Hah! I may be somewhat up to date about Gettier. About nearly everything else, I'm hopelessly out of date and scrambling to catch up. Although many things have not changed much.

[reply="ucarr;779591"

Oh, I think that all of those ways of coping are flawed.

I'm often reminded of the painting "Landscape with fall of Icarus". It seems brutal, but somehow necesary.

Oops! We seem to have a crossed wire. I don't think that Gettier found a major flaw in theory of knowledge, but I did get interested in how Gettier created the illusion that he had. It did worry me that our discussion was turning me into a defender of Gettier. But my aim was only to make sure that the flaws were correctly identified.

I concluded that weaknesses in the propositional calculus and the vagueness in the J clause, coupled with a reluctance to acknowledge the possibility of borderline or ambiguous cases were the main issues. I don't think they can be remedied within the requirements of Gettier's idea of philosophy. But then I discovered a major difficulty.

Refuting the cases one-by-one seemed futile, because new cases kept coming along, designed to get round the problems revealed in the old ones. (So, for example, after Gettier's original article, there are no new cases that use definite descriptions (case 1) and no new cases that use "or" (case 2). By implication, his supporters accepted they are flawed.

But the appearance of new cases suggested that there must be a general solution. However, the proposed cases morphed. In the process a problem was thrown up that I couldn't and can't fully resolve. These can be classified (I found this in a blog by Jennifer Nagel) as the "Harman-Vogel" paradox. They turn on false assumptions or unconsidered assumptions or the lottery paradox. Russell has no problem with it - if a claim to knowledge relies on a false assumption - it is unjustified and so merely a belief. But we make so many assumptions so it would seem that knowledge is a rare and precious commodity. My suggestion of considering the JTB as a paradigm rather than a definition was one attempt. My insistence that if a claim to knowledge turns out to be false, for any reason, it isn't knowledge and the claim is false is another.

At that point, I was distracted by other (philosophical) problems. However, it turned out that not everyone agreed with me about Gettier, so I got involved in this discussion. I have learnt some things through it. But I'm beginning to get itchy feet - a desire to think about other things for a while.

If we follow up that problem, it could well be considered off-topic and some forums are quite strict about that, so I'm cautious about doing so. In addition, I don't know whether I'm qualified to start a new discussion and not sure there would be interest in it.

Perhaps that was too much information, but you do seem to be asking where we go from here, and that's where the Gettier problem is leading me.

:smile: :up:

There's no doubt that coping with all the information available demands some sort of strategy or mechanism. Skepticism is not the only possibility. How about trivialization - reacting to information and then forgetting it quickly - which prevents ever really thinking about it? Or treating info as entertainment - infotainment as they call it? Or knowing all about what's going on the other side of the world, and ignoring what's going on your doorstep?

But perhaps I'm just getting old.

Back to philosophy. The question of adaptation to the changing environment reminds me that philosophy seems to worry about the definition of knowledge (and, by implication, Knowledge) without ever asking what the point might be. My suggestion would be that identifying and passing on information is a crucial part of forming and being in a society and a great advantage to all the individuals. In fact, it's so basic and so useful that animals and birds do it too - even posting sentries (meerkats) and ignoring cheats who sound the alarm so the others leave the food for the cheat (birds). That's what the concept of knowledge fosters.

Thank you for that collection.

Typical, isn't it? He mentions a metaphor and passes on, as if it was transparent. Then elsewhere, you find another metaphor from which he passes on. And another and another...

Yet they all seem to work together somehow.

I may have missed something - "surveyable representation" does not sound familiar - that's not a criticism - but "perspicuous representation" does. Is there a translation other than Anscombe's around?

Your distinction between Knowledge and knowledge reminds me also that what can be known depends on the conceptual framework within which it is known. How this affects the definition of knowledge needs thinking about. Epistemology as discussed in the literature doesn't seem to want to take it on.

I'm always inclined to notice the link between Knowledge and knowledge and notice that there is usually an answer to the question "Who knows this piece of Knowledge". Presumably, the idea is that Knowledge is what is available to everyone, but it usually means what is available to me and my circle. Your distinction seems to recognize that.

Your example is interesting. What I take from it is that knowledge is time-based and that there is a difference between what is the case and what someone knows. The interaction between the two is crucial to the Gettier problems, though it hasn't been discussed in what I've read.

I agree that our discussion is getting rather confused. Perhaps we've gone as far as we need to.

I agree with you that

Gettier "problems" are pseudoproblems — Agent Smith

.

Getter problems are all narratives in which different contexts - points of view - collide. I doubt if that could happen in a mathematical problem.

There’s a book or two to be found in these contributions. Forgive me if I don’t reply in detail.

For what it’s worth, I’m very taken with Wittgenstein’s remark that “a philosophical problem has the form ‘I don’t know my way about’”. That fits with his idea that what he is looking for is an “oversight” (Übersicht) which I take to mean something like a map. Perhaps when one has a starting-point and a map, one moves into another mode of thinking which is more like other disciplines. Unfortunately, the world we live in changes, confusion returns and so philosophy continues. It may not look like progress, but that doesn’t mean there is no point.

Some further observations:-

The priority given to “science” (which is usually taken to mean the ‘hard’ sciences) and mathematics is not universal in philosophy but is local to ‘analytic’ philosophy. There are plenty of other kinds of philosophy.

