On the Nature of Knowledge: Foundations, Limits, and Practice

On Knowledge

“The investigation of the truth is in one way hard, in another easy. An indication of this is found in the fact that no one is able to attain the truth adequately, while, on the other hand, we do not collectively fail, but every one says something true about the nature of things.” — Aristotle, Metaphysics Book II, 993a30

What is it to know? Is it to observe and reason about those aforementioned observations afterwards until one attains a good understanding? If so, under what prior knowledge do we interpret that which is to be observed to reach that knowledge sought for, since we must already know what separates the known and unknown in order to recognize this sought knowledge as such ? Do we need yet another observation to formulate that prior knowledge for interpretation? Where does this cycle end, if it does, and to what end does it aim?

If suppositions are always first, what justifies them? And what is reasonable if reason cannot say anything about what is first supposed which is taken as axiom, since it inevitably requires it ? Does knowledge ultimately hinge on a leap of faith of the one reasoning towards it, and is that not arbitrary? Is it a thing to be grasped by the mind first as it is before acquiring it through the discursive process ?

And how can we search for knowledge if we do not first know what are we seeking and where to find it at all, given we have not yet acquired the knowledge in question? And in that regard, is knowledge even possible to grasp, for we have no guarantee that what we know will be as it is and we do not need to relearn it afterwards, and if we are relearning it, how do we know that what we are learning is the same thing we first learned and not something completely distinct?

We can try to formulate philosophical systems as most of the philosophers have thought to do and did historically, but we can never only use what is strictly within reason itself for that, and inevitably we must grant the existence and the truth of the possibility of knowledge of what is to be known unjustified by reason—and without that, asking questions about being and truth without granting it would mean absolutely nothing in the sense that it will be incoherent. And if absolute knowledge is possible in this case, then that would be miraculous that requires nothing less than an even greater miracle, nothing less than what can only be described as being of divine origin.

Even our potential of knowing anything is only approximative given these prior considerations, and certainty can only be narrowly attributed when it comes to philosophy, especially if we defined certainty as pertaining to the truth and validity of purely reasoned arguments and propositions decontextualized from the phenomenological aspects of our embodied being since reason is often wrongly idealized, often unconsciously, as if it is an absolute tool that is not mediated by human experience as irrational or arational as it might be.

The conceptual difficulty of knowledge manifests more problems if we explore the notion and the role of change: what is the nature of change, and whether it is preeminent, in the context of the binary of being-becoming, and how does it manifest in either case or if there is such a thing at all if we consider Parmenides’ views ? Though even if his arguments are to be considered, as every metaphysical work has to, along with Heraclitus as well, his conclusion of the illusory nature of change in absolute terms must be rejected, for since I cannot coherently learn that change is an illusion because knowing and learning imply a change from one state to another; from ignorance to knowledge of that reality; therefore it cannot be illusory and therefore it is a true component of reality.

And if we grant the illusory nature of change, and that learning and knowing (if we define them in a way that relies on change) is also an illusion, then it would be neither knowing nor learning, and we would not actually know if that is the case at all. Thus we must conclude that things both are as they are (Being) and as they would be (Becoming), both in some sense in absolute being and change or as ever-changing Being—though what such synthesis of the often contrasting (even contradictory) categories would precisely mean has been a matter of great debate throughout history—and that synthesis enables the act of knowing through a change from ignorance to knowledge and the act of being known through what we are as we are.

Therefore such a fundamental concept—that is, knowledge—necessarily requires a synthesis of a contradiction between Being and Change. This synthesis itself must be prior to any discursive knowledge, a task which would seem impossible, though on it stand the whole body of philosophy. Yet even this statement assumes we can reason about such matters, which returns us to a further question concerning especially the main tool by which we reason:

