Knowledge is true belief justified by true premises
I was reading about the Gettier Problem. I found it to be an unconvincing counterexample to the proposition that knowledge is justified true belief.
The Gettier Problem is:
* X is false
* P believes with justification that X is true.
* X entails Y
* P believes Y, justifiably, from X.
* By chance, Y is true.
* Therefore, Y is a justified true belief of P, yet P does not know it.
One example goes something like this: Bob works in àn office with Carl and Dave. Bob believes with justification that Carl owns a Ford (say, Carl told him so, and Bob has seen him driving it.). In fact, Carl does not (he sold it yesterday).Bob justifiably believes that someone in the office owns a Ford. In fact, this is true, because unbeknownst to Bob, Dave does own a Ford. Therefore, Bob's claim that someone in the office owns a Ford is justified true belief, but Bob does not know it.
The wiki article mentions an early response to this problem, which is also my response: you just have to amend "knowledge is justified true belief" with a condition which rules out false premises: say, "knowledge is true belief justified with true premises".
To me this solves every problem of this sort, so long as you properly break down the chain of inference:
Here:
* Bob has a false belief, justifiably based on true premises(Carl said so, Bob saw him driving), that Carl owns a Ford. This is not knowledge.
* Bob has a true belief, justifiably based on false premises(Carl owns a Ford), that someone in the office owns a Ford. This is also not knowledge.
I can't think of any Gettier Problem which survives this kind of analysis, or any other counterexample to:
Knowledge is true belief justified by true premises.
The Gettier Problem is:
* X is false
* P believes with justification that X is true.
* X entails Y
* P believes Y, justifiably, from X.
* By chance, Y is true.
* Therefore, Y is a justified true belief of P, yet P does not know it.
One example goes something like this: Bob works in àn office with Carl and Dave. Bob believes with justification that Carl owns a Ford (say, Carl told him so, and Bob has seen him driving it.). In fact, Carl does not (he sold it yesterday).Bob justifiably believes that someone in the office owns a Ford. In fact, this is true, because unbeknownst to Bob, Dave does own a Ford. Therefore, Bob's claim that someone in the office owns a Ford is justified true belief, but Bob does not know it.
The wiki article mentions an early response to this problem, which is also my response: you just have to amend "knowledge is justified true belief" with a condition which rules out false premises: say, "knowledge is true belief justified with true premises".
To me this solves every problem of this sort, so long as you properly break down the chain of inference:
Here:
* Bob has a false belief, justifiably based on true premises(Carl said so, Bob saw him driving), that Carl owns a Ford. This is not knowledge.
* Bob has a true belief, justifiably based on false premises(Carl owns a Ford), that someone in the office owns a Ford. This is also not knowledge.
I can't think of any Gettier Problem which survives this kind of analysis, or any other counterexample to:
Knowledge is true belief justified by true premises.
Comments (146)
An analysis of knowledge is either an analysis of what the word 'knowledge' means - how we use the word, or an analysis of what the word ought to mean - how it would make most sense in some particular context, to use it.
In neither case must it mean 'true belief justified by true premises'.
In the former case you can see from everyday use we simply don't use it that way because we don't stop to check either beliefs or premises are true before we refer to those beliefs as knowledge. In every day use, knowledge is most often simply a category of belief we have a high confidence in - "I know my keys are around here somewhere!"
In the latter case, you can't analytically separate the two interpretations. They are underdetermined, the analysis supports either. There's nothing conceptually wrong with either the model that knowledge is justified true belief (but has Gettier-like exceptions), or that knowledge is justified true belief with true premises. It's not a problem solved, it's an alternative proposal submitted to our preferences. In supporting it, you'd have to explain its usefulness over the former. In what cases might the latter have some advantage.
The most obvious problem I can see with the latter model is that you'd never be able to specify all the premises. In most Gettier-like problems, there's some premise which is false, but it is often a hidden premise (the clock is actually working). Think of all the hidden premises we use (gravity pulls me down, events have a cause, the external world is real...). If all knowledge is one very long Ramsey sentence, your definition would have to see all the premises as true. A robust definition, sure, but a useless one as very little would ever be categorised as such.
I think "knowledge" cannot rest on false information, it should always result in true to be knowledge.
according to wikipedia X should be true:
your example is an example of stale information rather than knowledge.
You're in a field. You see something that looks like a cow (it's actually a bed sheet waving in the wind). You go there's a cow in the field. Now, it so happens that there is a real cow in the field.
According to Gettier you got it "right" (there is a cow in the field) by fluke (fake knowledge).
However, before we get our knickers in a twist trying to find a solution, let's just make sure that we have a problem to begin with.
The bed sheet is the cow to you. See?
"Knowledge" and so many other words are like "obscenity" in one of the trials in the 60's: The judge couldn't define it, but he famously "knows it when (he) sees it".
We make these distinctions easily enough, without knowing how we do it. What, if anything, is the underlying logic? This is the task of philosophy as I see it, in answering these "what is" questions.
Quoting Isaac
But this does not cut it, even by the standards of every day use. Sure, if you have a strong conviction, you might claim to know something. But if you had said, "I know my keys are around here somewhere", I can ask, "In retrospect, did you really know it?"
We make these intuitive judgements independently of how strongly you happened to hold the conviction that your keys were around here somewhere.
What if there isn't an 'underlying logic'? I mean there's no intrinsic reason why there need be. what if 'know' as in "I know my keys are around here somewhere!", is different in meaning to 'know' as in "she knew where her keys were". The former expressing a confidence on one's belief, the latter expressing a relationship between a third person's beliefs about the world and our own (she believed the keys were on the table, but I can see them here in the car).
Quoting hypericin
I have trouble with this idea that saying "I know" is merely a claim to know. I don't see how it distinguishes the utterance from any other. What else could it be? "that's a tree" is merely a claim that that's a tree - it doesn't change the meaning of the term 'is' to something other than the claim.
If we say that "I know" is a statement about one's mental state, then it has nothing to do with the actual state of affairs, right? So we say that "I know" is a claim about one's mental state and the world. it's meaning therefore has to relate both (something like my mental state matching the way the world is). This is the origin of the idea that "I believe my keys are on the table, and my keys actually are on the table, hence I know my keys are on the table" (I'm leaving out the convention of 'justification' or a minute).
The problem is, that seeing the keys on the table is just another justification for believing the keys are on the table, so all you have is a better justified belief. And if everyone you speak to agree that they keys are on the table, that's just even better justification for believing the keys are on the table.
So in your example...
Quoting hypericin
...the 'in fact' bit can only ever mean that even better justifications exist for believing the keys are in the car (I've seen them there, my friend has too, I started the car with them...)
This list of 'even better' justifications becomes the Ramsey sentence I mentioned above, listing all the beliefs with their preceding justifications. The word 'know' would never be used if used according only to the principle of true facts with true premises.
When I claim "I know the pub is at the end of the road" I simply mean that if you walk to the end of the road, you will find the pub there. So if the pub I thought was there had been knocked down, but later replaced by another, I don't see a problem with saying that I 'knew' there was a pub at the end of the road, since, if you walk to the end of the road, you will, indeed, find a pub there.
In ordinary life, epistemology is of little consequence - in picking a partner, choosing a home or selecting a car, working out what university degree to do, or which job to take, what shopping to buy - we do not worry about the problem of induction, or the correspondence theory of truth, or philosophy in general.
But as soon as we start talking about whether we believe in god/s or not, or what we ought to do as human beings, we generally enter into some form of argument with evidence and justifications. It's here that what we call knowledge becomes interesting. Is this a fair observation?
Yes, that's something of what I was trying to get at distinguishing what 'to know' does mean and what it ought to mean. Things like justifications are just habits of thinking. They're often sprinkled liberally into analytical propositions, but what constitutes a 'justification' is no more than a gentleman's agreement among peers, an obligation. If I said "I know my keys are on the table because they're made of metal" I've provided a 'justification'. If my keys were in fact on the table, we could say I have justified true belief. But something's off, my justification didn't make any sense. So why not? Well there's no link between being made of metal and being on the table. So we bring in all this background 'knowledge' into what counts as a justification - hence my invocation of Ramsey sentences.
I think there's considerably more than two such uses as well. Consider "you're never going to make it to the meeting you're already late" - "I know that!", or "I just knew it!"
So yeah, I think you're right that there's a use case where "I know X" ought to mean something like 'if you act as if X is the case you'll get the expected results and I've done the generally agreed upon due diligence to make such a claim among my peers in this context'.
(You'll note I've not used the word 'true' as I don't see any need for the word 'true' in there at all, but that's another whole keg of worms)
I'm not sure that's true, but if this is the case, that's totally fine. I'm not committed to the meaning of words being rigid. Natural language is allowed to do that. Then, I'm only interested in the latter sense here.
Quoting Isaac
No no no, you are confusing truth condition with condition of use. The truth condition of "to know" is nontrivial and very debatable. But the condition of use is both variable between people, and might be as simple as a feeling of confidence that something is so. These are totally disjoint things. And this question of "what is knowledge?" is here asking about the truth condition, not about the conditions of use.
