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Old 12-15-2005, 01:46 AM
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Default What is it to have knowledge?

What is it to have knowledge? When does belief become truth? What are the requirements to say that someone knows such and such? They seem like simple questions but they really aren't. Often times we'll say something like "I know that I'll get a raise at work" or "I'll know that the cowboys will win tomorrow" but do we really?

Here's an intereting case. Let's say you want to know the time. You look at your watch, and the watch reads 3:15. In reality, it really is 3:15. But... the watch is broken. It's been stuck on 3:15 for days, you just don't know. Can we say that you knew it was 3:15. Sure the watch said 3:15 so you believed it to be 3:15 and it was 3:15, but the watch wa broken. I think most people would contend that you didn't know the time.

The clock case is a good example of the traditional view of justified true belief (jtb). It goes like this
For S to know P
1. S must believe P (It makes no sense to say: "I know it's raining but I don't believe it"

2. P must be true (I think no further explanation is needed here)

3. S must be justified in believe P (Otherwise the clock case would be knowledge, or any wild belief that we have that HAPPENS to be true would also be knowledge)

There are many problems with jtb that many philosphers have shown and tried to solve. I personsally think that justification is a vague term. Many philosophers believe that a 4th requierment is needed. What do you SMP'ers think?

If anyone likes, I can further discuss some problems and solutions some philosophers have presented regarding jtb.
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  #2  
Old 12-15-2005, 02:57 AM
purnell purnell is offline
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Default Re: What is it to have knowledge?

I don't have a solution, I just accept that actually knowing anything is beyond my abilities. It's fun to pretend, though. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]
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Old 12-15-2005, 06:15 AM
peritonlogon peritonlogon is offline
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Default Re: What is it to have knowledge?

There is an entire field of philosophy called epistemology that addresses this question.

One thing that I will actually add though, is that the latter portions of modernity stopped putting the question in terms of knowledge and started putting it in terms of "understanding." And not to quote any, but some of your examples simply employed different uses of the word "know" in different gramatical forms and, in light of this, would be simply considered semantic differences.
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  #4  
Old 12-15-2005, 06:51 AM
Piers Piers is offline
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Default Re: What is it to have knowledge?


[ QUOTE ]
What are the requirements to say that someone knows such and such? They seem like simple questions but they really aren't. Often times we'll say something like "I know that I'll get a raise at work" or "I'll know that the cowboys will win tomorrow" but do we really?


[/ QUOTE ]

I would say that ‘knowing’ in this sense is an emotional reaction to available evidence plus over factors. At a certain point a mental trigger flicks inside you and you ‘know’ something is true.

This is a tool to streamline thinking along paths where what you ‘know’ to be true, is assumed to be true. A trick the mind plays to reduce unnecessary processing. A useful mechanism that nevertheless has an obvious flaw.

[ QUOTE ]
Here's an intereting case. Let's say you want to know the time. You look at your watch, and the watch reads 3:15. In reality, it really is 3:15. But... the watch is broken. It's been stuck on 3:15 for days, you just don't know. Can we say that you knew it was 3:15. Sure the watch said 3:15 so you believed it to be 3:15 and it was 3:15, but the watch wa broken. I think most people would contend that you didn't know the time.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you believe the watch is accurate, then it is possible you will know the time is 3:15 after looking at the watch. The actual time has only an indirect effect on this process.

Equally if the watch showed an incorrect but plausible time, say 3:12, you might know the time is 3:12 after looking at the watch. Just this time you would be wrong in this instance.


[ QUOTE ]
The clock case is a good example of the traditional view of justified true belief (jtb). It goes like this
For S to know P
1. S must believe P (It makes no sense to say: "I know it's raining but I don't believe it"

2. P must be true (I think no further explanation is needed here)

3. S must be justified in believe P (Otherwise the clock case would be knowledge, or any wild belief that we have that HAPPENS to be true would also be knowledge)

[/ QUOTE ]

So what with this equating ‘knowing’ with ‘true belief’?

I think it is clear that humans can never satisfy all 1,2 and 3. If knowing was a synonym of true belief as defined here, then the verb ‘to know’ would be practically unusable.
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Old 12-15-2005, 10:57 AM
chezlaw chezlaw is offline
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Default Re: What is it to have knowledge?

One way I think of knowledge is as the aim of beliefs that can never be reached.

Suppose I believe P and have two reasons R1 and R2.

If R1 is a better reason for thinking P is true than R2 is then (R1,P) is closer to knowledge than (R2,P) is.

