forum 10: week of March 19 - second order knowledge

Fragment of a discussion from Course talk:Phil440A

I am NOT convinced that we could make a "parallel" argument that if someone knows something much more ordinary, like that there is a computer screen in front of them, then they will know that they know it. Knowledge considered to be "ordinary" seems to have very little overlap, if any, with knowledge gained through science or experiments (i.e., in the "scientific setting"). Hence, we must treat the two domains of knowledge separately because second-order knowledge seems much more plausible in the ordinary setting than in the scientific setting. In other words, just because one claims to know something (i.e., first-order knowledge) in the scientific setting does NOT mean that the same person knows (for sure) that they know that scientific fact. If a scientist really possesses second-order knowledge in the scientific setting then it's a rare or unusual case. To go from first to second-order knowledge in the scientific setting requires "justification" in the sense of Staley and Cobb, which definitely does not seem like an easy task, at least at first glance. Whereas the requirements for "justification" in the ordinary setting seem to be much looser and far less strict. This is the barrier I see in making the "parallel" argument mentioned in Dr. Morton's first question.

NicoleJinn02:51, 26 March 2012