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Objective Knowledge
Objective Knowledge: Impossible?

Objective Knowledge

ilovemarx
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Posted 04/23/08 - 08:10 AM: Subject: Objective Knowledge	#1
To understand something you need to rely on your experience and culture. Does this mean it is impossible to have objective knowledge? Please reply in depth.

Cuthbert
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Posted 04/23/08 - 08:45 AM:	#2
I think you mean you can't understand anything independently of your experience and culture. That is, if your experience and culture were different, you might not understand what you do now understand. That seems true to me. You probably know that Bush is US President. But if you only had the experience of a 1 day old baby you would not know that. And if you were transported here five minutes ago from ancient Egypt you wouldn't understand what a US President is. The facts that you're not a baby or a time traveller are necessary to your understanding. Does this mean it is impossible to have objective knowledge? No, it doesn't. Even if you were a 1 day old baby, Bush would be US President and somebody (although not you) could know that he is. And even if you were an ancient Egyptian you could probably learn what a US President is, given time to learn the language and culture necessary to understanding it. (Is there also 'subjective knowledge' - or is that just the same as belief?)

Floyd
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Posted 04/24/08 - 06:45 PM:	#3
ilovemarx, what do you mean by objective knowledge? How does what you call objective knowledge differ from subjective knowledge or plain old knowledge for that matter?
_____________________ Short and to the point. \| Online Philosophy Club \| Book & Reading Forums \| My Philosophy Articles "Only the descent into the hell of self-knowledge can pave the way to godliness." ~Immanuel Kant

reincarnated
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Posted 04/25/08 - 03:32 AM:	#4
Cuthbert wrote: (Is there also 'subjective knowledge' - or is that just the same as belief?) Please define what you mean by knowledge in this context. To me, knowledge is justified true belief (JTB). To say that (subjective) knowledge is just the same as belief is a trivial truth - it IS a belief. On the JTB definition of knowledge, objective knowledge, imho, is impossible.
_____________________ �If one pays attention to the concepts being employed, rather than the words being used, the resolution of this problem is simple.� (Stuart Burns)

The_Rational_Animal
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Posted 05/02/08 - 11:25 PM:	#5
Without an adequate definition for knowledge given, I'll reluctantly use Plato's "justified true belief" = knowledge (my personal view is that "true belief" = knowledge, but I'll stick with the Platonic view). I think if you want to rule out objective knowledge, then you must consider with equal weight what is "subjective" knowledge, for that would replace objectivity in the event of the latter's impossibility. An earlier poster questioned whether so-called "subjective" knowledge would be "belief". I don't see this "subjective" knowledge as merely belief because no knowledge can ever be simply equated with the term 'belief' and that alone. This belief must be accompanied by something more to be classified in such a way. Subjective knowledge then must be true in a subjective way. That is, a relativist about truth would call all knowledge "subjective knowledge"; it is indeed impossible for objective knowledge to exist when truth cannot be objective. While both objective and subjective knowledge would require belief, then, the only difference comes in a disagreement regarding truth. ilovemarx wrote: To understand something you need to rely on your experience and culture. Does this mean it is impossible to have objective knowledge? What Cuthbert describes in the earlier post is to argue for an objective standard of truth, that certain things correspond to reality and that language, experience and culture are irrelevant to those objective facts (Bush as the US President) because they only serve as pathways to these facts. reincarnated wrote: To say that (subjective) knowledge is just the same as belief is a trivial truth - it IS a belief. On the JTB definition of knowledge, objective knowledge, imho, is impossible. Even if truth is objective and the so-called knowledge is based on that objective truth, one may still say that "belief" implies subjectivity and that no knowledge then can be objective. The British professor Colin Radford came up with a good counterexample of knowledge without belief in the 1960's: suppose that (A) Alabama became a state in 1819. Suppose then that (1) Johnny does not believe that (A) because he is unsure, or he does not think that he knows, but that (2) Johnny knows that (A) because someone confirms what he thought was only a guess was right, and Johnny realizes that he knew it all along but did not believe his answer. Thus, knowledge without belief (or "justified truth") is possible, and following that if the objective condition of truth is satisified, objective knowledge is possible, even in the rare cases as the one described by Radford's example. Edited by The_Rational_Animal on 05/04/08 - 02:05 PM
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reincarnated
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Posted 05/03/08 - 10:45 PM:	#6
The_Rational_Animal wrote: suppose that (A) Alabama became a state in 1819. Suppose then that (1) Johnny does not believe that (A) because he is unsure, or he does not think that he knows, but that (2) Johnny knows that (A) because someone confirms what he thought was only a guess was right, and Johnny realizes that he knew it all along but did not believe his answer. Thus, knowledge without belief (or "justified truth") is possible imho, in the example above Johnny did not in fact "know" that A prior to being told that A. He guessed that A, he did not believe that A. He made a lucky guess, but a lucky guess, even if the guess turns out later to be correct, does not count as knowledge - unless and until the guess is confirmed correct (and it subsequently BECOMES knowledge by virtue of the justified belief that it is correct which follows from the confirmation of correctness). Think about it - how can someone profess to have knowledge that X, if they do not at the same time believe that X? It's non-sensical. If Johnny claims to know that A, we can reasonably ask him how he came to know that A. If his answer is "well, I just guessed", we can ask how does he know that his guess is correct? The answer, of course, is that he does NOT know his guess is correct (unless and until someone TELLS HIM that his guess is correct). It is at this point (when he is given the information that his guess is correct), and NOT BEFORE, that Johnny acquires knowledge that A. Once he is told (by someone whom Johnny believes is knowledgable in such matters) then Johnny has a "justified belief" that A, whereas he had NO "justified belief" that A prior to being told that A. Thus, knowledge is not possible in absence of justified belief Edited by reincarnated on 05/03/08 - 11:05 PM
_____________________ �If one pays attention to the concepts being employed, rather than the words being used, the resolution of this problem is simple.� (Stuart Burns)

