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What is your epistemology?
#31
RE: What is your epistemology?
I love caramel...why would it be a waste? Sad
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#32
RE: What is your epistemology?
(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?
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#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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#34
RE: What is your epistemology?
(September 13, 2010 at 7:13 pm)theVOID Wrote: And you just redefined "They are well defined concepts" to be "Concepts have no definition".
Congratulations, you are a complete and utter waste of space (and by space i mean caramel, since space doesn't actually have a definition, right?)
I think you are taking my position to a logical extreme which would only be valid in a universe where all partially stated positions are automatically taken to a logical extreme. Useful as an insult but hardly constructive in a conversation. The point I was making when I said we all invent our own versions was, we all have to invent concepts to try and form an understanding that coincides with the concepts we are introduced to, but we can never know that our understanding truly coincides with the understanding of others. In this sense our understanding of concepts can only be subjective. As Adrian rightly pointed out,
(September 13, 2010 at 5:18 pm)Tiberius Wrote: It doesn't matter how likely something is of being true; if there is an alternative explanation, however bizarre or unsettling that might be, we cannot say that "gravity is known truth". Whether through the Last Thursday example, or through delusions of our own minds, I believe it is impossible to "know" these things in any absolute way. As such, they remain very justified beliefs, but beliefs nonetheless.
Sometimes, we may freely admit that we might as well not take issue with an external, 'objective' explanation of a concept, because we need to get through the day. My invention of the concept of a banana and my belief about what a banana is seems to fit quite nicely with the curved yellow fruit in the supermarket, that suits me. At other times we may choose to insist that the ideas we have invented do not and cannot coincide with, for example, a broadly accepted idea such as "the deficit must be eliminated". The same principle of choice applies to every single concept we come across. I agree, there is huge scope for fraud and insincerity in this position, but there is also huge scope for authenticity and unconstrained freedom to discover new truths.

PS I agree, my grip on reality is long gone, and I'm distinctly proud of it! Whenever I type a 'u' on my keyboard, my screen produces a 'g'. I love being weird.
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#35
RE: What is your epistemology?
Existentialist is Saerules sockpuppet, I just know it. Any minute now she will argue that when she says orangutan she might really mean chocolate. lqtm.
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#36
RE: What is your epistemology?
I just thought I'd post this quickly but another example I thought of in the night was, how can any of us know that an orang utan is really an orang utan? It might just as easily be chocolate. I hope that satisfies the faint-hearted.
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#37
RE: What is your epistemology?
(September 13, 2010 at 2:16 am)theVOID Wrote:


I'd love to keep up with your conversation with Adrian, but I think I'll respond first then comment on the conversation up to the point. Hopefully more succinctly this time:

1- I believe it's impractical to gain knowledge prior to anything, everything is experienced and logic and reasoned are developed, therefore everything believed is only as true as the experience and ideology is true. Therefore I only believe in subjective knowledge and subjective truth.
2- To distinguish from self reality (what is real to me) to objectifiable reality (what is real to everyone) I use reliable testing, accommodating and assimilating incorrect assumptions, seeking and evaluating outside sources both in-line and contrary to your position, and introspection.
3- I don't "know" anything objectively because "I" can not be objective, and "I" is the key in my personal philosophy. I believe things are indicative, mutually agreed upon, and objectifiable only with increasing perspective. This perspective of ever increasing assimilation is one of my foundations, especially with constructivism beliefs and inquiry-based learning I grew up on.

I'm sure I'm missing some specific responses to any questions you have and I'd love to see how this turned into orangutan and chocolate discussion, but I'll see if I have time today to catch up.
"There ought to be a term that would designate those who actually follow the teachings of Jesus, since the word 'Christian' has been largely divorced from those teachings, and so polluted by fundamentalists that it has come to connote their polar opposite: intolerance, vindictive hatred, and bigotry." -- Philip Stater, Huffington Post

always working on cleaning my windows- me regarding Johari
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#38
RE: What is your epistemology?
I like this.....Here are mine....

World View: Holistic.
Epistemology: Direct realsim/Naïve realism/Common sense realism.
Moral Theory: Unknown.
Political View: Independent/Green.

Direct realsim/Naïve realism/Common sense realism - "Naïve realism claims that the world is pretty much as common sense would have it. All objects are composed of matter, they occupy space, and have properties such as size, shape, texture, smell, taste and colour. These properties are usually perceived correctly. So, when we look at and touch things we see and feel those things directly, and so perceive them as they really are. Objects continue to obey the laws of physics and retain all their properties whether or not there is anyone present to observe them doing so."

A basic definition taken from wiki. But do you need more?

Existentialist Wrote:In the final analysis I cannot even prove that I am who I think I am.

:-) Nice.

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#39
RE: What is your epistemology?
(September 13, 2010 at 7:36 pm)theVOID Wrote: 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).
Yet again, you have no way of determining whether your demonstration ever took place, or whether the observations of your demonstration actually confirmed the definition of gravity. It is true in a relative sense (relative to the definition, and your observations), but not in an absolute sense.

