The self as eternal?

Previously I spoke about how I think Gangadean's argument for God's existence fails on account of being predicated on a false dichotomy. But suppose he has a way of overcoming that. Even still, showing that some spirit must be eternal doesn't get one to the position that God (as conceived by theism exists). As Gangadean thinks of it, spirit is an immaterial, conscious, substance. Of course, this isn't to say very much about the nature of this eternal being. So there are steps needed to bridge the gap between some spirit must be eternal to the God of theism must necessarily exist. Moreover, the possibility seems to remain that perhaps I am eternal (provided that I am at least a spirit and also can know with certainty that I exist). In conversations, Gangadean and Anderson both argue in the following way.

1) I am a conscious/rational being (i.e., I have the capacity to use reason to come to know).  

2) If 1) and I am eternal, then I am all-knowing.  

3) It is not the case that I am all-knowing. 

4) Therefore, either not 1) or I am not eternal. 

5) Therefore, I am not eternal. 

Essentially the ideas seems to be that if a conscious being were eternal, then they would have gained all knowledge by now (since it's existed for all eternity). But since it is just obvious to us that we don't have all knowledge, it must be the case that we are not eternal. 

The main problem is that it supposes omniscience is going to be sufficiently connected to eternality (at least for a conscious/rational being). But it isn't clear why we should accept this. Now in conversation, Gangadean and Anderson will say something like, "well if you had existed as a conscious/rational being for all eternity, then you would already have come to know everything."

But this just won't do.  Presumably there are not a finite number of propositions (or true propositions) otherwise, one day, according to the Christian picture and Gangadean's theology, we could come to exhaust all knowledge which would hardly be eternal life as a rational being (we will have eventually finish our most basic pursuit to know God). But since this can't be right, there must be an infinite number of propositions. However, if there are an infinite number of propositions to be known, it means there are an inexhaustible number of propositions to be known. An infinite number of propositions cannot (by definition) be exhausted---and so regardless of how much time you have to learn, you cannot get it all. Even if you existed for all eternity, you could not "come to know" an infinite number of propositions. So premise 2) which is a conditional statement purportedy connecting eternal existence for a conscious/rational being with omniscience is false. But then the whole argument falls apart.

3 Points of Contention

This was part of a message emailed to me from Surrendra Gangadean. It is to summarize, on his view, the most fundamental portions of our disagreement. Note, I have copied and pasted this portion from the letter.

Gangdean wrote:

1. I claim full certainty concerning reason as the laws of thought: a is a; the contradiction of some s is p is no s is p. 

2. You doubt that full (100%) certain is possible given the possibility of memory lapse; and there is no way to correct this (all others can have the same memory lapse at the same time). 

3. There is no way to know what degree of certainty we do or can have: 99%, 5%, -5%. From this it follows that discussion for correction (in membership vow #4) is pointless. 

Consistently held, your view makes discussion pointless. It nullifies the meaning of one’s vow and shows that you were not ready to take vows. A person is free to leave WF at any time and seek association with those who share their basic view (in this case, your view that you cannot know anything with certainty, including the laws of thought). If you want to seek membership at WF you will need to go through the preparation needed to first attend WF as an adherent and then as a member. This preparation must take place before coming to church, not after. Those who bring you in must prepare you before you come. If you want to seek membership at WF, please do so. We will keep in touch with the three persons who brought you in to see what progress is being made.

I want to offer some comments about the above. Firstly, I don't deny the trivial claim that "a is a." This is a metaphysical claim that, simply, a thing is what it is.

I affirm "a is a." In fact, I think that I assume it all of the time in my theorizing and indeed in my raising objections. I assume it. Or presume it (so far as I can tell). But this is not the same as saying that I have absolute certainty regarding "a is a." And this is just what Gangadean wanted me to verbally affirm.

Notice in his point 1 he is not merely saying "a is a" or "necessarily, a is a" which is an identity claim, broadly considered to be a metaphysical one. Instead he is making the higher order claim about the metaphysical claim. He is not merely saying "a is a", but is actually talking about his epistemic position with respect to "a is a," namely, that he has absolute certainty that a is a. 

