"Propositions are only able to be overcome if they are not "fundamentally assumed" to begin with. No one can overcome a proposition which makes assumptions which are chosen, and not able to be disproved.

Having looked back at some of the other entries, one theme seems to consistently pop up. People just don't agree with some of your underlying assumptions, and assumptions they are, which can't be proved one way or the other.

One of these, for example, is your assumption that we have a being which "exists" and doesn't really change-you call it "a fundamental level of being". Another is "either we know ourselves in full or not at all". Says who? Most entries disagree with you on this point. You have chosen, repeat chosen, to believe this statement.

Why can't we know ourselves in part? I look at my hand. It has five fingers. I "know", to a point, that much about it, with strong "association"(Hume), but I don't understand how many atoms make it up, its exact width to the level of the atomic nucleus etc etc. Its the same with our inner natures, we can reflect, (or use various other ways of knowing), and know ourselves in part. Why then, do you assume, to the state of religious belief, that either we know our "fundamental level of being" (an assumption)..."in full or not at all" (another assumption), and by observing, quite rightly, that we can't have "full knowledge" of ourselves, thereafter believe any kind of knowledge/reason is no good? Why do we have to know ourselves in "full" anyway? This sounds like a religious mentality/assumption to me. Like knowing "God". I can live with knowing myself "in part", as most people can.

Methinks you have erred here, and you have erred greatly. Your refusal to see otherwise further suggests a religious- like black and white mentality-"either this way or not at all"-not a way of knowing in the grand traditions of philosophy. I'm sorry to offend, but it smells religious to me."

Roger McEvilly June 26 2000

Response:

We disagree that propositions can be overcome if they are not "fundamentally assumed" to begin with. By overcoming the fundamental assumption(s), such propositions can be overcome. (How can a proposition not be, knowingly or unknowingly, fundamentally assumed? Are you implying that there are absolute truths we can know with certainty? If so, what are they?)

Can anything truly be proved?

In our view, we can only prove within the limits of reason. There is no absolute truth for the limited reason that all knowledge appears circular.

Yes, we assume that we have a fundamental basis or being that exists. (We do not assume whether it can change or not because we cannot know something directly about something that is beyond our minds. Although a strong case can be made that our basis does change.) Our assumed fundamental basis can be refuted within the limits of what we know, by reasonably showing that we do not have a fundamental basis. Though from our standpoint, we do not see how this can be shown, because it does not follow how we could be nothing and still exist, or be everything and really know anything.

Also, we assert that we can only know who we are in full or not at all, because we are dealing with a fundamental basis. Either we can know it or we do not. There is no knowing part of it. In other words, if we could know the basis in part, it would no longer be a basis. However, you may respond that we could know part of the basis as though the parts make up the whole; though it does not follow how the parts could any longer be a basis. There would always be something missing, unless we knew the parts as a whole, which would then take us to the problem of how we can know our basis in full, without intrinsic separation from it, and yet by having intrinsic separation from our basis, our basis would no longer be our basis.

Moreover, from our perspective, we cannot know ourselves in part or whole, because we need intrinsic separation from what we know in order to know. So your example of looking at your hand and five fingers appears to represent limited knowledge confined to the appearances in your mind. By asserting this point, we are not saying your hand and five fingers do not exist. They exist in your mind as empty forms devoid of who you are, while entities labeled hands and five fingers, whatever they are, appear to exist beyond your mind.

However, if you are so sure we can truly know ourselves in part, please tell us how the part can be considered the whole basis, and further, how we can truly know part of ourselves and be ourselves if there is nothing behind the part?

64. Entry:

Response included in the entry.

1. "The fundamental flaw in the argument is the self-reflexive fallacy. Whereas it may seem smart and cutting-edge to use the mechanisms of thought to show our "diminution" through thought, ANY such effort is self-refuting at a level deeper than formal logic. Both the Cartesian *cogito* and the structure of Kantian arguments show us that the bare existence of a thought proves the futility of any philosophy that would eliminate thought.

Response (R): What is the bare existence of thought? How does the bare existence of a thought, a thought itself, prove that thought is beyond criticism to the point of elimination of it?

