I suppose it can be argued that your initial thought about Ann did not cause your second thought about her. It can also be argued that it did, but I think there's a much stronger argument that the thought "7 + 5" caused the thought 12 — Patterner

Great. That's exactly what I'd like to hear about: Can we give a sense of causality to entailment or logical equivalence?

I've read the first section of Russell's paper. Do you find the putative counter-examples persuasive? They seem fishy to me, but I don't know how to give them a strictly logical refutation. Presumably Russell will go on to do this. In particular -- and this has come up in several previous threads on TPF -- we have the idea that, because p, it is necessarily the case that p. It evidently requires a temporal qualifier, though: It is necessarily the case now that p. P was not necessary until it became actual. Furthermore -- and this is the part I'm really dubious about -- it invokes an idea of necessity that seems at odds with how we think about necessity overall. I'm not saying that "Because p, therefore not not-p" is wrong. That is indeed a kind of necessity. But this "necessity of actuality," to coin a phrase, doesn't address the questions about what constitutes non-temporal, definitional or lawlike necessity. It's more of a weak sister, a glancing acknowledgment that yes, once something happens, it can't unhappen. Do we need to worry about this as a counter-example to the thesis that "you can't get claims about how the world must be from the claims that merely state how it is"?

If you later come across one of those details in other circumstances they will cause a connection to the other event. — Sir2u

This is the key (problematic) statement. What sort of causality is involved here? Do you mean "cause" at the level of neuronal activity? Or does one idea cause the other? If so, how? Or -- if this were a matter of strict entailment -- does the first idea necessitate the other?

Looking at it in terms of semantics, I'd say the connections between thoughts is associative. There are many common, that is communally shared, associations between ideas. — Janus

I have no problem with that but, like talk of "relationships", are we really saying much when we say that connections between thoughts are associative? What we want to know is the nature(s) of those associations. And my question here is, specifically, can these associations include causal connections?

Looking at it from a physical perspective, the semantic relations could be physically instantiated as interconnections between neural networks. — Janus

Something like that, yes. In the OP I tried to sidestep the question of mind/brain, since it's so complicated and contentious. But it's like a fly that won't go away. Might it be the case that there is no tractable way to understand non-physical causation (if it exists) until we understand how a brain can be a mind? Could be. (Even phrasing it this way becomes controversial, of course.)

So what made you think of Ann (W2) in the first place? — Sir2u

It might be any number of things -- a picture, a scent, a dream, Proust's cookie, or, of course, a previous thought. I'm not suggesting that only a previous thought can cause a current thought. The OP is asking into what might be going on when such a situation does appear to occur.

And then there's "unheard thoughts" . . . see below.

That is I was automatically seeing "thinking of Ann" as a background process that instatiates as both A and B. Wondering how Ann is doing and her birthday are two different elements you could connect with Ann. — Dawnstorm

Ah, I see. No, that wasn't the situation I was presenting. To be more specific: Something brings the thought of Ann to mind (see above). The "thought of Ann" might be a mental image, or her name, a memory associated with her -- I can only call upon your agreement here that something happens to which we refer when we say "All at once I thought of Ann and [now the words enter] wondered how she was doing". So this is thought A. And this, in turn, begins the process of reminding or causing which produces thought B -- I must get her a birthday present.

I can't easily pin down a single thought. . . . So if you'd be excluding "unheard thoughts", I probably have little to contribute. — Dawnstorm

It does sound as if our mental processes are quite different, but I hope you'll stay on the thread anyway. The issue you're raising about "unheard" or background thoughts is definitely germane. I'm quite sure that some such thing goes on, just as you say (it may be part of what Nietzsche had in mind); I only hesitate to call them thoughts, preferring to reserve that term for what presents itself to awareness. But I'm happy to consider a different, broader categorization. Would you say that, in your "stream-of-Ann" thoughts, there is an element of causation that produces A, B, C, et al.? And can the surface-level thought A indeed cause thought B to rise up as well? Or is causality altogether the wrong way to think about this process?

Do all thoughts have or need a cause? — Sir2u

Good question. But do you mean "thoughts" understood as my W2 thoughts, or thoughts as propositions?

But first of all exactly what is a thought? Is it that voice we hear in our head, or do we have unheard thoughts as well? — Sir2u

I'm suggesting that "thought" can be understood in at least two ways. The "voice in the head" version would be what I'm calling a W2 thought. Unheard thoughts? I think not, for purposes of this discussion. (I'm assuming you mean "unheard" metaphorically, so it translates to "thoughts I'm not aware of having.")

