epistemic contextualism

Annis “Contextual Theory of Justification”

a/o/t = as opposed to; w/r/t = with respect to

The main idea Annis puts forth is an alternative to the alleged dualism of foundationalism an coherentism. His alternative is what he calls the “contextual theory of epistemic justification.” If someone claims to know some statement is true, then the possible objections are that either the person is in no position to know, or that the claim asserted is false.

The doubt needed to bring forth a real objection must be of the “real” kind as characterized by Charles Peirce a/o/t a Cartesian ‘paper’ doubt. So if the doubt is real it has to be a local doubt a/o/t a general skepticism.

Justification, Annis claims, is relative to the context of the issue raised. If a lay-person, in a common context has to justify some scientific claim, his remembering of someone else reading it in a secondary text at some point in the past, then, according to the context, he is justified in believing it. However, if the same issue is at hand at a graduate examination, then the method and depth of knowledge is presumed to be held at a higher standard of justification. At this point he says that the quest for an a priori method of justification is a misguided one, as justification is an activity which reflects the social nature of human activity.

However, all objections to a person’s claim to the knowledge of some statement must be motivated by the dual goals of obtaining truth and avoiding error, yet further, at the particular time of consideration. These conditions have to be in place to avoid Annis falling into an objective standard of justification, where otherwise future evidence against the claim of a person’s knowing something might also fall into the present objections.

Further, theories of justification have to be naturalized because they deal with the naturally occurring social element of human behavior, relative to a given social group. Here the discussion of the Kpelle tribe relies heavily on the objection that the real doubters of a person’s claim to knowledge must be motivated by truth, so if the tribe elders’ predictions come to be false more often than true, their reason to object to their elder’s supposed knowledge is justified yet still contextual in a local sense.

To fight against the infinite regress argument yet not fall into a foundationalist theory of justification, Annis argues that there are no BASIC bits of knowledge as the foundationalist might argue, but there are some contextually basic bits of knowledge in a given issue-context when the hypothetical group of objectors would not require reasons for them.

The strong points this theory has, in my view, is that it agrees with the claim that if someone is justified in believing a statement, then they should be able to attempt to defend that statement against possible objections. It also seems to be a consequence of this theory that if someone believes to know something and not have adequate justification for it, they have something to lose. I agree with these points at a basic level.

However, the example of the tribe, and the example of the twins seem to rub me the wrong way. The tribe people should accept higher standards of justification when there’s more at stake than something trivial, if their elders tend to be wrong. But I’m still not sure if this means that the standards of justification then don’t just rely on some context-relative schema, or if the schema itself should shift from a system of epistemological justification not-so-rigorous to one that is more rigorous w/r/t justification (even though it’s still context-dependent).

two abductive syllogisms

a formal [[EDIT 11/30: not formal, but CRITICAL]] analysis of two abductive arguments:

first, the creationists' argument for god from intelligent design.

(a) there is this universe which is gloriously complex (assumed)
(b) if god exists, there would be this universe which is gloriously complex (assumed)
(c) god exists (aim)

now as philosophers we have to define god. let's take the christian one, an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent one. the idea is that only god could design this universe.

now the proper inquirer not only has to draw consequences of god existing, (there's lots of negative evidence. anything from the earth being created longer ago than several thousand years, to the fact that a triple O god would not allow for natural disasters, war, or just insert whatever evidence against god you like), but also notes that (1) it's completely unnecessary for explanation of the universe's complexity (this is where natural physical law and evolution come in) and (2) it wouldn't cohere with the rest of the scientific picture of how the world works. (1) and (2) are the epistemic virtues of parsimony and coherence.

now, because there are arguments against god's existence, because god existing is unnecessary to explain the complexity of the universe, and because it wouldn't fit in with the rest of the evidence we have about the world, that makes three strikes, the abduction is an invalid one. so, what does this finally prove? this proves that a christian god cannot explain why the universe is beautiful and complex and all that good stuff.

now, to the objective reality/scientific realism argument.

