The text in question is, “[A mind-independent reality] is certainly not necessary to account for empirical investigations IMO.”
The account of “there being something to investigate” at all I leave simply to inspection alone. If you don’t believe me, I can say with confidence that there is nothing I could do to convince you. The account of “knowledge being possible” requires, in an empirical way, observations, inferences, and predictions to be drawn from whatever one investigates. The question we ask, empirically, is not, “What am I investigating?” in an ontological sense, but “How do I idealize and categorize my observations in such a way that transcends the senses themselves, which are otherwise only artifacts of my own subjectivity?” True: you might very well devise descriptions and observations which take on a tone such as describing ontological truths, but that is not because you’ve discovered any truth about a mind-independent reality, you’ve discovered a truth of a mind-correlative one: one where the mind “somehow” turns subjective, raw sensory input “into” information that transcends the senses. These idealized structures are what we operate on mentally, what we share, and most importantly how we categorize what we sense. When this is possible, and to what extent, is epistemology.
Note at this point: if I do not idealize my observations, then they cannot leave my own subjective reference frame; i.e., roughly, they are tied to the moment of observation as such, even if I remember them with perfect accuracy (which would be terribly confusing in practice but is the kind of thing we can just assume for the moment). “Leaving out irrelevant details” is the most common idealization, for one example you requested. Another example of the lack of necessity for mind-independence is found in particle physics, where we explain [idealized] events based on ideal structures; e.g., the double-slit experiment. An unexplained result does not demand something independent of our mind, it demands an explanation; yet we would, of course, not know of the anomalous result unless we knew of it. Even the unexplained is still “something that stands in need of an explanation”, that is, some phenomena for which we have no clear idea of how to characterize or maybe even predict it. This characterization and prediction is the hallmark of empirical knowledge.
Note number 2: I am not trying to give an account of knowledge itself, but rather develop a framework suitable for discussing knowledge. As I said earlier, I hold it true that knowledge is strictly an intersubjective beastie, and we use the behavior patterns we gain from intersubjective activity to characterize our own subjectivity, which we can then in turn use to characterize knowlege itself i.e. develop epistemology which follows a more logical outline and more formally describes investigative processes, inference, reliability, and when an individual is justified in knowing something, and so on and so forth. I would hold it as a given, then, and have said it before in these hallowed halls, that the limits of epistemology are the limits of language–knowledge, and its study, is essentially a social phenomenon that requires an intersubjective symbol-set and criteria and so on. If you’d like, I could also elaborate on why I suggest this is the case.
With the first note in place, hopefully you can see why “mind-correlative reality” is the beast in question for me, and nothing beyond it. Sharing idealizations of observations and using this as a framework for the pursuit of empirical knowledge does not preclude matter from existing, but it does not require it; and so, being interested in parsimony, I disregard it.
Let’s move on to your own considerations of the subject.
Dreaming is actually very interesting. DSeid might be able to comment on the psychology of dreaming (specifically whether or not children of a certain age have a hard time distinguishing dreams from reality). I consider dreaming to be a case where we have agreed to disregard our perceptions because “they didn’t happen” i.e. they are essentially subjective in character; and, given the reliability of their occurence (always between when I fall asleep and wake up, temporally) we can find a way to not use them in our analysis. But because they are still based on mental activity, they can still be idealized and shared.
It is precisely in this sociological sense that I hope to get my point across. Knowledge is, to me, a completely social phenomenon. There are intersubjective criteria in place to judge subjective experience and subjective reporting, neither of which are possible without an agreed-upon framework or symbol set. That we may, after adopting a symbol-set, return to subjectivity exclusively and analyze it is interesting. The more prominent thinkers who focused on subjectivity, however, rejected the symbol-set, possibly due to its relative inability to actually account for what was going on. Descartes, in his Meditations, found it the way to ground all rationality i.e. ground the symbol-set itself. Husserl, with his epoche, also felt it was a source of a great number of a priori truths, truths that could only be obtained by first “bracketing off” our preconceived notions of reality and trying to see how our mind was “really” doing all this stuff, and what this said about the mind and reality.
But remember what I am trying to get at is not ontological truths about how reality “really is”–if that even means anything–but what limits are in place about our own knowledge. Empirically, I find that the limit is some kind of idealism or phenomenology. When I struggle with interpretations, I return to how we, as social animals, classify our perceptions and work with that rather than question “what is really going on”. When I do approach ontological matters, it is when I am forced, for a lucid explanation, to give an account of how things really are. I have yet to find a circumstance where I am so compelled. I am not clear on how I would react in such a case. I also will adopt ontological assumptions in order to toy with various ideas and see how such assumptions will impact other areas. Largely, I find that they alter how we say things about what’s going on rather than give us any pertinent information. I have no problem, for example, talking about “books” or “trees” or “quarks”, or stating what happens when no one is around to see it, because I feel it has been shown that reality is reliable, if for no other reason than inspection alone.
This is a very good summary. I generally remain uncommitted to whether or not a mind-independent reality exists. Such a thing is impossible to prove, because to demonstrate it to me, I must engage in mental activity i.e. come to know it, of course at which time it would not be mind-independent. That the earth existed before me is interesting, but since I’ve never felt I created it in the first place, it is not surprising.
