THE AMERICAN ENGLISH EXPRESS Chapter 3 page 3

THE PROVING PROCESS

Think of a situation when you had to prove something to someone. Once again, this could be any situation in your personal, professional or academic life.

A typical situation that students often bring up in class is when a young adult must prove to his or her parents that he or she can support him or herself and live on his or her own. The parents would likely want to see some ‘proof’ of their child’s ability to be responsible for him or herself even before allowing their son or daughter to move out. The parents would likely discuss this with their child and agree on what would demonstrate his or her ability to care for his or herself.

What would the young adult have to do to support him or herself? He or she would have to pay rent and utilities, buy food, cook, do laundry, clean the home, and so forth. What would constitute ‘proof’ in such a situation? To prove one’s earning capacity or income, one could present a paycheck stub. To prove that he or she can care for and clean the home, the parents could allow the student to demonstrate his or her abilities in the parents’ home. The young adult could care for his or her own room, clean his or her clothing and the parents could have a home-cooked meal.

What are these proofs? When the parents visit, observe the clean home and taste the food, they see and confirm for themselves the ‘facts’ of the situation. In this case, the authority that they rely upon is their own senses: seeing and tasting. As Immanuel Kant said, the senses are the “spectacles with which we view the world” and most people would accept that ‘seeing is believing’. The primary “authority” for human beings is our own experience (as confirmed by our senses).

But what about things that the senses can’t validate (that is, prove are true)? With regard to income, for example, such validation could come in the form of a paycheck stub in an official document, often computer generated, that states what funds were earned and how much was deducted for taxes, social security and other deductions.

This piece of paper carries with it what can be considered to be “authority”, that is, it is generally recognized as containing valid information (what you might consider to be ‘truth’). As this is an official statement of earnings, recognized by the government and the employer, the parent should accept this as proof of the fact that their child is employed.

A high school diploma and a college degree, for example, are ‘proof’ that a person has mastered the skills and knowledge that are expected from an educated person in America. When you apply for a job, your diploma is proof that you can communicate (read, write, and speak) effectively and calculate accurately. Jobs that require a degree or diploma usually pay more than jobs that do not. This is one of the ways that a formal education can help you in your pursuit of (‘quest for’) the American Dream.

This is the main point I am trying to make: that people believe authorities. What constitutes an authority? An authority is source of information that is a generally recognized to be true, valid, and legitimate.

For example, I am sure that you believe what your dictionary and thesaurus tell you about words. Dictionaries are authorities on words. However, there are different dictionaries, with somewhat different definitions for words. I often point this out in class, as students have different dictionaries with them. Then we compare the definitions of new words contained in these different dictionaries to see how different they are. You might try doing this on your own. In fact, ‘reading’ the dictionary, that is, browsing through and becoming familiar with unfamiliar words is a fine exercise for all people who want to improve their command of the language, regardless of how large their vocabulary may be. (Some students select and learn 5 new words every week and write them in their word journal!)

When considering proof (authorities), always consider the source. There is a children’s game called ‘telephone’ or ‘whisper down the lane’ that demonstrates this point. If there are 10 people sitting in a row, and the first person whispers a sentence to the second person and asks him or her to whisper the sentence to the next person (and so on), then the last person in the line will likely not be able to repeat the sentence exactly as it began.

The first person may say to the second, “Tell them he likes her a lot.” The second person might not repeat this exactly, word-for-word, and might say to the third person, “He really likes her a lot.” The third person might say to the fourth, “He’s in love.” Each person hears the message but then, when they pass it on, they often change the message slightly. By the time the tenth person received the message, it could have changed completely, to, for example, “They love each other.”

This happens because human beings cannot help but interpret what they see, hear, feel; our experiences, as the German philosopher Immanuel Kant observed, are filtered through our senses and become our own individual experiences. In the case of the telephone game, the filtering occurs both on the way in and on the way out.

The point is that, if you want to get the whole, complete and accurate sentence, you will ask the first person (the ‘primary’ person) and not the others. The further removed from the original sentence whisperer you get, the more likely that the sentence will not be the same.

This is true of all “proofs”. First hand (primary) knowledge is usually more reliable than second-hand (secondary) information. In the academic world, these are defined as ‘primary sources’ and ‘secondary sources’. An eyewitness to an event is a primary source. Someone who is writing about the event and has learned his or her information from the primary source person (through an interview, for example) is a secondary source.

Other examples of primary sources:

A diary

A picture

Letters, including business and personal correspondence

Original/public documents

Any of these reproduced in a secondary source

Other examples of secondary sources:

A textbook

An essay or discussion reviewing ideas expressed by others on a topic

In your academic (college) or professional career, you will read many books, articles, and other sources of information. Always consider the source: you should know what you are reading, who the author is (who wrote it) and how much authority is accorded to that author’s work.

One reason for this is that each writer has his or her own ‘perspective’, ‘point of view’ or ‘slant’ (bias) on the subject. Sometimes a writer’s perspective is related to his or her personal experiences and sometimes a writer’s point of view is the result of a philosophical, political or social outlook on life.

If you understand the writer’s point of view or why they are writing what they are writing (in slang we say, ‘where they are coming from’), then you can often better appreciate what they are saying and consider the information from a more instructive perspective.