All these debates and claims we make on this forum are complex, with very complex truth conditions, if we were confined to making true claims only, we would be paralyzed, and say nothing. And even then, we could only limit ourselves to making claims we felt were true with absolute certitude. We would still be wrong 95% of the time.
Quoting Isaac
I disagree. "I know there is a pub is at the end of the road" is distinguishable from the statement of bare fact, "there is a pub at the end of the road". The truth condition of the first is not that of the second. The first adds additional constraints to the truth condition: "There is a pub at the end of the road, and additionally I stand in a knowing relationship with that fact".
Consider, we are in a city we haven't been to in 10 years. You say "I know there is pub at the end of the road." We go to the end of the road. There is a pub with signs of fresh construction, and a "grand opening" sign. You say, "I knew it!". This would be a joke. Because, while there is in fact a pub at the end of the road, you absolutely did not know it.
I completely disagree. All of these life decisions are fraught with epistemological and philosophical considerations. It is what makes decisions so hard. If philosophy were a quaint exercise confined to certain abstract questions, it would be utterly uninteresting.
Cool. We disagree.
Quoting hypericin
I've never found such decisions hard at all.
Quoting hypericin
From what I can see it mostly is. But I am not a philosopher.
Maybe you could take one of these questions, let's say, choosing a home, and demonstrate how philosophy would be applied to this task. :wink:
Hmm, maybe it is the fact that I have always been philosophically inclined that has made these kind of decisions nightmarishly hard for me!
"I like this home. At least I think I do. But do I really know that? What if it is a passing whimsy? How do I distinguish my preference of the moment from a stable preference that will endure 10 years from now. I won't even be the same person by then! So how can I make this decision for a person I hardly know? Do I really even want a house? It is the largest purchase I have ever made, how do I justify spending the accumulated capitol of a lifetime on one? Is home ownership even my preference, or a socially normative one? Why do I really want one? How do I know there is not something drastically wrong with the house. There is an inspection, but is that sufficient evidence? How can it rule out every problem? Is the inspection not an instance of motivated reasoning? And it does not rule out horrible neighbors, a dog that barks at 3am, a wildfire that will destroy it in 5 years. The world is entering a phase of chaotic change, is it rational to tie oneself completely to one location in what might be a new and unpredictable epoch..."
These are the thoughts that will actually, frantically, go through my head, with my exasperated realtor wondering why I am passing on yet another perfectly good house. I have never bought one!
I'm not 'confusing' them, I'm arguing that they amount to the same thing. That - "Is it true that 'I'm a woman'?" amounts to the same thing as - "have I used the term 'woman' and the grammatical construct 'I'm a...' correctly?"
Regretting my choice of example in today's climate, but pushing on... If I had male genetalia, it would not be true that "I'm a (biological) woman". It would not be true by virtue of the fact that the kind of thing I am is not the kind of thing we use the word 'woman' for. I'd have misused the word.
Same goes for 'know'. If I say "I know my keys are on the table", when in actual fact I haven't a clue, it's not true that "I know my keys are on the table", I've misused the word because the state of mind I have (in relation to the world) is not the sort of thing we use the term 'know' for.
But, using this analysis, "I know where my hat is", when used to describe a high degree of confidence in my belief about the whereabouts of my hat, is exactly the right use of the term, and so it is true that "I know where my hat is", because I used the term correctly. Even if my hat turns out not to be there. (Although, any reflective past tense use would not be true since we don't use the term in the past tense that way).
Quoting hypericin
Ah, you've misunderstood my example (or I've been unclear). In your example, I couldn't possibly justify my statement because I'd never been to the city before. In my example I could justify my statement, and it also turned out, in hindsight, that I did know there was a pub at the end of the road. Justification is part of using the word 'know' correctly. Truth clearly cannot be.
I agree with this. Even in more formal or consequential situations, such as engineering, it's true. One of the things we have to understand is the consequences of failure. Justification has to be good enough. Justification for knowing where my keys are is less stringent than that required to make sure the bridge doesn't fall down. The simplistic approach described in JTB doesn't reflect how people actually know things or how they should know things. Knowledge is adequately justified belief, whether or not it is true.
The only meaningful definition of "knowledge" is information adequate to support action. Knowledge doesn't just sit there doing nothing - that's information. Who cares if something is true until I have to make a decision? If I have information justified adequately to support action given the consequences of failure, then I have knowledge. If that's not true, then the word "knowledge" is useless.
Quoting hypericin
Given that Gettier Problems were presented to show that the JTB definition of knowledge is insufficient, having to add a fourth condition to overcome them shows that the JTB definition of knowledge is insufficient.
Fair
Not sure if it's the only one. I tend to disagreements here...
There are lots of times in the regular old everyday world when it's important that I know how I know something and how certain I am. If I'm going to dig a hole in my yard, it's important that I know if there are buried gas pipes in that location. If I'm going to paint the wall, I should know if the new paint is compatible with what's there now. As an engineer, if I'm going to dig up the contaminated soil on a property, I need to understand the source and quality of the information I'm using to decide where to dig.
You are absolutely confusing them.
Quoting Isaac
"I know where my hat is" is a perfect exemplar the verb "know". Nonetheless, if the hat is not there, it is an incorrect claim, no matter the degree of belief.
The ancient Greeks did not know the world was the center of the universe. They merely thought they knew, with complete and justified confidence. And they made this claim in absolutely perfect Greek.
Quoting Isaac
No, you misread mine:
Quoting hypericin
You have a foggy memory there is a pub at the end of the road. The memory was wrong. But by chance, a pub was built there in the last month. You were right that there is a pub at the end of the road. But you were wrong that you knew it.
What do you mean by the right or correct use of the term? Do you mean appropriate? Because it can be appropriate to say something that is in fact false. So it may be that you're equivocating here. That it is appropriate to claim that you know where your hat is isn't necessarily that you know where your hat is.
That's a good point, what we understand by 'I know' varies even within claims about states of affairs.
If I wanted a lecture I'd visit the university. I came here for a discussion. If you can't even be bothered to justify your assertions, then there's no point continuing. Things are not the case simply because they seem that way to you.
Quoting Michael
No, I mean 'correct' as in 'to be understood, to make sense'. No different to if I pointed to a tree and said "dog". I'd have just used the wrong word. " Tree" is the correct word.
I'm understood, if I say "I know where my keys are", to be very confident about my belief. I'm not understood to have verified the absolute truth about their location. As such, it seems reasonable to conclude I've used the term correctly, and I do indeed 'know' where my keys are.
The alternative seems really weird to me. That I say "I know where my keys are", I used all the terms correctly, but I don't actually know where my keys are.
I can understand you even if what you say is false, so this doesn't work either.
It's not about your ability to understand. If I said "pass me the stapler" whilst pointing at the hole-punch, you'd understand me. I've still used the 'wrong' word, haven't I?
'Correct' here means more than being understood because you mentally make up for my error, it's trying to get at an ideal assuming you don't have to.
So "correct" doesn't mean "understandable" and doesn't mean "appropriate". So what does it mean?
But you just said "No, I mean 'correct' as in 'to be understood, to make sense'."
As I said, it's trying to reference an ideal. If I'm way off base here is there some other meaning you'd use for what a 'correct' word is?
If you hear a child refer to a car as "bus", you say "that's not the correct word", what is it you mean by that? Or do you not have the concept of the 'correct' use of a word?
I don't know what you mean by this.
Quoting Isaac
That the thing they're referring to isn't a bus.
I mean a state we can imagine but which doesn't ever exist. Imagine a world where everyone was nice to each other all the time - an ideal. Here, I'm talking about a world where people don't cover other people's mistakes by guessing what they really mean.
Quoting Michael
What's wrong with using the word 'bus' to refer to something that isn't a bus
If there isn't a bus and you say "there's a bus" then what you say is false. Or by "wrong" did you mean something other than "false"? Perhaps "inappropriate"? Like with your use of the term "correct" we're at a risk of equivocation here.
But what's wrong with saying something false?
What do you mean by "wrong"? If by "wrong" you mean "false" then it's a truism that an asserted falsehood is wrong.
I mean why does it matter? Why correct the errant child? To what end?
People tend to want to know the truth. Correcting falsehoods is a normal thing that people do.
But I don't understand the relevance of your question. My point is that your use of the term "correct" is ambiguous, and open to equivocation. If by "correct" you mean "true" then your claim that "it is true that 'I know where my hat is', because I used the term correctly" begs the question. And if by "correct" you mean something else then your claim is prima facie a non sequitur: how does "correctness" (whatever that means) entail truth?
Whatever dude. You are wrong, obviously wrong, and I made it abundantly clear. If your can't admit it, that's on you.
If you can't address the arguments I made, you can say so. No one will think less of you (in fact they would think better). But instead you leave in a huff. What more can one expect of a pro Russian anti vaxxer?