It seems to me that the most helpful characterization of philosophy is ‘reflection’; this doesn’t mean just anything that might be called reflection but means a disciplined reflection – disciplined by the examples of other philosophers. Too narrow a conception of philosophical method risks (and usually falls into) a narrow focus, which, I think, is almost always fatal, except, perhaps, as a temporary tactic.

The institutional environment for philosophy and other disciplines has been revolutionized in the last hundred years of so by the its institutional context. Unfortunately, the search for a definition of philosophy has too often been weaponized in pursuit of the inevitable struggles within academia, in which it is necessary for each discipline to stake out its own territory and claim on resources. Philosophy suffers if it is too closely confined in that way.

I’m not quite sure what the context is of your argument. But I do find that context is always important and it’s true that general epistemology, like what we’re doing here, doesn’t pay attention to the context of knowledge claims. However, I don’t think ordinary knowledge claims are in any way insured against surprises in the future.

The idea of scope is interesting. I’m not quite clear how it would apply to the everyday knowledge that epistemology usually discusses. One could suppose a general qualification along the lines of “so far as I/we know”. But I think knowledge expects all relevant considerations to have been taken into account and copes rather badly with unexpected developments.

Scientific theories are a somewhat different kettle of fish. It is true that they don’t always get thrown out when their limitations are revealed and can remain useful for specific purposes. But surely they can’t insure themselves against future developments? If they do, they are useless for making predictions and so pointless.

I can’t help feeling that there is a difference between Knowledge (“what is known”) – I would argue this is a variant of the concept - and people knowing things – I would argue that this is the basic use. I think of them as different contexts and what may be appropriate for one context may not be for the other. The kind of conditionality you are talking about may well be appropriate for Knowledge, but I don’t see any reason to think it is implicit in the ordinary one. But perhaps I’m just stuck in my ways.

In my book, they certainly are failed and attempts at knowledge, so that’s fine.

It is also true that my tipster believes that his horse will win. So that's my preferred classification.

One of the most interesting features of the modern world, to my mind, is the interpenetration of the great traditions of the world. Western science seems to travel better than Western philosophy. Buddhism has, and still is, very attractive to many people in the West, but also great interest in Confucius and Daoism. Islam, of course, is also very present. Hinduism less so. I don't anticipate some great confluence where all are absorbed into one, but there are certainly influences at work.

Beyond that, it's very difficult to say anything coherent about what's going on. It would be wonderful to be able to see what has happened in, say, 50 years time.

Unlike beliefs simpliciter, fallible knowledge has an accompanying justification. — Agent Smith

I disagree. Having a justification does not automatically promote a belief to knowledge. In particular, if the justification fails, we call the result a belief, because knowledge is only knowledge if it is true.

How do you classify "I knew that horse would win because the stars were aligned."? If the horse loses, it is clearly a belief. Yes? If the horse wins, would you classify it as knowledge? I think not. But we do not think the justification is valid.

How about "I knew that horse would win because the jockey told me it would"? Again, if the horse loses, it is clearly a belief. If it wins, the justification is plausible because you would think that the jockey might know what s/he is talking about. Is it fallible knowledge? Is it belief?

But the underlying question is, Why does it matter what we decide?

I did a Ph.D. in philosophy, taught philosophy at degree level for a long time, ended up in edmin (education administration), and finally jumped into retirement before I was pushed. I don't know whether I count as a professional philosopher or an academic philosopher or both.

I'm a bit hesitant about "coming out" because I found academic philosophy tends to reduce itself to a dance around a small number of doctrines with very little illumination at the end of it. Not knowing the background of members encourages an open mind. So I value the anonymity that this environment provides. Though I suppose I had better update my profile now.

The relationship between philosophy and other disciplines has been fraught for as long as I've been involved. People in other disciplines are seldom comfortable with interventions from philosophy; I think they think that they are best qualified to pronounce on anything to do with "their subject" and it seems reasonable to expect that a philosopher knows something about it before pronouncing on it. Some philosophers seem to manage it. Moreover "I don't know anything about *** but ..." is not a good starting-point for a discussion with a specialist. On the other hand, it seems reasonable (and even inescapable) that people outside the specialist walls, including philosophers, will have opinions about *** and should not be prevented from discussing it and making sense of it in their own way.

Philosophy struggles to define its own field and methodology. This presupposes that the model of other disciplines, like mathematics and science. But that model doesn't necessarily apply There is a version of the history of philosophy that identifies it as the chaotic starting-point of all other disciplines, which have spun off from it as they have developed through the chaotic discussions of philosophers.

Philosophy is not unlike mathematics or science in some ways. But it is also like disciplines such as Literature or History, and like them, a small number of texts function as canonical. These texts open the field of philosophical discussion and show what it is like; they also provide common reference points for discussion as well as a mine of philosophical mistakes - and since there are so few philosophical successes, the mistakes are all the help we are going to get. I have even heard it said that in philosophy, getting it right is less important than being wrong in interesting ways.

I agree with you that scepticism about the value of deduction is not unreasonable and that human beings are fallible.

Ever since Plato got hypnotised by mathematics, there's been a shared discourse in philosophy that takes as its model of certainty deductive reasoning. As you say, this definition of certainty does not, in practice, offer us much, if anything.

