Imperfect Procedural Epistemology

This will be brief, yet potentially helpful (it was for me). We have discussed knowledge and truth to some extent in class, and as Elgin has clarified distinctions about these topics for me, I will share these clarifications with you.

When we talk about knowledge in class, I often am thinking in absolutes and universals, and I would say our language often insinuates absolutes and universals, at least in part. What Elgin distinguishes is that there is a type of epistemology that deals with reality this way, and it is called perfect procedural epistemology. In this way of thinking, roughly speaking, the world is more or less black and white. There is right and wrong, moral and immoral. Few systems of thought fit well within this epistemological style.

So we may benefit in our conversations in class to think in terms of imperfect procedural epistemology rather than perfect procedural epistemology. This is the case because if we operate within this epistemological schema, we can approximate knowledge via coherence and correspondence, albeit we are indeed left with questions about whether our way of valuing knowledge is founded.

We can talk in class by referring to history and to the various fields of inquiry that exist, and what has been the standard for counting something as knowledge. We get somewhere by doing this, though we could be wrong. I'm okay with this right now, and I hope you all may be okay with this also.