knowledge

how would you define 'knowledge'? is plantinga's definition, "true, warranted belief" correct, or is there no place for the word 'belief' in any defintion of knowledge?

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Originally posted by forgiven:
how would you define 'knowledge'? is plantinga's definition, "true, warranted belief" correct, or is there no place for the word 'belief' in any defintion of knowledge?

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I think I would start with saying what knowledge is not: knowledge is not just information.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Chara:
I think I would start with saying what knowledge is not: knowledge is not just information.[/B][/QUOTE]ok.. but how can we be said to *know* something? for example, we've all heard christians say something like "i know that i know that i know"... does that count for knowledge? or is there something more?

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Originally posted by forgiven:
how would you define 'knowledge'? is plantinga's definition, "true, warranted belief" correct, or is there no place for the word 'belief' in any defintion of knowledge?

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Not dure who Plantinga is, but he seems to me to be shifting the burden of explanation on to what "true" and "warranted" mean.Without pretending to offer any definition of my own I would say that knowledge (whatever it is) is a human construct which is expressible purely in terms of information (or signs), but this doesn't quite express whether it has anything to do with belief.Inner convictions can sometimes be knowledge - "I know that I am hungry" for example, but if you were to go round believing you were Napoleon, then I wouldn't call your belief knowledge. The difference between the two is available evidence, logical inference and verifiability, the only way knowledge can be empirically determined imo - belief seems almost irrelevant.------------------
It's good to have an open mind, but not so open that your brains
fall out. - Bertrand Russell

This is just about all I know.
Huxley wrotep132Evolution The Modern Synthesis) "One guess may be hazarded: that the specificity of their constitution is maintained by a purely chemical equilibrium, without any of the mechanical control superposed by the mitotic (and meiotic) arrangements or higher forms."The "hazard" was that one could be committed to a mental hospital for trying to follow up on the consequential (or lack of serially) stability of the person's chemicals (which the doctor proclaims and treats as existent) involved in any arranged co-ordination or simply a well-ordering etc.Rather this was only a guess that since 2000 or 9-11 is past, I guess, and I prefer the concept of somatic program such that one = reversible perversions + computable irreducible entropy increase ; {big or small Gladyshev Macrothermodynamics in the body's actuall histogenic transitive property to say neither all is not mitotic(meiotic) or all is chemical} as this HAZA!D d id occur in my case AND was prosecuted in US law.If all (and Gibbs' concept of perversions recovered by Morowitz etc does not preclude any for every all etc) chemical metabolic equilibria (attractor wise or not etc etc) are but issues in equivalent sophistication(Wolfram) (no matter the Gould -- Leibig or no) as to what is or is not reducible computationally (as per do while Mayrs pheno stuff that are as is was is etc) then all history of genetics with chemistry combined ONLY contributes to computational genomics bioinformatically but not to the baraminc AFTER this kind of taxogeny. A simple denial no longer suffices.Mayr thINKS Mendel's "dyadic" thought justifies seperating his theoretical demonstration(Fisher) from any discoverably facts fouding finding at the prior time in history but if the 3:1 ratio is a matter of reading compression as occurs in data efficiency protocols in information technology management then Nageli's criticism of Mendel (on the merits(if))(and Mayr's description of the Author) on gronds a posteriori logic supports is not information supported or not but an accusation which fails to "compress" (in the impression) numbers or text the same way.Just try, please, if you do, to think of Mendel's letters "A,B","a","b" etc as Cantor's NUMBERS symbolized in letter-sequences of serials of reals {A,B,C,D...L}and then may be genes are only symbolic surfers in the caluculation extraction called lie manipulated only by chromosomes (no games please) but not (so) controlled.More later. The Session need not be held by a Church.

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Originally posted by forgiven:
how would you define 'knowledge'? is plantinga's definition, "true, warranted belief" correct, or is there no place for the word 'belief' in any defintion of knowledge?

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How do we gain knowledge if it is more than just information. It must be by acquaintance, ie. I know what the color brown looks like; and knowledge by true statement, ie. I have a friend named Betty, therefore I know that Betty exists and she has a good sense of humor. I think I'm confusing myself ... will think more on this.

