A Critique of Ayn Rand's Contextual Theory of Knowledge

[merjet]

Like Mr. Barnes has a habit of doing, he tries to put words in Ayn Rand's mouth that she did not say.

Well it seems pretty close to what I'm saying, especially as according to Rand all human knowledge depends on definitions. And its still an oxymoron - "cannot be changelessly absolute" when of course that's what absolutes usually are.

In my opinion Rand did overuse "absolute." It seems she often used it as emphasis or to mean "without exception" especially regarding behavior. It's news to me that "absolute" means "changeless"; this dictionary does not include that meaning.

BTW, your search engine has missed at least one as I recall - she uses "contextual absolute" in her ethics too. So she does bandy "absolute" about all over the show. She uses it to describe physical objects, such as a speck of dust, as well as claiming to be able to produce "absolutely precise" measurement in the ITOE (a claim which turns out to be merely a word-game). And further, Peikoff uses contextual absolutes, but I suppose that is not good enough for you, as I called the idea Randian, although somehow I doubt Peikoff picked up the phrase by reading the ARCHNblog. And of course the phrase is used by students of Objectivism such as this fellow in precisely the way I have.

So I fear you are being somewhat pedantic here - I think my usage accurately captures the intent.

Like I said, I only searched ITOE2. I limited my search to that because you had used "absolute" only about truth and knowledge.

What's to fear? You opine your usage was accurate, but was it "absolutely precise"?

If not "contextually absolute truth" isn't right then what do you suggest?

1) Truth is absolute

2) Truth is contextual

#2 if you mean generally and by "absolute" you mean "changeless." I was born in Illinois and attended Fairview grade school. Do you have any reasons to believe those truths will change?

[Daniel Barnes]

[

What's to fear? You opine your usage was accurate, but was it "absolutely precise"?

it was approximately correct, as close as I could get it. With luck it will have been absolutely correct. But I can never know for sure that it was...;-) Hence I am always open to a more

If not "contextually absolute truth" isn't right then what do you suggest?

1) Truth is absolute

2) Truth is contextual

#2 if you mean generally and by "absolute" you mean "changeless." I was born in Illinois and attended Fairview grade school. Do you have any reasons to believe those truths will change?

No, I'm an absolute truth guy myself.

But Rand's theory seems closer to 2) than 1). Hence my disagreement.

[Daniel Barnes]

What's to fear? You opine your usage was accurate, but was it "absolutely precise"?

As words are always a little vague, it was an approximation - hopefully a reasonably precise one...;-)

If not "contextually absolute truth" isn't right then what do you suggest?

1) Truth is absolute

2) Truth is contextual

#2 if you mean generally and by "absolute" you mean "changeless." I was born in Illinois and attended Fairview grade school. Do you have any reasons to believe those truths will change?

No. I'm an absolute truth guy myself. Hence my disagreement with Rand's 2).

Further, I also dislike the fact that she seems to want to make out she is a 1) but is really a 2). That's what's really irritating.

Edited March 19, 2010 by Daniel Barnes

[Guard]

As I see it, our senses give us absolute, immutable truth. Everything else is conclusion drawn from that. If those conclusions are drawn logically, they are true. When we perceive things that "contradict" those conclusions, we alter our conclusions accordingly. But does it mean that the conclusions we drew earlier from what we had perceived were wrong? I don't think so.

Consider the old hypo of swans. All the swans you see are white, and you conclude that all swans are white. Then you see a black one.

Is the black one really even a swan? The concept "swan" had been created for existents of a certain type that were white.

So, why should we even call a similar bird that is black a swan? They are different.

We do so because it is cognitively efficient to.

And the fact that it is cognitively efficient to call the black one a swan in no way makes our prior conclusion wrong. It just means that we are not omniscient and did not know there were similar entities that were black.

One can make a similar observation about blood types by regarding incompatable blood as another type altogether BECAUSE it is incompatable.

The whole idea behind concept formation is to GRASP what is real. To reduce our enormous sensory input to something we can hold in our minds.

No one claims it is a technique for achieving omniscience.

Until someone observes that Type A blood does not always match, there is no reason for assuming that it doesn't. In fact, it would be irrational to do so. Acceptance of beliefs without evidence is mysticism.

So I don't see a big problem--just people arguing about how symbols like "truth" should be used. And failing to appreciate that concept formation is a way of organizing that which we perceive.

