Good!

Under some accounts of (and in papers which defend) epistemic minimalism, true belief (sans justification) is defended as a plausible definition of knowledge.

1. Essentially the idea is that "belief" has not been given a rich enough qualification or has been given an insufficient characterization by those who accept "justified true belief" as knowledge.

2. True belief as knowledge is usually attacked on account of hallucination and schizophrenia cases. But the counter is usually given that beliefs must be, by our ordinary conception of belief (think preferences), acquired in a more or less causally appropriate manner.

So, for instance, people clinically diagnosed as mentally handicapped or psychotic seem to have beliefs, but certain classes of beliefs are generally denied to them as bearers of those beliefs. So, for instance, the belief that one is in a padded room might be legit while the belief that pluto has martians on it (uttered every other year) is not. A random sequence of utterance that happens to sound like "I believe X" would not be attributed to a person. For instance, we wouldn't attribute beliefs to a parrot.

On hallucination: Suppose you're induced into a coma and someone "injects" (by some means) into your brain "the belief that X"; I'd doubt that we'd say you legitimately or genuinely hold that belief. On the supposition, we'd simply say that you were induced to say it or you got it in the wrong way. There seems to be a "coherency in acquisition."

This is perhaps evidenced by theist/atheist feuding. Each side of the camp says "they only think they believe (God talks to them) or (Science tells them the right morality)" which is just another way of saying "they only believe they believe." This kind of talk is nonsensical and absurd, but it intimates, I think, the idea that Science or God could literally speaking to us, even if true, would give us "beliefs" in an inauthentic way or by cheating.

Even if God decided to tell you this or that, I'd still think it mysterious that you could even get a belief at all because God's supposed to be outside of the normal flow of things. Getting beliefs through flux seems suspect. We generally hold that people must get their beliefs through some standard and normal process.

So the reason for our believing something or having the belief at all seems to be necessarily within a certain class of possible reasons. And perhaps this is a necessary condition.

For instance, in order for me to genuinely say, at all, that I believe in God. I must go to church for some number of years, have religious parents, perhaps, etc etc. No one would say I really have the belief at all if I behave and act as a self-described atheist for 30 years and suddenly and unexpectedly, one Wednesday morning, start saying "I believe in Christ (in the Christian sense)"--especially if I own not one copy of the Bible. People would likely think I'm being insincere or playing a joke or hit my head or am being coerced. But what do people know? In any case, it seems there's something essentially public about having beliefs at all or being said to have beliefs by others.

First off, I thought that the difference between knowledge and belief had something to do with their respective justifications. Maybe knowledge rested on verification, correspondence, consensus, something that belief did not have.

1. All appeals to truth, knowledge, and belief have no real meaning and should be understand as rhetorical tools only. We don't employ these words to really provide factual information, rather we employ them to convince. In this sense, the words do not necessarily refer to anything, and the difference between "know" and "believe" are the weights they carry within discourse.

2. Belief plays a key role in our understanding of agency. In order to act, we must have some understanding of our environment, otherwise we will not have any direction or purpose to our actions, they will be random. However, to say we act only on knowledge is absurd.

In this sense, belief could be explained as any understanding of our environment that leads to action or choice.

I actually find it possible to reconcile the two positions, but I think that the latter explanation may be the best for purposes of consensus.

Are we really questioning people acquiring beliefs from some metaphysical figure? This seems absolutely absurd to me. OF COURSE these people are acquiring their beliefs from standard or normal processes.

What are some necessary and perhaps, by their collection as a whole, sufficient conditions for belief?

Belief has one condition, Choice. We can believe whatever enters thought.

Skepticism is a process of choosing.

Knowledge is the rational choice applied and usually shared.

On hallucination: Suppose you're induced into a coma and someone "injects" (by some means) into your brain "the belief that X"; I'd doubt that we'd say you legitimately or genuinely hold that belief. On the supposition, we'd simply say that you were induced to say it or you got it in the wrong way. There seems to be a "coherency in acquisition."

