Since Plato, there have been theories of epistemology, or how it is that humans know what humans know. For Plato, knowledge is a participation in the Ideas, particularly the Idea of the Good. For Aristotle, it was a rational extrapolation from the conformity of the perceptive faculties with the perceivable object. For Descartes, it was the simple, clear, distinct and indubitable idea, founded upon the irrefutable cogito ergo sum. For Kant, knowledge is that which reason demands from sensory phenomena. But already, with the Kantian transcendental reason, elucidated in light of Humean scepticism, the West took a turn away from an understanding of the correspondence between human conceptions and reality. Nietzsche drove the wedge further by making of knowledge the will to power; the will to know is the epistemological will to power. From there to Rortian neopragmatism, in which knowledge is little more than the use of language to get what we want, is but the smallest of steps.
The ineptly named cultural worldview labeled "postmodernism" drinks deep of this anti-foundationalist, anti-correspondence understanding of knowing. More sophisticated theories of pomo epistemology usually speak in terms of coherence and the Quinean web of belief. Which is to say, in a bit of an oversimplification, ideas are true, have knowledge value, insofar as they cohere with other ideas. Whether or not those ideas are true in an absolute sense, one can perhaps never know. But in that they are consistent with the rest of what a particular epistemic community knows, or in that they have the ability to enable us to fulfill certain needs and/or desires, then they are true.
The strength of this sort of pomo epistemology is that it indeed provides cogent criticism of the weaknesses of a more foundationalist or correspondence understanding of human knowing. It is true that foundationalism must answer the charge of infinite regress (that upon which we base our knowledge must itself be based upon a foundation), and can apparently only do so in question begging terms; within its own paradigm it must provide an argument which the paradigm cannot defend. So foundationalists must posit an absolute (Reason, God, the material universe) which it cannot unequivocally defend on its own terms.
Too, correspondence theorists must argue that human conceptions of reality do indeed match that reality in ways adequate to speak of it. But once again, this seems to beg the question. Once again, correspondence theorists seem to be required to make their case from the standpoint of an extrahuman observer or cause that can substantiate the human grasp of reality.
So essentially pomo epistemology is left with coherence. However, the difficulty with coherence, with the web of belief, is that one can only speak about the ideas closest to one. One cannot make any claims that the web is actually attached to anything (to continue the metaphor). Which is to say, pomo epistemology seems to construct its web of belief in thin air. Furthermore, pomo epistemology cannot even claim a single web--except in terms of the epistemic exemplar--but must peforce admit that other systems of coherency (even and especially ones that contradict their own) obtain.
In fact, this pluralistic epistemology, when followed to its own paradigmatic conclusions, seems to offer little else than solipsism. There are as many webs of belief as there are believers. Or, there is no other truth than my truth. But clearly this is unsatisfactory, and leads to other Nietzschean and Foucauldian conclusions about power and ethics that pluralists would not, nor can, defend.
The remedy, then, within the coherency paradigm, is to ascertain whether the ideas of others cohere with one's own. The challenges to one's own ideas, then, those places of aporia and contradiction will force one or another of these knowing subjects to reweave their own webs; as long as such reconstructions seem consistent or are pragmatically workable. These reconstructions, however, change the epistemic paradigm. In short, pluralist epistemology must endlessly engage in polling, with ever-changing criteria. The community of knowledge is the members of one's own tribe or interest group. Knowledge itself is what we construct. Fundamental impasses between knowledge claims can only be settled by rhetoric or power. Platonic dialectic, the community of knowing in dialgoue, has no place. Thrasymachus wins the day. Socrates drinks the hemlock.
The weaknesses of foundationalist/correspondence and coherentist theories of truth are evident. One would think that the combination of the strengths of these constructions would make a cogent epistemology. I certainly do. But that means pluralists must give up their dogmatism about pluralism and admit that there are absolute statements of Truth. *Foundationalists and correspondence theorists need not abandon their claims to absolute knowing, even if they must admit that their rational inquiries arise from particular communities of knowing and traditions and that their inquiries are limitedly contingent and subject to revision.* For my part, I think it is easier for foundationalists and correspondence theorists to assimilate pluralist strengths. I cannot see how pluralists can admit to foundationalist absolutes without dismantling their worldview. But then again, deconstruction will always turn on itself and negate its own negations. Pluralists cannot be pluralists without becoming foundationalists (though they would die rather than admit it). It's not clear that foundationalists have much to change.
Posted by Clifton at September 3, 2003 06:32 AM | TrackBack