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From: sarge@thirdi.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: The nature of knowledge
Message-ID: <51@thirdi.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 6-Jul-87 00:47:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: thirdi.51
Posted: Mon Jul  6 00:47:06 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 7-Jul-87 00:38:52 EDT
References: <3587e521.44e6@apollo.uucp> <680@gargoyle.UChicago.EDU> <1022@water.UUCP>
Reply-To: sarge@thirdi.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode)
Distribution: world
Organization: Institute for Research in Metapsychlogy
Lines: 103
Keywords: knowledge belief truth certainty
Summary: What's "Philosophical knowledge"?

In article <1022@water.UUCP> jfbuss@water.waterloo.edu (Jonathan Buss) writes:
>
>There are three things here:  what we have "knowledge" of (in the
>philosophical sense), what we say we "know," and our criteria for
>deciding what things to put in the second category.

I'm pleased you concur with the distinction between knowledge and the criteria
for deciding what we know.  I think it's an important distinction.  One could
arrive at a piece of knowledge by a variety of different paths (e.g. you cold
see it on TV, see it with your eyes, hear it, figure it out, etc.) and it
could still be the same piece of knowledge (e.g. the knowledge that Kennedy was
shot).

I'm not entirely sure I follow what you're saying when you talk about
"philosophical knowledge" as a different sort of knowledge.  Do you mean that
when an ordinary person says "I know X", he is saying something different from
what a *philosopher* is saying when he says, "I know X."?  What's unclear is
what the special *philosophical* significance of the word "knowledge" is.  I'd
be interested to hear your views on the subject.

The meaning of "know" I am using relates to the knowledge that we operate on
in our everyday life, in all of our various activities, the knowledge that
makes a practical difference in our lives, the knowledge that we are aware of
experiencing.

What is meant by "philosophical knowledge", perhaps, might be *provable*
knowledge, i.e. knowledge whose truth can be demonstrated to others, as many
(perhaps most) kinds of personal knowledge cannot. For instance, I have a
certain idea in my head, e.g. I'm thinking of a number from 1 to 10.  I know
which number I have in my head with great certainty (6, actually), but I'm at
a loss to know how I could prove the truth of that belief to you.  So would
that not be knowledge, in the philosophical sense?  On the other hand, if I
assert that I have a cit500 terminal in front of me (which, unfortunately, I
do), *that* might be provable by demonstration.  So would that constitute
philosophical knowledge?  It seems to me, though, that the provability of a
belief has nothing to do with whether it is knowledge for an individual or not.
In many ways, my knowledge of which number is in my head is *more* certain and
philosophically respectable than my knowledge of the physical universe.

Another possibility is that, by "philosophical knowledge", you mean some sort
of *absolute* knowledge.  "The number I am thinking of" is about as close to
absolute knowledge as I can imagine.  I do not see, though, that this is
really any different from absolute certainty or absolute belief.  Those things
of which I am absolutely certain (at a given moment) are those things that I
know, at that moment.  Belief admits of degrees in exactly the same way that
knowledge does.  To say "I know X with certainty," is equivalent to saying "I
believe X with certainty"; to say "I know X is false" is equivalent to saying,
"I disbelieve X with certainty", and to say "I know X may be true," is
equivalent to "I have a moderate (or small) degree of certainty in the belief
that X."

Another possibility is that, in talking about "philosophical knowledge", you
are departing from the criterion I gave as the basis for my assertions, namely
that we were talking about an individual person at a particular moment.  When
you allow for a lapse of time or more than one individual, then the distinction
between knowledge and belief lies in disagreement.  If another person disagrees
with my "knowledge" at a given time, then he calls it a mere "belief" of mine.
If he agrees, he calls it "knowledge".  If I agree with a former belief of
mine, I call it "knowledge"; if I no longer agree with that belief, I call it a
mere belief (and a false one at that).

I don't know if I've covered what you meant by "philosophical knowledge", and
perhaps I should have been more patient and waited for you to explain what you
meant by the term before going off half-cocked.  But...

Also, "know", in everyday use, doesn't *necesarily* or even *usually* mean
"Stop arguing with me. I'm right, even though I can't give a good reason."
Seems to me it is more likely to mean "I believe this and I can prove it!".
Actually, "I know X" and the simple assertion "X" are essentially the same, and
would be verified in the same way.

>A distinction between knowledge and true beliefs is not made in
>everyday discourse.  We should not expect "know" in everyday use to
>refer to "knowledge" in the philosophical sense.
>
>If you want to argue that the philosophical concepts of "knowledge" and
>"true beliefs" are the same, that is proper.  But this is a different
>question from that of the common use of these words.
>

By the way, I don't think, from this particular, here-and-now individual
viewpoint, that one can make a valid distinction between belief and true
belief.  To a person at a given time, *all* his beliefs are true beliefs (see
my "motto" below).  They only become false if he later disagrees with them (at
which point they are, of course, no longer beliefs, but *former* beliefs), or
if others disagree with them (at which points, they are not beliefs for those
others).  So knowledge = belief = true belief, from the viewpoint of an
individual at a given time.

But, to me, the kicker is that the knowledge a person has *is* knowledge he has
at a given time.  He never has knowledge otherwise than at a given time or
otherwise than as an individual.  So it seems to me that that's what knowledge
*is*.  If knowledge were anything else, it owuld not be something that a person
could have, so what would be the point of it?
-- 
"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