Knowing and Believing
Most people are not inclined to distinguish between knowledge and belief. It seems to be human nature to assume that whatever one believes, one knows. People are usually (but not always) reasonable enough to admit, when a belief of theirs has been shown to be manifestly false, that they really did not know after all, but only falsely believed; but such cases are generally shrugged off as trivial exceptions to the rule and put out of mind, and the assumption continues that whatever one believes, one knows. If the average person were pressed to define knowledge as opposed to mere belief, he might say something like, "Well…belief can be wrong, but knowledge can't be wrong." This is of course true, but it does not really define knowledge. So if the fellow is pressed further he might respond with something like, "Well, knowledge is belief that is right." Presumably, many if not most people would agree with and accept this definition.
But is knowledge really nothing more than true belief? Consider the following example, very similar to one given by Bertrand Russell: A clock is stopped with its face showing five minutes to six. In fact, the clock is broken and has shown five minutes to six for the past two weeks. By the sheerest coincidence, at precisely five minutes to six a man who does not know that the clock is broken walks by and looks at the clock to see what time it is, and walks away thinking (and rightly believing) "It's five minutes to six." But does he really know that the correct time is five minutes to six? The following example may illustrate the problem more clearly: Juanita Lovejoy has believed for years that the famous movie actor Myron Schmelnick is dead. Actually, Myron S. has been alive and well, living in peaceful retirement on the French Riviera (it was in fact his renowned brother Milton Schmelnick, the concert violinist, who mysteriously exploded in his swimming pool several years previously). However, one fateful day Myron dies in a tragic car accident. Juanita hears nothing of the news, and her belief that Myron Schmelnick is dead remains essentially unchanged. Bearing this in mind, can it be truly said that last year Juanita did not know, but that now she does? Can knowledge be subjectively indistinguishable from and psychologically identical to ignorance? Can real knowledge, in some cases at least, be nothing more than a lucky guess? If so, if knowing and not knowing can feel exactly the same, then how could a thoughtful person, taking this into account and reflecting upon his beliefs, be absolutely certain that he knows something in particular, or for that matter anything at all? It would seem that one could know something without knowing whether or not one knows.
It may be perceived that that last statement contains some verbal trickery. In the phrase "knowing whether or not one knows" the word "know" is used in two different senses. In the second place "to know" means, in accordance with the hypothesis in question, to have true belief; but in the first place it means something fundamentally different. In the first place "to know" means, essentially, to clearly and plainly see the truth or reality of something, to see it so clearly and plainly in fact that cannot possibly be wrong about it, or have the slightest reasonable doubt about it. This definition of knowing as opposed to merely believing seems to be more rigorously accurate, and furthermore is probably how most people intuitively define the word even if they never articulate it as such.
It should be pointed out here that seeing the truth of something so clearly that one cannot possibly doubt it is not the same as absolute, undoubting conviction. For example, the Jehovah's Witnesses are just as absolutely convinced that their beliefs are ultimate, divine truth as many worldly-minded atheists are that the beliefs of the Jehovah's Witnesses are just plain silly. If undoubting conviction amounted to real knowledge, then every fanatic, bigot, and unquestioning dogmatist would be right. Inability to reasonably doubt is not the same as closed-minded refusal to doubt.
So now it may be asked, What can truly be known? As many philosophers and sages, both Eastern and Western, have been saying for millennia: Virtually Nothing! Philosophers as different from each other as Bertrand Russell and the Third Patriarch of Zen are in agreement on this one point. The arguments refuting or at least casting doubt upon the various beliefs of human beings are countless; and it would be beyond the scope of the present discussion to consider even a few of the major ones; but one of the most comprehensive and devastating of them all---namely, radical nondualistic mysticism---is particularly deserving of mention here. According to the mystics, the Universe is (at most) a single whole, and any division of it into parts, into "this" and "that," into self and other, even into figure and ground or existence and nonexistence, be it physical or purely abstract, is delusion (the delusion itself of course being ultimately no different from non-delusion). Can this view/non-view, paradoxical as it seems, be demonstratively, conclusively disproven? No.* Therefore all beliefs involving plurality, which is practically the same as saying all beliefs whatever, leave room for uncertainty and the possibility of reasonable doubt, thereby falling short of the criterion for genuine knowledge---and thereby being ipso facto at least semi-ignorance.
