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Essays in Philosophy
What is Knowledge?
vii 106p blue paperback, minor library markings, clean and firm copy
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1971
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October 15, 2024
A STUDENT OF WITTGENSTEIN’S LOOKS AT THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE
David Pears (1921-2009) was a British philosopher renowned for his work on Ludwig Wittgenstein.
He wrote in the Preface of this 1971 book, “In this essay many questions are raised, but few are answered. It is intended as an introduction to the theory of knowledge. But it might also serve more generally as an introduction to philosophy, because one way of approaching philosophy is to reflect on the question, ‘What is knowledge?’ … I cannot answer that question until I know what counts as knowledge. What are the standards?... There is, of course, no simple answer to the question what knowledge is… My main intention has been … to show how many of the traditional problems of philosophy radiate outwards from the central question, ‘What is knowledge?’”
He observes, “Perhaps the most striking feature of knowing is the variety of things that can be known… when I claim to know that something is the case… This immediately yields a distinction between knowledge of facts and knowledge of things that are not facts… it is probably best to use [Bertrand] Russell’s terminology and to call knowledge of things that are not facts ‘knowledge by acquaintance’… There is also a third kind of object of knowledge which is as important as these two, and that is knowledge of method… what a person knows when he knows how to do something…. we must say that there are three coordinate species of knowledge: knowledge of facts, acquaintance, and knowledge how to do things.” (Pg. 5)
He says, “This makes confidence look rather unimportant. But the fact is not that it is unimportant, but rather that it is normal for people who make true statements for adequate reasons to feel confidence, or, if they do not, to achieve it after reflection… Think again of the person who makes a true statement based on adequate reasons, but does not feel confident that they are adequate, and so does not feel confident that it is true. Obviously he is much less likely to act on it… If this lack of confidence spread throughout the human race, perhaps as a result of mutations, people would never act on whatever factual knowledge they really … possessed. Of what use would it be to them?” (Pg. 14-15)
He notes, “Sometimes a person can say how to do something without actually giving an account of the method, and, if he does give an account of the method, it need not be cast in such a simple form. But the simple form… exhibits the connection between knowing how to do things and factual knowledge. However, this connection cannot be found in all cases of knowing how to do things. For instance, I know how to ride a bicycle, but I cannot say how I balance, because I have no method… The connection between knowing how to do things and factual knowledge is severed in other cases too.” (Pg. 26-27)
He argues, “let us consider an anti-sceptic who concedes that there are many types of perceptual statements about whose truth even people who are in the best possible position may be mistaken, but maintains that there is one type which is an exception to this general rule… The sceptic will attack this position by asking what makes the person who produces such a statement like this one infallible… All that the sceptic needs to do is to use three points … The first is that a piece of knowledge must be true. The second is that a piece of human factual knowledge must be made out of symbols; and the third is that, if the symbols are going to form a true contingent statement, they must match the things that they purport to symbolize… For the anti-sceptic’s favored perceptual statements are certainly contingent, and the speaker’s task… is certainly one in which he might fail.” (Pg. 58-59)
He states, “what exactly does it mean to say that the only things we really perceive are sense-data and that the only thing a person can ever be sure of … is that he is in a position to make a qualified statement about the external world. But is this defensible? I doubt it. For consider… first-line phenomenalism. How could anyone ever be sure that he was in the position which justified him in making a sense-datum statement about the cloud, unless he… [was] sometimes in a position which justified him in making an unqualified statement about that kind of thing? If nobody was never in the second … position, how could words denoting ‘things’ in the external world ever get their meanings? And how could people ever learn their meanings?” (Pg. 71)
In the last chapter, he summarizes, “In this essay I have tried to give a brief, and necessarily incomplete answer to the question, ‘What is knowledge?’ First, three types of knowledge were distinguished from one another, factual knowledge, knowing how to do things, and acquaintance… It appeared that knowledge often requires adequate reasons, and so it was necessary to inquire what reasons are. Two kinds were distinguished, a priori and inductive reasons, and their standards of adequacy were examined… the next task was to examine claims to knowledge in different areas. The areas were chosen in such a way that anyone who possessed any knowledge at all would have to qualify in them. To take them in order, he would have to possess perceptual knowledge, knowledge of universals, and memory of past facts which he himself had perceived.” (Pg. 96)
He concludes, “The arguments in this group leave the question to which Wittgenstein addressed himself open. Their point is that, even if it is possible for factual knowledge to be entirely about second-line sense-data, at least our factual knowledge does not realize the possibility, and could not realize it without radical changes. The vocabulary in which it is expressed would have to sever its links with the vocabulary for describing the external world, and this severance would remove all possibility of communication between one person and another. Even if what was left was a language, how would we know that it was about what our language is about?” (Pg. 103-104)
This brief book will be of interest to those studying contemporary epistemological theories.
