That people are fallible means that they sometimes misuse the term "knowledge" or "know". They sometimes claim to know things that they don't. — Andrew M

This is why we shouldn't be looking at how people use the terms to understand what "knowledge" is because how they use them can be ambiguous or not meaningful (because it gets misused). This is why we have philosophy of epistemology - to try and ask what knowledge is. If people already knew what knowledge is then why this thread? Why would we ever ask, "What is knowledge"? if we already knew what it is we are talking about? "Knowledge" is the same as "God" in this sense. We just regurgitate what we see and hear without really delving into what it really means.

I no longer believe in "God" as most people use the term because no one could ever give a consistent explanation as to what "God" is, so I've adopted "God" as a synonym for "Universe". I've done the same with "knowledge". Since no one can give a consistent explanation of what "knowledge" and "truth" entail, then using "knowledge" as a synonym for "justified belief" rather than JTB, works perfectly.

If it is a common understanding that what we claim we know can be faulty (which doesn't mean that it necessarily is all the time), then it should be obvious that when we claim we know something, doesn't mean that truth is necessarily involved. Truth has to be something separate.

Well, it seems to me that you've no way of talking about what sorts of things can be true - such as knowledge claims - and what makes them so. — creativesoul

Isn't that a fundamental philosophical problem - What is truth? If philosophy is questioning what truth and knowledge is, then it seems to me that there is a problem in what truth and knowledge is, and we are having a difficult time in doing it. So you've basically explained the philosophical problem we have. You may think that you know what you're talking about when you say, "truth" and "knowledge", but others obviously disagree or else this wouldn't be a major philosophical problem.

If you have no way of talking about what can be true, then what is a justification? It seems to me that justifications can get us close to the truth without actually getting all the way (indirect realism). Some statements are more justified than others and are closer to the truth than others, but truth would be like "perfection". Our justifications are never perfect, which is why they can be fallible.

To get the truth, you'd have to be what it is you're talking about. You do have direct access to your consciousness, so you have access to some truth of reality. You can speak truths about what is on your mind, or how you are feeling. When we talk about things other than our minds, we are referring to justifications. We know other people have minds because our observation of their behavior justifies it. We don't know if it is true or not, hence the philosophical problem of other minds. We have philosophy because we are skeptical. We are skeptical because we have all experienced moments where we found that what we claimed we knew was wrong, but was justified at the time we knew it.

What makes a knowledge claim true if its premises are just other JTBs? You're using circular reasoning if truth is a property of knowledge claims. You seem to be saying that what makes a knowledge claim true is that it is a knowledge claim.

A case can be made that knowledge isn't something other than our conventional use of the word 'knowledge.' — softwhere

Cases can be made for anything. What matters is the quality of the case, not its mere existence.

Just because 'knowledge' is a noun doesn't mean there's a definite entity called 'knowledge.' — softwhere

Who are you attacking here? Where have I said that there is an 'entity' called 'knowledge' (I am arguing that there is not)? And where have I inferred that from the fact that we have a word 'knowledge'?

This also applies to 'reason' (used as a noun). — softwhere

Reason does exist and any case you make for thinking Reason does not exist will presuppose Reason's existence.

While philosophers have often trafficked in decontextualized essences, other philosophers have pointed out the problems with this approach. — softwhere

Why not just address the case made in the OP rather than engaging in philosophical journalism?

In the OP I argued that knowledge is not a thing, but is rather an attitude Reason adopts towards some true beliefs. No-one has actually addressed that view yet. Rather, they're just fiddling with Gettier cases, even though this is a hopeless task given that anything one adds to 'true belief' in an attempt to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge will have to fall short of guaranteeing the truth of the belief in question (for then it will be implausibly strong) which is all that's needed for Gettier case construction. Hence why since they were first outlined, no-one - but no-one - has been able to do it.

It can't be done, and rather than continuing trying to do it - which appreciation of the nature of the cases reveals to be impossible - one should instead extract a moral from it. Which is what I did. A moral others have ignored.

Why do they claim to know things that they don't? If they claim to understand what knowledge and knowing is, then how can they misuse the terms? — Harry Hindu

Because people can make a mistake when they deploy those terms to describe a state of affairs.