On Logic

Often Logic is considered to be the preeminent tool to reach knowledge understandably so, though let us examine critically how such a tool can be justified and grounded for the sake of a better understanding of its limitations, since if we were to examine how can we justify that logic works for tracking truth or that it is the best standard to measure truth of statements, what would be a good answer that accounts for this ? And would that answer be using the same logic in question ? Therefore would this not be circular—like affirming the truth of a book’s content on the basis that the book claims its truth ? But this is more serious circularity than our example because logic is always presupposed in any attempt to question it which makes this circularity more vicious. And if we are not to use logic to justify it, what would we use as a tool to reason about it? It seems that there needs to be another way to think of it, possibly through appealing to the impossibility of the contrary but we certainly have no basis outside of logical principles themselves in order to reject that impossible world. Since even the notion of impossibility hinges on the law of non-contradiction since it presupposes it—without it, a word of meaning X can possibly mean both X and not-X, and in some sense Hegelian philosophy would relax this principle though we do not want to overstate what we might infer from Hegel himself. Though of course we would affirm that we do not live in such a world but appealing to the impossibility of the contrary does not free us from the question of what makes the use and efficiency of logic possible.

Let us examine first what is at stake exactly in this exploration: it is the whole body of mathematics which is built on logic and by consequence all of physics which stands on mathematics, and every engineering discipline that stands on physics and even more fundamentally and in the most basic level our mundane communication with others; the guarantee that there is common understanding when we utter a word that refers to something which is agreed upon by our interlocutor by which I mean language, since language and its meaning to large extent hinges on logical principles to offer it enough coherence for effective communication.

Most common attempts to answer these questions present unsatisfactory or dismissive answers of which the most unsatisfying is “it just works” or “it just is” that are pragmatic which in my view are not answers worthy of being called philosophical since they merely shut discourse down about quite fundamental matters. First if we were to say that we would need a standard of what it would mean to predicate “is” or in other words being itself (ontology) and to provide a standard of what it would mean for something to “work” or in other words what is practical, both of which will require logic as a basis once again to elaborate on them, by which I mean a grounding of logic must be prior to logic not posterior to it. Since many pragmatic approaches though commendable for their simplicity and the priority which they give to practicality, they do not give any satisfactory or functional answers to such fundamental questions especially ones that are not in themselves concrete which is the realm in which pragmatic solutions are welcome but rather are in nature abstract.

Another thing is for certain, that our answer for justifying logic should not undermine logic in the process as would materialism or empiricism for instance since logic would definitely not be reducible to matter as a unifying principle nor is it that which we observe empirically, and the idea that it is an emergent structure would be arbitrary as well, since there must have been an even more basic structure from which that structure emerges, it properly pertains to what is intelligible abstracted from any physical objects, and making an exception for logic being of that which is different from the material and rules over the material would be like elevating logic as a transcendent first principle, a position that logic does not fully fulfill due to it requiring grounding itself as we saw and is arbitrary in essence.

By the virtue of having no clear alternative our reasoning depends on logic unavoidably and we cannot coherently conceive of the opposite but the issue at heart is where does it stand and find its proper ground in our epistemology and the way you or I see logic will affect our conclusions and interpretations of everything else in the world, in a way that observation free of the need for interpretation through a conceptual framework and self-evident truths that are accessible to everyone in the same way are not as evident as we might want to think, in fact, no such thing exists.

This also points to the untenability of naive forms of rationalism where logic is almost always taken for granted as that would not lead to conclusive answers to anything, since if different people have different starting points they would reach different equally logically valid positions whose only claim to truth hinges on the truth of the starting point.

Although this kind of argument is characteristic of radical skeptics, especially of the Academic period right after Plato, I reject their views on truth since they are ultimately self-refuting in their analysis of the problem—their conclusion of epistemic nihilism would make their position void of any strength that would compel anyone to agree, since the conclusion of the impossibility of knowledge is presented as an object of knowledge.

What I would take away as conclusions from the whole of this examination is that logic itself is not the only epistemic tool, and there must be part of an array of other criteria or be subordinate to a higher faculty that apprehends truth without mediation and not just the discursive faculty that deliberates between rational choices step-by-step–something that is properly metaphysical or rather metanoetic to be accurate to terms although this might be quickly dismissed by those who are anti-metaphysics–since otherwise the result would be that of an unending philosophical maze, which in my opinion is what is manifested in the western philosophical tradition. Also in some ways both the foundationalists and the coherentists accounts have valid insights that can illuminate different aspects of epistemology but not one to the exclusion of the other.

