Metaphorical line between knowledge and belief ?

[zomgwtf]

Knowledge is indisputable. What is disputable is whether or not anyone belief actually is knowledge or if it's just a belief. As I've said many times, it's impossible to know whether or not you have knowledge. That's where the dispute is.

This is the major take home part in my opinion. There are things you can definitively know though, because they are concepts made my humans, with no applications outside that realm. Would you not agree kote? For instance knowing that we can not know a married bachelor is something we have knowledge over and we can be certain of.

 

[kote]

If it helps clarify at all, I don't claim to have much knowledge. I have very little knowledge. I have plenty of beliefs, but practically no knowledge.

I think I can safely say "I exist" and maybe a few other things. That's about the extent of it though.

 

[brainstorm]

Impossible. F=ma by definition, like 2+2=4. Not every concept has a strict definition - far from it. But when we're dealing with specific fields of study there are certain rules that need to be followed for any progress to be made. There are certain technical terms of art that are axiomatic within their fields. When enough debate gets stirred up around certain terms then they are no longer standard terms of art. Definitions are abandoned and often eventually replaced.

I know that F=MA is universal. I gave an example of how it would have to be revised if it was demonstrated not to be universally applicable. My point was that only a fool would insist on maintaining a definition that doesn't work in practice, such as yours of "knowledge."

Modern physics isn't valid. It is inconsistent. That's why we are looking for a way to unify and bring consistency.

You are assuming that isolated inconsistencies undermine all knowledge identified as "modern physics." Even though a general name is used to refer to multiple knowledges, that doesn't mean that they are all conditional on each other in such a way that bringing one into question automatically causes a chain reaction where all fall like a house of cards. Any given idea in physics has its own empirical and discursive validity independently of the rest, unless it is shown that the inefficacy of one idea undermines that of another, in which case there is interdependency, but you can't assume it beyond the level of specifics.

I don't even claim to be absolutely right on this. But if you accept that any words can have strict definitions, "knowledge" as a philosophical term of art should be one of them. It is on the same level as any terms in physics or math. It has a clear standard definition represented in textbooks and tested in philosophy classes.

I'm not arguing that "knowledge" or any other word should or shouldn't have a strict definition. I am arguing that your definition was flawed in that it lacked the ability to describe knowledge as knowledge when its validity is in dispute. Such a definition as you want to use would conflate substantive discussion about the validity of knowledge with debate about whether the thing your discussing is in fact what you're discussing or something else.

It would be like saying a computer monitor is only a computer-monitor when it's off and once it's on it ceases to be a computer monitor and becomes a virtual desktop. Then if someone says, "your monitor is on, do you want to turn it off," you ignore them because they didn't say anything about your "virtual desktop."

Think about the whole basis of science in skepticism and tentative belief. If scientific knowledge is always subject to falsification and therefore can never produce more than tentative knowledge, you could never even recognize that such a thing as "scientific knowledge" exists in the first place, because it's never absolutely true.

That is preposterous. Scientific is knowledge that is accepted tentatively with the assumption that critical discourse and alternative theories will eventually come along and call it into question. In fact, I don't think that science recognizes any knowledge as more than tentatively true, so according to you science has to scrap the word knowledge from its vocabulary completely. Nonsense.

Knowledge is indisputable. What is disputable is whether or not anyone belief actually is knowledge or if it's just a belief. As I've said many times, it's impossible to know whether or not you have knowledge. That's where the dispute is.

Ok, so knowledge is impossible according to you. So why do you bother discussing what it is?

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Are you saying that no terms are allowed to be axiomatic and well defined? If so - fine, but that makes it awfully hard to have a meaningful conversation, doesn't it? If you refuse to accept general terms of art, you aren't speaking the same language. I don't see how that helps anyone make any progress.

Axioms are fine, but they have to be established through consent. You can't assert that an axiom is valid in and of itself. I guess you know that, which is why you keep insisting on social efficacy of institutionalized paradigms as a basis for demanding acceptance of axiomatic language.

Let me ask you this: how do you regard critical reasoning and truth-power vis-a-vis this art of cooperative axiom? Do you eschew it completely to allow increasingly nonsensical superstructure to be predicated on initially nonsensical axioms? Or do you think that dissent and critical reason have the capacity to refine knowledge to greater levels of truth and efficacy?

If you think terms of art need revising or replacing, fine. Make that argument. But until you prove your case and get the textbooks changed, please do us the favor of acknowledging the standard definition and speaking the same language that we are all using.

First, could you please cite such a textbook or, preferably, a website that explains this definition of knowledge of yours? Actually, I just googled it and I see where you're getting this definition now - so at least I can't fault you for have valid knowledge of the claims being made about knowledge by various philosophers.

The problem is that the language is inherently inconsistent in that it fails to connect the noun "knowledge" directly to the verb "knowing." The only way I guess this could be reconciled would be to take the three criteria, justified/true/believed, and relativize these to the particular thinker or "regime of truth" in Foucaultian language.

In that case, knowledge would only be "knowledge" if it was sincerely believed to be true according to the sincere justification of the individual or regime in question. Still, how can you call a known lie something other than knowledge? I suppose it would only be knowledge to the extent it is known to be a lie. Yet, even if it's not known to be a lie, it has the same status as knowledge to the knower - because he believes it to be true and justifies his belief with reference to plausibility, trust of the liar, etc.