Alice looks out the window and claims it is raining. It is not raining (someone was hosing water on the window). Therefore she made a mistake. Yet she understands perfectly well what the word "rain" means.

Truth is the actual state-of-affairs. — Harry Hindu

The standard use in philosophy is that a state of affairs is a truth-maker while a claim or a belief is a truth-bearer. So states of affairs obtain or fail to obtain (e.g., it is raining) while claims are true or false (e.g., Alice's claim that it is raining).

If it is a common understanding that what we claim we know can be faulty (which doesn't mean that it necessarily is all the time), then it should be obvious that when we claim we know something, doesn't mean that truth is necessarily involved. Truth has to be something separate. — Harry Hindu

Yes, and no-one disagrees with this. There is a language distinction between what we claim we know (which can be false) and what we know (which can't be false). When someone claims to know that it is raining when it is not, they have made a mistake - and they don't have knowledge.

What matters is the quality of the case, not its mere existence. — Bartricks

I agree. To be more blunt, strong cases have been made (later Wittgenstein, for instance) against thinking that knowledge is something definite like an attitude of 'Reason.' And what does the capitalization add? It suggests that 'Reason' is a kind of divinity. As I've written in other posts, there's some historical truth in that. But it's dicey in this context, is it not?

Where have I said that there is an 'entity' called 'knowledge' (I am arguing that there is not)? — Bartricks

You define knowledge as an 'attitude,' an entity, 'a thing with distinct and independent existence.' Knowledge is something definite, you write, an attitude taken by (personified) Reason.

Rather, they're just fiddling with Gettier cases — Bartricks

If you look at my posts in this thread, I started to sketch a different approach, along the lines of Wittgenstein. Roughly speaking, language is just one part of a form of life that depends on conventions that are mostly inexplicit. In the real world we use lots of words together, in particular context. Language is not primarily a nomenclature, a code-book referring to independent/atomic concepts.
As philosophers we are tempted to use our intuitions to invent essences for nouns taken out of context. So we play the game of 'knowledge is really X,' as if we could legislate for a living language.
It's a nice game, and perhaps there's value in it. But perhaps there's also value in grasping its limitations and assumptions consciously.

Well, it seems to me that you've no way of talking about what sorts of things can be true - such as knowledge claims - and what makes them so.
— creativesoul
Isn't that a fundamental philosophical problem - What is truth? — Harry Hindu

I don't find it to be.

It's certainly a commonly asked philosophical question. We look to how the term "truth" is used. We find out what is being said in those different uses(what is meant).

No problem.

I was hoping you'd answer this:

Here's the definition of use from Lexico: "Take, hold, or deploy (something) as a means of accomplishing or achieving something; employ." In the context of our discussion what are being deployed are words and sentences.
— Andrew M

What is it that we are trying to accomplish or achieve in deploying words and sentences? What caused words and sentences to appear on this screen for me to read? — Harry Hindu

What is it that we are trying to accomplish when we say, "I know <something you "know">"?

Yes, and no-one disagrees with this. There is a language distinction between what we claim we know (which can be false) and what we know (which can't be false). When someone claims to know that it is raining when it is not, they have made a mistake - and they don't have knowledge. — Andrew M

Then why does it feel like you possess knowledge when you don't? When you've already had the experience of claiming you have knowledge and then find out that you didn't, then that should cause some concern for any other knowledge you claim to possess AND cause concern about your very understanding of what "knowledge" is. When having knowledge and not having knowledge are indistinguishable at any given moment you make a claim, then how can you really know what you are talking about? How can you ever say that you are claiming some truth at any given moment?

I don't find it to be.

It's certainly a commonly asked philosophical question. We look to how the term "truth" is used. We find out what is being said in those different uses(what is meant).

No problem. — creativesoul

Contradiction.

If people use the term in asking what it is, then doesn't that mean that there isn't a clear understanding of what it is?

What is the relationship between use and meaning? What does it mean to use words? What entails "use"?

Maybe we should rethink what we mean by "justifications"?

A justification for one may not qualify as justification for others.

What if looking out the window wasn't proper justification for knowing that it is raining. You'd have to go outside and then you'd have the proper justification.

What if looking at the Earth from the perspective of standing on it wasn't proper justification for knowing its shape. You'd have to change your perspective to being out in space to have proper justification for knowing its shape.

