Rise of atheism: 100,000 Brits seek 'de-baptism'

[Final-Fan]

appolose said:

Final-Fan said:

Main Issue

    I found your preamble fairly clear. If we could stick to that specific terminology that would be great, except instead of using “justification” we might just say “prove”, simply because it will be easier to relate my contention against it that way.

(1)    The bit you mention about math seemed a little strange though. I thought what I said on it already in 5.B was clear and I hope you’re relaying the same thing in so many words. The ‘knowledge’ of math (or the particular theorem) “justifies” itself because “the math works out” – in that math is, by itself, something in the mind and is true by virtue of meaning. Two and two mean what I mean by “four” and that’s just something within my conception of amount (This is opposed to a notion that the abstraction “two” is something I’m literally taking in the world and smashing it together with another “two” and then *tada*, by virtue of the laws of the natural world we may or may not understand, out pops four). Thus such analytical truth (along with statements of definition) is not what we’re attempting to establish, as we are talking about the knowledge of the world (reality) (what exists outside our mind/meanings).

 

My problem goes away if you say, "fine it can't exist, BUT IF IT DID then (whatever)".  [edit:  I think I'd better expand on that.  It seems to me that you're suggesting revelation as a method whereby one is given absolute knowledge that lacks justification (proof)

…

[Edit:  I notice that in your response to (3c) (etc.) you keep saying "absolute knowledge (truth)".  Am I to understand that you are defining "knowledge = truth"?? 

 

    I can’t make sense of that first sentence in relation to the contention between us as I’ve seen it develop. But it seems the misunderstanding is cleared up in the edits.

(2)    Just as the definition I gave already stated: “what I’ve meant by absolute knowledge is that it is knowledge of the truth. And as if the further qualification must be added, it means its “undoubtable” when you have it.”

(3)    Yes, every time I’ve said absolute knowledge I’ve meant what you’ve at least once called here “justified belief” – really actually really real knowledge of the truth.

    I was so sure we went through a process of establishing that already. As you can see in Wikipedia when one refers to simply “knowledge” in epistemology it already refers to that which is justified. I was reluctant to use the term “absolute knowledge” in the beginning and I only started putting “absolute” in front of “knowledge” because I thought I saw you taking mere “knowledge” to mean something less than what it was (in epistemic terms).

 

(4)    So this leads us to the real contention. You say one must prove (justify) a belief for it to be considered knowledge (epistemological meaning) (what I’ve meant by absolute knowledge or what you’ve meant by justified belief).

    If we can agree that this is the clear issue at this point then I’ll go on to offer why I see this as meaningless request or at least one that “defeats” itself.

 

Everything Else

It's perfectly coherent and logical as a tautology that is not proved or justified by anything but itself.  That is fine for defining something:  "I got input.  I shall call it "a penny".  I got a penny."  But if you say "pennies are made of copper" or "pennies are made of zinc" or "absolute knowledge is true justified belief" then you have to back it up with more than the tautology itself. 

 

    Logic is a tautology. (In fact that’s my very point in criticizing rationalism as a method of truth. Logic derives implications (by way of the meaning of words) but has nothing to do with what we are calling “proving” or “justifying” a belief in the first place (since you’d have to start with a belief [premise] that represented truth to derive necessary implications that represented truth).

(5)    Anyway, the point was the hypothetical argument you posed of my position was logical as opposed to whatever was meant in the accusation of “assuming the conclusion”. Even if you meant something else by it, you posed a logical hypothetical argument too perfectly with your words and I couldn’t possibly be blamed for taking it that way.

 

(6)    Yes, anything that is not analytical (pennies are made of copper) falls into the realm of which we are trying to establish – knowledge of the world (reality) (what exists outside our mind/meanings) .

 

(4b) Are you saying that revelation could not provide a one true interpretation of a given pattern of sense data, even future replications of said pattern?

 

(7)    No, I’m so sure I’ve said it over and over that revelation could tell you what sense data represented (i.e. the specific interpretation [the particular ‘potential’ belief] which is true) whether it be one time for one instance, one time for all [similar] instances, or at every instance. (If it was the case where a person met a particular blob of sense data and it happened to always represented the same thing every time he met it – yes, why not. Revelation could tell you that too.)

    My point always being… so what? Revelation is still giving you the interpretation like I’m posing it would and empiricism, the doctrine that states we gain knowledge of the world from sense data, is not.

  ...

(8)    As for everything else, some of it I could respond to but much of it I found very confusing with the same criticism on the use of terms I gave last time, along with more distinctions between terms that bewilder me. In other things it just doesn’t even seem like you understood me. I’m not saying it’s your fault.

    Hopefully it’s all something to be scrapped now as I think it’s getting clearer what the main issue is.

1.  As for (5b), I wasn't completely sure, and letting it pass without comment could have had ... consequences ... if I was wrong. 

2.  I discounted that time you defined it, because as I mentioned, if one looks at the context of the post you were responding to, I was misusing the word "knowledge" in that post to mean somebody's perception of what is true, so when you said "Yes." unless I'm much mistaken you were actually saying the opposite of what "Yes." would mean.  Also ... (3)

3.  It looks like you're defining "knowledge" as "knowledge of the truth", which would be stupid, because you are using a word to define itself.*  But you're positive that "justified true belief" (as those words are used in the Wikipedia article) is what you are talking about? 
*Unless the first "knowledge" is JTB and the second "knowledge" is JB ... 

4.  Yes, it seems to me that Wikipedia states that philosiphy has for millenia agreed that knowledge = JTB, until recently when the Gettier problem became widely realized.  So, do you agree that knowledge is (at least) composed of belief, truth, AND justification? 

5.  Are you or are you not suggesting that input regarding the world can justify itself as true belief and, if so, how?*  I do not think it can.  I think you can get B and maybe T but not J via input that is alleged to be revelation as I believe you have described it.  So I do not think that revelation could even hypothetically be true in the sense of "hypothetical" that means "this could possibly be true". 
*And if not ... ???

6.  So how could we prove that an alleged revelation was true, or alternately (and perhaps more precisely) how could an alleged revelation prove that it was a true belief about the world?  (Since a revelation is knowledge, it would have to provide all of J, T, and B by definition, right?) 

7.  I'm not convinced you have, at least clearly, but you have now so never mind.  Thank you.  I think that counts as empiricism, as I think any alleged revelation could be considered to be sensed.  (I have discussed this before in this thread.)  Therefore the interpretation is entirely based on sensed data ... i.e. "sense data". 

8.  In most threads I would fight you on this, but ... not at this time.  Although I suspect we may run into (3b2) again.  But maybe not, and if so then all the better.  I am almost literally holding myself back from something else, but I know it would only muddy the water mud so I'm going to post now.