Gettier Problem.
Knowledge: Justified True Belief (JTB)
S knows P IFF
1. S believes P
2. P is justified
3. P is true
It's dusk, you're a farmer. You go into your fields and see a cowish shape (it actually happens to be a cloth swaying in the wind). You conclude that there's a cow in your field. There, in fact, is a cow in your field.
P = There's a cow in your field.
S = You.
Justification for P = the cowishly shaped cloth.
You are justified in believing there's a cow in your field, you believe there's a cow in your field, and there is a cow in your field.
All conditions for knowledge are satisfied but then you got it right by fluke: a cow happened to be in your field.
Issue/problem: The scope of the inference is in excess of the evidence. The correct inference you should've made is that cowishly shaped cloth is a cow (false) and not that there's a cow in your field (true).
Are all Gettier problems fallacious: do the conclusions go beyond what the evidence actually supports?
S knows P IFF
1. S believes P
2. P is justified
3. P is true
It's dusk, you're a farmer. You go into your fields and see a cowish shape (it actually happens to be a cloth swaying in the wind). You conclude that there's a cow in your field. There, in fact, is a cow in your field.
P = There's a cow in your field.
S = You.
Justification for P = the cowishly shaped cloth.
You are justified in believing there's a cow in your field, you believe there's a cow in your field, and there is a cow in your field.
All conditions for knowledge are satisfied but then you got it right by fluke: a cow happened to be in your field.
Issue/problem: The scope of the inference is in excess of the evidence. The correct inference you should've made is that cowishly shaped cloth is a cow (false) and not that there's a cow in your field (true).
Are all Gettier problems fallacious: do the conclusions go beyond what the evidence actually supports?
Comments (797)
If the cowishly shaped cloth is a cow then there is a cow in my field, therefore if I can infer that the cowishly shaped cloth is a cow given the evidence then I can infer that there is a cow in my field given the evidence.
Justification is not an on off thing, one can have more or less of it. The storyteller has more justification than the farmer because the storyteller 'knows' that the cow shape is a cloth. Story-tellers always know better than their characters because they are the god of the story.
One can see that justification is also knowledge, and that one can be wrong when one thinks one knows something. So the farmer is mistaken in his implicit claim to know that a that a cow shape is a cow. Had he further justified this by touch or smell, he would not have made the knowledge claim about the cow in the field.
Gettier is mistaken in thinking he has found a failure in our understanding of knowledge. He has discovered fallibility.
Not sure what you're trying to say here. Are you saying that the farmer's belief isn't justified?
Yes. It is justified by something that turns out to be false, so it it turns out not to be justified. this is how we proceed is it not? Then it turns out to be true anyway, but so what?Farmer Giles believes his cabbages will fail because the fairies have cursed them and that belief is justified on the grounds that he failed to put milk out for them last full moon. Turns out that the milk would have attracted hedgehogs who would have eaten the slugs that are the real villains of the story. Farmer Giles is right in predicting the failure of the cabbages, but this is not then evidence for the existence of fairies.
Intriguingly, Martin Rees claims that Newton's laws are physically hardwired in our brains. How else do we make good estimates on what we can handle, physically, and what we can't. Just sayin'.
Where do we go from here?
Quoting unenlightened
I agree.
Quoting unenlightened
Yup.
What I'm driving at is all Gettier cases seem to be such that they violate the proportio divina rule (the conclusion is disproportionate given the premises).
Gracias for the input.
A false belief can be justified. That's why the JTB definition of knowledge is JTB, not just JB.
Not having put out milk last full moon doesn't justify a belief that fairies exist and cursed his cabbages.
Whereas seeing something that looks like a cow in his field may justify his belief that there is a cow in his field.
Let's say that you put 123 × 123 into a calculator and it tells you that the answer is 15,129. Are you justified in believing that 123 × 123 = 15,129?
I believe I am (justified). The calculator nearly always gets basic math right. What's your point?
Justification is not sufficient for truth but I have a feeling that it's a necessary condition. Oh! Gödel.
What you didn't know is that the calculator you used is broken and always gives an answer of 15,129, regardless of the equation you enter.
You believe that 123 × 123 = 15,129, it is true that 123 × 123 = 15,129, and as per your own acknowledgement you are justified in believing that 123 × 123 = 15,129. But Gettier would argue that you don't know that 123 × 123 = 15,129. Your justified belief is only accidentally correct.
The standard response to that would be a presupposition was wrong. Gettier isn't right still. I'm not justified.
Why isn't he right? You have a justified true belief but you don't have knowledge.
Not justified. An assumption - the calculator is working - was false.
You said it was justified.
And as above, a false belief can be justified.
IF all my assumptions are true then P is true.
I change my mind.
Heck, even all our current beliefs could turn out to be wrong, and we would know nothing.
It's better to let go of this constraint and simply use the word knowledge as we tend to do in ordinary life, which usually does not pose much problems in discussion, outside of specific cases like this.
But that's just me.
But false beliefs can be justified, too. Again, that's why knowledge is commonly defined as justified true belief, not just justified belief.
Gimme an example of a false belief that's justified. Inductive arguments are not allowed.
I use a calculator and it tells me that the square root of 2 is 1.41421356237.
This is unjustified. We've already crossed that bridge.
:smirk:
You're working from a very different understanding of justification, then. One contrary to proponents of the justified true belief account of knowledge.
The very fact that they propose that knowledge is justified true belief and not just justified belief is proof that they understand that false beliefs can be justified, too.
Gettier is arguing against what they mean by a belief being justified, not against whatever you mean.
Justification is just another word for argument. A deductive argument is such that if it's valid and the premises are true (sound argument), the conclusion has to be true.
Under the JTB definition of knowledge, insofar as deduction is concerned, the condition true is redundant.
According to what you mean by "justified". But that's not the meaning of "justified" as used by those who argue(d) that knowledge is justified true belief, and so not the meaning of "justified" as used by Gettier.
What is Gettier's definition of "justification"? I'm curious.
I don't think philosophy is done that way. We can't/shouldn't employ substandard definitions. We need clear-cut concepts.
The thing is that ordinary use varies, and there is a sense of knowledge that answers the JTB criteria. The truth criterion is justified by locutions such as "I thought I knew that P, but I was wrong" (i.e. I didn't actually know that P). Or "A thinks that she knows that P, but she is mistaken."
But I agree that JTB picks out at best some, but not all ordinary senses of knowledge.
I hope to but not anytime soon.
By the way, IF the JTB definition is going to be tinkered around with in the way you describe, sure you're on target.
Sure. As is the case for most words.
Quoting SophistiCat
Yup.
I don't see the benefit of saying knowledge must be JTB.
Shouldn't sentence A be considered an acceptable expression of justified true belief?
I think so, even if the impossibility of error is implied.
You're a farmer.
Scenario 1: You see what looks like a cow (it's a cloth waving in the breeze). You say to yourself "there's a cow in my field."
Scenario 2: You see an actual cow and you conclude "there's a cow in my field."
Gettier fails to account for the difference between "what looks like a cow" and "an actual cow".
:up:
Quoting Michael
:up: :up: (I've recommended TMF do so but he seems incorrigibly stubborn when it comes to Witty.)
Quoting TheMadFool
Martin Rees is wrong (or just joking). "We make good estimates ..." far more often parochially with ad hoc heuristics (i.e. trial and error correlations) than we do generally with algorithmic calculi (i.e. soundly inferred causal relationships), the latter of which "Newton's laws" – physical laws being nothing more than invariant properties of fallible (defeasible) theoretical models which explain physical regularities – consist.
Except in the case where the calculator is broken, or has been tampered with or ... In such cases, your justification dissolves. I am saying that just as one can believe one knows X when in fact one does not (and cannot) because X is false, so one can believe one is justified by X in believing Z when one is not, because X is false. Particularly in the case where Z = "I know that X ".
We can be justified in believing things even if our belief or its evidence is false. If I’m a bartender and someone shows me a fake ID that I believe to be real then I am justified in believing that they are 18 and so that I am allowed to sell them alcohol. That’s why I wouldn’t be charged with selling alcohol to someone underage.
Thankfully the legal system uses this common sense understanding of justification and not the sense that you and TheMadFool seem to use.
Indeed. Nobody will blame you, just until you learn that they are not 18 and you are not allowed to sell them alcohol. You will claim to know that they are 18, and you will be wrong, but justified in thinking you are right. You are confusing what is a reasonable justification with what is a true justification. As soon as it is pointed out that the passport he showed you is issued by the government of Narnia, you are no longer justified in your belief. and you will become responsible. Indeed perhaps you are already at fault for not noticing such a feeble attempt at a fake id. This too is common sense.
And in the Gettier case they are 18. They bought the fake ID when they were 17 and haven't yet replaced it with a real one. So I have a justified true belief that isn't knowledge.
I'm not confusing the two. The justified true belief account of knowledge doesn't distinguish between different kinds of justification. It simply argues that we have knowledge if we have a justified true belief. The above example is an example of a justified true belief that isn't knowledge, and so the justified true belief account of knowledge isn't correct.
Gettier cases showed that we need something else; a JTB+G account of knowledge, where "G" is some fourth condition, which in your case is that the justification is a "true" justification.
There. that wasn't so hard was it?
How does a robotic hand catch thrown objects? My hunch is it uses Newtonian mechanics, the formulae therein, to do a superfast calculation of an object's trajectory.
How does a human catch a ball or other object thrown at him/her?
This issue has deeper significance - the same function being accomplished using two different methods (the easy way - humans - and the hard way - robots).
To one subscribing to internalism, a justification is valid if one's internal subjective reasons are considered sufficient to hold to a belief.
To one subscribing to externalism, a justification is valid only if there are external facts considered sufficient to hold to a belief.
As to your first statement, I would hold that justification invalid to an internalist. It is incoherent. As to the second statement, the justification is valid to an externalist.
All you never wanted to know on the subject: https://iep.utm.edu/int-ext/
"S knows P" is the disputed propositional form. The trouble with this piece of silliness is that the integrity of 'P' is simply an assumption. There is no P simpliciter, for you cannot separate P from the justification of knowing P. Every time you try (consider the history here of severed head and barn facsimile attempts) you run into the impossibility of establishing P at all! I mean, before you talk about what it is to know P, you have to first establish P independently of the conditions for knowing P, but this is impossible because P's affirmation IS an epistemic assumption to begin with!!!!
They wasted so much time on this piece of rubbish. It just goes to show you what a waste of time analytic philosophy has become.
P = Aliens exist.
There's a proposition but I don't know if P or ~P because I don't have proof (justification).
I'm with TMF; in this example there is no problem for JTB. The belief that there is a cow on his field is not specific enough. It's a fudge; what the farmer actually believes is that there is a cow in his field at the location of the cow-shaped cloth, so his belief, adequately specified, is false.
Violation of what I call the proportio divina rule: The conclusion is not proportionate to the premises.
Correct conclusion: That (the waving cloth) is the cow in my field (only one specific location possible)
Incorrect conclusion: There is a cow in my field (It could be anywhere in my field - multiple locations possible).
Any examples that cause problems for the JTB theory of knowledge?
As I said:
Quoting 180 Proof
Given that our understanding of reality is incomplete we are not exactly able to know everything so there are necessarily beliefs we have now that we say are justified true beliefs but reality does not hold up to them - we’re just ignorant.
We only have irrefutable knowledge when we set limits and rules (in abstraction like mathematics). Errors can still lead to false claim of knowledge though.
The whole point of Gettier is to point out that people can get the right answers for the wrong reasons. Giving a correct answer does not mean you hold knowledge about the subject the question was framed in.
Why is this so hard for some of you to grasp? Did I miss something?
The idea of JTB really is not concerned with whether we know anything or don't know anything; it's just a definition of knowledge. We may have true beliefs, but they don't count as knowledge unless we have good reason to hold those beliefs.
It is a poor one if many people view it differently though, right?
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/#KnowJustTrueBeli
If JTB says that Flatearthers are justified in their belief and that their belief in the Earth being a disc rather than a spherical object is 'knowledge' then knowledge looks to be pretty useless. If someone says they have some knowledge about something why should I take them seriously?
JTB may as well say that everything we experience is 'knowledge'. Well, so what?
I have a definition equally as good. Anything anyone pays any attention to they have knowledge of. Nothing to do with truth or justification needed. We recognise something and question it in some manner. That is where knowledge is born.
Breathing is not something I usually have any knowledge of unless I am directly paying attention to it, questioning it and/or studying it. Generally speaking though my day-to-day life is not taken up by holding knowledge of breathing up for conscious scrutiny. If you keep following this definition of knowledge compared to JTB it has more legs.
If one can infer B from A and if B entails C then one can infer C from A.
Take the example of the bartender given the fake ID. His belief that the ID is real is false, but his derived belief that the person is 18 is true.
That the person's age is under 18 in reality seems to be of little concern to the definition of knowledge - knowledge can be faulty.
That is the only way I can make sense of what they are saying here.
Knowledge is being defined as justified true belief, not just as justified belief.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/#KnowJustTrueBeli
Likewise, seeing a dog shape in the mist can be a person wearing a dog costume. A leaf floating in the wind can be taken for a weird bird. If I see giant horses in clouds jumping from behind a forrest, I will soon become aware that it are clouds. Unless I reject their physical status altogether and give them a place in a magical approach to reality.
Why is it necessary to believe that a flipped coin assumes a definite state of affairs before checking? This assumption only appears to be necessary relative to the commonly accepted assumption that causality is asymmetrical in which causes must precede effects. But this assumption isn't empirically testable.
Instead, if causation is treated symmetrically, in the sense of allowing both forward and backward causation, then the act of checking the outcome of a flipped coin can be freely interpreted as forcing the past state of the coin to assume a definite state of affairs.
Consider for instance a video game that dynamically generates a dungeon around a player in response to the player's movement. This demonstrates that backward causation is a valid empirical notion, even if the game's underlying implementation involves only forward causation.
Here’s an “example” I thought of, and am curious about its implications. I’m not really sure how I feel about it. Anyways, here goes.
You make plans to meet a person you’ve never seen before over the phone (for whatever reason you can come up with). Through the phone call you know that this person is male, middle aged, and named Bob. Bob tells you he will be at restaurant X on Wednesday at 6pm, and that he’ll be wearing a blue shirt. You go to restaurant X at 6pm on Wednesday, see a middle aged man in a blue shirt, whom you assume is named Bob. You approach the man and ask if his name is Bob, and it is. However, it isn’t the Bob you’re supposed to meet. Was your belief that the man in the blue shirt’s name was Bob knowledge? It seems to be a JTB, but only coincidentally. But does that matter? It also seems to be just an issue with language. What exactly is meant by the term “Bob?” If it has the stricter meaning of “the person you’re supposed to meet” then you believing the man in the blue shirt is Bob is technically false, because it’s a different definition of the word “Bob” than the one you had in mind.
Quoting Michael
Yeah, I think that’s a key point that is often overlooked.
In the 'bartender' case; his belief the person is 18 is not justified because it is based on a fake id. So it is not knowledge (specifically "knowledge that", not "know-how" or the knowledge of familiarity or acquaintance). The fact that the person is 18 is irrelevant,
This brings up an interesting point about this case; we might want to say that if the id had been valid his belief would have been justified; but if there is no way to tell whether an id is false or not, then there can be no knowledge in the JTB sense in either case, and a rational person would suspend judgement and make no claim to believe the person is 18, as opposed to accepting that the person is 18 in the sense that a box has been ticked. If you asked a rational bartender whether they ever know anyone is 18 they would say 'no'.
If it turns out that we never have justification to believe anything, then we never have knowledge, but just belief. The definition of knowledge as JTB remains untouched in any case.
What do you mean by a belief being justified? Because I understand it as meaning that, given the information available, a rational person can cogently infer the subject of belief. As such, a fake ID can be justification.
This, incidentally, is how the law would consider it.
Depending on how you want to think about it, you could claim that any belief is not justified, since it is not absolutely certain. The acceptance of fake ids as proof of age is legally justified, since it is acknowledged that the average bartender does not possess the means to enable her to distinguish between a fake id and a valid id. But if you don't have the means to distinguish fake from valid then you have no justification in claiming knowledge.
Why does justification require absolute certainty? The Cambridge dictionary defines it as "having a good reason for something" which is consistent with how I defined it and how I ordinarily understand it in everyday conversation.
If justification required absolute certainty then defining knowledge as justified true belief would be redundant; it might as well be defined as simply justified belief.
Gettier was arguing against those who claimed that knowledge is justified true belief, and such people accepted that there is such a thing as justified false belief, hence why they explicitly included being true as a separate condition to being justified. Disagreeing with what such people mean by "justified" seems to be missing the point. We can simplify it by saying that such people argue that one has knowledge if one has a true belief that one has good reasons to believe, and Gettier provided examples of where one has a true belief that one has good reasons to believe but that we wouldn't consider knowledge.
The fact that you seem to require certainty for knowledge shows that, rather than your prior claim that "there is no problem for JTB", you in fact agree with Gettier that the JTB definition of knowledge is deficient.
Flatearther have 'knowledge' that the Earth is a disc then. If that is how we're defining 'knowledge' in JTB you can have it.
The problem with the Justification you outline shows that what is referred to as 'knowledge' is PURELY subjective according to how you put JTB.
Holding to the JTB definition of knowledge is what people with opinions do as it doesn't require proof or truth, merely a connection to something that could be true due to some evidence.
Humans are fallible. The point of 'knowledge' (correct me if I'm wrong) is to counter our fallibility. Therefore it is nonsense to frame 'knowledge' as something defined by the whim of an individual human. An annoying paradox only resolved by the use of abstract 'knowledge' (knowledge confined to certain universal parameters).
I didn't say I endorse that view. Read it again: "Quoting Janus
JTB is just a definition and says nothing about whether we actually do have knowledge. If we do have knowledge then we do have justified true belief, according to that definition. It also says nothing about what would qualify as justification. Saying "having good reasons" doesn't ell us what would qualify as good reasons, either.
Quoting I like sushi
You continue to misunderstand. Flatearthers do not have knowledge that the Earth is a disc, because it is not true that the Earth is a disc.
I understand perfectly well. You do not.
Get it?
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/#KnowJustTrueBeli
What we call true is based on the justification for it being true (evidence). So outside of abstract contents we are limited and do not have access to ALL information (we are not omnipotent).
Everything in life is a JB and in abstraction we can have JTB if we can handle the size of the data set and fully understand the rules.
Does that mean knowledge is distinct from knowing?
If we can "[...]discover knowledge" it means the definition of knowledge is:
1. A true proposition P
2. P is justified [in two minds about this condition]
or something like that.
Discovering knowledge then amounts to believing P (is true) and working out its justification.
Whether or not the Earth is flat has nothing to do with whether or not anyone believes that the Earth is flat. The Earth isn't flat, and so flat-Earthers do not have knowledge that the Earth is flat. They in fact have an unjustified false belief.
My point here being is that people may have different reasons to consider different pieces of evidence. It is hard for me to imagine that the Earth is flat but at a glance we cannot generally ‘see’ that there is curvature to the Earth. We are in a position to say that this is false now but if we lived in the hills and had never seen the ocean nor knew of space and the heavenly bodies much would we view it as ‘True’ that the Earth was flat.
This is not the same as saying scientific knowledge has moved in from Newtonian motion to the theory of Relativity. Newton was just less accurate. I have no direct knowledge other than belief in an abstract system that does a damn good job of modelling the world.
My trust is based in mathematics not my ability to do mathematics accurately.
Do you not see that there are lines between what one person would claim as ‘good evidence’ and state something as ‘true’ where others would disagree and hasten to show them otherwise ..l like right now with me making as plain and clear as I can that what is considered ‘true’ in the lived world is open to some degree of doubt - where 1+2=3 is arithmetically correct and holds to a set of rules made by humans and understood universally. I do not ‘believe’ 1+2=3 I know it (but I know it as an abstract fact not as a reality as my scope for what the universe contains is limited and I have no idea if their are constant ‘rules’ and/or how many there are if there are any that I could comprehend.
JTB can function if Ockham is brought in. Which would basically make the whole JTB idea reliant upon another kind if ‘hedge your bets’ version of what ‘knowledge’ is.
What is considered to be true and what is actually true are two very different things. I can believe that something is true and be wrong. Knowledge requires both that we believe that something is true and that that thing is actually true (and that our belief is justified).
This is why flat-Earthers do not know that the Earth is flat. Even though they believe that it is true that the Earth is flat, it in fact isn't true that the Earth is flat.
What you and I may deem to be an obvious and proven truth today may turn out to be partially/completely wrong in several generations. We are not privy to the machinations of the universe merely part of them. We can interpret our minuscule corner reasonably well, or so we believe … which is my point.
The abstract does not match reality. So iff P then S is merely an abstract fact that can help guide us in reality but it sure as hell is not reality.
It appears we merely mark out the kind of ‘truth’ you are talking about by approximating it with abstract knowledge. Just because from some individual perspective we’re lined up with some abstract truth that correlates with reality it does not make it true in any absolute sense. Truth in reality is always our best educated guess backed up by evidence we also believe to be worthy. We cannot know anything with certainty unless we are limiting it and applying strict rules (eg. Playing Chess).
If we have no knowledge of the rules of chess and watched several hundred games could we say with 100% certainty that we understand ALL the rules of the game. Absolutely not. We would probably believe that we have enough experience to play the game well enough though. If we never saw what happens to a pawn once it reaches the other side of the board do we truly understand all the rules of chess? No. Are we justified by watching several games to assume we do understand all the rules of chess? No, but if we had to reach a conclusion with what we’d observed we might well say ‘now I know how to play chess’.
Reality, unlike chess, does not possess a handy rulebook and nor do we have access to the entire board. To state that this rule is ‘true’ or ‘false’ based on a limited scope is just referential to the idea that there is a ‘True’ and a ‘False’ not evidence that there is - in reality - a ‘True’ or ‘False’ other than that which we make via abstraction and strictly defined boundaries we imagine.
That has no bearing on what it means to be true. Either the Earth is flat or it isn't. It can't be both. It can't be neither. It can't be flat for some people and not flat for others. Either the people who believe it to be flat are wrong or the people who believe it to not be flat are wrong.
If the Earth is flat then nobody can know that the Earth is not flat. If the Earth is not flat then nobody can know that the Earth is flat.
1. I believe that X is true
2. I am justified in believing that X is true
3. X is true
1 and 3 are not the same.
Take P1 to be 'I know the earth is flat'. We'd like to be able to say P2 'I thought I knew the earth is flat, but I was wrong, the earth is not flat'.
But P2 is contingent on knowing that the earth is not flat. Otherwise it's merely 'I thought I knew the earth is flat, but I think I was wrong, I think the earth is not flat'
So what's 'I know' doing in the expression?
How does...
'I thought I knew the earth was flat, but now I think I know it's not flat'
...differ from...
'I thought the earth was flat, now I think it's not flat'?
JTB seems to do away with 'know' meaning anything at all.
If P1 is true then P2 is false; if P2 is true then P1 is false.
It's not. Consider this example:
1. I thought I knew that aliens exist, but aliens don't exist
The above statement can be true even if I don't know that aliens don't exist.
Indeed. But that's not the question I asked. To use your example, how does...
1. I thought I knew that aliens exist, but aliens don't exist
...differ from...
1. I thought that aliens exist, but aliens don't exist
In the first case I'm saying that I believed my prior belief was justified and true, whereas in the second case I'm saying only that I had a belief.
So, if you ask 'where's the pub?' and I say 'I think it's at the end of the road', I'm implying that my belief is neither justified nor true?
If so, why on earth would I have said it?
This isn’t rocket science. We cannot know what is true without preset parameters and rules. The universe is not something we have complete knowledge of therefore its ‘rules and parameters’ are unknown so our justification for any truth (outside the abstract) is open to varying degrees of doubt. We have ‘justification’ for beliefs when we can apply logic and reason (abstract tools) that adumbrate some supposed ‘truth’.
From here it doesn’t take much of a leap to understand that people with varying experiences and understandings may arrive at different conclusions as to what is or isn’t considered ‘knowledge’ because they are not privy to every possible perspective or the full comprehension of the manner in which nature operates.
JTB as a definition of ‘knowledge’ is open to personal interpretation (it is a subjective definition of knowledge because two different people could dispute what is or is not ‘true’ by way of how they ‘justify’ said claim.
It is very simple for me to point out that WE DON’T KNOW EITHER WAY. Speculation about the actual existence of extra terrestrial beings is just that. I possess knowledge that seems to suggest to me that such beings do exist but I don’t actually know one way or the other.
You're conflating the strict meaning of the sentence with its use in practice. This is addressed in Moore's paradox: "It is raining, but I do not believe that it is raining". The sentence is consistent, and possibly true, but not something that anyone would say in real life as assertions of something's truth tacitly imply that one believes that thing to be true.
If you just want to argue for an ordinary language approach to the issue of knowledge then you can, but that's probably beyond the scope of this discussion. In this discussion a distinction is drawn between a true belief and a false belief. You might believe that my name is Andrew, but you don't know that my name is Andrew – in part because my name is not Andrew.
No. Being true and being justified are two separate conditions.
How do we determine what the 'strict meaning' of a sentence is outside of its use?
Not really sure. I just know that there's a difference in meaning between "it is raining" and "I believe that it is raining". The former is a statement about the weather, and is true if it is raining. The latter is a statement about my belief, and can be true even if it is not raining. However, I also know that if I assert that it is raining then I am implying that I believe that it is raining.
Because, arguably, none of our beliefs are justified, and so the second condition isn't met. And in the case of the flat-Earthers, they don't have knowledge because their belief is false, and so the third condition isn't met.
Remember that your original claim was that flat-Earthers have knowledge simply because they believe that their beliefs are justified and true. I'm simply pointing out that this isn't sufficient for knowledge. They only have knowledge if the Earth is in fact flat.
I agree. But 'I know' doesn't seem to be properly of either kind, using a JTB definition.
You say that 'I know it's raining' is different to 'I believe it's raining' (I can be wrong about the former but not the latter, the former being about the weather itself in some way).
So 'I know' still seems no less pointless this way around. His could...
'I know it's raining'
...differ from...
'it's raining'?
The former is true if 1) I believe that it is raining, 2) I am justified in believing that it is raining, and 3) it is raining, whereas the latter is true if 1) it is raining.
The former is about both the weather and my belief, whereas the latter is only about the weather.
So...
'I know it's raining' is to mean...
'I believe it's raining' [my state of mind],...
'I'm justified in that belief' [a social claim that I could mount a generally acceptable argument],...
and 'it's raining' [a claim about the world].
But that means that the claim 'I know it's raining' contains the claim 'it's raining', which itself can never be anything more than the claim 'I believe it's raining', which is just the first part of the claim.
That is my point. They are ONLY met in abstraction. That is not the claim of JTB though as it is applied to real life where limits and rules are unknown to us.
"It is raining" doesn't mean the same thing as "I believe that it is raining". The former is a claim about the weather, and is true if it is raining. The latter is a claim about my belief, and can be true even if it is not raining.
So what are you willing to assert about the present, that you don't presently believe?
Plenty of our beliefs are justified. It's just that beliefs about aliens probably aren't.
Nothing. What relevance is that?
I'm trying to understand how you distinguish your concept of your beliefs from your concept of reality.
If you want to argue for subjective idealism or some other metaphysics then this isn't the discussion for that. This discussion takes some form of objective realism for granted.
Btw I think there is more justification in the belief for aliens existing than not. It would be surprising if the Earth was the only planet in the entire universe to ever harbour life.
There a many cosmologists and xenobiologist who’d likely agree with me … it is NOT true though as far as we know. Discovering aliens would make it ‘true’ but I doubt everyone would believe it as some will not see past their beliefs.
What we believe often trumps reality. We are not robots. Facts and truths are not synonymous. You appear to be talking about facts rather than what is true.
That's not what I claimed though. I claimed "it's raining" means the same as 'I believe "it's raining" - note the location of the quotations, I've tried to clarify.
So the claim 'it's raining', at the end of the exploded JTB claim is the same as 'I believe "it's raining".
It is obviously that case that you aren't necessarily willing to presently assert your previous beliefs, or to presently assert my present beliefs.
This is why i precisely asked
"So what are you willing to assert about the present that you don't presently believe? "
Which is the case precisely raised by Moore's paradox.
It doesn't. The former is a claim about the weather, and is true if it is raining. The latter is a claim about my belief, and can be true even if it is not raining.
Whether or not the Earth is flat is not an abstract concept. Whether or not the Earth is flat "exists" in reality. Whether or not the Earth is flat is independent on what anyone believes.
Quoting I like sushi
If you're drawing a distinction then you're missing the point. If you prefer it can be rephrased as:
X knows that Y if 1) X believes that Y, 2) X is justified in believing that Y, and 3) it is a fact that Y.
Moore's paradox has nothing to do with this discussion, and was only brought up because of Isaac's misleading question. Given the JTB definition of knowledge:
John knows that it is raining if:
1) John believes that it is raining,
2) John is justified in believing that it is raining, and
3) it is raining
It would be a mistake to interpret this as saying that John knows that it is raining if:
1) John believes that it is raining,
2) John is justified in believing that it is raining, and
3) I believe that it is raining
This latter argument is obviously fallacious.
Note the position of the quotation marks.
If 'I know it's raining' is taken to be a claim about both my mental state, and the world, then it can be false if I don't believe it's raining (whether or not it actually is), or it can be false if it's not actually raining (whether or not I believe it to be). But this latter state cannot ever be ascertained, it can only ever be assumed by survey of my (and other's) beliefs.
The point goes back to what you said earlier, which really is the crux here. If there is some 'strict sense' of an expression which is other than the actual sense in which it is used, then you need to first establish what the truthmakers are for this 'strict sense', otherwise I might just as well say that the meaning of "I know" in the 'strict sense' is "I have a hat on", and I'd be no less justified in such a claim.
I did, and they still don’t mean the same thing. A claim about the weather is not a claim about one’s belief.
Quoting Isaac
It can, given the JTB definition of knowledge.
If it is raining and if I believe that it is raining and if I am justified in believing that it is raining then I know that it is raining. If I know that it is raining then I have ascertained that it is raining.
How do you ascertain this other than by survey of your beliefs about whether it's raining?
Go on...
(this doesn't seem to be a complete answer to the question of how I ascertain that it's raining other than by survey of my beliefs)
Yes ... I point being that JTB only works with abstractions. JTB framed as a definition of day-to-day 'knowledge' about historical facts and such is nonsense.
Using an abstract formula as evidence of something being True in reality only has limited Justification. There is no distinct line between these.
I noticed you avoided commenting about the Chess game analogy? Are you saying that someone, in the real world, can know (with certainty) what the rules of a game are without ever being told what the rules are? That makes no sense at all. I can certainly agree that if they observed people playing the game multiple times they would have a better idea what the rules were but I see no way how they could state with absolute certainty that they knew ALL the rules. Granted, if the game was simple and there were only a few possible 'moves' in the game then they would feel more and more confident with each viewing ... and therein lies the problem of how humans operate. We believe when it suits us and frame beliefs as certainties when it suits our fragile understanding even in the face of facts that show otherwise.
This is part of the reason why flatearthers exist and part of the reason why people laughed with incredulity at Galileo for disputing what Aristotle said, because people will believe what they believe as true and some will not even budge once you show them they are wrong.
What’s there to say? I believe that it’s raining because I’m outside, getting wet, and can see the water falling from the clouds. That’s the justification for my belief and how I’ve ascertained the truth that it is raining.
So a belief that's well justified is 'true'?
Then what purpose does 'true' serve in 'Justified True Belief', that is not satisfied by 'Justified Belief'?
No, but if one has a justified true belief then one has ascertained that one's belief is true.
I don't know about with certainty, but they can know the rules of a game by watching the game and learning how it's played. If they watch the bishops only ever moving diagonally then they are justified in believing that bishops only ever move diagonally, and if bishops only ever move diagonally then they know that bishops only ever moving diagonally.
if one has a true belief then one has ascertained that one's belief is true.
The above is a meaningless tautology, yes?
So the only thing added is the justification.
Yet you say that it's not the justification which makes a belief true.
Justification isn't what makes a belief true, it's what makes a true belief count as knowledge (as opposed to a lucky guess).
OK, so
1. if one has a justified [s]true[/s] belief then one has ascertained that one's belief is true
2. if one has a [s]justified[/s] true belief then one has ascertained that one's belief is true
You're saying that 1 is false, but 2 is just a tautology.
So the question of how one ascertains whether one's belief is true, other than by justificatory beliefs, seems to remain unanswered.
I'm saying:
3) if one has a justified true belief then one has ascertained that one's belief is true
The 'game' in question here is reality at large too. None of us know the rules or limits. JTB only has scope within set parameters NOT in reality as it fails to distinguish where the borders of use are and is an attempt to use abstraction in reality as some absolute rule declaring what is or is not truth (but such truths are subject to change depending on the community and subjective intents).
No, it's a justified true belief. Obviously if bishops can actually move vertically as well then they don't know the rules of the game.
But...
if one has a [s]justified[/s] true belief then one has ascertained that one's belief is true.
...unarguably.
So what's 'justified' doing?
It is arguable. If you had toast for breakfast this morning and if I believe that you had toast for breakfast this morning, it would be false to say that I have ascertained that my belief is true. I require justification for that. I need to have seen you eat toast this morning.
How would you ascertain I had toast for breakfast, other than by your justifications for believing I had toast for breakfast?
I honestly don't know what you're saying any more. Your original claim was that the JTB definition of knowledge entails that flat-Earthers have knowledge that the Earth is flat. I am simply arguing that it doesn't. I am arguing that 1) they only have knowledge if the Earth is in fact flat, and 2) the Earth isn't flat and so they don't have knowledge.
If you want to argue that I can't be certain about 2) then that misses the point. 1) is the relevant counter-claim. Knowledge, according to JTB, requires more than just a justified belief; it requires that the justified belief is true.
1. if you had toast this morning and if I saw you eat toast this morning and if I believe that you had toast this morning then I have ascertained that you had toast this morning
2. if you didn't have toast this morning and if I saw you eat toast this morning and if I believe that you had toast this morning then I haven't ascertained that you had toast this morning
3. if you had toast this morning and if I didn't see you eat toast this morning and if I believe that you had toast this morning then I haven't ascertained that you had toast this morning
I have ascertained that X is true if 1) X is true, 2) I believe that X is true, and 3) I have justified in believing that X is true.
Then the JTB account is clearly wrong because we use the term 'knowledge' all the time and yet can never ascertain that the beliefs therein are 'true' by means other than justifications.
If 3) refers to your belief that it is raining, then I would say, by appealing to the meaningless of Moore's Sentence, that :
John doesn't know that it is raining from my perspective,
John knows that it is raining from your perspective.
If this looks uncomfortable, recall as Wittgenstein did, that we often say "I thought I knew, but i am proven wrong". From the perspective of ordinary language philosophy, the use of the verb "to know" doesn't imply infallibility of belief.
Consider also:-
1) John is blind, never leaves the house, and believes that it is raining,
2) John is justified in believing that it is raining, and
3) you and I directly observe that it isn't raining.
In which case John's belief that it is raining is false-according-to-us. But if we are privy to "insider information" about the weather that John does not and cannot possess, then is it logically coherent for us to interpret John's concept of the weather as being the same as ours?
If John's justification for his beliefs is logically valid and logically sound with respect to information he possesses, and if he is never confronted with a situation in which he declares his previous beliefs to be wrong, then where is John's mistake?
I asked how you ascertain whether I had toast this morning and your answer requires that you first know whether I had toast this morning. Try answering again but without the contingency 'if you had toast this morning'. That is yet to be ascertained so cannot form part of our method for ascertaining.
It doesn't. It refers to the independent fact that it is raining.
No it doesn't.
Michael has ascertained that Issac had toast this morning if 1) it is an independent fact that Issac had toast this morning, 2) Michael has seen that Issac had toast this morning, and 3) Michael believes that Issac had toast this morning
I don't need to first know that 1) is true. 1) just needs to be true, independent of what I believe. Then, assuming I believe 1) and am justified in doing so, it then follows that I know 1).
An independent fact according to whom?
It's not according to anyone. It's about what really is the case, irrespective of what anyone believes.
So according to us? See my last example.
No, not according to us. It's not according to anyone. It's about what actually is the case. I don't understand what's difficult about this.
But since you cannot ascertain whether it is an independent fact that I had toast this morning (by your own admission), your claim 'l know you had toast this morning' is always, forever undeterminable. It it contingent on a fact that can never be established. So how is it any different from 'I believe you had toast this morning'? All it tells me, the act of communication, is that you believe I had toast this morning. It tells me nothing different to 'I believe you had toast this morning'.
You can, that's what the justification does. If you have justification that X is true, and if X is true, then you have ascertained that X is true.
Every assertion has a cause. In your view, is it possible to grasp the meaning of an assertion without understanding the cause of the assertion?
Yes. The meaning of a proposition is one thing, the motivation for a speech act is another. The latter is irrelevant for this discussion.
Just because my assertion "you're a fucking twat" implies that I dislike the person I'm speaking too, and that I am an uncouth person, it doesn't then follow that "you're a fucking twat" means "I dislike you and I am an uncouth person."
Just because my assertion "it is raining" implies that I believe that it is raining, it doesn't then follow that "it is raining" means "I believe that it is raining."
If you say "It is raining", i cannot interpret you as saying anything other than " Michael believes it is raining".
And if i notice that it isn't raining, then it begs the question as to how a false state of affairs could cause your belief. The notion that the cause of a belief can be detached from the intentional object of the belief is a fallacy, well, at least according to me.
You're talking about speech acts, not propositions. If we were simply interpreting speech acts then consider this dialogue:
Michael: "It's raining."
Andrew: "You're wrong."
We could interpret this as:
Michael: "I believe that it's raining."
Andrew: "I believe that it's not raining."
Which somewhat makes sense. However, the proposition "you're wrong" doesn't mean "I believe that it's not raining." We can use the proposition "you're wrong" in many different situations, including ones that have nothing to do with the rain. I'm concerned with the meaning of the proposition "you're wrong", not how to interpret it as a speech act in a specific situation like we've done above.
And when we just consider the meaning of the propositions, "it is raining" is a claim about the weather and is true if it is raining, whereas "Michael believes that it is raining" is a claim about my belief and is true if I believe as such. They are not the same thing. And "you're wrong" is a claim about the truth of something the other person has said, and is true if the other person asserted a falsehood.
If I believe that it's raining then I can't be wrong when I say "I believe that it's raining," but I can be wrong when I say "it's raining."
If you understand my point of view, then we might be talking apples and oranges with you playing the game of arguing within accepted philosophical convention and me under-mining it, but assuming we disagree i'll continue.
What I am questioning is the very existence of inter-subjective semantics for propositions, which in turn leads to questioning the distinction between ethical misconduct and epistemic errors. The notion of inter-subjective meaning is dubious at best, and rigor is improved by conditionalizing every utterance, including so-called propositions, with respect to the causes of the speaker's utterances including causes that are external to the speaker's mind or brain.
For instance, consider the published results of a scientific experiment. If the details of the experiment aren't reported, then the results cannot be interpreted and are gibberish. Why should utterances divorced from their speakers be treated differently? How can we arrive at the idea of an inter-subjectively meaningful and speaker-independent proposition? And if we can't, then why should we attribute epistemic errors to anyone, even in the case of ourselves?
Language is a social convention for coordinating human activity, and achieves this by correcting people who fail to speak in a socially accepted fashion. But how do we leap from the observation that a speaker has spoken the unethical utterance "The Earth is Flat", to the conclusion that the speaker has made an epistemic error? This isn't justified on any causal analysis of psycho-linguistics, unless "epistemic errors" are trivially defined by convention to refer to the unethical utterances concerned.
So what I mean when I say 'I know x' is 'I believe x', 'I have justification for believing x' and 'x is an independent fact'?
What I mean when I say 'I believe x' is quite clear. What I mean when I say ' I have justification for believing x' is relatively clear.
What do I additionally mean by adding 'x is an independent fact'. That meaning is already covered by 'I believe x' and 'I have justification for believing x'.
If Jack said to you 'I believe x and I have good justification for believing x', then John said ''I believe x and I have good justification for believing x, and x is true', what is John communicating that Jack isn't?
As a speech act asserting that one knows X may be equivalent to asserting that one believes X, but as propositions "I believe X" is not equivalent to "I know X". This is similar to the mistake that @sime made above regarding "it is raining" and "I believe that it is raining" – even if asserting the former implies an assertion of the latter, as propositions they mean different things.
That belief and knowledge are different is obvious when we consider it in the third-person: "John believes that Donald Trump won the 2020 election" is not equivalent to "John knows that Donald Trump won the 2020 election." John can believe that Donald Trump won even if he didn't, but he can't know that Donald Trump won if he didn't.
So perhaps this issue is best discussed in the third-person. According to the JTB definition of knowledge, John knows that X iff:
1) John believes that X is true,
2) John is justified in believing that X is true, and
3) X is true
It is important to understand (contrary to @sime's claim above), that we don't interpret this as:
1) John believes that X is true,
2) John is justified in believing that X is true, and
3) I believe that X is true/John believes that X is true
The third condition isn't that I believe that X is true, or even that John believes that X is true (that would be the first condition); it's just that X is true. An independent fact must obtain for us to have knowledge.
The next issue is that you seem to think that knowledge of X depends on first knowing that the third condition is satisfied, but that is not the case. Rather, knowledge of the third condition is entailed by the three conditions being satisfied (indeed; that's exactly the JTB definition).
If propositions are not speech acts, then where are they used? Do we mime them? Communicate them through the means of interpretive dance?
Quoting Michael
How do we not (apart from just never using the expression "John knows that X is true"). The only distinction between me saying "John believes x is true (but it isn't)" and "John knows x is true" is my belief about whether x is true.
Quoting Michael
Then the entire human race is misusing the word 'knowledge' (as they're using it in cases where they merely believe x is true)...or...your definition is wrong. Which is more parsimonious an explanation?
You're completely missing the point.
Given the proposition "I believe that it is raining", what does the part in bold mean? It doesn't mean the same thing as the entire quoted proposition; "I believe that it is raining" doesn't mean "I believe that I believe that it is raining."
The proposition "it is raining" is a proposition about the weather, and is true iff it is raining. The proposition "I believe that it is raining" is a proposition about my belief, and can be true even if it is not raining. And this is true even if the act of asserting "it is raining" implies that the speaker believes that it is raining.
This is what I mean when I say that speech acts are not the same as propositions.
I might say "John knows X" if I believe that X is true, but I wouldn't say "John knows X if I believe that X is true."
You're conflating the meaning of a proposition with one's reason for uttering it.
I think it does. I'm deflationary about truth. "It's raining" and "I believe it's raining" are just two ways of saying the same thing. In many contexts, the former might indicate a higher level of certainty.
Quoting Michael
So the conversation...
"Will I need an umbrella?",
"Yes, I believe it's raining".
...makes no sense to you? What does my belief have to do with whether you'll need an umbrella? What's relevant is that my belief is a belief about the world, the same world you inhabit, the one in which you'll need an umbrella if it's raining.
If I say "I believe it's raining" I'm not talking about my mind, I'm talking about the rain, but I'm willing to accept that there could be some niche contexts in which I might be talking about my mind. I don't see how that explains a supposed distinction between proportions and speech acts. They're just two different contexts in which "I believe it's raining" mean two slightly different things. they're still both speech acts.
Quoting Michael
Nor would I say "John knows X if X is true.". Both are just weird things to say.
John is a bachelor iff:
1) John is a man, and
2) John is unmarried
You want to interpret this as the claim that John is a bachelor iff:
1) I believe that John is a man, and
2) I believe that John is unmarried
The fact that I would only assert that John is a bachelor if I believe that he is an unmarried man doesn't mean that my belief has anything to do with whether or not John is a bachelor. Him being a bachelor has nothing to do with what I believe. And him knowing that it is raining has nothing to do with what I believe, for the exact same reason.
Not quite. I'd interpret the claim as...
John is a bachelor iff:
1) My language community generally believe that John is a man, and
2) My language community generally believe believe that John is unmarried
It's just about the correct use of the term 'Bachelor'
And that's categorically false. John might be a woman dressed as a man and lying about her marital status. The fact that the language community generally believe that John is a man and unmarried doesn't entail that John is, in fact, a bachelor.
There's nothing more to John being a bachelor than my felicitously using the term 'bachelor'. There's no God of languages checking the 'truly' correct use.
As we are both not john, we can both agree that John's beliefs doesn't equal the truth, but that doesn't give John the epistemic warrant to know that fact, because it lies outside of John's cognitive closure.
At most, John can parrot the sentence without any understanding of what reality is like outside of John's beliefs.
Whether or not your use is felicitous does not depend on what you believe. You might only assert that someone is a bachelor if you believe that they are a bachelor, but you can mistake a woman for a man or incorrectly believe that they are unmarried. Your belief that John is a bachelor has no bearing on whether or not John is a bachelor. You can be wrong. John being a bachelor and you believing that John is a bachelor are two very different things, with very different truth conditions.
And you might only assert that it is raining if you believe that it is raining, but your belief that it is raining has no bearing on whether or not it is raining. You can be wrong. It raining and you believing that it is raining are two very different things, with very different truth conditions.
When I'm out in the rain getting wet, I certainly have an understanding of what reality is like outside my belief that it is raining; I have the actual, physical experience of the rain making me wet. The fact that it's raining coupled with the physical experience of the rain making me wet grants me the epistemic warrant to know that it's raining.
Suppose i assert "I know that it's raining because I am experiencing rain and that this fact coheres with everything else that i know". But suppose that unknown to me, the mods of this forum had drugged me into experiencing an hallucination, in such a fashion that I would never become aware of this fact at a later date.
In this situation, should a moderator judge my belief to be wrong, given that i am employing the word "know" in the same sense in which i always employ it?
Yes, your belief is wrong because it isn’t raining.
Felicity here seems to be a matter of the spell you have cast, by speaking the word ‘bachelor’, coming off.
But is my belief wrong from my perspective given that my use of "to know" hasn't changed, or only wrong from the mods perspective?
No. It depends on what the language community around me believes.
Quoting Michael
Agreed. I don't know how you've ended up thinking I don't believe I can be wrong.
I'm talking about what the expression "I know x" means. I'm claiming that it means something like "I believe x and most people in my language community would agree with me". I'm making this claim on the basis of the fact that this is how the expression is actually used.
You seem to be arguing that there's some special meaning of "I know x" which is not determined by the way it's used, but rather determined by some other criteria, but I've yet to get clear on what those criteria are.
Yes, and if everyone starts using 'bachelor' of John despite his obviously being a woman and married, then it's the meaning of the word 'bachelor that will have changed, not the truth of my statement.
That's where we disagree then. If someone other than myself claims to 'know' something, I can't interpret their use of the word as making transcendental claims that from my perspective is beyond their cognitive closure.
Therefore if i was observing a brain in a vat, i would understand the brain's claims to knowledge to be correct from it's perspective, in spite of the fact that from my perspective it's claims are false. And if during the course of it's life it spontaneously started to believe that it was in a vat without being informed via miraculous intervention from my world, I would understand it's belief to be delusional.
No it doesn’t. The language community around you can incorrectly believe that I am not married when in fact I am and so incorrectly believe that I am a bachelor.
So even if you and the language community assert “Michael is a bachelor” if you/they believe that I am a bachelor, it doesn’t follow that “Michael is a bachelor” means “I/we believe that Michael is a bachelor” or that your/their assertion is true.
I am a bachelor iff I am an unmarried man, irrespective of what you/they or even I believe.
Quoting Isaac
I’ve said that this is best understood in the third-person. “John believes X” doesn’t mean “John knows X”. And also "John knows X" doesn't mean "John and I believe X."
That's not how it works. When the entire language community claimed that the Sun revolved around the Earth, they didn't mean something else by "the Sun revolved around the Earth." They meant exactly what we mean now; they were just wrong. You misunderstand the meaning-as-use interpretation of language.
Re-reading this properly (I skimmed earlier), I've noticed that you've specified "despite obviously being a woman and married." Now you're changing the argument.
Your original claim was this:
Which is false. The language community might believe that John is an unmarried man despite the fact that John is a married woman. According to the above, John is a bachelor despite being a married woman. Obviously that's wrong. The correct definition is the one I gave:
They can indeed. My claim wasn't about their correctness. My claim was about felicitous use.
The entire claim here has nothing to do with whether I or my entire community can or cannot be wrong about things.
The claim is about what "I know x" means.
Quoting Michael
So far you've only asserted this, not argued for it. When people say "John knows x", they mean that John believes x and that they (and their community) would agree with him. It means that because that's the set of circumstances under which it's used (mostly).
If you're arguing that it 'really' means something else you need to present some criteria by which we're judging what expressions 'really' mean. Otherwise I might just say it 'really' means that John has a hat on, and you have no ground to tell me I'm wrong.
Quoting Michael
See above. The example was about felicitous use, not rightness or wrongness.
Quoting Michael
If the entire language community uses the term 'bachelor' of a person, but you use 'wife's, how are you going to make yourself understood? What more is there to the definition of a word than it's felicitous use?
I don't understand what you're saying here. I am simply asserting the fact that John is a bachelor iff John is a man and John is unmarried. Whether or not John is a bachelor has nothing to do with what anyone believes about John's sex/gender or marital status; whether or not John is a bachelor depends on what the facts are. Do you disagree? Are you going to continue to say that John, who is in fact a married woman, is a bachelor iff the language community incorrectly believes that John is an unmarried man?
The truth is not dependent on our knowing it. that way lies absurdity.
There's two issues. The first is about language and refers your second question.
Quoting Michael
To whom are you going to say it? In what context? Your entire language community, every single speaker believes John is a bachelor. So to whom are you going to use a sentence in which you use the term "John is a wife"?
The second is about what it means for something to be treated as being the case.
Quoting Michael
To say 'x is a y' is to say something about what it is to be an y (at the least that x is one of the sorts of thing a y is). But what it is to be a y is determined by the community for whom a y is a thing. A y is not a thing outside of a community for whom it is a relevant aspect of their life.
So John is not a bachelor by virtue of properties of John alone. He's a bachelor by virtue of a relationship between properties of John and the role of those properties in the community for whom 'John', 'bachelor', 'wife', 'married', and 'man' mean anything at all.
The language community. They all (incorrectly) believe that John is a bachelor. I correct them to inform them that John is in fact a married woman. They thank me for correcting them. That's what Copernicus did when he corrected everyone's false claim that the Sun orbited the Earth.
Quoting Isaac
None of this changes the fact that John is a bachelor iff John is a man and John is unmarried. This is contrary to your earlier claim that John is a bachelor iff the language community believes that John is a man and the language community believes that John is unmarried. The language community can be mistaken about John's sex/gender and marital status, just as they were once mistaken about the orbit of the Earth and the Sun, and their mistake doesn't make John a bachelor.
It depends on what you mean by "justified". If no false belief is ever really justified, even though we may think it is, then knowledge could indeed be defined as justified belief, because it would already be taken for granted that any justification must be based on the truth.
But truths are also contextual, so there are contexts in which we can know that our beliefs are justified. Like the 'it is raining' example; I know it is raining if I see the rain falling and wetting the streets, the buildings, trees, cars, people's umbrellas and so on. I am justified in believing it is raining because i see that it is raining, so I can say I know it is raining.
The 'bartender/ fake id' example brought up a salient point about justification. because of the existence of fake ids a bartender could never be epistemically, as opposed to legally, justified in believing a person is 18 on the basis of an id.
So, following from this, the Gettier cases demonstrate problems of being able to determine what constitutes justification, not a problem with the definition of knowledge as justified true belief.
So for example, in some imaginable context we could even question the justification of believing it is raining; it could be a simulation, an elaborate trick, an hallucination or whatever. This is the path to radical skepticism. We could also be skeptical as to whether there really is any truth apart from our beliefs; but even this would assume that there is a truth about whether there is any truth apart from our beliefs; so the definition, based on our common understanding of knowledge that it is JTB remains untouched, regardless of whether we think we can ever be said to know anything at all.
At which point it's no longer true that your entire language community believes John is a bachelor.
Quoting Michael
You asked about the interpretation of a claim and I answered...
Quoting Isaac
As I've said, quite a few times now, I'm not making any claims at all about what's actually the case, only about what [i]claims that[/I] something is the case mean, claims such as "John knows x".
Quoting Isaac
But there's a problem here. Imagine Joe is part of this community and is one of the persons that have been corrected; and he was corrected today. Yesterday, Joe may very well have said, "I know John is a bachelor". You're paying heed to the fact that today, John changes his mind; he will now say: "I know John is not a bachelor". But what you're missing is that today, Joe will not say: "I knew John was a bachelor yesterday, but I was wrong", because that statement is a contradiction. The reason that statement is a contradiction is because Joe recognizes that "to know x" requires x to actually be the case. If "to know x" only required x to be believed, there would be no problem with Joe saying "I knew John was a bachelor yesterday, but I was wrong."
But we don't talk that way, not in English. Once Joe learns that it's not the case that Joe is a bachelor, he instantly revises his past claims to know Joe was one. (This analysis requires the thing being discussed to not change, but, that applies here, and it makes the point).
So? It is still a fact that, prior to me correcting them, John is not a bachelor even though the language community believes that John is an unmarried man.
Quoting Isaac
Yes you are. You said:
Quoting Isaac
This is false. John is a bachelor iff John is a man and John is unmarried. John being a bachelor has nothing to do with whether or not you "felicitously" use the term bachelor. You've even accepted that "felicitous" use can be wrong.
Quoting Isaac
And in doing so you continue to conflate the implication of speech acts with the meaning of propositions. If you and I both assert that it is raining then there are two speech acts that share a proposition. Your speech act may imply that you believe that it is raining, and my speech act may imply that I believe that it is raining, but the shared proposition isn't "Michael believes that it is raining" (which is true iff I believe that it is raining) or "Issac believes that it is raining" (which is true iff you believe that it is raining) but is "it is raining" (which is true iff it is raining).
So despite your continued assertion, the emphasized part of "I believe that it is raining" doesn't mean the same thing as "I believe that it is raining." There's no infinite recursion going on here. The proposition "it is raining" refers to the weather, i.e. what's (allegedly) the case, and isn't simply a statement that one has a belief (about what, exactly?).
An expression like "it's raining" can be used without the prefix " I think...", or "I believe", because it's part of the language game of making claims that it's taken as given. In the past one can reflect on the comparison between what one believed at the time and what one believes now, so a need for some prefix is required to distinguish which it is one means to claim.
Either that or this ludicrous situation where a word refers to something we can't ever ascertain... The former sounds simpler to me, but to each their own...
In fact, as someone who takes part in a weekly quiz, I often assert things that I don't believe. We call these guesses. And, of course, such assertions are about what is the case.
That's the matter in question, so asserting it isn't an argument in favour of it.
Quoting Michael
I was referring to the meaning of the word 'bachelor'. It has no meaning beyond that which it is felicitously used for.
Quoting Michael
All of this is just re-asserting the position you started out with. Why is it the case that...?
Of course. The same sentence means different things in different contexts. Sometimes "I know x!" means "shut up, stop reminding me that x!"
There's a difference between saying "a bachelor is an unmarried man because the language community uses the term 'bachelor' to refer to people they believe to be unmarried men" and saying "John is a bachelor because the language community believes that John is an unmarried man."
The former is true, the latter is not. The language community can be wrong about John.
And in the same vein, there's a difference between saying "things that are known are true and justified because the language community uses the term 'known' to refer to things they believe to be true and justified" and saying "X is known because the language community believes that X is true and justified."
The former is true, the latter is not. The language community can be wrong about X.
Quoting Isaac
What does "x" mean in this context?
To make it simpler, let's say that sometimes "I know that it is raining!" means "shut up, stop reminding me that it is raining!" and that sometimes it means "I believe that it is raining."
What do the emphasized parts mean? Do all three emphasized parts mean the same thing?
You're confusing what you can infer from a claim with what a claim means. It does not entail that if you can infer y from a statement x that x means y. The statement "it's raining" is talking about what's happening outside. The statement "I believe it's raining" is talking about my belief. The addition/removal of "I believe" from these statements changes the meaning.
Quoting Isaac
You're way too focused on beliefs. The statement "it's raining" is talking about what's happening outside. The gold standard for whether or not it's raining is baked into the intentionality of the claim; since the claim is describing what's happening outside, you verify it by looking outside. By contrast, "Joe believes John is a bachelor" is talking about what Joe believes of John. The gold standard for whether or not Joe believes John is a bachelor is to ask Joe.
Now, if I looked outside and saw that it was raining, that certainly should inform my belief that it's raining. But the statement "it's raining" isn't about what I believe; it's about what's happening outside. It's about what you would see if you look outside, not what I would say if you ask me. So yes, I use the outside world to inform my beliefs (i.e., my beliefs are informed by the actual state of affairs, best I can ascertain). But no, my beliefs are not the authority of what is true; the (described) actual state of affairs is. That's the entire reason we use justification.
Quoting Isaac
I don't see what's stopping us from looking out windows.
I said there is nothing more to the 'meaning' of bachelor than it's felicitous use and you respond by saying the language community can be wrong about things. I don't see how the two are linked at all, you'll have to connect them up for me.
Quoting Michael
Parts of a sentence don't have independent meanings, that's why we construct sentences, otherwise what does "that it" mean in all those sentences, what does "up" mean in the second...
No, I'm arguing that what we can infer from a claim and what it means are intrinsically linked. The argument is to say that if they meant different things, then from where would a claim derive its 'meaning' if not from that which a language community can infer from its use?
Quoting InPitzotl
Too focused for what? For you? For Philosophy? For my mental health? I definitely am focused on beliefs, I make a career out of it, but too focused? Hell, my wife might agree given the breadth of dinner table conversation, but I'm not sue I understand what you could mean by it here.
Quoting InPitzotl
How can it be? If I say "It's raining" when it isn't then what you would see when you look outside is {a lack of rain} so the expression "it's raining" is about {a lack of rain}? It doesn't seem to be.
Quoting InPitzotl
So once we've looked out of the window it definitely is raining? Ascertained to be an independent fact. If, rather, it turns out to be someone with a hose standing on the roof, then what? Is it post hoc relegated to a belief again? Do we have to go back in time and change what everything was about?
Moreover, if beliefs are interpreted as having immanently accessible referents as opposed to transcendentally unavailable referents, we end up with an opposite problem; how is it possible to have false beliefs?
