Thomas Metcalf

Internalism (about epistemology) is the thesis that knowledge just is a justified true belief. This justification must be internal, which means we must have epistemic access to why this belief is justified. Not only must we know the proposition P, we must know why our belief in P is justified; we must have cognitive access to this justification.

The most common critique of this theory of knowledge is that some internally-justified true beliefs aren't knowledge. The classic example (from Edmund Gettier) is when we come to believe something true justifiedly, but accidentally. Suppose I come to believe a proposition P justifiedly, but P is false. Suppose Q is true but I don't know whether it's true. Because P is justified, the disjunction P v Q is justified. And the disjunction P v Q is true, because Q is true. So I could come to believe P v Q justifiedly, and P v Q is true, but I had absolutely no connection to the truth of Q.

Another critique is that often, we say certain organisms have knowledge when they might not know why they believe something. My cat knows when I'm eating, and knows that I have food she'd like to eat. But it's highly doubtful that my cat, even in ideal discursive circumstances, could tell me how she knows that. She's just not smart enough and probably doesn't really know anything about the connection between smelling food and food actually being up there on the table. She doesn't occurrently think "I smell food; therefore, there's food up there." But we can't deny that she knows when I'm eating.

One alternative externalist theory is reliabilism, according to which beliefs are justified not if we have epistemic access to their justification, but if they were formed by reliable belief-forming mechanisms. If I happened to decide to believe P v Q because I had the false belief that P, I probably didn't come to believe P via a reliable belief-forming mechanism, and so my belief in P v Q isn't knowledge. But my cat's belief that I have food is knowledge, because it was formed by a reliable belief forming mechanism -- namely, something to do with her sense of smell.

Suppose we adopt internalism despite these problems. For a belief to be knowledge, we must be able to justify it to ourselves, to say why it counts as knowledge and what justifies it. We have to be able to rule out potential defeaters (situations that would make us seem to have knowledge when we didn't) beyond a reasonable doubt.

Consider the belief "I am omniscient." How would one justify this belief? Well, one could think of propositions and then decide whether one knew the truth of such propositions. But one would have absolutely no way to know whether one had considered every proposition. In the end, there'd always be the possibility that you had, say, been created by someone much more powerful and knowledgeable than you, and fooled into thinking that you were omniscient. I don't see how you could ever rule that out.

So I'm wondering how God could be omniscient, if internalism is true. I don't see how He could ever justify "I am omniscient." Maybe if there were a sound ontological argument, but I have no reason to believe there is one that God could accept, even if God exists. Seems like God would always have to wonder whether someone even more powerful than He was hiding things from Him.

On externalism, maybe God formed the belief "I am omniscient" via a reliable belief-forming mechanism, say, "being God." But it looks like we have to commit ourselves to some form of externalism if we're going to be theists. Don't we?

Theli

First off, great post.
In the end, god can only know that he knows what he knows, but not that it is everything there is to know. If something is outside his reach, he will never know that it is even knowable, and he couldn't possibly establish that nothing exists outside his reach.
Omniscience is trouble.
Whoever defines god as omniscient, must himself establish that there is nothing outside god's reach (and his own), not an easy task.

scumble

She's just not smart enough and probably doesn't really know anything about the connection between smelling food and food actually being up there on the table. She doesn't occurrently think "I smell food; therefore, there's food up there."

It's fundamental to have an instinct for recognising food, but cats are able to tell what their favourite food is, in my experience. When you consider such "inherent" knowledge in terms of evolution, the "reasoning" has already been done. Knowing what your food is, is one factor for survival.

...true beliefs...

troublesome phrase, that. Not one I'd use myself.

"knowing" things only really comes about if experience can reinforce it. This is my personal view, at least. Sometimes it's difficult to reaslise that you assume certain things because it's your own experience. The experience is so strong it seems like the truth. Most of the things I might think I know are probably doubtful, especially things outside my experience.

The problem with this "internalism" is how you know you came to believe something, and whether your belief is justified. Even then, what you think the justification is could change to make a belief unsound.

I suppose I think truth is something we humans rarely get hold of, and we only get a glimpse at it.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Theli :

I think that's the force of my point. But I think it can be avoided by adopting reliabilism. God doesn't know how He knows He's omniscient, but as long as he came to believe He's omniscient via a reliable belief-forming mechanism, He could still be omniscient.

Thomas Metcalf

[QUOTE]Originally posted by scumble
[B]She's just not smart enough and probably doesn't really know anything about the connection between smelling food and food actually being up there on the table. She doesn't occurrently think "I smell food; therefore, there's food up there."

It's fundamental to have an instinct for recognising food, but cats are able to tell what their favourite food is, in my experience. When you consider such "inherent" knowledge in terms of evolution, the "reasoning" has already been done. Knowing what your food is, is one factor for survival.

Really? It's completely common in the literature. A belief is true just in case it correctly refers to reality. If you have problems defining truth, then your problems are much greater than an analysis of "knowledge."

