Do you believe that the truth of "2+2=4" could change as time passes? — Metaphysician Undercover

No, but that's not something in the world. It's something about things in the world. All the things that could represent that equation wont stay the same.

you are someone who does not hold much truck — T Clark

More or less understand and agree with your comment, other than this. I do give intuition a lot of weight, but I don't think its much more than preconscious statistical analysis (or something similar.. that's probably not quite right).

No, but that's not something in the world. It's something about things in the world. All the things that could represent that equation wont stay the same. — AmadeusD

Yes, but it's more than just "something about things in the world", it's a belief about things in the world. And the belief is that it is true, therefore something such as correspondence with reality must support that truth, as justification.

Now, the belief is that this "something" is something which does not change. You appear to be saying that if we exclude this "something" from "the world", then we can truthfully say that we believe there is nothing in the world which stays the same. But all you have done here is relegate this "something" which you believe in, to somewhere other than "the world". So unless you adopt some form of dualism, to give this "something" a place of being, then to avoid self-deception you need to accept that this belief is really nothing instead of "something".

In principle, that's the route which atheism takes with "God". God has no place in "the world", so we exclude God from our monist reality, which is allowed only to consist of things of "the world". Then, to be consistent, and avoid self-deception, we must deny belief in God. You have not taken this step, to maintain consistency, and avoid self-deception. You want to believe in "2+2=4", assert that it actually signifies "something", but you want to exclude that "something" from your world, so it would actually be nothing. That would be self-deception, insisting that "2+2=4" actually signifies, represents, or corresponds with nothing.

I do give intuition a lot of weight, but I don't think its much more than preconscious statistical analysis (or something similar.. that's probably not quite right). — AmadeusD

You just validated my understanding of intuition. I drew a conclusion based on a "preconscious statistical analysis (or something similar." but, since I didn't go to the trouble of examining it more closely, it was poorly justified, but that's ok because the consequences of being wrong were not significant.

In DK Intuition is a important component for evaluating credences as the lottery Problem demonstrates.

@AmadeusD @T clark

Within the framework of DK, intuition functions as a tool for navigating epistemic uncertainty. It enables the recognition of subtle tensions when justified beliefs—such as in the Lottery Problem—appear rational yet still elicit doubt. This doubt is not merely psychological; rather, it signals a conceptual crisis. Intuition reveals that the categories under which we assess beliefs may no longer be adequate.

In such moments—when beliefs seem formally coherent but intuitively “off”—intuition plays a guiding role. It detects the atopon, the sense of strangeness or misfit within what initially seems self-evident. Often, this creates an epistemic circle: the perception of uncertainty leads to a doubt that cannot be fully articulated, yet still demands conceptual revision. DK takes such intuitively perceived crises seriously, as they indicate that knowledge must be not only justified and true, but also contextually coherent. In this way, intuition contributes meaningfully to the dynamic adjustment of concepts under conditions of uncertainty.

Every morning, the sun rises, so one assumes it will rise tomorrow as well. However, despite consistent past experiences, there is no absolute guarantee this prediction will always hold true. — DasGegenmittel

Yes there is no absolute knowledge. But we do know many things beyond reasonable doubt. That the Sun will rise tomorrow is one of them because for it to fail to rise would, according to all our experience and scientific understanding, require conditions which we understand to verge on the impossible. So, this I agree mostly with

Even the rain could be an illusion, but we can still reasonably claim that it is not: — DasGegenmittel

...but...I would state it more forcefully; when I look out the window and see it raining (it is still raining here, and the creek is still in flood) I have absolutely no reason to think it is an illusion. Many, if not most things in our lives are like this. The mere logical possibility of error does not justify doubt in these kinds of cases. And even in cases where we do not, or even cannot, know the truth we have no reason to doubt there is a truth and that it is worth seeking.

And even in cases where we do not, or even cannot, know the truth we have no reason to doubt there is a truth and that it is worth seeking. — Janus

Absolutely.. ad astra per aspera..

or as a gang of philosophers once said... "step by step uhh baby": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ay6GjmiJTPM

"“[…] it is the struggle itself that is most important.
We must strive to be more than we are, Lal. It does
not matter that we will never reach our ultimate goal.
The effort yields its own rewards.“

Lt. Cmdr. Data to his daughter Lal
Star Trek: The Next Generation"

:up:

My wording was chosen deliberately and corresponds precisely to the intended meaning. Had I meant to say “identical,” “equivalent,” or intended another specific distinction, I would have expressed it explicitly. — DasGegenmittel

Of course. I wouldn't have it any other way. I was telling you that that I had a different view.

