Well, but there's the rub -- we do. There are two ways of knowing that X is true, on this construal of JTB. We can verify the truth conditions of X (a...
Excellent. My concerns with JTB are all about how the truth of P is supposed to be established. @"Banno" recommends just starting with that truth, whi...
That's the part I'm questioning. What does it mean to you that something is true? I'm guessing it would be some version of Tarski truth. So how could ...
This is the nub, I think: It can never be what you know, only what you believe. Never, that is, without raising the specter of the vicious circle. Bec...
I appreciate it a lot, thanks. Clearly these are differences, as you say. I'm focused still on the discussion in the Prolegomena, where Kant says: How...
Yes, I think so too. Let's see what @"Banno" says, and then I'll try to show where I'm going with this. By pre-JTB I mean that we would enter the "JTB...
Good. Yes, that's what I was suggesting. But then why does Kant say: Kant notes this in the same section: "larger numbers . . . however closely we ana...
OK. Bear with me. Let's say I'm in a "JTB situation"; that is, I want to find out whether I possess a piece of knowledge. Will the justifications that...
This may seem like quibbling, but he doesn't actually doubt things. He points out that it would be possible to doubt them. Of course he knows that no ...
OK, that seems like a good way to look at it, with perhaps the caveat that it's reasonable also to ask, "Why are you certain?" or "What makes you rely...
Like @"frank", I'm not sure I get this. "That is a prime number" is true (or false) regardless of what John thinks about it. The question is, How conf...
Maybe this is a good way to frame the problem in terms of JTB: Do I have to know that X is true in order to use it as the T in a JTB statement? Is tha...
Right, that's the standard interpretation, but think about it: Prior to how much experience? Can I know about the 12 beers if I don't know what beer i...
The debate about this often centers on how "prior" the a priori is supposed to be. What is the ideal situation in which an a priori judgment is imagin...
Yes, it's just terminology, as I said. I certainly don't feel strongly about it. We can use an ambiguous term like "see" any way we want to stipulate,...
That sounds right -- but it also means that we can't say the drunk saw a pink elephant. Seeing with the mind's eye is a metaphorical extension of what...
Let's slow down on this one. Kant doesn't speak about "content" in the (where the 7+5 example is discussed). He says that the concept of "12" is not t...
Yes, that's a good link to Moore and Witt. In this context, I'm not so concerned to ask whether there is such a thing as direct knowledge -- or rather...
And this resembles the "A or ~A" case, where it's difficult to see it in terms of justifications. Still, I think the conclusion we ought to draw from ...
No worries, I'm not always a model of precision myself. OK, good, so on this construal, JTB becomes a reasonable description of our ontic and epistemo...
That's true (sorry!), but it's a theory of knowledge that includes, as one of its criteria, that a statement be true. So if JTB tells us that X is kno...
And I would add that such claims help themselves to terms like "justify" or "explain" as part of their discourse about why reason can be reduced to bi...
But Q1c was not about belief, but rather truth. Yes, it follows from believing something that I also believe it to be true, but that's not a reply to ...
I agree. But all three of these things -- truth by definition, logical self-evidence, and the reliability of direct observation -- are ways of demonst...
That's right. So, anticipating your investigator image, using JTB would go something like this: Q1. Do I have knowledge of X (a proposition)? Depends ...
Agreed. I'd be much more interested in a theory that could show how, in practice, we're able to make pretty good distinctions among degrees of likelih...
But that's the part I find incoherent. Is the idea that P need only be truth-apt in order for "P is a JTB" to represent knowledge? That can't be right...
But do we know this apart from the right justifications? I don't see how. Even something as clear as modus ponens can and must be explained and justif...
Sure, works for me. I don't think we can insist on precision of language when talking at this level. We both are pointing to something quite extraordi...
Yes. But as you point out, that's only one way to understand the explanatory task here. Nagel and sometimes Putnam want a different kind of explanatio...
Yes. I took that to be understood. My question -- the "right question" part, I guess -- was what sort of answer a person would give if they were asked...
I think that all your very pertinent questions come down to versions of the same issue, which @"Banno" has also picked up on, namely whether the T in ...
Yes, that was certainly an attempt to explain how reason can be, and do, what it is and does. We're still trying to work out whether this is an explan...
Yes, that's eloquent. And again, what I respect so much about Nagel is that he isn't willing just to stop there. He still perceives a problem -- namel...
Yes. Though maybe more in my post directly above that one. Right, there's something basically correct and useful about the JTB concept. I'd modify "an...
This idea is picked up in Thomas Nagel's The Last Word as well: Nagel is honest and deep enough to also acknowledge: So, as you say: THE key question ...
Just curious: If I believe something without fully understanding it, and I'm asked to give an account of what I say I believe, can I do it? Or would t...
Yes. Yes. But doesn't this raise, again, the problem of the independence of justification from truth, and vice versa? If something can only be knowled...
Not if I accept JTB as the standard of knowledge. I can't say I know it's raining unless it's true that it's raining; truth is the third leg of the tr...
This is a significant example of the kind of thing I'm concerned about. Is "being drawn into assent" being caused to assent? Or is it better described...
The problem is more that math seems "un-inventable" -- that is, its truths appear necessary, not something we could have chosen. I agree that question...
I suppose. But this is a little hard on modern science. "Tough-minded" empiricism, perhaps, has trouble with abstracta. But scientists commonly work w...
Yes. I picked a number no one knows just to make the point clearer. And your "real/exist" schema works well to help keep things straight. Do some peop...
Comments