ANTHROPOCENTRISM IN PHILOSOPH=
Y
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; Realism/Naturalism/Antirealism
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&nb=
sp; Panayot Butchvarov
=
&nb=
sp; University of Iowa &=
nbsp; &nbs=
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter One: INTRODUCTION 4
1. Anthropocentrism. 4
2. A Glance at History.=
17
3. Antirealism and its
Varieties. 26
4. Logical Antirealism.=
32
=
Part One: EPISTEMOLOGY AND ETHICS DEHUMANIZED 43
&=
nbsp; How can he who has magnificence of mind and is
&nb=
sp;
the spectator of=
all
time and existence, think much
&nb=
sp;
of human life? (=
Plato)
Chapter Two: THREE VARIETIES OF EPISTEMOLOGY 43
1 Naturalistic Epistemology. 43
2. Subjective Epistemology. 50
3. Epistemology-as-Logic. 66
Chapter Three: THE PROPERTY GOOD 80
1. Anthropology and Conceptual
Analysis in Ethics <=
/b>80
2. The Good and the World 93
3. The Good and the Rig=
ht 101
Chapter Four: SAYING AND SHOWING THE GOOD 110
1. Logic and the World.=
110
2. The World and the Go=
od. 115
3. Saying and showing. =
120
=
&nb=
sp; =
&nb=
sp;
=
&nb=
sp;
Part Two: METAPHYSICS HUMANIZED 133
=
=
It is solely from the human
=
=
=
standpoint
that we can speak of
=
=
space,
of extended things. (Kant)
Chapter Five: THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE IN COGNITION 133
1. Empirical and a prio=
ri questions. 134
2.
Philosophical opinions. 145
3. Scientific opinions. 150
4. Language in logical
cognition. 164
C=
hapter
Six: METAPHYSICAL REALISM AND LOGICAL ANTIREALISM 170
1. The Logic of Realism=
. 170
2. Ontological, cosmolo=
gical,
and logical antirealism. 182
3. The logical structur=
e of the
world. 191
4. Frege and Russell on=
negation
and generality. 203
Chapter Seven: LOGICAL SEMIREALISM 216
1. Ineffability. 115
2. Wittgenstein on Gene=
rality.
235
3. Bergmann on Generality 240
Chapter Eight : GENERIC STATEMENTS 258
1. The ubiquity of gene=
ric
statements. 258
2. Facts, generic facts=
, and
realism. 2655
3. The Irreducibility of
generic statements. 272
Chapter Nine: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF LOGIC 283
1. Logical experiences.=
2296
2.The Need for Language=
. 297
Chapter Ten: FACTS AND TRUTH 303
1. Realism and antireal=
ism
regarding facts. 303
2. Semirealism regardin=
g facts.
319
3. Truth. 327
=
&nb=
sp;Part
Three: METAPHYSICS DEHUMANIZED 337
Chapter Eleven: I AND THE WORLD 337
1. The paradox of antir=
ealism. 337
2 First-person pronouns=
. 317
3. The Self. 327
Chapter Twelve: WE AND THE WORLD 337
1. Consciousness. 337
2. The I that is We and the We that is I. 369
3. Idealism. 355
Chapter Thirteen: MIND AND THE WORLD. 398
1.The Ghost in the Machine. 39=
8
2.
Concepts and Properties. 407
3. Properties and Universals. 413
4. Conclusion. 424
=
&nb=
sp; Chapter One: INTRODUCTI=
ON
1. Anthropocentrism.
“I am unable to believe that,=
in
the world as known, there is anything that I can value outside human beings,
and, to a much lesser extent, animals,” wrote Bertrand Russell. Many think that such anthropocentr=
ism
mars our relationship to other animals and the environment generally, just =
as
egocentrism mars our relationship to other humans. Speciesism, they would s=
ay,
is no more acceptable than is egoism, androcentrism, or ethnocentrism. Many think also that anthropocentr=
ism
mars our conception of God. T=
hey would
agree with Spinoza that, contrary to standard religious doctrine,
“neither intellect nor will pertain to the nature of God,”
and that “God is free from passions, nor is He affected with any emot=
ion
of joy or sorrow.” To attribute to God human
characteristics such as intellect, will, joy, or sorrow, they would say, is=
to
think of God as a sort of superhuman.
These instances of anthropocent=
rism
are well-known and have been amply discussed for centuries. They are not the
topic of this book. Its topic=
lies
deeper: the anthropocentrism present in our most fundamental thinking ̵=
1;
about knowledge (in epistemology), goodness (in ethics), and the world itse=
lf
(in metaphysics). The other
branches of philosophy – aesthetics, philosophy of science, political
philosophy, and so on – are also anthropocentric insofar as they rely=
on
anthropocentric epistemological, ethical, or metaphysical presuppositions, =
but
they will not be considered here. Our topic is wide in scope but narrow in =
focus.
