Epistemic arguments negate existence. They correlate observed effects about a mean of zero (zero existence). This is done "symbolically" through the hypothetical and theoretical. That is, what is unreal is hypothetical and what is unverifiable is theoretic.
As such, "existence" which does not BEGIN with what is actual and verified can only circularly speak about reality. At the same time what does not begin with what is actual and verified can only negate the very foundation it is purporting to verify.
Existence which is argued through a process which proposes negative objective existence (the hypothetical) such that it can justify positive observances (the theoretical) is *symbolic* (it can be imagined to a degree allowed through the chance deviation of what is objectively real from what is actual). Though, surely, this allows for the "independent" verification of symbolic theoretical assumptions. And, since what is apparent might deviate through disorder from what might be considered *logically* true (as in *real*); then, that which disorder allows to appear as actual might, by necessity, require justification through symbolic manipulation.
On the other hand, *knowledge* is only symbolic in that the error of experience has been removed through a re-writing of past beliefs to include only those "correct" assumptions which were not negated through "generalization" (a term I am using to describe the OBJECTIVE equivalent of symbol-making; that is, objects *generalize* through disorder such that they appear systematized and such that a systematic application of symbolic justification might be necessary to restore their "ontological" verity... and *ontological* thus suggests a historical necessity by which the desire of a prior object standard-- or of an object, by description only-- shows a quality by which all subsequent development justifies the naming of this antecedent as a unit in a way which applies such reasoning to the non-contradiction of this subsequent development such that it might thus be called *logical* as logic implies a relationship to what is non-contradictory).
The idea of knowledge which assumes chance correlation and epistemological manipulation without recourse to an objective standard, existence, does so according to trial and error. The true KNOWLEDGE which remains from this manipulation is a historic necessity which is not open to such manipulations except through "generalization" (as defined). Epistemic *rationalization* is a form of this type of generalization and can merely justify logic with itself (through the similar negation of rationality).
Knowledge is NOT experience, but the essence of experience. Trial and error "thinking" creates as many theoretical and hypothetical situations as it resolves. The point at which we begin to divide our understandings of reality into distinct categories is the point at which we begin to develop a systems representation. This type of representation only generalizes the truth of an ontological existence to the level of chance correlation.
Brett Lane Robertson, MindRecreation Metaphysical Assn. (c)1998,1999
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