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Category Archives: Epistemology

Post 1: Baumann’s Solution to the Factivity Problem

09 Aug

This is the first post in a series of posts on a debate regarding contextualism about knowledge attributions.  The first paper I’ll look at is Peter Baumann’s paper “Contextualism and the Factivity Problem” in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (2008). Because this paper gets the debate underway I will largely summarize this paper and save my analysis for the exchange pitting Baumann versus Brueckner and Buford.

First, I’ll provide an overview of the “factivity problem.” Imagine two contexts. One context is ordinary (C-O) and the other context is more demanding or skeptical (C-S). The contextualist is committed to the idea that the truth-value of knowledge ascriptions can differ based on the context of utterance. Even if a contextualist found herself in (C-S) she would want to make the following two claims (p. 582):

  • (1) O’s utterance of ‘‘S knows that he has hands’’ in context C-O is true

whereas

  • (2) S’s utterance of ‘‘S knows that he has hands’’ in context C-S is not true.

However, if the contextualist is in (C-S) she cannot say that about the person in the less demanding context (C-O). She could only say, “It’s possible that O’s utterance in (C-O) is true.” This weakens contextualism and makes it not very compelling. If the contextualist cannot say that knowledge attributions made in less demanding contexts are in fact true, then the contextualist does not take her contextualism very seriously. However, if the contextualist knows (1) and (2) are true, even from within (C-S), then (3) would hold (p. 583):

  • (3) S’s utterance of ‘‘S knows that (1)’’ in context C-S is true.

At this point Baumann introduces a principle that contains a disquotation element and a factivity element. The disquotation element facilitates the move from the meta-linguistic (quotation) level to the object level (e.g., from “knowledge” to knowledge). The factivity element facilitates the move from knowing that p to it being the case that p. The principle is as follows (p. 583):

  • (DF) ‘‘A knows that p’’ (as uttered in some context) is true -> p.

Applying (DF) to (1) results in (p. 584):

  • (4) O’s utterance of ‘‘S knows that he has hands’’ in context C-O is true -> S has hands.

This allows for the following assumption (p. 584):

  • (5) S’s utterance of ‘‘S knows that (4)’’ in context C-S is true.

A plausible epistemic principle is the closure principle. Adapting the closure principle to this discussion Baumann formulates closure as follows (p. 584):

  • (Clos) For all contexts C: [‘‘A knows that p’’ (as uttered in C) is true and ‘‘A knows that (p -> q)’’ (as uttered in C) is true] -> ‘‘A knows that q’’ (as uttered in C) is true.

Finally, (Clos) plus (3) and (5) equals (6), but (6) contradicts (2)–something the contextualist accepts.

  • (6) S’s utterance of ‘‘S knows that he has hands’’ in context C-S is true.
  • (2) S’s utterance of ‘‘S knows that he has hands’’ in context C-S is not true.

Thus, what started out as variation in the ascription of truth-value across contexts led to a full-blown contradiction. This forces the contextualist to give up on contextualism or give up on a plausible epistemic principle. The dilemma is that most contextualists build factivity into their account of context-sensitivity and, as a result, “Given closure, factivity is the killer; given factivity, it is closure” (p. 585). This is the “factivity problem” for contextualism.

Baumann proposes a solution to the factivity problem. The basic idea is to hold that warrant can differ as contexts differ. The type of warrant associated with demanding contexts is called “knows-high”. The type of warrant associated with less demanding contexts is called “knows-low”. The type of warrant required to be a knower in a context like (C-S) is not the same type of warrant required to be a knower in a context like (C-O). So, (S) might know-high that [O knows-low that p] without S knowing-high that p. For example, even within (C-S), it’s possible to know that “Stephen Hawking knows that after the Big Bang primordial mini black holes were formed” (as uttered in a context) is true without knowing that after the Big Bang primordial mini black holes were formed.

A problem with the factivity problem is that there is a failure of transmission of warrant. As Baumann nicely summarizes, “Knowing-high that someone else knows-low that p does not entail (given closure and factivity) or require that one knows-high that p” (p. 592). Baumann corrects this mistaken assumption in the factivity problem by introducing a warrant principle that doesn’t make this mistake (p. 592):

  • (TW2) A has warrant for knowledge-high that B knows-low that p -> A has warrant for knowledge-at-some-level (but not necessarily for knowledge-high) that p.”

Baumann further argues that the contextualist shouldn’t accept (DF). She only needs to accept the following revised version (p. 593):

  • (DF*) For all contexts C, D: From ‘‘‘A knows that p’ (as uttered in C) is true’’ one can only infer ‘‘p’’ (in D) if D is not more demanding than C.

