Such skepticism based on mere imaginable possibilities seem toothless and irrelevant to me. I see a dog in the room, I have no cogent reason to doubt its existence. And that is exactly why I say that where there is no possibility of genuine, as opposed to merely feigned, doubt, then speaking in terms of belief is inapt. — Janus

The key thing about this limit to logically justified certainty is that it opens the mind sufficiently for things as a Buddhist enlightenment to occur. If not for this the true nature of reality would always be dismissed out-of-hand as ridiculously implausible and never even cross the mind as a remote possibility.

The key thing about this limit to logically justified certainty is that it opens the mind sufficiently for things as a Buddhist enlightenment to occur. If not for this the true nature of reality would always be dismissed out-of-hand as ridiculously implausible and never even cross the mind as a remote possibility. — PL Olcott

I don't believe anything in the propositional sense is known in the kinds of altered states of consciousness people refer to as "enlightenment". But such altered states are a kind of knowledge: a kind of familiarity or know-how.

And if you can learn to alter your state of consciousness without drugs that would be a case of know-how even more so. That said, even doing it with drugs should count as know-how.

...someone said all knowledge requires belief, both of which I for sure, and ↪Janus apparently, reject.
————- — Mww

Your rejection is based upon a conception of experience that cannot include language acquisition. Your responses thus far have been full of strawmen and red herring. Funny ones, but horribly inaccurate if aimed towards what I've said here.

I personally prefer to think in terms of direct awareness, knowledge and belief all being quite distinct and independent of one another. — Janus

Good stuff. You said it all there.

“direct awareness” - the present becoming of experience.. Thrown there, in motion, with it. It immediately presents an object to a subject; but it can also just be seen as just the subjective experiencing…, becoming in the moment - direct awareness.

“distinct” from “knowledge” - the what, the content, the qualia of this experiencing. If the act of experiencing is direct awareness, the noun of experience is what is made distinct as “knowledge”.

distinct from “belief” - this is an act like direct awareness, but it is the act of willing, of consenting, of choosing to relate the “what” of your “knowledge”, related to the act of experiencing (aware), and claim or judge both “believed” in as related.

All three are instantly present if you try talk about any one of them alone. Experiene, knowledge, belief.

Knowing itself is the act of distinguishing (even if just distinguishing what you presently see from what you presently hear) but distinguishing the whatness as now objects of knowledge, distinguishing knowledge itself from what it is knowledge of, while simultaneously believing your knowledge is either true or not true, judging, understanding, in the direct awareness of these distinctions of knowledge.

You don’t need the word “true” to show all the parts. Truth is covered by “belief”.

We can say there are things in themselves and there is knowledge of things, and when what one believes reflects well enough what there is, this belief is equivalent to knowledge. There, I married all three without saying “truth”. Or we can say we will only base our beliefs on the following: knowing the thing in itself and, now possessing this knowledge, now knowing the knowledge itself of the thing in itself, only when these are each knowledge of the same thing. Or you can just use the word “true”.

When what we believe reflects what truly is, we can say we know; we know the truth.

There is one question in this mix - what is there to believe? But this question includes within it - what is there? And “is there” begs we start all over again.

In order for you to read this very sentence, you have fix whatever I mean by “fix”, right here in this sentence, (you just did it twice!) and then, and only then, can you move on to the next word, the next sentence…

We fix experience with knowledge we can believe in so we can stand on it and move on to the next sentence.

We judge (belief) what we know (knowledge) we are experiencing (awareness). We judge what we experience. We know.

All inseparable in the end.

I don't believe anything in the propositional sense is known in the kinds of altered states of consciousness people refer to as "enlightenment". But such altered states are a kind of knowledge: a kind of familiarity or know-how. — Janus

It never was any altered state of consciousness. It is actually noticing a very well hidden aspect to cause-and-effect that is impossible to see until after one fully appreciates the actual limit to logically justified certainty.

"Shrug"...if you say so...

there seemed to me in your explanation, a reluctance to go a certain distance as far as truth being an illusion/invention — ENOAH

I can see reading me that way. Basically agree with you. You’re seeing me from a perspective, but you’re seeing me. But I’d frame the reluctance (which is a sort of negation), in a positive way. I admit the illusion, without a reluctance to also see truth there with the illusion. So I get seeing a reluctance to admit the depth of the illusion, since I temper illusion with truth.

