[lit-ideas] Re: knowledge and belief briefly revisited
- From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 21 Dec 2013 21:10:03 -0330
Continuing with replies to RP -------->
Quoting "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>:
> Please see specific replies below --------->
>
>
> Quoting Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>:
>
> > 11:26 AM (12 hours ago)
> >
> > [image: https://mail.google.com/mail/images/cleardot.gif]
> >
> >
> >
> > [image: https://mail.google.com/mail/images/cleardot.gif]
> >
> > [image: https://mail.google.com/mail/images/cleardot.gif]
> >
> > to lit-ideas,
> >
> > *Walter (?) wrote
> >
> > I would have thought that any cogent / justifiable attribution of
> > "knowing-that" would logically or conceptually (I'm not finicky here)
> > involve an attribution of "believing-that."
> >
> ----> Yes, Walter did write that.
> >
> > *I think I know by now, baroque and frivolous claims made in journal
> > articles aside, that I *know* that
> >
> >
> >
> > 2 + 3 = 5
> >
> >
> >
> > and that
> >
> >
> >
> > If I touch my nose with my forefinger, my elbow will be bent.
> >
> --> Agreed. And we attribute "knowledge that P" to you only because we
> assume
> that you believe that P and you are able to provide relevant justification
> for
> your belief. Or: We ourselves have met those 2 necessary conditions of
> propositional knowledge.
> >
> > and that, like Moore
> >
> >
> >
> >
(waitwhat did Moore believe?)
>
> -----> He believed, falsely, as Witters and I correctly claim, that he
> *knew*
> something in claiming that "Here is one hand, here is another, therefore an
> external world exists and I'm justified in so claiming." Witters never
> thought
> very highly of Moore's philosophical abilities, not least because he failed
> to
> recognize the difference between a genuine knowledge-claim and an expression
> of
> a "hinge-proposition" or a "river-bed proposition." The latter is not an
> epistemic claim, pace G.E.. Fortunately, Witters is not buried for eternity
> next to Moore. Rather is heburied next to John Wisdom, at a cemetery just
> north
> of Cambridge proper.
>
>
> > *I was taught in grammar school, by Elizabeth Gill, that 2 + 3 = 5, and
> > that was the end of it. I wasnt first taught to *believe* that this
> > equation was correct. An attempt to do that, it seems to me, would have
> > been in bad faith:
>
> Here, RP oddly conflates logical/conceptual presupposition with
> genetic/empirical matters. The idea that "knowledge-that" presupposes
> "belief-that" is not an empirical claim. We don't need to hire empirical
> sociologists to gather evidence confirming that truth; as if that truth
> could
> be controverted by a majority of respondents avowing that while they know
> that
> P, they really don't believe that P. Such presuppositions are
> logical/conceptual in that one can validly infer she "believes that P" from
> Alice's claim that she "knows that P."
>
>
> >I wasnt shown the numerals and symbols necessary for
> > the expression of this equation and asked if I *believed* it; noit
> > happened all in a flash. Well, not in a flash, maybe: apparently I
> > *first*had to believe that 2 + 3 = 5, and
> > *then* be shown how I could come to know it. Having come to know it, I
> > didnt want to part with my belief, so I rolled it up in a rug and put it
> > in the attic.
>
> -> Again, empirical matters concerning the acquisition of belief are
> separate
> from logical/conceptual matters. I'm not quite clear on how a rational agent
> could first believe that P and then come to know that P. Isn't that an
> example
> of an indoctrinated mind (however snug in a rug one may be) educators and
> philosophers want to identify and treat?
> >
> >
> >
> > *[Im not sure who wrote the following; Walter, I think.]
> >
> > As in: "Suma knows that whales are mammals" logically presupposes that
> > "Suma
> > believes that whales are mammals." To claim "I know that P" while denying
> "I
> > believe that P" is a speech act the udderrance of which requires at least
> 5
> > Hail Marys. (Yes, it's bovine all the way down.) But that's only if you
> ask
> > me.
>
>
> --------> Da, Walter indeed wrote that too.
>
>
> Walter O
>
> MUN
> =============================================================================
>
> > *Logically presupposes
Well, it certainly isnt a logical truth that
> > e.g. Robert knows his name is Robert so, Robert believes his name is
> > Robert. R believes his name is R is something that might come from his
> > having been struck on the head by getting too close to one of Galileos
> > experiments, and afterward forgetting, for a time, who he was.
-------------> I maintain that to correctly attribute knowledge-that logically
presupposes belief-that in the sense that one can validly infer belief-that
from knowledge-that. Put in conceptual terms, I am claiming it is part of the
meaning of "knowledge-that" that "belief-that" is necessarily involved. I don't
see how the question of how one comes to a belief to be relevant here. I'm not
claiming the convers point that belief presupposes knowledge.
>He believed
> > his name was R, and then*suddenly*knew it was. So, first the belief,
> > then the knowledge. This is meant to show that if one knows something one
> > first believed it and therefore if one knows something one also believes
> > it, for belief is something on the road to knowledge (as in *Meno*). Yet
> it
> > would only show this if belief were *essential* to knowledge, in some
> > strange way. My suggestion is that it isntthat one can know outright,
> > i.e., without passing Go.
----------> One cogent counter-example should do it. Give us an example of a
case of "knowledge-that" that is not also a case of "belief-that." (And not a
trope such as "Omg, I know it's sunny but I don't believe it!"
> >
> >
> >
> > *The notion that if one knows something one must also believe it (so that
> > one cannot claim to know something without also claiming (?) to believe
> it,
-------> Yes, I think it would be irrational for one to claim k-that P while
denying b-that P.
> > any more than someone whos just run 10 kilometers can avoid saying that
> > she also ran 5 kilometers) is, I think, based on a mistakethe belief that
> > knowledge is JTB, so that wherever theres knowledge there must be belief
> > sleeping inside.
----------------> As I say, one cogent counter-example should put this
disagreement to bed.
------> My claim can also be rendered by saying that belief, truth and
justification are *conditions* of k-that in that they comprise individually
necessary and jointly
sufficient features/qualities to be satisfied for correct attribution of k-that.
So I am also committed to the view that one cannot k-that P if P is false. Or if
justification of a true belief is not cogent and relevant.
----> I haven't read Gettier's pamphlet on these matters for some time now but
from what I can recall, he did not persuade me that JTB is uncogent or somehow
"false." No successful counter-example was given. Come to think of it, I'm not
sure his aim was to simply critique JTB theory.
Thanks to RP for some interesting remarks (even though not ones addressing my
initial questions.)
Walter O
MUN
> >
> >
> >
> > *Its been claimed that if one knows something, one must believe it also,
> > so that it would be a mistake for someone to say she knew something, but
> > did not believe it. (Im not sure just what sort of mistake it would
> > belanguage is funny.) If she were to say she knew something but didnt
> > also believe it, she would, on the JTB view be contradicting (?) herself.
> > But of course if she meant simply that she no longer merely believed it
> > (the belief had dissolved, as it were), what she said would be what she
> > should have said. Where there is knowledge there must also be belief
> > also, comes from the acceptance of knowledge as JTB. And theres no
> reason
> > to accept that.
> >
> >
> >
> > Robert Paul
> >
> >
> >
> > *The philosophical supposition that knowledge is true belief (which we
> have
> > by meandering inheritance from *Theatetus* and *Meno*), is not the only
> > account of knowledge there is. Its been called into question for some
> time
> > by clever men like Edmund Gettier, and Colin Radford.
> >
> >
> >
> > *(See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/).
> >
>
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