But What is Knowledge?
I deny that induction, sensation, and science can yield any knowledge, and I have provided biblical and rational justification for this in my writings. Besides the typical fallacious replies and evasions, one response is to ask, “But what is knowledge?” That is, if we cannot define knowledge, or cannot justify our definition of knowledge, then it would seem meaningless to say that induction, sensation, and science cannot yield any knowledge. This sophistry is just another evasive tactic used by those who cannot answer my arguments.
The objection misses the point. The point is that induction, sensation, and science involve fallacious processes of reasoning such that they can never discover true premises, and they can never produce logically valid conclusions from the premises. That is, it is impossible to use induction, sensation, and science to validly reason from premises X and Y to conclusion Q regarding any subject P. Thus my contention against my opponents stands even if we never define or even mention “knowledge.”
Assuming the premise, “I see a red car,” how is it possible to validly reason from this premise to, “There is a red car”? There must be another premise to fill in the gap between “I see” and “There is,” but how is this premise to be rationally obtained and justified, rather than just stubbornly assumed? This is the point, and this is the challenge that my opponents still cannot answer.
As it stands, there is no rational difference between jumping from “I see a red car” to “There is a red car,” and jumping from “I imagine a red car” or “I desire a red car” to “There is a red car.” What is the rational difference between sensation, imagination, and expectation? How come one can jump from “I see” to “There is,” and cannot jump from “I imagine” or “ I desire” to “There is”? What is the additional premise that makes the difference? And how is this premise rationally obtained and justified? The issue is not the definition of knowledge, but the validity of the reasoning process.
The objection is sophistical and irrational. Whether or not we define knowledge, and whether or not my opponents define knowledge, the objection does nothing to justify induction, sensation, and science, but it tries to distract us from the main point, hoping that we will forget about their failure in making any process at all in establishing their case.
The objection claims that I need to define “knowledge” in a proposition such as, “Science cannot yield any knowledge.” But I refuse to be bullied or distracted by sophistry. I can make the same challenge against my opponents without using the word “knowledge” at all. I challenge them to demonstrate how sensations can discover true premises. I challenge them to show how induction can validly reach conclusions that are beyond the information included in the premises. I challenge them to demonstrate how science can reach any conclusion about anything with logical validity. I challenge them to show me even one conclusion, in all of human history, that has been reached by sensation, induction, and science with logical validity.
I can continue to press my challenge against induction, sensation, and science without using the word “knowledge.” For example, I say that science cannot validly deduce or infer anything because it commits the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent. I am making the same point when I say that science cannot yield any knowledge.
Although I can define knowledge and use the word to issue the challenge, if I were to do it in this context, my opponents would probably continue their policy of evasion and attempt to dispute my definition. But I refuse to allow intellectual tricksters to bully or distract me. The real issue is how they can use induction, sensation, and science to validly reason from premises to conclusion about anything at all.
— Vincent Cheung. Captive to Reason (2009), p. 31–32.
