I worded myself poorly. You didn't say time couldn't be known. I am saying time can not be known because we can not experience it.

"An abstract concept is an idea about something abstract. 'Concept' is fancy for 'idea'." Yes

"Time is something we have an idea 'of'. It is not itself an idea." It is not? How do we have an idea of time?


"It's like saying 'free will is an abstract idea' or 'morality is an abstract idea'. Same mistake - confusing the idea with what the idea is of." What is free will if not an abstract idea? Morality is a matter of cause and effect, and our understanding of cause and effect is abstract. Animals are not credited with morality because they do not reason as humans reasons, but they behave morally because their survival depends on it.

I don't know about you, but I am so tired nothing is making sense to me, however, I think our argument is right on target. Do you remember Robin Willaims "Reality... what a concept." Have you ever tried LSD? I have heard it can be an experience that changes a person's reason. Good night

. "Useless knowledge" Yes that is nonsense. That does not exist
Knowing what makes a person nervous is very usefull for me.

Knowledge doesn't 'do' anything.
It does a lot for us

if there are no persons in existence
Facts wouldn't exist because this is a human concept


facts are part of what make propositions true.
You can't have a true proposition with a false fact.

You propose a proposition which is either true or false depending on the verity of the facts.

. I am saying time can not be known because we can not experience it.

I experience it every Time I am bored.

Listen to Jazz and tell me they don't experience time.

Ever heard of a biological clock?

I suggest you read my statement again. You have analysed it in the style I call 'seminaritis' which invents ridiculous contexts. Nobody but idiots actually claim they 'know they will win the lottery'.And who but a more foolish atheist would attempt to dissuade a 'believer' in their confidence in 'events attributable to a creator' ! My statement is entirely consistent with Wittgenstein's 'meaning is use'. No wonder W called much of philosophy Geschwätz!

Take Russell's case of the stopped clock. Well, in that case it seems as if the fact the true belief was acquired by fluke explains why Reason did not adopt the knowledge attitude towards it. Thus her 'reason' (in the 'explanatory' sense) for not adopting the knowledge attitude towards that true belief was that it was acquired by fluke. — Bartricks

OK.

So I see no reason - no justification, no normative reason - to think that Reason has no reasons. — Bartricks

OK. So we can investigate why Reason adopts a knowledge attitude towards some beliefs and not others, such as the 'no fluke' condition above.

Thus we can say that what beliefs count as knowledge are the beliefs that Reason adopts a knowledge attitude towards. And the beliefs that Reason adopts a knowledge attitude towards are those that are justified, true and something else to be determined (such as the 'no fluke' condition).

So aren't we, in effect, back where we started? That is, we are inquiring about the conditions of knowledge, albeit mediated by Reason.

The word 'reason' is more nebulous than 'knowledge'.

I am reminded of the celebrated anthropological study of the Azande (Evans-Pritchard) a culture in which many events were attributable to 'witchcraft'. So 'a criminal' as convicted by a Western style court would only be acknowledge as 'guilty', by both himself and others, if the subsequent ritual slaughter of a chicken 'disproved his bewitchment' by a third party.

Perhaps it is necessary to return to the agreement...

We agree that language less creatures can have justified true belief.

Now the disagreement...

For you, that(justified true belief) means having a true belief supported by normative reasons(a notion I can't make sense of if that does not include some conventional agreement). That's what normative is... what counts as acceptable/unacceptable thought, belief, and/or behaviour. Those are notions usually reserved for discussions of ethics/morality. I'm puzzled what you think such statements have to do with justified true belief... unless it is normative belief. That's not the only kind of belief... and certainly not the kind historical notions of JTB and their proponents are concerned with.



For me, that(justified true belief) means having well grounded true belief. The difference between well grounded and justified I've already delineated.



The example of the broken clock and my earlier account of that belief still stands neglected. You started to respond, but the notion of "well-grounded" caused you pause. I've since cleared it up. So, let's revisit where we were prior to the distraction shall we?

Believing that a broken clock is working is false belief. Subsequently believing that the time indicated on the broken clock is accurate is belief based upon falsehood(false belief). It is never logically or reasonably acceptable to base belief upon falsehood. Believing a broken clock indicates the correct time is not well grounded belief.

How does a language less creature possibly have a true belief based upon normative reason?

:brow:

I don't see how you can define knowledge in such a way and then say that a person fits that definition yet doesn't possess knowledge. It's like saying, "It walks, talks and acts like a duck, but isn't a duck".
— Harry Hindu

The issue is that we're trying to empirically find out what knowledge is (or, linguistically, how people use the term), not legislate it.

A human actor or a mechanical robot that walks, talks and acts like a duck satisfies the above definition, but isn't a duck. — Andrew M

How else do you find out what something is, except empirically? How people use terms can be inconsistent with their understanding of what it is they are talking about - like in this case of "knowledge".

