Aristotle says that man by nature
desires to know. Like all Aristotelian
claims, this one is wrapped up in a view of nature at large. For Aristotle one of the primary features of
nature is that it is teleological—it is directed towards an end. This doesn’t mean, like a car, that it its
wheels are pointed in a specific direction and will go that way—but that, to
use this metaphor, all of the features of the car are designed for the task of
going.[1] Similarly, if we want to know what humans
are, we examine what they are and this tells us their end. The most dominant
features, so the story goes, of humans include reason and senses (and
presumably memory). These features
combine to make a being designed to know.
This story should raise some
questions, for those of us with the advantage of not being inculcated in the Christian tradition of knowledge. For were we to take a longer view of human
being—that is, both onto- and phylogenetically—we might witness long comically
futile episode in which “knowledge” (what precisely this means should also be
in question) is neither “kept” nor implemented into human activity. What is more common in contemporary human life
than the sin of akrasia, in which the
person fails to act on what she knows?
The woman knows that smoking a cigarette is a risky behavior, but she
nonetheless does it. The man knows that
others are not—by virtue of their ethnic association—stupid or smart or sexy,
but still judges them as if this were so.[2]
One can explain akrasia in different ways, but the
phenomenon still shows that humans bear knowledge that does not change their
behavior. And if one “knows” something
but cannot act in accord with this knowledge, of what value is this “knowledge”?
So then let’s adopt the alternative,
unsightly thesis: humans do not desire to know.
The human being desires this and that, but one does not desire to
know. If this is the case, how do we who
have the unfortunate task of “teaching” them complete this mission? For even if people do not desire to know,
they still must be taught. The child
must wash his hands, he must learn about the Aristotelian concept of teleology,
and he must be able to perform the mathematic operations allowing him to understand
his wealth or poverty.
[1]
A much more interesting and accurate analysis might develop here, were it not
we were interested in talking about knowing, since cars are hardly designed
simply for “going”!
[2]
The phylogenetic view is more tragic, as human lives are expended and exhausted
as a result of knowing but not implementing this knowledge. For example, consider threats to public
health that are ignored or suppressed because of their perhaps relatively
smaller effects on politics or on the economy.
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