Fantastic video! I did my Episemology paper on Zagzebski's thesis and it was very interesting. Thanks for the great explanation of Williamson's approach.
Wow, this series made the writing of a paper on the analysis of the JTB system actually enjoyable. I might begin to like analytical philoso... O wait, 3000 words on Sinn und Bedeutung for next week. Nevermind.
According to the view ascribed to Williamson in this video, _regretting that P_ is a factive mental state: I can't regret that P unless it is the case that P, and doing so implies that I know that P. On this view, how does one describe the situation in which I falsely believe that P' and experience a mental state subjectively (and neurologically) indistinguishable from regretting that P'? Is there a less stilted, more colloquial way of referring to situations like this?
Yes there is. The answer to your question would be that you could think you know something( in a factive mental state) and be wrong. Just like you could think everything about you is fine and then have a councilor tell you that maybe you have repressed emotions and etc. So basically, we could be wrong about our own mental states. You could think you're in a factive mental state but be wrong about it and rather, have believe than have knowledge. Hope this makes sense.
How does a Knowledge-First formulation handle the question of 'How do we gain new knowledge?' If knowledge is a basic state, not reducible into parts, then what are the conditions necessary to gain knowledge? This seems like it puts us back at square one.
Knowledge is acquired through the senses and retained in memory. You are born a blank slate and you learn through your senses what reality is, and you know most of your first level inductions through experience, and knowledge builds on itself hierarchically.
Forgive me if this is way off. This debate has been going on for decades. Facts > Hypothesis > Theory > Law Thoughts > Belief > Justified Belief + True Belief > JTB aka Knowledge A) To me, it seems evident that belief IS intrinsic to knowledge, and yet knowledge need not be present for belief. B) In the Gettier cases, doesn't the justification dissolve and break the knowledge down into just a true belief? There is a famous true story Gettier case that I have never heard in all these philosophy discussions. Einstein's Cosmological Constant. Would we say that when he scrapped the idea in favor of the expanding universe, the world 'lost' the 'knowledge' of dark energy? or that humanity had an unjustified true belief, lost the belief, then created a semi-justified true belief? It seems the problem is that philosophers want to claim they know more than they do, trying to change definitions to turn theories into knowledge. This seems to be a rebellion to Descartes' only possible knowledge. Cogito ergo sum. This, though, implies that we run our lives on theory sans knowledge, when clearly we use knowledge to navigate our lives. So, rebel we must! To build upon Descartes' proclamation of existence, I believe we can also assert, I know I exist in a reality. Now the tricky part. There are many theories to the construction and nature of the reality. [the prevailing being that the reality perceived by our senses is un-simulated] Memories reveal this reality to be predictably consistent, scientifically, from moment to moment. Knowledge can be had within the context of the reality without knowing the workings of the reality. Take Smith. He had an unjustified true belief. [if you believe my Gettier solution] If Jones had gotten the job, Smith would have had a true justified belief. But if Jones had questioned the nature of his reality, would he have not had the knowledge just because he found out he is a character in a story trying to debate the definition of knowledge? I don't believe so. He can have an unjustified true belief or knowledge in the context of his reality. Oddly and hilariously enough, I do believe there is an X that needs to be added... time. My proposed definition - a non-future belief with pertinent proof that has not been disproven It's basically JTB with non-future. Justified = pertinent proof. True = has not been disproven. Belief = non-future belief Giving justification the qualifier of pertinent helps relieve the confusion of the Gettier cases 'Has not been disproven' seems better than 'true' because of how the 'truth' is subject to change The future is unknowable. Any beliefs about the future are only theories. Side note for anyone that read this. How is disproven not a word? Ridiculous!
Gettier problems rely on having a single broken warrant. If a belief is true there should be many valid warrants available to support it. And we should expect to collect as many of these warrants as we can before we are ready to say we have some degree of knowledge.
