what's the difference between "knowledge" and "belief"?

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Cool distinction without a difference, bro!

Explain.

 

[mijopaalmc]

Explain.

Why?

 

[Steve]

Explain.

Why?

So that people might clearly understand what you are saying, perhaps?

 

[mijopaalmc]

So that people might clearly understand what you are saying, perhaps?

Perhaps the poster would like actually present evidence that the OP did in fact conflate religious "belief", scientific "belief", and "belief" in general. The fact the OP mentioned both does not entail such a conflation. More to the point the fact that one can add additional criteria to scientific "belief" in order to distinguish it from religious "belief" does not ential that such criteria actually meaningfully separate "belief" in a statement consider to have religious content from "belief" in a statement considered to have scientific content.

 

[Steve]

Perhaps the poster would like actually present evidence that the OP did in fact conflate religious "belief", scientific "belief", and "belief" in general. The fact the OP mentioned both does not entail such a conflation. More to the point the fact that one can add additional criteria to scientific "belief" in order to distinguish it from religious "belief" does not ential that such criteria actually meaningfully separate "belief" in a statement consider to have religious content from "belief" in a statement considered to have scientific content.

There you go. You could have just said this the first time. I tend to agree with this but without this explanation I had now way of knowing I would agree based on "Cool distinction without a difference, bro! "

 

[angrysoba]

We are needlessly going into the minute depths of language, here. I was responding to what I think the opening post meant.

But, if you want to explore how different meanings emerge in language, I guess we can do that, too:

Well, yes. No argument there. The sentence implies that it is reliable to assume the person is a man.

Confidence comes with that. But, the core principle at work is the reliability of the assumption.

Knowledge can be true, even if the person doesn't want to believe it.


To me, it implies: A lot of people are confident that the person is a man, even if the person saying that is not.

Compare to "It is common belief that Adam was the first man."

Clearly, people really do believe this. Even though someone saying this sentence does not necessarily share that belief.

If someone says "I believe Adam was the first man.", that is a statement of confidence. It means "I have a sincere belief, that Adam was the first man."

The sentence "I believe you are a man." could mean the same sort of thing. It could imply "I have a sincere belief, that you are a man." But, it is not usually used that way. Typically, the sentence means: "I suspect you could be a man, but I am not 100% sure."

Language is weird like that. Context makes a difference.

But, this other context does not apply to what I think the opening post was trying to ask.

I think they are. They are confident enough to go out and say it, at least. Except, perhaps in the case of sarcasm.

Confidence level can vary, also, depending on the context. "Belief", depending on how it is used, does not necessarily need to be 100%.

"It is my belief that you are a man" could imply, say, 60% confidence.

"I sincerely believe you are a man" could imply 100% confidence. Except in the case of sarcasm, of course.

But, the confidence component is there, even if the statement is not empirically reliable, yet.


Again, knowledge here still implies reliability, which confidence can stem off of. But, confidence level is secondary to reliability.

Beliefs, as a type of idea, generally lack reliability, though they still have the confidence portion, anyway.

Well I am not convinced "confidence" is a component. I certainly don't see confidence in opposition to reliability.

I think the traditional definitions sound better to me.

"Belief" suggests the affirmation of the truth of proposition X.

"Knowledge" suggests a belief in proposition X, that the belief is furthermore true, and it is likely based on a justification.

A JTB as it were, although phiwum has given a good example of where JTBs may not meet the sufficient standard for knowledge.

 

[mijopaalmc]

There you go. You could have just said this the first time. I tend to agree with this but without this explanation I had now way of knowing I would agree based on "Cool distinction without a difference, bro! "

Yeah, the condescension is not necessary. The issue here is that, even without an explanation, the rather standard distinction that I see poster who are critical of religion and supportive of science making between "belief" within religion and "belief" within science is, absent the empirical evidence that they claim distinguishes "belief" within religion and "belief" within science, a distinction without a difference.

