Inference and Justification

The standard model of knowledge is that of justified, true belief, thus entailing, as most other models do as well, that a belief does not amount to knowledge unless it is justified. In this post I will claim that this claim is wrong. Furthermore, in the foundationalist picture of epistemology, a belief can only be as justified (ideally) as much as the beliefs and reason which support it are themselves justified. I will argue that this is wrong as well. In this post I intend to argue that both pictures of belief and justification are fundamentally flawed, especially in light of relatively recent findings in cognitive science.

Delving Deeper Into Externalism

The purpose of this post will be primarily expositive in nature. It will be concerned with describing the Standard Model of knowledge (SM) as well as the primary criticism brought against it by Gettier. Having done that, it will then turn to the task of describing two of the attempts which have been made to salvage this standard model in the modified forms of the No Defeaters Theory (NDT) and the No False Grounds Theory (NFG). Finally, we will conclude with an illustration of how these two models differ in what does and does not constitute knowledge as well as the underlying reason for these differences.

Post Cartesian Epistemology

Descartes held that he knew his mind better than he knew anything in the external world, including his own body. Thanks largely in part to Sigmund Freud, this belief has come under devastating criticism. Not only are we not privy to the minds of other people, but we are not fully or even largely privy to the contents of our own minds. This post will be dedicated to a rather undisciplined (like that’s unusual!) exploration of what implications this might have upon epistemology in general.

Property Dualism and Causation

David Hume famously argued that causation cannot ever be observed as some kind of independent event or phenomenon. Rather, the most we could say, empirically speaking, about causation was that it was the constant conjunction of other empirically verifiable events. Thus, when we see a billiard ball move and strike another billiard ball after which the second billiard ball moves we never empirically observe any kind of causation between the two events. Thomas Reid’s reply to this was that such an account lacks what is in fact at the heart of our concept of causation, namely causal powers. Causation is not merely the constant conjunction of phenomena, but rather it is this along with the causal power which we experience ourselves when we “cause” phenomena and therefore project onto other forms of causation. Thus, our interaction with causation involves both a relatively passive observation of the world as well as an active projection onto the world.

Man as the Measure(r) of All Things

The confrontation which has characterized this extended series of posts regarding the nature of scientific knowledge is that of the platonic gods vs. the sophistic earth-giants. As we have also seen throughout this series, the most plausible position has been from the very beginning that of the earth-giants, a position which many have tried very hard, and yet without success to overthrow. While Kuhn’s arguments against platonic knowledge were by no means unique or original to him, it was with the publication of his The Structures of Scientific Revolutions that the prospect of platonic knowledge was permanently(?) snuffed out of existence.

The Unfortunate Flight from Pluralism

In a recent post I have described what I called the Cartesian sundering of fact from value, knowing that such a sundering could not fully be attributed to him. This post will deal with the two main issues which fueled much which can be found in Descartes’ philosophy, namely pluralism and uncertainty. While this post will be about the motivations behind the development of modern philosophy and modern science, both of which can be roughly attributed to Descartes, relatively little mention will be made of him explicitly.

Moderate Kuhn and Radical Kuhn

We have seen in a number of posts that dating back even to Thomas Hobbes, the communal, historical and non-logical process of scientific discovery has been seen as a threat to scientific realism which I will define as the claim that science gives us necessary, certain and universal truth regarding the natural world. Indeed, if one looks at moderate ideas of Thomas Kuhn (rather than the radical ideas of Kuhn having to do with incommensurability), they are hard pressed to find a single, unanticipated idea. It is not an exaggeration to suggest that the intellectually tumultuous environment of Kuhn was more responsible for his works success than were his actual ideas.

A Modal Model of Knowledge

In two recent posts I have been highly critical of the standard view of knowledge (see here and here). While what I have called the Platonic and Sophistic models of knowledge do have their own problems, I see the externalism of the standard model as being absolutely unacceptable. The difference between mere belief and knowledge, according to my strong intuitions, is one of degree or quality of justification, period. Furthermore, I see attempts at rescuing the standard model from Gettier’s criticism, such as in the No False Grounds theory or the No Defeaters theory as only compounding the problem at hand. Whether there happens to be a false ground or a defeater which I am not aware of should not play any determining role in whether a particular belief actually amounts to knowledge or not. (I will be putting up a post on Gettier’s cases as well as these two responses in the near future.)

The Cartesian Sundering of Fact and Value

The rise of pluralism with the corresponding uncertainty which it inspired served as a strong motivation for certainty, and such certainty was supposed to have been achieved in the realm of natural science. If we can thank Descartes for anything it is due to the significant role which he played in the overthrowing of Aristotelian science. Nevertheless, this rejection of teleology from the realm of science posed significant obstacles to any hope of finding objective values by way of science. This post will describe what I will call the Cartesian sundering of fact from value.

Logical Positivism and the Social Sciences

In his book The Construction of Social Reality John Searle draws a distinction between what he calls brute facts and social facts. The distinction between the two can be seen in that while both types of facts are epistemically objective, the latter type, in contrast to the former, is actually ontologically subjective, meaning that their very existence depends upon the collective mental projection of features onto the world. In other words if there were no minds in the world social facts could not possibly exist. This, it will be argued, is the difference between the natural sciences and the social sciences, namely that the former limits itself to brute facts while the latter necessarily deals with social facts. Accordingly, it will be shown how the social sciences could never, even in principle, fulfill the criteria for science as laid out by the logical positivists.