As part of my continuing series, "Dogmatic Non-Philosophy For and By Clearly Stupid People, here’s the one, and the only problem with what we commonly call “knowledge”:
We can’t be certain that we are correct.
However, since we can’t be certain that we are correct about anything, this is like saying that the only problem with a given ice cube is that it is frozen.
I’ll let you fill in the blanks, there.
I have a simple question. I really do think that I know how to spell “dog” - the familiar canine domestic animal.
Why am I not entitled to this “knowledge”?
I don’t mean “How can I be certain?” or “Why am I not certain?”
I mean, “Why should I ever question this?” - or maybe, “Under what circumstances should I question this?”
what it purports essentially is that you can’t know if you know. I think i agree with it, and I’ve made a bunch of unsuccessful threads about it in the past. the reason we can’t know whether we know is because to know that you know requires a god’s pov of the things themselves.
To know that p regularly means at least to believe that p, to be justified in believing that p, and p to be true. if a person has these things he has knowledge that p. now, and here’s the important question, what does the person know about the epistemological nature of his belief from his own pov? can he know that his belief that p is knowledge? can he have a justified true belief that his belief that p is knowledge?
if he reflects upon his situation he’ll see he has a belief that p, and if he’s had a couple epistemology classes he’ll know if the evidence he has justifies his belief that p, but truth…well, truth he does not have. all he has with regards to p is a belief that p; an idea that p. all his efforts towards being correct in believing that p will yield him only justification that p, but no matter what he does he will never have p-itself in his head (it’s not tigers we have in our minds. it’s ideas of tigers, representations, or shadows if you will) so if in reflecting about his belief that p he can only deal with ideas about p and not p itself, then he can’t figure out if his belief that p actually corresponds with p, and because of this he can’t know if he knows. if he can’t know that he knows, and if to be certain that you are correct is equivalent with knowing that you know, then he can’t be certain that he’s correct.
although…i think this works only with synthetic propositions. your belief that dog is spelled d-o-g is analytic.
not knowing if you know means knowledge is kinda like the lottery if you weren’t ever told the results or rewarded if your numbers won.
Is there anything wrong with approximate knowing? What is the need to KNOW anyway? Am I a dreaming butterfly? Damned if I know, but if I am, I’m having a good time suffering the illusion that I’m a human. At some point, we have to finally accept that the “monster under the bed” isn’t real, and get on with it. I don’t care who is still pissed that Santa doesn’t come down a 4" gas chimney with a bag of goodies. Our imagination can create all sorts of bogus emotions that we feel physically and with which we can react. “She loves me” Doesn’t that feel nice and warm? OK. We’ve had an emotional and physical reaction, but we still don’t KNOW anything. Illusion? Real? What we can know is conditional and provisional. When do we say enough and just live as if?
I hearby grant you permission to know that dog is spelled d-o-g in any english speaking part of the world. Trust me…
Exaclty. So we are faced with the choice between metaphysical certitude and a lack thereof. What we are not left with is God as a logical necessity. But that’s the big debate. Still, for some reason.
No, it’s not. It’s experiential. We don;t figure spelling out - we learn it by rote.
The only circumstances under which you should question that is if the Philosophical topic on the table requires you to question that assumption, either that or you could leave the table.
Right. We can still have unbeknownst knowledge. That’s not the problem. The problem is that the purpose of knowledge–the entire reason we want to have knowledge–is moot if we can’t know that we know.
Do we have knowledge? I guess. It’s possible, and probably likely that we do. But of what consequence is this knowledge if we can’t be sure that what we think is knowledge is actually knowledge?
I don’t follow. What do you mean? It’s not God that’s a logical necessity, although I could see God being sufficient through an elaborate mythology about revelation or whatnot; it’s a God’s pov.
With all due respect, please speak for yourself. We, the Stupid, are satisfied with knowing without knowing that we know.
Cool toys and cheap corn. Among other things.
Many smart people think that we are doomed to one of two scenarios - solipsism or theism. What good is a POV if there’s no one there to occupy it? If there isn’t, then you just have a nice story to tell the children. Smart people seem to want more.
How’s that? If the origins of “knowledge” are the desire (and probably need) for metaphysical certitude, lacking this, what satisfaction could you possibly get out of knowledge you can’t know is knowledge? What was that stuff you said earlier about not having an epistemology all about?
What are these other things, and why do they satisfy the stupid?
Knowledsge was just a good guess until philosophico-religious types got ahold of society.
I am sorry that I am so difficult to understand. I try very hard to be clear. Not having an epistemology is not caring about whether knowledge is certain or not. I don’t know, and I don’t care. I just want my iPod. That’s satisfying, to me.
Technology in general, and because we’re too stupid to understand metaphysics.
The example was problematic for me, as i do not agree with “cheap corn” as a social good. At least not for the reasons it is cheap. But you have to take the good with the bad. Not that you have to agree with it, but it’s there.
Knowing (an/or thinking) comes with all sorts of conditions and limitations when it’s done well rational/logical manner, in my opinion.
So. any reasonable knowledge is relative to and dependent upon these conditions and limitations, making it something only applicable in certain limited situation.
However, most of us, most of time, ignore this relative nature of knowledge and/or thought that we may imagine and presume that as if the knowledge is applicable without any condition/limitation, as if its absolute knowledge.
Moreover, if we are not aware of relative nature of knowledge/thought, we are likely to think/evaluate pretty badly to the point that the most of resulting “knowledge” is pure garbage.
Yet most of us would take this garbage as something reliable and again, without any condition/limitation.
This is what happens with knowledge most of time and I think it’s simply insane.
The knowledge of how to spell “dog” is a relative one, too.
It’s relative to the language and the time, for example.
In thousands of years, we might be spelling it “dougg”.
I agree that we can ignore the possibility of spelling change in many years as far as we are using it in daily life, and that might create the delusion that it’s a practically absolute knowledge.
But the presumption like this is most probably keeping us in the stupidity and insanity in which we are almost totally ignorant of required dependencies and conditions for each knowledge and thought.
That makes sense. But part of the problem for me is that assessing things by the “it works” criteria doesn’t solve the issue of determining what “it works” means.