We have to start somewhere, and it seems that a sentence's being true is at least as good a place as any. I mentioned previously the circularity of analysing truth in terms of knowledge when knowledge is defined in terms of truth.

Hold truth steady. Then belief that p is holding p to be true, even if it isn't. And knowing that p excludes p being false. The structure is consistent.

in fact in the case of metaphysics I would say there can be no certainty at all, that it all comes down to plausibility, because we are dealing with the non-cognitive.
— Janus
If metaphysics is about the non-cognitive (which needs a bit more fleshing out), are we sure that certainty and plausibility even apply? — Ludwig V

That's an interesting question. If everything we cognize is counted as "physical", then would not metaphysics, thought of being what is beyond the scope of physics, or any other science, be thus taken to be dealing with the non-cognitive?

Why do we need to talk in terms of 'knowledge that' when nothing is lost by talking instead of 'justifiably believing that'?
— Janus
Well, if there were something to be gained, it might be a change worth making. But so long as we distinguish between true beliefs and false ones, the issues remain. — Ludwig V

I want to note that I'm not saying we don't know anything—I'm saying that in those cases where we can be said to know something, we know (again, radical skepticism aside) that what we know is true. It seems to me if we do not know that, then it doesn't count as knowledge but as belief. It could be justified belief, and then it would that its truth is highly plausible, but that still falls short of knowing it is true.

It seems to me that your meteorite example with the conclusion that you should "take your cue from society" and ignore the mere possibility just counts as an example of a justified belief—you don't know that a meteorite is not going to strike you on the head, but you could be said to know that the chance of its happening is miniscule, so knowing that it is highly unlikely means that believing it would be to believe in an extremely implausible event.

If it is wrong to believe something that might not be the case, then, presumably, it is equally wrong not to believe something that is the case. The more cautious you are in avoiding false beliefs, the more you risk not accepting true beliefs. — Ludwig V

I don't know...perhaps you are misunderstanding me—I'm not talking at all about being cautious in trying to avoid false beliefs. but about avoiding thinking and saying that I know something if I cannot be certain about it.

We can only pretend something that is possible. So if something is possibly false and we can pretend to know it, then it must be possible to actually know it. — Ludwig V

I'm not certain what you are saying here, but the question that comes to mind is whether it is possible to know something without knowing that know it. The very idea just seems wrong to me. JTB does seem to make this possible, and for me that is to its detriment.

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. — J

I'm not saying that Descartes considered the Matrix hypothesis at all—I don't think he did— because as I said I think the Evil Demon scenario is really very different, apart form the idea of being radically deceived in both scenarios.

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.

By introducing "explanation" I meant to refer to the question as to how we could be certain of the reality of anything. We can doubt the virtual world, but how can we be certain of the reality of the world within which the Matrix is sustained?

.

...how can we be certain of the reality of the world within which the Matrix is sustained? — Janus

Bertrand Russell had just finished giving a public lecture on the nature of the universe. An old woman said “Prof. Russell, it is well known that the earth rests on the back of four elephants, that stand on the back of a giant turtle.” Russell replied, “Madame, what does the turtle stand on?” The woman replied, “You're very clever, sir. Very clever. But it's turtles all the way down".

It's VR all the way down...?

Yep, I guess it could be.

John points to the white board, which has the figure 2 written on it. He says, "That is a prime number." We'll call the sentence he uttered S.

The cause of his use of S is a factor in determining the truth conditions. That cause is not the truth conditions, though. Or if it is, how? — frank

Here we must ask if John's understanding of mathematics is relevant to the mathematical truth of his utterance:

From the perspective of the mathematics community other than John, the answer is clearly no; for whether 2 is a prime number is not decided by John's understanding of prime numbers but by a computable proof by contradiction written down on paper and simulated on a computer, that bears no necessary relationship to the hidden causal process of John's neuro-psychology, even if the two are correlated due to John being a trained mathematician.

On the other hand, from the perspective of John, who isn't in a position to distinguish his personal understanding of mathematics from our actual mathematics, the answer is clearly yes. So we have two distinct notions of truth in play: Intersubjective mathematical truth, for which the truth maker is independent of Johns judgements whether or not his judgements are correlated with intersubjective mathematical truth, versus what we might call "John's subjective truth" in which the truth maker is identified with the neuropsychological causes of John's utterances. If John is a well-respected mathematician, then we might be tempted to conflate the two notions of truth, but we shouldn't forget that the two notions of truth (causally determined versus community determined) aren't the same notion of truth.

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. — J

H'mm. Maybe. 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.." Anyone who asks themselves the question whether they know that p is to ask themselves the question whether p. When the latter question is answered, the answer to the former question is also answered. (Of course, this can't be generalized; it does not follow that S knows that p follows from p. That's the first person case is a limiting case.)
I recognize that in certain circumstances "I know that I know that p" might have a point. But it doesn't add any cognitive value to p asserted by me. (So long as p is true.)

I read Wittgenstein as saying, for instance, that if knowledge is justified true belief, then we don't know we are in pain - becasue the justification just is the pain - but he also insisted we "look, don't think", and so that nevertheless he would note we do use "knowledge" in this way. — Banno

Yes. Things are often not quite straightforward with Wittgenstein. I don't know what he would say. But I stick to the view that "I know I am in pain" is a non-standard use of "know", based on the similarity that it would be very strange to assert of anyone that they are in pain and do not know it. Such cases as there are emerge from the fact that other people can tell whether I am in pain or not, so they can't be used to support pain as a logically private experience - which, after all, is his main target.

