Knowledge and Authority
Why is proper function needed for knowledge? It would make sense on an authoritarian theory of knowledge, in which knowledge is authorised belief. If the cognitive faculties are designed, then they carry the authority of the designer. (Like a text bearing the authority of the author.) If a text is damaged or corrupted, then this authority is lost. And something similar will be true of cognitive mechanisms?
As far as I know, Plantinga has never made this authoritarian argument for the necessity of proper function, but it seems to fit well with his view. Any objections? It does require the engineer to have epistemic authority, whatever that means.
Epistemic authority Formally, epistemic authority is often expressed using expert principles, e.g. If you know that an expert believes P, then you should ldbli believe P The rough idea of an authority is as something that must be followed, or obeyed.
Authority is generally a relation. A is an authority for B. E.g. the high school physics teacher is an authority for (most) )high h school students, but not for a top physicist.
An authority need not be infallible; they just to know more than you. E.g. it may be rational to accept the probabilities bili i of a weather forecast, even knowing they re often wrong.
A parent is an authority for his own children, but not for other children (to the same extent). S ll hild b d i d b b Small children seem to be designed to absorb their own parents beliefs.
The Principal Principle for physical probability (blame David idlewis) If you know that the physical chance of some event E is or was q (and you don t have any knowledge resulting from the occurrence or non occurrence occurrence of E itself) then your subjective probability for E should be q. The condition in parentheses is needed, as you might know that the chance of heads was 0.4, yet you saw it land dheads. In other words, chance is a defeasible authority it can be trumped by a higher epistemic authority.
The authority of Truth, i.e. the facts TheTruth Truth is the highest epistemic authority, in the sense that it is non defeasible. It cannot be trumped. If you know that P is an actual state of affairs, then you f y f ff y should believe that P, no matter what else you know.
The ultimate expert, presumably, is the truth function the function that assigns 1 to all the true propositions p and 0 to all the false ones. Knowledge of its values should surely trump knowledge of the values assigned by human experts (including one s future selves), frequencies, or chances. the truth of A overrides anything the expert might say. Alan Hayek, SEP entry on Interpretations of Probability
Deflationary theories of truth pp is true tue just means the esame as p p (That s all thereis to besaid abouttruth.) truth.) According to the deflationist, however, [standard theories of truth] are mistaken, and, moreover, they all share a common mistake. The common mistake is to assume that truthhas a nature of the kind that philosophers might find out about and develop theories of.
Rhetorical uses of truth Speaking truth to power They must find it difficult... Those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority. (G. Massey) 9/11 truth movement. Why use that name?
Richard Rorty on truth Worries about cognitive status and objectivity are characteristic i of a secularized culture in which hthe scientist i replaces the priest. The scientist is now seen as the person who keeps humanity in touch with something beyond itself. As the universe was depersonalized, beauty (and, in time, even moral goodness) came to be thought of as subjective. So truth is now thought of as the only point at which human beings are responsible s e to something nonhuman. A commitment t to rationality and to method is thought to be a recognition of this responsibility. The scientist becomes a moral exemplar, one who selflessly expresses himself again and again to the hardness of ffact. (Rorty, Science as Solidarity)
Back to Rorty Rorty seems s to regard the notion o of objective e truth as inherently religious. He disparages the idea that: Truth is out there waiting for human beings to arrive at it. This idea seems to us an unfortunate attempt to carry a religious i conception over into a secular culture. Hethinks this desire for objectivity is: the desire to be in touch with a reality which is more than some community with which we identify ourselves 14
Aside: relativism is a rejection of epistemic authority? Alan Wood found nothing good to say about relativism. It appears to be incoherent nonsense. I wonder if, in these anti authoritarian authoritarian times, the core of relativism is the rejection of epistemic authority? In that case truth, as the highest epistemic authority, would be the first to go. Appeals to truth are deconstructed as appeals to the viewpoint of colonial powers, Western hegemony, logocentrism, etc.
N.B. Wood repeatedly says things like, For it is still true that to believe that p is to believe p is true (absolutely). But if the whole notion of absolute truth is unmasked as a bogus appeal to epistemic authority, I don t think a relativist is likely to agree with this. Surely I can believe p without (in so believing) see myself as being aligned with some oppressive metanarrative? It s my belief, my truth, not that of God, etc.
Why does Plantinga add the reliability condition? i Plantinga considers the possibility of a cognitive being that s created by one of Hume s infant deities. I.e. it s the young god s first attempt at creating such a being, and it botches the job rather badly. The poor creature has mostly false beliefs, since its faculties are so poorly designed. (An authoritarian might instead see the problem as being that the infant god lacks epistemic authority?)
