Vagueness: 'I know'
When a person says, "I know", what do they really mean?
It seems inherent, that we assume that the other person "knows"; but, this is prone even to doubt and vagueness about using that phrase.
Therefore, how can we qualify the statement or word-phrase, "I know"?
Is this possible, and has already been implemented in our childhood and adolescent life that is education?
Or stated, otherwise, how does one set up a schema to decrease the vagueness of the word phrase "I know"?
It seems inherent, that we assume that the other person "knows"; but, this is prone even to doubt and vagueness about using that phrase.
Therefore, how can we qualify the statement or word-phrase, "I know"?
Is this possible, and has already been implemented in our childhood and adolescent life that is education?
Or stated, otherwise, how does one set up a schema to decrease the vagueness of the word phrase "I know"?
Comments (126)
Sorry, I got the whole thread wrong. I meant to say, how does one eliminate the vagueness of that phrase?
Yeah, well, that sort of thing happens when we interchange the next logical progression of "I know ***"
That, and how-***
Why do you want to?
To enhance communication/language use?
So, it's also baked into the system of thought itself.
Whell, that's part of the topic-subject hereabouts.
Is "I know..." truth-apt or not?
When someone thinks, they use knowledge and environment. When someone says I know they refer to wisdom or a phenomenon.
Is this purely an action? Knowing? Referring to your wisdom or phenomena directly, that process?
You may just as well not think of wisdom as a pattern of knowledge but instead as a shell of knowledge.
You can know in the short and long terms.
Have you considered asking said person?
Might seem rude if you didn't, is all.
The problem you refer to lies within language itself. Words inherently have a range of meanings. If I have an image in my mind that I am trying to communicate there are only a limited number of words that I can choose from (and even selecting an appropriate word is a complex process) and the final communication can only be a poor representation of the picture in my mind. If you go for too much rigour in the communication one does so with an associated lack of accuracy.
OK, so you're already assuming some pragmatic account of shared meaning, correct?
Yes, and no. As soon as I think about it the problem magnifies.
Should or ought-to, I ask that or how or why or when?
See the point?
No.
On point.
Quoting A Seagull
Well, it's not so much the limits at language, manifest in saying like "A picture is worth a thousand words"; but, rather, why the problem exists in the first place? Zooming out...
See my convo with @A Seagull. Does that help?
What do you mean?
I feel like your reaching out for the outliers here; but, I don't know what's the point of that.
@Banno's showing and telling is sufficient to get the point across?
No.
Most people are not at all vague when they claim to know something.
This thread is what happens when language goes on holiday.
This sort of reminds me of the "Language is not passing information from one head to another" thread, in which I never participated in.
Quoting StreetlightX
Please be more specific.
I don't want to be rude, so I'd prefer not to.
OK, so, let's take that implicit example. Tact, appropriateness adhere to what standards, here?
None?
Not seeing the point here.
Language has the sole purpose of communication. And of course there are limits to the efficacy of communication, you can think of it as a bandwidth problem.
Well, that's an observational statement about something within the world-view of any participants of the conversation. Rather scientific and exact. But, most of the language isn't like that, so we might assume this as a statement immune to the sentiments of the need to qualify statements that are quantitative.
It is not particularly ambiguous, but it is also over-precise. You do not weigh 196.00000000000000000000 lbs. so what do you estimate are the error margins for your weight?
Why do you call it a bandwidth problem?
The rate at which I can communicate data from my mind to yours is limited by the means of the communication ie sounds, or symbols on a piece of paper; its a pretty inefficient process.
The conceptual schema that is language, doesn't seem to be about data (information) passing one mind from the other?
I'm surprised to see this sentiment so adhered to.
What 'conceptual schema'?
What 'sentiment'?
What 'appropriate criteria'?
Well, isn't language a sort of conceptual schema? We all learn the same stuff at school, so nobody is really more efficient at communication?
Quoting A Seagull
That's like saying that people are like computers and transmit knowledge in the bulk of it through language use.
Uhh, well. It's a matter of semantics, then?
Communication is a two-tired process, there is the sender and there is the receiver. Learning is a very complex process and not directly linked to communication. The interpreted meaning of a communication can differ from its literal meaning.
Quoting Wallows
Well of course! What other process can there be for the 'transmission of knowledge'?
