Sometimes this image is used to explain what agnosticism is and how it's independent from belief:
It makes some sense but I still have confusion understanding it.
What is the difference between knowledge and belief?
Strictly speaking I believe definitive knowledge is never obtainable, as Karl Popper has convincingly argued.
Simply put; Karl Popper argued that there can always arise occasions where that, that which we hold to be confirmed knowledge (truth), will be falsified by a new observation.
In other words; what we accept as being knowledge is actually merely belief with a certain degree of perceived certainty. I say perceived certainty, as Popper argued that it holds no actual certainty value at all; it can merely be perceived as propositions that have consecutively been corroborated by evidence. But as stated before: only one observation that contradicts such a proposition, believed to be knowledge, could be enough to falsify it.
Therefor, I think we'd be wiser to classify different gradations of belief (and disbelief for that matter) on imaginary scales:
Irrational belief1--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--Rational belief2Irrational disbelief3--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--Rational disbelief41) Belief despite the lack of corroborating evidence
2) Belief due to overwhelming corroborating evidence
3) Disbelief despite overwhelming corroborating evidence
4) Disbelief due to the lack of corroborating evidence
Knowledge then, I think, should be considered that part of the first scale that leans towards the right end of the scale (rational belief), while keeping in mind that this knowledge is never definitive.
edit:
Perhaps this image, somewhat in line with your image, better demonstrates what I mean:
Knowledge is a particular kind of belief, one that has (or has more) evidence, and justified at that (of course there is the classic Gettier problem with this definition).
The picture you gave shows two axes, one from theism to atheism (the subject matter about what one knows/believes), and an orthogonal one or gnosis to agnosis, or what I take it, to be the degree of belief with gnosis being knowledge (certain belief) and agnosis being...
Well, that's the problem. What is that axis 'measuring'? Is it the certainty (which would presumably go from 'sure' knowledge to ...unsure. Is unsure knowledge the same as belief? I think of knowledge as one kind of belief, a very sure kind of belief, rather than in opposition to belief.
For the diagram, I'd say that the a/gnosis axis is really trying to quantify 'certainty'. At one end one is -very- sure of one's belief that a god exists (or doesn't). At the other, one is completely unsure of the statement.
My problem with this diagram is that is seems perverse to say 'I believe that X, but I am completely unsure of X'. Those seem contradictory. If you are completely unsure of X, then I would say you can't believe it. I guess one could be a theist and be unsure about it, but if one were -completely- unsure of it, then that wold just be an agnostic, directly in the middle, rather than being an agnostic theist.
The meta-lesson that I learn from this diagram is that a nice clean diagram does not necessarily exhibit coherent or consistent concepts.
Is the 'gnostic/agnostic' axis about a continuum between proof and faith? That might be a more orthogonal and coherent thing, but there's no evidence in the picture that that is the case.
Knowledge, of the kind you're asking about, I think, usually requires evidence and reasoning. In extreme cases where such knowledge doesn't require both evidence and reasoning, such as in parts of symbolic logic, knowledge requires only reasoning.
On the other hand, belief doesn't require any reasoning or evidence whatsoever.
If I know that the sun burns at, or around, a certain temperature, then either there exists some perceptual data as evidence of this, or some perceptual data exists which, along with reasoning, implies the sun as burning at, or around, that certain temperature. So, a claim of the sun burning at, or around, that certain temperature comes as sufficiently grounded.
On the other hand, if one believes the sun burns at a certain temperature, there might not exist any evidence or reasoning which grounds such a claim. One could believe something in one's sleep quite easily. Unless you believe dreams provide us with empirical information about the sun, I think this indicates beliefs as not needing evidence or reasoning. This isn't to say that no beliefs can get grounded via reasoning or evidence. Plenty of knowledge, also is believed (I know I have a hand, and I believe it too). However, no belief purely as a belief need get grounded via reasoning or evidence to qualify as a belief. Knowledge does need at least some sort of ground, and if a claim is not grounded via reasoning or evidence, then it comes as a strongly believed speculation at best.
Unfortunately I don't have any "atheist" or "agnostic" literature citations here, but as I recall reading "atheist" and "agnostic" literature they do seem to use the terms at least somewhat in that way.
The Wikipedia on "Descriptive Knowledge" says this: "The difference between knowledge and beliefs is as follows:. A belief is an internal thought or memory which exists in one's mind. Most people accept that for a belief to be knowledge it must be, at least, true and justified."
