Next course

I have signed up for the Hilary Term Introduction to Metaphysics course, which starts in January.

More to follow soon.

Final assignment

I have submitted my final assignment, hopefully I have made a respectable fist of answering the question!

I have also joined the OUDCE Oxford Philosophical Society, which should keep me in the loop.
http://oxfordphilsoc.org/index.html

Maybe I will be able to particpate in a course next term, but work commitments make this quite challenging during January to March. In the meantime I will also have a look for other online courses as I would very much like to continue with some formal study in philosophy.

Authenticity

When Prichard says that real life is clearly better than a Brain In Vat ('BIV') life, my immediate reaction was no, perhaps in fact it doesn't matter, at least perhaps not for the reason given. It could only matter to someone who is outside of the scenario. If my life is actually a BIV or 'Matrix' type setup then I'm not sure I really mind! The simulation is so good that I have no complaints.

It is not authenticity that turns me off the BIV scenario, it is the possibility of deception or manipulation and the quality of the copy or simulation. If governments decided that it was preferable to turn all citizens into BIVs, lack of authenticity is fairly low down the list of reasons why I would be uncomfortable.

If BIV was the only option - the only game in town so to speak, then it would be silly to "mind" that life wasn't "real", again we would not reject it for lack of authenticity.

Going back to Prichard's example of the two books (one a copy and one the original) - in many ways it is silly to prefer the original book, just as it is a bit silly to pay tens of millions for a work of art when you can purchase an indistinguishable copy for much less. Again, I think it is the deception or manipulation involved in copies which is the issue. Is it really rational to prefer the authentic book if it is completely indistinguishable from the original, and always will be?

Wittgenstein and solipsism

In Philosophical Investigations W. says:
"But in a fairy tale the pot too can see and hear" (Certainly; but it can also talk.)
But the fairy tale only invents what is not the case: it does not talk nonsense. - It is not as simple as that. Is it false or nonsensical to say that a pot talks?"
"What gives us so much as the idea that living beings, things, can feel? Is it that my education has led me to it by drawing my attention to feelings in myself? That I recognise that there is something there (in me) which I can call "pain" without getting into conflict with the way other people use this word? -I do not transfer my idea to stones, plants etc.....
...Only of what behaves like a human being can one say that it has pains."

So W. might be saying that we cannot say that a zombie experiences pain, it is either false or meaningless. But I think that depends on whether we judge a zombie to be a fictional entity. I do, and in this sense I would say that it is either false or nonsense to talk about zombie's having feelings if it is meant to be a non-fictional account of reality. But zombie's do, in many respects "behave like humans" and people who do not believe that they are fictional entities could therefore talk of them feeling pain in a non-false or a sensical manner.

So I think the key question is whether we believe that zombies are fictional or real, and for me that is a scientific question. As I have said it is not really worthy of much serious consideration because we know why the concept was "created", how it is used in what contexts, and of course we have no evidence for their existence.

People who do believe in zombies do not fully appreciate how the concept was created, why it is used and in what contexts, and have not mastered the basics of the scientific method.

Zombies and the problem of other minds

How dow we know that zombies don't exist? How do we tell the difference between zombies and humans?

Almost no-one with a decent education seriously believes that there are zombies roaming the streets, unless perhaps you happen to come across the filming of a science fiction movie or it's Halloween.

If I were to encounter someone who tried to argue for the existence of zombies I would treat their arguments in the same way as I treat the arguments for the existence of god(s). They are impossible to completely disprove, but there is no good reason to believe that they are true. Furthermore, if someone did believe in zombies (or BIV as a true picture of reality) then I would assess their reasoning skills as deficient. Hume's rejection of miracles tells us that they are probably under a misapprehension.

Such beliefs are a good touch-stone for assessing whether someone has mastered the scientific method. It also tells us whether they have "grown up" in rational terms and moved on from pre-historic theist or deist myths.

I concede however that I am not really addressing the question of what criteria I use to judge that zombies don't exist.

I suspect that the reason I do not believe in zombies is inherent in what we mean by "zombie". A "zombie" is not a real entity, at least as far as I am concerned. The origin of zombie as a word seems to go back to West Indian origins and is now often associated with Haitian voodoo beliefs. As with all religious stories, they were invented to scare the credulous into submitting to the power of priests.
So the criteria I use to judge if zombies exist is the same criteria I use for all beliefs in the supernatural. In a sense I don't need any criteria, the default position is that they don't exist and I am unlikely to give any serious consideration to the possibility that they do exist.

The argument from Analogy

Q - Why do you think that the argument from analogy doesn’t work? In particular why is it a bad inductive argument?

The argument from analogy is used to justify our belief in the existence of other minds apart from our own.

The argument from analogy runs as follows: I infer from the fact that certain mental states of my mind accompany physical states of my body that my mind and body are 'connected' i.e. there is a "symbiotic" link between my mental states and my bodily behaviour. I can observe other bodies behaving in a similar fashion to my own, I therefore infer that those other bodies have minds which are similarly connected with those bodies.

The argument is inductive by nature, it infers the existence of other minds from the similarity of bodily behaviour. From the specific case of my own nature I make a generalisation about other people's nature.

There are a number of potential weaknesses with the argument from analogy:
1. Challenges based on dualism - how we know that my mind and body are both distinct but "mine". We cannot experience anything other than mental states - physical entities cannot be experienced directly, only indirectly (the indirect realism argument). Therefore, if we cannot be sure of the existence of our own bodies, we cannot infer the existence of other people's minds from the un-knowable relationship between my own mind and body.
2. Challenges based on the supposed weakness of the form of inductive arguments (as discussed in the previous module). Why should we suppose that other people are the same as we are?
3. Radical scepticism about the existence of an external world. We cannot prove that an external world exists at all, therefore we cannot prove that other people exist at all. The Brain In Vat argument is an example of this form of challenge. This argument is similar in nature to 1.

More thoughts on universal laws

My feeling is that if the concept of gravity becomes 'petrified' or a priori knowledge, then it must in effect become some form of 'law'. It does seem to become both nomological and axiomatic, both in the way we use the term and in its logical / rational meaning.

I am suggesting that statements such as "the law of gravity is not universally true" takes on similarities with statements such as "2+2=5". We can understand the statement but we instantly know it is false, in a scientific sense of false, just as we know 2+2=5 is false in a mathematical sense but still has a kind of meaning.

By law I mean something that is universally true, and as such any rejection of the law involves a contradiction. A universal law is a necessary rather than a contingent truth.

My understanding is that Hume wouldn't deny the existence of gravity, but he would deny that it is, in any sense, necessarily true. He would say that we appear to see a necessary connection between dropping an apple and it falling towards the Earth, but in fact this connection has been formed through habit. We have no other reason to expect that gravity will continue to apply in the future other than habit or constant conjunction of the ideas.

Having just disagreed with my favourite philosopher (Hume) I must admit that I am changing the rules slightly by which we use the term necessary. In effect I think I am trying to argue that there are either more types of knowledge than the traditional ideas of just a a posteriori and a priori, there is something in between, or empirical facts can mutate into a priori facts in the case of universal laws.
I agree that there is a lot of similarity with this and Kant's metaphysical ideas about space and time, but there are also significant differences.

The question I suppose is, what is my justification for saying that the law of gravity is a universal law that is necessarily true. There could be a number of justifications such as for example:

• the weight of evidence for past events
• the success of predictions using the law
• the lack of any reason or evidence to suppose it to be false
• a foundational belief
• an inate idea
• common sense

If we reject all of the above and stick with Hume, one further thought springs to mind. Why is Hume happy to accept that 2+2=4 will always be true if he is not happy to accept that gravity is a universal law for our universe?

'De re' and 'De dicto' modalities

There is certainly a lot of food for thought in this module, it is one of my favourites so far.

"What are we to make of these expressions of laws (axioms, properly basic propositions)?
We could either treat them as de re necessities - necessities that exist 'in the world'. Necessary relations between objects or events in the world. Or, we can conclude something else:...."

I hadn't come across the distinction between de re and de dicto before.

Wikipedia defines de dicto as 'of the word' and de re 'of the thing'. According to Stanford Encyclopedia, the distinction can be drawn in several different contexts. I suspect that the context of epistemological modality is most relevant here?

Stanford gives the following explanation: "Humans have a natural tendency to modalize. A tendency to think about, assert, and evaluate statements of possibility and necessity. To modalize is to either entertain a modal thought or to make a modal judgment. Modal thoughts and judgements either explicitly or derivatively involve the concept of possibility, necessity, or essence. Prima facie there exists a plurality of kinds of modality. Our natural discourse and theoretical discourse allows for various things to be spoken of as being epistemically possible (necessary), logically possible (necessary), conceptually possible (necessary), metaphysically possible (necessary), physically possible (necessary). And even when we speak of things being physically possible (necessary) we speak of physical possibility in a number of different ways, such as the difference between theoretical physical possibility and technological possibility. Although philosophically controversial, we intuitively distinguish between de re and de dicto modality. De re modality is modality that is predicated of an object, and attaches to the object independently of language. De dicto modality is modality that is predicated of a statement, and attaches to the statement."