The mark of philosophy indeed=
is
engagement in the most fundamental thinking. But it is not merely an academ=
ic
discipline. Directly or indir=
ectly,
overtly or covertly, philosophy pervades all serious thought, from the grad=
uate
seminar to the high school classroom, from the scholarly treatise to the
newspaper editorial, even when no more than a casual stand on religion or h=
azy moral
attitude, due to reading a book or hearing a talk by some one-time student =
in
some only dimly remembered philosophy course.
The presence of anthropocentris=
m in
philosophy should be obvious but it has seldom been discussed. Much, though not all, of epistemol=
ogy
and ethics consists of inquiries properly belonging in the empirical scienc=
es,
not in philosophy, and much of metaphysics, though again not all, is commit=
ted
to the prima facie absurd view that the whole world depends on, is “m=
ade”
by, humans, a species on one of its planets’ fauna. (According to a 2012 report, the=
re are
as many as 10 billion stars just in the Milky Way that may host planets habitable by l=
ife.)
I shall argue that, if properly understood, epistemology should n=
ot
be about human knowledge, ethics should not be about the human good, and
metaphysics should be only about the world, not about “us,” des=
pite
the tautology that we can know the world only as it is known by us.
The first entry in the philosop=
hy
curriculum of a distinguished American university bears the title
“Philosophy and Human Nature.”=
Doubtless, those who teach the course offer intelligent, informed di=
scussions
of human nature – human knowledge and sense perception, happiness and
pleasure, perhaps the world as a human construct – presumably taking =
into
account what has been said about these matters in the history of
philosophy. But they probably=
do
not explain how philosophers in general acquired expertise in human matters=
. By reading other philosophers? Concern with human beings, of cour=
se, is
natural and morally expected of all.
But it is a professional concern only for some – neuroscientis=
ts,
psychologists, psychiatrists, economists, sociologists, anthropologists,
demographers, linguists, lexicographers, physicians. Aristotle did engage in biological
investigations when biology was hardly a developed science. Today, it is. For most of the history of philoso=
phy
and science, if a topic did not belong in mathematics, astronomy, or theolo=
gy,
it was dispatched to philosophy – there seemed to be no other place to
put it. Even today, in some
institutions, psychology is called “mental philosophy,” and phy=
sics
“natural philosophy.”
But neither is considered part of philosophy, and few philosophers t=
oday
can claim expertise in psychology or in physics.
Philosophers’ willin=
gness to
assume authoritative stands on matters concerning human beings is not due to
hubris or academic gerrymandering.
Its roots are deeper – in the anthropocentrism present in phil=
osophy
throughout its history, which became especially incongruous only when exper=
imental
sciences devoted to the study of humans emerged. .=
This book is concerned with the ways anthropocentrism has affected t=
he
three central branches of philosophy – metaphysics, epistemology, and
ethics. I shall argue that it has no place in any of them. This does not mean that they shoul=
d be
abandoned, which would amount to abandoning philosophy. It means that all t=
hree
should be radically rethought.
Radical rethinking is not unprecedented in the history of philosophy.
Comparable to anthropocentrism of philosophy would be theocentrism, its
preoccupation with theological matters, especially in the Middle Ages, and =
the
psychologism of early modern philosophy (“the new way of ideas”=
),
its preoccupation with psychological matters. Both needed to be overcome, n=
ot
of course by rejecting theology or psychology but by drastic refocusing of
philosophy.
My argument will rest not =
on
abstract philosophical premises or assumptions but on specific and readily
understandable truths. Whatev=
er the
nature of the world may be, humans are only inhabitants of it. Knowledge of them, like knowledge =
of any
other inhabitants of the world, is most credibly sought by empirical
means. But philosophy is not =
an
empirical discipline. Philoso=
phers
perform no experiments, have no labs, use neither telescopes nor microscope=
s,
embark on no field trips – nor do they as a rule have the inclination,
training, skills, or talent needed for doing any of these. One of Hegel’s criticisms of=
Kant
was that Kant “has simply no ground but experience and empirical
psychology for holding that the human cognitive faculty essentially consist=
s in
the way it appears.” But what other kind of ground can =
there
be for holding anything about a hum=
an
faculty? The moral to be drawn, however, is not that philosophers are exper=
ts
in nonempirical, a priori, things or facts. If numbers are such things, it =
is
mathematicians, not philosophers, who are the experts about them.
