If you want to find out more about New College of the Humanities, where you can learn from Professors including Steven Pinker, Lawrence Krauss, Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins, visit our site here - www.nchlondon.ac.uk/
I have tried to construct a theory of knowledge for myself and I'm open to questions and criticism. It goes as such. I begin with the JTB model but instead of asking what the Justification, Truth, and Belief are i ask myself, what relationships must they have to each other for me to sufficient to consider them knowledge? At the time of writing this these are the things i came up with: 1. Is there enough data collected through my perceptions to justify my belief and is there no misunderstandings or hidden facts i can't know? 2. Is the justification and Belief Logically coherent (as in no logical fallacies and such)? 3. Are your beliefs in accordance with the truth? I find that if 1-3 are correct I myself can call that knowledge. In my philosophy class i got some criticism that i concede to Gettier by doing this as i try to make the definition infallibilistic as in if you have knowledge under my definition one could extract fact from my beliefs and thus i hold the same view as Descartes and that the definition of knowledge needs to be fallibilistic least everyone would go claiming their subjectively justified beliefs as fact and asked me scoffingly if i did not just want to change the model to simply Justified belief. This, however, i found kind of baseless as i clearly state that both the Belief and the Justification must be tightly linked with the truth. so much so in fact that i almost suggest a 'Truth-full Justification True Belief' model. On the other hand i found their efforts "to solve" the Gettier examples strongly contradictory as in my mind all Gettier points out is that a fallibilistic definition of knowledge is fallible. If you truly want a fallibilistic definition of knowledge you should find no problem with Gettier and been fully expecting it to fail sometimes and se it as part of the program and not a bug to be fixed. I say that if you do find the gettier examples to be a problem you actually seek a infallibilistic definition. My knowledge theory fixes the fallibility problem by making the ability to hold and gain knowledge falibilistic instead of knowledge itself. so instead of false dichotomy of "having knowledge" or "not having knowledge" i make an argument for a spectrum of 'having no knowledge' and having 'full knowledge (including the knowledge of having all knowledge)' and defining all possible points on that spectrum as partial knowledge. Thus one can brush of the Gettier cases as human fallibility, not go around arrogantly claiming full knowledge and also be happy you have enough partial knowledge to know what you are talking about. or at least most of the time.
It's also worth noting that there are different kinds of truth/beliefs that can be contradictory. Is blue the best color? Or hockey the best sport? It's subjective/relative/etc, with no objective criteria for evaluation, contrary to people's biased thoughtless opinions. Or of memories between people, or the same person recalling at different times, under different influences. Individual perspectives can use different paradigms behind the scenes even though two people may use the same language and think they're communicating with face value, while they're actually referring to different things / evaluated differently. Additionally I don't think most people are very articulate nor able to ask for clarification/justification. Critical thinking is important but very lacking in society. See unfiltered points voiced directly by the current American president for more (such as: you're an ugly woman, no one should vote for you, said during the debates). This also alludes to an example of how scripted performances can delude people into having the cognitive bias known as confirmation bias where they only see what they want to see and ignore the bad. Cheers. Enlightenment now!
If you want to find out more about New College of the Humanities, where you can learn from Professors including Steven Pinker, Lawrence Krauss, Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins, visit our site here - www.nchlondon.ac.uk/
I have tried to construct a theory of knowledge for myself and I'm open to questions and criticism. It goes as such.
I begin with the JTB model but instead of asking what the Justification, Truth, and Belief are i ask myself, what relationships must they have to each other for me to sufficient to consider them knowledge? At the time of writing this these are the things i came up with:
1. Is there enough data collected through my perceptions to justify my belief and is there no misunderstandings or hidden facts i can't know?
2. Is the justification and Belief Logically coherent (as in no logical fallacies and such)?
3. Are your beliefs in accordance with the truth?
I find that if 1-3 are correct I myself can call that knowledge. In my philosophy class i got some criticism that i concede to Gettier by doing this as i try to make the definition infallibilistic as in if you have knowledge under my definition one could extract fact from my beliefs and thus i hold the same view as Descartes and that the definition of knowledge needs to be fallibilistic least everyone would go claiming their subjectively justified beliefs as fact and asked me scoffingly if i did not just want to change the model to simply Justified belief. This, however, i found kind of baseless as i clearly state that both the Belief and the Justification must be tightly linked with the truth. so much so in fact that i almost suggest a 'Truth-full Justification True Belief' model. On the other hand i found their efforts "to solve" the Gettier examples strongly contradictory as in my mind all Gettier points out is that a fallibilistic definition of knowledge is fallible. If you truly want a fallibilistic definition of knowledge you should find no problem with Gettier and been fully expecting it to fail sometimes and se it as part of the program and not a bug to be fixed. I say that if you do find the gettier examples to be a problem you actually seek a infallibilistic definition. My knowledge theory fixes the fallibility problem by making the ability to hold and gain knowledge falibilistic instead of knowledge itself. so instead of false dichotomy of "having knowledge" or "not having knowledge" i make an argument for a spectrum of 'having no knowledge' and having 'full knowledge (including the knowledge of having all knowledge)' and defining all possible points on that spectrum as partial knowledge. Thus one can brush of the Gettier cases as human fallibility, not go around arrogantly claiming full knowledge and also be happy you have enough partial knowledge to know what you are talking about. or at least most of the time.
I like this guys way of thinking
Have I entered a parallel universe, one where Karl Popper never existed?
Utterly amazing
It's also worth noting that there are different kinds of truth/beliefs that can be contradictory. Is blue the best color? Or hockey the best sport? It's subjective/relative/etc, with no objective criteria for evaluation, contrary to people's biased thoughtless opinions. Or of memories between people, or the same person recalling at different times, under different influences.
Individual perspectives can use different paradigms behind the scenes even though two people may use the same language and think they're communicating with face value, while they're actually referring to different things / evaluated differently. Additionally I don't think most people are very articulate nor able to ask for clarification/justification.
Critical thinking is important but very lacking in society. See unfiltered points voiced directly by the current American president for more (such as: you're an ugly woman, no one should vote for you, said during the debates). This also alludes to an example of how scripted performances can delude people into having the cognitive bias known as confirmation bias where they only see what they want to see and ignore the bad.
Cheers. Enlightenment now!