Does a belief need to be necesarily true to constitute "knowledge"

Question

In a recent answer to a post, @Ted Wrigley posited that a belief [his own] that is not necessarily true, is not “knowledge in the exacting sense of the term.” (last paragraph of this answer) An astoundingly high criterial bar. Does this mean that in order for a belief or proposition to constitute knowledge [“in the exacting sense”] it must be necessarily true; that only tautologies and logical truths constitute knowledge, again, “in the exacting sense.” (As well, one would assume, as Kant's synthetic a priori and Wittgenstein's hinges/normative "rules," to the extent they can be considered to be truth evaluable.)

How can this be squared with Quine’s observation that it is simply wrong to assume that there is a class of statements which are in principle “immune from revision” in light of experience – that is, that are necessarily true. Because only non-existent necessary truths constitute knowledge [in the exacting sense], is it any wonder that we are inextricably ensconced in what has come to be known as a “post-truth” world?

Answer 1

As I see it — and keeping in the Wittgensteinian vein — The difficulty we have here is that the term 'knowledge' is vaguely defined across a number of language games, and it's rarely clear which language game we're playing when we invoke it. That causes confusion.

So allow me to go ahead and deconstruct this topic, to see where we end up. When we talk about 'knowledge,' we generally want knowledge to express 'truth.' This is the rationale behind the 'justified true beliefs' paradigm. But 'truth' is a problematic concept. 'Truth' (with a capital 'T', meaning the strongest version of the concept) is something close to a Platonic form: universal, a-temporal, irrevocable, and irreducible. 'Truth' in this abstract sense is a matter of metaphysics that we have no direct access to. We can presume that the Truth 'is out there' with proper X-Files sensibilities, but we will inevitably Mulder and Scully ourselves trying to get a handle on it.

For example, if I claim that the following statement is 'True':

1+1=2

What I mean is that in any time, place, or context — e.g., the modern US, ancient China, 25th century France, even on an alien planet in a different universe — if we have one of something and a different one of something, and we put them together, we will have a two somethings. But then, of course, I have to realize that while this equation may always be 'True' within the mathematical domain of arithmetic, not everything in the universe is subject to the rules of arithmetic. For instance, if we have one container of water and another container of water and we pour them together, we still only have one container of water (now containing twice the volume). If we have one apple and one orange and we put them together, we do not have two of anything (unless I switch conceptual frames and start talking about fruit).

The point here isn't to quibble with the nature of arithmetic; the point is that 'Truths' are generally only 'true' within bounded domains. We can say that 1+1=2 is a 'truth' so long as we understand that it is true for a particular type of thing: countable, indivisible, immutable objects of a uniform type. If we understand the boundaries, then we can say the claim is 'true', and we have something we can call 'knowledge.'

This is the case even for ridiculous claims. For instance, if I say:

"Purple-striped unicorns are superior to pink-speckled unicorns"

no one would dignify calling that 'knowledge' unless there were a particular context — say a board game or child's TV show — which provides boundaries for that claim. If there's (say) a children's TV show called 'Ultimate Unicorns' in which the purple-striped unicorn shoots a laser out of its horn while the pink-speckled unicorn sneezes up healing mucus, then my claim has truth-value within that context, and we can have a fiery, meaningful debate about whether lasers are 'superior' to healing mucus.

But notice how the nature of 'truth' has changed here. Truth is no longer 'universal, a-temporal, irrevocable, and irreducible' but exists only within a frame of reference (be it arithmetic objects or a particular TV show). And these particular frames of reference happen to be well-delimited. I can specify which objects are subject to arithmetic and which are not; I can specify that we are speaking about a particular show. Can we do the same for other contexts? Can we specify the boundary conditions for physics, climate science, ethics, aesthetics? Even physics clearly stops working at certain point — event horizons, the beginning of the universe, at the quantum level — but the exact boundaries of applicability are still something of a mystery.

Without precise conceptual boundaries, the notion of 'truth' starts to fall apart. Either we make the leap and assert a Platonic ideal of 'Truth,' or we are forced back to mere justified belief.

So now if we can go back to the main point, we can tease apart knowledge and truth, seeing that 'knowledge' has at best an asymptotic relationship to metaphysical 'Truth'. Then we no longer have to use 'knowledge' in the exacting sense of the term — meaning we no longer have to make Platonic assumptions — and merely need to recognize the relationship between claims and boundary conditions that produces practical knowledge.

