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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Rigorous Mortis
Message-ID: <1721@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 17-Sep-85 15:40:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1721
Posted: Tue Sep 17 15:40:50 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 18-Sep-85 04:23:04 EDT
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> Look, I didn't say that there was something in that definition which said
> that there was such a thing as subjective knowledge, either. However there
> are things which are true but impossible to verify. The statement ``laura
> creighton is hungry''  happens to be true, but assuming that you are
> a persistent skeptic I can never convince you that I am not lying. To me,
> of course, the truth of this knowledge is self-evident. [LAURA]

If I was really seeking serious proof that you were hungry, I could certainly
find an objective way of verifying it.  Of course, it would take a lot of
data.  It would take an analysis of the current state of your digestive system,
knowledge of how long it's been since you last ate (sometimes the brain simply
wants food as a sensation experience without actually being hungry), and
data on the break points at which your body sends messages that your require
food.  I doubt we have the capabilities to gather all of that (if we did,
it might be at the expense of your life, anyway).  Do you have a better example
of this?  (Fact is, sometimes the problem with obese people is that they
feel "hungry" without chemical motivation for that feeling, and thus eat too
much.)

>>You can't just stick in the word "true" in that corollary just because you
>>feel like it.

> No, but most epistemological definitions of ``knowledge'' imply that
> knowledge is true, whereas belief can be true or false. If what you
> are saying is that all knowledge must be objective knowledge (that is
> to say that subjective knowledge does not exist) then you are a hard-line
> objectivist. The question to ask hard line objectivists is ``how do you
> know that your definition of knowledge is true?'' I maintain that it is
> self-evident.

By definition, you are saying, it is only to be called knowledge if it is
certain to be true.  At bottom level, true knowledge IS self-evident,
representing a consistently accurate model of the world.  Subjective beliefs,
very often, do not stand up to that scrutiny, and are not "self-evident"
at bottom level, but rather self-contradictory.

> But those things that are self-evident are true in a way that is verified
> differently than those things which are objectively true.

Not at all.  If you get to the bottom level, they are verified in exactly
the same way.  Often, we choose not to go to the root level, and assume
the veracity of certain things, owing to the tediousness of a redundancy
we feel is not worthwhile in every case.  That of course leaves us very
open to being out and out wrong.
-- 
Anything's possible, but only a few things actually happen.
					Rich Rosen    pyuxd!rlr


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