Certain Doubts

The move is now complete and the new site is open. The URL is:

http://fleetwood.baylor.edu/certain_doubts/

Please direct all comments and discussion to the new location. I’ll leave the present location up for awhile but all future posts and comments should go up at the new site.

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I will probably be teaching some MBA students some epistemology. Just six or so lectures. I would like to get some opinions regarding appropriate topics for such lectures. I am inclined to at least start out with going over some basic differences and relations among knowledge, belief, truth, and evidence. But other than that, what do you think would be best for MBA students?

Bryan Frances

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As part of my move from Missouri to Baylor, I’m moving cyberspace stuff as well, and that will include Certain Doubts. I’m posting this before the move, since I’ll freeze the site at its present location and I want something in place to say where to find the new location. I don’t know the new web address yet, but will try to post it as soon as I know. I will also update the link at my own website, which can be found now at:
http://www3.baylor.edu/~Jonathan_Kvanvig

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Brian Leiter has a post over at the Leiter Reports with the same title as this one, except I added a question mark — because I’m not so sure about the matter. Leiter’s post consists largely of comments sent to him by Patricia Smith Churchland and Daniel Dennett, followed by some remarks by Leiter. My thoughts about the matter got to be a little too long to post as a comment over at the Leiter Reports, so I’m putting them here…
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John just sent me a really neat paper entitled “Probable Probabilities.” The abstract should entice reading the full manuscript:

In concrete applications of probability, statistical investigation gives us knowledge of some probabilities, but we generally want to know many others that are not directly revealed by our data. For instance, we may know prob(P|Q) (the probability of P given Q) and prob(P|R), but what we really want is prob(P|Q&R), and we may not have the data required to assess that directly. The probability calculus is of no help here. Given prob(P|Q) and prob(P|R), it is consistent with the probability calculus for prob(P|Q&R) to have any value between 0 and 1. Is there any way to make a reasonable estimate of the value of prob(P|Q&R)?
A related problem occurs when probability practitioners adopt undefended assumptions of statistical independence simply on the basis of not seeing any connection between two propositions. This is common practice, but its justification has eluded probability theorists, and researchers are typically apologetic about making such assumptions. Is there any way to defend the practice?
This paper shows that on a certain conception of probability — nomic probability — there are principles of “probable probabilities” that license inferences of the above sort. These are principles telling us that although certain inferences from probabilities to probabilities are not deductively valid, nevertheless the second-order probability of their yielding correct results is 1. This makes it defeasibly reasonable to make the inferences. Thus I argue that it is defeasibly reasonable to assume statistical independence when we have no information to the contrary. And I show that there is a function Y(r,s,a) such that if
prob(P|Q) = r, prob(P|R) = s, and prob(P|U) = a (where U is our background knowledge) then it is defeasibly reasonable to expect that prob(P|Q&R) = Y(r,s,a). Numerous other defeasible inferences are licensed by similar principles of probable probabilities. This has the potential to greatly enhance the usefulness of probabilities in practical application.

The full manuscript can be accessed at http://oscarhome.soc-sci.arizona.edu/ftp/PAPERS/probable%20probabilities-simple.pdf . As always, discussion encouraged.

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Jennifer Lackey and Alvin Goldman are organizing a conference for Episteme on testimony. It will be at Rutgers, June 29-30, 2007. I’ll put full information from the call for papers below the fold.

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According to today’s NY Times, in the movie “Men In Black”, when the character played by Will Smith is still in shock after his first encounter with aliens, the character played by Tommy Lee Jones says to him: “1500 years ago everybody knew the earth was the center of the universe. 500 years ago, everybody knew the earth was flat. And 15 minutes ago you knew that people were alone on this planet. Imagine what you’ll know tomorrow.”

Like most epistemologists, I’m inclined to say that what this character says is strictly speaking false. Nobody ever knew that the earth was the centre of the universe — falsehoods can’t be known. (Even though I’m a card-carrying contextualist, I draw the line at falsehoods!) Still, the point that this character is making by using the word ‘know’ in this way is surely quite true.

What is the best way for our philosophy of language to explain how this particular utterance of a false sentence conveys a truth? Is it that this is a sort of ironic use of ‘know’, mimicking the way in which the people 1500 years ago would treat their conviction about how the earth was the centre of the universe exactly as if it were knowledge? Or is there some better theory about what’s going on when people use the term ‘know’ in this way?