Well yes I was thinking that the information about your weight would be of more interest to your doctor than to a fellow philosopher!
Vagueness? Maybe, this can be demonstrated by a person lying about that fact?
There seems to me, to be some standard to communication that we implicitly agree to. That standard seems to get muddled when one talks about trying to qualify it, being that phrase: "I know that/how".
One in which, someone learns some new facts about how to use language?
But that itself is a 'communication'.
What do you mean?
The only way you can learn 'new facts about how to use language' is through communication, using language.
Fun question...perhaps the Subjectivist or Subjective Idealist would say something like : "No, you really don't know!"
This doesn't make much sense to me. It seems that refinement comes first, and then a correction can ensue? But, some degree of ambiguity is always present.
Most commonly, people mean that they have a high degree of certainty when they claim, "I know". The only way to decrease ambiguity is through discussion - you will not get the english speaking world to change their ways.
It seems to me that 'I know' is a clear statement, though obviously not a complete one. The person may or may not be correct, but we get what they are claiming. They have excellent grounds to believe that X is the case. It fits whatever rigor (if any) their epistemology has.
We can't come up with a way to qualify the statement, since it would need different more complete explanations for the different users of that phrase. Because different people, even within the same paradigm, have different criteria and different degrees of rigor.
This is language we are talking about. We cannot make individual phrases, in general, be 100% clear. And if we did, they would be so specfic as to be less useful.
A scientific journal can have specific criteria for what it will publish in a sense as well grounded conclusions.
But words and phrases are meant for all of us to use to communicate in a vast array of contexts.
I am with that the word is clear. One can use other words if one wants to be more specific about one's criteria, the process of deciding that you know, rather than, say 'believe' or 'think' X is the case.
Every word you would use in your clarification of 'I know' could then be criticized as vague, since one could always go into more detail. And any clarification of the phrase 'I know' would either be just as vague or not as generally useful.
Right, and that's exactly why the phrase is ambiguous. We don't know who weighed you, how they weighed you, when they weighed you, and so the phrase is ambiguous. We cannot pinpoint the meaning of it. What does it mean for a human being, whose weight is changing by the moment, to say "I weigh …" and quote a static quantity? As there is clearly no correct way to interpret this statement, it is a perfect example of ambiguity.
You don't know what "know" means? Have you looked it up? Have you got anything to say about how it has been treated by philosophers?
In what way is its use vague, as you keep on saying it is, with no explanation? You have not described the problem with "I know" or how it is vague. It's your OP that is vague. There is no clear question, and what there is doesn't make much sense.
Quoting Wallows
Not at all. When someone says they know, we don't just assume they do, unless it seems fairly uncontroversial and we don't have reason to doubt it, in which case we might give them the benefit of the doubt. But you don't give any context anyway; there are different ways of using the word.
What is the philosophical issue? What does this have to do with formal languages, which is something you brought up?
They mean
X is true
and
they have no doubt X is true.
That's what they mean and it is clear.
What does IT mean if they say it?
It means they have no doubt X is the case.
Is X the case? Maybe maybe not.
But that has nothing to do with the meaning. It seems like you are conflating the truth value of the that clause with the meaning of the sentence. The meaning of the sentence is clear. Whether the that clause in and of itself is true is another matter.
I know that Idaho is the largest state.
The person is telling us that they have no doubt it is the case that Idaho is.......
The truth value of the that clause here is false. But that does not affect the meaning of 'know' in the least. He means that it is true and he has no doubt about it.
Another way to describe this is you are equivocating on the word means.
Means as in what is the person conveying.
And then the other means as in what are the consequences of hearing this assertion. That we accept their assertion about Idaho? or not?
Two different types of 'means'.
There is nothing unclear about the meaning of know.
Usually, when we want to do this, we look for less ambiguous phrases to get the point across. The ambiguous "I know", can get substituted with "to the best of my knowledge", which seems to encapsulate the phrase into something coherent or palpable.
Oh, well, to my defense, other people found it interesting?
Quoting jamalrob
Yeah, the Skeptics would have a lot to say about that.
Quoting jamalrob
OK, then a thread devoted to vagueness in language use, cannot be vague itself, otherwise, there would be no need for it?
Quoting jamalrob
To my knowledge, formal languages, don't have this sort of issue present in them. Why is that?
