The following analogy may help clarify the relation between persons’ perceptions of how things really are in the world and the constraining conditions imposed by their relative context and experience.
Niagara Falls wears back the lip of the falls approximately one foot per year towards Lake Erie. The Colorado River over the aeons has carved the gorge of the Grand Canyon. Rivers obviously shape the terrain through which they pass.
But it works the other way around as well; the relationship between bank and river is reciprocal. The river’s course is shaped by the river’s bank and riverbed. Some riparian shorelines are smooth, allowing water to flow clear and powerfully. Others are tangled by bush and deadfall or by mudslides that dam the river and back it up and change its course.
So the hydrological-geological relation is reciprocal; the river’s course is shaped by the river bank and the river over time shapes the contours of the bank. This process serves as an analogy for how we know things.
Prime Minister Trudeau and his officials conducted their defense against former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould’s accusations of political interference in the SNC-Lavelin controversy as if the only determining force was the river bank. They argued, in effect, that we apprehend only what the constraints of our limited experience and perceptions allow us to grasp. Hence, to Wilson-Raybould’s charges they replied, “That’s your experience; that’s how you see things.”
On the other hand, we can modify this epistemological determinism by recognizing the power of the river to carve new channels. We can assert our capacity to see things independently of our environment.
The river symbolizes that we can drive forward in accessing facts, that is, perceptions of the world as it really is. The banks signify that our access to facts is shaped by our context.
But there really is a river and the river does flow.