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Just FYI, there are five SEP articles that came out this past week that are of interest to epistemologists. There’s one on belief, one on evidence, one on Bayesian epistemology, one on social epistemology, and one on moral skepticism.

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Stephen has a new piece on the knowability paradox, entitled “A Dissolution of the Knowability Paradox.” It can be found here. Comments and discussion on the paper are, as always, welcome and encouraged.

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Is all virtue-based ethics and epistemology response-dependentist? It seems to me that yes. Consider the following:
Some people say that value comes from affection and sentiment. Suppose one of them, call him Michael S. claims that the central “producer” of value is empathic care. But he also thinks that being empathically caring is a virtue, since he follows the traditional Aristotelian account of virtues and thinks that virtues first, motivate, and second, tell us what is a worthy goal of action. So, his view is virtue-based: values derive from virtues. Next, notice that empathic care is virtuous agent’s central RESPONSE to situations, foremost to other people’s needs and predicaments. The value of his goal is dependent on his virtue, and the activation of virtue is a response. Therefore, value is RESPONSE-DEPENDENT. Here is the story generalized and epistemologized:
1. Value derives from virtue. X has a value V because it is a (fitting) object of the exercise of virtue A (for “arête”). E.g. the value of reliably true belief comes from the virtue of inquisitiveness. (The Assumption of Virtue-Based Ethics)
2. A virtue has a motivational component (and a cognitive one ). E.g. inquisitiveness motivates. (A plausible Classical Assumption).
3. The exercise of a virtue A is a (merited) response to X that has value V. E.g. If a mathematical theorem is worth our believing it, then curiosity about it is a merited response to it (from 1 and 2).
4. Having value V depends on virtue A.
5. Value V is response-dependent. E.g. a theorem has a primary and non-instumental epistemic value only if it is such that a virtuous (inquisitive) agent, say a mathematician, would be curious about it under normal circumstances.

Now, the dependence can be cashed out in two connected ways:
(A) Causing-producing: X has value V because X tends to produce the virtue A-activating response R in virtuous agents. (Example: The theorem typically arouses mathematician’s curiosity):
(B) Conceptual fitting: X has value V because the virtue A-activating response R in virtuous agents is the merited response to X. (Example: The theorem merits the curiosity)
Traditionally, virtue-based projects involve both: the second for certain, but also the first. It is its POWER TO CONFER VALUE that makes virtue so basic. (Some philosophers, e.g. J. Dancy, and M. Little and M. Lance, personal comm..) would say that the second case (i.e.(B)) gives one just response-involving and not response-dependent character; to me the issue seems more verbal than real.)
Conclusion: all virtue-based ethics and epistemology is response-dependentist.

I am very very eager for comments!

P.S. The motivating component of virtue is a DESIRE-LIKE faculty, if we take desire in very wide sense. If this is so, we get a version of virtue-Humeanism as the final product.

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INTEGRATING VIRTUE AND TRUTH