Broadly speaking, knowledge is objective truth while belief is subjective truth. That is, knowledge is typically thought to be that which is true independent of circumstance; it is universally true (non-contingent). Belief, however, is an idea or concept which is held as true to the individual who holds it, and not necessarily to anyone (or everyone) else.
It is, however, entangled with many other ideas and notions in philosophy and as such there is no simple definition that will wholly suffice in answering your question. See Epistemology {SEP}{Wiki}, PhilosophyOnline's article on knowledge and belief, Analysis of Knowledge from SEP as Joseph also points out, and (philosophical) Hermeneutics.
Suppose I flip a coin and don't look at it. I have no knowledge that the coin landed heads up. But I may choose to believe it landed heads up if I want to.
Interpreting your diagram:
Agnostic atheist: "I do not believe that a god exists. God might exist or might not, I don't know. Perhaps evidence might make me believe in the future, but right now, I don't."
Agnostic theist: "I choose to believe that a god exists by faith. I wouldn't consider this knowledge though, as I don't have rigorous evidence or proof."
Gnostic theist: "I know that a god exists. I have proof/evidence that I consider rigorous."
Gnostic atheist: "I know that no god exists. I have proof/evidence that I consider rigorous."
Knowledge
What is knowledge?
Knowledge could be a part of particular truth or universal truth.
When we are aware of knowledge from other source, we consider it as valuable facts that may be adapted for our own purpose relevantly. We consider knowledge as facts that have possibilities to be useful for us.
Failure on Knowledge
Belief
What is belief?
Belief must be considered as a part of a universal truth.
Belief is our assertion to knowledge. Belief is knowledge as universal truth that we accept.
We accept a knowledge as a belief and we share a belief as a knowledge to someone else.
Failure on Belief
The points are:
Knowledge is what possibly useful facts for us,
Where, a belief is an assertion of usefulness of a knowledge.
May be a knowledge is someone's belief, but what i believe for sure is a knowledge (knowledge is not always a belief, but a belief is always a knowledge)
Knowledge is useful or explanatory information. An item of knowledge need not be believed by anybody. For example, there is lots of knowledge in books, computer programs and even genes that nobody knows. The information is just as valuable and just as much in need of explanation as knowledge that happens to be believed by somebody. See "Objective Knowledge" and "Realism and the Aim of Science" by Karl Popper for more on this issue.
You aren't alone - far too many people get Belief and Knowledge confused.
A Truth is something grounded in reality - demonstrable either directly or via sound rational progress from direct evidence.
Any concept one considers to be true (which is not the same as a Truth) is a Belief. When that concept is a Truth, then that Belief is Knowledge.
Knowledge is based on evidence whereas belief does not need any evidence.
I think the "Knowledge hierarchy" is interesting in this case:
So let's get through it:
Data is only symbols / signs. Data comes from sensors. A simple example is the output stream a visual sensor produces. This sensor might be your eye and the data comes in the form of electrical impulses.
Information is data with context and interpretation. In the eye example that could be some structure: Your brain knows that the data it gets is grouped. What arrives at the same time is related; things that are closer together are related. From the different signals of single rod cells an image is formed. So information can only exist with data, but it is more.
I would define knowledge as an extrapolation of information. So you try find patterns in information with context. In the eye example I would say that knowledge is the following: You see the following image:
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Puppy.JPG
But without knowledge that has no further meaning. But you have seen that pattern before. And you have seen the pattern what happens next before:
You got this knowledge by combining lots and lots of information:
so you derived that "dog" is what these patterns mean. And as you know these patterns, you have compresses a lot of information and even more data: You can predict what can happen and what can't. Your predictions might not be always right, but they have to be right most of the time. How do you know they are right? Well, that's another question.
One questions that I think is interesting is:
Is knowledge always correct?
Well, I think here you will get problems with terms. I would call one of them universal knowledge and the other personal knowledge. The universal knowledge does fit to every information all the time. In that sense it cannot be wrong. But it is rather a theoretical construct. We only have personal knowledge as we only have limited data and therefore limited information. As our capacities to detect patterns are limited we also accept errors. So our knowledge has not to fit all information we get. We sometimes simply ignore information (Was that fish just talking? Nah, I have never seen that before. Let's ignore it.) or we actively try to get more information (Did the fish talk again? Probably somebody tried to fool me. Lets seek for hidden cameras.)
