[lbo-talk] Butler

Eubulides paraconsistent at comcast.net
Sun Jun 8 06:05:11 PDT 2008


Chris Doss wrote:


> I think you have things backasswards, assuming that we
> actually have "rational" (that is, definitely
> coinciding with the state of affairs) knowledge, and
> then assuming that the universe must be such as to
> allow such knowledge to be. Well, we don't. Deal with
> it. :)
>
> (I think it's funny that Aristotle is being dragged in
> here, since he held lots of beliefs that would be
> considered completely "irrational" by most people
> here, like belief in the veracity of the Oracle of
> Delphi, natural slavery, and possibly an afterlife.)

=================

"Now of the intellectual faculties that we use in the pursuit of truth some are always true, whereas others -- opinion and calculation-- admit falsity; and no other kind of knowledge except intuition is more accurate than scientific knowledge...It follows that there can be no scientific knowledge of the first principles; and since nothing can be more infallible than scientific knowledge except intuition, it must be intuition that apprehends the first principles. This is also evident not only from the foregoing considerations but also because the starting point of a demonstration is not itself a demonstration, and the starting point of scientific knowledge is not itself scientific knowledge [Posterior Analytics II 19, 100]

[The fantasy of certitude is very very old...]



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