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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Could 'cogito ergo sum' possibly be false?
I've heard it postulated by some people that "we can't truly know anything". While that does seem to apply to the vast majority of things, I can't see how 'cogito ergo sum' can possibly be false.
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What is the difference between knowledge and belief?
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 ...
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Are there any philosophers that argued for knowledge having intrinsic value?
Many (if not most) philosophers agree that knowledge has value. However, does it have intrinsic value, or is its value purely in its ability to affect things outside of the realm of knowledge? Are ...
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When given limited information, is the simplest solution that matches that information most likely correct?
Is there any basis in philosophy for the idea that when given limited information, the simplest solution that matches that information should be presumed correct or most likely to be correct?
For ...
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Is the concept of “knowledge” important for philosophy?
I learned the definition of “knowledge” of justified true belief. I wonder whether it is important in any branch of philosophy? If I think about information per se, this boils down to technical ...
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How can I develop my critical thinking skills?
I am a freshman engineering student going to college. I want to learn how to think critically and to become a critical thinker and a sharp arguer. I am interested in philosophy, because I am curious ...
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Was Locke right that analytic knowledge is vacuous?
According to Locke, it is impossible to obtain substantive knowledge from analytic propositions. Statements like "triangle has three sides" are analytic, but one cannot derive the Pythagorean Theorem ...
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How did Kant define knowledge?
A recent question about the Plato's formula K=JTB (knowledge is justified true belief) made me curious as to what Kant thought on the matter. In the prefaces and the Introduction to the first Critique ...
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Are all facts worth knowing?
It is generally considered beneficial to discover some scientific law or invent an object that is said to further the state of mankind. All inventions and scientific discovery hinges in some way on ...
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In what fundamental ways, if any, does Husserl break with Kant?
I've read only slim secondary works on Husserl some time ago, and recently started "The Crisis in the European Sciences." So far, the framework seems faithfully Kantian. Husserl, for example, ...
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Do machine learning algorithms have knowledge (if not justified true beliefs)?
By "machine learning algorithm" I'm referring to basic, primarily statistical, machine learning algorithms; for concrete examples consider simple classifier algorithms like SVM or Bayesian classifier ...
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Does languange somehow filter what we can know?
I've read a proposition somewhere: That our languange acts as a filter, allowing us to know certain things while making it impossible to know the rest(1). It seems that mathematics has some things ...
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How does Robert Nozick explain the Gettier problem?
Nozick agrees that the Gettier counterexamples to the JTB analysis of knowledge are cases where someone has a JTB but does not know. What is his explanation of what has gone wrong in those cases? ...
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What are the "essential/core" texts any student of philosophy should have read?
I'm really interested in Philosophy and want to learn more, so I'd like to read the main bodies of work that have built up the discipline of Philosophy. The reason being that if I read a modern text ...
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What are the critiques of the "we might as well assume it" solution to the problem of induction?
I'm curious whether the following proposed solution to the problem of induction has ever been discussed in the literature:
Either the future resembles the past or it does not resemble the past. If it ...
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How to distinguish between 'a priori/posteriori' and 'analytic/synthetic'?
What I think I know
A priori knowledge that can be gained by contemplating only the meaning of a statement's words.
A posteriori knowledge can be gained only by comparing a statement's meaning with ...
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The non-existence of Gettier problems in Indo-Tibetan epistemology
Reading the paper Gettier and Factivity in Indo‐Tibetan Epistemology the author claims at some point early in the paper that
There are two initial problems which make it difficult to compare ...
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Why is belief necessary for justified true belief?
In justified true belief it is said that for a person to know a fact it must be true, she must believe in it and she must be justified in believing it.
My question is: Is belief necessary? Why is the ...
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Can I know something but not be able to justify it to anyone else?
Can I know something but not be able to justify it to anyone else? I don't necessarily mean metaphysical puzzles, but everyday examples. If I cannot - and I know I cannot - prove to anyone else, all ...
user67675
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What exactly is the persuasive power behind Jackson's "Mary's Room" argument?
The knowledge argument (also known as Mary's room or Mary the super-scientist) is a philosophical thought experiment proposed by Frank Jackson in his article "Epiphenomenal Qualia" (1982) and extended ...
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What does "is true" mean in the phrase "a philosophical position is true"?
I have run into an online discussion about philosophies and world views (theism, atheism, humanism, nihilism, and all the other "isms") where phrases like "*ism is true" and "*ism is false" are used. ...
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How can I know that I am not immortal? [closed]
You think that you will die just because everyone dies. And you would like to know if you are immortal. How can you know if you are immortal or not?
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Did Kant come to believe that we have access to things-in-themselves after all?
Kant's position on things-in-themselves is often described Socratically, of them we know only one thing, that they are. However, in an old but apparently still popular history of philosophy book I ...
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What does it mean to know something?
Humans know trees. So do squirrels. Even though their mental concept of "tree" may be very different, I think we can agree that lots of animals recognise trees and have some sort of understanding of ...
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Does anyone have the missing page 57 of Nozick's dissertation?
I have painstakingly scanned (as in: put on a scanner to make a PDF) 352 pages of a hard copy version of Nozick's 1963 dissertation The Normative Theory of Individual Choice.
