Two views of Deduction & Induction
Immortalist
View 1: conclusion;
Deduction = infers particular from general truths
Induction = infers general from particular truths
View 2: conclusion;
Deduction = follows with absolute necessity
Induction = follows with some degree of probability
In defense of view 2:
Deduction and Induction From
Introduction to Logic Irving M. Copi
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0130749214/
1.6 Deduction and Induction
Arguments are traditionally divided into two different types, deductive and
inductive. Every argument involves the claim (noted earlier) that its
premisses provide some grounds for the truth of its conclusion, but only a
deductive argument involves the claim that its premisses provide conclusive
grounds for its conclusion. When the reasoning in a deductive argument is
correct, we call that argument valid; when the reasoning of a deductive
argument is incorrect, we call that argument invalid.
We may therefore define validity as follows. A deductive argument is valid
when its premisses, if true, do provide conclusive grounds for the truth of
its conclusion. In a valid deductive argument (but not in an inductive
argument), premisses and conclusion are so related that it is absolutely
impossible for the premisses to be true unless the conclusion is true also.
In every deductive argument, either the premisses succeed in providing
conclusive grounds for the truth of the conclusion, or they do not succeed.
Therefore, every deductive argument is either valid or invalid. This is a
point of some importance: If a deductive argument is not valid, it must be
invalid; if it is not invalid, it must be valid. But note that the terms
"valid" and "invalid" do not apply to inductive arguments; for inductive
arguments, other terms of appraisal are required.
In the realm of deductive logic, the central task is to clarify the relation
between premisses and conclusion in valid arguments, and thus to allow us to
discriminate valid from invalid arguments...
An inductive argument makes a very different claim: not that its premisses
give conclusive grounds for the truth of its conclusion, but only that its
premisses provide some support for that conclusion. Inductive arguments,
therefore, cannot be "valid" or "invalid" in the sense in which these terms
are applied to deductive arguments. Of course, inductive arguments may be
evaluated as better or worse, according to the degree of support given to
their conclusions by their premisses. Thus, the greater the likelihood, or
probability, that its premisses confer on its conclusion, the greater the
merit of an inductive argument. But that likelihood, even when the premisses
are all true, must fall short of certainty. The theory of induction and the
methods of calculating probabilities are presented in Part 3 of this book.
The distinction between deductive and inductive arguments is sometimes drawn
in a different way-centering on the relative generality of their premisses
and conclusions. Deductive inferences, it is sometimes said, move from the
general to the particular, while inductive inferences move from the
particular to the general. On analysis, this way of distinguishing them
proves unsatisfactory. ["William Whewell, in The Philosophy of the Inductive
Sciences (1840), put it thus: ". . . in Deduction we infer particular from
general truths; while in Induction we infer general from particular."]
In that tradition, the classical example of a deductive argument:
All humans are mortal.
Socrates is human.
Therefore Socrates is mortal.
does indeed have a particular conclusion, inferred validly from two
premisses of which the first is a general or universal proposition. [The
term "particular" was used by Whewell, and other logicians in his tradition,
to refer to propositions about a single thing (e.g., Socrates) as well as to
propositions about some but not necessarily all members of a given class
(e.g., some humans). More recent logical practice uses the phrase
"particular propositions" to refer only to the latter group. At this point,
we are examining Whewell's view and therefore follow his usage.] It is also
true that a very common form of inductive argument is one in which a general
or universal conclusion is inferred from a group of premisses, all of which
are particular, as in this example:
Socrates is human and mortal.
Xanthippe is human and mortal
Sappho is human and mortal.
Therefore probably all humans are mortal.
But this method of distinguishing between deduction and induction does not
always work. The difficulty lies in the fact that a valid deductive argument
may have universal propositions for its conclusion as well as for its
premisses, as in:
All animals are mortal.
All humans are animals.
Therefore all humans are mortal.
And a valid deductive argument may have particular propositions for its
premisses as well as for its conclusion, as in:
If Socrates is human then Socrates is mortal.
Socrates is human.
Therefore Socrates is mortal.
Moreover, an inductive argument need not rely only on particular premisses
but may have universal (i.e., general) propositions for its premisses as
well for its conclusions, as in:
All cows are mammals and have lungs.
All whales are mammals and have lungs.
All humans are mammals and have lungs.
Therefore probably all mammals have lungs.
And further, an inductive argument may have a particular proposition as its
conclusion, as in:
Hitler was a dictator and was ruthless.
Stalin was a dictator and was ruthless.
Castro is a dictator.
Therefore Castro is probably ruthless.
These counterexamples show that it is not satisfactory to characterize
deductive arguments as those in which particular conclusions are inferred
from general premisses; nor is it satisfactory to characterize inductive
arguments as those in which general conclusions are inferred from particular
premisses.
The fundamental difference between these two kinds of argument lies in the
claims that are made about the relations between premisses and conclusion.
Deductive arguments are those in which a very strict or close relationship
is claimed to hold between the premisses and the conclusions. If a deductive
argument is valid, then, given the truth of its premisses, its conclusion
must be true no matter what else may be the case.
For example, if it is true that all humans are mortal, and if it is true
that Socrates is a human, then it must be true that Socrates is mortal no
matter what else may be true in the world and no matter what other premisses
are added or other information discovered. If we find that Socrates is ugly,
or that angels are immortal, or that cows give milk, this finding affects
the validity of the argument not one bit; the conclusion that Socrates is
mortal follows from any enlarged set of premisses with deductive certainty,
just as it did from the two premisses originally given. If an argument is
valid, nothing additional in the world can make it more valid; if a
conclusion is validly inferred from some set of premisses, nothing can be
added to that set to make that conclusion follow more validly or more
strictly or more logically.
But the relation between premisses and conclusion claimed for even the best
inductive argument is much less strict and very different in kind. Consider
the following inductive argument:
Most corporation lawyers are conservatives.
Barbara Shane is a corporation lawyer.
Therefore Barbara Shane is probably a conservative.
This is a pretty good inductive argument; its first premiss is true, and if
its second premiss is also true, its conclusion is more likely true than
false. But in this case, if new premisses are added to the original pair the
resulting argument may be substantially weakened or (depending on the
premisses added) strengthened. Suppose we add the premiss that
Barbara Shane is an officer of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
and also add the (true) premiss that:
Most officers of the ACLU are not conservatives.
Now the conclusion [that Barbara Shane is a conservative] no longer seems
very probable; the original inductive argument has been greatly weakened by
the presence of this additional information about Barbara Shane. Indeed, if
the final premiss were transformed into the universal proposition:
No officers of the ACLU are conservatives.
the opposite of the original conclusion would now follow deductively, that
is, validly, from the set of premisses affirmed.
On the other hand, if we enlarge the original set of premisses by adding the
following additional premisses instead:
Barbara Shane served in the cabinet of President Ronald Reagan.
and
Barbara Shane has long been an officer of the National Rifle Association.
then the original conclusion follows with a greater likelihood from this
enlarged set of premisses than it did from the original set.
The strength of the claim about the relation between the premisses and the
conclusion of the argument is the nub of the difference between deductive
and inductive arguments. We characterize the two types of arguments as
follows: A deductive argument is one whose conclusion is claimed to follow
from its premisses with absolute necessity, this necessity not being a
matter of degree and not depending in any way on whatever else may be the
case; in sharp contrast, an inductive argument is one whose conclusion is
claimed to follow from its premisses only with probability, this probability
being a matter of degree and dependent upon what else may be the case.
Although probability is the essence of the relation between premisses and
conclusion in inductive arguments, such arguments do not always acknowledge
explicitly that their conclusions are inferred only with some degree of
probability. On the other hand, the mere presence of the word "probability"
within an argument is no sure indication that the argument is inductive,
because there are some strictly deductive arguments about probabilities
themselves. Arguments of this kind, in which the probability of a certain
combination of events is deduced from the probabilities of other events, are
discussed in Chapter 14.
SUMMARY OF SECTION 1.6
In this section, we discuss the essential nature of deductive and of
inductive arguments. The core of the difference between deductive and
inductive arguments lies in the strength of the claim that is made about the
relation between the premisses of the argument and its conclusion.
In deductive arguments, the conclusion is claimed to follow from its
premisses with absolute necessity; in inductive arguments, the conclusion is
claimed to follow from its premisses only with some degree of probability.
A deductive argument is valid if its premisses do provide conclusive proof
of its conclusion; otherwise it is invalid. But the terms "validity" and
"invalidity" do not apply to inductive arguments, which are appraised with
other terms.
The addition of new premisses may alter the strength of an inductive
argument, but a deductive argument, if valid, cannot be made more valid or
invalid by the addition of any premisses.
Introduction to Logic Irving M. Copi
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0130749214/
John Jones
> Deduction = follows with absolute necessity
> Induction = follows with some degree of probability
View 1-, is right to be discarded.
As for View 2..
..If deduction follows with necessity, the limits of necessity are not an
arithmetical device, but the limits and guides for what we want to regard
mathmatically. The word 'probable', like 'necessity', refers to the reasons
for choosing what we want to consider mathmatically - it refers to the
reason for choosing what to put into our equation, and what we expect to get
out of our equation. What we choose to put into our equation, or hope to get
out of it is where necessity and probability lie, they are not a mathmatical
categories.
Therefore, or consider, that deduction and induction have no arithmetical
classifications of 'necessity' or 'probability'. So the introduction to
Logic by Irving M. Copi, is Logic a la journalese.
JJ
Immortalist <Reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:vlf1s77...@corp.supernews.com...
Eudaimonus
> Arguments are traditionally divided into two different types, deductive and
> inductive. Every argument involves the claim (noted earlier) that its
> premisses provide some grounds for the truth of its conclusion, but only a
> deductive argument involves the claim that its premisses provide conclusive
> grounds for its conclusion. When the reasoning in a deductive argument is
> correct, we call that argument valid; when the reasoning of a deductive
> argument is incorrect, we call that argument invalid.
What of soundness and unsoundness?
> An inductive argument makes a very different claim: not that its premisses
> give conclusive grounds for the truth of its conclusion, but only that its
> premisses provide some support for that conclusion.
Is this allways true? Often times, we derive inductive conclusions that
have for us as much certitude as would a conclusion of a deductive
arguement. For instance, I believe that the world existed before I was
born. Now, this belief surely wasn't formed by deduction, but was formed
by induction, namely that I see other children being born, and note that
the world existed before they were born, and suppose that no special
circumstance holds in my case. Yet, I am more certain that these
premises support my conclusion, than I am of the support that, say, the
axioms of Euclidean geometry give to the conclusions that I derive from
it. For I am more uncertain that I have not made an error in doing the
latter, than I am that I have not made an error in the former. That is,
I can more easily imagine making an error in doing formal geometry than
I can imagine making an error in the example inductive derivation.
I do in fact hold that the grounds I have for believing that world
existed before I was born, are more certain ground than the grounds I
have for holding that the pythagorean theory follows from the axioms of
Eucledian geometry. Only if I had checked and rechecked and made sure
that others agree with my results, would I hold that the level of
certaintity I have, in the following of the conclusion from the
premises, is nearly equivelent.
> Inductive arguments,
> therefore, cannot be "valid" or "invalid" in the sense in which these terms
> are applied to deductive arguments. Of course, inductive arguments may be
> evaluated as better or worse, according to the degree of support given to
> their conclusions by their premisses. Thus, the greater the likelihood, or
> probability, that its premisses confer on its conclusion, the greater the
> merit of an inductive argument. But that likelihood, even when the premisses
> are all true, must fall short of certainty. The theory of induction and the
> methods of calculating probabilities are presented in Part 3 of this book.
But this is not in accord with actual inductive practices. Few people
hold that "The earth existed before I was born" is only "highly
probable", but rather hold it with as much certainty as they hold "a
thing can not both be and not be". That is, with an absolute certainty
that admits no possiblity of error. So, I seems we are able to reach
absolute certainty (judgements of probability equal to 1) on the basis
of induction. Things like "The earth existed before I was born", or "I
have never been to the moon", or "My sofa is still there behind me when
I don't look at it" and so forth.
If what you you are attempting to do is a descriptive, as opposed to
normative, enterprise, you should take these facts into account.
You should probably read Wittegenstine's "On Certainty"
Also you don't seem to have any account for the deduction of conclusions
from premises formed by previous inductions. If the conclusions of
inductive arguement are only probable, then you can't have the
conclusions of deduction made from them be absolute or certain, but they
should be also merely probable, in accordance with the probablities
involved with the premises.
For instance, if I induce "probably, all men are mortal" from a list of
mortal men and the absence of immortal men, then I don't have available
to me "all men are mortal" as a premise from which to deduce "Socrates
is mortal" from "Socrates is a man" - I have only "probably all men are
mortal" and hence I can only deduce "probably, Socrates is mortal".
Indeed, if I were to form the notion that "all things that look like so
and act like so are men" from the observation of various men and how
they seem to look and act, then that, being an inductive arguement,
would only be probable, so my conclusion that Socrates is a man because
he looks and acts a certain way, would itself only be probable.
So instead of having available to me as knowledge, the premises of the
syllogism -
All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
-----------
Socrates is mortal
I have only the premises for the syllogism
Probably, all men are mortal
Probably, Socrates is a man
----------
Probably, Socrates is mortal.
If inductive logic only provides probable conclusions, wherefor come the
absolute propositions which your paradigm deductive inferences operate
upon? Either the conclusions of deductive as well as inductive
arguements are both only probable, inductive logic can produce fully
assertive claims, or there is some way other than deduction or
induction, to gain knowledge, such producing not merely probable but
certain knowledge, and not merely of particulars but also of general
statements (if you hold such can be used in deduction to produce
absolute conclusions).
So it seems that the notion that one can divide deduction and induction
on the bases of wither their conclusions are absolute or merely
probable, rests upon the notion that never the twain shall meet, an
improbable notion at best, and the notion that induction can not produce
absolute claims, which is itself a normative, not descriptive, claim
about inductive practices.
John Jones
udaimonus <jwsc...@insightbb.com> wrote in message
news:3F57ED58...@insightbb.com...
Sean McCrohan
>I do in fact hold that the grounds I have for believing that world
>existed before I was born, are more certain ground than the grounds I
>have for holding that the pythagorean theory follows from the axioms of
>Eucledian geometry. Only if I had checked and rechecked and made sure
>that others agree with my results, would I hold that the level of
>certaintity I have, in the following of the conclusion from the
>premises, is nearly equivelent.
[Much snipped]
>So it seems that the notion that one can divide deduction and induction
>on the bases of wither their conclusions are absolute or merely
>probable, rests upon the notion that never the twain shall meet, an
>improbable notion at best, and the notion that induction can not produce
>absolute claims, which is itself a normative, not descriptive, claim
>about inductive practices.
You make several very interesting points. I haven't read the Wittgenstein
piece you recommended as yet, so this may be retreading old ground, but
it seems to me that what you said in the first paragraph I quoted above
is actually just an example of what you were saying in the second. That
is to say, any specific deductive claim is actually just the subject of an
inductive argument in the form:
a) My assumptions in this argument are probably correct AND
b) My reasoning from assumptions to conclusion is probably correct SO
c) The conclusion is probably correct.
Now, on the other hand, the validity of a deductive chain of reasoning
need not be dependent upon the truth or falsehood of its assumptions in
any specific case. For instance:
a) If all men are mortal AND
b) If you are a man THEN
c) You are mortal
is valid reasoning even if in a specific case the assumptions do not
hold and thus the conclusion cannot be reached. Or more generally,
the validity of the reasoning is totally divorced from the likelihood
of the assumptions themselves.
a) If all flying things are purple AND
b) If pigs can fly THEN
c) Pigs are purple
is logically sound, for all that it's nonsense. We can clearly see that,
were the first two clauses true, the third necessarily follows. To make
any use of it, however, we'd need to establish the truth or falsehood of
the assumptions. If we do that deductively, we're inevitably left with
OTHER assumptions to prove, generally though not always in a quantity
that increases exponentially the farther one pursues the question.
Ultimately, one must either follow the argument back to a Fundamental Truth
that requires no proof (if one believes that such a thing exists), or
fall back upon observation and induction.
I'm afraid I'm rambling. What I'm trying to say is that yes, I believe
that there IS a distinction between the inductive and deductive, and that it
does lay in necessity and certainty, but that deductive reasoning achieves
this certainty by ASSUMING it on the part of the premises of the argument.
It cannot create truth, it can only perform transforms on it.
--S
Sean McCrohan
>Seeing children being born, etc, is not an induction.
No, it is an observation used as a premise in an inductive argument (as
I believe the poster intended):
a) This child was born and the world existed before them
b) That child was born and the world existed before them
c) I was born
d) The world likely existed before me
--S
Dennis
I quite like your response to this quite interesting thread. I do have one
disagreement, however.
> To make any use of it, however, we'd need to establish the truth or
falsehood of the assumptions.
Science is based on assumptions, most of which are not subject to tests of
truth or falseness. Assumptions are judged not by their truth value but by
their utility. For example, Aristotle's assumptions about the 4 elements
would in modern times be considered false. This does not influence the fact
that for 2,000 years his theory was extremely useful and popular.
Assumptions are neither proven not subject to truth, but are accepted as
given. As you say, it logically follows that pigs are purple. Whether this
conclusion is useful or not is not dependent upon the truth value of the
premises.
Dennis
"Sean McCrohan" <mccr...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:kf16b.1470$_26...@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.net...
Sean McCrohan
>Science is based on assumptions, most of which are not subject to tests of
>truth or falseness. Assumptions are judged not by their truth value but by
>their utility. For example, Aristotle's assumptions about the 4 elements
>would in modern times be considered false. This does not influence the fact
>that for 2,000 years his theory was extremely useful and popular.
>Assumptions are neither proven not subject to truth, but are accepted as
>given. As you say, it logically follows that pigs are purple. Whether this
>conclusion is useful or not is not dependent upon the truth value of the
>premises.
Thank you, Dennis. Actually, I believe this helps to get towards what I
was thinking, but having difficulty finding a way to express. I would
argue that science (while it USES assumptions, and while it is vital to
always make it clear what those assumptions are) is ultimately based on
observations, not assumptions. The classic process as I learned it was:
1) I observer specific events.
2) I formulate assumptions based on those observations - an exercise of
inductive logic. ('Apples fall. Leaves fall. Thrown rocks fall. Perhaps
all objects fall.')
3) Using that assumption as a premise, I make a prediction - an exercise
of deductive logic. ('If all objects fall, and this feather is an object,
then this feather will fall.')
4) I observe the predicted event in order to test the validity of my
prediction and, consequently, my assumption. If no observations
contradict my predictions, then I tentatively accept my assumptions as
valid until more detailed information is available to challenge them.
I use those assumptions as foundations upon which to build further
explanations of other phenomena.
