What do we know and how do we know it? What is knowledge? What is belief? How is belief justified? What justifies us in believing what we believe? Is justified belief knowledge? These questions constitute “epistemology” – the theory of knowledge.

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Robert, closer to truth is my passion, and for years we've been exploring cosmos, cosmology, consciousness, brain mind, the nature of meaning, is there a God, what about God, with some of the top thinkers in the world.

But if I step back from that, there's a deeper question in terms of how do I know what I know?

And this is epistemology, which you focused in.

So Orient me to epistemology so I can know what I know.

You're talking about epistemology as the theory of knowledge.

I think it should be construed as the theory of knowledge and justification.

Usually what you know you're justified in believing, but there are exceptions, and maybe I'll mention 1 or 2.

In any case, in my view, philosophy should, when possible, defend common sense, correcting it where necessary.

So I think I know a lot about my surroundings right now, perceptually.

Seems to me I also remember how I got here, and I hope I remember times way before that.

I think I know something about the future.

Immediately, I'm going to raise a hand to give an illustration, but even the distant future.

Well, knowledge is belief connected with the fact known in the right way.

And philosophers spent a lot of time on what constitutes the right way.

So when you see a hand, the hand affects you and if it does it in the right way, you know there's a hand before you.

It could just activate a machine which causes you to hallucinate a hand just like it when there's actually a lead shield between you and me.

So we have to know how the world affects us to understand whether we know.

I'm taking knowledge to be constituted by belief.

Knowledge is always of truths or realities.

And 1 of our problems is to decide when we merely believe and when we know.

2 years ago, I told you that I believe Donald Trump will be president of the United States.

And, in fact, 2 years now, Donald Trump is.

So when I said that 2 years ago, when everybody would have laughed, what was the nature of my thought?

You were lucky to be right, I would assume.

And the fact that it turned out right didn't affect the character of the belief then because that would be backwards causation.

So if you do know the future, presumably it's because something that causes the future event you know also causes your belief in the right way.

Oh, so if that were the case, then it would be knowledge.

You can have knowledge of the future when the evidences that connect causally with the future event also lead you to believe that that event will occur.

So if I intend to raise my hand, my intention is a kind of evidence that feeds right into my belief, making it knowledge that I'm going to raise my hand.

Now skeptics will say, yes, but there could be some interference with the causal chain.

Well, there could be, but normally there isn't.

And as I said, I'm defending common sense.

And you could have some evil demon kind of doing both at the same time, so it looks like there's causal, but there's not.

But in common sense cases, we worry about real counter evidence.

It's not about just possibilities that we're in error.

Now, of course, we have self-knowledge too, but that can be limited.

So it's 1 thing to say you can't be in pain without knowing you're in pain.

It's quite another thing to say that you're right about all the things you believe.

Some people like to whitewash their self-description.

So they take themselves to have all manner of beliefs that we may know from their behavior they don't really have.

I wouldn't think that's the kind of thing a serious person would be deluded about, but it's possible.

But someone might think that he's utterly egalitarian when the truth is the treatment of people is not egalitarian and we can see rationalization operating.

So these defense mechanisms are another thing that comes up in philosophy of mind, as in psychology.

And 1 of the things we get at, in epistemology and philosophy of mind, is the limits of self-knowledge.

So we started with belief and knowledge, and the concept of justification, because you wanted epistemology and justification.

Justification is what makes the belief into knowledge?

Well, no, because alas, you can have justified true beliefs that are not knowledge.

Long ago, Bertrand Russell, I think, had a case of someone entering a room with every expectation that the clock therein was accurate.

It happened to be noon, and the clock, which was stopped, happened to read noon.

So the person had a justified true belief that it's noon based on that clock, but didn't know because the clock was stopped.

So how then do you define justification in this?

This is a very controversial matter, but very broadly speaking justification for believing something is a matter of having some ground that supports the proposition, which you can get at through memory, through perception of course, through reasoning.

And I haven't yet talked about reasoning because I've been talking about knowledge of the world, which we call empirical, but there's a priori knowledge, which is roughly knowledge by reflection, by the sheer use of reason.

And a priori knowledge is what we have when we have logical knowledge, knowledge of pure mathematics, and on many views, including mine, basic moral principles.

So there are people who think we don't have moral knowledge at all, others who think if we have it, it's going to be empirical.

You can certainly make a case for that, And I think some is empirical, but basic moral principles, I think, can be known a priori.

You have this concept of fallibilistic foundationalism that sounds very complicated, but that's a way of defining your understanding of epistemology.

Okay, the way we get to foundationalism is by noting that if you believe something, you can't believe it on the basis of a second thing and then on the basis of a third and then on the basis of the third, and then on the basis of the fourth, ad infinitum.

A circle would take you back to the beginning and would be vicious in certain ways.

