dyslexia wrote:I find most difficult and also most frequent is the inability to discern the differnce between the symbol for the known and the known itself.
I guess I cannot comprehend just what you mean. Could you supply me with an example?
Please read my response to Pantalones, I think it applies generally to the concerns you mentioned.
coberst
I thought I had comprehended your point of view completely, but now I'm not so sure. Separating knowledge from understanding in the sense that one can be passed from one to another without much loss and the other needs the first one to, as Cyracuz said, build upon to upgrade it to understanding.
So in order to be on the same page, is memorizing 3x3=9 knowledge?
I'm also not sure what dys means, so I'd love for him to expand on his thoughts.
Also, no need to apologize, but I thank you for that.
I agree with your critical thinking point of view. But that was not what I asked on my previous question, which may be better suited for an independent thread.
Taking the 3x3=9 example, agreeing that memory is in fact knowledge. If one person was told that 3x3=6 then would that person know that particular statement?
To generalize it, can knowledge be wrong or incorrect?
coberst wrote:Knowledge has a universal characteristic and relates to truth as well as we can know it.
I just reread your post and think that this statements answers negatively to the question.
All investigation is partial; we think only when we are motivated to do so. I can't imagine disinterested thinking any more than I can imagine disinterested painting. Objectivity is an unattainable ideal of positivists. And their impassioned defense of the possibility and desireability of objective inquiry into an objective world clearly reflects their subjective (inter-subjective) lack of impartiality.
JL
To say knowledge is disinterested is to say that it has no practical application. You cannot make any money with it. Disinterested knowledge is what Socrates meant by "the unexamined life is not worth living". Disinterested knowledge is about examining life.
This quotation of Carl Rogers might illuminate my meaning of disinterested knowledge.
I want to talk about learning. But not the lifeless, sterile, futile, quickly forgotten stuff that is crammed in to the mind of the poor helpless individual tied into his seat by ironclad bonds of conformity! I am talking about LEARNING - the insatiable curiosity that drives the adolescent boy to absorb everything he can see or hear or read about gasoline engines in order to improve the efficiency and speed of his 'cruiser'. I am talking about the student who says, "I am discovering, drawing in from the outside, and making that which is drawn in a real part of me." I am talking about any learning in which the experience of the learner progresses along this line: "No, no, that's not what I want"; "Wait! This is closer to what I am interested in, what I need"; "Ah, here it is! Now I'm grasping and comprehending what I need and what I want to know!"
Disinterested inquiry, when it is legitimate, is not attached to any particular outcome, but it is very interested in the questions asked.
When the learner exclaims: " "No, no, that's not what I want"; "Wait! This is closer to what I am interested in, what I need"; "Ah, here it is! Now I'm grasping and comprehending what I need and what I want to know!" he is expressing a very "interested" spirit of inquiry.
Socrates' dictum might be turned around to say that the uninterested life and uninteresting life is not worth living or examining (a variation on: the unlived life is not worth examining).
Actually, life's worth is intrinsic, from my perspective.
JL
Yes, the only reason to study disinterested knowledge is because I desire to know it.
Yes, and that desire is Life itself, what Nietzsche called the will to power.
Re: Understanding Stuff
Understanding, is a condition in which a dynamic conceptual model accurately predicts the reality being modeled.
Can't understanding sometimes be equated with familiarity? When I am very familiar with a person or a situation, for example, I feel I "understand" them even though I may have little theoretical knowledge about them. I have a very close friend about whom I have little physiological or psychological knowledge. Nevertheless, very little of his behavior surprises me. Can say that I understand (am very familiar with) him?.
Here I am obviously distinguishing "understanding" from "knowledge", a personal practical grasp of something from a theoretical abstract knowledge about if.
JLNobody wrote:Can't understanding sometimes be equated with familiarity? When I am very familiar with a person or a situation, for example, I feel I "understand" them even though I may have little theoretical knowledge about them. I have a very close friend about whom I have little physiological or psychological knowledge. Nevertheless, very little of his behavior surprises me. Can say that I understand (am very familiar with) him?.
Here I am obviously distinguishing "understanding" from "knowledge", a personal practical grasp of something from a theoretical abstract knowledge about if.
The degree to which your conceptual model predicts reality determines how well you actually understand something (or someone).
I would suggest that in many cases, our perceived understanding of someone is often radically flawed... "He was such a nice neighbor, I can't believe he killed all those people". It's easier to understand rocks than people.
Rosborne, you say that it's easier to understand rocks than people. From the perspective of my definitions (and they are only definitions), I think we can more easily have exhaustive "knowledge" of a rock than a (much more complex and multi-system) person. AND, I think I can ONLY "understand" people. My notion of understanding has a component of empathy, what German sociologists call verstehen.
JLNobody wrote:Can't understanding sometimes be equated with familiarity? When I am very familiar with a person or a situation, for example, I feel I "understand" them even though I may have little theoretical knowledge about them. I have a very close friend about whom I have little physiological or psychological knowledge. Nevertheless, very little of his behavior surprises me. Can say that I understand (am very familiar with) him?.
Here I am obviously distinguishing "understanding" from "knowledge", a personal practical grasp of something from a theoretical abstract knowledge about if.
I think you are correct. I think that our first best frindship may be our first understanding.
JLNobody wrote:My notion of understanding has a component of empathy, what German sociologists call verstehen.
I see.
Then we are working with slightly different definitions of "understand".
However, if I were to include empathy in my definition of understanding, then I think I would include emotion in my suggestion of a conceptual model. I think all that does is to add an additional layer of subjectivity. I still think understanding is a conceptual model which predicts reality, but your model just includes a model of a model.
I can buy that, Ros. But I DO think that we should include emotion and subjective in our broader view of cognizance. The conscious intellect is only part of us. AND I've always be suspicious of the ideal of "objectivity." To ME there is ultimately only subject (personal) and inter-subjective (social) understanding of an "objective" world.
And THAT is an objective fact. :wink:
I agree with JL. I think that understanding is a rare confluence of emotion and intellect and that the person receives a 'jolt' when that occurs.
