Knowledge and Belief

[Enai de a lukal]

I believe that my words are better integrated than the JTBer words.

In what way, and "integrated" with what? Your position is at odds with common sense, human behavior, the entirety of the human explanatory project (including all the empirical sciences), and is internally inconsistent, so its hard to imagine what it "integrates" with, save your own private fantasy.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

In what way, and "integrated" with what? Your position is at odds with common sense, human behavior, the entirety of the human explanatory project (including all the empirical sciences), and is internally inconsistent, so its hard to imagine what it "integrates" with, save your own private fantasy.

Hehe....

So why is it so easy for me to dominate you in this debate then?

Hehe....

 

[Willamena]

So belief is also justified? Then why make a distinction between belief and knowledge?

To correct your wording, belief can also be justified. We make a distinction not because one is justified and the other not, but because one is true and the other may be true.

It seems a significant distinction to me.

Actually I don't think there are any rules involved. There are just human minds trying to get their words right. I believe that my words are better integrated than the JTBer words.

Okay; the rules are literally about how the human mind works. That each of our minds work in ways understandable to others is indication enough that we are governed by rules ("logic").

OK. So 'knowledge' is the absence of doubt in a particular human mind. As I think I've argued all along. It's simply great psychological certainty regarding the known thing. I'm fine with that.

We can be uncertain that our beliefs are justified, in which case we cannot claim knowledge. That doesn't speak, though, to the definition of knowledge.

Depends on your meaning of 'truly.' Do you mean in some sense transcending my personal opinion? Then my answer is No.

Your personal opinions are right about you. They have no truth claim on the objects of opinion.

That's a fine opinion. It really is. But if I understand it right, I don't share it. I tend not to proclaim that my knowledge is true transcending personal opinion, in the same way that I tend to avoid claiming things as facts.

It really is ambiguous in here.

Fair enough. It does, though--it "transcends" personal opinion when you've said something correct about the object.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

So why is it so easy for me to dominate you in this debate then?

Your vacuous bluster aside, is there any chance of you ever offering some sort of justification or argument for your position, or should I not hold my breath? Having you simply stamp your foot and repeat what you believe, without saying why you believe it is getting a little boring.

 

[Slapstick]

Your vacuous bluster aside, is there any chance of you ever offering some sort of justification or argument for your position, or should I not hold my breath? Having you simply stamp your foot and repeat what you believe, without saying why you believe it is getting a little boring.

Don't hold your breath, you might turn blue and fart berries.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

Your vacuous bluster aside, is there....

That's what I find so wonderful about your postings. You bluster, bluster, bluster about your mighty debate victory and when i react with a bit of faux bluster to show you how it looks, you accuse me of blustering.

It's amazing to me. I'm so intrigued by the fundamenatalist mind, so foreign is it to me.

... any chance of you ever offering some sort of justification or argument for your position,

Done, done and done. But I cannot make anyone see what they refuse to see.

How about you? Any chance that you'll actually offer some kind of justification or argument for your (wrong-headed JTB) position?

Ever?

(And any chance that we can leave this personal nonsense aside and actually debate the issue of knowledge/belief?)

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

To correct your wording, belief can also be justified. We make a distinction not because one is justified and the other not, but because one is true and the other may be true.

It seems a significant distinction to me.

OK. To me it seems a delusion. That's because I tend to define 'true' as most others define it... a thing which 'is the case' external to ourselves. So for me, claiming to know the truth is merely a political action, not a philosophical one.

Anyway, I consider the JTB definition of knowledge to be nonsensical for another reason. Namely, that 'belief' is just as justified and true as knowledge, in my experience. Ask a person if his beliefs are justified and true. He'll almost always assert that to be the case.

Fair enough. It does, though--it "transcends" personal opinion when you've said something correct about the object.

You'll have to define 'correct' for me. You mean correct in God's opinion? Or in the speaker's personal opinion?

 

[Enai de a lukal]

You bluster, bluster, bluster about your mighty debate victory and when i react with a bit of faux bluster to show you how it looks, you accuse me of blustering.