I'm not sure of your position here. Are you for or against the use of the phrase, "I know"., assuming it is vague at all?
Apologies, then.
My answer to my own question is that "I know" is vague because it seems to place the predicate on the individual speaker, when in fact, as others have noted, the truth of that statement can only be clarified or elucidated in a discussion.
Does that help?
My friend and I discuss if there is any matter as to why we can breathe.
I stop, I say "Oh, I know" in reference to an off-hand theory I had about X.
What is vague about knowing?
I have a memory of X, it also is a pattern; when asked some questions I am a knowledge man, through the pattern of X, or X directly (if I was asked did I pass leafs on a trunk).
What's vague is my knowledge of X, not being 100%.
Can we spake a resolute "I know"? I'll let you decide.
As for the matter of this topic, I don't think 1 + 1 = 2 means "I know it = 2" is vague, I don't think X is vague. I think it's a whole different topic. We're discussing whether theories can ever be complete.
You can also say 'yes' if you know, you don't have to claim 'I know'.
What makes you say that? Quite interesting...
Some people say "I know" in a vague way, especially when you already have not clarified what there is to be known. They say quite flippantly "I know", but later evidence shows that they did not know. In this case,fear of being judged as naive, or ignorant, urges the person to shutdown any further dialogue that might reveal what they fear. Though they cannot see it, they are keeping themselves in ignorance by ignoring what they don't know.
To decrease their vagueness about "I know" is to add a qualifier; as in, "I know that . . , or "I know if ...."
If the person cannot add a qualifier, then their "I know' is just a reaction from a fear of judgement.
The one explaining may know that the other does not know, and may actually say "Hear me out"...to create a pause in the listener.
Most people who say "I know" when they don't, are young people who still carry falsehoods such as shame (believing they are a mistake), usually introduced by their piers.
Yeah, and that's the issue. The material implication seems downright necessary here.
Consider
If the consequent Q is true, then so is the justification P > Q. If ravens are black, then grass is green; hence, that grass is green justifies that ravens are black.
So that will not do.
Of course, we can pick out fun and silly examples, as the above; but, I don't see how Gettier accounts for coherence in terms of material implication.
But, they should be?
But why?
Even Socrates rejected the JTB account immediately after he proposed it.
Well, there are limitations to his proposal of treating everything as if in some manner already (false cause?) coherent and consistent with everything else. So, yes and no. I'm not a big fan of Gettier for the matter.
Quoting Wallows
Why add "really"?
Well, it has to do with the nature of knowledge stored in everyday living. Things happen in a certain way, and the cow might look black, and from far away look like a large panther, or I could be on LSD. Who knows?
Quoting Banno
It seems to me that "really" presupposes the notion that knowledge can only be shared in a dialogue between participants, so, should we treat the proposition that I know, as already assuming and affirming the consequent?
You thought the cow looked like a panther, so you knew it was a panther? Balls.
Quoting Banno
I thought I knew; but, was wrong? OK, then how does one begin to analyze that propositional statement?
Stop trying so hard.
Well, I'm not writing elaborate papers or such. My point seems to be distilled into this sort of sophism:
I know.
How?
I don't know.
But that seems to me to show a misunderstanding about belief.
Certainty is a type of belief - a belief that is beyond doubt. But of course, one can believe anything one wants - even things that are not true. Hence, one can be certain about anything one wants, even stuff that is not true.
But one cannot know stuff that is not true.
Compare:
"He is certain there is a Santa, but of course that's not true"
with
"He knows there is a Santa, but of course that's not true".
All I am doing here is pointing to how the words are used; I'm not setting out which things are true, believed or known.
Nice. I wonder about your thoughts about the picture theory of meaning and this topic. Let's assume that a picture is worth a thousand words, bona fide (redundant but true), we entertain notions about what Van Gogh might have looked like based on some self-portrait. Escher was this dude that made cool paintings too. Etc.
Are there higher power languages that are devoid of the above? It seems like philosophers are fixated with looking down instead of up.
No.
And after Davidson, I'm not keen on the picture theory - at least if it is understood as some sort of model of the world.
Bu that's off-topic.
Care to offer any proof to this assertion, kind Sir?
And that's leaving aside the ambiguity of lower and higher.
Too far off track.
