The Structure of Knowledge
Knowledge is universally conceived of as a structureless property (possessing no internal referents) that satisfies the description ‘justified true belief’. The limitations of the structureless view permitted the emergence of Fallibilism - the theory that beliefs can be legitimately asserted as known (true) even if it is unknown whether the assertion is ‘definitely’ true. Fallibilism is often applied asymmetrically, appropriated by powerful interests in support of the official assertions, while a stricter, traditional standard of knowledge is applied to anyone who opposes the official assertions. More generally, fallibilism serves the ruling power and underpins the misrepresentation of false hypotheses, privileged opinions and official lies as facts, as long as any superficial or popular justification can be produced.
I argue that the formula ‘justified true belief’ (knowledge) is necessarily a compound property that entails a logical structure consisting of a simple true belief (X) and a justified conviction (X’) that the simple belief is true. The conviction that X is true can be satisfied only by a proof. If I am not certain that X is true then I am not justified in categorically asserting that X is true and thus falsely deny the ’possibility that X is false’, but must also affirm the scope of uncertainty, which is necessary to determine the validity of my justification. For example, if the proven probability that X is true is 99%, the true second-order belief is not ‘X is true’ but ‘the probability that X is true is 99%’. The claim that ‘X is true’ is identical to P(X)=99% is provably false (the law of identity).
The key to the problem is to recognise that knowledge is a state of reflexive consciousness and as such necessarily involves two hierarchical types of referents: the subject and the object of belief. The higher-order referent constitutes the distinction between simple believing (in object-level truths) vs. knowledge, which includes the awareness of the scope and quality of justification that the conscious subject has access to (the meta-level of rational justification). It does not suffice, on pain of contradiction, to have just any justification for claiming knowledge, since every possible belief can be supported by reasons in an inconclusive way, including contradictory beliefs. Knowledge requires the possession of a truth-maker, not just a possibility-maker.
The structure of knowledge:
A) a falsifiable simple belief that X is true (where X can signify the probability of Y, or that Y is false),
B) the awareness of conditions (truth-makers) on account of which ‘A is certainly true’;
OR
A’) a falsifiable simple belief that X is uncertain (where X can signify the probability of Y, or that Y is false)
B’) the awareness of conditions (truth-makers) on account of which ‘A is certainly true’.
Crucially, AB and A’B’ constitute different categories of knowledge; AB can be non-trivially true, whereas A’B’ is always trivially true (as the knowledge of unquantified uncertainty, which applies to every unproven claim).
I have provisionally identified only two types of truths that can be known:
a) logically necessary truths (or a priori), which can be proven to hold for the given premises, which may themselves be only hypothetical (need not be proven);
b) truths of the record (or a posteriori), which can be proven by correspondence to the linguistic or numerical content of the record, irrespective of whether the content is true in any other respect.
Since all empirical facts are both unique and contingent in their description, they can never be known but only standardised as not unique (idealised) and the standardisation validated by empirical correspondence relevant to the underlying standard. We call this process Science. Science relies on a priori truths to produce truths of the record of its empirical standardisation.
Statements from First Person Authority (for example, ‘I feel cold’) are subjective ascriptions, which are not normative and therefore not truth-apt: https://michaelkowalik.substack.com/p/how-be-rational-about-being-right
We know nothing, except what is logically necessary and what is recorded.
Very good, but I invite you to address these questions:
1. Your AB/A′B′ model requires certainty about the “truth-makers” for any known proposition. Please identify the truth-makers that guarantee the correctness of your own schema, and explain how you avoid circularity or infinite regress in justifying those truth-makers. If you reply that the schema is merely “conceptual”, explain why conceptual knowledge lies outside your own two-truth taxonomy.
2. Do you claim to know that “we know nothing except what is logically necessary and what is recorded”? If yes, is this (a) a logically necessary proposition for which you can give a full deductive proof, or (b) a “truth of the record,” in which case its accuracy is itself unknowable on your account? If it is neither, under your own standard, you cannot claim to know it, so why should anyone accept it?
3. You claim that “all empirical facts are unique and contingent and therefore can never be known.” Is this itself (a) an a priori proposition, if so, please supply the purely logical derivation (including your axioms for ‘empirical fact’, ‘contingent’, etc.), or (b) an empirical claim, in which case, by your standard, it cannot be known and cannot underpin your argument? Please clarify and meet the corresponding burden of proof.
4. Your model treats “If P, then P” as a logical necessity even if “P” itself is unproven. What non-ad-hoc criterion disqualifies arbitrary premises from generating trivial “logical necessities”? How is that criterion itself justified without circularity or regress?
5. Why are avowals such as “I feel cold” not truth-apt when both philosophical analysis and common practice treat them as paradigmatic knowledge claims (see Alston 1971)?
6. Which post-Gettier conditions for JTB (defeasibility, safety, tracking, knowledge-first) do you reject, and on what grounds?
7. Does your standard respect closure under known entailment? If I know P by proof and I know P→Q by proof, can I ‘know’ Q? If not, why not, and if so, where’s the proof of that proof?
8. If I know the bank opens tomorrow only because of reliably vetted testimony, do I ‘know’ it, by proof or record, in your scheme? Moreover, what counts as a 'record'?
9. How does your schema accommodate cases where I have a proof-based belief in X but then get strong evidence that my proof-process was flawed, do I instantly lose knowledge, and why?
10. Your taxonomy limits knowledge to only two types of truths (a) a priori logical necessities and (b) ‘truths of the record’ validated by correspondence. Yet consider the simple proposition: ‘I can ride a bicycle.’
A priori? Is this capacity a logical necessity you can prove purely from your axioms? If so, please supply that deduction, without appealing to any empirical premise.
Truth of the record? If not, is there a linguistic or numerical record (e.g. a text, logbook, or third-party testimony) whose mere correspondence guarantees your ability? If so, point to it.
And if you instead appeal to first-person authority, recall you’ve ruled those statements non-normative and not truth-apt. Under your own schema, you cannot know you can ride a bicycle, which is absurd. How does your model account for this elementary skill-based knowledge? (see Ryle 1949)
11. Your view says knowledge demands conscious access to a conclusive truth-maker.
How, then, does a three-year-old know her name, or a tennis player know the ball is in, when neither can identify, let alone possess, any truth-maker beyond their reliable perception?
If you deny their knowledge, the view is implausible; if you grant it, your truth-maker requirement collapses.
12. You condemn fallibilism for tolerating ‘superficial justification’, yet classical fallibilism (from Peirce to contemporary epistemology) requires robust evidence while merely denying the need for infallibility; which recognised fallibilist ever claimed that any justification, no matter how thin, suffices for knowledge?
Until you meet these, your verdict that “we know nothing except what is logically necessary and what is recorded” merely re-badges the old Leibniz–Hume split between necessary and contingent truths. You call them “logically necessary truths” and “truths of the record”, but the relabelling adds nothing to the discussion and offers no new reason to doubt that the contingent half can be known.