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Skepticism "Refuted" via the Principle of Charity
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astaire1
Dancing WuLi Master  Usergroup: Members Joined: Dec 26, 2007 Location: France Total Topics: 5 Total Posts: 890 |
 #51
Simple Occam wrote: I would argue that "knowledge" falls somewhere between "using probabilities to make decisions" (essentially guesswork) and "some mathematically perfect construct". Not sure why would assume these are the only 2 possibilities or that I think knowledge is the latter. Based on what you said about skepticism, I'm assuming a skeptic defines knowledge in an extreme way that implies a contradiction. I admit its worthwhile to point out that a simple naive definition of knowledge is unworkable if such a naive notion is commonly in use. Simple Occam wrote: I would argue that "knowledge" falls somewhere between... Are you saying that you have a working definition of knowledge that you would argue for? If so, please specifiy the definition and THEN provide the support. Perhaps you are admitting that you can't have the type of simple knowledge that you want and yet you aren't ready to let go of it completely. Simple Occam wrote: But what is the point of saying "To me that seems like a useful definition of knowledge"? Why would "what it seems like to you" be at all relevant to what I would think knowledge is, Why would *your* posts and arguments be at all relevant? If you accept the skeptics position they wouldn't. But since you continue to argue you've betrayed that you haven't given up on knowledge. Subjecting claims to criticism is a process that can weed out claims that are fragile. Therefore the support each of us can provide for claims regarding knowledge is indeed relevant. Even the sceptic knows this but he/she says the opposite. Simple Occam wrote: unless "reflecting on the nature of knowledge" is the way to figure out the nature of knowledge? Of course reflection makes an important contribution to figuring out the validity of various claims. Reflection is a major factor in planetary domination by humans. Simple Occam wrote: That is, implicit in your remark is the notion that if we just sit around and think about what is or is not a "useful" definition of knowledge, that will somehow result in our understanding better what knowledge is. I don't guarantee that all puzzles can be solved by rational thought. I do claim that many puzzles have been satisfactorily solved. I see no reason to stop applying such a reliable method for this particular issue. Simple Occam wrote: This is the hallmark of rationalism... to think that you ever get anything more out of reflection than an understanding of your own psychological states. I don't follow you here. Are you saying self knowledge is not impossible? We can achieve truths about our own psychological states? Simple Occam wrote: Why would "what seems like a good definition" to you "seem like a good definition" to me... unless reflection itself somehow connects us with a universal (or at least public) truth? Because of our similarities (we share the english language for starters). On the other hand, it wouldn't apply to you insofar as we also have differences (various beliefs). Thus you must examine my support and decide whether it is based on beliefs that you share. Simple Occam wrote: Community agreement changes over time but, presumably, objective truth would not. I agree with Dunamis. It is this presumption that is flawed. This is perhaps the impossible and unecessary requirement that the skeptic wishes to apply to knowledge. Simple Occam wrote: The fact that different speakers can effectively apply the principle of charity already assumes that most of their beliefs are true and that's why they can use their own belief systems to evaluate those of others. But how they got the 'true' beliefs in the first place or what makes them true remains unexplained. Your question would seem a somewhat less mysterious if you asked simply how they got beliefs rather than true beliefs. How does a bacteria come to "believe" that sugar has that certain shape? Since Darwin and DNA this is no longer a mystery. We also know how the "belief" becomes more reliable than alternative "beliefs" (detection mechanisms) and why we consider the "belief" to be reliable (it has proven itself in the field). Simple Occam wrote: But it doens't describe how it works. It just assumes that it does. To describe how it works would require understanding the physical, chemical and biological causes of perception and the evolution of language as a consequence of natural selection. I agree there remains much work to be done studying the evolutionary details. Simple Occam wrote: However, rather than do that, most philosophers, including Davidson, prefer to sit around and think about (reflect on) what meaning and truth are instead. I disagree. The work of such philosophers is necessary for directing the paths of study taken by science. Simple Occam wrote: "Without being able to show how beliefs correspond to a reality that is not just more "beliefs about what reality is", we don't have a refutation of skepticism that would distinguish in a general way between opinion and knowledge." You responded to that statement by focusing on words "in a general way", as if that were the most important part of what I said. Actually I agree that "distinguishing in a general way between opinion and knowledge" is indeed a worthwhile goal. Unfortunately it doesn't seem there is a simple way to make the distinction. So the skeptic's claim should perhaps be that knowledge is complex rather than impossible. cheers Astaire Heaven, I'm in heaven, and my heart beats so that I can hardly speak. And I seem to find the happiness I seek. When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek. |