Oh, goodness, I'm starting to realize that there's an interesting set of issues here to analyze. Still, I find it wonderfully simple to study knowledge from the empirical approach that all that is known is knowledge and that evaluation is a subsequent layer of knowledge generated on top of the initial unevaluated knowledge. I think I can justify this according to your criteria by recognizing that an unevaluated piece of knowledge is reflexively considered true without being actively evaluate as such.

Sincerity is inflected in everyday knowledge, unless it is insincere, ironic, sarcastic, etc. in which case it is presumably not experienced as knowledge but as dramatic verbage.

Well, I guess I got to reconciling once I googled your definition by the end of this post. Do you believe we're on the same page at this point or do you still think my definition of knowledge is in conflict with yours?

I guess the better question is are you still arguing for denying the knowledge-status of knowledge if it is only believed, justified,and true according to a particular thinker/regime? Or are you automatically assuming all knowledge not to be knowledge because it's truth value may yet be contested by a critic?

 

[apeiron]

If it helps clarify at all, I don't claim to have much knowledge. I have very little knowledge. I have plenty of beliefs, but practically no knowledge.

I think I can safely say "I exist" and maybe a few other things. That's about the extent of it though.

So what are the few other things? That would be interesting.

Do you just mean axiomatic facts like 1+1=2 or actual facts about reality, the thing in itself?

I completely agree with your general position of course.

 

[brainstorm]

Sorry to borrow your excerpt for a different purpose, but it made me think. I'm not trying to eclipse your post. Those are great questions and I'm looking forward to reading kote's response.

Originally Posted by kote
If it helps clarify at all, I don't claim to have much knowledge. I have very little knowledge. I have plenty of beliefs, but practically no knowledge.

I think I can safely say "I exist" and maybe a few other things. That's about the extent of it though.

This reminds me of a persistent problem I have when reading statements about relativism. If you do not regard your beliefs as knowledge, how can you know that you have no knowledge. In fact, how can you know that the axiomatic definition of knowledge you're using is valid or useful?

You seem to deny the truth value of anything you think/believe, but axiomatically accept the knowledge of others on the basis that it is socially established.

Are you just confused about your own social status vis-a-vis people you recognize as legitimate philosophers? Will your beliefs/thoughts suddenly become "knowledge" to you when you attain a PhD or whatever social-status validates axiomatic knowledge of a knower to you?

If you have faith in paradigms, what threshold of agreement in "a field" do you require to recognize a paradigm shift? If 100% of physicists achieve consensus, I assume you would call this a paradigm shift. What if 50% break away from the paradigm of the other 50%? What if it's a minority? An individual? What are your criteria? reasoning?

 

[zomgwtf]

Sorry to borrow your excerpt for a different purpose, but it made me think. I'm not trying to eclipse your post. Those are great questions and I'm looking forward to reading kote's response.


This reminds me of a persistent problem I have when reading statements about relativism. If you do not regard your beliefs as knowledge, how can you know that you have no knowledge. In fact, how can you know that the axiomatic definition of knowledge you're using is valid or useful?

You seem to deny the truth value of anything you think/believe, but axiomatically accept the knowledge of others on the basis that it is socially established.

Are you just confused about your own social status vis-a-vis people you recognize as legitimate philosophers? Will your beliefs/thoughts suddenly become "knowledge" to you when you attain a PhD or whatever social-status validates axiomatic knowledge of a knower to you?

If you have faith in paradigms, what threshold of agreement in "a field" do you require to recognize a paradigm shift? If 100% of physicists achieve consensus, I assume you would call this a paradigm shift. What if 50% break away from the paradigm of the other 50%? What if it's a minority? An individual? What are your criteria? reasoning?

Can you give me an example like I asked earlier of knowing something which was not true?

 

[kote]

I guess the better question is are you still arguing for denying the knowledge-status of knowledge if it is only believed, justified,and true according to a particular thinker/regime? Or are you automatically assuming all knowledge not to be knowledge because it's truth value may yet be contested by a critic?

I'm not quite claiming that knowledge of external things is impossible. I don't know the answer. I say that I don't have much knowledge, because I have yet to find a solid way to absolutely justify the truth of empirical claims. This causes a lack of absolute conviction for me in my beliefs. If I only think that my beliefs are probably true, then it's arguable whether or not I really believe them, and I certainly have not justified them well. I'm missing the justification piece, and possibly even the belief piece for many of my ideas.

There are others who have found a method of justification that causes them to truly believe. If their justification is in fact valid, then they would have more knowledge of things than I do. It's arguable what this justification would be and if it's even possible. The justification piece is where much of the philosophical work is being done. Since we've decided to agree on what knowledge is, the questions still remain, but they are focused on different details.

It sounds like we're about on the same page, except that typically your "unevaluated knowledge" is just called an idea, conception, or whatever else, and the word "knowledge" is reserved.