I believe the idea of 'truth' is best used in a proportional, not absolute sense. I.e. something can be more or less true, not necessarily just "true". Truth measures the degree to which something accords with reality. Like the degree to which an arrow is shot in line with the target. Whilst something being absolutely true is possible, it's impossible to prove, so it's best left as a proportional measurement. To expand on this, truth can be usefully defined as being that which causes you and others to act in ways that produce consistently desirable and expected results in reality. So something can be demonstrably incorrect, and yet hold some truth, like a mule painted as a zebra being judged to be a zebra. It's not a zebra, but it could fool many people (possibly zebras too) to believe it is a zebra, and could evoke the equivalent result that a real zebra would evoke. If we're honest, everything we "know" to be true about the world is only proportionally true - some things more than others. So, we'd do better to frame knowledge not as related to absolutely true statements, but rather as related to proportionally true statements. I.e. Something can eventually found to be incorrect, but if there is some consistent, global benefit in believing it, it is partially true and can thus be 'known' to be partially true. I'd then suggest that the distinction between knowledge and belief is not the absolute notion of whether it's true or not, but rather the degree to which we've experienced the benefits of it's proportional truthfulness. E.g. we've shown the painted mule to 10 other friends and all of them have been equally fooled to believe it's a zebra. Before showing others, that person might 'believe' the creature is a zebra, but afterwards, they would be likely to 'know' the creature is a zebra, despite them being correct. Thus I'd define knowing as being subjective to the knower. That a belief becomes knowledge when that person has had sufficient empirical experience to place confidence in their belief, and thus has conviction to act in full-hearted accordance with that knowledge.
"Remembering is a factive mental state" Really ??? You can't think of a situation where all those states you described as "factive" can be deceptive ? and therefore not really more factive than, say, hoping... Any clarifications please ?
That's what I thought!! It doesn't solve the sceptic's (or skeptic's) 'Brain in a vat' scenario; which is what we set out to do - when we decided to try and define knowledge - in the first place. This takes us right back where we started!
Request: would someone please create a video on dialectical materialism? SO much political discussion on the left makes reference to it, so it would be extremely helpful to have a primer on this philosophy and what it means to condemn something as "undialectical".
What about illusions? Can't I see a mosquito flying around me without knowing that a mosquito was not flying around me? Can't I remember something that did not happen at all? Say I somehow remember returning money to a friend, when in fact, I have not, and therefore, not know that I still owe my friend money. One way out would be to say, strictly speaking, I did not really 'see' or 'remember', but this strictly speaking seems dubious. It's a perfectly natural way to describe what happens.
Just a thought: if it were revealed to you that the mosquito was merely an illusion, or that the thing you thought you remembered never really happened, then wouldn't it be counterintuitive to say that you remember it happening, or that you saw the mosquito. Surely, in response to finding out neither thing was true, you'd have to accept that you didn't see the mosquito at all, and that you were wrong to say that you remembered event X happening. If that's the case, then it does look like remembering and seeing are factive... doesn't it?
@@lewisbarnes3534 So what you mean is, if it were revealed that your memories or eyes are defective, you would concede that you were _in fact_ wrong. Wouldn't that make your sense perceptions as unreliable as any other belief? How would they be complete justifications for knowledge? The non-factive mental states such as believing and hoping seems more 'factive' in this case, because your _subjective_ mental states can't be factually wrong.
You could say you see where the sun is in relation to yourself, but you are about 8 minutes off. And memory is so faulty I can't see how remembering particularly conclusive to knowledge at all on its own.
So knowledge-first epistemology is claiming that knowledge is just perfect belief much like how a circle is perfectly round? Is there a way that this sort of understanding can help us in our pursuit of knowledge? How can we know we have knowledge without a means of verification? Wasn't this one of the problems as defining knowledge as true belief and nothing more? And distinguishing between mental-states doesn't really seem to help--many people are aware (or believe that they are aware) of things that they are not, the most simple example would be hallucinations.
+Jonathan Ra From my understanding of the video and from my very limited readings in the knowledge first literature, I don't think it is accurate to say that knowledge first holds that knowledge is just perfect belief. It's a distinct concept from 'belief,' but there is still an important (though not yet understood) relation between knowledge and belief. Even though it was not explained in this particular way in the video, I have always found it helpful to keep the following in mind: knowledge first implies that one cannot have false or untrue knowledge, whereas one can (and we often do) have false beliefs. If you have a true belief that P, then you necessarily know that P; but that does not mean that your knowing that P is just perfect belief. It just means that your knowing that P is a conceptually necessary (though not sufficient) condition for your having a true belief that P. That is, it is a precondition of you having a true belief that P, that you already have the potential to know that P in virtue of P being something which can in principle be known in the first place. For example, I cannot have a true belief that Benjamin Franklin was the first president of the United States because I cannot coherently speak of having knowledge that Benjamin Franklin was the first president of the United States. Why? Because there is no such knowledge to be had by any agent, given that Benjamin Franklin was not in fact the first president of the United States, and given the very reasonable and plausible premise that agents cannot have false knowledge. I hope this helps. I do not claim to understand all of the nuances of the view; nor I have I surveyed the knowledge first literature enough form tentatively reliable conclusions about the subject.
