humanities.philosophy.objectivism

Malrassic Park wrote:

> On Mon, 07 Apr 2008 08:03:38 -0700, Fred Weiss
> wrote:
>
>>The more important point is that belief usually conveys some degree of
>>doubt and therefore is weaker than knowledge. In any case, a belief
>>can clearly be mistaken, as many are and have been. Knowledge cannot.
>
> Now this is a question of epistemology, unlike everything Rand wrote
> in ITOE which had little if anything to do with the question of
> knowledge.
>
> The question is not so much the distinction between belief and
> knowledge, but how justified knowledge can be grounded in *assumed*
> "axioms."

Are axioms really assumptions? Or are they more like principles that one
must accept, as a precondition for rational thought? (Maybe they are
something like unavoidable assumptions?)

> And how knowledge, reducible to these axioms, conveys
> moreness to it such that it is "more than mere belief."

Knowledge is reducible to axioms? I thought knowledge was supposed to be
reducible to things that are self-evident, or "the evidence of the
senses," with axioms acting as guides to keep one's thinking clear.

> It is an
> example of how belief justifies knowledge. That is not to say it is
> true because I believe in it, but it is true because it is
> well-founded in belief.

Or maybe the belief and the knowledge are both well-founded (i.e.,
justified) by the evidence?

Mark


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