But this still begs the question of knowing when we ever have the proper justification. Is it when we obtain an objective perspective of what it is that we are talking about?

Contradiction.

If people use the term in asking what it is, then doesn't that mean that there isn't a clear understanding of what it is? — Harry Hindu

No...

We use every term when asking what they mean, so if what you said were true, it would mean that we do not have a clear understanding of any term...

:yikes:

We do though, so... you're quite wrong.

But you still seem to me be talking 'about' arguments rather than making them.

You say this:

To be more blunt, strong cases have been made (later Wittgenstein, for instance) against thinking that knowledge is something definite like an attitude of 'Reason.' And what does the capitalization add? It suggests that 'Reason' is a kind of divinity. As I've written in other posts, there's some historical truth in that. But it's dicey in this context, is it not? — softwhere

But I made a case for my view, and once more you are merely reporting that there is some mysterious counter-case. Why not make that case?

As for why 'Reason' has a capital R, it is both in order to distinguish Reason - the source of the norms of reason - from the faculty, 'reason' that we use to detect those norms, and from 'reasons' which are the directives constitutive of the norms themselves. So, reasons are norms, norms have a source - Reason - and we have faculties of reason by means of which we detect them.

If you look at my posts in this thread, I started to sketch a different approach — softwhere

But what's wrong with my analysis? There is patently a difference between simply believing something is true and knowing something (it is implausible that it is just some arbitrary linguistic convention). Our reason tells us this - tells us that under some circumstances a true belief qualifies as knowledge, and under others not. Yet there seems nothing that any clear case of knowledge has to have in common with any other, apart from involving a true belief (as Gettier cases and variations thereon amply demonstrate).

That's how attitudes behave. Hence my conclusion (which I do not claim follows of necessity) that knowledge is constituted by an attitude of Reason.

But I made a case for my view, and once more you are merely reporting that there is some mysterious counter-case. Why not make that case? — Bartricks

I think this forum is great for discussing our readings away from this forum, but I don't at all think that online debate is a substitute for that reading. I recommend looking into Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations). Recently I discovered this short text, highly recommended: http://www.colby.edu/music/nuss/mu254/articles/Culler.pdf

As as general opening, this short video is great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x86hLtOkou8

The 'big idea' is that meaning isn't located 'inside' the individual 'mind.' Language is radically social and embodied. Human reason is a social and not an essentially private phenomenon, despite an obsolete philosophical tradition to the contrary. Descartes writes the following.

The first [rule of thought] was never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgement than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt. — Descartes

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pineal-gland/#DescViewPineGlan

What is neglected in such a principle is the nature or way-of-being of this 'I' and this stuff, language, that thought is made of. Also accepted is the background idea of a mind-stuff connected to extended matter (perhaps through the pineal gland,) a theoretical prejudice taken for granted.

There is much more to the case against language as a nomenclature for mind-stuff essences, but this is a start.

As for why 'Reason' has a capital R, it is both in order to distinguish Reason - the source of the norms of reason - from the faculty, 'reason' that we use to detect those norms, and from 'reasons' which are the directives constitutive of the norms themselves. So, reasons are norms, norms have a source - Reason - and we have faculties of reason by means of which we detect them. — Bartricks

What's the case for this source of norms? If you look into thinkers like Hegel, you'll find the idea of cultural evolution, where ethical norms and the norms of intelligibly are unstable. To postulate to some fixed, definite source looks like a rigid and unjustified theology. That reason is a (post-)theological concept is something I'd assent to, and indeed I've written about that in the 'What God is Not' thread. But, importantly, reason (our notion of it) evolves as we reason. In that sense, philosophy is the conversation through which reason attains 'self-consciousness.' This 'self' of reason is necessarily social, a 'we' rather than an 'I.' The case for this is related to the the one provided above.

In my view, the 'case' is not conceptually but only emotionally difficult. If we are profoundly social and historical beings, then we radically depend on our inheritance. Along with this comes the staggering difficultly of saying something new and important and 'starting from zero.' The 'individual' primarily has value and interest as an intellect through the assimilation of what has already been thought, an assimilation that merely continues the learning of a language. Our vanity whispers to us that we are geniuses who don't depend on the centuries of thinking now concentrated for accelerated digestion in a philosophical tradition.

