Administrative Ronin Institute for masterless scholars 6 Jan 20136 Jan 2013 As readers may know, I, along with a great many other researchers, have no permanent position, making do with casual work to get by. This is an increasing problem around the world as educational institutions transition from being a public good to a service provider to government and economic goals…. Read More
Metaphysics Thought for the day: Why is "now" now? 2 Apr 2010 I am something of an amateur block theorist (which means that I only imperfectly instantiate a spacetime worm). Actually, it means I think that the universe exists as a single unitary entity extended in however many dimensions it is, including time. It’s, as it were, a block, not a river…. Read More
Don’t know Gettier. But let me guess: Et hoc principium nominat Philosophus, in III DE anima, intellectum possibilem. ?
It is possible The Philosopher always said it first (he’s like the Ernst Mayr of philosophy). However, I fail to see the connection here with what Thomas says here…
I supposed that the problem is how do we know that we know, e.g. reflexion. Here the intelllectus possibilis was proposed by Aristotle and Scholastics. It is also the place where reflexion should take place, the following interesting quotation also from De anima: Species enim intelligibilis est quo intellectus intelligit, non id quod intelligit, nisi per reflexionem, in quantum intelligit se intelligere et id quod quo intelligit.
Well, perhaps you can help me out with a confusion I’ve got myself into. ISTM that in “justified true belief”, the word “true” implies either access to ideal and infallible knowledge (which, not being God, we can’t ever have), or is just a synonym (and therefore redundant) for a very high level of justification. We can approach certainty asymptotically, but never quite get there. On this account, “true” doesn’t belong in the definition, and we declare we have “knowledge” when justification passes a certain threshold (say, when we’ve seen whatever it is up close with our own eyes, and everyone present agrees about it). Am I misunderstanding something about the way epistemologists use the terms?
It’s a very long time since I did any formal epistemology but I’ll have an ignorant crack at it. I gather that what makes something knowledge, under the JTB view, is that it is true, not that we know or could warrantably think it is true. So if it is true but we are not justified in thinking it is true, is isn’t known, and if we are justified in thinking it is true but it isn’t, it isn’t known. Pragmatists like me do not have this problem, as it only occurs under a correspondence theory of truth. We think that knowing just is being justified in a claim through experience; so your point is fine by us. We also think that truth is a property of pragmatic interactions between cognisers and the world. But don’t believe me – as I say it’s been a while. Try here instead.
Thank you; it’s helpful to know that what seems to be the “standard” JTB view is not universally enforced by the Philosophy Cartel.
I am an official member of the Philosophy Cartel and I endorse this message. (Except for the pragmatism bit, anyhow.) The JTB theory hasn’t been standard since shortly after Gettier’s example, in which Jones has JTB, but lacks knowledge. Now, one of the few things you can get philosophers to agree on is that JTB != knowledge.