Confidentlywrong: we both know that pigs are dogs, don't we?

Bartricks: pigs aren't dogs. What are you on about?

Confidentlywrong: well, we disagree about then, yes? Can you show me an example of a pig that is not a dog?

Bartricks: Take any pig - it's not a dog.

Confidentlywrong: but dogs are horses. We all know that.

Bartricks: No, dogs are not horses. And pigs are not dogs.

Confidentlywrong: Well, can you show me a pig that is not a dog

Bartricks: I just did.

Confidentlywrong: But I do not read what you say. So, without writing anything, can you show me a pig that is not a dog

Bartricks: no.

Confidentlywrong: there you go - you see! Pigs are dogs, which are horses.

I just did.

Read me.

Here:

1. If it is Tuesday, then it is raining (false)
2 It is not raining (false)
3. Therefore it is not Tuesday (true) — Bartricks

Read.

False premisses cannot lead(validly/logically) to true conclusions. — creativesoul

Yes. THey. Can. Christ!! Remember: you're not the teacher! Your name should be 'Confidentlywrong'.

Er, what are you on about?

we both know that false premisses cannot validly lead to true conclusions. — creativesoul

You can't 'know' that, because it is obviously false! A valid argument with false premises can lead to a true conclusion!!

1. If it is Tuesday, then it is raining (false)
2 It is not raining (false)
3. Therefore it is not Tuesday (true)

And in the original clock case. The false belief that the clock is working does provide the agent with a justification for believing it is 3 o clock.

Hence why they are considered counterexamples to the justified-true-belief account of knowledge.

Yes, as I just explained in the example described above.

Believing a broken clock is working is a false belief. False belief is never good justificatory ground...

That's the simple account already given that fiveredapples just elaborately echoed... — creativesoul

And that I just refuted. Only you've have to read what I said to realise that.

Ah, the great ovdtogt has pronounced.

Time is what allows you to reflect on the past and plan for the future. — ovdtogt

No it isn't. It 'is' the past and the future (and the present). Stop trying to be profound. Time is love on a tricycle. Time is what tomorrow needs to prevent it from being today. No, no, no.

Why do you think most philosophers disagree with each other?

They don't, I think. I think you'll find far more agreement among philosophers than among the public at large. It is just that philosophers focus on what they disagree about. So they don't disagree about more, they disagree about less. It is just that they are clever and reasonable and so they recognise - virtually all of them recognise - that on those matters where they disagree they need to spend more time. Hence the focus on areas of disagreement.

It is the public that disagree about things, but unlike philosophers they either conclude (stupidly) that 'it's all a matter of opinion' or 'subjective' or they punch each other.

I do not follow you, so need more detail.

My original point was that it would be clearly absurd to suggest that time had slowed down for the cheese in the fridge. Fewer events have occurred in the refrigerated cheese than in the cheese on the sideboard, that's all.

Perhaps that analysis cannot be given of the case you describe, but I do not grasp that case yet so can't assess it.

Here, I think you're introducing an idea, or notion, that isn't necessary to the conversation; namely, the notion of luck. — fiveredapples

Hmm, I do not think you're right, but it doesn't really affect my point, which I'll elaborate on shortly.

First, you say that in the original clock example the agent does not really have a justification because broken clocks are not reliable time-tellers and the agent is looking at a broken clock.

Several things: first, intuitively the agent 'is' justified. They could not reasonably have been expected to know that the clock was not working. So, they were justified in believing it was working, and so subsequently justified in believing it was the time that it represented it to be.

Second, for the sake of argument let's test your analysis. If it is correct, then any belief about the time based on a broken clock's report should fail to qualify as knowledge. But I can imagine a case in which a person bases a belief about the time on a broken clock and their belief 'does' qualify as knowledge.

For example, imagine the clock has broken, but it has literally just broken - that is, it has broken at the point at which its hands reach 3 o clock. It was working fine up to that point. The agent then looks at the clock. Now, the agent is looking at a broken clock and, on the basis of its report, he forms the belief that it is 3 o clock (which it is). This time it seems clear enough that the agent does have knowledge, yes?
Yet their belief is based on the report of a broken clock.

