Is your statement absolute?
Yes, it was an absolute statement. It was not an absolute proof. There is no absolute proof of my statement which was phrased in the absolute.
Is that conclusion only subjective, or is it an objective truth?
The clue is in the words. First, they were written by a self-confessed subjective being. Second, the words 'sounds like' implies 'to me it sounds like', which is in turn explicitly subjective.
Do you mean we must have faith in logic?
No. We simply cannot escape assumption number 3.
I thought that we could not develope ways of doing this without smuggling in subjectivity?
There's no need to smuggle it in - it's the vehicle we have to ride in order to cross the border. Knowing that this is the case, we can start to map the terrain of the land of epistemology. We realize our craft limits our ability to be entirely sure that our map relates to the terrain, and we accept then the principle of fallibilism. We can say that if the map tells us there should be a hill here, and we find a hill, then there is a good chance that our map is good. If everything we know about the local geophysics indicates that a hill is an entirely reasonable, or even inevitable feature, we can say our map seems to be good. If we can use what information is on the map to navigate to new places implied by the map - then our map seems to be good.
All the while we keep in mind that our map might be wrong, and so we continuously test the map against the terrain in as many ways as we can devise to increase our confidence. If a cartographer tells us that there is a forest of Uranium undulating in a sea of sulphuric acid 4 million miles away from the nearest chartered territories, then we might be sceptical. If they say they know it is the case because they have an inner feeling or they heard a noise they attribute to the forest or read about it in a book by an author they really trust has previously chartered that territory but whose navigational maps seem to be stylistic at best - downright incorrect in other areas which have since been relentlessly mapped by many different cartographers, and there is a blank space covering about 3,999,000 miles of the claimed journey...can we really agree that this counts as 'knowledge'?
And what you have is what exactly? Are you absolutely sure you can answer that question objectively?
It depends what you are referring to. I know that my screen name is Modulous and that people tend to call me Mod, which is the name I go about with in the skinworlds - if anything is to be called knowledge something like that is. That humankind should be free to pursue life, liberty and happiness is a belief that I hold.
I am absolutely sure that I cannot answer that question objectively since I am a subjective being.
But that would be speaking their language. If they refuse to speak logically, then you must either leave them, or join them.
Well, when you make an external communication - you have to make sure you're speaking the same language as the intended recipients. If the recipients are using words differently, try and find a new word to use that fits the usage you intend. If, even with the ambiguities inherent to natural language, the people you plan to communicate with are totally unreasonable - then the only sane choices are to try and teach them to reason, or not bother communicating at all.
Do you think that it is unreasonable to use the word knowledge to mean a held proposition that is true as best can be determined by various criteria of truth?
Mod... if belief is not synonymous with knowledge, then your belief in logic is meaningless.
I don't 'believe in logic'. That logic and reason can be successfully employed by the human mind to come to truths about the world is a starting assumption one cannot help but make if one is to hold any proposition as true. One cannot deny this assumption is true without assuming it is true first. Thus: it has to be if we're going to discuss epistemology.
If, for example, the assumption is false then iano cannot know God indeed nobody can know anything. Of course, since this statement implies also that I know we cannot know anything, I am actually assuming that I can reason towards truth, which I started off as assuming was false.
And as such, you derision upon my brother Iano is nothing but mystical incantations.
Since I have not claimed knowledge or belief in logic or reason - then the charge of mystical incantations thankfully does not follow.