If I heard it once, I must’ve heard it a thousand times growing up: “Those contestants on Jeopardy! sure are smart. They know so much!” I used to believe it, too, until I came to realize that they just have a really good ability to recall facts through what psychologists and other researchers call declarative memory.
For years now, we’ve been able to get monkeys to memorize all kinds of information and recall it on command by pressing levers, bars, and even buzzers just like Jeopardy! contestants. The famous anthropologist, Kathleen Gibson, speaks of a captive monkey named Andy who was able to associate written words with pictures on flashcards, as well as spoken words with numerous objects and items in his home and neighborhood. Penny Patterson and other ape researchers have been able to get gorillas like the famous Koko, chimps like Kanzi, and orangutans like Chantek to learn sign language, and answer basic questions like, “What is the capital of the United States?” “What letter comes after B?” and “How many fingers am I holding up?” Being smart or knowledgeable isn’t merely about memorizing and recalling facts on command—it’s more about explaining and synthesizing facts, as well as using facts in analysis and critique through argumentation.
There’s a model of learning objectives that’s been around for years now (especially in the US education system), called Bloom’s Taxonomy, named after American educator, Benjamin Bloom (1913–1999). Since its introduction in the 1950s, the Taxonomy has changed a bit and has been adapted by numerous researchers and teachers in a variety of ways, but the basic objectives are presented in Table 1.
TABLE 1: Bloom’s Taxonomy
| OBJECTIVE / LEVEL NAME | WHAT THE STUDENT SHOULD ACCOMPLISH |
| KNOWLEDGE | Recall, reproduce, recognize, list, define, name, and/or outline data, facts, or information |
| COMPREHENSION | Understand the meaning of, as well as explain, paraphrase, summarize, and/or distinguish various types of data, facts, or information |
| APPLICATION | Utilize, change, manipulate, and/or modify data, facts, or information in relation to some problem to be solved, as well as give evidence and examples of data, facts, or information |
| ANALYSIS | Separate, differentiate, deconstruct, and/or break down data, facts, or information into basic components or parts so that the foundational structure may be understood |
| SYNTHESIS | Build, combine, compile, construct, and/or generalize about data, facts, or information, with an emphasis on creating a new meaning or structure |
| EVALUATION | Critique, judge, justify, and/or appraise data, facts, or information, as well as show implications, entailments, and/or consequences related to data, facts, or information |
These objectives can be used in elementary, high school, and college classrooms, and not only have I had them used on me when I was a student in college, but I’ve also utilized them as a benchmark for grading in the high school religion and college philosophy and world religion courses I have taught over the years.
The overall goal of the Taxonomy is to identify capabilities that students will acquire as they learn and proceed from one level to the next, which is really the same thing as becoming smart or knowledgeable about some topic or area of study. However, notice that there’s a kind of easier-to-harder progression that goes from basic KNOWLEDGE through to EVALUATION (top to bottom, in the table). In fact, it’s probably the case that the standard D student can barely accomplish the KNOWLEDGE level, while your A students in class likely can achieve SYNTHESIS and EVALUATION. That’s the way I used the Taxonomy in my own grading of students in religion and philosophy courses. The smart or knowledgeable students were the ones who didn’t just define, name, or list ideas and concepts; they were able to construct and compile, critique and criticize, as well as judge and justify, data, facts, information, ideas, concepts, and arguments.
Now, here’s something interesting to note: in some later versions of the Taxonomy, the KNOWLEDGE level is actually renamed REMEMBERING or RECALLING. This is probably because what people do at this level isn’t knowledge, really. It’s just spitting back what data, facts, or information you have stored in your memory banks. Jeopardy! contestants are great at recalling, reproducing, listing, and naming data, facts, or information. Again, so are monkeys, as well as chimps, gorillas, and orangutans. If I had a Jeopardy! contestant in one of my classes, and all the person did was what they do on Jeopardy! by simply recalling and remembering things, then she or he would likely barely pass the class.
So, what I’m suggesting so far is that real smarts or knowledge occurs more toward the EVALUATION end of Bloom’s Taxonomy. This isn’t to say that memory and reproducing facts aren’t valuable to knowledge. Of course they are, since you have to be able to recall facts in the process of analyzing, synthesizing, or evaluating, and the more evaluating you do, the more memory and recollection you seem to require.
