tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/rene-descartes-43576/articlesRene Descartes – The Conversation2021-07-01T19:52:43Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1631672021-07-01T19:52:43Z2021-07-01T19:52:43ZThe scientific genius who eschewed fame: remembering Thomas Harriot, 400 years on<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409214/original/file-20210701-21065-1n6x87b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C0%2C2584%2C3237&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harriot_at_Syon_Park.JPG">Rita Greer</a>, <a class="license" href="http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en">FAL</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Four hundred years ago, on July 2 1621, a remarkable Englishman named Thomas Harriot died in London. He left behind some 8,000 pages of scientific research, but it is only in recent decades that scholars have uncovered their treasures. </p>
<p>And what they show is that Harriot independently made many significant discoveries now attributed to other, more famous scientists. Some scholars have called him “the English Galileo” and “the greatest British mathematical scientist before Newton”. </p>
<p>Yet Harriot died without publishing a single word of this extraordinary output. His tale reminds us that, while we may sometimes think science progresses through a series of famous pioneers who single-handedly overturn entrenched beliefs, the story is rarely so simple.</p>
<h2>What did Harriot discover?</h2>
<p>For instance, we learn in school that Galileo Galilei initiated telescopic astronomy and discovered the law of falling motion. But Harriot independently did both of these things. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409209/original/file-20210701-21056-104m7cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A pen and ink drawing of the surface of the Moon." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409209/original/file-20210701-21056-104m7cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409209/original/file-20210701-21056-104m7cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409209/original/file-20210701-21056-104m7cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409209/original/file-20210701-21056-104m7cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=585&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409209/original/file-20210701-21056-104m7cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409209/original/file-20210701-21056-104m7cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409209/original/file-20210701-21056-104m7cb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=735&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thomas Harriot’s 1609 map of the Moon, drawn by observing through a telescope.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Harriot#/media/File:Harriot_Lunar_Map.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He also deduced fledgling general laws governing the motion of everyday objects, again independently of Galileo, and before René Descartes. (Half a century later, Isaac Newton developed the definitive laws of motion.)</p>
<p>Harriot studied light, too, discovering the secret of colour and the nature of the rainbow before Newton, and finding the law of refraction (which we know today as Snell’s law) before the Dutch astronomer Willebrord Snell.</p>
<p>He also made a mathematical study of population growth before Thomas Malthus, developed a <a href="https://www.ems-ph.org/books/book.php?proj_nr=94&srch=series%7Chem">completely symbolic</a> form of sophisticated <a href="https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9780387495118">algebra</a> before Descartes, discovered binary arithmetic before Gottfried Leibniz, and took
steps on the road to calculus with his work on infinite series. </p>
<h2>The law of falling bodies</h2>
<p>It wasn’t until 2008 that Harriot’s work on gravity was <a href="https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9781402054983">fully reconstructed</a>, by the German scholar Matthias Schemmel. </p>
<p>As Schemmel pointed out, Harriot and his contemporary Galileo were heirs to essentially the same body of knowledge. It’s perhaps not so surprising, then, that they made some of the same breakthroughs. There are plenty of examples of independent co-discoveries in history, most famously that of calculus by Newton and Leibniz.</p>
<p>The law of falling motion says that without air resistance all objects, no matter their size or mass, fall from the same height at the same rate. </p>
<p>Legend has it Galileo dropped balls from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to study how they fell. Nobody knows if this is true, but Harriot had the same idea: he recorded the time, in pulse beats, that it took for different objects falling from as high as 55½ feet (about 17 metres) to reach the ground. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/copernicus-revolution-and-galileos-vision-our-changing-view-of-the-universe-in-pictures-60103">Copernicus' revolution and Galileo's vision: our changing view of the universe in pictures</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Both Harriot and Galileo devised more accurate experiments, however, from which they derived a mathematical understanding of how things fall. </p>
<p>This combination of experiment and mathematics is now the accepted way to derive a law of nature. Quantifying observations means others can test the results, and use them to make useful predictions. </p>
<p>Harriot and Galileo were not the first to understand the role of observation and mathematics in this context, of course. But they were among the most successful of the pre-Newtonian pioneers.</p>
<p>Galileo didn’t publish his work on gravity until after Harriot had died, and there’s no evidence that the two men ever met or corresponded.</p>
<h2>The law of refraction and the shape of the rainbow</h2>