Now while I accept that "a is a" because it is intuitive and because it appears to me that it is assumed in all of my theorizing, I could not get myself to assent to this further claim about my epistemic position regarding it. For one thing, I wasn't sure at the time (nor am I still) all of what that might commit me to (it's not like he could provide me with an exhaustive list of everything entailed by this commitment). I simply don't know what claiming my certainty about "a is a" will imply about other future beliefs---indeed, beliefs that I may one day have that I haven't yet even considered. In such a place, withholding assent seems to be the rational stance---but this was unacceptable to Gangadean. He wanted a definite commitment (he wanted me to affirm that I was certain that a is a, among other things) which I was unwilling to give.

Now I must say I am curious about what it means for someone to be absolutely certain of some claim like "a is a." How does one know when one has achieved absolute certainty? It can't be merely a very strong sense of confidence since this is (on its own) a psychological fact and such confidence fools us from time to time (haven't you ever felt very sure of something only to later learn you were wrong?). So I think it fair for me to ask Gangadean for some satisfying account of what it means for someone to be absolutely certain and also, relatedly, the test that determines this and distinguishes it from merely thinking you are absolutely certain. How can one know that one is certain that a is a?

Secondly, Gangadean states that he is absolutely certain that reason is the laws of thought. Thus I am curious how Gangadean knows what "reason"is to begin with?

Ask yourself the following questions.

1) What is reason?
2) How would I come to learn what reason is (i.e, what is the decision process I would use or the litmus test I would use to figure out what the true or right account of reason is)?
3) What if someone disagrees with what I think reason is? How can I ensure that I have the "right" account of reason?
4) What do I mean when I say that something is the right account of reason?
5) How does Gangadean know what reason is?

Relatedly, I am curious what Gangadean even means when he says "reason is the laws of thought." Does he intend that he looked up the definition of 'reason' in a lexicon somewhere and found it to be "reason is the laws of thought?" Of course, not. No such book, in virtue of being a dictionary, would provide the right kind of account.

Perhaps then he means that he took comprehensive surveys of how people use the concept "reason" in their mental lives and found that every single one of them agreed that this concept was defined as "the laws of thought" or "a is a." But he has done no such surveys (and so I don't think this is his claim).

Maybe he is saying that he just knows a priori what is universally the concept of reason, shared by all humanity. But this is too crazy to be something I could charitably attribute to Gangadean, so this can't be it either. It is an empirical claim about the concepts people use and couldn't be verified a priori.

Instead, I suspect that he means that there is something "out there" which we call 'reason' and that he somehow has apprehended it's nature or something of the sort (perhaps even through direct apprehension, although I don't think he is a Platonist). And while others might have their own versions of what they take reason to be, he, and those who agree with him, are ultimately right.

Now I'm not relativist about truth, so I'm fine with some being right and others being wrong, but I want justification here. Why should we trust that Gangadean is right about his notion of reason as the laws of thought? Where is the argument?

Point 2: "You doubt that full (100%) certain is possible given the possibility of memory lapse; and there is no way to correct this (all others can have the same memory lapse at the same time)."

He is right, I have doubts that absolute certainty is ever achieved or possible for us. Notice this is not the same as saying I know for certain, that absolute certainty is not possible (that would be self undercutting). As my last two posts are designed to highlight, we do not seem to have full fledged justification to trust our memories on any given occasion (except perhaps when we're thinking through the memory objection). I think that we have to (if we are going to theorize) merely presume that our memories are reliable on any given occasion, but that is just, that, a presumption, a defeasible presumption. This is why absolute certainty seems beyond our reach. When it seems to us that we have been confronted by a conclusion of a sound argument, we should preface our claims with: "So far as my memory (and perhaps, reasoning faculties) is being reliable on this very occasion, I am sure that p." It seems to me that Gangadean wants to skip this qualification, but as my previous two posts noted, this is a dubious position. Still, I am open to hearing a theory about why, despite our memory being not fully reliable, we can in fact trust our memories to be reliable on any given occasion (as in when we work through an inference diachronically).

Point 3: "There is no way to know what degree of certainty we do or can have: 99%, 5%, -5%. From this it follows that discussion for correction (in membership vow #4) is pointless."

But this is far too quick. Just because someone doubts absolute certainty regarding any inferred proposition, it doesn't follow that they are committed to the view that we cannot know even what degree of certainty we do or can have. It doesn't necessarily call into question any of our knowledge claims. Here Gangadean (whether intentionally or inadvertently) has smuggled in his favored notion of "know." That is, his reasoning above only follows if one presupposes infallibilism about knowledge (that is, his preferred theory of knowledge).