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Simple Occam
Professor Usergroup: Members Joined: May 14, 2007 Total Topics: 10 Total Posts: 764 |
#52
Dunamis, Thanks for your reply. Simple Occam wrote: Community agreement changes over time but, presumably, objective truth would not. Dunamis wrote: Or, to put it another way, the sentences that at one time or another are taken to be true of course changes, but "truth" does not change. This is very close, in some ways, to what I was trying to communicate. Community agreement about "what is true" changes but "what is true" does not. The question is What makes a sentence true? And I agree that what makes us "take" a sentence to be true or false is a community affair, involving beliefs, not only about some object out the in the world, but also beliefs about ourselves and and beliefs about what others are believing. Understanding how our brains evolved to be able to form beliefs and sentences in the way that they do would refute Davidson's own skepticism about the possibility of a reductive explanation of how beliefs come about. If all you do is sit around and reflect on what knowledge is then, of course, beliefs about beliefs is all you ever get. But if you can understand beliefs themselves to intelligible states of the brain, explaining how the brain is connected physically to the rest of the world, and how its states are representations of its own animal body and its relationship to other in objects in space around it, then viewing this correspondence as anomolous and irreducible is just incorrect. Far from "some imagined truth predicate that exists, floating out there, unchanging" I'm suggesting that an evolutionary approach to understanding reason and consciousness would offer new insights that this armchair approach cannot. |
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Simple Occam
Professor Usergroup: Members Joined: May 14, 2007 Total Topics: 10 Total Posts: 764 |
#53
Astaire wrote: Based on what you said about skepticism, I'm assuming a skeptic defines knowledge in an extreme way that implies a contradiction. I admit its worthwhile to point out that a simple naive definition of knowledge is unworkable if such a naive notion is commonly in use. Maybe you can enlighten me, then, with a definition of the kind of skepticism that you think is refuted by Davidson's principle of charity. I am certainly NOT a defender of skepticism. My objection here is that the principle of charity does not refute it. That's why I would like you to tell me what specific form of skepticism you think it refutes. Are you saying that you have a working definition of knowledge that you would argue for? If so, please specifiy the definition and THEN provide the support. All knowledge is empirical. It comes from perception and reflection on our own psychological states and those of others, using language. Why would *your* posts and arguments be at all relevant? If you accept the skeptics position they wouldn't. But since you continue to argue you've betrayed that you haven't given up on knowledge. Subjecting claims to criticism is a process that can weed out claims that are fragile. Therefore the support each of us can provide for claims regarding knowledge is indeed relevant. Even the sceptic knows this but he/she says the opposite. Again you seem to be assuming that I am defending skepticism when, instead, I am just arguing that the charity principle doses not refute it. I see both positions (Davidson's and the skeptic's) as forms of rationalism because both try to draw their conclusions by reflecting on what it is to know something... as if by just thinking about it we can know it through some kind of rational intuition. I wasn't trying to say that reflections (yours included) are not valid sources of knowledge. I was just asking what makes them so? |
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astaire1
Dancing WuLi Master Usergroup: Members Joined: Dec 26, 2007 Location: France Total Topics: 5 Total Posts: 890 |
#54
