Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site pyuxd.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!pyuxww!pyuxd!rlr From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Professor Wagstaff) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: Rosen on reason, etc. Message-ID: <720@pyuxd.UUCP> Date: Tue, 19-Mar-85 13:05:43 EST Article-I.D.: pyuxd.720 Posted: Tue Mar 19 13:05:43 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 20-Mar-85 05:49:08 EST References: <1074@decwrl.UUCP> <5266@utzoo.UUCP> Organization: Huxley College Lines: 27 > If you are still working on ``I don't know'' then I haven't asked ``why'' > enough, or you are evading that the answer is unknowable. Saying ``I don't > know'' doesn't automatically get you off the hook -- the next question is > ``Why don't you know?'' and if I can't get you to ``It is impossible to > know the reason for that'' at some point, then I am doing a lousy job > of arguing. "Why don't we know?" you ask. Perhaps because all the information is not available to us, owing to perceptions that you yourself have stated are limited in scope and capability. Is it any wonder that we don't know everything? Isn't it wonderful that, through broadening our avenues of perception, we do keep learning more? (And if you say "but how do we know our perceptions and analyses are valid?" I'll answer with silence, since to ask such a question is to have perceived and analyzed, and if such perception and analysis is faulty, it's pointless to answer such a question...) > Patient people would not shout, perhaps, but I know 2 > five year olds fairly well. They are adept at ``why?'' and sooner or > later drive *everybody* up the wall. Ah, yes, childlike faith. Faith that there's an ultimate "parent"/protector over everything. Faith based on wishful thinking and desires. (Remember, I'm talking about the children here, but of course I recall someone being proud to make erroneous judgments of the world as children do.) -- Anything's possible, but only a few things actually happen. Rich Rosen pyuxd!rlr