Article #24
Subject: Some basic epistomological questions for discussion
Author: Andrew W. Harrell
Posted: 3/3/2009 09:27:35 AM

Important basic, first questions for epistomological discussions


What are the objects of knowledge?
(Is what we know something having reality or not? Most people would agree
that if not what we have isn’t knowledge)

What are the causes of knowledge?
(How do we know something? Recent (in the last 100 years) advances in the
area of computers science called artificial intelligence give us many ideas
and possibilities for this).

What is your method of obtaining knowledge?
(if your knowledge is scientific how do you come up with hypotheses to test?
Also, some recent theories of knowledge claim that virtuosity or expertise in
an area qualifies one to have a ‘warrant’ to give us knowledge. To see
Plato’s objections to these claims see the posting ‘Concept of a Concept’ on
this discussion board. For Descartes, the self-evident fundamental knowledge
of he claimed for himself as a rational thinking being gave him a ‘warrant’
to believe in his own existence and also the existence of God and the World)


What is your own theory of knowledge?
(There is not just one way we know things.)

Why do you hold it?
(eg, I am a mathematician so I am mostly a Platonist because mathematics is
concerned with ideal objects (cf. 1st question above) or I am a physicist so
the objects in my theory of knowledge have to do with real world substances…
Of course to understand the last statement we need to understand what a
substance is.)

Question for discussion:

Jewish oral teaching associated with Passover

In terms of the theory of knowledge there are four types of people
(for another teaching from the written Haggadah about the four types of Sons
See Jewish Christian prayer postings)

1) Those that know something but don’t know that they know it.

2) Those that don’t know something and don’t know that they don’t know
it.

3) Those that don’t know anything and know that they don’t know it
(The philosopher Socrates claimed he was a person of this type)

4) Those that know something and know that they know it.

How does this teaching relate to the questions posed above it?

Article #32
Subject: How do these explanations help us to learn about the Mind of Christ?
Author: Andrew W. Harrell
Posted: 5/28/2009 10:24:07 AM

This is a difficult question.
Here is my suggested answer:

There are two types of knowledge: divine and human.
We know that Jesus Christ was (IS) both the Son of Man and the Son of God.
Thus when we try to understand his mind (to let the same Mind be in us that
was in Jesus Christ) we have to consider two
possibilities.

1) If Jesus is to be the Son of God, then "He wants to know (should know)
that he does not know".
For, in this situation, it is his Father in Heaven who knows things for Him
(such as knowing
who he is and who he is going to be). Otherwise, if He (or we) do not know
this,
"He (or we) don't know something (that God wants us to know), and He (or we)
make the mistakes that come from don't knowing that we don't know something
divinely."

2) If Jesus is to be the Son of Man, then "He wants to know (should know)
that he knows something." Otherwise, He (or we) would make the mistakes that
come from not knowing (being sure) that He (We) know things humanly.

Article #33
Subject: Isha Upanishad
Author: Andrew W. Harrell
Posted: 5/31/2009 08:52:28 AM

The above remarks about how the mind of Jesus Christ
is both the Son of Man and the Son of God are supported
by the principal(and final) Sanskrit Upanishad scripture:

"andhaM tamaH pravisHanti ye'vidyaamupaasate,
tato bhuuya iva te tamo ya u vidyaayaaM rataH."

"Into a blind darkness they enter who follow after the Ignorance alone(not
knowing that we know or don't know), they as if into a greater darkness who
devote themselves to Knowledge alone (knowing that we know or don't know)."
verse 9 of 18

Isha Upanishad, translated by Sri Aurobindo
http://intyoga.online.fr/isha.htm