• InPitzotl
    880
    Otherwise we could just charitably assume each other to be genuine and relatively unbiased.Isaac
    The principle of charity only calls for a reading of a speaker's statement in the most rational way possible; it does not call for fantasizing. What you replied to so strongly was a direct response containing direct quotes from you... you are not entitled to demand charitable misrepresentations of my position. A charitable interpretation of my accusation of your bias distracting you would be that I perceived your bias to distract you. And it appears that I indeed did:
    OK, so there's some aspect of neuroscience that I've missed because everything I've been studying for the last decade or so absolutely necessitate that observations form beliefs in order to be used for judgements.Isaac
    ...because you completely missed the argument.

    Of course an observation must result in a belief in order to be used for judgements. But an observation nevertheless, exactly as I said, is not in itself a belief. Looking outside requires initiating motor programs to direct my senses towards the stuff happening four feet in front of my skull (charitably interpreted as being four feet in front of my skull, as it says on the tin). The percepts that result from such direction of the senses highly correlate to what the senses were directed to, which is four feet in front of the skull. Lacking that, not even the early regions of the visual cortex can process relevant information about what the weather is like.
    Look at the writing in bold...Isaac
    It's not lost on me that a possible interpretation is that you're special pleading... that you are applying special rules for what I can talk about specifically to me that you don't think apply to you. It's just that this interpretation is a bit pretentiously absurd:
    or alternatively, continue flogging the notion thatI do actually believe the weather is just a belief, but am now denying it out of, what? Capriciousness. No reason at all?Isaac
    ...to me it sounds more reasonable than the pretentious absurdity. You may have just not noticed that to present a real issue, you must step outside your own rules (the whole weird use of the adjective "actual" suggests an "attempt to bypass directness" via adjective).

    But if you insist on the pretentious absurdity, then okay. But I think you have a lot more explaining to do. Now you have to explain why you divined (because you certainly didn't ask anything from which you could evidentially conclude it, even though it's absurd enough on its own) my lack of the ability to refer to the same actual weather you refer to when you use the phrase... in addition to what rule allows you to refer to it and not me. I'm all eyes. I'm fine either way though; either you explain one thing, or you explain two things.

    On the off chance I'm not reading this properly, I simply don't get what you're putting down... in which case, random bolding probably isn't going to help you much. Charitably speaking I already used the English I was natively raised to speak to interpret that phrase. You might want to try explaining yourself more clearly in that case.
    Which is exactly, and only, what I'm arguing. T is just more J, not something different.Isaac
    No, T is still different.

    Suppose I'm playing the classic game Battleship... against a computer opponent. Before my first strike, I can write 100 statements of the form: "The carrier is under A1. The carrier is under A2." ...and so on. At this point in time, all 100 statements have a truth value; 5 of them are true; 95 are false. The truth value of the 5 true statements will not change over the entire course of the game. At the beginning of the game, I have minimal justification for which 5 of those statements are true. As I play, I gain more justification for which 5 are true. That justification may at some point lead to a belief about which 5 statements are true. But the justification doesn't make those 5 statements true (i.e., T is not just more J). It's possible at some point I'll gain knowledge of where the carrier is, but the justification isn't what put the carrier in the location requisite to make those 5 statements true; it's just revealing which 5 statements are true to me (more J may lead to B, but not T). I could also have a lot of justification without forming a belief about where the carrier is (more J doesn't even necessarily lead to B). B forms from sufficient J; but the T is there in every game, regardless of whether or not a B is even formed. The T is caused by the computer program, prior to any information I got from any play.
    But I'm talking about expressions where it later turns out that that part of the world doesn't exist - the flower, the alien...Isaac
    We've been over this; depends on the expression, but "the flower" and "the aliens" are false examples of this. "There are no green swans" is presumably just true. "The green swan in Elbonia teleported" is undefined (no such place). "The green swan outside my window teleported" is undefined, but the statement refers to a part of a world (outside the window), just one that doesn't have a referent to the green swan in it. "The green swan in the last sentence does not exist" is true. We can also play games of potential existential import and make the truth value dependent on the game ("All green swans outside my house teleported").
    States of affairs are causes of our sensations (and recipients of our actions). Statements are constituents of language - a tool we use for communication etc.Isaac
    The 5 true statements in my game of Battleship describe humanly meaningful states of affairs of the computer. The ontic nature of this would be particular states that could in principle be traced to voltages in certain computer parts, translated in very specific ways according to the program, which in itself is implementing the particular abstraction we call "Battleship", from which we derive the meaning of "carrier" and the locations. But nevertheless, those 5 true statements are true even if I didn't sense what any of those things are (per the realist presumption).
  • Isaac
    10.3k
    Basically, when I started with this