In my opinion, the conclusion to the above is that beliefs cannot be properties of a mind.
You previously claimed that John is a bachelor iff the language community believes that John is an unmarried man. That's false. The language community can be wrong about John.
It is not the case that John is a bachelor iff the language community believes that John is an unmarried man.
It is the case that John is a bachelor iff John is an unmarried man.
Quoting Isaac
Yes they do. The "it is raining" part of "I believe that it is raining" has a meaning, and that meaning is different to the "it is not raining" part of "I believe that it is not raining," and both meanings are different to the "Paris is the capital city of France" part of "I believe that Paris is the capital city of France."
When I believe that it is raining, what do I believe? That it is raining. When I believe that Paris is the capital city of France, what do I believe? That Paris is the capital city of France. Beliefs have propositional content, and that propositional content can be (and is) asserted as a proposition.
The proposition "it is raining" refers to the weather. It asserts something about what is actually the case. It is true iff water is falling from the clouds and false otherwise. It has nothing to do with whether or not I believe that it is raining and nothing to do with whether or not you believe that it is raining and nothing to do with whether or not the language community believes that it is raining. And the same principle applies to "John is a bachelor," "the Sun orbits the Earth," and "X is true."
We thought we knew X but we were wrong. We didn't know X because not X.
No I didn't. As I clarified in my previous post...
Quoting Isaac
A 'bachelor' is not a thing outside of language community declaring it to be a thing - felicitous use of the term 'bachelor', that's all I'm saying there.
Quoting Michael
Because...?
Your argument appears to contain the hidden and false premise that "it's raining" is used to convey to someone that the speaker believes that it's raining. The phrase "it's raining" does not require anyone to believe it beforehand to analyze its meaning or truth value. It may or may not be the case that someone believes it's raining; whether they do or don't is completely irrelevant to whether it is the case or not that it's raining (for this particular claim). What "it's raining" is used to convey is a weather condition.
Quoting Isaac
You're too focused on beliefs to analyze this properly; by which I mean you're being tunnel visioned. The fact that you've set up a scenario where the speaker believes it's raining simply reflects your bias to make the statement about beliefs. You didn't conclude that someone believes that it's raining from the statement "it's raining"; you concluded it from the fact that a person uttered that statement, and even then that is a fallible inference.
We could equally well consider this in the context of a quiz, something like:
In this case, it would be erroneous to infer that the producer of the quiz believes that it's raining. This does not prevent us from analyzing the meaning of (2) or judging its truth value.
Quoting InPitzotl
Quoting Isaac
Actually, yes. The problem appears to be that you're misinterpreting what I mean by saying that (A) is about what's going on outside. You appear to surmise that this means that (A) is true; but that's incorrect. What it suggests is that what's going on outside is the test of A's truth.
For comparison, consider when (F) what I would taste when I sip from this soda can is (G) {ginger ale}. That (F) results in (G) does not say anything about whether (A) is true or not; (F) does not test (A). By contrast, (C) resulting in (D) does say something about whether (A) is true or not; this is simply the "not" case (which is equivalent to saying that (B) "it isn't [raining]" is true).
Quoting Isaac
It no more follows that (A) being about what's going on outside means that once we've looked outside it is definitely raining than it follows that a person uttering A means that they definitely believe A.
What would you surmise option 2 in the quiz above is about?
Quoting Isaac
Let me fix that for you: "Ascertained its veracity".
Quoting Isaac
Then it's not raining. Unless it is. Regardless, the test of this would be to look outside. Again, it doesn't matter if this is your biased cherry picked scenario where the utterer of the statement believes it's raining, or if it is multiple choice option 2 on the quiz above. The statement is about the same thing either way.
Yes you did. Here:
Quoting Isaac
This is false. In fact, John is a bachelor iff John is a man and John is unmarried.
Quoting Isaac
Because what? I am simply informing you of how language works. When I assert that I believe that it is raining, there is something that my belief is about. And what is it about? That it is raining. The "it is raining" in "I believe that it is raining" is a proposition that has a meaning, and that meaning is a reference to something that is the case (the weather).
As demonstrated in these use cases, first order and higher-order belief predicates must be eliminated via slightly different strategies in order to arrive at the equivalence of "I believe X" and "X is true", and in cases of doubt "X has intermediate truth value".
How can an expression convey a weather condition? Weather conditions are made of atmospheric molecules? You seem on the one hand to want to talk in the abstract, but then on analysis assume those abstracts are concrete.
Quoting InPitzotl
"it's raining" is a speech act, or a written act, or a question-in-a-quiz act, but whatever, it is an act of human beings in a culture, it is not a work of nature, not a law of physics. It's 'used' to do whatever it's used to do, not one god-given purpose. Most of the time, it's used to get the listener to believe it's raining (by which I mean have a tendency to act as if it's raining - put a coat on, carry an umbrella, write a poem about it...). If you want there to be a 'meaning' to it other than the use it's put to, you'll need to decide how we're going to determine what that 'meaning' is. I'm not sure that 'it's what I say it is', is quite good enough.
Quoting InPitzotl
How?
Quoting InPitzotl
You said
Quoting InPitzotl
in response to my reductio of "I know..." requiring the subject to be 'true'. If we look outside we don't get to find out if "it's raining" is true do we? We just gain more justification for our belief that it's raining. At no point do we find out that 'it's raining' is true, so add in '...is true' to the meaning of 'I know...' makes it impossible for anyone to use the term correctly. That just seems silly.
Quoting InPitzotl
Option (2) isn't about anything. It's part of a whole expression-act which is about the language game of quizzes.
Quoting InPitzotl
But we haven't ascertained its veracity, you admit yourself, we could still be wrong. We've gathered more justifications for believing it, but in JTB, we already have justifications and beliefs, the question is how to add the T.
Quoting InPitzotl
What? You've just agreed that by looking outside we might not determine if 'it's raining' is true and then said that regardless the test of it's truth is to look outside?
This is now the third time I've pointed out the context of that partial quote. If you don't understand, you can just ask, but please don't keep disingenuously quoting parts of what I say to make some kind of 'gotcha', it's not a level of discussion I'm interested in. I said.
Quoting Isaac
Quoting Michael
So how did you learn how language works but I didn't? Did I miss something? Why are we in a situation where what you claim is just 'the way it is', but what I claim is subject to critique? Are you really so narcissistic as to think that the way things seem to you must be just exactly the way things are and people who see things differently must simply be ill-informed, awaiting your enlightenment?
Look at the entire context:
Quoting Michael
Quoting Isaac
So you are interpreting the sentence "John is a bachelor iff John is a man and John is unmarried" as the sentence "John is a bachelor iff the language community general believe that John is a man and unmarried". This is wrong, and why I said what I said here:
Quoting Michael
So we have two claims:
1) a bachelor is an unmarried man because the language community uses the term 'bachelor' to refer to people they believe to be unmarried men.
2) John is a bachelor iff John is an unmarried man.
Using 1), you interpret 2) as:
3) John is a bachelor iff the language community general believe that John is an unmarried man.
This is an invalid interpretation. And that's because this is true:
4) The language community incorrectly believes that John is an an unmarried man.
You accept that the language community can be wrong; that they can believe that John is a bachelor when in fact John is not. Given that, 2) is true and 3) is false, 3) is a misinterpretation of 2).
No I'm interpreting the claim "John is a bachelor iff John is a man and John is unmarried" as the claim "John is a bachelor iff the language community general believe that John is a man and unmarried"
Claims are one type of speech act. There is no single 'meaning' of the sentence. It means whatever use it is put to in the speech act in which it is uttered.
A claim to any factual knowledge (as a type of speech act), is generally of the form 'I believe x and most people in my community sufficiently expert in x would agree'
Even if you're the only person in the world who believes x, it's still the same claim. To use your Copernicus example. "I know the earth goes around the sun" is that Copernicus believes the earth goes round the sun and anyone sufficiently expert (ie, once he's educated them) would agree.
The alternative is to accept a situation where I believe x for reasons {a, b, c, and d} but that I also believe everyone, when taught reasons {a, b, c, and d} will still not believe x. That's tantamount to private rules, it makes no sense.
Which is wrong as I have repeatedly explained.
1) John is a bachelor iff John is an unmarried man
2) John is a married woman
3) The language community generally believes that John is an unmarried man
Given that the above are true, the following is false:
4) John is a bachelor iff the language community generally believes that John is an unmarried man
Therefore, 1) and 4) do not mean the same thing.
Quoting Michael
Quoting Isaac
You are drawing a distinction between a sentence and a claim. What is the distinction? Is the distinction such that the sentence "John is a bachelor iff John is a man and John is unmarried" doesn't mean the same thing as the sentence "John is a bachelor iff the language community generally believes that John is a man and unmarried," and that the sentence "it is raining" doesn't mean the same thing as the sentence "I believe that it is raining"?
If so then we can finally go back to the original claim:
John knows that X iff:
1. John believes that X is true,
2. John is justified in believing that X is true, and
3. X is true
These are to be understood as sentences, not as claims. So no misinterpreting 3) as "I believe that X is true" or "John believes that X is true" or "the language community generally believes that X is true."
Incidentally, this distinction you seem to be making between sentences and claims seems to be the same distinction I made earlier between propositions and speech acts that you initially denied:
Quoting Michael
Quoting Isaac
We may be using slightly different terminology but it seems we got there in the end.
Yep.
Quoting Michael
Agreed. You seem to be assuming that if two speech act mean the same thing on one context, they must mean the same thing in every context. The first claim at (1) is in the context where you believe John is a married woman (claim (2)), but the speech act at (4) is not in that context, so it's not surprising that they have different meanings
What you're missing (of my interpretation) is that there's no such thing as an independent fact that john is a married woman, someone must believe John is a woman. That John is a married woman is (and only is) someone's belief, so (2) and (3) are just direct contradictions, in this context.
Quoting Michael
A sentence is a collection of words, a claim is a speech act. Only the latter has a meaning.
Quoting Michael
Sentences do not have meanings, only speech acts have meanings, sentences are just collections of words. The closest I'd be willing to go toward your model is to say that sentences have collections of meanings depending on the speech acts they are used in - for example "it's raining" (the sentence) has a fairly circumscribed set of meanings (circumscribed by the culture using it). It's not going to be used to greet a stranger, or annul a marriage, it's going to be used mainly in the context of the various behaviours we have around rain. But I doubt that's close enough for what you want to claim.
Quoting Michael
No. I can define a sentence other than a speech act (a collection of words arranged according to rules of grammar). I don't know what a proposition would be unless it was a speech act. If you're now saying that a proposition is more like a sentence (a collection of words arranged according to rules of grammar), then I'm happy with that distinction. Propositions wouldn't have any meaning though.
Right, so your entire argument rests on some form of extreme anti-realist metaphysics that denies that beliefs can be false or that there are belief-independent facts. I'm not willing to argue metaphysics here. This discussion is regarding a) what the JTB definition of knowledge entails and b) whether or not Gettier cases show the JTB definition of knowledge to be inadequate. For the sake of this discussion we must take some form of realism for granted.
Right, I'm suggesting a present tense where we don't assume to know the future. We think we know X but we may be wrong. We may be wrong because we can't know all future observations which involve X. I understand the difference in the words intent and the imperfect state of people knowing things.
Gettier's demonstrations show JTB isn't precisely exclusive for every bit of information one can imagine. Considering the set JTB had to tackle it did a pretty good job and still is a good jumping off point. Personally, I think 'belief' seems a bit unnecessary. I could write something down that is knowledge. I could parish and it could remain. Would that information cease to be knowledge?
That can be done (I don't consider myself anti-realist). It doesn't change the meaning of 'true' in JTB. I'm arguing that 'true' just means the same as 'justified belief' and so adds nothing. I'm not arguing that from an anti-realist position, just from a (roughly) Wittgensteinean approach to meaning.
The concept 'true' is an artefact of human language and it (mostly) means something like 'everyone clever enough would agree'. I argue it means this on the grounds that this is the use context in which we find the term.
Interesting, considering it's a logical operator. Really, it's the only part of JTB that isn't dependant on the frame of reference. I always read it as justified, believed and also happened to be true.
Long time! I think "justified" just means "with good reason", not "retrospectively justified". If my partner says my keys are on the coffee table and the kids confirm it, that justifies my belief that the keys are indeed on the coffee table, whether or not they are all mistaken.
It's supposed to distinguish from beliefs that are reached erroneously, but may also be true.
By being about it? I honestly have no clue what you're trying to ask here.
Quoting Isaac
Most of the time, it's used to inform the listener that it's raining (by which I mean to convey information necessary for the listener to adapt to the rain - put a coat on to avoid getting wet, carry an umbrella to avoid getting wet, write a historically accurate poem about it...).
Rearranged for (hopefully) clarity:
Quoting Isaac
We don't add the T. The T is a relationship between the meaning of the claim and the state of affairs. The claim's meaning implies some truth conditions. The claim is true if the described state of affairs meet the truth conditions. A claim can be true even if nobody has any justifications for it.
Justifications are what you use to figure out what things are true.
Quoting Isaac
But "could be wrong" does not entail "being wrong". Assuming it's justified and believed, "being wrong" about its truth implies the claim is not true; that would make it a JFB. "Being right" implies the claim is true; that would make it a JTB.
Quoting Isaac
More specifically I said that in response to this:
Quoting Isaac
...we can (aka "can ever") ascertain truth using justification.
Quoting Isaac
You apparently mean to talk about certainty (in a mathematical sense; philosophical sense?) that a thing is true, not "finding out". It's either raining or it's not raining. I "find out" whether it's raining or not raining by looking out the window.
Quoting Isaac
Isn't that a contradiction?
Unjustified False Disbelief - unwarranted skepticism
Unjustified True Disbelief - unwarranted yet accurate skepticism
etc.
If it is a system of measuring thoughts and not just an overfit method for the things believed to be knowledge.
We don’t need to use the term “true”. We can say that:
John knows that it is raining iff:
1. John believes that it is raining,
2. John is justified in believing that it is raining, and
3. It is raining
Where 3. is to be understood as the propositional content of John’s belief, i.e what his belief is about. It’s the mind-independent state-of-affairs that our assertions refer to according to realism.
This is how I view the issue (from your above statements I think we agree so just letting you know you are not insane):
We don’t know or understand what quantum phenomenon is. We have abstracted knowledge about said phenomenon that can and does bear fruit.
For material objects, like keys and such, we do not have certainty as any term (like a key) that doesn’t possess universal quality (there are a plurality of keys not a singular universal ‘key’), cannot contain certainty and therefore is knowledge based on semantic interpretation.
‘U-Knowldge’ (universal knowledge) operates differently as it is complete within a set limit under set rules. ‘S-Knowledge’ (semantic knowledge) is open to some degree of interpretation. S-Knowledge is reality driven because we do not know everything about reality (U-Knowledge is only abstracted, bounded and operating under strict rules that are known and understood).
What JTB is is a formal set of rules set up in abstraction and then extended to ‘reality’. Such ‘knowledge’ is S-Knowledge only and cannot be confirmed as U-Knowledge.
What is True is used in formal logic (which is a universal abstract) yet when this is extended to human speech and action in the lived world there is U-Knowledge. The working principles of U-Knowledge can clearly be used well in reality (this is why I mentioned quantum phenomenon as a good example to show this) even though we have little or no understanding or knowledge of what is going on. The universal abstract of mathematics can be used to model and predict what we observe with quantum phenomenon to a practical end. The certainty lies in the mathematics not in reality because the rules and limits of the mathematics used are known explicitly.
Knowledge, such as historical knowledge -or experiential knowledge of whether it is raining or not - is ‘knowledge’ bound in lived-experience. All human experience is an artifice of some proposed reality. We can dream about the rain hitting our skin and ‘truly belief’ that it is raining when it is not raining in ‘reality’. This is precisely why I refer to this kind of S-Knowledge as being defined as ‘that which we are attending to’ (in phenomenological terms Intentionality).
It is my JTB that U-Knowledge can be, and is, applied to reality because science bears results. There is no JTB that it can be applied indefinitely (extended infinitely) as we are only able to apply it to limited data sets not all possible data sets - because our scope/capacity as humans is limited.
Just to go back to the ‘rain’ issue … the semantic problem is defining what is meant by ‘rain’. Again we find the same issue as with ‘key’. Rain is not a ‘universal term’ meaning when we say ‘rain’ it is not one explicit ‘rain’ understood by everyone as we can question it: How heavy? When? Where? We cannot question abstract universals and only abstract universals can be used to create definitive answers.
Does that all make sense or am I going insane? :D
Ah. I had it as both. I considered that to be the distinction between justifications and reasons, the latter can't be post hoc but the former can...
Quoting Kenosha Kid
Indeed, but 'true' is the ultimate post hoc justification (at least, that's the case I'm arguing). To say something is 'true' is simply to say that it's about as well justified as we can get.
It coveys a belief about a weather condition, not the actual weather condition (which is composed of atmospheric molecules).
Quoting InPitzotl
You seem to have just repeated what I said. Does a listener, sucessfully informed that it's raining, not now believe that it's raining?
Quoting InPitzotl
I'm quite clear now on what it is you believe to be the case, repeating it isn't necessary. What I'm pursuing is why you believe it to be the case.
Quoting InPitzotl
Great. How?
Quoting InPitzotl
No. A football is part of a game, it's not itself a game.
You saying (or writing) 'it is raining', in this context, is the same as saying that you believe it's raining.
Imagine the situation in the real world.
John says "I think it's raining" - that gives rise to (1).
John says "I can hear the patter on the roof, plus the forecast said it was going to rain" - that gives rise to (2).
You look out of the window, perhaps go outside and look at the sky, get wet etc. - that gives rise to (3).
But (3) is still just a justified belief. It's your justified belief, based on the justifications of your experience.
A third party might join the scene and say "yes, but you're on powerful hallucinogenic drugs, actually it's not raining at all. Their belief about (3) contradicts yours.
A fourth party might point out that the third party just wants to make you look bad, and it is, in fact raining...
(3) is only, and forever will only be, someone's belief.
Quoting Michael
But John's belief is about {the weather}. (3) is not {the weather}, it too is about {the weather}. (3) is a statement written by you about the weather. It can't be 'what his belief is about' because 'what his belief is about' is the actual weather and a proposition is not the weather.
I appreciate that, although, one of the useful quirks of writing here is to be so vehemently disagreed with. It's not something I get a lot of in real life. As I'm sure many here who've taught will know, one needs grounding every now and again to remind one that one's position as the 'arbiter of truth' in the lecture theatre does not extend into the rest of life!
Quoting I like sushi
That's good way of putting it. It certainly covers the manner in which @Michael presented it in his last post. Statement 1 is referable to the real world - John says something like "I believe it's raining". Statement 2 likewise - John gives his reasons. Then Statement 3, he's asking us to treat differently - removed from the real world (where we can only ever form beliefs about whether it's raining), but somehow held in this abstract world where we have direct access to the states of affairs which cause our perceptions, access outside our Markov blanket.
It's not that I think we can't talk about hidden states - I'm doing so now and I'm understood (at least others I talk to about hidden states understand me). It's just that we need to be consistent about our models if we're to be understood. @Michael's statement above, to me, reads like...
"Harry Potter got up, went over to the window to see if it's raining, he couldn't quite tell so he asked JK Rowling who was writing this story whether she intended it to be raining or not"
Oh definitely, but the usual demonstrations are about someone who has a justified belief that then proves true but for the wrong reason. I find it's this notion of untrue justification that's problematic.
Wouldn't it proving to be true but for the wrong reason just be better justifications?
For me, if someone has a belief which is justified by reasons which turn out to be insufficient (the broken clock for example), then it's an issue of the quality of justification. Gettier skirts the issue by saying that seeing the clock say 12 is a sufficient justification for believing it's 12 o'clock, then saying "what if the clock was broken at 12". Well if it's possible for a clock to be broken at 12, then simply seeing the clock at 12 is not sufficient justification (in some circumstances - say if nuclear war depended on it), but it's perfectly sufficient in others.
So, in my model, all we have is the perception of the clock at twelve, and the later perception of the clock's broken mechanism (and presumably some other clock, not at 12). A community of people with beliefs about what the time is, talking to each other, behaving differently according to those beliefs.
I have no other components to the model. There's no {what the time actually is} component. Not because I don't believe in an external reality where the time actually is something, but because I don't see a role for such a hidden state in any of our discourse, and "I know..." is a form of discourse.
Essentially, I don't see a justified belief which turns out to be true, but not for the reasons given, any more problematic that a belief which turns out to be untrue because of faulty justifications. all that matters is the best quality of justification we can muster (and at what threshold we get to call it 'knowledge') - the relevant part is the justifications, it's those we can improve. That they can sometime lead us astray despite being 'good enough' is just an occupational hazard of being inside a Markov blanket, I don't think we need to alter our language to accommodate it.
The third condition is saying that the actual weather has to be as the person believes it to be. If you accept that there is such a thing as the actual weather, distinct from what anyone believes it to be, then you can understand the third condition.
John knows what the weather is like iff it actually is as he justifiably believes it to be.
Nothing about the above has anything to do with what I or the language community believes about the weather. And the above isn’t the same as the below, which is false:
John knows what the weather is like iff he is justified in believing what he does about the weather.
Yes, I get that. But since people don't have direct access to 'the actual weather' yet still use the expression "I know what the weather is like", including it as a necessary condition for the proper use of that expression is flat out wrong.
Quoting Michael
It's not false. It's an accurate description of the conditions under which people generally use the expression "John knows what the weather is like", which is (so far) the only criteria that's been offered for judging what "John knows what the weather is like" means.
I never didn't get what the expression was trying to say. The expression "x must be an odd multiple of two" is a perfectly understandable expression too, it's just a criteria that's impossible to meet.
Saying "X is true", however, is an action, it's a thing people do, and what it means is determined by the conditions in which they perform that action - namely things like when they believe it with strong justification, or they believe it and their epistemic peers do too, or they just really, really want you to believe it.
1. John knows what the weather is like iff it actually is as he justifiably believes it to be
2. John knows what the weather is like iff he is justified in believing what he does about the weather and I agree with him
No, they sound quite different to me, not sure how you got there from what I said.
Try this.
Jim: the weather in Barbados is sunny, it's always sunny in Barbados, I've been there.
John: I'm actually in Barbados right now and I can tell you, it's not sunny, it's raining
Jim: I don't believe you
Jack (to Jim); John knows what the weather's like, he's actually there!
Is anything about that conversation odd?
Does John or Jack have infallible direct access to the truth about the weather in Barbados? (ie can't be wrong)
I presume the answers are 'No' and 'No'. So the expression "John knows..." is being used on the grounds that John's evidence, his justification for his belief, is very good (he's actually there, looking at the sky, getting wet...). It's not being used by comparing John's belief to the actual weather - no-one has direct access to that, they only have access to their various beliefs about the weather. It's their beliefs about the weather they're using to decide whether to use the term "John knows..." or reach instead for something like "John believes..." or "John thinks..."
You could do a @Banno and say that John does have direct access to the actual weather, that looking at it is as good as direct access to it. That's fine, it's a model I've some sympathy with, but then we'd have to clarify why Jim's access isn't direct. What is it about John's access that's categorically better than Jim's? Once we have that criteria, we have a definition of 'direct', but it's still essentially the same as I've been arguing - namely that at some level of justification we can say "John knows...", the only difference being that we also label this level of justification 'direct' to distinguish it from other levels which we call 'indirect'.
The fact that you’ve repeatedly said that you interpret “it is raining” as “I believe that it is raining.”
Applied to “John knows what the weather is like iff it actually is as he justifiably believes it to be”, and using rain as an example, we break it down to:
John knows that it is raining iff:
1. John believes that it is raining,
2. John is justified in believing that it is raining, and
3. It is raining
Applied to “John knows what the weather is like iff he is justified in believing what he does about the weather and I agree with him”, and using rain as an example, we break it down to:
John knows that it is raining iff:
1. John believes that it is raining,
2. John is justified in believing that it is raining, and
3. I believe that it is raining
So do you now understand the difference between “it is raining” and “I believe that it is raining”?
You're still ignoring context and trying to pin me down to one single meaning for expressions which clearly have different meanings in different contexts.
"It's raining", as a response to "will I need a coat" might well mean nothing more than "I believe it's raining".
"It's raining" on the end of
"John knows that it is raining iff:
1. John believes that it is raining,
2. John is justified in believing that it is raining, and
3. It is raining"
...might mean something more akin to "I believe it's raining, and I've good strong justifications for believing so"
Same expression, two contexts, two meanings.
So when you say "and I agree with him", this might be a casual concurrence with what we think is a good guess, or it might be a strong conviction that he has, in fact, reached the required threshold of justification.
Same expression, two contexts, two meanings.
I’m trying to explain to you that your interpretation of “it is raining” as “I believe that it is raining” is misplaced in the context of the JTB definition of knowledge.
When the JTB definition of knowledge states that John knows that it is raining iff 1) he believes that it is raining and 2) he is justified in believing that it is raining and 3) it is raining, it is simply stating in specific terms the more general definition that John knows what the weather is like iff it actually is as he justifiably believes it to be.
Or to be even more general, S knows a fact iff the fact is as S justifiably believes it to be.
Nothing about the JTB definition of knowledge has anything to do with what I or the language community believes.
Yep. And as such the JTB definition of knowledge is wrong, because that's not how anyone ever actually uses the word 'knowledge' in any actual context because in all actual contexts people replace "actually is" with their own strong belief that it actually is.
I clarified the mistake you're making here:
Quoting Michael
We use the term "bachelor" to refer to people we believe to be unmarried men, but that doesn't mean that "bachelor" means "someone I believe to be an unmarried man." The correct definition of "bachelor" is "unmarried man."
Sometimes I refer to people who aren't bachelors as being bachelors because I believe them to be, and I'm wrong.
We use the term "knowledge" to refer to beliefs that we believe to be true and justified, but that doesn't mean that "knowledge" means "a belief I believe to be true and justified." The correct definition of "knowledge" is "belief that is true and justified."
Sometimes I refer to beliefs which aren't knowledge as being knowledge because I believe them to be, and I'm wrong.
I'll try again here.
Number 3 'it is raining' is a Fact by what judgement? Abstract judgement. See it yet? 'raining' is NOT a universally explicit term. JTB is an abstract notion used in 'reality' therefore it is reaching beyond its bounds. It is however useful YET has limitations because the limits of reality are not known to any of us.
I presupposed 'raining' concept the is absolutely defined without doubt is not applicable to reality if we can talk about different 'raining'.
Example: what rain? show me this 'rain'. Unlike what do you mean 'number one'? Which kind of number one are you talking about? The former clearly being a nonsense question are there are not different kinds of 'number one' anymore than there is a different kind of 'of' or 'or'.
This is basic stuff. If there are two apples we don't in reality have two identical apples (that is impossible). We cannot - for the same reason - have 'rain' as some universally applicable term when using abstract logic. It just doesn't hold up unless we are merely using the term as an arbitrary marker rather than S, X, P or whatever else we feel suits.
3) Would require godly intervention to know. We don't know what 'rain' is it is just a term used to refer to a phenomenon that can appear in multiple and constantly different ways - like water.
For a further example if there is water in a space station that is effected by gravity and falling is it 'rain'? If the space station is big enough how big is 'big enough' for there to be 'rain'? Where exactly do we draw the line between there being 'rain' and there not being 'rain'?
We cannot agree on these questions so we cannot then claim to apply the judgement that 'it is a fact that it is raining' other than in a colloquial sense.
The kind of knowledge you are claiming here to be JTB is not JTB because it is impossible to apply a+b=c to reality when we have no full underpinning to state clearly and absolutely what a, b or c are. We do often assume that there is an underlying law/limit to the universe and this bears fruit. That is evidence for the theory of applying abstraction to reality NOT a proof (as stated in the link from Stanford I posted previously).
Back to the apples. An apple and another apple certainly make two apples. But we have no strict line between when an apple is an apple and when an apple isn't an apple. In most day-to-day situations we don't need to ask for such definitions but when we are discussing more nuanced problems the personal and implicit subjective view of said items does not gel so readily in a common language/definition.
JTB is necessarily a limited definition of knowledge because it tries to over apply the abstract into the real without any justification other than piled up evidence that works in 'some' situations enough to warrant a belief in its universal application ... it is kind of ironic really don't you think?
I have addressed this repeatedly. There are facts, independent of what anyone believes or judges. If these facts obtain then our beliefs are true. These facts must obtain for us to have knowledge, otherwise our beliefs are false.
John will die if:
1) John drinks the potion, and
2) the potion is toxic
Do we interpret this claim as the below?
John will die if:
1) I believe that John drinks the potion, and
2) I believe that the potion is toxic
Of course not. That would be ridiculous. My beliefs will not kill John. The actual facts will kill John. The exact same principle applies to:
John knows that it is raining iff:
1) John believes that it is raining,
2) John is justified in believing that it is raining, and
3) it is raining
Definitely. But in the meantime...
Let's say you know that the answer to some question is X not Y, i.e. you have whatever standard of truth is necessary, but I don't. I have to figure out the answer from clues, and come to the belief that the answer is X but I could be wrong, that is I might have made a mistake as I have only clues (a WYSIATI error or some such). I tell you what I believe the answer is and why. You agree that my reasoning is sound and that I hold a JTB.
Quoting Michael
These are abstractions painted as 'reality'. There is no universal 'poison' the term 'toxic' will vary from situation to situation (for the the same substance due to quantity and other non-explicit factors), John is who (?), and what the hell is 'rain' anyway and why do we believe/know that there is such a phenomenon as 'rain'.
Framing 'real' objects as 'abstract universals' is certainly useful. Where is the line though?
Surely you understand why I am disputing JTB as a good definition/theory of 'knowledge'. There are different kinds of knowledge under different circumstances prescribed by limits and rules (or lack there of).
I do not hold to the JTB and many others dispute it to as nothing other than a rule of thumb not to be taken too seriously.
No. It's the same issue.
'Bachelor' is a term given to people who the user believes are unmarried and the who the user believes is a man. That is how 'bachelor's used. It is not reserved for use only when we have managed to obtain some sort of objective fact about a person's sex or marital status.
You're labelling it as a wrong use of the word, but I'm calling it a correct use of the word, just a wrong belief. It's correct to use the word 'bachelor' of someone you believe to be unmarried and believe to be a man, it's how everyone uses the word and it would be perverse to suggest it wasn't correct (ie everyone is wrong).
You might later come to believe that he is married, or a woman (or both), so now, believing this, it would no longer be correct to use the word 'bachelor'.
With the word 'knowledge' it's the same. It must be correct to use the word of something which you have strong justification to believe (particularly if that justification is the agreement of your epistemic peers) because that is how the language community uses the word, it would be perverse to say they're all wrong.
You may later come to believe that you justifications were not strong enough to warrant the term, but by the time you believe that, you no longer use the word.
So "I thought I knew the way to the pub but it turns out i didn't" means that you thought your justifications were strong enough, but it turns out they weren't, stronger ones (the evidence of your eyes) now lead to a belief that the pub is not where you thought it was.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
So I can agree to that broadly (because you have 'truth' as being merely a sufficient threshold, a 'standard'), but where I still take issue is that the 'standard' can be no more than a set of justifications (usually something like - most of my epistemic peers agree, every time I act as if it's the case I get the expected results - these are the 'gold standard' justifications), so there's no difference in kind between your belief and mine, it's just that my justifications are better. One of the biggest complaints I have about JTB is that it makes a big deal of some unspecified threshold (truth vs other justifications), yet ignores what I think is the most important aspect of judging beliefs which is the relative quality of your justifications (the 'Gold Standard' I mentioned above, for example).
Nobody needs to judge it. The poison will kill me even if nobody believes it will. The facts do not depend on any person’s judgements.
It may be appropriate to use the term “bachelor” if you believe that the person is an unmarried man, but that doesn’t mean that “bachelor” means “a person I believe to be an unmarried man.” In fact, “bachelor” means “unmarried man.”
You’re equivocating.
There's no debate about what it means to be dead (or not much anyway). There's debate about what it means to know.
No-one is arguing that your position is incoherent (at least I'm not). It's a perfectly coherent possibility, it's just not the possibility which actually pertains.
'To know' could mean what you say it does. It just doesn't happen to.
Well then, as I've asked before, if circumstances of felicitous use don't give us the meaning of terms, what does?
If I say that "to know" 'really' means 'to have a hat on', what criteria are you going to draw on to tell me I'm wrong?
This is further equivocation. The use is appropriate if you believe that John is an unmarried man, but if John isn’t an unmarried man (i.e your belief is wrong) then your assertion that John is a bachelor is false, because he isn’t a bachelor.
See above. You’re equivocating. That it’s appropriate to say what you say isn’t that what you say is true. Your assertion that John is a bachelor can be appropriate, given what you believe, but false given the actual facts. And your assertion that you have knowledge can be appropriate, given what you believe, but false given the actual facts.
If you ask people which of these is true, I believe most would say the first (not the second and not both):
John knows what the weather is like if the weather is as he justifiably believes it to be.
John knows what the weather is like if the weather isn’t as he justifiably believes it to be.
John only has knowledge in the first scenario.
We say "I know if what I believe is true" and "you know if what you believe is true" but we don't say "I know if I have a belief" or "you know if I agree with what you believe." We say "I thought I knew, but I was wrong" but we don't say "I thought I believed, but I was wrong."
I say "John is a bachelor" if I believe that John is a bachelor but I don't say "John is a bachelor if I believe that John is a bachelor," and I say "I know his name" if I believe that I know his name but I don't say "I know his name if I believe that I know his name."
Let is say there is a poison and doctors and toxicologists have done thousands of experiments testing the fatality of this poison.
100mg will kill the average person. You take 300mg. I think we can be fairly sure you’ll die (basically enough is known that this amount will kill you for sure). The question is at what point (at what quantity) of said poison do we draw the line that it is True (a fact) that it will kill you? At what point are we dealing with a Fact and at what point does this Fact because merely a 99% certainty?
If your argument is simply that after the fact if the matter of you drinking the poison we’ll know what the fact of the situation is then we can only have the kind of knowledge you’re talking about after the event has happened.
To state that drinking something that will kill you will kill you is not exactly saying anything. Nor is it anything to state that believing that someone is dead doesn’t make them dead. This has nothing to do with what I’ve been trying to say.
The point being is that the True in the JTB is not applicable in reality as an abstract truth because we’re talking about reality.
I am saying there are ‘abstract truth’ that are proven and that there are ‘semantic truths’ that are necessarily open to being wrong. To frame a real life situation based on a presumption of Truth about the reality is overstepping the mark. In a great number of circumstances we can be statistically sure of something being ‘impossible’ (which doesn’t mean that something cannot happen simply due to the universe not existing forever the chance is as good as zero - entropy).
Quoting Isaac
...that is part 1.
Quoting Isaac
...that's part 2.
Quoting Isaac
...and that is part 3.
So whatever you're saying, you're trying to contrast whatever part 1 refers to with whatever part 2 refers to. And for some reason the fact that part 3 describes part 2 has to do with what you're contrasting. You're doing all of this to try to say that "it's raining" refers to something like what you're referring to by part 1, and not something like what you're referring to by part 2, presumably because part 2 is described by part 3.
If that's what you're trying to say, then it's hardly convincing. Part 1 is a belief; I believe with my mind, which is a product of my brain, which is in my skull; so part 1 is something going on in my skull. Part 2 is something that happens outside my window, which is about four feet in front of my skull. It doesn't rain in my skull; it rains outside my window. So "it's raining" does indeed talk about what's "outside my window", like that thing part 2 referred to, and not what's "inside my skull", like that thing part 1 referred to.
Part 3 is just a theoretical model we humans came up with to explain that stuff outside the window. The model exists in my skull; what it's about exists four feet in front.
Quoting Isaac
The focus is different, and what I said was distinct. A major difference is that what you said is consistent with manipulative behavior; I don't want you to eat my lunch so I say "that is a poisonous lab experiment". In this case, I'm not informing the listener; I'm attempting to manipulate the listener. Another difference is that I might inform the listener even if I have no reason to think the listener would believe me as a result (IOW, the answer to your question is "not really"). The point isn't so much that we don't tell people things to get them to believe it; but rather, that telling people things to get them to believe it isn't the point; beliefs aren't the ends you're making them out to be.
A mother asks a father before going outside what the weather's like. The father says "it's raining". The mother then gets her rain coat and umbrella, and puts a poncho and rain boots on her kids, then walks out the door. The father said something to the mother; but the mother didn't say anything to the kids, but these two acts are nevertheless quite similar. The father's information helps the mother prevent herself from actual wetness caused by the actual rain. The mother's dressing up the kids prevents the kids from actual wetness caused by the actual rain. We're not just speakers and believers; we're agents navigating a world. This is an extension of my complaint that you're tunnel visioned and too focused on belief; you're not seeing the bigger picture that beliefs are not the ends; they are just means.
This post is long enough; I'll end it here. Let me know if you want a response to the rest.
You will get wet if it is raining and you stand outside uncovered.
The above is true even if nobody judges it to be raining.
You don't respond to the above by asking "if it's raining according to who?" That's ridiculous. It's not the case that "if, according to me, it is raining, then you will get wet if you stand outside uncovered." It's not according to anyone, it's just if it is raining.
If it is actually raining, irrespective of what anyone believes, then you will get wet if you stand outside uncovered. It is the actual rain that makes you wet, not my judgement that it is raining that makes you wet.
The meaning of "if it is raining" in the context of "you will get wet if it is raining and ..." is the meaning of "if it is raining" in the context of "John knows that it is raining if it is raining and ..." It's about the actual state of affairs obtaining.
Yeah, I agree with this. I guess one could posit an ideal set of justifications, wrt which other justifications are inferior. The whole thing is pretty ill-defined.
That's not true; being a bachelor means that you have not gone through various processes, at the very least, being wed, whether in a church or a civil ceremony or a registry office.
Indeed, on discovery of such a set of circumstances it would also be inappropriate to use the term 'bachelor', so there's no separation between appropriate and 'true'.
Up until this new belief (that John isn't an unmarried man), it's appropriate to use the term 'bachelor', on updating to this new belief it's no longer appropriate.
Quoting Michael
Indeed, very possibly. We're talking about what 'bachelor' means, what 'knowledge' means. What's 'true' is another matter. Although you probably won't like my preferred ideas about what's 'true' either...
I can use the word 'bachelor' to describe John and later come to believe I was wrong, I can use the word 'bachelor' to describe John and you, at the time, believe I'm wrong.
What makes no sense is to talk about me using the term 'bachelor' to describe John and just being wrong, absent of anyone believing I'm wrong. It's not a state we can access, we can't act on it, it can never form part of our lives, none of our language or concepts can be based on it...
The state you describe as me just being wrong is just you believing I'm wrong but wanting to reach for a bigger stick than that with which to beat your detractors. "Ahh, no it's not just my opinion...you actually are wrong"
Quoting InPitzotl
Already you're mixing up the mode of identity being used. "part 1 is something going on in my skull". No it isn't. part 1 is a statement, what's going on in your skull is firing neurons and neurotransmitters. What you mean to say is that part 1 is about what's going on in your skull.
SoQuoting InPitzotl
It cannot. It attempts to talk about what's happening outside of your window, it intends to talk about what's happening outside of your window. It cannot actually do so directly because you do not have direct access to what's going on outside your window. It's of no consequence in normal conversation, but it's clearly what we actually do when we say "it's raining".
I just don't see how you or @Michael could possibly deny that, in using the expression "it's raining", we take our belief that it's raining, our desire to communicate that belief (for whatever reason) and formulate the behavioural strategy {say "it's raining"}. The actual weather plays only a supporting role in that something of the actual weather probably triggered our belief that it's raining.
Quoting InPitzotl
Not getting that from what you've said. Beliefs still seem to be the end point, just sometimes we don't care if the belief matches ours (we don't believe the sandwich is poisonous but we want them to)
Quoting InPitzotl
...by getting her to believe it's raining.
Quoting InPitzotl
How do we navigate the world? How do you even put one foot in front of another without a belief that doing so is an appropriate next step for you?
Quoting InPitzotl
It's what I'm here for, though I've hardly any time in the week at the moment, so responses may be few and far between. Always interested in what you have to say.
Quoting Janus
Well yes. even 'means' means different things in different contexts. Here you're using it to describe the behaviours one would have to have done to be likely to be referred to as a 'bachelor'. That's not the same use of 'means' as in "bachelor means and unmarried man" where 'means' is telling us how to use the word.
Which of these is true?
1. John is wet if he is standing in the rain
2. John is wet if I believe that he is standing in the rain
Which of these is true?
1. John is a bachelor iff he is an unmarried man
2. John is a bachelor iff I believe that he is an unmarried man
Which of these is true?
1. John has knowledge iff the facts are as he believes them to be
2. John has knowledge iff I believe that the facts are as he believes them to be
You are arguing that because we say “John is wet” if we believe that John is standing in the rain and that because we say “John is a bachelor” if we believe that John is an unmarried man and that because we say “John has knowledge” if we believe that the facts are as John believes them to be then in each case 2) is true.
This is a misunderstanding of meaning-as-use. In each case 1) is true. At the very least this should be obvious in the case of John being wet: he’s not wet because of my beliefs; he’s wet because of the actual weather. The same principle applies in the cases of being a bachelor and having knowledge.
The first is not equivalent to the latter two.
We can define 'wet' without using 'standing in the rain' (or any synonyms for it). Easily done.
We can't define 'bachelor' without using 'unmarried man' (or any synonym for it). Nor can we define 'knowledge' without using 'the facts are as he believes them to be' (or any synonym for it).
The first is causal, the others definitional.
We don't use the word 'wet' to describe people who've been standing in the rain (not definitionally). We use the word wet to describe people we believe are covered in water.
The definitional equivalent would be...
1. John is wet if he is covered in water
2. John is wet if I believe that he is covered in water
In which case, yes, the two are equivalent (as spoken or written by you).
You seem to be arguing that because we have a model of 'A causes B' we must for some reason conclude that such a model must apply to the way we determine what words mean, something like a B which somehow causes the expression under consideration. But determining the meaning of a word is not an exercise in causality. It's the result of empirical investigation, trial and error practical experience.
I don't need to have access to the facts. I just need to accept that there are facts. If John believes that it is raining and Jane believes that it is not raining then I, the impartial third party with no opinion on the matter because I am locked inside a windowless room, can say "iff it is raining then John is right and Jane is wrong and iff it is not raining then Jane is right and John is wrong."
What I wouldn't say is "neither John nor Jane are right because I have no reason to believe either of them over the other," and nor would I say "both John and Jane are right because they are both convinced in their beliefs."
And sometimes we do have access to the facts; sometimes it rains and sometimes we experience that rain. What is that if not access to the facts?
Fine, but it’s still the same: 1) is true, 2) is not. John isn't made wet by you believing that he is; he's made wet by being actually covered in water.
It can be the case that one person believes that John is wet and one person believes that John is not wet, but the laws of excluded middle and non-contradiction entail that only one of them is right. Either John is wet or he isn't. Either the person who believes that John is wet is right (and has knowledge), because John really is wet, or the person who believes that John is not wet is right (and has knowledge), because John really isn't wet. And I can say this despite not having my own opinion on whether or not John is wet.
It's the same. "Bachelor' means an unmarried man' is the same as "Bachelor' means a man who has not been wed' since 'unmarried man' means 'a man who has not been wed'. Divorcees are not usually referred to as bachelors. Of course no definition is ironclad, there is nothing to prevent a male divorcee from being referred to as a bachelor, but that doesn't matter because it is not the common usage.
This is my takeaway from the above paragraph:
[hide="Reveal"]
Quoting Isaac
Your argument does nothing for me, because I disagree with the postulate that to talk about x, I must have "direct access" to x, whatever "direct access" means.
Quoting Isaac
I have no idea what the antecedent to the underlined "it" is supposed to be.
Quoting Isaac
What's an "end point"? The terms "means" and "ends" are used as pairs to refer to a main goal you're trying to achieve (the end) and a thing you're just using to get there (the means). In this case the end is obviously being able to eat my lunch. The attempt to induce false belief was a means.
Quoting Isaac
...which would make "getting her to believe it's raining" a means to the end of helping her prevent herself from getting wet by actual rain.
Quoting Isaac
By beliefs (see below), but also by attending, observing, modeling, reasoning, testing, reacting, and so on.
Quoting Isaac
Wrong question... the accusation here was that you were tunnel visioned, not blind.
Quoting Isaac
Ooookay. As for the delays, I'm a very patient little piggy. I'd prefer you take time to read what I write... it's not a speed contest for me.
But this is another long post, and I'm going to go into a bit of detail, so I'll just squirrel this away under another hide:
[hide="Reveal"]Quoting Isaac
So regarding "true" and "know", you've named a criteria for the definition of "know" being proposed being wrong:
Quoting Isaac
...but your argument begs the question. You haven't actually met your criteria, or even used it; you just claimed you did, then used that non-established non-fact to make your non-point. But the criteria you're applying is a linguistic criteria; it's used by people who actually do the work of looking at language usage (lexicographers) to write dictionaries. So what do they say? Here's a sampling:
know
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/know
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/know#English
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/know
true
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/true
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/true#English
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/true
So you ask me what I base my stuff off of. And suffice it to say, I base it on the thousands of native English speakers that I, native English speaker aka ignored-by-you member of the language community, who I have communicated with, as opposed to this one random internet guy who has some pet theory he's trying to peddle (that's you!); and backed up by professionals who do this for a living.
Quoting Isaac
Definition time again. Ascertain:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ascertain
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ascertain
I realize your choking point here is that word "certainty", but it's not used here in the sense you're demanding; see usage examples in both (given in quotes). Using dictionary definitions as measures of usages by the language community, ascertaining is a thing that people do from time to time.
Quoting Isaac
Not sure what football being part of a game has to do with an option both not being about anything and being about something.[/hide]
According to the JTB theory of knowledge,
1. If p is true then, there is proof of p (justification is necessary for truth)
2. If there is no proof of p then, p is false (contraposition 1)
According to Gödel there are true but unprovable propositions (in math), given an axiom set.
If so the following is true.
3. p is true & there is no proof of p
But 3 means
4. False that if p is true then, there is proof of p
1 & 4 is a contradiction!
WTF?
The JTB theory doesn’t say this.
You're joking, right? What does it say then?
If I believe p (B) and p is true (T) but have no justification (no J), do I have knowledge?
It says that justification (and truth) are necessary for knowledge.
It doesn't say that justification is necessary for truth.
:ok: On point (not a 100% sure though). That implies whatever statement Gödel is talking about, it isn't knowledge. What's going on?
I don't understand your question. What does Gödel's first incompleteness theorem have to do with it?
Neither are what you claimed. You gave us a list of behaviours which would lead to being a bachelor, that's not that same thing a a definition of what the word means. A series of biophysical changes are necessary for a seed to be a tree, they're not what the word 'tree' means.
You can say that, yes. It would mean "iff I come to believe it is raining (after meeting my threshold of satisfactory justification) then John is right and Jane is wrong and iff it is not raining then Jane is right and John is wrong." It would mean that because that is the only context in which you could possibly use the term.
Quoting Michael
So we can't be wrong? If I say "it's raining", after having experienced the rain, I'm not referring to my belief, but rather really am referring to the direct fact that it's raining. If so then what happens when I find out I was just hallucinating? Does what really happened change post hoc?
Quoting Michael
2. is a statement, not the wetness of John.
Quoting Michael
Yes, I agree.
Quoting Michael
This just begs the question. The matter of discussion is whether this is the case, just restating that you believe that to be the case doesn't progress the discussion at all.
If the experience is an hallucination then we do not have access to the facts, and what we say about the weather is false (even if we believe that it is true and never learn that it was an hallucination), but if the experience is veridical then we do have access to the facts, and what we say about the weather is true.
What you seem to be saying is that either 1) we never have veridical experiences, or 2) if hallucinations are possible then a veridical experience isn't access to the facts.
Whether or not the first is true seems a topic for another discussion, but the second is an invalid inference.
It doesn't mean that at all. I am quite capable of understanding that a) there are facts, and that b) it is possible that my beliefs are wrong (as they do not correspond to the facts). Given this understanding I understand the difference between "it is raining" and "I believe that it is raining," and so what I mean by "John is right iff it is raining" isn't what I mean by "John is right iff I believe that it is raining."
The statement "John is wet if I believe that he is covered in water" is false because John isn't made wet by you believing that he is; he's made wet by being actually covered in water, and so the statement "John is wet if he is covered in water" is true.
I have already said that some form of realism is taken for granted in this discussion (and you have agreed to argue your position from this understanding). There are facts, independent of what we believe.
If the independent fact is that John is wet then the person who believes (and claims) that John is wet is right, and the person who believes (and claims) that John is not wet is wrong. If the independent fact is that John is not wet then the person who believes (and claims) that John is not wet is right, and the person who believes (and claims) that John is wet is wrong.
What the JTB definition attempts to explain is the conditions that must be satisfied for us to know what these independent facts are.
Yeah, the 'it's just obvious to any right thinking person' argument.
Quoting InPitzotl
Well then how do you talk about X? If I show you a box and tell you there's a flower in it, you say "the flower is green", but there's no flower in the box. How can you have been talking about the actual green flower? There is no actual green flower. There's no referent for your sentence. You were talking about your 'mental image' of a flower which I had tricked you into thinking existed.
If I say "I'll put my hat on the subject of your next sentence" and you say "the flower in your box is green" where do I put my hat? Your claim is that your sentence is about an actual flower, so I should be able to put my hat on something, so following your claim, where do I put my hat?
Quoting InPitzotl
The behaviour, the act of speaking.
Quoting InPitzotl
No, the end is to become satiated, the means is by eating your lunch. Or the ends is to remain aliveQuoting InPitzotl
, the means is by satiating your hunger... we could go on all day.
You said
Quoting InPitzotl
...in response to my claim that we communicated a belief, ie arguing that we didn't communicate a belief (otherwise the appropriate response would heave been something like "yes, I see what you're saying...")
You gave this father saying "it's raining" by way of example, so I'm expecting an example proving that we're not communicating beliefs. This doesn't now seem to be such an example.
Apologies for butting in, but I'd like to comment on this.
That we can point at nothing isn't that we can't point at something. If there is a flower then I can point to it. If there isn't a flower then there's nothing to point to, other than the floor or empty air or whatever.
And it's certainly not the case that if there isn't a flower then I'm actually pointing to my finger or to my mental image of a flower.
There's nothing in principle different between pointing to a green flower with my finger and using the phrase "that green flower."
If in your scenario there is a green flower in the box then that is what @InPitzotl is referring to.
Don't mind the interjection at all, fill your boots. I don't understand it though.
At T1 you point (by reference in a statement) to a flower - you want to say it's the actual flower you're pointing to
At T2 you find out there's no flower, so now it's not the actual flower you're pointing to, it's nothing
You can't then go back in time and change what the event at T1 was. It was (apparently) pointing at a flower, so where's the flower you were pointing at at T1?
To translate back into knowledge claims...
At T1 you say "it's raining" referring (apparently) to the actual rain
At T2 you find out you were deceived and there was no rain
Where's the actual rain you were referring to at T1, can we water the garden with it?
I’m not changing what it was. As I keep explaining there are facts, independent of belief. You accept this yourself in your scenario where you say that there isn’t actually a flower in the box (apparently contradicting your own arguments).
If the independent fact is that there isn’t actually a flower, as in your scenario, then InPitzotl isn’t pointing at/referring to anything, even though he believes and says he is.
If the independent fact is that there is actually a flower then InPitzotl is pointing at/referring to that flower.
I've always argued that (when said by me) that "there's no flower in the box" means 'I believe there's no flower in the box'. Likewise, "it's raining" (when said by me) means 'I believe it's raining' - No contradiction.
Quoting Michael
Right. So he isn't pointing/referring to the actual rain in the sentence "it's raining" at T1 contrary to his claims.
If you say he is actually pointing to the actual rain at T1 you're required to change the past when you realise, at T2 that there's no rain.
Alternatively, if he's pointing/referring to his belief that it's raining at T1 we have no temporal problems on realising at T2 that there is no rain, the belief was still there, we can picture it (with super advanced fMRI, perhaps), record it on a USB stick - it's still actually real no matter what happens at T2.
With your system we have to retrospectively change what was the case in the past. We say at T1 that he's pointing/referring to the actual rain, but when, at T2, we discover there was no rain, we somehow go back into the past and change what he was actually pointing at
Then let’s phrase your scenario appropriately:
What do your beliefs have to do with what InPitzotl talks about and what his words refer to? Your beliefs are irrelevant; they have nothing to do with what he says. He will say that his words refer to the actual green flower.
Quoting Isaac
I said that if it’s raining then he’s referring to the actual rain. Your response is to say that if it’s not raining then he’s not referring to actual rain. Your response is a non sequitur.
In the scenario where he refers to actual rain there is no T2 where he “realised” that there wasn't rain. There actually was rain and there’s never any reason to believe otherwise. For the rest of his life he (and everyone else) (correctly) believes that it was raining at T1.
It's exactly what I claimed; a man who has not been wed is a man who has not participated in the series of events involved in being wed, just as I said earlier.
There was no argument in that cartoon... just as there was no argument in the thing it responded to. The cartoon was just a way to respond to the smoke you were blowing (you certainly weren't commenting on the actual contents of what you quoted).
Quoting Isaac
Nope; not if there is no actual flower. But it is about the contents of that box. In this case, the truth value of "the flower is green" is undefined, as that statement has no referent, but the reason it has no referent is because that box doesn't have a flower in it.
Quoting Isaac
I don't disagree that you can go on all day, but none of your suggestions are related to how normal people use the terms "means" and "ends". None of this is relevant anyway, as having hunger and remaining alive aren't beliefs.
Quoting Isaac
FTFY.
Quoting Isaac
If you say so, but I'm not beholden to what you expect of me.
That's not the correct phrasing. In the scenario (at T2), I've shown InPitzotl the empty box. We believe there's no flower in it.
Quoting Michael
So what a person is actually referring to can never be established (since we can never know for sure if it's actually raining)? This is still the same problem, at T1 (before we know if it's actually raining), we can't say what the statement refers to, because it only refers to the actual rain if it's actually raining and we don't know that at T1. Are you in the habit of making statements and not knowing what they're referring to?
Quoting Janus
Yep. a description of the steps necessary to achieve a state is not the same as an investigation into the meaning of the word. If it were philology and science would be the same topic.
Quoting InPitzotl
Quoting InPitzotl
...is an argument. Or did you think it was one of your famous 'independent facts' that my position is just blowing smoke?
Quoting InPitzotl
The point is that you only know that at T2 when you see the empty box. so at T1 you are making a statement whose proper referent you don't know. But your claim is that you do know the referent of "it's raining" - the rain, even at T1.
Quoting InPitzotl
We're going round in circles. To inform someone is to get them to believe something, it's just a subset of getting someone to believe something where you also believe that thing.
You're still off the point; which was simply that there are actual events that distinguish a bachelor from a non-bachelor; meaning it's not merely that a bachelor is someone who the linguistic community refers to as such.
Yep. I agree with all that. Only I'm not arguing about what a bachelor is. I'm arguing about what "John is a bachelor" means.
That's the matter under discussion. My contention is that it means ' John is a man who I believe has not participated in the kind of series of events that are generically referred to as "getting wed"'
My argument is given above so I won't repeat it here.
What I've yet to hear is (what I consider to be) any counter argument beyond just "it isn't".
OK. So how do you personally resolve the issue I've outlined in my argument above.
At T1 you say "John is a bachelor" - you want to say that this statement is not about your beliefs but rather that it's about John, the man.
At T2 you disover that there's no such person, you were deceived (a hallucination, or a trick).
There's no problem with my system because at T2, your belief is still a real thing (albeit historical).
There's a problem (I see) with your system because at T2 you have the change what your statement at T1 was about. It can't have been referring to John, the actual man, because there was no John.
So do you retrospectively change what your statement was about, go back and change what was the case in the past? If so, are there other situations where we can change what was actually the case in the past?
Note we're not revising our belief about what was the case. Your claim is that your statement "John is a bachelor" actually is about John, not just that you believe it to be but might revise that belief later if contrary evidence arises.
If a person is having a veridical experience of a cat and points to where they see a cat then they’re pointing to a real cat, and will (rightly) claim that they are. If they are later tricked into believing that they were hallucinating then they will (wrongly) claim that they weren't pointing to a real cat.
The fact that the first scenario can happen doesn’t entail that the second scenario can’t happen. In the second scenario the person is pointing to a real cat (even if they later come to believe otherwise).
And I’m not pushing you to answer but in case it was missed it there’s still this post where I address the issue of hallucinations and veridical experiences and access to the facts.
Right. So in the first scenario "the cat is black" is not about the cat (there isn't one).
So it's incorrect to say that the statement "the cat is black" is about the cat. At best, it might be about the cat, or it might not be. We won't know until we determine whether the cat was a hallucination or not.
My issue with this way of looking at things is that it sets up a situation where we don't know what we're talking about at the time of saying it. Which seems silly.
Also, in the second scenario, what was "the cat is black" about? It sounds like in the second scenario we find out that "the cat is black" turns out after all to have been about our belief, not an actual cat. So why didn't we know that at the time. We can't be wrong about our beliefs so I'd know at the time if I was referring to a belief.
Quoting Michael
The discussion about the temporal mess of deciding post hoc what a statement was about was supposed to be an answer to that. Sorry.
No, it was about an actual cat.
But what do you mean by "an actual cat" when you say "'the cat is black' isn't about an actual cat"?
The post I linked to was a response to your post about "deciding post hoc"?
Also, I wasn't (yet) talking about the phrase "the cat is black." I was just talking about pointing to a cat (with one's finger).
Are you saying that in the second scenario the person isn't pointing to a real cat with their finger?
So in the scenario where it turns out there's no cat, the statement was about a cat? What cat? Who is it's owner? Did it have any kittens?
Quoting Michael
In that context I simply mean a cat which everyone in the language game agrees is there.
For clarity, in the wider sense (as in "there's no such thing as the actual cat"), I mean an object in a model of the world where the objects we see are determinable by some means to exist outside of our Markov blanket as they appear to us from inside it. I think such a model is problematic in certain circumstances so I don't use it in things like philosophical discussions, or in my research work. I do, however, use it to make a cup of tea or get on the train, it's pragmatically very good.
As usual, different meanings in different contexts.
Quoting Michael
Oops! Looking again then...
