The value of Truth is not absolute because new facts can and have changed the truth value of previous claims. So a true belief can be prove not true...while an instrumentally valuable statement can always be used as knowledge. — Nickolasgaspar
Calling all knowledge belief justified to be true is an imposed (made up) criteria, desiring certainty before looking at how various kinds of knowledge actually work. Science is not justifying beliefs; it is a method. — Antony Nickles
I don't think there's a perfect, single definition of "knowledge". However one tries to create such a single definition, one will necessary leave out things. It can only be defined in a context.How should we define 'knowledge'? — Cidat
This made me think of one of my favorite quotes from Stephen Jay Gould, a great science writer—In science, ‘fact’ can only mean ‘confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.' — T Clark
When someone asked about creationism, he started yelling at them (as if they were perverse). — Antony Nickles
The point about science is that it does not need assent. — Antony Nickles
So, again, to say my belief (opinion, theory, etc.) is justified (say by the facts of science) does not make it a higher order of belief, now deemed "knowledge". It's just a statement of fact; the only relationship to belief which it has is the kind of belief that is a guess, to which the fact is an answer with certainty--"I believe it's raining out" "Well, let's go and look and we will know". — Antony Nickles
So what is the perfect definition of knowledge? — Cidat
And another mistake is to suppose that we cannot be certain of anything. On Certainty shows this clearly.One historical mistake certain philosophies have made is this search for certainty instead minimizing error for a purpose. — Richard B
I don't see how to make sense of this....truth and knowledge are observer relative evaluations, limited by our current observations. — Nickolasgaspar
Damn, ↪T Clark is on to me, despite my cunningly hiding my passive aggressive snot in an account of justified true belief. — Banno
Philosophy is, generally speaking, a lot harder than it perhaps seems. — Banno
Presumably, a perfect definition would give an account of these three species of knowledge. — Banno
And it's not hard to see problems with defining knowledge as "useful information". We all know stuff that is not useful, unless one is going to specify utility in such broad terms that anything is useful—at which point being useful becomes moot. And there is useful information that is false - Newtonian physics, for example. — Banno
Which I think is a nice example of knowledge not necessarily true. IOW I don't think our hindsight about Newton's work means that people were wrong to consider it knowledge. I think it was knowledge. (theoretical) Knowledge would be rigorously arrived at beliefs and I think we could still consider someone knowing what to do with some of Newton's laws as having practical knowledge. It'd be useful for certain jobs. They know stuff. Even if ultimately it is based on approximations and perhaps some incorrect ontological assumptions.And there is useful information that is false - Newtonian physics, for example. — Banno
So what is the perfect definition of knowledge? — Cidat
Would you say that knowledge then is similar to truth in that it is not a property which looks the same in each example? — Tom Storm
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