Just as all good families are quite similar and bad families are often uniquely different, there’s basically one correct epistemology and a whole lot of incorrect ones.
Originally, I used this mostly for literary effect, but now that I think about it, it seems quite appropriate.
There are numerous largely superficial factors to families—size, composition, socioeconomic status, and so forth. It seems to me there are criteria that really, systematically matter, that have to do with how people respect one another, the degree to which people accept conflict, the extent to which no family member is, for want of a better term, belligerently insane. Similarly, one can have a fairly rational epistemology and end up with many superficially different beliefs—both in the sense of values and likelihood estimates. One does need some systematic components, like a general avoidance of reliance on evidence-less faith, and a lack of major beliefs based on wishful thinking (among many other things). Similarly, one belligerently insane belief can destroy the rationality of a whole system, just as a sufficiently difficult family member can. On the other hand, one can have crazy family members and still have a generally functional family, just as one may have some irrational beliefs without it necessarily destroying their entire epistemology.
I certainly don’t mean to imply good families are inherently the same in terms of, say, gender composition, extended vs. nuclear, etc., and I did not intent to suggest they were. As it is though, I think the analogy holds up well.
That’s a pretty risky analogy.
It’s the famous first line of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina:
Originally, I used this mostly for literary effect, but now that I think about it, it seems quite appropriate.
There are numerous largely superficial factors to families—size, composition, socioeconomic status, and so forth. It seems to me there are criteria that really, systematically matter, that have to do with how people respect one another, the degree to which people accept conflict, the extent to which no family member is, for want of a better term, belligerently insane. Similarly, one can have a fairly rational epistemology and end up with many superficially different beliefs—both in the sense of values and likelihood estimates. One does need some systematic components, like a general avoidance of reliance on evidence-less faith, and a lack of major beliefs based on wishful thinking (among many other things). Similarly, one belligerently insane belief can destroy the rationality of a whole system, just as a sufficiently difficult family member can. On the other hand, one can have crazy family members and still have a generally functional family, just as one may have some irrational beliefs without it necessarily destroying their entire epistemology.
I certainly don’t mean to imply good families are inherently the same in terms of, say, gender composition, extended vs. nuclear, etc., and I did not intent to suggest they were. As it is though, I think the analogy holds up well.