Yes, by definition, knowledge is something that is justified. As Wittgenstein says, satisfying oneself is part of the language-game of knowledge.

Many empirical claims are bedrock, i.e., they are outside our epistemological language-games.

Why must all knowledge claims(I'm assuming empirical claims) be able to be doubted? — creativesoul

If this wasn't so, then one could infer knowledge from a simple claim that one knows. It has to be more than reasonable that in many situations the knowledge claim is something to be demonstrated.

Her thinking was not seperate from this bodily activity; nor from the items on the shelf, or the phone. Thinking is not just something that happens in minds. — Banno

Where else would it happen? In other words, if we're talking about the concept, the concept thinking gets its life from the actions you pointed out, but it's not as if thinking can be generated apart from minds. Minds are necessary. It's as if you want to say the actions in themselves are the thinking, but my disagreement with you, I think, lies in the difference between how a concept gets its life and what's going on in the brain. The two are inseparable.

Yes, the causality link hasn't been clearly established. Although I do think it's certainly something to consider.

With Witt's strict application of the phrase "I know", aren't there things that we can surmise about his thoughts on the matter that perhaps he had not written down, but was still in process, or some such? — creativesoul

Yes, in fact I've done this with my foundationalist idea's based on Witt's hinge-propositions. I also think there is much more that can be surmised, namely, that there is a causal link between our sensory perceptions and many of these hinge-propositions or bedrock beliefs. Whether or not this causal link will hold up to scrutiny I'm not sure.

Doesn't Witt claim that knowledge must be dubitable? Wouldn't that condition disqualify Moore's claim all by itself? — creativesoul

Yes, isn't that his point? All knowledge claim are doubtable, and if they're not, like Moore's claims, then there not knowledge claims, they're beliefs of a different sort (bedrock).

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Allowed? Unless you want to live in some Big Brother society, there's nothing that can stop someone from publicly accusing another of wrongdoing. — Michael

Obviously we can't stop all accusations, but what happened here was just a circus.

Sure, but there's nothing anyone can do about that. Once the accusations come in, the public are going to think what they think. So I'm not sure what you were trying to suggest with your remark. — Michael

Sure, there was plenty that could have been done, viz., much of this could have been done behind closed doors so that the reasonableness of the accusations could be ascertained. However, we've allowed accusations of the worst kind come into the public arena.

I agree with everything you said. But as far as I can tell, every reasonable person around me believes he attempted rape at the age of 16. If he's confirmed it will be wounding. It's just a shame that we can't go back in time and have Trump pick somebody else. — frank

People who are generally reasonable can be unreasonable at times, there are a number of reasons/causes for this.

Not being confirmed to the Supreme Court isn't destroying someone's life. — Michael

If you think that these accusations haven't destroyed his reputation, whether he gets on the supreme court or not, you have to be living on Mars. That accusation will hang over his life for the rest of his life - innocent or not.

This argument boils down to the strength of Ford's claims, period. Not what your ideology is, not what your opinion is, not how you feel about her, not what someone's motives are, etc. First, do the claims Ford has made have enough support to come to the conclusion that Cavanaugh committed a sexual assault, which is based on her memory of something that took place over 35 years ago.

There is no doubt that she is credible, i.e., no doubt that she believes what she's saying. However, believing what you're saying is not enough to ascertain truth, there has to be objective evidence. The only thing we want to know is if there is any corroboration, or any objective evidence that supports her claims. In fact, there is no evidence to confirm her accusations, other than her memories, which may be false memories, maybe partially false memories, or they may be accurate memories. In fact, it's quite possible that her memory of the assault, which I believe happened (although just an impression) could be mostly based on faulty memory. We don't have enough information about her, her background, her psychological state, her character, etc. There is evidence that her memory, for example, is faulty, viz., she can't remember where it happened, or even give a good time frame of the assault. Based on that alone we should wonder just how accurate her memories are.

