Epistemology
- Thread starter bodach
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max_freakout
Nothing matters
i have read your opinion, many times, and it is entirely in agreement with my position
there is no knowledge, we both agree on this
but you dont say what is the difference between belief and knowledge
max_freakout
Nothing matters
im not wrong, because im not claiming to know anything, ie there is nothing for me to be wrong about
there are no rights and wrongs in philosophy, all there is is endless debate
"i know that i know nothing" - Socrates
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
The Newtonian scientific model became accepted because the predictions conformed with observed phenomena.
Max is just talking some shit that he has made up.
mrsfran
Well-Known Member
I try to stay away from the madness, but sometimes I stumble in, open-mouthed at the bizarreness that is Max's inability to listen to anyone else or talk any sense at all.
No, I'm not
No we don't. I never said there is no knowledge. On the contrary.
Yes I do.
salaam.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
You keep name checking Socrates, but then doing the exact opposite.
Thank you.
See.. You can leanr many new things every day.
Q: Is this knowledge?
A: No. It is acquired skill.
salaam.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
How can you have a position if you are not claiming a position?
@max
@max
mrsfran
Well-Known Member
Don't quote Socrates at me, I specialised in Ancient Greek philosphy in my philosophy degree.
I suggest that there's something seriously wrong with you, Max. Your egotistic blinkered view is really rather bizarre.
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
An example of the difference:
Know how is not belief how. "Belief how" does not even make sense.
Unless you mean "knowing" and "believing" in a very special sense, but how do you tell what this sense is?
---
For a second example of the difference notice that I could substitute "know" for "tell" in the last above sentence. I could not substitute "believe" for "tell".
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
*facepalm*
I'm going to experiment with putting max on ignore. If enough people do it perhaps we can stop having the same pointless argument with ego-boy.
I'm going to experiment with putting max on ignore. If enough people do it perhaps we can stop having the same pointless argument with ego-boy.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
I had him on ignore for ages and he is on ignore again.
The man is a fool.
Oh, and longcat is long.
The man is a fool.
Oh, and longcat is long.
There is an old joke about the specialist who knows more and more about less and less until eventually they know everything about nothing.
Giving words a very special metaphysical role has the same effect. We have more and more well understood formulated definitions about less and less until we end being able to say precisely what they mean, but that they mean nothing.
This is true of "knowledge", "mackerel" and "bebop" and many other things besides.
Max cannot understand that "knowledge" is a great big hairy, messy animal and not a delicate, vanishing chrystal. This is why he cannot reply to my posts - he doesn't even see my point of view. But I see his point of view quite clearly and I see nothing in it.
His conception of 'knowledge' is much more conventional and believable than ours. In the way that a conjurer makes his tricks believable by making something unusual appear conventional.
If we ask, "is knowledge possible?", we have already filed the concept of "knowledge" down to something trivial - max just gives the correct answer to a trivial question. When people say something tivial this is usually a cue to read between the lines and they are really saying something after all - but there is nothing between the lines. The words the argument rely on have lost their meaning before the argument has even appeared.
Try asking if mackerel or bebop are possible and you will see what I mean. Is anything exactly a mackerel? Is anything precisely bebop? No and no. So what?
----
As an upshot, though, this is exactly the reason why philosophy should NEVER be technical. In philosophy, as soon as logical hieroglyphics appear or philosophical jargon starts cropping up, then we know we are doing either science or perhaps something more akin to alchemy or astrology. The harder it is maintained that it is still philosophy the more it looks like somebody trying to discover the philosopher's stone.
Giving words a very special metaphysical role has the same effect. We have more and more well understood formulated definitions about less and less until we end being able to say precisely what they mean, but that they mean nothing.
This is true of "knowledge", "mackerel" and "bebop" and many other things besides.
Max cannot understand that "knowledge" is a great big hairy, messy animal and not a delicate, vanishing chrystal. This is why he cannot reply to my posts - he doesn't even see my point of view. But I see his point of view quite clearly and I see nothing in it.
His conception of 'knowledge' is much more conventional and believable than ours. In the way that a conjurer makes his tricks believable by making something unusual appear conventional.
If we ask, "is knowledge possible?", we have already filed the concept of "knowledge" down to something trivial - max just gives the correct answer to a trivial question. When people say something tivial this is usually a cue to read between the lines and they are really saying something after all - but there is nothing between the lines. The words the argument rely on have lost their meaning before the argument has even appeared.