Peikoff was responding to attacks on man's conceptual faculty by people who claim that the growth of knowledge implies skepticism.

Edited March 25, 2010 by Guard

[BaalChatzaf]

As I see it, our senses give us absolute, immutable truth.

............

No one claims it is a technique for achieving omniscience.

.

You did.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Daniel Barnes]

As I see it, our senses give us absolute, immutable truth.

............

No one claims it is a technique for achieving omniscience.

You did.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Exactly.

[Robert Campbell]

Peikoff was responding to attacks on man's conceptual faculty by people who claim that the growth of knowledge implies skepticism.

Steve,

The underlying point is that the growth of knowledge sometimes requires the recognition of past errors.

That isn't a skeptical point (though some have wrongly taken it to undermine knowledge as such).

It's a realistic point. Human beings are, indeed, neither omniscient nor infallible. Sometimes we make progress by recognizing past mistakes.

Leonard Peikoff tried to step around it. But the cost of his side-stepping has been unacceptably high:

— He ended up claiming that knowledge can be "contextually immutable," even though it might change later.

— He tried (not consistently, though some of his followers have been more consistent) to write off all thoughts or speculations about future evidence as arbitrary.

Robert Campbell

[Peter]

I enjoyed George’s book, "Why Atheism." It is well written and thought provoking.

Quoting George H. Smith in, "Why Atheism,” page 77:

"We might say that these and other scientific theories (Aristotelian physics, Neo-Platonic metaphysics, or Ptolemaic astronomy) - which have not been merely revised, but completely *discarded* - were justified beliefs for medieval thinkers, given the apparent evidence in their favor and their overall coherence with the medieval worldview. But they were false nonetheless, absolutely and unequivocably, however justified they may have been at one time. They were not somehow "contextually" true, much less "immutably" so . . . . Thus when confronted with the historical transition to modern science, the Randian contextualist might argue that the medieval cosmology does not qualify as even contextually true, because it is not based on logical cognition and authentic evidence. Modern Science, therefore, was not a revision of medieval science, because the latter was not legitimate science at all.

This or any similar reply will not solve the incipient relativism of Randian contextualism, even if we accept the preceding characterization of the medieval cosmology at face value (which we should not). The Randian contextualist cannot pick and choose his contextual and immutable truths, depending on whether they approximate modern beliefs, for this would unfairly subject medieval thinkers to the same standards of infallibility and omniscience against which the Randians so vigorously (and rightfully) protest.

A contextual theory of knowledge, in my judgment, must strike a delicate balance between relativism and absolutism. And this is precisely why we should retain the traditional view that knowledge is justified *and* true belief. Justification is relative, whereas truth is absolute. That is to say, what counts as adequate justification for a belief may be relative to the available evidence and ones context of knowledge, whereas the truth of a belief is absolute. A proposition either corresponds to a fact or it does not, and this matter has nothing to do with the relative justification for a belief . . . ."

End quote

George's key words in the above paragraph are, ". . . however justified they may have been at one time," and this is what I wish to discuss. If you disregard what an Objectivist requires for proof, including the process of *reducing* an assertion to its underlying hierarchical, logical, and proven assertions, and ultimately to its underpinnings of sensory data, then you have not adequately described what an Objectivist means by contextual truth. Yet, if we consider all that was once considered as "The Gospel," you are certainly correct.

Leonard Peikoff writes:

"Proof" is the process of establishing truth by reducing a proposition to axioms, i.e., ultimately, to sensory evidence. Such reduction is the only means man has of discovering the relationship between non-axiomatic propositions and the facts of reality.

Many people regard logic not as a cognitive function, but as a social one; they regard it as a means of forcing other men to accept *their* arbitrary ideas. For oneself, according the this viewpoint, a farrago of unproved assertions would be satisfactory; logic, however, is necessary for polemics; it is necessary as a means of trapping opponents in internal inconsistencies and thereby of battering down one's enemy.

Objectivism rejects this approach. Proof is not a social ritual, nor is it an unworldly pursuit, a means of constructing rationalistic castles in the air. It is a personal, practical, selfish necessity of earthly cognition. Just as man would need concepts (including language) on a desert island, so he would need logic there, too. Otherwise, by the nature of human consciousness, he would be directionless and cognitively helpless . . . .

