How Do You Know What You Know?

Knowing why you believe what you believe is important, especially in today's political climate. I'll delve into that more in my next post.

For me, there might be a single word to describe how I know what I know and how I decide to change my mind on something. But I don't know that word, so I'll sum it up thusly:

I read an article today that talks a bit about this “epistemic learned helplessness” (linked from an excellent idlewords talk, Superintelligence: The Idea That Eats Smart People). Essentially it's the understanding that anyone can convince anyone of anything, so truly knowing what to believe based on others' arguments isn't a good way to know what you know or not.

It might work equally for people who either believe that the world is round or flat, but again, I'll get into that another time.

#philosophy #knowledge #epistemology