So I agree when you say that 'assumptions are judged not by their truth
but by their utility', but I would argue that utility in this case is
measured by how well the assumption explains the world as it has been
observed...or, put another way, how reliably one may, from the facts
at hand, reach the assumption through induction.
That's the thrust of my argument when I say that deduction ultimately
depends upon some fundamental set of starting premises from which to
reason, and that deduction itself is incapable of CREATING those
assumptions. They must either be taken as received wisdom from an
outside source and their validity accepted on faith, or they must be
derived from observation through induction or a process like it.
--S
Max
No, you're not, and it's worth reading. You absolutely cleared this up.
-Max
Dennis
> I would argue that science is ultimately based on observations, not
assumptions.
I am not sure that I agree with this. This seems like the chicken or the
egg problem. I agree that science is "ultimately" based on observations, but
our observations are based on our assumptions about the structure of the
world that are presented to us by our language grammar. Do we not assume
that what we see is real? Do we not also assume that our language enables us
to understand what is real? Is not our language grammar the model for our
science, which enables us to interpret what we observe?
> 1) I observer specific events.
I like your 1) through 4) description.
> I would argue that utility in this case is measured by how well the
assumption explains the world as it has been observed
I agree that observation is important is judging the utility of an
assumption. I believe that this has not always been considered to be the
case however. Didn't Plato, for example, use his mind to determine truth,
considering the earth as a poor approximation of it, such that observation
was irrelevant?
> They must either be taken as received wisdom from an outside source and
their validity accepted on faith, or they must be
derived from observation through induction or a process like it.
I agree with this paragraph, although I hope that you are also saying that
assumptions based on observation are also accepted on faith.
Assumptions tend to be confused in the mind, and the fact that they are not
subject to proof is usually forgotton, I believe. Few people are able to
periodically reevaluate their accepted assumptions about the nature of the
world in order to determine whether or not the assumptions are still
justified. I believe that people usually do not know what their accepted
assumptions are, are not able to subject them to challenge, and tend to
accept them as truth. Such people will then defend their asumptions about
nature to the death, without bothering to consider that assumptions are not
truth and they are not subject to truth.
Scientists, ideally, are able to change their assumptions at will and to
consider the ramifications of such change. It is not a matter of believing
the original assumptions, and so it is not a matter of believing the new
assumptions. It is only a matter of changing assumptions and determining the
utility of the new model that results from it.
Dennis
"Sean McCrohan" <mccr...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:Jh46b.657$BG6...@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net...
Eudaimonus
Now, I would never claim that a deductive claim is just a form of an
inductive arguement. That is not my claim at all. My claim is that
_when I actually perform_ a complex mathematical computation, say
14,534,345 plus 57,254,456 and get 71,988,801, I do, as a mater of fact
not of logic, have less than perfect confidence in the truth of the
inference of the conclusion from the premises. This is because I know
that I have made errors before in making those kinds of computations.
It _is_ a deduction, but the result is one that I hold without complete
confidence (at least, at first). I check it again, and a third time,
and a fourth time, and eventually I do hold it with complete confidence.
> Now, on the other hand, the validity of a deductive chain of reasoning
> need not be dependent upon the truth or falsehood of its assumptions in
> any specific case. For instance:
>
> a) If all men are mortal AND
> b) If you are a man THEN
> c) You are mortal
>
> is valid reasoning even if in a specific case the assumptions do not
> hold and thus the conclusion cannot be reached. Or more generally,
> the validity of the reasoning is totally divorced from the likelihood
> of the assumptions themselves.
But is that not true of inductive reasonings as well? Can I not, say,
read a book of fantasy which describes various being having certain
properties, and come to form an inductive generalization regard what
kind of creatures who beings are. And would we not be able to judge the
propriety of that inductive generalization by the normal cannons of
inductive reasoning? Could I not perform an inductive fallacy in doing
what I describe? Could I manage to refrain from making an inductive
fallacy in so doing? I would think yes. And this despite the specific
judgements being all false, as the things of which they treat are only
fictional and not real.
> a) If all flying things are purple AND
> b) If pigs can fly THEN
> c) Pigs are purple
>
> is logically sound, for all that it's nonsense.
Actually, that is not logically sound. You are confusing tense - you
are leaving of the appropriate tense in (c). It should be "Pigs _would
be_ purple" not "Pigs _are_ purple".
> We can clearly see that,
> were the first two clauses true, the third necessarily follows.
But see, now you are back to "neccessarily" - certitude has nothing to
do with it! (But then, what more do you mean by 'it follows
neccessarily' than 'it follows deductively'?)
> To make
> any use of it, however, we'd need to establish the truth or falsehood of
> the assumptions. If we do that deductively, we're inevitably left with
> OTHER assumptions to prove, generally though not always in a quantity
> that increases exponentially the farther one pursues the question.
> Ultimately, one must either follow the argument back to a Fundamental Truth
> that requires no proof (if one believes that such a thing exists), or
> fall back upon observation and induction.
As an aside, some people actually believe that it is by "observation"
(sensation/perception) that we get our "Fundamental Truths".
> I'm afraid I'm rambling. What I'm trying to say is that yes, I believe
> that there IS a distinction between the inductive and deductive, and that it
> does lay in necessity and certainty, but that deductive reasoning achieves
> this certainty by ASSUMING it on the part of the premises of the argument.
> It cannot create truth, it can only perform transforms on it.
I find that requires the making of the distinction between the analytic
and the synthetic, which I find problematic for many various reasons -
that is, I don't understand quite what "neccessity" is supposed to be,
as opposed to mere "probablity". (Stickly speaking, however, the
opposite of neccessity it possiblity, not probability).
That reservation of mine displays itself here as my observation that the
kind of distinction you are drawing here isn't displayed by our actual
practice, and that your program must therefor be normative instead of
descriptive.
When
Immortalist
"John Jones" <scoob...@btopenworld.com> wrote in message
news:bj8kme$pu8$1...@hercules.btinternet.com...
> > View 2: conclusion;
> > Deduction = follows with absolute necessity
> > Induction = follows with some degree of probability
>
> View 1-, is right to be discarded.
>
> As for View 2..
> ..If deduction follows with necessity, the limits of necessity are not an
> arithmetical device, but the limits and guides for what we want to regard
> mathmatically. The word 'probable', like 'necessity', refers to the
reasons
> for choosing what we want to consider mathmatically - it refers to the
> reason for choosing what to put into our equation, and what we expect to
get
> out of our equation. What we choose to put into our equation, or hope to
get
> out of it is where necessity and probability lie, they are not a
mathmatical
> categories.
>
> Therefore, or consider, that deduction and induction have no arithmetical
> classifications of 'necessity' or 'probability'. So the introduction to
> Logic by Irving M. Copi, is Logic a la journalese.
>
Couldn't we classify any abstraction cognition some sort of anological
reasoning. These words are analogies for the concepts I am trying to relay.
According to Kant, an analytic statement (or judgement) is one in which the
concept of the predicate is already contained, or thought, in the concept of
the subject - an example would be the statement that a vixen is a female
fox - whereas a synthetic statement is one in which this is not so, for
instance, the statement that foxes are carnivorous. The Logical Positivists,
adopting the linguistic turn, held that an analytic statement is one which
is true or false purely in virtue of the meanings of the words used to make
it and the grammatical rules governing their combination. This definition
has the advantages that it does not have application only to statements of
subject-predicate form and avoids either reliance on the obscure notion of
'containment' or appeal to psychological considerations. Both Kant and the
Logical Positivists assumed that true analytic statements must express
necessary truths knowable a priori, though Kant also held that some
synthetic statements express such truths, including mathematical statements
like '7 plus 5 equals 12' and metaphysical statements like 'Every event has
a cause'. The Logical Positivists, by contrast, held mathematical truths to
be analytic, and metaphysical statements to be nonsensical or meaningless.
‘Interpreting probability’ is a commonly used but misleading name for a
worthy enterprise. The so-called ‘interpretations of probability’ would be
better called ‘analyses of various concepts of probability’, and
‘interpreting probability’ is the task of providing such analyses. Normally,
we speak of interpreting a formal system, that is, attaching familiar
meanings to the primitive terms in its axioms and theorems, usually with an
eye to turning them into true statements about some subject of interest.
Logical theories of probability retain the classical interpretation's idea
that probabilities can be determined a priori by an examination of the space
of possibilities.
Interpretations of Probability
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/probability-interpret/
Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics
http://members.aol.com/jeff570/mathword.html
The classic problem that Pascal and Fermat solved was somewhat like the
problem that would occur if a major sports championship, such as the World
Series or the Stanley Cup, could not be completed.
Imagine that one team was leading three games to two when play had to be
stopped. What is the fairest way to divide the prize money, given that
ordinarily the team that wins four games gets the entire prize?
Pascal and Fermat took the view that the prize should be divided between the
two teams in proportion to their probability of winning. Assume that for
each subsequent game each team has a fifty-fifty chance of winning that
game. The team that has already won three games will win the championship a
higher proportion of the time. Pascal proceeded to show how to calculate
that proportion precisely.
http://arnoldkling.com/stats/intro.html
Immortalist
So how would a standard of knowledge (or "criterion of truth," in the
language of the Stoics) be defended? It could only be defended by reference
to some standard or other. If the standard under dispute is invoked, then
the question has been begged. If another standard is appealed to, the
question arises again, to be answered either by circular reasoning or by
appeal to yet another standard. So either the process of invoking standards
does not terminate, or it ends in circular reasoning, and thus the dispute
over the standard cannot be settled rationally.
http://www-philosophy.ucdavis.edu/phi102/tkch9.htm
Isn't the deductive merely a probability of 0 or 1 (true or false) and
induction any probability inbetween.?
> --S
>
Immortalist
"Max" <max197...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:baa549eb.03090...@posting.google.com...
Do you know of a way to show that this belief of yours about, "absolutely
cleared," is completely justified with no chance for error at all?
Eudaimonus
> So how would a standard of knowledge (or "criterion of truth," in the
> language of the Stoics) be defended? It could only be defended by reference
> to some standard or other. If the standard under dispute is invoked, then
> the question has been begged. If another standard is appealed to, the
> question arises again, to be answered either by circular reasoning or by
> appeal to yet another standard. So either the process of invoking standards
> does not terminate, or it ends in circular reasoning, and thus the dispute
> over the standard cannot be settled rationally.
You are assuming that for all standards, the justificatiedness of it's
being used has to be itself defended. That is, in order for any
instance of applying the standard to be justified, once requires a
meta-justification for the adoption of the standard.
But why would one think that? Is it not that the standard displays the
properties that justify it, that justify it, outside of our ability to
justify thinking it has those properties or that those properties
justify it? Even if we were unable to justify our belief that we are
justified in using the standard, would we still not be justified in
using the standard, because it would still display those properties by
virtue of which it is justified?
Or, to put the point more technically, you are ignoring the possibility
of foundationalist account.
That is, the ability to defend a standard of knowledge is independant of
the properiety of using the standard - one "ought" to use the "proper"
standard, wither one can defend it or not.
Eudaimonus
> Do you know of a way to show that this belief of yours about, "absolutely
> cleared," is completely justified with no chance for error at all?
"completely justified" "with no chance for error at all" ?????
Do you think these two conceptions are the same?
I have detected a certain tendancy among some philosophers and layman
alike who discuss the nature of knowledge. Insofar as knowledge is
concieved of as "true justified belief", they seek to find some
definition of "justified" and will render "true" redundant.
Why that is however, I have yet to determine - I have found however, in
every case of true Skepticism, an instance of that desire, and the
frustration of it. It is it's root cause.
For me, I side with Wittgenstien who said "not every _error_ is a
_mistake_."
The Sophist
> I have detected a certain tendancy among some philosophers and layman
> alike who discuss the nature of knowledge. Insofar as knowledge is
> concieved of as "true justified belief", they seek to find some
> definition of "justified" and will render "true" redundant.
Well, if "justified" and "true" can come apart, then you get Gettier
problems. Apart from that, incomplete justification is pretty murky.
Is it probability? If so, are you completely justified in judgments of
probability? If those judgments are themselves only probable, a
puzzling regress develops. But if incomplete justification isn't the
conferring of probability, what is it?
This is by no means the full story of why philosophers have done what
you describe, but it should already cure you of the illusion that the
move is totally unmotivated. Unwise it may be, but there's plenty of
reason for it.
--
Aaron Boyden
"I may have done this and that for sufferers; but always I seemed to
have done better when I learned to feel better joys."
-Thus spoke Zarathustra
Eudaimonus
> Well, if "justified" and "true" can come apart, then you get Gettier
> problems.
I don't know the problems you refer to, but likely they are only
pseudo-problems - only "problems" because they clash to "intutions" of
"the way things should turn out", rather and consituting any formal
contradictions internal to the viewpoint.
> Apart from that, incomplete justification is pretty murky.
"Incomplete justification"? Why would justification that doesn't
guarantee truth be "incomplete"? Seems you are just assuming
> Is it probability?
What kind of probablity - logical or empirical? Metaphysical or
epistemological? There are many different notions of "probability".
> If so, are you completely justified in judgments of
> probability? If those judgments are themselves only probable, a
> puzzling regress develops. But if incomplete justification isn't the
> conferring of probability, what is it?
Well, that is the question now, isn't it? At this point, things become
very complicated.
> This is by no means the full story of why philosophers have done what
> you describe, but it should already cure you of the illusion that the
> move is totally unmotivated. Unwise it may be, but there's plenty of
> reason for it.
It still seems to me to be all very confused. In a sense, it represents
that very Cartesian desire to achieve what little bit of infallibility
that we can. A kind of neurotic desire that would rather make no
judgement than to have the littlest probablity of error.
That these considerations lead to making judgements that run counter to
the way we live out our day to day lives seems to me to show that
something somewhere must be wrong - if a doctrine comes to my attention
that would seems to indicate that some common practice, intricate and
neccessary to my everyday life (such as the belief that things are there
even when I turn my head away from them) are only "probable" and that I
have no right in reason to be "certain" of them, I have to wonder what
these doctrines mean by these terms.
My experience has been that doctrines of these types use these terms, or
whatever terms manage the same mental tricks, in ways that are both
deviant from the usage of comman man, and in ways that seem on the face
of it to be acceptable but that break down upon deeper anlysis into
their meaning.
Consider the notion of "logically possible." We all like to think we
know what it means, but what does it mean? Could you explain it to
somebody who had never had any prior aquaintence with it? I think not.
"Possible" gets explained by "not neccessarily true and not
neccessarily false" and "neccessarily true" get explained as "it must be
so" but "must" never gets explained without reference to neccessity, and
so "can" is never really explained either.
Of course, I can use "can" and "must" with as much skill as any speaker
of the English language. That is not what I mean when I say that I
don't know what "must" and "can" mean. What I mean is that I can give
absolutely no exposition of them, nor have I the foggiest notion of what
I am saying when I say "it could be so" or "it must be so". I know only
how to descriminate between contexts where it is proper or improper to
use them - I know not what they actually mean.
The Sophist
> The Sophist wrote:
>
>> Well, if "justified" and "true" can come apart, then you get Gettier
>> problems.
>
> I don't know the problems you refer to, but likely they are only
> pseudo-problems - only "problems" because they clash to "intutions" of
> "the way things should turn out", rather and consituting any formal
> contradictions internal to the viewpoint.
All right, here's one of the Gettier cases. Jones is justified in
believing that Smith owns a Ford (he's known Smith for a long time,
Smith has always owned fords, and Jones just saw Smith driving a Ford;
add as much as you like to get justification that's satisfactory to you,
as long as you don't make it infallible). Jones being a compulsive
logician, he infers that this is also true: "Either Smith owns a Ford,
or Brown is in Barcelona." He believes this as well, and if successful
deductive inference from justified beliefs doesn't produce further
justified beliefs, then logic isn't much use. However, unknown to
Jones, Smith actually sold his last Ford recently; he was driving a
borrowed or rented car or something. In addition, completely unknown to
Jones, Brown is in fact in Barcelona. So does Jones know that either
Smith owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona? He's justified in believing
the disjunction, and it's true. Is it only a "problem" with my
defective "intuitions" that I don't want to say he knows?
Immortalist
"Eudaimonus" <jwsc...@insightbb.com> wrote in message
news:3F5A9FD3...@insightbb.com...
> Immortalist wrote:
>
> > Do you know of a way to show that this belief of yours about,
"absolutely
> > cleared," is completely justified with no chance for error at all?
>
> "completely justified" "with no chance for error at all" ?????
>
> Do you think these two conceptions are the same?
>
I have used them the same along with "cannot be mistaken" as concerns
establishing sceptical foundations for building coherent interactive
networks of concepts and propositions to be tested. Here is where some of my
notes are, do you disagree with the association of coherence theory with
Julia Sets and systems theory?
Epistemologists find a number of problems with finding an meta-justification
standard for justifying emperical beliefs.
http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/TKno/TKnoHowa.htm
1. Suppose, that there are basic empirical beliefs, that is, emperical
beliefs (a) which are epistemically justified, and (b) whose justification
does not depend on that of any further empirical beliefs.
2. For a belief to be epistemically justified requires that there be a
reason
why it is likely to be true.
3. A belief is justified for a person only if he is in cognitive possession
of such a reason.
4. A person is in cognitive possession of such a reason only if he believes
with justification the premises from which it follows that the belief is
likely to be true.
5. The premises of such a justifying argument must include at least one
empirical premise.
6. So, the justification of a supposed basic empirical belief depends on the
justification of at least one other empirical belief, contradicting 1.
7. So, there can be no basic empirical beliefs including completely
justified sceptical beliefs.
The 7 propositions seem to eliminate the possibility of emperical
justification of any and all emperical beliefs. But it can lead to this
untruthfullness of human beliefs in three ways which deal with the apparent
"regress" of one belief depending upon another which depends upon another
and so on:
If the regress of emperical justification does not terminate in basic
emperical beliefs, then it must either:
(1) terminate in unjustified beleifs
(2) go on infinitely (without circularity)
(3) circle back upon itself in some way. (begging the question on steroids)
Julia Sets perform in similar ways:
http://www.icd.com/tsd/fractals/beginner2.htm
Attractor Types also display such:
http://www.wfu.edu/~petrejh4/Attractor.htm
1. Point attractor, such as a pendulum swinging back and forth and
eventually stopping at a point. The Attractor may come as a point, in which
case, it gives a steady state where no change is made.
2. Periodic attractor, just add a mainspring to the pendulum to compensate
for friction and the pendulum now has a limited cycle in its phase space.
The periodic attractor portrays processes that repeat themselves.
3. Torus attractor, picture walking on a large doughnut, going over, under
and around its outside surface area, circling, but never repeating exactly
the same path you went before.(11) The torus attractor depicts processes
that stay in a confined area but wander from place to place in that area.
(These first three attractors are not associated with Chaos theory because
they are fixed attractors.(12)
4. Strange attractor, this attractor deals with the three-body problem of
stability. The strange attractor shows processes that are stable, confined
and yet never do the same thing twice.