<p>The German astronomer Johannes Kepler, however, did correspond briefly with Harriot. Kepler had been working on the nature of light and vision when word reached him that Harriot had unravelled two mysteries: the law of refraction, and why the rainbow has its magical colours and its unique shape.</p>
<p>The law of refraction describes how light bends when it passes from one medium into another, which explains how an image can be focused by a glass lens or why your leg looks wobbly when you dip it in a swimming pool. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409217/original/file-20210701-21135-wg5m9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409217/original/file-20210701-21135-wg5m9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409217/original/file-20210701-21135-wg5m9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409217/original/file-20210701-21135-wg5m9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409217/original/file-20210701-21135-wg5m9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=864&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409217/original/file-20210701-21135-wg5m9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1086&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409217/original/file-20210701-21135-wg5m9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1086&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409217/original/file-20210701-21135-wg5m9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1086&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A diagram from Ibn Sahl’s 10th-century treatise on optics showing the path of light refracted by a lens.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ibn_Sahl_manuscript.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Harriot derived this law 20 years before Snell, but there’s a popular belief that the 10th-century Baghdad-based scholar Abū Saʿd al-ʿAlāʾ ibn Sahl beat even Harriot. This is not quite right: Ibn Sahl is a notable pioneer whose geometrical diagram of light focussed by a lens gives, in hindsight, the correct refractive path. But there’s no evidence he deduced his result from experiment, or that he understood the general properties of refraction.</p>
<p>Judging from his surviving papers even Snell failed to generalise his result, which he, like Ibn Sahl, never wrote as the neat trigonometric equation we use today. Harriot, by contrast, did: his derivation of the general law of refraction is another example of his rigorous blend of experiment and mathematics.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-why-are-rainbows-round-81187">Curious Kids: Why are rainbows round?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Harriot’s other adventures</h2>
<p>If only Harriot had published! In the early stage of his career, though, he was bound by commercial secrecy, for his first patron was the controversial statesman and entrepreneur Sir Walter Raleigh. Harriot was also busy dodging heretic hunters and sailing the high seas as Raleigh’s navigational advisor. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409210/original/file-20210701-21296-xaa1cu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A heavily decorated title page reading 'A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia'." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409210/original/file-20210701-21296-xaa1cu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/409210/original/file-20210701-21296-xaa1cu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409210/original/file-20210701-21296-xaa1cu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409210/original/file-20210701-21296-xaa1cu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=805&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409210/original/file-20210701-21296-xaa1cu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1011&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409210/original/file-20210701-21296-xaa1cu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1011&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/409210/original/file-20210701-21296-xaa1cu.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1011&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thomas Harriot published only one work in his lifetime: a report on his stay in North America in the 1580s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:English_title_page,_A_Briefe_and_True_Report_of_the_Newfound_Land_of_Virginia.JPG">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Raleigh had delusions of empire and glory, and wanted to establish a trading colony in today’s USA before the Spanish beat him to it. The one work Harriot did publish in his lifetime was “a brief and true report” on the economic potential of Raleigh’s chosen American site.</p>
<p>Harriot’s contribution to colonialism has justly attracted its share of criticism. Nonetheless, his report is still widely praised for its sympathetic depiction of the way of life of the North Carolina Algonquian people, as it was when Europeans first set foot on their land. Harriot learned the local language, and enjoyed much about the year he spent living with the Algonquians.</p>
<p>What he loved doing most, though, was mathematics and physics. He was neither flamboyant nor ambitious, and when he was wrongfully imprisoned through an unlucky connection with the Gunpowder Plot (a failed attempt to assassinate King James I), he told his jailers he just wanted</p>
<blockquote>
<p>to live a private life for the love of learning that I might study freely. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>In the late 1590s Harriot had found a second patron, Henry Percy, the ninth earl of Northumberland. It was then that he was able to study the mysteries of nature and the marvels of mathematics for their own sakes, rather than the “applied” work he had done for Raleigh.</p>
