Seems to me you are both wrong. Feeling sure is no guarantee that you know, since you can feel sure and be wrong. And the agreement of experts is no guarantee that the experts know, since the experts can all agree, and still be wrong. Knowledge implies truth, and neither the feeling of surety, nor the agreement of experts, implies truth. Therefore, neither the feeling of surety, nor the agreement of experts guarantees knowledge. Q.E.D.
Of course, the agreement of experts may be good evidence that what they agree is true is, in fact, true. But it is no guarantee, as the history of science testifies. The feeling of surety has far less claim to being evidence, much less good evidence.
I have no idea. I answer questions as they appear to me, and probably slightly differently by the moment. Because “my philosophy” is constantly growing I discover the answer anew, each time I attempt to address it. Right now, perhaps I could call it “extimate occasionalism”, or “topognosism”, or “instrumental animism” but honestly it has no name. What I am ever attempting to do is move myself to the perspective where two apparently opposing points of view both become true. In doing so, one has to constantly radicalize the terms in order to make them commensurate.
Since when? Anyway. that does not reply to my arguments for why both of you are wrong. When you deal with my arguments, then we’ll discuss, if we have to, this other matter of meta-philosophy/
I want you to have a look at this and tell me what you think. Humor me for a moment.
“This does not exist” is proof that “this” exists. Here is a quick dialogue to explain it.
Bob: This does not exists.
Joe: What is it that you are claiming does not exist?
Bob: This.
Joe: Then how do you reference “this” in the statement while claiming that it does not exist?
Bob: I’m not claiming that “this” exists, I’m saying that it doesn’t.
Joe: If “this” does not exist, then it couldn’t exist for you to say it didn’t exist, and you could not make the statement.
Bob: I don’t understand.
Joe: Whatever it is that you are calling “this” must exist in order for you to doubt and make the claim that it doesn’t exist. If “this” truely didn’t exist then you couldn’t claim it didn’t exist because you would be refering to nothing in the first place.
Here’s what is happening.
Ken, there is a difference between knowing the capital of a city through having been there, and accepting that truth rationally and authoritatively. But it is not what you think, because even having been there the descriptive function of the truth statement remains the same in either case; standing in the middle of a parking lot does not prove that "standing in a parking lot is true, but rather only the signification of more descriptive experience. The reason why the dilemma is so peculiar is because when Bob refers to nothing as a “this” he is making a negation which confounds the epistemological form of its sense. Like an atheist affirming the existence of God when he admits that a God must exist in order to be believed as non-existent. A large majority of thought works with this process of negation and concepts can be imagined which are then refuted. But this is no more a proof that they do not exist as your experience of that screen in front of you is proof that it does, in fact, exist. The explanation of the experience is still only a descriptive representation of a concept or group of concepts emerging in the mind from experience. It is a copy and could be deceptive in many ways.
A statement can only conform to its internal experience which is dubitable itself. Any truth value is questionable when its entirety is not known, that is, when it is part of a grander hypothesis, be it logic or mathematics, that remains unresolved. I guess this is something Godal was trying to show? Sounds Godelish anyway, from what I know about the dude.
It comes down to Dunamis’ mention of “surety.” The finalization of real knowledge is the effect of the acceptance of a suspected truth as obvious as the computer in front of you. Yet this is only a description. Its empircal validation is aquired through logic, its corespondence to conventional language as it represents objects and experiences in/of the world. But this is not alleviating it of its essential descriptive method.
So the ideation of “one plus one does not equal two” is fundamentally eqivalent to the idea of “one plus one equals two?”
I don’t follow much of what you write. But here are what I hope are a few relevant remarks.
I can very well imagine a drunk in the middle of a bout of delirium tremens hallucinating a pink elephant, and pointing at empty space and saying, “This does not exist.” Can’t you? In Shakespeare’s Macbeth there is a famous scene when Macbeth, filled with guilt from the murder of the King, hallucinates a dagger hovering above him. Macbeth’s words are, “Is this a dagger I see above me?” Of course, there is no dagger.
