Introduction

Introduction:Unknowability in Psychology and Social Science William Hirst (bio) as nicholas humphrey nicely documents in his erudite essay in this volume, the notion that there is much that is unknowable about humanity has been around for a long time. Of course, people know a great deal about human nature just by observing it. Even infants know implicitly that they will fall off a visual cliff if they crawl a few more feet. Moreover, by the time they are six years old, they can articulate this information. The past 100 to 150 years of scientific psychological study have increased the body of knowledge, adding significantly to what the layperson knows—and, in some instances, correcting this knowledge. Experimental psychologists now know much more about human behavior and cognition than they did at the turn of the last century. They can identify the neurons that light up when exposed to a red color chip, and they can describe in some detail the mechanisms involved in color perception. Psychological models, as well as neurological ones, cover a wide range of topics, from decisionmaking to sensory perception, remembering to operant conditioning. Given this scientific progress, one might expect a level of resistance to the claims of unknowability animating the writers Humphrey quotes. At the very least, there might be some hesitancy about the validity of the claims. However, as the three essays in this section [End Page 153] of the conference on unknowability make clear, many aspects of human behavior and cognition will remain unknowable—not just now but forever. The challenge for anyone considering unknowability is not to state what is unknown at present. A great deal is currently unknown about human behavior and cognition. Rather, the challenge is to outline what one will never know, no matter how much progress is made. Prognostication is, of course, always a risky affair, but one can stake out principles upon which to make claims about unknowability. The three authors do just this. They each adopt a distinctive perspective. Fiske is concerned with what one can never know about one's self and the factors that might mediate such knowledge—or lack of knowledge; Humphrey struggles with the parameters of what one person can know about another person; and McGoey explores how what I call social frames limit what one can know. WHAT ONE CAN KNOW ABOUT ONE'S SELF Fiske introduces his readers to kama muta, a Sanskrit term for the social emotion that people might feel when they fall in love or when a cat curls up on their lap. Although Fiske has studied this emotion scientifically, he admits that people may not realize that disparate instances of kama muta can be captured by a single, distinct emotion, just as a term like anger can embrace quite disparate emotional experiences. People may not have learned the concept kama muta, and as a result, they may have no label to apply to the emotions they are feeling. Moreover, even if they have the concept, they may not in some instances be aware that they are experiencing kama muta when it occurs. After all, people will often claim not to be angry with someone when they manifestly are. Fiske argues that the same might hold for kama muta. When, Fiske asks, can one claim to know—or not know—about something as fundamental to the human experience as an emotion such as kama muta? In his essay, he relates the various ways emotions can manifest themselves with the variety of different forms of memory people have—some of which are explicit; others, implicit. [End Page 154] Science may study the neurobiology and psychological characteristics of kama muta, and people may experience it, he suggests, but they may not semantically conceptualize it or be able to mnemonically represent it. In this way, it might be said to be unknowable. WHAT ONE KNOWS ABOUT OTHERS Humphrey is concerned not solely with what one might know about one's self, but also what one knows about others. Specifically, how do I know that the red I see is the same red you see? The question gets at many of the daunting concerns any consideration of consciousness engenders. People

Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Cognitive science · Experimental psychology · Humanity · Layperson · Perception · Subconscious · Complex Systems and Decision Making · Psychology · Social Psychology