I am quite excited because it formalises and comports with a vague cloud of ideas I have been working on. Perversely perhaps, I have come to be pleased when someone arrives at an idea before me, as I feel somewhat vindicated in process to have arrived at or approached conclusions palatable to philosophical greats, or if unavailable, at least Alex. ;)
Serious question -- did Karl Popper or whoever formulated this trilemma read Aristotle? I ask because it appears that many 20th century philosophers (e.g. Russell, Wittgenstein) were not familiar with him and thus spent a lot of time working on problems that the Greek had solved over two millennia ago. Studying the Organon could save us all a lot of headaches.
The trilemma was actually first formulated by the ancient Greeks themselves, specifically by Pyrrhon the Skeptic. Whether the analytic philosophers studied the ancient Greeks, I can't really say. Heidegger, a continental philosopher, certainly did, and had high respect for Aristotle.
Interesting! I bring it up because Aristotle's solution to the problem -- that all knowledge rests on first principles that we can't actually *prove* are true but that we nevertheless *know* are true -- seems to be the best way out of this quagmire. Calling these principles *arbitrary* assumptions feels like a deliberate 20th century misreading. There's a difference between an epistemology built on an assumption like "1 = 0" and an assumption like "all right angles are equal".
That's exactly correct. Aristotle was the first to formulate the approach I've taken. Where he and I differ is very minor:
(1) I believe that the first principles are irrefutable and that's what makes them special; that's the "razor" you can use to sort true first principles from other principles (and that's not my idea, that's from neo-Aristotelian Ronald Merrill)
(2) I believe that one of the first principles, which (AFAIK) Aristotle didn't include, is the axiom of evidence (this is my own idea)
Essentially I've updated Aristotle to reflect the attacks that were made by critics and skeptics in 20th century.
Fair enough! Yeah, the axiom of evidence feels more Cartesian than Aristotelian. I think Descartes solved the problem of the senses by saying that God wasn't a deceiver. That might be another way to approach it.
I rather like a variation on the Conan solution: Recognize that Reality exists, and *act* on it. If our apprehension of reality is indeed better than our opponents, then we will win.
A simple example: the public education system remains in continual denial over the utility of systematic phonics instruction. Those who homeschool their children can produce spectacularly better reading performance in their children by teaching phonics. (It can require patience. The initial ROI is lower. But quantum jumps in reading performance can happen.)
---
But there is a danger in this strategy. If you follow through on an insufficiently true theory, then you can be worse off than those who follow the herd or their feelings. Those who followed certain Austrian School investment gurus missed out on the biggest bull market in U.S. history. And many got scammed outright.
(That petrodollar thingy accounts for some of the error.)
Another example: notice the rarity of billionaire Objectivists. For some reason, those who practically worship capitalism aren't very good at it.
(One possible explanation: many a billionaire has gotten that way by being part of a gigantic pyramid scheme. Did AOL ever run a real profit? How about Netscape? This is Vox Day's explanation of today's economy and it's one of his better points -- though he takes it a bit far.
Second possible explanation: to get a creative new business off the ground, you need to be thinking more about Others' interest vs. your own. Your payment comes later. An altruistic mindset is thus useful for more than PR purposes. At the monetization stage, a more Randian mindset can work. An Objectivist can be a good banker or vulture capitalist.)
I have actually looked at teachers guides which described "levels of reading" which were basically levels of faking reading. Sophistication at guessing at words was considered progress.
When my younger brother was in kindergarten, he was given reading books which had full sentences with pictures to help you guess the content, and some words replaced with a "rebus"; i.e., a picture of an apple for an apple.
But this nonsense goes all the way back to "Fun with Dick and Jane."
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I made flash cards for my daughter. Drill using different consonants with the same ending. That sort of thing. It was fun for her, but the forgetting rate was high, and it translated into being able to read "Hop on Pop" but not anything more advanced -- until she decided to read a kid's novel. She skipped all the reading levels in between because they were boring. But phonics drill provided the tools to read real books where the pictures didn't tell the story.
Quantum jumps happen. The conveyor belt approach to education is horribly inefficient.
Out of the 3 languages my older kids read English is the hardest one in that respect. The two oldest essentially taught themselves on Harry Potter books.
Then my wife almost accidentally discovered phonics, and taught the younger ones in no time.
We can beat them by discerning reality and acting.
But we can also lose by thinking we have discerned reality but haven't finished our homework. Supply Side Economics is a good example. True under some circumstances. But there are mass quantities of data showing that governments can tax more without killing their economies. Note Scandinavia. This is not to say that such high taxation is desireable, but if you aren't willing to cut spending...
Oh. And saying you can fix a trillion dollar deficit by eliminating some silly research projects is even sillier than said projects. Republicans can be as dumb as AOC at times. Recognizing reality includes doing the basic arithmetic.
The Laffer curve is just back of the envelope math. The purpose of tax policy should be to extract as little and as harmlessly as possible to fund the legitimate functions of government. Maximizing Government revenue shouldn't be the goal, obviously. Politicians are always reducing the complexity for the children known as voters.
Demand side comes from the supposed refutation of Say's Law by Keynes, iirc. So Supply side, encompasses more classical econ, in my view
The argument that senses are unreliable because we can be decieved via sensory illusions misses the point that in those instances the senses are in fact reliably giving us information, but our intellect is misinterpretting the information.
In the case of the straw in water, or the shifting gray color, our senses are giving accurate information about the nature and bahavior of light, water, pigment, etc.
=== the senses are in fact reliably giving us information, but our intellect is misinterpretting the information ===
Probably not.
The evolutionary cost-benefit tradeoff for refinement of any sense, runs out WELL before any sensor approaches truly-reliability.
Plus, there are Game- and Decision-Theoretic arguments for why the maximum payoff is rarely the one associated with veridical perception.
Our sensors evolved in an environment where FITNESS BEAT TRUTH; there was (is?) more survival/reproductive advantage to over-estimating risk, rather than sticking around to check if that noise was just the wind.
There's a nice little paper from 2021 that I read recently - "Fitness Beats Truth in the Evolution of Perception" (can't do links in this shitfest of a comment 'system', but the citation is at the bottom.
Citation: Prakash C, Stephens KD, Hoffman DD, Singh M, Fields C. "Fitness Beats Truth in the Evolution of Perception" . Acta Biotheor. 2021 Sep;69(3):319-341. doi: 10.1007/s10441-020-09400-0. Epub 2020 Nov 24. PMID: 33231784.
However, in the context of Macris’ original article: a mechanism that produced absolutely reliably false information (or input for stimulus response or etc) would have no survival value. A survival-fit sensory system must produce some data that comports with reality to some degree, and that is all Macris proposed system requires.
I don't believe in macroevolution, I find it wholly unpersuasive, so theories built upon it are similarly unpersuasive. But even aside from the evolution issue, reliability does not mean or imply perfection. It means a thing performs its intended function to a sufficient degree of accuracy with a sufficient degree of regularity that it is safe to assume that it will do what it is intended to do in most given circumstances, and can be trusted to do so until some indicia of failure is present.
For epistemelogical purposes, this extends even to the areas where senses occasionally, or even predictably, fail, because it tells us something true about both ourselves (our senses are imperfect relators of information) and the world outside ourselves (there are things that can cause, sometimes predicatably, our senses to misreport information).
You lost me when you mentioned BELIEFS is a discussion about EPISTEMOLOGY.
BELIEFS are DOXA, not EPISTEME.
DOXA is for Redditors and trans-activists - because there is no veridicality axiom.
[The ALLCAPS is not intended to indicate that I'm SHOUTING... it's meant to indicate that Substack's comment 'system' (sic) is retarded "HelloWorld"-level garbage coded by $7/hr gamma-monkeys.
$7/hr may not be literally true, but is framed as a relativity: Boeing paid $9/hr for the cretins who did the software for 737Max - and we know how that ended.]
Mr Macris is a very talented writer (far more so than I am), however I think you're basically correct. Doxa is a separate discussion from Episteme. If the latter's study is one that no longer pursues Truth (be it capital-T or even small-t) and is instead focused on the former... My friends, I can literally hear the Djinn all around me licking their lips in anticipation of the Trainwreck that is to come (assuming that Mankind eschews Truth and its pursuit in this manner, in the field of Epistemology).
Well, I am grateful for the kind words and love you both but I still disagree with you both. I am not presuming doxastic belief is epistemic belief. That is literally why the axiom of evidence is present in my system. The axiom of evidence is what allows us to advance from phenomenology to reality.
To quote from the Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy:
"According to foundationalism, our justified beliefs are structured like a building: they are divided into a foundation and a superstructure, the latter resting upon the former. Beliefs belonging to the foundation are basic. Beliefs belonging to the superstructure are nonbasic and receive justification from the justified beliefs in the foundation."
