Knowledge

[fast]

I'm outside and see my cat run into the house as the front door is opened.

Let's assume I have a justified belief that my cat is inside.

Scenario 1: the cat didn't run out the back door, so my justified belief is true
Scenario 2: the cat did run out the back door, so my justified belief is false.

Scenario 1: this is more than having a justified belief
Scenario 2: this is not more than having a justified belief

In both scenarios, I have a justified belief, but I know what I'm justified in believing in only one of the scenarios.

Your real world example is scenario 1

What is the difference? I cannot see that there is a difference for anyone at the time referenced in the the example.

It is a difference when retelling the case: when you have perspective of an omniscient god, but it is of no significance at the time of the event. Also note that the difference between that you know and you dont know has nothing to do with you. It is solely depending what the cat does. Thus the cat decides what you know or doesnt know. Thus it is pretty stupid to attribute this property "knowledge" to you.

Not only did I justifiably believe the cat was in the house (shortly after it entered), but what I justifiably believed at the time was true. That's what makes it so that I knew the cat was in the house. Clearly, had the cat ran out unbeknownst to me, then I would not have known like I thought I had known--it would not have been a justified true belief but rather a justified false belief.

Knowledge does not require that I must know P is true.

If I know, then P is true. (True)
If I know, then P must be true. (False)

I find it silly to think we can dispense of the truth condition. What are we going to do ... Say we had a justifiable belief but continue to say we knew even after it's been shown to be false? Or, do you want to dispense of the idea that we know anything at all? That too is asinine, and outside of philosophical circles, we know things, and the use of the phrase, "but do we really know" with the word "know" accentuated merely suggests that people have a tendency to conflate knowledge with absolute certainty, but guess what, certainty (of that kind) is not a necessary condition of knowledge--it's a necessary condition of infallibility. People who ordinarily claim to know things don't intend to confer the notion they can't be wrong. Differences: can't be wrong is one thing...am not wrong another thing.

 

[Juma]

Or, do you want to dispense of the idea that we know anything at all?

Yes! Because it tends to make peole make the wrong conclusions about meaning, intention etc.

Using the godlike omniscient perspektive of the historyteller fools us in believing that there is an actual truth and we feels like that we somehow could have accessed this.

The problem is that "truths" are statements about the world and those only exist in minds.

There is no "truth" out there.

outside of philosophical circles, we know things,

Yes, but that is because we do not use the word "know" in any rigorous way. I have already shown that using the common philosophical definition of the word then it is not really you that knows, it is not a property of you, it is a property of the system as a whole.

In common usage the phrase "i know" just means "i'm feel pretty sure it is like this".

 

[fast]

In common usage the phrase "i know" just means "i'm feel pretty sure it is like this".

But it means more than that. We acknowledge we were mistaken when things were not as we felt pretty sure they were. Things we believe to be true need not be true to justifiably claim they are, but certainly many of the things we justifiably believe to be true are in fact true. You have this idea that because we cannot be certain that the truth condition is met that we therefore can't know anything, but I contend that just because some of the things we believe to know to be true are instead false, we do in fact know things because some of the things we justifiably believe to be true are in fact true. Just because we are not certain which of the things we think we know we do in fact know doesn't mean we don't know the things we do. Never is it the case that our justified beliefs equate to knowledge when those beliefs are false, and although we aren't certain which are true or false, it nevertheless remains the case we know (save Gettier examples) some of things we justifiably believe, as some of them things are not false. Do you think perhaps our inability to be certain of just which of the justifiable beliefs are true is reason enough to deny knowledge? I think you think that, and I am very much inclined to think it's an error to deny measly knowledge in the absence of mighty infallibility.

 

[fromderinside]

It seems to me that knowledge is a bit like infinity in that we know it is impossible to denote them yet it is possible to logically (mathematically) specify their parameters. Like infinity knowledge is impossible to hold since holding knowledge requires having possession of everything there is. Knowledge is more practically unknowable since humans have divined the term. Yet humans can never exist for all time nor have in possession all things nor be in all places regardless of whether than means ever or once or at once.

More personally humans can never know a thing because humans can never, in their minds, hold the thing. Minds are containers receiving information through senses and feelings from what is going on which we are not entirely aware and from sensors that are noisy and incomplete. Minds depend on these kinds of information. That being the case a mind knowing, processing faulty impressions, cannot accomplish the task it has set for itself.

OK.

A basis has been set. Yet a mind, that of Plato, devised a system through which he proclaimed one could know. It was unfortunate for him that he did know know all that we now understand. Had he been aware he would not have attempted the impossible. Still, philosophical game players have been at it in pretty aggressive terms over the twentieth century according to Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Fortunately some have put the topic to rest. I will rest my case with theirs.

