Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!ptsfa!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!hplabs!pyramid!thirdi!sarge From: sarge@thirdi.UUCP Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech Subject: Re: The nature of knowledge Message-ID: <54@thirdi.UUCP> Date: Wed, 8-Jul-87 13:48:31 EDT Article-I.D.: thirdi.54 Posted: Wed Jul 8 13:48:31 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 11-Jul-87 13:52:47 EDT References: <3587e521.44e6@apollo.uucp> <680@gargoyle.UChicago.EDU> <1022@water.UUCP> <51@thirdi.UUCP> <9877@duke.cs.duke.edu> Reply-To: sarge@thirdi.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode) Distribution: world Organization: Third Eye Software, Palo Alto, CA Lines: 58 Keywords: knowledge belief truth probability Summary: A consideration of probabilities and reconsideration may help. In article <9877@duke.cs.duke.edu> mps@duke.UUCP (Michael P. Smith) writes: >>false beliefs." > >Each of my beliefs I believe to be true, naturally. But I do not >"here-and-now" believe that all my beliefs are true. Such optimism >would be epistemically irrational. "From my own viewpoint," not only >have I *had* false beliefs, I surely *have* some now. I have never >had any false knowledge, however, nor do I now. > I think a couple of points will help, here. The first is that belief (and knowledge) is often not absolute, but admits of degrees. One operates in terms of probabilities, from complete impossibility through various degrees of unlikelihood through various degrees of likelihood to complete certainty. Probably most of the things I know (or believe), I know (or believe) without complete certainty. If I have beliefs a, b, c, ... , n, with an average probability of 99%, the probability of all of them being true may be vanishingly small (multiplying together the separate probabilities). So what you say is quite correct, that I can believe that I have at least one false beliefs, without any of my *specific* beliefs being false, so far as I am concerned. This doesn't invalidate, however, the equivalence of knowledge and belief, from a subjective viewpoint. This is also a way of looking at Jim Laycock's question whether you could believe A, believe B, but not believe A & B. I think you can do so without inconsistency by looking at it in terms of probabilities. Re: your having knowledge which will never turn out to be false -- This would have to mean that you have assigned a 100% probability to that item -- i.e. complete certainty -- or it could mean that it's a fixed belief that you are unwilling ever to reconsider. So in this sense, "knowledge" would be a belief that one will never change a certain belief. I don't know whether one could have something of which one is absolutely certain and yet reconsider it. This seems to be the method of Hume, the Cartesian Reduction and also Husserl's phenomenological reduction. Certainly, things that were at one time regarded as absolutely certain (such as the Newtonian universe) are now considered fallacious. I think one should say that these items *were* knowledge (or beliefs) at the time and are now not knowledge (or beliefs). Otherwise, since virtually any opinion, however certain (excepting, perhaps, tautologies and some mathematical truths), can turn out later, in the light of further data, to be false, we would have to say that knowledge (in the sense of something that will always be true) is impossible or unlikely. Of course, once one has reconsidered a belief, one has entered into a new moment in time, and the original premise of "from an individual viewpoint at a given time" is violated. Perhaps you could provide an example of something you regard as knowledge, as opposed to belief. That might bring things down to a more concrete and understandable level. -- "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