Yet, if human beings are fallible, it follows that they are not always wrong. For example, if we know that human beings are fallible, there is at least one thing that is certain.

I deal with fallibilism not by saying that knowledge is fallible, but by saying that if a knowledge claim turns out to be wrong, it should be withdrawn and classified as belief. Fallible knowledge is indistinguishable from belief and so pointless.

We have to acknowledge that human beings are fallible and that we are human beings. But we are not always wrong, and it seems to me that the point of "know" is to signal when we have not failed and to pass on the information.

I can't get my head round fallibilism. If we claim or attribute knowledge and we are wrong, we need to withdraw the claim or attribution. The same is true of every assertion we make. What's the problem with that?

I hadn't thought that my speculation might lead to fallibilism. Perhaps if I said "cases that approximate to the paradigm can be accepted as knowledge provided they are true."?

a shaky premise is always shaky, even if Jones does get hired. — Agent Smith

I take it that a premiss is shaky if it is less than conclusively true and/or it is less than conclusive evidence for the conclusion?

That implies that most of what we think we know, we do not know.

Or perhaps you mean that the JTB is a paradigm of knowledge and cases that approximate to the paradigm can be accepted as knowledge. Something like the relationship between the abstract triangle defined by whatever geometry we are using at the time and the physical objects we accept as triangular. I could buy that.

Yes, that's been my point. They both believe that John shouldn't marry Jane, and if it's true that John shouldn't marry Jane then their belief that John shouldn't marry Jane is true – even if Jane isn't a horrible person and marriage isn't a terrible practice. — Michael

There's something odd happening here. What you say is correct. Did I ever say anything to suggest that I thought something different?

Yep, that should've been obvious. A good justification can't contain a false premise. — Agent Smith

So we agree! :smile:

It follows that Smith’s belief that he is justified is not sufficient; we also have to accept that he is justified. In other words, the J clause, like the T clause, means that attributing knowledge to someone else requires endorsement of the claim. Knowledge is not just a psychological state, as belief is.

(At this point, I have to admit that I’ve got very confused about the name of Smith’s rival – whether is Jones or Brown or Robinson. So I checked. Gettier calls him Jones, so I’m going to stick to that, because I’m a pedant.)

However, suppose that, like Smith, we don’t know that he will get the job. His source – whether it is the president or the interviewer – is such that it is reasonable to believe the information and therefore reasonable to believe his claim to knowledge. Suppose that Jones does get the job. Wouldn’t we accept that Smith knew?

Awkward, I think.

My belief that my car isn't in my driveway is both true and justified, but unlike your (and Gettier's) example, it isn't just coincidentally true. — Michael

There might be all sorts of reasons for liking or disliking an example, but the most important criterion in our context is whether the example is clear and illustrates the point it is designed for. Perhaps you think that the question of coincidence is a distraction. I think that that getting the right answer for bad reasons is at the heart of the Gettier problem.

However, the problem that your case exemplifies is different, I think. Here’s the classic case (first proposed by Jonathan Vogel). Al left his car parked on Avenue A half an hour ago. He knows where his car is. What Al has not thought about, however, is that every day a certain percentage of cars parked on public streets gets stolen. For example, Betty left her car parked on Avenue B half an hour ago. Her car, unfortunately, has been stolen and driven away. Clearly Betty believes, but doesn’t know, that her car is on Avenue B. Now, consider whether Al knows that his car is still parked on Avenue A.

There is a name for this - the Harman-Vogel paradox. But I don't know whether it is in general use.

It’s perfectly appropriate to distinguish beliefs from the reasons for having them. It’s absurd to respond to the above by saying that neither Max nor Jessica believe that John shouldn’t marry Jane. — Michael

It depends how you define “proposition”, i.e. what you count as the same proposition and what you count as a different proposition. For me, a proposition is a sentence with its use in a context. Max and Jessica both believe that John shouldn’t marry Jane, but for different reasons and therefore in different contexts. The situation is perfectly clear. We choose to describe it in different ways; both are legitimate. But I am impressed by the colour exclusion problem; you appear not to be. So I think my description is more accurate than yours and avoids various difficulties (such as the Gettier problems).

If Smith’s belief is justified and true but not knowledge, then the JTB needs revision. If Smith’s belief isn’t justified, then the JTB has no problem. So what are the grounds for saying that Smith’s belief isn’t justified? The only possibility that I can come up with Is that his belief that Brown will get the job is false. In which case, the definition of justification needs revision or qualification. That means either a “no false lemmas” added to the JTB or something else.

An alternative would be to say that Gettier cases are all half-way houses, that don’t fit the mould. That doesn’t mean that the JTB is wrong; every rule is liable to encounter anomalous cases. Anomalous cases need adjudication.

Suppose Smith persuades Brown to accept a bet, that the man who gets the job will have ten coins in his pocket. Smith gets the job and coincidentally has ten coins in his pocket. Smith will argue that he got it right, on the ground that he has been appointed and has ten coins in his pocket but will accept that his prediction was not entirely accurate. Jones will argue that he did not, on the ground that he is right only by coincidence and that he lost.

Smith is right. A bet doesn’t pay attention to the reasons why stakeholders made their choice. So Smith’s grounds, whether they are right or wrong, don’t matter. But the JTB does and Smith has the wrong grounds.

