Define Knowledge

[Borachio]

Honestly, I can't see where we disagree. I'm baffled.

 

[Global Skeptic]

Well, just so. Largely.

But look at what you say:

My position doubts this. And I presume yours does too.

What my position does not doubt is that there is at least one person in the world - however I conceive it. And that is me. And, I presume, in your case, that is you.

Do not forget that all the words you are reading here are a product of your own mind.

So if any of them make no sense, blame yourself for "writing" them.

Best wishes

Okay, strong ontological solipsism it is then. So you exist and I am a product of your mind. Fair enough, now this product of your mind will give you the following product to you - you believe, you can stand up (this product assumes you are sitting down) and turn in either one direction or another (A OR not A). This product assumes that these products of your mind are within your control - i.e. you can choose to turn in one or and another direction, but not both at the same time and in the same respect/sense. So now this product of your mind will show you another variant of product. Please tell us all as products of your mind what this product's RL name is???

Hi Borachio. It is Global Skeptic here. I assume reality is as it appears/seems overall, but you now face a problem. There are at least two kinds of products of your mind, those you can choose to do and those you can't control by choosing. This one is the latter kind; i.e. no matter what name you assign me, you can't control or choose whether I answer yes, no or something else. In short that is the everyday variant of objective. All products of your mind are not the same, because to you there are at least two different kinds, those you can effect by choosing/changing your mind and those where you can't.

 

[Borachio]

I'm fine with that. Looks good so far.

Ties in with the observation that when I dream I, generally, have little control over what happens.

Also in waking consciousness, I have little control over whether other elements of the world around me may say a friendly hello or punch me in the face.

This little control (and I do have some it would appear) could of course be entirely illusory. But that's another issue.

I should point out, btw, that I don't live my life with solipsism as a guiding principle. Those that do, and there are a few, are very seriously disturbed.

It does appear to me that there are in fact other people, somewhat like me, running around out there. It's just a very hard thing to prove. A couple of years ago I had this discussion with my brother (very much more clever than I) via e-mail. It took him a good 2 weeks to convince me that from his point of view I must necessarily exist. Unhappily, I can't now remember what his proof was.

Anyway. My proof that you're not a figment of my imagination goes like this: well, duh, you know full well that you're not.

Without recourse to my elegantly simple proof, can you prove that I necessarily exist?

(PS proofs by analogy are kind of dumb, on this particular subject.)

 

[Ayatollah So]

No.
I won't define knowledge.
I prefer the "sometimes I know it when I see it" approach.

As should anyone who knows a few things about cognitive psychology on the one hand, and the long philosophical controversies in epistemology on the other. Cognitive psychology provides truly massive amounts of evidence that the cognitions we can perform far outstrip those we can encapsulate in a formula. We recognize objects, but typically have no clue how we recognize objects - that's a big part of why Machine Vision algorithms were so hard to develop, for example. There is no reason to think that "knowledge" is among the few things we recognize by applying a consciously accessible formula.

If you want to understand knowledge, I recommend getting out of the armchair for a long while, and into the psych lab (or psych library).

 

[Borachio]

Yes. But my take on this is "What can we be certain of?"

Here, "I recognize it when I see it" is a dodgy heuristic.

 

[Global Skeptic]

No.
I won't define knowledge.
I prefer the "sometimes I know it when I see it" approach.

As should anyone who knows a few things about cognitive psychology on the one hand, and the long philosophical controversies in epistemology on the other. Cognitive psychology provides truly massive amounts of evidence that the cognitions we can perform far outstrip those we can encapsulate in a formula. We recognize objects, but typically have no clue how we recognize objects - that's a big part of why Machine Vision algorithms were so hard to develop, for example. There is no reason to think that "knowledge" is among the few things we recognize by applying a consciously accessible formula.

If you want to understand knowledge, I recommend getting out of the armchair for a long while, and into the psych lab (or psych library).

Yes, I know where you are coming from, and no, because what is understand?

 

[Global Skeptic]

...
Without recourse to my elegantly simple proof, can you prove that I necessarily exist?

(PS proofs by analogy are kind of dumb, on this particular subject.)

No, sorry I assume I and you exist without "being brains in a vat" or in other variant, but I can't prove it.

