Plasmatic
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Posts posted by Plasmatic
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SK you may, or may not be aware of certain arguments about what Oist call "contextual absolutes". The contention you and Grames are discussing is related to this topic. Many are influenced by Dr. Peikoff's theory of induction as relates to this type of debate. There are Objectivist who take issue with Dr. Peikoff's theory of induction such as Prof. John McCaskey and myself.
One of the contentions is the idea that a universal claim can be meaningfully limited to a certain context such that it does not render the epistemology that says it can contradictory and subjectivist.
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2 minutes ago, Eiuol said:
How was that done?
Seriously? You being deliberately polemical?
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2 minutes ago, Eiuol said:
I don't understand this sentence, can you rephrase it?
"Don, the above suggest you have not considered certain other possible intentions that could lend a different evaluation of the reasons others hold for rejecting the belief that knowledge and truth cannot be seperated the way that belief and truth and knowledge and justification can. "
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Gettier seperates justification from Knowledge, not truth from knowledge, such as has been done in this thread.
One can believe something true and not have a justified reason for that belief. That is why JTB often brings luck into the discussion.
Someones could take as justification "because momma said so", while the belief is that A is A....Does the person in this case know A is A?
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5 minutes ago, DonAthos said:
Are there observations that provide such a basis? I would guess that it is the process of observing others who come to conclusions they consider true (but we know are not), or looking back on historical beliefs which were held to be true at the time, yet we now know are not or were not true.
So we say that this belief -- considered "knowledge" once -- was not "real" knowledge; that it was never knowledge at all. And we introduce the idea of "true" because when we say that we know a thing, we should not like to one day find that we had been mistaken. We want "knowledge" that will never suffer the fate of the other people we've observed, and adding "truth" to the definition of knowledge is meant to guarantee this. (And so among Objectivists, we might find the... interesting phenomenon of tooth-and-nail disagreement -- to the last degree of any given subject -- and yet no indication on any side that he might be the one mistaken; since everyone personally holds his own knowledge as true, he has no further burden to consider the possibility of his own error.)
But such an idea would not have helped the person who held an errant belief in the past, or someone who holds errant beliefs today, to reach any conclusion other than that his justified beliefs are knowledge. (For a man has no way of knowing what is "true" apart from the process which justifies beliefs in the first place.) Again: an individual (any individual) can do no better than to believe what is warranted by the evidence he has access to and such reasoning as he is capable of performing.
If that isn't sufficient for "knowledge," then nothing is.
Don, the above suggest you have not considered certain other intentions that could lend a different evaluation of the reasons other hold for rejecting the belief that knowledge and truth cannot be seperated the way that belief and truth and knowledge and justification can.
One such alternative motivation, a primarily first person one for me is, having beleived many things personally that I later came to realize where not true.
Another is the realization that defining knowledge according to belief apart from corresponence to fact is the defining charachteristic of the primacy of consciousness and is a subjectivist theory of epistemology.
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Is this digital art? What medium?
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6 hours ago, Eiuol said:
Justification in Objectivism is pretty "thick" as not only must a belief cohere with other beliefs, it needs a foundation in perception, and the belief must involve things like intellectual honesty and desiring the truth. I mentioned virtue epistemology before because it also uses "thick" notions of justification. Throwing in "the belief is also true" isn't going to help or alter epistemology or anything. No one will get an official answer from the Ministry of Truth. "True as far as I know" captures that fallibility fine.
This is false and "virtue epistemology" is another example of the postmodern assault on truth and objectivity. Good intentions does not knowledge make. False beliefs pressupose knowledge but not of the intended state of affairs to which the belief claims to be knowledge of.
From OPAR
QuoteThe concept of “truth" identifies a type of relationship between a proposition and the facts of reality. “Truth,” in Ayn Rand's definition, is “the recognition of reality. In essence, this is the traditional correspondence theory of truth: there is a reality independent of man, and there are certain conceptual products, propositions, formulated by human consciousness. When one of these products corresponds to reality, when it constitutes a recognition of fact, then it is true. Conversely, when the mental content does not thus correspond, when it constitutes not a recognition of reality but a contradiction of it, then it is false.
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6 hours ago, Eiuol said:
It's not the same, that's why the former is more precise. The idea is that the phrasing that makes more sense doesn't matter, as none of these phrases are meant to be spot on and unambiguous.
You should consider the fact that this policy will continue to garner you disdain and frustration from people who take philsophy seriously enough to take the time to say what they mean.
More importantly this policy will also effect ones cognition because language is primary a tool of cognition and not communication. Context is not a license to equivocate and taking it as such will do you no favors in persuing facts or communicating them.
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22 hours ago, Eiuol said:
Knowledge is a type of belief, not sure what emphasis is for.