My thoughts are that, taking gravity as an example, once it becomes a universal law it must (attempt to) express something about the world. I am therefore leaning towards the de re modality. However, having taken on board that Wittgenstein argues there are no de re necessities, I am left wondering if this is correct.

Science could be characterised as a search for the truth about the physical world. In a similar fashion, philosophy could be characterised as truths about something else - knowledge, reasoning, virtue etc. In my view, most of "ologies" are not just seeking "models" which abductively are "best fits" to experience, or useful to us in one way or another. What we are trying to do is explain the way the world actually is, i.e. arrive at necessary and not contingent truths. The question then comes back to what do we mean by necessity?

If there is in fact a real world out there, which operates according to universal laws, then surely it must be possible in theory to find out what these laws are. Once we have done this, our work is done. On this basis, I think an argument can be constructed for de re necessity?

Inductive and deductive reasoning and gravity

I am inclined to think that if we accept certain physical laws as foundational beliefs that are necessarily true, then the argument for unsupported objects falling towards the Earth does seem to become more deductive in nature. The issue then is how you justify your foundational belief in gravity without relying on inductive reasoning.

Hume would say that just because we have always in the past witnessed unsupported objects falling down, it does not necessarily follow that they will in future. We assume that they will, through habit, as this is useful to going through every-day life.

Perhaps the solution is to reclassify the law of gravity from a "matter of fact" to a "relation of ideas". To some extent this is what Kant seems to do with his metaphysics. Space and time, for Kant, are not matters of fact but are a priori ideas which give the structure to our experiences.
Could the law of gravity be regarded as inherent in our idea of space? I personally think this is doubtful, but I still want to be able to say that the law of gravity is somehow "necessarily true".
Is the law of gravity falsifiable, in a Karl Popper sense? My initial response answer is "yes, obviously it is" and as such it is a scientific fact. But could we really find evidence to falsify the law? I think the answer may in fact be "no". If we were to find circumstances where objects did not obey the law of gravity we would not abandon the law but would modify it for those unique circumstances. An example I have in mind is quantum mechanics, where some quantum objects do not in fact obey the law of gravity.

So in one sense I don't think the law of gravity is falsifiable, at least in the world that we live in on a non-quantum scale. Anybody who claimed to witness an apple which didn't fall towards the Earth when they dropped it would not be taken as having found evidence against gravity, we would have to assume that they were under a misapprehension, or there were some other physical conditions preventing the apple from falling of which we were not aware. Evidence for absence of gravity must take on the nature of Hume's idea of a miracle, where the natural order is temporarily suspended. Hume rejects miracles as being, by definition, virually impossible.

In conclusion, I personally think there are some physical laws which are 'necessarily true' because they are how we make sense of the world. This is not to say that they cannot be modified or extended in certain unique circumstances, but for "regular" circumstances they must apply.
Could we then have a third form of argument which sits somewhere between induction and deduction? What would it be called?

Lawrence

Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy - fail

The problem with defining sense-data as "private, non-physical entities that actually have the immediately experienced sensory qualities" is that, to me, this is very obscure.
I have a bit of a general gripe with the authors that Stanford ask to contribute to their philosophical encyclopedia. They seem to me to fail properly to define the new terminology which they introduce, which surely is the key purpose of an encyclopedia.
The above definition says that a sense datum is an "entity". According to the OED, an entity is a being, a thing that has real existence. It seems confusing to define sense data as both non-physical and entities. Are they some form of metaphysical entity?
BonJour goes on:
"For a variant usage of this term, see Moore 1953, who there uses the term “sense-datum” to stand for whatever it is that is immediately experienced or given, possibly even a public physical object, and then argues somewhat tentatively that the entities that actually have this status are sense-data in the more usual sense, rather than physical objects.)"
Does that make any more sense? I am still struggling.
The Stanford article on 'Sense-Data' by Huemer suggests that they may be "mental images". The proposal that what we perceive are mental images is, to say the least, contentious.
The Huemer article goes on to try and give a "Stanford" view of what sense-data are (consistent with BonJour) as follows:

1. Sense data are the kind of thing we are directly aware of in perception,
2. Sense data are dependent on the mind, and
3. Sense data have the properties that perceptually appear to us.

1. This distinguishes between direct and indirect perception, which is helpful but does not describe sense data.
2. Obvious (I think)
3. Meaningless
So I am still looking for a description of sense-data that actually describes what they are. The article proceeds to widen the definition as follows:
"The term “sense data” has not always been used in the sense described above. Indeed, when the term was first introduced by early 20^th-century philosophers such as H. H. Price, G. E. Moore, and Bertrand Russell, it was intended only to denote that which we are directly aware of in perception."
But you will note we still don't know what they are. Isn't this a bit like saying "smells are what we smell" or "sounds are what we hear", it fails to provide a definition. The article then goes back to the original definition for the arguments for and against, which I think is a bit premature.

Indirect realism v naive realism

I have been challenged to articulate the argument for indirect realism, so thought I would post some further thoughts and some conclusions now I have completed the first perception module.

Indirect realism rests on the key fact that our perceptions are not the same as the object perceived. I would admit this as true in one sense, there is a conceptual difference between my perception of the stick and the stick itself.

Indirect realists believe that what we perceive is not the object, but sense data (or as Berkeley puts it "ideas"). Locke would argue that secondary qualities are ideas caused in us by the power of the object to produce those ideas. Indirect realists therefore argue that all we are aware of are mental representations. These mental representations act as intermediaries between the subject and the object being perceived. Since we cannot directly perceive the object, we have to infer its existence from the mental representations.

I am struggling to find a coherent and intelligible explanation of what a sense-datum is. Stanford encyclopedia says they are "mind-dependent objects that we are directly aware of in perception" but this doesn't offer any real kind of definition. I am afraid they remain very obscure from my perspective.

Having read some more arguments in favour and against indirect realism, I think I would have to classify myself as a naive realist. I feel that I have made a Moorean shift, and would want to argue from the belief that we do directly perceive the external world to a philosophical explanation of what we mean by this. To me it seems both self-evident and coherent that we directly perceive the external world, but I'm not sure which of the two justifications comes first.

We perceive things differently in different circumstances, but this seems to me to be consistent with a direct realist view. The stick appears bent under certain circumstances, i.e. we directly perceive the stick as it appears.

Talk of the stick appearing "as it really is" is, I believe, meaningless. The stick can only appear to us as it appears. The stick really is how we perceive the stick, assuming we are not suffering from a perceptual hallucination. It is a stick which appears bent under water and tiny when seen a long way away and red when seen in red light. We don't therefore perceive sense-data, we perceive the stick as it appears.

The argument from illusion contd.

I do not think that the argument from illusion is successful because it does not manage to convince me that there is a gap between appearance and reality.

In order to to establish a gap the argument would have to show that some things appear not as they should. We have already established that, using our cognitive faculties (including experience and reason), the stick should "appear" bent when under water and it does appear bent under water. In one important sense however, the stick does not appear bent - it appears how a straight stick should appear when under water, so in that important sense it appears straight.

I think the example of a tree seen in the distance is easier to grasp. The tree only appears small in one sense. It actually appears to be a tall tree seen at a distance, which is exactly what it is, a tall tree seen from a distance.

So, to pick up a challenge I issued earlier, does anyone have an example of any perception that does not match reality, once we have factored in human reasoning and experience? I am discounting hallucinations and optical / auditory illusions because we know that we can on occasions be deceived.

Primary and secondary qualities

The distinction between the primary and secondary qualities of objects was an important theme within British empiricist philosophy, the three key proponents being John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume.

Locke sets out the distinction in his 'Essay Concerning Human Understanding'. The distinction applies to the "simple" ideas we receive from sensation.

Primary qualities are properties objects have that are independent of any observer and include such properties as solidity, extension, motion, number and figure. They exist in the thing itself, can be determined with certainty, and do not rely on subjectivity. Secondary qualities are properties that produce sensations in the observer, such as colour, taste, smell, and sound. They are effects things have on people. Knowledge that comes from secondary qualities does not provide objective facts about things.

Locke argues that secondary qualities are somehow caused by the arrangements of matter, matter has the power to cause the ideas of secondary qualities. He believes that there is scientific support for his theory based on Boyle's new 'corpuscular hypothesis'.

Locke supports his theory by the use of examples. I will quote directly from Chapter VIII of Book II:
"Take a grain of wheat, divide it into two parts; each part has still solidity, extension, figure, and mobility: divide it again, and it retains still the same qualities; and so divide it on, till the parts become insensible; they must retain still each of them all those qualities. For division (which is all that a mill, or pestle, or any other body, does upon another, in reducing it to insensible parts) can never take away either solidity, extension, figure, or mobility from any body, but only makes two or more distinct separate masses of matter, of that which was but one before; all which distinct masses, reckoned as so many distinct bodies, after division, make a certain number. These I call original or primary qualities of body, which I think we may observe to produce simple ideas in us, viz. solidity, extension, figure, motion or rest, and number.