I no more have to believe that God exists in order to believe that God does not exist than I have to believe that Santa Claus exists in order to believe that Santa Claus does not exist. Same goes for the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy.
As I said, I don’t understand the rest of your post, so I cannot comment intelligently on it.
Its simple. You cannot prove the truth of a statement with another statement. You cannot use logic to qualify logic. The same goes for speech. The only thing that can be determined about truth is how it is assimilated and the apriori structures for experience as a metaphysical set of concepts. It cannot be demonstrated in language…it is Wittgensteins ladder.
On another note this is useless unpragmatic philosophy. It serves only to keep an interest in the fascination of philosophy and the imagination. The paradox is aesthetically pleasing…it evolves the passion and growth in thinking. Its Socrates “knowing nothing.”
For every argument there is a contrary view. Every argument. I watch logicians battle it out day after day and solve nothing in the realm of philosophy.
I think logic belongs in science and physics. Philosophy is an existential affair where many meanings are created without logic. While it is useful to some degree it is subject to attack by deeper levels of metaphysics, where language destroys itself and nothing is left but experience.
Anyway, the discussion is great and I’m learning alot.
It appears to me that you think they are both wrong because you’re adhering to a different epistemology than they are in this discussion (Dunamis/YaddaYadda, please point out if I misrepresent your ideas.) Kennethamy, when you say, “knowledge implies truth,” what truth are you referring to? An empirical truth? An absolute truth as defined by God, or a relative truth?
“the agreement of experts is no guarantee that the experts know…” Well, yes it is, if knowledge is defined as that which is agreed upon by experts. The implication of that would be that what one knows is based on consensus and not some absolute claim to possess truths that are bound to something other than human perception. This is what YadaYada is talking about.
“Feeling sure is no guarantee that you know, since you can feel sure and be wrong.” By being “wrong,” do you mean not having knowledge, or not knowing truth? Well, if knowledge is defined as that which one feels sure about, then surety does equate to knowledge. The point I think they are exploring is that objective “knowledge” does not exist. According to Dunamis, if I really, really feel strongly about a belief, then that belief is knowledge-- it is my knowledge. For that belief to become knowledge for anyone else, they would have to feel really strongly about it also. Example: I know that Paris is in France. I have never been there, but I feel very strongly that it is there, because of my experiences with maps, political history and so forth. If I merely believe it is in France, but would not claim to “know,” then I have a lesser degree of surety.
In YaddaYadda’s view, knowledge is derived by the consensus of highly studied and highly experienced “experts”, i.e. those whose activities would suggest that they are best equipped to have discovered “truth.” So, if I know that Paris is in France, it is because the “experts,” i.e. those with the most experience with geography, political history, cartography, etc. have, by their collective agreement that Paris is in France, created the fact as “knowledge.”
In neither case would I have had to go to Paris in order to know that it was in France. I suspect that your theory of knowledge does not require that you physically see and touch everything that you claim knowledge of. Of course, however I go about obtaining knowledge, it is always subjective; Paris is also in Texas, for example.
It seems that you believe that neither the experts nor my sense of surety are adequate generators of knowledge, so I am curious as to how exactly you define knowledge.
About knowledge implying truth I have no particular notion of truth in mind, although I, myself, adhere to the correspondence notion expressed by Aristotle a long time ago. Aristotle said
something like this (I do not have the complete quote) “To say of what is that it is, or to say of what is not that it is not is to say what is true” I don’t think that could be bettered. More recent version have been something like: A belief (statement, proposition) is true if and only if it corresponds to a fact or state of affairs in the world. Not true if and only if it fails to correspond to a fact or state of affairs in the world. So in a famous formulation: “Snow is white” is true if and only if snow is white.
Knowledge implies truth because the statement “I know that p” is short for, “I know that p is true”. Truth is a necessary condition for knowledge, although it is not a sufficient condition for knowledge.
People use the notion of “absolute” in so many different ways, some of which baffle me, that I have no idea whether the truth implied by knowledge is “absolute” since I don’t really understand what it means to say of truth that it is absolute. Maybe you or someone else could tell me what that means.
