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HPluckrose's profile
Helen Pluckrose
Helen Pluckrose
Helen Pluckrose
@HPluckrose

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Helen Pluckrose

@HPluckrose

Editor @AreoMagazine Secular, liberal humanist. Mother. Doglover. Writing book about epistemology & ethics on the academic left Helen.pluckrose@areomagazine.com

London.
areomagazine.com/author/hpluckr…
Joined August 2011

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    1. (((Colin Wight)))‏ @colwight Mar 5
      Replying to @HPluckrose

      But even the knowledge itself is socially constructed. If there were no humans they'd be no knowledge.

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    2. Helen Pluckrose‏ @HPluckrose Mar 5
      Replying to @colwight

      In the sense that there wouldn't be anyone to know it, yes. There'd be no knowers. , no possessors of knowledge. This is a semantic thing. When we say we seek knowledge, it is not humans knowing things that we seek but the right answer to a thing.

      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
    3. Helen Pluckrose‏ @HPluckrose Mar 5
      Replying to @HPluckrose @colwight

      The knowledge itself - the right answer to a thing eg, water is H2O - is not socially constructed. Nor is the knower - an intelligent ape. The process of obtaining this knowledge and framing of it is dependent on society & the methods it formulates for knowing & relating this.

      2 replies 0 retweets 5 likes
    4. Helen Pluckrose‏ @HPluckrose Mar 5
      Replying to @HPluckrose @colwight

      This is what is at the crux of the disagreement. We all agree that the acquisition of knowledge is dependent on developments of human methods like science in society. We disagree on whether there is objective knowledge/truth/facts and whether we can get at them at all reliably.

      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
    5. (((Colin Wight)))‏ @colwight Mar 5
      Replying to @HPluckrose

      No you see this is what leaves you right open to a postmodernist critique. You have to distinguish knowledge (a human product) from the world (which may be a human product (society)). But knowledge of the world is socially constructed. This means any knowledge claim could...1/

      2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
    6. (((Colin Wight)))‏ @colwight Mar 5
      Replying to @colwight @HPluckrose

      .....be wrong. You have to distinguish how we know things, from what things there are. But we can only know what things there are through our descriptions of them.

      2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
    7. Helen Pluckrose‏ @HPluckrose Mar 5
      Replying to @colwight

      Absolutely. I don't disagree with that. Distinguishing how we know things from what things there are is absolutely the point. Knowledge is the product tho, not the epistemology, surely?

      2 replies 0 retweets 1 like
    8. (((Colin Wight)))‏ @colwight Mar 5
      Replying to @HPluckrose

      Knowledge and epistemology are by definition one and the same thing. I'll send you some readings.

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    9. Helen Pluckrose‏ @HPluckrose Mar 5
      Replying to @colwight

      This is where we are talking about different things then. I know what epistemology is - ways of discovering knowledge. I am referring to knowledge as the thing that is to be discovered whilst you are referring to the process of knowing.

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
    10. (((Colin Wight)))‏ @colwight Mar 5
      Replying to @HPluckrose

      Well if you refer to knowledge as the thing that is discovered you're in trouble. It's what I'd call the epistemic fallacy; the reduction of what is (ontology) to what is known (epistemology). What is taken as known at any point in time can always be wrong.

      1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      Helen Pluckrose‏ @HPluckrose Mar 5
      Replying to @colwight

      Yes, knowledge is always provisional. And there is always more to know. This is dealt with by openly acknowledging that we are limited in getting at truth.

      5:53 AM - 5 Mar 2018
      • 1 Like
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      1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
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        2. (((Colin Wight)))‏ @colwight Mar 5
          Replying to @HPluckrose

          Exactly, so we can't ever say that our socially constructed knowledge of the world is 100% right. And what makes it possibly wrong is that it's not identical to what is. What there is would still be as it even if we had no knowledge of it. That's why knowledge isn't what is.

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        3. Helen Pluckrose‏ @HPluckrose Mar 5
          Replying to @colwight

          See, we don't disagree except on the word. I'll use knowledge but accept that it is provisional and not necessarily or even probably identical to what is.

          1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
        4. (((Colin Wight)))‏ @colwight Mar 5
          Replying to @HPluckrose

          Well now we don't even disagree on the word. Now you're using knowledge as not synonymous of what is, you are acknowledging it (knowledge) is socially constructed. There's nothing to fear here. Knowledge can be socially constructed without destroying the world as it is.

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        5. Helen Pluckrose‏ @HPluckrose Mar 5
          Replying to @colwight

          No, I'm not. I'm acknowledging it as provisional. We know the earth orbits the sun.This knowledge remains provisional but It was not brought into being by society. It is constructed from methods formed by society of getting at what is which will always be imperfect. Will that do?

          2 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
        6. Helen Pluckrose‏ @HPluckrose Mar 5
          Replying to @HPluckrose @colwight

          In short, I am not going round saying that established facts are socially constructed because by this, people mean that we made it up and different cultures can make it up differently and be equally right. The sun is actually a chariot containing a god.

          3 replies 0 retweets 3 likes
        7. (((Colin Wight)))‏ @colwight Mar 5
          Replying to @HPluckrose

          You might want to revisit Wittgenstein on private language games.

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        8. Helen Pluckrose‏ @HPluckrose Mar 5
          Replying to @colwight

          I'm pretty sure I don't.

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        9. (((Colin Wight)))‏ @colwight Mar 5
          Replying to @HPluckrose

          Now therein lies both the problem and the admission of the problem. I'll leave it here.

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
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