Quoting Michael
I agree. I'm not saying that it's not possible to have veridical experiences. I'm saying that because we don't know at the time whether an experience is veridical or not, it doesn't make sense to say that our expressions refer to the external objects of that experience. Those object might not even exist, we can't possibly be referring to them, we must, rather, be referring to our beliefs, our mental images of them. It's those that actually exist at the time.
Quoting Michael
I'm saying they might not be. Although you've introduced 'real' now, a whole different kettle of fish. I think Frodo is 'real' in some senses of the word, we'd need to be clearer about what you mean by 'real' before I can properly answer that.
No, that's the first scenario. When there isn't a cat he isn't talking about an actual cat.
But in the second scenario where there is a cat he is talking about an actual cat.
Quoting Isaac
The person is alone. Nobody else is around to either see or not see a cat. The person can see a cat, and talks about the cat he sees.
I'm saying that if his experience is veridical then he is talking about an actual cat, and if his experience is an hallucination then he is talking about an imaginary cat. What can you say about this situation?
Also mass hallucinations are a thing, and it's possible that the entire language community hallucinates a cat.
We were talking about access to facts. If my experience is veridical then ipso fact I have access to a fact.
Imagine I were to have a bag of money. It may or may not be real money. Are you saying that because I don't know if the money is real then I don't have access to real money? That doesn't follow. If the money is real then I have access to real money, even if I cannot distinguish real money from fake money.
Quoting Isaac
Real in the ordinary sense of the word, as a realist would understand it. If my experience is veridical then the cat I see is a real cat.
If my experience is veridical then my finger is pointing to a cat. If my experience is an hallucination then my finger isn't pointing to a cat.
What do you mean by not knowing at the time whether an experience is veridical or not? Your entire argument is that to know is to believe. Iff I believe that my experience at the time is veridical then I know that my experience at the time is veridical.
Do you now accept that knowledges requires more than just belief? That knowledge requires that what we believe is (independently) true (and perhaps some other stuff as well)?
I think you have the wrong room. This is philosophy. The argument clinic is down the hall.
Here in the philosophy forum, you made an argument tracing back to this:
Quoting Isaac
...to which I replied that (1) goes on in my skull, (2) and "it's raining" four feet in front, and (3) is just a model we use to explain (2).
I've seen two replies to this, but no responses. I don't know why you keep quoting me; you don't seem very interested in actually talking about this.
Quoting Isaac
You're very confused and I have no idea how to fix it. There's no green flower in my right shoe either, but a discovery of that fact at T2 wouldn't mean anything relevant. By contrast, the discovery that the box is empty does have relevance, as you implicitly acknowledge. The reason the latter is relevant whereas the former is irrelevant is because "The flower is green" is about the contents of the box, as opposed to having nothing to do with the contents of my right shoe. This isn't a new point; it's exactly the same point I was making with "it's raining" being about weather. But it has nothing to do with this confusion of what you imagined my claim was in your quote here.
Sorry. The second, there's an actual cat (where by 'actual' I mean here that the whole language community playing that particular language game agree there's cat).
Quoting Michael
Then there's no meaning to anything they say. No-one to speak to, no meaning to the expressions. Language is a social enterprise.
Quoting Michael
I agree.
Quoting Michael
I agree here too. I don't see how it follows from this that you can say our expressions must be about these facts which is turns out we have veridical access to. That it turns out we sometimes have access to veridical facts is one thing, that our expressions are about them is another.
Quoting Michael
Yep, since you can't verify which at the time of speaking you're left with either retrospectively changing the subject of expressions, not knowing the subject of expressions at the time or that the subject of expressions in belief not cats. I think the first two are nonsensical.
Quoting Michael
No. I'm saying that knowing is a type of belief, a type with a particularly compelling set of justifications (usually they are 'my epistemic peers would mostly agree' and 'when I act as if it were the case I get the expected results') these two types of justification for believing something are very persuasive but they're still just justifications for believing something.
I don't know what a response to this would look like that's not what I've been providing. You've just said that you believe the actual weather you're referring to goes on outside of your skull. I don't. I've gibven the argument that if it were the actual weather we were referring to we'd have to retrospectively change what we referred to if we found out we were being deceived so it makes more sense to say it's our belief about the weather that we refer to. I don't know what's 'not a response' about that.
Quoting InPitzotl
So you're claiming that the expression "the flower is green" is not about the flower?
That doesn't explain this:
Quoting Isaac
If "it's raining" describes what's inside my skull, and (2) is inside my skull, and atmospheric molecules are inside my skull, then (1), (2), (3), and "it's raining" are all inside my skull. But what does "my skull" refer to? Per the logic, it only refers to my belief in my skull, which is in my skull. So if (1), (2), (3), and "it's raining" are in my skull, and my skull is in my skull, we must have an infinitely regressing series of skulls, and the actual weather can't be outside any of them.
None of this supports your idea that "it's raining" cannot convey "the actual weather condition"... both of those things are in the innermost core of this infinitely recursive solipsistic russian doll.
This explanation I'm afraid implodes upon itself. Maybe you want to think this through and try again. Why can "it's raining" not refer to the "actual weather condition" again?
At an absolute minimum, I expect some sort of explanation from you that achieves the goal of building a fence such that "it's raining" and "a belief about a weather condition" are on one side of the fence, and "the actual weather condition" is on the other (possibly because "atmospheric molecules" make "the actual weather condition"), such that you can say "it's raining" is on the side of the former and not the side of the latter. Because something like that is what you actually claimed.
Quoting Isaac
It doesn't make any sense at all to me.
Quoting Isaac
What flower?
I don't see the problem. If there is no actual John, but only an imagined John, then I believed the statement was a about an actual John, but subsequently discovered I was mistaken, and that it was about an imagined or fictive John.
Who said (2) is inside your skull?
Quoting InPitzotl
We can just take that as a given. If you believe in such a model and I do too, there seems no need to go through the work of demonstrating it's construction.
Quoting InPitzotl
The flower you originally claimed you were talking about. I've just exchanged for the sake of the thought experiment. "it's raining">"the weather is raining">"the flower is green" - all expressions of the the same form "the x(object) is y(property)". You want to claim that "the weather is raining" is about the actual weather outside your skull (object), so "the flower is green" is about the actual flower outside your skull.
So when you find out you were deceived and there was no flower, what do you do about your expression at T1? You claim it was about a flower outside your skull, but there was no flower. Do you go back in time and change what it was about? Do you not know what your expressions are about (only guess)? Do the outside-skull objects of your expressions blink in and out of existence depending on what's later believed about them?
So you don't know what your statements are about at the time you're making them? That's fine if that's your model. Seems perfectly consistent to me, but quite nonsensical. I prefer a model where I do know what I'm referring to in my expressions at the time I'm making them.
Quoting Isaac
Quoting Isaac
Not without begging the question.
Quoting Isaac
What model? You've given me nothing meeting the conditions I've outlined.
Quoting Isaac
The flower that is not inside the box?
Quoting Isaac
...not just any weather. The weather as it is currently occurring outside my window.
Quoting Isaac
Yep.
Quoting Isaac
Nothing. The flower in the box does not exist.
Quoting Isaac
Don't have to. I was just wrong about it at T1.
Quoting Isaac
It's about what's in the box. That's why on finding the box empty at T2 I can say "I guess I was wrong. (because) There was no flower in the box." The lack of flowers in the box is why there is no referent to "the flower", which makes "The flower is green" false.
Quoting Isaac
Nope. I don't say confused things like "The flower I knew was in the box that was green blinked out of existence and now retroactively I change my past knowledge to past non-knowledge". I don't say confused things like "At T1 I knew there was a flower in a box, but I was wrong". I just say "I thought I knew the flower (in the box) was green, but there wasn't even any flower there (in the box)".
And it doesn't depend on who believes in it. That's why I can test "the flower is green" by looking in the box, despite believing "The flower is green"... and why I change my beliefs on discovering the box is empty. My beliefs aren't authoritative because I'm not talking about the belief. My beliefs defer to what's actually in the box. Which is to say, "The flower is green" is about what's in the box, not about what I believe.
This is no different than a captain sailing a ship on the oceans using a map. The captain isn't traveling on a map; the captain is traveling on the ocean. So should the captain see an island that is not on the map, the island is there because it's the map that's wrong, not the island. Likewise should the captain not see an island that is on a map, the island isn't there because it's also the map that's wrong, not the location on the ocean.
It's extremely difficult to respond to your post given that it's so terse and cluttered. I'll do my best
1. You seem to be claiming that I've said the weather is in your skull by quoting me saying "You've just said that you believe the actual weather you're referring to goes on outside of your skull. ==>I don't.<=="? If so, then try reading the entire expression rather than just the underlined bits. Expressions make sense as a whole, not in parts. I'm saying that the 'actual weather' you're referring to is inside your skull ie what you claim is the 'actual weather' in that sentence is, in fact, a belief about it inside your skull.
Either that or you did indeed catch me out in a stunning coup de grâce and I did truly believe that you had rain, wind and snow inside your skull. A second's thought about which was most likely would have eliminated this entire pointless digression.
Quoting InPitzotl
The one I outlined in the preceding sentences.
Quoting InPitzotl
Yes, that's correct.
Quoting InPitzotl
Fine.
Quoting InPitzotl
You claimed your expression was about the flower. I'm asking you what becomes of that claim?
Quoting InPitzotl
Right, so, like Janus, you're happy with the notion that you don't know what your expressions are about when you utter them? That seems daft to me, but is at least coherent.
Quoting InPitzotl
Forget the box, it was a device I thought might make the thought experiment clearer, but it has clearly not.
T0 - I show you a flower
T1 - you say "the flower is green"
T2 - I reveal that I had tricked you with a powerful hallucinogen and there was in fact no flower.
What was your statement at T1 about?
You're conflating the idea of what statements are about tout court, with what they are intended to be about. If I think John exists and I make a statement about John, then it is intended to be about an actual John. So I know what my statements are intended to be about. But I am not infallible.
Remember that knowledge cannot consist in absolute certainty, but in true beliefs we take ourselves to have good reason to hold. So we can never know with absolute certainty that we possess knowledge.The possibility of being mistaken, however small it might be, is always there.
If you are uncomfortable with anything less than certainty, then you can opt for an impoverished understanding of knowledge, clinging to the illusory hope that you have thereby attained certainty. Personally I'm quite comfortable with uncertainty.
Quoting Janus
That depends on perspective. E.g, from my perspective, your perception of the moon and "the actual moon" are mostly unrelated concepts, even though I am forced to consider my perception of the moon as being in some sense fundamental to the very definition of "the actual moon".
I agree. It would be a category error to say that beliefs are properties of brains. beliefs are held by persons.
Quoting sime
Why would your perception of the moon be any more "fundamental to the very definition of "the actual moon"" than mine though? While it seems true that the properties of the moon are perceived properties; I don't think it follows that the moon must be dependent for its existence on being perceived. The way it appears depends on being perceived, but that is not the same as the ways in which it could be perceived.
Right. But you don't know what they actually are about, just what you hope they're about.
Quoting Janus
Sounds like a contradiction. How can it consist in 'true' beliefs we take ourselves to have good reason to hold, without requiring certainty? The 'true' bit requires certainty. Things are not 'true' by us beliving them to be (on your account). Otherwise it's just 'beliefs we take ourselves to have good reason to hold' (a definition I entirely agree with).
Quoting Janus
It seems the other way around. I'm saying that 'knowledge' is just 'beliefs we take ourselves to have (specific) good reason(s) to hold'. That seems to acknowledge uncertainty and match the actual use of the term in real life. It's your additional requirement that the beliefs be 'true' that necessitates certainty and renders all actual use incorrect. By your definition, the only correct answer to "do you know that?" is "no" (because we can't say if the belief is true).That seems to render the term useless.
Quoting sime
Could you expand on that?
A belief can be true even if it isn't certain. The money I have in my bag can be real money even if I'm not certain that it's real money.
You've repeatedly accepted that our beliefs can be wrong (and even that the language community can be wrong), so it seems that at least sometimes you understand what it means for a belief to be true or false. You just don't appear to be very consistent in this acceptance.
I propose that we should first make a distinction between perfect justification, partially imperfect justification and completely imperfect justification. A perfect justification would be one where the justification completely rules out the possibility of the belief being false, for example, 1 + 1 = 2 completely rules out the possibilty of 1 apple + 1 apple = 2 apples being false.
Partially imperfect justification is justification that decreases the probabilty of the belief being false, but that does not completely rule it out. there are better and worse partially imperfect justifications. For example, looking at a clock and inferring that it is 12 o'clock is partially imperfect justification.
Completely imperfect justification is justification that does not affect the probability of the blief being false at all. For example, "roses are red" does not affect the probability of "John has a dog" being false at all.
Now, I'm not sure for what to do next. Based on that, we could make a distinction between perfect knowledge, partially imperfect knowledge, and completely imperfect knwoledge, or we could consider one or both of the two later as not knowledge at all.
(As I am a layman, I am aware that some philosopher I haven't read or heard about could already have proposed those ideas, so please inform me if it is the case)
Quoting Isaac
Paraphrased, "It's raining" is hocus. "What's happening outside my window" is pocus. Hocus can't be pocus because I don't have "direct access" to pocus.
In theory, best I can tell from what you wrote, you're at least supposed to be arguing that pocus is a thing and hocus can't be pocus because of direct access. But:
Quoting Isaac
"It's raining" is hocus. "The actual weather" is hocus. "It's raining" cannot be "the actual weather" because they're both hocus?
Quoting Isaac
What flower? ...and no. I never claimed literally or any analog to the expression being about the flower. You're putting words in my mouth. Now, it is true that it's about a flower, but it's true in a different sense than anything discussed (with me at least) so far.
"Flower" is a noun; but "It's raining" is a proposition; as is "The flower is green". Propositions assert conditions about a part of the world. A statement being about a part of the world means there's a part of the world you can look at relevant to what the statement is asserting. "It's raining" and "the flower is green" are slightly different (aka, not truly analogous), but they both have parts of the world you can look at that are relevant.
Quoting Isaac
It's not about being happy; it's a requirement. Not all claims are about something we believe or things we know exist. "Hat" in "Isaac's hat is a lovely shade of green today" may or may not have a referent; I don't particularly have any beliefs about it. Nevertheless, it means something; I know what to do to figure out if "hat" has a referent and, if it does, whether the claim is indeed true or not. I can simply, with your consent, head on over to your location and take a gander at your noggin. If there's a hat upon it, the statement asserts that it's green, and of a lovely shade. So should I find such hat, I just verify that it's green and that its shade is lovely. If there's no hat, that means there's nothing to assert the color of.
I've said all of this before, but what I'm highlighting here is that belief in the claim is completely irrelevant. I don't come into this with a belief that you're wearing a hat or it's green. And it would be a complete waste of time to take a survey to find someone who might believe such a thing, because that has nothing to do with what the statement is about (even if I find such a person, what then? What has that got to do with the hat on your head or its color?)
Quoting Isaac
I have no clue; how does one "trick me with a powerful hallucinogen" to say "the flower is green"? Also there's a contradiction; T0 and T2 cannot both be true. I'm guessing you don't literally mean both; and I'm supposed to per T2 infer that you did not in fact show me a flower, but in that case, what does that leave T0 as even saying then?
Are you trying to come up with a scenario where someone has a belief without being about a part of the world? Try this:
T0 - I had a hypnagogic experience of being held down by aliens.
T1 - I said "the aliens are gray"
T2 - Someone convinces me that this was just a hypnagogic experience
...even here, "the aliens are gray" is not about my belief; but my experience.
I don't see how to make it about a belief (in this form) other than to propose the belief was formed irrationally. That's certainly possible, but the entire exercise is fundamentally misguided... it is in essence an attempt to "find" a scenario where something is a belief, whereas you're allegedly trying to say it's always about beliefs. The phrase "cherry picking" comes to mind.
You can't just search high and low for some example where some mutation of a scenario is about belief and claim victory. You have to back up why "it's raining" in the scenario being discussed is about belief. And the fact that said claim is subject to revision counts dramatically against your argument, not for it as you claim (supposedly the doubt means we're not sure of the condition and that implies it's not about the condition; but quite contrarily, the fact that the belief is revised to match the information demonstrates exactly the opposite... that it's about the thing we're informed of, not the belief... were it about the belief, we would revise the information to match the belief).
According to a causal understanding of mind, each and every psychological state refers only to the situation that caused it, implying that "belief states" are necessarily infallible or that the notion of truth is superfluous. Therefore, since beliefs aren't generally considered to be infallible, they cannot be reducible to psychological states.
Rather, beliefs exist in relation to social-conventions for classifying thoughts and behaviour. To say "John's beliefs were shown to be false" is to say "Relative to our epistemic-conventions, the belief-behaviour exhibited by John was classified as "false" - which isn't to say anything about John per-se.
Quoting Janus
Because my concept of "the actual moon" is necessarily in relation to my experiences that constitute my frame of reference, and any powers of empathy i might have for pretending to understand the moon from your perspective cannot change this semantic fact.
I have vanishingly little reason to believe that the statements I make about people I know (which compromise the bulk of statements I make about people) are not about actual people. If the statements I make are true, and the people they are made about are actual then the statements will be knowledgeable.
Quoting Isaac
What do you mean by certainty? A feeling of certainty? How could our subjective feelings of certainty determine whether or not statements we make, or beliefs we hold, are true? That just isn't what truth is commonly understood to consists in. The truth is the truth regardless of whether we believe it, or feel certain about it.
Quoting Isaac
What we take to be knowledge is beliefs that we take ourselves to have good reasons to hold. But we might be wrong, in which case what we took to be knowledge turns out not to be. That beliefs must be true to constitute knowledge has nothing to do with subjective feelings of certainty.
The correct answer to "do you know that" (if you do take yourself to know that) is 'I have no reason to believe that I don't know that'. The acknowledgement that knowledge must be true belief held for true reasons carries with it a humility that acknowledges the possibility of being wrong (which would only be possible if our beliefs can be true or false, and we cannot attain absolute certainty about anything).
I can't determine just where the cause of your apparent confusion seems to originate on this point.
OK, so perhaps you should have said "fundamental to my definition of the actual moon" rather than "fundamental to the very definition of the actual moon"?
I don't follow. Certain (to me) is a state of a person, "I'm certain", not a belief. Do you mean a belief can be true even if the person whose belief it is isn't certain of that? If so, then I agree with that.
Quoting Michael
Yep, or at least, I hope so.
Quoting Michael
Not incredibly helpful without the examples!
Not sure how you're getting that out of what I wrote.Quoting InPitzotl
Even when there is no such part?
Quoting InPitzotl
Really? Are you unfamiliar with thought experiments? It's not generally considered within the scope to explain the detail of the mechanisms involved... "imagine you're on trolly speeding toward a junction...", "wait, how exactly does the brake mechanism work?"
Quoting InPitzotl
Yeah, good example.
Quoting InPitzotl
So statements are about things in the world, except when they're not. Got it.
Now, how do we tell which is which...?
Quoting InPitzotl
When do we get 'the information' as opposed to just another belief?
Still not following I'm afraid. 'Truth' is a predictive function, it says that if I act as if A I will get the response expected if A were the case. I don't see how a notion of mind-state causality affect this. We can model all the prior causes of the the belief that X and still find that acting as if X doesn't yield the results we'd expect if X were the case.
Quoting sime
So in "the cat believes the food is under the box" 'believes' should be replaced with what? Or do our epistemic conventions apply to cats?
Right. But vanishingly little is not none.
If, in a Dog show, there's a single tiny category for 'best cat', you'd be well within the remit of being understood to say "it's a dog show, it's about dogs". The point here is when someone says "there's a 'best cat' section " You don't say "no there isn't it's about dogs", you say "yeah, I know, it's really about popular pets, but mainly about dogs".
Quoting Janus
I'd dispute your definition of 'truth', but that's not relevant here, I don't think. The point is you said "knowledge cannot consist in absolute certainty, but in true beliefs we take ourselves to have good reason to hold" So when I say X is knowledge, I'm lying. X hasn't actually met the 'true' bit. I just think it has. But thinking it has is exactly the same as the 'good reason to hold' bit, so that can't be a new component. Your saying that to be knowledge, X has to have two properties...
1. Be true
2. Be justified
...but then you seem to say that certainty about 1 is not part of what knowledge is ("knowledge cannot consist in absolute certainty"). You says that reasonable grounds to believe 1 is sufficient ("I have vanishingly little reason to believe that the statements I make about people I know ...are not about actual people"). But reasonable grounds to believe 1 is exactly what 2 is, making the addition of 1 redundant.
Quoting Janus
'Correct' according to whom. I still haven't had an answer from any of my interlocutors here to this question that keeps arising. If the way we actually use a word in real conversations is not the measure of how it 'ought' to be used, then what is?
Quoting Janus
...and yet steadfast about whose apparent confusion it is. That epistemic humility you spoke of not two sentences prior seems to have proven somewhat ephemeral.
Yes, I'm of the view that the object of a predicate loses intelligibility if the subject responsible for the predication is dropped or replaced with the mythical subject "we".
Quoting Isaac
We predicate truth about people's behaviour, e.g. "John's opinion was discovered to be true", but this shouldn't be taken to imply that truth is a property of their thoughts and actions.
Suppose a person says "I expect that if I buy a ticket I will win the lottery tomorrow, because I had a vivid dream of winning it last night".
On a causal account of belief states, the psychological state of expectation cannot be interpreted as being future directed. The object of this person's expectation isn't the future lottery, but merely the dream that they had.
Quoting Isaac
We interpret the cat in the manner that suits our purposes, i.e. using the same approach as we do a human being. In both cases, we aren't predicating a property about the agent concerned.
Then why did you say the below in that very comment I was responding to?
Quoting Isaac
Requiring that a belief is true doesn't necessitate certainty.
I don't see why not. There are psychological states regarding 'the actual lottery' as much as there are regarding 'my dream I had last night'. I can quite coherently now distinguish between my concept of what's actually in my cupboard and what I believe is in my cupboard, that's how I'm aware of the fact that I might be wrong, by holding those two concepts to be different. If someone says to me "what might be in that cupboard?" I could give them several answers, none of which correspond to what I believe is in that cupboard. I could even imagine myself opening the cupboard and being surprised by the contents.
Imagine we were discussing the meaning of terms around the sorties paradox. You might say "a 'pile' is when there's more than 103 objects". I'd say "that's not how we use the word 'pile' because we definitely don't actually count the objects". You seem to be responding with "but there either are 103 objects or there aren't, are you saying us using the word 'pile' determines how many objects there are?"
It is one question whether there are objective facts which pertain regardless of our beliefs about them.
It is an entirely unrelated second question as to whether we refer to these facts when we use the expression "I know that x".
My answer to the first is 'yes'. My answer to the second is 'no'.
Quoting Michael
If you claim...
"people use the expression 'I know x' when x is true"
...it requires that they are certain about x. Otherwise your claim becomes...
"people use the expression 'I know x' when they believe x is true".
Which deflates to..
"people use the expression 'I know x' when they believe x"...
(since 'x is true' is just to state 'x'). But that's the claim you're arguing against.
They use the expression "I know X" when they believe that X is true, but as you (sometimes) admit, sometimes our beliefs are wrong.
If their belief is true then their claim of knowledge is true. If their belief is false then their claim of knowledge is false.
Alternatively...
From a deflationary point of view, "'the grass is green', is true" is the same as "the grass is green".
JTB wants to say "I know the grass is green" is equivalent to "I believe the grass is green" and "'the grass is green' is true".
But "I know the grass is green" and "I believe the grass is green" can't be distinguished by saying "'the grass is green' is true" is part of the claim in (1), where it isn't in (2), because both claims use the expression "the grass is green", which we've just established is equivalent to "'the grass is green' is true"
Quoting Michael
So, if that's how people use the word 'knowledge' then in what sense can you claim that "I know x", doesn't mean "I believe x is true"?, making the meaning of 'to know', 'stuff I believe is true', not 'stuff that actually is true'.
Quoting Michael
But this is just pie in the sky. It's not at all how we assess knowledge claims. We say someone has 'knowledge' when we believe that their claim is true.
We also say that someone's claims are true when we believe that their claims are true. But as you (sometimes) admit, our beliefs can be wrong.
Believing or saying that something is true doesn't entail that it is true. Believing or saying that someone has knowledge doesn't entail that they have knowledge.
I'll add; the reason we say that someone has knowledge when we believe that their claim is true is because we understand that being true is a requirement for knowledge.
Maybe you're being fuzzy with your concepts? Both "it's raining" and "the actual weather condition" are asserted to be beliefs. Presumably we have "direct access" to our beliefs. But the problem was supposed to be that "It's raining" can't be about "the actual weather" because we don't have direct access to "the actual weather".
I think you're confusing your "fix" with your problem statement. But the problem with your problem statement is that you have to find a way to simultaneously recognize that I can talk about "it's raining" (hocus) and not talk about "the actual weather condition" (pocus).
Quoting Isaac
Depends on the case. In the types of claims you're talking about, the claim presumes the part exists. That presumption is not part of the assertion; so if it fails, the truth value of the statement is undefined. There are other cases.
Quoting Isaac
That it's a thought experiment is not the problem. The problem is that there's a hole in the thought experiment. Abstracting away details that don't matter is one thing; leaving out details that do is another. You have an entire part of your thought experiment that seems to boil down into absolutely nothing when fixing the contradiction... what the heck happened at T0? But it sounds like the alien example works for you, so we could talk about that.
Quoting Isaac
Yep; pretty much. It's not like there is a meaning fairy that's going to prevent us from talking about things that don't exist; we're the ones that have to figure that out.
Quoting Isaac
That's an open ended question, and there isn't always an answer. But in your flower case all we need do is look in the box; and in the hat case, look at your head. The salient point here is that neither of these things are belief inspections; they are world inspections.
Right, but what has your present psychological state of uncertainty, including your memories, imagination and thought experiments, got to do with a future interaction with your cupboard?
Doesn't your self-professed ability to distinguish your beliefs from actuality preclude you from interpreting the objects of your beliefs as being in the future?
As I see it you are still conflating what is involved with taking ourselves to possess knowledge and what is involved with our actually possessing knowledge, and that seems to be causing your confusion. From the point of view of requir8ing absolute certainty we never possess knowledge, but merely belief. My point has been that the ordinary conception of knowledge does not require absolute certainty, but only "no (or sufficiently little) reason not to think that we know". I'm also not claiming that the "sufficiently little" is precisely determinable, and I don't think the ordinary conception of knowledge requires that it should be so.
So to take ourselves to possess knowledge is to take our belief to be both true and justified (i.e. believed for the right reasons). I think that is the common understanding of what knowledge is.
But then, if they are the criteria, it seems obvious that we cannot be absolutely certain that we possess knowledge, even in the most mundane contexts. But depending on the context we may still have more or less reason to think that we might be mistaken, and in the situations where there seem to be "vanishingly little" reason to think that we do not possess knowledge, then it does not seem unreasonable to believe that we have knowledge.
Quoting Isaac
Correct according to the common understanding of knowledge; you know, like the legal "beyond reasonable doubt". Perhaps you think the common understanding is something else; if so, on that we will disagree.
But don't "we" agree about the attributes of the moon?
Yeah, our beliefs can be wrong, where 'wrong' here means l (the speaker) believe that acting as if it were the case will yield surprising results. I believe the beliefs of others are sometimes of that sort, ie sometimes wrong.
For me...
"I believe the grass is green"
"I know the grass is green"
"It's true that the grass is green"
"It's not wrong that the grass is green"
"The grass is green"
...are all just different ways of saying the grass is green with different emphases for different contexts. If I'm confident I might use 'know', if I'm hesitant I might say 'believe'. If you first doubted me, I'd repeat using 'it's true', if you said I'm wrong I might retort that 'it's not wrong'...
They're still all just expressing that I have a belief that the grass is green, which in turn means that I've a strong tendency to act as if the grass is green.
I'm not normally in the habit of insisting that when I use the word 'tree' I really mean 'thing I believe is a tree' because I think it's implied in normal conversation (as above). "That tree" is sufficient. The problem with JTB is that it tries to occupy this 'normal' level in one condition (justification) and then jumps to a meta-level with 'true'. It's incoherent. We end up with nonsense sentences like "I know it's true" (I'm justified to believe it's true and it's true that it's true), or "he has absolutely exhaustive and flawless justification to believe X but X is not true" (what grounds for 'X is not true' that wouldn't constitute a lack of, or flaw, in justification?)
Quoting Michael
If that were the case then we'd wait until X was true before describing the belief as such.
Let's say that the factor which distinguishes a 'tree' from a 'shrub' was whether it had a particular molecular structure in it's Xylem cells. Are you seriously suggesting that in such a case we would merrily go around labelling things 'tree' and 'shrub' regardless of our clear understanding that the distinction is hidden from us (without specialist equipment in this case)? It's not how we normally approach such things. The distinction betweenAgrimonia eupatoria and Agrimonia procera (two wildflowers in my neck of the woods) is in their seed. If we can't see their seed we call it Agrimonia spp because we lack the information required to make the distinction - in other words, we come up with a new word (or expression) to reflect our uncertainty).
Where have I asserted that the actual weather is a belief?
Quoting InPitzotl
The underlined is exactly the claim I'm making. If we first 'assume the flower exists' and then describe it's properties, the properties we're describing are those of the assumed flower. The assumption is a belief - "I believe there is a flower"
Quoting InPitzotl
Yes, I prefer your example.
Quoting InPitzotl
But your claim is that (for JTB purposes) "the grass is green" is not about a belief, but rather about the actual grass. Now you're saying we have to 'figure that out'. Do we do so first, or later? If later, then what was the statement about at the time?
Quoting InPitzotl
You keep coming back to 'just look' and then when pressed admit that we could still be wrong even after looking, so I don't know why you keep coming back to it.
I believe the flower is green because John told me so
I believe the flower is green because all flowers I've ever seen are green
I believe the flower is green because I looked and it seemed green to me
These are all just justifications for believing the flower is green, the last one isn't of some magically different sort which distinguishes the 'truth' of the matter. It's just
Prediction of it.
Quoting sime
I don't see how. You seem to be saying that I can't have a belief about the result of a coin flip because it hasn't happened yet but I'm not seeing why.
'Knowledge' is just a word, it's not an external object with properties we discover by scientific investigation. Something 'actually' being knowledge (as opposed to us treating it as if it were) is a nonsense, it assumes that some external reality determines the sorts of things we call 'knowledge' and we can all be wrong about it. We invented the word 'knowledge', we decide what sorts of thing go into the category, it's our category. It's like you saying "actually we've all been using the word 'tree' wrong - we assume 'trees' are those tall woody plants, but actually they're a type of washing machine".
The sorts of things which are 'knowledge' are exactly the sorts of things we use the word 'knowledge' felicitously to describe. There's no God-given 'real' meaning behind that.
Quoting Janus
How exactly do we 'take' a belief to be true? This is the crux of the issue. We 'take' a belief to be true when we have sufficient justification to believe it. So all you've said is that we take ourselves to possess knowledge is to take our belief to be both justified and justified.
Quoting Janus
The legal "beyond reasonable doubt" is exactly what I'm claiming. You're adding 'true'.
You can have a belief in the manner you describe that refers to your psychological concept of "future". But from a physical and causal perspective, your beliefs cannot refer to the physical future and can only refer to your physical history, making your beliefs a conceptually redundant way of talking about the causes of your perceptions, from a physical perspective.
Haven't you ever had an experience where you have thought "this wasn't what I was expecting!".
What makes you think this isn't literally the case?
We’ve talked before about access to facts. You’ve drawn a distinction between beliefs and the actual weather. And now you’re trying to say that truth and being wrong have nothing to do with the facts or the actual weather? Your position is incredibly confusing.
A more straightforward position is that there are facts - like the actual weather - that are independent of what we believe or claim or experience. When the facts are as we experience them to be then our experience is veridical. When the facts are as we believe or claim them to be then what we believe or claim is true.
This is the common sense realist position - the position that you agreed to argue from. And yet everything you’re saying contradicts this. I don’t even understand what you’re arguing. That our beliefs about the weather aren’t wrong even if the actual weather isn’t as we believe it to be?
It seems that in the very same sentence you argue that our words only refer to our beliefs, and that our beliefs have nothing to do with the facts, but also reference an “actual weather” that you accept is external to our beliefs (and sometimes inaccessible, but not always) that at least has something to do with what we believe and say (such that it is the actual weather, and not actual flowers, that are related to our beliefs and claims about the weather). Do you not see the incoherency here?
It appears, as far as I can see, the problem posed by Gettier is actually just another way of making a case for skepticism, if, of course, we're to be rigorous with our criterion for knowledge.
Interestingly, skepticism given due consideration, Gettier problems doesn't imply that we could be wrong or that we have false beliefs for, as is obvious, the proposition in question has to be true for it to be part of a Gettier case.
In short, so what if we got it right by fluke (SPL :up: )? We got it right and that's what counts, no? Justification and logic be damned! :grin:
Here:
Quoting Isaac
You were very explicit not only in saying this, but in specifically saying that you were saying it.
Quoting Isaac
"The claim presumes x" is an anthropomorphic abstraction; what it means is that x is a prerequisite for the assertion. The prerequisite need not be believed for the claim to be true; so long as there's some way to identify the part of the world meant, and the condition does indeed hold, the claim is true. Hence, "Isaac's hat is a lovely shade of green today".
Quoting Isaac
Big "if". Even if I presume the flower exists, that does not compel you to agree it exists.
Quoting Isaac
No, the assumption is a prerequisite. It might be a belief; it's probably typically a belief (at least in the case of standalone claims); but the belief is optional for aboutness. Again, there's the hat on your head that's a lovely shade of green.
Quoting Isaac
In terms of JTB, this is just a matter of T.
Quoting Isaac
Yes. That the actual grass is green doesn't magically cause it to poof into our beliefs. We must find out what the T is through J. JTB per se abstracts this out, but sanely speaking, you look at the grass.
Quoting Isaac
The question is ambiguous, but reasonably enumerable. Sanely speaking, assuming it's previously unexplored wild grass to ignore a detail and presuming realism, the grass is green (T) before anyone sees it, which implies it exists. If Joe knows it's green, then Joe has J that it is green which implies Joe has J that it exists. If someone wants to verify the T that it's green, whether or not that someone is Joe, before or after Joe knows it, they can test it by looking at said grass; on passing said test they have attained J that the grass is green. The test may also fail, in which case they (again, possibly being Joe) attain J that the grass is not green.
Quoting Isaac
The statement is about a part of the world meeting a condition. The part of the world should be specified somehow at the time of the statement (it is not "grass"; there's grass outside my window that's green right now that likely has nothing to do with what the statement is about; rather it is what the definite article "the" refers to in the noun phrase "the grass", and that's generally always given by a context).
Quoting Isaac
So "when pressed" and "admit" is just spin; narrative; dysphemism. The spin reflects your bias, which is severely interfering with your comprehension. I do not "admit" "when pressed" that we could still be wrong, I emphasize it. The reason I keep coming back to this is that you keep missing the same point. You demonstrate that yourself:
Quoting Isaac
Correct.
Quoting Isaac
And this is precisely what I mean. You've used spin, narrative, and dysphemism to reformulate this into a red herring argument about certainty. It is, in fact, a direct response to and refutation of your pet theory that the claim is about a belief.
As a refutation of your pet theory that the claim is about belief, the significance of the third type of justification is that it is a test whose results are measured by observations, not beliefs. The fact that, when these observations conflict with beliefs, we update the beliefs to match the observations proves that it is the principle of reality that determines which result we would observe (aka truth), NOT the belief (as claimed), that the claims are about. The pet theory that the claims are about beliefs fails to account for why we defer to the observations as authoritative... i.e., why we bother becoming convinced that the flower is pink because we looked at it and it appeared pink, despite just believing it was green because John said so. But we do, therefore your pet theory is wrong.
Now I think I understand just where your confusion is. Knowledge is of course not an external object,with properties we discover. What we do discover, by looking at and thinking about our linguistic practices, is what we mean when we say that we have (propositional) knowledge. It certainly seems to me that the JTB model comes closest to elucidating what we mean.
So it is still the case that there is a distinction between what it means to take ourselves in some actual instance to have knowledge, (which is subject to correction) and the formula, knowledge consisting in justified true belief, that allows us to be wrong about claiming to have knowledge in any instance.
So, justified belief is not enough to constitute knowledge because the belief must be true. When people thought the world was a flat disc that was not knowledge because it was subsequently discovered that the world is (roughly) a sphere. So, the earlier belief was not knowledge because the belief was not true. We may or may not think that earlier belief was justified.
Personally I think the 'justified' part is the trickiest. Is any belief justified if it is not true? It may seem for all the world to be justified according to our experience, but does it follow from that that it is is in fact justified?. Perhaps the JTB formula could be modified to become 'knowledge consists in truly justified belief' which incorporates the 'justified' and the 'true' such that it follows that any belief which is not true is not justified and any belief which is not justified cannot be true.
None of this changes the fact that we can never be absolutely sure we possess knowledge. I think the idea of dropping the 'true' part is fine if you are also happy with dropping the 'knowledge' part. Then we would never claim to have knowledge at all, but merely beliefs which seem more or less justified, or not justified at all, depending on what we take to be the criteria for saying what constitutes evidence.
But I argue that there are equally valid reasons to deny that beliefs can refer to anything but the truth, leading to scepticism about the existence of false beliefs, and hence the utility of the concept.
In my opinion, having scepticism of the second sort doesn't nullify the epistemic scepticism provoked by Gettier problems, or vice versa. After all, denying the existence of false beliefs cannot deny the reality of one's mistakes.
Arguments of the second sort are really an instance of meta-epistemological scepticism, which is to doubt the meaningfulness of epistemology as an enterprise and the idea of inter-subjective theories of truth, belief and knowledge.
Yeah, I see what you're saying. I agree with the analysis, but not the conclusion.
When I say "the grass is green" I'm attempting to refer to the grass, I'm actually referring to my belief about the grass (there might be no grass, yet I still refer). The former is important for realism, the latter for meaning.
So when I say "I'll win the lottery tomorrow". It doesn't seem to be any different. I'm attempting to refer to the actual lottery, I'm actually referring to my belief about the actual lottery.
So I don't see how this leads to...
Quoting sime
No. Not 'nothing to do with', the actual weather is a major contributor to our beliefs about it, to which we then refer in our knowledge claims. That's not nothing.
Quoting Michael
I agree with that position. It doesn't mention the meaning of our expressions.
Quoting Michael
Seems an oxymoron.
Quoting Michael
No, because of the error in attribution in...
Quoting Michael
...as mentioned above.
...and yet despite my being so explicit you've taken no notice of the underlined as indicated. I don't really know there's much more I can do, I'll try one more time...
Quoting Isaac
Look at the writing in bold...
...or alternatively, continue flogging the notion thatI do actually believe the weather is just a belief, but am now denying it out of, what? Capriciousness. No reason at all? Honestly, if you think that little of your interlocutors then I can't honestly see what interest you'd get out of continuing to engage with them.
Quoting InPitzotl
Maybe not. I'm not sure what that's got to do with my argument. You'll have to make clear the connection.
Quoting InPitzotl
Not really, it seems irrefutable. Perhaps you could explain why you see it as so 'big'.
Quoting InPitzotl
No indeed not. Again, whsg this fscg has to do with my argument remains opaque.
Quoting InPitzotl
Granted. The proposition might sometimes be about an imagined object. I'm not seeing how that helps your case.
Quoting InPitzotl
Which is exactly, and only, what I'm arguing. T is just more J, not something different.
Quoting InPitzotl
All of which talks about J. The question is about T.
Quoting InPitzotl
But I'm talking about expressions where it later turns out that that part of the world doesn't exist - the flower, the alien...
Quoting InPitzotl
Do you really want to open up psychological analysis as fair game in these discussions. It's literally what I do for a living. Quite happy to to a discussion about the possible psychological motivations for our positions, if that's what you're interested in, but I expect citations Otherwise we could just charitably assume each other to be genuine and relatively unbiased.
Quoting InPitzotl
...or alternatively, it's the conclusion that seems to make most sense to me, as yours is to you...
Again, if you're going to treat your interlocutors with such condescending disrespect, I really don't know why you'd bother engaging at all.
Quoting InPitzotl
OK, so there's some aspect of neuroscience that I've missed because everything I've been studying for the last decade or so absolutely necessitate that observations form beliefs in order to be used for judgements. There's no neural network I know of that directly connects the early regions of the visual cortex with the frontal lobe. Can you explain the route an observation takes to the formation of a judgement without passing through the stage where a belief is formed?
Last I checked, you and I were at least epistemic peers. If you're only here to find out where (not if) I'm confused, then this conversation's not for me. If I wanted to check where my understanding of JTB was confused on this matter, I'd return to the text, or just ask someone in the Philosophy department.
Quoting Janus
They subsequently came to believe it's a sphere. They could still be wrong. They believe it to be a sphere using exactly the same fundamental process those who believed it to be flat used - justification. We've not gained some magic additional access. We just have much, much better justifications than the flat-earthers had.
Quoting Janus
Then we'd be in no better boat. No-one would use the word knowledge because everyone would be quite aware that they could not demonstrate their belief was 'truly' justified. Since we do use the word knowledge, it must be some other threshold that we mean by it.
Quoting Janus
How odd. You're so wedded to a particular definition that you'd rather we just never use the word than admit that since we do use the word, the definition must be wrong. Is that how you see the rest of language working. Some philosophers decide what the definition really is and and if we're not using it right then we don't get to use the word at all, they'll just take their ball home if we're not going to play by their rules?
Quoting Isaac
So you accept the following:
1. There are belief-independent facts
2. If these facts are as we believe them to be then our beliefs are true, otherwise they're false
If so then you should understand the T in JTB.
Yes.
Quoting Michael
According to us, yes. Despite anyone's protestations to the contrary, I don't see it as possible to genuinely conceive of a notion of 'true' that is not simply the same as 'well justified'. When I imagine some proposition being 'true', all I have is the idea of a proposition which survives any interrogation of it. But that's the same as 'justified'.
"I went out to look and saw that the grass was green", is a justification.
"I checked with my spectrometer and it said the grass was green", is another justification.
"The grass is green" being true, just means that it will survive all such interrogations ie, it is maximally justified. There's nothing more to a thing being 'true' than this, for me.
If I'm missing something, then perhaps you could put it into words for me. Imagine "the grass is green" is false, then imagine it's true. Describe the difference between the two states you're imagining.
Do you understand what it means for the belief-independent facts to be as we believe them to be? Do you understand what it means for the belief-independent facts to not be as we believe them to be? Do you understand the difference between them?
If it's simpler, forget the words "true" and "false". If the belief-independent facts are as we believe them to be then our beliefs are X, otherwise they're Y. Knowledge is JXB.
1. If there is no grass, how can I have a belief “about the grass”? What would such a belief be about?
2. If I am referring not to the grass but to my belief, then am I predicating, of my belief not the grass, that it is green? My beliefs can be green?
That the grass is not green, is the case when, for instance, it’s brown.
I think you wanted: what’s the difference between ‘Today is Wednesday’ and ‘It’s true that today is Wednesday’?
Whatever it is I'm modelling as 'the grass'. My model, in this scenario, turns out to be so bad that there isn't even anything other people are also attempting to model as grass, I'm on my own, so I scrap that model and start again.
Imagine we're looking at the stars. I point out Orion and say "look, there's his belt, there's his bow" etc. You can either say "yes, I see, that would be his dagger then..." or you could say "nope, I'm seeing a dog, look, there's his teeth". If everyone in your language community is seeing Orion, you might want to scrap your dog idea. Equally, if, you keep looking and find all sorts on non-dog stars, you might ditch your dog idea.
The thing we're attempting to refer to is the hidden states (like the pattern in the stars). 'The grass' is the model (like Orion).
"Orion has a dagger" is true if I can look at Orion and see his dagger (and any other test I can think of). "Orion has a dagger" is false if I look at Orion and can't see any dagger (nor any other test I can think of). But If I'm thinking the whole thing is a dog, then there is no Orion at all.
But the stars were always there either way.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I wouldn't say you're referring to the belief (in the sense of some arrangement of neurons or mental state), rather the content of it. I can ask you to imagine a car, and then ask you what colour it is, no? There's no actual car, only your mental state in which you picture one. Yet there's still a coherent answer to the question "what colour is it?" The modelling process does not need to be triggered by external sense data.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
What exactly. You look at the grass and find it doesn't seem green? Someone tells you the grass isn't green?
What I'm asking here is, in your mind, what does a true statement seem like. What distinguishes it, in your mind, from a false one? What is it about "I am the President of the United Sates" that feels different to "Joe Biden is President of the United States", why exactly would you say one is true and the other isn't? What mental resources would you engage to supply the right answer?
I'm not sure how to judge whether I 'understand' I think I do (obviously). Is there some aspect of the understanding I've presented here that you could specify?
Quoting Michael
The belief independent facts can't be any way without us believing them to be that way. You seem to think that fact requiring someone to believe them in order to be talked about somehow makes those facts belief dependant and I'm not seeing why.
Let's say the cat either is or is not on the mat. It's on-the-matness is belief independent. That has nothing to do with my claim that we can't talk about the cat's on-the-matness without someone holding a belief about it. 'Knowledge' is a word. 'Truth' is a word. These only have any meaning at all in speech acts between people. People who have beliefs about things like whether cats are on mats.
My claim, in the above sense, is simply that 'truth' (the word) has the same meaning in speech acts as 'justified' (the word)*
*more accurately, it's that 'truth' is a species of justification, but I don't want to muddy the water too much.
It doesn't in the context of the JTB theory of knowledge. The "true" in "justified true belief" is to be understood as the facts being as they are believed to be.
So, again, forget the words "true" and "false". If the belief-independent facts are as we believe them to be then our beliefs are X, otherwise they're Y. Knowledge is JXB.
Or more simply, one has knowledge iff the facts are as one justifiably believes them to be.
Yes. Which makes JTB incoherent because we can't talk about the facts simply being as we believe them to be yet both 'knowledge' and 'truth' are words... used in talking.
At best JTB could be an account of what 'knowledge' could mean, or ought to mean. In which case... thanks, but no thanks.
Quoting Michael
Makes no difference because 'X' and 'Y' are just stand-ins for words, else they have no meaning at all. And all words suffer the same constraint. To have any meaning at all they must be actually spoken in some act of communication. They're just collections of letters otherwise.
When I asked this:
Quoting Michael
You responded with:
Quoting Isaac
So you do understand what it means for the belief-independent facts to be as we believe them to be? So how is it “incoherent” to argue that this is a requirement for knowedge?
As I said. I think I understand. I doubt my understanding is the one you're looking for.
For a mind-independent fact to be as I believe it to be is for it to survive all the tests I could throw at it.
So...
Quoting Michael
It's not. It's just that surviving all the tests I could throw at it is the same thing as justification. That it survives all the tests I throw at it is a justification for believing it. The J bit of JTB. Making the T bit superfluous.
The understanding I'm looking for is the common sense realist understanding. There is more to the world than our beliefs. The facts do not depend on us being able to justify them. Gravity affected us before we understood it, and not just retroactively after Newton published his theory.
As you mean it, that's incoherent. You want to say there’s no grass ‘out there’, that ‘grass’ is only a term of your model, but then it’s meaningless to say you’re modeling anything as grass. It’s not the “whatever it is” that’s the problem; it’s the “as grass”. You have to pay your semantic debts at some point, and if ‘grass’ doesn’t square your accounts, something else will have to.
Agreed. We seem to be going round in circles. Perhaps you could address the issue I raised last time you made this point.
Quoting Isaac
My beliefs about the weather have no impact on the weather, it is what it is despite any belief I might have about it.
My beliefs about the weather do impact everything that can be said about the weather, including whether I use the word 'true', knowledge' or 'belief' when referring to propositions about it, including what I use as the object of those prepositions, the words I reach for, the very use of the term 'the weather' (as in the sentence above this one). Every response I make to 'the weather' is entirely dependant on my beliefs about it.
No, I'm pretty sure there's grass out there. I model it as grass, my wife models it as grass. In fact, everyone I speak to models it as gras, so I'm quite confident there's grass out there. If I model it as grass and everyone else models it as carpet, I might have my doubts.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
'Grass' is the name of the model that seems to me to be the one where we mow the stuff, feed it to cows, that sort of thing. That model we call grass. So I can't see how modelling some hidden states as grass is meaningless. It means (to me, anyway) what I just explained.
And the T in JTB is saying that the weather must be as you believe it to be. If it isn't as you believe it to be then your belief is false and you don't have knowledge.
As I said...
Quoting Isaac
If you ask English-speakers which of these count as knowledge, almost all will say only the first.
1. John knows that it is raining if the weather is as he justifiably believes it to be
2. John knows that it is raining if the weather isn't as he justifiably believes it to be
If you want to know what words mean, it's best to ask the people who use them.
And if we want to know what they mean by "the weather is..."?
And if you want to know what they mean by "whether or not it's raining..."?
You've just given a circular definition.
The question was what people mean by "it's raining", the answer can't contain the expression "it's raining".
Again, ask them. They'll say it's when water falls from the clouds.
I'm not going to continue this game forever.
Well then you could address the point instead of avoiding it.
When people say things like "it's raining", they mean that they have a belief that it's raining (in this case, one they're very confident in ,one with good justifications.
You arguments are circular because you keep defining what people mean when they say "X is..." in term of "Y is...". You haven't addressed the general case of what a statement that something 'is' actually means.
No, when people say things like "it's raining" they mean that it's raining. We've gone over this so many times.
I can say "it's raining" even if I believe that it's not raining. I can say "it's raining" as a guess. I can say "it's raining" as a response to someone asking me what John believes. In each and every case, "it's raining" means the same thing; that it's raining. These aren't three different expressions that mean three different things.
How is this an answer?
"What does 'it's ambiguous' mean?"
"It means it's ambiguous"
"What does 'he knows' mean?"
"It means, he knows"
No one considers those to be answers to an enquiry about the meaning of words. So what makes you think "they mean it's raining" is a satisfactory answer to an investigation into what people mean by "it's raining"?
Nothing at all. Partial expressions don't mean anything, it just 'bewitchment by grammar' to think they do.
What does 'for a quick' mean in "I'm going to go for a quick walk now"?
What does 'for a nice' mean in "It's about time for a nice cup of tea"?
I would disagree. Its raining is an axiomatic statement based on an independent variable. That is, it is independent from belief. If it was a belief, they would pose it as an opinion such as: I think it is raining. Calling water falling from the sky a "good justification" for a belief that it is, in fact raining is a bit of an understatement.
So when I say "it's raining" I don't believe it's raining?
Beliefs have propositional content. I understand what the "it's raining" part of "I believe that it's raining" means and I understand what the "it's sunny" part of "I believe that it's sunny" means, and I understand the difference between them.
Quoting Isaac
Nothing. But "a quick walk" and "a nice cup of tea" have a meaning.
No, you believe it is raining.
Likewise, "I think it is raining" would mean that his assertion is reliant on his belief. I think thats what I was trying to get across.
People have a confusing tendency to say "I believe X" when exhibiting doubt or a granting concession that one might be wrong - the very opposite qualities to the supposed meaning of "belief".
Also, a person's spoken beliefs often belie their actions.
Is that so... The more you know.
Yes. And "it's raining" has a meaning too, but not within "I believe it's raining". Having established that some portions of expressions can be expressions in their own right yet others can't, it seems you're missing the step in your argument where you demonstrate that the 'it's raining' (within "I believe it's raining") is of the former type and not the latter (as I've argued).
Quoting john27
But you said...
Quoting john27
...they didn't, so we conclude that it wasn't a belief.
I can believe 1+1 is 2, and believe that it is correct; that doesn't change the fact its an axiomatic statement independent of belief.
Quoting john27
This is meant to describe that my statement of truth is based on my belief; that in my opinion it is positively possible that the supposed fact is currently enacted.
Yes it does, and any reasonable person understands this. Frankly, your position is untenable and you're just being stubborn. I'm tired of it.
I honestly don't think you believe what you're saying anymore.
It seems to. Why do you think it doesn't?
Quoting john27
I can't make sense of that sentence I'm afraid.
Ah, the classic.
"The world is as it seems to me to be, therefore anyone who thinks otherwise must be mistaken, lying, or deliberately obtuse"
Do you really struggle that much with the idea of things seeming to other people to be different to the way they seem to you?
Because I'm not the center of the universe.
Quoting john27
It is more or less possible that a fact (it is raining, it is snowing) is happening, is being conducted.
How the world seems and how the world is aren't the same. I've spent weeks trying to explain this to you. There is a fact of the matter, independent of what you or I believe, such that one of us is right and one of us is wrong. And as I'm the one arguing this and you're the one arguing against this, I'm right and you're wrong.
..because...
Quoting john27
Could you join the dots any further. I don't see how you not being the centre of the universe determines what "1+1=2" means.
The point I'm highlighting is not that you think I'm wrong, it's that you seem to think I must be lying or stubborn... that you can't just think I've reached a different conclusion to you because we're different people.
When did I say that I determine that 1+1=2? My whole point is that:
Quoting john27
because I am insignificant in its apparent truth. it is not reliant on me, or anyone whatsoever.
The typical breed of Bayesian accepts premise A.
Premise A: Tomorrow's weather is physically certain, but epistemically uncertain.
On the other hand, a modern physicist with a distaste for folk-psychology (and hence for conventional epistemology and Bayesian statistics) might reject A in favour of the "direct realist" premise B:
Premise B: From the perspective of today, tomorrow's weather is physically imprecise.
Here, physical imprecision refers to the fact that the physical information constituting "today" does not imply a precise weather-outcome tomorrow and that any accurate model of today's information translates this physical imprecision into an imprecise estimation.
Not at any time as far as I recall.
Quoting john27
What's 'it' here? 'It', the statement, seems entirely reliant on you. Without you there'd be no statement.
'It', the fact, doesn't seem reliant on you, but no one claimed it was.
I'm talking about what statements mean, not about how facts obtain. Two different topics.
1+1=2 obtains because of the rules of mathematics.
"1+1=2" is a statement, a speech act, it has a meaning. Determining that meaning is not, by necessity, the same as determining why or how the fact expressed obtains.
I'm claiming that the meaning is determined by the full expression, in context. It requires a speaker and a listener, and it has no meaning at all out of context.
If you think it has a meaning outside of any language game it might form part of, then you'd have to say where we look to find that meaning. In what does the meaning inhere?
Quoting Isaac
I can't help but find this contradictory. Am I looking at this wrong?
Quoting Isaac
I don't understand. By what necessity is it not the same as how a fact obtains?
Quoting Isaac
I don't fully understand... Do you mean to say that 1+1=2, as a mode of expression, has no meaning if theres no context?
Quoting Isaac
What meaning does 1+1=2 contain as a mode of expression? I must admit I'm a little confused...
The above is why I don't believe that you believe what you're trying to argue; you're inconsistent. How am I to interpret the above if we follow your logic that "the cat is on the mat" means "I believe that the cat is on the mat", that the "the cat is on the mat" part of this has no meaning on its own, and that the statement is about your belief rather than an actual cat on a mat?
Perhaps I didn't express it well. I meant that you seem confused about what I am saying about JTB, evidenced by your objections seeming to be irrelevant. Also it seems obvious to me from my general experience of talking with people and observing how they view knowledge and truth, as manifested in their discourse and actions, that JTB is the default understanding.
Quoting Isaac
Right, but I've already said that knowledge, as it is generally understood, is defeasible. This is an example of what I meant when I referred to your "confusion"; presenting an objection as though it is a problem for the JTB understanding, when it really isn't, makes it seem that you are confused about it.
In any case, the earth has been observed and imaged from space, from satellites, and we can see that it is a sphere, so the likelihood of that observation being wrong is minuscule. That is not magical, but it is a paradigm leap to be able to observe the Earth from space.
Quoting Isaac
It's not a matter of demonstrating anything. The point is only that to the degree that we can be confident that our justifications are based on true observations, the degree to which we can be confident that our beliefs are true is commensurate, and that is what is generally meant by claiming to have knowledge.
Quoting Isaac
.Again, it's not what I said. I didn't say I want to drop the "true" part. I said if you want to drop the true part, then you could still talk in terms of beliefs instead of knowledge. This would equate to some kind of coherentism, I suppose. Beliefs would never be true, or constitute knowledge; we would just feel entitled to have more confidence in them the more they cohered with our overall understanding of things as presented in the various sciences and everyday commonsense.
It's not something I'm advocating.
Possibly, or I might have explained it poorly. I'm not seeing a direct contradiction (the two quotes aren't even on the same subject), so perhaps you could expand on what you find contradictory here.
Quoting john27
All I'm saying there is that there's two enquiries, 1)what it is for 1+1 to equal 2, and 2)what the expression "1+1=2" means. You seem to be treating them the same (ie if 1+1=2 is a mind-independent fact, then "1+1=2" must be referring to this mind independent fact). They may well be the same, but sine they are not the same by logical necessity, you'd have to provide an argument to support your position.
Quoting john27
Yes. Mathematical statements are at a very extreme end where the rules constraining the maths language game are pretty tight, so it's probably the hardest example to use (and good for that reason), but It's still (as a spoken or written expression) spoken or written for a reason and that reason is a more pragmatic and concrete measure of meaning than any other.
Quoting john27
Well, it depends on the context. I might be correcting someone's maths, in which case it means that when faced with the sum '1+1' one should write the answer '2', or an instruction that one can replace the word '2' for any instances of a group of 1 and another 1, ad so on...
Quoting john27
What I'm asking is for you to fill in some of the gaps in the model you're espousing. If an expression (as say, "it's raining") has a meaning outside of the various uses to which that expression is put, where should we look to find it, and on what grounds can that source claim primacy of other sources of meaning?
You're still not allowing that the position I'm discussing entails all propositions only have meaning in context. You still take a meaning I've given in one context and complain that applying it to another makes no sense, is inconsistent. It's inconsistency is exactly the point I'm making. Whole expressions, in context have meaning, not individual components of them, and not out of any context. I've said (in certain contexts) that "It's raining" means the same as like "I believe it's raining". I've also given examples of contexts where it doesn't mean the same (where the 'I believe' prefix is meant to indicate a level of uncertainty).
I don't mind continuing to explain my position, but I can't do so if you insist that I do so by half adopting yours. It is not a part of my position that expressions have the same meaning in all contexts, so claiming that I'm inconsistent in the meaning I give to expressions between contexts is not pointing out a flaw in my position, it's a feature of it. Merely pointing it out doesn't constitute an argument against it, you'd have to say why that's a bad thing.
