To continue the building upon of ideas, does one have to know? If I think H2O is what water is composed of, and I use this information, with other information, to create a hydrogen bomb, does it necessarily follow that I know that H2O is the composition of water?

What I'm trying to say is that it's very clear that we've built upon ideas to come to new, and often times more advanced, ideas. However, does any of this have to necessarily do with knowledge, though? Or at least knowledge that has to do with truth?

Could it be that all of our advancements are held together by strings of justifications, rather than knowledge?

Indeed, yes, that is what it would mean.

This is where I become confused: Access to truth.

It's very clear that from generation to generation we are believing things which have justifications. Those things we do not feel have adequate justifications, we don't call knowledge, and we often don't believe (and we often contest them... which is a good thing!). This, for whatever it's worth, could be dubbed the "body of X"; the collective and temporal culmination of what we believe based on justification we find to be good.

I just don't know if any of this has to do with knowledge, or if even knowledge exists. Is knowledge an idealistic notion? Should we revise this notion - have we matured, and come to grips with uncertainty, as a species? Tentative knowledge seems a bit contradictory. We're still trying to keep the word "knowledge" in the mix, because, I think, it gives us some certainty, and we fear not having it.

If our present beliefs are justified in the light of current human understanding, we are entitled to call them knowledge. If future discoveries show that they were false, then we (or posterity) should deny that they were really knowledge. But if we or posterity find them still true beyond reasonable doubt, we/they should maintain the claim that they were knowledge.

... as crazy as it may sound, perhaps a refined sense of the JTB model of knowledge is idealistic but at the same time comes to grips with inherent uncertainty ... it is idealistic in that it incorporates "truth" in its definition, the ideal of direct access to truth being beyond us; but at the same time it also tries to come to grips with inherent uncertainty by incorporating "justified belief" ... which leads one to a strange situation: you can be certain that your beliefs are justified (e.g., they are logically coherent), but you cannot be certain that your justified beliefs are knowledge ...

I think that if a person knows that water is H20 then he (at least) believes water is H20, his belief is adequately justified, and it is true that water is H20. What do you think?

But that doesn't seem what is meant, because even seeing the postman deliver the letters is also inferential or indirect evidence according to Paul. The question is what Paul would consider to be direct evidence (access) to the truth (if anything). I suggested that perhaps he would think that my evidence that I am in pain (or some other mental state) would be, for him, a case of direct access to the truth. But could our knowing be such a mental state so that we could have direct access to whether we know? In which case, of course, we could know that we know, or be certain.

As I have said, knowledge implies the inactuality of error, but certainty implies the impossibility of error.

Only confusion can result from the failure to distinguish between knowledge and certainty.

What is inactuality, and how, exactly, does it differ from impossibility?

Yes, belief is a necessary condition of knowledge, but knowledge is not a kind of belief. It's no more a kind of belief than it is a kind of truth or kind of justification. The mistake all too commonly made is to say of knowledge that it is a kind of belief because belief is a necessary condition of knowledge, but what has that to do with it?

Every case that must be the case is the case, but not every case that is the case must be the case.

But that doesn't seem what is meant, because even seeing the postman deliver the letters is also inferential or indirect evidence according to Paul. The question is what Paul would consider to be direct evidence (access) to the truth (if anything). I suggested that perhaps he would think that my evidence that I am in pain (or some other mental state) would be, for him, a case of direct access to the truth.

It was only finally the greatest of all American philosophers, Charles S. Pierce who nailed it.

... could you elaborate? ...

But how is "truth" part of the criterion here, then? This notion of knowledge is JB, until our justifications are proven unsound. Once they are, we pick up a new JB, and then run with it a while until we are proven incorrect again.



Are we certain our beliefs are justified, or do we just feel justified in believing our beliefs are justified?



In many threads you mention the point that knowing has nothing to do with the possibility of falsity. That is, just because it's possible something could be false, it does not follow that we do not know at any point in time. But, if we find out that that thing is in fact not true, we never knew to begin with - we just thought we knew. This confuses me.

Besides those things which are tautologically true, such as that all bachelors are single, I don't understand how we can claim knowledge. For most things, all we can do is claim that we think we know. And, if in most cases all we can claim is that we think we know, it seems that knowing is something we can approach but never attain - it's an idealistic notion.



I'm not convinced yet that we have direct access to truth for most things. It seems that excluding things that are by definition true, most things we only have inferential access to truth for.

Are you sure direct access exists for most things?



What is inactuality, and how, exactly, does it differ from impossibility?



If knowledge doesn't have to be certain, then why are we using "truth" as a criterion? Doesn't truth have to be certain? Or... are there certainly true truths and tentatively true truths... :eek:

Yes, confusion does arise. Indeed, indeed.

Who determines what "must be"?

Truth is not a criterion of knowledge (in the sense that it is how we discover whether we know). It is a condition of knowledge. A belief cannot be knowledge unless that belief is true, just as nothing can be a triangle unless it has three angles.

