[WikiEN-l] Larry's text is being unfairly criticised

Sat Apr 19 13:48:48 UTC 2003

I have been silent reading a mass of misinformed and silly
attacks on Larry's fine article on philosophical knowledge
and epistemology. Some attacks on his work are even
motivated by a misplaced desire to be politically correct,
and I can stay silent no longer.

Let's state the problem simply:  Larry did NOT write an
article on: The many ways that people in all cultures and
ethnic groups use words that may be translated as
"knowledge."   

If Larry did write such an article, then I agree his text
was very poorly written, and culturally biased. However, he
never wrote such an article.  Instead, he wrote an article
on what philosophers mean by term knowledge; specifically,
how can human beings be _certain_ that what we think we
know is actually true. 

This is a very precise meaning of the term "knowledge", and
is a part of a 3000 year old Western philosophical
tradition, which also happens to be multicutural. (In
dozens of nations, we see that Jews, Christians, Muslims,
atheists, Humanists, Unitarians, etc. all believe that
classical and modern western philosophy is a valid way, if
not the most valid way, of making responsible statements
about knowledge.)

Some people here on this Wikipedia list are saying that
people in various Eastern religions happen to use words
that might be translated into English as knowledge, and use
these words in ways that are different than Larry's text
shows.  Well, duh. They also are using the word in a
different context, to describe something quite different. 
In fact mystics of all traditions (both Western and
Eastern, by the way) often use terms like "knowlege" in
ways that are obviously contrary to what philosophers mean
by the term.

Somehow people have failed to notice that Larry's text
*already* presupposes that people use the word "knowledge"
to mean different things. His article is a fine summary of
how philosophers *respond* to those uses of the words. 
Larry is not ignorant, and neither are all the philosophers
that have lived for the last 3000 years.  We know that
people make many claims of "knowing" facts. His article
goes on from ther to ask "HOW do we know with any certainty
that what we think is true, actually is true?"  "How do we
know that what we claim to be knowledge really is
knowledge?"  And the article builds from there.

So people are criticising him because they don't understand
what he was writing about. Further, his article happens to
be NPOV.  It is not, by any means, his personal point of
view. It is a good summary of the current philosophical
consensus at this time.

Can this article grow, develop and be improved?  Yes. 
Should we link together the ways that other people use the
word "knowledge", and compare and contrast them to how
philosophers use this term?  Yes.  But we shouldn't tear
Larry's text apart for sins he just never committed.

Robert (RK)

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