There is patently a difference between simply believing something is true and knowing something (it is implausible that it is just some arbitrary linguistic convention) — Bartricks

That the siginifier is arbitrary is well established. But I understand that we have what we call 'intuitions' and 'mental experience.' So it's really just an issue of seeing how thoroughly permeated these intuitions are with social conventions. Indeed, only social conventions make talking about them possible. What I'm getting at is not the denial of meaning but a holistic conception of meaning that sees it as part of a entire 'form of life.' I don't claim to have originated any of the thoughts I've presented here. I've just digested some greater thinkers (which one is never done digesting) and am trying to share what I understand so far.

What is it that we are trying to accomplish when we say, "I know <something you "know">"? — Harry Hindu

We are trying to describe a particular state of affairs - the way the world is. If our claim is true then we have been successful in that endeavor.

Suppose Alice says "I know it is raining". Her intention is to describe a particular state of affairs - that she knows that it is raining. She achieves that if and only if that state of affairs has obtained.

So if she does know that it is raining then she has a justified and true belief that it is raining. That is, she has looked out the window (resulting in the formation of her belief) and it is, in fact, raining.

If any link in the chain is broken, the whole chain is broken. In which case the speaker has failed to accomplish what they intended.

Then why does it feel like you possess knowledge when you don't? — Harry Hindu

Because a mistaken belief doesn't feel mistaken when you have it.

To people several hundred years ago it looked as if the Sun went round the Earth. But what would it have looked like if it had looked as if the Earth turned on its axis?

As far as appearances go, both look the same. The difference is in the explanatory hypotheses.

(The example is from Wittgenstein.)

When you've already had the experience of claiming you have knowledge and then find out that you didn't, then that should cause some concern for any other knowledge you claim to possess AND cause concern about your very understanding of what "knowledge" is. When having knowledge and not having knowledge are indistinguishable at any given moment you make a claim, then how can you really know what you are talking about? — Harry Hindu

Consider a parallel example. Does discovering that it wasn't raining when you thought it was cause concern about your understanding of what "rain" is?

It shouldn't, unless there were some further reason to think there was a problem with your understanding (e.g., people consistently referring to what you call "rain" as "snow").

The notable difference is that rain is a concrete thing whereas knowledge is an abstraction. But being mistaken about what you think you know is usually just being mistaken about something more concrete, such as whether it is raining.

How can you ever say that you are claiming some truth at any given moment? — Harry Hindu

You can make a claim when it is justifiable to do so (such as looking out the window for the rain scenario). But there is never an infallible guarantee that a given claim is true, and knowledge, to obtain, does not require one.

I think this forum is great for discussing our readings away from this forum, but I don't at all think that online debate is a substitute for that reading. — softwhere

But this forum is a place for arguments. You're not presenting any.

What is neglected in such a principle is the nature or way-of-being of this 'I' and this stuff, language, that thought is made of. — softwhere

I don't see the relevance to the question (and thoughts aren't 'made' of language, they're states of mind).

There is much more to the case against language as a nomenclature for mind-stuff essences, but this is a start. — softwhere

What start?

What's the case for this source of norms? If you look into thinkers like Hegel, you'll find the idea of cultural evolution, where ethical norms and the norms of intelligibly are unstable. — softwhere

So I have to read Hegel now?! The case is this: norms of reason exist (so, prescriptions, demands, that kind of thing). Only a subject can issue a prescription. Therefore norms of reason are the prescriptions of a subject - Reason.

Anyway, I don't really understand the rest of what you said, but it looks suspiciously as if you've got some fixed convictions based, it would seem, on fallaciously inferring that as we have to use language to talk about the world, the world is made of language, or some such.

What is the relationship between use and meaning? What does it mean to use words? What entails "use"? — Harry Hindu

Existentially codependent.
That question is ill conceived.
So is that one.

thoughts aren't 'made' of language, they're states of mind) — Bartricks

I'm trying to tell you that maybe you shouldn't take this old view for granted.

If I say of myself that it is only from my own case that I know what the word "pain" means - must I not say the same of other people too? And how can I generalize the one case so irresponsibly?

