27 Sep 11
Originally posted by twhiteheadWhat earlier given definition of 'know' are you talking about?
An I totally fail to see how that can be possible under the definition of 'know' given earlier. If P can be false, even if it is infinitesimally unlikely that it is, then S cannot know P by definition.
27 Sep 11
1 edit
Originally posted by twhiteheadThat is not a definition of 'know'. That was just my restatement of the external truth condition on knowledge. At any rate, this does not conflict with the fallibilist condition I gave:If a proposition is known (regardless of whether it is fallibly or infallibly so), then the proposition is not false.
(truth condition): If S knows P, then P is true.
(fallibilist condition): S can know P despite not having certainty that P is true.
What's the problem here? Suppose P is in fact true. Suppose S believes P on evidence that is extremely good but not sufficient to render P certain. Then the falliblist claims that S knows P despite not having certainty that P. There is no problem here.
27 Sep 11
Originally posted by LemonJelloThere is some basic confusion in this conversation that I am having trouble pinning down. When I think I've diagnosed and addressed it, I get assurances that I'm being understood, but those assurances are then followed by the same confusions. What is going on here? Ideas?
That is not a definition of 'know'. That was just my restatement of the external truth condition on knowledge. At any rate, this does not conflict with the fallibilist condition I gave:
(truth condition): If S knows P, then P is true.
(fallibilist condition): S can know P despite not having certainty that P is true.
What's the problem here? Supp ...[text shortened]... liblist claims that S knows P despite not having certainty that P. There is no problem here.
27 Sep 11
Originally posted by bbarrBoth twhitehead and googlefudge express concern over conjoining the truth condition and the fallibilist condition. My guess is that the apparent problem for them lies in the following misunderstanding. When they consider the truth condition, the probability that P is true, given that S knows that P, is 1. On the other hand, the fallibilist condition under their reading appears to be telling them that the probability that P is true, given that S knows that P, can be something less than 1.
There is some basic confusion in this conversation that I am having trouble pinning down. When I think I've diagnosed and addressed it, I get assurances that I'm being understood, but those assurances are then followed by the same confusions. What is going on here? Ideas?
At least, that would be my guess.
27 Sep 11
Originally posted by LemonJelloSuppose P is in fact false. Suppose S believes P on evidence that is extremely good but not sufficient to render P certain. Can the fallibilist claim that S knows P?
What's the problem here? Suppose P is in fact true. Suppose S believes P on evidence that is extremely good but not sufficient to render P certain. Then the falliblist claims that S knows P despite not having certainty that P. There is no problem here.
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27 Sep 11
Originally posted by bbarrOk Ill have another bash at trying to explain where I think the problem is :-)
There is some basic confusion in this conversation that I am having trouble pinning down. When I think I've diagnosed and addressed it, I get assurances that I'm being understood, but those assurances are then followed by the same confusions. What is going on here? Ideas?
I hope you don't take this the wrong way but I am thoroughly enjoying the discussion.
Although it has wandered way off the original point I was trying to make and I intend
to get back to at some point.
Baring in mind this is all discussing fallible knowledge not knowledge that can be known infallibly.
I realise that infallible knowledge is a subset of fallible knowledge but what I am talking about
here is the knowledge that isn't infallible.
I think the problem might be the 'external' requirement of truth for knowledge.
It might be all fine and dandy having external conditions for knowledge when merrily
philosophising about it.
But it is from a practical standpoint utterly useless. (in my view)
Because I can't ever know if any of the things I think are true about the world are
actually true.
You are effectively externally analysing my knowledge claims and saying "he can't know that
it isn't true".... well If I had the information it wasn't true then I wouldn't claim it as knowledge
sure, but till that information is available (or exists, in the lottery example the winning ticket
isn't determined until the lottery is actually run, so the truth of the lottery knowledge statements
doesn't exist till the lottery is run) I have no way of determining whether anything I think is
true and that I know is actually true, or would be considered knowledge by the external figure
examining my knowledge claims.