...Secondary qualities of bodies. Secondly, such qualities which in truth are nothing in the objects themselves but power to produce various sensations in us by their primary qualities, i.e. by the bulk, figure, texture, and motion of their insensible parts, as colours, sounds, tastes, &c. These I call secondary qualities. To these might be added a third sort, which are allowed to be barely powers; though they are as much real qualities in the subject as those which I, to comply with the common way of speaking, call qualities, but for distinction, secondary qualities. For the power in fire to produce a new colour, or consistency, in wax or clay,- by its primary qualities, is as much a quality in fire, as the power it has to produce in me a new idea or sensation of warmth or burning, which I felt not before,- by the same primary qualities, viz. the bulk, texture, and motion of its insensible parts."

Locke's theory of perception is a 'mediated theory of perception'. Accordingly, we do not have direct access to the world around us, but rather this access is mediated through our ideas.

Epistemic truth and fuzzy logic

In the context of the existence of the external world, two objections spring to mind to the contention that it is not a yes/no answer.

My first objection would be Kantian. I do not believe that is it possible for the external world to not exist. Human rationality pre-supposes the existence of space and time, it is the structure of rational thought. We can argue about what we mean by space and time, but the very fact that we can ask the question seems to me to presuppose the external world. If I were to summarise this argument I might say that nothing would "make sense" if the external world didn't exist.

My second objection would be that the logic behind the question seems to be bivalent, i.e. two-valued. I accept that we can have different senses of the word "exist", for example things can exist in fiction, or in conceptual terms. However, when we ask the question "does the external world exist?" this question deserves a yes or no answer. How could it be that the answer is that the external world sort of exists and at the same time sort of doesn't exist? That response, at least to me, is non-sensical.
Fuzzy logic seems to apply to non-bivalent questions, such as "are there 30ml of water in this glass?" I can see how this question has a non-bivalent answer because, in part it depends on how carefully you measure the contents of the glass. I also accept that the contents of the glass change over time through evaporation.

But you will note that by debating this we are pre-supposing the existence of the external world, or at least of space and time. In so doing we have knowledge that the external world (in terms of space and time) does exist.

The argument from illusion

The argument from illusion infers from the fact that we can sometimes be deceived by our perceptions (i.e. suffer from misapprehensions or illusions) that we do not directly perceive the external world.

The argument necessitates that our sense perceptions are "processed" by our minds and our cognitive faculties (in terms of information processing) have a significant role to play in our belief in and our awareness of the "external world".

My position is that the argument from illusion is flawed. It does not necessarily follow from the fact that we are sometimes deceived by our senses that we are always deceived by our senses. Even if it were the case that we cannot tell when we are being deceived (which I think is dubious) this would not mean that we cannot, sometimes, directly perceive the external world.

I would give the example of a camera with a random electronic fault. Sometimes the camera correctly captures an image, at other times it distorts the image so that all the colours are reversed. I do not believe that we would we conclude from the presence of the fault that the camera can never capture a true image, all we could conclude is that we would need to be careful about the images from that camera.

The example of a stick appearing bent under water is also not a good argument for lack of direct perception of the external world. Since we understand why the stick appears bent, I would have thought that the stick appearing straight under water would be a better argument for illusion. How should the stick appear? It should appear bent if we directly perceive the external world.
Similarly with the example of the oasis in the desert. Under the correct atmospheric and psychological conditions we would expect to see an oasis where there was not in fact one to see if we did in fact directly perceive the world.

I think a much stronger argument for illusion would be where someone does in fact see a "miracle", i.e. something which is known to be not of the real world. I am not aware of any such cases so the argument, in my view, fails.

frustrations with reliabilism / responsibilism

I'm struggling with this module, and looking forward to getting onto more familiar ground in the next section.

If we are trying to conclude whether the justification part of JTB is fundamentally an internalist or externalist process, then the answer is "that depends on what you mean by justification". Both views are helpful in suggesting different ways to look at what we can mean by justification, but we can use the term in different ways at different times. I think we agree that a purely internalist view has its problems, so does a purely externalist. On the whole I don't think we can "narrow down" the concept of justification to this degree.

On the whole I am not happy that the reliabilsm/responsibilism or internalism/externalism debate has much further to go. I also get frustrated when the texts mainly seem to accept that Gettier's argument was a good one, the more I think about it the more I would just reject his cases as being examples of JTB, and therefore dispense with a lot of worrying about adding additional criteria.

I also think the thermometer argument is very odd, and not really all that illuminating. I think I understand what it is trying to show, but would reject the fact that we can say that we have (high-standards) knowledge of the temperature in a room by looking at a thermometer which is normally reliable. We have to allow for the fact that the thermometer might be broken, and anyone who wanted to bet their life on the outcome would I think agree.

The chicken-sexer argument is a little more helpful, but all it really shows is that sometimes the justification we give for having knowledge is not in fact the real justification that we use. This doesn't seem to be a particularly ground-breaking point.

truth and probability

There is an epistemic difference between knowledge of the past/present and knowledge of the future. In the cases where we can predict the future with a high confidence level, I still don't think this would count as knowledge, mainly for the reason that any proposition which involves a prediction where there is a chance that it turns out to be false cannot be regarded as true (at the time it is made). think I agree with the basic JTB formulation, i.e. the proposition has to be true and justified at the time it is made.

I accept that some knowledge that we previously held to be true can subsequently turn out to be false, and I don't think that prevents the old knowledge from being classified as knowledge at the time, or means that we cannot in fact know anything.

I'm not inclined to adopt the approach of only really knowing things with a high degree of probability. For example, I don't think that it is only highly likely that the Earth orbits the Sun, I think this is 100% true. If, for some reason an alternative theory was proposed which negated the heliocentric view, then I would change my assessment at the time.

internalism / externalism

My interpretation would be that internalism is closer to responsibilism and externalism is closer to reliabilism.

It seems that some externalists might, however, argue that knowledge does not require justification, which would be contrary to a reliabilist approach.

If I think about the truth of propositional statements, I believe that the internalist/externalist distinction is not particularly helpful. The reason we seem to have two theories is that "knowledge" has different meaning in different circumstances, some of which lend themselves to an externalist definition and others an internalist. It isn't as straightforward as saying one view is correct and the other is false.

I also think this argument applies to responsibilism v reliabilism to a certain degree. We use the word knowledge in different ways in different circumstances, similar to the high standard / low standard debate.

In a high standard context, knowledge cannot be entirely subjective, be that either 'responsibilist' or 'internalist'. That seems contrary to the generally accepted meaning of knowledge. If a purely internalist definition could account for knowledge it would seem to underplay the role of society in validating knowledge.

virtue epistemology

Virtue epistemology addresses the question of how we rationally justify knowledge. The way we justify knowledge is expressed in terms of intellectual or cognitive virtues, these virtues are normatively valuable, they warrant our approval.

By moving discussion about justification to a normative debate, virtue epistemologists reject a purely cognitive or positive approach to the problem of knowledge. Intellectual agents and groups of agents become the important source of epistemic value and therefore of knowledge justification, as opposed to reliance on, for example, sense perception or a priori truths.

There are a number of different schools of thought within virtue epistemology, the different approaches placing a greater or lesser emphasis on different cognitive or intellectual traits and epistemic norms.

Reliabilism concentrates on cognitive faculties which result in knowledge. Beliefs are warranted if they are formed by a process that generally produces true beliefs rather than false ones. A reliabilist approach tends to focus on the outcome of the process, if it is generally successful (reliable) then it is a good way to acquire to knowledge.

Responsibilism concentrates on intellectual character traits such as attentiveness, fair-mindedness, open-mindedness, intellectual tenacity, and courage. Responsibilists tend to concentrate on the approach taken by the agent to acquire knowledge. If the agent demonstrates laudable epistemic intellectual character traits then the result can be justified as knowledge.

For Sosa, intellectual virtue / virtue epistemology can be used as a way to reconcile or overcome the issues raised by Agrippa's trilemma. For example, virtue epistemology can overcome the objection to a purely coherentist approach where there could be a disconnect between a set of coherent beliefs and the external world.

First Assignment

I have just submitted my first assignment, which was to write approximately 500 words on the nature of knowledge, paying attention to at least some of the following issues:

• Why is there more to knowledge than merely true belief, or even justified true belief?
• What is the structure of knowledge? More specifically, must knowledge be grounded in epistemic foundations?
• What is the relationship between knowledge and rationality?
• Why, if at all, is knowledge valuable?

This is my attempt:

The study of knowledge, ‘epistemology’, is an important philosophical field. I will address two  questions: ‘what is knowledge?’ and ‘what is the value of knowledge?’.

Three different types of knowledge can be identified. Firstly, the knowledge of how to do something (for example, I know how to tie a shoelace), this is called ‘ability’ knowledge. Secondly, we can have knowledge of people or places (for example, ‘I know Mr Smith’), this is referred to as ‘acquaintance’ knowledge. Thirdly, the kind that is of most relevance to philosophy, ‘propositional knowledge’ is the knowledge that something is the case (for example, it is the case that the Earth orbits the Sun).