That there is a town in Texas called “Paris” is just a quibble. If you insist let us simply say there is “Paris”(1), “Paris”(2), “Paris”(3)…“Paris”(N) (for all I know there is another town in Nebraska called “Paris” too) I am talking about “Paris”(1) and that one is in France and the Seine river runs though it. But that there are a number towns in the world called “Paris” is no more an objection to the proposition that I know that Paris is in France, then that there are many people called “George” is an objection to my statement that I know that the first name of the 43rd president is “George”. The fact that others are named “George” is no reason in the world to think that I don’t know that the 43rd president is named “George” and that there is a town in Texas called “Paris” is simply irrelevant to whether I know that there is a city in France called “Paris”. If I said, “I own a Cadillac” would you reply, “You don’t know that because my uncle also owns a Cadillac”. Irrelevant.
If you feel strongly that your belief is true, what difference does that make? Everyone thinks that his belief is true. If he did not, he wouldn’t have that belief in the first place. No one can hold a belief and think his belief is false. Why would he then hold that belief. Nevertheless, since people are not infallible (not even the Pope himself) although there are no beliefs we have that we think are wrong, nevertheless, it stands to reason that some (perhaps many) of our beliefs are, in fact mistaken. I am pretty sure that you are, like me, a fallible human being, and so, have made a few mistakes in your life. And a mistake is just a belief which turned out to be false. (You do allow that you have made mistakes, don’t you?)
So, of course, as I have already said, when we believe something, we believe that what we believe is true (and also that it is true that we are believing something, which is, of course, a different matter). But, since, like all human beings we are liable to error (“To err is human”) no matter how strongly we believe something, we may be mistaken. (And, in fact, there are studies with tend to show that the more passionately we believe something, the more likely it is that we are mistaken, since passion and evidence do not mix very well). And to say, as you do that when you believe strongly it is “my knowledge” is just a very misleading way of admitting that when you passionately believe something it is difficult for you to admit that you are wrong. In that you are, unhappily, like so many human beings who hang on to their beliefs for dear life. It is one of the curses of human irrationality.
The fact that you passionately believe something does not make your belief knowledge. Knowledge must have adequate evidence. And knowledge must be true. And passionate belief does not guarantee that you have adequate evidence for your belief. And passionate belief does not guarantee that your belief is true.
Throughout history, people have passionately believed what they are had meagre or no evidence for, and which turned out to be false.
I would disagree. There are many problems with the correspondence theory. First, as your second paraphrase (which comes from Russell and Moore) implies, truth is dependent on knowledge of facts. You must know something about facts before you can know if a particular statement has a positive truth value. As Hume has pointed out, it is impossible to have certainty regarding knowledge of matters of fact. So, in this view, the correspondence theory is rubbish.
Second, consider the example, “snow is white.” The truth of this statement depends on itself, which makes it a circular argument. In addition, “snow is white” is a very broad, very general statement. What snow? Where? When? Of course, you might argue that the implication is that all snow is white, or that it is not necessary to include all the icky details that would make the statement workable; however, those details are absolutely necessary, because as long as you are assuming that the snow in question is in fact that white stuff that fell on your car last winter (prior to its being colored by dirt, leaves, piss, etc.) then all you have is assumption. You do not have truth, or knowledge. Your statement lacks the necessary specificity.
Consider also that “to say of what is that it is” is merely an exercise of language. The meaning of the statement depends on the definition of the terms, which are subject to interpretation. So, for the statement “Snow is white” to mean to you that my dog Snow is white, you’d need to know that I have a dog and that his name is Snow, and that he’s white. Otherwise you might think I’m talking about that white stuff that fell on your car that Snow pissed on last winter. However trivial you think the example is, it isn’t: no statement can ever be entirely without ambiguity or uncertainty, and therefore any claim of truth based on that statement’s correspondence to factual reality (about which nothing can be known with certainty) is purely subjective. So now we have subjective truth, which means knowledge (as it implies truth) is also subjective, which means it could easily be that my knowledge is that which I believe very strongly for reasons known only to me and your knowledge is that which you feel very strongly about because you perceive that it works well for you.