But anyway, I am not married to the 'luck' analysis either, for my point is not that this or that analysis is always and everywhere correct, but rather that whatever diagnosis we give of why the agent lacks knowledge in the relevant case, we will be able to construct another case in which that 'key' ingredient is present and the agent lacks knowledge (or absent, and the agent possesses knowledge)

That's not to say that the diagnosis of the original case was wrong. It is just to note that there is no stability to what is, and is not doing the work of making it the case that the agent has knowledge (apart from possessing a true belief). So it is to say that the diagnosis does not locate an ingredient of knowledge, even when it is correct - that is, even when it correctly diagnoses why the agent lacked knowledge on this particular occasion.

So, take 'justification'. I understand that term to mean 'has normative reason to believe'. Now it seems to me that in many cases an agent knows something due to the fact they have a justification for their true belief.

But there also seem cases in which an agent has a justification for their true belief and lacks knowledge.

And there also seem to be cases in which an agent knows something yet lacks a justification (in an example I gave earlier, I might acquire a true belief, but the belief is so trivial there is no normative reason for me to believe it - yet intuitively I may still have knowledge in such a case).

So the lesson I take from the many hundreds, if not thousands of failed attempts that have been made to specify what ingredients knowledge is made from, is that there is no stable set of ingredients beyond 'true belief' (though obviously 'true beliefs' often fail to qualify as knowledge too).

In turn that tells us something important about knowledge. It isn't made of those ingredients. Rather, it is something that those ingredients typically bring about.

For an analogy: take the property of being 'delicious-to-Bartricks'. Now, there are plenty of things I find delicious and they often have things in common - such as containing chocolate, or lots of sugar, or whatever. But it would be a mistake to think that because I often find something delicious due to it containing chocolate, that therefore anything that contains chocolate I will find delicious. No, in fact sometimes I might dislike something due to it containing chocolate (a potato stuffed with chocolate - no, that's not delicious at all).

What conclusion would it be reasonable to draw from that? Well, that 'delicious-to-Bartricks' is not something made of ingredients, but is rather an attitude that certain combinations of ingredients, in certain circumstances, produce in Bartricks. The whole project of trying to figure out what ingredients delicious-to-Bartricks is made of is misguided.

I am drawing the same lesson in respect of knowledge. Knowledge has no stable ingredients beyond true belief (just as 'delicious-to-Bartricks' has no stable ingredients beyond edibility). Thus it is reasonable to conclude that 'knowledge' is an attitude that a person is adopting towards true beliefs. Not, I emphasis, an attitude one of us is adopting towards true beliefs, but an attitude Reason is adopting towards them.

What attitude? Well, the knowledge attitude. The attitude we are referring to when we 'feel' that we know something. Only it has to be felt by Reason, not us.

A substance bears properties. Extended would mean that it occupies some space - that is has volume, shape.

which is why I don't think this discussion ever goes anywhere. — khaled

But I've argued that time is not a substance. If the case is good, then we have gotten somewhere, for now we know that thinking of it that way is a mistake.

What's a "stuff" and what's a "dimension." I think attempting to define things so basic to our experience like "time", "space" and my favorite "shape" doesn't lead anywhere. I think these are concepts that cannot be reduced to anything else. — khaled

I think the important distinction would be between substances that are extended and those that are not. Time, to the extent that it is conceived of as a kind of substance, must be being conceived of as being an extended stuff. And it is extended stuff that generates the problems.

And does the eye or mind unravel every detail of the universe? If there are features of reality we cannot fathom does that negate their existence? — John Gill

'No' to both. But if our reason - that is, the unprejudiced reason of most of us - tells us that something is not the case, then that is excellent prima facie evidence that it is not the case.

Note too that even those who, for dogmatic reasons, insist that only the reports of the five senses give us insight into anything real, also have to appeal to reason, for it is by reason - not sense - that we recognise that our senses provide us with insight into something.

Manifest=clear or obvious to the eye or mind. — John Gill

Hmm, no, just as it is clear to sight that there are colours, it is clear to reason - that is, our faculties of reason represent it to be the case - that 2 + 2 = 4 and that this:

1. P
2. Q
3. Therefore P and Q

is valid, and that no proposition that is true is also false, and that no actual infinities exist.

Obviously there is no suggestion here that our reason is an infallible guide to reality, but it is ultimately the only guide we have (such that even establishing that some of what our reason represents to be the case is not, in fact, the case would require appealing to reason).

And yet it can be dealt with as a dimension in mathematics and physics and predict observed results. — John Gill

That's consistent with it not being a dimension.