Now someone tells me that he knows what pain is only from his own case! --Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle". No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. --Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing. --But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's language? --If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty. --No, one can 'divide through' by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is.

That is to say: if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of 'object and designation' the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant. — Wittgenstein

Apply this to 'knowledge.' We learn how to use it as children. We don't know the 'states of mind' of others as we do so. As long we our behavior conforms to largely tacit norms, all is well. We 'know English,' without ever having direct access to others' minds. This applies not only to knowledge but the words 'mind' and 'matter' also. This situation suggests that we look for 'meaning' in the way that the signifier 'knowledge' is traded between us in the total context of our lives, including actions. Meaning is 'outside the mind' and 'between' us. The 'beetle in the box' is inaccessible by definition and cannot play a role.

What start? — Bartricks

All the stuff you didn't quote and respond to. If you don't understand something, then please ask for clarification. Pretending that I didn't go to any effort is silly.

So I have to read Hegel now?! — Bartricks

I'll give you some useful pieces of Hegel for this situation.

Science lays before us the morphogenetic process of this cultural development in all its detailed fullness and necessity, and at the same time shows it to be something that has already sunk into the mind as a moment of its being and become a possession of mind. The goal to be reached is the mind’s insight into what knowing is. Impatience asks for the impossible, wants to reach the goal without the means of getting there.
...
What is “familiarly known” is not properly known, just for the reason that it is “familiar”. When engaged in the process of knowing, it is the commonest form of self-deception, and a deception of other people as well, to assume something to be familiar, and give assent to it on that very account. Knowledge of that sort, with all its talk, never gets from the spot, but has no idea that this is the case. Subject and object, and so on, God, nature, understanding, sensibility, etc., are uncritically presupposed as familiar and something valid, and become fixed points from which to start and to which to return. The process of knowing flits between these secure points, and in consequence goes on merely along the surface. Apprehending and proving consist similarly in seeing whether every one finds what is said corresponding to his idea too, whether it is familiar and seems to him so and so or not. — Hegel

The case is this: norms of reason exist (so, prescriptions, demands, that kind of thing). Only a subject can issue a prescription. Therefore norms of reason are the prescriptions of a subject - Reason. — Bartricks

If you grasp the 'beetle in the box' point, then you should see that the most important norms, those of intelligibility itself, exist between 'subjects.' I can never know if we both 'see red' in the same way, nor whether our 'private intuitions' of the 'meaning' of knowledge are congruent. All we can do is trade signs within conventional/'exterior'/'material' 'norms of intelligibility.'

The way we can (roughly) make sense of your 'Reason' as a subject is think of our shared practices as a kind of foundation of the 'private subject.' To enter a language is incorporate the norms of a community and be trained to 'make sense of' that culture's signs (including things like turn signals and handshakes.) In that sense we are 'Reason' and also individuals who contribute to the invention of new signs and the transformation of the norms governing the signs we started with.

Last comment: lots of what I'd call illusions about language are generated by working with toy examples. A strong theory has to make sense of its own possibility and explain the meaning-effects of the most advanced philosophy --or at least not ignore them. Or consider this infinitely suggestive passage from the end of Finnegans Wake.
https://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-627.htm

Consider a parallel example. Does discovering that it wasn't raining when you thought it was cause concern about your understanding of what "rain" is?

It shouldn't, unless there were some further reason to think there was a problem with your understanding (e.g., people consistently referring to what you call "rain" as "snow"). — Andrew M

It means that you can't tell the difference between rain and water hosed on the window until you go outside. So, you don't have proper justification to claim that it is raining by just looking out the window, just as you don't have proper justification to know the shape of the Earth or it's movement in space without the proper view to inform you of what actually is the case.

Another path is saying, "I know that it is raining" is talking about your knowledge, not the rain. You are talking about the state-of-affairs that is your knowledge, not the weather. So, while you may know what rain is, you don't know much about your knowledge because it isn't raining outside.

Because a mistaken belief doesn't feel mistaken when you have it.

To people several hundred years ago it looked as if the Sun went round the Earth. But what would it have looked like if it had looked as if the Earth turned on its axis?

