Gettier isn't the big problem for 'critical rationalism' - a grandiose name for falsification.

Quine and Duhem point out that falsifying an hypothesis by experiment is not at all as straightforward as it might seem. @Isaac seems to have something on this sort in mind in his first post, but obscured by his psychological predilections.

Knowledge as justified true belief was stillborn in the Theaetetus. Philosophers, to their great detriment, focus on knowing that 1+1 is 2 and forget about knowing how to ride a bike. The best way to deal with the OP might well be to chase @Pfhorrest off with a poker.

Induction is not the recognition of patterns. Induction is drawing a conclusion that does not necessarily conclude from the premises, or evidence involved. — Philosophim

That's not induction specifically, that's just any invalid inference. Induction is not technically valid, because validity only applies to deduction to begin with. Induction is all about patterns: you see things that fit a pattern and take those things as evidence that the pattern holds, even though that's not deductively valid because the pattern could always break at the next observation.

So there are two kinds of criticisms that can sometimes and sometimes not be made about the same beliefs:

formed with minimal "input" from the environment and considerable input from your other beliefs or "gut reactions";
"insulated" or "protected" from possible revision.


Philosophers don't like either of these but will let the first slide so long as you are open to revision; the second is more or less sinful. Are there good general-purpose ways of talking about these things? — Srap Tasmaner

:up:

What counts as being certain is dependent on what one is doing.

It is certain that the bishop must stay on squares of the same colour; until it becomes time to pack away the pieces.

As you have no means of determining which of those mistakes are the case, you are not discarding a belief because it can be ruled out. You are discarding a belief because you wish to replace it with another. — Isaac

Yes. As Quine put it,

...our statements about the external world face the tribunal of sense experience not individually, but only as a corporate body.

The all-too-neat OP seeks to advance falsification as a way of defining knowledge by showing that it avoids Gettier, while ignoring Quine.

I'm not ignoring Quine at all. When I first read Quine I thought his point about confirmation holism was trivial under my pre-existing falsificationist view.

When I first read Quine I thought his point about confirmation holism was trivial under my pre-existing falsificationist view. — Pfhorrest

Good; it's always better not to let new information undermine your pre-existing view...

It is certain that the bishop must stay on squares of the same colour; until it becomes time to pack away the pieces. — Banno

And the knight must land on a different colored square, but of course neither of these points are in the rules; they are both inferences from the rules plus our custom of playing on a checkerboard patterned surface, and of course you needn't.

But this is another example of "knowing how" rather than "knowing that". Are you suggesting we should analyze knowledge in terms of "knowing how to form beliefs"? Wouldn't we have to tack on "well" or "reliably" or something else?

Are you suggesting we should analyze knowledge in terms of "knowing how to form beliefs"? — Srap Tasmaner

No. I'm suggesting philosophers might better analyse knowing that... in terms of knowing how...

The flatus at the end of Theaetetus comes from an attempt to make explicit what can only be show. Do you know how to add only after you understand the justification for addition in Peano Arithmetic? Or do you know how to add when you know how to proceed with an addition problem you have not seen before?

Induction is not the recognition of patterns. Induction is drawing a conclusion that does not necessarily conclude from the premises, or evidence involved. — Philosophim

That's not induction specifically, that's just any invalid inference. — Pfhorrest

https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Induction_(philosophy)#:~:text=Induction%20or%20inductive%20reasoning%2C%20sometimes,but%20do%20not%20ensure%20it.
"Induction or inductive reasoning, sometimes called inductive logic, is the process of reasoning in which the premises of an argument support the conclusion, but do not ensure it."

I leave you to consider the statements of my last post with the definition of induction clearly defined.

Either way, how do you avoid the problem I mentioned at the beginning that one cannot distinguish the presence/absence of evidence from unchecked belief? — Isaac

You must demonstrate that the first premise in the chain is incontrovertible. I do that in my theory here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/9015/a-methodology-of-knowledge
I do not want to distract from the OP's point here however. If you are interested in exploring how I solve this problem, feel free to visit.

No. I'm suggesting philosophers might better analyse knowing that... in terms of knowing how... — Banno

That's actually all I was trying to ask, just wasn't sure what else to say knowing-that would be knowing-how to do, but maybe there's no general form.

Did you have something in mind?

Just the consequence of looking to use rather than meaning. Folk who get hung up on justified true belief are following Socrates in attempting the impossibility of explicitly defining knowledge. There is no problem with practical knowledge, though; skill, the knowledge of the artisan... can't remember the Greek term.

Consider your knowledge that the paper shop is at the end of the street. Does that consist in the belief that is justified by the map on your iPhone, or by your capacity to wander down the street to buy a paper?

The holism that Quine (and less so, Duhem) pointed to is just a consequence of treating knowhow as no more than knowing that. It's arse about; rather, knowing that is a type of knowhow.

