PH1513 Knowledge and Mind

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PH1513 Knowledge and Mind
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PH1513 EpistemologyWeeks 5-12

• 1. Practical matters.
• 2. The link between epistemology and philosophy
  of mind.
• 3. Introduction to epistemology.

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Practical issues.

• 1. No classes in week 6.
• 2. Essay can be either on philosophy of mind or
  on epistemology.
• 3. Exam questions will be a mix of epistemology
  and philosophy of mind questions.
• 4. Contact details Martijn Blaauw
• Office Old Brewery Ground Floor room
  16.
• Telephone 272798
• E-mail m.blaauw_at_abdn.ac.uk
• 5. Office hours Wed, 11-12, Thurs, 12-1.
• 6. Recording lectures is OK.
• If you have any questions, dont hesitate to
  contact me!

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Epistemology and Philosophy of Mind

• The connection between these two branches of
  philosophy is the notion of belief.
• To believe something is a mental state as
  such, it is the object of study of philosophy of
  mind.
• To believe something is usually thought to be
  the core ingredient of knowledge.

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What is epistemology?

• Epistemologists are primarily interested in the
  concept knowledge, but also in related concepts
  like belief, truth, justification for
  belief, and rationality.
• The key question in epistemology is the
  questionWhat is knowledge?
• This question asks what the correct analysis of
  the concept knowledge is.
• This raises two questions

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Two questions

• I. What type of knowledge do epistemologists
  focus on?
• II. What is conceptual analysis?
• In what follows, I will answer these two
  questions.

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I. What type of knowledge?

• Four types of knowledge
• (i) Knowledge-how (ability knowledge)
• (ii) Knowledge-wh (interrogative knowledge)
• (iii) Knowledge-Q (direct object knowledge)
• (iv) Knowledge-that (propositional knowledge)
• ? We will focus on (iv) knowledge-that.

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II. What is conceptual analysis?

• Analysing a concept means providing the
  individually necessary and jointly sufficient
  conditions that must be satisfied in order for
  the concept to be applicable.
• So we try to decompose the concept into its
  consituent parts.
• If any one of the parts is missing, the concept
  cannot be applied.

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Combining I and II The Key Epistemological
Question

• What is knowledge?
• Where this question should be understood as a
  request to provide a conceptual analysis of
  propositional knowledge (knowledge-that).

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Examples

• John and Jill are in the kitchen. John reads in
  the newspaper that Hilary Clinton is running for
  president? Does he know that Hilary Clinton is
  running for president?
• Answer Yes.

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Examples Knowledge implies Belief.

• John and Jill are in the kitchen. John reads in
  the newspaper that Hilary Clinton is running for
  president. John is a very stubborn man, however,
  and does not believe a word of what the newspaper
  (The Sun) says. What the newspaper says is true
  however Hilary Clinton is running for president.
  Does John know that Hilary Clinton is running for
  president?
• Answer No.
• Why not He does not believe it.

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Examples Knowledge implies Truth.

• John and Jill are in the kitchen. John reads in
  the newspaper that Mel Gibson is running for
  president. John believes that Mel Gibson is
  running for president. The newspaper has it
  wrong, however. Does John know that Mel Gibson is
  running for president?
• Answer No.
• Reason False.

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Examples Knowledge implies Justification.

• John and Jill are in the kitchen. John reads in
  the newspaper that Hilary Clinton is running for
  president. This is true, and John believes it to
  be true. However, the reporter wanted to play a
  trick on the readers of the newspaper and wanted
  to deceive them by writing that Hilary Clinton is
  running for president the reporter thought this
  was false. Unbeknownst to the reporter, however,
  it is true. Does John know that Hilary Clinton is
  running for president?
• Answer NO
• Reason No justification.

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The standard analysis of knowledge

• Knowledge
• Justified
• True
• Belief.
• If any one of these is missing, there can be no
  knowledge.

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Sources of knowledge

• Perception
• Reasoning
• Testimony
• Memory

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Summary

• What you need to take away from this lecture
• (1) What is conceptual analysis?
• (2) What different types of knowledge can be
  distinguished?
• (3) What is the standard analysis of knowledge?
• (4) What are some standard sources of knowledge?

