Spock’s Epistemology

Hey guys! Here is my attempt to start a discussion after many months away from the blog.

Last week, during a discussion about naturalized epistemology, a very interesting series of interconnected topics came up that I want to explore more in-depth. For those who don’t know, naturalized epistemology is the idea that epistemology should be connected with science in some way. Many epistemologists merely believe that we should consider developments in cognitive science when doing our epistemology. More radical theorists seem to want epistemology to equal cognitive science.

This brings up the first topic I want to discuss. Cognitive science tells us how we do think, perhaps even how we can think. Should we tie justification or knowledge to only how we do or can think? That would neatly do away with skepticism, but at what cost? It seems that such a method of approaching epistemology would put some serious limits on epistemological theories including excluding the concept of possible worlds (which science can tell us nothing about) and seemingly requiring separate theories of justification or knowledge for different life-forms (like Vulcans or Hobbits or Sonny from I, Robot, which would potentially have different cognitive capabilities).

So I have a few questions. First, should we tie epistemology to science in such a strong way? Do you have a problem with excluding discussions of possible worlds from epistemology? How about sacrificing a universal (or at least almost) epistemology? Is it possible to have this close tie without the above effects? Feel free to chip in any other possible ramifications of such a strong naturalized epistemology you can think of, plus any nerdier examples than Spock and Frodo.

Oh, and thank you to the reading group! Many of these ideas are theirs, not mine. Credit where credit’s due.

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On the Moral Error Theory: The Argument from Evolution

“Morality is a collective illusion foisted upon us by our genes”—Michael Ruse

[The following was presented to the UNF Philosophy Club on December 9, 2011. By no means is it complete and it is my intention to develop a more coherent paper arguing against the Moral Error Theory. I am open to any comments and criticisms]

As we approach the 35^th year anniversary of John Mackie’s, Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, it has become an appropriate time to commemorate the arguments put forth along with more recent ones, as well as some criticisms of his argument. Though, to begin outright with the arguments discussed may create some confusion. Therefore, in an attempt to avoid this confusion, it is essential that a brief account of the origins of the Moral Error Theory be given.

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Plantinga, Naturalism, and Epistemic Iteration

In ‘Where the Conflict Really Lies: Science, Religion, and Naturalism,’ Alvin Plantinga argues that naturalism excludes the means to validating our cognitive faculties. In a nutshell, Plantinga argues that if the reliability of our cognitive faculties is under question, one cannot answer the question whether they are reliable by pointing out that these faculties themselves deliver the belief that they are reliable; one needs more, one needs good, independent reason to believe our cognitive faculties are reliable. Crudely, Plantinga criticisizes empiricists / naturalists for failing to provide a logically satisfactory argument for asserting that our cognitive faculties are reliable.

Plantinga’s argument, though, does not immediately commend itself to acceptance: Essentially, the empiricist / naturalist must provide an argument for the foundational reliability of our cognitive faculties only if she first accepts a foundationalist epistemology. However, empiricists / naturalists need not accept a foundationalist epistemology. Indeed, the empiricist / naturalist should instead reject the premise that knowledge requires an Archimedean foundation. (I guess Plantinga could assert that the empiricist / naturalist is somehow committed to a foundationalist epistemology, but I would like to see the argument for that. In any case, I have little confidence the argument would work.)

Rather, pace Hasok Chang (epistemic iteration), C.S. Peirce (pragmatism) or W.V.O. Quine (coherentism), the empiricist / naturalist can take other routes. Though I have significant misgivings about coherentism, it remains a viable option. However, a more promising route, I believe, would be Chang’s idea of epistemic iteration, which is a thoroughly proper empiricist epistemology (situated within a largely Peircean pragmatist framework). To see this, let us look at Chang’s analysis of the historical problem of the reliability of thermometry in early and mid 19^th science. Though crude and without the requisite scholarly detail, the synopsis should suffice to give the rough view.

