Re: opinions vs knowledge - The Cave is Constructed

At 08:36 PM 9/19/2002, Rafael wrote:
>Ted,
>
>as far as I can see we can only say (*logos*)
>somethin 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 definition
>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 22:03:57 2002