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Belief and Knowledge

Curious George

Veteran Member
Of course. Then it gets bumped down to 'belief."


What is used to justify it is usually and normally momentary and sporadic. "My mom said so," can be justification. What's important isn't the justified part of JTB, but the true part.
I absolutely disagree. Justification is important as well, for how could it be knowledge of your reasons for believing it are poor and illogical. The truth in this scenario would only be there by happenstance not in anyway connected to the belief.
 

Willamena

Just me
Premium Member
I absolutely disagree. Justification is important as well, for how could it be knowledge of your reasons for believing it are poor and illogical. The truth in this scenario would only be there by happenstance not in anyway connected to the belief.
Who is to say that "My mom said so" is poor or illogical? Perhaps Mom, with her fifteen Ph.Ds, was entirely correct. What I'm saying is that knowledge being true, by happenstance, is more important than what we use to justify that we ought to believe.
 

Curious George

Veteran Member
Who is to say that "My mom said so" is poor or illogical? Perhaps Mom, with her fifteen Ph.Ds, was entirely correct. What I'm saying is that knowledge being true, by happenstance, is more important than what we use to justify that it's true.
Well I suppose there is a difference here between illogical and unreasonable. Certainly, not all appeals to authority are unreasonable. However, I am not so sure you can call them logical as they represent a jump in logic.

The best we can assume here is that your mother had knowledge and you had a belief that your mother was correct.

This is all ancillary because my point was that the justified characteristic of JOB is important.
 

Curious George

Veteran Member
Who is to say that "My mom said so" is poor or illogical? Perhaps Mom, with her fifteen Ph.Ds, was entirely correct. What I'm saying is that knowledge being true, by happenstance, is more important than what we use to justify that it's true.
Well I suppose there is a difference here between illogical and unreasonable. Certainly, not all appeals to authority are unreasonable. However, I am not so sure you can call them logical as they represent a jump in logic.

The best we can assume here is that your mother had knowledge and you had a belief that your mother was correct.

This is all ancillary because my point was that the justified characteristic of JOB is important.
 

Willamena

Just me
Premium Member
Well I suppose there is a difference here between illogical and unreasonable. Certainly, not all appeals to authority are unreasonable. However, I am not so sure you can call them logical as they represent a jump in logic.

The best we can assume here is that your mother had knowledge and you had a belief that your mother was correct.

This is all ancillary because my point was that the justified characteristic of JOB is important.
Justification isn't an appeal to authority, it's your reason for trusting that the information is reliable. It's never not a belief in that source, be it logic or your mother.

What is JOB?
 

Curious George

Veteran Member
Yes, but your reason for trusting the information is not logically sound. It may be reasonable. It may not. Either way justification is important.
 

Willamena

Just me
Premium Member
WI think what specifically do you disagree?
Justification for belief is logical and reasonable in that it makes sense to a person. If it doesn't, they would fall back on "belief" rather than "knowledge" because of the lacking truth value.
 
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Cobol

Code Jockey
A belief is an idea or principle which we judge to be true. Lives are routinely sacrificed based simply on what people believe. Our brains are attachment machines, attaching not just to people and places, but to ideas. And not just in a coldly rational manner.

Our brains become intimately emotionally entangled with ideas we come to believe are true, and emotionally allergic to ideas we believe to be false. This emotional dimension to our rational judgment explains a gamut of measurable biases that show just how unlike computers our minds are.

Philosophers typically divide knowledge into three types: personal knowledge, procedural knowledge, and propositional knowledge. The primary concern of epistemology is propositional knowledge, but contrasting this with other types of knowledge can help in clarifying precisely what it is that epistemologists are discussing.

The tripartite theory analyses knowledge as justified true belief, is widely used as a working model, even though most philosophers recognize that it has serious difficulties.

The closest thing to a rival to the tripartite theory is infallibilism, which suggests that knowledge requires absolute certainty, as opposed to belief or opinion about which there is more doubt.

The two concepts do overlap, but there's something about belief which distinguishes it from knowledge. I think that there are elements of belief where it overlaps with emotion and imagination, as opposed to rationalism and realism, which are the focus of knowledge.
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
Knowledge: an understanding of something.

Belief: the acceptance that information or a conjecture is true.

Faith: Trust in a belief

.
 

Curious George

Veteran Member
Justification for belief is logical and reasonable in that it makes sense to a person. If it doesn't, they would fall back on "belief" rather than "knowledge" because of the lacking truth value.
Ah, you see knowledge as something one has if they think they have it. I see knowledge as something one has or does not have regardless of what they think.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
The question speaks to the heart of how knowledge is defined by the individual: if truth is involved in knowledge at all, then it would only be by permission that something false is allowed to be [as if] true.
Word salad?

If someone calls a belief "knowledge" but it turns out to be false, they weren't "giving permission" for something false to be knowledge; they thought it was true but turned out to be mistaken.
 

Willamena

Just me
Premium Member
Ah, you see knowledge as something one has if they think they have it. I see knowledge as something one has or does not have regardless of what they think.
The phrase "think they have knowledge" is nonsense, if knowledge is what they think.

All I'm saying is that having a true belief is more significantly 'knowledge' than having a justified belief.
 

Falvlun

Earthbending Lemur
Premium Member
That happens when a bunch of us look up and agree, "Yes. The sky is blue." Reality is when something is proven as being factual based on evidence, observations and clears the hurdle of the test of time.
So, like a bunch of people looking up at the sky, seeing the sun revolving around the Earth, and saying "Yup, geocentrism!"

It seems like today's knowledge can become tomorrow's... um... not knowledge. Sorry, couldn't think of something catchy.

Knowledge has a disturbing tendency towards current perspective rather than an absolute barometer of truth.
 

YmirGF

Bodhisattva in Recovery
So, like a bunch of people looking up at the sky, seeing the sun revolving around the Earth, and saying "Yup, geocentrism!"

It seems like today's knowledge can become tomorrow's... um... not knowledge. Sorry, couldn't think of something catchy.

Knowledge has a disturbing tendency towards current perspective rather than an absolute barometer of truth.
Everything has its limitations, LOL.
 

9-10ths_Penguin

1/10 Subway Stalinist
Premium Member
It seems like today's knowledge can become tomorrow's... um... not knowledge. Sorry, couldn't think of something catchy.
Another way of expressing this: what we thought was knowledge today can be recognized as not knowledge tomorrow.
 
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