A Socratic Dialogue About Knowledge
February 28, 2003
Socrates: Bridget Mathauser
Grad Student: Barbara Jones
Street Thug: Jay Lawler
Group Meetings
(Total Meeting Time: 6.5 hours)
2/19/03: Library: 1 hour. Bridget, Barbara, Jay
2/21/03: Library: 1 hour. Bridget, Barbara
2/24/03: Library: 1 hour. Bridget, Barbara, Jay
2/24 and 2/25: Emails: (revising copy) 2.5 hours: Bridget, Barbara, Jay
2/26/03: Library: 1 hour. Bridget, Barbara, Jay
A Socratic Dialogue About Knowledge
Socrates: Bridget Mathauser
Grad Student: Barbara Jones
Street Thug: Jay Lawler
Setting: Two people are sitting around a table at a bar. The first is an honors student from Harvard who majors in physics, and minors in English, biology, and business… she has also studied a lot of other stuff. Across from her sits her cousin, a street hustler. Her cousin has never finished high school, but has majors from the school of hard knocks in countless areas. They are shuffling a deck of cards waiting for Jamie, the third poker player, to arrive at his birthday party. Socrates is standing in a corner poking at a balloon.
Grad: (struggles to fill up a balloon) You know, when Jamie gets here, I sure hope he can appreciate all the respiratory effort that goes into the expansion of these rubber entertainment devices.
Thug: Yeah… me too…
Grad: The balloons you buffoon.
Thug: I knew that. (looks around room) So, where’s Jamie? We need a third player. (turns to Socrates) Yo, So-crates, ya wanna play poker?
(Socrates walks over to the table)
Soc: Well, I’ve only played a few times, but if
you’ll have me…(Socrates sits down)
Thug: Oh sure! No problem! We always welcome new players! (Laughs, tells cousin:)
“We’re gonna be rich real soon!
(Grad shuffles cards poorly.)
Thug: Let me do that! You obviously don’t know how to
shuffle cards! (Grabs cards away from
Grad)
Grad: What do you mean I don’t know how to shuffle, I know shuffling.
Thug: You know nothing! You snotty faced heap of parrot droppings, your kind really makes me wanna peuck!
Grad: Parrot droppings? My people come from a long line of highly educated citizens. We don’t spend our time loitering in parrot feces.
Thug: You don’t know nothing!
Grad: My nothings make your somethings look like nothing! I am highly knowledgeable.
Socrates: Oh, I’m so glad there is someone in this pool hall that is knowledgeable! Could I ask you some questions? I’d like to learn more on this subject.
Grad: Well, so glad I can be of service to you Socrates.
Soc: Since you say you have a great deal of knowledge, what would you say knowledge is?
Grad: Well…(thinks for a bit) from my vast experience in higher education, I'd have to say that knowledge is …(looks at the bookshelf) “ the accumulation of information gathered in books written by learned people throughout history.
Soc: That’s a good point, but are you saying that knowledge only comes from books?
Grad: But of course, books are…
Soc: (interrupts) So, before there were universities, how was it possible to gain knowledge?
Grad: Books have been around forever. Even cavemen wrote on stone tablets. Knowledge has always been recorded in some form.
Soc: So are you saying you can't receive knowledge unless it is written down? What about the knowledge that is passed from mother to child? Is that put in a book first?
Grad: Well, no, but, certainly a child learns from a mother reading to it at a very early age.
Soc: That may be true, but you haven't accounted for the knowledge a child gains in the first few years of life…or the knowledge that is passed on to it from its environment. Wouldn't you also consider this knowledge?
Grad: I suppose so, I hadn't thought of it that way.
Thug: Ya know, I knew she didn’t know what knowledge was!
Soc: Oh, I’m glad you can clear up this dilemma, how do you define knowledge?
Thug: Man, you’re full of it. Knowledge is what you teach yourself. I don’t sit on my ass all day listening to some windbag talk about something I could read in a book if I was bored enough. Knowledge is knowing how to raise a four-person family on a three digit-a-month income, or how to uphold your street’s honor… or running some “merchandise” across the state line without getting busted.
Soc: So knowledge is actual experience or practical skills?
Thug: Yeah! I know when I know.
Soc: How do you know when you know something?
Thug: Because I know it!
Soc: And at what point can you say you know something? Can you know a little bit about something or a lot about something?
Thug: Either I guess. Sometimes both.
Socrates: So knowledge is quantifiable?
Thug: Uh, I guess so, yeah.
Socrates: And by what you are saying, you can measure how much of something you know?
Thug: Uh…I'm a bit confused…(looks at Grad and remarks sarcastically) You know everything…what do you say Grads?.
Grad: Well, uh. Eh hem. I…that’s an interesting point you’ve expressed…I’m a little befuddled myself, I thought I knew this, but um, I may have to ponder this idea some more before I , uh, um...
Thug: I knew you didn’t have a clue! But, uh, I guess I’m confused too.
Soc: Well, what could you do to make your definition more complete?
Thug: Well,…we could add both our definitions together.
Grad: Add my definition into his definition? Socrates, you are a difficult person to please.
Thug: Give it a shot Graddie.
Grad: OK. Well, then, I’d say knowledge is not only the accumulation of information gleaned from books, but it’s what can be learned from other people, or learned through experiences. A person can know a little bit or a lot about something, …especially if one is educated and taught by the finest teachers.
Socrates: Do you agree?
Thug: Yeah, I guess.
Socrates: So we’re agreed, that knowledge is in part something that is taught to you.
Thug + Grad: Yeah, right. OK.
Socrates: Now that we’ve agreed, perhaps you could tell me this. If knowledge is something that is taught, then what about the turtle who is hatched with hundreds of its brothers, and no parents. Who teaches it to go towards the water, or perhaps that it should avoid the birds?
Thug: Like I said before, it teaches itself.
Socrates: How? You say that knowledge is something that you gain through experience. This turtle is but a few minutes old, it has no experience. How can it teach itself something it has never learned?
Grad: Well, possibly it saw its brothers being eaten by birds when they were walking away from the water.
Thug: Yeah, it saw what happened when they went the other way and said to itself “Man, I ain’t gettin’ eaten, F that, I’m goin’ to take a swim!”
Socrates: Perhaps, but taking that route, how does it know that it must swim to survive? Could it be that knowledge is passed on as well?
Grad: Maybe, but it could have been stored in its genes as instinct.
Socrates: So there is more to knowledge than what is taught?
Grad: Well, uh… instinct and knowledge are different things!
Socrates: So the turtles don't really have knowledge when they crawl toward the water?
Thug + Grad: Uhhh….
Thug: …It's like this… what is knowledge: you know; and what is instinct: you feel.
Socrates: (looks at each player) So, then do you both agree that if you feel something it’s not knowledge?
Grad: Uh, I'm not sure about that. I'm a bit baffled at this point.
Thug: I, uh, dunno.
Socrates: Ahh, I guess we all have a lot more work to do, before we can truly define knowledge!
Grad + Thug:
(mouths hang open).
Grad: My cranium is experiencing pressure to the point of pain.
Thug: Yeah, It's called a headache Bookworm, and I've got one too. We can discuss the meaning of knowledge again at our next game, what do you say Graddie?
Grad: Sounds peachie to me. Let's finish this game!
Thug: Great idea…(lays out cards) Full house! what you guys got?
Grad: Give it up, Urchin..a Straight!
Thug: Damn… what you got ‘Crates?
Socrates: Well my friends, all that I do know is this…a Royal Flush beats a Straight! (stashes all the cash in his pocket)