1 Tonka Lulgjuraj Lulgjuraj Professor Hugh Culik English 1190 10 October 2012 Credibility and the Continuing Struggle to Find Truth We consume a great amount of information in our day-to-day lives, whether it is academically, professionally, or personally. It is extremely important that the information we consume is considered credible. This demand for credible information creates a rather large issue in deciding who is considered a credible source and where to look for credible information. There has been a major shift in relying on what is considered to be true, to credibility resting on rhetorical skills. Knowledge was once decided by beliefs about truth and reality, which were to be found in nature. Anything that nature showed was considered to be the only way to obtain true knowledge, however that level of confidence has now collapsed. The belief that our language has the ability to represent the real or nature or anything that is outside of us has been shown to be naïve. Our confidence in language has slowly crumbled over time and it has led to important philosophical issues that have come to dictate our concerns about credibility. Today, there are many methods that people use to determine credibility. 1 Obtaining knowledge is clearly a goal in the methods used to provide credible information. With that being said, I question what knowledge really is. Lyotard introduced the idea of the differend, which is basically a gap between the word and the world. 2 He suggested that words and the world could never come to represent each other. The world is far too complicated and complex for language to have the ability to represent it. With the world being such an intricate idea, what person can say what knowledge actually is? Words seem to be our only option in attempting to explain and
2 dissect what the world really is. The differend will, without fail, prevent individuals from expressing what cannot be described. The differend presents the question of how accurate our idea of credibility is (Culik). Society constantly attempts to find answers, solutions, and definitions to anything that exists. There are many individuals who have attempted and are attempting to develop this perfect system. The idea is that the perfect system will be entirely consistent and complete with only one answer or solution to each individual problem. The perfect system idea has led me to Kurt Gödel s incompleteness theorem. Gödel proves that there are true statements that cannot be proven true. Gödel s findings show that there have been mathematical truths that are not capable of being proven within a specific system. The incompleteness theorem directly opposes the perfect system idea. It seems that Gödel s theory demonstrates that the perfect system idea is a futile attempt to present complete and consistent solutions (Culik). At one point in time, we used what is otherwise known as a meta-narrative to decide truths in society. In simplified terms, a meta-narrative is a story that attempts to tell a story with meaning. 3 For example, Catholicism can be seen as a meta-narrative because it is a story that provides Catholics a reason for living. It suggests that our actions on Earth determine where we will spend our eternal life. Meta-narratives administer meaning or reason to society. Lyotard suggests that the meta-narratives have disappeared. It seems that meta-narratives have been slightly abandoned, but it is apparent that they still exist to a minimal extent. Religion and science are examples of meta-narratives that both still exist today, however meta-narratives that do not regard religion or science have been used throughout society in the past. With the decrease in the use of meta-narratives, individuals or discourses are given the opportunity to imply their own opinions and beliefs (Culik). The wide variety of opinions, theories, and ideas
3 Lulgjuraj presents the necessity of determining credibility. In the past, meta-narratives were where the answers lay, and now that society no longer relies on truth, we use credibility to decide whether an individual, institution, or source is reliable. Since meta-narratives have diminished, finding credibility and legitimacy is primarily all that society uses today. Scientific realism is the idea that science is able to determine the world for what it is without any attempts to analyze it. It attempts to find truth that will create structure and a sense of stability in the world. Scientific ideology determines theories by which experiment or argument is considered to be prominent; in order to determine this, consistency in results and data is essential. Ward suggests that science is the most precise technique in finding knowledge and acquiring truth. 4 He proposes to resolve differences between two theories that agree that knowledge is a result of verifying observations or by minimizing false findings of theoretical statements. The first theory claims that ideas come together by taking irregular and different varieties of data and forming it into a logical explanation that is verifiable. The second theory states that ideas are unable to be determined by only observations, due to the fact that observations can branch off into several theories, however they can be explained untrue by tests. Ward believes that the two previous theories create the basis of scientific realism. Moreover, the two theories seem to share the belief that word and the world will come to coincide with each other (112). Once again I will present Kurt Gödel s statement that there are true statements that cannot be proven true, therefore a scientific realists efforts will remain questionably difficult. Plato and Aristotle had similar philosophies that opposed the idea of rhetoric. Plato suggested that rhetoric is unable to imply true insight or knowledge and that it only encourages opinions. In Platonic philosophy, the first Western lines are drawn, not only between the real and the rhetorical but between knowledge and opinion, fact and fiction, philosophy and
4 literature, professional and lay forms of reasoning, and ultimately, good and bad scholarly practice (Ward 115). Ward explains that in Platonic philosophy, there is an evidently fine line between the truth and rhetoric. Aristotle was similar to Plato in that they both aspired to keep the idea of rhetoric under control, however rhetoric continued to be taught and used throughout the subsequent years. Galileo makes a claim that is quite similar to Aristotle and Plato s point of view. He states, "this sort of man thinks that philosophy is a sort of book like the Aeneid and Odyssey, and that truth is to be found not in the world or in nature but in the collation of texts (Ward 116). 5 It is clear that Galileo is against the idea of rhetoric and suggests that truth may only be found within our surroundings. I would argue that these are rather naïve statements that have been made, although I do not agree nor disagree. Unlike Plato, Aristotle, and Galileo s viewpoints, Nietzsche proposed that truth should be viewed in rationalization and rhetoric. He argued that in philosophy and science, outlooks and analysis should dominate (Ward 118). Discovering truth and structure appears to be highly unlikely, whether it is in books or in the world around us. The world is made up of intricate and elaborate bits and pieces that words are incapable of controlling. On a regular basis, individuals tend to contradict themselves in various ways. Paradox is common in literature and philosophy. 6 It has been pointed out that Lyotard has once achieved the exact form of contradiction that he attempted to dissect in his writing. Along with paradox, the issue of legitimation is introduced. Rasch claims that legitimation had once been decided based solely on truth, while today it is determined by paralogism (57). Today, credibility ties to paralogism by critical thinking and rationalization; critical thinking produces ideas and theories that tend to contain contradictions. Paradox seems to be an issue that will continue to present itself in writing, considering that writing contains language and words. Language will never
5 Lulgjuraj come to illustrate the world for what it is; therefore paradox will remain an inevitable component of the writing process. The complexity of the world is beyond our reach, therefore our insufficient attempt to understand it will continue to be unsuccessful. Whatever the world is made up of, it is far too intricate and complicated for humans to comprehend; it is made up of so many complex factors in comparison to language. Language and words are all that humans have to try to make sense of the world, however it is evidently not enough. It is credulous to insist that language has the ability to build a complete and perfect structure. The complexity of the world is to be seen as a massive puzzle that has pieces scattered everywhere, but little does society know, many of the pieces have disintegrated.