The objective measure, insofar as we can achieve one, lies in having the most information and processing it adequately. This is what we often see in Gettier cases: the observer knows more than the individual making the assertion.
Moreover, there might be concurrent JTBs (Justified True Beliefs) that cannot be reliably judged—this is what the Rashomon effect illustrates. — DasGegenmittel

You are right about the Gettier cases, though I suggest they need more than that. They need an ambiguous proposition that can seem to justify two cases at the same time. But they are not difficult to sort out when we discover what is going on. The problem here is the insistence that we be always able to tell, once and for all, and at any given time, which propositions are true and well-established and which are not. Sometimes it takes time for the truth to be discovered. Sometimes we have to withdraw claims that we thought were true. That isn't a crisis, it's normal business.
Don't forget that when it is possible that a given proposition is not true, it is also possible that it is true and that we can usually tell which possibility is actual, even if it takes some time to do so.

"2+2=4" actually signifies, represents, or corresponds with nothing. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, but representing and corresponding are not the only ways to mean something. If we can calculate and apply our equations to the world, we know what they mean even if the signify nothing.

Hobbes intensifies the thought experiment by suggesting that the original, removed parts are reassembled into a second ship – resulting in two ships, each of which could claim to be the original. — DasGegenmittel

Yes. Hobbes' variant is interesting and very ingenious. But I would argue that neither ship has a good claim to "be" the original. I would say that the ship in the original puzzle is a reconstruction of the old ship and the ship in Hobbes ship is a replica. The original puzzle is a sorites puzzle, based on the vague border between maintenance and renewal. Our common sense has not developed in a context in which these puzzles were a problem and is not well adapted to deal with them. We just need to make up our minds about how to apply them. Once we are agreed, there will be no problem.

I can readily accept that we don’t share the same conviction. — DasGegenmittel

Presupposes you know mine.

I don’t find your argument convincing — DasGegenmittel

Presupposed you know the argument and it's logical consequences.

it’s perfectly fine with me if you don’t share my position. — DasGegenmittel

So far, I haven’t had the impression that you’ve taken the underlying dualism seriously (or at least contingency); instead, you seem to stick to your line of thinking which is inevitably paradoxical. — DasGegenmittel

Please, set this line of thinking out, along with it's consequences.

I don’t have the time right now to go into detail, and I don’t believe you’ve thoroughly examined the arguments I’ve presented. For further questions read the introduction piece, my comments or the essay with which I made my case and lost any burden whatsoever.

You clearly do not understand the charge being levied against your entire endeavor/project.

The ship never stops being the ship.

If a change in physical constituency demands different identity, then it would be impossible to name things fast enough.

That's where I'm at regarding everchanging ships and rivers.

@creativesoul

You clearly do not understand the charge being levied against your entire endeavor/project. — creativesoul

I see a shattered ego, but no stable argument.
It’s a pity you lack the integrity to present counterarguments rigorously.
If you were serious, you would’ve brought something to the table.

I’m well aware of the matter at hand, and I’ve made that abundantly clear.
Unlike you, at least I don’t need to put others down to make a point.

If you’re really that sharp, show me your work on the topic.
What have you ever truly thought through—start to finish?
What have you articulated so precisely that it’s not just a jumble of associations in your head,
but actual, criticizable propositions?

Show me what a „devine man“ you are that your ego rises so high in the sky. What grand revelations await me? Please, do enlighten me with your professorship and boundless creativity… oh, my soul trembles in anticipation..!

I see a shattered ego, but no stable argument.
It’s a pity you lack the integrity to present counterarguments rigorously.
If you were serious, you would’ve brought something to the table.

I’m well aware of the matter at hand, and I’ve made that abundantly clear.
Unlike you, at least I don’t need to put others down to make a point. — DasGegenmittel

Nice example of an ad hom argument charging others of the same. Goes nicely with the earlier ad hom you offered in response to the very simple criticism of Gettier 'problems'. I was hoping for something better than a rhetorical flourish of personal attacks. I was hoping for something a bit more relevant, I suppose.

What we have are competing explanations for the Gettier problem. One grants that Gettier has showed a problem with the justification aspect of JTB. That is the basis of the project. Another argues that both Gettier cases are examples of justified false belief, and thus pose no problem for JTB; case closed. You're arguing in the vein of the former, and I, the latter.

Do we find agreement in this general description of our situation?

That's a start.