Simple Occam wrote: Maybe you can enlighten me, then, with a definition of the kind of skepticism that you think is refuted by Davidson's principle of charity. I am certainly NOT a defender of skepticism. My objection here is that the principle of charity does not refute it. That's why I would like you to tell me what specific form of skepticism you think it refutes. While admitting that there are genuine philosophical problems with the notion of Capital-T Truth, Dennett points out that the ordinary everyday variety of truth (small-t truth) is available to the humblest of earthly organisms. Its rather obvious, to all I think, that informed decisions are possible. So the type of skepticism that would imply that argument is useless would be refuted by Davidson. The claim that knowledge is impossible is refuted by Davidson. I'm sure you can define knowledge in such a way so that Davidon's view doesn't apply to it. So that type of skeptic wouldn't be refuted by Davidson. Simple Occam wrote: All knowledge is empirical. It comes from perception and reflection on our own psychological states and those of others, using language. So, under that definition, the claim that knowledge is impossible is refuted by Davidson. I understand empirical knowledge to refer to knowledge that is connected to Davidson's shared world via perception. Simple Occam wrote: Again you seem to be assuming that I am defending skepticism when, instead, I am just arguing that the charity principle doses not refute it. I see both positions (Davidson's and the skeptic's) as forms of rationalism because both try to draw their conclusions by reflecting on what it is to know something... as if by just thinking about it we can know it through some kind of rational intuition. Suppose you know that a projectile that has been thrown toward you is going to land to your right. You can know this and lots of other useful things without knowing *how* you know them. By thinking through it carefully, its sometimes possible to surmise how its possible for us to project the trajectories of thrown objects etc. Simple Occam wrote: I wasn't trying to say that reflections (yours included) are not valid sources of knowledge. I was just asking what makes them so? I see. I doubt my answer will be entirely satisfactory. Evolution has honed human brain skills such that the algorithms applied during reflection are able to sort through various truth claims and assign a degree of confidence to them. So the process of natural selection has, to some extent, made such relection a valid source of knowledge. What makes the E coli sugar-detecting-protein a valid source of knowledge for deciding what to do based on evironmental conditions ? If by valid we mean reliable, then the observation that such detection mechanisms very often lead to succesful decision making for E coli bacteria is what makes it a valid tidbit of knowledge. In addition the mechanism has been "validated" by natural selection. -Astaire Heaven, I'm in heaven, and my heart beats so that I can hardly speak. And I seem to find the happiness I seek. When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek. |
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Simple Occam
Professor Usergroup: Members Joined: May 14, 2007 Total Topics: 10 Total Posts: 764 |
#55
Astaire wrote: While admitting that there are genuine philosophical problems with the notion of Capital-T Truth, Dennett points out that the ordinary everyday variety of truth (small-t truth) is available to the humblest of earthly organisms. Its rather obvious, to all I think, that informed decisions are possible. Even at the level of RNA nad DNA molecules there is input, some kind of selection process and output that performs some kind of work. But that's not knowledge or belief, is it? You can call that "informed decision" but it seriously stretches the meaning of 'truth' beyond recognition. A better word would be 'correspondence' because the output behavior corresponds to the input, as operated on by the selection process. The earliest forms of life selected output behaviors based on the di-urnal cycles caused by the earth's rotation on its axis, the simplest possible selection mechanism. But rather than looking back anthrocentrically at earlier stages of evolution as having "knowledge", it makes more sense to understand the kind of knowledge rational subjects like us have as deriving from this basic correspondence between living things and their environment. Natural selection operating on reproducing molecules is what establishes the connection between a living thing and the world around it. We are nothing but the enevitable result of the cumulative effect of natural selection, inculuding our cognitive faculties. So the eventual correspondence between language and the world, ie knowledge, must also be something built into our natures at a very basic level. I find it strange that philosophers (like Dennett) would rather characterize these non-cognitive biological processes as knowledge than characterize knowledge as a biological process deriving from more basic...non-cognitive... forms of life. So you have no problem asking "What makes E coli sugar-detecting-protein a valid source of knowledge for deciding what to do based on evironmental conditions ?". But you seem to choke on "our beliefs are true when they correspond to the world". Why is that? I suggest that the problem is rationalism, the false metaphysical belief that, simply by relefecting on our states of mind, we can answer philosophical questions like 'what is knowledge'. I say, instead, look to nature for the answers rather than the 'objects' of rational intuition' assumed by rationalists from Plato to Kant and beyond. Evolution has honed human brain skills such that the algorithms applied during reflection are able to