Do you worry about the distinction between ontology and epistemology?

[undeterred]

The muddling of issues of ontology (the study of being - essentially studying questions of what kinds of entities exist) and issues of epistemology (the study of knowing - essentially studying what knowledge is and how it is possible) has been one of the key confusions in philosophy. This has been the case with numerous general schools of philosophy, almost always taking the form of ignoring ontology in favour of epistemology.

In currently fashionable postmodernist trends, it is usual to either deny that reality exists apart from our knowledge (usually understood as our linguistic representations) of it or to deny that our knowledge in any way 'reflects' the world as it exists in and of itself.

Take this quote from post-Marxists Laclau and Mouffe:

...even if we assume that there is a strict equation between the social and the discursive, what can we say about the natural world, about the facts of physics, biology or astronomy that are not apparently integrated in meaningful totalities constructed by men? The answer is that natural facts are also discursive facts. And they are so for the simple reason that the idea of nature is not something already there, to be read from the appearances of things, but itself is the result of a slow and complex historical and social construction.

Here they move between epistemology and ontology without even recognising the difference. They raise a question about the natural world (an ontological issue) but then give an answer about ideas about the natural world (an epistemological issue) as if it were the same thing. Given the point that they suppose themselves to be making here all they do in fact is beg the question.

[ZombieNixon]

1. Helloooo....

It's the LOUNGE...philosophy gets you a Lounge spanking! :spank:

Now go feel appropriately chided!