I should also note that while there are things about Kierkegaard I like, overall I don’t care for him. Presumably because of how high he privileges the subjective. I think any account has to blend the two parts.

Now when folks say “I know” they are undoubtedly engaged in a linguistic practice that does not pierce through to the knowledge that one claims, nor does it express at all the nature of the experience to another. However, it opens a way to share the experience indirectly. So “I know” is translatable into “I have had an experience in which my heart was pierced with a knowing so profound that it changes me in a dynamic and living relationship of knowing.” (I agree with Clark about the living and dynamic part of the knowledge claimed)

When Kierkegaard claims that truth is subjectivity, I believe this is the kind of truth that he claims. One doesn’t know (this kind of truth) by looking outwardly in an objective manner; rather, one looks inward to one’s own heart in a passionate openness to learn, to know and in so doing to overcome the phenomena/noumena distinction because one exists in the noumenal realm. Kierkegaard was a very consistent Kantian in the way that I and many Kierkegaard scholars read him.

The person claiming to know in this sense doesn’t claim some objective God’s eye point of view on truth, nor a truth that is removed from one’s own being and existence, but a truth that reveals itself to the individual existing in passionate inwardness alone.

The original point was more to get at the distinction between regular epistemology of objective truth as correspondence versus existential “epistemology” where truth is subjective. While I know Kierkegaard about as well as I know Wittgenstein he is famous for saying, “Truth is subjectivity.” This goes back to Pascal who makes the distinction between intellectual and existential truth – and privileged the latter.

Now I certainly agree we should have both. And I don’t want to go in the direction of say Nietzsche or certain interpreters of William James and say that whether a judgement is wrong doesn’t matter. That what matters is how helpful for life the judgement is. That is to reduce truth to utility. I think that simply wrong.

Having said that though the existentialist view of truth sees truth as wrapped up in values. The existential truth grows and not only in itself but in terms of the person who holds it. Thus truth, existentially, is very much wrapped up in an experience of holding the truth and finding it growing. Truth and faith are thus wrapped together in the existential consideration rather than the focus being on truth and correspondence or “adequate measurement.” Thus faith brings out a kind of transcendence in which the truth is able to grow.

An other way of looking at it is to say that an existential truth grows like a living thing. To ask if something is true is to ask if it is alive. To ask the epistemological question of truth is simply a whole other kind of question. That’s not to say that in interrogating a situation in terms of existentialist truth we can’t also raise epistemological questions. But fundamentally I think the issues are different. One is about commitment of the individual through faith whereas for epistemological issues one can have an intellectual judgment without having any commitment at all.

Now some thinkers end up merging the two traditions. (I think Nietzsche heads that way, Heidegger definitely does seeing epistemological truth as grounded by something more akin to an existentialist truth, Peirce does as well) But fundamentally there is a move such that to speak epistemological truth is to adopt an uncommitted and unengaged “distance” from the phenomena. Values are repressed. We adopt a “God’s eye view” (meaning of course the idealization of God found among the classic Greek thinkers) whereas for existentialism it is all about engagement and bringing close. They are two polar opposite movements in a sense.

I think that when you push what I was saying further, it becomes what you are saying. Ultimately the language game of saying “I know” is about a certain form of commitment to Christ, the Church, a particular way of life, etc. The “I know” part rubs people the wrong way because they are not used to it.

This goes both ways. I felt very uncomfortable attending an evangelical church service because of the need to stand, raise one’s arms, shout, and say “Amen!” a lot. Yet, the evangelicals there seemed to really get something out of it, it was their language game for expressing commitment to Christ and community. Good for them, it’s just not for me.

Perhaps each community needs a distinct way of expressing commitment, its own unique language game to set it apart. One of ours is “I know”

Blake,

I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I am not DKL.

Hopefully the preceding helped clarify my thoughts. “I know x” is our unique way of saying that God exists, that he speaks and answers prayers, that one has been called by this God to be in the Mormon community, that the Mormon community is the kingdom established by God and so forth. It’s a practice unique to Mormon testimony meetings. After all you don’t go around saying “I know that my lunch is tasty. I know that my lunch consists of a turkey sandwich” you say “My lunch is tasty and consists of a turkey sandwich.” (Well, maybe you do, I have never met you, but I don’t). Other faith communities have unique language games which for them say the same things. Each tribe has it’s own way of expressing universal concepts, but each tribe necessarily says it in a different way.

As I read DKL still, I read him to say that we don’t have knowledge at all, we only have certain linguistic practices that are unique to one community or tribe or another. But that isn’t knowledge really either in the sense I believe that church members use it. Church members aren’t claiming to know in the sense that they know how to properly use the syntax and grammar peculiar to their tribe or religious community; rather, they are claiming to know something that entails matters of fact as well. They are claiming to have a personal basis for knowing e.g., that God exists, that he speaks and answers prayers, that one has been called by this God to be in the Mormon community, that the Mormon community is the kingdom established by God and so forth. While “kingdom of God” certainly has a peculiar meaning within a tribal use, the claim of knowledge doesn’t seem to me to be limited to merely claiming that one’s own tribal usage is a useful or accurate for the tribe. Now maybe you’re saying that that’s the best that we can do based on the authority of Wittgenstein. Those who claim to know are claiming that we can do much better. Frankly, if that is all that there is to testimony, I’m not interested at all.

For Wittgenstein language games and rule following are foundational to being human. In a large sense it’s how one learns meaning and values, by playing the game and following the rules. That’s what I see going on in most testimony meetings, not contentless drivel, but teaching and learning.

Also, the testimony meeting really only has meaning for those who know how the game is played. That’s why evangelicals consider it boring pap, they play their language game differently. That’s also why it would take some doing for me to appreciate a pentecostal service, an evangelical church meeting, or a catholic mass, I am not immersed in the language games they play.

I do agree that for many it’s just a contentless language game. (I’m not sure how you use it is how Wittgenstein meant it though) Eventually as you play the game you sometimes find out what it is about though. (Which is what I think Wittgenstein meant by game – although I’m anything but well read on Wittgenstein)