1. the values increase without bound (towards infinity)
2. the values collapse (to zero)
3. the values change, but do not seem be (1) or (2)
Scepticism, pragmatism, coherence theory, trial and error, popperism, all
use number three in a networked fasion with a cluster of beliefs that
support each other simualtaniously instead of sequencially to some degree
making them at least more justified than other foundational sequences can
eliminate the chance for error.
http://tinyurl.com/9lyi
http://tinyurl.com/9lyp
http://tinyurl.com/9lzf
ON: (3) circle back upon itself in some way. (begging the question on
steroids)
coherentisms only option!
If we think about justification moving in a linear direction, with one
proposition becomeing the justification for another we run into an viscious
regress that doesnt seem to end. It can be open ended and go on forever or
it can become circular where each support depending on the last leads to the
same supports over time. This is how scepticism defeated foundationalism. It
seems that all we were left with a hope for escape from this dilemma of no
certain knowledge is a modified version of the circular argument. Instead of
a linear regress of justifiactions we seek a nonlinear context of groups of
evidences or propositions emerging more evidence than other means of gaining
supports from evidences and propositions. Though we close the circle,
different circlular arguments, corespond to, predict, and manilulate, events
in the world, than other such arguments. If we have a competition amoungst
such partial certainties, we gain at least the best knowledge we can find.
Succesfully Competitive Inductive Cogency:
Depends upon the evidential and conceptual ("context") of reasoning. An
inductive argument from evidence to hypothesis is inductively cogent if and
only if the hypothesis is that hypothesis which, of all the competing
hypothesis, has the greatest probability of being true on the basis of the
evidence. Thus, whether it is reasonable to accept a hypothesis as true, if
the statements of evidence are true, is determined by whether that
hypothesis is the most probable, on the evidence, of all those with
which it competes.
Cornman, Lehrer, Papas;
Philisophical Problems & Arguments;
Page 33, Fourth Edition, 1992.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0872201244/
But this meshes with Poperism into and trial and error competition of the
group of the best theories, but still not completely justified:
The Rules of A Scientific Methodology
As a means of testing the validity of knowledge, Popper proposed a set of
"rules of scientific methodology" which he termed the "Hypothetico-Deductive
Model" of science.
"Hypothetico" means "based on hypotheses" and for Popper, the research
process revolves around the ability to develop and clearly state hypotheses
that can be tested in some way through social research.
Deduction (or to give it its proper name, deductive logic) is a way of
making authoritative statements (proofs) about what is not known by a
thorough analysis of what is known. The ability to make deductive statements
is a very powerful tool since it is the basis for drawing logical
conclusions about specific events from general events.
In sociological terms, a model is a small-scale representation of something
(such as, in this instance, a research process) that helps us to clarify the
relationship between the things involved by describing the relationship
between them in simplified terms. In this case, Popper's model suggests the
various steps we need to follow in order to "do research" and, as such,
helps us to organise the research process.
To put this in simpler terms, you will probably be familiar with fictional
detectives such as Sherlock Holmes. He solved a crime by systematically
investigating a case, collecting and analysing facts and, on the basis of
these facts, naming the person who committed the crime. This is an example
of deduction because Holmes was able to authoritatively state (or prove)
something specific (the identity of a murderer, for example) that was not
initially known on the basis of his general observations about things that
were initially known (the facts surrounding the case).
But some say anaylitic math truths may be internaly certain but trivial and
trapped in the box:
################################################
Why, then, did the empiricists reject rationalism? The fact is that
empirical philosophers find nonempirical claims, even the claims of
mathematics and logic, trivial. When it comes right down to it, the
empiricists say, a rationalistic piece of knowledge does not tell us
anything new. Empirical knowledge, by contrast, shows us something that we
did not know before.
It must be clear by now why empiricists reject rationalism. They see the
rationalist idea of truth and knowledge as little more than a game. Such
statements lead to no new facts about the world, no insights, no expanded
understanding of reality. The point of the process is to arrive at
conclusions by purely mental gymnastics. Rationalism stays within its
intellectual "box and never moves outside into the "real world." And that is
what empiricists mean when they say analytic statements are trivial.
There is a trade-off, of course. The empiricist loses the absolute certainty
of knowledge that rationalism provides. The knowledge produced by empirical
methods may be more interesting, but it may also be only probable. Whether
that trade is worth making you must decide for yourself when you have
finished examining the issues.
Discovering philosophy / Thomas I. White. --Brief ed.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0135080037/
###############################################
but this doesn't allow for "circuit properties of the math items influenced
externally. this way some prediction of math regularities in the box
interacting with the external context may be coherently anaylitic?
> I have detected a certain tendancy among some philosophers and layman
> alike who discuss the nature of knowledge. Insofar as knowledge is
> concieved of as "true justified belief", they seek to find some
> definition of "justified" and will render "true" redundant.
>
Are you speaking about "things-as-they-seem" or "things-in-themselves?" If
the former, we be in the realm of beliefs not facts (i believe?)
> Why that is however, I have yet to determine - I have found however, in
> every case of true Skepticism, an instance of that desire, and the
> frustration of it. It is it's root cause.
>
> For me, I side with Wittgenstien who said "not every _error_ is a
> _mistake_."
>
It -seems-likely- that: "not every _error_ is_a_mistake_."
Immortalist
> Immortalist wrote:
>
> > So how would a standard of knowledge (or "criterion of truth," in the
> > language of the Stoics) be defended? It could only be defended by
reference
> > to some standard or other. If the standard under dispute is invoked,
then
> > the question has been begged. If another standard is appealed to, the
> > question arises again, to be answered either by circular reasoning or by
> > appeal to yet another standard. So either the process of invoking
standards
> > does not terminate, or it ends in circular reasoning, and thus the
dispute
> > over the standard cannot be settled rationally.
>
> You are assuming that for all standards, the justificatiedness of it's
> being used has to be itself defended. That is, in order for any
> instance of applying the standard to be justified, once requires a
> meta-justification for the adoption of the standard.
>
I think the authors point was that these three outcomes cover the
possibility space. Like calculating the probability of rolling a single dice
and making a truth table of all possible outcomes withing the network of
conditions (where dice land) quantum rules (dice will land on only 1 of 6
possible quanta, and these components scale to 3 outcomes for attempts to
justify (beliefs.)
> But why would one think that? Is it not that the standard displays the
> properties that justify it, that justify it, outside of our ability to
> justify thinking it has those properties or that those properties
> justify it? Even if we were unable to justify our belief that we are
> justified in using the standard, would we still not be justified in
> using the standard, because it would still display those properties by
> virtue of which it is justified?
>
Coherence theory: "An empirical belief is realatively true if and only if it
coheres with a system of other beliefs, which together form a comprehensive
account of reality."
Stephen J. Gould, the Harvard Paleontologist, offers this definition: In
science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be
perverse to withhold provisional assent."
Succesfully Competitive Inductive Cogency:
Depends upon the evidential and conceptual ("context") of reasoning. An
inductive argument from evidence to hypothesis is inductively cogent if and
only if the hypothesis is that hypothesis which, of all the competing
hypothesis, has the greatest probability of being true on the basis of the
evidence. Thus, whether it is reasonable to accept a hypothesis as true, if
the statements of evidence are true, is determined by whether that
hypothesis is the most probable, on the evidence, of all those with which it
competes.
Cornman, Lehrer, Papas;
Philisophical Problems & Arguments;
Page 33, Fourth Edition, 1992.
http://www-philosophy.ucdavis.edu/phi102/lecmenu.htm
> Or, to put the point more technically, you are ignoring the possibility
> of foundationalist account.
>
Very good indeedy freind. But a coherentist account doesn't negate
foundationalist accounts but only beliefs about them. There is this little
problem of possible worlds and counter analogies when it comes to believing.
Cogency theory would claim that the possibility of foundationalism is hence
a probability since [it has not been yet shown how a belief about anything
could be completely justified]
> That is, the ability to defend a standard of knowledge is independant of
> the properiety of using the standard - one "ought" to use the "proper"
> standard, wither one can defend it or not.
>
It does seem that justification would be one of the parts that, at a higher
level of composition, is merely a sufficient but possibly not necessary
component? There are people who believe things with the justification of no
reason for those beliefs? Ya, thas the problem?
Robert McCurdy
bad at aiming.
The bullet goes off in the opposite direction, hitting a bull in the behind,
which races off and tramples Mr Brown to death.
How would you Know what was intended here?
If someone is a bad shot, you can't prove it.
Someone who is a good shot can prove they are.
Regards Robert
"The Sophist" <sop...@brown.edu> wrote in message
news:nFH6b.47328$xf.15293@lakeread06...
Max
Yeah. I would simply repeat what he said. :)
-Max
Eudaimonus
> Eudaimonus wrote:
>> The Sophist wrote:
>>
>>> Well, if "justified" and "true" can come apart, then you get Gettier
>>> problems.
>>
>> I don't know the problems you refer to, but likely they are only
>> pseudo-problems - only "problems" because they clash to "intutions" of
>> "the way things should turn out", rather and consituting any formal
>> contradictions internal to the viewpoint.
>
> All right, here's one of the Gettier cases. Jones is justified in
> believing that Smith owns a Ford (he's known Smith for a long time,
> Smith has always owned fords, and Jones just saw Smith driving a Ford;
> add as much as you like to get justification that's satisfactory to you,
> as long as you don't make it infallible). Jones being a compulsive
> logician, he infers that this is also true: "Either Smith owns a Ford,
> or Brown is in Barcelona." He believes this as well, and if successful
> deductive inference from justified beliefs doesn't produce further
> justified beliefs, then logic isn't much use. However, unknown to
> Jones, Smith actually sold his last Ford recently; he was driving a
> borrowed or rented car or something. In addition, completely unknown to
> Jones, Brown is in fact in Barcelona. So does Jones know that either
> Smith owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona? He's justified in believing
> the disjunction, and it's true. Is it only a "problem" with my
> defective "intuitions" that I don't want to say he knows?
The problem isn't that you think he doesn't know it. Of course, he does
not know it. The problem is that you think that one would have to, no
matter what one's account of justification is, grant that he would be
justified in believing "either ... or ..." if he were justified in
believing "...". If x, then x or y. That is true. But you seem to
think that this implies that if J<x> then J<x or y>. You say this
because, "if successful deductive inference from justified beliefs
doesn't produce further justified beliefs, then logic isn't much use".
THIS is the "intuition" that causes you your problems.
Consider Nozick's criteria of justification - J(S,p) iff (p -> S would
not believe ~p) & (~p -> S would not believe p) ) It seems intuitively
reasonable, but it is not closed over logical entailment. The reason
that Jones is _not_ justified (on this account) in believing <x or y>
when he is justified in believing <x> is that if <x or y> were true by
virtue of y being true, he might well believe that <x or y> is not true,
and he might well believe it to be so when it is not. His beliefs track
x but they do not track y, ergo they do not track x or y.
This is just an example, to point out that prima facia reasonable
seeming accounts of justification can be given that aren't closed over
logical entailment. You have an intution that this is wrong - that
somehow this result from a theory would invalidate the theory. But I
again say - this is not because of any internal inconsistence thereby,
but because it conflicts with one of your intuitions.
Eudaimonus
> "Eudaimonus" <jwsc...@insightbb.com> wrote in message
> news:3F5A9FD3...@insightbb.com...
>
>
>
> I have used them the same along with "cannot be mistaken" as concerns
> establishing sceptical foundations for building coherent interactive
> networks of concepts and propositions to be tested. Here is where some of my
> notes are, do you disagree with the association of coherence theory with
> Julia Sets and systems theory?
>
> Epistemologists find a number of problems with finding an meta-justification
> standard for justifying emperical beliefs.
>
> http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/TKno/TKnoHowa.htm
>
> 1. Suppose, that there are basic empirical beliefs, that is, emperical
> beliefs (a) which are epistemically justified, and (b) whose justification
> does not depend on that of any further empirical beliefs.
>
> 2. For a belief to be epistemically justified requires that there be a
> reason
> why it is likely to be true.
Why do you think this is true? I don't see why it couldn't be false.
It has to be justified by virtue of some feature of it. But must that
feature be one that makes it likely to be true? It may well be that
what justifies our beliefs is something that doesn't consitute a reason
why it's likely to be true. It may be something more basic that
justifies us - evolution prehaps or something even more complicated
> 3. A belief is justified for a person only if he is in cognitive possession
> of such a reason.
Even given 2, this is a much stronger assertion, and much more likely to
be false. This seems to be saying that in order to be justified you
must _know_ that what justifies you obtains, not mearly that it does so
obtain, but that you know that it does. (Must, by your lights, you also
know that that feature obtaining justifies it, in addition to knowing
that it has that feature? Must he not only be "in cognative possession
of such a reason" but also see that reason _as_ being a reason for it's
being justified?)
I don't see why it would not be enough for you to be justified, simply
for what justifies you to obtain. Why must you also know that it
obtains? Surely, you need to know that in order to _know_ that you are
justified in having the belief, but is that not a totally seperate
matter from what has to be so in order for you to _be_ justified?
> 4. A person is in cognitive possession of such a reason only if he believes
> with justification the premises from which it follows that the belief is
> likely to be true.
>
> 5. The premises of such a justifying argument must include at least one
> empirical premise.
>
> 6. So, the justification of a supposed basic empirical belief depends on the
> justification of at least one other empirical belief, contradicting 1.
>
> 7. So, there can be no basic empirical beliefs including completely
> justified sceptical beliefs.
>
> The 7 propositions seem to eliminate the possibility of emperical
> justification of any and all emperical beliefs. But it can lead to this
> untruthfullness of human beliefs in three ways which deal with the apparent
> "regress" of one belief depending upon another which depends upon another
> and so on:
Granted your premises, your conclusion follows clearly and logically.
But there are those, myself included, who find those premises to be
problematic.
<snipped for space, since it's all irrelivent given what I have said above>
> ################################################
>
> Why, then, did the empiricists reject rationalism? The fact is that
> empirical philosophers find nonempirical claims, even the claims of
> mathematics and logic, trivial. When it comes right down to it, the
> empiricists say, a rationalistic piece of knowledge does not tell us
> anything new. Empirical knowledge, by contrast, shows us something that we
> did not know before.
>
> It must be clear by now why empiricists reject rationalism. They see the
> rationalist idea of truth and knowledge as little more than a game. Such
> statements lead to no new facts about the world, no insights, no expanded
> understanding of reality. The point of the process is to arrive at
> conclusions by purely mental gymnastics. Rationalism stays within its
> intellectual "box and never moves outside into the "real world." And that is
> what empiricists mean when they say analytic statements are trivial.
>
> There is a trade-off, of course. The empiricist loses the absolute certainty
> of knowledge that rationalism provides. The knowledge produced by empirical
> methods may be more interesting, but it may also be only probable. Whether
> that trade is worth making you must decide for yourself when you have
> finished examining the issues.
>
> Discovering philosophy / Thomas I. White. --Brief ed.
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0135080037/
>
> ###############################################
I wonder what Thomas I. White would think of those who deny the
analytic/synthetic dichotomy?
>>I have detected a certain tendancy among some philosophers and layman
>>alike who discuss the nature of knowledge. Insofar as knowledge is
>>concieved of as "true justified belief", they seek to find some
>>definition of "justified" and will render "true" redundant.
>
> Are you speaking about "things-as-they-seem" or "things-in-themselves?" If
> the former, we be in the realm of beliefs not facts (i believe?)
Being as I am a direct realist, and an adherent to an internalist
account of relations, I have no way to answering your question "Are you
speaking about 'things as they seem' or 'things in themselves'". Things
in themselves are, when they appear to me, in themselves appearing to
me, the "appearance" relation being part of the identity of the object.
That is, whenever I refer to anything I am refering to that thing which
is in itself appearing to me. There is, by might lights, only one thing
to choose from, not two.
Eudaimonus
> "Eudaimonus" <jwsc...@insightbb.com> wrote in message
> news:3F5A9E28...@insightbb.com...
>
>>being used has to be itself defended. That is, in order for any
>>instance of applying the standard to be justified, once requires a
>>meta-justification for the adoption of the standard.
>
> I think the authors point was that these three outcomes cover the
> possibility space. Like calculating the probability of rolling a single dice
> and making a truth table of all possible outcomes withing the network of
> conditions (where dice land) quantum rules (dice will land on only 1 of 6
> possible quanta, and these components scale to 3 outcomes for attempts to
> justify (beliefs.)
I see my job, philosophically speaking, as the questioning of just such
assumptions. I am, in short, methodologically dialectical. ARE those
three outcomes the only three possible outcomes? You say the die has
three sides - does it? Me, I'm not for taking anybody's word for it but
looking at it myself.
>>But why would one think that? Is it not that the standard displays the
>>properties that justify it, that justify it, outside of our ability to
>>justify thinking it has those properties or that those properties
>>justify it? Even if we were unable to justify our belief that we are
>>justified in using the standard, would we still not be justified in
>>using the standard, because it would still display those properties by
>>virtue of which it is justified?
>
>
> Coherence theory: "An empirical belief is realatively true if and only if it
> coheres with a system of other beliefs, which together form a comprehensive
> account of reality."
You think I don't know what coherence theory is? You wound me!
> Stephen J. Gould, the Harvard Paleontologist, offers this definition: In
> science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would be
> perverse to withhold provisional assent."
Well, Stephan J Gould is a Paleontologist, not a philosopher, so I
wonder why his opinion on the meaning of "fact" matters. A "fact" is,
well, that which is. To be a fact is to be, as we say, "ontic". Gould
seems to be under the sway of pragmatism, which confuses justification
with truth. What he describes is a quite reasonable standard by which
to guide one's judgements as to what is a fact and what is not a fact.
But that doesn't make it what the word "fact" means.
> Succesfully Competitive Inductive Cogency:
> Depends upon the evidential and conceptual ("context") of reasoning. An
> inductive argument from evidence to hypothesis is inductively cogent if and
> only if the hypothesis is that hypothesis which, of all the competing
> hypothesis, has the greatest probability of being true on the basis of the
> evidence. Thus, whether it is reasonable to accept a hypothesis as true, if
> the statements of evidence are true, is determined by whether that
> hypothesis is the most probable, on the evidence, of all those with which it
> competes.
That is, strickly speaking, abduction not induction. (Though, induction
is prehaps best understood as a specific kind of abduction).
> Cornman, Lehrer, Papas;
> Philisophical Problems & Arguments;
> Page 33, Fourth Edition, 1992.
>
> http://www-philosophy.ucdavis.edu/phi102/lecmenu.htm
Where all of your sources written fifty years ago? It seems to me that
you are bringing forth positions as obvious that are currently in a
state of being under seige.
It's as if Quine had never written "Two Dogmas of Empiricism". You
don't even bother to hand wave away stuff like that.