I don't see what that's got to do with the 'correctness' of a word.
If, instead of 'car' I said 'voiture', that's the 'wrong' word in English, but it's not false, it is une voiture.
And I ask again, what do you mean by a word or phrase being correct? At first you said "'to be understood, to make sense", but a phrase can be understandable but also false, so even if it is correct to say "I know where my keys are" it may be false that you know where your keys are. You then went on to say that a word or phrase being correct has something to do with an ideal, and that's where you lost me.
But you know what I mean when I say 'voiture' is not the correct word for a car in English, yes?
It's not a falsehood. The four-wheeled personal transportation machine is une voiture. But it's the wrong word, in English.
You may not understand the way I'm trying to put that into words, but we can skip that bit, it's irrelevant if you already know what I mean.
I mean 'correct' in the sense that 'car' is correct and 'voiture' is not.
Or...
If I say "I to the shops go" that's not correct either. I haven't said anything false, and you'd probably understand what I mean, but it's not correct.
Or...
Language has rules, just like chess. If I move a piece the wrong way in chess it's not correct. If I use a word other than by the rules of my language it's not correct.
Any of those any clearer?
This is untrue (and therefore, not knowledge).
Did the ancient Greeks know the earth was the center of the universe? This is bad English. It is proper to say, they believed, or thought they knew.
You're talking about grammatical correctness. I'm not sure what grammatical correctness has to do with truth. I agree that "I know where my keys are" is grammatically correct, but it doesn't then follow that it's true.
Quoting Isaac
There are two parts to this. The first part is that "car" is the English word for a car, and the second is that your claim that there is a car is true. In the context of this discussion, I agree that "knowledge" is the English word for knowledge, but I question your claim that you have knowledge.
So going back your problematic claim:
I accept that "I know where my hat is" is a grammatically correct English sentence. But it doesn't then follow that it's true. You must mean something else by "correct" in this claim. So can you explain to me the meaning of "correctly" such that it entails truth?
Ok, thanks for that response. I understand that people do sometimes ruminate over basic life decisions. But I don't consider that kind of quotidian decision making (or lack thereof) philosophy. It may be how philosophy begins and then from it an ontology and epistemology is gradually built.
Of course.
Such confrontations happen throughout everyone's life.
I already said this:
Quoting Tom Storm
But none of this is very far from saying that making a sandwich is a philosophical enterprise...
Justified true belief is not a statement of fact, it is a definition of knowledge, and a non-standard one at that. Here is what I think of as a pretty good standard definition:
Quoting Wikipedia
What good is a definition that does not represent what people normally mean when they say the word? Answer - not much.
Quoting hypericin
There were Greeks as long ago as 500 bce who theorized that the earth revolves around the sun. Just type in ancient Greeks heliocentrism.
A peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich made with Jiffy peanut butter and Helman's mayonnaise on white bread is the only truly philosophical sandwich.
Quoting Michael
Ah, I remember our conversation on this last time now. I think we got about as far.
To be clear, I'm not looking for someone to clarify what the standard theory is, I'm trying (or was) to explain a different theory (broadly Ramseyan - or my interpretation of it). If you're not interested, that's fine, I've no compulsion to persuade you of it, but it's pointless you just repeating the standard theory back at me, I'm quite aware of it already and although I'm sure I don't have any more than the superficial grasp of the layman, I'd probably turn to the books if I wanted a deeper one.
'Knew' is the past tense. We use the past tense differently to the present tense.
'I know' is a description of a relationship between one's mental state (in relation to, maybe an image of the kitchen, my keys), and the world as I (the speaker) understand it to be. To say "I know my keys are on the table" is to say they match with some certainty - I'm not 'filling in the blanks' with guesswork, I'm pretty sure my mental image matches the world.
So in the past tense we're describing a previous mental image (or state), but still comparing it to the current understanding of the speaker, never the past one. So if I now have mental image of the the kitchen table sans keys, I can only say, of my past state of mind "I thought I knew where my keys were, but I didn't".
That doesn't change what 'I know' means in the present tense. It can still be an expression of the relationship it seems to be describing.
The trouble with your dogmatism is that you've no root for it. Why must we use the present tense and the past tense the same way? Why must there be some universal one-size-fits-all definition of 'knowledge' which matches every single use case? You've no Ten Commandments of language for your absolutism, your theology is missing a God.
I've recorded this in my philosophical notebook next to the section on Heidegger.
Yeah, that was pretty much my starting point too. "It's true that the grass is green" adds nothing to "the grass is green". The 'it's true' bit is implied by the statement within the context of a particular language game, there's nothing more to the truth of 'the grass is green' than the grass being green. Likewise with 'I know' (again, in certain contexts), where "I know the grass is green" adds nothing to the statement "the grass is green". After all, to use a famous example, I can hardly say "I merely believe it's raining outside, and it's raining outside", It wouldn't make sense. The expression "It's raining outside" already entails that I know it to be the case.
The problem people have is with their conception of truth differing from their conception of knowledge or beliefs. Personally, I'm not a strong realist, so I don't necessarily think there is a truth about certain propositions (some, but not all), but let's say there is, I think we'd all agree that it's an asymptote at best, something we approach with better models but never reach. So a Justified True Belief model of knowledge would have no-one ever having knowledge, it too would become an asymptote because of the nature of one of it's requirements (I suspect one could even demonstrate this mathematically - but I won't attempt it). So one could only properly make claims to knowledge, or claims to truth, never assertions (without dogmatism).
But then we go back to where I (and you) started. That's simply not how the word(s) is used. We don't use either 'know' or 'true' as if we were making claims to an asymptotical ideal which we will never reach (for a start, with the latter we already have such an option - we'd use 'truer', or 'more true'). If we don't use the words that way, then how can that be their meaning? Hence the need for a different understanding of them.
I just don't see the point of @hypericin's quest to tell us what the word ought to mean. We seem to have got by quite well enough with it meaning what it currently does mean thus far.
Yeah yeah. From what I read this was a minority view. But this is utterly beside the point. Answer the question. Did MOST of the ancient Greeks know the earth was the center of the universe?
This is not even philosophy anymore, just basic English.
So now meaning shifts with tense to keep your account coherent. And I'm the dogmatist.
Yet, tense has absolutely nothing to do with it.
He knows that 8*8 is 63.
This is simply bad English, given that the speaker presumably knows that it does not. "Know" in English cannot be applied to something that is known to be false. Similarly, it cannot be applied to a guess, and be good English. This is not how "know" ought to be used, it is how it is used. These are the rules that JTB captures.
JTB is not perfect (which I pointed out in my op). But it is a far better model of how we actually use the word than your mental state theory.
Quoting Isaac
Please.
Difference is I'm not claiming your account is factually wrong, you are mine, hence dogmatism.
Quoting hypericin
I don't know what this is supposed to be a counter-example to, but no-one has suggested it's correct English to use 'know' about something known to be false.
Quoting hypericin
If I've misunderstood Ramsey, I'd be grateful for your (well sourced) corrections.
No. This is basic English.
No mention of truth in any of them. If you want to start a crusade against ordinary use, crack on, but don't try and claim it's just basic English.
Note how they all mention the importance of the method of acquisition (the justification). None mention the veracity of the information thereby gained.
@hypericin I mean this last quite seriously, by the way. Ramsey is the only philosopher I've made any significant study of and I'm something of a collector of both his works and secondary sources. So insults are secondary to the opportunity to get new information.
The problem is when you claim that because we use the phrase "I know where my keys are" when we have a strong belief then having a strong belief is all there is to knowledge, which is like saying that because we use the phrase "the grass is green" when we believe that the grass is green then believing that the grass is green is all there is to the grass being green, whereas most people understand that the grass being green has nothing to do with what we believe and that our beliefs can be mistaken.
Yours just seems a fallacious interpretation of ordinary language philosophy, or some sort of idealism that rejects the notion of there being objective facts, and if the latter then we can dismiss it outright as this isn't a discussion on metaphysics.
Yes. Which makes the whole thing ridiculous and, as I noted, it's not the way the word is used by regular people. You don't need philosophy to know things.
Quoting Isaac
Agreed.
As I said previously, I see knowledge as information ready to be used. Adequately justified for the purpose intended. We can never be absolutely certain the information we have is correct, but we usually can't wait around forever before acting. So we do our due diligence and get on with it. If it turns out later that our information was incorrect...oops. We'll just have to live with it.
Most ancient Greeks didn't know anything about philosophy or science. They knew about raising goats, making shoes, fishing, killing other Greeks. I wonder if most people now know the earth isn't the center of the universe. I would say 100 years ago they probably didn't. Do most people know that nothing can exceed the speed of light? In the US, almost half the people don't believe in evolution as described by Darwin.
By "correct" do you mean "true"? Because then this very sentence accepts that there is such a thing as the truth which is independent of whatever we believe, so you appear to be contradicting yourself.
Perfectly good English, just wrong.
