EPISTEMOLOGIES: KNOWLEDGE AND TRUTH

    Let us now move from ontology to epistemology and from materialism to realism.   In epistemological terms, we have three major directions: idealism, empiricism, and realism.  Epistemological idealisms all in one way or another suggest that knowledge is knowledge only ultimately of knowledge: i.e. that the forms of human consciousness refer only to each other and not to an objective reality, a reality that exists outside of and independent of these forms of consciousness.  Epistemological empiricisms suggest that knowledge is merely the passive reflection of what is generated outside of consciousness and passed on to consciousness through sensation: consciousness is a merely passive response to external stimuli and it merely copies, in a photographic sense, what exists outside of consciousness.

    From a realist perspective, the chief problem with empiricism is that empiricism fails to account for the full complexity of both knowledge and reality.  Reality is more than mere appearances: reality includes much which is not readily apparent.  Since what we perceive by means of our senses is only that which appears to us, knowledge gained by means of sense perception alone is therefore inadequate.  Knowledge must involve more than sense perception alone: it must involve the use of reason, and it must make use of principles and categories which do not simply emanate directly from the objects of our knowledge, but rather involve reflection upon what precedes and exceeds appearances.  At the same time, because what we perceive through our senses is mediated by the intervening influence of social and cultural factors, sense perception is not the natural, neutral, and independent process which many empiricisms maintain.  Empiricism, moreover, is also at fault, from a realist vantage point, in its tendency to depict the knower as a mere passive receptacle for, or a mere passive register of, knowledge that is produced entirely outside of this knower.  If we consider the limitations in conceiving of knowledge of an object as merely like a photograph of it and the knower of this knowledge as merely like the camera which takes the picture, we can better understand the problems a realist finds with empiricism.

    From an empiricist vantage point, moreover, ontology and epistemology are virtually identical because what is known is understood to be virtually equivalent with what is. Some empiricisms do attempt to go beyond this.  They explain complex ideas and complex modes of cognitive processing which seem not to be traceable merely to sensory perceptions of real appearances as in fact reflecting complex kinds of appearances and complex modes of sensory perception which we are not yet able fully to explain but which nonetheless are simply "there" and which we will, eventually, with further scientific progress, be able to see as such for ourselves.  At the same time, some empiricisms also recognize that reason and understanding operate in ways which at least seem to be independent of what is manifest to us through our senses by producing ideas for which no empirical correspondent is immediately at hand.  And yet, these same empiricisms nevertheless still claim that the true test of whether we actually know what we think we know in even these cases is always whether or not we are able to find a correspondent in empirical reality itself to confirm the truth of what we have imagined, hypothesized, or conjectured.

    Epistemological idealisms take various forms.   Rationalism is one such form.  Rationalism recognizes the knower as active in the process of knowing, and knowledge as exceeding the limits of sense perception, but characteristically rationalism merely results in the opposite kind of problem.  Rationalisms may suggest that it is not necessary to attend to empirical reality at all, as reality can be made what we want it to be according to how we exercise our reason.  Or they may contend that empirical appearances are a mere dross which conceal what is actually real.  Rationalism tends to treat the object of knowledge as a construct of our process of knowing it.  The problem with rationalism, therefore, is that it tends to neglect the importance of paying attention to appearances as a source of knowledge; rationalism tends to imagine objects can be known without observation and investigation, that a purely deductive approach to knowledge will suffice, and that induction is unnecessary.  From a Marxist realist perspective, reality is the unity of essence and appearance: essences are in fact nothing without their appearances, without the means in other words by which they manifest themselves, by which they make themselves known to us and thereby provoke us to inquire into the possibility that they might in fact actually exist.  Appearances are not mere dross; they do not merely conceal a real content that exists beneath these surfaces.  A vital part of any real entity is, from a realist vantage point, the forms in which its essential contents appear, or, to put it in other words, the forms in which these essential contents manifest or realize themselves.  For example, freedom is not itself an empirical entity and as such is not equivalent with any one particular or even with any series of particular manifestations of various instances of freedom. And yet, on the other hand, it would not make any sense to talk about freedom if it did not manifest itself in various instances where we can see freedom at work, where we can see in other words the ways in which freedom appears.  The same thing could be said for other general categories such as class and classism, race and racism, gender and sexism, exploitation, alienation, and social and political oppression. These categories all actually do maintain an objective existence, outside and independent of and preceding and exceeding their mere representation in language or thought, and yet we do not see any of these categories in the world around us, simply in and of and all by themselves: what we see are instances and manifestations of these categories which provide us evidence that such general categories do in fact exist.  Moreover, once we understand manifestations of, for instance, racism for what they are, when we see these manifestations of racism we do in fact then see racism because our senses have been transformed -- they have been extended and refined by means of education and training to recognize more than what otherwise would be the case.

