Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!texbell!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!crdgw1!excelan!unix!chips.sri.com!ellis From: ellis@chips.sri.com (Michael Ellis) Newsgroups: alt.individualism Subject: Re: re anti-rationalism Message-ID: <8211@unix.SRI.COM> Date: 19 Jan 90 16:21:47 GMT Sender: news@unix.SRI.COM Reply-To: ellis@chips.sri.com.UUCP (Michael Ellis) Distribution: usa Organization: Berkeley Private Language Institute Lines: 21 > Gerry Gleason >There is no debate on this. But in a sense, what is really true is >irrelevant because we have no direct access to it or even to a true >metric of how wide or narrow the gap is. What is the cognitive content of this suspicious notion "direct access" that disqualifies perception or introspection from being "direct access to reality"? > We have no way of knowing that all our current theories aren't one > vast detour away from the real truth. Perception isn't a theory. Neither is introspection. >To assert anything else is to claim omniscience. This sounds pretty crazy to me. Just how does the claim that one knows something commit oneself to the claim that one knows everything? -michael