Not that it's super common, but not a miracle either. — Manuel

In my experience it is "super common".

Knowledge requires that it is true, and not just a belief. Now, whether or not it is true is probabilistic, so it could turn out that what we think is true isn't; but that doesn't negate the importance of knowledge (i.e., true, justified, belief) vs. belief. — Bob Ross

From what you say it follows that we don't know that we know. If knowledge must be true and everything I think is true may not be, then I cannot be confident that I possess knowledge, even though I may, despite not knowing it or even being able to know it, possess knowledge.

Likewise, a belief could be justified, insofar as the probability of it being true is sufficient to warrant a belief, but not considered knowledge; because the probability of it being true isn't high enough.

Knowledge, to me, denotes sufficient confidence (credence) in it being true, given its probability/plausibility of being true. — Bob Ross

If we have no knowledge, then by what standard could we assess the likelihood of something being true?

If we don't know what is true, and we don't even know what beliefs are justified, then what do we know, if anything, according to you?

I don't agree with you anyway, I think there many things I can know to be true, or at least can be certain are the case: namely everything I am presently experiencing and doing. Of past events I can only be as certain as I am of the accuracy of my memory, so confidence must diminish with the temporal distance of events.

The essential issue is that the word 'knowing' is used to invoke delusional certainty, just like 'facts' and even the term 'certainty' itself. — Chet Hawkins

Yes, I agree with you here—the most significant and dangerous example of that being religious fundamentalism.

Thanks for trying, but I'm not seeing any actual arguments to recommend your position, so I remain unconvinced. I think we agree that there is no absolute truth at all to be had, so that is some commonality at least.

Humility and the 'fact' that I cannot know truth in any way, only approach it in many ways. — Chet Hawkins

But you do know that you just responded to my previous post, and that it's true that you did. What possible reason could you have to doubt that? It seems to me that you are confusing yourself unnecessarily.

When it comes to metaphysical matters, I agree that nothing is known or knowable. We cannot know truth in any absolute sense. It is in the metaphysical domain that belief reigns supreme.

It is not really the real me that is reading this. It is a subjective interpretation of me that I am projecting currently onto the real me. — Chet Hawkins

What leads you to believe there is a "real you" over and above, beyond or apart from the you that you are familiar with?

If knowledge requires perfection, by which I take you to mean certainty, can I not be certain that I am presently sitting in my house at the computer typing this and looking out my window at the forest adjacent to my house with one of my dogs at my side and the other I know not where?

But I think that there are empirical facts of the matter.

Direct awareness, knowledge, and belief are distinct, but given the need for evolutionary progression, I cannot agree with claiming that they are independent. — creativesoul

For me an empirical fact is something that can be directly observed. That said, I think we may be talking at cross-purposes. I agree that, in the sense that everyone is aware of things, believes things and knows things that awareness, believing and knowing cannot be completely independent.

My point is that we can be aware of a particular thing without believing or knowing anything about that thing, we can believe a particular thing without being aware of or knowing anything about that thing, and we can know how to do something without believing anything or being aware of doing the thing. Of course, we do have to be aware of what we are doing when we are learning to do something. I think it really comes down to how you want to think about it. There is not just one correct way.

Do you mean Chet has managed to escape before being burnt by the fire, together with the stick? — Alkis Piskas

It's a possibility, although for all we know he may already have felt he was burned.

Chet has flown the coop and the plastic stick has melted.

"Shrug"...if you say so...

The key thing about this limit to logically justified certainty is that it opens the mind sufficiently for things as a Buddhist enlightenment to occur. If not for this the true nature of reality would always be dismissed out-of-hand as ridiculously implausible and never even cross the mind as a remote possibility. — PL Olcott

I don't believe anything in the propositional sense is known in the kinds of altered states of consciousness people refer to as "enlightenment". But such altered states are a kind of knowledge: a kind of familiarity or know-how.

And if you can learn to alter your state of consciousness without drugs that would be a case of know-how even more so. That said, even doing it with drugs should count as know-how.

