Epistemic Thoughts - What was I talking about?

(Originally written December 1, 2006 in Book 7)

What is epistemology? It is the study of knowledge.

What is knowledge? A justified true belief? What does that even mean?

How are beliefs and knowledge related? To know something is not to believe something. So why do we associate the two in epistemology?

To discuss epistemology we may have to reinvent the wheel here. Though, the way I see epistemology, the wheel is more like an oval and the whole unit of epistemology is sort of hobbling, bouncing along.

First, we must identify the subject of epistemology, which is knowledge.

Second, we must differentiate knowledge from belief and show how the two are related as brother and sister, not as mother and daughter. A belief does not give birth to a knowledge, but that doesn't mean I can't have a belief and a knowledge about 'X'.

Belief and knowledge are complimentary but not identical. Nor does belief + X equal knowledge. The two are separate realms.

Example 1 - Baseball

I know that baseball exists. I have empirical evidence for it. I have played it (experiential knowledge) I have seen it, and I have pondered about it.

I believe that baseball is a superior sport to basketball and football. I do not have strong empirical evidence for it. I could explain why the art of a sacrifice bunt is more skillful then tackling a runner or dunking a basketball, but that is pure subjective conjecture.

Here we have one difference already. Experiential knowledge (knowing via experience) is empirical, but belief (value judgments) are subjective.

Now there are many types of beliefs and many types of knowledge, so showing one type of knowledge is not synonymous with one type of belief and does not prove my pint, it merely gives us a starting point.

Now, there is a similarity between experiential knowledge and value judgment beliefs: they are both possessed by an agent (me) and they both correspond to something external to this agent (baseball). What is the relationship of the internal possessions of an agent to external realities?

Does baseball cause my belief or knowledge? Does my belief or knowledge cause baseball? Is there a causal relationship at all? is there another party at play here?

I don't know.

But belief-based epistemology has caused too many problems to be plausible and Zagzebski's virtue-based epistemology doesn't sit right with me. So I think there must be something else out there waiting to be discovered. But what?

Knowledge's subject must be something that exists.

What exists?

Belief's subject must be something that exists, but is not the same as knowledge.

I know I believe X. Is this knowledge or belief? I would say that it is a knowledge of a belief. So it would be a metaknowledge. I believe I believe X would be a metabelief. I know I believe I believe X would still be a metaknowledge, but I know I know I know X would be a meta-metaknowledge. This could go on as an infinite regress (theoretically) but it is futile and ridiculously absurd to do so. It's merely a linguistic game, analogous to a child's argument with a classmate: Is too, is not, is too, is not, is not, is too, Ha! told you so. It's pure rhetoric.