Quoting hypericin
I disagree. As Isaac and I noted, it's not how people use the word in the regular old world.
You left out the most important part - justification. Knowledge is information adequately justified for it's intended use. Different uses required different levels of justification. No knowledge can be absolutely certain.
Truth is also important. If John claims to know that the answer to the equation is 5 and Jane claims to know that the answer to the equation is 6 then at least one of them is wrong in their claim of knowledge. They can't both know the answer and yet have different answers.
I specifically didn't use the word "true." Say I have data chemical laboratory analysis data measurements for 100 water samples for 10 chemical constituents. So I have a 10 x 100 table of data. Is it true? What does that even mean? What can possibly go wrong?
In order to use the data effectively, it has to be validated before usage. That means it's quality has to be evaluated against standards - data quality objectives. If some samples don't meet standards, they may be rejected as unusable or, more likely, they will be qualified. That means they will be judged to be less than fully validated, but still usable.
So, where is truth in all this?
Of course truth is important, but if it turns out later something I know is wrong, it doesn't stop being knowledge somehow retroactively. That's silly. It's the kind of thing only philosophers would care about.
If the first cell says that there is iron in the first sample of water but there isn't iron in the first sample of water then the data in the first cell is false, and if there is iron in the first sample of water then the data in the first cell is true.
But if you didn't mean "true" then what did you mean when you said that "We can never be absolutely certain the information we have is correct"?
It doesn't stop being knowledge; it was never knowledge in the first place. Just because you claim to know the answer doesn't mean you do, regardless of how convinced and justified you are.
Data validation doesn't determine whether or not a data point is true, it determines whether or not it meets data quality objectives, which is another way of saying that it is adequately justified. The only thing I can ever be certain of about with that data is that it is adequately justified or not.
This is why people dismiss philosophy as useless. Silly arguments about abstract ideas that have nothing useful to say about how to get along.
I don't understand this at all. You claim that there is an apple in the bag. We open the bag to find an orange. It didn't stop being an apple when we opened the bag; it just never was an apple.
So what's the difference between saying "there's an apple in the bag" and saying "I know where you were born"? If you can understand me when I say "there never was an apple in the bag" then why can't you understand me when I say "you never knew where I was born"?
When you wanna bury your wife they could serve as a good cover. So check out the scheme first. Sure the city hall can provide...
Joking aside, there is lots of a priori knowledge waiting for the baby child to be explored. It once was no a priori knowledge, but it has become a priori for anyone interested. Laying there, in the world, to be discovered.
And using this example; assume you start digging and break a gas pipe. You wouldn't say "I knew where all the gas pipes were, but I was wrong"; you would say "I didn't know where all the gas pipes were."
You might have thought you knew, but you didn't, because they weren't (only) where you believed them to be.
Quoting Michael
I understand your argument, but I don't agree with your conclusions. I know you don't agree with mine. It's clear neither of us is going to change our minds.
In many locations in the US, you can call Dig Safe at 811. They'll come out and mark out where the underground utilities are. If you call, don't tell them you're burying someone.
:lol:
"Dig safe"...
811... are you serious?
Yes, you are! A priori knowledge?
But this, and ...
Quoting Michael
...this, only show to serve that "I know X" (probably) has a truthmaker, not what that truthmaker is. The presence of the apple in the bag is the truthmaker of "there's an apple in that bag". If it turns out there wasn't, then "there's an apple in that bag" was false.
But I'm not arguing there's no truthmaker for "I know X", I'm just arguing that the truth of X isn't it.
So, like our apple, proper justification (relative to the context) is the truthmaker of "I know X". If it turns out that (like our apple not being there) that I don't have proper justification for believing X, then the proposition "I know X" is false.
You're trying to claim the the truth of X is the thing that renders "I know X" true or false, but your argument consists only of a demonstration that something renders "I know X" true or false. You haven't yet presented a case for what that something is.
My argument is to look to the use of the term. It's used (present tense) in situations where the justifications are of a sufficient level. It's not reserved for use only when X is true. It's used in the past tense comparing to what we currently believe. Again, truth is not referenced at all.
If you want to add 'truth' to the criteria for the meaning of 'knowledge', you'd have to show some way the word, in use, references truth, but I can't see it referencing anything other than the quality of justification.
I've provided examples of how truth is a condition for knowledge:
Quoting Michael
Quoting Michael
Almost every competent English speaker will agree with this. Our understanding of the word "knowledge" is that it includes the condition of truth.
That's true of everything we say. I say "the grass is green" when I believe (with justification) that the grass is green. I say "the defendant is guilty" when I believe (with justification) that the defendant is guilty. It doesn't then follow that X being true isn't the truthmaker.
As I said before, you just appear to have a fallacious interpretation of meaning-as-use.
Quoting Michael
Again, all this use of the past tense shows is that "I know X" could be made true by the truth of X. Given that some very smart people have proposed the idea, I should jolly well hope it could be, otherwise something's gone very seriously wrong in the philosophy departments' various hiring policies.
What it fails to show is that it must be. It's perfectly plausible that we use the past tense of 'to know' to reference the relationship between our previous state of mind and out current beliefs about the state of the world, and the present tense to reference the relationship between our current state of mind and our current beliefs about that state of the world. To make something past tense, we only have to put one aspect into the past, not all aspects. "There was an apple in that bag" is past tense even though I'm referring to a current bag - that one.
The use of some perspective other than our own as the 'reality' we are talking about the confidence we have in our beliefs matching doesn't mean we always must use that perspective in all cases, only that we can.
Quoting Michael
Again, you're just showing that "I know X" could be of a form similar to "the grass is green" where we could look to some empirical fact to show it's truth. You're not showing anywhere that is must be of that sort.
What about your own personal philosophy? Not sure if you have one? And even if you do, certainly not everyone has one and , more importantly, very few dip into it in order to resolve the everyday trivia of life, right?
But I would argue the contrary. Each of us walks around with an evolving personal philosophy that is referenced implicitly even with regard to the most minute aspects of life.
More importantly, each trivial rumination modifies and re-writes that personal philosophy. So if all of us are already naive philosophers, what separates w the pros from the amateurs? Not much , really, other than an overt conceptual articulation of what is implicitly going on with all of us. Why put in the effort to perform this articulation? No reason other than that for certain people this conceptualizing is the best means of getting in touch with themselves and their world. For others the best way to articulate and grow their personal philosophy may be through the language of music , poetry, dance, painting , running a business , doing science or digging ditches.
I have a half-baked worldview, not sure that counts.
Quoting Joshs
Ok. This is a different perspective to mine but I like it.
Does anyone here know something that is not true?
That's a good question. What about things like alchemy and astrology and the people who believe in that stuff. Wouldn't they say they know it's true - even if we would say evidence point to the contrary?
SO no, I'd say they believe it is true, but that they are wrong, because it is not true.
One last question, this is just curiosity, not attempting to start an argument or disagreement, I really want to see how you think about this:
So right now, we postulate quantum fields. We assume they literally exist. But what happens if in, say, 5 years time we discover something new, say a cube structure is found to be even more fundamental.
What we know to be true now, may turn out to be literally false, just an approximation.
How would you deal with this?
Ooh, ooh, Mr. Banno. I do. I do. Mr. Banno. I do.
Suppose you bought a paper bag of apples, and left them in the car for a few minutes when you went to the post office. While you were away, a thief broke into your car, and replaced it with a bag of oranges. Later, you claim, "I know I have a bag of apples in the car". By every standard you are perfectly justified in believing so. And yet, you do not know it, because the truth is, you have a bag of oranges.
Here, the present tense references actual 'truth' (our past belief was false relative to the truth now), yet the past tense references only beliefs ('we thought we knew'). You've changed references between tenses. "we thought we knew but now think we don't" would preserve our beliefs about our knowledge as the subject of both tenses. or "we knew, now we don't" would preserve our actual knowledge as the reference.
We've talked at great length about belief and truth before, I know, so there may be little value in retreading all that old ground, but here, in this change of subject between tenses, is where I think all the problems of JTB lie.
What we think is true is that which we feel well-justified in believing, that it is is actually true is unknown to us and always will be (we always might be mistaken). It's true that the cat is on the mat if the cat is on the mat, but we can never be sure the cat is on the mat (we might be hallucinating etc) so we can only ever reference our justification for believing the cat is on the mat (i saw it there, I stroked it etc).
So to properly use the word knowledge, the public rule governing it's proper use (the rule which we reference to say what it 'means') cannot use the concept of what is 'actually true' since no-one in the public rule-making community has this information. It can only use what they think is true. But that (as above) already constitutes that which is well-justified - and being well-justified is already one of the criteria for 'knowledge' under JTB.
Essentially the muddle here with 'to know' is that it attempts to treat a mental state as a function of empiricism. What if "I'm in pain" were treated the same way. That external facts could alter whether that were the case, we have to say "I think I'm in pain...but I'm not sure". But what could that possibly mean?. Well likewise with treating "I know X" as similarly bounded? We'd have to admit to the possibility of the disjunction - "I believe I know X" and "I know I know X". But if we admit them we'd have to also admit "I believe I know I know X" and " I know I know I know X"... and so on.