Techne.

Was just reading Dewey yesterday making a related point about Plato and artisan knowledge (which he casts as proto-scientific).

It does seem like there are facts we just store in memory though, so I'm not sure it's worth universalizing.

Techne — Srap Tasmaner

Ah, yep. Thanks.

It does seem like there are facts we just store in memory though — Srap Tasmaner

For example? Could one have stored in memory a fact that was utterly irrelevant to any action one might undertake? And here we might include saying "I remember that..."

It would be tantamount to having a private memory, with the same consequences as a private language.

Were I doing a PhD, this would be one possible topic; it seems to bring together divers aspects of epistemology.

Could one have stored in memory a fact that was utterly irrelevant to any action one might undertake? And here we might include saying "I remember that..." — Banno

Could you have memories that you cannot in fact access or verbalize? The answer to that is clearly yes. In principle? Dodgy.

I thought of "giving the answer expected" as what you know how to do with a fact, schoolboy style, but it feels thin. Seriously I'm sure there's research that shows facts and skills are stored differently. It is certainly true for language that word roots are in one place and rules another.

Could you have memories that you cannot in fact access or verbalize? The answer to that is clearly yes. — Srap Tasmaner

...then by what right would you call them memories? Is it so clear?

I think the problem with knowing that is the narrow range of what can be known due to the wide range of possible objections that can be raised. Knowing how on the other hand needs demonstration rather than a logos. I can walk, bicycle, drive without being able to adequately explain. I know chess, a little. I know every tune I have ever heard in my life. We know how to fly to the Moon. We know we have the capacity to save humanity.

Seriously I'm sure there's research that shows facts and skills are stored differently. It is certainly true for language that word roots are in one place and rules another. — Srap Tasmaner

So what. Moving your foot and moving your hand are associated with different parts of the brain, but are both movements. As if talking and writing were not actions...

The fad of reducing everything to interacting neurones becomes tedious.

Knowing that needs demonstration as much as knowing how.

People tend to have memories they can't access at will, but something like a smell can trigger them. Early childhood memories are like that. (Complete recall is a known thing. Marilu Henner is a case.) Besides that there's repressed memories of trauma. Besides that there's everyday forgetting and then remembering later.

Good; it's always better not to let new information undermine your pre-existing view... — Banno

If you tell me the sky isn’t always blue, sometimes it’s orange or even grey, that’s not something surprising I need to revise my beliefs about, that something obvious that I always took for granted.

knowing that is a type of knowhow — Banno

I also agree with this, as a pragmatist.

Again, so what?

The point being, you have not here addressed Quine's point, but merely said you disagreed with it.

We already distinguish between knowing-how and knowing-that in everyday language. Some languages even use unrelated words there. And I'm betting the neuroscience supports the distinction we already make. You're proposing something you'd need to argue for against both sorts of evidence.

Again, so what? — Banno

Then they're memories. Do you remember what point you're trying to make?

We already distinguish between knowing-how and knowing-that in everyday language. — Srap Tasmaner

Do we? Then why the need for a hyphen?

Look at the example I already gave. Knowing that the paper shop is at the end of the street does not consist exclusively in a memory that "The shop is at the end of the street"; it also includes the capacity to go to the shop as needed; to describe how to get there to someone else; to distinguish a paper shop from a bottle shop; and so on, indefinitely. It is not a discreet atom that could be tied to one memory or to one neural chain. Supposing otherwise is making a categorical error.

The point being, you have not here addressed Quine's point, but merely said you disagreed with it. — Banno

I never said I disagreed with it, I said it’s not contrary to my views, i.e. I agree with it.

Ah. Hence your inadequate response to @Isaac.

It is not a discreet atom that could be tied to one memory or to one neural chain — Banno

So much depends on the details though. Of course memories are connected to each other, and of course we draw on factual memories operationally. I suspect that the way factual memories are activated and used in planning and so forth is different than the way skills are, that's all. Motivations are in there too, and they're also different, aren't they?

I'm pretty sure Bismarck is the capital of North Dakota, and I could probably manage to pick out the state on a map, but I've got pretty much nothing else going on there. If I didn't know that, my life wouldn't be much different.

What is so inadequate? He’s basically stating confirmation holism, as you pointed out, and I’m saying “no duh”. You rule out a complete network of beliefs, and replace it with something else that is not yet ruled out. Beliefs aren’t free-floating atoms, they’re all tied to other beliefs.

But of course pragmatically you’ll make the minimal necessary revision to your belief system, which will usually be just that one small belief, unless you happen to be on the threshold where your whole system of belief already needs so many exceptions that with this latest one it’s worth it to switch to something altogether more parsimonious.

But that’s going to be the topic of my next thread (parsimony and scientific revolutions), and I’m just waiting for this one to die down before posting it.