Does belief = knowledge?

UU

Hello all!

When discussing matters of faith, notably theism, atheism and agnosticism, in a sense does belief equal knowledge. For example, this following passage was taken from the article on Agnosticism from Wikipedia [Link]:

Agnosticism has suffered more than most expressions of philosophical position from terminological vagaries. This often stems from the distinction (or lack thereof) between the words "belief" and "knowledge". Some consider them to be the same. (E.g.: "I believe god exists" = "I know god exists" = "I affirm the truth-value of the statement 'god exists'"). Others consider them to be different (E.g.: "I believe god exists" can still mean "I don't know if god exists" or "I cannot affirm the truth-value of the statement 'god exists'").

The question I am endeavouring to pose is, in a nutshell, does belief nessessarily mean that one knows that a particular concept exists?

Can one say "I believe in the existance of God" while on the other hand saying "I do not know for certain that he exists or not" or would that be quite contradictory? It is apparantly known as Agnostic Theism.

Likewise could an atheist could say "I do not believe that God exists" while holding the statement that "I do not know for certain that he exists or not". It is apparantly known as Agnostic Atheism.

Where would that leave the agnostic then? He/she would say "I don't know if God exists or not". Where would his/her belief lie?

So does belief = knowledge?

Playboy

Epistemology

Catsmokinpot

belief without proof isn't knowledge, thats why they are two separate words

rollie

Belief is an extension of (and often confused with) knowledge. Because, in any given arguement or instance, knowledge (as in knowing something to be so with evidence or proof) can be philosophically deconstructed to the point where the foundation of knowledge is belief. To know something is so is a leap of faith because we can never be sure that we know something in-side-out.

Taking that into account, knowledge is a necessary short cut that is required by the human condition. Without it the simplest task would be an impossible paradox. Belief, being an extension of knowledge, is stating that something is so while still allowing for uncertainity and hence supplying a scapegoat.

In essence, belief and knowledge are different shades of the same colour.

Rollie

UU

Okay. I sort of understand this concept.

To say one knows something is too imply that there is information, evidence and most importantly truth behind what they now know. So essentailly knowledge comes moreso from the past, from experience, because the memory records what we have discovered.

On the other hand, the claim that one believes something exists means accepting something as truth unconditionally with or without evidence.

The best way I found of describing this whole concept was from a thought experiment I made up:

"Derek is trekking in the mountains. Suddenly, he encounters a deep canyon with a rickety old wooden bridge stretching across the canyon giving access to the other side. He is confident that the bridge will be safe and allow him to walk across without danger, therefore he believes in the strength of the bridge (i.e. truth). He does not know if the bridge will collapse or stay stable as he hasn't walked across yet."

"Likewise Derek may be skeptical about the strength of the bridge and not believe in its strength but like above, he still does not know the outcome - he does not have the knowledge."

"Of course, he may not have any beliefs or disbeliefs about the bridge and realise that he will only know the strength of the bridge if he dares to walk across it".

Therefore, I firmly think that knowledge is not equal to belief.

Now, from the religious corner, to say one is theist is to say one believes in God (the existence of God) but that does not generally imply that one knows that God exists unless that individual claims that he/she has experienced a "divine encounter" which is hard to value as authentic or truth.

In claiming atheism, it is in fact, very much the same as theism. An atheist believes that God does not exist or disbelieves is the existence of God. He/she doesn't nessessarily know that God doesn't exist.

For agnosticism, it is not correct to say "A person who does not know that God exists" but moreso to say "A person who neither believes nor disbelieves in God" or "A person who does not have a belief in God". If the first definition is accepted then both theists and atheists would be considered agnostic.

Anyway, these are just my opinions on the matter.

Playboy

The thought experiment you 'made up' is very similar to an analogy in the link that I posted.