(In foundherentism, they receive justification from the justified beliefs in the foundation as well as from each other, similar to how in the New Orleans superdome the dome supports itself.)
Next up...
"Doxastic Basicality
S’s justified belief that p is basic if and only if S’s belief that p is justified without owing its justification to any of S’s other beliefs.
Let’s consider what would, according to DB, qualify as an example of a basic belief. Suppose you notice (for whatever reason) someone’s hat, and you also notice that that hat looks blue to you. So you believe
(B) It appears to me that that hat is blue.
Unless something very strange is going on, (B) is an example of a justified belief. DB tells us that (B) is basic if and only if it does not owe its justification to any other beliefs of yours. So if (B) is indeed basic, there might be some item or other to which (B) owes its justification, but that item would not be another belief of yours. We call this kind of basicality “doxastic” because it makes basicality a function of how your doxastic system (your belief system) is structured."
Next up...
"Epistemic Basicality (EB)
S’s justified belief that p is basic if and only if S’s justification for believing that p does not depend on any justification S possesses for believing a further proposition, q.[42]
EB makes it more difficult for a belief to be basic than DB does. To see why, we turn to the chief question (let’s call it the “J-question”) that advocates of experiential foundationalism face:
The J-Question
Why are perceptual experiences a source of justification?"
"One way of answering the J-question is as follows: perceptual experiences are a source of justification only when, and only because, we have justification for taking them to be reliable.[43] Note that your having justification for believing that p doesn’t entail that you actually believe p. Thus, your having justification for attributing reliability to your perceptual experiences doesn’t entail that you actually believe them to be reliable.
What might give us justification for thinking that our perceptual experiences are reliable? That’s a complicated issue. For our present purposes, let’s consider the following answer: We remember that they have served us well in the past. We are supposing, then, that justification for attributing reliability to your perceptual experiences consists of memories of perceptual success. On this view, a perceptual experience (E) justifies a perceptual belief only when, and only because, you have suitable track-record memories that give you justification for considering (E) reliable. (Of course, this raises the question why those memories give us justification, but there are many different approaches to this question, as we’ll see more fully below.)
If this view is correct, then it is clear how DB and EB differ. Your having justification for (H) depends on your having justification for believing something else in addition to (H), namely that your visual experiences are reliable. As a result (H) is not basic in the sense defined by EB. However, (H) might still be basic in the sense defined by DB. If you are justified in believing (H) and your justification is owed solely to (E) and (M), neither of which includes any beliefs, then your belief is doxastically—though not epistemically—basic."
That's all straight quotes from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The accusation that foundationalism is merely doxastic is not new to you guys. But it can be answered; others have given their answers (available on the SEP). My answer is the axiom of evidence, which is an irrefutable axiom that can be noetically apprehended. It answers the J question to my satisfaction.
You can disagree with that answer; most philosophers disagree with most other philosophers; but it's an answer, I think it's a better answer than anything else I've ever read, and it's an answer that satisfies my own quest for truth.
So, no, I don't think I've formulated a merely doxastic belief system.
I will be responding to this properly sometime soon; but I have to first take care of prior commitments. You’ve definitely done the reading and homework; so this will need some “proper” responding to; rather than my typically inane rants about Demons and Demonlords eating Humans. So stay tuned my friend!
The SEP segments you have quoted speak at length about reliability and whatnot.
So in essence, they touch upon the "skeleton" of Externalism; and Externalist Epistemology is still a JTB + X model (a very common "model" in the post-Gettier landscape of "Theory of Knowledge").
What you have sketched here with your Foundherentist model is a non-JTB model of Epistemology. So (and this may cause you some upset): there is not a proper "carryover" that takes place of many of these notions, which you would like to see happen. Why not?
Basically, In Philosophy, things tend to come in "packages". For example- an Externalist regarding knowledge is wedded to JTB + X ("X" being some notion of Reliabilism, one example of which might be Process Reliabilism).
So when you note that the "Chasm" between EB and DB is not that big, you are Correct... insofar as the "Skeleton" is Externalist Epistemology. However, what you are defending here is not that "Skeleton" but something else.
In particular, you are defending a non-JTB account; or a JB + Ir account (i.e. Justified Beliefs that are Irrefutable). This account need not wed itself to Veracity. And this is precisely where the problems begin.
Now, it can be argued (and you have done so indirectly) that "Irrefutability" as a property endows Beliefs and Stances with a Salience + Gravitas which makes it satisfactory enough such that Veracity need not be in the picture.
But... we have to remember once more that things come in packages. Externalist Epistemology comes with JTB + R; but it ALSO comes with some form of "Correspondence Theory" (whether we go Balls-Deep as Externalists and adopt some Kripke-Tarski semantics as well... we may have some leeway there).
Your proposed model however, does not. Because as you note: Epistemic Peers (be it physicists or anyone else) can have different Evidentiary sets and thereby have "Knowledge" without need towards Arbitration or Reconciliation of their Disagreements; a la having two or more "Irrefutable" accessible sets.
Everett can have Knowledge about the Quantum Realm and so can X, Y and Z Physicist regarding said Quantum Realm; in spite of all four peoples positing the existence of different atomics. Knowledge then (in this JB + Ir model) is dependant on the Subjects' pursuit of Doxastic Accord and NOT Correspondence.
So yes, your particular rendering of Foundherentism *is* Doxastically inclined (this is not a bad thing per se: You'll find many a Continental, French and German Academic in LOVE with what you have written); and it is inclined precisely because the "Package Deal" of Externalist Epistemology which you would like to see included... does not carry over in the way you would like to see.
And this is because of the way the JB + Ir model presented here does not "need" to pursue Truth. It's sort of similar in a way to how Plantinga in his Argument against Naturalistic Evolution showed that Evolution does not "need" to pursue the development of faculties that are truth-tracking within organisms:
Could it STILL be the case that said organisms develop such faculties? Certainly!
By Symmetry then (regarding your model): Is it possible that JB + Ir still generates a leap from the DB to the EB? Sure! But it does not *NEED TO*? Especially when Doxastic Accord a la the Beliefs being justified and having some manner of "irrefutability" is enough? Not really!
And that is the Poison Pill that Ruins everything.
Addendum: "NEED" is being used in the Nomological sense. A la "To NEED to do X" simply means "If X is not happening, the process stalls since X is Sufficient to progress further in the process".
Well reasoned and interesting - epistemology certainly is a puzzle. Sorry to pic a nit. "The Law of Non-Contradiction: Nothing can be and not be" needs rephrasing. Reading it straight, my brain thinks you are saying that nothingness simultaneously exits and does not exist. I am sure you don't mean that.
Oh! Sorry for the confusion. I just used the language developed by Ronald Merrill, a philosophy professor, for that axiom. I agree with you that it's confusing but I don't know how better to re-state it.
> Because there is no requirement of coherency, there are many solutions to the empirical foundationalist crossword puzzle.
WTF, who ever thought they could contruct a Theory of Universe without that theory being coherent?!? o.O Are there people that actually believe you can hold numerous mutually-contradictory positions and be taken seriously? Why even be rational then?!? o.O
But your crossword puzzle analogy was a good one, I have to admit. :)
I probably should have put this as an Addendum to my reply below, but oh well; putting it up here may work as well:
>> The Axiom of Evidence: The evidence of the senses is not entirely unreliable evidence. <<
This can be rephrased as follows using Modal Terms:
AE : {Possibly} Sense perception -> Reliable Evidence.
So "Possibly, If Sense perception then Reliable Evidence" prevails.
The negation of this would be as follows:
~AE : [Necessarily] Sense perception & un-Reliable Evidence.
So, "Necessarily, Sense perception & un-Reliable Evidence" prevails.
Thinkers like Plantinga (probably the top Christian Philosopher of this era; so not a "pushover") would say that ~AE best coincides with Reality, and not AE. In his Naturalistic Argument against Evolution, he implies ~AE by using several examples; all of which come back to the same point:
Naturalistic drives and forces (selective, 'random', etc) do not NEED to sculpt organisms with faculties (or "senses" if you will) that are Truth-tracking (i.e. "Veridical). What said drives and forces NEED to do is merely sculpt organisms that survive and reproduce at certain rates.
A human for example does not NEED eyesight that covers the entire light spectrum; he just needs that narrow bandwidth which enables him to avoid aberrant stuff such as Infra-red and UV spectra lights; and so his faculties are not Veridical; they are "good enough" so that he can eat and mate.
His eyesight therefore is *un-Reliable; if by Reliable we mean that which grounding wise pursues Truth (Classic Externalist Epistemology definition) and is known by custom to do so.