If knowledge (correctly used) is defeasible, then it can't also be 'true' (where 'true is used to denote some property other than simply 'well justified' - I'm not yet clear what that property is meant to be). People are then (apparently) constantly using 'knowledge; incorrectly. Applying it to beliefs which they merely think are 'true', not to beliefs which actually are 'true'. But merely thinking something is 'true' is just the same as having good justifications for that belief, so that can't be right because JTB implies that 'Truth' and 'Good Justification' are two different things. In order to correctly use the term 'knowledge' is must be that the belief being referred to actually is 'true'. Since no-one can ever establish that about any belief, they're all using the word incorrectly. That just seems a silly conclusion to me.
Quoting Janus
That's right. The justification for believing the earth to be spherical is very, very good.
Quoting Janus
...which sounds identical to the position I'm presenting. Perhaps you could highlight what you think is different? Both are saying that we use the word knowledge when we have a high degree of confidence in our justifications. So that's just JB, not JTB. all you seem to be saying is that we use 'knowledge' when we have a very high degree of confidence in our justifications. I agree. Not just any old justification will do, it's usually the two most powerful ones (when I act as if X is the case I get the results I'd expect if it were, and most of my epistemic peers would agree that X is the case). These are why 'The earth is a sphere' is knowledge. Everything we do to the earth, every test we can think of treating it as a sphere produces exactly the results we'd expect of it were a sphere, and (by way of checking we're not mad, or hallucinating) everyone who knows about these sorts of things would agree that it's a sphere. (Incidentally, this is how I define 'truth' also, but is seems to mean something else in JTB)
Then consider what you meant by the cat being on the mat being belief-independent in that context. That is how a true belief is distinguished from a false belief in the context of the JTB definition of knowledge. According to the JTB definition of knowledge, one knows that the cat is on the mat iff one believes that the cat is on the mat, one is justified in believing that the cat is on the mat, and the cat is on the mat (as a belief-independent fact).
Can you finally accept that, in the context of the JTB definition of knowledge, this third condition has nothing to do with what any particular person or language community believes or with justification? It's a reference to a belief-independent fact that must obtain for the belief to be true and the person to have knowledge.
I found it contradictory because if one views "it's raining" separate from its factual counterpart, and solely as a mode of expression, it is reliant on the speaker to be true. However, "it's raining" is not reliant on belief.
Quoting Isaac
Could you elaborate on this logical necessity? I still don't fully understand why one must refer to them as different..
Quoting Isaac
I assume by the various uses you mean its uses in a linguistical context. However, how could I find a mode of expression without a speaker and a listener? If I did, I would only be referring to the belief independent/not mode of expression part of 1+1=2 or "it's raining."
I meant that the success of our tests aren't determined by how much we expect them to be successful. If I continue to test my belief that the cat is on the mat, there may be some future time where I no longer believe it. The entire language community's present and future beliefs about the cat's on-the-matness is not governed by my current belief, or any of their current beliefs, but rather by the properties of the hidden state we're trying to model. I can't see a way in which it could be that...
Quoting Michael
We don't have any access to the asymptotic beliefs of a community who've thrown every test they can think of at the model. So it can't possibly be how a true belief is distinguished from a false belief, otherwise no one would ever use the word, because no one would ever carry out such process.
Quoting Michael
I've never denied that. As I said...
Quoting Isaac
The issue I have is not that 'knowledge' couldn't be defined that way, it's that it isn't.
The process thereby needed to use 'knowledge' correctly is one which is impossible to carry out. So we're left either concluding that everyone is constantly using the word incorrectly or the definition is wrong. I just think the former is a bit silly, so prefer the latter.
It's like saying that 'human' is a term only correctly applied to someone God has invisibly marked. It's a daft definition because no one could ever use the term to describe anyone since there's no way of identifying an invisible divine symbol.
You could argue that we use the term to apply to things we think are true (just like we use term 'human' to apply to someone we think has a certain genetic make-up, even though we can't check.
There's normally no problems with this approach to definition, but with JTB, us thinking it's true is just what JB already is. T, then can only refer to the state of actually being 'true', which renders the word unusable.
I don't see how. It seems perfectly possible that someone saying "It's raining" tells us about their beliefs, and there still be a fact about whether it actually is raining, I can't see any logical way on prevents the other.
Quoting john27
I'm not suggesting one must refer to them as different, only that one could (as things stand). Your argument relied on assuming that they were the same. I'm just saying that such an assumption is not a logical necessity, so you ought have a means by which you justify it.
Quoting john27
I don't see a way you could.
Quoting john27
I don't see how. If there were no speaker, why would the content refer to anything at all, surely, if there were no speaker, the content would be as yet undetermined?
Because 1+1=2 exists, regardless on whether I have said it exists or not. For example, I could find 1+1=2 in nature by taking two sticks and putting them together to make a pair. I think I have said earlier that the content that I am referring to does not rely on me to exist.
Quoting Isaac
I'll be honest, I have no idea what you're talking about. At one time you are saying that my assumption requires a logical necessity, but earlier you had stated that they are not the same by logical necessity. I don't know, I can't wrap my head around it.
Though, I can give a logical necessity as to why one must refer to them as the same.
1+1=2. I think we can agree on that. The mode of expression dictates that my content changes according to its context. Therefore, it is a possibility for me give a context that allows 1+1=2 to be false. However, that is false; 1+1=2. And hence, the mode of expression is false. But when we talk about 1+1=2, we can never use it in a context that allows 1+1=2 to be false. Therefore, we always use the independent fact, and hence, the "mode of expression" and the independent fact is the same.
Oh. You could have saved us a lot of time by just telling me that in the first place. I bet you let people leave the restaurant with spinach still stuck in their teeth too.
Houses exist, that doesn't mandate that I refer to them. I can refer to whatever I want. I can say "house" and mean 'fish', nothing prevents me from doing so, the mere existence of houses included.
Quoting john27
We agree there.
Quoting john27
You've said two things are the same. They're not necessarily the same (by tautology or somesuch), so you need an argument demonstrating why you think they're the same.
Quoting john27
If there's a context in which 1+1=2 is false, then 1+1=2 is false (in that context), otherwise the prior statement is itself false. 1+1=2 remains true in other contexts, and there's no context-free 1+1=2 that represents the really real expression against which all others must be measured.
Yes, but there is no context in which 1+1=2 is false. It is true in every context. Therefore, The independent fact and the mode of expression are the same.
Right I misspoke, knowledge itself, if it is justified true belief is not understood to be defeasible. Our taking some proposition to be knowledge is what is defeasible. This is the distinction you seem to keep missing.
Of all the responses it feels as though you've not understood, that was the one I had most confidence in. I was just a joke.
Quoting john27
Maybe. I think @I like sushi mentioned this earlier. There are conceivably abstract systems in which we can know for sure what's true because it's declared to be so by the system. I don't see how these examples prove any kind of general case, it's easy to prove exceptions, harder to prove the rule.
Quoting Janus
Not missing, no. Just saying that the expression is universally and solely used to express this 'taking', and as such to suggest the actual real definition is something other than it is ever used for seems odd at the least.
Quoting Isaac
People use the phrase “you’re wrong” when they disagree with the other person. Given that I disagree with you my use was felicitous, and as there’s nothing more to truth than felicitous use, I was right to say that you’re wrong.
That is why I don’t understand your response. I’ve been expressing my disagreement for several pages, and your joke about letting people leave the restaurant with spinach still stuck in their teeth seems entirely out of place, even nonsensical in context. It’s almost as if you understood something else by my claim that you’re wrong. I wonder what that could possibly be. Perhaps you understood me as saying that the facts aren’t as you claim them to be, as any reasonable English speaker would?
Quoting Isaac
What do you mean by “whether it actually is raining”? Are you referring to your beliefs?
Rarely, in my experience. They mostly use it when they disagree with the other person and they think the other person ought to believe what they themselves believe (or they want to signal as such to others). That's why we don't often say "you're wrong" when we disagree about minor tastes, or matters which are complex and difficult to judge (like scientific theories).
So no. Here "you're wrong" is used in a context where we'd reasonably expect an appeal to rational thinking (an 'argument', a set of reasons, some justification). The implication of "you're wrong" in a discussion forum whose sole purpose is to exchange reasons, is that you have some.
Hence my joke. Your comment, unargued for, unsupported, was acting like it's pointing out the obvious, as if I'd look and say "oh yes, you're right, so I am, I hadn't noticed"
Quoting Michael
Your disagreement is not under scrutiny, your reasons are.
Quoting Michael
I did, and I explained above what the 'else' is. Justifications
Quoting Michael
No, as I've said quite a few times now, in expressions like this I'm referring to the notion of the beliefs a community of my epistemic peers would have once they've thrown all the tests they can think of at it...which is clearly not the same notion (though might have the same content) as the belief I currently hold.
Right, I think I see your objection now, but I would still maintain that although we can never be 100% sure we have knowledge, we can reasonably believe that we do, while still acknowledging that we could be wrong.
Hm, then what about this:
1+1=2 may be considered as both an independent fact and a mode of expression because it is relegated to mathematics. It's raining, however, is not because it is not constrained by a previous system. Therefore, if we constrain "it's raining" using mathematical language, it would be considered to be both an independent fact and a mode of expression.
It's raining can be translated into a mathematical term: hence, it is both an independent fact and mode of expression. Do that for every linguistic mode of expression you have some qualms with and boom, everything relates back to its independent fact.
Yes, I think that's perfectly coherent. It's just not how I think language works. For me, there's a difference between something which we can't be 100% sure about for pragmatic reasons and something we cannot be 100% sure of definitionally. For me, the 'truth' of whether the cat is on the mat, is simply the state of belief my community of epistemic peers would have about the world if they threw every test possible at it. The ultimate champion model. So, it's plausible, but pragmatically unachievable. That way I could say that I think my model is the ultimate champion model, but I can't be sure because I can't actually carry out the tasks required to check.
But with 'truth' meaning something other than 'justification' (of the ultimate champion model type), some sort of additional property a belief could have...well... I just grind to a halt there. I don't know what it would be for my model of the world's hidden states not just to be accurate (survive all tests), but to actually somehow be the same as the external world, match it precisely (where precisely means something other than predictive function). I've honestly no idea what that might mean.
We've been skirting around it, but I suspect this whole issue comes down to this incomprehensibility (for me) of non-pragmatic notions of 'truth'.
That sounds consistent. We'd need to see the demonstration of reducing "it's raining" to mathematical terms.
Noo! Math, my worst enemy. :grimace:
Well, I'll try my best.
Before I start making stuff up, let's define what sort of parameters we're using. I'd say that for the case of simplicity, we should stick to deterministic terms. As in, cause-effect, more classical mathematics.
Rain is an effect. Rain doesn't necessarily need an observer to exist, but it might make future discussions more simple if we include one, that way the "it" part of the statement holds. so:
Let a=observer
and the mathematical term 1+2=3 can be used to represent rain, specifically the number three, as an effect of something.
So, ax3= It's raining.
Therefore if a=0, rain does not exist. However, because there is an infinite observer, the mathematical system of the universe, a will always equal 1, hence making rain always relate back to its independent fact.
I'm probably wrong, but I think someone a little more advanced in math could make it work.
Do you think that when the statements are in accordance with what is observed then what we have said is true and when they are not in accordance what we have said is false?
Do you agree that this is pretty much how people generally understand truth and falsity, and that our legal system is also based on this kind of understanding? Say when people are called upon to give evidence, for example?
I have tried (and tried, tried again - as per boy scout instruction), but I'm afraid I can't make head nor tail of what you've done there.
Any chance of a more step-by-step explanation
No. I don't think it makes any sense at all for statement to be 'in accordance' with a state of affairs. States of affairs are causes of our sensations (and recipients of our actions). Statements are constituents of language - a tool we use for communication etc. They're an article of behaviour - speech acts. They're just not the kind of thing that can accord or not with a state of affairs.
Statements can be felicitous. They can do what we intended for them to do (the objective of the behaviour). I don't see any way they can 'accord', I'm afraid.
Quoting Janus
No. Notwithstanding the issue laid out above, I don't think the words 'true' and 'false' are used that way, and for good reason. Since we cannot ever tell for sure what the hidden states we attempt to refer to are, we routinely use words like 'true' and 'false' to communicate our level or certainty.
Quoting Janus
Yes, I'd say it's generally how people 'understand' truth and falsity. People 'generally understand' morality as judgement according to set rules too (yet fMRI scans tell us there are other considerations, several different brain regions are involved). People 'generally understand' infinity to be just a really big number that can be treated like any other - mathematicians tell us that doesn't work. People 'generally understand' their perception to be a direct unfiltered reflection of their environment - neuroscience tells us otherwise. People 'generally understand' their decisions to be the result of rational calculation - experiments frequently show us we can't make sense of their behaviour that way. I could go on, you get the picture. I don't see any reason at all to use what people 'generally understand' as a guide for what is actually the case. If we did, then what would we be doing here (with philosophy/science) at all?
Basically, when I started with this
:Quoting john27
It's to assume the fact that rain is the effect of "something". Water cycle, the earth, something like that.
So when I translate that fact into mathematical terms:
Quoting john27
It's to say that yeah, 1+2=3 doesn't actually encompass fully the fact that its raining; rain is much more complicated than that. But it's the same function, that is, the effect "rain" is just a bunch of other effects added together. In other words, It's just a simpler way of saying that rain is due to a bunch of effects. You could describe the water cycle mathematically for maybe a more precise translation, but this is honestly way simpler.
Quoting john27
The observer here is to satisfy the fact that someone is saying "it". The observer, realistically, is the universe. I don't have the mathematical proof that the universe exists, but I'm sure its out there, so I just condensed that equation that is probably real, into a.
Therefore you get:
If the universe (a) recognizes that this addition of effects (1+2) is happening, he will say it is raining (=3)
Hence the universe exists, and there's only one universe (probably), the (a) is always equal to 1.
Hence:
ax(1+2)=3 / it's raining
or,
ax3=3 / it's raining
The principle of charity only calls for a reading of a speaker's statement in the most rational way possible; it does not call for fantasizing. What you replied to so strongly was a direct response containing direct quotes from you... you are not entitled to demand charitable misrepresentations of my position. A charitable interpretation of my accusation of your bias distracting you would be that I perceived your bias to distract you. And it appears that I indeed did:
Quoting Isaac
...because you completely missed the argument.
Of course an observation must result in a belief in order to be used for judgements. But an observation nevertheless, exactly as I said, is not in itself a belief. Looking outside requires initiating motor programs to direct my senses towards the stuff happening four feet in front of my skull (charitably interpreted as being four feet in front of my skull, as it says on the tin). The percepts that result from such direction of the senses highly correlate to what the senses were directed to, which is four feet in front of the skull. Lacking that, not even the early regions of the visual cortex can process relevant information about what the weather is like.
Quoting Isaac
It's not lost on me that a possible interpretation is that you're special pleading... that you are applying special rules for what I can talk about specifically to me that you don't think apply to you. It's just that this interpretation is a bit pretentiously absurd:
Quoting Isaac
...to me it sounds more reasonable than the pretentious absurdity. You may have just not noticed that to present a real issue, you must step outside your own rules (the whole weird use of the adjective "actual" suggests an "attempt to bypass directness" via adjective).
But if you insist on the pretentious absurdity, then okay. But I think you have a lot more explaining to do. Now you have to explain why you divined (because you certainly didn't ask anything from which you could evidentially conclude it, even though it's absurd enough on its own) my lack of the ability to refer to the same actual weather you refer to when you use the phrase... in addition to what rule allows you to refer to it and not me. I'm all eyes. I'm fine either way though; either you explain one thing, or you explain two things.
On the off chance I'm not reading this properly, I simply don't get what you're putting down... in which case, random bolding probably isn't going to help you much. Charitably speaking I already used the English I was natively raised to speak to interpret that phrase. You might want to try explaining yourself more clearly in that case.
Quoting Isaac
No, T is still different.
Suppose I'm playing the classic game Battleship... against a computer opponent. Before my first strike, I can write 100 statements of the form: "The carrier is under A1. The carrier is under A2." ...and so on. At this point in time, all 100 statements have a truth value; 5 of them are true; 95 are false. The truth value of the 5 true statements will not change over the entire course of the game. At the beginning of the game, I have minimal justification for which 5 of those statements are true. As I play, I gain more justification for which 5 are true. That justification may at some point lead to a belief about which 5 statements are true. But the justification doesn't make those 5 statements true (i.e., T is not just more J). It's possible at some point I'll gain knowledge of where the carrier is, but the justification isn't what put the carrier in the location requisite to make those 5 statements true; it's just revealing which 5 statements are true to me (more J may lead to B, but not T). I could also have a lot of justification without forming a belief about where the carrier is (more J doesn't even necessarily lead to B). B forms from sufficient J; but the T is there in every game, regardless of whether or not a B is even formed. The T is caused by the computer program, prior to any information I got from any play.
Quoting Isaac
We've been over this; depends on the expression, but "the flower" and "the aliens" are false examples of this. "There are no green swans" is presumably just true. "The green swan in Elbonia teleported" is undefined (no such place). "The green swan outside my window teleported" is undefined, but the statement refers to a part of a world (outside the window), just one that doesn't have a referent to the green swan in it. "The green swan in the last sentence does not exist" is true. We can also play games of potential existential import and make the truth value dependent on the game ("All green swans outside my house teleported").
Quoting Isaac
The 5 true statements in my game of Battleship describe humanly meaningful states of affairs of the computer. The ontic nature of this would be particular states that could in principle be traced to voltages in certain computer parts, translated in very specific ways according to the program, which in itself is implementing the particular abstraction we call "Battleship", from which we derive the meaning of "carrier" and the locations. But nevertheless, those 5 true statements are true even if I didn't sense what any of those things are (per the realist presumption).
OK, I get that bit.
Quoting john27
...but this seems to be just saying that if an observer recognizes that 1 and 2 are occurring then it's raining (because 1 and 2 lead to rain). But that just kicks the can down the road. Now we're assessing if the observer has correctly recognised that 1 and 2 are occurring.
Well then there's little point in continuing. I'm not here to act as straw man for you to interpret what I'm saying in such a way as to make a fun decoy for your target practice. Either respond to what I'm saying or don't bother, insisting that I simply must have meant the thing you think I meant is pointless.
There would be if you responded to the points rather than dredging up drama.
Quoting Isaac
The "what I'm saying" being this?:
Quoting Isaac
Quoting Isaac
...that bold being yours?
Are you sure the story you want to tell of this is that I'm treating you unfairly and building straw men? That's a bit of a hard sell, given that bolded part is you literally telling me what I mean!
Regardless:
Quoting Isaac
I did. You didn't (in this reply).
In my reply, I explicitly conceded your point (which I consider trivial) that observations lead to beliefs, and explained why this was not the argument. I proceeded to reiterate my position, and contrast what you said in the response with what the argument actually was. I referenced the early regions of the visual cortex and frontal lobe specifically to reiterate the irrelevance of this to the actual position.
You did not respond to that.
In my reply, I continued my critique that your "telling me what I meant" was incoherent, taking into response your rebolding defense. I suggested if you meant something else, it's just not apparent from a rebolding.
You did not respond to that.
In my reply, I explained why T was different than "more J". I gave the example of a Battleship game to explain when T was established and contrasted that with what J does, which is to help reveal what the T is. I explicitly pointed out that the J doesn't make the T to rebut your point that T was just more J.
You did not respond to that.
Not that I know where you're going with it, but in your reply, I responded to your point about what happens when the part of the world does not exist, while also clarifying that you didn't have the concept of "the part of the world" quite correct (if it's worth it I could go into more detail). This was simply a reiteration with slightly more detail of what was said previously.
You did not respond to that.
In my reply, I also quoted you about states of affairs causing sensations and related T to that.
You did not respond to that.
FYI, you are under no obligation to respond to anything. It is always your choice to respond. But should you respond, I do not have actual malice against you, despite what you might think. But I engaged you to challenge particular criticisms of yours about JTB, and you're still wrong about T wrt JTB theory of knowledge. I still think you're wrong because you're too focused on beliefs; the T in JTB isn't (typically) in the brain, and you keep confusing it for something that is (JB perchance?)
Quoting Isaac
I did quite the opposite to that:
Quoting InPitzotl
I find no rational interpretation of what you said where "actual weather" gets to be used by you to refer to something that is not a belief but not by me. But I opened this up to you to explain, if you can, despite the very subject matter being your telling me that I mean something completely different than what I say I mean.
Quoting Isaac
This is what you've said before:
Quoting Isaac
Here you admit to there being an "actual weather", but claim that we don't have direct access to it. Here you aren't talking about your beliefs or the language community's beliefs or a battery of tests or anything like that. You're just talking about the common sense realist notion of there being belief-independent facts that may or may not be as we believe them to be.
If you can refer to this actual weather when you claim that we don't have direct access to the actual weather then I can refer to this actual weather when I claim that it is raining.
Quoting Isaac
And specifically here you connect the notions of truth and being wrong to whether or not the actual weather (which is belief-independent, and according to you cannot be directly accessed) is as we believe it to be.
Quoting Michael
Quoting Isaac
And then later you admit that we do (sometimes) have direct access to the facts.
So all-in-all, you admit that we can refer to belief-independent facts, that our beliefs are true if the belief-independent facts are as we believe them to be, and that we can access these belief-independent facts.
Yes. You're describing a state of affairs (unless your claim is that you and only you are able to refer to the actual weather). I'm arguing that the state of affairs is not as you claim they are in the basis of coherence with other states of affairs I thought we might agree on.
If you think I can't mean what I say I mean (on the basis, as above, of incoherence with some state of affairs we already agree on), then we'd have an equivalence. As it stands you've presented no reasons other than that you don't agree.
Quoting InPitzotl
Yes. As I said, response seems pointless if my responses are simply going to be assumed to be the misguided product of a bias. I'm not playing the role of fish-in-barrel for your pleasure.
What makes you think that's what I'm talking about (especially given my quite explicit definition)? It seems quite a stretch for you to take a fairly ambiguous piece of writing and use it to prove I don't really mean what I've just said that I mean. I can't think what could be gained from such an exercise.
Quoting Michael
I'm not sure what you think the word 'infallible' is doing there if I had (as you claim) s correspondence view of truth.
Quoting Michael
Again, I don't know what you think the word 'if' means here if you take it as a statement about what is actually the case.
---
I must admit to being slightly baffled by the line of argument you're taking here. Where's it going? Let's say you're completely right, all those previous quotes did, in fact, show that I had a more correspondence view of truth. Let's say I've changed my mind and now believe whatever view was presented in my latest post. Does that change anything about the veracity of that latest post. How would the fact that I used to believe otherwise have any impact on it?
Because that's how any reasonable English speaker would interpret it. What else could you mean by drawing a distinction between John's belief about the weather and an inaccessible "actual" weather?
Quoting Isaac
You won't accept it when I or @InPitzotl explain to you that when we say "it is raining" we are referring to a belief-independent fact. You won't accept it when we explain to you that we don't mean "I believe that it is raining". If you won't do us the courtesy of accepting what we say about what we mean then why should I accept what you say about what you mean?
Quoting Isaac
You quite clearly say that there is a "truth about the weather" and that it is inaccessible. Therefore you are quite clearly saying that truth is belief-independent and distinct from justification (which very much is accessible). And given that you say that infallible direct access is required for us to be incapable of being wrong it follows that being wrong has something to do with the relationship between one's belief and this belief-independent truth, with the most rational interpretation being that our beliefs are wrong if the belief-independent truth is other than we believe it to be.
Quoting Isaac
You accepted that a veridical experience is access to a belief-independent fact. You also accepted that veridical experiences are possible. If a veridical experience is access to a belief-independent fact and if veridical experiences are possible then we can have access to belief-independent facts, like the actual weather, contrary to your claim that "no-one has direct access to [the actual weather]".
Quoting Isaac
This exchange is following on from this:
Quoting Michael
Quoting Isaac
Quoting Michael
I think you're just grasping at straws, twisting yourself in knots, contradicting yourself, trying to defend a theory that doesn't work.
Yes. T is a description of a state of affairs.
Quoting Isaac
I'm having severe problems parsing what you mean here (a positive declaration, that you're arguing the state of affairs isn't something; that thing being as I claim they are "in" the basis of coherence of other state of affairs... that you thought we might agree on?)
Quoting Isaac
I think you can't coherently phrase the objection; briefly, you cannot put the window in the skull. If you put the window in the skull, you must put the skull in the skull as well. And if you erase the window outside the skull, you must erase the skull containing the window. The entire exercise basically just leaves you with a window outside a skull again, with two dangling objects you can't talk about and yet just did. It's fundamentally incoherent, and I don't see a way to rescue it. Nevertheless, I humored you quite a bit on this point.
Quoting Isaac
It's incoherent, and you failed to rescue it from incoherency. I need not prove an incoherent objection wrong. And I'm not obliged to play guess-what-Isaac-means. It's your job to formulate a coherent argument, should you choose to.
Quoting Isaac
Assumed is the wrong word; concluded is more correct. I didn't read between the lines here; I read the very lines you wrote. Your connotative implication had nothing to do with the argument given. Your magical-justification-type had nothing to do with the argument given. Your observations-lead-to-beliefs response had nothing to do with the argument given. I'll present the given argument here again in different terms.
Rewind again... you were arguing this:
Quoting Isaac
So, you yourself said you didn't believe it rains in my skull; in fact, you took great offense at the suggestion that you believe it rains in my skull. So we're agreed. It does not rain in my skull.
But I believe things with my mind, which is a function of my brain, which is in my skull. So my belief that it is raining is indeed in my skull, and I have direct access to my belief (presumably).
So, since I have direct access to my beliefs (in my skull), but do not have direct access to the rain (outside my skull), I claim that "it's raining" cannot be about my belief that it's raining (it does not rain in my skull). The only way I can discern whether it's raining or not is through indirect means, such as using my muscles to look outside the window and using my senses to judge what's happening outside my skull (where it rains). Simply relying on what I have direct access to (e.g., my beliefs) cannot help.
How can "it's raining" be about something I don't have direct access to? Easy. By being about what I have indirect access to. But it can't be about what's in my skull, since it doesn't rain there.
I see. We're back to the assumption that the way things seem to you must simply be the way things are. There's nothing to say to that. If you can't understand that things might not actually be as the seem then I really don't know what you're doing here, you already know the answers to every question. It seems to you that that's the way any reasonable English speaker would interpret it. Obviously it doesn't seem that way to me.
Quoting Michael
You shouldn't (or needn't).@InPitzotl seems to be missing the same point. My argument is that you can't mean what you say you mean (that it's incoherent). Your argument is (currently) only that I don't mean what I say I mean. Those are two very different arguments. One is about logical possibilities, the other just a slur on my character. If you want to say that I can't mean what I say I mean, then make that case, there should be no need in doing so to quote anything except my most recent post.
Quoting Michael
OK. So let's say you're right. I'm borderline schizophrenic and can't keep a consistent belief in my head for more than five minutes. How does that make my most recent post wrong? If I contradict myself, then one of the two contradictory things I've said can still be right. You've still failed to show that it's the one you prefer and not the other. I don't see how demonstrating my tragic mental health conditions helps your argument any. You still want to defeat one of the things I've said, proving that I've previously said something other than it doesn't help in that one bit.
As I said to @InPitzotl, I've no interest in continuing this is your only objective is to try any show some inconsistency in my writing. I'm commenting on a trivial social media forum, not writing a paper. If you want to find some inconsistency, be my guest, but I'll save you the time, you'll definitely find some. I don't get my editors to proof read my posting history and clarify/correct each bit of terminology in context. I just write stuff that's on my mind, usually on the phone on a train.
If you want clarification, you can ask, if you just want to play gotcha with some error I might have made I'm not interested.
I'd put my faith in the universe.
What is the criterion for truth, if not justification?
Justification is how we judge truth, but truth itself is the facts obtaining, regardless of justification.
If we imagine a court of law, someone is guilty of murder if they murdered the victim, but someone is judged to be guilty of murder if the evidence suggests beyond reasonable doubt that they murdered the victim. Obviously these are not the same thing; people can be wrongly convicted or wrongly exonerated. In practice we might not always know if the judgement was wrong, but we understand that in principle they could be wrong, and the fact that we understand this shows that there is a conceptual difference between truth and justification.
Yep, that's what I was getting at. The upshot of it is that justification doesn't establish veracity. The natural question is what does?
What do you mean here by "establish"? In one sense it means "discover" and in another it means "make happen".
If we take it raining for example, physical events in the atmosphere is what makes it happen, and us having a veridical experience is how we discover it.
No it doesn't. All it shows is that there's a difference, it's insufficient to show that the difference is conceptual. If I have a pound and you have a million pounds we can all see that there's a difference between our two states with massive and far reaching consequences, but it doesn't prove that a million pounds is an entirely different kind of thing to a pound.
Your situation shows only the we see a difference between the two states. That difference could just as easily be explained by the difference between beliefs we actually have and beliefs we might hypothetically come to have after we thoroughly tested our hypotheses.
"Whether we believe he committed the murder" (our current beliefs).
"Whether he actually committed the murder" (what any rational epistemic peer would come to believe after their hypothesis had been exhaustively tested)
How do we know that a given proposition is true? It can't be justification of course; why mention truth separately? I'm probably holding the wrong end of the stick here.
According to the JTB definition, we know that a given proposition is true if it is true, if we believe that it is true, and if we are justified in believing that it is true.
It's possible that something has happened that we can never discover. This could either be a practical matter – someone was murdered and there's no evidence to show who is the killer, or all evidence shows it to be someone who didn't do it – or this could be impossible in principle – stuff happens outside our light cone.
Quoting Isaac
What sense could we possibly make of something being the case that we can't even hypothetically detect? What would it mean for it to 'be the case'?
We cannot, even hypothetically, detect whether borogroves are mimsey or not. What could it possibly mean to say that it's true that they are?
I have a computer print a random word (using radioactive decay measurements) on a piece of paper but have the paper and computer burned before it can be read. There is a fact as to what was printed on the paper even though we have no way of knowing what it was.
Alien life might exist outside our light cone.
It's what my epistemic peers would see if they invented a time machine, or deep space telescope, faster-than-light travel...all hypothetical tests I can think of.
I'm saying that without some notion of what effect it would, even hypothetically, have, we've no way of making sense of what it means for it to be the case.
So truth is a counterfactual? Something that is inaccessible?
At the very least you finally understand that truth is distinct from the actual justifications we have.
Not necessarily inaccessible. We might well feel we have, in fact, fully exhausted all tests, but yes, mostly truth is inaccessible, if it weren't we would be unable to believe we could be wrong (what would it mean to be wrong about something which is true?).
I don't think being inaccessible is a distinction between correspondence accounts and deflationary or pragmatic accounts. Both have to have 'truth' as inaccessible otherwise there become situations where we cannot possibly be wrong (those in which we have direct access to the truth). As has been discussed here, such situations may occur within abstract schemes such as mathematics, but again, these are the same between accounts.
What's different is the matter of whether truth is a specifically justified belief, or some other property.
Quoting Michael
I've never said anything to the contrary. If I have, I'd rather you quote me than attribute positions to me I've never held.
If we’re wrong then we don’t have knowledge. That’s why knowledge is said to be JTB, not just JB.
Quoting Isaac
Here:
Quoting Isaac
Assuming 'true' is a separate property to 'justified'. I'm questioning that assumption. On my account, we're wrong (and so don't have knowledge) if what we currently believe is not what a community of epistemic peers would come to believe once they've exhaustively tested the hypothesis. Both result from justifications. One is just better than the other.
Quoting Michael
See above. Both 'current evidence' and 'all possible evidence' are justifications.
In the context of the JTB definition of knowledge, the J refers to the individual having good reasons to believe what they do. Even if you want to understand the T as being “what a community of epistemic peers would come to believe once they've exhaustively tested the hypothesis” it is still distinct from the J. It may be that I am justified in believing that it is raining but that a community of epistemic peers would believe that it isn’t raining were they to exhaustively test the hypothesis. As such my belief is false and I don’t know that it is raining (because it isn’t raining). And this is the case even if in practice everyone agrees with me.
Truth is distinct from what anyone actually believes and is a requirement for knowledge.
Where have you got this interpretation from?
[quote=SEP on justifications in JTB]Why is condition (iii) necessary? Why not say that knowledge is true belief? The standard answer is that to identify knowledge with true belief would be implausible because a belief might be true even though it is formed improperly. Suppose that William flips a coin, and confidently believes—on no particular basis—that it will land tails. If by chance the coin does land tails, then William’s belief was true; but a lucky guess such as this one is no knowledge. For William to know, his belief must in some epistemic sense be proper or appropriate: it must be justified.
Socrates articulates the need for something like a justification condition in Plato’s Theaetetus, when he points out that “true opinion” is in general insufficient for knowledge. For example, if a lawyer employs sophistry to induce a jury into a belief that happens to be true, this belief is insufficiently well-grounded to constitute knowledge.[/quote]
It may be that a community of epistemic peers would come to believe that it is raining once they've exhaustively tested the hypothesis but if I believe that it is raining because it says so in the horoscopes section of a magazine then my belief isn’t justified.
The justification condition is quite clearly understood as being about the reason(s) the individual believes what he does. Your quote doesn’t say otherwise (in fact it explicitly mentions justified false beliefs). The debate between internalists and externalists is over what constitutes good reasons. Regardless of which side is correct, it is nonetheless about the reasons the individual believes what he does.
Yes, I agree. One such reason might be "my epistemic peers have thrown every conceivable test at it and they all believe it's the case" a justification.
Also, as we've just agreed, a legitimate definition of 'truth'
Hence, the 'truth' part of JTB is not distinct from the justification part. It's just a particular type of justification.
Correct.
Quoting Agent Smith
The criteria for truth (for claims such as the ones being discussed) is that some state of affairs is as described by the proposition. Consider for example proposition A1 ("The carrier is under A1") before my first strike, from my battleship example here. A1 is true if the computer placed the carrier on A1 in its game representation. That truth is independent of justifications.
Quoting Agent Smith
Each time I make a play and receive "hit" or "miss" information, I gain some information for which of the 100 propositions are true. I may or may not eventually be able to use this information to form a true belief about where the carrier is in that game. But the carrier being in a certain place on the game board does not depend on my figuring out where that place is.
Quoting Agent Smith
Well, yeah, it is justification. Keep in mind though that justification is about knowledge, and knowledge is person-relative (each person has their own perspective and knowledge). Truth (of these sorts of claims) by contrast is ontic; it is person-independent.
But "truth" does not (generally) describe justification in the first place. It describes a state of affairs. I can describe what must the case (i.e., what configuration a state of affairs must have) in order for a proposition to be true without knowing if it is indeed the case (i.e., if the state of affairs is in fact in that configuration).
ETA:
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/true
It’s not the only justification (in fact I would say it’s rarely the justification as we rarely throw every conceivable test at our beliefs and certainly not as a coordinated group which shares its findings) and not all true beliefs are justified (in this way or in any other).
It is entirely possible that we have good reasons to believe something but that one’s epistemic peers wouldn’t believe it were they to test it (justified but not true so not knowledge).
It is entirely possible that we don’t have good reasons to believe something but that one’s epistemic peers would believe it were they to test it (true but not justified so not knowledge).
It is entirely possible that we have good reasons to believe something and that one’s epistemic peers would believe it were they to test it (justified and true so knowledge) but that our reason for believing it isn’t that we are aware that one’s epistemic peers have tested it and believe it.
So, no, we cannot simply treat truth and justification as the same.
Quoting Isaac
And now you’re contradicting yourself yet again:
Quoting Michael
Quoting Isaac
You were accepting that truth can be inaccessible and that’s how we can be wrong. Presumably you wouldn’t say that justification is inaccessible?
Hey now
Oh, I meant 'trivial' in the early 15c use of the term to refer to the trivium - the first three liberal arts (grammar, rhetoric and logic).
Obviously!
So are you arguing that deflationary, coherence, and pragmatic positions on truth are wrong, of that they just don't even exist?
No.
Quoting Michael
I didn't say we could. We also can't treat one justification as if it were the same as another, but it's not J1, J2, J3, J4, J5, TB is it?
Quoting Michael
Still playing gotcha?
Your proposition refers to "the actual justifications we have", mine refers to "justifications" sensu lato.
If you think something I've said is inconsistent, you could just ask, rather than playing this childish game of trying to catch me in a contradiction. As I said, one day you will win that game, I don't proof read my comments that accurately. I don't see what you think you're going to gain by it though.
If you can’t maintain a consistent argument - if you continually say contradictory things - then your argument has failed.
Quoting Isaac
The “actual justifications we have” is what the JTB definition of knowledge is referring to.
I believe that it rained last night because the cars and road are wet. I have a good reason to believe what I do. My belief is justified.
This isn’t the same thing as the fact that a community of epistemic peers with access to a time machine would believe that it rained last night were they to throw every conceivable test at the hypothesis.
Therefore my belief being true isn’t the same thing as my belief being justified.
This is why the JTB definition has separate conditions for truth and justification. If in another scenario I believe what I do because it’s my interpretation of a Tarot card reading then my belief would be true but unjustified, and so not knowledge. If in another scenario the community of epistemic peers would believe that it didn’t rain but that a fire truck passed by with its hose on then my belief would be justified but false, and so not knowledge.
Knowledge requires both that my belief is true and that I have a good reason for having it, and as neither entails the other there is in fact a distinction.
Indeed it has.
There's three options here;
1. I'm constantly saying contradictory things for some reason - stupidity, stubborness, mental instability...
2. I'm saying perfectly consistent things, but I've either made a trivial mistake, or you've misunderstood what I'm saying.
3. I'm saying perfectly consistent things and you're deliberately seeking out any contestable inconsistencies to avoid having to actually address the argument.
It takes a fairly substantial ego to rule out (2) as even being a possibility, yet, being the most charitable of (1) and (2), one would need a good reason to rule it out, unless one were choosing option (3).
Quoting Michael
Just repeating the claim doesn't progress the argument at all. I've argued that 'truth' is a type of justification (specifically that one's epistemic peers would believe it if it survived all the tests they could throw at it).
I know it's raining because...
The cars outside are wet.
I can hear it on the roof.
The cows are lying down.
My tarot cards say it's raining.
My community of epistemic peers have thrown every test they can at the hypothesis 'it's raining' and it's withstood every test.
I act as if it's raining and I'm not surprised.
I make predictions based on a model of it raining and my predictions work out.
My epistemic peers have exhausted all the predictions they can make and every single one has worked out as expected.
All justifications for my belief that it's raining. None are of some special genera.
So, in checking if some belief is 'knowledge', we're just looking for some specific justification, not something else in addition to justifications. "My tarot cards say it's raining" is not good enough for 'knowledge', but "My epistemic peers have exhausted all the predictions they can make and every single one has worked out as expected", may well be.
That the truth can be used as a justification isn’t that a belief being true is the same thing as a belief being justified.
If you want to argue that a belief being true is the same thing as a belief being justified then you have to argue that the below are both false:
1. Justified false beliefs are possible
2. Unjustified true beliefs are possible
You must argue that all true beliefs are necessarily justified and vice versa.
If you don’t accept that all true beliefs are necessarily justified and vice versa - if you accept that justified false beliefs and unjustified true beliefs are possible - then you must accept that a belief being true isn’t the same thing as a belief being justified and so that it isn’t redundant to talk about beliefs that are both true and justified, as the JTB definition of knowledge does.
And aside from the sense of such a distinction, if you want to argue that the distinction is irrelevant with respect to knowledge then you must argue that both justified false beliefs and unjustified true beliefs count as knowledge.
In my previous post I gave clear examples of a justified true belief, an unjustified true belief, and a justified false belief, and explained that the first can count as knowledge but that the second and third can’t. Do you disagree with that analysis? If not then you must accept that relevance of the distinction between truth and justification in the JTB definition of knowledge.
Not at all. The JTB definition assumes there's a definable status 'justified', that something might binomially either have or not. Likewise 'true'.
But this is just an assumption (and a flawed one). We do not, in general, consider beliefs to be either justified or not. We consider beliefs to be more or less justified. Better or worse. We can (and frequently do) grade justifications from better to worse. You did so yourself in your previous post.
So there's absolutely no sense in saying that in leaving off 'true' we're somehow magically obligated to pretend we no longer grade justifications and instead treat them as binomials, either in or out.
Beliefs which are well-justified can be treated as knowledge, those that are poorly justified not.
Your examples (of justification but not knowledge), are just examples of poor, or insufficient justification. Had they had much better justification (such as the survival of multiple tests by epistemic peers), they could unproblematically be treated as knowledge.
To be clear.
What you're calling a justified false belief is just a belief whose justification isn't good enough.
What you're calling an unjustified true belief is a belief whose (high quality) justification is not known to the person holding it.
Returning to Gettier...
The person who believes it's 12 o'clock (when it is, in fact 12 o'clock), but believes so on the basis of a broken clock does not have knowledge. His justification (the clock says it's 12) is insufficient - clocks break. A sufficient justification would be that all his epistemic peers have tested their clocks, and checked with the sun, and radioactive decay, and yes, it is indeed 12 o'clock. Then he would have knowledge. Then his justification would be sufficient. JTB can't handle the situation precisely because JTB makes this completely unwarranted assumption that a belief must be either justified or not and does not properly allow for the grading of justifications we use every day.
They’re only knowledge if they’re also true (if a community of epistemic peers would also believe it were they to throw every conceivable test at it). It is entirely possible that my belief is well justified but also false. This is why it must be specified that a belief is both true and (well) justified.
Quoting Isaac
No, it’s a belief that isn’t true but that I have a good reason to hold.
Quoting Isaac
As I have repeatedly said and that you’re either wilfully ignoring or incapable of understanding, the justification condition is referring to the reasons the person believes what he does.
I’ll try to make this even simpler for you:
S knows that p if S believes that p, S has one or more good reasons for believing that p, and a community of epistemic peers with access to every conceivable technology would believe that p were they to throw every conceivable test at the hypothesis that p.
No. If a belief is false then it clearly was not well-justified. The justification must, logically, have been insufficient, since whatever test our epistemic peers used to determine it's falsity was clearly necessary but lacking, hence an insufficient justification.
Quoting Michael
You're just repeating the same error without addressing what I've said about it. Do we routinely define reasons as only either 'good' or 'not good', or do we, rather, grade reasons being able to see that some are better than others whilst others are even better still? If yes, then why insist on this odd language where everything scalar is treated binomially?
Quoting Michael
Yes. I'm saying there exist a high quality justification (hence we can say it's true), of which the believer is unaware (hence unjustified). In this instance, you could indeed say the belief was unjustified but true, but this doesn't get around the fact that if the believer became aware of the high quality justification they would have a belief which counted as knowledge on the basis of justification alone (just now justification of a sufficient quality), so JTB fails.
Quoting Michael
Yes. That's the position I started from.
(2), if S were to be aware of it, would be a justification. Hence it's possible for S to merely hold (1), and still have knowledge where his (1) is "that a community of epistemic peers with access to every conceivable technology would believe that p were they to throw every conceivable test at the hypothesis that p."
Have you read Gettier’s little paper?
Justification doesn’t require certainty. Justifications can be fallible. I’m pretty sure you’ve accepted this before, although I can’t be bothered to check for more inconsistencies with your past posts.
If you tell me that your name is Isaac and show me a driving license that shows your name to be Isaac then my belief that your name is Isaac is well justified, even if in fact your name is John and you lied to me with a forged ID.
I don’t need to work with a community of epistemic peers with a time machine to go back and watch your parents first name you and sign your birth certificate to be well justified in believing something about your name.
Quoting Isaac
You did this before when specifying that a belief be well justified. What’s the difference between saying that a belief be well justified and saying that one has good reasons for a belief? Splitting hairs on this wording is missing the point. The point is that it’s about the reasons one holds a belief, and not about whether or not the belief is true. It’s two separate conditions.
Quoting Isaac
JTB doesn’t fail on this account. It is still the case that if my actual reason for believing that is raining is sufficient then I don’t have knowledge if it isn’t raining and that if my actual reason for believing that is raining is insufficient then I don’t have knowledge even if it is raining.
Knowledge isn’t just hypothetical. We have it in real situations where we don’t have access to the beliefs of some community of epistemic peers who have comprehensively tested a belief.
Quoting Isaac
I explained the mistake you are making here. That we can sometimes use the truth to justify a belief isn’t that a belief being true is the same as a belief being justified. If when getting married you have a single thing that is old, borrowed, and blue then being old, being borrowed, and being blue are still three different conditions.
All I'm arguing is that your notion that T is just more J fails to describe what T is in regards to JTB. How you apply that to your understanding of deflationary, coherence, and pragmatic positions of truth is a separate matter.
Quoting Agent Smith
Quoting Agent Smith
Quoting Agent Smith
(A) and (B) are different questions. (A) is asking what the criteria for truth is. (B) is asking how we find out a proposition is true.
The answer to (A) is that proposition A1 is true if A1 describes the state of affairs. That is the case if and only if the computer program placed the carrier over the A1 square.
The answer to (B) is different because it is a different question. (B) is asking how a person is to know that the computer program placed the carrier over the A1 square. That is through justification. If I (a person) fire at A1, at A2, at A3, and at A4; and if the result is that I (a person) get confirmation that each of those is a hit; and the result is also that I (a person) do not get confirmation that any of those sinks a ship, then I (a person) have obtained sufficient information for me (a person) to conclude that the computer placed the carrier over square A1 (aka, I have obtained justification for believing proposition A1). The reason this information is sufficient for me (a person) to reach the conclusion that proposition A1 is true is precisely because only the state of affairs being as described by proposition A1 can explain these observations (given my priors).
Yes, some time ago. Have I misrepresented it somewhere? It didn't leave a particularly strong impression on me. I've here been mostly talking about how alternatives to correspondence theories on truth interact with JTB and whether it captures ordinary language use. I suppose I've been a bit contumacious in veering so far from Gettier...sorry.
Eh. Almost the whole discussion has been pretty far from Gettier, but still valuable.
"If a belief is false, then there's no way it can be justified," is a pretty common reaction to JTB theories, and it just happens that a lot of people don't even encounter JTB outside Gettier.
You've been arguing that we call beliefs 'true' when we have especially strong justification for believing them, perhaps even the strongest we can imagine.
Naturally then you'll equate 'false' with not or very poorly or weakly justified. It's consistent, but way off the reservation for talking about Gettier, which assumes you can have, in your circumstances, what anyone would consider very good reasons for your belief, which happens to be false. You have to keep track of everyone's perspective here, and you just take the extra step of saying that this last step is also perspective-bound.
You argue this position consistently, or at least as consistently as you can, because it sure looks like our ordinary ways of thinking and talking about the world have a built-in commitment to realism. (I know you describe your position as a kind of realism, but it's not a kind anyone wants.) That makes it hard even to state your position. Whether it makes it incoherent -- that's a tough one. I tend to think so, but I'm not sure it's a battle worth fighting. -- That is, the best way forward might be to pass right by this debate and try a different approach.
It's the exact point. You're' treating something as binomial which is, in fact scalar. There's not 'well-justified' and 'not well-justified' there's better justified and worse justified. So all your examples of the sort "I can have a justified belief..." or "I can have a well-justified belief..." are just nonsensical. No-one treats belief as if they only fell into one of two categories with regards to justification.
Quoting Michael
Knowledge is JTB right (for you)? You agreed that T could be that a community of epistemic peers have exhaustively tested the hypothesis and found it sound, right? Now you're saying we can have knowledge outside of needing that latter condition. So how?
Quoting Michael
But it is. Unlike the Old/Blue/Borrowed example, truth is nothing else but the justification that my epistemic peers have exhaustively tested the hypothesis and found it to yield the expected results. Blue things are sometime not borrowed things, borrowed things are sometimes not old things. Truth is not sometimes not as I've described it (under pragmatic or deflationary understandings).
I’m saying that a belief being true isn’t sufficient for it to count as knowledge. A lucky guess isn’t knowledge. A true belief brought about by a Tarot card reading isn’t knowledge. Knowledge requires that one’s actual reason for holding the belief is sufficiently good (whether you want to understand “sufficiently good” as a scale or not).
That when forming our belief we theoretically might consider the beliefs of a community of epistemic peers that has comprehensively tested the hypothesis doesn’t change this fact, especially given that we almost never have access to the beliefs of a community of epistemic peers that has comprehensively tested the hypothesis: nobody has a time machine and so I can only accept your word, and if available something like a driving license that I assume isn’t a forgery, that your name is Isaac. That’s the actual reason I believe what I do and is important when considering if I know your name.
If your name isn’t Isaac then obviously I don’t know that your name is Isaac, even if my belief is sufficiently reasonable given the actual evidence I have. If your name is Isaac then we can argue over whether or not my belief is sufficiently reasonable given the actual evidence I have and if not then I don’t know your name and if so then I do.
I only know that your name is Isaac if I believe that your name is Isaac, if my belief is sufficiently reasonable given the actual evidence I consider when forming my belief, and if your name actually is Isaac.
Not quite. It takes something else to be false - a contradiction, a surprising result which can't be accommodated. I don't actually think false is always the opposite of true (but that's not going to be popular either).
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I don't think I need deny that assumption. Part of what I've been arguing with @Michael is that the notion of 'well-justified' is an artificial one entirely confined to these kinds of discussions in JTB. No-one thinks like that, of two bins marked 'well-justified' and 'not well-justified'. It's of very little significance that a belief is well-justified (but false) because any belief is well-justified to some extent but not as well-justified as it could be. It's always somewhere on the scale measuring the quality of justification. Right at the top of that scale is "my epistemic peers have exhaustively tested it and it still yields unsurprising results". Very few beliefs can claim that justification, but a large number can assume it (the earth is round, gravity pulls downward, this table is solid,...etc)
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Hey now! There was a colleague I spoke to about it some time ago who didn't entirely reject it...although he was drunk...no... you're right, no-one wants it.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Yes, that's been a consistent problem. I use the words 'true', 'fact', 'actually', 'in fact' to mean what I mean by them (not as Humpty-Dumpty I should stress, I'm not literally the only person who thinks this way), but my interlocutors will keep thinking "Ha! you said "x actually is..." showing that you agree with correspondence theory because you acknowledge that some things 'actually are' the case". An argument which only works assuming I was using 'actually is' under a correspondence understanding of what that would mean. Perhaps a more careful language would help - but as I said, this is just a 'trivial' internet discussion forum, people can always ask.
Yes, I agree with that, even with my 'epistemic peer' definition of truth. If a person isn't aware of that justification (despite the fact that it exists) but rather uses another, flawed, one, then they can't be said to have knowledge. This doesn't change the fact that both are forms of justification.
Quoting Michael
No you're using the same 'access' argument you dismissed earlier. We don't have access to your version of truth either. You didn't see that as barrier to using it then. Why now has it become a problem?
Quoting Michael
I don't dispute that. I'm disputing that 'actually is...' is any different kind of thing to 'I believe'. There's no sense to 'actually is...' that's not about beliefs (in this case the beliefs of a community of epistemic peers after exhaustive testing). It's not a different kind of thing, just a stronger version of it.
You're changing your position again. You were saying that the truth is what a community of epistemic peers with access to every conceivable technology would believe were they to comprehensively test some hypothesis (and which can be inaccessible, hence why we can be wrong). That's not the same thing as what I believe (given whatever limited evidence I have available to me).
Quoting Isaac
How many times do I have to explain this to you? When the JTB definition says that a belief must be justified it is saying that the individual's belief must be sufficiently reasonable given the actual evidence they considered when forming their belief.
You seem to have so much trouble with the words "true" and "justified" in the context of the JTB definition. I don't know why this is. So let's just do away with them and explain in excruciating detail what the JTB definition is saying:
S knows that p iff:
1. S believes that p,
2. S's belief that p is sufficiently reasonable given the actual evidence that S considered when forming his belief that p, and
3. A community of epistemic peers with access to every conceivable technology would believe that p were they to comprehensively test the hypothesis that p
2 and 3 do not mean the same thing. It is possible that 2 obtains but that 3 doesn't, and so that S doesn't have knowledge. It is possible that 3 obtains but that 2 doesn't, and so that S doesn't have knowledge. Both 2 and 3, which are different things, must obtain for S to have knowledge.
If you want to rename JTB to J[sub]1[/sub]J[sub]2[/sub]B then go ahead, but it's such a trivial concern that doesn't address anything of substance that I don't know why you'd spend page after page trying to do so. The rest of us understanding perfectly what is meant by JTB.
Oh wait, I just remembered, Gödels' incompleteness theorem. Didn't he combine language and math to prove that math was finite or something like that?
Different thing ? Different kind of thing. My Whiskey cup and my Teacup are different things, but the same kind of thing.
Quoting Michael
Yes. The trouble is that the word 'sufficiently' there has no measure other than proximity to 'truth' which it's already used. To say X's justification is 'sufficient' but X's belief is false is a contradiction. His justification was clearly not sufficient because the resulting belief was false and the sole purpose of justifications is to get closer to truth. If a justification so utterly fails to do that as lead to a belief which is actually false, then it, by definition, was not a sufficient justification.
Quoting Michael
Yes (barring my concerns above about the use of 'sufficiently reasonable' in cases where p turns out to be false). Pretty much how I opened when I talked about the role of the beliefs of the community in establishing the truth of "John is a bachelor". But you insisted that...
Quoting Michael
...hence I'm struggling to understand how this new definition fits in with your approach. In this new definition it has everything to do with what I believe and what the beliefs of the language community - those are literally the only measures you're using.
Outside my wheelhouse I'm afraid. I believe there was some overlap, but it'd be the blind leading the blind if we tried to see how it might impact belief independent truths. Might make an interesting thread though.
And the JTB definition is saying something like "you need a whiskey cup and a teacup" and your responses are saying something like "this is redundant, it's actually just saying 'you need a cup'".
Quoting Isaac
No it isn't. If you tell me that your name is Isaac and show me what looks to me to be a valid driving license that says that your name is Isaac then my belief that your name is Isaac is sufficiently reasonable given the evidence I have. But unknown to me you lied to me and showed me a fake ID. My belief is false. I have a reasonable, albeit false, belief.
To re-quote something you quoted earlier:
The above definition of a justified belief is one that can allow for justified false beliefs. Justification, according to the JTB definition, doesn't require certainty. Justifications can be fallible.
If you want to argue that a justified belief must be infallible then you have a very different understanding of knowledge; one that entails that we lack much knowledge that we erroneously believe we have, as very little in life is certain (maths only perhaps?).
Quoting Isaac
Quoting Michael
Quoting Isaac
I was responding to this:
Quoting Isaac
I was saying that the third condition has nothing to do with what I or the language community believes (although specifically I was referring to the general form "S knows a fact iff the fact is as S justifiably believes it to be", which obviously at least has something to do with what S believes).
In fact, you now agree with me on this point (although you seem to have lost your previous understanding of having "good strong justifications for believing so"). Instead you interpret 3 as "a community of epistemic peers with access to every conceivable technology would believe that it is raining were they to comprehensively test the hypothesis that it is raining." This is of course very different to what I or the language community believe in practice.
Yes, that's right (with my little addition). Knowledge doesn't require a whiskey cup and a teacup, it just requires a good enough cup.
Quoting Michael
Well then the fact that I can lie and show you a fake ID makes your having taken my word and examined my ID insufficient. Otherwise what could 'sufficient' possibly mean? Sufficient for what? It's obviously not sufficient for the job at hand (establishing the truth), so what is it you're claiming it's sufficient at?
Quoting Michael
But it's not very different at all. "What the language community believes" and "what a community of epistemic peers come to believe after having exhausted their stock of conceivable tests", are very often almost exactly the same thing.
The 'community of language users' is more often than not a community of epistemic peers (in all but the advanced sciences), and in a large number of matters it doesn't take long to exhaust all conceivable tests (within the context of the sort of knowledge claim we're interested in).
Again, we're talking about an actual word here that people use in real language games. So "this table is solid" - well, it's apparently not, if you test it with techniques of advanced scientific understanding, but that's not the meaning of the claim. The meaning is something entirely more mundane than the 'true' solidity of the table. The claim is about solidity in the ordinary sense. It really doesn't require much exhaustive testing to establish this 'ordinary sense' of solidity, so the beliefs of the language community and the beliefs of a community of epistemic peers who've exhausted all conceivable tests are more often than not one and the same, for certain types of common claim.
The below is the claim of yours that I have been arguing against:
Quoting Isaac
It is. There is a difference between "S's belief that p is sufficiently reasonable given the actual evidence that S considered when forming his belief that p" and "A community of epistemic peers with access to every conceivable technology would believe that p were they to comprehensively test the hypothesis that p".
Even if you want to argue that they are both types of justification, it is still the case that they are different things (of the same type), and that the JTB definition requires both of them.
I need you to first understand this before we can discuss whether or not the JTB definition is correct.
Quoting Isaac
Im not saying that one's reasoning must be sufficient to prove one's belief, only that one's reasoning must be sufficient for it to be rational to form one's belief. It is rational for me to believe that your name is Tommy if you tell me that your name is Tommy and show me what seems to me to be a valid government-issued ID that shows your name to be Tommy but it isn't rational for me to believe that your name is Tommy if I see you wearing a Tommy Hilfiger T-shirt.
One way to understand this distinction is to adopt the process reliabilist's position that a justified belief is one that is formed by a cognitive process which tends to produce a high proportion of true beliefs relative to false ones, and an unjustified belief is one that is formed by a cognitive process which doesn't produce a high proportion of true beliefs relative to false ones. Although I'm sure there are other ways to make sense of the distinction between a justified and an unjustified belief.
Quoting Isaac
Whether or not they very often share a belief has no bearing on whether or not they mean the same thing. At this point we're arguing over what each condition of the JTB definition means.
And how can you know that they are often almost exactly the same thing? Given that there isn't a community of epistemic peers that has access to every conceivable technology and has comprehensively tested some hypothesis there are no results to compare with what the language community actually believes.
Quoting Isaac
And how does this track with what you're now saying about truth? We just use the word "true" when we believe something, but you've recently been arguing that truth is what a community of epistemic peers that has access to every conceivable technology would believe were they to comprehensively test the hypothesis. Your definition of truth has gone far beyond the actual occasions of the word's use. Would you like to backtrack and say that the truth just is what each person believes with conviction, or would you like to admit that your interpretation of meaning is an oversimplification?
