What May I know?

But man, proud man
Dressed in a little brief authority
Most ignorant of what he's most assured-
His glassy essence-like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven
As made the angels weep-who, without spleens
Would all laugh themselves mortal.

The mirror accepts forms without changing and is, therefore, itself the image of a quiet contemplative mind. Still waters reflect. Mind can reflect knowledge of the highest, purest universal qualities. Mind is not the brain, the "spleen", but something that is timeless, or at least has the capacity for timelessness. (The materialist monism of the evolutionists poses all sorts of problems of how one can know..as the Greeks would have said: if everything is flowing , everything is a stream, then who sees it?)

Is knowledge representation of the object or identification with it, transcendence or immanence? Both!

Aristotle: intellect is mirror and eye that surveys the image. [For Descartes, it is only the latter (i.e subjectivity..cp. the object that guarantees the subject..see Schuon)]. The "substantial forms" of the stars enter the intellect...Coleridge: we want to see and feel the stars.

Scepticism: is consciousness completely separate from these external objects or is mind a product of the body? And yet, if there is only a gap, then how can the mind bridge it? There is a temptation to reduce these complexities in one direction or the other: either all is material or all is idea: idea is an "object" in the mind only ..objects are representations in the inner space..God, pain.. (see Kerr).

The metaphysical outlook is displaced by a materialistic one; 'heaven and earth' by 'earth' (materialistic monism).

For Aristotle, the 'eye' of the body can see/know particulars (sensation, motion) whilst the eye of the mind, reason, can see/know universals. There is a dualism but it is between human faculties; both lie on this side of the knowing subject. For Descartes: mind-body. Now the dualism is between consciousness and inert matter, res extensa (and the body falls into the latter). Now a pronounced distinction between the world of inner freedom (noumenal) and mechanical causality (phenomenal)
--From Rorty's '

Realism (R): the world extends beyond what we can conceive.

Idealism (I): what is, is what we can conceive; what we cannot conceive is not.

Emphasis on can, i.e not on what we actually conceive (empirically) but an argument from reason. (and 'we' implies possible minds, not infinite minds).

Strong version of I: something does not exist unless we perceive it (as opposed to conceive).

Does something (reality) exist independently of our methods of reaching it? Is objectivity possible? But for R an increase in objectivity does not necessarily reveal the world as it really is..a difference between what there is and what we can conceive of is still possible; 'I' is based on a lack of humility and a reductionism: limit the universe to our own self-understanding..'I am the world' (or one first of all limits what is our possible experience and therefore what we can know).

Is there a category of things of which we can form no conception? but wouldn't such a conception of such a category itself be a contradiction since to use words like "exist" is already to be on this side of 'conception'.

Positive inconceivable: there are things which we cannot conceive of; something is impossible.

Negative inconceivable: there may be things that we cannot conceive of that are , nonetheless, real. (we do not know what we do not know). In other words, we cannot say that there are no things that are real and beyond our conception.

'I': what cannot conceived of makes no sense (to us) . We do not possess a general concept of reality that goes beyond 'existence' as we understand it. What would it mean to say that we cannot conceive of 'exists'? By imputing existence to it doesn't that mean that it can, in some sense at least, be conceived? Can something exist without the mind (conceiving it)? [does this lead to a contradiction: reality does not extend beyond what we can think..except for the reality of that thought itself]

But can reality extend beyond what people can conceive of (the blind, the deaf as an analogy)?

If we take away the people (us) who have a higher grasp of reality that reality still exists independently of the mind that conceives it (even though those at the lower level than us may not be able to conceive it); similarly, are there other beings with an understanding of reality that is higher than ours?

Objection: What is meant by 'higher' here, what is meant by 'lower'? In what sense can I say the 9 year-old has a "limited" grasp of reality ?This is only understandable in terms of the language I use. "Limited" assumes reference to another picture of the world is available to me..i.e language can move,a s it were, inwards (or downwards). In a similar vein, the analogy depends on the ability of language to move 'out' : in what way can we say there is a higher reality if we only have our language?

Objections to the objection: Let's say we cannot communicate with the 9 year-old . If he believes that a higher form of understanding exists (ours) -even if incommunicable- is this "nonsense", is it nonsense even though it is true in this case? [Is this the Kantian position: there is a higher truth, just that we cannot know it?] On what grounds can we say that there is no possibility of anything beyond his experiences being real?

Furthermore, concepts contain their complements..what they cannot be applied to. Our general concept, therefore, includes both even though it may lack a name. Would we have reason to believe that nothing ever corresponds to the ideas of things we cannot conceive of..i.e can we positively say so?

Wittgenstein: anything beyond the bounds of human experience , beyond the community's understanding, beyond the words for something, can have no meaning; there can be only silence.

But we can (and do) also publicly agree on what we cannot say and that is a form of judgement , understanding. Isn't this also a part of human experience? This raises the question of the possibility of a transcendent thought , anything beyond language , proof , evidence, empirical understanding. Is this the distinction between knowledge and understanding?

'I': reality is dependent on our thought whereas 'R' would claim, I think, that we and our thought are dependent on reality. I like this second thought, sounds Russian. Subjectivity is fashioned from given materials.