Re: opinions vs knowledge - The Cave is Constructed

At 05:06 PM 9/20/2002,Rafael wrote:
>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

Thanks for the clarification, Rafael. My point is that
information cannot be completely constructed, or it
would be about nothing but itself (and would be fully
syntactic without an interpretation). I am not
opposed to construction, but one can only construct
from starting materials. I suspect that the nature of
what appears is implicit in those starting materials.
For me, this gives epistemic access to their nature,
since their very nature is a part of the epistemic
process. I am unclear why you seem to think not.

John

----------
It's the oil, stupid.
Dr John Collier ag659@ncf.ca
http://www.kli.ac.at/research.html?personal/collier
Received on Sat Sep 21 04:09:27 2002