EPISTEMOLOGICAL CLARITY

Given all that I’ve written about epistemology as the way we think about our thinking which then creates how we know what we know, it’s time to speak about cleaning up our epistemological errors. It’s time we identify how to think effectively so that we can be ecological and productive in our knowing. To do that, the bottom line is this: Where there is epistemological error—let there be epistemological clarity.

How do we create epistemological clarity for ourselves and others? Obviously, first of all learn to detect epistemological errors. Plant the question in your mind, “Is this way of thinking, this way of knowing what I know, legitimate?” “Have I used any cognitive biases, distortions, or biases in coming to my conclusions?” As you ask yourself these questions, take a little bit of time to linger on the epistemological twists and/or symptoms.

Next, take time to consider possible thinking/ knowing symptoms that you might be experiencing. “Of the symptoms that I repeatedly experience in everyday life, could any of these symptoms be the result of some epistemological error?” “Could what I think or know (or think I know) actually be the source of these symptoms?”

With the detection and considering, do some critical analysis of your thinking/ knowing. Run your experience through the essential critical thinking skills (considering, questioning, doubting, detailing, and distinguishing). As skills for critical thinking, these will enable you to test your thinking for its quality and credibility. So also the Meta-Model—a model that focuses on words and language and how the way you language something can create all sorts of problems if the languaging is not well-formed.

Seeking to clarify your thinking so it is more precise and accurate involves making sure that you are using the right kind of thinking for the knowledge domain you are working in. Thinking like a physicist works great when you are working in the domain of the hard sciences. This domain is all about quantity, dimensions, time, space, energy, forces, impacts, etc. If however you a working in the domain of consciousness (mind, emotions, beliefs, memories, imaginations, etc.), you need to shift to think like a psychologist.

What domain of knowledge are you thinking about? Biology, mathematics, archeology, sociology, chemistry, etc.? Each requires a different epistemology. It’s when we mix these that we create epistemological errors. That’s what the field of Behaviorism did in the early to middle part of the 20th century. They thought that the hard-science world should be a part of the mental world and so they eliminated ‘mind’ altogether and tried to build a psychology based entirely on physics thinking. In the long-run, it did not work.

Similarly Freud and psychoanalysis used archeological thinking and causational thinking in trying to understand human psychology. Thinking in terms of etiology, they asked, “Why are you this way? Or, how did you get this way?” That way of thinking implies that the past is deterministic. By way of contrast, in Neuro-Semantics (a cognitive psychology approach) we ask, “What ideas and patterns of ideas have you learned or adopted that has led you to experience what you’re experiencing?” “Are you ready for some new ideas?”

Finally, as you learn to recognize your basic epistemology, question it and then move to create a meta-epistemology. Bateson noted that “you cannot claim to have no epistemology” (Ibid, p. 178). To think is to come to ‘know’ whatever it is that you know and that’s your epistemology. Then he encouraged that we move to the next level up.

“You have an epistemology and I have one, but they are not necessarily the same. A study of the difference between them moves up another level to the science of meta-epistemology.” (Bateson, 1990 pp. 155-6)

Why this? Because as Bateson noted, your epistemology will be enormously increased when you realize that ideas occur in layers, that you inevitably generate ideas about ideas, knowledge about knowledge. Bateson realized this through reading Russell and Whitehead’s work on logical types in mathematics. He translated that to ‘mind’ and came up with the levels of learning and with the understanding of the hierarchy of ideas—how we generate ideas about ideas. These meta-levels which make up your Meta Place (or ‘mind’) establish multiple levels of thoughts and define your personal epistemology.

You can clean up your epistemological errors. When you do you learn to think with greater clarity and accuracy. And that changes everything—from how you experience your emotions, to your effectiveness in what you do and how you relate, to the quality of your life.