Three ways of knowing in one being

Three ways of knowing in one being*

Torrey Orton

January 18, 2010

 

In a world of many divides, one of the most oppressively prominent is the religion/science one. Melbourne's recently hosted World Parliament of Religions highlighted the divide as a-theists pled their case for public subventions of their counter event this year. Neither, of course, should receive public monies. The arts decreasingly get a look-in as truth sources, being relegated to commodities, like sports, with an amusement heart, which are 'contributors" to the economy measured by jobs associated with them and their event grosses.

 

My main aim here is to remind us that we are multi-faceted, multi-modal, multi-generational beings who created religion(s), science(s) and art(s) in the process of becoming such beings. We all congenitally have the capacity, inclination and need for this triumvirate – all at once, altogether, all of the time, and in various intensities and configurations.

 

If you are of religious orientation, you might say (the) God(s) created us as religious, scientific, and artistic beings. In either case, God(s) or none, we are beings with such capacities, unless deprived of them by accident. The deprived are treated as if they have them because we think of them as whole, even in their incompleteness(es).

 

From a species sustainability viewpoint, these three capacities are foundational for our viability, not merely some witchcrafts of a wannabe universal consciousness. And they are equally necessary though variably employed moment to moment in daily life. They provide the means of organising the past (sciences), designing the future (arts) and taking the leap (faith) required to get from the past to the future through the present. The three competences provide different kinds of beliefs about the world and our selves which are our knowledges.

 

Ways of knowing and being

From a knowledge viewpoint then, they are different ways of knowing, unified in one being, privileged with respect to each other ONLY by their special contributions required by special contexts. For example, despite the virtues of faith, few are those who rely on it alone for medical treatment, while finding strength in its offering in the face of needs to act into the uncertainties of serious injury or disease.

 

To enlarge a bit, I think the three ways of knowing have places in our lives like these:

 

(1) Science takes care of things past, complete, finished (for the moment); analysis is its competence and persistence its virtue. Its limitations in building certain appreciations of things past stand out at the borders of research technologies with the movement of the present. At that point, data become uncertain, indeterminate…a matter of informed guessing – the kind of activity which leads naturally into the competence of the art(s). Science tends to fragment the world in two ways: (1) by its pretence of certainty, expressed mainly in technology; and (2) by decomposing experience to make it subject to investigative manipulation (experiments).

 

(2) The arts provide us with design to shape meaning – the pathway to the futures in which we need new structures to find meaning. They create designs for meaning which provide part of the pathways to the future out of the present's fluid motion. Imagination is their competence and daring their virtue. Not surprisingly real art is always combustible, threatening to the different certainties of science (empirical beliefs) and religion (revealed beliefs).For this reason Plato recommended caution with poetry. It is a grand deceiver of minds by its appeal to the senses, especially the musical.

 

(3) Religion (re)assures that it's all worth the effort, that life will come to something. Its competence is faith and its virtue is fidelity. Its limitation is other worldliness, whose perspective distorts facts and pre-empts new meaning with the lure of revealed completeness whose final moment is the advertised return.

 

Claims beyond their means

Of course, in nature nothing is so cleanly segmented. So, each of these capabilities makes claims beyond its means (parts masquerading as wholes), reflected in the relatively self-sealing communities of its believers. These communities are sustained by three main factors: (1), the naturally self-aggrandising inclination of organisations to grow, arising from the need to attract resources to survive in the first instance; (2), the naturally occurring differences in individuals' orientations to the capabilities which drive them towards the organisational types reflecting their preferences; and (3), the developmental differences of cultures over time, giving some capability leanings more strongly in one direction or another.

 

Finally, each of the three ways of knowing take the whole world (universe(s)) as its objects / subjects and so pretends to speak knowledgeably of everything. This, in turn, helps bind adherents to their claims because providing a sense of completeness in their grasp. It also paves the way to endless struggle as their respective internal coherences are undermined by external realities. E.g. the religions make clearly silly claims about the physical world to maintain the consistency of their revealed / historical message(s). E.g. the sciences cannot make statements of value about anything other than themselves because values are sourced in other domains. E.g. the arts by themselves cannot create sustainable meaning pictures because the other two competences harbour essential materials for meaning – facts and faiths.

 

And so, what not? While this is not an argument about certainty, truth, etc., it is about the equality of the three capabilities covered above – they all make real and relevant contributions to knowing our world, and our world(s) cannot be known without taking all three (at a minimum) into account. It does have implications for certainty and truth – like what of the three modes of knowing and their contents may be required for any experience to be truthfully characterised.

 

At last, an example of sorts

So, this is an argument about aspects of our world(s) which must be included in any truth claims about them. For example, to understand crime in Melbourne take a dash of The Truth (P. Temple) and The Slap (C. Tsolakas) with an hour of Blessed (2009 movie); moderate with an analysis of all manner of crimes measured as costs to the economy and located geographically (demographics) with average income and poverty indicators allocated to each of the types; then, parse in some values in transition – sexualities, family structures and resiliencies – driven by excesses of all shapes, colours and durations; and, make explicit the underlying values / needs in the parsing of the factors. For instance, tell us why some factors are at this time in history more important than others, how the changed historical context moderates the values applying, and so on. Do all of this in language attractive and accessible to competent tradies and techos who share with 'elites' concern about where their worlds are going.

 

Imagine a press which did this for every major issue of our time with some consistency. I would love to start a movement (?) in this direction, if I could only find some other players.

 

*I am aware there is a developed argument for multiple intelligences, ways of knowing and so on. If you are interested in my triumvirate then expand it by looking at Howard Gardner. I warmly recommend him.