Ah, see this is where I think we get confused. My objection, initially, was against your justification for your first order knowledge as a given. But I can see how my explanation of my understanding of the closure principle can suggest an attack against your second order knowledge.

As my understanding of the closure principle is, it does not matter whether it is first or second order knowledge. The closure principle will challenge any form of justification if you hold to the JTB theory of knowledge.

Your initial proposition was that you are posting on this thread. I think we at least agree on that much. :bigsmile:

You were taking for granted that you had JTB for your first order of knowledge - JTB about you posting on this thread. If that is taken for granted, then there is no disputing your second order knowledge - it follows logically, in the way you presented it.

So my challenge was against your having any knowledge at all, but was directed at what you took for granted - your first order knowledge. I was challenging the justification for your first order knowledge, but as I said, the Closure Principle applies to any form of knowledge which adheres to the JTB theory.

I have problems with the JTB theory - between the Closure Principle and the Gettier problem, it doesn't seem like it works.

I liked the way you were going with it though - you seemed like you were working towards Nozick's notion of knowledge, which uses some pretty heavy modal logic. I really like Nozick's conditions for knowledge:

S knows that X IFF:
1.) S believes X
2.) X is true
3.) If it were the case that X was not true, S would not believe that X, and
4.) If if were the case that X, S would believe that X.

As you can see, Nozick uses a counterfactual claim and poses the idea of possible worlds where X would or would not be true, and whether or not S would still believe if X were or were not true.

I thought you might have been leaning towards this theory, but I couldn't tell. Could we agree on this?

Fair enough. Night Ripper appeared to be assuming JTB in the opening post, yet claimed that second order knowledge is impossible. This is what I was objecting to.
I also think that JTB is unsatisfactory, however, I dont think that any fully satisfactory model of knowledge is possible. So, when appealing to knowledge, I think that a model needs to be stipulated.

Ah, this makes a lot more sense. It's always difficult to tell when someone is adopting someone else's system and arguing against it, as opposed to when they are producing their own arguments.

Are you proposing contextualism then? Or simply rejecting epistemological realism?

Your question isn't easy to answer, I'll think about it.

what puzzling is why we keep asking this question ?

why does anybody ask this question ?

I mean we know there are mountains , we know that we as Humans need sustenance , we know cold from hot

so what is the point of bringing this question up over and over again ?