"Refutation" wise... he alone can never refute his own eyesight (others can do it in his stead), and he can only ever find Repugnant whenever others do decide to refute him... but this does not mean that GLOBALLY his Senses are "Irrefutable"... it just means that LOCALLY they appear to him that way. For there are those who do Refute him... and they pay quite the Heavy price to do so.
Foundherentism was “the hot topic” in Epistemology sometime back (the 90s and early 00s especially).
However; the Demonlord of Skepticism reappeared and smashed it to pieces in the early to mid 10s and onward.
The issue comes down to structural patterns. Namely, once we inductively generalise the Foundherentist crossword analogy; we get to an Infinitist rendering of knowledge and human action.
(Pay attention in particular to the segment regarding the “”Ever finer Wine” and “St Petersburg paradox”)
We can formulate the following “paradox” of human knowledge:
Say you have a certain pattern of inquiry (economics, biology, etc) and suppose in your particular niche it has been proven to be “good enough” to generate pragmatic and useful results for people.
Therefore, the following Decision tree is available to you:
1) Pursue the status quo (with regard to Noetic grasping, a particular set of coherent evidences, etc). This generates crossword entries at a certain pace, say it is pace “p”.
2) Pursue novelty. This may be an alternate set of coherent evidences (this is simply the case given the principle of Underdetermination with regard to apprehending empirical and scientific evidences) or an alternate set of noetic apprehensions; or some combo of both.
This generates close to “nothing” in the beginning, but after sometime an exponential leap of entries is possible in the crossword given the new horizons tapped into.
If Human Action is to be one that maximises (quality and quantity wise) the vista of knowledge; then the pursuit of epistemical novelty (a la the novel noetic apprehensions and/or alternate evidentiary justification sequences) is the predominant consideration.
In which case the crossword Becomes combinatorially explosive. This inductively dooms us to Infinitism.
So we now have a Novel Infinitism, one that has “size” or cardinality of Aleph-One (the cardinality of the real numbers) rather than Aleph-Nought (the cardinality of the natural numbers). Lovely!
Tl;dr- We still become Demon-food for the Demonlord of Skepticism.
1) While pursuit of novelty is certainly valuable, there are no alternatives to the noetic principles I asserted. They are irrefutable. You can assert that they are false, but that is not the same as refuting them. They cannot be refuted because any attempt to refute them relies on them.
2) Infinitism, as a component of the Trilemma, rejects the truth of the noetic principles. It asserts that the foundation of knowledge is necessarily based upon an infinite regress. But I have (to my satisfaction) demonstrated that knowledge is not based upon an infinite regress; it's based on those five noetic principles.
3) Infinity of coherent solutions (Quine underdetermination) is not problematic at all. Knowledge itself is infinite so therefore we should expect the epistemological pursuit of knowledge to be infinite. The size of the crossword puzzle is as large as the size of the set of positive integers, e.g. infinite. We know where it starts, at 0. But we'll never stop counting the next number.
Put another way: We are on an numbered floor of a skyscraper. We get in the elevator. The Munchausen skeptic would say that no matter how many floors we descend, we never get to the bottom of the skyscraper, and that any declaration that such-and-such floor is the first floor is arbitrary, and that therefore we can't even assert that there is a first floor, and in fact we can't even be sure we're in a skyscraper except insofar as we assert a social construct of skyscraperness based on elevator activity. I have demonstrated that is not the case: we can know that the first floor is the first floor. The fact that the skyscraper has an infinite number of floors above the first floor is irrelevant to that.
4) I've rejected the analytic claim that "knowledge" is "justified true belief" because this requires a separate evaluation of "justification" and "true". Instead, I have defined knowledge as belief justified by both coherency with all other beliefs and grounded upon irrefutable axioms, e.g. justified irrefutable belief.
According to my epistemological theory, then, physicist Hugh Everett has knowledge that quantum waves never collapse but instead split into two multiverses, while physicist Henry Stapp has knowledge that the quantum wave collapse occurs because of consciousness. Both of these assertions are justified and irrefutable. But neither man could claim to have knowledge that quantum waves don't collapse because dogs barking keeps that from happening.
tl;dr Version: "Irrefutable" perhaps to the Laity; not to Epistemic Peers and Superiors who have "Refuted" many an Axiom and Law of Logic.
Knowledge if defined as something other than pursuing Truth... will inevitable collapse in Status because it no longer is a vehicle for pursuing Prudence; one of the key Virtues one needs to practice and gain mastery in to "unlock Wisdom" (in the formal sense).
Foundherentist models unfortunately generate Crosswords of Aleph-One "size"/cardinality, meaning that the Status of Epistemology as something relevant + important to pursue... is lost; since 'exhaustion' (a prerequisite for completion and mastery) is no longer even possible. Foundherentists thus "become" Infinitists in all but name once the whole thing is "played out".
At best, this is Doxology (no longer Epistemology) which the average person can use to feel confident enough with (and stop the Epistemic Angst from creeping in) for sometime.
This however will fade rapidly once the "itch" for Truth comes back and inevitably *insert mandatory quote about how the Destiny of Many a Man is to be Demon-Feed*.
>>According to my epistemological theory, then, physicist Hugh Everett has knowledge that quantum waves never collapse but instead split into two multiverses, while physicist Henry Stapp has knowledge that the quantum wave collapse occurs because of consciousness. Both of these assertions are justified and irrefutable. But neither man could claim to have knowledge that quantum waves don't collapse because dogs barking keeps that from happening.<<
At this point, the Collapse from Epistemology into Doxology is complete. Doxastic attitudes are great to evaluate: but if the sole concern is whether or not strings of them can or cannot be refuted (Hint: They can be... you just need a Bunch of Epistemic Peers and you need to iterate through enough of their works) ... then My friend: You're no longer doing Epistemology but rather Psychology.
Knowledge as "other than JTB" has been pursued in Modern Times for Decades. The Externalists for example (and their focus on "reliability" of justification) sought to keep the Truth Connection to Epistemology Alive and Well. Relevant :
The Internalists meanwhile were more "risky taking" on this front and some of them tried to not cut it per se; but "loosen it" quite a bit. The problem of course is that (and we touched upon this sometime ago) the Status of Epistemology is put in Question.
One of the reasons why "Truth" (capital-T) is a pursuit of core interest in Epistemology has to do with the fact that only when it is a core pursuit can one be said to be exercising the virtue of Prudence properly. If it is merely "looking for irrefutable beliefs that have multiple lines and chains of justification", the pursuer falls short of said virtue.
This is important because the Old School view of "Epistemology Status-wise being a very relevant and important field" is tied directly to its ability to nurture, develop, etc the Prudence-virtue, which in turn is a Necessary Condition for Wisdom unlocking, which in turn is what one needs to not become Demon-Food (well, to be more accurate- it makes it more PLAUSIBLE for him to prevent said Fate).
Unfortunately, I think your model falls short of this considerably so. And because Truth is not the pursuit, and Prudence thus not a Fruit or Spoil of Victory, not much headway can be made with it save for (as noted earlier) Doxastic 'progress' of some mundane sort.
>> Put another way: We are on an numbered floor of a skyscraper. We get in the elevator. The Munchausen skeptic would say that no matter how many floors we descend, we never get to the bottom of the skyscraper, and that any declaration that such-and-such floor is the first floor is arbitrary, and that therefore we can't even assert that there is a first floor, and in fact we can't even be sure we're in a skyscraper except insofar as we assert a social construct of skyscraperness based on elevator activity. I have demonstrated that is not the case: we can know that the first floor is the first floor. The fact that the skyscraper has an infinite number of floors above the first floor is irrelevant to that.<<
What you have demonstrated is that given an individual starting with certain notions, he need not pursue Doxastic Conciliation with his Epistemic Peers, but can instead be relatively confident in aforementioned starting notions, given their (in his mind) "irrefutable" nature amongst the Laity. This is fine... but said Individual has not done anything, except he has merely saved himself (temporarily of course) from Epistemic Angst.
The reason it matters that there are an Infinite number of floors (or well, "Crosswords" of knowledge or not) is related to what Bostrom (and a few others like Parfit and whatnot) hinted at in their work with regard to "Infinite Ethics": The Status of such a thing drops.
Infinitists (in the book I linked you above) argue that it does not; that Epistemic Status especially for varied activities like Biology, Chemistry, etc retain their Value over an above the purely "Pragmatic/Instrumental" value they get endowed with by individual humans and wider society.
But there are simple reasons to think this is False: And the easiest one is as follows- Any such Infinite Structure by necessity cannot be exhausted (when we pursue it). And so Excellence and Completion (both of which are tied in many ways as per what the Ancients noted) are thrown out the Window.
