Particularism

An internalist about knowledge is someone who believes that when a person S has knowledge, then S has cognitive access to the basis of knowledge and why it is a good basis. This basis will be a reason, or experience or some other piece of knowledge. According to the internalist S's belief b is knowledge iff:

1. the belief p has feature q

2. beliefs with the feature q are usually true

3. S is aware of 1 and 2

However, 3 is also something that must be known, so it too must meet these requirements. That will lead to an infinite regress because to know something S will have to know something else. The problem with this method is that it seeks to begin the search for knowledge using some criteria, but any croteria will always be more doubtful than our most strongly held beliefs.

Therefore one should adopt a particularist method: taking those beliefs that seem to oneself to be good candidates for being knowledge and noting in what circumstances they do and do not seem reasonable. No doubt there will be disagreement, so it is important to understand that these examples are revisable. One can then make inferences based on the examples and check for consistency. Using conclusions and reflections to revise the examples, and come up with some working criteria of knowledge.

It is obvious from the history of philosophy that there has been much more agreement over items of knowledge such as basic empirical beliefs, belief in the past, in other minds, mathematical beliefs, and to a lesser extent ethical beliefs. Criteria for knowledge on the other hand have been much more varied, and rarely seem acceptable without persuasive argument. For this reason we should continue gathering examples of knowledge in the hope that it will lead us to a better understanding of the correct criteria.

What is the skeptical attitude?

I trust he considers this skeptical attitude to be fully justified.

The above is taken from Sam Harris' article against Francis Collins here.

What is the skeptical attitude? I must admit I'm not very sure. The 'New Atheists' and other closely related atheists constantly sing its praises, but I've never come across a clear explanation of it. If you are aware of one please let me know.

The following may be foolish, but I'm going to try and guess what it might mean:

The Skeptical Attitude: To believe only those things that are seen to be probable from the evidence, and to hold such things with a level of certainty in proportion to the support provided by that evidence.

What is permitted to count as evidence. This is not a trivial matter, since if the skeptical attitude is to take us anywhere there must be some evidence, and there must be a way of telling what is and is not evidence. Presumably there is a basic kind of evidence that does not rely on further evidence, otherwise how will this use of evidence get off the ground?

Many philosophers have suggested candidates. For example, the John Locke and Rene Descartes would have said that we must begin only with those things that are either self-evident, like truths of logic and with beliefs about ones own mental life such as 'it appears as if there is a computer before me'. Other philosophers have allowed what is evident to the senses to count as basic evidence as well, such as 'there is a computer before me'. No matter, lets be generous and allow it all.

The evidence constraint (EC): All evidence must consist in or be derived from what is self-evident, what is about ones own mental life and what is evident to the senses.

I should note that we have now moved far away from what I am confident is meant by the skeptical attitude (my request for more information was not purely rhetorical).

The EC represents what Alvin Plantinga has called Classical Foundationalism, and he has a devastating argument against it:

Why think that what is contained in the EC is all that can count as evidence? That is, why think that it is true? Well, why don't we look at the evidence?

Firstly, is the EC one of those things that is basic? Well, it is not self-evident - I see no problem in denying it. It is not about a person's mental life, and it is certainly not evident to the senses. So, it's not basic. But maybe we can construct an argument based on these sorts of things. I know of no argument, and I cannot see where one would start. But without an argument this principle is self-referentially incoherent, that is, it fails by its own standards.

Maybe I've got it wrong about the Skeptical Attitude, and it is quite different from what I've described. I hope readers will have found my post interesting anyway.

Knowledge without Belief?

Knowledge is a notoriously difficult concept to analyse. The common answers define knowledge as true belief plus justification, or warrant, or produced by a reliable mechanism.

It is normally assumed that belief is necessary, but I recently came across a possible counter-example at Talking Philosophy. James Garvey writes “I’m sitting in a darkened bar, listening to an ancient pianist bouncing jazz from a piano. He plays something unfamiliar and sings, ‘Oop bop sh’bam’ and inclines his ear to the audience, encouraging us in the coolest possible way to join in. ‘A klugle mop’ or something very much like that came unbidden from my lips. I am profoundly uncool, never listen to jazz, and I have no idea where that came from, but if ‘Oop bop sh’bam’ were a question, ‘A klugle mop’ is undoubtedly the answer. I knew it, I think, but I blurted it out with no conviction.”

