Archivo de la categoría: Lectures / Readings

C’est à toi, pas à eux [Critique de “L’art subtil de s’en foutre” (Mark Manson, 2016)]

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J’avais une prof au lycée, Felisa, prof d’espagnol, qui semblait toujours heureuse et patiente — mais d’une manière qui paraissait un peu fausse. En réalité, tout le monde pensait que cette attitude de hippie était calculée, pas sincère. Pourtant, un jour en classe, Felisa a critiqué ceux qui méprisaient les œuvres littéraires et le cinéma populaires : « Si des millions de personnes aiment ça, ce ne peut pas être si mauvais », disait-elle. En prenant position et en s’exprimant sincèrement contre le snobisme académique et intellectuel — je ne sais pas si elle avait raison ou pas — Felisa gagnait quelque chose de plus important : de la personnalité, de l’identité, de la force, du charisme.

La première fois que j’ai vu la couverture du livre The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, à Manille en 2017, j’ai pensé que ce n’était qu’un pamphlet de développement personnel bon marché, avec une couverture trop commerciale pour être sérieuse. Mes étudiants de psychologie à l’UST en parlaient beaucoup : un truc d’ados, me disais-je.

Mais après presque une décennie, avec plusieurs traductions, des dizaines d’éditions et des millions d’exemplaires vendus — et même une certaine présence dans les milieux universitaires et psychologiques — j’ai décidé de le lire. Et je dois admettre que c’était une bonne idée : avec plus de rigueur que je ne le pensais, je ne peux pas nier qu’il m’apporte, dans ma situation personnelle actuelle, quelques clés très intéressantes.

Ainsi, une œuvre initialement critiquée par les philosophes et psychologues devient un outil pratique de réflexion philosophique et psychologique, rédigé par un coach qui, à l’origine, n’était pas vraiment un spécialiste. Il avait commencé en tenant un blog largement nourri par ses expériences de joueur et de globe-trotter pendant dix ans.

L’esprit du livre et ses idées ne sont pas révolutionnaires : en réalité, le stoïcisme qu’il défend est presque aussi ancien que l’humanité. Mais le bon choix de l’auteur est de l’adapter à la société actuelle et à des profils comme le mien, esclaves d’une certaine philosophie “Manu Chao”. Le cœur du message : sois toi-même sans attendre de récompense, et ne deviens pas ce que tu penses que les autres veulent que tu sois. Sois toi, en sachant que tu n’es rien — et que c’est très bien ainsi.

Ironiquement, Dale Carnegie disait que pour améliorer ses relations, il fallait s’intéresser aux autres, les écouter, suivre leurs intérêts. Mark Manson, lui, affirme que pour avancer vers le bonheur, il faut être sincère et se recentrer sur soi. Mais loin d’être incompatibles, ces deux idées sont complémentaires : notre manière d’être au monde doit s’ancrer dans notre authenticité, sans peur des autres et en acceptant qu’on n’est qu’une personne parmi des milliards. Et, au quotidien, l’une des meilleures stratégies reste de s’intéresser sincèrement aux autres.

Bien sûr, la frontière entre « eux » et « nous » est floue, difficile à tracer. Mais c’est justement une affaire de pratique continue — en somme, c’est ça, la vie.

Manson, M. (2016). The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. HarperOne

Audjourd’hui, la communication directe est plus efficace [Critique de “Comment faire des amis” (Dale Carnegie, 1936)]

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Warren Buffet, probablement le meilleur investisseur de l’histoire et l’un des hommes les plus riches du monde, a dit plusieurs fois que le cours qui avait changé sa vie était celui donné par Dale Carnegie, sur la psychologie sociale pratique. Et ce cours est résumé dans un livre publié en 1936, qui est devenu l’un des ouvrages les plus importants du XXᵉ siècle, et une véritable référence pour le traitement des relations sociales ainsi que pour le développement de tactiques économiques. Je parle de Comment faire des amis.

Et si Warren Buffet recommande cette œuvre, un tas d’investisseurs et d’économistes, même presque un siècle après sa publication, parlent encore de ce livre, qui a aussi une très bonne note sur les sites de livres, de vente et dans les librairies. Donc, après avoir terminé mes examens de mathématiques pour devenir fonctionnaire, j’ai décidé que Comment faire des amis serait la première de mes lectures d’été.