But again, just as we can think that something is gold, and it really be gold, so we can think we know and we really know. Thinking something is gold does not exclude its being gold, and thinking we know does not exclude our knowing. You would not say that we can only think something is gold but never claim it is gold, so why would you say that we can only think we know, but never claim we know? Again, what is the difference. And you would not say that gold is an idealistic notion. Why say that knowledge is an idealistic notion?

Well, we have direct access to the truth of things like, there is a table in front of me. But we don't in the case of there are electrons or protons. We did not used to have direct access to germs, but now we can observe germs directly though a powerful microscope.

Mermaids are inactual, but mermaids are possible. I use the term "possible" to mean, "logically possible" (for now, anyway). What is logically possible does not imply a contradiction. Four-sided triangles are logically impossible. What is impossible is inactual, but not all inactual things are impossible.

As I have said, knowledge implies the inactuality of error, but certainty implies the impossibility of error.

I don't see why you ask this. P does not have to be certain to be true. Certainty and truth are utterly different concepts. There are truths no one knows of, much less are certain of. Certainty and knowledge are epistemic concepts. Truth is a metaphysical concept. Knowledge implies truth, but truth does not imply knowledge. There have been, and doubtless are, truths no one knows are true.

I don't know that it's a person that determines what must be.

Also, I wouldn't be too quick to say it's false that knowledge is a justified true belief. In fact, I don't think it's false, so I won't say it at all, let alone quickly.

My problem is that I do not know how to interpret "truth" as a conditional for knowledge, when "truth" can not always be perceived.

So, direct access means that we are actively perceiving that thing?

If things have to be the way they are, then they are the way they are, but the converse is not true. Hence, just because things are the way they are, that's not to say things have to be the way they are; After all, things could have been different.

... in my mind, "direct access" means unerring access, which typically implies unmediated access ... yes, it's my old nemesis "certainty" again , but I think direct access to truth implies certainty ... in fact, perhaps another description of "knowledge" is precisely "mediated/inferential access to truth" ...

I guess I can't come to grips with this call something knowledge until it's proven otherwise thing, especially for matters dealing with the temporal. It just seems too... convenient, or not well thought out. Eh, it's just me, I think I just have to try to look at this from a new perspective...

Zetherin - Just to avoid any confusion - the comment you attributed to me in your post #73 was actually by paulhanke.

Zetherin - Just to avoid any confusion - the comment you attributed to me in your post #73 was actually by paulhanke.

... earlier, Ken said knowledge is like a triangle ... I think a better analogy would be to say that knowledge is like a hypercube (a four-dimensional cube) - both have a dimension that's beyond our perception ...

You asked, "What is inactuality, and how, exactly, does it differ from impossibility?" This gave me the distinct impression that (maybe) you were having difficulty making the distinction between what is actual and what is possible; however, I also tailored my response to what I thought was the underlying issue since your question was in response to what Kennethamy said, "As I have said, knowledge implies the inactuality of error, but certainty implies the impossibility of error," I said what I said in hopes of being helpful. I'll try again tomorrow.

... earlier, Ken said knowledge is like a triangle ... I think a better analogy would be to say that knowledge is like a hypercube (a four-dimensional cube) - both have a dimension that's beyond our perception ...

---------- Post added 11-10-2009 at 04:24 PM ----------



... no, no, no, please - by all means, take credit for what I say, I insist (especially such times as when I'm talking out my rear end!) ...

This has been a most interesting discussion, but the issues are complex and I have found it difficult to reach a settled view. The basic problem, as I see it, is how to reconcile the idea that what is known cannot be false (which I regard as a non-negotiable part of the definition of "know") with the need to give the word "know" some practical use.

I am trying to separate the question of truth from that of justification, but this is not easy. Of course, we could simply say (from a realist perspective) that some things are true, and that if any such things are justifiably believed, then they are known. This is OK as far as it goes, but it does not get us very far. What is the use of saying that we (perhaps) actually know some things, if we are not aware of the extent (if any) of our knowledge? So we need to ask firstly: Can we be confident that we really know those things that we claim to know? And secondly: if not, should we sacrifice precision in order to salvage some practical use for the word "know"?

Thus we come to the issue of certainty, or the lack of it. Clearly there are some things (logical truths, and sense qualia) that we are certain of. Can we identify a second tier, where we have only "Cartesian" doubt (e.g. that we have a body, or that Ecuador exists), and say that we definitely know such things? I would say yes, because the possibility of error seems negligible; it is inconceivable that the claim of knowledge of such things will ever have to be withdrawn. But then there is a third tier, consisting of things that we "know" in the everyday sense of the word, but where error is a serious possibility. This corresponds to the "mediated/inferential" category mentioned earlier - things such as our "knowledge" that a new house we saw yesterday is still there. Should we include this third tier in the realm of genuine knowledge? If (on practical grounds) we do, we will have to accept some loss of precision in the term "knowledge", and be content to claim knowledge for present purposes while accepting the possibility of future correction. I am not sure whether this is a good idea.

(I have not used the expression "beyond reasonable doubt" in the above, as it is ambiguous as to whether it includes the second tier of knowledge or only the third.)