IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sek/iacpro/2704055.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Orwell's 1984 and the Dangers of Constructing the World

Author

Listed:
  • Paul Kingsley

    (University of Liverpool / Laureate Online Education)

Abstract

Educational constructivists maintain that knowledge is constructed by students as they learn. Sometimes this involves a weakening of the epistemological claim that knowledge involves discovering facts about an independent reality. In the terminology of Immanuel Kant, we are claimed to have access to phenomena or appearances, but not to things in themselves. This approach is closely linked to Husserl?s belief that objects must be ?for? some consciousness, and the early Wittgenstein?s view that the self is not part of the world. All of these views place a great deal of emphasis on the notion of a disembodied consciousness that somehow constructs the world it perceives. They tend to weaken our belief in an independent world about which we can have objective knowledge. Is this a mere philosophical quibble of no practical importance? Does it really matter?George Orwell, in his novel, 1984, introduces his unlikely hero, Winston Smith. He asks the question, ?If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable what then?? Smith?s tormentor, O?Brien, eventually supplies the answer. ?But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, and in any case soon perishes: only in the mind of the Party, which is collective and immortal. Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party.? In short, the state engages in fabrications which are an extreme form of knowledge construction. Just once, Smith held in his hand absolute proof that the state had lied. He comes to see this mind-independent evidential challenge as the most radical kind of threat to a totalitarian state. Orwell outlines a situation where the distinction between constructing and discovering knowledge does matter. If important issues are at stake, we must take the greatest care before making claims that our knowledge is constructed. I shall argue that Kant, Husserl, and Wittgenstein conducted thought experiments with flawed research designs.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Kingsley, 2015. "Orwell's 1984 and the Dangers of Constructing the World," Proceedings of International Academic Conferences 2704055, International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences.
  • Handle: RePEc:sek:iacpro:2704055
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://iises.net/proceedings/18th-international-academic-conference-london/table-of-content/detail?cid=27&iid=064&rid=4055
    File Function: First version, 2015
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    constructivism; Orwell; 1984; Kant; non Glasersfeld; truth; realism; Husserl; Peirce; Ingarden;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I29 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Other

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sek:iacpro:2704055. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klara Cermakova (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://iises.net/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.