I hear people say that since this is not a court proceeding that somehow we don't need to be reasonable or require good evidence. What?! The idea is to be fair and just, to not let mere accusations destroy peoples lives, whether you like them or not. If a credible accusation is enough to destroy people, then we're all in trouble.

Testimonial evidence by its very nature is weak, even when you have two or three witnesses it can be weak. People have been wrongly convicted based on the testimonial evidence of two or more witnesses. Why is this enough to say that he is guilty? Why is it even enough to keep him off the Supreme Court? It isn't.

Is there counter-evidence? Yes, his whole life is counter-evidence. There is nothing in his character to suggest that he would do such a thing.

Finally, can we know for sure? No, we can't, but we have to base our conclusions on what is reasonable to believe, what is probably the case, not what is possible. Not on what we want to believe, or what is politically expedient, or even one person's memory of something that occurred so long ago. This is true of those on both sides of the argument.

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The Inductive Argument:

This is a restatement of the argument.

The following argument is based on the testimonial evidence of those who have experienced an NDE, and the conclusion follows with a high degree of probability. As such, one can claim to know the conclusion is true. This argument makes such a claim.

Each of the aforementioned criteria serve to strengthen the testimonial evidence. All of the criteria in the previous paragraphs work hand-in-hand to strengthen the conclusion, and these criteria serve to strengthen any claim to knowledge. If we have a large enough pool of evidence based on these five criteria, we can say with confidence that we know that consciousness survives the death of the body. In other words, we can say what is probably the case, but not what is necessarily the case.

Again, if there is a high degree of probability that these testimonials reflect an objective reality, then we can also say with confidence, that we know consciousness survives the death of the body. Thus, our knowledge is based on objective criteria, not on purely subjective claims.

We will now look at the testimonial evidence in terms of the five stated criteria, and how these testimonials support the conclusion.

First, what is the number of people who claim to have had an NDE? According to a 1992 Gallop poll about 5% of the population has experienced an NDE; and even if this poll is off by a little we are still talking about hundreds of millions of people. Thus, the number of accounts of NDEs is very high, much higher than what we would normally need to decide the veracity or accuracy of the testimonials, and much higher that what is normally needed to draw a proper conclusion.

Also, as was mentioned in the previous post, numbers in themselves are not enough, which is why the other criteria must be coupled with numbers.

The second criteria of good testimonial evidence is variety, i.e., do we have evidence from a variety of sources? The answer to this question is in the affirmative. NDEs have been reported in every culture from around the world, which by definition means that we are getting reports from different religious views, and different world views. NDEs also span every age group, from young children, to the middle-aged, and finally to the aged. The testimonial reports come from doctors, nurses, scientists, atheists, agnostics, literally from every imaginable educational level and background. NDEs occur in a variety of settings, including drowning, electrocution, while awake, while on the operating table, after a heart attack, etc. People have also reported having shared an NDE with someone else, although rarely. They have happened when there is no heartbeat, with the blood drained from the brain, and with no measurable brain activity. They have been reported to happen with a minimal amount of stress, i.e., without being near death. Finally, there have been many thousands more reporting these and similar events happening to those who have taken DMT (N,N-Dimethyltryptamine), which is an illegal schedule 1 drug. These DMT reports are also reports that are happening without being near death.

The third criteria is scope of the conclusion, and the scope of this conclusion is limited to consciousness surviving the body. The conclusion claims that we can know that consciousness survives bodily death.

The fourth criteria is truth of the premises. To know if the premises are true we need corroboration of the testimonial evidence, a high degree of consistency, and firsthand testimony. In all or most of these cases, it seems clear that we have all three. We have millions of accounts that can be corroborated by family members, friends, doctors, nurses, and hospice workers. Corroboration is important in establishing some objectivity to what is a very subjective experience. It lends credence to the accounts. One example of corroboration is given in Pam's NDE out of Atlanta, GA, which can be seen on Youtube.

Consistency is also important to the establishment of the truth of the premises. We have a high degree of consistency across a wide variety of reports. What are these consistent reports?