Thoughts are like actions. They're a continuous process. — Copernicus

I agree, they are. So, as with actions, we tend to divide them up into identifiable segments, while allowing that the process is continuous. We can ask, How does thought A lead to/cause/remind us of thought B, in the same way that we can ask, How does my action of chewing a mouthful of food lead to/cause me to have a drink? There are still causal questions involved, or at least there may be.

Very interesting. I'll read Russell's paper.

I think you're onto something here. There's a particular type of thinking that is philosophical, though it's hard to state clearly. I would emphasize philosophy as questioning. We ask difficult questions and discover, to our dismay, that we may have to live with many of those questions, rather than claim definitive answers. What could be the purpose of such an activity? At the risk of sounding mystical, I would say that the "love of wisdom" enters at this point. Is true wisdom the ability to propound a series of answers to hard questions? Perhaps, rather, it's the realization of limits, a simultaneous embracing of rational inquiry and a willingness to know when to stop, and seek other means. Other means? Kindness, generosity, creativity, and courage are avenues of knowledge and self-transformation, in my experience.

Welcome to phil! I agree with all the advice about reading histories of philosophy, but here's a personal recommendation: Most phil is written in a more or less didactic style. You'll find premises, arguments, refutations . . . and all that is absolutely necessary for critical thinking. But also make time for three philosophers, great ones, who didn't write that way at all: Plato, Kierkegaard, and late Wittgenstein. If you read around in these three, you'll have your eyes opened to an entirely different sense of what "writing philosophy" can be.

Start by finding some question you really want answered. Then start reading around that. Make notes every time some fact or thought strikes you as somehow feeling key to the question you have in mind, you are just not quite sure how. Then as you start to accumulate a decent collection of these snippets – stumbled across all most randomly as you sample widely – begin to sort the collection into its emerging patterns. — apokrisis

I think this is excellent advice. I would add: When you encounter a point of view that seems, on first reading, just nonsense, immediately stop and try to enter that "nonsensical" point of view. Why would this (presumably respected and published) philosopher write such a thing? What could they be thinking, meaning? Don't move on until you feel you've made progress in understanding this alien way of thinking. I believe the single biggest error that newbie/amateur philosophers make is to fail to read generously and curiously. This leads to the kind of autodidacticism you've been warned about, and reinforces our natural unfortunate tendency to be dismissive of people we disagree with, without actually understanding how or why the disagreement comes about.

. . . The second is monism, which holds that mind and matter are not two separate kinds of things at all, but rather that consciousness is a particular organization or pattern within the physical, not something over and above it. — tom111

Is there any reason why we couldn't equally well say, "The physical is a particular organization within consciousness, not something over and above [or beneath] it"? Monism is describable either way, it seems to me, without requiring giving explanatory priority to a physical substrate.

@Banno@Janus@Count Timothy von Icarus @Ludwig V @Sam26
Thanks, and coincidentally, I also have to be offline for 2 weeks, as I'm going out of the country. Appreciate the conversation and look forward to chatting with everyone when I get back.

JTB seems to be saying, "You can only know something if it's true." Or wait . . . maybe it's saying, "You can only know something if, right now, you are sure it's true." Which is it?
— J

Why not both at the same time? — javra

Because they aren't asserting the same thing, or at least we need an argument to show that they do. The first speaks of the truth of a statement ("something") irrespective of whether I know it to be true. The second brings me into the picture, insisting that I have to be sure it's true.

Otherwise, it's all circular. "I know X" becomes the same thing as "I know that X is true." But this presupposes that "knowing X" involves a definition of knowledge that include knowing that X is true. Isn't this what JTB was supposed to demonstrate?

Filling in with an example:

1 - "I know that I live in Maryland"
2 - "I know that 'I live in Maryland' is true"

What is our warrant for claiming that 1 and 2 assert the same thing? Doesn't it involve a stipulation or presupposition about what it means to know something -- specifically, a stipulation involving the term "true"? Statement 2 talks about what is true, statement 1 does not. But isn't this the very thing JTB is supposed to give us? -- a reason to include the truth of a statement as part of the knowledge claim?

