Page 134 - Smart Thinking: Skills for Critical Understanding and Writing, 2nd Ed

PLANNING AND CREATING YOUR REASONING 12 1

The key analytical questions

Context: analysing the external dimensions of
reasoning
Throughout this book, we have seen how context is all-important in determining
many of our judgments about effective reasoning. When planning and creating
(and then presenting) an argument or explanation, the particular context in which
this reasoning occurs must be actively considered. The nature of context—a mass
of implied or assumed knowledge and expectations—makes it impossible for us to
develop precise guidelines for its consideration. Instead, we must explore the three-
way relationship between the person or people creating reasoning (the author), the
people receiving this reasoning (the audience), and the knowledge that this
reasoning uses and develops.
Reasoning is about the use, expression, and formation of knowledge, and
involves innumerable judgments about the 'truth' of claims and the 'truth' of the
way they link to one another in various reasoned ways. Knowledge does not exist
objectively in the world (literally in the 'objects' that claims represent). Rather it is
created intersubjectively, that is, between people such as authors and their audi-
1
ences (known, technically, as 'subjects'). Knowledge (consisting of claims and their
relationships) does have an objective element, since it represents, in another form,
the actual reality of objects. However, the medium of that representation—the
form in which knowledge is expressed—is language, which (unfortunately,
perhaps) is not a perfectly representational medium. Whenever we write or talk
about things ('objects'), we add to or subtract from their essential nature through
the particular choice of words we use. Hence claims, and all knowledge built from
those claims, are always something more or less than what 'really' happens.
All humans share a common reality and appear, through the words they use
(when properly translated), to have a common language to discuss and think about
it. But remember that language consists not only of the descriptive or denotative
characteristic of words but also of their connotative function (the way in which they
carry implied meanings). These connotations ensure that we cannot assume that
knowledge always and perfectly matches up to reality. Knowledge will always be
constrained by and, in part, created from the words in which it is expressed.
Moreover, the implied values and assumed knowledge that make words meaningful
exist through the interactions of people—the authors and audiences of reasoning.
That is why knowledge is intersubjective. Moreover, it is not simply a question of
thinking about individuals: who 'we' are as subjects depends very much on the
culture and society in which we grow up and, indeed, the knowledge that we
already possess. Hence, whenever we think about ourselves as authors of reasoning
or about our potential audiences, we are thinking about cultural and social assump-
tions and expectations about knowledge and reasoning.
The aim here is not to gain a detailed understanding of the philosophical
arguments for or against objective or intersubjective knowledge; it is to understand