It is not all that infrequent here at TSZ that some opponent of theism or ID makes a statement that makes me scratch my head and wonder how it is possible that they could make such a statement. This OP explores a recent example.
Cartesian scepticism, more impressed with Descartes’ argument for scepticism than his own reply, holds that we do not have any knowledge of any empirical proposition about anything beyond the contents of our own minds. The reason, roughly put, is that there is a legitimate doubt about all such propositions because there is no way to justifiably deny that our senses are being stimulated by some cause (an evil spirit, for example) which is radically different from the objects which we normally think affect our senses.
– A Companion to Epistemology, p. 457
Imagine my surprise when I found keiths (a self-identified “Cartesian Skeptic”) appealing to the senses.
The big difference between moral and factual judgments is that the former funnel down to a single “point of failure” — the conscience — while the latter do not. That doesn’t mean that the latter can’t be wrong, of course, but it does raise the bar for error.
…
Of course, even if you do all the things I listed in order to confirm that your monitor is there, you still don’t know (without the asterisk) that it’s there. The Cartesian demon might be fooling you, or you might be an envatted brain.
But at least your judgment depends on multiple sensory channels rather than on a single faculty like the conscience.
Is keiths assuming there’s only one demon and that demon can only stimulate one of his senses at a time?
Of course, noting the inconsistency of keiths, I felt compelled to speak up.
…what makes you think that multiple sensory channels is better than one, or better than a conscience?
While we still await a response from keiths (who always defends his claims) a good buddy of keiths, Richardthughes, took up the challenge.
consilience (The same reason science is better than the bible)
Wikipedia article on Consilience
The principle is based on the unity of knowledge; measuring the same result by several different methods should lead to the same answer.
[Patrick, if you need help with those links let me know. Don’t just claim that they do not exist.]
For a “Cartesian Skeptic”, how is it that multiple sensory channels is better than “a single faculty like the conscience”?
How does “consilience” come to the rescue of the Cartesian Skeptic? Consilience is based upon the unity of knowledge, and it would seem to me that there must be something that bring about this unity. How is the “consilience” of the senses brought about? Perhaps Richardthughes is just confused. Maybe keiths will come to the rescue of his wingman.
Still utterly fucking confused. How many times must people respond you your absurd “can’t measure the likelihood” nonsense, Jenny? Furthermore, princess, we don’t just get to pick what words like “perceive” and “know” means. They have meanings.
KN,
Sure you are. I’ve been telling you for months that I don’t require absolute certainty as a condition for knowledge, and you (and walto) keep arguing against a strawman that does require it.
Knock it off.
Maybe what I write makes no sense and that’s why keiths is ignoring it. 🙂
Maybe his Cartesian demon is deceiving him. Is that against the rules, suggesting that a Cartesian Skeptic might be deceived by a demon?
I still can’t smell that virtual cow* walto.
walto,
Do you have an argument?
Right, and the “we” includes angry old men who don’t understand that “false perception” is no more of an oxymoron than “false memory”. You don’t get to redefine “perceive”, walto.
Xavier: Do you believe that absolute certainly is impossible?
Yolanda: I not only believe that absolute certainly is impossible, I know it.
Xavier: How likely is it that absolute certainly is impossible is true?
Yolanda: Extremely unlikely.
Revelation.
I know this bothers you but it’s really simple; We have been over this before.
I can know things only if God chooses to reveal to me.
IOW
If I know anything at all it’s because God has chosen to reveal it to me.
I know this therefore……….
you do the math. 😉
peace
fifth,
This isn’t that hard.
If you can’t answer this question yourself…
…and you have to rely on revelation to answer it, then you’ve just kicked the can down the road.
The same question applies to the new “revelation”. You can’t terminate the regress.
This should be obvious. People are constantly and sincerely claiming to have received revelations from God, but the “revelations” aren’t consistent with each other. Some of those sincere folks are wrong.
How do you know you aren’t one of them?
Hint: “Revelation” is the wrong answer. They think they receive “revelation” too, just like you do.
Xavier: Do you believe that absolute certainly is impossible?
Yolanda: I not only believe that absolute certainly is impossible, I know it.
Xavier: How likely is it that absolute certainly is impossible is true?
Yolanda: I have no idea whatsoever.
[Poor Yolanda appears to be clueless.]