But also, see my previous comments about the inquiry into "What is knowledge?" JTB wants to pin down the correct use of "I know"; I'm suggesting that it might be more profitable to look at the ways we actually use "I know." I don't think they correspond to JTB. There are many things I believe I know, but am not certain they are true. JTB would argue that, therefore, I'm using "know" incorrectly. Whereas I'm saying that it's JTB that needs correction, not me. This latter position lacks punch, of course, unless the "me" can be turned into "us" with sufficient frequency. We need a fairly widespread agreement on the faults of JTB in order to claim that it doesn't capture our common practice.

EDIT: I agree that it isn't possible to claim 1 without also claiming 2, and vice versa. Perhaps that's all you mean by "Why not both?" If so, it's fine. My argument above is that they are nonetheless different claims. And consider a 3rd statement: "'I live in Maryland' is true." This can be the case even if I don't know I live in Maryland.

As I and others have pointed out in previous posts, ontological truths occur, i.e, ontological correspondence/conformity to that which is, was, or will be actual do occur. Implicit in every belief is an assent to that which is true. — javra

Before I reply in any detail, let me be sure I understand you. Are you saying there are ontological truths about the future? That is, the future exists now in such a way that statements about it are, at this moment, either true or false? (I think this is what you mean by an ontological truth?)

If one assumes that JTB must be absolutely devoid of any possibility of being wrong, then we all communicate all the time via beliefs which we don’t know to be true.

How would this not then result in a societal chaos of sorts wherein most all trust goes down the drain? — javra

I'm not sure that societal chaos would follow, but I agree with your point about JTB. That's part of why I'm hesitant to accept it as a good description of knowledge.

Sometimes it helps to pull back from the intricate details and ask ourselves, What are we trying to say about knowledge and truth? JTB seems to be saying, "You can only know something if it's true." Or wait . . . maybe it's saying, "You can only know something if, right now, you are sure it's true." Which is it? There seems to be support on this thread for the former construal: All that matters is that Statement P is true, not whether I can know that to be the case.

I think that, for JTB to be worth using, it ought to take us closer to the second construal: My claiming that P is true ought to say something about what I actually do have some surety about. And this is not a binary judgment. Our justifications will vary in strength. How strong does a J have to be in order to cross the "sure" barrier? I don't know if that's answerable. It's a bit like the old "heap" problem. Is there some line we can name, below which I'm not quite sure, and above which I am? (Notice that I'm using "sure" instead of "certain" or "have knowledge," because I don't want the potential circle to confuse this question.)

For example, it would be odd for a typical westerner to say "though I believe it, I don't know whether I will eat anything tomorrow". — javra

A good example of how different people work with "know." I would in fact say just that, perhaps precisifying it: "I strongly believe that I will eat tomorrow, though there is a very slight chance that I won't." Would I also claim knowledge? This is where it really starts to get murky. According to JTB, I can't, since I don't (yet) know if "I will eat something tomorrow" is true. It may be true, in which case my claim at T1 is knowledge -- the problem is, I can only be aware of that in retrospect. In practice, however, and leaving aside the somewhat bizarre (to me) requirements of JTB, I'd rate the statement pretty low on the knowledge scale. Any number of things might prevent me from eating tomorrow, sickness especially. Whereas "The sun will rise tomorrow" gets an enthusiastic thumbs-up from me as a piece of knowledge, despite the fact that it too is not certain -- there are defeaters, as I proposed to @Janus (who wasn't impressed!).

Once again, though, we have to remember that a philosophical question such as "What is knowledge?" or "What counts as knowledge?" can be taken in at least two different ways. We can be asking, "What is the correct way to understand what knowledge is?" If we answer that, then we can go on to ameliorate the incorrect understandings and usages. The other way is to ask, "How is the word 'knowledge' used? What range of situations and applications does it cover?" If we answer this, we're no longer trying to say which (one) of the usages is correct. In fact, if it turns out that many people use "knowledge" in a manner, or in situations, that don't fit a proposed correct understanding of what knowledge is, this may, and should, give us pause. It may suggest to us that a "one size fits all" construal of knowledge is misguided. This doesn't mean that Total Chaos is now rampaging. It just means that the question is nuanced, and often depends on interpretation.

Sorry if I wasn't clear. Satisfying the JTB criteria is how we know a sentence is true, supposedly. What makes it true would be some version of Tarski-truth. I was saying that one could point to a JTB-verified sentence and say, "Well, since it's a JTB, I know it's true." But this kind of knowledge doesn't involve any meaningful justifications on my part. It's a kind of reliance on authority, the authority of having passed the JTB criteria.

