Re: "Doing" Epistemology?

[Luis Johnstone <luisjohnstone@onetel.net>]

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Pete,

Thank you very much for your comments. I'll do my best to say something 
adequate in reply.

Pete says:
"Luis says that the whole point of doing epistemology is that you don't
know what knowledge is in the first place, and as such that study of
the particular fields of knowledge cannot amount to, and perhaps not
contribute to (perhaps too strong an interpretation) the study of the
conditions of knowledge."

Well, I think that the arguments I've given thus far /suggest/ that. The 
reason why I've phrased things as I have is that (as I've stated 
previously) I /do/ think that epistemologists seek a particular kind of 
knowledge and that some of them might possess it. However, to understand 
this we need a different way of looking at epistemology. I think that 
the possible conditions of knowledge are dependent upon 
pre-epistemological commitments and that what counts as conditions of 
knowledge for one person may not count as conditions for another.
This is a reason why I've made mention of identification: I think that 
there is a distinction between /having/ an epistemology and /doing/ 
epistemology. The former is like having a checklist against which I can 
measure things- a shopping list of knowing, if you like. The latter is 
something more than having a list of the usual suspects. The 
epistemologist isn't just someone with a particular epistemology (theory 
of knowing) which is why I've laboured the distinction between 
philosophy and history of philosophy. The epistemologist is or should 
(and I must be careful about being proscriptive) be someone who is 
concerned with evaluating the conditions which individual epistemologies 
(his/ her own included) specify.
Now that has been said I can rephrase my earlier comments more clearly: 
in order for the epistemologist to evaluate epistemologies in a 
non-question begging way he/ she must evaluate those epistemologies in 
terms of concepts that are not overtly epistemological- else the 
epistemologist will answer the question "are these conditions sufficient 
for knowledge?" by reference to their own epistemology.



Now I'll briefly say something about intuition.
In epistemology in epistemology (and a great deal of philosophy) 
intuition is equivalent to gut-instinct. I am of the view that guts are 
for putting food into and not for getting philosophy out of. I think 
that if for no other reason we ought to remove the role of such 
intuitions on the grounds that intuitions appear to vary greatly. For 
example, there are often thought-experiments that are supposed to act as 
intuition pumps but end up failing to work for me because I do not share 
the intuitions of some other people. I'm sure that some would like to 
say that some intuitions are correct one in so far that they latch on to 
some kind of objective truth. However, for some of the reasons I've 
already given I wouldn't touch that claim with a 10ft barge-pole.


Pete says:
"My personal opinion on this is that we have the intuition for similar
reasons to those of Hume: our abilities to judge whether particular
instances are instances of knowledge and the related behaviours
involved in using the word knowledge within discussion (i.e. using it
in relation to other concepts, like evidence, justification, etc.) are
acquired through a process of habituation, or conditioning. I may get
some stick for these words, but I must insist that they aren't used in
a simple sense, I think the process of learning language is very
complex, but it does undeniably involve gradual learning through a
process of correction, and although it does involve definitions of
concepts later on, this is entirely dependent upon the more basic mode
of habituation."

There is also another road. The basis for our pre-epistemological 
commitments can be pragmatic considerations.
By this I suggest that the reason that we consider that such and such is 
necessary for knowledge is that it serves some real practical function. 
The 'truth-brigade' needn't get their knickers in a twist at this point 
since I'm not saying that what makes the statement "there is knowledge" 
true is the same as what is most useful (although that /is/ an option if 
one is so inclined). I'm sure that the spectre of epistemological 
relativism appalls many people. But let me make it clear that this does 
not entail that the externalist project, for example, is dead and buried 
as as endeavour of objective metaphysics (if, indeed, that's how one 
conceives of the project). It is possible to think consistently that 
ones epistemology presupposes non-epistemological notions by which we 
evaluate our epistemic judgements and to also to hold that those 
non-epistemological give us accurate and object judgements precisely 
because they are true.

As an aside and in relation to your comments about language-use (-games) 
it's worth asking to what extent epistemologists are in the business of 
describing the practical usages of the word "knows". I think it is fair 
to say that while there is overlap between what the epistemologists 
means by "knows" and what the average person means the two are not 
identical (specialist knowledge aside). It's curious that in most of the 
literature on epistemology (at least in the analytic tradition) "knows" 
is treated as a technical terms; this appears wildly incongruent with 
the fact that such theories are frequently evaluated by non-technical 
means- namely, intuitions. It may be premature but I foresee two 
options: we accept that 'knows' is /not/ a technical concept (not unless 
it's a different concept to the one that non-philosophers have, in which 
case we ought not be courting common intuitions to evaluate such 
concepts), or we stick to our guns and say that 'knows' is a 
philosophical concept and that it ought to be evaluated using 
philosophers (technical) tools- i.e. /not/ intuition.


I'm not convinced that epistemologists have ever been in the business of 
linguistic games (at least not intentionally). Though there remains the 
question of whether they ought to be. If the kind of weak relativism 
I've painted is correct then perhaps it /is/ the job of the 
epistemologist to collect data on all the /main types/ of usages of the 
word "knows"- though they'd also still be philosophers in so far that 
they'd use philosophical analysis to examine the relation between such 
uses and their efficacy. Perhaps this describes the new breed of 
'scientophers'. Is this the innvitable next step in the development of 
analytic philosophy with its ever increasing fashionability accorded by 
an ever-closing relationship with scientific method? And to what extent 
is such philosophy really just returning to its roots?
Too many questions for me to answer, I'm afraid.

Don't worry about rambling. As you can see, I do it too! I do at least 
hope I've managed to say something sensible somewhere in reply to your 
thoughtful reply.

Regards,

Luis


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