• Pfhorrest
    4.6k
    This thread is a continuation of the multi-thread project begun here.

    In this thread we discuss the essay On Epistemology, Belief, and the Methods of Knowledge, in which I cover the definition of knowledge, make an argument against confirmationism, given an account of parsimony combining Occam's Razor with Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions, cover the analytic/synthetic and a priori/a posteriori distinctions, with special focus on analytic a posteriori knowledge and its relation to etymology, culminating in a "deontological" (rights-based) account of knowledgeable discourse in preparation for my next essay on Academics, Education, and the Institutes of Knowledge.

    I'm looking for feedback both from people who are complete novices to philosophy, and from people very well-versed in philosophy. I'm not so much looking to debate the ideas themselves right now, especially the ones that have already been long-debated (though I'd be up for debating the truly new ones, if any, at a later time). But I am looking for constructive criticism in a number of ways:

    - Is it clear what my views are, and my reasons for holding them? (Even if you don't agree with those views or my reasons for holding them.) Especially if you're a complete novice to philosophy.

    - Are any of these views new to you? Even if I attribute them to someone else, I'd like to know if you'd never heard of them before.

    - Are any of the views that I did not attribute to someone else actually views someone else has held before? Maybe I know of them and just forgot to mention them, or maybe I genuinely thought it was a new idea of my own, either way I'd like to know.

    - If I did attribute a view to someone, or gave it a name, or otherwise made some factual claim about the history of philosophical thought, did I get any of that wrong?

    - If a view I espouse has been held by someone previously, can you think of any great quotes by them that really encapsulate the idea? I'd love to include such quotes, but I'm terrible at remembering verbatim text, so I don't have many quotes that come straight to my own mind.

    - Are there any subtopics I have neglected to cover?

    And of course, if you find simple spelling or grammar errors, or just think that something could be changed to read better (split a paragraph here, break this run-on sentence there, make this inline list of things bulleted instead, etc) please let me know about that too!
  • Pfhorrest
    4.6k
    ...Bueller?

    Fdrake thought I should keep doing these, but I’m not sure there’s a point if nobody has anything to say.

    Would people be more interested in these if I were open to arguing about the content too?
  • Mww
    4.5k


    .....took the day off, but told me he didn’t find much originality anywhere. A litany of likes/dislikes, holds/rejects, covering common philosophical knowledge, isn’t very thought-provoking, but does a good job of telling readers where you stand.
  • Sam26
    2.5k
    Just keep posting whether people respond or not. When I start a thread I usually have something to say regardless of the responses.
  • Pfhorrest
    4.6k
    So the synthesis of Occam's Razor and Kuhn's structure of scientific revolutions isn't new to you? Or the etymological grounding of analytic a posteriori knowledge (or the existence thereof in the first place)? Or the application of a Hohfeldian analysis of rights to a deontic take on epistemology (and the grounding of such an approach in the same principles that underlie critical rationalism)?

    I'd appreciate hearing about who else has written about those things before, if not.
  • CeleRate
    74


    Just a couple quick thoughts while looking at this on an iPhone.

    all beliefs should be considered justified enough by default to be tentatively held until reasons can be found to reject them....... Beliefs can only be shown false, or not yet shown false; never positively shown true.Pfhorrest

    Also, it is unlikely that people knowingly hold false beliefs, which is why a scientific position would be to consider ideas held as true be viewed as tentative hypotheses that have not yet been disproved.

    Beliefs not yet shown false can still be more or less probable than others, as calculated by methods such as Bayes' theorem.Pfhorrest

    Beliefs about the same phenomenon or fact? Ex: the creatures of the Earth were placed here by God; they were placed here by advanced aliens; they evolved from earlier forms; they spontaneously popped into existence.


    Synthetic a posteriori knowledge is the intersection of two distinctions that philosophers often make between different kinds of knowledge: the distinction between synthetic and analytic knowledge.Pfhorrest

    Should this be synthetic a priori?

    for example, one person in a discourse insists that to be a bachelor only means to live a carefree life of alcohol, sex, and music (ala the Greek god Bacchus from whose name the term is derived), with no implications on marital status, while another person insists that to be a bachelor only means to be a human male of marriageable age who is nevertheless not married, with no implications on lifestyle besides that, then they will find no agreement on whether or not it is analytically, a priori, necessarily true that all bachelors are unmarriedPfhorrest

    But this involves synthesizing information that was obtained through experierience.
  • Pfhorrest
    4.6k
    Also, it is unlikely that people knowingly hold false beliefs, which is why a scientific position would be to consider ideas held as true be viewed as tentative hypotheses that have not yet been disproved.CeleRate

    Agreed.

    Beliefs about the same phenomenon or fact? Ex: the creatures of the Earth were placed here by God; they were placed here by advanced aliens; they evolved from earlier forms; they spontaneously popped into existence.CeleRate

    Yes.

    Should this be synthetic a priori?CeleRate

    No? That is also an intersection of those two distinctions, but not the one I’m talking about at that point.

    But this involves synthesizing information that was obtained through experierience.CeleRate

    That’s why that passage leads into a discussion of analytic a posteriori knowledge: the meaning of words (analytic) is obtained from experience (a posteriori).
  • CeleRate
    74
    That’s why that passage leads into a discussion of analytic a posteriori knowledge: the meaning of words (analytic) is obtained from experience (a posteriori).Pfhorrest

    Got it. Thanks!
  • TheArchitectOfTheGods
    68
    Hi, I believe the second paragraph is missing a reference to a discussion of what is meant by 'truth' and whether and how it can established. The reader here just stumbles over Platos and Nozicks definitions of knowledge all relying on something to be 'true'. Just as a suggestion maybe you can include here a short reference that discussion of 'truth' and different concepts on how to approximate it will happen in the subchapters.
  • Pfhorrest
    4.6k
    Thanks for the feedback. I give an account of what constitutes truth back in the essay on language and the meaning of words. I should probably include a reference back to that essay near the start of that paragraph.
  • Pfhorrest
    4.6k
    I have added that reference back to my earlier essays On Language and also On Being, between the two of which are laid out what it means for a descriptive assertion to be true.

    I've also preemptively added similar callbacks to the equivalent paragraph of my later essay On Deontology, Intention, and the Methods of Justice, referring back to the earlier essays On Language and On Purpose for an account of what it means for something to be "good" (since in that essay I formulate justice, as a personal attribute at least, as analogous to knowledge, in that it is justified good intention).
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