1) Seeing one's body from a third person perspective, i.e., from outside one's body, and hearing and seeing what's happening around their bodies.
2) Having intense feelings of being loved, and also intense feeling of peace.
3) Seeing a light or tunnel in the distance and feeling that one is being drawn to the light, or moving through the tunnel towards the light.
4) Seeing deceased loved ones.
5) Seeing beings of light that one may interpret as Jesus, Mary, Muhammad, an angel, or just a loving being that one may feel connected to.
6) Heightened sensory experiences, viz., feeling that one is having an ultra real experience, as opposed to a dream or a hallucination.
7) Communication that happens mind-to-mind, not verbally.
8) Seeing beautiful landscapes.
9) Seeing people who are getting ready or waiting to be born.
10) Having a life-review by a loving being who is not judgmental in any way, but simply showing you how important it is to love, and the importance of your actions on those you come in contact with.
11) Feeling as though one has returned home. This is also confirmed by people who were told they chose to come to Earth.
12) A feeling of oneness with everything, as though consciousness is at the bottom of everything.
13) Memories of who they really are return, as though they temporarily forgot who they were, and where they came from.
14) There are also reports of knowledge returning, and many questions being answered.
15) Understanding that ultimately we cannot be harmed.
16) That we are eternal beings simply entering into one of many realities.

These are just some of the reports from those who experienced an NDE, and some of these reports are confirmed by those who have taken DMT.

Another aid in establishing the truth of the testimonial evidence are firsthand accounts, as opposed to hearsay. There are literally thousands of firsthand accounts being reported by the International Association of Near Death Studies. And according to polling, there are hundreds of millions of firsthand accounts of NDEs.

The fifth criteria is cogency of the premises. Whether the argument is cogent for you depends on many factors, but many people have heard of near death experiences, so the concept is not an unfamiliar one. It is not going to be cogent for everyone, but with a little study and reading it can be cogent. It is not difficult to understand the concept. Although it is probably going to be difficult to understand how it is metaphysically possible. This argument is claiming that it is highly probable that consciousness survives the death of the body, and that the conclusion is very strong based on what makes for strong inductive arguments.

The further claim of this argument is that I know that I know the conclusion is true. Is it possible the conclusion is wrong? Of course it is possible, but we do not want to base a belief on what is possible, but on what is likely the case. All kinds of things are possible, but that does not mean we should believe them.

The following is a deductive proof.
So how would I construct a proof? It is very simple. The following is a deductive argument based on the evidence of the inductive argument.

Modus Ponens:

(1) If it is true that NDE reports are accurate, just as any veridical experience is, then consciousness survives the death of the body.
(2) It is true that NDE reports are accurate, just as any veridical experience is.
(3) Conclusion: Consciousness survives the death of the body.

As with any deductive argument all you have to do is dispute any premise, i.e., show that any premise is not true.

I believe the inductive argument is more apt to be believed, so it is a stronger argument in some ways.

A testimony can never serve as proof of a thing — Pilgrim

I agree, testimonial evidence is not a proof, but where did I say it was? On the other hand, it depends on how you're using the term proof, i.e., if you mean proof as in a deductive argument, again I agree, but if you're using the term loosely, as in strong evidence, then I disagree. That said, it's not difficult to construct a proof, which I will do at the end of these posts.
Proofs have limits, which I will discuss later.

Millions of consistent testimonies can never serve as proof of a thing — Pilgrim

Again, I agree, but let me re-emphasize something, one doesn't need a proof to make the claim that one has knowledge of their conclusion. In other words, all we need to know is that the conclusion follows with a high degree of probability. We do it all the time. I'm not sure why so many amateur philosophers are under the false impression that we should only make knowledge claims if our conclusion follows with absolute necessity. If this was true, then I couldn't make the claim that I know algebra based on my grade of 95%, since there would be a 5% chance I could be wrong. I couldn't tell you that I know my brand new car will start, since there is a slight chance I could be wrong. Most of our knowledge claims follow with a high degree of certainty, rarely, do we use proofs in our everyday lives in terms of our knowledge claims. Moreover, one forgets that a proof is only one way of having knowledge.