 

[ryan]

The problem is that "truths" are statements about the world and those only exist in minds.

There is no "truth" out there.

It seems as though you are giving reality a duality between universe (body) and mind. Is there something special or different about the mind?

Isn't the truth in someone else's mind something that is "out there"?

 

[Speakpigeon]

Knowing P and knowing that I know P are different. If the conditions of knowledge are met, then I know P, but Knowing P is insufficient for knowing that I know P.

If by certain, you mean confident, then yes, you're right, being certain that I know P doesn't mean that I know P.

If I believe P and am not justified in believing P, then I shouldn't claim to know P, but if I believe P and am justified in my belief, then even should it be the case that I might be wrong, it's acceptable to claim that I know P.

I don't see what acceptability has to do with it. Either you know or you don't. If you claim you know p then you should know that you know p, otherwise you are just lying or possibly being very confused about what knowledge consist of.

If I claim to know P based on a justified belief, then although I may not know that I know (afterall, I might be mistaken), the necessary conditions have been met --if they have (and I therefore know P); alternatively, if I claim to know P based on a justified belief, and if that justified belief is false, then although it was acceptable to claim that I know P, I never knew P when I thought I did, let alone know that I know P. Notice in neither case did I know that I Know P, but in the first case, I did know P ... All conditions were met.

There are no "necessary conditions" to knowledge. You know or you don't.

I don't know of any acceptable specification of what justification may consist of. In the examples discussed, the sun rising and the cat being inside the house, I certainly don't accept that one would be justified in holding the related beliefs, and I don't accept that one would have knowledge in these cases.

As long as it is possible to be wrong, you just don't know. To know that it's not possible you would need to know reality in its entirety (not even just the universe!) and we clearly don't.

The fact is that we all treat other people's claims to knowledge as beliefs. We give justifications to support our claims to knowledge and we request them to decide whether some claim should be believed. It's all to do we convincing each other, nothing to do with actual knowledge.

Yet we all accept that if X knows p then p is true. The notion of JTB is merely an effort to make a distinction between naive belief and justified belief, but this is no good reason to downgrade the notion of knowledge to that of true justified belief.
EB

 

[Juma]

Just because we are not certain which of the things we think we know we do in fact know doesn't mean we don't know the things we do.

A property which we by definition cannot know if we have is useless.

 

[fast]

I don't see what acceptability has to do with it. Either you know or you don't. If you claim you know p then you should know that you know p, otherwise you are just lying or possibly being very confused about what knowledge consist of.

If I claim to know P based on a justified belief, then although I may not know that I know (afterall, I might be mistaken), the necessary conditions have been met --if they have (and I therefore know P); alternatively, if I claim to know P based on a justified belief, and if that justified belief is false, then although it was acceptable to claim that I know P, I never knew P when I thought I did, let alone know that I know P. Notice in neither case did I know that I Know P, but in the first case, I did know P ... All conditions were met.

There are no "necessary conditions" to knowledge. You know or you don't.

I don't know of any acceptable specification of what justification may consist of. In the examples discussed, the sun rising and the cat being inside the house, I certainly don't accept that one would be justified in holding the related beliefs, and I don't accept that one would have knowledge in these cases.

As long as it is possible to be wrong, you just don't know. To know that it's not possible you would need to know reality in its entirety (not even just the universe!) and we clearly don't.

The fact is that we all treat other people's claims to knowledge as beliefs. We give justifications to support our claims to knowledge and we request them to decide whether some claim should be believed. It's all to do we convincing each other, nothing to do with actual knowledge.

Yet we all accept that if X knows p then p is true. The notion of JTB is merely an effort to make a distinction between naive belief and justified belief, but this is no good reason to downgrade the notion of knowledge to that of true justified belief.
EB

Lying is the utterance of a falsehood with the intent to deceive. If I believe that I know something to be true, and if I subsequently claim to know something based on that belief, then if what I claim to be true turns out to be false, then there is no intent to deceive, so not every falsehood that is claimed is therefore a lie; we usually call them mistakes.

No necessary conditions to knowledge? That's a new one. Not sure what to say there. How about belief? Knowledge implies belief, so there's one. It sounds kinda weird to say, "I know it but don't believe it". The only exception I'm aware of is when the term "belief" is used to express disbelief--but that's just an alternative use of the word "belief".

It's not just a distinction between beliefs that are justifiable and beliefs that aren't. There is also the issue of truth. Recall, not all justified beliefs are true, nor are all justified beliefs false. Indeed, not all unjustified beliefs are true either ... .

