In this thread, I'm going to explore internalism, which is a thesis about access to the basis for knowledge and belief. I'll be following the SEP article on epistemic justification:
It will be interesting to see how much response you get to this thread, Tuna. Fresky, who deems himself to be THE ultimate expert on epistemological matters of every kind, should come running. And, being the monistic solipsist that he is, he should be especially anxious give his spiel on a topic as dear to him as "internalism."
Expect the names of Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Rorty to be frequently dropped. They have all the answers, especially Rorty, who Fresky personally schooled in these areas.
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fresco
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Thu 19 Nov, 2015 01:03 am
@Tuna,
I see you have been subject to a pre-emptive strike by my personal assistant !You'll have to excuse him....we are still trying to teach him to read.
I would have nothing to say on 'internalism' given the developments in philosophy post die Kehre (i.e the movemsnt of focus away from epistemology towards linguistic analysis). In short, the dichotomy 'internal-external' seems to me to be a dated aspect of philosophy, except as one example of dichotomous thinking.
C'mon, Fresky! The joint needs a little comedy, long about now, ya know?
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layman
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Thu 19 Nov, 2015 02:13 am
@fresco,
Quote:
...given the developments in philosophy post die Kehre...
Yeah! "Less systematic and more obscure." Right up Fresky's alley, eh?
Quote:
The 1930s are not only marked by Heidegger’s controversial involvement in politics, but also by a change in his thinking which is known as “the turn” (die Kehre). In his lectures and writings that followed “the turn,” he became less systematic and often more obscure than in his fundamental work, Being and Time.
Heidegger probably did it to emulate and impress his leader and hero, Adolph Hitler, I figure:
Quote:
On May 3, 1933, [Heidegger] joined the NSDAP, or Nazi, party...During his tenure as rector he produced a number of speeches in the Nazi cause, such as, for example, “Declaration of Support for Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist State” delivered in November 1933. There is little doubt that during that time, Heidegger placed the great prestige of his scholarly reputation at the service of National Socialism...Following Germany’s defeat in the Second World War, Heidegger was accused of Nazi sympathies. He was forbidden to teach and in 1946 was dismissed from his chair of philosophy.
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Frank Apisa
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Thu 19 Nov, 2015 04:34 am
Gotta follow this.
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Tuna
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Thu 19 Nov, 2015 08:22 am
I'll start by looking at internalism as it relates to knowledge and justification. Downstream, ethics and motivation will be drawn in. It's not clear to me yet what the final destination of this thread is. It could be Wittgenstein's so-called Private Language Argument. It could just end up fleshing out the concept of intensional adequacy. Or something else. We'll see.
First up: Actual Access knowledge internalism (AAKI):
Layman knows that apples are usually sweet.
AAKI says that it's meaningless to say this unless Layman is aware of why he knows it. To pick an emotionally charged counterfactual (because why not?) Religious George affirms that he knows God occasionally intervenes in his life. But when we ask George why he knows it's God and not accident, his answer boils down to faith. It appears that George has no awareness of the basis of his belief. It doesn't seem reasonable to say that George knows he has encountered divine intervention.
But going back to Layman's apple. It may be that he is aware of the basis of his knowledge in this case. He may be able to recount in detail the last ten times he ate apples and what happened in those cases.
But if we find out that Layman's memories are pretty vague in the apple-eating department, we'd still be willing to accept that he knows apples are sweet. So broadly speaking, AAKI fails. We don't expect that people walk around with encyclopedic awareness of the foundation of every bit of knowledge they have.
AAKI works best when it's about direct observation. If Layman is eating an apple right now, he knows that apple is sweet. And in this case, we would probably all agree that if he doesn't have actual access to the basis of his knowledge, then he has no knowledge at all regarding the flavor of the apple.
Next up: The KK thesis.
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Tuna
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Fri 20 Nov, 2015 07:51 am
So Actual Access Knowledge Internalism can only plausibly account for a small portion of one's knowledge.