I'm not going to address the rest of your post, I'm just going to give my argument again. The arguments in the following posts will be both inductive and deductive.

My claim is that there is sufficient testimonial evidence to reasonably conclude that consciousness survives the death of the body. In other words, I'm making the claim that I know the conclusion is true. And although I believe that I could make other claims based on the evidence, i.e., claims of knowledge, I'm limiting the scope of the conclusion. By limited, I mean I'm not trying to give evidence of a god, heaven, that we are eternal beings, or any other spiritual or religious idea; nor am I trying to give evidence of many of the other claims people are making while having such an experience. Although I do believe there is strong evidence to support other conclusions, and these conclusions have varying degrees of certainty, just as many of our everyday rational conclusions have varying degrees of certainty.

The first question is, what makes a strong inductive argument? As many of you know, the criteria for a good inductive argument is much different than the criteria of a good deductive argument. The criteria of a good inductive argument are as follows:

(1) number
(2) variety
(3) scope of the conclusion
(4) truth of the premises
(5) cogency

First, number. It seems rather obvious that if you have a greater number of testimonials that say X happened, then the stronger the argument. This does not mean that the conclusion relies solely on numbers, because numbers in themselves are not sufficient.

Second, variety. The greater the variety of cases cited the stronger the conclusion. Remember that when examining the conclusion of an inductive argument, the conclusion is either strong or weak, which is much different from a good deductive argument, where the conclusion follows with absolute necessity. The difference being what is probably or likely the case (inductive arguments), verses what necessarily follows (deductive arguments).

Third, scope of the conclusion. This has already been covered briefly in the opening paragraph. It means that the less the conclusion claims the stronger the argument. In other words, conclusions that are broad in scope are much harder to defend. A conclusion that is limited in scope is easier to defend.

Fourth, truth of the premises. Clearly this means that the premises must be true, which by the way, is the same criteria that makes a good deductive argument, i.e., a good deductive argument must be sound (soundness has to do with whether the deductive argument is valid, plus the premises must be true).

(a) Also, since we are dealing with testimonial evidence, in order to know if the testimonial evidence is true we need corroboration, i.e., we need an objective way to verify some of the testimonial evidence. This helps to establish the truth of the testimonial evidence, and since the evidence is testimonial evidence, it helps to establish the fourth criteria of a good inductive argument, viz., the truth of the premises.

(b) Another important factor in determining the truth of testimonial evidence is firsthand testimony, as opposed to hearsay or secondhand testimony. Firsthand testimony is stronger than hearsay or second-hand testimony, all things being equal.

(c) Consistency of the reports is another important criterion in terms of getting to the truth. However, testimonial evidence does not have to be perfectly consistent to be credible. When dealing with a large number of reports you will inevitably find some inconsistency. So, inconsistency itself is not enough to rule out the reports unless the inconsistency is widespread, and of such a number that it affects the quality and number of consistent reports. So although consistency is important, it must be looked at in terms of the overall picture.

Fifth is cogency. You rarely here this criteria, but it's very important in terms of effectiveness. Any argument's (deductive or inductive) effectiveness is going to be based on whether the person to whom the argument is given, knows the premises are true. For example, if I give the following argument:

The base of a souffle is a roux.
This salmon dish is a souffle.
Hence, the base of this salmon dish is a roux.

If you do not know what a souffle or a roux is, then you do not know if the premises are true, so how would you know if the conclusion is true. You may know that the argument is valid based on its form, but you would not know if the premises are true. Thus, you would not know if it is sound. For any argument to be effective, you have to know if the premises are true; and since knowledge varies from person to person, an arguments effectiveness is going to vary from person to person.

I will give the actual argument in my next post based on these criteria.

