chap,
That argument will only persuade those who are so over-awed by the prestige of the lexicographer, that they are willing to join dartagnan in promoting him from his actual role of trying to capture the constantly changing usage of words in short phrases (which is all you can fit into a dictionary) to the role of a philosophical arbiter who tells us how we ought to think.
Apparently chap, you've already forgotten
what the argument actually is, and even
who proposed it. The argument was set forth by Schmoe, who insisted that my knowledge isn't
really knowledge. He hasn't provided any evidence for this aside from puerile ridicule and bald assertion. The burden of proof, therefore, remains on his shoulders. One shouldn't simply take it for granted that his assertion is true, and that I must therefore prove otherwise.
Since there is no means by which I can prove to him that what I know is
true (which is different from asking whether it is
knowledge) I can at least defend my usage of the term, and deny him his illicit attempt to smuggle it for his own crowd of atheists. Your rhetoric about me telling him how everyone "ought to think" is baseless and nonsensical.
Quite a lot of people whose thinking ability dartagnan probably respects more than that of Homer (no disrespect from me in that direction, though ...) do not base their conclusions on definitions found in dictionaries.
I would appreciate it if you'd first try to understand what I'm saying before joining the bandwagon of fatuous behavior. My conclusion that I have knowledge is not strictly based on the dictionary; rather, it is
supported by the dictionary. Now it is up to you to explain how the dictionary doesn't really count as support. You must give us a reason to assume the lexicographer in this instance was really out to lunch when that definition was set in place. One doesn't need to be "over-awed by the prestige" of a lexicographer in order to take it for granted that the published definitions might actually have some valid application in the English language.
Socrates talked a lot, and (many would say) very perceptively, about what words meant - but there simply weren't any dictionaries to distract him or his interlocutors in his day and age. What Socrates did was to prompt people to systematic reflection on how they used words, and what they meant by them. If dartagnan will try that with "know" "knowledge", "believe" and "belief" he will find that he has more fun and persuades more people than if he just hits them over the head with a dictionary and yells "I am right, by definition".
First of all, this was to reiterate the point that Schmo's assertion had not been established. I was on firm ground. The flexibility of the term "knowledge" and the fact that it has various meanings doesn't mitigate the fact that one of them establishes my point and Schmo is left empty-handed again. Secondly, to suggest an intellectual discussion about semantics could possibly take place with Homer Simpson, needs only one response: Are you serious?
Modern examples of the kind of reflection I am talking about can be found in many places. One kind I know a little bit about was done by people like A.J. Ayer: see
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ayer/#5, or for Ayer's own words, the first chapter in his relevantly-titled book The Problem of Knowledge.. This characterisation of his position from the Stanford site is pretty fair, and saves me typing out stuff:
And I suppose this kind of argument will only persuade those who are so "over-awed by the prestige" of Ayer, that they will completely ignore the other philosophical inputs that have changed the face of epistemology over the past century. Of the various explanations, theories or models proposed by scholars, why must we accept Ayer's as the model by which "we ought to think"?
Obviously Ayer's suggestion about what should be counted as knowledge is not given to us from Sinai, or even from Joseph Smith, and we don't have to accept it. Many have argued against his position.
Precisely.
But I think it still has a lot going for it as a summary of how reflective people tend to use that word, especially that bit about knowledge involving having "a right to be sure".
I don't think it is a summary of how people tend to use the word. People generally use the word even though they cannot prove to outside parties, the truth of what it is they claim to know. The "right to be sure" is something
given to the person claiming knowledge. It is conceded when someone else is personally satisfied by evidence that the knowledge is true. It is a judgment call by outside parties who seek to be persuaded. So when you ask me this, it is essentially another way of asking me how I can convince you that I know what I know, and I have already addressed this.
dartagnan's claim to knowledge seems to fall under the second category.
No, I'm not saying "trust me, I know." I'm saying my knowledge is independent of anyone else's belief that I do or don't have knowledge. Ayer doesn't help Schmo's case, and I think you know this. Ayer goes on to say,
"And here there can be no question of proving that this attitude is mistaken. Where there are recognized criteria for deciding when one has the right to be sure, anyone who insists that their being satisfied is still not enough for knowledge may be accused, for what the charge is worth, of misusing the verb ‘to know’. But it is possible to find, or at any rate to devise, examples which are not covered in this respect by any established rule of usage. Whether they are to count as instances of knowledge is then a question which we are left free to decide...I conclude then that the necessary and sufficient conditions for knowing that something is the case are first that what one is said to know be true, secondly that one be sure of it, and thirdly that one should have the right to be sure. This right may be earned in various ways; but even if one could give a complete description of them
it would be a mistake to try to build it into the definition of knowledge, just as it would be a mistake to try to incorporate our actual standards of goodness into a definition of good."
Schmo needs to come up with a valid definition of the word and then he has to explain why "everyone ought to think that way."
“All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it...Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality." - Albert Einstein