If I understand you correctly, you think that naturally, societies undergo a cyclical process of assimilation and individuation. However, modern power-structures are disturbing this natural polar-dyad, and now, societies affected by them are imbalanced and mostly trending in one direction, instead of cycling back and forth?

In some cases, assimilation does require effort yes. However, in those cases, there is sometimes a lot of benefit for certain powerful agents in furthering assimilation. Thus, there are sometimes competing forces at play. So, even though one thinks assimilation in general requires effort, one could still also maintain that we are nonetheless ideologically assimilating. What do you think?

Yes. — green flag

I see. That is not what I am talking about however, as that is a phenomenon happening on the level of the individual.

I'm not sure exactly what you are asking. — Tom Storm

Well, to both inform you and green flag, I have edited my OP. Individuation and assimilation are processes of which a society undergoes; not an individual. The individual partakes in either societal individuation or assimilation by either joining less populated or more populated ideologies. The former would increase the total amount of disagreement in the society, and the latter would decrease it.

EDIT: There were some typos in my original formula. I have corrected them now, in case you got confused the first time.

I'm not going to outline the things I'm working on, dude. — Ying

That is completely understandable. Luckily however, I am not pointing a gun at your head.

Sorry for not responding in a while, I've unfortunately been busy with work.

In the case of "You know that p", the audience and the subject are the same person. The truth condition is not redundant, but conveys the information that the speaker endorses the subject's belief that p. — Ludwig V

So, you are saying that the truth criterion of the JTB definition is evaluated from the standpoint of the speaker, regardless of the subject of knowledge? That is, if I say that someone else than me knows something, then the truth criterion applies to the proposition that I am stating? More formally, it seems you are saying the following:

He knows p = He is justified in believing p and this proposition is true/known by me

That would be absurd, given that the truth criterion is written into the JTB definition of the verb to know, and I am not the subject of that verb in the 2nd and 3rd cases; whomever I am speaking of is.

Which brings us back to the fact that the proposition thus has not only the same truth-value, but also the same informational value, with or without the truth criterion, if we have a non-skeptical account of truth. Now, use the assumption that has been present throughout our discussion: I know p = I am justified in believing p = It is proven true to me that p. With this assumption, please tell me what the informational difference between these sentences are:

You know p versus You are justified in believing p versus It is proven true to you that p

And

They know p versus They are justified in believing p versus It is proven true to them that p

I see :) If I get time, I will ask some questions outside of the Lounge and refer back to this conversation :)

Indirect realism only undermines itself if one applies indirectness to all mental objects, which necessitates that one also maintain all mental objects are representations of external objects.

If instead, one says the indirectness only applies to perception, and one also says that thoughts, logic, etc. are not perceptions, then one is fine. If thoughts essentially based on nothing but other thoughts (even if inspired or superfluously supported by perception), brought one to question perception, there is no self-undermining. Instead, it is thoughts undermining the direct realism of perception.

Thank you for the welcome :)

In response to your self-proclaimed behemoth of a text, I have a list of question of behemoth length. If you do not wish to answer some or all of the answers, due to the time it would take, I completely understand! Here they go:

1. Could you elaborate on your non-reductive materialism? Are you saying that there are propositions regarding the mental realm whose truth is undecidable from information about the physical realm, and vice versa? Yet at the same time, the mental and physical still exist as the same substance?

2. As an occasional direct realist, how do you respond to Cognitive Dynamics: From Attractors to Active Inference (Friston et al., 2014), and Objects of Consciousness (Hoffman & Prakash, 2014)? They argue that direct realism is impossible/implausible due to entropy and evolution, respectively.

3. As an externalist, where do you think your "justification" comes from? I use quotation marks because some externalists do not believe in justification; in that case, replaced justification with the most fitting analog.

4. As an enactivist, how do you account for metacognition? Is the contents of our mind also a part of our environment, thus relegating this sense of ourselves to be the consciousness itself, and not the mental structures around/attached to it?

5. What do you think of Wittgenstein's hinge beliefs?

6. How do you respond to the claim that some people make stating that communism and/or socialism has never been successful in practice?

7. As an historicist, do you counter The Death of the Author view, or do you try to reconcile it? If the latter, do you perhaps think it is largely irrelevant to historicism?

Sorry for taking a while to reply. I had time to reply to Tom Storm, but as I formulated my question to you, I was whisked away by mundanities.

