"Here is a hand" is true IFF here is a hand. What more empirical a demonstration could there be than Moore waving his hand at you? — Banno
When someone looks at a post-box and says "I know the post-box is red", what they really mean is that when looking at the post-box they have the sense impression red. — RussellA
When someone says that they know something about which they have no direct knowledge, the sceptic is justified in asking for a reason. — RussellA
What serves as direct knowledge that a post-box is red? — Fooloso4
Therefore, the colour an observer sees is a function of the observer and not of the light travelling from the object. — RussellA
For example, one person may see red and another person may see green. — RussellA
No - they will both paint it red. — RussellA
When someone looks at a post-box and says "I know the post-box is red", what they really mean is that when looking at the post-box they have the sense impression red. — RussellA
For example, one person may see red and another person may see green.
Therefore, the colour an observer sees is a function of the observer and not of the light travelling from the object.
Therefore, it is not that the actual post-box is red, but rather we observe the post-box as being red. — RussellA
Therefore, the colour an observer sees is a function of the observer and not of the light travelling from the object. — RussellA
So, the person sees green yet knows that the post-box is red despite his sense impression not because of it. — Fooloso4
Are you claiming to be unable to distinguish a hand waved by Shrek from one waived by Moore? — Banno
There is no way of knowing whether one person's conscious experience of the wavelength 750nm is the same as anyone else's. — RussellA
If they had said "I know that the actual post-box is red, not just my sense-impression", the sceptic is justified to ask them for what reason they think they know that the actual post-box is red. If they cannot give a suitable reason, then the sceptic had justification to ask. — RussellA
A person can know several different things at the same time.
The person can know that the publicly accepted word for the colour of the post-box is "red" - though it could have been "rouge" or "rot".
The person can also know their own conscious experience of a particular colour. — RussellA
So which is it? — Fooloso4
The person can know that the publicly accepted word for the colour of the post-box is "red" - though it could have been "rouge" or "rot".
The person can also know their own conscious experience of a particular colour. — RussellA
One's belief may be false, not so one's knowledge. — Banno
what is missing from their knowledge that justifies doubting it? — Fooloso4
Statements are combinations of nouns and verbs and such like; Some statements are either true or false, and we can call these propositions. So, "The present king of France is bald" is a statement, but not a proposition.
Beliefs range over propositions. (arguably, they might be made to range over statements: Fred believes the present king of France is bald.)
Beliefs set out a relation of a particular sort between an agent and a proposition.
This relation is such that if the agent acts in some way then there is a belief and a desire that together are sufficient to explain the agent's action. Banno wants water; he believes he can pour a glass from the tap; so he goes to the tap to pour a glass of water.
The logical problem here, the philosophical interesting side issue, is that beliefs overdetermine our actions. There are other beliefs and desires that could explain my going to the tap.
______________
We know some statement when at the least we believe it, it fits in with our other beliefs, and when it is true.
The "fits in with other beliefs" is a first approximation for a justification. Something stronger is needed, but material implication will not do.
Discard Gettier. The definition is not hard-and-fast.
It does not make sense to ask if we know X to be true; that's exactly the same as asking if we know X. The "we only know it if it is true" bit is only there because we can't know things that are false.
If you cannot provide a justification, that is, if you cannot provide other beliefs with which a given statement coheres, then you cannot be said to know it.
A belief that is not subject to doubt is a certainty.
Without a difference between belief and truth, we can't be wrong; if we can't be wrong, we can't fix our mistakes; without being able to fix our mistakes, we can't make things better.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qm-copenhagen/The term “lifeworld” thus denotes the way the members of one or more social groups (cultures, linguistic communities) use to structure the world into objects (Husserliana, vol. VI, pp. 126–138, 140–145). The respective lifeworld is claimed to “predelineate” a “world-horizon” of potential future experiences that are to be (more or less) expected for a given group member at a given time, under various conditions, where the resulting sequences of anticipated experiences can be looked upon as corresponding to different “possible worlds and environments” (Husserliana, vol. III/1, p. 100). These expectations follow typical patterns, as the lifeworld is fixed by a system of (first and foremost implicit) intersubjective standards, or conventions, that determine what counts as “normal” or “standard” observation under “normal” conditions (Husserliana, vol. XV, pp. 135 ff, 142) and thus as a source of epistemic justification. — SEP
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LifeworldIn whatever way we may be conscious of the world as universal horizon, as coherent universe of existing objects, we, each "I-the-man" and all of us together, belong to the world as living with one another in the world; and the world is our world, valid for our consciousness as existing precisely through this 'living together.' We, as living in wakeful world-consciousness, are constantly active on the basis of our passive having of the world... Obviously this is true not only for me, the individual ego; rather we, in living together, have the world pre-given in this together, belong, the world as world for all, pre-given with this ontic meaning... The we-subjectivity... [is] constantly functioning. — Husserl