>>Or, to put the point more technically, you are ignoring the possibility
>>of foundationalist account.
>
> Very good indeedy freind. But a coherentist account doesn't negate
> foundationalist accounts but only beliefs about them. There is this little
> problem of possible worlds and counter analogies when it comes to believing.
> Cogency theory would claim that the possibility of foundationalism is hence
> a probability since [it has not been yet shown how a belief about anything
> could be completely justified]
Obviously, in your system, there are certain presumptions that make even
the conception of a foundationalist account impossible. But it is
presisely those presumption that are the least defensible part of your
systematic thinking on this subject.
>>That is, the ability to defend a standard of knowledge is independant of
>>the properiety of using the standard - one "ought" to use the "proper"
>>standard, wither one can defend it or not.
>
> It does seem that justification would be one of the parts that, at a higher
> level of composition, is merely a sufficient but possibly not necessary
> component? There are people who believe things with the justification of no
> reason for those beliefs? Ya, thas the problem?
You are equivocating on "reason". A person who has a justificed belief
clearly has _some_ "reason" that is, some cause, for being justified in
that belief - that cause is whatever feature obtains by virtue of which
the belief is justified. But, he may have a "reason" in that sense,
without having a "reason" in the sense of having a arrived at the belief
through a process of the application of logic.
When the common man says "there was a reason why he was justified in
believing that" he is saying something very different from what he says
when he says "he had a reason for that belief which justifies it".
The Sophist
> This feels like the guy (Mr Jones) who took a shot at Mr Brown, but is very
> bad at aiming.
> The bullet goes off in the opposite direction, hitting a bull in the behind,
> which races off and tramples Mr Brown to death.
>
> How would you Know what was intended here?
>
> If someone is a bad shot, you can't prove it.
> Someone who is a good shot can prove they are.
I don't believe you understand the example. First off, if the case were
to be parallel, Mr. Jones would be a perfectly good shot who happened to
be extremely unlucky. Second, in the Gettier case, there is no mystery
about anybody's motivations; Mr. Jones has no interest in hiding
anything, so we can just ask him what his intentions are. So I don't
see the relevance of your reply. Here's the case again, if you wish to
amend your response:
The Sophist
> The problem isn't that you think he doesn't know it. Of course, he does
> not know it. The problem is that you think that one would have to, no
> matter what one's account of justification is, grant that he would be
> justified in believing "either ... or ..." if he were justified in
> believing "...". If x, then x or y. That is true. But you seem to
> think that this implies that if J<x> then J<x or y>. You say this
> because, "if successful deductive inference from justified beliefs
> doesn't produce further justified beliefs, then logic isn't much use".
> THIS is the "intuition" that causes you your problems.
>
> Consider Nozick's criteria of justification - J(S,p) iff (p -> S would
> not believe ~p) & (~p -> S would not believe p) ) It seems intuitively
> reasonable, but it is not closed over logical entailment. The reason
> that Jones is _not_ justified (on this account) in believing <x or y>
> when he is justified in believing <x> is that if <x or y> were true by
> virtue of y being true, he might well believe that <x or y> is not true,
> and he might well believe it to be so when it is not. His beliefs track
> x but they do not track y, ergo they do not track x or y.
Of course I am aware of Nozick's account, and in my opinion it is not an
account of justification. It appears to me that Nozick's account, and
externalist accounts generally, describe a different phenomenon
entirely, and are unsatisfying because they fail to account for the
intuitive connection between genuine justification (which is probably
inherently internalist) and knowledge. Admittedly, such an approach
might be better than the alternatives, but at present I have a mild
preference for the Lewis-style contextualist approach, and its
(admittedly rather shady) way of being both infallibilist and
fallibilist at the same time. And one of the reasons I favor a
contextualist account (or almost any other) over Nozick's or many
externalist accounts is that the closure of justification over known
entailment is very powerful, so I consider it a major strike against a
theory if it does not preserve that.
Immortalist
A general argument against the invocation of any standard for knowledge has
come to be known as "the problem of the criterion." As we have just seen,
there have been disputes about standards of knowledge. Some are about
particular kinds of arguments that provide evidence for knowledge claims. As
we will see shortly, others are about the degree of evidential support or
reliability required for knowledge. The Pyrrhonian skeptics argued that such
disputes cannot be settled.
If the dispute is to be settled rationally, there must be some means for
settling it. It would do no good of each side simply to assert its position
without argument. So how would a standard of knowledge (or "criterion of
truth," in the language of the Stoics) be defended? It could only be
defended by reference to some standard or other. If the standard under
dispute is invoked, then the question has been begged. If another standard
is appealed to, the question arises again, to be answered either by circular
reasoning or by appeal to yet another standard. So either the process of
invoking standards does not terminate, or it ends in circular reasoning, and
thus the dispute over the standard cannot be settled rationally.
http://www-philosophy.ucdavis.edu/phi102/tkch9.htm
> > 3. A belief is justified for a person only if he is in cognitive
possession
> > of such a reason.
>
> Even given 2, this is a much stronger assertion, and much more likely to
> be false. This seems to be saying that in order to be justified you
> must _know_ that what justifies you obtains, not mearly that it does so
> obtain, but that you know that it does. (Must, by your lights, you also
> know that that feature obtaining justifies it, in addition to knowing
> that it has that feature? Must he not only be "in cognative possession
> of such a reason" but also see that reason _as_ being a reason for it's
> being justified?)
>
What all foundationalist theories do have in common is the view that all
justification ends with evidence that justifies but is justified by nothing
else. Such stopping points are the foundations of all justification, and
therefore of all knowledge. On Lehrer's account of foundationalism, the
stopping point is a "basic belief." Any version of foundationalism of this
sort is "doxastic" foundationalism, that is, a version where the
foundational evidence is a belief. (The Greek word 'doxa' signifies 'belief'
in English.) Lehrer's foundationalist also holds that basic beliefs must be
justified in order to justify other beliefs. Since they are not justified by
anything else, the basic beliefs could only be self-justified. As we will
see, a foundationalism described in the way will have a hard time getting
off the ground.
There is room for some variation here, however. One account would be that
there are basic beliefs which, although they justify other beliefs, are not
themselves justified. This does not seem to be a very promising approach,
however. Beliefs without justification of their own would seem to have no
credentials for conferring justification on other beliefs.
This kind of objection is less urgent if the foundational evidence consists
of non-doxastic psychological states, such as sense-perceptions or memories.
As has been pointed out by many philosophers throughout the ages, there is
no truth or falsehood in sense-perception, so we should not expect
sense-perceptions or memories to be justified. John Pollock holds a view of
this sort. (John L. Pollock and Jospeh Cruz, Contemporary Theories of
Knowledge, second edition, Chapter 7. As this idea and others cited below
are found in the first edition, whose sole author is Pollock, I shall
attribute the quotations to Pollock.) Lehrer acknowledges this as "an
alternative to the kind of foundationalism discussed in this chapter," but
allows only that it "resembles foundationalism" (p. 68). He is silent about
the merits of this approach, but it may well be be that it would be able to
stand up to the objections Lehrer raises against foundations theories
involving self-justified basic beliefs. We will have to put off these
considerations until the next chapter.
http://www-philosophy.ucdavis.edu/phi102/tkch3.htm
> I don't see why it would not be enough for you to be justified, simply
> for what justifies you to obtain. Why must you also know that it
> obtains? Surely, you need to know that in order to _know_ that you are
> justified in having the belief, but is that not a totally seperate
> matter from what has to be so in order for you to _be_ justified?
>
It may be that if there are no self-justified beliefs, then there are no
justified beliefs whatsoever. An argument for this conclusion can be
generated easily, based on Aristotle's "logical" motivation for
foundationalism.
1. If there are no self-justified beliefs, then the process of justification
is either endless or else loops back on itself in a circle.
An endless or circular process cannot produce justification.
2. Therefore, if there are no self-justified beliefs, then there is no
process that produces justification.
3. If there is no process that produces justification, then no beliefs are
justified.
4. Therefore, if there are no self-justified beliefs, then there are no
justified beliefs.
Lehrer wishes to avoid skepticism, so he tries to counter this argument.
The first attack is a denial of the claim made in step 4. Justification,
according to Lehrer, need not be a process at all. We commonly think of
justification in terms of a process of "appealing to evidence," as is
reflected in Lehrer's linkage of justification with answering the question
"How do you know?" To give an answer, one would appeal to evidence. But S
can be justified without such an appeal if p, the information at issue, is
related to the body of S's beliefs by cohering with it in a suitable way.
Lehrer motivates this view by appealing to analogies.
A belief such as this one [that my friend is now in Tucson] may be justified
for a person because of some relation of the belief to a system of
information to which it belongs, the way it coheres with the system, just as
a color in a painting may be beautiful because of some relation of the color
to the other components in the painting, or as a piece in a puzzle has place
in it because of the way in which it fits with the other pieces. (p. 98)
This is a plausible response, since we typically ascribe knowledge to people
who have not gone through any explicit process which we might call "appeal
to evidence."
http://www-philosophy.ucdavis.edu/phi102/tkch5.htm
> > 4. A person is in cognitive possession of such a reason only if he
believes
> > with justification the premises from which it follows that the belief is
> > likely to be true.
> >
> > 5. The premises of such a justifying argument must include at least one
> > empirical premise.
> >
> > 6. So, the justification of a supposed basic empirical belief depends on
the
> > justification of at least one other empirical belief, contradicting 1.
> >
> > 7. So, there can be no basic empirical beliefs including completely
> > justified sceptical beliefs.
> >
> > The 7 propositions seem to eliminate the possibility of emperical
> > justification of any and all emperical beliefs. But it can lead to this
> > untruthfullness of human beliefs in three ways which deal with the
apparent
> > "regress" of one belief depending upon another which depends upon
another
> > and so on:
>
> Granted your premises, your conclusion follows clearly and logically.
> But there are those, myself included, who find those premises to be
> problematic.
>
The construction of criteria and theories depends upon a interactive network
of incompletely justified concepts which can be used in a competition of
such criteria and theories.
Here we see an attempt to show that there is something whose existence
cannot be denied and which is such that we can and do know it with
certainty. It is commonly referred to as 'the given'. It is what is
immediately presented to consciousness. Even in erroneous perception, we
will be told to just accept, something is still perceived. Neither illusion
nor hallucination is characterized by perceptual vacuity - there always is
something given. Berkeley spoke of 'the proper object of the senses', and A.
J. Ayer and others of 'sense-data'....
----------
Right now, you should be able to know that you think you are beginning to
read a philosophy paper. At least, you should know something about your
strictly present ("occurrent") experience. How is this possible unless
something is "given" at the very moment of your experience? Widespread
acceptance of the thesis that the given is a myth may make this question
seem old-fashioned (Rorty, 1979). I would like to argue that such a question
is still viable and may even help guide naturalistic attempts to deal with
mental phenomena. My approach will be novel in that I want to go beyond
ordinary analytic epistemology, that is, beyond the analysis of epistemic
concepts and beyond the construction of rival foundational or coherence
philosophies. I want to test such theories by seeing how well they account
for certain aspects of the temporality of experience. My result will also be
novel, for the thesis that will emerge is that if we make certain plausible
assumptions about time and experience (assumptions that a coherence theorist
might typically make) then there are plausible theoretical reasons for
positing some form of the given.
http://csmaclab-www.uchicago.edu/philosophyProject/sellars/hoy/gsp.html
The Myth of the Myth of the Given:
But if a sense-datum philosopher takes the ability to sense sense contents
to be unacquired, he is clearly precluded from offering an analysis of x
senses a sense content which presupposes acquired abilities. It follows that
he could analyze x senses red sense content s as x non-inferentially knows
that x is red only if he is prepared to admit that the ability to have such
non-inferential knowledge as that, for example, a red sense content is red,
is itself unacquired. And this brings us face to face with the fact that
most empirically minded philosophers are strongly inclined to think that all
classificatory consciousness, all knowledge that something is thus and so,
or in logical jargon, all subsumption of particulars under universals,
involves learning, concept formation, even the use of symbols. It is clear
from the above analysis, therefore, that classical sense-datum theories ...
are confronted by an inconsistent triad made up of the following three
propositions:
X senses red sense content s entails x non-inferentially knows that s is
red.
The ability to sense sense contents is unacquired.
The ability to know facts of the form x is F is acquired.
Once the classical sense-datum theorist faces up to the fact that A,B and C
do form an inconsistent triad, which of them will he choose to abandon?
(EPM, 132)
http://www.ditext.com/vinci/mmg.html
...But then where do I dissent from Sellars' attack on the given? It comes
over the question of whether we have a direct (nonconceptual) awareness of
particulars, one that constitutes a kind of cognition of a nonconceptual,
nonpropositional sort. Sellars, as I read him, is concerned to deny this.
though he never says so in so many words (at least not in EPM). Indeed, it
is not clear to me whether Sellars wishes to deny all nonconceptual
awareness of particulars. He does make it crystal clear that he rejects any
nonconceptual awareness of sorts, and, depending on what counts as an
"awareness of sorts", I am not disposed to disagree with him on that. But as
to whether he rejects all nonconceptual awareness of particulars, I am
forced to rely on various not wholly unambiguous pointers. He does hold that
perceptual experience involves "propositional claims", which would make it c
onceptualized and from which it presumably follows that perception does not
involve a nonconceptual awareness of particulars...
http://www.ditext.com/alston/alston2.html
** http://www.ditext.com/bonjour/bonjour1.html **
Immortalist
"Max" <max197...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:baa549eb.03090...@posting.google.com...
> "Immortalist" <Reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:<vlkjm5b...@corp.supernews.com>...
> > "Max" <max197...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:baa549eb.03090...@posting.google.com...
> > > Sean McCrohan <mccr...@mindspring.com> wrote in message news:
> > > > I'm afraid I'm rambling.
> > >
> > > No, you're not, and it's worth reading. You absolutely cleared this
up.
> > > -Max
> >
> > Do you know of a way to show that this belief of yours about,
"absolutely
> > cleared," is completely justified with no chance for error at all?
>
> Yeah. I would simply repeat what he said. :)
> -Max
So you request that we simply trust you?
Immortalist
> Immortalist wrote:
> > "Eudaimonus" <jwsc...@insightbb.com> wrote in message
> > news:3F5A9E28...@insightbb.com...
> >
> >>You are assuming that for all standards, the justificatiedness of it's
> >>being used has to be itself defended. That is, in order for any
> >>instance of applying the standard to be justified, once requires a
> >>meta-justification for the adoption of the standard.
> >
> > I think the authors point was that these three outcomes cover the
> > possibility space. Like calculating the probability of rolling a single
dice
> > and making a truth table of all possible outcomes withing the network of
> > conditions (where dice land) quantum rules (dice will land on only 1 of
6
> > possible quanta, and these components scale to 3 outcomes for attempts
to
> > justify (beliefs.)
>
> I see my job, philosophically speaking, as the questioning of just such
> assumptions. I am, in short, methodologically dialectical. ARE those
> three outcomes the only three possible outcomes? You say the die has
> three sides - does it? Me, I'm not for taking anybody's word for it but
> looking at it myself.
>
It seems those are the only three outcomes but can you think of any other?
If the regress of emperical justification does not terminate in basic
emperical beliefs, then it must either:
(1) terminate in unjustified beleifs
(2) go on infinitely (without circularity)
(3) circle back upon itself in some way.
(4)
> >>But why would one think that? Is it not that the standard displays the
> >>properties that justify it, that justify it, outside of our ability to
> >>justify thinking it has those properties or that those properties
> >>justify it? Even if we were unable to justify our belief that we are
> >>justified in using the standard, would we still not be justified in
> >>using the standard, because it would still display those properties by
> >>virtue of which it is justified?
> >
> >
> > Coherence theory: "An empirical belief is realatively true if and only
if it
> > coheres with a system of other beliefs, which together form a
comprehensive
> > account of reality."
>
> You think I don't know what coherence theory is? You wound me!
>
You think that statement about coherence theory was an imlpication that you
didn't know what it was? How do you attribute such to me or on what evidence
have you that I would patronize you?
> > Stephen J. Gould, the Harvard Paleontologist, offers this definition: In
> > science, "fact" can only mean "confirmed to such a degree that it would
be
> > perverse to withhold provisional assent."
>
> Well, Stephan J Gould is a Paleontologist, not a philosopher, so I
> wonder why his opinion on the meaning of "fact" matters. A "fact" is,
> well, that which is. To be a fact is to be, as we say, "ontic". Gould
> seems to be under the sway of pragmatism, which confuses justification
> with truth. What he describes is a quite reasonable standard by which
> to guide one's judgements as to what is a fact and what is not a fact.
> But that doesn't make it what the word "fact" means.
>
I just thought it was a cool quote.
> > Succesfully Competitive Inductive Cogency:
> > Depends upon the evidential and conceptual ("context") of reasoning. An
> > inductive argument from evidence to hypothesis is inductively cogent if
and
> > only if the hypothesis is that hypothesis which, of all the competing
> > hypothesis, has the greatest probability of being true on the basis of
the
> > evidence. Thus, whether it is reasonable to accept a hypothesis as true,
if
> > the statements of evidence are true, is determined by whether that
> > hypothesis is the most probable, on the evidence, of all those with
which it
> > competes.
>
> That is, strickly speaking, abduction not induction. (Though, induction
> is prehaps best understood as a specific kind of abduction).
>
Interesting
http://seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/~behrens/asu/reports/Peirce/Logic_of_EDA.html
> > Cornman, Lehrer, Papas;
> > Philisophical Problems & Arguments;
> > Page 33, Fourth Edition, 1992.
> >
> > http://www-philosophy.ucdavis.edu/phi102/lecmenu.htm
>
> Where all of your sources written fifty years ago? It seems to me that
> you are bringing forth positions as obvious that are currently in a
> state of being under seige.
>
> It's as if Quine had never written "Two Dogmas of Empiricism". You
> don't even bother to hand wave away stuff like that.
>
We seem to be what we presently are.
> >>Or, to put the point more technically, you are ignoring the possibility
> >>of foundationalist account.
> >
> > Very good indeedy freind. But a coherentist account doesn't negate
> > foundationalist accounts but only beliefs about them. There is this
little
> > problem of possible worlds and counter analogies when it comes to
believing.
> > Cogency theory would claim that the possibility of foundationalism is
hence
> > a probability since [it has not been yet shown how a belief about
anything
> > could be completely justified]
>
> Obviously, in your system, there are certain presumptions that make even
> the conception of a foundationalist account impossible. But it is
> presisely those presumption that are the least defensible part of your
> systematic thinking on this subject.
>
You have more justifiable assumptions?
> >>That is, the ability to defend a standard of knowledge is independant of
> >>the properiety of using the standard - one "ought" to use the "proper"
> >>standard, wither one can defend it or not.
> >
> > It does seem that justification would be one of the parts that, at a
higher
> > level of composition, is merely a sufficient but possibly not necessary
> > component? There are people who believe things with the justification of
no
> > reason for those beliefs? Ya, thas the problem?