Try asking if mackerel or bebop are possible and you will see what I mean. Is anything exactly a mackerel? Is anything precisely bebop? No and no. So what?
----
As an upshot, though, this is exactly the reason why philosophy should NEVER be technical. In philosophy, as soon as logical hieroglyphics appear or philosophical jargon starts cropping up, then we know we are doing either science or perhaps something more akin to alchemy or astrology. The harder it is maintained that it is still philosophy the more it looks like somebody trying to discover the philosopher's stone.
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
Top post knotted, I can't see anything to disagree with in that.
That is the coolest thing I've ever seen. I tried to make it my profile picture on facebook but it won't work
Makes no sense unless you agree that - in order to end up with knowing everything about nothing - knowledge is beyond the possibilities of human perception.
Possibly you don't understand the foundation of the question.
This is of a completely different order and has absolutely nothing to do with the question if yes or no knowledge is possible.
salaam.
Well firstly it is just a joke and doesn't need to make sense. Secondly it is not saying that knowledge needs specialisation nor is it saying that specialisation necessarily ends up as a limit being about nothing - it could just limit to very little. But explaining the joke is going to take the humour out of it and it wasn't very funny to start with.
Aldebaran said:
Quite possibly!
Aldebaran said:
It does not matter how much of a logical flavour you give "knowledge" or how much you emphasise it.
I take it that your "yes or no knowledge" is not merely answers to yes and no questions.
Perhaps it is when we can say, "yes, I know that" or "no, I don't know that" (or perhaps "yes, I can do that" or perhaps "yes, I can see that it works in such a way" or perhaps "yes, I knew you were going to do that"). But think when we are not sure what we know - we might ask for clarification. That's possible in all sorts of situations, I don't see a special type of knowledge where we always know when we know and know when we don't. Max is quite correct to conclude that "yes or no knowledge" is impossible, but quite wrong to conclude that plain ordinary knowledge is impossible.
Thanks!
cesare
shady's dreams ♥
Yes. Lose the shades of grey and everything's reduced to black and white. Except there is no absolute black or absolute white. There is no certainty. But that's why life's fun but also insecure.
max_freakout
Nothing matters
yes this is a different idea of knowledge altogether, when i ask if knowledge is possible, i mean knowledge in the epistemological sense, ie knowledge that, or propositional knowledge
max_freakout
Nothing matters
If knowledge is impossible then so is speaking.
in a certain specific sense, i agree, it is totally impossible to do anything
max_freakout
Nothing matters
the ancient Greek philosophers, were all coming from exactly the same perspective that i come from
the psychedelic perspective
I'm talking about epsitemological knowledge. Is there any other kind? Epistemology is the theory of knowledge.
---
"You knew I wanted to cash this cheque, so when we were walking down the highstreet why didn't you tell me the bank was round the corner? You knew that it was there."
"You knew I wanted to cash this cheque, so when we were walking down the highstreet why didn't you tell me the bank was round the corner? You believed that it was there."
Notice that the second example sounds a bit odd but if it means anything it is an accusation of deliberate deception. If you believed something it was there before you, in your mind.
If you know something, it is quite possible that you have never thought about it.
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You can be unsure about whether you know something. Think of a moment's panic in an exam.
On certain occassions you could say, "I didn't know I knew that."
But what about, "I didn't know I believed that."
Or even worse, "I didn't believe I believed that."
Its not that belief and knowledge are not the same - they're not even similar.
What has changed in these examples is not the type of knowledge, but the situation. When we ask, "can you justify your belief that carrots are root vegetables?", we could just as well ask, "how do you know that carrots are root vegetables?" Here belief and knowledge coincide. They can bridge the same gap, serve the same purpose - just as a spanner and a rench can serve the same purpose. This does not mean that spanners are renches.
max_freakout
Nothing matters
there are 2 distinct types, in the introduction to any epistemology textbooks, it will make the distinction between:
1. knowing that
and
2. knowing how
epistemology is only concerned with number 1, propositional knowledge, knowledge of the truth or falsity of propositions
I know that the moon is made of cheese
= i know that the proposition "the moon is made of cheese" is true
it is this kind of knowing which is impossible