But I see this same spot as: I only know the illusion is illusion as I see truth dashed to pieces over and over again. I mean, how could something present itself as an illusion to me, if I couldn’t see that it was not real, not truth? So I just see both. I think Nietzsche did too.

If you have illusion, you have truth obscured.
If you have truth, you have illusion clarified.

So if you have one, you have them both, because each defines the other. But at the same time, you need them both before either one might come to be distinct.

These conversations open huge rabbit holes of paradoxes, dashing logic, identity, metaphysics, this sentence… But knowing anything, be it illusion or not, seems both impossible and already accomplished at the same time. We are dealing in living paradoxes… so it is hard to speak. Like where does Nietzsche lie on the scales of “it is true that there is no truth” and “If there is one thing I know, it is that I know nothing”?
We are bound to find he agrees with and must disagree with, both and neither of these quotes.

Or are you reluctant to ascribe to N. a more absolute abandonment of truth in human existential/phenomenal experience because, for e.g. he's so ambiguous and that would be pinpointing him to an extreme; or, it sounds like nihilism, etc.? — ENOAH

Nietzsche can be very dogmatic. He’s clear that some things are vacuous and empty and other things are full and overcoming. He describes both, and tells us what is true and what is not true about them both.

So he bears witness to truth, he just tells us we are fools to make so much of this creation; or more positively, when we do science, we must practice it gaily, with a spirit that would toss it all away to maybe start over or move on, at any instant.

We should not seek the truth as if to follow a shepherd, we must make it.

That is his method, like anyone else who tries to communicate. He deals in setting out what is, what is true. He just sets out to destroy the vacuous. His content, what he really thinks is, truth is just one small way of being about it. There are other things we can seek and we can see besides the truth; and this truth can itself be illusion and create lies; and it is easier for truth to be a lie than the thing that eluded you in the first place, so maybe we should avoid the concept, we are smarter to jettison it from discourse…

But still, in order to say all that or to tear down any dogma, as I said, Nietzsche had to be as dogmatic about these things as anyone else. He dealt in truths as much as anything else, just more carefully, using a hammer as quickly as the tuner.

I'm interested in seeing if people who are comfortable with N. would be comfortable saying that from a Nietzschean perspective Heidegger's Dasein, throwness, ready at hand, etc. etc. etc., though brilliant and functional, is also, in the end, illusion, and seeing, actually inaccessible by means of the illusion, — ENOAH

I think Heidegger put things in a more classically logical, more metaphysical way, and all of this might be dismissible as facade to Nietzsche. Heidegger had to invent a whole bunch of words just to say what he saw there being. Heidegger’s world is more becoming, being, but being in time, and Nietzsche would see no fault in that, but Heidegger’s world is rigorous in its own way, and so subject to utter destruction like all the rest.

Throwness is a great idea and adds to the conversation. I think Nietzsche would have made good use of that concept.

And they both loved the Greeks. Heidegger thought we lost a connection to what the Greek roots of our words meant, so we needed to relearn and so reuse original uses of those words to better capture our ideas. Nietzsche thought the Greek tragedy was a pinnacle moment in human expression, the human willing into existence Oedipus Rex.

But in the end, Nietzsche would have probably said Heidegger was as full of crap as most everyone else.

As for "exaggerations," I'm not sure I see them that way, which is the "why" of my queries here. — ENOAH

“Truth is an illusion that we have forgotten was an illusion” becomes an exaggeration when you realize there is some truth in it. Nietzsche knew it, so he was exaggerating.

I can’t say Nietzsche was only saying “there is no truth” (which I don’t think he ever plainly says); this exaggerates his point. He wasn’t a relativist either (though some of the things he says logically lead to relativism). I, instead, would say he thought truth comes to be like many other things come to be, and so it passes away, and changes, and is forgotten, and so shouldn’t be honored above, (and because it was so honored for so long needs now to be held below) all of the other things that come to be and pass away. And because truth needed to be taken down a leg, he knocked it down three pegs, exaggerating to lead the masses with him. But we can’t really escape the invention of truth.

