Hello, this is a rather large paper divided into five parts on this forum. I’ve kept this for too long to myself, so I hope you enjoy it. I’m not the greatest writer, so I do appreciate feedback on style, as well as critiquing the ideas. Though I may have divided this into parts, each part is reliant on the previous, so don’t skip around. Whether this work is successful or not, please reference this work for copyright purposes if you plan to integrate it into your own philosophies. Thank you!
Jason Wismer
Traditional Knowledge and its Problems
The standard view of knowledge was the rock upon which epistemology sat until Edmund Gettier published his refutation in 1960. After Gettier’s paper struck, epistemologists scrambled, and are still scrambling today, to piece together a sound theory of knowledge. I believe Gettier’s paper is successful at refuting the standard view of knowledge, but also believe a sound theory of knowledge can emerge intact.
I examine the Gettier problem and attempt to find something with which to salvage the standard theory of knowledge. I conclude that Gettier is correct in his refutation of knowledge, but only in regards to synthetic propositions. Within Gettier's paper, knowledge of definitions is found to be intact. Using the “knowledge of definitions”, or what I call analytic knowledge, as a base, I construct a theory of knowledge that attempts to prove “knowledge of experience”, or what I call synthetic knowledge. Instead of using the traditional definition of justification, I establish a new definition of justification that can give us a basis for knowledge of the synthetic. This form, “necessary justification.” establishes a requirement for knowledge that cannot be raised or lowered depending on the circumstances, yet is within the reaches of human kind.
With a new standard of knowledge established, I further demonstrate that this knowledge must be able to be handled within context, or whether one or more people are involved in the decision of knowledge. With an understanding of context, science and personal identities can be evaluated. Even further, this established new standard of knowledge allows a person to evaluate cogency within inductive premises. I demonstrate how a necessary justification combined with induction can lead to the necessary conclusion that a penny has a 50% chance of landing heads or tails. With cogency established as a process of knowledge, certain inductions may be seen as more or less cogent and thus more or less valid in use. Finally, for those readers who still aren't convinced, I devote an entire section to the more complicated epistemological problems philosophy has challenged knowledge with over the years.
I will begin with the standard view of knowledge and its Gettier refutation. The standard view of knowledge rests on proving a proposition as either true or false. A proposition is what is conveyed through a declarative statement. “There is a sheep in the field behind my house,” is a declarative sentence. What is conveyed is there exists a sheep in a field behind my house. The standard method of claiming to know the truth or falsity of a proposition is as follows:
A person (S) knows a proposition (P) if and only if:
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P is true
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S believes P
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S is justified in believing P
In order to compile a logical argument for or against a belief in a proposition, evidence for one’s claim is needed. Reasonable evidence describes how and why a proposition is true, justifying its existence. Justification is evidence one gives which reasonably supports a conclusion. For example, I see a wooly animal with hooves in a field. Because of this, I believe the proposition, “There is a sheep in that field“. I am justified in believing the proposition because the evidence I observed seems to match that of a sheep, and it turns out, the proposition is true; there is a sheep in the field. So if there is a sheep in the field (1), I believe there’s a sheep in the field (2), and I’m justified in believing there’s a sheep in the field (3), then I know there is a sheep in the field according to the standard theory of knowledge.
The standard view of knowledge was refuted in 1963 when Edmund Gettier demonstrated a person could meet all three requirements within the standard view of knowledge, yet not have knowledge of the propositions truth. I will use Gettier’s second example to demonstrate.
Smith observes his good friend Jones driving a Ford. Smith believes that Jones owns a Ford because Smith has regularly seen Jones driving a Ford. Thus Smith’s belief that Jones owns a Ford is justified. Justified in this belief, Smith thinks back to another friend, Brown. Smith doesn’t know where Brown is at the moment, so decides to justifiably believe in the proposition:
Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Barcelona
S is justified in believing Brown is not in Boston, as Barcelona seems a bit out of Browns way. However, Jones actually doesn’t own a Ford at the time, as he sold his Ford the day before S made his claim, and Jones is driving a rented Ford the day S believed the above proposition. Further, Brown actually is in Barcelona through some freak chance. Thus the proposition “Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Barcelona,” is true, S is justified in believing said proposition, yet S does not know that the proposition is true. In this way, justified true belief was refuted as the standard theory of knowledge.