But, there seem to be facts that exist in a higher plane, that are pictures or synesthesia or some such?
Quoting Banno
If a higher power language can capture all the facts of the lower boundary, then logically there's nothing more that can be said from within the confines of a lower power language. That should clarify the ambiguity?
Sorry. A bit flustered today. Anywho, uhh, propose something to talk about and I'll meditate over it.
Thanks!
If X is known in the present, can it be said of X in some near or distant future, "I thought I knew X"?
12. - For "I know" seems to describe a state of affairs which guarantees what is known, guarantees it as a fact. One always forgets the expression "I thought I knew".
On Certainty
Wittgenstein
Seems that both words are used the same way, and therefore mean the same thing (if meaning is just use and all that)
Now, are we talking about the state of someone's belief, or the state-of-affairs that the belief is about? Could it be possible that a person could be confused about both? Is it possible to be confused about whether or not you actually know, or are certain of anything?
If we associate truth with knowledge then people misuse the terms a lot. They claim to know when they don't. In order to know that someone actually knows would require that a second party know, but then how would we know that they know if it possible to be wrong when claiming that one knows? When, how, and who knows when some belief is true?
If we just equated knowledge with JTB, and severed knowledge from truth, then we wouldn't have the problem of people using the term incorrectly. Knowledge doesn't require truth, only justification. Then people only misuse the term when they don't have any justification for what they are claiming they know.
Another thing that we need to think about is different kinds of knowledge. No, I'm not talking about knowing how and knowing that. We've already shown that they are the same. What I'm talking about is information made by humans as opposed to natural information. Take the information that Donald Trump is president and the information that the Sun will die in 5 billion years. The former is information, or meaning, created by humans. The latter isn't. The truth in the latter lies in the actual state of affairs that is the Sun in 5 billion years while the truth of the former lies in the minds of humans as something that humans arbitrarily made up. Humans created the truth of who is president at any particular moment, but nature is the one that created the conditions, or the truth, of the Sun in 5 billion years. It is much easier to know the truth of who is the president of the U.S. than it is to know when the Sun will die.
...and this is why I don't pay much attention to your posts.
Quoting Harry Hindu
A mother on her knee with her child might say to a grown-up about her child, "He knows there is a Santa."
But language isn't ordinarily used that way. If the child is wrong we say the child is certain. If the child were right we would say, "He knows there is a Santa."
The problem is not that they are misusing the word - of course the word might be used in that way. The problem is that they fail to take into account an important distinction. In this case, Harry ignores the distinction between believing, which can be either true or false, and knowing, which by definition must be true.
BY not accepting this distinction Harry places himself outside the discussion.
Cute.
Out in the cold.
"be as wise a serpent and as gentle as a dove for he sends us out among wolves" (paraphrased slightly)
There are one to one (a type of linear), linear, exponential, inverse exponential, logarithmic relationships. There are also coefficients and constants that altar a graphical representation of a relationship. When someone says they see a exponential or inverse exponential relationship between an apple and an orange, they are somewhat saying there is a loose relationship. You can actually draw a relationship between any concept and any object or physical object. The relationship might be loose or strong.
My point is stretching the truth and lying are two different things. I someone says "I Know" , it puts what they are saying on a spectrum, and they might loosely know or have faith that you know, or they may have a very strong concept of what you are saying.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Quoting Banno
This is why I don't expect much of a response when I point out the failure of your arguments.
So the above two sentences are not using "certain" and "knows" the same way? What do you mean by "use" if not that the words are occupying the same space among the same string of scribbles and in the same context?
Quoting Banno
And like I already said in the post your cherry-picked and failed to respond to: How can we be certain that what we know is the truth? How does anyone know that some claim is the truth? We make claims all the time about our knowledge without having any proof that what we claim is true. We only have justification for our beliefs that qualify as knowledge. Without justification, it is simply a belief. How do we determine what qualifies as proper justification? - Logic.
Your qualification of truth for knowledge is unattainable, therefore "know" would could never be used correctly and would therefore be a useless word.
It seems to me that "certain" would be a stronger assertion of truth that knowledge would be. Take the Merriam-Webster definition of "certain" as an example:
Quoting Merriam-Webster
So, "knowing" would be more like I said: a justified belief, whereas "certainty" is something that is often unattainable (mostly when it comes to external truths - truths that humans didn't create themselves - like how and why did the universe come to exist), hence the existence of philosophy and skepticism.