I do not believe I can demonstrate that reality is only mind-correlative to the extent that I can demonstrate the impossibility of a mind-independent reality. However, I do believe that I can investigate the mind-correlative reality in such a way that does not require a mind-independent reality, and so I disregard it. Though it is a cheap trick, I thus shift the burden of proof off and say, “If there is some mind-independent reality, prove it.” A cheap trick, of course, because, as I just mentioned in the previous paragraph, by introducing me to it at all, it will become subsumed in the mind-correlative reality I’ve taken such pains to bring up. But don’t tell them that or these discussions become less fun.
Boy Eris, your thinking has come a long way since I first deigned to enter into an epistemolgic foray with you! Whereas I believe you were once arguing for the point that qualia existed independent of particulars (the “whiteness” discussion if I recall), now you take the position that such phrasing only are pretenders to any absolute reality
So comment please on each of the following statements:
-Qualia do not exist without an observer; we assume that the physical bases of the qualia do independently exist and that they correlate with qualia in some way.
-The processes of natural selection and of the development of tools to extend our perceptions (tools, models, formal epistemologies) filters and focuses our experience of the world in an attempt make more useful predictions of future experiences. They allow us to create that which is not there in service of the goal of making better future predictions.
-Epistemology is the codification of the means by which we cognitively organize our experiences of the universe in predictive ways in the pursuit of salient goals.
Now as to dreams - yes children through early school age sometimes have a hard time understanding the difference between dreams and reality (well, not reality but the rest of experience that we call reality ). They may know that something is imaginary but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real too. The point is that they learn to tell the difference, experience allows them to conclude that their perception is not predictive of future events. They learn to discount the experience of dreams. A “folk” epistemology in progress. Likewise we can learn that certain perceptual illusions are illusions and ignore what our perceptual apparatus tells us because it is not predictive of other results (eg measuring the lines, etc.).
Well said! And as we had discussed once upon a time, the multidimensional conceptual space that I call X may overlap enough with the conceptual space that you call X and that others call X that we can communicate effectively for most discussions and yet still be different spaces. A modern epistemolgy must explore the self-similar means by which we develop those conceptual spaces on both the individual and the societal levels and explore the nonlinear interactions between the levels.
Do you mean when I posted that you have a Master’s in Philosophy from the University of Houston, and are now studying for a doctorate at the University of California, Irvine? I’m not sure you understand what “started” means.
Actually, that’s a rephrasing of what you said. I don’t think you’ve yet said the same thing twice. What you originally said was:
Some beliefs are justified by reference to other beliefs, while some other beliefs are justified w/out reference to other beliefs. These other beliefs are to be accepted either on some other basis, or simply on no basis at all–they just have to be assumed. This is called Foundationalism.
And I agreed with you that that was foundationalism.
You would be hard put to sum up foundationalism in a word or two. You can make general statements (as the Stanford writer did), but then you must go on for thousands of words to contextualize exactly what those statements mean. As I’ve said repeatedly, foundationalism is the first, and was the only, theory of epistemological justification for millenia. No philosopher veered from it except to modify it, amend it, or clarify all or parts of it.
Chief among the nits that got into the craw of most thinkers was the perceived problem with infinite regression of a justified belief following from some other justified belief. Merely questioning infinite regression, or even denying it altogether in favor of circular regression or regression to axiomatic beliefs does not constitute discarding foundationalism or creating something new. That’s because all three schemes — infinity, circularity, axiometry — describe a linear relation. The only way to step outside foundationalism is to discard linearity altogether, and that is exactly what coherentism does. Or else discard the possibility of knowledge altogether, as the skeptics did. Either something is linear (in any one of a bazillion ways) or else it isn’t.
Well, you shouldn’t. I already dealt with this in quite some detail, but to summarize — the author himself noted that his own phrase, “noninferential knowledge or justified belief” was undefined within the system and was intended as a boilerplate (mutatis mutandis) description which would serve as the foundation for discussion. In other words, it was nothing more than the topic sentence of a paragraph from an introduction. It was intended to introduce the basis of foundationalism, the particulars of which have been modified, amended, and tweaked over century upon century. With so many variants, it is quite impossible to define foundationalism holistically outside a broad and vague description of linearity.
Once again, your “B” is one variant of foundationalism. Do you honestly expect a theory of knowledge to lie dormant and unchanged for two thousand years while philosophers as varied as Descartes and Schopenhauer pick over its bones? It is, as I said, a bloated theory with manifold interpretations and variations. It is the case that every justified belief follows from some other justified belief — however, there are those who, long ago, called into question how that can be the case unless there is an infinite chain from which justified beliefs can be drawn. That’s why the Greek skeptics concluded from their analysis that justification must be drawn either (A) infinitely, (B) circularly, or (C) axiomatically. And then they proceded to analyze problems with each of those. It was skepticism that was the first non-foundationalist scheme. It became so by rejecting altogether the notion that anything can be known.
