A Genesis of Literary Semantics

observes “We must find an alternative to thinking of engagement as primarily a response to systems of knowledge and belief.” My essay takes this imperative as a starting point for proposing an alternative to the knowledge/belief analysis: the Trichotomy of Knowledge. I argue that the knowledge/belief analyses made by A.D. Woozley and A.J. Ayer lack the inclusiveness demanded by a theory of knowledge and that it is this very delimitation which has led to the analytical hindrance which Polvinen is experiencing. The Woozley/Ayer premises impose an exclusive disjunction upon a region (knowledge) whose undefinable entity transcends the object of their investigation. The Trichotomy of Knowledge, as a multimodal system, has greater complexity than the knowledge/belief model; this complexity is justified, however, by the need to complement the deficiencies in the scope of the latter. In my system, art and music and fiction are accorded equal epistemological status with logic, mathematics and science.