Knowing we are right

[wushi]

Ultimately, upon careful analysis, all facts that we claim to have knowledge of derive from a system of belief. Indeed, logical arguments require statements from which further facts are derived, and as you trace these statements back, ultimately you end up with qualitative statements that are unverifiable. Really then, knowing is believing

Comments

[arriya]

This depends on your standards for knowledge. Very few people in epistemology still require certainty about a belief in order for it to be justified and, if it is true, in order for it to count as knowledge. Many people do not require second-order knowledge (i.e., knowing that one knows) for knowledge either. For example, Alvin Goldman (a reliabilist) has argued that a belief need only be produced through a process that reliably produce true beliefs rather than false ones in order for it to be justified, and if it is true as well, then it can count as something known. Interestingly, he does not require that a believer have cognitive access to what makes her belief justified or that she be able to give an account of it in order for her to be justified in her belief. A little girl could be justified in believing that her dog is in the room if her belief is produced through reliable processes of perception (e.g., her seeing the dog) without her being aware of what those processes are or what makes them reliable, and if her belief is true

[wushi]

My whole argument with this has to do with the concept of a "true belief". How do you mean the phrase true belief?

[arriya]

I don't actually. How do you?

Part of my project as a student of philosophy is to critique the how vague concepts such as belief are used in epistemology without any regard for the details of cognition. There are all sorts of problems in philosophy that I think can be resolved by reconceptualizing things such as truth, the correspondence of truth to reality, knowledge, and justification based on a better understanding of how people interact as organisms in their environment.

[wushi]

I have always understood the "truth" to be a moving target, not because the truth is flexible, but rather because our ability to frame truths to ourselves change over times. I am reminded that certain groups of Buddhists categorize different sayings of the Buddha into relative truths and absolute truths. As some of what he said is understood best contextually, and some of it is so fundamental that even now the meaning is obvious.

I suspect a major difference in our discussion is that you are approaching truth from an epistimologic perspective, and I am attempting to approach truth from an ontologic perspective.