(June 23, 2018 at 12:24 am)vulcanlogician Wrote: The purpose of this thread is to examine the value of faith or (at the very least) to explore its relation to true knowledge. Be forewarned, the OP goes into some boilerplate ancient Greek philosophy, so if that isn't your thing, I would recommend not reading past the next paragraph. But I will try to convey the gist of things in the first two paragraphs, so if you have a response to what is said in there, feel free to ignore the rest.
...
So let's ask ourselves: "What is genuine knowledge?" or "Who is the person who can best receive real knowledge?" Is it the faithful? Or is it the skeptical? I say the latter. And so does Plato. Let's take a look at four types of people: the knowledgeable, the philosophers, the ignorant, and the misunderstanding.
1) The knowledgeable-- (or the "knowing") these people have correct knowledge, and they know that the knowledge that they have is correct.
2) The philosophers-- do not have correct knowledge, and if they do have correct knowledge, they don't know that it's correct. They understand Socrates when he says, "The only thing I know is that I know nothing." They are empty vessels, waiting to be filled, or better yet... as Plutarch puts it... fires waiting to be ignited.
3) The ignorant-- They do not have knowledge, but nor do they want it. They don't know it. Nor do they pursue knowledge. Some of my favorite people fall into this category.
4) The misunderstanding-- These people have false knowledge. Though they mistake it for real knowledge. But they are very certain of their false knowledge.
To me, faith makes one prone to fall into the category of "the misunderstanding"... those who do not know, but think that they DO know. Those who misunderstand are worse than the ignorant, in my opinion. To think the wrong answer is correct is worse than simply admitting one does not know at all. It is better to be ignorant than mistaken, that is what I think.
Knowledge is a belief that is true because there are good reasons to think it is true.
Faith is a belief based on confidences (warranted or unwarranted) that some state of affairs is correct.
Everybody has plenty of both categories of belief.
When you say "So let's ask ourselves: "What is genuine knowledge?" or "Who is the person who can best receive real knowledge?" Is it the faithful? Or is it the skeptical? I say the latter." you are making a category error. Beliefs fall in two categories but you think somehow having faith in one set of propositions somehow affects the ability to distinguish between the two categories. I don't think you can come close to making that case.
