Aristotle compared the acquisition of knowledge to wax taking on the shape of a seal. I prefer to think of it (and must have gotten this from somewhere--don't know where) to a hand grasping something, with the interior of the hand taking on the shape of that which has been grasped (or perhaps I should say "the surface of the hand" in order to avoid the impression that I am imputing a kind of interiority--I am not sure that I want to go there). This metaphor captures how knowledge, and cognition in general, always involves active and passive aspects,with language being the way we reach out at things that we can't actually touch.
Here is a summary and comments on the essay Freedom and Resentment by PF Strawson. He makes some great points, and when he is wrong, it is in such a way as to clarify things a great deal. My non-deterministic position is much better thanks to having read this. I’ll summarize it in this post and respond in a later one. In a nutshell: PFS first argues that personal resentment that we may feel toward another for having failed to show goodwill toward us would have no problem coexisting with the conviction that determinism is true. Moral disapprobation, as an analog to resentment, is likewise capable of coexisting with deterministic convictions. In fact, it would seem nearly impossible for a normally-constituted person (i.e., a non-sociopath) to leave behind the web of moral convictions, even if that person is a determinist. In this way, by arguing that moral and determinist convictions can coexist in the same person, PFS undermines the libertarian argument ...
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