The modern definition of "absolute" represents the rejection of a rational metaphysics and epistemology. It is the inversion of a crucial truth: *relationships are not the enemy of absolutism; they are what makes it possible.* We prove a conclusion on the basis of facts logically related to it and then integrate it into the sum of our knowledge. That process is what enables us to say: "Everything points to this conclusion; the total context demands it; within these conditions, it is unshakeable." About an isolated revelation, by contrast, we would never be secure. Since we would know nothing that *makes* it so, we could count on nothing to keep it so, either.

Contextualism does not mean relativism. It means the opposite. The fact of context does not weaken human conclusions or make them vulnerable to overthrow. On the contrary, context is precisely what makes a (properly specified) conclusion invulnerable."

OPAR by Leonard Peikoff on pages 120 and 175.

End of quote

The quote that George H. Smith uses about blood types is from a chapter in OPAR titled, "Reason" (page 173):

"This proposition, (that ‘A' bloods are compatible) represented real *knowledge* when it was first reached, and it still does so; in fact, like all properly formulated truths, this truth is immutable. Within the context initially specified, A bloods are, and always will be compatible."

end quote

As I mentioned, this quote from OPAR is from a chapter titled "Reason" and was preceded by a chapter titled, "Objectivity," so we need to remember that Mr. Peikoff is speaking, IN CONTEXT, about the amalgamation of Epistemology and Metaphysics, that is Medical Science. Doctor Peikoff is describing how a fallible human can achieve psychological certainty and be sure that his thinking processes do correctly describe reality.

And contextualism requires a certain time frame. Contextualism requires the present, i.e., the sum total of all knowledge acquired up to the second you are reading this, and I am writing this. Perhaps it would be fair to paraphrase some more of Doctor Peikoff's sentences, to read, "On the basis of the available evidence, i.e., within the context of the factors so far discovered, the following is the proper conclusion to draw. Type ‘A' bloods are compatible. Thereafter, the individual medical scientist must continue to observe and identify; and if new information should warrant it, he or she must qualify their conclusions accordingly."

Now, I am up to the point where I am starting to agree with George. I would revise what Peikoff said in the original ‘Type A' quote:

quote

"This proposition, (that ‘A' bloods are compatible) represented real *knowledge* when it was first reached, and it still does so; in fact, like all properly formulated truths, this truth is immutable. Within the context initially specified, A bloods are, and always will be compatible."

end quote

I will be so bold as to re-write a portion of OPAR. risk redundancy, CHANGE SOME VERB TENSES and say:

"This proposition, (that ‘A' bloods are compatible) represented real *knowledge* when it was first reached, and it still does so; in fact, like all properly formulated truths, this truth WAS immutable (NOT CAPABLE OR SUSCEPTIBLE TO CHANGE), within the context initially specified. Within the context initially specified, ‘A' bloods are, and always will be compatible, and AT THAT TIME, we WERE correct to act on that objective fact to treat our patients."

George later responded:

In several posts Peter Taylor quoted from "Why Atheism" and then followed up with comments or questions. I have extracted those remarks that seemed to call for a response and briefly commented on them.

Peter quotes Etienne Gilson as follows (in part):

"n each instance of philosophical thinking, both the philosopher and his particular doctrine are ruled from above by an impersonal necessity. In the first place, philosophers are free to lay down their own sets of principles, but once this is done, they no longer think as they wish - they think as they can. In the second place it seems to result from the facts under discussion, that any attempt on the part of a philosopher to shun the consequences of his own position is doomed to failure. What he himself declines to say will be said by his disciples, if he has any; if he has none, it may remain eternally unsaid, but it is there, and anybody going back to the same principles, be it several centuries later, will have to face the same conclusions."

And Peter asks:

"DOES THIS DESCRIBE PEIKOFF, YOURSELF AND OTHER INTERPRETERS OF THE THOUGHTS OF AYN RAND?"

Yes, of course. I quoted Gilson in WA? in the course of developing a point about the inner logic of ideas, and how seemingly innocuous ideas have sometimes carried within themselves implications with radical potential. This is why philosophy and science have often taken unexpected turns, as the interpreters and expositors of a theory pursue implications that were not apparent to its originator and who, if he had been aware, may have disagreed or disapproved of them. In other words, ideas, like actions, have unintended and unforeseen consequences.