Why should we think this is an example of knowledge? If he responded in this way simply by reflex then it is not knowledge because there is nothing there to be known, knowledge is the status given to something mental, and so there must be something mental there to be known. For example, if you taught a parrot to say “The answer is 2” any time someone said “What is the square root of 4?” the parrot would not then know that 2 is the square root of 4. If knowledge does not require belief, it at least requires a thought. So, perhaps he knew something like ‘Jazz convention stipulates that “A Kugle Mop” is the correct thing to say in these circumstances’, even though he did not believe it.

What is it that we are trying to say about the thought when we say that it is knowledge? It is to say something positive about ones mental life, that it is correctly matched up to reality, not just that it corresponds, because lucky guesses are not knowledge, but that we connected our mental life to the facts in a responsible way (what exactly that means is still a matter of considerable debate).

This means that one does not have knowledge if one disbelieves the candidate for knowledge, or even, as in this case, one does not believe. For in that situation one has failed to govern one’s mental life correctly – to stand in that positive stance known as belief towards those propositions that one has reason for.

Why then does there seem to be a strong intuition that this is knowledge? I think this may be due to the analogical use of the word ‘know’. We might say that a compass knows where north is, or the river knows the way to the sea. In these cases it is not that the compass or the river have carried out their epistemic duties it is that they act as if they knew. Likewise, in the ‘a kugle mop’ case James Garvey acts as if he knows, but we could also say, in the analogical sense, that his mouth knows ‘a kugle mop’.

Is belief in God Rational?

Many people have objected to belief in God because, they say, there is not enough evidence. Given that debate surrounding most of the arguments for God’s existence still rages on this might seem a bit premature, but I shall grant it anyway. Does the failure of theists to produce a good enough argument mean that they should give up their belief in God? It is often assumed that if the arguments fail, then there is no evidence, but should evidence be limited to arguments?

This demand for evidence is usually a demand for the theist to present something that will demonstrate to those present that their belief is rational. But why think that all evidence is presentable? For example, suppose that I make the claim that I had cornflakes for breakfast, and I am asked for evidence to back up my belief. What could I present? Well, I can’t present my reason for believing. My reason is my memory of what happened at around 8am. I cannot show you my memory, it is not the sort of thing one can present. Perhaps I could take you to my home and we could find a used bowl with a few soggy cornflakes still in the bottom, and an open packet of cornflakes in the cupboard. Although this might convince you, it would not be my evidence for believing that I had cornflakes. After all, if my house burnt down at 10am my belief would not become irrational simply because all the evidence had been destroyed. It is not that my cornflake belief is without evidence; it is just that I do not have presentable evidence.

So, if all the theistic arguments fail it does not follow that the theist is without evidence, it only follows that the theist possesses no presentable evidence, no evidence that they could use to convince others. This may be regrettable, but it does not mean that the theist is irrational.

The reason that the cornflake belief is rational is because I have a faculty that give me access to the truth of the matter – my memory. Is there something similar in the case of theistic belief? Well, according to the Christian tradition God has created us with an awareness of him that allows us to know him and things about him. It might seem that this is obviously disconfirmed by the lack of belief in God, however, the Bible teaches that this faculty has been suppressed by sin, and must be awoken by the testimony of the Holy Spirit. If this account is correct then there is evidence for God’s existence, at least for some, but it is not presentable evidence.

Possible Objections:

1. One would first have to prove that this faculty exists before it is reasonable to believe things upon the basis of it.

Response: This requirement is too strict. One is not required to know anything about how memory works in order to believe the things you remember. The same goes for sight, touch etc…

2. This argument presupposes major theological claims that are the very thing being questioned, so the reasoning is circular.

Response: All that is required for the belief in God to be rational is that this account is true, not that it is known. It can be true whether or not I know anything about it. Also, since this account is plausible, any claim that there is no evidence for God’s existence will have to demonstrate that this account is false, other it is begging some important questions.

