The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth

As a conservative I have long been concerned about the illiberalality of many to my political left. But this book gives me hope: here’s at least one honest thinker on the left who is willing to stand up and call out people with whom he might agree politically for their regressive, reactionary epistemologies.And guess what? We might have a couple of Mr. Rauch’s named bad actors, Fox News and Donald Trump, to thank for it.The Geneva Accords on the conduct of warfare are self-enforcing. Nations and armies at war respect them—not because there’s some divine agency monitoring their conduct—but because all sides in a conflict are prepared to conduct reprisals against violators. Hitler didn’t avoid using poison gas against the Western Allies out of the goodness of his heart (six million gassed Jews are unavailable for comment); he didn’t use poison gas because the Americans and British had stockpiles of poison gas and delivery systems in theatre ready to go if the German military crossed that line.For each of Mr. Rauch’s examples of Donald Trump’s casual respect for truth, I can counter with an example of a Democrat politician’s lies. (E.g., Hillary Clinton’s claim that the attack on our consulate in Benghazi was caused by a YouTube video.) For each of his examples of Fox News reporting sensationalized but not-well-fact-checked stories that pander to those of us on the right, I can counter with an example of a “mainstream” outlet pushing a story that panders to my friends on the left. (Recall that “fake but accurate” was how the New York Times described the forged memos claiming George W. Bush tried to avoid Vietnam service.) And for each example of Donald Trump using the Federal bureaucracy against his political opponents, I can counter with examples from his predecessor’s presidency. (Anyone recall Lois Lerner trying to explain why the IRS was denying and slow-walking tax exempt status for Tea Party organizations?)So Mr. Rauch, welcome to my world. I regret that my side of the political aisle has been forced to implement the information warfare equivalent of Geneva Convention physical warfare reprisals to motivate leftist thinkers like you to call for a return to the principles and practices of the Constitution of Knowledge. Frankly, I voted for Donald Trump not because I thought he was a good man, but “because he fights”.But even as late as you are to the party, again I say “welcome” and “well stated”. You have convinced me to shift my personal charitable donations from a Wikipedia competitor to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.I hope your book signals the beginning of the breaking of the delirium fever of self-righteous closed epistemology that I’ve seen on the left for too many decades.But I can’t resist asking two questions: (1) Since publication more facts have come out tending to confirm the hypothesis that COVID-19 was developed in a laboratory; want to revisit your casual dismissal of that as a conspiracy theory? And (2) perhaps in your next edition you might examine the phenomenon of scientists and policy makers falling back on statements like “the science is settled” and “a consensus of scientists exists” on the severity of the ‘existential’ threat of anthropogenic global warming and the necessity of drastic government interference with economic freedom?

Full of great info and much food for thought. For example ...I've been rereading "The Constitution of Knowledge" by Jonathan Rauch and the word going through my head today is "evidence." I don't want to misrepresent Rauch, so I won't claim the following ideas are his, but I think they are in line with his thinking.So for the moment let's forget about truth and talk about evidence as a basis for thought and action and the claims we want to make. Let's say you boil a pan of water on your stove and stick your finger into it. Ouch! It instantly hurts and it will turn red and hurt for days to come because you have cooked off your skin. So a rough test — call it "every-day science" or just common sense — is that if people all over the world do the same thing they will get the same result. So you have millions of tests that show boiling water harms human skin. Nobody does it without ill effects. There is no contrary evidence. Cooked fingers = hard evidence. (This test has already been done all over the world — by accident, of course!)What is soft evidence? The pyramids in Egypt. They are evidence of a belief in an afterlife that requires mummified bodies to come back to life and take a journey into the sky to be reunited with the Egyptian pantheon of deities. This is soft evidence (and we may want to put "evidence" in quotes) because every other religion has a different story about deities and how to reach them. Religious claims are notorious for having a whole host of counterclaims popping up to oppose them. There is no consensus on what counts as evidence, and this diminishes the power of any claims we might want to make about our otherworldly beliefs.So what constitutes knowledge? Claims with reams of hard evidence are better than those with reams of counterexamples. You will note that I have not referenced truth. It's a tricky and troublesome word. It causes all sorts of battles. It would be better to say, "the evidence favors ..." this or that claim be it about cooked fingers, pyramids, evolution, the Big Bang or stolen elections.Arguments about truth are mostly emotional battles, which we really don't need to engage in, if we simply tie our claims to the evidence, right? So soft skin is hard evidence and solid blocks of massive stone are soft evidence: What a crazy world!

This book is a roadmap out of the hyper-partisan quagmire that threatens to undo western civilization.