In "Why Atheism?" I wrote (in part):

"Philosophy is the quest for wisdom; it is a sustained and systematic effort to understand ourselves and the world in which we live. Many people claim that the pursuit of such knowledge has enriched their lives, and there is no reason to doubt such claims. Contrary to its critics therefore, philosophy does tend to progress, but it does so at the personal level. Measured by this standard, philosophy has succeeded may thousands of times and will continue to do so in the future . . "

And Peter asks:

WHAT OF THE OBJECTIVIST POSITION THAT PHILOSOPHIES BECOME 'MOVEMENTS' AND THESE MOVEMENTS INFLUENCE THE FOLLOWING PHILOSOPHIES THAT THEN BECOME MOVEMENTS - AS IN THE PEIKOVIAN PROGRESSION FROM KANT TO HEGEL TO MARX?

This is actually a very common view, not a strictly Objectivist one. In any case, my remarks in no way deny the existence or importance of philosophical movements. I was addressing the common criticism that philosophy does not progress, since we are still debating the same issues that were debated 2500 years ago by the Greeks. My point was that philosophy, by its very nature, is virtually useless for an individual unless he considers and attempts to resolve the perennial problems for himself. Philosophy, unlike the special sciences, is not a cumulative discipline in this sense.

In WA? I wrote (in part):

"Thus, if Bacon's stress on the inherent fallibility of reason does not land him in skepticism, this is because he rejects infallibility as a criterion of certainty. Certainty is something we achieve through a sustained mental effort, a laborious and systematic process of trial and error, not something that is revealed to us in a flash of infallible insight."

And Peter replied:

WHAT? NO "EUREKA" OR PERHAPS, AS LOUIS PASTEUR SAID, "CHANCE FAVORS THE PREPARED MIND?"

I don't know if Bacon ever addressed the issue of spontaneous creative insights, but many of his admirers did. (The nature of "genius" was a popular subject throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.) Bacon would doubtless have distinguished between the psychological origin of an insight and its verification. Insights often occur after a considerable period of subconscious gestation, after which they may appear to the conscious mind in a kind of Eureka experience. But such insights sometimes turn out to have no value at all, or only a very limited one, so they must be subjected to rigorous methods of proof. As Karl Popper repeatedly emphasized, we should always keep in mind the crucial difference between the process of discovery (how knowledge is originally acquired) and the logic of justification (the reasons for accepting that knowledge) . . .

End of George's quotes

That may be all I will rehash for a while. My granddaughter is here, and she never naps for more than 45 minutes. It really is a full time job to "be there" for nurturing. How do Mother's do it?

Buy the book. Support our resident genius, George H. Smith.

Semper cogitans fidele,

Peter Taylor

[tjohnson]

A contextual theory of knowledge, in my judgment, must strike a delicate balance between relativism and absolutism. And this is precisely why we should retain the traditional view that knowledge is justified *and* true belief. Justification is relative, whereas truth is absolute.

This makes sense to me. I know someone on another forum who used to refer to "true" theories as "not yet disconfirmed" theories.

[dan2100]

A contextual theory of knowledge, in my judgment, must strike a delicate balance between relativism and absolutism. And this is precisely why we should retain the traditional view that knowledge is justified *and* true belief. Justification is relative, whereas truth is absolute.

This makes sense to me. I know someone on another forum who used to refer to "true" theories as "not yet disconfirmed" theories.

That's the basic Popperian approach to scientific theories.

[Xray]

I would argue (and have argued for many years) that Rand's ethical and moral theories are not logically dependent on her epistemological theories.

Ghs

Do you think Rand would have agreed if you had told her that?

For it would mean that her epistemology does not provide the premises from which she draws her moral conclusions. But when you think of her creating terms like "anti-conceptual mentality", imo she did believe her epistemology qualified as premises also in questions of morality.

In "Why Atheism", you wrote:

"Knowledge is justified, true belief. Although I this standared definition has been subjected to good deal of technical criticism in recent decades,I bleive it has survived relatively unscathed." (George H. Smith)

And that criticism is well justified imo. For a definition not passing the litmus test of technical criticism is no definition.

There exist countless examples of knowledge where any antecedent belief that had to be "justified" (I assume you mean 'verified') plays no role at all.

For example, my "knowledge" comprises things like e. g. my birthday, house number, calculation rules, the alphabet, and the time when I have to get up in the morning on workdays, without me having had to go through, at any point, a phase of "believing something to be true" first which later turned out to be "justified" (verified).

Since having such facts present in one's mind qualifies as knowledge, the definition knowledge = justified belief" is no definition, for it fails to comprise that type of knowledge.

"Belief is the assent of the mind to the truth of a proposition", you wrote.

Suppose I told you that this is the OL forum, would you reply "I believe you"?

