[lit-ideas] Re: Understanding Why Newton Contributed To Human Knowledge With A False Theory

On Nov 29, 2007 12:58 PM, Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

> John McCreery wrote
>
> > Don't all these conundrums arise from the premise that the world is
> > composed of distinct categories, so that, if only the right definition
> > can be found,  the members of one category will uniformly share some
> > property totally missing in members of another? Is not the lesson of
> > science that what we take to be knowledge is approximations all the way
> > down, that the world is not composed of p and ~p  but of 1s and 0s
> > between each pair of which there exists an infinite number of points and
> > curves, some of which appear to be a better fit than others?
>
> I was talking about a particular conception in Western philosophy:
> knowing.
>

Indeed. Quoting from a previous message,
"S. A knows p only if p."

"S is not a mere definition. It is at the heart of the
distinction philosophers draw between knowing and some other epistemic
state."

I'll buy that, appreciating the fact that this is a distinction of the sort
that philosophers have been making for a long, long time. It may resemble

"S. Points are scored only if the ball crosses the goal line."

"S is not a mere definition. It is at the heart of the distinction that
American football players make between scoring and not scoring a goal."

But since I am more interested in philosophers' games than in football, I
will let that pass for the moment.

I also accept without reservation that we  can and do draw distinctions, e.g.,
between the rug and the dog or Paris and Barcelona. I will even go so far as
to say that I cannot imagine how we, as human beings, can get on without
making distinctions. But it seems to evade the question, the usual question
in fact, i.e., how do we know p in the first place? How do we justify the
distinctions on which p depends? That's where all the fun begins.

Everyday conversation: "The dog is eating the rug." "Make him stop."
Biological conversation: "The dog is eating the rug." "How do you know
that's a dog?" (Could be my pet hyena or a Tasmanian marsupial that
resembles a canine)
Philosopher's conversation: "A knows that 'The dog is eating the rug' only
if the dog is eating the rug." And so?

John










-- 
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/

Other related posts: