Other Peoples Knowledge
Say for the sake of this thread's premise that someone definitely saw God.
Should we believe in God because someone else seems to have genuine personal knowledge?
It seems to me that we believe a lot of things based on personal testimony such as what people tell us about themselves, their name, their childhood experiences and mental states. We don't ask for absolute evidence for every claim someone makes.
In the field of science and academia we tend to have to believe what people say because it is outside of our area of expertise and we can't challenge it.
Or should we suspend belief in anything until we have personal knowledge and understanding?
It seems odd to me that someone could have personal evidence of something that cannot be transmitted objectively to other people yet they know it is a fact and that we should possible believe X is true because of someones personal access to a fact.
This can be a problem when it comes to reporting childhood abuse and other forms of abuse where there is no way of proving a claim you are making. And skepticism about peoples claims about their experiences and mental states can be harmful. Some positions in the philosophy of mind are based on a kind of extreme skepticism about personal reports.
Should we believe in God because someone else seems to have genuine personal knowledge?
It seems to me that we believe a lot of things based on personal testimony such as what people tell us about themselves, their name, their childhood experiences and mental states. We don't ask for absolute evidence for every claim someone makes.
In the field of science and academia we tend to have to believe what people say because it is outside of our area of expertise and we can't challenge it.
Or should we suspend belief in anything until we have personal knowledge and understanding?
It seems odd to me that someone could have personal evidence of something that cannot be transmitted objectively to other people yet they know it is a fact and that we should possible believe X is true because of someones personal access to a fact.
This can be a problem when it comes to reporting childhood abuse and other forms of abuse where there is no way of proving a claim you are making. And skepticism about peoples claims about their experiences and mental states can be harmful. Some positions in the philosophy of mind are based on a kind of extreme skepticism about personal reports.
Comments (8)
We are all working in a world of provisional/approximate facts. Science is constantly evolving. So while there are such things as 'atomic facts' (the wavelength of red light) these are not really meaningful, except in conjunction with a whole lot of other facts (context, hermeneutics). So, as we live our long lives and gather more and more facts, many of which will be based on experiences that are idiosyncratic, we begin to develop an awareness of overarching facts, facts at a larger scale. Presumable the 'knowledge of god' could be one of those.
I'm not suggesting when or how other people's "intuitions of larger truths" become intersubjectively valid, only a possible framework.
Scientific theories change so there might not be any absolute facts in science. But what I am referring to in particular I suppose is facts about events.
So for example. Say I had eggs for breakfast. That is a fact.When I tell you about it it seems plausible and you believe me. You would need a good reason not to believe me.
What seems strange to me is that it seems my knowledge of this fact seems to suggest other people should believe it because I know it's a fact and you have know good reason to doubt me.
I am skeptical about peoples claims abut gods but I have heard a lot of them and I don't know whether they are simply outright lying or misrepresenting an experience but I don't immediately dismiss all personal testimony like this. Some religious people will try and convert you and make you believe based on experiences they claim to have.
It seems hard to know if your own beliefs are valid I suppose. But only believing our own personal experiences seems problematic.
I suppose having a collective consciousness would take on all sorts of manifestations/implications. For example if 100 people go to a concert and 95 of them say it was aweful, what does that tell us?
One thing that it might tell us is that the subjective experience(s) can evolve into an objective truth.
It might tell us that most peoples auditory systems respond in genralizable way to certain sounds.
It might indicate similar subjective experiences.
In general we may be able to conclude that the most objective truth is that which is shared by the largest number of people? There are exceptions to that rule of course: see Copernicus.
But as they say: the exception proves the rule.
The meaning of "prove" in that idiom is the older sense of "test", not the modern sense of "show to be true".