Dave, Thanks for the quote, and it's wonderful insight.
Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato were excellent teachers. But the knowledge they imparted contains artifacts - meaning errors and critical omissions - that must be overcome even today. The gist of the Gödel / Hilbert conflict is that it changed the nature of science from a search for the truth to "separating what is probably true from the demonstrably false". From H. Pollack -- Uncertain Science, Uncertain World. What we believe we know is always in the context of our culture and our time. That is always subject to Quine's paradox. Ken > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Prof David West > Sent: Monday, July 28, 2008 7:53 AM > To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group > Subject: [FRIAM] an interesting quote > > > Came across this when looking at Peter Naur's work on > programming - thought it might be interesting to some > involved in the mathematics issues of debate recently - > especially the ones dealing with mathematics "privileged" status. > > > " ... ignorance towards any form of knowledge other than the > one that builds on the Aristotelian concept of epistemea > logically and terminologically elaborated system of > situation-invariant > (generally) true propositions. The focus on episteme in the > Western sciences has lead to an unjustified and systematic > prioritization of episteme and at the same time to a > disparagement and exclusion of alternative forms of > knowledge. Before the invention of the episteme, the ancient > Greeks also considered techne (the technical know-how > enabling to get things done) and phronesis (the practical > wisdom, drawn from social practices) as forms of knowledge. > While episteme is not embedded in the everyday practice of > action and communication among humans, both techne and > phronesis are ..." > > davew > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
