It's "know that P", not "know of p". — Banno

Is there any reason/argument why "¬Kp" can only mean that p's truth value is unknown, and not that the sentence p is unknown? — Luke

So this proposition: "there are x number of blades of grass in the world and nobody believes it" is true. Yet it can't be known to be true.
— Bartricks

Then how do you know that "there are x number of blades of grass in the world and nobody believes it" is true?
— Luke

I don't. No one can. That's the point. — Bartricks

So this proposition: "there are x number of blades of grass in the world and nobody believes it" is true. Yet it can't be known to be true. — Bartricks

...not in the SEP version...

it seems to me to use Kp as knowing p, not knowing of p... — Banno

Well, no they're not. Demonstrably. For instance, take the proposition 'X is the case and nobody believes X'. Well, that can be true. But it can't be known to be true. — Bartricks

In truth, I had failed to notice that the Wiki argument uses the wrong assumption. Too much faith in Wiki, I guess. — Banno

SO you accept the assumption ∀p (p → ♢Kp) but not the conclusion ∀p (p → Kp)? — Banno

Line 3. It's a conclusion, not an assumption. Hence the paradox. — Banno

rather, I don't see where you think this fits into the Fitch argument. — Banno

What are your views on K(P) → KP? — Agent Smith

There might be a teapot in orbit around Jupiter.

You know the sentence "there might be a teapot in orbit around Jupiter"

You do not know if there is a teapot in orbit around Jupiter.

Hence you know an unknown sentence. — Banno

IF you don't like the teapot example, substitute any other unknown assertion. — Banno

...if all truths are knowable, the set of "all truths" must not include any of the form "something is an unknown truth" — Fitch's paradox of knowability

Then I will offer a specific example of p:

1. if the Riemann hypothesis is true then it is possible to know that the Riemann hypothesis is true
2. we don't know that the Riemann hypothesis is true
3. if the Riemann hypothesis is true and we don't know that the Riemann hypothesis is true then it is possible to know that the Riemann hypothesis is true and that we don't know that the Riemann hypothesis is true

It is a fact that we don't know that the Riemann hypothesis is true – it's one of the more significant unproven problems in mathematics. Therefore, we must reject the knowability principle. — Michael

We don't know that p is true in this case. — Michael

Suppose p is a sentence that is an unknown truth; that is, the sentence p is true, but it is not known that p is true. — Fitch's paradox of knowability

2. the truth value of p is unknown — Michael

Logic is really bad at doing time. Truths have to be eternal. That p is an unknown truth is unknowable until p is known, and then it is not an unknown truth. the difficulty arises because knowability implies time. — unenlightened

This is the heart of darkness - suppose we know something that we suppose we do not know. "the 79 squillionth decimal iteration of pi is a '2'." Well do we know or don't we? Make up your mind, Fitch. The digit is knowable, but 'that it it 2' is knowable only if it happens to be 2, which we don't know. p0, p1... p9 - one of them is an unknown truth, and the others are unknown falsehoods. — unenlightened

Yes, and as the knowability principle is the principle that p is true if it is possible to know that p is true it then follows from what you say here that every true statement is known to be true. — Michael

,,,as soon as we know "p is an unknown truth", we know that p is true, rendering p no longer an unknown truth, so the statement "p is an unknown truth" becomes a falsity. Hence, the statement "p is an unknown truth" cannot be both known and true at the same time. Therefore, if all truths are knowable, the set of "all truths" must not include any of the form "something is an unknown truth"; thus there must be no unknown truths, and thus all truths must be known. — Fitch's paradox of knowability

However, the knowability principle entails that if it is true then I know that it is true, which contradicts the non-omniscience premise. — Michael

But we don't know which of the statements is true, which means that we must reject the knowability principle. — Michael

Given this contradiction we must either reject the knowability principle or accept that we know which of "the box is empty" and "the box is not empty" is true. — Michael

Therefore if we insist on the knowability principle then we must accept that every true statement is known to be true. — Michael

The other point that's up for discussion is that somewhere in Fitch's argument, K(P) → KP where K(P) means P is knowable and KP means Known that P. Feels like an illegal move to me. — Agent Smith

An example: I know that calculus is knowable, but that hasn't helped me at all, I haven't the slightest clue what calculus is about. :snicker: — Agent Smith