<p>Having two generous patrons meant Harriot did not need to publicise his discoveries to attract funding, the way Galileo did. Nor did he care about fame, despite being urged by friends to claim his priority. His manuscripts do contain several almost finished treatises, but it seems he was so busy doing science that he never managed to put his results together for the printer.</p>
<p>After his death, well-meaning scholars carved up his manuscripts in an attempt to study and publish them. In the process, however, all the papers disappeared, seemingly lost forever. Then, 150 years later, the Hungarian astronomer Franz Xaver Zach discovered them, locked safely away in Northumberland’s castle.</p>
<p>Most of the papers were then given to the British Museum. They are now in the British Library, where I had the privilege of studying them. (They’re also available <a href="https://echo.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/content/scientific_revolution/harriot">online</a>.)</p>
<p>As for Harriot, no-one knows much about him as a person – not even his birthday. Nevertheless, he has fascinated scholars for the past half century (as I discovered some years ago when I set out to bring his story to a <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/thomas-harriot-9780190271855?cc=us&lang=en&#">wider, non-specialist</a> readership). </p>
<p>That’s because despite the lack of biographical data, those precious manuscripts show that what mattered most to Harriot himself was mathematics and science. Four hundred years on, his mix of genius and dedication is something to honour.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163167/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robyn Arianrhod does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The English astronomer and navigator Thomas Harriot died in 1621, leaving behind 8,000 pages of notes containing a trove of unpublished scientific discoveries.Robyn Arianrhod, Affiliate, School of Mathematics, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1496152020-11-18T20:25:47Z2020-11-18T20:25:47Z3 reasons for information exhaustion – and what to do about it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369878/original/file-20201117-13-20yh3o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C0%2C3332%2C2437&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman views a manipulated video that changes what is said by President Donald Trump and former President Barack Obama.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/woman-in-washington-dc-views-a-manipulated-video-on-january-news-photo/1090433874?adppopup=true">ROB LEVER/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>An endless flow of information is coming at us constantly: It might be an article a friend shared on Facebook with a sensational headline or wrong information about the spread of the coronavirus. It could even be a call from a relative wanting to talk about a political issue. </p>
<p>All this information may leave many of us feeling as though we have no energy to engage. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://clasprofiles.wayne.edu/profile/hf1190">philosopher</a> who studies <a href="https://philpeople.org/profiles/mark-satta">knowledge-sharing practices</a>, I call this experience “epistemic exhaustion.” The term “epistemic” comes from the Greek word <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/">episteme</a>, often translated as “knowledge.” So epistemic exhaustion is more of a knowledge-related exhaustion.</p>
<p>It is not knowledge itself that tires out many of us. Rather, it is the process of trying to gain or share knowledge under challenging circumstances. </p>
<p>Currently, there are at least three common sources that, from my perspective, are leading to such exhaustion. But there are also ways to deal with them. </p>
<h2>1. Uncertainty</h2>
<p>For many, this year has been full of uncertainty. In particular, the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0141076820930665">coronavirus pandemic</a> has generated uncertainty about health, about best practices and about the future.</p>
<p>At the same time, Americans have faced <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/07/voters-anxiously-approach-an-unusual-election-and-its-potentially-uncertain-aftermath/">uncertainty about the U.S. presidential election</a>: first due to delayed results and now over <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/23/us/politics/trump-power-transfer-2020-election.html?searchResultPosition=3">questions about a peaceful transition of power</a>. </p>
<p>Experiencing <a href="https://www.apa.org/topics/stress-uncertainty">uncertainty can stress most of us out</a>. People tend to prefer the planned and the predictable. Figures from 17th-century French philosopher <a href="http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/15537/1/Certainty%20and%20Explanation%20in%20Descartes%20HOPOS%20AcceptedFinal.pdf">René Descartes</a> to 20th-century Austrian philosopher <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/762159.On_Certainty">Ludwig Wittgenstein</a> have recognized the significance of having certainty in our lives. </p>
<p>With information so readily available, people may be checking news sites or social media in hopes of finding answers. But often, people are instead greeted with more reminders of uncertainty.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369880/original/file-20201117-13-19no6k8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369880/original/file-20201117-13-19no6k8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369880/original/file-20201117-13-19no6k8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369880/original/file-20201117-13-19no6k8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369880/original/file-20201117-13-19no6k8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369880/original/file-20201117-13-19no6k8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369880/original/file-20201117-13-19no6k8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369880/original/file-20201117-13-19no6k8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">As Trump supporters denounce the 2020 election results, feelings of uncertainty can come up for others.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/thousands-of-trump-supporters-gathered-in-washington-d-c-on-news-photo/1229635195?adppopup=true">Karla Ann Cote/NurPhoto via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. Polarization</h2>
