ABSTRACT
The interdependence of metaphysical knowledge and knowledge of the Person is a matter of some delicacy. Metaphysical knowledge has been directed upon being: to know that would be to possess a norm or standard in terms of which other modes of knowing might be judged. It has, moreover, been directed upon Being as upon a question, for it is not clear what ought to mean by that word, and it is still less clear whether our cognitive powers are fitted to attain such knowledge. Analysis of our knowledge of any entity may reveal a multitude of discrete sensory experiences, impressions, sense data, qualities, and the like, the terminology depending upon the bent of our epistemology. But no such assemblage can be equivalent to the cognitive awareness in which recognize that these data signalize the presence of an entity; and none can wholly justify the articulated judgments in which embody that recognition.