Due respect, there is a bit of a passive-aggressive personality that comes through to me from your posts. You dump a load of credentials and then claim that I raised the issue of who is smarter than whom. You write in a tone that you yourself recognize as stern, and then claim that you’ve been attacked. Now you write in staccato, one-sentence paragraphs, again recognizing yourself that they are rather terse and impatient sounding, and claim that the fault is with the formatting — as though they formatted themselves independently of your own fingertips. Honestly, I don’t know why you cannot simply defend your position or attack mine without personalizing it so much. This constant kissing and slapping is wearing out my cheek.
Well, we’ll see. Whether your interest is in hearing or in being somehow vindicated will be revealed in your response.
erl, I realise your time is limited, but I wonder if I could impress upon you to answer, as best you can, each question in turn from my post #24.
And I will add one further one. I completely agree that knowledge or any epistemology requires a mind. Indeed, I cannot logically disagree - a subjective reality is contingent on minds. It is also contingent on me. It is also contingent on life, and on carbon: That does not have me asserting that reality is me-correlative, or life-correlative, or carbon-correlative. You assert that what is not correlated with a mind is not real.
I simply cannot understand this assertion. My question, therefore, is:
*What is the difference between the real and the extant?
other-wise: If you do not believe that the physical explains the subjective, you are free to propose an alternative explanation. As for the eternal nature of subjective awareness, this is a blatant tautology (unless you are suggesting that it was extant for those mind-free 13.7 billion years.)
Ahunter-I’ll give it a look see, I’ve been a touch busy, so it’s been a little difficult for me to find a lot of time. I do appreciate the help though.
I kind of figured that, I was just hoping I was wrong.
I actually have a few books on my Amazon wish list about the mind, but I’m not sure if they cover Phenomenology-I’d guess they do. One of the things I’m worried about is overly complicated books (which seems to necessarily be the case), so if anyone knows of any books for the ‘average dumb guy’, I’d be most appreciated.
Well, I’ve been going over the current position that I feel is correct (materialism) and I don’t think the problems of the mind (like, where/what is it) is a materialistic epistemology killer, like I had previously thought.
Well, yes, you could look at it like that. I do not give reality properties that I don’t know about.
Now that’s a good question! As I indicated previously in this discussion, and in my most recent response to Measure for Measure, I believe knowledge is per se a social phenomenon. It is an act of investigation and categorization, the latter of which is not “really” possible from a purely subjective perspective because the activities involved in the pursuit of knowledge lose their coherence on a subjective level. My motivation for this hinges on my reading of Wittgenstein generally, though more specifically the so-called private language argument which, I feel, bring to light the difficulties in forming an account of language from an exclusively subjective basis. In fact I have not found any account of subjectivity which allows for an account of me-based knowledge of any sort which does not rely on an intersubjective framework we “bring into” our personal accounts of subjectivity, or which, at a bare minimum, is not suitably “translated” into such a framework such that it happens to meet those requirements (think, for example, about how much the meditator in Descartes “really” doubted when he doubted). Now, to be fair, I do not mean to rule out a subjective account of knowledge as impossible as such, I would merely require that any subjective account of knowledge must overlap with a corresponding intersubjective account such that one becomes a special case of the larger phenomenon, and to the extent that I remain unclear about how one would be formulated–but not that it is impossible. It is not the everyday subjectivity of “this is how I feel” that I suggest cannot provide an account of knowledge, but rather the subjectivity implied in accounts like Descartes which suggests the irrelevance of intersubjective phenomena and yet still accounts for knowledge.
This is a tough question to answer in a way that would satisfy you necessarily, since there are so many different kinds of physicalism custom-made to account for various arguments. It distinguishes, as you noted in your first post, material properties and physical properties, there being physical interactions which are not material (e.g. forces). This suggests to me a kind of strange metaphysical view which wants to be monism, but doesn’t quite make it. That’s ok, I don’t think I’m particularly putting forth a monism either; or at least, to do so would require some torturous semantic gymnastics that I don’t feel up to. But the account given in physicalism is precisely that these categorizations which “simply” supervene on the physical can provide a complete description of the universe (in that a supervenient property would differ if its underlying physical structure differed), simply not a “thorough enough one” since there is still some reduction to be done–namely, to reduce every supervenient property to its component physical parts, which is “really” all there is. But this is two complete explanations, not one.
So, suppose for a moment that I stop at one level of explanation that still only uses supervenient properties (i.e. I do not seek to reduce them further and simply declare them atomic)–can I give a complete description of reality? If not, why not? If so–am I still a physicalist?
Suppose that I can. In this case, it seems that the underlying suggestion that “everything is physical” is, in the sense we’re discussing, not necessary for an account of properties or categorization (and hence, I suggest, knowledge). That is, I can completely describe the universe before hitting the reductive bottom, making, it seems, a distinction without any difference. You use these base physical components, I use properties, and we both describe the same world.
But perhaps… Suppose that I cannot. In this case, I have not properly categorized (i.e., I wasn’t done since there were still differences to discover) and my categories have yet more to show me. But then what reason have I to suggest supervenience at all? What basis do I have for asserting categorization in the first place? Specifically the category “physical”? (This question, I think, stands in need of answering desperately if we are going to reject reductionism… but then I don’t see how we could formulate supervenience as a concept, having done so!)