Finally, Baumann turns (Clos) into (Clos*):

  • (Clos*) For all contexts C there is a context D (not more demanding than C) such that: [‘‘A knows-that p’’ (as uttered in C) is true and ‘‘A knows that (p -> q)’’ (as uttered in C) is true] -> ‘‘A knows that q’’ (as uttered in D) is true.

The upshot of Baumann’s moves is that the factivity problem doesn’t go through. It appears he has solved one of the hardest problems facing contextualism. However, I have a feeling Brueckner and Buford are not satisfied with Baumann’s solution. To be continued…

 
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Posted by on August 9, 2010 in Contextualism, Epistemology, Factivity

 

Index of Posts on Williamson’s “Evidence” Chapter

19 Jul

For ease of reference, below is an index of my posts on Williamson’s “Evidence in Philosophy” chapter in The Philosophy of Philosophy. Williamson’s chapter 7 is broken down into sections. I commented and analyzed each section in the chapter.

 
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Posted by on July 19, 2010 in Epistemology, Evidence, Index of Posts, Methodology, Timothy Williamson

 

The Factivity and Contextualism Debate

09 Jul

It’s that time again. I’m going to provide explanation and analysis of a slice of philosophical literature. Previously I reviewed the “Evidence” chapter in Williamson’s The Philosophy of Philosophy, a series of posts I’ll index soon. This time I’m going to play analyst and referee in a debate pitting Peter Baumann vs. Anthony Brueckner and Christopher Buford. Hopefully my review of this literature will serve you by giving you a synopsis of the debate. In addition, this series of posts will help me better understand contexualism and subject-sensitive invariantism–two hot topics in epistemology. This debate might also link-up with my previous post on factivity in a surprising way. We’ll see.

While I cannot guarantee the rate at which I’ll post I can guarantee that I’ll go in order. I discovered the debate by looking at the Brueckner and Buford (2010) paper in the current issue of Analysis. This led me to trace the debate backwards, which started with Baumann’s PPR paper “Contextualism and the Factivity Problem.”

 
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Posted by on July 9, 2010 in Anthony Brueckner, Contextualism, Factivity, Peter Baumann

 

Metaethics and Epistemology Workshops

05 Jul

There are a few workshops I thought I’d flag. The first is the Metaethics Workshop at University of Wisconsin, Madison. It runs from September 24-26 and the keynote speaker is Stephen Darwall. The second workshop is the epistemology workshop prior to the 2010 Nature of Knowledge lecture at Edinburgh. Robert Audi is giving the lecture on ‘Testimony as a Social Foundation of Knowledge’. The last workshop is the Midwest Epistemology Workshop, October 8-9, at Purdue. Jason Stanley is the keynote speaker and a tentative schedule can be found here.

 
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Posted by on July 5, 2010 in Conferences, Epistemology, Metaethics

 

The Factivity of Reasons and Evidence

04 Jun

One challenge for philosophers who want to maintain an equivalency thesis (e.g., Kearns and Star 2008, 2009) between normative reasons and evidence is that evidence is non-controversially regarded as always-factive whereas reasons are controversially regarded as always-factive. For Michael Smith and Jonathan Dancy a normative (justifying) reason for p does not require p to be true (Hornsby 2007: 294 n. 8). Jennifer Hornsby argues, along with Clayton Littlejohn (2010) in his Notre Dame book review of Fantl and McGrath (2009), that normative reasons are factive. By contrast, I’m not aware of anyone who argues that evidence is non-factive. Beliefs about evidence might be fallible, but evidence is almost always regarded as facts that are true.

    A move an equivalency theorist might make is to claim evidence justifies belief with regard to truth-directedness. A belief p is justified in relation to normative reasons for holding p. From a third-person perspective only reasons that are true will justify belief. Such reasons align with evidence because their justificatory power derives, in part, from their factivity. This, however, is not a move an equivalency theorist will be comfortable with. There are also subjective reasons, and these reasons are not always factive. Such a theorist posits a symmetry thesis:

  • Symmetry: Normative reasons and evidence are symmetrical with regard to subjectivity and objectivity.

According to Symmetry one can speak of subjective reasons and subjective evidence along with objective reasons and objective evidence. What is objective is always factive and what is subjective is not always factive (or, is non-factive). One problem with this neat division is that cases (like the Coop-Petrol case) apply pressure to this divide. It seems that normative reasons must always be factive. Littlejohn (2010) mentions that Fantl and McGrath (2009) are committed to saying:

(1)   What justified Coop in giving Audrey the toxic stuff was that there was gin and tonic in that glass.

And, (1) entails (3):

(3)   Coop was justified in giving Audrey the toxic stuff (in part) because there was gin in the glass.

