Yes, but that's the difference between how we construct knowledge claims and what those claims are about.
This is where we are talking about different things then. I know what epistemology is - ways of discovering knowledge. I am referring to knowledge as the thing that is to be discovered whilst you are referring to the process of knowing.
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Well if you refer to knowledge as the thing that is discovered you're in trouble. It's what I'd call the epistemic fallacy; the reduction of what is (ontology) to what is known (epistemology). What is taken as known at any point in time can always be wrong.
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Yes, knowledge is always provisional. And there is always more to know. This is dealt with by openly acknowledging that we are limited in getting at truth.
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Exactly, so we can't ever say that our socially constructed knowledge of the world is 100% right. And what makes it possibly wrong is that it's not identical to what is. What there is would still be as it even if we had no knowledge of it. That's why knowledge isn't what is.
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See, we don't disagree except on the word. I'll use knowledge but accept that it is provisional and not necessarily or even probably identical to what is.
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Well now we don't even disagree on the word. Now you're using knowledge as not synonymous of what is, you are acknowledging it (knowledge) is socially constructed. There's nothing to fear here. Knowledge can be socially constructed without destroying the world as it is.
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No, I'm not. I'm acknowledging it as provisional. We know the earth orbits the sun.This knowledge remains provisional but It was not brought into being by society. It is constructed from methods formed by society of getting at what is which will always be imperfect. Will that do?
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In short, I am not going round saying that established facts are socially constructed because by this, people mean that we made it up and different cultures can make it up differently and be equally right. The sun is actually a chariot containing a god.
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You might want to revisit Wittgenstein on private language games.
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