This book is important to be read by everyone, but j can’t express its importance for the anti-WOKE. There is hope. It’s small but it’s there. Sort of. But it’ll make sense.

In this book, Rauch describes the process by which knowledge at the social level is generated. He praises what he calls liberal science, or the reality-based community, outlining some principles that make it possible. He then goes on to discus recent threats to this system, largely made possible by social media, primarily disinformation from the right and cancel culture from the left, and proposes some ways forward.It is an interesting and timely book. In the early 2020’s there seems to be a lack of understanding and appreciation of the process whereby discussions can be evidence-based. This essay does a fair job at explaining some of the principles that underly this process, and how historically this mode of discourse became better understood and developed as well as more central to society. It also describes some of the tendencies that are challenging the societal centrality of the evidence-based discourse, arguing why its demise would be very damaging.While the book is commendable for bringing attention to an important issue, it has some important pitfalls. Chief among them is a marked pro-establishment bias. The failings of mainstream institutions are not afforded adequate attention (aside from the chapter on cancel culture, where it is noted that it has infected some mainstream institutions, particularly universities). The analysis of knowledge formation is also problematic, since Rauch adopts the view that truth is socially constructed (although it should be constructed following some particular principles), which easily leads to epistemic relativism.The book starts by pointing out the many cognitive biases humans are subjected to, specially highlighting what we could call cognitive tribalism (the tendency to agree with a group we identify as members of, disregarding what the evidence might indicate). Rauch then describes how, starting mainly during the Enlightenment, a set of principles was identified which allowed a reality-based community to emerge. This advance in the epistemic realm is linked to the development of political liberalism, which promoted individual rights and toleration, with John Locke being highlighted as a central figure in both fronts.Rauch posits that knowledge production is only possible if two rules are followed: i) no lone has the final say ii) there is no personal authority. There are also ten necessary commitments (falibilism, objectivity, exclusivity, disconfirmation, accountability, pluralism, civility, professionalism, institutionalism, no bullshitting/learning) as well as habits and norms like lawfulness, truthfulness, self-restraint and forbearance. These are the core elements of the Constitution of Knowledge.For Rauch, the reality-based community includes science, but also other areas like journalism, law or government agencies, so long as they (mostly) adhere to the principles of the Constitution of knowledge.The chapter on canceling rightly describes a clear threat to a reality-based society, but it is not particularly novel (Rauch, however, was rather prescient in this topic in his “Kindly Inquisitors” in 1995), and can feel somewhat disconnected from the previous discussion in the book.The chapter on ways forward is rather optimistic and rightly points out how a relatively small organized effort from the moderate majority can create a great change when an intolerant minority is imposing its ways. However, it almost exclusively focuses on the problem of cancel culture, leaving aside other threats to a reality-based conversation, which in my view boil down to lack of appreciation of its importance (fortunately, this book is itself one step in the right direction).In summary, this book considers a key issue in Western Culture at the beginning of the XXI century, and contains some very valid points and useful discussions. While it misses some important elements (chiefly more thorough discussion of the perils of ossified or corrupt institutions) and gets some things wrong (like endorsing a rather problematic view of the truth), it nevertheless can promote an important conversation, and its therefore a valuable book.Pro-stablishment bias in the book: There are many throughout the book, bout I will highlight here just two. About how “reality pushed back” and journalists become more reality-based “They made a point of contextualizing information whose sources might be inauthentic or suspicious, explaining at the top of stories-like ones about material found on a hard drive allegedly belonging to Joe Biden’s son-where information came from and why it might by dicey.” (p. 187). However, it now seems clear that this was a case when mainstream media suppressed a true story for partisan reasons, completely removed from a reality-based discussion.“Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, fought tooth and nail to resist White House efforts to shade the truth about the COVID-19 pandemic.” (p. 241). It now seems clear that Fauci at the very least equivocated on the topic of gain of function research funding and on the usefulness of masks.

A fantastic manifesto for free speech, free inquiry and the infrastructure of the “reality-based community “.Rauch provides a fiery and compelling attack on the twins dangers of Trump/MAGA troll epistemology from the right and cancel culture from the left.Rauch doesn’t shy away from the reality of how powerful and threatening these forms of epistemic warfare are. We can’t be complacent. But this is an optimistic and hopeful book.

Jonathan Rauch writes beautifully and takes a clear stance: Liberal science and the networks and institutions that are a precondition to the Constitution of Knowledge are under attack by ideologues who deny the existence of objectivity and sometimes even reality. He describes the problem and encourages us all to defend Truth - and he shows us how to go about it. It’s one of the best books I ever read.