That's one way to talk about it. — creativesoul

I agree that it comes down to which should be thought the best way of talking about it, since there is no empirical fact of the matter to be found. I personally prefer to think in terms of direct awareness, knowledge and belief all being quite distinct and independent of one another. So, we can simply be aware of things and entities. We can know how to do things and recognize things, entities, events, characteristics, relations and regularities which can feed into propositional knowledge about things which goes beyond simple awareness. And we can believe things we cannot be certain about. This is a simple picture, and no doubt there are crossover cases, but it seems to me worthwhile to start simple before working our way into understanding the subtleties.

Because of the brain in a bottle thought experiment we cannot be logically certain of any empirical truth. Instead of saying {there is} a dog in my living room right now we must qualify this {there appears to be} a dog in my living room right now. It is not 100% logically impossible that all of reality is not a mere figment of the imagination. We can be logically certain that 2 + 3 = 5; — PL Olcott

Such skepticism based on mere imaginable possibilities seem toothless and irrelevant to me. I see a dog in the room, I have no cogent reason to doubt its existence. And that is exactly why I say that where there is no possibility of genuine, as opposed to merely feigned, doubt, then speaking in terms of belief is inapt.

I'm reminded of something that came up on a thread about, I think, Wittgenstein's On Certainty: I think it was regarding Moore's statement he knew he had hands, and the point was that to speak in terms of knowing such things is inapt, because in those kinds of cases there is no possibility of doubt. @Banno may remember this point better than I. My point here is that I think the same inaptitude applies, perhaps even more so, to speaking in terms of belief in those kinds of cases.

Even if you want to bracket out 'knowing how' (and I agree with Moliere and @Banno that knowing is entangled with doing), there is still more than one way in which 'knowing that' is used propositionally — SophistiCat

Totally agree, and i haven't wanted to say otherwise.

Knowledge is bound to objective criteria for understanding whereas belief may involve subjectivity. However, the interplay between the objective and subjective may mean that the nature of belief and knowledge remains fluid in human understanding. — Jack Cummins

As above, I agree. That said, I see the whole theoretical side of science as being, in the propositional sense, a matter of belief. I think the way in which it can be understood to be knowledge turns on a different way in which it can be thought of: not as propositional belief, but as know-how which consists in all the ways scientific theories enable us to do new things and investigate in novel ways. For example, I think we all agree that in the propositional sense the ancient belief that the Earth is flat was not knowledge but could be counted as such in the 'know-how' sense, insofar as it enabled new activities and approaches.

Cool, that gave me a good laugh, and made a lot of sense to boot.

Yep. And if know-how were a subset of know-that, that might be a problem. But if knowing-that is a subset of knowing-how, that is not a problem - is it? — Banno

Yes. you're right.

I may know how to ride a bicycle and that knowledge seems to have nothing necessarily to do with belief.
— Janus
Well, it implies belief in Bicycles and riding.

Animals know how to do things, and we commonly attribute knowing-that to them. The cat knows that the bowl is empty, and so on.

The temptation is there to draw a hard line between knowing-how and knowing-that. But they are not as distinct as folk might presume. — Banno

I don't frame it that way, but that is a possible way of framing it. I tend to think that with things we can see, like bicycles and do, like riding, there is no need for belief.

I also agree that there is no hard line between knowing how and knowing that, and I think even knowing that (given that we apply the idea of knowing in relation to things we can simply be aware of such as having hands and countless other things) does not necessarily involve believing.

To include believing in those kinds of instances would be to capitulate to what I consider to be pointless skepticism. For example, I see the bike, and belief in its existence would only come into play if I could doubt its existence. I don't know if I've explained where I'm coming from with that adequately, but I hope so.

One sees the bike, handles it...no need for belief. I have to go right now...will resume later.

I don't think belief is required. You see people riding bikes. You see the bike and grasp how it works. You want to learn to ride. You learn to ride. No need to believe anything.

What particular belief that would be necessary in order to learn to ride a bike did you have in mind.

In both agreement and good standing. Glad to join you, if that's okay? — creativesoul

I think we do generally agree and are in good standing too. I always welcome your input.

Nonsentient Boulderism — jgill

That made me laugh!