2. Premise (1): we cannot know anything about knowledge itself, except through us the perceiver. (Premise (1) and the premises and conclusions listed below are from the Basic Proof)

This premise itself is based on a misapprehension of the dual-sided nature of knowledge (cf. Derrida, DE LA GRAMMATOLOGIE.) Knowledge is an articulated phenomenon, all the way down, for the existence of knowledge itself implies necessarily the existence of the knower, called here the perceiver.

A premise must be meaningful to be even true of false, but this premise itself is without meaning. That's because it excludes a nonsensical concept, and that is knowledge without a knower. The original argument has been refuted, even at this starting point.

(R): How can a premise be without meaning? It does not make sense. Hence, your claim of refuting premise (1) on grounds of meaninglessness does not hold. You appear to be replacing the obviousness of premise (1) from your perspective, with meaninglessness.

3. Conclusion (b): we cannot rationalize anything outside of our minds, except who we are in a limited, indirect, relational sense.

Limited in relation to what? Again, the provenance is scientific public relations which convince the nonscientifically oriented of a nonsensical set of contradictory propositions.

The first premise is that we cannot get outside our minds. But the second premise is that someone else is, in principle.

Because the conclusion is nonsense, we are doing less logic than anthropology here.

But in fact, ALL knowledge has this limited structure, a borderline of difference beyond which it is indeed known, and known in an absolute sense, that some things are hid.

(R): From our perspective, who we are, in terms of its meaning, is limited and relational to knowledge itself. How? Since we cannot get outside of our minds, all we can know is from in our minds, and since who we are appears intrinsically separate from knowledge itself, and we need the conception of who we are to make sense of what we know, we realize a limited relation between who we are and knowledge itself.

Your claim that it is absolutely known that "some things, regarding knowledge, are hid" is false due to the circularity of knowledge. From our view, we cannot know anything absolutely, and not even this view.

4. Premise (3): we cannot know knowledge solely through itself.

In the sense that knowledge articulates a knower and a thing known this is true. To "know knowledge", if it has any meaning at all, would be to know the set of justified true beliefs that constitute human knowledge, and this would articulate the text and the reality.

(R): How can we know knowledge through "justified true beliefs" when all we can know is what we know, and we cannot know knowledge through itself? It appears that conception of knowledge itself is beyond us, except from a limited perspective. If "justified true beliefs" is same as a limited and reasonable perspective, then we are in agreement.

5. Conclusion (c): knowledge is an empty form.

I get exactly the reverse conclusion. To know what constitutes knowledge, to KNOW, involves articulating the texts of propositions AND experience. Far from being an empty form, knowledge involves experience.

(R): Yes, knowledge appears to involve articulation and experience. Yet it does not follow why knowledge cannot be an empty form which we use to articulate our experience?

6. Premise (5): language is a form of knowledge, and knowledge is a form of language.

False on my construction. The hypothetical text that accurately describes all facts is a text, and not knowledge, because there is no way of telling this text from the infinite number of other texts that contain false statements.

(R): Language is a form of knowledge because language itself has meaning or consciously represents something. Also, knowledge is a form of language because knowledge is a word in the English language.

Further, if language or text is devoid of knowledge or meaning, we would not be conscious of it.

7. Premise (6): we cannot know something without intrinsic separation from it.

This separation is a necessary feature of knowledge but is implicitly contraposed, here, to a subconscious God (the fundamentalist divinity that is the subtext of American science fiction) who overcomes this separation.

(R): Since you agree that we need intrinsic separation from knowledge (ie. "necessary feature of knowledge"), you concede that the challenge proposition cannot be overcome.

8. Conclusion (e): we ourselves are intrinsically different from knowledge itself. (ie. we are not an empty form)

False because of above. Our being is constructed from birth by apprehension of the world around us.

(R): How do you know our being is constructed from birth by our apprehension of the world around us? Surely, our being existed prior to our birth?! Also, how do we construct our being if it is beyond our minds, and how can we construct our being through our being?

9. Premise (9): at some past point, we did not have knowledge.

False. An Edenic, prelapsarian fallacy. We must have knowledge to survive, we survived from the start, therefore this past point does not exist.

(R): It does not follow that just because we need knowledge to survive that we needed knowledge to survive in the distant past. Moreover, if knowledge has always been with us, how do you explain its progressive nature, and where did the first thought come from?