Humans have developed amazing abilities to get and share knowledge. A good strategy for checking if knowledge is useful / valid is falsification. For everything you know, there has to be some information that had the possibility to change your mind: "If XY happens, then my knowledge about Z is wrong.".
So much about knowledge. But what is belief?
Belief does not need any data / information / knowledge. When you ask religious people what you could do that would make them not belief in god any longer, you will get one answer: Nothing. No data / information can "remove" belief.
Colloquial meaning: I belief
Sometimes people say I belief when they are not sure about something. But that's something different.
Well, you asked what the difference was between "knowledge" and "belief" but then you went and brought Agnosticism into it and if we are talking about God then it is vital that we also make the distinction between "belief" and "faith".
Essentially, whether we're talking about faith in god, or just faith in something or someone else, faith can be considered as the ability to know something to be true without the need for any evidence or proof. This amounts to being able to treat something we are actually unsure of as if we are certain about it. This comes in quite handy in situations where, for example, we are unable to be sure of something before we are required to act.
A belief is any knowledge which is considered to have enough evidence in its support that it might as well be considered truth and so we choose to treat it as such until we become aware of evidence to the contrary. This is still faith, however it is faith in the knowledge that we consider to be the evidence which ultimately sways us... and as faith is knowing something to be true though we don't, as soon as you have any sort of "proof" then faith becomes belief - which we could also call knowing something to be true that we feel has a reasonable expectation of being true due to our knowledge of its past states over time and our faith in that knowledge staying valid and relevant when its pattern is projected towards the future. But that's kind of a mouth-full, so while it is both those things, belief is ultimately knowledge which we treat as true because our belief in the proof comes from our faith in the evidence.
Agnostics WOULD be outside of belief (in God, at least) because it is the very search for it. Or perhaps the wait for it. Agnostics have simply seen no evidence compelling enough for them to have want to have faith in it. Or rather, they have seen no evidence that they consider convincing enough to be proof and as such they have no belief in the matter. Yet. :)
Does that help? I didn't want to go TOO into it, after all. ;)
Knowledge means you have or know the or an information.
Belief is you know or believe or are convinced that something is exactly so and are ok with this enough that you are not actively engaging to oppose your own belief.
I would suggest that the right framing here is in terms of multiple dimensions of modal logic.
I can assert that the dog in front of me is brown. I can be certain or uncertain of his brownness. But if it were controverted, even if I were quite certain, it would not affect me deeply. I hold this belief largely in an alethic mode, as knowledge. All that matters about it is its degree of certainty.
I can also assert that he has a personality. I can again be certain or uncertain, but the answer holds more meaning. I talk to him. He knows that when I say 'OK', he has effectively made a request, and we are pursuing his agenda. But that is hardly proof. I am not altogether certain. Yet when that is controverted, it hurts -- I feel foolish. I do many things on the basis of his limited personhood that I would not otherwise do. I hold this belief in a doxastic mode, as an everyday belief. What matters primarily is the degree to which it informs my actions.
Finally, I can assert that hurting him is to be avoided. Again this can have both of the other dimensions, I can be uncertain, and I may or may not consider this when acting. But when I don't, it hurts in a different way -- I feel less valuable as a person. I hold this belief in a deontic mode, as a moral belief. What matters primarily is the degree to which I bear it as a duty.
To me, it seems that the assertion "There is no God" can clearly be held in each of these ways. The average person might actually hold it as an alethic assertion, like Montaigne, it might have no effect on their life, if it is their tradition, they go to Church anyway. The agnostic probably holds it as a doxastic assertion. They refuse to act as though there is a God, because it seems silly. I only consider those atheists who hold it as a deontic assertion, who feel driven for reasons of internal consistency to assert it with force.
Something is a belief, for me, only if it can have all three of these dimensions. Mathematical and scientific facts are not beliefs, because they are held strictly as knowledge. You act on them, but you do not choose to. Random observations that have no effect are not beliefs because they lack influence over action. Totally abstract points of logic are not beliefs because they might guide your deductions, but they do not influence your real judgment of right and wrong.
I believe my dog is brown, but it is not in this sense a belief. That he has a personality entails the fact that hurting him is wrong, so it becomes a belief.
Knowledge is a subset of true beliefs.
A belief is a mental state that may or may not refer to facts .
Truth and falsehood are properties of beliefs.
Facts can only be defined ostensively, e.g. "Paris is inside of France" is a fact.
