Why has this been placed in the Symposium, under Short Stories?
Anyone?

Sure, it entails knowledge to do anything epistemologically and ontologically.

You are confusing knowledge with possibility of knowledge. For example, you can get knowledge of how to play the piano, but the existence of this possibility is very different from your actual having that knowledge.
Moreover, you are not considering that any concept about what knowledge is is conditioned by our human mentality. This means that actually it is impossible to know if knowledge exists: knowledge means possession of some contact with reality, but any contact with reality is filtered by our mind, so we can never know if any knowledge has a real contact with reality. We actually don’t even know if reality exists and what reality means; as consequence, we cannot have any fundamental idea about what knowledge is. We talk about knowledge just because we have taken this concept from everyday language, which is a completely inaccurate language.

Why has this been placed in the Symposium, under Short Stories?
Anyone? — Amity

Perhaps because it reads like fiction? :razz:

Thus, knowledge must exist. — Carlikoff

Do you have a definition of knowledge for us?

I don't really think you got my point; I am not confusing knowledge with possibility of knowledge, what I was just trying to say was that assuming knowledge didn't exist, we could not know if it exists. Now if that is true, if we couldn't know whether or not knowledge exists, then that means it must be possible for knowledge to exist. And you are absolutely right, just because it is possible that knowledge exist, it doesn't actually have to exist (which is basically the definition of the word "possible"). The whole point of my argument was: From the assumption "Knowledge doesn't exist" follows "It is possible that knowledge exist". That is a logical contradiction and so the axiom must be wrong, knowledge must exist. You are saying yourself that "actually it is impossible to know if knowledge exists". But if your statement is true, how can you know that?

I don't think there can be a good definition of knowledge, because knowledge doesn't require one. Take a look at a dictionary, a book in which every definition of any word of a language is written. It can be quite helpful if you know don't know a few words; you can explain to yourself that word means using the words you already know. However, if you are a foreigner and don't know any word of the language the dictionary is written in, it won't help you. Every definition of a word is made up by other words whose definitions are also made up by other definitions. What this proves to me is that there must be some basic things, experiences, emotions that us humans automatically, intuitively understand. Every language has a word for love, every language has a word for hate and every language has a word for knowledge. There are some basic building blocks of meaning, that everyone intuitively knows and that are the foundation for every other words definition and knowledge is one, if not the most basic of them. Knowledge and truth are such basic terms that it is impossible to describe them to other people and put up a definition. A person not knowing what knowledge is, cannot know that they don't know what knowledge is. In fact, your question "Do you have a definition of knowledge?" proves that you already know what knowledge is, it translates to "Do you know what knowledge is?", a question, that no one not knowing what knowledge is could ask. When you think about it, every question and every statement, literally every sentence in every language requires the speaker to know what knowledge is. And that is exactly why a definition of knowledge is not only impossible but also unnecessary; everyone who could ever ask what knowledge is, already knows it.

When you think about it, every question and every statement, literally every sentence in every language requires the speaker to know what knowledge is — Carlikoff

Hmmm. Not sure about that. Ordinary language and the usage of words is one thing. But we quickly learn that people actually hold different understandings of words and concepts. Dictionaries are about usage not definition. And words change usage regularly and sometimes they come mean the opposite of how they were originally used.

Then there's the problem of perspective - as in one man's freedom fighter is another's terrorist. Who holds the knowledge in this case? Depends what side you're on. Conceptually people don't always share presuppositions and these seem to be the building blocks of what we like to call knowledge. People say they have knowledge of god - and other people argue god is unknowable, a myth. Who holds the knowledge?

The problem of knowledge for me is the slippery nature of facts and theories of truth. From a pragmatic perspective we are able to muddled through together with general agreements about some things, but it is all pretty loose and quickly becomes conflictual.

I often fester over these: What do we know? How do we justify it? What is the role of experience versus learning? What about propositional knowledge?

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/

Carlikoff — Carlikoff

I think that the basic problem is in what I said at the end of my preceding message:

We talk about knowledge just because we have taken this concept from everyday language, which is a completely inaccurate language. — Angelo Cannata

This is a general radical problem of philosophy, that causes unproductive reflections in all fields and topics. One consequence of deriving philosophy from everyday language is that we treat concepts and logic as static things, things that “are”, while instead a deep analysis of everything makes us realize that nothing is static (Heraclitus). So, in philosophy we talk about reality as something that “is”, while Heidegger showed us that we must take time into account (“Being and time”, that, from this point of view, reconnects with Heraclitus). The same happens about knowledge: after what Heraclitus and Heidegger reminded us, we need to talk about it differently.
In this context, I think that the basic problem of the concept of knowledge is that it assumes the existence of reality in a metaphysical, which is objective, sense: if you have knowledge of something, linguistically the use of the word “knowledge” excludes that it is an opinion. Linguistically you cannot have knowledge of something that is not sure. For example, it is a nonsense saying “I have knowledge that perhaps God exists”. The fact that linguistically the word “knowledge” excludes the word “perhaps” creates a basic problem, because it means that talking about knowledge, whatever we say about knowledge, means assuming automatically the existence of something beyond doubt. Assuming the existence of something beyond doubt means putting the entire discussion in a metaphysical context, which means assuming automatically the idea of reality as something that for sure exists outside our mind.
The idea of reality as something outside our mind is highly questionable for me, so, this is for me the basic problem of talking about knowledge: we should first discuss what we think about metaphysics, which is the existence of reality as something independent from us.

