[lit-ideas] Re: Agnotology
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 10:15:05 EDT
In a message dated 4/19/2011 7:24:59 A.M. , donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx
quotes from an author he has corresponded with, Sir Karl Raymond Popper, who
died in England sometime ago. He was from Austria, originally.
"This gives a new twist to the Socratic idea of ignorance."
----
I'm pleased Popper nods the history of ancient philosophy.
Indeed, Hintikka, in his "Logic of Knowledge" proposes to call "Socrates"
-- 'the agnotological agent'.
For Hintikka, it is a theorem:
If S knows that p, S knows that he knows that p.
---
K(S, p) --> K(K(S,p))
The agnotological reverse is Socratic:
"I only know that I don't know diddly". (Greek, 'ouda').
The origin of Socratic 'wisdom' is based in Homer. Dodds, professor of
Greek at Oxford, and author of "The Greeks and the Irrational" writes:
"Homer, whom the Greeks worshipped, had the slightly irritatiing habit of
explaining character or behaviour in terms of "knowledge." The most
familiar instance is his very wide use of the verb "oida" (aorist for, "I
know")
with a neuter plural object to express not only the possession of
technical skill but also what we should call moral character or personal
feelings.
Thus, Achilles "knows wild things, _like a lion_". Polyphemus "knows
lawless things". Nestor and Agamemnon "know friendly things to each other."
"This is not merely a irritating Homeric "idiom". This intellectualist
approach to the explanation of behaviour set a lasting stamp on the Greek
mind [and indeed on Grice -- see my "Ode on a Gricean Urn"]: the
so-called Socratic paradoxes, that "virtue is knowledge"
The agnotological reverses being:
"Achilles "knows wild things, _like a lion_".
----- "But YOU are like a lamb, and a TAMED one at that. Your ignorance
(on _things_) never ceases to amaze me."
"Polyphemus "knows" lawless things. But the things you ignore are lawful."
"Nestor and Agamemnon "know friendly things to each other". But Adam just
_knew_ one friendly thing _to Eve, for all we know, which may be nought."
JL
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