It is not the case (and I'm not sure you intended to imply) that basic things defy further definition. Elementary particles are defined by the physics of quantum mechanics. Circles are defined by axiomatic geometry. Mental states are defined by neurobiology. We have a lot more science to go before we have a good enough biological definition to use to better understand the philosophy, but we should not presume we cannot break it down. ( I'm not sure I'm buying the basic premise here, but that discussion is too involved for a TH-cam comment and I would have to think about it a lot more.
What I'm trying to say is you can't have a literally infinite line of concepts explaining concepts explaining concepts explaining concepts... It has to stop at some point
attempts at claiming knowledge seem to involve begging the question such as particularists and methodists do. fallibilism is more defendable than infallibilism. howevr, once people claim that axioms exist, that you can know things without knowing how you know you are giving support to the most crazy ideas holding just a much ground as the status quo common sense. Also i havent seen anything on epistemic luck. I for one prefer a pyrrhonian skeptic approach though it may seem untenable and not pragmatic, that is merely due to misconceptions.
it Is but it is not. the problem of truth is more a "continental philosophy" problem, because in American philosophy truth is just what it is: you just have to point it.
Giovanni Rolla But if truth is a part of epistemology and you agree that truth is a problem for x why isn't it a problem from epistemology? Is it because there is a consensus about what is truth in epistemology?
Agreed sets or accepted forms of knowledge are required to start down this path. Like the rounded cat and the circle. Proper communication is most of the issue. If I said an oak tree was over there, most people would understand. What if I was picturing a white oak, and you pictured a maple tree. In your mind the maple tree = oak tree. Here is the real point. The term is not the same from the originator to the recipient. Often I find in arguments of any kind, just hashing out that in fact that is an oak not a maple is the harder part. Once we agree, the opposition is rarely in form to continue. Beyond practical application, how skeptical of knowledge do you need to be?
To me, believing something that is true is enough to prove knowledge. Yet, I will have to prove that it is true (=justified). Thus, isn't JTB sufficient to prove knowledge ?
Watch the other videos - one method of providing counterexamples is given in this video: apparent justified false belief. A stronger counterexample would be having true belief, despite your justification being false, like the example about the barns.
After all of these videos I still can't tell the difference between "belief" and "hypothesis," and "knowledge" and "tested hypothesis." Just as "Truth = belief + x," it seems that "conclusions" = hypotheses + testing. Where x can always be x+1, it would seem that there can always be more supporting evidence for a hypothesis.
+Robert Paulson That's the JTB idea and the problem with that is that you can have evidence for a hypothesis and still be wrong. Even without considering the Gettier cases, by looking at the progress of science you can see how wrong we were (which is probably a decent indication of wrong we still are).
I dont agree with Williamson concerning his idea of knowledge. What he is proposing is that a "Factive" mental state relates to a truth is incorrect. Descarte made this evident along with many others that Truth isnt necessarily perceived through the senses. I am color blind, people hallucinate, etc... is all proof that our brain senses can easily deceive ourselves. Daniel Dennet gives some good case examples of this in some of his many lectures. Furthermore, our memories are very highly manipulative and cannot be trusted completely. Although, Thomas Reid may have balanced the Skepticism of his time with the ideas of Common Sense and how it pertains to belief and knowledge, to believe that that our knowledge is "factive" through our sense experiences is fallacious. To make the distinction between what KNOWLEDGE is VS. BELIEF is: KNOWLEDGE is the content of what is being perceived (emotions, thoughts, smells, etc..) while BELIEF is a conviction of TRUTH that maybe based from knowledge but is always a form of knowledge. So, for instance, If I am color blind, and i see my green apple (that is red to others) than the KNOWLEDGE upon discovering that Tom was eating a green apple, I can form a BELIEF that Tom ate my green apple. In this instance, I might have come to a certain kind of truth from a correct belief that Tom ate my apple BUT with incorrect knowledge (the apple is actually red). Or you can just as easily imagine that the apple Tom ate was really green and therefore the knowledge would be correct (the apple Tom ate was green) but the Belief might be wrong (Tom ate an actual green apple different from my red apple that I perceive as green). Yes, I can have a belief without first receiving the knowledge. I believe that cats will fall from the sky. That belief is itself a form of knowledge as you have pointed out with the water vs coffee example. You can't have belief without knowledge, BUT you can have knowledge without belief. The knowledge itself is the fact but the fact that there IS KNOWLEDGE does not necessarily prove a BELIEF in an objective reality or experience.
