Intro to Epistemology #1: The Nature of Knowledge

[@kiwicoproductions2828]

I know you haven’t posted for years but I just wanna say I listened to this lecture when I was in college as an undergraduate and, almost 6 years later, I’m still re visiting it. Thanks again for your work!

[@HarishKumar-lu6fd]

Not sure why this was not discovered earlier or came in searches earlier. Very clearly explained. Albeit I had to reduce speed to 0.85 to absorb things properly. But a very properly and clearly explained concept. Thanks for same. And hope you resume posting more content.

[@PhilHelper]

Thanks again to all of you who posted below. You keep me motivated to keep pumping out these videos!

[@AlexTechNews]

+PhilHelper Would love to see more videos! These are some of the best epistemology vids on youtube. Time for #3b and beyond.

[@PhilHelper]

Sadly, #3b has all the video ready...its been on hold for over a year! I lost my audio recording equipment and I'm trying to get it back. Then I'll put things in gear again!

[@AlexTechNews]

Looking forwards! You might want to set up a little patreon setup too perhaps.

[@PhilHelper]

Sounds intriguing. But I'm not tech savvy enough to know what that is :-)

[@amadoudiallo1437]

very interesting to watch the video and also to learn the opinions of other individuals. extremely interesting.

[@osks]

Very nicely presented!

[@talhandaq13]

Useful intro with some cute graphic relief: perhaps you could speak just a little more slowly and have a few more pauses. But, hey, kind of you to upload. Looking forward to Gettier probs.

[@osks]

Very nicely done!

[@1bgrant]

Can mutual coherence be used normatively used as a proxy for a claim that can't objectively be proven? For example morality? Political views? Aesthetic judgment? Correspondence seems reasonably worthwhile but has the potential to be nihilistic with moral matters. Moral claims have tended to evolve with mutual coherence it would seem.

[@Duzziez]

Wow thank you for this video! It was so informative. It helps out in my epistemology class.

[@ANSIcode]

As someone who got on this topic looking for definitions of formal mathematical systems that don't use the notion of sets (I BELIEVE that I'm not crazy), I find this discussion to be extremely ambiguous. Without trying to determine to what extent that ambiguity could be resolved in principle, I still think a list of possible definitions for "belief" should not have been omitted at the start. All the people I bothered to ask for their definition of "belief" (about 15) stated that "any statement can count as a belief" (I then refrained from asking them for a definition of "statement") ; in any case that is without the need for a justification. Is there a motivation to define belief using justifications, "moral" considerations aside?

[@PhilHelper]

"Belief" is really hard to define. Louis Pojman's introduction to epistemology has an entire chapter dedicated to the topic at the very end of the book. Generally there are two ways of trying to tackle it. First, someone might define belief as a tendency or likelihood towards behaving a certain way. Second, you might define it as an internal attitude towards a proposition (or as Kierkegaard might say, "inwardness of appropriation"). It's a topic I think about a great deal, but I don't have many good answers. Check Pojman's excellent chapter for a thought provoking and clear introduction.

[@BrianVandrian]

I usually think of knowledge in terms of Set/Span/Realm and Probability (and the need for axioms). If I drop an apple from a tree basically it will drop at the same speed from anywhere in the world. If I go to a really high altitude, outer space, another planet etc this is outside the set, span or realm of the proposition (or have a malformed proposition/untruth). Also I can have a proposition that an apple is red at such and such a Probability inside of a set, span, or realm. Belief is just saying that for a particular set,span or realm of knowledge that the confidence factor or probability is not completely tested yet or able to be tested -and so inference (interpolating within weigh points in the set) or extrapolation (extending outside of the known set based on statistical trends) is necessary. Since we don't know everything, axioms are either given for all knowledge (can't prove), or the axioms can be derived from the sum confidence in the knowledge in the set of all knowledge (conscilience and also can't be proven). So either way axioms for the entire set of knowledge are beliefs. I m not sure if explaining this helps shed light on my befuddlement of a lot of the stuff epistemology is talking about in the few videos I have watched.

[@tingoorensis]

Keep it up please Phil. Personally I think your presentations are very valuable.

[@Z-man1]

Thanks for these lectures.

[@waynecamino]

These videos are great, thank you so much!