He saw that since Plato and Socrates, we had exaggerated the Truth, so he exaggerated No truth, taking God down with it.

Though we all may have forgotten, for Nietzsche to remember that truth was an illusion, he also remembered what truth truly was. He used truth to build the hammer to destroy anything that would not stand if its own will.

Which is why I agree with you, he wasn’t a nihilist either.

This could go on…

I wonder what you think of where I see the the truth of it all, how illusion is only illusion in the eyes of something who knows truth, or simultaneously, truth is only truth in the eyes of something seeing illusion; how the presence of either one, brings the presence of both together. Basically, how we can’t escape the many paradoxes that it is to have any opinion about these things at all.

Your rejection is based upon a conception of experience that cannot include language acquisition. Your responses thus far have been full of strawmen and red herring. — creativesoul

So lemme get this straight. We’re talking belief/knowledge, you bring in experience/language….yet I’m the one committing strawman/red herring dialectical inconsistencies?

It must be that your position is more complex and penetrating than I realized.

So be it.

The issue is that "belief" is rather an English locution, which carries with it strong connotations of "absent evidence", related to the religious use of the term.

I think a simpler term is to use "thoughts" instead, which does not carry such associations. So, are thoughts knowledge? I do not know, because I can't say what knowledge is, or is not.

The term is too vague, imprecise and nebulous, that it's very hard to pin down what it is. Though to be fair, this is not limited to "knowledge" but applies to almost all words of which philosophers are interested in.

Knowledge is only belief.
— Chet Hawkins — Janus

So, if I say "I know the alphabet, I know that the FTP site exists, ...", all that is only a belief, that is, it's only my opinion, something I'm simply convicted about. Well, it's a fact and I can prove it anytime.

Facts are not beliefs.

This kind of subjects make someone think that philosophy is out of subjects. Because we keep coming back to subjects --like belief vs knowledge-- that have been discussed a million times, so people should have already formed a firmed view about them. And every once in a while someone tries to relive a fire using a plastic stick.

Chet has flown the coop and the plastic stick has melted.

also see truth there with the illusion. — Fire Ologist

Ok. And I get that.
Is the truth
1. The now buried source of the illusion, displaced by the illusion but lingering?
2. Is it dissolved in the illusion such that they are indistinguishable?
3. Or, is it literally obliterated by the illusion as implied below?
4. Something else?

see truth dashed to pieces — Fire Ologist

how could something present itself as an illusion to me, if I couldn’t see that it was not real, not truth? — Fire Ologist

Yes. And i understand the logic. But if we stay with N for a minute here, logic (specifically, the requirement of a not that, to reflect a this), is the illusion. So, I submit that our (yours, mine, N.'s and many others) "intuition" about the illusion, though eventually worked out in logic/reason, has its source outside of the illusion, and I submit, that source is in Being (Not enough time/space to elaborate presently). Point being, it is not in logic (in my humble...etc).

knowing anything, be it illusion or not, seems both impossible and already accomplished at the same time. We are dealing in living paradoxes… — Fire Ologist

Agreed. I wonder if the paradox doesn't come from trying to fit Truth within the illusion, i.e. by attempting to access it by logic/reason, and if "emancipation" doesn't come from accessing them separately. The illusion in becoming (our mundane or conventional existence--the existential world N. "chastises" and attempts to remedy via authenticity etc); and the Truth in being (not existentially (narratively involving the constructions of difference and time), but organically (always presently)--again too much to elaborate here and now).

He describes both, and tells us what is true and what is not true about them both. — Fire Ologist

Ok. Did not know. Methodically? Or do we read between the lines?