Possibly I also haven't been clear about why the PoV matters -- who is doing all this. The phrase "point to" is meant to raise this question. If I am the one who declares a sentence to be a JTB, then presumably I have satisfied myself, as best I can, about the T part, and provided my own justifications. But if you tell me it's a JTB, I haven't. All I can do is accept the "deduction" that, if it is indeed a JTB, then it must be true. I think you've been assuming, in this discussion, that a single person is taking all these steps, but there's nothing in JTB that requires that. We don't ask, "Have I verified that this sentence is true?" but rather "Is this sentence true?"; we don't ask "Have I provided good justifications?" but rather "Are there good justifications?"

Is this what JTB is for?

And thanks for your patience with this.

But of course, we could reply here that you "know it to be true" just in case you have a justified belief that it is true, and it is true. I don't think that answers J's question though, because we still have to assume the "it is true" part. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes. Or if not assume, at least spell out some criteria that don't merely repeat the J criteria.

Well, no. If S is some sentence that satisfies the criteria JTB, then by that very fact it is true — Banno

Surely not. This is the absurd "deduction" I was addressing above. Satisfying the JTB criteria is not what makes a sentence true. It's not the "very fact" we're looking for. What makes a sentence true will be, let's say, some version of Tarski-truth.

Or to put it another way, what makes a sentence true is satisfying T; you don't need to bring in J and B at all. The question is, Can we imagine a situation in which T would be apparent to me -- not to a hypothetical anyone, but to me, the user of the JTB criteria -- on other grounds than the J?

The circularity, so far as there is one, is in your then asking "But is it true?" — Banno

Perhaps the right question, then, is "Who knows it to be true?" Does the person applying the JTB criteria have to know this? Or is it sufficient for it merely to be the case, with no one knowing it? This leads back to my concern about the use of all this.

we can deduce, from the fact that we have JTB of X, that X is true.
— J
That's circular. You can only satisfy the JTB if you know that X is true. — Ludwig V

Of course it's circular. But doesn't it follow? If "My aunt lives in Denver" is a JTB, it must be the case that my aunt lives in Denver. No further verification is required. My point is precisely that this is absurd. To avoid the circularity, you have to posit X as true without knowing it to be true, whether on the grounds of pragmatism or T-truth or grammar or something else. That's the move I'm still considering.

Again, there is a difference between P being true and it being established that P is true. J still hasn't taken this to heart. — Banno

I feel like one of the blind guys that's got a different part of the elephant! The difference is completely clear to me. What isn't clear is what JTB is supposed to be used for. As I asked above, "I come back to the question, What is JTB for? Is it a theoretical, criteriological account of what it would mean to know something? Or is it supposed to actually help us evaluate a given piece of putative knowledge?" If you've addressed this already, my apologies, but could you say again?

Truth is a logical device, setting out the move between a sentence and what it says.

The "T" in JTB is that move. — Banno

Yes, this has to be correct, it seems to me, with the stipulation that the result will be some true sentences and some false sentences. A great deal of the conversation here centers on how certain we can be, or have to be, about the status of T.

For the purpose of defining knowledge, we can assume that we have a concept of truth and worry about what it is on another occasion. — Ludwig V

A little too breezy for me! But I see what you're saying; perhaps I'm just being stubborn in wanting to get a preview of what the concept of truth must be, in order for JTB to work. Or see above: Maybe we're simply not sure what the work of JTB is.

So you accept knowledge based on authority. I'm a bit surprised - it is quite unusual for philosophers to accept that. They usually, if only by implication, seem to believe that only first-person verification is satisfactory. That's a very strict criterion and cuts out most of what we (think we) know. — Ludwig V

Indeed. I can only say that, in practice, we use "know" rather differently than that. Philosophers can recommend ameliorating our less rigorous usages, of course. Then "know" becomes a sort of technical term. Do I not know that, say, general relativity is true, because I can't personally verify it? I'd contest that. I feel a great deal more certain of general relativity than I do of many of my own apparent perceptions!

My concerns with JTB are all about how the truth of P is supposed to be established
— J

I would think it isn't. We just act like it is true until we are prompted to reconsider. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I have trouble with that; surely the justifications matter? Can we act like P is true -- that is, assert that we have the T for JTB -- if the justifications aren't strong? I come back to the question, What is JTB for? Is it a theoretical, criteriological account of what it would mean to know something? Or is it supposed to actually help us evaluate a given piece of putative knowledge?