But as I've addressed in my previous posts, there are different accounts of knowledge and his is but one option. For instance, one might side with the vast majority of professional philosophers today and take it that we can know things even if we are not maximally justified in believing them. Or one might be an externalist about knowledge such that justification doesn't even require someone have or be aware of certain "reasons" for the beliefs that they know (note, one can be a fallibilist and an externalist or an internalist regarding justification). One might even think that knowledge is a primitive, unanalyzable concept/phenomenon (this is a view that has been gaining a lot of currency lately). My point is, Gangadean has his own theory of what knowledge is and this is but one view among many about the nature of knowledge.

Thus only after he has established/proven that his theory of knowledge is the correct one can he use the reasoning in Point 3 to show me that my position is inconsistent with the act of furthering discussion and correction. He should also give us a theory about how infallible knowledge and discussion/correction are connected to constitute the rule that he presupposes (that there is grounds for discussion and correction only if, one can infallibly know what level/degree of certainty one is currently faced with). In short, it simply doesn't follow that discussion for correction is pointless just because I don't confirm to have absolute certainty about reason as the laws of thought or about my epistemic relation to "a is a."

Furthermore, in the quote presented at the start of this post, Gangadean writes of me, "your view that you cannot know anything with certainty, including the laws of thought."

However, I want to avoid some potential confusion on this point. The fact is, once again, I don't maintain with absolute certainty that we cannot be absolutely certain (that would be self-refuting). I've said this explicitly in my previous post regarding the "memory objection." I doubt that we can have absolute certainty---but doubting that we can have such certainty amounts to something like, being unsure of, or not being convinced that absolute certainty is likely or perhaps even possible. I need to be convinced (and so should anyone else maintaing this position) that we can have absolute certainty.  In other words, my official position is that Gangadean has not presented (and owes us) an account of how absolute certainty is possible in light of things like the memory objection. Moreover, since he's an internalist about justification, I think he owes us an explanation of how one can be sure that one is sure of some proposition (that is, the higher order awareness that he claimed to have in point # 1).

An Argument Against The Memory Objection?

Last time, I discussed an articulation of the memory objection against the absolute certainty thesis (the view that we can know propositions like "God exists" with absolute certainty).  These are propositions that are the conclusion of arguments and so their assessment depends significantly on the faculty of memory to be reliable. Here's is the most prominent response by my interlocutors.  Note, this is my reconstruction and extrapolation of the argument rather than a verbatim recounting of it.

1) The memory objection is true (i.e., we cannot know with absolute certainty that our memory is reliable either in general or on any given instance). 

2) If 1), then we must doubt the reliability of all instances of memory (to be consistent).   

3) But assessing the argument (and related considerations) for the memory objection itself depends on memory (i.e., to see if the memory objection is a good one, I need to employ my memory). 

4) If so, then I cannot be absolutely certain that my memory is reliable in assessing the goodness of the memory objection. 

5)This is self-referentially absurd and thus by reductio ad absurdum, the memory objection is not true.   

This seems to be a kind of transcendental argument.  I think it doesn't help at all and only causes more problems for its advocates.  I discuss some issues below. 

First, a person of my bent is not opposed to the view that absolute certainty is not possible.  This alone seriously takes the bite out of this argument.  In fact, unless absolute certainty is possible, the conclusion simply doesn't follow from the premises.  Why not?  Because the above argument depends on showing an absurdity. Premise 4) is where this is made explicit.  The thinking seems to be, that if we cannot trust our memory to be reliable (i.e., memory objection is sound), then we cannot be absolutely certain that the memory objection itself is sound.  But notice, this presents a problem only for those after absolute certainty (or arguing for the thesis that absolute certainty is possible) to begin with. But I am trying to argue that we cannot have absolute certainty, so if my argument does just that, I've succeeded at my aim.  Importantly, I am not arguing that we can be absolutely certain that we cannot be absolutely certain.  In this way, the above response fails to make any headway for my opponent.  

Detour: one objection to what has just been discussed is to respond with: "well then thought and talk are not possible" or "there is no point in talking or thinking if we cannot be absolutely certain about anything".  But how does that follow?  I don't see it. The person wielding this approach presupposes that thought and talk require absolute certainty, but where does this rule come from?  How does one know that this is absolutely true?  How can one justify it?  From what I have seen one must appeal to intuitions here.  But I certainly welcome an argument. So my first point in summation is that if my memory objection logically entails that the absolute certainty thesis is false, then this only furthers my aim.  Further, the persons pointing out that the memory objection implies that we cannot have absolute epistemic certainty may voice this as a problem with the memory objection but they first need to show why we should want or need absolute certainty for this to be an actual problem.