<p>Political polarization <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/robert-barrett-phd/the-stress-from-political-polarization-is-killing-us-slowly_a_23350469/">is stressing many Americans out</a>. </p>
<p>As political scientist <a href="https://gvpt.umd.edu/facultyprofile/mason/lilliana">Lilliana Mason</a> notes in her book, “<a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/U/bo27527354.html">Uncivil Disagreement: How Politics Became Our Identity</a>,” Americans have been increasingly dividing politically “into two partisan teams.” </p>
<p>Many writers have discussed the <a href="https://theconversation.com/extreme-political-polarization-weakens-democracy-can-the-us-avoid-that-fate-105540">negative effects of polarization</a>, such as how it can damage democracy. But discussions about the harms of polarization often overlook the toll polarization takes on our ability to gain and share knowledge. </p>
<p>That can happen in at least two ways. </p>
<p>First, as philosopher <a href="https://www.kevinvallier.com/">Kevin Vallier</a> has argued, there is a “<a href="https://www.kevinvallier.com/reconciled/low-trust-exacerbates-polarization/">causal feedback loop</a>” between polarization and distrust. In other words, polarization and distrust fuel one another. Such a cycle can leave people feeling <a href="https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/284357/polarization-may-undermine-community-bonds-trust-others.aspx">unsure whom to trust or what to believe</a>.</p>
<p>Second, polarization can lead to <a href="https://time.com/5907318/polarization-2020-election/">competing narratives</a> because in a deeply polarized society, as studies show, we can <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/for/16/1/article-p47.xml">lose common ground</a> and tend to have less agreement.</p>
<p>For those inclined to take the views of others seriously, this can create additional cognitive work. And when the issues are heated or sensitive, this can create additional <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190926073348.htm">stress and emotional burdens</a>, such as sadness over damaged friendships or anger over partisan rhetoric. </p>
<h2>3. Misinformation</h2>
<p>Viral misinformation is everywhere. This includes <a href="https://iop.harvard.edu/get-involved/study-groups/propaganda-today%E2%80%99s-american-politics">political propaganda in the United States</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/06/books/review/peter-pomerantsev-this-is-not-propaganda.html">around the world</a>.</p>
<p>People are also inundated with advertising and misleading messaging from private corporations, what philosophers <a href="http://cailinoconnor.com/">Cailin O’Connor</a> and <a href="http://jamesowenweatherall.com/">James Owen Weatherall</a> have called “<a href="https://heterodoxacademy.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/062_Cailin_oConnor_How_False_Beliefs_Spread.pdf">industrial propaganda</a>.” And in 2020, the public is also dealing with <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01452-z">misinformation about COVID-19</a>. </p>
<p>As chess grandmaster <a href="https://twitter.com/kasparov63/status/808750564284702720?lang=en">Garry Kasparov put it</a>: “The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.” </p>
<p>Misinformation is often exhausting by design. For example, <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-plandemic-and-the-seven-traits-of-conspiratorial-thinking-138483">a video that went viral,</a> “<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/tarahaelle/2020/05/08/why-its-important-to-push-back-on-plandemic-and-how-to-do-it/?sh=3e430c9e5fa3">Plandemic</a>,” featured a large number of false claims about COVID-19 in rapid succession. This flooding of misinformation in rapid succession, a tactic known as a <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/9/26/13036258/donald-trump-debate-win-lies-preparation">Gish gallop</a>, makes it challenging and time-consuming for fact checkers to refute the many falsehoods following one after another. </p>
<h2>What to do?</h2>
<p>With all this uncertainty, polarization and misinformation, feeling tired is understandable. But there are things one can do. </p>
<p>The American Psychological Association suggests <a href="https://www.apa.org/topics/stress-uncertainty">coping with uncertainty</a> through activities like limiting news consumption and focusing on things in one’s control. Another option is to work on becoming more <a href="https://pemachodronfoundation.org/product/comfortable-with-uncertainty-book/">comfortable with uncertainty</a> through practices such as meditation and the cultivation of mindfulness. </p>
<p>To deal with polarization, consider communicating with the goal of <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/phpr.12624">creating empathetic understanding</a> rather than “winning.” Philosopher <a href="http://mjhannon.com/">Michael Hannon</a> describes empathetic understanding as “the ability to take up another person’s perspective.” </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>As for limiting the spread of misinformation: Share only those news stories that you’ve read and verified. And you can prioritize outlets that meet high ethical <a href="https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp">journalistic</a> or <a href="https://www.poynter.org/ifcn-fact-checkers-code-of-principles/">fact-checking standards</a>.</p>
<p>These solutions are limited and imperfect, but that’s all right. Part of resisting epistemic exhaustion is learning to live with the limited and imperfect. No one has time to vet all the headlines, correct all the misinformation or gain all the relevant knowledge. To deny this is to set oneself up for exhaustion.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149615/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Satta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A philosopher writes about why many of us are feeling tired with the constant onslaught of information coming at us.Mark Satta, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1108662019-02-06T11:43:31Z2019-02-06T11:43:31Z3 philosophers set up a booth on a street corner – here’s what people asked<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257265/original/file-20190205-86202-19tymqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Greek philosopher Socrates.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/close-greatest-philosophers-socrates-reflects-on-781224403?src=QKUIfzii67kqmLfQintuLQ-1-8">Nice_Media_PRO/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The life choices that had led me to be sitting in a booth underneath a banner that read “Ask a Philosopher” – at the entrance to the New York City subway at 57th and 8th – were perhaps random but inevitable. </p>
<p>I’d been a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=-Dosh_kAAAAJ&hl=en">“public philosopher”</a> for 15 years, so I readily agreed to join my colleague <a href="http://ianolasov.com/">Ian Olasov</a> when he asked for volunteers to join him at the “Ask a Philosopher” booth. This was part of the latest public outreach effort by the <a href="https://www.apaonline.org/">American Philosophical Association</a>, which was having its annual January meeting up the street.</p>
<p>I’d taught before – even given speeches – but this seemed weird. Would anyone stop? Would they give us a hard time?</p>
<p>I sat between Ian and a splendid woman who taught philosophy in the city, thinking that even if we spent the whole time talking to one another, it would be an hour well spent.</p>
<p>Then someone stopped.</p>
<p>At first glance, it was hard to tell if she was a penniless nomad or an emeritus professor, but then she took off her hat and psychedelic scarf and came over to the desk and announced, “I’ve got a question. I’m in my late 60s. I’ve just had life threatening surgery, but I got through it.” </p>
<p>She showed us the jagged scar on her neck. “I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life,” she said. “I’ve got a master’s degree. I’m happily retired and divorced. But I don’t want to waste any more time. Can you help?”</p>
<p>Wow. One by one, we all asked her to elaborate on her situation and offered tidbits of advice, centering on the idea that only she could decide what gave her life meaning. I suggested that she might reach out to others who were also searching, then she settled in for a longer discussion with Ian. </p>
<p>And then it happened: A crowd gathered.</p>
<p>At first I thought they were there to eavesdrop, but as it turned out they had their own existential concerns. A group of teenagers engaged the philosopher on my right. One young woman, who turned out to be a sophomore in college, stepped away from the group with a serious concern. “Why can’t I be happier in my life? I’m only 20. I should be as happy as I’m ever going to be right now, but I’m not. Is this it?” </p>
<p>It was my turn. “Research has shown that what makes us happy <a href="https://www.randomhouse.com/kvpa/gilbert/excerpts3.html">is achieving small goals</a> one after the other,” I said. “If you win the lottery, within six months you’ll probably be back to your baseline of happiness. Same if you got into an accident. You can’t just achieve happiness and stay there, you have to pursue it.”</p>
<p>“So I’m stuck?” she said.</p>
<p>“No…” I explained. “Your role in this is huge. You’ve got to choose the things that make you happy one by one. That’s been shown from <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/">Aristotle</a> all the way down to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0146167212436400">cutting-edge psychological research</a>. Happiness is a journey, not a destination.”</p>
<p>She brightened a bit, while her friends were still puzzling over whether color was a primary or secondary property. They thanked us and moved on.</p>
<p>Suddenly, the older woman who had stopped by initially seemed satisfied with what Ian had told her, and said that she had to be on her way as well.</p>
<p>Again it was quiet. Some who passed by were pointing and smiling. A few took pictures. It must have looked odd to see three philosophers sitting in a row with “Ask a Philosopher” over our heads, amidst the bagel carts and jewelry stalls.</p>
<p>During the quiet I reflected for a moment on what had just happened. A group of strangers had descended upon us not to make fun, but because they were carrying around some real philosophical baggage that had long gone unanswered. If you’re in a spiritual crisis, you go to your minister or rabbi. If you have psychological concerns, you might seek out a therapist. But what to do if you don’t quite know where you fit into this world and you’re tired of carrying that burden alone? </p>
<p>And then I spotted her … an interlocutor who would be my toughest questioner of the day. She was about 6 years old and clutched her mother’s hand as she craned her neck to stare at us. Her mother stopped, but the girl hesitated. “It’s OK,” I offered. “Do you have a philosophical question?” The girl smiled at her mother, then let go of her hand to walk over to the booth. She looked me dead in the eye and said: “How do I know I’m real?”</p>
<p>Suddenly I was back in graduate school. Should I talk about the French philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes/">Rene Descartes</a>, who famously used the assertion of skepticism itself as proof of our existence, with the phrase “I think, therefore I am?” Or, mention English philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moore/">G.E. Moore</a> and his famous “here is one hand, here is the other,” as proof of the existence of the external world? </p>
<p>Or, make a reference to the movie “<a href="https://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2007/08/04/the-philosophy-of-the-matrix">The Matrix</a>,” which I assumed, given her age, she wouldn’t have seen? But then the answer came to me. I remembered that the most important part of philosophy was feeding our sense of wonder. “Close your eyes,” I said. She did. “Well, did you disappear?” She smiled and shook her head, then opened her eyes. “Congratulations, you’re real.”</p>
<p>She grinned broadly and walked over to her mother, who looked back at us and smiled. My colleagues patted me on the shoulder and I realized that my time was up. Back to the conference to face some easier questions on topics like “Academic Philosophy and its Responsibilities in a Post-Truth World.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110866/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lee McIntyre is a member of the American Philosophical Association. </span></em></p>Three philosophers put up a booth at the entrance to a New York City subway, so people could come to them with questions. They got hit with some real zingers.Lee McIntyre, Research Fellow Center for Philosophy and History of Science, Boston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1017462018-08-17T15:01:40Z2018-08-17T15:01:40ZFour centuries of trying to prove God’s existence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232469/original/file-20180817-165937-4yami3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/sun-beams-rays-breaking-through-dark-507277528?src=QF75tkE3Rmebo3cnjYAPLw-1-97">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Whether God exists or not is one of the most important philosophical questions there is. And the tradition of trying to establish God’s existence involving evidence is a long one, with a golden age during the 17th and 18th centuries – the early modern period. </p>
<p>Attempts to prove God’s existence continue today. But they are on nothing like the same scale as they were hundreds of years ago, with secularism now being as common among philosophers as it is among the general population. And this is not the only difference to have occurred since that golden age, which is the focus of <a href="http://www.baylorpress.com/Book/573/Proofs_of_God_in_Early_Modern_Europe.html">my new book</a>, Proofs of God in Early Modern Europe. Here are three other things that have changed over the centuries:</p>
<h2>Aims</h2>
<p>When contemporary thinkers try to prove God’s existence, their aim is usually to show that it is in fact reasonable to believe in God. For example, in <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Proofs-Existence-God-Contributions/dp/0802863833/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1534422424&sr=8-1&keywords=new+proofs+for+god">New Proofs for the Existence of God</a>, Robert J Spitzer advances a series of proofs that together constitute evidence “capable of grounding reasonable and responsible belief in a super-intelligent, transcendent, creative power”. </p>
<p>Such an aim would have struck early modern philosophers as odd, because back then the default view was that belief in God was perfectly reasonable. Indeed, in early modern times, religious belief was so widespread in Europe that the idea of someone sincerely denying God’s existence was often considered to be absurd – if not unthinkable.</p>
<p>So why did early modern philosophers feel the need to construct proofs for something that was already widely believed to be true? Often, they sought to prove God’s existence because of the central explanatory or theoretical role that God played in their philosophical thought.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.iep.utm.edu/descarte/">René Descartes</a> (1596-1650) famously claimed that proving the existence of a perfect God was the only way he could be certain of the reality of the external world. He held that what appeared to him to be true really was true, since it was beyond doubt that a perfect God would not engage in deception or give him senses that were unreliable. </p>
<p>For <a href="https://www.iep.utm.edu/spinoza/">Baruch Spinoza</a> (1632-1677), establishing whether there is a God had important repercussions not just for what we can know about the world, but also about how we should live. He believed the greatest possible contentment we can experience in this life comes from our knowledge of the essence of things – which in turn comes from understanding God’s attributes. The more we understand things this way, the less troubled we will be by strong emotions and the less we will fear death. For the great thinkers of early modernity, then, establishing God’s existence was of paramount importance. </p>
<h2>Confidence</h2>
<p>Another big difference between early modern philosophers and those of today is their confidence in the proofs they put forward. Even the most self-assured of contemporary philosophers are likely to claim that their arguments only make God’s existence <em>probable</em>. For example, in <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Existence-God-Richard-Swinburne/dp/0199271682/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1534402319&sr=8-1&keywords=swinburne+existence+of+god">The Existence of God</a>, <a href="http://users.ox.ac.uk/%7Eorie0087/">Richard Swinburne</a> offers a variety of proofs that he takes together to show that God’s existence is more probable than not.</p>
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<p>Such a claim would have appeared tame to early modern thinkers, who invariably saw their own proofs as capable of establishing God’s existence beyond all reasonable doubt – or even of demonstrating it. Indeed, some thinkers, like <a href="https://www.iep.utm.edu/locke/">John Locke</a> (1632-1704), took their proofs to be on a par with mathematical demonstrations, such that anyone who encountered the proofs could not fail to be convinced by them, so long as his or her rational faculties were intact. </p>