If I ask Philosophical George what the basis of his knowledge of the world is, and he says "Nothing other than direct observation," I know that George hasn't thought things through. He is overlooking the extent to which he relies on memory and reason to account for his knowledge. And he routinely acts on his knowledge without any awareness of its basis.
But Jim, an internalist, says it's not primarily awareness of perception that is the criteria for knowledge. It's that one is capable of becoming aware of that basis. This is what we mean by "accessible."
SEP, linked in OP wrote:
Actual Access KI: One knows some proposition p only if one is also aware of one's knowledge basis for p.
Accessibility KI: One knows some proposition p only if one can become aware by reflection of one's knowledge basis for p.
Broadly speaking, it's Accessibility KI that describes Jim's outlook.
This might be interesting. I'll read the linked text when I get a chance, but I'm hopeful that we don't have to go all the way back to 'How do I know I'm not just a brain in a jar making all this sensory input up'.
To give credit to one of my favorite atheists, Ayn Rand concluded that 'generally we can trust the evidence of our five senses' and let it go at that. Pity that she didn't follow that thought through to it's logical conclusion.
This might be interesting. I'll read the linked text when I get a chance, but I'm hopeful that we don't have to go all the way back to 'How do I know I'm not just a brain in a jar making all this sensory input up'.
To give credit to one of my favorite atheists, Ayn Rand concluded that 'generally we can trust the evidence of our five senses' and let it go at that. Pity that she didn't follow that thought through to it's logical conclusion.
In the words of a non-famous wise person I came across: "We get along fine without certainty. It's when we think we need it that we start making stuff up."
No, this thread isn't specifically about the vat-brain scenario. We could examine that scenario from internalist and externalist vantage points. For instance, according to an internalist, one can only be said to know that one is not a vat-brain if the basis of that knowledge is accessible (as defined previously). Per the doctrine of that scenario, that basis is not accessible to the vat-brain. We could continue on exploring what, if anything, that proves.
I figure good ole Billy Withers done said it best, eh?:
And I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know....
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Leadfoot
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Fri 20 Nov, 2015 11:36 am
@Tuna,
Quote:
"We get along fine without certainty. It's when we think we need it that we start making stuff up."
Not so sure about that. I've driven a lot of hotrods, built a lot of planes and eaten a lot of hamburgers that I thought I really needed and they seem awfully real.
Not so sure about that. I've driven a lot of hotrods, built a lot of planes and eaten a lot of hamburgers that I thought I really needed and they seem awfully real.
Not so sure about that. I've driven a lot of hotrods, built a lot of planes and eaten a lot of hamburgers that I thought I really needed and they seem awfully real.
But, looky here, eh?: Are you CERTAIN about that?
I'm sure he is.
They did SEEM real.
The question is not what they seemed to be, however. The question is: Were they real hamburgers...or just a real illusion.
The question is not what they seemed to be, however. The question is: Were they real hamburgers...or just a real illusion.
Ya know, Frank, I figure it's kinda like good old Luddy Wittgenstein done said, that there one time, and all:
Quote:
"You have the answer to your question when you don't ask it anymore." (sumthin like that)
Me, I got ALL the answers, sho nuff.
I don't ask no damn questions.
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Tuna
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Fri 20 Nov, 2015 01:39 pm
@Leadfoot,
Hamburgers. No, certainty. When people think they need certainty, they reach for its foundation. If they find nothing down there, they make something up and stick it there: proof of divinity, proof that physics answers all, blah blah blah and so forth.
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Tuna
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Fri 20 Nov, 2015 01:49 pm
The thread isn't about skepticism exactly. People make claims to knowledge. We suppose that sometimes they do that when they shouldn't. Sometimes we give the big thumbs up to such claims.
The thread (the starting point, anyway) is the question: how do we sort out which claims to thumb-up and which ones to discard?
An answer given by some is that if there is no awareness of the basis of a claim to knowledge, then we place that claim in the bit bucket and move on.
For instance, if a woman, blind from birth, claims she knows the traffic light is green, we'll probably say: no, you don't know that (assuming we know nobody told her its green). A name for this attitude is internalism.
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