True beliefs based on erroneous inferences do not count as knowledge, e.g. by looking at a stopped clock at the right time of day. A groundless belief is one that has no evidence whatsoever. A groundless belief can be true but nevertheless does not count as knowledge, e.g. a gambler's firm belief that he will win.
When one has no ground for supposing a proposition is either true or false, she or he suspends judgement. This is the position agnostics take. A person is called a sceptic if he or she does not believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it is true.
*More rigorous study uncovers endless doubt. See Bertrand Russell's Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits for details.
Short Answer:
Knowledge:
Belief:
Antitheist, doesn't believe in god and thinks theists/religion is something bad.
Conclusion:
'Addon-Secularism'
If you are Secular you believe that the state and religion should be separated.
The IS is an example of a group against secularism, I think there are even people in some 'first world' countries (USA) against a secular state. Map here
Knowledge is information digested by a sentient being that may be factual or the contrary or anything in between that can be recalled or factored with other knowledge to produce new knowledge. Knowledge is information which has been perceived by a sentient being able to later recall and consider it in any number of different ways.
Sometimes it is the derivative evaluations of experiences or the consideration of possibility which can result in new knowledge and epiphany's that open up new branch points and possibilities for consideration. Philosophy is certainly built upon the limbs and branches of such a tree.
Belief on the other hand is being convinced of the truth of particular knowledge without the requirement of facts and or evidence to backup the validity of that knowledge in reality or otherwise.
Belief is something that can punctuate both Science and Theology in the sense that the knowledge to explain phenomenon isn't a requirement to be convinced of it's validity and is as such subjective.
If the belief is related to phenomenon that can be proven to be consistent between independent observers and reproducible 100% of the time in controlled conditions, it is said to have become objective knowledge (possibly having originated from the subjective belief of an individual). This is what motivates most scientists to research specific problems for which there is no answer.
Belief without the necessity of explanation permeates much Theology and this could be defined as faith. The difference is that faith cannot be proven or disproven because it is subjective by it's very nature and therefore differs from individual to individual. It may disproven objectively (lacking proof or evidence to stand up to consistent reproduction of phenomenon related to said belief) or it may not be disproven at all because it does not include any phenomenon which manifests in objective collaborative space for the subjective believer to be convinced of it's validity.
Belief can pertain to concepts rather than measurable phenomenon as well such as a belief in prevailing good or bad (a concept of universal morality and possible duality). A belief in life (a concept of universal existentialism, sentience and mortality). A belief in death (a concept of immortality and staged progress of sentience).
It is safe to say belief can pertain to any knowledge whether experienced in reality or considered and imagined in the mind but never has the requirement of proof of possibility because it is subjective. When more than one person share the same belief, it still remains independently subjective and personal.
Oddly enough, one must be at peace of mind to be able to consider such ideas. For most of us that is between the challenges of living that we experience from day to day which again are different for us all. Chances are when we are asked the same thing under the duress of extreme stresses and under the torch, our answers might differ from those we come to while in a peaceful state. Perhaps what we truly believe is what we never fail to protect despite the cost to our person.
One is a statement that can be contemplated while at peace, the other is something about which that we will never give up. Perhaps that is the real sense of belief, though I might be mixing it up with determination.
I see it more convenient to reply to the question by using Kant's terms that describe knowledge by the properties of necessity and generality, rather than contingency and particularity; note that the latter properties suite the subjective state of belief. Although it is true that on reflection we see that 'actually' our knowledge states are incomplete and contingent, and even particular, if we want to distinguish knowledge states from again, belief ones we should take into consideration these properties of knowledge however 'perceived' (subjective) they could seem to us.
Therefore, this would be the difference between knowledge and belief, which suggests that knowledge is not reducible to belief, which in its turn, has immediate consequences for a JTB theory of knowledge.
To begin, we should be wary of the fact that the term 'knowledge' is used in different ways in colloquial speech, and is often the focus of highly contested political issues. 'Knowing' (in the understanding of the lay public) invokes existential security: to know something is to have a solid foundation on which further human action can rest. In the absence of knowledge people can become frightened, indecisive, and weak — they lose that firm foundation on which their actions might be based, and hesitate — and thus debates about what constitutes knowledge are (more often than not) thinly-veiled, aphilosophical attacks meant to undercut the political or social power of some disliked person, group, or institution. We should take care to segregate these political gambits from the proper philosophical question.
