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by Mortimer J.
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by Mortimer Adler, Ph.D.
All men, Aristotle said, by nature desire to know. It may not be true that, born with that native propensity, all persons in fact continue to nourish it. But certainly there are but few who do not regard knowledge as desirable, as a good to be prized, and a good without limit -- the more, the better. It is generally understood that those who have knowledge about anything are in the possession of the truth about it. Individuals may at times be incorrect in their claim that they do have knowledge, but if they do, then they have some hold on the truth. The phrase "false knowledge" is a contradiction in terms; "true knowledge" is manifestly redundant. That being understood, the line that divides knowledge from opinion should also be clear. There is nothing self contradictory in the phrase "true opinion", or redundant in the phrase "false opinion". Opinions can be true or false, as knowledge cannot be. When individuals claim to have knowledge about something that turns out not to be knowledge at all because it is false, what they mistook for knowledge was only opinion. Closely connected with this distinction between knowledge and opinion are two other distinctions. One is the distinction between the things about which we can have certitude -- beyond any shadow of a doubt -- and things about which some doubt remains. We may be persuaded by them beyond a reasonable doubt, but that does not take them entirely out of the realm of doubt. Some doubt lingers. The other distinction is that between the corrigible and mutable and the incorrigible and immutable. When we have certitude about anything, we have a hold on truth that is both incorrigible and immutable. When anything remains in doubt, to even the slightest degree, it is both mutable and corrigible. We should recognize that we may change our minds about it and correct whatever was wrong. By these criteria for distinguishing between knowledge and opinion, how much knowledge do any of us have? Most of us would admit that we have precious little. Most of us are aware that in the history of science even the most revered formulations have been subject to change and correction. Yet at the same time most of us would be reluctant to say that the great generalizations or conclusions of science, those now regnant, are nothing but mere opinions. The word "opinion," especially when it is qualified by the word "mere," carries such a derogatory connotation that we feel, quite properly, that to call science opinion rather than knowledge is inadmissible. The only way out of this difficulty that I know is one that I proposed in an earlier book (Six Great Ideas) that contained a series of chapters on the idea of truth. I repeat it here in order to lay the ground for discussing two modern philosophical mistakes about the character and limits of human knowledge. The solution, it seems to me, lies in recognizing the sense in which the word "knowledge" signifies something that is quite distinct from anything that can be called an opinion, and the sense in which a certain type of opinion can also quite properly be called knowledge. That would leave another type of opinion, quite distinct from knowledge, which should properly be called mere opinion. When the criteria for calling anything knowledge are such exacting criteria as the certitude, incorrigibility, and immutability of the truth that is known, then the few things that are knowledge stand far apart from everything that might be called opinion. Examples of knowledge in this extreme sense of the term are a small number of self-evident truths. A self-evident truth is one that states something the opposite of which it is impossible to think. It can also be called a necessary truth because its opposite is impossible. That a finite whole is greater than any of its component parts and that each part of a finite whole is less than the whole are self-evident, necessary truths. We cannot think the opposite. The terms "part" and "whole" are indefinable. We cannot say what a part is without using the notion of whole, or what a whole is without using the notion of part, and so we cannot define either part or whole by itself. Nevertheless, we do so understand what parts and wholes are in relation to one another, that we cannot understand a part being greater than a whole or a whole less than a part. Sometimes definitions enter into our grasp of self-evident truths. We define a triangle as a three-sided plane figure. We define a diagonal as a line drawn between nonadjacent angles in a regular plane polygon. We know that, being three-sided, a triangle has no nonadjacent angles. Therefore, we know with certitude that it is necessarily true that there can be no diagonals in triangles, as there can be in squares, pentagons, and the like. Whether they know it or not, those who say that we have precious little knowledge that has such certitude may not realize that the little knowledge we have of this kind consists of a handful of self-evident or necessary truths like those just noted. Is everything else opinion, then? Yes and no; yes, if we insist upon the criteria of certitude, incorrigibility, and immutability of the truth known; no, if we relax those criteria and recognize that there are opinions we can affirm on the basis of evidence and reasons that have sufficient probative force to justify our claiming at the time that the opinion affirmed is true. I stress "at the time" because, since we have given up the criteria of incorrigibility and immutability, we must be prepared to have the opinion we now claim to be true on the basis of the evidence and reasons now available turn out to be false in the future, or in need of correction or alteration at some future time when new evidence and other reasons come into play. We should be prepared to say that such corrigible, mutable opinions are knowledge -- knowledge of truths that have a future in which they may undergo correction or alteration and even rejection. As against opinions that deserve the status of knowledge in this sense of the term, there remain what must be called mere opinions because they are asserted without any basis at all in evidence or reason. Our personal prejudices are such mere opinions. We assert them stoutly and often stubbornly, even though we cannot point to a single piece of evidence in support of them or offer a single reason for claiming that they are true. This is also true of some of the beliefs we harbor and cherish. Sometimes we use the word "belief" to signify that we have some measure of doubt about the opinion we claim to be true on the basis of evidence and reasons. In that case, it is not incorrect to say of one and the same thing that we know it (because we have