RE: Your theory of justification?
March 9, 2011 at 8:13 pm
(This post was last modified: March 9, 2011 at 8:51 pm by theVOID.)
(March 9, 2011 at 11:01 am)Chuck Wrote: When available evidence suggests the probability of that thing being true is substantially greater than the sum of the probabilities of all of it's alternatives being true.
Sounds like a Bayesian to me

(March 9, 2011 at 4:12 pm)DoubtVsFaith Wrote: I know things by being aware of them. I don't know why I know or am aware of anything, in that sense I don't justify knowledge. Can you justify the premise that knowledge needs justification?
Circular, that's akin to "I know things by knowing them".
You must have some concept of what it takes for a belief to count a knowledge? If you present it then we can see whether it is circular, doesn't permit contradictory conclusions and immune from refutation by parallel.
And this thread isn't about knowledge, it's about justification. You cannot know something and be wrong about it, you can however be justified in believing something that turns out to be false, what matters in justification are the reasons for which you believe something, such as a tentative conclusion that may be false - The Big Crunch in cosmology was a belief that was justified and was also false, it was a belief that at a certain time was supported by the best available reasoning and evidence
(March 9, 2011 at 4:24 pm)DoubtVsFaith Wrote: That's assuming that knowledge can be justified. How can it? (epistemically).
Logical necessity is one, I don't believe there are others, so If something is not necessarily true I do not consider it knowledge, this is a 'rigid' definition of knowledge sure, but it's the only one I know of that is not flawed in some way. That is why Justification is far more important because justification is attainable in the vast majority of situations where knowledge is not, such as scientific conclusions.
(March 9, 2011 at 6:06 pm)Rayaan Wrote: I would look at all the different arguments for a belief and examine each of them to see if their is a greater evidence for it being true than otherwise. Then, I'll examine the arguments which are against it and weigh them next to the pro-arguments and compare the two sides to adjust my beliefs accordingly. That's my theory of epistemic justification in a nutshell. If I didn't follow this, then my beliefs would be nothing but blind faith (which I don't think it is) which means that I would believe them either because of my feelings or because I was told to do so.
That also seems Bayesian, informally though, do you want to present your evidence for Allah in this manner? And if we found flaw in your reasoning would you therefore concede that you are not justified in believing in him?
(March 9, 2011 at 7:15 pm)reverendjeremiah Wrote: There is no way to avoid the human condition. Only humans are human. The Cosmos is NOT human. Therefore anything that makes the Cosmos, or non human things, species, etc., appear "human like" should be subject to the greatest scrutiny. Emotional bias can be apparent in many things that we consider knowledge because we are trapped, as an emotional being, within our five senses.
That is to say that we have no good reason to have an anthropomorphic view of the cosmos therefore every anthropomorphic view of the cosmos is false... Is that right?
If so it's a black swan fallacy, if not then what are you trying to say?
Quote:Because of that, I judge whatever is minimalistically materialistically mechanical to be intellectually justified, and everything else to be suspect of human bias. Even then, subjecting the minimal mechanical nature to a decent amount of skepticism is also a good quality.
What about contradictory materialist conclusions, such as MOND & Dark Matter? Something being materialist is by no means enough to be justified in believing it.
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