And so again---Is there anything that can be truly known? Is there anything at all that can be clearly and plainly seen to be undoubtably true and real? It seems that all that remains, all that the most radical mysticism and militant skepticism leave standing, is the present phenomenon of conscious sensation itself. (As the old joke goes about David Hume, master of demolishing beliefs, he doubted everything until he finally came to his senses.) Conscious sensation is the very substance of all experience; it is looking every conscious being right in the face every waking moment of every day, and all efforts to argue it away leave it unmoved and just as obviously real and present as before. Thus it is no mere coincidence that highly advanced yogic meditation techniques (mainly found in, but not entirely limited to, Buddhism and Hinduism), aiming as they are at the cultivation of wisdom---the knowing of Reality---involve keeping the mind at the level of bare conscious sensation, without any admixture of perceptual interpretation or belief.
In this search for absolute knowledge there appears to be one problem remaining, and a curiously paradoxical one at that: if the meditative mind abides at the level of bare conscious sensation completely unburdened of all pluralistic differentiation, of all superimposed significance, of all perceptual bias, then it would seem that the mind would be in the highest, purest mystical state, and all its sensation, unsupported by perceptual ignorance, would be, subjectively, no different from absolute emptiness. Thus the mind and its supposedly finally-attained real knowledge could not be said to exist or not exist. And so it is asked a third time: Is there anything at all that is truly knowable? If so, then it wholly transcends the understanding of an ordinary human being. It may be what is called "Nirvana."
Certain knowledge completely divested of ignorance becomes the same as Nothing. Paradox is the plaything of Brahma.
___________________
* It also apparently cannot be demonstratively, conclusively proven, but that is beside the point.
Written on the 8th waxing of Visakha, 2545 old style (29 May 2001)
by Paññobhāsa Bhikkhu
Most people are not inclined to distinguish between knowledge and belief. It seems to be human nature to assume that whatever one believes, one knows. People are usually (but not always) reasonable enough to admit, when a belief of theirs has been shown to be manifestly false, that they really did not know after all, but only falsely believed; but such cases are generally shrugged off as trivial exceptions to the rule and put out of mind, and the assumption continues that whatever one believes, one knows. If the average person were pressed to define knowledge as opposed to mere belief, he might say something like, "Well…belief can be wrong, but knowledge can't be wrong." This is of course true, but it does not really define knowledge. So if the fellow is pressed further he might respond with something like, "Well, knowledge is belief that is right." Presumably, many if not most people would agree with and accept this definition.
But is knowledge really nothing more than true belief? Consider the following example, very similar to one given by Bertrand Russell: A clock is stopped with its face showing five minutes to six. In fact, the clock is broken and has shown five minutes to six for the past two weeks. By the sheerest coincidence, at precisely five minutes to six a man who does not know that the clock is broken walks by and looks at the clock to see what time it is, and walks away thinking (and rightly believing) "It's five minutes to six." But does he really know that the correct time is five minutes to six? The following example may illustrate the problem more clearly: Juanita Lovejoy has believed for years that the famous movie actor Myron Schmelnick is dead. Actually, Myron S. has been alive and well, living in peaceful retirement on the French Riviera (it was in fact his renowned brother Milton Schmelnick, the concert violinist, who mysteriously exploded in his swimming pool several years previously). However, one fateful day Myron dies in a tragic car accident. Juanita hears nothing of the news, and her belief that Myron Schmelnick is dead remains essentially unchanged. Bearing this in mind, can it be truly said that last year Juanita did not know, but that now she does? Can knowledge be subjectively indistinguishable from and psychologically identical to ignorance? Can real knowledge, in some cases at least, be nothing more than a lucky guess? If so, if knowing and not knowing can feel exactly the same, then how could a thoughtful person, taking this into account and reflecting upon his beliefs, be absolutely certain that he knows something in particular, or for that matter anything at all? It would seem that one could know something without knowing whether or not one knows.
