Diving Bell Essay

In consideration of the book and film, The Diving Bell and The Butterfly as well as your own life, to what extent can we distinguish between knowing as an individual and knowing as a community? How much of one's knowledge depends on interaction with other knowers?


I think it can be difficult to distinguish between what we know as an individual and what we know as a community. There are some things that I feel like can be clear. An example is Knowledge by acquaintance. It is something that is known by you, and not the community. You can determine how someone is feeling by how the act, and from prior knowledge of their actions. Knowledge by description however can be a bit fuzzy to determine. You can know that something does something, which can be knowledge as a community member. But you can also know that something feels a certain way, which would be knowledge as an individual. I also believe that a large, if not most of peoples knowledge Is based off of their interactions with others. This may lead them to obtain knowledge as a individual or as a community member.

There are many strengths and limitations to knowing as an individual vs. knowing as a community. Knowing as an individual is a more personal experience that cannot necessarily be expressed to other people. It is impossible to explain to other people the feelings that you feel. You can know that you love someone, but you cannot explain to them how it makes you feel. Also you can know how something tastes, but you cannot describe it to someone with out stating another type of taste to describe it. Example “This chicken taste salty.” There is no possibly way to fully explain what salty taste like. Also knowing as an individual you are able to obtain knowledge by your own beliefs and perceptions. Knowing as an individual can be strong because your views and beliefs are not affected by the popularity of the community. Making it so you are able to be your own self. When you know as a community though, knowledge is more accepted by what the majority of the people have come to accept as reality. For example, if one person sees a purple monkey in the room, but the other 20 people in the room do not see it then as a community it is accepted as not being there. However, for that one person they themselves know that there is a purple monkey in the back of the room. Knowledge as a community can be a good thing though. It can help to establish similar believed truths, like the sky is blue. However there can be some serious problems with knowing as a community. For example, the slave trade. The majority of the people who lived in the countries who purchased slaves believed that these people were inferior. This majority of the people ‘knowing’ that Africans were inferior lead to the slave trade being accepted as an ok thing, even though it was very inhumane. I think that Bauby would agree that both are important. He would feel like it is very important to know as an individual. This is what gives him his butterfly. All of the knowledge that he knows is able to set him free when he is stuck in the hospital bed. His feelings and emotions toward certain things create such strong images that he can almost escape from the reality that he is now in. He must also feel that knowing as a community is important, especially for his condition. Since the all of the doctors have the agreeable knowledge on his condition they are able to care for him. If they all did not know as a community of doctors about locked in syndrome they may not have known what to do to help Bauby. Or they could have had many different views on how to handle it. However, knowing about it as a community lead to them to be able to help him.

I do not think there is anyway to gain knowledge by description or acquaintance without any type of interaction with others. Knowledge by Description is when you know that something is something. Abel describes it as ‘knowing that’, but you also need to be connected to what ever you know, you must have seen it, or have some type of interaction with it. For example, you can know that the sky is blue or you can know that someone loves you. I think it is impossible to gain this type of with out some type of human interaction. To be able to know that someone loves you, you need to first feel that emotion. Also I do not think that you can know the sky is blue without being taught what blue is or what the sky is. I also do not think that knowledge by Acquaintance can be gained with interaction with others. Knowledge by acquaintance is described as ‘raw feels’ by able. What this means is that you can know someone from interacting with them. You can tell what type of mood they are in when they walk into the room or by little things they do. This knowledge can certainly not be obtained without interaction between other people. If you were to never interact with another person you would not be able to ‘know’ them. Bauby would most likely agree with this view. He would feel that his interaction with others is the most important thing with his condition. For example, whenever his butterfly is traveling back to things from his past, he is using knowledge of description. He is remembering interactions he had with people. He is remembering things that he knows that exist. Also he would agree to the fact that in order to obtain knowledge by acquaintance. Even though his interaction with people has become very limited he cannot gain any type of knowledge by acquaintance with out some type of interaction with these people.

In gaining knowledge one of the most powerful ways we justify our knowledge claims is reasoning both by induction and deduction. I think this is most powerful because when people hear, see, smell, touch, or taste something they are more apt to feel stronger about what they know. For instance if you are to eat a carrot you know what it is. If you were to be blindfolded and handed a carrot and told to eat it you would know that what you are eating is a carrot. People also seem to believe what they experience and feel that they are able to justify it easier. Also when people use deduction, using logic to create reason, they are able to explain to people how they came across the knowledge they have. I think that Bauby would agree with this. Throughout his book when he is describing all of the emotions and feelings he has gone through. However I feel that for him his memory is the most powerful way to express his knowledge. He is only able to communicate through blinking his eye and his whole book is based off of his memory of his experiences and things from his past. Even his butterfly. When his mind is traveling to events from the passed it is all based off of memories that he has seen and or experienced from the passed. With out any sense of memory he would not have any way to express himself, his experiences, and way to ‘travel back in time’. His memory is the best way for him to justify his knowledge.