Aporia

In this sense and considering both knowledge, and logic as a tool to navigate knowledge, we reach what can only be described as an aporia, these insofar as they are discursive processes cannot be self-grounded since in any attempt to ground them we have to presuppose them, and in this sense we are looking for a principle that transcends both and that can be apprehended without both, to which I have offered hints without further elaboration, since the road to such satisfying elaboration is treacherous, these hints manifesting in the immediate (in the sense of without mediation) metanoetic (that is beyond mind) apprehension, whether this is possible or not is matter of another subject which for now we will pass in silence, since if such thing exists it cannot be fully communicated in language.

On Language and Philosophy

“A name is an instrument of teaching and of separating reality, as the shuttle is of separating the web.”

— Plato, Cratylus 388b

Why this idea cannot be fully communicated in language, as I claimed, will become quite clear once we explore the role of language in philosophical investigations, now we must be well aware that discussing language and its limits in terms of language itself can get us into self-referential territory that might be risking performative contradictions, although one that we should not shy away from, given the essential role language plays in the totality of human life, especially when it comes to philosophy, which demands a precision that language does not always offer, given that it, by its very nature, drives language to its utmost limit or even exceeds it, and the fact that this can be done shows that our intellect, both in its discursive and non-discursive functions, is capable of awareness of matters that language cannot fully put together in terms of words.

A particularly useful analogy of language is that of compression, I maintain that language acts as a sort of compression, of concepts or thought in the mental and abstract landscape or objects in the concrete–and not that these two are mutually distinct since the concrete itself is compressed into the mental, making it a double-compression–into discrete mental representations to be communicated, and this is why definitions always have special cases that break it and are not exhaustive of what they define. And the fact that the physical is doubly mediated–in the sense that concrete objects are compressed mentally and that compression is further compressed in analysis–parallels the insight of Plato about the world of change where true knowledge is not possible (in our analogy, due to the introduction of compression loss) though I do not take the extreme separation between the two worlds.

In this way we make use of our discursive intellects in forming linguistic expressions more so to limit the experiences and thoughts and compress them in a way as to be able to deliver them in writing, speech or conversation, and since the transmission of the content of intellect depends on speech as we can contemplate the things that we express in language, it can lead us to falsly mistaking the compression for the thought or the object of experience itself, in a way that the resulting conceptual space that is a compression of reality is equated with the experience or thought themselves, thus becoming to us the experience and thought that are therefore once more compressed, and this can incur further information loss or the narrowing of our experience or thoughts.

This is widely apparent in self-identifications and definitions. When one identifies by a designator, he compresses his identity into that conceptual space, and when one defines a term he compresses the experience of the object, idea or act expressed by the term in its indefinite form. This means that in philosophical investigations as well as in personal perception we should be more perceptive of this compressive function of language and preserve the proper hierarchy of our conceptual tools with regards to language, experience and thought where the language should not be preeminent, neither should experience be fully subordinated to it, although to clarify what is meant by experience, it is not empiricism but pertains both external (empirical) and internal (phenomenological) experience.

Thus in this way the proper ordering of language and the awareness of the limitation of each tool within our conceptual toolbox, including experience itself, is crucial, since even experience can often be deceptive and thoughts can be triggered in us externally outside of our will, and as we saw language has power to shape us if we are not aware enough instead of us shaping it which is the proper relationship between us and our tools. This discernment is essential for any wise contemplation of philosophy and of life generally, since without it we can be possessed by concepts, ideas not of our own, and be consumed by our deception; in a way and as St Gregory of Nyssa expresses “every concept which comes from some comprehensible image by an approximate understanding and by guessing at the divine nature constitutes an idol of God and does not proclaim God.” (The Life of Moses, Book II.165).

Each word, concept, and experience should not be mistaken for the reality it represents, and should be conceived of in reference to the reality of things, since almost all philosophical confusion stems from this error–evident with mistaking parts for the whole, images for the archetype, effects for causes and many other collapses of distinctions.

