Epistemology

Johannes Kieding
Honors English 200-CC1
Professor Dunning
Fall 2008
At-Home Assignment 8
Due: 12/09/08



Things to know and ways of knowing them

There are concrete, tangible, and specific things to know - phenomenon
that are anchored in ontological substance. A dog, a cat, and a cup form
examples of this category of corporal phenomenon. These things are known
through direct experience, direct contact with the phenomenon itself. No
name is needed to distinguish a dog from a cat, or Mom from Dad, but as
names are learned, the names of each thing that is recognized for what it
is arise spontaneously from the contact between the knower and the known.
Identification is the way we know things that are directly experienced.
Because identification knows by directly experiencing phenomena, it
recognizes what something is based on that it is. In other words, the
insight into things that happens through the act of identification reveals
the percept as it is, beyond its characteristics, not as it is in
relationship to other things. Identification and recognition are synonymous
in this line of thinking.

There are intangible and formless things to know – phenomena that have no
anchoring in ontology of substance, but ontology that is conceptual and
resides in the realm of meanings, functions, and abstractions. These are
the ideas and concepts of things, the "blue-prints," if you will. They
involve generalities, not specifics or particulars. Culture, society, and
the economy constitute examples of intangible, conceptual phenomenon. Art,
music, and politics cannot be pinned down in the concrete the way a
painting, a piano, and a politician can, but their realities as ideas can
be known conceptually. Concepts come to their full within the realm of
language and words, and they allow us to speak of topics without referring
to any particulars. We come to know intangible, conceptual realities
through our ability to understand meanings, intentions, and patterns.
The ability to conceptualize is supported by our ability to define.
Definitions are either arbitrary or connected to archetypal realities, such
as the archetypal thief, teacher, or leader. The ability to extract
commonality in parts, to abstract, lie at the heart of conceptual
formations.
With adequate exposure to the world of concrete things, the delicate
mind becomes privy to the different ideas, kinds, sorts, and patterns
underlying and connecting the realm of form.our attention is absorbed by
concepts, a rift may form, creating a veil between the knower and the
known. When this happens, concepts no longer serve as windows but walls.
With this rift from the immediate and the direct also comes the potential
for fabricated fictions. The "horn of a rabbit" is a saying that suggests
that with our conceptual abilities, we are able to conjure falsity,
concepts that have no referent to an ontological base. When we know with
definitions, we can entertain what something is before we have ascertained
that something is. When our conceptualizing connects with immediate
perception (identification), however, when concepts are "experience-near,"
to coin a psychological term, they capture actual percepts and
relationships that are real in spite of not possessing concrete bodies.

There are non-conceptual, intangible, yet real things to know. We can
conceptualize them, as we can conceptualize anything, yet consciousness,
love, and awareness exists whether we conceptualize them or not. That is
the difference between concepts and other intangible realities; non-
conceptual, immaterial phenomena manifest without thought. Feelings appear
in children long before children know what feelings are conceptually. The
sense of existing, living, our sense of self, can of course be
conceptualized into an idea, but it is there prior to ideas.
Experiential realities that fall in this category are usually beyond
definitions. Definitions fail to encompass them. Even if we try, this make
them stale, leaving us with the ideas of things instead of the actual
things themselves. As reading a menu can never satisfy hunger, so can
conceptualizing about the self, love, and grace never inform us as the
things themselves can. When it comes to compassion, consciousness, and the
soul, it can be observed that these things shy away from definitions,
allowing instead moments of identifications. They reveal their nature the
best only in the knowing that they are, becoming more opaque when defined
into what they are.


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The above text typifies "Stuffy Talk." The passive voice, the absence of
poetic, metaphorical language, and the systematic layout of the piece might
make a reader fall asleep, weary of being dragged, not catapulted, from
sentence to sentence. Though the content might interest some, a dry, stuffy
tone is sure to turn away many.