How do you know?
Epistemology -- the philosophy of knowledge or how people know things -- is a philosophical term that carries the risk of making peoples' eyes roll into the back of their heads. It's associated with imponderables like -- How do you know what you think you know isn't all a dream? -- that sensible people tend to back away from as quickly as possible.
Yet here in the United States we are in a crisis of epistemology and it's significant enough that I wonder if our society can withstand it, if the American experiment's brief run of two and half centuries will indeed "perish from the earth." It's a crisis of what people believe is true, of what they think they know. When the difference in perceived knowledge between various groups becomes too great, it's hard to see how democratic practices can hold up. Politics just becomes a power struggle with no compromise possible and no consent from those not in power.
This is a big can of worms, of course, so I'll focus on how I come to "know" things, particularly with regard to current events.
On Saturday Nov. 7, 2020, Joe Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election when it was clear that he had prevailed over Donald Trump. I felt relieved and happy when I heard the news after days of anxious waiting and constant checking of election tallies. Yet the news didn't really sink in and the extent that I had become emotionally invested in the outcome didn't become clear until the next morning when I read it in the New York Times. I actually got teary eyed.
Then it struck me: Something isn't really true until I've read it in the New York Times.
I'm overstating the case but it does shine light on the fact that much of what I know and understand about the world comes from what are, to me, authoritative sources - well established newspapers and magazines, and books from respected publishers and universities.
When I was in journalism school, I wrote a term paper about the managing editor of the NYT circa 1910 named *Carr Van Anda. He was a key figure in moving journalism away from blatant partisanship and sensationalism and toward a gatekeeper role where opinions and value judgments were kept out the news sections and confined instead to the editorial pages.
During his tenure, Van Anda was responsible for many scoops. Most famously, in 1912, he used the young medium of wireless telegraphy (radio) to correlate distress calls and signals from nearby ships and concluded the Titanic had sunk when other papers assumed it was impossible.
The newspaper earned a reputation for providing quality information and became a gold standard of journalism which persists today. Since my youth, it's been a fond pleasure on Sunday mornings to drink coffee and read the Times. I count myself at least fairly well informed for doing so.
Not that the Times is perfect by any stretch. Several years ago they reported that the FBI had opened a criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton. The FBI hadn't. The Times offered a front-page retraction and apologized. They hired an ombudsman, or woman rather, who wrote a monthly column for a while that critiqued the Times' news coverage. The column was interesting in that it showed how biases can creep into the news sections and also that the Times could indulge its own brand of sensationalism.
Also, beyond occasional gaffs and subtle biases, I think over the years the Times has short-shrifted certain topics such as environmental issues and racial discrimination. My sense is that they've recently improved on that quite a bit.
In any case, I've come to trust the Times. Not in the sense that one shouldn't ever be skeptical of what appears there, or that the paper offers error-free, pure objective truth, but in the sense that its writers and editors are dedicated professionals committed to making good faith efforts to get things right. This can be said of several other news outlets, magazines, book publishers and filmmakers.
Yet, while I hold the facts offered in these media to be actualities, rarely can I verify them with my own eyes, so to speak. In a sense I have faith in what they're telling me and my knowledge of current events, history, science and much of what I believe is true about the world is built on the edifice of this faith.
When I interact with others who share the same trust in these sources of information, I can agree or disagree on interpretation, policy, etc., but at least we have a common ground of facts by which we can understand each other. However, if someone doesn't accept those facts, it seems like an unbridgeable gulf. What meeting of minds could there be?
You'd almost have to go back to something very basic: I see a cup on the table, he sees a cup on the table, therefore we agree there's a cup on the table. But if we can't agree on facts that neither of us can directly verify -- the results of a national election, for example -- then how do we proceed? The authorities he believes are not the authorities that I believe.
Convincing people that their sources of truth are flawed or false is a tough chore and, if a person's investment level in them is very high, it can be almost impossible. Challenging strongly held beliefs induces anger and entrenchment. How does one get through the battlements?
What would it take for someone to convince me that the New York Times is a flawed source of basic facts? Quite a bit, although I'd like to think it was possible. A core philosophical principle for me is that all knowledge is uncertain. Sufficient evidence and sound reasoning should convince me that a belief I hold ought to be amended or abandoned. This flexible take on knowledge is at the core of philosophical liberalism. "American Pragmatism" is a term for it but the notion is rooted in the Enlightenment era and goes back much further than that.
The approach requires not becoming too attached to one's beliefs. I think that's very difficult for many, if not most, people, who often are fervently attached to their world views and see non-believers as enemies, and intellectual practices that would erode their beliefs as dangerous.
Returning to the question at hand: How do you get back to a point of having a common enough set of facts that democracy is possible? I don't know. I fear it may not be possible short of catastrophic events and social upheaval.
Sorry to end on a pessimistic note. I'm an optimist by nature so I'll keep thinking about the possibilities. But, you see, epistemology is important!
