Cow in the Field Thought

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WanderingGaze22
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Cow in the Field Thought

Post by WanderingGaze22 »

This thought experiment about justified belief starts as a farmer seeing that his cow is missing. As he's frets, his neighbor comes up and assures him that the cow is just in the next field over. The farmer wants to be sure, so he goes out and sees a familiar black and white splotch in the nearby field. He returns and confirms he now believes the cow is in the field. When the neighbor passes back along that field, though, he realizes that the farmer couldn't have seen the cow. Yes, the cow was in the field, but it was hidden in a small grouping of trees. What the farmer actually saw was cloth splotched with black paint clinging to the outside of the trees.

What are your thoughts? Was the farmer right about his not well seen glance? Or was he completely wrong?
Steve3007
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Re: Cow in the Field Thought

Post by Steve3007 »

This appears to be a version of the Gettier problem that was previously discussed in this topic.
Belindi
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Re: Cow in the Field Thought

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What justifies one's belief?
For the sake of the argument let's say it's religious faith that justifies man A's belief. What justifies the religious faith, and so forth ?
Or let's say it's empirical evidence that justifies man B's belief. What justifies empirical evidence and so forth ?

The Stanford University Encyclopedia of Philosophy covers all the theories of truth including the more modern theories.
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Sculptor1
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Re: Cow in the Field Thought

Post by Sculptor1 »

WanderingGaze22 wrote: October 26th, 2021, 3:03 am This thought experiment about justified belief starts as a farmer seeing that his cow is missing. As he's frets, his neighbor comes up and assures him that the cow is just in the next field over. The farmer wants to be sure, so he goes out and sees a familiar black and white splotch in the nearby field. He returns and confirms he now believes the cow is in the field. When the neighbor passes back along that field, though, he realizes that the farmer couldn't have seen the cow. Yes, the cow was in the field, but it was hidden in a small grouping of trees. What the farmer actually saw was cloth splotched with black paint clinging to the outside of the trees.

What are your thoughts? Was the farmer right about his not well seen glance? Or was he completely wrong?
Does this model of truth invoke "coherence" or "correspondance" theory?
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LuckyR
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Re: Cow in the Field Thought

Post by LuckyR »

WanderingGaze22 wrote: October 26th, 2021, 3:03 am This thought experiment about justified belief starts as a farmer seeing that his cow is missing. As he's frets, his neighbor comes up and assures him that the cow is just in the next field over. The farmer wants to be sure, so he goes out and sees a familiar black and white splotch in the nearby field. He returns and confirms he now believes the cow is in the field. When the neighbor passes back along that field, though, he realizes that the farmer couldn't have seen the cow. Yes, the cow was in the field, but it was hidden in a small grouping of trees. What the farmer actually saw was cloth splotched with black paint clinging to the outside of the trees.

What are your thoughts? Was the farmer right about his not well seen glance? Or was he completely wrong?
A couple of things: the farmer can't see into the adjacent field, but he doesn't know he can't see into the adjacent field. Thus whether the cow is in that field is unknowable, though he mistakenly thinks it is knowable.

Thus from the perspective of the farmer, he knows (not believes) the cow is there, but he is mistaken. As it happens the cow is there, completely independent of his attempt to make an observation of an unobservable. Thus the presence of the cow is purely luck.

Now from the perspective of a third person observer, the farmer never can know the location of the cow since the trees block his view, thus the farmer never knew anything, but since he was unaware of the fact it was unknowable his conclusion is neither belief nor faith because he was certain. Thus he supposes the cow is there.
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WanderingGaze22
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Re: Cow in the Field Thought

Post by WanderingGaze22 »

Sculptor1 wrote: October 26th, 2021, 4:30 pm
WanderingGaze22 wrote: October 26th, 2021, 3:03 am This thought experiment about justified belief starts as a farmer seeing that his cow is missing. As he's frets, his neighbor comes up and assures him that the cow is just in the next field over. The farmer wants to be sure, so he goes out and sees a familiar black and white splotch in the nearby field. He returns and confirms he now believes the cow is in the field. When the neighbor passes back along that field, though, he realizes that the farmer couldn't have seen the cow. Yes, the cow was in the field, but it was hidden in a small grouping of trees. What the farmer actually saw was cloth splotched with black paint clinging to the outside of the trees.