What is the value of knowledge? Knowledge frequently has instrumental value in that it helps us to achieve an objective. For example, the knowledge of a street layout can help to plan the shortest route home. There is no settled philosophical consensus as to whether knowledge has intrinsic value, i.e. is valuable in itself. I regard intrinsic value as being dependant on a person’s value-system. It seems possible to attribute value to different virtues and it is therefore possible to regard knowledge (or wisdom) as virtuous. A more utilitarian view would reject this analysis and argue that value is only ultimately attributable to happiness; knowledge is instrumentally valuable if it contributes towards general happiness and has no intrinsic value.

Two philosophical approaches can be identified for investigating the problem of knowledge. Particularism asks what are the common features of all cases of knowledge. Methodism looks at the sources of knowledge and the methods by which it is obtained. Both approaches assume that we have knowledge in the first place and suffer from the problem of the criterion, whereby in order to take a particularist approach we presume we know the method to use and vice versa. The problem of the criterion has led some to tend towards scepticism.

A traditional definition of knowledge posits that three conditions are necessary for a subject to be regarded as knowing a meaningful proposition. Firstly, it is un-contentious that the proposition must be true and not false. We cannot ‘know’ something that is false, for example that the Sun orbits the Earth. Secondly, it is also generally un-contentious that the subject must believe that the proposition is true. Thirdly, it is often claimed that the subject must be justified in their true belief in the proposition. When combined together these three (‘JTB’) conditions may be regarded as necessary and sufficient for a definition of knowledge.

Edmund Gettier pointed out a potential shortcoming to the JTB definition by providing example cases in which the subject has justified true belief which has been obtained by luck, which do not count as knowledge. The most persuasive objection to Gettier’s cases is that the subject is not in fact justified in their belief in the examples given. If we accept that JTB is not sufficient, additional conditions can be formulated such as the absence of ‘knowledge defeaters’, also known as the defeasibility condition.

There are three key theories of justification for propositional knowledge, foundationalism, infinitism and coherentism. Agrippa’s trilemma points out that none seem to be entirely satisfactory. I suspect that we deploy all three sources of justification to different degrees in different circumstances.

Justification criteria have led to much philosophical discussion. It is widely accepted that to be epistemologically justified in holding a belief, the subject must have acquired the belief through a rational process. There is much debate as to how to define what makes a process ‘rational’, whether it depends only subjectively on the (responsible) process that has been followed (deontic epistemic rationality) or if it depends on compliance with epistemic norms which are objectively appropriate (non-deontic/ externalist rationality). My view is that non-deontic rationality more closely matches the process of acquiring propositional knowledge.

Truth, belief in God and Kant

Could you argue that the fact that 97% of people believe something is true makes it true? What if those 97% of people do not understand why their belief is wrong?

Pre-Copernicus, 97% of people believed that the the Sun revolves around the Earth. Was the geocentric view true and then became false or was it always false?

With regards the existence of God, using coherentism as justification fails because there needs to be some evidence if you are making a scientific claim and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to support them.

The following link sets out some of Plantinga's arguments for the existence of God:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/alvin_plantinga/conflict.html

Evolutionary biologists would not contest the view that we are hard-wired to believe in God, it is indeed quite common at our current state of evolutionary development. But this does not make it true, in fact it supports the explanation for why so many of us believe in something which is untrue. Personally, I don't agree with Plantinga's arguments.

Kant has a different take on epistemology, which when you read it is very original and convinving.

Kant's argument for synthetic a priori truths is summarised well in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
"Kant’s answer to the question is complicated, but his conclusion is that a number of synthetic a priori claims, like those from geometry and the natural sciences, are true because of the structure of the mind that knows them. “Every event must have a cause” cannot be proven by experience, but experience is impossible without it because it describes the way the mind must necessarily order its representations. We can understand Kant’s argument again by considering his predecessors. According to the Rationalist and Empiricist traditions, the mind is passive either because it finds itself possessing innate, well-formed ideas ready for analysis, or because it receives ideas of objects into a kind of empty theater, or blank slate. Kant’s crucial insight here is to argue that experience of a world as we have it is only possible if the mind provides a systematic structuring of its representations."

what is knowledge?

A few more thoughts on what we are doing when we do philosophy, particularly in the context of trying to describe/understand/define propositional knowledge.

There seem to be two key questions about knowledge:
1. What is knowledge?
2. What can we know (and conversely what can't we know)?

Question 2 gets into the realm of scepticism, which is coming up later in the course so I will hold my fire for now.

On question 1, so far in the discussion we have tried to define which characteristics of knowledge are both necessary and sufficient. We largely agree that for a proposition about the world to be counted as knowledge it has to be true belief. We then added the requirement for justification. We then saw that perhaps we can have justified true belief that does not count as knowledge and considered what else is necessary beyond JTB.

The justification arm of the definition seemed to me to be the most interesting at first. There are lots of theories about what counts as justification, I for one am reluctant to rule any of them out.
Discussions on epistemology are interesting because the very act of trying to define knowledge by necessity involves assessing and deploying the very concepts we are trying to define. We say things such as "knowledge requires justification for it to count as knowledge" but then someone could quite reasonably say "justify why knowledge requires justification". We seem to be trapped in some kind of loop. We are then struck with the is/ought reversal.

There are two main threads which I am beginning to see emerge from the conversations. My initial reaction to the question 'what is knowledge?' was that to be counted as knowledge, a proposition had to describe or somehow match something that is true about the world. This might tend us towards a foundationalist account. If knowledge is "fixed" then the role of the philosopher is not only to be very clear about the definition but to explain how it is fixed.

But we saw that what counts as knowledge changes over time. For me this tends us towards a coherentist account (which allows us to fix the leaks in the ship as we proceed) and also brings in normative considerations. We still need to be very clear about the definition, but we also need to consider what we ought to count as knowledge under different circumstances.

In laying down the rules we need to be logically consistent. An argument is not a proper argument if it's logically flawed. But what are the truths of logic truths of? Why is knowledge only knowledge if it is based on logically sound arguments? Is it just a question of being meaningful and playing by the rules (i.e. our language has to make sense) or is there some kind of transcendental truth which, amongst other things, makes logic logical.

So I have come back full circle and am now back considering what we mean by truth....

coherentism v foundationalism v infinitism

On the whole I tend towards the coherentist explanation of knowledge. An item of knowledge that is 'coherent' to one person may not be to another, either because they have a wider/smaller circle of knowledge or because they place more weight on some beliefs than on others.

Coherentism would deny that there is foundational knowledge (such as the belief in the truth of a loving God) but I don't think it would deny that people have differently constructed belief systems. NB a coherentist could believe in God, but would not hold this as a foundational belief.

A foundational item of knowledge is held (justified true belief) without further support or appeal to other items of knowledge, either because it is innate (existing from birth) or self-evident. Descartes is a good example of a classical foundationalist because he traces his knowledge back to the foundation of the knowledge of his own existence. I think he would argue that this foundation is self evident, through the power of reason.

Coherentism would also deny infinitism, where the support for a particular item of knowledge is always another item of knowledge (ad infinitum).

The problem with foundationalism seems to me that it is impossible to identify and agree on foundational knowledge or to explain how we come by it. Self evidence isn't really a great argument since, as has already been pointed out it seems to assume quite a lot, to take quite a lot for granted.

Moorean shift

I have been struck when looking at some of the reading on knowledge that GE Moore yet again provides a very valuable insight into "common sense" approaches to philosophy. In my previous Introduction to Philosophy course I was taken by the "Moorean shift" response to scepticism, and again Moore expresses some important points on epistemology.

By common sense he doesn't just mean "what is commonly believed", it is a little more sophisticated....

Wikipedia explains the "common sense" response well;
"The method of common sense espoused by such philosophers as Thomas Reid and G. E. Moore points out that whenever we investigate anything at all, whenever we start thinking about some subject, we have to make assumptions. When one tries to support one’s assumptions with reasons, one must make yet more assumptions. Since it is inevitable that we will make some assumptions, why not assume those things that are most obvious: the matters of common sense that no one ever seriously doubts.
"Common sense" here does not mean old adages like "Chicken soup is good for colds" but statements about the background in which our experiences occur. Examples would be "Human beings typically have two eyes, two ears, two hands, two feet", or "The world has a ground and a sky" or "Plants and animals come in a wide variety of sizes and colors" or "I am conscious and alive right now". These are all the absolutely most obvious sorts of claims that one could possibly make; and, said Reid and Moore, these are the claims that make up common sense.
This view can be seen as either a version of foundationalism, with common sense statements taking the role of basic statements, or as a version of Coherentism. In this case, commonsense statements are statements that are so crucial to keeping the account coherent that they are all but impossible to deny.
If the method of common sense is correct, then philosophers may take the principles of common sense for granted. They do not need criteria in order to judge whether a proposition is true or not. They can also take some justifications for granted, according to common sense. They can get around Sextus' problem of the criterion because there is no infinite regress or circle of reasoning, because the buck stops with (see also idiom) the principles of common sense."

