Epistemology

[¿Que?]

Just brainstorming for a paper here.

It would seem to me that one of the main problems of epistemology is solving the problem of skepticism.

The dichotomy is skepticism versus dogmatism or the idea that there is no knowledge versus the idea that knowledge is possible.

If knowledge is possible, is it closed under known logical entailements? Does refuting closure strengthen or weaken the skeptic's argument?

Do all these arguments assume Cartesian dualism?

I am mainly focusing on recent philosophers and their theories on epistemology: Moore, Dretske, DeRose, Lehere, Lesher - basically, people I've never heard of until I took this class...all of which seem to take a fairly anti-skeptical position, with the exception of Leher, who ultimately, accepted the possibility of knowledge.

Anyone have any input on this. Would actually help me out quite a bit.

[smk]

someone please move this to philosophy.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Dualism on whether knowledge is possible is a little old fashioned. I'd say, like nature and nurture, the truth is that there's some synthetic nature to what appears to us as knowledge, and that includes both knowledge and falsehood, but no absolute way of distinguishing between them in a particular moment.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

El_V:


Just brainstorming for a paper here.

It would seem to me that one of the main problems of epistemology is solving the problem of skepticism.

The dichotomy is skepticism versus dogmatism or the idea that there is no knowledge versus the idea that knowledge is possible.

If knowledge is possible, is it closed under known logical entailements? Does refuting closure strengthen or weaken the skeptic's argument?

Do all these arguments assume Cartesian dualism?

I am mainly focusing on recent philosophers and their theories on epistemology: Moore, Dretske, DeRose, Lehere, Lesher - basically, people I've never heard of until I took this class...all of which seem to take a fairly anti-skeptical position, with the exception of Leher, who ultimately, accepted the possibility of knowledge.

Anyone have any input on this. Would actually help me out quite a bit.

One important writer omitted from your list is Wittgenstein (in On Certainty)

I have used some of his arguments to show how scepticism, among other things, self-destructs; here is what I posted in a recent thread about this:


Ok, here are the links. In the first, I was rather new to the site, and did not know how to use the ‘quote’ function, believe it or not. Also, the archiving function at RevLeft has inserted several symbols in place of the single quote symbol (as well as a few others, too). ‘Holden Caulfied’ was known as ‘He_Who_Controls_The_Youth’ back then, which explains my Mickey-taking with his name (in the second thread below – which begins in a non-serious sort of mood, but it soon changes into something more serious). BTB was also know as ‘Citizen Z’ in those days, and one character, ‘Volderbeek’, was an annoying Idealist, with whom I had tangled over dialectics in a previous thread. Hence the acrimony between us. I was also a little more arrogant, for some reason, in those days (i.e., in the first thread). I must have mellowed since!

http://www.revleft.com/vb/nihilism-your-thoughtsi-t43807/index.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/certaini-t70369/index.html

http://www.revleft.com/vb/can-you-prove-t79757/index.html

The above are aimed mainly at Descartes, but the arguments could equally well apply to those of any sceptic.

[syndicat]

I would highly recommend Alston's little book On the Reliability of Sense Perception (or something like that), to get a very masterful presentation of the problem (but he doesn't provide a solution).

Alston sketches out a very plausible reply to scepticism based on the use of abductive reasoning or inference to the best explanation but then rejects that answer on the grounds that it is circular. the answer to Alston is that "circularity" isn't a defect of an abductive argument but only of linear chains of reasoning, like deductions.

"Abduction" is a technical term that logic teachers use to refer to the method of making hypotheses and then checking or testing them, which is applied widely inthe sciences and everyday life.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Syndicat:


"Abduction" is a technical term that logic teachers use to refer to the method of making hypotheses and then checking or testing them, which is applied widely inthe sciences and everyday life.

Well, as you have had pointed out to you several times already, IBE (Inference to the Best Explanation, aka 'Abductive Inference') might very well be used in everyday life, but its use in science is far from reliable. That is because, in the former case, we are often on secure ground, but in the sciences, where we are pushing into new and unfamiliar areas which are almost exclusively divorced a long way from everyday experience, this is not the case.

And that is partly why the vast majority of scientific theories and hypotheses in history have been wrong.

