It sounds like one would conclude that we are simply animals barking, that language is meaningless, and we're all just acting out of the drives we happened to be driven by due to our evolutionary heritage. — Moliere
To me, certainty sounds like a psychological state, something like “maximal confidence,” and it’s irrelevant. It could turn out I was wrong even if I was certain. — Srap Tasmaner
Why? I don't need to be certain that something is true to assert that it is true. I will have Weetabix for breakfast tomorrow. I'm not certain that I will, but I'm still going to say that I will. — Michael
No. I'm happy with fallibilist knowledge. It's consistent with ordinary use. The list of things we claim to know is greater than the list of things we claim to be certain about, and so clearly what we mean by "know" isn't what we mean by "certain". — Michael
You start by saying that it has to actually be raining for Alice to know that it is raining. You then conclude by saying that we have to be certain that it is raining for Alice to know that it is raining. — Michael
You then conclude by saying that we have to be certain that it is raining for Alice to know that it is raining. — Michael
So as I said in my previous post, you are asserting that if we are not certain that it is raining then it is not actually raining. — Michael
Not necessarily. From the fact that it‘s raining, you can’t conclude that it might not be; for all you know, it might necessarily be raining. — Srap Tasmaner
But in all these examples, the important thing about a hypothetical is that you must discharge your assumption. So the conclusion of a hypothetical is always, at least implicitly, a conditional. “Suppose I have a dollar bill and 2 quarters. Then I have $1.50 total,” is to be understood as “If I have a dollar bill and 2 quarters, then I have $1.50.” — Srap Tasmaner
That’s the whole point of hypotheticals, to see what follows from the assumption, to see whether something in particular does, not to make a claim about whether the assumption holds or not, or even whether it’s possible or not. Sometimes in informal reasoning, people miss the step of discharging their assumptions, so they’ll end up claiming something like “But I just proved that I have $1.50!!!“ when all they‘ve proven is that if they had $1.50 then they’d have $1.50. — Srap Tasmaner
To me, certainty sounds like a psychological state, something like “maximal confidence,” and it’s irrelevant. It could turn out I was wrong even if I was certain. Would you like here to do the same thing you don’t like with the word “knowledge” and say that if that were to happen, then it must be that you weren’t really certain, but only thought you were? — Srap Tasmaner
The interesting thing people keep saying is that it might “turn out” that P isn’t or wasn’t the case, that I was right or wrong. No worries when we’re just dealing with belief, because that suggests that there is newly acquired evidence. No one bats an eye at “I thought she was at the store but it turns out she wasn’t.” For all I knew, she was at the store, but now I know more and my knowledge now includes that she wasn’t.
No one seems to bring up, “I thought she was at the store and it turns out I was right.” Here the speaker is still not claiming to have known she was at the store, but to have had the belief, a belief which was true, without his knowing that. — Srap Tasmaner
Because knowledge is factive, so something is entailed about the state of the world by what you know; water either freezes at 32°C or it doesn’t. — Srap Tasmaner
the problem is that your assertions that it does, and attempts show that it does, are nothing less than deception — Metaphysician Undercover
The hypothetical shows the logical consequences which follow from the assumption that it is actually raining in the real world. — Metaphysician Undercover
And, there is a very big difference in meaning between "it is actually raining in the real world", and "I assume it is actually raining in the real world". The latter recognizes the possibility that it is not raining in the real world. — Metaphysician Undercover
I for one would appreciate it if you stopped saying things like this. Andrew and Michael are clearly not trying to deceive you. If they are mistaken, then they are mistaken, but there’s no deception here. — Srap Tasmaner
"I know that p but I am not certain" could be seen to be something of a Moorean sentence. — Michael
But Andrew was saying that the hypothetical shows what follows "when it is actually raining in the real world". And that's what I argued against, because it really only shows what follows from the assumption that it is raining, as you agree with me here. — Metaphysician Undercover
The subject we were discussing is the issue with the use of "true", in the formulation of "knowledge" as justified true belief. — Metaphysician Undercover
If "true" here means what is actually the case, then when it turns out that what appeared to be known is actually not the case, then we must say that it was not knowledge. So, I suggested that "true" is better defined in relation to honesty, what one honestly believes. — Metaphysician Undercover
The subject we were discussing is the issue with the use of "true", in the formulation of "knowledge" as justified true belief.
