Midrya
Midrya t1_jcbur78 wrote
Reply to comment by Base_Six in The Folly of Knowledge: why we should favor belief as the focus of our epistemology by Base_Six
> I wrote this more aimed at the skepticism of "you are a brain in a vat" than with criticism of more grounded ideas.
That is all well and good, but I would be hesitant to call such a person a skeptic given that it requires assuming quite a few unverifiable premises. To use the language of your article, I don't believe a Strong Skeptical Hypothesis (SSH) can even exists, because such an argument requires that the one presenting it be inherently lacking in skepticism. A person who posits the idea that "you are a brain in a vat" is either a believer of some form of the simulation hypothesis, or is just being a contrarian for the sake of contrarianism.
For all it's worth, I can agree to the notion that we can't ever truly know something in the sense that we can verify that the information we posses regarding some thing is accurate; I just don't perceive any benefit in using the phrase "reasonable belief" in place of "knowledge".
Midrya t1_jcakwmi wrote
Reply to The Folly of Knowledge: why we should favor belief as the focus of our epistemology by Base_Six
Honestly, this just feels like word games. It doesn't really change anything, and it looks like the only motivation to make the change is to get one step ahead of "skeptics" who are criticizing your ideas when you are presenting them as fact.
Midrya t1_j9jzy2n wrote
Reply to comment by Judgethunder in Thought experiments claim to use our intuitive responses to generate philosophical insights. But these scenarios are deceptive. Moral intuitions depend heavily on context and the individual. by IAI_Admin
Could you provide an example? Certainly there are solutions to problems that maximize for specific goals, but you would need to establish that the goal itself is objectively derived, and not just something that is desired.
Midrya t1_jcccwc8 wrote
Reply to comment by Base_Six in The Folly of Knowledge: why we should favor belief as the focus of our epistemology by Base_Six
Logical sure, but not well-founded. We can absolutely arrive at beliefs which logically follow from more fundamental premises that we hold, but to be well founded we would need to demonstrate that those more fundamental premises are themselves true.
I also don't really think we can offer a solid basis for belief. I can explain to you why I believe what I do, and I could go down all the way to the fundamental premises I hold to be true, but the one thing I cannot do is prove to you that those axiomatic assumptions are "more reasonable" than some other set of axiomatic assumptions, especially if your experiences are not compatible with my axiomatic assumptions.
And the clock thing is more highlighting an issue with the article itself; you claim that a common definition of knowledge is "justified true belief", but there is no evidence provided that such a definition is in fact common. Saying you know it's 2:00 after looking at a clock which says 2:00 but is actually not accurate is only an issue if you require knowledge to be justified and true. Since the entire issue is predicated on the definition of the word knowledge, I feel it would be kind of important to establish that problematic definition is both an accepted and common definition, which a quick polling of dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster, and Cambridge would show that they don't really list a definition that if fully compatible with the one you are using. I normally don't like pulling out dictionary definitions in discussions because it feels pedantic in all the wrong ways, but since the entire issue is contingent on the common definition of the word knowledge we need to reasonably establish that the definition being used is the common definition of the word knowledge.