Right, so truth is a condition of observations. — Harry Hindu

OK. Another way to put it is that 'observe' and 'know' are achievement verbs (Gilbert Ryle's term). You can't observe what isn't there or know what isn't so.

Right. And you can then know that you reflected by reflecting upon the reflection, ad infinitum. — Harry Hindu

Yes, if you wanted to do that.

Is knowledge an infinite regress of aboutness? Or is knowledge some kind of set of rules for interpreting sensory impressions? To know that you reflected upon what you reflected seems to just be applying the same set of rules to some sensory impression or thought process. Sometimes the rules we have don't work and we have to come up with new ones. — Harry Hindu

Justification (or warrant) comprises the rules that warrant someone making a knowledge claim. For example, your looking out the window warrants your claim that it is raining (or not raining). If the claim is true then knowledge has been acquired. (Gettier counterexamples aside which imply a further condition.)

The connection with language use is just that this is how we ordinarily use terms like "observe" and "know". But, of course, we can be sometimes be mistaken about what we think we know (such as when reading the time of a stopped clock).
— Andrew M

Right, so mistaken, or false, is a condition of knowledge. — Harry Hindu

No. Note that I said "think we know". You can't know false things. So if a mistake is discovered then any claim to knowledge is retroactively retracted. For example, if I later find out that the clock was stopped then I also realize that I didn't know that it was 3:00 earlier despite my claim back then being warranted.

It is true that the clock says 3:00. You assume from experience (knowledge, or your rules that you have learned about what clocks do) that it is 3:00, until you observe another clock that says something different. Observations check our knowledge. — Harry Hindu

Observations check our knowledge claims. A knowledge claim (or justified belief) can be false, knowledge can't. You can be warranted in making a knowledge claim (such as with the 3:00 example) but such warrant doesn't guarantee that the claim is true.

We don't have different ideas about what the definition of a duck can include. Acting like a duck entails all the acts of a duck, which includes laying eggs. Looking like a duck entails all the appearances of a duck. There is also the taste and sound of ducks. All of these things together make one a duck. Cherry-picking among them doesn't make one a duck. — Harry Hindu

Correct and that's important. But to say that a duck is all those things together that make a duck leaves us none the wiser about what a duck is. Neither does saying that a duck is whatever acts and looks like a duck. Both those definitions instead rely on a prior intuition (or definition) about what ducks are. For a definition to be useful, it needs a genus and differentia.

We don't even have to use words to define what it is to be a duck. We just observe, over time, the similarities and differences between different organisms and group them in our minds without the use of language. — Harry Hindu

So differentiating and grouping (categorizing) just is the activity of defining noted above. Language is not fundamentally about arbitrary word symbols and sounds, but about the objects and activities they pick out. So we can ask about what people are doing when they use the word "know" or "observe". How are they using the term and what can we learn from an analysis of that use?

If we can only know what something is (like knowledge) by empiricism, then knowledge doesn't fall into your category of propositional knowledge. It isn't something pre-defined like who won the World Series in 2004. — Harry Hindu

Knowing that it is raining outside is an example of propositional knowledge (the proposition being, "it is raining outside"). If you look out the window and see what looks like rain then you can justifiably claim it is raining. If it is raining (the truth condition), then you know that it is raining. Whereas if someone was hosing the window while watering the garden, then you don't know it is raining (even though you may think you do).

The principle is the same whether talking about rain or the Red Sox. People can be informed (knowledgeable) or mistaken about either.

People can be informed (knowledgeable) or mistaken about either. — Andrew M

I have been plugging the truth/knowledge is information message on this forum for quite some time. To no avail. People love complicated explanations. Simple ones are too boring.

Yes. It's the standard dictionary definition, so it shouldn't be surprising to people.

