Duh. What is improbable beyond imagination, however, is any cohesive connecting factor, not unlike the coin in the fish’s mouth.
How else would it be done?! I don’t recall that we were talking about prophecy.
So you’re saying that you simply define science as the only reliable method of knowing. And the reason you give for this is that other methods of knowing are not as reliable as science, that reliability being assessed by the standards of science.
Do you realize the circular nature of your position?
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That is not circular in any important way.
Not really no. After all, it is not science that is making those other methods fail the empirical tests.
Suppose you’re invited to some event where we are to determine what is inside some box but we are not allowed to open it. We use our different “ways of knowing” on the box and then state what we think is inside it.
Some use their “intuition” about what’s inside the box.
Some use purely abstract inductive/deductive arguments.
Some take somebody’s authoritative declaration on faith.
Some do science, as in various empirical tests on the box, measure it’s dimensions, shake it and listen, weigh it, measure it’s temperature etc. etc.
Now the question is, how do we determine how well the different methods did? What, short of actually opening the damn thing and looking inside it, could ever arbitrate that?
I used one type of empirical test(open the box and look), to check the performance of other types of empirical tests(weighing, measuring etc.). That’s not circular. I have not stated all types of empirical tests are always reliable.
If you came to some event to perform such a test, and you are shown the box, and then you use your “alternative way of knowing”, you have already implicitly conceded that empirical knowledge is reliable. You took your eyes and ears and your reasoning to be trustworthy in telling you that you are at such an event, and that there really is a box.
Consider that it is entirely conceivable that you could intuit what was inside the box. You have no reason to think that opening and checking with your eyes is somehow magically making your intuition fail to match the contents of the box, so you do no better than random guessing. It could be the case that there really were multiple reliable ways of knowing. And in that case, they could mutually corroborate each other when we open the box and look.
But I guess you can try to make this about solipsism as some sort of ultimate victory. I can’t prove that the external world my senses inform me about really exists in some ultimate true sense(and I can’t justify the existence of this world by using my senses without it being circular). That is taken for granted. But at least, I don’t see what other choice we have. Is there some alternative way of living? And can you prove the reliability of that?
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Not all questions are analogous to “what’s in the box?” (And even in your scenario, e.g. taking someone’s authoritative declaration on faith has a good chance of proving better than measuring and feeling and shaking the box - if you have reason to think that your source is trustworthy and in a position to know the answer.)
But how about a question of a different nature? Instead of “What’s in the box?”, try “Are the laws of logic valid?”
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What reasons would that be, and how would I come to have those reasons?
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That’s an axiom, it can’t be demonstrated by any method. You either accept it, or you do what, stop using logic?
Under your epistemology - why not? You just admitted that by your lights we cannot know that the laws of logic are valid; they are just axioms that we accept. But then we don’t actually know anything we claim to have arrived at by logic, because the justification of such a claim depends on the validity of the reasoning process as much as it does on the truth of the premises.
So why accept the laws of logic? Because they are useful? But usefulness is not truth. I could believe in God because it is useful to me (maybe it makes me happy), but that does not show that he exists.
The reality, in fact, is that we do know the laws of logic are valid, and (as you recognize) we don’t know this via demonstration, neither logically (that would be circular) nor empirically (since no particular contingent empirical fact can demonstrate the universal necessary character of the laws of logic). The laws of logic are an example of something we know to be true via rational intuition.
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Only if truth is unimportant. The Latin anagram is a very cool co-instance and not an accident, answering Pilate’s question:
Quid est veritas? “What is truth?”
Est vir qui adest: “It is the man who is here.”
Why not what, stop using logic? If we are to have any meaningful conversation at all, or make any sense of anything, we must implicitly assume that logic obtains.
I do not claim to be in a position to show that logic is valid. I don’t think that can be done. We either take it as self-evident(if there is such a thing), or we stop having conversation.
You just admitted that by your lights we cannot know that the laws of logic are valid; they are just axioms that we accept.
Yes.
But then we don’t actually know anything we claim to have arrived at by logic because the justification of such a claim depends on the validity of the reasoning process as much as it does on the truth of the premises.
In that ultimate sense where everything we reason about implicitly assumes that logic obtains, no, we can’t. We must take that as an axiom. Then with that assumption, we must use evidence to guide our beliefs about the world.
