Comments

  • Gettier Differently
    If you believe that your friend is moving to London because she has a job at a law firm, then the proposition "my friend is moving to London" does not take proper account of your belief.
    — creativesoul

    Yes it does.     — Michael

    No, it does not.

    "My friend is moving to London because she got a new job at a law firm." is not equivalent to "My friend is moving to London."
  • Gettier Differently
    I'm aware of the convention Michael.
  • Subject and object
    Perhaps because it didn't seem important to them? — g0d

    More likely that they did not see their own mistake. Much more likely...


    I confess: I'm still not seeing why the distinction is so important. — g0d

    Are you saying that you do not see how getting human thought/belief right is so important?
  • Subject and object
    Not drawing and maintaining the actual distinction between thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief, and as a result mistakenly thinking/believing - as a result of the consequences following from an inadequate notion of thought/belief - that only humans are capable of thinking/believing.
    — creativesoul

    It seems to me that they use the distinction constantly     — g0d

    One would think so... none wrote about it.
  • Subject and object
    By all means let's have the mistake they all made. — g0d

    Not drawing and maintaining the actual distinction between thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief, and as a result mistakenly thinking/believing - as a result of the consequences following from an inadequate notion of thought/belief - that only humans are capable of thinking/believing.
  • Subject and object
    As I said... too much baggage.
    — creativesoul

    And I say not justification/explanation for 'too much baggage,' especially since common-sense realism is almost the minimal, pre-philosophical position.     — g0d

    Subject/object is included. Notions of perception are included. Etc. They are all fraught.

    Taking account of human thought/belief must take proper account of how one acquires a worldview, and it must do so using a framework that is amenable to evolution.
  • Gettier Differently
    If I believe that my friend is moving to London because I believe that she has found a job at law firm there then my belief that my friend is moving to London is true even if it turns out that her new job is at a marketing firm. — Michael

    If you believe that your friend is moving to London because she has a job at a law firm, then the proposition "my friend is moving to London" does not take proper account of your belief.
  • Gettier Differently
    Beliefs aren't just some single monolithic thing... — Michael

    Exactly! Propositions are. Some belief cannot be adequately accounted for and/or represented by a single proposition. That is precisely the point I'm making. Gettier examples are nothing more than cases of accounting malpractice. A basic conflation of proposition and belief.
  • Subject and object
    ↪g0d
    Spell it out, as you understand it.
  • Subject and object
    There is no thinking possible without experience. There is no reason without thinking. All experience is chock full of thought/belief. Reason is thinking about thought/belief. Reason requires pre-existing thought/belief in the same way that an apple pie requires apples. Where there is no apple/thought, there can be no apple pie/reason.
    — creativesoul

    Of course, but why do you think Kant doesn't know that?     — g0d

    Fair question. He waffles. A priori and a posteriori.
  • Gettier Differently
    I don’t believe that she’s married to someone else, I believe that she’s married to a postman. — Michael

    That's an oversimplification of what you believe. An accounting malpractice. It is the malpractice that is the problem here.

    You do not believe just that she's married to a postman. Rather, you believe - in strict accordance to the argument you've offered - that the postman she is married to is you. Moreover, you believe that the reason she's married to a postman is because she is married to you and you are a postman.



    I believe that you will punch me because I believe that you know that I slept with your wife. — Michael

    The above is a good account. The below is inadequate.

    My belief that you will punch me... — Michael
  • Gettier Differently
    a) I am a postman.
    b) Mary is married to me.
    c) Therefore, Mary is married to a postman.     — Michael

    I’m asking you (somewhat rhetorically) if the argument is valid. — Michael

    I'm asking you (not at all rhetorically) Can you believe that your wife is married to someone else based upon that argument?
  • Gettier Differently
    What comment would you like for me to address?
  • Gettier Differently
    I haven’t said that. — Michael

    :brow:
  • Gettier Differently
    a) I am a postman.
    b) Mary is married to me.
    c) Therefore, Mary is married to a postman.
    — Michael

    No, it’s false because Mary isn’t married to me.
    — Michael     — creativesoul
  • Gettier Differently
    I have a false belief (that Mary is married to me)... — Michael
  • Gettier Differently
    Mary is married to me. Mary isn’t married to me.
  • Gettier Differently
    I said that it’s valid, not that it’s sound. Valid arguments can have false premises. This is really basic stuff, creative. — Michael

    Self contradiction is not valid.

    I believe X because I believe Y.

