Epistemic Conflict
by Randy Ingermanson
Advanced Fiction Writing
Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that tries to explain what it means to know things, and how we know that we know what we know.
If that seems dull or
weird or spacey to you, then I refer you to your favorite search engine
to run a search on the term “fake news.” Fake news is false information
packaged up to look like true news. And that’s a hot topic right now.
Fake news is a failure in epistemology.
So I claim that epistemology matters in real life. If so, then it also matters in fiction.
I won’t be looking at fake
news in this column. I have bigger fish to fry. Instead, I’ll be
looking at something I call “epistemic conflict.” This will take some
effort to unpack. Work with me for the next thousand words, and I think
you’ll find it worth the trouble. You can use this technique forever in
your fiction, and you’ll never run out of ideas.
Why Conflict Matters
Every novelist cares about
conflict, because conflict is the gasoline in the engine of fiction.
Conflict makes your story go. You need conflict, and one powerful way to
create conflict is through a misunderstanding between your characters.
And that’s where
“epistemic conflict” comes into play. “Epistemic conflict” is one very
basic way to create a deep misunderstanding that will get your
characters fighting like rabid dogs.
But before I explain “epistemic conflict,” I need another term, which is “epistemic status.” And what is that?
Epistemic Status
People say stuff all the time.
Some of it’s true; some is false; some is neither. But it would be
naive to think that all statements can be classified as either a “fact”
or a “lie.” Because a lot depends on what people believe about the truth or falsity of the things they say.
So when I talk about the “epistemic status” of a statement, I’m thinking of two questions:
- Does the person who made the statement believe it’s true, or false, or neither?
- How certain are they in that belief?
Both of these matter.
These two issues raise all sorts of interesting complications. Here are
some examples of the many kinds of epistemic status that a statement can
have:
-
Facts are things you believe because you have
first-hand evidence, and therefore you can know them with high
certainty. For example, it’s a fact that the sky was blue outside my
house yesterday at noon. I saw the sky. It was blue. The only way this
fact could be wrong is if my eyes weren’t functioning correctly.
-
Mathematical theorems are things you believe because
you can prove them using logic, and therefore you can know them with
high certainty. For example, I know the Pythagorean Theorem is true,
because I have worked through the proof. The only way this theorem could
be wrong is if my brain isn’t functioning correctly.
-
Scientific findings summarize the results of
experiments. A scientist considers a scientific finding to be
provisionally true, based on the current data. A scientific experiment
should always estimate the certainty of the result. Note that scientific
findings sometimes change when more data comes in.
-
Mathematical conjectures are guesses about potentially
true theorems. Mathematicians consider them “not proven,” but they often
have reason to think they might be true or might be false. Math happens
when a mathematician tries to prove or disprove a conjecture. For a
famous example of a conjecture, do a search on the term “Goldbach’s
conjecture.”
-
Scientific hypotheses are guesses about potential
scientific findings. Scientists may suspect a hypothesis is true, or
suspect it’s false, but they don’t know, and they know that they don’t
know. As a very famous example, when I was a graduate student in
physics, the Higgs boson was widely hypothesized to explain major parts
of physics. But nobody had ever seen one in the lab. The Higgs boson was
a hypothesis for 48 years, until it finally was detected in the lab.
Then it became a scientific finding.
-
Faith statements are statements that people of faith
make about their religious beliefs, even when they know that no proof is
possible. Generally, they don’t assign a level of certainty, because
faith is not about certainty. As an example, one of the Thirteen
Principles of Maimonides, the great Jewish philosopher, was, “I believe
with perfect faith in the resurrection of the dead.” Believing this is
an act of faith, not a claim of certainty. If anyone knew it with
certainty, it would not be a faith statement, it would be a fact or a
theorem.
-
Opinions are things you believe to be more likely true
than not. In some cases, the opinion holder may be very certain their
opinion is correct, but the reality is that the correctness of opinions
usually can’t be known with high certainty.
-
Allegations are claims that somebody has made without
providing evidence to back them up. Allegations are an interesting case
because the person making the allegation usually claims a high level of
certainty. But the person hearing the allegation can’t have that same
level of certainty until they see the evidence. One thing they can know
with high certainty is that the allegation was made. That makes
allegations newsworthy, even when they can't be checked. Responsible
journalists make it clear that they are allegations, NOT facts. They
also look for ways to check them.
-
Lies are statements that you don’t believe and you know
to be false. The point of a lie is to convince other people that a
false statement is true. Fake news is an example of a lie.
-
April Fool’s jokes are a special case. They’re not the
truth, but they’re also not a lie. When you tell an April Fool’s joke,
you believe with certainty it’s false, but truth or falsehood is not the
point. The point of an April Fool’s joke is to say something obviously
false in a way that’s funny because it’s absurd.
-
Satire is another special case. Satire is not intended
to be either the truth or a lie. It’s intended to make people think by
saying something you don’t believe in a way that highlights some
important truth. A famous example is the essay, “A Modest Proposal,” by
Jonathan Swift, published in 1729. Swift proposed that poor Irish
families could sell their children to be eaten by the rich. This was not
a real policy proposal, and probably few people ever thought it was.
But it was not a lie, either, nor was it a joke. It was satire, and it
made people think about their assumptions.
That’s not a complete list
of all possible epistemic statuses. You can probably think of several
more. But these are enough to now explain what “epistemic conflict” is.
The Payoff—Epistemic Conflict
So what do I mean by “epistemic conflict?”
“Epistemic conflict” is the special kind of conflict that happens between characters when they assign different epistemic statuses to a statement.
In the real-life case of a
“fake news” story, some people claim that the story has the epistemic
status of a “Fact,” while others claim that it has the epistemic status
of a “Lie.”
But there are many ways to have epistemic conflict. Let’s look at a few possible examples that could arise in your fiction:
Example 1: Your character
writes an April Fool’s Day blog post that they think is hilariously
funny. But then they discover that hundreds or thousands of people
mistook it for a fact, and now there’s trouble.
Example 2: Your character
posts a tweet that is intended to be satire. But satire requires
context, and people who don’t know the context think your character’s
tweet sounds racist. It goes viral and now millions of people are angry
at your character, because they mistook satire for an actual opinion.
Example 3: Two characters
express conflicting political opinions, but each of them mistakes their
own opinions as facts, and mistakes the other’s opinion as a lie.
Example 4: Two scientists
publish their scientific findings, but they get opposite results. The
scientists know that all scientific knowledge is provisional, and they
see the conflict in their findings as something interesting to pursue.
But a journalist mistakes these findings as facts, and writes a story
claiming there is a “crisis” in the scientists’ field of study.
Homework:
- Here’s a challenge for you. Spend one whole day figuring out the
epistemic status of everything you say or hear. You’ll probably have to
define some new epistemic statuses, because the list of 11 that I gave
isn’t the whole alligator. I suspect you’ll find this exercise
exhausting but enlightening. At the end of the day, your reward is that
you get to think about how to use all this in your fiction.
About The Author
Randy Ingermanson
is a theoretical physicist and the award-winning author of six novels.
He has taught at numerous writing conferences over the years and
publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine.
