Dear Nikola,

Thank you for your letter. Of course, I shall be glad to see you whenever you choose to come. Please give me an hour's telephone notice. My medical condition remains unchanged. I have a light cough which is productive of small amounts of purulent sputum. I do not think I am infectious, but I have not had a test for the virus. When you come, I will wear a mask and keep a distance of at least six feet.  

My reading of Cassirer about Symbolic Forms and of Feynman about quantum mechanics has led my thoughts into a labyrinth of questions about epistemology, theory of knowledge, Erkenntnistheorie ... questions to which I have no answer and from which I see no escape.  

Searching on the Internet for the etymology of the word "to know" I get the following: To know: Once widespread in Germanic, the verb is now retained there only in English, where it has widespread application, covering meanings that require two or more verbs in other languages (such as German wissen, kennen, erkennen and in part können; French connaître "perceive, understand, recognize," savoir "have a knowledge of, know how;" Latin scire "to understand, perceive," cognoscere "get to know, recognize;" Old Church Slavonic znaja, vemi). The Anglo-Saxons also used two distinct words for this, the other being witan (see wit (v.)).  I conclude that studying the etymology is of no help. The threshold task is to designate the experience, - or the spectrum of experiences, of "knowledge" that wants elucidation. - To be continued.  

EJM