Scepticism and the Search for Knowledge: A Peirceish Answer to a Kantian Doubt Author(s): Luciano Floridi Reviewed work(s): Source: Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Summer, 1994), pp. 543- 573 Published by: Indiana University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40320487 . Accessed: 13/10/2012 13:59 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Indiana University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society. http://www.jstor.org Luciano Floridi Scepticismand the Search for Knowledge: a PeirceishAnswer to a Kantian Doubt "Human kindcannot bear verymuch reality" T.S. Eliot "BurntNorton", Four Quarters 1. Introduction In a recentarticle Barry Stroud has remindedus thata traditional and crucialissue in epistemologyis representedby ttthepossibility thatthe world is completelydifferent in generalfrom the way our sensoryimpacts and our internalmakeup lead us to thinkoP.1 In orderto givesome initialcredence to such a doubt,we need to give some credenceto threehypotheses: first, that thereis something like an independentexternal reality; second, thatthe epistemicre- lationshipoccurring between this reality and the knowingsubject is somehowsuch as to not allow thelatter to knowthe intrinsic nature of the former;and finally,that the human knower has a spontaneous desireto know what the intrinsicnature of externalreality is. It is onlythe last conditionwhich makes it possibleto considerthe state of affairsdescribed by the formertwo as problematic. Solutionsof what I shall call henceforththe scepticalTraumatic Doubt have been attemptedby approachingit eitherfrom the on- Transactionsof the Charles S. PeirceSociety Summer,1994, Vol. XXX,No. 3 544 Luciano Floridi tologjcalor fromthe epistcmicalside. In what follows,it is myin- tentionto argue that,if the doubt is understoodin Kantianterms, as pointingto the gulf that may exist between phenomenaand noumena,a re-interpretationof the "anthropologicalcomponent" can also representa successfulstrategy. The hypothesisI shall ad- vocaterelies on threepresuppositions. The desirefor knowledge for its own sake is in facta conditiosine qua non for the Traumatic Doubt. By eliminatingthe assumptionof such a desire,the inca- pacityor impossibilityto graspthe intrinsic nature of external reality no longerappears as a failure.And finally,the desirefor knowledge can indeed be replacedby a betterexplanation of the genesisof the searchfor knowledge.Philosophers commonly refer to the desire to know as if it were the necessaryand sufficientreason why, at a certainstage, the humansubject activates his cognitiveprocesses in order to know externalreality. Peirce has conjectureda different explanation,and I shallargue thata Peirceislfiinterpretation of the genesisof the searchfor knowledge can providea winningstrategy withrespect to the scepticalproblem. II. "All men by naturedesire to know" Aristotleprovided the most influentialanswer to the question "what is the originof man's searchfor knowledge?" in the famous incipitof the Metaphysics-,"all men bynature (phusei)desire (ore- M ¿fontai)to know[eidenai] .3 Althoughhe acknowledgedthat man's searchfor knowledge is to escape fromhis nescience^he maintained thatthe stateof wonderand puzzlementthat man feelswith respect to its absence is a mere secondaryeffect due to the lack of some- thingnot yetpossessed, what we mightcall nowadaysa background condition.No matterhow urgentthis negative uneasiness may be, the principalreason why man searchesfor knowledge is his natural and originalimpulse to achieve the fullactualization of his intel- lectualpotentiality in the stateof perfectknowledge.5 In more elitistand mythologicalterms, Plato6 had alreadyen- dorsed a similarposition,7 the main differencebeing that in the Scepticismand theSearch for Knowledge 545 absenceof a metaphysicsof potentiality,he had been forcedto accentuatethe hypostatization ofthe desire to know.8Probably for thesame reason, he had also tendedto stress,more than Aristotle, thestrict connection between desire and feeling of want. As he says: "no god is a philosopheror a seekerafter wisdom, for he is wise already;nor does anyman who is wiseseek after wisdom. Neither do theignorant seek after wisdom; for herein is theevil of ignor- ance,that he who is neithera manof honournor wise is never- thelesssatisfied with himself: there is no desirewhen there is no feelingof want."9In Plato,the search for knowledge is basedon a naturaldesire for a lostcondition. It can be justifiedby escha