Gettier's criticism of justified true belief

On the whole I am impressed but not entirely convinced by the Gettier criticism of justified true belief (JTB) as a good definition for knowledge. It seems possible to define the justification criteria to exclude Gettier cases as being true knowledge, and that feels intuitively the right approach to take. I can't believe it is necessary to add lots of additional caveats or criteria to exclude Gettier cases from qualifying as knowledge, instead we need to be clearer about what we mean by justification.

I think perhaps Gettier examples are "reasonable assumptions" but not "knowledge".

So to be justified, knowledge needs to be based on reasoning that takes account of chance, luck, misapprehension, illusions etc. This is why Descartes came to the conclusion that there was only one bit of knowledge of which he could be entirely sure - the fact that he existed!

Of course the amount of justification required depends on the circumstances and the use to which the knowledge is being put. If someone asks you the time because the want to catch a train, the justification needed is less conclusive than if they need the time to calculate the longitude of a ship crossing the ocean.

So in conclusion there are certainly different standards by which we would assess propositions as being knowledge, and these standards vary significantly depending on the circumstances in which the statements are made.

the problem of the criterion

I find the problem of the criterion very interesting. My take on the problem is that we have a concept of "knowledge" which most people seem to understand. The question is how do we come to understand what we mean when we use the term "knowledge". Can we understand the meaning without resorting to instances?

When we develop language I think it is fair to say that basic concepts are "taught" by pointing to examples and saying "that is an example of x". The subject then begins to recognise what is common between all of the different instances and thereby how to use the term in meaningful language.
If we accept that there is a definition of knowledge which comprises several other concepts such as belief, truth and justification, then is it the case that our understanding of these concepts must precede our understanding of knowledge?

Could there in fact be a concept of knowledge which exists independently of any cases of knowledge or independently of language?

It does seem odd that we have a gut feeling that the term "knowledge" is something more than just a label.

I realise I am asking a lot more questions than I am answering!

statues of Daedalus

Was Plato right to say that knowledge is better than true belief?
The difference between knowledge and true belief is that knowledge is justified and is not obtained through "luck".
I have already considered whether knowledge can be said to have intrinsic value. The general consensus I think is that is is often difficult to identify what (if any) intrinsic value there is to knowledge. I will therefore try and answer the question by considering whether knowledge has, by its nature, greater extrinsic (i.e. instrumental) value compared with true belief.
Pritchard, along with Plato, seems to think that knowledge does have more instrumental value because it is less likely to change. I think that the ability to justify true belief must also add to the level of conviction of the believer. If we are more confident that our belief is justified, then we are more likely to "leverage" this knowledge and thereby exploit its instrumental value.
For example, David Hume points out that we we cannot (and should not) take a sceptical view of causation in relation to "everyday life", since we would be paralysed by uncertainty. By justifying our beliefs about cause and effect in terms of scientific theories which are supported by evidence, we can overcome this scepticism and thereby provide support to the many "rules of thumb" which we rely on. In science, the "natural laws" which we have developed provide a framework by which we can predict the future and  understand (even control) our environment. I see these natural laws as a type of justified true belief (i.e. knowledge) which compares to a world view which comprises merely true belief, where we would not be able to benefit from scientific advances to anything like the same degree.

Can propositional knowledge be intrinsically valuable?

I'm not sure I can give an example of knowledge that is intrinsically valuable. It depends on your moral value system - the system by which you ascribe "value" to things.

If I take a purely Utilitarian view then it can be argued that only things which promote happiness have value, and in this respect knowledge would have to have some practical or instrumental value for it be valuable.

There are plenty of other schools of philosophy which place value on non instrumental or at least non directly instrumental things, such as truth, beauty, friendship and wisdom.

The example given elsewhere of potentially intrinsically valuable knowledge is friendship. Can it be said that I would get value from the knowledge that someone is my friend, even if it is of no instrumental value at all, for example I know x is my friend (this is a justified true belief) but I never have any subsequent contact with x so they don't do me any favours, or support me emotionally?
Could it not be the case that because I know I have a friend I in effect do get some instrumental value because it makes me happy?

What do we mean by wisdom?

To me "wisdom" implies the ability to bring to bear appropriate knowledge at the appropriate time. I don't thing there is anything "in" the knowledge that makes the knower wise.

People talk of "deeper" truths, which implies that someone who is wise has access to different bits of knowledge (the deeper ones) than others who don't.

I don't really think this is how it works. Someone who is wise, because for example they have more life experience, has merely collected more knowledge that is appropriate to the questions or problems being posed.

I'm not disputing that wisdom involves the way we use the knowledge that we have as well as the quantity of knowledge, but that is different from saying that there is something inherently different about the knowledge.

Does a wise person really know a different type of proposition is true compared to a less wise person? That would be an interesting discussion point I think.

There is more to wisdom than what is known, there are skills possessed by the wise that aren't possessed by the less wise, but these skills don't constitute propositional knowledge, which is what I am trying to explore here.

Would you say that to be classified as wise a person needs "emotional intelligence", i.e. they have to be more "self aware". If we do think that wisdom implies a different type of propositional knowledge then what what are those types of propositions?

Is a society based on myhts and conventions inferior to one based on knowledge?

A society based on myths and conventions is not necessarily bad, but human nature being what it is, it is very likely that such a society would lack human dignity and freedom. Those with power will use their power for selfish reasons and then we get into the realm of propaganda, secrecy and oppression.

Borrowing again from Richard Dawkins, the best reason to believe that something is true is evidence and not tradition, authority or revelation. Pre-Enlightenment societies maintained their conventions not on scientific enquiry and openness but on tradition and authority.

There is something valuable in being confident that what you assert is in fact true. This means also that you need to admit that you don't know everything! By placing a value on the truth this emancipates members of society, since anyone with a brain and the power to reason can draw their own conclusions about what to believe and what not to believe based on the evidence.

Furthermore, for markets to work efficiently the market participants need to have knowledge, which in turn necessitates that what they know is true. An economic system based on lies and misconceptions is doomed to failure (there are plenty of examples).

The instrumental value of true belief

To what extent is knowledge (true belief) instrumentally valuable? Is it always instrumentally valuable or is this not the case?

Knowledge has instrumental value when it serves a purpose, in philosophical terms this would be expressed in terms of 'teleos'.

I will first look at the question from a practical standpoint and then consider some other arguments for and against the intrinsic value of knowledge.

On a practical level, there may be cases where having knowledge can be counter-productive. Prichard gives the example of someone needing to jump across a ravine to get to safety. If they have the knowledge that they are unlikely to make it then they are less likely to succeed if they hesitate as a result of having this knowledge. However, I think this example is an exception which needs further examination. In almost all cases it would be better to know if you were able to jump the ravine. Furthermore, if the knowledge of your slim chance of success was also accompanied by a knowledge of the psychological effect that this knowledge causes, then it is possible that the person could overcome their nerves. This is to argue that knowledge is not harmful if it is accompanied by sufficient additional knowledge. Furthermore, if they really had complete insight they would never have got themselves into the dangerous situation in the first place!

The phrase 'Ignorance is bliss' expresses the thought that it is sometimes better not to know. If one takes a utilitarian view of life in terms of the Greatest Happiness Principle, then it is apparent that some knowledge is better to be left undiscovered. Both on a personal level and on a societal level we can all think of examples of knowledge which detracts from the sum of total happiness. It might be thought that mankind would be better off in the long run if it never acquired the ability to destroy the world - for example the knowledge required to manufacture nuclear warheads and to convert fossil fuels into energy on a massive scale.

I also think that it can be argued on a deeper level that not all knowledge is intrinsically valuable. Learning for learning's sake expresses the view that there is some value in acquiring knowledge for its own sake. It could however be the process of acquiring knowledge that is useful and not the knowledge itself.

It seems to be human nature to want to acquire knowledge, whether this is driven by 'nature' or 'nurture' it seems to be part of the human condition that we value knowledge over ignorance. There are however cases where knowledge is not valued. It could be argued that many religious beliefs are very highly valued but are the antithesis of knowledge, since they cannot on the whole be classified as justified true beliefs.

In order to adequately answer the question of whether all knowledge has instrumental value I believe it is first necessary to agree what is the purpose of life. This is of course an almost impossible question. My own view is that life does not have a purpose, over and above any purpose we ascribe to it. Richard Dawkins expresses this view very elegantly. He asks why we suppose that life should have a purpose any more than why a mountain or the colour blue has purpose.

Theory of Knowledge course started

My second online course with Oxford University Continuing Education commenced this week. There seem to be 25 or so students on the course, from many different countries. The first week involves making introductions, reviewing the material concerning the online method of study and beginning to get to grips with some epistemology.

The set text used throughout the course is What is This Thing Called Knowledge by Duncan Pritchard.

