What is Knowledge?

[DogmaHunter]

Explaining in detail the orbit of the earth around the sun does not entail that this same situation will be true tomorrow.

Physics disagrees.

Let's apply this exact little gem of yours to something else....

"explaining in detail why things fall down and not up, does not entail that you will fall to the earth at 9.81 m per second per second the next time you jump from the empire state building"

Same thing.
Gravity, angular momentum, laws of motion,... in short: physics.

Tell me, can you say with confidence that if you jump, you will fall back to earth, or is it also likely that you'll just shoot out into space??

As you said, the sun could unexpectedly explode for reasons currently unknown to us.

So..... you agree with me then..... considering the prefix of "as you said".

Sure, who knows... something unexpected could happen "for reasons currently unkown to us" that if you jump, you'll drift into space instead of falling back to earth...

But let's be honest here, do you really consider it to be a possibility? In the sense that you actually are carefull to jump, because you might die in space????

It's the exact same thing....
The physics that makes the sun "come up" is the same physics that makes sure you fall back to earth after jumping up.

 

[Radagast]

Where did certainty become a requirement for JTB?

If there's no certainty, then there's not much of a justification.

I know that 2 + 2 = 4. I believe that the sun will rise tomorrow.

 

[KCfromNC]

If there's no certainty, then there's not much of a justification.

Are you certain of this, or is it just a belief of yours?

I know that 2 + 2 = 4.

Please list all of the assumptions you've made which leads to this "knowledge" and how you've proven them beyond any doubt.

 

[KCfromNC]

Knowledge entails certainty. If it is not certain then we don't know it.

I didn't ask you to restate your opinion. I asked how you knew it was true. And in this case, considering your definition of knowledge, make that how are you 100% absolutely certain you are completely correct in your belief.

 

[KCfromNC]

What justifies the belief that the sun will rise tomorrow?

It was in the post you initially responded to - the fact that it is a natural consequence of a well tested working model of the behavior of the universe.

 

[KCfromNC]

Explaining in detail the orbit of the earth around the sun does not entail that this same situation will be true tomorrow. As you said, the sun could unexpectedly explode for reasons currently unknown to us.

Likewise, the criteria for knowledge could randomly change tomorrow. It's JTB today but if the universe totally changed it wouldn't be tomorrow, so no fair relying on "it always worked in the past" for you.

You can't complain that random hypothetical events make other ideas of knowledge unworkable when they do the exact same thing to yours.

 

[Loudmouth]

So evidence is another way of talking about justification. Seems you accept the concept after all.

Juries, by the way, don't present evidence. They consider evidence from the prosecution and the defense and they arrive at a conclusion based on evidence. The evidence presented would be the justification for their conclusion.

Would a jury be justified in finding a defendant guilty if that verdict is based on a spiritual experience that one of the jury members had? If one of the jury members said that the god Zeus came down to him and said the defendant was guilty, would that be a justified reason for finding the defendant guilty?

 

[Loudmouth]

Explaining in detail the orbit of the earth around the sun does not entail that this same situation will be true tomorrow. As you said, the sun could unexpectedly explode for reasons currently unknown to us.

This is where we enter the realm of axioms, and how they form the foundation of epistemology. One of the axioms we use is the idea that the universe is rational and consistent. We understand the physics of how the Sun works. As long as the laws of physics don't change willy nilly, we are justified in concluding that the Sun will rise tomorrow.

 

[Tree of Life]

Would a jury be justified in finding a defendant guilty if that verdict is based on a spiritual experience that one of the jury members had?

Not usually. Of course if a jury member truly had a direct encounter with God and God said that the defendant was guilty then God's word would be an appropriate justification. God's word is always an appropriate justification. But if a juror simply claims that God spoke to him then this would not be an appropriate justification. So unless everyone knew for certain that God had spoken then I don't see how it could work as a justification.

If one of the jury members said that the god Zeus came down to him and said the defendant was guilty, would that be a justified reason for finding the defendant guilty?

No.

 

[Loudmouth]

Not usually.

Not usually?

Of course if a jury member truly had a direct encounter with God and God said that the defendant was guilty then God's word would be an appropriate justification.

How do you determine if they truly had a direct encounter? Just because they say so?

God's word is always an appropriate justification.

Why?

But if a juror simply claims that God spoke to him then this would not be an appropriate justification.

If they wrote it down and called it God's word, how would that justify it? Does the act of writing things in a book make them justified whereas the spoken words are not justified? Please explain.

No.

Why would Zeus' word be any less justified than God's?

 

[quatona]

KC: "Where did certainty become a requirement for JTB?"