As far as paradigms and terms of art... I don't think there are any particular laws that you can go by. As with all real language, it's fuzzy. That's why I only say that the strength of the standard definition of knowledge is only as strong as the strength of terms of art in other fields like physics. They are just accepted conventions that are extremely helpful for communication when you are getting down to the technical details, as is done in academic research. Academia is sociological, not rational. There's no way around the fact that the rational study of philosophy (and physics etc) is performed in and by society. However, on the same note, if you want to do physics or philosophy within our society, you have to play by the rules.

 

[kote]

So what are the few other things? That would be interesting.

Do you just mean axiomatic facts like 1+1=2 or actual facts about reality, the thing in itself?

I completely agree with your general position of course.

I do mean axiomatic things. I also buy Descartes' argument for subjective knowledge... I know that I exist, and I know the content of my perceptions.

Setting aside the question of whether or not I know what knowledge means to others, I can still define the word axiomatically for my own purposes. Accepting the justified true belief version, I know that I don't know a lot of things, simply because I lack justification or conviction. Justification is a "content of my perception" type thing. I don't believe that I'm justified in believing the absolute external reality of particles. Therefore, I know that I don't have knowledge of particles existing out there. Etc.

Once I can justify a materialist ontology and perfect methods for making empirical measurements, I'll get back to you with all of the things I learn and know about the existence out there .

 

[kote]

While we're on it, there are some conventions in philosophy that I don't agree with. I think we could get more done if we did things in a different framework. For example, I don't like the language of "possible worlds." Assuming there is such a thing as deterministic causation, there are no possible worlds that are identical at one point in time and not at a later point. I'd prefer if we weren't so loose with possibility and contingency.

In free will, philosophers will talk about replaying scenarios in identical worlds and seeing if a person will make the same decision every time, or if the decision will change based on random factors or the strength of the person's conviction or whatever. This is supposed to give insight on whether or not we have real choice in different scenarios or if we are determined.

I don't like this language. If a person makes a different decision in an identical scenario, I'd contend that that's proof it's not actually the same person making the decision. I'd call it a different person.

Am I disagreeing on anything substantial with the possible worlds folks? Not really. It's semantics. We all have the same picture of what's happening. We all accept it's a different decision being made. I'd call that a different "possible person," while convention would just call the whole situation a different possible world.

I could try to argue my case and change the convention. I could also just clarify my own language before presenting my arguments in that different framework. If I don't want to do that, though, I just have to accept the conventions that are being used. If I don't play by the rules, no one else will make sense of anything I'm saying.

I don't agree with the idea of possible worlds, but I'm perfectly fine framing arguments in terms of possible worlds. It's just how we approach problems for consistency. There is no right or wrong in this case, there is only useful and not useful. And if everyone else is using "possible worlds," it's probably a useful concept for me to communicate with.

It's similar in that there is a certain technical thing that is meant by "possible worlds." I don't agree that it's defined in the most useful way, but regardless of how I think it should be defined, it means what it means to philosophers.

As for knowledge, I don't think using the standard definition masks any problems or makes it difficult to talk about anything important, so I'm indifferent to how it's defined. I could be persuaded though. I haven't thought about that too terribly much. That's a different issue though, since it is defined, and that's what we've been discussing.

 

[brainstorm]

Can you give me an example like I asked earlier of knowing something which was not true?

A good everyday example would be racial classification. Race has been debunked as having a biological basis, yet it is commonly recognized and employed in everyday social life as if it were a fact of nature. So, people "know" what races there are and how to identify individuals according to the logic of 'race,' even though from a biological standpoint sub-species is an empty distinction.

 

[brainstorm]

I'm not quite claiming that knowledge of external things is impossible. I don't know the answer. I say that I don't have much knowledge, because I have yet to find a solid way to absolutely justify the truth of empirical claims. This causes a lack of absolute conviction for me in my beliefs. If I only think that my beliefs are probably true, then it's arguable whether or not I really believe them, and I certainly have not justified them well. I'm missing the justification piece, and possibly even the belief piece for many of my ideas.

There are others who have found a method of justification that causes them to truly believe. If their justification is in fact valid, then they would have more knowledge of things than I do. It's arguable what this justification would be and if it's even possible. The justification piece is where much of the philosophical work is being done. Since we've decided to agree on what knowledge is, the questions still remain, but they are focused on different details.

Have you ever thought that the way so many people are able to justify their belief in the truth of their knowledge is by tentatively accepting knowledge as the best they have to go by at a particular moment?

If "absolute" is an unachievable ideal, then in order to accept the practical truth-inflection of any expressed knowledge, it helps to take an in-progress approach to truth. I.e. Absolute truth is never achieved, but people are sincerely and legitimately engaged in process and progress in that direction. It will never be reached, but the point isn't to reach the destination, it's to move in that direction, the same way you climb a stair-climber machine not to reach a higher altitude, but to get exercise and achieve a level of fitness that let's you climb stairs and inclines well when it is practically useful to.

It sounds like we're about on the same page, except that typically your "unevaluated knowledge" is just called an idea, conception, or whatever else, and the word "knowledge" is reserved.

Well, now I'm wondering if it's possible to generate unevaluated knowledge without even the inflection of truth-as-sincerity. If you hear an unrecognizable loud noise and say, "wow, what was that?!?" the word "that" refers to something you sincerely heard and believe to be true even though you have yet to evaluate what caused the noise.

