Genera and species vs. laws of nature two epistemic frameworks and their respective ideal worlds

This paper seeks to exhibit and explain, by way of comparison, two ideal kinds of knowledge: knowledge based on classifications according to genera and species, as in Aristotelianism and common sense, and scientific knowledge based on the application of laws of nature. I will proceed by attempting (1) to determine the role that presuppositions play in knowledge in general by means of the distinction between content and form; (2) to describe and explain the main features of both ideal forms of knowledge; and, finally, (3) to analyze the relation between these two forms of knowledge as it is presented in Eddington's celebrated discussion of the “two tables”. I will be critical of the widespread view that modern science is the correct form of knowledge, and that common sense is merely an illusion. •Science neither asks what the world is nor why it is the way it is. It asks only how it is.•Genera and species are categorical—laws of nature are hypothetical.•For classical thinking general rules accept exceptions to the rules—for science there are not ‘exceptions to the laws’.•The world insofar as it is understood depends on our mind's contribution to its knowledge.