'But the belief in change, as I found just now,
asserts that before this intuition of change arose
the first term of that change had occurred separately.
This no intuition can prove.'
the argument here is that - the fact precedes
the intuition of it - but the intuition of it -
is the knowledge of it - and the intuition can
only know what it is of - not what it was
of - therefore there can be no knowledge of change
or experience can only know what is before it -
so how can you have an experience of
change - based on the intuition (of experience)
so - experience is no basis for belief here -
if there is to be a belief in change - intuition -
or experience - (as Santayana understands it here) -
will not provide that basis -
yes
what we have here is an argument against the view
that experience provides us with knowledge of the world -
in particular - here of the world as change -
or change in the world -
the idea of experience here is both weak and strong
strong in that it suggests that one's intuition -
immediate experience - gives us knowledge -
this idea of immediate experience is powerful -
it packs a lot into it - everything in fact
it's a weak notion of experience in that it is so primitive -
it suggests experience is justdata - points hitting the screen
my own view is that we need to step back from such naive
empiricism
and understand - at the start - that what we call experience
and its relation to the question of knowledge is not like
waiting for the pizza guy to deliver the pizza
this seems to be the traditional empiricist view
but we need to understand here - the question of the nature -
and epistemological status of experience - to begin with -
is an open question
I think the empiricist view is helpful as a start
to the argument - what is experience - what is knowledge?
now it's only when you ask this question - that you have
doubts about the pizza
problems of time and space - existence and non-existence -
only emerge on reflection
my sense of time - of change
is not the same deal as any reflection on that sense
and here - really - it's not time or change that's at issue -
the question for Santayana is knowledge
and we might say - well - if you are going to go with
a naive empiricism - there are consequences - it is a
theory that doesn't account for our lived experience
at least this