Tout d’abord, l’écriture de l’auteur est si amène et facile, pleine d’exemples et de situations quotidiennes amusantes, que même en français, je n’ai eu besoin que de trois jours pour le lire et écrire cette critique. Mais cette simplicité se traduit aussi par une simplicité des arguments et des conseils : dès la première page, les enseignements de l’auteur semblent très simples, rien de nouveau, et très centrés sur le fait de flatter l’interlocuteur : on sait tous que cela n’est pas possible dans beaucoup d’occasions, comme lorsqu’il y a des conflits.

En plus, une partie des enseignements écrits là et des situations correspondent au début du XXᵉ siècle, voire au XIXᵉ siècle, et les contextes et mentalités des personnes aujourd’hui ne permettent pas toujours de les appliquer. Cela devient particulièrement délicat lorsqu’il s’agit des relations sentimentales et de la galanterie dans les derniers chapitres du livre. Mais en même temps, le fait que ce livre ait été écrit dans un contexte de crise, après une guerre mondiale, et par un membre d’une génération très marquée par les événements et les générations précédentes, fait que certains aspects de l’esprit du livre gardent des similitudes avec la situation des milléniaux d’aujourd’hui.

D’un autre côté, même si l’œuvre est simple, elle présente quelques conseils encore très utiles, que j’ai notés dans mon téléphone portable pour les lire le matin : soyez plus intéressé par les autres, laissez-les parler au moins autant que vous ou plus, et d’autres recommandations. Je suis déjà en train d’appliquer ces conseils et j’ai déjà noté des différences, même si souvent il n’est pas facile de faire en sorte que les autres s’ouvrent.

On peut dire que Comment faire des amis est une des références majeures en psychologie sociale pratique et en économie, que son importance pour comprendre la société du XXᵉ siècle est indéniable, et que même aujourd’hui, il fournit encore quelques conseils valables. Mais je trouve que, dans notre société, il est plus important et efficace de parler directement, sans détours, même lorsqu’il faut exprimer des mécontentements et des désaccords, sans flatteries ni mesures palliatives — bien sûr avec politesse, et surtout, avec honnêteté. Et en plus, j’ai toujours aimé pouvoir dire “je te l’avais dit” quand j’ai raison, et je ne veux pas arrêter de faire ça.

Carnegie, D. (1936). How to Win Friends and Influence People. Simon & Schuster. 

How the Philippines changed, How the Philippines changed me [Review of “El individuo flotante”, of Marino Pérez Álvarez]

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Manila, 2017. I am excited about my new job at the University of Santo Tomas and the new experiences I am having in the Philippines. I find a new surprise every day, a new intellectual or physical stimulus, and it took me nine months to feel routine. Joining a jeepney means losing the control of your body to become part of a communal body, no matter your age of gender, and everyone accepts it. And never say no to a karaoke, because singing alone makes no sense, and singing together is the best of enjoyment, even if you don’t have the right pitch, because there is no “right pitch” or “the best pitch”. And if you think you have it, the group will allow you to sing the same number of songs as the rest, and everybody happily accepts it.

But at some point, I needed an (individualistic) break, I needed to walk calmly alone in the park, breathe deeply, and relax. It is not easy when there is virtually only one large park in the city, Luneta, but luckily, I lived relatively close to it. I went there, but during the few hours I stayed, many nice people came up to me wanting to talk about anything or offering to street-dance cheesy songs. I deeply appreciated it, but I just wanted to be alone! Some days later, after discussing this experience with a young independent illustrated upper-class colleague, she recommended that I use headphones or pretend to read a book, even if I weren’t listening to or reading anything at all, and she was right. But after half an hour, I needed to feel pinoy social hearts warmth. And all that reminded me of my childhood in Venezuela.

Manila, 2024. After a bunch of bad experiences, especially in Vietnam, I came back to the Philippines, and I came back to my trips around the country, to my walks around the barangays, and to my chilling moments in Luneta. However, I found crowds looking at their smartphones -bought thanks to the economic development of the country especially after Covid-, more foreigners than before, and no one coming to greet me and wanting to have a small conversation. I found, as “El individuo flotante” states, people living together alone. And I felt sad and even desperate.