 

[Souron]

Empirical? Theoretical? Spiritual? Ideological? Philosophical?

Do ideas have substance? Do we know them less than factual observations?

Have you read any Socrates and other ancient/medieval philosophers? Studied epistemology?

It's not my field, but I have taken some philosophy and have a hobbyist's interest in it. I have read some Socrates.

You can turn to statistics to try to answer these questions.

For example, basic statistics parameters (means, variances) will help you decide what you know, out of a large mass of data.

For example, calculating confidence intervals around measured parameters, can help you decide how certain your knowledge is.
Constructing a CI in fact has a degree of arbitrariness, since the choice of the degree of confidence to calculate is arbitrary.
Would you be satisfied with 50% confidence in your knowledge (that's like gambling)?
Would it matter to you to be 99% confident or 99.5% confident in your knowledge (would you go to great lengths for an extra 0.5%?)?

So this effectively states that knowledge is a term that varies depending on context with respect to how confident a person is, and how sound the evidence is.

Though can you really use statistics to determine confidence for all kinds of facts? It's not apparent to me that you can.

Now that is just semantics. You can know the name, or know sections of town "first-hand". In other words the difference between the abstract/theoretical and the empirical. You might abstractly know the capital and a map of the capital, but never have had empirical knowledge of it. On the other hand you can use empirical knowledge to judge the accuracy of an abstract representation (map)

I don't feel the above assertion, that the definition of knowledge is context dependent, is outside the scope of this thread, and unrelated to the rest of the discussion. And that assertion does answer, or at least suggest an answer to, the question "How many different things can 'know the capital of Canada' mean?"

Another question to ask: is our knowledge and the means of our knowledge, fallible?

I think this amounts to asking if truth is necessary for knowledge.

@Global Skeptic
You've argued that we can't know the universe was created 5 minutes ago, and I agree with that, but I still think that it is meaningful to say that I know I exist and am thinking. I may not be who I think I am, but I am me.

To put it another way, if you're willing to assert that something is having the thoughts you associate with yourself, you may as well call that something yourself. And the assertion "Something, called my self, exists" seems to be a known truth.

 

[lovett]

No.
I won't define knowledge.
I prefer the "sometimes I know it when I see it" approach.

As should anyone who knows a few things about cognitive psychology on the one hand, and the long philosophical controversies in epistemology on the other. Cognitive psychology provides truly massive amounts of evidence that the cognitions we can perform far outstrip those we can encapsulate in a formula. We recognize objects, but typically have no clue how we recognize objects - that's a big part of why Machine Vision algorithms were so hard to develop, for example. There is no reason to think that "knowledge" is among the few things we recognize by applying a consciously accessible formula.

If you want to understand knowledge, I recommend getting out of the armchair for a long while, and into the psych lab (or psych library).

There's a difference between saying that we don't need to provide a (reductive) definition of knowledge to saying that there is no value to so doing. Your position seems to dance around conflating the two.

The first point is, roughly, that ostensive definition of knowledge is perfectly fine. If we could only define knowledge ostensively, by 'knowing it when one sees it' that would not undermine our claims to have knowledge. We lack reductive analyses of many concepts (colours, for instance) but that does not mean our claims in those fields are undermined. This point is sound.

But it does not follow that there is no value in a propositional analysis of knowledge. At the least, such an analyses will tell us interesting things about a concept central to many problems. An analyses may help resolve those problems. In this case, if we accept a contextualist account of knowledge we go a long way in defusing a range of sceptical problems. Reductive analyses of knowledge -analyses of knowledge in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions or weighting of various characteristics- would constitute the apex of a propositional analysis of knowledge. There's all sort of reasons why such an analysis would be valuable. As I have said, an analysis of knowledge can play a crucial role in resolving the sceptical problem. Knowledge also plays a crucial role in our body of epistemic concepts. An analysis of knowledge will aid an understanding, or analysis, of such concepts. At the end I do not think it wrong to claim that achieving clarity here -achieving a propositional analysis of knowledge - is valuable in and of itself. Because I believe knowledge is analysable in this way, I believe it is valuable to provide such an analysis.

 

[Global Skeptic]

...

