forum 10: week of March 19 - second order knowledge

Re: SECOND-ORDER KNOWLEDGE Christoph Kelp and Nikolaj J.L.L. Pedersen

Excerpts: Knowledge involves belief. Belief is a propositional attitude, i.e. an attitude that a subject holds towards a proposition

principle of knowledge transmission: (KTP) KSKRP → KSP

KTP has some prominent advocates—Hintikka (1962), to mention just one. However, even if we suppose that advocates of KTP are right in maintaining that the principle holds, it is important to avoid confusion about what the principle says. In particular, although it is natural to read KTP as saying that subject S knows that P by knowing that subject R does so, the specific warrant involved in R’s knowledge is not automatically transmitted to, or inherited by, S. This can be so even if S is fully aware of what the source of R’s knowledge—and warrant—is.

I like the reference to Hintikka.

Between Staley and Cobb; and, Kelp and Pederson, it appears possible to bring the internalist knowledge of beliefs that include theology, space, time, quantum mechanics, and multiverses; together, into the externalist scrutiny of justification in scientific enquiry, with the help of Hintikka's logic.