Scientific Knowledge

If we're going to be nit-picky then we are actually engaged in the study of epistemology^*. If we are going to be nit-picky we were talking about 'knowledge' not 'absolute knowledge'. Since there is no such thing as absolute certainty, there is no such thing as absolute knowledge.There is however, a thing that people call knowledge.I know that Henry VIII was King of England.Most people who speak English will agree that I know this fact. Most people would also agree that I could be wrong in my knowledge.RAZD wants to us to call this tentativity 'almost knowledge' but he is unique in this regard in English. Tentativity is pretty much built into most conceptions of knowledge.The simple, and common understanding of knowledge is: Knowledge is justifiable true belief.It is of course then a question of whether or not a belief is 'justified' or 'true'. And this comes down to how we justify beliefs and what constitutes truth. When we really get nitpicky, knowledge seems to become less than absolute certainty. In my view there is no knowledge that is not practical knowledge. So practical knowledge is all knowledge. So the word 'practical' is redundant.

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^* Alternatively we can just look in an online dictionary and assume that is sufficient. This, contrary to the views you expressed, isn't being nit picky, pedantic or technically correct, it is being naive, over-simplistic etc.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Which is why I followed that by saying

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It is of course then a question of whether or not a belief is 'justified' or 'true'.

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Well we could set up Criteria of truth as a means to resolving the 'what is truth?' question. But yes, we could hold knowledge which turns out to be false. This is a pitfall, but its one we're stuck with if we're going to have such a thing as knowledge at all. I doubt most people would talk about criteria of epistemology, but your point still misses the mark: Your everyday users are using 'knowledge' to mean the same thing I was doing. If you think there is a difference it's because you misunderstood my point.In order for something to be knowledge it has to be true. In order for us to label something as knowledge we have to believe it is true and have good reason to be highly confident that it is true. We might label something as knowledge that later turns out to be false. In which case we didn't know the thing previously, we mistakenly thought we knew it. Or maybe you misremembered the price. But you can still say 'know' if you can justify that knowledge and have good reason to suppose it is true. Almost everybody agrees that a belief has to be true in order for it to be classified as knowledge. And yes, it does mean that we can be wrong about what is knowledge. But the possibility of being wrong, and correcting ourselves doesn't mean we have to rewrite the past and it is not paradoxical. It is an error, it got corrected.I understand where you are trying to aim there, but it is not a real life concern. It might be of concern to epistemologists but most of them ascribe to some kind of principle of fallibilism these days as far as I can tell.

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I know where my keys are. Oh wait, no I don't.

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No problems there. We don't have to rewrite my words and there is no paradox. There is a misidentification of knowledge that is corrected. We thought it was knowledge, but it transpired it wasn't. No big deal.We thought we knew there were 9 planets in our solar system, but recent observations have shown that there are either more or less, depending on how we define such things. Exactly my point. And they know they can still be wrong with that claimed knowledge. There is a built in tentativity to scientific knowledge, and the knowledge 'used by the man on the street'. There is no need for 100% certainty, no claims to access absolute truths.

If something is knowledge then it is true, and it can be justified as being so by the person who has it.However, we cannot know with absolute certainty if something is true. So we can only label something as knowledge provisionally (also, whether or not the justification is sufficient isn't objectively derivable). Therefore: we might be wrong in our labelling.That's the difference, as subtle as it might be. What? What's your point? When the average Joe on the street uses the word 'know' how is it different from the way I was using it?You were saying they were doing it based on some epistemological framework. As I was. So what's the difference? The particular epistemological framework in use? Probably, but that's hardly surprising. Either way, most people would require knowledge be true, and on reflection that it be justified. What it means for something to be classified as true or justified is where the differences between people normally manifest.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.