Ah, so that's what's been going on with your rhetoric about fundamentalists and "True Believers", your bare assertions that JTB is "confused", your frequent proclamations of victory, and everything else you've substituted for an argument? Riiiiiiight... Unfortunately, this thread is a public record, and belies this claim.

In any case, your inability to distinguish empty bluster from arguments perhaps accounts for your failure to provide anything resembling the latter.

I'm so intrigued by the fundamenatalist mind, so foreign is it to me.

Given that your position here is apparently an inexplicable piece of dogma for which you can provide no defense, or even really state clearly, I'd say it isn't so foreign as you think.

Done, done and done. But I cannot make anyone see what they refuse to see.

Such as posts which do not exist? But if they do, please provide specific post numbers. (of course, you didn't provide them here because they don't exist)

How about you? Any chance that you'll actually offer some kind of justification or argument for your (wrong-headed JTB) position?

There's that bare assertion. But yes, I have, as you well know. To refresh your memory-

Belief, as the state of holding a certain proposition or claim to be true, is a necessary condition for knowledge- that is to say that, if person A knows P, then necessarily, person A believes P as well. But it is not a sufficient condition- if person A believes P, it does not follow that person A knows P. Thus, knowledge is a subset of belief; all knowledge is belief, but not all belief is knowledge. The easiest way to distinguish the two are to consider examples of belief that are not examples of knowledge- such as instances of false beliefs.

Consider some trivial examples (and I apologize to the majority of you who have already mastered this elementary distinction and have no need of such examples)-

Person A believes that 2+2=5.
It is not the case that person A knows that 2+2=5.

Person A believes that the Detroit Lions won the Super Bowl in 2012.
It is not the case that person A knows that the Detroit Lions won the Super Bowl in 2012.

We could obviously adduce as many such examples as we like, but there's no need. And the difference between belief and knowledge is made similarly stark by contrasting knowing how (as opposed to the- propositional-knowing that) verses mistakenly believing how; if I know how to change a tire, I can successfully change a tire, and achieve the desired result. If I believe I know how to change a tire, but am mistaken, I can't successfully change the tire and cannot achieve the desired result.

And this-

If you want to claim that there is no differentiation between knowledge and belief generally, then you're committed to claiming that the following beliefs are not distinguishable on any epistemic grounds-

I believe Martha Stewart is 200 years old.

I believe (and know) that the name of this thread is "Knowledge and Belief"

So are you prepared to say that any (patently false) belief (such as, for instance, that 2+2=5, that the sun is actually the moon, that our weather is controlled by space aliens, etc.) is indistinguishable from any piece of knowledge (that 2+2=4, that the earth orbits the sun, that today is Sept. 7th, etc.)?

And this-

That knowledge is not distinguished from belief by certainty is relatively easily shown- certainty is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for knowledge. That is, there are cases where one is certain but does not know, and cases where one knows but is not certain. For instance, I was certain that I left my wallet on the table, but it turns out I didn't- clearly, I didn't know that I left my wallet on the table, if it turns out that I did not, regardless of the fact that I was certain that I had. On the other hand, in band practice the other day we played a song I hadn't played in a very long time- I was uncertain whether I still knew how to play it, but it turned out that I did know how to play it.

We could go on with more trivial examples, but that shouldn't be necessary- the existence of ANY cases of certainty without knowledge and/or knowledge without certainty suffice to show that certainty cannot be what distinguishes knowledge as such.

There are more sprinkled throughout the thread, but perhaps now you have a rough idea of what an argument looks like. Or, follow this template:

"I believe X for reasons A, B, and C"

It's pretty simple, really.

(And any chance that we can leave this personal nonsense aside and actually debate the issue of knowledge/belief?)

Waiting on you.

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

No, read more carefully. Knowledge is belief, but belief is not necessarily knowledge. Or, knowledge is a subset of belief. Or, belief is a necessary but not sufficient condition for knowledge.
Or, knowledge and belief are not identical.
Is that more clear, or do you need further clarification?