There was a time, when cars became commonplace, were the corpses of slow-witted dogs littered the streets, their mangled remains a common sight that might well be used to explain how one felt after surgery. — Banno

H'm. Survival of the fittest. But I suggest that that use would be an expression of pain, rather than a description. In which case, not knowing would not be the issue.

The conclusion, perhaps unpalatable to Sam, is that we do use talk of knowing in ways that are not only about justified true beliefs. — Banno

Well, yes. Knowing how and knowing by acquaintance might be examples. But that's a restriction of the scope of JTB, not a refutation. JTB may be a mess in many ways, but the lack of any articulate competition suggests to me that it does capture something important.

Now it's tempting to think that therefore the JTB account amounts to only justified belief. But this fails to recognise that there is also a difference between somethings being believed and its being true. That difference is what allows error. — Banno

Yes. That's why we would need to invent the concept of belief if we did not already have it.

The "T" is JTB is not about deciding if the proposition in question is true - that's the prerogative of the "B" - it is about insisting that we cannot know what is not true. — Banno

Am I right to take you as saying the B clause reports the view of the knower/believer, but the T clause reports the view of the speaker and commits them to changing their mind if it turns out later that they are wrong.

If everything we cognize is counted as "physical", then would not metaphysics, thought of being what is beyond the scope of physics, or any other science, be thus taken to be dealing with the non-cognitive? — Janus

Yes. But I reject the antecedent. We cognize many things that are not physical. Mathematics for a start.

I don't know...perhaps you are misunderstanding me—I'm not talking at all about being cautious in trying to avoid false beliefs. but about avoiding thinking and saying that I know something if I cannot be certain about it. — Janus

I take the point. But a lot depends on how you define certain. If you define it as something that's not possibly wrong, I would have to take issue with you. Something that is possible can possibly be actual and can possibly not be actual. So the strongest definition of certain is too strong.

I'm not certain what you are saying here, but the question that comes to mind is whether it is possible to know something without knowing that know it. The very idea just seems wrong to me. JTB does seem to make this possible, and for me that is to its detriment. — Janus

Maybe I'm confused. In general, I think that "S knows that S knows that p" is not ungrammatical, but is empty. The only kind of case that would give it some content is a situation in which S knows that p, but is confident that they know that p. (Someone who answers questions correctly and can justify their answer, but is hesitant, for example.) But their hesitation is not about whether they know, much less whether they know that they know; it is about whether p.

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 suppose you are right. If he did find some convincing evidence that he is being fooled by an evil demon, he would have to doubt whether he is being fooled by an evil demon. Before he could accept this alternative view about reality, he would have to subject it to his methodological doubt.

It's VR all the way down...? — Banno

Yep, I guess it could be. — Janus

I have sometimes wondered whether we should not start by accepting that we are all already brains in a vat.
Alternatively, we could accept that some things are self-supporting structures and do not require foundations.

we shouldn't forget that the two notions of truth (causally determined versus community determined) aren't the same notion of truth. — sime

But causal processes aren't true or false - except when we have determined a suitable interpretation of them, or set them up in such a way that an interpretation of them can be derived from them.

"I know that I know ..." is pure pleonasm — Ludwig V

Upon reflection, I think you might be right (at least in the JTB context that isn't committed to fallibalism). We can "know that we know" just by believing that we know, and it being true that we know.

However, if we pair JTB with a sort of fallibalism that denies any certitude to beliefs, or at least most beliefs, which seems to be a position that JTB lends itself to, then I do think it follows that we can never know that we truly know anything, as opposed to merely believing it. Another way to say this is that, if we believe our own belief might be wrong, we don't seem to believe that we know it, since knowledge is necessarily true, and we can hardly believe that something that is true might also be false.



I see. I think JTB is flawed but figuring out just how is tricky. JTB seems very thin and portable, but I think an investigation of the metaphysical context in which it was developed is helpful for diagnosing it.

One solution here, that I'm sure no one will like, is to simply do what analytic philosophers have done for "evaluative" knowledge claims. We could suppose that statements of knowledge and statements of fact should simply be reinterpreted the way evaluative statements are, such that:

"P" is "hurrah for asserting P!" or "I believe P," or "from my perspective, P."

And then, if we don't like this solution, 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. After all, others' first-person experiences and beliefs are generally accepted to be ineluctably private, so prima facie there can be no empirical support for them, whereas there can be no empirical support for anything outside of such experiences for us. And so in the end, what difference could it make that would warrant rejecting the suggested translation here? One can, and in fact must, constantly be making pragmatic decisions without knowledge, and so it seems superfluous.

That's an interesting question. If everything we cognize is counted as "physical", then would not metaphysics, thought of being what is beyond the scope of physics, or any other science, be thus taken to be dealing with the non-cognitive? — Janus

Well, physicalism is a metaphysical position, so we could quibble that the label here is a bit biased. I see no reason why a strict empiricism should be positing anything like physicalism or "the physical," which would be metaphysical speculation. For instance, causes, of which "other minds" would simply be a special type, are a sort of additional metaphysical posit above and beyond regularities in experience.

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."

Here we must ask if John's understanding of mathematics is relevant to the mathematical truth of his utterance:

From the perspective of the mathematics community other than John, the answer is clearly no; for whether 2 is a prime number is not decided by John's understanding of prime numbers but by a computable proof by contradiction written down on paper and simulated on a computer, that bears no necessary relationship to the hidden causal process of John's neuro-psychology, even if the two are correlated due to John being a trained mathematician.