Edited April 23, 2010 by Xray

[Brant Gaede]

I think the discussion focuses too much on the details of Objectivist epistemology sacrificing the basic simplicity thus losing clarity. Epistemology to ethics or ethics to epistemology--what are the essential principles? There you will find the logical bridge. To wit: reality and reason instead of metaphysics and epistemology. That's one half the bridge. For the sake of this chat we can drop the reality part as reason in Objectivism is logic applied to facts so it's presupposed. Now over there in ethics-land is a man. An individual. What is characteristic of a reasoning mind? It is a reasoning individual mind. This is the rest of the bridge. The bridge is individualism. Individualism is the real basis of Objectivism epistemology, ethics and politics and logically links all three. Metaphysics, reality, is just there. All people die and reality is still there. It's brought into the Objectivist fold so Objectivists don't bump into things. We all bump into things, of course. We simply try to keep the casualties down.

--Brant

Edited April 24, 2010 by Brant Gaede

[George H. Smith]

"Belief is the assent of the mind to the truth of a proposition", you wrote.

Suppose I told you that this is the OL forum, would you reply "I believe you"?

I haven't replied to your post, because I cover virtually every point you raise in Why Atheism? and I didn't want to take the time to traverse the same ground over again.

As for the meaning of "belief," it has traditionally been used in several different ways. I discuss these in Chapter 4, "Belief and Knowledge." Here is an excerpt from that discussion, minus italics, endnotes, and other formatting.

Why Atheism?

Chapter 4, Sec. 2

Different Conceptions of Belief

According to some philosophers, the fundamental meaning of “belief” is best expressed as “belief in” rather than “belief that.” Thomas Hobbes, for example, maintained that belief “beginneth at some saying of another, of whose ability to know the truth, and of whose honesty in not deceiving, he doubteth not….” Belief, in other words, is based on our trust, or “faith,” in the credibility and veracity of another person. I believe p, not because I can demonstrate its truth, but because an authority has assured me that p is true.

Other philosophers have followed the lead of Aristotle and other Greek philosophers who distinguished between knowledge (episteme) and opinion (doxa). John Locke, for example, equated “knowledge” with certainty and “belief” with probability. To know that p is true is to be certain of its truth, whereas to believe that p is true is to accept it with some degree of probability. Quoting Locke:

“Probability is likeliness to be true, the very notation of the Word signifying such a proposition, for which there be Arguments or Proofs, to make it pass or be received for true. The entertainment the Mind gives this sort of Propositions, is called Belief, Assent, or Opinion, which is the admitting or receiving any Proposition for true, upon Arguments or Proofs that are found to persuade us to receive it as true, without certain knowledge that it is so. And herein lies the difference between Probability and Certainty, Faith and Knowledge….”

Knowledge, according to Locke, is based on reason, whereas belief derives from judgment. We believe p when, in the absence of a conclusive demonstration, we judge that the evidence in favor of p is sufficient to establish its truth with some degree of probability.

Locke’s distinction between knowledge and belief (which, as I said, can be traced to the ancient Greeks) is sometimes reflected in our everyday use of these terms. For example, if I am asked about the date of a friend’s birthday, I might say, “I believe it is February 10th” – meaning, this is probably the correct date, but I’m not certain. But if I say, “I know it is February 10th,” this suggests a high degree of certainty, as if I have no doubt whatever about the truth of my statement. Contrariwise, it might sound peculiar to say, “I believe that two-plus-two equals four,” as if the truth of this proposition were a matter of opinion rather than knowledge. Less peculiar would be the statement, “I know that two-plus-two equals four.”

This distinction between belief and knowledge, however natural in some situations, might be objectionable in others, such as when discussing the religious beliefs of a Christian. Suppose a Christian tells me of his belief that Jesus is the Son of God, and I reply: “Since you speak of belief rather than knowledge, I must assume that you are not certain about whether Jesus was the Son of God, but regard this as merely probable.” The Christian would rightfully object to this interpretation, because it does not represent what he wishes to convey. On the contrary, he will likely assign to this belief the highest degree of certitude, since he regards it as the revealed truth of an infallible God.

According to a third and more general meaning, “belief” is mental assent (to whatever degree) to the truth of a proposition. In this sense, to say “I believe p” is to say that I affirm the truth of p. To say, for example, “I believe in the existence of God,” is to say, “I affirm that the proposition ‘God exists’ is true.”