I'm more prone towards agreeing with Quine's idea of a web of beliefs — creativesoul

I’m not unfamiliar with Quine and Davidson, but completely unfamiliar with this part of their output, though I've heard of Quine's "web of beliefs", which has a good deal to recommend it.

Would you consider yourself a speech act theorist along the lines of Austin and Searle? — creativesoul

I learnt about speech acts from Austin. I read some of Searle's and Grice's work, but decided there was nothing worth having down that particular rabbit hole. But I’ve made use of the idea in all sorts of contexts as a useful question to ask in philosophical practice, leaving others to wrestle with the intricacies of a theory. I look up Austin from time to time, but I haven’t read Searle or Grice for years.

Is the clause you're referring to above a "belief that" clause, such that when we claim that someone believes a proposition, we're basically saying that they believe that, or believe that that proposition is true? — creativesoul

Yes.

Could you elaborate on this mention of using "cognitive"? — creativesoul

There’s no great theory behind the suggestion. I was just trying to think of a more convenient way of referring to the class of words that are currently designated “propositional attitudes”. That’s all. I’m taking it to mean “to do with knowledge”.

At least, that's my current understanding of it. — creativesoul

It may just be pedantry, but I prefer to say that beliefs explain actions by identifying the reasons for actions. I wouldn't want to be labelled a causal theorist because I couldn't defend such a theory. I don't think there's much scope for some sort of general classification of which beliefs cause which actions, apart from the case by case identification of reasons for particular actions.

it may serve to eliminate the ambiguity of reference issue underwriting Gettier's Case I — creativesoul

Quite so. The problem is that no example since Gettier’s case I uses definite descriptions, probably because it was accepted that the reference issue is a serious flaw. I think the technique can be adapted to fit other cases, but not all – not even for Gettier’s case 2. But piecemeal refutation of examples is not proof against new examples, so a blanket solution would be preferable.

Most folk approach Gettier's paper as though it is all about justification. — creativesoul

Well, Gettier is taking advantage of the need to adopt “weak” justification in order to avoid the Munchausen trilemma. (See my reply to Agent Smith above if you are not familiar with it.) So it’s not wrong to work on it. But the only solution I can think of is very implausible.

Smith is essentially ignoring a possibility that he shouldn't. — Agent Smith

That is certainly true.

Russell’s stopped clock is similar. It is an example devised by Bertrand Russell in Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits as an example of true belief without knowledge; it is a man who looks at a clock which is not working, though he thinks it is, and who happens to look at it at the moment when it is right; this man acquires a true belief as to the time of day, but cannot be said to have knowledge.

A similar classic problem was produced by Jonathan Vogel. Al left his car parked on Avenue A half an hour ago. He knows where his car is. What Al has not thought about, however, is that every day a certain percentage of cars parked on public streets gets stolen. For example, Betty left her car parked on Avenue B half an hour ago. Her car, unfortunately, has been stolen and driven away. Clearly Betty believes, but doesn’t know, that her car is on Avenue B. Now, consider whether Al knows that his car is still parked on Avenue A. I don't have an acceptable solution to this one.

Both depend on assumptions that turn out to be wrong. But Gettier cases turn on “justified” beliefs that turn out to be wrong. So I tend to see Gettier cases as different from these. One can turn Russell's case into a Gettier problem by adding to it a justification for the assumption that the clock is working, such as having recently heard it strike and having checked it was striking correctly. But that still doesn't include the dodgy logic that "true" Gettier cases rely on.

One has to be careful here. If one insists on conclusive justification for all knowledge claims, including all assumptions, one sets off the Munchausen trilemma. (Forgive me if you know this one already. I include the explanation to save time if you don’t know it.) If it is asked how any given proposition is known to be true, proof may be provided. Yet that same question can be asked of the proof, and any subsequent proof. According to the trilemma, there are only three ways of completing a proof - a circular argument, an infinite regress, or a dogmatic argument (one that rests on accepted precepts which are merely asserted rather than defended.) Gettier’s acceptance that justification. (See Wikipedia “Munchausen’s trilemma)

AGENT SMITH

You are right, of course. But there are complications when you include belief, knowledge and justification in the scenario.

Within this scenario “The man who will get the job will have 10 coins in his pocket” can be interpreted in three different ways, depending on context. This is quite normal for sentences that include a definite description.

1) In a general context, the application is “Whoever will get the job will have 10 coins in his pocket.”

2) In the context of Smith’s beliefs, the application is “Brown will get the job and will have 10 coins in his pocket.”

3) In the context of the objective outcome, the application is “Smith will get the job and will have 10 coins in his pocket.”

The first issue is whether these are three distinct propositions or one proposition with three applications.

If they are distinct, there is no paradox. But sadly, the criteria of identity of propositions are completely unclear. So that is not conclusive.

The second issue is whether he is justified in believing 2) or just believes he is justified in believing 2). Gettier posits that one can be justified in believing a proposition that is false and that that he is justified. Sadly, it does seem that he is right about the ordinary use of “justify” and a strict interpretation of “justify” seems to rule out cases that most people would want to accept.

The third issue is that whether a re-formulation of the J clause or an addition to it could exclude cases like this.

