Questions tagged [knowledge]
Knowledge is a familiarity with someone or something, which can include facts, information, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education.
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Logic as an obstacle to knowledge
Has there been any philosopher making an argument along the lines that logic is an obstacle to knowledge about the world?
The informal argument could go something like: logic is created by humans (...
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Can moral truths be known a priori or are they based on experience?
I am currently working on an essay that explores the concept of a priori knowledge and whether or not it can exist. I would love to hear any thoughts or opinions on this topic that anyone may have.
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Can, "This problem is unsolvable," be used to formulate the first incompleteness theorem in erotetic logic specifically?
Assumptions/definitions: the Gödel sentence is informally equivalent to, "This sentence can't be proved in system X," where X is appropriately specified. Since that sentence can itself be ...
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Given I have no moral knowledge, can I still know what the best course of action is?
Given I have no moral knowledge, can I still know what the best course of action is? Do moral non-cognitivists or error theorists know that they shouldn't steal the car, that they should go buy milk, ...
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Epistemic failure and blaming others [closed]
It seems we have epistemic responsibilities
To be responsible is to be the proper object of one or more of the
normative rather than evaluative attitudes, namely praise, blame, or
neutral appraisal. ...
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Would a "disagreement operator" break down if iterated too much?
Let D(S) read as, "I disagree that S." It is possible to iterate this, so that DD(S), "I disagree that I disagree that S." Then we can go on to DDD(S), and so on. (For a peer-...
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Is the unlearned nature of language a la Chomsky a way back into logical empiricist epistemology?
***I'm struggling to erect the supports of this question because of lack of knowledge, I hope that it makes sense and is useful and appropriate for this site.
I'm hoping there's a form of logical ...
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How do we use topology to model knowledge?
The topology of knowledge: In this application, topological spaces are used to model the structure of knowledge, where the open sets correspond to coherent bodies of knowledge and the closure ...
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Is scientific knowledge personal or general?
This question was considered off topic in "History of science and mathematics". According to a comment by Alexandre Eremenko it belonged to philosophy.stackexchange.com. I don't understand ...
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Is the temperance resulting from the socratic maxim "know thyself" always about knowing others?
I was just thinking about what good 'know thyself' means. There is something arguably narcissistic and unnecessary - or at least self absorbed - about examining your life just to know your own flaws ...
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Lumen naturale, Lumen gratiae, Lumen fidei, what are they?
Unfortunately, I'm unable to locate a good source to cite on these terms you see in the question title.
Below is a short abstract based on Google.
Natural light (lumen naturale), equivalent to lumen ...
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When I present information (to myself or others), e.g. by making a statement, is this accompanied by another statement, that what I said is true?
When I make a first-order claim like, "The sky is cloudy right now," is this claim implicitly accompanied by a second-order claim like, "What I just said is true/not a lie"? Or ...
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How should I define the problem of skepticism and the criteria for its solution?
I am writing an epistemology essay on whether a particular theory solves the 'problem of skepticism'. I am familiar with the skeptical paradox, but I am not sure exactly how to define what a solution ...
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I want to start reading more into philosophy, what should i start out with
I have some stoic books by Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius and some Kant and the myth of Sisyphus, but I don't know where to go now.
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Are logical truths a subset of facts which in turn is a subset of possible truths?
Are logical truths (those that are true in all possible interpretations) a subset of facts (known via observation in our reality)? Are facts a subset of possible truths(satisfiable)? Where do axioms ...
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Knowing that they know that you know that they know
Suppose there are two spies, A and B. There is also a secret, s. The following situation unfolds:
(1) A learns s.
(2) B learns that A knows s.
(3) A learns that B knows that A knows s.
(4) B learns ...
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Human Knowledge definition and architecture [closed]
Hello Every one I'm really determined to understand what is human knowledge and its main fields. For me knowledge is the must important concern for humanity. I read some books and the one who really ...
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How do we know (i.e. justify our belief) that time exists without "proving too much"?
How do we know that time exists?
This is a complex question.
First, we cannot make sense of a question like this without first establishing what we mean by knowledge.
For convenience, let's pick the ...
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What does Plato think about blindness and knowledge?
Does Plato though similar to that of Aristotle about blindness? Does he think blindness and memory and knowledge are linked? What kind of knowledge? If not, why? How blindness is used in Plato’s work ...
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What does Aristotle think about the relation between blindness, knowledge and memory?
I’m trying to understand Aristotle’s views on blindness, as given in these passages:
"just as the blind remember better, being released from having their
faculty of memory engaged with objects ...
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Intersection of the Gettier problem and knowing-what or knowing-how
From what I can tell, it seems like the Gettier problem comes down to Smith not knowing that the man who has ten coins in his pocket is going to get the job. What about Smith knowing what the ...
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How many "degrees" of knowledge is conceivable?
Not sure if this is the right place for this, but there's something I've been pondering about and can't wrap my head around.
Say person A knows something, that person B does not. Let's call that the ...
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Can we doubt all knowledge?
Can we doubt all knowledge from all sources (perception, reports, and reason)?
Regarding doubting reason, reason can't be proven, it is preceived and judged instantly by our logic, but what if our ...
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Why don't we approach the problem of knowledge as "that what we do NOT ignore"? [closed]
There is a long tradition trying to approach knowledge as a true and justified belief (The Tripartite Analysis of Knowledge . Recently, Gettier(1963) just showed that we need more than those 3 ...