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Originally posted by Primordial Egg:

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Originally posted by forgiven:
how would you define 'knowledge'? is plantinga's definition, "true, warranted belief" correct, or is there no place for the word 'belief' in any defintion of knowledge?

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Not dure who Plantinga is, but he seems to me to be shifting the burden of explanation on to what "true" and "warranted" mean.

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Without pretending to offer any definition of my own I would say that knowledge (whatever it is) is a human construct which is expressible purely in terms of information (or signs), but this doesn't quite express whether it has anything to do with belief.

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Inner convictions can sometimes be knowledge - "I know that I am hungry" for example, but if you were to go round believing you were Napoleon, then I wouldn't call your belief knowledge. The difference between the two is available evidence, logical inference and verifiability, the only way knowledge can be empirically determined imo - belief seems almost irrelevant.

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you're correct that the terms need to be understood.. as for "true" in the definition, plantinga stated that before something could be 'knowledge' it simply must be true, otherwise it was just a belief or worldview... the more difficult term is 'warranted'... he defines it (vastly simplified) as "a belief which a reasonable person, unencumbered by emotional or physical mental defects, might hold"so that leads to, knowledge is only such if one has warrant for the belief *and* if the belief also happens to be true... as an example, one could say they have knowledge that green unicorns exist... it's a belief they hold... are they warranted in holding that belief? well, if the person herself has no mental deficiencies that would lead to the belief, then yes she would be warranted in holding it... but is the belief true? ahh that's the rub... for the person to really have knowledge of the existence of a green unicorn, more than warranted belief is required.. it must also be truemany reasonable people have diametrically opposed beliefs, for example, on the age of the universe... each group is warranted in its belief (given the assumed lack of mental deficiencies i spoke of)... but both beliefs can't be true... this isn't an attempt to start a debate on any one subject, simply to show that before one can claim to possess knowledge, what one believes must be in fact true

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Chara:
How do we gain knowledge if it is more than just information. It must be by acquaintance, ie. I know what the color brown looks like; and knowledge by true statement, ie. I have a friend named Betty, therefore I know that Betty exists and she has a good sense of humor. I think I'm confusing myself ... will think more on this.[/B][/QUOTE]ayup, knowledge comes thru our own experiences and the experiences of others... a lot of what we call knowledge, we accept on authority (i.e. the experiences of others, quantified, categorized, disseminated)... you might believe, for example, that God exists... for this belief to be *real* knowledge, you must have warrant for it and it must be true...as for the question of God's existence, the bible speaks of man "hiding the truth" from himself... self-deception, iow... it says that the evidences for God (creation itself and the internal testimony of the concious) are sufficient... others disagree, if not with the conclusion then certainly with the reasons for it (creation, they might say, requires more than the evidence of our senses)are they warranted in believing more evidence is required? yes, unless it can be shown that "hiding the truth" from themselves is in itself a form of mental deficiency...so knowledge, in the end, comes down to a belief or series of beliefs... one must have warrant for the belief, and the belief must be true else it's simply a belief and not necessarily knowledgei don't do plantinga justice with this brief summary of his philosophy, but you get the gist of it

If all knowlege is learned then how do we account for our own knowlege of right and wrong. Our knowledge of what is moral and immoral. This seems to be almost exact through all people though i will admit it would seem some people have no knowledge of right and wrong, or choose to ignore that knowledge. (I must note this idea is from C.S Lewis book "Mere Christianity"). If we are confronted on something we did that is "wrong" we do not deny the standard used to measure this rather we begin immediately to make excuses, as to why in our circumstance this wrong is justifiable. An example given by C.S Lewis is say you heard a man screaming for help, one instinct probably our "herd instinct" (or learned) tells us that we should go and help this man, while our survival instinct tells us we should run and avoid putting ourselves in danger. Now we have a third thing going on in our minds telling us that the right thing to do is to supress this instinct to run, and to help the man in trouble. This is not learned knowledge. A man raised in a civilized culture would have the same knowledge of what is the right thing to do as a man who was raised in the desert. So where does this knowledge come from if we didn't learn it. And why do we believe this knowledge is true. *this is pretty much a paraphrase from C.S Lewis and not a very good one mind you, my little brain sometimes has a hard time wrapping around the writings of brilliant men.------------------
saved by grace

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Originally posted by funkmasterfreaky:
If all knowlege is learned then how do we account for our own knowlege of right and wrong.