A second issue with the purportedly reductio argument above is that one can avoid it simply by affirming that memory is reliable when (and only when) the memory objection is being considered.  Admittedly, this is a strange result.  So if my employing the memory objection undermines the memory objection, then we can just affirm that memory is reliable but only when we assess the memory objection.  This means there is no self-undercutting going on since I am saying I can know that my memory is reliable if and only if I am presenting/assessing the memory objection.  By doing this we no longer have a self-referential absurdity which again is to tame my opponent's response.  In other words, all we can gather from the above argument is that whenever I think about or assess the memory objection, my memory is reliable (or I can know that my memory is reliable) as it pertains to my appraisal of the argument. (Note: it doesn't follow from this that memory is generally reliable or reliable on any other occasions). If so, then (granting my interlocutor a great deal) perhaps what the argument under question shows is that we can know (perhaps with certainty) the soundness or unsoundness of the memory objection (but nothing else).  

Third, we should proceed with caution here in trying to employ a transcendental or psuedo-transcendental argument.  When one argues that necessarily, 'a is a', we seem to be dealing with a necessary truth.  Further, we cannot even conceive of the denial of 'a is a'.  In fact, it is thought that 'a is a' is something of a precondition of philosophical inquiry.  If one is thinking, one cannot help but instantiate that 'a is a' (so this line of thinking goes).  But notice a significant difference with regards to the objection to the memory objection.  We should hope not to get a conclusion via this transcendental argument that necessarily, memory is reliable.  After all, we can conceive of our memories as being unreliable (indeed with think it a fact that our memories are not impeccable). If we somehow get the result that our memory is necessarily reliable, we've done something terribly wrong. After all, how can the reliability of memory be a necessary truth, when memory is a contingently reliable faculty?

If it can't be that our memory must (necessarily) be reliable, then what is the objection to the memory objection supposed to show?  Again transcendental arguments seem to give us some strong necessary  precondition to the phenomena we are dealing with.  So somewhere there must be a claim about what must be the case.  I actually think that the argument is a confused one.  This is because I think what the proponents of the objection to the memory objection are arguing for is something like this: "we must presume memory is reliable if absolute certainty is to be possible".  So the desired conclusion formulated using 'necessity' seems to be: we necessarily, presume memory reliability, if absolute certainty is to be possible.  But it's important to note the scope of the 'necessity' operator here.  As we've already seen it would be ridiculous to state that necessarily, memory is reliable (this would mean memory could not possibly fail, ever).  Instead, on the view considered, what seems to be the desired conclusion is that our presumption that memory is reliable is what is necessary.  But now, how is this supposed to assure us that we can know things on the basis of memory with absolute certainty?  How does the necessity of a epistemic presumption do this? Consider the following coherent state of affairs:

a) Bob's memory is actually fooling him right now (so that what he thinks he recalls, did not actually happen).
b) Bob has no indication that his memory is failing him right now.
c) Bob must necessarily presume his memory is reliable if he can know anything with certainty.
d) Thus, Bob is fooled by his memory, but does not know it.

I think that a)-d) describe an undesirable epistemic situation, at least if Bob is after absolute certainty.  He must, out of necessity, presuppose that his memory is working, but because he has no reasons to question the reliability, he goes on believing a falsehood.  How do we rule this possibility out in our own lives with the presumption?  Again we can't say that memory is necessarily reliable.  All we can say is that we must presume that it is.  This seems to be no achievement, but rather a sad state to be in (again if one is after absolute certainty). I don't see how this supports the absolute certainty thesis (as it regards those propositions known in virtue of memory). Once again, this seems only to lend support to the memory objection that I have suggested.

Memory and Knowledge

Some time ago I suggested a challenge to persons I have encountered that maintain the controvesial thesis that we can know some propositions (e.g., that the God of Theism exists) with absolute certainty. Call this the absolute certainty thesis. I find this an extremely contentious view and raised a particular objection depending on considerations about memory.  I want to take a first pass at summarizing the objection first by briefly mentioning the considerations that lead me to it.

