forum 7: week of 27 Feb - pragmatic encroachment

Fragment of a discussion from Course talk:Phil440A

I wanted to raise a further issue on the topic of deception. Well, more on the issue of how human's have different levels of trust for different situations. Some people take risks, some people are confident in what they "know". For me, I would not cross the frozen lake if the only the I had to gain was time since if I was wrong I could die. "Reckless Rick" on the other hand would claim that he knew he would not fall through the ice so he crossed the lake. Both Rick and I had the same information but for him it was knowledge and for me it was not. To me this seems to be the effect of removing certainty from the prerequisites for knowledge. Once you don't have to be certain it becomes a matter of opinion whether you know something or not.

ThomasMasin19:23, 1 March 2012