It is this generic meaning of “belief” – which refers to a psychological act of assent – that I shall employ throughout this book. Thus, contrary to Locke, I shall not speak of knowledge in contrast to belief, but shall instead treat knowledge as a type of belief. Specifically, I shall follow the common philosophical practice of defining “knowledge” as a belief that is both justified and true.

Ghs

[Xray]

"Belief is the assent of the mind to the truth of a proposition", you wrote.

Suppose I told you that this is the OL forum, would you reply "I believe you"?

I haven't replied to your post, because I cover virtually every point you raise in Why Atheism? and I didn't want to take the time to traverse the same ground over again.

I have gone through the passages in your book several times, but don't find addressed the problematic in defining knowledge as "justified belief", a definition which disregards that there exists a lot of knowledge where no antecedent belief was present at first which had to be 'justified' to then become 'knowledge'. For example, like having knowledge of one's name, house number etc, etc. My proposition "This is the OL forum" is an example of such knowledge. At no point did I have to go through any "belief" phase first to know that.

Defining 'knowlegde' as "justifed belief" becomes problematic with 'knowledge' of facts like the above.

For one can't define this knowledge of facts as "justifed belief", since belief never played any role here.

So what do you call it? Isn't it knowledge as well? For example, you have knowledge of this being the OL forum, and know you have written a book "Why Atheism".

At no point did any "justifed belief" precede for this to become 'knowledge'.

GHS: As for the meaning of "belief," it has traditionally been used in several different ways. I discuss these in Chapter 4, "Belief and Knowledge." Here is an excerpt from that discussion, minus italics, endnotes, and other formatting.

Imo the problem here has nothing to do with the term "belief" being used differently in various contexts.

(like e. g. "I believe in your abilities"; "I believe in God"; "I believe that I put the keys on the desk"; even prosecutors at trial can say that they believe, based on the evidence they have, that the time line of the crime was such and such).

My focus is on the problematic definition of knowledge as "justified belief" since it excludes knowledge where no form of antecedent belief is involved.

Edited May 8, 2010 by Xray

[George H. Smith]

"Belief is the assent of the mind to the truth of a proposition", you wrote.

Suppose I told you that this is the OL forum, would you reply "I believe you"?

I haven't replied to your post, because I cover virtually every point you raise in Why Atheism? and I didn't want to take the time to traverse the same ground over again.

I have gone through the passages in your book several times, but don't find addressed the problematic in defining knowledge as "justified belief", a definition which disregards that there exists a lot of knowledge where no antecedent belief was present at first which had to be 'justified' to then become 'knowledge'. For example, like having knowledge of one's name, house number etc, etc. My proposition "This is the OL forum" is an example of such knowledge. At no point did I have to go through any "belief" phase first to know that.

I never said anything about an antecedent belief that requires subsequent justification, and the standard definition of "knowledge" that I employ implies no such thing.

A justified belief is simply a belief for which there exist adequate reasons for accepting. These reasons may be direct perceptual experience, compelling indirect evidence, sound arguments, etc.

If you said to me "This is an OL forum," I wouldn't reply "I believe you" -- as if this were a new piece of information for me. Rather, I would say, "I already know that." I would say this because I already have adequate reasons for believing that this is an OL forum.

You have created a problem where none exists.

Ghs

[Xray]

"Belief is the assent of the mind to the truth of a proposition", you wrote.

Suppose I told you that this is the OL forum, would you reply "I believe you"?

I haven't replied to your post, because I cover virtually every point you raise in Why Atheism? and I didn't want to take the time to traverse the same ground over again.

I have gone through the passages in your book several times, but don't find addressed the problematic in defining knowledge as "justified belief", a definition which disregards that there exists a lot of knowledge where no antecedent belief was present at first which had to be 'justified' to then become 'knowledge'. For example, like having knowledge of one's name, house number etc, etc. My proposition "This is the OL forum" is an example of such knowledge. At no point did I have to go through any "belief" phase first to know that.

I never said anything about an antecedent belief that requires subsequent justification, and the standard definition of "knowledge" that I employ implies no such thing.

A justified belief is simply a belief for which there exist adequate reasons for accepting. These reasons may be direct perceptual experience, compelling indirect evidence, sound arguments, etc.

If you said to me "This is an OL forum," I wouldn't reply "I believe you" -- as if this were a new piece of information for me. Rather, I would say, "I already know that." I would say this because I already have adequate reasons for believing that this is an OL forum.

