Hello everyone, thanks for your comments on the discussion board for week two. I thought this might be a good juncture for me to, to come back in and and talk a little bit about some of the, the topics that have been raised there. The first thing that caught my eye was was something about the Gettier cases. So some of you thought the cases were very far fetched, very contrived why should we care about these kinds of cases? Well what I just hear is look, although then, some of these cases are very complicated. Actually some of them are phenomenally simple. I mean the case that I give, the sheep, the farmer and the sheep in the field, I think is, is actually a very straight forward kind of case. Moreover, I think once you understand the structure of getting a case. It becomes apparent that these kind of cases happen all the time. So, it's not as if this is some sort of scenario which is kind of sci-fi or something like that, no, you know, the kind of scenario which doesn't affect ordinary life. I think ordinary life is in fact full of Gettier star cases. And this relates to a second issue, which some people raised, which is needs a bit of thought. Well look, if we have to exclude Gettier cases then aren't we somehow requiring certainty for knowledge or something like that? But, but that's not part of the, the thought that's going on here, in fact I said in the lectures I specifically disavowed the idea that knowledge requires certainty. I don't think that's very plausible. What I want to do is actually set the bar off a nudge relatively low. And then, see if, you know, see if our beliefs cleared. And, I think, actually that, that, the demand that I, we have beliefs, true beliefs that that on Gettier rises is,is a pretty minimal demand to make on knowledge. I mean, what we hope that all of our beliefs cleared that, that hurdle, right? I mean, if they're properly formed in the right kind of circumstances, they ought to clear it. So I don't think we should think that the, either that the problem, the Gettier problem or Gettier star cases relates to somehow far-fetched or sci-fi stories. I don't think it's like that at all. I don't think it raises the bar for knowledge, either. I think that the, the, you can still think of the bar for knowledge as being quite low. I yet think that one aught to clear one, one aught to have true belief that isn't subject to Gettier cases. If one is to clear that bar. Second thing that caught my eye was to do with skepticism. A few things I want to emphasize here. One is this, that notice the skeptic is not saying that you are a brain in a vat, or even that you have any reason to think you're a brain in a vat. That's, that's not part of the, the, the setup to a skeptical argument. They're simply saying that you have no reason for thinking you're not a brain in a vat. That's it, so you can't know that you're not a brain in the vat. So, the, this is quite important, because what this means is that skepticism is a problem. Even if the real life is exactly as you take it to be. Even if everything is optimal, from a personal point of view, you know, you really are, like in my case for example, I really am sitting here right now and talking to you. You know, surrounded by these objects that I can feel around me, and so on. Even if everything is as I take it to be, skeptical the skeptical argument still gets its grip because they're not saying that you're not in these circumstances or indeed much less they're not saying you're in these terrible circumstances but in that case they're just simply saying well how do you know your not in those circumstances? That's all. And that relates to a second point, which is the, the skeptical problem, properly conceived, is, is a paradox. I mean, what I mean by that is that the, what the skeptic's trying to do is try to get you to see that there's a fundamental tension in your own concepts. So, although we talk about the skeptic, someone out there who's trying to convince us of something, I think that's actually misleading. Because really, the problem of skepticism relates to the fact that we, we have some fundamental commitments in epistemology which are inconsistent with each other. So, it seems like we're committed to the idea we can't know we're not brains in vats. Because, you know, we think knowing requires telling the difference and we can't tell the difference between. Noble life and being a brain of vat or victim of any skeptical hypothesis. So we're committed to that. We also seem committed to thinking that we know lots of things, and yet we also seem committed to the idea, well, look, if you, if I know, for example, that I've got hands, I know that if I've got hands, I'm not a brain of vat. Well, then I must know I'm not a brain of vat right? I mean, it's not possible for me to know that I've got hands and yet, not know whether or not I'm a hand-less brain in a vat. So we've got a bunch of claims here which we're committed to and they, they can't all be true. One of them must be false. And that's the nature of paradox. It's where you've got basic fundamental commitments which, where they can't all be true and where it's just not obvious which one is false. And that I think is the best way to think about skeptical problem. Its not that there's a skeptic out there trying to convince you of anything, rather our own concepts at a very fundamental level are intentionally wanting that and we need to deny something. So we need to either say that we can know in our brains of that. You know, I generally watch everything [INAUDIBLE] outside the weekend more generally we can know the denials of skeptical hypotheses. Or we have to say that it's, one can know things, like whether or not one has