>> 4) I've rejected the analytic claim that "knowledge" is "justified true belief" because this requires a separate evaluation of "justification" and "true". Instead, I have defined knowledge as belief justified by both coherency with all other beliefs and grounded upon irrefutable axioms, e.g. justified irrefutable belief. <<
This is a view out there... but for the reasons noted above (regarding the nature of disagreement amongst Epistemic Peers and how 'refutation' in the Epistemic sense does not get met courtesy of the alternative models out there put forth by Epistemic Peers and Superiors) this likely fails.
>> 2) Infinitism, as a component of the Trilemma, rejects the truth of the noetic principles. It asserts that the foundation of knowledge is necessarily based upon an infinite regress. But I have (to my satisfaction) demonstrated that knowledge is not based upon an infinite regress; it's based on those five noetic principles. <<
Correct, it does do that. HOWEVER *puts on Philosophy hat* :
It need not do so. In particular, Infinitism can adopt "principles of habit" rather than "principles of value". The latter stops at certain assertions, dogmas, etc whilst the former simply looks at the giant infinite chain of justification and opines that "jee, there is such and such habit being followed here".
Also: Infinitists reject the notion that Knowledge has any "foundation" per se. What they may say (as per what I linked you above) is that Knowledge has a Status (or 'place in Human affairs' if you will) of a certain sort given the nature, habits, etc of aforementioned giant infinite chains. Talk about "knowledge and its foundation" is replaced by talk about "knowledge and its status"; that's kind of the short form of it.
>>3) Infinity of coherent solutions (Quine underdetermination) is not problematic at all. Knowledge itself is infinite so therefore we should expect the epistemological pursuit of knowledge to be infinite. The size of the crossword puzzle is as large as the size of the set of positive integers, e.g. infinite. We know where it starts, at 0. But we'll never stop counting the next number.<<
0 is a starting point Humans use primarily for Pragmatic and Instrumental reasons. The natural numbers don't "start" however at 0; they span in both directions without end. The Crossword Puzzle meanwhile would likely have a Cardinality of Aleph-One (and not Aleph-Nought) because of Cantor's Diagonal.
In particular, some Analogue of it can likely be constructed to demonstrate that the Crossword entries have cardinality greater than Aleph-Null. Relevant:
If the Crossword is Aleph-One and not Aleph-Zero in Size... then it has "created more trouble" as an analogy than it solves; putting it in the "failed analogy" camp.
>> While pursuit of novelty is certainly valuable, there are no alternatives to the noetic principles I asserted. They are irrefutable. You can assert that they are false, but that is not the same as refuting them. They cannot be refuted because any attempt to refute them relies on them. <<
I think I ought to have done a better job describing "Novelty". It is not being used here in the way laypeople use it. "Novelty" is being used strictly in the Epistemic sense: When one pursues Knowledge, that it generate in them a certain sense of "importance".
As for something being irrefutable (or not): For the laymen, yes it makes perfect sense to say that such and such axiom is "irrefutable"; but philosophers in general have rejected one or all of them.
Fuzzy logic rejects the Law of the Excluded middle.
Dialethic logics rejects the Law of Non-Contradiction.
The Axiom of the Empty Set (also called "Axiom of Existence" by laypeople) is rejected by most Eastern Religions and Philosophies.
The Law of Identity meanwhile is rejected in part or whole by a wide array of groups (some of whom were mentioned earlier).
Refutation is an interesting word. One thing we can do is "go out into the population" of Humans and check to see if significant numbers (and quality wise, the "wisemen" of said populations) reject something for it to count as "refuted".
Some say that The Axioms and notions put forward need to be looked at in their totality... and when we do this; we find that the Epistemic Peers who disagreed with us... are themselves using them in the end; so this is not "genuine refutation" that they are engaging in; they are just using our axioms in the end too.
The issue of course is as follows: Epistemic Peers (given their standing and know-how relative to you and me) can make the Symmetrical Claim + Assertion that you and I are likewise making use of their own more fundamental notions.
Someone like Graham Priest (a pioneer of Dialethic Logical systems in the West) would argue that you and others using the Law of the the Excluded Middle.... cannot yourselves refute the more primordial notions that Wittgenstein came across with in "Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics".
So yes... Irrefutable is in the eye of the beholder here. In the strict sense of "can refutation be employed by an Epistemic Peer?" The answer is clear: Yes it Can.
I strongly disagree. My "Epistemic Peers" are using the very axioms they seek to refute in order to refute them. I have *very carefully* chosen those axioms to be only the ones that are irrefutable. You'll note that I didn't choose Euclidean axioms, for instance.
Should they say "well they are irrefutable but they are not true," that is when I know I have encountered someone who lacks noesis, because I directly apprehend their truth, as did Aristotle, and so on.
So: Irrefutable is not in the eye of the beholder and refutation cannot be employed by my epistemic peer. Moreover anyone who denies the truth even though they cannot refute is not my epistemic peer, they're color blind to my color sighted.
I would simply say then that you have not looked at a wider gamut of Philosophical literature (especially the sort in Non-Classical Logics, Metaphysics, etc). Many of the axioms you have picked have been eaten alive in said papers.
Perhaps you are correct in asserting that many of these people are not “Peers” in the Epistemic sense; but rather Epistemically colour blinded.
If so, a symmetrical argument can be made by the Graham Priests of the world that you, me and others are in fact blinded by Axioms (which you picked earlier) who can be refuted and broken down into further more simple notions and atomics.
At that point, it is simply unclear who is genuinely pursuing Epistemology and who is meanwhile engaged in delusion … ergo both teams lose and get eaten by the Demonlord of Skepticism.
The one in delusion gets eaten because he is deluded; whilst the one in the right gets eaten by the Epistemic angst of “falling short” (be it with regard to truth, persuasion, etc) and dies a slow more miserable death.
I've read some of the papers you're discussing and haven't found them persuasive in the slightest. It always comes down to the same fraudulent scheme where they use the axioms while insisting they've refuted the axioms. It's the same game that defenders of eliminative materialism use to try to argue that consciousness doesn't exist, and I am tired of pretending to respect that point of view. They're all engaging in the fallacy of the stolen concept.
I recommend the writing of Ronald Merrill, which I previously linked in "Defending Against the Trilemma", who writes at length about the irrefutability of the axioms, far more in depth than I have.
I don't find most "Skeptic" literature persuasive myself. I don't find any of the Dialethic stuff persuasive for instance; even when Priest goes page after page showing how Propositions can be Dialethic and have Historically been given such a Valence in the East in many Traditions, be it Taoism, Buddhism, etc.
Perhaps I am "Epistemically colour blind" to apprehending Noetically Dialethias then? I don't know; but even if I were, I think being able to "See" Dialethias in the world around me would be a Curse and not a Blessing in any shape or form.
Anyhow; the thing is: I don't then go and say "the stances I find persuasive and endorse myself are 'irrefutable' ". They are 'refutable'... it's just that the individuals doing the refuting are using stuff that is basically Repugnant to myself and (I would argue) Natural Human Dispositions.
There is a price to be Paid at all levels of Life; ESPECIALLY when it comes to Philosophical literature. Most of the "Skeptic" stuff Pays that price in the form of "Natural Human Affinity" which is lost in most of the Refutations and whatnot that they concoct.
I do not know (and this is because I am a Cognitive Scientist and Philosopher of Science more so than an Epistemologist by training) if the charge you make is sound (i.e. this is a genuine fallacy of the stolen concept). Perhaps it is.
Even if it were so; there is no Meta-ethical Rule or Nomological Principle which states that "Fallacies BEGONE!" when it comes to using dialectic, rhetoric (or some combo of both) to push forward one's points and agendas. That's just us Humans trying to stop the Chaos and Amorality from triumphing (Hint: We will fail if we try and do so ourselves).
I will definitely put Merrill on my reading list... whether I get to him after going through the mountain of Über-Demonic, Depressing, Hope-crushing and Soul-breaking papers, literatures, etc already on my list... that remains to be seen! :-P
Excellent conclusion, and supremely satisfying to have a clearly articulated answer.
I am quite excited because it formalises and comports with a vague cloud of ideas I have been working on. Perversely perhaps, I have come to be pleased when someone arrives at an idea before me, as I feel somewhat vindicated in process to have arrived at or approached conclusions palatable to philosophical greats, or if unavailable, at least Alex. ;)
Thanks!
Bravo! This is incredible. I am throughly impressed with how well reasoned and how well written this essay is.
Serious question -- did Karl Popper or whoever formulated this trilemma read Aristotle? I ask because it appears that many 20th century philosophers (e.g. Russell, Wittgenstein) were not familiar with him and thus spent a lot of time working on problems that the Greek had solved over two millennia ago. Studying the Organon could save us all a lot of headaches.
The trilemma was actually first formulated by the ancient Greeks themselves, specifically by Pyrrhon the Skeptic. Whether the analytic philosophers studied the ancient Greeks, I can't really say. Heidegger, a continental philosopher, certainly did, and had high respect for Aristotle.
