@dawoel,
dawoel;75289 wrote:I get a lot of people saying that "nothing is truly knowable", but I thought to myself and I thought surely if anything is "true" then it is knowable as knowledge is simply belief that is also true. The problem is certainty, even if we can know a lot of things, how can we be certain of the difference between knowledge and belief. Naturally you believe that your beliefs are true, otherwise they wouldn't be beliefs. Beliefs are not opinions either, they are either true or false, there is no way around that. There are many ways to attempt to justify a belief to make it more likely through induction and deduction, but of course, no matter how many pigs you throw off the cliff, your never going to "proove" that pigs don't fly, and no matter how good logic is, your grasp of it is always going to be finite, so how can you be certain that your logic is genuinely sound and valid? I have however for a while held the belief that the only things that can be known with true certainty are the opposites of paradox. In other words if you have an objective claim that is either true or false, then surely given that you can either have one or the other, not both and not neither of them, then surely if you demonstraight the paradox of one, you proove the certainty of the other. So for example if you have either 2-1=1 or ?(2-1=1) then by demonstraiting that it is a contradiction to have two apples, take one away and have not have 1 apple, we then proove that it is certain, that 2-1=1 (this is provided we are working in base 10). However, we still have the issue of, perhaps the logic is sound and valid, but our grasp of logic in general is finite, meaning we could have made a mistake...
So my question is...is it possible to make a mistake of this magnitude? Or are we indeed certain that a priori knowledge is indeed truly certain? Take "I think therefore I am" for instance, is it possible to be wrong on that?
First of all, as Plato pointed out long ago, knowledge is not just true belief. Since a guess is a true belief, and a guess is not knowledge. Suppose I believe that Obama is using the bathroom at this moment, and suppose that is true. Do I know that he is using the bathroom? Of course not. I believe he is and he is. But I have no justification for my belief. I have no good reason to believe what I believe. Therefore, it is a true belief, but it is not knowledge. So there is a difference between true belief and knowledge, and there is also, of course, a difference between false belief and knowledge, so we know there is a differerence between belief and knowledge. All knowledge is belief, but some beliefs are not knowledge.
In the second place, we have to distinguish between knowledge and certainty.
I know when I have a justified belief which
is not false. I am certain when I have cannot have a belief, and that belief
be false. Therefore, I know that pigs cannot fly, because I believe that pigs cannot fly, that belief is adequately justified, and, of course, that belief is true. But, I am not
certain that pigs cannot fly, because it is not impossible that I should believe that pigs cannot fly, and it still might be true that they can fly. For, as you say, I cannot prove (in the sense of demonstrate the certainty) of the proposition that pigs cannot fly. But that does not mean that I do not
know that pigs cannot fly. My evidence is sufficient for knowledge, but not for certainty.
You ask whether Descartes's
Cogito is certain? That is, you ask whether we are certain that we exist. Is it possible for us to believe that we exist and be mistaken, is what you are really asking. That is a difficult question, and certainly, the
Cogito is a prime candidate for certainty if anything is. The argument is, of course, that you cannot believe anything, let alone that you exist, and be mistaken, since in order to believe anything, it is necessary that you exist. And, it is necessary that you exist even in order to be mistaken. In fact, it is necessary that if anything has a property, that thing must exist. So, if I
walk, then I exist. For how could I walk, and not exist? In fact, predicate logic enshrines this principle into what is called, "existential generalization". (x) (Fx > Ex). Whatever has property, F, exists. There have been counter-arguments, of course. So, all I can say is to repeat what I said just earlier. I am not sure whether "I exist" is certain, but if anything is, it is.
But, whether it is certain or not, we all know that we, ourselves, exist. We need not be certain in order to know.
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