33
Scientific knowledge and its object differ from opinion and the
object of opinion in that scientific knowledge is commensurately
universal and proceeds by necessary connexions, and that which is
necessary cannot be otherwise. So though there are things which are
true and real and yet can be otherwise, scientific knowledge clearly
does not concern them: if it did, things which can be otherwise
would be incapable of being otherwise. Nor are they any concern of
rational intuition-by rational intuition I mean an originative
source of scientific knowledge-nor of indemonstrable knowledge,
which is the grasping of the immediate premiss. Since then rational
intuition, science, and opinion, and what is revealed by these
terms, are the only things that can be 'true', it follows that it is
opinion that is concerned with that which may be true or false, and
can be otherwise: opinion in fact is the grasp of a premiss which is
immediate but not necessary. This view also fits the observed facts,
for opinion is unstable, and so is the kind of being we have described
as its object. Besides, when a man thinks a truth incapable of being
otherwise he always thinks that he knows it, never that he opines
it.
Pages:
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106