I have no idea and I have no way of knowing how we could know.
It could. But there being physical objects as a metaphysical proposition is not necessary, in my estimation, for an account of knowledge.
That’s a longer post than I think the board allows!
It is worth saying that transcendental idealism is not interested only in the mind; rather that it doesn’t “forget” where everything came from in the first place. Suppose, for example, that you are studying some phenomena in order to derive a grand unified theory of everything, and in all your data and all your theories you finally stumbled upon a mathematical model that showed 100% correlation between predictions and measurements, and that the model had the following two properties: 1) it was derived under mathematics of the complex or real number system, and 2) the only solutions (i.e. predictions) were integer values (or the appropriate similar values in the complex plane as need be). Would you be justified in saying, “so the universe must be expressable in number theory alone!”? The answer, of course, is not necessarily. You came to this function by means of real or complex analysis.
Now, you might say, “But hey, we can give accounts of the philosophy of mind without appealing to minds!” Here is where I scratch my head. I have no idea of how I am supposed to get at properties, truth, categories, supervenience, or any of it without presupposing a categorizing mind in the first place. At one time (hi, DSeid) I certainly argued quite strenuously for the independence of such properties but I have since found it lacking for reasons I outline. Perhaps I will return there again some day. I am nothing else if not repeatedly checking my assumptions and their consequences.
Yeah, sure. I have given an account of knowledge that does not require a mind-independent reality so no, I would not be justified in adopting a theory which added an extra term.
Well, I accept explanations when I interpret them in a way that satisfied me epistemologically i.e. when I approach the word “physical” as a grammatical category, for example, that indicates what other properties I might expect a “physical” thing to have. It is a word that marks a role in 1) how we interact with these objects, 2) talk about these objects, and 3) come to know these objects. Being “physical” is a categorical proposition that indicates the role the object plays for us, intersubjectively, it is not a categorical proposition about the way it is independent of our categories! Perhaps those categories truly exist. I no longer find any way to defend that claim. Their existence preceding our account of them is not proof of a mind-independent reality, to me, but a simple consequence of empirical investigation as a real activity–or, simply, that we do not know everything yet. There are events we have yet to explain, describe, or discover. That some account for the causes of these events to be the interaction of physical things is, I feel, a proposition epistemology can do without; e.g., my knowing about neutrons is not predicated on there being these things we call neutrons but on an experience set that the criteria of knowledge in epistemology. That being so, we can certainly discuss neutrons. We can even suggest that these phenomena have “always been here”–should we have been around to perceive them, of course. We can make no formulation that does not presuppose our own measurement and categorization, for then we have made an empty statement that cannot be falsified or verified. I require not that minds always be around, but that all propositions implicitly have the form of “if you [did this/were there/etc.] then [result].” I also suggest that the correctness of our theories, specifically meaning our empirical knowledge, does thusly not depend on any kind of correspondence between phenomena and some mind-independent realm. If there were such a realm, it sure would be nice if our knowledge corresponded. There being an objective fact-of-the-matter is a consequence of the public nature of knowledge, not any correspondence of our categories with ontological concerns.
Finally, in all this, we come to DSeid’s post.
Qualia do not exist without an observer; we assume that the physical bases of the qualia do independently exist and that they correlate with qualia in some way. Qualia do not exist without an observer, but no comment on the latter, only that an account of qualia does not require them to be caused, though we do talk of qualia in a way that might suggest an independent physical base but for which an independent physical base in an ontological sense is not the test of truth.
The processes of natural selection and of the development of tools to extend our perceptions (tools, models, formal epistemologies) filters and focuses our experience of the world in an attempt make more useful predictions of future experiences. They allow us to create that which is not there in service of the goal of making better future predictions. Yes, and the selective agency is the intersection of social structure and objective phenomena.
I would question that effective communication only takes place in the intersection of our personal spaces; I would suggest instead that we only know our personal spaces to the extent that we can effectively communicate them (though as I outlined above, I do not mean to exclude the possibility that one has never actually communicated them). That which we cannot put out in the public domain we cannot either assert ourselves. (Reference the private language argument above.)
[QUOTE=SentientMeat]
[li]Because it just fucking seems that way, goddammit. If a tree falls in the forest, does a longitudinal variation in pressure propagate, through the mainly-nitrogen medium, capable of being transduced by a human cochlea into an action potential and transmitted via the auditory nerve to the thalamus and on to the primary auditory cortex in the temporal lobe? Does the sun still exist after sunset, even though my mind no longer has anything to do with it? Indeed, does the universe exist over those 13.7 billion years of a complete absence of minds in this part of the galaxy? Of course it fucking does.[/list]We wake up in this beautiful planet of a prison and find that we have the cognitive capacity to ask ourselves how we got here. We thus invent different epistemologies to help us in this quest, with our minds representing the needle of a “Belief-O-Meter” which swings this way and that. [/li][/quote]
This is my primary reason for accepting materialism. It’s solved problems before and answered quite a bit.