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Is canibalism wrong?How about infanticide?Or polygamy?There have been societies where these were social norms so I have to disagree with your notion that "right" and "wrong" are innate ideas....

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Originally posted by funkmasterfreaky:
If all knowlege is learned then how do we account for our own knowlege of right and wrong.

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Right and wrong are extremely practical concepts. Why is it hard to imagine that they are derived from experience?------------------
http://www.hells-handmaiden.com

from funky:

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If all knowlege is learned then how do we account for our own knowlege of right and wrong. Our knowledge of what is moral and immoral.

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does the fact of our knowing this preclude our having learned it? notice i'm not saying from where or from whom we learned it, merely asking if the fact of our knowing something means it hasn't been learned

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Now we have a third thing going on in our minds telling us that the right thing to do is to supress this instinct to run, and to help the man in trouble. This is not learned knowledge. A man raised in a civilized culture would have the same knowledge of what is the right thing to do as a man who was raised in the desert. So where does this knowledge come from if we didn't learn it. And why do we believe this knowledge is true.

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i'll admit that i don't remember this paraphrase from mere christianity but i'll trust your phrasing... i do recall his example of a man not knowing a stick is straight if he has no idea of a crooked one...but to the above paragraph... if lewis said that, it's one of the few things with which i disagree... the reason is, i'm of the belief that all things are learned thru our own experiences or those of others... God is, in this context, an "other"... as for *knowing* the right thing vs. the wrong thing in any particular situation, we seem to be putting the cart ahead of the horse... the reason for this can be seen by the replies you got... as you can see, some think there's no such thing as objective morality.. no such thing as something being either objectively good *or* objectively eviluntil we can show there is such a thing, we're bumping our heads against the wall... maybe i'll post something on that here else start a new thread... but for the moment let's take the example you gave of the man screaming for help and our reaction to thisassume for a moment there is an act from among those we can choose which is ethically and morally correct (or at least *more* correct)... how do we know this? coming at it from my christian worldview, i think we can only know it because we've been taught it.. by whom? the spirit of God... note i'm assuming we *do* know it, i'm not saying whether we can know it... but if we know it, it's my belief that it's still learned.. taught by the Teacher and imparted thru the concious, firstly, and later his spirit..God knows things (all things)... God teaches us things (all things, limited only by our proximity to him, our desire to learn, and by our present state of mortality)... remember tho, "... spiritual things are spiritually discerned"...now this is *not* to say that non-christians can't know right from wrong, good from evil... history shows that at least as many (if not more) non-christians as christians have done fabulous good for mankind... no, even that is inate by virtue of God giving us the internal testimony of the concious... but most of the atheists i've met, while arguing they can know right from wrong every bit as well as a christian does, will almost invaribly say (sometimes in the next breath), "but there's no such thing as objective right or objective wrong"... so they're in effect saying they know that which they deny exists, and they know it as well as you do