We should not seek the truth as if to follow a shepherd, we must make it. — Fire Ologist

Ok, I agree with the first part. But second part suggests we are constructing small t truths in our becoming, in the illusion. Fine. Functional. Necessary. This is his authentic self stuff which I respect, but qualified. It is our truth, and not The Truth, even our authentic-ized self. This is not an attack on N. Just what I think he "really" meant. But I confess I do not know what he meant. I am strictly one who does not think it necessary to abide by authorial intent, but rather, to use History to build History (in the "realm" of becoming). Then why query N's intent? I care about it, just willing to use it creatively. (There's a Daoist parable in the Zhuangzi where the Dao is compared to an old deformed Tree which was deemed useless for lumber and thus allowed to grow. Zhuangzi highlights the folly of restricting its use for lumber, noting how its longevity allowed it to provide optimal shade)

maybe we should avoid the concept, we are smarter to jettison it from discourse… — Fire Ologist

Totally, Real Truth. Avoid it in all philosophical discourse (hypocrisy acknowledged). Not just should we jettison; but, unknown to those of us stuck only in becoming, The Truth isn't even on board the discourse to jettison it from. Only constructed truths, which, because of their becoming, are fleeting and empty, vacuous as you suggest. Even The Truth I am querying about is already only truth.

still, in order to say all that or to tear down any dogma, as I said, Nietzsche had to be as dogmatic about these things as anyone else. — Fire Ologist

Like all philosophers, I suspect, ineluctably trapped between I've said too much/I haven't said enough. Like, you I imagine, after you read my follow ups, knowing you could have addressed these in one swoop, maybe even figure you have, but the questions, in a dimension empty of being, can never settle. So we believe until the new one comes along. Dogma thinks it can circumvent belief by dictating. But even Dogma is in constant motion, only vacuous becoming and only temporarily settled upon. That's how I read N (in my repeatedly confessed modest reading. That is, I am ready to accept that my reading is "heretical" to those who have read N.)

If there is one thing I know, it is that I know nothing — Fire Ologist

My read? Finally one came along and resurrected that first and only philosophical Truth after Plato buried it in the cave. (PS I love Plato. Just saying).

think Heidegger put things in a more classically logical, more metaphysical way, and all of this might be dismissible as facade to Nietzsche. — Fire Ologist

Ok, yes. From Nietzsche's lens, H was working with the vacuous constructing brilliant, but nonetheless, vacuous things. I fully acknowledge you said "might" and also that you have never purported to pinpoint N. but have been gracious enough to share your findings, and within a Ltd space/time.

I wonder what you think of where I see the the truth of it all, how illusion is only illusion in the eyes of something who knows truth, or simultaneously, truth is only truth in the eyes of something seeing illusion; how the presence of either one, brings the presence of both together. — Fire Ologist

In fairness to you, I didn't give you much of a chance to express your own views. You were being courteous in addressing my queries on N., for which I am compelled to repeat my gratitude. It has been enriching. But given what I could read between the lines, and the quotation directly above, I would be interested. I do not think we are crossing the boundaries of "Is knowledge belief."

On the face of it. I think the dichotomy is only relevant In illusion . I think opposites, paradoxes, contradiction, difference, are also constructed fictions existing, bearing meaning, and qualifying as truths, only in becoming. In Reality, Being, there is not only no dichotomy, there is no inquiry, no focus, no concern whatsoever about Truth/No Truth. There is no logos. There is only presence being [that Truth...added here only for our benefit]

“direct awareness” - the present becoming of experience.. Thrown there, in motion, with it. It immediately presents an object to a subject; but it can also just be seen as just the subjective experiencing…, becoming in the moment - direct awareness. — Fire Ologist

I apologize if I am overbearing. I have found you have insight into matters important to me.

The above quotation is a good place to clarify where we differ slightly. That is, if you think we haven't reached the beating a dead horse phase.

Direct awareness is significant to isolate. And I totally share your apparent enthusiasm about that. But is direct awareness taking place in becoming? Does it involve subject/object? There might be a more direct awareness in becoming. But the one which excites me, and which paradoxically is pointless to discuss, as you suggested earlier, is a "return" to the aware-ing Being, finally just being, liberated from becoming. (Won't elaborate here/now).