For me, while all my knowledge claims remain justified (ie there is suitably strong evidence
and no disproof) then there is no detectable difference between those things I claim to know
but are actually wrong, and those things I claim to know and are true.
You as an external observer with super-knowledge of truth might be able to tell them apart and
say 'he can't know that it's false' or 'yes that's true he does know that' but I can't...
For me there is a distinction but no difference between things I claim to know that are false and
things that I claim to know and are true.
The moment I gain evidence that one of my knowledge claims are false I loose my justification for
believing or knowing it.
Given that, I don't see the point of requiring external truth as part of my definition of knowledge.
I can and never will have external knowledge of truth, so it is a useless addition to my definition.
I have no problem with knowledge being required to be true as far as it is possible to determine
with all available evidence or some such.
But requiring absolute truth is pointless because no person will ever have it.
It only works in the abstract.
I hope this makes it clear what my problem is.
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27 Sep 11
Originally posted by bbarrOn reflection (and reading up on the KK thesis, google ftw) I will at least partially agree with you.
I don't care if you agree. I'm telling you what is the case. The claim "If S knows P then S knows that he knows P" is called the KK thesis. The KK thesis is false. If you want to know why, think about it for a bit. If you can't figure out why, then ask me again and I'll give you a bunch of reasons. Seriously, just take a day and think about what these dif ...[text shortened]... at would the reliabilist say about the relationships between these different propositions?
I still hold that condition 1 necessitates condition 3.
and that condition 2 necessitates 1 and 3.
however 1 doesn't always necessitate 2
and 3 doesn't necessitate either 1 or 2.
quoting for reference. (formatting changed only)
"You're confused. You're equivocating between
(1) 'S knows P',
(2) 'S knows that he knows P',
and
(3) 'It is reasonable for S to claim that he knows P'.
These are all different propositions;
you can't take them as equivalent.
(1) may not entail (2) or (3).
(2) entails (1) but may not entail (3).
(3) does not entail (1) or (2).
However I don't think this is relevant to the argument I am actually trying to make.
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27 Sep 11
1 edit
Originally posted by bbarrtill you realise that this is what I am arguing about?
No. Only true propositions can be known. How many times do we have to say this?
edit: sorry, bit blunt.
What I mean is that this is the crux of my argument and that simply stating that it is true gets us nowhere.
I am disputing that outside of an abstract philosophy debate truth is not know absolutely and can never be known absolutely. (when talking about the world)
Thus requiring it in your definition is flawed.
You can't claim to know anything because truth is never known.
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27 Sep 11
Originally posted by googlefudgeLet P be: "You can't claim to know anything because truth is never known."
till you realise that this is what I am arguing about?
edit: sorry, bit blunt.
What I mean is that this is the crux of my argument and that simply stating that it is true gets us nowhere.
I am disputing that outside of an abstract philosophy debate truth is not know absolutely and can never be known absolutely. (when talking about the world)
Thus ...[text shortened]... t in your definition is flawed.
You can't claim to know anything because truth is never known.
How do we come to know P?
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27 Sep 11
Originally posted by JS357As I am talking about knowledge of the world, evil demons.
Let P be: "You can't claim to know anything because truth is never known."
How do we come to know P?
It's going back to Descartes and his 'I think therefore I am'
The one thing he could know as a base was that there was something doubting his existence.
Everything else about the world could be being fed to him by evil demons.
Or going more modern, it's the are we in the matrix, or is the whole universe a computer simulation ect ect.
There is thus uncertainty, even if very tiny, in any knowledge claim made about the universe, as opposed to
logical constructs of your mind.
Thus you can't be certain about anything of the world. Not absolutely.
Also the way science works, you never know if your current theory is actually the truth, or simply so close
to it that your experiments can't tell it apart from truth.
So before accurate telescope measurements of the planets it was impossible to tell if Newtons gravity was true,
or simply to close to the truth to tell apart form it.
