Muddy Speech

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Clear thinking requires clear concepts and terms; the more so they are, the "better" and more far-reaching we can "think". In 1820, the Swedish bishop Esaias Tegnér put it this way: What you can’t tell clearly, you don’t know. With the thought the word is born on the lips of man: Muddy speech is muddy thinking. An example right at the beginning: the title of this appendix is not "theory of knowledge", because in everyday speech neither term is clear enough for our needs. Knowledge and information First of all, a clear distinction between "information" and "knowledge" has to be made. By information we shall mean facts, such as chemical observations and measuring data. The adjectives "true" and "false" apply. (As to measuring data, their degree…show more content…
As far as information is concerned, there is nothing to "understand". Knowledge is more abstract in that it – unlike information – cannot be compared with an additive substance of which we can have "more" or "less". Knowledge in a strict sense is the ability to use methods for efficient "selecting and grouping" our observations and findings. Mathematical models A mathematical model relates an observed or measured effect to its causes – that is what scientific research boils down to. Such a model is just a mathematical equation of algebraic structure, i.e., quantities and variables are algebraic symbols. Once built, the model’s efficiency is judged by how well it represents observed and measured "effects". But a well-performing model shall not be characterized as "true". There may be alternative models performing equally well, or better. For example, there is nothing "wrong" with the electricity-based models of redox chemistry and nothing "true" with the genuinely chemical alternative. But the latter ought to be a better way to "select and group" the underlying information, making life easier for chemistry students – but perhaps not for their teachers (the word will soon be given to…show more content…
Again, in principle it is neither "true" nor "false", but it has turned out very efficient and superior to the "four elements" hypothesis it superseded. Since scholars in general seem inclined to neglect epistemology, at least as far as natural science is concerned, the idea of an "absolute truth" reigns and is regarded as a goal to strive for. The concept applies to information, where it is trivial and unnecessary, but not to knowledge. It is a true fact that the atoms, as the Greeks of that day conceived and named them, are not indivisible. But that is not the point. The point is that their hypothesis became and still is the solid ground on which chemistry is built. Sub-atomic particles are primarily a matter of physics, in which subject the hypothesis has been duly modified. That this is not just playing with words is shown by the (unconscious) custom to illustrate first order kinetics by radioactive decay, which is totally misleading, since this process has nothing to do with chemistry and misleads chemical thinking. 276 Leukippos’ and Demokritos’ “atomos” conception from about 400 B. C. is a result of common sense and logical necessity – of course continuous disintegration of matter must
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