...and here is Harry in a knutshell. Isn't it glorious to see the rich variety of thinking that is displayed in the forums?
Harry knows things that are not true.
Well, given that we know it, it follows that it is true.
But I don't think that you asked the question you meant to ask.
Certainty
Do you think that this article is adequately summed up by your Merriam-Webster definition?
What, in the article, do you find to disagree with?
Are you at all perturbed by my pointing out that on your account you know things that are not true?
Isn't it glorious to see all the rich varieties of side-stepping a direct question on these forums?
Quoting Banno
Quoting Banno
What I get from both Merriam-Webster's definition and the article you provided is that IF certainty and knowledge are not the same thing, then certainty is the carrier of truth, not knowledge. Certainty has a stronger quality of truth than knowledge. So you can't say that if "you know it then it is true" if you are implying that "certainty" and "knowledge" are distinct AND that certainty has a stronger connection with truth than knowledge does, according to the definition and the article. If you are certain, then it is true. If you know it, then it is justified yet you can still have doubts, or be open-minded to alternative possibilities that haven't been provided yet. True wisdom is often equated to knowing that you know nothing.
Saying “I know” means “I have information from a reliable source and that information is actually true.
I can say “I know” but later find out that the information wasn’t true, so in fact I didn’t know. I was incorrect when I said I know.
No one could say “He knows there is a Santa, but in fact there isn’t.” If the speaker doesn’t believe that the person referred to is right, he wouldn’t use “know” about the claim.
The source of information is also important. Suppose someone told me that Manchester United won the match and I pass the information on saying “I know United won”. Later it turned out that my informant had had no idea whether United won or lost, but accidentally United had in fact won. When I said “I know United won” I was therefore incorrect even though what I thought I knew was true.
We can of course make the claim that we can’t really be sure if anything is the truth and even if I was present at the game and witnessed United’s victory, I can’t be a hundred percent certain that I can believe my eyes. Well, that’s a philosophical point. For our daily life our normal criteria for truth are sufficient.
What is considered knowledge may turn out not to be true. Hopefully one's criteria for what gets called knowledge, by you, make it a stronger set of beliefs than what you simply think is or might be the case.
When people argue about epistemology they are arguing about the criteria.
Certainty is a kind of quale, it may have nothing to do with any useful criteria, even your own. It might be based, for example, on denied feelings of terror that you might be wrong about the issue. That can actually increase one's certainty. But it's not a criterion for being classed as knowledge. That would be something like and scientists in Berlin had the same results with an even larger sample. Or I saw the puma, not just the footprints, and it was not a guy in a puma outfit. I am not one of the people who heard the story, I was there. (note, that would be a strong criterion for the speaker, but not necessarily at all for others listening to his story)
For someone who is such a stickler about proper word usage, you seem to have absolutely no idea about the proper usage of "precise" and "accurate".
Precision is a measure of how much information is being conveyed. Accuracy is a measure of how closely the information conveyed corresponds to reality.
E.g., if I were to say that I weigh between 0 and 1,000 lbs that would not be very precise, but would be perfectly accurate. On the other hand, if I were to say that I weigh 27.13856182952 lbs, that would be a very precise answer, albeit extremely inaccurate.
The claim that you weigh 196 lbs is also, in fact, ambiguous since you have not indicated the degree of precision that you wish to convey. Though, assuming some informal conventions, we might accurately infer that you were specifying your weight to the nearest pound. If you had said that you weigh 200 lbs, that inference is less likely to be correct, since you might reasonably be rounding to the nearest 10 lbs, or some such, but we have really no way of knowing unless you tell us.
In any case, this is just basic high school science and to not be aware of it, is shockingly stupid and ignorant.
|>ouglas
I dont see how one can be certain without having rigorously arrived at their state of certainty. Without having done that, they would be misusing the term, certainty.
Of course the two idea overlap. They deal with different things. And presumably we tend to be more certain about what we consider knowledge. But they do not have to be connected. Further they are focused on two different things: one on a kind of emotional sense, the other on protocols.