 

[MaxMurx]

First comes an observation of an effect. Human beings have a coercion to generate causal relationships. This makes them searching for a cause. From the cause/effect coexistence a rule is derived. That rule is "theory" or "belief". When the theory is proven under experimental conditions "theory" and "belief" become "knowledge".

Example: Thunder and lightning occur in cloudy weather. Group 1 believes that God is shouting in anger and sends flashes from the sky. Group 2 has the theory that an electrical spark from friction of water drops leads to electrically charged clouds and causes both,, thunder and lightning.

Both are valid theories until someone can produce static electricity, cause a spark and demonstrate the sound of it, describes the experimental setup and under the same conditions others are able to repeat the experiment. Then one former theory becomes "knowledge".

 

[Wowbagger]

I certainly don't see confidence in opposition to reliability.

I did not mean to imply they were in opposition.

As I stated before, confidence can come from reliability. They are not mutually exclusive. It's just that belief lacks the reliability portion, and all that is left is the confidence level.

"Belief" suggests the affirmation of the truth of proposition X.

"Affirmation" is roughly the same thing as having confidence in the idea.

"Knowledge" suggests a belief in proposition X, that the belief is furthermore true, and it is likely based on a justification.

"Furthermore true" is roughly the same thing as reliability of the idea.

But, adding "belief" to the definition just confuses things. If you take that out, you would have this:

"Knowledge" suggests a that a proposition is true, and it is likely based on a justification.​

And, I would have no argument with that.

 

[mijopaalmc]

First comes an observation of an effect. Human beings have a coercion to generate causal relationships. This makes them searching for a cause. From the cause/effect coexistence a rule is derived. That rule is "theory" or "belief". When the theory is proven under experimental conditions "theory" and "belief" become "knowledge".

Example: Thunder and lightning occur in cloudy weather. Group 1 believes that God is shouting in anger and sends flashes from the sky. Group 2 has the theory that an electrical spark from friction of water drops leads to electrically charged clouds and causes both,, thunder and lightning.

Both are valid theories until someone can produce static electricity, cause a spark and demonstrate the sound of it, describes the experimental setup and under the same conditions others are able to repeat the experiment. Then one former theory becomes "knowledge".

Um...yeah...I'm pretty sure that is not the sum total of how knowledge, even (and perhaps, especially) scientific knowledge, is generated. Epistemology is not necessarily straight-forward. See: Gettier problems and more generally the analysis of knowledge.

 

[angrysoba]

I did not mean to imply they were in opposition.

As I stated before, confidence can come from reliability. They are not mutually exclusive. It's just that belief lacks the reliability portion, and all that is left is the confidence level.



"Affirmation" is roughly the same thing as having confidence in the idea.

"Furthermore true" is roughly the same thing as reliability of the idea.

But, adding "belief" to the definition just confuses things. If you take that out, you would have this:

"Knowledge" suggests a that a proposition is true, and it is likely based on a justification.​

And, I would have no argument with that.

I am not really satisfied with that.

Here's the problem, as I see it.

Let's assume that there are X number of atoms in my body. Whether anybody knows that number or not we can agree can we not that there are X number of atoms in my body.

Now, while it must be true that there are X number of atoms in my body, all you are saying is that if we add "justification" then we have knowledge. Don't you think that something is missing?

However, if I said, there are X number of atoms in my body (fact) and I believe that there are X number of atoms in my body (thought) and I based this on a reading from my Atom-o-reader (justification) then I have knowledge.

Would this sound better than the previous formulation?

This is why I think "justified true belief" sounds better.

Now, if there are X number of atoms in my body, and I believe there are X number of atoms in my body and you asked for my justification and I said I had none and I was just guessing, then maybe we could with-hold the title of knowledge despite the fact we are right.

(However, I think Edward Gettier may say something like this:

If there are X number of atoms in your body, you believed that there were X and you based that on the reading from your Atom-o-reader you would have a justified true belief, but he might add the twist. Let's say the Atom-o-reader was broken and yet, like the proverbial stopped clock its display somehow was flashing the correct number of atoms despite it being a random reading. While I would be justified in believing I was right, Gettier would argue that we don't have knowledge. We were just lucky to believe what happened to be the case almost in exactly the same way as the person who guesses the right answer.)

