The epistemology thread

[Wayne in Maine]

Epistemology: the theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope. Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.

What are our sources of knowledge? What sources can we trust and why? What if the knowledge we gain from these sources contradicts other sources? How can we "know".

Please, let's not be simply dogmatic in our answers and discussions. Explain why you trust your sources of knowledge, and be prepared, in a polite, brotherly and sisterly manner, to defend your assertions in a convincing way, not merely in a way that makes you feel like you have won points by demonstrating your spiritual or mental adroitness.

It would be especially enlightening if we could discuss this from an "Anabaptist" perspective -- whatever that is.

What if you don't put your "trust" in these sources? What if you have serious convictions against trusting & believing them? As in "that still small voice within")?

What if your daily prayers include asking the Hy Spirit to give you Gods wisdom & discernment, & to lead & guide you in truth- all truth- and you just know within you cant trust these sources? Can you accept that we trust God in this area to guide us and therefore help us make decisions by praying to that end, and he lets us know what to avoid because of our trust in him even though we may not have scientific data to back it up? Is that a legitimate path to take in discerning our decisions day by day?
I saw where Amazon is going to require people that got vaccinated to wear a green sticker, visible for all to see

What if that “still small voice within” disagrees with what is measurable and objectively verifiable by others?
What if the “still small voice within” in you disagrees with “the still small voice within” someone else is hearing?
What if that “still small voice within” is just the voice of our own confirmation bias, how can we know?

[Bootstrap]

Another definition of epistemology: how do you know what you actually know?

I think that depends a LOT on what you are talking about. How do you know if Popeye's chicken is better than Chick-Fil, eh? That's subjective. How do you know that God is always good and always trustworthy, no matter what you are facing? I think that's a matter of lived experience walking through trials with the Holy Spirit. How do you know if you can trust your spouse? An awful lot of incredibly important things aren't really subject to logical proof.

On the other hand, I think we really can know if a checkbook balances, what clinical trials have found so far for a particular drug or vaccine, or whether penguins fly and speak pig Latin. Some questions really are matters of objective fact. If the Holy Spirit tells you that penguins fly and speak Latin, I have to wonder if that was really the Holy Spirit.

[Josh]

I think that depends a LOT on what you are talking about. How do you know if Popeye's chicken is better than Chick-Fil, eh? That's subjective.

That would depend on what criteria you mean by "better". Usually when people say "better", they mean "better to me".

On the other hand, I think we really can know if a checkbook balances,

This is simply an application of mathematical axioms, and then theorems that result from that. That doesn't answer the question of why we believe in those axioms in the first place.

A check register (or financial statement) might appear to balance, but can you really know if the account in question is balanced? What is your degree of certainty that some transactions weren't recorded?

what clinical trials have found so far for a particular drug or vaccine,

That's a question of what tests were conducted, what results were collected, and the statistical analysis on them.

Once you involve measurement and statistics, things like bias or mis-reporting become very important. I don't think we can "really know" this things; we can only say we know with a certain degree of uncertainty. I can accurately measure a tablespoon of water with an uncertainty of about +/- 1 mL, with the measuring spoons I have

I cannot say that I can "really know" if I measured 1.0000000 tbsp of water.

[Bootstrap]

On the other hand, I think we really can know if a checkbook balances,

This is simply an application of mathematical axioms, and then theorems that result from that. That doesn't answer the question of why we believe in those axioms in the first place.

A check register (or financial statement) might appear to balance, but can you really know if the account in question is balanced? What is your degree of certainty that some transactions weren't recorded?

In my account, at least, I can see scanned images of any checks and any electronic transactions are recorded. If these do not add up, then I really should ask if something fishy is going on or if I just misunderstood something. But the answer to that question has always been knowable, in my experience, with a little arithmetic and a few head scratches.

Doubt is useful when it helps us question assumptions to get at the truth. But when you start asking "ah yes, and what definition of 2 are you using, and is there really any such thing as 2", doubt is no longer doing anything useful, it is making it impossible for any real notion of truth to exist.

And it always gets replaced by something. If you don't trust arithmetic, you start trusting in personalities or in your own partisan tribe or whatever. At some point, things that score points for "your side" are all true and things that score points for "the other side" are all false and there is no longer any useful notion of truth.

For our society to hold together, we need some way to agree on who won an election, whether we are in a pandemic or not, how to use arithmetic for the purpose of financial transactions, etc. We can disagree on a whole lot of things, but there are some things we really do need to be able to agree on. And a basic notion of truth and truthfulness is important for that to be possible.

[Josh]

In my account, at least, I can see scanned images of any checks and any electronic transactions are recorded. If these do not add up, then I really should ask if something fishy is going on or if I just misunderstood something. But the answer to that question has always been knowable, in my experience, with a little arithmetic and a few head scratches.

Assuming those electronic records are to be trusted and that you have other records to compare them to. Of course, in America, banks are usually trustworthy; across human history and experience, the opposite is true. Electronic records are very easy to alter and forge.

And it always gets replaced by something. If you don't trust arithmetic, you start trusting in personalities or in your own partisan tribe or whatever. At some point, things that score points for "your side" are all true and things that score points for "the other side" are all false and there is no longer any useful notion of truth.

Trusting my credit union's website is not the same as "trusting arithmetic".