A factive theorist can point out that (1) entailing (3) is only a problem if p is true and q is true. That is, Coop was only justified in his reason for acting as he did if there was gin, and not petrol, in the drink he gave Audrey. However, there was not gin in the drink, so it’s not true that ‘p because q’ is true. Thus, Coop was not justified in his action. Fantl and McGrath try to block (1) entailing (3) by resorting to subjectively-based (2):

(2)   What justified Coop in giving Audrey the toxic stuff was that there was gin and tonic in that glass, as he thought at the time.

I agree with Littlejohn that (2) doesn’t block the entailment. That Coop thought that the clear stuff was gin and tonic doesn’t prevent the implication in (1) that there was gin and tonic in the glass and this reason justified Coop in acting as he did. So, it does not block (1) from entailing (3). If one takes Littlejohn’s suggestion that normative reasons are factive, the next question becomes whether evidential beliefs must be true. Timothy Williamson thinks evidential beliefs must be true, whereas Jim Joyce (2004) argues against this idea.

    For Williamson, “If e is evidence for h, then e is true” (2000: 201). If something is inconsistent with the facts, then it’s not evidence because, “No true proposition is inconsistent with my evidence, although I may think that it is” (2000: 201). According to Joyce, Williamson holds his factivity view because he conflates subjective and objective senses of justification. Williamson is only focusing on the objective (third-person) form of justification, so it’s no wonder that beliefs justified by evidence must always be true. Evidence is always factive for Williamson, so that which it justifies must also be factive.

    Joyce, like Fantl and McGrath, ask us to consider the subjective sense of ‘justifies’ in terms of a subject’s reasons that she possesses for a belief. These justifying reasons need not always be factive, and, as Joyce points out, an agent will only mistakenly consider evidence justifying a belief if there’s a false belief present. For instance, this occurs when a juror holds the false belief that a witness is reliable and believes based on that false belief that the witness’ testimony is evidence for the innocence of the defendant even though the witness is lying.

    I’ll close by pointing out a couple of assumptions underlying the Joyce and Fantl-McGrath response. These assumptions might be undermined as a way of arguing for the factivity of normative reasons and evidence.

  • Assumption 1 (AS1): ‘Objective’ goes with ‘factive’, whereas ‘subjective’ goes with ‘non-factive’.

(AS1) implies that ‘objective’ is agent-neutral (applying to external facts), whereas ‘subjective’ is agent-relative. Another way of understanding ‘objective’ is in terms of ‘abstraction’. Even if something is abstracted away from an agent it may none-the-less be relative to an epistemic situation and by implication be relative to the mental state of a (hypothetical) agent. So, ‘objective’ can still be agent-relative in that sense. It might be that an actual agent can inhabit such an epistemic state. What matters is that an actual agent is not required to inhabit such a state for there to be evidence or reasons.

  • Assumption 2 (AS2): An agent only has (possesses) evidence or reasons subjectively. Objective evidence (or reasons) is evidence there is, where subjective evidence is evidence an agent has.

Contrary to (AS2) it’s possible to argue that subjective access to evidence, through armchair reflection, is not required for evidence possession. If evidence is factive, then an agent may possess such evidence even though an agent is not subjectively able to recall or grasp that evidence.

 
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Posted by on June 4, 2010 in Epistemology, Evidence, Reasons

 

Reasons and Evidence: The Provide/Consist Distinction

07 May

Recently, while looking in Knowledge and Its Limits, I came across an interesting distinction. The more I thought about the distinction it started to make sense of a topic I’m currently researching—the relationship between epistemic reasons and evidence.

The distinction is: provide vs. consist. Williamson uses this distinction to mention an objection to his view that all evidence is propositional. For Williamson even perceptual experiences, which are often regarded as non-propositional evidence, consist of propositions. An objector might claim: “Experiences provide evidence; they do not consist of propositions” (197, italics mine). However, only propositions we grasp can be used in confirmation, inference to the best explanation, and choice between rival hypotheses. Even though words fail to completely capture perceptual experience it does not mean evidence is non-propositional. Instead, experience makes propositions e1…en count as evidence for a hypothesis h. Having an experience bestows the status of evidence on propositions. As such, evidence is inextricably linked to (and mediated by) propositions. Thus, experience consists of propositions.

It is possible to ask the same thing of epistemic reasons and evidence: Are they inextricably linked? There are defenders of two theses concerning this question:

  • Inseparable:  Where you find one you find the other (i.e., reasons and evidence serve the same function, appear under the same analysis, or are constitutionally equivalent).
    • For every proposition p, if p is a reason R then p is evidence E.
  • Separable: Reasons and evidence come apart (i.e., in some scenarios you have reasons but no evidence, and vice versa).
    • There is some p such that p is an R but not an E.

