Is knowing a mental event?

[BrightNoon]

Originally Posted by kennethamy

We are not directly aware of trees, but so what?

We have free will, we don't have free will, we can know truth, we cannot know truth, the soul exists, there is no soul....so what? Who cares right? What is the name of this forum? Questions like those above do matter, if philosophy matters. And so does the question of what is meant by 'tree' when sometime says 'I kick the tree.' If you want to stop at the solution of common sense ('if I kick a tree, it is a tree I kick'), which suffices for practical purposes, that's perfectly fine, but then you aren't any longer philosophizing.

We are indirectly aware of trees, because we know there are trees because we have subjective experiences of trees. And, as I already have pointed out, the very best explanation of why we have subjective experiences of trees is that there are trees. I have already asked you whether you have as good an explanation of our subjective experiences of trees than that we observe trees? Why do you think we have experiences of trees?

Who ever claimed to have a 'better explanation?' And what do you mean by that anyway? If you mean some better, more useful way of thinking about the world, then certaintly the concept I'm proposing is not that. It is in no way practical. If you mean, have I offered an alternative to the simplistic, common sense, answer to 'what is a tree' (answer: 'a tree'), then yes I have.

Originally Posted by Emil

That knowing is a mental event means that it happens solely in the mind. But it doesn't knowledge implies truth and truth is often not in the mind. (It can be.) For instance, that I know the capital of Denmark is Copenhagen implies that (given JTB):

• I believe that Copenhagen is the capital of Denmark.
• I am justified in my belief that Copenhagen is the capital of Denmark.
• It is the case that Copenhagen is the capital of Denmark.

The third requirement is not something that has to do with my mind. It is not a mental fact. If knowing was a mental event, then all requirements for it would be mental facts. But that is not the case, thus knowing is not a mental event.

I contend that 'knowing that Copenhagen in the capital of Denmark' does not neccessary suppose either the second of third bullet point above. E.g. I might 'know' that I am in fact a wristwatch. Does that mean that I am justified in this belief or that, in fact, I am a wristwatch? Clearly neither.

It is clear that belief is a mental fact. I think that justification is also a mental fact, but I'm not very sure about it.

I would agree. Belief as such is existent only 'in the mind,' or 'in the phenomenological world: i.e. existent in the same way that a sensation of cold or a desire to have a drink exists, and not in the way in which a tree exists (i.e. if we are referring to the 'real tree,' which I have problems with as already noted, but ignoring that for now..). Through observation from a third person perspective it may be possible to determine what relation that belief bears to 'objective' reality, but that does not change the fact that the belief itself is purely a mental event.

In any case, I think the phrase "knowing is a mental event" should not be used, since it is far from clear that that means solely mental.

I suppose it's a matter of taste, but I think 'mental event' will do. Sure, it might be more clear if it read 'only a mental event,' but isn't that implied? If I say, 'this animal is a chicken,' it's implied that it is not also a horse or anything else. Anyway, the only problem I have with the phrase is that 'mental' connotes the mind-body duality, which I feel is imaginary. Ideally, I'd probably use 'phenomenological event' in place of 'mental event,' to mean exactly the same thing, but without that Cartesian implication: i.e. making no distinction between a mental and a bodily (raw sensory) event, but rather thinking of them all as experience.

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by Emil

I'm pretty sure this analogy is confused but I can't quite put my finger on it. How about:

You talk of "following" as if it is some kind of property that letters in the alphabet can have. But it isn't. That something follows from something else is just a way of talking about logical implication. Logical implication is a truth-functional concept and it does not make sense with mere letters "following" (in a complete non-related sense) each other. Of course in the everyday sense of "following" letters can follow each other. But that's not the kind of following that Gettier is talking about.

You say that "justification is not transitive". That's right. But Gettier does not claim in the paper that it is. I imagine that you think that he does because you think that he argues that: If (2) follows from (1) and (3) follows from (2), then (3) follows from (1). (This interpretation makes sense with your alphabet analogy.) But he doesn't.

Basically, the premise that you ought to question in the Gettier essay is this:

For all persons, a person is justified in believing that P and justified in believing that Q, and P and Q logically implies S, logically implies that that person is justified in believing that S.