    :

    I'd say that for the case of simplicity, we should stick to deterministic terms. As in, cause-effect, more classical mathematics. — john27


    It's to assume the fact that rain is the effect of "something". Water cycle, the earth, something like that.
    So when I translate that fact into mathematical terms:

    and the mathematical term 1+2=3 can be used to represent rain, specifically the number three, as an effect of something. — john27


    It's to say that yeah, 1+2=3 doesn't actually encompass fully the fact that its raining; rain is much more complicated than that. But it's the same function, that is, the effect "rain" is just a bunch of other effects added together. In other words, It's just a simpler way of saying that rain is due to a bunch of effects. You could describe the water cycle mathematically for maybe a more precise translation, but this is honestly way simpler.
    john27

    OK, I get that bit.

    Therefore you get:

    If the universe (a) recognizes that this addition of effects (1+2) is happening, he will say it is raining (=3)

    Hence the universe exists, and there's only one universe (probably), the (a) is always equal to 1.

    Hence:

    ax(1+2)=3 / it's raining

    or,

    ax3=3 / it's raining
    john27

    ...but this seems to be just saying that if an observer recognizes that 1 and 2 are occurring then it's raining (because 1 and 2 lead to rain). But that just kicks the can down the road. Now we're assessing if the observer has correctly recognised that 1 and 2 are occurring.
  • Isaac
    10.3k
    The principle of charity only calls for a reading of a speaker's statement in the most rational way possible; it does not call for fantasizing. What you replied to so strongly was a direct response containing direct quotes from you... you are not entitled to demand charitable misrepresentations of my position. A charitable interpretation of my accusation of your bias distracting you would be that I perceived your bias to distract you. And it appears that I indeed did:InPitzotl

    Well then there's little point in continuing. I'm not here to act as straw man for you to interpret what I'm saying in such a way as to make a fun decoy for your target practice. Either respond to what I'm saying or don't bother, insisting that I simply must have meant the thing you think I meant is pointless.
  • InPitzotl
    880
    Well then there's little point in continuing.Isaac
    There would be if you responded to the points rather than dredging up drama.
    I'm not here to act as straw man for you to interpret what I'm sayingIsaac
    The "what I'm saying" being this?:
    I'm saying that the 'actual weather' you're referring to is inside your skull ie what you claim is the 'actual weather' in that sentence is, in fact, a belief about it inside your skull.Isaac
    Look at the writing in boldIsaac
    ...that bold being yours?

    Are you sure the story you want to tell of this is that I'm treating you unfairly and building straw men? That's a bit of a hard sell, given that bolded part is you literally telling me what I mean!

    Regardless:
    Either respond to what I'm saying or don't bother,Isaac
    I did. You didn't (in this reply).

    In my reply, I explicitly conceded your point (which I consider trivial) that observations lead to beliefs, and explained why this was not the argument. I proceeded to reiterate my position, and contrast what you said in the response with what the argument actually was. I referenced the early regions of the visual cortex and frontal lobe specifically to reiterate the irrelevance of this to the actual position.

    You did not respond to that.

