Limits of Knowledge

The cognitive beings that will concern us here are language-dependent finite intelligences. These by their very nature are bound to be imperfect knowers. For the factual information at their disposal by way of propositional knowledge that something or other is the case will – unlike practical how-to knowledge – have to be verbally formulated. And language-encompassed textuality is – as we have seen – outdistanced by the facts themselves. Just what is one to make of the numerical disparity between facts and truths, between what is knowable in theory and what our finite intelligences can actually manage to know? Just what does this disproportion portend?

It means that our knowledge of fact is incomplete – and inevitably so! – because we finite intelligences lack the means for reality's comprehensive characterization. Reality in all its blooming buzzing complexity is too rich for faithful representation by the recursive and enumerable resources of our language.