The reason it does this, and the reason this method is preferable to those which treat the number of fingers on your hand as not subject to probabilistic assessments is that you can be wrong about the number of fingers on your hand.
True, but irrelevant. It would have helped if you had continued to read further; you would have seen me explain to JoshuaZ that he had made exactly the same error that you just made in understanding what I just said.
The specific manifested instance is not the number of fingers but the number of fingers I am currently seeing. It is not, fundamentally speaking, possible for me to be mistaken about the latter (caveat: this only applies to ongoing perception, as opposed to recollections of perception).
Like anything else a “specific manifested instance” is an entity which we are justified in believing so long as it reliably explains and predicts our sensory impressions.
It is not proper to speak of beliefs about specific manifested instances when making assertions about what those instantiations actually are.
The statement “I observe X” is unequivocably absolutely true. Any conclusions derived from it however do not inherit this property.
Similarly, I want to note that you are close to making a categorical error regarding the relevance of explanatory power and predictions to this discussion. Those are very important elements for the formation of rational beliefs; but they are irrelevant to justified truth claims.
The specific manifested instance is not the number of fingers but the number of fingers I am currently seeing. It is not, fundamentally speaking, possible for me to be mistaken about the latter (caveat: this only applies to ongoing perception, as opposed to recollections of perception).
Perceptions do not have propositional content- speaking about their truth or falsity is nonsense. Beliefs about perceptions like “the number of fingers I am currently seeing is five” do and can correspondingly be false. They are of course rarely false but humans routinely miscount things. The closer a belief gets to merely expressing a perception the less there is that can be meaningfully said about it’s truth value.
Similarly, I want to note that you are close to making a categorical error regarding the relevance of explanatory power and predictions to this discussion. Those are very important elements for the formation of rational beliefs; but they are irrelevant to justified truth claims.
Perceptions do not have propositional content- speaking about their truth or falsity is nonsense.
Unless you are operating within the naive realist framework.
Beliefs about perceptions like “the number of fingers I am currently seeing is five” do and can correspondingly be false.
You’ve fallen into that same error I originally warned about. You are conflating beliefs about the nature of the perception with beliefs about the content of the perception.
The closer a belief gets to merely expressing a perception the less there is that can be meaningfully said about it’s truth value.
True but irrelevant to this discussion. I never claimed that there were absolute truths accessible to an arbitrary person which were of significant informational value. I only asserted that they do exist.
A rational belief is a justified truth claim.
Then I guess my epistemology doesn’t exist. I must have just been trolling this entire time. I couldn’t possibly believe that this is statement is committing a categorical error.
Are you willing to accept the notion that I am conveying to you a framework that you are currently unfamiliar with that makes statements about how truth, belief, and knowledge operate which you currently disagree with? If yes, then why do you actively resist comprehending my statements in this manner? What are you hoping to achieve?
Then I guess my epistemology doesn’t exist. I must have just been trolling this entire time. I couldn’t possibly believe that this is statement is committing a categorical error.
Are you willing to accept the notion that I am conveying to you a framework that you are currently unfamiliar with that makes statements about how truth, belief, and knowledge operate which you currently disagree with? If yes, then why do you actively resist comprehending my statements in this manner? What are you hoping to achieve?
What are you talking about! We’re talking about epistemology! If you want to demonstrate why a calling a rational belief a justified truth claim is a category error then do so. But please stop condescendingly repeating it. I actively “resist comprehending your statements”?! You can’t just assert things that don’t make sense in another person’s framework and expect them to not say “No those things are the same”.
In any case, if it is a common position in the epistemological literature then I suspect I am familiar with it and that you are simply really bad at explaining what it is. If it is your original epistemological framework then I suspect it will be a bad one (nothing personal, just my experience with the reference class).
Unless you are operating within the naive realist framework.
Is that your position?
You’ve fallen into that same error I originally warned about. You are conflating beliefs about the nature of the perception with beliefs about the content of the perception.
You keep doing this. You keep using words to make distinctions as if it were obvious what distinction is implied. I can assure you nearly no one here has any idea what you mean by the difference between the nature of the perception and the content of the perception. Please stop acting like we’re stupid because you aren’t explaining yourself.
True, but irrelevant. It would have helped if you had continued to read further; you would have seen me explain to JoshuaZ that he had made exactly the same error that you just made in understanding what I just said.
The specific manifested instance is not the number of fingers but the number of fingers I am currently seeing. It is not, fundamentally speaking, possible for me to be mistaken about the latter (caveat: this only applies to ongoing perception, as opposed to recollections of perception).
It is not proper to speak of beliefs about specific manifested instances when making assertions about what those instantiations actually are.
The statement “I observe X” is unequivocably absolutely true. Any conclusions derived from it however do not inherit this property.
Similarly, I want to note that you are close to making a categorical error regarding the relevance of explanatory power and predictions to this discussion. Those are very important elements for the formation of rational beliefs; but they are irrelevant to justified truth claims.
Perceptions do not have propositional content- speaking about their truth or falsity is nonsense. Beliefs about perceptions like “the number of fingers I am currently seeing is five” do and can correspondingly be false. They are of course rarely false but humans routinely miscount things. The closer a belief gets to merely expressing a perception the less there is that can be meaningfully said about it’s truth value.
A rational belief is a justified truth claim.
Unless you are operating within the naive realist framework.
You’ve fallen into that same error I originally warned about. You are conflating beliefs about the nature of the perception with beliefs about the content of the perception.
True but irrelevant to this discussion. I never claimed that there were absolute truths accessible to an arbitrary person which were of significant informational value. I only asserted that they do exist.
Then I guess my epistemology doesn’t exist. I must have just been trolling this entire time. I couldn’t possibly believe that this is statement is committing a categorical error.
Are you willing to accept the notion that I am conveying to you a framework that you are currently unfamiliar with that makes statements about how truth, belief, and knowledge operate which you currently disagree with? If yes, then why do you actively resist comprehending my statements in this manner? What are you hoping to achieve?
What are you talking about! We’re talking about epistemology! If you want to demonstrate why a calling a rational belief a justified truth claim is a category error then do so. But please stop condescendingly repeating it. I actively “resist comprehending your statements”?! You can’t just assert things that don’t make sense in another person’s framework and expect them to not say “No those things are the same”.
In any case, if it is a common position in the epistemological literature then I suspect I am familiar with it and that you are simply really bad at explaining what it is. If it is your original epistemological framework then I suspect it will be a bad one (nothing personal, just my experience with the reference class).
Is that your position?
You keep doing this. You keep using words to make distinctions as if it were obvious what distinction is implied. I can assure you nearly no one here has any idea what you mean by the difference between the nature of the perception and the content of the perception. Please stop acting like we’re stupid because you aren’t explaining yourself.