    In my reply, I continued my critique that your "telling me what I meant" was incoherent, taking into response your rebolding defense. I suggested if you meant something else, it's just not apparent from a rebolding.

    You did not respond to that.

    In my reply, I explained why T was different than "more J". I gave the example of a Battleship game to explain when T was established and contrasted that with what J does, which is to help reveal what the T is. I explicitly pointed out that the J doesn't make the T to rebut your point that T was just more J.

    You did not respond to that.

    Not that I know where you're going with it, but in your reply, I responded to your point about what happens when the part of the world does not exist, while also clarifying that you didn't have the concept of "the part of the world" quite correct (if it's worth it I could go into more detail). This was simply a reiteration with slightly more detail of what was said previously.

    You did not respond to that.

    In my reply, I also quoted you about states of affairs causing sensations and related T to that.

    You did not respond to that.

    FYI, you are under no obligation to respond to anything. It is always your choice to respond. But should you respond, I do not have actual malice against you, despite what you might think. But I engaged you to challenge particular criticisms of yours about JTB, and you're still wrong about T wrt JTB theory of knowledge. I still think you're wrong because you're too focused on beliefs; the T in JTB isn't (typically) in the brain, and you keep confusing it for something that is (JB perchance?)
    insisting that I simply must have meant the thing you think I meant is pointlessIsaac
    I did quite the opposite to that:
    On the off chance I'm not reading this properly, I simply don't get what you're putting down... in which case, random bolding probably isn't going to help you much.InPitzotl
    I find no rational interpretation of what you said where "actual weather" gets to be used by you to refer to something that is not a belief but not by me. But I opened this up to you to explain, if you can, despite the very subject matter being your telling me that I mean something completely different than what I say I mean.
  • Michael
    15.6k
    What do you mean by “whether it actually is raining”? Are you referring to your beliefs?Michael

    No, as I've said quite a few times now, in expressions like this I'm referring to the notion of the beliefs a community of my epistemic peers would have once they've thrown all the tests they can think of at it...which is clearly not the same notion (though might have the same content) as the belief I currently hold.Isaac

    This is what you've said before:

    Does John or Jack have infallible direct access to the truth about the weather in Barbados? (ie can't be wrong)

    I presume the answers are 'No' and 'No'. So the expression "John knows..." is being used on the grounds that John's evidence, his justification for his belief, is very good (he's actually there, looking at the sky, getting wet...). It's not being used by comparing John's belief to the actual weather - no-one has direct access to that, they only have access to their various beliefs about the weather. It's their beliefs about the weather they're using to decide whether to use the term "John knows..." or reach instead for something like "John believes..." or "John thinks..."

    You could do a Banno and say that John does have direct access to the actual weather, that looking at it is as good as direct access to it. That's fine, it's a model I've some sympathy with, but then we'd have to clarify why Jim's access isn't direct. What is it about John's access that's categorically better than Jim's? Once we have that criteria, we have a definition of 'direct', but it's still essentially the same as I've been arguing - namely that at some level of justification we can say "John knows...", the only difference being that we also label this level of justification 'direct' to distinguish it from other levels which we call 'indirect'
    Isaac

    Here you admit to there being an "actual weather", but claim that we don't have direct access to it. Here you aren't talking about your beliefs or the language community's beliefs or a battery of tests or anything like that. You're just talking about the common sense realist notion of there being belief-independent facts that may or may not be as we believe them to be.

    If you can refer to this actual weather when you claim that we don't have direct access to the actual weather then I can refer to this actual weather when I claim that it is raining.

    Does John or Jack have infallible direct access to the truth about the weather in Barbados? (ie can't be wrong)Isaac

    And specifically here you connect the notions of truth and being wrong to whether or not the actual weather (which is belief-independent, and according to you cannot be directly accessed) is as we believe it to be.

    We were talking about access to facts. If my experience is veridical then ipso fact I have access to a fact.Michael

    I agree.Isaac

    And then later you admit that we do (sometimes) have direct access to the facts.