Far simpler, I think, to accept what you've already had to accept anyway in your first expression - that they way we use "I know..." differs from the way we use "He knows..." and the way we use "I/he knew...". The former is about our confidence in the justification we have for our belief. The latter two are an assessment (in the light of our current understanding) of how well placed that confidence was. This better reflects how the words are actually used, and only complicates matters by requiring a change in subject over tenses which you've already had to include anyway to say "we thought we knew, but we were mistaken" or expressions like it.
There are plenty of examples of well justified falsehoods, like the one I gave above.
By your logic, the use of the everyday word 'true' would be impossible, since no one has access to the truth. The way out is simple: every "I know", every "this is true", is a claim to knowledge and truth. We don't need direct access to the truth to make claims to it.
Again, you're just repeating back to me what your preferred theory of knowledge is ("yet, you do not know it, because the truth is..."). You've not demonstrated that I don't 'know' it because the truth of the matter is what determines whether I know something. You've just declared that I don't know it because the truth of the matter is what determines whether I know something.
Look at the phrasing. There's no argument showing that it must be the case that "you do not know it, because the truth is...". That 'because' is the very matter we're discussing, you're just begging the question by using is as the explanation.
Imagine if we disagreed over the Trolley Problem, I think we should switch because consequences guide morality and you think we should not because virtues do and we shouldn't intentionally kill anyone. It wouldn't constitute an argument if I were to say "But it would be moral to switch because morality is what harms least people", that's the very matter in contention.
I'm arguing that the truth of "I know X..." is not determined by the truth of X. I'm arguing that using the actual way we make what is considered proper use of the expression "I know X...".
Quoting hypericin
Not currently there aren't. This is what I mean about tenses changing things. There are currently no well-justified falsehoods. There may be some in the future (when we have better justifications - when we look in the bag) but currently there are none.
Quoting hypericin
Yes. I'm deflationist about 'truth'. I thought I explained that earlier by referencing Ramsey. The entire problem here is the definition of "I know" for someone deflationist about truth.
Quoting hypericin
I've shown the problem with this above. If "I know" is simply a claim to knowledge, then we have to admit of the disjunction "I believe I know..." and "I know I know...". Then we have to admit of "I believe I know I know..." and "I know I know I know...", and so on.
Your model is not "simple" at all.
Well, I see your point but do not agree. I think that we do know things like that 2+2=4; that this sentence is in English; that you have some expertise in neural science. And since we know them, I think we can conclude that they are true.
The ubiquitous idea that what is true is unknown to us perhaps has its origin in folk considering the difficult edge issues rather than the central, more clearly demarcated examples. Like the odd non-theft in 's example; it's not difficult to make up counterexamples for any rule one thinks up. for truth, woman, real - trolly problems to keep philosophers in a job. It's a view I shared for many years, back in my days of reading Popper and Churchland and so on, but I dropped on giving more consideration to natural language.
So to be sure, sometimes what is actually true is indeed unknown to us; but not always.
Rather that thinking of knowing as a mental state, with the implied privacy, think of it as a public commitment. So if we (not I) do not know that this thread is in English, we have no basis for continuing. Knowledge as shared truths...
Some folk will insist that they do not know that this thread is in English, but that they assume it is for the pragmatic purposes. This strikes me as quite disingenuous. The doubt that this thread is in English is pretence.
No, you're absolutely right. I agree that 2+2=4 is true (as did Ramsey, so I'm still faithfully representing his position here - I think), I had simply not thought to include such truths in my exposition, which is my error.
I do, however, think the issue with JTB stands, even aside from the existence of some truths which we won't ever come to disbelieve. But I think your idea of a public commitment has some use here (more on that in a minute). The problem I have with "I know" being empirical in any way is this...
What is the content of a body of knowledge? Broadly speaking it's empirical, truth apt, facts, yes? - I know "the grass is green", I know "the keys are on the table", I know "the capital of France is Paris"...
Once we admit "I know X" into the realm of such empirical facts (it's either true or not that "I know X" with the truth-maker being the external state of the world - X's being the case) then it becomes a proper candidate for the contents of a body of knowledge. I know "that I know X". But then this, in turn, becomes a proper candidate for a body of knowledge by the same token, I know "that I know 'that I know X'"... and so on ad infinitum.
But this does not, you'd have to admit, reflect how the word is used at all. If I said to you "I know I know I know the grass is green" you'd think me mad.
So...
Quoting Banno
This is kind of where I got to when I last tried this (reconciling ideas of knowledge with Ramseyan ideas on truth). We have to have some kind of public 'truth' (even in matters outside of the 1+1=2 kind) with publicly acceptable criteria. This forms what we call 'knowledge' facts which have been established in such a way as that it is unreasonable to doubt them. It's unreasonable of me to doubt this thread is in English, it's unreasonable of me to doubt 1+1=2, it's unreasonable of me to doubt theories of electromagnetism...
But, given the above issues, whilst I don't have any problem with these as criteria for knowledge. I do have a problem with those same criteria being used for the proper meaning of the expression "I know..." which I take to have a different meaning on account of it's everyday use.
So the Gettier examples are beside the point.
i'd happily give up knowledge before truth. As in, I think the notion of truth plays a far more important place in keeping things coherent and consistent, than does knowledge. For example i can't see how we might understand error without having the truth and falsehood; nor could we differentiate what we know from what we merely believe.
And if we can't make sense of errors, we can't fix 'em.
Intriguing to say the least, no (scientific) hypothesis can be justified as truth and yet we do believe them to be so.
This is only true if "justification" means establishing the truth of an assertion without doubt, which can't be done.
Quoting Isaac
I don't know what you mean by "must" here. I'm not saying that the word "knowledge" must mean this; I'm only saying that the word knowledge does mean this.
Quoting Isaac
I don't understand what tense has to do with it. In the general form we're discussing the meaning of the noun "knowledge" which obviously has no tense. The proposed definition is "a justified true belief". We can then use tense to talk about having (or not having) a justified true belief or having had (or not having had) a justified true belief, and so on, but grammatical tense has no bearing on the meaning of the noun.
Quoting Isaac
So why do you believe that a phrase like "I know that there is an apple in the bag" doesn't use this perspective but that a phrase like "there is an apple in the bag" does? If we just use your meaning-as-use approach then we will say that both assertions are only ever used when we believe that there is an apple in the bag, so then both knowing that there is an apple in the bag and there being an apple in the bag is just a matter of belief?
-"Knowledge is true belief justified by true premises"
-This problematic definitions states that Knowledge is a true belief someone holds based on truth claims.
So in my opinion this definition informs us more on what people do with a true claim than what a knowledge claim really is.
Knowledge is an evaluation term. We use it to evaluate claims in general. A claim is accepted as knowledge when it is in agreement with available facts and carries an instrumental value.
With that definition we avoid the black whole of "true" because people tend to mix absolute truth with "Currently true statement".
-Ok this explains your absurd arguments in our discussion about morality.For a moment I thought I was not explaining things well but you are just in the Philosophy of Absurdism.
So to answer your question there is this fallacy called Argument from Ambiguity. Words represent concepts and concepts include specific meanings. If you are not going to use them according to their common usage then you won't be able to arrive to meaningful conclusions.
Evaluations of knowledge and truth fail when we apply absolute standards.
Science showed us that those standards are useless and disabling. "Beyond reasonable doubt" is a far better standard than "absolutes". Statistical Standards are far superior since a knowledge claim is not just a true one...it also carries an instrumental value and we NEED to act upon it.
So we need to take the risk...and this is what is rewarding. This is why Tautologies are valueless and Inductive reasoning is the main characteristic of scientific knowledge.
A (mere) quibble.
-Well I dare to say that I understand Isaac's point. Before that I must point out that the definition proposed in this thread is a messy one. I think I have a better one that avoids the use of the word "true".
People tend to project an absolute meaning to the word "Truth" which is unrealistic.(Absolute /ultimate knowledge/ true)
We can only evaluate a claim as true or not true based on the facts that are currently available to us...not in an absolute sense, because we don't know if we have all the facts needed to make such an absolute evaluation.
So when a claim is true, it means that it is Only Currently true based on the limited available facts we have.
Knowledge and Truth values are affected by tense since the accumulation of facts never really stops (especially in science). Knowledge claims, especially in science are tentative and remain always falsifiable since we constantly improve our methods of observation.
My preferred definition is to view knowledge as an evaluation term that identifies claims being in agreement with currently available facts and with an instrumental value.
Now on an other point, the example of 2x2=4 describes a fact(relation) among physical entities(by physical I mean entities which obey the 3 logical absolutes). No new observation can add new facts to this "fundamental relation" between physical entities. You can argue that in QM we might find problems with how well Logical absolutes apply , but then again we don't really deal with physical structures (entities) but with different energetic states of matter.
We need to understand that our frameworks (truth claims) are GOOD for the scale and scenario they were designed to describe. If we find issues in our descriptions then we need to check whether we have drifted outside the area our frameworks are good for.....logic included.
That's a non sequitur. A jury can only judge a defendant to be guilty if the evidence suggests beyond reasonable doubt that he committed the crime, but whether or not he committed the crime has nothing to do with the evidence available to the jury and everything to do with historical events that actually happened.
So my evaluation of a claim as being true might be based on whatever facts are available to me, but that's not the same thing as the claim being true which is often based on things that I'm not aware of.
In both cases(jury trial knowledge evaluation) we can never be absolutely sure and this is why in the case of the jury...the members don't choose between guilty and innocent! Like with every application of the Null Hypothesis, Significant findings are demanded in order to departs from the normal risk free position. So its always guilty/not guilty or true/not true without absolute convictions.
Quoting Michael
-Correct, being reasonable and accepting the current facts has nothing to do with the actual True statement. BUT again, the time to depart from our Default Position is ONLY after we have available facts to support our position.
We need to acknowledge that our Knowledge and truth claims are limited by our nature, our methods and the rules of Logic.
Reasonableness doesn't equate Truthiness but Absolute knowledge and truth are red herrings that either distract us from what we can really achieve or act as an excuse to accept unfounded claims.
Maybe you can elaborate on what you disagree with.
The defendant is claimed to be guilty, but it doesn't follow that the defendant is guilty. And the same with truth; we might claim that something is true, but it doesn't follow that the claim is true. I might claim that there is an apple in the bag, but there might not be an apple in the bag.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
Yes, our truth claims are limited by our nature, but truth itself isn't. Either there is an apple in the bag or there isn't, regardless of whatever I claim.
A random guess may be in agreement with facts, it may have instrumental value, but it is not knowledge.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
I see no inconsistency with this account of truth and JTB. If we cannot evaluate truth in an absolute sense, then we cannot evaluate knowledge either. We can only claim that something does or does not hold the status of knowledge. What is or is not considered knowledge changes over time, because our body of currently accepted truths, as well as the justifications we consider legitimate, change over time.
Those are two very different issues though. Error is something that can only be judged in hindsight, knowledge (distinct form belief) is about foresight. So "if we can't make sense of errors, we can't fix 'em"? Sure, but I don't see how that situation (which I agree ought be avoided) has any bearing on knowledge claims.
If something goes wrong, we need to work out what went wrong and why. Where were we in error. But if I say "I know that bridge will hold" as opposed to "I really, really believe that bridge will hold", determining whether I'm correct to say the former is exactly the same process as determining whether the bridge will, in fact, hold. In other words, finding out I'm right to use "I know..." doesn't help us in any way over and above just finding out if the bridge will hold. So I definitely see the utility of the former, but the latter... well... I can't quite shake my deep suspicion that it's main motive to act as a 'bigger stick' with which to beat those with whom one disagrees. "I know X" sounds more convincing than "I believe X" but to carry off that bluff it needs a good solid sounding theory behind it. JTB provides just such a theory. Maybe I'm just cynical, but, in my defence (apart from just the cynicism old age seems to automatically bring) I have spent a career studying exactly how people defend beliefs which are not readily defensible. I may have developed a bias, but people (myself included, of course) sure do an awful lot of 'air-castle-building' when it comes to beliefs they hold dear and I'm deeply suspicious of any scheme which hands out bricks.
-Correct but we don't know that.We can only arrive to a conclusion based on available facts. So our statements are evaluated as true or not true based on those facts.
-"And the same with truth; we might claim that something is true, but it doesn't follow that the claim is true."
-Correct, but again our evaluation can only be made based on the available facts either we are happy or not.
i.e.
Was Geocentrism a true statement. Based on the contemporary available facts it was considered a true statements.
Is Heliocentrism a true statement. Based on our available facts, it is considered to be a true statement.
Can we be absolutely sure that Heliocentrism is true? We can say yes...based on our current available facts and assuming that there aren't any facts out here that could change this.
-" I might claim that there is an apple in the bag, but there might not be an apple in the bag."
-Correct but I don't have any facts to evaluate your claim, either than it is possible for you to have an apple in the bag. IF I saw you holding an apple earlier and now I see a protruding bump in the shape of the apple on your bag I can evaluate your claim as true.
Again I don't really get your objection since all the examples you give seem to provide support to "truth limited to current available facts" than "absolute truth".
Quoting Michael
-Ok I think I found the problem in your argument. You are arguing about the Abstract concept of truth as an Absolute Ideal and I am pointing out that there is ONLY one meaningful use in our daily life and the only type of evaluation we have access! Sure we agree that only one out of two possible answers can be true. How that can change the Actual and ONLY meaningful use that "truth" has as an evaluation term in our lives?
Words have practical and common usages. We need our words to satisfy our needs in our communication. We need to label a claim that is in agreement with what we know TODAY.(true statements in relation to available facts).
We also need a concept that points to our final goal (seek absolute Truth).
So in order to avoid Ambiguity fallacies you will need to distinguish those two concepts.
As I said we only have access to the first concept in our evaluations and we can only strive towards an absolute goal theoretical without being able to achieve it.
So reality checks points out to us that we can only evaluate claims based on what we currently know.
They might be proven wrong in the future but that doesn't really change the fact that our current position based on those facts is the most reasonable position to hold.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
I know. The point I am making is that the below are two different claims that you are conflating:
1. The statement has been evaluated as true
2. The statement is true
You argue for the former and conclude the latter which is a non sequitur.
Yeah, my lack of clarity. I mean to invoke the difference between something I merely could think and something I'm compelled to think. That there are alternative models of knowledge is something we already agree on. You seem (to me) to be merely presenting the fact that a JTB interpretation exists, that it is plausible, makes sense etc. I already agree on this. Where I disagree would be an argument that we are compelled (by reason, logic, whatever) to accept the JTB interpretation. That's what I mean by 'must'.
Quoting Michael
As per above. We can then use our definition of 'knowledge' to talk about it in two different tenses, but we are not in any way compelled to do so. So in pointing out that we can, you've not made an argument that we, in fact, do.
Quoting Michael
The former is about my state of mind, the latter about the state of the world. I don't know if you read the posts above so I'll repeat. My problem with treating "I know X" as an empirical fact similar the "the grass is green" is that a body of knowledge is typically held to consist of such facts. we say "I know the grass is green", meaning that the greenness of the grass is a fact that is in my body of knowledge. So if we treat "I know X" as an empirical fact in the same way, then "I know X" becomes one of the things I know. just like "the grass is green" becomes one of the things I know...
...which means I know I know X, which is itself a knowledge claim, the truth of which is an empirical fact which can form part of my body of knowledge, just like any other empirical fact, hence I know I know I know X. Yet if I say to you "I know I know I know the grass is green", you don't nod agreement, you'd more likely back slowly away shaking your head. Treating "I know X" as an empirical fact like "the grass is green" doesn't match how we use the term, otherwise "I know I know X" would make perfect sense in the same way as "I know the grass is green " makes perfect sense. Only it doesn't, does it?
Then we can understand "I know that the grass is green" as a combination of "I believe that the grass is green" (a statement about my state of mind) and "the grass is green" (a statement about the state of the world).
Or perhaps this is better understood in the third person: "John knows that the grass is green." The statement isn't about me or my beliefs (even if my beliefs motivate the assertion), and it's not just about John's belief as we can say "John believes that the grass is green but he doesn't know that the grass is green because the grass isn't green."
The grass being green is a requirement for John to know that the grass is green. A strongly held, justified belief isn't sufficient. And the grass being green is a requirement for me to know that the grass is green.
Well by definition it can be. The utilization of that guess and the successful yielding of results alone render it" knowledge". Unsystematic Empirical Knowledge is mostly the result of guessing and unconscious or conscious empirical testing.
You seem to use "Knowledge" as an idealistic "quality" that a claim has it or not...when its the other way around. All claims are put out and through testing they awarded the title of knowledge.
Quoting hypericin
Same error here(absolutism). Knowledge and truth are not(always) the same thing.
I.e. We know Relativity(in an ontological sense) is wrong but we still use it for its instrumental value.
Epicycles in Ptolemaic Astronomy did have an extensive epistemic and predictive value, but it was not a true model of the solar system.
In science there is a well used principle Known As Quasi Dogmatic principles. Its this process when a untrue framework is still used for its instrumental value while it crashes and burns, providing valuable data , supportive for the new framework!
So we need to distinguish truth and knowledge...and this is the reason why I AVOID "TRUTH" in my definition. Sure most knowledge is indeed based on true claims...but there is big but especially in scientific procedures.
Quoting hypericin
-Correct as I already said, knowledge is nothing more than an evaluation term. Its a status we apply on claims that are in agreement with currently available facts.
Whether those facts allow us to have the whole picture, thus our claim to be an ultimately true statement...that is an other discussion.