How do you know that you know anything? How do you know what knowing is? Can you know? It is a contradiction to say that you know that you know nothing, and any understanding of knowledge that can lead one to say such things must be wrong.

Can a human actor or a mechanical robot lay an egg like a duck? No. Of course not. So you can distinguish between human actors or mechanical robots and ducks because human actors or mechanical robots can't behave (and look) exactly like a duck, or else how would you be able to distinguish between the them to be able to use different terms to refer to them?

Why doesn't the person have knowledge if they fit all the requirements? Find what is missing and make it part of the definition.
— Harry Hindu

Right. So JTB is like Newton's theory of gravity. Newton's theory predicts the planet's orbits really well. Except for Mercury. So the question just is to find what is missing (or to posit a different theory altogether). — Andrew M

Yes, so either something else is interfering with Mercury's orbit, or we need to posit a different theory, in which case our knowledge would change. Is knowledge something that can change, or is it a black and white case of either you have it or you don't, and if whether you have it or not is dependent upon whether it is true or not?

No, that's quite wrong. It's not a 'definition'. It is a thesis. It was Plato's thesis. And it seems true for the most part. — Bartricks

Definition, explanation, etc. whatever you want to call it. You need an explanation of "knowledge" - of determining the common features, or qualities, that entail "knowledge" and "knowing" - before you can say that others have it or not.

But then counterexamples were devised - cases where although a person possesses what the thesis says they need to possess, it seems manifest to reason that they nevertheless lack knowledge. — Bartricks

How were the counterexamples devised? If a person exhibits the common features and qualities that are commonly understood as "knowledge", or "knowing", then the counterexamples must be assuming something else about "knowledge" than what is commonly understood. What are they assuming?

A philosopher tries to figure out what knowledge is by a combination of looking at clear cases of knowledge possession and seeing if there is anything they all have in common apart from being cases of knowledge and conceptual analysis. — Bartricks

What is a clear case of knowledge possession? How would you know unless you already have an idea of what knowledge is? In explaining a clear case of knowledge possession, you'd be defining the common features and qualities of knowledge possession. How does one possess knowledge, and how is that different from "knowing"?

Now it seems to me that there is nothing all clear cases of knowledge have in common apart, that is, from involving a true belief.

That doesn't mean that having a true belief is sufficient for knowledge - it is clearly not, for we can easily imagine cases in which someone has a true belief but does not have knowledge. Nevertheless, there seems nothing - apart from being cases of knowledge - that all cases of knowledge have in common apart from involving a true belief. Knowledge cannot be reduced to 'true belief', but there seems nothing else all cases of knowledge have in common.

And that's why I propose that knowledge itself is an attitude Reason is adopting towards true beliefs. Hence why there is nothing else they all have in common apart from being cases where an agent has a true belief. — Bartricks

It seems to me that you're not saying anything different than I am, except that you seem to be trying to using phancy words to say it, like with your Reason with a capital "R".

If you had read the rest of my post, you would see that I mentioned that knowledge was justified beliefs, where "justified" means tested.

Beliefs are like hypotheses. Knowledge is like a theory. The fact is that the universe exists. Some hold a belief that God created the universe. Others believe that the Big Bang created the universe. We can't test the belief/hypothesis that God created the universe, therefore it remains a belief. We have tested the hypothesis of the Big Bang. We have the expansion and background radiation as evidence. This doesn't mean that the Big Bang theory is true. It just means that it has been tested. It can be falsified, therefore it counts as knowledge, not just a belief.

Truth shouldn't be conflated with knowledge. Any explanation of "knowledge" needs to explain how our "knowledge" is wrong even though we claimed we possessed "knowledge" at the time.

Knowledge is like a tested model of reality, or some specific aspect of it. We test our knowledge every time we use it. When our knowledge leads to predicted results, or goals, then we call that an act of knowing. When our knowledge doesn't lead to predicted results or goals, then we call that an act of not knowing. But then how can we say that we possessed knowledge if we were caught in the act of not knowing? Was it that we never possessed knowledge in the first place, or is it that our knowledge/model changed? Is a common quality of knowledge that it can change, or is an either-or case of either you have it or you don't? If it is the latter, then how do you ever know that you have it, and what would it mean to know that you know or don't know?

Thus we can say that what beliefs count as knowledge are the beliefs that Reason adopts a knowledge attitude towards. And the beliefs that Reason adopts a knowledge attitude towards are those that are justified, true and something else to be determined (such as the 'no fluke' condition).

So aren't we, in effect, back where we started? That is, we are inquiring about the conditions of knowledge, albeit mediated by Reason. — Andrew M

No, because now we can recognise that there are two distinct questions here - "what is knowledge?" and "when do we have knowledge?"