    So all-in-all, you admit that we can refer to belief-independent facts, that our beliefs are true if the belief-independent facts are as we believe them to be, and that we can access these belief-independent facts.
  • Isaac
    10.3k
    Are you sure the story you want to tell of this is that I'm treating you unfairly and building straw men? That's a bit of a hard sell, given that bolded part is you literally telling me what I mean!InPitzotl

    Yes. You're describing a state of affairs (unless your claim is that you and only you are able to refer to the actual weather). I'm arguing that the state of affairs is not as you claim they are in the basis of coherence with other states of affairs I thought we might agree on.

    If you think I can't mean what I say I mean (on the basis, as above, of incoherence with some state of affairs we already agree on), then we'd have an equivalence. As it stands you've presented no reasons other than that you don't agree.

    You did not respond to that.InPitzotl

    Yes. As I said, response seems pointless if my responses are simply going to be assumed to be the misguided product of a bias. I'm not playing the role of fish-in-barrel for your pleasure.
  • Isaac
    10.3k
    Here you admit to there being an "actual weather", but claim that we don't have direct access to it. Here you aren't talking about your beliefs or the language community's beliefs or a battery of tests or anything like that. You're just talking about the common sense realist notion of there being belief-independent facts that may or may not be as we believe them to be.Michael

    What makes you think that's what I'm talking about (especially given my quite explicit definition)? It seems quite a stretch for you to take a fairly ambiguous piece of writing and use it to prove I don't really mean what I've just said that I mean. I can't think what could be gained from such an exercise.

    here you connect the notions of truth and being wrong to whether or not the actual weather (which is belief-independent, and according to you cannot be directly accessed) is as we believe it to be.Michael

    I'm not sure what you think the word 'infallible' is doing there if I had (as you claim) s correspondence view of truth.

    And then later you admit that we do (sometimes) have direct access to the facts.Michael

    Again, I don't know what you think the word 'if' means here if you take it as a statement about what is actually the case.

    ---

    I must admit to being slightly baffled by the line of argument you're taking here. Where's it going? Let's say you're completely right, all those previous quotes did, in fact, show that I had a more correspondence view of truth. Let's say I've changed my mind and now believe whatever view was presented in my latest post. Does that change anything about the veracity of that latest post. How would the fact that I used to believe otherwise have any impact on it?
  • Michael
    15.6k
    What makes you think that's what I'm talking about (especially given my quite explicit definition)?Isaac

    Because that's how any reasonable English speaker would interpret it. What else could you mean by drawing a distinction between John's belief about the weather and an inaccessible "actual" weather?

    It seems quite a stretch for you to take a fairly ambiguous piece of writing and use it to prove I don't really mean what I've just said that I mean. I can't think what could be gained from such an exercise.Isaac

    You won't accept it when I or @InPitzotl explain to you that when we say "it is raining" we are referring to a belief-independent fact. You won't accept it when we explain to you that we don't mean "I believe that it is raining". If you won't do us the courtesy of accepting what we say about what we mean then why should I accept what you say about what you mean?

    I'm not sure what you think the word 'infallible' is doing there if I had (as you claim) s correspondence view of truth.Isaac

    You quite clearly say that there is a "truth about the weather" and that it is inaccessible. Therefore you are quite clearly saying that truth is belief-independent and distinct from justification (which very much is accessible). And given that you say that infallible direct access is required for us to be incapable of being wrong it follows that being wrong has something to do with the relationship between one's belief and this belief-independent truth, with the most rational interpretation being that our beliefs are wrong if the belief-independent truth is other than we believe it to be.

    Again, I don't know what you think the word 'if' means here if you take it as a statement about what is actually the case.Isaac

    You accepted that a veridical experience is access to a belief-independent fact. You also accepted that veridical experiences are possible. If a veridical experience is access to a belief-independent fact and if veridical experiences are possible then we can have access to belief-independent facts, like the actual weather, contrary to your claim that "no-one has direct access to [the actual weather]".