    A very popular form of epistemological idealism today is what is often called conventionalism , or, as it is sometimes also identified, (post)modern relativism.  This approach is popular among many post-structuralist and post-modernist thinkers.  According to this approach, our knowledge is always bound and limited by the conventions proper to the various conceptual paradigms or linguistic constructs within which we work. Reality is nothing but signs, and what these signs are understood to mean will differ as they are organized differently within different "discourses," different domains of language use, and within different "texts," different sites at which discourses meet and intersect and within which signs are thus "written" and "read."  What a sign or series of signs is understood to mean will depend upon the ways in which these signs are made sense of within a particular discourse, and this will in turn depend upon what rules, or conventions, a discourse prescribes for interpreting what this sign or series of signs means -- and for evaluating its worth, its significance, and its effectivity.  Knowledge is thus relative to the discourses within which we work and the conventions that prevail for making sense of the meaning and value of signs within these discourses.  Meaning, value, and knowledge are thus is in fact arbitrary in the sense of relative and conventional.  From such a conventionalist position, things could hardly be otherwise because signs are all that we perceive and these signs in fact are not signs which point to some referent for which they stand or to which they refer; signs merely refer to other signs in a potentially endless movement and not to a reality outside of and independent of these signs.  How we make sense of signs depends upon what conventions we follow in making sense of where to stop this potentially infinite motion of signs, to temporarily halt this semiotic "free play," and to establish an arbitrary ground upon which to act as if we could say that sign A means X, is worth Y, and refers to Z when in fact it only does all of this when we indicate it does.  Sign A could in other words just as easily mean Q, be worth R, and refer to S.  For example, from such a conventionalist perspective, a "rabbit" is a word which merely, in and of itself, refers to other words; we find it useful, as a matter of convention, to imagine that it stands in for and refers to a particular kind of animal, and yet it does not actually do so and need not be understood to do so -- as it can mean many other things depending upon the discourse with which we are working.  It could also, for example, refer to the nickname of a player on a team involved in some kind of competitive sport; it could refer to a particular kind of car; it could refer to a particular kind of sex act or a pet name used in addressing a lover during sex; and the list goes on.  The key here is that we know nothing, from a conventionalist perspective, of anything about any of these rabbits other than what the particular discourse within which we are working prescribes.  Knowledge is a matter of mastering the conventions of the discourses within which we are situated as language users.  These discourses are thus like language games and we are merely the inhabitants of positions as players in these games.  We win and lose according to how well we are able to master the rules of the game, rules which refer to nothing outside of the game -- to nothing about any other game -- but only to what holds while playing the particular game in question.  From this perspective, life is full of many different situations which are all games, all involving positions, rules, playing fields, obstacles and assistances, and, of course, objectives or goals.

    Contemporary, or modern, or critical, forms of realism, including Marxist realism, accept much in conventionalist critiques of empiricism.  They accept that reason and language mediate between sense and cognition.  They accept that what we perceive through our senses from the appearances of objects is not strictly equivalent with all of what is or with what is simply true.  They also accept that knowledge is socially and historically produced, and, in this sense, that knowledge is socially and historically relative. Realism accepts that developments and changes within history and society lead to developments and changes in knowledge.   At the same time, however, realism agrees with empiricism that reality includes that which exists outside of and independent of consciousness and that this "external" reality is in fact knowable by means of what is "internal" to consciousness.  To be more precise, "internal" and "external" are seen as interpenetrating: as overlapping and interrelated.  Consciousness is itself both a product of and a part within the totality of reality that precedes and exceeds what is contained within itself, and consciousness in turn enables conscious beings to engage actively as parts within the totality of reality so as to transform their relations with other parts of this totality rather than merely to maintain and reproduce it as is by simply adapting and conforming to what is.

