[lit-ideas] Re: Understanding Why Newton Contributed To Human Knowledge With A False Theory

  • From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 09:49:40 +0000 (GMT)

--- Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx> wrote:


> S. A knows p only if p.
> 
> S is independent of whether knowledge is justified true belief; it 
> avoids disputes about Edmund Gettier, Eastern mystics, Bertrand Russell, 
> G. E. Moore?that whole crowd. 

Doubt this is "independent" as a matter of the history of ideas, while
prepared to accept that _strictly speaking from a purely logical POV_ we
cannot deduce from S any of the further propositions of "that whole crowd".
But then what can we strictly deduce from most propositions? Not much.

>Whatever conception of knowledge one has, 
> it must satisfy S. 

I may be wrong (of course) but I think this is the nub of where we may
disagree. 

I have been suggesting that, having looked at both sides, we might well
reject S as a condition that has to be satisfied before we can 'properly'
speak of 'knowing' or 'knowing'. S is really the upshot/bedrock of a
historically prevalent but mistaken way of looking at "knowledge" [I suggest
anyone who thinks about info. tech. etc. will see that Popper's conception of
knowledge, including the idea of "World 3", is clearly more on the right
lines than the traditional conception of "knowledge" as JTB - I do lots of
things on computers without JTB but which work, and if they don't I try
something else without JTB, until I get something that works].

Let us repeat:-

> S is not a mere definition. It is at the heart of the 
> distinction philosophers draw between knowing and some other epistemic 
> state.

(Well, it can be defended as a definition). In what way, if all knowledge is
conjectural/fallible, is the distinction valid or useful? This is key.
Because the philosophers who draw "the distinction...between knowing and some
other epistemic state" are surely assuming there is something more than
'conjectural/fallible' "knowledge"?
 
> I'm not here appealing to ordinary usage, which is notoriously 
> polychrome, as a Harvard philosopher once sai.

Great. Not sure what "polychrome" means. But still - great.

<big snip>

>In any event, this speaks to how 
> it is established that p, and is concerned with evidence and grounds. 
> Claims to knowlege, as here, do not defeat S; in fact, they seem to 
> depend on it. How else could the opposing side establish that the 
> witness didn't really know what he thought he knew?

I would agree that such "[c]laims to knowledge" do not "defeat" S in the
sense of disprove it - but I hope to argue/explain why they do not "depend"
on S either. 

S is a philosopher's notion, quite remote from the everyday ["polychrome"?]
use of the terms like 'knowledge' and 'knowing'. (It is also quite distinct
from the legal notion btw). 

<snip>
 
>  This isn't really news in everyday life or in philosophy.

Well, again I may be mistaken, but I think perhaps Robert Paul's last point
"isn't really news".

>  A final note. What you have above seems ill-formed in the following 
> way. In what you say is entailed by knowing x, x should now be in quote... 
 
Question: is this just the point that 'x' ordinarily implies 'x [is true]'?
If so, I thought (perhaps wrongly) that my post hit a balance between
recognising this, recognising that it is not always obvious to everyone, and
not being pedantic about it.


Donal
Nuff For Now


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