I don't know. I think we have some knowledge that experience hasn't reinforced. Not only a priori truths, but some synthetic propositions, too, like "No humans were born anywhere other than earth."

Well, true. If your belief stops being justified, it no longer counts as knowledge.

scumble

It may be common "in the literature", but referring to a "true belief" is unnecessary, if anything else. Belief is unnecessary once you "have" a sense of reality, or truth. Actual knowing is a rather different quality than believing something that just happens to be true. For example, if you believed there was a man called Fred working at your local supermarket, having seen the staff roster, you would still not "know" that he was working there with only this evidence. Someone may have not maintained the list properly. If you went to find Fred, you would have to rely on a person to tell the truth. Normally, you'd be maintaining a belief of this man's existence, but knowing he exists requires a fairly large amount of information gathered over time, because the qualities of a person are complex.

Knowing and believing cannot occur at the same time, bacause once you have knowledge, there is no belief. Like Socrates, I suppose, I realise my knowledge is very scant, and to survive I have to maintain a huge number of beliefs. A "reliable belief-forming mechansim" does not guarantee truth acquisition, and how would you know you had one?

What I guess omniscience is about, is the direct knowledge of everything, which means continuous contact and awareness with all matter. If God has this quality, God will not have the uncertainty of belief to worry about, since God will never have to form the belief "I am omniscient". God is a knowing entity that does not require belief.

So I don't really know what this locigal quandry is about. God doesn't need justification because knowledge is an inherent (claimed) characteristic.

By the way, the "knowledge" of certain things in mathematics, or some linguistic construction being true, is a result of definitions produced by us. These definitions are rooted in the assumption of other knowledge. In an abstract sense, these things are meningless if you take away the objects they refer to. Maths, particularly is meaningless in itself. Until you apply it in something like physics, maths give us no knowledge about the world. If every mathematical theory turned out to be true, my assessment might be different, but this isn't the case.

Ikea

Isn't reliablism pretty flawed? I wouldn't go adopting it to solve any of your problems.

ax

God eh? Something from nothing almost. The idea is an inverted, reciprocal, nullifying, anti-material, less void than nothing, opposite universe, or something like that. Basically it is another universe. (Now before one will go off about there can be only one universe, hear me out and I'll explain that a little later, thank you.) It is the same to ours in all respects except it is completely opposite. Its cause for existence is to counteract the effect that our existence has caused. And that is simply mucking up the original idea which was Nothing. And if nothing comes from nothing, then how did we all bloody well get here?
The idea of creating something from nothing probably confused God a great deal, causing at least a couple of sleepless nights during those first few days. How was God supposed to trick himself into being God when he/she/it/whatever didn't exist in the first place? Secondly, how was God going to create the Universe when there was only nothing to work with? Thirdly, how could this all be sustained without anything becoming the wiser? Let's face it, how long would it take before something realized the underlying truth that the universe and all the thing bumming around in it ( i.e. life, hydrogen, the ether, I Love Lucy re-runs, etc.) where really nothing and God had just never been there. God would be forced to agree. Then life, the universe, and everything associated would have to stop and seem rather pointless.
This couldn't happen, considering that we are still here, unless there was something opposing our being here. A nullifying Yin to our yang is a bad metaphor that will do. It would be in perfect contrary synchronicity to the opposing universe. Both running through their fates completely happy and unaware that the only reason that they could be there in the first place is because somewhere, something is reducing them back to the primordial point of nothing, 0. And Visa-versa.
God saw this and called it "Good, that'll do."
Then called the opposing extreme realities, dualities. Tied and wrapped them together, sat on top and said that his/her/its/whatever's throne was THE UNIVERSE.
God in a brilliant whim also decided it would be a good idea to cram an abysmal void between the dualities that nothing could cross. So if any part and counterpart decided to sit sown, have dinner and discuss the matter, they would first be met by oblivion. Thus never letting on the big secret that would destroy everything.
This whole notion does fit rather nicely with the theories of Universal regression so long as everybody remembers that all possibilities of time and space, backwards or forwards, would be happening at the same time and place. Well metaphorically speaking of course, I don't think that a little thing such as the time- space continuum would be of much consideration at that point. Neither would anything else for that matter. We are Nothing after all.
So long as everything positive has its negative counterpart, existence will continue. We can rest assured that Australia will still beat the shit out of the English at cricket and it will still be important to whomever cares that they did. It will still be hard to find a good burger, the French and the British will still argue over whom is the more pompous of the two, and pizza will still taste good when you are drunk. So sleep soundly and firm in the knowledge that both you and God are both pretty sure that sun will rise on our little heads just as soon as our little planet spins around to face it.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by scumble
We're talking about different kinds of belief then. On my analysis of belief, the one shared by almost every epistemologist, belief in something does not entail knowledge of whether it's true, or a lack thereof.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Ikea

Well, is it? I happen to think most versions of internalism are fatally flawed, so I'd love to see an alternative externalism or at least some criticisms of reliabilism.