This is why Science doesn't do " ultimate TRUTHS". Its only provide descriptions based on current facts. Those facts can be used to evaluate claims as true or not true (without a capital T).
Quoting hypericin
-I will only change the term "truths" with "facts."
Yes truth and knowledge change with our advances in our technology and observation. Additional facts change the narratives that describe accurately a phenomenon. The newer narrative is True...the older no true anymore.
No I am not. My whole argument is to distinguish true statements from Absolute truth.
I pointed out that true statements (based on facts) are reasonable but not necessarily absolute truths.
Reasonableness(accepting a claim to be true based on current facts) and Absolute Truthiness are two different things.
Quoting Michael
-No my arguements have nothing to do with this strawman. Pls reread my posts more carefully.
I only pointed out that its meaningless and irrational to reject current truth claims ( in agreements with current facts) in hope or holding Absolute Truth as an excuse to do it.
Do you get the difference between those two positions?
Again my definition addresses the ACT of Evaluation...not the idealistic concept of absolute truth.
How does the statement "the grass is green", when uttered by me, have any different meaning to "I believe the grass is green" (or " I know the grass is green ")? Unless I'm lying, my saying " the grass is green " automatically entails that I believe the grass is green.
Break the statement down. According to JTB, you're saying "I believe the grass is green" and "it's true that 'the grass is green'". Now since you can't rationally claim the latter with entailing tormer claim becomes redundant. So you're just claiming "it's true that 'the grass is green'", which deflates to "the grass is green".
Quoting Michael
It is clearly about your beliefs. Since the actual truth of the grass's greenness can't be established, the comment can only be interpreted as comparing the expressed certainty of John's belief to the certainty you have in yours.
You obviously can't be comparing John's stated belief to the actual truth, since that is only an ideal.
I don't know what you mean by "absolute truth". Statements are either true or false, and then either said to be true or said to be false.
You answered this yourself: "The [latter] is about my state of mind, the [former] about the state of the world."
Are you now going back on that?
It was a question back to you, to answer from your position of JTB.
My answer is the same answer that you gave: the latter is about my state of mind, the former about the state of the world.
-" Statements are either true or false, and then either said to be true or said to be false. "
-You are addressing a completely different dichotomy (and a false one since you include two different "positive" evaluations, true and false, in one).
True or not true are the possible evaluations we can arrive for any specific claim.
I am not denying or objecting to those options. I can be reckless and even include falseness in the same statement.
My point is simple. Truth is a human concept that help us evaluate claims in relations to the facts available to us.
Ultimate truth is the goal we strive for. In a hypothetical, if we had all the available facts we would be able to arrive to statements that were ultimately true.
So we might hold claims that are true to us (based on the facts we have) but ultimately they can be wrong because we don't have ALL the facts needed for a complete picture.
So I am claiming the opposite you are accusing me of because I am addressing a different dichotomy....what we know to be true vs what we would know to be true if we had all the facts needed for a complete picture.
I don't know if this helps you but I will try to introduce some perspective.
I am a Methodological Naturalist. As such I accept our Limitations as a Pragmatic Necessity in our what we can observe, verify and learn. So based on that acknowledgement I understand that everything we know and learn are limited between the nature of our methods (observations) and the nature of the investigated realm we have access.
So for me Absolute values of Knowledge and Truthiness are red herring, distracting us from what we can actually achieve in those areas.
Our evaluations will always be limited by the available facts but that shouldn't be used as an excuse to embrace claims that aren't based on any facts at all.
Right. I'm off out now, so forgive my brevity, but following through the rest of my post with that conception of the difference should yield the same unsatisfactory result I get. If not, I'll try to clarify later.
You’re confusing logical entailment with something like a 'performative' entailment. The phrase "the grass is green" doesn't logically entail the phrase "I believe the grass is green", even though in practice someone who (honestly) asserts one will (honestly) assert the other. This is Moore’s Paradox.
Quoting Isaac
It's not about my beliefs. You're conflating the propositional content of a statement with the reason for asserting it. You seemed to understand this before when you said "["I know that there is an apple in the bag"] is about my state of mind, ["there is an apple in the bag"] about the state of the world."
Quoting Isaac
It's not an ideal. The actual colour of the grass is a real thing (the argument between direct and indirect realists notwithstanding), not imaginary or hypothetical. Even if I don't have direct access to this fact, I'm quite capable of understanding what it would mean for someone to correctly describe it. And regardless of my beliefs I can say "John knows that the grass is green only if the grass is green" which certainly shouldn't be interpreted as "John knows that the grass is green only if I believe that the grass is green."
I agree with everything you've written.
You can call it idealistic, but I am not discussing platonic ideals. I am discussing the concept of knowledge, as we use it daily. A guess is not considered knowledge until it has been verified, not ideally, but in the mundane, everyday English sense.
Quoting Nickolasgaspar
I know how to use this technique, I know it has instrumental value, I know it doesn't match the world ontologically. The can all be true, justified claims.
If it sounds like I am talking to you in absolutes, it is because I am appealing to your presumed competence as a speaker of English. If you think that you were right when you said "I know I have apples in the bag", or if the statement was correct until the moment you opened the bag, if you think that is how the word 'know' works, in the plain language you and appeal to while simultaneously disregarding , then we really have nothing further to discuss. You can cite a hundred dictionary definitions, that is completely irrelevant. Tell me, is this how "know" works for you?
Quoting Isaac
Your initial argument was that the truth is inaccessible, and therefore cannot be a component of the concept of 'knowledge', because how can people access something which is inaccessable? And yet, people use the concept 'truth' itself quite happily, without giving Ramsey a second or even first thought. Even if absolute truth is theoretically inaccessible, this in no way prevents people from making use of the concept.
Whatever your theoretical notion of truth may be, you have to deal with the fact that truth is a component of the plain English concept of knowledge. To deny this, you have to account for all of the plain English examples I have given which strongly suggest that is the case. In spite of mental gyrations requiring meaning to shift with tense, which is in any case irrelevant, I haven't seen anything approaching that from you.
Quoting Isaac
These marginal formulations could charitably be construed to communicate degrees of certainty. The fact that you can construct these cumbersome sentences is supposed to say what exactly?
:up:
Yes. I'm talking about the language use and the meanings those expressions have, I'm not assuming logical entailment, not even sure how expressions about belief could logically entail anything.
Quoting Michael
Again, not 'conflating'. You keep going back to assuming I'd like to use the traditional theory but I'm confused about how it works. I'm not claiming any expert, in depth, understanding of conventional theories of truth, propositions, knowledge etc., but I am reasonably familiar with them. I don't agree with the distinction you're assuming is the case.
Quoting Michael
Imagining what it would mean makes it an ideal. It's not a real fact of the world for you.
Quoting Michael
Your ability to say it is not in question. What it means is. The sentence is of the form "A is the case if B". If A is an empirical fact, then anyone can know it, including John. That means the expression "John knows A" would have to be sensical. But substituting, we get "John knows John knows that the grass is green", which is nonsensical, so A can't be an empirical fact.
-Ok we are in agreement on that.
Quoting hypericin
_well I can not say that I know how this comment is relevant to my point that "knowledge" and "truth" do not always overlap. "I know" and "I use a specific knowledge" are two different things.
You are conflating what it is you are "knowing". You can "know" or "not know" how to use a technique which produces useful results, and you can "know" or "not know" ontological truths. Just because you can "know" how to use a technique which does not correspond to ultimate reality, doesn't mean that knowledge and truth are disjoint.
All the other aspects you mention (technique etc) is irrelevant to my point.
The sentences should make sense if 'I know X' can be treated as an empirical fact. The sentences don't make sense. So there seems to be a problem with treating 'I know X' as if it were an empirical fact.
Really, these don't seem particularly uninterpretable. "I know that I know X" conveys either unordinary confidence (after all, knowledge is a claim, because as you point out we don't have access to absolute truth). Or, it affirms that you not only know X, but you are aware of the fact that you know. As opposed to the many things you may know peripherally or unconsciously. "I believe that I know X" is even more straightforward: You believe you have knowledge, but are not quite sure: perhaps you are not quite sure what you know is true, perhaps you feel your justification is possibly suspect. The further iterations are more rarefied and silly, but you can still assign an interpretation.
Truth and error? What is an error if not a statement that is not true? We have the notion of truth an falsity in order to be able to identify error.
I think the approach adopted in this thread is demonstrative of the philosopher's habit of theorising from too limited a set of cases. Don't think, look: sure it's true that the glass is on the table, that the cat is on the mat, that Pi is the ration of the diameter toe the circumference. But also that this sentence is in English, that you are reading this on an internet forum, that the bishop stays on its own colour, that Zelenskyy is President of Ukraine. Not to mention your true friend and the true tabletop.
Then there is the form "I know the bridge will hold", which as you say does look like a reinforcement of "the bridge will hold". But consider "We know the bridge will hold". This look more like an agreement, or "Do you know how to get to the club form here?", something from which we can move on...
The result of considering too limited a variety of cases is clear in @Nickolasgaspar's attempts to apply one view to all topics, the same error he made in the recent ethics thread; the scientism of applying that solution in the wrong place. When all you have is a hammer...
And I think many of @Michael's points apt.
So I'll go back to Tarski's analysis; or rather the inability to analyse: That's as much as one can get out of truth. I don't think you will disagree, since you have understood Ramsey.
Which leaves us with the JTB account as a fine partial analysis of knowledge. If we know something, then it is true. If we know something, then we believe it. Both of these are well worth bearing in mind. It's inevitably what it means for something to be justified that causes grief. But of course one man's justification will be insufficient to convince another.
It's not truth that is problematic for knowledge, but justification.
The Theaetetus ends in aporia. These thread are never ending.
_the problem with your approach is that you have a hammer and a nail in front of you and you search for a screwdriver just because this hammer job "appears" to be difficult . You need to start working with what is available to you and then check if the job demands differnt tools.
This is the MN approach used by science and it has yield the best results so far.
Folk with a science background who think they can "fix" philosophy are a dime a dozen. Most fail to see that they are not even addressing the issues.
Not all knowledge is empirical. Applying empirical method everywhere inevitably fails.
Edit: to be sure, there are also folk such as @Isaac, who have a science background and are capable of engaging with the philosophical content of these threads, and so bringing some grounding into the discussion. It might be something to do with age.
Quoting Banno
-one more strawman. I always point to the objective nature of knowledge which happens to be empirical. Any new approach non empirical that can offer objective knowledge is welcome.
Quoting Banno
-YOu are literally stating "using objective evidence everywhere is not a good idea"....sure, if lowering the standards of evidence is your way to introduce a faith based beliefs....that's the only way.
You keep using that term. I don't think you know what it means.
let me help you.
-"Folk with a science background who think they can "fix" philosophy are a dime a dozen"
-You are strawmaning my position. I am not here to fix philosophy, but to distinguish pseudo philosophy from philosophy...and my scientific background is irrelevant.
-"Not all knowledge is empirical."
-Strawman...I never made that claim. My position was always in favor of Objectivity not empiricism.
-"Applying empirical method everywhere inevitably fails."
-Never claimed that , an other strawman. Applying objective standards of evidence is how we evaluate our knowledge claims....allowing our arguments to become sound.
Quoting Isaac
What's stated in the quote above struck me as quite an important yet neglected consideration. The question was also not satisfactorily answered.
I'm extremely busy in everyday life, so I've no time to really discuss anything in depth on a daily basis. However, I would like to encourage further discussion of the above quote.
The utterance "the grass is green" differs in meaning from "I believe the grass is green" and/or "I know the grass is green". This difference is perhaps most easily understood by virtue of considering the truth conditions of each utterance. They differ significantly. When two utterances mean the same thing, they share the exact same truth conditions.
"The grass is green" is true if and only if the grass is green.
"I believe the grass is green" is true if and only if I believe the grass is green.
"I know the grass is green" is true if and only if I believe the grass is green and the grass is green.
Sorry, no. I meant Error and knowledge.
Error is in hindsight "that went wrong", knowledge in foresight " I know the bridge will hold". The other way round each are perfectly sensical, but useless.
So error is important and inescapable (the bridge didn't hold, it's on the ground, what are we going to do better next time). Knowledge is just bragging, or showmanship, or politics. "I know the bridge will hold" (as JTB) doesn't help anyone over "I believe the bridge will hold" or just "the bridge will hold". It's nothing more than a boastful self aggrandisement " not only to I think the bridge will hold, but I have access to The Truth™, and I know the bridge will hold".
Hence my suspicion of those who need it to be about Truth. Merely competing for people's faith by convincing them isn't enough. They want their big stick back. You'll know, I expect, of the much studied relationship between political extremism and dogmatism. The more extreme the political group, the more they need to be the bearers of The Truth™. I bring this up just to say that theories of truth are political, we're not in mere idle philosophical territory.
Quoting Banno
I think it's the other way round. The cases presented here in support of a simple JTB are the very cases in which we hardly ever use the word 'know'. I mean, who says "John knows the cat is on the mat"? A primary school teacher perhaps, showing her children how to use the word in a sentence. In real life, no-one ever says such things. Partly because such cases are so obvious they don't need saying. In real life "I know" is reassurance ("I know you love me", "I just know I left my keys here somewhere"), or claims of political or social capital "He's an expert, he knows what he's talking about", "John knows where the treasure is hidden"...
Quoting Banno
Ramsey's view is slightly different. In “The Nature of Propositions” Ramsey showed how even the simplest of propositions was infinitely complicated such as to render an correspondence theory of truth problematic at best, if not redundant entirely. The examples he gave were Russell's facts, but much as we've been presented with here - "The apple is in the bag", "Zelenskyy is President of Ukraine". Such propositions (said Ramsey) are too complex to be truth apt.
I don't want to hijack @hypericin's thread into an exposition of Ramsey, but my critique of @hypericin's position derives, in part, from Ramsey's
... and trying to reconcile that with an ordinary language understanding of 'knowledge'.
He talks at length about the relation between degrees of belief and knowledge, he talks a lot about truth (from a nuanced redundancy position), but he doesn't (as far as I know) directly relate the two. If one reads "Truth and Probability", however, it is littered with references to knowledge, and without directly claiming it, all these uses are treated as if knowledge were a form of belief where the degree of belief were near 100%, so that's what I'm working with.
It is the matter of the last that's in contention, so taking it as given would be begging the question.
One need only look at the form you've had to put it in. The other two deflate. There's nothing more to "it's true that 'P'" than 'P'. But in the last, you smuggle in P1 (the grass is green). All of a sudden, the unanalysabilty of truth as a property goes out the window. The proposition "it's true that 'X knows P'" is no longer reducible only to 'X knows P', now hidden within it is P itself.
And this is where I think you're making a mistake. The meaning of an expression is its aboutness. As you said before, "I know that there is an apple in the bag" is about my state of mind, "there is an apple in the bag" about the state of the world. The two statements are about different things.
Even if in using the statement "the grass is green" I imply that I believe that the grass is green it doesn't follow that "the grass is green" means "I believe the grass is green". They have different propositional content (the aboutness).
I don't think I'd claim that it does follow. My claim (in total) only requires that it can, ie it's opposite doesn't follow either.
Your claim that...
Quoting Michael
...doesn't follow either. We certainly could treat them that way, separating propositional content from the implications of it's use, but we needn't. There's no logic or rule which compels us to.
Quoting Isaac
You and I have already agreed that "I know that there is an apple in the bag" and "there is an apple in the bag" have different propositional content. That's a starting point for our discussion. I'm not saying that it follows from anything.
It's neither been taken as a given, nor have I provided a case of affirming the consequent. I'm not a fan of informal fallacies.
The question was asked about what exactly the difference was between those three utterances when it concerns what they mean. I offered a precise clear answer. The question had not been adequately addressed prior to my having done so. I thought it quite important then. That sentiment remains.
Surely, we can all agree that knowledge must be true despite the fact that not all knowledge claims satisfy and/or are even capable of bearing that burden. If not, then there is no distinction between the second and third aside from terminological preferences for proclaiming one's belief.
Quoting Isaac
Show me what you mean here, if you would, because...
Quoting Isaac
...is irrelevant to the meaningful differences between the three utterances. What you've said here directly above pertains to the redundancy when a sincere speaker prefixes their own belief statements with "it's true that". It also pertains to situations where a sincere speaker affixes a belief statement with "is true". This just shows that "is true" is superfluous and "it's true that" is redundant when accompanying belief statements. That's because belief statements presuppose their own truth.
It is worth mentioning that belief is not rightly understood solely by virtue of treating belief as propositions. They are not equivalent.
Quoting Isaac
Smuggle in?
:yikes:
"The grass is green" is in all three. "P1" is in none. So, this charge could not be more wrong. Besides that, I'm steadfastly against the common accounting (mal)practice of treating belief as propositions. It paved the way for Russel's clock, Gettier, and Moore's paradox, but that's another topic altogether.
This is true, but it is not problematic, as far as JTB is concerned. Different people will in fact disagree on what is knowledge, due to disagreements about what is justification.
Consider religious knowledge. The religious will happily fill libraries with "knowledge" based on arguments from scripture. The primitive atheist will contest this knowledge because it is not true. The more sophisticated atheist will contest it because they consider its justification (scriptural, faith based, etc.) to be illegitimate.
These groups have irreconcilable views on what is knowledge, because they have irreconcilable views on what is justification. This is not a problem for JTB, but rather an affirmation: different concepts of justice imply marking different things as knowledge.
This only might be a problem if the aim was to elucidate knowledge's "ultimate", ontological essence. But this would be a foolish endeavor, knowledge is a human construct and it presumes too much that it should have such an essence. Rather, the aim is to clarify what it is people are conceptually picking out when they mark something as "knowledge".