Some may say that not all =
of human
nature is empirical, that humans also have immortal souls. But this is a matter of faith, not
investigation, empirical or nor, and even if true it is seldom relevant to =
the
concerns of philosophers. Others may say that even if humans have no immort=
al
souls they have immaterial minds, which are entirely distinct from both the=
ir
brains and their behavior. But
there has been an empirical science investigating such minds: the introspec=
tive
psychology of James, Wundt, Titchener, and many others. To be sure, it was
largely unsuccessful, though not because its subject matter called for
nonempirical investigation; the introspective psychologists explicitly reli=
ed
on experience. Still others m=
ay
follow Kant, Heidegger, Sartre, or Nelson Goodman and say that the empirical
world itself is in some sense human, “made by us,” as Goodman p=
ut
it. This is essentially the t=
hesis
of antirealism, in the broad sense of the term that applies to Berkeley’s, Kant’s, Hegel’s=
, and
20th century views such as Hilary Putnam’s, Michael
Dummett’s, and Nelson Goodman’s. Much of this book will be devoted =
to
that thesis. If taken literal=
ly,
however, surely it is absurd.
More likely today is to be=
told
that philosophical inquiries are not really about human beings, that they
really are conceptual or linguistic. They are about concepts or words, not
about the things or facts, human or nonhuman, those concepts or words stand
for. For example, it would be=
said,
in ethics philosophers investigate the concept of happiness or the meaning =
or
use of the word “happiness,” not any facts about happiness, whi=
ch
indeed should be left to psychiatrists and pharmacologists to investigate, =
and
in epistemology philosophers investigate the concept of perception or the m=
eaning
or use of “perceive,” not the facts about perception, which sho=
uld
be left to psychologists and neuroscientists to investigate. But surely the concepts and words =
in
question are human, not platonic or divine, and constitute an empirical sub=
ject
matter themselves. The investigation of them calls for empirical methods
– those of psychology, linguistics, and lexicography – not for
philosophical speculations, intuitions, or a priori arguments. This was powerfully argued many decades a=
go
by W.V. Q=
uine in
“Two Dogmas of Empiricism” when he attacked philosophical appea=
ls
to meanings. And about the same time Wittgenstein also pointed out in the Philosophical Investigations that =
words in
ordinary language are not used in accordance with necessary and sufficient
conditions and therefore their use cannot be captured in conceptual analyse=
s or
definitions.
The traditional claim of
philosophy to a distinct place among the cognitive disciplines has rested on
its absolute fundamentality, supreme abstraction, and unlimited scope. In these respects it surpasses even
mathematics: one of its topics are the nature and status of mathematics
itself. Its scope includes th=
at of
physics and astronomy – space, time, and everything in them – b=
ut
philosophy is also concerned with anything that is not or might not be in s=
pace
and time. Philosophy presuppo=
ses
nothing and conceals nothing. This is why philosophers court paradox when
preoccupied with things as concrete, literally “down to earth,”=
as
the humans in a planet’s fauna.
The paradox is no less glaring than it would be if they were preoccu=
pied
with the cetaceans in that fauna.
If philosophers do not see the paradox, the reason presumably is that
they are human. Had they been
cetacean, they might have been preoccupied with cetaceans.
The concern in philosophy =
with
humans is not a consequence of its unlimited scope, its interest in “=
all
time and existence.” It=
is
not the trivial application to humans of general philosophical propositions,
like the application to humans of arithmetic by the Census Bureau or of phy=
sics
by a pilot worried about takeoff weight.&n=
bsp;
It is a substantive concern. Anthropocentrism in philosophy may be
woefully misguided, but it is natural. The reason for it is obvious. Plumbers or philosophers, we all a=
re
humans. We are deeply interested in ourselves and other humans. We see ourselves as the center of the uni=
verse
even when we know that probably we are at its periphery. To suggest that philosophy should =
not be
about humans, that it ought to be “dehumanized,” may seem even
offensive. “Dehumanized,” of course, is an ugly w=
ord,
and the phrase “dehumanizing philosophy” may sound alarming, bu=
t it
does capture literally and succintly the drastic change that I shall argue =
is needed
in philosophy – freedom from anthropocentrism.
=
A common thesis in moral a=
nd
political philosophy is that one ought to treat others “humanely,R=
21;
as ends, not just as means, perhaps even love them. The claims of kings and barons to
special dignity were rejected in the past by declaring the dignity of all m=
en.