We are fallible creatures. I agree we are not always mistaken. I think we do know some things, even many things. I agree that the common idea of objectivity is archaic, unexamined. I agree that propositional statements are either true or false, regardless of opinion.

Where does that leave us?

All knowledge requires belief.
— ENOAH
That's true, but the OP asks if knowledge is merely belief. Apparently, it's implying that the difference between knowing and believing is empirical verification or rational justification. And so, we argue about shades of truth. :smile: — Gnomon

I question whether all knowledge does require belief. I know how to ride a bike, plane a board, paint a picture, write a poem, play the piano and so on, and I don't see how any of that requires belief.

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

Yes, that's the way JTB is conceived. The problem is that we may not always know that what we (think we) know is true or be that clear about just how what we consider to be justification really is justification.



Right, in practice what is judged to be knowledge counts as knowledge, and what is judged to be true counts as truth. Objectivity is a chimera or is reducible to intersubjective agreement.

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... — fdrake

I haven't seen any kind of knowledge out in the wild, except know-how. I have seen all kinds of claims to knowledge, including claims to know that this or that proposition is true, claims to know this or that person or place, claims to know God or the Absolute Truth, and so on. I agree with you that the idea of knowledge and its modes of expression are many-faceted. I also agree that JTB is a limited conception.

As I said in the OP, my motivation for this thread was a response to a request by @Chet Hawkins to create a thread if I wanted him to explain his reasons for claiming that there is no knowledge, but only belief. So far, he has not come to the party and seems to have dipped out.

That's an interesting counterpoint. Do you think there is a fact of the matter as to whether people are cowardly or courageous, honest or deceitful, and so on, or is it just opinion all the way down?

I'll argue that knowing-that reduces to knowing-how; so by way of an example knowing that water boils at 100℃ is knowing how to boil the kettle and how to use a thermometre and how to answer basic physics questions and so on. I take this as a corollary of meanign as use. The meaning of "water boils at 100℃" is what we are able to do with it.

Notice also that this approach makes knowedge more social or communal. It is part of our langauge use. — Banno

There is something to what you say, but I think you may be working with too broad a brush. Know-how involves skills that may not be dependent on knowing anything in a propositional sense.

The various ways "know" is used can perhaps all be related by changing locutions, but I don't think it's a matter of one concept being reducible to another.

So, I may know things in a propositional sense that have no effect on what I do, or how I do things. For example, I may know that my friend regularly arrives late to appointments, but I need not necessarily do anything with that knowledge. Or I may know that many religious people think Jesus died for our sins but find that knowledge quite irrelevant to how I live my own life.

Another point is that, for example, I may know how to ride a bicycle and that knowledge seems to have nothing necessarily to do with belief. I think that's a salient difference. This is a complex subject not readily amenable to reductive thinking.

So, I agree with you that knowledge is, to a fair extent, social and communal, and is related to our language use, but that is not the end of the story. Animals, even solitary animals, know how to do things without knowing anything propositional

Do you subscribe to virtue ethics yourself?

Much of this would seem to be perspectival, 'virtue' perhaps being somewhat rubbery. — Tom Storm

I do tend to think of what are generally considered to be the main virtues as desirable. I mean I find that I don't want to associate too closely with those who seem to be cowardly, deceitful, inconsiderate, dishonest, unreliable, duplicitous, devious, self-serving and so on.

Either way, how does it help us to promote the notion of ethics as transcendental? — Tom Storm

I think this is an important question. I don't think it helps us at all to think of ethics as transcendental. I don't think ethics is transcendental except in its connection to aesthetics. Beauty is transcendental, and virtue ethics seems to connect virtues with what is generally attractive to humans. Courage is attractive, cowardice is not. Kindness is attractive, cruelty is not. Consideration of others is attractive, disregard of others is not, And so on.

On the other hand, we could ask why these things are attractive, and we might give pragmatic reasons for their attractiveness. The virtues promote social harmony and the vices (those that consist in behavior towards others at least) may lead to social discord. Actions may be kind (the idea of which I imagine as deriving from being conceived as appropriate towards one's own kind) or vicious (a characterization I imagine as relating to the word 'vice').