[@vectorshift401]

Propositional knowledge is an idealized concept that assumes that there is some way to obtain "sufficient" justification which will ensure the correctness of the belief. There is no way to obtain justification that will ensure the correctness of any belief( even math proofs might be wrong). Give it up. Everything that we believe is a guess. Live with it and stop trying to find a "practical" definition of "knowledge." It is an idealized that is never realized.

[@PhilHelper]

+Vector Shift Is your statement "Everything that we believe is a guess" something you know, or is it just a guess?

[@vectorshift401]

PhilHelper Just a guess, of course. I almost didn't resound thinking that you might just be making a cutesy obvious remark but I looked at your channel and you seem pretty serious so I'm interested in hearing what you think of my stance.

[@PhilHelper]

My view is that you are tending towards the views defended by the ancient Pyrrhonic Skeptics. You'll probably like my video on ancient skepticism then. If you had tried a different answer to my "cutesy" question, then you would have tended towards Academic skepticism, the skeptical school that eventually took over Plato's Academy (hence the name). The Ancient skepticism video should help you clarify both of these views. Thanks.

[@vectorshift401]

The video was a nice historical survey of various aspects of "justified true belief" but much seems a bit of a sidetrack. I think that the definition of the term is accurate regardless of whatever turn out to be qualified as true. - Correspondence , coherence or whatever. What one counts as actually being true may depend on one's criteria for counting as "true" but the concept of knowledge is still "justified true belief" so it's irrelevant to the concept of knowledge. I also think that wherever one gets their beliefs the belief is still required for saying that something is counted as knowledge. Even the same can be said of justification. A true belief has to be justified to count as knowledge. What counts as justification is also beside the point. Gettier problems show the difficulty of obtaining justification or even deciding what counts as justification but however that works out justification is required for a true belief to be counted as knowledge. I'd say in all instances knowledge is justified true belief across the board. An airtight definition. Deciding in any particular instance if something counts as knowledge is quite another matter. The weakest notion I think is that of justification. If the justification provides 100% probability of being correct then clearly that would be knowledge. So how much justification is needed? If the justification only provided 50% probability that the proposition was true surely that wouldn't count. Someone tosses a (fair ) coin and I say that I know that a head came up. I might be right but only because of luck. That doesn't count as knowledge. They toss it twice and I say that a head came up. And am right. Did I know a head came up? No again. With increasing number of coin tosses the justification increases without bound. How much justification is required for my true belief to be counted as knowledge? One can obtain far more certainty this way than in any real world situation based on whatever evidence is offered. Tossing the coin a trillion times and someone believing a head came up is incredible justification for the belief, but still just luck. The concept of knowledge rules out being right by chance. The word is often used when the justification is insufficient but we usually don't worry about it, it used incorrectly nonetheless. The true belief however will never be as justified as a trillion coin tosses. Still it feels pretty distressing to conclude that we there is no knowledge at all. It seems counter intuitive because we have accepted the misuse of the term for so long.

[@sleepyeyeguy]

So knowledge is not "knowledge of reality" but knowledge of ideas, as reality cannot be truly grasped by the senses, only represented...right?

[@CVEOR]

seems like a fun topic, i'll continue, thanks for creating

[@arande3]

"Beliefs successfully correspond to reality" That's a hard one there I say matey

[@shizfergus27]

Great start! I'm looking forward to more.

[@Lobpreisfreak2]

As far as I know - eventhough James wrote much about religion - he wasn´t very religious himself. At least not in the classical way. The best we could say is that God was a somewhat necessary regulative Idea that we need to uphold standards of truth and rightness

[@snapman218]

Any well defined epistemology can be defined mechanically.

[@BrianVandrian]

There are so many categories and connections that are totally foreign to me in this. I feel utterly lost. I thought I would understand most of this and then find a few new ideas to contemplate and derive some value from doing so. So far I feel like I have entered some Dr. Seuss circus. I went and watched a couple of others on the same subject and they all have really weird ideas that I either don't even understand why they are sying these things, or I think I do understand and it seems foolishness. I m coming from a background in programming and statistics and trying to understand cognitive structures... and now I feel so lost I don't know how to even stay.

[@dejureclaims8214]

BrianVandrian It's not a disaster to feel lost. Just take your time, watch the video through a few times, and stop to look up any terms that pass you by.

[@Giant_Meteor]

The number of atoms in the universe is constantly changing, due to fusion and fission. In the time it takes to utter their sentences, the number would have toggled from odd to even and back again, innumerable times. They may both be unjustified, but their statements, on average, likely share an equal amount of time being true and being false.

