Abstract
This reflection on the real-world relevance of epistemological ideas begins with the thought that all of us — when we wonder what to make of newspaper reports of supposed medical breakthroughs, of failures of military intelligence, etc., etc. — call, implicitly or explicitly, on epistemology; and shows how an understanding of, e.g., the differences between genuine inquiry and advocacy research, the nature of wishful and fearful thinking, and the material character of the relevance and its bearing on what relevant evidence we may be missing, can illuminate the ways in which inquiry can go wrong and evidence can mislead us.
Highlights
As we know, there are known knowns; there are things that we know we know
In 2002, Donald Rumsfeld’s ruminations on the failures of U.S military intelligence in Iraq won the Plain English Campaign’s annual prize for “most baffling remark made by a public figure”—narrowly beating Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman,” and Christopher Patten’s “having committed political suicide, the Conservative party is living to regret it.”[2]. I too chuckled at Secretary Rumsfeld’s verbal contortions; but I thought he had a point— an epistemological point
What that point was will become clear in due course; but first I need to say something about what epistemology is, and how it bears on realworld issues
Summary
As we know, there are known knowns; there are things that we know we know. We know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know.
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