By Erik Dolson
Some of my friends are Trumpistas. Our friendships survive because we usually talk about other things: boats, race cars, guns, the nature of knowledge …
Whaaaat …?
Yeah, okay, that last one not so much. But it’s a conversation I just had with my friend The Editor (who is NOT a Trumpista). The Editor has recently been confronted by the fact that I, a Liberal, and another of his friends, a Conservative, have such different views of the world. It startles him, given that he likes and respects how each of us thinks.
I have less of an issue with this. Brains make patterns. That’s the brain’s job, aside from running the machinery of life. These patterns are “what we know.” But the patterns are filtered by prior experience, biases, social input, laziness, what we see on TV…
We also perceive more easily that which fits our existing patterns — that which agrees with what we already “know,” the “paradigms” that structure our reality (see Thomas Kuhn, “Structure of Scientific Revolutions).
Because our filters are different, it’s not surprising that what we “know” is different as well. So, how do we know what’s “true”?
Philosophers have tried to tackle this for as long as we have had words, and much of the argument has been over “words.” To avoid that, I’ll lean on Plato:
“For Plato, there is a distinction between believing and knowing … There are three … conditions, according to Plato, for one to have knowledge: (1) the proposition must be believed; (2) the proposition must be true; and (3) the proposition must be supported by (facts), which is to say, you must be justified in believing it…” (Oxford University Press)
Yeah, again we’re back to how do we “know” the proposition to be “true?” How do we know the “facts” are relevant? And I’ll add my own twist based on years of exploring this issue: Facts can be used to distort the “truth.” (See: Lawyers, Trump: Giuliani, Kelly-Ann Conway).
Truth depends on context, which is not to say it’s relative. So, even with “facts,” how do we know what’s “true?” It may actually come down to an issue of faith that my selection of facts is complete and accurate: there is no “up” in space; Trump lost; The floor needs to be mopped.
So, when someone we know has a different view of the world, how do we know if we are right, or if they are? Bad news: It takes work. It involves risk. And almost nobody is willing to make the effort. Except my friend, The Editor. And brave writers like Matt Taibbi, George F. Will, and others on the left and the right.
The rest of us have to depend on those willing and with the resources. But we still have to have an open mind for those rare moments when what we believe is honestly challenged by facts we can’t dispute.
Otherwise, we should limit disagreements to which semi-auto pistol is best, who makes the best pickup truck, and whether God exists and if She is Black.
(For more on what we believe, and why, one of the finest books written this century is Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.)