| appolose said: |
At the moment, I'm not trying to challenge your idea of "absolute knowledge" as such, but just to get a sense of how it might work, and (most importantly) to figure out how we can tell the difference between absolute knowledge and "mere belief."
So far, I can't see how we know the difference, except to have more absolute knowledge (I absolutely know that I absolutely know something) and, like Final-Fan suggested, that seems to run into a problem of infinite regress.
But, that aside, let's see what we can figure out...
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As I am confined to my mind, I can say that my meaning of the word truth confesses coherency. It's just something inseparable with that meaning. Thus no, as I the meaning of empiricism and rationalism are contradictory, they could not be true "for anyone else". |
Okay, if I understand correctly, you absolutely know that empiricism and rationalism are "contradictory." (What is it they're meant to contradict, by the way?)
Now, to be honest, I didn't think that was your original position--I thought that, originally, you felt that nothing could be contradictory; that sense data would be consistent with an infinite number of interpretations, including empiricism, but that empiricism's consistency would not prove that it is a method of truth. But: if your problem was that we could not prove empricism as a method of truth, I thought that "revelation" might do the trick.
Am I to understand now that I had not understood your position correctly? That, it isn't just that empiricism cannot be proved (because all such proof relies on empirical claims), but that empiricism, by its nature, is contradictory?
If so, can that be proved? Or am I expected to "just know it" as, perhaps, you "just know it" to be true?
Besides that, let's suppose that you absolutely know that empiricism is contradictory. And I absolutely know that empiricism is a method of acquiring absolute knowledge. Are we strictly at an impasse? Or is there some way that we can suss out which of our beliefs is actually absolute knowledge? (As you seem to suggest that they cannot somehow both be true.)
Now, I know that you'll feel that, as you're "confined to your mind," I'm just some interpretation of sense data going on, and so my claim to "absolutely know" something doesn't amount to much. Well, and not to be too... uh... ridiculous about everything... but how do you know that I'm not the voice of absolute knowledge trying to reach you, to let you know that empiricism is valid after all?
And, from my point of view (if you're not a solipsist and grant that I exist as a consciousness as well), if I absolutely know that empiricism is valid, then why should I be open to what you say? Shouldn't I immediately dismiss your claims as mere belief? How can you ever show me anything that could convince me that what I absolutely know to be true is not actually true?
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Meaning that since I absolutely know empiricism and rationalism are contradictory it's not possible for me to believe that truth would contradict what I have of it when given to someone else. |
So, to use this absolute knowledge as an example, how do you know it to be absolute knowledge? If I understand correctly, in order to know what it is, you would have to know where it comes from; i.e. whether it's "revealed knowledge" or if it is a mere belief that came to you from your own abilities.
Without getting too deep into questions regarding "memory," per se, what is your memory of how you came to your current absolute knowledge regarding empiricism? Is it something that you've always had? For instance, as a child, when you first "saw" that the sky was blue, did you know that it wasn't trustworthy? That you could not rely on that which you saw?
Or did it seem to be true to you at the time? Was your skepticism something that you came to absolutely know later in your life (after seeing, for instance, photos like the "piano" that you've posted in this thread)? Did your revelation coincide with being presented with "sense data" that would "support" such skeptical claims?
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Thus, always stuck with the possibility that any one of our beliefs were also equally unstable. |
Does the possibility exist that your beliefs re: empiricism, skepticism, etc., might be "unstable"?