Is the truth
1. The now buried source of the illusion, displaced by the illusion but lingering?
2. Is it dissolved in the illusion such that they are indistinguishable?
3. Or, is it literally obliterated by the illusion as implied below?
4. Something else? — ENOAH

I think I need to step back. Nietzsche was aware of Kant, and though he picked on Kant, he saw that knowledge was cut off from the objects it sought to know. Nietzsche saw that the way we carved up reality was at the outset tainted by the shape of the carving knife, so that any knowledge we constructed reflected as much of the mind carving it as it did anything else. So the first illusion was the act of claiming words that functioned among people replaced the particular realities that actually existed, and then mendaciously presuming those words, those constructed carvings, reflected and corresponded to things as they are, in themselves.

Then we called this correspondence truth. Now we see that truth is an illusion that we long forgot was an illusion. The first illusion, where our man-made conventions called “knowing” (which knows nothing of the thing in itself) is now called truth - an illusion built on a forgotten illusion, all because people like Aristotle and Descartes thought that we were so smart we could carve lines at real joints, at true distinctions in a real mind independent world, like we could know anything or know our knowledge reflected the truth of the thing in itself.

I think that is 4. something else.

logic (specifically, the requirement of a not that, to reflect a this), is the illusion. — ENOAH

My resurrection of truth with illusion is not Nietzsche (although I see the alignment). N. would agree that logic and reason are not close to the top of the hierarchy, and they are more mixed with illusion making if they are used to make truth.

But I also think Nietzsche was a scientist, a truth seeker himself. It’s just that he admitted the “truth” was less valuable then the knowledge of it as illusion. He never gave a theory of truth. When he talked about truth he could logically call it lies. But truth remains in the picture here. It just has to die like all of the other beasts and shouldn’t be reified as if it could possibly be a truth of the eternal forms of perfection, or the essence of certain knowledge.

It is our truth, and not The Truth, even our authentic-ized self. — ENOAH

I agree with your point here, I don’t think you have to use a capital t Truth. Just the word “truth” is enough reification. I your small t is the illusion that when we know phenomena, we start forgetting that we are knowing phenomena and call it reality whether I know it or not; but because we only know what we invest our knowing carving mind in, we do not know reality; when we forget this first, we start to use words like “truth” where I think you put the capital T.

Dogma thinks it can circumvent belief by dictating. But even Dogma is in constant motion, only vacuous becoming and only temporarily settled upon. — ENOAH

Nietzsche railed against dogma. It was an Apollonian appearance, the facade of weak minded hubris. When I say he was dogmatic, I am exaggerating and misusing the word dogma. Everything is in motion. Willing becoming was the rawest thing in itself worth knowing to Nietzsche. But that is where truth sneaks back into the picture, to me. He still claimed his content.

We don’t lose the ability to know Truth when we learn all of the “truths” we’ve known so far are lies. Nietzsche still called himself a seeker of truth. He never said there is no truth. He was not a nihilist or a relativist. It is clear he saw distinctions that require things at least be “temporarily settled upon” like…truth.

And I am fine with “temporarily settled upon” as a framework for truth. It’s why I think I can say “there is truth for us to believe is true” and stay aligned with Nietzsche. As long as you recognize the temporality, you gain back the full meaning of truth. It’s still there, in all its capital T fullness, during that temporary settlement. Otherwise “settle” has no content.

I think opposites, paradoxes, contradiction, difference, are also constructed fictions existing, bearing meaning, and qualifying as truths, only in becoming. In Reality, Being, there is not only no dichotomy, there is no inquiry, no focus, no concern whatsoever about Truth/No Truth. There is no logos. There is only presence being [that Truth...added here only for our benefit] — ENOAH

Ahh. A true skeptic perhaps? Nothing wrong with that (literally).

Knowing itself is a paradox, seeking truth, meeting only illusion, and we know it. This is a knot.

There is no dichotomy in reality? I disagree. I am the dichotomy in reality. When you say one thing, it immediately holds everything else in the balance, paradoxically saying more than one thing. Like a rose might beget red in an eyeball, we might beget dichotomy and paradox, and there they are, together with the other flowers, swaying in the same field the same breeze.

There is no inquiry, no logos, no concern? Harsh.

I get it. Nietzsche might have said such things.