sort through various truth claims and assign a degree of confidence to them. So the process of natural selection has, to some extent, made such relection a valid source of knowledge. This is much more in line with what I'm talking about. But evolution operated on neurological structures to enable perception long before reflection evolved. As I mean it, reflection refers to the use of linguistic representations that enable animals to make reference to what they imagine to be objects in space, ie, perceptions. These imaginings seem to be direct representations of the qualities of their "worldly causes" to the animal but we know that this is an illusion deriving from the way the brain processes sensory data. But perceptions are still states of the brain that evolved precisely because they reliably represent (ie correspond to) these relations. The problem for philosophy is to sort out how these indirect representations also have a phenomenal or subjective appearance (qualia) which seems immediately present to us when we reflect on our experience. Thus, one of the mistakes of modern philosophy is to confuse our "awareness" of the phenomenal appearance with perception, the physical process that corresponds to the world. This illusion of immediate awareness of phenomenal objects is further complicated by the illusion of immediate rational intuitions like "Triangles have 3 sides" or "I think therefore I am". Rather than self-evident truths, these are empirically true propositions. Edited by Simple Occam on Jun 20, 2008 - 11:59 AM |
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astaire1
Dancing WuLi Master Usergroup: Members Joined: Dec 26, 2007 Location: France Total Topics: 5 Total Posts: 890 |
#56
SimpleOccam wrote: I find it strange that philosophers (like Dennett) would rather characterize these non-cognitive biological processes as knowledge than characterize knowledge as a biological process deriving from more basic...non-cognitive... forms of life. Aside from a particular defintion for the word "knowledge", your description sounds similar to what Dennet described in his book "Consciousness Explained". So perhaps there is more agreement than you are noticing. SimpleOccam wrote: So you have no problem asking "What makes E coli sugar-detecting-protein a valid source of knowledge for deciding what to do based on evironmental conditions ?". I have no problem, perhaps because my notion of "knowledge" carries less baggage than yours. I don't know what the most appopriate definition of knowledge is. At this point I tend to shy from focusing on the term "knowledge" and instead try to address the various relevant concepts. SimpleOccam wrote: But you seem to choke on "our beliefs are true when they correspond to the world". Why is that? I don't remeber choking on that. However, I do tend to accept arguments I hear from others saying that there is no way to make sich a correspondance stick. So, if indeed the correspondace you suggest is impossible, I then seek some form of "informed decision" or "small-t truth" or "gettting it right" that is possible since I find evidence that this does indeed occur in nature. Perhaps Capital-T Truth just doesn't exist in the practical world. SimpleOccam wrote: I suggest that the problem is rationalism, the false metaphysical belief that, simply by relefecting on our states of mind, we can answer philosophical questions like 'what is knowledge'. I say, instead, look to nature for the answers rather than the 'objects' of rational intuition' assumed by rationalists from Plato to Kant and beyond. Right. So we both want to sidestep the question 'what is knowledge' and instead focus on what does indeed occur in nature. SimpleOccam wrote: The problem for philosophy is to sort out how these indirect representations also have a phenomenal or subjective appearance (qualia) which seems immediately present to us when we reflect on our experience. In my opinion Dennet has resloved this issue satisfactorily. As I see it, this "seeming" you refer to turned out to be useful feature of humans for promoting their survival. Humans evolved as beings that make judgements about what is happening in the world and what might happen in various scenarios. At some point in time, humans developed the ability to make judgements concerning themselves as an environment rather than only focusing on occurences in the external enviroment. So the judgements they make about the internal environment amounts to this "phenomenal or subjective appearance (qualia)" you refer to. However, I fear this is going off topic. I doubt this is the time or place to ignite a discussion of dualism. cheers -Astaire Heaven, I'm in heaven, and my heart beats so that I can hardly speak. And I seem to find the happiness I seek. When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek. |
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Simple Occam
Professor Usergroup: Members Joined: May 14, 2007 Total Topics: 10 Total Posts: 764 |
#57