Wikipedia, Epistemology wrote:

Truth
Knowledge is distinct from belief. If someone claims to believe something, he or she is claiming that it is the truth. Of course, it might turn out that he or she was mistaken, and that what was thought to be true was actually false. This is not the case with knowledge. For example, suppose that Jeff thinks that a particular bridge is safe, and attempts to cross it; unfortunately, the bridge collapses under his weight. We might say that Jeff believed that the bridge was safe, but that his belief was mistaken. We would not (accurately) say that he knew that the bridge was safe, because plainly it was not. For something to count as knowledge, it must be true.

UU

Playboy wrote:

The thought experiment you 'made up' is very similar to an analogy in the link that I posted.

Em......his name is Jeff and he wasn't cool enough to do some trekking. Anyhow, my guy doesn't have an outcome and thus didn't fall off the bridge! LOL. Hehe

Epistemology is a very interesting yet complex subject, isn't it?

Playboy

Ye epistemology is interesting although it can get a little tedious.

SkepticOne

Playboy wrote:

The thought experiment you 'made up' is very similar to an analogy in the link that I posted.

Knowledge is distinct from belief. If someone claims to believe something, he or she is claiming that it is the truth. Of course, it might turn out that he or she was mistaken, and that what was thought to be true was actually false. This is not the case with knowledge. For example, suppose that Jeff thinks that a particular bridge is safe, and attempts to cross it; unfortunately, the bridge collapses under his weight. We might say that Jeff believed that the bridge was safe, but that his belief was mistaken. We would not (accurately) say that he knew that the bridge was safe, because plainly it was not. For something to count as knowledge, it must be true.

According to the British philosopher, A J Ayer, knowledge entails three things. If a person knows A, then:

1. The person believes A.
2. A is true.
3. We grant the right of the person to be sure of A or, if the person is saying "I know A" then that person claims the right to be sure of A.

The first two are covered in that example.

The third point is necessary to avoid the chance of being right by accident. For example, if I say "String Theory is wrong" and it is later shown by physicists that it is indeed wrong, then it can't really be said that I knew it was wrong since I don't have any qualifications in that area. It was just a lucky guess.

If I said "I know String Theory is wrong" then I am, in addition to asserting the wrongness of that theory, also making a claim to being qualified to make judgements in that area.

So getting back to the original post:

UU wrote:

Can one say "I believe in the existance of God" while on the other hand saying "I do not know for certain that he exists or not" or would that be quite contradictory? It is apparantly known as Agnostic Theism.

I don't think this is contradictory. No more than saying "I believe the bus will come at 3pm but I do not know for certain". What you are saying is that you believe something and until something else comes along proving otherwise you will continue to believe it. You are also not making any claims to be qualified in that area, e.g., you have not seen God etc. You could be wrong.

It would be contradictory, however, to say "I know God exists" and also say "I believe he may not exist", since knowledge implies belief.

Scigaithris

Interesting question. I would venture to guess that belief does not equal knowing, but that knowing often relies upon belief for many of us in our daily lives. "Belief...constitutes an essential dimension of the evaluation..." of knowledge (1).

Beyond belief, there is also a problem with knowing. Knowing is limited by systems of thought and language (2). Further, "Knowing always involves a political dimension" that "power and desire exert on knowing" (3), and methods of evaluating knowledge are rarely if ever value free (4). This, as mentioned before, are the concerns of epistomology, and address the fundamental question, how do we know what we know?






References:
1. Derrida, Jacques, "A Dialogue" with Giovanna Borradori, 2001.
2. Derrida, Jacques, "Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" essay.
3. Alcoff, L.M., Real Knowing: New Versions of the Coherence Theory.
4. Weber, M., The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

hotspur

I'd recommend epistemic minimalism as a simple solution to the problem of defining knowledge if you're not going to spend a great deal of time with the issue. Instead of wasting your life investigating the myriad of epistemological post-Gettier works trying to improve on "justified true belief" as a definition of knowledge, considering knowledge to be "true belief" is pretty workable. As for your application to faith one having a belief in the existence of God then need not have any justification for it to be knowledge, it only needs to be true.