Hm…I’d have to agree with that, actually. I wasn’t exactly aware there was a difference. How would materialism explain energy?
I understand that and I appreciate it.
I’m curious, and this might sound just bad, but for a minute, let’s suppose someone has the view that there is supernatural in this universe; does that mean that they shouldn’t use materialistic assumptions?
Like, can you be a supernaturalistic materialist? I realize that these two things are a bit of a contradiction, but I’m a little confused how the supernaturalist might justify knowledge that comes from materialistic observation (such as evolution, for example). Perhaps I’m just not thinking about this clearly though.
Thanks for the link, I am becoming more and more interested in philosophy, although I couldn’t tell you if it’s because I find the topic very interesting or that I just find the answers to the questions very frustrating…
I’m not trying to turn against you, but I’m a little confused. Does positing ‘essence’ help explain something? I might have missed something. It seems like ‘essence’ is similar to existence, in that what exists, exists. The only difference is that 13 billion years ago, a chair on some level existed as ‘essence’; but what would essence be?
I do not have the ability to explain subjective awareness. That inability does not prevent me from pointing out that as an explanation, “the physical” is inadequate and controversial, to say the least.
Since I clearly stated I was using the term eternal poetically, I see no need to defend the charge of “blatant tautology”. I still stand by my original claim: Subjective awareness never “disappears”. You’re always subjectively aware, and always have been.
I’ve been on the operating table, as gorked out as it’s possible to get. When the anesthetic kicked in, * what I was aware of * got blurry, then sharpened into the worried/relieved faces of my loved ones peering over me in the recovery room. There was no point at which I had no subjective awareness; the very concept is nonsensical.
Look at it this way: If ever, at some point, you’re not aware, how would you know? What would non-awareness be an awareness of?
By the same token, as long as you can remember, you’ve always been aware. What would a memory of non-awareness be a memory of?
(BTW, did you have any response to my claim that what you were describing is “objective” observation of brain function, and by definition, subjectivity cannot be studied objectively?)
Thank you Eris for the private language reference. It is a very pertinent point and combines with the significance of a statement by Sentient early in the thread about the interaction between inductive and deductive methods of knowing. I hope that it is not too much of a distraction to elaborate on these points. Two quotes. The first from your cite and the second from you.
-Eris
So Eris, to the extent that my personal conceptual spaces exist and are incompletely communicated they are private even to my own conscious appreciation. Now that’s private.
We come back to a fundamental discussion of how we as biologic creatures gain knowledge and how that replicates at higher levels of analysis up to the level of multi-generational societies and formal systems. Back to inference supplemented by the tools of deduction.
Can knowledge exist without language or at least a shared language? Obviously it can! A dog learns some concept of master, predator, prey, something I drink, something I avoid. It develops knowledge about the world and how it works salient to its needs and no one seriously posits that a dog has an explicit language, let alone that these concepts require the ability to express them in a shared manner to other dogs. It has some internal private process ongoing that represents these things that may or may not be conscious and that is inferentially fluid to various degrees depending on the concept in question.
And so it is built up in individual human development. An infant experience sets of particulars and experiences labels attached to them. It develops and evolves overlapping fuzzy conceptual spaces that it calls each label based on these and subsequent particulars and current context. “Ball” changes from all round things to round things that are played with and that do not float away, etc. The toddler is not able to express the exact borders of these spaces but they exist in that private space. By shared experience they become refined. The child then uses these spaces deductively to predict future outcomes. This was called “ball” - it should bounce, “Mom” will be pleased if I throw it and not upset like when I threw the bowl of peas.
And so with a societal level of knowledge production as expressed in sentient’s articulation of how science infers and uses deductive systems as a tool. The key point being that shared language allows this process to be produced at a much higher level and over many generations.
According to Kant, existence tells you next to nothing about a thing because it can’t be predicated. He took a linguistical approach (albeit in the process reaching around the world to scratch his ass) as justification for his view. “To be” does not take an object; it takes a predicate nominative. Since the subject is also nominative, to say that “Socrates exists” says only that Socrates exists qua Socrates. In other words, no information is added to the subject by the predicate. Contrast this with “Socrates eats mud”. Here, eating mud is information that is not contained in the subject, Socrates. Even to say “Socrates is muddy” doesn’t contain information that is not contained in Socrates, since Socrates and muddy are equated. In other words, Socrates exists qua muddy Socrates. Existence, Kant maintained, does not individuate an entity from any other entity — all entities exist.
Due to his rather incompetent handling of the topic, doors opened for philosophers to declare that existence must precede all other metaphysical properties. The reasoning, roughly, was that existence is the state from which properties emerge. It was a romantic notion at first, primarily because it coincided with and appealed to burgeoning naturalists (early scientists). You see that there is a tree, and then you ascertain its properties.
Fortunately, not everyone was satisfied with the notion that existence takes no predicate and does not individuate entities. We’re remodelling our stairs, so I refer you to this page, where you can scroll down to “Ontological implications” and see the new ideas that are emerging to help undo the damage Kant has done. Gotta run. They’re yelling for me.
There are two issues at play in our conversation. I’ll handle the important one first, and the less important one second.