To go toward the mirage is Justified True Belief (if one is not familiar with modern day science). And who knows, it might lead to water. Eventually. — Outlander

I'm not clear why this would be JTB. Even the ancients knew about mirages, judging from classical literature. And, in the unlikely event I had the presence of mind to ask myself, there in the desert, whether "That is an oasis" is a JTB, I would answer no; I don't have a good-enough justification, or an independent fact-check, to include it as a T in the formula. But a guy can hope!

But we don't know that X is true via JTB, but via whatever the truth conditions are for X. — Ludwig V

Well, but there's the rub -- we do. There are two ways of knowing that X is true, on this construal of JTB. We can verify the truth conditions of X (and remember, this a convenient phrase that contains its own puzzles and disagreements), or we can deduce, from the fact that we have JTB of X, that X is true. If you tell me, "I know X, because I have JTB of X," and I believe you, then I know, or at least believe, that X is true, without knowing anything about its truth conditions. Can this work in the first person? Can I myself have JTB of X without knowing the truth conditions of X? This puts us back to justification, and what counts as a good one. Is personal verification of the truth conditions the only truth-guaranteeing justification? Or, if "guaranteeing" is too strong, the only good-enough justification?

If say I am certain that something is the case, then I mean that there cannot be any doubt about it. Then I would say I know it to be the case. If I think something is the case but there is any possible doubt it, then I would say that I believe it to be the case, but do not know it to be. — Janus

I see why this is attractive. "Possible doubt" is the question, though. Is it possible that the sun will not rise tomorrow? (and of course I mean "sunrise" as shorthand for what actually occurs). Well, yes. An alien civilization inimical to ours might choose tonight to destroy our solar system. That is not impossible, or incoherent, or against the laws of physics, etc. Yet I, and I think all of us, would be happy to say that "The sun will rise tomorrow" is a piece of knowledge. As I say, I'm sympathetic to why you'd want to tighten up "knowledge" so it equates to "certainty" but is that really what we mean when we say we know something? Or would you want to argue that solar death by alien attack is impossible? On what grounds?

it's on us to show why we think there needs to be something of the sort where "P is *really* true," and that we must be able to assert that this is so, or even "know" it, and how exactly that is supposed to work, since it seems one could function "pragmatically" whilst only speaking to one's own beliefs without "knowing" that any other beliefs exist. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Excellent. My concerns with JTB are all about how the truth of P is supposed to be established. @Banno recommends just starting with that truth, which seems similar in spirit to the pragmatic approach you describe. I'm still thinking it over.

In the Matrix scenario there is no skepticism about the real world—in fact that is what those who see through the virtual illusion are trying to get back to. If Descartes considered this he would still be faced with the question of being able to doubt the purported real world just as much as he can doubt the virtual world of the Matrix. — Janus

I don't think so. Descartes' skepticism is not about the real world. It's about whether my experiences are veridical. He's not saying that, if these experiences are not veridical, then there is no real world. He's saying we can be deceived. Presumably the Evil Demon can be undeceived, just as the Lords of the Matrix can be.

But I think you may be getting into an unnecessary tangle because you (seem to be) focused on the special case of "I know that I know.." — Ludwig V

I can see how you would think that. I probably could have expressed it better. But the "know that I know" issue comes up within JTB itself. If it's right that we can't know X is true via JTB (since it's an element of JTB, not a result, and would require a previous demonstration of knowledge), then we might never know whether we know a given X, since we wouldn't know if X was true. So "know that I know" is really meant to express "know that JTB is satisfied."

That is very helpful - it helps me understand much better Kant's connection of time with number and space with geometry. — Wayfarer

Goes for me too, thanks.

The facts that help you decide on your attitude are irrelevant to whether p is true or not. — Banno

Whether I believe that p and on what grounds is a matter that is entirely distinct from the question whether p is true. — Ludwig V

That's the part I'm questioning. What does it mean to you that something is true? I'm guessing it would be some version of Tarski truth. So how could that possibly be independent of the grounds of justification? That seems to be setting up truth as some quality or property that just is. But we all know that's not right: truth is a property/attribute/quality/judgment/or whatever of propositions, not objects.

