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What is your epistemology?
#33
RE: What is your epistemology?
(September 13, 2010 at 7:24 pm)Existentialist Wrote:
(September 13, 2010 at 6:56 pm)Tiberius Wrote: Google is your friend.
My, I would never have thought of that. Thanks Adrian. Incidentally, whenever I hit the 'k' on my keyboard my screen produces a 't'. I am worried that my grip on reality is slipping. What do you think?

Your grip on reality is long gone.
(September 13, 2010 at 6:53 pm)Tiberius Wrote: Ok, my apologies. I did indeed misread you; thanks for the clarification.

However, given that you accept that P must be true, by what method do you arrive at the conclusion that gravity is true, and that therefore your justified belief in gravity makes it knowledge?

Gravity is defined as the force of attraction between two objects of any given mass, we can demonstrate that this force exists regardless of "how" and "why" it works - Therefore the effects of gravity are true simply because the effect matches the description (thus far the how is true in the same way, the why is not).

I believe that P. (the effects of gravity), P is true (can be demonstrated to exist as defined) and I am justified in my belief because i have a reliable methodology for repeatedly and independently testing P.

Quote:No, I'm not being a solopsist, and there was nothing in my response to even suggest such a thing. This is a red herring.

Yet you claim not to be able to "know" anything about reality other than what is logically necessary, do you claim to be able to know anything outside your own mind? If not there is no difference between your perceptions being indicative of reality and your perceptions being stimulated by probes in your vat-brain.

Quote:There is a difference between believing that we are brains in vats or computer simulations, and accepting the un-falsifiability of these positions.

Yet how would we be able to falsify the external reality if we are unable to know whether or not it exists? If nothing can be known about external reality, other than the things necessitated by the logical absolutes, then the external reality is equally un-falsifiable.

Quote: I accept that I cannot prove we are not brains in vats or computer simulations, and thus I accept that my belief that I am a real person, living in a real universe, is not proven "truth". It is not knowledge, and it never will be. This doesn't change my belief that it is true.

This is just inconsistent - How are you justified in your belief? You have left yourself with nothing to distinguish between external and vat reality.

Quote:It isn't my insistence, it is one of the definitions of knowledge. Namely, the one that you use:

Wikipedia Wrote:Certainty can be defined as either (a) perfect knowledge that has total security from error, or (b) the mental state of being without doubt.

Sure, notice the qualifier on knowledge? "Perfect", as in absolute certainty. Considering that priori and posteriori knowledge aren't incompatible the absolute certainty would only be relevant in terms of priori knowledge - the knowledge we have prior to approaching a problem - the knowledge gained from this application is still "knowledge".

Quote:A "true, justified, belief" is knowledge that has total security from error. since something that is "true" cannot be "false" (law of non-contradiction). Whether you accept it or not, if you have true justified belief (aka knowledge), then you also have certainty in the most absolute sense.

This falls not on knowledge but on justification. If the justification is false then it cannot be known, however, going back to the gravity example, since I can demonstrate that the effects of gravity are true(demonstrable), and that the justification is true (unfailing and reliable), I can be said to "know" that the described effects of gravity are true.

Quote:Relative knowledge, on the other hand, depends on the second definition (b). If you have a belief in something, and you are without doubt in that belief, then you can be said to have relative knowledge.

That's simply bullshit Wink Certainty (as in credulity) is not knowledge - It is neither priori knowledge or posteriori knowledge as it has nothing to do with either truth or justification.

Quote:I've covered how we cannot reliably confirm that even the effects have existed. As soon as you observe something, there is nothing you can do to prove (in an absolute sense) that what you just observed was actually observed, or whether it was a delusion, or a falsely implanted memory. As a result, a belief it remains.

You keep insisting on knowledge being necessarily absolute, this is to completely ignore the concept of posteriori knowledge - I pointed out from the beginning that in terms of priori knowledge you are absolutely right, however posteriori knowledge is not necessarily certain to an absolute degree.

Quote:Indeed it does, and I've argued this from the start. I do not believe that we can know whether anything we "know" is truth or not. It may be true, and it may be false.

Knowledge simply cannot be false, this is trivially true (by definition). One can however be mistaken in thinking that they have knowledge, which seems to be what you are saying, and i would agree entirely. This all comes down to justification, if one's justifications are false then they do not have knowledge.