No, I think I understand it. In your conception, belief is a mental state of confidence. Knowledge is a mental state of confidence wherein the known thing is really and actually "justified and true." I was first exposed to the JTB defintion of knowledge years and years ago. It's my familiarity with it which empowers me to so easily demonstrate its flaws.

"Warrant" means the same as "justification" in epistemology- warrant is a sufficient/adequate basis, and clearly will be different with respect to different sorts of claims in different contexts.

Right. So my understanding of your usage is correct. Belief is mental confidence. Knowledge is mental confidence wherein we believe that our belief is actually 'justified and true'.

So both belief and knowledge are mental states of confidence held by some individual. In other words, personal certainty. I think that's what I've been arguing all along.

This is a bare assertion. You're simply playing "I know you are but what am I" here.

That's correct. If you claim to be kicking my dumb*** butt in debate, I'll calmly ask why then I can run such effortless logical circles around you. You make a bare assertion. I reply with a bare assertion. It's only polite.

What is so weird to me is that you can see my response as a bare assertion but seem oblivious that it was your own bare assertion which caused me to reply in kind. Most curious. I'm always reminded of a guy cursing the bad behavior of the guy in his dressing mirror.

In any case, you've failed to give any reason to suppose that my examples were not exactly what they appeared to be- cases of knowledge without certainty and certainty without knowledge.

As some of the others have mentioned, you seem absolutely certain that your own definitions are 'the' definitions. That's why you can't follow me. Every time I say 'know', you assume it means what you assume it 'actually means'. You can't seem to step outside of your own truth, which is more unusual among atheists than among religionists, so I find it interesting.

Your examples are not what they appear because 'know' means 'to hold great psychological certainty about a thing.' Therefore when we are certain about a thing, we know that thing, whether or not it is true in some sense external to us.

See how easy it is for me to disprove your examples?

If I was mistaken about it, then I did not know.

That's a fine opinion. A confused understanding, in my view, but that's what we're here to argue.

If you knew the wallet was on the table, then you knew it was on the table, no matter where you eventually found it. One can't undo an action. We can't run to the store today and then tomorrow deny that we actually ran to the store. Just as we can't know something today and tomorrow deny that we actually knew something. Not in a well-integrated wordworld. Yesterday your mind inhabited the 'know-zone' regarding the wallet. It doesn't make sense to now deny that your mind inhabited the know-zone.

Knowing is, as a species (i.e. subset) of belief, a propositional attitude; it is a disposition towards a proposition, namely, believing/consenting to/accepting it, and in particular, a proposition which expresses a truth, and doing so with warrant.

Sounds exactly like believing or even thinking.

But anyway, today you are denying that yesterday you 'held a propositional attitude toward the wallet's location'? Yesterday you didn't really 'believe/consent to/accept the proposition about the wallet's location'?

Then why did you claim to do so?

Two people without visual impairment (or without some other variable) will not find themselves in such a situation....

That's an article of faith which I don't share with you.

And color is an eminently poor choice of example for this issue, since it is a secondary quality and has a subjective aspect not present with other properties or claims, although I'm guessing you chose it for this very reason.

Um... you chose it, man. If you trust your eyes to impart knowledge, just review the thread and you'll see.

Consider a better example, one we've used already- the winner of last years Super Bowl. You say it was the Ravens, I say it was the Lions. Who is right, and how do we find out? Well, we check the box score, for starters- which confirms your belief
that the Ravens won. But suppose I dispute it, claiming the box score was a fabrication- perhaps we try to find an official or impartial source for a box score (whatever that would be), or there is a third party who watched the game and is a mutual friend who both of us trust, or maybe we simply get a copy of the game and re-watch it; one way or another, we'll figure it out.

We've done all of that and still disagree. Which one of us really knows the winner?

(And let's also note that you continue to avoid giving any arguments for your position, arguments against my position, or even any clear statement of what your position consists in. Why so evasive? Or is it that you aren't really sure, and that this is
simply an inexplicable article of faith for you, that knowledge and belief are identical?)