And ↪fdrake laid out an excellent argument against the statement "Knowledge is merely belief" -- sometimes, to expand on fdrake, knowledge is action, and has nothing to do with what people say! A totally orthogonal category to yourthe notion that knowledge is merely belief. — Moliere

I agree with his argument although as I already said in reply to @fdrake I don't think the discussion is really concerned with anything other than propositional knowing and its relation to belief.

All knowledge requires belief. — ENOAH

All propositional knowledge requires belief in one sense, because when knowledge is put into propositional form it is thereby asserted as belief. On the other hand, I know I am sitting here typing this, and I know this pre-propositionally simply because I am aware that I am sitting here typing. Perhaps the word 'know' is inappropriate here because to say you know something implies the possibility of doubt. So perhaps I should just say " I am aware that I am sitting here". Would that then be case of "the knowing of familiarity" as distinct from "propositional knowing"?

Paraphrased to illustrate:

Jesus: nothing beats belief. Belief will move mountains. If you have belief the size of a mustard seed you will say to that mountain move, and it will move.

Hui neng: came across two of his disciples debating over whether the wind was moving the flag or the flag was moving. "It is neither wind nor flag," said the 6th patriarch of Cha'an. "It is your mind moving."
6 hours ago — ENOAH

These are poetic expressions and I don't see any relevance to what we are considering here.

:up:

I think there is a valid distinction between knowledge and belief, although I also think that much of what is generally considered to be knowledge might be more accurately classed as belief.
— Janus

As do I, but if there is a distinction, putting belief and knowledge in the same class kinda invalidates it. — Mww

Right, but I wasn't putting all knowledge and belief in the same class but merely observing that what some might count as knowledge is actually merely belief.

Still, regarding the question in general, this….

What distinguishes a 'fact' from a belief is that THAT PERSON ONLY (…) has decided….
— Chet Hawkins

….would be the focal point of the issue, insofar as whether opinion, belief or knowledge, any relative judgement of truth is a purely subjective effort. And even if that is the case, brain states aside, still leaves the method by which it happens. — Mww

Okay but is a judgement of truth the same as truth? I don't think that is how the two are commonly conceived. It seems that we can know the truth without knowing we know it, and that we can think we know the truth, but be mistaken.

↪Chet Hawkins - So are you saying that a fact which claims to be nothing more than a belief is better than a fact which claims to be something more than a belief? — Leontiskos

I don't see how something which is acknowledged to be nothing more than a belief can be counted as a fact in the first place.

I think it is good to realize that knowledge is form of belief. I think that adds a note of humility. What we are sure is true today may be overturned. — Bylaw

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.

If you take JTB (above) into the picture then that's an argument against it because belief only is insufficient. — SpaceDweller

Yes, you make the same point as I did above.

Belief is assent (true if warranted, opinion if unwarranted, delusion if its negation is warranted).

Knowledge consists of truths or not-yet-falsified claims the statuses of which are independent of dis/belief. — 180 Proof

I agree with what you say about belief, but what you say about knowledge seems somehow strange. Say we have accepted some not-yet-falsified claim and count it as knowledge, and then it becomes falsified. Was it ever knowledge in that case?

I think there is a valid distinction between knowledge and belief,
— Janus
The former is a subset of the latter. Different people/groups have different reasons for saying this batch of beliefs over here, they've got promise or they sure seem to be working so far or they fit X and Y really well and those over there don't fit it so well and those over there we can't make sense of to even tell. — Bylaw

Yes, but if the best conception of knowledge is that it can only apply to what is true or factual then there is a valid distinction between mere belief and knowledge. It might be said that we can know things without knowing that we know them, and not know things that we think we know. This does seem to separate knowledge and belief.



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.

Well, you kind of backed off on your position I think.

When you dither, I cannot tell what you mean to say or write or believe. — Chet Hawkins

I haven't "backed off" at all. I've said there is a valid distinction between knowledge and belief. And I've allowed that some of what is generally considered to be knowledge may be better classed as belief.

All facts are a subset of all beliefs.
Knowledge is not knowing and the word 'to know' is stupid therefore. It implies a failure in understanding. — Chet Hawkins

So, here you assert that all facts are a subset of beliefs. This does not accord with the common concepts of 'fact' and 'belief'. 'Fact' signifies what is the case regardless of what anyone believes.

