Pandas, People, and Propaganda - Assignment Example

Of Pandas, People, and Propaganda Learning and the acquisition of knowledge are two of the most ubiquitous and at once most mysterious processes in our lives. Various epistemologies explain or seek to explain the ways and means of acquiring knowledge. All of them more or less assert themselves as correct. But are any of them in their own right able to give us the bottom line? The distinction between knowledge and belief is one of the most difficult hurdles to jump when exploring theories of knowledge. Considering the Gettier Problems shows this forth. Until the time when Edmund Gettier’s paper was published in 1963, most epistemological philosophers had relied upon the JTB Theory of knowledge acquisition. This holds that the acquisition of knowledge can be explained by justified true belief. Justified true belief was defined by Plato in his work Theatetus. This says that in order for anyone to truly know a thing, that thing: must be true; we must believe it; and there must be sufficient evidence for it (i.e., it must be justified). “If a belief is justified, there is something which justifies it. The thing which justifies a belief can be called its justifier. If a belief is justified, then it has at least one justifier… What sort of thing can be a justifier? Three things that have been suggested are: beliefs only; beliefs together with other conscious mental states; and beliefs, conscious mental states, and other facts about us and our environment (which we may not have access to)” (Answers.com, 2005). Gettier posed the question: “Is justified true belief knowledge?” In his paper, Gettier set forth conundrums which he believed demonstrated a fallacy with justification of belief into knowledge. “Suppose that Smith and Jones have applied for a certain job. And suppose that Smith has strong evidence for the following conjunctive proposition: d. Jones is the man who will get the job, and Jones has ten coins in his pocket. Smiths evidence for (d) might be that the president of the company assured him that Jones would in the end be selected, and that he, Smith, had counted the coins in Joness pocket ten minutes ago. Proposition (d) entails: e. The man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket. Let us suppose that Smith sees the entailment from (d) to (e), and accepts (e) on the grounds of (d), for which he has strong evidence. In this case, Smith is clearly justified in believing that (e) is true. But imagine, further, that unknown to Smith, he himself, not Jones, will get the job. And, also, unknown to Smith, he himself has ten coins in his pocket. Proposition (e) is then true, though proposition (d), from which Smith inferred (e), is false. In our example, then, all of the following are true: (i) (e) is true, (ii) Smith believes that (e) is true, and (iii) Smith is justified in believing that (e) is true. But it is equally clear that Smith does not know that (e) is true; for (e) is true in virtue of the number of coins in Smiths pocket, while Smith does not know how many coins are in Smiths pocket, and bases his belief in (e) on a count of the coins in Joness pocket, whom he falsely believes to be the man who will get the job” (Gettier, 1963). Gettier demonstrated that knowledge is not acquired as simply or straight-forwardly as philosophers had assumed for over 2000 years. Factual knowledge is not as simple or self-evident as it so often seems to be. Thus, the process of learning cannot be taken for granted. Questions about learning and the acquisition of knowledge need to be posed that can apply to all disciplines, including the natural and social sciences, history, the arts, mathematics, and language. Definitive answers are hard to come by. “’What is Truth?’ said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer," wrote Francis Bacon in his Of Truth, Essays or Counsels Civil and Moral (Theory of Knowledge, 2005). Philosophers have studied the topic of epistemology ever since the time of Plato. Several different theories of the learning process have gained hold in Western philosophy and education. One of these is Skepticism. Skepticism maintains that definite knowledge about anything at all is extremely difficult, and sometimes impossible, to acquire. This is because of certain imperfections in the mind which can include faultiness in reasoning, poor memory, limited accessibility to an object of scrutiny, a lack in the accuracy of the senses, the possibility of mistaking illusions (such as dreams) for reality, poor judgment, and the possibility of misinformation. Skepticism relentlessly questions and tends to find fault with certain seemingly common sense notions that most people consider to be “self-evident”. Although scientific people are typically described as taking the skeptical view of a new idea that seems “wild”, the scientific method is most accurately rooted in the philosophy of Empiricism. To Empiricists, the senses are indeed highly accurate and, moreover, they are our foremost tool for acquiring knowledge about life, the universe, and everything. Empiricists believe that the mind of a human being is a “tabula rasa”, a blank slate upon which sensate experiences engrave their impressions and data. Aristotle, who had been the student of Plato, asserted that “There is nothing in the mind except what was first in the senses” (Theory of Knowledge, 2005). Most Empiricists, however, recognize the existence