John Locke (1632–1704) popularized the idea that the mind is an immense tabula rasa—a blank slate—and numerous psychologists, neuroscientists, philosophers, and other thinkers since Locke have demonstrated that a person can “write” countless ideas on the mind throughout a lifetime, in terms of storing memories. Also, it goes without saying that when we read the writings of those we consider to be the smartest, most knowledgeable people in human history—for example, Aristotle, Confucius, St. Thomas Aquinas, Sir Isaac Newton, or Albert Einstein—it’s likely that they acquired an almost encyclopedic memory of the things they wrote about. Further, listen to or read the words of any person you consider smart who’s living today—like Stephen Hawking, Peter Singer, or members of Mensa International—and you’ll see that they have an incredible amount of stored information in their own memory banks.
Being smart is also thought of as being knowledgeable, and they’re probably interchangeable terms in many ways. So, the real question we’re in interested in is: What is knowledge? This is a question that epistemologists explore. Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the source and nature of knowledge (episteme is Greek for “knowledge”) as well as what constitutes the truth, evidence, and justification of our beliefs or opinions. There’s an idea that goes all the way back to Plato’s dialogue, Theaetetus, that knowledge consists of 1. a belief that is 2. true and 3. justified. Ever since then, philosophers have been debating mostly about what truth and justification mean.
The belief part is pretty easy to understand. Humans can reason, and no one disputes that. What enables them to reason, most people call a mind, which is a disputed thing since there are those who think that the “mind” is an illusion, and all that really is taking place when people reason is, at best, a series of brain processes and functions. Putting this debate aside, everyone who reasons admits that they form beliefs, opinions, and thoughts about themselves, the world, and reality as they perceive it. So, knowledge includes believing something: to know is to, at least, believe something is the case. When you’re watching Jeopardy!, and the answer is “He was the first philosopher in the history of Western philosophy,” and you scream at the TV, “I know the question to this one!” you at least believe, have the opinion, or form the thought that it’s “Who is Thales of Miletus?”
But believing, having an opinion about, or merely forming a thought about something isn’t enough to know something. One of my students in a philosophy of biology class claimed this: “Humans evolved from monkeys—this I know for sure.” But I didn’t really think he knew that. Why? Because it’s just not true. Monkeys and humans evolved from a common ancestral prosimian. In fact, a whole bunch of people on the planet—believe it or not—think that humans evolved from monkeys! And, a whole bunch of people on the planet know nothing about the truth concerning simian evolution, unfortunately.
Numerous times during a Jeopardy! show someone will believe or think they have the correct question and press the signal button, only to find out after they provide their question that it’s incorrect. They may even say to themselves in an instant, “Oooh! I know this one!,” but because the question they offer to Alex Trebek is incorrect, they really don’t “know this one.”
So, knowledge includes a belief, opinion, or thought about something, but the belief, opinion, or thought also has to be true. No one is said to be knowledgeable when all of what they believe is false. The people who win on Jeopardy! know a lot of stuff that is true (that is, when they actually do know the questions, and aren’t merely guessing); the losers usually don’t know as many true answers. Hard-core creationists, Ku Klux Klansmen, members of the Flat Earth Society, Holocaust deniers, and Moon-landing deniers all have something in common, too: they’re all know-nothing idiots. They have their crazy beliefs, but their beliefs are just that—crazy and untrue!
Now, there’s a lot of debate about what truth is, or whether it even exists. The most common-sense view of truth is known as the correspondence theory of truth. According to this theory, if a belief that someone has actually corresponds to or matches up with some state of affairs in the world or in reality, then the belief is true. If the belief doesn’t correspond, it’s false. This makes sense to most of us who think that there’s a distinction between a. our beliefs about the world or reality and b. the world or reality as it really is. Notice that we can have beliefs, opinions, or thoughts about the world that are just plain wrong or false—like with our creationist or Moon-landing denier friends—and they’re false because they don’t correspond with reality.