(∀x)(Jx(P)∧Jx(Q)∧((P∧Q)⇒S))⇒Jx(S)

("Jx(P)" means x is justified in believing that P.)

I'm not terribly read on the matter but I'm pretty sure this principle has a name. Kennethamy properly knows.
Does it not seem true to you? It definitely seems true to me.

I think your principle is better phrased as: if p entails q, and if p is justified for A, then q is justified for A. (I do not like the phrase, "justified in believing" because it is ambiguous, since A may be justified in believing p even it p is not justified for A). So the principle is that every proposition, q entailed by a proposition p justified for A, is, itself, justified. I think that is true. But, note that the above principle is different from the principle that every proposition q, which is entailed by a proposition, p, which is believed by A, is believed by A. That is the principle that A believes every proposition entailed by a proposition A believes.

I think the name of your principle is just, "the transitivity of justification". And I think it is true.

---------- Post added 11-19-2009 at 09:06 AM ----------

Originally Posted by BrightNoon

We have free will, we don't have free will, we can know truth, we cannot know truth, the soul exists, there is no soul....so what? Who cares right? What is the name of this forum? Questions like those above do matter, if philosophy matters. And so does the question of what is meant by 'tree' when sometime says 'I kick the tree.' If you want to stop at the solution of common sense ('if I kick a tree, it is a tree I kick'), which suffices for practical purposes, that's perfectly fine, but then you aren't any longer philosophizing.



Who ever claimed to have a 'better explanation?' And what do you mean by that anyway? If you mean some better, more useful way of thinking about the world, then certaintly the concept I'm proposing is not that. It is in no way practical. If you mean, have I offered an alternative to the simplistic, common sense, answer to 'what is a tree' (answer: 'a tree'), then yes I have.



I contend that 'knowing that Copenhagen in the capital of Denmark' does not neccessary suppose either the second of third bullet point above. E.g. I might 'know' that I am in fact a wristwatch. Does that mean that I am justified in this belief or that, in fact, I am a wristwatch? Clearly neither.



I would agree. Belief as such is existent only 'in the mind,' or 'in the phenomenological world: i.e. existent in the same way that a sensation of cold or a desire to have a drink exists, and not in the way in which a tree exists (i.e. if we are referring to the 'real tree,' which I have problems with as already noted, but ignoring that for now..). Through observation from a third person perspective it may be possible to determine what relation that belief bears to 'objective' reality, but that does not change the fact that the belief itself is purely a mental event.



I suppose it's a matter of taste, but I think 'mental event' will do. Sure, it might be more clear if it read 'only a mental event,' but isn't that implied? If I say, 'this animal is a chicken,' it's implied that it is not also a horse or anything else. Anyway, the only problem I have with the phrase is that 'mental' connotes the mind-body duality, which I feel is imaginary. Ideally, I'd probably use 'phenomenological event' in place of 'mental event,' to mean exactly the same thing, but without that Cartesian implication: i.e. making no distinction between a mental and a bodily (raw sensory) event, but rather thinking of them all as experience.

What I meant was whether we are directly aware or indirectly aware of trees does not matter to whether or not there are trees, and we are aware of them. It may be that trees are an inference from what we are directly aware of (although that needs more examination) but we know many things by inference we do not know non-inferentially, and if you are right, then mostly everything we know is known inferentially, and not directly.

I am not sure I know what you are getting at in the rest of your post. But, what I wanted to say was that if belief is a mental event, then knowledge is not a mental event. My point is that we can detect what we believe by simple introspection of our mental state, but we cannot detect what we know by simple introspection of our mental state. So in the sense that we cannot believe we believe something and not believe it, we can believe we know something, and not know it. I think that one cause of the belief that knowledge is certain is that it is thought that knowledge is a mental state. It isn't. There are other causes knowledge is thought to be certain, but that is one of them.

[Emil]

Originally Posted by kennethamy

I think your principle is better phrased as: if p entails q, and if p is justified for A, then q is justified for A. (I do not like the phrase, "justified in believing" because it is ambiguous, since A may be justified in believing p even it p is not justified for A). So the principle is that every proposition, q entailed by a proposition p justified for A, is, itself, justified. I think that is true. But, note that the above principle is different from the principle that every proposition q, which is entailed by a proposition, p, which is believed by A, is believed by A. That is the principle that A believes every proposition entailed by a proposition A believes.