Examining the Gettier argument closer reveals why. Justification within the standard theory of knowledge is inductive. The evidence a person provides for their belief does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that their belief is correct, but simply leads to the conclusion through common sense within normal experiences or context. In Gettier's second example, S is justified in believing Jones owns a Ford because he's seen Jones drive a Ford every day. Most people would claim this was enough evidence to be justified that Jones owns a Ford. Yet this in itself is still inductive, and does not necessarily mean Jones will always own a Ford. As long as justification is inductive, and justification is used as a means of knowledge, no knowledge will ever be definitive.
It seems to me that if a non-inductive justification could be established, then the Gettier problem would lose its clout, and a standard of knowledge could be restored. Of course, setting up a non-inductive, or what I will call a necessary justification for knowledge, has a few difficult problems it must overcome. First, the standard which must be met to claim a necessary justification cannot be altered based upon circumstances, or the flow of time. One must be either necessarily justified, or not at all. Second, the standard for necessary justification must not be impossible to fulfill. If the requirements for necessary justification are outside of humanities capability, then such requirements are useless to us.
I believe I can define a necessary justification which will satisfactorily solve these two problems. I do this by first noting there are two different types of propositions, analytic and synthetic. Second, I note that the refutation of standard knowledge brought forth by the Gettier problem only applies to synthetic propositions. I will demonstrate this division of knowledge, knowledge of synthetic propositions and knowledge of analytic propositions, provides a key to finding a justification which is necessary.
The key is to understand analytic propositions are essentially definitions; and these definitions must be known before any person can claim knowledge to a synthetic proposition. The analytic propositions, or the definitions, are the requirements of justification one must meet to claim synthetic knowledge. Necessary justification of synthetic claims entails that the experience one is identifying must undeniably match one non-synonymous definition one knows, and any further possible experience of the identity in question will not contradict one's matching of the identity to the definition.
Synthetic and Analytic Knowledge
To understand my claim that analytic propositions are the backbone of justification for synthetic propositions, a further analysis of analytic and synthetic propositions is needed. A proposition contains a subject and a predicate. “A bachelor is an unmarried man,” is an example of a proposition. The subject is “bachelor”, and the predicate is “is an unmarried man”. This particular proposition is classified as an analytic proposition, as the means to discover the truth of the proposition, is found within the relation of the subject and its predicate. To know what a bachelor is, it must be an unmarried man. Therefore it is claimed analytic proposition are true by definition. As they are necessarily true, we know analytic propositions.
A synthetic proposition would be, “That man over there is a bachelor.” The truth of this proposition can only be determined by evidence outside the proposition. It is not necessarily the case that the subject and the predicate should be conjoined. To know that a particular man is a bachelor, one must have evidence outside the proposition. Traditional knowledge focuses on knowledge of synthetic propositions. If I claim that a man is a bachelor, this claim must be true, and the believer must be justified in believing the man is a bachelor.
For now, notice that our ability to know is different depending on whether the proposition is analytic or synthetic. To know an analytic proposition, its predicate must be contained in its subject, nothing more. As analytic propositions are true by definition, analytic propositions are something we can claim humanity knows. There are objections to this notion, but for now, these concerns will be put to the side and it will be assumed that one knows the analytic propositions one states. The reason is, the Gettier argument , and other arguments against knowledge implicitly assume the person reading the argument knows the definitions involved in the argument. In fact, the fact that analytic propositions are true is necessary for the attack on a synthetic proposition to occur. Here’s why.
A definition is a form of analytic proposition. Bachelor-unmarried man. Within the Gettier argument, does Smith know what a Ford is? Does Smith know what ownership is? I find that it is impossible for Smith to claim they know “Jones owns a Ford,” without first knowing the definitions, or the analytic propositions in question. If S knows the definitions of the terms in question, and S must, for analytic propositions are true by definition, then S actually knows something within the Gettier problem.
This may be fine and dandy, but how does this help us with the knowledge of the synthetic proposition involved? If I find it necessary for me to know the definition of a bachelor before I start claiming that I have seen one, perhaps the reason knowledge of this definition is necessary is because it is the standard of needed evidence by which we can hold synthetic knowledge too. Thus if I claim synthetic knowledge that I saw a bachelor, what I saw must match to my analytic knowledge of a bachelor. Thus to synthetically know I observed a bachelor, I must demonstrate that what I observed matched an “unmarried man.”
