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Mon 8 Jan, 2007 07:42 am
Disinterested Knowledge: Mixing bowl of creativity
Instrumental knowledge is interested knowledge. Instrumental knowledge is the life blood of a value system that places the maximizing of production and consumption as "Number One".
Disinterested knowledge is the un-knowledge, it is the non-instrumental knowledge. Disinterested knowledge is an alien and clumsy word in a society that places maximum value on production and consumption. Disinterested knowledge is not a catalyst of production and consumption but it is the catalyst of creativity. Disinterested knowledge is the mixing bowl of creativity.
Creativity is the synthesis of the known into a model of the unknown. The value of the unknown is yet to be determined. Creativity requires a comfort with the unknown.
Disinterested knowledge is an intrinsic value. Disinterested knowledge is not a means but an end. It is knowledge I seek because I desire to know it. I mean the term 'disinterested knowledge' as similar to 'pure research', as compared to 'applied research'. Pure research seeks to know truth unconnected to any specific application.
In our consumer society, disinterested knowledge is seldom a matter upon which institutional education will waste time. Disinterested knowledge is the province of the self-learner. I think of the self-learner of disinterested knowledge as driven by curiosity and imagination to understand.
cob
With all your answers, where do the questions fit? And with all your questions, where does detatched consideration fit?
It seems to me that you steer your intellect with an iron fist. If that is so, then how can you hope to sail unexplored waters?
At the risk of offending you, wouldn't it be better to just forget about all the things said by all others and listen to what your own thoughts are hiding?
Cyracuz
It seems to me that imagination unsupported by knowledge is frivolous. One must have some foundation to support imagination and of course without a base of knowledge how can one determine the value of that which is imagined. One cannot overcome the fact that hard work is the only source of useful product.
The only source?
Sometimes a little bit of imagination is all it takes to make the work considerably easier, and the product no less useful.
More interesting that what you know is always what you can learn. And it is my opinion that a too stong an emphasis on accumulated knowledge makes adding to that pile a whole lot harder.
If one cannot look past the known, learning will never be anything but a self-centered confirmation of what one already knows.
Coberst wrote:In our consumer society, disinterested knowledge is seldom a matter upon which institutional education will waste time.
If this were true, then we wouldn't have the pejorative term "ivory tower." If the notion of disinterested knowledge is as widely disparaged by institutions as you're suggesting, how do you explain the persistent use of "ivory tower" as a characterization of academia?
Coberst,
Your question is potentially interesting because it points directly to analysis of the word "knowledge" and specifically to the topic "sociology of knowledge". Anthropomorphic statements of the nature "what society thinks" are somewhat trivial.
If the knowledge you are acquiring is new to you then you are opening up the potential for taking a new path. When one learns only what is part of what s/he now knows or is doing then there is little likelihood for surprising new revelations.
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