I thought we already agreed that you are a mighty debater while I am a sluggish sort. So I don't understand why you keep repeating it. Show some mercy, man.

 

[Sir Doom]

For most intelligent folks, the difference between belief and knowledge is fairly obvious. However, not everyone is so lucky, so this thread will (hopefully) help certain posters understand this basic difference.

Belief, as the state of holding a certain proposition or claim to be true, is a necessary condition for knowledge- that is to say that, if person A knows P, then necessarily, person A believes P as well. But it is not a sufficient condition- if person A believes P, it does not follow that person A knows P. Thus, knowledge is a subset of belief; all knowledge is belief, but not all belief is knowledge. The easiest way to distinguish the two are to consider examples of belief that are not examples of knowledge- such as instances of false beliefs.

Consider some trivial examples (and I apologize to the majority of you who have already mastered this elementary distinction and have no need of such examples)-

Person A believes that 2+2=5.
It is not the case that person A knows that 2+2=5.

Person A believes that the Detroit Lions won the Super Bowl in 2012.
It is not the case that person A knows that the Detroit Lions won the Super Bowl in 2012.

We could obviously adduce as many such examples as we like, but there's no need. And the difference between belief and knowledge is made similarly stark by contrasting knowing how (as opposed to the- propositional-knowing that) verses mistakenly believing how; if I know how to change a tire, I can successfully change a tire, and achieve the desired result. If I believe I know how to change a tire, but am mistaken, I can't successfully change the tire and cannot achieve the desired result.

I was wondering...

Could you provide an example of a belief that someone actually holds true that is not knowledge? The examples you provided are so ridiculous I doubt there is a single human being who entertains their truth. You can't compare belief to knowledge by using a belief that no one actually believes.

Also, since this is supposed to be a comparison of knowledge vs. belief...

Could you provide an example of knowledge so that they can be compared? It is impossible to utilize your examples of false beliefs without an example of a true belief (knowledge) to compare them to.

PS: This is a trap.

 

[Willamena]

Anyway, I consider the JTB definition of knowledge to be nonsensical for another reason. Namely, that 'belief' is just as justified and true as knowledge, in my experience. Ask a person if his beliefs are justified and true. He'll almost always assert that to be the case.

In JTB, it's not belief that has to be justified--belief is going to happen anyway, regardless. We believe in things because they appear to be true. It's our reasons for believing that have to be just. If we believe that Jesus is the Lord because it's Tuesday, that's not good enough.

You'll have to define 'correct' for me. You mean correct in God's opinion? Or in the speaker's personal opinion?

"God," in my understanding, is exempt from both having or failing to have opinions, so that argument wouldn't work for me.

Neither in someone else's opinion nor personal opinion, but from the perspective that we each hold of objectivity.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

No, I think I understand it. In your conception, belief is a mental state of confidence.

No, not really. A belief is a mental disposition towards a fact- namely, that of accepting it as true. One can believe and be confident, or believe and have doubts- confidence is more or less irrelevant.

Knowledge is a mental state of confidence wherein the known thing is really and actually "justified and true."

"Really" and "actually" are redundant here, but yes, basically.

I was first exposed to the JTB defintion of knowledge years and years ago. It's my familiarity with it which empowers me to so easily demonstrate its flaws.

That's nice for you. Perhaps someday you'll enlighten us as to what those flaws are.

Right. So my understanding of your usage is correct. Belief is mental confidence. Knowledge is mental confidence wherein we believe that our belief is actually 'justified and true'.

Again, no. I thought you said you were familiar with this? We needn't believe that our belief is "justified and true"- maybe we do, maybe we don't- what distinguishes knowledge is whether it is justified and true, regardless of whether we believe that it is justified and true. (again, the knowing vs. knowing that one knows bit you're so confused about; if someone believes that her belief that P is justified and true, then she believes she knows P... If her belief that she knows P is justified and true, then she knows that she knows P... and so on )

So both belief and knowledge are mental states of confidence held by some individual. In other words, personal certainty.

Needless to say, as we've covered this above, this is not what I've said at all.