Interesting! I bring it up because Aristotle's solution to the problem -- that all knowledge rests on first principles that we can't actually *prove* are true but that we nevertheless *know* are true -- seems to be the best way out of this quagmire. Calling these principles *arbitrary* assumptions feels like a deliberate 20th century misreading. There's a difference between an epistemology built on an assumption like "1 = 0" and an assumption like "all right angles are equal".
That's exactly correct. Aristotle was the first to formulate the approach I've taken. Where he and I differ is very minor:
(1) I believe that the first principles are irrefutable and that's what makes them special; that's the "razor" you can use to sort true first principles from other principles (and that's not my idea, that's from neo-Aristotelian Ronald Merrill)
(2) I believe that one of the first principles, which (AFAIK) Aristotle didn't include, is the axiom of evidence (this is my own idea)
Essentially I've updated Aristotle to reflect the attacks that were made by critics and skeptics in 20th century.
Fair enough! Yeah, the axiom of evidence feels more Cartesian than Aristotelian. I think Descartes solved the problem of the senses by saying that God wasn't a deceiver. That might be another way to approach it.
For an example of why contemporary epistemologists reject the Aristotelian approach I've taken, see the thread below regarding infinitism!
It's much more elegant than the Conan solution:
'I refute you thus!'
Snicker-snack! Hack and chop!
The Conan solution is so much more viscerally satisfying.
I rather like a variation on the Conan solution: Recognize that Reality exists, and *act* on it. If our apprehension of reality is indeed better than our opponents, then we will win.
A simple example: the public education system remains in continual denial over the utility of systematic phonics instruction. Those who homeschool their children can produce spectacularly better reading performance in their children by teaching phonics. (It can require patience. The initial ROI is lower. But quantum jumps in reading performance can happen.)
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But there is a danger in this strategy. If you follow through on an insufficiently true theory, then you can be worse off than those who follow the herd or their feelings. Those who followed certain Austrian School investment gurus missed out on the biggest bull market in U.S. history. And many got scammed outright.
(That petrodollar thingy accounts for some of the error.)
Another example: notice the rarity of billionaire Objectivists. For some reason, those who practically worship capitalism aren't very good at it.
(One possible explanation: many a billionaire has gotten that way by being part of a gigantic pyramid scheme. Did AOL ever run a real profit? How about Netscape? This is Vox Day's explanation of today's economy and it's one of his better points -- though he takes it a bit far.
Second possible explanation: to get a creative new business off the ground, you need to be thinking more about Others' interest vs. your own. Your payment comes later. An altruistic mindset is thus useful for more than PR purposes. At the monetization stage, a more Randian mindset can work. An Objectivist can be a good banker or vulture capitalist.)
>phonics
Wait, how do they teach children to read at school? By recognizing full words?
To a shockingly high extent, yes.
I have actually looked at teachers guides which described "levels of reading" which were basically levels of faking reading. Sophistication at guessing at words was considered progress.
When my younger brother was in kindergarten, he was given reading books which had full sentences with pictures to help you guess the content, and some words replaced with a "rebus"; i.e., a picture of an apple for an apple.
But this nonsense goes all the way back to "Fun with Dick and Jane."
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I made flash cards for my daughter. Drill using different consonants with the same ending. That sort of thing. It was fun for her, but the forgetting rate was high, and it translated into being able to read "Hop on Pop" but not anything more advanced -- until she decided to read a kid's novel. She skipped all the reading levels in between because they were boring. But phonics drill provided the tools to read real books where the pictures didn't tell the story.
Quantum jumps happen. The conveyor belt approach to education is horribly inefficient.
That's nuts.
Out of the 3 languages my older kids read English is the hardest one in that respect. The two oldest essentially taught themselves on Harry Potter books.
Then my wife almost accidentally discovered phonics, and taught the younger ones in no time.
Exactly. We do battle against nut cases.
We can beat them by discerning reality and acting.
But we can also lose by thinking we have discerned reality but haven't finished our homework. Supply Side Economics is a good example. True under some circumstances. But there are mass quantities of data showing that governments can tax more without killing their economies. Note Scandinavia. This is not to say that such high taxation is desireable, but if you aren't willing to cut spending...
Oh. And saying you can fix a trillion dollar deficit by eliminating some silly research projects is even sillier than said projects. Republicans can be as dumb as AOC at times. Recognizing reality includes doing the basic arithmetic.
The Laffer curve is just back of the envelope math. The purpose of tax policy should be to extract as little and as harmlessly as possible to fund the legitimate functions of government. Maximizing Government revenue shouldn't be the goal, obviously. Politicians are always reducing the complexity for the children known as voters.
Demand side comes from the supposed refutation of Say's Law by Keynes, iirc. So Supply side, encompasses more classical econ, in my view
The argument that senses are unreliable because we can be decieved via sensory illusions misses the point that in those instances the senses are in fact reliably giving us information, but our intellect is misinterpretting the information.
In the case of the straw in water, or the shifting gray color, our senses are giving accurate information about the nature and bahavior of light, water, pigment, etc.
Correct! The argument from illusion likes to ignore the fact that we're able to figure out its an illusion by using our senses to get more info...
=== the senses are in fact reliably giving us information, but our intellect is misinterpretting the information ===
Probably not.
The evolutionary cost-benefit tradeoff for refinement of any sense, runs out WELL before any sensor approaches truly-reliability.
Plus, there are Game- and Decision-Theoretic arguments for why the maximum payoff is rarely the one associated with veridical perception.
Our sensors evolved in an environment where FITNESS BEAT TRUTH; there was (is?) more survival/reproductive advantage to over-estimating risk, rather than sticking around to check if that noise was just the wind.
There's a nice little paper from 2021 that I read recently - "Fitness Beats Truth in the Evolution of Perception" (can't do links in this shitfest of a comment 'system', but the citation is at the bottom.
Citation: Prakash C, Stephens KD, Hoffman DD, Singh M, Fields C. "Fitness Beats Truth in the Evolution of Perception" . Acta Biotheor. 2021 Sep;69(3):319-341. doi: 10.1007/s10441-020-09400-0. Epub 2020 Nov 24. PMID: 33231784.
However, in the context of Macris’ original article: a mechanism that produced absolutely reliably false information (or input for stimulus response or etc) would have no survival value. A survival-fit sensory system must produce some data that comports with reality to some degree, and that is all Macris proposed system requires.
I don't believe in macroevolution, I find it wholly unpersuasive, so theories built upon it are similarly unpersuasive. But even aside from the evolution issue, reliability does not mean or imply perfection. It means a thing performs its intended function to a sufficient degree of accuracy with a sufficient degree of regularity that it is safe to assume that it will do what it is intended to do in most given circumstances, and can be trusted to do so until some indicia of failure is present.
For epistemelogical purposes, this extends even to the areas where senses occasionally, or even predictably, fail, because it tells us something true about both ourselves (our senses are imperfect relators of information) and the world outside ourselves (there are things that can cause, sometimes predicatably, our senses to misreport information).
You lost me when you mentioned BELIEFS is a discussion about EPISTEMOLOGY.
BELIEFS are DOXA, not EPISTEME.
DOXA is for Redditors and trans-activists - because there is no veridicality axiom.
[The ALLCAPS is not intended to indicate that I'm SHOUTING... it's meant to indicate that Substack's comment 'system' (sic) is retarded "HelloWorld"-level garbage coded by $7/hr gamma-monkeys.
$7/hr may not be literally true, but is framed as a relativity: Boeing paid $9/hr for the cretins who did the software for 737Max - and we know how that ended.]
Mr Macris is a very talented writer (far more so than I am), however I think you're basically correct. Doxa is a separate discussion from Episteme. If the latter's study is one that no longer pursues Truth (be it capital-T or even small-t) and is instead focused on the former... My friends, I can literally hear the Djinn all around me licking their lips in anticipation of the Trainwreck that is to come (assuming that Mankind eschews Truth and its pursuit in this manner, in the field of Epistemology).
Well, I am grateful for the kind words and love you both but I still disagree with you both. I am not presuming doxastic belief is epistemic belief. That is literally why the axiom of evidence is present in my system. The axiom of evidence is what allows us to advance from phenomenology to reality.
To quote from the Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy:
"According to foundationalism, our justified beliefs are structured like a building: they are divided into a foundation and a superstructure, the latter resting upon the former. Beliefs belonging to the foundation are basic. Beliefs belonging to the superstructure are nonbasic and receive justification from the justified beliefs in the foundation."
(In foundherentism, they receive justification from the justified beliefs in the foundation as well as from each other, similar to how in the New Orleans superdome the dome supports itself.)
Next up...
