Well, admittedly I have not read any of your other posts/comments pertaining to this particular issue, but I would like to say just one thing.
While I suppose you are correct in stating that to many people "challenging one's assumpitions" means challenging without regard to knowledge, truth, competence or authority, I did want to raise the point that this is NOT true for everyone.
I would say that my learning--in school, then homeschooled and reading widely, then university, and more reading--has depended *greatly* on challenging my own assumptions about life, the universe, and everything.
Not debunking them, necessarily, but challenging them to see if they hold up to what I am learning; if facts, truth, and the competence of those who have specifically studied areas I cannot or have not, support what I already think or have learned from someone else.
You said: What this has to do with the famous quote "the wisest of them all confirmed that he knew only this, that he knew nothing", is that the widest learning, if taken with a sense of proportion, only shows us how little we know.
Yes, abosolutely. That's what I always figured "challenging my assumptions" meant. Challenging what I thought I knew, by learning more. Challenging assumptions I may have come to without enough knowledge, by learning more, and by realizing how much I still have to learn.
no subject
While I suppose you are correct in stating that to many people "challenging one's assumpitions" means challenging without regard to knowledge, truth, competence or authority, I did want to raise the point that this is NOT true for everyone.
I would say that my learning--in school, then homeschooled and reading widely, then university, and more reading--has depended *greatly* on challenging my own assumptions about life, the universe, and everything.
Not debunking them, necessarily, but challenging them to see if they hold up to what I am learning; if facts, truth, and the competence of those who have specifically studied areas I cannot or have not, support what I already think or have learned from someone else.
You said: What this has to do with the famous quote "the wisest of them all confirmed that he knew only this, that he knew nothing", is that the widest learning, if taken with a sense of proportion, only shows us how little we know.
Yes, abosolutely. That's what I always figured "challenging my assumptions" meant. Challenging what I thought I knew, by learning more. Challenging assumptions I may have come to without enough knowledge, by learning more, and by realizing how much I still have to learn.