Pandemic Ph.D. Preparedness or, I Don’t Know Things

The primary yr of my Ph.D. was carried out completely on-line and was one thing of a blur. This was punctuated by my first expertise with West Coast wildfire smoke, tons of solo walks across the College of Washington’s stunning Seattle campus (that by no means concerned truly venturing into any buildings) and ultimately, the vaccines that at one time appeared like they may usher in a brand new regular. I waver between desirous to overlook a lot of that yr—because it seems, shifting just a few thousand miles away from almost everybody you understand at a time during which gathering with new acquaintances exterior of Zoom is disallowed is usually a bit alienating—and ruminating on it, significantly on these features of it that helped me see ahead and outward. I owe a part of this to the dedication and chronic curiosity of my undergraduate college students, however my very own coursework additionally saved me centered in a time when it was simple to be something however.

Two programs specifically stand out to me on this respect: a seminar on feminist ethics, and one on Iris Marion Younger’s political philosophy, taught (respectively) by Sara Goering and Carina Fourie. There’s lots I may say in regards to the content material of those programs, as each impressed novel turns in my very own analysis program, and about their fantastic instructors (each of whom, I’d add, are distinctive advisors as nicely). What I wish to concentrate on is much less a few explicit textual content or particular person than it’s in regards to the epistemic or mental habits that these programs inspired. By means of these programs I discovered a brand new appreciation for unanswered questions, or questions whose “solutions” consist solely of additional questions.

I’m not a Hegel scholar, nor am I a dedicated Socratic, however I’ve grown to understand a willingness to answer questions with “both-and but in addition neither-nor.” Or, although being terse and generally feels dangerous: “I don’t know.” I typically fear that my unwillingness to decide to a single reply to some questions is a personality flaw, however I feel there’s one thing truly fairly precious in that admission of—even dedication to—not realizing.

Some questions undoubtedly name for unambiguous solutions; as as to whether violence and injustice are unhealthy, I’d have a tough time justifying any reply aside from a powerful “sure.” The 2 lessons talked about above helped me develop extra snug with holding sturdy convictions about, say, the wrongfulness of injustice, whereas nonetheless recognizing that some questions will stay tough to reply, and even unanswered altogether. Every class, to some extent, included dialogue in regards to the nature of particular person accountability for structural injustice (and, consequently, particular person accountability for ameliorating it). There are, in my opinion, some clear-cut claims to be made in conversations like these; it doesn’t appear controversial to say, as an illustration, that people have an obligation to work towards dismantling structural boundaries, even ones which have traditionally benefitted them, that make others’ lives tougher. However what this motion, this work, appears like is far more tough to parse, and each seminars allowed us to take a seat with and on this problem. Fairly than utilizing it as a cause to keep away from or shut down conversations, I feel there’s a robust case to be made for generally embracing ambivalence, for being keen to take dangers—philosophical and in any other case—armed with the information that the pursuit could also be, in line with normal measures, fruitless. We would find yourself again at sq. one, we’d erase paragraphs’ value of writing upon realizing that it’d by no means prepare itself right into a coherent essay, and we’d, consequently, discover ourselves staring down an unimaginable variety of potentialities for the way we’d use our work to make the world make extra sense, if solely to ourselves. To cite that meme of a cartoon canine carrying a hat sitting in a burning room: that is positive.

Not realizing has been some of the fixed options of this pandemic Ph.D. That first yr, choices about distant instruction had been made on a quarterly foundation, so it felt like there was fairly a little bit of breath-holding, of questioning once we’d be capable of discuss our respective lack of understanding face-to-face. This not realizing utilized on a broader degree, as we needed to cope with not realizing a lot—or, a minimum of, typically not sufficient—in regards to the virus. Even nonetheless, each epidemiologically and from a incapacity and persistent sickness research perspective, there are such a lot of questions that stay unanswered in regards to the long-term effects of the continuing pandemic by advantage of the truth that actuality—that which is to be identified—is going on in, nicely, real-time.

Not realizing is frightening, significantly in these issues of life-and-death. I’ve grown extra snug in my non-knowledge by contemplating it in mild of Cynthia Townley’s “Toward a Revaluation of Ignorance.” Not realizing is, in a fairly literal sense, the inspiration of realizing. Neither can actually exist with out the opposite. Perhaps this betrays some epistemophilic impulse that I don’t truly want to endorse, however I’ve discovered to deal with my ignorance (in many alternative respects) by viewing it not as an immutable lack, however as a basis upon which one thing else—be it information, curiosity, justice, hope, or one thing else completely—may be constructed.

As a result of I’m a thinker, I really feel obligated to deal with the obvious potential flaw on this logic: doesn’t not realizing damage generally? Can’t or not it’s violent, just like the “militant, aggressive” white ignorance that Mills critiques? Won’t realizing be fairly energetic and pernicious, moderately than reflecting a passive state of latent or potential information? I feel that the reply to those questions is definitely “sure,” however I feel that their issues may be eased partially by viewing real curiosity, and motion towards satisfying it, as our foremost epistemic obligations. There may be reconciliation, that’s, between desirous to know or in search of information, and recognizing that one’s information won’t ever be full, or completed. I’m not claiming that curiosity alone will rectify injustice, however merely that it’s certainly one of many epistemic virtues these of us who’re involved about injustice and our personal relationship to it must domesticate.