    I must admit to being slightly baffled by the line of argument you're taking here. Where's it going? Let's say you're completely right, all those previous quotes did, in fact, show that I had a more correspondence view of truth. Let's say I've changed my mind and now believe whatever view was presented in my latest post. Does that change anything about the veracity of that latest post. How would the fact that I used to believe otherwise have any impact on it?Isaac

    This exchange is following on from this:

    Yes it does, and any reasonable person understands this. Frankly, your position is untenable and you're just being stubborn. I'm tired of it.

    I honestly don't think you believe what you're saying anymore.
    Michael

    The point I'm highlighting is not that you think I'm wrong, it's that you seem to think I must be lying or stubborn... that you can't just think I've reached a different conclusion to you because we're different people.Isaac

    The above is why I don't believe that you believe what you're trying to argue; you're inconsistent.Michael

    I think you're just grasping at straws, twisting yourself in knots, contradicting yourself, trying to defend a theory that doesn't work.
  • InPitzotl
    880
    You're describing a state of affairsIsaac
    Yes. T is a description of a state of affairs.
    I'm arguing that the state of affairs is not as you claim they are in the basis of coherence with other states of affairs I thought we might agree on.Isaac
    I'm having severe problems parsing what you mean here (a positive declaration, that you're arguing the state of affairs isn't something; that thing being as I claim they are "in" the basis of coherence of other state of affairs... that you thought we might agree on?)
    If you think I can't mean what I say I mean (on the basis, as above, of incoherence with some state of affairs we already agree on), then we'd have an equivalence.Isaac
    I think you can't coherently phrase the objection; briefly, you cannot put the window in the skull. If you put the window in the skull, you must put the skull in the skull as well. And if you erase the window outside the skull, you must erase the skull containing the window. The entire exercise basically just leaves you with a window outside a skull again, with two dangling objects you can't talk about and yet just did. It's fundamentally incoherent, and I don't see a way to rescue it. Nevertheless, I humored you quite a bit on this point.
    As it stands you've presented no reasons other than that you don't agree.Isaac
    It's incoherent, and you failed to rescue it from incoherency. I need not prove an incoherent objection wrong. And I'm not obliged to play guess-what-Isaac-means. It's your job to formulate a coherent argument, should you choose to.
    As I said, response seems pointless if my responses are simply going to be assumed to be the misguided product of a bias.Isaac
    Assumed is the wrong word; concluded is more correct. I didn't read between the lines here; I read the very lines you wrote. Your connotative implication had nothing to do with the argument given. Your magical-justification-type had nothing to do with the argument given. Your observations-lead-to-beliefs response had nothing to do with the argument given. I'll present the given argument here again in different terms.

    Rewind again... you were arguing this:
    So
    "'it's raining' does indeed talk about what's 'outside my window'," — InPitzotl
    It cannot. It attempts to talk about what's happening outside of your window, it intends to talk about what's happening outside of your window. It cannot actually do so directly because you do not have direct access to what's going on outside your window.
    Isaac
    So, you yourself said you didn't believe it rains in my skull; in fact, you took great offense at the suggestion that you believe it rains in my skull. So we're agreed. It does not rain in my skull.

    But I believe things with my mind, which is a function of my brain, which is in my skull. So my belief that it is raining is indeed in my skull, and I have direct access to my belief (presumably).

    So, since I have direct access to my beliefs (in my skull), but do not have direct access to the rain (outside my skull), I claim that "it's raining" cannot be about my belief that it's raining (it does not rain in my skull). The only way I can discern whether it's raining or not is through indirect means, such as using my muscles to look outside the window and using my senses to judge what's happening outside my skull (where it rains). Simply relying on what I have direct access to (e.g., my beliefs) cannot help.

