This document discusses justification and how it relates to knowledge. It provides four ways of justifying knowledge: language, perception, reason, and emotion. It also discusses what distinguishes a good justification from a bad one, noting that reliability is the key factor. Finally, it outlines what type of justification may be required for different subject areas.
2. What is justification?
• Call to authority to help support your belief
• Seems that you trust your ‘knowledge’ if justified
• K=JTB
– Where justification helps the level of certainty of
one’s belief.
{Example of Court of Law}
3. How do we justify our knowledge?
We can justify our knowledge through the four ways of
knowing:
1. Language – told by other sources
– Second hand sources
2. Perception – being able to experience it yourself
– People have different perceptions of the world
3. Reason – using past experiences
– ‘a priori’
4. Emotion- using your instinct and ‘ gut’ feelings
4. What distinguishes a good justification
from a bad one?
• Acceptable vs. unacceptable
– Reliability is the key factor that distinguishes justification
from being acceptable from unacceptable justification.
• If it seems that the knowledge that is presented to you
is ‘out of the ball park’ then you may feel an emotional
attachment to it but that isn’t as credible as perception
and reason.
– Level of acceptance depends on the certainty of your
belief
– Depends on the context of the situation. Have to make a
judgment about when doubt is appropriate and not
appropriate.
5. What justification is required in a
given context/ subject area?
• Emotion
– Debate, History (can be biased according to your
affiliations with either side of the claim).
• Language
– Social studies classes (History, Psychology, English)
• Perception
– Physics
• Reason
– Math
Editor's Notes
the justification is like the claim the persecutor or defense makesand the witness its like the evidence that proves someone innocent
emotion is subjective and is therefore not very credible as a way of knowing unless paired with something else like reasonreason is probably the most credible because it is closely tied with math and the sciencesusing what we know to be true such as 2+2 = 4 rather than subjective arguments
How reliable is saying that the world will end in 2012? Seems nothing to prove in none of the 4 WoK.
knowing unless paired with something else like reasonits fine, i can do thisreason is probably the most credible because it is closely tied with math and the sciencesusing what we know to be true such as 2+2 = 4 rather than subjective arguments he mathematical sciences is also reasonlike physicshuman sciences is emotion and languageoh and things like physics is also perceptionbecause you need your senses and perception to observe phenomenonyou assume these are reliable sources of data, but perception is prone to error because it is not preciseso math is used to make it more precisehistory is mostly language and deductive skillsso reason alsoto explain why people did what they did