I also find most philosophical texts unappealing in their formulation. However, underneath all of the unnecessary complex verbiage and syntax, there are sometimes very important points. Also, sometimes I find the text unappealing upon first reading, simply due to not understanding the nuanced demands that called for the more advanced vocabulary. Sometimes, this can also justify a cluttered syntax. Other times, it's like the author wants to give you a migraine.

Religion is an act of fear. Faith is act of liberation. — Raef Kandil

Are you defining religious belief as an act of fear, or describing it as such? Are you defining faith as an act of liberation, or describing it as so?

In mathematics, we have notation to separate definition from description. It is not always used, but it is nice when it is.

$i =: \sqrt -1, \quad i =_{\text{def}} \sqrt -1 \tag1$.

The above is not a derived identity, it is a defined identity. We define i to mean the square root of minus one, because i is a more practical symbol to use than $\sqrt -1$. Now, compare that to the normal equality sign:

$i = (\sqrt -1)^{4n+1}, \ n \in \Bbb N_0 \tag2$

If we define i to be the square root of one, the above identity follows from the description, with the help of external definitions and rules (see exponentiation). Thus, (1) is a definition, and (2) is a description.

Now, in mathematics, $=$ is sometimes used as $=:$. For this part however, assume that the normal equality sign is always a description of a previously defined quantity/object:

$a =: 5^2$

Okay, now, what can I do?

$a = 26$

Nope, that would contradict my definition. How about:

$a =: 26$

Sure; that would make a and a homographs of each other, in that a refers to 25, and a refers to 26. This happens all the time; plane refers to both aeroplane and an infinite, two-dimensional, flat manifold.

Now, faith and religious belief are symbols, just like a. And like a in my example, these two words have pre-established definitions. Many, in fact. If you were to decide on some measure of representativity, one definition would be the most descriptively correct. Now, when you start speaking of faith and religious belief, like in the paragraph I quoted at the top, are you redefining them here (1)? Or, are you describing these words, following some extra-textual definition, one perhaps previously established or assumed to exist in most people's heads (2)?

To be extra clear, when you say faith is an act of liberation, are you saying:

Faith $=:$ Act of liberation, and ... (1)

Or, are you saying:

Faith $=$ Act of liberation, and ... (2)

The former is your definition, which you can follow up with descriptions thereof. The latter is a claim about someone else's definitions(s) and the consequences thereof.

Ah, I think I understand now.

The assimilating vs individuating distinction is probably valid from a naturalistic standpoint, representing a polar-dyad of competing drives, both of which are operational both individually and collectively, with one or other dominating in a give phase. But modern power-structures have tended to both shatter and shackle the forces governing natural social evolution. — Pantagruel

I misunderstood this paragraph, mainly due to the last sentence, as saying the assimilation-individuation framework was flawed due to the existence of modern power-structures. But instead, you are saying that you lean more towards the view that we, across time, do not tend more towards assimilation or individuation, but if something is going to break the tie, it would be the modern power-structures.

Am I getting you right?

But if I know that John knows that p, I do know that p is true. If p had been false, I wouldn't have known
that John knows that p. What's the problem? — Ludwig V

Yes, what is the problem? That's what I've been asking you. If I know (have a justified belief) that John knows p, then I know (have a justified belief) that p. The need for requiring truth in the definition of knowledge does not enter in these second, third and nth person cases. If you agree that for non-skeptical accounts of truth, truth is a redundant criterion of knowledge in the first person case, then you also agree that it is redundant for the nth person case.

You are also changing the definition of knowledge, by allowing that it might be false and still be knowledge. — Ludwig V

No, whether or not knowledge can be false depends on whether one finds justification sufficient for the status of knowledge to be fallible; i.e., whether one has a traditionally skeptical account of truth. Now, as for my definition of belief as emotional and knowledge as justified belief; what else do you propose?

If you want to do analytical philosophy that ventures into the treacherous lands of ontology and epistemology, you ought to sideline the ego as much as possible, in my opinion. If you don't, you'll be seduced by beauty, lured by the desire for and illusion of certainty and bribed by your own motivations. In my opinion, there are huge skeptical challenges in epistemology that are treated lazily due to the extreme difficulty a proper treatment poses. At the foundation of our knowledge lie some pretty arbitrary and naïve assumptions, and they persist because our egos require them to.

If you want to do continental philosophy however, I'd say the ego is not a hindrance, but rather a requirement. What is there to speak of in continental philosophy if not the rich contents of our egos?

Are you saying faith is not necessarily religious, or that it is necessarily not religious?

The way you structure your post makes it hard to know what is your definition of faith, and what is your description of faith; the latter being the traits which follow from your definition.