Academia is sociological, not rational. There's no way around the fact that the rational study of philosophy (and physics etc) is performed in and by society. However, on the same note, if you want to do physics or philosophy within our society, you have to play by the rules.

This is a disturbingly cynical statement. I realize that it is popular to decry rationality among many academics, but do you/they understand the consequences of asserting a non-rational approach to knowledge-power. You are basically denying the academic freedom to practice rationality. I tend to think of academics or anyone else as essentially and inalienably free and not determined by any container-structure/ideology. Individuals exercise power vis-a-vis one another using the imagery of such container-structure-ideologies, but they are independently responsible for the deployment of such imagery and/or submission to it. You can't just claim that academia is not rational, and then justify eschewing rationality by reference to the fact that you are part of academia. You are individually accountable to reason. Granted academics try to bond together in ways to shield themselves from accountability, but those are social structuring activities that have the long term effect of making them susceptible to delegitimation. Do you really want to spend your entire tenured life avoiding concern for rationality and reason? How would doing so benefit anyone, including yourself?

 

[kote]

This is a disturbingly cynical statement. I realize that it is popular to decry rationality among many academics, but do you/they understand the consequences of asserting a non-rational approach to knowledge-power. You are basically denying the academic freedom to practice rationality. I tend to think of academics or anyone else as essentially and inalienably free and not determined by any container-structure/ideology. Individuals exercise power vis-a-vis one another using the imagery of such container-structure-ideologies, but they are independently responsible for the deployment of such imagery and/or submission to it. You can't just claim that academia is not rational, and then justify eschewing rationality by reference to the fact that you are part of academia. You are individually accountable to reason. Granted academics try to bond together in ways to shield themselves from accountability, but those are social structuring activities that have the long term effect of making them susceptible to delegitimation. Do you really want to spend your entire tenured life avoiding concern for rationality and reason? How would doing so benefit anyone, including yourself?

Huh? It's simply a fact that academic research is performed by societies of people. How close or far from perfect rationality the system is is totally beyond the point. I haven't said a single negative thing about academic research. The only thing I've said is that when doing research in a particular field, the terms of art and methods used by that field should be respected if not necessarily adhered to. If you want to have a discussion with yourself then use whatever definitions you want. Once you involve others, sociology is involved at least as far as your methods of communication. And that's okay, because it's necessary.

 

[zomgwtf]

A good everyday example would be racial classification. Race has been debunked as having a biological basis, yet it is commonly recognized and employed in everyday social life as if it were a fact of nature. So, people "know" what races there are and how to identify individuals according to the logic of 'race,' even though from a biological standpoint sub-species is an empty distinction.

Well firstly racial classification needs to be broken down. Two different meanings, one generally accepted in society and one strictly biological.

People believe there are people that have different skin colour than they do. They could be justified in this belief. People do have different skin colour, therefore they know that people have different skin colour.

People believe that people with different skin colour are a different sub-species from their skin colour. They could feel justified in this belief. People with different skin colours are not sub-species from other skin colours, therefore the people with those beliefs do not KNOW that people of different skin colour are a sub-species.

They CAN'T know it because it's not true, they can only believe it. One of two possibilities, they don't know the science (which necessarily means they don't know... THINK ABOUT IT. 'They don't KNOW the science'. They just believe in non-sense) or they do know the science and just believe based on faith, (they still do not know anything and their beliefs are questionable now).

Now why is this important? Because you are using two different definitions of race in your description here. The general population does not use race in the biological sense of 'sub-species' to my knowledge at least, and if they do they you can see from above they have no knowledge of the science, they can't because it's not true. Then you talk about a specific biological word race and apply it to the social word race, two different meanings. You have to be more specific with your words if your going to use examples like this friend.

This also questions accepting science as well. Are all the answers that science gives true? Nope. Hence kote has told you that he doesn't know a whole lot of different things about reality.

 

[brainstorm]

I do mean axiomatic things. I also buy Descartes' argument for subjective knowledge... I know that I exist, and I know the content of my perceptions.

Good, so you do know what you do know. That is also the first step, imo. Now the question is how can you know that anything exists separately from your own existence? You seem to assume that the content of your perceptions is a subset of the universe. What other universe can possibly exists than the sum total of all of what you perceive and imagine to be perceivable/knowable beyond your knowledge? If you think about it, you know everything in either active or potential form. If you can't imagine its existence, then you can't presume it is there to know, can you? So everything you know, know you can know, or can imagine knowing, are all part of your subjective knowledge or perceptions, no?

Setting aside the question of whether or not I know what knowledge means to others, I can still define the word axiomatically for my own purposes. Accepting the justified true belief version, I know that I don't know a lot of things, simply because I lack justification or conviction. Justification is a "content of my perception" type thing. I don't believe that I'm justified in believing the absolute external reality of particles. Therefore, I know that I don't have knowledge of particles existing out there. Etc.

How could you create justification or convinction? What would it take for you to do that? Are you not impaired by your assumption of externality? Why do you assume that things exist externally to you if you doubt your ability to know everything except your cartesian subjective knowledge? Are you capable of recognizing the fact that you know externality only as part of that subjective knowledge too?

