RE: "Doing" Epistemology?

["Craig French" <craig@craigfrench.co.uk>]

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To Daniel,

Firstly I'll address the interesting point you make WITHIN the debate we are having, and secondly (for those who care, not many I expect) I'll address the rather less interesting agenda you seem to have regarding the debate itself, and the seeming distaste you have for my original question (just to make my position clear). 

So, you raise the issue of "distinctive metaphilosophical questions regarding epistemology", and you are wanting of REASONS or ARGUMENTS why there are any such questions at all. And perhaps this links in with Pete's worry that metaphilosophy is troublesome, and that it is not clear that there are metaphilosophical questions. I'm not sure what you mean when you say that the metaphilosophical questions ought to be distinctive of epistemology. Perhaps we have a set of what might be described as metaphilosophical questions (in that they are questions about philosophy and its branches)... and some of those questions apply to epistemology but also to Logic, ethics and what not... as such the metaphilosophical questions are NOT distinctive of epistemology. If this is what you mean, I want to ask, why does this matter? In your view, why is distinctiveness important? It might be that (if there are any) metaphilosophical questions are quite general, but can still perform the function of either undermining or support a philosophical practice, regardless of distinctiveness. SO perhaps you can give us some more stuff on distinctiveness?


---------------- Onto the other issue ---------------

Firstly, the original question was "what is this thing called "doing" epistemology?" - I wrote "doing" to emphasise the ACTIVITY that is epistemology, in which philosophers partake. I think the question is obviously a metaphilosophical one and this is not something which has emerged as the debate has gone on, it always was metaphilosophical, this is OBVIOUS, since it is a question ABOUT a philosophical practice. Surely this is a trivial point? 

But you are worried about the fact that I also said "I was not looking for anything in depth" - which seems to suggest I was not looking for a metaphilosophical debate... so it seems that in so far as my intentions are concerned the debate has taken a very different turn. And this you patronisingly describe as "charitable". I wasn’t looking for anything in depth as a prima facie answer to the question, I was wondering how people would fill in this: "doing epistemology is .... " Luckily there are people like Luis, in his post just now, who are able to give a more detailed and insightful answer even in answering the initial question. Certainly better than what I could come up with in attempting to fill in "doing epistemology is...." 

So I suppose your worry is "why ask the question unless the answer is to be directed towards someone who doesn’t know what epistemology is"... the first point to make is that many philosophers will disagree about what DOING epistemology is... so to ask the question, to canvass opinion, in the way I did, is one way to make these differences explicit: since this is a list of philosophers! This, I would describe as part of the metaphilosophical project. 

Onto my actual intentions, just in case anyone is still reading... I intended to ask the initial question, as a preliminary to entering in MORE detail into the meta-epistemological/meta-philosophical debate that was ensuing. Once we have a few answers to the question of what doing epistemology is, we are then in a position to evaluate it... or the various practices that different philosophers describe as "doing epistemology"... So, it is not a matter of "charity" or "alteration" that the debate has taken that turn, it is a matter of the progression of the debate. Maybe you think I should have made this more clear when I initially posed the question, but I don’t... I don't think that people on this group need telling where a question should end up, lets be more charitable to people on this group than that. I don't want to lead people into answers to my own questions, life would be too boring, I want to have an open discussion, and I think in this case the lack of guidance of discussion has not proved a disadvantage, as posters like Pete, Akosua and Luis, have taken it in a very interesting directed (in different ways). (btw, Akosua "NOYB" is a "she" not a "he"). 

SO the fact that the initial question is a first stage in the project of evaluating epistemology as a philosophical practice is an answer to your wanting to know what the point of the question was.

I hope that helps.

Craig



 

BUPS Philosophy Societies Liaison Officer

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craig@craigfrench.co.uk
www.craigfrench.co.uk

Heythrop College, University of London
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www.philweb.org


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-bups-dis@purplepancake.com [mailto:owner-bups-dis@purplepancake.com] On Behalf Of djf500@york.ac.uk
Sent: Saturday, October 07, 2006 5:45 PM
To: none of your business
Cc: BUPS-DIS@bups.org
Subject: RE: "Doing" Epistemology?

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If you look back at the posts you will see that Craig himself admits that 
his original question was misleading.

That he maintained this (at least for a while) is shown by him saying that 
he wasn't 'looking for anything in depth' - surely metaphilosophy has 
considerable depth!

That the discussion has moved from a question requiring little depth to a 
range of answers of considerable depth suggests, at least to me, that the 
discussion has altered and not just developed (i assume that the charmingly 
named 'none of your business' (NOYB for short) means 'developed 
organically' or something such). As for my apparent rudeness, it was not 
intended and I do not think I was rude. Saying that somebody has mistaken a 
point in a debate is fairly crucial to philosophy. Not only that but NYOB 
then goes on to do the same thing to me - I don't it as rude, but obviously 
he does, so he seems to intend to be rude to me!

Further rudeness on his part comes with note of attempted condecension I 
detect in him lauding me with the compliment '[w]ell done'. This has no 
place on this list or in good philosophy anywhere.

NOYB addresses two points of mine - i will address his response to the 
second. The strangest thing he says is that what i say might be 
'unintelligible (as formulated)' - perhaps he could say why.

As for it being (seemingly obviously) false that there are in fact 
distinctive metaphilosopical questions raised by epistemology, i'm not sure 
that the discussion so far has brought that ought that out. NYOB says:

"Epistemological meta philosophical question do exist, they
are not psudoe questions, and they should be raised because answering them
might serve to substantiate or undermine epistemological practice. It may be
that the meta philosophical questions raised are just a breed of
epistemological questions." 

None of this addresses the point about distinctiveness. All of this could 
be true if we were just taking epistemology as an example of an area 
effected by metaphilosophical questions. Of course, the effect of those 
questions (*if* they are neutral in original formulation) on each area of 
philosophy effected will be manifestly different - but that doesn't make 
the questions distinctively connected with epistemology. For example, just 
because epistemology might be effected by which background logic is 
employed, formulating the axioms of that logic is a problem in logic and 
not in epistemology - but the solution will effect epistemology. (Please 
take this as an illustrative example not a theory or meta-theory or any 
other kind of assertion that anyone knows about.)

Does anyone find this to be 'rude'!?   




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