If I had a perfect reason, R to believe P i.e. R->P then I would know P.

I don't believe this perfect reason can ever exist about truths of the world. I'm not even sure the idea of better reasons for beliefs about the external world is coherent.

I also think Nozick is on to something important
[ QUOTE ]
Nozick offers a review of the suggests his own solution, called the Truth-Tracking view. P is an instance of knowledge when:

p is true
S believes that p
if p weren't true, S wouldn't believe that p
if p were true, S would believe that p


[/ QUOTE ]

chez
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Old 12-15-2005, 04:27 PM
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Default Re: What is it to have knowledge?

Equating knowledge with true belief--think about the difference between someone who believes it is 3:12 when it is actually 3:15, and someone who justifiably believes it is 3:15 when it actually 3:15. According to what you are saying they can both *know* what time it is. Do you see how odd it is to think they can both know the correct time when only one of them is actually right?
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Old 12-15-2005, 05:51 PM
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Default Re: What is it to have knowledge?

[ QUOTE ]
Equating knowledge with true belief--think about the difference between someone who believes it is 3:12 when it is actually 3:15, and someone who justifiably believes it is 3:15 when it actually 3:15. According to what you are saying they can both *know* what time it is. Do you see how odd it is to think they can both know the correct time when only one of them is actually right?

[/ QUOTE ]

They can't both know the time. Only one time is the correct time so only one person can know the time. Look at the requirements again for justified true belief.
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  #8  
Old 12-15-2005, 08:40 PM
college kid college kid is offline
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Default Re: What is it to have knowledge?

There is no information/knowledge that is absolute. If I look at my watch and it says it's 3:15, but some omnipotent observer "knows" that my watch loses X minutes for every Y unit of time, then my "knowledge" is not true in the absolute sense.

However, information and knowedge work just like poker. It's all probability and how we use the available information.

Yes my watch may be 4 minutes slow becuase it's old and I haven't checked it, but I am still not in serious trouble. I may be a few minutes late to a meeting, but I will never ever miss the entirety of the new episode of my favorite half hour TV show because of the misinformation of my watch. And once either of these events happen I will gather new information which will lead me to believe my old information was 4 minutes inacurate.

Likewise, I can be almost 100% sure that it is raining if I am standing outside and indeed feel what I have come to believe is rain falling on me from the sky. That near-perfect knowledge is much more useful to me than this morning's knowledge, when the wheatherman told me there was only a 75% chance of rain. It's all percentages, but you can still use what information you have to create the most accurate "knowledge" you can.

Knowledge is generally considered true because we do not attain knowledge until we receive information which leads us to believe to a high degree of certainty that something is true, and at that point we have "knowledge" of that subject.


Einstien and some of his buddies were driving in a car, when the driver stopped for a sheep standing in the middle of the road. "There's a sheep in the road!" exclaimed the surprised driver. "Yes," Albert replied. "From this angle there does indeed appear to be a sheep standing on the road in front of us."
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Old 12-16-2005, 12:35 AM
Piers Piers is offline
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Default Re: What is it to have knowledge?

[ QUOTE ]
Equating knowledge with true belief--think about the difference between someone who believes it is 3:12 when it is actually 3:15, and someone who justifiably believes it is 3:15 when it actually 3:15. According to what you are saying they can both *know* what time it is. Do you see how odd it is to think they can both know the correct time when only one of them is actually right?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don’t equate knowledge with true belief. Or rather I think to do so is to get an unhelpful definition of knowledge.

Two people look at their watches. One sees 3:12 one sees 3:15. One person knows its is 3:12 and the other one knows it is 3:15. The both have identical reasons for establish their belief. Why should the real time have any bearing on their state of knowing?

I think your definition of knowledge, which you equate with true belief, is too strong for every day use.
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Old 12-16-2005, 12:36 AM
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Default Re: What is it to have knowledge?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Equating knowledge with true belief--think about the difference between someone who believes it is 3:12 when it is actually 3:15, and someone who justifiably believes it is 3:15 when it actually 3:15. According to what you are saying they can both *know* what time it is. Do you see how odd it is to think they can both know the correct time when only one of them is actually right?

[/ QUOTE ]

They can't both know the time. Only one time is the correct time so only one person can know the time. Look at the requirements again for justified true belief.

[/ QUOTE ]

That was my reply to Piers. I was making the same point you are, since he was asking why knowledge was tied to true belief.
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