>
> You are equivocating on "reason". A person who has a justificed belief
> clearly has _some_ "reason" that is, some cause, for being justified in
> that belief - that cause is whatever feature obtains by virtue of which
> the belief is justified. But, he may have a "reason" in that sense,
> without having a "reason" in the sense of having a arrived at the belief
> through a process of the application of logic.
>
If reasons have components then to talk of them and their relation to the
irreducable properties of this.whole, would not be to commit the fallacy of
composition or division.
http://gncurtis.home.texas.net/composit.html
http://gncurtis.home.texas.net/division.html
> When the common man says "there was a reason why he was justified in
> believing that" he is saying something very different from what he says
> when he says "he had a reason for that belief which justifies it".
>
In the second statement, "he had a reason for that belief which justifies
it", was the reason another belief?
>
Russell Easterly
>Or more generally,
> the validity of the reasoning is totally divorced from the likelihood
> of the assumptions themselves.
>
> a) If all flying things are purple AND
> b) If pigs can fly THEN
> c) Pigs are purple
>
> is logically sound, for all that it's nonsense. We can clearly see that,
> were the first two clauses true, the third necessarily follows.
Aren't you making an assumption here?
You are assuming that deduction works.
I remember one post where someone claimed that deduction was "true".
I argued that it was a fortuitous accident that deduction "works".
I think that we have chosen rules of deduction
that correspond to our observations of the "real" world.
Russell
- 2 many 2 count
mitch
Immortalist wrote:
>
> In the second statement, "he had a reason for that belief which justifies
> it", was the reason another belief?
>
> >
Immortalist,
Since reading your references to Lehrer's work, I ran into something called the
Transferable Belief Model. Here are the first two links from a Google search.
I have read the second.
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/Projects/trans.html
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~psmets/TBM_and_DST.pdf
The interesting thing for me is that it reduces to sets of beliefs
(coherentism?). This is comparable to what happens as partial truth definitions
are weakened in relation to a truth definition called supervaluation that arose
from consideration of the heap paradox. The logic of these formulations of a
truth definition is not based on deduction from premises. Rather, it is based
on deductions from sets of premises against with a given atomic premise is
introduced as both an affirmative and a negative. This transferable belief
model seems to be a related reduction in terms of "justification" (that is,
belief) rather than "provability" (that is, truth).
:-)
mitch
Immortalist
"mitch" <mit...@rcnNOSPAM.com> wrote in message
news:3F5DA8B6...@rcnNOSPAM.com...
interesting, checking it out:
http://yukon.genie.uottawa.ca/~vlad/heap.html
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/Projects/trans.html
http://www.pmg.lcs.mit.edu/~chandra/publications/heap.pdf
http://www.bioinfo.de/isb/gcb01/poster/schwehm.html
applied mesology
http://www.cimms.ou.edu/~doswell/a_tornado/atornado.html
THE IMPRECISE PROBABILITIES PROJECT
http://ippserv.rug.ac.be/
Dempster-Shafer Theory of Evidence
http://www.dei.unipd.it/~cuzzolin/Belief.htm
>
>
Eudaimonus
> Of course I am aware of Nozick's account, and in my opinion it is not an
> account of justification. It appears to me that Nozick's account, and
> externalist accounts generally, describe a different phenomenon
> entirely, and are unsatisfying because they fail to account for the
> intuitive connection between genuine justification (which is probably
> inherently internalist) and knowledge. Admittedly, such an approach
> might be better than the alternatives, but at present I have a mild
> preference for the Lewis-style contextualist approach, and its
> (admittedly rather shady) way of being both infallibilist and
> fallibilist at the same time. And one of the reasons I favor a
> contextualist account (or almost any other) over Nozick's or many
> externalist accounts is that the closure of justification over known
> entailment is very powerful, so I consider it a major strike against a
> theory if it does not preserve that.
This is precisely what I was saying about the possible views one could
take. To not count those kinds of views among the list of possible
views, is to rig the game. It is to say not just that there is a
principle it contradicts that can't be wrong, but that one can't even
contradict it, or hold that it is false. Which of course, does not follow.
That is to say, that is insufficient reason to not include externalist
views among the possible views - the reason that you find them false.
Eudaimonus
> A general argument against the invocation of any standard for knowledge has
> come to be known as "the problem of the criterion." As we have just seen,
> there have been disputes about standards of knowledge. Some are about
> particular kinds of arguments that provide evidence for knowledge claims. As
> we will see shortly, others are about the degree of evidential support or
> reliability required for knowledge. The Pyrrhonian skeptics argued that such
> disputes cannot be settled.
> If the dispute is to be settled rationally, there must be some means for
> settling it. It would do no good of each side simply to assert its position
> without argument. So how would a standard of knowledge (or "criterion of
> truth," in the language of the Stoics) be defended? It could only be
> defended by reference to some standard or other. If the standard under
> dispute is invoked, then the question has been begged. If another standard
> is appealed to, the question arises again, to be answered either by circular
> reasoning or by appeal to yet another standard. So either the process of
> invoking standards does not terminate, or it ends in circular reasoning, and
> thus the dispute over the standard cannot be settled rationally.
>
> http://www-philosophy.ucdavis.edu/phi102/tkch9.htm
One possible way out of this problem is the use of the arguement by
refution. One supposes that criteria A is true, and then using that
criterea, one proceeds to show that criteria A is false. This would
successfully show that criteria A is false, without assumption of it's
falsehood (which is the essense of the problem).
This is how most philosophers who argue for something as axiomatic do so.
> What all foundationalist theories do have in common is the view that all
> justification ends with evidence that justifies but is justified by nothing
> else. Such stopping points are the foundations of all justification, and
> therefore of all knowledge. On Lehrer's account of foundationalism, the
> stopping point is a "basic belief." Any version of foundationalism of this
> sort is "doxastic" foundationalism, that is, a version where the
> foundational evidence is a belief.
I see no reason to suppose that a foundationalist would hold that the
"ulitmate" "basic" evidence is a belief. You are supposing, I think,
that all "evidence" is "belief", but one might suppose, with I think,
the masses on one's side, that the ultimate evidence involved in, say,
sense perception, is not the beliefs to which it gives rise which are
foundationally justified, but rather the actual objects themselves.
> (The Greek word 'doxa' signifies 'belief'
> in English.) Lehrer's foundationalist also holds that basic beliefs must be
> justified in order to justify other beliefs. Since they are not justified by
> anything else, the basic beliefs could only be self-justified.
I see no reason why it would have to be "self-justified" You are saying
in order for something to be foundationally justified, it must also
serve as a justification for itself. But that no other justified belief
justifies it is precisely what makes it foundational.
The property "foundationally justified" is not the same as the relation
"justifies" understood as being self-reflexive. Logically, one could
have the former without having the latter.
> As we will
> see, a foundationalism described in the way will have a hard time getting
> off the ground.
Indeed! If, that is, the foundationalist would grant the above, but I
doubt they would.
> There is room for some variation here, however. One account would be that
> there are basic beliefs which, although they justify other beliefs, are not
> themselves justified. This does not seem to be a very promising approach,
> however.
That depends upon what you mean by "is justified". If "is justified" is
considered in terms of the relation "is justifed by" then foundational
beliefs are not "justified" in that sense, but that if one considers "is
justified" to be a simple property, not a relation between beliefs (but
that is 'complete' over a certain relation between beliefs), then it
would certainly be possible for a belief to be "justified" in that sense
> Beliefs without justification of their own would seem to have no
> credentials for conferring justification on other beliefs.
Certainly agreed.
> This kind of objection is less urgent if the foundational evidence consists
> of non-doxastic psychological states, such as sense-perceptions or memories.
> As has been pointed out by many philosophers throughout the ages, there is
> no truth or falsehood in sense-perception, so we should not expect
> sense-perceptions or memories to be justified. John Pollock holds a view of
> this sort. (John L. Pollock and Jospeh Cruz, Contemporary Theories of
> Knowledge, second edition, Chapter 7. As this idea and others cited below
> are found in the first edition, whose sole author is Pollock, I shall
> attribute the quotations to Pollock.) Lehrer acknowledges this as "an
> alternative to the kind of foundationalism discussed in this chapter," but
> allows only that it "resembles foundationalism" (p. 68). He is silent about
> the merits of this approach, but it may well be be that it would be able to
> stand up to the objections Lehrer raises against foundations theories
> involving self-justified basic beliefs. We will have to put off these
> considerations until the next chapter.
>
> http://www-philosophy.ucdavis.edu/phi102/tkch3.htm
One should allways be skeptical when a philosopher who disagrees with a
theory, sets out to describe that theory. I think this applies greatly
to Lehrer. He adds a good number of additional beliefs that are not
neccessary to a foundationalist account, in his account of the nature of
foundationalism.
>>I don't see why it would not be enough for you to be justified, simply
>>for what justifies you to obtain. Why must you also know that it
>>obtains? Surely, you need to know that in order to _know_ that you are
>>justified in having the belief, but is that not a totally seperate
>>matter from what has to be so in order for you to _be_ justified?
>
> It may be that if there are no self-justified beliefs, then there are no
> justified beliefs whatsoever. An argument for this conclusion can be
> generated easily, based on Aristotle's "logical" motivation for
> foundationalism.
Then again, it may be that there are no self-justified beliefs, but
there are beliefs that are immediately justified. The two conceptions
are not the same.
> 1. If there are no self-justified beliefs, then the process of justification
> is either endless or else loops back on itself in a circle.
> An endless or circular process cannot produce justification.
That is not true. A self-justified belief WOULD be a belief that "loops
back on itself". "self-justified belief" means that the belief bears
the "justifies" relationship to itself.
> 2. Therefore, if there are no self-justified beliefs, then there is no
> process that produces justification.
But there could be beliefs that are justified immediately, not by virtue
of their bearing a "justified by" relationship to any other justified
belief, without there being any beliefs that bear the "justified by"
relationship with themselves.
In order to be truely foundational, and not engage in circular
justification, a foundationalist would neccessarily have to deny that
the foundational beliefs are self-justified (or at least, not
neccessarily so, since justification could possibly admit of
over-determination).
> 3. If there is no process that produces justification, then no beliefs are
> justified.
>
> 4. Therefore, if there are no self-justified beliefs, then there are no
> justified beliefs.
>
> Lehrer wishes to avoid skepticism, so he tries to counter this argument.
>
> The first attack is a denial of the claim made in step 4. Justification,
> according to Lehrer, need not be a process at all. We commonly think of
> justification in terms of a process of "appealing to evidence," as is
> reflected in Lehrer's linkage of justification with answering the question
> "How do you know?" To give an answer, one would appeal to evidence. But S
> can be justified without such an appeal if p, the information at issue, is
> related to the body of S's beliefs by cohering with it in a suitable way.
> Lehrer motivates this view by appealing to analogies.
That would work, but it's not the only way to do the work - it is not
the only way to justify believing that justification isn't just a matter
of "appealing to evidence". There are foundationalist ways of achieving
the same objection to the proposed arguement.
> A belief such as this one [that my friend is now in Tucson] may be justified
> for a person because of some relation of the belief to a system of
> information to which it belongs, the way it coheres with the system, just as
> a color in a painting may be beautiful because of some relation of the color
> to the other components in the painting, or as a piece in a puzzle has place
> in it because of the way in which it fits with the other pieces. (p. 98)
>
> This is a plausible response, since we typically ascribe knowledge to people
> who have not gone through any explicit process which we might call "appeal
> to evidence."
>
> http://www-philosophy.ucdavis.edu/phi102/tkch5.htm
The problem here is that foundationalist can also say the same thing, so
needing to so say, in order to stop the reasoning that derives the
skeptical result, does not require an appeal to coherentism. (Which is
not to say that coherentism can't also solve the problem).
>>Granted your premises, your conclusion follows clearly and logically.
>>But there are those, myself included, who find those premises to be
>>problematic.
>
> The construction of criteria and theories depends upon a interactive network
> of incompletely justified concepts which can be used in a competition of
> such criteria and theories.
Well, that is coherentism simply stated, and you should know by know
that I don't just grant the truth of coherentism.
>>That is, whenever I refer to anything I am refering to that thing which
>>is in itself appearing to me. There is, by might lights, only one thing
>>to choose from, not two.
>
> Here we see an attempt to show that there is something whose existence
> cannot be denied and which is such that we can and do know it with
> certainty. It is commonly referred to as 'the given'. It is what is
> immediately presented to consciousness.
I find the phrasing "immediately presented to consciousness" a bit
problematic as it would seem to imply representationalism.
> Even in erroneous perception, we
> will be told to just accept, something is still perceived. Neither illusion
> nor hallucination is characterized by perceptual vacuity - there always is
> something given. Berkeley spoke of 'the proper object of the senses', and A.
> J. Ayer and others of 'sense-data'....
But that is not a given, at least not for me. I am, after all, a direct
realist, and don't believe that we infer the existence of objects from
something else of which only we are aware, such being "ideas" or
"sense-data" or so forth. (Then again, that is primarily a semantic
issue, not any disagreement over the facts to be explained.)
> X senses red sense content s entails x non-inferentially knows that s is
> red.
> The ability to sense sense contents is unacquired.
> The ability to know facts of the form x is F is acquired.
>
> Once the classical sense-datum theorist faces up to the fact that A,B and C
> do form an inconsistent triad, which of them will he choose to abandon?
> (EPM, 132)
But as being a deeply direct realist, I would deny the first
proposition, that what we sense is sense data. We do not sense red
sense content, so that does not entail that we "non-inferentially know
that s is red". We know that red objects are red, and directly without
inference. And further, since we do not sense sense contents, there is
no question of how that faculty is aquired.
Further, the arguement seems to equivocate on two different meanings of
the "ablity to know facts of the form x is F". One could maintain, as I
think many do, that the ablity to know "facts of the form x is F" is not
aquired, where F is considered as an unbound variable. That is, the
ability to know that something has this or that nature, is innate. But
this can be maintained compatably with the notion that the ablity to
know "facts of the form x is F" where F is considered as a _bound_
variable, that is, as not schematizing over all possible predicates, but
as designating some _specific_ predicate - that is aquired, not innate.
Remember that in this context we are dealing with intensions, and that
the two different meanings I just described for "ablity to know facts of
the form x is F" mark out two different intensions, two different
meanings, and so to think that what the second sentence describes as
unaquired, and what the third sentence says is aquired, are two
different things. They are, strickly speaking, the foundational
possibility and first realization, in Aristotelian terms (visa vis his
example of the geometer). What the second sentence asserts as
non-aquired is the ablity to aquire that which the third sentence
asserts as non-aquired.
At least, that's what they should mean.
> http://www.ditext.com/vinci/mmg.html
> ...But then where do I dissent from Sellars' attack on the given? It comes
> over the question of whether we have a direct (nonconceptual) awareness of
> particulars, one that constitutes a kind of cognition of a nonconceptual,
> nonpropositional sort. Sellars, as I read him, is concerned to deny this.
> though he never says so in so many words (at least not in EPM). Indeed, it
> is not clear to me whether Sellars wishes to deny all nonconceptual
> awareness of particulars. He does make it crystal clear that he rejects any
> nonconceptual awareness of sorts, and, depending on what counts as an
> "awareness of sorts", I am not disposed to disagree with him on that. But as
> to whether he rejects all nonconceptual awareness of particulars, I am
> forced to rely on various not wholly unambiguous pointers. He does hold that
> perceptual experience involves "propositional claims", which would make it c
> onceptualized and from which it presumably follows that perception does not
> involve a nonconceptual awareness of particulars...
I think it is true that when we percieve something, it is allways
percieved as "under a certain description". Perceiving is allways
"perceiving as". However, this is certainly a different faculty from
that by which we form our concepts under which we subsume the percieved,
and also from the further seperate faculty that we use when comparing
one conception to another.
So, it depends on what you mean by "non-conceptual" - perception is
'non-conceptual' in that it is not the comparasion of concepts to each
other, nor is it the formation of any new concept. But it does involve
concepts. It seems to me less that we have "a conceptual factulty" than
we have a constellation of different faculties that are all related to
each other in that they involve the use or manipulation of concepts.
Eudaimonus
> It seems those are the only three outcomes but can you think of any other?
>
> If the regress of emperical justification does not terminate in basic
> emperical beliefs, then it must either:
>
> (1) terminate in unjustified beleifs
>
> (2) go on infinitely (without circularity)
>
> (3) circle back upon itself in some way.
>
> (4)
(4) _is_ "justified in basic empirical beliefs"
The die has four sides. It has not three sides, but three _other_ sides.
but a (5) might be "a belief justified by something other than a belief"
> You think that statement about coherence theory was an imlpication that you
> didn't know what it was? How do you attribute such to me or on what evidence
> have you that I would patronize you?
You seemed to think it neccessary that you state what coherence theory
says, and I saw no specific reason for you to do so, but that such was
done as a kind of end-in-itself (not for the purpose of providing a
premise for any further reason to base itself on).
>>Well, Stephan J Gould is a Paleontologist, not a philosopher, so I
>>wonder why his opinion on the meaning of "fact" matters. A "fact" is,
>>well, that which is. To be a fact is to be, as we say, "ontic". Gould
>>seems to be under the sway of pragmatism, which confuses justification
>>with truth. What he describes is a quite reasonable standard by which
>>to guide one's judgements as to what is a fact and what is not a fact.
>>But that doesn't make it what the word "fact" means.
>
> I just thought it was a cool quote.
I think it is usefull, but only as an example of a view that is
commonplace. I might well use it as such myself, when discussing the
view and how it is mistaken. As evidence for it's truth however, it
falls very flat.
>>That is, strickly speaking, abduction not induction. (Though, induction
>>is prehaps best understood as a specific kind of abduction).
>
> Interesting
> http://seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/~behrens/asu/reports/Peirce/Logic_of_EDA.html
>
>
>>>Cornman, Lehrer, Papas;
>>>Philisophical Problems & Arguments;
>>>Page 33, Fourth Edition, 1992.
>>>
>>>http://www-philosophy.ucdavis.edu/phi102/lecmenu.htm
>>
>>Where all of your sources written fifty years ago? It seems to me that
>>you are bringing forth positions as obvious that are currently in a
>>state of being under seige.
>>
>>It's as if Quine had never written "Two Dogmas of Empiricism". You
>>don't even bother to hand wave away stuff like that.
>
> We seem to be what we presently are.
Hmm? We seem to, it seems, but that has not yet been established. Of
course, we are justified in believing that we presently are what we seem
to be, but that that seeming is not an illusion we have no justification
for believing one way or the other.
>>Obviously, in your system, there are certain presumptions that make even
>>the conception of a foundationalist account impossible. But it is
>>presisely those presumption that are the least defensible part of your
>>systematic thinking on this subject.
>
> You have more justifiable assumptions?
