Sociology of the Mind
Schreber’s lives in his a world within his own mind. When he writes that he does not know if the streets of Leipzig are real or “miracles,” or that he receives light rays directly and has entered into contact with them he is practicing reification and reductionism. Miracles are something that have no justification or rationality, rarely are they said to happen. They have no cause or concrete evidence of them even being real. So when Schreber writes that he does not know in the streets of Leipzig are real or miracles, he is practicing reductionism: he is judging something that is very real in the biological and physical sense using an explanation (miracles) that is neither biological nor physical. Schreber practices reification when he gives the light rays the properties and abilities that allow them to speak directly to his nervous system. He is giving an inanimate object the qualities and attributes of a living creature.
The ascripitive approach to knowledge holds that knowledge is a polymorph. Knowledge is a symbol concept: it does not make you see things, but having it entitles you or justifies you to see certain things: sociologist often see things about people that others don’t. Knowledge is also a category bound activity: it tells who can know and see certain things, i.e. groups of people, such as women and children, have been told what they could or could not know. Knowledge is not something that you store “inside” your head. You can retain knowledge, but that is not to say that you possess it. You only have the capacity to do or say “X” under certain circumstances. Knowledge requires other concepts. If you know something, it has to be true or false; you can be mistaken about that knowledge; you can forget it or not remember it; or you can be certain about that knowledge. Schreber is confused in his use of knowledge. He writes that he does not “know” if the streets of Leipzig are real or if they are miracles. It is like saying that he knows he is in pain. A miracle, like the streets of Leipzig and pain are not something that you can be mistaken about or forget about. Something like the streets of Leipzig are a concrete physical thing which everyone around Schreber can see and define as real. Miracles, on the other hand, are not always so concrete and are not physical. A person could say that they do not know if something is a miracle because they can be mistaken or not be certain, and it can be true of false. You cannot say that you do not know if the street is real because you cannot forget about it or not be certain or mistaken, nor can it be false. The concepts that go along with knowledge cannot be applied to emotions or feelings.
