Yes, I am saying that it might actually be a person who is doing these things, for example, rather than hands which are doing these things, and the person is just using the hands to do these things. — Metaphysician Undercover
What I tried to say is that when we speak of knowledge, we've, at the same time, legitimized the skeptic's doubt. We're playing his game. He says we can't know (i.e. we can't provide grounds for our belief), we buy this and go on to show him that we can know by providing evidence that we know. But, we can provide such evidence, only if his doubt makes sense to us, only if we treat it as legitimate. Otherwise, what are we providing evidence for? If that's the case though, that "there can be no coherent skepticism" is excluded.
What Moore seems to be doing is accepting the skeptic's challenge for the existence of the external world. By accepting the challenge, he legitimises it. He implicitly acknowledges that we could be wrong in thinking that the external world exists and proceeds to show that, after all, we are not wrong. The skeptic is. Not incoherent, just wrong. You say that he demonstrates our knowledge of the external world on perceptual grounds, but that's merely begging the question, that's what the skeptic challenges; he says you could be fooled, you might be dreaming or be a BIV or whatever. When reminded of this scenario, you speak as if such doubt or challenge is illegitimate and incoherent; as you did in your answer to MU, who made that point. But, earlier, by accepting the challenge, the doubt was legitimised. So, in trying to demonstrate our knowledge, there's this back and forth. The clue is, I think, that our certainty regarding the external world is of a different kind than the certainty of our demonstrable knowledge. The former does not involve doubt nor demonstration, it's taken for granted and this is why we can have any knowledge at all. — Πετροκότσυφας
If you want to belief that knowledge is solely involved with following the principles which work to get the job done, and not at all involved in the seeking of better ways of doing things, then I think that's your problem. — Metaphysician Undercover
This is not to the point. If the person is using hands then the person has hands, no? — Janus
Existence is given to the object, it is what we assume individual, particular objects have, existence. — Metaphysician Undercover
Particular objects are existents; if we can reliably identify something then it exists. We say it exists in virtue of the fact that we can identify it. That is what 'existence' means. — Janus
Either language absolutely captures the truth of the world, or the truth of the world absolutely escapes capture by language. — apokrisis
We know that language captures the truth of the world as we experience it or all our discourse would simply be nonsense. — Janus
Sure, but the introduction of this hinge-proposition required doubting the prior hinge proposition, that the planets and sun orbited the earth. Introduction of a new hinge proposition, to describe a specific phenomenon, can only follow after doubting the hinge proposition which presently describes that phenomenon. Proceeding with the attitude that our eyes see the sun rise up in the east and go down in the west, and therefore this must be what is the case, because we ought not doubt what our senses show us, is not conducive to progress. — Metaphysician Undercover
If we look to use rather than meaning, then since use involves the world, then a statement's being true involves the world. — Banno
Language, being semiotic, is producing the very self for whom such an experienced world would be the true one. — apokrisis
Language, being semiotic, is producing the very self for whom such an experienced world would be the true one. — apokrisis
But it is off the topic of this thread anyway. — Banno
It seems to me that language use involves a world that includes a community of some sort for the language to be used by; but a self - that's potentially a whole other thing. — Banno
Is that your explanation? So because language involves signs and symbols, it must involve a self? — Banno
I think there is a sense where one can be grounded in one's belief apart from epistemological ideas. One's experience as one acts in the world provides a kind of grounding. Jack's belief has a grounding to it, but it's not an epistemological grounding, i.e., the epistemological grounding that occurs within the language-game of knowing. So knowledge, in terms of how I'm using it (JTB), is something that necessarily occurs within language. Justification is something we do with others, i.e., it gets it's meaning within a rule-based language. If it's something one can simply do on one's own, then whatever seems justified to you, is justified. It would seem to lose it's meaning if we separate the idea of justification from a linguistic format. Not only can't Jack justify his belief to us, but he can't justify it period. He just HAS the belief - the state of mind reflected in his actions. — Sam26
When I use the term justification it has a specific application, and in particular to the uses of JTB across a wide spectrum of language-games. It means being justified not only in terms of arguments, but also in terms of the other uses that I mentioned early on in this thread.
The term well-grounded can also be used as a synonym for justification in the JTB sense, but it also has an application quite apart from epistemological applications. Thus, well-grounded also applies to those applications that are not epistemological, like Wittgenstein's bedrock propositions. So Jack's belief is grounded, but not justified in the JTB sense (language-games of epistemology). Jack's beliefs are grounded in reality, but not linguistically grounded, i.e., they're not dependent on a statements.
Of course someone could ask what it means for a belief to be grounded in reality. — Sam26
Witt held that belief has propositional content. Thus, he insisted that a belief must be stateable. — creativesoul
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