— Metaphysician Undercover
Which I for one have not defended, and would not defend, but Andrew M has said some things along those lines. I claim only that knowledge entails truth, not that truth is a component of knowledge. Make of that what you will. — Srap Tasmaner
The claim is that knowledge is a first-class mental state, distinct from belief, not a particular variety of belief. — Srap Tasmaner
If S knows that p, that also entails that S believes that p, and entails that p, but for all that, believing that p is not a component of knowing that p and neither is p being true. It’s Timothy Williamson’s “knowledge first” program, and I find it pretty persuasive, though I haven’t gotten through all the technical stuff yet. On his account, knowledge has no such components, and cannot be analyzed into, say, justified true belief. — Srap Tasmaner
We can say of the shy schoolboy or the forgetful grandfather that he does know something, even though we would not classify them as highly confident that they know.
...
And indeed there’s nothing so unusual about people expressing doubts about whether they know something, rather than what they know. — Srap Tasmaner
Timothy Williamson’s “knowledge first” program — Srap Tasmaner
No, the hypothetical shows the logical consequences which follow from the condition that it is actually raining in the real world. People make assumptions. But whether it is raining or not is a condition that is independent of people's assumptions. — Andrew M
I for one would appreciate it if you stopped saying things like this. Andrew and Michael are clearly not trying to deceive you. If they are mistaken, then they are mistaken, but there’s no deception here. — Srap Tasmaner
(2) If, for the sake of a hypothetical bit of reasoning, and with some concern about the weather but no access at the moment to a weather report, suggest that if it is raining, we won’t be able to go for a walk, I hold no belief either way about whether it is raining; I only mean to suggest how we should act if it turns out (that is, if at a later time we actually know) that it’s raining. Quite different from (1), in which the “assumption” is what I honestly believe. That’s simply not the case here. NB: these are the sort of assumptions that must be discharged; it’s just the terminology of natural deduction. — Srap Tasmaner
You may of course do as you like, but the rest of us have not invented some special usage for “know” or for “true”; I’m using them exactly the way everyone I know uses them, this being the population that is also perfectly comfortable saying “I could have sworn I knew where I left it, but it’s not there, so I guess I was wrong.” — Srap Tasmaner
Here, I’ll give you a good one. When I was a kid, I was taught, and I learned, that there are nine planets. That is no longer true, but it was true at the time, because there is a specific body of astronomers who make the “official” determination of whether a solar object is a planet. In such a case, I might be able to say I used to know that there were 9 planets, but now I know that there are 8. Note that I have made no mistake and have no reason to retract my knowledge claim. But suppose it was a couple weeks before I heard that Pluto had been demoted; during that time I might get into a heated argument with someone I think a fool because he says there are only 8 planets. At this point I will be wrong; I will be in the position of thinking that I know how many planets there are, and I will be wrong about that. Once he points out to me that there was a change in Pluto’s status, I will readily admit that I thought I knew, but that he was right. — Srap Tasmaner
Do you have any good links that would clarify the differences? — Andrew M
on Williamson’s account, is truth defined in terms of knowledge? — Banno
So how do we make sense of "I know that p but I'm not certain"? — Michael
Do you recognize that #2, the hypothetical itself "if it is raining, we won't be able to go for a walk", is an assumption — Metaphysician Undercover
The cases I was talking about were ones where a subject who does know is unwilling to assert that they know because of their uncertainty — Srap Tasmaner
This is much like Moorean sentences. — Michael
Still not sure what point you’re making though. — Srap Tasmaner
Perhaps the assertion "I know that p" is implicitly the assertion "I know that p and I am certain" and so the assertion "I know that p but I am not certain" is implicitly the contradictory assertion "I know that p and I am certain but I am not certain"? — Michael
Yes, and the hypothetical consists of statements which someone makes, therefore, assumptions. — Metaphysician Undercover
Do you understand that there is a separation between the hypothetical, which states the condition "it is actually raining", or "if it is raining", and the real world? — Metaphysician Undercover
Obviously it is an assumption of the hypothetical that it is raining. But Alice makes no such assumption. She instead forms the justified belief that it is raining because she looked out the window and saw what looked to her to be rain. (Or, for Srap Tasmaner: in knowledge-first terms, Alice knew that it was raining because she looked out the window and saw that it was raining.) — Andrew M
Yes, of course. What the hypothetical shows is that knowledge is possible on a JTB view. Alice's belief was justifiable in both hypotheticals even though there was the possibility (from her point of view) that she could be mistaken (as she was in the second hypothetical). — Andrew M
BTW, as a general observation, you and I are, in effect, speaking in two different languages. What makes it especially difficult to translate is that we use the same words to convey very different ideas, such as "know" (which is ordinarily used in a factive sense), "true", "assumption" and I suspect a few others. — Andrew M
I understand that, but my point is that if one can know that p but not be certain then it should be acceptable to say "I know that p but I am not certain" — Michael
No, sorry. I’m reading his book, Knowledge and Its Limits. — Srap Tasmaner
“Knowledge first” is a slogan for epistemology that takes the distinction between knowledge and ignorance as the starting point from which to explain other cognitive matters. It reverses the direction dominant in much twentieth-century epistemology, which treated belief as explanatorily prior to knowledge, attempting to analyze knowledge as belief that meets further conditions, such as truth and justification. By contrast, a knowledge first epistemologist might treat believing something as treating it as if one knew it.