This is perhaps evidenced by theist/atheist feuding. Each side of the camp says "they only think they believe (God talks to them) or (Science tells them the right morality)" which is just another way of saying "they only believe they believe." This kind of talk is nonsensical and absurd, but it intimates, I think, the idea that Science or God could literally speaking to us, even if true, would give us "beliefs" in an inauthentic way or by cheating.

So the reason for our believing something or having the belief at all seems to be necessarily within a certain class of possible reasons. And perhaps this is a necessary condition.

Belief is not chosen. Skepticism is not chosen. Evidence leads to these and we do not "choose" for evidence.

1. expressed beliefs are absolutely choices. Unless their is someone out there who believes nothing at all or everything.

2. Skepticism is the process of choosing with critical thought.

3. Evidence can mean many things in many ways and also is subjective despite belief. Also if you think evidence is not chosen, then your forgetting what critical debate between opposing ideas is all about.

I don't understand 1., what does the second sentence have to do with the first.

2 is merely disbelief through critical thought.

Evidence is impressed upon us without our choosing. And critical debate is about using the force of valid argument to cause another to change his opinion and find truth. If argument and debate are contingent upon choice they are rendered meaningless. You are effectively saying that the validity of an argument rests in the decision reached by the person hearing it.

If this is true, then your argument is wrong cause I don't choose to believe it. Start over.

I posit this:

1. One cannot believe some proposition without accepting the truth of the proposition.

It makes no sense to say: "I believe x, but X is not true."

2. Truth is a quality of the proposition.

3. Qualities of a proposition are inherent to the proposition and not determined by anyone considering the proposition.

4. Therefore, the truth of a proposition cannot be determined by the believer or disbeliever.

Okay, I will say this again: I am flatly asking, without presupposition or preconception, What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for belief?

In no way am I conflating the two nor am I asking you to tell me the "differences between knowledge and belief." THAT topic is boring, outmoded, and cliche. I don't need the distinction between them. I KNOW there's a distinction. I want the necessary and sufficient conditions for BELIEF.

The thread's title is "Skepticism and Belief" not "Belief and Knowledge" or "What's the difference between belief and knowledge?"

I have not implied once that I am concern with their relationship. Talking about their relationship at all was so that we wouldn't get into such tangents.

Knowledge PRESUPPOSES belief by the definition I gave upon. So it's not logically possible FOR THEM TO BE ON THE SAME FOOTING by that definition. THERE is an automatical LOGICAL DIFFERENCE.

No one's claiming beliefs or knowledge refer.
No one's claiming beliefs have the purpose of providing factual information.
Nor is anyone claiming that knowledge has the purpose of providing factual information.

No one is claiming anything about purposes. We're NOT talking about utility here. My belief that my outfit for the day is smart is not employed "to convince" in any way but figurative. I don't need to convince myself, and 10 minutes before appearing at work, I don't talk to anyone. I might have the belief at this time, and I can certainly be said to have that belief. If I write about it later or tell you later, that will be a criteria for my having it earlier. You wouldn't infer it. You'd understand that I must have had that belief long before you were told that I believe it. (Suppose it's 8:00AM and you know I haven't talked to anyone else.)

Knowledge PRESUPPOSES belief. Please, at least acknowledge this. How does your "weights in discourse" effect our working definition? I don't want your high-flown opinions about the philosophico-fanciful. Look at our working definition and move on from there.

If knowledge PRESUPPOSES belief, whether one is "weightier" than another seems to be self-evident by the fact that knowledge also presupposes TRUTH while belief likely DOES NOT.

If belief isn't concerned with or does not presuppose truth at all, then clearly knowledge is weightier in contexts or situations or forums or places or at times WHERE TRUTH DOES MATTER.

I really do wish the lot of you (not including user: Z) will stop trying your shoot-from-the-hip philosophical grab-assing. LOOK at our definition and focus.