These are videos about one person's DMT experiences. I'm posting them here because there are similarities between these and NDEs. Here are a series of four videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca5tZ2njgq4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfdrjWqQrZA&t=31s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WVrIRVcLi8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C-24hOpvJ8

because it is made distinct from behaviour. I suspect a consequence of the approach Wittgenstein takes is to join mental states and behaviour - but that becomes a clumsy wording and leads to my (and his?) being accused of behaviourism. — Banno

Ya, it may lead to people accuse you of behaviorism, but I'm surely not going to let accusations dictate my beliefs. People will always misunderstand things, including myself, but all I'm doing is letting Wittgenstein's thoughts, as I interpret them, lead me to new avenues of thinking.

People also think that Wittgenstein promoted the idea that meaning is equivalent to use, or that language-games are what determine meaning. These are just misunderstandings.

I'm thinking about this in relation to the following from Snakes Alive:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/214348 — Banno

He's relearning the use of a word, just as a child would learn to use a word. I don't see the connection between what you said above and this video.

It's not just a matter of doing things in a language-game, it's doing things correctly.

But despite there not being a something, the game takes place; and has a role. We do things with our talk of pain. — Banno

I don't remember the context of this quote. I believe the point was, that if there was no pain behavior, the word pain would be practically meaningless. The pain behavior in social settings is what gives meaning to the word pain. The pain behavior also reflects a mental state, although the mental state in itself doesn't confer meaning. It's the mental state along with the behavior in social settings. Without the mental phenomena there would be no behavior in social settings. I'm not saying that mental states are objects that the word latches onto. So it goes something like this: mental states - behavior - words in social contexts - meaning - but it doesn't work in reverse, that is, you can't point back to the mental state to give the word meaning. The mental state is not an object that confers meaning. Repeating for emphasis.

What are we to make of "I know how to ride a bike"?

The justification here, if there is one, is in riding the bike. The doing makes the knowing so.

I haven't ridden one for a few years - perhaps I've forgotten how...

Or I suffer an inner ear infection that makes balance impossible, and so cannot demonstrate my skill; do I still know how to ride? — Banno

Well, it's similar to knowing how to count to ten, it's knowledge as a skill. The evidence or the justification is in the doing. If you say you can ride a bike, then get on and fall on your butt, then you don't have the skill. It doesn't matter that you once had the skill. The point is that your claim is no longer true.

Basically just another restatement of the argument from evil. The theist response is compensating goods. A moral God can allow evil if there is a compensating good. A compensating good must be much better than the evil, and the compensating good can not be possible without the evil. A theist would claim that our free will is such a compensating good. — Rank Amateur

I find this reprehensible. It's worse than the previous posts. You can justify just about anything under this idea. In fact, you have justified some of the most hideous evils under this idea.

First of all, premise 1a assumes that “God created people in such a way that they would sin.” This is indicating that God has created human beings who are prone to sin rather than not to sin. It is assuming that sinning is a behavior that God has programmed into every human at the time of creation; since it is forced onto human beings, sinning is not a choice but an inevitable consequence of God’s creation of the humankind. If someone were to ask: why do human beings sin, the answer in such context would be: because God made them to. This seems wrong to the mainstream Christian beliefs. God created human beings with free will, so that they are free to make choices of their own behaviors. To sin or not to sin are two choices with an equal chance of being selected by each individual before temptations. Either sinning is a choice by each human being, or God did not create human with free will. In the Christian belief, God has created human beings with free will, thus sinning is a choice out of free will rather than a behavior God has programmed into every human. — CYU-5

The following is what I see as the real problem. First, God knew that he was creating beings with a free will. Second, he knew that people would use that free will to reject him. Third, he knew that most people would reject him, or at least a billions would reject him. It would also seem to follow from this, that if God knew, for example, that creating Hitler would result in the murder of millions of people, then God is responsible for that evil. He is just as guilty as if he did it himself. For example, if I create a robot with a free will, knowing that that robot would murder people, then you would be within your right to charge me with murder. So either something is wrong with the doctrine you are proposing, or something is wrong with the concepts, or it's just incoherent. It's probably all three.

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Completely compatible, and entirely deserving of each other. — Marcus de Brun

It's utter nonsense.