The idea of reality as something outside our mind is highly questionable for me, so, this is for me the basic problem of talking about knowledge: we should first discuss what we think about metaphysics, which is the existence of reality as something independent from us. — Angelo Cannata

I think this is largely right. Have you read any phenomenology?

My own view increasingly is that knowledge is meaning or 'truth' we create together through our intersubjective communities. There are some things that we can verify, but most human activities are guided by presuppositions held by the communities we belong to and also by unreflective conclusions drawn by basic inference. Maybe it's best to be pragmatic about it all. If it works it can be called knowledge. But if you look too deeply it all becomes blurry.

First of all, I totally agree with you that there are things that can never be known, that can neither be proved nor disproved. I was not arguing that everything can be known but that we know at least about the existence of knowledge.

Now about that "every sentence requires the speaker to know what knowledge is"-part: When I say a statement like "The weather is nice", then I don't necessarily know if the weather is actually nice. Maybe I didn't look outside the window and it is actually raining, maybe some people would hate the weather I like; I totally agree with you here but that is not the point I was trying to make.
When I say: "The weather is nice", I am making a statement about what I think reality to be like, I claim to know that the weather is nice. Even if I say: "Personally, I think that the weather is nice", I still talk about me knowing something; knowing, that in my opinion the weather is nice. And this applies to any statement, any question, any sentence in any language; you always claim to know or not know something, which of course requires you to know what knowledge is.

"Personally, I think that the weather is nice", I still talk about me knowing something; knowing, that in my opinion the weather is nice — Carlikoff

Thanks for clarifying. OK.

And this applies to any statement, any question, any sentence in any language; you always claim to know or not know something, which of course requires you to know what knowledge is. — Carlikoff

Does this render the word knowledge useful then? Do we really know ourselves and our tastes? I'm not certain of this. Is knowledge then more of a free-floating notion?

I guess whether or not the word knowledge is useful depends on what is actually knowable. All I know is that knowledge exists.

If knowledge didn't exist, we could necessarily not know whether or not knowledge exist. However, if we didn't know, whether or not knowledge exists, it would be possible, that knowledge exist, which in turn stands in contradiction with the axiom "knowledge doesn't exist". Thus, knowledge must exist. — Carlikoff

No, you've only shown it's possible. Go over your premises again.

What is knowledge however. What if I said that Islam and Christianity were BOTH true? They have conflicting claims, but could they be reconciled by a higher truth? A meta-truth? (Let me go off on a tangent). Hegel opposed being and nothing to each other, pushing the closer and closer together until they "sublated" themselves and each other. The result was Becoming, eternal becoming. So knowledge of one thing to the exclusion of another might be opposed to a meta-truth. But there are ways we have to think about things. Once we are satsified, we have found knowledge. If you think you've found the Absolute truth on this earth, the gods laugh

No, I have shown that it is not possible for knowledge to not exist. There is no way that knowledge doesn't exist because if it didn't, there would be a logical contradiction. If was is possible however, it would also be possible that knowledge doesn't exist and that just cannot be the case. Some knowledge must exist, maybe the only one is the knowledge about the existence of knowledge.

The whole point of my argument was: From the assumption "Knowledge doesn't exist" follows "It is possible that knowledge exist". That is a logical contradiction and so the axiom must be wrong, knowledge must exist. — Carlikoff

I see two problems:

(1) From "X does not exist" it does not follow that "It is possible that X exists." Counterexample: A square circle does not exist. It does not follow that "it is possible that a square circle exists."

(2) "X does not exist" is not contradictory to "It is possible that X exists". From "It is possible that X exists" it does not follow that X exists and it also does not follow that X does not exist. Therefore neither "X exists" nor "X does not exist" contradicts "It is possible that X exists".

Point (2) is an example of a modal scope fallacy.

It is not possible that, if X does not exist, then X exists. True.
If X does not exist, then it not possible for X to exist. Not necessarily true.

Reification. Or, misplaced concreteness. Knowledge is not an existence.

Assuming that knowledge does not exist, then we can not know about anything, which also means we can not know about whether or not knowledge exists. If it is true that we can't know if knowledge exists, then it must be possible for knowledge to exist. So yes, in this specific case, from the assumption that X does not exist, follows that it is possible that X exists. That's a contradiction, the axiom "knowledge doesn't exist" is wrong and thus, knowledge exists.

I hope that clarified things.

Assuming that knowledge does not exist, then we can not know about anything, which also means we can not know about whether or not knowledge exists. — Carlikoff

Unfortunately, this is a third problem. From the premiss that knowledge does not exist it does not follow that we can not know about anything. That is because from the premiss that nothing phi's it does not follow that we cannot phi. Counterexample. Nobody is going into the restaurant. It does not follow that we cannot go into this restaurant.

If it is true that we can't know if knowledge exists, then it must be possible for knowledge to exist. — Carlikoff

From the premiss that we cannot know if knowledge exists it does not follow that it must be possible for knowledge to exist. Here are the two propositions:

(A) We cannot know if knowledge exists
(B) It must be possible for knowledge to exist

The reason (B) does not follow from (A) can be seen when you generalise the propositions and think of an absurd counterexample. You can do that, now, I don't want to do all the heavy lifting.

I hope that clarified things. — Carlikoff

I think it has been quite clear from the start. It's an invalid argument and you have presented it with clarity and consistency.