Taken by itself, that might be fine. But it makes no sense to even assign probabilities to merely logical possibilities. Assigning probabilities to possible situations requires some prior body of reasonably stable evidence, e.g. “it’s extremely likely that I have cheese in my fridge, because I remember seeing it not long ago, my memory is usually reliable when it comes to perceptual situations like this, cheese isn’t the kind of object to spontaneously disappear, etc.”
But when it comes to logical possibilities alone, it doesn’t even make sense to talk about how likely any or all of them are. That’s not saying that the possibility has some probability, but no one knows what it is. It’s saying that even saying that any logical possibility has any probability at all does not make sense. It is conceptually incoherent.
Granted. I should not be entitled to assert “I know that there’s cheese in the fridge” if I have no idea how likely it is that there’s cheese in the fridge. But “the senses are veridical” isn’t at all like “there’s cheese in the fridge”. The veridicality of the senses is a necessary condition of being able to assess any likelihoods and assign any probabilities in the first place.
To say that I’m not entitled to assert, “the senses are veridical” because I cannot determine the probability that the senses are veridical is to commit a sort of category-mistake. It is to conflate the rules that allow us to play a game — the ‘game’ of empirical knowledge — with the moves (assertions) that are permitted by that game.
The reason why I am entitled to say, “I know that my senses are veridical, all things being equal” is just that I can, finite and fallible creature that I am, reliably distinguish perceptions from hallucinations, illusions, dreams, etc. My ability to make that distinction is itself contingent upon various material and social factors — having properly functioning sensory capacities, knowing how to skillful interact with my perceptual surroundings, being able to reliably identity and re-identify spatio-temporal particulars based on their sensible characteristics. The assignment of probabilities has nothing to do with it.
revelation
If your beliefs aren’t consistent with each other then at least some of them are not from God.
If you find a supposed revelation that is inconsistent with known revelation that is a dead giveaway that it is a false revelation.
That is how we can know that the Quran is not revelation for example.
In practice you start with what you know for certain and work out from there.
I know for certain that knowledge is impossible if the Christian God does not exist
peace
It is extremely likely that I have cheese in my fridge because I almost always have cheese in my fridge. I should probably eat less cheese.
Maybe I should try virtual cheese*, but it’s probably quite tasteless.
– Michael Huemer, Skepticism and the Veil of Perception
What we need now is an analysis of perception*.
fifth,
I’m talking about multiple people, all sincerely claiming revelation from God, but presenting “revelations” that are inconsistent with each other. It happens all the time.
At least some of those people are wrong, despite sincerely claiming revelation. How do you know you aren’t one of them?
Again, “revelation” is the wrong answer. They think they receive “revelation” too, just as you do.
In some of the metaphysics of perception I’ve read, philosophers use “sensing” for Huemer’s first component, and “perceiving” for all three components. Some philosophers use “sensibles” or “sensible features” for the second component. Ever since Descartes questioned direct realism, the question has been posed in terms of the relation between sensings and sensibles.
KN,
Those aren’t “epistemically ideal conditions”, and in any case you’ve already told us that “no finite being could possibly satisfy epistemically ideal conditions…”.
It hasn’t been eliminated. Come on, KN — you’ve already admitted that there is no refutation of Cartesian skepticism, which means that such doubt can’t be eliminated.
You’re conflating “epistemically ideal” and “epistemically sufficient”. “Epistemically ideal” conditions afford certainty, while “epistemically sufficient” conditions needn’t do so. All you need for knowledge are epistemically sufficient conditions.
But yes, no human being can satisfy those epistemically sufficient conditions in the case of the external world. That’s exactly the point. We can’t satisfy the epistemically sufficient conditions, which means we can’t know that the cow or the coffee cup is in front of us.
You can’t know what you can’t know, and it’s silly to pretend that you can.
“A philosopher’s first loyalty must be to reason: if skepticism is unequivocally supported by reason, then a philosopher, as such, must embrace it, and live with whatever unhappy consequences follow therefrom, including the belief that humans are generally irrational. This is why I say that, the more philosophically minded he is, the more uneasy the representationalist will feel in connection with the question of the rationality of his beliefs about the external world. Philosophy will never be satisfied with the sort of blindly instinctive beliefs Hume offered us; it inevitably seeks justification. I think, then, that I have offered a valuable service to philosophers, if only they will take me up on it – a theoretical defense of our ordinary, common sense beliefs, and with it a release from the problems to which Hume and Descartes introduced us.”
