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:Otherwise we could just charitably assume each other to be genuine and relatively unbiased. — Isaac
...because you completely missed the argument.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
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:Look at the writing in bold... — 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).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
No, T is still different.Which is exactly, and only, what I'm arguing. T is just more J, not something different. — 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").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
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).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
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
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
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
There would be if you responded to the points rather than dredging up drama.Well then there's little point in continuing. — Isaac
The "what I'm saying" being this?:I'm not here to act as straw man for you to interpret what I'm saying — Isaac
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
...that bold being yours?Look at the writing in bold — Isaac
I did. You didn't (in this reply).Either respond to what I'm saying or don't bother, — Isaac
I did quite the opposite to that:insisting that I simply must have meant the thing you think I meant is pointless — Isaac
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.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
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
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
Does John or Jack have infallible direct access to the truth about the weather in Barbados? (ie can't be wrong) — Isaac
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
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
You did not respond to that. — InPitzotl
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
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
And then later you admit that we do (sometimes) have direct access to the facts. — Michael
What makes you think that's what I'm talking about (especially given my quite explicit definition)? — Isaac
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
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
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
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
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
Yes. T is a description of a state of affairs.You're describing a state of affairs — 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?)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 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.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
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 it stands you've presented no reasons other than that you don't agree. — 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.As I said, response seems pointless if my responses are simply going to be assumed to be the misguided product of a bias. — 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.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
Because that's how any reasonable English speaker would interpret it. — Michael
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
I think you're just grasping at straws, twisting yourself in knots, contradicting yourself, trying to defend a theory that doesn't work. — Michael
What is the criterion for truth, if not justification? — Agent Smith
there is a conceptual difference between truth and justification. — Michael
The upshot of it is that justification doesn't establish veracity. The natural question is what does? — Agent Smith
the fact that we understand this shows that there is a conceptual difference between truth and justification. — Michael
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
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
hypothetically — Isaac
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. — 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. — Isaac
So truth is a counterfactual? Something that is inaccessible? — Michael
At the very least you finally understand that truth is distinct from the actual justifications we have. — 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. — Isaac
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
My claim, in the above sense, is simply that 'truth' (the word) has the same meaning in speech acts as 'justified' (the word)* — Isaac
If we’re wrong then we don’t have knowledge. That’s why knowledge is said to be JTB, not just JB. — Michael
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
In context of the JTB definition of knowledge, the J refers to the individual having good reasons to believe what they do. — Michael
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
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
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