    Y is one belief, X is a second belief. Again, basic stuff.     — Michael

    It is a basic conflation of proposition and belief.
  • Gettier Differently
    I believe that you will punch me because I believe that you know that I slept with your wife. — Michael

    My belief that you will punch me... — Michael

    Note the difference?
  • Gettier Differently
    a) I am a postman.
    b) Mary is married to me.
    c) Therefore, Mary is married to a postman.     — Michael

    No, it’s false because Mary isn’t married to me. — Michael

    :brow:
  • Gettier Differently
    Now you're making even less sense.

    I have a false belief (that Mary is married to me)... — Michael

    That belief is true.

    I believe that you will punch me because I believe that you know that I slept with your wife. — Michael

    That one is false.
  • Subject and object
    I think naive realism is a name that carries along with it far too much philosophical baggage.
    — creativesoul

    Fair enough. But...
    In philosophy of mind, naïve realism, also known as direct realism, common sense realism or perceptual realism, is the idea that the senses provide us with direct awareness of objects as they really are. Objects obey the laws of physics and retain all their properties whether or not there is anyone to observe them.[1] They are composed of matter, occupy space and have properties, such as size, shape, texture, smell, taste and colour, that are usually perceived correctly.
    — Wiki     — g0d

    As I said... too much baggage.


    I don't usually experience my car or my bed as a projection of my mind. I think both will obey certain 'laws' or exhibit certain regularities. I think both will survive me. Someone can inherit either. I think old trees in the park were there before I was born. — g0d

    When one is talking in terms of any experience "as a projection of one's mind" one has already gotten things wrong.



    If I read Kant, however, I can explore all the complexities and difficulties that are hidden in the common sense I mostly take for granted. — g0d

    Kant followed Hume. Both have human thought/belief wrong. Neither takes account of pre-reflective thought/belief. Neither takes proper account of rudimentary thought/belief; in it's earliest stages. Kant tries with his categorical approach and was quite brilliant, but wrong nonetheless.

    Furthermore Kant's a priori/a posteriori distinction is grounded upon a gross misunderstanding of what all human thought/belief consists of. There is no thinking possible without experience. There is no reason without thinking. All experience is chock full of thought/belief. Reason is thinking about thought/belief. Reason requires pre-existing thought/belief in the same way that an apple pie requires apples. Where there is no apple/thought, there can be no apple pie/reason.

    Kant's notion of Noumena is untenable. Talking in terms of the way things are in and of themselves is fraught. It is a negative limitation within Kant's framework.

    Some things exist in their entirety prior to our account of them. That's better.


    'Pseudo-math with essences' means having a primitive theory of meaning and using it to do armchair science or traditional metaphysics. — g0d

    Primitive theory of meaning...

    What is that?






    If I claim there is a sack of potatoes in the cabinet, I can check by looking. If I claim that truth is correspondence or that metaphysics is language on holiday, things are far more complicated. — g0d

    Agreed. My interest here is an adequate account of that complexity.





    If the potatoes we can check for are themselves understood as mere representations of potatoes-in-themselves, we are in trouble. Because it's hard to specify what the hell we mean by potatoes-in-themselves. It can't be atoms, since those are also mere representations. — g0d

    I reject Kant for a few reasons. You've raised a few. Kant's Noumena serves as a negative limit... a full stop! We cannot know they way things are in and of themselves, by Kant's own stipulation.





    For me the 'phenomenon' of world, a structure of assertion, is perhaps what Kant was trying to get at. But it's perhaps impossible to do 'world' justice in 'word-math.' And although it fascinates me, it's not of great practical importance. Still, I think this part of Heidgenstein is illuminating.

    BTW, I recommend Groundless Grounds as a great book on 'Heidgenstein.' Lee Braver fuses the insights of both thinkers on the 'groundless ground.'     — g0d

    I'm sure that there are plenty of insightful authors who draw compelling comparisons between the two...

    I see that they both make the same mistake of Hume and Kant. I like all of these greats and more. They've paved the way.
  • Gettier Differently
    ...there’s also the true belief that Mary is married to a postman. — Michael

    Not Smith's belief...
  • Gettier Differently
    Smith does not believe that his wife is married to someone else.

    We're looking at Smith's belief.

    Smith believes that he is the only one married to his wife.
  • Gettier Differently
    You're not making any sense.

    Which is the false belief. — Michael

    Problem solved.
  • Gettier Differently
    Surely you're not saying otherwise?
  • Gettier Differently
    As I said... you believe that the postman she is married to is you.
  • Gettier Differently
    You do... but you also believe that that postman - the one that she is married to - is you...

