Knowledge and Language–

A Metaphysical Interlude

What do we mean by knowledge? And who is it that knows?  To answer these questions and to fully understand the problem–as in fact, any other problem–it seems to me essential that first we have some insight into non-duality (see pp. 77-78*).  Having gone into non-duality and examined the mechanism of perception, it will then come quite naturally to introduce an element of relativity and define “knowledge” as an “observer object” relationship.  

As is now generally known, in the beginning of this century Albert Einstein destroyed the then prevalent concept of an absolute framework of reference in which to observe phenomena, and established as the only so-called “absolute” reality the relationship in space and time between an observer and an object.  Now it has always been a subject of some wonder to me why this revolution in physics has not suggested to thinkers to extend the principle of relativity to the actual act of observation itself, that is, the mental act of cognition.  Perception and the resulting “knowledge” would then be seen simply as a relationship between observer and object quite regardless of frames of reference.  This would therefore be true even in an absolute universe, as was thought to exist before the advent of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, and so would represent a truth of a more fundamental nature, being independent of considerations of space and time. 

Seen in this light, “knowledge”, instead of being absolute and static, becomes relative and dynamic.  If we cling to the accepted meaning of the word, knowledge is subjective.  For each observer a specific picture of the “outside” world exists, different from that of any other observer, because his knowledge is literally “unique”.

Having come this far, the next logical step is to draw the inevitable conclusions from the above statements, which resulted naturally from our understanding of non-duality.  These could, for instance, be formulated as follows: “there exists a continuous process only, viz., that of knowing, experiencing; and there are no clear-cut entities such as the knower and his subject (and the “act” of knowing), since the delimitation (and so the definition) of these entities is also the subjective and arbitrary.  This ultimately signifies the end of all verbalizing to express philosophical Truth.

At this stage, a number of difficulties might crop up, and the reader might well be loath to accept the above thesis because they see to conflict with his everyday experience. The pont is that it is not subjective knowledge which makes a common language possible but rather the other way round: it is only language which makes possible the communication of subjective knowledge.  

All knowledge is relative to the observer.  If as a result of our newly acquired insight we now extend the semantic significance of the terms “knowledge” and “know”, we can then state that there is no difference between the “thing in itself” and the thing as it appears to us–as we “know” it.

Our final conclusion may be summarized aptly yet accurately by stating that the knower, the “knowing” and the known are one.