Though this is a standard for synthetic knowledge, it does not answer how a person may meet such a standard, or how to avoid the risk of the standard being raised. For example, I may have known Ned my entire life and never seen him wear a wedding ring. However, when Ned went home alone one night, he had a secret wedding and has kept his wife hidden this entire time. I have ample evidence that he is a bachelor, but I don't actually know that he's a bachelor. As for the standard being raised, we could have a video recording of Ned's entire life except for one hour. Yet in that one hour, Ned could have married someone, then never spoke to his wife again. As Ned could have been married in that hour, do we really know Ned is a bachelor? This question leads to further conflicts within the question of the definition of marriage. If Ned only marries someone for an hour and never sees them again, are they still married?
To address this last problem, we will start with an examination of analytic propositions at their most simple. First, all analytic propositions in given examples will be assumed to be known by the people using them. Thus, there will be no question as to whether someone's definition of marriage is different than another persons. The analytic knowledge we will currently examine will be non-contextual; we will be examining solitary analytic knowledge. Before the complications of different knowledge are introduced, we must examine analytic knowledge at its very base, analytic knowledge that is uniform, or that of a solitary person.
With the uniformity and simplicity of analytic propositions established, I will present what I believe to be knowledge of synthetic propositions, and analyze it in hopes that a stable reachable standard of justification for this knowledge can be reached.
S knows a synthetic p if:
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S has knowledge of the analytic p necessary to claim the synthetic p
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S has an experience, and believes this experience matches an analytic p S knows.
I am claiming one must have an understanding of the definitions one uses, and these definitions are the standards by which our experiences can be known as synthetic propositions. One takes the definitions one knows, and essentially claims that their discrete experience matches those definitions. What exactly do I mean by a “discrete experience”?
An experience is any realized contact with oneself or the outside world. This may be a non-sensory thought in addition to outside physical contact. When one lays claim to a synthetic proposition, what one is trying to do is label a discrete experience. A discrete experience occurs whenever one discriminates between experiences. Think and sense around yourself right now and you will encounter many discrete experiences. Any sense, or combination of senses that you discriminate amongst is a discrete experience. Any particular thoughts, or blend of thoughts that you group together is another discrete experience. As I type these words, the keys below my fingers are each discrete experiences, as is the keyboard as a whole. Whenever we are attempting to claim knowledge of said experience, we label that discrete experience giving it an identity.
An identity does not need to be a linguistic label, it simply the remembrance and cataloging of a realization of difference within existence. If a dog spies a furry four legged thing with a particular smell, it cannot label this experience with a word. If it encounters that experience again, it can only associate that experience with a flat memory of the former experience. I claim a synthetic proposition is an attempt to claim a discrete experience is a remembered identity. Synthetic knowledge occurs when the attempt to label the experience as a remembered identity in one’s mind, is correct.
Necessary Justification
If this is the process by which synthetic knowledge is obtained, the description of this process does not determine what one experiences actually matches one’s known analytic propositions, or identities.
Looking into a field, S sees an animal only a few yards off that looks, sounds, smells, etc., exactly like a sheep, and S noninferentially forms the perceptual belief that there is a sheep in the field. Actually the animal is of a different species but has been artfully disguised. Yet there is a real sheep in the field – ‘way off in a remote corner of the field, completely hidden behind thick hedges. (Chisolm)
The above example demonstrates one can have ample evidence that one’s experience matches one’s analytic knowledge, yet not have synthetic knowledge. Inductive justification, or an inductive argumentation for why one believes, will never necessarily show one's belief in a synthetic proposition is correct. For now, what is needed is a defined justification which necessarily leads one to the belief in a particular synthetic proposition. That being the case, a necessary justification will be proposed as such:
S is necessarily justified in believing a synthetic P IFF
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S’s discrete experience can only be matched to one (non-synonymous) known analytic proposition.
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Any further experience of this identity, which is at the time humanely possible, will not contradict the discrete experiences match to the analytic proposition.
