Talk:Knowing How You Know

=The role of intuition and revelation=

The diagram portrays the the 'input'/'output' starting and ending positions, but doesn't say much about the filter in between.
 * Your list of general knowledge questions, while being regrettably US-centric, is a good starting point.
 * Your initial email to the group described the course as means of 'knowing how you know'.
 * You talk about 'reasoning'/'logic' and 'belief'/'truth'/'value'.
 * You offer models and annotated blueprints.
 * You ask potential students to assess and evaluate.
 * You assume they know how to.

It's a big assumption.

There are some fundamental tools that people need in order to do what you're asking them to do. I fail to see how your course will result in people knowing how they know. They may come closer to defining what they believe, or why they believe it, but not how they believe it.

The only things (in my view) that can address this question - the integrated study of grammar, logic and rhetoric - are not included. My influences have been Mortimer Adler who in turn influenced Sister Miriam Joseph; J M Robertson (eg Rationalism and Letters on Reasoning) - for the discovery of the latter I owe a huge debt of thanks to George Spencer-Brown, author of Laws of Form.

I am currently working on integrating Robertson's pure rationalist approach with Algis Uzdavinys's approach to the perennial tradition of wisdom teaching, which I see as intrinsic to the integrated liberal arts (Trivium/Quadrivium) approach.

I can only point you in the direction of things I see are missing and provide a reasonable argument as to why I think they should be included. It is up to you to evaluate and see whether you agree.

You asked about my statement that 'emotion was a stub' - http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Emotion
 * This link is to the Wikiversity course on emotion, which you point out is a stub. For substantial information on emotion, see the Wikipedia article on emotion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion and the EmotionalCompetency.com site at: http://emotionalcompetency.com/ --Lbeaumont (discuss • contribs) 13:51, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

It's a glaring omission on the wiki. As for 'intuition', it doesn't even have a page: http://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?search=intuition&button=&title=Special%3ASearch
 * No course on intuition has yet been developed in Wikiversity. For substantial information on intuition, see the Wikipedia article on intuition. --Lbeaumont (discuss • contribs) 13:51, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

This reveals a dangerous slant to privileging reason over emotion - it's not exclusively how we think. I intuit. I feel. I reason. Unless a theory of knowledge can account for the role of each of these in the process of truth-seeking (I use 'truth' in Robertson's sense of 'to trow (trust) – troth (faithfulness, fidelity, loyalty, a word or promise given)' - and while we're at it, proof in the sense of 'to probe') it's missing something. A sensible theory needs to cover all these.

I know you cover emotional intelligence on your website, but it's a very rational approach. In some ways I find it overly rational. In others not sufficiently rational. Why insufficiently rational? I can't find truth and proof defined in your work, for instance - but I haven't read all of it. Why overly rational? Re emotion, Aristotle buried some stuff I've found really useful in the Ethics and Rhetoric - he talks of 2 inner and 2 outer emotional states. 2 inner: a turning inwards in pain; an extending outwards in pleasure. 2 outer: desire, fear. If you apply the words 'contraction', 'expansion'; 'attraction', 'repulsion' to the field of study, I find it makes it much easier to understand the impulses which lie under whatever words we seek to overlay on them (eg 'pain', 'pleasure', 'hope', 'fear', etc). 'Contraction', 'expansion', 'attraction', 'repulsion' are universal. Emotional associations vary.

(incidentally, I use 'understanding' in association with 'sub-stance' - for me, if the value of understanding is directly related to the extent to which the substance of the object of thought is integrated in the substance of my thought - rationally, emotionally and physically).

Robertson acknowledges the role of intuition and revelation, but to verify its value, we have to use the filter of reason. To convince others, we need to argue not just from logic (logos) but also with feeling (pathos) in a principled way (ethos). In order to do so, we need reason. In order to reason, we need to understand how language works. It is no surprise that before the so-called age of reason, much more energy was spent on analysing syncategorematic words than is spent nowadays. Opinion is too often confused with fact. Although the quest for a rational explanation for mystery (eg black holes) is part of our culture, there is a dangerous tendency nowadays to accept fictions like these as facts.


 * There is great danger in substituting reason for intuition.
 * There is great danger in substituting the symbol for the thing symbolised.
 * There is great danger in substituting the physical for the metaphysical.

The great litmus tests for me are integration and consistency.

Also, please watch this relevant video on technique and motivation. See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paHf7Dfaky4

These comments were provided to the instructor via email and were lightly edited for inclusion here. --Lbeaumont (discuss • contribs) 11:35, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Delusional Systems and Ideologies
Describe delusional systems and the ways in which ideologies must sustain delusional systems to sustain the ideology. Help the students determine if they are caught in a delusional system and are captivated and mislead by an ideology. Help students connect with reality, break through the delusional system, and reject the ideology. "Seeing through delusion is the first step in seeing beyond illusion." --Lbeaumont (discuss • contribs) 11:50, 22 March 2014 (UTC)

Coherence of Knowledge
Add a section on the coherence of knowledge. Describe the creation and curation of an integrated (personal) knowledge base. Address consilience and the coherence theory of truth. Address the scope of a coherent knowledge base; it must extend beyond any insular community and expand to accommodate a global perspective. Describe how to handle incongruent new knowledge: 1) assimilate it and expand you knowledgeable to accommodate it, 2) reject it as unreliable, 3) treat it as tentative or provisional until more evidence surfaces. --Lbeaumont (discuss • contribs) 15:47, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Facts do not exist
Thanks for this. I have one minor quibble:




 * Facts do not exist, only interpretations, at least according to Nietzsche and the concept of constructed reality.

For more see my Confirmation bias and conflict and "How can we know?". In creating this, the standard search for "How can we know?" on Wikiversity led me to this "Knowing How You Know", for which I applaud you.

My Confirmation bias and conflict and International Conflict Observatory also review recommended changes in government policies to counter the increasing polarization of the body politic internationally and within nations in addition to the more individual approach in your "Knowing How You Know".

Comments? DavidMCEddy (discuss • contribs) 02:29, 17 February 2022 (UTC)


 * Thanks for this. I address facts in the course Facing Facts. The skill we need to continue to develop is to separate observations from interpretations, brute facts from social constructs. Lbeaumont (discuss • contribs) 13:24, 18 February 2022 (UTC)