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An Elicitation of Opinions

Must an omnipotent and omniscient supernatural agency also be morally perfect?

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Theistic Explanatory Models Are Not Explanatory

Too many people take the so-called theory of intelligent design seriously, which is unfortunate since nobody who takes a scientific view of the world should, and everyone ought to take a scientific view of the world. As many have argued, ID theory is not, properly, a theistic explanatory model. However, I am not convinced that this is the case, and for two primary reasons. (Though, I find that insofar as ID theories are not theistic models, they actually suffer from more problems, so they really ought to welcome theistic interpretations. But this we may skip for now.) First, the correlation between theism and ID theory is too great for it to be an accident of honest inquiry. The overwhelming majority of ID theory proponents are theists, and theistic conceptions of god are, not surprisingly, suitable candidates for the intelligent designer. Second, the Discovery Institute, the main intellectual impetus behind ID theory in the English speaking world, published The Wedge, wherein they explicitly advocate for a theistic interpretation of ID theory. (FYI: One may read the document here: The Wedge.)

In any case, what is to follow is a rough and ready argument against theistic explanatory models.

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An Argument Against Rational Belief in The Resurrection of Jesus

“and if Christ hath not risen, vain is your faith, ye are yet in your sins;”

1 Corinthians 15:17

I want to grant the strongest possible case allowable for the resurrection of Jesus. Therefore, I expect to afford much leeway- indeed, more than is rationally justified- to the claims of the historicity and reliability of the Christian texts. That is to say I will grant, though I do not think it is true, that the eyewitness reports in the gospels and the epistles are from individuals who were neither inappropriately credulous, uneducated, nor emotionally and psychologically unfit to provide generally reliable testimonies. I will further grant, though I do not think it is true, that the gospels and the epistles are independent, generally reliable and unbiased historical documents which track the events under consideration accurately- as accurately as any historical text could, that is. I will also grant, though I do not think it is true, that the testimony of the Church Fathers was generally reliable and has transmitted accurately the succeeding 1,800 years to the current day.

I shall further suppose, though I am not sure how they might accomplish this, that historians can exclude all possible naturalistic explanations, with the exception of so-called swoon hypotheses, to include even future explanations which further scientific investigation might disclose and more elaborate explanations such as extraterrestrial interventions not now seriously entertained. Even then, I shall contend, Christians are not justified in believing that Jesus’ reported postmortem sightings were the result of a Christian miracle. I will argue that even on these favorable grounds the Christian is not justified in believing the Christian god rose Jesus from the dead.

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Logical Positivism and the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

Before continuing, I should offer the following caveat. What is to follow is a very rough draft of a paper I threw together. The paper was inspired by another I authored on a similar theme for a PoS class. The following neglects many details and instead provides for a rough outline of a larger, much closer analyzed and ambitious paper I suspect I will write in the near future. So, this post is but an approximation of what is to come. Nevertheless, if the post engenders discussion on any topics pertaining to quantum mechanics, scientific methodology, philosophy of science, verificationism, logical positivism, whatever, and attracts critical first assessments, then it will have served its purpose.

Logical Positivism and the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

“The rise of quantum theory in the years 1900 to 1927 is surely one of the major advances in the history of science- perhaps even one of the greatest intellectual advances ever made by mankind” (Hund 1974, p. 5). The mathematical formulation of modern quantum mechanics consists of a complete and logically consistent framework of mathematical deductions (see, for instance, von Neumann 1955). However, an ordered series of mathematical deductions, no matter how complete or logically consistent, is not a physical theory. In order to obtain the status of a physical theory, the mathematical formalism or, more precisely, the mathematical representations, must be assigned certain, specifiable experimental conditions so as to allow for the determination of measurement procedures which may aid in the confirmation and disconfirmation of hypotheses and in the identification of new and fruitful avenues of investigation. Of course, the experimental data produced by the measurement procedures necessitate interpretation, and that interpretation will run up through the mathematical structure resulting in our view of the theory and its overall implications for our system of the world.