First the important issue.
Here are my two definitions of Foundationalism. You rightly point out that the one is a rephrasing of the other, but I don’t think they differ importantly in meaning. My contention is that a doctrine is a Foundationalist doctrine if and only if it says the following:
“that the chain of inferential justification must end at some point with beliefs that are somehow to be thought of as justified without regard to inference from other beliefs,”
or, in my opinion equivalently:
“that some beliefs are justified by reference to other beliefs, while some other beliefs are justified w/out reference to other beliefs. These other beliefs are to be accepted either on some other basis, or simply on no basis at all–they just have to be assumed.”
Now you stated you agree at least that the second is Foundationalism. But it looks to me as though what you mean is that it is a kind of Foundationalism, but does not work as a definition of what Foundationalism is. With this I disagree–I contend that any Foundationalist doctrine whatsoever will hold to the doctrine just mentioned. (Of course I’m not trying to get at an “essence” of Foundationalism here. I’m giving an account of what I take to be the standard or normative usage of the term “Foundationalism” in Philosophical practice.)
As far as I can tell, you would say, on the other hand, that a doctrine is a Foundationalist one if and only if it affirms that every belief is justified by inference from other beliefs.
Do I have you right, here?
Assuming I do, I guess the best I can do is just to “insist” that the Stanford article you cited contradicts you here. (By the way, if the Stanford article disagrees with my own less well stated definitions given above, my intention is that the Stanford article be deferred to.)
On your account, the Foundationalist “thesis” (to use the Stanford article’s word) is that every belief is justified by inference from other beliefs. On your account, this is what Foundationalism is, and the idea that you have to end the chain of inference at some axiom is a further development from or correction of that thesis. (I’m not sure, though, why you think this development from or correction of what you think is the Foundationalist thesis still gets to be called a Foundationalist doctrine on your account. It is in contradiction with the thesis you name, so how can it still fall under the label “Foundationalism”?)
Meanwhile, the article cited says the Foundationalist “thesis” is, well, basically what I said–crudely put, that the chain of inference must end somewhere, w/ a foundation of beliefs justified non-inferentially. By calling this the foundationalist “thesis” I take this to be a definition of Foundationalism. By this I mean I take the article to be saying a doctrine is Foundationalist if and only if it affirms that the chain of inference must end somewhere with beliefs justified non-inferentially.
So my understanding of the situation is this. On your account, a doctrine is Foundationalist if and only if it affirms that every justified belief is justified by inference from other beliefs. You cite a reference to support this definition. However, according to the reference, a doctrine is Foundationalist if and only if it affirms that some justified beliefs are justified non-inferentially. As I noted in my previous posts, the definitions coming after these two "if and only if"s simply can’t be true of the same doctrine. In other words, the work you cite as supporting your definition contradicts your definition.
As I see it the only ways I could be wrong here are as follows:
A. I have misunderstood your position–you do not define Foundationalism as I think you do.
B. I have misunderstood the article–it does not define Foundationalism as I think it does.
I think my reading of the article is a fairly clear and compelling one. When I see a sentence like “The Foundationalist thesis is…” it seems not just safe, but practically requisite, that I take what follows to either constitute, or provide information sufficient for an immediate understanding of, a definition of the doctrine of Foundationalism. And again, by definition, I mean a statement of the form “It’s an example of X if and only if it has the set of properties Y.”
So for this reason it would be difficult to convince me that I’m wrong in terms of B above.
So if I’m wrong, it seems to me I must be wrong in terms of A. Am I?
To address some of the points you made in response to my similar argument in my previous post:
You said an attempt to sum up Foundationalism in a few words would be misleading. I think I agree with you if I take the word “Foundationalism” in the sense of the whole history of discussion and debate over the idea. But that is not the sense in which I intend the term when I offer these short definitions. I mean by the term, not to name a historical entity, but rather just to name a doctrine. Perhaps “sum up” is not right, but I do think we have specified which doctrines count as Foundationalist and which do not when we have given the definition I discuss here. Of course I do not mean that a short definition can be given for every term in existence–I am only claiming that short definition can be given of the doctrine of Foundationalism.
You also said:
“Merely questioning infinite regression, or even denying it altogether in favor of circular regression or regression to axiomatic beliefs does not constitute discarding foundationalism or creating something new.”
Here is where the incompatibilities of our two definitions seems to entail that though we use the same label, by “Foundationalism” we mean two different things. I would have said (based on the Stanford definition, which I take to be substantively identical tot he one(s) I have offered) that “denying infinite regression altogether” “in favor of regression to axiomatic beliefs” does constitute the creation of something new–(not in history, but in a person’s own progression of ideas)–namely, Foundationalism. By that I mean, if a person thought that an infinite regression of inferences is possible and allows for our occurent beliefs to be justified, but later comes to decide that it is not possible and/or that the idea should be rejected in favor of an idea that eventually the chain of inference ends at beliefs non-inferentially justified, then such a person has left Infinitism and has become an adherent to a different, incompatible doctrine called Foundationalism. I also would have said that affirming the possibility or validity of a circular network of inference constitutes a rejection of Foundationalism. (Again, this follows from the definition I take the Stanford article to be giving.)