“Inhuman” and “inhumanity” are standard terms of
condemnation, “humane&#=
8221;
and “humanitarian” of approbation. Politicians’ handlers try to
“humanize” their clients in order to get them elected. The “human condition” =
is a
perennial object of marvel or despair.&nbs=
p;
Works of art are often praised for their “human
quality.” A favorable r=
eview
of a recent novel emphasizes its being “deeply human.” Many demand that space exploration be fun=
ded
only if it might lead to cures of human diseases. A recent television commercial anno=
unces,
“The human element, nothing is more fundamental, nothing more
elemental,” and advocates adding it to the periodic table. A distinguished
contemporary philosopher writes of the “heart-breaking specialness=
221;
of the human.[5]<=
/o:p>
Indeed, we all think human=
s are
special and even feel their specialness.&n=
bsp;
But the reason is not that we think we are angelic and thus obviously
special in a way that, say, cetaceans or extraterrestrials would not be, but
that we are aware of the unsurprising fact that we all are human. We all desire and se=
ek
pleasure, happiness, well-being – for ourselves, those we love, often=
for
strangers. So, ethics has dev=
oted
itself to the investigation of the human good – well-being, flourishi=
ng,
happiness, pleasure – and the habits, actions, and institutions condu=
cive
to it, rather than to the good of cetaceans, extraterrestrials, or angels.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> We all treasure our ability to see=
and
hear, and to remember and think.
So, epistemology has devoted itself to the investigation of the natu=
re
and sources of human knowledge, not the nature and sources of cetacean,
extraterrestrial, or angelic knowledge. But human happiness and human knowl=
edge
are obviously empirical matters, belonging today in the subject matter of
developed sciences.
This, of course, has been =
pointed
out repeatedly and eloquently by the proponents of naturalism, the dominant
orientation in current philosophy. W.V. Quine was perhaps its most prominent
defender and accordingly worked mainly in logic. Unlike Quine, however, most
naturalists have lacked the courage of their conviction and continued to en=
gage
in “analyzing concepts” or describing the “workings of our
language,” as if concepts and language were not themselves parts of n=
ature
and thus in the province of empirical science.
Russell was unable to value
anything “outside human beings, and, to a much lesser extent,
animals,” but
elsewhere he did write that man does not have “the cosmic significance
assigned to him in traditional theology.” We think we have prime position in the
universe, though obviously we do not. We do not reign supreme in a universe
created for us. The truth is that we have no cosmic importance at all. Only=
our
vanity and our craving center stage are cosmic. The existence of Homo sapiens perh=
aps
began about half a million years ago and, because of global warming or glob=
al
cooling, cosmic collision or catastrophic earthquake, worldwide nuclear war=
or
devastating global epidemic, or some other disaster, it is unlikely to cont=
inue
for more than another half a million years. It is no more than a flicker in=
the
four or five billion years of the history of the Earth, which is expected t=
o be
engulfed by the sun in another five billion years and is itself is no more =
than
a speck in the vast expanse of the universe. All this has been a familiar cause=
of
despondency and pessimism, a standard theme in gloom-and-doom preaching, an=
d a
ground for skepticism about the ultimate meaning of human life.
=
=
To object by saying that this presupposes=
the
naturalist and ignores the religious standpoint would be a
misunderstanding. The issue h=
ere is
not the merits of naturalism or of religion. Whichever standpoint we adopt, the=
idea
that philosophy ought to be about us has no more merit than the idea that
astronomy or mathematics ought to be about us.
This is why philosophy oug=
ht to be
freed from its anthropocentrism, dehumanized. Of course, humans do deserve
investigation: misanthropy is not advocated here. My aim is not to stoke despondency=
or
pessimism. Nor is it to advoc=
ate
rigid naturalism, let alone “scientism.” It is to draw attention to facts t=
hat
ought to be uncontroversial, as uncontroversial as the fact that humans are=
not
part of the subject matter of mathematics or astronomy.
To say that philosophy should not be about us is no more an expressi=
on
of a religious or antireligious standpoint, or of misanthropy, pessimism,
naturalism, or scientism, than saying that humans are not par=
t of
the subject matter of mathematics
or astronomy would be such an expression.
Our cosmic vanity is fuele=
d by
various assumptions, some true and some false. We may not think that we are angel=
s but
we do assume that – with the possible exception of gods, angels, or
extraterrestrials – humans alone are “rational,” capable =
of
reasoning. We assume also tha=
t only
humans are capable of moral and aesthetic judgment, and perhaps that only
humans enjoy the moral and political status of possessing
“rights.” The
monotheistic religions, which were the home of medieval philosophy and
profoundly influenced early modern philosophy, assure us of humans’
unique origin and special place in nature.=
Some of these assumptions and assurances are matters of faith, e.g.,=
that, though al=
l things
were created by God, only man was created in God’s image. Some are essentially scientific bu=
t now
abandoned, e.g., geocentrism, the Ptolemaic view that the Earth is the cent=
er
of the universe. Other assumptions are also essentially scientific but of
unknown and perhaps unknowable truth-value, e.g., that there is no intellig=
ent
life elsewhere in the Universe. And many do rest on scientific fact, e.g., =
that
no other terrestrial animals equal humans in intelligence. All these assumptions not only enc=
ourage
our special interest in ourselves but seem to justify it.
