Another Stab At It

Let's try this again.

Rote knowledge v process knowledge.

Let's call it solid knowledge v fluid knowledge. New words, same story.

Solid is like independent particles. Little suitcases of information. You can collect them, pick them up, keep them - maybe even glue them together. I suppose like atoms. There is no surprise that hyper-critical and painfully analytic philosophy is considered Epicurean. In this sense, it means particulate. It means atomistic. All packets of information, like people, are independent atoms bouncing around, sometimes collecting, sometimes in close proximity, sometimes helpful.

Fluid is like water. It merges. It moves in shapes that defy logic. It folds in upon itself and it consumes. There is no real atomistic explanation for fluidity. Fluid knowledge requires from us new ways to combine and to learn. You never really know how big a shape is or where it is going. Isn't that the essence of fluidity? of water? Water moves and it spread and, often, it combines with other things and becomes them or they become it. Fluidity allows one to think socially, to combine without the same boundaries contained in solid, rote methods.

This is why Kant and Russell are solid. Nietzsche is fluid. This is why every great idea can be worked into this distinction in order to better understand it and also to better understanding epistemology, learning.