It should properly be a question of justification rather than verification. Although in this context the allusion to the demarcation problem is also interesting, and I think there are parallels between the Gettier problem and the demarcation problem

As I've said before, I'm with you guys when it comes to Theists using faith as the only justification for holding their beliefs together.

Let me ask you atheists, do you believe that negative genetic mutations that are associated with disease states are random? Is that not a belief based on faith?

This is a poor rendering of science and scientific thought. Indeed, the scientific process is completely without reference to what scientists believe.

I'm not sure what this has to do with what was being discussed (perhaps I'm just missing something though). To clarify: I was not describing the scientific method, but the example of a scientist's beliefs was put forward, and I was under the impression we were talking about what (and how/why) individuals, including scientists, believe to be true. I was pointing out that this scientist does not have to 'believe to be true' the hypothesis being tested.

Okay.

1) It is true that the scientific METHOD is without reference to the beliefs of the scientists.

2) It is false that SCIENTISTS do not often believe in things before the evidence becomes available. Very often, scientific progress happens when someone has an idea about something for which evidence has not yet been produced.

I think the question that misses the point. Scientists general don't believe stuff, they make assumptions, and the assumptions that give useful results are not discarded.

It is not that the scientist believes that disease states are random, however a scientist might ask “what happens if I assume disease states are random?”. Then produces a chain of results which result in a technique of practical benefit. If the useful technique is a direct consequent of the random assumption lazy use of language might result in concluding that “disease states are random”. Rather than saying “Assuming that disease states are random allowed me to derive useful results.”

So what happens if the results get into the public domain, and reporters start paraphrasing the scientist for public consumption?

There are probably many examples, particularly historically, where a 'scientist' believed to be true an untested hypothesis, but I don't agree that contemporary science / scientists works that way, and don't know where you would get this statistic.

But again wrt to this thread (beliefs / knowledge): having an idea about something for which evidence has not yet been produced != believing the untested idea to be true.

It clearly happens. String theory, for example, is pretty much an untested theory that has been around for a couple decades.

I think you just have a misconception about how scientists actually operate in reality, and you're just using almost a mythologized version of the scientist as the standard-bearer of pure objectivity. That's just not how it works.

String theory applies here, too. (There's some fussing over what it means for a scientific theory like string theory to be true, but that's a different conversation.)

I have quite a few years experience working with biologists, chemists, and biochemists (I am not one myself) but the overwhelming majority of the science done is working on Other People's Ideas, and there are usually multiple streams of science being done in parallel. It would be both unscientific and pointless for someone to be invested in any particular idea. Most of the time results are disappointing, but when there is a success, no-one goes around saying "I knew it was true!". They might say "I knew it was worth investigating" - because it was based on work done prior. Perhaps it is different in other areas of science, but I suspect not.

Again: there is a difference between believing a hypothesis has merit to be investigated, and believing the hypothesis to be true before it has been tested.

Nobody goes around saying "I knew it was true" because nobody goes around saying that type of thing in the first place. So that evaluation is just silly to begin with.

There's also a lot to do with the unreferenced "it" in how you've conceptualized the expression. The final "it" is a much more narrowly conceived object than the "it" that it started as. Surely, you have seen scientists fussing around with the data, going over it again because they *believe* there's something there to be found. What if I change this parameter? Or what if I try this technique?

They believe there is an "it" there enough to keep investing time and energy in trying to find "it" despite the many failures and problems that arise. Without faith (as described earlier), none of these pursuits would be taking place. They would simply abandon the project and move on to something else.

Again: The problem is that your words are referencing two very different objects.

I'm sorry that you took it literally.

There go the goalposts.

Sure, if you dishonestly redefine my position. But I've only been referencing the original point (believing a hypothesis to be true before it has been tested).

I'm just not interested in this rabbit hole. It's obvious that there is no actual disagreement under a different definition of faith, but I specifically stated "I don't use the word 'faith' unless I'm referring to the 'insufficient evidence' meaning.". You can argue with yourself to create a disagreement if you want.

Even without the Gettier cases, Justified True Belief is interesting (from an internalist perspective) since you just end up question-begging:

Is "the Earth is a globe" to be considered knowledge?

1 You hold the belief to be true.
2 You hold the belief because of justifications (observation, photo / video evidence, physics etc).
3 And it is true.

But "and it is true' is begging the question. Why do you say it is true? Only because of those same justifications in 2. There is no additional objective "and it's true" available.

Nobody says anything remotely resembling that, either.

It's not a dishonest redefinition, unless your original point was to be parsed using very narrow concepts, such as restricting "hypothesis" to being formally testable hypotheses and not including a more general hypotheses that would include things like "I think there's something interesting happening here." (In which case I don't even know why you would bother bring up this point in the first place.)

Maybe I can narrow down the discussion a bit further.

Your first objection is to how I described faith as referring to something slightly different from "insufficient evidence." The issue is "insufficient" with regards to what? The types of steps of faith that lead scientists to pursue bare hints of an idea to see if there's anything there is certainly insufficient from any sort of scientific perspective. But it's clearly sufficient to drive scientists forward to pursue the question further.

I certainly wouldn't use the word "trust" to describe that type of intellectual action. Trust is a much stronger type of concept. It's certainly hard to say that the scientists are going to "trust" the result as an indicator of something to be pursued. So, at least in the context I have laid out, it seems perfectly apt to use "faith" as the moniker for something being enough to allow forward progress without necessarily having full confidence in the pending outcome.

