Okay, let us go with your experience of time. Which takes longer, for you to use the bathroom or for someone else to use the bathroom? People commonly experience time quite differently when they are waiting for something compared to when they are having fun, and oh my goodness does fly when I am writing!

For sure I don't think like everyone else. This greatly troubled me until my later years and being okay with being different. :joke:

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

Like what?

What we need here is quantum physics and getting past dualistic thinking.

We can say unreasonable things about reality using words and numbers. — Harry Hindu

We can say unreasonable things about reality using words and numbers. — Harry Hindu

It would have sufficed if you had stated: you can say unreasonable things.

For sure I don't think like everyone else. This greatly troubled me until my later years and being okay with being different. — Athena

What is different in how you think to other people?

What we need here is quantum physics and getting past dualistic thinking. — Athena

Yes very funny. You know quantum theory is all about the dualistic nature of matter right?

Dualistic thinking is the solution to most problems. Most (everyday/philosophical) problems are dualistic by nature.
— ovdtogt
Like what? — Harry Hindu

The most obvious one that comes to mind would be nurture vs nature argument. But I can think of many: Freedom vs responsibility, private vs public... too many to mention all. Yin and Yang, Day and night, winter and summer, high tide and low tide. cold and warm, light and dark is a common thread in all philosophical pursuits. The pendulum of time sways to and fro. Even DNA is are 2 interconnected sinuses. Up and down like a spiral staircase they wind their way to the top.

So are you claiming that all knowing-how reduces to knowing-that?

What we need here is quantum physics and getting past dualistic thinking — Athena

What we need is a theory that joins the theory of the micro with the theory of the macro. The dualism is a result of our ignorance and skewed perspective

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

The most obvious one that comes to mind would be nurture vs nature argument. But I can think of many: Freedom vs responsibility, private vs public... too many to mention all. Yin and Yang, Day and night, winter and summer, high tide and low tide. cold and warm, light and dark is a common thread in all philosophical pursuits. The pendulum of time sways to and fro. Even DNA is are 2 interconnected sinuses. Up and down like a spiral staircase they wind their way to the top. — ovdtogt

You said that dualistic thinking is the solution and that the problem is dualistic by nature.

I'm saying that thinking in dualistic terms creates the problem in the first place. Thinking of it as nature VS nurture is the problem. To imply that they work against each other is the problem. The fact is that you can't have one without the other. They both work in unison to define your being.

Day/night, winter/summer, high/low tide, etc. are cycles - a process. Because one aspect cannot exist without the other, one aspect is meaningless on it's own. Thinking of them working together, instead of in opposition, you get at the true meaning of the process.



.

So are you claiming that all knowing-how reduces to knowing-that? — Banno

All I have done so far is offer some examples of knowing-how reducing to knowing-that. I don't know if I'd say all of them do.

I was hoping you might provide some examples to the contrary?

This claim:

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

is 'true'. — Bartricks
What makes it so? — creativesoul

See the thread on Truth! And our evidence that such claims are true is that our reason represents them to be.

For example, if you think the walls are talking to you, then you're nuts, right? Why? Because walls can't express desires and beliefs as they have none, because they're mindless. Now, that's self-evident. You can't investigate it empirically. But our reason assures us that those objects that lack minds, cannot do things such as assert, require, favour, demand, value.
That's the best possible evidence that mindless things cannot do those things.

Now, if you just insist they can, then although that's your prerogative, you're just ignoring the evidence and asserting rather than arguing.

Here's how you make a case for something. If the thing you're making a case for isn't already self-evident to reason, then you need to show how its truthis implied by propositions that are self-evident to reason.

Propositions that are self-evident to reason are the stopping points of justifications. There are exceptions - such as when we have reason to believe that our faculty of reason is malfunctioning.

Now, to make a case against me I claim that you are going to have to construct arguments that will have premises that are not - not - self-evident to reason.

Perhaps I am wrong about that, but so far you have provided no evidence that I am.

Insisting, apropos nothing whatsoever, that Reason does not represent, direct, assert, require, demand, is not to raise a reasonable doubt about anything I have argued. Like I say, just pick up a book about Reason - a book about ethics, a text book in philosophy - and see how far you get before some mention is made of directives of reason, or demands of reason, or requirements of reason, and so on. It won't be far.

'Reason' is just the name for the source of those directives, demands and so on.

If you think 'directives' of reason do not exist, then argue for that - and argue for it without appealing to any directives of reason (an impossible task).

Perhaps you think that directives do not need a source. Well, they do. A directive can't exist by itself anymore than the age of an object can exist absent the object.

Perhaps you think that directives can be issued by things that are not minds. Okay, like what? Give a clear example.

If you can't do those things, all you're doing is saying "no!" Anyone can do that. Einstein: E=mc2. Creativesoul: No!

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

It isn't inconsistent at all. It is philosophy. And also, inconsistency is not inconsistent with philosophy - philosophers are inconsistent all the time and spend a lot of their time trying to find inconsistencies in each other's positions. Owned.