"1. Having or showing knowledge of a subject or situation." — informed - Lexico

Yes crying is a form of communication and may be considered a primitive language. — ovdtogt

Why do you insist on calling crying language? Language is the talk that goes on in our heads, and without it, we could not organize ourselves in such a way to have civilizations and develop technology. Language is abstract. That is, language expresses a quality apart from an object and that is what makes man godlike. Animals are not going to discuss how to build a bridge or why we should love our neighbors and have laws. Animals react to the world around them as a matter of instinct. It is totally reactionary, not a matter of reasoning. The Athenians focused on our ability to reason making as the gods. Without language, there can not be knowledge passed on from generation to generation so there is no way to build on what is known to new knowledge.

Why do you insist on calling crying language? — Athena

Language is anything that vocalizes information. That is exactly what the baby is informing you of: I am unhappy. Beeeeee is the only word she knows instinctively.

Language is anything that vocalizes information. — ovdtogt

Okay, how do you figure that?

Language is anything that vocalizes information.
— ovdtogt

Okay, how do you figure that? — Athena

Evolution has 'given' us vocal chords for a reason and we are not the only animal that has them. Also animals that don't speak our language. They have their own language that they communicate with and understand.
Great short clip for you to watch.
Watch Leopard Monkey Alert! | Attenborough: The Life of Mammals | BBC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-bxPLFt1vI

Ovdtogt, that was very interesting but why do you think that reaction qualifies as language? When something irritates our nose we sneeze, and everyone around us may be very distressed if we do not properly control the spray of the sneeze because of understanding germs can be carried in that spray and that could lead to them being sick. If it is more than a sneeze and is a gut-wrenching cough, people may flee the room because that signals the cause of the cough is more serious than a cold. Effectively a sneeze communicates something, but it is not language. Two different sounds and with possible different meanings but not language. Those sounds are not abstract and language is abstract.

For everyone, I want to point out the stories of the Bible are not equal to the explanations of quantum physics. If the Bible is the word of God, it is limited to what it is easy for us to understand but is not the truth of the universe, nor even good advice on how to be healthy and happy and avoid war however an effort was made to promote our health and help us get along with each other. That is what all mythology and folklore does. Unfortunately, the Bible begins with causing us to fear knowledge and believing we are going against God if we even desire knowledge. We have associated knowledge with the devil. As the Chinese, after leading the world in technology, became afraid of change and associated it with danger, and tradition was associated with good order and safety.

Knowledge requires a different order of thinking than being able to understand stories written for humans. The most important knowledge if one wants to understand the universe, is dependent on the language of math. We can understand basic laws of physics without math, but the knowledge that is beyond storytelling requires some understanding of math and some knowledge of cause and effect. This knowledge is not explained in the Bible and one should not think the Bible is the only important book to read and study. If we do not prepare ourselves to understand knowledge, we can read the books and watch the videos and attend college lectures, and not understand them.

If we were not prepared to know what we know today, we would not know it, no matter how much we stared at a mountain and its rocks, we would not know much about the mountain without some knowledge of geology to help us understand what we see.

Much of the information today requires knowledge of math and our schools are totally failing to convey what math has to do with understanding our world and universe. Students are graduating from high schools without even a basic understanding of maths and sciences and think they know everything they need to know. They really do not understand why some people get big bucks for their careers and they are lucky to get a job delivering pizzas. Our young are entering life totally unprepared for our technological society that is no longer labor-intense and is not willing to give them a liveable wage for low skilled work. They can not have available knowledge because they were not prepared to receive it.

OK. Another way to put it is that 'observe' and 'know' are achievement verbs (Gilbert Ryle's term). You can't observe what isn't there or know what isn't so. — Andrew M

But people use the term, "know", to refer things that aren't so. They don't know that they don't know. They think they do, which is why they use the word. We used to know that the Earth was flat until we learned that it wasn't. We can only know that we didn't know after the fact of saying that we did. So how people use the word isn't always about what is so. Knowing is only the belief that you have the proper information to form a conclusion, when you might not.

