«Knowledge»: What gets credited and reported

[aislingtheach]

Positivism is overrated. I am not talking about being positive in life. I am rather talking about a specific outlook on knowledge - a paradigm if you will - with specific ontological, epistemological and methodological dimensions

Comments

[lounalune]

Wait a minute. I'm not an expert, but I think that depression can often be defined as difficulties dealing with negative things that happened to a person. So saying that this is a cause for depression would be a circular argument, wouldn't it? And the fact that this patern of thought, even when it is not severe enough to be linked to a depression, is more common among women than among men could be caused by the fact that these negative things happen more often to women than to men. I also wouldn't be surprised if depression was diagnosed more often in women than in men because men have been taught to hide their feelings.

[aislingtheach]

So saying that this is a cause for depression would be a circular argument, wouldn't it?

I am not sure I understand what you mean. What are you refering to with your «this»?

I also wouldn't be surprised if depression was diagnosed more often in women than in men because men have been taught to hide their feelings

It is true that the way lots of men traditional deal with negative things most probably contributes to an underdiagnosing of depression among them. However, I doubt that we would arrive at an equal rate of depression if we were to factor that in because they collectively do not have to face the same level of oppression than women have. Men are not oppressed as men, they might be oppressed as non-white, non-heterosexual, poor, disabled, etc. men.

[lounalune]

The article states that "negative thinking" and "overthinking" are more prevalent among women, and that they are a cause for depression, and that thus depression is more prevalent among women. I state that a strong tendency for negative thinking and overthinking is actually what defines a depression (note that I'm not sure about this statement). Thus, since depression is more prevalent among women, it makes sense that a study measuring the prevalence of negative thinking and overthinking would find that it is more common among women. I use a slight extrapolation there: a depression would be present only when there is much negative thinking and overthinking; however, it makes sense to me that in the half of the population where strong negative thinking and overthinking, in other words depression, is more prevalent, lighter negative thinking and overthinking would be more prevalent as well. So the reasonning in the article would be a circular argument.

[aislingtheach]

That is much clearer now, thanks!

That makes of course more sense, but I was still wondering if you had somehow seen a circular argument in «women having more depression because of troubles».

I hope I did not hurt you in thinking that that might have been a possibility. I've seen lots of progressive people still come up with (internalized) prejudices - hey, it has happened to me too and it might unfortunately still happen in the future - I was not ruling that out.

So you are totally right in pointing that out. And the fact that it escapes their minds is very troubling. Sad thing is, we should not expect people in a dominant group to see by themselves how a system they are benefiting from is the cause of the problem they are studying. :(

[lounalune]

You did not hurt me, because I didn't know what you hadn't understood. The circular argument was so obvious to me that I didn't bother detailing at first. I know we have to watch out for internal prejudices. Heck, I used to believe I shouldn't have children because I'm lesbian! (Don't worry, I changed my mind.)