Answer 2

This is an excellent question gonzo, and it highlights a major problem in contemporary philosophy. Supporting Ted Wrigley, is the SEP entry on knowledge, which agrees with him: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/#TrutCond

1.1 The Truth Condition

Most epistemologists have found it overwhelmingly plausible that what is false cannot be known. For example, Hillary Clinton did not win the 2016 US Presidential election. Consequently, nobody knows that Hillary Clinton won the election. One can only know things that are true.

However, as you note, pretty much everything we "know", including the existence of the physical world, other minds, and logic proofs, WE COULD BE WRONG ABOUT! Hence, since we can't know "truth", this standard for knowledge appears to be a null set.

Pragmatically, basically everybody treats "very well supported" as good enough to approximate truth. But as you point out, this is abandoning actual "truth" as a standard for knowledge.

Answer 3

Maybe first we might apply a certain amount of charity in our interpretation of Ted’s statement?

The binding of the “don’t necessarily” in your quote strikes me as looser than I think you’re taking it. A charitable reading would say that Ted is suggesting that “false beliefs fail to count as knowledge, and this might be the case of some things that would otherwise count if they were true”, as opposed to “beliefs that might be false fail to count as knowledge in all circumstances, even if they contingently are true”.

The latter seems, as you say, too strict a requirement on knowledge in the face of uncertainty. The former, though, seems reasonable - false beliefs aren’t knowledge, even if believing them can be reasonably justified. Nobody can ever know that Nick Clegg was the British Prime Minister, even if we might tell some story about how they could quite honestly and genuinely have come to that conclusion.

Answer 4

The classical definition of knowledge, going back to Plato, is "justified, true belief." Some of the typical attacks on this revolve around what is "justified", what is "true" and what is "belief."

In this case, I think there may be some ambiguity as to what is meant by "necessarily true." Do we mean a "necessary truth," something which cannot be other than true? Not all philosophers believe these exist, and I'm not personally aware of any that argue that only necessary truths can undergird knowledge. Or do we mean that its truthfulness is "necessary" to it being considered knowledge? That much is entailed by the classical definition.

Answer 5

If you are talking about factive knowledge, yes. If not, no.

Factive knowledge is by definition knowledge that has to be true in order for it to be knowledge. "Factive" is simply the type of knowledge such that, if someone knows that p, then p (of course if p is true, then p is truth-apt). The traditional Platonic definition of knowledge is as factive knowledge.

Non factive knowledge can be knowledge without being true, for example the scientific knowledge of Newton is called so, even though his theory was false and has been superseded.

This is just a matter of definition. This is just to have two concepts of knowledge, so that we can say that Newton had scientific knowledge without commiting to deem it true (Newton's knowledge of Newtonian mechanics was non-factive knowledge).

An example of factive knowledge is the knowledge that 2+2=4. We can confidently say that it's factive knowledge because we see no way in which it could be false. Although, if it turns out that it is false, then we would know that it was non-factive knowledge all along.

I suppose these definitions can be used with any theory of truth.

What entitles the believer to claim that their belief is true (besides the evidence) is the need to avoid pragmatic contradiction. It would be a pragmatic contradiction to claim "p" and to claim at the same time: "I don't know that p is true" (see Van Fraassen for the concept of pragmatic contradiction). It is not Newton who is saying that his knowledge was only non-factive, it is us saying it.

But in your question I believe you are mixing two completely different things: i) the necessity of a proposition being true in order for it to be known, and ii) the necessity of it being necessary.

If it is true that my mom's name is Jane, then its knowledge is factive knowledge. But of course my mom could have been named something else.

Answer 6

Knowledge is just information, so, not necessarily, just if the belief is false, then the "knowledge" is also false and if we process false knowledge, we will have false results

If you have undoubtable proof then you have "true knowledge", you have truth, otherwise you might have "false knowledge", in case your knowledge is false, does not mean you do not have knowledge at all, you just have knowledge that is not the truth, it might not be the truth, but you still know it, you have that information, but that means you don't know the truth, you know the lie, you still know something related to the subject you examine if your knowledge about it is true or false