I'd say is gona be a bit difficult to find a common ground where all can agree... unless we don't speak about how terrible some examples made by great thinkers are. This i find very hard to disagree with. Knowledge imo is a probabilistic statement. True knowledge is impossible to achive for our sensory system and we can only hope to find a logical coherency supported by a positive outcome chance. There will be always grey areas (even if miniscule) and uncalculated exceptions, to dismiss this even for the most basical computations is to dismiss knowledge itself from my point of view, thatìs what i call the engeeristic aproach.
here is a weird idea: maybe "knowlege" is irrelevant. maybe we just want to believe the truthest (relevant) things. all these "accidental true beliefs" seem to be harmless by definition. how could they ever get in our way?
1. I'm not sure what epistemology is, and that should've been explained at the beginning of the video. Also, since I have no experience in this area, I would've preferred if this was explained like I'm a child. Which I am mentally. ;) video is good, but gets to muddled for me to fully grasp.
Yup. Sounds to me that we cannot reach perfection in anything. Absolutely anything in life. We invent cars? We can get faster ones We draw a circle? If we zoom in with a microscope its not perfect We develop theories about everything? Oopsies they can be corrected in the futute. We have no perfection in anything anywhere of our lives. But lets be honest. Does it really matter? Are we trying to live perfect lives (which dont exist as well?) Or good enough ones? Good enough for the benefit of our and next generations? So who cares if i cant explain everything perfectly with perfection. What we have works. Cars work, buildings work, laws of physics work and so on. Skeptisism should not be seen as a threat. Because it doesnt work. Should we adopt it if it doesnt work? And confuse everyone? I simply reject the idea of a perfect justification of knowledge and all that. Why? Cause it doesnt matter. Its ok if we have imperfect knowledge because we can trust it and it works everytime without fail unless in exceptions or unlucky scenarios. Thats life. It has elements of surprise, mistakes, unpredictable endeavors, and imperfections. And its solution is not perfection. Its solution is not to doubt everything. Its solution is to trust what works best at the time and maybe try to improve it if needed. Thats all we have to do :)
The fact that knowledge is defined in terms of truth is problematic. Can one really say that rocket scientists don't know how to build and launch rockets because their beliefs on how to do so are based on the false theory of Newtonian mechanics? There needs to be a more nuanced standard, knowledge need not be true only good enough.
"Can we really analyze everything else by knowledge? " Anything less would be uncivilized. lol = analysis without knowledge, that just sounds dangerous and fruitless
![PHILOSOPHY - Epistemology: Virtue Epistemology [HD]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/x2kLOisfkPw/mqdefault.jpg)
![PHILOSOPHY - Epistemology: Virtue Epistemology [HD]](/img/tr.png)
![PHILOSOPHY - Epistemology: Analyzing Knowledge #3 (Causal and Reliabilist Theories) [HD]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/3z8sDiaY65Y/mqdefault.jpg)
I understand so much more from these animated vids than I do in class
oh lord you are so right.....
Fantastic video! I did my Episemology paper on Zagzebski's thesis and it was very interesting. Thanks for the great explanation of Williamson's approach.
I agree. A very good video! Do you happen to know in which of her papers Zagzebski stated that there would not be an x?
Wow, this series made the writing of a paper on the analysis of the JTB system actually enjoyable. I might begin to like analytical philoso... O wait, 3000 words on Sinn und Bedeutung for next week. Nevermind.
7:19 that sounds good, though ofc still, all the "ways" in which you can learn stuff can be false, since they rely on senses/testimony/memory.
According to the view ascribed to Williamson in this video, _regretting that P_ is a factive mental state: I can't regret that P unless it is the case that P, and doing so implies that I know that P.
