Does a serious new theory need a sophisticated name?

Comparing two approaches to humble knowledge

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

I mentioned the book Metamodernism, by Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm, in a previous post to highlight his idea of applying the tools of critical theory back on the theory itself. Josephson-Storm builds with this to develop a rich array of concepts across a range of topic areas. As befits a self-identified theorist in a clear academic tradition, Josephson-Storm coins or adopts new terminology for many of his ideas. Thus his books advocates for, among other things, metarealism, a process social ontology, social kinds, hylosemiotics and Zetetic abduction. Don't feel like you should know what these terms mean, even though some of the ideas would be familiar.

I found the book insightful and very sympathetic to what I have been exploring here, although it often isn’t an easy read. Nevertheless, his approach has got me reflecting on my work. In stark contrast to Josephson-Storm, I have shied away from coining or providing specific terminology for the concepts and theories I have been building.

One reason for this approach is that I am, unlike Josephson-Storm, deliberately not writing for an academic audience. Another is that the common academic reliance on obscure terminology and jargon is unhelpful and can obscure as much as illuminate. However, given that I have been explicitly trying to build a new epistemology, this theory might be more easily recognised if it had a more precise name (or brand) beyond being an “epistemology based on humility and limits”.¹ While I often use the term epistemic humility, this can be confusing as it tends to be categorised as a virtue rather than a principle or a theory.

An academic theorist arguing for humility

Josephson-Storm's views on knowledge provide an elegant case study and counter-point to my approach here at Humble Knowledge. The substance of his views on knowledge are, on most major points, the same as my epistemology based on humility and limits. He argues that:

At the outset, we can, and even need to, overcome positive dogmatism and epistemic overconfidence by doubting the certainty of various claims to certain knowledge. This turns out to be easy, as certitude is quite simply an impossibly high bar.²

And that:

Absolutely certain knowledge is impossible. Everything can be doubted. So we must grant the possibility of uncertain knowledge. Many skepticisms can be avoided if we become skeptical of the presumed link between knowledge and unshakable conviction.³

In other words, we need to be humble about what we can know and recognise our limits. Even then our knowledge will be uncertain or defeasible. After building this case, Josephson-Storm then draws on a couple of other thinkers to “revive an archaic English world” that borrows from an Ancient Greek concept: Zeteticism. As he explains it:

Zeteticism represents a humility toward knowledge. At a deep level, as a Zetetic, I recognize that I can know things but that there is always the possibility that I may be wrong.⁴

Josephson-Storm gets to this position by applying traditional and postmodern skepticism towards skeptical arguments about knowledge, built around the insight that a thorough going epistemic skepticism - asserting that we can know nothing - is based on considerable epistemic certainty, at least about that one claim.

However, to make Zeteticism productive and describe what it means to know things when we aren't certain, Josephson-Storm explores the type of reasoning known as abduction. Abductive reasoning (as contrasted to inductive and deductive reasoning) is often described as inference to the best explanation, and detective stories are a common example of how it works.

A detective formulates various theories about what could have happened and takes the one that explains all the evidence coherently to be true - although later evidence may turn out to overturn it. For Josephson-Storm, abduction both provides a structure by which we can intuitively understand what uncertainty in knowledge is like and how it works, and also an approach to systematically pursue knowledge.

Zeteticism fused with abduction can help us ascertain where to better apply skepticisms and how to formulate generalizations. Further, unlike other forms of reasoning, abductive inferences exhibit emergent certainty, since both accumulating evidence and excluding alternate hypotheses make abductive generalizations more robust.⁵

Again, this approach contrasts more in style than substance with my work. While I may have only mentioned the term abduction once, the concept of abduction underpins much of my work. The following select quotes are all from one post and clearly outline an abductive process of reasoning, even though I avoided using the term.

When things are murky, we inevitably construct different theories to try to explain the situation and look to decide between them..... To get to knowledge, we have to decide or judge that the theory is true. To do this, we compare the theory with the parts of reality it is trying to describe or explain...... We accept that a theory is true, and therefore that we know it, if it stands up as a whole to our testing as an accurate description and prediction of reality.

Very often the best we can do is to accept one theory over another as it is the best fit based on the current evidence. Where a theory is clearly a better fit to reality over any competitors, we will then decide (with justification) it is true and therefore accept it as knowledge.

To name, or not to name

So both Josephson-Storm and I have, independently, arrived at very similar accounts of knowledge. Our method of building and explaining our accounts, however, contrast markedly. Josephson-Storm describes his approach variously as metamodern Zeteticism fused with abduction or Zetetic abduction. I have tried to avoid coining new terms and academic terminology and tend to call my approach an account of knowledge built on humility and limits.

I think his approach risks burying valuable ideas behind difficult to parse academic jargon. On the other hand, my approach risks people missing an interesting new theory as it looks like only a set of useful observations. Put differently, because the theory hasn't been explicitly named, it might not be taken to be a distinct new thing. I am therefore very interested in reader thoughts about whether my approach needs a name and whether Zeteticism is the right one.

For context, I should explain why I have consciously avoided coining a term so far. The most obvious reason is that I'm trying to write for a general audience and want to reduce language barriers. I've also tried to write each post so that it doesn't need any background - and introducing new terms would make that difficult.

I do have a deeper concern. My reaction to a term like Zeteticism is that it makes it feel like an exclusive, special approach to knowledge that only some people adopt or achieve. So, perhaps, you take a Zetetic approach but I might prefer a coherentist or statistico-scientific approach. But this apparent element of choice undermines the scope of the argument that I've been trying to make.

That is, no matter what we think or tell ourselves, all everyday, normal knowledge is (somewhat) uncertain and we build it by making guesses or theories about how the world works then testing them. My account is not meant to be a new approach to knowledge but explains what we all already do - except when we are trying to be philosophical or theoretically sophisticated. In other words, being humble about knowledge is not a choice but an accurate description of our human reality.

In summary, despite the core similarities in our ideas, Josephson-Storm and I approach the task of building a theory and explaining it very differently. Our agreement is hopefully a sign there is substance behind an understanding of knowledge based on humility. For Josephson-Storm:

While we will never reach complete certainty, Zetetic abduction thus demonstrates that intellectual progress is possible and shows us how we might work to achieve humble knowledge.⁶

My final question for readers is whether my approach could be more effectively communicated or explained. Comments are welcome, and I always value critique more than agreement.

1. As I described it in What we can know about knowledge

2. Josephson-Storm, J. A., Metamodernism : The Future of Theory, The University of Chicago Press, 2021. p.215

3. Metamodernism, p. 216

4. Metamodernism, p. 217

5. Metamodernism, p. 235

6. Ibid.