(d) science works. (assumed)
(e) if there's a world out there independent of what we believe, then science would work. (assumed)
(f) there's a world out there independent of what we believe. (aim)

now let's draw some consequences of the antecedent and its negation, just as before. first, draw consequences from (f). there is evidence for reality being independent of what we believe of it as we see through everyday experience (this is the positive evidence bit). it fits in with the rest of our knowledge about the world (the coherence bit). and finally (f) is actually necessary to explain how science works so it is as pasimonious as it's going to get.

now of course i owe an account, a reason as to why it's necessary for there to be a real world independent of you and i to explain that science works. this is easier than it seems. if you never lived, would there still be trees? whether or not anybody ever got to investigate genetics as far as we have, or whether scientists thought it was 48 chromosomes before and think it's 46 now (and change their minds tomorrow), is there a right answer as to how many chromosomes we as humans actually have? if i never went to argentina, would it still be there? the answer to all the questions is yes, and as such give evidence to the contention that in there are bits of reality out there about which we can both state propositions and be causally independent of any individual's beliefs or existence. ultimately, in order to fully investigate the answer of these questions (as a scientist does), then there must be something that you're investigating, otherwise it's just subjective musings.

but now, to be more thorough and fair , let's draw some of the consequences of -(f) [the negation of the conclusion]. -(f) does have an advantage over (f) in its being more barren. but it directly contradicts experience. let me fully illustrate this point:

(1)if there is no world out there independent of what we believe it to be, it follows that the world does depend on what we believe it to be.
(2)some jellyfish are poisonous (i got stung by one last... year, i think?)
(3) but for some jellyfish to be poisonous, then jellyfish must exist whether i think them to exist or not, and being poisonous must be a property that exists whether i ever get stung or not.
(4) but, as constituents of this belief-dependent world, jellyfish being poisonous does depend on my beliefs after all.

(3) and (4) are contradictory, so -(f) does not cohere with the rest of what we know about the world and leads to logical contradictions. and lastly, we have overwhelming evidence against there not being a real world, as with every day of our lives we get in our cars and go places, hug our families, use computers to communicate with other individuals across the country, etc.

(f) has positive evidence, it coheres with our knowledge, yet it does posit more causally necessary entities than

-(f), which is more parsimonious is TOO parsimonious, because then we wouldn't have enough epistemological base for any inquiry of any kind, whether it's a scientist hypothesizing quarks or the layperson trying to figure out how to fix his bike. Furthermore, -(f) has negative evidence, and it does not cohere with experience.

so the abductive syllogism of (d-f) is very well supported a vast amount of positive evidence.

so what does this show? well... it shows that based on the best evidence we have so far, there is a real world out there independently of what we believe. the alternative is that science is just another legitimate dialogue among many, yet could ultimately be dealing in fictions, which (1-4) shows is inconsistent.

also notice that, in order to consider these (and any) abductions, you need go go through the formal process of logical analysis, the pragmatic process of drawing manifested effects of propositions (consequences), AND the external process of empirical investigation.

courses

Philosophy 101 - Intro (Figdor)

Philosophy 210 - Symbolic Logic (Morris)

Philosophy 272- Modern Philosophy (Rabinsky)

Philosophy 331 - Social & Political Philosophy (Rabinsky)

Philosophy 341 - Philosophy of Language (Evnine)

Philosophy 345 - Metaphysics (Figdor)

Philosophy 343 - Philosophy of Science (Seigel)

Philosophy 391 - Philosophy of Journalism (Figdor)

Philosophy 495 - Senior Thesis (Haack)

Philosophy 510 - Formal Logic (Hilpinen) - Proof Theory, Completeness, Modality

Philosophy 540 - Epistemology (Haack) - Justification Theories, Applied Epistemology

Philosophy 541 - Mind and Language (McGinn) - Naming and Necessity, WRPL, Mindsight

Philosophy 560 - History of Logic (Hilpinen) - Aristotle, Frege, Peirce, Kripke

Philosophy 581 - Pragmatism (Haack) - Peirce, James, Dewey, Rorty

Philosophy 644 - Seminar in Mind (McGinn / Rowlands) - Perception, Consciousness

________________

Psychology 207 - Cognitive Psychology (Choer)

Mathematics 506 - Mathematical Logic (Dvorsky) - Proof, Godel, Sets

epistemological virtue of open mindedness

Dewey’s How We Think and the Epistemological Virtue of Open-Mindedness.

