Clergicide:

[Clergicide]

It doesn't matter. You directly observed something directly observable as a tree, and that's strong enough evidence for justification.

 

According to whom?

 

Stanford and Yale Philosophy departments.

 

This passage states that justification is a property of JTB and not a process.:

 

It is important not to misunderstand this question. When advocates of the JTB approach say that knowledge requires justification, they don't mean to suggest that, if S has knowledge of p, S has engaged in the activity of justifying, or attempted to show that p is true. Rather, what the justification condition requires is merely that a belief that qualifies as knowledge have the property of being justified. It can have that property even if S did not engage in the activity of justifying her belief that p.

 

Evidentialists say justification is if and only if it fits the subjects evidence. Direct observation meets this requirement. Other schools suggest that there are other ways to achieve justification, but none of them seem to reject that evidence is among them.

[Clergicide]

If we're done with JTB, I'd like to discuss belief, faith, and knowledge in reference to Truth/Reality.

 

The absolute truth of something would conform to it's actuality, it's ultimate reality. But you don't seem to agree with that usage, so let's just go with the term reality.

 

Reality is the actual state of matter.

 

I think we both accept that knowledge, the body of truths and facts acquired in time through human experience, is incomplete, in that we haven't learned everything possible. As such, any claim made to explain the reality of something will always be incomplete. Therefore any such claim can only approximate it's reality.

 

Knowledge as: awareness or understanding esp. of an act, a fact, or the truth.

 

-The facts or truth, being the closest approximation to reality we can make with current understanding.

 

Science, as a branch of knowledge, actively strives to push 'what is known' closer toward 'what is reality' through testing and observation.

 

So what then is belief, and faith?

 

Belief, if not synonymous with faith, is at least an extreamly poor proposition. Epistemologically we've seen that this is the case, because belief alone is lacking truth, and justification.

 

Faith, and the form of belief it defines, then is holding as truth some explanation of reality that is inconsistent with knowledge.

[Asimov]

Belief, if not synonymous with faith, is at least an extreamly poor proposition. Epistemologically we've seen that this is the case, because belief alone is lacking truth, and justification.

 

I am not in disagreement with that.

 

 

I think we both accept that knowledge, the body of truths and facts acquired in time through human experience, is incomplete, in that we haven't learned everything possible. As such, any claim made to explain the reality of something will always be incomplete. Therefore any such claim can only approximate it's reality.

 

I do accept that. Would you agree that there are absolute truths, but not absolute knowledge?

[Clergicide]

I do accept that. Would you agree that there are absolute truths, but not absolute knowledge?

 

I do agree with both.

[Asimov]

I do accept that. Would you agree that there are absolute truths, but not absolute knowledge?

 

I do agree with both.

 

Awesome, glad we got that cleared up.

 

 

Thanks, by the way, for that article you linked me to. I only had time to skim over a few parts but it was great!

 

I gotta read it a few times through. It explained the Gettier problem better than any other article I've read.

[Clergicide]

Here's main sites I was looking at:

 

What is Epistemology? -Yale Department of Philosophy-

 

The Analysis of Knowledge -Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy-

 

The first is a general overview with links to tons of resources. The second is a comprehensive exploration of JTB. I think you'll like that second one.

 

This was fun.

[Asimov]

Entirely too much fun!

[♦ ficino ♦]

Hi guys, if I had more time, I'd request to be allowed to join in, but as life is, I can only throw a thought or two. On knowledge as justified true belief: how do we fit in knowledge of persons? If I know my friend, I don't normally think of my knowledge as a set of propositions, but as something more global and more elemental. If someone "knows" his wife in the biblical sense, it's not merely justified true belief! So my question is, how does knowledge of a person or thing by acquaintance jive with knowledge of propositions? Does it just collapse into a series of propositions about the person or thing, or are there elements of knowlege that are not propositional - maybe deeper than propositional knowledge?

 

Then there's knowledge as understanding. Knowledge as JTB is of a proposition, but understanding is of systems of things. Maybe understanding can be unpacked as a long series of "pieces" of knowledge of propositions, but I am not sure that the whole isn't greater than the sum of the parts. The surgeon who knows what to do at a point in operation may have a grasp of a whole that is greater than merely the addition of all the propositions he/she would maintain as true under questioning. I am fuzzy on this. Any thoughts? I'm interested partly because the word often translated as "knowledge" in Plato, i.e. episteme, is probably better translated as "understanding" - and the problems Plato deals with are more often problems of certifying expertise than they are problems just of justification of a belief as true.