And I've argued against the regressive account that you might have and the circularity account you might try to work out using considerations from psychology as well as epistemological considerations.

But let me just say, when you believe there's a hand before you on the basis of seeing a hand, that's believing on the basis of experience, not on the basis of another belief.

The skeptic can push you into saying, how do you know?

I mean, answering the question, how do you know there's a hand there?

And you might say, well, I'm having this visual impression and what else could explain it other than there being a hand there?

Okay, but that's not how you started out.

That's the position of retreat when the skeptic starts pushing you.

The truth is you knew, common sense anyway, takes this view On the basis of your visual experience.

I mean, that may be what you were getting at.

So you need that foundation, but it's not some ultimate absolute perfection.

Well, it doesn't guarantee that you're right, even if it's ultimate in the sense that it's as basic a kind of experience as you can have.

Well, everybody agrees that if you're in pain, you've got a reason to change things, to get rid of the pain, to reduce the pain.

And it doesn't take much to get people to agree that once you see that others are like you, you'll see that there's a reason not to cause them pain as well.

So that's 1 of the ways we very naturally, through a kind of altruistic element in our nature, move from self-interest to altruism.

I have a lot to say about that, but my thought is the idea that there is reason, objective reason not to cause pain and to eliminate pain, that idea does not seem to me to be merely empirical.

Think about how it disempowers you, and you're going to see why there's a reason to avoid it and to reduce it.

So avoiding pain is crucial for moral standards.

Another thing is this, if you promise to do something, you have some obligation and some reason to do it.

Once again, this is a moderate foundationalism.

But does anybody who really understands human relations and promising think you can promise and have no obligation whatsoever?

It seems to me this is a basic principle of interpersonal relations.

So I've argued that principles like that are knowable through the use of reason.


Speaker 0: Robert, closer to truth is my passion, and for years we've been exploring cosmos, cosmology, consciousness, brain mind, the nature of meaning, is there a God, what about God, with some of the top thinkers in the world. But if I step back from that, there's a deeper question in terms of how do I know what I know? What is knowledge? What is a belief in something? And this is epistemology, which you focused in.

So Orient me to epistemology so I can know what I know.

Speaker 1: You're talking about epistemology as the theory of knowledge. I think it should be construed as the theory of knowledge and justification. Usually what you know you're justified in believing, but there are exceptions, and maybe I'll mention 1 or 2. In any case, in my view, philosophy should, when possible, defend common sense, correcting it where necessary. So I think I know a lot about my surroundings right now, perceptually.

Seems to me I also remember how I got here, and I hope I remember times way before that. I'm sure you feel the same way. I think I know something about the future. Immediately, I'm going to raise a hand to give an illustration, but even the distant future. So how do we know?

Well, knowledge is belief connected with the fact known in the right way. And philosophers spent a lot of time on what constitutes the right way. So when you see a hand, the hand affects you and if it does it in the right way, you know there's a hand before you. But it could do it in the wrong way. It could just activate a machine which causes you to hallucinate a hand just like it when there's actually a lead shield between you and me.

So we have to know how the world affects us to understand whether we know. I'm taking knowledge to be constituted by belief. Knowledge is always of truths or realities. Belief is not. And 1 of our problems is to decide when we merely believe and when we know.

Speaker 0: So let me give you a question. 2 years ago, I told you that I believe Donald Trump will be president of the United States. And, in fact, 2 years now, Donald Trump is. So when I said that 2 years ago, when everybody would have laughed, what was the nature of my thought?

Speaker 1: You had a belief.

Speaker 0: I had

Speaker 1: a belief. You were lucky to be right, I would assume. You weren't justified.

Speaker 0: Something would say unlucky. And you certainly didn't

Speaker 1: know. I can understand that.

Speaker 0: Okay, so I had a belief. Right. And the fact that it turned out right didn't affect the character of the belief then because that would be backwards causation.

Speaker 1: Sure. Sure. So if you do know the future, presumably it's because something that causes the future event you know also causes your belief in the right way. Right?

Speaker 0: Oh, so if that were the case, then it would be knowledge.

Speaker 1: It would be. You can have knowledge of the future when the evidences that connect causally with the future event also lead you to believe that that event will occur.

Speaker 0: Which was not the case in

Speaker 1: my Donald Trump. You didn't have evidence. So if I intend to raise my hand, my intention is a kind of evidence that feeds right into my belief, making it knowledge that I'm going to raise my hand. Now skeptics will say, yes, but there could be some interference with the causal chain. Well, there could be, but normally there isn't.

And as I said, I'm defending common sense.

Speaker 0: And you could have some evil demon kind of doing both at the same time, so it looks like there's causal, but there's not. I mean, you can always have these

Speaker 1: counter examples. Of course, that's a possibility. Philosophers have to deal with that. But in common sense cases, we worry about real counter evidence. It's not about just possibilities that we're in error.

