Foremost, you can't know something if it is not true. This is how the grammar of "know" works. If you hold it to be true, but it isn't, then you only believe it, you don't know it. — Banno

Right. Notice you wrote this all in the present tense. I know you have a more nuanced understanding of this. But I just want to immediately mention that I am looking at what happens through time and what we know/think/have access to at any given moment.

It might be best to look at what I say in an overview...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/893764

Secondly, it is plain that there are true statements. This statement is true. So are the theorems of arithmetic and logic. That you are reading this is also true. — Banno

yes, I think you are still assuming that I think we can't know anything.

This works only in limited cases. Some counterexamples have already been given. Here's another: Supose you are playing Checkers and your opponent reaches over and moves one of your pieces - yo say "You can't move my pieces!" Would you accept their reply if it were "HA, but there you have it - I have falsified that rule: I can move your pieces!" — Banno

Of course not. But I think my response to you makes it clear that there are things we can know. You seem to be arguing that extreme skepticism is problematic. I agree, that's not my point at all. Of course, I could be wrong about what just happened, what my opponent just did, in the checkers game, but that's not what I'm arguing.

You seem to be taking what I said as saying that we cannot know anything and we should doubt everything, in practice. Yeah, that's not what I'm saying at all.

I am focus on having True as something in addition to justification. Like I check off the justification. I check to make sure it hasn't been falsified (so far). Then I check to see if it is true. Well, not. That's an non-real step and a non-real criterion. Which doesn't mean nothing is true. Nor does it mean I take a similar skeptical attitude to everything nor am I suggesting we throw up our hands and say we can't know anything. But this is in my previous posts.

If it still seems to you that I am saying these things, then we are talking past eachother.

The JTB definition of knowledge involves belief, and we might say that it frames knowledge as a "form of belief": namely justified true belief, but it does not follow that it is nothing more than belief, because the 'justified' and the 'true', as conceived, have nothing to do with belief. — Janus

Sure, knowledge is a rigorously arrived at belief in JTB theories of truth.

Sure, knowledge is a rigorously arrived at belief in JTB theories of truth. — Bylaw

Equally rigourously if you drop the T though. The rigor is all in the J - the J is where all our confidence in the T comes from.

If it's rigor we're looking for, then we should place a threshold on the minimum amount of J before we call it "knowledge". Which is probably what we do anyway, given we don't have access to a universal dictionary of objective truths.

And then we just have beliefs with varying levels of justification, and the ones with the most justification we call "knowledge" - and some of that knowledge is probably wrong.

The rigor is all in the J - the J is where all our confidence in the T comes from. — flannel jesus

Agreed. Which is close to the reason I think the T is superfluous and misleading.

If it's rigor we're looking for, then we should place a threshold on the minimum amount of J before we call it "knowledge". Which is probably what we do anyway, given we don't have access to a universal dictionary of objective truths. — flannel jesus

To me it works to add in 4 further letters and take out the T. (this is partly ironic since it's too many letters to be useful, but it reflects my thinking.
1) NF - not falsified
2) BE - best explanation (so far)

Giving us JNFBEB :grin:
Justified not falsified best explanation belief.

By best explanation I am leaving room for parsimony - there's no equally predictive explanation that has less newly posited entities. Possibly things like clarity, lack of ambiguity, fits with current models.

I think it is fine to refer to such things as knowledge and that we know it. Even though it may turn out later that we were incorrect. We can be fussy later and say we thought we knew, but we didn't, but really I think there's no need to do this. Knowledge changed.

We have no separate access to truth. Oh, that's well justified, not falsified, and.....testing......and it's true. I understand that the T is generally not looked at a step in the methodology of determining if something is knowledge. Like first we justify then we check the truth of X. But I think the label is misleading in that direction and in any case redundant in the present. If it is well justfied (and meets my other criteria) then there we don't need to somehow also thin of truth or true as an adjective. I think it's confusing to add the T.