[ Astaire wrote: Aside from a particular defintion for the word "knowledge", your description sounds similar to what Dennet described in his book "Consciousness Explained". So perhaps there is more agreement than you are noticing. Dennett denies the existence of qualia and I do not, so that;s a big difference. We would agree that the brain states "parallel" the world but he doesn't understand the relationship between the representational nature of brain states and their qualitative aspect. My claim is that the qualititive aspect of our experience is just what it is like to be the brain states (ie, to have them as a part of one's body). This is Nagel's criticism of Dennett, too. He views the subjective aspect of experience as illusory because he doesn't see that brains can have an intrinsic nature that is identical to what we identify as qualia. Moreover, to argue that qualia evolved to serve some adaptive behavior selected by nature, further misses the point that the cognitive capabilites of the brain, not it's qualitative aspect, give primates (including homo sapiens) their adaptive advantages in generational reproduction. I have no problem, perhaps because my notion of "knowledge" carries less baggage than yours. I don't know what the most appopriate definition of knowledge is. At this point I tend to shy from focusing on the term "knowledge" and instead try to address the various relevant concepts. SimpleOccam wrote: But you seem to choke on "our beliefs are true when they correspond to the world". Why is that? Astaire: I don't remeber choking on that. However, I do tend to accept arguments I hear from others saying that there is no way to make sich a correspondance stick. So, if indeed the correspondace you suggest is impossible, I then seek some form of "informed decision" or "small-t truth" or "gettting it right" that is possible since I find evidence that this does indeed occur in nature. Well, if you accept the argument that "there is no way to make such a correspondence stick" that's the kind of 'choking on' I meant. Dennett's parallelism on the brain is sufficient to justify correspondence. But, as I mentioned above, this does not explain qualia. Perhaps Capital-T Truth doesn't exist in the practical world... and perhaps it does. Dennett's representational view of how the brain works would seem to suggest that Truth is possible, as long as you don't confuse the cognitive faculty with the phenomenal aspect of consciousness. If you want to defend the claim that Capital-T Truth doesn't exist in the practical world, then go ahead and do it. Don't just say 'maybe' and leave the tacit implication that to think otherwise is not wise. as if that were an argument. SimpleOccam wrote: I suggest that the problem is rationalism, the false metaphysical belief that, simply by relefecting on our states of mind, we can answer philosophical questions like 'what is knowledge'. I say, instead, look to nature for the answers rather than the 'objects' of rational intuition' assumed by rationalists from Plato to Kant and beyond. Astaire: Right. So we both want to sidestep the question 'what is knowledge' and instead focus on what does indeed occur in nature Wrong. You want to sidestep that question but I do not. I said that rationalism is a false metaphysical belief and that there are no 'rational intuitions' that tell us about the world. You want to sidestep metaphysics (and apparently epistemology, too) altogether, whereas I object only to rationalist metaphysics, which relies on this false belief about reason. One of the things that occurs in nature is knowledge and an ontology that discovers the nature of reality could explain exactly what kind of thing knowledge is. SimpleOccam wrote: The problem for philosophy is to sort out how these indirect representations also have a phenomenal or subjective appearance (qualia) which seems immediately present to us when we reflect on our experience. In my opinion Dennet has resloved this issue satisfactorily. As I see it, this "seeming" you refer to turned out to be useful feature of humans for promoting their survival. Humans evolved as beings that make judgements about what is happening in the world and what might happen in various scenarios. At some point in time, humans developed the ability to make judgements concerning themselves as an environment rather than only focusing on occurences in the external enviroment. So the judgements they make about the internal environment amounts to this "phenomenal or subjective appearance (qualia)" you refer to. However, I fear this is going off topic. I doubt this is the time or place to ignite a discussion of dualism. Again, Dennett's approach explains how perception can be knowledge but it doesn't explain how it could have a phenomenal aspect. There's no survival value in qualia. But the is tremendous advantage in the kind of language use that, on this planet, is unique to humans. To view qualia as making judgements about one's internal environment is an even more misguided approach to understanding quali than Dennett's denial of their existence. Your approach seems to imply haing qualia is some kind of cognitive process and I think that's because you still are confusing the phenomenal and the cognitive. The dualism problem does not arise on my account, since the representational nature of perception involves only physical properties. Dualism is a problem only when you try to explain how qualitative properties, like colors, are caused by physical interactions that are, themselves, colorless. |