For our society to hold together,

I'm not sure why anybody cares about this. American civil society is not the kingdom of heaven, and isn't even close to it. "Holding it together" is of little concern to me, not that I could make any difference in the first place.

we need some way to agree on who won an election, whether we are in a pandemic or not, how to use arithmetic for the purpose of financial transactions, etc. We can disagree on a whole lot of things, but there are some things we really do need to be able to agree on. And a basic notion of truth and truthfulness is important for that to be possible.

Then what is the notion of truth and truthfulness?

I would argue that God is truth, and there can be no genuine notion of truth and truthfulness apart from belief in and serving God. When one rejects Christ, one rejects truth themselves, and there is not some respite in "neutral" truth like "trusting in arithmetic".

[Bootstrap]

For our society to hold together,

I'm not sure why anybody cares about this. American civil society is not the kingdom of heaven, and isn't even close to it. "Holding it together" is of little concern to me, not that I could make any difference in the first place.

It's easy to be glib if you have never been in an authoritarian society or seen the aftermath of war in the lives of real people.

"Blessed are the peacemakers" is not the same as "burn it all down". If we are members of the Kingdom of Heaven, we won't look like extremists trying to undermine society by spreading angry disinformation. We might choose to let secular society sort itself out, we must seek to demonstrate the Kingdom of God to it, but we won't echo the talking points of political disinformation at the top of our lungs.

And members of the Kingdom of Heaven should probably get good at doing truth together, digging for facts, and being suspicious of political talking points we have not carefully evaluated. People seem to turn straight from "we can't be certain that the scientists have this right" to "we have to trust this political pundit or politician who is on our side".

Let's be fundamentally truthful. That involves digging for the truth together.

[Bootstrap]

we need some way to agree on who won an election, whether we are in a pandemic or not, how to use arithmetic for the purpose of financial transactions, etc. We can disagree on a whole lot of things, but there are some things we really do need to be able to agree on. And a basic notion of truth and truthfulness is important for that to be possible.

Then what is the notion of truth and truthfulness?

I would argue that God is truth, and there can be no genuine notion of truth and truthfulness apart from belief in and serving God. When one rejects Christ, one rejects truth themselves, and there is not some respite in "neutral" truth like "trusting in arithmetic".

If you actually believe that, then you should really stop taking strong stands on issues where you claim the truth is unknowable.

But are you really saying that a Christian cannot know 2+2=4? That would be bad news for home schooling curricula ... and it would be a useless epistemology, it would be an epistemology that does not help people know what is true.

Yes, you can have a richer understanding of 2+2 if you know about numerical analysis or abstract algebra, but unless you know the proper realm for each, you are more likely to go wrong with that partial knowledge than you are to arrive at the truth.

[Josh]

It's easy to be glib if you have never been in an authoritarian society or seen the aftermath of war in the lives of real people.

I've been in Canada, which is now an authoritarian society, although I'm not sure that really counts.

I don't have any control, power, or ability to decide if the society I'm in becomes authoritarian or not. And Jesus' disciples never cared, either. There is no talk given at all in the New Testament to trying to shape society to have better morals, apart from Christ.

"Blessed are the peacemakers" is not the same as "burn it all down". If we are members of the Kingdom of Heaven, we won't look like extremists trying to undermine society by spreading angry disinformation. We might choose to let secular society sort itself out, we must seek to demonstrate the Kingdom of God to it, but we won't echo the talking points of political disinformation at the top of our lungs.

That means making peace with each person we meet and with the people we are closest to. It is impossible to transform a pagan society or earthly government into a peacemaking body. It doesn't work that way.

And members of the Kingdom of Heaven should probably get good at doing truth together, digging for facts, and being suspicious of political talking points we have not carefully evaluated. People seem to turn straight from "we can't be certain that the scientists have this right" to

One of the problems is when "science" and politics get conflated, which happens rather often these days. Political talking points seem to be being repackaged as science. I think a good place to start would be to acknowledge that the government, and government agencies, don't practice "science"; they practice politics. Private for-profit companies don't practice science either. They practice making profits. If science is involved, it is very much tangential to that goal. (I don't trust for-profit companies to tell me what to think about science either; I'm rather sceptical of a tobacco company whose doctors and scientists assure me their tobacco product doesn't cause cancer.)

"we have to trust this political pundit or politician who is on our side".

I consistently speak against this, including speaking against outlets for political messaging regardless of the bias they have.

[Josh]

But are you really saying that a Christian cannot know 2+2=4? That would be bad news for home schooling curricula ... and it would be a useless epistemology, it would be an epistemology that does not help people know what is true.

Yes, you can have a richer understanding of 2+2 if you know about numerical analysis or abstract algebra, but unless you know the proper realm for each, you are more likely to go wrong with that partial knowledge than you are to arrive at the truth.

But none of what we discuss around here is reducible to something like mathematical axioms (although I suppose someone could start threads about that). Most of what's discussed around here is political messaging and political control, and about using force to control other people's lives, and different people making different arguments for how much force and coercion is okay.

[Wayne in Maine]

But none of what we discuss around here is reducible to something like mathematical axioms (although I suppose someone could start threads about that). Most of what's discussed around here is political messaging and political control, and about using force to control other people's lives, and different people making different arguments for how much force and coercion is okay.

Yes, but that’s not what this thread is about. Please don’t make it into just another “my tribe’s better than your tribe” thread.