And then we just have beliefs with varying levels of justification, and the ones with the most justification we call "knowledge" - and some of that knowledge is probably wrong. — flannel jesus

Agreed.

…..is a judgement of truth the same as truth? I don't think that is how the two are commonly conceived. — Janus

Perhaps not commonly conceived, but common is so boring, innit? At the end of the day, each comes by and thereby possesses his own anyway, so….

A judgement of truth just indicates the condition of the object of the judgement. To judge a thing as the case, then to think or be led to think the negation of it, leads to self-contradiction, and conversely, to judge a thing as not the case, while equally a lawful truth, still leads to self-contradiction upon thinking or being led to think its affirmation.

Yes, there are different kinds of knowing. There is 'knowing how', there is the knowing of familiarity and there is 'knowing that'. I think the salient question in this thread concerns only 'knowing that' or propositional knowing, because the other two categories do not necessarily involve belief. — Janus

I don't think I've seen a propositional knowledge out in the wild though. I have seen the others I referenced. I can perhaps see a propositional knowledge out in the wild if I put a particular kind of retrospective goggles on. But if you insist...

Someone says "I believe" to register something they accept but are not certain of, or to express conviction in the face of reality, or faith. "I believe in you", "I believe things will turn out alright". That expresses a conviction, but in a declarative fashion, expressing the conviction is more important than the justification for it. Much more affective than deliberative.

A belief is something you can feel when you put your mind to it. By that I mean there's a sensation and inner perceptual profile to an intense conviction. You need not establish your beliefs, other than that you can state what they are upon an appropriate act of recall (or self creation).That is, to count as a belief, it needs not be established in principle, it just needs to be expressed sincerely. Often that belief corresponds to an articulable fact.

You can ask someone how they know something, you can't ask someone how they believe something and expect to receive the same flavour of answer. For knowledge, someone tends to be able to give you an answer - "I've seen it", "here's my reasoning", "I was taught it in school", "I saw it on the news". The kind of answer someone gives for belief (yes I have tried) is about the sensation profile - how you believe something? Intensely, casually, fundamentally... "I just do", "It's part of who I am".

In that regard statements of knowledge reference a tacit, communal consensus in reference to which - and idiosyncratically - your claim to knowledge can be assessed as knowledge. However most of the time people just trust or are indifferent to "I know" statements. Your claim to belief cannot be assessed in the same way - what you express with "I believe" counts as a belief, all that can be doubted is your sincerity plus your degree and quality of conviction.

One cannot know intensely, but one can believe intensely. That you believe can be examined as whether you are telling the truth about yourself, that you know can be examined as whether you are telling the truth about the world.

For reference - I am doing this because another JTB discussion seems more boring to me than the alternative clusterfuck I'm trying to introduce.

I think you are creating too strong a separation between knowledge and belief. Beliefs are very often taken to be propositional, cognitional, intellectual, truth apt, etc. For example, the second two definitions that Merriam-Webster gives:

2) something that is accepted, considered to be true, or held as an opinion : something believed

3) conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence


For example, in practice belief is often used as qualitatively identical to knowledge, just less certain. Your understanding seems to exclude this common meaning of belief.

For example, in practice belief is often used as qualitatively identical to knowledge, just less certain. Your understanding seems to exclude this common meaning of belief. — Leontiskos

Throw it in! That's absolutely part of knowledge and belief's relationship. The things I've said are also part of it.

I will point out that in 2) and 3)... 2) doesn't reference a statement, it instead references "something" and in 3) it references the conviction and "the reality" as well as a statement. The "especially" qualifier in 3) is an admission that there's a way of using the word belief in a context regarding the examination of evidence - in that regard someone's statement of belief is treated as a claim to knowledge, or the kind of thing which could be suspect tested for knowledge. Contrast that to declarative knowledge - which only references a statement, and is thus more related to 3 than 2!