The most striking difference between knowledge and belief is that knowledge entails truth while belief does not. There is false belief but no false knowledge. Some people believe that Africa is a single country, but since it is false that it is a single country, they do not know that it is a single country. They just believe falsely that they know that Africa is a single country. In this sense, all knowledge but not all belief is successful. Thus knowledge first epistemology gives explanatory priority to success. This does not mean that belief first epistemology gives priority to failure. Rather, it gives explanatory priority to conditions that are neutral between success and failure: some beliefs constitute knowledge, others are false. — Knowledge First Epistemology, Timothy Williamson - The Routledge Companion to Epistemology
There’s a whole lot I don’t know yet, but my understanding is that a number of problems in epistemology present somewhat differently if you take knowledge seriously. One of the best-known claims of the book is known as “E = K,” that is, your total evidence is your total knowledge. When it comes to rational belief formation, for instance, it is your knowledge you rely on in deciding what to believe. There’s a similar transformation with assertibility, because we can specify the maxim as “Do not assert what you do not know,” rather than something about honest belief, evidence, justification, warrant, all that business. — Srap Tasmaner
My belief is that if we pretend that something said, which says nothing about the real world, actually does say something about the real world, this is deception. — Metaphysician Undercover
The upshot of which was all about assertion. There’s nothing to learn about the nature of belief from Moore’s paradox. — Srap Tasmaner
If, with a little goosing and a little encouragement, they can come up with the right bit of info, then they did know — Srap Tasmaner
in knowledge-first terms, Alice knew that it was raining because she looked out the window and saw that it was raining. — Andrew M
An assumption H for the purposes of hypothetical reasoning picks out a set of possible worlds at which H is true. That set may or may not include the actual world. We may or may not know whether it does. — Srap Tasmaner
The goal then would be to discharge the hypothetical assumption in a true counterfactual conditional, which may be degenerate in the sense of having an antecedent that is true at the actual world. I understand those are tricky to deal with, but oh well. — Srap Tasmaner
For example, the hypothetical assumption “Suppose I have lost my copy of Lewis 1973” picks out a set of possible worlds at which I have indeed lost my copy of Lewis 1973. If I determine that in any such world (or only in nearby worlds, or in sufficiently similar worlds, etc., whatever the appropriate restriction is) I would be a miserable cuss, and I would prefer not to be, then I can discharge the assumption by concluding, for example, “If I were to lose my copy of Lewis 1973, I would have to replace it.” — Srap Tasmaner
The problem I see with the possible worlds scenario, is that if we assume possible worlds, and we want to assign "actual world" to one of them, then we need some principles to support the "actual world" as distinct from the others. Then, the actual world is a special world, and cannot be one of the possible worlds, because it has that special status which sets it apart as distinct. — Metaphysician Undercover
Your argument is that if there’s something odd about saying “I know that p but I am not certain,” then (“perhaps”) knowledge requires certainty.
Except that’s not an argument. From S asserting “I know that p,” it does not follow that S knows that p; from S asserting “I am uncertain,” it does not follow that S is uncertain; we can’t infer that if S were to assert the problematic sentence then S would have to be in a problematic mental state. — Srap Tasmaner
it still needs to be explained what "I'm not certain" actually means, as it may very well lead to the same conclusion above; that "I'm not certain" means "I don't know". — Michael
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