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Knowledge is a product of the processes of thought,
but there has been
little understanding of the way in which the subjective mind achieves
knowledge. The Western philosophical tradition has seen the processes of the
mind to be logical, but this approach has always been fraught with problems
and the Postmodernists have, on good grounds, denied its validity. Karl
Popper has suggested that knowledge is produced by certain psychological
processes. The understanding of these processes of the mind is fundamental
to any theory of knowledge.
The nature of the human mind has been the subject of long-running
philosophical disputes. Materialists see the mind as a state of matter. For
them the "brain" and the "mind" are different ways of
looking at the same entity. Rene Descartes is credited with the first
statement, within the Western tradition, of the separate natures of mind and
matter, and Karl Popper has more recently restated the theory.
In this epistemological project the investigation of the human mind is
pursued independently of the brain. Compatibility with Cognitive Psychology
is maintained by an approach based on the study of observable behaviour.
This is supplemented by the study of experience. Experience gives the
problems and behaviour represents the response. The mental actions that
relate the problems and the behavioural solutions may be inferred, where
inference is a problem solving activity. Speech is an observable behaviour
and the individual's explanation of his understanding of particular
experience and his reasons for selecting particular behaviours in response
to the experience are valid and valuable evidences to support the
inferences.
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Hume's Empirical Approach
Psychology and subjective epistemology have a common interest in the
functioning of the human psyche. The interest of subjective epistemology is
limited to the question of how knowledge is achieved. David Hume (1711-1776)
proposed to investigate the nature of mental processes to discover how the
intellect reached knowledge. This was to be carried out using the
experimental method employed so successfully in physics by Isaac Newton. The
study would result in a "science of man" which would be the only
solid foundation for all other sciences. Hume's own investigation of mental
entities and processes has been heavily criticised and is now discredited.
Hume's programme is taken up, with the substitution of scientific
methodology for Hume's method of reasoning. Hume's epistemological project,
as amended, is a scientific investigation of how experience is processed
within the human intellect to produce knowledge. The investigation of the
human mind is broken down into more basic studies concerned with how the
problems of experience are reduced to knowledge, how this knowledge is
retained, more or less permanently, by the individual, and how retained
knowledge is deployed to deal with the reality of experience. These
questions are discussed in the three parts of this section. The results of
the studies provide the foundation for a scientific theory of epistemology.
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Thinking is Problem Solving Behaviour
Mental behaviour is usually called thinking.
Thinking is often associated
by psychologists with problem solving. In successful thinking the individual
moves from the awareness of a problem to the achievement of the solution.
Problems occur in the experience of the individual. The form for problem
solving is given by:-
PROBLEM OF EXPERIENCE---> THINKING---> SOLUTION
The solution determines the mental and physical behaviours of the individual
with regard to the problem. Mental and physical behaviours are parts of the
same behavioural program.
The form is:-
PROBLEM---> SOLUTION--->
MENTAL AND PHYSICAL BEHAVIOURS
Further experience tells the individual if
those behaviours were successful and therefore appropriate. Inappropriate
and unsuccessful behaviours bring the validity of the thinking process into
question.
To successfully manipulate reality to achieve specific ends the
behaviours must be correct. To achieve correct behaviours the individual
must understand reality through the careful observation and analysis of
experience. The thinking process that leads to the solution must be based on
a valid problem solving method that takes all relevant experience into
consideration. The correct solution to the problem of experience is called
knowledge.
The form is then:-
PROBLEM OF EXPERIENCE---> PROBLEM SOLVING
METHOD---> KNOWLEDGE---> CORRECT BEHAVIOURS
Knowledge is therefore the
consequence of the correct execution of the problem solving method applied
to the problems of experience.
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Experience
and Knowledge of Reality
Part One
THE PROBLEMS OF EXPERIENCE
The study of subjective knowledge is concerned with how individuals gain
knowledge. Human beings come into the world understanding almost nothing and
yet within a short period of time every child has acquired some
understanding of its environment and by the end of its life may be very
knowledgeable indeed. The process by which the intellect develops is based
on experience. The world of experience exhibits order and this order may be
learned through observation. Everyday living and experiencing in the world
leads to understanding.