Alex Trebek, the folks who put together the questions at Jeopardy!, the contestants, and we the viewers all assume the correspondence theory of truth is . . . well . . . true. A true or correct question given by a contestant is one that matches up or corresponds with the actual “answer” provided by Alex; a false or incorrect question given by a contestant is one that doesn’t match up or correspond with the answer.
It’s still not enough for knowledge to say that you have true beliefs. This is going to sound strange, but it could be the case that you have a true belief about something, yet, you don’t know that something. You could have a true belief by accident, for example, which is a point that Plato made more than two thousand years ago in the Theaetetus.
Let’s say you thought my first name was Ron, instead of Rob, and someone asked you if you knew my name and what the first letter of my name was. You then said, “Yeah, I know that guy, and I know his name, and it begins with an R.” This would be a true belief because my name does begin with an R; but because you thought my name was Ron, instead of Rob, you could not accurately be said to know my name, despite having the true belief about my name starting with an R.
I actually know a guy who was on Jeopardy! in 1988, and he won the first day by answering the following “answer” in the Final Jeopardy! Round: “The typical wasp uses this material to construct its nest.” He told me that he really didn’t know the answer (the question) at all, but made an educated guess. While the “ding, ding, ding, ding . . .” theme we all know so well was playing, he looked up into the air and thought about the fact that a wasp nest looks kind of like parchment paper. So he wrote down, “What is tree pulp?” It turns out he was lucky, and was the only one of the three who guessed correctly. Again, he didn’t know the question, really, and many contestants make educated guesses in the Final Jeopardy! Round and end up winning because of it. Also, it’s probably the case that monkeys and apes do a bit of educated guessing on association tests, showing that they really don’t know the answer either, as psychologists will admit in studies.
The older guy who was on Jeopardy! in 1988 wagered a fairly conservative one thousand dollars, by the way, and he lost the next day “to some know-it-all cocky bastard in a three-piece suit who barely shook my hand.” It’s funny how these folks with good memories, or who are good guessers, who aren’t really so smart think they’re really so smart.
Most importantly, when someone claims they know something, we want to know the reason why they know that something. In other words, we want some kind of justification for what they claim to know. Remember from Plato that we said knowledge consists of 1. a belief that is 2. true and 3. justified? “What’s your justification for the belief that you think is true?” is a common, explicit (or implicit) question that anyone who’s doing serious thinking asks, whether it’s in a philosophy classroom, during a presidential debate, through the course of a civil trial, or in an interview with a scientist about her latest hypothesis.
Although what exactly is meant by it has been a controversial topic since Plato, justification usually begins with an explanation that includes evidence. Recall also that in Bloom’s Taxonomy, COMPREHENSION and APPLICATION are the levels usually achieved after KNOWLEDGE/ REMEMBERING/ RECALLING. If you look at the descriptions of COMPREHENSION and APPLICATION, you’ll see that COMPREHENSION includes being able to explain something, while APPLICATION includes being able to provide evidence and examples of something. In fact, Plato’s student, Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.), made a big deal about knowledge consisting of explanation and evidence, and if you read any of his works, you’ll see that he walks his own talk. Aristotle was not only a philosopher, he was also one of the first scientists, and scientists are usually looked at today as the smart or knowledgeable people on the planet—especially rocket scientists, right?—mostly because they can explain and provide evidence and examples for their hypotheses, ideas, concepts, and arguments.
But, as I’ve hinted at already, I would argue that ANALYSIS, SYNTHESIS, and EVALUATION are the hallmarks of justification, probably with EVALUATION being the most important. If you believe that your data, facts, information, ideas, or concepts are true and can break them down into fundamental explanatory parts (ANALYSIS), or can construct something coherent and systematic with them (SYNTHESIS), then you’re well on your way to knowledge about them. Further, if you can also critique and appraise your data, facts, information and the like, as well as show implications, entailments, and/or consequences related to them (EVALUATION), then you really know your stuff!
This is what philosophers do, so that’s why we’re usually the smartest, most knowledgeable people on the planet J. I say usually because some of us ain’t the sharpest tools in the shed, if you know what I mean. (I would put myself in the dull category, so as to offend equally and to equally offend.) In any event, I always try to justify my true beliefs—and I have required the same from my students and others who put forward positions—through achieving Bloom’s EVALUATION level, which just so happens to be the level of real smarts or knowledge.