[@zadig08]

I like what you're doing here.

[@sackclothandashes1342]

Excellent video! My friend recommended me to come here (he was the first comment), I can see why.

[@BossChronicles]

I'm thinking of switching my major from political science to philosophy what can you do with this degree ?

[@PhilHelper]

Shawn Afshar The old joke is "You can think deep thoughts of unemployment." Joking aside...Philosophy is great for several fields. Teaching is one; the problem is that in the U.S. unlike Europe philosophy (and thinking in general) is not taught at the grade school level. So if you can't become a Ph.D and a professor, your options are limited.Writers of all sorts benefit from a philosophy degree. But it is a hard field to make cash in.Lawyers, on the other hand, benefit extremely well from philosophy! A fellow-student of mine got his Ph.D. in philosophy before entering Notre Dame law school. Lawyers with philosophy backgrounds are far better prepared for the courtrooms than those without them.Thinking of going on to get a law degree myself!

[@vectorshift401]

+Shawn Afshar Regret..... Switch to math.

[@PhilHelper]

Interestingly my former colleague Julian Cole got his Ph.D. in math, got bored, then got a Ph.D. in philosophy. Last I saw he teaches at Bowling Green University.

[@PhilHelper]

Yeah, after doing math successfully for years he took an interest in metaphysics...the ontology of mathematical objects in particular. Very interesting topic...for nerds like me :-)

[@vectorshift401]

PhilHelper I guess that mathematical "objects" exist in the sense of being mental constructs. Is this what is meant by them having an ontology?

[@sleepyeyeguy]

Ok, so all of this ultimately assumes that perception of the world is a reliable model of the world as it actually is. Logic and deductive reasoning are useful, but in the end perception of reality is limited and dependent upon extrapolation from the senses and induction. Knowledge, then, is more of a loose, pragmatic concept, not necessarily directly corresponding to reality as it truly is. Absolute knowledge cannot be acquired through the senses.

[@PhilHelper]

Thanks! I have 2 more on Gettier prepared. Just fussing with my computer to get them published!

[@pradabpunnotok3090]

PhilHelper to

[@pradabpunnotok3090]

PhilHelper to

[@dangusforrester8855]

Why the hell would you not give examples of coherentism? What do you mean by "beliefs that hang together?" The purpose of an introduction to a difficult concept, is to make it palatable by being clear, precise and reducing vagueness. It would have taken you less than a minute to give a couple of examples.

[@sasmas1545]

+Dangus Forrester if a two beliefs are mutually exclusive they do not "hang together." If two beliefs are not mutually exclusive, and further, if one supports the other, they "hang together." It is the degree to which propositions agree and support one another that defines the degree of coherence in a system of beliefs.

[@PhilHelper]

+Jacob LaMountain Good reply Jacob. Dangus is right that the concept in question is vague. But it definitely excludes beliefs that are contradictory to one another. It also excludes sets of beliefs where contradictions can be logically deduced...there is a problem called the "lottery paradox" which I will cover in an upcoming lecture that focuses on this. Mutual support is also important...but more difficult to define... I'll definitely present the examples Dangus wants in another video. Probably at the same time that I cover the lottery paradox. Hope both of you will be tuned in for that...and I hope it will come soon because I really need to get to work updating this series!

[@PhilHelper]

It seems you are confusing knowledge with a psychological state of certainty. Someone can be certain of something yet be wrong...and hence lack knowledge despite their certainty.

[@sharonharvey8923]

Thank you

[@PhilHelper]

Thanks! I just published my second video on epistemology. Check it out.

[@RobertDigitalArtist]

Great clear videos. This channel will certainly grow. *2* Tips (and *1* plug ;) - make some *playlists* on various topics and make a short intro video for each, with the link to the YT playlist and an overview of the topic(s) discussed - if your intention is to really grow this channel, think about a *logo* and consistent visual style throughout your videos (and possible intros/outros/bumper) All of which I can help with, myself and my team at *Visuals4You :)* facebook.com/visuals4you That's my 2cts. Best of the luck!

[@breatheyoganow]

there has GOT to be some female and non white philosophers you can refer to. All I see is a bunch of old white men. I mean its the 21st century. Especially in academia we need to be inclusive. I'm sure these old white men aren't the only philosophers that can speak to epistemology in a lecture forum?

[@ExistenceUniversity]

How about Ayn Rand?