That's correct. If you claim to be kicking my dumb*** butt in debate, I'll calmly ask why then I can run such effortless logical circles around you.

Only in your head. Again, perhaps some day you'll be kind enough to type these logical circles out on this thread for the rest of us to see.

You make a bare assertion. I reply with a bare assertion. It's only polite.

So now you're going to pretend you didn't see my last post in which I re-posted arguments already given for my position. Arguments- as in, something you've yet to provide for your position. Still waiting.

If you knew the wallet was on the table, then you knew it was on the table, no matter where you eventually found it.

If you knew your wallet was on the table, this entails that, ex hypothesi, your wallet was on the table. If it turns out it wasn't on the table, then you did not know. This is how the word "know" works, in English.

Now, suppose you have a science teacher who believes that the Earth is flat- does she also know that the Earth is flat?

Can I know that the title of this thread is "AmbiguousGuy and Enaidealukal Talk About Stuff"?

More to the point, do you deny that the Earth is not flat, or that the title of this thread is not AmbiguousGuy and Enaidealukal Talk About Stuff? Is it possible for one to be mistaken?

But anyway, today you are denying that yesterday you 'held a propositional attitude toward the wallet's location'? Yesterday you didn't really 'believe/consent to/accept the proposition about the wallet's location'?

Um.... no...

We've done all of that and still disagree. Which one of us really knows the winner?

Even though we both know that would never occur, probably neither of us- there's probably something severely wrong with one or both of us, if such a scenario were to occur. But again, are you denying that someone won the Super Bowl?

I thought we already agreed that you are a mighty debater while I am a sluggish sort. So I don't understand why you keep repeating it. Show some mercy, man.

Once you stop patting yourself on the back every other post for "running logical circles" around me, while completing avoiding providing reasons or arguments for your claims, responding to arguments for my claims, or doing anything remotely resembling debating.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

I was wondering...

Could you provide an example of a belief that someone actually holds true that is not knowledge?

I've already given one example, and it was one which had just happened to me- I believed I had left my wallet in a certain place, when in fact I had not.

Also, since this is supposed to be a comparison of knowledge vs. belief...

Could you provide an example of knowledge so that they can be compared?

Frequently I do know where I left my wallet.

It is impossible to utilize your examples of false beliefs without an example of a true belief (knowledge) to compare them to.

A true belief doesn't consitute knowledge, for one thing- it could be a lucky guess, as it were. But regardless, both of the examples in the OP have a pretty obvious "true belief" corresponding to it (that 2+2=4 and that the Giants won the Super Bowl).

PS: This is a trap.

Lay it on me, then.

 

[Willamena]

I've already given one example, and it was one which had just happened to me- I believed I had left my wallet in a certain place, when in fact I had not.

That's not a belief that someone (you) holds, but one that's been abandoned.

The question was specific.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

That's not a belief that someone (you) holds, but one that's been abandoned.

The question was specific.

And the answer was appropriate- that's an example of a false belief. Whether the belief is presently held is immaterial to the matter at hand- although if one wants to be unnecessarily picky, it isn't hard to imagine or even encounter a false belief that is currently held (there are, for instance, still primitive peoples who believe that the weather is controlled by occult forces, that mental illness is a symptom of demonic possession, etc). And the only reason why one might think it at all relevant that the belief is presently held, and recognized as false, is if one is continuing to conflate knowing (what we're talking about here), with knowing that one knows (as AmbiguousGuy has consistently done) since, clearly its impossible for someone to simultaneously believe a falsehood, and recognize it as a falsehood (i.e. being able to diagnose a belief that is currently held as being false).

But this is simply a dead-end; one needn't know that one knows in order to know- and skepticism regarding the latter is the only extent to which AmbiguousGuy's position is at all plausible or even coherent; it is arguable whether we can ever know that we know- for how would one be justified in believing that ones belief is true and justified? Wouldn't this require a God's-eye-view, or, an infallible and direct access to "The Truth"? So it could well be that no one ever knows that they know- but this has no bearing on the common sense distinction between mere belief and knowledge, or the existence of the latter. All that that requires is that things are a certain way- that is, that someone won the Super Bowl, and that two added to two yields a certain sum, and so on- in short, that there are facts, or determinate states-of-affairs in the world. If there are facts, then there are true beliefs- and knowledge is distinguished from the "lucky guess" variety of true beliefs on the basis of justification; i.e. one's reasons for believing something.