Whose truth? What truth? The correspondence theory only gives you subjective truth, i.e. truth according to the individual.
Unfortunately I couldn’t because I don’t believe in absolute truth, primarily because it seems impossible. If there were an “absolute” truth, it might be one that no thought or action could contravene-- one that was dependent on nothing for its truthfulness. And I’m not sure such a thing exists.
Not exactly. You know which Paris you’re referring to when you say “Paris is in France,” and I believe that you are referring to the one through which the river Seine runs (and that this river is on the European continent and the women there don’t shave their underarms.) However, these are really no more than assumptions. For example, there is a Paris, Ontario, and there is also a Seine river in Ontario, and that this river does not run through that city is not something about which I have much certainty at the moment, having never been there or seen either on a map. In addition, “a Cadillac” implies that there are multiple Cadillacs, and so there is little reason for me to suspect that the one you think you own is the one my uncle also thinks he owns. We were not talking about “a Paris,” however, though it could have been assumed that we were. The difference in language amounts to everything, and language is but one piece of the equation that is subject to interpretation.
Fallibility cannot be assessed if truth is subjective; what is an error to you might not be for me.
According to your epistemology, yes. Not according to all. Not according to one in which knowledge comes from strong feelings of surety.
Actually, “the second paraphrase” comes from Alfred Tarski’s famous “The Semantic Definition of Truth”, and not from either Moore or Russell whose views of truth I am not clear about.
“Subjective truth” seems to be what is believed is true. However, what is believed is true need not be what is true. I don’t care much about “subjective truth” but about truth.
To say that a statement or a belief is an assumption is to say something about the evidence for that belief. It is to say nothing about whether that belief is true or not. Assumptions may be true, or they may not be true.
Again, that I own a Cadillac is in no way put into question by the fact that my uncle owns a Cadillac (unless, of course, you assume there exists but one Cadillac). That there are 100,000 Cadillacs, and 999,000 are owned by others, in no way is evidence that I do not own a Cadillac. How could it be?
If “truth is subjective” which is to say, what you believe is true, then of course, since what you believe is true may be false (since we all make mistakes) then, we are clearly fallible. Are you under the impression that you do not make mistakes?
As I have pointed out, people who believe that they know some proposition is true often are convinced that they are right. (I suppose that is what you mean by "strong feeling of surety"I am just saying it in plain English). But, as you know, and as everyone else knows, conviction that you are right in no way guarantees that you are right. People who have been strongly convinced that they were correct turned out not to be correct. In that case they did not know what they thought they knew. Perhaps you want to say that you don’t have to be right when you know something. That is not how the word “know” is used in English. That is how the word “believe” is used in English. Beliefs (even accompanied by strong feelings of conviction) may be false. Knowledge, whether or not accompanied by strong feelings of conviction must be true. That is one of the important differences between believing and knowing. I suppose you can use the term “know” as a synonym for strong belief, as you seem to be intent on doing. There is no law against it. It simply confuses believing with knowing. It is not a “different” epistemology. It is just a confusion.
Truth is not in the possession of anyone. Truth is, as I pointed out, a relation between a belief (or a statement or proposition) on the one hand, and a fact or a state of affairs, on the other hand. The belief (or statement or proposition) is true if and only if there is a fact to which it corresponds. The way in which we determine (if we can) whether there is a correspondence, is by means of evidence together with rational argument. So, the proposition that snow is white is true just in case snow is white. By “snow”, as you know, I mean the stuff that comes down in flakes in the winter time. By “white”, as you know, I mean the color of the albumen of an egg. But to ask questions like, ‘what do you mean by “snow”’ and ‘what do you mean by “white”’ as you yourself must know, is irrelevant to the issue.
So you say. However, it happens to resemble very closely a quote from Russell’s “On the Nature of Truth,” which predates Tarski by 40 years. The latter I am not familiar with, though I should probably add him to my reading list.
You would seem to have missed the point I was trying to make regarding the subjectivity of truth.
How do you go about ascertaining whether or not they are or are not true? We’ve already seen how empirical facts cannot be employed to derive objective truth values.