The_Rational_Animal
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Posted 05/04/08 - 02:24 PM:	#7
reincarnated wrote: He guessed that A, he did not believe that A. He made a lucky guess, but a lucky guess, even if the guess turns out later to be correct, does not count as knowledge. I guess that is a definitional matter of knowledge. reincarnated wrote: - unless and until the guess is confirmed correct (and it subsequently BECOMES knowledge by virtue of the justified belief that it is correct which follows from the confirmation of correctness). "Confirmed correct" where exactly? In reality or in Johnny's head? This fact (A) is objectively true (I know because I looked it up on Wikipedia). My original post said that objective knowledge is possible IF AND ONLY IF "justified truth" is the correct view of knowledge AND objective truth is considered. Thus, truth cannot be "confirmed correct" in somebody's mind to change it from not-knowledge to knowledge. Whenever epistemologists talk about "truth" (which is rarely, by the way), it is not be the subjective truth standards that the OP proposes. reincarnated wrote: If his answer is "well, I just guessed", we can ask how does he know that his guess is correct? The interesting thing in this thought experiment is that the fact in question, (A), is something Johnny knew all along and did not guess upon, only that he did not know that he knew it. He did not believe that he knew it. So, in fact, we're looking at a second stratum of knowledge, one where JTB applies (level 1) and one where only JT applies (level 2). Level 1: I do not know (A) because I do not believe that I know (A). This first level is in his conscious, before being told that his suspicions about (A) are, in fact, correct. Level 2: I know (A) because I feel like (justification) I know it's true (truth). Or in other words, Johnny has a subconscious suspicion/justification that he knows he is correct, yet he has engaged in enough self-deception to trick himself into not believing that he knows (A). This is where disagreements about this argument occur most times. I happen to disagree with this thought experiment in level 2, where justification can be based on "feelings" and "suspicions". I don't see this internalism as a reliable method of epistemic justification. Edited by The_Rational_Animal on 05/04/08 - 02:29 PM
_____________________ "Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong." ~Ayn Rand

unenlightened
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Posted 05/04/08 - 03:42 PM:	#8
The truth is famously 'out there', but knowledge, as we normally use the term is not a thing (object) but a property of a person. It does not quite make sense to talk about knowledge that no one has. You do not know any more than I care to tell you about the pain in my finger where the tendon broke a few weeks ago; this is subjective knowledge, though I can assure you it is quite certain. Objective knowledge is shared, publicly verifiable knowledge, such as the fact that I can write a sentence in English. This is English I'm writing, not American isn't it? Part of the humility that philosophers may learn is the uncertainty of all their knowledge; I can be wrong, and we can be wrong. ilovemarx wrote: To understand something you need to rely on your experience and culture. One might say loosely, that experience is subjective knowledge, and culture is objective knowledge. At a time of the clash of cultures, or the decay of culture, or of rapid cultural change, (depending how you feel about it) confidence in 'objective' knowledge can be undermined; one loses one's place and starts talking as if there was a cultural nowhere from which to look at things - the point of view of the object? But perhaps behind the question is the desire for certainty, which is being named 'objective'. There is certainty, certainly, but it is of the moment. What I am quite certain of today, I may question again tomorrow. This is what makes it knowledge and not blind (to new evidence) faith.
_____________________ The observer is the observed. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

reincarnated
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Posted 05/04/08 - 09:40 PM:	#9
The_Rational_Animal wrote: I guess that is a definitional matter of knowledge. Of course – for any discourse to be meaningful we need to define the terms being used. My definition of knowledge is based on JTB. If you don’t agree with this definition, what do you mean exactly when you talk about knowledge? Are you seriously suggesting that you believe a “lucky guess” counts as knowledge? If I throw a die, and I guess that it will come up 6, and by chance it does in fact come up 6, are you suggesting that I had knowledge that it would come up 6 before the die rolled to a stop? The_Rational_Animal wrote: "Confirmed correct" where exactly? In reality or in Johnny's head? What is “reality” exactly? Justified belief exists only in the head. The confirmation can be in various ways – Johnny might read about it in a book, he might hear about it from a friend, or he might see it on a television documentary. If these sources of information are deemed by Johnny to be credible and reliable then Johnny develops a justified belief based on these sources. In absence of justified belief there is no knowledge; and a lucky guess in absence of justified belief is just that - a lucky guess. The_Rational_Animal wrote: Thus, truth cannot be "confirmed correct" in somebody's mind to change it from not-knowledge to knowledge. I am not talking about “truth” being confirmed correct – I am taking about a belief being confirmed correct. Confirmation is another way of saying justification – a belief must be both true AND justified in order for us to claim knowledge. The_Rational_Animal wrote: The interesting thing in this thought experiment is that the fact in question, (A), is something Johnny knew all along and did not guess upon, only that he did not know that he knew it. Please define knowledge in this context. I suspect you are using a very woolly definition. If you claim that Johnny "knew" all along then we can ask him how did he know? Where did his knowledge come from? What would his answer be? Since you claim that he did not know that he knew, the only possible answer must be "I have no idea how I knew that". How can we possibly claim knowledge if we possess information but we have no idea where the information came from or whether we believe it is true or not? Can you explain the difference between this and a "lucky guess"? Edited by reincarnated on 05/04/08 - 09:49 PM
_____________________ �If one pays attention to the concepts being employed, rather than the words being used, the resolution of this problem is simple.� (Stuart Burns)

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