As far as appearances go, both look the same. The difference is in the explanatory hypotheses. — Andrew M

Exactly, so our observations aren't proper justification for knowledge. I already said that since our justifications can be flawed, then we can never know whether or not we are using the term in the correct way, unless we obtain the proper perspective in order to have proper justification.

If they both look the same, how did you ever come to know what knowledge is to use the term?

It seems to me that you don't have proper justification to claim to know anything until you make the proper observation from the proper perspective. Since it is possible to confuse a hosed window with rain, you don't know that it is raining until you go outside. It is possible to mistake rain for something that isn't rain when you are outside? Is it possible to mistake the shape of the Earth when out in space? If not, then it can be safely said that that is when you possess knowledge, and not before.

So, it seems to me that you simply have to know when you're taking an objective view of what it is that you are talking about and you know you have the objective view because there isn't some other possible view to take, or this view doesn't allow mistakes in identifying what it is that we are talking about.

To people several hundred years ago it looked as if the Sun went round the Earth. But what would it have looked like if it had looked as if the Earth turned on its axis? — Andrew M

Yes, because from the perspective of being on the surface of the Earth, you can't tell the difference. Well, you can if you take other observations, like the movement of the Sun across the background stars and the movement of the planets, but this just proves my point - that you need other observations, not just one, to claim knowledge. Once you go out in space, you see the difference. So only in making the proper observation can we say that we possess knowledge and we obtain the proper observations when we are objective in our perspective. One observation isn't enough justification to make a knowledge claim.

No...

We use every term when asking what they mean, so if what you said were true, it would mean that we do not have a clear understanding of any term...

:yikes:

We do though, so... you're quite wrong. — creativesoul

I don't see anyone asking what "dog" or "house" means unless your an infant. I do see grown adults asking what "knowledge" and "god" is, so maybe there is something different with these terms. Maybe if you'd stop being so facetious we could have a respectful back and forth.

I'm trying to tell you that maybe you shouldn't take this old view for granted. — softwhere

You just assume I am taking it for granted. Reasons. Provide reasons not to - that is, actually try arguin for something.

All the stuff you didn't quote and respond to. If you don't understand something, then please ask for clarification. Pretending that I didn't go to any effort is silly. — softwhere

You haven't argued anything, all you've done is quote. You can't argue by quote, you need to express it afresh, otherwise I'm debating with Wittgenstein, not you.

A strong theory has to make sense of its own possibility — softwhere

What do you mean?

toy examples — softwhere

What do you mean by a 'toy example'? This word 'toy' is all the rage at the mo - what do you mean by it?

I do see grown adults asking what "knowledge" and "god" is, so maybe there is something different with these terms. Maybe if you'd stop being so facetious we could have a respectful back and forth. — Harry Hindu

I'm not being facetious.

Many folk have different ideas about what "knowledge" is. The same is true of "god". The same is true of "truth". The same is true of "meaning".

That's not adequate ground to conclude that because people use the word when asking about what it is that there is no clear understanding of what it is... especially when and if it is something that exists in it's entirety prior to our naming it.

It could indicate a clear case of the listener knowing that there are a wide ranging number of different notions that all use the same name, and not having a clear understanding of which notion the speaker is employing.

Right?

Another path is saying, "I know that it is raining" is talking about your knowledge, not the rain. You are talking about the state-of-affairs that is your knowledge, not the weather. So, while you may know what rain is, you don't know much about your knowledge because it isn't raining outside. — Harry Hindu

Yes, that is my view. We can be mistaken about whether we know it is raining just as we can be mistaken about whether it is raining.

It seems to me that you don't have proper justification to claim to know anything until you make the proper observation from the proper perspective. — Harry Hindu

With the rain example, if we went outside we presumably shouldn't be mistaken about whether it is raining or not. But that still falls short of a guarantee or proof. People sometimes have hallucinations, holograms are possible, and there will be other possibilities I haven't thought of. (And that's before getting to the more skeptical hypotheses of brains-in-vats, Descartes' evil demon and the like.)

Consider the clock example of the OP. Normally we just glance at the clock to find out the time. In order for that to count as knowledge, should we verify that the clock is working first, as well as check it against other clocks? But even if we did that, we might still be mistaken (e.g., perhaps the clocks are wrong because of a daylight savings time change, or someone else just set all the clocks incorrectly).