Still in Manila, strolling around the disappearing traditional lower-class barangays and markets, the cemeteries, or the cockpits makes you feel like you are in the Middle Ages. And “El individuo flotante” accurately adds this kind of communal society, based on social habitudes in which there are very few means for individualism, is the society that existed until the Renaissance. So yes, it seems the disappearing Manila takes you back to the Middle Ages even in the deepest unrealizable touches. However, here’s one of the challenges the book faces: it is always suspicious to establish the first moment for something, and even though Marino Pérez Álvarez strongly defends the birth of modern individualist societies after the Middle Ages, he also opens the door to some kind of individualism during the evolution of the ancient Greek polis.  

Back to 2017’s Manila, many people -among them my colleagues at Miguel de Benavides Library- sadly looked at me when I said I lived alone. For them, it was like the most depressing fact on Earth for a human, but I internally thought that I would never live together with anyone, except for a couple or a family maybe, because I would not want to deal with anyone, and I wanted to be always free. Interestingly, one of the people who looked at me with compassion when I said I was living alone got a nice opportunity to develop an individualistic life in Madrid, and it seems she doesn’t want to return to the social Filipino life anymore. And this is one of the other weak points of “El individuo flotante”: it doesn’t focus enough on the economic conditions that enables and enhances individualism, although it mentions them. In my case, I enjoyed -and I miss- the communal societies like 2017’s Manila, but I did so from the individualistic side: I did not live in a room with other five or more people and a bunch of mosquitoes, cockroaches and rats, but just alone, with all the possible amenities and services, and with a nice salary. They -the social Philippines- were a psychological and philosophical relief to my needs and wrongs derived from my excessive individualism, and I took advantage of it when I needed without renouncing to the advantages of the individualistic way of life, which makes such a hypocrite illusion even more individualistic.

The rise of individualism after the Middle Ages made humans abandon their traditional references -God, family, king, and later nation- to gradually make themselves their own reference points, and finally to get totally lost in their individualism, as they need to find some meaning inside themselves. Ironically, these meanings are chosen from external “markets of meanings”, and simultaneously, the buyers find others as entities to “conveniently use”. Even though this analysis has been present for more than a century, Pérez Álvarez clearly explains and structures it, considering the idea of “salvific communities” as substitutes for the traditional references. Nowadays, individuals substitute God or family for bachata, Aragonese language, new religious options, or CrossFit communities, even when they do not have any traditional -e.g. Family, village- or other substantial reason to adopt them. Or even worse, they try to solve individualism self-exploiting -taking a Master, then another Master, and then a PhD, and then another PhD, and then a BA in Mathematics- generating more stress and more individualism.  This process becomes even more pernicious with the spread of smartphones and social networks, plenty of easy-to-access “salvific communities”, developed following colorful addictive individualistic patterns like the “like culture” and the “selfie culture”, with the final goal of the profit of a few global corporations that sell an image of freedom while enhancing addictive slavery.

The previous analysis is not original, but it is accurate and well-founded in Pérez Álvarez’s piece. However, the draft solutions the author suggests -e.g., controlling spaces, timings, or swimming- are weak and detract from the overall power of the piece. Pérez Álvarez also defends a progressive limitation of social networks, while from my own experience, it might be total -as with many other addictions. While criticizing mindfulness and other cheap -often individualistic- psychologies, what he does in his book is not so different, but more formal, refined, and, from my experience, useful. In this sense, his veiled reluctance to scientific and analytical psychologies and philosophies, in favor of rigorous humanistic options, is too radical.

“El individuo flotante” is a piece that deserves to be widely read and spread, not only because of its analysis on how smartphones and social networks are making us increasingly unhappy, but because of its reflections on how we are becoming increasingly individualistic, with no references, with no paths, considering the others as entities to “properly use”: as a result, loneliness is filling our souls, being the base for many of our current psychological pathologies. Interestingly and ironically, I read “El individuo flotante” a week I had three cancelled dates by different people in different places, always at the last minute: trying to overcome my individualism and set commitments after my Manila’s experiences, what I am finding is more and more individualism.