That being said, with regards to another point, that of compression itself though not of the most basic units of language such as words, rather of sentences and statements, in that, we omit details quite regularly, in performing the function of compression in language, details which are crucial for understanding but are comprehended implicitly; for instance we might make both these statements and while they seem contradictory, they are perfectly valid and true at once, we might say “I am exactly the same as I was ten years ago” or “I am completely different than what I was ten years ago”, these are both true regardless of their apparent contradiction, especially since we implicitly understand that we mean different aspects of identity, and that there were omissions of the part which clarify in what respect are we the same or are we different. And if fully expanded what we get is this “I am exactly the same [according to identity] as I was ten years ago” and “I am completely different [according to growth or knowledge] than what I was ten years ago”.

Another example but not one with regards to self identity but with regards to the collective as well, is when one says “We all are the same”, with “we” referring either to the humanity and its members, or a specific group within it, and can say as well “We are all different”, both being true, and in this case what is omitted in both instances that must be implicitly supplied is this “We are all the same [according to our shared nature]” and “We are all different [according to our personal identities]”. And on another note, omission is also evident in verbs of identification in the sense that when we say “He is a human”, “He is brave”, or “He is Julius”, “is” in these cases is meant in different ways, in terms of essence, quality and personal identity respectively in the sense that if fully clarified these statements would be “He is [essentially] a human”, “He is [qualitatively] brave” and “He is [identically] Julius” with each of these at times having different mappings to specific categories that might not be agreed upon in terms of meaning whether of the categories and what they mean themselves or what is predicated as such.

This poses a great challenge for philosophical discourse since in practicing our habitual use of language, we are usually omitting the most important clarifications, by which an argument is understood properly, and it also illuminates the need for and the raison d’etre of a whole field of hermeneutics, as well as the fact that philosophers from the antiquity were struggling to properly interpret either Plato, Aristotle or any other philosopher, and it is also why Socrates was so keen on uncovering implicit assumptions and clarifying definitions to the point of bothering his interlocutors with questions of definitions until they give up on having a conversation and even wanted him dead. Since in a way this is contrary to our normal way to conversing, that is to make everything explicit, and if it were we would be speaking like automata, which is also why it is quite the challenge to start learning about philosophy for the first time where what seems trivial is elaborating to torturous extents.

In antiquity, this problem was often handled by tradition, given that within one tradition the philosophers of that specific school had shared linguistic shortcuts and presuppositions which meant that they could handle problems from their own paradigm rather than having to reconstruct their foundations each time, which was also the same for religions and cults (esoteric cults, not in the negative sense but as is derived from the latin cultus) which were common, and these were highly secretive, since they could risk being misunderstood with regards to their mysteries and doctrines. But in this age, we do not have such modes of transmission as systematized as they were, and thus the never-ending debates about foundational matters became ubiquitous, except that the academic system replaces tradition with anti-tradition, a tradition of a persistent hostile stance towards tradition, where you can hold to any idea except the ones that were already tried in the past.

Due to this, most modern debates and philosophical discourse seem futile, and every worldview and perspective seem to have good reasons for and against adopting it, especially since if one were to attempt to be neutral and deeply evaluate, one would see that each one makes perfect sense within its own framework and other frameworks are incommensurable with it, given that each one uses language in its own particular manner, and given the lack of tradition, incoherence only arises when one attempts the intellectual grocery shopping of ideas from many traditions and philosophical systems leading to personal confusion and dissonance even before the philosophical fragmentation and subsequently the societal one.

And this is mainly a problem of language and how it functions primarily, and what occurs when the whole institution of philosophy is in linguistic disarray, even if speaking the very same language, which is interesting considering the dominance of English as an international language, and it is also quite dismissive for the ones who would interpret this observation of philosophical disagreements as ‘merely’ being a linguistic issue in the sense that it is not important, since these language issues have great ramifications.