The worlds of the Inuit, the Somali herdsman, the Polynesian fisherman,
and the New Yorker, all seem so radically different that their experiences
may appear to have little in common. However, the basic experiences of human
beings do not differ. All human beings learn the rudiments of space and
time, they learn how to analyse their environments, and to use a general
purpose language to communicate information about their world. They learn to
recognise people, human relationships and the conventions of social
behaviour. They learn the explanations given by their cultures for the
existence of people in the world, and the history of their own group which
gives them their identity. The technology of the modern world is a
superstructure built upon this basic set of experiences.
The unit of experience is the problem. New experience is not understood
simply by observation but occupies that intermediate area between the known
and the unknown. It is recognised intellectually as new experience but has
not been assimilated into the class of experiences which are understood. It
therefore constitutes a problem to the individual intellect. The problems of
experience beset human beings throughout their lives. The living of each day
brings its quota of new problems. The solving of problems has the benefit
that the individual gains solutions in the form of understandings. Knowledge
is the true understanding of the problem of experience, and the behaviour,
both mental and physical, that follows from knowledge is that most likely to
achieve the objectives of the individual.
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Experience
and Knowledge of Reality
The Problems of Experience
Chapter One
THE THEORY OF EXPERIENCE
The point of departure is Aquinas's argument that knowledge starts with
experience. St.Thomas took the senses and sense impressions to be the
starting point for knowledge. From the point of view of the conscious
intellect there is no awareness of sensory data or of any category of events
of experience such that those data or events can be distinguished from
understanding. St.Thomas recognised that raw sense data was not the stuff of
thought and proposed a psychological process whereby sense data became
understandable in itself and then intelligible to the intellect as a part of
the understanding of reality.
The conscious intellect can deal only with understandings and experience
of reality always takes the form of understanding within the intellect.
Individuals either understand the events of experience or they understand
that they have a problem of understanding an experience in a way that would
allow them respond with correct behaviours, both mental and physical. The
set of understandings may therefore be divided into two subsets which are:-
1. understandings of the existence of problems of experience, and
2.
understandings of solutions to problems of experience.
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The Problems of Experience
Chapter
Two
PROBLEM THEORY
Cultures as Sets of Problem Solutions
The relationship
between experience, problems, the culture and the set of
intellects is given by the thesis is that experience gives rise to problems,
and the set of solutions to the problems of experience is what is called the
culture. The label of culture may be applied both to the problem solutions
of the group and to those of individuals. Here the word
"intellect" is used to refer to the set of individual solutions,
reserving the word "culture" to its group meaning.
Problems have their origin in the human situation of living as a group on
a small planet in a three-dimensional universe. Some problems are common to
mankind; others to groups in particular geographical regions. The problems
that are common to the group give rise to common purposes and objectives,
and from there to common solutions. These solutions constitute group
understandings and the set of common solutions forms the culture.
The culture, in the form of particular solutions to particular problems,
is taught to the young as the subject matter of education. The cultural
solutions to problems, in the forms of objective knowledge and paradigms of
behaviour, give the student intellect greater understanding of reality and
enhanced power to achieve purposes.
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Top
Experience
and Knowledge of Reality
The Problems of Experience
Chapter Three
THE PROBLEM SOLVING METHOD
The intellect solves problems and, in thereby gaining knowledge, extends
its power to deal with experience. There is a valid method for the solving
of problems, which, if it is applied rigorously, will result in the
development of knowledge. The problems of objective knowledge are solved at
the subjective level and the problem solving method discussed here is
applicable to both subjective and objective problem solving.
Problems should be distinguished from puzzles, as defined by Thomas Kuhn.
The general solution model for a puzzle is already known. For example, the
multiplication of 9975 x 93 is a puzzle for most individuals since they
already know how to solve it. However, the multiplication would constitute a
problem for an individual who has not learned a multiplication method.
Education allows the individual to move directly from the understanding of
the problem to the understanding of the solution, but the problem must
always be understood first. All knowledge is produced, in the first
instance, by the problem solving method.
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The Solving of Problems
The method for solving problems consists of a number of stages which
are:-
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Problem Determination:
Problem detection
Problem identification
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Problem Understanding:
Problem investigation
Problem analysis
Problem
definition
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Solution Formation:
Solution specification
Solution creation
Solution recognition
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read the complete chapter, the book can be purchased from
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The Source of Problem Solutions
The problem definition and solution specification are transformed by the
problem solving method into the new understanding or solution. The new
solution is found in the intellect at some time subsequent to the attempt to
solve the problem. The description of the psychological process in which the
new understanding is created, in response to its requisition in the form of
the solution specification, is given in the next section.
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