Sense and Sensibility

Robert L. Fielding

That greatest of all teachers, Plato, scholar of Socrates, talks to his own student, Glaucon, of the power we possess to go beyond the senses to reason that which we cannot feel, see, hear or touch.

Before you read the dialogue, think about the answers to the ten questions below. Think about the nature of discovery.
Do we have to believe something is there before we go out and look for it?

1. Do you believe everything you see?
2. If not, why not?
3. Are there some things you can’t see?
4. What kind of things are they?
5. How has mankind managed to discover things he cannot see with his own eyes?
6. What is knowledge?
7. How is knowledge related to the truth?
8. Why do we prize knowledge?
9. Is there a difference between knowledge and information?
10. Are there still things left to discover?

Dialogue

Plato: Do you think we can see all there is to be seen, even if our eyesight is perfect?

Glaucon: Most definitely not. As often, we see what we are looking for or assume is there, and finding it confirms to us its presence.

P: Then much of what is cannot be seen by us, or if it is seen, does not register always with us as being real.

G: What have you in mind?

P: What about the wind – can we see that?

G: Yes, I think so.

P: If we can see it, of what does it consist?

G: Of air only. Yes, I see what you mean. We can only see the result of the wind – the trees bending in the wind and water whipped up in storms, but we cannot see what caused it?

P: Then can we feel it?

G: I should say we could.

P: Are you sure, or do you think that all we feel is its result?

G: Surely the essence of the wind is its result – trees bending, and clothes flapping about our ears – that is the wind, isn’t it?

P: I am not sure that our learned meteorologists would agree with you.

G: What would they have to say? They have only eyes and ears, the same as the rest of us.

P: But they surely have something more than us laymen – they have the knowledge of the wind, they have an understanding of what causes air to become unsettled so that we are compelled, when our hats blow off, to give it a name; wind.

G: And what is this knowledge they have that you or I do not have?

P: They have the understanding of the underlying cause of wind – they know why it blows, rather than merely that it blows or what effects it has when it blows. Those last two are given to us, through our sight, through our senses – the wind blows and trees bend – we can see it, so we mistake seeing for knowing.

The meteorologist, on the other hand, draws upon his knowledge of atmospheric pressures and how columns of air behave over land and over sea, and over hot land and cooler sea, and over cooler land and warmer sea. He understands the movements that are caused by this differential between heated air and cooled air, and from that knowledge, he can say things like, ‘If you are standing in the Northern hemisphere, and you have your back to the wind, the low pressure area is to your left.’

G: He can say all that just by feeling the wind at his back?

P: Just so. What do you feel when the wind is at your back?

G: Probably only that we will have rain before long.

P: And where does that knowledge come from?

G: Well, first of all, I do not know it is knowledge in the way you appear to be using the word, applied to meteorology, but I suppose that it comes from observation – that I usually observe that when the wind comes from a particular direction – say over that hill, yonder, that rain is not far away.

P: So you would say that your observation is based upon sight – upon your senses, at any rate?

G: Yes, I would, but there is surely something more involved.

P: What might that be?

G: That it is what our senses tell us as well as what we deduce from what our senses tell us.

P: What would you term this ‘something else’?

G: In part it is our memory, for without memory, how would we recall the steps to rain falling.

P: Yes, I will grant you that. Is there anything else?

G: Our power to reason too, though only slightly do we have to reason in this case; cause being followed so closely by effect; we deduce that there is a causal relationship.

P: It would be difficult to ignore it, would it not? But what of the causes the meteorologist defines in his observation of the wind at his back and the low pressure on his left in the Northern hemisphere. What of that? That can hardly be observed, and yet he is aware of it just as surely as he is that the wind is at his back.

G: I marvel at this kind of knowledge, based, not at all upon what can be sensed, but on something else – a working knowledge of how the very Earth spins in space and how the air is disposed about the Earth’s surface while it is spinning.

P: So you see now, or rather, you now understand, are aware of, shall I say, a kind of knowledge that is based, not purely upon the senses, but upon our powers to reason and suppose.

G: It is surely something connected with the imagination too, is it not, for if man can imagine, can suppose, he can check empirically that his suppositions are correct or be made to realize that they are wrong.

P: And he can learn from other sources than his senses, can he not?
Extract taken from www.rlfielding.com
Robert L. Fielding

Hi, my name's Rob Fielding. I teach academic writing at a university in he Middle East. Find my books, blogs and stuff on my website www.rlfielding.com
Thanks
Rob

Editors and agents - like everyone else - have their likes and dislikes, their enthusiasms and their prejudices. Some of these are longstanding, whilst some are fads. MiseryLit, for example. Or in the chicklit genre, any recent novel with the word ‘Wedding’ or ‘Shop’ in the title.

Apparently editors Don’t Like Books About The Media right now. Which is a bit of a bummer, since that’s my background and the background against which my novel is set. I’d read that so-called ‘glamorous’ settings appealed to readers. Only, it seems, if you’re writing about those who appear in front of the camera rather than working behind it. Same with the music business. Which is another bummer, as two of my characters are a musician and his manager. Oh, and writing. Yes - you guessed it: I have two writers in my book!

So, dear readers, I have compiled a list of ten Forbidden Subjects which I’ve heard, from various sources, it’s best to Avoid Writing About if you want to get an agent/be published. Please add a pinch - or a cellarful - of salt as required.



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