On the other hand, from the perspective of John, who isn't in a position to distinguish his personal understanding of mathematics from our actual mathematics, the answer is clearly yes. So we have two distinct notions of truth in play: Intersubjective mathematical truth, for which the truth maker is independent of Johns judgements whether or not his judgements are correlated with intersubjective mathematical truth, versus what we might call "John's subjective truth" in which the truth maker is identified with the neuropsychological causes of John's utterances. If John is a well-respected mathematician, then we might be tempted to conflate the two notions of truth, but we shouldn't forget that the two notions of truth (causally determined versus community determined) aren't the same notion of truth. — sime

I don't know what you mean by "John's subjective truth." S is either true or false. Having a limited, subjective perspective just means there is fallibility that, for instance, Laplace's demon wouldn't have. John and Laplace's demon have the same conception of truth. John has to live with the possibility of being wrong. The demon obviously doesn't have that problem.

Yes. But I reject the antecedent. We cognize many things that are not physical. Mathematics for a start. — Ludwig V

I see doing mathematics as a physical activity, involving pencil and paper, computer, or neural activity.

I don't know...perhaps you are misunderstanding me—I'm not talking at all about being cautious in trying to avoid false beliefs. but about avoiding thinking and saying that I know something if I cannot be certain about it.
— Janus
I take the point. But a lot depends on how you define certain. If you define it as something that's not possibly wrong, I would have to take issue with you. Something that is possible can possibly be actual and can possibly not be actual. So the strongest definition of certain is too strong. — Ludwig V

Perhaps we are speaking at cross-purposes. 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.

In the first case, if someone pointed out that there was some real possibility of doubt, and convinced me of that, then I would say I had been mistaken in thinking that I knew whatever it was to be the case.

Maybe I'm confused. In general, I think that "S knows that S knows that p" is not ungrammatical, but is empty. The only kind of case that would give it some content is a situation in which S knows that p, but is confident that they know that p. (Someone who answers questions correctly and can justify their answer, but is hesitant, for example.) But their hesitation is not about whether they know, much less whether they know that they know; it is about whether p. — Ludwig V

Say I believed that something is the case, and for very good reason, despite thinking that there was some small possibility which could cast a doubt about it—then I would say I believed it, but did not know it, to be the case. Then say I found out that the small possibility of doubt had been unfounded—I would then say I now know it to be the case.

But if I had justifiably believed it to be the case previously, despite thinking there was a small possibility of doubt and the small possibility of doubt turned out to be a mistake, then according to JTB I would have already known it to be the case despite the fact that I didn't think I knew it to be the case. That would be knowing despite not knowing that you know. And that just seems weird to me.

Well, physicalism is a metaphysical position, so we could quibble that the label here is a bit biased. I see no reason why a strict empiricism should be positing anything like physicalism or "the physical," which would be metaphysical speculation. For instance, causes, of which "other minds" would simply be a special type, are a sort of additional metaphysical posit above and beyond regularities in experience. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I would say that everything cognizable via the senses as well as our bodies and the act of cognizing itself, if a neural activity, all count as physical. Causation may not be directly perceived, as Hume asserts, but causes and effects are always physical phenomena.

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. — J

Surely skepticism about the veridicality of experiences just is skepticism about the external world? I'm not sure what you mean by saying the Evil Demon or the Lords of the Matrix can be undeceived.

I see. I think JTB is flawed but figuring out just how is tricky. JTB seems very thin and portable, but I think an investigation of the metaphysical context in which it was developed is helpful for diagnosing it. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm sort of wondering what context people take JTB to be coming from. That some are referencing Plato and others are referencing Ayer is a pretty significant difference!

The problem with J's objection, as has been pointed out...

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

...is that it is an objection to any theory which says that truth is supposed to be established prior to justification and investigation, and it is also linked to J's belief that truth and understanding are, properly speaking, impossible. The first problem is that there is no theory which says that truth is supposed to be established prior to justification and investigation. That is a strange strawmen that has persisted for page after page. The second problem (which is related), is that if you are opposed to truth and knowledge, then why single out JTB as if it has some specific difficulty?

I think the core problem here is J's Humean "game of pool" epistemology. If every belief is reducible to a guess and the mind never merges with its object in reality in the way that Aristotle describes, then J's conclusion that truth and knowledge do not exist is foregone. All of this meandering and ignoratio elenchus is just a working out of that Humean presupposition.

I think JTB is flawed but figuring out just how is tricky. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As noted earlier, I think the problem with the way people are here conceiving of JTB lies precisely in seeing justification as material rather than formal. In seeing an unsound justification and a sound justification as equivalently sufficient conditions for knowledge. In conflating a false explanation with a true explanation, and inferring that someone who possesses the false explanation possesses the requisite justification.

In conflating a false explanation with a true explanation, and inferring that someone who possesses the false explanation possesses the requisite justification. — Leontiskos

JTB declares that we possess knowledge when our justified beliefs are true. The problem, as I pointed out earlier, is that if we don't know whether the justifications for our beliefs are themselves true then where does that leave us? How do we know they are adequate as justifications?

Or looking ta it the other way around, take the Theory of Evolution, for example. It seems we are amply justified in thinking it is true, but we don't really know whether it is true. Can the justifications for thinking it true be themselves true even if the theory is false?

I think the core problem here is J's Humean "game of pool" epistemology. If every belief is reducible to a guess and the mind never merges with its object in reality in the way that Aristotle describes, then J's conclusion that truth and knowledge do not exist is foregone. All of this meandering and ignoratio elenchus is just a working out of that Humean presupposition. — Leontiskos

Hume was skeptical of what cannot be observed as "matter of fact". If I know you well, and I see you fall off your bicycle, there can be no doubt in that moment that I see you fall off your bicycle, so I can say that I know you fell off your bicycle because I saw it happen. How long does the "no doubt" situation last, though?