    How can "it's raining" be about something I don't have direct access to? Easy. By being about what I have indirect access to. But it can't be about what's in my skull, since it doesn't rain there.
  • Isaac
    10.3k
    Because that's how any reasonable English speaker would interpret it.Michael

    I see. We're back to the assumption that the way things seem to you must simply be the way things are. There's nothing to say to that. If you can't understand that things might not actually be as the seem then I really don't know what you're doing here, you already know the answers to every question. It seems to you that that's the way any reasonable English speaker would interpret it. Obviously it doesn't seem that way to me.

    You won't accept it when I or InPitzotl explain to you that when we say "it is raining" we are referring to a belief-independent fact. You won't accept it when we explain to you that we don't mean "I believe that it is raining". If you won't do us the courtesy of accepting what we say about what we mean then why should I accept what you say about what you mean?Michael

    You shouldn't (or needn't).@InPitzotl seems to be missing the same point. My argument is that you can't mean what you say you mean (that it's incoherent). Your argument is (currently) only that I don't mean what I say I mean. Those are two very different arguments. One is about logical possibilities, the other just a slur on my character. If you want to say that I can't mean what I say I mean, then make that case, there should be no need in doing so to quote anything except my most recent post.

    I think you're just grasping at straws, twisting yourself in knots, contradicting yourself, trying to defend a theory that doesn't work.Michael

    OK. So let's say you're right. I'm borderline schizophrenic and can't keep a consistent belief in my head for more than five minutes. How does that make my most recent post wrong? If I contradict myself, then one of the two contradictory things I've said can still be right. You've still failed to show that it's the one you prefer and not the other. I don't see how demonstrating my tragic mental health conditions helps your argument any. You still want to defeat one of the things I've said, proving that I've previously said something other than it doesn't help in that one bit.

    As I said to @InPitzotl, I've no interest in continuing this is your only objective is to try any show some inconsistency in my writing. I'm commenting on a trivial social media forum, not writing a paper. If you want to find some inconsistency, be my guest, but I'll save you the time, you'll definitely find some. I don't get my editors to proof read my posting history and clarify/correct each bit of terminology in context. I just write stuff that's on my mind, usually on the phone on a train.

    If you want clarification, you can ask, if you just want to play gotcha with some error I might have made I'm not interested.
  • john27
    693
    Now we're assessing if the observer has correctly recognised that 1 and 2 are occurring.Isaac

    I'd put my faith in the universe.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    There is no point arguing fellow forum members. The JTB definition is such that justification doesn't imply truth.

    What is the criterion for truth, if not justification?
  • Michael
    15.6k
    What is the criterion for truth, if not justification?Agent Smith

    Justification is how we judge truth, but truth itself is the facts obtaining, regardless of justification.

    If we imagine a court of law, someone is guilty of murder if they murdered the victim, but someone is judged to be guilty of murder if the evidence suggests beyond reasonable doubt that they murdered the victim. Obviously these are not the same thing; people can be wrongly convicted or wrongly exonerated. In practice we might not always know if the judgement was wrong, but we understand that in principle they could be wrong, and the fact that we understand this shows that there is a conceptual difference between truth and justification.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    there is a conceptual difference between truth and justification.Michael

    Yep, that's what I was getting at. The upshot of it is that justification doesn't establish veracity. The natural question is what does?
  • Michael
    15.6k
    The upshot of it is that justification doesn't establish veracity. The natural question is what does?Agent Smith

    What do you mean here by "establish"? In one sense it means "discover" and in another it means "make happen".

    If we take it raining for example, physical events in the atmosphere is what makes it happen, and us having a veridical experience is how we discover it.
  • Isaac
    10.3k
    the fact that we understand this shows that there is a conceptual difference between truth and justification.Michael

    No it doesn't. All it shows is that there's a difference, it's insufficient to show that the difference is conceptual. If I have a pound and you have a million pounds we can all see that there's a difference between our two states with massive and far reaching consequences, but it doesn't prove that a million pounds is an entirely different kind of thing to a pound.

