"Belief of truth" cannot distinguish knowledge from mere belief because it is common to both. If I believe that Paris is the capital of Germany, I believe the truth of "Paris is the capital of Germany". In fact, "belief of truth" is just redundant, "belief in (the truth of) some X" is just what "belief" means.
We start calling our beliefs "knowledge" when we reach a particular threshold of certainty in regards to the truth of our claim.
Do you deny that we have varying levels of certainty in regards to our beliefs, and yet, they are all correctly categorized as beliefs?
falvlun said:
Your position constrains knowledge to actual truth, which defies usage
I'd say the opposite is true. When I say that I know my wallet is on the table, I am saying that my wallet is really on the table (i.e. "my wallet on the table" is actually true), and I'm saying that I have sufficient warrant for this belief (probably because I remember setting it there).
When you say "I'd say the opposite is true", what are you referring to?
Please talk in generalities. I have found that people that champion your position love examples that are very easy to defend, such as flaunting that there is no ambiguity over the "truth" that "Paris is the capital of France".
When I say that your position defies usage, I am talking about those things commonly considered knowledge-- like things learned through science-- that may, and likely will, be found to be incorrect 20, 50, or 100 years from now.
Right now, I would say that I know that "Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light."
100 years from now, an alien species visits planet Earth with FTL technology.
So, how does your position deal with this problem?
Was I incorrect to say " I know...". Should I have said something else? If I had used some other word, such as "I believe..." would I have been able to convey the same sense of certainty which I wished to convey? How are we to ever know which is the correct word to utilize, since afterall, we have no way of knowing which scientific facts will be overturned?
Let me draw your attention to the difference between this, i.e. "knowledge can exist without some knowing it is knowledge", and this- "I really don't see how knowledge can exist without someone "knowing" it"
I'm not saying that knowledge cannot exist without someone knowing it, in the sense that running cannot exist without a runner, i.e. someone to go running. That would be patently absurd.
Then what are you saying?
You stated that someone could be unsure as to the location of their wallet, but if they correctly guessed that it was on the table, then their guess would be considered knowledge. Please explain to me how this is possible, if, as you say, it is "patently absurd" for knowledge to exist without someone knowing it.
Certainty is a matter of subjective psychological factors- it can vary from person to person. If I believe that my wallet is on the table, because I remember putting it there or saw it sitting there and have no reason to think its been moved (i.e. arguably adequate warrant for this case), but suppose I've been reading too much philosophy and am concerned whether it wasn't a dream or a hallucination- but I am right and it is on the table, it would seem like I knew it was there after all.
How did you come to that conclusion? I would have concluded "I was uncertain whether it was there or not."
Your position really suffers from non-linear time issues. Constantly, the future magically ends up affecting how things should have been defined in the past.
falvlun said:
And knowing something implies certainty (or, at least, about as sure of a thing as we can get.)
Ok, but why? What about cases of certainty that don't look like knowledge and visa versa? This would seem to explode that schema, yes?
Because practically speaking, certainty is how we grade the probability of things being true.
I don't know of any examples where someone is unsure of something and also thinks it should be considered knowledge. I certainly reject your wallet scenario.
Sure. But a definition of knowledge has to capture all sorts of knowledge; everyday sort of experiential knowledge (where I left my wallet), scientific/theoretical knowledge, and practical knowledge (knowledge how). And so far as the JTB definition of knowledge goes, it seems to be the matter of justification or warrant must shift around depending on the claim in question- but it sure doesn't seem like the matter of truth is negotiable, without rendering all usage of the word "knowledge" incoherent. And any philosophical or epistemological account of knowledge that comes back with the verdict that there is no such thing as truth or knowledge as opposed to belief is basically worthless, since this thesis is unusable in most walks of life- there is a difference between knowing where my wallet is and not, between knowing how to get to Applebees and not, and so on- as I'm sure you can well attest (one is very frustrating, the other is not).
My position doesn't claim that there is no such thing as truth or knowledge.