Memory like perception, induction and testimony is a vital source of belief formation and knowledge.  So much of what we take ourselves to know depends in part on memory. Memory among other things, preserves for us propositional content.  It sort of works like an internal testifier, it saves certain beliefs to be used by its holder at a later time (this is so at least when speaking of factual memory, rather than episodic memory). Consider answering these questions: How long have you lived in Arizona?  What is your name? What is the pythagorean theorem?  Where is New Jersey in relation to California? How old are you? What did you eat for lunch?  What is your blood type?  When did you become a Christian? Who are your parents?

Your answers will undoubtedly depend importantly on your memory reporting certain facts, accurately.  If we had no memories, our lives would be severely impoverished as instanced by persons who suffer severe memory loss. What may not be as obvious is that the faculty of memory plays an essential role in our assessing the merits of an argument.  Is an argument valid?  Is it sound?  To answer these inquiries we need to employ inter alia, the faculty of memory.  Consider the following fallacious argument:

1) All men are mortal.
2) Jones is not a man
3) Therefore, Jones is not mortal.

Notice that you have to work through the steps one by one.  By the time you get to the conclusion you have to recall what premises preceded it to know whether the conclusion actually follows from the former. Moreover, you have to understand, recall and correctly employ basic rules of inference i.e., I must determine what logically follows from what and what doesn't,  to make this judgment call. Notice that the longer the argument (viz., the more steps involved) the more difficult the task. Imagine if the argument had 20 pages of premises like some elaborate mathematical proof.  Of course, you can keep referring back to the previous steps, but this doesn't avoid introducing memory. It seems an inalienable fact that our minds can focus only on one proposition at a time. So when I understand the conclusion, and then refer back to the first premise, to see if one relates to the other in the right sort of way, I have to remember the propositions being compared as well as the rules of inference governing arguments.  And this is where the doubts creep in.  What if as I appraise an argument, my memory only appears to me to be reliable but is in fact failing me?  Note I am making a distinction between appearance or a seeming and the actuality or fact of the matter.  Sometimes I swear I remember something that happened, only to be corrected by more reliable sources like written records.  My memory does fail me.  Details slip and change over time.

More fundamentally, memory qua faculty of preserving propositional content, seems to be contingently reliable.  That is to say, it isn't a necessary truth that our memory is reliable either in general or on any given occasion.  If this is right, there are really two interrelated problems here.  The possibility of global memory failure: we cannot be sure that our memory is generally reliable and the possibility of local memory failure: on any given occasion where I employ my memory I cannot be sure that it is reliable.  If it were a necessary truth that our memory was reliable in general, then we would never forget things.  But as aforementioned, this seems contrary to our experience.  We forget things all the time. Alternatively, if it were reliable on a particular occasion, necessarily (while not in general) then there must be some fact that makes this so.  But I wonder what that could be.  The question remains, how would we know that our memory was behaving on such an occasion rather than only appearing to us as so? It's important to keep in mind that this issue seems to show a problem with internalist theories of justification and knowledge. Internalists like Gangadean require that I be able to definitively determine that my methods of knowing are veridical. The very objective fact that my memory is correctly working on a given occasion can't ever lead to me knowing or having justification for my beliefs which are a result of this memorial process--I need further to be able to determine that my memory is actually working.

Here's a first pass at my objection against the possibility of knowledge with certainty (Gangadean's account of knowledge) from considerations of memory reliability:

1) If memory is contingently reliable, then on any given occasion where I employ my memory it is possible that my memory is failing me (i.e., not correctly reporting some fact).
2) Memory is contingently reliable.
3) Hence, on any given occasion where I employ my memory it is possible that my memory is failing me (i.e, not correctly reporting some fact).
4) Assessing the merits of any argument requires that I depend on my memory.
5) If 1),  2), 3) and 4), then any time I assess an argument, my memory could be failing me.
6) If 5) then we cannot be absolutely certain that any conclusion follows any argument.

It is a valid argument since it just consists of a series of Modus Ponens. Moreover, I think that argument is sound in that the premises seem uncontroversial.  Of course, I'm not saying I know all of this with absolute certainty or anything like that.  So there is no self-undermining going on in the above argument. If I were arguing that 6) follows with absolute certainty from 1) - 5), then I would be committing some intellectual indecency.  But I do no such thing. I don't know with absolute certainty, that absolute certainty is not possible.  I just think there are strong reasons to believe that absolute certainty is not possible.

