Notes for 9/29/2026

  

9/29/2026

 

[Philosophy Club every Wednesday, 5-6 pm, in the Buchtel College of Arts and Sciences room 436 ("The Cave")

Bioethics Club Tuesdays from 4:30-5:30 in CAS 436.]

 

If you really know something, do you have to be able to explain HOW you know it?

 

Problem of the criterion:

“In order to have knowledge, you must know what knowledge is.”

“In order to claim to know something, you must know what ‘know’ means.”

 

Epistemology (episteme = knowledge)

Study of knowledge but also rationality, belief, …

 

 

Regress problem:

If you have to know that you know in order to know, then you also have to know that you know that you know….

 

Same problem for belief:

Suppose you believe something. Do you also have to believe that you believe it in order to believe it?

 

 

 

A resolution lies in distinguishing first-order and higher-order cognitions. You don’t have to have a higher-order cognition in order to have a lower especially first-order) cognition.

 

You can think x without thinking that you are thinking x. The higher-order cognition is something that may come about through reflection, but the higher-order cognition is not a necessary condition for the lower-order cognition.

 

One of the most common responses to the problem of the criterion is to adopt Foundationalism.

 

This is the view that some beliefs are known on the basis of other beliefs, but some beliefs are “basic.”

 

Some common examples of basic beliefs are:

-      First-person present-tense mental states (e.g., I am hungry, that looks like a tree to me)

-      Self-evident conceptual truths (e.g., circles are round, contradictions are impossible)

 

 

One of the best-known foundationalists was Rene Descartes

 

Descartes was not only a foundationalist, but also an infallibilist

 

Infallibilism is the view that knowledge requires absolute certainty (you only know something if you couldn’t possibly be wrong about it)

 

Descartes’ infallibilism was largely motivated by two things:

(1)     The collapse of Aristotelian science

(2)     The development of mathematical physics

 

 

Descartes’ “Archimedean point” was the principle,

“I am thinking, therefore I exist.”

 

 

Descartes sought to leverage this into a general infallibilist system for scientific knowledge.

 

 

 

 

But it failed.

 

This is important because it showed that it is possible to THINK one’s belief is infallibly true when it really isn’t.

 

 

 

Descartes’ failure was part of what motivated a turn away from infallibilism toward fallibilism.

 

Fallibilism is the view that we can often claim knowledge even where there is a possibility that we are wrong.

(We do not have to have perfect justification in order to claim knowledge.)

 

 

Another driver of fallibilism is attention to ordinary language.

 

We often claim knowledge despite the possibility of error.

 

“I know what day it is today.”

“I know I am not adopted.”

“I know my cat is not a sophisticated robot.”

 

I know that 1=1

 

 

Infallibilism appears to set the bar for knowledge impractically high.

 

It also generates a significant problem of skepticism.

 

 

General argument for skepticism:

1.          For any way that things appear to be, there are multiple possible accounts of why things appear that way.

2.          It is impossible to know with certainty which of those accounts is correct.

3.          Therefore, it is impossible to know (on infallibilism) that things are the way they appear to be.