IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF SILENUS. IMAGES OF KNOWING

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to appeal, even though quite shortly, to some of the problematic dimensions involved in a cognitive capacity certainly enigmatic: the power of remaking the stream of experience, concluding, not only causes from effects, but also relevant facts from their signs. This capacity may be found in the basis of the most primary possibility of finding one's way in the world, being thus the support of a development in reality to which philosophical reflection has paid much attention in different ways. It has been Charles Sanders Peirce's excellence which made us know that this mechanism of knowledge responds to a rational pattern: the first step of every investigation, the abductive form of inference, that is one's own adoption to an interpretative hypothesis about facts. It is quite clear that the matter we here dealt with, is the relationship what is perceptible and what is intelligible, taking into account all the meaning of those words.