You have created a problem where none exists.

Ghs

It is the definition 'knowledge = justified belief' which creates the problem. For it actually excludes many types of knowledge. For example, you have knowledge of your house number, birth date etc. You would call that "knowledge" too, wouldn't you? If your answer is yes, then the definition of knowledge as 'justified belief' does not apply.

Imo treating "knowledge as a type of belief" (GHS) can lead to confusion.

Example: "World War II lasted from 1939 to 1945". If call this knowledge (according to the "common philosophical practice" definition you prefer) "a belief that is both justified and true" - doesn't this sound strange in your ears?

What reasons do you have for not using Locke's approach (who contrasted belief and knowledge)?

Edited May 9, 2010 by Xray

[George H. Smith]

It is the definition 'knowledge = justified belief' which creates the problem. For it actually excludes many types of knowledge. For example, you have knowledge of your house number, birth date etc. You would call that "knowledge" too, wouldn't you? If your answer is yes, then the definition of knowledge as 'justified belief' does not apply.

Are you telling me that your belief that your house number is, say, 123, is not justified? Are you telling me that if someone asked why you believe this to be your number, you could not provide good and adequate reasons -- i.e., justification -- for your belief? Of course you could, and the same applies (in most cases) to one's birth date.

This discussion has become extremely bizarre.

Ghs

[George H. Smith]

What reasons do you have for not using Locke's approach (who contrasted belief and knowledge)?

I discuss some of my reasons in Chapter 7 ("The Career of Reason") of Why Atheism? Here is an excerpt, minus formatting and endnotes:

Although Locke was essentially an empiricist, his work also exhibits the Cartesian interest in the ability of intuitive reason to apprehend the truth of “clear and distinct ideas” with infallible certainty. And it was this concession to rationalism that led Locke to forge a fairly useless distinction between reason and judgment,. Reason, according to Locke, gives us certain knowledge, whereas judgment provides us with probable beliefs.

We needn’t here explore this misleading and unnecessary dichotomy between knowledge and belief, except to note that it is the offspring of a dysfunctional marriage between rationalism and empiricism. Reason, for the rationalist, is an infallible instrument of cognition, so the truths of reason (e.g., the laws of logic and mathematical conclusions) can be known with absolute certainty. It is only this kind of truth, according to the rationalist, that qualifies as authentic knowledge. And any truth that falls short of infallibility, any truth that is probable rather than certain, is mere belief rather than knowledge.

Although Locke (unlike Bacon) accepted this rationalist premise, he managed to avoid the epistemological dead-end to which it normally leads. Rationalists, having established an infallible foundation for knowledge, would typically attempt to elevate various “beliefs” to the status of “knowledge” by linking them through deductive reasoning to that foundation. But when these efforts failed, as they inevitably did, the door was left open for the skeptical argument that certainty is unattainable by fallible human beings, that what we think we know is for the most part is not authentic knowledge at all, but mere opinion.

In this context, the epistemological skeptic is little more than a pessimistic rationalist; skepticism is rationalism gone bad. For consider: the rationalist and the skeptic agree that knowledge requires certainty, and they further agree that certainty is assessed by a standard of infallibility. The two sides merely disagree about whether, or to what extent, this demand for infallibility can be satisfied. The rationalist is optimistic, the skeptic is pessimistic -- and when optimism gives way to pessimism the result is a degenerate form of rationalism known as skepticism.

Locke, as I said, managed to avoid this exercise in futility, but he did so at the price of consistency. In accepting the rationalist premise that infallibility is the proper criterion of knowledge and certainty, Locke imported a foreign element into his empiricist methodology and thereby generated a number of technical difficulties. Nonetheless, Locke was first and foremost an empiricist who clearly understood, and repeatedly emphasized, the fallibility and limitations of human understanding: “All Men are liable to Errour, and most Men are in many Points, by Passion or Interest, under Temptation to it.” It was this sensitivity to fallibilism that led Locke to explore the psychology of reasoning in a manner reminiscent of Francis Bacon....

Ghs

[Xray]

It is the definition 'knowledge = justified belief' which creates the problem. For it actually excludes many types of knowledge. For example, you have knowledge of your house number, birth date etc. You would call that "knowledge" too, wouldn't you? If your answer is yes, then the definition of knowledge as 'justified belief' does not apply.