We can note too that if it is a dimension then we would predict that it would be infinitely divisible and would extend infinitely - yet nothing can be like that, and so we now know that treating it 'as if' it were a dimension is merely useful, in much the same way as, for example, taking our sense reports at face value is often useful even though reality may not be as they represent it to be. And we would predict that there would be no fundamental difference between an event's being present, past or future (yet manifestly there is a world of difference).

yet nothing that is infinitely divisible can exist in reality — Bartricks
Why not? Just curious. — John Gill

It is manifest to reason that 2 + 2 = 4 and that if a proposition is true it is not also false, and it is manifest to reason that nothing can actually extend for infinity, or be composed of an actual infinity of parts.

For example, someone who claimed there was a hotel that was full and would remain full even if half the occupants left, is someone we know a priori has said something false. There can be no such place. Yet if actual infinities are permitted, then such a hotel would be possible.

To continue, if I may, you say this:

The famous twin paradox of special relativity involves a scenario where one twin (he) rockets away from the home twin (her), coasts to a far-away turnpoint, reverses course, coasts back, and comes to a halt when they are reunited. At the reunion, both twins agree (by inspection) that she is older than he is. — Mike Fontenot

How is this different from me putting one piece of cheese in the fridge and another on the sideboard and then reuniting them on the sideboard a week later and noting that the piece of cheese on the sideboard seems to have 'aged' considerably more than the piece I put in the fridge?

It is not, of course, that time has slowed down for the cheese in the fridge. No, it is just that processes involving one have sped up relative to the other.

So, the twin who rockets away has, in effect, put himself in a fridge. Or is that a mistaken way to think about it?

If two people have equally good evidence for contradictory positions, it does not follow that they are both correct. For instance, there may be just as good evidence that Jack-the-Ripper was Tim Baloney as there is that he was John Junk. It does not follow that both judgments are true, just that they are equally justified.

So, are you saying that they will both have equally good evidence for contradictory judgments?

Or are you saying that both of their judgments will be true?

If the latter, then they don't contradict (unless you are claiming that contradictions can be true). Yet you seem to be suggesting that their judgments 'do' contradict.

That's strange, but it can't be shown to lead to an actual logical inconsistency.
— Mike Fontenot

But that 'is' a logical inconsistency - that is, if their judgments contradict but you claim they are both true, then we have a logical inconsistency.

So I am not yet understanding what the difficulty is.

I do not understand.

I am not sure I understand the problem. Is it that situations can arise in which one person, Jill, has apparent evidence that James has aged more slowly than she, and James will have apparent evidence that Jill has aged more slowly than he?

If so, that as it stands is not really a problem as such, for we can simply say that one of them is mistaken. They may both be equally justified in their beliefs, nevertheless, one of them is incorrect.

Read my replies. No more replies to you apart from 'read my replies' until you do. Read them. Manners, matey - get some.

You've not offered a valid objection to what I've offered. Hand waving won't cut it. Bald assertions won't do either. — creativesoul

And you have no manners. Read my replies. Actually read them and stop just saying I have no objections. Hundreds of bloody words of replies to you - hundreds of words of objections that you don't bother reading. Unbelievable!

Read them and learn a thing or two.

Read. Me. Read what I wrote in reply to you. Don't just arrogantly ignore it and keep repeating your silly point.

It's a silly point. As I explain in my replies to you. Replies you don't bother reading.

Read them.

Have done - that's the point!! You seem to think you have a stunningly good point - that Smith's belief about the occupier of the roles trouser content rigidly designates Jones.

a) it doesn't

b) even if it did, it is a piece of cake to come up with variations where Smith's belief is clearly about Jones and is true and is justified and yet fails to qualify as knowledge.

I have not carefully read your examples. — creativesoul

read them then. Have some bloody manners and read them. I read your junk and now I have to wash my eyes.

Read them and see how easy it is to refute you.

If that person is anyone other than Jones, — creativesoul

Can you read??? First - no, you're just plain wrong. But second, even if you're not - read. my. variation.

In my variation Jones - Jones - gets the job and the belief is true and yet isn't knowledge.

You're wrong - read all about it.

Smith's belief is that Jones is the man with ten coins in his pocket who will get the job. That belief is false. No problem for JTB. — creativesoul

Have the decency to read my example. In my example Jones gets the job and Smith's belief is true and justified but not knowledge.