"Doxastic Basicality
S’s justified belief that p is basic if and only if S’s belief that p is justified without owing its justification to any of S’s other beliefs.
Let’s consider what would, according to DB, qualify as an example of a basic belief. Suppose you notice (for whatever reason) someone’s hat, and you also notice that that hat looks blue to you. So you believe
(B) It appears to me that that hat is blue.
Unless something very strange is going on, (B) is an example of a justified belief. DB tells us that (B) is basic if and only if it does not owe its justification to any other beliefs of yours. So if (B) is indeed basic, there might be some item or other to which (B) owes its justification, but that item would not be another belief of yours. We call this kind of basicality “doxastic” because it makes basicality a function of how your doxastic system (your belief system) is structured."
Next up...
"Epistemic Basicality (EB)
S’s justified belief that p is basic if and only if S’s justification for believing that p does not depend on any justification S possesses for believing a further proposition, q.[42]
EB makes it more difficult for a belief to be basic than DB does. To see why, we turn to the chief question (let’s call it the “J-question”) that advocates of experiential foundationalism face:
The J-Question
Why are perceptual experiences a source of justification?"
"One way of answering the J-question is as follows: perceptual experiences are a source of justification only when, and only because, we have justification for taking them to be reliable.[43] Note that your having justification for believing that p doesn’t entail that you actually believe p. Thus, your having justification for attributing reliability to your perceptual experiences doesn’t entail that you actually believe them to be reliable.
What might give us justification for thinking that our perceptual experiences are reliable? That’s a complicated issue. For our present purposes, let’s consider the following answer: We remember that they have served us well in the past. We are supposing, then, that justification for attributing reliability to your perceptual experiences consists of memories of perceptual success. On this view, a perceptual experience (E) justifies a perceptual belief only when, and only because, you have suitable track-record memories that give you justification for considering (E) reliable. (Of course, this raises the question why those memories give us justification, but there are many different approaches to this question, as we’ll see more fully below.)
If this view is correct, then it is clear how DB and EB differ. Your having justification for (H) depends on your having justification for believing something else in addition to (H), namely that your visual experiences are reliable. As a result (H) is not basic in the sense defined by EB. However, (H) might still be basic in the sense defined by DB. If you are justified in believing (H) and your justification is owed solely to (E) and (M), neither of which includes any beliefs, then your belief is doxastically—though not epistemically—basic."
That's all straight quotes from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The accusation that foundationalism is merely doxastic is not new to you guys. But it can be answered; others have given their answers (available on the SEP). My answer is the axiom of evidence, which is an irrefutable axiom that can be noetically apprehended. It answers the J question to my satisfaction.
You can disagree with that answer; most philosophers disagree with most other philosophers; but it's an answer, I think it's a better answer than anything else I've ever read, and it's an answer that satisfies my own quest for truth.
So, no, I don't think I've formulated a merely doxastic belief system.
I will be responding to this properly sometime soon; but I have to first take care of prior commitments. You’ve definitely done the reading and homework; so this will need some “proper” responding to; rather than my typically inane rants about Demons and Demonlords eating Humans. So stay tuned my friend!
Ok, let's give this a crack:
The SEP segments you have quoted speak at length about reliability and whatnot.
So in essence, they touch upon the "skeleton" of Externalism; and Externalist Epistemology is still a JTB + X model (a very common "model" in the post-Gettier landscape of "Theory of Knowledge").
What you have sketched here with your Foundherentist model is a non-JTB model of Epistemology. So (and this may cause you some upset): there is not a proper "carryover" that takes place of many of these notions, which you would like to see happen. Why not?
Basically, In Philosophy, things tend to come in "packages". For example- an Externalist regarding knowledge is wedded to JTB + X ("X" being some notion of Reliabilism, one example of which might be Process Reliabilism).
So when you note that the "Chasm" between EB and DB is not that big, you are Correct... insofar as the "Skeleton" is Externalist Epistemology. However, what you are defending here is not that "Skeleton" but something else.
In particular, you are defending a non-JTB account; or a JB + Ir account (i.e. Justified Beliefs that are Irrefutable). This account need not wed itself to Veracity. And this is precisely where the problems begin.
Now, it can be argued (and you have done so indirectly) that "Irrefutability" as a property endows Beliefs and Stances with a Salience + Gravitas which makes it satisfactory enough such that Veracity need not be in the picture.
But... we have to remember once more that things come in packages. Externalist Epistemology comes with JTB + R; but it ALSO comes with some form of "Correspondence Theory" (whether we go Balls-Deep as Externalists and adopt some Kripke-Tarski semantics as well... we may have some leeway there).
Your proposed model however, does not. Because as you note: Epistemic Peers (be it physicists or anyone else) can have different Evidentiary sets and thereby have "Knowledge" without need towards Arbitration or Reconciliation of their Disagreements; a la having two or more "Irrefutable" accessible sets.
Everett can have Knowledge about the Quantum Realm and so can X, Y and Z Physicist regarding said Quantum Realm; in spite of all four peoples positing the existence of different atomics. Knowledge then (in this JB + Ir model) is dependant on the Subjects' pursuit of Doxastic Accord and NOT Correspondence.
So yes, your particular rendering of Foundherentism *is* Doxastically inclined (this is not a bad thing per se: You'll find many a Continental, French and German Academic in LOVE with what you have written); and it is inclined precisely because the "Package Deal" of Externalist Epistemology which you would like to see included... does not carry over in the way you would like to see.
And this is because of the way the JB + Ir model presented here does not "need" to pursue Truth. It's sort of similar in a way to how Plantinga in his Argument against Naturalistic Evolution showed that Evolution does not "need" to pursue the development of faculties that are truth-tracking within organisms:
Could it STILL be the case that said organisms develop such faculties? Certainly!
By Symmetry then (regarding your model): Is it possible that JB + Ir still generates a leap from the DB to the EB? Sure! But it does not *NEED TO*? Especially when Doxastic Accord a la the Beliefs being justified and having some manner of "irrefutability" is enough? Not really!
And that is the Poison Pill that Ruins everything.
Addendum: "NEED" is being used in the Nomological sense. A la "To NEED to do X" simply means "If X is not happening, the process stalls since X is Sufficient to progress further in the process".
Your fifth axiom reminds me of Lenin's characterization of material reality. In "Materialism and Empirio-criticism" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism_and_Empirio-criticism) he wrote: "Matter is an objective reality given to us in sensation."
Oh, interesting! Maybe this is a sign that I should begin to organize a counter-revolutionary vanguard to liberate the working class.
Well reasoned and interesting - epistemology certainly is a puzzle. Sorry to pic a nit. "The Law of Non-Contradiction: Nothing can be and not be" needs rephrasing. Reading it straight, my brain thinks you are saying that nothingness simultaneously exits and does not exist. I am sure you don't mean that.
Oh! Sorry for the confusion. I just used the language developed by Ronald Merrill, a philosophy professor, for that axiom. I agree with you that it's confusing but I don't know how better to re-state it.
Just add a space: "No thing can be and not be".
> Because there is no requirement of coherency, there are many solutions to the empirical foundationalist crossword puzzle.
WTF, who ever thought they could contruct a Theory of Universe without that theory being coherent?!? o.O Are there people that actually believe you can hold numerous mutually-contradictory positions and be taken seriously? Why even be rational then?!? o.O
But your crossword puzzle analogy was a good one, I have to admit. :)
I probably should have put this as an Addendum to my reply below, but oh well; putting it up here may work as well:
>> The Axiom of Evidence: The evidence of the senses is not entirely unreliable evidence. <<
This can be rephrased as follows using Modal Terms:
AE : {Possibly} Sense perception -> Reliable Evidence.
So "Possibly, If Sense perception then Reliable Evidence" prevails.
The negation of this would be as follows:
~AE : [Necessarily] Sense perception & un-Reliable Evidence.
So, "Necessarily, Sense perception & un-Reliable Evidence" prevails.
Thinkers like Plantinga (probably the top Christian Philosopher of this era; so not a "pushover") would say that ~AE best coincides with Reality, and not AE. In his Naturalistic Argument against Evolution, he implies ~AE by using several examples; all of which come back to the same point:
Naturalistic drives and forces (selective, 'random', etc) do not NEED to sculpt organisms with faculties (or "senses" if you will) that are Truth-tracking (i.e. "Veridical). What said drives and forces NEED to do is merely sculpt organisms that survive and reproduce at certain rates.
A human for example does not NEED eyesight that covers the entire light spectrum; he just needs that narrow bandwidth which enables him to avoid aberrant stuff such as Infra-red and UV spectra lights; and so his faculties are not Veridical; they are "good enough" so that he can eat and mate.
His eyesight therefore is *un-Reliable; if by Reliable we mean that which grounding wise pursues Truth (Classic Externalist Epistemology definition) and is known by custom to do so.