Tellingly, knowledge is not a listed synonym of belief. If the dictionary sufficed, you can end the thread here.

Throw it in! That's absolutely part of knowledge and belief's relationship. — fdrake

:up: Sounds good. I just wanted to highlight an aspect of belief that I often see overlooked on this forum.

If the dictionary sufficed, you can end the thread here. — fdrake

I don't find the OP question very interesting at all. I think most everyone knows that belief and knowledge are not the same thing. So good on you for raising more interesting subjects. :wink:

How do you know it's unjustified? You said beliefs are justified if they're true and unjustified if they're false. You can't know I'm unjustified unless you also know my house isn't there. — flannel jesus

You said:

I believe my house is going to still be there when I get home. I think I'm pretty justified in that. — flannel jesus

That's not what "justification" condition is about in JTB!
you don't know your house will be there when you return, you do know it's there now but you can't know if it will still be there later (ex. it could caught fire).
Thus your belief is not justified because what you believe is not true for certain. (you only assume it will be there)

The JTB definition of knowledge involves belief, and we might say that it frames knowledge as a "form of belief": namely justified true belief, but it does not follow that it is nothing more than belief, because the 'justified' and the 'true', as conceived, have nothing to do with belief. — Janus

Exactly, some folks seem to have problem with "belief" in JTB because they're trying to separate belief from knowledge but are not able.
The whole point however with "J" condition is that you have to believe proof is true to justify your belief, rather than blindly believing (in some not-a-truth)

P1: This is philosophy forum (certain truth)
P2: You believe it's philosophy forum (belief)
P3: Your belief is justified (justified true belief)

On another side if you believe in not-a-truth then it's as follows:
P1: This is NOT philosophy forum (false)
P2: You believe it's NOT philosophy forum (belief)
P3: Your belief is unjustified (false belief)

What opponents of JTB are trying to do is to simplify this to:

P1: This is philosophy forum (certain truth)
C: Therefore we know this is philosophy forum

But then the question is, do you believe it? and what if you don't believe it?

Thus your belief is not justified because what you believe is not true for certain. — SpaceDweller

But that's not what you said before. You said before that a belief is justified if it's true. If I believe it, and it's true, then it's justified, regardless of if I'm certain - that's the implication of your wording.

If you believe something that's true, then it's justified.
— flannel jesus
Yes. — SpaceDweller

You said it yourself here. If it's true, then I'm justified.

If I believe it, and it's true, then it's justified, regardless of if I'm certain — flannel jesus

You replied so fast I'm certain you didn't read carefully what I said.
In the quote above you said it's true because you believe it, do you see?

Anyway "certain" or "proof" is same thing here. you have no proof that your house will be there in the future. which is required to know for truth condition to be true.

Anyway "certain" or "proof" is same thing here. you have no proof that your house will be there in the future. — SpaceDweller

But if it's true, then it's justified, right? That's what you were saying yesterday.

If you believe something that's true, then it's justified.
— flannel jesus
Yes.
— SpaceDweller

But if it's true, then it's justified, right? That's what you said. — flannel jesus

Perhaps if you're visionary or prophet then you can know what will happen with your house days or weeks later, that's not proof and so not "T" true condition

When did PROOF become the T condition? T stands for "true", not "proof".

Do you think JTB stands for "Justified Proved Belief"?

When did PROOF become the T condition? T stands for "true", not "proof".

Do you think JTB stands for "Justified Proved Belief"? — flannel jesus

Here is a quote from the JTB article:

Sometimes when people are very confident of something that turns out to be wrong, we use the word “knows” to describe their situation.

I respect you and your view on JTB but again I highly suggest you read the article:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/#TrutCond

Another quote:

Something’s truth does not require that anyone can know or prove that it is true. Not all truths are established truths.

I hope this helps you to understand my stance?

I hope this helps you to understand my stance? — SpaceDweller

No, unfortunately it doesn't. Your use of various terms in this conversation has seemed wildly and irreconcilably inconsitsent to me. First you say, if a belief is true then it's justified. Then you say my belief in something was not justified - even though it was true.