 

[Ginarley]

I think of knowledge as part of a hierarchy (I think Russell Ackoff popularised it, I'm not sure if he invented it):

Data (direct data collection - e.g. I see 5 mice)

Information (data with context or metadata - e.g. I saw 5 mice on my lawn at 5:30 on Tuesday)

Knowledge (patterns in information - e.g. I saw 5 mice one Tuesday, next day I saw 10, next day I saw twenty so the number of mice is increasing rapidly).

Understanding (interactions between bits of knowledge - e.g. cats eat mice and mice being eaten will reduce their number)

Wisdom (the ability to make plans - if I put cats on my lawn the mice will go away).

I suppose in the context of this hierarchy, I see belief is an indication of how an individual relates to any of those steps in the hierarchy - i.e. whether you accept there are mice there, or that there are relationships between cats and mice or whatever.

 

[skepticidal]

I'll add my take on the OP's query because the box containing the limits of discourse at JREF is pretty small. Seeing that someone has invoked Adam in their analogy got me thinking.

First, I'll get "belief" out of the way by stating my personal opinion that "belief" is generally thought to represent that which can not be proven. As such, it would tend more often to be a fallacy. To me, "belief" isn't useful because it's a declaration of having closed the mind on a given idea. Would you then continue to "believe" despite new evidence to the contrary?

Now, "knowledge" the thing and "knowledge" the word tracing all the way back to its origins are entirely different and neither relates to "belief".

I think it was the OP who attempted to delineate the concept of "knowledge" by claiming it could be verified by accompanying "facts." Of course, then the true meaning of a "fact" would lead us in a circle if it too wasn't understood more clearly.

Now for the fun part where I free associate to show others how much can be discovered by ignoring precepts and consensus in favor of going it alone and trusting your instincts...

KNOWLEDGE
|
|
OWL
|
|
BULL
|
|
HORNS
|
|
CROWN OF tHORNS

KNOWLEDGEABLE
|
|
BA'AL
|
|
ZEUS
|
|
jeZEUS
|
|
JESUS

Hmmm. It seems that there's much to derive from the word "knowledge" relating to gods and symbols, such as OWL, MOON, BULL, BA'AL, HORN, EDGE, LEDGE, ZEUS, JESUS, etc.

 

[angrysoba]

First, I'll get "belief" out of the way by stating my personal opinion that "belief" is generally thought to represent that which can not be proven. As such, it would tend more often to be a fallacy. To me, "belief" isn't useful because it's a declaration of having closed the mind on a given idea. Would you then continue to "believe" despite new evidence to the contrary?

I notice that you were careful to refer to this as your personal opinion. Would the meaning change in any way if you had used the word belief?

Now, "knowledge" the thing and "knowledge" the word tracing all the way back to its origins are entirely different and neither relates to "belief".

Do you have evidence for this belief?

 

[Pup]

Haven't really thought this through to see if it makes any sense, but it just occurred to me... Knowledge is transferrable while belief isn't.

Knowledge: Paris is the capital of France.
Belief: Paris is the best place to live.

Knowledge: My game cam caught a picture of some big hairy blurry thing.
Belief: I think it's bigfoot.

Knowledge: There's a book called the Bible.
Belief: It's God's way of communicating with us.

All the things above categorized as knowledge are pretty much indisputable and one could provide so much evidence for them that any rational person would accept them as fact.

The things categorized as belief are based on opinion, interpretation, faith, hope, etc., and though one person may be absolutely convinced they're true, he can't necessarily convince any rational person to believe the same way.

Once evidence for something becomes so overwhelming, it shifts from belief to knowledge and is transferrable to any rational person.

 

[Myriad]

Belief is a subjective mental state. As such, it cannot be directly observed or verified. (It might be possible to indirectly observe, such as by brain imaging or a lie detector test, but those are insufficient to verify belief itself, only states generally associated with belief.)