Diagnosing Gettier Plantinga thinks that the Gettier problems essentially arise from internalism: standard Gettier cases show that no matter how well things are going gfor a believer from an internalist point of view, her beliefs may still be true just by accident, and therefore not items of knowledge. (p. 2) His externalism arguably tk takes care of some Gtti Gettier problems. Yet some such problems seem to arise for any theory that adds truth as a separate condition for knowledge, as Plantinga s does. (WTB theory) If you can have warrant without ih truth, then you can have warrant with merely accidental truth.
The Destroyed Chevy case Plantinga parks his Chevy in the football coach s parking spot. Naturally, the van is towed and utterly destroyed. d Luckily, however, in the same hour Plantinga wins another Chevy in a raffle, although he hasn t learned of either event yet. Thus Plantinga has a WTB that he owns a Chevy. (There s no cognitive malfunction, the environment is suitable, the processes are reliable, etc.) in each of these cases, one s beliefs are robbed of warrant because of some local environmental anomaly. And so, the original account requires amendment. I.e. time to break out the epicycles!
Solving Gettier Solving Gettier fully seems to require an analysis of knowledge in which truth isn t needed as a separate condition, since it follows from the other conditions. E.g. knowledge is authorized belief (rather than authorised true belief). But could such an account be right? It seems to require some form of infallibilism, whether subjective or objective. Can t an authorised belief be false? Surely it can, given that the design plan aims as good enough beliefs rather than infallible beliefs.
Testimony If you believe something on the basis of my testimony, you understand what I am saying, and take my word for it. (Nagel, p. 73)
Someone figures as an epistemic authority only if: (i) their believing something provides content-independent reasons for believing it myself, so that if they had believed something else instead, that would have been a reason for me to emulate lt them; (ii) their believing something provides preemptive reasons to believe it, reasons that replace, rather than add to, my other reasons; (iii) a dependency thesis holds, in that their belief is formed in a way that I would conscientiously believe is deserving of emulation (iv) a justification thesis holds, in that it is my conscientious belief that I m more likely to believe well if I emulate the authority. Linda Zagzebski (2012), Epistemic Authority: A Theory of Trust, Authority, andautonomy in Belief, pp.105 113. Summarised by Guy Longworth.
Locke Testimony cannot provide knowledge. At best, it provides a (somewhat) justified belief. Locke tells the story of the King of Siam hearing from a Dutch ambassador that water in Holland becomes solid enough in winter to support the weight of a man, or even an elephant (if you could coax an elephant to Holland in the winter). The king is said to have replied, Hitherto I have believed the strange things you have told me, because I look upon you as a sober fair man, but now I am sure you lie. (Nagel, p. 74). Locke thinks the King is being quite reasonable.
Testimony is mere second hand belief we may as rationally hope to see with other men s eyes as to know by other men s understanding...the floating of other men s opinions in our brains makes us not one jot the more knowledge, though they happen to be true. What in them was science is in us but opiniatrety. (Locke 1689, 58)
Nevertheless, Locke thinks that a reasonable person will form beliefs on the basis of testimony. we receive it as easily, and build as firmly upon it, as if it were certain knowledge. If L k i i ht th h l t f bl If Locke is right, then we have a lot of reasonable beliefs, but we don t know much at all.
[Locke s] argument about vulnerability to later doubts is questionable, in part because it seems to apply equally well to judgements grounded in perception and memory, which he does want to classify as knowledge. (Nagel, p. 76). (But I guess with testimony there are 2 possible sources of fl falsehood, not just 1. There s duplicity as well as honest error.)
Of course, there could be situations in which you fail to have doubts, and take the word of a liar as if she were telling the truth, but these situations are parallel to situations in which you are taken in by a perceptual illusion. If there is a big difference between the knowledge-providing powers of perception and testimony, Locke hasn t shown us what it is. Nagel, p. 76
Reductionism Forming beliefs on the basis of testimony is a kind of scientific inference. You re inferring the best explanation of the testimonial data. E.g. one might use Locke s criteria: 1. The number of witnesses 2. Their integrity 3. Their skill 4. The purpose they have in supplying their report 5. The internal consistency of what is conveyed, and the circumstances of your hearing it 6. Whether h there is any contrary testimony Witnesses are treated as traces, or indicators, not as authorities.