I think what I have said so far also addresses other points you made which I did not directly address. But if you feel I’ve missed something I’m interested in hearing about that.
Okay, now to the unimportant topic.
I mentioned my education, not to compare my educational level with yours, but rather to compare it with what seemed to me to be your perception of my education level. In other words, I was not saying “I’m smarter than you,” but rather, “I’m smarter than you seem to think I am.”
Why should I feel the need to do this?
In the post I was responding to when I brought up my education level, you made statements which it seemed to me had to have had as a presupposition the following two notions:
A. That I am out of touch with mainstream philosophical practice
B. That my expository skills leave something to be desired.
The second I took to be one of your post’s presuppositions (by the way I don’t mean by this that you presupposed it prior to reading my post, but rather, just that to understand the rhetorical flow of your post a reader must understand that you hold that belief, even if you do not state it outright) due to certain of your comments. You said either your reading comprehension was bad, or my exposition was bad. You then went on to give what you were implying was the most natural reading of my post, in terms which made it clear you didn’t take seriously the possibility that the problem was with your comprehension. In addition, you stated that if I had intended my sentences to be read w/ some other organizational principle in mind, then you “had no way of knowing that.” This short discussion clearly tends to lay the blame for the misunderstanding on my expository skills, rather than on your reading comprehension.
Certainly you never came out and said it–indeed you left the strict logic of your argument open to either conclusion. But when you go on to give a reading of my post in terms of it’s being the most natural reading (rather than just how you read it) and your having “no way of knowing otherwise” (rather than simply leaving it at the possibility that you did have a way to know otherwise and missed it), it seems your rhetorical intent is made clear.
As to the first presupposition–that I am out of touch with Philosophical practice–this presupposition was clearly needed in order to understand your comment that you didn’t want me to think I could just walk up to a Philosopher and start throwing around the term “Pyrhhonic Problematic” and expect to be understood as I expect to be understood.
These two presuppositions I took to be false. To falsify them, I listed some elements of my educational background and so on. Again, nothing was intended or implied about my background in comparison to yours. Not at all. In fact my assumption was that you had an educational background comparible or probably even “greater than” (for lack of a better phrase immediately coming to mind) mine. I didn’t think I had more education than you–I thought you were proceding as though I have less education than I do.
I think the above discussion probably explains alot of what’s been going on in this less-important thread of our conversation. I am prepared to drop the matter. I think there’s a good chance I misunderstood your intent. I also think there’s a good chance I did not, to be honest, but I do think even in that case I both over-reacted and reacted in a way that can be understandably misunderstood.
I should make the following note: I do think you are probably right that my use of the phrase “Pyrrhonian Problematic” is somewhat defective, in much the way you describe. I think my basic ideas were right, but that my use of that label to name that complex of ideas was nonstandard–a result of an education into the issues skewed by the choice of text made by my professor of three years ago. I have come to think this directly as a result of what you have said–so please do not think your attempts in that regard were in vein.
As to the way I addressed the seeming terseness of my last post, there was nothing disingenuous about that. I have examined myself on that, trying to find if I could be hiding the truth on this matter even from myself. I am convinced I am not. As I said, I regretted I could not edit the post–it was only after submitting it and reading it as it actually appeared that I realized it might be taken to convey a mood I did not feel . This really is the truth, though unfortunately I can’t think of a way to argue for that fact since access to my feelings is pretty exclusively limited to my own perspective…
Perhaps I can offer this observation–even after reading the post I find it difficult to think of how I might have organized the argument differently in order to eliminate any seeming terseness w/out making it less clear. At the time my main concern was to be as clear as possible–to lay out my argument as completely as possible as efficiently as possible. I’m sure you can see how such a concern would lead to a post formatted as mine was formatted, without any feelings of impatience leading to terseness needing to be postulated as a driving force behind such a format.
I say “I’m prepared to drop the matter” at one point in my previous post. I don’t mean by that to imply that we have to drop it. I’m just saying, if you’re inclined to do so, I’m okay with that. Meanwhile, if you’re not so inclined, I’m okay with that, too. I’ll talk about it if you want, or if you don’t want, we don’t have to. Or if you don’t care, I can just flip a coin or something… :dubious:
I listed two ways I can see myself as having gone wrong, labeling them A and B. There is a third option I can see, and it is at play in my post and can be discussed in terms of A, but perhaps deserves to be brought out specifically as a third option C.
Option C would be that we are just talking past each other by taking the whole phrase “definition of Foundationalism” in different ways. Not just that we think it is to be defined differently, but rather, that we are working from different notions of what it would mean to define it. This could be a result of differing views on definition, or it could be a result of differing views on what sort of entity Foundationalism is. If we are thinking of it in terms of two completely different categories, we might well have different ideas of what a definition of the term would look like. (Do you see what I mean here?) And finally, perhaps related to this second possibility, it could be due to disagreement as to the* referent* if the term “Foundationalism.” In this latter case, I think the question is settled simply by reference to standard Philosophical practice. If one of the other two options is better descriptive of what’s going on in our conversation, then there are probably substantive issues at play.
