Respect My Authority
So in my PHI 1 class, we’ve been discussing knowledge recently. True knowledge is supposed to be factive, which means it should have three essential qualities - belief, justification, and truth. For you to truly know something, you must believe it is right. Furthermore, you must have some sort of evidence to support your belief that it is right. And finally, it must actually BE right.
For example, a thousand years ago, people “knew” that the Earth was the center of the universe, and all heavenly bodies revolved around it. They believed it. There was evidence for it… they looked up and saw things moving in the sky, but they didn’t see the Earth move. But it wasn’t right. So they just THOUGHT they knew that the Earth was the center of the universe, but they didn’t REALLY know.
Given that definition of knowledge, do we really and truly “know” anything? We might believe it, and there might be overwhelming evidence to support it, but the absolute truth of the matter may never be known to us. We just think we know what we know. Which means we don’t really “know” anything at all.
This argument of never being able to find absolute certainty in the world is the basis of Unger’s defense of philosophical skepticism. Absolute certainty means that you are certain beyond any possibility of doubt that you are correct. You are so set in your beliefs that even if the world’s foremost expert rose from the grave, knocked on your door, slapped you across the face, told you that you were wrong, and handed you a five-hundred-page thesis on the matter, you still wouldn’t even give it a second thought. You would continue being absolute in your belief that you are correct.
This leads me to a rant of mine that is slightly off topic. I think contemporary American culture encourage a false certainty in oneself. Kids are taught by their parents and their teachers that they are special; that they are destined for greatness. The kids internalize these beliefs and become absolute in their certainty that life will turn out in a predetermined way where they aren’t just one in eight billion, but that they are number one out of eight billion.
This false certainty leads to a rejection of all others, and without at least a respect for other people and their ideas, society will implode. Not to be overly dramatic.
Of course, maybe it’s just me. Tell me I’m wrong, and we’ll see if I believe you. 
Oh, and as a tiny side-note… I really don’t like philosophical skepticism. Philosophers themselves admit that it’s just an intellectual exercise, and you should live your life as if the things you know are actually true. But if you ever find yourself at a cocktail party and someone is trying to tell you that “nothing is certain, there is no ‘knowledge,’” just ask them, “Are you sure?” Hopefully they’ll just mutter “no” and shut up. But if they say “yes,” ask them how they can truly know that.
October 15th, 2007 at 13:42
Wow, that’s exactly what we talked about in my PHIL LIT class.
October 15th, 2007 at 21:27
Skepticism, or my rant about certainty ruining the new generation?
October 15th, 2007 at 23:30
By saying that there cannot be “No Knowledge”, does that lead to the idea that there must be “Knowledge”?
How do you prove that the existence of knowledge has the “three essential qualities - belief, justification, and truth.”
Or if we confine the “truth” to the reality you construct yourself, can it be possible for “no knowledge” to be an integral, immutable thread of your universe?
October 16th, 2007 at 4:28
Where did this “cannot be ‘No Knowledge’” come from?
I dunno if you can “prove” knowledge is factive, because it’s just a definition. But the argument for the case that knowledge is factive is that if you take away any of those three qualities, then you didn’t really “know” something. I covered the “no truth” case already. Let’s say you believe that at the center of every black hole in space, there is a worm hole that allows you to fold space/time. Assuming for a second that your belief is actually true, you don’t have any evidence for believing that, so you don’t really “know” it. Now let’s say it’s five hundred years ago, and Columbus just sailed to America and proved that the world was round (and for the sake of argument, we’ll say that the world is in fact round), but you don’t believe it, you think that the world is cylindrical. You won’t “know” that the world is round, because you don’t believe it.
“Truth” can’t be confined to your reality, because that just makes it belief.
October 16th, 2007 at 10:50
I’m terrible at talking philosophy but I agree with you about the way children are taught in the U.S. I think it’s because we are a very individualistic culture. In order to get head in many careers we have to keep boosting ourselves up, often in competition with others. So we internalize beliefs that we are special and we must be the best. Of course we also internalize our culture’s desire to be the best so a lot of kids instead develop self esteem problems. I dunno. That’s just what I think.
October 16th, 2007 at 10:51
to get AHEAD, not to get HEAD. Freud would love me.
October 16th, 2007 at 12:13
I think you may have misinterpreted my question. I didn’t mean to ask how knowledge had those three qualities. My question is, how can you prove anything to be true, unless you already assume knowledge of it.
Also, isn’t all truth belief? Unless, like I said, it is an intrinsic part of a certain reality. But the only realities we can observe are the ones we construct. Even if you were to discover, say for example, a Stone Tablet that contained the 10 Immutable Laws of the Universe by God, how would you know that it is a real object, and not some construct in your head?
October 16th, 2007 at 14:43
That’s the point of skepticism… you can’t prove anything to be true, so you can’t “know” anything.
And no, skeptics say that truth is more than belief. There is an overarching Truth with a capital T in the the universe, whether you believe it or not. Some common skeptical hypotheses are the “what if we’re all in the Matrix?” or “what if this is all a dream?” or “what if this just your brain in a vat hallucinating?” Your construct of reality wouldn’t be the Truth.
October 20th, 2007 at 17:12
Skepticism. I like it.