– Huemer
“A picture held us captive,” writes Wittgenstein in the Philosophical Investigations, describing the powerful image of mind that underlies the modern epistemological tradition from Descartes onward. Retrieving Realism offers a radical critique of the Cartesian epistemic picture that has captivated philosophy for too long and restores a realist view affirming our direct access to the everyday world and to the physical universe.
According to Descartes, knowledge exists in the form of ideas in the mind that purportedly represent the world. This “mediational” epistemology―internal ideas mediating external reality―continues to exert a grip on Western thought, and even philosophers such as Quine, Rorty, and Davidson who have claimed to refute Descartes remain imprisoned within its regime. As Hubert Dreyfus and Charles Taylor show, knowledge consists of much more than the explicit representations we formulate. We gain knowledge of the world through bodily engagement with it―by handling things, moving among them, responding to them―and these forms of knowing cannot be understood in mediational terms. Dreyfus and Taylor also contest Descartes’s privileging of the individual mind, arguing that much of our understanding of the world is necessarily shared.
Once we deconstruct Cartesian mediationalism, the problems that Hume, Kant, and many of our contemporaries still struggle with―trying to prove the existence of objects beyond our representations―fall away, as does the motivation for nonrealist doctrines. We can then begin to describe the background everyday world we are absorbed in and the universe of natural kinds discovered by science.
so then at least some of their claims are false. Sincerity aside
revelation
Again if their supposed revelation conflicts with known revelation then they are wrong. Regardless of what they think.
I get the idea that you are not quite understanding what I’m saying. Let me again try to spell it out for you. It’s not about what I think It’s about what we all know.
The core revelation we all share is the existence of Yahweh (the Christian God) any revelation we think we receive must be consistent with that one thing.
That universally held proposition properly reverenced is the very beginning of knowledge. Get it?
quote:
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.
(Pro 1:7)
end quote:
Perhaps It might help if you take some time to think about the meaning of the above verse.
Can you articulate what this passages means?
peace
If there are certain principles, as I think there are, which the’ constitution of our nature leads us to believe, and which we are under a necessity to take for granted in the common concerns of life,’ without being able to give a reason for them; these are what we call the principles of common sense; and what is manifestly contrary to them, is what we call absurd.
-Thomas Reid
The reason why no human being can satisfy those epistemically sufficient conditions is that you have stipulated that they could be satisfied only by an omniscient being. But why should our epistemology — which is supposedly to be for us and about us — be held hostage to that standard?
Bear in mind, I do think that what you say about “knowledge*” is pretty much what is true of knowledge-for-us. And knowledge-for-us is the only kind of knowledge that can matter to us.
Yolanda: You can’t know that you can’t know, and it’s silly to pretend that you can.
Agreed!!!
I read Retrieving Realism and thought highly of it. I have some quibbles about it — for example, I think that the relation between direct realism in perception and scientific realism is much less direct and simple than they make it out to be. And I’m in solid agreement with Godfrey-Smith’s review of it — esp. his point that the concept of representation may have a perfectly serviceable role to play in cognitive science, even if not in epistemology.
But yeah, the idea that there’s some sort of barrier between what is subjectively available to us and what is objectively real is one that I completely reject.
It sounds like I’d like the Huemer book. Have you finished reading it yet?
fifth,
You’re avoiding my question:
I can’t help but wonder if this all traces back to the belief keiths has that God can have false beliefs.
No you are avoiding my answer.
It’s almost like you are unable to even mentally resister an answer that does not come from your presuppositions. I wonder why that is?
peace
Only through Chapter 2. I keep picking up other books to finish first. =P
He must be afraid of something. keiths, what are you afraid of? He reminds me of wet origami.
keiths, to walto:
KN:
Just to prevent anyone from repeating walto’s persistent mistake, we are not talking about numerical probabilities here. We’re talking about assessments of likelihood that can be, but needn’t be, numerical.
Right, and we don’t have a “prior body of reasonably stable evidence” indicating that the senses are generally veridical. We can’t, because as you have admitted, there is no way of assessing the likelihood that we are being Carteased.
Why claim to know that you aren’t being Carteased if you can’t even roughly assess the likelihood? It’s irrational.