That would be down to the accuracy of my memory. I might say my memory is very good and has been well-tested over the years and hardly ever fails me, and even when it does only in small matters, not significant ones like you falling off your bike, but that doesn't logically entail that my memory remains reliable, or even that my memory of the results of my memory being tested is accurate.

"I know that I know ..." is pure pleonasm
— Ludwig V
Upon reflection, I think you might be right (at least in the JTB context that isn't committed to fallibalism). — Count Timothy von Icarus

I do accept that there may be some qualifications and caveats and that it seems very hard for fallibilism to escape from the problem that we can't be said to know p if p is false.

However, if we pair JTB with a sort of fallibalism that denies any certitude to beliefs, ... I do think it follows that we can never know that we truly know anything. .... Another way to say this is that, if we believe our own belief might be wrong, we don't seem to believe that we know it, since knowledge is necessarily true, and we can hardly believe that something that is true might also be false. — Count Timothy von Icarus

To be honest, those kinds of fallibilism seem incoherent to me. Something that might be false may in fact be true. To put it another way, the possibility of p being false seems to me to be irrelevant to the question of knowledge. What is relevant is whether p is or is not false, on the assumption that if it is not false, it is true.

One solution here, that I'm sure no one will like, is to simply do what analytic philosophers have done for "evaluative" knowledge claims. We could suppose that statements of knowledge and statements of fact should simply be reinterpreted the way evaluative statements are, such that: "P" is "hurrah for asserting P!" or "I believe P," or "from my perspective, P." — Count Timothy von Icarus

In one way, you are pushing at an open door. "Know" is one of a large group of terms that express an attitude to, or an evaluation of P. But such an approach would need to include assertion as part of their meaning, as well as an attittude towards what is asserted. But it's very complicated. "Know that p" includes an evaluation of p as true, so it indirectly asserts p. "S thinks that p", on the other hand, includes an evaluation of p as false and therefore denies p. Supposing that p is more complicated; it doesn't assert or deny p, but asks to treat p as true (usually for the sake of an argument. And so on.

... 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.. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, my approach would be to explain that certainty and doubt, possibility and impossibility, etc. are meaningless without a concept of truth.

After all, others' first-person experiences and beliefs are generally accepted to be ineluctably private, so prima facie there can be no empirical support for them, whereas there can be no empirical support for anything outside of such experiences for us. — Count Timothy von Icarus

You are treating those philosophical ideas as if they are true or make sense. If they don't make sense, we need not bother with them when defining knowledge.

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. — J

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

So we have two distinct notions of truth in play: Intersubjective mathematical truth, for which the truth maker is independent of Johns judgements whether or not his judgements are correlated with intersubjective mathematical truth, versus what we might call "John's subjective truth" in which the truth maker is identified with the neuropsychological causes of John's utterances. — sime

This is a false dilemma. John's subjective truth will be conditioned by his understanding of what mathematical truth is, which he has learnt through interaction with others who teach him. Unless that has happened John may have a subjective opinion, but it doesn't count as a mathematical opinion.

John has to live with the possibility of being wrong. — frank

Sure. He also has to live with the possibility of being right. But he can live with neither possibility unless he knows what it is to be wrong - or right.

I see doing mathematics as a physical activity, involving pencil and paper, computer, or neural activity. — Janus

OK. Is there any activity that you see as a non-physical activity? Unless there is, you've deprived "physical activity" of its meaning.

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

There is a difference between the possibility something might not be the case and it actually not being the case. You are treating mere possibilities as if they were actual.

Say I believed that something is the case, and for very good reason, despite thinking that there was some small possibility which could cast a doubt about it—then I would say I believed it, but did not know it, to be the case. Then say I found out that the small possibility of doubt had been unfounded—I would then say I now know it to be the case. — Janus

That seems reasonable. I'm still doubtful about your "small possibility".

But if I had justifiably believed it to be the case previously, despite thinking there was a small possibility of doubt and the small possibility of doubt turned out to be a mistake, then according to JTB I would have already known it to be the case despite the fact that I didn't think I knew it to be the case. That would be knowing despite not knowing that you know. And that just seems weird to me. — Janus

Why? Where does it say that it is not possible to know something but not to know that you know it? It isn't like a pain or a taste, where what I say determines the truth. I suspect that you are thinking of the first person "I know that I know..." But it is perfectly possible for me to say "Janus knows that p, though he thinks that he believes it."

an objection to any theory which says that truth is supposed to be established prior to justification and investigation, — Leontiskos

No, you are quite right. Justification and investigation are how we determine the truth.

In seeing an unsound justification and a sound justification as equivalently sufficient conditions for knowledge. — Leontiskos

The issue here turns on justifications that provide evidence, but not conclusive evidence. In the context of JTB, such justifications can work, because the T clause denies claims to knowledge based on partial justification when their conclusions are false.

Can the justifications for thinking it true be themselves true even if the theory is false? — Janus

Yes, if the justification is not conclusive - i.e. not sufficient.

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?

Well, but there's the rub -- we do. — J

Mm, not so sure on this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirage

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.

It certainly is better than nothing. And sure, to your credit, only a fool would not follow such. But... not all who survive to live good lives are wise men, and not all who perish foolish deaths were fools. Something to keep in mind. :smile:

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!

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.

To put it another way, the possibility of p being false seems to me to be irrelevant to the question of knowledge. What is relevant is whether p is or is not false, on the assumption that if it is not false, it is true. — Ludwig V

Doesn't that have to answer the possibility question. If P is true, it cannot possibly be false.

But the question isn't whether P is itself possibly false. Rather, it is, do we think P is possibly false. If we think P is possibly false, then it hardly seems that we can know that we know P, since to know that one knows P is to have the justified true belief that P is itself a JTB (which presupposes that P is true, in which case it is impossible for it to be false).