Before finishing, I would like to apologize for writing an individualistic review of a book that offers clues for solving individualism, but I could not have done it another way. I find “El individuo flotante” an excellent self-help and social analysis book, even though the author tends to criticize the former. In fact, it helps me as much as writing my blogs.

“He feels overwhelmed with exhaustion and can no longer bear his doctoral thesis, his mother, his house and his street, the hypocritical people he has to greet or who greet him. So, he decides to move to another city, one that is there, waiting for him—empty and brand new—where he will have a different job, a different woman, see a different landscape when he opens the windows, spend his nights on different hobbies, friendships, gossip. And so, his life is renewed, move after move…” (adaptation from “Invisible Cities”, Calvino, 1972, mentioned in page 165 of “El individuo flotante”).

Pérez Álvarez, Marino (2023). El individuo flotante: la muchedumbre solitaria en los tiempos de las redes sociales. Deusto.

Toponimia hispánica de Manila y su aplicación al análisis del español en Filipinas

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Toponimia hispánica de Manila y su aplicación al análisis del español en Filipinas. My last article at BAFLE: Boletín de la Academia Filipina de la Lengua Española.

Joven Romero, M. A. (2024). Toponimia hispánica de Manila y su aplicación al análisis del español en Filipinas. Boletín de la Academia Filipina de la Lengua Española (BAFLE), (2) 24-33.

Resumen en español

La toponimia describe la geografía, la historia, la lingüística y las sociedades de territorios en todo el mundo, y los topónimos urbanos suelen centrarse en las dimensiones sociales: reflejan la sociedad y las personalidades de diferentes épocas y comunidades, sus distribuciones, luchas políticas, intereses económicos y estrategias de dominación. El 15 de diciembre de 2021 defendí una tesis doctoral bajo el título Toponimia Hispánica de Manila, en la que estudio la toponimia de la capital filipina, dirigida por los profesores José Ramón Carriazo Ruiz (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, España) y Jorge Mojarro Romero (University of Santo Tomas, Filipinas). Aprovecho estas líneas para valorar y agradecer su trabajo preciso y su apoyo continuo.

Los topónimos de Metro Manila atestiguan la presencia histórica de tagalos y otros pueblos nativos, comunidades procedentes de China, Indonesia y Borneo, y colonizadores procedentes de España y de Estados Unidos de América. Hoy, estos topónimos se mezclan con otros de diferentes raíces lingüísticas debido a modas globales. Esto ocurre en zonas recientemente urbanizadas, pero también en nuevos topónimos que reemplazan a otros previos, como ocurre, por ejemplo, en la Mahatma Gandhi Street, anteriormente llamada Calle Looban.

La evolución de la toponimia de Metro Manila muestra las tensiones y el desarrollo de las comunidades que se han establecido en los límites de la región, y también refleja la formación política de la nación filipina desde finales del siglo XIX y durante el siglo XX: políticos, intelectuales, artistas y otras personalidades relevantes para el nuevo estado independiente ocupan la mayoría de los nombres del mapa actual de Manila.

Abstract in English

Toponymy describes the geography, history, linguistics, and societies of territories worldwide, and urban toponyms often focus on social dimensions: they reflect the society and personalities of different epochs and communities, their distributions, political struggles, economic interests, and domination strategies. On December 15, 2021, I defended a doctoral thesis entitled Hispanic Place Names of Manila, in which I study the toponymy of the Philippine capital, under the guidance of Professors José Ramón Carriazo Ruiz (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Spain) and Jorge Mojarro Romero (University of Santo Tomas, Philippines). I take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank them for their precise work and continuous support.

The toponyms of Metro Manila attest to the historical presence of Tagalogs and other indigenous peoples, communities from China, Indonesia, and Borneo, and colonizers from Spain and the United States of America. Today, these toponyms mix with others of different linguistic roots due to global trends. This occurs in recently urbanized areas but also in new toponyms that replace previous ones, as is the case, for example, with Mahatma Gandhi Street, formerly known as Calle Looban.