These extra requirements would normally be overkill for forming a belief about the time or reporting it to others. Even if fulfilled, they still fall short of a guarantee or proof. And, in the end, they fail to match our ordinary use of knowledge terms.

That is, glancing at the clock or looking out the window for rain is normally considered a sufficient justification for our beliefs and claims. If someone asks how we know what time it is, they are normally satisfied when we say we looked at the clock just now.

So only in making the proper observation can we say that we possess knowledge and we obtain the proper observations when we are objective in our perspective. One observation isn't enough justification to make a knowledge claim. — Harry Hindu

However if only deduction provides a guarantee or proof, then the only mistake-proof claim we could make would be of our own existence, per Descartes. Which is a very different thing to ordinary knowledge of the time of day or whether it is raining (that doesn't require a guarantee or proof).

The standard use in philosophy is that a state of affairs is a truth-maker while a claim or a belief is a truth-bearer. So states of affairs obtain or fail to obtain (e.g., it is raining) while claims are true or false (e.g., Alice's claim that it is raining). — Andrew M

I don't like the wording here. It doesn't make any sense to say that some state-of-affairs is a truth-maker, as if some state-of-affairs makes some other state-of-affairs called the "truth". Which state-of-affairs are we talking about when using our knowledge - the state-of-affairs that made the truth, or the state-of-affairs that is the truth? Claims don't bear truth if they are wrong.

All you have done is state what makes truth and what bears the truth, but haven't explained what the truth is and how it is made by some state-of-affairs or carried in a claim.

With the rain example, if we went outside we presumably shouldn't be mistaken about whether it is raining or not. But that still falls short of a guarantee or proof. People sometimes have hallucinations, holograms are possible, and there will be other possibilities I haven't thought of. (And that's before getting to the more skeptical hypotheses of brains-in-vats, Descartes' evil demon and the like.) — Andrew M

Now it sounds like you've taken my argument. If we are brains-in-vats, do we know what rain is? All of these alternate possibilities, while I concede are far-fetched (brains in vats) or not the norm (hallucinations), are what make one a skeptic of one's own knowledge and skeptical of our understanding of what knowledge actually is. If we can't have proof that one's knowledge is actually true, then it is illogical to say "truth" is a property of knowledge.

However if only deduction provides a guarantee or proof, then the only mistake-proof claim we could make would be of our own existence, per Descartes. Which is a very different thing to ordinary knowledge of the time of day or whether it is raining (that doesn't require a guarantee or proof). — Andrew M

What is "proof"?

I did mention before about our minds being the only thing we can say that we know anything true about because to say anything true would require you to be the thing you're talking about.

Yes, that is my view. We can be mistaken about whether we know it is raining just as we can be mistaken about whether it is raining. — Andrew M

That sounds like the same thing.

It seems to me that we can only ever talk about our knowledge, not the actual state-of-affairs. If we say, "I don't know if it is raining", then we're still talking about the state of our knowledge. We can't talk about things we don't know - only things we know. In this case, you know that you don't know that it is raining, and it is true. You actually don't know if it is raining.

You can only speak truths about the state of your own mind. Thankfully, the world, like minds, establishes patterns and we can make predictions about what the other things, like other minds, can do, and the patterns work for us most of the time. It's just that each time is a unique time and we tend to confuse the pattern with the state-of-affairs that we are talking about.

All of these alternate possibilities, while I concede are far-fetched (brains in vats) or not the norm (hallucinations), are what make one a skeptic of one's own knowledge and skeptical of our understanding of what knowledge actually is. If we can't have proof that one's knowledge is actually true, then it is illogical to say "truth" is a property of knowledge. — Harry Hindu

To me, at least, you’re addressing things outside of their proper conceptual order. So I would address things in this way:

Firstly, is truth - conformity to that which is real - possible? To argue that it is not is to obtain a contradiction. Briefly expounding on this: if conformity to reality entails that there can be no conformity to reality, then conformity to reality will both occur and not occur at the same time and in the same respect. I thereby take it for granted that we agree that the obtainment of truth (of conformity to reality) is possible.

Secondly, wherever truth is obtained, will it be possible to not hold factual justifications for the given truth? If claim X conforms to reality, then (I presume we both agree) one will be capable of factually justifying claim X by means of other facts without end.