The answer to the first question is "an attitude Reason adopts towards some true beliefs". The answer to the second question, well, varies and we can only say rough-and-ready things about it. Such as that, for the most part, we have knowledge when we have a justified true belief, but not always - sometimes we can have knowledge without a justification, sometimes we can have a justified true belief and not have knowledge, and so on.

Hitherto most have thought that they were answering the first question - the "what is knowledge?" question - by answering the second. That's a big mistake. And in a way one is continuing to make it if one faults my view for not being able to answer the second, for that is to fail to recognise that the second is a quite distinct question.

So, my analysis does not answer the second question, but that's not a fault in it - far from it, for it answers the first question and it was the first qusteion, not the second, that we wanted answered.

Note too that though my analysis does not answer the second question - a question it was not seeking to answer - it nevertheless helps us see why it won't have a definitive answer. For once we understand that Reason is a person and knowledge an attitude she is adopting, we can understand that though there is likely to be a character to when and where she adopts that attitude, there need be no rigidity about it. We can understand that there is unlikely to be a signed-sealed-and-delivered set of conditions that will always and everywhere make a belief knowledge, just as we understand in our own case that, say, there is no ingredient whose presence in a foodstuff will always and everywhere lead to us finding that foodstuff delicious.

It has nothing to do with conventional standards - indeed, we judge the appropriateness or otherwise of conventional standards by considering to what extent there is normative reason to accept them — Bartricks

This is incoherent and/or self-contradictory. When we use something as a means to judge what's acceptable, it is a standard by which we determine what's acceptable. The standard has everything to do with what is being determined by it's use.

So, it makes no sense at all to say that normative reasons are not conventional.

But if Reason asserts, directs, prescribes, and so on, then Reason must be a person, for it is a self-evident truth that persons and persons alone do that kind of thing. So it is not a mistake. — Bartricks

This is just nonsense.

Reason does not use language. All assertion, direction, and prescription is language use. Reason cannot assert, direct, or prescribe.

It is self-evident enough to say that persons and only persons assert, direct, and prescribe, because people use language. Reason does not. Reason is not equivalent to persons.

Plato proposed that knowledge involves having a justified true belief. — Bartricks

Well, not really. He describes developing that theory as no more than farting.

It was rejected from the start.

I'll add to the dualities described here, by pointing out that one can know that such-and-such is the case; and that one can also now how to perform some action. The distinction between knowing how and knowing that is well worth considering.

Isn't it odd that we talk of knowing in both these cases? Why should we have the very same word for such disparate activities?

Are they really that disparate? They seem closely related to me, types of knowing.
It is a bit strange, the way we have so many senses of the same word instead of new ones. Im under the impression english is very bad for that sort of thing but I speak only english, so nothing to reference for me. Language thing or english thing?

Well, congratulations on completely missing the point.

This is just nonsense. — creativesoul

Okaay.

Reason cannot assert, direct, or prescribe. — creativesoul

Yes she can and does.

It is self-evident enough to say that persons and only persons assert, direct, and prescribe, because people use language. Reason does not. Reason is not equivalent to persons. — creativesoul

Yes she is.

This claim:

Reason asserts, requires, demands, bids, favours, values

is 'true'.

This claim:

Reason does not assert, require, demand, bid, favour, or value

is 'false'.

This claim: only a person can assert, require, demand, bid, favour, value

is 'true'.

From them it follows that Reason is a person.

You disagree. You have no argument for your view, however, and you are committed to making claims that are manifestly false. I can't stop you making them, but thankfully no matter how many times you make them - or how passionately - that won't make them true.

So, it makes no sense at all to say that normative reasons are not conventional. — creativesoul

Oh, okay then. What a good point!! You're not arguing, you're just making false statements. You just don't know what a normative reason is. They're not 'conventions' or 'what is conventional'. I can have reason to do something even if there are no conventions, and often we have reason to defy convention. You're just showcasing your ignorance.

I worded myself poorly. You didn't say time couldn't be known. I am saying time can not be known because we can not experience it. — Athena

This doesn't seem to be on topic - which is knowledge, not time - but even if time is not experienced, it would not follow that it can't be known. I don't experience 'my self' for instance - my self is an experiencer, that-which-has-experiences, but it is not itself experienced. Nevertheless, I can surely know that I exist. And I can know that this argument:

1. P
2. Q
3. therefore P and Q

is valid, even though I cannot experience validity.

Plus it also seems false to say that we do not experience time. I seem to be experiencing the present, for example, and when I remember something it - its content - seems past - and when I anticipate something, what I am anticipating seems future.