Now, of course, we have self-knowledge too, but that can be limited. So it's 1 thing to say you can't be in pain without knowing you're in pain. It's quite another thing to say that you're right about all the things you believe. Some people like to whitewash their self-description. So they take themselves to have all manner of beliefs that we may know from their behavior they don't really have.

Speaker 0: Oh. What's an example of that? Well, imagine... I think I'm good looking?

Speaker 1: I wouldn't think that's the kind of thing a serious person would be deluded about, but it's possible. But someone might think that he's utterly egalitarian when the truth is the treatment of people is not egalitarian and we can see rationalization operating. So these defense mechanisms are another thing that comes up in philosophy of mind, as in psychology. And 1 of the things we get at, in epistemology and philosophy of mind, is the limits of self-knowledge.

Speaker 0: So we started with belief and knowledge, and the concept of justification, because you wanted epistemology and justification. Justification is what makes the belief into knowledge?

Speaker 1: Well, no, because alas, you can have justified true beliefs that are not knowledge. Long ago, Bertrand Russell, I think, had a case of someone entering a room with every expectation that the clock therein was accurate. It happened to be noon, and the clock, which was stopped, happened to read noon. So the person had a justified true belief that it's noon based on that clock, but didn't know because the clock was stopped.

Speaker 0: Right. So how then do you define justification in this?

Speaker 1: This is a very controversial matter, but very broadly speaking justification for believing something is a matter of having some ground that supports the proposition, which you can get at through memory, through perception of course, through reasoning. And I haven't yet talked about reasoning because I've been talking about knowledge of the world, which we call empirical, but there's a priori knowledge, which is roughly knowledge by reflection, by the sheer use of reason. And a priori knowledge is what we have when we have logical knowledge, knowledge of pure mathematics, and on many views, including mine, basic moral principles. So there are people who think we don't have moral knowledge at all, others who think if we have it, it's going to be empirical. You can certainly make a case for that, And I think some is empirical, but basic moral principles, I think, can be known a priori.

Speaker 0: You have this concept of fallibilistic foundationalism that sounds very complicated, but that's a way of defining your understanding of epistemology. Explain that.

Speaker 1: Okay, the way we get to foundationalism is by noting that if you believe something, you can't believe it on the basis of a second thing and then on the basis of a third and then on the basis of the third, and then on the basis of the fourth, ad infinitum.

Speaker 0: Infinite regress.

Speaker 1: Infinite regress. A circle would take you back to the beginning and would be vicious in certain ways. And I've argued against the regressive account that you might have and the circularity account you might try to work out using considerations from psychology as well as epistemological considerations. But let me just say, when you believe there's a hand before you on the basis of seeing a hand, that's believing on the basis of experience, not on the basis of another belief. The skeptic can push you into saying, how do you know?

I mean, answering the question, how do you know there's a hand there? And you might say, well, I'm having this visual impression and what else could explain it other than there being a hand there? Okay, but that's not how you started out. That's the position of retreat when the skeptic starts pushing you. The truth is you knew, common sense anyway, takes this view On the basis of your visual experience.

Speaker 0: So get to foundation.

Speaker 1: But your visual experience is fallible. I mean, that may be what you were getting at.

Speaker 0: Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So you need that foundation, but it's not some ultimate absolute perfection.

Speaker 1: Well, it doesn't guarantee that you're right, even if it's ultimate in the sense that it's as basic a kind of experience as you can have. Now go to the ethical case for a minute. Where would there be a foundation there? Well, everybody agrees that if you're in pain, you've got a reason to change things, to get rid of the pain, to reduce the pain. And it doesn't take much to get people to agree that once you see that others are like you, you'll see that there's a reason not to cause them pain as well.

So that's 1 of the ways we very naturally, through a kind of altruistic element in our nature, move from self-interest to altruism. I have a lot to say about that, but my thought is the idea that there is reason, objective reason not to cause pain and to eliminate pain, that idea does not seem to me to be merely empirical. Think about what pain is. Think about how it disempowers you, and you're going to see why there's a reason to avoid it and to reduce it. So avoiding pain is crucial for moral standards.

Another thing is this, if you promise to do something, you have some obligation and some reason to do it. Maybe not an absolute reason. Once again, this is a moderate foundationalism. But does anybody who really understands human relations and promising think you can promise and have no obligation whatsoever? It seems to me this is a basic principle of interpersonal relations.

So I've argued that principles like that are knowable through the use of reason.

how does Robert Audi distinguish between knowledge, belief, and justification

what does Robert mean when he said knowledge is belief connected with the fact known in the right way

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Robert Audi - Epistemology: How Do We Know What We Know?