23 March 1998

Last time I found myself criticising another philosopher's theory when I had expressly said I wouldn't 'engage in dialectics' at this stage! My investigation is hardly underway and already I'm taking pot shots! Just plain laziness, really. It's so much easier to focus on an identifiable target than something as elusive as a hunch. No. So long as I'm still searching for clues, criticisms come later. — Besides, how many people outside philosophy have even heard of What's-his-name?

In case you've just joined me, I'm looking into the nature of learning. The idea is that this would be a more rewarding line to pursue for the philosopher interested in the problem of knowledge, than simply asking 'What is knowledge?' But already I'm beginning to have my doubts.

Page is a process, while knowledge is a state. (I won't say knowledge is the end state of the learning process because that begs the question whether the object of learning is always knowledge.) Last time, I characterized learning as a kind of 'attunement to reality'. That's a phrase I find suggestive, full of possibilities.

When you're tuned up with reality, you're right there, on the button. Robert Pirsig's favourite example of the motorcycle mechanic who cares. (I still recommend Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to all my students.) When you do things in the caring way says Pirsig you are on the track of the mysterious thing called 'Quality'. Now my initial thought is this. It's an obvious point, really. The expert mechanic has learned their stuff. That means that when you give them a machine to fix they are open to learn more. To be tuned in to reality involves a continuous series of fine adjustments, like the ice dancer or the acrobat. You don't just tune in then switch off.

Could this be how things generally are with knowledge, sorry, learning?

Yes, we learn facts and store them. Regurgitate them when the need arises. That is an essential part of 'expertise' with any subject matter, be it the theory of the internal combustion engine or The Simpsons. So called 'expert systems', computer programs which mimic the knowledge of human experts, store vast arrays of information which the user can call on at will. One example is the 'medical diagnosis program'. You just feed in the patient's symptoms to the computer and a few seconds later up pops a diagnosis (or, more likely, a list of possible diagnoses with further questions to ask). The only drawback is you need to be a good doctor to use the program! Otherwise, you're no different from the hypochondriac with a medical dictionary, coming up with all sorts of fantastical explanations for a common cold.

What I want to say is that, whatever subject matter for learning you look at, there is always the question of practical competence in applying regurgitated information. The very notion of a learned 'fact' is always something more or less abstract, that is to say, something abstracted from the nitty gritty reality of human competence, human attunement with reality.

We scoff at TV Quiz shows like Mastermind because a person can have their head stuffed with facts and still be an ignoramus. Facts are the lowliest, least interesting or relevant kind of learning. The guy knows everything there is to know about the novels of Jane Austen, but if you asked him to write a critical essay he wouldn't have a clue. Contrary to what I was taught at school, you can be a brilliant historian and lousy at learning dates.

I have not yet made a philosophical point. I certainly don't mean to imply that an argument between two people, one who liked quiz shows and one who hated them, would have any relevance whatsoever to philosophy. (It's possibly true, but irrelevant, that philosophers tend to be the sorts of people who hate learning facts. Philosophy exams are the easiest to 'swot' for.) All this is necessary preparation, limbering up to make a philosophical remark.

The remark I am limbering up to is this. Philosophers looking at the nature of human knowledge have made the wrong choice of paradigm. They have picked on the wrong range of cases as the 'central cases'. What they took to be central was really peripheral. As a result they have asked the wrong questions. Now, that is a very big claim. In philosophy, there is no better, surer way to outflank an opponent than to suggest that they are on to the wrong questions altogether. Then everything your opponent says is nonsense, or at best beside the point!

The problem with outflanking manoeuvres is the outflankers in their turn are vulnerable to being outflanked by the very people they were attempting to outflank. What is the test for whether a philosophical question is the right question to ask? Who's to say what is relevant or irrelevant? If the test is simply that a question or problem grips you, then different individuals can be 'gripped' by different questions. Nothing is 'relevant' or 'irrelevant' as such but only in relation to the interests of an individual. The result, in the present case, is a boring stalemate.

I don't think I'm stuck with a stalemate, but that's still something I've got to prove. I need more examples, better examples. I need better, more focused questions. — I'll make a start on that next time.