Virtue epistemologists seem to be divided in two camps, those who come from a truth-centered tradition(s), mostly the reliabilist one, and those who come from the ethics side. The Truth-camp, lead by Sosa and Greco, combines the high evaluation of truth-goal with a minimalist, not to say deflationist view of virtues: they are just capacities or abilities, well integrated and accessible to reflective awareness. These capacities-virtues don’t look like traditional moral virtues, say generosity or courage, since they don’t motivate by themselves, have little to do with choice and seem to be more means to the truth-end than end-choosing and agent-motivating traits. The Rich Virtue camp, with philosophers like Zagzebski and Wayne Riggs, offers an impressive array of virtues with powerful moral connections, which motivate the agent and push or help her to choose. However, the members of the camp are sorely tempted to minimize the role of truth in the story. Kvanvig might be a rather radical member of the camp, but I read his new book, never got his first, virtue book, so I am not sure. (Jon, could you, please, help!). In a nutshell, if you maximize the value of truth, you minimize virtue, and the other way around. Can one have both?
Yes, one can. First, take a bow to the Truth-camp. Truth is central for human cognitive-epistemic effort. But its centrality is linked to two sources: the first, pragmatic, which we can set aside for the present purpose, and the second, having to do with our inquisitiveness (curiosity, without negative overtones). Inquisitiveness, armed with epistemic caution, pushes us to seek truth and avoid error and therefore to appreciate reliably getting to the truth. (A long story has to be told at this point, starting from curiosity about particular issues and then generalizing to truth). Now, inquisitiveness is NOT a capacity, it is a MOTIVATING virtue, a choice-related feature of the mind, of the sort similar to generosity and courage. This is the bow to the Rich Virtue camp. Another bow is accepting further moral-like virtues. My personal guess is that they will be of two kinds only. Either, those directly aiding inquisitiveness, like open-mindedness, perhaps preventing the cognizer’s mind to get clogged by worthless old stuff. Or, those which have to do with other values (e.g. originality with the value of being new in an interesting way) and other kinds of virtue, above all moral virtues (e.g. generosity) to the cognitive domain like epistemic altruism. This preserves both PRIMACY OF TRUTH-GOAL AND THE TRADITIONAL - ORDINARY UNDERSTANDING OF VIRTUE AS A MOTIVATING FEATURE. Call the result the Integrated aretaic view.
What about cognitive capacities, the capacity-virtues proned by Sosa and Greco, like, for instance, well-functioning and well-integrated perception and rational intuition? Are they virtues? Yes, they are, in their own modest way; the Truth-camp philosopher should not worry. However, they are not motivating virtues. They are EXECUTIVE virtues. They lead the agent to the epistemic goal set primarily by her inquisitiveness (and by her practical needs). Other executive virtues of more general kind are being systematic, and being insightful.
Let me end with a curious fact. The Truth-camp takes the value of truth as fundamental, so it cannot take virtue as basic. It is not virtue-based, but only virtue-focused, which is a flaw in the eyes of the Rich Virtue camp. But the Integrated aretaic view suggests a natural, and still truth-centered, alternative: truth has intrinsic value because human beings are inquisitive. So, the central motivating virtue of inquisitiveness grounds the value of truth (in a response-dependent fashion). So, virtue is not only central, but properly basic. The Integrated aretaic view is virtue-based, truth-centered account of epistemic virtue and value. Maybe capable of reconciling the two warring camps of virtue epistemologists.

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THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF KEITH LEHRER

PUCRS, Graduate Program in Philosophy, Porto Alegre, Brazil, June 27-29, 2007

Keynote speaker:

Keith Lehrer (University of Arizona, Emeritus; University of Miami)

Speakers:

Fred Dretske (Stanford University, Emeritus; Duke University)
Carl Ginet (Cornell University, Emeritus)
Risto Hilpinen (University of Miami)
Jonathan Kvanvig (Baylor University)
John Pollock (University of Arizona)
Michael Williams (Johns Hopkins University)

Commentators:

Fred Adams (University of Delaware)
Anthony Brueckner (University of California, Santa Barbara)
Juan Comesaña (University of Wisconsin)
Marian David (University of Notre Dame)
Mylan Engel (Northern Illinois University)
Stephen Hetherington (University of New South Wales, Australia)
Kihyeon Kim (Seoul National University, South Korea)
Peter Markie (University of Missouri, Columbia)
Adam Morton (University of Alberta, University of British Columbia, Canada)
Erik Olsson (University of Constance, Germany)
Roberto Hofmeister Pich (PUCRS, Brazil)
Ted Poston (University of South Alabama)
Duncan Pritchard (University of Stirling, UK)
Sherrilyn Roush (University of California, Berkeley)
Sarah Sawyer (University of Sussex, UK)

Organizer: Claudio de Almeida (PUCRS, Brazil)
Conference Manager: Rodrigo Borges (PUCRS), lehrer2007@gmail.com

All correspondence about the conference should be forwarded to Rodrigo at the above e-mail address.

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I have a question about relative frequency for the formal epistemologists out there. I would like to know whether the following claim is true, given either von Mises’ or Kolmogorov’s definitions of randomness:

(RF) The limiting frequency of positive even integers in a randomly selected sequence of positive integers is 1/2.

Richard von Mises (Probability, Statistics and Truth, 1957, 24-25) defined a random sequence to be one where the limiting value toward which the relative frequency of the attribute in question converges “remain[s] the same in all partial sequences which may be selected from the original one in an arbitrary way.” Examples of the sort of subsequences he had in mind include those formed by all odd members of the original sequence or by all members for which the place number in the sequence is the square of an integer or a prime number. The Kolmogorov-inspired definition of randomness I had in mind was the following: a sequence is random if the shortest program that can generate it is no shorter than the one that simply lists the elements of the sequence one by one.

