Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!husc6!mit-eddie!ll-xn!cit-vax!ucla-cs!zen!ucbvax!hplabs!pyramid!thirdi!sarge From: sarge@thirdi.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode) Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech Subject: Re: The nature of knowledge Message-ID: <57@thirdi.UUCP> Date: Fri, 10-Jul-87 16:52:48 EDT Article-I.D.: thirdi.57 Posted: Fri Jul 10 16:52:48 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 12-Jul-87 12:52:50 EDT References: <3587e521.44e6@apollo.uucp> <680@gargoyle.UChicago.EDU> Reply-To: sarge@thirdi.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode) Distribution: world Organization: Institute for Research in Metapsychology Lines: 107 Keywords: knowledge, belief, truth Summary: Semantic problems exist with "knowledge". In article <9889@duke.cs.duke.edu> mps@duke.UUCP (Michael P. Smith) writes: >In article <54@thirdi.UUCP> sarge@thirdi.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode) writes: >>So what you say is quite correct, that I can believe that I have at >>least one false belief, without [believing any] any of my *specific* >>beliefs [to be] false, so far as I am concerned. This doesn't >>invalidate, however, the equivalence of knowledge and belief, from a >>subjective viewpoint. >[my insertions] > >First, your admission above contradicts your motto, which was my main >point. Further, it certainly disproves the subjective equivalence of >knowledge and belief from my viewpoint, since I *do* believe I have >false beliefs, and I *don't* believe I have false knowledge, and in >fact I believe I don't have any false knowledge. If that's not >subjective non-equivalence, what is? I still don't see how my "motto" is violated here. I defy you to enumerate *any* false belief that you *currently* hold. You can entertain the notion that some of your beliefs are probably wrong, but you can't get down to cases about it. Any belief that is currently occupying your attention you must see as true (or probable). In other words, you must know it. This doesn't mean that, at some later time (maybe even the next minute) a belief you *held* (perhaps as recently as a minute ago) can turn out to be false. When you say that you think some of your beliefs are false, to me that means that you don't think some of them will stand the test of time. As I stated in my last reply to you, the saving grace that keeps us from being pig-headed is the willingness to reconsider the beliefs that we currently hold to see if they still hold after reconsideration. This means we must consider the possibility that, in general, our beliefs, or some of them, may be false. This doesn't mean we think any particular one is false. So I would say my motto holds for any belief you would care to mention. I feel I've somehow failed to communicate my point clearly. Much of the problem is, I feel, a semantic one, as I've indicated in other postings. I'm mindful of Wittgenstein's warning about the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of words. For instance, when you say: >I would say that it was widely *believed* in 14th century Europe that >tarantula venom produces melancholy best relieved by music and >dancing, not that it was widely *known*. [emphasis mine], I think there is a merely semantic problem. The reason you don't say it was widely *known* is that you don't currently believe that to be true. We generally don't apply the word "known", even to the past, when we don't agree with the past belief. But at the time, from the viewpoint of those who might have believed that stuff about tarantulas, this was known. In other words, I'm not saying that it "was known" from our current viewpoint, but that a person at the time would look at the world and say "It is known that ...", when describing his belief. Of course we don't consider that knowledge now -- because we don't believe, now, that it's the case. What's happening, I think, is that our language is not well adapted to consistently speaking from the viewpoint of an individual at a certain time (i.e. to a subjective viewpoint), but keeps tricking us into shifting back and forth from that viewpoint to the viewpoint of a (non-existent) omniscient observer. You say: >I know that I am sitting here, by this computer, wearing shorts, >holding this book in my hands, and so on. I know that FOL is complete >and compact, and higher-order logics are not. I know that whales ... >... >... that I might be wrong about any of these things. But I don't think I am, >else I wouldn't say that I know them. > What if it turned out you *were* wrong about one or all of these things (as, for instance, if it were a dream)? From your viewpoint at the time, you would, truthfully, say "I know these things." I don't doubt that you know those things now. But there is a potential future viewpoint from which you could say, "I believed those things". Anyway, I don't want to belabor this point. I think it's a semantic problem. I have no argument with your last paragraph. If knowledge is a: 1. Well-founded 2. True 3. Belief then I agree that (1) and (3) are all we *could* ever have to work with. We can never know whether our beliefs are "true" in some absolute sense (which subjectively means that we could never conceive of having to change our minds about them). Absent that, the truth of our ideas *is* our belief in them, from our own present viewpoint. The truth of others' ideas also *is* our belief in or agreement with *them*. For practical purposes, then knowledge *is* well-founded belief. But I think we can compress this even further. By "well-founded", you would have to mean "sufficient evidence". Sufficient for what? Sufficient to engender belief! But obviously, if you believe something, then the evidence must have been sufficient, for you, to engender your belief. Therefore, we can drop out (1) also an unnecessary, and we are left with (3), from the viewpoint of an individual at a specific time. Therefore, from this viewpoint (i.e. subjectively), knowledge is belief. I warned you that this was a Devil's Advocate position, didn't I? Prove me wrong! In other words, change my beliefs! By the way, Californians aren't *all* weird. Just most of us. -- "From his own viewpoint, no one ever has false beliefs; he only *had* false beliefs." Sarge Gerbode Institute for Research in Metapsychology 950 Guinda St. Palo Alto, CA 94301 UUCP: pyramid!thirdi!sarge