    Epistemological realisms all see consciousness, as previously mentioned, as part of being, and knowledge as part of reality.  Epistemological realisms therefore do not simply equate being with consciousness and reality with knowledge, or all of being that is intelligible with what exists within the forms of consciousness and all of reality that is knowable with the mere forms of knowledge in and of itself. Epistemological realisms likewise do not see being and consciousness or reality and knowledge as two discretely distinct and sharply opposed realms.  Consciousness is a part of the totality of reality which is both a product of and is active in the reproduction and transformation of other parts.  Other parts of reality are reflected in consciousness and these reflections correspond more or less adequately, and more or less accurately, to the nature of these other parts as they exist in themselves.  What we think is thus, according to a realist epistemology, always ultimately a product of -- and, as such, a reflection of -- objective conditions, conditions which exist outside of and independent of consciousness alone, yet this is no mere passive and mechanical reflection because thought always also involves active alteration and transformation of what is originally received and perceived through sensation.  What we think corresponds to an objective set of conditions which gives rise to what we think, and yet thinking also involves acting upon what these conditions make available to us so that we can understand these conditions in their essence as well as in their appearance, and so that we can act to transform these conditions.  So, to sum up, according to a realist epistemology, knowledge is the result of reflection of objective reality in human consciousness in the form of ideal images and yet this reflection is neither passive nor mechanical: it is creative and constructive, and this knowledge more or less adequately and accurately corresponds to the true nature of its objects as they exist in themselves.  To illustrate some of the differences between realist and idealist epistemological positions, let us consider that the experience of exploitation can be made sense of in a number of different ways other than as exploitation.  Living and working in conditions where one is exploited does effect one's consciousness, but other factors are key as well in determining how it will effect consciousness.  These other factors mediate between the experience of exploitation and how an exploited man or woman makes sense of his or her experience: they provide means of making sense of this experience which in turn direct action or inaction in relation to it.  For instance, people who are exploited and abused may well be taught not to recognize this exploitation and abuse for what it is: not even to recognize that it exists at all, or to think it is all for the best, or to think they deserve it, or to imagine there is no way out or any realizable alternative that will be any better, or to perceive others besides those who are really responsible to be at fault.

    From a realist vantage point, truth not only is a useful conceptual category but also it does actually exist within material reality itself.  For the realist, the question of truth is neither a. simply that what is true corresponds to what is real whereas what is false corresponds to what is not, nor b. there is no truth or falsity, but only myriad different truths and falsities that vary from one conceptual scheme to another, one field of intellectual inquiry to another, one domain of language use to another.  Realism contends that knowledge does correspond more or less adequately and accurately to what really exists, and therefore is more or less true. And yet, realism also contends that the false is that which corresponds to something else in reality other than that to which it purports to correspond and which always exists as it does for some real and necessary reason. As an illustration of this point, let us recall Marx's Critique of prior Critiques of Religion in the famous passage from The Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right where he proclaimed religion to be the opiate of the masses.  The main point of this passage is not, however, to critique religious belief but rather to critique the inadequacy of prior atheist critiques of religious belief.  As Marx indicates, it is not enough to say religion is illogical and irrational because there is no proof that God exists or that there is any afterlife in an entirely different and much better world; what is needed instead is a critique which can explain why something so seemingly illogical and irrational is so pervasively accepted as "true," and exercises as much power and influence as it does.  Marx concludes that this is because religious belief corresponds to what makes useful sense in dealing with living in an illogical and irrational world, and with what compensates for the pain and hardship of such an existence.  Until the social and historical conditions, therefore, which necessitate religious belief are transformed, religious belief will continue to be necessary and will continue to respond to real needs in vital and effective ways.

    By "the truth" realism understands knowledge about reality which corresponds accurately to what actually is the case.  At the same time, however, realism recognizes that the "accuracy" of this correspondence is always only relatively absolute, at best, because truth claims about any aspect or dimension of social or natural reality are always partial and limited, and for five principal reasons:

1. Reality is in motion, constantly changing, and therefore truth claims must constantly change as well to register these changes in the objects about which they claim to provide the truth;

2. Knowledge of reality is inevitably limited by the level of development of the (technical/scientific) means and methods used to investigate and discern what actually is true, and this is the case in all areas of knowledge about natural and social reality;

3. Any claim to true knowledge of reality always, at best, only reflects

    a. a particular spatial extension and/or temporal duration of what is always ultimately much vaster and more complex,

    b. that which is recognizable at a single level or across a single series of levels of abstraction, and

    c. that which is recognizable from a single perspective or vantage point (or a slightly larger number of nevertheless still finite and limited vantage points);

4. Any claim to true knowledge of reality, even in the physical sciences, is always at least partially effected and influenced -- and potentially disenabled, potentially distorted, as well as it is enabled, made possible -- by the contest of social and political -- and ideological -- interests within a given, historically concrete society; and, finally,

5. Once knowledge about any object is ascertained, this knowledge is very often put to practical use in ways which will, intentionally or not, effect significant changes in the very same object.