I don't know about you, but I am so tired nothing is making sense to me, however, I think our argument is right on target. Do you remember Robin Willaims "Reality... what a concept." Have you ever tried LSD? I have heard it can be an experience that changes a person's reason. Good night — Athena

No, I have never tried LSD. Why would I want to try something that might change my reason? That would be like rubbing salt in my eyes in order to see better.

Reality isn't a concept. It is something we have a concept 'of'.

The idea of a person is not a person.

A person is that which answers to the idea of a person.

The idea of free will is not free will.

Free will is something we have an idea of. And free will itself is that which answers to the idea.

So you're confusing ideas with what they're ideas of. That's like confusing a book about Napoleon with Napoleon.

Ideas are 'about' things - they have 'content', the content being that which they're about. You, for instance, have some kind of an idea about me. But I am not an idea. When you go to sleep your idea of me disappears, but I do not. So, though you can have an idea about me, and I about you, we are not thereby rendered ideas. The same applies to reality, truth, time, free will, etc, etc.

This claim:

Reason asserts, requires, demands, bids, favours, values

is 'true'. — Bartricks

What makes it so?

:brow:

This claim:

Reason does not assert, require, demand, bid, favour, or value

is 'false'. — Bartricks

What makes it so?

Nothing is 'the truth'. Everything is contains a degree of truth.

Reason does not assert, require, demand, bid, favour, or value

is 'false'. — Bartricks

Reason is the effort to express 'reality' in words and numbers.

No, because now we can recognise that there are two distinct questions here - "what is knowledge?" and "when do we have knowledge?"

The answer to the first question is "an attitude Reason adopts towards some true beliefs". The answer to the second question, well, varies and we can only say rough-and-ready things about it. Such as that, for the most part, we have knowledge when we have a justified true belief, but not always - sometimes we can have knowledge without a justification, sometimes we can have a justified true belief and not have knowledge, and so on.

Hitherto most have thought that they were answering the first question - the "what is knowledge?" question - by answering the second. That's a big mistake. And in a way one is continuing to make it if one faults my view for not being able to answer the second, for that is to fail to recognise that the second is a quite distinct question. — Bartricks

This is so inconsistent, it can't be philosophy.

If knowledge is "an attitude Reason adopts towards some true beliefs", then people have knowledge when they have an "attitude Reason adopts towards some true beliefs". But what are true beliefs?

The second question is not distinct because you can tell when someone has knowledge because you have defined it. So people have it when they fit the definition that you have proposed, which is a dumb way of explaining it, IMO.

Reason is the process of providing justifications for what you believe. The justifications have to be logically sound - which means that the conclusion follows from the justifications. Truth is a property that we shouldn't be attributing to knowledge. Truth and knowledge are distinct, not what knowledge is and how to know whether someone has it or not.

Reason is the effort to express 'reality' in words and numbers — ovdtogt

No, reason is the effort of linking justifications to beliefs.

Well, not really. He describes developing that theory as no more than farting.

It was rejected from the start.

I'll add to the dualities described here, by pointing out that one can know that such-and-such is the case; and that one can also now how to perform some action. The distinction between knowing how and knowing that is well worth considering.

Isn't it odd that we talk of knowing in both these cases? Why should we have the very same word for such disparate activities? — Banno

Dualistic thinking is the cause of many of the problems of philosophy.

You know how to play soccer by knowing that you can't touch the ball with your hands, that your teammates wear the same color jersey as you, that you have to kick the ball into the goal more than the other team to win, etc.

You know how to tie your shows by knowing that you cross the strings and then fold one of them under the other, then knowing that you make a loop with one string and fold it under the other string and pull, etc.

You know how to get to work by knowing that you have to put the keys in the ignition and turn on your car and drive your car to the main road just down the street from your home, etc.

I can recall how to do something without doing it, just like I can recall that the Battle of Hastings was in 1066 without someone asking a question about when the Battle of Hastings was. I possess information/knowledge that I can access arbitrarily, not just within the social contexts it is used.

No, reason is the effort of linking justifications to beliefs. — Harry Hindu

I would have accepted: 'reason is the effort to justify our beliefs' and that would not have precluded 'reason is the effort to express 'reality' in words and numbers'.

Dualistic thinking is the cause of many of the problems of philosophy. — Harry Hindu

Dualistic thinking is the solution to most problems. Most (everyday/philosophical) problems are dualistic by nature.

You just don't know what a normative reason is — Bartricks

Or you're using all sorts of commonly used words in odd ways?

:wink:

I would have accepted: 'reason is the effort to justify our beliefs' and that would not have precluded 'reason is the effort to express 'reality' in words and numbers'. — ovdtogt

Reason is the effort to justify our beliefs and language-use is the effort to express reality in words and numbers. Language-use isnt necessarily a use of reason. We can say unreasonable things about reality using words and numbers.