Now I’ll relate this to the provide/consist distinction. One way of arguing for Inseparable is by claiming ‘having’ evidence for the truth of p ‘provides’ you with an epistemic reason for believing p. In response one might argue for Separable by showing evidence for p doesn’t always generate a reason to believe p. A strategy to counter this move is to claim the evidence for p is not really (good) evidence for p. What is taken as evidence for p doesn’t ‘consist’ of evidence; it doesn’t have the status of evidence because its status is undercut by other pieces of evidence.  These moves have the following assumptions:

  • Pro-Inseparable: If you have good evidence for p, then you have a good epistemic reason for believing p.
  • Pro-Separable: Rejects the assumption endorsed by Pro-Inseparable.

Pro-Inseparable claims ‘providing’ sanctions ‘believing’. ‘Believing’ connects to ‘consisting’ in that one is ‘believing’ appropriately if that believing is based on that which has the status (consists) of good evidence (reasons). By transitivity ‘providing’ sanctions ‘consisting’.  A way to argue for Pro-Separable is to show you can have good evidence for p without that evidence grounding a good reason for believing p because the reason is not based on the evidence. As a result, it’s not the case where you have good evidence you always have a good epistemic reason. The epistemic reason needs to be appropriately linked to the evidence to result in ‘believing’ in a way that’s sufficient for the belief to be justified. Simply claiming the two entities are inextricably linked (i.e., where you find one you find the other) doesn’t secure this connection. There’s another way of putting this point.

‘Providing’ focuses on the function of evidence or how it’s used in an argument. Williamson takes this line by arguing evidence ‘is’ (consists) only in so far as it ‘functions’ (provides). For evidence (experience) to play its evidentiary role within an argument it must be propositional. Because experience functionally provides evidence for hypotheses, and evidence must be propositionally grasped in order to be used, experience consists of propositions. Williamson argues for ‘consists’ by way of ‘provides’. The problem with this is that something may ‘consist’ without ‘providing’. I can be justified in believing that p even if no agent has engaged in the activity (function) of justification. This is because p’s status as evidence justifies believing in p in a way that doesn’t depend on anyone having used it in argumentation. It doesn’t require that the evidence is possessed, grasped, or used. That it can only ‘function’ a certain way if it ‘is’ a certain way simply shows that ‘function’ (provide) depends on ‘status’ (consist). It doesn’t show that ‘consist’ can be derived from ‘provide’ when it comes to evidence.

 
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Posted by on May 7, 2010 in Epistemic Reasons, Epistemology, Evidence, Timothy Williamson

 

CFP: Justification for Dialectica

30 Apr

There’s a CFP for a special issue of the journal Dialectica. The issue is on the current state of justification. The submission deadline is 7/1/2010. Click here to access full details of the CFP at the Certain Doubts blog.

 
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Posted by on April 30, 2010 in CFP, Epistemic Justification, Epistemology

 

Conference on Epistemic Evaluation

11 Apr

Here’s a pointer to an interesting conference entitled The Point and Purpose of Epistemic Evaluation. This  conference explores one idea in the methodology of epistemology. The idea is that, “the point(s) and purpose(s) of epistemic evaluation ought to significantly constrain and inform substantive accounts of knowledge and knowledge-related phenomena.”

The conference description mentions Craig’s Knowledge and the State of Nature as an example of instantiating this idea. I also think Alston’s Beyond Justification is an example of this approach.

 
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Posted by on April 11, 2010 in Conferences, Epistemology, Methodology

 

Updated Paper: Against the Total Evidence Requirement

03 Apr

I just updated my Papers page with a revised version of a paper arguing Against the Total Evidence Requirement. Here’s the abstract.

ABSTRACT. The Requirement of Total Evidence (RTE) asks an agent to make her confidence in a belief proportional to the support it receives from her total evidence. This paper examines (RTE) as a norm of epistemic rationality and argues that it is problematic. Looking at the work of Peter Achinstein (2001) on the notion of evidence it becomes clear that (RTE) endorses a view of the constitution of evidence that is neither necessary nor sufficient for something to count as evidence. To overcome this and other deficiencies associated with (RTE) a move is made to an objective view of evidence. This move aligns epistemic rationality with scientific rationality in seeking to capture veridical evidence. It also leads to a new norm of epistemic rationality—the Proper Subset Evidence Requirement (PSER).

Click on the following link to access a presentation on the paper.

 
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Posted by on April 3, 2010 in Confirmation Theory, Epistemic Rationality, Evidence, My Papers, Probability

 

2010 Episteme Conference

01 Apr

Registration is now open for the Episteme conference in Edinburgh (6/2-6/4). Access the conference website here, and access a draft of the conference program here. The program itinerary is very helpful because it provides not only the title of the talks but also the abstracts of the papers the talks are based on.

 
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Posted by on April 1, 2010 in Conferences, Epistemology

 
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