Knowledge, on the other hand, can be directly verified, in part. Specifically, a person's possession of knowledge of something can be verified by testing the person on that thing. (The lack of knowledge cannot be reliably verified, because the subject might just be playing dumb.) In my experience, the most common definition of "knowledge" in the workaday world outside of philosophy forums, used for instance by educators and employers, is "ability to pass a test" in the relevant area. (Note that actual use of the knowledge to accomplish a task, where someone else is evaluating the results, falls under the category of a test.)

That definition of knowledge is more robust than it might appear at first. Suppose, as one way of challenging the definition, that a person has unique knowledge, something unknown to anyone else. Let's say a person claims knowledge of the location of Captain Kidd's treasure. No one else knows where it is, so no one can create an abstract test of that knowledge. But the claimant can test her own knowledge, by going to the location and seeing whether or not the treasure is there. This can also be used as a test by another: the test takes the form of "show me the treasure."

Such a test might be possible in principle but impractical to carry out; for instance, the person might claim that the treasure is buried under the White House. In that case, the possession of the knowledge is unverifiable; it might be so, but no one else is obliged to credit it.

Knowledge can be tested with or without belief in the subject matter. Homeopaths in training, I'm fairly certain, must pass tests on their knowledge of the principles of homeopathy in order to earn various homeopathy-related credentials. There is no reason why a person couldn't learn the material and pass the test without ever believing that the principles of homeopathy are actually true.

But what if a homeopath claims to know, not only the principles of homeopathy, but that those principles are true? Our test for the homeopath's latter claim would perforce be a simple one, perhaps as small as a single true/false item: "T or F: The principles of homeopathy are true." The problem then becomes, how do we score this test? If the homeopath answers "true," how do we know whether the answer is correct? Further testing of the homeopath will be of no avail. We must, instead, test the principles of homeopathy.

That means that where there's disagreement about what is actually true, we still sooner or later end up with disagreement of what is actual knowledge, because we can't always agree on how to score the tests. But I don't consider that a weakness in this particular definition of knowledge; instead, I consider it highly unlikely that any definition of knowledge can somehow resolve all disputes about what is actually true. Instead, knowledge is directly related to systems of reasoning, including such ideas as empiricism and falsifiability.

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[mijopaalmc]

I'm not sold on the assertion that knowledge has a necessarily empirical components; that is, that knowledge is not knowledge unless it has been empirically verified or failed to be empirically falsified. After all, the requirement that knowledge must be defined in terms of an empirical verification (or falsification) criterion seem to entail that much of mathematics (i.e., the part of mathematics that addresses the properties of infinite sets) is not knowledge sensu strictimu, because one cannot, even in principle, verify the falsity or falsify the verity of statements about infinite sets in a volumes in which the volume that is causally connected to a point is, in fact finite.

 

[I Am The Scum]

This isn't complicated.

Belief: The acceptance that an idea is true.
Knowledge: A justified, true belief.

In other words, knowledge is in the category of beliefs.

 

[mijopaalmc]

This isn't complicated.

Belief: The acceptance that an idea is true.
Knowledge: A justified, true belief.

In other words, knowledge is in the category of beliefs.

Uh...yeah...Gettier problems.

They may or may not be to the JTB epistemology, but one should probably consider that epistemologists have in fact recognized that JTB epistemology is problematic.

 

[I Am The Scum]

Uh...yeah...Gettier problems.

They may or may not be to the JTB epistemology, but one should probably consider that epistemologists have in fact recognized that JTB epistemology is problematic.

I'm familiar with Gettier. It's an unusual little quirk that almost never applies when we talk about beliefs and knowledge. It is interesting though.

However, the discussion in this thread has, for the most part, been nonsense. It's not even getting the basics right. Most important of all, I think, is that knowledge is in the category of belief. In other words, how can I know that which I do not accept as true? If we can't agree on that, then I don't see any point in addressing the fiddly bits.