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". — Harry Hindu

Er, no. Now 'that' is inconsistent. I'm not inconsistent, you are. If knowledge is an attitude Reason adopts towards some true beliefs, then people have knowledge when they have a 'true belief' that Reason is adopting that attitude towards. Not when 'they' have the attitude, but when 'Reason' does. Owned.

The second question is not distinct because you can tell when someone has knowledge because you have defined it. — Harry Hindu

The two questions are distinct. Knowing 'that' someone has something is not the same as knowing 'what' it is that they have. I can know that you own a keg of beer without knowing what beer is made of. O.W.N.E.D

So people have it when they fit the definition that you have proposed, which is a dumb way of explaining it, IMO. — Harry Hindu

It isn't dumb, but it will appear that way to the dumb. If it was dumb, why am I finding it so easy to own you?

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. — Harry Hindu

Now that's dumb. Conceptually confused. It's like denying bachelors lack wives - it does no more than show you've failed to grasp the concept under analysis. Knowledge essentially involves having a true belief. Nobody, but nobody, denies that. What else it requires is debated, and what it actually 'is' is distinct again. I so own you.

Thinking of it as nature VS nurture is the problem. To imply that they work against each other is the problem — Harry Hindu

They can work against each other. But they can also work in conjunction. Our male and female characteristics for example do not need to be in, but can be in opposition. As in Yin/Yang, when one increases the other must by necessity, decrease. They work in conjunction. If you do not realize the dualistic property of our nature you will never fundamentally understand how we operate. People used to believe in the Tabula Rasa theory. Our understanding of the role of genetics has improved our knowledge in that respect.

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

Oooo, someone's been on the Krishnamurti again. Truth is one but many. Love is truth. Truth is a tapeworm peeking out the bum of the cat of reality.

The philosopher J.L.Austin thought that the desire to be profound is the enemy of philosophy. I think he may have had a point.

They both work in unison to define your being. — Harry Hindu

Sleep vs awake work in unison and define our being. They can also be in opposition when your activities don't allow you to get enough sleep. In this case there is an imbalance between sleep and activity where your activities are in opposition to your sleep. A problem arises when an imbalance exist in the dual nature of our being.

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

Oooo, someone's been on the Krishnamurti again. Truth is one but many. Love is truth. Truth is a tapeworm peeking out the bum of the cat of reality. — Bartricks

Not at all. I am merely noting the fact that many 'truths' we adhere to are in themselves refinements of past 'truths'. I am always reminded of how Einstein continued to refine the theories of Newton and how we are still refining the theories of Darwin. Knowledge is an iterative process that slowly builds on the foundation of earlier discoveries. This process will never stop. Even Einstein had to contend with those scientists that continued his work elaborating quantum theory demonstrating that his theory fell apart at the quantum level.

Yes, there is also the knowing of acquaintance, as in "I know this person". And there is what I call 'knowing with' which consists in the investigations, insights, activities and creations different concepts and metaphors allow us to engage in.

When it comes to the subject of this OP, which seems to be simply knowing that; I would say that it just consists in those true beliefs we have good evidence for. So, as to the OP's example of the clock that has stopped working at 3pm telling the correct time by chance: believing it is 3pm does not count as knowing it is 3 pm because we do not have good evidence for that belief.

As to the other example, where all the other clocks have stopped and we just happen to believe it is 3 pm on account of seeing the one clock that is working, that does count as knowledge because we do happen to have good evidence (a working clock) for that belief.

I don't see anything to be puzzled over here.

How else do you find out what something is, except empirically? — Harry Hindu

Glad we agree!

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? — Harry Hindu

Yes, they are distinguishable. But we seem to have different ideas about what your duck definition can include. The common definition for a duck specifies the genus which serves to exclude other things that just happen to have a similar appearance or behavioral characteristics.

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? — Harry Hindu

I'm of the view that truth is a condition of (propositional) knowledge which I regard as a thesis about how people ordinarily use those terms.

I don't see anything to be puzzled over here. — Janus

That's because you don't understand the original cases. (I mean, philosophers are and have been puzzled by these cases, so the fact you're not should give you pause - you shouldn't assume the philosophical community is not up to where you are, you should assume you're not up to where they are).

A true belief that is based on evidence is not equivalent to knowledge, for we can easily imagine cases in which someone acquires a true belief based on evidence yet it is manifest to the reason of most that they lack knowledge.

For instance, imagine there is a murder scene and upon seeing a red hair on a chair I form the belief that Terry did it. I have no special reason to think that the red hair came from Terry's head - for there are loads of red haired people. Nevertheless, the sight of it causes me to form the belief that Terry did the crime.

Now, in fact Terry did do the crime and the hair is, in fact, good evidence that he did it (as DNA testing on it confirms it is from Terry's head).

So, I formed my true belief on the basis of good evidence. Yet clearly I did not 'know' it was Terry. Why? Because although the hair was good evidence that he did it, I was not justified in believing that it was.

As for the clock cases - even if the person does qualify as knowing in the second case, it then shows that one can know even when it was by pure fluke that one's true belief was true.

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

Thanks for your reply, just one question below for the moment:

sometimes we can have knowledge without a justification — Bartricks

What is an example of that, on your view?

