SSH 105 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Descriptive Knowledge, Moral Nihilism, Jelly Bean
19 Jun 2018
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Lecture 2 audio notes
Different uses of the term “knowledge”:
1. Knowledge by acquaintance
- I know my professor, friend etc.
2. Knowledge-how
- I know how to ride a bike, how to use a phone etc.
3. Propositional knowledge (knowledge-that)
- Proposition is an idea or thought behind or above a statement
- I know that today is Friday, I know that Ottawa is the capital of Canada etc.
- You are claiming that you know the proposition, make knowledge claims everyday
- We make knowledge claims about deep topics (I know god exists, I know that there is
no god etc.)
- Going to university, a lot of it is to gain knowledge-that (university cots a lot of time
and money, quest to gain knowledge)
Declarative sentences
- Express propositions
- When people declare something is the case
- “there are more than 5 people in the room”
Imperative sentences
- Giving a command
- “shut the door”
Interrogative sentences
- Questions
- “could you close the door?”
Three key ingredients in propositional knowledge: If you know something you must believe it, it
must be true and it must be justified
-belief- if you know something, at the very least you must believe it. Belief does not
mean its knowledge because it can be untrue. (we all know 2+2=4, part of saying I
know 2+2=4 you must believe it)
-truth- part of reason we all are okay with someone saying 2+2=4 is because we know
it’s true, everything true is not knowledge, if you know something it must be true-
truth does not amount to knowledge because all truth’s are not justified
-justification- need good reasons to believe something
-ex. There is evidence that Jones has committed the murder and it is true that Jones
has committed it but the evidence has not been found to prove it was jones so the
police and everybody else do not believe he has committed it- nobody besides Jones
knows he has committed the murder
- if something really is knowledge then it must have belief, truth and justification
- consensus was knowledge is justified, true, belief but reporter said these are true but
there must be something more for knowledge- no settled view
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