Justification (or warrant) comprises the rules that warrant someone making a knowledge claim. For example, your looking out the window warrants your claim that it is raining (or not raining). If the claim is true then knowledge has been acquired. (Gettier counterexamples aside which imply a further condition.) — Andrew M

But what if I mistook someone washing the roof and seeing water running down the window for rain? I would claim to know that it is raining, and it would take another observation (moving outside of the house) to prove that I was wrong. If the prior observation was wrong, then what makes us so confident in observations? We used to think the Earth was flat based on observations. It took a more objective observation to show that we were wrong (looking at the Earth from space). How do we know when we have reached the most objective observation to say that we then possess knowledge?

No. Note that I said "think we know". You can't know false things. So if a mistake is discovered then any claim to knowledge is retroactively retracted. For example, if I later find out that the clock was stopped then I also realize that I didn't know that it was 3:00 earlier despite my claim back then being warranted. — Andrew M

Which isn't any different from saying that you know you know. You can know false things. You might say that people in the 14th century didn't know the Earth wasn't flat, but the way they used the word, they did. Saying that you know doesn't cut the cake, which is why my claim that how people use the term isn't good evidence for what knowledge is still stands. Observations aren't good evidence of knowledge because we can show how observations can be skewed or biased. So how do you go about determining the truth condition of some statement?

Observations check our knowledge claims. A knowledge claim (or justified belief) can be false, knowledge can't. You can be warranted in making a knowledge claim (such as with the 3:00 example) but such warrant doesn't guarantee that the claim is true. — Andrew M

Knowledge claims are just sounds or scribbles that symbolize our knowledge that is made-up of visuals, sounds, feelings, etc. Observations check our knowledge - the beliefs that aren't composed of words, but are composed of visuals and actions in our minds that are merely communicated via claims.

Correct and that's important. But to say that a duck is all those things together that make a duck leaves us none the wiser about what a duck is. Neither does saying that a duck is whatever acts and looks like a duck. Both those definitions instead rely on a prior intuition (or definition) about what ducks are. For a definition to be useful, it needs a genus and differentia. — Andrew M

"Duck" is a word, not an animal. There were species before words. There are similarities and differences before words. These similarities are what we group under the symbol, "duck". The only reason we need the word, "duck" is to communicate all those things together. It's much easier to say "duck" rather than all those things that make a duck that we can observe. We don't need the word "duck" to observe that there are organisms that share more features and behaviors with others, and others that don't.

So differentiating and grouping (categorizing) just is the activity of defining noted above. Language is not fundamentally about arbitrary word symbols and sounds, but about the objects and activities they pick out. So we can ask about what people are doing when they use the word "know" or "observe". How are they using the term and what can we learn from an analysis of that use? — Andrew M

When you ask a 14th century person what they mean when they know that the Earth is flat, they will point to the Earth and show that they know by observation, and point to how others are saying the same thing.

Knowing that it is raining outside is an example of propositional knowledge (the proposition being, "it is raining outside"). If you look out the window and see what looks like rain then you can justifiably claim it is raining. If it is raining (the truth condition), then you know that it is raining. Whereas if someone was hosing the window while watering the garden, then you don't know it is raining (even though you may think you do).

The principle is the same whether talking about rain or the Red Sox. People can be informed (knowledgeable) or mistaken about either. — Andrew M

Like I said, if people say that they know that it is raining, when it isn't, then how are they using the word that is meaningful? How is how people use the term evidence that they know how to use it?

When something irritates our nose we sneeze, — Athena

Did I mention coughing, sneezing, farting and banging your head against the wall?
No Athena I don't think that is your nose talking. Maybe in your case it is doing the thinking.

You hear of vocalizations? Have you heard of vocal chords? Do you think only humans have them? Ever hear a bird singing? Do you think it is doing that for our amusement? To entertain us?

Hello Bartricks,

I want to comment on your original post. My apologies to everyone else who has responded in the thread, for I have not read your comments, so I might be repeating content here.

In Russell's case, a clock has stopped and is reporting a time of 3pm. Someone ignorant of the fact the clock has stopped but desirous to know the time looks at the clock and forms the belief that it is 3pm. By pure coincidence it is, in fact, 3pm. This person has a justified true belief. They belief that it is 3pm, and it is 3pm - so their belief is true. And their belief is justified because they have formed it in an epistemically responsible manner - they looked at a clock, a clock it was reasonble to assume was working. However, though they have a justified true belief that it is 3pm, it seems equally clear to our reason (the reason of most of us, anyway) that they do not 'know' that it is 3pm.

