BadgerJelly » February 18th, 2019, 11:16 am
When it comes to doubt there is literally nothing in human awareness we cannot doubt in some respect. The only thing we can hold up at “knowledge” is a rule set within specific bounds
I did not want this comment to be lost as it comes at the end of a long post.
It is only as we narrow our vision, define certain parameters, that we can claim
knowing in the midst of it.
If one divides the world between those who know Allah and those who do not, then one can claim knowledge for themselves as they believe in Allah, their own minds having defined the parameters. Those who believe in science can just as well create parameters where they juxtapose it against religion so that they too might claim knowledge for themselves, thus elevating themselves in their own eyes.
But we also know that many of the great scientists, genius' of the past believed in God as strongly as they believed in science, inasmuch as such belief in God was
knowledge to them. Knowledge drawn not from experiments which could be replicated but measured in other ways that the instruments of science cannot ascertain.
Philosophy is meant to cover all of life, not merely the narrow vision of matter itself. It covers love, children, relationships, it often covers the
Why of life whereas science might merely be struggling with the
How.
In science one claims to know a "Fact", yet the knowledge of that fact only exists within a predefined context. But what is such a fact, is the grass green, or every color but green, you look through an electron microscope and do you see the object itself, or merely an EFFECT of the electrons bouncing off what is now destroyed. We found atomic particles, then subatomic particles, then they disappeared into quantum waves where only potential resides. The
context changes and what we thought were facts, were merely effects within the previous context.
We we design the game of chess, and the facts, the rules are known, but life is not a game of chess. Philosophy, beyond merely the academic practice of such, is the attempt of man, the mind of man, to understand something of ALL of life.
But many miss the first step, just as a scientist must tune his instrument, and understand what it does, so a philosopher must first explore his own mind, understand the instrument he is using to divine the universe around him. One of the things he might learn is that it is possible to know and not know simultaneously, he sees but he also understands he is not truly seeing. We can study a mountain, but can we ever really know a mountain, to know it, if possible, demand more than any of the instruments or measurements science can provide. How much more God, who by nature would transcend all.