If scripted by
Hollywood, the story would be dismissed as trite melodrama: A deadly
disease strikes a promising athlete. Despite desperately thin odds,
he manages not only to beat the affliction but also to return to the
sport and win its top prize, not once but a record seven times.
Unbelievable, except it's true.
But the story
doesn't end on the finish line at the Tour de France. His experience
made him a part of a cancer community, and motivated him to unleash
the same passion and drive he does in bike races to the fight against
cancer.
Since he made
history in 1999, he has won the tour six more times, and has become
one of the most recognizable and admired people of this era.
And yet earlier today cycling's
governing body—Union Cycliste Internationale—agreed to strip the seven Tour de France titles of Lance Armstrong and ban him from the
sport for life; citing a recent doping investigation conducted by
the USADA, which has reportedly revealed Armstrong's participation
in various deceptive activities of the USPS Pro-Cycling Team. For the
purposes of this post, I will assume the findings of the USADA
investigation to be brute fact (it is of course possible that
the investigation of the doping conspiracy is itself a conspiracy,
but let that pass).
Few people have provided the modern
world of “motivation” with a better real-life example of human
potential and performance than Lance Armstrong. And it's no surprise
that Armstrong's story has been used (and perhaps overused) as a
megaphone to serve that purpose. But now that the best living example (arguably) of human achievement has been shown to be a fraud, his story (if it is mentioned at all) will have to be changed to something like “he could have been
what we thought he was, if only he had done x.”
What this little debacle illustrates is
the distinction between perception and reality. Between the way we
think things are, and the way they actually are. No doubt there are
people out there who cannot bring themselves to believe that such an
indictment on the great Lance Armstrong could possibly be true, and
no doubt they will tie themselves in knots trying to explain why or
how it is false. It's one thing to know the character of a person, or
rather how we have experienced a person's character in the past. But
knowing what we know about another person with certainty is a
different matter altogether. And the certainty of the character of a
public figure is, as a brute fact, one of the least certain
certainties of all.
What does this say about the Certainty of Knowledge generally? It seems to imply a sympathetic position with skepticism.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to be referring to (correct me if I'm wrong) the sentence: “But knowing what we know about another person with certainty is a different matter altogether.”
ReplyDeleteI think you have identified some ambiguity in the above proposition. For instance, you can know with certainty that I am a man, that I have a specific eye-color, that there is a specific tone to my voice, and so on. These facts obviously contradict the above proposition, and hence it should have been more specified. Perhaps I should have written “But knowing with certainty what we know about another person's character is a different matter altogether.” However, I don't think this carries over to the certainty of knowledge in general. It would be fallacious to propose 1) we cannot know the character of another person with certainty, therefore 2) we cannot know anything with certainty. Unless, of course, one wants to deny the reliability of the senses outright.
Well said. There is a clear distinction between the knowledge of character specifically and knowledge generally. Your response on my broad reading of skepticism is correct, and yet I am still unsettled.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that knowledge of one's character is of much greater importance than knowledge of his eye color or physical ability. The thrust of the post, and Armstrong's (or Jerry Sandusky's or Kirby Puckett's) fall from grace, is that we cannot know with certainty the character of our fellow man. Given the importance of virtue and intangible goods like perseverance, courage, and endurance, we cannot know with certainty the most important qualities of our friends, relatives, or heroes. This is troubling.
Although I am surprised and troubled, perhaps I should not be. Any inductive knowledge, as the observance of another's character seems to be, carries with it a degree of unreliability. The strength of the observable data yields different margins of error in different circumstances. In Mr. Armstrong's case, there were allegations of doping throughout his career, although to my knowledge he never tested positive. This raises the possibility of error and perhaps I should not be so shocked. Further, although a person is known by their fruit (cf. Matthew 7:16), it is also true that only God knows or can judge the hearts of man (cf. 1 Kings 8:39).
How far can we rely upon our observations of character, even if we may be uncertain of their ultimate truth?
I think these are all good points.
ReplyDeleteI would simply add that uncertainty itself does not imply improbability. Knowledge without absolute certainty can indeed be probable, and our belief that a given person has a noble character can likewise be justified, even if it is, strictly speaking, not certain. Depending on the nature of our relationship with a person (spouse, close friend, etc.) we can often grasp their character quite well (much more than that of a public figure), and can thus be justified in our evaluation it.
Our observation of others character is all we have to go by, so to speak, and consequently we have no choice but to rely upon such observation. But again, because something is uncertain does not mean it is unlikely. We can know someone intimately, and know that they are an honest person. But the nature of our experience prohibits us from knowing such things with absolute certainty, since, as you said, these are all matters of induction.