Friday, January 06, 2023

(EM) Epistemological Poetry

(In anticipation of our upcoming "epistemology and metaphysics" seminar)

On Knowing

To know or not to know the world:
Are words and worlds themselves impearled,
Cerebral grit, strung end-to-end;
My thoughts of things and things a blend
Of ideational and pretend?

Or might I sometimes speak the truth
(However bold, or worse -- uncouth)
If what I think or say reflects
The state of things my mind detects,
My words denote, the world projects?

DKBJ

PS.  Our queries this semester reflect the centrality of Friedrich Engels' "two great camps thesis":

In what relation do our thoughts about the world surrounding us stand to this world itself? Is our thinking capable of the cognition of the real world? Are we able in our ideas and notions of the real world to produce a correct reflection of reality? Thus the question of the relation of thinking to being, the relation of the spirit to nature [is] the paramount question of the whole of philosophy (Engels, F., Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy).

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