Niether did Socrates.cynicallyinsane wrote:Jesus didn't leave any writings behind. We only have what other people say.
Can we 'know' anything?
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Re: Can we 'know' anything?
- dparrott
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Re: Can we 'know' anything?
- Ramshackle_Psyche
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Re: Can we 'know' anything?
- HexHammer
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Re: Can we 'know' anything?
It's a bunch of nonsens what he said, and it should be very selfexplanatory.cooltodd109 wrote:Socrates famously said that the only thing we can know is that we know nothing.
Can we truly know anything? Do we really know nothing?
If we do know something, how can we be sure that we aren't mistaken?
- Kingkool
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Re: Can we 'know' anything?
-- Updated March 2nd, 2012, 10:31 am to add the following --
Unless you are hallucinating.Drs wrote:We can know, without a doubt, that something is happening. Beyond that, doubt is possible.
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Re: Can we 'know' anything?
If I am hallucinating, a hallucination is happening.Kingkool wrote:Unless you are hallucinating.Drs wrote:We can know, without a doubt, that something is happening. Beyond that, doubt is possible.
- Kingkool
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Re: Can we 'know' anything?
Yes, but you believe it isn't a hallucination, or else it wouldn't be a hallucintion.Drs wrote:If I am hallucinating, a hallucination is happening.Kingkool wrote: Unless you are hallucinating.
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Re: Can we 'know' anything?
I've had plenty of hallucinations that I believed were hallucinations, and a few hallucinations that I believed weren't hallucinations. Regardless, this does not refute my point that whether I am hallucinating or not, something is happening.Kingkool wrote:Yes, but you believe it isn't a hallucination, or else it wouldn't be a hallucintion.Drs wrote: If I am hallucinating, a hallucination is happening.
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Re: Can we 'know' anything?
So knowledge is like joy, or God. It's always flying away from us. Maybe this is why mathematicians like maths, because here, knowledge of a sort can be pinned down like a dead butterfly.
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Drs. wrote:
"Something is happening". Could Drs please contrast this fact with "I think therefore I am"?
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Re: Can we 'know' anything?
This claim is more basic than cogito ergo sum. As demonstrated in the previous posts, it nicely handles skeptic questions about whether I am thinking or whether something else (god, imps, hallucinations, whatever) is putting these things called thoughts into my mind. While it is possible to doubt that I am thinking, it is impossible to doubt that my phenomenal experience isn't static, therefore it is impossible to doubt that something is happening.Belinda wrote:I liked what Ramshackle Psyche wrote , #34
So knowledge is like joy, or God. It's always flying away from us. Maybe this is why mathematicians like maths, because here, knowledge of a sort can be pinned down like a dead butterfly.
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Drs. wrote:
"Something is happening". Could Drs please contrast this fact with "I think therefore I am"?
- Fiveredapples
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Re: Can we 'know' anything?
This is probably the most popular and most confused question I've seen on philosophy forums.If we do know something, how can we be sure that we aren't mistaken?
If you were familiar with the notion of 'knowledge', you wouldn't ask this question.
The definition of knowledge (as warranted true belief) says nothing about anyone, even the person who has knowledge, determining when someone does or doesn't have knowledge. This is how I know right off the bat that the person asking the original question is confused -- he's confused about the notion of knowledge.
Ultimately, whether someone has knowledge or not is determined by the world. That is, the truth criterion within the definition of knowledge settles the matter. There is no question of someone checking to see if it's true or not. We may check, but our checking plays absolutely no role in whether someone has knowledge or not -- no matter what results from our checking.
For example, you step outside your house and feel and see what appears to be rain falling. You form the belief that it's raining. You're justified in believing it's raining given the circumstances under which you acquired your belief. So, do you have knowledge that it's raining? The answer is 'Yes if it's raining' and 'No if it's not raining.'
The question "How can I be sure I'm not mistaken?" arises because people aren't satisfied with the response "Yes if it's raining' and 'No if it's not raining.' They want the matter settled, and they want to be able to settle it. But that's not how knowledge works. I suppose the response leaves them uneasy, having to walk around unable to say "for certain" that they know this or that, or anything. I get the impulse to want to be certain, but the philosophical notion is silent about certainty -- and for good reason; namely it wouldn't be knowledge anymore, it would be something much stronger and completely different. Certainty is an extremely robust and powerful notion. Let me give an example of just how powerful by comparing it to knowledge.
Say you're taking a voyage across the Pacific Ocean. You're miles and miles away from land, there's only water on every horizon, it's a particular clear and calm day, and then I throw you overboard. Nobody else notices that you're overboard and our ship sails on by, leaving you there treading water. Sometime in this period of time, you formed the following belief: I'm in water. Remember, you're in the middle of the ocean, just having been thrown overboard by me, and you're treading water to survive. Think of how confident you can be that you're indeed in water. What possible test is there, or could there be, to bolster your confidence that you're in water? I mean, you're as sure as you're going to get. Yet all you have is knowledge, not certainty. Those who ask for 'certainty' don't realize what they're asking for. You're asking for something beyond our cognitive ability, which is why certainty is a logical notion and knowledge an epistemological notion. Truth, by the way, is a metaphysical notion.
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Re: Can we 'know' anything?
Eddie Rickenbacker, in his autobiography, tells of a near death experience while in a hospital recuperating from a plane crash. He repeatedly hallucinated fruit hanging above him while delirious. He writes about it in hindsight but admits that it was totally convincing. What did he "know"?
What about people who experience delusions? They are convinced of their reality even though it does not square with some aspects of the shared experience with others. Sure, they're "sick" but what do THEY know?
What about people who experience altered states of consciousness from ingesting hallucinogens? What do they "know"?
So. . . can we be convinced as convinced can be of our experience yet be totally wrong concerning facticity?
- Fiveredapples
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Re: Can we 'know' anything?
- HexHammer
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Re: Can we 'know' anything?
Surely you are kidding. In the middle ages true knowledge was that the earth was flat and it was the center of the universe, it was even written in the holy book, therefore it was unquestionable.
Indeed you are very shard, but I don't agree with your logic in most of your posts.
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