Close Range: A Thought Experiment
Go read the set up. I'll wait.
Marc says that Option 1 (Kurt knows that p at t1, fails to know it at t2, knows it at t3, fails to know it at t4, … , knows it at tn.) "requires that knowledge be able to flicker in and out of existence over very short intervals of time. This seems to me like an immensely unattractive position."
Why is that such an unattractive position? A simpler case might be you tell me your phone number. After finding a paper and pencil, I write it down. I immediately forget it. When I need to call you, I look it up, but then forget the last digit as I'm dialing. I look again at what I've written and complete dialing. Later that day I forget it again. Eventually I've called you enough times that I no longer have to look it up.
Wouldn't it be a pretty ordinary way of looking at things to say that I knew your phone number when I wrote it down, I didn't when I had to look it up again, I did when I dialed it correctly, and so on? At each of those moments I have Justified True Belief--and yet it certainly looks like my knowledge flickers in and out of existence for cases much simpler than proofs that can only be apprehended at the barest edge of my mentally acuity.
Maybe I'm missing something , but it does seem to me that we know things even if they are only in our iconic memory, despite our knowing that they'll vanish immediately unless reinforced. If that weren't the case we'd have to deny knowing the appearance of something even when we're looking right at it--and to me that's also an immensely unattractive position.
Posted by joshua at May 26, 2004 12:27 PMDepending on how you define knowledge, one could very well argue that your did not reach a level of knowledge enough to be classified knowledge in its full sense. Just because you managed to write down a string of numbers that corresponded with your friend's telephone numbers did not mean you _knew_ (in the full sense of the word) the number. You did not even _know_ it (in the same sense) when you managed to dial most of the digits. When you finally have commited it to memory by habit or familiarity, then perhaps you have reached that top level of knowledge. Again, perhaps knowledge is not something that is black and white, but have shades of gray all the way through. Perhaps maybe that's the reason why Socrates and his cohorts agonized over it so much!
Posted by: soulbarer at August 7, 2004 04:14 PM