This second objection talks about what a scientist believes to be true. You make two assertions:

1) A scientist does not believe "it" to be true.
2) A scientist should not believe "it" to be true.

Again, we have the issue of the unreferenced "it." In the context of this paragraph, you seem to be referring to the type of scientific progress I described. You're rejecting "faith" and replacing that concept with something else. The issue is that you haven't defined or even described that other thing. The "snippets of data" is sufficient data for the type of concept I was referring to. Were you referring to something else?

And to address the final question you asked: "Faith would necessitate the person believing something to be true before verified, would it not?" Yes. The scientist would need to believe that there's something to be found BEFORE it has been verified that there was something to be found.

Perhaps we could broaden, rather than narrow, and also hear from some other ppl (else just move to something else under the topic if no-one's interested)? I don't want to sound like a dick, but there is a pattern where occasionally you will get into a very specific and narrow argument with someone, and it kills the thread when it gets taken over like that.

I happen to find the general topic of epistemology interesting, I only know a few bits and pieces from a lay person philosophy, and I'd like to hear more of it discussed (including from you, just not only from you). On top of this, I don't think you and I are in a particular disagreement if we re-framed and restated our positions on this narrow issue. I'd rather take a rain-check until there was something more interesting to get into it over. I hope you get where I'm coming from.

No worries. I understand what you mean. We'll just have to wait and see if anyone else steps in. Neeel had started down a path similar to the one I was going down with you. Otherwise, well named will probably continue down the path of his thoughts.

The contextualist has an interesting answer to this, the veracity of the proposition is related to the conversational context. Hence two people can make the same claim, the earth is a globe and one be correct in one context and one incorrect in another.

Catherine Elgin offers us a picture of true as true enough. She uses examples from science where truth isn't required as an absolute standard

Now consider a different proposition, I have 10 coins in my pocket, does claiming that I know this also beg the question?

This leaves out importants contexts in which we talk about knowledge. It is true that if we are only talking about our own current knowledge, that in practice (1) and (3) are the same. However, we also talk about other people's claims to knowledge, and our own prior claims to knowledge. In those contexts, (1) and (3) can come apart even in practice.

For instance, many scientists used to believe that there were canals on Mars. Assume they held this belief to be true. This beliefs was based on evidence--it was held on the basis of telescopic evidence of Mars, observations that later turned out to be optical illusions. Now, I think we would mostly agree that they didn't know that there were canals on Mars. However, they held that the belief was true, and arguably the belief was justified. So why didn't they know? Because, as we later found out, it wasn't true that Mars has canals.

*Also, just as a pedantic note, in philosophical contexts, you should probably avoid using "begs the question" to mean: immediately brings up another question, rather than: is a circular argument.

Personally I don't think of knowledge that way. Problem is 3 (and it is true) is never determinable, except as a stronger version of 2 (… justifications ...).

I take the position you know something if you believe you know something. In other words knowledge is both relative and emotional. Not being a philosopher I base this on the way I observe people using the concept of knowledge.

I think there was a tame_deuces thread on this point.

A key question being

Here is an old thread where we discussed these issues.

Before I continue making the same mistake, was it not an example of the latter ('assuming the conclusion')?

I know that Oban taste better than Old Crow.
I know that the Pope is Catholic.
I know that William Jennings Bryant was a Democrat.
I know that David Hume died August 25, 1776, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
I know that some people are, at this moment in time, reading my post.
I know that my right hand is different from my left.
I also know that my right testicle is different from my left.
I know epistemology is a dead end street.

Beyond the above, all is in doubt, subject to skepticism, or just plain hooey.

In thinking about this a little more, I suspect that you in fact using "begs the question" to mean, is a circular argument--but are just wrong that this is a circular argument.

The problem is that the question, "How do you know that p is true?" is ambiguous between:

a) How do you know that p is true
b) How do you know that p is true.

If we are answering (b), we give all the reasons and evidence in support of p. If we are answering (a), we talk about the requirement for knowing something and argue that we fulfill those requirements. So the reason why this is not a circular argument is because your challenge to (3) (p is true) is bringing up (b) rather than (a). But (a) is the question that is under issue here.

(caveat: begging the question might have been the wrong description!)

My comment on JTB was taking an overly strict position (without context, as OrP pointed out). At least for me, JTB was a good starting definition (and fine in general conversation), but problematic on inspection. *

Under this strict view, when you present a hypothetical, you take on the role of the story-teller, the declarer of what is objectively true in your scenario: you define some proposition to be true, and discuss whether an actor in the scenario could discover it. But in real life, "I have 10 coins in my pocket" would just be the claim.


* A few months ago I first heard the description of what I believe is called reliablism - knowledge is a reliably reasoned belief. This fits with scientific truth and scientific facts that 'change' as more information becomes available. Being reliably reasoned made a lot of sense to me.

Reliablism is interesting but it also seems clear when considering specific problems that it's neither necessary or sufficient for justification, it's an attempt to replace an internal justificationary clause with an external one. There are variations in terms of agent and process reliabilism but neither guarantees the veracity of the belief and this can still be exploited.

That thread Original Position linked above is really interesting especially the discussion between bunny and OrP, considering justification as a success term rather than a scale is an important distinction.