In a way fruitful philosophical discussions, or any debate for that matter, involves the making explicit of assumptions and definitions, in a way to decompress the thoughts behind arguments and to make explicit the character of the framework undergirding them still in terms of language but in a more refined logical structure that is not natural to language in a way we must say much in order to unsay our inadequacy, and it is that when one has confused the compression for the compressed, here one can run the risk to talk past the other and impose on the other his own suppositions, or one can attempt to transcend the problem by reverent silence and to make our actions into our speech.

So far, we have only considered these subjects—especially knowledge and logic—in isolation, that is, abstracted from lived experience as I alluded to in many ways in the preceding parts. We must now account for these practical dimensions as well, which add new complexities to our subject.

On Falsehoods as Evident Truths

Before delving into this, it is worth reiterating that what is false cannot be true and what is true cannot be false—yet every particular person has opinions about things, opinions even absurd when examined closely. It is not that these opinions are unjustified or that the people holding them are foolish, far from it. Upon engaging with a person, one typically finds that their justifications for their ideas are largely sound even though we find it evident that their idea is false, for they also find it evident that what they believe is true. But what accounts for this? And what does this mean for truth? As truth as it is cannot be attributed to two categorically contradictory statements.

For this we must bring to mind the reality that a belief is not merely a neutral standpoint on a certain question but also affects how people build their beliefs and, based on that, act in life and receive confirmations and feedback about those beliefs from the external world. So beliefs are not only mental equations that can be mathematically proven false and then nothing is affected but the idea falsified itself. In most cases, a change of opinion entails a whole change in perspective, for a belief does not stand by itself but is a node in a larger web of other beliefs.

From a logical standpoint, a belief about a certain proposition will lead, if thought about, to another series of beliefs that will inform decisions, behaviors, self-perception and the model of the world each person has built in their mind. Whether one has done this with an open mind or in a closed-minded manner as colloquially expressed does not matter much because everyone who thinks and has beliefs has gone through this either consciously and willingly or otherwise. As social creatures we often even do this collectively, and this process of changing one’s mind is not only psychologically difficult or even impossible but I might even dare say rational in that it cuts off cognitive costs.

Before continuing, I must make a distinction—though regrettably, since even this distinction may be contested—between truth as it is, justified beliefs, and certainty. For truth is not reducible to mere justified beliefs, nor are justified beliefs always certain in the mind of the individual, and truth as it is is something we can barely grasp through purely mental means. This distinction matters because the holder of a belief can often confuse what feels certain with what is true, and what is justified with what is certain or with what is true. Now we cannot deny that there are cases where they can intersect, but often it is more nuanced than that, and in other cases they are mutually exclusive.

Now as for these categories I have presented, I can attempt to explain to the best of my ability how, as I said, falsehoods become evident truths. For one, justified beliefs that are false can be evident to their holder based on the falsehood of the prior beliefs and assumptions that led to their derivation. Even true evident beliefs and assumptions can lead to false views given the factor of misinterpretation, for a statement of any sort can be understood in many ways and in some instances in ways that are contrary to the intended or correct idea.

And as for certainty about beliefs, it engenders a peculiar effect of leading the one who is certain to a focalized perception that only sees what confirms that certainty and at times to levels of narrow vision that make one unable to consider different viewpoints or perspectives.

Let me be clear, I am not suggesting that Truth does not exist or is elusive or that its nature is subjective, as that view of subjectivism and epistemic nihilism has a whole host of problems that render it untenable, but rather I am highlighting the fallibility of our own reasoning faculties and how we can fall into pits of false beliefs and are hence unable to discern our beliefs from what is correct.

And with that let us continue: if one is willing to examine what one is certain about and what one believes with justification and is willing to come closer to what is true, what errors must one avoid committing? What aspects of thought lead to falsehoods?

There are many and we commit them far more often than not, as we might:

All these can lead us away from truth toward falsehoods and we would do better to avoid these if our priority is to attain knowledge of things as they are which is the essence of philosophy. But I would say that it is not always beneficial to most people whose hearts are not set on love for truth but rather on getting by in existence, as often the emotional commitment to false beliefs, though painful and potentially destructive to sever completely, serves psychological functions.