I think the name of your principle is just, "the transitivity of justification". And I think it is true.

I had to read that post very carefully to understand it.

Right. The phrase "justified in believing" is dangerous. What about "epistemically justified in believing" (e-justified)? That seems to avoid other possible types of justifications (pragmatic? prudent?).

I have a potential problem with you formulation and that is that it only works for single-proposition entailment/implication. Can that be fixed by simply forming conjunctions?
I suppose it can. It's misleading to say that (1) and (2) together logically imply (3) if one is not talking about the conjunction of (1) and (2). I can't think of another analysis.

For clarity I shall formalize Ken's version:

(∀x)(Jx(P)∧P⇒Q)⇒Jx(Q)
For all persons, that a person is e-justified in believing P, and that P logically implies Q logically implies that that person is e-justified in believing that Q.

This seems true to me.

Belief principle
Formally:

(∀x)(Bx(P)∧P⇒Q)⇒Bx(Q)
For all persons, that a person believes that P, and that P logically implies Q logically implies that that person believes that Q.

Yes, I agree that they are different. I disbelieve that the belief principle is true. It implies that we believe in an infinite number of things which is false. (Given a mental state theory of beliefs which I believe in.)

Transivity
Transitivity is a property of binary relations and justification is not a binary relation in the right way (it is a binary relation since it uses two arguments (I hate using "argument" in that sense but I haven't found a replacement word)). See Wikipedia's examples. It doesn't make sense at all to even state an example of justification as a transitive relation!
There may be some other sense of "transitive" but it seems not. This is the same sense as my logic textbook was talking about.

[ACB]

Originally Posted by Emil

You talk of "following" as if it is some kind of property that letters in the alphabet can have. But it isn't. That something follows from something else is just a way of talking about logical implication. Logical implication is a truth-functional concept and it does not make sense with mere letters "following" (in a complete non-related sense) each other. Of course in the everyday sense of "following" letters can follow each other. But that's not the kind of following that Gettier is talking about.

I did not mean to imply that the two senses of "following" were in any way related. Look at my alphabet analogy again, replacing "follows" with "comes immediately after".

Originally Posted by Emil

Basically, the premise that you ought to question in the Gettier essay is this:

For all persons, a person is justified in believing that P and justified in believing that Q, and P and Q logically implies S, logically implies that that person is justified in believing that S.

Yes, this is exactly the premise I am questioning.

Originally Posted by Emil

Does it not seem true to you? It definitely seems true to me.

No, it not seem true to me.

Let's go back to my alphabet example. I have enough experience of the alphabet to have a justified belief about which letter comes next after any given letter. But (unless I have learned it by rote at an early age) I am unlikely to be able to reliably tell the order-number of the letter U (21) without a quick count through the alphabet. So if someone asked me "U comes how many letters after A?" and I replied "20" without bothering to count, it would be a lucky guess; and if I actually believed it (for some wrong reason) without counting, then my belief (though true) would not be justified.

Now:

(1) B comes next after A,
(2) C comes next after B,
and so on up to
(20) U comes next after T

together logically imply

(21) U comes 20 letters after A.

But, as I have argued above, the fact that I am justified in believing all of (1)-(20) does not logically imply that I am justified in believing (21) (without the additional step of counting).

NB: By "justified" I mean "epistemically justified".

[Emil]

Originally Posted by ACB

I did not mean to imply that the two senses of "following" were in any way related. Look at my alphabet analogy again, replacing "follows" with "comes immediately after".

Yes, this is exactly the premise I am questioning.

Ok. My bad.

Originally Posted by ACB

No, it not seem true to me.

Let's go back to my alphabet example. I have enough experience of the alphabet to have a justified belief about which letter comes next after any given letter. But (unless I have learned it by rote at an early age) I am unlikely to be able to reliably tell the order-number of the letter U (21) without a quick count through the alphabet. So if someone asked me "U comes how many letters after A?" and I replied "20" without bothering to count, it would be a lucky guess; and if I actually believed it (for some wrong reason) without counting, then my belief (though true) would not be justified.

