{"id":31,"date":"2023-01-24T14:50:39","date_gmt":"2023-01-24T14:50:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bowmangraphics.ie\/wordpress\/?p=31"},"modified":"2023-01-25T08:20:13","modified_gmt":"2023-01-25T08:20:13","slug":"knowledge-and-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bowmangraphics.ie\/wordpress\/2023\/01\/24\/knowledge-and-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"Knowledge and hope"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The traditional understanding of knowledge as \u201cjustified true belief\u201d is internalist<\/em>. That is to say, for a belief to count as an item of knowledge, it must actually be believed, and it must actually be true, and it must satisfy a third condition of being \u201cjustified\u201d, which is understood as a state of mind<\/em>. Justification is traditionally understood as being\u00a0internal<\/em> to the mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More recent \u201cnaturalized\u201d epistemology is externalist<\/em>. That is to say, for a true belief to count as an item of knowledge, it must satisfy a third condition of being connected in a special way to the real world \u201coutside\u201d the mind. There are various ways of characterizing this special connection: it must be reliable, it must \u201ctrack\u201d truth, it must be sustained by a law-like process, the belief in question must be non-accidentally true. I\u2019ll use the word \u2018reliable\u2019. But whichever words we use for it, the connection reaches outside the mind, and so part of it is external<\/em> to the mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think these two ways of thinking about knowledge correspond to \u201cis\u201d and \u201cought\u201d in an interesting way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The internalist is looking for justification \u2014 and (in theory at least) he can check<\/em> whether a belief is justified by examining the way it is linked to his other beliefs through relations of implication. Foundationalists think justified beliefs are implied by \u201cbasic\u201d beliefs; coherentists think there is a network of mutual implication. Either way, these other beliefs are in the mind, and so they can potentially be put \u201cbefore the mind\u201d for inspection. According to this understanding of knowledge, we can have assurance<\/em> that we know. In fact the main thrust of traditional epistemology is \u201cdoctrinal\u201d: it\u2019s aimed at assuring the radical sceptic that we do in fact have knowledge. We know something when a belief is justified, and it is justified or not as a matter of fact<\/em> \u2014 an \u201cis\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of seeking justification<\/em>, the externalist wants reliability<\/em>. And he isn\u2019t \u201clooking\u201d for reliability so much as \u201choping\u201d for it. He can\u2019t<\/em> directly check<\/em> whether the connection he hopes is reliable actually is<\/em> reliable, because one end of it lies outside his mind. According to this understanding of knowledge, we can\u2019t have an internal assurance that we know, because some aspects of knowledge are aspirational<\/em>. We aspire to the goal<\/em> of having reliably true beliefs. To the potential knower, such aspirations are better expressed by the word \u2018ought\u2019 than \u2018is\u2019. None of the beliefs he already has \u2014 as a matter of fact \u2014 can imply that these aspirations are met, because \u201coughts\u201d cannot follow from \u201cis\u201ds alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This aspirational aspect of knowledge might be likened to \u201cthe object of the game\u201d for a chess-player. The would-be knower and the chess player have goals: to have reliably true beliefs, and to get the opponent\u2019s king into checkmate, respectively. These goals are the object of \u201coughts\u201d: the would-be knower\u2019s beliefs ought<\/em> to be reliably true, and the player\u2019s moves ought<\/em> to bring the goal of checkmate closer. In both cases, the \u201cought\u201d guides behavior in a nontrivial way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course neither of these is a moral \u201cought\u201d. Proper epistemic practice<\/em> obliges us rationally<\/em> rather than morally to aim for reliably true beliefs. Chess players\u2019 implicit acceptance of the rules of chess \u2014 specifically, the rule that specifies the object of the game \u2014 obliges them to aim for checkmate. Someone who gets bored and plays \u201csuicidal\u201d chess to end a game quickly isn\u2019t guilty of a moral failing, he\u2019s just not playing chess properly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The chess player has to interact with his opponent: he can\u2019t focus on his own moves to the exclusion of his opponent\u2019s moves. Analogously, the potential knower has to interact with the world: he can\u2019t focus on his own beliefs to the exclusion of \u201canswers\u201d the world gives in response to the \u201cquestions\u201d he \u201casks\u201d it. In practice, this \u201cquestioning\u201d of the world is the testing of hypotheses<\/em>. To form new beliefs or new theories by simply building on what one already<\/em> believes \u2014 including \u201cdata\u201d \u2014 is like playing chess without paying attention to your opponent\u2019s moves. In effect, this is what Bayesians do when they make epistemic decisons on the basis of \u201cdegrees of belief\u201d. (I shall have more to say about Bayes\u2019 Theorem in a forthcoming blog post.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cobject of the game\u201d of empirical knowledge is to transcend internal assurances and aim for reliably true beliefs \u2014 an external matter, which usually involves the testing of hypotheses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mentioned above that traditionally, epistemology was internalist. The tradition continues to this day, and it affects the way epistemology is taught in university philosophy courses: they tend to begin with Descartes\u2019 Meditations<\/em>, and typically don\u2019t move very far beyond that. They tend to treat Gettier problems as a mere curiosity. Internalism can also affect the way scientists do science. Some sciences \u2014 especially those that appeal to \u201coverwhelming evidence\u201d to counter scepticism \u2014 use \u201cinternalist\u201d methods of shaping models to fit \u201cdata\u201d that may as well have been gathered beforehand. In effect, this is to eschew testing in favor of an internalist sense of assurance<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proper science and knowledge are aimed at truth<\/em>, not at assurance. Their aspirational aspects entail that testing is essential. To use another analogy: a miser might get assurance from counting coins he already owns, but he can\u2019t make money unless he runs the risk of losing money by investing it in outside projects. In pursuit of truth rather than profit, science too must \u201ccast its net\u201d beyond \u201cdata\u201d already gathered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The traditional understanding of knowledge as \u201cjustified true belief\u201d is internalist. That is to say, for a belief to count as an item of knowledge, it must actually be believed, and it must actually be true, and it must satisfy a third condition of being \u201cjustified\u201d, which is understood as a state of mind. Justification […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bowmangraphics.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bowmangraphics.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bowmangraphics.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bowmangraphics.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bowmangraphics.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/bowmangraphics.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55,"href":"https:\/\/bowmangraphics.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions\/55"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bowmangraphics.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bowmangraphics.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bowmangraphics.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}