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UPDATE: "The Knowledge Economy" (epistemology, 2007)
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Jeff Rubard
Nov 23, 2021, 7:01:46 PM11/23/21
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An older comment on epistemology from me, ca. 2007.
The Knowledge Economy
Wednesday, September 26th in Philosophy | No comments
I’m no expert on epistemology; and, since radical epistemic deformations come with my territory, perhaps that’s to be expected. Still, there can also be too much of a good thing, and I’m not sure that Timothy Williamson doesn’t suffer from a problem at the other end of the spectrum. Williamson’s approach, making the concept of knowledge an explainer rather than the thing to be explained, requires and reinforces the idea that there is quite a lot of unproblematic knowledge which we can take off from in explaining evidential justification, norms of assertion, etc. This is indeed quite different from the drift of most modern epistemology, which prizes goodness of warrant on the supposition rational thinkers do not always achieve it; but it is quite like another trend in metaphysics, the “causal calculus” as practiced by Judea Pearl and others.
As Williamson rejects attempts to do an end-run around Gettier problems by establishing more sophisticated criteria for knowledge, the causalists reject the thought associated with Bertrand Russell, that causation is a primitive concept which modern science suggests we should replace with lawlike regularity. They aim to make the formal study of causation as legitimate as the logic of probability; again, we have the rejection of habits of thought engendered by the possibility that causal reasoning might be susceptible to skeptical arguments. But are these really wholesome restorations of common-sense notions in the face of philosophical degeneracy? I’m not sure that attempting to establish the way in which knowledge must function in our inter- and intrapersonal cognitive economy really can deal with all the significance of skeptical argumentation.
Consider the pre-Cartesian case of Sextus Empiricus. The Outlines of Pyrrhonism is not a work of great literary art; it’s basically a “cookbook” full of recipes for refuting any sort of claim to knowledge. What is interesting about it is all the ground it covers — including chapters devoted to refuting the not-inconsiderable intellectual resources of Stoic logic. Modern scholars have stressed the final goal of Pyrrhonian skepticism, an attitude of intellectual detachment compatible with ordinary functioning in the world, but this is the consequence of its theoretical claims, such as the one raised against the validity of the material conditional: surely the skeptic must be permitted to draw the “appropriate” inferences if such are part of the “conventional” mode of life, just not to reason from their a priori effectiveness.
In a way, I think that Pyrrhonian skepticism anticipates exactly the kind of attempt to codify and consolidate the concept of knowledge we find in Williamson, and the attempt to make causal reasoning mathematically precise; it is opposed to the exaltation of common-sensical knowledge-claims, the attempt to make what is practically unproblematic theoretically impregnable. The “knowledge economy” of things ordinary rational thinkers accept without reservation is something different from critical thought, and critical thought often takes a “problematic” attitude to its purported objects — the “negativity” Hegel spoke of. Perhaps what we accept in our daily practice cannot be unquestioned upon reflection, and it must be the task of “metaphysical” concepts to circulate between the two positions.
The Knowledge Economy
Wednesday, September 26th in Philosophy | No comments
I’m no expert on epistemology; and, since radical epistemic deformations come with my territory, perhaps that’s to be expected. Still, there can also be too much of a good thing, and I’m not sure that Timothy Williamson doesn’t suffer from a problem at the other end of the spectrum. Williamson’s approach, making the concept of knowledge an explainer rather than the thing to be explained, requires and reinforces the idea that there is quite a lot of unproblematic knowledge which we can take off from in explaining evidential justification, norms of assertion, etc. This is indeed quite different from the drift of most modern epistemology, which prizes goodness of warrant on the supposition rational thinkers do not always achieve it; but it is quite like another trend in metaphysics, the “causal calculus” as practiced by Judea Pearl and others.
As Williamson rejects attempts to do an end-run around Gettier problems by establishing more sophisticated criteria for knowledge, the causalists reject the thought associated with Bertrand Russell, that causation is a primitive concept which modern science suggests we should replace with lawlike regularity. They aim to make the formal study of causation as legitimate as the logic of probability; again, we have the rejection of habits of thought engendered by the possibility that causal reasoning might be susceptible to skeptical arguments. But are these really wholesome restorations of common-sense notions in the face of philosophical degeneracy? I’m not sure that attempting to establish the way in which knowledge must function in our inter- and intrapersonal cognitive economy really can deal with all the significance of skeptical argumentation.
Consider the pre-Cartesian case of Sextus Empiricus. The Outlines of Pyrrhonism is not a work of great literary art; it’s basically a “cookbook” full of recipes for refuting any sort of claim to knowledge. What is interesting about it is all the ground it covers — including chapters devoted to refuting the not-inconsiderable intellectual resources of Stoic logic. Modern scholars have stressed the final goal of Pyrrhonian skepticism, an attitude of intellectual detachment compatible with ordinary functioning in the world, but this is the consequence of its theoretical claims, such as the one raised against the validity of the material conditional: surely the skeptic must be permitted to draw the “appropriate” inferences if such are part of the “conventional” mode of life, just not to reason from their a priori effectiveness.
In a way, I think that Pyrrhonian skepticism anticipates exactly the kind of attempt to codify and consolidate the concept of knowledge we find in Williamson, and the attempt to make causal reasoning mathematically precise; it is opposed to the exaltation of common-sensical knowledge-claims, the attempt to make what is practically unproblematic theoretically impregnable. The “knowledge economy” of things ordinary rational thinkers accept without reservation is something different from critical thought, and critical thought often takes a “problematic” attitude to its purported objects — the “negativity” Hegel spoke of. Perhaps what we accept in our daily practice cannot be unquestioned upon reflection, and it must be the task of “metaphysical” concepts to circulate between the two positions.
Jeffrey Rubard
Feb 15, 2022, 11:22:37 AM2/15/22
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Jeffrey Rubard
Apr 3, 2022, 4:41:12 PM4/3/22
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Jeffrey Rubard
Jul 29, 2022, 5:22:27 PM7/29/22
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Sure, that's a good enough response.
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