Thus far we have operated on the level of individuals, but we must acknowledge that knowledge is more fundamentally a communal activity involving collections of individuals and societies as a whole. Since these communities are structured hierarchically rather than as flat assemblies, and since hierarchy is ubiquitous in human organization, we must also account for how hierarchies interact with epistemic life.

On Epistemic Authority

We have established that knowledge is not merely a mental exercise divorced from practical implications. The problem is that when we come to see knowledge as such, as something neutral that has no bearing on the manner we live, we fall into cognitive traps that lead us to live a life that is not ours and that is not conducive to the fulfillment of our ends as particular human beings.

We are embodied, rational beings who are subject to some extent to emotions and dispositions, and who are active according to the capacity of our will within the environment into which we are brought. And given these conditions, any change in one level of our existence, whether of body, mind or consciousness, has an effect not only on that level but on our whole being, and thus knowledge and beliefs of any kind have bearing not only on the mind but also on all other aspects of our existence.

Given my explanation of this, let me now address the points I want to tackle:

  1. We live as beings in sets of hierarchies of many levels and many aspects.
  2. Each of these hierarchies has power over the knowledge we can access and the level of assent they expect from us.
  3. This power can affect the type of knowledge we absorb and thus the way we act on that knowledge.
  4. Healthy skepticism, or rather discernment, ensures that the whole structure remains balanced and robust against extreme abuse or fragmentation of those hierarchies.

I will address each point and try to maintain the nuance of the view I am putting forward. First I must clarify that I am not advocating for naive submission to authority or for radical skepticism, both of which I will strive to show are inadequate for human fulfillment.

First, it is clear that usually each of us is born not in isolation but into a family, and that the family we are born into is part of a larger extended family which is itself part of a community, and that community is part of a nation, which is ruled and administered by a head of state, be it a king or president, or by a governing body. For the current reflection I will stop at the level of the state and will not venture to discuss the role of globalization and modern politics, though there are certainly other hierarchies above the state which include even competing elements.

These hierarchies are not of one accord and not of one voice at all times, and each deals with many aspects of human life, whether scientific, political, religious, moral or dealing with traditions and customs. But there are specific mechanisms and institutions through which each of these domains is handled separately, usually structured through media and news institutions. And this is what I meant by hierarchies of many levels and many aspects.

Before I continue, I must first provide a working definition of what a hierarchy is. For this analysis, consider hierarchy as the structure that enables multiplicity (in our case a multiplicity of people) to be considered a unit. It is usually a triangular or trapezoidal structure with each person having a role in upholding the hierarchy, with roles having different levels of importance for upholding it, most elements constituting the base and the fewest the summit. Now this definition is based not on the ideal of a hierarchy, but on how they are manifest in reality, and even chaotic examples that do not fit the description I gave perfectly still enable some sort of unity on some levels, though usually those chaotic ones are on the verge of collapse if not corrected internally.

I know that even this definition can be subject to scrutiny and some might find it lacking or inaccurate, but bear with me and I will justify this along the way. Now given that we live within at least one hierarchy if not many, and that our knowledge is lived rather than an abstract mental exercise we perform for its own sake, it is only natural that we and our personal knowledge participate in and are in constant dialogue with those around us and those within or outside some of the hierarchies we either share or do not share with those we interact with.

And given that some parts of the hierarchies we participate in have more control and responsibilities than we do within those hierarchies, they have both power and incentive to either reveal or omit one piece of knowledge or another, for the sake of the common goal a hierarchy pursues. This occurs either by selectively emphasizing one aspect, remaining silent on another, or offering a particular perspective and interpretation about a piece of knowledge. For example, your biology teacher will not suddenly teach physics on a random day, and a mother will not give advice to her ten-year-old as if he were thirty.

This means that, given that we participate in hierarchies that are not always of one common goal, they are not obligated to avoid contradiction if they fundamentally disagree; and thus one individual or a sub-hierarchy can be subjected to epistemic dissonance while operating in different contexts and other sub-hierarchies under one overarching hierarchy.