I am claiming to begin necessarily justifying synthetic propositions, a person’s discrete experience can only match to one of the person’s non-synonymous known analytic propositions. Imagine that you are in your back yard late at night and you hear a light scampering from some brush. In your mind you think the synthetic proposition, “Oh, that was a squirrel.” Now it may be a fact that your belief in the identity is correct. It may be true that the scampering was indeed caused by a squirrel. The problem is, you also have analytic knowledge of a rabbit, small dogs, and many other animals with which the discrete experience could have easily been matched to. As such, you could not say you were necessarily justified in matching the identity to a squirrel, or any of the other definitions for that matter; and cannot claim synthetic knowledge to any of them.
Until you can be certain that the discrete experience can be matched to only one non-synonymous analytic proposition, you can only have an inductive match, not a necessary match. Synonyms are discounted, as they are different definiendums with the same definiens.
The implication is the less analytic knowledge one has, the more certain one can be in one’s synthetic knowledge. If you called all things that scampered through a bush, “Scampers,” then you would easily match the identity to the analytic knowledge of “Scampers”. This notion shall be explored a little later in the paper, as there are currently more pertinent questions.
The second requirement for necessary justification notes that further possible experiences of the identity will not reveal a contradiction, or refutation in one’s matching. I noted that an identity is a labeled discrete experience, yet one may have further discrete experiences within this identity. For example, I identify an experience as a human being, yet this experience also has the identities of arms, legs, and a head. These experiences are identities within an identity. Further experience of an identity is either when one actually encounters more of the identity, or identifies further experiences within the identity one had not noticed previously.
If I claim a sheep in front of me is not a disguised goat, any means of possibly experiencing the identity of a sheep will not result in a contradiction or refutation of my analytic matching. Thus if I experience the sheep through a different sense, or experience the sheep from another angle, I will still be able to claim the identity of a sheep. Further, identities found within the identity of a sheep should not contradict my claim either. If I see within the identity of the sheep identities of wool, legs, and a particular sheep-like smell, and their connections to the whole identity are synthetically justified, then my claim of the whole identity as being a sheep is not falsified. One may claim a discrete experience is X, but that experience must match X in all levels.
Further, the requirement that claimed analytic knowledge must be “an experience which is humanely possible at that time,” means that a person cannot raise the standards of necessary justification beyond what people can reach. If I claim I see a sheep, yet someone claims the discrete experience is a goat, they would have to give the experience that allowed them to make their wild claim. If the experience is outside of human means, for example, the goat claimer states the disguise was made by alien technology that we cannot detect, the claimant of said disguise would not be able to necessarily justify the disguise themselves, as it would be undetectable even for them. This does not deny that theories which are impossible to necessarily justify may be true, but they are irrelevant in the face of what is able to be necessarily justified. This is key to a necessary justification, as this allows a standard which cannot be raised, even if the circumstances change.
For example, as an ignorant peasant in the B.C. Era, I can look up at the night sky and know that as the sun rises, the stars vanish. All analytic knowledge points this to being the case. If someone said the stars don’t really vanish, they’re still there in the same place, I would ask how they know such a thing. They could not give me any detectable evidence at that time, and I would claim the other person could not know this. And they couldn’t. The knowledge that could be claimed at the time was the stars vanished from the night sky when the sun rose.
Today, I can know the night sky as also space, a vast vacuum filled with planets and stars thousands of miles apart. I know that the stars do not vanish, only that the suns light blocks out the other stars light. Even though I may have more information about the night sky, it does not negate that the villager with limited scientific tools knew that the stars vanished when the sun rose. The villager could not claim where the stars vanished too, or how they vanished, but the observation that they vanished is knowledge the villager had. Newer technology may make current necessarily justified beliefs obsolete in the future, but the necessary justified beliefs at that time are the knowledge then.
This is important because it also separates synthetic knowledge from truth. It may indeed be the truth that the president of the Unite States is an undetectably disguised alien. Yet this is something we could never synthetically know. All we can do is have a discrete experience, explore it with all of our capabilities, and when finished, conclude what must necessarily be its identity based upon our analytic knowledge. Synthetic knowledge is a claim to truth dependent upon what we can possibly experience.
Though someone may claim to be necessarily justified in their synthetic proposition, this does not necessitate their claim is actually necessarily justified. As such, it is important to examine the different approaches one could take in an attempt to refute, or test, claimed synthetic knowledge. Before this can continue, it would be best to first address an issue that has been put to the side for some time now; the truth of analytic propositions. With a greater understanding of analytic knowledge, a greater understanding of synthetic knowledge can result. (Next post "S/A Knowledge Part 2 Analytic Knowledge)