Re: "Doing" Epistemology?

[Luis Johnstone <luisjohnstone@onetel.net>]

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Greetings,

Pete, sorry for the delay but I've been rather ill.
-

Pete says:
"It is all very well to reject the use of intuition, and it is true
that people's intuitions differ, although there are definite
convergences upon which thought examples and the like are based. The
problem for me is what do we have if we do not have intuition. What is
it that interests us in the conditions of knowledge in the first
place?"

Well, I did say that divergence of intuitions was the least reason for 
abandoning intuitions.
My main point was that the divergence of intuitions (and their 
fallibility) means that in order to know things like a 'correct' 
epistemology on the basis of intuitions we already need to have an 
epistemic standard by which to judge intuitions.

If we do not have intuitions we have reason. We can set out objectives 
and reason what would most effectively achieve those objectives. At this 
point we're knee-deep in meta-epistemology since we must now provide 
some account of our meta-epistemic objectives. In my view, it seems that 
when we decide upon the criterion for our epistemology we cannot resort 
to talking about philosophical epistemologies (JTB, for example). For 
that would be to make the same kind of circular argument that we find 
with intuition. There is no good asking what objectives are the goal of 
epistemologies if we already have a specific kind of epistemology in 
mind in the first place- since all we'd be saying doing is reasoning our 
way /from/ epistemologies /to/ meta-epistemological principles. And that 
is terribly wrong.
I suppose that the burden is on me to provide some account of these 
objectives which makes no overt reference to epistemic concepts (though 
I shall entirely expect that epistemic concepts might be built up out of 
non-epistemic notions). I have to admit that I cannot give you a 
detailed account of such objectives although perhaps I can make some 
broad suggestions. Objectives of knowledge could be:

1. truth-tracking
- we require our beliefs-as-knowledge to track the truth (although I do 
not endorse a strict counter-factual thesis). This is required because 
knowledge is /action-guiding/ in so far that it serves the function of 
helping us negotiate through our lives. And although it is correct that 
some false beliefs can help us do that, these are over-weighed by the 
efficacy of possessing true beliefs.

2. Explicability
- Today we require that knowledge be /theoretically/ explicable in so 
far that whatever justifies your belief must be theoretically accessible 
to yourself and to others.
This is a rather controversial premise but it does not conflict with 
externalism since externalism does not state that one must not have 
access to the reasons for ones belief but, rather, that such access is 
unnecessary. This condition is important in so far that it serves a 
/social/ function. Just imagine what philosophy would be today if we 
could not give reasons for our beliefs. And by "give" I am being 
literal- dialectic can only happen if one can analyse the reasons that 
one's interlocutor has for believing something (regardless of whether 
that something is true or not?) and it is exceedingly difficult to do 
that without justifications being explicable in theory.

I consider this a social function because I take it that groups of 
thinkers are defined more by how they justify their beliefs to others 
than the beliefs themselves. I should qualify this by saying that groups 
of thinkers are defined /socially/ more by how they justify their 
beliefs than the beliefs themselves. It may well be that economically 
and politically groups of thinkers will be defined differently but at 
the social level (the level of common everyday interaction) grouping 
will be different. Socially there is a great difference between those 
whom attempt to justify their beliefs and those that do not, even though 
not every member of a group with beliefs that-P will necessarily be a 
justifier or non-justifier etc.

As an aside: I would still hold this condition in the face of what might 
be described phenomenological knowledge (i.e. Qualia)/ non-propositional 
knowledge. In that context explicability is not necessarily a linguistic 
notion in so far that I can explain what justifies my belief by causing 
someone to have a similar belief. For example, if I believe that a 
certain woman is beautiful (where the experience of beauty, if I may 
call it that, is what I want to justify) then I will take my unknowing 
friend to see her and let that cause him to have the same experience 
that I have had. In other words, he now knows how to cause that belief 
and so, after a fashion, knows that my belief is justified and 
importantly /how/ it is justified.
Perhaps my example or explanation of the example is inadequate but 
hopefully you get the idea.

3. Survival
Related to condition 1 but distinct enough to warrant a separate condition.
Knowledge should in principle be survival-promoting.
I'll not say anything more specific about the /kind/ of thing that 
should do the surviving (i.e. persons, personal-humanity, DNA, the 
species, souls etc) as that is something I don't think has a single 
right answer.
I also say "in principle' because not every case (token) of knowledge 
needs to be survival-promoting. Rather I prefer the weaker condition 
that knowledge in general should be survival-promoting.


This kind of conception (conditions 1, 2 and 3) still allows a lot of 
wiggle-room for epistemologists to construct wide and varied 
epistemologies but simultaneously manages to respect intuitions about 
what, as you put it, "interests us in the conditions of knowledge in the 
first place?". And even if false I think that this reveals a hugely 
neglected topic motivational stories in epistemology.

I'd say alot more but I've written enough for an e-mail and I don't want 
to use up /all/ my dissertation material, hahahaha!
I'll try to answer some of your other points in a concise manner some 
time this weekend.

Regards,

Luis.


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