"Refutation" wise... he alone can never refute his own eyesight (others can do it in his stead), and he can only ever find Repugnant whenever others do decide to refute him... but this does not mean that GLOBALLY his Senses are "Irrefutable"... it just means that LOCALLY they appear to him that way. For there are those who do Refute him... and they pay quite the Heavy price to do so.
Schrodinger's Cat may or may not disagree with some of your axioms.
Foundherentism was “the hot topic” in Epistemology sometime back (the 90s and early 00s especially).
However; the Demonlord of Skepticism reappeared and smashed it to pieces in the early to mid 10s and onward.
The issue comes down to structural patterns. Namely, once we inductively generalise the Foundherentist crossword analogy; we get to an Infinitist rendering of knowledge and human action.
Relevant: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/infinity/#InfiManyPossActiEverBettWine
(Pay attention in particular to the segment regarding the “”Ever finer Wine” and “St Petersburg paradox”)
We can formulate the following “paradox” of human knowledge:
Say you have a certain pattern of inquiry (economics, biology, etc) and suppose in your particular niche it has been proven to be “good enough” to generate pragmatic and useful results for people.
Therefore, the following Decision tree is available to you:
1) Pursue the status quo (with regard to Noetic grasping, a particular set of coherent evidences, etc). This generates crossword entries at a certain pace, say it is pace “p”.
2) Pursue novelty. This may be an alternate set of coherent evidences (this is simply the case given the principle of Underdetermination with regard to apprehending empirical and scientific evidences) or an alternate set of noetic apprehensions; or some combo of both.
This generates close to “nothing” in the beginning, but after sometime an exponential leap of entries is possible in the crossword given the new horizons tapped into.
If Human Action is to be one that maximises (quality and quantity wise) the vista of knowledge; then the pursuit of epistemical novelty (a la the novel noetic apprehensions and/or alternate evidentiary justification sequences) is the predominant consideration.
In which case the crossword Becomes combinatorially explosive. This inductively dooms us to Infinitism.
So we now have a Novel Infinitism, one that has “size” or cardinality of Aleph-One (the cardinality of the real numbers) rather than Aleph-Nought (the cardinality of the natural numbers). Lovely!
Tl;dr- We still become Demon-food for the Demonlord of Skepticism.
I disagree, for several reasons.
1) While pursuit of novelty is certainly valuable, there are no alternatives to the noetic principles I asserted. They are irrefutable. You can assert that they are false, but that is not the same as refuting them. They cannot be refuted because any attempt to refute them relies on them.
2) Infinitism, as a component of the Trilemma, rejects the truth of the noetic principles. It asserts that the foundation of knowledge is necessarily based upon an infinite regress. But I have (to my satisfaction) demonstrated that knowledge is not based upon an infinite regress; it's based on those five noetic principles.
3) Infinity of coherent solutions (Quine underdetermination) is not problematic at all. Knowledge itself is infinite so therefore we should expect the epistemological pursuit of knowledge to be infinite. The size of the crossword puzzle is as large as the size of the set of positive integers, e.g. infinite. We know where it starts, at 0. But we'll never stop counting the next number.
Put another way: We are on an numbered floor of a skyscraper. We get in the elevator. The Munchausen skeptic would say that no matter how many floors we descend, we never get to the bottom of the skyscraper, and that any declaration that such-and-such floor is the first floor is arbitrary, and that therefore we can't even assert that there is a first floor, and in fact we can't even be sure we're in a skyscraper except insofar as we assert a social construct of skyscraperness based on elevator activity. I have demonstrated that is not the case: we can know that the first floor is the first floor. The fact that the skyscraper has an infinite number of floors above the first floor is irrelevant to that.
4) I've rejected the analytic claim that "knowledge" is "justified true belief" because this requires a separate evaluation of "justification" and "true". Instead, I have defined knowledge as belief justified by both coherency with all other beliefs and grounded upon irrefutable axioms, e.g. justified irrefutable belief.
According to my epistemological theory, then, physicist Hugh Everett has knowledge that quantum waves never collapse but instead split into two multiverses, while physicist Henry Stapp has knowledge that the quantum wave collapse occurs because of consciousness. Both of these assertions are justified and irrefutable. But neither man could claim to have knowledge that quantum waves don't collapse because dogs barking keeps that from happening.
tl;dr Version: "Irrefutable" perhaps to the Laity; not to Epistemic Peers and Superiors who have "Refuted" many an Axiom and Law of Logic.
Knowledge if defined as something other than pursuing Truth... will inevitable collapse in Status because it no longer is a vehicle for pursuing Prudence; one of the key Virtues one needs to practice and gain mastery in to "unlock Wisdom" (in the formal sense).
Foundherentist models unfortunately generate Crosswords of Aleph-One "size"/cardinality, meaning that the Status of Epistemology as something relevant + important to pursue... is lost; since 'exhaustion' (a prerequisite for completion and mastery) is no longer even possible. Foundherentists thus "become" Infinitists in all but name once the whole thing is "played out".
At best, this is Doxology (no longer Epistemology) which the average person can use to feel confident enough with (and stop the Epistemic Angst from creeping in) for sometime.
This however will fade rapidly once the "itch" for Truth comes back and inevitably *insert mandatory quote about how the Destiny of Many a Man is to be Demon-Feed*.
>>According to my epistemological theory, then, physicist Hugh Everett has knowledge that quantum waves never collapse but instead split into two multiverses, while physicist Henry Stapp has knowledge that the quantum wave collapse occurs because of consciousness. Both of these assertions are justified and irrefutable. But neither man could claim to have knowledge that quantum waves don't collapse because dogs barking keeps that from happening.<<
At this point, the Collapse from Epistemology into Doxology is complete. Doxastic attitudes are great to evaluate: but if the sole concern is whether or not strings of them can or cannot be refuted (Hint: They can be... you just need a Bunch of Epistemic Peers and you need to iterate through enough of their works) ... then My friend: You're no longer doing Epistemology but rather Psychology.
Knowledge as "other than JTB" has been pursued in Modern Times for Decades. The Externalists for example (and their focus on "reliability" of justification) sought to keep the Truth Connection to Epistemology Alive and Well. Relevant :
https://iep.utm.edu/int-ext/#SH3a
The Internalists meanwhile were more "risky taking" on this front and some of them tried to not cut it per se; but "loosen it" quite a bit. The problem of course is that (and we touched upon this sometime ago) the Status of Epistemology is put in Question.
One of the reasons why "Truth" (capital-T) is a pursuit of core interest in Epistemology has to do with the fact that only when it is a core pursuit can one be said to be exercising the virtue of Prudence properly. If it is merely "looking for irrefutable beliefs that have multiple lines and chains of justification", the pursuer falls short of said virtue.
This is important because the Old School view of "Epistemology Status-wise being a very relevant and important field" is tied directly to its ability to nurture, develop, etc the Prudence-virtue, which in turn is a Necessary Condition for Wisdom unlocking, which in turn is what one needs to not become Demon-Food (well, to be more accurate- it makes it more PLAUSIBLE for him to prevent said Fate).
Unfortunately, I think your model falls short of this considerably so. And because Truth is not the pursuit, and Prudence thus not a Fruit or Spoil of Victory, not much headway can be made with it save for (as noted earlier) Doxastic 'progress' of some mundane sort.
>> Put another way: We are on an numbered floor of a skyscraper. We get in the elevator. The Munchausen skeptic would say that no matter how many floors we descend, we never get to the bottom of the skyscraper, and that any declaration that such-and-such floor is the first floor is arbitrary, and that therefore we can't even assert that there is a first floor, and in fact we can't even be sure we're in a skyscraper except insofar as we assert a social construct of skyscraperness based on elevator activity. I have demonstrated that is not the case: we can know that the first floor is the first floor. The fact that the skyscraper has an infinite number of floors above the first floor is irrelevant to that.<<
What you have demonstrated is that given an individual starting with certain notions, he need not pursue Doxastic Conciliation with his Epistemic Peers, but can instead be relatively confident in aforementioned starting notions, given their (in his mind) "irrefutable" nature amongst the Laity. This is fine... but said Individual has not done anything, except he has merely saved himself (temporarily of course) from Epistemic Angst.
The reason it matters that there are an Infinite number of floors (or well, "Crosswords" of knowledge or not) is related to what Bostrom (and a few others like Parfit and whatnot) hinted at in their work with regard to "Infinite Ethics": The Status of such a thing drops.
Infinitists (in the book I linked you above) argue that it does not; that Epistemic Status especially for varied activities like Biology, Chemistry, etc retain their Value over an above the purely "Pragmatic/Instrumental" value they get endowed with by individual humans and wider society.
