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the thirteenth-century Persian poet Rumi, in the night each man who touched the elephant reports something very different about the thing they have touched: one says a pillar, another a water spout, a third a fan, a fourth a throne. As Rumi writes, “The sensual eye is just like the palm of the hand. The palm has not the means of covering the whole of the beast.”17 While the poet left it unstated in his “The Elephant in the Dark,” were these men to share their impressions each would gain fuller knowledge of what he had experienced. After experiencing Marco’s point of view the farmer at the end has a look, as if maybe there might be fish in McElligot’s Pool. Similarly, Marco has already expanded his own understanding of the possibilities in his situation by reading the book, and his optimism might be tempered a bit by discussing the pool’s condition with the farmer.

Or Even a Fish Made of Strawberry Jelly

For there is only one sort of ill fare—the deprivation of knowledge.

—Plato, Protagoras (345b)

In this chapter, we have mostly concerned ourselves with normative epistemology; theories of knowledge that take the quality of the justification as what makes knowledge out of our “mere” true beliefs. While empiricism and rationalism dominate the study of knowledge, there are other foundational approaches that were not touched upon, such as Plato’s theory that we are born already in possession of the basic foundational blocks for knowledge and through proper education we come to remember these things.

A very different approach to epistemology that has gained traction recently is called “naturalized epistemology.” This holds that a belief counts as knowledge if it is the result of an appropriate causal history. In other words, the process by which one comes to have a belief is essential for knowledge. Credited largely to philosopher W. V. O. Quine (1908–2000), naturalized epistemology is in part a response to the failure of various normative epistemologies to answer the problem of skepticism. Quine suggests that epistemologists alter focus from “is there a proper supporting relation between evidence and belief?” to “How does the one cause the other?” According to Quine: “The stimulation of his sensory receptors is all the evidence anybody has had to go on, ultimately, in arriving at his picture of the world. Why not just see how this construction really proceeds? Why not settle for psychology?”18 In other words, the process by which one comes to have a belief is essential for knowledge. Sketching in just what these proper causal conditions are is a large part of this approach to epistemology. Given the correct conditions, reliable sources may include sense perception and reasoning as with empiricism and rationalism, as well as testimony from a sufficiently reliable authority, like the book that mentions underground brooks.

One might say that epistemology is a history of responses to skepticism. Skepticism—taken seriously—would seem to lead to a certain detachment from the world; that is, to solipsism. Solipsism is the idea that the self is the only thing that can be known, essentially that “I am reality.” This denies one’s place as a member of a community of persons. Persons who also are wrestling with the human condition: a condition that demands we make sense of the world around us but offers few hints as to where to begin, no signs at the many forks in the road, and no guarantee that anyone has a chance of getting anywhere despite our best and sincerest efforts. Epistemology at its best is hardly a remedy for the human condition, but it can be a foundation for good analysis, better decisions, and right action along the way. Or, as Marco reminds the farmer,

And that’s why I think

That I’m not such a fool

When I sit here and fish

In McElligot’s Pool!

Any kind! Any shape! Any color or size!

I might catch some fish that would open your eyes! (Pool)

CHAPTER SEVEN

On Beyond Modernity, or Conrad and a Postmodern Alphabet

Jacob M. Held

It’s always dangerous to summarize a trend or