hands, even though one doesn't know whether or not one is a handless brain in a vat. Or one has to say that one can't know things, like whether or not one has hands. And you know, either of these options is, is, is pretty disturbing. Another point people have made is, well, you know Does anything, practically speaking, hinge upon skepticism? You know, what does it matter from a practical point of view? well, I think, once you recognize it's a paradox the, one gets a bit of a sense of this of, of why it does matter. So recognizing there's a paradox, that there were a set of claims which we're all committed to, but which, they can't all be true, so something has to go, That in itself doesn't have any practical ramifications. I mean, because we haven't identified yet which of those claims has to go. But we're, we're, we're at a sort of a state of sort of intellectual unease at this point, you know. because we realize something's gone wrong somewhere, we can't work out what it is. In responding to a paradox, though, [INAUDIBLE] and I Some deeply intuitive claim. And whichever claim you deny, that's going to have practical consequences. I mean, take the practical, take the option, the nuclear option of responding to skepticism by saying that we don't know anything. And worse, we have no reason for thinking that we know anything. I'm not sure that's even psychologically possible. You know, to do that we people, we can say the words and so on, but actually to, to take, to fully believe that one really knows nothing. But, I mean obviously, if you did, you know, if that's really how you, what you thought your situation was, then you'd have all kinds of practical consequences. I mean, we, we make our decisions, our judgments about, you know, how to act and what sort of things to, we're going to do next and our plans and so on, these are all based on things that we know, or take ourselves to know. Take ourselves to know, not know anything, then well, that's going to have huge implications. And I think the same goes for whichever, you know, which, it's basically a trilemma, the, the skeptical problem, that is, you've only got three options. There's three claims at play, one of them has to go. Whichever one we deny is going to lead to, you know, disastrous consequences from an intellectual point of view, and they will have practical ramifications. I think sometimes when people say, you know, what's the practical difference, what they mean is, is, is a different thought. It's the idea well, maybe we are brains in vats, maybe not, you know, we can't tell the difference, so who cares. But I think even that is a bit suspect if you start to think about it. I mean, you know, if you are a brain in a vat, then none of this is real. You know, the, your, your friends aren't your friends, your family aren't your family. The things that you, that you're working hard and strong to achieve are actually pointless, because they're not real. So the idea of, you know, it kind of doesn't matter. I mean, I think that's, it doesn't bear scrutiny, really. It can seem superficially plausible, but I don't think it stands up to closer scrutiny. And the last thing that, that, that jumped out to me was this idea, well, some, some, well, what's so bad about lucky knowledge? And I think there's something right about this thought, because clearly, you know, sometimes we do get knowledge through luck, you know, lucky discoveries, for example. You know, lots of, science is full of cases, penicillin and so on, where through some lucky set of circumstances. Scientifically important knowledge was acquired. But the, notice that, that kind of luck is in play here isn't the kind of luck we're interested in for the purposes of this week. We're interested specifically in it being a matter of luck that you get it right. And that's a different kind of thing. So, think about a lucky discovery. Say you've got some great scientists and they just happen to be in the right place at the right time to make a lucky discovery. But given that they are in the right place at the right time, it's not a matter of luck that they then get things right. So suppose they, you know, make some inferences, draw some conclusions, or whatever. The reason why that's genuine knowledge, you know, is a matter of luck that we're in a position to acquire it. Is because that, the beliefs are so formed, it's all a matter of luck that anything's right. And I think that's the important thing, I mean, what, when we say knowledge matter of luck, we mean in a very specific sense. It's incompatible with the idea that's just a matter of luck that you got things right. The scientists in the case of the lucky discovery its not just a matter of luck that they got things right. Its because of they're skill you know, their their scientific expertise got things right. It would be very different you know, if someone you had no inkling of what it was that was on the new text lucky discovery and its petri dish lets say you know, and then there's some enzyme in there what have you and someone wonders in they haven't got a clue what it is they found or whatever. [INAUDIBLE] The,the we may be tempted to think that they that's a lucky scientific discovery maybe a lucky discovery of a petri dish but what makes it a scientific discovery is because the scientist is there, able to classify and recognize this for what it is, and given that they can do that, it's not a matter of luck they can do that. That's down to their expertise. So I think we just need to be clear here that when we're talking about how knowledge is incompatible with luck, what we mean is that it can't be a matter of luck that you got things right, given how you, you formed your beliefs.
