How do we know, knowledge exists?
If knowledge didn't exist, we could necessarily not know whether or not knowledge exists. However, if we didn't know, whether or not knowledge exists, it would be possible, that knowledge exist, which in turn stands in contradiction with the axiom "knowledge doesn't exist". Thus, knowledge must exist.
Comments (19)
Anyone?
Sure, it entails knowledge to do anything epistemologically and ontologically.
Moreover, you are not considering that any concept about what knowledge is is conditioned by our human mentality. This means that actually it is impossible to know if knowledge exists: knowledge means possession of some contact with reality, but any contact with reality is filtered by our mind, so we can never know if any knowledge has a real contact with reality. We actually don’t even know if reality exists and what reality means; as consequence, we cannot have any fundamental idea about what knowledge is. We talk about knowledge just because we have taken this concept from everyday language, which is a completely inaccurate language.
Perhaps because it reads like fiction? :razz:
Quoting Carlikoff
Do you have a definition of knowledge for us?
Hmmm. Not sure about that. Ordinary language and the usage of words is one thing. But we quickly learn that people actually hold different understandings of words and concepts. Dictionaries are about usage not definition. And words change usage regularly and sometimes they come mean the opposite of how they were originally used.
Then there's the problem of perspective - as in one man's freedom fighter is another's terrorist. Who holds the knowledge in this case? Depends what side you're on. Conceptually people don't always share presuppositions and these seem to be the building blocks of what we like to call knowledge. People say they have knowledge of god - and other people argue god is unknowable, a myth. Who holds the knowledge?
The problem of knowledge for me is the slippery nature of facts and theories of truth. From a pragmatic perspective we are able to muddled through together with general agreements about some things, but it is all pretty loose and quickly becomes conflictual.
I often fester over these: What do we know? How do we justify it? What is the role of experience versus learning? What about propositional knowledge?
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/
I think that the basic problem is in what I said at the end of my preceding message:
Quoting Angelo Cannata
This is a general radical problem of philosophy, that causes unproductive reflections in all fields and topics. One consequence of deriving philosophy from everyday language is that we treat concepts and logic as static things, things that “are”, while instead a deep analysis of everything makes us realize that nothing is static (Heraclitus). So, in philosophy we talk about reality as something that “is”, while Heidegger showed us that we must take time into account (“Being and time”, that, from this point of view, reconnects with Heraclitus). The same happens about knowledge: after what Heraclitus and Heidegger reminded us, we need to talk about it differently.
In this context, I think that the basic problem of the concept of knowledge is that it assumes the existence of reality in a metaphysical, which is objective, sense: if you have knowledge of something, linguistically the use of the word “knowledge” excludes that it is an opinion. Linguistically you cannot have knowledge of something that is not sure. For example, it is a nonsense saying “I have knowledge that perhaps God exists”. The fact that linguistically the word “knowledge” excludes the word “perhaps” creates a basic problem, because it means that talking about knowledge, whatever we say about knowledge, means assuming automatically the existence of something beyond doubt. Assuming the existence of something beyond doubt means putting the entire discussion in a metaphysical context, which means assuming automatically the idea of reality as something that for sure exists outside our mind.
The idea of reality as something outside our mind is highly questionable for me, so, this is for me the basic problem of talking about knowledge: we should first discuss what we think about metaphysics, which is the existence of reality as something independent from us.
I think this is largely right. Have you read any phenomenology?
My own view increasingly is that knowledge is meaning or 'truth' we create together through our intersubjective communities. There are some things that we can verify, but most human activities are guided by presuppositions held by the communities we belong to and also by unreflective conclusions drawn by basic inference. Maybe it's best to be pragmatic about it all. If it works it can be called knowledge. But if you look too deeply it all becomes blurry.
Thanks for clarifying. OK.
Quoting Carlikoff
Does this render the word knowledge useful then? Do we really know ourselves and our tastes? I'm not certain of this. Is knowledge then more of a free-floating notion?
No, you've only shown it's possible. Go over your premises again.
I see two problems:
(1) From "X does not exist" it does not follow that "It is possible that X exists." Counterexample: A square circle does not exist. It does not follow that "it is possible that a square circle exists."
(2) "X does not exist" is not contradictory to "It is possible that X exists". From "It is possible that X exists" it does not follow that X exists and it also does not follow that X does not exist. Therefore neither "X exists" nor "X does not exist" contradicts "It is possible that X exists".
Point (2) is an example of a modal scope fallacy.
It is not possible that, if X does not exist, then X exists. True.
If X does not exist, then it not possible for X to exist. Not necessarily true.
Unfortunately, this is a third problem. From the premiss that knowledge does not exist it does not follow that we can not know about anything. That is because from the premiss that nothing phi's it does not follow that we cannot phi. Counterexample. Nobody is going into the restaurant. It does not follow that we cannot go into this restaurant.
Quoting Carlikoff
From the premiss that we cannot know if knowledge exists it does not follow that it must be possible for knowledge to exist. Here are the two propositions:
(A) We cannot know if knowledge exists
(B) It must be possible for knowledge to exist
The reason (B) does not follow from (A) can be seen when you generalise the propositions and think of an absurd counterexample. You can do that, now, I don't want to do all the heavy lifting.
Quoting Carlikoff
I think it has been quite clear from the start. It's an invalid argument and you have presented it with clarity and consistency.