Comments on: Claims of Truth and Webs of Trust. A Hypothetical Debate http://www.lawsocietyblog.com/archives/116 Notes from the intersection of law, society, technology, economics, and culture Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:22:16 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2 By: Ben Samuel Nelson http://www.lawsocietyblog.com/archives/116#comment-4355 Ben Samuel Nelson Sun, 08 Oct 2006 16:43:37 +0000 http://www.lawsocietyblog.com/archives/116#comment-4355 I'm very sorry it took a year for me to read this, because it absolutely mirrors the thoughts that I've been having on the subject for the longest while. When I spoke to anyone at the university about these ideas, I received a good hearing -- still, it is as if these notions are on the bleeding edge of research in social epistemology, in that they have not quite sunk in as a matter of regular curriculum. It occurs to me that merely appealing to culture as a determinant of trust, and not to experience in general, may be a problem. For a variety of idiosyncratic biographical reasons, I have come to have a distrust of both rhetorical bloviation and bland opining, due to encounters with gross errors and hyperbole in both. These are marks of resistence and are relatively deviant. After all, it's an academic norm that one must, by default, trust those in neighboring disciplines to the affairs of their own subject, even if their approaches are epistemically (or even ontologically) suspect. This fact about my biology and psychology may cause me to be more trusting of those who disclose their views in a relaxed, intelligible fashion. Others, for equally idiosyncratic reasons, might see reason as a contest of wills, a dialectic, and so be more trusting of Crossfire-style dissonance. But if I were to grow up with the intuition that loud and bold argument leading to the submission of the flock makes the best kind of argument, then I would be completely distrustful of both the fly-by-night, informal conversations and Crossfire-style debate, and instead be far more trusting of Jesus-on-the-Mount sermonizing. But these matters have to do with factors unique to me and my experience, including temperament and interaction. Still, it's ultimately an empirical question whether or not culture or idiosyncratic factors are more significant to behavior. It could be tested by taking kids from each category and exposing them to each variety of rhetoric, and seeing who is convinced by what. Jeff: I don't see anything in Hanno's post about the a priori. Now there are certainly mentions of trust being prior to truth. But "a priori" means "prior to experience", and if cultural transmission arises from experience with people, then it doesn't qualify as "a priori". Admittedly, though, these issues have been untreated in the present post. Anyway, more generally, it seems to me that a Kantian way of thinking seems rather quaint when the full import of social epistemology is taken into account. In Hume, by contrast, we have direct statements about how to discern who to trust. I’m very sorry it took a year for me to read this, because it absolutely mirrors the thoughts that I’ve been having on the subject for the longest while. When I spoke to anyone at the university about these ideas, I received a good hearing — still, it is as if these notions are on the bleeding edge of research in social epistemology, in that they have not quite sunk in as a matter of regular curriculum.

It occurs to me that merely appealing to culture as a determinant of trust, and not to experience in general, may be a problem. For a variety of idiosyncratic biographical reasons, I have come to have a distrust of both rhetorical bloviation and bland opining, due to encounters with gross errors and hyperbole in both. These are marks of resistence and are relatively deviant. After all, it’s an academic norm that one must, by default, trust those in neighboring disciplines to the affairs of their own subject, even if their approaches are epistemically (or even ontologically) suspect.

This fact about my biology and psychology may cause me to be more trusting of those who disclose their views in a relaxed, intelligible fashion. Others, for equally idiosyncratic reasons, might see reason as a contest of wills, a dialectic, and so be more trusting of Crossfire-style dissonance. But if I were to grow up with the intuition that loud and bold argument leading to the submission of the flock makes the best kind of argument, then I would be completely distrustful of both the fly-by-night, informal conversations and Crossfire-style debate, and instead be far more trusting of Jesus-on-the-Mount sermonizing. But these matters have to do with factors unique to me and my experience, including temperament and interaction.

Still, it’s ultimately an empirical question whether or not culture or idiosyncratic factors are more significant to behavior. It could be tested by taking kids from each category and exposing them to each variety of rhetoric, and seeing who is convinced by what.

Jeff: I don’t see anything in Hanno’s post about the a priori. Now there are certainly mentions of trust being prior to truth. But “a priori” means “prior to experience”, and if cultural transmission arises from experience with people, then it doesn’t qualify as “a priori”. Admittedly, though, these issues have been untreated in the present post.

Anyway, more generally, it seems to me that a Kantian way of thinking seems rather quaint when the full import of social epistemology is taken into account. In Hume, by contrast, we have direct statements about how to discern who to trust.

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