Now:

(1) B comes next after A,
(2) C comes next after B,
and so on up to
(20) U comes next after T

together logically imply

(21) U comes 20 letters after A.

But, as I have argued above, the fact that I am justified in believing all of (1)-(20) does not logically imply that I am justified in believing (21) (without the additional step of counting).

NB: By "justified" I mean "epistemically justified".

Hmm. I'll just list them, just in case.

1. A is followed by B.
2. B is followed by C.
3. C is followed by D
4. D is followed by E.
5. E is followed by F.
6. F is followed by G.
7. G is followed by H.
8. H is followed by I.
9. I is followed by J.
10. J is followed by K.
11. K is followed by L.
12. L is followed by M.
13. M is followed by N.
14. N is followed by O.
15. O is followed by P.
16. P is followed by Q.
17. Q is followed by R.
18. R is followed by S.
19. S is followed by T.
20. T is followed by U.
21. U is followed by V.
22. V is followed by W.
23. W is followed by X.
24. X is followed by Y.
25. Y is followed by Z.
26. Z is followed by nothing.

Does the conjunction of all these (or just up to (20)) logically imply?:

A. U comes 20 letters after A.

It seems so.

But then, do you actually believe these all the time? I think not. It seems to me that the only time that anyone ever believes all these is when one is counting through the alphabet and probably not every time one is counting through. The only time that one actually believes all of these simultaneously is when one has spent a lot of time (that day) to intensively practicing the alphabet. And when one has intensively practiced the alphabet (that day), it seems to me that one is justified in believing things such as (A).

I certainly don't go around believing all these and I couldn't answer questions like "what comes after S?" without counting the alphabet or at least that part of the alphabet.

But maybe it is possible with enough practice to believe (1) though (26) (or (n)) without studying the alphabet intensively (that day). And I'm not sure in such a case that one is justified in believing (A). Especially if we consider a similar but much larger set. But recall that the more members between (1) and whatever chosen number in that set, the less chance that someone can (physical possibility or intentional possibility) actually believe all of them.

Interesting case.

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by Emil

I had to read that post very carefully to understand it.

Right. The phrase "justified in believing" is dangerous. What about "epistemically justified in believing" (e-justified)? That seems to avoid other possible types of justifications (pragmatic? prudent?).

I have a potential problem with you formulation and that is that it only works for single-proposition entailment/implication. Can that be fixed by simply forming conjunctions?
I suppose it can. It's misleading to say that (1) and (2) together logically imply (3) if one is not talking about the conjunction of (1) and (2). I can't think of another analysis.

For clarity I shall formalize Ken's version:

(∀x)(Jx(P)∧P⇒Q)⇒Jx(Q)
For all persons, that a person is e-justified in believing P, and that P logically implies Q logically implies that that person is e-justified in believing that Q.

This seems true to me.

Belief principle
Formally:

(∀x)(Bx(P)∧P⇒Q)⇒Bx(Q)
For all persons, that a person believes that P, and that P logically implies Q logically implies that that person believes that Q.

Yes, I agree that they are different. I disbelieve that the belief principle is true. It implies that we believe in an infinite number of things which is false. (Given a mental state theory of beliefs which I believe in.)

Transivity
Transitivity is a property of binary relations and justification is not a binary relation in the right way (it is a binary relation since it uses two arguments (I hate using "argument" in that sense but I haven't found a replacement word)). See Wikipedia's examples. It doesn't make sense at all to even state an example of justification as a transitive relation!
There may be some other sense of "transitive" but it seems not. This is the same sense as my logic textbook was talking about.

Why is transitivity a two-term (binary) relation, only? The hypothetical syllogism illustrates a transitive relation, doesn't it? And it illustrates a three-term (argument) relation. Yes, the belief principle is clearly false. For the reason you give. ("Transitivity" not, "transivity")

[Emil]

Originally Posted by kennethamy

Why is transitivity a two-term (binary) relation, only? The hypothetical syllogism illustrates a transitive relation, doesn't it? And it illustrates a three-term (argument) relation. Yes, the belief principle is clearly false. For the reason you give. ("Transitivity" not, "transivity")

I don't know why it is a binary term. But it is.

