(August 27, 2014 at 1:35 am)whateverist Wrote: I'm not sure why you bother with the word "know". Why not stick to "faith"? I have great faith in my ability to observe and interpret my subjective experience. But no way would I throw around claims of knowing it in an interpersonally persuasive way. Our epistemic position in trying to describe and explain our inner workings just is not all that good. Fortunately not much rides on it. It fascinates me but I won't go hungry if I get it wrong.Actually, a great many important things depend on the ability to know. The calculations I perform for work depend on knowledge like the a^2 + b^2 = c^2. And getting through life often requires an ability to know that thing cannot simultaneously be and not-be. Other things I take on faith, like that my mother loves me.
Now I think you may have had something in mind like believe in God. I have no problem saying that I know there are transcendent non-physical aspects of reality. That has been fairly well established in the Western philosophical tradition extending from Plato to Kant. I really do not take the objections to non-physical reality very seriously since our very ability to reason requires the intellect to reference attributes that span multiple physical manifestations.