It seems like you're saying that one can be certain without any reasons or evidence for what they are certain about. That isn't how I or anyone else uses the term, "certainty". Now that I know that is how you are using the term, then I am going to expect you to provide evidence because now I can't be certain that what you are "certain" of is true. To be certain means that you put forth some mental effort to parse some bit of information for logical and empirical consistency before you say that you are certain of something. To say that you "know" is to say that you have good evidence, or justification for something but there could possibly be other explanations that you aren't aware of yet. It is a way of saying that you have a set of rules for explaining or interpreting something and those rules are amendable.
Quoting Harry HinduOh, yes it is. They just don't use it that way when describing themselves. But they do when describing others. And I am saying what the term is referring to. It is referring to an emotional state.Quoting Harry Hindu
No, that's not what it means. It's a synonym for being sure. For many people to say they are certain they need to meet the criteria you put forward, and presumably you do this. But the humans I meet are certain for a wide range of reasons and often not for the reasons they put forward.
I more or less agree with your definintion of know. But it's good you brought up your objections. It does depend who is speaking and about whom. People say 'I know' for all sorts of reasons. People tend to categorize knowledge as opposed to opinion as some more rigorously arrived at subset of beliefs and opinions. JTB more or less. IOW they have a knowledge/opinion(belief) distinction. And they can see this, in a certain sense, clearly in relation to others. And all of us have encountered people who are certain of things that have not gone through any rigorous process, even whatever rigorous process that other person would say it should.
Certainty is a quale - which may or not be affected by rigorous epistemology
Knowledge is a sub-category of beliefs/opinions and we all mean that it is better arrived at than the rest of the beliefs/opinions. How it is arrived at and if we really followed some rigorous process in this case or any case is another story. But when people use 'I know' the reasons can be just like the partial list I have above for 'I am certain.'
Knowledge and certainty however are very distinct and have very distinct referents.
Actually, I don't give a shit about his word usage. The only reason that I acted pedantically to him is that he has recently been unrelentingly pedantic to me about word usage, claiming that his word usage on certain terms is the only correct word usage and that anyone who would use them differently from how he does is "stupid" and "ignorant". While in fact the words in question can and have historically been used in many different ways. And the way that I have been using the words is well within the realm of conventional usage, and is even documented as such in respected sources like the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Wikipedia, all the scientists I work with, my boss who has a PhD in Linguistics, etc.
He deserved a taste of his own medicine.
Quoting Alcyone7
I'm sorry. You're going to have to take this up with the professors at MIT who taught me what I regurgitated. I am just an accurate regurgitating machine for my expensive and prestigious education.
|>ouglas
How am I doing that?
|>ouglas
If you believe something, then you believe that it is true. You can't belief it and yet think it false.
Wait, I thought that:
Quoting Banno
So which is it? Does knowing it or believing it make it true, and where does certainty fall? Is it possible to believe or know something that isn't true? If not, then why do humans frequently make the "mistake" of stating that they believe or know something and then find out later that it wasn't true? Why do we often find out after making the claim whether or not our knowledge was true or not? Maybe we were getting ahead of our selves and claim to possess knowledge when we didn't have proper justification. That may be the problem - that most people use "know" to casually - often meaning a belief or hypothesis rather than real knowledge. When someone claims to know something, is their knowledge evidence, or proof, that their claim is true? Is their claim that they have knowledge evidence, or proof, that they possess knowledge? Do you possess knowledge just by claiming that you do?
Neither,
You're turning what something means into something it does in this question. If we know it, that means it is true, in most definitions of 'know'.
Though since even knowledge is revisable, if one is, say, a scientist, even then it may turn out not to be.
Excellent, Banno. You're more tin-headed than most but eventually make your way to seeing that I was correct all along.
Knowledge, however, is not vague...
{{There's a difference between knowing and claiming to know; knowing is K, K-significant simulation aspect is KX.
If K, then KX - K = X. If -K, then KX - X = K. Simple code.}}
Knowledge is an accurate process.
If I actually know X then X - X = 0 is what I know. Whether or not you do or don't know is vague - but it's not vague if you [I]do or don't[/i].
I think knowledge is not a claim, but a effort. If I know without a claim it's a simple mental effort.
This thread doesnt contain what you've said for years - only what you've said recently, which is inconsistent.
Maybe that's the problem, Banno. You been saying the same thing for years, so you must think that there's nothing else for you to learn and that you know everything.