How can you know that something will happen if that thing won't happen? It doesn't make sense to know that X is true and for X to be false. — Michael

I never said any such thing, that's your interpretation of what I said.

So you're saying god can be wrong, right? — VagabondSpectre

Well, first, I don't believe in the religious idea of God. However, if we assume there is a God that is omniscient in the Christian sense, i.e., that this being knows all that can be known (just a basic definition), then what we mean by know has to be in some way related to the concepts we're using. Second, I'm not sure that an omniscient being would arrive at knowledge in the same way we do, or that you could even say it's knowledge in the sense we mean. However, let's assume that it's possible that there is a being that's omniscient in the way many Christians believe for the purpose of this discussion.

I said was that knowledge of a future event doesn't necessitate the event. We know this from our own understanding of knowledge. For example, "I know the sun will rise tomorrow, but my knowing this doesn't cause the sun to rise tomorrow." So there is no causal link, as some might think.

My only point is that if God knows before he creates you, that you will make choices that necessitate being sent to hell, why would he create you? Why even bother to create a being that will spend eternity in hell? I can't make any sense of a God like this.

I further stated that the free will argument doesn't defend against my argument, because your free will is taken into account by God. For instance, if God is omniscient, then before he created you, he would know that you would exercise your free will with the kinds of choices that would send you to hell. This is not a loving being in my mind, it's a being that people have created in their own minds.

Finally, the Christian idea of God, makes God responsible for evil. For example, if I created a robot with a free will knowing that robot would kill millions of people, then I would be responsible for the evil. This is why I think that the God of the Christians is ultimately evil, given the way they define God. It's not a loving being at all, it's a being that you should despise. I don't think such a being exists. If there is a God, then this God doesn't have the attributes Christians assign to him/her.

I have no idea what you're talking about. If you're trying to tell me that God's knowledge necessitates events, I disagree. Knowing that some event will happen, doesn't necessitate the event. We know that from our own knowledge.

I think of it just a bit differently. If God is supposedly omniscient, and he knew what choices you would make before he created you, why would he create you knowing you would end up in hell? That for me, makes God immoral. And the tired free will argument doesn't work if this is true, because he knew what choices you would freely make, and those choices would lead to hell.

What I was/am thinking is that justification requires reasoning and that reasoning sometimes consists of contemplated or expressed causal relations. — javra

I understand, but I think this is an error. I was trying to point out that reasoning is separate from causality because it involves intention and choice. Causality, as I see it, is quite separate in terms of reasoning, but not separate in terms of some beliefs. Not all beliefs are a matter of reason. However, the beliefs I'm specifically referring to, are those beliefs that are connected with JTB.

Also, there are no prelinguistic JTBs, but there are prelinguistic beliefs. Justification is a linguistic endeavor, and always has been. There is no medium for justification apart from language. It necessarily involves others within a linguistic setting.

A reason, by definition, is a cause, motive, or explanation. It then naturally renders reasoning as the process of providing causes, motives, or explanations for. To justify a belief as true, I then argue, is to provide valid reasoning (a set of valid, i.e. consistent, causes, motives, and/or explanations) for a belief being true. — javra

There is an important distinction that needs to be made in reference to justifying a belief by giving reasons as opposed to citing a cause for a belief. First, causes happen before their effects in time, i.e., they precede their effects. Reasons on the other hand may or may not precede a particular belief. Second, causes have nothing to do with purpose or intention, but reasons do. Third, reasons can be good or bad reasons, but causes are not good or bad in the same way, i.e., my judgment about a cause is different than my judgment about your reasons. This has to do with intentions, or with choices made by persons.

Again, as I said before, there are beliefs that are caused, but to justify a belief, as in JTB, we're not referring to causes but good reasons.

I get it, I just don't thinks its correct. — Cheshire

I'm always presenting knowledge, by definition. :nerd:

Another point of emphasis, is that you can be justified in believing that something is true, but that doesn't mean it is true. It not only must be justified, but the belief must be true for it to be knowledge. Justification alone isn't enough.