What are your thoughts? Was the farmer right about his not well seen glance? Or was he completely wrong?
Does this model of truth invoke "coherence" or "correspondance" theory?
Technically correspondence, but it is whether the farmer or the neighbor was right.
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Pattern-chaser
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Re: Cow in the Field Thought

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WanderingGaze22 wrote: October 26th, 2021, 3:03 am This thought experiment about justified belief starts as a farmer seeing that his cow is missing. As he's frets, his neighbor comes up and assures him that the cow is just in the next field over. The farmer wants to be sure, so he goes out and sees a familiar black and white splotch in the nearby field. He returns and confirms he now believes the cow is in the field. When the neighbor passes back along that field, though, he realizes that the farmer couldn't have seen the cow. Yes, the cow was in the field, but it was hidden in a small grouping of trees. What the farmer actually saw was cloth splotched with black paint clinging to the outside of the trees.

What are your thoughts? Was the farmer right about his not well seen glance? Or was he completely wrong?
...
WanderingGaze22 wrote: October 27th, 2021, 3:44 am ...but it is whether the farmer or the neighbor was right.
Isn't this the Einstein insight? That each of them is 'right' according to his own perspective. I.e. 'right' according to what he sees and knows, according to the evidence available to him. Relativity. Isn't that what this is about?

Oh, and it seems to me to be important in this topic to emphasise the God's-eye-view that the example takes: the text blithely refers to the external, impartial, objective, what-is-actually-true viewpoint without making it clear that the commentators - we, the readers - have this huge perceptual advantage over the two farmers.
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Steve3007
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Re: Cow in the Field Thought

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As in the other topic discussing the Gettier problem, this is a scenario examining the idea that knowledge is justified true belief, and the nature of knowledge. The question it asks is: If the farmer correctly concludes that the cow is in the field, but does so based on a misinterpretation of some evidence, can he be said to know that the cow is in the field? We can confidently say that he has at least two of the three ingredients. He has truth and belief. He believes the cow is in that field, and it is true that the cow is in that field. It seems the question hinges on whether the belief is justified, given that the justification is based on what we know to be a mistake. If we take the view that knowledge, and epistemology in general, is subjective, then we'd take the view that he does indeed know that the cow is in that field. From his subjective point of view, he has JTB.
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Re: Cow in the Field Thought

Post by Pattern-chaser »

Steve3007 wrote: October 27th, 2021, 9:54 am From his subjective point of view, he has JTB.
Doesn't this compromise the whole idea of JTB, which - if I understand it correctly - seeks to give a non-personal/'objective' criterion for whether belief is justified or not? If it does refute JTB, it's a good refutation, IMO, and would devalue JTB in my eyes at least; maybe yours too?
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Steve3007
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Re: Cow in the Field Thought

Post by Steve3007 »

Pattern-chaser wrote:Doesn't this compromise the whole idea of JTB, which - if I understand it correctly - seeks to give a non-personal/'objective' criterion for whether belief is justified or not? If it does refute JTB, it's a good refutation, IMO, and would devalue JTB in my eyes at least; maybe yours too?
Not necessarily. The JTB thing gives a criterion for whether something counts as knowledge. So, if it's justified, it's true and it's a belief, then it's knowledge. None of that requires any of those things to be objective. Here's an example of a person who appears to regard all of these things as subjective, having a conversation about that with another poster in that other Gettier problem topic:
viewtopic.php?p=388891#p388891
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Pattern-chaser
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Re: Cow in the Field Thought