It seems instead to me that materialism is an idea which can never be verified, as for it to be verified, it would require proving that there is something existing independently of conscious beings. — Hello Human

it makes a difference whether something or nothing is being intuited or thought. — Jackson

So you, I and the bat all see the moth. — Banno

It's not at all uncommon to find folk claiming that because the bat sees the moth differently, there is no moth. — Banno

Efficient cause answers the question of what particular event(s) conspired to trigger the observed result. So it sits with material cause (as the material potential which could be the substance partaking in the change) down at the "how" end of things. — apokrisis

Agent (the efficient or moving cause of a change or movement): consists of things apart from the thing being changed or moved, which interact so as to be an agency of the change or movement. For example, the efficient cause of a table is a carpenter, or a person working as one, and according to Aristotle the efficient cause of a child is a parent. — Wikipedia article: Four Causes

Perhaps "how" and "why" are rather rough and ready folk terms when it comes to analysing causality? So the better thing to do is move on and only employ the technical categories of Aristotle's metaphysics? — apokrisis

If you get the right causal language, causation should start to seem more common sense and not so dualistically divided between world and spirit, or whatever. — apokrisis

It's a relief to me that someone groks the 'uselessness' of qualia I'm trying to sketch. It's so 'obvious' eventually and yet so absurd on the face of it. — lll

The later Wittgenstein only seems boring to those who aren't ready. What say you? — lll

I have noticed this particular "why" question crops up repeatedly in various guises in philosophy.
— Luke

It's the search for a causal account. — apokrisis

‘Why’ questions look for an overarching explanatory scheme to organize particular facts or subordinate the patterns. — Joshs

One does not have to deny qualia to show their epistemological and semantic uselessness. — lll

I think the 'why' is often enough lyrically indeterminate. It's not how but that the world is that fucks us up. Or fucks those up who're in a mood called 'wonder.' — lll

A version that occurs to me is the apparent inescapability of brute fact in any grand narrative. — lll

C theory, which rejects temporal directionality. — Kuro

Nobody took this bait.
I cannot find a difference between B and C. B-theorists define directionality based on entropy levels. If the C-theorist denies this, it seems they are in denial of thermodynamic law. — noAxioms

The proposition that this is a token is completely irrelevant, and not even taken into consideration when the person retrieves the coat. The person reads the number and gets the coat without considering whether it is a token or not. You could steal someone else's coat by making something which looks like a token, but is a false token, and the attendant would not even notice. — Metaphysician Undercover

At some point, in retrospect, one might analyze the action and say something like the idea that this is a token must underlie the attendant's action. — Metaphysician Undercover

It simply represents the mode of analysis, which is to proceed from the particular toward the more general. — Metaphysician Undercover

its supported by a synthesis of all sorts of different ideas and associations which for some reason seem relevant to the person in the situation. — Metaphysician Undercover

...if I were to say to the cloakroom attendant as I hand him my token: ‘This is a token’, he would look at me nonplussed. That is not information for him, so why am I saying it? Nothing warrants my saying it. The information he requires in order to retrieve my coat is not that this is a token, but what the number on the token is. That this is a token is the ineffable hinge upon which his looking for the number on the token revolves. Our shared certainty that ‘this is a token’ can only show itself in our normal transaction with the token; it cannot qua certainty be meaningfully said. To say a hinge in an ordinary context is to suggest that it does not go without saying, that it needs support, grounding, context. To say a hinge within the language-game invariably arrests the game, produces a caesura, a hiatus in the game. Conversely, think of the fluidity of the game poised on its invisible hinges: I hand the attendant my token, he glances at the number on it and fetches my coat. Our foundational certainty is operative only in action, not in words. This is well conveyed by Wittgenstein’s image of a certainty which is like a taking hold or a grasp:

It is just like directly taking hold of something, as I take hold of my towel without having doubts. (OC 510)

And yet this direct taking-hold corresponds to a sureness, not to a knowing. (OC 511) — Daniele Moyal-Sharrock, Understanding Wittgenstein's On Certainty

We learn the meaning of "2" and "3" by counting, saying the name for the number that comes next. Correcting them when they get it wrong. — Fooloso4