At what point is a claim validated as knowledge?

[RupeeRoundhouse]

On one end of the spectrum, we have the claim that a spoon is on the table. On the other end of the spectrum, we have a claim that evolution is fact based on A, B, and C.

Clearly, validating whether a spoon is on the table is simple: Observe the table.

But what about validating whether evolution is fact based on A, B, and C? Is the principle that we know that a claim—e.g., evolution—is fact when we (i) reduce the premises—e.g., A, B, and C—to their perceptual concretes and (ii) evaluate the logic as true?

On one hand, we could take a trip to the Galapagos Islands, etc., and make the same observations that Darwin made and reproduce his inductive inferences to validate that evolution is fact. But that is cost- and time- prohibitive for most people, and an implication is that 99% of people don't actually know that evolution is fact.

The same challenge of validation can be found in mathematics, history, chemistry, psychology, etc.

Edited February 14, 2023 by RupeeRoundhouse

[Easy Truth]

To answer the OP: As far as a valid concept goes, at the point where there are two or more referents to the concept. Two or more concretes that have been abstracted from. That is when the concept is valid. But I think you are asking when is an induction valid knowledge. For instance, how many times should you perceive a process to conclude that it is a fact? Or that it exists? Or there is a causal connection?

For instance, gravity. Everyone saw apples falling. When did the concept of gravity become valid? I'm sure others before Newton saw and made some conclusion like that. Is it valid because of a critical mass of people say it is? When it is part of the norm? the mainstream culture? Of course as objectivists, we reject collective validation, herd mentality. But I have not taken the course on induction so I wonder about it too.

[Boydstun]

Rupee, welcome to Objectivism Online.

A Material Theory of Induction

"Which are the good inductive inferences or the proper relations of inductive support? We have sought for millennia to answer by means of universally applicable formal rules or schema. These efforts have failed. Background facts, not rules, ultimately determine which are the good inductive inferences. No formal rule applies universally. Each is confined to a restricted domain whose background facts there authorize them."
 

Whewell

 

"Induction on Identity" <– See pp. 13–15 on how the existence of atoms became knowledge.

 

A related question is how certain perceptually discernible things in ordinary experience come to be also conceptual knowledge:

1. Children discern pretty early between objects living and ones not living. Later they will get a conceptual understanding of what is life.

2. Children discern what is human in contrast to what is not human. Later they will get a conceptual grasp of what is a human. Rand gives an interesting account of how this development comes about in her Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.

3. A child can discern the rotary motion of a top. Later they get the conceptual grasp of angular velocity, torque and so forth. An account of this advance in knowledge is tackled in David Harriman's The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics.

Rupee, your question includes question of when to bring knowledge of experts into your own chest of what you know. Such knowledge we acquire becomes our knowledge, as you indicate. Christian Wolff, a disciple of Leibniz, made the dominant philosophy in German lands in the 1700's, which was the philosophy received by Kant at his start. Wolff wrote a great deal on criteria for when one should accept the testimony of others as true. That issue has been given a lot of attention by philosophers ever since. As you remarked, we sometimes (often) are getting information from others such as data gathered by Darwin (nineteenth century) and his reasoning over the data, joined with results from later researchers, that make up a knowledge we haven't gathered up by our own experience and reasoning in the domain; we take their first-hand knowledge into our own treasure chest of truth. One elementary point I'd mention on that sort of knowledge is that it is our own assessment, developing from very early on, as to when a person speaking to you is sincerely trying to convey knowledge to you.

There are cases too in which one is not simply receiving information from another, but learning a skill. Learning to count is such a case, and it is not something one discovers spontaneously on one's own. I don't mean simply learning to place a sequence of labels on a sequence of items, but the conceptual feat of really counting: assign one-label-for-one-item, keep stable the order of number labels recited, assign final recited number as the number of items in the counted collection, realize that any sort of items can be counted, and realize that the order in which the items are counted is irrelevant. 

Edited February 14, 2023 by Boydstun

[Grames]

13 hours ago, RupeeRoundhouse said:

and an implication is that 99% of people don't actually know that evolution is fact.

This is true.  There is so much pseudo-knowledge out there, stories taken as true because everyone else does or at least everyone in one's social circle.  Flat Earth Theory is possible for the same reason, people don't actually know the Earth is round so they can be shaken when challenged.  Knowing a thing means knowing what causes it to be true.  

To add another small point, a distinction can be made between knowing what evolution is and how it works derived from observations of hundreds or thousands of generations of microbes and a specific application to the specific case of human evolution in the distant past with spotty evidence.  That humans evolved on Earth is an inference not a fact, even if a strong inference.  The ultimate proof of human evolution would be a genealogy of named individuals (with genetic samples) going back a million years until the individuals are of a different species.  Strong inferences can be accepted as true and as knowledge but calling an inference a fact is inaccurate.

[RupeeRoundhouse]

2 hours ago, Grames said:

Knowing a thing means knowing what causes it to be true.

I think that this is essential and is why I propose that "the principle that we know that a claim—e.g., evolution—is fact when we (i) reduce the premises—e.g., A, B, and C—to their perceptual concretes and (ii) evaluate the logic as true." That is, we must identify the premises of a claim and reduce and logically evaluate those premises to establish causality. Causality, after all, is a corollary of identity, and "knowing a thing" entails knowing the thing's identity, i.e., essence in the given context.

Another point is that in identifying premises—e.g., A, B, and C—we must also evaluate the credibility of the source.