It later became clear it was not true, and the new information allowed the formation of a new theory.
But despite GR never having been shown to give a wrong result, we still don't know if it is true, or simply so close
that our experiments can't tell the difference...
27 Sep 11
Originally posted by googlefudgeYour problem here is that you're confusing the point of the truth condition with the point of the justification condition on knowledge. When philosophers aim to explicate the concept 'knowledge' or provide an analysis of it, they attempt to lay bare all the conditions that must be met in order for some relation between a subject and the world to count as an instance of knowledge. There is no guarantee that every component of a concept will meet some practicality requirement.
till you realise that this is what I am arguing about?
edit: sorry, bit blunt.
What I mean is that this is the crux of my argument and that simply stating that it is true gets us nowhere.
I am disputing that outside of an abstract philosophy debate truth is not know absolutely and can never be known absolutely. (when talking about the world)
Thus ...[text shortened]... t in your definition is flawed.
You can't claim to know anything because truth is never known.
Look, earlier in this thread you presented the Justified True Belief account of knowledge (with caveats, of course). You even explained the conditions! What do you think beliefs are? They are psychological representations of ways we take the world to be. Some representations are accurate, some are not. Some beliefs are true, some are false. The problem is that we don't have direct, unmediated and infallible awareness of how the world is. Facts about the world are facts external to our psychological ken. The world impinges on us in certain ways, and we form representations of it. This means there is a gap between the mind and world; between our representations and reality.
Some of our beliefs are justified, and some are not. There is a lot of debate concerning what justification requires. The view you presented earlier; that justification requires evidence or reasons to which a believer has access, is commonly referred to as internalism. The point, though, is that knowledge requires both belief and justification. Without justification, having a true belief is nothing more than a lucky guess. But, unfortunately, we can have really well justified beliefs that are false. What distinguishes a really well justified belief from an instance of knowledge? Well, knowledge requires to world to cooperate. It requires truth. This is a conceptual point about knowledge; it is not intended to be practical. Truth is an external condition on knowledge (particularly in empirical knowledge, pace the analytic/synthetic distinction) in this sense. The practical import of the analysis of knowledge resides in the justification condition.
You are worried that because truth is an external condition on knowledge, that we can never know. But this does not follow. Suppose I believe P for really, really good reasons; reasons that indicate that P is overwhelmingly likely. Suppose I go on to investigate P, and the more I investigate P, the better my evidence for P. Now suppose that P is true. That is, suppose the world is as I represent it to be via my belief that P. In such a case, I know P (ignoring, for now, the Gettier problem). You argue that if truth is an external condition on knowledge, then I cannot know P because I do not know that this external condition has been met. But that is silly. I know P by virtue of the evidence at my disposal. This evidence is evidence precisely because it indicates that the external truth condition has been met. The best explanation for the evidence I have for P is that the world is as I represent it; that the external condition has been met. But, for all that, because I do not have direct, unmediated, infallible awareness of world as it is in and of itself, the truth condition remains external. So what? Skepticism does not follow.
Consider the perceptual analogy. I see objects, but I see them by virtue of having various internal states caused by them. I do not see objects directly, unmediated by representation. It is my representation of objects that counts as my seeing them. But perception, like knowledge, is factive. There is an external veracity component. If I perceive a tree, then there is in fact a tree "standing behind" my representation of a tree. If I merely seem to perceive a tree, then there is no such tree in fact. But there may be no difference, internally, between perceiving a tree and merely seeming to perceive a tree. Does this mean we should be skeptics about perception? No. Because I can have really, really good evidence that I am actually perceiving a tree. My perceptions are consistent, coherent, multi-modal, corroborated by others, etc.
At the end of the day, we have inferences to the best explanation. We are fallible, and knowledge (like perception) requires the world to play along; to be as we take it to be. But that doesn't mean we can't know. It just means that we often cannot be absolutely certain about what we justfiedly believe. But so what? Knowledge does not require certainty, as you have claimed earlier in this very thread.
