Can a person know something and not believe it?

[Flopfoot]

This question is taken slightly out of context from a MtnDwellar post but I was thinking the same thing. Another way to put it is “what does it really mean to know something?” This could be important if for example you are judged by God based on whether or not you knew something was a sin before doing it.

As a thought experiment, imagine I wrote down a list of 100 statements and told you that 99 of these are false and 1 is true. If you then read the whole list, you’ve read the true statement, therefore you now “know” something you didn’t before and can be judged on whether or not you follow it. But if you don’t know which is the true statement then the only way to avoid being judged is to act as if all 100 statements were true. This is clearly absurd which proves that it’s not sufficient to merely hear or read something true. You have to have a reason to believe it.

So to what extent do you have to have reason to believe something is true? If it comes from a trustworthy source or is explained in a clear way? Or would you still have the “right to reject” that information if you didn’t truly believe it? (Lots of atheists don’t consider the bible to be a trustworthy source, citing apparent contradictions).

Ernest Von Glasersfeld has an interesting theory called Radical Constructivism where he says that the point of knowledge is not to be a mirror of the external reality, since we have no way of knowing whether our knowledge matches external reality since it is all we have. In this case, could someone be judged on something he “knows” that isn’t actually true? If yes, then we effectively shape God’s laws by our own knowledge which is absurd. If no, then a person could only be judged on the off-chance that their knowledge happened to match reality which seems unfair.

 

[polytropos]

I don’t think you can know something and not believe it. All attempted definitions of knowledge of which I’m aware entail belief. For example: knowledge as justified true belief. (For that matter, it’s also basically unanimously understood that knowledge entails truth. You can’t know something that is false.)

In your argument with the 100 statements, if you know that one is false but not which one, then you don’t “know” it once you have read the list. What you may be confusing here is knowledge in the thick sense (i.e. that to which the definition of “justified true belief” aspires, even though it is not the right definition) and another use of the term ‘know’, the so-called “knowledge of acquaintance”. One might say “I know that Obama is president” and one might say “I know the city of New York, all right.” One is not using ‘know’ in the same sense in these two sentences.

It’s tough to define knowledge. I think that our usual perceptual beliefs are (usually) knowledge. I think you can also acquire knowledge from proper authorities (textbooks, religious authorities, etc.). In my opinion, in order for the term ‘know’ to have anything approximating its current usage, one needs an ‘externalist’ account of knowledge; that is, saying that I know something does not mean that I know that I know it. I can’t necessarily provide me with explicit justification that I could reproduce for you.

I can’t prove to you that electrons have a negative charge, but I know it, because that is what my physics and chemistry teachers taught me. My knowing it entails that it’s true. But it’s epistemically possible that electrons don’t even exist. So in my opinion, your friend Ernest is barking up the wrong tree. That my knowledge does not always yield knowledge of knowledge (explicit grounds for belief) is no reason to think that knowledge ought not correspond to reality. I think radical constructivism is false.

People are not, I think, judged exactly on what they know. For one can be vincibly ignorant; there is something he didn’t know but ought to have known. But one could also be invincibly ignorant. Which one is depends on one’s circumstances and backgrounds. There is also a perplexing question about virtue and vice; the virtuous man does not sin insofar as he is virtuous, but he also doesn’t want to. The vicious man does sin, but he is blinded by his passions and false beliefs. To what extent is he culpable? Well, he might be culpable for the descent into vice, and it’s probably false that he has no resources to get out. But in general, I don’t think that there are any formal set of rules for determining one’s culpability. We often have a good understanding of our own and might be able to help other people determine theirs, but it is really up to God. I just trust that no one is judged unjustly by the Perfect Judge.

 

[Sy_Noe]

An even better question might be in matters of faith, does a person truly know or is it that they believe they know? I propose the truth is in the latter.

 

[PietroPaolo]

An even better question might be in matters of faith, does a person truly know or is it that they believe they know? I propose the truth is in the latter.

Better still, does a person truly know that people only believe they know or does a person just believe they know that other people only believe they know…

 

[fhansen]

This question is taken slightly out of context from a MtnDwellar post but I was thinking the same thing. Another way to put it is “what does it really mean to know something?” This could be important if for example you are judged by God based on whether or not you knew something was a sin before doing it.

As a thought experiment, imagine I wrote down a list of 100 statements and told you that 99 of these are false and 1 is true. If you then read the whole list, you’ve read the true statement, therefore you now “know” something you didn’t before and can be judged on whether or not you follow it. But if you don’t know which is the true statement then the only way to avoid being judged is to act as if all 100 statements were true. This is clearly absurd which proves that it’s not sufficient to merely hear or read something true. You have to have a reason to believe it.

So to what extent do you have to have reason to believe something is true? If it comes from a trustworthy source or is explained in a clear way? Or would you still have the “right to reject” that information if you didn’t truly believe it? (Lots of atheists don’t consider the bible to be a trustworthy source, citing apparent contradictions).

Ernest Von Glasersfeld has an interesting theory called Radical Constructivism where he says that the point of knowledge is not to be a mirror of the external reality, since we have no way of knowing whether our knowledge matches external reality since it is all we have. In this case, could someone be judged on something he “knows” that isn’t actually true? If yes, then we effectively shape God’s laws by our own knowledge which is absurd. If no, then a person could only be judged on the off-chance that their knowledge happened to match reality which seems unfair.

A person can also claim to believe something without knowing it. And this, too, is impossible. The gift of faith is a gift of knowledge, unprovable while also unbelievable-unless for grace, which we can reject. In any case we can’t know something and not believe it.

 

[polytropos]

An even better question might be in matters of faith, does a person truly know or is it that they believe they know? I propose the truth is in the latter.

These aren’t mutually exclusive. Someone who knows p will generally also believe that he knows p. He might not know that he knows p, but that does not mean that he does not know p.

 

[Rhubarb]

For a long time, the analysis of “knowledge” was that knowledge is ‘justified true belief.’ Edmund Gettier dashed that to pieces pretty soundly. It’s my understanding that modern epistemology focuses on reasons for making knowledge claims - I don’t know of any theory that allows for knowledge without belief. That seems super strange to me.

 

[chimo]

What about the devil? He knew the ultimate knowledge but had chosen not to believe it which led him to sin.

 

[Dranu]

For a long time, the analysis of “knowledge” was that knowledge is ‘justified true belief.’ Edmund Gettier dashed that to pieces pretty soundly.

Bah, Gettier’s so called destruction of JTB as knowledge is only him equivocating on the term “justified”

 

[Rhubarb]

Bah, Gettier’s so called destruction of JTB as knowledge is only him equivocating on the term “justified”

Well, sure. That’s the rub, isn’t it? What counts as being justified? Having a true belief that is justified in the “wrong way”, that is, the justifying reason of the belief is incorrect while the belief is still true seems to be a problem. At least for me it does. Do you have any insight on the matter? I’d like to hear it. Most of the literature I’ve read lately speaks of reasons to believe.