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shadowpuppet
Theoretical Physicist  Usergroup: Members Joined: Jun 11, 2008 Location: Tampa Total Topics: 1 Total Posts: 10 |
#58
Simple Occam wrote: How is global skepticism empirically justified? Skepticism is a metaphysical position since it claims not just that there are no actual instances of knowledge in our experience, but that there can never be any because knowledge is impossible. I think skepticism is an untenable position but I don't think the video cited in this topic refutes it. It is not empirically justified just as its polar opposite, certainty, is not empirically justified (as noted by David Hume). However there is also no rational construct in the form of an axiomized skepticism (such as 'disregard your senses') that is applicable to confirming 100% empirical certainty because otherwise experimentation would be redundant; however, global skepticism does deal with synthetic claims and is only applicable to empirical claims, specifically those that can be falsified and such that a notion of doubt is inherently relevant because of the variability of actual circumstance, and for this reason skepticism refers to the physical realm which provides a standard of measurement in the form of an observable stimulus to be interpreted with regard to a rational construct (the discovery and selection of which requires skepticism); though you may argue that the stimulus cannot be verified and is affected by the perceiver's subjective psychological preinclinations or is due to somatic dreams or imaginative hallucinations under the control of the observer, these assertions are also subject to skepticism and do not intrinsically undermine the rational use of empirical skepticism (which is actually fundmental to the premise) nor the acknowledgment of conscious content without which an ideology of skepticism has no relevance. These arguments for this reason also do not inherently negate the actual detection of an element nor dispute its aetiology though you have wrongly argued that the aim of skepticism is simply to blindly deny all possibilities to arrive at the suspension of judgment; on the contrary, Pyrrhonism as defined by Sextus Empiricus welcomes in the form of the tenet of 'equipollence' all of the alternate possibilities proposable in order to balance certain-seeming trends and so justify 'epoche', the suspension of judgment, meanwhile accommodating Quine-Duhem Thesis. Skepticism is also the only tenable ideology, because it is consistent and accurate with regard to its predictions: that certainty is unattainable, and that 'equipollence' and 'epoche' will lead to 'ataraxia', or freedom from worry. Any other interpretation is incorrect, and any other ideology deserves skepticism. Take my inference poll: http://forums.philosophyforums.com...erpret-raw-data-30469.html |
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et cetera
thinks too much at work Usergroup: Members Joined: Jul 31, 2008 Total Topics: 20 Total Posts: 322 |
#59
Global sceptisim is a epistemic thesis, not a metaphysical thesis (or atleast I would contend). It sets the bar so high for acqusition of knowledge that no one can ever achieve it. A question without an answere basically. The principle of charity is somewhat different though. It mainly has to do with forming the strongest position possible for analysis. So say you were listening to a lecturer and he said something that was ambiguous and false. it would not be proper to strawman a more thoughout characterization of a theory on the basis of what the person said as opposed to what they could have meant. The principle of charity applies to giving your opponent the benefit of the doubt. But that just raises an interesting question: if you truely couldn't understand what a person said how could you have a better understanding of their meaning? Maybe you already knew what the person was trying to say in the first place and any disputes about what the person actually said off the cup is merely a semantic dispute. Actually I went to a lecture about this principle a month or so ago and I was completely dismayed with the conclusions of the wittgensteinian lecturer. The conclusion was what a person says is true or false ... there is not interpretation here ... attack  .
Any necessary truth, whether a priori or a posteriori, could not have turned out otherwise. -- Saul Kripke Meaning is what essence becomes when it is divorced from the object of reference and wedded to the word. -- Quine A possible world is given by the descriptive conditions we associate with it - Kripke |
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et cetera
thinks too much at work Usergroup: Members Joined: Jul 31, 2008 Total Topics: 20 Total Posts: 322 |
#60
duplicate post Any necessary truth, whether a priori or a posteriori, could not have turned out otherwise. -- Saul Kripke Meaning is what essence becomes when it is divorced from the object of reference and wedded to the word. -- Quine A possible world is given by the descriptive conditions we associate with it - Kripke |
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