Well, my approach would be to explain that certainty and doubt, possibility and impossibility, etc. are meaningless without a concept of truth. — Ludwig V

What sort of concept though? Rorty's move to redefine truth as "what our peers let us get away with is a conception of truth.

I do think this is one of the key problems for JTB. What is meant by T is generally thin, and by being thin it is opaque. It doesn't avoid having to posit a certain metaphysics of reality versus appearances/belief, but it often isn't clear about what this metaphysics is.

As for affirmation, I think the "retranslation " approach would just redefine affirmation. To affirm P, rightly understood, doesn't mean "P is the case, regardless of what we all believe." We've redefined truth, so affirmation is different now too. Affirming P is a sort of endorsement. "It is good to believe P," where "good" is also "hurrah for..."



Well, I was going to respond to you before about "infallibalists," but I figured it might be beside the point of the thread. The classic examples of infallibalists are first and foremost Descartes, but then also generally the "Neoplatonists." But the "Neoplatonists" generally have it that even creatures are inexhaustible, and so we can always be wrong about particular judgements related to them. Likewise, we can always be wrong about the mutable world around us to the extent that it is always changing and not wholly intelligible in itself (e.g., there are no perfect triangles or circles in nature).

To understand something is to understand its context, which is, exhaustively, to understand everything. Likewise, to understand something exhaustively is to understand its causes, which would mean fathoming the First Cause and Principle. But this is deemed impossible. Eriugena denies any sort of exhaustive (and so infallible) knowledge in the opening pages of the Periphyseon, drawing on Dionysius the Areopagite and Saint Gregory the Theologian as authorities. Saint Maximus makes a similar point in the Ambigua.

What then in infallible? Well, one can hardly understand a triangle and have actually understood nothing (understanding is not created ex nihilo). Illusion is parasitic on being on their view. Appearances cannot be arbitrarily related to reality (or else they wouldn't even be properly "appearances," but rather free standing acausal apparitions). I suppose the phenomenological distinction between the object of knowledge and intentionality and the knower is important here too.

I think the difficulties for truth and knowledge crop up when the metaphysics of reality versus appearances is ignored, and so we default into this thin idea of "p is true if p." There is no explanation of how the being of p relates intrinsically to the thought of p. Appeals to cognitive science or the physics of perception don't end up being able to bridge this gap if they themselves are viewed as largely a matter of pattern recognition within appearances. Fallibalism will be unavoidable, except perhaps within the realm of our own experiences (a sort of solipsistic tendency).

What is odd to me is that, rather than going back to the drawing board on the metaphysics in question, the historical move has generally been to instead equivocate on "truth" and "knowledge" such that we can be led to epistemic nihilism, but that's ok because truth and knowledge are really just these other things (e.g., useful behavior). But epistemic nihilism never resulted in people poofing out of existence, or going catatonic. They always continued to act "pragmatically" anyhow, so it's unclear what the value of such a rhetorical exercise is supposed to be. Although I will add that the fact that people are incapable of living like they believe nihilism is true is precisely what you would expect if their intellects were being informed by the world around them; they would be unable to shake off their understanding. No matter how hard they reasoned about the groundlessness of their own knowledge, they would still run from rabid dogs like Pyrrho or climb a tree to get away from raging bull elephants like Sanjaya.

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?

JTB declares that we possess knowledge when our justified beliefs are true. — Janus

Right, and to restate my point, @J's objection holds against any theory of knowledge which takes truth to be a necessary condition of knowledge, and this is not just JTB, it is pretty much every theory of knowledge. "Truth can't be a necessary condition of knowledge," is not merely an objection against JTB; it is an objection against the traditional understanding of knowledge in toto.

JTB declares that we possess knowledge when our justified beliefs are true. The problem, as I pointed out earlier, is that if we don't know whether the justifications for our beliefs are themselves true then where does that leave us? How do we know they are adequate as justifications?

Or looking ta it the other way around, take the Theory of Evolution, for example. It seems we are amply justified in thinking it is true, but we don't really know whether it is true. Can the justifications for thinking it true be themselves true even if the theory is false? — Janus

As I have said in the past, I would want to use the words valid/invalid and sound/unsound for justifications, and true/false for propositions. That itself clears up part of your conundrum, albeit not all of it.

Going back to my earlier point, if we read JTB as referring to "justification" materially, then in my opinion it fails. If we read JTB as referring to "justification" formally, then in my opinion it does not fail. But the first option seems uncharitable and strawman-ish.

Regarding Evolution, I think it is clear that the theory of Evolution is not knowledge in the strictest sense (scientia), and therefore it is not demonstrable. The theory of Evolution involves precisely the sort of probabilistic guesses that some take all knowledge to be bound up with.

Again, part of the problem here is that some want JTB to offer a recipe for knowledge, as if we could know that we know with perfect certainty via JTB. Whether this is possible is an interesting question, but even if some kinds of knowledge could fit into that category, Evolution cannot. Note though that if we can know that we know some things with perfect certainty, then the J and the T will be inextricably bound up with respect to those things. Contrary to @J's claims, this does not mean that the J and the T are indifferentiable, but it does mean that a biconditional holds between them in the case of demonstration.

Hume was skeptical of what cannot be observed as "matter of fact". If I know you well, and I see you fall off your bicycle, there can be no doubt in that moment that I see you fall off your bicycle, so I can say that I know you fell off your bicycle because I saw it happen. How long does the "no doubt" situation last, though? — Janus

If we take Hume's theory to its logical conclusion, then it is not permissible to trust your eyes because there is no valid argument to the effect that your eyes are trustworthy, or that your eyes are providing accurate information in that moment when you see me fall.