[QUOTE]Originally posted by joz:
Is canibalism wrong?
How about infanticide?
Or polygamy?There have been societies where these were social norms so I have to disagree with your notion that "right" and "wrong" are innate ideas....[/B][/QUOTE]that raises an interesting point, joz... whether or not they are inate, do they exist? in other words, *is* infanticide objectively evil, or is such a thing merely societal preference? furthermore, if one society says cannabilism is not morally evil and another says it is, are both right? is morality, are ethics, a matter of "majority rules" or are they objective entities?if objective evil doesn't exist, there's nothing abhorrant about the torture and murder of a young child.. nothing abhorrant, that is, unless society *tells* you there is... is this your view? or do you think such an act, in and of itself, is objectively evil?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by John:Right and wrong are extremely practical concepts. Why is it hard to imagine that they are derived from experience?
[/B][/QUOTE]derived from experience, yes... i never addressed whose, except to say our own or that of others... however, does that fact mean there isn't an objectivity to "right and wrong?"we're told that occasionally there are people born who have no inner governor, no check on what they should or should not do... the socieopaths of the world... i'll accept on authority that these people exist, principally because i'm too tired to argue the converse... but if they do exist, doesn't that very existence argue that they're the exception that proves the rule?i happen to think that in a properly functioning brain (no defects, iow), God created us so that we already have all the knowledge it's possible to have... whatever we say we know, here and now, hasn't come *in*, it's seeped out... certain experiences in our lives (or the lives of others) triggered this 'knowledge seepage'... with some, the seepage is rapid and there seems to have been a quantum leap in intuition or understanding... mozart, einstein, capablanca, etc... with others, the triggering devices result in just small leaks... that would be me ... we call the seepage resulting from the triggers "learning"... that's fine, it has to be called somethingdoes that jive with my saying that everything is "learned?"... i think so, although i could have worded it differently... maybe by saying, we learn to express the knowledge we have... this is all rooted in my belief that we're created in God's image, and in my understanding of what that means... and what it *doesn't* mean... i'm not saying i'm right, just that i've given it a lot of thought and (at my present level of understanding) that's where i find myself...see, i believe that all attributes God has, he's given to us (the 'his image' thingy)... *all* attributes... to me that also means, all things he knows, we know... that's what, imo, eternity is all about... daily (using a word i'm familiar with, even tho it isn't applicable to eternity) we will grow in an understanding of ourselves, and of God, and daily we'll discover more and more this knowledge he's given us... things will happen that trigger this seepage...since it would take an eternity to ever reach the perfection of God, in both attribute and knowledge, we can never approach God in either... the sum of the individual parts can't equal the whole...am i saying we're gods? there is one God, the father of us all... we will never be him, we should never entertain any thoughts that even express such a desire... i think satan did that... but there is some reason beyond what we know (or beyond what has seeped out from the reservoir of what we already know) that we will one day be placed in positions above even the angels...we were created to commune with God, in the same manner he communes with us... we possess the ability (the spirit) to do so *now*, and sometimes we even do it... but not like we can, and not like we will... so no, we aren't gods and we never will be... eternity isn't long enough for that... we are special, tho... he created us to be special in his eyesright and wrong *are* practical concepts... the knowledge of each is inate, imo, and triggered by experiences... at some point in the lives of each person, a bite of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (that fruit being our experiences) triggers the realization that *this* is good and *that* is evil... we might deny we know this objective reality, but it's self-denial... we know when something is good, we know when something is evil, and we do *not* need society to explain the differencei expect to get more negative feedback from christians on this than from non-christians.. that's fine, i don't mind being corrected... i do ask that these things are thought on first, tho.. and remember, i don't presume to teach anyone anything... you have no need for any man to teach you, as you already know

[QUOTE]Originally posted by forgiven:
[B][QUOTE]That raises an interesting point, joz... whether or not they are inate, do they exist? in other words, *is* infanticide objectively evil, or is such a thing merely societal preference? furthermore, if one society says cannabilism is not morally evil and another says it is, are both right? is morality, are ethics, a matter of "majority rules" or are they objective entities?If objective evil doesn't exist, there's nothing abhorrant about the torture and murder of a young child.. nothing abhorrant, that is, unless society *tells* you there is... is this your view? or do you think such an act, in and of itself, is objectively evil?[/B][/QUOTE]I happen to have a big problem with infanticide but then again I am a product of a western Judao/Christian based moral upbringing so its hardly an objective test...I don`t have such problems with polygamy, under certain social conditions (i.e high mortality rate in either sex leading to an imbalance) it probably has social mertits...Even canibalism doesn`t disturb me in and of itself, murdering someone to eat them does but if for example a dying friends last wish was for everyone to have a "dinner party" to pay our respects I wouldn`t see anything to wrong with that, a bit odd to be sure but not immoral....(Providing there was no comunicable disease issue that is)...So in answer to your question IMHO infanticide is counter to a moral code that I have chosen and enforce myself, the fact that the vast majority here would agree is not however a fair indication of any sort of inateness to that concept as none of us (I assume) were raised in a situation where infanticide was the cultural norm....Also infanticide within ones own culture is hardly ever a plus, so most of us are probably memeticaly programmed against it, the same can hardly be said of infanticide external to ones own society. Jonathan Swifts morbid irony during the potatoe famine found a disturbing ammount of assent, I am talking of course of modest proposal that the Irish eat their own babies....http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/.../316kfall/316ktexts/swift.htmlSo ultimately like Locke before me I dissent the notion that some ideas are innate...