Now, if you define faith as belief that comes from a set of acceptable sources, and if you define religious belief as belief that is necessarily rooted on at least one unacceptable source, then you are by your own definitions correct. How well your definitions reflect the usage of those words in the English language is a different matter, and whether or not appealing to that is countering your view really depends on what claim you are making. When it comes to the redefining of words, there are two kinds of claims you can make:

1. Given these definitions, P is true.
2. These definitions best represent how people use these words.

If the latter, then we'd have to do a corpus analysis. If the former, then you need to be more clear. That is, precisely state what faith is, and precisely state what religious belief is. Then, from there, you can go on to argue for different consequences of those definitions.

Here's the kicker:

If you define faith as belief that comes from certain acceptable sources, how then do you determine whether a belief is faith or non-faith? Can you really know the full extent of the sources that feed into your beliefs? If so, do you then deny the existence of the sub-conscious?

Going from JTB to JB does not make knowledge into belief, by definition of JB as "justified belief", in which a belief is merely an emotional conviction, whereas "justified" (not "justifiable") is an emotional conviction that the belief is correctly supported. There are theists who exemplify the state of feeling that one's conviction is true, yet simultaneously not feeling that it is justified. That is, these theist have, in their own eyes and others', unjustified beliefs.

If you do not have a skeptical account of truth, that means (sufficient) justification is an undeniable proof of truth. Thus, if you know that John knows P, you also know P, because if P were false, then John does not know P, which means you do not know that John knows P, which contradicts the premise. This can be expanded to the case that involves three people, four people, etc.

If you disagree, could you formalize the event in which (sufficient) justification is certain, yet being (sufficiently) justified in knowing someone else is (sufficiently) justified in knowing P can somehow coexist with P being false?

I agree. Was this meant as a counter, or just an addition to what I said? If the latter, do you disagree with my view or not?

The OP seems to rely on a presumption of general rationality. — Pantagruel

See my comment in response to Joshs.

I would say modern power-structures are no problem for this framing of a society's ideological development. Modern power-structures can be a force for assimilation and individuation in different situations, though I think the sum of their influence pushes us towards assimilation.

It all comes down to the ideology in-question; some ideologies are beneficial to those in power, and others are not. Whenever you have a group of people assimilating under a problematic ideology, the powerful agents act as a force for individuation by fragmenting the group. However, those same powerful agents act as a force for assimilation when the ideology is beneficial to them. That is not to say that they necessarily want to maximize assimilation for any given ideology; sometimes keeping certain major divides is beneficial in so far that it distracts the people from what might be considered their real enemy.

As in, individuation is the process by which people choose or create groups? Thus, individuation is not a negation of assimilation, but rather the process by which the correspondences between people and groups change, the total degree of assimilation staying roughly static through this?

I did not mean to imply that anyone is choosing what to agree and disagree with. It is true that the communities we are born in shape our thoughts to a great degree. This however, is not incompatible with the possibility of individuation. You are not just part of one group; you are a part of many, and this intersectionality gives rise to individuality even under an assignment of identity via group membership.

As one is more and more subjected to information, it could be this individuality increases, given that one's response to it is not determined by the one group one belongs to, but instead, it is determined by the intersection of all the relevant groups, which is a lot of groups if one attempts to fully characterize a person through group membership. Furthermore, there may be external factors at the moment of information consumption, though of course, one can include this under the group identity framework; i.e. "S belongs to the group of people that are currently looking at a red car." At this point though, it just becomes silly in my opinion.

I do not know what you mean by absolute individuation. Do you mean we are never fully unique? That there is always a non-empty set of people that share every trait (group membership) with us? I would say that is quite a radical claim.

Your explanation is no different than mine, except for how you denote the three people involved. H1 = S, H2 = R, H3 = A. Additionally, my explanation is also denoting the propositions regarding S's and R's knowledge, which I denoted as P1 and P2, respectively. The proposition which you denoted as p was denoted as P3 in my comment. I think you'll get my iffs sequence upon rereading it now, given the mapping I've provided here.

One can be justified in believing something even if it is false. The criterion of truth prevents that weakness from being passed on to knowledge. — Ludwig V

This is the very notion I argued against with my first comment on this thread. You did not express any disagreement then, except for in the third person case, which I still do not see how you've shown makes truth a necessary condition.

If you read my first comment on this thread, you'll see how adding the criterion of truth introduces a different, more damaging weakness, in the event one has a skeptical account of truth.

@Ludwig V I don't see how the third person is relevant here.

We have three humans, H1, H2 and H3. P1 is the following proposition: "H2 knows P2."