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Evolution & Math in Schools, Logic Is Culturally Determined, and the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy

Should students have to learn mathematics in school? A parody of the answers various Miss USA contestants gave to the question: Should students have to learn evolution in school? I agree with many of the Miss USA contestants. We should teach students both sides of the homeopathy and chemistry debate, too. I mean, like, students should have the opportunity and stuff to decide for themselves if homeopathy is true for them. I mean, like, isn’t logic culturally determined anyways and stuff?

From the blog Logic and Rational Interaction: The new Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy has initiated an iTunes channel with videocasts of lectures presented at the Center. Here is the description of the Munich Center from the iTunes channel:

Mathematical Philosophy – the application of logical and mathematical methods in philosophy – is about to experience a tremendous boom in various areas of philosophy. At the new Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, which is funded mostly by the German Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, philosophical research will be carried out mathematically, that is, by means of methods that are very close to those used by the scientists. The purpose of doing philosophy in this way is not to reduce philosophy to mathematics or to natural science in any sense; rather mathematics is applied in order to derive philosophical conclusions from philosophical assumptions, just as in physics mathematical methods are used to derive physical predictions from physical laws. Nor is the idea of mathematical philosophy to dismiss any of the ancient questions of philosophy as irrelevant or senseless: although modern mathematical philosophy owes a lot to the heritage of the Vienna and Berlin Circles of Logical Empiricism, unlike the Logical Empiricists most mathematical philosophers today are driven by the same traditional questions about truth, knowledge, rationality, the nature of objects, morality, and the like, which were driving the classical philosophers, and no area of traditional philosophy is taken to be intrinsically misguided or confused anymore. It is just that some of the traditional questions of philosophy can be made much clearer and much more precise in logical-mathematical terms, for some of these questions answers can be given by means of mathematical proofs or models, and on this basis new and more concrete philosophical questions emerge. This may then lead to philosophical progress, and ultimately that is the goal of the Center.

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Bayes’ Theorem … for Infants

Read the study, here: “Pure Reasoning in 12-Month-Old Infants as Probabilistic Inference” (HT: Aaron Kenna)

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Recent Articles on the Cognitive Science of Religion and the Epistemology of Religious Beliefs

I’ve noticed that very recently several articles have been published on the relationship between the cognitive science of religion and the epistemology of religious belief. Interesting Stuff.

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Eliminative Materialism, Bayesian Probability, Beliefs Gone Wild, and LSE Choice Group

Patricia Churchland discusses eliminative materialism:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzT0jHJdq7Q

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Knowledge, Natural Kind?

Hilary Kornblith pushes for the view that knowledge ought to be viewed as a natural kind. Briefly stated, this means that knowledge is out there in the world merely waiting to be discovered and categorized by science. Its a neat move that I initially found interesting, if not quite a significant departure from traditional epistemology. I’d like to share a selection of a draft that I had offering some potential objections to viewing knowledge as a natural kind.

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Consistent Standards for the Rationality of Religious and Perceptual Beliefs

In a recent and very engaging presentation at UNF, Chris Tucker asked for an argument that shows perception is trustworthy that does not already assume that perception is trustworthy, where perception includes vision, hearing, taste, touch, smell, and proprioception.  It was intended to be a trick question as any argument for one type of perception will depend on another.  For example, when asked how I can trust my hearing – e.g. that who I heard speaking at the lecture was Chris Tucker and not a recording being played in the background- I can respond that I watched him speak with my very own eyes.  So it seems that we are left with basic faculties of perception to form rational beliefs that cannot themselves be verified as trustworthy by argument or experience independent of those faculties.  If this is so, argued Tucker, then a common argument against the use of religious experiences to make religious beliefs rational employs inconsistent standards – higher standards are set for religious beliefs than perceptual.  I would like to look more closely at Tucker’s objection and consider a way of responding by arguing that the standards for religious beliefs are not higher than those of perceptual beliefs and that perceptual experiences are supported for reasons independent of those experiences.

