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

Sat Apr 19 14:09:38 UTC 2003

Correct. Disambiguation is necessary.

Fred

> From: Robert <rkscience100 at yahoo.com>
> Reply-To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2003 06:48:48 -0700 (PDT)
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Larry's text is being unfairly criticised
> 
> 
> 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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