I like this Russell example. I hadn't heard of it before.

Why doesn't that person's justified true belief qualify as knowledge? It is tempting to say that it doesn't qualify becasue it was just by luck that it was true. The method adopted - looking at clockfaces - was not reliable in this kind of context .

We don't need to introduce the notion of luck into the conversation. For example, we can simply say that the person doesn't have knowledge because broken clocks do not lend epistemic justification to beliefs about the time. No one who forms beliefs about the time based on a broken clock has knowledge of the time. So, we've explained why the person doesn't have knowledge without invoking the notion of luck, which suggests that you've attached undue significance to it.

Let me try to explain the undue-ness of it. We should ask ourselves, “What is the luck attached to in this case?” The luck is attached to having looked at the broken clock at precisely the one (of two) times in the day in which the real time corresponds to the time on the clock. In other words, had he looked at the clock at any other time, he would have had a false belief that it's 3 PM. So, the luck only explains why he has a true belief, not why he has a justified belief. But the failure in the example is one of justification, not one of truth.

The epistemic justification needed for 'knowledge' is relatively strong. There are three facets we should consider, which I will make specific to the Russell example: (1) The empirical fact that clocks in general are working clocks, (2) The empirical fact that clocks in general keep the time correctly, (3) The presumption, by way of inference from experience with clocks in general, that the clock I happen to be looking at is a working clock that keeps the correct time. All of these lend to the reliability of clockfaces as sources of truth about the time. In other words, looking at clockfaces ties our beliefs reliably to reality, which is why this manner of forming beliefs about the time is epistemically justified.

However, if you lived in a town in which the clocks intermittently stopped working, then looking at a clock in this town would not be an epistemically reasonable manner by which to form a belief about the time. This is an opinion which some might disagree with and which runs counter to what you say in your "counterexample" scenario, so I will defend it later in this post.

For now, we stick to the Russell example. So, again, why doesn't the person have knowledge? As we said, it's because his presumption that he was looking at a working clock was wrong. But he was not wrong to have the presumption that the clock he was looking at was working, as clocks typically work and keep the correct time, which is why, after all, looking at clockfaces is an epistemically reasonable manner by which to form beliefs about the time. The distinction to be drawn, then, is between the presumption being correct and it being "correct" to subscribe to the presumption. It is this distinction which I think you fail to make, and which will undermine your comments about the "counterexample" scenario and about the role of luck in knowledge claims.

But there are counterexamples to this modified 'no luck' analysis as well. For example, imagine that you want to know what the time is and so you look at a clock tower and form the belief that it is 3pm. This clock is working and it really is 3pm. However, unbeknownst to you, the area you are in is one in which most public clocks are stopped. This is the one exception. Well, it still seems true to say that you know it is 3pm, even though it was just by luck that the clock you looked at was the one working one.

Recall how the epistemic presumption that 'the clock I'm looking at is working' became epistemically justified. It's because it's an empirical fact that clocks are generally working clocks, meaning that looking at clockfaces is a very reliable way to arrive at the truth (this is "the tie" to reality). The presumption is based on the history of clocks, and unless we have reason to believe things have changed with clocks, we'll continue to believe that 'the particular clock I'm looking at is working.' That is, we will continue to subscribe to the presumption. The person in the example has no reason to believe things have changed with clocks, but things have indeed changed with clocks, at least with the ones in the town at that particular time, which are the only relevant clocks in the example.

