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

  • From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Sat, 1 Dec 2007 14:50:52 +0000 (GMT)

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

> I hope you realize that I'm missing 'Mysteries of the Smithsonian,' on 
> channel 49 to respond to this. 

And I'm missing watching 'The Mighty Boosh' again to respond here. Brief
comments - I hope to post something more substantial soon.

> If it's now claimed that no such condition as S obtains in the case of 
> knowing, then apparently knowing is no different from guessing, 
> pretending, hoping, wishing, or believing from an epistemological point 
> of view.

Well, it is claimed that, yes - as all knowledge-claims are forms of
guesswork, there is no essential or over-riding epistemic difference between
'knowing x' and 'guessing x' [hoping or wishing that "x" are quite different,
however, (from guessing or believing or knowing that "x") because they make
no claim as to the truth of "x"]. Making claims as to the truth of "x" -
which we do (ordinarily) when we assert that we know, guess or believe "x" -
is different of course from claiming that our claim can only be a
_knowledge_-claim if "x" is in fact true [while we accept that it can be a
_guess_ or _belief_ claim even if "x" is not true]. 

That is, we can claim that "x" is true - whether we express this claim as one
of 'knowing', 'guessing' or 'believing' - without committing ourselves to the
view that our claim is not a genuine or meaningful claim unless "x" is true. 
 

> First, S is not a definition. S sets forth a condition that must be met 
> before it can be rightly said that someone knows something. It isn't the 
> only condition that has to be met: 

It is unclear, thus far, whether the argument here is that S is not at all a
definitional point or that it is not a definition because it is at best only
one "condition" that must be met. S may be a definitional point, being "a
condition that must be met before it can be rightly said" etc., even though
of itself it does not amount to a complete definition. 

> Let me try to get this straight. To say that knowing marks an epistemic 
> distinction between these other states is a 'poor argument' because, 
> e.g. one cannot now predict that in 1701 a comet will appear in the sky 
> in the Northern Hemisphere, we can guess that one did, commits one to 
> saying that 'all knowledge is guesswork.'

No. The arguments are bit more sophisticated than this sophistry.

> I don't want to talk about truth at all. Throughout this exchange I've 
> tried to steer away from it. Truth is an awkward concept that seems to 
> do no real work, in the sense that 'P' is true says no more than P.

I feel this is also a point we may return to in disagreement. Tarski showed
(whatever his intentions) that truth [as in correspondence to the facts] is
not as awkward as was previously thought - provided we distinguish 'language'
and 'meta-language'. On Popper's view the concept of 'truth' does very real
work in our search for knowledge - we can pretend to do without it, but
really we can't.

> It is not, despite what you say, a definition at all, any more than that 
>   having three sides is a definition of a triangle. A necessary 
> condition for something's being x is not a definition of x. To be a 
> Caucasian female requires that one be Caucasian; this is a necessary but 
> not a sufficient condition

On this it would seem RP's point is that it is not a "definition at all"
because it is only a part - "a necessary but not a sufficient condition" - of
the definition. This leaves the substance of my point untouched - since I
never claimed that insofar as S is merely a definitional point it therefore
must amount to a full statement of how 'knowledge' is to be defined. Take
'batchelors'. It is surely definitional that they are unmarried? And surely
beside the point that their being unmarried is "not...a definition" in the
sense of a complete definition, because they must also be 'male'? Yet it
seems Robert Paul argues in an analogous way here. Yet such an argument is
beside the point - because the important claim is that we can conceptualise
or define 'knowledge' without the S-condition. This claim is untouched by the
counter-claim that the S-condition itself does not amount to a full
definition of 'knowing' etc. - even to those who accept the S-condition as
"necessary".

 > Leaving that aside though I wonder if you have anything to offer in the 
> way of counterexamples to S. So far, all I've been able to find is the 
> complaint that S is 'arbitrary' (but see now its historical pedigree); 
> that there are (or may be) other definitions of 'knowing' and 'know'
> (S isn't a definition); and that ordinary, everyday talk often pays no 
> attention to S.

Will come back to this (I hope - I don't know for certain).

> The stuff about Tarski could well be ignored. I was trying to suggest 
> that S, like the Semantic Conception of Truth, made no epistemological 
> claims and is indifferent as to how p is established, e.g. how it is 
> established that the Earth orbits the sun (which is what has to be the 
> case before anyone can know that it does) and how it is established 
> (blind guess-work, divination, appeal to authority, a vote of the 
> people) that snow is white.

This is I suspect is problematic. It's so far from the whole story that it's
potentially misleading even if strictly speaking true. But this is (perhaps)
for later.

> > Should we therefore accept 'transubstans[t]iation' because that concept
> "is at
> > the heart of the distinction" Catholic theologians "draw between" the
> host as
> > the body and blood of Christ and the host as "some other" thing, like a
> mere
> > wafer?
> 
> Mike Geary is the expert on this sort of stuff, but in any event, 
> there's no analogy here with anything I've said.

I hear what you say - there's "no analogy". I don't see any argument why
there is "no analogy" (allowing that an analogy may not be perfect).
 
> I'd hope for some examples of fallible 
> knowledge and some support for the claim that 'all knowledge is 
> fallible' that doesn't collapse to the Pyrrhic notion that nobody can 
> know anything.
 
These hopes/requests are entirely fair, and take us to the heart the of the
matter imo. But the issues are not without difficulty (of course).

A good place to start, I think, may actually be 'logic' and not 'empirical
claims': because though Popper did not initially claim this, Popper came
round - spurred by his pupil's Lakatos' early work - to the view that even
logic and maths are merely forms of 'guesswork'. Once this is seen, it is
much, much easier to see how - _a fortiori_ - 'empirical claims' must be
forms of 'guesswork'.

Or to put it as Popper did in his lectures as he approached death, "a moment
of uncertainty" clings to every proposition.

Beautifully put, I'd say.

Donal 
Laters
Longtime
London
Y' irie?
Boosh man



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