This is unfortunate anyway, since scepticism is far easier to defeat in other ways (as the posts I linked to above show).

[¿Que?]

You guys are a little late. I finished my paper, and I ended up arguing for perceptual (not global) skepticism. I wouldn't have been inclined to take a skeptical position, if I wasn't seeing every writer arguing against it. I'm somewhat of a contrarian in that sense. :\

Rosa:
The link to the summary for Wittgenstein's On Certainty, actually does help me. I've heard the prof namedrop Wittgenstein before, but he does not appear to be on the syllabus anywhere. :/

[syndicat]

Well, as you have had pointed out to you several times already, IBE (Inference to the Best Explanation, aka 'Abductive Inference') might very well be used in everyday life, but its use in science is far from reliable. That is because, in the former case, we are often on secure ground, but in the sciences, where we are pushing into new and unfamiliar areas which are almost exclusively divorced a long way from everyday experience, this is not the case.

And that is partly why the vast majority of scientific theories and hypotheses in history have been wrong.



well, i disagree. to take an example, Newton's theories were supposedly "refuted." but putting it that way is misleading. engineers generally still use Newtonian physics to make calculations because the more complex math required by subsequent modifications in physical theory to obtain greater accuracy is not needed for most applications. so there is in fact a huge mass of results that continue to be carried forward despite some past theory being "not true" as you would put it. these results include a huge mass of hypotheses, such as Ohm's Law, Boyle's Law, etc. indeed a new "model" or "theory" or whatever has to be consistent with, and account for, this mass of results.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Syndicat:


well, i disagree. to take an example, Newton's theories were supposedly "refuted." but putting it that way is misleading. engineers generally still use Newtonian physics to make calculations because the more complex math required by subsequent modifications in physical theory to obtain greater accuracy is not needed for most applications. so there is in fact a huge mass of results that continue to be carried forward despite some past theory being "not true" as you would put it. these results include a huge mass of hypotheses, such as Ohm's Law, Boyle's Law, etc. indeed a new "model" or "theory" or whatever has to be consistent with, and account for, this mass of results.

As you probably already know (indeed, as Nancy Cartwright has pointed out in detail -- in How The Laws of Physics Lie (http://www.ebook3000.com/How-the-Laws-of-Physics-Lie_102502.html)), all of these alleged 'laws' are beset with ceteris paribus clauses ('all things being equal') which means that not one of them actually describes how the world works.

But, let us suppose you are right and Cartwright is misguided in some way, for the best part of a thousand years, observations and calculations confirmed the supposed truth of Ptolemy's system. But, we no longer regard his theory as anywhere near what we now deem to be the 'truth'.

Indeed, as Stanford noted:


"...n the historical progression from Aristotelian to Cartesian to Newtonian to contemporary mechanical theories, the evidence available at the time each earlier theory was accepted offered equally strong support to each of the (then-unimagined) later alternatives. The same pattern would seem to obtain in the historical progression from elemental to early corpuscularian chemistry to Stahl's phlogiston theory to Lavoisier's oxygen chemistry to Daltonian atomic and contemporary physical chemistry; from various versions of preformationism to epigenetic theories of embryology; from the caloric theory of heat to later and ultimately contemporary thermodynamic theories; from effluvial theories of electricity and magnetism to theories of the electromagnetic ether and contemporary electromagnetism; from humoral imbalance to miasmatic to contagion and ultimately germ theories of disease; from 18th Century corpuscular theories of light to 19th Century wave theories to contemporary quantum mechanical conception; from Hippocrates's pangenesis to Darwin's blending theory of inheritance (and his own 'gemmule' version of pangenesis) to Wiesmann's germ-plasm theory and Mendelian and contemporary molecular genetics; from Cuvier's theory of functionally integrated and necessarily static biological species or Lamarck's autogenesis to Darwinian evolutionary theory; and so on in a seemingly endless array of theories, the evidence for which ultimately turned out to support one or more unimagined competitors just as well. Thus, the history of scientific enquiry offers a straightforward inductive rationale for thinking that there are alternatives to our best theories equally well-confirmed by the evidence, even when we are unable to conceive of them at the time." [Stanford (2001), p.9.]