We need proponents of the absolute certainty thesis to give us a persuasive argument that does not admit to any problems. My objection here is meant to show one problem against that thesis.  If we cannot come up with a solution to the memory objection, then we cannot with propriety say we know anything with absolute certainty that depends on our memory to preserve facts for us.  In subsequent posts I will consider some objections that were raised against my objection.

S knows that p if and only if...

Picking up from my last post. The people of WF accept a traditional analysis of knowledge.

S knows that p if and only if :

1) S believes that p.

2) P is true.

3) S is maximally justified in believing that p. 

(Note 'S' is a variable that stands in for any potential subject/knower and 'p' stands in for any proposition).

Call this the MJTB (maximally justified true belief) account of knowledge. It is supposed to be an analysis of knowledge---that is by understanding the components (1-3) we have an informative account of what knowledge is (or when an S knows that p statement/proposition/locution is true). Further, an analysis is going to provide you the necessary and jointly sufficient conditions of the analysandum (the thing being analyzed). In other words, anything fulfilling conditions 1) - 3) will necessarily count as knowledge, and anything lacking any of the 3 conditions, will, necessarily, fail to be knowledge. 

Gangadean spends a short time in his book speaking about a couple of Gettier cases. He takes it that he has solved the problems that Gettier has raised against the MJTB account. However, he ignores the plethora of Gettier cases that have been raised since the time that Gettier published his short piece (some 40 years ago). Some, if not many, of these new versions escape Gangadean's criticisms altogether. For instance, in the "Sheep on a hill" Gettier case, there is no shifting of senses going on whatsoever. Likewise, the stopped clock examples do not depend on the sort of ambiguity that Gangadean faults the original Gettier cases with. Now Gangadean, no doubt, will have something to say about these new cases. He is an infallibilist about knowledge and so he requires maximal justification for knowledge. Most of the new Gettier style cases suppose that knowledge does not require maximal justification and so Gangadean can exploit this to maintain his commitment to the traditional MJTB account. When I see what appears to be a sheep on the hill (but it is actually a sheep shaped rock hiding a real sheep behind it) and form the belief that there is a sheep on the hill, I form a belief based on my perception, which by Gangadean's lights does not provide maximal justification/certainty for my belief (that there is a sheep on the hill). This is likely what Gangadean would say about why there is no knowledge in such a case. S has a true belief in p, but condition 3) has not been fulfilled. 

I imagine that I will have a lot more to say about the traditional analysis of knowledge (and the Gangadean take on it/MJTB). I hinted in my previous post about how such a strong justification condition on knowledge will actually lead to skepticism about knowledge. I hope to address this in more detail in future posts. But for now, I want to raise a more basic challenge. If you follow Gangadean in requiring certainty for knowledge, and subscribe to the above analysis of knowledge (i.e, the MJTB account), then here is a set of requirements that arise from your own view.

Essentially, you will need to provide a sufficient analysis of the more basic concepts used in your analysis of knowledge. These include answers to the following questions.

a) What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for S believing that p? 

b) What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for p being maximally justified, per se? 

c) What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for p being maximally justified for S? 

d) What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for S believing that p on the basis of/in virtue of reasons r? Hint: you might want to check this site out which highlights some of the debates concerning this apparently elusive relation.

I think you should start to feel a bit overwhelmed. Analyses are notorious for being unsuccessful among professional philosophers working in the last 40 years. But of course, I won't say they are impossible. So if you follow the Gangadean line, please give me a) -d). 

Until you have provided an impeccable analysis (one that admits to no counterexamples) of these more basic concepts which constitute your analysis of knowledge, it's hard to see why someone would be inclined to accept your view that knowledge is maximally justified true belief. It would be like trying to convince someone that your analysis that Red = XYZ is true, without explaining what XYZ is in the first place.

Moreover, suppose you follow Gangadean in affirming that knowledge is MJTB, but you also accept what he says about meaning being more basic than truth. Further you accept his view that if you know something then you should be able to show it (this is related to his internalist theory of knowledge which requires that you have access to any of the relevant reasons for why you believe something that is a piece of knowledge for you). Putting these commitments together, one way to characterize what is going on is that you don't actually know what MJTB even means. In other words, you don't really know what knowledge is or at the very least you don't know that the MTJB is the correct analysis of knowledge.

So rationality (and integrity) would call you to withhold belief.