So, is the idea that we can possess knowledge (i.e., possess beliefs that are justified and true) but we can never know that we possess knowledge (unless perhaps the object of knowledge is our own beliefs or experiences)? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not quite. I'm saying that this would be the unwelcome conclusion if this way of construing JTB is adhered to. To avoid this conclusion, I'm suggesting we alter or abandon JTB, not our confidence that we can know we have knowledge.

The Matrix Hypothesis I think is absurd, because it posits that there is a real world in which the virtual world we inhabit is sustained, and this means the need for explanation is just pushed one step further back. — Janus

But Descartes' doubt isn't about explanation. He believes it's possible to doubt whether my experiences are veridical -- that is, of the things they appear to be of. He's not questioning experience in general. The Matrix hypothesis would represent such a doubt.

any verdict I give on the truth or not of the information is inescapably only what I know or believe. — Ludwig V

This is the nub, I think: It can never be what you know, only what you believe. Never, that is, without raising the specter of the vicious circle. Because to already know that the piece of information is true, that knowledge would have to have been verified via JTB. (This all assumes you think JTB is a good yardstick for knowledge, of course.)

I think it is true that we can equally say that Macbeth is seeing something that isn't there or Macbeth thinks he sees something that isn't there. — Ludwig V

Good. Seems that way to me too.

We've talked about this in the context of Williams' book on Descartes. I think you're being too harsh.
— J
Oh dear! My memories of that are, I'm afraid, a bit vague. Perhaps I am being too harsh. — Ludwig V

Harsh on Descartes, not me, I hasten to say; your forum manners are impeccable. As for vague memories . . . don't get me started. Aging is a fog, obscuring near and far.

Dunno if any of this helps or not, — Mww

I appreciate it a lot, thanks.

The differences in the text is so subtle.
….In the Aesthetic, we have intuitions which are given as “the matter of objects”;
….In judgement of mathematical cognitions, we have “….exhibition à priori of the intuition which corresponds to the conception…” for which the matter would be irrelevant;
….In judgement of philosophical cognition we have conceptions which conform to the intuition insofar as “…the intuition must be given before your cognition, and not by means of it.…”. — Mww

Clearly these are differences, as you say. I'm focused still on the discussion in the Prolegomena, where Kant says:

In one way only can my intuition anticipate the actuality of the object, and be a cognition a priori, namely, if my intuition contains nothing but the form of sensibility, antedating in my mind all the actual impressions through which I am affected by objects. [Kant's italics] — Prolegomena 282

How do you interpret this? How might it apply to 7+5 and the use of fingers?

I think that the justifications are mostly the same sorts of facts that would show whether X is true or false. But there can be justifications to the effect that I am in a position, have the skills, to know - which are of a different kind or level. — Ludwig V

Yes, I think so too. Let's see what @Banno says, and then I'll try to show where I'm going with this.

We can loosen that requirement, and say that "X is true" is pre-JTB and therefore not a knowable instance of truth. This seems to resemble more closely our actual practice.
— J
It's true that we rarely consciously and specifically apply the JTB. It's a formalization of what (normally) we actually do in a messy, informal way. I don't understand what it would be for something to be "pre-JTB". — Ludwig V

By pre-JTB I mean that we would enter the "JTB situation" already believing that X is true. Our belief in X is not a result of what is about to happen if we successfully apply JTB, hence not knowledge. The difference between believing and knowing is important here. If, in trying to determine whether I possess a piece of knowledge, I ask myself, "Is X true?" (a JTB requirement for knowledge), I can only reply, "I believe so." I can't say, "I know it is," because this initiates the vicious circle.

Asking the question "what is a hallucination?" in the sense that you seem to mean it presupposes that a hallucination is an object. — Ludwig V

I didn't mean it to. It can just as well be an activity or an event. We can still ask what it is, taking "is" in one of its many familiar usages. The question was whether there's a "correct way" to describe the activity of hallucinating using the word "see." I'm saying, no, it's terminological; "see" can work either way.

The problem is that he does not consider what actual limitations there are on doubts, and reduces it to the possibility of saying "I doubt that..." in front of almost any proposition. But if we ask what the content, the reality, the significance, of the doubt is, we find nothing. — Ludwig V

We've talked about this in the context of Williams' book on Descartes. I think you're being too harsh. If it should turn out that I am really a brain in a vat or a Matrix-bound person, then my doubt about the objective references of my experiences is well-founded. It's not merely a linguistic construct. Indeed, this possibility seems much more plausible to me than the Evil Demon! -- though still pretty unlikely. In any case, perhaps we've just set different "limitations on doubts," and what seems doubt-worthy to me, doesn't to you. But surely this kind of doubt signifies more than nothing, wouldn't you say? It's a thinkable thought, and not nonsense.