@Global Skeptic
You've argued that we can't know the universe was created 5 minutes ago, and I agree with that, but I still think that it is meaningful to say that I know I exist and am thinking. I may not be who I think I am, but I am me.

To put it another way, if you're willing to assert that something is having the thoughts you associate with yourself, you may as well call that something yourself. And the assertion "Something, called my self, exists" seems to be a known truth.

I understand where you are coming from, but I wouldn't call it a known truth.

 

[Ayatollah So]

There's all sort of reasons why [a propositional analysis of knowledge] would be valuable.

Oh, I definitely agree that it would be valuable. To quote a famous philosopher:

It'll never work. But it's certainly worth a try!

If you need a hint which famous philosopher that is, check my avatar.

 

[Souron]

I understand where you are coming from, but I wouldn't call it a known truth.

Why not?

 

[Souron]

I am not trying to equate it with knowledge. To me, it is the difference in "I believe the sun came up this morning", and "I know the sun came up this morning." Most people take that simple fact for granted. Only the person who saw the actual sun rise knows for a certainty. IMO most people assume their faith, not really experience it or even know it. Allowing a fact instead of faith to be the starting point though, is my attempt to remove the concept of God (or any religion for that matter) altogether out of the equation. One can add that back in later, if they choose to. This is not about who is right or wrong.

It is about who believes in God, and who does not believe in God. Or further more, who believes in the concept of a god or who believes there are not any gods (has no belief in the concept of god-the common term for athiest). If one believes in God or not, that makes God a given. If you only believe in the concept of, then any god will do, or even the lack thereof. Nothing in this paragraph has to do with knowing though, it is still stuck in the belief or IMO the I can not say for certain stage.

I am trying to keep it in the reality common to posters here and not something just made up in my mind as to reality. Most of this is coming from what I think I know compared to what I am hearing other posters say they know or believe.

When did the notion about the sun revolving around the earth come into being? I would say that is a fact that was proven wrong, upon further revelation. The prevailing thought is that humans had no concept of the universe other than the sun came up in the east and went down in the west. The earth was their only focal point, until they had the tools to find out more facts on the matter. The fact that the earth revolves around the sun was there. No one had experienced the reality of it.

The fact boggles my mind that "we" have seen human created track marks on the surface of Mars. Do I know for a fact that they are there? Do I believe they are there? How do we determine if a fact is true or not? Can we know by believing? Or do we only know by knowing? That is my conundrum with human knowledge. At what point in time is a "fact" just a belief, common knowledge, reality, or proven wrong? Do they follow the same pattern, change, or were always there?

So you draw a sharp distinction between being told something happened from a trustworthy source, and experiencing it for yourself, and claim that the latter has a better claim for knowledge.

But aren't the senses fallible? Can you not hallucinate?

No.
I won't define knowledge.
I prefer the "sometimes I know it when I see it" approach.

As should anyone who knows a few things about cognitive psychology on the one hand, and the long philosophical controversies in epistemology on the other. Cognitive psychology provides truly massive amounts of evidence that the cognitions we can perform far outstrip those we can encapsulate in a formula. We recognize objects, but typically have no clue how we recognize objects - that's a big part of why Machine Vision algorithms were so hard to develop, for example. There is no reason to think that "knowledge" is among the few things we recognize by applying a consciously accessible formula.

If you want to understand knowledge, I recommend getting out of the armchair for a long while, and into the psych lab (or psych library).

So knowledge is a property of the mind?

 

[timtofly]

So you draw a sharp distinction between being told something happened from a trustworthy source, and experiencing it for yourself, and claim that the latter has a better claim for knowledge.

But aren't the senses fallible? Can you not hallucinate?

So knowledge is a property of the mind?

Most knowledge is taken for granted. All of knowledge is out there to be experienced. I do not think that it matters who experiences it. The more people who experience it can agree together to believe it. Knowledge is not power unless people decide to keep it from others. We can even know a fact and then forget it later.

My take on human knowledge in post 27 is not defining knowledge. It is how humans relate to and accept knowledge. Yes, the senses are fallible, and hallucination is real. Some "truths" will never be realized by all and may stay mere belief. Some people refuse facts and will never even believe them. No one has personal insight on truth just by themselves. There are others who hold the same, in evidence of their own experiences. Now if hundreds of people experience the same hallucination at the same time, is it a hallucination? Can the same hallucination manifest hundreds of times over hundreds of years? From what I have learned each brain is unique, but even if every brain was the same, could experiences line up in such away as to produce the exact same hallucination over and over again?

