'For the person or persons that hold dominion, can no more combine with the keeping up of majesty the running with harlots drunk or naked about the streets, or the performances of a stage player, or the open violation or contempt of laws passed by themselves than they can combine existence with non-existence'.

- Benedict de Spinoza. Political Treatise. 1677.




Sunday, September 19, 2010

on certainty 666


666. But how is it for example with anatomy (or a large part of it)? Isn’t what it describes, too, exempt from doubt?



anatomy – is the description –

what it describes – is – without description – unknown –

the description that is anatomy is a response to the unknown –

a response that is grounded in doubt –

grounded in uncertainty –

in the question –

how are we to describe this feature of reality?

anatomical description – as with any description –

is a product of this underlying uncertainty –

and as such it is not exempt from doubt –

the history of the description – the history of anatomy –

shows quite clearly that there is no certainty here –

if you wish to adopt as gospel –

a particular theory – a particular description

at a particular place and time 

and hold to it –

that is not science –

that is stupidity


© greg t. charlton. 2010.