On this view, how does one describe the situation in which I falsely believe that P' and experience a mental state subjectively (and neurologically) indistinguishable from regretting that P'? Is there a less stilted, more colloquial way of referring to situations like this?
Yes there is. The answer to your question would be that you could think you know something( in a factive mental state) and be wrong. Just like you could think everything about you is fine and then have a councilor tell you that maybe you have repressed emotions and etc. So basically, we could be wrong about our own mental states. You could think you're in a factive mental state but be wrong about it and rather, have believe than have knowledge. Hope this makes sense.
This channel is great. I enjoyed Nigel’s book too!
How does a Knowledge-First formulation handle the question of 'How do we gain new knowledge?' If knowledge is a basic state, not reducible into parts, then what are the conditions necessary to gain knowledge? This seems like it puts us back at square one.
Nothing it is what it is. When you see water heated you don’t start with analyzing you just simply start with water is heated.
Knowledge is acquired through the senses and retained in memory. You are born a blank slate and you learn through your senses what reality is, and you know most of your first level inductions through experience, and knowledge builds on itself hierarchically.
Forgive me if this is way off. This debate has been going on for decades.
Facts > Hypothesis > Theory > Law
Thoughts > Belief > Justified Belief + True Belief > JTB aka Knowledge
A) To me, it seems evident that belief IS intrinsic to knowledge, and yet knowledge need not be present for belief.
B) In the Gettier cases, doesn't the justification dissolve and break the knowledge down into just a true belief?
There is a famous true story Gettier case that I have never heard in all these philosophy discussions. Einstein's Cosmological Constant. Would we say that when he scrapped the idea in favor of the expanding universe, the world 'lost' the 'knowledge' of dark energy? or that humanity had an unjustified true belief, lost the belief, then created a semi-justified true belief?
It seems the problem is that philosophers want to claim they know more than they do, trying to change definitions to turn theories into knowledge. This seems to be a rebellion to Descartes' only possible knowledge. Cogito ergo sum. This, though, implies that we run our lives on theory sans knowledge, when clearly we use knowledge to navigate our lives. So, rebel we must!
To build upon Descartes' proclamation of existence, I believe we can also assert, I know I exist in a reality. Now the tricky part.
There are many theories to the construction and nature of the reality. [the prevailing being that the reality perceived by our senses is un-simulated]
Memories reveal this reality to be predictably consistent, scientifically, from moment to moment.
Knowledge can be had within the context of the reality without knowing the workings of the reality.
Take Smith. He had an unjustified true belief. [if you believe my Gettier solution] If Jones had gotten the job, Smith would have had a true justified belief.
But if Jones had questioned the nature of his reality, would he have not had the knowledge just because he found out he is a character in a story trying to debate the definition of knowledge?
I don't believe so. He can have an unjustified true belief or knowledge in the context of his reality.
Oddly and hilariously enough, I do believe there is an X that needs to be added... time.
My proposed definition - a non-future belief with pertinent proof that has not been disproven
It's basically JTB with non-future. Justified = pertinent proof. True = has not been disproven. Belief = non-future belief
Giving justification the qualifier of pertinent helps relieve the confusion of the Gettier cases
'Has not been disproven' seems better than 'true' because of how the 'truth' is subject to change
The future is unknowable. Any beliefs about the future are only theories.
Side note for anyone that read this. How is disproven not a word? Ridiculous!
one of the best in the series!
knowledge first seems a little like we're getting into semantics
These explanations have been great! Thanks for posting! :D
How does knowledge first epistemology define knowledge or is it undefinable?
Gettier problems rely on having a single broken warrant. If a belief is true there should be many valid warrants available to support it. And we should expect to collect as many of these warrants as we can before we are ready to say we have some degree of knowledge.
This is cool
What about false memory?
am I correct in assuming that the main way to get paid as a philosopher is to be a professor? well... or an author i suppose
I believe the idea of 'truth' is best used in a proportional, not absolute sense. I.e. something can be more or less true, not necessarily just "true". Truth measures the degree to which something accords with reality. Like the degree to which an arrow is shot in line with the target. Whilst something being absolutely true is possible, it's impossible to prove, so it's best left as a proportional measurement.
To expand on this, truth can be usefully defined as being that which causes you and others to act in ways that produce consistently desirable and expected results in reality. So something can be demonstrably incorrect, and yet hold some truth, like a mule painted as a zebra being judged to be a zebra. It's not a zebra, but it could fool many people (possibly zebras too) to believe it is a zebra, and could evoke the equivalent result that a real zebra would evoke. If we're honest, everything we "know" to be true about the world is only proportionally true - some things more than others.
