The Meaning of Knowledge: Crash Course Philosophy #7

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On today’s episode…CATS. Also: Hank talks about some philosophy stuff, like a few of the key concepts philosophers use when discussing belief and knowledge, such as what defines an assertion and a proposition, and that belief is a kind of propositional attitude. Hank also discusses forms of justification and the traditional definition of knowledge, which Edmund Gettier just totally messed with, using his Gettier cases.

Many thanks to Index the cat for his patience in the filming of this episode.

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20 Comments

  1. Is this right???
    1.) Assertion = A specific type of statement, one that you declare has a truth value.
    2.) Truth Value = A classification of a statement being one of these 3 things… True, False, Indeterminable.
    Example: Plato is a man. You are making a statement (obviously) that declares a truth value of whether or not the subject (Plato) is a man.

    3.) Proposition = My understanding is that a proposition in the traditional sense is… A specific type of statement, one that you PROPOSE has a truth value. The difference being here that you don't necessarily believe it yourself but are being open and unbiased about what the truth value of a statement could potentially be. However, this video says that a proposition is the underlying content of what your assertion is. That makes me think it is like the subject of your assertion. Which is kind of confusing… Is a proposition in philosophy terminology different than in English terminology?
    Example: You meet a man that you suspect could secretly be an alien. You propose to a friend that this man Socrates could be an alien. You are making a specific type of statement that has a truth value that Socrates could be an alien.
    Assertion= Is
    Proposition= Could be???

  2. I suspect this is due to the abridged nature of this show, but I come out of this episode thoroughly unpersuaded by the Gettier cases presented here as an argument against justified true belief as a definition of knowledge. After all, the core of these cases is that the justification is valid but unsound due to false premises. Recursively requiring knowledge of the premises disqualifies these examples. However, we don't have a clear way of acquiring any knowledge at all now. I don't personally accept either definition of knowledge, but it was kind of surprising not to see the obvious objection addressed in this video. Perhaps it will be in the next?

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