Eugine_Nier comments on Conceptual Analysis and Moral Theory - Less Wrong

60 Post author: lukeprog 16 May 2011 06:28AM

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Comment author: Eugine_Nier 16 May 2011 05:45:26PM 2 points [-]

I have the stupid prior that says that everything in B is true and everything not in B is false. Now, you know that Mr. X is constitutionally compelled to write truthfully about his mother's socks. So you know that reading B will legitimately entangle my beliefs with reality on that one solitary subject. But I don't know that fact about Mr. X. I just believe everything in B. You know that my cognitive strategy will give me reliable knowledge on this one subject.

If you want to set your standard for knowledge this high, I would argue that you're claiming nothing counts as knowledge since no one has any way to tell how good their priors are independently of their priors.

Comment author: Tyrrell_McAllister 16 May 2011 06:12:48PM *  0 points [-]

If you want to set your standard for knowledge this high ...

I'm not sure what you mean by a "standard for knowledge". What standard for knowledge do you think that I have proposed?

I would argue that you're claiming nothing counts as knowledge since no one has any way to tell how good their priors are independently of their priors.

You're talking about someone trying to determine whether their own beliefs count as knowledge. I already said that the question of "knowledge" dissolves in that case. All that they should care about are the probabilities that they assign to propositions. (I'm not sure whether you agree with me there or not.)

But you certainly can evaluate someone else's prior. I was trying to explain why "knowledge" becomes problematic in that situation. Do you disagree?

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