So, we'd do better to frame knowledge not as related to absolutely true statements, but rather as related to proportionally true statements. I.e. Something can eventually found to be incorrect, but if there is some consistent, global benefit in believing it, it is partially true and can thus be 'known' to be partially true.
I'd then suggest that the distinction between knowledge and belief is not the absolute notion of whether it's true or not, but rather the degree to which we've experienced the benefits of it's proportional truthfulness. E.g. we've shown the painted mule to 10 other friends and all of them have been equally fooled to believe it's a zebra. Before showing others, that person might 'believe' the creature is a zebra, but afterwards, they would be likely to 'know' the creature is a zebra, despite them being correct.
Thus I'd define knowing as being subjective to the knower. That a belief becomes knowledge when that person has had sufficient empirical experience to place confidence in their belief, and thus has conviction to act in full-hearted accordance with that knowledge.
"Remembering is a factive mental state" Really ??? You can't think of a situation where all those states you described as "factive" can be deceptive ? and therefore not really more factive than, say, hoping... Any clarifications please ?
That's what I thought!! It doesn't solve the sceptic's (or skeptic's) 'Brain in a vat' scenario; which is what we set out to do - when we decided to try and define knowledge - in the first place.
This takes us right back where we started!
Request: would someone please create a video on dialectical materialism? SO much political discussion on the left makes reference to it, so it would be extremely helpful to have a primer on this philosophy and what it means to condemn something as "undialectical".
What about illusions?
Can't I see a mosquito flying around me without knowing that a mosquito was not flying around me?
Can't I remember something that did not happen at all? Say I somehow remember returning money to a friend, when in fact, I have not, and therefore, not know that I still owe my friend money.
One way out would be to say, strictly speaking, I did not really 'see' or 'remember', but this strictly speaking seems dubious. It's a perfectly natural way to describe what happens.
Just a thought: if it were revealed to you that the mosquito was merely an illusion, or that the thing you thought you remembered never really happened, then wouldn't it be counterintuitive to say that you remember it happening, or that you saw the mosquito. Surely, in response to finding out neither thing was true, you'd have to accept that you didn't see the mosquito at all, and that you were wrong to say that you remembered event X happening. If that's the case, then it does look like remembering and seeing are factive... doesn't it?
@@lewisbarnes3534 So what you mean is, if it were revealed that your memories or eyes are defective, you would concede that you were _in fact_ wrong. Wouldn't that make your sense perceptions as unreliable as any other belief? How would they be complete justifications for knowledge?
The non-factive mental states such as believing and hoping seems more 'factive' in this case, because your _subjective_ mental states can't be factually wrong.
You could say you see where the sun is in relation to yourself, but you are about 8 minutes off.
And memory is so faulty I can't see how remembering particularly conclusive to knowledge at all on its own.
Wow, thanks for that video. Very interesting. I would have watched it even if it went on for twenty more minutes or more. Loved it!
Orange Mocha Frappuccino...
@@grudman7885 Sounds delicious!
So knowledge-first epistemology is claiming that knowledge is just perfect belief much like how a circle is perfectly round?
Is there a way that this sort of understanding can help us in our pursuit of knowledge? How can we know we have knowledge without a means of verification? Wasn't this one of the problems as defining knowledge as true belief and nothing more? And distinguishing between mental-states doesn't really seem to help--many people are aware (or believe that they are aware) of things that they are not, the most simple example would be hallucinations.
+Jonathan Ra From my understanding of the video and from my very limited readings in the knowledge first literature, I don't think it is accurate to say that knowledge first holds that knowledge is just perfect belief. It's a distinct concept from 'belief,' but there is still an important (though not yet understood) relation between knowledge and belief. Even though it was not explained in this particular way in the video, I have always found it helpful to keep the following in mind: knowledge first implies that one cannot have false or untrue knowledge, whereas one can (and we often do) have false beliefs. If you have a true belief that P, then you necessarily know that P; but that does not mean that your knowing that P is just perfect belief. It just means that your knowing that P is a conceptually necessary (though not sufficient) condition for your having a true belief that P. That is, it is a precondition of you having a true belief that P, that you already have the potential to know that P in virtue of P being something which can in principle be known in the first place.
