From: Lee Daniel Crocker (lcrocker@mercury.colossus.net)
Date: Mon Jan 17 2000 - 10:07:38 MST
>> rephrase: can you give me *ONE* single example of a case where, using
>> criticism as your only tool, you succeed in ADDING TO the body of
>> knowledge stored in your mind ?
No, I can't. But that's not my goal. My goal is to survive longer
than those justificationists who proudly list pages of justified
"knowledge" in their heads, but who will inevitably run into some
bizarre circumstance that doesn't fit their world model and thereby
conveniently remove themselves from the genepool while I adapt.
Advocates of CCR make a small mistake when they claim the criticism
is a means to the end of knowledge--it's not. Criticism is the end
in itself. Criticism is a means to avoid dying by mistakenly
believing things that have been successfully criticized. It by no
means elevates what's left--those suppositions that have so far
withstood criticism--to the status of "truth" or "knowledge" or some
other such illusion.
It is often convenient to think in terms of "knowledge" as a shortcut,
treating a worldview that has withstood criticism as a "working model"
on which to base actions. But we do not make the mistake of treating
this as "real" knowledge, whatever that is.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC
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