 

[Willamena]

And the answer was appropriate- that's an example of a false belief. Whether the belief is presently held is immaterial to the matter at hand- although if one wants to be unnecessarily picky, it isn't hard to imagine or even encounter a false belief that is currently held (there are, for instance, still primitive peoples who believe that the weather is controlled by occult forces, that mental illness is a symptom of demonic possession, etc). And the only reason why one might think it at all relevant that the belief is presently held, and recognized as false, is if one is continuing to conflate knowing (what we're talking about here), with knowing that one knows (as AmbiguousGuy has consistently done) since, clearly its impossible for someone to simultaneously believe a falsehood, and recognize it as a falsehood (i.e. being able to diagnose a belief that is currently held as being false).

But this is simply a dead-end; one needn't know that one knows in order to know- and skepticism regarding the latter is the only extent to which AmbiguousGuy's position is at all plausible or even coherent; it is arguable whether we can ever know that we know- for how would one be justified in believing that ones belief is true and justified? Wouldn't this require a God's-eye-view, or, an infallible and direct access to "The Truth"? So it could well be that no one ever knows that they know- but this has no bearing on the common sense distinction between mere belief and knowledge, or the existence of the latter. All that that requires is that things are a certain way- that is, that someone won the Super Bowl, and that two added to two yields a certain sum, and so on- in short, that there are facts, or determinate states-of-affairs in the world. If there are facts, then there are true beliefs- and knowledge is distinguished from the "lucky guess" variety of true beliefs on the basis of justification; i.e. one's reasons for believing something.

I could be wrong, but I don't think Sir Doom's question is about Guy's argument. It may be wise not to conflate your opponents' arguments (especially as Doom's hasn't been made yet).

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

In JTB, it's not belief that has to be justified--belief is going to happen anyway, regardless.

I understand. JTB is a theoretical definition made up by philosophers to try and grasp at certainty. But in real life, people use the word belief most often to describe a truth which is both justifed and true. Why would a person believe something if he didn't consider it justified and true?

JTB just tries to assert that known things are 'true' exterior to the one who holds knowledge. That's my problem with it. It deceives people.

So it works much better to define knowledge as great personal psychological certainty. (The GPPC Theory of knowledge, concocted by yours truly.)

But of course there is no one definition for any word. Words mean what they mean when we use them.

We believe in things because they appear to be true. It's our reasons for believing that have to be just. If we believe that Jesus is the Lord because it's Tuesday, that's not good enough.

It's not good enough for you, but it's perfectly justified and true for those who believe it. Do you acknowledge that? Or do you argue that no one can know that Jesus is Lord?

That's the fundamental question at the heart of JTB. How do we view other people's truth?

"God," in my understanding, is exempt from both having or failing to have opinions, so that argument wouldn't work for
me.

It's a shortcut way of saying 'objectively and apart-from-human-opinion True.'

Substitute 'the universe' for 'God'. When you say that knowledge must be 'correct', are you saying that that universe agrees with
that correctness -- that it is objectively true?

 

[AmbiguousGuy]

No, not really. A belief is a mental disposition towards a fact- namely, that of accepting it as true.

I'm confused. That's just what knowledge is, yes? A mental disposition toward a fact -- namely, that of accepting it as true? (And justified, of course, but all beliefs are obviously justifed or else the believer wouldn't hold them.)

"Really" and "actually" are redundant here, but yes, basically.

Thanks for the clear answer. Here's my problem. You agree that knowledge is a mental state of confidence wherein the known thing is justified and true. Now my question: In whose opinion must the known thing be justified and true?

Yours?

The majority's?

A favorite prophet? The smartest guy in the world?