So why accept the laws of logic?
To even make sense of your question, for you to pose it and think I should be able to answer it, you must accept the very thing. I don’t see any way out of this.
I generally find this kind of diving for the metaphysics of logic to be a sign capitulation. In response to my request for evidence to justify knowledge claims, some theists inevitably go nuclear and starts questioning the very basis for rational discourse, as if they could provide one themselves that would not just beg the question or constitute a blind assertion.
Because they are useful? But usefulness is not truth. I could believe in God because it is useful to me (maybe it makes me happy), but that does not show that he exists.
I agree, axiomatically accepting something as true doesn’t show it is.
The reality, in fact, is that we do know the laws of logic are valid, and (as you recognize) we don’t know this via demonstration, neither logically (that would be circular) nor empirically (since no particular contingent empirical fact can demonstrate the universal necessary character of the laws of logic). The laws of logic are an example of something we know to be true via rational intuition.
I don’t see how just insisting that we know it to be true by “rational intuition” (which I’m not sure what is) gets us out the conondrum of the validity of logic. How do we know our rational intuition is correct, does it just support itself? We have another one that supports it, and so an infinite regress of them? I don’t think these questions can be solved without just more assumptions, or question-begging assertions.
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Right. Taking it as self-evident that the laws of logic are valid is nothing other than an appeal to knowledge via rational intuitions to that effect.
If by this you mean that we don’t really know anything derived from reasoning (and that rather, we are just forced to act and speak as if we do), then this to me is a reductio ad absurdum of your position. If on the other hand you mean that, by assuming the validity of the laws of logic, we really are able to know things through reason, then to me this again is an appeal to knowledge via rational intuitions.
(“Rational intuitions” simply being intuitions about what is and isn’t rational.)
In a sense, yes. (That’s the “self” in “self-evident.”) Some beliefs are properly basic. As far as I can tell, you accept this, because you believe in the external world on the basis of your experience. My point is that if you agree that we can have knowledge (or even just reasonable belief) through reasoning, then you implicitly accept that there are properly basic beliefs through another source in addition to experience.
Which means that not all knowledge or reasonable belief is empirical.
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I have to take issue with your characterization of my argument as a reductio ad absurdum, because I don’t think my position implies a contradiction. It is not, therefore, absurd.
Nevertheless, I think you actually make a decent case I’ll have to consider more.
The biggest stumbling block I have at the moment is the concept of intuition. I am not prepared to call intuition knowledge, among other things because I’m not convinced it isn’t a kind of subconscious reasoning. And perhaps worse, we have examples of other powerful intuitions that can be shown to be wrong. Further, some of our other “intuitions” are basically evolved instincts that we seem to have for no other reason than they provide a fitness benefit, even while we can understand that they are not strictly true(agency detection bias, for example).
I will say though, that what makes me somewhat more receptive towards your claim that we can have a rational intuition uniquely on logic, is that unlike many other forms of intuitions, on the topic of the metaphysics of logic it seems to be different. It is (at least to me) difficult to wrap my head around the idea of reasoning about the metaphysics of logic. The circularity, or at least question-begging, seems inescapable and I’m not persuaded that declaring the validity of logic to be “known” by intuition, to get us out of this.
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You are right, it’s true that it is not a reductio in the strict sense. I’ve been reading a fair amount of philosophy lately, and philosophers sometimes use the term in a looser sense as “this position entails something that I take to be obviously false, or that I take to have better reasons for believing false than any of the reasons given for this position…”. It’s rubbed off on me, somewhat unfortunately now that I think about it.
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My intention in this discussion is to point out to you that your epistemological position arises from a set of axioms which are themselves unprovable. These axioms are also non-empirical. There is no “empirical evidence” that the rules of logic are true, given that we assume the rules of logic to assess empirical evidence. So, I think you shouldn’t be surprised if some people have a different set of starting axioms, including not assuming that we can only know things through the scientific method.
This goes into what @structureoftruth pointed out: namely this is not just about choosing which method is best to find out what is in a metal box. What if we know the “box” exists, but we can’t just open it? What if we are asking not what’s in the box, but where it came from and why it exists? I’m guessing that you would say that we should just be agnostic about the matter, since we can’t know anything about it using empirical methods as used in science. But some people are unsatisfied with this and wish to investigate the question with other methods (such as rational deduction based on general philosophical principles about reality). Based on the discussion so far, you have no rational basis to criticize this endeavor other than just admitting that your preferred starting axioms and definitions inherently rule it out.
