The Tripartite Definition of Knowledge

[2ndRateMind]

So, for context, I have just received some study materials for 'A' level philosophy. That's college level, for all you much beloved foreigners; the stage before undergraduate university level.

Anyway, the first topic on the list is epistemology, the theory of knowledge. It seems the traditional view of knowledge is that subject S knows proposition P if P is justified, and P is true, and S believes that P.

But what if P is unjustified, and untrue, and S doesn't believe that P? Is that not also some subtle sort of knowledge?

Is the unbelief that P different, or the same as, believing that not-P?

Best wishes, 2RM.

[peterk]

[Replying to post 1 by 2ndRateMind]

So you're really asking us to do your first class assignment for you!

[2ndRateMind]

[Replying to post 1 by 2ndRateMind]

So you're really asking us to do your first class assignment for you!

Not at all. I'm interested for this reason; Karl Popper proposes that science advances by disproving what isn't true, rather than by proving what is true. For Popper, no amount of observations can determine the accuracy of a theory, but it only takes one adverse observation to determine its inaccuracy. That is the nature of inductive arguments.

And I suspect his approach has a wider application than only science. Maybe if we can disprove enough P's, and prove enough not-P's, in ethics, wider philosophy, theology, etc, then we will end up (by the process of elimination by trial and error) with an ultimate, objective account of the way the universe is. A Grand, Unified Theory of Everything. (GUToE, for short, hereafter). In this scenario, it would be the only option left to us.

A GUToE is way beyond the compass of any college level assignment, especially a first assignment, but it is one of the lines of enquiry I am interested in pursuing. The epistemology of a GUToE seems to me to be a scoping exercise worthwhile for its own sake, irrespective of college set essays and exams.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[peterk]

I was only joking, but as we don't know each other it's hard to pick that from the words alone. Best wishes to you too.