Knowing (in the propositional sense of 'knowing that', which is the only sense we are concerned with here) is generally understood to be believing that what is the case is the case and believing it for the right reasons.

"Doubt may be an unpleasant condition, but certainty is absurd" - Voltaire was right. — Chet Hawkins

Knowing is sometimes conflated with certainty. Do you claim that knowing would only be knowing if the knower knows with absolute certainty that they know?

Are there not things we do know in this way. like I know I am sitting at my computer typing this? How could I doubt that?

We all operate in life only from a well of beliefs. — Chet Hawkins

We operate more from what we see, hear, smell, touch and taste I would say. We know those things most intimately, and I question whether they have anything to do with belief. Though if this is knowing, as distinct from seeing, hearing, touching etc., then we could say it is not propositional knowing primarily but may be subsequently framed as such.

The fact that many people share the same facts has not so much bearing on the factuality of any fact. As a matter of fact, 'facts' are always wrong in some way. That is TRUE and more factual than most facts, because as a part of that fact we ALREADY INCLUDE the flexibility that fact is only belief. — Chet Hawkins

We all see the same things and will mostly agree down to the smallest details about what we see right in front of us. In fact, this is the principal criterion of reality. If the others do not see what you see right in front of you then you must be hallucinating.

I'm seeing a lot of assertion from you but little argument to convince me that I should change my understanding of fact and belief to be in line with yours.

So, if you start a new thread, I'll jump in and we can go go go! — Chet Hawkins

Done (Click on 'Done').

I have to go outside to do some work before the rain comes, but by all means get started on presenting your argument.

Knowledge is only belief. — Chet Hawkins

So you say. Is that something you know or something you merely believe? If the latter is the case, do you have a reasoned argument for your belief that knowledge is only belief?

You seem very defensive. Capitalizations and implied insults so quickly delivered! An observation is not a claim, unless there is a reason to question what has been observed. I see you making claims like 'free will is fundamental to the universe' and 'philosophy is generally based on fear', and I see no reason to question the fact that I have observed you making these claims.

Are these merely your beliefs or do you have some knowledge to support them? If they are merely your personal beliefs, they may or may not be interesting, but the fact alone that you believe them does not constitute a reason why anyone else should share your belief as far as I can see.

I haven't made a claim, I've made an observation.

For someone who claims not to know anything, you certainly make a lot of very definite claims. Does performative contradiction not bother you?

:up:

I haven't seen anyone struggling to get out nor being pushed back in; I think you are confabulating.

A very poorly considered diagnosis; some were never in the mire, and others never left it.

One problem I note is that "I" is not well defined. Does "I" refer to some immaterial thing which interacts with the pineal gland?

Of course we all have some conception(s) associated with "I", but how accurate is that conception? — wonderer1

I don't think it matters how we conceive "i". We could say "if something thinks it must exist", and as I already said, "if something does anything at all it must exist". The idea of existence seems to be implicit and ineliminable in thinking of any activity at all.

But this is not the argument Corvus presented in the quote. — Banno

What do you think his argument is? Couched in plain English would be good.

no, he would get caught up on the word "then" as a time signifier. — flannel jesus

Okay, I hadn't thought of that.

I can't follow it set out formally like that. I think an equivalent of 'I think therefore I am' is 'If I am thinking, then I must exist". 'If I am not thinking then I must not exist' does not follow, but 'if I don't exist, then I must not be thinking' does follow, as far as I can tell.

As I read it @Corvus purports to prove that 'I think therefore I am/ is false, but I think his purported proof is invalid. It doesn't seem appropriate to talk about 'I think therefore I exist' as being valid or invalid, because it is not really an argument, but a premise.

You could put it as

P 1: If I am thinking then I must exist
P2: I am thinking
C: Therefore I exist.

That seems valid but it may not be sound I suppose, although it is hard to see what is wrong with it. Perhaps Corvus misinterprets the argument as claiming that thinking is not only sufficient, but necessary for existence. I think that is a different argument. That would be 'If I am existing, then I must be thinking'.