Yes, I agree with your examples!

Prepropositional knowledge goes on all the time in our perceptual field as we navigate through life and find ourselves doing all sorts of things without uttering propositions about them.  I do a fair amount of driving. I often pray and meditate when I drive and even though I may be on a highway with a good deal of traffic, I find often that I am suroprised at how quickly I got somewhere because I was thinking of so many other things in meditation etc.  Yet all the while I was doing what I had to do to stay on the road and was aware of cars around me etc.  I was not uttering propositions but I knew what was going on while I was meditating etc.  Consider a more religious example. Praying to God!  Sometimes the words run out and we are blessedly silent before Him.  We are in His presence and there are no words and no propositions, but we are in and aware of His presence.  I do not get into bed at night until I have to..too tired to do anything else.  But when I do, I often just talk to the Lord quietly without voicing anything outside of my being, then I run out of words and I am just lying there in His presence and I can feel His Presence. It is very sweet and yet no propositions but I know, like a baby must know as it snuggles with a trusted parent, I am doing the same thing....

Husserl and Heidegger write a good deal about layers of prepropisitional knowledge that we have.  Sometimes its moods or feelings that give us knowledge.  Certainly intuitions are fallible but often they give us knowledge of things that are very difficult to put into propositional form.  Every one who is trying to describe something and fails and yet thinks its on the tip of their tongue etc has prepropositional knowledge about what they do not yet have propositional knowledge about.  Sometimes reading an author, is an amazing experience where the author is giving a description in words of things we immediately recognize in our experience but had never put into words...well, we had prepropositional knowledge that this author now is describing in propositions.

My address:

Jon Gold
61 Elm Lane
Wheeling, WV 26003
USA

Thank you, Lorna!

We are praying for you!!!!!!!

Jon

Lorna Forrester wrote:

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Jonathan M Gold

To: faithmaps@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2001 3:59 AM

Subject: Re: [faithmaps] Propositions or propositionalism?

 "I find no evidence for restricting knowledge to propositions and it
seems to me, that self-examination opens up areas, levels of awareness, and knowledge, that I would call "prepropositional."!!!!I would go further and claim that without prepropositional knowledge, there cannot be propositional knowledge." Like the 8 month old baby playing contentedly who cries bitterly when Mum leaves the room?   Or when we say "I just 'knew' it was the right.......' or 'I knew something was wrong' -not propositional but intuition [when it's not a 'word of knowledge' - which itself can come as a visceral experience] "I would go even further, there is suprapropositional knowledge!  If and when the Holy Spirit ever comes down on a person, they will know it and they will feel it, but they will not be able to define it and they will have another sense of the love from God that passes all understanding!!!!!!!!!" Amen and Amen!!!!!!!!!!!John Mckay's book is full of suprapropositional knowledge. Please send your address Jon.......I am ordering some copies.          Lorna

 
 
 

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