I could take it even further: how do you know your mind is able to properly understand and utilize the rules of logic, given that it evolved purely for the purpose of improving evolutionary fitness? I would expect it to be able to reason at some basic level in order to be able to hunt and gather, but how do you know that you can use those same capabilities to reason reliably about philosophical matters?
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I could take it even further. How is it that bits of the Big Bang even developed minds and became self aware?
Not a proof of anything, just a very strange concept.
That’s related to Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism, as I am sure you are aware. But perhaps you have not seen Donald Hoffman’s version arguing that our perception does not provide veridical access to reality because it evolved for fitness, which according to him does not imply it is veridical.
Here is the introductory Q&A he did at Quanta.
Leiter has comments and links to more detailed descriptions and criticisms; see that blog post as well as the linked predecessor.
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It would seem very strange if you always reasoned incorrectly yet that consistently just so happened to make you better able to survive and reproduce. It seems to me that, generally speaking, your reasoning must match the operation of the world that surrounds you. After all, that is the world in which you are trying to survive. It would be very odd if understanding it incorrectly would consistently help you survive and reproduce.
Take the problem of trying to move towards your food. You see food in front of you, and then you reason incorrectly that moving away from it is how you get the food, and this then somehow consistently aids you survive and reproduce? Clearly that doesn’t make sense. We would generally expect that incorrect reasoning would hinder survival and reproduction.
Then we make tests on the box without opening it.
What if we are asking not what’s in the box, but where it came from and why it exists?
Same thing.
I’m guessing that you would say that we should just be agnostic about the matter, since we can’t know anything about it using empirical methods as used in science.
But I’m not at all persuaded we can’t know anything about it using empirical methods. You’re just declaring that to be the case in your hypothetical. Sure, if that is really the case, then we can’t answer those questions using science. But then I don’t think we can answer the questions with any appreciable degree of certainty using those other methods either. In fact all our experiences tell us that the other methods do worse than science. They’re usually no better than random guessing.
But some people are unsatisfied with this and wish to investigate the question with other methods (such as rational deduction based on general philosophical principles about reality).
How would they apply to the box?
Based on the discussion so far, you have no rational basis to criticize this endeavor other than just admitting that your preferred starting axioms and definitions inherently rule it out.
No, they don’t inherently rule it out. My preference for empirical evidence is itself based on experience. Science has a proven track record of being the best tool we have for investigating the world. That includes the contents of boxes, how boxes come to exist, and why they were made.
The other methods have consistently failed the tests for usefulness. People’s ability to intuit where the box came from(good luck trying to argue we have a rational intuition about how boxes come into existence, and why), or abstractly reason about why it exists not based on any experience, seem to do no better than random guessing. If they were as useful as empirical evidence is, we’d use them in science too. They’d be part of the scientific method and carry as much weight.
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But that’s not an assumption I’m making.
The assumption is that we can know things through our senses, using empirical evidence. This is a foundational assumption, but notice that I have not begun by assuming we can ONLY know things by empirical evidence. To begin with, I am undecided on what other ways of knowing there are. I just know that I have senses, and I assume they give me knowledge about the world.
Then, using those senses I gain experiences, and then using my rational faculties, I come to learn about other supposed methods. Other ways of knowing. I learn about intuition, abstract arguments, faith in authorities, and so on.
I then evaluate and compare the performance of these other ways of knowing, to knowing things empirically using science. I discover that the other methods generally don’t work. In general they perform no better than random guessing.
I then think about what it means to say we know something. The word carries some weight. When I say I know something, I am saying I can be pretty certain about it. At least, it carries more weight, it implies greater certainty, than if I had said I have a hunch about it, and certainly even more weight than if I had said I don’t know it but it would be my guess. So now I have an understanding of how the word knowledge is used, and I want to ensure that when I use it, it has the justification that it implies. Well, so what have I learned about how we reliably gain knowledge? I have learned that the best way is by using the methods of science, and requiring empirical evidence.
If the other methods hadn’t been crap, I’d have been fine using them too and saying we can know things with them. But they failed consistently.
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