We don't need all these careless mistakes that stumble into "arguments about metaphysics" which are essentially heated and hostile debates stemming from grammatical mistakes that turn into fruitless "playing semantics."

Stop painting these broad stokes and start thinking in more specific terms. I'm not talking about sweeping beliefs in ideology in the sense that I want to compare ideological beliefs with knowledge. I don't want to evaluate that knowledge dr00lz and belief rul3z or vice versa. So stop treating me like I'm raping your postmodern baby. I'm not out to attack postmodern values nor am I out to assault "the subjective."

I just want to know: Try and think What are some necessary and perhaps, by their collection as a whole, sufficient conditions for belief?

This is off-topic. Now we're on about free-will? Freedom of action? I respect a tangent here and there, but let's not turn our philozophizing into a circus.

Fine. Belief plays a key role in our understanding agency. Is what you've just said going to get us any closer to pointing to or grasping any necessary or sufficient condition for belief? Is it that people with free will have a belief? This seems unhelpful because we've narrowed our class down to {rational agents}, which is roughly 7 billion people indiscriminately.

I don't say of a person that he or she believes this or that because they can merely act. Choosing is also faulty. I cannot say of a child, if it silently points to one ice cream flavor over another on a menu at a shop, "the child likes that flavor" because the child might simply be interested in trying it. Saying it likes that flavor would be inaccurate or misleading because it doesn't like that flavor in the same way that I like the flavors I typically choose from. He hasn't even experienced it; so its choosing of it is not anything about its preferences but about its intrigue or explorative natures.

Whether or not we act on beliefs or knowledge is tangential.

But it seems outright false that we do not act on knowledge (and reasons). A person might be said to flee the country because he knows the FBI is after him. This makes sense and might be true for many persons today. Some people might believe that the FBI is after them, but if the belief does not combine the other necessary conditions (of TRUTH and of JUSTIFICATION) then that person might very well not leave the country.

Of course, we might then wonder why that person has the belief at all. And if a person does have it, is it a belief like "Jim's wife has huge knockers." And further, is this person in a psych ward? (A question of how this person appropriated that belief. If it just "struck" him one day, we might say, "Yeah, he's crazy." And it seems to imply that if a person has a sober and careful analysis--perhaps something flirting with knowledge--of his claim, we'll be less inclined to call him crazy or deny that his beliefs are authentic, legitimate and properly caused.)



Let's not get into dogmatism here. I'm saying that EVEN IF God were to exist, presumably, God would be able to affect our beliefs. But EVEN IF so, we'd question whether or not beliefs bestowed in such a way were legitimate. However, IF someone claims to get their beliefs from God, we tend to cast them out as "crazy" or disregard their beliefs as authentic ones. THAT is the point I am trying to make. I'm not trying to entertain metaphysical notions. I'm trying to discuss the implications of definition. ("Even if..."--notice the form of my arguments.)

Causality and Belief is important here. If the Christian God were to exist, we'd likely deny that this God is a proper cause for any belief because of its definition. We don't just have problems with God's existence. We have a derivative problem with God's acting or affecting our world (effecting our beliefs).

This latter one is a preference. It would make no sense to call the belief that the FBI is after one a preference, and if it is a preferential belief, it ain't one like "Jim's wife has huge knockers."

True Justice has no shadow of skeptical doubt.
Equal is absolute,

=
MJA

Knowledge defined

Pre-Gettier and Post-Gettier we generally and more or less plausibly hold (1)

Knowledge is justified true belief. We might outline this as follows.

S knows P if and only if

1. S believes P
   
2. S has evidence for P
   
3. and P is a true fact about the world
   

Alone 1-3 are necessary and together they are sufficient for the predication of knowledge to S. Post-Gettier many epistemologists came to hold that some fourth property or condition need be provided, but we can ignore that for now.

