Re: Difficulties in communication. . .

From: Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 13:38:24 -0700

1Z wrote:
>
> Brent Meeker wrote:
>
>
>
>>As my physics prof, Jurgen Ehlers used to say, "Before we can say whether or
>>not a thing exists we must know some of it's properities." So to know
>>whether or not bigfoot exists we need to know enough properties of the
>>concept 'bigfoot', like "big", "hairy", "bipedal", "lives in woods of the
>>Pacific Northwest",... Given enough properties we may be able to test his
>>existence against empirical evidence and reach a provisional conclusion.
>>
>>So epistemology precedes ontology.
>
>
> OTOH, ontology precedes epistemology, because you
> can't figure out whether anything else exists unless you exist!

That brings us back to Descartes "I think therefore I am"; which Russell
pointed out was an unsupported inference. The most that could be said is,
"There's thinking." If your ontology includes processes like "thinking"
then I suppose it does precede your empistemology. But you can't kick
thinking and if you could it wouldn't kick back - unless the ESPers are
right. ;-)

Brent Meeker

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Received on Sun Aug 13 2006 - 16:40:30 PDT

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