12-02-2005 04:05									#211
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quote: Epistemology, or at least the study of knowledge, is a flawed concept to begin with, since we can never honestly prove that we know anything. In order to justify a belief to be true, we must put forth a deductive argument (if (premise) then (conclusion)), which states that the conclusion must be true if the premises are. The main flaw in many epistemological queries is that they assume premises whose existence cannot be proven by any non-omnipotent beings like most of us humans. In fact, one might even say that epistemology begs it’s own question; can one prove what one knows if one may not truly know that they know anything? (Uhhuh…). But I digress, if questions like these didn’t exist, we would have nothing to scare the crap out of opiated intellectuals or your common household stoner, and so epistemology serves perhaps the most important purpose known to mankind.

Sorry, but that's a strawman. You're basically criticizing 21th century epistemology on the basis of 17th century
epistemology. Nobody seeks certainty anymore. We all know today its too much too ask.

Your right when you say that if you use "knowledge" in the strong sense, in the sense of justified true beliefs, we don't know much. Except maybe trivial stuff like "before he died, he was alive". More to point, according to this definition of knowledge, our best example of "knowledge", namely science, isn't knowledge after all. After all, you never hear scientists say "that's the definitive truth". They're much more careful than that. So what should we make of this? One option is to keep this definition of knowledge as an intellectual compass. In other words, even if we don't have justified true beliefs right now, that's what we're aiming for. So if you find out that your belief isn't true, or that it isn't justified, that means you're not going in the right direction. So either you fix your belief or you give it the boot.

Another option is to weaken this definition of knowledge. You can't deny that we know more about the universe today than we knew 2000 years ago. We know more about the human body. We know more about the solar system. We know more about matter. We know more life on earth. We know more about the human psyche. I could go on and on.

	12-02-2005 06:38									#212
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Er, I actually had something to say about Fiorina and her problems at HP

... but this is the wrong thread for that. Never mind.

	12-02-2005 08:13									#213
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

Well, someone had to make derogatory comments about philosophers, even though she's not a philosopher. It's not like HP gave her the job because of her philosophy major. And suggesting she failed because of her philosophy major is ludicrous. So, by all means, go ahead.