If we describe the situation as Smith believing the right thing for the wrong reasons, that could fall under the exclusion of guessing or luck, which is precisely what the J clause is meant to exclude. But there’s been a lot of discussion about whether luck plays a role in most knowledge and it is not difficult to construct examples. I’m not a fan of this route, because knowledge by luck seems to defeat the point.

On the other hand, it is not difficult to construct Gettier-like cases which do not seem to be problematic. Suppose I’m waiting by a bus stop. I have checked the timetable and traffic reports and have every reason to believe that a bus that will take me where I want to go is due. But there are all sorts of outcomes that don’t correspond to my expectations but would not necessarily undermine a claim to knowledge. For example, a bus turns up but not the bus that was scheduled to fill this slot, which has broken down. Or a bus turns up, but not the route that I was planning; nonetheless, it will take me where I want to go, so I catch it.

I disagree with it at face value. Doesn't this hark back to atomic propositions? — creativesoul

I disagree with it as well. I was specifying a belief that I think Gettier’s practice shows that he holds. Yes, it does hark back to atomic propositions.

How do we square that with the fact that they all hold mutually exclusive beliefs about Michael's birthplace?
Seems to me that belief as propositional attitude has been shown to be lacking in yet another way. Earlier it was found lacking the ability to take proper account of language less belief. I find that rendering all belief as propositional attitude has hindered our understanding. — creativesoul

I don't like "propositional attitude" much either. For me, it is a useful classification that groups together a number of different verbs that share a grammatical feature, that they are require a clause in what grammarians call “indirect speech”. Many, if not all, of these verbs are cognitive and hence of interest to philosophy. I wouldn’t have any objection to using “cognitive”, so long as other people would understand what I mean.

I would like to express the point about "language-less" belief by saying that a proposition is (usually) an expression of a belief, but not necessarily the form of expression used by the believer. Actions, in which the belief is attributed as a reason for the action, are another way of expressing belief. Beliefs are reasons for action, if you like; and since that formulation includes speech-acts, it seems general enough to cover everything it needs to.

But that doesn’t really explain the concept. The core of it is a most the useful property. Without belief, there is no coherent way to say that someone acted for a reason but the reason is false. In other words, attributing beliefs enables the speaker to express an assessment of the truth or otherwise of the belief.

Trying to work out a way of expressing where I think we have got to, I have to start from my understanding of what the standard use of “proposition” amounts to. A proposition, on my account, is a sentence with its use in a context. This implies that each proposition comes entangled in a cloud of other propositions which are essential to understanding it. This includes, but is not limited to, its truth-conditions and its truth-maker (if I may use that term). An attribution of belief includes a proposition but locates it in a specialized context which requires special treatment.

In the case of deductively conclusive justification, I basically agree with you, with some qualifications, which probably don’t matter.

I agree with you also about the type specimen.

But I don’t think this is Gettier’s case. Smith’s deduction is (Brown is the man who will get the job) & (Brown has 10 coins in his pocket) so (The man who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket). I want to say that even though this deduction is valid, it is not sound, because Brown is not the man who will get the job, so the antecedent is false. Gettier would accept that, but claim that Smith is justified in his conclusion even though one of the premises is false.

Smith’s evidence for (Brown is the man who will get the job) is that the president told him so - not conclusive but not unreasonable. More like your inductive cases than the deductive cases. So the question becomes whether the events that confirmed Smith’s conclusion (and refuted his premise) are sufficient for us to conclude that Smith knew. I don’t think so (and I’m not sure that Gettier thinks so, either). The puzzle is why not.

It seems to me that there are two options.

One is to deny Smith’s premise, not on the grounds that it is less than deductively certain, but on the grounds that one component of it (Brown will be appointed) is certainly false. So his justification fails. Smith does not know that is so and has evidence that it is true. Is he justified in believing it, or does he just believe that he is justified in believing it? I believe the latter, but many don’t.

The other is to deny that the proposition that Smith believes the same proposition as the one that is true. In this case “the man who will get the job” refers to Brown in the context of Smith’s belief but to Smith in the context of the final outcome. But the criteria of identity of propositions are not well formulated. So it is no surprise that not everyone seems to accept that there are two distinct propositions here, even if there are two distinct uses of the sentence in two different contexts. In any case, it isn’t clear that the same objection will apply to all the Gettier cases constructed since the original article. (I read somewhere that there are over a hundred of them, all constructed specifically to get round one objection or another.)

"Michael was not born in Germany" cannot stand alone as S's belief about Michael's birthplace. Current conventional practice leads to our claiming otherwise, and in doing so it also results in saying that all three individuals share the exact same belief about Michael's birthplace.

They - quite clearly - do not.

The only way to properly discriminate between the three individuals is to report their belief as Q because P, where P is any of the three beliefs written above. Upon doing so, we find Gettier's problem dissolved. Justified false belief is not a problem for JTB. — creativesoul

Well, that clarifies a great deal, and I agree that this dissolves the Gettier problem.

But I do have qualifications.

First, is this a diagnosis that you would accept? Gettier thinks that beliefs, propositions and sentences neatly align with each other. Each belief, proposition and sentence is clearly distinct from all other beliefs, propositions and sentences. I doubt that he would accept that, but his formulation of the problem sweeps all the complexities under the carpet and trades on the resulting ambiguities.