So there’s option C, and by the way, I don’t mean to exclude the possibility that there are other ways I have gone wrong in my argument. These are just the two to three which I can see.
I also had another question related to this: What are the various types of epistemology? There’s materialism and idealism, and I think there are a few others.
When I look it up on philosophy websites I get a bit confused, because there are a lot of terms, some of them are interchangeable. For instance, determinism, which can IIRC be applied to various epistemology, but I don’t think it’s an epistemology in itself.
In any event, I’m going to print out a few more of these posts so that I can read them and absorb them (for some reason, if I have it in my hand, I learn better-at least with philosophy).
In any event, since I didn’t before I just wanted to thank the people participating for enlightening me. There is much I don’t know and I feel as though this thread is helping me.
There are five categories that I can name in answer to your question. The list is not exhaustive (see link below) and in any case, before I name them, I should mention that another poster in this thread, Liberal, disagrees with my terminology here so you should hear from him as well.
So anyway, to my knowledge, these are the “kinds” of empistemological doctrines:
Foundationalism–that justified beliefs are of two types: those justified by inference from other beliefs, and those justified non-inferentially. Crudely put, the chain of justifification comes to an end at a “foundation” of non-inferentially justified beliefs. Different foundationalisms differ as to just what this non-inferential justification is and what beliefs are justified in this way. One answer is that basic sense data constitute justified beliefs justified non-inferentially. Another answer is that certain beliefs are justified by their “self-evidence” in the sense that they couldn’t possibly be false. (Think Descartes’ Cogito.) And there are other Foundationalisms besides these.
Coherentism–that justified beliefs are all justified by inference from other beliefs, and there are no “given” beliefs (ie beliefs justified non-inferentially as discussed above.)
Skepticism–I’m not sure this should be called a kind of epistemology but rather the meta-epistemelogical doctrine that empistemolgy is doomed due to the fact that there are no justified beliefs.
Contextualism–The idea that there are justified beliefs, but what constitutes justification differs according to context. Take my belief that my car is in the parking lot outside my apartment. In some contexts, let’s call them normal contexts, we are allowed to take certain unstated conditions as “given”–ie, that the car has not been stolen, that it hasn’t been swallowed up by the earth, that angels have not spirited it away, and so on. We are perfectly justified in such normal contexts to make the claim “I know my car is outside in the parking lot.” But in another context, let’s call it the skeptical context, we are not allowed to take the givens I just mentioned as given. The skeptic’s demand for justification raises the bar on justification when compared to normal contexts. The contextualist’s claim is that in normal contexts, we really are justified in making knowledge claims. The skeptic hasn’t shown we’re not justified–he’s just raised the bar on justification. The usual implication is that there aren’t really any useful ways we can use the skeptic’s demand for justification for any real purposes, so we really shouldn’t worry about the skeptic’s demand. The normal context, and other contexts with bars lower than the skeptic’s, suffice for any actual purpose we might have for holding beliefs and wanting them to be true. (That was long, wasn’t it…)
Virtue Epistemologies–which embrace the idea that worrying about the justification of beliefs in terms of inference is the wrong way to go from the get-go. The way to go is not to try to figure out which inferential frameworks are the right ones and which beliefs should be taken as given and which contexts rule out which possible defeater-beliefs and so on. Rather than define justification in terms of inference, the way to go is to define it in terms of the proper functioning of belief-forming “organs” so to speak, and/or these “organs”’ placement in the right kind of environment. The idea is to attempt to define what “proper function” and “proper environment” mean without essential reference to an inferential relationship between beliefs.
There are a couple I left out.
Infinitism is only held by pretty much one guy. It’s the idea that every belief is justified by inference from some other belief, and that this chain of inferences goes on infinitely without looping back into itself. (Apparently coherentism allows for this possibility, but that this is true is not really an issue that comes up in most discussion of coherentism as far as I can tell.) I left Infinitism out because it doesn’t seem to be philosophically important, at least at the moment.
Naturalized Epistemolgies I left out because I don’t really know what they are. I know the idea of naturalized epistemology is to stop thinking of Epistemology as normative–to stop thinking of it as giving us an account of how to know which beliefs we ought to hold–and instead to think of it more as a descriptive endeavor–to think of Epistemology as a study into the means by which we actually do come to believe the things we do. I’m not sure what separates this from psychological or psychiatric science, and maybe that’s the point. But like I said, I don’t know.
Here http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html#e there is an incomplete discussion of various branches of epistemology. You’ll see important movements mentioned there which I haven’t mentioned here. Unforunately the “main” Epistemology article is not up yet, but the articles on various movements w/in contemporary Epistemology should be fun to look at.
). They may know that something is imaginary but that doesn’t mean it isn’t real too. The point is that they learn to tell the difference, experience allows them to conclude that their perception is not predictive of future events. They learn to discount the experience of dreams. A “folk” epistemology in progress. Likewise we can learn that certain perceptual illusions are illusions and ignore what our perceptual apparatus tells us because it is not predictive of other results (eg measuring the lines, etc.).