A point of agreement!
That’s exactly why your earlier appeal to the sciences failed. The sciences assume the veridicality of the senses, so it is circular to adduce them in support of that veridicality.
You keep ignoring or forgetting the two types of non-veridicality, though I mention them again and again. Why do you do that?
Here they are again, for perhaps the sixth time:
When you say that you can “reliably distinguish perceptions from hallucinations, illusions, dreams, etc.”, you are talking about type 1 non-veridicality. The ability to detect type 1 non-veridicality does not extend to type 2.
Since you can’t distinguish veridicality from type 2 non-veridicality, your statement is false:
You don’t know that your perceptions are veridical, so knowledge claims about the external world are illegitimate.
Taking this up again: what would be the epistemically sufficient conditions on knowing that one is seeing a coffee-cup?
As I see it, once we reject the quest for certainty, then we should reject the claim:
and once we reject that principle (which is central to Descartes), then one does not have to exclude the merely logical possibility of non-veridical or deceptive perception in order to justifiably assert that one knows that one’s perceptual takings are veridical, if one has satisfied all the epistemic conditions that are within the cognitive and practical powers of a human being to satisfy.
Put otherwise: Cartesian skepticism only makes sense if one is also committed to a form of Cartesian certainty, according to which one can’t know that one’s senses are veridical because one cannot rule out the logical possibility that they are not.
Pointing out yet another keiths inconsistency.
From the OP:
But at least your judgment depends on multiple sensory channels rather than on a single faculty like the perceptual apparatus.
Still no argument from keiths as to why “the perceptual apparatus” isn’t a single faculty like the conscience, or that the conscience is a single faculty.
How does increasing the number of “sensory channels” help if the unifying “perceptual apparatus” is defective?
Only an omniscient being or those in communion with him can be justified in knowledge. It’s not a bug it’s a feature
Because we were made for communion with God. It’s the very core of our being.
It’s only feels like being held hostage when you chafe against your own nature.
By the way that is simply the story of the fall in a nut shell.
Man does not like relying on God for knowledge
Man decides to trust what his unreliable senses tell him instead of God
General chaos ensues including epistemology fights on obscure websites 😉
peace
keiths:
fifth:
I didn’t see an answer.
Suppose that God seems to reveal something to you tonight. Describe the procedure you would follow to determine which of the following two categories you fell into:
1. Someone who received a revelation from God.
2. Someone who thought he received a revelation from God, but was mistaken.
Is rejecting a principle all that it takes to render it invalid?
Is that a principle? If so I reject it 😉
peace
There is no procedure.
It’s not about me it’s about God.
God reveals how he sees fit
I get the feeling that you are unable to envision a world where you are a passive recipient of knowledge.
Some things you just know no effort required.
Again check out Reid
quote:
If there are certain principles, as I think there are, which the’ constitution of our nature leads us to believe, and which we are under a necessity to take for granted in the common concerns of life,’ without being able to give a reason for them; these are what we call the principles of common sense; and what is manifestly contrary to them, is what we call absurd.
end quote:
peace
Exactly. It’s gibberish.
Right again.
Exactly backwards, Judith. You are the one assigning importance to probabilities you can’t begin to assess. You have no idea whether these “likelihoods” are big or infinitesimal and claim knowledge has no requirement for certainty, but you’re somehow sure that whatever this likelihood is that you can’t assess, it certainly upends knowledge. It’s a bald contradiction.
Go and admit at least a few of your multiple errors, Judy. You’ll feel better and maybe lose some of the need to spout nonsense over and over again.
keiths:
fifth:
Exactly. There is no way for you to tell which category you fall into.
Your claims of revelation are illegitimate.
KN,
Huh? I’ve made no such stipulation.
I’ve simply observed that we cannot claim knowledge — that is, justified true belief — with respect to the external world because we don’t know that our perceptions are veridical.
The Sentinel Islander scenario shows why.
The islander doesn’t know whether the VR headset is delivering veridical information. He assumes that it is, and that leads him to false conclusions. His reasoning is bad, he makes an unjustified assumption, and that leads him to make false knowledge claims.
Why on earth would you, a professional philosopher, choose to employ reasoning that is known to be faulty? Particularly when a perfectly good argument for Cartesian skepticism is available, for which you agree there is no refutation?
