Here, I explain why Phenomenal Conservatism is the preferred form of epistemological internalism.* [*Based on: “Phenomenal Conservatism and the Internalist Intuition,” American Philosophical Quarterly 43 (2006): 147-58.] 1. Internalism vs. Externalism
Maybe everything is a conjecture, which can be sub-divided into conjectures you're willing to act on, conjectures you're not willing to act on, and conjectures you think might be worth testing but not the sort of thing to risk lives or treasure on. (I am not well-versed in Popper, these are just conjectures!)
Actually, I vaguely remember Popper had a very odd fall-back position on what counts as knowledge. Maybe I should move that book back to the top of the pile of books I ought to read.
As I recall, I thought he had punted, since his definition seemed to abuse how the word gets used ordinarily. He started out analyzing scientific knowledge, which might be a more reasonable context for taking such a contrarian position. But I'm pretty sure he had broadened his scope by the end of his life, and was a skeptic with regard to justification in general. He wasn't opposed to logic (in fact he was motivated by trying to provide a logical basis for inductive reasoning, eventually declaring defeat and trying a different tactic). But logic is always contingent. We only know that the conclusion follows from the premises, not that the premises are true. Not sure what stance he took on the axioms of logic, but if he was consistent, they would need to be hypotheses or conjectures.
Well, the view that there is no justification is consistent with internalism or externalism. Internalism doesn't entail that anyone actually knows anything (there are internalist skeptics).
But if you think we should believe some things, then I'd probably say that whatever you think we should believe is what you're considering justified, whether or not you like the *word* "justified". So I think the question would be under what conditions Popper thought you should believe something. I find it hard to believe that he thought you should literally never believe anything. I wouldn't be surprised if he said that, though, because he was always saying crazy shit.
Where does this leave the Popperians? They deny internalism, since they think justification is not even a thing. But they also deny externalism.
What would they say constitutes knowledge?
Maybe everything is a conjecture, which can be sub-divided into conjectures you're willing to act on, conjectures you're not willing to act on, and conjectures you think might be worth testing but not the sort of thing to risk lives or treasure on. (I am not well-versed in Popper, these are just conjectures!)
Actually, I vaguely remember Popper had a very odd fall-back position on what counts as knowledge. Maybe I should move that book back to the top of the pile of books I ought to read.
As I recall, I thought he had punted, since his definition seemed to abuse how the word gets used ordinarily. He started out analyzing scientific knowledge, which might be a more reasonable context for taking such a contrarian position. But I'm pretty sure he had broadened his scope by the end of his life, and was a skeptic with regard to justification in general. He wasn't opposed to logic (in fact he was motivated by trying to provide a logical basis for inductive reasoning, eventually declaring defeat and trying a different tactic). But logic is always contingent. We only know that the conclusion follows from the premises, not that the premises are true. Not sure what stance he took on the axioms of logic, but if he was consistent, they would need to be hypotheses or conjectures.
Well, the view that there is no justification is consistent with internalism or externalism. Internalism doesn't entail that anyone actually knows anything (there are internalist skeptics).
But if you think we should believe some things, then I'd probably say that whatever you think we should believe is what you're considering justified, whether or not you like the *word* "justified". So I think the question would be under what conditions Popper thought you should believe something. I find it hard to believe that he thought you should literally never believe anything. I wouldn't be surprised if he said that, though, because he was always saying crazy shit.