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From: laura@l5.uucp (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Rigorous Mortis
Message-ID: <103@l5.uucp>
Date: Tue, 10-Sep-85 07:25:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: l5.103
Posted: Tue Sep 10 07:25:42 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 12-Sep-85 12:09:59 EDT
References: <344@decwrl.UUCP> <1652@pyuxd.UUCP>
Reply-To: laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Organization: Ell-Five [Consultants], San Francisco
Lines: 35


Rich, I think that one of your assumptions is the standard objectivist [Note
Small ``o''] definition of knowledge:

This can be formulated many ways. The way I like best is:

	Knowledge is true belief in the light of sufficient evidence.

Note that this says nothing about what the sufficient evidence is. What it
says is that if you have sufficient evidence for your belief then you have
something called knowledge (which is also true.)

Note that while it is possible [at least in theory] to only have beliefs
which are consistent with this model, it is not possible to use this 
definition to test itself absolutely. The best you can do is demonstrate that
this model is not inherantly inconsistent.

This  property of consistency can be had in other models. Consider

	Knowledge is everything that is written in the Book of Truth.

Where the first line of the Book of Truth is this definition of Knowledge.
Again, it is possible [at least in theory] to only have beliefs which are
consistent with this model.

However, I would tend to go with the first model, because I have never
actually seen anyone whose set of Knowledges did not also include the
first definition. There is no way that I can logically prove any more
than the consistency of believing in this, however.


-- 
Laura Creighton		(note new address!)
sun!l5!laura		(that is ell-five, not fifteen)
l5!laura@lll-crg.arpa