The way that this would manifest in @J's thinking would be to say, "My belief that you fell off your bicycle could be false, therefore it is not knowledge." He would just offer the possibility of, say, unreliable faculties, hallucination, etc.

That would be down to the accuracy of my memory. I might say my memory is very good and has been well-tested over the years and hardly ever fails me, and even when it does only in small matters, not significant ones like you falling off your bike, but that doesn't logically entail that my memory remains reliable, or even that my memory of the results of my memory being tested is accurate. — Janus

Right, but Hume would say that even if you've pocketed the 9-ball in this identical situation 1,000 times in the past, it doesn't follow that you will pocket it this time. Even if we grant that your memory has been accurate in the past, it doesn't follow that it is now accurate.

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No, you are quite right. Justification and investigation are how we determine the truth. — Ludwig V

Right.

The issue here turns on justifications that provide evidence, but not conclusive evidence. In the context of JTB, such justifications can work, because the T clause denies claims to knowledge based on partial justification when their conclusions are false. — Ludwig V

I think there is a problem with this account, and I think the problem is precisely what Gettier points up. Gettier shows that someone can have belief, truth, and inconclusive evidence, and still fail to have knowledge. (But I am going to come back to your earlier posts in this vein. I am still catching up.)

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Well, I was going to respond to you before about "infallibalists," but I figured it might be beside the point of the thread. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Right.

What then in infallible? — Count Timothy von Icarus

As I said earlier, I think it is a tangent. The crux is certainty, not infallibility. You can get to certainty via infallibility, but the claim that the only way to get to a certain judgment is through an infallible faculty is at best contentious.

I think the difficulties for truth and knowledge crop up when the metaphysics of reality versus appearances is ignored, and so we default into this thin idea of "p is true if p." There is no explanation of how the being of p relates intrinsically to the thought of p. Appeals to cognitive science or the physics of perception don't end up being able to bridge this gap if they themselves are viewed as largely a matter of pattern recognition within appearances. Fallibalism will be unavoidable, except perhaps within the realm of our own experiences (a sort of solipsistic tendency). — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sure, but going back to Aristotle, if the identity of mind and object is true, then you do not have global uncertainty. If, on the other hand, like turtles it is "probabilities all the way down," then uncertain guesses are all we are afforded. The question here is whether the intellect is capable of certain knowledge, given its relation to the objects of knowledge. If there is a Humean severance between mind and its object then Aristotle is wrong and we are playing a game of pool where everything is an extra-mental collision that cannot be grasped by the mind with certainty.

Although I will add that the fact that people are incapable of living like they believe nihilism is true is precisely what you would expect if their intellects were being informed by the world around them; they would be unable to shake off their understanding. No matter how hard they reasoned about the groundlessness of their own knowledge, they would still run from rabid dogs like Pyrrho or climb a tree to get away from raging bull elephants like Sanjaya. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes indeed. So one ends up professing to believe something that they simply do not believe, given their actions. And whether what one cannot-but-believe is also known will depend on one's epistemology (and metaphysical anthropology).

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? — J

I so far take it that justifications always come in degrees of strength. And that this corresponds to the strength of knowledge had.

For knowledge that “one rock and another one rock will equate to two rocks” the justification is, or at least can be, extremely strong. Such that one cannot find any justifiable alternative to the contrary, much less any credible alternative to the contrary.

For knowledge that “one will exercise later on today (because one so intends to exercise)” the justification is by no means as strong as the aforementioned. (Or else knowledge that one’s airplane will arrive at such and such time.) For this knowledge claim there are alternatives which can be justified, only that one does not find any such alternative to also be credible. (For example, the alternative that one possibly won’t on account of spraining an ankle can be technically justified, even if one doesn’t find it in any way credible.)

Yet they both are, or at least can be, knowns in the JTB sense. Just that the first is a much stronger known than the second, precisely due to the justification for it being of such nature as to far better assure the truth of the matter no matter what.

BTW, I get that the first known doesn’t address a future event in the same way the second does. These varying degrees of knowledge are not strictly limited to future events though. Consider that the same can be said of knowing that a certain memory one has is true rather than being, at least to some extent, a false memory—this even when two or more people share the same memory.

The ontological truth of the matter involved yet remains determinate, fixed, this even if the given truth hasn't yet occurred. It’s the justifications for this truth that provide the structures needed to epistemologically validate the truth maintained via belief.

The only time that knowledge doesn’t come in degrees of strength but instead is a strict binary is when one considers there either being absolute knowledge or else no knowledge at all. The latter being an outlook I disagree with.

As to why a weakly justified true belief can be deemed knowledge rather than mere belief: it depends on the amount of risks one is willing to take in assuming a weakly justified belief to be ontologically true and thereby knowledge. If one is OK with the possibilities (but, again, not the plausibility) of being wrong and the consequences of so being, one then can choose to declare this weakly justified belief to be a known one is endowed with. If one instead prefers to remain on the safe side, one can instead simply declare it as a belief one has.

Hence, in most ordinary circumstances, one will affirm knowledge of what one will do later on in the day (or else of when one’s airplane will arrive), this serving as one example among many.

--------

p.s. 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".

To elaborate:

Right, and to restate my point, J's objection holds against any theory of knowledge which takes truth to be a necessary condition of knowledge, and this is not just JTB, it is pretty much every theory of knowledge. "Truth can't be a necessary condition of knowledge," is not merely an objection against JTB; it is an objection against the traditional understanding of knowledge in toto. — Leontiskos

@J is basically saying, "We must reject JTB because it makes truth a condition for knowledge."

"We must stop drinking milk because it contains water."

