• Artemis
    1.9k


    I agree with you generally that all a posteriori truths are <100% certain to be true.

    But a priori truths like a triangle has three sides, or all bachelors are unmarried, is by definition true =100%. To a certain extent they're not especially interesting truths, because they tell us nothing new about the world. They are the categories we have abstractly created to impose on the world.

    And a triangle is also predefined as a two-dimensional object :wink:
  • deletedmemberMD
    588


    Ein Dreieck hat drei Seiten.
    A Triangle has three sides.
    三角形には3つの辺があります

    If it can’t be universally true in this world, why would it be true of others?
  • deletedmemberMD
    588
    As for all Bachelors are unmarried, that is a self negating statement. Bachelors already means unmarried. Besides my issue with language, the phrase you’d argue to be true without self negating is “Unmarried men are called bachelors in English... Oh! Unless we define language as A Priori? to that though, I’d say just because I teach a man to say pillow in English, isn’t going to tell him what a pillow is if he’s never seen one.
  • Artemis
    1.9k


    I don't know what the Asian script says, but the German and English are the same.

    Bachelors already means unmarriedMark Dennis

    Yes. That is the point. Just as triangle means having three sides.
  • Artemis
    1.9k


    And a side note, the German and English words for triangle literally contain the words "three angle."
  • deletedmemberMD
    588
    Careful, now you’re moving towards the etymology of those words and it only gets trickier from there. Nothing about Tri inherently implies three and nothing about angle inherently implies joined lines creating angles. Only your relational memory through repeated use of the word does.

    Me and you could agree to create a priori knowledge just between us. If we agreed to start calling Bannanas, chomchoms. A triangle has three sides isn’t irrefutable or indisputable. What something is called and what a thing is, are different.

    Also the Japanese script said the same as the other two scripts.
  • Artemis
    1.9k
    Nothing about Tri inherently implies three and nothing about angle inherently implies joined lines creating angles. Only your relational memory through repeated use of the word does.Mark Dennis

    Sure, sounds and the scribbles on a page don't inherently mean anything.

    But we have defined tri to mean three, and we have defined triangle to mean a three angled, sided, two dimensional shape. Therefore, to say that that is what a triangle is is true. And we could give a triangle another name. But the concept of the what-once-was-known-as-triangle would remain the same. And if we changed the concept in any way at all then it will be a wholly different thing.
  • I like sushi
    4.8k
    Nope. If you change the rules you aren’t playing the same game.

    How do you know anyway what ‘perfect knowledge’ is? You’ve already admitted you don’t know what you’re asking so don’t assume I don’t know what I’m telling.

    Intellectual Honesty? Where is yours? It seems wholly absent.
  • deletedmemberMD
    588
    I get it. Obviously I’m acknowledging that I and everyone else acts as if A priori knowledge exists because we wouldn’t be able to live our lives otherwise.

    I just have a very high bar for truth and certainty. To me, saying All Triangles have three sides is true to the definition of pragmatic truth.

    Objective truth? Not so sure. The existence of a triangle is an argument that triangles have three sides.

    If we agree that the existence of what we call a triangle itself is perfect knowledge but not what we call that existence, I’ll concede the point.

    It’s an interesting conversation though :)
  • deletedmemberMD
    588
    My intellectual honesty is debating with you. Do you want me to lie to you and tell you that you’ve convinced me? You haven’t.
  • I like sushi
    4.8k
    There is no debate here. There is no point being made. All I see is absurdism and word play.

    I’ll leave you to keep create goal posts and/or destroying/moving them. Not interested anymore.
  • deletedmemberMD
    588
    goalposts have been exactly in the same place the whole time. You just haven’t reached them. Artemis is getting closer than you at least. I don’t know what you want me to say really but you haven’t convinced me and that’s as honest as I can be right now :/
  • Artemis
    1.9k


    Depends on what you mean by exist. Concepts exist qua concepts.

    Whether any entity in the physical world shares the exact traits of that concept is not something that can be affirmed with 100% certainty.
  • deletedmemberMD
    588
    Maybe just one trait; they do all share a locus, that is to say an anchor point based in physical reality. A Rock has its true physical existence outside the word but I’m not opposed to thinking of words as objects themselves so long as they are in books, written down, typed and stored, spoken and thought they have a physical location.

    I might call this Living Knowledge, in that it has the potential to die. The rock itself can keep existing but the idea that it is called a rock can always die. However I’m not adding that as a goalpost to defining perfect knowledge. In the long term, as far as we think from what we are observing of the universe; nothing is permanent. So I think it is fair to say that if there exists such a thing as Perfect anything, permanence cannot be a requirement for it to be perfect.
  • I like sushi
    4.8k
    Look at this. You’re looking for an argument against something you define and then say you can’t define. It’s nonsense.

    People have already said certainty exists within set parameters. Why? Because when we set the rules of play we know - with certainty - the rules of play. This is just Wittgenstein’s stuff. If you break the rules of the game you’re no longer playing the same game, it is not that the rules are set in stone you simply ignore them and pretend they don’t exist.

    I can say a multitude of thing with 100% certainty. 1+1=2 (within the set parameters of arithmetic) or that if there is a wife there is husband (complimentary pairs that make explicit the existence of the other).

    I am not trying to ‘convince’ you of this. The ‘intellectual dishonesty’ I am referring to is wrapped up in both defining ‘perfect knowledge’ and saying you cannot define ‘perfect knowledge’. If you’re merely talking about knowing everything there is about something in its infinite relations to all that is or maybe, then of course I’m with you.

    I do view ‘knowing’ as ‘questioning’ though. If I in some ‘pErFeCt’ sense said I knew everything about something without any set parameters then I’d be a madman, or - at a huge stretch - dispossessed of any reason to declare such a thing in the first place (being omnipresent as I only possess 100% certainty).

    That’s the most generous offering I have. I’d just prefer less dallying along, but that said sometimes someone does occasionally say something of note on such tawdry journeys.
  • Artemis
    1.9k
    I might call this Living Knowledge, in that it has the potential to dieMark Dennis

    Wouldn't all knowledge be living knowledge and have the potential to die? Considering knowledge needs a knower?
1234Next
bold
italic
underline
strike
code
quote
ulist
image
url
mention
reveal
youtube
tweet
Add a Comment

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.