• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Must We be Certain of Knowing Something Before We Can Legitimately Say We 'Know' Something?

PureX

Veteran Member
Absolute certainty is not possible without omniscience. So that leaves we humans with only relative certainty. And of course that begs the question, "relative to what?". And now we're 'off to the races'. As we determine certainty (actually, surety, not certainty, because we cannot logically have certainty) through lots of methods.We determine surety through personal experience, shared experience, and collective experience; through reasoned probability based on fact analysis, through blind intuition, abject necessity, and even through pure desire. None of which should logically be assumed to have achieved certainty. Because what we humans can "know" about anything is limited and relative, and we can never know how what we don't know would affect what we think we do know if we were to come to know it.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
I think you need to distinguish statements like "I know such and such is the case", implying certainty, from the concept of "knowledge".

It can be argued that we cannot be 100% certain of almost anything, except cogito ergo sum, perhaps. But it would be a perverse fool indeed who concluded from that we have no knowledge about anything.

A very great deal of human knowledge, including all scientific theories and almost all of history, is not 100% certain. The fact it is not certain does not stop it being knowledge. Even the very degree of uncertainty itself represents knowledge, too.

Well, I am that perverse fool, since I am a strong general skeptic, who don't believe in knowledge. I believe in beliefs, which apparently work, but I don't know that they work.
BTW cogito ergo sum is in a form of a tautology. It is true, but empty of any content other than something happening is, thus there is something, that exists. Or for something to happen it must exist. It is not even true for an "I", because all it says is: Something is going on or happening, therefore it exists. But something going on or happening, is existence.
Where as the "I" is taken for granted, because of its subjective value, but not checked for what it is. It is a process, thus something happening or going on.

@Sunstone
If you are caused by something else including all of your experiences, then a real world versus the evil demon can't be told apart. You have no way of knowing if you are in a real world or an unreal one. Hence no absolute knowledge.
In modern terms you could be in a variant of a Boltzmann Brain universe or a computer simulated reality and you can't know if you are or not.
That problem includes a real God or a trickster God, which deceives you.
So in other words as to God, there is apparently no positive privileged metaphysics in any variant. You end with Kant and the-thing-in-itself and transcendental idealism.
Or you like methodological solipsism: I.e. I can only state what reality is to me. Not what it is in itself.
 

Nakosis

Non-Binary Physicalist
Premium Member
What I would claim as knowledge would be something I can prove beyond a reasonable doubt to a neutral party.

Finding a neutral party is usually the difficult part.
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
Well, I am that perverse fool, since I am a strong general skeptic, who don't believe in knowledge. I believe in beliefs, which apparently work, but I don't know that they work.
BTW cogito ergo sum is in a form of a tautology. It is true, but empty of any content other than something happening is, thus there is something, that exists. Or for something to happen it must exist. It is not even true for an "I", because all it says is: Something is going on or happening, therefore it exists. But something going on or happening, is existence.
Where as the "I" is taken for granted, because of its subjective value, but not checked for what it is. It is a process, thus something happening or going on.

@Sunstone
If you are caused by something else including all of your experiences, then a real world versus the evil demon can't be told apart. You have no way of knowing if you are in a real world or an unreal one. Hence no absolute knowledge.
In modern terms you could be in a variant of a Boltzmann Brain universe or a computer simulated reality and you can't know if you are or not.
That problem includes a real God or a trickster God, which deceives you.
So in other words as to God, there is apparently no positive privileged metaphysics in any variant. You end with Kant and the-thing-in-itself and transcendental idealism.
Or you like methodological solipsism: I.e. I can only state what reality is to me. Not what it is in itself.
Poor you:(.
 

Heyo

Veteran Member
BACKGROUND:

For over 2,000 years, the western philosophical tradition has defined 'knowledge' as "justified true belief".

That is, to say you know X is the case (as opposed to you merely believe X is the case), you must first believe X is the case; next, your belief that X is the case must be true; and last, you must be justified in believing X is the case is true.

Put differently, a belief is not knowledge. Not even a true belief is knowledge. Only a true belief in which you are warranted or justified to believe it is true is knowledge.