The first formal question I have been tasked with addressing is as follows:
"say what you think about the instrumental value of true belief? Is it always for example, instrumentally valuable?"

Enrolled for next course - Theory of Knowledge

I've just enrolled for my second online philosophy course - titled Theory of Knowledge.

The course description is as follows:

"The theory of knowledge is one of the most central areas of philosophy. In this online course students will cover the key questions in the theory of knowledge, such as:

- What is knowledge?
- Why is knowledge valuable to us?
- What are the sources of knowledge?
- Do we really have any knowledge?

In examining these questions students will also learn to think for themselves in a clear and critical fashion - that is, they will learn to think philosophically. In so doing they will develop their own answers to the core questions in this area."

http://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/courses/details.php?id=O12P323PHV

Learning begins on the 19th of September although I will try and update the blog beforehand....

Final assignment passed

I'm delighted to say that I passed the final assignment with credit :-)
I'll also try and continue with my reading of David Hume and post some more thoughts over the coming weeks.

Course Complete

I've just finished the 10-week course and submitted the final assignment :-)

We were given a number of options for the last exercise, which was a 1,000 word essay or the equivalent discussion of some of the questions raised during the modules.

I chose as my assignment to comment on the question 'Do you think that there are genuine moral dilemmas? Why?

I will let you know if I receive any feedback - it's a little too long to put up on the blog.

Various members of the course are considering the metaphysics course which starts in September. I'm not sure at this stage as it may involve going over too much old ground. We'll see.

George Soros and Free Will

In a recent speech on the economic crisis George Soros makes some interesting comments about the cause of the financial crisis.
http://www.georgesoros.com/interviews-speeches/entry/remarks_at_the_festival_of_economics_trento_italy/

It's interesting to read his remarks in the light of the debate on free will, for example:
"Scientific method needs an independent criterion, by which the truth or validity of its theories can be judged. Natural phenomena constitute such a criterion; social phenomena do not. That is because natural phenomena consist of facts that unfold independently of any statements that relate to them. The facts then serve as objective evidence by which the validity of scientific theories can be judged. That has enabled natural science to produce amazing results. Social events, by contrast, have thinking participants who have a will of their own. They are not detached observers but engaged decision makers whose decisions greatly influence the course of events. Therefore the events do not constitute an independent criterion by which participants can decide whether their views are valid. In the absence of an independent criterion people have to base their decisions not on knowledge but on an inherently biased and to greater or lesser extent distorted interpretation of reality. Their lack of perfect knowledge or fallibility introduces an element of indeterminacy into the course of events that is absent when the events relate to the behavior of inanimate objects. The resulting uncertainty hinders the social sciences in producing laws similar to Newton’s physics."

Soros thereby gives us two reasons why he thinks determinism does not apply to the social sciences: incomplete knowledge and fallibility. When human beings make decisions they base these decisions on an incomplete picture and they sometimes make mistakes, they do not assess complex situations correctly.

I think most people will accept that both of these statements are true - and I think this is a good basis to argue for lack of determinism in human actions. Could it be that by "free will" what we actually mean is that we do not, and cannot, ever know all of the facts relevant to a situation and also that our human judgement is sometimes faulty?

If we did have perfect knowledge and never made mistakes then it seems much more plausible that free will might not exist, but can we accept that neither of these conditions is likely ever to persist?

Realism

Is the statement that "we cannot abstract out our own perspective from our view of the external world" a fatal blow to realism?

Even if the statement were true, it would not speak "conclusively" to truth or falsity of an external world. The statement is not a metaphysical statement but an epistemological statement. It says "we cannot know if an external world exists", rather than "an external world does not exist". I do not believe it is possible to reach such a fundamental metaphysical conclusion based on this epistemological proposition.

I also believe that the statement is incorrect. I believe it is possible, in one very important sense, to abstract our own perspective from our view of the external world.
What we think we know about the world is not just taken from our own experience or perspective. Our knowledge of the world is built from the shared experiences of millions of people, written down and recorded over history. The process of scientific discovery is by its very nature the process of abstracting our own perspective from our view of the external world.

We don't just passively experience things in real-time through our five senses and then later recall these experiences via our memory. We are also blessed with the power of reason. I think that by our powers of reason we provide structure to the external world and that the only coherent explanation of why and how this works is that the external world must have structure and exist independently of us.
I think a realist approach is the only credible and coherent approach to take - I look upon rejections of realism as somewhat "trivial" attempts to twist logic and reason into reaching an absurd conclusion.
It is my view that the burden of proof lies with those that reject realism - is there any good reason to think that the external world does not exist? The subjectivity of secondary qualities is easily explained, and rather than casting doubt on the existence of things in themselves, it lends support to the common-sense realist approach that the external world does exist.

Locke and Berkeley

Does Locke or Berkeley give a better account of the primary/secondary property distinction?
I think neither Locke nor Berkeley give a wholly satisfactory explanation of primary and secondary qualities but tend towards Locke having a slightly more coherent view.

In favour of Locke, I can understand the distinction he draws between those qualities which are less prone to subjective "distortion". Physical extension, number, motion and even place in time seem to be "qualities" which are of a somewhat different nature from taste, smell, colour etc. Secondary qualities tend to be highly subjective and depend very much on the "point of view" of the subject.
I reject however, Locke's belief that secondary qualities are "nothing in the objects themselves". There is something (a physical quality) in objects over and above a "power" to produce certain sensations in sentient beings. I believe that our sensations are in fact caused by physical properties of objects and we directly perceive that quality, but the precise nature of our perception depends on the circumstances under which we perceive it.

Locke thinks that a sharp pin having the power to cause the idea of pain is analogous to a tomato having the power to cause the idea of red. I don't think these two example are really comparable in the way Locke does. Pain is not a quality of a pin - sharpness is the quality of the pin which compares to the redness of a tomato.

Berkeley does not make a convincing case for either his epistemological or metaphysical claims. I flatly reject his claim that we cannot abstract qualities. I also reject his proposition that all ideas are entirely dependent on minds. He thinks that ideas are caused by God whereas are more coherent view is that ideas are caused by the external world. Berkeley has no clear conception of what God is, and whether there is only one God or many. Since we cannot have an idea of what God is other than the cause of all ideas I think it makes more sense to replace God with an external world. I accept that in a very strict sense this is an assumption, but feel that the burden of proof lies with those that claim the external world does not exist.

Philosophy of language

I am struggling to understand what Schopenhauer could mean by his definition of free will. Unfortunately, he doesn't give examples or put the way he uses the term in context, so I suspect Wittgenstein would have some difficulty accepting that it is truly meaningful.

I have recently been watching the excellent videos on the philosophy faculty website:
http://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/podcasts/general_philosophy
In part 5 Peter Millican touches on free will a few times, in particular in relation to the mind / body dualism debate. He makes a very interesting analogy. If we try and think about ourselves in terms of a computer, we have hardware (which explains our physical actions in terms of cause and effect) which extends to the physical and chemical constituents of our brains. We also we have software, which is analogous to our minds.

We cannot fully explain our minds by just talking about physical properties or causation. Using this analogy I would maintain that our minds are programmed in such a way that we are free to make moral choices and decisions. I can't explain why this is the case, but I certainly do believe that it is the case.
I think looking at the way we use the words "free will" helps, but Schopenhauer seems to be looking for a metaphysical explanation of what free will is, whereas explaining the terms by how they are used seems to be edging towards an epistemological explanation.

Is it possible to answer metaphysical questions by looking at the philosophy of language?

Schopenhauer and murder

Schopenhauer says we are free to act according to motive (which seems to be self evident) but we are not free to choose our motives because these are determined. His argument is very circular and I guess that is the point since he is trying to prove that we cannot establish free will by introspection.
Whether he is a determinist or not (he could be a soft determinist), I certainly reject the idea that all motives are "caused" by something. I think some motives are "willed". This is not to say that there aren't reasons why we have different motives, again that seems to me to be self evident.
Maybe I am redefining will in terms of "reason for acting" rather than "cause for acting". If we look at it that way, we can see how some actions are not "caused" but are the result of a rational process.
If we take an example - someone asks you "why did you kill that fly?"
There are two ways of looking at this question:
1. what is your motive for killing that fly?
2. what is your reason for killing that fly?
On the first interpretation, I accept that the motive is that I found the fly irritating.
However, my reason for killing the fly is not that I found the fly irritating. My reason (in a moral sense) is that I found the fly irritating and I made a moral assessment that I was entitled to end the fly's life because I don't believe that killing flies is wrong in the current circumstances.
My choice to kill the fly was a moral choice, an exercise of free will and it involved reason as well as motive. Anyone who says it isn't, and is just motive, doesn't seem to be capturing what is going on. They stop their analysis too soon.

Schopenhauer

There are a number of reasons why I am not willing to agree with Schopenhauer. The fact that I am not willing to agree is, ipso fact, proof that I have free will!

Perhaps there are three types of reasons why I don't agree with Schopenhauer.

