This belief is most easily defensible in the artistic realm. In the west, that which constitutes high music has traditionally been associated with the genre and artistic preferences of whoever happens to be in a position to make such proclamations at the time. Often, then, one might speak of the genius of Mozart or of an eminent concert pianist, but dismiss the often more complex and original work of others.
There is a recognition of this phenomenon in the current artistic communities, of course, and the result is a kind of extreme postmodernism with which I do not identify: a lack of grounding so pronounced that there are far too many geniuses and there is not nearly enough vapidity -- or, at least, recognition of such. The problem with an extremely postmodern view is that everything is legitimate and everything is potentially high art. This strikes me as counterintuitive, at best, and a farce, at worst. The same can be said about philosophical systems and epistemology.
I rather like using the term "toy epistemology" to refer to that in which humans typically engage. As with art, often our epistemological systems have been used to give ourselves what I believe to be a false sense of certainty regarding the way things are; and, also as with art, we cannot so retreat from the notion of some standard that we say that we know nothing. More and more, I come to imagine that the fruitfulness of an epistemology betrays the degree to which one should care about it. Science, in general, for example, is one of the most productive epistemological systems ever devised. It certainly is not perfect. At best, science yields statistical knowledge, and, when drawing conclusions, data must be interpreted by fallible humans, which brings us back into the postmodern quandary even more so than other systems. Even the kinds of questions which are asked, how those questions are interpreted, and the kinds of answers which one finds acceptable -- all of these are, in fact, highly variegated. And this is fine, but it does not, in principle, yield certainty. Or take, for instance, logic. Logic (or, at least, some kinds of logic, for there are as many kinds of logic as one cares to devise) has also been supremely productive. But even the most robust logics are limited in their descriptive and deductive potential (c.f. Godel), and describe only those things in the world which are conducive to logical analysis -- and there are many which are not. The closely related field of mathematics, I think, takes us further, due to the fact that mathematicians create their own world which, in some almost mystical way, seems to correspond to our own. (I am thinking here of the more abstract notions, which have no obvious analogues in the real world, but nevertheless can more-or-less accurately model it.)
All of this I say to emphasize the point, made earlier, that we have a number of systems, many of which are useful, but none of which are the Truth. Studying mathematics all day long will not (I think) aid one in further apprehending the truth of love (if one believes in such a notion, which I do). This is important, since I suspect the love is the most productive epistemology of them all.
I suppose that I am saying that, while postmodernism has something to teach us about our current limitations as humans, it cannot be the final answer, lest we retreat into solipsism, perhaps the most unproductive system of all. It is simply lazy to say that, if I sweep my foot across a piano, I have created a masterpiece, in the same way that it is lazy to assert that Mozart is irrelevant because plenty of other people have talent. No, we need something, but determining what this is seems to be a difficult problem.
I've had my feet in various communities, intellectual and cultural, for my entire life, and I've come to appreciate the various art forms in many of them. I've also grown frustrated with the snobbish tendency of self-styled judges of cultural relevance deriding cultural and artistic traditions which they do not understand. (The same could be said in the academic realm about intellectual traditions which do not meld well with one's own.) I suspect that, at least in the realm of art, brilliance is at least partially a function of community: that is to say, Mozart is brilliant, in part, because he was able to speak to a community of people with his music, in subtle and complex ways, through his form. The same can be said of Michael Jackson or Hideaki Kobayashi (both of whom I am a huge fan of, the latter heavily influencing my own work). At the same time, I think not that we must say that every cheap pop song which sells millions of copies is in the same league of brilliance. Maybe it is, but we need not say this as a matter of course. What we can say, I think, is that we must constantly wrestle with the ineffability of what makes art brilliant. Can we use the same criteria of productivity that I have proposed for epistemology? That would be nice. But as with science, perhaps we have to look for the brilliance, keeping an open mind.
I believe that once one understands the tradition behind Michael Jackson's music and dance, for example, one will start to grasp his brilliance. But there is something universal about at least some brilliance. It is hard to identify what this is, and this brings us back to postmodernism. I suspect that it is related to a sense of authenticity, much in the same way that the fruitfulness of a system depends on its correspondence to reality. While it is difficult to justify, I believe that authenticity in art leads to a more universal brilliance, and I think that those of us sufficiently engrossed therein, e.g., those of us who engross ourselves in the authentic act of creation, can tell the difference. Often this fact is clouded by an arrogance and overcommitment to one's preferences, but I believe the potential is there. In the same way, I suspect, we can apply this to epistemic endeavors.
In sum, we, as humans, often do not possess the ability to make absolute claims about reality or art with certainty. At our best, we can typically make such statements as a matter of degree. There is always the possibility, as in art, that I simply do not understand someone else's brilliance, or, as in epistemic systems, that my system is inadequate. In the realm of art, rather than overcomitting oneself to a particular form, one should remain open to others. This is especially important in a global society. In the realm of philosophy, science, mathematics, and the like, we must likewise not become so trapped within our own frameworks that we fail to appreciate others. At that point, our systems become simply ad hoc religions.
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