreme law of the land that when the United States signs a treaty it is bound to that treaty through its own constitutional provision so what the US Constitution says is once we sign a treaty as a nation that treaty becomes law it has the same force of law as domestic law and the Constitution itself so the United States is a signatory to the UN Charter it is therefore by constitutional principle bound to the conditions of that Charter in a sense you could say that the UN Charter becomes part of domestic law so we have a clear constitutional provision provision that binds us to international law in this case and an international legal regime that suggests that the US had no authorization or justification for the invasion that would suggest that the US invasion of Iraq was unlawful or in other words illegal or in another word using the language of international law it was what was called what is called a crime against peace a crime against peace is the international legal term for an act of aggression the the commencing of a war okay now that's a pretty bold statement on my part yes this is not something one hears in the news or discussed in politics people may agree or disagree about the Iraq war about whether we should stay whether we should leave all sorts of agreements disagreements but this is a very different kind of claim this says the invasion itself was unlawful and E illegal there are implications to that statement yes because if something is unlawful that means the people who engaged in that conduct broke the law and when people break the law there are usually consequences or at least we're supposed to be consequences yes so again the the claim I'm making here is not abstract it's very important now what I've just tried to do is walk through a kind of correspondence approach to truth what do the documents that govern this particular question say we can read them we want to to make a claim that corresponds to reality now I've just made a claim that you can agree or disagree with and you realize that most people in the culture don't agree with but it's a claim that we might want to reckon with but it's not enough to simply say well we can evaluate it by this sort of correspondence approach either it's true or it's not true because if that were the case one would think there would be a lot more discussion of this in the country yes because we live by the rule of law the United States is a nation of laws not men to use the old gendered approach yes you hear this all the time one of the things that's distinctive about a democratic state distinctive about the United States is we are a nation of laws we we we respect the law and legal principles we're a nation of laws not men so you you start to see how there's some problems here because if in fact we see ourselves as respecting the rule of law yet the United States commenced a military action that does not conform to the law that doesn't cohere very well does it that doesn't fit if we see ourselves as a nation that perhaps more than any other nation on earth respects the rule of law is rooted in the rule of law that individuals people in power cannot act arbitrarily in violation of the law the claim that the people at the peak of American power engaged in unlawful activity that doesn't cohere it also doesn't cohere with our sense of ourselves as a nation and how we use military power because we routinely claim that US military power is used for the good of others which implies it's used lawfully and so all of you can see where there's a correspondence question what does the what do the documents that control these questions actually say what happened in the world how do we understand that but there's also a coherence question any conclusion we reach has got to fit with our sense of the world and you can start to see that maybe the correspondence even if it's a claim you can make in a compelling way if it doesn't cohere with the way we think about ourselves in other ways is it true and in the end you can ask well it's true if there's a consensus about it and there clearly is not a consensus that the US invasion of Iraq was unlawful so it's an example on Hall Health all three of these approaches to truth can enter into a very simple question the question is very simple was the US invasion of Iraq lawful you can ask that about any nation states use of military force when France primarily France Britain in the u.s. launched its attack on Libya you could ask the question was it lawful we're not asking whether it was a smart thing to do it's the moral thing to do we're just asking is it lawful and in that case the answer is quite clearer at least the initial wave of that military force is lawful now whether it will continue to be depends on how you interpret the resolution and all that sort of thing but we ask this question all the time we haven't asked it much about the US invasion of Iraq and why is that if we were only interested in a correspondence approach to truth we would just want to know the facts and then we can reach a judgment but there's also this coherence this way that that conclusion has to fit into other approaches that we take to ourselves in our state and in the end whether something is true or not may well be a product of whether there is a consensus so the example I think is useful in thinking about these three different approaches question about whether or not Iraq posed an imminent threat that would invoke article 51 in the end isn't a kind of yes or no question like whether that cable is made of wood and so one way we would test out is by analogy is the the logic that might go into claiming Iraq is an imminent threat would we use that same logic in other places so if I saw you know he's got kind of a bulge in his front pocket I think it might be a gun it has the shape of a gun over here I think he's an imminent threat so I'm gonna shoot him in the head all right would we well you know you could say well you know it actually looked like a gun it's so yes all of those things would come into play the point I was making is that there actually was never a claim by anybody who supported the war that Iraq was an imminent threat according to the language of article 51 there were claims about weapons and claims about what one might call long-term threats the claims that the administration and its supporters made were not really claims about imminence they were claims about a long-term which doesn't mean by any interpret doesn't meet the language of article 51 so even by the claims of the people supporting that interpretation or supporting the invasion it really isn't about imminence or not there could be cases where imminence is a judgement call in the way you're talking about because there's evidence that leads you to believe something is imminent there could be conflicting evidence that there isn't in this case it wasn't even part of the claim so I use this example because it's edgy yes this is not a an example you know from some other place or some other time it's an example from right here and now which has incredible implications and I think the reason for using examples like this is because it makes these questions about truth real truth claims are not simply debated within academic seminars they have real-world implications so if we say that we believe in truth in a correspondence sense that we're always looking for our truth claims to correspond to the reality of the world then we have to be serious about that and apply that not simply in a seminar but in the world we can see how those attempts to create a claim that corresponds to the world also have to fit into some larger system they have to cohere together and we can see the conflicts that come and we can see that in the end truth is not simply a question about who has the better facts or who has the better system in which to put those facts it's also a social question it's about who you can get to believe your truth claim so I could have a truth claim that's very compelling but nobody agrees with me is it true let's say for purposes of discussion the truth claim I just made and it's a claim I believe I believe the US invasion of Iraq was unlawful I'm not just offering you an argument I'm offering you an argument I would make if I can't get anybody to agree with me is it true if I have this truth claim that I think is a compelling argument it corresponds to reality a coheres in a way that I think makes sense but I can't get anybody to agree with me is it true interesting question so what I'm trying to do today is in a sense destabilize the common sense way we think about truth we tend to think about truth as things are true or they're not and you can prove them or you don't prove them and everything is very straight forward we tend to think at this basic correspondence level but what I'm arguing is we can't stop there we have to go further and talk about truth in more complex ways so on

Channel: Robert Jensen

Views: 127,293

Keywords: J310, Critical, Issues, Journalism, Summer, 2011, University, Texas, Austin, Extension

Id: oc75YUOOsyo

Length: 36min 29sec (2189 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 08 2011