    Your situation shows only the we see a difference between the two states. That difference could just as easily be explained by the difference between beliefs we actually have and beliefs we might hypothetically come to have after we thoroughly tested our hypotheses.

    "Whether we believe he committed the murder" (our current beliefs).

    "Whether he actually committed the murder" (what any rational epistemic peer would come to believe after their hypothesis had been exhaustively tested)
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    Allow me to rephrase my question.

    How do we know that a given proposition is true? It can't be justification of course; why mention truth separately? I'm probably holding the wrong end of the stick here.
  • Michael
    15.6k
    How do we know that a given proposition is true? It can't be justification of course; why mention truth separately? I'm probably holding the wrong end of the stick here.Agent Smith

    According to the JTB definition, we know that a given proposition is true if it is true, if we believe that it is true, and if we are justified in believing that it is true.
  • Agent Smith
    9.5k
    I'll get back to you later.
  • Michael
    15.6k
    That difference could just as easily be explained by the difference between beliefs we actually have and beliefs we might hypothetically come to have after we thoroughly tested our hypotheses.Isaac

    It's possible that something has happened that we can never discover. This could either be a practical matter – someone was murdered and there's no evidence to show who is the killer, or all evidence shows it to be someone who didn't do it – or this could be impossible in principle – stuff happens outside our light cone.
  • Isaac
    10.3k


    hypotheticallyIsaac

    What sense could we possibly make of something being the case that we can't even hypothetically detect? What would it mean for it to 'be the case'?

    We cannot, even hypothetically, detect whether borogroves are mimsey or not. What could it possibly mean to say that it's true that they are?
  • Michael
    15.6k
    What sense could we possibly make of something being the case that we can't even hypothetically detect? What would it mean for it to 'be the case'?Isaac

    I have a computer print a random word (using radioactive decay measurements) on a piece of paper but have the paper and computer burned before it can be read. There is a fact as to what was printed on the paper even though we have no way of knowing what it was.

    Alien life might exist outside our light cone.
  • Isaac
    10.3k
    I have a computer print a random word (using radioactive decay measurements) on a piece of paper but have the paper and computer burned before it can be read. There is a fact as to what was printed on the paper even though we have no way of knowing what it was.Michael

    It's what my epistemic peers would see if they invented a time machine, or deep space telescope, faster-than-light travel...all hypothetical tests I can think of.

    I'm saying that without some notion of what effect it would, even hypothetically, have, we've no way of making sense of what it means for it to be the case.
  • Michael
    15.6k
    It's what my epistemic peers would see if they invented a time machine, or deep space telescope, faster-than-light travel...all hypothetical tests I can think of.Isaac

    So truth is a counterfactual? Something that is inaccessible?

    At the very least you finally understand that truth is distinct from the actual justifications we have.
  • Isaac
    10.3k
    So truth is a counterfactual? Something that is inaccessible?Michael

    Not necessarily inaccessible. We might well feel we have, in fact, fully exhausted all tests, but yes, mostly truth is inaccessible, if it weren't we would be unable to believe we could be wrong (what would it mean to be wrong about something which is true?).

    I don't think being inaccessible is a distinction between correspondence accounts and deflationary or pragmatic accounts. Both have to have 'truth' as inaccessible otherwise there become situations where we cannot possibly be wrong (those in which we have direct access to the truth). As has been discussed here, such situations may occur within abstract schemes such as mathematics, but again, these are the same between accounts.

    What's different is the matter of whether truth is a specifically justified belief, or some other property.

    At the very least you finally understand that truth is distinct from the actual justifications we have.Michael

    I've never said anything to the contrary. If I have, I'd rather you quote me than attribute positions to me I've never held.
  • Michael
    15.6k
    Not necessarily inaccessible. We might well feel we have, in fact, fully exhausted all tests, but yes, mostly truth is inaccessible, if it weren't we would be unable to believe we could be wrong (what would it mean to be wrong about something which is true?).