In whose opinion must the known thing be justified and true? I say it's just each individual person's opinion, perhaps flavored with a bit of majority opinion.

We needn't believe that our belief is "justified and true"- maybe we do, maybe we don't- what distinguishes knowledge is whether it is justified and true, regardless of whether we believe that it is justified and true. (again, the knowing vs. knowing that one knows bit you're so confused about....)

I understand it. I just find broken clocks pretty useless. We can assert that they know the true time twice a day, but I find that assertion trivial. I'm not interested unless we can know when it is right and when it isn't.

Needless to say, as we've covered this above, this is not what I've said at all.

Yes, I'm aware that you haven't said it. But it seems a necessary conclusion from the other things you've said.

Both belief and knowledge are mental states of confidence held by some individual. It's the 'held by some individual' which bothers you, yes? You want to believe that knowledge can be objectively true, don't you?

If you knew your wallet was on the table, this entails that, ex hypothesi, your wallet was on the table.

I'm sorry but I just don't believe in magic. In my outlook, even an actual and genuine Prophet of God can be wrong about the wallet's 'actual' location. How about responding to my little story about the two guys watching the magician professor?

If it turns out it wasn't on the table, then you did not know. This is how the word "know" works, in English.

I agree that it often works that way, with the claim that 'you didn't really know it.' It's that magical thinking which I'm here to argue against.

Now, suppose you have a science teacher who believes that the Earth is flat- does she also know that the Earth is flat?

Who knows. I happen to disagree with her knowledge in this particular case, tentatively, but I'm open to new information about the earth's shape.

Can I know that the title of this thread is "AmbiguousGuy and Enaidealukal Talk About Stuff"?

Sure. I myself would consider you to be an hallucinator, but I'd have to admit that you know it. After all, 'knowing' is just 'holding great personal psychological certainty (GPPC) about a truth.'

More to the point, do you deny that the Earth is not flat, or that the title of this thread is not AmbiguousGuy and Enaidealukal Talk About Stuff? Is it possible for one to be mistaken?

That question perplexes me. My whole mission here is to argue that any and all of us could be mistaken about anything, anytime. Do I deny that the earth is roundish? Nope. I assert that our best current understanding is that the earth is roundish. In fact, I know that to be the case, since, after all, I possess GPPC that our best current understanding is that the earth is roundish.

Um.... no...

That's interesting. So you are not denying yesterday's brainstate of knowing? OK. To me, it seems like I've just won the debate.

Even though we both know that would never occur, probably neither of us- there's probably something severely wrong with one or both of us, if such a scenario were to occur. But again, are you denying that someone won the Super Bowl?

Maybe you could examine closely the issue of (apparent) hallucination and the need to go with majority opinion on matters of truth?

Why would I deny that someone won the Super Bowl? That would be silly. Of course, I would deny that the universe necessarily agrees with me about the Super Bowl. I would deny that it is necessarily true in God's Opinion.

Once you stop patting yourself on the back every other post for "running logical circles" around me, while completing avoiding providing reasons or arguments for your claims, responding to arguments for my claims, or doing anything remotely resembling debating.

OK. And yada, yada, yada in return.

 

[Sir Doom]

I've already given one example, and it was one which had just happened to me- I believed I had left my wallet in a certain place, when in fact I had not.


Frequently I do know where I left my wallet.

So, frequently you believe you know where you left your wallet.
Previously, you believed you knew where you left your wallet.

Please illustrate the difference. These seem identical to me.

A true belief doesn't consitute knowledge, for one thing- it could be a lucky guess, as it were.

But regardless, both of the examples in the OP have a pretty obvious "true belief" corresponding to it (that 2+2=4 and that the Giants won the Super Bowl).

Your examples were dissatisfying to me. You picked things that only a lunatic would believe. It is pretty difficult to examine a belief that no one actually holds.

Lay it on me, then.

So far, so good.

 

[swamplizard]

Does one have to be conscious of knowledge and/or beliefs? Can one know or believe without being aware of said knowledge or belief?

best,
swampy