I don't have page 57.
I ...
user3164
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How many people can know a secret? [closed]
I'm not sure if this is a question with a clear answer, and if this is the correct stack to ask it, but is there a limit for how many people can know a secret?
An entire goverment can keep a secret, ...
user24831
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How much is our understanding of Kant's Categorical Framework (published in German in 1781) obscured by translation and basic semantics?
Upon reading about and later researching [1] Kant's famous Categorical Framework, which is included as a key part of his classic Critique of Pure Reason (1781), I am struck by aspects that are quite ...
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Is Truth the Primary Epistemic Goal?
There is broad agreement that knowledge is more than just true belief. What, though, must be added to true belief to get knowledge? According to traditional epistemology, two more ingredients are ...
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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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Isn't a Gettier case just lack of adequate justification?
As I understand it a Gettier case happens when there is a true belief that is justified but only by luck.
Common scenarios include
looking at a broken watch and it just happens to be the time on ...
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Is there a philosophical term or theory that defines or describes the idea of 'epiphany'?
I am new to the philosophy stack exchange, so please let me know if I need to clarify this question further. I am curious if there is a distinction made in philosophical fields between a typical step-...
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To what extent does our knowledge derive from the senses?
By tradition, the problem that dictates where our knowledge is derived divides from two philosophical circles; those who affirm that our knowledge of the world comes from our senses, such as David ...
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Can there be information without a "knower"?
I am trying to wrap my head around the principle of conservation of information as formulated by Leonard Susskind and others, which seems to me at first glance to be incompatible with the 2nd law of ...
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How does a realist account for causation between universals and particulars?
With respect to universals nominalists maintain that there are no universals and only particulars exists. Conversely, realists says that there are universals. Here is a sketch of an argument against ...
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What consequences has Locke's theory of knowledge had on modern political thought?
According to John Locke's notion of tabula rasa, there are no innate ideas in the mind. All human knowledge comes from sensible experience. Assuming this principle, it follows that there is no innate ...
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Have there been any attempts to "redo" epistemology without the factivity of knowledge?
Mainstream analytic epistemology seems to take for granted that for S to know p, p must be true. I do not share this intuition. It seems that to be properly internalist about knowledge, one can't ...
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What do atheists believe in? (in layman terms)
Issue
I travel quite a bit and am often asked about my religious beliefs. I am atheist. I found it hard for some religious (or spiritual) people (whatever religion) to accept the concept of atheism ...
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How does Husserl's "bracketing" secure a truly presuppositionless study?
I'm reading from an anthology of essays by and about Husserl (collected by Joseph Kockelmans):
More specifically, Husserl makes a strong argument against some of the internal problems of various ...
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Is it paradoxical to simultaneously assert that a proposition is true and that the speaker does not know it?
Is it a paradox to assert "1+1=2 is true, but I don't know it"? I just thought of this chestnut myself.
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Seeking the Source of an Aristotle quotation
Long ago I came across a statement by Aristotle, 'True knowledge is identical with its object'. I never came across it again and now wonder where I found it.
Is there an Aristotle scholar here who ...
user20253
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What is the current state of the Correspondence Theory of Truth?
Is the Correspondent Theory of Truth currently the most important way of thinking about the nature of truth?
What alternatives are important?
Is there a version of the Correspondent Theory of Truth ...
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How should we understand the oracle's dilemma in making a prediction?
Let's look at a thought experiment:
There is an oracle who has exact knowledge of the state of a deterministic universe, so her predictions about the universe's future have always turned out to be ...
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How can I solve my contradictory thoughts about the relevance of human knowledge?
I have been thinking about how much we can know and more importantly: which knowledge should be relevant to us? First I will explain my thoughts to you. They will end in a questionable conclusion for ...
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Philosophical assumptions underlying science
I am a medical student and have been interested lately in the foundations of the scientific research method I have been taught.
I've read that there is in fact no such thing as a unique scientific ...
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What does it mean to have a sense of geometry innate to us - if that is in fact the case?
Most people, if asked whether they know any geometry, will answer no; but most, if not all, can recognise a straight line, a right angle, or a circle; of course they will not be able to define them as ...
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Did Logical Positivism fail because it simply denied human emotion?
Did the denial of human emotion lead to the death of logical positivism?
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The Gettier problem
I've been looking for an explanation of the meaning of knowledge and I've come across this video on Youtube :
PHILOSOPHY Epistemology: Analyzing A
Knowledge #1 (The Gettier Problem)
[HD]
What I can't ...
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Wanted references to the Phillip K Dick Total Recall (1990) paradox
The movie Total Recall 1990 was inspired by the book "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" written by Philip K. Dick whose leading role was played by Arnold Schwarzenegger. The storyline is about a ...
user22051
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Are there formal theories for grouping different knowledge areas?
What do you know about the boundaries between different bodies of knowledge, e.g. bodies of science. I think it's a common question, e.g. "where's the boundary between mathematics and physics".
But ...
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Why is "the problem of criterion" problematic?
If I understand it correctly, the problem of criterion is essentially that you can only identify knowledge if you have the criteria for knowledge, but that you can only have the criteria for knowledge ...
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