ABSTRACT
We assume that knowledge results from discovery. Evidence, gathered without prejudice, must be judged if it is to support a knowledge-claim. This judgment consists, typically, in a penetration of the evidence to reveal something non-evident. The essential, or the crucial, or the explanatory, or the probative is to be found beneath the surface, or among the details, or beyond appearances. It is somewhat difficult to recognize that we are talking metaphorically when we talk this way. It is very difficult to imagine any other way of talking. �et we could, if we wished, trope the movement from data to knowledge differently – say, as construction, rather than as uncovering. It does not follow that our trope is wrong, only that it is a trope. our commitment to discovery is a rhetorical choice with epistemological consequences.