For example, I cannot have a true belief that Benjamin Franklin was the first president of the United States because I cannot coherently speak of having knowledge that Benjamin Franklin was the first president of the United States. Why? Because there is no such knowledge to be had by any agent, given that Benjamin Franklin was not in fact the first president of the United States, and given the very reasonable and plausible premise that agents cannot have false knowledge. I hope this helps. I do not claim to understand all of the nuances of the view; nor I have I surveyed the knowledge first literature enough form tentatively reliable conclusions about the subject.
21stCenturyExaminedLife Alright. I think I kind of get it. A little more at least. Thanks a lot.
It is not the case (and I'm not sure you intended to imply) that basic things defy further definition. Elementary particles are defined by the physics of quantum mechanics. Circles are defined by axiomatic geometry. Mental states are defined by neurobiology. We have a lot more science to go before we have a good enough biological definition to use to better understand the philosophy, but we should not presume we cannot break it down. ( I'm not sure I'm buying the basic premise here, but that discussion is too involved for a TH-cam comment and I would have to think about it a lot more.
Same here...I'm not sold on the basic premise.
On some point there has to be a basic concept, like how all empirical knowledge eventually comes down to excitations in particle fields
What I'm trying to say is you can't have a literally infinite line of concepts explaining concepts explaining concepts explaining concepts... It has to stop at some point
attempts at claiming knowledge seem to involve begging the question such as particularists and methodists do. fallibilism is more defendable than infallibilism. howevr, once people claim that axioms exist, that you can know things without knowing how you know you are giving support to the most crazy ideas holding just a much ground as the status quo common sense. Also i havent seen anything on epistemic luck. I for one prefer a pyrrhonian skeptic approach though it may seem untenable and not pragmatic, that is merely due to misconceptions.
that cat in the end adresses personalLy...recognitivisticly
What is truth? Isn't that also a problem almost as big as knowledge in epistemology?
it Is but it is not. the problem of truth is more a "continental philosophy" problem, because in American philosophy truth is just what it is: you just have to point it.
dont look too close, it mght random change ;) :P
+Umberto Mazzotti recognitivism
+Overonator I would say this is a problem for metaphysics or philosophy of language, but not an epistemological problem.
Giovanni Rolla
But if truth is a part of epistemology and you agree that truth is a problem for x why isn't it a problem from epistemology? Is it because there is a consensus about what is truth in epistemology?
study hong kong today(this 6 mths) what happen, they believe what and doing what, great to study, if you can.
Agreed sets or accepted forms of knowledge are required to start down this path. Like the rounded cat and the circle. Proper communication is most of the issue. If I said an oak tree was over there, most people would understand. What if I was picturing a white oak, and you pictured a maple tree. In your mind the maple tree = oak tree. Here is the real point. The term is not the same from the originator to the recipient. Often I find in arguments of any kind, just hashing out that in fact that is an oak not a maple is the harder part. Once we agree, the opposition is rarely in form to continue. Beyond practical application, how skeptical of knowledge do you need to be?
To me, believing something that is true is enough to prove knowledge. Yet, I will have to prove that it is true (=justified). Thus, isn't JTB sufficient to prove knowledge ?
Watch the other videos - one method of providing counterexamples is given in this video: apparent justified false belief.
A stronger counterexample would be having true belief, despite your justification being false, like the example about the barns.
After all of these videos I still can't tell the difference between "belief" and "hypothesis," and "knowledge" and "tested hypothesis." Just as "Truth = belief + x," it seems that "conclusions" = hypotheses + testing. Where x can always be x+1, it would seem that there can always be more supporting evidence for a hypothesis.
+Robert Paulson That's the JTB idea and the problem with that is that you can have evidence for a hypothesis and still be wrong. Even without considering the Gettier cases, by looking at the progress of science you can see how wrong we were (which is probably a decent indication of wrong we still are).
I recognize that is the primary flaw in our method of determining truth, I just don't see any way of circumventing that problem.