Once I can justify a materialist ontology and perfect methods for making empirical measurements, I'll get back to you with all of the things I learn and know about the existence out there .

Why can't you just engage it without justifying it? Even if it only exists as part of your subjective knowledge, you can still interact with it. It is no less real to you because you doubt the ontology and perfection of your methods. Whatever you interact with, you know is there in some form to interact with it. Otherwise you would have nothing to interact with. Even if you were catatonic in dialogue with your psychoses, you could axiomatically treat them as material realities, externalize them, etc. - whatever you want.

It sounds like you just want to refrain from acting on your perceptions until you have some proof that they are more than perceptions. Do you see how placing this kind of conditionality on taking action would have put desCartes and everyone else who ever knew "cogito ergo sum" into paralysis? If you can't justify external reality, you still have to feed and care for your body and get whatever else done that is rationally necessary for you to survive, provided you still have faith that you exist within a living body.

 

[brainstorm]

While we're on it, there are some conventions in philosophy that I don't agree with. I think we could get more done if we did things in a different framework. For example, I don't like the language of "possible worlds." Assuming there is such a thing as deterministic causation, there are no possible worlds that are identical at one point in time and not at a later point. I'd prefer if we weren't so loose with possibility and contingency.

In free will, philosophers will talk about replaying scenarios in identical worlds and seeing if a person will make the same decision every time, or if the decision will change based on random factors or the strength of the person's conviction or whatever. This is supposed to give insight on whether or not we have real choice in different scenarios or if we are determined.

I'm interested in the epistemology of lumping together multiple elements in sets and then talking in terms of the sets without acknowledging the micro-interactions that cause a set to have an effect attributed to it. The set could be a group, society, or "possible world" in your case. When "world" is mobilized as an agent vis-a-vis its inhabitants, a deterministic relationship is usually assumed. The underlying logic is the same as an adversary being surrounded with no choice but to submit to domination. I question whether this kind of logic is much more than a means of psychologically coercing people into accepting certain things as inevitable.

If you assume that individuals have free will, which I do, then it is logical why such ideological instruments are necessary to effect surrender/submission/docility in individuals. Without a reason, they would be free to choose whether or not to submit to authority on their own reason/rationality. That would require a free-market exchange of authority and liberate people from non-consensual domination. A very risky prospect for people whose economic welfare and sense of stability has become dependent on coerced cooperation.

My recommendation is to resist even contemplating these "possible worlds" scenarios, instead shifting the analysis to interacting agents where no agent is attributed container status or necessary-condition status. Both logics promote cognitive-complicity with logics of domination.

I don't like this language. If a person makes a different decision in an identical scenario, I'd contend that that's proof it's not actually the same person making the decision. I'd call it a different person.

Is a person the person, or the personality of the person? It sounds like you're saying if a person's personality changes, it becomes a different person.

Am I disagreeing on anything substantial with the possible worlds folks? Not really. It's semantics. We all have the same picture of what's happening. We all accept it's a different decision being made. I'd call that a different "possible person," while convention would just call the whole situation a different possible world.

To the extent that "world" is a synonym for externality, then the only difference between "possible world" and "possible person" would indeed be whether you externalize the person's perceptions or recognize them as a projection of the person. Either way, I don't see how it matters to you either way if you see it as nothing more than semantics.

I could try to argue my case and change the convention. I could also just clarify my own language before presenting my arguments in that different framework. If I don't want to do that, though, I just have to accept the conventions that are being used. If I don't play by the rules, no one else will make sense of anything I'm saying.

Here's more collectivist logic. I have been in countless situations where an individual defended their knowledge by reference to convention. It doesn't matter if I tell them they are responsible individually for submitting to the authority of convention as they recognize it, they resist and insist that they have no choice or power BUT to accept the convention they externalize.

The question is if no one would ever resist convention, how would convention ever change? Likewise, if no one ever broke rules, how would legitimated violence ever take place? The issue what you think you will gain in the long run by avoiding conflict and questioning conventions when you know there's something wrong with them. There's a biblical expression about fearing God more than worldly authority. I think this means that when you ignore your conscience too much out of convenience, it catches up to you in one way or another.

It would be like if you keep going along with what your boss tells you, and then one day the company gets audited for corruption and you end up being held accountable for what you did, even though you were just going along with your boss. You benefited from the corruption, and benefited from avoiding conflict with your boss, but in the end it all comes back to haunt you.

That's the reason I always feel an obligation to at least warn people of the consequences of going along with social trends without sufficient evaluation of the possible consequences. Unfortunately, there are so many forms of cleverly manufactured consent that happen constantly that you're not even aware of how many ways you have already made yourself vulnerable, but I still think it's worth listening to your conscience and exercising free will as best you can. I think it's a long uphill struggle, but the positive effects on your own conscience and life begin almost immediately.

As for knowledge, I don't think using the standard definition masks any problems or makes it difficult to talk about anything important, so I'm indifferent to how it's defined. I could be persuaded though. I haven't thought about that too terribly much. That's a different issue though, since it is defined, and that's what we've been discussing.