Hypothetical syllogism:

1. P→Q
2. Q→S
Thus, 3. P→S

Yes it does.

The form of a transitive binary relation is this:

1. Rxy
2. Ryz
Thus, 3. Rxz

[ACB]

Originally Posted by Emil

But then, do you actually believe these all the time? I think not. It seems to me that the only time that anyone ever believes all these is when one is counting through the alphabet and probably not every time one is counting through. The only time that one actually believes all of these simultaneously is when one has spent a lot of time (that day) to intensively practicing the alphabet. And when one has intensively practiced the alphabet (that day), it seems to me that one is justified in believing things such as (A).

I certainly don't go around believing all these and I couldn't answer questions like "what comes after S?" without counting the alphabet or at least that part of the alphabet.

Thanks for your reply. I would say that if you can recite the alphabet quickly and without hesitation, so that you have no time to "work out" anything, you must be relying on your prior beliefs about the individual sequences of adjacent letters. (I can recite the alphabet in less than 4 seconds, so surely I must have these beliefs in my memory all the time.) But it is perfectly possible for someone to recite the alphabet rapidly without immediately having any belief (let alone a justified one) about the order-number of any given letter.

Another example:
I can be justified in believing the following:
1 + 2 = 3
3 + 4 = 7
5 + 6 = 11
7 + 8 = 15
9 + 10 = 19
without justifiably believing that
1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10 = 55
because I can carry the two-number sums in my memory without necessarily carrying the ten-number sum. I could give the answers to the two-number sums immediately, but might still (a) fail to believe the ten-number sum, or (b) believe it for a wrong reason (e.g. an incompetent teacher told me it).

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by Emil

But then, do you actually believe these all the time? I think not. It seems to me that the only time that anyone ever believes all these is when one is counting through the alphabet and probably not every time one is counting through. The only time that one actually believes all of these simultaneously is when one has spent a lot of time (that day) to intensively practicing the alphabet. And when one has intensively practiced the alphabet (that day), it seems to me that one is justified in believing things such as (A).

I certainly don't go around believing all these and I couldn't answer questions like "what comes after S?" without counting the alphabet or at least that part of the alphabet.

But maybe it is possible with enough practice to believe (1) though (26) (or (n)) without studying the alphabet intensively (that day). And I'm not sure in such a case that one is justified in believing (A). Especially if we consider a similar but much larger set. But recall that the more members between (1) and whatever chosen number in that set, the less chance that someone can (physical possibility or intentional possibility) actually believe all of them.

Interesting case.

But, there are two senses of "believe"; the occurrent sense, and the dispositional sense. In the occurrent sense, I do not beileve 'D' is the fourth letter in the alphabet unless it is immediately before my mind. But in the dispositional sense, it is true that I believe that 'D' is the fourth letter even when I am sound asleep. (If you pointed to me while asleep and said, "He believes that 'D' is the fourth letter" it would be true). For in the dispositional sense of "believe" that would mean that in the appropriate circumstance, I would say and do things that would indicated conclusively that I believed that 'D' was the fourth letter. It may be that when you say, "actually believe" you mean the occurrent sense of "believe" rather than the dispositional sense. The dispositional sense refers to a capacity or ability to do certain things in the appropriate circumstances.

[ACB]

I have been considering the Gettier problem further, and I would like to approach it from a slightly different angle. I have been arguing up to now that Smith is not justified in believing that the man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket, on the grounds that justification is not transitive. However, I have a further objection to Gettier's argument.

Consider the underlined statement above. It could mean (inter alia) either of the following things:

1. The man who will get the job, Jones, has ten coins in his pocket.

2. The man who will get the job, Smith, has ten coins in his pocket.

The first is justified but not true; the second is true but not justified. So there is no single belief that is both justified and true; hence the JTB condition is not met. The underlined statement above is really a catch-all formula for (at least) two different beliefs. Smith is not justified in believing the underlined statement simpliciter, as its scope is too wide. He is only justified in believing (1) above - and (1) is false.