THE TRUTH CAN BE KNOWN

Document Status: February 11, 2013

The essential idea is in Journey in Being. No action necessary

THE TRUTH CAN BE KNOWN

This powerful idea arose in a discussion of faith with Danny Luna, August, 2001. Faith is given. The power of the response lies not only in its content but also in its assertion – especially as a response to faith. We are of the world and so the truth can be known

In a sense this is not in opposition to faith. Faith is the response of belief to the emptiness of the rational attitude as religion. No one is objecting to the rational attitude in its place. And it has a place because, even in its own terms, of the need for judgment

So many doubts about knowledge arise on the powerful “individual in an alien world” model of knowledge. Or, “human culture… in an alien universe.” As we move on we encounter new, create contexts and we the power of the stated model. But it should be a practical point and not the foundation of an epistemology. Everyone wants to base an entire philosophy on their own point of view. That is what Nietzsche meant in saying that every philosophy is the philosophy of some stage of a man’s life. That too is a philosophy

It is required to distinguish alien from alienisms. Or from the cult of alienation

It should not be the foundation of an epistemology because the distinction between moving on and returning is partial, metaphorical. The “alien” model, pervasive since the dawn of modernism in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, leads to the following “picture” of knowledge. [1] We know nothing. This is a high priest position that is proclaimed, not lived – the sentient being that knows nothing does not exist, “I truly know nothing” is a pretension to virtue, the hope of a feeble mind for fame through self-negation, martyrdom without sacrifice; [2] We receive information from which we build knowledge; [3] The passive reception and building are the essential processes of knowledge; nothing is given; that we are of the world counts for nothing; [4] Therefore the reception, the building, and the product are not only subject to error but intrinsically erroneous; [5] We rejoice in our ignorance of which there is an infinite amount; another high priestification; we would think, in contrast, that what we know is finite but, no, on account of item 4, we know nothing; [6] We know nothing but what we know is faulty – since judgment is necessary we have to live with the paradox of knowing nothing but living as though we know something; [7] Nonetheless, we bravely face the world with shining eyes, and though occasionally depressed by our self-inflicted predicament we face the world with nobility and hope

The angry caricature can be rationalized. [1] Intrinsically, we know nothing; [2] We receive information from which we build knowledge; [3] The reception and building are the essential processes of knowledge; nothing is given; [4] Therefore we know nothing. When this becomes a theory of knowledge, knowledge becomes – is seen as – essentially faulty

This forgets that the process of information flow can be seen, equally, as integration or separation. Separation emphasizes certainty and power; integration emphasizes action and being-in. It forgets our origins in, our being of and in the world. It forgets the organic nature of the apparati of cognition

The truth can be known

The final generalization of “the truth can be known” is

I am of the world

I am the world