of a priori truths, which are those of mathematics and logic. Artists have very often been concerned with the epistemological concept of Perception. In short, artists often ask, through their works, “is what we see really what we get?” “Perception is influenced by a variety of factors, including the intensity and physical dimensions of the stimulus; such activities of the sense organs as effects of preceding stimulation; the subjects past experience; attention factors such as readiness to respond to a stimulus; and motivation and emotional state of the subject”. And, “Perceptual Constancy is the tendency of a subject to interpret one object in the same manner, regardless of such variations as distance, angle of sight, or brightness. Through selective attention, the subject focuses on a limited number of stimuli, and ignores those that are considered less important” (Answers.com, 2005). In contrast to Empiricism, and in defiance of the Skeptics and those who are concerned about Perception, Rationalism insists that “reason alone”, without need of any sensate experience (at least not directly), is our foremost guide and prime mover in understanding ourselves and the universe, and has the capability of arriving at all of the basic truths that can be known. While Rationalists share the Empiricists’ insistence on scientific methodology, they do not believe the human mind to be a blank slate. They would liken it more to a computer with an innate hard drive which is additionally shaped by “software programs” which are experience and reflection. But propaganda is neither knowledge nor belief, although it tends to be rooted in the latter. The word propaganda comes from the Latin verb propagare which means to reproduce (a plant) by cuttings; spread for sprouting; propagate; enlarge. The current denotation of propaganda is to propagate (actively spread) a philosophy or point of view. However, propaganda is distinguished by its sin of omitting numerous pertinent facts or truths, and its typical inclusion of deliberate lies or completely unfounded beliefs, about the matter at hand. Propaganda, as the concept is used today, began with the Catholic Church in 1622, when it established its Congregatio de Propaganda Fide, or “Congregation for Propagating the Faith”, a missionary arm for spreading the “gospel truth”. To this day, propaganda has its thickest roots in religion and politics. The book Of Pandas and People is a Christian Fundamentalist work of propaganda that masks its true intentions under the disguise of being about “’creation-science’—the religious pseudoscience by which fundamentalists pretend to show that the Holy Bible is a literal account of history and that there is no evolutionary connection between humans and other organisms…Creationism is the fundamentalist movement that seeks, by political means, to abolish the natural sciences and to impose ‘creation-science’ and other biblical doctrines onto the population at large”(TTL, 1990). Ironically, the Foundation for Thought and Ethics (FTE) is the establishment which sponsored the writing of the book. That establishment and its nominal publisher of the book have engaged in misinformation and misleading advertising when they failed to disclose what Of Pandas and People is really all about. Their advertising “falsely suggested that the book has scientific validity, and it encouraged the belief that using Pandas in public schools would be legal. In truth, ‘creation-science’ (also known as ‘scientific creationism’) was barred from public schools in 1987 by the Supreme Court, which affirmed that ‘creation-science’ is a body of antiscientific religious beliefs” (TTL, 1994). One science editor who read the book was moved to make a modest proposal. “Instead of continuing their silly attacks on evolutionary biology, and instead of trying to induce public schools to put biblical creation myths into science curricula, maybe they should start campaigning to have the schools teach biblical genetics…In promoting biblical genetics as a substitute for scientific genetics, fundamentalists could note that biblical genetics offers big advantages. First, it is cozy: Even if it doesnt agree with what we see in nature, it agrees with a sort of ignorant intuition. Next, biblical genetics is simple: It involves no mathematics, and it requires us to master only three unfamiliar terms—pilled, strakes and ringstraked. Best of all, it is easy to apply. Individuals schooled in biblical genetics would not have to analyze pedigrees, conduct tedious selective-breeding projects, search for the mechanisms of inherited diseases, or learn delicate genetic-engineering techniques. They would just have to set up some properly pilled rods” (TTL, 1994). The psychic seeress of “The Waste Land”, Madame Sosostris, seems to have got it right: “One cannot be too careful these days” (Elliot, 1922). Works Cited Answers.com. (various authors). “Epistemology”. Retrieved Oct. 23, 2005. < http://www.answers.com/epistemology >. Elliot, TS. “The Wasteland”. Tripod (hypertext). Retrieved Nov. 16, 2005. . Gettier, Edmund L. (transcr. by Chrucky, Andrew). “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?” Retrieved Oct. 24, 2005. < http://www.ditext.com/gettier/gettier.html >. Philosophy Online. “Theory of Knowledge”. Retrieved Oct. 22, 2005. < http://www.philosophyonline.co.uk/tok/tokhome.htm >. Textbook League, The (TTL). “The Pandas Scam”. Retrieved Nov. 16, 2005. . Read More