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Stephanie Miller
Fledgling
13 Posts |
 Posted - May 27 2010 : 2:14:12 PM
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| Elliot, your last statement in what you posted four days ago -- back on May 23 -- is exactly what I was thinking. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome is insanity, not knowledge. In some way, it seems that the consistency in making the same mistake over and over, but not learning, is inconsistent with knowledge. With knowledge, you are consistently taking what you know and what you are learning and creating links between them to understand more about something. By not linking the mistakes together understanding what to do differently the next time, you are not being consistent in your learning. It is kind of hard to explain, but does that make any sense to you at all? |
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Andrew Koziuk
Apprentice
34 Posts |
Posted - May 27 2010 : 4:16:12 PM
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Will, that makes much better sense to me! So for example, if I am a part of a community and to be part of a community you must own a house, then I am not part of the community because I do not own a house. Is that at all right? I think the inconsistency is that since I am in the community but do not own a house then it is not true that you have to own a house to be part of the community. I think I have it! Thanks for your help.
Tom, I apologize. I thought it said on the UNC Web site that you had a Ph.D., so I was trying to be polite, not rude. I apologize.
Anyway, in my second post what I was saying is that Sokrates is being consistent in what he believes in and would rather die than be inconsistent with what he believes in. Thus, Sokrates' consistency shows that he has knowledge, and his knowledge and beliefs are what drive him to argue what he believes.
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - May 27 2010 : 5:01:38 PM
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Andrew, my man! (Note that I've stopped calling you "Nurse Koziuk." Now if we can just get Nurse Contreras to stop doing the same damn thing!) I appreciate your trying to clarify what you were doing in your second post, but it still doesn't help. What is it for a person to be consistent with something? This looks like a diction error -- a horrendously mistaken choice of prepositions -- to me, you know, as in: "There was John sitting over the chair between the table." Also, what is to argue what you believe? Do you mean: "his knowledge and beliefs are what drive him to argue for the things he believes in"?
I'm in any case not persuaded that that second post of yours this morning was a second contribution to the discussion, so I've consolidated it with the first. |
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Stephanie Miller
Fledgling
13 Posts |
Posted - May 28 2010 : 6:48:16 PM
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| Andrew, That is a very good thought on consistency and knowledge. I had been looking at it in another way, but I agree with what you are saying. Someone is wiser and has more knowledge if they stay consistent with what they believe. However what is your opinion if you learn something in a subject matter that you knew little about, but what you did know, you strongly believed, but after learning more, is it still inconsistent or wrong to switch views about it? Or are you speaking only of matters that one knows a great amount about? Does this make sense? |
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Cassie Vrooman
Apprentice
32 Posts |
Posted - May 28 2010 : 8:44:50 PM
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Back at the beginning of this discussion (John's post on May 23 at 8:46 and Tom's post following at 10:15) an interesting question was brought up that I do not think was ever answered. "Is it possible that (a) he [Socrates] doesn't care about truth, or (b) he thinks that consistency is a guarantee of truth?" To answer this, I do not think consistency is a guarantee of truth because a person can be consistent in lying or consistent in making the same mistake multiple times as was mentioned by Elliot on May 23 and again by Stephanie on May 27. To be consistent in such things is to be logically inconsistent, correct? I am just trying to clarify the difference between consistency and logical consistency.
If this is correct then we can say that Socrates thinks that logical consistency is a guarantee of truth, and therefore a guarantee of knowledge. So knowledge is dependent on logical consistency.
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - May 28 2010 : 9:47:38 PM
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Stephanie and Cassie: I think both your last two posts contain really serious errors.
Stephanie first: you can't ever know anything that isn't true -- unless, of course, you're using the word "know" in the sense of "be familiar with." If you're using the word in that sense, then of course you can know false things. Suppose, for example, that Smith believes falsely that Jones is a murderer and you know -- in the sense of being familiar with -- Smith's position. Well, in that case, you know something that's false: you're familiar with something that's false: Smith's false view. But if it is false that Jones is a murderer (and that's what we're assuming), then Smith can't be said to know that Jones is a murderer even if if Smith is absolutely convinced that he knows this for a fact. In this sense, it isn't possible to know false things. It's not possible, for example, to know that Spain is in Asia. Why? Because it isn't.
Now, Cassie: neither consistency in the sense of consistently doing something (consistently believing something, consistently saying something, consistently acting in a certain way -- i.e., consistently doing anything in the sense of never departing from that, never changing your mind, never changing your tune, never changing your ways) nor logical consistency (carefully defined above) is a guarantee of truth. And no: lying consistently isn't being logically inconsistent, and neither is consistently making the same mistake. It's statements or propositions -- or sets of statements or propositions -- and not people that can be said to be logically consistent or logically inconsistent in the senses of those terms that are explained in "Arguments and Their Evaluation."
