Dear Marion,

It is with considerable embarrassment that I am
constrained to admit that on matters of epistemology
you and I are in substantial agreement. My presumption
of extraordinary insight has faltered. After flapping
his arms on the porch roof of the Magdeburg city hall
a certain number of times, Eulenspiegel gave up and
confessed that he was unable to fly after all.

Objective, public knowledge is essential to the survival
not only of the race but of the individual, whose imperfect
and sometimes unsatisfactory relationship to that knowledge
is characterized: a) by the individual's limited capacity to
understand, (e.g. the mathematics of quantum theory is
beyond me,) and b) by the potential inadequacy of much (if
not all) publicly acclaimed knowledge. (e.g. Lamarckian
inheritance of acquired characteristics didn't pan out, and
Alan Greenspan's Economics left something to be desired.)

The crucial question: How do I cope with the potential
imperfections of public knowledge? The answer: I can't:
It's beyond me, as is the ability to flap my arms and fly;
beyond me as is perfect memory; beyond me as is the immortality
of the flesh, - never mind the spirit. Even Socrates' statement:
"I am ignorant." won't fly, because of the clear implication
that of his ignorance, he isn't so ignorant at all.

I'm left with no recourse. I can't even write with impunity
that I have a prediliction to flirt with Doubt about the
Conceptual World. There's nothing left to do but to babble,
or to write novels or legal briefs.

Jochen