Though evident in epistemo=
logy, as
noted earlier, anthropocentrism is especially familiar in ethics, where muc=
h of
it can be understood as discrimination in favor of humans, what defenders of
animal rights call speciesism. Its most extreme form is egoism, discriminat=
ion
in favor of just oneself – of what Kant called “the dear self&#=
8221;
– commonly considered a paradigm of immorality and a central concern =
of
ethics. Egoism has logical descendants, which can be ordered according to t=
heir
distance from it. Nepotism – discrimination in favor of one’s
family – seems to come first. Next, perhaps, is discrimination in fav=
or
of one’s friends, part of Polemarchus’s definition of
“justice” in Plato’s Republic.
Then might come chauvinism, discrimination in favor of one’s country.
Even further from egoism is racism: discrimination in favor of one’s
race. Sexism, discrimination in favor of one’s gender, also belongs a=
mong
the logical descendants of egoism, but as a position it is logically unstab=
le.
It conflicts with other forms of discrimination that the sexist is likely to
accept. Some members of one’s family and some of one’s friends =
are
likely to belong to the opposite sex, and so do roughly half of one’s
compatriots and of the members of one’s race. Classism
(Thrasymachus’s “advantage of the stronger,” Marx’s
“dictatorship of the proletariat,” the early Boston’s
“better people”) would also be a logically unstable position, f=
or
similar reasons, though it has been part of important theories, namely,
Platonism and Marxism, which rest on independent grounds.
Anthopocentrism is present=
also in
metaphysics, where it assumes the form of antirealism, the metaphysical
orientation that distinguishes post-Berkeleyan and especially post-Kantian
philosophy most sharply from ancient, medieval, and early modern philosophy.
According to the metaphysical realist, =
reality,
“the world,” is mind-indepe=
ndent,
in particular, it is independent of our knowledge of it. I shall use “antirealism̶=
1; for
the opposite view, which is exemplified by Berkeley’s
“subjective” idealism, Kant’s “transcendental”
idealism, Hegel’s “absolute” idealism, as well as recent positions such as Michael DummettR=
17;s
“antirealism,” Nelson Goodman’s “irrealism,” =
and
Hilary Putnam’s “internal realism.”According to the metaphysical antireal=
ist,
reality depends, at least insofar as it is known or knowable, on our ways of
knowing it, on our cognitive capacities – sense perception,
introspection, intellectual intuition, imagination, memory, recognition,
conceptualization, inductive and deductive reasoning, use of language and o=
ther
symbolisms. Cognition is the employment of these capacities. It leads to
knowledge
The antirealist claims tha=
t the
world is “shaped” or “sculpted” by our cognitive
faculties, and thus that it depends on us, who of course are humans. This, essentially Kantian, claim a=
mounts
to the humanization of metaphysics.
It rests on the tautology that we have no cognitive “access=
221;
to the world except through our cognition of it, that whatever we know,
perceive, understand, believe, imagine, or say about the world depends on o=
ur
cognitive capacities. The wor=
ld is
cognized also by nonhuman animals, as well as, perhaps, by extraterrestrials
and angels, but in order to know or even understand and say this we must re=
ly
on our own cognitive capacities=
, even
if only our imagination and our language.
Anthropocentrism is parado=
xical in
all branches of philosophy, though for different reasons. Epistemology and ethics claim expe=
rtise
about what they must and usually do regard as certain animals. But animals are part of the subject
matter of the empirical sciences, not philosophy. Metaphysical antirealism holds, ho=
wever
tacitly, that reality, the whole world – at least insofar as known or
knowable – is dependent on the cognitive faculties of those animals.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Common sense – the mature and
thoughtful judgment we all share and all theorizing, scientific or
philosophical, begins with and must respect even if not accept – finds
such cosmological humanism, indeed human
creationism, absurd. How could the whole world depend o=
n some
members of one of its planets’ fauna? In epistemology and ethics, philos=
ophers
seem to play the role of zoologists.
In metaphysics, they seem to announce that the whole world is
zoological.
