Saturday, April 20, 2019

Knowing-That, Knowing-How, Theology

In an omnipotent, omniscient, creative, Good deity, Will and Knowledge are united, and Knowledge is Knowing-How.  On that basis, the existence of Evil can only be explained by a fall of Will from Knowledge in a creation of that deity, which entails a reduction of Knowing-How to Knowing-That.  Thus, no such fall is needed to explain a concept of 'evil' as 'harmfulness'.  In other words, two significant differences between Descartes and Spinoza--regarding the Will-Knowledge relation, and, accordingly, Knowledge qua Knowing-That vs. Knowledge qua Knowing-How--are derived from different Theological premises, regardless of their usual common classification as Rationalists.  Thus, while for Spinoza, human Will extends divine Will, for Descartes, even after he causally links God Exists and I Am, the efficacy of human Will remains limited to choosing what to affirm.

No comments:

Post a Comment