In the case of the conception of a priori itself, Kant did not mean it with respect to time as such, but with respect to placement in the system as a whole. — Mww

Good.

To then say a priori, as it relates to time, is before experience, is not quite right, — Mww

Yes, that's what I was suggesting.

Now we see synthetic judgements a priori are only representations of a very specific cognitive function, a synthesis done without anything whatsoever to do with experience, and of which we are not the least conscious. — Mww

But then why does Kant say:

We must go beyond these concepts by calling to our aid some intuition which corresponds to one of the concepts -- that is, either our five fingers or five points . . . -- and we must add successively the units of the five given in the intuition to the concept of seven. — Prolegomena 268

But we stop dead in our cognitive tracks, when the very same synthesis is just as necessary but for which immediate mental manipulation is impossible. — Mww

Kant notes this in the same section: "larger numbers . . . however closely we analyze our concepts without calling intuition to our aid, we can never find the sum by such mere dissection."

the cognitive part of the system as a whole, and in particular the part which reasons, does something with the two given conceptions… — Mww

I still read this "something" as requiring intuition. Do you not see it that way?

OK. Bear with me. Let's say I'm in a "JTB situation"; that is, I want to find out whether I possess a piece of knowledge. Will the justifications that I cite -- the J in JTB -- for why I believe X refer to the same sorts of facts that, out in the world, would show whether statement X is true or false?

Example: X is "Taurize is a village in France." My justifications for believing X would be, let's say, "I've looked in a reliable atlas, and spoken to someone who's visited Taurize and confirms this." (And we could tighten this up ad infinitum, but you get the idea.) Now suppose I want to find out whether X is true -- whether Taurize really is a village in France. Would the facts necessary to do this be the exact same ones cited as my justifications for believing X? Are the two sets completely congruent?

The problem I have is that he doubts things on the mere logical possibility that he might be deceived by an Evil Demon. — Janus

This may seem like quibbling, but he doesn't actually doubt things. He points out that it would be possible to doubt them. Of course he knows that no sane person is going to doubt most of their own experience, but that doesn't satisfy his Method. He wants the grand prize -- absolute certainty, beyond even the possibility of doubt. I personally feel that we don't need that in order to do metaphysics and epistemology; Descartes disagreed, hence his Method. But we really shouldn't see him as raising "philosophers' doubts" for the sake of skepticism. He detested skepticism and believed he had refuted it. (And we have a perfectly good modern version of the Evil Demon: the "Matrix hypothesis.")

Justification is only for beliefs, not for those things known with certainty. — Janus

OK, that seems like a good way to look at it, with perhaps the caveat that it's reasonable also to ask, "Why are you certain?" or "What makes you rely on this experience?" (similarity to previous ones, presumably). These aren't requests for justifications in the same way that asking for a justification of a belief is, but their aim is to ask for an account, a rationale. I can't simply reply, "Well, I just do." This rarely comes up, of course, but it's worth noting.

Also, you can say that Descartes "feigned" skepticism, but he wasn't trying to fool himself or others. He wasn't just being annoying. He was trying to pursue a method he believed would lead, by elimination, to clear and certain knowledge.

Like @frank, I'm not sure I get this. "That is a prime number" is true (or false) regardless of what John thinks about it. The question is, How confident can he be that he knows which is which? Of course there are fuzzy cases, but let's just consider this straightforward one. Isn't he trying to bootstrap himself into a JTB?

Maybe this is a good way to frame the problem in terms of JTB:

Do I have to know that X is true in order to use it as the T in a JTB statement? Is that knowledge the result of a previous application of JTB? etc. I know you think this can be dissolved, but I still don't see how. Truth is certainly foundational to the whole set-up, I agree, but the question seems to be whether I have to know that X is true. We can loosen that requirement, and say that "X is true" is pre-JTB and therefore not a knowable instance of truth. This seems to resemble more closely our actual practice.

