People become addicted to the determinacy of mathematical knowledge and empirical knowledge.

Mathematical reasoning converges to one solely possible conclusion. After reasoning arrives at its answer, all other answers can be eliminated by virtue of their nonconformity to the already-known correct answer. Deliberation on mathematical matters is unnecessary.

The empirical also converges to one possibility — one exclusive state of affairs. A well-constructed statement of empirical fact is either true or it is not true. If a statement of fact is ambiguous, it is inadequately formulated.

*

If knowledge were solely mathematical and empirical, there would be no room for disagreement.

However, some knowledge is practical. Nobody will disagree that there are multiple ways to solve a math problem, and multiple approaches to investigate and determine the fact of a matter. Likewise, in all but the most artificial situations there are multiple means to reach the same end.

So, the practical, whether in the mode of taking action or of pursuing understanding, is multiple — even when applied to a single determinate end. To argue that a means to some end is not effective simply because another means is demonstrates a lack of practical experience.

Practical experience points to the fact of practical multiplicity.

*

Beyond the empirical, the mathematical, and the practical (either in action or in pursuit of understanding), the world is also full of meanings, conspicuously or even overwhelming due to their strongly positive or negative valuations, and some so close to neutral they barely register as relevant at all.

And when we become empirically observant or rational or when we take practical action or seek understanding, it is all motivated by meaning. Something strikes us as meaningful and selectively emphasizes particular aspects of reality, without abandoning reality. Meaning drives what is seen as relevant, it directs the inquiry, it sets the objective of reasoning, it suggests methods to be employed, and it reveals where our knowledge seems insufficient.

These meanings are sometimes fleeting, but sometimes they persist for a time. And some of these meanings are purely personal and impossible to speak of, but some are felt to be universal, and are equipped with the means of expression and the expectation of being recognized. Some meanings are so persistent that we are born into them and maybe never even realize they are there, unless they falter or vanish. A person born into world of 24-hour daylight might never even have a word for “day”, because he has never experienced night.

The meanings that we share with others tend tend to endure longer than those we experience alone. The meanings we experience to be out in the concrete world, and reliably associated with particular things, almost as if the meanings were a property of these things, also tend to have more stability than those meanings that lack any particular concrete thing to attach to (or to condense upon), and which perhaps color the entire world at once as a mood.

*

Meaning in search of outwardness, concreteness and persistence — and maybe social recognition, acknowledgment, agreement or sharing — is art.

Also, things that have outlived their meanings — but which out of habit are taken for meaningful, and perhaps no longer even expect to be experienced as meaningful — often displace art, and are of interest to art.

*

It is a prejudice of our time that the best foundation for agreement is the determinate. But is it possible that the determinate is overvalued? Is it possible that it is valued out of habit (inertia of practice) or from a taste that values coercion over dialogue and deliberation? With determinate knowledge, one person can compel another with arguments. With indeterminate knowledge, both parties must come to a common understanding and then to an agreement, all within the limits of reason.