Dewey’s definition of open-mindedness has two aspects which are jointly necessary to fully grasp the concept:

First, and possibly most importantly, being open minded means not having prejudice, partisanship, and “other such habits as close the mind and make it unwilling to consider new problems and entertain new ideas”. This part of the definition implies that open-mindedness is an epistemological attitude that both allows for new ways of tackling old problems, the consideration of handling new problems in both new and old ways. One idea opposite of open-mindedness is not only closed-mindedness (which could be characterized only accepting old answers to old problems).

But there’s another element of open-mindedness that needs to be addressed: the second natural enemy to open mindedness is empty-mindedness, which is the susceptibility of certain minds to be too quick to adopt new solutions to problems better solved by older methods, or accepting to tackle a new problem where there isn’t a problem to be solved. Dewey likens empty mindedness to an empty house, one that has a big “vacancy” sign out front and invites all comers. So being open minded, while allowing for the thorough recognition of our own fallibility, also retains to old ideas when they’re better anchored in experience, and keeps the good aspects of old ideas when possible.

A very interesting sentence is: “Self-conceit often regards it as a sign of weakness to admit that a belief to which we have once committed ourselves is wrong.” This sentence implies that admitting to your own mistakes is oftentimes a sign of a person who has more agreeable epistemological attitudes. And of course the entire article takes for granted that having better or worse epistemological attitudes is indicative of whether inquirers reach correct conclusions about the world. The quotations Dewey provides from Mill and Locke both talk about how the mind is constantly making conclusions about the world, yet there are many ways in which our conclusions can go wrong. Having an open mind allows us to both acknowledge that some (and for some, probably a lot!) of the conclusions and generalizations we’ve arrived at about the world are wrong, yet it doesn’t lead inquirers to the pitfalls of extreme skepticism either. The epistemological virtue of open mindedness allows inquirers to think critically about their own inquiry.

(Text: John Dewey, How we Think)

Haack on Roll-Hansen on Haack on Feminism

In her newest book, responding to Roll-Hansen (who critiques her stern stance against feminist epistemology), Susan Haack writes:

I admit that I was tempted to write, "the appropriate response to such silly gender-feminist propaganda...," so perhaps I should comment briefly on Roll-Hansen's criticism that my tone may be "too sharp." Having no taste for the chewy blandness of much contemporary academic prose, I do my best to be as forthright and plain-spoken as possible; and perhaps, to ears accustomed to the shameless mutual flattery in which members of this or that academic clique now routinely indulge, the forthright and plain-spoken sounds "too sharp." It's ironic, really, given that irresponsibly exaggerated denigration of truly remarkable minds is apparently regarded as perfectly OK: as with Sandra Harding's suggestion that Newton's Principa could be properly described as a "rape manual," or Richard Rorty's dismissal of Peirce as a "whacked-out triadomaniac." In any case, I suspect that what most enrages some people is less my tone than my annoying habit of quoting what they actually said and then trying to clear up any convenient ambiguities--and, no doubt, my constitutional inability to take the more grotesque recent forms of academic pretentiousness as seriously as their proponents think they deserve. But I won't apologize for my sense of humor, since without it I would surely have given up long ago!

("Scrutinizing Science Studies" 2007. A Lady of Distinctions: Susan Haack Responds to her Critics. Cornelis de Waal (Ed.) Amherst: Prometheus Books.)

Haack inherited more from Peirce than philosophical notions. =D