But doesn't Clark's statement beg the question regarding the ontological nature of knowledge? What is knowledge? Of course, I could then ask how one "knows" what knowledge is, but this question too entails a certain view of knowledge on the part of the questioner.
I have written posts on preconditions for knowledge: logic, language, an omniscient and self-authenticating source, etc. But they are preconditions for a certain kind of knowledge, knowledge as propositional belief in which the possibility of error is precluded. But suppose someone says they reject that anyone can know in that sense. In fact, most people I discuss with say something like, "In the sense of your extreme, radical, Cartesian notion of knowledge, we can't know anything." And then they go on to provide a different definition of knowledge, not realizing that their denial of and substitute for knowledge as I have defined it both presuppose knowledge as I have defined it.
So you could say that I think philosophical knowledge is a precondition both for philosophical knowledge and a more colloquial understanding of knowledge. That is, in part, how I know what knowledge is. But again, I can explain how I know what knowledge is if and only if I also know what knowledge is. Knowing what knowledge is, though, requires that I have a metaphysical as well as epistemological position. It doesn't appear to be meaningful to say that one discipline is logically prior to another when at least some metaphysical questions and assertions regarding knowledge are as much preconditions for knowledge as are [some] epistemic questions and assertions.
This doesn't take away from the primacy of epistemology in philosophy, it simply adds metaphysics. Both are necessary; we must still explain how we know, but we also must explain what it is to know. One can't have an epistemic position without a metaphysical one nor a metaphysical position without an epistemic one.
3 comments:
I spoke on this quite a bit when I debated your friend here on imputation. I made the point that the genus of being and the genus of epistemology overlap. Crampton missed this point in an article I read from him and I got that from Clark. When Clark says that a person is a set of propositions he is overlapping the genus of being with epistemology so methinks it is unfair to say that Clark "beg[s] the question regarding the ontological nature of knowledge"
If Clark overlaps them exactly, then he shouldn't have dichotomized them in that quote. But Clark accepted the notion of a "physical world," didn't he? If so, then the overlap isn't exact.
I've been thinking about that recently, and I think you've said some similar things. It was in one of your posts that I suggested bodies can function as tags of propositions in a sense similar to the way in which Clark says words tag thoughts[, though I still have reservations about that].
What I mean is that I don't think the metaphysics of Scripturalism necessarily promotes a purely incorporeal or spiritual realm (idealism). It does, however, promote the idea that the incorporeal realm maintains primacy over the physical realm; that is, the former is the metaphysical ground for the latter.
So what is the physical realm? It's a realm which corresponds to the propositions of the incorporeal realm rather than vice verse (e.g. correspondence theory of truth). But for this reason it cannot be known. Knowledge is not subject to an individual's subjective perceptions. One shouldn't confuse the pattern (physical) for that after which it patterned (the proposition), although opining about perceiving the former can lead to reflection about the latter. In fact, when I ask "what is the physical realm," I can only relate what can be known: a proposition in which the "physical realm" is the subject. I can't relate the "thing-in-itself" because I can't know what it is (literally, since knowledge is propositional) nor even what it is necessarily meant to represent (if anything).
Thoughts?
“If Clark overlaps them exactly, then he shouldn't have dichotomized them in that quote.”
>>>An overlap is not a full exhaustion. Remember my quote, “As clarkians, we overlap the genus of being with the genus of epistemology (its not an entire mutual exhaustion but its pretty close) but not the genus of being with the genus of ethics. ”
http://unapologetica.blogspot.com/2012/01/clark-van-til-and-knowledges-of-man-and.html
“But Clark accepted the notion of a "physical world," didn't he? If so, then the overlap isn't exact.”
>>>Agreed
”I've been thinking about that recently, and I think you've said some similar things. It was in one of your posts that I suggested bodies can function as tags of propositions in a sense similar to the way in which Clark says words tag thoughts[, though I still have reservations about that].”
>>>http://eternalpropositions.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/what-is-it-are-all-things-sets-of-propositions/
”What I mean is that I don't think the metaphysics of Scripturalism necessarily promotes a purely incorporeal or spiritual realm (idealism). It does, however, promote the idea that the incorporeal realm maintains primacy over the physical realm; that is, the former is the metaphysical ground for the latter. “
>>>agreed
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