Note that the ordinary sequence of integers (1, 2, 3, 4,…) does not qualify as random on either conception of randomness. Nor do the other sequences commonly used to illustrate the importance of ordering when defining limiting frequencies in infinite sets (e.g., those in which the evens appear at every 3rd place or every 4th place, etc.). I have no clear intuitions about whether there would be a limiting frequency of positive even integers in the case I describe or, if there were, whether it would of necessity be the commonsensical limit of 1/2. Any formal intuitions or theoretical insights?

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One of the lessons of Plantinga’s argument against evolutionary naturalism is that the mere fact that a claim is improbable on a certain piece of information doesn’t imply that the latter information is a defeater of any evidence in favor of the claim in question. In the context of his argument, this point plays out as follows. Even if the claim that our faculties are reliable is improbable given only the assumption of evolutionary naturalism doesn’t imply that these assumptions defeat any and every defense of the reliability of our cognitive faculties.

The debate about Plantinga’s argument thus turned to the interesting question of how to determine when such a conditional improbability would count as a defeater and when it wouldn’t. There’s some interesting literature on that question, but I’m more interested in the analogy on the other side: if conditional improbability doesn’t signal defeat, then conditional probability may not signal support, either.

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Posting by me will be a bit spotty for awhile, as I’m moving this week. In the meantime, Duncan has an interesting post at Epistemic Value on Richard Jeffrey’s remarks concerning the value of knowledge. Here’s the link: Jeffrey on the Value of Knowledge.

UPDATE: oops! The post is by Trent, not Duncan…

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In case you haven’t noticed, Brian’s Thoughts, Arguments and Rants has had to move to a new address. Information about it is at his new link, which is http://tar.weatherson.org/.

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Here are the top-read posts for last month (number 4 was the Contributors page and number 9 the About Certain Doubts page):
1 Originality 707
2 Characterizing a Fogbank: What Is Postmodernism, and Why Do I Take Such a Dim View of it? 649
3 THE VEIL OF CONCEPTION 558
5 Jim Hawthorne on the logic of nonmonotonic conditionals 477
6 Assumptional Epistemology 451
7 Norms of Assertion and Constitutive Rules 424
8 Paradox vs. Surprise 406
10 Coherence and Truth 322
11 Lewis on Warrant and Truth 314

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I’m working on Duncan Pritchard’s book, writing a substantial notice of it for PPR. One of the central elements in Duncan’s thinking is the idea he gets from Wittgenstein that there are bedrock propositions that fall outside standard epistemological assessment (he calls them “hinge” propositions). They don’t count as known or justified or rational, or something in that neighborhood.

It struck me, in noting this feature, the growing sentiment in this direction in recent epistemology. Gil Harman is defending a version of assumptional epistemology, and one way to understand Schaffer’s contrastivism is along the same lines (Jonathan uses the neat encapsulation phrase “what is presupposed rather than proved” in describing his view). And, of course, these views share a lot in common with the denials of closure found in Dretske’s work and in Nozick’s as well. I haven’t seen what Duncan has to say about closure yet, but I expect something akin to Dretske’s idea that closure is fine so long as the entailed claim isn’t a “heavyweight” one (though Duncan would likely call it a “hinge proposition” instead).

Contextualists like to claim that they hold the middle ground between skeptics on the one hand and Mooreans on the other, but they also can claim to hold the middle ground between assumptionalists and non-assumptionalists (of which Moore is a paradigm example). They are not alone on this middle ground, of course–there are also the invariantists who espouse pragmatic encroachment into the epistemic realm (e.g., Stanley, Hawthorne, McGrath&Fantl).

For those of us not the least inclined toward being sucked into the black hole of skeptical epistemology, this taxonomy is more congenial to our philosophical temperaments and not discussed as much as it deserves. There is the literature on closure, which may be the Achilles’ heel of assumptional epistemology, but the jury is still out on this question. But there is little direct discussion in mainstream epistemology addressing the primary and substantive commitment of assumptional epistemology. Or perhaps I’ve missed a body of literature on the subject?

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October 20-21, 2007, with a deadline for the call for papers of August 5. The keynote speaker is Jim Pryor, with Earl Conee commenting. More information can be found here.

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Scheduled for January 12-13, 2007. Keynote speaker is Jason Stanley, and the conference website, with call for papers, can be found here.

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