Re: opinions vs knowledge - The Cave is Constructed

John,

your reaction is partly a misunderstanding. I am
not argueing in favor of a Kantian dichotomy of
essences ("Ding an sich") and appearances,
I am *just* trying to make the point that, following
the pre-modern concept of *physis* nature can
be experienced as what brings itself forth (in
contrast to what we artificially produce). In this
sense there is no *hermetic* in my position:
just a more *weaken* epistemological position
as the modern one (based on the constructions
of subjectivity). I just say that we can never
know *fully* the nature of what appears as far
as we have no *fundamental knowlege* (=metaphysics)
of the prima principia (Kant: we are intellectus ectypus,
not archetypus). If we give up Kantian transcendental
constructivism we may be much more able to
learn *in-formationally* from what things shows us
to be, particularly when we take different perspectives
with regard to what *to be* is supposed to be.
Rafael

> At 08:36 PM 9/19/2002, Rafael wrote:
> >Ted,
> >
> >as far as I can see we can only say (*logos*)
> >something about *how things appear* , i.e.
> >*logic* in this sense is always *phenomeno-logic*
> >We can never now (if we are Kantians or not..)
> >about *how things actually work* just because
> >we are not the *cause* that brings things forth
> >into appeareace. Nature (*physis*) is per definitionem
> >what brings itself (and *things*= physei onta) forth.
> >Thus what we *gather* (which is also one basic
> >meaning of Greek *logos*) of what appears can
> >never be a fully foundation of what making thinks
> >appear like this or this. I would say that there is
> >something like a *complicity* between *logos* and
> >*phaenomena* i.e. we are involved within an
> >*informational circle* which is basically a situated
> >one. Being part of the play makes us responsible
> >for thinking what we believe *things are* (as they
> >appear) and for the changes our thinking introduces
> >into this play.
> >Rafael
>
> I think there is a fundamental error behind the above
> reasoning. There is a split supposed between
> appearance and actuality that ignores the role of
> activity in the formation of appearance, thus driving
> an unbridgeable wedge between the two. We really
> form our appearance through causal interaction with
> things, and our appearances are a part of the causal
> processes, not something separate. We could indeed
> get no information about the real nature of things if
> all we had were appearances divorced causally from
> what appears, but if this were true there would be
> no appearances as well. There are appearances,
> so there must be information about what appears,
> and we must be connected to what these things
> that appear are really like. This is not to say that
> we cannot make mistakes about what our appearances
> are about, but to say that we cannot know the nature
> of what appears is to project this possibility of
> error into a necessity. The last is neither valid nor
> sound. At best the problem would justify skepticism,
> not the view you propose.
>
> If, as you say, we are involved in a hermetically sealed
> informational circle, then we have no knowledge, just
> information with no determinate meaning (see, e.g, Quine,
> or the later Wittgenstein). The circle is not closed, however,
> since action connects us to the actual world, and on this
> we can ground meaning (see Locke, Peirce). The Kantian
> position is a counsel of despair, which it inevitably leads
> to if consistently followed.
>
> John
>
>
> ----------
> It's the oil, stupid.
> Dr John Collier ag659@ncf.ca
> http://www.kli.ac.at/research.html?personal/collier
>
Received on Fri Sep 20 23:07:06 2002