Sufficient to warrant Michael's belief. Michael, btw, is not a community.
Quoting Isaac
That is not the task at hand; it cannot be. Michael can't establish Isaacian truth, because Michael is not a community of epistemic peers. Michael is just an individual in a community. Furthermore, what is a community belief in the first place, if not the aggregation of individual beliefs?
Quoting Isaac
Regarding that, Dr. Richard Kimble did not murder his wife.
Yes, well, you have me there. As I said - look hard enough and you'll find that mistake you're searching for. I've been arguing that they are of no different kind (and as such not subject to Gettier's complaint). That particular expression there appears to say that they are no different at all, which is clearly wrong. What now? Do I fall on my sword?
Quoting Michael
No, this doesn't work. The difference is one of degree. There's no 'both of them' it makes no sense. There are only justifications of better or worse degree. Knowledge requires a justification held by the subject, and a justification meeting a very high threshold held by the language community. Since the subject is also a part of the language community, these are very often one and the same. Justifications are multifarious and scalar. JTB has them (even assuming a pragmatic definition of 'truth') as of two kinds and binomial.
Quoting Michael
This just kicks the can. What is it to be sufficient to rationally form a belief? If you know that I can lie and fake my ID then on what grounds is it sufficient to form a rational belief about my identity from only my spoken word and an unexamined ID? It's clearly flawed.
Quoting Michael
In what way do we have access to the cognitive process used? EEG, fMRI? I can assure you neither will be of any use. I've used both and neither indicate anything more than a strong indication that our cognition is actually a post hoc process made after the models describing the belief have already sent their various signals to the cortices determining action. I'm not sure where you'd look to find this 'process'.
Quoting Michael
But there is (or at least, that's my claim). For most ordinary language claims, the matter being discussed is ordinary (something we establish by touch, sight, smell - everyday stuff). For this category there is indeed an epistemic community who have exhausted all relevant tests. A tree's a tree because everyone agrees it's a tree. If it feels like a tree, looks like a tree, behaves like a tree...it's a tree. Because the language community have defined 'tree' as something which feels, looks and behaves like that. There's no God-written encyclopedia we can look stuff up in to find out what it really, really is.
Quoting Michael
We=a community of epistemic peers that has access to every conceivable technology would believe were they to comprehensively test the hypothesis - in most cases of ordinary language object recognition - cases such as 'it's raining'.
In advanced science, this is less the case, the community of peers is smaller, you're less likely to be in ti, and the tests are sufficiently advanced that there may well be conceivable, relevant ones which have not been carried out. Historical events are another example. Note in these two cases how rarely we use the word knowledge, in place using the term hypothesis, theory or opinion.
Quoting Michael
I've never denied that, having consistently argued that meaning is contextual, including the meaning of 'true'. Your persistence in trying to pin me down to only one meaning notwithstanding.
As above, this just kicks the can, doesn't answer the question of what 'sufficient' means here.
Quoting InPitzotl
I don't know what a community belief could be if not the aggregation of individual beliefs.
Quoting InPitzotl
If I recall he was exonerated. The community carried out one of their conceivable tests (assuming you're talking about Sam Sheppard in reality - otherwise, your point is not at all clear)
JTB definition of truth:
S knows P IFF
1. P is true
2. P is justified
3. S believes P
How do we know P is true? I know you've tried to explain your position on the matter but what I'm having difficulty with is the implicit assumption in stating 1 separately that there's another (not justification, 2) method to decide whether a proposition is true/not. What is this method? How does it differ from justification (2)?
Except that's not what you've been saying. You've been saying that the truth is what a community of epistemic peers with access to every conceivable technology would believe were they to comprehensively test a hypothesis.
There is a very big difference between the actual reason that I have for believing what I do and a hypothetical belief that a hypothetical group have in some hypothetical scenario.
One difference is that the first is about why I believe what I do and the second is about what they believe. The why is not the what. Another difference is that the first is about something factual and the second about something counterfactual. Another difference is that the first is always accessible and the second can be inaccessible (as you agreed with before, accepting that we can be wrong).
Quoting Isaac
Of course it's flawed. One's reasoning can be fallible. That's how we can be wrong. That's why the common understanding of knowledge is that it's justified true belief, and not simply certain belief (which would have the reasoning entail the truth, and so only two conditions required). You've accepted before that we can be wrong, and so you understand that the reason we have for believing what we do does not entail the truth.
And surely you understand the difference between good reasons for believing something and bad reasons for believing something? You seemed to understand this before when you said "'[It is raining]' might mean something more akin to 'I believe it's raining, and I've good strong justifications for believing so'". What did you mean by the justifications being good and strong? Were you saying that the reason you believe that it is raining necessarily entails that it is raining - that you can't possibly be wrong? I don't think you were.
And do you really want to argue that I'm not justified in believing any of my friends' names because it's possible that they lied to me and have fake IDs?
Quoting Isaac
I'm alone in my room right now. A community of epistemic peers has never been here to exhaustively test any hypothesis. The truth of "there is a desk next to the bed" has nothing to do with what the language community believes about my room. But there is a truth. Either there is or there isn't a desk next to my bed.
Quoting Michael
Quoting Isaac
This doesn't answer my question at all. You have defined the truth as "what a community of epistemic peers that has access to every conceivable technology would believe were they to comprehensively test the hypothesis". We each use the word "true" when we believe something to be the case. If the meaning of a word is to be found just in the actual occasions of its use then how have you come to define truth in such a complicated, counterfactual way?
Quoting Isaac
And how about the meaning of "knowledge"? If it's possible that an ordinary language approach would have us interpret "it is true that it is raining" and "I believe that it is raining" as meaning the same thing, but that a deeper analysis of the word "true" would have us define "truth" as "what a community of epistemic peers who have access to every conceivable technology would believe were they to comprehensively test a hypothesis" then it's possible that even if an ordinary language approach would have us interpret "I know that it is raining" and "I believe that it is raining" as meaning the same thing, a deeper analysis of the word "know" would have us define "knowledge" as "a well-reasoned belief that corresponds to the facts".
Quoting Isaac
I don't know why you're wording this as if I'm doing something wrong by pointing out the inconsistencies in your arguments. It is entirely proper for me to do so.
We don't need to first know that each of the three conditions are satisfied for us to then have knowledge (that's impossible in principle, we require knowledge to have knowledge?) It is just enough that they are satisfied. And if they are satisfied then it follows that we know P is true.
Note that the JTB definition isn't:
S knows that P iff:
1. S knows that P is true
2. S knows that P is justified
3. S knows that S believes P
How is "P is true" satisfied?
Depends on what P is. If it's "it is raining" then it's satisfied if the physical events in the atmosphere (that happen regardless of our beliefs) are such that there are clouds releasing water.
You mean to say each case of knowledge has its own satisfying conditions? In other words, knowledge is undefined?
Plus, can you go into detail as to how "physical events in the atmosphere"satisfy the proposition "it is raining"? Mind you, no justification/logic is allowed.
Yes. The thing that makes "it is raining" true isn't the same thing that makes "it is sunny" true. That should be obvious.
Quoting Agent Smith
No. Defining it as "P is true" is sufficient.
Quoting Agent Smith
Why would I need to? As an English speaker you know what "it is raining" means, you know what "it is sunny" means, and you know that they mean different things. And unless you want to argue for something like idealism then you should understand that whether or not it is raining or sunny has nothing to do with what I actually believe. The weather is something that happens outside my head and without my involvement.
No, no. Not that kinda difference. I mean in terms of a methodology (a rule).
Quoting Michael
I'm sorry, I don't understand. What do you mean? P is knowledge if P is true? No one has to believe P and nor is there a need to justify P? Discover knowledge! :chin: How does one know that if P is knowledge, P is true?
Quoting Michael
For me, pleeaaase.
I don't know what you mean by a methodology.
To say that "it is raining" is true is to say that it is raining, and it is raining if there are clouds and water is falling from them.
To say that "it is sunny" is true is to say that it is sunny, and it is sunny if the sun is visible in the sky.
That's all there is to it.
Quoting Agent Smith
I don't know what you're asking.
Never mind!
Quoting Isaac
I think you have this backwards. According to Isaacian theory of truth, truth is determined by community beliefs. If truth is determined by community beliefs, and community beliefs are an aggregation of individual beliefs, then truth has as a prerequisite individual beliefs. So regarding the question of how individuals should form beliefs, it is you, sir, who is kicking the can; because according to your theory of truth, it is categorically impossible.
Quoting Isaac
No, I'm not talking about Sam Sheppard in real life; fiction uses language as well. One of the key differences actually makes fictive works more relevant--fictive works can establish in-universe truths canonically. Our eponymous fugitive is such precisely because a community of epistemic peers formally declared him such... a fact that conflicts with his canonical innocence. IOW, I'm directly challenging your notion that you're correctly describing folk theories of truth. It is indeed the case that Dr. Richard Kimble was eventually exonerated, but that was not a fictive guarantee. The folk concept is that people can be in such situations, be formally fugitives, and yet be innocent, if the state of affairs is such that they did not in fact commit the murder... the peers don't define the truth, the state of affairs does (R murdered W is impossible if the state of affairs is such that R did not kill W, regardless of what a community of peers says).
Quoting Agent Smith
Quoting Agent Smith
That's a (B) question, so it has a (B) answer.
Quoting Agent Smith
JTB makes no such assumption, even implicitly.
In the case of P="It's raining", it is rain clouds that do the raining, not us; that is, we do not establish P's truth, the weather does. The T condition of JTB, which can be phrased that S does not know P if ~P, is simply saying that S cannot know it's raining if the weather isn't doing that. In the JTB model, the T condition is met independently from what humans believe; this is allowed given the presumption of realism.
Deciding whether P is true or not is what humans do. The method by which humans do that in the JTB model is by applying justification.
So to summarize these two points, P being true is independent of what humans might believe. P's truth is established meteorologically, not that the weather cares about whether it's raining, but rather that it's only the weather's raining that makes P true or lack of raining that makes P false. Discerning whether P is true or not is a human affair; and that is done through J. The T condition of JTB is simply stating that we cannot claim S knows it's raining if the weather isn't doing what we mean by raining.
It's obvious that thinking is involved. Can you describe, in detail if possible, the actual ratiocination involved?
I'm not sure I understand your question. When you claim that it's obvious that thinking is involved, to what are you referring? If you're referring to "...in the formation of truth", this is contradicted by the presumption of realism (which would hold that the states of affairs that we talk about have a nature that is independent of whether humans are thinking of them). P="It's raining" would just exemplify this; and the previous post just elaborated on the view. The weather, not humans thinking about the weather, makes P true.
Argh! The meaning of words is different in different contexts. I just don't know what more I can do to get this seemingly simple notion across to you (even if you don't agree with it, you seem to keep acting as if I hadn't even mentioned it). 'Truth' in one context might mean "what a community of epistemic peers that has access to every conceivable technology would believe were they to comprehensively test the hypothesis", in another it might simply mean "everyone agrees with me", or "I'm really, really sure about this".
You keep comparing my use in one context with my use in another.
Quoting Michael
You're just assuming correspodence again. It's not 'what they believe', it's what the speaker believes they believe.
Two justifications for a belief "it's raining"...
1) My head's wet.
2) My epistemic peers have done some exhaustive testing and agree that water is falling from clouds.
Both are of the form "I believe that...", I don't have unfiltered, infallible access to either. (1) is good enough for most purposes, but with (2) the speaker might say "I know that it's raining - their justification is sufficient to use the term.
For a third party, it's different (different context, different meaning). Here it's the observer's belief about what their epistemic community have concluded that matter, but the subject's justifications. Here, I'd agree they're of different sorts.
Quoting Michael
No. Not in the least. That's why I'm asking for you to explain it to me. I understand reasons can be better or worse, but I've no idea how you might (in your scheme), go about putting all reasons into one of two bins, those that are 'good', and those that are 'bad'.
Quoting Michael
No. For me, in that context, 'good and strong' just means that I'm confident enough that other people around me will reach the same conclusion. If you say, "I'm going out", and I say, "you'll need a hat, it's raining". I'm confident that's what you'll think too when you go out, so I'm not going to treat it as a subjective opinion, but an objective state of the world we share. With more doubt I might say "I believe it's raining, emphasising that I don't have the sort of justification I expect you to share.
As I said right at the beginning, the difference in use mainly has to do with the expectation that others (epistemic peers usually) will share my belief. "I know" means that I think other will share my belief, "John knows" means I think others will share my belief - which is the same as John's. "I thought I knew, but turns out I didn't" means I though my epistemic peers would agree, but turns out they don't/wouldn't. And so on...
Quoting Michael
Again, you're assuming there's two bins 'justified' and 'not justified'. No-one behaves that way outside of these types of academic discussion. Your belief in your friend's names is justified enough for some uses, but insufficiently justified for others.
Quoting Michael
That's juts you re-asserting your original claim. I disagree. We've gone through this - you can't just argue by assertion, it doesn't lead anywhere. Why do you believe that to be the case - on what grounds do you claim that "The truth of "there is a desk next to the bed"" is determined by "Either there is or there isn't a desk next to my bed"? You're just asserting a correspondence theory of truth. There are other theories of truth, it's insufficient, then, to just assert one of them is the case.
Quoting Michael
...in one example...
Quoting Michael
Because those seem to me to be the actual occasions of it's use, obviously. Again, that they don't seem to you to be doesn't alone constitute an argument that they aren't, we need to build from shared beliefs to reach any conclusions. If all we're going to do is assert contrary positions there's little point in continuing is there?
Quoting Michael
Possible, yes. But you're assuming your 'ordinary understanding' is shared universality. And your assumption is so strong that you've even determined to take the line that I 'm lying here and don't really believe what I say I do. It isn't. People really do believe different things. they really do reach different conclusion from the same evidence. Your 'deeper analysis' is was seems superficially obvious to some, your 'ordinary use' is what seems detached and academic to others. To me, understanding truth as "what a community of epistemic peers who have access to every conceivable technology would believe were they to comprehensively test a hypothesis" (in some uses) doesn't seem at all 'a deeper analysis' it seems the obvious ordinary use of the word (in those cases).
To me, if someone says "I didn't take the last slice slice of cake" and I say "nonsense, you're lying ", they say "no, it's true!", their meaning seem absolutely transparent to me. It means 'believe me!'
Quoting Michael
Because there's two paths. (1) I've made a mistake - you can ask for clarification or suggest that I might have done so, or (2) I've no idea what I'm talking about and keep irrationally changing my opinion. (1) is the most charitable, you're repeatedly choosing (2) seems odd in the circumstances (a discussion forum). If you're not interested in what I actually believe about this, then why are you here? Is it very important to you that I retreat, tail-between-legs, for some reason? I could understand that in an ethical or political discussion - there might be some import to 'winning', but in an academic one...? If you've no incentive to actually find out what I really mean, I'm unclear as to what the purpose of this discussion is.
Quoting InPitzotl
Well then I'm afraid I have no idea what point you're making. What you've said doesn't seem related to what I'm arguing in the slightest.
We are talking specifically about its meaning in the context of the JTB definition of knowledge. For me to know that there is a desk next to my bed I must believe that there is a desk next to my bed, I must have a good reason for believing that there is a desk next to my bed, and it must be true that there is a desk next to my bed.
What does it mean for "there is a desk next to my bed" to be true? Clearly it can't mean that the language community believes that there is a desk next to my bed because the language community doesn't believe anything about there being or not being a desk next to my bed, and yet either "there is a desk next to my bed" is true or it isn't. And it can't mean that I believe that there is a desk next to my bed because I can be wrong.
You can make sense of this by explaining that "there is a desk next to my bed" is true iff a community of epistemic peers with access to every conceivable technology would believe that there is a desk next to my bed if they were to comprehensively test the hypothesis that there is a desk next to my bed, but then you would have to admit that this (the T) is a very different thing to the actual reason why I believe what I do about there being a desk next to my bed and whether or not this actual reason is a good one (the J), and so you must admit that the T and the J in the JTB definition are different conditions (as you finally admitted to here).
And after you have admitted that the T and the J in the JTB definition are different conditions you must either accept that both are required for me to know that there is a desk next to my bed or you must explain which (if either) is sufficient.
Can I know that there is a desk next to my bed if "there is a desk next to my bed" is false? I say that I can't. I can only know that there is a desk next to my bed if there is a desk next to my bed.
Can I know that there is a desk next to my bed if I have no good reason for believing that there is a desk next to my bed? I say that I can't. I can only know that there is a desk next to my bed if I have a good reason for believing so, otherwise it's just a lucky guess.
Quoting Isaac
And to me and most others, understanding knowledge as requiring a justified true belief seems the obvious ordinary use of the word.
OK, that'll do now. It's no use flogging a dead horse. If you can't even bring yourself to acknowledge (even for that sake of argument) that the same expressions can mean different things in different contexts, then I can't possible explain my preferred model to you. It's like trying to explain atomic theory to someone who refuses to acknowledge that atoms could, even in theory, exist, it just can't be done
I think what's happening is that you start by arguing that the truth is what someone believes, I prove that wrong, you try to save your position by saying that you really mean that the truth is what the language community believes, I prove that wrong, you try to save your position by saying that you really mean that the truth is what a community of epistemic peers would believe were they to comprehensively test some hypothesis, I prove that this entails that truth and justification are distinct and both required for knowledge, and so you circle back to saying that the truth is what the language community believes.
See above.
'True' means different things in different contexts.
'Know' means different things in different contexts.
'Actually' means different things in different contexts.
'Fact' means different things in different contexts.
and so on...
You keep asking in one context, then when you bring up a different context claim that I'm being inconsistent, despite me explaining every time that these words have different meanings in different contexts.
Quoting Isaac
I'll remind you of something I said at the very start of our discussion:
Quoting Michael
In practice people just use the phrases "it is true that it is raining" and "I believe that it's raining" interchangeably but in the abstract we understand the meaning of "it is true that it is raining" as something like "a community of epistemic peers with access to every conceivable technology would believe that it is raining were they to comprehensively test the hypothesis that it is raining".
And to repeat something I said yesterday:
Quoting Michael
Even if in practice people just use the phrases "I know that it's raining" and "I believe that it's raining" interchangeably, when asked to consider it in the abstract we will admit that our beliefs can be wrong and that if our belief is wrong then we don't have knowledge, and so understand the meaning of "I know that it's raining" as something like "I am justified in believing that it's raining and my belief is true".
From the beginning I have accepted that the meaning of words can be interpreted differently in different contexts. But I don't think this is what is happening here. You're just changing your argument when its flaws are exposed. And depending on what day it is, your argument is that there’s nothing more to the truth than what I believe, and so if I believe that your argument is flawed then your argument is flawed.
Argument:
Quoting Isaac
Counter: In the ordinary sense (of folk language games, of the type we would play when we say "the table is solid"), "R murdered W" can only be true if the state of affairs is such that R murdered W, regardless of what a community of peers agrees on.
Quoting InPitzotl
I'm not sure you understand what you're arguing. Here was your claim:
Quoting Isaac
...and this is what you just said:
Quoting Isaac
The underlined already concedes the point as far as JTB is concerned; "good enough for most purposes" and "sufficient to warrant belief" mean the same thing. So what, then, are you arguing Isaac?
Counter: In the ordinary sense (of folk language games, of the type we would play when we say "the table is solid"), "R murdered W" [s]can[/s] need not only be true if the state of affairs is such that R murdered W, regardless of what a community of peers agrees on.
See just repeating an assertion about what you believe to be the case doesn't constitute a counter, I'm already quite clear on what you think is the case. Either find some common ground from which to build up to your position or walk away shaking your head at my heterdoxy. Just repeating your opinion over and over doesn't get us anywhere.
Quoting InPitzotl
The first was a long exchange following on from the example of using tarot cards, the second was about warning a companion about the weather. Two different contexts. Of course the criteria for sufficiency are going to be different in each.
Quoting InPitzotl
I'm arguing that both 'know' and 'true' have different meanings in different contexts and as such JTB has no special claim to be a definition of 'knowledge'. Further, that issues like Gettier problems are best resolved by other definitions of knowledge.
In the ordinary sense (of folk language games, of the type we would play when we say "the table is solid"), "R murdered W" can only be true if the state of affairs is such that R [s]murdered[/s] killed W, regardless of what a community of peers agrees on.
This was the intended point; a murder versus a killing is partially socially determined and thus is not a matter of state of affairs (in the relevant sense), though a murder requires a killing.
Quoting Isaac
Good idea. I'll start attempting to do that multiple posts ago. However, finding common grounds is strictly not in my control; it critically requires your cooperation.
Quoting Isaac
You're losing focus. You replied to a post of mine that explicitly quoted this:
Quoting Isaac
Counters are not just arguments... they are more critically points being made, with said points challenging some previously made point; without these two aspects the argument isn't even relevant. It is precisely these more critical factors that were in question in the quote above.
So, assuming you are cooperative in finding common ground, it is premature to discuss the argument... we must first establish that this is making a point ("I have no idea what point you're making") and that it is challenging what you're arguing ("What you've said doesn't seem related to what I'm arguing in the slightest").
Quoting Isaac
That would be this?:
Quoting Michael
Quoting Isaac
This is too vague; I have a possible match but you could be referring to other things, so I'm going to ask for specificity here.
Quoting Isaac
Sure.
Quoting Isaac
Okay. But I've heard nothing here challenging the notion of sufficient to warrant belief.
Quoting Isaac
It's up to you, but you may want to clarify this; there are readings where this is trivially true, readings where it is trivially false, and readings where you just got something wrong, and possibly other readings. I can only do my best to interpret what I think you mean by what you actually write. I don't think the trivially true or trivially false readings are consistent with what you have been arguing here, so I'm just going to take a stab at it based on what you previously wrote.
In particular, you brought up an example of two contexts applied to the proposition P="This table is solid"; an ordinary context, and a scientific one. By the reading I'm guessing at, you're arguing that P can be judged in these two contexts; by one, P is true. By the other, P is false. Since the truth of P differs in these contexts, you argue, there can be no T for P in the JTB model, and therefore, the JTB model fails. Does that sound right?
If so, it does not follow. You have a P in the ordinary sense, PO; and you have a P in the scientific sense, PS. PO is true. PS is false. Those are different truth values. But if PO and PS have different truth values, they cannot possibly be applying the same truth criteria. Since they have different truth criteria, they cannot possibly be the same proposition. So all that really follows is that a particular sentence can express different propositions in different senses/contexts.
Quoting Isaac
I'm sure the nod to bringing this back in line with the thread is appreciated, but it's a bit of a stretch. The issues that Gettier problems bring up related to the JTB model of knowledge are far removed from what you're arguing here.
Is math discovered or invented?
If math is discovered (knowledge), the B (belief) in the JTB definition of knowledge is an error.
If math is invented (knowledge), the T (true) in the JTB definition of knowledge loses significance.
Quoting Agent Smith
I don't see how either of those things follow.
If I discover a new route to work, I believe it to be a new route to work. Not even remotely a contradiction there, by any stretch I can imagine.
If I invent a new way to clean the snow off my roof, then it can certainly be true that that method can clean the snow off my roof. Again, not even remotely a contradiction there, by any stretch I can imagine.
Yeah, this is the point I thought you were making. If I agreed with it, I wouldn't bf making the point I'm making would I?
Quoting InPitzotl
But there's no challenge. You're just repeating a basic correspodence theory of truth. I don't hold to such a theory. As I said, you can either shake your head in disbelief or discuss the reasons why you hold to a correspondence theory, but as yet, all you've done is simply declare it to be the case as if I might have somehow missed the concept.
Quoting InPitzotl
The aim is not to challenge sufficiency of warrant, it's to say that it is, on occasion, no different from a pragmatic notion of truth, or a deflationary notion of truth.
Quoting InPitzotl
Again, this simply assumes a theory of truth (here a coherentist theory it seems). I don't hold to those theories of truth. Truth is not, for me, a property of propositions at all.
The cloth was not a cow. The farmer believed the cloth was a cow. All Gettier problems are accounting malpractices of an other's belief. Plain and simple. All of them.
You don't even understand the point (I can say that with the hindsight of reading your entire post... oh boy, is it broken). The point was an extension of this post:
Quoting InPitzotl
...your claim here is about how people use "an actual word" in real language games (referring to 3, the T condition of JTB). Here I'm offering rules of fiction as examples of how people use actual words in language games. By the way, this is the third indicator of such I've given in these interchanges.
Quoting Isaac
But you said this: "What you've said doesn't seem related to what I'm arguing in the slightest"
Quoting Isaac
Nope, not going to even start debating the meaning of the word "challenge" here. Just pretend I invented a shade of meaning of "challenge" relevant to your charge: "What you've said doesn't seem related to what I'm arguing in the slightest". Pretend it means related to what you're arguing in the slightest in just the right way such that if you agreed to it, you wouldn't be making the point you're making.
Quoting Isaac
Nope (see below).
Quoting Isaac
That's irrelevant to your claim: "we're talking about an actual word here that people use in real language games".
Quoting Isaac
Why I hold to this (but see below) theory is irrelevant here, because it's not the topic here. The topic here is "we're talking about an actual word here that people use in real language games".
Quoting Isaac
No, I have offered here as an indicator of how people use the actual word in real language games how they use the word in fictive language games. Also, this is the third indicator I have offered for how people use the word.
Quoting Isaac
Well, you are missing any support for something you keep claiming outside of 100% horse grade pretense, and any semblance whatsoever for any sort of falsibiability condition.
Quoting Isaac
As advertised, all it's doing is addressing a particular non-trivial reading of this:
Quoting Isaac
...and that's still ambiguous out the wazoo (and I directly invited you to rephrase it). The reading it addresses is one where your "This table is solid" being true in one sense and false in another "as such" suggests anything at all about the JTB theory of knowledge. Assuming JTB for this purpose is not problematic.
Incidentally:
Quoting Isaac
Quoting Isaac
In terms of what I've described, there's no difference between these two views. So why do you think it's a correspondence theory in the first quote and then suddenly a coherentist theory in another?
S (a person) knows P (a proposition) iff
1. S believes P
2. P is true
3. P is justified
When (1) S believes P it means, for S, P is true or S thinks P is true.
The JTB theory of knowledge:
S knows P iff
1. S thinks P is true
2. P is true
3. P is justified
The content of belief is propositional for the simple reason that only propositions can be true.
What I mean by that is that while I think we converge on what 'truth' is (stuff to do with the objective world out there and so on) we don't necessarily converge on what is 'true' is. It seems to me that 'true' smuggles in the fact that the speaker might be wrong in a way that 'truth' doesn't.
I think that is relevant for the idea that knowledge is JTB. That stands for 'justified true belief' not 'justified truth belief' after all!
Is the cost of this sort of idea too high? I wouldn't want to be accused of a certain sort of relativism where there is no truth for instance.
I certainly don't agree that the Gettier problem is solved by relativism about truth. I think that if relativism is true (which I don't accept) then the concept of knowledge is meaningless.
Gettier creates the problem by offering a justification based on a false belief. Which seems to me not a justification for anything - even if it is a reasonable belief. He combines this with a story that provides a truth-condition for the proposed knowledge quite independent of the justification. The result is a set of conditions that escape the definition. The story is not catered for by the definition. The mistake is to try and classify it as knowledge or not.
I think what I have said falls under the slogan "no false lemmas".
And its a feature of the stories that the main character doesn't know the full circumstances; I assume that is because if the main character knew the full circumstances, they would immediately recognize that their justification is not a justification and would then not even believe.
So although I agree with your conclusion, I don't agree with your diagnosis. Sorry.
I understand that Gettier is saying that they don't know, but those who are having the experience of seeing X, claim they know. Gettier is saying, they don't know, based on his examination of JTB. Again, Gettier is confused. You can't infer from someone's claim that they know, that they do indeed know, and that's what Gettier is doing. He's saying, see, their using JTB and it failed to give knowledge. He's conflating one's claim to knowledge with actually having knowledge. There's nothing difficult about this. That's my point.
The one thing everyone agrees on is that there is no knowledge here, so I wonder why you think there's a problem saying there is or isn't.
"No false lemmas" is discussed even on the Wikipedia page for the Gettier problem, in a section that begins with this amusing banner:
Also on the SEP, which says
Quoting SEP
That's at least some places to start if you're sympathetic to the "no false lemmas" response.
Quoting Sam26
This is not even in the ballpark of the Gettier problem.
For completeness, here's the IEP page on the Gettier problem.
I regard the "no false lemmas" condition as essentially correct. The criticisms are really around what counts as a lemma. But if one is to construct a Gettier case, it requires the failed knowledge to depend in some relevant way on something false.
To take the robot dog example from SEP, James thought he observed a dog and consequently concluded that there is a dog in the field. His conclusion was correct, and justified, but not knowledge because the lemma that he observed a dog was false. He in fact didn't.
The SEP analysis frames it as observing an "apparent" dog, which is why they think it's a counterexample to the "no false lemmas" condition.
If justification and truth run on separate tracks, then justification can sometimes lead, quite reasonably, to falsehood, just as we can sometimes hold true beliefs by luck. (Lotteries provide the clearest examples for both: you can pick the winning number, without justification, and you can only be justified in believing that you didn't, given the odds, but you can't know it.)
"No false lemmas," by stipulating their conjunction, doesn't really address the main issue: either the true, justified lemma is knowledge, or it should face a Gettier case of its own — that is, you will be lucky that your premise is true. (If it's knowledge, then we've taken a step toward Williamson's E = K, the idea that rational beliefs are based on knowledge; but to claim that knowledge must be based on knowledge is either empty — because of course we'll take valid inference to be knowledge-preserving — or circular. If there's a third option, it's pretty subtle, but maybe there is.)
I'll admit, though, that it does seem to help. In Russell's example, checking the time from a clock that's stopped, had you looked a minute earlier or later, you would have formed a false belief, so you were lucky to have looked when you did. Now suppose that the clock was working and had the correct time, but stopped right after you looked; now I think we want to say you do have knowledge even though a minute later you would have formed a false belief. You were genuinely lucky in looking while the clock was still such that it was knowledge imparting.
So what's changed? If you look a minute later, we're exactly in Russell's scenario; a minute earlier, and you're fine. What if we compress things: suppose the clock stopped this time yesterday, briefly surges into life as you approach, just long enough to tell the right time for a minute or so, and then fails again. Now your window of luck is a range of a minute or so — too early or too late is still Russell, but for a brief span, the clock is knowledge imparting. Does that sound right? It sounds a bit dodgier now; you have been nearly as lucky as in Russell's scenario. The clock starting again feels wrong; had it started a minute earlier it would carry on being ahead until it failed, later and it would remain behind. What's missing is the clock actually being set; if a worker had just gotten the clock to work, and set the right time, you would again be acceptably lucky to look while it's keeping the correct time, even if it only did so for a minute before the worker cursed and set to work again.
To say that the clock has been set properly is to say that the time it displays is not only true, but justified, I suppose. But we can keep pushing the problem of luck back into these ceteris paribus conditions, which will grow without bound. Was the worker going by his own watch? What if his watch only happened to have the correct time? We're either going to continue demanding that truth and justification stay conjoined, or we're going to allow them to separate at some point, and that's the point at which Gettier will take hold.
Perhaps though what we're seeing here is that Gettier is the inevitable result of treating beliefs as atomic, and that the revenge cases are indicating that our beliefs never confront reality singly but as a whole, the Quinean view, I guess.
I'm sorry I wasn't very clear. Some people think that there is no knowledge in Gettier cases, but that there is justified true belief. Hence they conclude that the JTB definition is inadequate. Others, like me, think that the JTB is correct, (subject to some caveats). They think that if there is no knowledge, there cannot be justified true belief. The question comes down to whether the main character's belief is justified or not; the stories create situations in which it isn't possible to give a straight answer. Or that's my view.
I was aware that not everyone agrees with "no false lemmas". I confess that I don't know what the full definition of a lemma would be so I'm not in a position to argue with them. For the sake of brevity, I ignored them. The "apparent dog" is not an impressive counter-example. An apparent dog is not a dog. One might argue that a robot dog is a kind of dog, but that would blow the point of the story, so we don't need to worry about that.
I think that's a pretty common reaction. "No false lemmas" can itself be taken as meaning that the belief in question wasn't really knowledge because it wasn't really justified, or as a fourth condition, separate from justification.
I find the whole approach suspect, as I think justification belongs with rational belief formation, where it's perfectly natural to consider the support offered by evidence as probabilistic, and the beliefs derived as partial. That leaves knowledge nowhere (as some would have it) or as a separate mental state, not belief that's really really justified.
But I'm open to argument that JTB-NFL can be made to work.
Yes.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I think it's a reasonable view that the lemma be knowledge (which admittedly is a higher standard than simply truth), but it does need to be contextualized. That is, what counts as knowledge depends on the relevant standard in the particular context.
So the lottery example makes a particular set of possibilities salient. The belief that one will lose is justified in one sense (i.e., highly likely to be correct), but not another (i.e., it's not a valid inference). But it's worth noting that there are other less obvious ways things can go wrong (or right). Maybe Alice bought all the tickets, but then the lottery was cancelled. Or maybe Bob bribes someone and "wins" on that basis.
It's like the the coin flip that is purportedly 50/50 odds of heads or tails, but instead lands on its edge.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Yes, that's exactly the issue as I see it. More below.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Yes. So I think what is important here is context. In one sense every part of the world connects to every other part however you carve it up, even if only indirectly. But it's not very useful that we should have to account for everything in order to know anything at all. So we take a slice that is, in some practical and reasonable sense, separable and that is what justification applies to. That might mean keeping all possibilities of a lottery together as inseparable (since they are salient), but not all the ways a clock can go wrong. However, if one focuses on that aspect, as you have done above, then the boundaries of what counts may move or be contestable, at least for the moment. But they will probably move back again when one's focus changes to something else. Consider the coin toss example above. We don't want to miss the forest for the trees by over-analyzing it. (Though experience also counts here - we don't want to continually have financial crises, wars and pandemics and have everyone always say, "Well, who could've known?". They aren't black swans.)
So a particular belief may or may not be justified, depending on where one sets the contextual boundaries. But the clock time is either correct or not independent of those standards. That is, truth keeps us connected to the world and keeps us honest.
It's not clear to me that a knowledge-first view especially helps with these issues. There's still the question of whether you knew the time or not, and what counts as evidence.
A lemma, here, is a premise of one's purported knowledge. So the stated premise in the case of the robot dog was that James had observed an apparent dog. Framed that way, it's a true premise, so avoids the "no false lemmas" condition. However I think that framing is problematic and agree that it's not an impressive counter-example.
Okay, so long as...
P need not be true in order for it to be believed. The phrase "for S, P is true" conflates truth and belief. There are plenty of cases when/where S can believe P, but P be false. Belief is necessary but insufficient for well-grounded true belief. Truth is necessary and insufficient for well grounded true belief. Justification follows suit if, being justified requires being argued for. If justification requires putting one's reasons into words in a manner which somehow dovetails with current conventional rules governing the practice; well then, we cannot possibly account for well grounded true belief that emerges prior to the complex language use necessary for becoming a successful practitioner of justification endeavors..
Toddlers cannot do that, yet they can certainly know when some statement is false on its face. They can know right away that what was said to be the case was not the case, despite their complete incompetence to put that into words.
A twenty-seven month old child knew when "Thur's nuthin in thur for yew!" was false despite the fact that they she was uncapable of uttering it or her reasons for not believing it. She knew that that claim was false because she knew that there were things in there. She opened the door and demonstrated her knowledge to each and every individual in the room. Not all that uncommon an occurrence, I would think.
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The problem with JTB that Gettier called attention to was not a problem with well-grounded true belief at all. It was and remains a problem with the so-salled 'rules' of logical entailment. They permitted Edmund to change Smith's belief from being about himself to being about someone else. It is when we forget that that we fall into error.
While it may be true that "the man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job" is entailed by "I have ten coins in my pocket, and I'm going to get the job", it is most certainly impossible for Smith to believe that anyone else will get the job.
FULL STOP.
FULL STOP.
Why, again, is it an acceptable thing to do? We employ the rules of entailment, completely change Smith's beliefs from false ones to true ones, and then somehow think that this is all acceptable?
I’ve read all your posts and I think you’ll find replies or reactions in what follows.
I would like to explain why I said that the mistake is to answer the question.
Faced with a problem like this one, it can be helpful to look at things from a fresh perspective. That can be achieved here by putting oneself in the place of the subject and considering the situation, not so much from the question whether it counts as knowledge or not but considering the related question “was I right or not”.
Take the Gettier case at the beginning of this thread:-
Quoting TheMadFool
If you know that you didn't see a cow, but just a cowishly shaped rag, you will withdraw your claim that there's a cow in the field. But you will notice that there is a cow in the field, but that you couldn’t have seen it. So you were right, but for the wrong reasons. If it had been a bet, you would have won it. But it is precisely to differentiate winning a bet from knowing that the J clause was invented. So it is clearly not knowledge or even justified true belief because the J clause fails.
Now, Gettier stipulates that it is possible for one to be justified in believing that p even when p is false. This opens the door to his counter-examples, but I am reluctant to find fault with it.
However, there is a problem with the next step. He further stipulates that if one believes that p and if p entails q, one is entitled to deduce that q and believe it. He does not say that it is sufficient to believe that p entails q. Hence, even though we must accept the belief that p, if it asserted by S, we must agree that p entails q, if the justification is to be valid. Assuming that we are not talking about the truth-functional definition of implication, it is clear that even if p does entail q, one is not entitled to deduce q if p is false. So the cases all fail.
Russell’s clock is not a classic Gettier problem (and Russell himself treats as a simple case of true belief which is not knowledge). It raises the rather different problem, that we nearly always make assumptions which could be taken into account, but are ignored for one reason or another, or even for no particular reason. Sometimes these assumptions fail, and the result is awkward to classify. Jennifer Nagel calls this the Harman Vogel paradox.
The classic example is parking your car in the street to attend a meeting or party or whatever. If all goes well, you will be perfectly comfortable saying that you know that your car is safe. But suppose the question arises “Is your car safe? Are you sure it hasn’t been stolen?” You ignored that possibility when you parked, assuming that the area was safe. But perhaps you aren’t quite sure, after all. It is perfectly possible that my car will be stolen while I’ve left it. I do not know how to answer this. Our yearning for certainty, for which knowledge caters, collides with the practical need to take risks and live with uncertainty. One might point out that we take risks every time we assert something; if it goes wrong, we have to withdraw the assertion. But that is just a description of the situation, not a solution.
I think there may be something to be said for the knowledge-first view, but I haven’t done any detailed work on it. It might well be worth following up. It occurs to me that it would be much easier to teach the use of “know” to someone who didn’t know either “know” or “believe” than the other way round.
The J clause is a bit of a rag-bag and I’m not sure it is capable of a strict definition. But I’m not sure how much, if at all, that matters.
Russell's clock is another example of accounting malpractices in my view. The person believed that a stopped clock was working. That was the false belief. It is common to attribute something much different in the form of a proposition that they would agree to at the time(that clock is working). I think that that is a mistake when it comes to false belief.
It is humanly impossible to knowingly be mistaken(to knowingly hold false belief). The mistaken false belief is not in the form of a proposition that the person knowingly believes, such as one they would assent to if asked at the time. To quite the contrary, the belief is impossible for them to knowingly hold. It is only when they become aware of the fact that they were mistaken, that they once held false belief, that they will readily assent to such.
It is only after believing that a stopped clock was working and later becoming aware that the clock had stopped that it is possible to know that one had once believed that a stopped clock was working.
Believing that a cloth is a cow is not equivalent to believing that "a cloth is a cow" is true. The same holds good for "a broken clock is working".
Beliefs are not equivalent to propositional attitudes.
I agree that Quoting creativesoul
But I don't quite understand why you say it is humanly impossible. It seems to me self-contradictory to assert "I believe that p and it is not the case that p". It is equivalent to "p is true and p is false." (Moore's paradox, of course.)
And I don't understand what you mean when you say Quoting creativesoul I was under the impression that belief was one of the paradigmatic propositional attitudes.
Perhaps you are referring to your point that Quoting creativesoul It is true that sometimes people explicitly verbalize a belief, whether to themselves or others and sometimes they don't - and of course, animals believe things, but clearly don't verbalize them. But I don't understand why that makes any difference here.
This is just to deny one of Gettier's premises. And that's fine, of course, but on what grounds?
Gettier is deliberately pretty vague about justification so that his argument applies to various formulations in the literature. He describes the evidence his protagonist has, with the assumption that it's the sort of thing we would usually consider adequate to justify holding a belief. If it's not, in our view, adequate, then we ought to strengthen the evidence until it is.
I take it as obviously true that we can have very strong evidence for a proposition that is false, for the simple reason that evidence is mostly a matter of probability.
In the case at hand, we have a farmer looking out at a field, and he's probably used to the way a cow standing in the field catches just a bit of light so that it's an indistinct bright spot in the otherwise dark field. He's never known anything else to be in the field that had this effect, though obviously a great number of things, including the cloth that turns out to be there, could, so when he sees such an indistinct bright spot he thinks 'cow'. That seems to me a perfectly reasonable belief and he has probably formed a true belief on just such a basis thousands of times before.
There is obviously a gap between the evidence and his conclusion; that gap has never mattered before, but this time reality falls into that gap. C'est la vie. You find the gap too large to allow him to claim to know there is a cow in his field; the point of the Gettier problems is to ask how small the gap has to be before you are willing to allow such a knowledge claim. If there has to be no gap at all, then it's a little unclear how useful the idea of 'justification' is. We may believe inference from empirical evidence can approach demonstrative proof, but we don't generally believe it can actually reach it.
Wherever size gap you choose to accept, even in a single case, that's where your situation can be Gettierized. That's my read. Rational belief is the sort of thing you have evidence for, not knowledge.
I find Lewis's contextualism a pretty obscure doctrine, so I'm not ready to go there yet, and I have more reading to do before taking on contextualism in general. Your view seems to be some sort of hybrid, in which knowledge is still a sort of justified belief, but what counts as justification is context-dependent. (Usually contextualism passes right by justification.)
For this case, Lewis might say that until that fateful evening when the farmer mistook an old shirt for a cow, the possibility of something making the same sort of bright spot in the field as a cow does was irrelevant, but it's not irrelevant for us as the constructors of the hypothetical, so we have to refuse to attribute knowledge to him. But now what? Must the farmer forevermore wonder whether the bright spot is a cow or an old shirt? Because we know he was mistaken once? We might well ask, but Lewis specifically does not make such demands on the farmer, who either will or won't. This is a puzzling theory, that the less imaginative you are the more you know.
What does seem to be the kernel of truth in this story is that — atomism incoming — some states of affairs are relevant to the truth of a proposition P, and some aren't, and some states of affairs are relevant to your knowing that P, and some aren't.
One of the roles of knowledge is to raise our standards of knowledge. I mean cases like this: suppose my son and I haul out the air compressor to inflate his car's tires, and then he's to put the compressor away in the shed. If I later ask him if he got it squared away, his report amounts to a claim to know that he did, and we can itemize that report: he knows to coil up the extension cord; he knows to bleed the hose, else it's too stiff to coil up; he knows to switch off the outlet it's plugged into or unplug it; but does he know to bleed the pressure from the tank? Did I even show him how to do that? If he didn't bleed the tank, then he only believes he put it away properly, but he doesn't know he did because a step has been left out, something relevant to the truth of "I put away the compressor properly."
That sort of relevance analysis, or contextualism, if that's what it is, I'd endorse. It does mean that the more you know, the more cases of putative knowledge might be excluded, because the world is rich with half-assery. But that's nothing like Lewis's acceptance of knowledge going bad when doing epistemology; I'm not imagining that the tank should be bled, I know it. And so it is with those benighted contestants on Deal or No Deal who claim to know the million dollars is in their case: they know no such thing; I know that they don't know not because I'm more imaginative, but because I know how random choice works, and they apparently don't.
I don't think this adequately addresses the reasoning.
The reasoning is: if the belief that p is justified, and if p entails q, then the belief that q is justified.
For example, assume that I am justified in believing that my car is in the garage. If my car is in the garage then it entails that my car is not on the road. Therefore, I am justified in believing that my car is not on the road.
This seems a reasonable argument.
Quoting Michael
Yes, it is a reasonable argument. I didn’t pay attention to the point that if S is justified in believing that p, S is justified in asserting that p.
It’s not really a surprise that a blanket refutation like that doesn’t work. It would have been noticed long ago if there were such a thing.
But I do stand by my opinion that “S is justified in believing that p and p is false” is problematic. I’m still working this through, so I’ll say no more here.
It doesn’t rescue my argument, because in a Gettier case, the falsity of p is not known to S.
I stand by the observation that S is not the final authority whether p does entail q. So justification is not simply up to S’s say-so.
Which doesn’t rescue my argument either.
You raise the problem of certainty.
I see it this way. If we accept “S knows that p” when p is false, the concept of knowledge has lost what makes it distinct from belief, so I’m very reluctant to do that. Perhaps it sets a high bar to knowledge, almost certainly higher than everyday non-philosophical use would expect. It is not fatal. It just means that any claim to knowledge is open to revision unless and until certainty is achieved, (and it may never be). (And I’m using “certainty”, not in the sceptic’s sense, but in the sense that certainty is defined for each kind of proposition by the language-game in which it is embedded.) In normal life, we have to determine questions of truth and falsity as best we can, withdrawing mistaken beliefs when they appear. Final certainty as regulative ideal, not always achieved.
One may be justified in believing that p even if p is false. This opens the door to Gettier cases, no matter how stingy or generous the criteria are. The problems actually arise when S believes the right thing for the wrong, but justifiable, reasons.
How to respond? Well, my response to your farmer is 1) he thought he saw a cow, 2) he didn’t see a cow, 3) there was a cow. I observe that a) 1) and 3) are reasons for saying that he knew and that b) 2) is a reason for saying that he didn’t. I conclude that it is not proven that he knew, and that it is not proven that he didn’t, so I classify the case as unclassifiable.
Unclassifiability is not that uncommon, and there are various ways in ordinary language of dealing with it. Within philosophy, there is no appetite for abandoning the JTB (not even Gettier actually suggests that). There is no consensus agreement on what modification or addition to the JTB would resolve this (and anyway philosophers aren’t legislators except within their own discipline (or sub-discipline)). Perhaps the suggestion of treating “know” as primitive could help but failing that there is no solution.
I don’t know what you mean by “making JTB-NFL work”. But I think this is a description of the situation. If you have a better one, I would very much like to know it.
Yes, my view perhaps differs from Lewis' in that regard. In the case of the clock example, I know it's 3pm as long as I see that the clock says 3pm and the clock is working properly. Now if I was asked whether I knew that the clock definitely hadn't stopped 5 minutes ago, then I don't know that. But wouldn't it then follow that I don't know the time? [*]
My view is that different standards of justification are being applied here. I know the time according to a pragmatic standard (the clock was working and I looked). As Williamson notes, "Knowledge doesn’t require infallibility. What it requires is that, in the situation, you couldn't too easily have been mistaken."
The clock question switches the context and applies a higher standard (for the moment anyway). That is, I don't know that the clock didn't stop 5 minutes ago and so don't know the time per that higher standard. I assume it didn't, but that's not the same thing. But I'm also not merely assuming it's 3pm. I did look at the clock which is all that is ordinarily expected. (Though if our lives depended on getting the time correct in some context, more might be expected - thus raising the standard in that context.)
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
No he shouldn't do that. Being more imaginative doesn't change the fact that he ordinarily knows there's a cow there. However if the shirt situation commonly occurred, that would violate Williamson's requirement above - that you can't too easily have been mistaken. This is exploited by the "fake barn" Gettier case - what is normally a low probability case is instead a high probability case in that region. One doesn't know they have seen a barn in that region unless they look more closely.
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[*] Which is the Harman-Vogel paradox that @Ludwig V referred to. Jennifer Nagel has a useful survey of some of the responses (contextualism, relativism, interest-relative invariantism, error theory) and her own solution (dual-process theory) in "The Psychological Basis of the Harman-Vogel Paradox".
Well, I say it because it seems pretty clear to me that in each and every instance - at the precise moment in time - when we become aware of the fact that and/or come to know that... something is not true or that something is not the case... it is quite literally impossible for us to believe otherwise.
Seems pretty clear to myself also that asserting "I believe that p and it is not the case that p" is self-contradictory. That's just an inevitable consequence of what the words mean(how they're most commonly used). I'm also inclined to agree that it is very often(perhaps most often) semantically equivalent to asserting "p is true and p is false". The exceptions do not matter here.
I'm glad Moore's paradox has been mentioned...
Moore's paradox has him wondering why we can say something about someone else that we cannot also say about ourselves. He offers an example of our knowing when someone else holds false belief and then pointing it out while they still hold it. He asks, "why can we not do that with ourselves?" or words to that effect/affect. The reason why we can say "It's raining outside, but they do not believe it", but we cannot say the same thing about ourselves is because we are completely unaware of holding false beliefs while holding them, but we can be aware of others' while they hold them.
Honestly, I'm not at all surprised by any hesitation. It's well-founded, especially if you're unfamiliar with my position on the relevant matters. The worldview I argue for - what makes the most sense to me - is uniquely my own; a frankenstein's monster of sorts, built from globally sourced parts. Epicurus, Xeno, Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant, Heidegger, Witt, Russell, Moore, Ayer, Tarski, Kripke, Quine, Davidson, Searle, Austin, and Dennett were all influencial to my view. I'm certain there are many more. That was right off the top of my head, which happens to mirror exactly how I prefer to practice this discipline.
I take serious issue with how academic convention has been taking account of meaningful human thought and belief.
I've yet to have seen a school of thought practicing a conception of meaningful thought and/or belief, consciousness, or any other sort of meaningful experience that is simple but adequate enough to be able to take account of the initial emergence, and yet rich enough in potential to be able to also account for the complexity that complex written language use has facilitated, such as the metacognitive endeavors we're currently engaged in here.
I've yet to have seen one capable of bridging the gap between language less creatures and language users in terms that are easily amenable to evolutionary progression.
Indeed, it is! Rightly so, as well...
...when and if we're specifically discussing belief about propositions, assertions, statements, utterances, etc. Not all belief is about language use. It very often is however, and when that is the case, it makes perfect sense for us to say that if one has an attitude towards the proposition "there is a cow in the field" such that they hold that the proposition is true, then they have a particular belief that amounts to a propositional attitude. I'm in complete agreement with that much - on it's face,
However, and this is what's crucial to grasp, if one believes that a piece of cloth is a cow, they most certainly do not - cannot - have an attitude towards the proposition "a piece of cloth is a cow" such that they hold that that proposition is true. That belief is not equivalent to a propositional attitude.
"There is a cow in the field" is not entailed by belief that a piece of cloth is a cow. The same holds good with barn facades and stopped clocks.
The point wasn't specifically about whether or not people explicitly verbalize a belief. The point is that we cannot explicitly verbalize some false belief while holding it, because we cannot know we hold them - at the time. As before...
We cannot knowingly believe a falsehood.
Verbalizing belief(false ones too!) requires knowing what you believe. We can believe that a piece of cloth is a cow. We can believe that a barn facade is a barn. We can believe that a stopped clock is working.
What we cannot believe is that "a piece of cloth is a cow", or "a barn facade is a barn", or "a stopped clock is working" are true statements/assertions/propositions/etc. If we do not know that we believe a piece of cloth is a cow, if we do not know that we believe a barn facade is a barn, if we do not know that we believe a stopped clock is working, then we cannot possibly explicitly verbalize it.
Our beliefs during such situations are not equivalent to propositional attitudes.
I suppose my position could be taken as rejecting the J, T, and B aspects of those candidates.
The question of context is obviously very important in all this. It seems to me that two important features of the context are the probability of being right and the risks if we are wrong.
I haven’t got any interesting conclusions about S is justified in believing that p and p is false. Just muddle.
There is so much going on now that I'm having trouble keeping up. It is a great problem to have. Thanks to you all.
Here are some comments:-
Quoting Andrew M
All right. But when you find you are mistaken, you need to withdraw the claim to know.
Quoting Andrew M
I’m not sure whether to classify the classic Gettier cases as variants of that paradox or a completely different variety. But I am sure that this paradox is much more difficult and more important than the Gettier cases. I have looked at some of what Jennifer Nagel has written about this. I didn’t find any of the theories particularly appealing. I’m certain it deserves treatment separate from the Gettier cases.
Quoting creativesoul
I read Moore's stuff about this so long ago that I'm afraid I can't remember exactly what he said. But I would have thought that that the answer was pretty clear. Once you recognize that a belief is false, you have to abandon it.
And I'm sure you know that there are other paradoxes of self-reference which he must have been aware of. (e.g. The liar paradox and Russell’s paradoxes about sets that are members of themselves.)
One of the differences between those two cases is that in the case of the liar paradox, the contradiction is created in the act of asserting it, not by the proposition itself. Moore’s paradox is like that.
Quoting creativesoul
You are right in the first sentence. In the second sentence, while we cannot verbalize that belief to ourselves, other people can, and they can prove that what they say is true by observing what you do. When I have realized what the situation is, I can verbalize it in various ways without any problem.
It is true that it is odd to describe this as a propositional attitude (and it is also odd in the case of language-less creatures). I don't really know what a proposition is. I just use the term because it is a grammatical feature that conveniently groups together certain words that see to belong together. So I'm not in a position to explain.
So you see a cow shaped object and believe its a cow but it's actually a cloth.
If you "suspect" the familiar silhouette is a cow then your "suspicion" is justified for further investigation.
If you "believe" it's a cow you jump to the conclusion (all cow shaped silhouettes are actual cows - which is unjustified)
This unjustified belief is proven unjustified when investigated and seen to be a cloth not a cow.
Your belief there is a cow in your field currently pertains to an object (the cloth) that isn't a cow. This belief is false and unjustified.
But if you believe there is a cow in your field "somewhere" but not necessarily the object you're looking at (the cloth) - for example because you hear a distant "moo" (additional information) then your belief is correct and justified when, and only when, you find both the cloth and the actual cow.
I don't see any contradiction in the situation other then the meaning of the term "belief" "justification" and "true knowledge" as with respect to the observer (subjects) observations and consequent conclusions (beliefs)
The devil is in the detail. In exactly how we use each word in the object-observer relationship during time (the time it takes to go around the field and establish the truth of the situation).
If you don't factor in time and space. How can you establish whether the silhouette of a cow is the cloth or the cow, or where the other cow is? In a single moment in time the true identity of the silhouette and the location of the cow cannot be known simultaneously.
The belief that they can is where the fallacy comes from.
A persuasive argument. However,
You are right that what is at stake is the meanings of "belief", "justification" and "knowledge". But that just means that you need to engage with Gettier's definition of justification which specifies that a justification may be a justification even when the belief is false. One problem is that if no belief can be justified unless it is true, all claims to knowledge must be based on an infinite regress and it is hard to see how new knowledge could ever be acquired by anyone and your use of the words would be very different from ordinary use.
You are right that the devil is in the detail here. But the Gettier problems are based on the fact (at least I think it is a fact) that truth and falsity do not wait for our actual and empirical process of learning what they are. We discover truths. I mean that if we articulate a possibility, either it is true or it is false, there and then. Suppose I believe, as I sit here, that there is a beer in the fridge. Either there is a beer in the fridge or there is not. I can only know which when I get to the fridge, but the beer is already there or not.
I think that the Gettier cases are generated in the gap between objective truth/falsity and awareness of truth/falsity. I mean it is set up by the situation that we know something that S does not; the problems disappear as soon as S is aware of the truth and abandons the false belief. They also depend on the exact formulation chosen for the justification and the knowledge, which I think is suspicious, though I don't think I can prove anything. Neither of these is a conclusive argument, but I think they at least defuse the issues; it is significant that most people do not want to abandon or even modify the JTB.
I did engage with it. Considering his defintion I disagree. Is that not engaging and then choosing whether it makes reasonable sense to you or not. It is possible to disagree with a historical philosophers views. If it wasn't then how would we make any philosophical progress?
I am convinced by persuasive people. Until someone more persuasive convinces me otherwise by outlining the flaw with the previous persons basis for persuasion. That's just sensible.
Quoting Ludwig V
Justification (that shadow over there looks like a cow) is justified even when the belief (that it therefore a cow) is false. Obviously not. The only justification is that (it may be a cow but I'm not sure it is yet). Because it allows for the possibility that the shadow is not that of a cow.
Another example: justification (to imprison someone) is still justification even when the belief (that they committed a crime) is false. Yikes. I think not.
Not an infinite regress. Just a regression to the truth. Where one's belief/ collection of beliefs about what is true matches what is actually the case. That is knowledge.
In essence using logic to remove the nonsense and get to the bottom of things - the actual knowledge that always exists. After all something definitively true doesn't change does it, otherwise it isn't true? Physics laws and principles are based on their constancy - their permanent unchanging nature. That's why they are considered true and useful in the pursuit of understanding how they determine the interactions between things.
Accurate assumptions (true beliefs) lead to accurate outcomes (predictions or results) when applied. False assumptions have no such power to predict or elucidate correct answers.
Of course they do. If the truth of nature isn't waiting for us to understand it then how could we ever approach it by as you said "discovering" truths, accepting them as our beliefs and then using them as assumptions for further investigations, in the taxing task of removing fiction from fact.
Indeed. The claim can no longer be justifiably held at that point since knowledge does require truth and the claim in question is now known to be false.
Quoting Ludwig V
Yes, I agree they deserve separate treatments. In my view, contextualism is a satisfactory response to both.
Quoting Andrew M
Agreement in philosophy is not easy to achieve, which makes it all the more satisfactory. Sadly, it means that I need to find a new thread, though, as you see, I'm still engaged with Benj96.
Let me try to phrase a couple more ironies as a Gettier problem: 1. Ronald Reagan's bulletproof limo deflected a bullet into his chest. Justified false belief: Bullet proof limo would protect president. Actuality: Limo resulted in president's injury. Truth: Limo did serve in President's protection during incident.
2. From wikipedia: Gettier created a tradition in the epistemology of JTB by destroying it. Justified False belief: "Gettier's formula creates a clear barrier in analyzing knowledge: Actuality: is a new area of epistemology for analyzing knowledge. Truth: the formula is a criticism of epistemology
On truth
I’m sorry. I didn’t put my point clearly enough. I certainly did mean what I said that truth is discovered.
On “justify”, “believe”, “know”
I hesitate to accept your way of using the words. You want us as observers to have a say in whether S suspects or believes that p. But deciding to suspect something is deciding to believe that p may be true or may be false and is up to S. If S decides (whether on the basis of more evidence or not) to believe something, which means committing to the view that p is true, that is also up to S. When I report that S believes that p, I am reporting S’s commitment without endorsing it myself. The difference between suspecting and believing is a fact about S and not up to us as observers. We can certainly use the words in a different way, but I’m reluctant to do so because most people don’t and I want to communicate with most people.
On the other hand, if I decide that S knows that p, I am endorsing S’s commitment to p and committing myself to p. So that is up to us observers. But that’s not relevant at this stage.
I would say that the same is true of "evidence". When I classify S's reasons as evidence, I am committing to the view that it does go to demonstrating that p - not necessarily all the way to certainty, but partly. You could put your point in something like the following way.
"The farmer has some evidence that the familiar silhouette is a cow, but the evidence is unreliable. The evidence does not justify his conclusion and further evidence is required. As it happens, further evidence will reveal that his belief is false. "
There are some complications, but I think that would stand up. What do you think?
The main objection that may be raised is that no process of deduction is involved in seeing, so the argument doesn’t apply. That’s why I prefer to object that one cannot see something that isn’t there, so the farmer hasn’t seen a cow – he just thinks he has seen a cow.
Quoting Benj96
I was impressed by this. It certainly shows that where justification falls short of certainty, it may be inappropriate (depending on the circumstances, such as what is at stake and the probability of error) to rely on it. I’ll admit that “justification” is sometimes used to mean “show” or “prove” and so requires certainty. But I also think that sometimes it is used to mean “reasonable”, which doesn’t. For what it’s worth, I think you’ll find that dictionaries agree.
Quoting Benj96
But doesn't that mean that all knowledge must start from knowledge? Where do we get the knowledge we start from? Surely that's clearly an infinite regress.
Yes. S observes P incompletely (it's silhouette in twilight) it only sees the outline not the full object in full light. You can believe P is one thing based on partial knowledge - the silhouette/vague outline (in others words jump to a conclusion with incomplete knowledge?) or you can investigate further, shine a torch, watch how it behaves, what it does, and then with a more full set of knowledge as to what it is you can believe its P (a cow for example).
But with no clear vision, no movement, no sounds, you are deprived of several modes of sensory information. How then can you believe it is definitely P without referencing it to your knowledge of what characteristics P has.
In that case it's better to "suspect" its P because the partial knowledge that you have doesn't exclude the possibility that thus potential P is indeed an actual P.
I don't think the evidence is so much "unreliable" but rather incomplete. As partial evidence it could be reliable if the remaining evidence confirms the suspicion of the farmer. The partial evidence is only determined as unreliable if it lead to a false conclusion.
"Partial information" about something which can be "known" simply means nothing is yet absolutely certain. It is only suggestive. As this partial information is one part of the set of all information one requires to confirm the known as indeed known. Partial information can lead to a logical suspicion but not to a complete justification - a blind belief, a gamble on the fact that P Is actually P
In a sense, yes. (Though I seem to remember that Gettier bothers to tell us whether Smith has ten coins in his pocket.) But this irony is not fundamental to, or even characteristic of, Gettier problems.
Quoting introbert
There is an irony of a kind in this, but it is a not a very good argument, because the idea that people should not use any technology at all rules out clothes and simple tools like hammers and cooking. I'm certain that what these people mean is that people should not use certain technologies. So there can only be a falsification if you know what technologies you have in mind. I certainly don't see a Gettier problem in this.
Your other cases are certainly examples of irony. But I don't see them as Gettier problems.
I don't have any serious problem with your suggestions. Since I'm suggesting a way that you could better reformulate your point, I think it's up to you if you want to use it with some changes.
But we need to keep clear whether we are talking about the J clause or the T clause. What you say is certainly relevant to the T clause, but if you are talking about the J clause, you are saying that S's justification must be conclusive if it is to satisfy the definition. That's controversial and Gettier does not accept it. So you need to explain why you reject Gettier's definition. Sadly, he doesn't explain his reasons for adopting it, so it's hard. I do accept Gettier's definition because your strict definition would rule out many ordinary uses of "know" and transform "know" into a jargon concept useful only to philosophers.
Yes, it probably is wiser to suspect rather than believe. But it is the farmer to suspect or not, not us, and if the farmer decides to believe, it's up to him.
Further to the question whether justification needs to be complete or not, we've already discussed it, and I said: -
Quoting Ludwig V
I'll have to do a little more work on this issue before I say too much more about it, but I see the Gettier problem as simply that JTB cannot be used as the basis of knowledge. Not every irony is a JTB but any JTB that is a GP is certainly ironic. This is simply due to the nature of the GP being a difference between idea or belief and actuality. Lets use yet another example: Jane heard John say "Dinner was wonderful". As such Jane has a JTB that dinner was wonderful. But John was actually being sarcastic (ironic) and meant that he didn't have any dinner. Nevertheless dinner was actually wonderful. In this case the irony which creates a discrepancy between idea and actuality becomes a natural mechanism for a GP.
:smile:
I understand exactly what you mean. What I would suggest to consider is that words do not have one discrete/ unchanging or fixed meaning. The meaning of a word is not binary (if A then not B). This can only be the case when the context is clearly and strictly confined.
Not only can a word mean one thing or another thing depending on context but it can mean two things simultaneously (ambiguous meaning) as in the case of innuendo, metaphor and puns, or in humour/comedy. And it can even be used in reference to itself to form a self contained paradox/ contradiction - a meaningless sentence.
Allow me to explain with four examples:
Meaning of the word "know".
Context 1: I know that I feel sad. (I believe/know pertaining to inherent internal knowledge of my state of mind).
Context 2: I know there is a phone in my hand. (I observe/I and others can know this as its an object - objectively observable.)
Context 3: I know he's larger than life, he practically draws in everyone in the room (ambiguous insult/compliment - could mean I'm calling him fat, could mean I'm saying he's so extroverted that people naturally gravitate towards him.
Context 4: I know that I know nothing. (socratic paradox).
In this way we see that the word "know" is not specifically defined but dynamic. If it wasn't language would be extremely rigid and unexpressive. It would be like mathematics - able to follow a singular line of logic but not able to be used for poetry, comedy, drama, artistic license etc
Quoting introbert
Quoting introbert
I see the story about Ronald Reagan as ironical in the first sentence, but if you consider the whole story, it isn't. The second similarly - the first sentence is ironical, but overall it is not. The last quotation is a version of Gettier's first example, and I agree that it is ironic. But none of the other examples deployed in these arguments seem at all ironic to me. It takes more than a discrepancy between idea and actuality to create an irony. The first two stories report an attempt to do one thing but achieving the opposite, which is similar. The Gettier example is similar. But I see the core or paradigmatic meaning of irony as saying one thing and meaning the opposite. One of the peculiarities of irony is that it enables us to say things that would be socially inappropriate to say in the context but in such a way that the underlying meaning can be detected, so it isn't really concealing anything.
I don't have a problem with anything you say. One could argue that philosophy is a context that does require relatively fixed meanings to what we say (unless you are Kierkegaard or Socrates) However, one of my complaints about the Gettier business is precisely that it pushes us to give a binary answer where it is not appropriate.
Gettier's two cases are similar to the cottage industry that followed with the barn facade and the cloth examples because they are al claim to stipulate situations when S satisfies the JTB conditions but does not have knowledge.
The general issue at hand is the inherently inadequate notion of belief at work. You will not find much of that in the literature... yet. This applies to Gettier's two cases, the cottage industry that followed, Moore's paradox, and Russell's clock as well as all sorts of other philosophical topics in which meaningful human thought and belief are of major importance(the scope is daunting). However, the consequences of employing the emaciated conventional (mis)conception(s) of belief differ depending upon the particulars.
With regard to the topic at hand and the context of our discussion thus far...
Granting the cottage industry's claim that S believes that there is a sheep in the field after seeing a piece of cloth is granting far too much to begin with. It ignores the mistake altogether. S believes that a particular piece of cloth is a sheep. That belief is false.
"There is a sheep in the field" is not entailed by belief that a piece of cloth is a sheep. "There is a sheep in the field" does not follow from belief that a piece of cloth is a sheep.
The attribution of that belief to S by the author is unjustified. The same critique holds good in all cottage industry cases I've been fortunate enough to have read as well as Russell's clock.
Gettier's two cases are different. In the first, Gettier uses entailment to describe Smith as going from "I am going to get the job, and I have ten coins in my pocket" to "The man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job". The man with ten coins in his pocket - you know the one Smith is thinking about - is Smith himself. Smith did not believe anyone else would get the job. Smith was not justified in believing anyone else would get the job. Someone else got the job, contrary to Smith's belief.
In the second case, Gettier uses the rules of disjunction to attempt to claim that Smith's belief that either Jones owned a Ford or Brown was in Barcelona was true as a result of Brown's being in Barcelona. Brown's being in Barcelona does indeed make the disjunction true, if we treat it as a naked proposition. However, it is not a naked proposition. Rather, it is supposed to be an account of Smith's belief. Now, Smith believed that the disjunction was true because Jones owned a Ford. The disjunction was not true because Jones owned a Ford.
In both cases, Smith's belief was justified false belief.
I'll tell you what I think is the obvious thing to say here: the problem with the farmer's belief that there's a cow in the field is that it was not caused by seeing any of the cows in the field. Or: there was no causal connection between the farmer and a cow that contributed to the farmer's belief.
This is more or less a typical Gettier case because the conclusion is an existential claim that is true in virtue of the existence of some particular: it is true that there is a cow in the field because this particular cow, let's call her Alice, is in the field. In a sense, we don't even have to talk about what's wrong with a cow-belief being caused by a bit of cloth, about whether the interpretation of blurry light spots is a reliable method of cow detection; all we have to say is that the farmer has what looks to be a belief about Alice despite that belief not being causally connected to Alice.
This was more or less Alvin Goldman's response to Gettier, and it does seem to get something right. (Only just started looking at Goldman, so don't ask me about his views.)
My way of putting this raises some issues though: in what sense is the farmer's belief about Alice? This doesn't look good at all. Since Alice played no role in the farmer's belief formation, it's pretty clear Alice is no part of the content of the farmer's belief. Alice does play a part in the existential claim; Alice is what makes that claim true.
We can get to Alice, as a matter of content, with the obvious counterfactual claim: had the farmer seen Alice instead of the bit of cloth, and seen that Alice is a cow, then in that case he would of course know that there was a cow in the field. But he might have seen Alice and mistaken Alice for a bit of cloth flapping in the breeze — so not seen that Alice is a cow — and formed the mistaken belief that there's a bit of cloth in the field, which might also be Gettierly true. That's a little uncomfortable for the causal account, as it stands so far, because it's just requiring the seeing itself to be a factive mental state. But at least now Alice, under some interpretation, is part of the content of the farmer's belief.
And that seems a reasonable starting point: Alice ought to play a causal role in beliefs about Alice. I don't think there is a remaining problem with the existential generalization after all because we can just enumerate it: if Alice, Bobbie, Clarabelle, and Dixie are the cows in the field, then the truth of such an existential claim as we're concerned with is a truth about at least one of those: one of those four ought to play a causal role in the farmer's belief, expressed as an existential generality.
Are we any better off though? Suppose the farmer thinks the cow he's seeing is Clarabelle, when it's Alice, even though Clarabelle is out there in the dark. There is some lingering oddness about the existential generalization; it feels a little unreal, like the content of his belief still involves Clarabelle, though expressed with reference to "a cow", and so his basis for believing that the generalization is warranted is suspect.
There are obvious cases in which the farmer would reach for the general, disjunctive claim because he sees a cow and doesn't know which one. What about in this case, where he believes he does know which cow makes the disjunction true? Now that's a funny thing, because it's very natural to have different degrees of confidence here: I for sure saw a cow, and I'm pretty sure it was Clarabelle — if it wasn't Clarabelle, I assume it was Alice or Bobbie or Dixie. That last clause can fail if a neighbor's cow has gotten into his field, but even that won't affect his high level of confidence that he saw a cow, some cow. We might even plump for him knowing it was a cow, while denying that he knows which one.
And that's a reminder that you absolutely can know a disjunction is true without knowing that one of the disjuncts is true. The law of the excluded middle is a clear enough example, but we might forget in these more mundane, probabilistic cases.
The farmer, then, could be in a state of disjunctive knowledge, connected causally to some truth-making cow, the actual content of which is a belief he holds only partially and could even be wrong about. (Something still weird about that formulation.)
In the original version of the story, it's a bit of cloth that is causally related to the farmer's implicitly disjunctive belief and another disjunct is true. What's different here from the case above where one cow is mistaken for another — and so there's acceptable disjunctive knowledge — is that you cannot see that a bit of cloth is a cow, because it isn't. We are relying on the seeing being factive, and that's already expressed as predication; what causation gives us is an explanation for the acceptability of the predication: you can see that something is a cow only if it is a cow. Which I hope is another way of saying that some cow ought to be causally involved in your formation of cow beliefs.
@creativesoul, I think some of your concerns are addressed above. @Andrew M, any thoughts?
Indeed. This is why I'm not an advocate of Gettiers problem as he precisely defines it. It disregards obvious "work-arounds" and adaptations of meaning in the words he uses based on him not acknowledging rational external information that is sensibly known but presumed not to exist for the sake of his definitions. Like the ability to move through time and space (the field where the cow and cloth are) for example.
There are cases when forcing words to be discrete and exactly defined in relation to one another leads to illogical outcomes (problems).
In the same way that the liar paradox or grandfather paradox is created. They use two or more incompatible discrete definitions of words or grammar of words that's leads to logical conflict. If the interpretation/context/meaning of such words was less stringent and more fluid then the paradoxes can be resolved.
Many paradoxes, conflicts of interest or contradictions stand based only on previous assumption - what we mean when we use the words we do to describe them. Change the meaning (assumptions) and you change the outcome (whether something is rational or irrational) based on those assumptions.
It's logical to conclude that if all humans are animals (assumption 1) and some animals have wings (assumption 2) that some humans have wings. But that is a rigid discrete acceptance of the meaning of the assumption. Not influenced by external modulation (by other assumptions such as "humans are animals without wings" (assumption 3) which would further deductive reasoning to the conclusion that "all humans are animals, some animals have wings but they are other animals than human ones". Which is correct.
It is in this way that we must include as much information as possible to get an accurate logical conclusion. Something that the liar paradox does not do, nor the grandfather paradox.
it's not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_undistributed_middle.
Yes it's clearly not (based on the fact that we have external knowledge pertaining to the set of assumptions (the knowledge that "not all animals are humans".).
I believe I already outlined that distinction. But I'll clarify once again.
If the assumptions given are strictly the "only information" available to make deductions (leaving our common sense to the contrary based on experience aside).. Then the logic follows as such.
This is the difference between mechanical/robotic or purely reason based thought and human thought based on experience and sense (observation).
We input into a computer that "some animals have wings." We also input that "humans are animals". The output from that sole computational function is that "some humans have wings".
The computer only has the information put into it as a basis to apply reasoning. Where is it going to extract the external knowledge that there are animals that are not human and therfore that humans don't necessarily have wings?
The fallacy of the undistributed middle is a formal fallacy, so it doesn't depend on the semantics of its terms (and related external knowledge).
Your syllogism
P1: all humans are animals
P2: some animals have wings
C: some humans have wings
corresponds to the following form (e.g. W = wing-equipped):
P1: All H are A
P2: some A are W
C: some H are W
This form is fallacious.
Correction what I said was.
P1 H = A
P2 XA =W (where X is an an unspecified fraction above 0 (none) but less than 1 (all) )
P3 XH =W (the same unspecified fraction pertains to some humans (H) being wing equipped (W).
In this case "human" = "animals". As in "all" humans are "all" animals. They are equivalent
Your form. P1 All H are A pertains to "All humans are animals." (but not all of them/as in not all animals are human. It is not equivalent because it is not reversible). In your case your following logic is correct. But seeing as I'm not referring to your meaning but the one I have outlined clearly above my logic stands.
It's not fallacious the fallacy is born through misinterpretation.
Because you wrote "all humans are animals" as a premise one and you claimed it was logic to deduce from that premise and a second one a certain conclusion. This is wrong from a standard logic point of view.
"All X is P" in standard logic is never understood as "All X is P and all P is X" as you seem to claim now (indeed "all humans are all animals" sounds pretty weird as a sentence). Formal logic is about propositional forms not about the semantics of the terms occurring insides propositions.
So if I say "-1 and +1 =0" I can't say "0 =-1.+1"?
They are not reversible and equivalent?
And if so how can your equivalence suddenly not satisfy reversibility unless it presupposes external information?
Physics equations work in reverse. Because they deal in actual equivalence not pseudo equivalence.
My point is that if one wants to deduce conclusions from premises based on formal logic, then the meaning of the terms is irrelevant. Indeed if your deduction is something like:
P1: All H are A and all A are H
P2: some A are W
C: some H are W
It looks valid but that doesn't depend on what we know about the terms H, A, W, anyways.
In short, I find your example twice misleading because, it's equivocally formulated ("all humans are animals" in logic is understood as in "all H are A" and not as in "All H are A and all A are H", indeed that's the syllogistic rule of distribution in universal affirmative premises) and even after removing the equivocation the logic of a deduction should be assessed by its form not by the semantics of its terms so it doesn't look appropriate to use it to make a semantic point, if that's your goal.
:up:
I would just add, though, that the causal connection may not always be sufficient for knowledge. Consider the fake barn scenario. In that case, the traveler in fake barn country does see an actual barn, so the appropriate causal connection is present. But he doesn't know it because he was lucky. The false lemma in this case is that he implicitly assumes that this region is like any other where fake barns are a rarity.
I agree this has to be done carefully, and I tried to cover some of the obvious issues. It looks like some of the "not the right way" issues just get kicked down to "not caused the right way", so causal connections are not just a 'win card' we can play.
If I get a handle on Goldman's approach, I'll report back, particularly on how he deals with barns. I will note, in passing, that it's my impression there is even less unanimity on the barn cases — that is, in a lot of Gettier cases there is little conflict among philosophers' intuitions, but with the barn cases I believe there is.
Which is interesting because it means the conflict there is a new data point to explain.
Still granting too much to begin with.
Attributing "there is a cow in the field" to a farmer that believes that a piece of cloth is a cow is an accounting malpractice. At that particular moment in time, in that particular set of circumstances, that particular farmer believes that a piece of cloth is a cow.
The farmer's belief is false. False belief cannot be true. Belief that there is a cow in the field can be true. The farmer's belief cannot be true. Belief that there is a cow in the field cannot be the farmer's belief.
Regarding rendering the farmer's belief as belief that p...
It does not follow from the fact that the farmer's belief can be rendered in terms of propositional attitude that the farmer's belief is equivalent to a propositional attitude. In this particular case, rendering the farmer's belief in terms of an attitude towards the proposition "there is a cow in the field" such that they take that to be true is to completely change what it takes in order for the farmer's belief to be true. That's a big problem.
The farmer's belief is false. False belief cannot be true. The farmer's belief cannot be true. "There is a cow in the field" can be true. "There is a cow in the field" cannot be the farmer's belief.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
So...
Alice plays no role in the farmer's belief, but does play a role in the existential claim. Seems to me that the only conclusion to draw is that the existential claim is not the farmer's belief.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Belief that Alice is a bit of cloth flapping in the breeze is false. The farmer's belief is false. False belief cannot be true. The farmer's belief cannot be true. Belief that there's a bit of cloth in the field can be true. Belief that there's a bit of cloth in the field cannot be the farmer's belief.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Belief that Alice is Clarabelle is false. The farmer's belief is false. False belief cannot be true. Belief that Alice, Bobbie, Clarabelle, and Dixie are the cows in the field can be true. The farmer's belief cannot be. Belief that Alice, Bobbie, Clarabelle, and Dixie are cows in the field cannot be the farmer's belief.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Doesn't seem like it. I'm not at all fond of the 'causal' language. Seems totally unnecessary and more of a distraction from the problem than a solution.
The only part I have not addressed is the mention of disjunctive belief/knowledge. Do you have an example that does not succumb to the critique of Gettier's Case II? Belief that either this or that is true is always based upon belief that this or that is true. To neglect to take this into account is to provide an accounting malpractice of S's belief. Putting S's belief in terms of belief that P or Q is an accounting malpractice.
If it is P that is believed, and S asserts P or Q, then S's belief that P or Q is true is better rendered as belief that P or Q is true because P. If Q, then S's belief is better rendered as belief that P or Q is true because Q.
If P or Q is true because P, and the farmer believes it's true because Q, then the farmer's belief is false, and vice versa. Rendering the farmer's belief in terms of P or Q is to treat the proposition(disjunction) as a naked one, which changes the truth conditions of S's belief.
Belief that [P or Q is true because P] is false if P or Q is true because Q. False belief cannot be true. Belief that P or Q can be true because Q is. The farmer's belief is false. Belief that P or Q cannot be the farmer's belief.
Accounting malpractices. All of them.
The meaning of terms used to construct premises and deduce conclusions is irrelavent? I don't think I agree.
When dealing with maths equations the meaning can be considered irrelevant as it's completely standardised, is discrete and finite. 1 =1. We don't have to bog ourselves down with "what do we really mean by 1". Everyone knows what one of something is.
But when applying logic to the broader language-scape _
- to concepts that are not as discrete as numbers like "human", "animal" "wing" etc, It's much more subjective and open to interpretation as the same word can have many nuances of meaning and many relationships and associations, depending on who is reading it.
Therefore meaning is always relevant in linguistic logical discourse dealing with anything more than the numerical (mathematics - which we typically make distinctions with from linguistics because of that very fact. Mathematic meanings are universal and standardised and thus ignored to perform logical deductions. But maths is a still a language like any other.)
In more complex languages, one must define exactly what you mean by the words (terms) or abbreviations used to make them applicable to a logical deduction.
I already highlighted precisely what I meant by H, A and W and strictly within the confines of the meaning i defined for each and there relationship to eachother, the logical conclusion was thus.
I never said the conclusion was correct based on actual reality. All I was demonstrating is the importance of the meaning (relative nature) applied to the terms, do they "equal" eachother in which case the equation is reversible and can run forward and backwards
Or is one "a lesser subset" of the other in which case A =B but B is not = A (not réversible)
Then you do not understand formal logic.
Quoting Benj96
In formal logic, what you mean by H, A and W is irrelevant.
If you believe otherwise, good luck.
First off, “see” is a factive verb. In reporting what people see, we need to report what they actually see, not what they think they see. When we report what they think they see, we have to make it clear, so we need to report, not that he sees a cow in the field, but that he believes he sees a cow in the field, or that he sees what he believes is a cow in the field.
We focus too much, in these discussions, on what people say in reporting their own beliefs. But that is only one way that people show what they believe. Their beliefs also show in what they do and in other things that they say. That’s how we know that he believes that a piece of cloth is a cow. But I would use that way of putting it only to other people, not to the farmer himself. Curiously, if I was telling the farmer about his mistake, I would say “you know that cow in the field? Well actually it’s a piece of cloth.” Or “I’m afraid that cow in the field is actually a piece of cloth”.
Or at least that’s my solution to your problem.
Everything can be identified under many descriptions. We use the one that is most appropriate for the context, including the method of identification that works for our audience. When we come to reporting the belief (and knowledge) of other people, we do not stick to the reference that they are using or would use; we use the reference that works for the audience we are reporting to. After all, the point is to enable our audience to understand.
It is complicated, so I hope this is reasonably clear.
(Srap Tasmaner) I think you are identifying the right problems, but I would suggest rather different solutions. I’m not happy with the causal theory of perception (though I’m not up to date with more recent ideas about it.) because what we see is so heavily dependent on interpretation, which doesn’t fit happily with causality.
Many Gettier problems depend on an inference typified by existential generalization in formal logic. We can infer from “Alice is in the field” to “There is a cow in the field” The catch is that if Alice is not in the field (or even if it isn’t Alice that the farmer saw), the inference collapses, and yet “Daisy is in the field” (if true) is a truth-condition for “There is a cow in the field.” The same applies if the farmer does not know which cow he saw or thought he saw. If the farmer saw a cow, there is a specific cow that he saw. If the cow that he doesn’t know about is the one that establishes the truth, then he didn’t know there was a cow in the field.
“A cow” is ambiguous between “a certain cow” and “a cow” as in “some cow or other”. If the farmer sees a cow, there is some specific cow that is seen, even if he doesn’t know which one it was; the scope of “a” is limited. However, suppose that the farmer has told one of his workers to put some cows in the field without specifying which ones or how many, and says to someone else “There is a (i.e. at least one) cow in the field.” That would be “cow” in the sense of “some cow or other”, which would be made true by any of the cows in the field, so it wouldn’t be a Gettier problem. The reason is that the scope of the justification matches the scope of the proposition. In Gettier cases, it doesn’t, and that’s the root of the problem. This may not apply to some cases proposed as Gettier cases, such as Russell’s clock. But those cases seem to me to have a different format.
I would like to pursue Gettier’s belief that it is possible to be justified in believing that p even when p is false. After all, this is where the door opens for Gettier cases.
Clearly, this falls away when justification is conclusive because falsity does not arise. (If one thinks one has a conclusive justification and it turns out that p is false, one needs to downgrade the justification to partial.)
Partial justification will undoubtedly always be more common than conclusive justifications, so it is worth considering in more detail than Gettier provides.
I can’t see that there is a problem with Gettier’s point when the falsity of p is merely a possibility. Even when p is false, but unknown to anyone, I can't see that it would affect anyone's belief or knowledge.
What matters is what happens when the falsity of p is known, and who knows it.
First, the clearest case. If S knows that p is false, S needs to consider this evidence in relation to the justification for believing that p. Since p is (by definition) conclusively false, the new evidence will outweigh any possible justification available to S, so S will cease to believe that p (or continue to believe that p on irrational grounds). In other words, S cannot believe that S is justified in believing that p and p is false; it is a variant of Moore’s paradox. Hence, of course, Gettier cases always specify that S does not know that p is false. (I have never seen this explained.)
Second, what happens when we know that p is false, but S doesn’t? Gettier cases never specify whether the falsity of p is known to anyone, but it has to be, because we could not appreciate the problem if we don’t. Can we, do we simply say that S is justified in believing p and p is false?
It seems pretty obvious that it is not entirely a matter for S to decide whether we accept his justification; if it were, then any old rubbish could be counted as a justification, and that’s precisely what the J clause was invented to exclude. So, if p is false, then either S’s evidence does not support p, or S’s evidence is false. So the fact that p is false does undermine S’s justification.
I just posted a post in reply to Srap Tasmaner. I meant to copy you in because I thought you might be interested. Forgive me if I'm wrong.
I think one way to see this issue more clearly is by considering the distinction between valid and sound deductions. A conclusion could be validly inferred from some premises and be true, yet the deduction could be unsound because at least one of the premises is false. Example:
[P1] All cats are plants
[P2] All plants are mammals
[C] All cats are mammals
Now let’s ask: if C is true, X believes that C and X is justified in believing that C by that deduction, then does X know that C? Well if a valid deduction is enough to be deductively justified, then we do not have a case of knowledge (i.e. knowledge can not equate to JTB). But if only sound deductions can qualify as deductive justification, then we do not have a case of justification (i.e. knowledge can still equate to JTB).
I think the general view is that inference confers justification no more than it confers truth; rather, valid deduction is often expected to conserve justification and to conserve knowledge, just as it conserves truth. Since people may not make inferences they're entitled to, you have to add some clause, such as Gettier does, that the agent makes the valid inference. (Similarly, you don't automatically know everything entailed by what you know, but if you made all the inferences you're entitled to, you would.)
I agree with Srap Tasmaner. X's belief that C is true is not justified because P1 is false.
But you only take account of conclusive justification. The awkward bit in the Gettier cases is the possibility of partial justification.
Not sure I agree. I already worried over this a bit too, so I get the concern here.
I think the essence of this objection is to deny that the existential generalization actually takes place. If we leave aside justification for a moment, the idea is something like this:
(1) I believe that's Daisy out there.
(2) I know Daisy to be a cow.
In fact, I know a number of things about Daisy, so the presence of Daisy in the field entails the presence of a creature with any such feature. That is, the inference I'm prepared to make is that wherever Daisy is, an instance of Daisy's features is, including something being a cow. -- That is, I also accept that sometimes Daisy features are present without her, singly or in bunches, because other things are cows, other things are placid, other things ruminate, etc. (If our farmer prefers tropes to properties, all bets are off.)
I'm not immediately going to claim this is enough to justify the EG. I think first we take a detour through some obvious counterfactuals. We're trying to give due weight to the idea that the farmer only believes there's a cow in the field because he believes Daisy is, and he knows Daisy is a cow. That's to say, if he did not believe Daisy was in the field, he would not believe a cow was in the field.
But that sounds far too strong, at least because if it turns out to have been Clarabelle, the farmer will retreat to: I knew it was a cow and I thought it was Daisy. He might even be genuinely surprised and wonder how such a mistake happened: I could have sworn it was Daisy.
What I want to note here is that on discovering his mistake, the farmer will quite naturally itemize the Daisy features he correctly identified in search of the one he was mistaken about. All of which suggests his Daisy belief was -- contra my sympathies for a casual account of names -- in fact a sort of compound belief regarding those many descriptive features of Daisy. Maybe this is specific to cases of recognition, but the farmer's ready recasting of his belief as a compound suggests there's a list of criteria for recognizing Daisy and he was right about some of them, but not all. (Such lists look easy to Gettier-ize.)
And if all of that is right, then the EG was compound to begin with, even with only Daisy criteria in mind: there is something in the field that is a cow, and is placid, and ruminates, and has a nick on her left ear, and is pretty fat for this time of year, etc. And if that's right -- and even if that list is somehow taken as open-ended -- it can be split: there's something in the field that's a cow; there's something in the field that's placid; and so on.
Which, again, is why the farmer won't feel nearly such a fool if it turns out to be Clarabelle, even if he's very surprised, because he will still have gotten a lot right.
(I was going to head in a completely different direction, so I'll wait to see what people think of this before trotting out alternative analyses.)
I'm afraid I've been unclear.
I'm arguing against using words that the farmer would have used at the time, for he did not know that he believed a piece of cloth was a cow... pace Moore's paradox. Nevertheless, the farmer most certainly believed that a piece of cloth was a cow.
I'm further bringing to light that the farmer's belief does not entail belief that a cow is in the field. So, the farmer, if they inferred there was a cow in the field from their belief that a piece of cloth was a cow, made an invalid inference. The same is true of an author who claims the farmer concluded that a cow was in the field from belief that a piece of cloth was a cow.
My last post explained all the problems with attributing belief that could be true to the farmer - who had false belief. We know that. The farmer does not.
If the farmer claims to believe that a cow is in the field, they are wrong about the content of their own belief.( this may tie into things you've said) They are mistaken in their own report. That particular belief - the one reported by the farmer at the time - is one that could be true. The farmer's belief cannot. The farmer does not know that he believes a piece of cloth is a cow. He is mistaken about his own belief. Any author who then uses what the farmer would claim at that time is following the farmer off the cliff, so to speak. It's worse for the storyteller though, for we all know that the farmer does not know that they believe a piece of cloth is a cow. Using the farmer's self report as though it is accurate when it is not perpetuates the farmer's own mistake(repeat a belief that the farmer could not have) and prove oneself to have not learned the lesson from Moore.
Each and every case is an accounting malpractice.
That's the end of all the hoopla. That's it. It's that simple.
There are two issues that bother me about how seriously Gettier cases are treated. Firstly there is the very slippery notion of justification. I'll use the 'sheep in the field' example to illustrate my concerns.
If I see something in field that I think is a sheep, am I justified in believing it is a sheep if I don't take the trouble to move closer and examine it to see if it really is a sheep, or shout to make it move or whatever? It might not be what people ordinarily do, but is that any justification for failing to investigate, and for forming an insipid conception of justification itself?
Secondly, assuming that I am justified in believing there is a sheep in the field based on seeing the cloth, the claim is that that belief could be true or false, depending on whether there is or is not at least one unseen sheep in the field. If there is one unseen sheep, then my belief that there is a sheep in the field turns out to be true, and since it is justified (in this case by stipulation) the JTB model would have it that I therefore possess knowledge, which of course doesn't seem right at all.
However it seems to me that even if seeing the cloth is accepted as justification for believing there is a sheep in the field, it could only be justification for believing that the apparent "sheep" (the cloth) was in the field, not some other unseen sheep that just happened to be there unbeknownst to me. In other words my belief would not be a general 'there is a sheep somewhere in the field' but rather 'that is a sheep there in the field' and because "that" is a cloth, not a sheep, it is not a weird or troubling case of JTB, but rather a justified false belief. As I say above I would go further and say it is an unjustified false belief due to lack of proper investigation, because I have no business believing a cloth is a sheep, if I'm not close enough to it to be sure, or if I haven't seen it moving around and grazing like a sheep.
I've always been puzzled by how seriously the Gettier cases have been taken; I think they don't amount to jack shit.
Quoting creativesoul
The farmer certainly did not believe that a piece of cloth was a cow; how could he, since he didn't know it was a piece of cloth, and if he had known it was a piece of cloth, then how could he believe it to be a cow? He believed (erroneously) that he was looking at a cow, when he was actually looking at a piece of cloth.
There is no puzzle there of the kind that you seem to be attempting to nurture by virtue (or vice) of ambiguous usage of language (that is by substituting what we might say about the farmer's belief for how he would put his belief into words, to arrive at an absurd paradox, "believing that a piece of cloth is a cow", that might engender the illusion that it is of some significance, when it really is not).
The problem is basic. The farmer believes that a piece of cloth is a sheep. That belief is false. False belief cannot be true. The farmer, should they openly assert that they believe a sheep is in the field, would be asserting a belief that can be true. False belief cannot be true. The farmer's belief is false. "There is a sheep in the field" can be true. The farmer's belief cannot. The farmer's belief cannot be "there is a sheep in the field". The farmer is mistaken about their own belief, unbeknownst to themselves.
This all makes perfect sense when we keep in mind that we cannot knowingly hold false belief. The farmer believed that a piece of cloth was a sheep.
We cross posted. My last post did not take the above into consideration.
That particular farmer sees that particular piece of cloth in that particular field at that particular time, and mistakenly believes at that particular moment in time that that particular piece of cloth in that particular field is a cow or a sheep(which one does not matter).
Are you denying this?
It is humanly impossible to knowingly hold false belief. The farmer's belief is false. False belief cannot be true. The farmer reports a belief that can be true. The farmer is mistaken about his own belief.
Pace Moore...
We can know that a farmer believes that a piece of cloth is a cow or sheep even though the farmer cannot.
The rhetoric is trite.
This is the case only if the premises are known to be true by X or justifiably believed to be true. My point is how to better understand justification wrt deduction as a study case.
Quoting Ludwig V
What does partial justification of a belief mean ? In case of a deduction (which I'm talking about to clarify the notion of justification, not to equate the 2 concepts), it could be when we believe premises to be true (and they are true!) but we do not know them to be true:
P1: If doctor X diagnoses a cancer, then there is a cancer
P2: doctor X diagnoses a cancer
C: there is a cancer
One could believe P1 to be true (P1 being the case) and yet not know it to be true.
But in this case again, the term justification wouldn't apply to just valid deductions, they would still need to be sound deductions.
In this case, it's the cow that he saw that establishes his conclusion that there's a cow in the field. He is mistaken about which cow he saw, but that doesn't undermine his conclusion.
There's a sense in which we're constructing the argument from premises to conclusion. As long as we can provide a straight-forward argument that doesn't depend on false lemmas, then I think we're generally willing to grant the farmer knowledge.
Quoting Ludwig V
In the presented case, the farmer does misidentify the cow as Daisy, and so thinks that Daisy was the cause of his perception. But that doesn't present a problem for a causal explanation. It only means that people can sometimes be mistaken about what the causal factors are. In this case, the farmer's misinterpretation of what he saw didn't preclude him from knowing there was a cow in the field. And we know this because we can provide the correct causal explanation that demonstrates this (i.e., that he did see a cow).
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Seems right to me.
Quoting Janus
I think as a general rule, if you "couldn't too easily be mistaken" (Williamson's phrase) then you are justified in believing it.
Whether that's the case in a particular sheep scenario depends on how well-placed you are. Justification is a pragmatic standard - it has to be both useful (not too easy to be mistaken) and obtainable (infallibility is not required).
Quoting Janus
That's right. So that's the "no false lemmas" solution to Gettier problems. The farmer justifiably and correctly believed there was a sheep in the field. But because his belief was based on the false lemma that he was seeing a sheep, he thus didn't know that there was a sheep in the field.
Quoting Janus
OK. But more thorough investigations can involve mistakes. For example, suppose the farmer thought he saw a sheep moving and grazing, but it was a goat (or a robot).
Perhaps Gettier doesn't understand what logic is. Was he a logician too?
It seems to me that some consensus is developing around No False Lemmas, and of course I agree with that. There are detailed points that could be made about each of your messages. But that would be too much work for me, and would likely make for a boring read, so I'll just make some general comments.
It has been suggested that NFL should be added to the definition, whether as a separate clause or a condition within another clause, probably J. I don’t think it is necessary to do that, because it is simply a result of getting straight about the logic of the existing rules.
It is tempting to think that when a flaw has been found in a bad argument, it is not necessary to pursue the matter further. But there is more than one problem with Gettier cases, and the expectation that they either meet the definition criteria or they do not is another one; the target proposition is always partly right and partly wrong. I think that recognizing this and allowing them (when and if they really exist) to sit in their own category is a perfectly reasonable position. Indeed, a special class has already been invented – “Gettier cases”. No more needs to be done.
My final point is this - The cases that we argue about take advantage of the context of telling a fictional story (which is a very complicated and paradoxical practice, if you think it through - far more complicated than telling lies) to put us in the curious situation of knowing something that is supposed to be unknown to anyone. Gettier cases rely on the various circumstances not being known to anyone, and so will in real life always exist unknown to anyone. As soon as they become known, they can be resolved, so I can’t see that they can be very important. Some people worry about this, but that's only because they can imagine something that's not known to anyone. That's not real life.
Quoting creativesoul
Read what has already been written and ye shall be enlightened:
Quoting Janus
Quoting Andrew M
It's true that further investigations can involve mistakes. But if we are being strict about what we will accept as believable then we should investigate as far as, and in every more thorough way imaginable, and only commit to believing when all those possibilities are exhausted. It's also true that even then we can be mistaken, but at least our beliefs would then be properly justified.
We can always resort to entertaining something for pragmatic reasons without committing to belief if we realize that our investigations have not been or cannot be, for practical reasons, adequate. So, for example, I see something moving which I think is a sheep, but there is a boundary fence that prevents me from getting close enough to definitely confirm it.
So, he was looking at a piece of cloth, believed that he was looking at a cow, but did not believe that that piece of cloth was a cow?
:roll:
Then in all likelihood he knew what he was talking about. Gettier problems are real! Does Gettier's observation extend to mathematics as well? That would be interesting to say the least.
The target proposition is always false, one of which the believer cannot possibly be justified in believing. The target proposition is always an accounting malpractice of S's belief.
Shedding light on that pulls the rug out from under the entire project.
Which problem escapes this?
I suggest you read my posts in this thread. I'm not interested in continuing discussion with you, given the recent history.
If you were justified in believing P1 and P2 obtains then the conclusion would be justified, but P1 might be false if unbeknownst to you there were, along with the many cases where Doctor X correctly diagnosed cancer and on the basis of which you took yourself to be justified in believing P1, there were a few cases where she incorrectly diagnosed cancer. How to determine whether you were or were not "really" justified in believing P1 then?
Let’s distinguish two intellectual tasks: the first one is to assess whether JTB is an acceptable definition for the notion of “knowledge”. I think that deductive reasoning offers a study case to clarify the alternatives wrt the notion of “justification”: if “justification” amounts to “sound deduction” then knowledge=JTB is still plausible (this view is in line with the NFL assumption). If “justification” amounts to “valid deduction” then knowledge=JTB is not plausible (this view is not in line with the NFL assumption).
The second task is to assess knowledge/justification claims, namely beliefs about one’s knowledge/justification. This task must be handled in accordance with the definition we have given for “knowledge” or “justification”: so e.g. knowledge claims express knowledge if they are JTB, if we have established that knowledge=JTB.
There is something else however that might interfere with our understanding of both tasks: the trivial acknowledgement that any claims, including knowledge/justification claims (which discriminate between what is knowledge/justification and what not) are fallible may induce us to question the nature or the very possibility of knowledge/justification as such. Here is the problem of skepticism which we can address, but currently I find it off topic for this thread.
Let's ...
I hear it's a 2.5k year old definition attributed to Socrates, no less. :chin:
Of course Gettier problems are real. The question is whether they have a solution.
If you can come up with an example in mathematics of a Gettier problem, then you will have demonstrated that his observations apply to mathematics.
Quoting Agent Smith
I'm afraid Socrates/Plato rejects the JTB definition. Check out the Theaetetus.
Quoting creativesoul The target proposition in the farmer example is "There is a cow in the field" and the story tells us that there is a cow in the field. How is that false? However, it is true that the farmer is not justified in believing it. But Gettier has an argument that he is justified in believing it nonetheless, so you need to show that argument is invalid. You are advocating a version of the "no False Lemmas" reply, which I agree with. I'm not clear whether you agree with my argument for that reply and it would be interesting to know whether you agree or have a different argument to refute Gettier's argument.
Quoting Janus
There's no alternative to gathering as much information as you can and then deciding whether the failures were few enough to count as exceptions. There could not be a determinate answer to this, so the justification would be partial. So you could get it wrong and still be justified. That makes Gettier cases possible. (Actually, the doctor is almost certainly in the same situation, that the tests and evidence will only give their answer on the balance of probability.)
Quoting Andrew M
I'm sorry, I thought the causal theory of perception was about what actually caused the perception and that what the perceiver thought was the cause was not relevant. That's a very different theory.
But let me add a comment on Quoting Andrew M
Yes, I think I contradict myself in my account of this.
But what does “justified” mean here? If “justified” is a normative term and not just a descriptive term, then justification must refer to some cognitive processing assessment wrt some cognitive normative standard (e.g. deduction laws in case of justification based on deduction, observational/measuring standards in case of perceptual justification, communicative standards in case of third-party feedback justification etc.)
Quoting Ludwig V
I was thinking about probability too in reference to partial justification. But then I spotted 2 issues: 1. as far as I know, Gettier’s examples do not talk about beliefs in probabilistic terms (“S believes that P” and not “S believes that probably P”) 2. Probability either is conceptualised as a scalar value to be quantified (then what is supposed to be the probability that the farmer saw a cow while watching something that looks like a cow to consider his belief that there is a cow partially justified? I don’t think anybody is computing probabilities to support justification assessments in ordinary contexts), or it simply expresses a personal degree of confidence, but the inconvenience of taking into account degree of confidence in assessing partially justified beliefs is that anybody could be claimed to be partially justified in believing literally anything to be the case (including contradictions!) on condition that she be not sure about it. That's too much of a concession to me.
That's why I think that talking about partial justification makes more sense in ordinary contexts as a way to acknowledge some limits in our cognitive competence.
One point about the analysis I was offering is that it is deductively more palatable. Whenever we've talked about Gettier on the forum, or introduction is a real sticking point, and thus existential generalization is. People accept it in math class, but they balk at someone in real life inferring something of the form A v B v C v ... from A. I went around that by treating the name as a description. Now, instead of or introduction, we have and elimination, which doesn't seem to bother anyone.
Or introduction is not a crucial element of Gettier cases; it's just the easiest way to construct them. All we need is a situation in which your reasons for believing some proposition are not the reasons it's true. Stated abstractly, I think it's obvious this happens, and that when it does we think of this exactly as being lucky, a little like this:
"It's Disembodied Reggae Space Voice, but that's just a coincidence, you didn't know that!" (If you let the clip play on, you'll also be treated to Phineas asking Baljeet to quit arguing with the soundtrack. That show ...)
Descriptivism as a theory of names is controversial, of course, but there are a couple of specifics here in its favor: first, we're not looking at reference in general, but at recognition of a particular we are familiar with (to continue RussellFest, a particular we know by acquaintance); the other point is that the part of the description we keep is the sortal.
I think it is plausible to think of recognition as inherently a descriptive enterprise, involving a list of criteria. And sortals always play a special role. That post looks a little odd:
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
It's like that because what I thought I was going to do was have the farmer form a belief regarding the particular, Daisy, non-descriptively, and then infer further beliefs from his beliefs about Daisy; doing that would jam an and in between the recognition and the other inferences, creating two new scopes and allowing us to screw around with the reasons they're true. (I had a sort of Twin-Earthy idea that Daisy might turn out to have been a schmow all along, but with all the other things the farmer knew about Daisy still true.)
But non-descriptive recognition is so implausible, and implausible in particular if you give up the sortal. I think our beliefs are in almost every case centered on sortals; Daisy, for instance, is not just a particular, she is a particular cow. Certainly for the task of recognition, the list of Daisy's properties is going to begin with cow, and then include features (the nick in her ear, her weight, etc.) that distinguish her not from the farmhouse or the farmer's wife or the Milky Way or the tractor or democracy, but from other cows.
So all of that is to bolster the sense that you do have knowledge if you infer that you've seen a cow from your belief that you've seen Daisy the cow, even if you actually saw Clarabelle the cow.
Back to Gettier. Must there always be a false lemma when your reasons for believing a proposition are not the reasons it's true? No, obviously. It was an act of the Kansas state legislature (I'm guessing) that made Topeka the capital; you believe it because you learned it in school. There is, doubtless, a causal chain between that session of the Kansas state legislature and what your teacher told you or you read in a textbook, but it's a causal chain you cannot possibly be familiar with from beginning to end.
Now suppose you're in grade school and your teacher — because he's a bit of a prankster, or because he wants to make some point about remembering, or whatever — writes a list of cities on the board and a list of states. His intention is that he'll catch out some of the students wanting to match up Wichita to Kansas, even though Wichita is not the capital, and both Wichita and Kansas should remain unmatched. But, because he's also vulnerable to accessibility bias, he actually writes Topeka on the board. When he asks the payoff question, "What about Kansas?" a bunch of kids say "Topeka!" and he responds, "Oh-ho! But Topeka" — here he looks at the board — "is right there. Shoot." He intended there to be a conflict between the list the students had memorized and the list in front of them, to see if they could be tricked into taking what's in front of them instead of relying on what they remember, but he inadvertently made the lists the same. Now he has no experiment, because some of the students may have done exactly what he hoped, chosen Topeka remembering only that it's in Kansas. That's necessary but not sufficient for being the capital of Kansas, so it's not wrong, but it's still a mistake. But because of his mistake, it's a mistake that's undetectable. Of course, little kids tend to be pretty candid, so if he just asks, "How many of you remembered that Topeka is the capital of Kansas?" and "How many of you chose it because it's only city in Kansas on the board?" he'll probably get some hands up for each, and some embarrassed giggles.
And there's the other part of the Gettier case. Our epistemic agent always has explicit knowledge of what reasons they're relying on, what they're inferring from. To defeat no-false-lemmas, we have to construct a case in which those reasons are true and do provide strong enough support for the conclusion, but we can't do that counterfactually — that is, with reasons that the conclusion might have been true but isn't — so what we need are independent reasons, as "I learned it in school" is, epistemically if not causally, independent of "The Kansas state legislature said so."
My classroom wasn't intended to be a Gettier case, only a neighbor that illustrates the issues. But it's close, because it has elements of getting the right answer for the wrong reasons, only it adds a twist that the wrong reasons are coincidentally the right reasons. That's a funny thing, because it's almost as if "Wichita" is misspelled "Topeka" on the board, but in the teacher's mind is still the word "Wichita". So there's a false lemma here, but pushed back from the kids to the teacher. Never even realized on the board, but it's there in the teacher's beliefs. It's similar to my thing about Russell's clock, having the worker set the clock correctly from a watch that only happened to be right. Pushing the false lemma out over the agent's epistemic horizon leaves us in an uncertain position I think: depending on how the details are presented, the agent might strike us genuinely lucky to acquire knowledge, or too lucky for his belief to count as knowledge. It's like the conflicting intuitions among philosophers about the fake barn cases. What's interesting here is that most of the kids can probably report whether they had knowledge because they know whether they remembered, and it's the remembering that would be factive, but even some of them might not be sure they would have stuck with Topeka had Wichita been written on the board. And some might not know whether they would have remembered without being prompted. "I know it when I see it" is a real thing.
I'm going to take a break, but I really think we should be able to construct a clear case, roughly along the lines above, of Gettier case without a false lemma.
Yes. My mistake there. I was irritated at the time by another posters' hubris, very tired, and was not thinking clearly. The target propositions are true, not false. The beliefs are all false, not true. The propositions are not equivalent to the beliefs. The basic point I'm making is that S's belief is not being properly taken into account by any Gettier case, and that's the fatal flaw of them all, despite the fact that there are remarkable differences between Gettier's paper and the cottage industry that followed.
Quoting Ludwig V
That's not the only way to show how Gettier is mistaken. Gettier's logic is impeccable. However, an argument can be both impeccable and false. In Gettier's paper, the fatal flaw is treating Smith's beliefs as though they are equivalent to the naked propositions he discusses. They are not. I can and have shown how that is the case.
Quoting Ludwig V
I'm not even sure that I understand the NFL objection. If my answer to Gettier cases counts as a version of the NFL, then it is by pure coincidence. I'll try to adequately summarize the individual cases in this post, because the crucial parts of my view have been sporadically littered throughout my replies here in a rather disparate looking fashion. Taking the cases one at a time should clear up any misunderstandings...
In Case I, Smith is justified in believing that he will get the job and he knows that he has ten coins in his pocket. Gettier uses this justified belief and the rules of entailment for Smith to go from "I will get the job and have ten coins in my pocket" to "the man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job". Unbeknownst to Smith, another man also has ten coins in his pocket. That other man got the job. Smith did not. So... the claim is that if Smith was justified in believing P, and P entails Q, then Smith is justified in deducing Q from P and thus justified in believing Q. Q turned out to be true when treated as a naked proposition. Q is not a naked proposition. Q is Smith's belief. The difference between Q as a naked proposition and Q as Smith's belief is paramount. When Smith believed "the man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job" he was thinking about himself and no one else! The fatal flaw of the case is Gettier's failing to keep in mind Smith's belief. Smith was not justified in believing anyone other than himself would get the job. Smith was not justified in believing anyone other than himself had ten coins in their pocket. Someone else had ten coins in their pocket and someone else got the job, contrary to Smith's belief. Smith's belief turned out to be false despite the fact that "the man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job" turned out to be true when treated as a naked proposition. The truth conditions of Smith's belief do not match the truth conditions of the naked proposition. Thus, to treat Smith's belief as a naked proposition is to engage in an accounting malpractice of Smith's belief.
In Case II, Smith is justified in believing Jones owns a Ford. Gettier uses that and the rules of disjunction for Smith to go from Smith's belief that Jones owns a Ford to belief that either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona. Turns out that Jones does not own a Ford and Brown is in Barcelona, so again - like the first case - the disjunction is true when treated as a naked proposition/disjunction. The fatal flaw in that case is equal to the first case in that Gettier is misattributing belief to Smith by treating Smith's belief as a naked proposition when it is not. Smith believed that the disjunction was true because Jones owned a Ford. Gettier did not render Smith's belief that way. The disjunction was not true because Jones owned a Ford. Rather, it was true because Brown was in Barcelona. So, Smith's belief was false. Thus, putting Smith's belief in terms of P or Q is treating Smith's belief as a naked proposition. The truth conditions of the naked proposition are not equivalent to the truth conditions of Smith's belief. Hence, to treat Smith's belief as though it is a naked proposition is to engage in an accounting malpractice of Smith's belief.
The cottage industry repeats the accounting malpractice, but not quite in the same way as Gettier. Those cases do not follow the S knows that P formulation that Gettier addresses in his paper. Gettier gets Smith's belief right to begin with, but then conflates naked propositions/disjunctions with Smith's belief. The cottage cases begin by not getting S's belief right to start with. So, the critique/refutation for them is slightly different than the critique of Gettier's two cases. Gettier and the cottage industry all get S's belief wrong, they just go about it in different ways.
Belief that a piece of cloth is a cow does not entail "a cow is in the field". Belief that a barn facade is a barn does not entail "a barn is in the field". Belief that Clarabelle is Daisy does not entail "Daisy is in the field". Belief that a broken clock is working does not entail "it is two o'clock". Etc.
Correctly stating S's belief in the beginning marks the end of the cottage cases.
Gettier's two cases are both justified false belief. All of the cottage industry cases present true statements that do not follow from S's belief. No Gettier case offers an accurate account of S's belief.
Quoting neomac
I see your point. But there's an issue about how far philosophy needs to cater for ordinary use of words. For example, I have no doubt that someone who says "I knew that horse would win the race. A tipster told me so." did not know. That person is (misusing "know" to express subjective certainty and so undermining the distinction between knowledge and belief. But someone who claims to know on weak evidence.... that's a different issue. I don't think it is possible to develop a clear criterion.
I don't think we can escape the problem because knowledge based on statistics is everywhere in our lives.
I do think it is appropriate for philosophy to have criteria somewhat stricter than ordinary language but insisting that all justification is conclusive would result in two senses of "justification" and hence two senses of "know".
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I don't teach logic and never have, but I do know that I had trouble accepting existential generalization, but I encountered it in the deduction from the particular to "some", and finally accepted it because "Daisy is in the field" clearly implies "There is one cow in the field" and I had to accept that "some" could include "one" at least for the purposes of logic; that then validated "There are some cows in the field". (Strictly, of course the fact that "cows" is in the plural excludes "one", so it was a stretch.) Anyway, once one has that, it is relatively easy to argue that "some" implies a disjunctive list of them.
I still feel uncomfortable with it, because there is something odd about saying that there is a cow in the field when you know perfectly well it is Daisy. One might do it if it would be a bit awkward to admit exactly what I'm going to the chemist for. But under normal circumstances, I think it is just weird. But logic doesn't take account of that.
I wouldn't discourage you from trying to construct a Gettier case that doesn't involve any false lemmas. The only one I've seen (and I've forgotten where I saw it, sadly) was clearly not a Gettier case. The problem for me is that one can construct an endless array of possibilities and lose the plot in the resulting complexity. Perhaps that's just me. I wish you luck.
I don't understand what you are saying here. What are the two senses? By "conclusive" are you referring for example to sound deductions as opposed to valid deductions?
I’m still wondering what “partial justification” means. How can probability make the justification partial?
Most knowledge claims it seems, apart from purely logical or mathematical results, are based on observation and inductive reasoning, so I am not sure where you see deduction fitting in the picture. I was trying to use exhaustive investigation as a more solid criterion to establish justification. So in the cloth/ sheep example,
I suggested that one would only be justified in believing that one had seen a sheep rather than a cloth if one got close enough to be absolutely sure ( leaving aside absurd scenarios like ' a man disguised so convincingly as sheep that it would be impossible to tell the difference' or 'brain in a vat" or 'I'm actually not awake, but dreaming' and so on.
Of course, this bracketing of radical skepticism shows that the notion of justification cannot be definitively and absolutely pinned down; there is always going to be acceptance and putting aside of some possibility of doubt and adoption of some arbitrary standard of what should be thought to constitute evidence and hence justification for empirical claiims.
I would be quite happy to dispense with all talk of knowledge whatsoever and speak instead of more or less justified belief. That would defuse all the absurd angst and wrangling over Gettier cases.
Quoting Ludwig V
Yes, that's what I've been saying. I have no problem with degrees of justification, but since the conceptual distinction between knowledge and belief is very clear, and the degree of justification, except in cases where close enough observation and exhaustive enough investigation to eliminate the possibility of error is possible, is not clear, I think it would be better to speak of more or less justified belief, rather than knowledge, except in those cases which are clearly involving sufficiently close observation and exhaustive investigation..
Logical and mathematical knowledge are based on deductions (see theoremes). And one could question that inductive reasoning based on observation can be called knowledge at all (Hume deemed inductive inference are unjustified). In any case Gettier’s examples do not seem to relate to deductions nor induction. They concern particular perceptual beliefs.
But I was suggesting to consider “deduction” as a study case for better clarifying the notion of “justification” because if “justified” is a normative term (as I understand it) and not just a descriptive term, then justification must refer to some information processing based on some cognitive standard (e.g. deduction rules in case of justification based on deduction, observational/measuring standards in case of perceptual justification, communicative standards in case of third-party feedback justification etc.). And if deduction is a form of justification, then we can easily see how our acceptance of knowledge=JTB or its rejection can be rendered in terms of valid/sound deductions. In other cases of knowledge, it’s less clear, how to distinguish valid from sound information processing.
Quoting Janus
Quoting Janus
Here you are confirming that justification is a normative concept not a descriptive one, since we should use some standard to assess justification, then you are suggesting what observational protocols could be provided in order to ensure justification for perceptual beliefs (e.g. one has to go close enough to be justified). I would add that perception is not the only way we form beliefs, but there is also deduction and third-party feedback. So what is left to clarify is if there is a way to distinguish valid/sound justification in case of perceptual beliefs and socially transmitted beliefs as much as we distinguish valid/sound deduction.
If I see a cloth and I think it is a cow, is that not based on induction? I've seen cows before and that looks like a cow so I conclude that it is a cow.
Quoting neomac
Right, I understand valid and sound to be two quite different criteria applied to different aspects of deductive reasoning. If my premises are sound (which means true) then my conclusion will be true provided my reasoning is valid.
It's easy enough to tell, if my reasoning is valid, not always so easy to tell is my premises are sound.
I agree that justification is a normative concept, and can be descriptive only with the context of the norms (if there be such) which are used to establish its provenance.
This presupposes that there is more than one kind of belief. I find that quite germane to the topic, given the B aspect.
Gazing upon a field, seeing a piece of cloth, and believing it to be a cow does not entail "there is a cow in the field". It is also not the same belief. The farmer first believed that that particular piece of cloth was a cow.<----That's the beginning of an accurate analysis of this farmer's belief. That belief grounds this farmer's subsequent thought. It also marks the end of our analysis. Belief that there is a cow in the field does not follow from belief that a piece of cloth is a cow.
No more wondering whether or not that farmer's belief is justified.
[quote=Wikipedia]
Constructing Gettier Problems.
