Single Idea 18980

[catalogued under 28. God / A. Divine Nature / 3. Divine Perfections]

Full Idea

The greatest knower of them all may yet not know the whole of everything, or even know what he does know at one single stroke: - he may be liable to forget.

Gist of Idea

If there is a 'greatest knower', it doesn't follow that they know absolutely everything

Source

William James (Pragmatism - eight lectures [1907], Lec 4)

Book Reference

James,William: 'Pragmatism - eight lectures' [Dover 1995], p.56


A Reaction

And that's before you get to the problem of how the greatest knower could possibly know whether or not they knew absolutely everything, or whether there might be some fact which was irremediably hidden from them.