A Philosophical Happy Hour on the role of semiotics in consensus and community.
Across many fields, industries, and academia, it has become a popular claim that we must “build consensus”. The Harvard Law Program on Negotiation states: “Consensus building is a process involving a good-faith effort to meet the interests of all stakeholders and seek a unanimous agreement”, while the U.S. Government’s Office of Personnel Management says that it is not about a unanimous agreement, but rather, “coming to an agreement that everyone ‘can live with.’” I find myself deeply amused by this lack of consensus about consensus building. But what is consensus, really—and what are the implications of its pursuit, and the reality of its claimed importance?
The perceived importance of “consensus building” has increased correlative to the pluralistic divergence of our society. But more often than not, it seems, the causes of such pluralistic divergence receive too little attention. The presupposition of individualism—a common topic here at the Lyceum—places society in a default condition of fragmentation. From such a framework, consensus is something made rather than something discovered.
The Constructivist Background to Consensus
Psychological theories of the 20th century exert heavy influence on these presuppositions. Most especially, one can find traces of Jean Piaget‘s constructivism—hinted at, even, by the names (“constructivism” and “consensus building”). The core idea of constructivism is that learning is active, rather than passive, and meaning is constructed, rather than received or discovered. Thus, it holds everyone creates his or her own knowledge; knowledge is essentially private. This creation unfolds in a social context, however. As such, tensions between the individual and the community inform the development of knowledge.
It is worth noting that Piaget’s theory gained resonance throughout the latter half of the 20th century, correlative to the rise in globalism and the diversification of Western populations. An external pressure to accommodate differences doubtless influenced its widespread adoption. Nevertheless, the subjectivism at its root has resulted in unreconciled social tensions. Any consensus built on the back of a constructivist theory, therefore, can aim only at coordinating essentially diverse minds. Such consensus is artificial: the product of human creation.
The Semiotic Community of Inquiry
But is the idea of consensus necessarily artificial? Throughout his life, the semiotician Charles Sanders Peirce insisted upon the importance of the communal conduct of inquiry. At the heart of this communal inquiry we find an essential humility: namely, that the knowledge possessed by any one person is always incomplete. This incompleteness concerns not only the whole of knowledge, but even any part of knowledge. In other words, anything you or I may know about any object does not and cannot exhaust what there is to know about that object. There is always more. Not only this: we may always discover that what we held to be true, even with good reason, somehow misses the mark.
Given this essential incompleteness, and the possibility of being wrong (what Peirce termed fallibilism), we can actually see consensus as important. Unlike the constructivist approach, however, a semiotic consensus consists not in artificial agreement. Rather, if we recognize that knowledge is 1) public and 2) received through signs, we may find that the objects themselves are the basis of our agreement. By communal inquiry, we can aid one another in discovering the truth about these objects.
It is doubtless true that we have diverse and often conflicting opinions. Whether we treat these conflicts as obstacles overcome by the truth or by contract makes no small difference.
Unveiling Consensus
To be sure, the semiotic approach—which relies upon a willing community of inquirers—has many challenges. The constructivist approach possesses an immediate expediency, at least today. But does it come with a long-term cost? To help us navigate these difficulties, let us propose the following questions:
- What role does individualism play in the process of consensus building, and how does it contribute to societal fragmentation?
- How has Jean Piaget’s constructivism influenced our understanding of consensus? In what ways does this theory shape our approach to knowledge creation and learning across different industries or institutions?
- What are the potential drawbacks of a consensus built on constructivist theory? Why might this lead to “artificial” consensus?
- How does Charles Sanders Peirce’s idea of the “semiotic community of inquiry” offer a different perspective on consensus? What fruits do you see in this approach?
- How does the concept of “fallibilism” influence our understanding of consensus and the pursuit of knowledge?
Philosophical Happy Hour
« »
Come join us for drinks (adult or otherwise) and a meaningful conversation. Open to the public! Held every Wednesday from 5:45–7:15pm ET.
No responses yet