The main idea behind Gettier's examples is that the justification for the belief is flawed or incorrect, but the belief turns out to be true by sheer luck. Linda Zagzebski shows that any analysis of knowledge in terms of true belief and some other element of justification that is independent from truth, will be liable to Gettier cases. She offers a formula for generating Gettier cases:
(1) start with a case of justified false belief;
(2) amend the example, making the element of justification strong enough for knowledge, but the belief false by sheer chance;
(3) amend the example again, adding another element of chance such that the belief is true, but which leaves the element of justification unchanged;
This will generate an example of a belief that is sufficiently justified (on some analysis of knowledge) to be knowledge, which is true, and which is intuitively not an example of knowledge. In other words, Gettier cases can be generated for any analysis of knowledge that involves a justification criterion and a truth criterion, which are highly correlated but have some degree of independence.[/quote]
Can anyone follow the above instructions and construct an original Gettier problem, anyone?
Then there seems to be a terminological issue here. I intend inductive reasoning as a form of reasoning where from a set of particular propositions we conclude some general proposition: e.g. From crow one is black, crow two is black, crow three is black, ..., crow n is black, I conclude that all crows (in a set of crows larger than n) are black. As you see we are talking about propositions and we are moving from particular to general.
In Gettier's examples: 1. We do not talk about particular propositions as the basis for some other belief, but of perceptual evidence as the basis for perceptual beliefs 2. The perceptual belief is particular not a generalization.
So to me the information processing that goes from perceptual evidence to a particular perceptual belief is not inductive reasoning.
The expression "perceptual belief", as I use it, it's simply pointing to the genesis of that belief. If a belief is processed out of perceptual evidences, it's perceptual, if it's processed out of other propositions through reasoning it can be deductive or inductive belief, if it's processed out of a communicative channel it's a transmitted belief, etc.
This is at least part of my background assumptions while thinking about justification.
In any case, the template does not reflect their history (unwritten, so far as I know). You can see the changes (mostly unexplained, which is annoying) develop and evading one problem after another. For example, Gettier's own examples posit a conscious and deliberate process of inference, but later examples posit a perceptual basis, to avoid objections to that. Hence our discussion about a piece of cloth that's not a cow. But other examples posit a dog disguised as a sheep or a robot dog to get round objections - a different kind of mistake. Russell's clock and Havit's Ford try to get round mistaken perception altogether. The most recent example that I have seen posits a perfectly standard case of knowledge, which is subjected to a barrage of disinformation; "everybody" believes the disinformation, but our S misses the barrage and so only "knows" by luck. For my money, this isn't a Gettier case at all.
Long story short, after 60 years of trying no convincing Getter example has been produced. Experience suggests that they can't be. I can't help feeling that this is suggestive. Perhaps I'm not very good philosopher, but I'm inclined to predict that people are moving on.
Statistics - If something is 95% likely to happen, most people would consider themselves justified in predicting that it will happen, and most people will agree.
Or consider this. The standard format for establishing who committed a crime is means, motive, opportunity. Suppose I establish means and motive beyond doubt and establish that there is no evidence against opportunity. Not quite conclusive, but enough to justify belief - or so many people would say.
Yet you claimed: "But there's an issue about how far philosophy needs to cater for ordinary use of words".
Quoting Ludwig V
So are you suggesting that the farmer calculated that the likelihood of that cow-looking thingy on the field was 95% and therefore he was partially justified in believing that there was a cow on the field? I think that’s a bit of a stretch. I could find plausible that the farmer claimed “I’m 95% sure that’s a cow” but not “There is 95% chance that’s a cow”. In other words “95%” is more likely and hyperbolically a degree of confidence not a computation of probability in the case of the farmer.
Quoting Ludwig V
That’s a good example. Would you claim that the judges know that the crime was committed based on that partial justification? Or, else, would you claim that the judges know that the crime was probably committed based on that full justification?
It seems to me that once you introduce probabilistic beliefs there is no need to talk about partial justification, the justification can still be full and conclusive (unless for you "conclusive" = "non-probabilistic" while for me "conclusive" = "sound"), the point is that premises and conclusions are probabilistic.
One way to verify this is again through deduction:
P1: if X had means and motive to commit crime Y, then it’s highly probable X committed crime Y
P2: X had means and motive to commit crime Y
C: it’s highly probable X committed crime Y
This deduction expresses knowledge not if it’s valid but if it’s sound. Contrast that to the case where the situation was exactly the same, except for the fact that the judge reasons like this:
P1: if by flipping a coin I get heads, then it’s highly probable X committed crime Y
P2: by flipping a coin I get heads
C: it’s highly probable X committed crime Y
The deduction could be valid but certainly not sound. Therefore it wouldn’t express knowledge.
My impression is that the reason why one could consider "partial" a probabilistic deduction wrt a non-probabilistic deduction doesn't depend on the lack of soundness of the deduction but on the cognitive limits that the probabilistic reasoning shows wrt a non-probabilistic reasoning in a certain domain. However since both reasoning can be sound, they both can express full justification and full knowledge.
:up:
As Feynman once noted, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.”
Quoting Ludwig V
I think that's right. The main point, as I see it, is to understand what it is that we do and why.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I'm not yet convinced! If the children understood that the teacher could include non-capital cities in his experiment, then I don't think the children were justified in believing that Topeka is the capital of Kansas (assuming they didn't already know it).
Whereas if the children believed (wrongly) that the teacher could only include capital cities, then that would be a false lemma. Even if, as it turned out, only capital cities were included.
It's like playing a game of chess, and finding out later that certain house rules were in effect that you didn't know about and were never utilized in the game. You "deduced" that you were in checkmate, and you were even according to the house rules, but there were more potential moves available than you thought.
My apologies for not recognizing what all you've said here. It deserves better attention than I gave it earlier. Gestalt was in control, I suppose. I have no idea how I missed this. :smile: I wondered why you had not addressed my last reply to you, but after rereading through our exchanges, now I think I know exactly why. You had addressed my concerns(at least regarding the cottage industry cases) on a basic level here, and I somehow missed that completely, and instead summarized the basic points I've made without ever actually giving due attention to the ones you made here. Again, my apologies.
Regarding the above quote...
I completely agree that we need to report what people see. We need to report what they say. We also need to report what people believe, especially in the odd cases where they do not know what they see and/or believe about what they see. This is one such case. We seem to agree that the farmer believes that that particular piece of cloth is a cow. Where we seem to disagree is what we ought say in our report about what the farmer believes at the time. You seem to be agreeing with conventional belief attribution practices when you suggest that our report of the farmer's belief ought be what the farmer would likely say himself at that time in particular.
The farmer would not say that he believes a piece of cloth is a cow while looking at a piece of cloth that he believes is a cow. The farmer does not know that he is mistaken about what he's looking at. He does not know that he believes a piece of cloth is a cow. So, he certainly would not say that he believes a piece of cloth is a cow. That is a belief that is impossible to knowingly hold.
So, if we do as you seem to suggest here, which is in line with conventional accounting/belief attribution practices, we would not be reporting what the farmer believes. To quite the contrary, we would be going with what the farmer says at the time.
Actually it's not. You've answered in what seems to be a very non-committal manner, as if straddling both side of a fence. This could be cleared up, however. I've a question for you...
Ought we report what the farmer believes(that a piece of cloth is a cow), or what the farmer would likely say at that particular time(that he believes a cow is in the field)?
A follow-up...
If we are going to go with what the farmer would say, upon what grounds are we claiming that the best time to do that(to go with what the farmer says) is when the farmer is wrong about their own belief, rather than when they become aware that they had once believed that a piece of cloth was a cow(rather than go with what the farmer would say when they're right about what they saw and what they believed about what they saw)?
I see.
Curious how you would answer the questions I posed to Ludwig.
Quoting creativesoul
Briefly, when belief-attribution is incoherently based on knowledge-attribution, the other inconvenient is that one should update belief attribution every time there is knowledge update. The other inconvenient is that if X and Y disagree on what constitute knowledge but they agreed on what S believes according to the current belief-attribution method, yet they would report S's beliefs differently according to your belief-attribution method, multiplying the beliefs S has and probably failing to even understand each other.
I remember. That's why I asked.
I cannot make head or tails out of that answer. except that it seemed to be some sort of critique of my approach. Strange answers to very straightforward questions.
That's where you balked last time too.
Here's how I see it...
Simply put:Our disagreements boil down to the differences between our notions of belief.
I was hopeful that there was a bridge when you mentioned "perceptual beliefs", but that notion turned out to be rather empty it seems. All belief is existentially dependent upon physiological sensory perception(biological machinery), including those that are arrived at in the 'other' ways you mentioned. Thus, I found that rather unhelpful for adding any clarity.
However, that aspect, I think you called it "processing" or something similar, very well could be great material to build a bridge of mutual understanding.
That's why I asked that... first.
Here is a more straightforward answer: we all learnt to report S’belief at t1 based on what S says at t1. That’s the practice. Now you claim that we should revise this practice because it doesn’t make sense to you for whatever reason and therefore we should attribute S’belief at t1 what S or we know at t2 about S's belief at t1. In conclusion, your belief attribution method is based on knowledge attribution. I find incoherent this conclusion because knowledge presupposes belief, so the workflow must logically start with determining belief first, and then knowledge.
Quoting creativesoul
It depends on what you want to clarify. I wanted to clarify the notion of justification. So to me the notion of justification applies differently based on the genesis of a given belief.
Is that what counts as a valid reply/answer these days? That may count as an answer to some people, but others can plainly see that it does not answer the questions that it should.
With regard to your question...
Indeed, it is standard practice to report S's belief at time t1 based upon what S says at time t1. That is precisely the problem in certain cases like this particular farmer story. I've shown how that practice has been found wanting, lacking, and begging for truth about the farmer's belief at time t1.
Upon what ground do you accept the farmer's self-report at time t1, when he was wrong about what he saw and believed about that, and reject his report at time t2, when he is correct about what he saw and believed at time t1?
At time t2, would you argue with the farmer about what he believed at time t1, based upon standard accounting/belief attribution practices, in the same manner you've argued against me here?
Let's try something else then: explain to me upon what grounds are we claiming that the best time to proceed our driving is exactly when green light occurs, rather than at whatever other time we feel like driving on.
Quoting creativesoul
Maybe you tried. To me without success.
Quoting creativesoul
It depends on how you construct your thought experiment: if you surreptitiously project onto your fictional character your belief-attribution method (as you did with Jack) then I would make the same objections. If he's committed to an absurd belief-attribution method that he applies to others, that method doesn't become more plausible just because he readily applies it to himself. At best, that can show that he honestly believes in its effectiveness.
If you do not project onto your fictional character your belief-attribution method , then de-re belief attribution can be successfully worked out, if there are enough contextual assumptions shared by interlocutors, but only as a tolerable derogation to the standard method of belief-attribution, not as its replacement! Indeed also those contextual assumptions are based on the standard method of belief-attribution about other interlocutors' beliefs [1]!
[1] Example: If A tells B that C believes that piece of cloth is a cow, A is (reliably?) assuming that B believes that there there is a piece of cloth and not a cow.
Doesn’t it make sense for the farmer’s self report at t1 to be about t1 and for his self report about t2 to be about t2?
Other mental states are like that e.g. at t1 he intended to go to the shops but at t2 he no longer intended to go to the shops. (Not that at t2 he never intended to go to the shops).
His claims concern how we (including S himself) ascribe beliefs to some S at time t1.
Consider this case:
In this case, Creativesoul would claim that we (S included) must now revise S's belief attribution at t1, and instead of saying "At t1 S believed that is cow" we must say "At t1 S believed that piece of cloth was a cow". In other words, "At t1 S believed that was cow" is a wrong belief-attribution report, while "At t1 S believed that piece of cloth was a cow" is the only correct belief-attribution report.
My position on this has evolved a bit since our first conversation. Your summary to invizzy would be closer to what my position was back when you and I were discussing Jack. After much consideration, I've sharpened it up a bit, so the summary is altogether mistaken now.
I am not saying anything at all about going back and changing what S would say at the time.
We can discuss things more later. For now though...
Let's start at the beginning of this particular famer's thought and belief formation process. Let's talk about how he goes from seeing a cloth to "there is a cow in the field". Are we in agreement that the farmer sees a cloth and mistakes cloth for cow at time t1, but he does not know that?
@invizzy apparently he changed his views.
Quoting creativesoul
Yep.
No problem. Thanks for your reply.
Quoting creativesoul
"Report" implies that we are talking to someone other than the farmer. So we report in the first way. If we were talking to the farmer, he would obviously not recognize what we would say. But to repeat to him the words he would use would suggest that we share his belief, so I can't use those. Before I can say anything to him, I have to ensure that we both understand the reference of the sentence. I must correct his mistake. “You know that cow in the field? Well actually it’s a piece of cloth.” or “I’m afraid that cow in the field is actually a piece of cloth” would do the trick.
I'm afraid I'm one of those who people who see every sentence as a (potential) speech-act so the context, including the audience, always needs to be considered.
I don't understand your diagnosis of Gettier's case 1. I think you've misremembered it. If I understand you rightly (and I'm not sure I have), your diagnosis of Case 2 is complicated by the fact that "P or Q" is true iff P is true or Q is true. So, according to Gettier and me, if Smith believes that P, they are justified in believing that P or Q. But, as you say P is false, yet, as Gettier tells us, Q is true. Smith's justification relies on P and the truth relies on Q. It's that mismatch that creates the problem. My solution to this example is to point out that Smith's justification fails and so he cannot know P or Q, which can be summarized as "no false lemmas".
I agree that at first sight it seems possible to construct an example without false lemmas. On second thought, however, I can't see how an example could be constructed without a false belief, so I am very sceptical of the possibility. There are some attempts, but they haven't convinced me.
In short, it seems to me that Gettier case ought to be possible. Perhaps the real Gettier problem is why it is so hard to develop one that commands general agreement or to articulate a general solution.
When the driver thinks he's correct in seeing a barn merely from driving past it and
the connection of assumptions to who lands a job, what? Without proper inquiry for something that seems trivial and does not warrant the proper inquiry.
If we were to relate to important assumptions, we would put all scientific efforts to it and certainly not be satisfied with these naive beliefs from superficial investigations if there were lives at stake in seeing a barn instead of movie scenery or one guy landing a job instead of another guy, let's say for the President of USA. Would really the coins in a pocket be something?
So perhaps inside information from the employer would seem more convincing in terms of who lands a job.
Conclusion: the paper is naive.
I changed how I present them.
Quoting neomac
Okay.
Do we agree that at time t1, the farmer believed that the cloth in the field was a cow, but he does not know that?
I understand the concerns with clarity, particularly when it comes to expressing one's views in a philosophical discussion with other philosophers. We can be a picky bunch. However, I no longer share any deep concerns at all over these matters we're currently discussing. To me, it is as plain and simple as the nose on my face. Gettier's Case I has everything to do with reference. That being said...
Sure, we could inform the farmer of his mistake by doing as you suggest or something similar. That would do the trick, if that amounts to allowing the farmer to become aware that he had false belief, unbeknownst to himself at time t1.
Quoting Ludwig V
Of course. That's a beneficial consequence stemming from your namesake's insistence upon looking at how we use language in order to ascertain the meaning. I do not foresee that as being a potential problem here.
Quoting Ludwig V
Well, that surprises me.
Okay. I just looked it up and you're completely right, I did misremember. My apologies, but the basic objection still stands. I just mixed up who Smith believed would get the job. Easy enough to correct. Thank you for pointing that out! Much better to report the Case correctly, especially given this discussion.
So, Smith justifiably believed that Jones would get the job, and he had counted the coins in Jones' pocket earlier. Gettier invoked the rules of entailment to have Smith go from "Jones is the man who will get the job, and Jones has ten coins in his pocket" to "the man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job". Smith got the job instead of Jones, and unbeknownst to Smith he too had ten coins in his pocket, so "the man with ten coins in his pocket", which is what Gettier reports as Smith's belief, turns out to be true even though Jones did not get the job, and Smith believed that Jones would.
Treating Smith's belief as a naked proposition is to change what sorts of things would make Smith's belief true. Smith did not believe that he would get the job. He believed that Jones would get the job. So, in Smith's mind the person referred to by "the man with ten coins in his pocket" was Jones, and no one else. Smith got the job, contrary to his own belief.
The difference between Smith's belief and the proposition when treated as a naked one is clear. The proposition would be true if any man with ten coins in their pocket got the job. Smith's belief is not about any man. It is about Jones, and no one else. Smith's belief would have been true only if, only when, and only because Jones got the job.
Well, it doesn't seem to me that my diagnosis of Case II is complicated by the fact that "P or Q" is true if P or Q is true. Rather, that is precisely what makes the case.
Smith believed the disjunction was true because Jone's owned a Ford(because P was true). The disjunction was not true because P was true. It was true because Q was true. Smith's belief was false.
(P or Q) does not adequately take Smith's belief into account. Just like the first case, Smith's belief is not equivalent to the naked disjunction (Por Q). Rather, Smith believed that P or Q was true because P. Leaving out that last bit (because P) is to provide an accounting malpractice of Smith's belief. It is not equivalent to the naked proposition/disjunction.
I prefer to put Gettier's Case II in long form, for that's how those sorts of beliefs are best understood, and it's also much easier for the average Joe to register and/or otherwise understand the problem.
Smith believed that "Either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona" was true because Jones owned a Ford. It was not. To quite contrary, it was true because Brown was in Barcelona. Smith's belief was false. The conventional accounting practices used by Gettier leave all that completely neglected. Hence, I find those practices to be lacking in explanatory power when it comes to correctly reporting(taking account of) Smith's belief.
Belief that "'P or Q' is true because P" is not equivalent to belief that "P or Q" is true.
Salva veritate.
Seems to me that all Gettier cases show problems with the conventional accounting practices. From convention accounting practices' inability to properly render Smith's belief in both Gettier cases, to belief attribution practices(including but not limited to the de re/de dicto distinction) claiming that the farmer's belief statement is justified, when it is clearly not if we look carefully enough at what grounded that statement, to the practice of being far too strict with what ought only apply to some beliefs, and working from the presupposition/dogma that all belief ought be only rendered in terms amenable to belief as propositional attitude simply because openly espoused ones can.
There is a basic (mis)conception of meaningful human thought and belief in philosophy proper, and it's been there for a very long time. As a result of getting thought and belief wrong on such a basic level, we've gotten something basic wrong about everything ever thought, believed, spoken, and/or otherwise uttered when offering a report about their origin.
It's no wonder that there are no notions of belief at work(that I'm aware of) that are rendered in terms easily amenable to evolutionary progression. With all the talk about consciouness, it doesn't look hopeful for this to be corrected, in small part at the very least, any time soon. You'll have that.
I'm very busy in real life everyday practical financially rewarding endeavors, and I'm very lucky to have been fortunate enough to be the one who's currently in my shoes, so to speak. That being said, there is something that I get from doing philosophy well, and listening to others who also do, that simply cannot be gotten any other way. So, sometimes I piddle...
I appreciate your responses thus far.
Very professional. Oh...
And you're more than welcome for the earlier reply. It was my pleasure.
I agree to the extent we can derogate to the de-dicto way of reporting beliefs, as explained.
How does "there is a cow in the field" follow from mistaking cloth for cow? How does mistaking cloth for cow serve as sufficient reason to believe and/or state "there is a cow in the field"? How does mistaking cloth for cow warrant concluding that there is a cow in field?
Not sure how to understand your questions, but I could say that there are 2 conditions to take into account: 1. perceptual evidences 2. justificatory practices. So e.g. the fact that available evidences fit enough into a cow-shape perceptual template, plus the fact that no other justificatory practice more reliable than judging by habit is applied may suffice to explain the mistaken belief.
I do understand and share the difficulty you have in fitting in the demands or ordinary life alongside pursuing philosophy. They explain why I sometimes disappear for a while. It's an inevitable part of the medium we are working in.
Quoting creativesoul
I agree with this. There's a question you don't include in your summary - whether Smith was justified in believing that Jones owned a Ford. Gettier's answer is that he was. That's the situation that generates the confusion that people feel about these cases.
Quoting creativesoul
But surely is one part of a disjunction is true, the whole disjunction is true. "Jones owned a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona" is true if Jones owned a Ford. Yes? Also "Jones owned a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona" is true if Brown is in Barcelona. Yes? That's all I'm saying.
Quoting creativesoul
I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you mean by conventional or unconventional accounting practices. Can you please explain?
Quoting neomac
I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean by the de dicto (or de re) way(s) of reporting beliefs. I do know what di dicto and de re mean. Can you please explain?
I and Creativesoul had a very long exchange about his views a while ago so I’m reusing here expressions I clarified there (and without worrying too much about standard usage).
To make a long story short, “de dicto” belief-attributions refer to belief-attributions relative to a certain believer’s p.o.v. For example, in “the farmer believes that is a cow”, the subordinate clause "that is a cow" is rendering the farmer’s belief content exclusively according to the farmer’s point of view in the given circumstances.
In the case of “de re” belief-attributions, we refer to belief-attributions independently from a certain believer’s p.o.v. . For example, in “the farmer believes that piece of cloth is a cow”, the subordinate clause "that piece of cloth is a cow" is rendering the farmer’s belief independently from his point of view because the piece of cloth wasn’t identified as such by the farmer. Indeed, we have linguistic tools to non-ambiguously render “de-re” belief attributions: e.g. “the farmer believes of that piece of cloth that is a cow” where “of that piece of cloth” is referring to something outside the p.o.v. of the believer as rendered by the subordinate clause “that is a cow”.
Thanks very much for your explanation. It seems to me that is close to my approach, though I can't describe how it all fits together clearly.
"Of that piece of cloth" opens up another issue. I mean that as well as "believe of that piece of cloth", there is the use of believe as in "believe in". I'm not at all sure that either has any relevance to Gettier, and most people, confronted with them, want to reduce them to propositional beliefs of the traditional kind. I'm not at all sure about that. There are nuances going on here that I don't have any grip on.
I'm afraid I don't have any ideas about where we should go next.
That's how I see it as well.
Quoting Ludwig V
I think part of the problem is that there are many different tracks along which disagreement and misunderstanding can occur and so care is needed to properly distinguish and relate them. Some of the philosophical and linguistic issues the Gettier problem raises are:
You've shown a penchant recently for not answering questions posed to you. Try this...
Does "there is a cow in the field" follow from mistaking cloth for cow?
Does the act of mistaking cloth for cow serve as sufficient reason to believe and/or state "there is a cow in the field"?
Does mistaking cloth for cow warrant concluding that there is a cow in field?
Well due to our past exchange I don't trust your way of framing problems.
Quoting creativesoul
Yes but there might be some catch in the term "follow" (between perceptual belief and propositional belief there is not narrow logic linking).
Quoting creativesoul
Yes but there might be some catch in the term "sufficient reason" (between perceptual belief and propositional belief there is not narrow logic linking).
Quoting creativesoul
I take "warrent" as a synonimous of "justify". As I pointed out we must agree on the notion of "justification" to discuss further the issue. In any case, I wouldn't claim "mistaking cloth for cow warrants concluding that there is a cow in field". I would claim "mistaking cloth for cow explains the belief that there is a cow in field"
We could put some effort into clarifying the notion of "justification" according to an internalist epistemology. In that sense, I think "justification" is a normative term, not a descriptive one. Additionally, justificatory practices vary depending on the genesis of a belief and they have different degrees of reliability (which also means that we distinguish "valid" from "sound" applications). Since our beliefs are fallible, our knowledge and justificatory claims are fallible as well.
Quoting neomac
Do you agree that at time t1, this particular farmer looked out into a particular field at a particular piece of cloth and mistook it for a cow?
The cottage industry cases completely neglect to include the beginning of the farmer's thought and/or belief formation process.
It does not follow from mistaking cloth for cow that one is justified in asserting/believing that "there is a cow in the field" is true.
Starting at "there is a cow in the field" does not consider the false belief, the case of mistaking cloth for cow, the belief that a particular piece of cloth in a particular field is a cow. Starting at "there is a cow in the field" completely neglects to assess the belief underwriting the exclamation. Those give rise to "there is a cow in the field".
Besides that, "that's a cow" would be the first thing the farmer thought/believed upon looking at the cloth. Then, he may deduce "there is a cow in the field". It makes no difference. Neither follow from mistaking cloth for cow.
Quoting neomac
The cloth looked like a cow.
Quoting neomac
As if any judgment habit counts...
I agree that Smith's belief was justified. I deny that it was true, because I deny that the target proposition/disjunction is equivalent to Smith's belief at the time. Looking at what makes them true shines clear light on this accounting malpractice of confusing belief with a naked proposition.
I'm pointing out that Smith believed the disjunction was true because Jones owned a Ford. The disjunction was not true because Jones owned a Ford. It was true because Brown was in Barcelona. Thus, Smith's belief is justified, valid, and false. That poses no problem for JTB.
Case II has Gettier guilty of not getting Smith's belief right to begin with. Convention did not notice, because he followed all the rules of belief attribution/reporting practices. When we do get Smith's belief right, the 'problem' dissolves completely. As above, justified, valid, false belief is not a problem for JTB. Gettier was/is not alone. He merely followed the historical conventional practices of belief attribution based upon rendering all belief in propositional form. Convention still treats naked propositions as equivalent to belief when rendering an individuals' belief in propositional form. It manifests from the divorce/separation of truth and belief. That's the reason why Gettier's paper has persisted.
Another historical problem is the conventional mistake of treating belief as though it is equivalent to the naked proposition. It's not. We can know that by virtue of carefully comparing what it would take for the belief under consideration to be true with what it would take in order for the naked proposition to be true. They are not always the same. This is one such case. It's not the only one. Case I is yet another.
Smith's belief is not just that the disjunction is true. Rather, it is more about his knowing what makes the disjunction true. Think about what all it takes in order for an individual to do what Gettier suggests Smith does in his thought/belief formation process. Smith has to know enough to deliberately follow the S knows that P formula that Gettier was targeting. Gettier even goes so far as to openly claim that Smith knows the rules of disjunction as well as the rules of entailment, for it is the entailment that Gettier uses in order for him to claim that Smith knowingly deduced P or Q from P. Gettier even added that Smith was aware of the move, which presupposes that he intentionally and deliberately knowingly made it. Then he forgets all about that part. Odd, given he was supposed to be reporting Smith's belief.
Think about it in a way that's been sorely neglected. It's common sense.
If Smith believed that Jones owned a Ford, and he was adept enough to know that the rules of entailment would allow him to deduce "Either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona" from his belief that Jones owned a Ford, then it only follows that he did not believe that the disjunction was true as a result of Brown's whereabouts. It was. To quite the contrary, he believed it was true regardless of Brown's whereabouts. It was not.
He only believed the disjunction was true because he believed Jones owned a Ford. He would never have uttered it otherwise. Belief that (P v Q) does not adequately take Smith's belief into account.
That is one historical accounting malpractice.
Quoting Ludwig V
Yes. The disjunction was true as a result of Brown's whereabouts, contrary to Smith's belief that it was true regardless of Brown's whereabouts. Gettier admitted as much, but neglected to take that into consideration when reporting Smith's belief. Smith only deduced the disjunction as a result of his believing it was true because Jones owned a Ford.
Belief that the disjunction is true because of P is false when the disjunction is true as a result of Q.
Quoting Ludwig V
No worries.
This post touches upon and/or skirts around that aspect a bit more. Happy to answer any questions.
Yep. And?
Quoting creativesoul
So what?
Quoting creativesoul
For what?
After 10 posts of yours I still didn't get what your point is.
Are you claiming that the farmer's belief that there is a cow in the field justified?
If you're not, then we're in agreement. If you are then now you know how to understand the following questions...
How does "there is a cow in the field" follow from mistaking cloth for cow?
How does mistaking cloth for cow serve as sufficient reason to believe and/or state "there is a cow in the field"?
How does mistaking cloth for cow warrant concluding that there is a cow in field?
Again, it depends on what one means by "justification". If justification must comply with the "no false lemma" (or equivalent) then the farmer is not justified, if justification must not comply with "no false lemma" (or equivalent) then the farmer could be justified. You didn't clarify your understanding of "justification". On the contrary, your wrote:
Quoting creativesoul
as if you didn't want to talk about justification before talking about belief.
So again, what's your point?
My point is the following: since the distinction between justification+"no false lemma" and justification-"no false lemma" looks analogous to the distinction between sound and valid deduction, we could simply talk about sound vs valid justification depending on the context. So in the case of the farmer's false belief, we could say he is validly justified in believing that there is a cow, but not soundly justified. And only the latter case can be called knowledge.
I take it that you do not have a position on the matter then. Mine has been made clear.
In the cottage cases, the target belief is not justified as a result of being neither, well-grounded nor validly deduced(if we stipulate S following the S knows that P as Gettier did). I've argued for that extensively and in more than one way. In Gettier's paper, which is remarkably different, the target beliefs are not equivalent to Smith's. I've argued extensively for that as well.
Since you refuse to take a position or offer valid criticism of mine, I suppose we have nothing left to discuss then.
Cheers. Be well.
We could say it. It would not make it so.
Belief that there is a cow does not follow from mistaking cloth for cow.
I took a position about the notions of "justification" and "knowledge". Here:
I think "justification" is a normative term, not a descriptive one. Additionally, justificatory practices vary depending on the genesis of a belief and they have different degrees of reliability (which also means that we distinguish "valid" from "sound" applications). Since our beliefs are fallible, our knowledge and justificatory claims are fallible as well (link)
since the distinction between justification+"no false lemma" and justification-"no false lemma" looks analogous to the distinction between sound and valid deduction, we could simply talk about sound vs valid justification depending on the context. So in the case of the farmer's false belief, we could say he is validly justified in believing that there is a cow, but not soundly justified. And only the latter case can be called knowledge. (link)
Quoting creativesoul
I didn't even get what your point is. You didn't explain how you changed your views nor why.
Quoting creativesoul
Again it depends on what "justification" means to you.
Quoting creativesoul
"Follow" means what? If "follow" means "come after", then it can follow. If "follow" means some causal link, then it can still follow. If "follow" means "justifies" then we are back to square one: what do you mean by "justification"?
I've made several accompanied by subsequent argument. You've chosen to neglect all that.
The latest point was that you could not back up your claims about "there's a cow in the field" being justified. You refuse to answer very basic questions regarding how? Instead, you feign ignorance and distract attention away from your own shortcomings by creating confusion regarding what is meant by the words that you must use in order to make your case. Like your herring a bit red, do you?
You've proven my last point rather nicely.
I'm still willing to see how "there is a cow in the field" satisfies your criterion for what counts as a justified belief. Valid criticism of my own position works too, but if you do not understand it, then it would be unreasonable of me to expect you to provide such.
I'm strongly asserting that it is not justified, and I've offered more than adequate/sufficient subsequent arguments and/or reasoning for that assertion. Those are all the parts you've left sorely neglected.
What argument are you talking about? Quote yourself.
Quoting creativesoul
First we have to agree on the notion of "justification", otherwise we are talking past each other.
Quoting creativesoul
Given our past exchange, I can see why you are on the defensive. I didn't expect much from you either. Still I don't get what your point is. In this recent exchange between us, you didn't explain how you changed your views nor why. So either you quote your actual arguments or you can leave it at that. I suggest you the second, it's safer for you.
Quoting creativesoul
Here is my proposal (for the third time):
Do you agree or not? If not why not?
Quoting creativesoul
Where? Quote yourself. I prefer to see the argument. Your self-promoting blablabla are not a replacement for it.
Still have not answered the question.
How does the farmer validly deduce/infer/conclude "there is a cow in the field" from mistaking cloth for cow(from believing that a particular piece of cloth in a particular field is a cow)?
I answered that already but maybe you didn't get it. There is no deduction or inference or conclusion since these concepts for me apply more appropriately between propositions, not between perceptions and propositions! One can more appropriately be said to form a perceptual belief out of his perceptual experiences. How did the farmer form his perceptual belief "that is a cow" by watching a piece of cloth resembling a cow? My answer is that this can be explained as resulting from 2 factors: his perceptual activity (recognizing a cow-shaped appearance) and a cultural cognitive bias (due to the habits of watching cows in that field), these cognitive abilities constitute a VALID justification for his perceptual belief (because they are relatively reliable), but not a SOUND justification for his perceptual belief though (because in that specific case they failed).
Quoting neomac
Gibberish. One the one hand, you claim there is no inference, deduction, or conclusion possible between mistaking cloth for cow and the assertion "there is a cow in the field", and then call that assertion 'valid' despite just openly admitting that it is not even capable of being so.
Validity and soundness are qualities, characteristics, and/or features of logical arguments, reasoning, and such. They apply or not only after we assess how a belief(inference/deduction/conclusion) is arrived at. That's the part that's missing from the cottage cases. The former is measured solely by virtue of whether or not the target belief follows the rules of correct inference. The latter exhausts the former, but in addition, with sound arguments/reasoning, the target belief is not just validly inferred/deduced, but it is also based upon true premises.
Sigh...
You are evidently confused. In the quoted claims of mine the word "valid" is taken as qualifying "justification" (not "assertion") for a perceptual belief as contrasted to "sound" justification (not "assertion") and by analogy with the distinction of valid/sound deduction (not "assertion").
Quoting creativesoul
The distinction valid/sound I'm expressly referring to is related to deduction. Then I'm proposing to extend the current usage of the distinction valid/sound from deduction to other cognitive tasks by analogy.
Here is my proposal (for the third time):
Still waiting for you to clarify how and why you changed your views or the way you present them.
Nice.
I agree with the first point.
Here I disagree. I reject the rules of entailment because, as Gettier showed, we can use them to go from a belief that cannot be true to a belief that is. Logical/valid argument/reasoning preserves truth. The rules of entailment do not. If the preservation of truth is a requirement of valid, coherent, and/or logical reasoning, then the rules of 'logical' entailment fail to satisfy that standard.
In Gettier's argument, Q is not equivalent to S's belief.
The problem becomes apparent when we treat S's belief as S's belief(regarding who he believed would get the job and why he believed the disjunction was true) rather than as a naked proposition. I've done that work already.
An adequate summary...
Smith was not justified in believing anyone with ten coins in their pocket will get the job. He was justified in believing Jones did and would. Jones did not get the job, contrary to Smith's belief. Smith's belief was justified, valid, and false. What happened falsified Smith's belief.
Smith was not justified in believing that the disjunction was true because Q was. He was justified in believing that the disjunction was true because P was. The disjunction was not true because P was. The disjunction was true because Q was, contrary to Smith's belief. Smith's belief was justified, valid, and false. What happened falsified Smith's belief.<---that would be better put differently. What Smith believed to be the case was not.
I find your objections intelligible as farts, dude. As I stated, mine is just a proposal which must be judged on its own merit (consistency and explanatory/analytic power to say the least) not as a terminological issue. Indeed, I'm neither confusing my extended usage (valid/sound justification) with the standard usage (valid/sound deduction), nor violating the standard usage (i.e. I claimed nowhere that a deduction is valid when the standard usage claims it's not), so where on earth is the equivocation or the abuse exactly? Can you spell it out?
Concerning its analytic power, my proposal identifies and fixes an ambiguity in the standard usage of "justification" (e.g. does a misperception justify or not a certain belief? Justification with or without no false lemma? What is a partial justification?) by comparison to the standard and unambiguous distinction between valid and sound deduction, and this in turn clarifies where Gettier examples go wrong (they are grounded on a standard yet ambiguous understanding of "justification").
If we do not converge in the way we frame the problem, starting with clarifying the notion of "justification" which you never did, there is no chance we'll understand each other.
BTW,
Quoting neomac
Evidently you have no fucking clue what you are talking about. Valid deductions preserve truth, if premises are true, but that doesn't require nor imply that premises must be true! Indeed, valid deductions can very well conclude with true propositions (expressing beliefs) from false propositions (expressing beliefs)! Here is the example:
P1: All dogs are trees
P2: All trees are mammals
C: All dogs are mammals
This is a VALID DEDUCTION and the CONCLUSION IS TRUE, yet BOTH PREMISES ARE FALSE. Evidently you ignore the distinction between valid and sound deduction. And you want to discuss Gettier? Embarrassing.
BTW, since you keep dodging questions:
Quoting neomac
Quoting neomac
Self-contradiction.
Either it's not a valid deduction or valid deductions do not preserve truth. The premisses were both false. The preservation of truth includes the preservation of falsity.
You preposterously chopped my quotation ( Valid deductions preserve truth, if premises are true ) to suggest a contradiction which doesn't exist. How pathetic is that?!
[i]
In logic, specifically in deductive reasoning, an argument is valid if and only if it takes a form that makes it impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion nevertheless to be false.[1] It is not required for a valid argument to have premises that are actually true,[2] but to have premises that, if they were true, would guarantee the truth of the argument's conclusion. Valid arguments must be clearly expressed by means of sentences called well-formed formulas (also called wffs or simply formulas).
[/i]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Validity_(logic)
Quoting creativesoul
Well then you are unfamiliar with standard logic:
[i]Validity of deduction is not affected by the truth of the premise or the truth of the conclusion. The following deduction is perfectly valid:
All animals live on Mars.
All humans are animals.
Therefore, all humans live on Mars.
The problem with the argument is that it is not sound. In order for a deductive argument to be sound, the argument must be valid and all the premises must be true.[3]
[/i]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Validity_(logic)
[i]
However, an argument can be valid without being sound. For example:
All birds can fly.
Penguins are birds.
Therefore, penguins can fly.
This argument is valid as the conclusion must be true assuming the premises are true. However, the first premise is false. Not all birds can fly (for example, penguins). For an argument to be sound, the argument must be valid and its premises must be true.[2
[/i]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundness
If you ignore or refuse standard logic, let's leave it at that. I'm not here for keep a record of your intellectual failures.
Excellent reply! Well, aside from the condescending petty personal remarks and focusing upon irrelevancy that you seem so fond of. Moving on...
Since you've demonstrated the ability...
How exactly is "there is a cow in the field" valid?
Quoting creativesoul
Evidently, the above is not true in standard formal logic. My error. Good thing none of my objections to Gettier require it to be.
What?!
Quoting creativesoul
You are evidently confused. In the quoted claims of mine the word "valid" is taken as qualifying "justification" (not "assertion")
Quoting creativesoul
Sure, dude, whatever makes you happy.
In the cow in the field case, the person mistakes the cloth in the wind to be a cow. In the original Gettier case, that Smith himself had 10 coins in his pocket was an unknown.
A entails B iff "if A then B" is true. "If A then B" can be true even if A is false. For example, "if I was born in France then I was not born in Germany" is true even though "I was born in France" is false.
1. If I was born in France then I was not born in Germany
2. You are justified in believing that I was born in France
3. Therefore, you are justified in believing that I was not born in Germany
Trying to argue that (1) is false if I was not born in France seems unreasonable. Maybe you mean to argue that (3) is an invalid inference? If so then your issue isn't with entailment but with "justificatory closure".
Although I would disagree with you. (3) appears a valid inference to me. Thalburg's objection doesn't apply to this example given that being born in France and being born in Germany are mutually exclusive, and so the conjunction "I was born in France and not born in Germany" is not less likely than the singular "I was born in France".
I think more harm is done in rejecting justificatory closure than in rejecting the JTB-definition of knowledge.
Indeed. My issue is not with entailment. As you may remember, I've been grappling with how to best come to terms with Gettier for several years now, off and on. We all know something is intuitively wrong. Gettier's paper causes many people to experience cognitive dissonance upon first reading it. The logic is so impeccable, and serves as an escape from that dissonance for those so inclined to follow it. The logic is incomplete in that it does not take proper account of Smith's belief. The underlying issue is the treatment of Smith's belief as though it were equivalent to a naked proposition.
In Gettier's paper, the issue is with treating Smith's beliefs as though they are equivalent to a naked proposition when they clearly are not. Case I has Gettier forgetting who "the man with ten coins in his pocket" referred to, and Case II has Gettier reporting Smith's belief in a manner that is incomplete. Smith believed the disjunction was true because Jones owned a Ford. Gettier left out the important bit. That last bit makes all the difference in the world.
The cottage cases are a different matter altogether. They do not follow and/or 'attack' the S knows that P iff... formulations that Gettier does. That puzzles me. Gettier at least begins with a justified false belief. The cottage cases do not.
I do not see an issue here different from Case II.
If you were not born in Germany for any other reason than being born in France, then S's belief would be justified, valid, and false.
S's belief that I was not born in Germany is true because I was born in England.
S's belief is not just that you were not born in Germany. It is that you were not born in Germany because you were born in France.
That is not true.
If I believe A and B then I believe A and I believe B. Your argument seems to be that if I believe a conjunction then I don't believe each of its parts, which is false.
If I believe that you are a bachelor then I believe that you are a man and I believe that you are unmarried. To respond with "but you don't believe that I'm unmarried; you believe that I'm a bachelor" seems to me to be an unreasonable response.
Quoting Michael
My 'argument' is that S believes that you were not born in Germany because you were born in France, and that your accounting practice is leaving out the most important part of S's belief.
I think creativesoul is including the justification for belief in the truth statement. The belief qualifies as knowledge if both the justification and the belief were true.
It seems to me that 3 is more accurately rendered as...
S would be justified in believing that you were not born in Germany because you were born in France.
S's belief would be true only if, only when, and only because you were not born in Germany because you were born in France. If you were not born in Germany because you were born in England, then S's belief would be justified, valid, and false.
S's belief is not equivalent to the proposition you're reporting, claiming, asserting, and/or implying is equivalent to S's belief(you were not born in Germany). That's the underlying issue with Case II, and Case I as well. The difference is clearly shown in the truth conditions.
You want to rephrase all these beliefs as being "I believe that an emu isn't President because I believe that Joe Biden is President and that only one person can be President and that non-human animals cannot be President and... [whatever else there is]".
Whereas I can simply say "I believe than an emu isn't President."
And for the exact same reason, I don't need to phrase my belief as "I believe that so-and-so was not born in Germany because I believe that she was born in France and I believe that France isn't in Germany and I believe that people cannot be born in more than one place and... [whatever else there is]". I can just say "I believe that so-and-so was not born in Germany", and this belief is true if they were born in England.
"Belief" as a factual cognitive attitude doesn't entail any other beliefs, since entailment pertains to the domain of semantic and logic normativity. In other words, “entailment” expresses nothing more than a rational link that beliefs must comply with to be considered rational. So anybody can believe a certain proposition to be true and yet not believe all that it entails, out of ignorance or irrationality.
We're in agreement.
Here you've mistaken your report of my mental ongoings with my mental ongoings.
Your objections are replete with enemies of your own making. From my view, your belief about why an emu is not president is irrelevant regarding both, why and how, S believes either the disjunction, or conjunction.
So, if asked whether or not you were born in Germany, S would answer in the negative because they believe you were born in France. If explicitly asked exactly that, S would readily confirm. The belief about whether or not you were born in Germany is one about your birthplace, and it is based, in very large part at least, directly upon S's pre-existing beliefs about the same.
"Michael was not born in Germany" is an utterly inadequate report of S's belief.
As written, S's attitude towards that particular proposition would be one of general assent/agreement. It does not explicitly contradict S's pre-existing belief about your birthplace. Rather it is commensurate with it.
However, the proposition "Michael was not born in Germany" is not equivalent to S's belief about your birthplace. The proposition is not true only if, only when, and only because you were born in France. S's belief about both, your birthplace and that proposition, is.
The fact that “Michael wasn’t born in Germany because he was born in France” isn’t equivalent to “Michael wasn’t born in Germany” doesn’t mean that someone who believes the former doesn’t also believe the latter. People can believe multiple things.
For your argument to work you must show that everyone who believes the former to be true doesn’t believe the latter to be true. You haven’t done that, and I don’t think you can.
Right.
Well, no. In order for my argument to work, I need to show that what you're claiming is S's belief is not equivalent to S's belief and that the difference between S's belief and your report is clearly shown by virtue of looking at the differences in what it takes for each to be true.
I can and have done that.
You haven't shown that someone who believes “Michael wasn’t born in Germany because he was born in France” doesn't also believe “Michael wasn’t born in Germany”.
I think it self-evident that someone who believes the former also believes the latter. And the latter is true.
Nor need I. What I have shown is that "Michael was not born in Germany" is not equivalent to believing that Michael was not born in Germany because he was born in France, which is precisely what S believes. The charge made by me was one of an academic accounting malpractice of S's belief. I've more than shouldered that burden.
"Michael was not born in Germany."
"Michael was not born in Germany, because he was born in France."
According to the argument you offered earlier, which of the above is an accurate report of S's belief regarding your birthplace?
We both know that the second is. You want to say that because he believes the first, the second entails the first, and the first is true, that his belief about your birthplace is true even though you were not born in France, because the proposition is true regardless of where you were born, so long as you were not born in Germany.
S does not just believe that you were not born in Germany. Academia neglects to keep that in mind, and in doing so conflates a naked proposition with S's belief by virtue of conflating what it would take for them to be true. S's belief about your birthplace(and thus about that proposition)does not share the same truth conditions as the naked proposition. S's belief about your birthplace(and that proposition) is true only if, only when, and only because you were born in France. S believes the proposition is true because you were born in France. The proposition is true because you were born in England, contrary to S's belief. S's belief about your birthplace is justified, valid, and false. What S believed to be the case was not.
According to you(and current convention's belief attribution practices) all of them have the same true belief about your birthplace.
You and current convention are wrong, because none of them believe the same thing and all of their beliefs about your birthplace are false.
Joe believes you were born in Croatia. Dan believes you were born in Ireland. Veronica believes you were born in Utah. Kevin believes you were born in British Columbia. John believes you were born in Egypt.
None of them believe the same thing about your birthplace.
The proposition "Michael was not born in Germany" can be attributed to each of them according to current conventional belief attribution practices. That would be to say that they believe the same thing.
None of them believe the same thing about your birthplace.
Joe believes you were not born in Germany, because you were born in Croatia. Dan believes you were not born in Germany, because you were born in Ireland. Veronica believes you were not born in Germany, because you were born in Utah. Kevin believes you were not born in Germany, because you were born in British Columbia. John believes you were not born in Germany, because you were born in Egypt.
None of them believe the same thing about your birthplace.
"Michael was not born in Germany" is not equivalent to Joe, Dan, Veronica, Kevin, and/or John's belief about your birthplace.
If that does not convince you, nothing will...
It's been fun. Hate to run, but have a real, life changing emergency situation to deal with. No worries, just needs settled. I'll return after the dust does the same.
Both. Someone who believes the latter also believes the former. They are not mutually exclusive. As I have said, you need to show that someone who believes the latter doesn't also believe the former. You haven't done that.
Quoting creativesoul
I do not just believe that Joe Biden is President. I believe that Joe Biden is President and is a man and is white and is married and is American and is 80 years old, and so on. The fact that I believe multiple things about Joe Biden doesn't mean that if any one of these things is false that I don't truthfully believe other things about him.
And so for the same reason, the fact that S believes that I was not born in Germany because I was born in France doesn't entail that if I wasn't born in France then S doesn't truthfully believe that I was not born in Germany.
The proposition "Michael was not born in Germany" is equivalent to neither S's belief about that particular proposition nor S's belief about your birthplace. The proposition is true regardless of where you were born so long as it was not in Germany. S's belief about your birthplace as well as their belief about that proposition are true only if, only when, and only because you were born in France.
S believes the proposition is true because you were born in France. The proposition is true because you were born in England, contrary to S's belief.
You're treating S's belief about that proposition and the proposition as though they share truth conditions. They do not.
"Michael was not born in Germany" is not S's belief.
I'm charging you and convention with getting S's belief wrong. I'm saying that you're treating S's belief as though it is equivalent to the proposition.
All I need to show is that it is not. The mutual exclusivity between those two propositions or any lack thereof has nothing at all to do with whether or not the proposition is equivalent to S's belief.
Quoting Michael
Perhaps I should not have left such a low hanging fruit. That's cute.
S does not just believe that "Michael was not born in Germany" is true. S believes "Michael was not born in Germany" is true because you were born in France.
I hesitate to add to your discussion which is difficult enough already. But perhaps it has got to the point where there is not much to lose.
You seem to be disagreeing about the criteria of identity of beliefs. But there are none, so far as I know. People seem happy to accept that belief, like knowledge and a number of others, is a "propositional attitude" and I use that term because it groups together a number of concepts which have interesting features in common, as well as a striking grammatical feature - the "that" clause.
So it seems to be widely accepted that a belief is an attitude to a proposition, and hence that identity of proposition is the criterion of identity of beliefs. Fair enough. What is/are the criteria of identity for propositions? The only one that I've ever seen is sameness of meaning. And the criteria for that?
My point is that there are no criteria of identity for beliefs. The best I can do is define a proposition as a sentence together with its use in a given context. But then we have to face the fact that the context of a belief-sentence is complicated, so that we have to take account of, for example, the de dicto/de re distinction, where the speaker may be the believer, but may be someone reporting the believer's belief to someone else.
In spite of all this, I'm still confused about whether "John is a bachelor" and "John is unmarried and male" are the same proposition or different ones. A complicated definition may not be fully known or understood by a particular speaker, or a speaker may not be aware of the definition of various terms s/he uses, so you can't take for granted that the two sentences will mean the same to everyone.
Another feature which is not clear affects your discussion directly - and analysis of the Gettier problem. Standard definitions would say that the truth-conditions of a proposition/sentence are part of its meaning. It is perfectly possible that a proposition can be verified by quite a wide range of states of affairs, not all of which are required at the same time. So you might recognize me by my face or by my voice. If you recognize me by one of these - say my face - it is called a truth-maker or truth-making condition. Now, what is not clear whether the truth-maker on a particular occasion of a proposition is part of the meaning of the proposition in that use. If it is, I expect you can see that this dismembers a Gettier package so that the paradox does not work.
But your argument seems to be yet more complicated because it is a case like to the colour exclusion problem. Forgive me if you know about this already. It was the turning-point or the rock on which WIttgenstein eventually began to abandon the logical atomism of the Tractatus. In essence "this is red (all over)" and "this is blue (all over)" cannot both be true, yet they are not contradictory. Similarly, "Michael was born in France" and "Michael was born in Germany" exclude each other and yet are not contradictory. This problem is created by treating simple propositions as atoms, which are completely independent of each other, logically speaking. WIttgenstein finally developed the idea that propositions are not true or false independently, but as part of a system - i.e. there are no atomic propositions.
I've gone on for long enough, but I hope this helps to clarify why you could not agree.
S believes many related things:
1. S believes that Michael was not born in Germany because he was born in France
2. S believes that Michael was born in France
3. S believes that Michael was not born in Germany
4. S believes that France is not in Germany
5. S believes that Michael cannot have been born in more than one place
etc.
Your claim is that if (1) is true then (3) is false. My claim is that if (1) is true then (3) is true. I think my claim is supported by common sense logic: (1) entails (2) and (3).
"I believe that Michael was not born in Germany because he was born in France but I do not believe that Michael was not born in Germany" is an absurd claim.
Are you sure? It seems that there are several commonly used notions of "belief". They are not on equal footing. I think it plain to see that there does not seem to be much agreement on that front though. Convention has been plagued by the inevitable consequences of having gotten that wrong. It is a century's old problem.
I would not say that there are no criteria(no standard regarding what counts as a belief) being employed though. It's a matter of unpacking everything to see them.
Hume openly admitted having no clue. The fire example refutes Hume's speculation about the nature of causality. It takes touching fire only once in order for a toddler to learn from experience and immediately come to know that touching fire causes pain. It does not require language in any way shape or form to come to know that touching fire causes pain.
Epistemology led to propositional attitudes. The fire example refutes that as well.
The main objection that I levy against current convention is that the conventional notion of belief as propositional attitude cannot bridge the evolutionary gap between language and language less creatures' beliefs. We can grant the notion and see where it leads...
If all belief is equivalent to an attitude towards some proposition or another such that the candidate under our consideration takes it to be true or to be the case, then either language less creatures have no belief, or propositions exist in such a way that a language less creature can have an attitude towards one such that they take it to be true or to be the case.
Convention has largely chosen to deny that language less creatures form, have, and/or hold belief... on pains of coherency alone.
I've neither stated that, nor does anything I've claimed only lead to saying that.
I'm pointing out that you're treating propositions as though they are equivalent to belief. They are not. They are not equivalent to propositional attitudes either.
Indeed it is. Who has said that or written anything that only leads to saying that?
Seems Moore's lesson has been forgotten.
Indeed.
Individual beliefs are picked out of an ongoing process. As a result, as with events, we have to draw a line somewhere. I'm showing that the conventional line that is drawn severs S's belief about Michael's birthplace into pieces, setting the foundational pieces aside. The piece being treated as though it counts as S's belief about Michael's birthplace(the proposition "Michael was not born in Germany") is not equivalent to S's belief about Michael's birthplace, or S's belief about the proposition(the dissected piece), or S's attitude towards that particular proposition.
It does not follow from the fact that S takes "Michael was not born in Germany" to be true or to be the case, that "Michael was not born in Germany' is equivalent to S's belief about Michael's birthplace. What makes S's belief true is strikingly different from what makes the proposition true. It only follows that they are not the same thing. Nevermind that one consists entirely of meaningful marks and the other does not.
The emergent nature of belief formation carries along with it an existential dependency between the different elemental constituents of any given belief. S's belief about Michael's birthplace is not equivalent to the proposition "Michael was not born in Germany". S believes the proposition is true because Michael was born in France. That is not the case. The proposition is true because Michael was born in England, contrary to S's belief. Severing "Michael was not born in Germany" from "Michael was born in France" severs S's belief about Michael's birthplace into pieces. They count as different propositions. They are both irrevocable elements of S's belief; namely that Michael was not born in Germany because he was born in France.
I agree that there is a problem about that, and that it is annoying. I suppose it is inevitable that philosophers who believe that philosophy is all about language will tend to focus on language. But I agree that it is clear that dogs and horses etc. do have beliefs even though they cannot express them in language. They express them through their actions and reactions - non-verbal behaviour. That does mean they do have ideas and concepts.
I use the term "propositional attitude" because it groups together a collection of terms with a common feature - a "that" clause - (grammatically known as indirect speech, which it can be, but isn't always). That group starts with "believe" and "know" but there are many others. They are mostly to do with cognition, which is why they are philosophically interesting.
But I'm not a fan of the concept of a "proposition" for several reasons, one of which is that the crtterion of identity seems to be that two sentences with the same meaning express the same proposition. But that is a very weak criterion and I notice that philosophers very seldom, if ever, rely on it. There's a particular problem about this criterion because it is not clear whether two sentences that are logically related express the same meaning.
One result of this is the colour exclusion problem, much pondered by Wittgenstein between the two world wars in the first half of the last century. "This is red all over" and "This is blue all over" clearly do not express the same meaning, but are nonetheless logically related, because each excludes the other, that is it logically follows from "This is red all over" that it is not blue anywhere. Hence, Wittgenstein concluded, propositions are organized into systems and one specific proposition gets its meaning from its relationshipi to the other propositions in the system. Hence, the abandonment of logical atomism and the development of the concept of language games.
When you translate all of that into the context of belief or knowledge, it becomes something of a mess. I'm not altogether convinced by your way of handling it; it has admirable clarity and certainty, but I think it is too rigid to cope with the complexities of the language game with propositional attitudes, specifically the fact that the appropriate expression of a belief is affected not only by the believer, but also by the person uttering the sentence/proposition and by who is receiving it.
Whether you agree or not, I hope that is reasonably clear.
That puts it very lightly, to say the least. It looks to me to be a very serious foundational problem. If we think about it in terms of explanatory power and/or adequacy, "propositional attitude" language games are incapable of explaining how language less belief works. If language less belief existed in its entirety prior to language, and with enough time and/or mutation, gave rise to both language and the belief of language users, it only follows that we've gotten belief wrong at a very basic level.
I'm not sure how to square the public promotion of talking in terms of propositional attitude with an equally public rejection of propositions. I'm left feeling quite a bit puzzled about that. I do agree with you about propositions though. At least, I think we do. The notion is certainly fraught. From my vantage point, it would have been much better had we not attempted to use "propositions" as an ad hoc explanation for shared meaning(how meaning exists independently from and/or travels between language users).
Meaning is another thing convention has gotten historically wrong. That is an inevitable consequence of having gotten belief wrong, for meaning is itself a bi-product of belief formation, as is correspondence to what's happened, is happening, and/or will happen, as well as the presupposition thereof.<-----that last bit is directly relevant and pertains to an idea that you may agree with; that all belief presupposes its own truth.
It seems you're promoting the belief that approach. I am fond of it as well. It is very useful. I'm not at all certain that anything I've been arguing here inevitably conflicts with it or belief as propositional attitude, so long as we further qualify that (some belief(s) are equivalent to a propositional attitude - not all). I think that much of current convention is amenable to and/or dovetails perfectly with my view. I'm growing particularly fond of much of Davidson's work.
Pertaining to Witt...
I admire Witt for having shaken some philosophical sense into philosophy proper regarding the importance of paying attention to how people use language for more than just communicating thought and/or belief to one another. However, while there is merit to the notion of language games, and plenty of it, it is still based upon an inadequate notion of meaning, and that clearly shows up, to me anyway, in the quote below...
Quoting Ludwig V
I do not outright disagree with the thrust of what Witt was said to be doing there. I mean, I wholeheartedly agree that many propositions become meaningful solely by virtue of being used in conjunction with other(different) propositions(in their language game). I just do not find that explanation/descriptive practice to be adequate enough. It's correct enough in the main. I mean, we can say the same about all sorts of words as well. It's useful as well. Here though, I'm thinking particularly about several dichotomies that have been used in academia throughout the history of Western philosophy, where they amount to being akin to being two sides of the same meaningful coin. All of which clearly have their use. None serve as adequate terminological frameworks for taking proper account of that which consists of both, and is thus, adequately described by neither side of the dichotomy.
Belief is one such thing.
The result of attempting to use those dichotomies as a means to properly take account of belief has been a self-imposed bewitchment(nod to Witt, of course). Flies in bottles.
Quoting Ludwig V
Indeed. That is evidence that there are inadequate conceptual schemes, linguistic frameworks, language games at work attempting to take account of that which existed in its entirety prior to them all.
I think that I understand you. It seems we understand one another, by and in large. It would be both helpful and interesting, to me anyway, to unpack that last bit above.
Are you referring to current belief attribution practices when mentioning "the appropriate expression of a belief"?
