Speakpigeon said:
That's your angle. As I see it, knowledge implies true, i.e. if one knows that X, then it is true that X.
That's my position. Knowledge implies truth. That doesn't mean what you might think. If I do in fact know something (not just believe but in fact know), then what I believe is (is, is, is, is, is) true. That's my position. And, that's essentially what you just wrote: "if one knows that X, then it is true that X." But, that's not really your position. I'll say it again: if I know P, then P is true. That's my position. MY position. Your position is different. Substantively different. Your view is: if I know P, then P must be true. That's not my position. Not mine. Nope nope. That's yours, not mine. Mine is (is is is) and yours is must (must must must). Necessary truth? No, not my perspective at all.
You have admitted that it is possible that one claim knowledge only to retract that claim later.
To err is human. When I believe something, I may be wrong, but if I know something, then I am not wrong. If I claim to know, the claim doesn't imply truth. Still, if (if!) I do in fact actually know, then what I believe is (there's that 'is' again) without a shadow of doubt indeed true.
Not all strongly justified beliefs have the same truth value. Some are true while some are false. I think I know them both, but only the ones I'm not mistaken about count as actual knowledge.
And you've made no distinction in that respect as to the object of knowledge. So you're as good as saying that if one knows that X, then it is not necessarily true that X, just like for beliefs.
Again, if I know P, then P is true, so you're right, I do not hold that if I know P, then necessarily, P is true.
To say that if one knows that X, then it is true that X means the same as saying that if one knows that X, then it is necessarily true that X. "Necessarily" here is only used for emphasis, not at all in any absolute, metaphysical sense. What would be different would be to say that if one knows that X, then it is true necessarily that X. "Necessarily true" and "true necessarily" don't mean the same at all. And this should be obvious to you of all people.
In fact, personally, I don't even understand what it would mean to say that if one knows that X, then it is true necessarily that X. I certainly understand "
if one knew that X, then it would be true necessarily that X", but that would be something else entirely.
So, no, you're just plain wrong, my view of knowledge doesn't include any idea of anything being true necessarily.
So, in any case, we seem to agree on the basic property of knowledge, i.e. that if one knows that X, then it is true that X. So, for example, if I know that God exists, then it is true that God exists. Now, please look carefully here. Once we've all agreed on that, can we claim that anybody knows that Gods exists? No, obviously, we couldn't.
So, now your position is to claim you may have some justification. As I understand your position, you can claim to know just because you have what you believe to be sufficient justification. So, clearly, now your problem is whether you know that your justification is really good enough. You may believe is but so what? So, me, I don't see any difference between your view of knowledge with the ordinary view of belief. Again, all beliefs can be justified if you put your mind to it and yet they're just beliefs. Your view of knowledge is not different from the ordinary notion of belief because each of your claims to knowledge relies on a belief, the belief that you have some proper justification to believe. So, you have one nice little piece of infinite regress which makes sure that you don't know that you know. You start from claiming knowledge, which requires justification, which you have not only to believe but claim to know is true, so now you need another level of justification, and so on ad infinitum. So, in effect, all you can really claim,
even if it were true that you knew, is not that you know, but that you believe you know. You would be unable to prove conclusively that you know. Maybe you know, but maybe God exists, and if God exists, well, it's true that God exist. Big deal.
You hold knowledge to a standard that only an infallible person can obtain. The bar is not supposed to be so unattainable. People (non philosophers) don't typically go around saying and believing they know nothing.
Yes, and I've already explained why that is. This is because we human beings have an objective interest in lying, or even in deceiving ourselves that we know stuff, and it does in fact looks like we sometimes do. So, we keep pretending. And when we pretend to know, who is going to be so bold as to claim we don't? It's easy to get away with it, not least because we all claim we know when we don't. We are even comforted when our initially little justified belief gathers support from other people, which seems to increase our justification, although it couldn't possibly increase the truth of our belief.
You're confusing usage of the word "knowledge", which should tell us what we mean by it, and our behaviour when we use it. People can behave badly but that doesn't affect what we mean by knowledge, just like the fact that most of us have probably stolen something at some point in their lives doesn't affect what we mean by "honesty".
But, hey, you believe what you please.
EB