But I think he was taking truth off its pedestal. I don’t think he was throwing it away. There certainly is presence being presence, becoming present, presenting…. But with the becoming, things come to be in the becoming. I don’t think truth, belief in knowledge, and the logos that shares it between you and me here, can be thrown away. The act of throwing all truth away has truth in it! It just takes boldness and trepidation to say things like “the eternal recurrence of the same” and to see the Truth that we can only approach truth and maybe never have it. I personally am fine to just call this picture - this minding that fixes things permanently for fleeting moments for itself and other minds - mixed in truth.

In the end, we mostly fail. What we believe is true, usually is not. Just not always. Or else we wouldn’t know what we can’t know.

Great conversation by the way. Cheers!

But is direct awareness taking place in becoming? Does it involve subject/object? There might be a more direct awareness in becoming. But the one which excites me, and which paradoxically is pointless to discuss, as you suggested earlier, is a "return" to the aware-ing Being, finally just being, liberated from becoming. — ENOAH

Yes, direct awareness is becoming. I called it awareness because Janus did, to keep in line with that. But I would rather call it being aware. You have to get an “ing” word in there, breathing life into the more stagnant sounding “direct awareness”. But direct awareness works. The immediate now. The present. These are fixed sounding terms. But they are all in the becoming of being.

I don’t think of being as so distinct from becoming. If becoming is like a landslide falling to the valley, being is like vibrating in place like a mountain in an earthquake. It’s all becoming. Like it’s all being.

The fixed part is only sensed in minds. I think these minds sense something being something, or something becoming something, but it is all of these somethings where minds can fix things for itself. The becoming in between these things rolls on through them all.

And if anything can be liberated from the becoming of being, it is the mind that liberates itself alone that might become fixed as a free agent.

Kant, he saw that knowledge was cut off from the objects it sought to know — Fire Ologist

Yes, arguably necessary for there to have been a Nietzsche, or at least, the N. being discussed.

first illusion, where our man-made conventions called “knowing” (which knows nothing of the thing in itself) is now called truth - an illusion built on a forgotten illusion, all because people like Aristotle — Fire Ologist

he admitted the “truth” was less valuable then the knowledge of it as illusion. — Fire Ologist

when we forget this first, we start to use words like “truth” where I think you put the capital T. — Fire Ologist

Nice

There is no dichotomy in reality? I disagree. I am the dichotomy in reality. When you say one thing, it immediately holds everything else in the balance, — Fire Ologist

This one, I stubbornly grapple with. I cannot let go of my admittedly radical view that "when you say," period, you are already in that which displaces reality, what we've loosely desginated as N. illusion. In reality, not only no dichotomy, but no say.

The act of throwing all truth away has truth in it! I — Fire Ologist

Yes, when you put it that way. I need to at least temporarily release my puritanical hold on Realty is only being (?)

But there was this,

But with the becoming, things come to be in the becoming. — Fire Ologist

And, I think that's our folly, or even fall. Maybe N. didn't go this far, and I accept that. But then, I would humbly assert he stopped short. I assure you I am not religious in any conventional sense, but I wonder if humans did "fall from grace," the grace of nature when we also "forgot" that nature "creates" being, and our becoming never arrives at being, but only at more becoming in its vacuous construction of vacuous time.

And yet,

Or else we wouldn’t know what we can’t know. — Fire Ologist

where I've settled is ultimately absurd, trapped by a paradox of its own creation.

...or is the absurdity just more support?

Are we all just reaching into a dark cave and by some crazy coincidence, one of us winds up holding truth? I don't think so. I rather think none of us are. I think the truth is in the arm reaching. I don't mean, as per Lessing, glorifying the pursuit. That's just philosophy justifying verbal masturbation. I mean the actual organism acting. That's the real truth, the one N. illusions have displaced, or caused itself to have forgotten.

You have to get an “ing” word in there, breathing life into the more stagnant sounding “direct awareness”. — Fire Ologist

Uncanny similarities and yet some differences. I always call my version, aware-ing. Which compliments my last point about the arm reaching. I think truth is in the present is-ing/do-ing.

It is likely I an too heretical. Maybe I have over romanticized the romanticizations of N et al. I'll have to think more.