The evolution of the toponymy of Metro Manila shows the tensions and development of the communities that have settled within the region’s boundaries, and it also reflects the political formation of the Philippine nation since the late 19th century and throughout the 20th century: politicians, intellectuals, artists, and other relevant personalities for the new independent state occupy most of the names on the current map of Manila.

Major Place Names of Spain in Metro Manila: Moenia, Revista Lucense de Lingüística y Literatura

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Major Place Names of Spain in Metro Manila. My last article at Moenia.

Joven-Romero, M.A. (2021). Major Place Names of Spain in Metro Manila. Moenia: Revista Lucense de Lingüística y Literatura, 27. 

Spanish place names are common in the Philippines due to historical reasons. Here I offer a comprehensive list of stable major place names of Spain in the National Capital Region of the Philippines (Metro Manila) and I analyze the results according to social, geographical, historical, and linguistic views. I finally defend that place names are coined and evolve according to historical, social, political, and economic reasons. Colonial past, population growth, and globalization are the leading causes for place names in Metro Manila.

https://revistas.usc.gal/index.php/moenia/article/view/7108/11844

Download the whole pdf article here.

Hispanic Geographical Place Names of Metro Manila: Anuari de Filologia, Estudis de Lingüística

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Hispanic Geographical Place Names of Metro Manila. My last article at Anuari de Filologia.

Joven-Romero, M.A. (2021). Hispanic Geographical Place Names of Metro Manila. Anuari de Filologia: Estudis de Lingüística, 11, 17-44.

Place names print the physical characteristics of the territory they name and Hispanic geographical place names in Metro Manila depict the geography of the region. In the following pages, I extract and explain the living Hispanic geographical toponyms in Metro Manila, and I discuss the different physical features they describe according to these categories: Body of Water, Farming, Fluvial, Land, Sea, Underground, Urban, Vegetation. I conclude that items responding to different categories follow specific space patterns according to the physical characteristics of the territory and the Spanish colonial activity

https://revistes.ub.edu/index.php/AFEL/article/view/37930

Download the whole pdf article here.

PhD in Philology: Hispanic Place Names of Manila

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Hispanic Place Names of Manila. PhD Defense.

On December 15, 2021, I defended my second PhD, in Philology at Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED, Spain): Hispanic Place Names of Manila, a research work carried out between 2017 and 2021, which I have introduced in several papers and media.

I obtained a calification of Outstanding with Distinction Cum Laude by a tribunal formed by professors Francisco Moreno Fernández, Celia Casado Fresnillo, and Daisy López Pargas. The advisors for the thesis were professors José Ramón Carriazo Ruiz and Jorge Mojarro Romero.

The thesis will be available soon at UNED’s public repository.

Minority Languages and Territorial Rights (iii): Languages and ICT

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Extract of Minority Languages and Territorial Rights, my first entry at the Global Encyclopedia of Territorial Rights, to be published soon: discussion on language policies and Information and Communication Technologies.

Joven-Romero, M. A. (Forthcoming 2020). Minority Languages and Territorial Rights. Global Encyclopedia of Territorial Rights. New York: Springer.

Development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) since the 19th century to this day is having a deep impact in all the languages, and more specifically in minority languages, breaking the traditional link between language and territories (Pietikäinen & Kelly-Holmes 2011): once a message is created, it can be sent and received everywhere. These technologies are rather heterogeneous and the main factors for their analysis are the creator of the information herself, the message to be transmitted, the channel of communication and the receiver of the information (Cunliffe & al. 2013; see also ‘Endangered Languages and Territorial Rights’). While in the 19th century the development of these technologies focused on the information transmission between individuals -telegraph and then telephone-, in the 20th century these technologies -radio, television- allowed information diffusion from a few senders to large populations, as written press did before. Mainstream languages were established for those new communication channels, prejudicing the production and the image of minority language for both the speakers’ communities and the non-speakers’ communities. During the 21st century, popularization of the Internet is a challenge: while most of these new channels are initially developed in the mainstream languages, the users are available to create and receive information in their own language. New ICT may be both a factor for the demise of minority languages and for their preservation (De Bot & Stoessel 2002). The irruption of virtual social networks since the mid-2000s -and more recently the popularization of smartphones- increase the possibilities of the speakers and the magnitude of the challenge.

