> > > Well, yes and no. The trouble is, the instant
> > >it's understood, it's natural. "Supernatural," by
> > >definition, means "operating outside the known
> > >laws of nature." Therefore, by definition,
> > >science can never support supernatural phenomena;
> > >if it's gained a body of evidence to support it,
> > >it's become a natural phenomenon.
> >
> > Right. But the question is, can things be "knowable" that are never-the-less outside the realm of the natural?
>
> According to my definition of "knowable," no, by default. To wit:
>
> > Christians, for one, would argue yes. God is knowable, but is not subject to any scientific scrutiny.
>
> No Christian I've ever discussed with has indicated that God is "knowable" in anything like the manner I'm talking about. God is definitely, expicitly NOT capable of being understood insofar as His methods and workings are concerned, which is what I meant when I said "knowable." If He were knowable in such manner, I suggest that he would no longer be "supernatural."
>
> If when you say that something is "knowable" you mean that we are aware of its presence, then that is different, and my original statement does not apply.
>

I really don't think a definition of "knowable" can be pinned down that is both genuinely rigorous and practically useful. (In fact, I know this to be true!) In rigorous terms, I have to conclude that you can't get anywhere past Descartes's famous line. Almost everything that is true (I do believe that some things are true in an absolute sense) is unknowable.

In practical terms? I rather like "justified true belief" as a starting point. There are some problems with this, however. The "true" part I'm comfortable with, as long as the known statement is completely objective, but then I'm left with the other two terms.

"Belief": this is a bit hard to pin down. What does it mean to believe something is true? Is it the same to say either "I believe A is true" or "I think that A is true"? If you hid an object in either your left fist or your right, and I had to try to guess which one, I might say, "I think it's in your left" based on evidence that you tend to favor your left whether consciously or not. So by saying I think a certain way, in this case I'm merely phrasing it in terms of probability, that I feel (subjectively) that there's a greater than 50% chance that it's in your left. The point of this is: when we say we believe something is the case (or that we think something is the case), do we merely mean that we feel it is more probable than not? Or more probably than any *individual* alternative? And why should I have chosen 50% as the cutoff? The only alternative to having to choose an arbitrary "line in the sand" over how strong a belief needs to be is to make it absolute -- to say that to believe something means to be absolutely sure in one's mind that it's true. This is also problematic: either we dead-end immediately at Descartes and believe almost NOTHING, or we have absolute faith that we are infallible, which I think can't be justified rationally. When someone says they believe in God (i.e. that God exists), do they mean this in terms of surpassing some internalized probability (i.e. "I strongly believe there's a god -- I'm 99.95% confident, or higher") or in terms of absolute certainty?

"Justified" seems even harder to deal with, so I won't even try in this post. Assuming I give up on an attempt to make an objective definition, that dooms doing the same for my definition of knowledge. There are even good arguments that drive a wedge between my idea of "knowledge" and "justified true belief" -- see the link below for an interesting read about the Gettier problem if you're not familiar with it.

Anyway, just some thoughts inspired by the posts I'm replying to.