It sounds like you just don't care that much except as a means to gaining some tangential reward. Some people actually reason out consequences to knowledge that increases the stakes beyond strictly aesthetic ones. Personally, I am an idealist who believes (dare I say, "knows") that the way people think influences the way they act and interact with themselves and others. So when I see certain ideological patterns that would make people prone to abuse themselves and others, I feel a desire to intervene - because I think it could come back to me - either by me ending up as an object of a chain of action-reactions OR as ideology multiplies into increasingly diverse permutations that become increasingly difficult to gain consciousness of because they have been fragmented into seemingly contradictory forms of propaganda.

If you're a Marxist/materialist, then it's easy to throw your hands up in the air and believe that humans have practically no power over their ideologies anyway. The best materialist-determinists can hope to do is be comfortable for the ride. This seems comfortable enough until you imagine yourself with a smoking gun in your hand and sirens coming closer, and what are you going to tell the police when they arrive, that you're a social-determinist who was just going along for the ride?

Anyway, just be careful with indifference because it can have negative consequences for yourself and others, imo. If you care enough to argue otherwise, I would consider that quite positive.

 

[brainstorm]

Huh? It's simply a fact that academic research is performed by societies of people. How close or far from perfect rationality the system is is totally beyond the point. I haven't said a single negative thing about academic research. The only thing I've said is that when doing research in a particular field, the terms of art and methods used by that field should be respected if not necessarily adhered to. If you want to have a discussion with yourself then use whatever definitions you want. Once you involve others, sociology is involved at least as far as your methods of communication. And that's okay, because it's necessary.

Society are not facts. They are images of sociality. Individuals are facts. Power and resistance in interactions between individuals are facts. Claiming "society is a fact" is just an expression of power designed to promote submission to conditions asserted for "societal belonging." If you want to subjugate an individual, it is more clever to say, "it is imperative in this society" than it is to say, "do this because I say." Those who don't like to take responsibility for their own actions like to attribute them to collective images like "society."

 

[brainstorm]

Well firstly racial classification needs to be broken down. Two different meanings, one generally accepted in society and one strictly biological.

People believe there are people that have different skin colour than they do. They could be justified in this belief. People do have different skin colour, therefore they know that people have different skin colour.

People believe that people with different skin colour are a different sub-species from their skin colour. They could feel justified in this belief. People with different skin colours are not sub-species from other skin colours, therefore the people with those beliefs do not KNOW that people of different skin colour are a sub-species.

They CAN'T know it because it's not true, they can only believe it. One of two possibilities, they don't know the science (which necessarily means they don't know... THINK ABOUT IT. 'They don't KNOW the science'. They just believe in non-sense) or they do know the science and just believe based on faith, (they still do not know anything and their beliefs are questionable now).

But they don't know that their beliefs are questionable. And they don't believe that the science that disproves the biological basis of race is valid. So, for themselves, they continue to "know" that race is a sociobiological reality - because in their minds the claims to knowledge that race is a fiction is nothing more than anti-racist propaganda. In other words, they no longer trust science to be objective and politically neutral. So in that sense, they know what they believe, the justify it by reference to their belief that they are not politically brainwashed to denying "truth" as they recognize it, and the social-reality of race is indiscernable to them from the attribute skin-color, or whatever bodily trait they are interpolating in order to racialize bodies.

I can certainly take a side and say that such people can't know someone's race in that it is not a valid classification, but I can also see how their regime of truth allows them to sincerely believe that it is. These two truths are not incommensurable, as relativists once liked to claim. They are certainly commensurable, but I think for many people, the stakes are such that they avoid commensuration. So it depends on which regime of truth you recognize what you can claim to "know," but from one authority you can also say that it's impossible for someone to know something at all because it's not true.

Basically, I think you have to decide whether one can know different regimes of truth or whether only true things can be known, and there is only one regime of truth that makes things knowable. If you decide to "know" that only one regime of truth exists, can you provide a defensible basis for going beyond "believing" it to "knowing" it? Are you capable of being proven wrong that things you know are true and knowable?

If you know something according to one truth-regime and you know its wrong according to another, is it possible to avoid reconciling the conflict by assertion of one truth as true and the other one as false? Or do you simply KNOW that one is false and the other is true based on whatever reason is available to you?

Now why is this important? Because you are using two different definitions of race in your description here. The general population does not use race in the biological sense of 'sub-species' to my knowledge at least, and if they do they you can see from above they have no knowledge of the science, they can't because it's not true. Then you talk about a specific biological word race and apply it to the social word race, two different meanings. You have to be more specific with your words if your going to use examples like this friend.

How else could "race" be used except as sub-species? What else would it be other than a biological classification? If it was simply a social category, would membership be conceptualized in terms of body traits? I will give you that I have actually noticed that it is possible for people to "belong" to a racial category despite body-trait deviance due to blood-ties, but that is highly disputed in everyday discourse. Many people see people who fail to pass "the brown paper bag test," "one-drop rule," or whatever other criteria is used to be lying about their race, since they see them as factually part of a different race than the one they claim. It is possible to know that such people are wrong, but they don't know they're wrong - nor are they planning to "know" anything except what they "know" aside from psychotherapy to "cure" their political epistemology.

This also questions accepting science as well. Are all the answers that science gives true? Nope. Hence kote has told you that he doesn't know a whole lot of different things about reality.

