In answer to the following questions:
- Why, if at all, is knowledge valuable? Is it more valuable than mere true belief?
- Describe and explain why Gettier-style cases demonstrate that the tripartite account of knowledge is unsustainable. How should one go about offering a theory of knowledge that is immune to Gettier-style cases, do you think? Can one offer a theory of knowledge that is immune to Gettier-style cases?
- What is the epistemic externalism/internalism distinction? Which view is preferable, do you think? Defend your answer.
- What is the problem of induction? Is it important to be able to offer an answer to this problem?
- What is the reductionist position as regards the epistemology of testimonial belief? Is such a view defensible, do you think?
- Does all knowledge have an epistemic foundation? If so, then explain what such foundations must be like and evaluate how extensive our knowledge is in the light of this requirement. If not, then explain why.
All knowledge has an epistemic foundation. We cannot know, talk about and explain what we do not know. Our knowledge is not one-dimensional, but multi-dimensional, which is why even if one of the “Truths” we use to understand the world turns out to be false, other “Truths” will hold us up. As long as we can Think and are clear of mind, we can form new Knowledge.
The natural transfer of human knowledge over the course of human history has been from one human to others. Testimonial knowledge plays a major part of our knowledge build-up. If we are to drill down to how we learn from testimonial knowledge, the concept of Trust serves as an important Epistemic Foundation.
As we go through each module and reflect on the various thoughts laid out before us, one thing becomes clear. The concepts in Epistemology when regarded purely on their own, could be unrealistic or at extremes of reality. Arguments then arises as everyone try to understand and debate from their perspectives.
This is because this world, our knowledge are mostly formulated off social constructs. I gained this understanding in Unit 7’s Testimony and Memory topic, which was helpful in aiding me in understanding how extreme the Reductionist view really is when considered purely, and that testimonial knowledge serves as the foundations of human knowledge transfer.
While in the beginning I was puzzled at the extreme examples offered up to explore each epistemic concepts, and argue that actually things are not so simple, reality is messy, and the different epistemic principles are entwinned… I come to comprehend Why getting us to debate our stand on each concept / point of view on their own was necessary.
In the most recent forum interaction, something David Laflamme noted clarified things for me. He observed how Pritchard presented epistemic concepts in a binary fashion. As newcomers to the domains, upon reflection, most of us agree things are never so clear cut. But his way of presentation helps us comprehend how difficult it is to properly define a concept such as Knowledge. This also means there is still a lot of work to be done in this field.
Like a surgeon understanding what exists in a body, we need to dissect and peel away the layers. The layers have to be separated to peer inside. There is possibility that whatever is inside can be neatly categorised, or it might reveal itself as one interconnected mess. Either way through these series of thought experiments and reflections, we can then see better.
As beings of life, the mental knowledge we generate also mimic our stages of physical growth. We layered up, scaffolding our understanding of the world from an origin point. Overtime as we keep up the cycles of learning, our breadth and depth of understanding of the different intelligences of the world, the extend of our knowledge will be wider and deeper. So while I agreed all Knowledge have an Epistemic Foundation, to build wider and deeper knowledge requires us to be discerning and structured in our knowledge acquisition and formation, this is where Coherentism comes into play.
Epistemic Foundation provides the “Seeds of knowledge” to ignite our brains. These seeds will then require additional efforts that may build up new intelligence and knowledge domains in each of us, whether through our innate abilities or artificial practices/tools e.g., supportive AI technologies.
Technologies could serve a role to help us gather, construct, validate and merge from existing knowledge bases. Systems which could be designed and armed with epistemic constructs not naturally found in humans e.g., logical consistency (reduce human bias), automated ontology building (chaining or reorg knowledge in hierarchical and systematic fashion), objectivity (neutrality).
We are empowered by systems that do things humans struggle to do, not compete against what humans do. By understanding the principles that runs counter to normal human mental processing, we can create AI systems to fill these spaces.
The philosophy of Epistemology also lends itself to creating rules for rule-based or hybrid software systems that can organise knowledge in a more structured fashion. In fact, it has been happening all this while. The principles of Virtue epistemology have influenced ChatGPT and Anthropic’s ethics design1,2 to remove/reduce bias and promote fairness.
Short-term memory (e.g., RAM), Long-term memory (e.g., SQL, MongoDB Databases) technologies are influenced by the concept of human memory. Through the process as engineers learn and design from our biology/psychology/philosophy, these designs may help other humans understand at abstract levels how sentient biological memory may work and work out better scaffolding logic to conduct information research or memory strengthening exercises.
Similarly, when studying Knowledge and Intelligence, getting one self-involved in building AI systems may help in a counter reflection, as we figure out how to artificially construct Knowledge pathways and Intelligent Systems. The process and design of such systems may help us understand better at abstract levels how our own Knowledge formation and Intelligence come about.
After all computers are “Brains-in-boxes”. As much as our ponderings of our intelligence enabled us to formulate logic to create AI, the construct of the different AI systems will likely also help philosophers better understand mental domains such as Epistemology.
This feedback and reinforcement loops of collective human knowledge widening and deepening, I feel is validation that all knowledge has epistemic foundations.
We are interconnected systems of life shaping and growing a collective pool of human knowledge. To destroy our knowledge at this stage, will require most of us and our artificial memory systems to be wiped out. But as long as some groups of humans exist, they can rebuild the human knowledge domains over successive generations of knowledge build-ups. Because our knowledge forms not from any one being, but of all of us as societies working together. Our breakthroughs come from working together, not alone.
1 ARXIV. Training language models to follow instructions with human feedback. https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.02155
2 Anthropic. News. Announcements. Claude’s Constitution. May 9, 2023. 16 min read. https://www.anthropic.com/news/claudes-constitution