(I mean, philosophers are and have been puzzled by these cases, so the fact you're not should give you pause - you shouldn't assume the philosophical community is not up to where you are, you should assume you're not up to where they are). — Bartricks

No, I should assume neither until I have good evidence to do so. You are fallaciously mounting a kind of "argument from authority" here.

Now, in fact Terry did do the crime and the hair is, in fact, good evidence that he did it (as DNA testing on it confirms it is from Terry's head). — Bartricks

Yes, but you obviously did not have good evidence on the basis of the red hair alone. It is the DNA testing of the red hear that constitutes good evidence.

It was by pure fluke that they looked at the one working clock and although they were perfectly well justified in believing it was working, their true belief seems not to qualify as knowledge. — Bartricks

No, it may have been "by pure fluke" that they had good evidence, but that doesn't matter; it still qualifies as good evidence. Their true belief may not "seem" to qualify as knowledge to you, but that fact is irrelevant. How things seem to you has no bearing on the matter, and only says something about you.

So, still no puzzle.

No, I should assume neither until I have good evidence to do so. — Janus

You do have good evidence - the fact that people clever enough to be paid to think about such things find the cases prima facie puzzling.

If your doctor tells you to get the mole checked out, whereas your mindless friends all tell you that the mole is fine, you're a fool if you think you've got no good reason to think you need to get it checked out.

Yes, but you obviously did not have good evidence on the basis of the red hair alone. It is the DNA testing of the red hear that constitutes good evidence. — Janus

No, upon doing the DNA testing we realize that the hair is good evidence. It was good evidence all along. Even if no testing is carried out on it, it is good evidence that Terry did it.

So you need to adjust your analysis from 'good evidence' to 'justifiably believed to be good evidence'. But then the original clock case refutes that view.

sometimes we can have knowledge without a justification — Bartricks
What is an example of that, on your view? — Andrew M

I use 'justified' to mean 'has a normative reason to believe' (which is uncontroversial). So in saying that sometimes a person can 'know' something without having any justification for the belief, I mean that sometimes a person can know something even though there is no normative reason for them to believe it.

Let's say a total stranger has been accused of a crime and some evidence is provided that they did it and I form the belief that they did it based on the evidence (and they did actually do it). Well, I think I qualify as 'knowing' that they did it. But in this case I clearly have normative reason to believe they did it: the evidence provides me with normative reason to believe they did it.

But now imagine that a good friend of mine has been accused of an equivalent crime and some evidence is provided that they did it. Do I have reason to believe they are guilty?

Well, I think it is plausible that I do not. The evidence is relevantly similar to the evidence in the previous case. But the important difference is that this time it is my close friend who stands accused. And I think it is plausible that I have a moral obligation to my friends not immediately to think the worst of them. And I think it is plausible that the moral obligation to be a good friend means that the evidence in this case does not provide me - me - with any normative reason to believe in my friend's guilt. Others, yes. But me, no.

Now imagine that I nevertheless do believe that he is guilty on the basis of the evidence. I shouldn't, but I do. And now imagine that he is, in fact, guilty. Well, it seems to me that I 'knew' he was guilty. I knew the first guy was guilty, and it seems no less true to say that I knew my friend was guilty too, for I formed both beliefs in exactly the same manner (I formed them based on the existence of the evidence). But in the first case the accusation provided me with normative reason to believe in the person's guilty, whereas in the second it did not. Thus in the latter case my true belief qualifies as knowledge despite the lack of any normative reason for me to believe it.

sometimes we can have knowledge without a justification — Bartricks

I use 'justified' to mean 'has a normative reason to believe' — Bartricks

That means you do have to have a justification for your knowledge. Knowledge without justification does not exist. If you believe something, you will have a justification for it.

We've established already that everything you say is false or nonsense.

↪ovdtogt We've established already that everything you say is false or nonsense. — Bartricks

Oh dear, we are getting prickly aren't we? Isn't past your bedtime?

No, I just don't like those who confidently pronounce on matters they know nothing about.

You said this:

That means you do have to have a justification for your knowledge. Knowledge without justification does not exist. If you believe something, you will have a justification for it. — ovdtogt

Another pronouncement. And all the claims are false. Knowledge without justification does appear to exist - I described a case.

And it does not at all follow that if one believes something, one has a justification for believing it. Unjustified beliefs exist (most of yours are of this kind, for instance).

And it does not at all follow that if one believes something, one has a justification for believing it. Unjustified beliefs exist (most of yours are of this kind, for instance). — Bartricks

No-one holds a belief they would not justify to you, if you asked them to. They might not (yet) have formulated their justification but they do believe they have a justification for that belief.

No-one holds a belief they would not justify to you, if you asked them to. They might not (yet) have formulated their justification but they do believe they have a justification for that belief. — ovdtogt

Another pronouncement. And it's false. Are you being sponsored by "Total Crap PLC" or something?

Even if it is true that everyone would justify their beliefs to me if asked - and that's obviously not true - that is not the same as their beliefs being justified, for one might try and justify a belief that there was no normative reason to believe.