Skepticism defined (more or less)

Now, skepticism captures a broad range of theories which hold doubts about knowledge or its properties (1-3). Some might be
[INDENT]i. Doubt as to our our justification (evidence), that it is lacking in some particular cases (everyday, mundane, weak skepticism),

ii. Consists of (only) falsehoods (error theory about knowledge),

iii. Possible knowledge is doubtful (Pyrrhonian skepticism)

iv. Or is radically and systematically unjustified (Cartesian skepticism).
[/INDENT]Some derivative positions

I wish to clarify a few derivative positions which combine the properties of knowledge and skeptical approaches. We might approach these derivatives through this outline:

a. Do not exist
b. Is always inadequate or insufficient
c. Is always false

So, by combination of a. and 1. we get

a1: Beliefs do not exist

And so on...

a2: Evidence does not exist; Justification does not exist
a3: Facts do not exist; true and false facts do not exist

b1: Beliefs are always inadequate or insufficient (all beliefs are not really beliefs)
[INDENT]b1i. I might say, "You don't really belief that." Thus, I judge the adequacy or perhaps authenticity of your belief.
[/INDENT]b2: Evidence is always inadequate or insufficient; justification is always inadequate or insufficient
b3: Facts are always inadequate or insufficient

c1: Beliefs are always false
c2: Evidence always leads to false conclusions or can never have true conclusions
c3: Facts are always contingently false, even if they could (possibly) be true

Beliefs

Now in my exploration I stumbled onto a weird one. "Beliefs do not exist."

This is quite strange for it seems plausible that one might argue, "Look, your belief isn't really a belief."

So the same with our Knowledge defined section, we might outline belief as follows.

S believes Q if and only iff
[INDENT]...
[/INDENT]And that's where I get loopy. What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for belief or to say that S beliefs something? What are your thoughts on this particular issue or anything I've given above?

This tread is all about true justice Z, perhaps you should reread the opening post for this thread. I/ve highlighted the importance of justice for you.

=
MJA

And that's where I get loopy. What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for belief or to say that S beliefs something? What are your thoughts on this particular issue or anything I've given above?

There a more beliefs then one, pertaining to the world around us. You choose what to believe and what not to. Where cant you find truth in that statement. Its not absolute but its not false either.

2 is however you want to word it. I think we both know what skepticism is.

Evidence is pressed upon us indeed. Evidence is not identical in a debate between to people unless it is chosen by both. Im not saying it is meant to be chosen, but that doesn't change the fact. Your assuming a lot of things based on supposed to's.

To your 1: Sounds an awful lot like a choice.

To your 2: No, truth is a quality of reflection on said proposition. A proposition is not based on whether it true or not. Your supposing things here.

To your 3. Again your supposing that a proposition has to be anything. IT DOESN'T.

To your 4: So basically your describing that Propositions have truth about them and we cannot determine it from a true or false opinion. So why are you saying that choice is not involved? It makes no sense to go that's the idea, we cant really determine if its true or not, and also we cannot choose so if we want. That's really great stuff, but that's not giving any real opinion on the discussion other then, "you cant do this and that", in more words then needed.:surrender:

You have made debate completely meaningless. If evidence is relevant if one chooses it to be, then evidence has no bearing on anything. If truth is a quality that we choose to place on statements, then statements say nothing.

By your argument (which is self-defeating, as I could simply not choose to accept any of it without even reading it were it true) implies that these two arguments are equivalent to each other:

Kittens are dangerous, therefore it is raining outside.

Little drops of water are falling from the sky, therefore it is raining outside.


And are you really saying that the statement, "A user named Joe typed a post on the philosophy forum", is true if and only if I choose for it to be true?

Explain how I can choose it not to be true, and then explain what happens to history, you, and your post.

You ask two different questions, right? The necessary and sufficient conditions for my belief (that some proposition is true) are precisely the same as the necessary and sufficient conditions for my "knowing." For me, "I know the earth is round" is the same as "I believe the earth is round."

The necessary and sufficient conditions "to say that S believes something" may be different. I'm a skeptic (in the Socratic sense). S may not be. I may require a different kind of justification before I say I believe something than would S.