Philosophically speaking, the term 'knowledge' is best thought of as the systematic suspension of disbelief. When we say we know something, we mean that we accept a particular claim about the world without entertaining the possibility that it might be incorrect. This is broad definition of knowledge that only deals with the cognitive aspect (it is pre-epistemological), but what's important to note is that it is not affirmative — not a protestation of truth — but anti-disfirmative. Knowledge doesn't have to express itself as true, it merely rejects critiques and counter-assertions. When a claim is forced to affirm itself against critiques and counter-assertions, its status as knowledge is explicitly in question; it does not regain its status as 'knowledge' until the opposing arguments are put to rest and can once again be systematically ignored.
Of course, justifying such systematic suspension of disbelief analytically is a more complicated undertaking, and there have been several historical approaches to the problem. The three most prominent have been:
These are often held as exclusionary positions — I generally argue against that, since it's clear that each position necessarily invokes elements of each of the others — and they generally each have their unique ways of standing up against cynicist and nihilist arguments that seek to deny the mere possibility of knowledge or meaning. But it's through this common effort to try to systematically justify the suspension of disbelief that we can approach the religious problem laid out in the questions and start to understand what 'knowledge' means in each case:
Each group 'knows' by suspending disbelief in a dimension important to it; each group's 'knowledge' is mere belief to the other groups; everyone fails to recognize that disputes aren't mere matters of difference but cut down to the foundational bones of worldviews, bones that support and structure human action and understanding. It is not a simple problem by any means, and treating it as though it is does disservice to all.
There are two kinds of certainty people experience. The first is based on empirical evidence and the second is based on a moral commitment to a proposition, which is an existential act of the will. An example of the former would be the understanding that if I jump off a building, I will fall. An example of the second might be a conviction that the only way to repair the economy is to cut public services. Colloquially, we call the former kind of certainty "knowledge", and the latter kind "belief".
A claimed characteristic of "knowledge" is that it facts are open to falsifiability, whereas the facts of "belief" are generally not. (String Theory, for all its deep mathematical underpinning can be never be more than a "belief", because it is not - and never will be - falsifiable by any experiment we can perform, nor by any ladder of logic we can construct)
What this means with regards to the atheism/theism and gnosticism/agnosticism question is simply this: the first is a domain of "belief" about deities, and the second is simply a red herring put up by its proponents to help them understand their particular position, and perhaps to justify it to others. The self-evident truth however is that neither theists nor atheists know in any unfalsifiable way whether gods do or do not exist, and so they must all be agnostic on this point, despite any pretensions they might have to the contrary.
Thus, our fanciful quadrant must collapse to a single dimension of religious agnosticism. At one end are the evangelical atheists, and at the other are the evangelical theists. There are both idiots and luminaries to be found in both camps, and somewhere in the middle lies that vast stolid majority of the world's people - neither wholly convinced nor wholly unconvinced, neither wholly caring, nor wholly dispassionate: the truly agnostic agnostics.
Knowledge is a rational belief. A belief is rational if you can explain (to yourself) why your belief is true. An explanation is only valid if it is rooted in the belief in objective reality as its first premise.
In other words, knowledge is what we believe to be objectively true. Sounds simple, but there is a catch. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix Truth is. You can only "see" it for your Self.
Let me explain what it means. We think of and understand things by running a 3-dimensional simulation of that part of reality in our heads -- and that's the only way we can truly understand anything.
(and yes, you can say that knowledge is a function of time -- running the simulation shows how things evolve through time)
We can then use language to put what we "see" -- our simulation, our understanding -- into words, to compress a 4-D (space + time) model into its verbal description, and in that form, it can be communicated to others. This superpower puts our species in a class of our own. It allows us to share our understandings and/or experiences with anyone willing and able to work it in reverse, unpacking, from our words, a copy of our simulation in their heads -- until they can "see" what we "see", looking at things from our perspective.
That last step is critical. In Heraclitus' words, "learning many things does not teach understanding, -- because simply "listening" is not enough, but seeing is believing.
Or, quoting from John's Gospel, "and the light in the darkness shineth; and the darkness comprehended it not."
Or from Chandogya Upanishad, "Now that light which shines above this heaven, higher than all, higher than everything, in the highest world, beyond which there are no other worlds, that is the same light which is within man.
. . . .
He [who speaks of Truth] sees, thinks, understands, and knows everything as his Self. This whole world is his Soul"