Those accounting practices have not been clearly discussed here as a subject matter in their own right. They are certainly worthy. However, because those practices are clearly in use regarding Gettier's paper, and very much a part of the problem, I'd like to hear more about why you think my view is too rigid to cope with how the appropriate expression of a belief is affected by the believer, an author/speaker reporting the belief, and the reader/listener.
Thank you for the interesting avenue.
:smile:
Well, how about starting with this:-
Starting with two observations:-
First, our ways of talking about actions constitute a language game, a practice and a (let's say) paradigm. Part of this paradigm is the idea that an action is explained (on one level) by the idea of a reason for doing something. "Believe" (and other words) play a part in this because they identify (potential or actual) the reasons for a particular agent doing something.
Second, although one can, for some purposes, think of language as consisting of propositions or, better, the equipment for constructing expressions of propositions, it is nothing without its practice, i.e. people uttering sentences. (The best definition for me is that a proposition is a sentence with its use in a context that includes actual and/or potential audiences.) In some uses, that is not very relevant, but in the case of "believe" and "know" it is very relevant.
Returning to our original case
Suppose our long-suffering farmer stands by the gate to his field, looking out over it. Without speaking, he turns, goes back to his Land-Rover and emerges with a length of rope. He comes back, opens the gate and walks out into the field towards a piece of cloth. How do we make sense of his action? We know a good deal about him, so I say to you that he believes that the piece of cloth is a cow that is in the wrong place and he is going to rescue her and return her to her right place. This has nothing to do with anything that it is in his mind, though we could infer something about what he would say if we asked him. But this is not about what he would say; it is about what he is doing.
I'm afraid I got lost in the business about where Michael was born, so I won't comment on that, beyond saying that the propositions (!) you were discussing are clearly in a network and the relationships between them are quite complicated and even more complicated if you include "believes" in the mix.
I haven't worked out exactly how this would apply to Gettier cases, except that Gettier treats beliefs as if they were in precise correlation with propositions and as if propositions presented themselves one by one in a neat row and I don't really accept either proposition (!!)
There are lots of questions and obscurities, but perhaps that it is basis for discussion?
The core issue is the stark difference between our notions of "belief". Your last reply shows a few more as well.
While I agree with rejecting belief as something in the head(mind), I differ on how to best handle that.
Does the farmer do all those things if he does not believe that that particular piece of cloth is a cow? I think not. I suspect you'd agree. How does focusing upon his actions tell us anymore regarding exactly what his(and all) belief are?
I'm also still curious about why you think my view is too rigid to cope with how the appropriate expression of a belief is affected by the believer, an author/speaker reporting the belief, and the reader/listener.
I think that this line of thought would be well served by introducing a bit more regarding how the relationship emerges, how the relationship persists, what the relationship consists of/in, what the relationship is existentially dependent upon, etc.
The role of the users, in as precise a manner as possible.
Quoting creativesoul
I don't think we need to focus on S's actions to understand belief. I do think we need to recognize that belief is shown by actions just as much as words. Certainly ordinary life pays attention to both and people often claim that when it comes to divining what people believe, actions speak louder than words. In addition, belief is extremely useful in making sense of actions that would otherwise be nonsensical. I can't think of another way of doing it.
Quoting creativesoul
Because your view can't make sense of actions that are based on false beliefs or actions that are not expressed in language. "Embedded beliefs" seems a neat way of describing them. But I don't clearly understand what your view is, so perhaps I'm wrong.
Quoting creativesoul
Well, that would be needed if I wanted to create a Theory or an Ism. For various reasons, I just don't see that happening.
I don't understand what "how the relationship emerges" means. The relationship between propositions, belief and action isn't hidden. The relationship between the three persists for as long as S's belief persists. The relationship between belief and action is the relationship between reason for action and action and depends on the mental state of the believer - and, yes, that seems to conflict with my remark that it is not a question of the mental state of the believer. That remark over-simplifies the complex relationship between the mental state of the believer and the way that someone else may report it.
One thing that puzzles me is whether a belief that p implies a commitment to all the analytic implications of p. On the one hand, if S believes that p, it would seem that S must understand p - in some sense of "understand". On the other hand, it seems quite unlikely that most people understand all the implications of any proposition they believe. A similar point could be made about the causal implications of specific facts or events. There's another complicated issue for philosophy about disentangling beliefs that have values built in to them (such as the belief that X committed murder or that COVID is dangerous) and their factual content.
No worries about the delay. This conversation may have many. I'm very busy as well. Too busy to offer anything other than this at the moment...
:wink:
Cheers. Happy Holidays, happy new year, and all that jazz!!!
I'm not sure what makes you think that my view cannot make sense of actions based on false belief. The farmer believed a piece of cloth was a cow. He acted just like someone who believed that. His subsequent speech act could very well have been "Oh, there's a cow in the field". That is exactly what I would expect someone to say if they mistook cloth for cow.
The last paragraph in your reply deserves more attention than I can currently give it. I want to, but it will have to wait. Again...
Cheers!
I'm glad we have got the farmer sorted out.
I look forward to your help with the last paragraph.
I don't want to get in amongst the weeds of the Gettier problem, but there's a link between the last paragraph and Gettier and it sits behind that last paragraph. If S is justified in believing that p and p implies q, is S justified in believing that q? Even if if p is false? I want to say no, but I'm not sure I can.
Greetings!
We can revisit the above at a later date.
Quoting Ludwig V
Oh, we most certainly can deny that. I already do, for different reasons than you, however. Those reasons have nothing to do with whether or not P is true.
We're already up to our neck in Gettier overgrowth! That's exactly what the cottage industry cases are. :wink:
It is my understanding that one of Gettier's targets was that specific formulation. If S is justified in believing P and P entails Q, then S is justified in believing Q. I cannot remember whose formulation it was but that doesn't really matter here.
Quoting Ludwig V
Indeed. That is a problem.
In addition, even if and when S does understand P and that P entails Q, S's belief that Q is true is not adequately represented by Q and Q alone. Such beliefs are more complex than just Q. They are directly connected to P. Q because P. Not merely Q.
The earlier example that Michael was using demonstrates this all rather nicely. "Michael was not born in Germany" is entailed by a plurality of completely different beliefs about Michael's birthplace. Many of these directly conflict with one another. Three people with mutually exclusive beliefs about Michael's birthplace all have belief that entails Q.
"Michael was not born in Germany" is entailed by all of the following...
Michael was born in Botswana.
Michael was born in Israel.
Michael was born in Russia.
We cannot justifiably arrive at believing that Michael was not born in Germany, unless we are already justified in believing that he was born somewhere else. P and Q are entwined by S's belief formation process, and irrevocably so. It is only as a result of severing P from Q and treating Q as if it is an accurate report of S's belief that problems arise.
Hence...
"Michael was not born in Germany" cannot stand alone as S's belief about Michael's birthplace. Current conventional practice leads to our claiming otherwise, and in doing so it also results in saying that all three individuals share the exact same belief about Michael's birthplace.
They - quite clearly - do not.
The only way to properly discriminate between the three individuals is to report their belief as Q because P, where P is any of the three beliefs written above. Upon doing so, we find Gettier's problem dissolved. Justified false belief is not a problem for JTB.
Quoting creativesoul
Well, that clarifies a great deal, and I agree that this dissolves the Gettier problem.
But I do have qualifications.
First, is this a diagnosis that you would accept? Gettier thinks that beliefs, propositions and sentences neatly align with each other. Each belief, proposition and sentence is clearly distinct from all other beliefs, propositions and sentences. I doubt that he would accept that, but his formulation of the problem sweeps all the complexities under the carpet and trades on the resulting ambiguities.
Second, if you focus on "Michael was not born in Germany" and the fact that all three people would agree on that, you will think that they all have the same belief, and with reason. If you focus on the fact that they each have a different reason for believing that, you will think that they all have different beliefs, and with reason. So I prefer to stick with what I have just said and refuse to adopt either that they do, or that they do not, have the same belief. So long as the situation is clear, which it is, the classification doesn't matter very much. Or at least, I need to be persuaded that it matters, and for what purposes.
I observe that this issue seems to me to parallel the problems that Wittgenstein had with the colour exclusion problem - which, if I have the history right, eventually led to him abandoning logical atomism.
Third, (the Gettier problem seems to have a kind of gravity in that one cannot help returning to it), I think that there is a real problem which he also exploits. The quickest way to articulate this is through an example.
Suppose S is waiting at a bus stop and observes to T that the bus will arrive soon, meaning in the next five minutes. S is justified in believing this, because he has checked the timetable. The bus arrives six minutes later. Was S right or not? Did S know, or not? Again, suppose that the bus that was supposed to arrive has broken down and a replacement bus has been sent out and manages to arrive within five minutes. Was S right or not? Did S know or not? One could invent such cases indefinitely.
Another example, drawing on Gettier's first case. (I should look up the article here, but I'm going to chance my arm and work from memory). The target proposition in this case is "The person who is appointed will have ten coins in their pocket". This proposition turns out to be true, but not in the way that S expects. In this case, S's belief and the truth are nested in different contexts and I would say that the differences are such that Smith does not know. I think (though it is hard to be sure) that all Gettier problems turn on this issue.
The point here is an application of what we've agreed about beliefs. Sometimes belief/knowledge may be confirmed in ways that S has not taken into account; such cases may or may not impinge on a knowledge claim, and even result in an undecidable case. In practice, what we say will depend on the context, particularly what matters to our project at the time.
That's an imperfect formulation of the issue but I hope it takes us forward a bit.
JTB theory of knowledge
S = somebody
P = a proposition
S knows P IFF
1. S believes P
2. P is justified
3. P is true
Justification
1. Deduction: An argument that is sound (true premises + valid form). If a deductive argument is sound, it's impossible for the conclusion to be false or, phrased differently, the conclusion of a sound deductive argument is necessarily true.
In other words, P (deductively) justified implies and is implied by P is true i.e. (deductive) justification (for P) is both necessary and sufficient for truth (P is true).
In this case, criterion 3 (P is true) is unnecessary as 2 (P is justified) implies 3 (P is true). The JTB theory can be shrunk down to JB (justified belief).
2. Induction: A cogent inductive argument is one in which the premises are true and the argument strong which translates as the conclusion is likely to be true. There's no necessity that the conclusion be true i.e. the conclusion's truth is partially independent of an inductive argument, cogent or otherwise. Criterion 3 (P is true) is necessary (it must be mentioned separately).
Are Gettier problems about induction rather than deduction? Gettier problems occur when chance (re induction which is probabilistic) is invovled (re Gettier cases).
Also, if I include criterion 3 (P is true) in my definition of knowledge, I'm also claiming truth is (partially/[s]wholly[/s]) independent of justification - this is a hallmark of induction.
Type specimen, Gettier case
Smith & Brown go for a job interview. Smith overhears the interviewer saying "White will be hired". Smith known Brown has 10 coins in his pocket. Smith then, so Gettier claim, justified to form the belief that the man with 10 coins in his pocket will be given the job[sup]1[/sup].
Later ... Smith is the one who actually bags the prize (is hired). Smith checks his pockets - he has exactly 10 coins. Smiths belief is true.
To sum up, Smiths's belief (the man with 10 coins will be hired) is true and justifed, but then his having 10 coins in his pocket was a chance occurrence i.e. a justified, true, belief that is not knowledge (the no luck principle)
1. Is Smith justified in inferring from what he heard about Brown and what he knows about Brown (10 coins in Brown's pocket) that the man with 10 coins in his pocket will get hire?
I don't think so because there are many people with 10 coins in their pocket who haven't even attended the interview, forget about being rejected/accepted. Smith fails to realize that he himself could have 10 coins in his pocket. In other words Smith's premise [math]10 ~ coins ~ in ~ pocket \to hired[/math] is false because e.g. Jones has 10 pockets in his pocket and he hasn't even applied for the job i.e. he is definitely not going to get hired (10 coins in pocket & Not hired).
Is that alone not enough to warrant assent?
I agree that the Gettier problem has an element of ambiguity.
Quoting Ludwig V
What counts as "clearly distinct"?
I disagree with it at face value. Doesn't this hark back to atomic propositions?
Quoting Ludwig V
The reason for agreeing that they all have the same belief has been shown to be fraught.
They cannot have the same belief about Michael's birthplace if they have contradictory beliefs about Michael's birthplace. It's one or the other, not both. It has been clearly stipulated that they have mutually exclusive beliefs about Michael's birthplace. It only follows that they cannot have the same belief about Michael's birthplace. Saying that they all believe that the same proposition is true is not a problem. Treating the proposition as though it is equivalent to their belief, and holding belief as equivalent to a propositional attitude is.
Acknowledging that they do not have the same belief about Michael's birthplace requires us, on pains of coherency alone, to deny that they do. Hence, "Michael was not born in Germany" serves just fine as a meaningful proposition. One who believes that Michael was born somewhere other than Germany will believe that that proposition is true. However, if we stick with belief as propositional attitude, we're forced to conclude that they all share the same belief about Michael's birthplace. <--------that's an unacceptable logical consequence. It's false.
How do we square that with the fact that they all hold mutually exclusive beliefs about Michael's birthplace?
Seems to me that belief as propositional attitude has been shown to be lacking in yet another way. Earlier it was found lacking the ability to take proper account of language less belief. I find that rendering all belief as propositional attitude has hindered our understanding.
In the case of deductively conclusive justification, I basically agree with you, with some qualifications, which probably don’t matter.
I agree with you also about the type specimen.
But I don’t think this is Gettier’s case. Smith’s deduction is (Brown is the man who will get the job) & (Brown has 10 coins in his pocket) so (The man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket). I want to say that even though this deduction is valid, it is not sound, because Brown is not the man who will get the job, so the antecedent is false. Gettier would accept that, but claim that Smith is justified in his conclusion even though one of the premises is false.
Smith’s evidence for (Brown is the man who will get the job) is that the president told him so - not conclusive but not unreasonable. More like your inductive cases than the deductive cases. So the question becomes whether the events that confirmed Smith’s conclusion (and refuted his premise) are sufficient for us to conclude that Smith knew. I don’t think so (and I’m not sure that Gettier thinks so, either). The puzzle is why not.
It seems to me that there are two options.
One is to deny Smith’s premise, not on the grounds that it is less than deductively certain, but on the grounds that one component of it (Brown will be appointed) is certainly false. So his justification fails. Smith does not know that is so and has evidence that it is true. Is he justified in believing it, or does he just believe that he is justified in believing it? I believe the latter, but many don’t.
The other is to deny that the proposition that Smith believes the same proposition as the one that is true. In this case “the man who will get the job” refers to Brown in the context of Smith’s belief but to Smith in the context of the final outcome. But the criteria of identity of propositions are not well formulated. So it is no surprise that not everyone seems to accept that there are two distinct propositions here, even if there are two distinct uses of the sentence in two different contexts. In any case, it isn’t clear that the same objection will apply to all the Gettier cases constructed since the original article. (I read somewhere that there are over a hundred of them, all constructed specifically to get round one objection or another.)
Quoting creativesoul
I disagree with it as well. I was specifying a belief that I think Gettier’s practice shows that he holds. Yes, it does hark back to atomic propositions.
Quoting creativesoul
I don't like "propositional attitude" much either. For me, it is a useful classification that groups together a number of different verbs that share a grammatical feature, that they are require a clause in what grammarians call “indirect speech”. Many, if not all, of these verbs are cognitive and hence of interest to philosophy. I wouldn’t have any objection to using “cognitive”, so long as other people would understand what I mean.
I would like to express the point about "language-less" belief by saying that a proposition is (usually) an expression of a belief, but not necessarily the form of expression used by the believer. Actions, in which the belief is attributed as a reason for the action, are another way of expressing belief. Beliefs are reasons for action, if you like; and since that formulation includes speech-acts, it seems general enough to cover everything it needs to.
But that doesn’t really explain the concept. The core of it is a most the useful property. Without belief, there is no coherent way to say that someone acted for a reason but the reason is false. In other words, attributing beliefs enables the speaker to express an assessment of the truth or otherwise of the belief.
Trying to work out a way of expressing where I think we have got to, I have to start from my understanding of what the standard use of “proposition” amounts to. A proposition, on my account, is a sentence with its use in a context. This implies that each proposition comes entangled in a cloud of other propositions which are essential to understanding it. This includes, but is not limited to, its truth-conditions and its truth-maker (if I may use that term). An attribution of belief includes a proposition but locates it in a specialized context which requires special treatment.
The crux of the problem is
1. A premise is false (in this case Brown is not the man who'll get the job)
and yet
2. The conclusion is true (coincidentally Smith has 10 coins in his pocket)
This happens with invalid arguments. In short the conclusion isn't justified and so, there's no problem at all, oui? All we have is an invalid argument.
AGENT SMITH
You are right, of course. But there are complications when you include belief, knowledge and justification in the scenario.
Within this scenario “The man who will get the job will have 10 coins in his pocket” can be interpreted in three different ways, depending on context. This is quite normal for sentences that include a definite description.
1) In a general context, the application is “Whoever will get the job will have 10 coins in his pocket.”
2) In the context of Smith’s beliefs, the application is “Brown will get the job and will have 10 coins in his pocket.”
3) In the context of the objective outcome, the application is “Smith will get the job and will have 10 coins in his pocket.”
The first issue is whether these are three distinct propositions or one proposition with three applications.
If they are distinct, there is no paradox. But sadly, the criteria of identity of propositions are completely unclear. So that is not conclusive.
The second issue is whether he is justified in believing 2) or just believes he is justified in believing 2). Gettier posits that one can be justified in believing a proposition that is false and that that he is justified. Sadly, it does seem that he is right about the ordinary use of “justify” and a strict interpretation of “justify” seems to rule out cases that most people would want to accept.
The third issue is that whether a re-formulation of the J clause or an addition to it could exclude cases like this.
If we describe the situation as Smith believing the right thing for the wrong reasons, that could fall under the exclusion of guessing or luck, which is precisely what the J clause is meant to exclude. But there’s been a lot of discussion about whether luck plays a role in most knowledge and it is not difficult to construct examples. I’m not a fan of this route, because knowledge by luck seems to defeat the point.
On the other hand, it is not difficult to construct Gettier-like cases which do not seem to be problematic. Suppose I’m waiting by a bus stop. I have checked the timetable and traffic reports and have every reason to believe that a bus that will take me where I want to go is due. But there are all sorts of outcomes that don’t correspond to my expectations but would not necessarily undermine a claim to knowledge. For example, a bus turns up but not the bus that was scheduled to fill this slot, which has broken down. Or a bus turns up, but not the route that I was planning; nonetheless, it will take me where I want to go, so I catch it.
Smith doesn't know that he himself has 10 coins in his pocket and so when he "infers", from the interviewer's statement that Brown'll be hired, that the man with 10 coins in his pocket'll be a happy man, he's wrong.
1. Smith could have 10 coins in his pocket and hey may not be hired.
Ergo,
2. The man with 10 coins in his pocket doesn't necessarily get the job.
Smith is essentially ignoring a possibility that he shouldn't.
Okay. Seems we're in agreement here as well. Gettier may well have presupposed such beliefs about propositions being clearly distinct. Michael seems to have as well. I'm more prone towards agreeing with Quine's idea of a web of beliefs. Davidson largely adopted it as well. Are you familiar?
Quoting Ludwig V
So, we agree that belief as propositional attitude is problematic.
I know you mentioned speech acts earlier, and I did not see how it was an issue between our views. Would you consider yourself a speech act theorist along the lines of Austin and Searle? I see some definite similarities, based upon my very limited understanding. I own some of Austin's and Searle's literature, and have read Austin's "How To Do Things With Words", but my memory of it is not at all acute.
Is the clause you're referring to above a "belief that" clause, such that when we claim that someone believes a proposition, we're basically saying that they believe that, or believe that that proposition is true?
Could you elaborate on this mention of using "cognitive"? I'm curious what the benefits of the use would be, and if it were being used to replace or supplant some other common terminological use. I've no issue with your use of it. So, if it doesn't matter, we can leave it be.
Quoting Ludwig V
It seems to me that belief has efficacy in that one's beliefs will cause one's actions, and by virtue of this fact we can attribute beliefs based upon actions. Witt made several convincing remarks over the years regarding this. I think we agree on that. The issue with that the approach is that it is underdetermined at best which sorts of beliefs caused which sorts of actions. Any number of actions could be caused by any number of beliefs. At least, that's my current understanding of it. There is always the chance of my being unaware of something or another of importance.
Quoting Ludwig V
I've seen propositions defined in a few different ways. Attitudes towards propositions would follow the notion of "proposition" being used. I've seen others use it as you're using it here. If we take a proposition as a sentence with its use in a context, it may serve to eliminate the ambiguity of reference issue underwriting Gettier's Case I by allowing us to know that Smith was referring to himself and only himself despite the fact that the naked proposition is true regardless of who believes it.
This touches upon the issues I raised earlier regarding treating naked propositions as though they are equivalent to belief. Interestingly enough, it seems that treating a proposition as you suggest may very well be another way to dissolve the Gettier problem, at least in the first Case.
There's any number of tangents here, all of which are germane. Most folk approach Gettier's paper as though it is all about justification. You and I have been approaching it here much differently.
Quoting Agent Smith
That is certainly true.
Russell’s stopped clock is similar. It is an example devised by Bertrand Russell in Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits as an example of true belief without knowledge; it is a man who looks at a clock which is not working, though he thinks it is, and who happens to look at it at the moment when it is right; this man acquires a true belief as to the time of day, but cannot be said to have knowledge.
A similar classic problem was produced by Jonathan Vogel. Al left his car parked on Avenue A half an hour ago. He knows where his car is. What Al has not thought about, however, is that every day a certain percentage of cars parked on public streets gets stolen. For example, Betty left her car parked on Avenue B half an hour ago. Her car, unfortunately, has been stolen and driven away. Clearly Betty believes, but doesn’t know, that her car is on Avenue B. Now, consider whether Al knows that his car is still parked on Avenue A. I don't have an acceptable solution to this one.
Both depend on assumptions that turn out to be wrong. But Gettier cases turn on “justified” beliefs that turn out to be wrong. So I tend to see Gettier cases as different from these. One can turn Russell's case into a Gettier problem by adding to it a justification for the assumption that the clock is working, such as having recently heard it strike and having checked it was striking correctly. But that still doesn't include the dodgy logic that "true" Gettier cases rely on.
One has to be careful here. If one insists on conclusive justification for all knowledge claims, including all assumptions, one sets off the Munchausen trilemma. (Forgive me if you know this one already. I include the explanation to save time if you don’t know it.) If it is asked how any given proposition is known to be true, proof may be provided. Yet that same question can be asked of the proof, and any subsequent proof. According to the trilemma, there are only three ways of completing a proof - a circular argument, an infinite regress, or a dogmatic argument (one that rests on accepted precepts which are merely asserted rather than defended.) Gettier’s acceptance that justification. (See Wikipedia “Munchausen’s trilemma)
Quoting creativesoul
I’m not unfamiliar with Quine and Davidson, but completely unfamiliar with this part of their output, though I've heard of Quine's "web of beliefs", which has a good deal to recommend it.
Quoting creativesoul
I learnt about speech acts from Austin. I read some of Searle's and Grice's work, but decided there was nothing worth having down that particular rabbit hole. But I’ve made use of the idea in all sorts of contexts as a useful question to ask in philosophical practice, leaving others to wrestle with the intricacies of a theory. I look up Austin from time to time, but I haven’t read Searle or Grice for years.
Quoting creativesoul
Yes.
Quoting creativesoul
There’s no great theory behind the suggestion. I was just trying to think of a more convenient way of referring to the class of words that are currently designated “propositional attitudes”. That’s all. I’m taking it to mean “to do with knowledge”.
Quoting creativesoul
It may just be pedantry, but I prefer to say that beliefs explain actions by identifying the reasons for actions. I wouldn't want to be labelled a causal theorist because I couldn't defend such a theory. I don't think there's much scope for some sort of general classification of which beliefs cause which actions, apart from the case by case identification of reasons for particular actions.
Quoting creativesoul
Quite so. The problem is that no example since Gettier’s case I uses definite descriptions, probably because it was accepted that the reference issue is a serious flaw. I think the technique can be adapted to fit other cases, but not all – not even for Gettier’s case 2. But piecemeal refutation of examples is not proof against new examples, so a blanket solution would be preferable.
Quoting creativesoul
Well, Gettier is taking advantage of the need to adopt “weak” justification in order to avoid the Munchausen trilemma. (See my reply to Agent Smith above if you are not familiar with it.) So it’s not wrong to work on it. But the only solution I can think of is very implausible.
Let's do a recap. A Gettier case is a justified, true belief that isn't knowledge. However, in every case we've analyzed, we've always found that there's an issue with justification i.e. the person in question isn't justified to believe whatever it is that he believes. In short Gettier problems are pseudoproblems in re the JTB theory.
If Smith’s belief is justified and true but not knowledge, then the JTB needs revision. If Smith’s belief isn’t justified, then the JTB has no problem. So what are the grounds for saying that Smith’s belief isn’t justified? The only possibility that I can come up with Is that his belief that Brown will get the job is false. In which case, the definition of justification needs revision or qualification. That means either a “no false lemmas” added to the JTB or something else.
An alternative would be to say that Gettier cases are all half-way houses, that don’t fit the mould. That doesn’t mean that the JTB is wrong; every rule is liable to encounter anomalous cases. Anomalous cases need adjudication.
Suppose Smith persuades Brown to accept a bet, that the man who gets the job will have ten coins in his pocket. Smith gets the job and coincidentally has ten coins in his pocket. Smith will argue that he got it right, on the ground that he has been appointed and has ten coins in his pocket but will accept that his prediction was not entirely accurate. Jones will argue that he did not, on the ground that he is right only by coincidence and that he lost.
Smith is right. A bet doesn’t pay attention to the reasons why stakeholders made their choice. So Smith’s grounds, whether they are right or wrong, don’t matter. But the JTB does and Smith has the wrong grounds.
This being a coincidence is why I don't particularly like this example. A different example would be: I believe that my car isn't in my driveway, because I parked it in a garage. However, someone has stolen my car from the garage and is currently driving it on the motorway.
My belief that my car isn't in my driveway is both true and justified, but unlike your (and Gettier's) example, it isn't just coincidentally true.
It’s not unusual to say “we both believe that John shouldn’t marry Jane, but for different reasons.”
Max believes that John shouldn’t marry Jane because he believes that Jane is a horrible person.
Jessica believes that John shouldn’t marry Jane because she believes that marriage is a terrible practice.
They both believe that John shouldn’t marry Jane.
It’s perfectly appropriate to distinguish beliefs from the reasons for having them. It’s absurd to respond to the above by saying that neither Max nor Jessica believe that John shouldn’t marry Jane.
Yep, that should've been obvious. A good justification can't contain a false premise.
Quoting Michael
There might be all sorts of reasons for liking or disliking an example, but the most important criterion in our context is whether the example is clear and illustrates the point it is designed for. Perhaps you think that the question of coincidence is a distraction. I think that that getting the right answer for bad reasons is at the heart of the Gettier problem.
However, the problem that your case exemplifies is different, I think. Here’s the classic case (first proposed by Jonathan Vogel). Al left his car parked on Avenue A half an hour ago. He knows where his car is. What Al has not thought about, however, is that every day a certain percentage of cars parked on public streets gets stolen. For example, Betty left her car parked on Avenue B half an hour ago. Her car, unfortunately, has been stolen and driven away. Clearly Betty believes, but doesn’t know, that her car is on Avenue B. Now, consider whether Al knows that his car is still parked on Avenue A.
There is a name for this - the Harman-Vogel paradox. But I don't know whether it is in general use.
Quoting Michael
It depends how you define “proposition”, i.e. what you count as the same proposition and what you count as a different proposition. For me, a proposition is a sentence with its use in a context. Max and Jessica both believe that John shouldn’t marry Jane, but for different reasons and therefore in different contexts. The situation is perfectly clear. We choose to describe it in different ways; both are legitimate. But I am impressed by the colour exclusion problem; you appear not to be. So I think my description is more accurate than yours and avoids various difficulties (such as the Gettier problems).
Quoting Agent Smith
So we agree! :smile:
It follows that Smith’s belief that he is justified is not sufficient; we also have to accept that he is justified. In other words, the J clause, like the T clause, means that attributing knowledge to someone else requires endorsement of the claim. Knowledge is not just a psychological state, as belief is.
(At this point, I have to admit that I’ve got very confused about the name of Smith’s rival – whether is Jones or Brown or Robinson. So I checked. Gettier calls him Jones, so I’m going to stick to that, because I’m a pedant.)
However, suppose that, like Smith, we don’t know that he will get the job. His source – whether it is the president or the interviewer – is such that it is reasonable to believe the information and therefore reasonable to believe his claim to knowledge. Suppose that Jones does get the job. Wouldn’t we accept that Smith knew?
Awkward, I think.
Yes, that's been my point. They both believe that John shouldn't marry Jane, and if it's true that John shouldn't marry Jane then their belief that John shouldn't marry Jane is true – even if Jane isn't a horrible person and marriage isn't a terrible practice.
Can an atheist respond to this by arguing that there is no God, and so therefore these Christians don't believe that homosexuality is wrong? Of course not. Even if the Christians' reason for believing that homosexuality is wrong is false, it is true that they believe that homosexuality is wrong.
I would beg to differ. Smith is categorically not justified to conclude that the man with 10 coins in his pocket will get the job, because a shaky premise is always shaky, even if Jones does get hired.
Quoting Michael
There's something odd happening here. What you say is correct. Did I ever say anything to suggest that I thought something different?
Quoting Agent Smith
I take it that a premiss is shaky if it is less than conclusively true and/or it is less than conclusive evidence for the conclusion?
That implies that most of what we think we know, we do not know.
Or perhaps you mean that the JTB is a paradigm of knowledge and cases that approximate to the paradigm can be accepted as knowledge. Something like the relationship between the abstract triangle defined by whatever geometry we are using at the time and the physical objects we accept as triangular. I could buy that.
:chin: Intriguing. Leads to fallibilism.
We have to acknowledge that human beings are fallible and that we are human beings. But we are not always wrong, and it seems to me that the point of "know" is to signal when we have not failed and to pass on the information.
I can't get my head round fallibilism. If we claim or attribute knowledge and we are wrong, we need to withdraw the claim or attribution. The same is true of every assertion we make. What's the problem with that?
I hadn't thought that my speculation might lead to fallibilism. Perhaps if I said "cases that approximate to the paradigm can be accepted as knowledge provided they are true."?
Well, the question boils down to certainty, oui? The kinda logic that gurantees certainty is deduction, but then Agrippa's trilemma + good refutations. What hope is there for other logics? The obvious and most reasonable response is fallibilism, oui?
I agree with you that scepticism about the value of deduction is not unreasonable and that human beings are fallible.
Ever since Plato got hypnotised by mathematics, there's been a shared discourse in philosophy that takes as its model of certainty deductive reasoning. As you say, this definition of certainty does not, in practice, offer us much, if anything.
Yet, if human beings are fallible, it follows that they are not always wrong. For example, if we know that human beings are fallible, there is at least one thing that is certain.
I deal with fallibilism not by saying that knowledge is fallible, but by saying that if a knowledge claim turns out to be wrong, it should be withdrawn and classified as belief. Fallible knowledge is indistinguishable from belief and so pointless.
Unlike beliefs simpliciter, fallible knowledge has an accompanying justification.
Quoting Agent Smith
I disagree. Having a justification does not automatically promote a belief to knowledge. In particular, if the justification fails, we call the result a belief, because knowledge is only knowledge if it is true.
How do you classify "I knew that horse would win because the stars were aligned."? If the horse loses, it is clearly a belief. Yes? If the horse wins, would you classify it as knowledge? I think not. But we do not think the justification is valid.
How about "I knew that horse would win because the jockey told me it would"? Again, if the horse loses, it is clearly a belief. If it wins, the justification is plausible because you would think that the jockey might know what s/he is talking about. Is it fallible knowledge? Is it belief?
But the underlying question is, Why does it matter what we decide?
Does the context in which the {observation ? analysis ? conclusion} unfolds play a critical role in the scope of the truth content of the JTB?
Can we reasonably support the scope of truth of a belief as valid by acknowledging the context of the OAC {observation ? analysis ? conclusion} is limited?
The above question is suggested to me by knowing all theories limit the scope of truth they posit conditionally against future additional OAC.
My generalization is that historical progress of knowledge tells us that for any given present day: knowledge has limited scope and is therefore conditional.
In my book, they certainly are failed and attempts at knowledge, so that’s fine.
It is also true that my tipster believes that his horse will win. So that's my preferred classification.
I’m not quite sure what the context is of your argument. But I do find that context is always important and it’s true that general epistemology, like what we’re doing here, doesn’t pay attention to the context of knowledge claims. However, I don’t think ordinary knowledge claims are in any way insured against surprises in the future.
The idea of scope is interesting. I’m not quite clear how it would apply to the everyday knowledge that epistemology usually discusses. One could suppose a general qualification along the lines of “so far as I/we know”. But I think knowledge expects all relevant considerations to have been taken into account and copes rather badly with unexpected developments.
Scientific theories are a somewhat different kettle of fish. It is true that they don’t always get thrown out when their limitations are revealed and can remain useful for specific purposes. But surely they can’t insure themselves against future developments? If they do, they are useless for making predictions and so pointless.
I can’t help feeling that there is a difference between Knowledge (“what is known”) – I would argue this is a variant of the concept - and people knowing things – I would argue that this is the basic use. I think of them as different contexts and what may be appropriate for one context may not be for the other. The kind of conditionality you are talking about may well be appropriate for Knowledge, but I don’t see any reason to think it is implicit in the ordinary one. But perhaps I’m just stuck in my ways.
I've lost track of the discussion mon ami. Suffice it to say that Gettier "problems" are pseudoproblems and the timehonored practice of checking one's assumptions when doing philosophy will speak for me.
If you can I would like to see a mathematical Gettier case.
Newtonian physics in the wake of Relativity.
Quoting Ludwig V
I acknowledge the truth of your above distinction. I think one useful measurement of the difference between the two categories is duration. Knowledge-the-variant and knowledge-the-basic differ in how long a certain type of knowing has been accepted and established. Knowledge-the-variant I will generalize as being of longer duration than Knowledge-the-basic.
Another useful measurement of their difference is scope of application.
Quoting Ludwig V
The hostess at your favorite restaurant seats you at a booth. As you peruse the menu, you hear a woman talking in the adjacent booth. Within seconds you recognize her voice as belonging to Hermione. Hermione! She's the peachy girl you'll be asking to the prom at school tomorrow. Next moment, you hear the voice of Beatrice, your older sister. The two women are good friends in spite of the age difference. That's how you've enjoyed good looks at Hermione at home and, moreover, know she's quite mature for her age. "I've got a strong feeling he'll ask me to prom tomorrow." "I toldja. Whenever you come over to visit, he can't stay out of the living room. " "Maybe it's 'cause he's gotta use the unabridged dictionary. He's always hitting the books." "Ha! Ha! Ha! The dictionary is a cover. And, it's a good vantage point for catching glances at you in all of those smart outfits you never fail to wear on visits to our house. Ah! You're blushing." As you sink down in your seat, not wanting to be caught eavesdropping on the bestest girl in the world, you start thinking. "So, dad's refurbished Mustang and last year's tux were gonna be just fine for the prom, huh? Oh, I wish I knew yesterday what I know today! Now that I'm assured of getting Hermione for the prom, gotta get a top-of-the-line tux and I'm also renting a black Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat!"
I agree that our discussion is getting rather confused. Perhaps we've gone as far as we need to.
I agree with you that Quoting Agent Smith.
Getter problems are all narratives in which different contexts - points of view - collide. I doubt if that could happen in a mathematical problem.
Your distinction between Knowledge and knowledge reminds me also that what can be known depends on the conceptual framework within which it is known. How this affects the definition of knowledge needs thinking about. Epistemology as discussed in the literature doesn't seem to want to take it on.
I'm always inclined to notice the link between Knowledge and knowledge and notice that there is usually an answer to the question "Who knows this piece of Knowledge". Presumably, the idea is that Knowledge is what is available to everyone, but it usually means what is available to me and my circle. Your distinction seems to recognize that.
Your example is interesting. What I take from it is that knowledge is time-based and that there is a difference between what is the case and what someone knows. The interaction between the two is crucial to the Gettier problems, though it hasn't been discussed in what I've read.
Anway, my point is Gettier cases are interesting, but every single Gettier case I've encountered is flawed in the justification department so doesn't, in me universe, qualify as a JTB that's not knowledge. Gettier (pseudo)problems.
Your Knowledge/knowledge couplet is metaphorically illuminating. They're like tectonic plates rubbing against each other in a perennial state of (creative?) tension.
This tension, I'm tentatively imagining, has much to do with adaptation of sentient being to environment.
Quoting Ludwig V
Oh, my gosh! This is why adaptation requires constant updating. This is why the info overload of the cyber world is killing people via stress.
Quoting Ludwig V
I'm guessing with the time factor added into the mix, the math-based logic of Gettier Problem gets a lot more complicated.
It may be that human sentience is nearing a boundary line with permanent info-overload making skepticism a necessary defense. Consider the racial and gender phantasia now essential to political correctness and the pushback of staunch nativism.
There's no doubt that coping with all the information available demands some sort of strategy or mechanism. Skepticism is not the only possibility. How about trivialization - reacting to information and then forgetting it quickly - which prevents ever really thinking about it? Or treating info as entertainment - infotainment as they call it? Or knowing all about what's going on the other side of the world, and ignoring what's going on your doorstep?
But perhaps I'm just getting old.
Back to philosophy. The question of adaptation to the changing environment reminds me that philosophy seems to worry about the definition of knowledge (and, by implication, Knowledge) without ever asking what the point might be. My suggestion would be that identifying and passing on information is a crucial part of forming and being in a society and a great advantage to all the individuals. In fact, it's so basic and so useful that animals and birds do it too - even posting sentries (meerkats) and ignoring cheats who sound the alarm so the others leave the food for the cheat (birds). That's what the concept of knowledge fosters.
:smile: :up:
Quoting Ludwig V
Today's world indeed. And moreover, the fact of trivialization is not trivial.
I know you believe Gettier found a major flaw in the JTB theory of knowledge and I would like to discuss it further with you on a case-by-case basis. The Smith and Jones case is closed - Smith wasn't justified because he didn't take into account the fluid nature of the employment mechanism he was part of. Any other Gettier case you wanna discuss?
Oops! We seem to have a crossed wire. I don't think that Gettier found a major flaw in theory of knowledge, but I did get interested in how Gettier created the illusion that he had. It did worry me that our discussion was turning me into a defender of Gettier. But my aim was only to make sure that the flaws were correctly identified.
I concluded that weaknesses in the propositional calculus and the vagueness in the J clause, coupled with a reluctance to acknowledge the possibility of borderline or ambiguous cases were the main issues. I don't think they can be remedied within the requirements of Gettier's idea of philosophy. But then I discovered a major difficulty.
Refuting the cases one-by-one seemed futile, because new cases kept coming along, designed to get round the problems revealed in the old ones. (So, for example, after Gettier's original article, there are no new cases that use definite descriptions (case 1) and no new cases that use "or" (case 2). By implication, his supporters accepted they are flawed.
But the appearance of new cases suggested that there must be a general solution. However, the proposed cases morphed. In the process a problem was thrown up that I couldn't and can't fully resolve. These can be classified (I found this in a blog by Jennifer Nagel) as the "Harman-Vogel" paradox. They turn on false assumptions or unconsidered assumptions or the lottery paradox. Russell has no problem with it - if a claim to knowledge relies on a false assumption - it is unjustified and so merely a belief. But we make so many assumptions so it would seem that knowledge is a rare and precious commodity. My suggestion of considering the JTB as a paradigm rather than a definition was one attempt. My insistence that if a claim to knowledge turns out to be false, for any reason, it isn't knowledge and the claim is false is another.
At that point, I was distracted by other (philosophical) problems. However, it turned out that not everyone agreed with me about Gettier, so I got involved in this discussion. I have learnt some things through it. But I'm beginning to get itchy feet - a desire to think about other things for a while.
If we follow up that problem, it could well be considered off-topic and some forums are quite strict about that, so I'm cautious about doing so. In addition, I don't know whether I'm qualified to start a new discussion and not sure there would be interest in it.
Perhaps that was too much information, but you do seem to be asking where we go from here, and that's where the Gettier problem is leading me.
Oh, I think that all of those ways of coping are flawed.
I'm often reminded of the painting "Landscape with fall of Icarus". It seems brutal, but somehow necesary.
Hah! I may be somewhat up to date about Gettier. About nearly everything else, I'm hopelessly out of date and scrambling to catch up. Although many things have not changed much.
OK. But it will take me a while to get things together.
:up:
Yes. Although Alien has terrified me, I generally favor bold exploration into new territory, hazards notwithstanding.
Justified - Adequate evidence
In the case of the farmer why would he think there was a cloth that was cow shaped? He has cows in his field all the time.
True belief - The end stated belief must be true
In this case the technical true belief is, "There is a cow in my field".
So the farmer is justified and has a true belief. So the farmer then knows there is a cow in his field.
According to the strict interpretation of justified true belief, something is wrong here. Here we have a situation in which the farmer has a justified true belief, so thus should know there is a cow in his field, and yet he doesn't really know there is a cow in his field.
The Gettier problem points out the JTB is missing something. Must someone believe in something that is true to have knowledge? Do we need greater specification of what justification entails? Despite the farmer not knowing the full picture, can we still say, "That is what the farmer knows?" However you want to tackle it, Gettier in his criticism of a base JTB theory of knowledge is unquestionably correct.
Quoting ucarr
I've no problem with exploration. But I'm also cautious enough to find about as much as I can about what I'm getting into, and a clear idea of what I'm going to get out of it.
I saw "Alien" and one of the sequels. Not they're talking about "Alien %". It's turned into a franchise. I'm not a fan of horror movies. I just don't enjoy being scared.
Quoting Philosophim
So what is your solution?
I have thought about this. I would like to start a new discussion for it. If we start what I have in mind on this thread, things will get confusing for me and probably anyone else who joins it.
Is that OK with you?
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/9015/a-methodology-of-knowledge I have written a knowledge paper divided into four parts. It answers the Gettier question, explains what knowledge is, and provides a hierarchy of induction that we can use when the limitations of knowledge are reached.
Thanks. I'll check it out.
No problemo! Raise anchor!
I've posted a starting-point with the title "Vogel's paradox of knowledge"
Quoting Ludwig V
Yeah. Likewise for me. However, when friends pressure me into going, I must admit I get entertained (thrilled) and educated. I think the director needs to possess a masterful sense of how far to go. Pushing it way out there is scary_thrilling, then going another step or two affords a transcendent experience that's educational; any further and it transitions from entertainment to suffering, a no-no.
One of the Hannibals, wherein Hopkins has a stir-fry meal at the expense of Liotta, that was transitioning from entertainment to suffering. Hitchcock never made this mistake.
I'm a bit puzzled. On the one hand, you've expressed the desire to have an all-encompassing solution. On the other hand, you've expressed several times that you're not interested in theory. In addition, you've expressed agreement that what I've proposed dissolves the Gettier problem in both cases. It also dissolves all the cottage cases discussed here as well, then you mentioned qualifications...
Which of the 'qualification cases' are you not satisfied with my answer to?
What stops you from agreeing with the accounting malpractice charges I've levied against the historical and current conventional practices of belief attribution(including believe that approaches), belief as propositional attitude, and treating naked propositions as if they are equivalent to belief?
Not only are these practices inherently responsible for the inability to make sense of language less belief, they are also responsible for the inability to defend Gettier's cases as well as understanding the lessons of Russell(the clock) and Moore's paradox. In other words, understanding the accounting malpractice results in dissolving all three issues.
What I'm saying is that Max's and Jessica's beliefs are equivalent to neither the proposition "John should not marry Jane", nor their attitude towards that particular proposition.
What I'm saying is that they have different beliefs about whether or not John should marry Jane, clearly as you yourself have stipulated. You seem to want to call part of their belief about whether or not John should marry Jane "reasons", as though part of their belief about whether or not John should marry Jane are somehow different than their belief about whether or not John should marry Jane.
In addition, you seem to place far more importance and justificatory weight than I do upon common speech patterns/practices. It does not follow from the fact that it is common to say that they both believe that John should not marry Jane, but for different reasons, that their belief is equivalent to the proposition "John should not marry Jane", or that the distinction you're drawing between their belief and their reasons somehow reflects that there is a difference between reasons and beliefs such that reasons are not beliefs.
What is clear is that they hold completely different beliefs about whether or not John should marry Jane, and yet the notion of belief you're using along with the belief attribution methods you've been practicing, inevitably leads you to say otherwise.
Their beliefs about whether or not John should marry Jane are far more complex than your accounting practices are capable of admitting. The same fatal flaw underwrites the earlier example you gave of belief about your birthplace.
No, it hasn't been discussed - so far as I remember.
It's a good point. That's why "I know that p" is a pleonasm, i.e. adds nothing except rhetorical emphasis - or possibly a claim to being in a particularly good position to know.
The definition only really has meaning with "You know that p" or "S/He knows that p", where the speaker is different from the knower. Then, the J clause works to ensure that the knower has access to the basis for the knowledge. It really is pretty vague. Philosophers always concentrate on first hand knowledge, for understandable reasons. But the vagueness of the J clause allows the justifications other than the first hand evidence - for example S may know because he has it on good authority without knowing the first hand evidence. That enables me to report what I have learnt from someone else.
How does the speaker know that the knower knows? To answer that the speaker has JTB is to kick the can down the road.
I do place emphasis on common speech practices. That doesn't mean that I rule out all technical or specialized language, just that everything needs to have a basis in the shared language.
I'm not sure that our differences are as radical as you seem to think. You misunderstand me about beliefs and propositions. Perhaps I didn't explain myself clearly enough. First, given the lack of clarity about both beliefs and propositions, it seemed better to talk about beliefs without talking about propositions. Second, I don't think that beliefs that are reasons for believing something are clearly distinct from or identical with the belief that they support. From one point of view they are. From another, they aren't. In other words, their beliefs are similar in that they can both be partly expressed by "John should not marry Jane" but different in that Max's belief is expressed in more detail by "Jane is a horrible person, so John should not..." and Jessica's belief is expressed in more detail by "marriage is a terrible practice, so John should not ...". Perhaps it is clearer to say that their beliefs overlap?
Does that help?
I've just had a light-bulb moment. I was thinking that the J clause enabled a chain of transmission to form. The J clause provided assurance that the person I got the information from did know and the T clause provided my endorsement for the next person in the chain.
But the T clause means that every link in the chain has to test the information for itself. In other words, we never get away from first hand evidence.
That isn't quite clear, but it means that while second hand knowledge might be knowledge, third hand knowledge isn't.
But we live and third, fourth and fifth hand knowledge! Nobody could establish the truth of all the information we live by in even a long lifetime. That's why knowledge is so important.
I'm missing something.
Pause for thought.
No, because you neglected to respond to my reply to you, and instead replied to my response to Michael.
reply="creativesoul;780722"]
You're right. I'm sorry.
Quoting creativesoul
Two answers.
First, I don't understand what you mean by "accounting practice" or "malpractice" in this context. You seem to think that philosophy is a kind of accountancy. Perhaps it is, in some ways, but it seems clearly different in other ways.
Second, after our exchange, I decided that it was simpler not to talk about propositions in this context, but simply about beliefs. That way, the amount of confusion in the discussion might be reduced.
This involved accepting that "propositional attitude" was not a helpful way of describing the group of verbs that I was interested in.
No worries. No need for apologies, it's not like I'm offended or anything. I figured the fact that you copied my reply to Michael and treated it as if it were addressed to you was something you did unbeknownst to yourself while doing it. I hope you did not take the shortness for terseness. It wasn't. I'm just quite busy, and I will be for the next few months.
All that being said, it is very interesting that that has happened here, in this context though. Serendipitous even. If I may: You believed that my reply to Michael was meant for you. Yet I do not think that you would have believed that "my reply to Michael was meant for you" was true at the time. This all points to a curious failure of current convention to be able to properly account for the fact that it is humanly impossible to knowingly hold false belief and/or knowingly be mistaken.
It is for that reason and that reason alone that there are often situations when and where someone would not agree and/or assent to a rendering of their belief at the time they were forming, having, and/or holding it, if it were put into either belief statement or propositional form. <-------That's very problematic for current conventional notions of belief as well as current belief attribution practices. Belief as propositional attitude(which includes belief that approaches) simply cannot take this into account.
For instance, Russell's clock is a perfect example of the aforementioned situation, as is the cottage case regarding the farmer. The person looking at the clock would not agree with and/or assent to the statement "that broken clock is working" although they most certainly believed that that broken clock was working at that particular time. Likewise, the farmer would not agree with and/or assent to the statement "a piece of cloth is a cow" while believing that a piece of cloth is a cow. Now, circling back to the serendipitous mistake you made earlier: I'm relatively certain that the same holds true for your earlier belief that my reply to Michael was meant for you.
It's curious because current conventional notions of belief as well as the belief attribution practices based upon those notions are fatally flawed in their inherent inability to properly take account of such belief in such situations.
As Moore skirted around, we can coherently say something about another's false beliefs and/or mistakes at the time, yet we cannot say the same things about ourselves.
Why?
Because the conventional notion of belief as propositional attitude, the conventional practice of treating propositions as though they are equivalent to belief, and the belief that approach are all inherently incapable of properly taking these situations into account. The inherently inadequate linguistic frameworks, schemes, conceptions still being practiced in current convention are exactly what gave rise to Russell's clock, Moore's paradox, and Gettier. Convention has gotten human thought and/or belief historically wrong. Those paradoxes and more are simply logical consequences of the conventional notion of belief that has been at work for centuries.
Quoting Ludwig V
Well, each and every time that we are talking about that which existed in its entirety prior to our talking about it, we are indeed taking account of it. The belief that approach works from the notion of belief as an attitude/disposition towards some proposition/statement such that the person who believes the statement believes it to be true. So, it is held that when we say someone believes "X", we are saying that they have an attitude/disposition such that they hold "X" to be true.
That's most certainly an accounting practice at work.
Quoting Ludwig V
I like the attempts to reduce confusion and add clarity whenever possible. For whatever it's worth, the position I argue for/from began with and still has a very strong methodological naturalist bent.
However, it's impossible to address current conventional issues such as Gettier without addressing propositions and how they've been used to represent and/or as equivalent to belief. That said, I've no issue with agreeing, if you do - and I think you do - to no longer focus upon the issues involving propositions and/or propositional attitudes. I think we largely agree there, so we can close that part off and focus our attention elsewhere if you like.
Quoting Ludwig V
Okay, we've yet to have broached that aspect in its own right. I'm curious, which group of verbs are you interested in and how exactly are they relevant to Gettier?
Oh, and I just realized that I earlier confused Gettier's Case I, once again, regarding who got the job and who Smith believed would get the job, but I'm hoping you overlooked that due to the earlier clarification I offered after doing the same thing.
The issue with knowledge is that we cannot always check to see for ourselves if something or another is true. Hence, our becoming aware of that and our own fallibility can and ought lead to a bit of skepticism. However, it does not follow from the fact that we cannot know everything that we cannot know anything. It also does not follow from the fact that we are sometimes mistaken that we are always mistaken. Hence, radical skepticism seems to me to be an emotionally based overreaction.
You're absolutely right in pointing out that the nature of human progress requires us to stand on the shoulders of many before us, and it's worth mentioning that there is a significant amount of trusting the truthfulness of the source material inherent to our daily lives. In a society where no one trusts institutions and/or each other, it's only a matter of time before it collapses. Such is and was the danger inherently within American government over the past fifty years such that the legislations passed throughout the last five decades cultivated a society of people that led the up to the likes of Trump.
A real life tragedy of the commons on steroids. Ah, but I digress...
I think I understand what you mean.
There's no doubt, for example, that Gettier writes as if he believes that a belief maps to a proposition which maps to a sentence. He doesn't feel any need to clarify that, no doubt because it is so widely believed.
But I don't see any interesting different between "Smith believed the proposition that p" and "Smith believed that p", so I prefer to cut out the middle man. I feel that there's an ontological idea going on that there must be some object that is believed, just as there's a feeling that there must be some object that is true or false. It seems pure assumption to me and I find it annoying. But I don't pretend that I'm clear about it.
I don't have a list of the interesting words. I seldom get much beyond know, believe, think, say, assert, but I would include suppose, imagine, fear, hope, wonder (both that.. and whether... and why... ). I'm sure you could go on.
Quoting creativesoul
I don't even remember overlooking anything, so I suppose I must have overlooked it. It certainly wasn't a problem. So no worries.
Quoting creativesoul
That's right. Our problem, I think, is that since the development of mass media, it has become more difficult to trust, because the weaknesses of those we must trust are much more difficult to hide, and yet those who want us to trust them try to build an image of perfection that is very easily shattered. There should be some happy medium of accepting human weaknesses as inevitable without a reaction of disproportionate mistrust.
Not too certain how clear I am about it either, but in fairness to convention...
Historically speaking, it became increasingly necessary for humans to be able to discriminate between contradictory assertions. It is my suspicion that epistemology was born thereof, and is where and when belief as p gained a foothold. It's worth mentioning here that I do not find it's entirely wrong. I mean, there are all sorts of situations when someone would assent to some proposition/statement or another. There are all sorts of situations when someone asserts something or another, makes a knowledge claim, etc. In such situations, the belief that approach works perfectly well enough as an accounting practice.
It's the situations when someone holds false belief unbeknownst to themselves that the practice is found lacking, because it is during these times that the person cannot even tell you what they believe. It is impossible to knowingly hold false belief, and/or be mistaken.
I'm not fond of speaking in terms of 'objects'. It's fraught with archaic baggage. That's a big part of the underlying problem... the inherently inadequate linguistic frameworks being used to talk about that which existed in its entirety prior to our talking about it. Language less but meaningful nonetheless human thought and belief are precisely such things.
I find that the very language we use to talk about stuff effects/affects the way we look at the world as well as the way we feel about it while looking. The degree to which this is the case cannot be overstated, but that is a subject matter in its own right.
Quoting Ludwig V
I find our exchange a bit odd, because unless I've taken you the wrong way, you've repeatedly dismissed several different aspects of the conversation, citing these yet to have been disclosed verbs as what interests you in lieu of whatever aspect was being discussed at the time. In addition to that, I'm reminded of the blanket theory that you mentioned as a preference to piecemeal answers to Gettier, after saying you weren't interested in a theory.
The oddity, I suppose, is that it looks like a performative contradiction.
I suppose this could very well be a direct result of my own continual critical thinking. If it is, my apologies. I've no way to turn it off. Thus, I attempt to direct it towards more practically beneficial subjects. "An eye for detail" barely scratches the surface of that personality 'trait'. But that's already too much about me. Just wanted to soften the critique above. I could be very wrong. You would be the one to know that, if I were.
Yes, quite so. I think that these cases are one kind of embedded belief, in that we (but not everyone) think that beliefs are also appropriately attributed to animals that don't have language. For the record, my belief (!) is that beliefs are reasons for doing something, and are essential to the language practice of attributing rationale to certain actions. One art of this is that we find that sometimes people act as if p were true when it isn't. So if a rational agent acts as if that piece of cloth were a cow, I believe that agent believes it is a cow. Another part is that sometimes they act without taking into account some p that is clearly relevant, and it can be the best explanation that they do not believe that p. I think that "know" does the same job, with the addition that p is true. This contributes to the language practice of passing on information. It may all sound a bit wacky, but I find it very satisfying.
Quoting creativesoul
You seem to want an exhaustive list. Is it not enough for me to give examples and then say "and other verbs like those"? It's only a kind of ostensive definition. If you think of a case you are doubtful about, we can consider it and decide. I don't have any reason as things stand to work through such a list, unless I find an interesting problem amongst them. The ones I've thought about seem to be pretty straightforward. I refer to them because I assume that the kind of explanation one gives of "know" and "believe" should apply to the other words mutatis mutandis.
Quoting creativesoul
I can't remember what I meant saying I wasn't interested in a theory. This is philosophy, after all.
Hey Ludwig! So, I've been partaking in an international move. Sorry for the delay! I'm curious if you are still interested in continuing this discussion? I'd love to!
I'm very sympathetic to the idea that thought and belief are efficacious. The explanation sketched out above makes sense. Given that all knowledge that p consists of belief that p, what you say here sounds about right in that regard.
Although...
We may be talking past one another in a specific way. I'm often making ontological arguments, and I'm not sure if you've been aware of that. For example, my argument against convention is ontological. The conflation of propositions and belief is the charge I've made, and subsequently supported throughout this thread. So, while I agree with saying that beliefs are reasons for doing something(Witt sets this out nicely in a manner that you've continued here), I do not think that beliefs are equivalent to reasons for doing something, and you've said much the same thing a few replies ago.
I've also been inactive for a while. but you certainly had a better reason for being inactive than me. My reason was that I got fed up with some of the downsides to this game and switched to off-line activities, such as reading a book. It's quite simple, really. What keeps me going is an interesting conversation:-
Quoting creativesoul
I don't understand the difference between the first sentence in the quotation and the second. What does "equivalent to" mean in this context?
There are currently all sorts of offline activities that are more productive for me, practically speaking. I agree with the frustrations that can come with this medium. I can certainly relate. To answer your question...
Not all beliefs are reasons for doing something. That pretty much sums it up... broadly speaking.
I've read back a bit, but I'll need to carefully reread further back in order to better remember what all we had been discussing. I do seem to remember that there were some very interesting aspects that I hoped we would further explore.
I didn't mean to imply that everyone will necessarily act on every belief they hold. I meant only that a belief is available to the believer to act on as and when they find it appropriate to do so.
One of the actions stemming from a belief may be expressing it in words, which is not doing anything in one sense, but is doing something for my purposes here.
Though doing nothing can be an action. If I know that there's a bomb under your car, doing nothing would count as an action.
I have forgotten most of what we said. So I'm looking forward to seeing what you dig up.
This was one of the aspects that I thought could be further unpacked and explained in terms of how it applies to Gettier.
Another was the equivalence drawn between atomic propositions and beliefs such that convention has it that "Michael was not born in Germany" counts as a belief of some who believes Michael was born in France.
I think these are related...
Both of these are important and complicated issues. But daunting. It would be interesting to undertake it, but if I ever do, it will have to be later. But if you want to make a start, I would be happy to discuss progress with you.
I suppose one would have to first do some sort of literature search. I don't suppose much has been written about this, but there might be something.