 

Clergicide, sorry if you still hate philosophy. You've been doing it, though, these last few weeks.

[Clergicide]

Clergicide, sorry if you still hate philosophy. You've been doing it, though, these last few weeks.

 

I loathe it. But lemme see what I can do with your questions.

 

On knowledge as justified true belief: how do we fit in knowledge of persons? If I know my friend, I don't normally think of my knowledge as a set of propositions, but as something more global and more elemental.

 

'Know' in that sense means 'to be familiar or aquainted with'. Websters: Knowledge 1B(2)

This can be broken down into propositions, and be a form of 'knowledge'.

 

If someone "knows" his wife in the biblical sense, it's not merely justified true belief!

 

This is an archaic form, meaning sexual intercourse. Websters: Knowledge 3

It's an archaic, so it's not really part of the modern lexicon.

 

So my question is, how does knowledge of a person or thing by acquaintance jive with knowledge of propositions? Does it just collapse into a series of propositions about the person or thing, or are there elements of knowlege that are not propositional - maybe deeper than propositional knowledge?

 

There are concrete things you 'know' about your friend, and you can seperate out those elements. Like you know their hair color, height, what car they drive etc. So you can strip all of that information down into individual propositions, and each would be JTB knowledge.

 

Then your 'personal familiarity' with your friend could be broken down into propositions. Bob is nice, he is good at pool, he can drink like a sailor. Because these are more subjective, and lean towards the abstract, and are more qualitative than quantitative they are specific kind of proposition. My guess is the treatment of this type of proposition is different.

 

Then there's knowledge as understanding. Knowledge as JTB is of a proposition, but understanding is of systems of things. Maybe understanding can be unpacked as a long series of "pieces" of knowledge of propositions, but I am not sure that the whole isn't greater than the sum of the parts. The surgeon who knows what to do at a point in operation may have a grasp of a whole that is greater than merely the addition of all the propositions he/she would maintain as true under questioning. I am fuzzy on this. Any thoughts? I'm interested partly because the word often translated as "knowledge" in Plato, i.e. episteme, is probably better translated as "understanding" - and the problems Plato deals with are more often problems of certifying expertise than they are problems just of justification of a belief as true.

 

I'm not sure I understand your question here.

[♦ ficino ♦]

I haven't yet figured out whether understanding as "know-how" is more than a sum of propositions known about the field in question. For example, a sportswriter might do better than a baseball player in articulating propositions about hitting a curve ball. But the ballplayer if he's any good will probably know how to hit a curve ball better than the sportswriter.

 

I'm not sure in what sense the ballplayer's expertise counts as knowledge. Maybe a surgeon is a better example. What I'm wondering basically is whether there are forms of knowledge that are not reducible to propositions. It seems to me that when someone says, "I knew John Kennedy," something more is meant than "I knew facts about John Kennedy when he was alive." Even something simple like recognition of a face doesn't seem at first glance reducible to propositions about the face. I'm trying to get a handle on the difference between knowledge of things and knowledge of truths.

 

Anyway, I agree with JTB that a justification of the claim, "that's John Kennedy over there," rests on acquaintance and perception. Justification of the belief that it's JFK is perception that the fellow is JFK. That's knowledge of a truth. Knowledge of the thing (the entity JFK) undergirds it and is based on perception.

 

It may be that understanding, esp. as "know how," is reducible to propositions, even if a given practitioner can't articulate the propositions implicit in his/her practice. I have to think about that more.

[Clergicide]

I think I see what you're saying. You can't teach someone to play Basketball like Jordan. You can't teach everyone to sketch like Davinci. You can't teach everyone to grasp quantum physics like Stephen Hawking. These traits are answered by the physiological. Hawking and Davinci, have/had brains that are superior. BBall is about dexterity, and hand eye cooridination etc. maybe Jordan jumps so high because he has a freakish amount of high friction muscle fibers. The ability to perform is almost entirely genetic. If you have an IQ of 50, you will likely never contribute anything to the arts or sciences. That's just the way it is.