Although in epistemolo=
gy and
ethics anthropocentrism is natural and understandable, though indefensible,=
in
metaphysics it is unnatural and almost incomprehensible, but at least as
defensible as Kant’s transcendental idealism and 20th cent=
ury
antirealism. In epistemology =
and
ethics, we can reject anthropocentrism unqualifiedly, however painful this
might be. In metaphysics, how=
ever,
such rejection would be a blunder.
The reason is that it is present there in the form of antirealism, w=
hich
is made plausible even if not not entailed by a tautology and therefore
indisputable trith. The tautology is that whatever we know, perceive,
understand, believe, imagine, or say about the world depends on our cogniti=
ve
capacities. So, in metaphysic=
s we
face the challenge of finding a way to avoid anthropocentrism without rejec=
ting
this tautology. We must not j=
ust
return to pre-Kantian metaphysics, yet we must avoid the absurdity of human
creationism. We must interpret
antirealism as making no reference to humans. Hence, the unusual dialectical
structure of this book. Part =
One is
devoted to defense of the dehumanization of epistemology and ethics, Part T=
wo
to explanation and provisional defense of the antirealist humanization of
metaphysics, and Part Three to the dehumanization of antirealist
metaphysics. In Part One
anthropocentrism is rejected in epistemology and ethics, in Part Two it is
defended as it occurs in metaphysics, and in Part Three it is rejected also=
in
metaphysics. There is no need for an explanation or provisional defense of =
the
humanization of epistemology and ethics. The anthropocentricism present in =
them
is easily understood, and so is what motivates it. Not so in the case of
metaphysics. Its humanization was strictly a philosophical event, obscure to
virtually everyone outside philosophy and even by many professional
philosophers.
2. A Glance at History &=
nbsp; <=
/p>
The
history of anthropocentrism in philosophy is illuminating and helps us
understand it, though here we can devote to it no more than a passing
glance. It was preceded and
encouraged by the anthropocentrism already present in religion. According to the Book of Genesis, =
in the
beginning God created the heaven and the earth, including its flora and fau=
na,
and then created man in the image of God.&=
nbsp;
But it also attributed to God actions such as resting from work,
speaking, and inflicting punishment.
Thus it appeared also to depict God in the image of man. Its anthropocentrism with respect =
to
Creation seemed accompanied by anthropomorphism with respect to God, the
personification of God that became essential to Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam, but was deplored by Spinoza.
Pre-Socratic
philosophy focused on the cosmos – the heavens and the earth, the four
elements, ensouled animals. T=
he
Socratic revolution shifted the focus dramatically. It moved philosophy from
concern with all things to concern with just one. Its slogan became “Know
thyself!” But it did no=
t go
unchallenged. The stand most
distinctive of Plato’s philosophy was both anti-preSocratic and
anti-Socratic. The chief conc=
ern of
philosophy, Plato taught, is neither the cosmos nor oneself, but rather what
lies beyond both: the abstract entities he called Forms (“Ideas,̶=
1; ei=
·dos). Almost immediately, however, Arist=
otle
urged a return to the cosmos, away from both Socrates’ preoccupation =
with
the innermost and Plato’s preoccupation with the outermost.
Medieval philosophers R=
11;
Christian, Jewish, Muslim – sometimes followed Plato, sometimes
Aristotle, but all took for granted the declaration in Genesis that humans =
were
made in the image of God. The=
ir anthropocentrism,
however, was subordinate to theocentrism.&=
nbsp;
And the strictures on anthropocentrism in philosophy do not apply to
theocentrism in philosophy. F=
or
instance, Thomas Aquinas’ theocentrism, according to which God was the
source and ground of all being, exemplified unambiguously the abstraction a=
nd
generality distinctive of philosophy.
And his credentials as a theologian were unquestionable.
Following the scientific
revolution in the 16th and 17th century, when Coperni=
cus,
Galileo, Boyle, and Newton became the authorities on space, time, and matte=
r,
philosophers came to hold, in sharp contrast to both their ancient and their
medieval predecessors, that they were concerned only with “minds̶=
1;
and “ideas.” The new physics compelled them to adopt the way of
ideas. Anthropocentrism thus =
became
firmly established in philosophy, since it was not cetacean, extraterrestri=
al,
or angelic minds and ideas that attracted the attention of the early modern
philosophers. But their
anthropocentrism consisted in preoccupation with just one part or aspect of
human beings: their minds and the ideas in those minds. It eventually led many to idealism=
, the
view that minds and ideas were all<=
/i>
that there is. To be consiste=
nt,
however, idealists ought to have denied that those minds or ideas were
human. For humans have materi=
al
bodies, even if also immaterial minds, and to allow that there are human mi=
nds
would be to allow that there =
are
also human bodies. Few appreciated the severity of the problem this fact po=
sed
for them.