Stanford, P. (2001), 'Refusing The Devil's Bargain: What Kind Of Underdetermination Should We Take Seriously?', in Barrett and Alexander (2001), pp.1-12.

Barrett, J., and Alexander, J. (2001), (eds.), [I]PSA 2000, Part 1, Supplement to Philosophy of Science 68, 3 (University of Chicago Press).

[PSA = Philosophy of Science Association; the PSA volumes comprise papers submitted to its biennial meeting.]

And what engineers and applied scientists find useful and/or practical is no guarantee of truth either. Indeed, Laplace was able to use Caloric theory to correct the mess Newton made of the theory of sound; and his results were unsurpassed for nearly a hundred years. Moreover, Sadi Carnot used the same theory to develop early thermodynamics:


Sadi Carnot developed his principle of the Carnot cycle, which still forms the basis of heat engine theory, solely from the caloric viewpoint.

However, one of the greatest confirmations of the caloric theory was Pierre-Simon Laplace's theoretical correction of Sir Isaac Newton’s pulse equation. Laplace, a calorist, added a constant to Newton’s equation, which we refer to today as the adiabatic index of a gas. This addition not only substantially corrected the theoretical prediction of the speed of sound, but also continued to make even more accurate predictions for almost a century afterward, even as measurements of the index became more precise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caloric_theory#Successes

Yet another IBE screw-up.

And Newton's Mechanics was also responsible for several scientific screw-ups, too -- for instance:


"The arguments which terminate in an hypothesis's positing the existence of some trans-Uranic object, the planet Neptune, and the structurally identical arguments which forced Leverrier to urge the existence of an intra-Mercurial planet, the planet 'Vulcan', to explain the precessional aberrations of our 'innermost' solar system neighbour are formally one and the same. They run: (1) Newtonian mechanics is true; (2) Newtonian mechanics requires planet P to move in exactly this manner, x, y, z, …; (3) but P does not move à la x, y, z; (4) so either (a) there exists some as-yet-unobserved object, A, or (b) Newtonian mechanics is false. (5) 4b) contradicts 1) so 4a) is true -- there exists some as-yet-undetected body which will put everything right again between observation and theory. The variable 'A' took the value 'Neptune' in the former case; it took the value 'Vulcan' in the latter case. And these insertions constituted the zenith and the nadir of classical celestial mechanics, for Neptune does exist, whereas Vulcan does not." [Hanson (1970), p.257, slightly modified to make the argument clearer. See also Hanson (1962).]

Hanson, N. (1962), 'Leverrier: The Zenith And Nadir Of Newtonian Mechanics', Isis 53, pp.359-78; reprinted in Hanson (1971), pp.103-26.

--------, (1970), 'A Picture Theory Of Meaning', in Colodny (1970), pp.233-74; reprinted in Hanson (1971), pp.3-49.

--------, (1971), What I Do Not Believe, And Other Essays (Reidel).

Colodny, R. (1970) (ed.), The Nature And Function Of Scientific Theories (University of Pittsburgh Press).

This is yet another classic example of how an IBE failed. And, as I pointed out earlier, the history of science is littered with examples like this.

So, IBE is not a safe bulwark against scepticism.

Finally, I don't think I used the word "refuted".

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

El_V:


Rosa:
The link to the summary for Wittgenstein's On Certainty, actually does help me. I've heard the prof namedrop Wittgenstein before, but he does not appear to be on the syllabus anywhere.

Well, he's not popular these days (especially in America), since, if he is right, the overwhelming bulk of philosophy over the last 2400 years is non-sensical (http://www.revleft.com/vb/all-philosophical-theories-t148537/index.html) and thus a total waste of time and effort.

You can't build much of a University career out of that!