    It's better to stick to Gettier's examples.
  • Gettier Differently
    You're attempting to dismiss, discard, and/or discount truth. That will not go unchallenged.
    — creativesoul
    Nope, I am not.     — Coben

    This coming from one who said "Truth is for the Pope"...

    Yes, you are.
  • Gettier Differently
    Not Smith's belief. That is what the subject matter is about... belief that is justified and true. My argument here is that the belief is being misrepresented.
  • Gettier Differently
    Remember, in the first case, Smith was - by Gettier's own admission - justified in believing that he would get the job. Smith thought to himself "I am going to get the job". Smith believed that he had secured the job. That is to think of and/or about oneself, not another.

    That sort of thought/belief is self-reflective. It cannot be about anyone else. It turned out to be quite false. Yet Gettier's sleight of hand was invoking the rules of entailment as his own justification for changing an undeniably self-reflective thought/belief into belief about someone else. That move is unjustifiable here.

    "The man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job".<----------that is not a valid move for either Smith or Gettier.
    — creativesoul

    a) I am a postman.
    b) Mary is married to me.
    c) Therefore, Mary is married to a postman.

    Isn't this valid?     — Michael

    The postman that Mary is married to is me. The man with ten coins in his pocket who will get the job is me. That's what Smith believes in either situation.
  • Subject and object
    There is definitely a problem when people attempt to use the subject/object(subjective/objective) dichotomy as a means to account for everything. Banno finds it useful in certain situations. Those who attempt to do too much with it find themselves in an impossible situation. They cannot take account for that which consists of both, and is thus neither. Folk who do that create their own problems... those problems are the bottle.
    — creativesoul

    Well I think I agree with you. To me the subject/object distinction indeed breaks down. But I even embrace naive realism as the mundane pre-philosophy from which we start and never actually leave.
    I like OLP too. We never forget how to use subject and object talk in the real world, and we do it well.     — g0d

    I think naive realism is a name that carries along with it far too much philosophical baggage.



    It's when we try to do pseudo-math with essences that we get in hopeless tangles. — g0d

    I have no idea what this means.



    Meaning is more like a fluid that flows through both words and actions simultaneously. — g0d

    The phrase/simile "like a fluid that flows through" romanticizes meaning.

    Actually, both words and actions can be part of a meaningful correlation.



    I am interested in the related themes of truth as correspondence and truth as disclosure. To check that a proposition is true, we have to look at the world and see the already disclosed entity as that proposition described it. — g0d

    Witt and Heiddy both realized that there was much more to meaning than what meets the eye. Unfortunately, neither of them had a good enough grasp upon human thought/belief and how it grows it's complexity. Heiddy's take completely missed the most rudimentary forms, while attempting to draw a line between pre and post reflective thought/belief. Witt was too focused upon all the different ways we attribute meaning to notice his mistaken of following convention(epistemology) with regard to belief and it's content.

    They both had their own bottle.


    When we talk about potatoes, we can just use our sense organs, etc. (along with an understanding of the world that operates noiselessly and makes the proposition intelligible.) But if I talk about other objects, like the correspondence theory of truth, I am disclosing them as I describe them. Or some of my statements intend to reveal them. It's only after entities are disclosed or revealed that we can have truth as correspondence. — g0d

    I'm not sure what the "but" is doing here. It's used as if you think that there's a remarkable difference between talking about potatoes and talking about truth, but the difference you see in unclear to me.

    When I say "just use our X", I mean that our X is all that's needed, and as such the parenthetical bit in the above quote contradicts what immediately precedes it. We use our senses and language to talk about everything from potatoes to what sorts of things can be true and what makes them so.
  • Subject and object
    g0d
    86
    the greatest problem is thinking there is a real problem to begin with.
    — Merkwurdichliebe

    Well said. This is how I take my Heidgenstein. The old masters did deal with genuine life problems, though, I would say. So your critique applies to a certain kind of obsessive digression that happens when folks get lost in dictating an ideal language.     — g0d

    If you go back and read the context... Merk missed the point with the comment. There is definitely a problem when people attempt to use the subject/object(subjective/objective) dichotomy as a means to account for everything. Banno finds it useful in certain situations. Those who attempt to do too much with it find themselves in an impossible situation. They cannot take account for that which consists of both, and is thus neither. Folk who do that create their own problems... those problems are the bottle.
  • Gettier Differently
    ↪Coben


    You're attempting to dismiss, discard, and/or discount truth. That will not go unchallenged.
  • Gettier Differently
    How much explanation is needed here? Tell a three year old that is waiting upon return that their mom is home and they'll go look to see for themselves(if it is true).

