I think I know what you are driving at with this statement "Much of our knowledge of reality can be regarded as approximations", however I think this accepts the premise that knowledge means omniscience.

Great quote

Absolutely, but it is also used by the socialists, anti-enlightenment led by Kant and by Hume (conservatives).

Yes they are

Spoken like a battle-hardened engineer who has spent some years dealing with retards! :)

The "unknown unknown" is one of the reasons that Newtonian dynamics is incomplete. Newton did not know the speed of light or if it was instantaneous. As a result he could not include it and its consequences in his "Principia Mathematica". He was also unaware of the relationship between magnetism and electricity. This does not detract from the enormous value of his contributions but it does illustrate that everyone has limits.

The other problem is the unknown unknown. Which is a flaw in the perfect knowledge argument. There is alway the possibility you don't know that there is further knowledge that you don't know about because it exist outside of your ability to access it.

Consider a black hole. We can speculate what exists beyond the event horizon, but short of actually plunging into one there is no way to find that out and it is a one way trip. Because even if you somehow survived your trip, you could never inform anyone back here outside of your new knowledge. (Of course, I am operating with current knowledge of what we believe a black hole is and how it seems everything that crosses the event horizon never escapes to come back. It may someday be proven false and there may be ways to communicate information back, however unlikely that seems).

As I understood it, the Objectivist position is that
while many things are unknown, nothing is un-
knowable. And the fact that you might not know
as much as somebody does not necessitate (nor
even justify) just accepting some supernatural (or other) authority on blind faith. I think Galt's
speech said, "Accept the fact that you are not
omniscient, but becoming a zombie will not give
you omniscience..."

You are exactly correct in identifying the fallacy that purports one can not know anything without knowing everything. We will always exist in the middle ground between abject ignorance and perfect omniscience. The trick is to recognize that we are at neither extreme and the even bigger trick is to be able to tell how far along the path on any given topic we are. We should recognize and be proud of the knowledge we have obtained, but never be satisfied with what we have to the point of deciding there is nothing else we can learn.

Excellent point dbhalling. Much of our knowledge of reality can be regarded as approximations. Newtonian dynamics works well enough that we can use it to navigate spacecraft from one planet to another (an application that would have astounded even Newton). However, we know that in the extreme Newtons laws of gravitation are incomplete. Einstein filled in some of the blanks that exist near the edges of Newton but even Einstein knew his theories of relativity were also incomplete. Our theories of reality provide pragmatic approximations of of the behavior of that reality.
At some point we must face a fundamental question; "Is the complexity of reality finite or infinite?".
Recent work in quantum physics suggests that reality is more complex than any of our models but we do not know if this complexity extends without limit. The answer to this question is of fundamental significance because it determines if there are limits to our understanding.
Consider knowledge and reality in terms of a Venn diagram. There is the universe of discourse which can be defined as the sum totality of all reality and there is a smaller domain which we can call "Our knowledge of that reality". That smaller domain overlaps the larger one with the intersection being that part of our understanding that is included in reality and the part that lies outside the intersection consists of what we "know" that is false.
The problem is that if the domain of reality is infinitely large it is impossible, by the definition of infinity, to ever encompass it with a finite model. If on the other hand the domain of reality is finite, no matter how large, it is possible, at least in principal, to gain complete knowledge. The consequences of this are profound because in one direction lies an endless quest and in the other lies godhood.

Guess I'm a pretty liberal (cough cough one of those guys) for being interested in what Gulchers (who aren't into cough cough well you know what I'm a-sayin') may think about this and that.

Very well put, dbhalling. The roots for many of the fallacies you describe are twofold. 1. Deriving an opinion by applying superb reasoning to a false premise. 2. Conflating that opinion with knowledge.

Both are demonstrably present in the "objection to objectivism" post.
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This is the Christian Apologetic called Presuppositionalism. The Christian says that because you can be wrong in what you know, you cannot deny a God exists. They go so far as to say that all knowledge comes from God so even asking for evidence to support their position requires a belief that God exist. They can be quite insufferable to debate with because they constantly try to derail the conversation, especially when you might have arguments that point out the flaws in their logic. One of their favorite tactics is to quote bible verse to support their positions, but when they come up against someone who is also well versed, they switch to that 'they don't do bible studies with non-believers'.

Very good description Dale, Thanks.

Hello dbhalling,
Very good. I like your flat earth example... sly says I, ...with a wink and a nod... :)
Regards,
O.A.

Thanks for posting this. I will add: I think an instructive example of the principle behind the correct epistemology is that given by Peikoff on the discovery of RH factors of blood types. For reference, the conclusion was contextual: Blood type A is compatible with blood type A, when the RH factors are matched.

The phrase which sums up the concept is: "Knowledge is contextual".