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To me this seems unhelpful. I'd say there is no "knowledge"; there's only belief. And if you defined knowledge as "justified true belief" then you couldn't appl

by bloak 8y ago

To me this seems unhelpful. I'd say there is no "knowledge"; there's only belief. And if you defined knowledge as "justified true belief" then you couldn't apply the definition in practice in the real world because you don't know when something is true. But that's philosophy for you: fun (for some people) but not useful.

hobofan 8y ago
Sure, that is widely useful. You can apply that to the real world if you then add social processes and see "knowledge" or "truth" as shared belief between a chosen set of people (or all of humanity). Then you can go down the whole rabbit hole of beliefe aggregation and voting theory.
yesenadam 8y ago
In an epistemology class once I said to the lecturer "I don't know anything." He said "Don't you know your name?"
- bloak 8y ago
  Isn't that connaître rather than savoir? So much philosophy is playing with words.
- serpix 8y ago
  Not good enough, point to that which knows. Where is it? Who knows it? If there is a knower to that, where is it.. Keep going with this investigation and realize there is no knower, only knowing. Eastern philosophy has nailed this thousands of years ago and we westerners are up to this day totally in the dark. We actively treat the I as a concrete object that really exists as an entity. It does not hold any closer examination and evaporates entirely the closer it is questioned.
  - mbrock 8y ago
    I know my name just like I make a cup of tea. It's not you who makes my cup of tea, right, so who is it? Well, me—the referent of my name, this person right here. That's just part of how our language works. It doesn't seem to matter whether I am a "concrete object" or some swirly pattern of becoming or indeed even an illusion! The English word "I" does not refer to an eternal soul or "atman." If you stare long enough at an ice cream you'll have the marvelous insight that in reality there is no concrete ice cream entity, not least because it melts. Yet people don't go around saying "wake up, there are no ice creams!" Why is that?
  - nathan_long 8y ago
    Well, given that you don't exist, mind if I eat your sandwich?
  - yesenadam 8y ago
    That's really not what epistemology is about at all. (Yes, I'm a big Ramana Maharshi fan etc, I know what you're talking about)
hopler 8y ago
You may be right about knowledge, (relativstic quantum information theory leans in your favor, hi Ron Garrett!) but your dreprectatory definition of knowledge and philosophy covers most humans who have ever existed, not just self titled philosophers. Anyway your definition is wanting. A religious scientist has two kinds of clearly different beliefs: faith and knowledge. A mathematician has the same two kinds, under different names: axioms and deductions. Saying that axioms are the same as deductions is a radical claim.
Retra 8y ago
You assert that there is no knowledge under the expectation that it is true, then you go on and justify it. So it seems you know that there is no knowledge, a contradiction. Why deny the word has meaning, just because you can't distill it down to a concise explanation? The meaning of a word can be arbitrarily complex. Knowledge can exist, even if you can't define it, because meaning is not determined by definition. Definitions are simply a mechanism for coordinating understanding, not for demonstrating its existence. Besides, any argument against the existence of knowledge could be used against belief. Play "taboo" with the subject and don't confine yourself to using ancient terminology to describe the world and these pointless linguistic problems melt away.
talltimtom 8y ago
We do know when some things are true, and when observing the world we can talk about truth under certain assumptions. As in “it’s True the sun didn’t explode yesterday, assuming we aren’t all living in a simulated reality run by aliens in a different solar system billions of years from now the exact day after the sun exploded, or similar possible scenarios” And while everyone loves to run in circles around the argument “but how can you know with certainty” the fact is that I am as certain that this assumption holds as I am that it provides no value at all to continually question if reality is really real, you’d have to take that as an assumption to ever have any kind of value adding discussion. The people who insist we can’t know if anything is definately true must agree that they can’t know if that assertion is definitely true, so they sort of kill their own argument axiomatically.

by bloak 8y ago

hobofan 8y ago

Sure, that is widely useful. You can apply that to the real world if you then add social processes and see "knowledge" or "truth" as shared belief between a chosen set of people (or all of humanity). Then you can go down the whole rabbit hole of beliefe aggregation and voting theory.

yesenadam 8y ago

In an epistemology class once I said to the lecturer "I don't know anything." He said "Don't you know your name?"

bloak 8y ago
Isn't that connaître rather than savoir? So much philosophy is playing with words.
serpix 8y ago
Not good enough, point to that which knows. Where is it? Who knows it? If there is a knower to that, where is it.. Keep going with this investigation and realize there is no knower, only knowing. Eastern philosophy has nailed this thousands of years ago and we westerners are up to this day totally in the dark. We actively treat the I as a concrete object that really exists as an entity. It does not hold any closer examination and evaporates entirely the closer it is questioned.
- mbrock 8y ago
  I know my name just like I make a cup of tea. It's not you who makes my cup of tea, right, so who is it? Well, me—the referent of my name, this person right here. That's just part of how our language works. It doesn't seem to matter whether I am a "concrete object" or some swirly pattern of becoming or indeed even an illusion! The English word "I" does not refer to an eternal soul or "atman." If you stare long enough at an ice cream you'll have the marvelous insight that in reality there is no concrete ice cream entity, not least because it melts. Yet people don't go around saying "wake up, there are no ice creams!" Why is that?
- nathan_long 8y ago
  Well, given that you don't exist, mind if I eat your sandwich?
- yesenadam 8y ago
  That's really not what epistemology is about at all. (Yes, I'm a big Ramana Maharshi fan etc, I know what you're talking about)

hopler 8y ago

You may be right about knowledge, (relativstic quantum information theory leans in your favor, hi Ron Garrett!) but your dreprectatory definition of knowledge and philosophy covers most humans who have ever existed, not just self titled philosophers. Anyway your definition is wanting. A religious scientist has two kinds of clearly different beliefs: faith and knowledge. A mathematician has the same two kinds, under different names: axioms and deductions. Saying that axioms are the same as deductions is a radical claim.

Retra 8y ago

You assert that there is no knowledge under the expectation that it is true, then you go on and justify it. So it seems you know that there is no knowledge, a contradiction. Why deny the word has meaning, just because you can't distill it down to a concise explanation? The meaning of a word can be arbitrarily complex. Knowledge can exist, even if you can't define it, because meaning is not determined by definition. Definitions are simply a mechanism for coordinating understanding, not for demonstrating its existence. Besides, any argument against the existence of knowledge could be used against belief. Play "taboo" with the subject and don't confine yourself to using ancient terminology to describe the world and these pointless linguistic problems melt away.

talltimtom 8y ago

We do know when some things are true, and when observing the world we can talk about truth under certain assumptions. As in “it’s True the sun didn’t explode yesterday, assuming we aren’t all living in a simulated reality run by aliens in a different solar system billions of years from now the exact day after the sun exploded, or similar possible scenarios” And while everyone loves to run in circles around the argument “but how can you know with certainty” the fact is that I am as certain that this assumption holds as I am that it provides no value at all to continually question if reality is really real, you’d have to take that as an assumption to ever have any kind of value adding discussion. The people who insist we can’t know if anything is definately true must agree that they can’t know if that assertion is definitely true, so they sort of kill their own argument axiomatically.