to- logicalreasons but not groundedin intellectuallyheteronomous needs.The searchfor knowledge remains a valuein itself. GivenPlato's and Aristotle'spositions, it is easyto see whyex- plainingthe searchfor knowledge in termsof "self-motivated" cultivationof a purelyintellectual pleasure has been alwaysso popularamong philosophers. Whether we agreewith Whitehead's famousremark on Westernphilosophy being a seriesof comments on Plato,or withPeirce, who believedthat Western philosophy wassimply an articulationof Aristotle's thought,10 throughout the historyof philosophy the idea thatknowledge is soughtjust for its ownsake has beenassumed as un-controversial.Together with the visualmetaphors, the idea thatman has a spontaneousand inborn desireto knowjust for the sake of knowledgeis one of the more deeplyrooted legacies of Greekphilosophy in thehistory of epis- temology.11 Bysaying that a Platonicunderstanding of the "desire to know" tendsto a moreradical hypostatization of such desire, I had not meantto saythat the Aristotelian approach is freefrom such a rei- fication.Within Aristotelianism, the "desireto know"turns out to be interpretedas an actualdriving force. So muchso thatin order to commenton Aristotle'sexplanation for the searchfor knowl- edge,Thomas Aquinas introduced the neologism vis cognoscitiva.12 Likeother types of vis,the vis cognoscitiva was the outcome of the Aristoteliansubordination of thegenetic principle of the process of 546 Luciano Floridi knowingto the metaphysicsof potentialityand actualization.13The "physicalization"of the epistemicdrive was already implicitin Aristotle'suse of orej}oya termthat conveysthe idea of a meta- phorical tension towardsthe object of the desire and thus of a journeyof the subjecttowards the object of hisknowledge.14 There is no space here to point out how thisinterpretation was in accor- dance with the Aristotelianphysics both of naturaland of violent movements,so let me just stressthat, if the searchfor knowledge is a process interpretablein termsof movementtowards reality, then- accordingto the Aristotelianmaxim omne quod moveturab alio movetur- theremust be a motivepower forsuch movement and this is the desire to know, a dynamicforce intrinsic in man's nature.At thesame time,if the searchfor knowledge is a movement towardssomething, it could be the metaphoricalmovement of man towardshis naturalplace, representedby the enjoymentof fullin- tellectual knowledge. It would be easy to show that the Neoplatonic traditionis also committedto similardynamic meta- phors,where the searchfor knowledge is interpretedas a movement (this timemore "verticalascension" than a "horizontalgrasping") towardsthe kingdomof a-temporal,immutable truths or a divine entity.15 In his Commenton theMetaphysics, Albert the Great made explicit his interpretationof the natureof the "pure desire to know" by givingto the fourthchapter concerning Aristotle's dictum the title "De primoprincipio generativo scientiae ex partenostra, quod est naturalesciendi desiderium".16 His tenetwas thatthe humandesire representsthe subjectiveratio essendiof the genesisof the process of knowing.In adding the indicativespecification "ex partenostra" ("fromour side") Albertthe Great was probablythinking about the other conditiosine qua non forthe productionof knowledge, namelythe presenceof intelligibleexternal reality. He would not take the merepresence of an externalobject as a necessarycondi- tion forthe activationof the processof knowing,claiming perhaps insteadthe necessityof some sortof ontic contributionas the ad- ditionalratio essendi of the genesisof the processof knowing.It is Scepticismand theSearch for Knowledge 547 " preciselythis presupposition of an "ontic participation- however we mayinterpret it, say in termsof some activityof externalreality on the senses(the processof informano)or as an onticdisposition of realityto be known by the subject- that graduallydisappears from the horizon of modern philosophy,when the "desire to know" becomes a tendencythat could in factno longerbe related to the generalstatus of the restof the universe.This is one of the two principalproblems faced by the explanationof the demandfor knowledgein termsof a spontaneousepistemic longing, and it stemsfrom the Cartesianturn and the consequentintroduction of methodologicalscepticism in epistemology.By saying"phusei" in MetaphysicsI.I,908a 21, Aristotlewas implyingthat to the human desireto knowthe worldcorresponded, on theontological side, the intrinsicallyknowable nature of theworld