Which makes it all the sadder that you don't understand them. — Bartricks
:wink:

Yeah, that's it... — creativesoul

Yes. It is.

Your 'solution' demonstrably doesn't work.

The relevant belief is... ..."the person who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket". — Bartricks
Yes!

Bullseye!!!

Who's belief is it, and who precisely does it refer to? Not Smith.

I suggest you re-read what I've written tonight. — creativesoul

Er, no I won't be doing that except to quote this line, which I feel is apt:

Don't be such a dick. — creativesoul

Ding ding! Oh, there's the bell - playtime is over and lessons must begin.

Now, the belief is about the holder of the role. (A role that, in the original case, Smith gets).

So the belief is 'true'. And it is 'justified'. And yet it does not qualify as knowledge.

You are going to have to insist - absurdly -that the belief is false. That's wrong. It's true.

Now children, read my variation on the case - a variation that no-one needs to run, but that I ran just to highlight how profoundly wrong you are about the nature of the problem.

In my variation Smith's belief unquestionably refers to Jones, and to the coins in Jones's pocket. And it is true (because in my variation Jones does get the job). And yet it does not qualify as knowledge.

So, now write down in your copy books the following:

What's essential to a Gettier case is that a person acquires a true belief in an epistemically responsible way, yet the belief is true by fluke (which is always going to be possible so long as the epistemically responsible mechanism does not guarantee truth).

That's the sleight of hand my good man. — creativesoul

No it isn't. The relevant belief is not "Jones has 10 coins in his pocket" but "the person who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket".

For instance, that belief is 'true' (you'd have to insist it is false, yes? For by your reasoning what would make it true is Jones and Jones alone occupying the role with 10 coins in his pocket)

As I said, what's core to a Gettier example is that a person forms a belief in an epistemically responsible fashion, and the belief is true, but it is true by fluke (which is always going to be possible so long as the epistemically responsible fashion does not guarantee the truth of the belief it furnishes you with).

So, to see this just imagine another way of setting up the case. Imagine that Smith has justified beliefs that Jones will get the job and that Jones has 10 coins in his pocket. Now imagine that prior to the interview someone pickpockets Jones and steals the 10 coins. Then imagine that, by pure fluke, just after the pickpocketing incident, Jones finds 10 coins in the street and puts them in his pocket. Then Jones gets the job.

Now Smith believes that the person who gets the job has 10 coins in his pocket. And it turns out that the belief is true. But because it was by pure fluke that it was true - given the earlier incidents - Smith's belief, though justified, does not qualify as knowledge.

Perhaps you will reply that this time Smith's belief is about the 10 original coins and not the subsequent ones (which is prima facie absurd, of course). But in that case just imagine that the pickpocket dropped the coins after pickpocketing Jones and Jones, by pure fluke, found them on the street and put them in his pocket. Again, Smith's belief is going to be true and justified, yet not knowledge.

Oh, believe me... I've studied it very carefully. — creativesoul

Which makes it all the sadder that you don't understand them.

Here's the rub...

Smith's belief is about Jones, not anyone else. Someone other than Jones gets the job. Smith's belief is false. The referent of "the man with ten coins in his pocket" is Jones... not Smith. — creativesoul

That's it?? That's what you think overcomes Gettier cases? laughable.

He believes 'the person who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket". He also believes Jones will get the job and that Jones has ten coins in his pocket.

I'm more than happy to explain it, if you're willing to listen. — creativesoul

No you aren't or you'd have done so. All filler, no killer.

Remember - you don't even understand the cases you're talking about.

Read the article and then read some commentaries on it. Then realize I'm right.

Note how nice I am being in allowing you to go off in a self-righteous huff and save face.

You really aren't going to eat any more pie are you? There's so much of it!

Smith believes Jones will get the job. We agree here, right? — creativesoul

There's no 'we' here. Just explain. Lay it out for teacher. Show your working.

Do you understand that? — creativesoul

Now, you've stopped eating the humble pie - remember, I understand these cases far better than you. So stop acting like the reverse is true. It's a big spade o pie and the sooner you get your lips around it the better.

Again: you don't undersand them.

I mean, how the hell does this:

Smith believed Jones would get the job, and no one else. — creativesoul

refute them?!?

You really don't have a clue what you're talking about!! Not a clue. How do you boil an egg? I imagine you insist on first cracking it into a frying pan and then hurling the whole combo into a hedge.