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27 Sep 11
Originally posted by robbie carrobieOk you had your chance and blew it. so here goes.
(Deuteronomy 22:28-29) . . ."In case a man finds a girl, a virgin who has not been
engaged, and he actually seizes her and lies down with her, and they have been
found out, the man who lay down with her must also give the girl’s father fifty
silver shekels, and she will become his wife due to the fact that he humiliated her.
He will not be al ...[text shortened]... is merely a provision to make sure that if such an outrage
occurs, there are consequences.
"Yes indeed, this was the case in pressured seduction and/or fornication. If an
unscrupulous man felt at liberty to have sex relations with a virgin, she would be the
loser, every time. Besides the possibility of an illegitimate child, her value as a bride
was diminished, for the Israelites were rather insistent that a women be chaste
virgin prior to marriage."
What we are talking about here are the holy laws and morals laid down either by god or
the man god chose to make them.
God is posited to be all powerful, so he could make the laws however he fancied, and
instruct his prophet however he chose.
So the problems with the above are as follows.
Apart from the fact that getting pregnant from rape makes it even worse for the women,
especially as back then there was no proper safe way to get an abortion.
The fact the child is 'illegitimate' and the way the society treats those born out of wedlock
is very much part of what is being prescribed and codified.
God could have chosen to instruct 'his people' not to treat those who are born out of wedlock badly.
Also he could have told people not to value a woman less as a potential wife or otherwise if she
has had sex before marriage... willing or not. Note no such prohibition exists against a man.
And that women were not property.
"If you actually look at the verse it shows that the option of divorce disappeared after
premarital fornication. This, then, might cause a man (or a virgin woman) to resist
a temptation to share in fornication. A man should not feel at liberty simply to use a
virgin with no consequence to his action, rather, this law would deter immorality by
causing any would-be offender to weigh the long-term consequences of fornication
having to stay with the other party throughout his life.
The Law also lessened the problem of illegitimacy for if a man who seduced a virgin
had to marry her, their fornication would not result in an illegitimate offspring among
the Israelites."
Yes, I noticed this, this means that the women is now stuck with her rapist for life.
It is only wrong for people to have premarital sex because 'god' says so. he could have
chosen not to.
No indeed a man should not be able to rape a women with no consequences.
But as this law was indeed used by men to 'marry up' by raping women above their status
and then being 'forced' to marry them.
Also regardless of that, the man's 'punishment' should not also punish his victim.
Again, illegitimacy was only an issue because 'god said so'. He didn't have to.
"Clearly the verse is indicative of a different social setting, it was after all compiled
2500 years ago, and to claim that its immoral by our modern sensitivities is to
ignore the cultural aspects which govern it and demonstrates a degree of bias
towards scripture. Suizzianne for all her faults is not under duress to uphold the
Mosaic law, nor can it be termed 'immoral', under the circumstances. Rape is
condemned, this verse is merely a provision to make sure that if such an outrage
occurs, there are consequences."
Yes clearly they don't live up to modern moral standards.
What is at issue here is that this is supposed to be the morals given out by an immortal
omniscient god and/or his hand selected prophet.
Whom you still worship.
These are his morals.
You also show a shocking and appalling attitude towards rape, by thinking that the most
important thing to do with a rape victim is to get her married off as soon as possible
(to her rapist no less) compensate her father for his loss of his daughter as a bargaining chip
and ensure that any child is born in wedlock.
That is abominable, in any age, the fact is that it has taken a long time for male dominated
societies to realise this, is a travesty, and tragedy, to which your religion has added immensely.
However in this instance what I am quoting is not the outdated law of some defunct ancient state.
It is the scripture of a current and dominant world religion.
Supposedly given out by an immortal omniscient god.
Your god directly or indirectly is supposed to have supported Moses and his laws.
Your god is thus an abomination.
And you support him....