Why do you regard bad reasoning that is known to lead to false conclusions as preferable to good reasoning that hasn’t been refuted?
Rigor matters, KN. So does logic. When you abandon those, you aren’t doing philosophy any more. You’re just a guy believing the things he wants to believe, whether they make sense or not. A walto.
I would appreciate direct answers to these questions:
1. Do you agree that the Sentinel Islander reaches false conclusions and makes incorrect knowledge claims about LaLa Land?
2. Do you agree that his error traces back to the faulty assumption that the VR headset is delivering veridical information?
3. Do you see the analogy between the headset in the Sentinel Islander scenario and the perceptual apparatus as a whole in real life?
4. Do you agree that our senses might be delivering non-veridical information to us, just as the VR headset delivers non-veridical information to the Sentinel Islander?
5. Do you agree that if our senses are delivering non-veridical information to us, but we assume the opposite, that we are making an error that will lead us to false conclusions, just as it did in the case of the Sentinel Islander?
6. Do you agree that rigor is important in philosophy? Logic?
7. Do you agree that good reasoning should be preferred to bad reasoning when doing philosophy?
8. If you agree with #6 and #7, then why are you clinging to the Sentinel Islander’s bad reasoning and applying it to the question of Cartesian skepticism?
9. Why not accept the sound argument for Cartesian skepticism, which you admit that you cannot refute?
Do you actually think that if there is no procedure there is no way?
That is quite an epistemological straitjacket you wear keiths.
I have done my best to avoid asking the question because it seems to upset you.
But
How exactly do you know there is no way?
Does Patrick know you have appointed yourself the chief decider?
peace
walto,
That’s pitiful even by your standards, walto. You’ve got it backwards.
Even KN agrees that you need to assess the likelihoods when evaluating the “cheese in fridge” knowledge claim:
If you can’t assess the likelihood, the knowledge claim is illegitimate.
fifth,
Yes, in this case.
But you’re free to describe a passive way if you can. Just don’t say “revelation”, because the other folks also believe that their “knowledge” was “revealed” to them.
Remember, you’re looking for a way to decide which category you fall into when you think you’ve received a revelation:
1. Someone who received a revelation from God.
2. Someone who thought he received a revelation from God, but was mistaken.
How can you tell, either actively or passively, which category you’re in?
fifth,
Your error is obvious to any intelligent and rational person, fifth. No need for “chief deciders”, self-appointed or otherwise.
You are so confused. With a wave of your magic wand you just reduced all logic to inductive logic.
One does not have to assess the likelihood of a self-contradictory claim to know that it is self-contradictory, and even you know this.
Your claim to know this is illegitimate.
You assessed the likelihood did you, and that’s how you know?
That one cannot refute a nonsensical claim is not a point in favor of nonsensical claims.
Which of your untrustworthy senses did you use to observe this and how did it pass the gatekeeper of your untrustworthy perceptual apparatus?
As indicated, that’s completely wrong, Gretta. Utterly backwards. You’re the one depending on these ‘likelihoods’ for YOUR claims–even though you admit you haven’t the slightest idea what they might be.
And if you think KN agrees with you about this matter, you really should let him say so himself instead of quote-mining him in that pathetic and pointless way you’re so fond of. I’m actually pretty sure he doesn’t agree with you. Would you care to bet?
So, what do you say? You think we should ask him or just settle on your completely whacked interpretation of the little clippings you posted.
So pathetic, Gretta. I suggest you do another OP on disgraceful methods of fallacious ‘argumentation.’ You can cite Alan, Jock, me, mung, KN and FMM there too. Everyone who’s ever said you were wrong about anything! It will be another growth opportunity for the rest of us!
Personally I have grown so much.
I can’t wait till keiths starts teaching his mind-reading skills.
walto,
My Cartesian skepticism depends on the fact that we don’t know the likelihoods.
Come on, walto. I realize that you aren’t a technical guy, but the logic is not that hard to follow. Give it a try.
And that the only knowledge of the external world that is possible is inductive. And on the mistaken notion that this “fact” of yours is a fact.
What you continue to avoid is answering the question:
What is the point of “Keithsian Skepticism”?
additionally:
What are the consequences of “Keithsian Skepticism”?.
I’m not seeing much logic from Keiths in his argument for “Keithsian Skepticism”.