Second, if you focus on "Michael was not born in Germany" and the fact that all three people would agree on that, you will think that they all have the same belief, and with reason. If you focus on the fact that they each have a different reason for believing that, you will think that they all have different beliefs, and with reason. So I prefer to stick with what I have just said and refuse to adopt either that they do, or that they do not, have the same belief. So long as the situation is clear, which it is, the classification doesn't matter very much. Or at least, I need to be persuaded that it matters, and for what purposes.

I observe that this issue seems to me to parallel the problems that Wittgenstein had with the colour exclusion problem - which, if I have the history right, eventually led to him abandoning logical atomism.

Third, (the Gettier problem seems to have a kind of gravity in that one cannot help returning to it), I think that there is a real problem which he also exploits. The quickest way to articulate this is through an example.

Suppose S is waiting at a bus stop and observes to T that the bus will arrive soon, meaning in the next five minutes. S is justified in believing this, because he has checked the timetable. The bus arrives six minutes later. Was S right or not? Did S know, or not? Again, suppose that the bus that was supposed to arrive has broken down and a replacement bus has been sent out and manages to arrive within five minutes. Was S right or not? Did S know or not? One could invent such cases indefinitely.

Another example, drawing on Gettier's first case. (I should look up the article here, but I'm going to chance my arm and work from memory). The target proposition in this case is "The person who is appointed will have ten coins in their pocket". This proposition turns out to be true, but not in the way that S expects. In this case, S's belief and the truth are nested in different contexts and I would say that the differences are such that Smith does not know. I think (though it is hard to be sure) that all Gettier problems turn on this issue.

The point here is an application of what we've agreed about beliefs. Sometimes belief/knowledge may be confirmed in ways that S has not taken into account; such cases may or may not impinge on a knowledge claim, and even result in an undecidable case. In practice, what we say will depend on the context, particularly what matters to our project at the time.

That's an imperfect formulation of the issue but I hope it takes us forward a bit.

Thanks for your reply. There's no deadline for this. Whenever you are ready.

I'm glad we have got the farmer sorted out.

I look forward to your help with the last paragraph.

I don't want to get in amongst the weeds of the Gettier problem, but there's a link between the last paragraph and Gettier and it sits behind that last paragraph. If S is justified in believing that p and p implies q, is S justified in believing that q? Even if if p is false? I want to say no, but I'm not sure I can.

I apologize for my silence. Life has been rather busy and pre-occupied for the last couple of weeks. You may have lost interest by now, but just in case, here are my replies.

Does the farmer do all those things if he does not believe that that particular piece of cloth is a cow? I think not. I suspect you'd agree. How does focusing upon his actions tell us anymore regarding exactly what his(and all) belief are? — creativesoul

I don't think we need to focus on S's actions to understand belief. I do think we need to recognize that belief is shown by actions just as much as words. Certainly ordinary life pays attention to both and people often claim that when it comes to divining what people believe, actions speak louder than words. In addition, belief is extremely useful in making sense of actions that would otherwise be nonsensical. I can't think of another way of doing it.

I'm also still curious about why you think my view is too rigid to cope with how the appropriate expression of a belief is affected by the believer, an author/speaker reporting the belief, and the reader/listener.
8 days ago — creativesoul

Because your view can't make sense of actions that are based on false beliefs or actions that are not expressed in language. "Embedded beliefs" seems a neat way of describing them. But I don't clearly understand what your view is, so perhaps I'm wrong.

I think that this line of thought would be well served by introducing a bit more regarding how the relationship emerges, how the relationship persists, what the relationship consists of/in, what the relationship is existentially dependent upon, etc. — creativesoul

Well, that would be needed if I wanted to create a Theory or an Ism. For various reasons, I just don't see that happening.

I don't understand what "how the relationship emerges" means. The relationship between propositions, belief and action isn't hidden. The relationship between the three persists for as long as S's belief persists. The relationship between belief and action is the relationship between reason for action and action and depends on the mental state of the believer - and, yes, that seems to conflict with my remark that it is not a question of the mental state of the believer. That remark over-simplifies the complex relationship between the mental state of the believer and the way that someone else may report it.

One thing that puzzles me is whether a belief that p implies a commitment to all the analytic implications of p. On the one hand, if S believes that p, it would seem that S must understand p - in some sense of "understand". On the other hand, it seems quite unlikely that most people understand all the implications of any proposition they believe. A similar point could be made about the causal implications of specific facts or events. There's another complicated issue for philosophy about disentangling beliefs that have values built in to them (such as the belief that X committed murder or that COVID is dangerous) and their factual content.

I'm not sure that it is quality that matters most to me. There's a lot of very different kinds of stuff going on, but that allows me to be selective. What I'm looking for is what interests and stimulates me. Quality is a secondary consideration.

I don't live in a philosophical community, as the academics do, (though an academic department can be very limited) and there are few people locally who have the faintest interest in philosophy. Reading and thinking about stuff on my own is a bit stultifying after quite a short while. So engagement with other people is crucial.

I think that the screen medium and the endless material tends to lead to me scrolling through stuff without really taking any of it in, and I find myself doing that here, too. But scrolling through stuff here is better than doing the same thing on the more popular sites. That is guaranteed to be a waste of time.

