I think knowledge is a different thing. Even its definition is obscure. For centuries, knowledge was universally considered to be “justified true belief” until Edmund Gettier wrote a three-page paper in 1963 and turned everything upside down. But as I said in the OP, I do think there can be epistemological issues with respect to understanding.
I really don’t know how to respond to that. I suppose we could say that Einstein had no business messing with f=ma since the Newtonian formula is perfectly sufficient for dealing with the world around us. I mean, we’re talking about Kant here. Immanuel Kant. The philosopher’s philosopher. Granted, some of his claims may not be correct. I think his argument that existence is not a predicate is wrong, for example. But his precision with definitions is legendary. And I believe his definition of understanding is useful in the real world if only because premises drawn from it assure us that we cannot understand one another. I think that’s an important thing for us to be aware of. If I know that you will never understand me, then my expectations with respect to discussions between us are more, well, realistic.
Economists are philosophers who have to try and verify their results.
Philosophers are useful for coming up with new ideas for mankind to approach their way of thinking about life, but that’s creation not analysis. But it’s a creation based on their analysis of the world. What definition they use for themselves to analyse the world around them, while interesting for analysing the ideas they create, are pertty well useless for any other context.
Speaking of context, it was philosophers like Kuhn, Popper, Quine, Dennett and others who gave modern science its legitimacy. In fact, the underpinning principle of the scientific method is the philosophical principle of falsification — Popper’s contribution. As for analysis, there would be no analysis without logic, which is philosophy’s child.
I just read the OP and bypassed the other posts in the thread. But one thing stands out to me more than anything else. The notion that sometimes we don’t even understand ourselves. I think that rings true for a lot of people. You do look back on your past in a different light based on what has happened since then. In some ways you are a different person. I have certain thoeries about some of my own behavior but I have not been able to test it yet, because the events I’m waiting for have not yet occurred. What about ideas we have in our head that conflict with other ideas? Today I was going through my wallet and I found a Bahamian dollar and I thought, wouldn’t it be funny to give this to the next homeless person that asks me for money. Then an hour later I thought about how fucked up that was, but it left me wondering how such conflicting viewpoints are from the same person.
I think if it were possible for human beings to know everything then we would all understand everything and believe the same things. But a human being can only encompass a small fraction of the sum of all knowledge. So the best we can do is form conclusions based on our incomplete knowledge. And because we all have a different fraction of knowledge we reach different conclusions. When one person concludes the elephant is a snake and another concludes it’s a wall, they’re both making rational conclusions based on the limited knowledge they had.
…One problem that recurs more and more frequently these days in books, and plays, and movies, is the inability of people to communicate with the people they love. Husbands and wives who can’t communicate; children who can’t communicate with their parents, and so on. And the characters in these books, and plays, and so on, and in real life, I might add, spend hours bemoaning the fact that they can’t communicate. I feel that if a person can’t communicate the very least he can do is to shut up.
And **pool ** wins the thread. Worrying that we can’t perfectly understand each other is pointless, since we only have a vague understanding of ourselves. You aren’t going to understand why your neighbor prefers apples to oranges if you don’t understand why YOU prefer apples to oranges.
Of course, I’m coming from a whole different angle than Liberal here. The fact that a human brain can have a limited understanding of the human brain is pretty amazing when you consider that the human brain didn’t evolve to understand the human brain. We’re large ground-dwelling tree shrews, not platonic consciousnesses. Our brains are machines evolved to aid our survival and reproduction, in order to produce more survival machines, and the reason we do this is because we’re descended from other survival machines that survived and reproduced, and if they hadn’t done so we wouldn’t be here.
"I’ve lived long enough to know
I don’t know what I think
about where we come from
or where we’re going
Some folks think if you don’t think
the same things that they do
whatever you think
ain’t even worth knowing
The scientific evidence
would lead you to believe
that long ago somewhere,
something went bang
And the only time religions
ever seem to all agree
is when they say
that theory is insane
All I know
we’re all in this together
All I know
we’re not so far apart
we’re strong enough to the things
that make the whole world better
don’t you think it’s time we start
That’s what makes songs so great. They can sometimes sum up a thought that otherwise takes a miilion conversations to say.