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“Pardon, Your Dualism is Showing”: Philosophy’s Dirty Word?

In another post, Paul pointed out an alleged bias on UNFSPB toward physicalism and against (presumably) dualism or other presuppositional positions here. This  struck me as particularly relevant given my current research into Libet for an essay I am writing when I ran across a reference to a journal article by C.C. Wood entitled, “Pardon, your dualism is showing.” Not coincidentally, in an unrelated portion of the article that cited Wood, the author was condemning Libet for attempting to find elbow room within his study in which Free Will might reside, and perhaps implicitly affirming a dualist position. And just the other day I had a vigorous discussion with a Presuppositional Apologetic  on charges similar to Paul’s, viz. that I unfairly presumed a physicalist world view that negated God in its very structure.

All of these elements lead me to wonder if dualism has become a dirty word among philosophers, theologians, or the educated in general. I am inclined to say it has, though I am interested to see whether (1) others believe this to be the case, and (2) if so, is this due to a progressive and positive development toward the elimination of antiquated worldviews, or is it merely a dogmatic assertion of a currently prevailing paradigm that unfairly presupposes its own truth?

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Offensivanity: Controversy, Christianity, and Kierkegaard

I just watched the interview between Martin Bashir and Rob Bell about his new book Love Wins. Love Wins is “ignighting a theological firestorm” because one of the central claims of the book conflicts with, what has come to be seen as, a central view to the Christian faith: that it is necessary to believe in Jesus to “go to heaven.”

While watching the interview, I was struck by how aggressive Bashir was with his line of questioning, and how negatively Bell came off. Its rather odd that Bell’s message is portrayed in such a negative way considering the general outlook on conservative Christianity is a negative one. Bell’s theology is certainly not the same as the fundamentalism that seems to be so often implicitly denounced in the media, yet Bell’s attempt to express a loving message did not seem to “win” in this interview. Indeed, this seems like a no-win situation for Christianity: tell people they are going to hell and people will be upset or tell people they will not go to hell and people will…still be upset. The following question came to mind: What does Bashir, Bell, and a bad interview bode for believers bent on blessing the world by, in Bell’s words, “bringing heaven here”?

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The Charlie Sheen Objection to Phenomenal Conservatism

Phenomenal  conservatism is the following claim:

PC: If it seems to S that p, then S is prima facie justified in believing p.

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On Plantinga’s Retirement

Comments by C. Stephen Evans (Baylor).

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CFP: Calvin College 3rd Annual Undergraduate Philosophy Conference

Calvin College 3rd Annual
Undergraduate Philosophy Conference
April 29-30th, 2011
Keynote Speaker: Alvin Plantinga

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Pragmatic Disagreement

Richard Feldman argues for the view that given epistemic peers – people with roughly equivalent reasoning powers, intelligence, and background information – who share all of their evidence with one another and yet each come out holding different doxastic attitudes regarding a proposition cannot both be reasonable[1][2].  To support this view, Feldman offers (something like) the following thesis:

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Logic and Formal Epistemology

From Carnegie Mellon University:

There is a long tradition of fruitful interaction between philosophy and the sciences. Logic and statistics emerged, historically, from combined philosophical and scientific inquiry into the nature of mathematical and scientific inference; and the modern conceptions of psychology, linguistics, and computer science are the results of sustained reflection on the nature of mind, language, and computation. In today’s climate of disciplinary specialization, however, foundational reflection is becoming increasingly rare. As a result, developments in the sciences are often conceptually ill-founded, and philosophical debates often lack scientific substance.

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Fear of Knowledge and Epistemic Relativism

Epistemic relativists wish to establish that there are no absolute epistemic facts, that is, there are no objective facts as to what beliefs are justified, as to what justifies what.  From this, the relativist can conclude that there are equally viable epistemic systems that will yield inconsistent verdicts, each relative to the other, as to the epistemic status of a belief, even when given the same evidence.  For, when two communities enter debate about the viability of their respective epistemic systems, a question might follow as to whose epistemic system is correct.  If either party answers this question, then that party will have to provide justification for the answer given.  However, some will argue that such a dispute cannot be resolved, for each party will, more than likely, resort to their respective epistemic system to provide justification for one system over the other.

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Intuition Solicitation

I’m wondering what people’s intuitions are regarding two principles and a corresponding case for each.

Principle 1: If S1 is justified in believing that another individual S2 has a morally sufficient reason to deceive S1 into believing p by giving S1 (misleading) evidence E, then S1 is not justified in believing p on the basis of E (which S1 has obtained from S2).

Case 1: Granny has had some health problems and she knows that her son worries about her anxiety.  She asks her son how her grandson is feeling.  Granny is also aware of her son’s worries about her anxiety, and so she is justified in believing that he will tell her that her grandson is doing well even if he isn’t (since he doesn’t want her to worry).  Her son tells her that her grandson is well.  Does this information alone justify granny in believing that her grandson is doing well?

Principle 1 says ‘no’.  That seems right to me.  This result might lead you to also think the following is true:

Principle 2: If S1 is justified in suspending judgment regarding whether another individual S2 has a morally sufficient reason to deceive S1 into believing p by giving S1 (misleading) evidence E, then S1 is not justified in believing p on the basis of E (which S1 has obtained from S2).

Case 2: I wish I had one .  Here’s the relevant idea.  Granny thinks to herself, “I have no idea whether my son has a morally sufficient reason to deceive me regarding p.”  Her son then tells Granny “p”.  Is Granny justified in believing p on the basis of this testimony?

Principle 2 says ‘no’.  Perhaps with a clear case in mind it would be easier to solicit intuitions, but what of these principles and cases?

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CFP: Edinburgh Epistemology Conference

Via Philosophy CFPs:

University of Edinburgh
Graduate Epistemology Conference

We invite submissions of papers from graduate students to the Edinburgh Graduate Epistemology Conference, which will take place from the 18-19^th March 2011. Essays within any area of epistemology are welcome. Essays should be approximately 4000 words. The submission deadline for the conference is 10 January 2011. Although conference attendance is free, you must register for the conference if you plan on attending. Space is limited, so please register as early as possible.

Keynote Speakers:

- Ernest Sosa (Rutgers)

- Richard Swinburne (Oxford)

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Paraconsistent Logics, Philosophy of Science, and Archives

In order to save Dr. Vitz from his lonely succession of blog updates, I thought it an opportune time to share a few resources, the first two of which relate to today’s (eagerly anticipated) symposium on non-classical logics.

The first consists of a series of lectures, in published form, by Manuel Bremer, professor of philosophy at the University of Dusseldorf, Germany. The lectures provide a general overview of various paraconsistent logics in a non-technical, accessible fashion.

The second resource is the Centre for Logic, Epistemology, and the History of Science (CLE, for short) located at the State University of Campinas, Brazil. CLE publishes CLE e-Prints, an online journal concerning logic- mathematical and philosophical- and formal epistemology and their application to scientific methods. Of particular interest is the prevalence of philosophers (and philosophically inclined scientists) who work in paraconsistent (and intuitionistic) logics (sometimes known as Brazilian logics, after Newton da Costa).

The third is something I stumbled upon during an evening of internet exploration: The Philosophy Archive. The archive is constructed in a wiki format, which should make for easy navigation. However, I suspect the archive is new considering, to date, it has only 289 articles in English.

The last resource, like the second, is one I use often. The University of Pittsburgh hosts the PhilSci Archive, an archive of scholarly papers in the field of philosophy and history of science. In order to use the archive (which is actually very user-friendly) it is necessary first to create an account, which fortunately does not require payment.

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Kitcher at UWO

Phillip Kitcher was here a few weeks ago and gave two talks on the intersections of science, society, freedom, and democracy. I thought that some of you might like to watch and discuss what was said. Below are the videos:

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