Re: opinions vs knowledge - The Cave is Constructed

John,

The metaphor of *construction* is, as you know,
an old one, and goes back (at least) to Plato's
*demiourg* taking *starting materials*. This
*pottery god* presupposes that there is something
out of which he can construct the universe. The
concept of *physis* is different as it points to the
dynamic of coming into being itself, not to what
is *already there*. We could say, that this dynamic
is an *in-formation* process (in case we do not make
the classic theological distinction between *creatio*
and *informatio* i.e. of constructing things *ex
nihilo* or out of something that is already there).
The concept *physis* takes a middle position as
it does not point either to a god creating *ex nihilo*
or to a *pottery god* (including his human imitators),
but to the giving itself of what comes forth. In this
last sense I was argueing that our, as you say,
epistemic access to nature is one (!) kind of
*answering* to this *call* (and in this sense I would
say that we are privileged (as far as we know)
in the sense that we can perceive this *call*
AS a *call*. I call this *call* and its correspondent
human answer an *angeletic structure*. So, our epistemic answer
is not just of the kind of re-cognizing what is
already there but also a kind of answering to what
things (and the *physis* pro-ducing them...) seem
to be. In other words, our epistemic responses are
also *practical* ones, i.e. they concern (or in-form) at the same
time our own being. Or, answering your last question,
the *nature* of things is a *call* to understand and
trans/in-form our own nature (better: our own lives).
There is unity and difference in this mutual calling.

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 14:25:34 2002