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From: jfbuss@water.UUCP
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: The nature of knowledge
Message-ID: <1029@water.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 8-Jul-87 11:00:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: water.1029
Posted: Wed Jul  8 11:00:35 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 9-Jul-87 06:12:56 EDT
References: <3587e521.44e6@apollo.uucp> <680@gargoyle.UChicago.EDU> <1022@water.UUCP> <51@thirdi.UUCP> <121@cavell.UUCP>
Reply-To: jfbuss@water.waterloo.edu (Jonathan Buss)
Distribution: world
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 29
Keywords: knowledge belief truth certainty

In article <121@cavell.UUCP> jiml@cavell.UUCP (Jim Laycock) writes:
>  Consider a much smaller scenario--one in which I have but three beliefs:
>
>	1. Bel(p)
>	2. Bel(q)
>	3. Bel(~(p^q))
>
>Surely if such a situation were to come about, you'd have no trouble
>considering me to be inconsistent.  Yet my proposal is that we all
>entertain a much greater version of precisely the same notion.  Are
>we inconsistent, or just unreflective (are certain beliefs not questioned)?

A friend of mine claims the following happened to him:

1) He believed that he would run a particular errand at 2:00pm Friday.
2) He believed that he would attend his 2-hour class, which met
	Fridays starting at 1:00.

These beliefs co-existed quite comfortably for several days, because
he did not perform any logical analysis of them.  (For example, he did
not keep a planning calendar.)

I think that this kind of situation is common and not an exception.
Although the beliefs that are never tested or questioned are few, many
beliefs are not fully examined for a considerable period.  Hence one's
set of beliefs may be formally inconsistent.