If a change in physical constituency demands different identity, then it would be impossible to name things fast enough. — creativesoul

That's likely true. As it is, we can name a process, such as a river, and it persists for long enough for our purposes - over generations. Mind you, I don't even accept the physical components are the same thing as the ship. This is demonstrated by the fact that the collection of all the pieces of Theseus' ship in Hobbes' problem need to be assembled before they constitute a ship. I expect you know all about that.

Yes, but representing and corresponding are not the only ways to mean something. If we can calculate and apply our equations to the world, we know what they mean even if the signify nothing. — Ludwig V

I do not think that the equations signify nothing, that was my argument against AmadeusD, who wanted to reject a dualism of aspects in the world which are changing, and those which stay the same. Amadeus wanted to say that everything in the world is changing. But since the truth of "2+2=4" is something not changing, then it cannot be something in the world so it ends up being nothing.

We can say that there is something called "meaning", and assume that this accounts for the aspects of the world which are not changing, such as truth. But that does not do very much to help us understand this dualism. Now we have the questions of what type of existence does meaning have, and how does it manage to stay the same as time passes, to support the reality of "truth".

Good morning Ludwig! :smile:

I'm not well read on Hobbes' variation and its details/consequences, although what you say seems about right with respect to unassembled parts of ships not being equivalent to ships.

For me, and I may be missing something, the ship and the river both trade on the ambiguity of what counts as being the same thing. Things can be the same in multitudes of ways. I've not worked it out in a long time, but I suspect there's either an equivocation fallacy regarding what counts as being "the same", such that either it's used in two distinct senses in the same argument, or if all change results in a different thing, it's an untenable criterion for the reason mentioned heretofore; the impossibility of naming/talking about things.

The issue with this particular thread is that it grants too much to start with in granting that Gettier cases are examples of true belief. Issues with change/flux are irrelevant with respect to that.

What we have are competing explanations for the Gettier problem. One grants that Gettier has showed a problem with the justification aspect of JTB. That is the basis of the project. Another argues that both Gettier cases are examples of justified false belief, and thus pose no problem for JTB; case closed. You're arguing in the vein of the former, and I, the latter. — creativesoul

I accept your suggestion—if indeed there is a way back to actual arguments—and I welcome it.

Please take another careful look at what the Gettier problem entails according to my position, and what must be concluded from it.

In brief: in contingent scenarios—such as our dynamic reality—there is no fixed truth. We are subject to possible perceptual errors, and the concepts that underpin our assertions are therefore not absolute. Dynamic reality is an infinite game played with incomplete information.

This is precisely where the JTB concept fails: it assumes that truth is already determined, that it is static. But in dynamic contexts, truth can change unexpectedly—due to what we might call epistemic good or bad luck. JTB presumes one can reliably assert truths about the future based on current justification and belief. Crude as it may sound, this becomes evident in everyday application scenarios.

Moreover, there are at least two epistemically relevant time points: (1) the moment of justification and belief, and (2) the moment when the truth value of the proposition becomes (retrospectively) evident. The failure of JTB lies in its temporal indifference—it does not account for the possibility that a justified belief at t₁ might turn out to be false at t₂, even though no irrationality occurred.

Any JTB that is currently accepted in a dynamic scenario may turn out to be false. This is epistemologically paradoxical: JTB is meant to define knowledge strictly—but definitions, by their nature, must offer consistent and temporally robust criteria. They should fix what something is once and for all. But that doesn’t happen here.

This implies: any dynamic scenario in which one makes a justified assertion according to JTB—and in which the circumstances then change—produces a counterexample: a “justified false belief,” such as in the broken bottle or the “fastest way to work” cases. These are not marginal exceptions; they are systematic results of a conceptual flaw.

The fatal weakness of JTB is its lack of temporal precision. If it were to incorporate temporal dimensions, it would have to make them explicit. It does not. Thus, at the very least, it is imprecise—and for a definition, this imprecision is fatal, because definitions are meant to offer definitive and stable characterizations of the concept they define.

I simply wanted to highlight these core issues once more.

The issue with this particular thread is that it grants too much to start with in granting that Gettier cases are examples of true belief. Issues with change/flux are irrelevant with respect to that. — creativesoul

The statement is a misinterpretation because it overlooks key concepts of the JTC model. While it concedes that Gettier cases may involve true belief, it misses the point that JTC focuses on their epistemic fragility. Change and flux are not irrelevant—they are essential to Dynamic Knowledge (DK). Crisis is not a side issue but the litmus test of genuine knowledge. Ignoring this reduces knowledge to the static, context-blind framework of classical epistemology.