But there are simple reasons to think this is False: And the easiest one is as follows- Any such Infinite Structure by necessity cannot be exhausted (when we pursue it). And so Excellence and Completion (both of which are tied in many ways as per what the Ancients noted) are thrown out the Window.
>> 4) I've rejected the analytic claim that "knowledge" is "justified true belief" because this requires a separate evaluation of "justification" and "true". Instead, I have defined knowledge as belief justified by both coherency with all other beliefs and grounded upon irrefutable axioms, e.g. justified irrefutable belief. <<
This is a view out there... but for the reasons noted above (regarding the nature of disagreement amongst Epistemic Peers and how 'refutation' in the Epistemic sense does not get met courtesy of the alternative models out there put forth by Epistemic Peers and Superiors) this likely fails.
>> 2) Infinitism, as a component of the Trilemma, rejects the truth of the noetic principles. It asserts that the foundation of knowledge is necessarily based upon an infinite regress. But I have (to my satisfaction) demonstrated that knowledge is not based upon an infinite regress; it's based on those five noetic principles. <<
Correct, it does do that. HOWEVER *puts on Philosophy hat* :
https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=phWeAwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=infinitism&ots=eFwhbB5SOa&sig=rdH3IOK9Q4gqevbNlUcQygx2ioo&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=infinitism&f=false
It need not do so. In particular, Infinitism can adopt "principles of habit" rather than "principles of value". The latter stops at certain assertions, dogmas, etc whilst the former simply looks at the giant infinite chain of justification and opines that "jee, there is such and such habit being followed here".
Also: Infinitists reject the notion that Knowledge has any "foundation" per se. What they may say (as per what I linked you above) is that Knowledge has a Status (or 'place in Human affairs' if you will) of a certain sort given the nature, habits, etc of aforementioned giant infinite chains. Talk about "knowledge and its foundation" is replaced by talk about "knowledge and its status"; that's kind of the short form of it.
>>3) Infinity of coherent solutions (Quine underdetermination) is not problematic at all. Knowledge itself is infinite so therefore we should expect the epistemological pursuit of knowledge to be infinite. The size of the crossword puzzle is as large as the size of the set of positive integers, e.g. infinite. We know where it starts, at 0. But we'll never stop counting the next number.<<
0 is a starting point Humans use primarily for Pragmatic and Instrumental reasons. The natural numbers don't "start" however at 0; they span in both directions without end. The Crossword Puzzle meanwhile would likely have a Cardinality of Aleph-One (and not Aleph-Nought) because of Cantor's Diagonal.
In particular, some Analogue of it can likely be constructed to demonstrate that the Crossword entries have cardinality greater than Aleph-Null. Relevant:
https://mathworld.wolfram.com/CantorDiagonalMethod.html
If the Crossword is Aleph-One and not Aleph-Zero in Size... then it has "created more trouble" as an analogy than it solves; putting it in the "failed analogy" camp.
>> While pursuit of novelty is certainly valuable, there are no alternatives to the noetic principles I asserted. They are irrefutable. You can assert that they are false, but that is not the same as refuting them. They cannot be refuted because any attempt to refute them relies on them. <<
I think I ought to have done a better job describing "Novelty". It is not being used here in the way laypeople use it. "Novelty" is being used strictly in the Epistemic sense: When one pursues Knowledge, that it generate in them a certain sense of "importance".
Relevant Paper: https://faculty.fordham.edu/sgrimm/Site/Papers_and_Presentations_files/Grimm-2008-PPR-Epistemic%20Goals%20and%20Values.pdf
As for something being irrefutable (or not): For the laymen, yes it makes perfect sense to say that such and such axiom is "irrefutable"; but philosophers in general have rejected one or all of them.
Fuzzy logic rejects the Law of the Excluded middle.
Dialethic logics rejects the Law of Non-Contradiction.
The Axiom of the Empty Set (also called "Axiom of Existence" by laypeople) is rejected by most Eastern Religions and Philosophies.
The Law of Identity meanwhile is rejected in part or whole by a wide array of groups (some of whom were mentioned earlier).
Refutation is an interesting word. One thing we can do is "go out into the population" of Humans and check to see if significant numbers (and quality wise, the "wisemen" of said populations) reject something for it to count as "refuted".
Now, in the " Epistemology of Disagreement" this is necessary but not sufficient. Relevant: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/disagreement/
Some say that The Axioms and notions put forward need to be looked at in their totality... and when we do this; we find that the Epistemic Peers who disagreed with us... are themselves using them in the end; so this is not "genuine refutation" that they are engaging in; they are just using our axioms in the end too.
The issue of course is as follows: Epistemic Peers (given their standing and know-how relative to you and me) can make the Symmetrical Claim + Assertion that you and I are likewise making use of their own more fundamental notions.
Someone like Graham Priest (a pioneer of Dialethic Logical systems in the West) would argue that you and others using the Law of the the Excluded Middle.... cannot yourselves refute the more primordial notions that Wittgenstein came across with in "Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics".
So yes... Irrefutable is in the eye of the beholder here. In the strict sense of "can refutation be employed by an Epistemic Peer?" The answer is clear: Yes it Can.
I strongly disagree. My "Epistemic Peers" are using the very axioms they seek to refute in order to refute them. I have *very carefully* chosen those axioms to be only the ones that are irrefutable. You'll note that I didn't choose Euclidean axioms, for instance.
Should they say "well they are irrefutable but they are not true," that is when I know I have encountered someone who lacks noesis, because I directly apprehend their truth, as did Aristotle, and so on.
So: Irrefutable is not in the eye of the beholder and refutation cannot be employed by my epistemic peer. Moreover anyone who denies the truth even though they cannot refute is not my epistemic peer, they're color blind to my color sighted.
I would simply say then that you have not looked at a wider gamut of Philosophical literature (especially the sort in Non-Classical Logics, Metaphysics, etc). Many of the axioms you have picked have been eaten alive in said papers.
Perhaps you are correct in asserting that many of these people are not “Peers” in the Epistemic sense; but rather Epistemically colour blinded.
If so, a symmetrical argument can be made by the Graham Priests of the world that you, me and others are in fact blinded by Axioms (which you picked earlier) who can be refuted and broken down into further more simple notions and atomics.
At that point, it is simply unclear who is genuinely pursuing Epistemology and who is meanwhile engaged in delusion … ergo both teams lose and get eaten by the Demonlord of Skepticism.
The one in delusion gets eaten because he is deluded; whilst the one in the right gets eaten by the Epistemic angst of “falling short” (be it with regard to truth, persuasion, etc) and dies a slow more miserable death.
I've read some of the papers you're discussing and haven't found them persuasive in the slightest. It always comes down to the same fraudulent scheme where they use the axioms while insisting they've refuted the axioms. It's the same game that defenders of eliminative materialism use to try to argue that consciousness doesn't exist, and I am tired of pretending to respect that point of view. They're all engaging in the fallacy of the stolen concept.
I recommend the writing of Ronald Merrill, which I previously linked in "Defending Against the Trilemma", who writes at length about the irrefutability of the axioms, far more in depth than I have.
Oh I don't entirely disagree with you per se:
I don't find most "Skeptic" literature persuasive myself. I don't find any of the Dialethic stuff persuasive for instance; even when Priest goes page after page showing how Propositions can be Dialethic and have Historically been given such a Valence in the East in many Traditions, be it Taoism, Buddhism, etc.
Perhaps I am "Epistemically colour blind" to apprehending Noetically Dialethias then? I don't know; but even if I were, I think being able to "See" Dialethias in the world around me would be a Curse and not a Blessing in any shape or form.
Anyhow; the thing is: I don't then go and say "the stances I find persuasive and endorse myself are 'irrefutable' ". They are 'refutable'... it's just that the individuals doing the refuting are using stuff that is basically Repugnant to myself and (I would argue) Natural Human Dispositions.
There is a price to be Paid at all levels of Life; ESPECIALLY when it comes to Philosophical literature. Most of the "Skeptic" stuff Pays that price in the form of "Natural Human Affinity" which is lost in most of the Refutations and whatnot that they concoct.
I do not know (and this is because I am a Cognitive Scientist and Philosopher of Science more so than an Epistemologist by training) if the charge you make is sound (i.e. this is a genuine fallacy of the stolen concept). Perhaps it is.
Even if it were so; there is no Meta-ethical Rule or Nomological Principle which states that "Fallacies BEGONE!" when it comes to using dialectic, rhetoric (or some combo of both) to push forward one's points and agendas. That's just us Humans trying to stop the Chaos and Amorality from triumphing (Hint: We will fail if we try and do so ourselves).
I will definitely put Merrill on my reading list... whether I get to him after going through the mountain of Über-Demonic, Depressing, Hope-crushing and Soul-breaking papers, literatures, etc already on my list... that remains to be seen! :-P