Introductory Epistemology (B)

(Originally written September 2, 2006 in Book 6)

Fanatics, bigots, mystics and dogmatists all claim to know more than they really do.

Skeptics claim to know less than they really do.

Popular science reading leads us to skepticism. Drunkenness, drug usage, religious and emotional experience leads us to dogmatism.

Linehan - It's offensive to equate religion to drunkenness. It's simply inflammatory.

"Truth is somewhere in the middle: we can know far more than the skeptic says [and] far less than the dogmatists or the mystic says" (Polman, 10).

Cardinal Mercier states that if we have knowledge it must meet three criterion of truth:
1) Internal
2) Objective
3) Immediate

Internal - one's own mind must find sufficient reason for adhering to testimony of authority

Objective - certitude cannot consist of purely subjective feeling, objective knowledge must produce a feeling that is adequate to reason

Immediate - certitude must rest on immediate criterion, lest we fall into an infinite regress

Descartes believed that bad ideas infected our good ones. We must sort the good beliefs from the bad ones. Once we throw the bad beliefs away we are left with a stockpile of good ones. But how are we to sort good from bad? We are in the wheel. By using common sense, science and logic we can sort the beliefs, but that leaves skepticism a strong foothold.

We must distinguish two pairs of questions:
1) What do we know? What is the extent of our knowledge?
2) How are we to decide whether we know? What are the criteria of knowledge?

If you can answer question 1) you should be able to answer question 2). But, if you know the answer to 2) then you have hope of answering question 1). The skeptic says you cannot answer question 1) until you answer question 2) but you cannot answer question 2) until first answering question 1). Thus, you cannot know anything. Methodists believe they have the answers to 2) and can figure out the answers to 1). Particularists believe they have the answers to 10 and can figure out the answers to 2).

Hume and Locke were methodists. Empiricism is methodism.

There are two objections to empiricism:
1) The criterion is very broad and is arbitrary.
2) It destroys too much knowledge. All you can know is sensations.

Thomas Ried, a Scottish philosopher disagreed with Hume. He was a particularist. G.E. Moore was a particularist.

Thus, there are three views:
1) Skepticism - you cannot know any answers
2) Methodism - you know the answer to 2)
3) Particularism - you know the answer to 1)

Chisholm was a particularist. He agrees with Spinoza that "in order to know there is no need to know that we know, much less that we know that we know" (Polman, 13). He admits that people have hallucinations and thus our senses can deceive us. He denies though that this leads to the notion that our senses deceive us all the time. (The same can be said of memories).

St. Augustine stated that it is reasonable to trust the senses over distrusting them. As long as everything seems normal or as the way things should be the senses are trustworthy. The same can be said of memory.

To answer the puzzle of dialectus, Chisholm suggests that we start with particular cases of knowledge and generalize from them a criterion of goodness. (Particulars are known and then we develop a method to discern criterion or methods).

The theory of evidence presupposes an objective right and wrong.

Right preference is the concept of one state of mind being epistemically preferable to another state of mind.

The concept of epistemic preferability is what Cardinal Mercier called an objective concept.

An objectively preferable state of mind is much different to a subjectively preferable state of mind.

The concept of epistemic preferability allows us to use the theory of evidence and state that "P" is beyond reasonable doubt "T" if "P" is objectively preferable to withholding "P" (Meaning not holding "p" or "not-p")

"A proposition is evident for a person if it is beyond reasonable doubt for that person and is such that his including it among the propositions upon which he bases his decisions is preferable to his not so including it" (Pojman, 14).

A proposition is acceptable if withholding it is not preferable to believing it. A proposition is unacceptable if withholding it is preferable to believing it.

Propositions that are not beyond reasonable doubt can still be accepted if they have "some presumption in their favor". The proposition, "I will be alive tomorrow" is such a proposition.

A proposition is certain when it is evident and there is no other proposition that is epistemically preferable.

"The concept of epistemic preferability can be axiomatized and made the basis of a system of epistemic logic exhibiting the relations among these and other concepts of the theory of evidence" (Pojman, 15).

Certainty applies to being certain at a given time for a specific man.

Leibniz held that there are two kinds of evident propositions:
1) First truths of fact
2) First truths of reason

First truths of fact are propositions that a person is aware of at a specific time, i.e. sensory perceptions, emotions, thoughts, etc. They are 'self-presenting'.

A man's being is self-presenting to him at a given time if he is in that state at the time and it is necessarily true that if he is in that state at the time, he is evident of it.

First truths of fact are truths that are evidence in and of themselves. St. Thomas Aquinas says, "the intellect knows that it possesses the truth by reflection on itself" (Pojman, 15).

First truths of reason are sometimes called 'a priori' or 'maxims' or 'axioms'. These are necessary propositions that by understanding it one cannot understand it without affirming that it is true.

A proposition is axiomatic for a given subject of a given time if:
1) The proposition is necessarily true
2) If it is necessarily true, the the proposition is evident.

A proposition is a priori if:
1) The proposition is axiomatic for the subject at that time
2) The proposition is evident to the man at the time that the proposition is entailed by a set of axiomatic propositions at that time.

Evident truths are certain, either directly or indirectly evident

By investigating instance of knowledge we can develop methods to ascertain the difference between knowledge that is good anthem that is bad. Because we are rational beings we assume that we can investigate instances of truth we can formulate criterion to get better, more or rule out knowledge. By doing this we satisfy Cardinal Mercier's criteria for his theory of certitude.

In dealing with the problem of the wheel, "few philosophers have had the courage to recognize is this: we can deal with the problem only by begging the question" (Pojman, 17).