Quote: There is no objective way of telling. I disagree that it means I cannot be consistent on matters of historical fact.

Yeah I dropped the ball there.

Quote: As I have said before, what you call knowledge using your system reliablism, I simply call justified belief. We believe the same things are true, byt very much the same methods, but whilst you make the claim that they are "true", I say "I cannot know if they are true or not". This does not affect my belief that they are, and as such, I am on the same playing field as you are.

Again you keep conflating priori and posteriori. Posteriori knowledge (by definition) does not require absolute certainty. I keep getting the feeling that we aren't actually disagreeing, but that you keep refusing to make the distinction, or refuse to call the latter "knowledge" however as it is defined and as it is commonly used it is in fact "knowledge" (a justified belief that happens to be true) be it absolute or not.

Quote:I never made that claim; you imagined it. I only noted that the "true, justified, belief" definition of knowledge that Plato came up with wasn't the most complete, and that there were objections to be noted. That was as far as I took it. In most cases, "true, justified, belief" works fine; all Gettier's problem shows is that in some special cases, more is needed for something to be called knowledge.

Not exactly something more, but a more rigid and less easily achievable justification where the justification it's self must necessarily be true for knowledge to be considered.
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Messages In This Thread
What is your epistemology? - by theVOID - September 12, 2010 at 9:34 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by padraic - September 12, 2010 at 10:06 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by theVOID - September 12, 2010 at 10:21 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by lrh9 - September 12, 2010 at 11:01 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by theVOID - September 12, 2010 at 11:15 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by lrh9 - September 13, 2010 at 12:05 am
RE: What is your epistemology? - by theVOID - September 13, 2010 at 2:16 am
RE: What is your epistemology? - by lrh9 - September 13, 2010 at 3:58 am
RE: What is your epistemology? - by Tiberius - September 13, 2010 at 10:14 am
RE: What is your epistemology? - by theVOID - September 13, 2010 at 4:45 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by tackattack - September 14, 2010 at 6:53 am
RE: What is your epistemology? - by KichigaiNeko - September 13, 2010 at 12:50 am
RE: What is your epistemology? - by tackattack - September 12, 2010 at 11:38 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by theVOID - September 12, 2010 at 11:51 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by tackattack - September 13, 2010 at 12:46 am
RE: What is your epistemology? - by Tiberius - September 13, 2010 at 1:50 am
RE: What is your epistemology? - by ib.me.ub - September 13, 2010 at 8:46 am
RE: What is your epistemology? - by Paul the Human - September 13, 2010 at 12:25 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by Existentialist - September 13, 2010 at 2:41 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by Tiberius - September 13, 2010 at 5:18 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by theVOID - September 13, 2010 at 6:01 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by Existentialist - September 13, 2010 at 6:41 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by Tiberius - September 13, 2010 at 6:56 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by Existentialist - September 13, 2010 at 7:03 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by theVOID - September 13, 2010 at 7:13 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by Existentialist - September 13, 2010 at 7:52 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by Existentialist - September 13, 2010 at 7:24 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by theVOID - September 13, 2010 at 7:36 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by Tiberius - September 14, 2010 at 8:55 am
RE: What is your epistemology? - by Watson - September 13, 2010 at 6:43 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by Existentialist - September 13, 2010 at 6:49 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by theVOID - September 13, 2010 at 6:54 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by theVOID - September 13, 2010 at 6:53 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by Watson - September 13, 2010 at 6:49 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by Tiberius - September 13, 2010 at 6:53 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by Watson - September 13, 2010 at 7:14 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by Rhizomorph13 - September 13, 2010 at 10:47 pm
RE: What is your epistemology? - by Existentialist - September 14, 2010 at 2:50 am
RE: What is your epistemology? - by ib.me.ub - September 14, 2010 at 8:18 am
RE: What is your epistemology? - by ib.me.ub - September 14, 2010 at 9:23 am
RE: What is your epistemology? - by KichigaiNeko - September 14, 2010 at 9:30 am
RE: What is your epistemology? - by ib.me.ub - September 14, 2010 at 9:36 am
RE: What is your epistemology? - by KichigaiNeko - September 14, 2010 at 10:18 am
RE: What is your epistemology? - by ib.me.ub - September 14, 2010 at 11:25 pm

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