10. From Conclusion (e), "we ourselves are intrinsically different from knowledge itself", Conclusion (h): knowledge is not inherently part of us ourselves.

False. We are not shellfish or coral reefs.

(R): When we assert that knowledge is not inherently part of us ourselves, we are asserting that who we are is intrinsically separate from knowledge itself, and therefore, knowledge itself is not inherently part of us ourselves. It is part of us ourselves in a limited, non-inherent way.

Though in terms of our existence through thoughts, knowledge is inherently part of our existence.

11. Conclusion (j): we have evolved to a state of having knowledge and existing through it.

Because of subconscious science-worship that only masquerades as humanism, we have come to regard knowledge as apart from ourselves. Please read Marx on alienation, and reflect how alienation from the tools of production works in the intellectual sphere. Please read Heidegger on the evolution from artisanal knowledge, which it was the purpose of the Renaissance magi to destroy on behalf of centralising, sponsoring princes, to standing reserve.

(R): Since knowledge itself is intrinsically separate from ourselves, how can knowledge be apart of ourselves?

12. Premise (10): we do not create knowledge.

Just a sigh of alienation. A profoundly irresponsible statement.

(R): We claim that we do not create knowledge, because on a deeper level it appears that we imagine conscious meaning, and thereby knowledge. (Premise 11 from the Basic Proof).

13. From Conclusion (c), "knowledge is an empty form", Conclusion (n): by existing through the emptiness of knowledge, we are diminuting us ourselves.

Conclusion (o): the more we exist through the illusion of knowledge, the more we diminute ourselves.

All this argument shows is that if you mix subconscious memes which worship the alienation of a technocratic society with a fundamental instinct that our capacities of being human are indeed being taken from us, you get to cult- like craziness."

(R): In our view, you have not refuted the arguments behind Conclusions (c), (n), and (o). Rather, you have simply concluded something about the conclusions based on the assumption that they have been refuted.

Edward G. Nilges July 1 2000

65. Entry:

"Your claim that we cannot know ourselves in part or whole, because we need intrinsic separation from what we know in order to know, seems a bit contradictory to me. Perhaps that is your intent; but--how do we understand ANYTHING but through ourselves. There is a limit of reason, but that limit is always experienced and defined through our existence AS human beings. To come to the conclusion that one must have an intrinsic separation from what we know in order to know is a proposition that has been made by you through your existence AS you. In that sense, "knowing" as a linguistic and cognitive concept has become a part of knowledge through the existence of human beings. It has never existed simply "by itself". Does knowledge of any kind, especially knowledge of the self, even EXIST apart from our own being? I would contend that knowledge, in order to BE knowledge must intertwine with the individual as a necessary PART of that individual. The limits of reason, therefore, aren't necessarily "limits" at all (at least in the sense you seem to describe them), simply because I would contend that no knowledge ("knowledge as such") actually becomes knowledge until it fulfills a necessary condition of "knowledge"--that is understanding through the existence and engagement of the subject.

Even if my notion of hands and five fingers are "appearances", why should we concern ourselves with things that lie ultimately beyond our limits of reason? The category "hands" for us, includes our impression of hand. I do think you are caught in several dualisms...

1. Appearance vs. Reality
2. Subject(ive) vs. Object(ive)
3. Absolute Truth vs. Absolute Falsehood

According to your characterization that the appearances in our minds are separate from whatever is outside of them, we have no hope of actually understanding, through the mind, anything that is part of "us"? Do you not think that simply by perceiving the world, we have at least some hope in understanding what we perceive? If we completely objectify certain things (i.e. the hand for example), we do lose "who we are"--but do we not have the ability to understand ourselves as entities that exist as more than the sum of our parts? Do we not have the ability to move beyond simple objective knowledge and interact with people on other levels (religion, art, love--for example?) Both forms of knowledge seem to exist simultaneously--the demarcation is not as simple as you characterize it.

How the part of ourselves can be considered the whole basis of ourselves is the question, is it not? We can never know the "whole basis", as you put it--simply because things are ever changing, and we cannot completely account for that change. We, in other words, can never know the wholeness of our being. However, that does not mean that we can't know ourselves at all--for by living life we come to understand the myriad of parts that encompass all of existence. True, we cannot simply add up those parts and hope to have a complete picture of ourselves. However, we continue to know and be ourselves despite our own limitations--simply because in coming to be ourselves, we gain an understanding that cannot be contained to the dualisms you seem to support. How can there be such a line separating being and knowing? Are they not dependent upon one another?"