Early in the 17th
century, Descartes began his Medita=
tions
by arguing that “I exist” was the only truth he could not doubt,
presumably referring, though inconsistently, by “I” to himself,=
a
certain Frenchman. But after =
his
propaedeutic dalliance with epistemology, and thus with human matters like =
the
possibility and extent of human knowledge, Descartes focused on the existen=
ce
of God and the nature of mind and matter.&=
nbsp;
This focus was metaphysical and nonanthropocentric. It was shared later in the century=
by
Spinoza and Leibniz. But it w=
as
vigorously opposed by the British empiricists, who returned to Descartes=
217;
epistemology and thus to anthropocentrism.=
The titles of their chief works speak volumes: An Essay Concerning the Human Understanding (Locke), The Principles of Human Knowledge
(Berkeley), A Treatise of Human Nat=
ure (Hume).
In 1781, less than half-a-=
century
after the publication of Hume’s Treatise,
Kant rejected in his Critique of Pu=
re
Reason both continental metaphysics, which he called dogmatism, and Bri=
tish
epistemology, which he called empirical idealism. He described his own philosophy as
transcendental idealism, arguing, for example, that space and time are not
“actual entities” because they belong only to “the subjec=
tive
constitution” of the mind as “forms of appearances.” But Kant’s version of antire=
alism
allowed that there are “things-in-themselves,” entities indepen=
dent
of our cognitive faculties.
Transcendental idealism is=
often
described as a manifestation of the humanism characteristic of the
Enlightenment. But this is
misleading, and so is the vague and overused term “humanism.” Like any antirealist position,
transcendental idealism does rest on the tautology that our knowledge of the
world depends on our cognitive faculties.&=
nbsp;
On the basis of that tautology, Kant went on to assert also that the
world itself as known or knowable by us depends on our cognitive
faculties. Whether there is a=
world
that is not known or even knowable by us, or whether there are at least par=
ts or
aspects of the known or knowable world that are not known or knowable by us=
, is
a further question. The weaker
(”at least”) formulation of the question is needed because it
accords with how sometimes Kant formulated his distinction between
things-in-themselves and things-for-us. It also makes the distinction less
unusual and Kant’s antirealism more plausible by allowing that, even =
if
there is only one world or set of things, namely the world or things we kno=
w or
can know, this world or these things may have parts or aspects that are not
known or knowable by us.
When Kant wrote that space=
and
time belong only to the subjective constitution of the mind, he was referri=
ng
to humans explicitly. “=
We can
… speak of space, extended things, and so on, only from the human
standpoint,” he wrote, and explained that this is why space is
“transcendentally ideal,” though it is also empirically real in=
the
sense that it is not an illusion, or mere fancy.[11]
But when he wrote that space and time belong only to the subjective
constitution of the mind, he couldn't have meant Kant's mind or any other
human's mind, and we know he did not mean God’s mind. What did he mean
then? Humans themselves, including Kant, are inhabitants of the
transcendentally ideal space and thus are transcendentally ideal. To be sure, they also are empirica=
lly
real: although Kant held that our knowledge is limited to appearances, he m=
ade
a sharp distinction between appearance (Erscheinung)
and illusion (Schein). Transcendental idealism was thus a=
nthropocentric
insofar as humans are empirically real, but it was not anthropocentric inso=
far
as humans are transcendentally ideal.
Nonetheless, it usually has been understood as unqualifiedly
anthropocentric. So have its
immediate successors: Fichte’s absolute idealism, who titled his best
known book The Vocation of Man,=
and
Hegel’s absolute idealism, according to which the Absolute achieves
self-knowledge through the human mind.&nbs=
p;
We shall find that a nonanthropocentric reading of all three –
Kant, Fichte, and Hegel – is not only possible but plausible. To explain this reading would be t=
he
special challenge of dehumanizing antirealist metaphysics, which will be
attempted in Part Three.
Standard ethics and episte=
mology
regard humans, and their happiness, sense perception, etc., only as empiric=
ally
real. Kant called such ethics
practical anthropology, which he described as an empirical discipline, and
reserved the term “metaphysics of morals” for what he considered
the properly philosophical, a priori, inquiry into morality. The
philosophical inquiry into our cognitive faculties was exemplified by his
transcendental aesthetic and analytic.&nbs=
p;
He did not have a special name for their empirical study, but presum=
ably
would have agreed that it is the task of what we now call cognitive psychol=
ogy
and neuroscience.
Nevertheless, Kant certain=
ly
thought, as everyone does, that all disciplines,
the physics of space and time as well as the metaphysics of morals, are
anthropocentric, indeed literally human, in the straightforward sense that =
they
employ human cognitive powers and thus are constrained by the demands and
limitations of those powers.