Mere belief is not knowledge because a belief can be false. Example: I believe rabbits eat whales. Obviously, a false belief.

Mere true belief is not knowledge because if you believe something is true without any good reason to believe it is true, then you are in effect guessing. But is guessing knowledge? Example: Suppose I guess the correct answer to a math problem on a test. Can I be said to have known the answer even though I had no reason, justification, warrant, or cause to believe my guess was the correct one? The answer is, I cannot say I knew the answer without redefining the meaning of 'know'.

Only if I have a true belief that is justified can I say my true belief is knowledge.​

And with all of that in mind, now the question...

QUESTION:

Must we be absolutely certain that a true belief is justified before we can legitimately call our true belief 'knowledge'?

Put differently, are there cases in which we can say we know something based on some kind of evidence or reasoning that does not leave us absolutely certain of knowing something? Such as, the testimony of witnesses in a trial, or the results of a scientifically conducted experiment, or the 'evidence of our own eyes', etc.?
IMPLICATIONS:

If we must be absolutely certain that a true belief is justified before calling it 'knowledge' then anything we are not absolutely certain of cannot be claimed to be known. For instance, if we are not absolutely certain that god exists, we cannot say that we know god exists. If we are not absolutely certain there is an objective reality apart from our own or any mind, then we cannot say we know objective reality exists. Etc. etc. etc.

On the other hand, if we need not be absolutely certain that a true belief is justified before calling it 'knowledge' then it is at least in principle possible that we can say we know god exists even though we are not absolutely certain god exists. Or -- on the flip side -- it is at least in principle possible that we can say we know god does NOT exist even though we are not absolutely certain god does not exist. Etc. etc. etc.



Let the joyful pettifoggery commence immediately!



I know that "as we all know" is always an attempt to smuggle in an unsupported assumption.


But seriously, @Polymath257 said already what I wanted to say (and probably more comprehensible).
 

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
Absolute certainty is not possible without omniscience.
If certainty is a belief (or attitude), then absolute certainty is entirely possible. At issue is whether or not it's warranted.

By the way, what is the difference between a glass that's full and a glass that's absolutely full?
 

osgart

Nothing my eye, Something for sure
Does this extend to the notion that I know that a door is genuinely real without a doubt because I can open and close it? Or must I have doubts here to be rationally sane?
 

osgart

Nothing my eye, Something for sure
You have the experiences of it. But they could be simulated in a computer:
Simulation hypothesis - Wikipedia
Other variants:
Philosophical skepticism - Wikipedia

What about the fact that the object world has rules, and consequences for my experiences of it? Those rules are independent of my will, and I can't wish those rules away?

The fact is my experience is genuinely existent. Remarkable consistency, and detail.
Countless properties exist that are independent of me.

The information in our reality, how can it be illusion? I'm bound by its rules in every way.

This is like saying that a base reality exists that is not bound by the rules of our reality. Or base reality has us existing as units of information far different then as appears.

Simulation or not, there is definitive existence for us all.

I'm subject to feeling this reality in great depth.

Illusion is a state of existence even. What is illusion has actuality!
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
BACKGROUND:

For over 2,000 years, the western philosophical tradition has defined 'knowledge' as "justified true belief".​
Hmm.

"Know" has a meaning that everyone knows but is tricky to pin down with a definition. "Knowledge" is whatever I know.

And the definition you've given seems to require me to know only things that are objectively true, whereas I also know a great many things that aren't true. And I'd argue that if I know them, they're part of my knowledge.
That is, to say you know X is the case (as opposed to you merely believe X is the case), you must first believe X is the case; next, your belief that X is the case must be true; and last, you must be justified in believing X is the case is true.​
That would mean you can't know something that isn't true, wouldn't it?

But I do.

Rather than argue about knowing, I'd prefer to have a preliminary discussion on the meaning of 'a fact' and the meaning of 'truth'.

Then we could discuss the relation of fact and truth to knowledge.

(I'd say that a fact was an accurate report of a real state of affairs. And that truth is a quality of statements, and a statement is true to the extent that it corresponds with / accurately reflects objective reality.)
QUESTION:

Must we be absolutely certain that a true belief is justified before we can legitimately call our true belief 'knowledge'?
No. I think 'knowledge' is whatever I know, true or false and including things I know are false.
 