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Steve3007 wrote: October 27th, 2021, 10:57 am
Pattern-chaser wrote:Doesn't this compromise the whole idea of JTB, which - if I understand it correctly - seeks to give a non-personal/'objective' criterion for whether belief is justified or not? If it does refute JTB, it's a good refutation, IMO, and would devalue JTB in my eyes at least; maybe yours too?
Not necessarily. The JTB thing gives a criterion for whether something counts as knowledge. So, if it's justified, it's true and it's a belief, then it's knowledge. None of that requires any of those things to be objective. Here's an example of a person who appears to regard all of these things as subjective, having a conversation about that with another poster in that other Gettier problem topic:
viewtopic.php?p=388891#p388891
OK, fair enough. I was not familiar with the details of JTB.
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3017Metaphysician
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Re: Cow in the Field Thought

Post by 3017Metaphysician »

WanderingGaze22 wrote: October 26th, 2021, 3:03 am This thought experiment about justified belief starts as a farmer seeing that his cow is missing. As he's frets, his neighbor comes up and assures him that the cow is just in the next field over. The farmer wants to be sure, so he goes out and sees a familiar black and white splotch in the nearby field. He returns and confirms he now believes the cow is in the field. When the neighbor passes back along that field, though, he realizes that the farmer couldn't have seen the cow. Yes, the cow was in the field, but it was hidden in a small grouping of trees. What the farmer actually saw was cloth splotched with black paint clinging to the outside of the trees.

What are your thoughts? Was the farmer right about his not well seen glance? Or was he completely wrong?
WG!

Nice! Though easy to default to philosophical idealism (Subjective Idealism) for a possible answer, since I'm in a 'deconstruction' mood at the moment, I'll throw in a third option.

In cognition, one could ask whether is it always appropriate to perceive things (a thing's particular truth value-hot/cold, wet/dry, happy/sad, etc.) in a binary fashion? For instance, an observation as apperceived by the senses can be conceived as both right and wrong (at the same time/Bivalence), or simply indeterminate or uncertain in nature, yet can still exist. But that only begs the obvious question: (what does it mean for something to exist?)

Alternatively, and metaphorically speaking, asking whether something is right or wrong is relative to the observer's eyeglass filter. In other words, as rational creatures, is there a more absolute method of determining one's truth value(?).

Fun question!
“Concerning matter, we have been all wrong. What we have called matter is energy, whose vibration has been so lowered as to be perceptible to the senses. There is no matter.” "Spooky Action at a Distance"
― Albert Einstein
WanderingGaze22
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Re: Cow in the Field Thought

Post by WanderingGaze22 »

3017Metaphysician wrote: October 27th, 2021, 2:15 pm
WanderingGaze22 wrote: October 26th, 2021, 3:03 am This thought experiment about justified belief starts as a farmer seeing that his cow is missing. As he's frets, his neighbor comes up and assures him that the cow is just in the next field over. The farmer wants to be sure, so he goes out and sees a familiar black and white splotch in the nearby field. He returns and confirms he now believes the cow is in the field. When the neighbor passes back along that field, though, he realizes that the farmer couldn't have seen the cow. Yes, the cow was in the field, but it was hidden in a small grouping of trees. What the farmer actually saw was cloth splotched with black paint clinging to the outside of the trees.

What are your thoughts? Was the farmer right about his not well seen glance? Or was he completely wrong?
WG!

Nice! Though easy to default to philosophical idealism (Subjective Idealism) for a possible answer, since I'm in a 'deconstruction' mood at the moment, I'll throw in a third option.

In cognition, one could ask whether is it always appropriate to perceive things (a thing's particular truth value-hot/cold, wet/dry, happy/sad, etc.) in a binary fashion? For instance, an observation as apperceived by the senses can be conceived as both right and wrong (at the same time/Bivalence), or simply indeterminate or uncertain in nature, yet can still exist. But that only begs the obvious question: (what does it mean for something to exist?)

Alternatively, and metaphorically speaking, asking whether something is right or wrong is relative to the observer's eyeglass filter. In other words, as rational creatures, is there a more absolute method of determining one's truth value(?).

Fun question!
Thank you, I try.
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