If clocks are not generally working clocks, per this second scenario, then the empirical fact that grounded the epistemic trust in clocks (as a reliable source of truth) would disappear. In time, if the clocks continued not to work, people would realize that it is no longer justified to acquire beliefs about the time based on the clocks they were looking at. And this would be true even if there was one clock (say, one in a thousand) that was a working clock that kept the correct time, because without knowing which clock in town that was, the probability would be too low that you were looking at the one working clock in town, so no clock could lend epistemic justification to beliefs about the time. The man in the example is justified in the sense that he is reasonably ignorant that things have changed. But this type of ignorance isn't epistemic justification, although it looks a lot like it. We might say that he is not wrong to still believe that clocks are working clocks, because, again, we wouldn't hold him to omniscient standards, but we can still say that he lacks epistemic justification because the tie between clocks and the correct time has been broken – he just doesn't know it has, so we forgive him his ignorance, but that is not the same as attributing to him epistemic justification.

And since I've explained the failure of justification in these examples without invoking the notion of luck, I've essentially argued why it plays no necessary role in the two knowledge claims you discussed.

Here, I think you're introducing an idea, or notion, that isn't necessary to the conversation; namely, the notion of luck. — fiveredapples

Hmm, I do not think you're right, but it doesn't really affect my point, which I'll elaborate on shortly.

First, you say that in the original clock example the agent does not really have a justification because broken clocks are not reliable time-tellers and the agent is looking at a broken clock.

Several things: first, intuitively the agent 'is' justified. They could not reasonably have been expected to know that the clock was not working. So, they were justified in believing it was working, and so subsequently justified in believing it was the time that it represented it to be.

Second, for the sake of argument let's test your analysis. If it is correct, then any belief about the time based on a broken clock's report should fail to qualify as knowledge. But I can imagine a case in which a person bases a belief about the time on a broken clock and their belief 'does' qualify as knowledge.

For example, imagine the clock has broken, but it has literally just broken - that is, it has broken at the point at which its hands reach 3 o clock. It was working fine up to that point. The agent then looks at the clock. Now, the agent is looking at a broken clock and, on the basis of its report, he forms the belief that it is 3 o clock (which it is). This time it seems clear enough that the agent does have knowledge, yes?
Yet their belief is based on the report of a broken clock.

But anyway, I am not married to the 'luck' analysis either, for my point is not that this or that analysis is always and everywhere correct, but rather that whatever diagnosis we give of why the agent lacks knowledge in the relevant case, we will be able to construct another case in which that 'key' ingredient is present and the agent lacks knowledge (or absent, and the agent possesses knowledge)

That's not to say that the diagnosis of the original case was wrong. It is just to note that there is no stability to what is, and is not doing the work of making it the case that the agent has knowledge (apart from possessing a true belief). So it is to say that the diagnosis does not locate an ingredient of knowledge, even when it is correct - that is, even when it correctly diagnoses why the agent lacked knowledge on this particular occasion.

So, take 'justification'. I understand that term to mean 'has normative reason to believe'. Now it seems to me that in many cases an agent knows something due to the fact they have a justification for their true belief.

But there also seem cases in which an agent has a justification for their true belief and lacks knowledge.

And there also seem to be cases in which an agent knows something yet lacks a justification (in an example I gave earlier, I might acquire a true belief, but the belief is so trivial there is no normative reason for me to believe it - yet intuitively I may still have knowledge in such a case).

So the lesson I take from the many hundreds, if not thousands of failed attempts that have been made to specify what ingredients knowledge is made from, is that there is no stable set of ingredients beyond 'true belief' (though obviously 'true beliefs' often fail to qualify as knowledge too).

In turn that tells us something important about knowledge. It isn't made of those ingredients. Rather, it is something that those ingredients typically bring about.

For an analogy: take the property of being 'delicious-to-Bartricks'. Now, there are plenty of things I find delicious and they often have things in common - such as containing chocolate, or lots of sugar, or whatever. But it would be a mistake to think that because I often find something delicious due to it containing chocolate, that therefore anything that contains chocolate I will find delicious. No, in fact sometimes I might dislike something due to it containing chocolate (a potato stuffed with chocolate - no, that's not delicious at all).

What conclusion would it be reasonable to draw from that? Well, that 'delicious-to-Bartricks' is not something made of ingredients, but is rather an attitude that certain combinations of ingredients, in certain circumstances, produce in Bartricks. The whole project of trying to figure out what ingredients delicious-to-Bartricks is made of is misguided.