Your conception of knowledge is vastly different than how it's ordinarily used. But, what I find most puzzling is how there is such a propensity for some to maintain such similar extremes views. Why doesn't the fact that you're aware that you're confusing knowledge with certainty spark the drive to admit error? How can you say things like, "As long as it is possible to be wrong, you just don't know."? I'm not using "certainty" as I would "confidence".

 

[Speakpigeon]

Lying is the utterance of a falsehood with the intent to deceive. If I believe that I know something to be true, and if I subsequently claim to know something based on that belief, then if what I claim to be true turns out to be false, then there is no intent to deceive, so not every falsehood that is claimed is therefore a lie; we usually call them mistakes.

I'm not sure what you are trying to get at and how that relate to my post...

Further, you are slightly off here.

First, lying is the utterance of what you think is a falsehood. "Deception" is also the wrong word since we sometime lie for the good of other people and that is no "deception" except in the redundant sense of uttering what you think is a falsehood. So, it can be scrapped.

Second, if you just believe that p, believe you don't know that p, but claim you know that p then it's a lie. Ok, it's one we all do all the time but notheless it's a lie. We do it to convince people without having to go into proving that something is true when we could not possibly prove that it is true. Many people do that, e.g. politicians, CEOs, scientists, philosophers. For less sophisticated people it's the different case entirely of making the mistake of claiming that you know just because you believe you know.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

No necessary conditions to knowledge? That's a new one. Not sure what to say there. How about belief? Knowledge implies belief, so there's one. It sounds kinda weird to say, "I know it but don't believe it".

Just because we don't say "I know it but don't believe it" therefore belief entails knowledge?! You would need to explain.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Your conception of knowledge is vastly different than how it's ordinarily used.

There are plenty of things that are vastly different from what we may be tempted to infer based on what people ordinarily say.

Also, people lie all the time because they couldn't afford not to.

And, my conception of knowledge is precisely based on how people speak and my view explains the facts.

JTB isn't based on how people speak. Can you even justify why JTB should be accepted?
EB

 

[fast]

No necessary conditions to knowledge? That's a new one. Not sure what to say there. How about belief? Knowledge implies belief, so there's one. It sounds kinda weird to say, "I know it but don't believe it".

Just because we don't say "I know it but don't believe it" therefore belief entails knowledge?! You would need to explain.
EB

If I told you that there was something that I know to be true, wouldn't you find it strange for me to also inform you that the very thing I say that I know to be true is not something that I believe to be true?

Knowledge implies belief, but belief does not imply knowledge.

 

[Philos]

Folks,

I think that Wittgenstein had something to say about the justified true belief model of knowledge but I can't remember what it was.

Alex.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Just because we don't say "I know it but don't believe it" therefore belief entails knowledge?! You would need to explain.
EB

If I told you that there was something that I know to be true, wouldn't you find it strange for me to also inform you that the very thing I say that I know to be true is not something that I believe to be true?

Knowledge implies belief, but belief does not imply knowledge.

It does not follow. Whatever we may say or not say, find strange to say or not, it does not follow that belief is a necessary condition of knowledge.

I also don't think that I will necessarily believe something just because I know it.

I think what happens here is that you happen to believe that the JTB definition of knowledge is true and you try to justify your belief by producing anecdotal evidence that this is the case. Yet, how would you know that it is always the case, and so how would you know that belief is indeed a necessary condition of knowledge?

This is typical of how human beings reason about reality but unfortunately it does not work. Obviously, you remain free to believe and feel justified in your belief but that has nothing to do with whether knowledge is or isn't what the JTB definition says it is.

Truth is a relation between a statement and the world and therefore it is independent from whatever we may believe, including our belief Bn+1 that our belief Bn is justified. In other words, we don't have access to whether a statement is true or not and no amount of justification will change that fact unless the world be a very different place from what we, including scientists, usually believe.

The question is not whether there are cases where we do know something but whether we can claim to know some particular something and that is what JTB does not achieve (although it also doesn't even show in principle that there are cases where we would indeed know something even if we couldn't tell that we did). Without any particular case where we could infer conclusively that we know something, the JTB theory can neither be verified to be true nor false, an empty vessel lost in thick fog.

I also believe that we don't have any knowledge at all about the material world and if so then there will never be any case where JBT could ever be somehow put to the test. In other words, you should forever remain locked inside the logical Neverland of JTB.

But maybe I'm wrong.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Folks,

I think that Wittgenstein had something to say about the justified true belief model of knowledge but I can't remember what it was.

Alex.

I may be wrong but I have this idea that he initially went along with Frege/Russell's idea of reference but then turned to a version of Quine's view of knowledge as a self-confirming system of beliefs. Something like that...
EB