What we consider knowledge is not only a mental exercise divorced from any practical implications, the problem is that when we come to see knowledge as such, as something neutral and has no bearing on the manner we live, we fall into cognitive traps that lead to us living a life that is not ours and that is not conducive to the fulfillment of our ends as particular humans.
We are embodied, rational and beings that are subject to some extent to emotions and dispositions, also active according to the capacity of our will within the environment we are brought it. And given these any change in one level of our existence, whether of body, mind or consciousness, has an effect not only on that level but on our whole being, and thus knowledge and beliefs of any kind do not have only a bearing on the mind but also on all other aspects.
I had to fully explain this here, given that I know many have a different idea, or for those who are not satisfied with a claim unless it is fully elaborated. But given my explanation of this, let me get to the points I want to tackle.
- We live as beings in sets of hierarchies of many levels and many aspects.
- Each of these hierarchies has power over the knowledge we can access and the level of assent they expect from us.
- This power can affect the type of knowledge we absorb and thus the way we act on that knowledge.
- Skepticism, a healthy amount of it, ensures that the whole structure remains balanced and robust against extreme abuse or against fragmentation of those hierarchies.
I will handle each point and try to keep the nuance of the view I am putting forward, and first I must clarify that I am not advocating for naive submission to authority or for radical skepticism both which I will strive to show inadequate for human fulfillment.
First it is clear that usually each of us is born not in isolation but in a family, and that the family we are born into is part of a larger family which is a part of community, and that community is part of a nation, which is ruled and administrated by a head of state, be it a king or president, or by a group. For the current reflection I will stop at the level of the state and will not venture to talk about the role of globalization and modern politics, though there certainly is other hierarchies above the state which include even competing elements.
These all are not of one accord and not of one voice at all times, and each deals with many aspects of human life, whether scientific, political, religious, moral or dealing with traditions and customs. But there are specific mechanisms and institutions by each which each of these things are handled separately, usually in the the way media and news is structured. And this what I meant by hierarchies of many levels and many aspects.
Before I continue, I must first give a satisfactory account of what a hierarchy is, for this analysis we will consider this a good way to see it, it is the structure that enables multiplicity (in our case a multiplicity of people) to be considered a unit, it is usually a triangular or trapezoid structure with each person having a role in upholding the hierarchy, with roles having a different levels importance for upholding it, with most elements constituting the base and the least summit. Now this definition is based not on the ideal of a hierarchy, but how they are manifest in reality and examples of chaotic examples even if they do not fit the description I gave perfectly, still enable some sort of unity on some levels, and usually those chaotic ones are on the verge of collapse if not corrected internally.
I know that even this definition can be subject to scrutiny and some might find it to be lacking or inaccurate, but bear with me and I will justify this along the way. Now given that we live within at least one hierarchy if not many, and that our knowledge is lived and not an abstract mental exercise we do for its own sake, it is only natural that we and our personal knowledge participate and are in constant dialogue with those around us and those within or without some of the hierarchies we either share or do not share with those we interact with.
And given that some parts of the hierarchies we participate in have more control and responsabilities than us within those hierarchies, they have power and incentive to either expose or omit one piece of knowledge or another, for the sake of the common goal a hierarchy strives for. Either by selectively emphasizing one, being silent on another or offering a perspective and interpretation about a piece of knowledge. For example your biology teacher will not go about teaching physics on a random day, and a mother will not give advice to her ten year old as if he is thirty.
Which means that, given that we participate in hierarchies that are not always of one common goal, they are not under the obligation to not contradict if they fundamentally do not agree; and thus one individual or a sub-hierarchy can be subjected to epistemic dissonance while operating in different contexts and other sub-hierarchies under one hierarchy.
And that even a hierarchy at times can be demanding on one’s intellectual consent to ideas, manifested today in political parties, religious organizations, traditions, academic settings, environments that first demand intellectual assent to their principles in order to participate in them, something that is quite understandable given their role in society requires it by nature.
These now result in confusions within the individual, and even within sub-hierarchies or communities, which aspire to participate in multiple aspects of society, and have to keep to their principles and at the same time manage to not distrupt the workings of society at large and at once be able to not be influenced in ways that are not wanted by them. A failure to do any of these result in limited participation in society or any estrangement from it or even worse outcomes than these depending on the nature of the environment he inhabits.
And even adherence to principles of a hierarchy even if unthreatened by anything informs our whole disposition, behavior and even morality and the way by which we acquire and verify more knowledge at that stage, and this makes both the actions of choice of adherence or the choice to fit into all very costly, since one must evaluate the effects and outcomes of epistemic adherence to a hierarchy in order to choose to do so, and choosing to fit into all either causes great personal confusion or makes one highly deceptive and morally corrupt, both of which are not desired traits in any healthy hierarchy.
This is where healthy skepticism or discernment is a necessary tool to navigate the life I have described which is manifest in the world and also as an internal corrective mechanism of hierarchies, and this skepticism or rather discernment involves many facets and is not only a purely rationalistic process but an action in itself, these facets might be elaborated in that:
- One must be able to as best as one could recognize the ways by which knowledge is shaped through the hierarchies, and if that in itself is obscured that constitutes a question mark on its legitimacy
- One must be able to identify the common goal which hierarchy is supposed to strive for and whether it is in fact striving towards it or not but rather that it is subverted to serve another goal
- And one must also recognize whether the hierarchy where he participates allows for healthy disagreements on issues other than the principles on which it stands, and to be able to access justifications for the principles themselves and the boundaries which seperate opinions and principles.
In terms of the hierarchies themselves must be able to adjust and take on the process of discernment to allow their continuity and health, and to not collapse to rigid authoritarianism or to anarchy by:
- Being able to recognize overreach and overstep in control
- Being receptive to the voices of the members of the whole insofar as it leads to benefit
- Being able upon disagreements to justify the founding principles and their consequences
Now what I elaborated here in itself require a reference point, by which one recognize what is the correct discernment that is to be applied, but that is a matter of another occasion, but overall I would say this idea I have explained can be beneficial navigating the multifaceted conflicting environments we live with, and that what is needed is not an anarchist rejection of all authority nor is it a naive submission to all authority but rather a wise and calculated discernment of what is right and wrong with what is being imposed in the service of the correction of hierarchies, by which we live harmoniously and in an orderly manner in society and in the world.