Therefore, those beliefs that happen to be true will also necessarily be justifiable without error regardless of extent of justification involved.

At this point, fallibilism takes this form: because we are not omniscient, we cannot hold an awareness perfectly devoid of all possible errors regarding all that is. The reality of this then entails that a) we are sometimes wrong in what we believe to be true and b) we are incapable of providing a perfectly complete (i.e. absolute) justification for those claims that do happen to be true. This, of itself, however dispels neither that true beliefs can and do obtain nor that, when they obtain, they will be capable of being justified without any error.

That a belief taken to be true might not so be is the very reason why justifiability is a requisite part of JTB – the factual justifiability of our beliefs of what is true is the optimal guarantee we can hold in practice for our beliefs in fact being true. Again, just in case they are true, they will then be justifiable without error and without end.

As with the principle of falsification as it applies to empirical claims of what is, until a claim of knowledge becomes falsified, we hold no grounds by which to assume that it is not a true belief - which, on account of so being, can thereby be justified without end by us in manners perfectly devoid of error.

Then, to ask, “How do we know when we in fact know,” either equivocates between two implicitly referenced forms of knowledge - one infallible (which, for example, is obtainable via omniscience) and the other fallible - or, otherwise, can be answered thus:

We hold no reason to doubt that we hold true beliefs that are thereby justified (i.e., knowledge) of holding true beliefs that are thereby justified (i.e. of holding knowledge) whenever the former and the latter cannot be evidenced false via the scrutiny that is either directly or indirectly placed on it.

This is fallibilism. There here is no denial that beliefs of what is true can in fact be true. And if there’s no evidence of their falsity, there’s no reason to presume them untrue. One freely trusts that one’s beliefs are in fact true when one can justify them without error - for their truth would require that they be so justifiable. One just simply doesn’t presume oneself to be infallible - but this doesn’t diminish the trust just addressed.

As to the more explicitly asked question, “How does one infallibly know when one’s fallible claims of knowledge are in fact unassailable and when they are not,” the answer from a paradigm of fallibilism is, “Never; for infallible knowledge, as with infallible awareness of anything, is not something we are capable of.”

It’s not that one knows nothing; it’s that one is fallibly knowledgeable - in manners not yet falsified by any evidence - of not being endowed with any infallible knowledge.

But what's wrong with my analysis? — Bartricks

The personification of thinking about one's own thoughts and belief(reason). Equivocation of a number of different terms, including "reason". Failing to properly quantify premisses(not specifying "some" and implying all when it is not).

:wink:

Since you asked.

How many times? First, it is not a mistake to personify Reason. I have now provided - it feels like about 100 times - an argument that demonstrates Reason is a person. There are prescriptions of Reason; only a person can issue a prescription; therefore Reason is a person.

I have not equivocated over the term 'reason'; rather I have carefully specified the different uses to which it can be put. Can you?

For instance, explain to me now what the difference is between an explanatory reason and a normative reason.

Failing to properly quantify premisses(not specifying "some" and implying all when it is not). — creativesoul

Where?

:rofl:

You really are serious?

:brow:

Do you believe what you write?

Ah, I forgot - you're a time waster and don't read what I write and can't argue for anything.

Yes, I believe what I write.

Now, kindly do what I asked. What's the difference between an explanatory reason and a normative reason?

And where did I say 'all' when I meant 'some'?

And where did you refute my proof that Reason is a person?

My my my...

You really are serious, aren't you?

:snicker:

Time. Waster.

As David Lewis said "you can't refute me with an incredulous stare"

I have not equivocated over the term 'reason'; rather I have carefully specified the different uses to which it can be put. — Bartricks

"Over the term"...

Nonsense.

"while using the term"...

Yes... you have.

When an author uses different senses of the same term in the same argument it results in equivocation at best, and self contradiction at worst.

We're not in disagreement about the fact that there are a plurality of accepted sensible uses of the term "reason". We all know that to be true.

We're in disagreement for all sorts of reasons...

...not all sorts of people. Moron.

You are equivocating the term "reason" because you are using it in more than one sense in the same argument. This can be easily proven by means of substitution. The same practice will also clearly show that Reason is not a person.

Oh look! There it is directly above!