Coworker (and philosopher) 1: Oh, shit, here comes Burt, the new guy, I hate assholes like him. Let’s get out of here.
Coworker (and philosopher) 2: Wait, I thought you were a scientific empiricist?
One’s Epistemology could be looked at as positing the best kind of relationship with the other.
Whatever one does that one Thinks leads to knowing the other would be the Foundation (or?) of the most real and therefore (?) the best relationship.
If one Thinks that trying to be objective - removing one’s subjective self -, not forming conclusions in advance, testing hypotheses via repetition and Control of variables (or a better formulation of what I assume you know what I mean) is the best way to get knowledge, then it would seem to be the best Foundation for any relationship.
In my Little dialogue above the second coworker is not criticizing the conclusion. He happens to know that Coworker 1, who is also a crack poker player, reads people very well, and when he gets a bad vibe it usuallly turns out to be a correct assessment. He just wondered why this was OK epistemology, given that when they have discussions of philosophy or religion and other more abstract, general discussions of knowledge, number 1 is an empiricist and a rigorous one.
What concerns might make him approach things differently in situ?
Do our tempermental preferences for how we relate to others affect our epistemology?
Or does it work the other way?
Or is there a disconnect?
Or is the Word ‘relation’ be brought in in some confused way into epistemological issues?
(yet it does seem like a relationship, and further that truth, in knowledge of the other, would be critical to having a good relationship)
In situ, people have a right to be emotional because their body is in the equation and is directly reacting to the environment. To not be emotional, depending on the situation, may put one’s physical or psychological health at risk.
When they aren’t directly in the equation, then it’s easier and a right of passage to be objective and detached.
I get that.
But can one know something when one is detached, is that how we know eachother?
Why do we consider one method the only valid one, but in other situations, use other methods?
One need not be threatened, we may simply prefer.
Emotion and empathy is like vision. It’s a source of information that can be right or wrong, often needs to be referred to, occasionally ignored altogether.
Sure, though, what I meant in my Little zen tale + commentary is that one can be very good at these things. All methodologies are fallible.
And further, we act in the World using these other methodologies, even vote using them. IOW not simply waxing philosophical, but make decisions that affect people in real tangible ways.
Those we a couple of the ideas I raised in the OP.
We can be good that other methodologies.
Those we judge as not real methodologies - at least in discussions of empiricism - we use IRL with real consequences.