Why Epistemology Has Two Sides

I. The Two Sides of Epistemology

1. Cognitive Instruments (Six Tools)

This side involves the inner means of knowing, reflecting the faculties or modalities by which truth can be approached. There are six:

• Intuition

• Experience

• Understanding

• Reason

• Primitive WuXing (原始悟性)

• Absolute WuXing (绝对悟性)

2. Epistemic Anchorage: Mind vs. World

The second side concerns the directionality or anchorage of knowledge:

- Is knowledge anchored in the Mind?

- Or is it anchored in the World?

Depending on where the knowing begins and ends, we can distinguish:

- If the starting point and ending point are the same, the process is straight (self-confirming, such as rational deduction or direct insight).

- If the starting and ending differ, the orientation creates various modes of mediation between knower and known, mind and world.

This produces six distinct epistemological modes:

Mode Description

Subjective Mind-oriented, self-referential

Objective World-oriented, fact-referential

Subjective–Objective Starts from mind, ends in world

Subjectively Subjective Internal to the mind, relative to another subjective framework

Objective–Subjective Starts from the world, ends in subjective interpretation

Objectively Objective Mind aligns objectively with the world, without distortion

II. Ontological Parallel: The Six Layers of Reality

Each of these six epistemological configurations maps onto the six ontic layers proposed by Instancology:

Epistemic Mode Ontological Layer

Subjective RR – Relative Relative (human constructs)

Objective AR – Absolute Relative (natural givenness)

Subjective–Objective RA – Relatively Absolute (laws and logic from mind to cosmos)

Subjectively Subjective RR – recursive representation (e.g., phenomenology)

Objective–Subjective AR/RR – empirical processed via cognition

Objectively Objective AA – Absolute Absolute (truth beyond mind and world)

Conclusion

Epistemology has two sides because reality—and knowing reality—requires both tools of access and anchors of reference. These dual structures align to the six ontological layers of the world as conceived in Instancology:

- From relative to absolute

- From mind to world

- From tools to truth

Only by recognizing this structured symmetry can we achieve not just knowledge, but the right kind of knowledge for each ontic layer—culminating in WuXing as the only access to the Absolute.