No doubt there are other objections, but I hope this gives readers something to chew over.

Common Sense Atheism?

I came across a blog a while ago called Common Sense Atheism which has the following at the top of every page:

When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

I found this a bit odd. Does this guy claim to know everyone's reason for rejecting belief in each particular god? It also seems to suggest that the only reason that theists believe in God is because they have failed to take the step of applying their thinking to their own religious beliefs. Perhaps this is true in some cases, but it is a fantasy to think that this is true in most cases.

I believe in the God who is revealed in the Bible - the Christian God. I also dismiss other gods, and I do this because the Christian God is the one true God, so if he exists no other god can exist.

How does that help me understand why the common sense atheist rejects the God of the Bible?

Empiricism's beginnings

Empiricism is a theory about the source of our knowledge. According to empiricists all knowledge comes from experience, and through reasoning applied to those experiences.

The great attraction of empiricism is that it seeks to root our knowledge in the real world. We begin with items of experience and build up a picture of the world and make inferences from those experiences, constantly revising our understanding in light of new experiences.

But what about things that many people consider knowledge such as that "murder is wrong"? Should we simply discard this belief until we can come up with an argument based on experience to demonstrate that it is true. If someone told you that they had decided to carry out some experiments to see if murder was wrong wouldn't you think that they were mad? (or at least a rather etcentric philosopher?) The empiricist might simply say that we must follow our reasoning, and if a proper justification for such beliefs cannot be given then too bad.

At this point it should be a bit clearer that the empiricist, contrary to first appearances, does not begin with raw data about the world, but rather takes as a starting point a general principle about reasoning and sources of knowledge. It would be something like this:

E: One should only believe those things that are direct items of experience or can be proven using only direct items of experience.

E is a bit problematic since it is clearly not a direct item of experience, and I am totally unaware of any argument for it that rests solely on items of experience. Since I do not feel very strongly drawn to anything like E, and I am convinced that "Murder is wrong" is true, wouldn't it be more reasonable to regard my moral belief as a counter-example to E?

It is items of knowledge such as these that we all take as our starting point for reasoning, not abstract principles like E. We should simply just start with those things that seem reasonable to us, and through a process of induction and refinement perhaps we will be able to find a general principle.

Foundational Beliefs

Sorry for disappearing for so long. I've had exams, and dissertation keeping me busy.

Anthony Kenny makes an interesting observation in Faith and Reason. He points out that his belief that Australia exists is held with more certainty than anything he can bring forward as evidence for that belief. For example, if asked to justify his belief he might point to the fact that it appears in atlases, that he has bought wine from Australia, that he has seen animals from Australia at the zoo, and he knows people who live there.

However, suppose he found an atlas that contained no Australia - it just had an expanse of water. Would he count this as disconfirming his belief that Australia existed? Surely not, one would simply conclude that the atlas was faulty. Or perhaps Kenny might discover that the wine he had drunk was not really from Australia. It all comes from Austria but due to a typo it now says Australia, and Austrian vineyards decided not to change it as part of a joke. One could go on suggesting ways in which the evidence may be misleading, but in none of these situations would it be rational for Kenny to abandon his belief that Australia exists.

It is clear that this has not always been the case. An eighteenth century European would have based their belief in Australia upon various pieces of evidence and the testimony of others, in such a way that undermining the evidence would give them a rational obligation to give up their belief in Australia.

What then should we conclude? Is Kenny's belief in Australia irrational because it is held more firmly than the evidence he has? That would seem to be an overly sceptical conclusion.

The response favoured by Kenny is that those beliefs that are common to all sane adults in ones society form a set of foundational beliefs, that, although not beyond epistemic appraisal, are not in need to rational support, and require compelling evidence if they are to be rejected.

There seems to be something compelling about this. It does not place too great a burden upon one to have evidence for everything one believes. However, I am concerned that it provides too much protection for deeply ingrained cultural beliefs. It is also not clear why one should stop at only those beliefs that are common to all sane adults. Perhaps the set of reasonable foundational beliefs varies not simply between cultures, but between believers.