How is knowledge aquired?

quatona · Jul 27, 2012

christ disciple said:
Thank you for clarifying. What do perceive as being nominalized?

I tried to give an example already:
The word "to know" is nominalized into the noun "knowledge" which misleads some people into assuming there must be an entity or object "knowledge".

christ disciple · Jul 27, 2012

quatona said:
I tried to give an example already:
The word "to know" is nominalized into the noun "knowledge" which misleads some people into assuming there must be an entity or object "knowledge".

Sorry for not understanding. Thank you for the clarification.

quatona · Jul 27, 2012

christ disciple said:
I think you know my perspective on this. I believe language has a lot of power, for the Bible does not say that God "thought" things into existence, but "spoke" them into existence which requires some form of language as well as knowledge (know how).

Well, but maybe it´s the other way round: Humans spoke God into existence?

quatona · Jul 27, 2012

christ disciple said:
Sorry for not understanding. Thank you for the clarification.

Any time. You´re welcome.

christ disciple · Jul 27, 2012

quatona said:
Well, but maybe it´s the other way round: Humans spoke God into existence?

Would that not make humans "God"? I would think it would have to be one or the other. Did we bring ourselves into existence then?

quatona · Jul 27, 2012

christ disciple said:
Would that not make humans "God".

I guess that depends on how you define "God" and "humans".

I would think it would have to be one or the other.

Indeed - I meant my scenario as an "or", not as an "and".
However, the idea that God and humans create each other mutually is interesting, too. Especially when we add "in their images".

christ disciple · Jul 27, 2012

quatona said:
I guess that depends on how you define "God" and "humans".

Indeed - I meant my scenario as an "or", not as an "and".
However, the idea that God and humans create each other mutually is interesting, too. Especially when we add "in their images".

Like to continue, but have to go. Maybe another time.

Eudaimonist · Jul 27, 2012

christ disciple said:
Yes, but the individual mind would need a source would it not? The source for our innate knowledge?

I don't believe in the existence of "innate knowledge". While our brains may have evolved to perform in certain ways, I don't think that we are born with knowledge.

eudaimonia,

Mark

Eudaimonist · Jul 27, 2012

christ disciple said:
Is not reality comprised of acquired knowledge?

If by reality you mean "whatever exists", then certainly not.

If by reality you mean "life as seen through one's worldview", then knowledge is certainly a part of that.

So, then we are the creaters of knowldege and not seeker?

We are both creators and discoverers of knowledge in different respects, as I had said.

We therefore create our own reality?

We create our personal understanding of reality, but not the universe we live in.

Whose reality is real?

The one that exists.

eudaimonia,

Mark

SithDoughnut · Jul 27, 2012

christ disciple said:
Does not the God of the Bible state that "He is" or more correctly "I AM"?

He does, and as such is not knowledge. He has knowledge, but he himself is God, not knowledge.

WisdomTree · Jul 27, 2012

I think most of you guys have misunderstood the whole thing... Though I'm glad I have started something up that's more about philosophy and less about religion (to an extent).

To clarify:

Knowledge is Justified True Belief. What this means is that for you to know something, you have to believe it, it has to be true, and it has to be justified (through deductive reasoning, I think). Now what I mean by true here, is the absolute "truth", not a subjective truth. This in itself can be argued and it is argued against, like you guys are doing right now. But I'm pretty much using Plato's defintion and opinion, so this whole thing is assuming that there is a universal truth (feel free to argue against it, this is philosophy after all). So in other words, "knowledge" cannot be subjective, only beliefs.

Empiricism: knowledge gained by experience through sensation. Famous thinkers include; Hobbes, Hume, Bacon, et cetera. They generally say that knowledge cannot be innate and as such knowledge can only be gained through our sensory perception i.e. seeing. Although you could say that once you see something happening, you can be certain that you know that it happened, it cannot stand up against the "Infinite Regress of Reasoning" which is an infinite series of arguments of doubts.

Rationalism: knowledge gained by reason through intuition. Famous thinker I know: Descartes. They generally don't exclude experience, but prefer to say that most knowledge is innate. They argue that things like mathematics are innate and when we get taught it, we are simply learning the symbols of what it means. For example, in the field of Logic; 1 + 1 = 2, it cannot equal anything else unless you change the meaning of the symbols or add hidden variables. The problem of rationalism is that you tend not to apply things to what we call the "real world". What that means, I don't know...

Scepticism: we cannot know. There are a few schools of this, but the sceptics are always referred to as "she" in contrast to the above "dogmatists" who are "hes". Mostly by using the "infinite reason of regress" they argue that without complete certainty, there can be no knowledge as one cannot fully justify that what they belief is necessarily true.

I hope this clarifies a bit.

Received · Jul 27, 2012

Eudaimonist said:
I don't believe in the existence of "innate knowledge". While our brains may have evolved to perform in certain ways, I don't think that we are born with knowledge.

eudaimonia,

Mark

That's an interesting point. Consider instinct. What this boils down to is inbuilt responses that aren't learned. If I am afraid of heights, that's an inbuilt instinct; or if I see someone from a different culture, my natural reaction is to be repelled by them. The really interesting consideration is that, to my thinking, we have to "code" these inbuilt responses in order to act as we do with them.

For example, I secretly believe (as do most phobics) that when I look down from a height that I'm in serious danger of falling off myself. Is that type of association (between seeing heights and imagining myself falling) inbuilt via instinct? If so, perhaps we do have inbuilt knowledge, albeit not knowledge in the sense of objective truth.