[syndicat]

As you probably already know (indeed, as Nancy Cartwright has pointed out in detail -- in How The Laws of Physics Lie (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.ebook3000.com/How-the-Laws-of-Physics-Lie_102502.html)), all of these alleged 'laws' are beset with ceteris paribus clauses ('all things being equal') which means that not one of them actually describes how the world works.



yeah, i've read it. I don't disagree with her point. but why do engineers still use Ohm's Law, then? if it's just "false"? like i say, to say that is misleading.

and, you're not going to like Cartwright's conclusion. her view is that we have to posit tendencies or capacities in nature and that our formulation of "laws" are approximations or models or estimations of how they work.

it's best, then, to think of Ohm's Law as referring to a particular tendency. the understanding of it encapsulated in that principle does in fact work for practical purposes. the sense in which it is "not true" has to do with very rarified conditions that we don't usually have to worry about. engineers don't use relativity to deal with engineering applications here on the surface of our planet for example. that's because Newton's equations are simpler and accurate enough for their purposes.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Syndicat:


but why do engineers still use Ohm's Law, then? if it's just "false"? like i say, to say that is misleading.

Same reason astronomers used Ptolemy's system for 1000 years until it was superseded. Same reason Laplace used Caloric theory to correct Newton.


and, you're not going to like Cartwright's conclusion. her view is that we have to posit tendencies or capacities in nature and that our formulation of "laws" are approximations or models or estimations of how they work.

Indeed, I do not agree with her conclusion about 'capacities' etc., and that not just because it's a linguistic solution to what is supposed to be a scientific question. It's also because her theory implies nature is governed by 'laws', otherwise she has no way of explaining why these 'capacities' are found right throughout nature, and they all behave in the same way, ceteris paribus.


it's best, then, to think of Ohm's Law as referring to a particular tendency. the understanding of it encapsulated in that principle does in fact work for practical purposes. the sense in which it is "not true" has to do with very rarefied conditions that we don't usually have to worry about. engineers don't use relativity to deal with engineering applications here on the surface of our planet for example. that's because Newton's equations are simpler and accurate enough for their purposes.

Maybe so, but then Caloric was a 'tendency' too. However, the IBE that led to its postulation was nonetheless defective -- as the vast majority have been in the history of science.

So, the everyday IBE here surely is: IBEs are unreliable when applied in scientific contexts, as I maintained earlier.

[Incidentally, I have no quarrel with everyday IBEs.]

Hence, in scientific contexts they provide us with no secure bulwark against scepticism.

[syndicat]

Maybe so, but then Caloric was a 'tendency' too, and the IBE that led to its postulation was nonetheless defective -- as are the vast majority have been in the history of science.



but then you can't explain why those older ideas were abandoned. what does scientific progress consist in?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Syndicat:


but then you can't explain why those older ideas were abandoned. what does scientific progress consist in?

I follow Kuhn here: there is certainly progress in science, but it is not toward 'the truth'. You can find a recent summary and defence of this point here:

Reydon, T., and Hoyningen-Heuene, P. (2010), 'Discussion: Kuhn's Evolutionary Analogy In The Structure Of Scientific Revolutions And "The Road Since Structure"', Philosophy of Science 77, pp.468-76.

So, just as there is progress, say, in the maufacture of aeroplanes, this isn't progress toward anything.


but then you can't explain why those older ideas were abandoned

But, you can't either, unless you abandon IBE, or at least admit it's not all that reliable in science.

Anyway, I think there is no one reason why older theories are abandoned. What is required isn't an a priori theory of scientific advance, but a detailed historical study of the social pressures/concomitants involved in each case.

[syndicat]

So, just as there is progress, say, in the maufacture of aeroplanes, this isn't progress toward anything.


progress means improvement in some respect. what is that respect? in other words, if one wants to claim there was an improvement (and it's not progress if it is not better in some way), then what is the criterion or criteria of improvement? i think that a better explanation is found...and there are various ways in which it might be better. but i do think that a better understanding is one that approximates more closely to the way things are, that is, to reality. and that means, towards truth.

[¿Que?]

Progress implies a value system somewhere, which makes it unscientific in the sense that it is not value-neutral or value-free.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Syndicat:


progress means improvement in some respect. what is that respect?

That depends on which area of science you are talking about.


in other words, if one wants to claim there was an improvement (and it's not progress if it is not better in some way), then what is the criterion or criteria of improvement?

That's up to scientists to decide. Do we decide if a new operative technique in, say, brain surgery is an improvement? Or do surgeons decide?


i think that a better explanation is found...and there are various ways in which it might be better. but i do think that a better understanding is one that approximates more closely to the way things are, that is, to reality. and that means, towards truth.

