Grim wrote:Wikijokers are often no different from wikiauthors.

Sadly your last two posts have been 100% content free. If you want to make groundless ad hominem attacks I suggest you try a softer target than Plato.

Your groundless! And not really dealing with the issues, instead of suggesting that I am disputing Plato why don't you stick with the topic and respond to the issues raised not the fact that I raised them.

Hi Grim. You have made a number of very weird comments here, and I hope you can lift your game if this discussion is to go anywhere. I offered comments about Burton's book, to which you did not make any substantive response, but you did offer the useless ad hominem distraction that wikipedia had comments which suggested Plato's Republic is not a valid source. I am not going to respond further, but hope others can read this thread and make their own judgment. Robert

edited 22/9

Thank you Grim for your insightful private message. I think you may have edited some of your messages to add points after I had posted in reply, as I have gone back through the thread and found additional comments. What I was getting at, and on which I would welcome dialogue, is that Burton seems to be arguing that deficiencies within the feeling of certainty produce an epistemological relativism, whereby he implies that the sense of certainty about subjective states is equivalent to objective knowledge. I have not read the book and am just responding to reviews, so would welcome explanation if this is incorrect.

I think the author has got hold of a difficult and slippery concept. I will be interested to see if he manages to avoid some pitfalls. At this point, I'm wondering most about the elasticity of his "feeling of knowing." It is not narrowly defined, which affords him scope for discussion but is always a problem if scientific credibility is the goal. The feeling of knowing applies both to simple mental calculations such as 2 + 2 and to complex personal belief systems. It is in play when a close friend dies and we still feel his presence despite our knowing he's gone. The feeling of knowing is knowing that we know, which sounds similar to a common definition of consciousness, too. So how will Burton differentiate his special sense of knowing from general consciousness?

He presents us a ridddle to illustrate knowing. It's true, sometimes we don't get something, like a riddle or paragraph written by a student, and have to puzzle it out (if we can). The meaning may dawn on us, and--bingo--we notice the change from cluenessness to knowing. Burton says that normally we don't notice our knowing; it is just with us like a thought (p. 4) and noticed only if it seems to disappear suddenly. Consciousness helps us to understand that we've lost this feeling of knowing. Maybe that explains how consciousness works in relation to the sense of knowing, as a process operating above it.
DWill

What I was getting at, and on which I would welcome dialogue, is that Burton seems to be arguing that deficiencies within the feeling of certainty produce an epistemological relativism, whereby he implies that the sense of certainty about subjective states is equivalent to objective knowledge.

I think what Burton is really saying that the feeling of knowing is a defensive mechanism that prevents total uncertainty. It elicits the same type of response you would get from outracing an opponent, yet it is used to provide will. Without certainty a person would not be capable of anything, without the feeling of knowing there would be nothing telling the person that their impulse is correct and they should defend their conscious decision despite or in addition to the true nature of the input, and the reality of the situation.

DWill:

The feeling of knowing applies both to simple mental calculations such as 2 + 2 and to complex personal belief systems. It is in play when a close friend dies and we still feel his presence despite our knowing he's gone.

It makes sense to me that Burton would group both seemingly provable "facts" like 2+2=4 and personal beliefs together. I think his demonstration of the feeling of knowing, with the odd paragraph that only makes sense in light of the word kite, shows that the "feeling" is the same for both opinion and evidence based information that we know.

Grim:

I think what Burton is really saying that the feeling of knowing is a defensive mechanism that prevents total uncertainty....Without certainty a person would not be capable of anything, without the feeling of knowing there would be nothing telling the person that their impulse is correct and they should defend their conscious decision...

I also think this is precisely what Burton is saying and it is his justification for the evolutionary existence of the feeling of knowing.

Saffron wrote: I also think this is precisely what Burton is saying and it is his justification for the evolutionary existence of the feeling of knowing.

I don't remember where he says it, but the feeling of knowing also serves to override our thinking mind situated more in our cortex. Burton believes that without such a feeling, we might tend to get stuck in indecision. For survival purposes, the first requirement is that we do something, and the feeling of knowing gives us the impetus to act.

Saffron wrote:It makes sense to me that Burton would group both seemingly provable "facts" like 2+2=4 and personal beliefs together. I think his demonstration of the feeling of knowing, with the odd paragraph that only makes sense in light of the word kite, shows that the "feeling" is the same for both opinion and evidence based information that we know.

This is an extremely discomforting suggestion. If mathematics only has the same status as subjective feelings, how can we possibly claim to know anything at all? Traditional philosophy has a hierarchy of reliability of impressions, from false belief, through well founded belief, to scientific and mathematical knowledge. The trouble with Burton's claim is that we do possess scientific knowledge. For example in astronomy, the celebrated 1919 proof by Eddington that Einstein's prediction about bending light could only have happened if Einstein's theory was an accurate description of objective reality

Robert Tulip wrote:This is an extremely discomforting suggestion. If mathematics only has the same status as subjective feelings, how can we possibly claim to know anything at all?

Robert,
I don't think that Burton is saying we can't know anything; although I'm not very far in the book yet. I feel certain that Burton is not saying that mathematics and opinion (subjective) have the same status or are the same creatures. The point he's making is the feeling or sense of knowing that you've got it "right" is the same regardless of whether it is a "fact" like a mathematical equation or an idea, opinion, or subjective feeling. This is an astonishing idea. And, if true very important. I would bet that at some point in the book he will say that it is not the feeling that should tell you something is correct or not. Since the feeling comes regardless of whether there is evidence to support our sense of rightness, it seems that he will have to say that we must or are even obligated to rely on other means (fact checking, evidence, logic, etc...) to verify what we feel (believe) to be correct or right.