When we talk about what knowledge is, we fall back on metaphors. Everyone does it. Plato, famously, used the metaphor of sight. To know what a thing is, you have to be able to see it clearly. Plato has been hugely influential. Most of us use that metaphor at least some of the time. Other people have compared knowledge to food, you have to chew it up and digest it to really have it.
What is Tyler Cowen's metaphor for knowledge?
Well, he is a post-Kantian; I know another confusing concept. What I mean by this is quite simple though. Cowen thinks what distinguishes what we really know from what we think we know is how we organize it. It's the way that knowledge is organized into a mental filing system that helps me determine what I really know versus stuff I am uncertain about.
The most important thing Cowen wants us to understand about knowledge is that it doesn't naturally organize. It sits there scattered all over the place and he wants to save us from believing knowledge is more organized than it really is.
No comments:
Post a Comment