I would respond, "There my be good arguments for rejecting milk, but this is not one of them. This is an argument against water more than an argument against milk. Or rather, it is an argument against water dressed up as an argument against milk."

What is at stake here is an argument against truth dressed up as an argument against JTB.

@Janus

I think the central argument is as follows, and you have been wrestling with it throughout your posts:

1. If something could be false, then we do not know it
2. Everything could be false
3. Therefore, we do not know anything

Most rejoinders in this thread have attacked (2) by trying to point to certain beliefs that could not be false.

As for your other argument:

JTB declares that we possess knowledge when our justified beliefs are true. The problem, as I pointed out earlier, is that if we don't know whether the justifications for our beliefs are themselves true then where does that leave us? How do we know they are adequate as justifications? — Janus

First I would say that justification and truth are not altogether separate notions. The telos of justification is truth. If there is no truth then no justification is doing what it attempts to do. Thus it is a mistake to conceive of justification as this animal which has no intrinsic relation to truth.

Second, the Aristotelian way to develop such an idea is to identify different kinds of justifications or arguments or explanations. Once we can see that justifications come in different shapes and sizes, we can see why some are better at obtaining the aim of truth than others, and what makes for that difference. Once this is established we are no longer faced with the problem of all justifications being equal (equally sound or unsound).

Banno recommends just starting with that truth, which seems similar in spirit to the pragmatic approach you describe. I'm still thinking it over. — J

The offer certainly is not mere pragmatism. That one rock and another rock is two rocks is not a question of practicality so much as of grammar. The suggestions that there are different types of truth, as opposed to different true sentences, is hopeless.

Tarski's theory of truth is the most we can do here without falling into error. Truth is a logical device, setting out the move between a sentence and what is says.

The "T" in JTB is that move.

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.

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

That is indeed a problem. But we can't solve all the problems at the same time. 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.

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. — J

Well, that seems a bit radical. Most people, I think, believe that knowing at least the outline of the truth-conditions as part of understanding the meaning of what one is signing up to.

Is personal verification of the truth conditions the only truth-guaranteeing justification? Or, if "guaranteeing" is too strong, the only good-enough justification? — J

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.

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. — J

That's fantasy, not a real possibility. On the other hand, the possibility that one of our superpowers will make that decision and actually try to do it. That's a real possibility.

Doesn't that have to answer the possibility question. If P is true, it cannot possibly be false. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm a bit puzzled about you are getting at here. It's my move in a chess game. I have various possibilities with the rules. Many of them have little or no strategic or tactical value. I decide on one and make it. All the other possibilities are ruled out. They were possibilities, but are no longer. Similarly, when I set out to decide whether P, there are (barring complications) two possibilities - that it is true, or that it is false. If I decide (correctly) that it is true, then the other possibility is ruled out.

What sort of concept though? Rorty's move to redefine truth as "what our peers let us get away with is a conception of truth. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't think we have to develop our understanding of knowledge to be compatible with every theory of knowledge. If we are not committed to a theory, we take for granted our existing concept, whatever that may be. It we are committed to a theory and it makes a difference to the epistemology, then, of course, we need to take it into account.

Rather, it is, do we think P is possibly false. — Count Timothy von Icarus

For me, the question whether P is true and the question whether I think that P is true are the same question - or rather, the answer to whether P is true determines whether I think that P is true. Something similar would apply to a question whether we think that P is true.

Affirming P is a sort of endorsement. "It is good to believe P," where "good" is also "hurrah for..." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Quite so. Asserting P is a speech act, and it has various effects, which are usually called forces. The standard taxonomy has three, as I'm sure you know. The difficulty is to utter P without some sort of illoctuionary or perlocutionary force. The ground for thinking that the content is distinct from the ancillary forces is that we can utter the same proposition with different illocutionary forces. We can assert, deny, suppose, know, believe and think that p.

No matter how hard they reasoned about the groundlessness of their own knowledge, they would still run from rabid dogs like Pyrrho or climb a tree to get away from raging bull elephants like Sanjaya. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes. Though that formulation of the point leaves open the possibility of claiming special status for the theoretical context that is philosophy. It is probably better to point out that such sceptical beliefs have no significance.
On the other hand, one might give up on digging oneself into ever deeper holes in pursuit of grounds and admit that knowledge, in the end, is a self-supporting structure. If it's good enough for the planet, it is surely good enough for knowledge.

Hence, in most ordinary circumstances, one will affirm knowledge of what one will do later on in the day (or else of when one’s airplane will arrive), this serving as one example among many. — javra

Knowledge of what one will do later in the day is not quite the same as having intentions or plans for what one will do later.

If one instead prefers to remain on the safe side, one can instead simply declare it as a belief one has. — javra

There is no safe side. One may prioritize avoiding believing something false, but that raises the risk of failing to believe something true. Both are wrong.

I think there is a problem with this account, and I think the problem is precisely what Gettier points up. Gettier shows that someone can have belief, truth, and inconclusive evidence, and still fail to have knowledge. (But I am going to come back to your earlier posts in this vein. I am still catching up.) — Leontiskos

OK. You know where I stand on Gettier. Though I would like to add that the analysis I gave earlier of his case 1 is not a model for other examples. The point of attack is the same, but the analysis has to be worked out in each new context.

Hume would say that even if you've pocketed the 9-ball in this identical situation 1,000 times in the past, it doesn't follow that you will pocket it this time. — Leontiskos

No, of course. Though as Hume points out, you are going to believe that you will succeed next time because you have succeeded before. Who's to say that's wrong, given that deductive logic doesn't apply.

if the identity of mind and object is true, then you do not have global uncertainty. — Leontiskos

If that's what Aristotle or Aristotelians say, I can see a certain sense in it. But there is the tricky problem how I avoid being burnt to a crisp by the sun.