Both creators and receivers of information are usually young people, while most endangered languages speakers are elderly (Edwards 2002). These young people typically speak other mainstream languages (Fleming & Debski 2007) and they use the minority language depending of different factors: language confidence, language use in non-virtual contexts, message to share, target audience and previous presence of the language in the channel. In general terms, the more confident the speaker is, the more he uses the language in the ICTs, and the more the speaker uses the language in non-virtual contexts, the more he uses it in virtual contexts (Cunliffe & al. 2013).

According to the message to be transmitted using the minority language, some topics are more popular. Issues about traditions associated with the community of speakers and discussions about the sociology and the linguistics of the language itself tend to be written in the minority language (Cru 2015). In the case of highly aware people, political discussions usually appear written in the minority language. ICT also spread research and technical contents about the language, like linguistic discussions, interviews, recordings, clips and movies of speakers who often do not have personal presence in these channels -e.g. elderly people. On the contrary, general scientific, global and technical contents are usually written in the mainstream languages as well as messages expected to reach larger audiences. Finally, the more the presence of the minority language in the channel, the more the speaker tends to create contents in the minority language.

The channel also determines the minority language level of use. It is usually said that software developers do not pay enough attention to minority languages and nowadays most of the virtual social networks or mainstream applications do not offer interfaces in these languages (Jones & Uribe-Jongbloed 2012). It is argued that Google does not offer interface and products options in most of the endangered languages while at the same time it created and funded the Endangered Languages Project. Other times they offer several minority languages, but the lack of linguistic adaptation of these languages to the new technologies generates linguistic solutions that are not accepted among the community of speakers.

Target audiences influence the language too (Cunliffe & al. 2013). Most virtual social networks allow for different kind of messages with different target audiences. The user can vary the language of particular messages addressed to different audiences, and she can also use different languages for her status and profile information, elements with different communicative purposes and usually addressed to larger audiences. Some platforms also allow for the creation of specific -sometimes private- groups formed by speakers of the minority language, more popular among activist adults rather than among teenagers and children. In the case of video platforms, the creator can offer subtitles and additional information in different languages.

Apart from the previous elements influencing the use of a minority language in new technologies, ICT allow for migrant speakers to still use their language everywhere (Sallabank 2010; Lanza & Svendsen 2007; Pietikäinen & Kelly-Holmes 2011). That may strengthen the speakers community and the use of the language. ICT also serve as a means for the visibility and promotion of endangered languages among the non-speakers. The development of some language learning applications may also support the preservation of minority languages (Mirza & Sundaram 2017).

References

Cru J (2015). Language revitalisation from the ground up: promoting Yucatec Maya on Facebook. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 36 (3): 284-296.

Cunliffe D, Morris D, Prys C (2013) Young bilinguals’ language behavior in social networking sites: the use of welsh on Facebook. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 18(3) 339-361.

De Bot K, Stoessel S (2002) Introduction: language change and social networks. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 153: 1-7.

Edwards J. (2010). Minority languages and group identity: Cases and categories. John Benjamins Publishing, Amsterdam.

Fleming A, Debski R (2007) The use of Irish in networked communications: a study of schoolchildren in different language settings. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 28(2): 85-101.

Jones, EHG, Uribe-Jongbloed, E (2012). Social media and minority languages: Convergence and the creative industries. Multilingual Matters, Bristol.

Lanza E, Svendsen BA (2007) Tell me who your friends are and I might be able to tell you what language(s) you speak: social network analysis, multilingualism, and identity. International Journal of Bilingualism 11: 275-300.

Mirza A, Sundaram D (2017) Design and Implementation of Socially Driven Knowledge Management Systems for Revitalizing Endangered Languages. In: Helms et al. (eds) Social Knowledge Management in Action, Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning 3: 147-167.

Pietikäinen S, Kelly-Holmes H (2011) Gifting, service, and performance: three eras in minority-language media policy and practice. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 21(1): 51-70.

Sallabank J (2010) The role of social networks in endangered language maintenance and revitalization: The case of Guernesiais in the Channel Islands. Anthropological Linguistics 52(2): 184-205.