The first set of reasons has to do with the logic of determinism. The fact that we can predict an action, even with almost complete certainty, doesn't necessarily mean that the action is determined. I don't accept that, because at the point of action the subject could not have acted differently, determinism is true. If there is a formal possibility of the agent to act in a number of ways prior to the action, then there is the possibility of a non-deterministic explanation. We can envisage a sate of affairs where the agent acted differently.

The second set of reasons is based on what we mean by the term "free will". Schopenhauer says we can "act what we will" but we cannot "will what we will". This is just wrong in my view. My counter argument is effectively that we can "will what we will". We can will what we will because that is what we mean by the term "will". For you to prove that determinism is true you would need to prove to me that humans don't make choices - for me that is the essence of what I mean by determinism, and Schopenhauer has not proved that this is the case.
Of course you can redefine what I mean by free will and then say that reality doesn't accord with that definition, but all you have achieved is to play semantics with the definition.

The final set of reasons is to do with my conception of what it is to be an independent person or conscience. Schopenhauer has come up with one way of looking at human behaviour, but it doesn't cohere with my conception. Following an action back to its cause seems a very odd way of looking at human actions. When we talk about moral or normative human actions we use the concept of choice, we talk about blame and praise and human responsibility. I don't accept that all of these concepts are either meaningless or mistaken. I don't think the concept of causation (on its own) works very well in the realm of human actions. Human behaviour is not mechanistic, that is the essence of being human. What Schopenhauer is doing from my perspective is redefining what it is to be human.

Schopenhauer and Free Will

There seem to be two types of argument going on. The first is an argument from causality and is almost a reductio ad absurdum. If you accept in principle that everything must have a cause, then you can follow the chain back ad infinitum and never find a starting point. This strikes me as similar to arguments over the existence of the universe and whether something can come from nothing. Although it's an interesting argument, it doesn't really help because I don't look upon free will as a problem of mechanics. I don't accept that all thoughts have to have a single "cause", the process is far too complex to be suitable to that kind of simplistic reasoning.

The second argument redefines free will in terms of human motivations, Schop. says that we choose to do what motivates us most, and that as we don't choose our motivations, we don't in effect have freedom of choice. I also find this argument very unsatisfactory.

My take on free will is that it is neither a question of cause or of motives but is an issue of absence of limitations on our choices. I accept that we all have motivations, but we are also able to have a rational discussion about these and reach a conclusion, and there seems to be nothing to stop us from doing this, other than facing the consequences of those choices.

No doubt most choices are predetermined in the sense that they stem from motivations, but we seem to have the ability to influence our motivations by lending more weight to some than others. We are not just influenced by motivations, we also take into account what the consequences will be and make a rational judgement about the implications of making one choice or another. For me, free will is a conceptual framework which captures this process using two words.

For there to be free will under Schop.'s definition we would need to be able to break the chain of cause and effect or change the laws that govern the universe and I'm not sure anyone really thinks this can happen or indeed is really what we mean by free will.

It seems that there must be a way to define 'free will' not in terms of the cause or motivation for an action, but instead in terms of the ability to assess the consequences of different choices and attribute moral value to those choices. When we couple this with the lack of constraint on this process, we end up with free will. If a rational person or persons make a normative choice which could have been otherwise (i.e. we can easily conceive of them making a different choice) then that choice has a moral value, it is in effect a case of "free will".

Free Will by Sam Harris

Philosophy News has posted a relatively short review of Sam Harris' new book 'Free Will' by Paul Pardi. The article goes through some of the key issues which are discussed in the background reading to this week's topic, so I think it may be of interest.
http://www.philosophynews.com/post/2012/05/15/An-Analysis-of-Sam-Harris-Free-Will.aspx
On the whole I am prone to reject philosophical arguments which claim that widely used terms are "meaningless" or "incoherent". My natural reaction is to challenge the author to sharpen their pencil and go back and try a bit harder to understand what we do in fact mean when we use a concept.
I agree with the author of the review that is seems inconsistent to say both that a term is meaningless and that it is false, if that is indeed what Mr. Harris does in his book.
Lawrence

Free Will - initial thoughts

Do we have free will?
Yes. There is a significant element of 'nature and nurture' in the way we lead our lives, but we still fundamentally have the ability to make choices between alternative actions. There are laws and conventions which prevent us from taking certain actions - but we can, if we want, break the law or defy convention and then face the consequences.
With respect to which kinds of things do we have freedom?
We are free to decide who we spend our lives with, where we live and what we do for a living. We are free to try and complete our education and to take advantage of the opportunities that are presented to us (which admittedly are not equal). We are free to interact with people in the way we choose - for example we can be polite or rude, respectful or disrespectful, inquisitive or incurious.
There seem to be various types of freedom. The main ones that spring to mind are political, social, economic, religious, moral.
How do we know we have freedom?
Because at a human level I feel free to choose.
At a societal level I live in a relatively free society (in some respects society has become less free over time, in other respects it has become more free). I can weigh up the pros and cons and use rational processes to decide on a course of action. I can reflect on my beliefs and feelings and make a non-instinctive response.
What are the consequences, if any, of our freedom?
We can't always blame external factors when we make the wrong choice if we are free. Freedom brings moral responsibility and accountability. We should therefore educate ourselves to be in a position to try and make the right choices.

Mathematical Truth

"The objection I see to Coherentism is that there appear to be some things that won’t change.....2 + 2 will always be 4 regardless of whether we are counting real objects or just imagining them".

This is a really interesting avenue. The "truth" of mathematics is something which I have been pondering. Is pure mathematics something that we discover or is it something that humans invent? If the former, then I can see how mathematics can be taken as a (natural) foundational type belief, if the latter then either coherentist or perhaps rational foundationalist.

If you were to ask most secondary school children who have studied mathematics at a basic level "Is it true or false that the sum of the angles in a triangle always add up to 180 degrees?" I suspect (hope?) most would say it was true. For them, this knowledge would be similar to 2+2=4 in terms of never changing, in a sense it would be a foundational belief.

However, when you draw a triangle on a curved surface, the sum of the angles do not add up to 180 degrees. Imagine drawing a triangle on the surface of a globe, with one corner at the north pole, and the other two corners on the equator. In this case the sum of the angles is not 180°. It turns out that the sum of the angles of any triangle is less than 180° if the geometry is hyperbolic, equal to 180° if the geometry is Euclidean, and greater than 180° if the geometry is elliptic.

In this sense is is it not therefore conceivable that mathematical knowledge is not always unchanging?

I'm currently reading a biography of Paul Dirac by Graham Farmelo called 'The Strangest Man'. Dirac was a British theoretical physicist who some regard as the successor to Einstein. Dirac was a genius. He was also probably autistic, according to Farmelo, and was not apt to pontificate on philosophical questions, or at least not until the end of his life. I get the impression from the book that, from a relatively young age Dirac held the view that any satisfactory explanation of the way the world is, in mathematical terms, needs to be elegant or beautiful because that is the way the world is. He would reject mathematical theories that he did not regard as beautiful largely on the grounds of their lack of aesthetic appeal.

Dirac therefore seems to have held a foundational type belief that the laws that govern the world are not random or inconsistent or inexplicable or ugly. He also believed that it was inconceivable that mankind would not continue to progress.

For all of these foundational type beliefs I remain largely skeptical because I want to ask the question "how do you know that it's true?"

Coherentism v Foundationalism contd.

My latest post follows from the following reply I received following yesterday's discussion:

"On the other hand, I suspect that so-called strong atheism can be a foundationalist belief since if I am not mistaken a strong atheist (in contrast to a weak atheist) would claim that he knows with complete certainty that God or some god does not exist."

This is a fair point. If an atheist were to say that they "know for sure" that God doesn't exist, it does seem to have a foundationalist flavour.

Are you saying that people who tend towards coherentism cannot be "strong atheists"? I think I would be happy with that position. I think the argument also works the other way round as well. People who who are fundamental in positive religious belief would probably by necessity be foundationalist in their knowledge about God.

I would accept that it is technically impossible to prove a negative and, in that sense, I wouldn't regard my atheism as "fundamentalist". I do think it is "true" that God doesn't exist, but I would accept that it is not technically possible to prove. I think my disbelief in God or Gods is not based on any foundational beliefs, i.e. ones that we obtain non-inferentially.

A possible philosophical argument would run as follows:
If my approach to knowledge is based on coherentism not foundationalism, then should someone come up with an explanation for God(s) that made sense and was coherent and supported by some evidence then I would happily change my position. Until they do, I will continue to believe that the statement that "God doesn't exist" is true.

Perhaps it would be useful to read some Kant at this stage because I have a nagging suspicion that, whilst I have just admitted the possibility of my belief changing, it is not that simple....

For me to believe in the existence of God I would need to do some major rebuilding of my core beliefs about the world. This is perhaps why I come across as being "fundamentalist". I am almost entirely convinced that God doesn't exist, so changing my mind on this fact would require quite a seismic shift in the way I look at the world. It may in fact be the case that the glue of coherence that binds my beliefs together is so strong that it couldn't conceivably be broken.