He does, but he doesn't know what he knows because he denies recognition of his power to justify his own knowledge. So he wastes his power by using it to "know" that he doesn't know anything he doesn't justify to himself. If he would justify what he knows as knowledge, he might be able to engage other knowledge in evaluation and take steps toward greater truth. When you assert what you know and find out you're not justified in knowing what you knew, you learn something and evolve.

 

[zomgwtf]

I have to disagree brainstorm, although I see what your seeing more clearly now what your describing to me are just faith-based beliefs. Not knowledge.

If they reject 'the science' then they must find out themselves, and when they do they will see that their beliefs are not true. Therefore they must adjust those beliefs, or continue believing but under faith. That does not satisfy knowing something, it satisfies being dishonest and making false claims about their knowledge.

As well, no what you claim to know, if you truly do know it, can not be disputed. It's impossible. The propositional beliefs can be disputed but not knowledge.

 

[zomgwtf]

How else could "race" be used except as sub-species? What else would it be other than a biological classification? If it was simply a social category, would membership be conceptualized in terms of body traits? I will give you that I have actually noticed that it is possible for people to "belong" to a racial category despite body-trait deviance due to blood-ties, but that is highly disputed in everyday discourse. Many people see people who fail to pass "the brown paper bag test," "one-drop rule," or whatever other criteria is used to be lying about their race, since they see them as factually part of a different race than the one they claim. It is possible to know that such people are wrong, but they don't know they're wrong - nor are they planning to "know" anything except what they "know" aside from psychotherapy to "cure" their political epistemology.

Ask people who distinguish people based on race what they believe race to be. I'm willing to bet my house and my car that they'll answer with either, geographical basis or skin colour basis, maybe along with skin colour they'd go to phenotype basis (such as black people having larger noses).
This is not a biological definition of race, so you are comparing two different words pretty much.

 

[brainstorm]

I have to disagree brainstorm, although I see what your seeing more clearly now what your describing to me are just faith-based beliefs. Not knowledge.

No, I can tell you are completely situated in a single regime of truth and you are incapable of experiencing what it is like to know two or more conflictual regimes. If you had that experience, and you had some reasoning to address it differently than I do, I would be interested. But you are stuck in the mode of relegating knowledge into categorically invalid boxes, such as "faith-based beliefs" and avoiding critical reason that way. FYI, a faith-based belief can't be invalidated on the basis of its category - it has to be reasonably demonstrated to be unjustified or untrue. Categorizing something is not a reasonable argument about its truth-value.

If they reject 'the science' then they must find out themselves, and when they do they will see that their beliefs are not true. Therefore they must adjust those beliefs, or continue believing but under faith. That does not satisfy knowing something, it satisfies being dishonest and making false claims about their knowledge.

The three criteria for knowledge to be knowledge are basically measures of faith. Justification and truth are bases for faith, as is belief. Perhaps faith can take place in the absence of justification, but faith automatically assumes truth. How can you have faith in something you know to be false?

As well, no what you claim to know, if you truly do know it, can not be disputed. It's impossible. The propositional beliefs can be disputed but not knowledge.

This is the interpretation that I was afraid of. You're assuming that you can close knowledge off from critical challenges. That's simply impossible. Every piece of knowledge is subject to critical challenge by virtue of the nature of authority as consensual. In the absence of consent, authority is challenged and its knowledge questioned. That's when it resorts to justification and truth-power to validate its authority - or renounces it.

Of course, often times it just resorts to some form of intimidation, conflict-avoidance, etc. to repress the dissent - but that only replaces truth-power with some other form of power that resists truth. At that point knowledge becomes dogma.

 

[brainstorm]

Ask people who distinguish people based on race what they believe race to be. I'm willing to bet my house and my car that they'll answer with either, geographical basis or skin colour basis, maybe along with skin colour they'd go to phenotype basis (such as black people having larger noses).
This is not a biological definition of race, so you are comparing two different words pretty much.

What is biological classification based on except the appearance and shape of bodily features? Animals with odd-numbers of toes have one classification and those with even number of toes have another. It's superficial, yes, but much of biology seems to be pretty superficial.

Geography and skin color are both vague, unreasoned explanation for race. Skin color is somewhat biological, since pigmentation is part of the organ-functioning of your skin. Still, I have read that there is as much or more genetic variation among individuals classified as racially similar as there are among individuals classified as racially different. So there's just as much reason to correlate other biological and social attributes to any other bodily feature as pigmentation. Since many bodily attributes are not correlated with "race," it stands to reason that "race" is an arbitrary system of categories.

Geography can't have any effect on genetic variation except to the extent that people organize socially and territorialize geographical areas, policing genetic exchanges with "outsiders." So geography is just a tool for discrimination, and it is a euphemism to avoid acknowledging that, I think.

The only thing I've heard that would link geography to body-differences is climate-related. Specifically I heard that lighter-skinned humans faired better as they migrated north because their skin was better at manufacturing sufficient vitamin D from decreased amounts of sunlight. I don't know if this is true or just clever racist ideology.

The point is that people can breed by selecting certain aesthetic or other traits, and selection criteria can be distributed among multiplicities of individuals. That could certainly result in elite sub-populations of individuals that resemble each other in certain features, but does that make them a "race" or do they just look similar in certain ways?

