This unit finishes up our consideration of Boghossian's book and of the issue of relativism/constructivism (Part 1) and then it begins our consideration of the practical problem of inquiry in the contemporary media environment (Part 2).
Part 1:
Topic: How should our approach to inquiry take human differences into account? (Differences, that is, like culture, class and gender.) What sense can we make of the idea that there alternative ‘ways of knowing’ associated with these differences? Is it possible that science (and the principles of inquiry modeled on science that are advocated in Schick and Vaughan's textbook) somehow reflect the viewpoint of some specific group (Europeans? males?)? Has Boghossian shown that the idea of alternative 'ways of knowing' is wrong?
Read:
Patricia Hill Collins, "Toward an Afrocentric Feminist Epistemology" (Collins insists that there is more than one “knowledge validation process” and, thus, more than one epistemology, and that these are linked to group identity. For Collins, it makes sense to be trying to develop an alternative epistemology for Black women, not (just?) because the standard epistemological principles are wrong, but because they are European and male.)
Elizabeth Anderson,"Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science" -- in part. (This is a long and somewhat technical article gives a more precise and much more substantial answer to the question "how can there be a connection between gender and ways of knowing (or principles of inquiry)?". Read the section called "Situated Knowers" and the one called "Feminist Defenses of Value-Laden Inquiry." Other sections of the article are optional.)
Write:
Try to explain as carefully and concretely as you can what is meant by the claim that there are different ways of knowing associated with different groups (men vs. women, Europeans vs. Africans). Then, try to write a critical assessment of this claim. Does it make sense to you? Do you think it is true? Would it be fair to say that the people who are advocating these ideas are failing to recognize the kinds of problems discussed in Chapter 5 of How to think About Weird things? That is, are they failing to see that what they are advocating is simply a reliance on unreliable personal experiences? Or is there a better way to understand what they are advocating? Would it be fair to say that they are advocating the kind of relativistic views that Boghossian criticizes in Fear of Knowledge? Or do they have something important to teach us about knowledge and inquiry? Write at least two (double-spaced) pages.
Part 2
Topic: What tools or principles of inquiry do we need in order to figure out what's going on in the confusing and contested world of politics and public affairs. This is the topic I earlier called "citizen's epistemology".
Read:
Chapters 1, 2, and 3 of Kovach and Rosenstiel, Blur: How To know What 's True in the Age of Information Overload
Write:
Kovach and Rosenstiel promise to help us cope with a practical epistemological problem: how to sort through the confusing media environment we face today and discover the truths we need to know to be informed voters ( and good citizens more generally). In this first part of the book they claim that we face a new sort of media environment in which we must "be our own editors" and that this puts a new kind of burden on our powers of discrimination and judgment.
1. What do they say is new and different about the "media landscape?" What problem does this create for us?
2. What are the various kinds of journalism that they identify? (Give a brief characterization of each kind.)
3. Can you identify examples of these different kinds of journalism in your own media diet (the news or 'infotainment' that you consume)?
Write at least a couple of (double-spaced) pages.