Knowledge entails certainty. If it is not certain then we don't know it.

So JTB is a prerequisite for knowledge, and knowledge with certainty is a prerequisite for JTB.
Nice and circular.

 

[quatona]

So evidence is another way of talking about justification. Seems you accept the concept after all.

Only if you ignore the part where I said that beliefs are irrelevant for your example.

Juries, by the way, don't present evidence.

You are correct here, I misspoke. Sorry.

They consider evidence from the prosecution and the defense and they arrive at a conclusion based on evidence. The evidence presented would be the justification for their conclusion.

Yes, that´s how it´s regulated within the frame of reference of our judicial system.
The term/concept "belief" isn´t even involved.

 

[quatona]

Explaining in detail the orbit of the earth around the sun does not entail that this same situation will be true tomorrow. As you said, the sun could unexpectedly explode for reasons currently unknown to us.

Indeed, all our predictions come with such "unlesses". Since he explicitly mentioned these "unlesses", I do not understand what your objection is.

 

[Tree of Life]

Yes, that´s how it´s regulated within the frame of reference of our judicial system.
The term/concept "belief" isn´t even involved.

Well I would certainly hope that if I was innocent that the jury believed that I was innocent before issuing a verdict. Wouldn't you?

 

[quatona]

Well I would certainly hope that if I was innocent that the jury believed that I was innocent before issuing a verdict. Wouldn't you?

If I was innocent, I would hope that people believe me - it wouldn´t matter much to me whether they believe it out of what you, I or someone else would call a "properly justified" belief.
But initially you weren´t talking about my hopes about people´s beliefs, you were talking about judicial regulations. And there, the jury´s personal beliefs shouldn´t matter. They are supposed to evaluate the evidence according to certain rules that were established in the frame of reference "jurisdiction". If there isn´t sufficient evidence, they are supposed to let the person go, even though they believe he´s guilty.

Anyway, I am not an expert in jurisdiction, not at all. If this was the frame of reference within which your OP was meant to be considered, I guess I can´t contribute much of substance.

 

[Chany]

No one brought up the Gettier problem?

JTB is flawed as is. It needs a fourth condition. There are examples of justified true belief (the necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge) that we intuitively reject as knowledge. Unfortunately, I'm at break at work so I can't give the argument, but there is reason to believe JTB is not enough for knowledge; I can imagine a person who is justified in a false belief and deduces another belief that is luckily true from the false one.

 

[Tree of Life]

No one brought up the Gettier problem?

JTB is flawed as is. It needs a fourth condition. There are examples of justified true belief (the necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge) that we intuitively reject as knowledge. Unfortunately, I'm at break at work so I can't give the argument, but there is reason to believe JTB is not enough for knowledge; I can imagine a person who is justified in a false belief and deduces another belief that is luckily true from the false one.

Yes the Gettier problem is very interesting. I haven't analyzed it enough to be able to respond to it. No one brought up the Gettier problem because no one has yet fully appreciated the value of the JTB theory.

 

[Radagast]

No one brought up the Gettier problem?

JTB is flawed as is. It needs a fourth condition. There are examples of justified true belief (the necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge) that we intuitively reject as knowledge. Unfortunately, I'm at break at work so I can't give the argument, but there is reason to believe JTB is not enough for knowledge; I can imagine a person who is justified in a false belief and deduces another belief that is luckily true from the false one.

I think all those examples can be handled by raising the bar on justification.

 

[Chany]

I think all those examples can be handled by raising the bar on justification.

There are two problems with this approach.

1) The Gettier problem emerges so long as we accept some level of induction or possibility of error. It emerges primarily because of the possibility of a justified false belief. So, increasing the bar in induction does not eliminate the problem.

2) The only way to avoid the first problem is to reject induction: for example, embracing some hyper level of certainty argument. However, this also is problematic. We need to distinguish between psychological, subjective certainty and epistemic, objective certainty. In other words, when I say, "I know x," how is this distiguishable from the statement, "I really stongly believe x"? I'm not sure if there is a meaningful way of doing this, and the very fact that philosophers appear to argue over what "certainty" is in the context of epistemology is a bad sign. Even if we get past this, we run into the problem of Cartersian doubt in things like the Cartesian demon (or decieving god, as I prefer). All I see that would be left are the cogito (I think, therefore, I exist) and the statement, "I am not all-knowing." At this point, we might as drop the whole field of epistemology together as a major aspect of philosophy.

 

[Radagast]

The only way to avoid the first problem is to reject induction: for example, embracing some hyper level of certainty argument.

Induction only delivers plausible belief, not knowledge. As to the bolded phrase, I call it "mathematics."