More can be said about the EVALUATION level of Bloom’s Taxonomy, which happens to coincide with being a smarty pants. In my philosophy classes, I always made the students put forward arguments for their beliefs, opinions, and thoughts, and I always made them critique the arguments of others.
You can offer an argument as a form of justification, too. An argument is a set of claims, one of which is known as the conclusion, which is supposed to be supported, demonstrated, or shown to be the case by another claim (or claims) known as a premise. A claim is a statement, proposition, or declarative sentence that is either true or false, and is the result of a belief, opinion, or thought you have about yourself, the world, or reality as you perceive it.
An argument is used to show that the conclusion put forward either: 1. is supported by a premise (or premises) and is absolutely true in what is known as a deductive argument; or 2. is supported by a premise (or premises) and is likely or probably true in what is known as an inductive argument. Now, whether you succeed in demonstrating the absolute or likely truth of your conclusion is another matter, since you can think that your conclusion follows from a premise or premises, when it in fact doesn’t (here, you’d have what is known as a fallacy), or your premises may be false, in which case your conclusion will be either absolutely false (in a deductive argument), likely false (in an inductive argument), or simply unsupported.
When all’s said and done, then, people who can put forward good arguments for their beliefs, opinions, concepts, and the like are the smartest, most knowledge people. Again, this is what us philosophers do J. Here’s my argument for arguments being a mark of smarts:
Premise 1: You are really, truly smart/knowledgeable about your data, facts, information and the like if and only if you can meaningfully critique and appraise them, as well as show implications, entailments, and/or consequences related to them (EVALUATION) by putting forward good arguments.
Premise 2: That philosopher critiqued and appraised the data . . . by putting forward a good argument.
Conclusion: That philosopher really, truly is smart or knowledgeable.
Note also this argument and conclusion:
Premise 1: You are really, truly smart or knowledgeable about your data, facts, information and the like if and only if you can meaningfully critique and appraise them, as well as show implications, entailments, or consequences related to them (EVALUATION) by putting forward good arguments.
Premise 2: Jeopardy! contestants don’t critique and appraise data . . . by putting forward good arguments.
Conclusion: Jeopardy! contestants ain’t smart.
Smart people generally try not to draw conclusions that are not supported by the premises they are using. When you do make the mistake of drawing a conclusion that is unsupported by the premises being used, the technical name for that bad bit of reasoning is “committing a fallacy.” A common way to say this is that you’ve jumped to a conclusion. If Frank thinks, “they’re all gonna be lemons like that” based upon a few instances or examples of that kind of car being a lemon, then he’s jumped to a conclusion incorrectly. Frank really doesn’t have any grounds for thinking that all of the future cars of that kind are necessarily gonna be lemons. Or, you’re jumping to a conclusion if you think, “This guy’s gonna definitely win on Jeopardy!” because he’s a philosopher, or even because he’s a rocket scientist (since they’re all so smart, right?).
Now, I have to be careful not to jump to the conclusion that all contestants on Jeopardy! aren’t smart, and let me explain what I mean, especially since I’ve been making the case all along in this chapter that they ain’t smart. It’s incorrect to think that smarts is equated with recalling information only, as if there’s nothing else to smarts. That’s actually the way I used to think about the smarts of Jeopardy! contestants when I was younger, and it’s incorrect.
However, it’s likely that a lot of the folks on Jeopardy! not only have great declarative memories that they display (like good monkeys) on the show, but they also likely can do the analysis, synthesis, and evaluation stuff—including putting forward good arguments—that is necessary for smarts. I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that Jeopardy! contestants are or aren’t smart, actually, but I would wager that it’s probably the case that a lot of them are smart. No fallacy in thinking this.
That old guy who was on Jeopardy! in 1988 actually is a trained philosopher, so although he wasn’t really displaying smarts as a contestant, he often displays smarts in the evaluation and arguing he does regularly in the classroom and on paper with books and articles he writes. He even told me this one time, which was actually the catalyst for my wanting to write this chapter in the first place:
People have said to me, ‘You must be smart . . . you were on Jeopardy!’, but I tell them that I’m a lucky guesser and I’m lucky to have been blessed with a really good memory.