Q&A: Definition of Knowledge – Epistemology
Definition of Knowledge – Epistemology
Question
With God’s help,
Hello Rabbi,
Following my finishing your book Truth and Not Stable, and beginning to study epistemology.
I was interested to know whether the conclusion of the book Truth and Not Stable also contains a renewed definition of the concept of knowledge. The accepted understanding used to be that “knowledge” is made up of three things: the person believes the proposition, it is in fact true, and he has justification for it. That is what distinguished “knowledge” from mere belief.
But over the course of time, Gettier, together with various later ramifications, undermined that assumption. And since then, I have seen that disputes about this have multiplied.
So I wanted to ask: what is your definition of the concept of knowledge as distinct from belief, and can we even know anything at all? (Especially according to some philosophers who would say that we can never attain certainty or full understanding regarding the noumena external to us.)
Thank you for the fascinating book The Window.
Answer
There are extensive discussions of all this in philosophy, and I find no value in them whatsoever. For our purposes, when I say that I know something, I mean that this is what I think is true. Everything else is just a word mill.
It seems to me that I explained there that, in my view, there is no difference between belief and knowledge.