Yesterday, before I went home, I believed my house was still there and was still going to be there when I got home - you said this was unjustified, but I went home and it turned out to be true! So if it was true, how could it be unjustified, if you think all true beliefs are justified?

According to Externalism, knowledge is merely true belief, in which the truth-maker (reality) is external to whatever justifications one might offer in the defense of their beliefs. So externalism avoids the Gettier problem of false justifications that produce true beliefs, because it doesn't consider beliefs per se to be truth-apt. Or alternatively, if it is assumed that truth is internally related to beliefs, then externalism denies the existence of beliefs. Either way, externalism eliminates the normative dimension of epistemology, an elimination which many philosophers find problematic, and which is a common characteristic of naturalised epistemology.

No, unfortunately it doesn't. Your use of various terms in this conversation has seemed wildly and irreconcilably inconsitsent to me. — flannel jesus

The terms I used are based on JTB article according to my understanding, (ex. I didn't made it up only to debate you). and yes there is mention of proof in the article but you're reluctant to study it so it's difficult for me to explain it to you.

Yesterday, before I went home, I believed my house was still there and was still going to be there when I got home - you said this was unjustified, but I went home and it turned out to be true! So if it was true — flannel jesus

We have already been over this before and I replied to you that this is not how epistemology works :(
In epistemology to my humble understanding you need a priori knowledge which you do not have with your house example.

Either way, externalism eliminates the normative dimension of epistemology which many philosophers find problematic, and which is a common characteristic of naturalised epistemology. — sime

That's very interesting statement and fits well into JTB, @flannel jesus saw his house a day later but we did not, but we were talking about yesterday, problem is that truth can not be one days yes and another day not, it's either true every day or it's otherwise not epistemology, that's my assertion.

and yes there is mention of proof in the article but you're reluctant to study it — SpaceDweller

Does the article say "proof" and "truth" are synonyms? Because that's what you're saying.

We have already been over this before and I replied to you that this is not how epistemology works — SpaceDweller

I COMPLETELY AGREE that it's not how epistemology works. That's why I don't say things like "beliefs are justified iff they're true".

Does the article say "proof" and "truth" are synonyms? Because that's what you're saying. — flannel jesus

It does not explicitly say they're a synonyms (obviously they're not) but the context is that for something to be true you need proof. otherwise how do you tell it's true?
Your truth condition with the house provides no proof other than you saw your house next day which implies lack of proof yesterday.

And regarding your house example here is an argument against you:

truth is a matter of how things are, not how they can be shown to be.

See, it's not about what you see today but what you claimed yesterday, you claimed not-a-truth.
If you still don't understand this concept then I can't help sorry.

but the context is that for something to be true you need proof. — SpaceDweller

How in the world do you figure that?

You don't think there are any unproven truths?

How in the world do you figure that? — flannel jesus

Either by scientific method or argumentative philosophy.

You don't think there are any unproven truths? — flannel jesus

No, I don't think there are unprooven truths.

No, I don't think there are unprooven truths. — SpaceDweller

Can you prove it? Can you prove there aren't any?

Can you prove it? — flannel jesus

Yes, name one truth that has no proof and that will be my proof.

so you won't be able to prove it if I can't name one?

How about this: Goldbachs Conjecture

We've got two claims here: GC is true, or GC is false.

One of those two claims is an unproven truth. The other one is unproven and false.

One of those two claims is an unproven truth. The other one is unproven and false. — flannel jesus

I'm not familiar with these math problems but here is what I found:

According to working realism, these and other classical methods are acceptable and available in all mathematical reasoning. But working realism does not take a stand on whether these methods require any philosophical defense

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/platonism-mathematics/#MathSignPlat

Although this discussion seems to go off-topic, I hold my stance that truths require proofs at least in philosophical sense.