I cannot justify that I have that knowledge to you, if you believe me you take it on faith. — Janus

Agreed. I think we're speaking of self-justification here. Can you justify to yourself that "I am thinking X" is necessarily true? This starts to become merely verbal, depending on what sort of thing you think a justification is. Self-evidence, on some accounts, requires a justification, or at least an explanation. On other accounts, it's the very thing that obviates justification. Does it much matter which construal we pick? What matters is the concepts in play, not our terms for them.

But your description is excluding the "straightforward" answer that the drunk is hallucinating a pink elephant. — Ludwig V

That was kinda deliberate. For what is a hallucination, and how do we talk about it? Is there an obvious consensus? Some would describe hallucinating as "seeing something that isn't there"; others would describe it as "thinking you see something that isn't there". Is there a meaningful difference, apart from choice of terms?

In a sense, of course, it just kicks the can down the road, — Ludwig V

Precisely, as I just described. But the can isn't important, in my opinion, so this shouldn't bother us.

I think your knowledge of Kant is deeper than mine, so please say if you don't agree with my interpretation of these passages in the Prolegomena.

A priori means “prior to experience.” If you tell me you have seven beers in the fridge and I bring to another five to give you, I can know you have twelve beers without opening the fridge door. That’s a trivial example, but it illustrates the point: the truth of 7+5=12 doesn’t depend on checking the fridge. — Wayfarer

Right, that's the standard interpretation, but think about it: Prior to how much experience? Can I know about the 12 beers if I don't know what beer is? Can I know it without knowing about counting? Can I know what 7 or 5 or 12 anythings are without lived experience? So where do we imagine the "a priori judger" standing, so to speak, when they make their judgments? (BTW, you can see immediately that this is yet another place where Rodl's important questions about propositions surface.)

Indeed. Hectoring rather than conversation.

It’s a perfect case of the synthetic a priori . . . — Wayfarer

The debate about this often centers on how "prior" the a priori is supposed to be. What is the ideal situation in which an a priori judgment is imagined to take place? Prior to what, exactly, can we know that 7+5=12? Prior to what can we know that antimatter exists? Prior to (or independent of) observations, perhaps, but prior to any experience of the world whatsoever? Priori to knowing how to count? "A priori" and "a posteriori" have conventional interpretations, and a better Kantian scholar than I could perhaps tell us precisely what Kant envisaged, but the division doesn't feel like a "natural kind" to me.

Yes, it's just terminology, as I said. I certainly don't feel strongly about it. We can use an ambiguous term like "see" any way we want to stipulate, as long as everyone knows what that is!

hallucinations and mirages are not introspections (aka, self-examinations of one’s own being, thoughts, etc.) … but imaginings (such as can occur in daydreams) seen with the mind’s eye — javra

That sounds right -- but it also means that we can't say the drunk saw a pink elephant. Seeing with the mind's eye is a metaphorical extension of what it means to see something.

I can't help feeling that applying the description "pink elephant" to whatever I am seeing is not immune from mistake. — Ludwig V

I'd say the mistake is in the use of "see".

But in any case, this is about choice of terminology. We could say to the drunk, "No, you didn't," and mean either "You saw nothing" or "What you saw wasn't a pink elephant." Neither one is obviously correct, apart from pedantry. But we're all three dividing up the conceptual territory the same way. (And I think @sime is getting at this too, with their A and B analyses of beliefs.)

Oh good lord, sorry, I meant the Prolegomena. :grimace:

Synthetic a priori = adds new content, but is knowable independently of experience.

That last category was Kant’s unique insight. Mathematics is built around it — “7+5=12” is not analytic, because “12” isn’t contained in “7+5,” but it’s still a priori. — Wayfarer

Let's slow down on this one. Kant doesn't speak about "content" in the [Prolegomena] (where the 7+5 example is discussed). He says that the concept of "12" is not the same as the concept of "7+5". According to him, we need an "intuition" ("perception" would probably be our way of saying it today) of the physical in order to discover "12". (He suggests that our five fingers, and then seven fingers, would do the trick.) "Hence our concept is really amplified by the proposition 7+5 = 12, and we add to the first concept a second concept not thought in it." What Kant regards as analytic here is the judgment that 7 and 5 must add up to some number -- but this does not tell us what particular number.

The place where this can be challenged, I think, is the reliance on intuition. If this is truly the case, don't we have to question whether the judgment is indeed a priori? Kant addresses this in Sec. 281: "How is it possible to intuit anything a priori?" I don't want to take this any farther, except to say that the case for math as a series of synthetic a priori judgments, even on Kant's own terms, is far from closed.