RE: opinions vs knowledge - misinformation?

Edwina,

Yes I agree we should 'revenir a nos moutons' in this forum.

Personally I have never found the 'subject/object' distinction (or man/woman binarism)
philosophically fruitful.

Your post does raise the important issue of misinformation/disinformation and
whether information and truth are natural allies.

Hopefully in the next session of this conference we can mutually explore 'misconceptions' a little more than we have so far.

If opinions are low-grade beliefs and knowledge is justified true belief then opinions and knowledge are not binary opposites but part of a continuum of belief ranging from 'subjective'
fanatacism and evangelism to 'objective' scientific truth. The opinions of Giordano Bruno were considered illogical and evangelical in their time. Later they became acceptable beliefs
and components of a body of knowledge. Given other circumstances even Charles Peirce
(or Germaine Greer) might have been burnt at the stake for heresy.

The truth of a belief is not in its logicality but in its justification.

That pregnant unwed mothers should be decapitated is quite a logical belief for the Nigerian government but it is not an (ethically) justified belief.

What role does 'information' play in all this? Is it, if it exists at all, a kind of ubiquitous
crap-detector or a cognitive mist we have to pass through to get to the truth?

Luciano Floridi's paper addresses the question from a hardcore logic perspective
with his 'alethic' approach but the jury is still out.

In my view misinformation is a distortion of true belief rather than an absence of information altogether.

Your opinion?

John H

-----Original Message-----
From: Edwina Taborsky [mailto:taborsky@primus.ca]
Sent: Wednesday, 28 August 2002 23:17
To: Multiple recipients of list FIS
Subject: opinions vs knowledge

Again, I ask why are evangelistic opinions posted to this discussion
site? The reply to my rejection of the evangelistic post about women
having innate 'love' capacities while men do not and therefore, they
can 'save the world' was yet another post filled with illogical
opinions, this time from Thommandel (don't know his/her real name).

I don't think that readers want a sentence by sentence deconstruction
of that reply, but I could show how each sentence is based on nothing
more than subjective opinion. Each collection of sentences, when
framed in any kind of logical form, leads to an invalid 'conclusion'.
The reply has nothing to do with knowledge or information. These are
nothing more than subjective non-empirical and illogical opinions,
filled with pure speculation, with moving from 'some' to 'all', with
lots of 'perhaps' suggestions suddenly moving to 'always'; with false
innuendoes, with insertion of emotive fallacies - ad hominem, ad
populam,...and....false data, false links, sentences following each
other without any valid logical or empirical relation.

Again - what does this type of post have to do with the scientific,
rational examination of information? I could use these posts for
students to take apart in my critical thinking and logic classes -
but - what are they doing on this list?

Edwina Taborsky
39 Jarvis St. #318
Toronto, Ontario M5E 1Z5
(416) 361.0898