    I don't think being inaccessible is a distinction between correspondence accounts and deflationary or pragmatic accounts. Both have to have 'truth' as inaccessible otherwise there become situations where we cannot possibly be wrong (those in which we have direct access to the truth). As has been discussed here, such situations may occur within abstract schemes such as mathematics, but again, these are the same between accounts.

    What's different is the matter of whether truth is a specifically justified belief, or some other property.
    Isaac

    If we’re wrong then we don’t have knowledge. That’s why knowledge is said to be JTB, not just JB.

    I've never said anything to the contrary. If I have, I'd rather you quote me than attribute positions to me I've never held.Isaac

    Here:

    My claim, in the above sense, is simply that 'truth' (the word) has the same meaning in speech acts as 'justified' (the word)*Isaac
  • Isaac
    10.3k
    If we’re wrong then we don’t have knowledge. That’s why knowledge is said to be JTB, not just JB.Michael

    Assuming 'true' is a separate property to 'justified'. I'm questioning that assumption. On my account, we're wrong (and so don't have knowledge) if what we currently believe is not what a community of epistemic peers would come to believe once they've exhaustively tested the hypothesis. Both result from justifications. One is just better than the other.

    Here:

    My claim, in the above sense, is simply that 'truth' (the word) has the same meaning in speech acts as 'justified' (the word)* — Isaac
    Michael

    See above. Both 'current evidence' and 'all possible evidence' are justifications.
  • Michael
    15.6k


    In the context of the JTB definition of knowledge, the J refers to the individual having good reasons to believe what they do. Even if you want to understand the T as being “what a community of epistemic peers would come to believe once they've exhaustively tested the hypothesis” it is still distinct from the J. It may be that I am justified in believing that it is raining but that a community of epistemic peers would believe that it isn’t raining were they to exhaustively test the hypothesis. As such my belief is false and I don’t know that it is raining (because it isn’t raining). And this is the case even if in practice everyone agrees with me.

    Truth is distinct from what anyone actually believes and is a requirement for knowledge.
  • Isaac
    10.3k
    In context of the JTB definition of knowledge, the J refers to the individual having good reasons to believe what they do.Michael

    Where have you got this interpretation from?

    Externalists about justification think that factors external to the subject can be relevant for justification; for example, process reliabilists think that justified beliefs are those which are formed by a cognitive process which tends to produce a high proportion of true beliefs relative to false ones.[7] We shall return to the question of how reliabilist approaches bear on the analysis of knowledge in §6.1. — SEP on justifications in JTB
  • Michael
    15.6k


    Why is condition (iii) necessary? Why not say that knowledge is true belief? The standard answer is that to identify knowledge with true belief would be implausible because a belief might be true even though it is formed improperly. Suppose that William flips a coin, and confidently believes—on no particular basis—that it will land tails. If by chance the coin does land tails, then William’s belief was true; but a lucky guess such as this one is no knowledge. For William to know, his belief must in some epistemic sense be proper or appropriate: it must be justified.

    Socrates articulates the need for something like a justification condition in Plato’s Theaetetus, when he points out that “true opinion” is in general insufficient for knowledge. For example, if a lawyer employs sophistry to induce a jury into a belief that happens to be true, this belief is insufficiently well-grounded to constitute knowledge.
    — SEP on justifications in JTB

    It may be that a community of epistemic peers would come to believe that it is raining once they've exhaustively tested the hypothesis but if I believe that it is raining because it says so in the horoscopes section of a magazine then my belief isn’t justified.

    The justification condition is quite clearly understood as being about the reason(s) the individual believes what he does. Your quote doesn’t say otherwise (in fact it explicitly mentions justified false beliefs). The debate between internalists and externalists is over what constitutes good reasons. Regardless of which side is correct, it is nonetheless about the reasons the individual believes what he does.
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