Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!ptsfa!ames!ucbcad!zen!ucla-cs!rutgers!gatech!mcnc!duke!mps From: mps@duke.UUCP Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.tech Subject: Re: The nature of knowledge Message-ID: <9889@duke.cs.duke.edu> Date: Thu, 9-Jul-87 00:16:11 EDT Article-I.D.: duke.9889 Posted: Thu Jul 9 00:16:11 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 11-Jul-87 16:12:06 EDT References: <3587e521.44e6@apollo.uucp> <680@gargoyle.UChicago.EDU> Reply-To: mps@duke.UUCP (Michael P. Smith) Distribution: world Organization: Duke University, Durham NC Lines: 102 Keywords: knowledge, belief, truth Summary: No false knowledge In article <54@thirdi.UUCP> sarge@thirdi.UUCP (Sarge Gerbode) writes: >In article <9877@duke.cs.duke.edu> mps@duke.UUCP (Michael P. Smith) writes: >> >>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. >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 take it that you too now believe that some of your beliefs are false. So if knowledge and belief are still indiscernable to you, it must be because you believe that you have false knowledge. Here it's difficult to know what to say. For myself, and I should have thought most people, truth is a necessary condition of knowledge. (Or at least of what we might call "propositional" or "theoretical" knowledge, as opposed to, say, knowing how to wiggle your ears.) When I find out that something I believed I knew is false, I don't say I knew it, but it was false. I say I thought I knew it, but I was wrong. (Well, there is a usage for the first. But its non-literal status is indicated by the obligatory stress on 'knew'. Ain't English wonderful?) >Re: your having knowledge which will never turn out to be false -- This section is based on a misinterpretation. I don't believe knowledge has to be absolutely certain or 100% probable. Knowledge can never be false for the same sort of trivial reason that a native Texan can't have been born in Rhode Island. >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). 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. I should be interested to know if any non-Californians talk like Sarge. >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. Here's your reasoning as I understand it: Consider a man with gun 10 yards from the side of a barn. Since virtually any bullet, however well-aimed, might, due to unforeseen circumstances, miss the target, we should have to say that a hit is impossible or unlikely. All that follows from the fact that we might be wrong is that we might be wrong. How does the mere possibility of error suddenly become the impossibility of avoiding error? >Perhaps you could provide an example of something you regard as knowledge, as >opposed to belief. 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 are mammals, that Great Britain has a monarch but France does not, that, ounce-for-ounce, ice cream has more calories that carrots, 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. Let me suggest a point that you might be trying to make. Suppose with the philosophers that knowledge is something like a well-founded true belief. It is commonly thought that two out the three can be subjectively checked, that is, that we can check "from the inside" whether we believe something, and whether our belief is based on sufficient evidence. (Both these claims would be challenged by current naturalistic epistemologists.) But we have no way of checking the truth of our beliefs other than by accumulating evidence. Truth is not directly checkable. So well-founded false beliefs and well-founded true beliefs are subjectively indiscernable in the sense that we can't tell them apart from the inside. This doesn't mean that there is no difference between them, that true belief = false belief, nor that they are the same from anyone's viewpoint. It simply means that when we ask whether or not we know something, we answer three questions with two answers. Do we believe it? Sure. Do we have enough evidence? Yup. Is it true? Well, look at all this evidence! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "All nature actually is nothing but a nexus of appearances according to rules; and there is nothing at all *without rules*. Immanuel Kant Michael P. Smith ARPA mps@duke.cs.duke.edu ----------------------------------------------------------------------------