https://newlearningonline.com/new-learning/chapter-7/husserl-on-the-task-of-science-in-and-of-the-lifeworldIn my naive self-consciousness as a human being knowing himself to be living in the world, for whom the world is the totality of what for him is valid and existing, I am blind to the immense transcendental dimension of problems … I am completely … bound by interests and tasks … [and] a certain habitual one-sidedness of self interest … I can, however, carry out the transcendental re-orientation in which … I now have, as a new horizon of interest … a new, infinite scientific realm—if I engage in the appropriate systematic work …
One kind of thinking … tries to bring ‘original intuition’ to the fore—that is, the pre- and extrascientific lifeworld … The proper return to the naïveté of life—but in a reflection that rises above this naiveté—is the only way to overcome this … naiveté …
In science we measure the lifeworld … for a well-fitting garb of ideas … It is … a method which is designed for progressively improving … through ‘scientific’ predictions, those rough predictions which are the only ones that are possible within the sphere of what is actually experienced and experienceable in the lifeworld …
Considering ourselves … as scientists … the manner of scientific thinking puts questions and answers them theoretically in relation to the world … Cofunctioning here are the other scientists who, united with us in a community of theory, acquire and have the same truths or … are united with us in a critical transaction aimed at critical agreement …
For the human being in his surrounding world there are many types of praxis, and among them is this peculiar … one, theoretical praxis. It has its own professional methods; it is the art of … discovering and securing truths with a certain new ideal sense which is foreign to [extra]scientific life, the sense of a certain ‘final validity’ …
Thus, a new way of experiencing, of thinking, of theorizing, is opened … here, situated above his own natural being and above the natural world, the scientist or philosopher loses nothing of their being and objective truths and likewise nothing at all of the spiritual acquisitions of his world-life or those of … historical communal life … Yet, as a scientist or philosopher, I stand above the world, which has now become for me, in a quite peculiar sense, a phenomenon’ … — Husserl
That looks very similar to the description of language found in his Tractatus. It's pretty much the notion Wittgenstein critiqued in his later work, Philosophical Investigations. One argument he offered, for example, was to question what it was to count as a simple; he pointed out that what counted as a simple in one situation might not be a simple in a different situation (around §48 in PI).My understanding of the meaning of the concept "house" is just that set of the simpler concepts it is composed of, eventually leading to what Kant called a priori pure intuitions, such as space, time, causation, green, etc. — RussellA
ife would a lot easier if each meaning of the word "know" had its own individual sub-word. Though that would meaning a lot more words. — RussellA
http://web.abo.fi/fak/hf/filosofi/Research/Spraxis/DAVIDSON.HTMOne important aspect of the difference between Quine’s and Wittgenstein’s conceptions of philosophy, is their opposite attitudes towards linguistic diversity. According to Wittgenstein, philosophical problems arise because we go astray in the ancient city of language. To find our way about, we have to remind ourselves of how the streets that we habitually walk every day actually look, and how they are connected to each other. Naturally, this will involve reminding ourselves of the more or less detailed differences between various buildings and blocks. Hiding or obliterating such differences only makes the necessary orientation more difficult, or even impossible. Indeed, it might have been precisely such obliteration which made us go astray in the first place. Being able to resist the inclination to impose uniformity on language is therefore, according to Wittgenstein, a central philosophical virtue.
Quine’s viewpoint is quite different. He wants philosophers to be like city-planners who replace old, irregular housing areas by new, uniform blocks. In a scientific spirit of systematicity and simplification, Quine thinks we should dispense with all “quirks of usage that we can straighten.” [Quine 1960:158] Allegedly, philosophers should not try to give a wholly faithful description of actual language use, but rather improve language by fitting it into an austere “canonical notation” that employs only the constructional resources of first-order predicate logic. [1960:226ff.] Only such “regimentation” - a process of “coax[ing]” and “trimming” that may even require “some torturing” - makes it possible to perform the supposedly necessary “clearing of ontological slums.” [1987:157; 1960:180, 275]
— link
If the entire system is intrinsically consistent, and valid, which it must be to be a "system", then no part of the system can be doubted without doubting the whole. — Metaphysician Undercover
208. I have a telephone conversation with New York. My friend tells me that his young trees have buds of such and such a kind. I am now convinced that his tree is... Am I also convinced that the earth exists?
209. The existence of the earth is rather part of the whole picture which forms the starting-point of belief for me.
210. Does my telephone call to New York strengthen my conviction that the earth exists?
Much seems to be fixed, and it is removed from the traffic. It is also so to speak shunted onto an unused siding.
211. Now it gives our way of looking at things, and our researches, their form. Perhaps it was once disputed. But perhaps, for unthinkable ages, it has belonged to the scaffolding of our thoughts.
(Every human being has parents.) — OC
When someone says that they know something about which they have no direct knowledge, sceptic is justified in asking for a reason. — RussellA
One important aspect of the difference between Quine’s and Wittgenstein’s conceptions of philosophy, is their opposite attitudes towards linguistic diversity — link
What if the system is not perfect? — j0e
It seems to me that you are thinking of some philosophical system when the issue is rather what 'reasonable' people take for granted, some of which the 'reasonable' people of the future will find absurd or cruel. — j0e
209. The existence of the earth is rather part of the whole picture which forms the starting-point of belief for me.
...
211. Now it gives our way of looking at things, and our researches, their form. Perhaps it was once disputed. But perhaps, for unthinkable ages, it has belonged to the scaffolding of our thoughts. — OC
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