Obviously some people would like to elevate their common features to the status of racial membership while others would prefer to see humans as individuals with various similarities and differences without organizing those similarities and differences into grouping-logics. Race is an art, not a science - and rarely a pleasant one, imo.

 

[zomgwtf]

I'm trying to find the will power to type up a response brainstorm I have a feeling it will fall upon deaf ears however.

Just as a side note, I've seen you in recently mainly in 4 different philosophy threads. All the threads people have talked about you just using your own definitions of words. Hmmmmmmm...

 

[brainstorm]

I'm trying to find the will power to type up a response brainstorm I have a feeling it will fall upon deaf ears however.

Just as a side note, I've seen you in recently mainly in 4 different philosophy threads. All the threads people have talked about you just using your own definitions of words. Hmmmmmmm...

You talk about lacking will to power. Look at your own second paragraph. You basically are attempting to exercise the will to undermine me completely on the basis that meanings of words are contestable. Your implication is that people have to submit to common authority or one has to be wrong and dismissed. This is a (weak) authoritarian view of knowledge, imo. You need to realize that when their is conflict or discussion over meanings/defintions of terms, this is an avenue to deeper understanding of those terms, not an undermining of their very possibility of discussion.

My ears aren't deaf. You expect blind submission instead of critical discourse. Let me ask you a question: do you see knowledge as predefined or developed by each individual according to their own process of enlightenment? If you assume predefinition, then individual enlightenment is probably irrelevant to you. If, on the other hand, you measure knowledge in terms of individual enlightenment, knowledge is meaningless until it is truly comprehended beyond the level of dogma.

 

[apeiron]

My ears aren't deaf. You expect blind submission instead of critical discourse. Let me ask you a question: do you see knowledge as predefined or developed by each individual according to their own process of enlightenment?

I agree with zomgwtf. Your responses always seem to miss the finer distinctions present in people's arguements. This is what gets irritating very quickly. You aren't listening, just always seeking to impose some personal interpretation on what has just been said.

You may not be deaf, but you are not hearing. Are you here to learn or to teach? If teach, do you have the qualifications?

Knowledge is predefined in that sense. It helps to have mastered a corpus of work to actually get to the edge of things and find the genuinely new ideas.

It is of course a journey for every individual. But are you at the beginning or a long way down the track?

 

[brainstorm]

I agree with zomgwtf. Your responses always seem to miss the finer distinctions present in people's arguements. This is what gets irritating very quickly. You aren't listening, just always seeking to impose some personal interpretation on what has just been said.

You may not be deaf, but you are not hearing. Are you here to learn or to teach? If teach, do you have the qualifications?

Knowledge is predefined in that sense. It helps to have mastered a corpus of work to actually get to the edge of things and find the genuinely new ideas.

It is of course a journey for every individual. But are you at the beginning or a long way down the track?

Apparently I'm very far down the track, because I've long since reached the point where I realized that learning isn't a one-way process.

Learning occurs through critical interaction. When done well, both/all people engaged in the interaction learn something.

If I miss some finer nuance that you claim is irritating that I miss, my question to you is whether it was explicit? If it wasn't, then the "teacher" needs to learn to better explicate what was missed.

Now, as I say that, I think about the irritation I have experienced when trying to explain something explicitly to someone and having them miss the point, often repeatedly.

Either way, the option is either to be patient and remain communicative or get frustrated and give up. Once you give up, the learning/teaching process ends - and when you muster the patience to try again, it restarts.

This topic is an ad hominem diversion from the topic of the thread, though, so I think it could end up hijacking it if we get into it too much. Why don't you just stick with addressing specific points/nuances that you think I missed?

 

[apeiron]

If I miss some finer nuance that you claim is irritating that I miss, my question to you is whether it was explicit? If it wasn't, then the "teacher" needs to learn to better explicate what was missed.

If an issue appears repeatedly in your interactions with people, then it is likely to be your issue.

 

[brainstorm]

If an issue appears repeatedly in your interactions with people, then it is likely to be your issue.

"likely" isn't good enough to establish certainty. Provide an example for analysis and I'll apologize if I was at fault.

 

[apeiron]

"likely" isn't good enough to establish certainty. Provide an example for analysis and I'll apologize if I was at fault.

Try https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2664214&postcount=20

Originally Posted by brainstorm
You can measure an imaginary unicorn...

Yeah, you can't measure imaginary things. You can pretend to, but that's totally irrelevant to anything we're discussing.

I'm trying to keep this on track here. I think we'd all appreciate a little effort.

 

[brainstorm]

Try https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2664214&postcount=20

Originally Posted by brainstorm
You can measure an imaginary unicorn...

Yeah, you can't measure imaginary things. You can pretend to, but that's totally irrelevant to anything we're discussing.

I'm trying to keep this on track here. I think we'd all appreciate a little effort.

The point was that no proof of existence is necessary for the act of measurement. All that is necessary is a unit of comparison, an object to represent the unit, and a logic for comparing the unit object with the thing to be measured.

People were arguing that for something to be measured it had to be real, or that measurability proves that something is real. The unicorn example was to show that reality-status has nothing to do with measurability.