The question I’m concerned with is how we’re thinking about our world and ultimate reality. Now, I realize that in trying to advance a position on how to think about racial injustice I’m playing a little inside baseball. It’s as if you went to a car dealership looking to purchase a new vehicle and the car salesman said, “well, first I think it’s important to ask ‘what is a car?’” You would obviously be annoyed (as would I). With that said, I think that before we buy a point of view, we ask how we arrived at that point of view.
This is why I am passionate about epistemology (lame hobby). How we know what we know matters. It matters more than we would care to think about. Most of us avoid these questions because they seem to lead us into the disposition of Albert Camus or Qohelet of Ecclesiastes wherein we reflect upon the absurdity of life and death. Why bother with how we know what we know? We need action. We’re Americans. Let’s just get something done and move on. Well let’s slow down there and consider some epistemology before we just decide to remake society.
A triperspectival approach to epistemology could help greatly in our current cultural climate. Let me explain. In the discipline of philosophy, triperspectivalism can be thought of with regards to three major schools of thought: the normative being rationalism, the existential being subjectivism, and the situational being empiricism. (James N. Anderson, “Presuppositionalism and Frame’s Epistemology,” in Speaking the Truth in Love: The Theology of John M. Frame, ed. John J. Hughes (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 2009), 441.) A core tenet of triperspectivalism is that each approach to knowledge is both legitimate and insufficient on its own. Meaning that each philosophical approach to knowledge brings a legitimate perspective on what is reality. And each perspective does not hold dominance or priority over the others. It is a disarming approach (and inevitably disappointing to those entrenched in a particular epistemic approach).
How would triperspectivalism help us think about racial injustice? Rationalism would teach me to examine the logical claims made regarding racial injustice and their cogency. We would be able to reason together with brutal honesty regarding the issues of injustice. We would be able to discuss the coherence or incoherence of various moral systems of thought which could provide justification for engagement or disengagement on these issues. This would give us key insights into ultimate reality (what is really going on). Empiricism would study the statistics and various legal and economic realities that can be quantified. There would be a thorough vetting of what should be studied and why. There should be quantitative analysis regarding police encounters and claims regarding injustice. There would be an interdisciplinary approach to which facts matter most. This approach would also give us key insights as to what is going on. Subjectivism would take into account the lived experience of people as a legitimate source of knowledge. Not all studied data points record the real lives of people. Hearing the cries of a community and listening to the actual experiences of people and how they interpret those experiences is a legitimate way to get closer to ultimate reality. All three taken together would create more holistic understanding of how and where racial injustice is a legitimate reality.
“...we currently live in an age of competing philosophies...”
Why does all this matter? Because we currently live in an age of competing philosophies (as well as narratives). Those who believe in rationalism believe that reason should trump feelings and lived experience. They want to have rational discussions about what makes the most sense. They appeal to data but more than data they appeal to worldviews and relentless logic as the key to solving problems. Relentless reason is the key in the rationalist mind to solving the problems of the world.
Those who believe in empiricism want to focus only on what can be studied and seen. These are the sciences, even the soft ones, who study data and information and process it accordingly. Empiricists pride themselves in just sticking to what the data shows. You have economists, sociologist, et al. These are people who make a living studying information such as outcomes and disparities.We should have a clear and uninhibited consideration of the data regarding racial injustice.
Then you have the subjectivists, those who care primarily about lived experience. Those who believe in social constructivism (knowledge is legitimate based on the social and relational context of the knower) tout lived experience as the key to true knowledge. If you have not lived the experience of a black person in America, it is suggested that you cannot know or have an opinion on their lived experience. This seems to be the loudest camp currently. They have their cheers down, camp colors sorted out nicely, and their camp counselors (cult leaders?) selling NYT bestsellers.
Now this camp seems to consists of those who champion both empiricism and subjectivism (a seemingly contradictory position). Let’s call it empirical subjectivism or intersectionality. Where the only knowledge you can have is from experience and the knowledge is infinitely malleable based on the subjectivity of the individual. The only sociologists and economists who are considered legitimate in this camp are those who agree with them a priori. This is why you’ll hear claims that ‘conservative’ commentators, sociologists, and economists who are black are not real representations of the black experience and should not be listened to. So we have this false dilemma being presented wherein rationalism is being pit against empirical subjectivism.
Two things are in order. First, someone needs to show empirical subjectivism their logical incoherence (yes, the rational perspective needs to rain on their parade). These are not bedfellows. Subjectivists should embrace their subjectivism. Empiricists should retake their social studies without cowering to the subjectivists. The modern tendency to make a particular angle of triperspectivalism the primary starting point will only lead to more chaos and philosophical subservience. Yet, this is exactly what has happened. Subjectivism, as opined in radical postmodernism and more acutely in critical race theory, has claimed king of the hill. Empiricism conceded their ascension. Rationalism is still holding out. Second, all three perspectives need to be appreciated as legitimate sources of knowledge. Until then, it will just be cats and dogs. The rationalists will keep appealing to reason and logic. The subjectivists will keep appealing to personal experience. The empiricists will be cowering in the corner just waiting to see who wins.
If this can happen, if we can appreciate all three perspectives as legitimate sources of inquiry philosophically, then we can actually have conversations where we point out some potential problems regarding racial injustice (and maybe even in our thinking about racial injustice). If this cannot happen, we will invariably drift into tribalism and not listen to one another. We won’t know the language the other is speaking and we will therefore not actually hear one another. We will just feel like we are yelling into the void. Which is how most of us feel anyways. See, I told you we’d end up feeling like Camus.