I am drawing the same lesson in respect of knowledge. Knowledge has no stable ingredients beyond true belief (just as 'delicious-to-Bartricks' has no stable ingredients beyond edibility). Thus it is reasonable to conclude that 'knowledge' is an attitude that a person is adopting towards true beliefs. Not, I emphasis, an attitude one of us is adopting towards true beliefs, but an attitude Reason is adopting towards them.

What attitude? Well, the knowledge attitude. The attitude we are referring to when we 'feel' that we know something. Only it has to be felt by Reason, not us.

Believing a broken clock is working is a false belief. False belief is never good justificatory ground...

That's the simple account already given that fiveredapples just elaborately echoed...

I believe Five that a form of your argument can be used against Gettier. Gettier's examples fail to either be properly justified, or not true. I've always believed that Gettier's examples fail to undermine JTB.

Hey Sam! My take on both Gettier cases is that he has Smith's belief wrong(an accounting malpractice). I've set that out as clearly as I can a couple pages back. I'd be interested in your take/opinion on my refutation of those cases...

May want to start on page six, because I had forgotten a few details prior to, and as a result my report on the paper was a bit confused/confusing..

:yikes:

Well done!

Believing a broken clock is working is a false belief. False belief is never good justificatory ground...

That's the simple account already given that fiveredapples just elaborately echoed... — creativesoul

And that I just refuted. Only you've have to read what I said to realise that.

No. I read your reply. Glad to see you're serious again.

Our respective viewpoints differ... obviously.

I've just got one simple question...

Does false belief ever count as good ground/justification?

This idea that Gettier somehow showed that JTB is flawed is just not the case. It's as if Gettier performed a slight of hand and people think it refutes JTB. When examined closely the cases are not really justified. All Gettier pointed out is the difference between a claim to knowledge (for e.g., thinking one is justifed when you're not), as opposed to actual knowledge. So, if I make a claim, and that claim appears to be JTB, but in the end it lacks proper justification, then it's simply not knowledge. There is nothing difficult here. No amount of thinking something is JTB, amounts to something actually being JTB.

Yes, as I just explained in the example described above.

But, we both know that false premisses cannot validly lead to true conclusions.

Right?

:brow:

And in the original clock case. The false belief that the clock is working does provide the agent with a justification for believing it is 3 o clock.

Hence why they are considered counterexamples to the justified-true-belief account of knowledge.

The false belief that the clock is working does provide the agent with a justification for believing it is 3 o clock. — Bartricks

That's what you keep repeating, but...

False premisses cannot lead(validly/logically) to true conclusions.

Er, what are you on about?

we both know that false premisses cannot validly lead to true conclusions. — creativesoul

You can't 'know' that, because it is obviously false! A valid argument with false premises can lead to a true conclusion!!

1. If it is Tuesday, then it is raining (false)
2 It is not raining (false)
3. Therefore it is not Tuesday (true)

False premisses cannot lead(validly/logically) to true conclusions. — creativesoul

Yes. THey. Can. Christ!! Remember: you're not the teacher! Your name should be 'Confidentlywrong'.

This idea that Gettier somehow showed that JTB is flawed is just not the case. It's as if Gettier performed a slight of hand and people think it refutes JTB. When examined closely the cases are not really justified. All Gettier pointed out is the difference between a claim to knowledge (for e.g., thinking one is justifed when you're not), as opposed to actual knowledge. So, if I make a claim, and that claim appears to be JTB, but in the end it lacks proper justification, then it's simply not knowledge. There is nothing difficult here. No amount of thinking something is JTB, amounts to something actually being JTB. — Sam26

With Russell's clock, my objection is that the knowledge claim is based upon false belief, and false belief never counts as adequate justification.

With Gettier, I know many argue the justification aspect, but my own take on the belief aspect seems stronger, to me at least.

How is Case I not justified, by your lights?

False premisses cannot lead(validly/logically) to true conclusions.
— creativesoul

Yes. THey. Can. Christ!! — Bartricks

Well, we disagree on that don't we?

Show me.