Gettier cases refute justified-true-belief accounts of knowledge (and any other account of knowledge that appeals to some mechanism of belief acquisition that falls short of guaranteeing truth).

To overcome them you'd need to specify a mechanism of belief acquisition that did not guarantee the truth of the beliefs it leads to, yet is immune to Gettier-style refutation. By all means give that a go, but since no-one has yet been able to do that - indeed the task looks hopeless - I am not going to hold my breath.

They're called 'fake barn' cases. — Bartricks
Yeah, I've heard of 'em. Those are easy to refute as well. — creativesoul

Yes, you heard about them 3 or 4 minutes ago - from me.

Argh! My apologies. You're right. — creativesoul

That's the spirit. Get used to saying that. That's just one tiny crumb of humble pie there - I've got a spade of it for you.

Let's look at Case I... — creativesoul

You mean like I did and you didn't? Drop the teacher act. I don't need my hand held. I'm the one frogmarching you to school, sonny.

Hahaha - you really don't know your stuff. They're called 'fake barn' cases.

They're very well known in the literature. Literature I seem to be better acquainted with than you.

Yet you're confident about these matters - confident that Gettier cases have been 'solved'. Hmm. Interesting. I wonder who's right...…

I suggest you peruse the paper. — creativesoul

I'm looking at it right now. I suggest you read me.

Do you understand that? Do you follow me here, so far? — creativesoul

You don't understand the cases. YOu really don't.

OMg - you really don't understand Gettier cases. No, in the original case Smith believes that Jones - Jones - will get the job, and he also believes that because Jones has 10 coins in his pocket that the person who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket.

So, Smith believes that the person who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket.

But as it happens, Jones does not get the job. Smith does. And Smith happens to have 10 coins in his pocket.

Thus, Smith's belief that the person who gets the job has 10 coins in his pocket turns out - by fluke - to be true. Smith also acquired the belief in an epistemically responsible fashion. Hence, Smith has a justified, or well grounded, or warranted true belief - yet it doesn't qualify as knowledge.

Also, if you knew your stuff - and you don't, but want to give the impression you do (hence your thinking you need to 'educate' me), then you'd be able to answer my question.

So I'll ask it again: what case does my case involving the one working clock in the town full of clocks that do not work remind you of?

I'm going to attempt to get you to understand something... one more time... — creativesoul

No, take a humble pie and eat the whole thing - then go to the humble pie aisle in the supermarket and buy several more humble pies, and eat them.

You - you - don't understand Gettier cases.

Yes, obviously you don't have knowledge if you have a false belief. I said that. Everyone says that.

I was saying how you 'construct' a Gettier case.

So, once again, first imagine a case where a person acquires a belief impeccably, yet the belief is false.

So, Smith believes Jones will get the job and believes that the person who will get the job has 10 coins in his pocket, and he has acquired both beliefs in an epistemically responsible way (and make that any way you goddamn like, short of a way that guarantees truth). Now imagine that Jones does get the job but he happens not to have 10 coins in his pocket.

Now that - that - is not ('not') a Gettier case. That's a case in which a person has acquired a belief - the belief that the person who gets the job has 10 coins in his pocket - in an impeccable manner, yet it is false.

Next step. Imagine the case again, but this time imagine that, by fluke, the belief is true. So, Smith - not Jones - gets the job and he happens, by fluke, to have 10 coins in his pocket.

That - that - is a Gettier case.

Why? Because now Smith has acquired a 'true' belief in an epistemically responsible manner. And yet it does not qualify as knowledge.

Thus, the thesis that knowledge = true belief acquired in an epistemically responsible manner is false.

By the way - the example I gave in which the person, by fluke, looks at the one working clock in a town in which every clock bar one has stopped.....does that remind you of a case?

You can't exist at time t, and not exist at time t.

So, if your bodily death occurs at time t, then either you exist at time t, or you do not.

If you do not, then - if premise 1 is true - your death did not harm you.

But our deaths will be harms to us. Thus we must exist at time t. At time t our bodily existence ceased, but 'our' existence did not. Hence why death is something that happens to us (and harms us).

I don’t see this. Where is it that we survive our deaths? — Brett

You have to exist at the time of your death in order to be harmed by it. If we take death to mark the end of bodily existence - or 'this' bodily existence - then you must exist at the time your bodily existence ends. You have therefore survived the demise of your body.