Mastodawn

Mallory's Musings & Mischief Sep 15, 2025

I feel like the theme of the 2020s is epistemology.

For those who aren't aware, epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of knowledge, as in,

- What does it mean to say you "know" something?
- What does it mean for something to be "truth"?
- What is "real"? How do you "know" that?
- What is the difference between "belief" and "knowledge"?
- What's the best way to go about finding more of this "knowledge" stuff, whatever it is?
- What are the limits of knowledge?

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Jeff Clough

@malcircuit All of this thread.

I recognize that there's no *one* solution to this thinking, but I can't help but believe that exposing people to pragma-dialectics earlier in their education could go a long way.

So many of the "facts and logic/do your own research" crowd lack the basic understanding of how actual, productive argumentation works, it's... what's the long, German word for hilarious but also profoundly disappointing?