Nope. Or at least, the concept encoded in people’s minds when they think about “knowledge” don’t usually have anything to do with “legitimation”. I can know that there’s a hole in my left sock, that my wife’s favorite color is blue, or that my neighbour moved in last year without needing any “legitimation”, or authority.
Unless by “legitimized” you mean something like “justified”, but then it doesn’t have anything to do with power and authority, except as connotations you’re trying to sneak in.
So it seems that your use of “knowledge” is at odds with the way most people use the word in ordinary conversation.
And even if by “knowledge” you actually mean something like “officially recognized information”, you’re still wrong—among the earliest written documents we have are accounting, tallying who owns what, who sold what - that’s as official as can get, and not particularly religious. Written laws are also very old and, for the Romans and Chinese at least, separate from religion. Even if you stick to the eurocentric context you seem to be implying (“history” means “medieval europe”), there’s been plenty of engineering, architecture, litterary knowledge that’s independent of religion (and in some cases, like the preservation of ancient texts, opposed by religion).
You are correct that their are traditional bodies of knowledge that are not religious, but my point was never that religion is the sole creator of knowledge. That said, it was a pretty big one. If you think the written laws of the romans or the Chinese did not represent their religious beliefs you are crazy.
If is funny you call my position Eurocentric. I am trying to use western examples as much as I possibly can to relate to the audience of this blog. But if you want to talk about China, the creation of a Chinese civilization is directly related to their religious beliefs. Laws were laws because emperors instated them. Emperors were emperors because they were “sons of heaven.” The Chinese conception of Heaven is very different from the western one. It is existence itself and the principle that all things move on. The oldest forms of chinese writing are on old tortoise shells. They were oracle shells used to divine the weather.
As for my use of the word legitimize, you are correct it is my own concept. I should have clarified. What I mean by legitimate is believed to be right. No one believes something they do not think is right (not in a moral sense here). Sensory experience legitimizes knowledge, but so do social relations and institutions, like religions.
Nope. Or at least, the concept encoded in people’s minds when they think about “knowledge” don’t usually have anything to do with “legitimation”. I can know that there’s a hole in my left sock, that my wife’s favorite color is blue, or that my neighbour moved in last year without needing any “legitimation”, or authority.
Unless by “legitimized” you mean something like “justified”, but then it doesn’t have anything to do with power and authority, except as connotations you’re trying to sneak in.
So it seems that your use of “knowledge” is at odds with the way most people use the word in ordinary conversation.
And even if by “knowledge” you actually mean something like “officially recognized information”, you’re still wrong—among the earliest written documents we have are accounting, tallying who owns what, who sold what - that’s as official as can get, and not particularly religious. Written laws are also very old and, for the Romans and Chinese at least, separate from religion. Even if you stick to the eurocentric context you seem to be implying (“history” means “medieval europe”), there’s been plenty of engineering, architecture, litterary knowledge that’s independent of religion (and in some cases, like the preservation of ancient texts, opposed by religion).
You are correct that their are traditional bodies of knowledge that are not religious, but my point was never that religion is the sole creator of knowledge. That said, it was a pretty big one. If you think the written laws of the romans or the Chinese did not represent their religious beliefs you are crazy.
If is funny you call my position Eurocentric. I am trying to use western examples as much as I possibly can to relate to the audience of this blog. But if you want to talk about China, the creation of a Chinese civilization is directly related to their religious beliefs. Laws were laws because emperors instated them. Emperors were emperors because they were “sons of heaven.” The Chinese conception of Heaven is very different from the western one. It is existence itself and the principle that all things move on. The oldest forms of chinese writing are on old tortoise shells. They were oracle shells used to divine the weather.
As for my use of the word legitimize, you are correct it is my own concept. I should have clarified. What I mean by legitimate is believed to be right. No one believes something they do not think is right (not in a moral sense here). Sensory experience legitimizes knowledge, but so do social relations and institutions, like religions.