If I recall it wasn't simply a matter of knowledge being subject to time, but rather a case where JTB criteria was met but the matter still found to not be knowledge — Cheshire

Yes, I understand that, but what I said still holds. For example, let's say that I see what I think are five red barns in a field at time T1. I justify my belief based on my general belief that my sensory perceptions are generally accurate. So I believe that I'm justified in believing that I see five red barns, i.e., JTB. However, later at T2, I see that they aren't barns at all, but something else. So the question arises, were you justified (justified in the sense that you have knowledge) at T1? The answer is, no. Why? Because the justification was not warranted in that instance, because of what we found out later.

The error idea is a point in my favor. Basically it says that the instance above is only probable knowledge, i.e., it takes into account that I could be wrong about my claim; and we know this based on past experiences. If you were to ask the person who claims to see the five barns, "Is it possible you're wrong about your claim?" - They would probably respond, "Yes." It often happens that people think or belief they're justified when they're not. Again, because one thinks one is justified, and has indeed followed the rules of justification, that doesn't mean they are justified. There is a difference between the definition of knowledge, which necessarily is JTB, as opposed to your belief that you have knowledge. One is true by definition, the other not.

It doesn't make JTB untenable. In fact, it just shows that not all claims amount to JTB. You seem to be applying some absolute sense to our claims of knowledge. What would be the point to challenging someone's claim to knowledge (a justified claim), if one couldn't be wrong about the claim. This goes directly to the idea of a doubting a claim.

There is more to this, but this is a start.

Fire causes discomfort when touched. That doesn't require language to learn. Is it not the ground for believing that touching fire caused pain? — creativesoul

There are causal beliefs. For example, my belief that snakes are dangerous was caused by the bite of the snake. But I would take issue with the idea that the cause is a ground or justification, as in an epistemological ground. Why would you think that causal effects are a grounding. Moreover, to answer the question why I believe something, it may take into account both causality and reasons/evidence, but there is a big difference in terms of epistemology. If a cause is the same as a justification, then we can justify all kinds of weird things. When I talk about justification or a grounding, I'm talking about reasons/evidence, and I think most philosophers are talking about reasons/evidence.

One cannot provide the ground of a belief to another privately. Providing ground is existentially dependent upon language. Language is social. — creativesoul

Yes, we seem to agree here, providing you're using ground as a synonym for justification, as I am.

I'm saying that one need not provide the ground in order to have the ground. — creativesoul

Which seems to be another way of saying the following:

It's in the private setting, after I learn it in a social setting, that I don't have to state it. I know what it means to justify, so in this sense I don't need to state anything. — Sam26

I can have the ground without stating the ground, but learning the ground is social.

It may be obvious to you, some of this, but I'm still trying to get clear on how you're using the words ground and justification. For me, to say a belief is well-grounded is essentially the same as saying, the belief is justified. Are you also thinking of a grounding as in bedrock?

And before you object, I mean to say especially philosophers, when I say people. My primary reason for making JTB a target is just because it's so well guarded from criticism and taught as if were a law of thought; when as Gettier showed in nearly satirical fashion the emperor has no cloths — Cheshire

This idea that Gettier somehow showed that JTB is flawed is just not the case. It's as if Gettier performed a slight of hand, and people think it's an actual picture of reality. It's true that some philosophers think this, but I would consider that all Gettier pointed out is the difference between a claim to knowledge, as opposed to actual knowledge. So if I make a claim, and that claim appears to be JTB, but in the end turns out to be false, then it's simply not knowledge. There is nothing difficult here. No amount of thinking something is JTB, amounts to something actually being JTB.

There are very few absolutes when it comes to JTB. Much of the time what we believe is justified is based on what's probable, not what's absolute. I can perform all the experiments in the world that confirm a theory, but that doesn't mean that that one chance in a million cannot occur and flip your theory on its head. Depending on how you take your theory of course, if you understand that's it's just based on probability, then it won't have much of an affect on your theory. However, if you think that what you know is an absolute, then it might turn your theory on it's head.