Yes, a true belief that corresponds to facts. The conditions that satisfy belief that P are obtained. ( for anyone familiar with arguments about JTB, knowledge without belief is evasion)
Homework:
Why does a parrot who can say 1+1=2 not have knowledge according to Objectivism?
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14 hours ago, Grames said:
It is not a loss of knowledge to transform "S is P" into "S is not P", as both propositions count as knowledge whichever one (and only one) may happen to be justified.
Grames, I'm interested in any examples that you take as justifying the belief that Objectivism supports this premise. I am very curious to see your process here.
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Knowledge is always possession of truth. Beliefs that are untrue are not knowledge.
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In Oist epistemology, the refinement of knowledge of the units of a concept and therefore the change of definition in relation to an essential differentiating characteristic, at no time means that the previous context of knowledge is untrue
The contextual nature of knowledge in objectivism does not separate truth from knowledge.
In ITOE, when explaining the process of a child gaining more knowledge about a concepts units and therefore updating the definition, Ms. Rand says :
QuoteObserve that all of the above versions of a definition of man were true, i.e., were correct identifications of the facts of reality—and that they were valid qua definitions, i.e., were correct selections of distinguishing characteristics in a given context of knowledge. None of them was contradicted by subsequent knowledge: they were included implicitly, as non—defining characteristics, in a more precise definition of man. It is still true that man is a rational animal who speaks, does things no other living beings can do, walks on two legs, has no fur, moves and makes sounds.
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15 hours ago, Eiuol said:
Basically, knowledge should be seen as a means of seeking the truth about reality. So, it must be based on what an agent is able to do.
The "means" of knowledge and what one is said to "do" in obtaining it (it being knowledge) is not an instance of knowledge itself. You are conflating process with outcome.
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I fear for the future of Oism....
Knowledge is not a "method" it is obtained by method. It is the outcome of method.
Objectivism is about "adhering to the object" (76 lectures) in the relation of the "s"ubject to the object.
Patrik this thread is a mess and I recommend you read Greg Salmieri's paper Conceptualization and Justification in the book Concepts and Their Role in Knowledge.
QuoteThe function of epistemology is to define a method by which we can discover new knowledge and validate putative knowledge. The need for such a method arises, says Rand, because man is "a being of volitional consciousness" whose knowledge is obtained by an effortful process that he can fail to perform correctly (or indeed to perform at all). But these considerations only apply "beyond the level of percepts": perception is a more primitive form of knowing that is automatic and does not require a method. As the language of "levels" indicates, the volitional forms of knowing that do require a method are founded on the primitive form that does not—i.e., conceptual knowledge is founded on perceptual knowledge. Thus, to understand Rand's view of conceptual knowledge and of the role of validation in it, we will need first to understand something about her view of perception and about the broader conception of knowledge or consciousness that embraces both perceptual and conceptual awareness?
The answers in this thread seem oblivious to the acontextual nature of axiomatic knowledge. Once grasped its impossible to be wrong about that knowldge and all knowledge rests on non-propositional "justification".
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14 hours ago, SpookyKitty said:
As for the second part, just because everything happens to lie in a 2d plane, does not mean that space is not 3-dimensional, just that everything happens to lie in some 2d plane of a 3d space. Note also, that we have concepts of hyperspace even though no one has ever seen such a thing.
So your reality departing hypothetical is that a physically contsrained 2d plane can take place in a 3d universe?
Hyperspace is a nonsensical theoretical unicorn of modern science. I don't care to debate it.
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14 hours ago, SpookyKitty said:
In the first part you are saying that we can have a concept of aboveness even if no things in reality satisfy that relation.
No, that is not what I said at all. You gave an example of a situation were a entity (book) occupied the relation of being above something else as one instance of a unit of "aboveness" and then described a 2nd situation that does not satisfy the conditions that qualify as an above relation. This cannot be a valid defense of your claim that "a concept can have different sets of referents depending on what is actually the case?" because your second situation has nothing to do with an above relation. Since the 2nd situation is not an unit of "aboveness" it doesnt even make since for you to offer it as an instance of aboveness whatever...it is an example of two different referents but there is no rational reason for one to accept the 2nd as an instance of an above relation.
Let me give you an example of what your claim would mean to an Oist.
For Oist the meaning of the concept "dog" is all the past, present and future animals that have the range of measurements that constitute the essential characteristics laid out in the definition of "dog". That means that all the referents of the concept are of the same kind. Your claim would deny this and allow other entities without this essential range of measurements to be a referent of the concept. For example a machine with four wheels and a combustion engine would be a instance of a different referent that one following your semantic criteria could call a "dog" because the semantic criteria of the concept is not constrained to units with the same range of measurements.
You make no argument for this grouping together of disparate referents into one concept. You just give an example of two different categories of measurement and say it proves that a concepts meaning has two different referents. Nonsense!