Well, of course, an approximation is only an approximation if we know with what it is supposed to be an approximation. But, you can't know that unless you know what that final scientific truth is -- or, indeed, if there is such a truth to begin with.

Plainly, in order to do that, you'd have to know the truth before it had been found by scientists. And how are you going to do that, for goodness sake?

Hence, you can't even know that for any given theory, T, T is an approximation to the truth.

So, not only have the vast majority of IBEs given false results, we do not even know if those that we now think are right are indeed right, or that they are closer to 'the truth', or even if there is such a thing as 'the truth' for them to be closer to.

Not looking too secure a basis from which to answer the sceptic, is it?

[syndicat]

Well, of course, an approximation is only an approximation if we know with what it is supposed to be an approximation. But, you can't know that unless you know what that final scientific truth is -- or, indeed, if there is such a truth to begin with.



I don't think this is the case. There are in fact many individual truths that we know, that we find out.

We also know some general truths. We know what the relationship is between resistance, voltage (pressure) and amps (volume of flow) in a circuit. This is given by Ohm's Law. This principle is constantly verified in the practice of electricians and electrical engineers.

So I don't think your general scepticism about truth is justified.

i used to be obsessive about philosophy like you are, when I was younger, but I no longer am. Maybe because I came to sceptical conclusions about the value of a lot of it...somewhat like you in that respect. But i'm sure you can wear me out in any discussion of these matters.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Syndicat:


I don't think this is the case. There are in fact many individual truths that we know, that we find out.

I agree, but then it was you who introduced the word 'approximate' not me.


We also know some general truths. We know what the relationship is between resistance, voltage (pressure) and amps (volume of flow) in a circuit. This is given by Ohm's Law. This principle is constantly verified in the practice of electricians and electrical engineers.

Well, if you think this, then why did you introduce ideas taken from Convergent Realism, like 'approximation'?

And, in relation to your general point about Ohm's Law, etc., I have written this in another thread:


Well given the fact that the vast majority of scientific theories have been wrong, then there is a very high probability that these are in error too.

As I have shown here (http://anti-dialectics.co.uk/Summary_of_Essay_Ten_Part_One.htm), even false theories can produce correct results, so the fact that these theories underpin the technologies you mention is no proof they are true.

As Leibniz showed 300 years ago, through a finite number of points, a potentially infinite number of curves can be drawn. So, if Theory T(1) can be used to account for a finite set of observations and/or predictions (leading to technological innovation/improvement), then there is another set of theories {T(2), T(3), T(4),...,T(N)} that can do so too, even if we are unaware of them.

And that is precisely what the history of science has shown to be the case

You:


So I don't think your general scepticism about truth is justified.

But, I'm not sceptical about truth, only about Scientific Realism and the use of IBE.


i used to be obsessive about philosophy like you are, when I was younger, but I no longer am. Maybe because I came to sceptical conclusions about the value of a lot of it...somewhat like you in that respect. But i'm sure you can wear me out in any discussion of these matters.

I reckon I'm about as old as you are.:)

[syndicat]

I reckon I'm about as old as you are.

perhaps so but it's not just an age thing. over the course of my life since my grad school and teaching days I've acquired an array of other interests and involvements, and I no longer have the time to read philosophy and hear the latest debates on the "philosophy of science" and what not.

but carry on.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Syndicat:


perhaps so but it's not just an age thing. over the course of my life since my grad school and teaching days I've acquired an array of other interests and involvements, and I no longer have the time to read philosophy and hear the latest debates on the "philosophy of science" and what not.

Well, if you check out that thread in Philosophy (http://www.revleft.com/vb/all-philosophical-theories-t148537/index.html), which you skim read and tried to refute with a neat, knock-down argument (that I had already neutralised), you will see that I maintain that all of traditional philosophy (and that includes Scientific Realism) is not just non-sensical, it's a total waste of effort.

So, I do not understand why you think I'm obsessed with it.

I might be obsessed with seeking to undermine its pretentions, but that's all.

However, I keep up-to-date in the philosophy of language, logic and science so that my counter-arguments remain relevant and well-supported.


but carry on.

Thanks, Sarge...:thumbup1: