Click here for a larger image of the comic strip.
Language:
Consider the word play used in the comic strip. What does it say about the value of language as a way of knowing? Does this flexibility and malleability of language help or hinder our efforts to acquire knowledge? (Take special note of the second definition given for "malleability.")
Open-mindedness:
Consider the final frame/punchline of the comic strip, and reflect back on the readings from the beginning of the year: J.S. Mill, "On the Liberty of Thought and Discussion;" Plato's Allegory of the Cave from The Republic; and Edmundson, "On the Uses of Liberal Education...." What would be the response of any or all of those authors to the comic strip? Taking into consideration their comments, what is your reaction to Opus' comment in the final frame of the comic strip?
9 comments:
sry about the first comment i was checking if it really worked. so about the langauge topic.
i think that it can help and hinder depending. it really just depends on if you have any backround info on the subject, like if you had no idea who chenny was or anything about the harry potter books you would not under stand the joke or the story. leaving you in the dark.
but if you did have the backround knowlegde which i hope most of you do i think tat it would and you would get the joke and maybe even the more backround on how the author feels about the subkect. but you never know maybe i wrong but that what i think.
I think that language as a way of knowing may be both harmful and advantageous at the same time. As shown in the comic strip, there are so many expressions within the english language that don't parellel with logic, however it is accepted for what it is, simply because the expression becomes innate, in a form. For example, no one thinks twice about using the term "mistletoe" for "astranaut feet."
However, I feel that the problem of the use of language for a way of knowing occurs within cultural differences or those who are learning a new language. For language learners, idiomatic expressions do not come naturally, and therefore they may not understand why atheltes feet is called atheletes feet and astronaut feet isn't called mistletoe.
just a thought...
Language is really just a means of communicating. Though the way you communicate something may be important, the real importance is in what is being communicated.
You could consider how open-minded you are to be like a doorway. The more open-minded you are, the more different opinions and information can fit into it. Someone who is more closed-minded would have a smaller doorway, where less opinons and information could get through. For this cartoon to be funny, I think you have to have a certain level of open-mindedness, however, you must also have some background knowledge of what they are talking about.
SQUID.
This reminds me of george carlin's stand up when he basicaly picks apart the english language. I think language is one of the greatest ways of knowing, even if our language is greatly confusing. I think being open minded is very important, but you cant be too open minded or "people keep putting things in there" or whatever the comic strip says.
QUAID!
Spellcheck is your friend Nick.
As this comic illustrated, language is not a very reliable way of knowing. For example: words without necessarily negative definitions can have negative connotations. One example is the word "occult" is associated with Satanism and things of that nature, but it really only means "hidden".
This reminds me of a few other of the Enmglish language's idosyncracies:
Why are the biggest trucks called semis?
Why are apartments so close together?
Why do people drive on parkways, and park on driveways?
Anyway, on to knowledge issues...
This acutally reminds me a lt of some of the work I've been doing researching opinion surveys. If someone has an open mind at all times, can they really form opinions? Also, are their opinions meaningful if they are constantly open to change?
I think being open minded can be a good thing, because like J.S. Mill said, we can learn more about the truth by comparing it to things that may be false. However, you shouldn't necessarily keep an open mind and believe that anything has an equal chance of being true.
You should never blindly accept new ideas under the guise of being "open-minded". You should be critically evaluating new ideas, preferably without bias, and then deciding which ones are worth adopting. If you have good justification for an idea being incorrect, you probably should not adopt that idea.
One of the odd things about being open-minded is that it can acutally be closed-minded. Some people who subscribe to the "what's true for me is true for me, what's true for you is true for you" theory of truth use it as a way to avoid having to compare the validity of your opinion and the validity of their opinion. This acutally goes against the "liberty of thought annd discussion".
Julian your mean!
Language is so unreliable sometimes. like two people could be sitting down having a conversation and totally misunderstand what the other person is talking about becasuse so many things in our lanugage have dual meanings. The way you say somethng, like your voice and intonations also affects the meaning of things you say. Sometimes i think language is a barrier the seperates us from knowing who someone really is. Like people in the US continually discriminate against people who dont know our language like thats the sole thing that will make them one of "us". I think expression and actions are more important than language because we can all understand and relate to them.
Language:
The way words are used in the comic strip I think is a kind of satire on how our society changes the definition or makes new words to fulfill our needs. For example, every generation seems to have a need to make up new words to describe things that we already have words for and often times they make no sense. The way that language can be manipulated (and people use it to be manipulating) shows that language definitely has its problems and things to watch out for when used as a way of knowing. But this is true for all of the ways of knowing... just like sense perception. We can't really know what we are seeing, hearing, feeling, etc. because it could be a dream. Just as the language could be decieving us. But that flexibility of language can also be helpful in our understanding because it allows us to talk around certain things or to reword and explain things if someone doesn't understand. I think that the same things that can be helpful can also be a hinderance in acquiring knowledge.
Open-mindedness:
I'm not really sure what I'm thinking about this one... how can you really measure how much of an "open mind" a person has? You really can't, it's entirely up to the person. I would think the authors would promote having an open mind, but then again we would be following them... so are we really having an open mind? It's like a never ending circle, no matter what you do, you have to follow or start with something. No one can have a completely open mind I don't think, because then you would have nothing of substance to hold on to. I think trying to have an open mind is a good thought, but I think it's more important to determine your beliefs and then examine your life and change things when you feel needed. But you have to have something to start with, something to believe in first.
Post a Comment