<h2>Opponents</h2>
<p>But perhaps the biggest difference between contemporary and early modern attempts to prove God’s existence lies in the source of the opposition to these proofs. Many of those who oppose efforts to prove God’s existence today are either atheists, who claim there is no God, or agnostics, who are neutral as to whether there is a God or not. Both atheists and agnostics have a vested interest in undermining proofs for the existence of God.</p>
<p>In the 17th and 18th centuries, however, atheists and agnostics were rare (some even say non-existent for much of that time), and those that were around tended not to be very vocal. </p>
<p>Yet this did not mean that proofs for God’s existence went unopposed. Early modern thinkers were trained in disputation and the practice of tackling objections to their own views. If there weren’t any real opponents to their views, then they were encouraged to invent them, and come up with objections that these imaginary opponents might make. </p>
<p>Some, like <a href="http://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/about-voltaire/about-voltaire">Voltaire</a> (1694-1778), got so carried away with this that they spent much more time considering objections to their proofs than they did outlining the proofs themselves. The whole point of the exercise was that theists could then refute all possible objections – and put their view on a firmer footing.</p>
<p>While such a practice may make good academic sense, it did have one unforeseen consequence. The sophisticated objections that early modern theists raised against their own proofs and those of their contemporaries ended up being adopted by later atheist thinkers, who developed and strengthened these objections in an effort to put atheism on a firm rational footing. </p>
<p>So, by concocting objections to their own proofs, early modern philosophers inadvertently helped to fuel the subsequent rise of atheism – by making it a more intellectually respectable position.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101746/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lloyd Strickland does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Following in the thoughtful footsteps of Descartes and Voltaire.Lloyd Strickland, Professor of Philosophy and Intellectual History, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/839122017-09-26T16:43:03Z2017-09-26T16:43:03ZDecolonising research methodology must include undoing its dirty history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186971/original/file-20170921-8202-1lo7g8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A statue of former Cape Colony governor Cecil Rhodes is removed from the University of Cape Town after student protests.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Nic Bothma</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Maori anthropologist Linda Tuhiwai Smith, in her seminal work <a href="https://nycstandswithstandingrock.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/linda-tuhiwai-smith-decolonizing-methodologies-research-and-indigenous-peoples.pdf">Decolonising Methodologies</a>, argues that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Re-search is a dirty word. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hyphenating “research” into “re-search” is very useful because it reveals what is involved, what it really means, and goes beyond the naive view of “research” as an innocent pursuit of knowledge. </p>
<p>It underscores the fact that “re-searching” involves the activity of undressing other people so as to see them naked. It is also a process of reducing some people to the level of micro-organism: putting them under a magnifying glass to peep into their private lives, secrets, taboos, thinking, and their sacred worlds. </p>
<p>Building on Smith’s work, my concern here is the context in which re-search methodology is designed and deployed. In particular, it concerns the relationship between methodology with power, the imperial/colonial project as well as the implications for those who happened to be the re-searched. </p>
<p>Broadly speaking, what is at issue is re-search as a terrain of pitting the interests of the “re-searcher” against those of the “re-searched.” The core concern is about how re-search is still steeped in the Euro-North America-centric worldview. Re-searching continues to give the “re-searcher” the power to define. The “re-searched” appear as <a href="https://nycstandswithstandingrock.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/linda-tuhiwai-smith-decolonizing-methodologies-research-and-indigenous-peoples.pdf">“specimens” rather than people</a>.</p>
<p>I define re-search methodology as a process of seeking to know the <em>“Other”</em> who becomes the object, rather than subject of re-search and what is means to be known by others. </p>
<p>That is why methodology needs to be decolonised. The process of its decolonisation is an ethical, ontological and political exercise rather than simply one of approach and ways of producing knowledge. </p>
<h2>Whose methodology is it anyway?</h2>
<p>When Europeans shifted from a God-centred society to secular thinking during the <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/enlightenment">Enlightenment period</a>, they inaugurated the science of “knowability”. God was no longer the only one who could understand the world. The rational human could too. </p>
<p>This idea is best captured in Rene Descartes’ famous dictum</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Cogito Ergo Sum (I Think, Therefore, I am).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This marks the emergence of the Cartesian philosophy of being and the Cartesian knowing subject: a human defined by her rationality. </p>
<p>Since then, the decolonial theorists have unmasked the person behind the “I” as not just any human being, but the European “Man”. Here was born the idea that “Man” stands for “Human” as well – the beginning of the shift towards the world being seen through a patriarchal lens.</p>