* * *
Will has suggested an exercise in his last post on p. 2 that could really help you to understand the sense in which I'm using the expressions "logically consistent" and "logically inconsistent." Here's in effect what he suggests: give an example of an logically inconsistent set of statements and then see if you can identify one or more logically consistent subsets of that set. Let's try this out. I'll go first. Here's my logically inconsistent set of statements: - Cassie Vrooman is a student in this class.
- Cassie Vrooman is a registered Democrat.
- None of the students in this class is a registered Democrat.
This is a logically inconsistent set of statements because there is no conceivable set of circumstances under which all three of these statements could be true. In fact, if any two of them are true, the other one has to be false. But each of these pairs of statements is logically consistent:
Pair 1:- Cassie Vrooman is a student in this class.
- Cassie Vrooman is a registered Democrat.
Pair 2:- Cassie Vrooman is a student in this class.
- None of the students in this class is a registered Democrat.
Pair 3:- Cassie Vrooman is a registered Democrat.
- None of the students in this class is a registered Democrat.
Note that I'm not saying that any one of these three statements is true and I'm not saying that any pair of them is true. It could very be the case that all three are false. And that means that this is also consistent set of statements:- Cassie Vrooman is not a student in this class.
- Cassie Vrooman is not a registered Democrat.
- It's not true that none of the students in this class is a registered Democrat (at least one of them is a registered Democrat).
So it's easy to see that logical consistency is not a guarantee of truth. But for sets of statements, logical inconsistency guarantees that not all the statements in the set can be true. Does this help? And note that none of this has anything to do with anyone's doing anything consistently over time.
Oh, one more thing: while knowing something is a guarantee of its truth, this is not a terribly interesting fact from a practical point of view since thinking that you know something isn't a guarantee of its truth, and it's really easy to think that you know things that you don't.
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Cassie Vrooman
Apprentice
32 Posts |
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Cassie Vrooman
Apprentice
32 Posts |
Posted - May 28 2010 : 10:44:08 PM
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Another thought about the initial question we are discussing: "Consistency: What's It Got to Do with Knowledge?"
If consistency over time is as defined in Jenna's initial post as "reliability or uniformity of successive results or events" and if, as discussed by John and Eliott, knowledge can change over time, then I would conclude that knowledge is not dependent on consistency nor consistency on knowledge.... I would think instead that the two are mutually exclusive. But are we talking about consistency and knowledge over time? |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - May 29 2010 : 12:24:52 AM
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Cassie, first with respect to what you've offered as a set of logically inconsistent statements: absolutely right. And in this case, just as was the case with the set that I offered, every proper subset of the set is a logically consistent set.
Some of the rest of you should try this too, and by the way, there are other patterns to be on the lookout for. Logically inconsistent sets of statements don't have to consist always of three statements. What about this one?- Cassie Vrooman is a student in this class.
- Cassie Vrooman is not a student in this class.
That's a logically inconsistent set of statements that consists of just two statements. And here's another:- No students in this class are registered Democrats.
- One of the students in this class is a registered Democrat.
Here's one with five: - Either we're getting this or we're not.
- If we're getting it, all is well with the world.
- Even if we're not getting it, all's well with the world.
- If all is well with the world, no environmental catastrophe can be occurring in the Gulf of Mexico right now.
- An environmental catastrophe is occurring in the Gulf of Mexico right now.
and here is a subset of that set that's not logically inconsistent:- If all is well with the world, no environmental catastrophe can be occurring in the Gulf of Mexico right now.
- An environmental catastrophe is occurring in the Gulf of Mexico right now.
Your second question is tougher and it's getting really late. I'm going to turn in and return to that one tomorrow.... |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - May 29 2010 : 07:46:20 AM
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OK. I'm back up and ready to go. Let me go back to your second question, Cassie: are we talking about consistency and knowledge over time? I certainly never had it in mind that we should. Jenna got us started on this, and as far as I'm concerned, it's been a huge digression. Let's go back to my original post:quote:
Originally posted by Tom Trelogan (see the very first post in this thread)
I think it's time to start talking about this question [The question that is the very title of this topic: "Consistency: What's It Got to Do with Knowledge?"]. It should be obvious by now why it's one of our three big questions. As you've all seen by now, Sokrates is an absolute madman (or maybe the one and only sane person in the world!) when it comes to consistency, for (1) he's prepared to go to his death to avoid acting, in the face of the threat of death, in a way that's inconsistent with his principles, and (2) his whole way of talking with his fellow human beings involves at its very core putting people to the test to see if they can avoid contradicting themselves in speaking about the things they think they know, pressing them and pressing them and pressing them mercilessly. And yet....
He doesn't claim to know very much at all. And that itself is really odd, isn't it? Because isn't a philosopher a wise man, and isn't Sokrates a philosopher, and isn't wisdom the same thing as knowledge?
