Knowledge and Understanding

1
Knowledge and Understanding

• Some further reflections

2

• Observing that a weight consistently falls to the
  ground allows the observer to conclude that
  he/she has knowledge of the way falling bodies
  behave.
• But that knowledge does not mean that we
  understand why / how gravity operates.
• Yet the case can be made that many scientists do
  seek to understand such events, that they do want
  to do more than merely to measure.
• So while it may be true that we do not understand
  how gravity operates, we can understand enough to
  be able to predict how it operates, and we
  continue to speculate about the nature of the
  phenomenon.

3
Greek scientists varied between three extremes

• Rationalists Plato, and his school who believed
  that knowledge of the sensory world was
  impossible because it was / is constantly in
  flux. The only true knowledge was of abstract
  forms.
• Empiricists Aristotle, and his school who
  believed that knowledge gained by the senses had
  to be tested they were not consistent about
  doing so.
• Cynics who believed that knowledge of anything
  was impossible.
• Consider three texts in the empiricist tradition.

4
From the Hippocratic corpus

• in Thasos during autumn, about the time of the
  equinox to near the setting of the Pleiades 21
  Sept., to 8 Nov., there were many rains, gently
  continuous, with southerly winds. Winter
  southerly, north winds light, droughts on the
  whole, the winter was like spring. Spring
  southerly and chilly slight showers. Summer in
  general cloudy. No rain. Etesian strong, cold,
  from northwinds few, light, irregular. The whole
  weather proved southerly, with droughts, but
  early in the spring a few patients suffered from
  ardent fevers, and these very mild, causing
  hemorrhage in few cases and no deaths. There were
  swellings beside the ears, in many cases on one
  side, but in most on both in most cases
  unattended with fever, so that the confinement to
  bed was unnecessary probably mumps. In some
  cases there was slight heat, but in all the
  swellings subsided, without causing harm in no
  case was there suppuration such as attends
  swelling of other origin. This was the character
  of them flabby, big, spreading, with neither
  inflammation nor pain, in every case the
  disappeared without a sign. The sufferers were
  youths, young men and men in their prime, usually
  those who frequented the wrestling school or
  gymnasia. Few women were attacked could these
  detail be relevant to the spread of the
  disease?. Many had dry coughs which brought up
  nothing when the coughed, but their voices were
  hoarse. Soon thereafter, though in some cases
  after some time, painful inflammations occurred
  either in one testicle or in both, sometimes
  accompanied with fever, in other cases not.
  Usually they caused much suffering. In other
  respects the people had no ailments requiring
  medical assistance."

5
Medical Text Hippocrates

• The text records accurately all the symptoms
  known.
• It omits any reference to divine beings
• Explicitly there is no reference to a generalized
  understanding of disease, but implicitly there is
  an assumption that the accurate collection of
  data knowledge may be useful for understanding
  natural processes.

6
Herodotus and the Nile

• No divinities
• Explanations must be consistent with observed /
  known phenomena
• Feels compelled to provide an explanation that
  reveals an understanding of why the Nile floods
  when it does

7
Another Medical Text Thucydides on the Plague
at Athens

• Thucydides records all the symptoms
• States explicitly that he does not understand the
  origin and cause of the pestilence,
• Yet claims that accurate knowledge of what has
  happened may provide effective guidance to the
  future.

8
Summary

• Do scientists restrict themselves to observation
  only?
• Or do they assume that accurate knowledge of
  nature understanding how hit operates is useful
  for policy and worthy of support in its own
  right?
• Some scientists believe that a their laws reflect
  understanding others are more cynical