    Why is it so hard for anyone else to understand?
  • Gettier Differently
    Can you come down out of the clouds of abstraction, and explain what access to truth you mean, that would not be included in the category 'justification'? How do you divide up justification and access to truth? — Coben

    Who said anything about access to truth?

    :brow:

    Access to what's happened and/or is happening is what I wrote. I added to that. It went neglected. Odd given the charge. Did you offer an argument/explanation that I left neglected?
  • Gettier Differently
    Mathematics is pure symbol manipulation, i.e. language expressions. It does not take any sensory input. Therefore, it is pure reason. Kant criticized the practice in classical geometry (Euclid's Elements) to solve visual puzzles. So, he considered it not to be pure reason. Nowadays math is pretty much algebra only. So, Kant's issue with math has been addressed. — alcontali

    Math consists of symbols made meaningful solely by virtue of our attribution. Math says nothing about common parlance. All symbolic notation is existentially dependent upon common parlance. Truth is presupposed within all thought/belief. Math is utterly irrelevant to the role that truth plays in all human thought/belief. Math cannot take account of language, and thus is a useless tool for taking account of human thought/belief.

    Truth is presupposed long before one learns the rules of counting. Math is irrelevant to this discussion.



    Kant's notion of pure reason leads to a denial of animal thought/belief. Kant does not draw and maintain the distinction between linguistic thought/belief and non-linguistic thought/belief. That distinction can only be taken into proper account by virtue of thinking in terms of existential dependency and elemental constituency. Kant does no such thing. Rather...

    Kant is following Hume's definition of Pure Reason, and as a result starts off on the wrong foot, so to speak...

    Pure Reason, as set out by Hume, is somehow implied to be remarkably different from emotion, and it must be or else Hume's philosophy falls apart at the seams. Hume is wrong. Reason is not existentially independent of emotion. Knowledge of all human thought/belief is the seam ripper here.

    It is indubitable that Hume thought/believed that pure reason was somehow separate and distinct from emotion. That's the common understanding of what Hume meant, and it is a correct understanding of Hume. Hume meant that. His mantra "Reason is slave to the passions" shows this clearly. Hume works from the unspoken premiss that reason is somehow existentially independent of emotions. The problem is that that is false.

    There is a gross misconception of human thought/belief that has been very hard at work for a very long time. It's time to force it's retirement. I suspect two underlying issues are to blame for that all too common misconception. One is the long standing notion that we are superior to other animals, and that that superiority is shown - and clearly so - by the way humans think. I would agree with that on it's face, particularly regarding the breadth of complexity that language affords human thought.

    Another is that all human thought/belief is inextricably bound up in language. It's not.

    However, thought/belief(and thus reason) is different in terms of element constitution and existential dependency. Pure Reason is thinking about thought/belief, and as such it can be rightfully and meaningfully said to be existentially dependent upon pre-existing thought/belief. From this we can also know that whatever thinking about thought/belief is existentially dependent upon, so too is pure reason.

    Not all thought/belief is existentially dependent upon language. All reason is. All reason is also existentially dependent upon rudimentary thought/belief. All rudimentary thought/belief consists of correlations drawn between different things. At the earliest stages of prelinguistic human development, all of us are drawing correlations between external and internal things. Thought/belief begins simply and grows in it's complexity.

    All reason is existentially dependent upon pre-linguistic thought/belief. All prelinguistic thought/belief consists - in part - of internal emotion(fear, contentment, discontentment). All reason is existentially dependent upon emotion. That which is existentially dependent upon something else, cannot be independent from it.

    Thus... there is no such thing as 'Pure Reason' except and aside from being the name of a product(figment) of the Humean imagination.
  • Gettier Differently
    Yes, but not coherence in the real, physical world. It is about constructing abstract, Platonic worlds that are coherent by design. — alcontali

    All of it happens in this world. Talk of different worlds is unnecessary and confusing at best, aside from entertaining possibility, which has it's good use, although until Kripke convinced me of it, I had cast modality aside. I still reject the necessary/contingent distinction.
  • Gettier Differently
    Well, Kant just defines these things: a priori meaning without the use of sensory information and a posteriori, the opposite of that (i.e. empirical). — alcontali

    I know what he means. I also know that there is no such knowledge to be had.
  • Gettier Differently
    I also complete subscribe to Bertrand Russell's criticism on the coherence theory of truth. — alcontali

    Is that not a problem then? Math is all about coherence.
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