It may be perceived that that last statement contains some verbal trickery. In the phrase "knowing whether or not one knows" the word "know" is used in two different senses. In the second place "to know" means, in accordance with the hypothesis in question, to have true belief; but in the first place it means something fundamentally different. In the first place "to know" means, essentially, to clearly and plainly see the truth or reality of something, to see it so clearly and plainly in fact that cannot possibly be wrong about it, or have the slightest reasonable doubt about it. This definition of knowing as opposed to merely believing seems to be more rigorously accurate, and furthermore is probably how most people intuitively define the word even if they never articulate it as such.
It should be pointed out here that seeing the truth of something so clearly that one cannot possibly doubt it is not the same as absolute, undoubting conviction. For example, the Jehovah's Witnesses are just as absolutely convinced that their beliefs are ultimate, divine truth as many worldly-minded atheists are that the beliefs of the Jehovah's Witnesses are just plain silly. If undoubting conviction amounted to real knowledge, then every fanatic, bigot, and unquestioning dogmatist would be right. Inability to reasonably doubt is not the same as closed-minded refusal to doubt.
So now it may be asked, What can truly be known? As many philosophers and sages, both Eastern and Western, have been saying for millennia: Virtually Nothing! Philosophers as different from each other as Bertrand Russell and the Third Patriarch of Zen are in agreement on this one point. The arguments refuting or at least casting doubt upon the various beliefs of human beings are countless; and it would be beyond the scope of the present discussion to consider even a few of the major ones; but one of the most comprehensive and devastating of them all---namely, radical nondualistic mysticism---is particularly deserving of mention here. According to the mystics, the Universe is (at most) a single whole, and any division of it into parts, into "this" and "that," into self and other, even into figure and ground or existence and nonexistence, be it physical or purely abstract, is delusion (the delusion itself of course being ultimately no different from non-delusion). Can this view/non-view, paradoxical as it seems, be demonstratively, conclusively disproven? No.* Therefore all beliefs involving plurality, which is practically the same as saying all beliefs whatever, leave room for uncertainty and the possibility of reasonable doubt, thereby falling short of the criterion for genuine knowledge---and thereby being ipso facto at least semi-ignorance.
And so again---Is there anything that can be truly known? Is there anything at all that can be clearly and plainly seen to be undoubtably true and real? It seems that all that remains, all that the most radical mysticism and militant skepticism leave standing, is the present phenomenon of conscious sensation itself. (As the old joke goes about David Hume, master of demolishing beliefs, he doubted everything until he finally came to his senses.) Conscious sensation is the very substance of all experience; it is looking every conscious being right in the face every waking moment of every day, and all efforts to argue it away leave it unmoved and just as obviously real and present as before. Thus it is no mere coincidence that highly advanced yogic meditation techniques (mainly found in, but not entirely limited to, Buddhism and Hinduism), aiming as they are at the cultivation of wisdom---the knowing of Reality---involve keeping the mind at the level of bare conscious sensation, without any admixture of perceptual interpretation or belief.
In this search for absolute knowledge there appears to be one problem remaining, and a curiously paradoxical one at that: if the meditative mind abides at the level of bare conscious sensation completely unburdened of all pluralistic differentiation, of all superimposed significance, of all perceptual bias, then it would seem that the mind would be in the highest, purest mystical state, and all its sensation, unsupported by perceptual ignorance, would be, subjectively, no different from absolute emptiness. Thus the mind and its supposedly finally-attained real knowledge could not be said to exist or not exist. And so it is asked a third time: Is there anything at all that is truly knowable? If so, then it wholly transcends the understanding of an ordinary human being. It may be what is called "Nirvana."
Certain knowledge completely divested of ignorance becomes the same as Nothing. Paradox is the plaything of Brahma.
___________________
* It also apparently cannot be demonstratively, conclusively proven, but that is beside the point.
Written on the 8th waxing of Visakha, 2545 old style (29 May 2001)
by Paññobhāsa Bhikkhu