1 One of the most common methods of finding credible information is peer review. Peer review is a process where groups of people who are well educated on a particular topic determine whether a piece of writing is worthy of being published. Another way credibility can be determined is if an individual comes from a highly respected university, like an Ivy League school, and they tend to be considered credible. These individuals are less likely to be overlooked in comparison to individuals from smaller universities or less known institutions. As a result of this, we are possibly being withheld from potentially valuable information. 2 There seems to be a slight relation between Lyotard s idea of the differend and Snow s idea of mutual incomprehension. Mutual incomprehension is when people share a lack of understanding of an idea, theory, or specific topic (Ward 109). In a sense, we all have a mutual incomprehension of the world. We understand it to quite a far extent, but we cannot fully grasp the entirety of it. 3 Postmodernists use the term meta-narrative to explain what was once used to find truth. Steven Ward describes postmodernism as a symbolic weapon. He suggests that postmodernism aims to analyze and attack realist ideologies considering that it is such a major competitor in the attempt to discover legitimation of knowledge. An interesting statement made by Bourdieu is that theories and concepts are used to strengthen, safeguard, or overthrow a structure. This would be seen as symbolic violence (110). 4 Ward proposes that literature is not qualified to find what is true and what is real. He states that science has been placed on a higher pedestal in discovering knowledge in comparison to literature. Ward claims that science has a wide variety of allies that are not human such as: experiments, graphs, data, statistics, etc. While literary intellectuals only have their own "fragile statements" and the citations of other literary intellectuals "fragile statements." Ward expresses that literary theories and ideas (in comparison to science) will continue to be disregarded as they have throughout history (122).
Ward s proposal between literary and science are two completely contrary fields that comparing the two is incoherent. 5 Similar to Galileo s statement, William Gilbert suggests that individuals who use rationalization are only acquainted with books rather than being practical in the research of objects in nature. The Royal Society shared these views as well, considering that their intent ways to separate nature and rhetoric. They required that all reports were given without any rationalization. These views seem to be well known in the late seventeenth-century (Ward 116). 6 In Rasch s article, In Search of the Lyotard Archipelago, or: How to Live with Paradox and Learn to Like It, he presents a rather unique example of paradox. Protagoras, a Greek Sophist philosopher, suggests that his student Euathlus must pay him a fee, but Euathlus refuses because he claims that he has never won any case that he has argued. Protagoras tells Euathlus that he owes him the money if Protagoras wins, but if Euathlus wins, he still must pay the fee, because Euathlus finally won a case. Rasch states that paradox cannot be erased by logic. Although paradoxes exist, they are presented as invisible. Although Euathlus wins the case, he still feels that he has never won (59). Rasch presents another example where a discourse attempts to examine another discourse, but it must be known that the discourse that is performing the examination and analyzation must also be included with what is being analyzed. To put it in simpler terms, if one begins to analyze and investigate behaviors of the human race, he or she must include his or herself in the analyzation; they cannot suggest that they are exempt from it (60).
Works Cited Culik, Hugh. "Kurt Gödel." Macomb Community College. Macomb, MI. Lecture. Culik, Hugh. "Meta-Narratives." Macomb Community College. Macomb, MI. Lecture. Culik, Hugh. "The Differend." Macomb Community College. Macomb, MI. Lecture. Rasch, William. "In Search of the Lyotard Archipelago, or: How to Live With Paradox and Learn to Like It. N.p., 1994. Web. 13 Oct. 2012. <http://www.jstor.org.libproxy.macomb.edu/stable/488621?seq=5&search=yes& searchtext=lyotard&searchtext=search&searchtext=paradox&searchtext=it.& searchtext=live&searchtext=learn&searchtext=archipelago%2>. Ward, Steven. THE REVENGE OF THE HUMANITIES: Reality, Rhetoric, and the Politics of Postmodernism.. N.p., 1995. JSTOR. Web. 13 Oct. 2012. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1389286? seq=1&search=yes&searchtext=lyotard&searchtext=francois&searchtext=jean- &searchtext=%22legitimation%22&searchtext=%22social+construction %22&list=hide&searchUri=%2Fa>.