And indeed a hierarchy can at times demand intellectual consent to certain ideas, manifested today in political parties, religious organizations, traditions, and academic settings—environments that require intellectual assent to their principles in order to participate in them, something that is quite understandable given that their role in society requires it by nature.

These conditions now result in confusions within the individual, and even within sub-hierarchies or communities, which aspire to participate in multiple aspects of society and must both maintain their principles while not disrupting the workings of society at large and simultaneously avoid being influenced in unwanted ways. A failure to achieve any of these results in limited participation in society, estrangement from it, or even worse outcomes depending on the nature of the environment one inhabits.

And even adherence to the principles of a hierarchy, even when unthreatened by external pressures, informs our whole disposition, behavior, and even morality, as well as the way by which we acquire and verify further knowledge. This makes both the choice of adherence and the choice to conform to all hierarchies very costly, since one must evaluate the effects and outcomes of epistemic adherence to a hierarchy in order to choose wisely. Attempting to conform to all hierarchies either causes great personal confusion or makes one highly deceptive and morally compromised, both of which are undesired traits in any healthy hierarchy.

This is where healthy skepticism or discernment becomes a necessary tool to navigate the life I have described, both as a personal practice and as an internal corrective mechanism of hierarchies. This skepticism, or rather discernment, involves many facets and is not merely a rationalistic process but an action in itself. These facets might be elaborated as follows:

For Individuals:

For Hierarchies:

In terms of the hierarchies themselves, they must be able to adjust and adopt processes of discernment to ensure their continuity and health, and to avoid collapse into either rigid authoritarianism or anarchy by:

Now what I have elaborated here itself requires a reference point by which one can recognize what constitutes correct discernment, but that is a matter for another occasion. Overall I would say that this framework I have explained can be beneficial for navigating the multifaceted and often conflicting environments we inhabit, and that what is needed is not an anarchist rejection of all authority nor a naive submission to all authority but rather a wise and calculated discernment of what is right and wrong with what is being imposed, in the service of the correction of hierarchies, by which we may live harmoniously and in an orderly manner in society and in the world.

Concluding Remarks

We began by asking what it is to know, and through this inquiry we did not reach a definitive answer but rather a deep recognition of the complexity inherent in the question itself. Discursive processes cannot provide their own ultimate justification by virtue of their structure: knowledge requires a synthesis of Being and Change prior to all discursive thought, logic presupposes principles it cannot justify, and language compresses reality in ways that lead to omission and misinterpretation. These theoretical insights have intriguing practical implications, as individuals hold false beliefs with evident certainty through the same mechanisms by which beliefs form knowledge webs, language shapes thought and thought likewise shapes language, and hierarchies exercise power over what knowledge is accessible and what assent is expected from their participants.

In light of these considerations, the pursuit of knowledge requires several important recognitions. First of all, that autonomous wholly abstracted reason is inadequate and we must acknowledge foundations unjustified by reason, which are truths apprehended through an immediate metanoetic faculty rather than discursive mediation. Second, that we must be aware of how language shapes our very thoughts and how this might proliferate and reflect back on our language as well, cultivating discernment to recognize when words have been mistaken for realities and implicit assumptions left unexamined. Third, that we must recognize our own fallibility and the many sources of our errors. Fourth, that we must navigate epistemic authority with neither a collapse into anarchy nor naive submission, but rather with the cultivation of wise discernment.

To know therefore is to participate in a change from ignorance to understanding, a change that presupposes both the stable identity of what is known and the transformation of the knower. It requires reason yet depends on foundations reason cannot provide. It operates through language yet must not be hindered to the point of handicap by linguistic compression. It is both individual and communal, shaped by hierarchies yet requiring personal discernment. If this investigation has not resolved all questions, perhaps it has illuminated why they matter not only for philosophy but for how we live, think, and seek truth in a world where knowledge is always partial, always mediated, yet nonetheless real and worth pursuing.

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🏛️ Philosophy 💡 Epistemology ⚖️ Logic 💬 Linguistics

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