I dont agree with Williamson concerning his idea of knowledge. What he is proposing is that a "Factive" mental state relates to a truth is incorrect. Descarte made this evident along with many others that Truth isnt necessarily perceived through the senses. I am color blind, people hallucinate, etc... is all proof that our brain senses can easily deceive ourselves. Daniel Dennet gives some good case examples of this in some of his many lectures. Furthermore, our memories are very highly manipulative and cannot be trusted completely. Although, Thomas Reid may have balanced the Skepticism of his time with the ideas of Common Sense and how it pertains to belief and knowledge, to believe that that our knowledge is "factive" through our sense experiences is fallacious. To make the distinction between what KNOWLEDGE is VS. BELIEF is: KNOWLEDGE is the content of what is being perceived (emotions, thoughts, smells, etc..) while BELIEF is a conviction of TRUTH that maybe based from knowledge but is always a form of knowledge. So, for instance, If I am color blind, and i see my green apple (that is red to others) than the KNOWLEDGE upon discovering that Tom was eating a green apple, I can form a BELIEF that Tom ate my green apple. In this instance, I might have come to a certain kind of truth from a correct belief that Tom ate my apple BUT with incorrect knowledge (the apple is actually red). Or you can just as easily imagine that the apple Tom ate was really green and therefore the knowledge would be correct (the apple Tom ate was green) but the Belief might be wrong (Tom ate an actual green apple different from my red apple that I perceive as green). Yes, I can have a belief without first receiving the knowledge. I believe that cats will fall from the sky. That belief is itself a form of knowledge as you have pointed out with the water vs coffee example. You can't have belief without knowledge, BUT you can have knowledge without belief. The knowledge itself is the fact but the fact that there IS KNOWLEDGE does not necessarily prove a BELIEF in an objective reality or experience.
I'd say is gona be a bit difficult to find a common ground where all can agree... unless we don't speak about how terrible some examples made by great thinkers are. This i find very hard to disagree with.
Knowledge imo is a probabilistic statement. True knowledge is impossible to achive for our sensory system and we can only hope to find a logical coherency supported by a positive outcome chance. There will be always grey areas (even if miniscule) and uncalculated exceptions, to dismiss this even for the most basical computations is to dismiss knowledge itself from my point of view, thatìs what i call the engeeristic aproach.
here is a weird idea: maybe "knowlege" is irrelevant. maybe we just want to believe the truthest (relevant) things. all these "accidental true beliefs" seem to be harmless by definition. how could they ever get in our way?
Great supplement to your very short introduction of knowledge. It's a bit hard to focus with your sensual voice, though.
1. I'm not sure what epistemology is, and that should've been explained at the beginning of the video. Also, since I have no experience in this area, I would've preferred if this was explained like I'm a child. Which I am mentally. ;) video is good, but gets to muddled for me to fully grasp.
+Ashly Boss This is part 9 of the Epistemology series. Try checking out video 1 in the series. Hope that helps!
Wireless Philosophy I see the 9 now in the corner of the video but it definitely would've helped in the title lol
Wireless Philosophy thanks!
Yup. Sounds to me that we cannot reach perfection in anything. Absolutely anything in life.
We invent cars? We can get faster ones
We draw a circle? If we zoom in with a microscope its not perfect
We develop theories about everything? Oopsies they can be corrected in the futute.
We have no perfection in anything anywhere of our lives.
But lets be honest. Does it really matter? Are we trying to live perfect lives (which dont exist as well?) Or good enough ones? Good enough for the benefit of our and next generations? So who cares if i cant explain everything perfectly with perfection. What we have works. Cars work, buildings work, laws of physics work and so on.
Skeptisism should not be seen as a threat. Because it doesnt work. Should we adopt it if it doesnt work? And confuse everyone? I simply reject the idea of a perfect justification of knowledge and all that. Why? Cause it doesnt matter. Its ok if we have imperfect knowledge because we can trust it and it works everytime without fail unless in exceptions or unlucky scenarios. Thats life. It has elements of surprise, mistakes, unpredictable endeavors, and imperfections.
And its solution is not perfection. Its solution is not to doubt everything.
Its solution is to trust what works best at the time and maybe try to improve it if needed. Thats all we have to do :)
The fact that knowledge is defined in terms of truth is problematic. Can one really say that rocket scientists don't know how to build and launch rockets because their beliefs on how to do so are based on the false theory of Newtonian mechanics? There needs to be a more nuanced standard, knowledge need not be true only good enough.
"Can we really analyze everything else by knowledge? " Anything less would be uncivilized. lol = analysis without knowledge, that just sounds dangerous and fruitless
Tbh this really doesnt solve anything..