What is at stake here is an argument against truth dressed up as an argument against JTB. — Leontiskos

You may well be right.

That's circular. You can only satisfy the JTB if you know that X is true. — Ludwig V

Yep. I pointed this out a couple of times previously.

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

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.

I'm a bit puzzled about you are getting at here. — Ludwig V

Tim is playing pretty loosely with "possible". It's not the case that if some sentence is true, it is not possible for it to be false, in any but a very limited way.

Knowledge of what one will do later in the day is not quite the same as having intentions or plans for what one will do later. — Ludwig V

One knows one will go for a walk later today if and only if one does indeed go for a walk later today. that is, if "I will go for a walk later today" is true. Otherwise, one was mistaken in thinking that they know they will go for a walk.

I hope that's pretty clear. Seems it is to you, Ludwig, but not so to others here.

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!

f "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. — J

Well, no. If S is some sentence that satisfies the criteria JTB, then by that very fact it is true; by that very fact it is already verified; and by that very fact we already hold it to be true. The circularity, so far as there is one, is in your then asking "But is it true?" - and the answer is a resounding "yes".

Well, on a "pragmatism all the way down" account I assume that J would be a mix of cultural norms and personal norms that have been wired into us via induction through past experiences. A reductionist might want to boil this down to "fire together, wire together." We receive constant feedback, are constantly interacting with the world, and so develop a set of predictive, justificatory practices.

Consider the position that "causality" is just a sort of pragmatic narrative-making exercise. The idea that empiricism is incompatible with causality goes quite a ways back, and obviously there is disagreement about how strong the arguments against causes are. However, they have generally be taken seriously, even if Russell's full eliminativism hasn't been universally embraced. At any rate, if the objects of experience cannot be said to be the cause of our perceptions of them or of our intellectual understanding of them (or if all we have is a Kantian "limiting relation), except by "useful" convention, then in what way are experience and understanding ever "justificatory?" It seems they are so only just in case we come to find them useful ("find them so," not that they are so, since to claim that something is truly useful in the old sense of "truly" is simply to invite the same set of problems).

You can find such a path fleshed out in different aesthetic modes though. There is the Continental version, which offers a sort of metaphysical explanation of how pragmatic seeking generates reality (and so truth) through phenomenological arguments, a linguistic variety that tries to be bare bones, and a conventionally naturalist, eliminitivist variety (which appeals to neuroscience and evolutionary theory, while allowing that these are of course "true" only so far as it goes).

It seems to me though that the outlines of such a path can be seen in Locke, Hume, Kant, and more so by the time of Dewey and James. The basic issue is: "do the acceptable sorts of "justification" ever secure the truth of what is being justified?" If not, how is the J criteria ever met? One option here has been to leave J is place and to start fiddling with the definition of T. I don't think B is unproblematic either though, to the extent that the analysis tends to focus on linguistic propositions and how those are supposed to relate to truth is another question.

That's why I say the J, T, and B are more loaded than they might first appear. For J, what constitutes justification? Is there ecstasis, a going out to the known, or act of understanding that is justificatory, or is it all discursive relationships between observations or the deductive unfolding of tautologies? Is the dissolution of duality possible, and the experience of this dissolution justificatory as in Indian thought, or must that sort of justification be written off as unreasonable? For T, is the essence of T just "P is true if P," which of course offers no real linkage between reality and appearances unless one comes from J or B? Is T "in" the senses prior to the intellect, and "in" things?

Then for B, I read a very interesting book recently by Peter Harrison, "Some New World," which is a genealogical account of modern naturalism. Part of his thesis is that "belief" itself was radically redefined due to the theological conflagrations of the early modern period. This is where B starts to get concretized as a certain linguistic formulation, which brings all the problems that go along with the way meaning is contextual, bound up in language, etc. Sometimes, you'll see the claim that Plato is the origin point of JTB, and that the Gettier problem is very old in Western and Indian thought. But I don't think this is wholly accurate, because the understanding of the terms shifts so much, the new context becomes important.

The history of "justification" as a theological term turned philosophical is itself telling here. To be "justified" was originally an internal process, a change in that which is justified. It meant "to be made righteous." With Luther, it is displaced to external divine judgement, an imputation. Then it ends up becoming a philosophical external imputation that devolves down to either the community or the individual. A "justification," of claims to be in contact with reality (in possession of knowledge) on the basis of appearances needs some metaphysics of how appearances relate to reality. If this linkage doesn't exist, I am not sure how J ever falls into place or how T would ever show up in our experience. But if J is about the private and communal imputation of status in the first place, and not about a relationship between the knower and known, how could it ever bridge the gap?

I'm a bit puzzled about you are getting at here. — Ludwig V

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I just meant that if P is true, then P cannot also be false. That's all. The reason I thought this was relevant gets back to this point @J was making:

That is indeed a problem. But we can't solve all the problems at the same time. 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

The problem, as I see it, is that global fallibilism seems to make any sort of meta-knowledge impossible. There is no way to decisively justify that one has knowledge, as opposed to a justified but false belief. But is it problematic for a theory of knowledge if it is impossible to know if one ever has it? I would think so.

As he put it:

To avoid the circularity, you have to posit X as true without knowing it to be true, — J

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. The problem is the one mentioned above, the relationship between truth and appearances, and a justification that is presumably based on appearances (or else a direct relationship to truth). If appearances are arbitrarily related to truth, or there is no clear relationship, that gap is unbridgeable from the outset.

What is the point of saying knowledge must be "justified" if justification doesn't secure truth, or worse, might only be accidentally related to it?