I imagine that when I have been a member for years, I will have experienced times when it gets boring and times when it isn't. Nothing is forever - except death and taxes, I suppose.

if we could develop a deep enough theoretical understanding of the mechanics of brain, we would be capable of having direct experiences of those processes, the sensation of neural events. — Pantagruel

In principle, this is just taking the computer analogy seriously, and I wouldn't argue that that analogy is not useful. In the case of the machines, if we understand the mechanics well enough, providing the experience of seeing Niagara Falls require simply copying a "JPG" file to another computer. But in the case of the machine, we know that the software and ancillary information that is involved in interpreting the file is (more or less) identical. We don't know that in the case of a human brain.

All I'm saying is that my expectation of the computer analogy is that it will be helpful, but, like any other analogy, there will be limits. It may even be unhelpful. Pragmatism, not truth.

More accurately stated, one cannot ask for something behind the phenomenon at all, since what the phenomenon gives is precisely that something in itself (Heidegger 1985: 86). — Joshs

Husserl urges us to face up to the fact that our access to as well as the very nature of objectivity necessarily involves both subjectivity and intersubjectivity.” — Joshs

I'm not at all sure, but it looks to me as if these two quotations contradict each other. On the other hand, the contradiction may not be important, since both views agree that we cannot leave the phenomena alone, but need to find something more. One suggests that we need a more complex understanding ot what we already have; the other suggests that we need access to something different. This fits with my prejudice, which is probably the result of an old-fashioned education, that metaphysical differences always reduce to linguistic differences and consequently make no difference, since everything that can be said can be said in both languages. To put the point another way, what is at stake here?

However, I'm very much in agreement with Husserl that objectivity, subjectivity and inter-subjectivity are mutually interdependent. For a start, since "objective" and "subjective" are polar concepts, defined by their opposition to each other, then if everything is subjective, "subjective" has lost its meaning.

That's all certainly true.

I remember seeing quoted from Hacker. According to him, a description of an experience will be of a tickle, a twinge, a pain, with some adjectives like stabbing or dull. Our vocabulary for this is quite meagre, really, nothing like as powerful as the technique we adopt when there isn't a word for it - the smell of coffee, the touch of silk and so forth. Here the experience is being described by comparison with some that can produce the experience - not necessarily an object - it could be an action. Hence, my awkward feeling that he is changing the subject, is, in a sense, correct.

But maybe answers can be found. But if they are in the form of propositions, I think the questions about qualia will not be quenched. That problem needs a different kind of answer - hence my attempt in my post. I like Wittgenstein's answer to his interlocutor objecting that there is great difference between someone else experiencing pain and me experiencing it. He says "What greater difference could there be?", and no more. Which doesn't answer the question.

I'm sorry I have taken so long to respond to your posts. I am distracted by the approach of Christmas with all that entails and my time for philosophy will be limited for the next week, at least.

I follow those psychologists and philosophers who think we should take a cue from other animals and be clever enough to get rid of the syllogism as the paradigm of ‘rational belief’. — Joshs

Thank you for your post and the time it must have taken to write.

A first response.

This seems to be like the approach that is known as enactive, or phenomenologically enactive, psychology. Am I right about that? I have came across it recently, and found it very interesting indeed. So I would welcome an exploration of that, though I would need to do some reading before I could contribute intelligently. I have some reading lined up.

It occurs to me that, while the proposed beliefs that are not merely factual in the traditional sense but also emotional or at least value-laden or at least giving rise to a response without progressing through a process corresponding to the traditional syllogism will be very hard to characterize in the way(s) that are currently accepted in philosophy. I’m sorry that’s such a convoluted sentence, but it is very hard to work out a better way right now.

But I think we need to acknowledge that an embedded belief which is not consciously verbalized is very hard to characterize anyway. A given proposition is embedded in a network of other propositions and concepts which we do not often bother to characterize. Partly, it is about the grammatical (philosophical sense) relationships based on the understanding required to use language and partly about empirical relationships, deriving from memory and observation. An articulation by the believer has a special status because it will be informed by the most relevant background and so provides something of a benchmark. Where that benchmark is missing, it is will be much more difficult to be sure that a given articulation is accurate. I don’t have a solution to this.

And insofar as the generally accepted and historically transmitted consensus about "what we are" is realized, beliefs are constitutive of that thing (which is actualized in that way, which I see as a good general description of consciousness). — Pantagruel

Your general description of consciousness is attractive. I take it that by "realized" you mean that people conform to the general consensus - or something like that.

I think there are difficulties about the “hard problem”, which on my understanding is understanding the difference between description of experience and experience of experience, which I think of as the question of “ownership”. But I suspect that it is not a problem with a solution. There is something very odd about the demand to give a description of having an experience which captures the difference between experiencing something and describing it.

We've got into a very complex and difficult debate. It isn't just a matter of empirical research, but of interpretation of the results and the principles of interpretation are contested. I suppose that everyone will agree that all of this is based on our paradigmatic example of a person - a human being, with all the complex legal and moral questions that follow. What else could it be based on? The question is about how far that paradigm can be extended to similar cases, what kinds of similarity are required and how far and under what circumstances extension can go.

In the background, we have another complex problem, which is also already live - extension to machines. This depends on a different range of similarities, centring on linguistic capacities.

