Knowledge, Belief and Justification

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Knowledge and Justification ‘Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding’ – Francois de La Rochefoucald ‘Where there is shouting there is no true knowledge’ – Leonardo da Vinci ‘Never assume the obvious is true’ - William Safire ‘Education is learning what you didn’t even know you didn’t know.’ –Daniel J. Boorstin Can you come up with a worthy quote about knowledge? ‘The criterion of truth is that it works even if nobody is prepared to acknowledge it’ –Ludwig von Mises ‘There are many who know many things, yet are lacking in wisdom’ - Democritus ‘The most important truths are likely to be those which… Society at that time least wants to hear.’ –W.H. Auden ‘Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity’ –Martin Luther King ‘A very popular error – having the courage of one’s convictions; rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack upon one’s convictions.’ -Anon ‘Shall I teach you what knowledge is? When you know a thing, to recognise that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to recognise that you do not know it. That is knowledge.’ -Confucius

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Presentation to IB Theory of Knowledge class.

Transcript of Knowledge, Belief and Justification

Page 1: Knowledge, Belief and Justification

Knowledge and Justification

‘Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which

reaches beyond their own understanding’ –Francois de

La Rochefoucald

‘Where there is shouting there is no true

knowledge’ – Leonardo da Vinci

‘Never assume the obvious is true’ -William

Safire

‘Education is learning what

you didn’t even know you didn’t know.’ –Daniel J.

Boorstin

Can you come up with a worthy quote about knowledge?

‘The criterion of truth is that it works even if nobody is prepared to

acknowledge it’ –Ludwig von Mises

‘There are many who know many things, yet are lacking in wisdom’ -

Democritus

‘The most important truths are likely to be those which…

Society at that time least wants to hear.’ –W.H. Auden

‘Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and

conscientious stupidity’ –Martin Luther King

‘A very popular error –having the courage of one’s

convictions; rather it is a matter of having

the courage for an attack upon one’s convictions.’

-Anon

‘Shall I teach you what knowledge is?When you know a thing, to recognise

that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to recognise that you do

not know it. That is knowledge.’ -Confucius

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What is Knowledge?

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Write down an example for each of the following:

Information

Data

Belief

Faith

Opinion

Wisdom

Knowledge

What are the differences between them?

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Three Types of Knowledge

1. Questions that have one correct answer. Example: ‘How many atoms of Hydrogen are there in a water molecule?’

2. Questions that have many possible answers but which require justification and reasoned judgments. Example: ‘What is the best way to counter the debt problem in the developing world’?

3. Questions that have no correct answer, but depend totally on the person answering the question. Example: ‘What is your favourite food?’

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For each of the following questions decide which of the three categories the answer

fits into.• How many planets are

there in the solar system?• When was the French

Revolution?• Is it wrong to kill?• What is the colour of the

nearest wall?• Does God exist?• Are you happy?• Is 1 + 1 always 2?

• Does violence on television contribute to violence in the community?

• Was Hitler a good leader?• Can a male Doctor know

more about childbirth than a mother of ten children?

• What is the name of the current monarch?

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What is knowledge?

We have seen a variety of different types of knowledge.

But how exactly should we define it?In order to try to answer this question, lets go

back to the most basic starting point for knowledge.

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False Beliefs

Identify something that you have been told, which you believed at the time, but which you now recognise as false.

How did you find out the truth?

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A conclusion that we might draw…

Possible conclusion 1:

Knowledge is True Belief

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But is this always the case?

Consider the following scenario…

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A man called Henry is driving through a prairie.

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During this drive, he passes a number of edifices.

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These resemble barns, but are in fact 2 dimensional cardboard cut outs, or fake barns.

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But Henry has been concentrating on the road, and happens not to look out of his window whenever he passes a fake barn.

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Henry and the Fake Barns

Henry continues to drive, and at one point glances out of his car window.

He sees a barn.But this is not like the

other fake barns, this is the only real barn

in fake barn land.

It is not a 2 dimensional card-board cut-out,

But a fully functioning barn.

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Henry and the Fake BarnsHenry doesn’t think much

about this. He thinks he sees a barn.But if he had looked out at any

other moment on his drive through fake barn land, he would have seen a fake barn, and believed that it was real.

Do you think Henry has knowledge of the barn that he sees?

There is a barn

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Henry and the Fake Barns

Henry clearly has a true belief –

But is this really knowledge?

What do you think?

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When Henry looks at the Barn, he sees a real barn, so his belief is true.

He believes that what he is seeing is a barn, so he has a belief, both of which are required for knowledge.

But we might hesitate before saying that he has knowledge because he is unaware of the fact that he is surrounded by fake barns.

We want to say that his knowledge lacks the necessary justification.

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Justification

It seems that Justification is an essential component of knowledge.

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A conclusion that we might draw…

Possible conclusion 2:

Knowledge is True, justified Belief

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This was what Plato thought…

“Knowledge is justified, true belief”

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Tasks:

1. Does the ‘justified, true belief’ definition fit out understanding of the term ‘knowledge’? Or does it wrongly include or exclude anything? Can you think of a situation where either:

• Someone might have justified, True, Belief, but we wouldn’t say they knew something?

• Or someone did not have justified, true, belief, but we would say they knew something?

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Edmund Gettier

Edmund Gettier wrote an article which provides several examples of examples of beliefs that are both true and justified, but that he claims we should not call ‘knowledge’

Cases of this sort are now called ‘Gettier-counter-examples’

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Validity and Justification

Perhaps we should not talk about certain knowledge – but rather about ‘weak’ or ‘strong’ justification.

For example, we might say that Henry had ‘poor’ justification for claiming to have knowledge that there was a barn on the prairie.

It was ‘poor’ because there was such a high chance of him being fooled as he did not know about the fake barns.

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Types of Justification

Intuition Sense perception

evidence reasoning

Memory Authority

Group consensus

Divine revelation

Task: Which do you think are a) the most and b) the least reliable forms of justification?

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Below is a list of dubious things that I might claim to know, and another list of reasons that I might give to support these pieces of knowledge. Match the reasons to the claims:

Knowledge Claims1. the sky is blue2. that 1+1=23. that it is wicked to murder a person4. that I have a fear of spiders5. that I went out for a run yesterday.6. that what the doctor said is true.7. that women are more emotional than men8. exactly what God wants of me9. that I am going to heaven10. that a lake is more beautiful than a sewage

works11. that I love my brother

JustificationValue Judgment

FaithMemoryAuthorityIntuition

Divine RevelationSense perception

LogicSelf-Awareness

Common KnowledgeInstinct

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A problem with Justification

Implications of having a belief:Belief

You think it’s true

You think it’s justified

• Justification is subjective.• This is problematic because

from the knower’s perspective there is very little to distinguish belief from knowledge, and arguments to the contrary appear circular,

• because they assume what they are attempting to prove.

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Some tentative Conclusions…

• Perhaps contrary to what you have so far found in your formal education, certainty and truth are not easily found.

• Justification is a matter of degree• However it is possible to begin making initial

definitions about what knowledge is. • ‘Justified true belief’ may not be fool-proof

but it is a positive step