<p>It was during the “Voyages of discovery” that gave rise to colonialism, that European men began to encounter the <em>“Other”</em> and then assume the position of a “knower” and a “re-searcher” who was thirsty to know the <em>“Other”</em>, who emerged as the native Indian, as <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Shakespeare_s_Caliban.html?id=exkBp8aVlVIC&redir_esc=y">Shakespeare’s Caliban</a>, as the African, the Aborigines and the other natives. </p>
<p>The <em>Other</em> had to be re-searched to establish whether they were actually human or not. Here was born the methodology as a handmaiden of colonialism and imperialism.</p>
<h2>From ‘ethnographic’ to ‘biometric’ state</h2>
<p>In his book <a href="http://witspress.co.za/catalogue/define-and-rule/">Define and Rule</a>, Ugandan scholar Mahmood Mamdani argued that every colonial conqueror was preoccupied with the “native question”. This was about how a minority of white colonial conquerors were to rule over a majority of conquered black people. </p>
<p>To resolve the “native question” the conquered black “native” had to be known in minute detail by the white coloniser. Thus re-search became a critical part of the imperial-colonial project. The European anthropologist became an important re-searcher, producing ethnographic data and knowledge that was desperately needed by colonialism to deal with the nagging “native question”. </p>
<p>As a result of this desire to know the “native” for colonial administrative purposes the colonial state emerged as an “ethnographic state”, interested and involved in ‘re-searching’ the native so as to “define” and “rule” over the “native”. </p>
<p>It was under the “ethnographic state” that colonial ideologues such as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Babington-Macaulay-Baron-Macaulay">Thomas Babington Macaulay</a> in India, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/frederick-lugard-british-colonial-administrator-occupies-kano-west-africa">Lord Frederick Lugard</a> in West and East Africa, <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/cecil-john-rhodes">Cecil John Rhodes</a> in Southern Africa used this data to malevolent ends, both to invent the idea of the native and to control her. They assumed the status of experts on the colonised natives and produced treatise such as <a href="http://what-when-how.com/western-colonialism/dual-mandate-africa-western-colonialism/">The Dual Mandate in Africa</a> which assumed the status of modules on how to rule over “natives”. </p>
<p>Today, with the rise of “global terrorism,” drug-trafficking and the problem of migration, new forms of surveillance, and state control have emerged. Keith Breckenridge in his award winning <a href="http://wiser.wits.ac.za/content/biometric-state-global-politics-identification-and-surveillance-south-africa-1850-present">book </a> reflected on concepts of “biometric state” and “documentary state”. These use machines to extract, capture, and store information about all people, but particularly “Muslims” and “blacks”, whose ways of worship, living and actions do not fit into the European template.</p>
<p>What is the role of re-search in this and what methodologies are used in trying to know the <em>“Other”</em>, that is, the unwanted migrant and the feared Muslim. </p>
<h2>Unmasking, rebelling, re-positioning and recasting</h2>
<p>Decolonising methodology must begin with unmasking the modern world system and the global order as the broader context from which re-search and methodology are cascading and are influenced. It also means acknowledging and recognising its dirtiness.</p>
<p>Our present crisis is that we continued to use re-search methods that are not fundamentally different from before. The critique of methodology is interpreted as being anti-re-search itself. Fearing this label, we (modern scholars and intellectuals) have been responsible for forcing students to adhere religiously to existing ways of knowing and understanding the world.</p>
<p>No research proposal can pass without agreement on methodology. No thesis can pass without recognisable methodology. There is a mandatory demand: how did you go about getting to know what you have put together as your thesis? </p>
<p>Consequently, methodology has become the straitjacket that every new researcher has to wear if they are to discover knowledge. This blocks all attempts to know differently. It has become a disciplinary tool that makes it difficult for new knowledge to be discovered and generated. </p>
<p>In the knowledge domain those who try to exercise what the leading Argentinian semiotician and decolonial theorist Whater D. Mignolo termed <a href="http://waltermignolo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/epistemicdisobedience-2.pdf">“epistemic disobedience”</a> are disciplined into an existing methodology, in the process draining it of its profundity.</p>
<p>Decolonising methodology, therefore, entails unmasking its role and purpose in re-search. It also about rebelling against it; shifting the identity of its object so as to re-position those who have been objects of research into questioners, critics, theorists, knowers, and communicators. And, finally, it means recasting research into what Europe has done to humanity and nature rather than following Europe as a teacher to the rest of the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83912/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The process of decolonising research methodology is an ethical, ontological and political exercise rather than simply one of approach and ways of producing knowledge.Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Director of Scholarship at Change Management Unit at the Vice Chancellors' office; Professor and Head of Archie Mafeje Research Institute, University of South AfricaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.