No doubt the religious amongst us will object to being labelled as (by definition) either "fundamentalist" or "incoherent". That is not what I am saying. I think it is quite possible for people to base their belief in God on a coherentist approach. They could infer the existence of God based on what they perceive to be the evidence, in a way that was coherent to them.

Descartes' epistemology

I would like to comment on the question of whether I would reject Descartes' epistemology based on the failure of his individual arguments or on the overall approach he takes to epistemology.

Having looked a bit further into the foundationalism vs. coherentism debate, I am most convinced by the rejection of foundationalism which argues that the acquisition of knowledge isn't a linear process. Under this approach, knowledge is not obtained by a chain of inferential reasoning which needs a non-inferential starting point. This linear process seems to be very much the approach that Descartes takes, he wants to follow the chain back to beliefs that are indubitable by virtue of being so clear and distinct.
The alternative view which most strikes a chord with me is the the "holistic" view of knowledge. Neurath's boat metaphor expresses this beautifully - by which our beliefs are analogous to a ship which requires continuous replacement of any worn or broken parts to remain seaworthy.

Presumably philosophers have much bigger and better maintained ships than non-philosophers!

Despite being a fan of Russell, I am not convinced by the acquaintance argument for non-inferential belief. I would reject it on two grounds. Firstly, I don't believe that this gives us enough of a basis for developing the infinite number of justified beliefs that we hold. Secondly, I'm not sure it even makes sense to refer to the kind of knowledge that we get by acquaintance as true in a philosophical sense.

Foundationalism v Coherentism

On the whole I am tending more and more towards coherentism and to challenge this position I have been trying to think of any truths that I would regard as foundational.

The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy defines foundationalism as "The foundationalist's thesis in short is that all knowledge and justified belief rest ultimately on a foundation of non-inferential knowledge or justified belief."

One argument for foundationalism is given as the infinite regress of non-inferential belief:
"If all justification were inferential then for someone S to be justified in believing some proposition P, S must be in a position to legitimately infer it from some other proposition E₁. But E₁ could justify S in believing P only if S were justified in believing E₁, and if all justification were inferential the only way for S to do that would be to infer it from some other proposition justifiably believed, E₂, a proposition which in turn would have to be inferred from some other proposition E₃ which is justifiably believed, and so on, ad infinitum. But finite beings cannot complete an infinitely long chain of reasoning and so if all justification were inferential no-one would be justified in believing anything at all to any extent whatsoever. This most radical of all skepticisms is absurd (it entails that one couldn't even be justified in believing it) and so there must be a kind of justification which is not inferential, i.e., there must be non-inferentially justified beliefs which terminate regresses of justification."

I don't accept this argument. I believe that our way of understanding the world is built up from inference. As we mature, we begin to understand a logical and consistent framework in which we can assess evidence and reason through a test of coherence. We begin to understand language in terms of what we mean by true or probable or tautologous and this is done using coherentism as the key measure, not any foundational beliefs.

I would also support the argument against foundationalism that states that once we get past “self-referential” propositions, propositions whose very subject matter encompasses the fact that they are believed, it is hard to come up with uncontroversial examples of infallible beliefs.
I'm still looking for a convincing argument for foundationalism and would welcome any suggestions.

Descartes - stages of doubt

Week two's topic is knowledge (continues for week three also) and we start by reading chapter 1 of  Blackburn and then Chapters 1 and 2 of Guttenplan et al. The first set task was not particularly enlightening so our tutor has set some alternative questions. My initial thoughts are as follows:

(i) Examine the various stages of doubt in Descartes' full argument. Say whether you think each stage or kind of doubt is a reasonable one.
(ii) if you think it is reasonable, support your position with examples and an argument.
(ii) if you think it is unreasonable, support your position with counter-examples and an argument.

Firstly, Descartes states that as a child he believed things which have subsequently been shown to be untrue - this establishes the possibility that so-called knowledge may be based on unsound foundations.

Descartes then explains that it is not possible to doubt everything, but this is not necessary, he only needs to establish that some things cannot be known for certain to call into question some fundamental beliefs. Unless something is "completely certain and indubitable" it can be doubted.
Next, Descartes explores what, if anything, we can know that cannot be doubted. He does this by introducing a number of possible reasons why we might think that some beliefs are not completely certain and indubitable. The steps are:

1. We are sometimes deceived by our senses therefore we cannot be sure that we are not being deceived at any particular time.
I think this is a flawed argument. Whilst it is true that at any one time we may be deceived by our senses, i.e. under an illusion or misapprehension, in the vast majority of these cases we subsequently understand what leads to the illusion or misapprehension. So for me, this argument fails on a metaphysical level. If I sense something that is 'impossible', i.e. does not accord with my understanding of the world, then I don't really believe it is true, i.e. I am not 'taken in' and I believe that there must be a rational explanation. Admittedly there are some things which we cannot explain, but this is not the same as accepting that we are actually deceived by our senses and believe things that are 'impossible'.
2. Mad people believe things that are not true
Descartes rejects this argument himself as he is confident that he isn't mad.
3. Dreaming can lead to deceptive experiences and we cannot be sure if we are awake or dreaming at any particular time.
I reject this as a reason for doubting all knowledge since my experience of dreaming is very different from my experience of being awake. When I wake up I can tell the difference.
Nevertheless, the dreaming argument does have a lot of philosophical merit and very neatly challenges our notion of existence. I accept that in the strictest sense we cannot prove that we aren't dreaming at any particular time or even that the whole of life isn't a dream and in this respect the argument is an important step in any serious attempt to enquire into what we know about existence.
My initial reaction however is to say that we have no indication that it is true that everything is just a kind of dream. It seems to be such a remote possibility that it isn't very helpful in understanding the way the world is. Unless Descartes can provide some support for why we should believe that everything is a dream, in the form of a coherent argument that makes sense, then the natural reaction to this argument is to reject it.
4. We cannot rely on God's omnipotence and goodness to ensure that we are not deceived as it is apparent that we are sometimes deceived.
I agree with this. If there is a God then it seems clear that he hasn't arranged things so that we are never deceived or under misapprehensions, at least in the sense that Descartes is using "deceived".
From a personal perspective I don't have the remotest concept of what 'God' could be, so to base any argument on what 'God' does or doesn't do is literally nonsensical.
5. We cannot be sure that a malicious demon is not deceiving us while we are awake.
As with the dreaming argument, I think we can see that logically this has something going for it, but on a personal level I don't believe in malicious demons so I would reject it as being impossible. For me to accept this argument it seems to me that I would need to admit the existence of malicious demons first.

Give your over-all opinion on Descartes' requirement for certainty in order for us to claim that we are justified in believing something about the world.
Do you think he is being reasonable?
Finally, what do you think of the cogito argument?
Whilst I don't think Descartes' arguments in favour of doubting everything are bullet-proof, I do very much admire the philosophical method which he sets out. Descartes' insistence that truth must be certain and indubitable is a valuable yard-stick and his clarity of thought and willingness to 'start from the beginning' is admirable.

I have found this exercise very challenging. Descartes arguments are difficult to reject outright. Although on the whole I tend to reject his conclusions, the method by which he constructs his arguments is clever and not entirely unconvincing.

The cogito marks a major stepping-stone in philosophy. Like many others, I tend to think that Descartes stretches the argument too far. Whilst I accept that "there is thinking going on" is true, the question remains what does Descartes mean by "I".

Is philosophy dead?

This post is in response to Krauss' interview published in the Atlantic:
Has Physics Made Philosophy and Religion Obsolete?

For Krauss to claim that Russell was really a mathematician and not a philosopher I think is wrong. I have read quite a lot of philosophy by Russell, if you look at his bibliography philosophy takes up the majority of his writing. Russell was both a philosopher and a mathematician as well as being an historian, a political activist, a social commentator and much more besides.

Krauss also implies that Russell was wrong on some key points. Whilst this is undoubtedly true, that doesn't in any way make him a bad mathematician or a bad philosopher. It's the very nature of enquiry that as our understanding improves we are likely to be proved wrong. Russell helped us move forward and contributed more than very many people. Krauss is an intellectual midget compared to Russell and could do well to learn some humility.

I'm also not sure that I can agree that the media should carry the blame for the neutrinos travelling faster than light 'incident'. The problem was that a measuring device was faulty as it hadn't been screwed in to the correct tolerance. The physicists published results which, if true would have thrown a lot of physics in chaos - one of the flying sheep that we discussed earlier.

The problem with physicists is that a lot of them would kill their grannies to get a Nobel Prize. They publish too quickly, because the only way to get a Nobel Prize is to be the first, so adopting a blunderbuss approach to academic papers can mean that although 99.9% of the time they are completely wrong, occasionally they chance upon something that turns out to be true and get credit for it. This is truly moronic behaviour in my opinion.

On the whole I think physicists can often benefit from working alongside philosophers and Krauss' attitude is both condescending and rude. He should learn some manners.