When I say that Sokrates is a madman for consistency (or perhaps the only sane person in the world when it comes to consistency), it should be obvious that I'm talking about logical consistency. You'll note that I presented an argument for my claim. My two reasons for saying that he is a madman for consistency (or perhaps the only sane person in the world when it comes to consistency) are these: (1) Sokrates is prepared to go to his death to avoid acting, in the face of the threat of death, in a way that's inconsistent with his principles, and (2) Sokrates' whole way of talking with his fellow human beings involves at its very core putting people to the test to see if they can avoid contradicting themselves in speaking about the things they think they know, pressing them and pressing them and pressing them mercilessly. Let's take them up one at a time.
First, Sokrates is prepared to go to his death to avoid acting, in the face of the threat of death, in a way that's inconsistent with his principles, i.e., with his commitment to abide by them no matter what. Why doesn't he want to do this? Because if he decided to do this, he'd in effect be saying: - To avoid death, I must do x (say, give up philosophy).
- I shall do whatever it takes to avoid death.
- Therefore, I shall do x.
- If I abide by my principles, then I shall not do x, for they tell me, in effect: "Thou shalt not do x."
- I do abide by my principles.
and these are logically inconsistent statements.
Second, his whole way of talking with his fellow human beings involves at its very core putting people to the test to see if they can avoid contradicting themselves in speaking about the things they think they know, pressing them and pressing them and pressing them mercilessly. To avoid contradicting themselves: that means to avoid making statements that, taken together, constitute a set of logically inconsistent statements.
So plainly, what I was always asking about was logical consistency, not consistency over time (always saying the same things, always doing the same things, always believing the same things, and so on). The question is this: Logical Consistency: What's It Got to Do with Knowledge?"
Oh, and you'll recall that I've already argued that knowledge never changes over time. |
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Joseph Haag
Moderator
172 Posts |
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Tom Trelogan
Forum Admin
1368 Posts |
Posted - May 29 2010 : 9:34:02 PM
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Joe, it sounds as if you want to change the subject, to drop the question of what logical consistency has to do with truth (or at least temporarily suspend it), and to talk instead about what it takes for an argument to be sound. Is that right? If so, what's your reason for wanting to do that? In fact, what's your reason for wanting to talk about arguments in this particular context at all? Questions about what it takes to evaluate an argument, and in particular, what it takes for an argument to be sound, would be more on topic, I think, in connection with the new argument analysis exercises in the Thinking Room.
The reason we've got for wanting to know what logical consistency has to do with knowledge -- the sole topic of this thread -- is that Sokrates is absolutely buggy about logical consistency and seems to think that it has something to do with knowledge. What we're trying to do here is understand why, and right now, that's all we're trying to do.
(By the way, ŕ propos of your last remark: no argument can ever be a tautology or a contradiction. Only statements or claims can fall into those two categories.) |
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Joseph Haag
Moderator
172 Posts |
Posted - May 29 2010 : 9:56:43 PM
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| I wasn't trying to change the subject; if this is a change of subject then I'll go ahead and let it go. |
Edited by - Joseph Haag on May 29 2010 9:57:10 PM |
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John Koban
Apprentice
40 Posts |
Posted - May 30 2010 : 5:20:35 PM
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I have a quick question about this week's reading (the Ion) with regard to the topic of consistency. Was Socrates' main sticking point with Ion the fact that Ion only knew and appreciated Homer and no other poet? Suppose that Ion had also been versed in other poets of the day. Would the conversation have been over? Or were there other factors as well that Socrates saw in the character of Ion regarding consistency?
Also, I have not done a tremendous amount of reading in Plato and his Socratic dialogues. Do all of the Socratic dialogues set out to discover consistency in those with whom Socrates converses? And does Socrates always succeed in bringing to light other people's inconsistencies? Are there any dialogues in which Socrates encounters someone who is actually totally consistent? In thinking about consistency and regular world experience, I wonder if anyone is really consistent all the time. I do not think that anyone is totally consistent all of the time. Assuming that no one is totally consistent, including those whom Socrates encountered, is the ideal of consistency something Plato believes everyone should strive for? And does he think that Socrates, as a Jesus-like character, is the only man who has ever lived the completely consistent life? I have always been under the impression that Plato's divine idea, or idea of the divinity, has something to do with a good, or the good. So for Plato, given that the ideal of consistency appears to be a really important one, is the ideal of consistency somehow related to the good? Are those who are consistent also good?
[Edited to enhance readability -TT] |
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Jenna Stimac
Apprentice
28 Posts |
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Eliott Dimond
Fledgling
19 Posts |
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Eliott Dimond
Fledgling
19 Posts |
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John Koban
Apprentice
40 Posts |
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Jenna Stimac
Apprentice
28 Posts |
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Christine Gylling
Fledgling
18 Posts |
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Consistency: What's It Got to Do with Knowledge?
