Topics Knowledge

Question Other than the fact that it's in our nature to know and be curious, why is it that time after time, after every question is answered we still as human beings are not satisfied and as so it seems will never be satisfied, and want to know more. Doesn't that give rise to the notion that the answers are out there, but we can't "understand" them. And if so, then why can't we understand them, if we are given the capability to question?

Accepted:
October 22, 2005

Comments

One part of the answer is the 'why-regress'. As you know, whenever someone answers your why-question, you can almost always ask why about the answer, and this seems like it can go on forever. But I don't think that shows that we never explain anything. If I ask why my car won't start, telling me that my battery is dead can be a good answer, even if you don't tell me why my battery is dead (though I might like to know about that too!).

Some have thought that if we have the capacity to formulate an intelligible question, then it's likewise in our capacity to find an answer. (Maybe not in practice; maybe we'll blow ourselves up before we arrive at the answer. But in principle we could find it.) W.V. Quine has suggested this (see Question 230). By contrast, others believe that our cognitive make-up is such that necessarily some truths will remain forever beyond our reach. Noam Chomsky has suggested this view. Along these lines, some have argued that philosophical perennials (e.g., about the nature of free will) are precisely examples of questions that are intelligible to us but that will also forever elude us on account of our mind's structure. It's in virtue of our mind's having the rich structure that it does that we have learned as much as we have; but that very same structure also brings into being systemic limits to our knowledge.

It is difficult to know how to resolve this question. Those who are impressed by Chomsky's suggestion often are gripped by the thought that surely there could be creatures who are to us cognitively as we are to dogs; that is, surely there are claims that are beyond our reach just as there are claims that are beyond the comprehension of even the most intelligent of Border Collies. What hubris to imagine otherwise, you might think. Those who are more sympathetic to Quine's view will not find appeal to creatures who have thoughts we cannot understand very persuasive. They might instead be more inclined to focus on the fact that what we can recognize as thoughts and questions are what can be formulated in a language we can understand, and that such a language is ultimately tethered to our experiences in such a way that any meaningful claim expressible within it could be settled, if only in principle and quite indirectly, by the right experiences.