On Behalf of Moderate Foundationalism
Jason and I were discussing a project I'm working on right now on probability and basic perceptual beliefs. He reminded me of some things Tim McGrew says in his "A Defense of Strong Foundationalism." Here is part of the relevant passage.
"probability arises from a relation between the probable proposition and a body of evidence. This simple fact about probability creates a fatal dilemma for moderate foundationalism. If there are basic beliefs that are merely probable, then they are not basic at all; they are inferred, probable in relation to some other beliefs that support them."
Clearly this is a non-sequitur so just a slip-up. From
(1) Probability is a relation between a proposition and a body of evidence.
it does not follow that
(2) All merely probable beliefs are inferred.
This is because the species of epistemic support relation which is relevant is a quasi-logical relation and so it holds regardless of what we do about it. We know that there are justified uninferred beliefs because we have them all the time. Most (to put it mildly) of our perceptual beliefs are basic, justified, and sub-certain (if we are rational). They are made epistemically probable (or reasonable) by the experiences which cause them. They are epistemically appropriate responses to our experiences (where "response" does not imply (or exclude) volition).
All Tim means to affirm, as far as I can tell, is that there is always some belief in the neighborhood we *could* have of which we *would* be certain (if rational), namely, the belief that it seems to us as if such-and-such is the case. I'm fine with that as long as we're talking about "This is thus" beliefs or something pretty close. My worry is one Plantinga makes use of. Suppose I have an experience as of a dolphin swimming by. I might not be certain that I'm applying "dolphin" correctly. The conceptual bit make cases a bit trickier, but the main point is the one about the non-necessity of inferring merely probable propositions.
"probability arises from a relation between the probable proposition and a body of evidence. This simple fact about probability creates a fatal dilemma for moderate foundationalism. If there are basic beliefs that are merely probable, then they are not basic at all; they are inferred, probable in relation to some other beliefs that support them."
Clearly this is a non-sequitur so just a slip-up. From
(1) Probability is a relation between a proposition and a body of evidence.
it does not follow that
(2) All merely probable beliefs are inferred.
This is because the species of epistemic support relation which is relevant is a quasi-logical relation and so it holds regardless of what we do about it. We know that there are justified uninferred beliefs because we have them all the time. Most (to put it mildly) of our perceptual beliefs are basic, justified, and sub-certain (if we are rational). They are made epistemically probable (or reasonable) by the experiences which cause them. They are epistemically appropriate responses to our experiences (where "response" does not imply (or exclude) volition).
All Tim means to affirm, as far as I can tell, is that there is always some belief in the neighborhood we *could* have of which we *would* be certain (if rational), namely, the belief that it seems to us as if such-and-such is the case. I'm fine with that as long as we're talking about "This is thus" beliefs or something pretty close. My worry is one Plantinga makes use of. Suppose I have an experience as of a dolphin swimming by. I might not be certain that I'm applying "dolphin" correctly. The conceptual bit make cases a bit trickier, but the main point is the one about the non-necessity of inferring merely probable propositions.
posted by Trent_Dougherty at
6:14 PM
17 Comment(s):
He may be using the concept of epistemic basicality in that way (a way which I try to spell out a bit in my last paragraph), but I don't think that provides the missing premise in his otherwise enthymematic argument.
Here is a reason why the psychological facts I advert to--uninferred basic beliefs that go beyond the phenomenal--are relevant which stems from evidentialism.
The justification relation which the evidentialist is describing is a relation of at least three parts: a person, a proposition, and that persons evidence. The *actual* justificatory status of a belief is judged according to an *actual* body of evidence. Thus, if I have some extra-phenomenal belief which is in fact uninferred, my *actual* evidence just doesn't include any phenomenal beliefs. My evidence will include certain non-doxastic appearance states and *were I to reflect upon it* I *would* (perhaps) form beliefs about them which would then be part of my evidence (though notice that they seem superfluous, mere middle men). As it stands, however, we typically *don't* form such beleifs--beliefs about how things appear to us--and so they *aren't* part of our actual evidence.
The short version is that since justification is indexed to persons, the persons psychology *is* relevant.
By
Trent_Dougherty, at 12/26/2006 10:16 PM
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By
Tim, at 1/30/2007 8:16 PM
Trent,
Actually, there's no slip here. If you look at the context of the argument you'll find that I'm explicitly presupposing (1) an internalist and doxastic conception of evidence, (2) a non-psychological conception of inference, and (3) an epistemic conception of probability. Your criticism at different points seems to involve rejecting at least (1) and arguably (2).
You write:
Most (to put it mildly) of our perceptual beliefs are basic, justified, and sub-certain (if we are rational).
Jason hit the nail on the head: I think you're using "basic" here in a psychological sense rather than in an epistemic one. If the less-than-certain probability of these beliefs is a function of the relations in which they stand to other beliefs, they are not epistemically basic. (The holding of this functional relationship is a critical component of the non-psychological, and potentially tacit, conception of inference I'm employing.)
You go on:
They are made epistemically probable (or reasonable) by the experiences which cause them. They are epistemically appropriate responses to our experiences (where "response" does not imply (or exclude) volition).
Since I don't recognize a non-doxastic conception of evidence, I think this is just a mistake -- and one that plays into the hands of externalists like Bergmann. Your response to Jason seems to me to concede too much in that direction. In my view there are, in the last analysis, no non-doxastic appearance states; every occurrent experiential state is, eo ipso, the content of a tacit referential belief. Self-conscious noticing is not required.
By
Tim, at 1/30/2007 8:20 PM
Hey Tim, glad you found this!
I think that doxastic justification is a function of psychology (in addition to propositional justification). A belief is doxastically justified when its contents are propositionally justified and the belief is based on the evidence for which it is propositionally justified.