On your view, are Gettier cases, in both the actual paper and the various cottage industry cases, examples of justified true belief?

@creativesoul

Formally, yes — Gettier cases do fulfill the traditional criteria of JTB, and this is precisely why they are epistemologically disruptive. However, under the JTC framework, they are not considered instances of genuine knowledge. The crux of the issue lies in their lack of a stable truthmaker and their failure to endure epistemic change over time.

In many Gettier cases, the truth of the belief is contingent, grounded not in a robust truthmaking relation but in accidental or disconnected facts. The belief aligns with reality, but not because of the justification provided. This disconnect violates the principle that knowledge must not only be true and justified, but true in virtue of what justifies it — a requirement that a coherent truthmaker theory would impose.

Furthermore, JTC introduces time and contextual dynamics as epistemic dimensions. In Gettier scenarios, the belief does not remain justified over time as information shifts. Once the background conditions change or are made fully explicit the justification collapses. This indicates that the belief was never epistemically resilient to begin with. The knowledge claim fails under what we might call a diachronic stress test.

In contrast, DK entails that beliefs are not only justified and true at a moment, but that their justification is revisable, context-sensitive, and survives temporal and conceptual change. Gettier cases fail on this front. Thus, while they may satisfy static JTB conditions, they lack a sustaining truthmaker and cannot persist through epistemic re-evaluation — and for that reason, they do not constitute knowledge in the, dynamic sense that JTC defends.

On your view, are Gettier cases, in both the actual paper and the various cottage industry cases, examples of justified true belief? — creativesoul

Formally, yes — Gettier cases do fulfill the traditional criteria of JTB... — DasGegenmittel

Okay. Good.

How would it affect/effect your view/explanation if both cases are examples of justified false belief, rather than justified true belief?

But since the truth of "2+2=4" is something not changing, then it cannot be something in the world so it ends up being nothing. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, what you say is not wrong, of course. But I would have put it differently. That I prefer to say that "2+2=4" is a statement in what grammarians call the timeless present just shows that I'm uncomfortable with metaphysics. So let that pass. When I said it signified nothing, I was taking advantage of an ambiguity in the meaning of "signified". The traditional structure of signifier and signified articulates the two terms as inherently relational - two objects in a relationship. I don't think it necessarily is. For example, does a road sign saying "Road closed" stand in any necessary relation to anything that you would want to call an object, in the sense that the sign itself is an object. I don't think so. But the sign has a clear meaning, nonetheless.

We can say that there is something called "meaning", — Metaphysician Undercover

We can say that, but we do well to pause for a moment and work out the meaning of what we just said. If we post the meaning (significance) of a term as an object and think things through, we may realize that no object could possibly do the things that we require meaning to do. So we have to park that idea and think more carefully about what we actually mean by meaning.

The issue with this particular thread is that it grants too much to start with in granting that Gettier cases are examples of true belief. Issues with change/flux are irrelevant with respect to that. — creativesoul

Yes. I don't usually think of the Gettier cases as all alike. Most of the later ones avoid the (rather obvious) mistakes that the actual Gettier cases make. But it is not unfair to say that they turn on a proposition (belief) which is ambigous and is interpreted (applied) differently in two different contexts - the subject's belief/knowledge and the context of what we might call objectivity.
Most people make a further mistake when they accept his conventional and orthodox view that a proper definition will always return a final answer with the information available at any given time (in a any given context). When this turns out not to be true, this is regarded as a fatal flaw in the definition. But it is not. Somtimes we make mistakes because of our inevitable limitations. When we do, the world does not fall apart, we just withdraw our claim adopt the correct view and carry on. There's no need to fuss about it.

Good afternoon! :smile:

@creativesoul

If Gettier cases are interpreted as justified false beliefs rather than justified true beliefs, this supports — rather than undermines — the Justified True Crisis (JTC) framework. JTC does not rely on whether a belief is ultimately true or false in a static sense. Instead, it focuses on the epistemic instability that arises when a belief’s justification collapses under contextual or temporal revision.

Consider the classic Gettier case: Smith believes “the person who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket,” based on strong evidence that Jones will get the job and that Jones has ten coins. Unbeknownst to Smith, he will get the job — and he, too, has ten coins. The belief is accidentally true but justified on false premises.

If we treat Smith’s belief as a justified false belief (because at the point of justification, the actual truthmaker is not in view), JTC interprets this as a prime example of epistemic fragility. The justification is disconnected from the actual truth conditions — and once the fuller context is revealed (i.e., the crisis occurs), the belief’s epistemic validity collapses.

JTC argues that robust knowledge must withstand such crises. This requires Dynamic Knowledge — justification that can adapt and remain coherent as contexts shift. So, if Gettier cases are better classified as justified false beliefs, this does not affect the explanatory power of JTC; rather, it confirms its claim that knowledge must be crisis-resilient through conceptual knowledge and adaptation, not merely statically correct.

Consider the classic Gettier case: Smith believes “the person who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket,” based on strong evidence that Jones will get the job and that Jones has ten coins. Unbeknownst to Smith, he will get the job — and he, too, has ten coins. The belief is accidentally true but justified on false premises.

If we treat Smith’s belief as a justified false belief... — DasGegenmittel

Is Smith's belief accidentally true or is it false? It cannot be both. It is a problem for JTB, only if it's true.

If it is justified false belief, then it is not JTB and the problem dissolves completely.

Is Smith's belief accidentally true or is it false? It cannot be both. It is a problem for JTB, only if it's true.

If it is justified false belief, then it is not JTB and the problem dissolves completely. — creativesoul

The Problem is not only present "if it's true". The biggest problem is the "if" itself: contingency.

Is Smith's belief accidentally true or is it false? It cannot be both. It is a problem for JTB, only if it's true.

If it is justified false belief, then it is not JTB and the problem dissolves completely.
— creativesoul

The Problem is not only present "if it's true". — DasGegenmittel

Sure it is.

Gettier offered two cases which purportedly qualified as JTB yet were not knowledge. If Gettier offered two cases of justified false belief, there would be no problem at all.

@creativesoul

It is not a rhetorical or semantic problem.

If your reliable boss says to you that a person with brown hairs, in this room will get a higher salary tomorrow. Are you justified in believing so that a person in this room with brown hair, you, will get a higher salary tomorrows? Would you "know" that you will get the higher salary?

Irrelevant to the point being made. Gettier's claim to fame is/was that his examples undermine/undermined two widely accepted formulations of JTB by virtue of purportedly showing how they could be satisfied, resulting in examples that are clearly not cases of knowledge, but rather were cases of epistemic luck/coincidence.

If his cases are examples of justified false belief, then his challenge to those formulations fails to hit the target. <-------Can we agree on that much, for now?

Since you mentioned/used it, the first case aims at Chisholm's formulation directly below.
 
S knows that P IFF, (i) S accepts P, (ii) S has adequate evidence for P, and (iii) P is true.

As the key meaningful part of Smith's own belief articulation, "The man with ten coins in his pocket" picks out one and only one individual. Jones is the ONLY man that Smith believes will get the job, regardless of pocket content. Thus, Smith's belief, as Gettier articulated, is true if and only if, Jones gets the job and has ten coins in his pocket.

On the contrary, when P is examined as a proposition that is completely divorced from Smith's inference, "The man with ten coins in his pocket will get the job", is true if/when any man with ten coins in his pocket gets the job. This reasoning shows that there are very different sets of truth conditions regarding P, depending on whether P is considered in isolation from the believer(Smith) or examined with consideration of that.

Hence, the first case rests on judging Smith's belief using truth conditions of what is not(as does the second case). It is only as a result of not noticing and highlighting that conflation, that it seemed/seems okay to say that Smith's belief was/is true. When the inference of Smith is rightly taken into consideration "The man with ten coins in his pocket" means Jones and only Jones. Jones does not get the job. Hence, Smith's belief is justified and false.

Gettier missed/misses the mark.

Yes. I don't usually think of the Gettier cases as all alike. Most of the later ones avoid the (rather obvious) mistakes that the actual Gettier cases make. But it is not unfair to say that they turn on a proposition (belief) which is ambigous and is interpreted (applied) differently in two different contexts - the subject's belief/knowledge and the context of what we might call objectivity. — Ludwig V

Yep. Detached from the believer, "P" can mean very different things as is clearly shown by the difference in truth conditions between Smith's belief and the same marks examined as a proposition completely divorced from Smith. Attributing different meaning to P is to misinterpret P. I'm not fond of the notion of "objective", although I find Searle's notion/use more acceptable than others.

If your reliable boss says to you that a person with brown hairs, in this room will get a higher salary tomorrow. Are you justified in believing so that a person in this room with brown hair, you, will get a higher salary tomorrows? Would you "know" that you will get the higher salary? — DasGegenmittel

On my view, predictions of future events(belief about what will happen later) are capable of neither being true or false at the time they're made.