Mason Chapter 5

I agree with Laura; Mason is definitely taking a middle ground here. It is quite obvious that a finite mind cannot collect, comprehend, and connect an infinitude of facts (we can't know everything), but it would also be fallacious to say we cannot know anything, for that statement itself would be incomprehensible. Mason also discusses limits of understanding, but he used so many examples that I lost his own line of argument. However, his example of Wittgenstein's limit (whatever is beyond language is beyond comprehension) stimulated some thought; if something is beyond language (and hence beyond comprehension), would we even be able to know of it? If so, why should we care about it, since it would be a futile effort to attempt to gain knowledge of it. For Wittgenstein, this is where mysticism comes in, which is a purely personal experience, because the limits of language deny the possibility of sharing and communicating the mystical.