David Pears (1921-2009) was a British philosopher renowned for his work on Ludwig Wittgenstein.
He wrote in the Preface of this 1971 book, “In this essay many questions are raised, but few are answered. It is intended as an introduction to the theory of knowledge. But it might also serve more generally as an introduction to philosophy, because one way of approaching philosophy is to reflect on the question, ‘What is knowledge?’ … I cannot answer that question until I know what counts as knowledge. What are the standards?... There is, of course, no simple answer to the question what knowledge is… My main intention has been … to show how many of the traditional problems of philosophy radiate outwards from the central question, ‘What is knowledge?’”
He observes, “Perhaps the most striking feature of knowing is the variety of things that can be known… when I claim to know that something is the case… This immediately yields a distinction between knowledge of facts and knowledge of things that are not facts… it is probably best to use [Bertrand] Russell’s terminology and to call knowledge of things that are not facts ‘knowledge by acquaintance’… There is also a third kind of object of knowledge which is as important as these two, and that is knowledge of method… what a person knows when he knows how to do something…. we must say that there are three coordinate species of knowledge: knowledge of facts, acquaintance, and knowledge how to do things.” (Pg. 5)
He says, “This makes confidence look rather unimportant. But the fact is not that it is unimportant, but rather that it is normal for people who make true statements for adequate reasons to feel confidence, or, if they do not, to achieve it after reflection… Think again of the person who makes a true statement based on adequate reasons, but does not feel confident that they are adequate, and so does not feel confident that it is true. Obviously he is much less likely to act on it… If this lack of confidence spread throughout the human race, perhaps as a result of mutations, people would never act on whatever factual knowledge they really … possessed. Of what use would it be to them?” (Pg. 14-15)
He notes, “Sometimes a person can say how to do something without actually giving an account of the method, and, if he does give an account of the method, it need not be cast in such a simple form. But the simple form… exhibits the connection between knowing how to do things and factual knowledge. However, this connection cannot be found in all cases of knowing how to do things. For instance, I know how to ride a bicycle, but I cannot say how I balance, because I have no method… The connection between knowing how to do things and factual knowledge is severed in other cases too.” (Pg. 26-27)
He argues, “let us consider an anti-sceptic who concedes that there are many types of perceptual statements about whose truth even people who are in the best possible position may be mistaken, but maintains that there is one type which is an exception to this general rule… The sceptic will attack this position by asking what makes the person who produces such a statement like this one infallible… All that the sceptic needs to do is to use three points … The first is that a piece of knowledge must be true. The second is that a piece of human factual knowledge must be made out of symbols; and the third is that, if the symbols are going to form a true contingent statement, they must match the things that they purport to symbolize… For the anti-sceptic’s favored perceptual statements are certainly contingent, and the speaker’s task… is certainly one in which he might fail.” (Pg. 58-59)
He states, “what exactly does it mean to say that the only things we really perceive are sense-data and that the only thing a person can ever be sure of … is that he is in a position to make a qualified statement about the external world. But is this defensible? I doubt it. For consider… first-line phenomenalism. How could anyone ever be sure that he was in the position which justified him in making a sense-datum statement about the cloud, unless he… [was] sometimes in a position which justified him in making an unqualified statement about that kind of thing? If nobody was never in the second … position, how could words denoting ‘things’ in the external world ever get their meanings? And how could people ever learn their meanings?” (Pg. 71)
In the last chapter, he summarizes, “In this essay I have tried to give a brief, and necessarily incomplete answer to the question, ‘What is knowledge?’ First, three types of knowledge were distinguished from one another, factual knowledge, knowing how to do things, and acquaintance… It appeared that knowledge often requires adequate reasons, and so it was necessary to inquire what reasons are. Two kinds were distinguished, a priori and inductive reasons, and their standards of adequacy were examined… the next task was to examine claims to knowledge in different areas. The areas were chosen in such a way that anyone who possessed any knowledge at all would have to qualify in them. To take them in order, he would have to possess perceptual knowledge, knowledge of universals, and memory of past facts which he himself had perceived.” (Pg. 96)
He concludes, “The arguments in this group leave the question to which Wittgenstein addressed himself open. Their point is that, even if it is possible for factual knowledge to be entirely about second-line sense-data, at least our factual knowledge does not realize the possibility, and could not realize it without radical changes. The vocabulary in which it is expressed would have to sever its links with the vocabulary for describing the external world, and this severance would remove all possibility of communication between one person and another. Even if what was left was a language, how would we know that it was about what our language is about?” (Pg. 103-104)
This brief book will be of interest to those studying contemporary epistemological theories.
Displaying 1 of 1 review