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Next week

• Problems for the traditional analysis of
  knowledge in terms of justified true belief.

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PH1513 Knowledge and Mind

• Lecture 2
• March 1st 2007

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Structure of the lecture

• 1. Practical issues
• 2. Recap of the last lecture
• 3. Knowledge can not be due to luck
• 4. The value of knowledge

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Practical issues

• 1. No classes in week 6.
• 2. Essay can be either on philosophy of mind or
  on epistemology.
• 3. Exam questions will be a mix of epistemology
  and philosophy of mind questions.
• 4. Contact details Martijn Blaauw
• Office Old Brewery Ground Floor room
  16.
• Telephone 272798
• E-mail m.blaauw_at_abdn.ac.uk
• 5. Office hours Wed, 11-12, Thurs, 12-1.
• 6. Recording lectures is OK.
• If you have any questions, dont hesitate to
  contact me!

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Recap of previous lecture

• 1) What is conceptual analysis?
• (2) What different types of knowledge can be
  distinguished?
• (3) What is the standard analysis of knowledge?
• (4) What are some standard sources of knowledge?

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Sources of knowledge

• Perception
• Reasoning
• Testimony
• Memory
• Special sources sensus divinitatis.

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Knowledge belief and truth

• Knowledge implies at least belief and truth
• (a) Knowledge implies belief
• John and Jill are in the kitchen. John reads in
  the newspaper that Hilary Clinton is running for
  president. John is a very stubborn man, however,
  and does not believe a word of what the newspaper
  (The Sun) says. What the newspaper says is true
  however Hilary Clinton is running for president.
  Does John know that Hilary Clinton is running for
  president?

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• (b) Knowledge implies truth
• John and Jill are in the kitchen. John reads in
  the newspaper that Mel Gibson is running for
  president. John believes that Mel Gibson is
  running for president. The newspaper has it
  wrong, however. Does John know that Mel Gibson is
  running for president?

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Knowledge and luck

• Consider the following case
• Harry forms the belief that the horse Lucky
  Lass will win the next race purely on the basis
  of the fact that the name of the horse appeals to
  him. As it happens, Lucky Lass actually wins the
  race. Did Harry know this?

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Knowledge and luck

• Intuitively no.
• Reason the fact that Harrys belief is true is a
  matter of sheer luck.
• Compare hitting the bulls-eye by sheer luck
  does not mean you are a skilled archer.

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Knowledge, luck, and archery

• Knowledge is just like archery in that it is an
  achievement
• Beliefs aim at truth, just like the archer aims
  at the bulls-eye. Hitting the truth (the
  bulls-eye) by luck isnt going to make you a
  skilled archer, nor give you knowledge.

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Luck and the standard analysis

• One way to characterize the anti-luck condition
  on knowledge would be in terms of justification
  (the third component in the standard analysis of
  knowledge).

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The value of knowledge

• Why is knowledge valuable?
• First way to answer this question
• Knowledge implies true belief, and true belief is
  instrumentally valuable.
• (It is better to have true beliefs than false
  beliefs, and true belief can serve certain
  purposes).

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The value of knowledge

• Problems with the first answer
• (1) Some true beliefs are trivial.
• (2) Explaining the value of knowledge in terms of
  the value of true belief implies that knowledge
  is no more valuable than true belief. But we do
  seem to value knowledge more than mere true
  belief.

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The value of knowledge

• Knowledge is more valuable than true belief
  because knowledge is stable.
• A true belief that also is knowledge is far
  likely to remain fast in response to changing
  circumstances than mere true belief.
• If you know, you could not easily have been
  wrong. If you have mere true belief, you could
  easily have been wrong.

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The value of knowledge

• Knowledge has intrinsic value it is good of
  itself, regardless of whether the knowledge in
  question serves some sort of purpose. (Knowledge
  is like friendship in this regard we value
  friends not because they are useful to us but
  because they are valuable to us of themselves).
• True belief never is intrinsically valuable but
  only valuable in the instrumental sense.

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Recap

• Knowledge excludes luck
• True belief is instrumentally valuable
• Knowledge is stable
• Knowledge can be intrinsically valuable

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Next lecture

• Defining knowledge