Then I don't understand why you resist what seems to me a perfectly logical conclusion.

If you read something, you have to have reading material, and you have to use your eyes and your reasoning powers. Any knowledge that you claim to have as a result of that process would indicate that you have put your trust in the source of the reading material, your sensory perception, and your reasoning powers.

Is this not so?

... what we found at one extreme is a perspective where experience and reason are self-evidently simply what they are (but only paradoxically so) ... and at at the other extreme is a tension between one perspective where experience self-evidently corresponds to reality while reason is fallible, and another perspective where reason self-evidently corresponds to reality while experience is fallible (is this extreme-realist tension a mirrored image of the extreme-idealist paradox?) ... as interesting as this is, it does not further illuminate the "kernel" of self-evident knowledge that we had already identified in the middle of the continuum (where nothing self-evidently corresponds to reality and both reason and experience are fallible) - that is, the only self-evident knowledge is the knowledge that "I experience" and "I reason" ...

What would be the very first things that we can confidently say a child knows?

... interesting question ... fear? ... hunger? ... Mom? ... does a newborn yet have any sense of "I"? ...

Fear and hunger would be sensations though, wouldn't they?

And mom is a problem, because newborns don't actually separate their identity from their mom until later, or so I have heard.

I speculate that actual knowing as in knowing "what something is" (distinct from simple stimulus-response) doesn't start happening until the child can see an object, bring it into focus, deliberately reach for it and confidently achieve hand-eye coordination. Before that, I would think a baby is seeing mostly unfocused images, and not having any sense of what those objects are or where they are in relation to the self.

... yes, they are experience ... but what's missing here is the "I" in the knowledge "I experience" ... and if there is no "I", is there any knowledge? - or is it just pure experience? ...

I'm inclined to think that knowledge can reside in my brain, and that I can make use of it without being self-aware. For example, I'm driving and a ball rolls out onto the street and I slam on the brakes, because I know what all of that means, and I know how to operate the car. In that split second, I didn't have to time to reflect on any of it.

It is only when I try to define knowing, when I get analytical, that I need to recognize the process whereby all that knowledge accumulated, i.e., from a long and complicated series of experiences that involved sense perception and reasoning, and individual beliefs.

And, I think these early childhood stages illustrate important principles. We observe behaviors in children that occur to us as cute, sometimes because the behaviors illustrate utter naivete or bad logic. Like my granddaughter who, at about 3 and 1/2 yrs., says her mom and dad are going to take her to disney world in an airplane. She always sees airplanes in the sky, so when I ask her where is disney world, she says, "In the sky."

It makes me wonder how many things I think I know are really assumptions built on logic with flawed premises.

It is only when I try to define knowing, when I get analytical, ...

And, I think these early childhood stages illustrate important principles. We observe behaviors in children that occur to us as cute, sometimes because the behaviors illustrate utter naivete or bad logic. Like my granddaughter who, at about 3 and 1/2 yrs., says her mom and dad are going to take her to disney world in an airplane. She always sees airplanes in the sky, so when I ask her where is disney world, she says, "In the sky."

It makes me wonder how many things I think I know are really assumptions built on logic with flawed premises.

If a superscientist could examine your brain, would he be able to tell whether you know that Quito is the capital of Ecuador? I don't think so, since in order for you to know that Quito is the capital of Ecuador, Quito would have to be the capital of Ecuador, and no one could tell whether that was true just by examining your brain, since whether Quito is the capital of Ecuador has nothing to do with your brain. It has to do with what happens in Ecuador.

Knowledge is merely one of faiths children;
And wisdom is the equitable truth of All.

=
MJA

Of course, if a scientist--unfamiliar with geography--could use technology to read my mind, and see that I know that Quito is the capitol of Ecuador, all he would know is that I believe that Quito is the capitol of Ecuador; he wouldn't know that Quito is the capitol of Ecuador. Of course if he could do further reading and find out all my reasons for believing it, that might convince him that my knowing is adequately verified.

... and then what of the supersuperscientist who's examining the brain of the superscientist - what sort of mental gymnastics are involved in her "knowing" of the superscientist's "knowing" of your "knowing"? ... it seems that this could be another instance of the inability of science to completely describe the mental ... a scientist, upon exposing a subject to "red" and measuring the resulting psycho-physical activity, can, at a later time, observe a similar psycho-physical activity in the same subject and proclaim "the subject is experiencing 'red'" ... but what the scientist cannot do is (without resorting to his own subjective experience) describe what the subject's experience of "red" is like! ... so when a superscientist scientifically "knows" what you "know", how much do they really "know"? ...

Please elaborate on the wisdom and equitable truth!

Not the point. Even if the SS knew everything there was to know about your brain, he could not tell whether you knew that Quito was the capital of Ecuador, since that would depend on whether Quito was the capital of Ecuador, and that is not in your brain. It is in South America. When you claim to know, you are not claiming to have a certain kind of experience.

... and so if Quito is in South America, then it's not in the SS's brain either, yes? ... and if the SS has never been to Ecuador nor even looked it up on a map, then again: when a superscientist scientifically "knows" what you "know", how much do they really "know"? ...

I guess if a superscientist knows that you know what the capital of Ecuador is, then, he knows you know what the capital of Ecuador is, just as if I know that you know what the capital of Ecuador is, then I know that you know what the capital of Ecuador is. What did you think?

... I thought you were over-privileging the superscientist's mind by putting in qualifiers like "... since that would depend on whether Quito was the capital of Ecuador" as if the superscientist could somehow be more objective than me ... but maybe that's what you were intending with the name "superscientist" - some inhuman omniscience?

A ss is someone who knows everything there is to know about brains. He can know exactly what anyone thinks or believes. But he still would not know that someone knows what the capital of Ecuador is just from examining his brain, since examining his brain could not tell him what the capital of Ecuador is. It would tell him what the subject believes the capital is, but it would not tell him whether the subject is right.

... but does "being right" as judged by some external observer have anything to do with what I know? ... for example, let's say I know that Quito is the capital of Ecuador and some superscientist scans my brain, sees that I know that Quito is the capital of Ecuador, flies to Ecuador and confirms this ... overnight, a coup happens in Ecuador and Quito is no longer the capital ... the next day a new superscientist scans my brain, sees that I know that Quito is the capital of Ecuador, flies to Ecuador and disconfirms this ... does the fact that one day I am "right" and the next day I am "wrong" in any way affect my experience of knowing that Quito is the capital of Ecuador?