;)
Much of what people think they "know" is not actually based on the acquisition of information about reality, but instead on various sorts of poorly-grounded beliefs. And I think it's a huge oversight to neglect these categories in your overview.
There has been a large amount of study on these topics in the "skeptic" literature, such as:
Skeptical Inquirer magazine, published by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. Main focus is on skeptical examination of the "paranormal", but covers many other topics as well including superstitions, pseudoscience, etc.As a wise man once said, "it's not what you don't know that gets you into trouble, it's what you know that ain't so".Skeptic magazine, published by the Skeptics Society ("Dedicated to the promotion of science and critical thinking, and to the investigation of extraordinary claims and revolutionary ideas")
"Everyday Irrationality: How Pseudo-Scientists, Lunatics, and the Rest of Us Systematically Fail to Think Rationally", by Robyn M. Dawes
"How We Know What Isn't So", by Thomas Gilovich
"The New Skepticism: Inquiry and Reliable Knowledge", by Paul Kurtz
"How Do You Know It's True?: Discovering the Difference Between Science and Superstition", by Hyman Ruchlis
As such, understanding how people (including ourselves) "know what ain't so" is a critically important subject, and yet few disciplines actually pay much attention to it (except to exploit it, as by advertisers, magicians, con men, and propagandists). So the "skeptic" community came together to study that topic and provide information to the public about how not to get snookered (by yourself, even, not just by others).
Skeptics are often disliked by just about every group, because they usually act as "party poopers" pointing out the flaws in various comfortable presumptions, but they're the experts on how and why people believe various things that "ain't so" -- and how to learn to think more critically (about other people's claims, as well as about your own beliefs) and how to use more reliable methods of learning and understanding.
The skeptic literature also has frequent articles on how con men, hucksters, and other charlatans work their trades, so that you can learn how not to fall for them. There's also a whole sub-genre on how "psychics" appear to know more than they do, so as to sucker in clients and followers. For example: Hyman, Ray. "'Cold Reading': How to Convince Strangers that You Know All About Them", The Skeptical Inquirer, Spring/Sumer 1977.
;)
.....Not to mention that its wonderfully appropriate that my lame attempt at humor is post #69.......
Try this URL: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08673a.htm
This looks interesting, but does anyone want to dumb it down just a tad??
After perusing this outstanding post...the only thing I can investigate is searching for my bottle of Scotch.
I got a mild headache while trying to comprehend the bold implications therein.
I can assure you...that once I complete my initial investigation...my headache will be that much more for the worse, tomorrow morning.
FR should be a college accredited course.
Very interesting post. But I'm afraid I can't improve on many of these without some serious head scratching.
1. Logical conclusion: I can prove the Pythagorean theorem is valid and true.
2. Prediction from scientific theory: I calculate there will be a partial solar eclipse this week.
3. Conclusion from evidence: I conclude from the verifiable evidence that ...
4. Sensory perception of something external to me: I see my dog is lying at my feet.
5. Acceptance of another's opinion: I provisionally accept the opinion of X (an individual or group) as knowledge because (a) I haven't worked it out for myself; and (b) I have what I regard as good reason for confidence in X.
6. Personal memory: I recall I had breakfast this morning.
7. Internal emotional state: I feel I'm happy, or I have empathy, compassion or sympathy for you. Some clarification is probably in order here. I'm entirely certain that I have a feeling, so there is no doubt at all regarding knowledge of the feeling's existence. But as for what it is that the feeling may be telling me -- that is, the quality of the "knowledge" involved -- there's not much to recommend this as a great source of information. Example: I very often feel that I'm going to win the lottery. Because I'm so often being misled by my feelings, I've listed them dead last on my certainty index
Separate List for theological knowledge:
1. Revelation: Spiritual understanding divinely communicated [to souls open to such experiences].
2. Faith: Belief in a revelation experienced by another [e.g., in the testimony of the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and saints].
* * * * * * *
Hello Alamo-Girl and Patrick! You see I thought to use Patrick’s list as the focus of my own thinking in this matter of grades of ascertainable (more or less) knowledge. I notice that Patrick has segregated forms of theological knowledge to a sub-class, a ghetto as it were, inferior to the main body of relative (un)certainties.
I have no objection to the hierarchy given at points 1 through 7 above. Seems a valid order, and happens to reflect my own views.
Just a couple observations: It has only been in the recent few (post-modern) centuries that theological knowledge, a/k/a/ spiritual understanding of types (1) and (2), has been relegated to an intellectual ghetto. In former times, (1) and (2) were understood to be the very ground or foundation of the Patrick’s 1 through 7. It was because (1) and (2) were valid that humans had any confidence at all in the first 7. And because of that confidence, science became possible.
Because in the pre- post-modern world, God and Truth were synonymous. And humans beings understood, or used to, that without a foundation in Truth, everything that human beings do is in vain.
Which observation, for some strange reason, recalls a potent sonnet to mind:
Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said – “two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert ... near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lips, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
n -- Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
But I think it was Hegel who first turned the ensouled understandings of countless generations of humanity on its head. And it’s all been downhill from there….
Cases in point: Marx and his epigones Hitler and Stalin et al. to the present day followed Hegel.
JMHO, FWIW.
Hugs to both of you!
In any case, there are two types of knowledge (and knowledge is knowledge; it is not revelation, etc.):
1) empirical knowledge: What we have directly observed.
2) inferential knowledge: What logically follows.
The degree of certainty is based upon the reliability of the observation and the soundness of the logic.
But here's a thought based on a lifetime of scientific observation. The 'empirical knowledge', based on direct sensory input, that so many people on this thread seem to value, is anything but direct. As a birder, I've noticed that making accurate observations of a bird one has recognized is easy. One has a mental picture of a species, and one's brain naturally sorts the 'field-marks' in accord with that mental picture. On the other hand, observations of a bird one hasn't yet identified are harder, more uncertain and generally (when one compares, say, with photographs ) less reliable. Regardless of how objective one thinks one's direct observations are, they aren't. They are hopelessly contaminated by one's expectations.
In my research, more and more, I tend to rely on instrumental measurements and statistical tests of certainty.
Sadly, this post will not help anyone else since no one else exists.
I do this because it pleases me to pretend that others exist. But I know all experience is really only the manifestation of my sense.
I do get sad that things cease to exists when I do not experience them, but then I get happy because they appear to exist when I return my attention on this.
I look forward to seeing how I respond to this when I see your name on the post.
(/silopsism)
Now here's a thread worthy of FR. This is going to be fun. Thanks AG.
No mention of truth?
We can know by the principle of sufficient reason. Schopenhauer identified four kinds of sufficient reason.
IMHO, the real question is, after taking all things into consideration, where one looks for knowledge. We know that we cannot and do not know everything --- so where we look and the resources we choose are what determines 'our knowledge’ and shapes our world view.
Here's my list:
Ronzo's types of “knowledge” and valuation of certainties:
1. Everything | that which is one greater than nothing.
2. Nothing | that which remains when everything is elminated.
Well, I hope that helps! ;^)
I used to love cogitating about subjects like this. I need to see if all the tubes in my brain will warm up and let me participate.