Enlightenment Rhetoric

Locke and Hume, following along from Ramus and Bacon have a Platonic grounding in knowledge. There is truth and knowledge (in the classical definition of a factually true justified belief) available to us. We also understand that language can be used to depict things in multiple fashions, and speak of things we believe to be completely false. From this epistemic grounding then, it seems only natural to disparage language as potentially serving to mislead us and present the false as true. What's troubling for me, is that this is epistemologically a very simplistic approach. It ignores the lessons of Descartes' and all of skeptical philosophy. Not only is language potentially distorting, but our sense and thoughts are also potentially distorting. There's a reason that Descartes' strict reasoning concludes that the only thing he can know for certain is that he exists. His reasoning to accept other knowledge claims is largely faulty, being based on religions principles rather than his own logical method. The real problem it seem to me with the whole cartesian paradigm is even more basic though. It's the assumption that the only knwoledge that we can possible have is when we have certainty. This creates a false dichotomy, where we are forced to throw out as counting as knowledge anything for which we lack logical certitude.

Vico, by contrast, questions the entire Cartesian knowledge paradigm. It's not just that the cartesian method is bad, but the underlying assumptions about it are bad. Vico is basing his assumptions in Protagorean thinking, "man is the measure of all things." From this, it naturally follows more acceptance of uncertainty and probability. The distinction here is grounded in what is worth knowing. For Descartes' and his inheritors it is only worth knowing those things that can be known with certainty. This largely rules out a lot of knowledge of the human condition and of human life. vico Protagorean, humanistic grounding is concerned with knowing about the human condition and human life. From this perspective, it's only natural that there is a measure of tolerance and acceptance of uncertainty. After all, human beings are flawed and we do lack certainty in so very many things.