sufficient grounds for affirming it to be true) and that we also believe it (because the grounds we have still leave us with some trace of doubt about its truth). However, at other times, we use the word "belief" to signify total lack of evidence or reasons for asserting an opinion. What we believe goes beyond all available evidence and reasons at the time. Then we should never say that we know, but only that we believe the mere opinion that we are holding on to. The only time when it is totally inappropriate to use the word "belief" is in the case of self-evident or necessary truths. We know that the whole is greater than any of its parts. To say that we believe it is an egregious misunderstanding of the truth being affirmed. The same thing applies to many, but not all, mathematical truths. We know, we do not believe, that two plus two equals four. Not only personal prejudices but all matters of personal taste, liking one thing and disliking another, fall in the realm of mere opinion. In such matters of taste or personal preference, we may have our own reasons for liking this and disliking that, but those reasons carry no weight with others whose likes and dislikes, or preferences, are contrary to our own. The extension of the word "knowledge" to cover all corrigible and mutable opinions that can be asserted on the basis of evidence and reasons available at a given time covers more than opinions that can be affirmed beyond a reasonable doubt, if not beyond the shadow of a doubt. It includes opinions that have a preponderance of evidence or reasons in their favor as against opinions supported by weaker evidence or reasons. In general it can be said that knowing is not like eating. When we eat something, we take it into our bodies, digest it, assimilate it. It becomes part of us. It no longer remains what it was before it was eaten. But with one striking exception, our knowing something in no way affects or alters the thing we know. We may take it into our minds in some way, but doing that leaves it exactly the same as it was be fore we knew it. The one exception occurs in the case of quantum mechanics, where the instruments we use to investigate the phenomena to be observed and measured do affect the phenomena as we observe and measure them. What I have just said about the difference between knowing and eating requires me to call attention to an other special use, or misuse, of the word "knowing." It involves the distinction between two acts of the mind to which I called attention in a previous essay. The first act of the mind is simple apprehension. Some object is apprehended, be it a perceptual object, an object of memory or imagination, or an object of conceptual thought. Strictly speaking, with one exception, we should not use the word "knowledge" for such apprehensions. Except for perceptual apprehensions, which cannot be separated from perceptual judgments, all other apprehensions are totally devoid of any judgment about the object apprehended -- whether or not it does exist, whether or not its character in fact is identical with its character as apprehended. Devoid of such judgments, an apprehension is not knowledge because there is nothing true or false about it. True and false enter the picture only with the act of judging, and only then do we go beyond apprehension to what, strictly speaking, can be called knowledge. There is a sense in which knowing is like eating. The edible, before it is eaten, exists quite independently of the eater and is whatever it is regardless of how it is transformed by being eaten. So, too, the knowable exists quite independently of the knower and is whatever it is whether it is known or not, and however it is known. The word that most of us use to signify the independent character of the knowable is the word "reality." If there were no reality, nothing the existence and character of which is independent of the knowing mind, there would be nothing knowable. Reality is that which exists whether we think about it or not, and has the character that it has no matter how we think about it. The reality that is the knowable may or may not be physical. It may or may not consist solely of things perceptible to our senses. But whatever its character, its existence must be public, not private. It must be knowable by two or more persons. Nothing that is knowable by one person alone can have the status of knowledge. Whatever can be genuinely known by any one person must be capable of being known by others. Let this suffice as background for the discussion to follow. I will be using the word "knowledge" to cover the necessary and self-evident truths we know with certitude and also the opinions we are able to assert on the basis of sufficient evidence and reasons to outweigh any contrary opinions. I will be using it to cover things about which we can say both that we know them and also that we believe them, because some measure of doubt remains about them. I will be using it always for judgments that are either true or false, but never for apprehensions that are neither true nor false. And I will use the phrase "mere opinion" for whatever is deemed by anyone not to be knowledge in any of the foregoing senses. The authors of the two philosophical mistakes with which we are here concerned are David Hume and Immanuel Kant. The influence that, historically, Hume had upon Kant, conceded by Kant to have prompted the philosophical edifice he constructed in order to avoid the conclusions reached by Hume (which he thought untenable, even disastrous), throws some light on the relation of the two mistakes. Looked at one way, the two mistakes represent opposite extremes. Looked at another way, they represent opposite faces of the same error. The error in both cases has to do with the role that sense-experience plays with regard to the origin and limits of knowledge. The two mistakes are opposed to one another by reason of the fact that they take opposite stands with regard to the certitude, immutability, and incorrigibility that does or does not belong to knowledge. Hume's mistake had its roots or origin in earlier mistakes, and especially the mistakes made by John Locke with regard to the senses and the intellect and with regard to ideas as objects we directly apprehend. On the other hand, Kant's mistake had its origin in the mistake made by Hume. He might have avoided his own mistake by pointing out that the conclusions Hume reached, which he found so repugnant, were based on false premises. Had he rejected those premises, that by itself would have sufficed to avoid Hume's conclusions. But he did not do so. Instead, he invented and erected a subtle and intricate philosophical structure in an effort to reach and support conclusions the very opposite of Hume's, and just as incorrect.
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