There are a lot of variations, but I would say that JTB fits about as well as one might expect, given how we use the term.

Nothing sensible can be said here. The category Philosophy of Religion ought be empty. — Banno

Wow, we are far apart on this one. :gasp:

I think the question of the importance of the understanding of language (over and above the mere ability to use it, obviously) to philosophy hinges on the question of intellectual intuition. When philosophers claim that abstruse metaphysics is 'language on holiday' this is grounded on the empiricist assumption that concepts such as, for example, 'infinity' and 'eternity' are not somehow directly intuitive 'graspings' of something 'beyond', but are simply arrived at by negating ordinary empirically derived concepts such as 'space' and 'time', and that they are subsequently reified as transcendent actualities.

So, in this sense philosophy of language, so-called analytic philosophy is firmly underpinned by empiricist assumptions which are themselves based on science and it's exclusion of the non-empirical, of any notion of the transcendent.

The problem for any transcendence talk would seem to be that its very indeterminacy renders intersubjective corroboration impossible; which makes it unsuitable for science and even for philosophy conceived as a search for determinate truth. If philosophy is conceived as being more akin to poetry than to science, then this problem of indeterminacy need not be so fatal to philosophical dialogue.

It all depends on what you think philosophy is, or on what you want it to be. — Janus

Thanks Janus for your thoughts, your post is in keeping with the spirit of this thread. I was looking for both thoughts I agreed with and disagreed with.

Much of my thinking these days is focused on two subjects, epistemology (as it connects with Wittgenstein) and near death experiences. I've been reading a book called Longing to Know by Esther Meek, and her epistemology is very different from my own. The disagreements between Esther Meek's philosophy and my own are profound, as I believe our disagreements are. However, I think there are interesting points of overlap with her epistemology, and some of what you said. In some ways they're similar.

As someone who believes that we do survive death, and (by survive I mean that we survive as who we are, not just as energy, but as the person we are) that there is some connection between the two realities. Moreover, since it's my contention that consciousness is the unifying principle of the universe, and that we're all connected to this consciousness or mind, then there is a connection in some profound way between that mind and ours.

Just to be clear I don't believe in God in the traditional sense, nor are my beliefs connected with a particular religion, but I do believe there are mystical facts of reality (based on my studies of NDEs). Also, I don't believe language goes on a holiday when talking about some of these ideas, although, it probably does in some or many contexts.

As I said above, I think there is a connection between the two realities, viz., a mind-to-mind connection. How this takes place is a mystery, although I do have some speculative ideas. What I mean is that there are nonlinguistic beliefs or ideas that seem to be generated from a place of transcendence (to use your wording); and that these beliefs, ideas, intuitions, whatever you want to call them, are not language based. They seem to be thoughts generated from some kind of mind-to-mind interaction, and I believe there is evidence for this. And although they're not language based, they can be put into language, i.e., the thoughts can be transformed into language. So we're going from a place of metacognition, or as you say, the intersubjective, to a language based epistemological belief system. And I connect the two based on the idea of prelinguistic beliefs, of which many are empirical, but some are not. Some are abstract, and they get translated or transformed into our language-games. Thus, they become public.

The problem I had with Esther Meek's position is that she wants to claim that the metacognitive or intersubjective is a kind of knowledge, and here's where I disagree. I do think there are beliefs that are prelinguistic, but I don't think there is prelinguistic knowledge. I'm not sure we even have words that fit that transcendent reality in some instances. So although there is overlap, it's very difficult to describe because of the nature of language, and the nature of the reality in which we now reside. The tendency is to bring language into the transcendent, which I think can be done, but it doesn't always work. In cases where it doesn't work, I think we can say that language has gone on a holiday. What I mean is that certain words/concepts only make sense within the language-game of their residence, so we have to choose are words carefully. How we describe the transcendent is very difficult, but I do believe there is a flow from the transcendent to our linguistic world.

This is what I meant when I said there is overlap in some of our position, at least it appears so.