Reductionism The reductionist treats human witnesses like any other non personal indicator, or trace, from which we infer what s happened. E.g. Footprints Cookie crumbs on the counter Skid marks, etc. Such traces support inferences, but they aren t authorities. (Any authority lies with the person making the inference.) In effect, reductionism erases the distinction (in law) between direct and circumstantial evidence.
Circumstantial vs. Direct evidence Circumstantial (or indirect) evidence is any fact that is distinct from the fact to be proved, so that the court must infer (e.g. by using IBE) the truth of that fact. By contrast, direct evidence requires no such inference, as the witness is simply telling us that (e.g.) the accused stabbed the victim. N.B. The distinction here is not one of power, or persuasiveness. Circumstantial evidence can be, and often is much more powerful than direct evidence. (law prof. Robert Precht, quoted in Wikipedia!)
Empirical evidence Recent empirical work on epistemic vigilance has advanced our understanding of how and when we actually accept the word of others. Even if we aren t explicitly thinking to ourselves about the reliability of the stranger we ve asked for directions, we could be monitoring his facial expressions and speech patterns to assess how trustworthy he is. Nagel, pp. 79 80.
Direct view of testimony Akṣapāda Gautama in the 2nd century ce. : Gautama maintains that testimony is a special channel through which we gain knowledge, and emphasizes that testimony is not a form of inference. We do not think to ourselves: Lee has said that Smith got the job, and Lee is a reliable person, therefore Smith got the job. We know, as soon as we understand d what Lee has said, that t Smith got the job Nagel, pp. 80 81. 81
Is the direct view of testimony analogous to Is the direct view of testimony analogous to direct realism in perception?
Thomas Reid on testimony The Reidian account of testimonial trust is that since God intended us to be social creatures, he implanted in us a propensity to speak the truth, the principle of veracity, as well as, correspondingly a disposition to confide in the veracity of others, and to believe what they tell us, the principle of credulity (Reid 1983, 94 95). (SEP, article on testimony) Is this key to the direct view? The direct theory holds Is this key to the direct view? The direct theory holds that testimony uses a special cognitive mechanism, on top of the usual mechanisms. A special channel.
Where reductionists and Lockeans think it is right to maintain a neutral stance towards public testimony until we can verify it with our private resources (our own perceptions and inferences), advocates of the direct view suggest tthat t we do not thave sufficient i private resources available to manage that kind of verification. We wouldn t be able to understand each other in the first place if we didn t start t by trusting ti others to tell the truth th and accepting what they say at face value. On this view, we drink in what others say, in something like the way bees do. Nagel, p. 81.
The direct theory seems kind of externalist?
Testimony requires the speaker to know? Knowing P on the basis of testimony requires that the witness first knows P. Jennifer Lackey, uses the image of a bucket brigade to illustrate this take it from someone who knows condition on testimonial knowledge: [I]n order to give you a full bucket of water, I must have a full bucket of water to pass to you. Nagel, p. 82.
Nagel describes a case of a creationist schoolteacher teaching the theory of natural selection. Do her students now know the theory, from her testimony? In the story, it seems that the students are unaware y that the teacher rejects the theory, and so believe it on her authority.
Groups? Can groups be reliable authorities, even if the members of those groups aren t? (Wikipedia?? The wisdom of crowds?) Knowledge has social and moral aspects. E.g. an out group can be silenced by themainstream, simply by not taking their claims seriously, i.e. treating their claims as lacking any authority. Does the silencing phenomenon show that testimony is direct, rather than inference?
Edward Craig British philosopher Edward Craig argues that humanity came up with the concept of knowledge for the express purpose of managing the problem of testimony: we use this concept to mark people as good sources of information. Craig starts t with the idea that t all creatures struggling to survive need true beliefs about their environment. It helps us greatly if we are not restricted to what we have experienced personally but can also learn from others. It s imperative that we have a way of sorting out good informants, who can serve as our eyes and ears, from bad informants, who are likely to lead us astray. Good informants are identified as knowers. Nagel, p. 85.
Objections to Craig s view: Knowers can sometimes be bad informants knowers can be secretive or deceptive. It is hard for Craig to say why we see the victim of a Gettier case as failing to know. The victim of the Gettier case will in some sense be a good informant as someone with a justified true belief, he is getting it right and in some sense thinking reliably. In experimental settings, chimpanzees can t distinguish between knowledgeable and ignorant informants who give them clues about where food is hidden. Chimpanzees can, however, keep track of who knows what when they are competing for resources: for example, subordinate chimpanzees are good at remembering whether a dominant animal knows where food is hidden. The connection between knowing and acting seems to be easier to spot than the connection between knowing and being a good informant. From Nagel, pp. 85 86.