In this post I want to discuss some phenomena in terms of how ideas are presented. I want to talk about how certain arguments are misleading because they are presented as a factive expression.
A factive expression is an expression that encapulates a proposition and presents the underlying proposition as factive, i.e. is the truth. Examples of factive expressions are 'inform', 'explain'. So 'x informs y that p' implies that p is a fact, that it is a true proposition. If someone explains to me that q, then I'd assume that q is true.
One underlying issue is that factive expressions seem to imply that the agent has knowledge. So for x to inform y that p seems imply that x knows that p, and then we might think the truth of p comes from the factivity of knowledge. We know that knowledge is a complicated topic, and that we doubt in many instances that we actually have knowledge. For example when we making claims about the external world, that I have hands, this seems to rely on an assumption that we aren't dreaming or in some kind of matrix. We cannot entirely eliminate this possibility and it still seems we can make knowledge assertions, but we shoudl just have this possibility in the back of our mind.
Explain is often used when discussing mathematical facts. For example I might explain to my friend how there are infinitely many primes owing to a certain proof. Yet even here we must make some implicit assumptions about infinity and what a prime is. We seem to even require assumptions about proof and logic. This doesn't make mathematics redundant. It is just important that mathematicians have an underlying awareness of this. That what they view as the truth seems to require certain assumptions about the world.
Where it seems to get messy is when we discuss social sciences or the humanities. The thing we need to emphasise is the status of what backs our views if we wish to use factive expressions concerning them. In philosophy it is important to emphasise that when expressing a view, it is just that, a way of viewing the world. Just like mathematics it requires many underlying assumptions. It might certainly be the best way of explaining certain phenomena, but we should be rather careful in assuming it to be a fact. There's a certain instability of these views in its subjectivity, compared to physical facts which we might think to be close to the truth (but still requiring assumptions that the external world exists).
Certainly we thank these academics for their views, as they offer valuable insight for us to consider. Yet we should remember that these are still views. Our choice to express these phenomena in a factive way should be because we see the underlying assumptions as justified relative to our context, not because we have certainty that the expression is truthful.
So the reason I made this post was because I saw this video online titled: These Asian and Asian American actors explain why it's important — and long overdue — for the media to reflect reality
Now let me say that I partially agree. There are certainly arguments, that I see to be of some value as to why this thesis is correct. Yet to use the factive expression of explain i find to be largely misleading. It implies that what they have said is the truth, that it's very much a fact. I mentioned that in ordinary cases of mathematics, we can express theorems such as 'there are infinitely many primes' without having to invoke our assumptions about set theory, logic, number theory. I think that is somewhat acceptable for two reasons:
1) Mathematicians on the whole seem to be aware that the truth of such claims rely on background assumptions in set theory and logic.
2) Initial set of assumptions for proof are often explicitly stated (and we demand a proof for the claim), for example defining a prime number.
The video's claim lacks these two properties. Firstly, I think it's quite likely that most people who would read such a title lack an awareness that the claim relies on a number of assumptions about race, media and so on. Secondly, the assumptions are not stated here. Thus in this context, it seems unjust to use factive expressions. Because it misleads people to genuinely think that the statement is a fact. If you want to 'explain' what someone else has said, that's fine. If you want to explain a 'theory' of media representation, that's also okay. Yet using explain without reminding the reader of subjectivity, when dealing with subjective theories I find unacceptable. Even if your theory is convincing, it discourages critical thinking since factive expressions invite comprehension as opposed to evaluation.
I do understand why they do it. It's because by expressing it as a fact you can mislead people into thinking that somehow these guys have accessed the truth. It invites everyone just to listen and follow what they've said, because you can't deny facts. This way we can achieve our political agenda. I find this incredibly dishonest however, and bad in the long run. If your theories are good and convincing, you don't need to cover them up as facts to get your point across and make an impact. I find these representation argument's actually quite interesting but presenting them as facts just makes me want to deny them.
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