The Cardinal Virtues in Dialogue on Matters Epistemological

"[...] only knowledge can be possessed." is a line from Robert Steiner's preface to his book Toward a grammar of abstraction: modernity, Wittgenstein and the paintings of Jackson Pollock

Courage:

Only knowledge can be possessed.

Prudence:

But can it be given?

Temperance:

Is there not a confusion here between knowledge and wisdom?

Justice:

How do we have knowing of such confusion?

Courage:

I begin to understand. Only knowing can be possessed.

Prudence:

But can it be taken?

Temperance:

Is there not a confusion here between "learning" and "knowing"?

Justice:

How do we learn to know?


copyright © François Lachance 1999
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lachance@chass.utoronto.ca