Knowledge and justification
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Hume and the definition of belief
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The approach that Hume takes in the Enquiries is a psychological one. He hardly ever uses the term know in his writings, but prefers the term belief. This is because for him there is only belief. He is how he distinguishes belief from imagination. "I say, then, that belief is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object, that what the imagination alone is ever able to attain." Taking our cue from this extract, we could say that Hume would regard knowledge as an intense form of belief. A belief is accompanied, psychologically, but a measure of conviction that, for Hume, is ultimately based on past experience. We only believe that it is possible that a die will come up with a six, because in the past die throws have only produced sixes on a certain proportion of occasions, but we are convinced that a lead ball will fall when dropped, because lead balls always do fall. Thus, beliefs are accompanied by a level of intensity. Some beliefs are held so intensely, that we say that we know them. However, what this implies is that something that is known could turn out to be false. There are outlandish possibilities, hardly ever seriously contemplated in ordinary life, that just occasionally turn out to be real. A man jumps from an aeroplane and his parachute does not open. He may be convinced that he will die on impact, but by chance he falls through trees that slow his rate of descent and he survives. Improbable and outlandish, but possible nonetheless. The whole rationalist (and Cartesian) approach to knowledge assumes that we are capable of attaining to some kind of objectivity that effectively means that we are able to "jump out of our own skins". If we look at life through out own eyes, it is claimed, we will see that we cannot transcend our own situation and personal history. I can examine my beliefs one at a time, but I cannot examine them all together at the same time, for there is nothing to compare them to. Of course, the rationalist does believe that reason provides an independent faculty of the mind that enables all beliefs to be examined afresh and reconstructed anew; but if you are not a rationalist, then you may be forced to conclude that such a programme cannot be started. There is knowledge, but what we call knowledge is what we have learnt over our lives, and much of which we cannot doubt for the simple reason that there is no independent material to compare them to. In rationalism it is reason that provides this independent source of truth. Some empiricists maintain that sense-data are sufficient; but other empiricists, of whom Hume and Wittgenstein are prime examples, do not. We can summarise this difference of opinion as follows. Descartes: Knowing is a different from believing because there is a process that guarantees truth. The Method of Doubt uncovers what is incapable of doubt. Hume: Knowing is a stronger form of belief but not essentially different from it. The difference is only a difference of feeling or intensity. The Method of Doubt is an illusion, for it is not possible to consider the possible falsity of all your beliefs at once.
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Contents of
Knowledge and justification
1 The distinction between knowledge and belief
2 Unsound, invalid, possible world and fallacy
3 Counterexample, exposing a fallacy
4 Belief and doubt
5 Believing that and knowing that
6 Knowledge and certainty - the tripartite definition of knowledge
7 True, justified belief
8 Plato: The Theaetetus
9 Plato: Forms
10 The possibility of scepticism and categories of belief
11 Global scepticism
12 The Argument from Authority
13 Valid argument, inference and justification
14 Chain of deductive inferences, self-evident truths
15 Sense experience, empiricism
16 The dialectic method, thesis and antithesis
17 Rationalism and empiricism; the Discourse on the Method
18 The Cogito, Reason and Rational Insight
19 Bertrand Russell, Acquaintance
20 Universals, Forms
21 Scepticism, Existentialism and Faith
22 The evil genius argument
23 Existentialism
24 Soren Kierkegaard - Fear and Trembling - the Absurd
25 Foundation for Knowledge
26 Theory of Knowledge, Epistemology and Metaphysics
27 Rationalism, Mathematics and Logic, Innateness
28 Innate Ideas
29 The a priori
30 Truth by convention, Hume and the Method of Doubt
31 Hume and the distinction between belief and knowledge
32 Hume and the definition of belief
33 Truth as a logical operator on sentences
34 The correspondence theory of truth
35 Wittgenstein: On Certainty
36 Wittgenstein and the coherence theory of truth
37 William James and Pragmatism
38 W.V.O. Quine, pragmatism and the Two Dogmas of Empiricism
39 Postivism and pragmatism
40 Pragmatism and utilitarianism
41 Pragmatism and religiion
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