We clearly have different conceptions of evidence. I confess I don't understand what a doxastic appearance state is. It *seems* to me that I've got a pretty clear grip on the difference between my (conceptualized) appearance states I host and the beleifs I base them on.
By
Trent_Dougherty, at 1/30/2007 8:23 PM
Trent,
I could've phrased that more felicitously: I think that, necessarily, there are no appearance states that fail to be accompanied by doxastic states that have, as their content, referentially-formed beliefs of the sort I discuss in the article in Pojman's anthology. Having such a belief, though not necessarily thinking about it and certainly not verbalizing it, is a necessary condition of having experience at all.
Does that help?
By
Tim, at 1/30/2007 8:35 PM
Well, that's what it sounded like you were saying, but I thought I *had* to be misunderstanding.
I just can't think why that would be so.
Do you defend this entailment in the Pojman piece? (I don't have a copy sadly.)
By
Trent_Dougherty, at 1/30/2007 8:47 PM
Trent,
I don't try to defend the position there, but I mention it:
Having an experience at all, on this view, might come out to be equivalent to having a tacit referential belief.
I think this is a conceptual truth. But you don't. So help me out: explain to me what it would be like to have an experience and not have, even tacitly or dispositionally, the belief that I was experiencing like dthat. ("dthat" = demonstrative "that")
By
Tim, at 1/30/2007 10:52 PM
I don't know what tacit or dispositional beliefs are (or especially referential beliefs, never even heard that term before). I think I know what a disposition to believe is. But I'm confident there are lots of experiences I have whose content I have no serious disposition to be united in belief.
I'm e-aware (Sosa) of lots of things I'm not n-aware of and I think instances of awareness are experiences.
By
Trent_Dougherty, at 1/30/2007 10:59 PM
OK, I mispoke, I know what dispositional beliefs are, but not tacit or referential ones.
By
Trent_Dougherty, at 1/30/2007 11:02 PM
Trent,
I'm confused now. You started this thread off with a post trying to critique my argument, but now it seems like you're saying you haven't read the paper from which you're quoting. That's where I define and discuss referentially-formed beliefs (along with my 1995 book). Go here for an online copy, albeit with a few typos (one of which Jason caught).
By
Tim, at 1/30/2007 11:25 PM
Trent,
Since you brought up Sosa: his category of e-awareness is not sufficiently fine-grained to catch the distinction we're looking at here. I'm not claiming that tacit referentially-formed beliefs constitute or are sufficient for n-awareness, as I understand Sosa's use of that term. But the dichotomy between noticing something and having no doxastic concomitant of one's experience is a false one. I suspect that the error here is in the vicinity of the error of confusing psychological priority with epistemic priority.
By
Tim, at 1/30/2007 11:32 PM
I'll look at the paper again, I'm sure I did not realize at the time that it was fundamental to your theory.
I can't see that *any* kind of noticing *entails* belief, even conscioiusly noticing, and even "tacit" belief.
Like I said, I could have all kinds of experiences which for whatever reason--gamma rays from alpha centauri?--I don't have a disposition to endorse in belief.
I think in a theory of knowledge psychological priority has as much a role to play as epistemic priority. It's *people* who know things.
I'm going to go learn about referential beliefs now...
By
Trent_Dougherty, at 1/30/2007 11:59 PM
Trent,
Give me an example of awareness without the sort of tacit referential belief I describe in the paper, and I'll give you an example of awareness that cannot, in principle, do any epistemic work.
Of course, I'm going to define "epistemic work" in a robustly internalist fashion. Have you seen anything from our book besides the couple of chapters we sent you a few months ago? Chapter 2 in particular might be important for the notion of internalism we're employing, which seems thicker than the one you're describing (and defending) on this blog.
By
Tim, at 1/31/2007 4:31 PM
Tim, I haven't read more than those chapters and I haven't had a chance to look back at the original paper, but if memory serves "referential beliefs" are of the "this is thus" kind.
I think I have all kinds of experiences which have features I don't consciously demonstrate and so don't form the belief in question and for which I might not even have a disposition to form for reasons having to do with gamma rays from alpha centauri or mischievous brain scientists.
Think of all the experiences I have in my peripheral vision about which I can be in the position just described. Yet they can still do epistemic work in that they can cause me to form certain beliefs since the information is still incoded in my brain.
By
Trent_Dougherty, at 1/31/2007 4:38 PM
And I should add that I'm a phenomenal conservative, so there's nothing necessarily externalistic in that picture just described because the encoded information that p can cause in me a non-doxastic seeming state that p that can be evidence.
By
Trent_Dougherty, at 1/31/2007 4:40 PM
And furthermore I think I can host the non-doxastic seeming state that p without believing that p and that seeming state still be evidence for some q such that it's obvious to me that p entails q. This is a species of unconscioius inference.
By
Trent_Dougherty, at 1/31/2007 4:42 PM
Trent,
"This is thus" wouldn't really characterize it accurately -- more like "I am experiencing like this" -- but let that go. I'm not claiming that one deliberately or self-consciously makes these mental moves, only that this sort of verbal expression is the best we can do at representing these beliefs when, as sometimes happens, they rise to the level of focal awareness.
By "phenomenal conservativism" do you mean Michael Huemer's sort? If so, you might want to see my worries about that aspect of his system in my NDPR review of his book. One can be a "thin" internalist and hold PC (Chisholm is a good example too), but I think that in the end it's an untenable position.
I have no idea what you mean about "hosting" the non-doxastic seeming state that p without believing that p and yet having p be evidence for you. Why think a thing like that is even possible? My suspicion is that this will turn on the conflation of psychological and epistemic priority again. But beyond that, haven't you just walked into Michael Bergmann's trap?
By
Tim, at 1/31/2007 9:45 PM
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