Well, I of course would like to think so. I would rather refine a
foundationalist account untill it works, rather than adopt coherentism,
primarily because of the underdetermination problem with coherentism,
>>You are equivocating on "reason". A person who has a justificed belief
>>clearly has _some_ "reason" that is, some cause, for being justified in
>>that belief - that cause is whatever feature obtains by virtue of which
>>the belief is justified. But, he may have a "reason" in that sense,
>>without having a "reason" in the sense of having a arrived at the belief
>>through a process of the application of logic.
>
> If reasons have components then to talk of them and their relation to the
> irreducable properties of this.whole, would not be to commit the fallacy of
> composition or division.
>
> http://gncurtis.home.texas.net/composit.html
> http://gncurtis.home.texas.net/division.html
What does that have to do with anything I said? I didn't say you
commited division or composition, but equivocation, a very different
fallacy.
Frankly, you have acted, here, obviously irrationally. It's as if I
said that you were actually wearing a red hat when you claims you were
wearing a white hat, and you pointed out in response that your shoes
were material objects.
Not only a non-sequetor, but pattently obviously so. You must have some
very odd reason for writing what you wrote above, but for the life of me
I can't imagine there being one.
>>When the common man says "there was a reason why he was justified in
>>believing that" he is saying something very different from what he says
>>when he says "he had a reason for that belief which justifies it".
>
> In the second statement, "he had a reason for that belief which justifies
> it", was the reason another belief?
No, it might be, but not neccessarily so. It could be a sensation, a
perception, even a rationalization (well, that would not justify it, but
it would be a reason for it).
Immortalist
As I would argue in a trial and error Popperian way. By remembering the
errors we move in directions not tested. But this merely alters the
likelihood. Error driven systems are probably the best we can be at least up
till now.
Succesfully Competitive Inductive Cogency:
Depends upon the evidential and conceptual ("context") of reasoning. An
inductive argument from evidence to hypothesis is inductively cogent if and
only if the hypothesis is that hypothesis which, of all the competing
hypothesis, has the greatest probability of being true on the basis of the
evidence. Thus, whether it is reasonable to accept a hypothesis as true, if
the statements of evidence are true, is determined by whether that
hypothesis is the most probable, on the evidence, of all those with which it
competes.
Philosophical Problems and Arguments: An Introduction
by James W. Cornman, Keith Lehrer, George Sotiros Pappas
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0872201244/
I like to say that that group of hypothesis which, of all the competing
hypothesis, has the greatest probability of being true on the basis of the
evidence are in the game or the ones we spotlight prima facia.
> > What all foundationalist theories do have in common is the view that all
> > justification ends with evidence that justifies but is justified by
nothing
> > else. Such stopping points are the foundations of all justification, and
> > therefore of all knowledge. On Lehrer's account of foundationalism, the
> > stopping point is a "basic belief." Any version of foundationalism of
this
> > sort is "doxastic" foundationalism, that is, a version where the
> > foundational evidence is a belief.
>
> I see no reason to suppose that a foundationalist would hold that the
> "ulitmate" "basic" evidence is a belief. You are supposing, I think,
> that all "evidence" is "belief", but one might suppose, with I think,
> the masses on one's side, that the ultimate evidence involved in, say,
> sense perception, is not the beliefs to which it gives rise which are
> foundationally justified, but rather the actual objects themselves.
>
"rather the actual objects themselves" seems to be conjectural or
speculative and merely probable or not. Whether the sense data is true or
false this concept you add is a belief.
> > (The Greek word 'doxa' signifies 'belief'
> > in English.) Lehrer's foundationalist also holds that basic beliefs must
be
> > justified in order to justify other beliefs. Since they are not
justified by
> > anything else, the basic beliefs could only be self-justified.
>
> I see no reason why it would have to be "self-justified" You are saying
> in order for something to be foundationally justified, it must also
> serve as a justification for itself. But that no other justified belief
> justifies it is precisely what makes it foundational.
>
1. Suppose, that there are basic empirical beliefs, that is, emperical
beliefs (a) which are epistemically justified, and (b) whose justification
does not depend on that of any further empirical beliefs.
2. For a belief to be epistemically justified requires that there be a
reason
why it is likely to be true.
3. A belief is justified for a person only if he is in cognitive possession
of such a reason.
4. A person is in cognitive possession of such a reason only if he believes
with justification the premises from which it follows that the belief is
likely to be true.
5. The premises of such a justifying argument must include at least one
empirical premise.
6. So, the justification of a supposed basic empirical belief depends on the
justification of at least one other empirical belief, contradicting 1.
7. So, there can be no basic empirical beliefs including completely
justified sceptical beliefs.
http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/TKno/TKnoHowa.htm
> The property "foundationally justified" is not the same as the relation
> "justifies" understood as being self-reflexive. Logically, one could
> have the former without having the latter.
>
The moment you assert something about sense perception that assertion
doesn't automatically become at least as justified as the most justifiable
events (sence experience) which stand unjustified on their own mechanism
without such conceptual networks for categorizing. These honed and polished
by millions of years of evolution and genetic trial and error to scale one
to one to our journy through the natural world, Kant would claim not
aquired.
> > As we will
> > see, a foundationalism described in the way will have a hard time
getting
> > off the ground.
>
> Indeed! If, that is, the foundationalist would grant the above, but I
> doubt they would.
>
I once asked a freind politely if he would "bend over soes Ize could kick
im." It does seem true that the way we frame an issue influences how it
looks. But if a direct realist claims to know, how does he show this?
> > There is room for some variation here, however. One account would be
that
> > there are basic beliefs which, although they justify other beliefs, are
not
> > themselves justified. This does not seem to be a very promising
approach,
> > however.
>
> That depends upon what you mean by "is justified". If "is justified" is
> considered in terms of the relation "is justifed by" then foundational
> beliefs are not "justified" in that sense, but that if one considers "is
> justified" to be a simple property, not a relation between beliefs (but
> that is 'complete' over a certain relation between beliefs), then it
> would certainly be possible for a belief to be "justified" in that sense
>
Are you implying that sence experience "is justified" because it cannot be
mistaken?
Accourding to Social Psychologists, if the audience is well educated it can
be shown with a degree of certainty that presenting both sides of an
argument in much detail is more persuasive. If the audience is corn holin
red necks its better to preach to the quire.
> >>I don't see why it would not be enough for you to be justified, simply
> >>for what justifies you to obtain. Why must you also know that it
> >>obtains? Surely, you need to know that in order to _know_ that you are
> >>justified in having the belief, but is that not a totally seperate
> >>matter from what has to be so in order for you to _be_ justified?
> >
> > It may be that if there are no self-justified beliefs, then there are no
> > justified beliefs whatsoever. An argument for this conclusion can be
> > generated easily, based on Aristotle's "logical" motivation for
> > foundationalism.
>
> Then again, it may be that there are no self-justified beliefs, but
> there are beliefs that are immediately justified. The two conceptions
> are not the same.
>
The criterian which you might use to determine "immediate justification" in
relation to the activities of sensory apperatus could be mistaken.
Sense data seems to be the strongest evidence we have but how do beliefs
about it become justified when all other premises in the argument are merely
probable arguments except for the neurophisiology of various regions of the
brain where these activities seem to take place?
> > 1. If there are no self-justified beliefs, then the process of
justification
> > is either endless or else loops back on itself in a circle.
> > An endless or circular process cannot produce justification.
>
> That is not true. A self-justified belief WOULD be a belief that "loops
> back on itself". "self-justified belief" means that the belief bears
> the "justifies" relationship to itself.
>
But does sight scream, "true" or do we add some other concepts and make just
another probable argument with these concepts and ideas about
self-justification?
But a networks of beliefs seem second only to the force of raw sensory
experience.
> > 2. Therefore, if there are no self-justified beliefs, then there is no
> > process that produces justification.
>
> But there could be beliefs that are justified immediately, not by virtue
> of their bearing a "justified by" relationship to any other justified
> belief, without there being any beliefs that bear the "justified by"
> relationship with themselves.
>
But these two instance may be extended across time and their correspondance
is added and probable or beliefs. Without concepts about justification, it
is merely probable that these sensory activities are true or false.
> In order to be truely foundational, and not engage in circular
> justification, a foundationalist would neccessarily have to deny that
> the foundational beliefs are self-justified (or at least, not
> neccessarily so, since justification could possibly admit of
> over-determination).
>
The lack of justification could possibly admit of under-determination. But
if the foundationalist denies that foundational beliefs are self-justified
what justifies them except conceptual add-ons and interactions with the
sense data?
> > 3. If there is no process that produces justification, then no beliefs
are
> > justified.
> >
> > 4. Therefore, if there are no self-justified beliefs, then there are no
> > justified beliefs.
> >
> > Lehrer wishes to avoid skepticism, so he tries to counter this argument.
> >
> > The first attack is a denial of the claim made in step 4. Justification,
> > according to Lehrer, need not be a process at all. We commonly think of
> > justification in terms of a process of "appealing to evidence," as is
> > reflected in Lehrer's linkage of justification with answering the
question
> > "How do you know?" To give an answer, one would appeal to evidence. But
S
> > can be justified without such an appeal if p, the information at issue,
is
> > related to the body of S's beliefs by cohering with it in a suitable
way.
> > Lehrer motivates this view by appealing to analogies.
>
> That would work, but it's not the only way to do the work - it is not
> the only way to justify believing that justification isn't just a matter
> of "appealing to evidence". There are foundationalist ways of achieving
> the same objection to the proposed arguement.
>
Possibly so but me doubts they would stand up to a skeptical mood swing.
> > A belief such as this one [that my friend is now in Tucson] may be
justified
> > for a person because of some relation of the belief to a system of
> > information to which it belongs, the way it coheres with the system,
just as
> > a color in a painting may be beautiful because of some relation of the
color
> > to the other components in the painting, or as a piece in a puzzle has
place
> > in it because of the way in which it fits with the other pieces. (p. 98)
> >
> > This is a plausible response, since we typically ascribe knowledge to
people
> > who have not gone through any explicit process which we might call
"appeal
> > to evidence."
> >
> > http://www-philosophy.ucdavis.edu/phi102/tkch5.htm
>
> The problem here is that foundationalist can also say the same thing, so
> needing to so say, in order to stop the reasoning that derives the
> skeptical result, does not require an appeal to coherentism. (Which is
> not to say that coherentism can't also solve the problem).
>
If the regress of emperical justification does not terminate in basic
emperical beliefs, then it must either:
(1) terminate in unjustified beleifs
(2) go on infinitely (without circularity)
(3) circle back upon itself in some way.
The coherentist simply makes a choice for option (3) to build a houses of
cards upon and find those structures which offer the best supports desired.
But a foundationalist veiw claims that justification terminates in basic
emperical beliefs which need no further justification. Your direct realism
seem more hopeful.
> >>Granted your premises, your conclusion follows clearly and logically.
> >>But there are those, myself included, who find those premises to be
> >>problematic.
> >
> > The construction of criteria and theories depends upon a interactive
network
> > of incompletely justified concepts which can be used in a competition of
> > such criteria and theories.
>
> Well, that is coherentism simply stated, and you should know by know
> that I don't just grant the truth of coherentism.
>
Neither does an auto make simply make desired models and try to sell them;
they interact with customers to asses their desire and look at styles that
sold in the past and more trends in the network of activities we observe
around automobiles. In this case coherence pays g-money.
> >>That is, whenever I refer to anything I am refering to that thing which
> >>is in itself appearing to me. There is, by might lights, only one thing
> >>to choose from, not two.
> >
> > Here we see an attempt to show that there is something whose existence
> > cannot be denied and which is such that we can and do know it with
> > certainty. It is commonly referred to as 'the given'. It is what is
> > immediately presented to consciousness.
>
> I find the phrasing "immediately presented to consciousness" a bit
> problematic as it would seem to imply representationalism.
>
How would a direct realist say it? Would he talk about the "giveness" of
sense data?
> > Even in erroneous perception, we
> > will be told to just accept, something is still perceived. Neither
illusion
> > nor hallucination is characterized by perceptual vacuity - there always
is
> > something given. Berkeley spoke of 'the proper object of the senses',
and A.
> > J. Ayer and others of 'sense-data'....
>
> But that is not a given, at least not for me. I am, after all, a direct
> realist, and don't believe that we infer the existence of objects from
> something else of which only we are aware, such being "ideas" or
> "sense-data" or so forth. (Then again, that is primarily a semantic
> issue, not any disagreement over the facts to be explained.)
>
But these semantic issues are concepts added to the giveness of sense
experiences. They are not necessary for giveness to ocurr but without them
we just sense not just [truth].
> > X senses red sense content s entails x non-inferentially knows that s is
> > red.
> > The ability to sense sense contents is unacquired.
> > The ability to know facts of the form x is F is acquired.
> >
> > Once the classical sense-datum theorist faces up to the fact that A,B
and C
> > do form an inconsistent triad, which of them will he choose to abandon?
> > (EPM, 132)
>
> But as being a deeply direct realist, I would deny the first
> proposition, that what we sense is sense data. We do not sense red
> sense content, so that does not entail that we "non-inferentially know
> that s is red". We know that red objects are red, and directly without
> inference. And further, since we do not sense sense contents, there is
> no question of how that faculty is aquired.
>
Then these tags we add like "red," "redness," are added after the giveness
justifies it's giveness? But how can one know that this or that sense data
is such without inferring or implying conceptual beliefs about everyday
life?
If we see red the first time how do we know what we see without beliefs
about language and categories?
> Further, the arguement seems to equivocate on two different meanings of
> the "ablity to know facts of the form x is F". One could maintain, as I
> think many do, that the ablity to know "facts of the form x is F" is not
> aquired, where F is considered as an unbound variable. That is, the
> ability to know that something has this or that nature, is innate. But
> this can be maintained compatably with the notion that the ablity to
> know "facts of the form x is F" where F is considered as a _bound_
> variable, that is, as not schematizing over all possible predicates, but
> as designating some _specific_ predicate - that is aquired, not innate.
>
Whether the neural construction for the "ablity to know facts of the form x
is F" is aquired or instinct or even some mixture, merely either makes the
claim that trial and error by natural selection has produced beliefs that
are completely justified or this has been accomplished by aquired learning.
But the skeptic admits that what you believe is possible.
> Remember that in this context we are dealing with intensions, and that
> the two different meanings I just described for "ablity to know facts of
> the form x is F" mark out two different intensions, two different
> meanings, and so to think that what the second sentence describes as
> unaquired, and what the third sentence says is aquired, are two
> different things. They are, strickly speaking, the foundational
> possibility and first realization, in Aristotelian terms (visa vis his
> example of the geometer). What the second sentence asserts as
> non-aquired is the ablity to aquire that which the third sentence
> asserts as non-aquired.
>
If these abilities are instinctual how does that remove the questions raised
if these abilities were aquired? Natural selection is good, very good, but
can't a direct realist find justification for beliefs about aquired skills?
And what if Nature/Nurture is a continuum or gradient range of mixtures
between the two, and interplay, so that all instincts need some learned
component and all learned constructions need some instinctual components?
> At least, that's what they should mean.
>
I like this direction! Instinctual truthing capacities?
I love this instinctual component but how does it ensure truthful methods
beyond escaping from the prime predator? These falculties may or may not be
completely accurate in comparing relationships extended across space and
time.
http://www.btinternet.com/~neuronaut/webtwo_articles.html
> So, it depends on what you mean by "non-conceptual" - perception is
> 'non-conceptual' in that it is not the comparasion of concepts to each
> other, nor is it the formation of any new concept. But it does involve
> concepts. It seems to me less that we have "a conceptual factulty" than
> we have a constellation of different faculties that are all related to
> each other in that they involve the use or manipulation of concepts.
>
There's a network perspective I like. I believe that the genes direct the
assembly all of our capacities and we aquire something or other out of the
possible programming.
>
Eudaimonus
> As I would argue in a trial and error Popperian way.
But then, this is itself just another "method", which requires it's own
justification.
> "rather the actual objects themselves" seems to be conjectural or
> speculative and merely probable or not. Whether the sense data is true or
> false this concept you add is a belief.
Hmm? The concept is a belief? Beliefs are experessed as propositions,
not concepts. But aside from that, "rather the actual objects
themselves" may be,
>>I see no reason why it would have to be "self-justified" You are saying
>>in order for something to be foundationally justified, it must also
>>serve as a justification for itself. But that no other justified belief
>>justifies it is precisely what makes it foundational.
>
> 1. Suppose, that there are basic empirical beliefs, that is, emperical
> beliefs (a) which are epistemically justified, and (b) whose justification
> does not depend on that of any further empirical beliefs.
>
> 2. For a belief to be epistemically justified requires that there be a
> reason
> why it is likely to be true.
Once again, this is not neccessarily so. Why do you hold to this? I do
not. Prehaps it is because beliefs of that kind are likely to be true
in general, rather than that a particular belief has a particular reason
why it is likely to be true. It also might be that likelyhood of truth
has nothing to do with justification.
> 3. A belief is justified for a person only if he is in cognitive possession
> of such a reason.
Once again, this is plainly false. One need not know that you know, in
order to know, you only need to know that you know, in order to know
that you know, not in order to know.
(3) is just plain false.
> 4. A person is in cognitive possession of such a reason only if he believes
> with justification the premises from which it follows that the belief is
> likely to be true.
But her one moves from "with justification" to mentioning "such a
justifying arguement".
> 5. The premises of such a justifying argument must include at least one
> empirical premise.
>
> 6. So, the justification of a supposed basic empirical belief depends on the
> justification of at least one other empirical belief, contradicting 1.
>
> 7. So, there can be no basic empirical beliefs including completely
> justified sceptical beliefs.
>
> http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/TKno/TKnoHowa.htm
Yes, you have posted this before, and I have made the same objections as
before. 2) is problematic at best, and 3) is clearly not true.
>>The property "foundationally justified" is not the same as the relation
>>"justifies" understood as being self-reflexive. Logically, one could
>>have the former without having the latter.
>
> The moment you assert something about sense perception that assertion
> doesn't automatically become at least as justified as the most justifiable
> events (sence experience) which stand unjustified on their own mechanism
> without such conceptual networks for categorizing. These honed and polished
> by millions of years of evolution and genetic trial and error to scale one
> to one to our journy through the natural world, Kant would claim not
> aquired.
Why does sense experience does not "stand unjustified on their own
mechanism without such conceptual networks for categorizing" This sound
just like 3) above - without my having the concept "justified" nothing
can be justified? That is, of course, pure idealism, which I maintain
is false. Given that it is highly likely that foundationalists would
also be direct realists, it's not a well-motivated move on your part, to
appeal to idealistic arguements.
Why can't the fact that it has been honed and polished by millions of
years of evolution and genetic trail and error to scale one to one our
journey though the natural world, consitution sufficient justification
for the presumptive taking of it's results as justified?
> I once asked a freind politely if he would "bend over soes Ize could kick
> im." It does seem true that the way we frame an issue influences how it
> looks. But if a direct realist claims to know, how does he show this?
As a foundationalist, he does not, for he does not think he has to. You
seem to be making justification about arguementation - about being able
to prove something.
You don't have to be able to prove something in order to know it.
> Are you implying that sence experience "is justified" because it cannot be
> mistaken?
God no! I am saying that it could be justified _despite_ the
possibility that it might be mistaken!
> Accourding to Social Psychologists, if the audience is well educated it can
> be shown with a degree of certainty that presenting both sides of an
> argument in much detail is more persuasive. If the audience is corn holin
> red necks its better to preach to the quire.
If getting them to agree with you is your goal, rather than getting them
to understand you.
> The criterian which you might use to determine "immediate justification" in
> relation to the activities of sensory apperatus could be mistaken.
Yes I could be mistaken, but I don't think I am.
You think that thinking that is some sort of contradiction?
> Sense data seems to be the strongest evidence we have but how do beliefs
> about it become justified when all other premises in the argument are merely
> probable arguments except for the neurophisiology of various regions of the
> brain where these activities seem to take place?
Hmm? You can't appeal NOW to various regions of the brain - you only
know about them through your sense experiences of them which you are
argueing are not grounds enough to believe in them!
What premises are "merely probable"? Where did I, in any premise, say
that it is only likely? I don't think you understand my arguements at all.
>>>1. If there are no self-justified beliefs, then the process of
>>
> justification
>
>>>is either endless or else loops back on itself in a circle.
>>>An endless or circular process cannot produce justification.
>>
>>That is not true. A self-justified belief WOULD be a belief that "loops
>>back on itself". "self-justified belief" means that the belief bears
>>the "justifies" relationship to itself.
>
> But does sight scream, "true" or do we add some other concepts and make just
> another probable argument with these concepts and ideas about
> self-justification?
No, sight _directly causes in a purely psychological way, the having of
a belief_, and the having of a belief is what we are talking about. The
belief that it is true follows directly from the self-awareness that one
has a belief. Having a belief, and believing the belief is true, are
the same for a self-aware being.
> But a networks of beliefs seem second only to the force of raw sensory
> experience.
How can a network of beliefs cause directly the holding of any given
belief? When one derives a new belief from one's old beliefs, one is
not caused to have the belief, that requires choice in a way that
beliefs caused by sensory input does not.
You are ignoring also that my point was conceptual, and not a judgement,
directly, of any specific experience. My point is that the concepts
"foundationally justfied" and "self-justified" are not the same.
>>But there could be beliefs that are justified immediately, not by virtue
>>of their bearing a "justified by" relationship to any other justified
>>belief, without there being any beliefs that bear the "justified by"
>>relationship with themselves.
>
> But these two instance may be extended across time and their correspondance
> is added and probable or beliefs. Without concepts about justification, it
> is merely probable that these sensory activities are true or false.
Hmm? The sensory activities either are or are not true regardless of
what concepts we have. Now you are going pure Idealist on me.
> The lack of justification could possibly admit of under-determination. But
> if the foundationalist denies that foundational beliefs are self-justified
> what justifies them except conceptual add-ons and interactions with the
> sense data?
What justifies them is the inhering in them of some propery or other
relation, the subsistence of which consitutes their being justified.
I don't know what you mean though, by "conceptual add-ons" and
"interactions with sense data". Only the mind interacts with sense data
and the mind is not a conceptual add-on, and what is it you are positing
one adding-on the concepts to? How does one add a concept to a thing
(as opposed to another conception, in judgement)?
>>That would work, but it's not the only way to do the work - it is not
>>the only way to justify believing that justification isn't just a matter
>>of "appealing to evidence". There are foundationalist ways of achieving
>>the same objection to the proposed arguement.
>
> Possibly so but me doubts they would stand up to a skeptical mood swing.
But, qua philosophers and rational people, we are addressing ourselves
to the skeptic's reason, not his mood swings. Word and arguements are
not the proper tool for dealing with irrational mood swings - fists and
bayonettes and traquelizer guns are.
>
> If the regress of emperical justification does not terminate in basic
> emperical beliefs, then it must either:
>
> (1) terminate in unjustified beleifs
>
> (2) go on infinitely (without circularity)
>
> (3) circle back upon itself in some way.
>
> The coherentist simply makes a choice for option (3) to build a houses of
> cards upon and find those structures which offer the best supports desired.
>
> But a foundationalist veiw claims that justification terminates in basic
> emperical beliefs which need no further justification. Your direct realism
> seem more hopeful.
I am a foundationalist because I am a direct realist (or prehaps more
accurately, a non-idealist of the Thomoas Reid/G.E. Moore variety).
> Neither does an auto make simply make desired models and try to sell them;
> they interact with customers to asses their desire and look at styles that
> sold in the past and more trends in the network of activities we observe
> around automobiles. In this case coherence pays g-money.
Hmm. When have I ever said coherence is not a good thing. All I would
maintain is that it is not sufficient. In this case, it would not be
sufficent, to get your props, to have a self-consistent view of what
various types of people like in their wheels. There are countless such
self-consistent views, but only one of them will get you paid.
Indeed, the need for coherence may be the one factor rendering
foundational beliefs falsifiable - if they don't cohere with our other
foundational beliefs, that is when judging them to be false becomes
justified. All I would argue for is that reason requires us to give the
presumption, absent any evidence to the contrary (and non-coherence
would be that evidence) to the truth of our perceptions.
> How would a direct realist say it? Would he talk about the "giveness" of
> sense data?
Not if he were a _direct_ realist, if he we a direct realist, he
wouldn't talk about "sense data" at all. He would say we don't know our
sense data, we know the objects of our perception. Our knowledge about
sense data is only a highly derivative part of our complex modern science.
> But these semantic issues are concepts added to the giveness of sense
> experiences. They are not necessary for giveness to ocurr but without them
> we just sense not just [truth].
But my claim was never that the sense data are, neccessarily, true, only
that they are, neccesarily, justified to believe in.
> Then these tags we add like "red," "redness," are added after the giveness
> justifies it's giveness? But how can one know that this or that sense data
> is such without inferring or implying conceptual beliefs about everyday
> life?
But we don't "add" "tags" like "red, "redness" ect. This is becoming a
debate about idealism, not about skepticism!
Nothing "justifies" it's "givenness". It has givenness by virtue of
it's being given - it is a natural property which it possesses, not a
property we give it.
> If we see red the first time how do we know what we see without beliefs
> about language and categories?
It seems to me obvious that we do, since we observe that children learn
concepts like "red" well before they learn concepts like "categories".
You don't have to have a _belief_ about a category like red, in order to
percieve something as under the category of being red.
Our mental collection of concepts, and our mental collection of beliefs,
are two different (though, of course, related) mental collections. A
concept (category) is not a belief, and a belief is not a concept.
If you are asking how we come to form concepts, that is not something I
am right now in a position to answer, but only because that is not
something I have studied. I don't grasp it's relivance here.
> Whether the neural construction for the "ablity to know facts of the form x
> is F" is aquired or instinct or even some mixture, merely either makes the
> claim that trial and error by natural selection has produced beliefs that
> are completely justified or this has been accomplished by aquired learning.
> But the skeptic admits that what you believe is possible.
But if what I believe (all of it that I have so far expressed to you) is
_actual_ then the skeptic must be wrong.
> If these abilities are instinctual how does that remove the questions raised
WHICH ability? Ability of the first kind, or of the second kind, as I
distinquished? Further, are all natural abilities "instincts"?
> if these abilities were aquired? Natural selection is good, very good, but
> can't a direct realist find justification for beliefs about aquired skills?
> And what if Nature/Nurture is a continuum or gradient range of mixtures
> between the two, and interplay, so that all instincts need some learned
> component and all learned constructions need some instinctual components?
You haven't internalized my distinction between the two sense that you
equivocated between, you didn't mention it or respond to it.
>>At least, that's what they should mean.
>
> I like this direction! Instinctual truthing capacities?
No, naturally justified capacities to form beliefs.
> I love this instinctual component but how does it ensure truthful methods
> beyond escaping from the prime predator? These falculties may or may not be
> completely accurate in comparing relationships extended across space and
> time.
But I never claim they "ensure truthful methods". That is entirely my
point - a ground need not neccessitate the true of that of which it is a
ground, in order to be an adequate ground of it's justifiedness.
> There's a network perspective I like. I believe that the genes direct the
> assembly all of our capacities and we aquire something or other out of the
> possible programming.
Well, you like the perspective. That is, uhm, nice. I like chocolate
ice cream. Yum.
Max
> "Max" <max197...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:baa549eb.03090...@posting.google.com...
> > "Immortalist" <Reanima...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:<vlkjm5b...@corp.supernews.com>...
> > > "Max" <max197...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > > news:baa549eb.03090...@posting.google.com...
> > > > Sean McCrohan <mccr...@mindspring.com> wrote in message news:
> > > > > I'm afraid I'm rambling.
> > > >
> > > > No, you're not, and it's worth reading. You absolutely cleared this
> up.
> > > > -Max
> > >
> > > Do you know of a way to show that this belief of yours about,
> "absolutely
> > > cleared," is completely justified with no chance for error at all?
> >
> > Yeah. I would simply repeat what he said. :)
> > -Max
>
> So you request that we simply trust you?
I would say.. trust him?
Well, obviously I was wrong and he didn't clear anything up. I read
what he wrote, and thought he nicely explained away the other guy's
obstacle to understanding. Tis all.
-Max
Max
If deduction doesn't work, then language doesn't make sense either
because they operate on the same principle: that you can say that
something "is" also something else. Deduction is a usage of the
transitive property (if a=b and b=c then a=c), and that property, in
turn, is a necessary consequence of the definition "=". If the
transitive property did not hold, it would mean that our definition of
"=" would have to be different.
hope that makes sense,
Max
Sean McCrohan
>Well, obviously I was wrong and he didn't clear anything up. I read
>what he wrote, and thought he nicely explained away the other guy's
>obstacle to understanding. Tis all.
>-Max
Thank you for the kind words, Max.
Anyway, I think we'd have to argue that understanding happens within
the reader, rather than being a property of the explanation. So,
its working or not working for someone else is independent of it
'clearing things up' for you :)
--S
Immortalist
> Immortalist wrote:
>
> > As I would argue in a trial and error Popperian way.
>
> But then, this is itself just another "method", which requires it's own
> justification.
>
Good thing I'm not a skeptic! But this appears the best theory of individual
cognition, problem solving & trial & error memory drive, and the
evolutionary sage tells a similar story on a much larger scale performing,
problem solving & trial & error memory drive.
> > "rather the actual objects themselves" seems to be conjectural or
> > speculative and merely probable or not. Whether the sense data is true
or
> > false this concept you add is a belief.
>
> Hmm? The concept is a belief? Beliefs are experessed as propositions,
> not concepts. But aside from that, "rather the actual objects
> themselves" may be,
>
Beliefs about axioms and beliefs about how maxims are to be used?
>
> >>I see no reason why it would have to be "self-justified" You are saying
> >>in order for something to be foundationally justified, it must also
> >>serve as a justification for itself. But that no other justified belief
> >>justifies it is precisely what makes it foundational.
> >
> > 1. Suppose, that there are basic empirical beliefs, that is, emperical
> > beliefs (a) which are epistemically justified, and (b) whose
justification
> > does not depend on that of any further empirical beliefs.
> >
> > 2. For a belief to be epistemically justified requires that there be a
> > reason
> > why it is likely to be true.
>
> Once again, this is not neccessarily so. Why do you hold to this? I do
> not. Prehaps it is because beliefs of that kind are likely to be true
> in general, rather than that a particular belief has a particular reason
> why it is likely to be true. It also might be that likelyhood of truth
> has nothing to do with justification.
>
As you showed, I and the quoted author were using belief and axiom
interchangably. But it is a particular kind of belief granted.
> > 3. A belief is justified for a person only if he is in cognitive
possession
> > of such a reason.
>
> Once again, this is plainly false. One need not know that you know, in
> order to know, you only need to know that you know, in order to know
> that you know, not in order to know.
>
> (3) is just plain false.
>
Your evidence? Are we looking for a cognitionion that has no reason? Or does
sense data package up some reasons?
Because this conglomerant is geared to survival and sensitivity to erronious
clues that help some survive while others who did not make such cognitive
mistakes died. Those who walked are any shape like a snake survived and have
genetic support for this perceptual error.
> > I once asked a freind politely if he would "bend over soes Ize could
kick
> > im." It does seem true that the way we frame an issue influences how it
> > looks. But if a direct realist claims to know, how does he show this?
>
> As a foundationalist, he does not, for he does not think he has to. You
> seem to be making justification about arguementation - about being able
> to prove something.
>
> You don't have to be able to prove something in order to know it.
>
Which word is "prove" synonomous with in my text?
Could you define "to know" again?
> > Are you implying that sence experience "is justified" because it cannot
be
> > mistaken?
>
> God no! I am saying that it could be justified _despite_ the
> possibility that it might be mistaken!
>
A rabbit has a semi-true randomizer that makes his leg twitch out almost
it's length and his path is altered in a way neither he nor his predator
[knows?] In this way when he avoids the predator even when he didn't control
the swerve jump, he knows avoidence? Possible.
> > Accourding to Social Psychologists, if the audience is well educated it
can
> > be shown with a degree of certainty that presenting both sides of an
> > argument in much detail is more persuasive. If the audience is corn
holin
> > red necks its better to preach to the quire.
>
> If getting them to agree with you is your goal, rather than getting them
> to understand you.
>
> > The criterian which you might use to determine "immediate justification"
in
> > relation to the activities of sensory apperatus could be mistaken.
>
> Yes I could be mistaken, but I don't think I am.
>
me too, are we saying the same thing?
> You think that thinking that is some sort of contradiction?
>
no.
> > Sense data seems to be the strongest evidence we have but how do beliefs
> > about it become justified when all other premises in the argument are
merely
> > probable arguments except for the neurophisiology of various regions of
the
> > brain where these activities seem to take place?
>
> Hmm? You can't appeal NOW to various regions of the brain - you only
> know about them through your sense experiences of them which you are
> argueing are not grounds enough to believe in them!
>
I can appeal to non-skeptical arguments and did.
> What premises are "merely probable"? Where did I, in any premise, say
> that it is only likely? I don't think you understand my arguements at
all.
>
You admited it is possible that you are mistaken but believe you are not.
> >>>1. If there are no self-justified beliefs, then the process of
> >>
> > justification
> >
> >>>is either endless or else loops back on itself in a circle.
> >>>An endless or circular process cannot produce justification.
> >>
> >>That is not true. A self-justified belief WOULD be a belief that "loops
> >>back on itself". "self-justified belief" means that the belief bears
> >>the "justifies" relationship to itself.
> >
> > But does sight scream, "true" or do we add some other concepts and make
just
> > another probable argument with these concepts and ideas about
> > self-justification?
>
> No, sight _directly causes in a purely psychological way, the having of
> a belief_, and the having of a belief is what we are talking about. The
> belief that it is true follows directly from the self-awareness that one
> has a belief. Having a belief, and believing the belief is true, are
> the same for a self-aware being.
>
What about sight in dreams or hallucinations and the beliefs in their
consequent justification chain.
> > But a networks of beliefs seem second only to the force of raw sensory
> > experience.
>
> How can a network of beliefs cause directly the holding of any given
> belief? When one derives a new belief from one's old beliefs, one is
> not caused to have the belief, that requires choice in a way that
> beliefs caused by sensory input does not.
>
As an emergent quality or property of the network, like how a network of
associated atoms produces the irriducable property of solidity.
> You are ignoring also that my point was conceptual, and not a judgement,
> directly, of any specific experience. My point is that the concepts
> "foundationally justfied" and "self-justified" are not the same.
>
Foundationional justification of dreams or hallucinations based on sense
organ activity when there was no sense organ activity?
> >>But there could be beliefs that are justified immediately, not by virtue
> >>of their bearing a "justified by" relationship to any other justified
> >>belief, without there being any beliefs that bear the "justified by"
> >>relationship with themselves.
> >
> > But these two instance may be extended across time and their
correspondance
> > is added and probable or beliefs. Without concepts about justification,
it
> > is merely probable that these sensory activities are true or false.
>
> Hmm? The sensory activities either are or are not true regardless of
> what concepts we have. Now you are going pure Idealist on me.
>
Sense organs are out of the loop while dreaming as are muscle movements or
we would walk into walls.
> > The lack of justification could possibly admit of under-determination.
But
> > if the foundationalist denies that foundational beliefs are
self-justified
> > what justifies them except conceptual add-ons and interactions with the
> > sense data?
>
> What justifies them is the inhering in them of some propery or other
> relation, the subsistence of which consitutes their being justified.
>
While dreaming the justification is null since the sense organs are out of
the loop and offer none or possibly very little "property or relation."
> I don't know what you mean though, by "conceptual add-ons" and
> "interactions with sense data". Only the mind interacts with sense data
> and the mind is not a conceptual add-on, and what is it you are positing
> one adding-on the concepts to? How does one add a concept to a thing
> (as opposed to another conception, in judgement)?
>
Customs of reasoning.
> >>That would work, but it's not the only way to do the work - it is not
> >>the only way to justify believing that justification isn't just a matter
> >>of "appealing to evidence". There are foundationalist ways of achieving
> >>the same objection to the proposed arguement.
> >
> > Possibly so but me doubts they would stand up to a skeptical mood swing.
>
> But, qua philosophers and rational people, we are addressing ourselves
> to the skeptic's reason, not his mood swings. Word and arguements are
> not the proper tool for dealing with irrational mood swings - fists and
> bayonettes and traquelizer guns are.
>
Nothing worse than a moody skeptic since they always win [this.is.sad]
whatever their mood if they know how to go about it. I can't claim to be
that good at this always winning argument.
> >
> > If the regress of emperical justification does not terminate in basic
> > emperical beliefs, then it must either:
> >
> > (1) terminate in unjustified beleifs
> >
> > (2) go on infinitely (without circularity)
> >
> > (3) circle back upon itself in some way.
> >
> > The coherentist simply makes a choice for option (3) to build a houses
of
> > cards upon and find those structures which offer the best supports
desired.
> >
> > But a foundationalist veiw claims that justification terminates in basic
> > emperical beliefs which need no further justification. Your direct
realism
> > seem more hopeful.
>
> I am a foundationalist because I am a direct realist (or prehaps more
> accurately, a non-idealist of the Thomoas Reid/G.E. Moore variety).
>
I like the awesome direction direct realism is going.
>
> > Neither does an auto make simply make desired models and try to sell
them;
> > they interact with customers to asses their desire and look at styles
that
> > sold in the past and more trends in the network of activities we observe
> > around automobiles. In this case coherence pays g-money.
>
> Hmm. When have I ever said coherence is not a good thing. All I would
> maintain is that it is not sufficient. In this case, it would not be
> sufficent, to get your props, to have a self-consistent view of what
> various types of people like in their wheels. There are countless such
> self-consistent views, but only one of them will get you paid.
>
> Indeed, the need for coherence may be the one factor rendering
> foundational beliefs falsifiable - if they don't cohere with our other
> foundational beliefs, that is when judging them to be false becomes
> justified. All I would argue for is that reason requires us to give the
> presumption, absent any evidence to the contrary (and non-coherence
> would be that evidence) to the truth of our perceptions.
>
Cool, I suppose I am like that.
> > How would a direct realist say it? Would he talk about the "giveness" of
> > sense data?
>
> Not if he were a _direct_ realist, if he we a direct realist, he
> wouldn't talk about "sense data" at all. He would say we don't know our
> sense data, we know the objects of our perception. Our knowledge about
> sense data is only a highly derivative part of our complex modern science.
>
giveness of perception?
> > But these semantic issues are concepts added to the giveness of sense
> > experiences. They are not necessary for giveness to ocurr but without
them
> > we just sense not just [truth].
>
> But my claim was never that the sense data are, neccessarily, true, only
> that they are, neccesarily, justified to believe in.
>
Even in dreams, hallucinations, or hard drugs?
> > Then these tags we add like "red," "redness," are added after the
giveness
> > justifies it's giveness? But how can one know that this or that sense
data
> > is such without inferring or implying conceptual beliefs about everyday
> > life?
>
> But we don't "add" "tags" like "red, "redness" ect. This is becoming a
> debate about idealism, not about skepticism!
>
> Nothing "justifies" it's "givenness". It has givenness by virtue of
> it's being given - it is a natural property which it possesses, not a
> property we give it.
>
Why are there more nerve cells going to the eye than from it? Most of what
we see is controlled by these cognitive add ons of memories.
http://www.geocities.com/researchtriangle/2387/EyeMovements1.gif
http://www.geocities.com/researchtriangle/2387/EyeMovements2.gif
> > If we see red the first time how do we know what we see without beliefs
> > about language and categories?
>
> It seems to me obvious that we do, since we observe that children learn
> concepts like "red" well before they learn concepts like "categories".
> You don't have to have a _belief_ about a category like red, in order to
> percieve something as under the category of being red.
>
There are many reports from people who have never seen who are medically
healed and see. They report a bunch of confusion with nothing aligning with
their hearing. They have to learn to see as an interaction.
> Our mental collection of concepts, and our mental collection of beliefs,
> are two different (though, of course, related) mental collections. A
> concept (category) is not a belief, and a belief is not a concept.
>
I use concepts and beliefs the same mostly but there are exceptions to the
rule. What distinctions are there between concept and belief that make a
difference between them?
> If you are asking how we come to form concepts, that is not something I
> am right now in a position to answer, but only because that is not
> something I have studied. I don't grasp it's relivance here.
>
Probably synonomous with memory formation or some varient of it.
> > Whether the neural construction for the "ablity to know facts of the
form x
> > is F" is aquired or instinct or even some mixture, merely either makes
the
> > claim that trial and error by natural selection has produced beliefs
that
> > are completely justified or this has been accomplished by aquired
learning.
> > But the skeptic admits that what you believe is possible.
>
> But if what I believe (all of it that I have so far expressed to you) is
> _actual_ then the skeptic must be wrong.
>
But doesn't the skeptic claim that he might be wrong just like you claim
that you could be wrong?
> > If these abilities are instinctual how does that remove the questions
raised
>
> WHICH ability? Ability of the first kind, or of the second kind, as I
> distinquished? Further, are all natural abilities "instincts"?
>
Instinctual capacities but not their programming, we may create lens to see
mentally that are unique to cultural learning or learning skills.
> > if these abilities were aquired? Natural selection is good, very good,
but
> > can't a direct realist find justification for beliefs about aquired
skills?
> > And what if Nature/Nurture is a continuum or gradient range of mixtures
> > between the two, and interplay, so that all instincts need some learned
> > component and all learned constructions need some instinctual
components?
>
> You haven't internalized my distinction between the two sense that you
> equivocated between, you didn't mention it or respond to it.
>
Can't remember and if I go back to look this may be posted wrongly. Which
word are you claiming I equivicated? Sorry if I missed it but to me this is
like a coffee house talk, no test.
> >>At least, that's what they should mean.
> >
> > I like this direction! Instinctual truthing capacities?
>
> No, naturally justified capacities to form beliefs.
>
You are requesting again that I trust the handywork of evolution and natural
selection?
> > I love this instinctual component but how does it ensure truthful
methods
> > beyond escaping from the prime predator? These falculties may or may not
be
> > completely accurate in comparing relationships extended across space and
> > time.
>
> But I never claim they "ensure truthful methods". That is entirely my
> point - a ground need not neccessitate the true of that of which it is a
> ground, in order to be an adequate ground of it's justifiedness.
>
Then your saying it isn't necessarily justified but is justified
necessarily?
>
> > There's a network perspective I like. I believe that the genes direct
the
> > assembly all of our capacities and we aquire something or other out of
the
> > possible programming.
>
> Well, you like the perspective. That is, uhm, nice. I like chocolate
> ice cream. Yum.
>
Yummy pre-scription of the value of direct realism?
Max
Ah! But I reserve the right to say "It should have cleared things up!"
(;
Eudaimonus
> Good thing I'm not a skeptic! But this appears the best theory of individual
> cognition, problem solving & trial & error memory drive, and the
> evolutionary sage tells a similar story on a much larger scale performing,
> problem solving & trial & error memory drive.
Well, that's the story Popper sells.
>>Hmm? The concept is a belief? Beliefs are experessed as propositions,
>>not concepts. But aside from that, "rather the actual objects
>>themselves" may be,
>
> Beliefs about axioms and beliefs about how maxims are to be used?
Again - Hmm? You have a curious ability to change subjects on a dime.
If I were less generous, I would call it an inablity to maintain context.
> As you showed, I and the quoted author were using belief and axiom
> interchangably. But it is a particular kind of belief granted.
I didn't, wouldn't, and don't take the author you quoted to be using
"belief" to mean anything other than "belief". Why do you think he
meant "axiom" by "belief". A word generally means itself, not some
other word.
>>>3. A belief is justified for a person only if he is in cognitive
>>
> possession
>
>>>of such a reason.
>>
>>Once again, this is plainly false. One need not know that you know, in
>>order to know, you only need to know that you know, in order to know
>>that you know, not in order to know.
>>
>>(3) is just plain false.
>
> Your evidence? Are we looking for a cognitionion that has no reason? Or does
> sense data package up some reasons?
No, I am not talking about cognitions having or not having reasons. I
am talking about the relationship between "reasons" and "justification"
- I am saying that you don't have to be in cognative possession of _why_
you are justified, in order to be justified.
If that were true, there would be an infinite regress. If there were an
infinite regress, knowledge would be impossible. Knowlege is possible,
ergo, that is not true.
>>Why can't the fact that it has been honed and polished by millions of
>>years of evolution and genetic trail and error to scale one to one our
>>journey though the natural world, consitution sufficient justification
>>for the presumptive taking of it's results as justified?
>
> Because this conglomerant is geared to survival and sensitivity to erronious
> clues that help some survive
"erronious clues that help some survive"? You proposing it is possible
to survive, long term over the generations, by luck?
> while others who did not make such cognitive
> mistakes died.
If the signals were erroneous, why did the other live, and the one who
got the "correct" signals, die?
> Those who walked are any shape like a snake survived and have
> genetic support for this perceptual error.
Hmm? What percpetual error? who "walked are any shape like a snake
survived"? I can't parse that, too ungrammatical.
>>You don't have to be able to prove something in order to know it.
>
> Which word is "prove" synonomous with in my text?
"3. A belief is justified for a person only if he is in cognitive
possession of such a reason."
That means that only if you have cognative possession of the reason why
your belief is justified, can your belief be justified. That means you
have to have proof (ie. the reason why you belief is justified) before
you are justified.
> Could you define "to know" again?
Knowedge - true justified belief. Know - truely justifiedly believe.
> A rabbit has a semi-true randomizer that makes his leg twitch out almost
> it's length and his path is altered in a way neither he nor his predator
> [knows?] In this way when he avoids the predator even when he didn't control
> the swerve jump, he knows avoidence? Possible.
No, he does not know, for it is not a power under his guidance - it's
not something that he, considered as a cognative being, does.
But that is knowledge in the sense of skill, not knowledge in the sense
of theoretical knowledge. Two different beasts.
>>Yes I could be mistaken, but I don't think I am.
>
> me too, are we saying the same thing?
Are we saying it about the same thing?
>>You think that thinking that is some sort of contradiction?
>
> no.
Ok, so skepticism is refuted?
> I can appeal to non-skeptical arguments and did.
Yes, but the question is - who's premises are true, and how can we
determine this?
> You admited it is possible that you are mistaken but believe you are not.
No, I did not admit, I did not even mention, that I believe that I was
not mistaken. My assertion was not that I believe that I was not
mistaken, my assertion was that I was not in fact mistaken.
>>No, sight _directly causes in a purely psychological way, the having of
>>a belief_, and the having of a belief is what we are talking about. The
>>belief that it is true follows directly from the self-awareness that one
>>has a belief. Having a belief, and believing the belief is true, are
>>the same for a self-aware being.
>
> What about sight in dreams or hallucinations and the beliefs in their
> consequent justification chain.
They are fully justified, though false. Provided, of course, we have no
evidence that tends to suggest we are dreaming or hallucinating.
> As an emergent quality or property of the network, like how a network of
> associated atoms produces the irriducable property of solidity.
Interesting way to put it, but I don't think knowledge can come about
that way.
> Foundationional justification of dreams or hallucinations based on sense
> organ activity when there was no sense organ activity?
No, the foundational justification is not based on sense organ activity
when there was no sense organ activity. The reason that one is
justified in taking one's hallucinations on face value is that one can
not help but so do by the nature of hallucinations. Where there is no
cause of doubt, there is no duty of doubt. One will, of course, be
wrong, if one is hallucinating, but, so to speak, ought implies can -
one can't say one should have not trusted the hallucination when it has
such vividness and reality that it impresses the belief directly into
your set of held beliefs. To, afterwards, expell the belief from your
set of beliefs, requires some particular grounds.
> Sense organs are out of the loop while dreaming as are muscle movements or
> we would walk into walls.
True, but what is the point?
> While dreaming the justification is null since the sense organs are out of
> the loop and offer none or possibly very little "property or relation."
But the sense organs aren't the source of the justification. I make no
deduction "the sense organs say so, so we are justified to believe it".
I don't even hold that the sense organs "say" anything to us - by the
time we "hear" anything the whole process is up to the level of physical
objects.
>>I don't know what you mean though, by "conceptual add-ons" and
>>"interactions with sense data". Only the mind interacts with sense data
>>and the mind is not a conceptual add-on, and what is it you are positing
>>one adding-on the concepts to? How does one add a concept to a thing
>>(as opposed to another conception, in judgement)?
>
> Customs of reasoning.
That's a non-answer.
>>But, qua philosophers and rational people, we are addressing ourselves
>>to the skeptic's reason, not his mood swings. Word and arguements are
>>not the proper tool for dealing with irrational mood swings - fists and
>>bayonettes and traquelizer guns are.
>
> Nothing worse than a moody skeptic since they always win [this.is.sad]
Not if I have good baseball bad.
> whatever their mood if they know how to go about it. I can't claim to be
> that good at this always winning argument.
Why worry about winning arguements? I thought the real goal was truth,
not proof, neither allways convincing arguements.
>>I am a foundationalist because I am a direct realist (or prehaps more
>>accurately, a non-idealist of the Thomoas Reid/G.E. Moore variety).
>
> I like the awesome direction direct realism is going.
Awesome? If I may sound paradoxical, I am very skeptical about awe.
>>Indeed, the need for coherence may be the one factor rendering
>>foundational beliefs falsifiable - if they don't cohere with our other
>>foundational beliefs, that is when judging them to be false becomes
>>justified. All I would argue for is that reason requires us to give the
>>presumption, absent any evidence to the contrary (and non-coherence
>>would be that evidence) to the truth of our perceptions.
>
> Cool, I suppose I am like that.
>>>How would a direct realist say it? Would he talk about the "giveness" of
>>>sense data?
>>
>>Not if he were a _direct_ realist, if he we a direct realist, he
>>wouldn't talk about "sense data" at all. He would say we don't know our
>>sense data, we know the objects of our perception. Our knowledge about
>>sense data is only a highly derivative part of our complex modern science.
>
> giveness of perception?
Yes, the giveness of perception - what is given, the starting point of
our reasonings, is our perceptions, and the foundational beliefs they
directly impart into our belief-structure.
When emperical intuition renders a judgement of a thing by drawing forth
to a proposition that there is here-now a thing if a given type or
types, that proposition enters directly into our corpose of beliefs,
without there being any _further_ act of judgement acting as any kind of
gate-keeper. We can, of course, habituate ourselves into constantly
re-evaluting every belief so aquired, or even in allways rejecting it
(though, that would take Herculean effort). What we can't do is keep it
from so initially entering and thus requiring being expelled if we are
to disbelieve our perceptions.
>>But my claim was never that the sense data are, neccessarily, true, only
>>that they are, neccesarily, justified to believe in.
>
> Even in dreams, hallucinations, or hard drugs?
Yes, unless, of course, one has reason to believe that one is dreaming,
hallucination, or tripping. Those are ipso facto reasons to reject what
one is currently receiving as the given. But if one has no such
evidence, then one is blameless.
>>But we don't "add" "tags" like "red, "redness" ect. This is becoming a
>>debate about idealism, not about skepticism!
>>
>>Nothing "justifies" it's "givenness". It has givenness by virtue of
>>it's being given - it is a natural property which it possesses, not a
>>property we give it.
>
> Why are there more nerve cells going to the eye than from it? Most of what
> we see is controlled by these cognitive add ons of memories.
Memories? hmm? How can you tell wither a never cell is going from the
eye or toward it? I would suppose you are speaking of the nerves going
to the muscles that control eye momevement. But what has that to do
with "memory"? Control over the eyes to facilitate proper
object-perception is an aquired skill, not a function of "remembering"
anything or applying any "knowledge" in the theoretical sense.
> There are many reports from people who have never seen who are medically
> healed and see. They report a bunch of confusion with nothing aligning with
> their hearing. They have to learn to see as an interaction.
Yes, being able to be aware, visually, of objects, is an aquired skill
(aquiring such skills is what babies spend most of their time doing).
But note that they aren't aware of anything visually untill they aquire
that skill - they don't report being distinctly and clearly aware of
individual instances of visual sense data but being unable to infer
anything from it - instead they report a bunch of confusion.
> I use concepts and beliefs the same mostly but there are exceptions to the
> rule. What distinctions are there between concept and belief that make a
> difference between them?
Well, a concept is a mental intentional state, that relates to objects
in a one to many way. Concepts are what words represent. Propositions
are complexes of words, representing possible judgements or synthesises
of intuition - various unitings of concepts. For instance, a concept
would be "red" or "big" or "ball", a proposition would be "There is a
big red ball."
Beliefs are a kind of proposition, one that, to put it quickly, one
holds as true. A loose, and likely only very approximately accurate
picture would be to picture minds having a file cabinet inside of them
with lists of propositions inside with a big sign on the file cabinet
saying "this person's beliefs".
That is, of course, a very bad metaphor, but it should be enough to
explain what I mean by "belief".
>>If you are asking how we come to form concepts, that is not something I
>>am right now in a position to answer, but only because that is not
>>something I have studied. I don't grasp it's relivance here.
>
> Probably synonomous with memory formation or some varient of it.
But concepts are not memories. Memories are retentions of past
experiences. A memory is a memory of something, and futher, of
something specific. I know that memories and concepts are different
because memories relate to what they are memories of in a one-to-one
manner, while concepts relate to what they are concepts of in a
one-to-many way.
> But doesn't the skeptic claim that he might be wrong just like you claim
> that you could be wrong?
Yes. But that's not what makes the skeptic a skeptic. A true Skeptic
is concerned with justification of beleifs, not about possibility of
falsehood. He proves possibility of falsehood only because he believes
that he can use that as a premise from which to derive that there are no
justified beliefs.
>>You haven't internalized my distinction between the two sense that you
>>equivocated between, you didn't mention it or respond to it.
>
> Can't remember and if I go back to look this may be posted wrongly. Which
> word are you claiming I equivicated? Sorry if I missed it but to me this is
> like a coffee house talk, no test.
"Ability" And it wasn't you personally but "you" in a more general
sense, the person you were quoting (and so seemingly endorsing, so in
that sense "you" said it).
The phrase in question was something like "the ablity to judge that a
thing is F"
>>But I never claim they "ensure truthful methods". That is entirely my
>>point - a ground need not neccessitate the true of that of which it is a
>>ground, in order to be an adequate ground of it's justifiedness.
>
> Then your saying it isn't necessarily justified but is justified
> necessarily?
No, I'm saying that it can be justified indepentant of if it's
neccessarily true.
That something can be a ground for something's being justified without
it being logically entailed by it.
>>Well, you like the perspective. That is, uhm, nice. I like chocolate
>>ice cream. Yum.
>
> Yummy pre-scription of the value of direct realism?
With direct realism, you get to trade up from eating an image of
chocolate ice cream, to eating _real_ chocolate ice cream. Tastes the
same, but much more filling!
John Jones
it.
'seeing children being born' is an induction if it is used in a deductive
process.
JJ
"Sean McCrohan" <mccr...@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:Vx16b.415$BG6...@newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net...
> "John Jones" <scoob...@btopenworld.com> writes:
>
> >Seeing children being born, etc, is not an induction.
>
> No, it is an observation used as a premise in an inductive argument (as
> I believe the poster intended):
>
> a) This child was born and the world existed before them
> b) That child was born and the world existed before them
> c) I was born
> d) The world likely existed before me
>
> --S
Ian Goddard
>>Seeing children being born, etc, is not an induction.
>
>No, it is an observation used as a premise in an inductive argument (as
>I believe the poster intended):
>
>a) This child was born and the world existed before them
>b) That child was born and the world existed before them
>c) I was born
>d) The world likely existed before me
It might also be an induction in this sense:
I perceive a child being born.
Ergo, there probably is a child being born.
My proposition here being a distinction between what you perceive and
what actually exists outside your perceptual center (brain); and that
statements about the latter are inductive predictions/hypotheses that
what you perceive and what's actually "out there" are isomorphic. If
(a) inductive conclusions are ampliative and (b) external phenomena
cannot be directly perceived, then (c) all statements about what's out
there are inductive conclusions.
"Unless we take care to clear the first principles of knowledge from
the incumbrance & delusion of words, we may make infinite reasonings
upon them to no purpose." George Berkeley