Quote: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.
Still, not absolute knowledge due to you not being able to say whether the demonstration was an accurate reflection of reality.

Quote: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.
Ok, my mistake again. I'd only come across solipsism in a certain Atheist Experience show, where the hosts (usually rational) claim that a solipsist caller believed that they were all figments of his imagination. I was under the impression that solipsism was the belief that one's mind is the only thing to exist, rather than the idea that one's mind is the only "sure" thing to exist.

In the case of the definition above, yes, I am a solipsist. I believe that my own mind is the only thing I can be sure that exists, and with that, logic, etc. I do not, however, believe that everyone else is a figment of my imagination.

Quote: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.
Yes, the external reality is equally un-falsifiable. I thought I'd made that point already when discussing Last Thursdayism.

Quote:This is just inconsistent - How are you justified in your belief? You have left yourself with nothing to distinguish between external and vat reality.
I haven't "left myself nothing"; it just so happens that there is nothing to distinguish between external reality and any other form of reality. This isn't down to a personal decision; it's just the way things are. As for how I have justified my belief; I make the assumption that what I experience is real, in so much as it is *my* reality. I back this up with Occam's razor, and I guess some form of reliablism; namely, that from my experience, if I do not treat my experiences as real, bad things start to happen.

Quote: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".
I hold that a posteriori "knowledge" is merely relative; at most, only a justified belief. It could be true, but there is no way of knowing whether it is true or not. This is because a posteriori knowledge is gained through experience / evidence, and as I have stated before, there is no way of knowing (in an absolute sense) whether it is true or not. It is only true relative to the experience / evidence used to gain it.

Quote: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.
Again, I hold that you cannot demonstrate the effects of gravity are true in any absolute way. Thus your "knowledge" is merely relative, and not absolute.

Quote: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.
I never said it was. I said that if you have a justified belief, and you are absolutely certain in that belief, then you have relative knowledge. In your gravity example, you have a belief (gravity has certain effects), and this belief is justified (through experiments, etc), and you are certain in your belief, then you have relative knowledge. Relative knowledge is not required to be absolutely true, but if you have any doubts in your justified belief, I cannot see how you can claim it to be any form of knowledge. Doubt implies that part of your does not believe your claim to be true, and so any amount of doubt destroys your relative knowledge.

Quote: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.

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 a blatant contradiction here. First you say that knowledge does not have to necessarily be absolute, and then you say that knowledge simply cannot be false. Which is it? If knowledge doesn't have to be absolute, then it can be true or false, depending on the context it is in. If it can't be false (as you say in the second paragraph), then it has to be absolute.

If knowledge simply cannot be false, then you must accept that relative knowledge is completely useless then. You've said before that you have knowledge that gravity exists, and that this knowledge is a posteriori, however by this argument, you are saying that gravity is absolutely true, which to me seems to be a contradiction. You either have knowledge that gravity exists or you don't...if you do (as you claim), and knowledge cannot be false, then you are making a claim of absolute knowledge. I object to this claim, since you have no absolute way of proving it.

Quote: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.
I think we are actually disagreeing, more so now because I see a lot of contradictions in your reasoning. Perhaps it would be better to take a few steps back and start at the basic definitions of knowledge; whether you think that knowledge is absolute, or if it can be relative (since I have no idea what you think now...).

Here is a short summary of my views on knowledge:

Knowledge is true, justified, belief (in a simple form, ignoring any special cases). That is to say, that for you to have knowledge, you must have a specific belief, which must be justified, and must also be true.

The "truth" of a belief can either be relative to the context it is in, or it can be absolute. An absolute truth is literally the most objective form of truth you can get; that if we were able to view the attributes of reality as an objective observer, our truth statement would be in them. In other words, an absolute truth cannot be false.

In contrast, a relative truth is not subject to the same constraints; it doesn't need to be true in an absolute sense (although it might). An example would be gravity. We have a definition of the effects of gravity, and we can test these effects. Since the tests confirm the effects, we can say that gravity is true, relative to the method of confirmation. A relative truth cannot be false relative to the method that confirmed it, but it can be made false by added data (thus changing the original point of reference). If in the future, we find there are errors in our experiments with gravity, then the relative truth of gravity will change. Relative to the old experiments, it will be true, but due to the added data, it is now false.

This relative truth is partly why I equate "relative knowledge" with "justified belief". Relative knowledge need not be absolute, and so cannot be said to be absolutely true (although it might be). The same applies to justified belief, since there is no need for justified belief to be absolutely true.
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#40
RE: What is your epistemology?
@Adrain: I can understand why you would think that things may not exist, but.....

How can the mind exist without the outside World!

In what context does your mind exist? Where is it? What is it? What is the mechanism by which your mind exists (is carried)?

Is Pain not a good example of the physical world.
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