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To obtain knowledge must we acquire specific other knowledge first?
It would seem obvious we must acquire some knowledge before other knowledge. I want to emphasize specific prior knowledge though. I don’t want to just say to get to Paris you just travel through an ...
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Is it ever appropriate to say a phenomenon is unexplainable?
Scientific research involves the investigation of difficult problems, and constantly tries to explain the unknown through observations and logical reasoning.
Take a situation like finding a cure for ...
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A question on knowledge as justified true belief
I am not a philosophy student and I have a question on the term "justified" in the definition of knowledge.
Suppose that I have some reasons for justifying a proposition. Is it necessary ...
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Does Bayesianism not have a concept of knowledge, given that belief is partial and not categorical?
If Bayesianism replaces the categorical belief of former analyses of knowledge with a quantitative notion of partial belief, does Bayesianism have a concept of 'knowledge' at all?
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Gradations of epistemological categories
For my philosophy discussion group, I am looking for real life examples that would fit the above illustration. What would be some good examples?
Data is a collection of facts, while information puts ...
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Examples of "a priori knowledge" in Kant
What are some good examples of a priori knowledge that must exist independent of experience and transcend it? How can we be certain that such is indeed a priori?
The example Kant mentions in the ...
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Assumption about the existence of "knowledge a priori" by Kant
I am just starting to read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason translated by Max Mueller. In the introductory chapter, "General truths, which at the same time, bear the character of an inward ...
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Does knowledge require consciousness?
Does knowledge require consciousness for the entity that knows? In other words, is it the case that only conscious entities can know things? I was led to ask this question by considering whether or ...
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Truth vs Knowledge
I'm a little confused when philosophers speak of truth and knowledge. Is there any meaningful difference between truth and knowledge in epistemology? Or are they really the same thing, since false ...
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As humans, do we require a total understanding of information to fully embody it as knowledge?
As humans, do we require a total understanding of information to fully embody it as knowledge?
Is the underlying mechanism of the act of knowledge dependent on a complete understanding of theories, ...
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Information(matter or energy)
What is information? Is information matter or energy or neither but how can neither be possible. If we assume it to be either matter or energy then it must be following the laws of conservation. If ...
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What resemblance is there between Moksha and Nirvana?
Both Moksha and Nirvana are said to free oneself from the cycle of reincarnations/samsara. Other than this soteriological goal, do they have any resemblances?
And how does/can one know in which path (...
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Can knowledge exist that humans are incapable of understanding? [closed]
This question has its origin in a debate/thread about gods, mysterious ways and "gods plan" as in "can god communicate his plan to humans".
This is not a question about a single ...
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Truth/actuality as an operator
Frege claimed that "it is true that" adds nothing to the actual meaning of an assertion, and following him along this line are prosentential theories of truth. However, I wonder if this is ...
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What is the relation between narratives and knowledge?
It feels like narratives and knowledge are two related concepts that would appear in some sort of diagram, but I have never seen such a diagram and I'm not sure exactly what the connection between the ...
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Something similar to The Knowledge Argument which works within Physicalism?
Here is The Knowledge Argument according to SEP (Mary is either monochrome or views the world through monochrome monitor):
(1) Mary has all the physical information concerning human color vision ...
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Philosophy of understanding
Is there any good text of philosophy that describes or investigates how understanding or knowledge happens? Something on the lines of heuristics. I have read a book called How to Solve it by G. Polya ...
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Is Martin Scorsese guilty of no true scotsman?
Genuine Question: When Martin Scorsese criticised the Marvel Cinematic Universe and directly said that they were theme parks not cinema, was that an example of the no true Scotsman fallacy?
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Knowing the laws of the universe but not its total state or ontology, what does philosophy have to say?
Since GR but also in special relativity and QM we can have laws, yet never access to the total physical state of the universe at any time. And that the ontology of science, the physical, is changing ...
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Does the self change iff there is a change in knowledge? [closed]
While still being distinct terms. And is there a term for this? Hope that’s enough to go on!
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How can we know (with absolute certainty) that our logic is correct?
How can we know (with absolute certainty) that our logic is correct?
Even statements like Descartes’ “I think therefore I am” relies on our logic: that I exist is a logical consequence of my ...
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A proposal for the meaning of life [closed]
I propose that the meaning of something is "all of the information related to it", and thus that the meaning of life is "all of the information related to life" - all of the causes ...
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How can we classify and differentiate sources of information for humans?
I was always taught in elementary about the primary, secondary, and tertiary sources of information. However, as I ponder about it I thought in a scenario of the game "pass the message" ...
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Axiom 4 in epistemic logic
In epistemic logic, axiom 4 says that if I know p, then I know that I know p. What is the philosophical value of such an axiom?
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Are there scholarly works on philosophy of language treatment of the Gettier problem?
I found two essays on a kind of response to the Gettier problem. One is a Philosophy Now article, and another is a blog post. On both sources, they argue that Smith's belief (on the original Gettier ...
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According to Logical Positivism, why is it that for a statement to be meaningful, its contradiction must also be meaningful?
I am trying to understand the argument for the supposedly paradoxical nature of the verifiability criterion. The argument goes as follows:
Suppose that the principle of verifiability is itself ...
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