Are you telling me that your belief that your house number is, say, 123, is not justified? Are you telling me that if someone asked why you believe this to be your number, you could not provide good and adequate reasons -- i.e., justification -- for your belief? Of course you could, and the same applies (in most cases) to one's birth date.

This discussion has become extremely bizarre.

Ghs

It is not my "belief" that my house number is such and such. Calling it "belief" (adding "justified" does not help) is what makes the discussion bizarre.

[George H. Smith]

Are you telling me that your belief that your house number is, say, 123, is not justified? Are you telling me that if someone asked why you believe this to be your number, you could not provide good and adequate reasons -- i.e., justification -- for your belief? Of course you could, and the same applies (in most cases) to one's birth date.

This discussion has become extremely bizarre.

Ghs

It is not my "belief" that my house number is such and such. Calling it "belief" (adding "justified" does not help) is what makes the discussion bizarre.

Yeah, that sure is bizarre.

American Heritage Dictionary:

Belief:

"2. Mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something:

"3. Something believed or accepted as true, especially a particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons."

Here are some other definitions, pulled more or less at random from Internet dictionaries:

"any cognitive content held as true"

"Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true."

"Mental acceptance of a claim as truth"

"conviction of the truth of some statement or the reality of some being or phenomenon especially when based on examination of evidence"

I could go on, but what's the point? You already have your mind made up about everything under the sun, reasonable arguments to the contrary notwithstanding.

Stop wasting my time.

Ghs

[imurray]

It is the definition 'knowledge = justified belief' which creates the problem. For it actually excludes many types of knowledge. For example, you have knowledge of your house number, birth date etc. You would call that "knowledge" too, wouldn't you? If your answer is yes, then the definition of knowledge as 'justified belief' does not apply.

I'm not sure how you can say this definition excludes many types of knowledge. On the contrary, it is a much broader definition than Locke's. Without a "psychological act of assent", how can you say you "know" something is true? If one were to say they live at 100 Main Street, doesn't that imply prior assent of the numbering system itself?

[tjohnson]

I like this definition of 'knowledge' - structure. To know is to know structure. It is not a question of what's true or false it is a question improving our symbolic models of what is going on. Then you don't need a contextual theory of knowledge because at any given time your model can always be improved when further structure becomes apparent.

[dan2100]

I like this definition of 'knowledge' - structure. To know is to know structure. It is not a question of what's true or false it is a question improving our symbolic models of what is going on. Then you don't need a contextual theory of knowledge because at any given time your model can always be improved when further structure becomes apparent.

Might not improvements be thought of as finding out what's true or false about something? For instance, when I think of my model of, say, a physical system, such as a volcano, I make an improvement to this because I believe something in my current model -- or its structure (if using "structure" here is believed to add value) -- is incorrect -- e.g., doesn't capture some relevant feature of the real physical system -- or, in other words, is false. Merely using another word -- structure or whatever you care to come up with next -- only seems to hide this, don't you think?

[dan2100]

I like this definition of 'knowledge' - structure. To know is to know structure. It is not a question of what's true or false it is a question improving our symbolic models of what is going on. Then you don't need a contextual theory of knowledge because at any given time your model can always be improved when further structure becomes apparent.

Might not improvements be thought of as finding out what's true or false about something? For instance, when I think of my model of, say, a physical system, such as a volcano, I make an improvement to this because I believe something in my current model -- or its structure (if using "structure" here is believed to add value) -- is incorrect -- e.g., doesn't capture some relevant feature of the real physical system -- or, in other words, is false. Merely using another word -- structure or whatever you care to come up with next -- only seems to hide this, don't you think?

[tjohnson]

I like this definition of 'knowledge' - structure. To know is to know structure. It is not a question of what's true or false it is a question improving our symbolic models of what is going on. Then you don't need a contextual theory of knowledge because at any given time your model can always be improved when further structure becomes apparent.

Might not improvements be thought of as finding out what's true or false about something? For instance, when I think of my model of, say, a physical system, such as a volcano, I make an improvement to this because I believe something in my current model -- or its structure (if using "structure" here is believed to add value) -- is incorrect -- e.g., doesn't capture some relevant feature of the real physical system -- or, in other words, is false. Merely using another word -- structure or whatever you care to come up with next -- only seems to hide this, don't you think?

Well, if we know something about the structure of events, but not all, then our calculations will always be approximate. This is why probability theory is so important because it replaces 2-valued logic with infinite valued logic. As we learn more about a given system our calculations get more and more accurate and probability of "correct structure" increases.