Also, I'm inclined to think that the issue is not simply metaphysical, but also ethical.

If it is possible, I wonder if we could return to the question we started with - the question of embedded beliefs? I'm happy, for present purposes, to shelve these larger issues for the time being and to restrict our discussion to human beings.

For example, we are agreed - aren't we? - that there is a real need to separate attribution of beliefs (and hence knowledge?) from articulation of beliefs in language, whether externally, by saying something or internally, by saying something to oneself.

In that case, surely we need to think of explanations of (rational) action as a structure to be completed, rather than a process, whether internal or external. The pratical syllogism is the only paradigm we have for this, so perhaps our question turns into an exploration of that.

I don't see animals asking questions, let alone answering them. — Mikie

Have you never seen a dog or a horse tentatively sniffing at something? For me, that often amounts to asking the question whether the something is edible - which is confirmed when they eat, or turn away.

Whether one believes the world is fundamentally hostile or not can determine how one treats others. — Mikie

Have you never seen a bird constantly looking round to ensure that no predator is looming?

I predict that eventually we will come to see that the cognitive differences between us and other higher species is more a matter of degree than of kind. — Joshs

I'm not sure that we will necessarily all come to see that. It isn't a straightforwardly empirical question, but an issue whether to include animals in the scope of complex language game, that is, whether to interpret their behaviour in certain ways. But there are certainly differences. With any decision like this, there will always be borderline, difficult cases.

If you can accept that animals and other creatures are sentient, then it seems to me that the question whether they have beliefs and if so, what beliefs is at least open. I don't think that anyone would suggest that animals believe that the earth is round, or flat. I think that lobsters do feel pain, but I'm not at all sure that they feel fear, which involves the belief that something is dangerous.

Lower order of beliefs, lower order of consciousness. — Pantagruel

One has to be very careful about how one describe the complex similarities and differences between human and animals and animals and fish and so on. "Lower" here is a metaphor and somewhat dangerous. In the past, it has been interpreted in ways that most people would find completely unacceptable now. I suppose one must have some way of summarizing the complex differences between animals and humans as far as sognition foes, but I prefer "simpler".

Thanks for that. Very interesting. I like the piece about AI working out what penguins believe.

Being only a philosopher, I can't resist commenting that, strictly speaking, these experiments only reveal what the animals know. To identify what they believe, you would have to catch them when they behave in a way appropriate to some "information" that they have got wrong. That would be a tougher call, but I wouldn't put it past them.

Thanks for the references. Very interesting and I'll certainly follow them up when I can.

Take the "seeking and sucking" behaviour of a new-born mammal. It certainly seems to be embedded but I would be reluctant to attribute that to a belief
— Ludwig V

Neither would I. But still a great deal of human behavior can be viewed in this light. It's not the only light, of course. — Mikie

I'm sorry I wasn't clear. The idea was to suggest an example that might have been an embedded belief, but wasn't, as a way of exploring the boudaries, not as a counter-example to the idea.

I don't consider animals as having beliefs, tacit or otherwise. I think that's an anthropomorphic projection. — Mikie

There is a danger of anthropomorphic projection in attributing beliefs to animals. But they are sentient and conscious, like human beings. So they are distinct from inanimate objects. It's a question of where to draw the line. I don't have a problem attributing some beliefs to them. .

Yes, and perhaps the answers to philosophical questions that these beliefs imply. — Mikie

I hadn't thought of that possibility. Can you give me an example?

Phenomenologically-informed enactivist psychology — Joshs

I like this much better than the "popular view". Can you suggest anything I could read to learn more about it?

Of course, and I think we should all try our best to be aware of our implicit biases and subconscious conditioning. — praxis

It would be very helpful if there was a way of encouraging people to try to acknowledge and confront biases and subconscious conditioning. Many/most people are, I think, really quite reluctant to do that. It pays, I've found, to listen carefully to what other people say - even if it isn't comfortable.

This extends down to bodily reactions to stimuli. . . . It is not truly instantaneous at all -- there are judgments and interpretations being made despite appearing as natural reflexes. — Mikie

It is popular these days in psychological ( Haidt) and anthropological circles to posit that cultural values and ethical norms originate in inherited evolutionarily adaptive affective preferences , such as disgust. — Joshs

We need to go very carefully here. In the end, detailed analysis and explanation will have to be based on empirical science.

There is good reason for distinguishing between paradigmatic action - the paradigmatic considered, even planned, action and a reaction, which occurs without conscious thought. Amongst reactions, there is a significant difference in stimulus-response reactions which may have a genetic basis, a cultural basis, or even a basis in individual experience. I guess those reactions which have a genetic basis would not be open to explanation through beliefs, but only through evolutionary pressure.

One looks at a corpse and instantaneously reacts with fear. — Mikie

The corpse is deemed aversive fundamentally not due to a belief but an inherited affective response, and the socially constructed beliefs are overlayed onto this biological ground. — Joshs

For what it's worth, the one time that I actually saw a human corpse, I didn't react with fear or even disgust, but with something more like curiosity. I'm pretty sure that wasn't a culturally based reaction. But then, it might depend on the exact circumstances. I've seen and handled a number of animal corpses (pets), but experienced no fear of them, either.