Roger Whitson July 2 2000

Response:

We agree that we cannot understand anything except through ourselves. Though this assertion is not the same as asserting that we can truly understand anything.

Also, we agree that knowledge in order to be knowledge must be intertwined with the individual, and beyond the individual through his sensory of whatever is outside of himself. However, since we cannot get out of our minds, and therefore all we can know is what we know, and since all knowledge from our perspective appears to be neither certain nor uncertain, including your claim that "knowledge is derived from understanding through the existence and engagement of the subject", our knowledge and explanation of it appears limited by what we reason.

In our view, we should concern ourselves with things that lie ultimately beyond our limits of reason, in order to better understand what we know itself, thereby our existence through knowledge. For example, if we did not consider what lied beyond our reason, or even that something did, we would likely believe that what we know is what really is, instead of knowing that the appearances in our minds merely represent what really is whatever it is.

We do not see how we are caught by several dualisms when the dualisms as stated appear illusory:

Reality is an appearance, and appearance is a reality. It appears that everything is reality, except we can make a reality distinction between the conscious meaning of an appearance and what it is applied to; though the conscious meaning itself is a form of reality. So the dualism, appearance vs. reality, comes down to the meaning of an appearance, and not its form, versus the thing (ie. reality) the meaning is applied to.

In terms of the other dualisms, how can there be subjective vs. objective and absolute truth vs. absolute falsehood, when what we know appears to be neither certain nor uncertain?

In our view, due to the limitation of knowledge, everything we know appears to be from different levels of subjectivity in the form of appearances. This claim corresponds to the notions that we cannot get outside of our thoughts, and our thoughts themselves appear intrinsically separate from who we are. (We are assuming that who we are represents whatever is outside of our thoughts, and that to cope with the limitation of knowledge, we must rely on reason, or the soundness of our ideas in relation to both themselves and antagonistic ideas).

Yes, due to the apparent intrinsic separation between thoughts themselves and who we are, we are asserting that we have no hope of truly understanding anything that is part of ourselves. Though obviously we can understand parts of ourselves in a limited way through reason.

Yes, we think that by simply perceiving the world (ie. the world in our minds) that we have at least some hope of understanding what we perceive, and only because we have established a dichotomy between who we are and our thoughts themselves. Without this dichotomy we would be left in the oneness of what we know itself with no hope of understanding anything. However, since we perceive through appearances (or the world in our minds) at the external world, and that there appears to be an intrinsic separation between the two, we appear to have no hope of understanding the external world.

Yes, we can understand ourselves as entities that exist as more than the sum of our parts, but we can only do so from our limited perspective.

We agree that we can move beyond simple objective reality and interact with people on a more human level. Though this distinction is based on the correlation of our conscious interaction to who we are, or how much the conscious meaning of our interaction refers to us, so that our interaction in terms of meaning to us or its humanness, appears to vary depending on the sincerity of our interaction and the correlation of our interaction itself to us. For instance, two people sincerely discussing their lives appears to take on more human meaning than two people discussing a mathematical result with minimal significance to their lives. However, regardless of the sincerity of our interaction and the correlation of it to us, all knowledge itself appears to be devoid of who we are. Or as mentioned, there appears to be a line of intrinsic separation between us ourselves and knowledge itself.

How can we truly know ourselves in part through living life, since the part is not our whole basis; and if it is part of the whole basis, how can we know the part since there is nothing behind it?
If there is nothing behind the part, it follows that the part cannot be part of the whole basis. Hence, it appears that the basis cannot be separated into parts, which corresponds to our claim that we can only truly know ourselves in total or not at all.

Just because, in terms our existence, being and knowing are dependent on each other, it does not follow that being and what we know itself have to be intrinsically the same.

Further, from our perspective, your question of how could there be separation between being and knowing is slightly off: The line of separation is not between being and knowing because in terms of our existence, we cannot have one without the other. The line of separation is between our being and what we know itself.

How can we know without intrinsic separation from what we know?

Entries 57-62 Entries 66-70