A New Theory of Knowledge
A New Theory of Knowledge
Knowledge is the conscious impingement of the world on the soul. I don’t think we can do better than this after all these years: it captures the essence. Knowledge is the (conscious) impingement of the world on the soul. These are its conceptual ingredients. Forget true justified belief, or acquaintance, or perception, or certainty: knowledge is to be defined as reality consciously impinging on the soul. I can’t say it any more clearly without sliding into falsehood. The world impinges on the soul, consciously so, and when it does knowledge is the upshot. World, soul, consciousness, impingement—these are the elements that make up the concept of knowledge, neither more nor less.
What is the “soul”? Why did you choose it instead of the “mind”?
Neither of these words is very well defined. To me the soul is more closely connected to the essence of the person or self: a person has a mind but is a soul. The connotation of “soul” includes depths that “mind” does not. Knowledge has value and the soul is supposed to be the center of value; the mind is just a faculty of the soul. But it would be okay to substitute “mind” into the definition (it is a more modern word) according to predilection. We could also say “intellect” or “sensibility” or “psyche” or even “brain”.
I landed here while reading your chapter in “Consciousness and its Place in Nature” after finding that you weren’t listed in the contributors page. And then I saw that you were at UCL when I was. That brought back memories of John Watling striding about his office declaiming on the nature of knowledge. And then I saw this blog post, all these years . . .
Good old Johnny Watling, a lively and extremely unproductive philosopher.