P2 is the following proposition: "H3 knows P3". P3 is an arbitrary proposition.

Now, when does H1 know P1?

Well of course, that depends on your account of truth. If a proposition is (sufficiently) justified iff it is proven true iff it is knowledge, then:

(H1 knows P1) iff (H1 is justified in P1) iff (H1 is justified in thinking that H2 is justified in thinking P2) iff (H1 is justified in thinking that H2 is justified in thinking that H3 is justified in thinking P3).

At what point does the criterion of truth become necessary?

And what about the skeptical account of truth, where we may only approach in probabilistically and knowledge is defined as "sufficiently probable to be true", a property which we then call being justified?Well, then the same chain iffs is true.

The JTB definition is at best a badly formulated account of knowledge, and at worst a useless account.

Whether we are dealing with the former or latter depends on the relationship between truth and justification, according to the user of the definition. Either, a justified proposition is always true (1), or it is not always true (2). In the latter case, justification may have the capacity, if sufficiently strong, to prove a proposition true (2a), or it may never have this capacity (2b). In the event of 2b, justification like plays the role of increasing the probability of a proposition being true; it's simply that this probability will never reach 1.

NB: In this section, I will simply assume justified propositions are beliefs.

_______________________

In the case of 2b, truth is an undecidable property, and thus makes knowledge a category of propositions of which we know no elements. In this case, knowledge becomes a pretty useless word; we can only speak of certain aspects of the elements of the set of knowledge, but we can not directly speak about any elements.

If one has this account of truth; a property that can never be certainly proven to apply to a proposition; then one is likely to speak of "probably true propositions"; and likely, one would adopt this set of propositions as one's set of knowledge. Thus, this account of truth calls for a different definition of knowledge; the JB definition. Likely, there'll also be some minimum threshold of justification required to for the status of being knowledge, so to call it the JB definition is a simplification.

In the case of 2a, an identity is, to some degree, drawn between proof of truth and justification. Put precisely, a proposition is proven true iff a proposition is sufficiently justified. Thus, such an account means knowledge could simply be defined as JB, though, there would need to be specified a threshold of justification. Note that TB would not necessarily be definition of knowledge under these kinds of epistemtic accounts, because unprovable truths may exist within some of them.

The possibility of 1 is drawing a complete identity between proof of truth and justification. Thus, the definition can be reduced to JB.

_________________________

Thus, in all cases, the criterion of being true within the JTB definition is either redundant, or, it makes the definition quite useless. Do not get me wrong, the concept of truth is important even for a radical skeptic; but most skeptics refer to facts and logic in their daily lives. By defining truth and knowledge in the way as proposed in response to 2b, one can continue to be skeptical about truth, and yet also retain the practicality of referring to knowledge.

Now, this critique has not even touched on the B of JTB. I find it somewhat problematic, given that it can pose a pointless obstacle in situations of non-skeptical accounts of truth. Let us say one's account says that the ZFC system is true. Now, let us say you go through the proof of the Banach-Tarski theorem, understanding everything. At the end of it however, you are not convinced (along with many others, hence the Banach-Tarski paradox). Now, you are in possession of a justified and true proposition, yet it is somehow not knowledge, just because it conflicts with your primitive, monkey-brained intuitions? Some may say my retort is a straw-man; to them, the purpose of the B is to include a phenomenological aspect of knowledge. However, the J is capable of doing that in a far less problematic way, granted one defines justification as something that is consciously applied to propositions.

If this feels reductive, one can always just define justified as the property of being consciously justified, and justifiable as the property of having the capacity to be justified. Thus, every justified proposition is justifiable, but not vice versa.

I want to add a more general note about first principles (not necessarily something found within Aristotle's work).

Some axioms are called self-evident by virtue of how certain they seem. Others however, use "self-evidence" in a more narrow sense, meaning "self-evidencing through self-referentiality". Axioms that are self-evident in this sense are an even better candidate for the claim of not needing propositional justification.

Take Descartes Cogito, ergo sum. If you assume that thinking implies a thinker, and if you assume that thinkers exist, then you can prove your own existence through thinking. If your thought happens to be I think, therefore I am, then the proposition is self-referentially proven (granted we take the aforementioned assumptions as givens), because the proposition is a thought, and thus acts as the evidence for the existence claim; but to do so, the evidence must be referred to (which happens via the I think part). This reference is then a self-reference, since the proposition is its own evidence.

This is far from the cleanest example of self-referentially justifying propositions, and it is also not the most impressive, given that it requires external assumptions. However, it is probably the most famous example of this kind of self-evident propositions.