Posted by alexandra_k on May 9, 2005, at 19:42:33
In reply to Re: thanks- I feel less dumb (smile) » sunny10, posted by alexandra_k on May 9, 2005, at 18:49:04
And Descartes... Well, Descartes thought that knowledge = certainty.
There are different kinds of knowledge:
Object knowledge - 'I know my dog'. That is something like knowledge by acquaintance.
Know-How - 'I know how to ride a bike'. Which is a skill or ability.
Propositional knowledge - I know that certain propositions such as 'the sun is hot' or '2+2=4' are true.Epistemologists (philosophers who study knowledge) have traditionally worried the most about propositional knowledge.
It is fairly much commonly accepted that the following conditions are necessary requirements for knowledge:
1) Truth. Because saying 'I know that 2+2=4' seems to be adequately translated as 'I know that it is true that 2+2=4'.
2) Belief. It seems silly to say 'I know that 2+2=4' if I don't even believe that 2+2=4.Then there are all sorts of problems trying to specify the other condition which seems to have something to do with the notion of adequate justification for that belief. Because I could accidently arrive at a true belief - but that doesn't seem to be enough for knowledge.
Descartes thought that knowledge = certainty and so if it is possible to doubt that a proposition is true then you can't say that you know the proposition is true.
I could say 'I know I am sitting in front of a computer right now'. But it is possible that I am actually in bed asleep dreaming that I am sitting in front of a computer. It is possible that even if I was in bed asleep I could have qualitatively identical experiences to the experiences that I am having now. So it is possible that I am not sitting in front of a computer and therefore I do not know that I am sitting in front of a computer.
In this way he shows that it is possible to doubt all a-posteriori beliefs (those about the external world) and even all a-priori beliefs (those that don't require experience but are based on reason alone such as knowledge of logic or mathematics).
With respect to a-posteriori beliefs it is possible I am dreaming and thus they are all false...
With respect to a-priori belief it is possible that there is some kind of evil genuis or demon that causes me to err every time I count the sides of a triangle or attempt a deduction. (Improbable, sure - but he only needs it to be possible).So. We can't have knowledge of those kinds of things. We can't have knowledge of the external world (which undermines all the sciences) and we can't have knowledge of a-priori things such as mathematics or logic either.
Hmm.
What is left?The cogito.
Cogito ergo sum.
Roughly translated as:
I think, therefore I exist.
If it were possible to doubt that you are thinking then you would be doubting - and doubting is a form of thinking.
Try as you might you cannot really doubt that you are thinking.
Therefore you know you exist as a thinking thing.
Though it still has to be established that you have a body etc.Experiences, the way things seem are also immune from doubt.
'I now seem to be seeing a red patch'.
'I now seem to be sitting in front of a computer'.
'I feel hot'These things can be known.
Your experiences can be known by you.
They are certain.But not a lot else. Well. Nothing else really.
'I am in pain' is ambiguous.
If pain refers to a conscious experience then you cannot be mistaken about your experience.
If pain refers to something along the lines of nerve damage then you cannot know this, because you cannot know that you even have any nerves.So.
If knowledge = certainty then all we can know is
that we are in fact having the experiences we seem to be having.
And that is all.So maybe certainty isn't required for knowledge after all... Maybe certainly is too stringent.
But then if certainty wasn't required for knowledge then it seems that we have knowledge of things that we cannot know to be true.
And that sounds counter-intuitive.
SOmething has to give in our concept of knowledge...
I love this stuff...
But (if anyone is still with me) you are probably wiping away tears of boredom... Oh well.Why do people like ethics so much more than epistemology?????
poster:alexandra_k
thread:494272
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20050503/msgs/495735.html