Heyo

Veteran Member
And the definition you've given seems to require me to know only things that are objectively true, whereas I also know a great many things that aren't true. And I'd argue that if I know them, they're part of my knowledge.
Can you give an example of something you know that isn't true?
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Can you give an example of something you know that isn't true?
Sure.

My Mancunian grandmother told me when I was small that if you wished to prosper in the present month, the first words you say on the first day of that month (usually when you wake up) must be "rabbits and hares". So I know that.

As far as I can tell, though, it isn't true.
 

Heyo

Veteran Member
Sure.

My Mancunian grandmother told me when I was small that if you wished to prosper in the present month, the first words you say on the first day of that month (usually when you wake up) must be "rabbits and hares". So I know that.

As far as I can tell, though, it isn't true.
Now I know it, too.
And I know it is true, that you posted a message in which you relayed a story about your grandmother who allegedly believed you had to utter the words "rabbit and hares" first thing on the first day of a month you wished to thrive in. (With the certainty I can have trust in my senses.)
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
What about the fact that the object world has rules, and consequences for my experiences of it? Those rules are independent of my will, and I can't wish those rules away?

The fact is my experience is genuinely existent. Remarkable consistency, and detail.
Countless properties exist that are independent of me.

The information in our reality, how can it be illusion? I'm bound by its rules in every way.

Because those rules would be the same in a computer simulation.

This is like saying that a base reality exists that is not bound by the rules of our reality. Or base reality has us existing as units of information far different then as appears.

Correct, the psychics of the universe with the computer running the simulation might not be the same as the physics simulated in the simulation.

Simulation or not, there is definitive existence for us all.

This is what you have: Your experiences that there is definitive existence for us all.

I'm subject to feeling this reality in great depth.

Correct, reality causes you to feel that. That would be the same for the real one and the simulated one

Illusion is a state of existence even. What is illusion has actuality!

No, that actuality is your experience of it.

Okay, let me sum up. All your arguments rely on your experiences of reality, but that is what is questioned. Are your experiences accurate reflections of reality independent of your experiences of it or not?
You thus can't use your experiences and take them for granted, because they are in question.

You then reason about what can be the case, but your reason can't not determine what objective reality is. I.e. your reasoning is not the cause and objective reality is not the effect or in short; your reasoning doesn't cause objective. It is the other way around.
Here it is with causation:
Real objective reality causes your experiences and reasoning.
OR
Unreal objective reality causes your experiences and reasoning.
But you can't tell the difference between the 2, because you are the same.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
If certainty is a belief (or attitude), then absolute certainty is entirely possible. At issue is whether or not it's warranted.
As a "belief or attitude", anything can be anything. It's an 'indefinite' definition that communicates nothing.
By the way, what is the difference between a glass that's full and a glass that's absolutely full?
You are confusing 'absolutely' with 'completely', and thereby misusing the term. The term "absolute" is not intended to refer to a relative condition.
 

oldbadger

Skanky Old Mongrel!
What I would claim as knowledge would be something I can prove beyond a reasonable doubt to a neutral party.

Finding a neutral party is usually the difficult part.

The innocents that our countries have executed thru' verdicts based upon..... 'beyond reasonable doubt'. And how much we changed our minds later on. :)

I already offered the OP a possible way of communicating a 'fact' by offering the simplest of of Prewords....... 'This is my Truth', the offered truth which can be overturned but with due respect offered to the original claimant, who did not lie.

With this simple concept in mind I can acknowledge anybody's faith or beliefs without reserve, even though I could not support every (or any) one.
 

oldbadger

Skanky Old Mongrel!
I see that Truth is Relative to accepting a Messenger that say God is.

Regards Tony

Hello Tony!

Tony........... your religion is the Bahai Faith. You have Faith.
Bahauallah may have felt that he had certitude (hence his book named thus) but for Bahais it's all about Faith surely?

So it's your Truth, and you only fall when you expect it to be everybody's..
 
Top