I’ve been doing some thought on paradoxes lately in thinking how to describe natural language as a system of logic. I daresay that this project is turning out harder than I’d expected, though now that I’m getting a better scope of the problem I’m seeing a way of proceeding. This makes me involved with different kinds of paradox, and I’ll probably soon make a post on paradox in general (Why do they occur? What are they, in essence? Are there different kinds?), but for now here’s a paradox which I call the “Paradox of Competence,” though it might also be called the “Genius’ Paradox.”
Suppose a person wonders whether he is qualitatively competent at some field of study. Now, if a person were in fact competent at this field of study, it follows that they would be likewise qualified to make the judgment of their own competence. However, we also know that a person who is incompetent would not know that they are incompetent, and thus apt to consider themselves competent in virtue of their incompetence. Therefore, a person cannot know whether or not they are competent.
Another way of stating this paradox goes like this.
Only a genius could judge that one is a genius or not. A person who is not a genius would not be able to accurately judge the genius of another. Therefore, a person cannot know they are a genius.
This reminds me of the Rumsfeld line about known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns.
A person knows that they have a finite amount of knowledge on a particular subject. Within that defined sphere, they are competent. Outside of that sphere, however, they may be aware that they are ignorant of some particular things. They may also be unaware of their ignorance of much more.
In order to judge whether some particular bit of information is relevant to their focus of study, they would have to possess some knowledge of it. Otherwise, how could one be sure that they’ve learned enough to possess a true competence? Without some solid definiton of competency, any claim to it would be based on ignorance.
At least the first statement of the paradox is questionable. In careers where there is a set standard for competency (say, aviation), failure to meet the standard reliably informs the incompetent student that he is, in fact, incompetent. All that one would have to see are the broad outlines of the knowledge one lacks to know that one is incompetent, that one does not have the detailed knowledge necessary to be competent.
Well sure, I don’t mean it as a defeasible paradox, only to outline certain problems about defining “competence” and/or “genius” in relation to knowledge.