A brief sketch of Gibbons and commitment

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Abstract: In this post I roughly show Gibbons’ ideas (2013, 2014). I pay special attention to his notion of commitment and its epistemic consequences in the difference between truth and knowledge.

Resumen (aragonés): En iste post amuestro de traza zaborrera as ideyas de Gibbons (2013, 2014), fendo ficacio en a suya noción de compromiso y as suyas consequencias epistemicas en a esferencia entre verdat y conoiximiento.

Resumen (español): En este post muestro toscamente las ideas de Gibbons (2013, 2014). Presto especial atención en su noción de compromiso y sus consecuencias epistémicas en la diferencia entre verdad y conocimiento.

Following my keystone, ‘Belief aims at truth’ (Williams, 1970), I consider Gibbons’ ideas very interesting to its analysis and its applications.

Gibbons considers that epistemic commitment is intrinsic of truth and knowledge. So, when we say that an agent develops a belief P aiming at truth, we say that this agent is committed with true in P. Nevertheless, the grade of commitment in knowledge is bigger than in belief.

Apart from that, Gibbons considers that belief is not the only state or propositional attitude that aims at truth. Desire and guess also aim at truth. He finally establish that ‘belief aims at knowledge’ analyzing Gettier examples and Pollock conditionals.

Desire aims at truth

When we desire something, we would like it to be true. I desire to be Natalie Portman’s boyfriend, I would like it to be true. If we consider ‘aiming’ in that way, we are considering it in a connative manner. But in that case, that meaning of ‘aiming’ is different from the one I am studying about belief. In short, we are talking of different things: this aim is not epistemic, and I am aware that it is very unlikely that I can be Natalie Portman’s boyfriend.

Guess aims at truth

This is a more interesting case. As it happens when believing, when we try to guess something, we are looking for the epistemic truth. Let’s think of a guess: “I am between mountain and valley, but I am not a mountain nor a valley. What I am?” We may think of a lot of possible answers, but mountain and valley are not. As guess aims at truth, we cannot say ‘mountain’ or ‘valley’. But our epistemic commitment is weaker here than in beliefs: I guess that it can be a forest, a river or a deer (actually, the answer is ‘and’), I aim at truth when guessing, but my epistemic commitment is very weak.

If you guess that p, then you’re aiming at the truth or trying to get things right (..) But when you believe that p, you’re not just hoping or trying to get it right. You commit yourself to having done so. If you merely guess that p, it’s still an open question whether or not you’ve gotten it right. But then you believe that p, it can’t be an open question whether or not you’ve gotten it right (Gibbons, 2014, 112).

The epistemic commitment of beliefs is stronger than the one guesses have. Beliefs are better justified than guesses. Gibbons (2013, 2014) applies the notion of commitment to this question, but he does not apply it making differences between kinds of ‘aims’. He prefers to establish a difference between ‘truth’ (weak commitment and epistemic justification) and ‘knowledge’ (strong commitment and epistemic justification). So, his final proposal is: belief aims at knowledge.

Knowledge is justified, true belief plus X, where X is whatever it is that rules out Gettier cases. From the point of view of belief, knowledge is an added accretion or an optional extra (…) [But] knowledge is not an optional extra. For you, the question of whether you ought to believe that p is simply not independent of the question of whether you know that p (Gibbons, 2014, 112-3).

The kind of extra that assures a correct justification (observational, social…) is not clear in Gibbons (2014):

At very least you need evidence, and what we look for in evidence is a genuine connection to the facts. The connection can come in many forms. There’s seeing that p; being told by someone who knows; or figuring it out on the basis of other things we know. This isn’t always what we get. Appearances, like people, are sometimes defective. But it’s what we are looking for. And it’s what we commit ourselves to having when we make up our minds. Taking a stand on how things are, like taking a stand on what to do, commits you not only to being in the world. It commits you to being connected to the world. And the connection we’re looking for and that we’re committed to is not just safety, or sensitivity, or reliability, but knowledge, perception and intentional action (113).

Bibliography

Gibbons, J. (2013). The Norm of Belief. Oxford University Press.
Gibbons, J. (2014). Knowledge versus Truth. In Littlejohn, C. & Turri, J, Epistemic Norms: new essays on action, belief and assertion. Oxford University Press.