This one, I stubbornly grapple with. I cannot let go of my admittedly radical view that "when you say," period, you are already in that which displaces reality, what we've loosely desginated as N. illusion. In reality, not only no dichotomy, but no say. — ENOAH

But there is the saying. We say. The becoming that is us, make saying come to be. Once saying is, things are said. Once things are said, dichotomy blossoms.

I still see your point. You don’t have to further than than the present. Any move around becoming is walking on quicksand. Saying is saying about. Saying about begs saying about what, and now we meet illusion again. BUT, not when we are saying we know that saying about meets illusion. This is truth, in my view.

I think truth is in the present is-ing/do-ing. — ENOAH

I agree 100%.

Once saying is, things are said. Once things are said, dichotomy blossoms. — Fire Ologist

Ok yes. That might be a subtlty I'm missing. That's where I'm going to direct my thinking!

I'll tell you, from this discussion, I can say you are intellectually very open and giving, a great quality in a forum like this. It's not universal!

Do you mean Chet has managed to escape before being burnt by the fire, together with the stick?

You are about to put food in the bowl. The cat knows that. That is a proposition. — Banno

What does the proposition consist of, here, on this account? If the content of the cat's belief is the proposition, and the content of the proposition is me, the food, the bowl, my actions - as compared/contrasted with words/meaningful marks - then it may be the case that we're calling the same thing by two different names.

The object of your cat's belief is presumably the imminent full bowl. — Banno

I've not worked out what the object of the cat's belief would be according to Searle, but that seems in line with what he set out.

I agree that propositions are not always what he calls 'the object' of belief but can be.

His account still is in agreement with the idea that all belief content is propositional, as he draws a distinction between propositional attitudes and propositional 'content'.

I agree that it comes down to which should be thought the best way of talking about it, since there is no empirical fact of the matter to be found. I personally prefer to think in terms of direct awareness, knowledge and belief all being quite distinct and independent of one another. — Janus

But I think that there are empirical facts of the matter.

Direct awareness, knowledge, and belief are distinct, but given the need for evolutionary progression, I cannot agree with claiming that they are independent.

We’re talking belief/knowledge... — Mww

Indeed. You and I agree on the OP question. Knowledge is not merely belief. My claim was that knowledge is existentially dependent on belief(knowledge requires belief). The candidate in question was knowing how to ride a bike. I claimed, would argue and defend - if given a chance - the claim that all bike riding is existentially dependent upon all sorts of different beliefs. Some belonging to the rider, and some not.

Just because you claim that knowing how to ride a bike is not existentially dependent upon all sorts of prior beliefs, does not make it so.

And yes, you've been arguing against your own imaginary opponents. I've never claimed that belief was enough for knowledge. I've never argued that bike riding was existentially dependent upon any of the beliefs you've been reducing to ad absurdum.

I do like how that accounting practice covers other mental states aside from belief, in terms of sharing the same content.

but the OP asks if knowledge is merely belief. Apparently, it's implying that the difference between knowing and believing is empirical verification or rational justification. And so, we argue about shades of truth. :smile: — Gnomon

Very true. I did take liberty in my read. And you are correct. Thank you

My claim was that knowledge is existentially dependent on belief(knowledge requires belief). — creativesoul

I understand your claim, but disagree that knowledge requires belief.

do you have any illustrative examples?

All knowledge requires belief.
— ENOAH
That's true, but the OP asks if knowledge is merely belief. Apparently, it's implying that the difference between knowing and believing is empirical verification or rational justification. And so, we argue about shades of truth. :smile: — Gnomon
I question whether all knowledge does require belief. I know how to ride a bike, plane a board, paint a picture, write a poem, play the piano and so on, and I don't see how any of that requires belief. — Janus

The examples you give are not abstract True/False beliefs, but internal mental states (memories ; representations) that we rely on to make our way in the real world. Do those representations depend on a reliable understanding (belief) of how the world works? I suppose that depends on how broadly you define "knowledge" and "belief". As I said, we philosophers argue about nit-picky shades of meaning. :smile:


To Know : to understand what something or someone truly is.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/know%20something

do you have any illustrative examples? — flannel jesus

Examples that I disagree with the claim that knowledge requires belief? How would I illustrate, given something I know, that there necessarily exists in conjunction with and antecedent to it, something I believe?