Eudaimonist · Jul 27, 2012

Received said:
That's an interesting point. Consider instinct. What this boils down to is inbuilt responses that aren't learned.

Sure, but an inbuilt response isn't necessarily knowledge, at least to my way of thinking. Knowledge suggests to me not merely a "response" to some situation, but some idea of why what one what believes about the situation is true. Knowledge is, after all, justified true belief, not merely true belief.

For example, I secretly believe (as do most phobics) that when I look down from a height that I'm in serious danger of falling off myself. Is that type of association (between seeing heights and imagining myself falling) inbuilt via instinct?

The fear or unease may be inbuilt, but I suspect that you already have some idea of what "falling" is from previous experience.

eudaimonia,

Mark

quatona · Jul 27, 2012

WisdomTree said:
Knowledge is Justified True Belief. What this means is that for you to know something, you have to believe it, it has to be true, and it has to be justified (through deductive reasoning, I think). Now what I mean by true here, is the absolute "truth", not a subjective truth. This in itself can be argued and it is argued against, like you guys are doing right now. But I'm pretty much using Plato's defintion and opinion, so this whole thing is assuming that there is a universal truth (feel free to argue against it, this is philosophy after all). So in other words, "knowledge" cannot be subjective, only beliefs.

I´ll try to explain why I have problems relating to this terminology:
"Objective/absolute truth" and "objective/absolute knowledge" are poorly defined at best and oxymoronic at worst.

What is is, and it is what it is. That´s how far objectivity and absoluteness go - but this is as boring as it is tautological. To this point we don´t have any meaningful use for terms like "truth" and knowledge.

Not until we start relating to that which is there is a need or use for these terms. IOW we want to understand that which is, and we want to understand it so that it makes sense to us. And there goes your objectivity and absoluteness. We want to relate, we want to understand on our terms, we want to categorize and divide as our capacity and structure of understanding need it. (Concepts and explanations that make no sense to us are highly unattractive and don´t even deserve to be called concepts or explanations.)
"Truth" and "knowledge" do not signify that which is in its immediacy, moreso they signify a quality of the way we relate to it. Again IOW our seeking for understanding is exactly the opposite of leaving that which is in its immediacy, its objectivity and its absoluteness: we seek a relation - and this relation is by its very nature subjective, because we and our intrusive look at *that which is in its immediacy, objectivity and absoluteness* tears it out of its immediacy, objectivity and absoluteness. A relationship cannot be objective. Thus, seeking "objective truth" and "objective knowledge" are attempts to square a circle.

So the question is, to me: Which qualities of a subjective relationship between us and *that which is* can the terms "knowledge" and/or "truth" possibly signify?

Going on vacation in Switzerland for one week. I regret not having the opportunity to follow this discussion.

Paradoxum · Jul 27, 2012

Resha Caner said:
Maybe so, but we're talking about knowledge, not truth. And the definition was that it be "justified". If a scientist sets the goal that his data must match his theory to a 95% confidence level, and he achieves that, then he has justified that knowledge.

But for something to be knowledge it must be true. It is absurd to say you have justified knowledge that the sun goes round the earth. If it isn't true then it obviously isn't a justified belief. You can't just set some random percentage and claim it is knowledge.

TScott · Jul 28, 2012

Paradoxum said:
But for something to be knowledge it must be true. It is absurd to say you have justified knowledge that the sun goes round the earth. If it isn't true then it obviously isn't a justified belief. You can't just set some random percentage and claim it is knowledge.

We do this all the time.

Take any scientific field during its development. Standards have to be set. For example one ampere of electricity was determined to be a certain number of electrons moving past a fixed point by one of the early pioneers of electronics. A Priorists claim at that pont in time that this could be considered a priori knowledge.

Received · Jul 28, 2012

To be fair, science doesn't quite deal with truth or proof. Science is by definition open to falsifiability; the best science can aim for is probable fact. Even a 99% confidence interval repeated a hundred times on different experiments still means something could be amiss (or that we're committing a type II error).

WisdomTree · Jul 28, 2012

Received said:
To be fair, science doesn't quite deal with truth or proof. Science is by definition open to falsifiability; the best science can aim for is probable fact. Even a 99% confidence interval repeated a hundred times on different experiments still means something could be amiss (or that we're committing a type II error).

Only according to Sir Karl Popper and his demarcation theory (his protege was my teacher ).

But I do agree with you on this.

Received · Jul 28, 2012

WisdomTree said:
Only according to Sir Karl Popper and his demarcation theory (his protege was my teacher ).

But I do agree with you on this.

True!

Cool story! I been meanin' to be readin' Popper, but his theory was on my mind -- and has arguably spoiled so many scientists that falsification isn't a given only for philosophers of science.

Actually, the guy I most need to read (especially since I'll be applying aggressively for psych doctoral programs in a few years) is Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions. It's sitting over there in that stack of books calling my name.

WisdomTree · Jul 28, 2012

Received said:
True!

Cool story! I been meanin' to be readin' Popper, but his theory was on my mind -- and has arguably spoiled so many scientists that falsification isn't a given only for philosophers of science.

Actually, the guy I most need to read (especially since I'll be applying aggressively for psych doctoral programs in a few years) is Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions. It's sitting over there in that stack of books calling my name.

Haha, Kuhn... Nah, he doesn't beat Popper when it comes to the definition of Science. Popper set the benchmark on what it ought to be (at the detriment of Social Science).

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