The mind is the place where knowledge is sorted out, and "stored". I do think that knowledge is also handled sub-consciously, but the mind in and of itself is not the originator of knowledge. I also hold that there is sub-conscious input that mere humanity is not aware of, but reacts to. Fear and other emotions bring this out. An irrational fear is one that no one can explain, but something in the past happened that put it there un-consciously and that is why it cannot be explained.

 

[lovett]

"It won't work, but I'll give it a try"

I don't see why you would be so pessimistic, really. We've only been doing this for abound fifty years. Before Gettier's paper we didn't talk about it that much, and when we did we thought that Plato was basically right; knowledge was justified true belief.

Since Gettier great progress has been made. We discovered that additional conditions regarding defeat helped a little, but not that much. We saw that causal accounts of knowledge seemed much better than JBT, but has pretty significant flaws. Then we discovered the counterfactuals. Great strides were made here. We found that truth-tracking accounts of knowledge, though far superior to causal accounts, weren't quite up to scratch. Counterfactual accounts of knowledge were greatly improved when we introduced safety conditions. Safety makes for very robust accounts of knowledge. In fact, I know of no counter-examples to certain safety analyses of knowledge.

In the lass decade or so we have also started looking at knowledge from a normative perspective. Many people have become interested in epistemic virtue and how this fits into an account of knowledge. There work has been illuminating , even if it shall short of reductive analysis.

From this perspective, I think the prospects of a reductive analysis of knowledge are rather good.

 

[Global Skeptic]

Why not?

Well, to me it is a core assumption or if you like dogmatic assertion from which we can construct different accounts of the meaning of life. So since I am a skeptic, I don't use knowledge and truth, but rather absurd/meaningless/doesn't make sense and meaningful/makes sense.
"Man is the measure of all things: of things which are, that they are, and of things which are not, that they are not." Protagoras
Measure equals the cognitive process of absurd/meaningless/doesn't make sense and meaningful/makes sense.

 

[Borachio]

For as the old hermit of Prague that never saw pen and ink very wittily said to a niece of King Gorboduc:

"That that is, is. For what is 'that' but 'that'? And 'is' but 'is'?"

Twelfth Night

 

[Global Skeptic]

For as the old hermit of Prague that never saw pen and ink very wittily said to a niece of King Gorboduc:

"That that is, is. For what is 'that' but 'that'? And 'is' but 'is'?"

Twelfth Night

To me that is analytical a priori The fun starts with that is a thing, that is a person, that is a right, that is right, that is wrong and the list goes on.

 

[Souron]

Well, to me it is a core assumption or if you like dogmatic assertion from which we can construct different accounts of the meaning of life. So since I am a skeptic, I don't use knowledge and truth, but rather absurd/meaningless/doesn't make sense and meaningful/makes sense.
"Man is the measure of all things: of things which are, that they are, and of things which are not, that they are not." Protagoras
Measure equals the cognitive process of absurd/meaningless/doesn't make sense and meaningful/makes sense.

The assertion that I exist seems stronger, more certain, than other assertions of the same category. We assert that our senses usually reflect reality. We assert the principle of induction. We assert that some reality exists outside our minds. What puts the assertion that I exist above all these? If it's just like the others, why are we more confident of it?

Why is it not meaningful to call that assertion known?

 

[warpus]

Yes. But my take on this is "What can we be certain of?"

How paranoid you choose to be about the eventual conclusion that knowledge can never be certain is up to you.

I mean, at the highest possible level of skepticism and paranoia you at least have to conclude that something is definitely going on. That is fairly odd in itself but I really see no need to overcomplicate matters unnecessarily by introducing behind-the-scenes actors who run the universe or a matrix-like scenario where your mind is the only real one. You might as well start theorizing that everyone else's mind is controlled by a hyperdimensional whale using a priority queue.

So yes, the only thing you can really ever be certain of is that you exist (and some people would even deny that)... But that doesn't mean that the position that you are the only mind is a sensible one.