Solano Psychotherapy Associates

How do we know what we know?  Consider an argument between two people, each of whom knows the other is wrong.  For example, take a common argument I hear some version of in my business:   She knows he is avoiding emotional contact with her and that he doesn’t want to listen; while he knows she wont give him a moment’s peace and that if he did listen that would mean tacit agreement in which there would be no room for his view.   There can be many interpersonal dynamics behind such an argument but regardless of what they are, each person holds a piece of the truth the other is not seeing or accepting. 

It would not help such a couple for either partner to give up on his or her own view of the problem, just as it hurts the couple for either to insist on his or her view.   If She gave up on her view, the couple would live in an emotional isolation that would preclude them from working through any emotional or interpersonal differences.  If he gave up on his view, the couple would not be able to tolerate personal differences, there would be no personal autonomy within the couple, and they would have difficulty functioning independently.  I think the same can be said about scientific, political, religious, or philosophical arguments because in most cases both sides hold a piece of the truth that must be considered for the argument to be resolved.

How does it happen for one person to gravitate toward one view, while another person gravitates toward another?   I think this gets back to what our individual experience has been that result in what we “know” and “don’t know.”  It’s on the basis of what we know, the knowledge we have collected from earlier experiences, that we understand the world we see.   However, if we understand a new phenomena only in terms of past experience then we learn nothing, it is simply more of the same of what we have already known.   Piaget, a French learning theorist and infant researcher in the 1950’s, demonstrated that people have to “accommodate” to new information in order to learn.  That is, one has to change his or her relationship to what he has already known, to learn something new.   Rigidity in either direction has its problems:  If we are never certain of what we know, we become “air-heads” with no usable knowledge.  If we are always certain of what we know, we become boring “know-it-alls” with no room to learn anything new.  I believe it is the ability to move between “knowing” and “not knowing” that helps us develop wisdom, strength, and grace in our relationships.  I hope this has been useful for you to read.