Its like handing 10,000 pennies to a person as payment for a car marked 10,000.00 and then saying that pennies and dollars both satisfy the conditions of the sale because concepts have different referents....
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50 minutes ago, SpookyKitty said:
How is this an equivocation on my part? You are the one who is claiming that the concept of "aboveness" is dependent on what things in reality satisfy the relation of "aboveness".
That is not what I said at all. How you think "the concept of "aboveness" is dependent on what things in reality satisfy the relation of "aboveness" means the same thing as the statement:
"the meaning of a concept is its referents."
Is also a mystery.
50 minutes ago, SpookyKitty said:A point P does not lie in the given plane if for every point B in that plane, there exists a line PB distinct from every line in the given plane. For such a point, if I have to look up to see it, then it is "above" the plane.
Lol, how are you gonna look up to see something if there is no up because you are on a 2d plane and therefore no place for anything to be ?
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3 hours ago, SpookyKitty said:
Imagine that the world was such that everything lay in the same plane. Nothing would be above anything else, but that does not mean that the concept of "aboveness" would be meaningless.
Explain to me how you think you could form the concept of aboveness in this situation.
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3 hours ago, SpookyKitty said:
I suppose you mean the claim that a concept can have different sets of referents depending on what is actually the case?
If so, consider the concept of "aboveness". Imagine that a book is on a table. Suppose that someone moves the book so that it is under the table? Does your concept of "aboveness" thereby change?
Imagine that the world was such that everything lay in the same plane. Nothing would be above anything else, but that does not mean that the concept of "aboveness" would be meaningless.
This is a non sequitur. You are equivocating between the general concept of "aboveness" and wether a particular entity is above any other. How you could turn this equivocation into an argument for a concept having different referents is a mystery.
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29 minutes ago, SpookyKitty said:
The problem with the meaning of a concept being its referents is that the same concept can have different referents depending on what is actually the case.
Lets be real clear here.
Do you agree that these two statements are not synonymous:
1). People sometimes use the same word to stand for different referents as other people.
2). The same concept can have different referents depending on what is actually the case.
edit: you very often attempt to prove a philosophical premise via the use of an example that contains a special science theoretical claim. I mean theoretical in the technical sense of the scientific realism debate over theoretical terms. I suggest you use a non theoretical abstraction to make your point so you don't stumble over needless disagreements about theoretical claims. Can you defend your above quoted claim with a non theoretical instance of a "concept having two different referents"?
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55 minutes ago, New Buddha said:
Logical Positivism (and it's verificationism) is something distinct from Positivism. And verificationism is something distinct from the correspondence theory of truth.
It is probably easier for you to state what you think the differentia is in your view of P vs LP. LP is very often just called P.
Of course the correspondence theory of truth is not synonymous with verificationism. I didn't say it was. However V is a species of correspondence theory.
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17 hours ago, SpookyKitty said:
Concepts create knowledge when you combine them with reason and evidence, and obey the laws of logic.
You need reason, which deploys logic and evidence to create concepts.
Edit: P.S. You are not the first to complain on the main point of your paper. Your view is quite closely shared with Scott Ryan.
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This thread is a mess:
Spooky's notion of "neutrality" is nonsensicle and impossible. (As well as useless.) All statements presuppose a backgrount set of positive beliefs about what the file folder the concepts one is using language to symbolize contains. There is no such thing as a definition that doesnt import ones own intensional notion of what units the concepts refer to and that is what spooky's "operational" definition" would actually involve. All true statements (and concepts) are tautologies in the sense that spooky wants to avoid. Every definition self-references the units over which the technology of language is being deployed to grasp and, or, communicate.
Concepts are not definitions in any sense. Definitions are composed of concepts.
The meaning of a concept is it referents.
Definitions are only statements about the essential characteristics of a concept to aid integration not an exhaustive inventory.
Positivism and Verificationism is the least understood philosophy by most Oist. Oism shares the correspondence theory of truth with Positivist philosophy. Likewise constructivists have some of the most comical strawmen ideas about Positivism that exists.
Concepts are knowledge and pressupose perceptual knowledge of the genus and differentia of the concept.
Oism rejects any veridity-validity distinction often deployed by logicians.
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I havent read the whole thread and only read a couple of paragraphs before finding what I consider very large problems. I may or may not have time to address this....
Spooky, would it be correct to say that your interest in this topic was related to your persuit of the topic of dualism, ie, the ontology of mind and concepts?
The Gettier counterexamples to Justified True Belief as knowledge
in Metaphysics and Epistemology
Posted · Edited by Plasmatic
The very statement "one can't promise that knowledge is true" is an example! There is no such thing as false knowledge. Belief's that don't correspond to fact are not knowledge. A is A. Im certain of it and gaurantee that I will never observe a contradiction. I live in a raised floor house. I am certain of it and nothing could possibly make this belief false. I know it. I built every square inch of it myself...