I never said it could. Assuming you meant “99,000” instead of “999,000” then it implies that you own 10,000 Cadillacs I agree with what you are saying here.
It isn’t a question of whether I make mistakes. If what I believe with certainty constitutes knowledge, and knowledge implies truth, then what I believe with certainty cannot, in my mind, be false. All that I am suggesting is that what I “know” in my mind, you cannot change no matter what you think you know about real truth. The converse is also true. Truth is purely subjective.
See bold:
Not irrelevant at all. In fact, it is precisely the issue I am raising. However, you seem settled in your view of knowledge, which is a broadly accepted view, and in fact it is the one that I generally operate with. It makes life livable. However, does that mean that it is necessarily correct? No. The point of philosophy is to question that which is generally accepted and to examine every aspect of what it is to be and to know. That’s all I’m advocating.
Questioning for questioning’s sake seems to me a futile enterprise just as arguing for argument’s sake is. The point of philosophy is certainly not merely to question, but to discover the truth about things. If a view or a positions seems to have flaws, then you can point them out. You did not point out any flaws in the “broadly accepted view” of knowledge, but simply asserted something that “conflicted” with it like “subjective knowledge” which turned out to be strongly held belief. But strongly held belief is not the same as, and is not even a reasonable facsimile of knowledge. If the view I supported is “broadly held” there might be a very good reason it is “broadly held”. It it true.
old science: when the facts are true they start to hold
new science: when facts hold they start to become true
old science: reality is the cause which allowed a controversy to be settled
new science: a stable state of reality will be the outcome of settling a controversy
but that is a belief… an assumption… a very circular one usually… whig history… we won the controversy because we were right… how do we know we were right? well didnt you see how we just won that controversy???
but of course there is a lot more to being right than broad aggreement or “intersubjectivity” between people… there is also “inter-objectivity”… or the ability to illicit consensus from non-humans… to translate them…
so a broad agreement may mean nothing if you can get a bunch of atoms and graphs on your side… or if such non-humans betray those who hold the agreement…
so its not just a case of social consensus… unless your wise enough to include bugs and rocks and photons in your society…
That a view is broadly held, especially by experts in a subject, is good evidence that it is true. But, of course, there have been broadly held views which have turned out to be false.
Eh, just who are the non-humans from whom we are supposed to elicit agreement. Oysters? Or are you thinking of something more exotic?
After all, all I said is that one explanation for broad agreement, in particular by experts in the subject (or those who have thought long and hard about it) might be that the view is true. There may indeed be other explanations (although I think the one about the atoms and the oysters is far-fetched). But it would seem to me that the best explanation is the one I offered. And, the best might well be the true one. Especially if there are no better explanations than that we ought to consult the oysters too.
that is sidestepping the problem though, as what is at stake is what we mean by “true”
offering “truth” as an explanation for experts holding a belief isnt helpful because it is the truth of the belief that they hold which needs to be explained before that very explanation becomes valid.
…which is why that approach is a very bad example of whig history… “the experts agreed because they were right”… “the experts dissented because the others were wrong”…
even the status of expert must be a consequence, not a cause of holding true beliefs at some level…
you need to be able to explain what it is to be right and wrong beyond consensus for that not to be a circular argument…
which is where objects come in… as their translation and interessment is often crucial to a statements “truth” or “falsity”… but that will sound like a crazy and periphery assertion untill you’ve at least brought a little symmetry to your conceptions of truth and falsity and consensus and diagreement…
Truth is a correspondence between a theory (or a statement) and the world. A theory is true if and only if it corresponds to the way the world is.
Thus, atomic theory is true if an only if the entities it mentions exist and the relations among these entities are as the theory describes them to be.
As I pointed out, the fact that there is a consensus among experts (say atomic physicists) that atomic theory is true (see above for what I mean by that) is good reason to think that atomic theory is true (see above for what I mean by that).
If there were a concensus among oysters, paramecia, and rocks, (if there were such a thing, and if I could find out what it was) I don’t think I would use that as evidence that atomic theory (or any other theory) was true.
I agree with what you are saying here.