Whether we contemplate all time and existence or just snails and
tomatoes, we cannot transcend our sense organs and brains, just as we cannot
get out of our skins. Underst=
ood as
the tautology that our knowledge of the world depends on our cognitive
faculties, this truth is not grounded in facts about humans beings, just as=
the
truth of “All bachelors are unmarried” is not grounded in facts
about bachelors. Both enjoy t=
he
certainty of logic.
Antirealism became dominan=
t after
Kant. Early in the 19th<=
/sup>
century, Hegel declared that Spirit (mind, Geist)
develops or “unfolds” logically (“dialectically”) f=
rom
“subjective spirit” (individual<=
span
class=3Dunderline> human mental states like sensations) to
“objective spirit” (society as exemplified by the family, custo=
ms
and traditions [Sittlichkeit], =
the
state, and institutions such as corporations and guilds, among which would =
be
today’s academic disciplines), and reaches its fulfillment in
“absolute spirit,” the three stages of which are art, religion,=
and
philosophy (in Hegel’s sense of philosophy as the perfect system of
knowledge). Thus, seen superficially, Hegel appeared to endorse not only
metaphysical anthropocentrism but also a sort of metaphysical
anthropomorphism. But his
anthropocentrism involved a major epistemological innovation: a dramatic mo=
ve
from earlier philosophers’ cognitive individualism, the view of knowl=
edge
as a personal achievement, to what, for the lack of a better term, I shall =
call
cognitive socialism: the view of knowledge as a social, disciplinary, often
literally collaborative achievement. It is especially evident today that the
cognitive disciplines are inherently social and=
, at
least to users of Wikipedia, that so is virtually all cognition beyo=
nd
the infantile stage. Cognitive socialism, of course, nee=
d have
no political implications.
In the 20th cen=
tury,
Wittgenstein declared in Tractatus
Logico-Philosophicus, “I am my world,” seemingly referring,
though inconsistently, to a human being, namely himself. Heidegger focused his Being and Time on human being,
“the inquirer,” using D=
asein
as a technical term for it,
though two decades later he insisted that “[e]very kind of anthropolo=
gy
and all subjectivity” should be “left behind.”[15] Sartre referred in Being and Nothingness to Being-for-itself as realité humaine, which he contrasted with Being-in-itsel=
f,
and wrote the article “Existentialism is a Humanism,” to which
Heidegger responded in a paper titled “Letter on Humanism.”
While the scientific revol=
ution of
the 16th and 177h century motivated philosophers to
confine their subject matter to minds and ideas by taking the way of ideas,=
in
the 20th century minds and ideas themselves became the subject
matter of flourishing empirical sciences – psychology and later
neuroscience – and philosophers retreated further. They took the way of words, “=
;the
linguistic turn,” claiming now that their subject matter is
language. Sometimes, they des=
cribed
their inquiries as conceptual, not factual, but by “concepts” t=
hey
did not mean the ideas or mental images of early modern philosophy. They meant meanings or uses of wor=
ds and
syntactic structures, the “workings of our language.”
But language and words are=
matters
no less empirical than space, time, and matter, or human minds and ideas, a=
nd
they are investigated today by linguists, lexicographers, and even computer
scientists. Research in them
requires meticulous empirical description and fruitful, empirically verifia=
ble
hypotheses, not “definitions” or “if and only if”
statements as in philosophical writings.&n=
bsp;
Philosophers have no more special insight into the workings of langu=
age
than they had had into the workings of matter in space=
and
time or into the workings of the human mind. Instead of investiga=
ting
space, time, and matter, the 17th and 18th century philosophers settled for
investigating mind. Instead of
investigating mind, the 20th century philosophers settled for investigating
talk. They remained open to t=
he
charge of rummaging in empirical matters.&=
nbsp;
To=
be
sure, philosophers have a good ear for the nuances of some segments of spee=
ch,
as J. L. Austin famously did, but Austin insisted that such an ear was not a
substitute for empirical research.
=
In et=
hics and
epistemology some have eschewed the need for empirical investigation by tak=
ing
“the deontic way.” They have thus avoided competing with the
empirical sciences, which of course have no interest in deontic matters exc=
ept
to record and explain people’s beliefs about them. The deontic way se=
ems
natural in ethics, given its emphasis on imperatives. But a deontological
ethics must ground its imperatives. Kant held that “the ground of obligation=
...
must not be sought in the nature of man or in the circumstances in which he=
is
placed,” and urged that “it is a matter of the utmost necessity=
to
work out for once a pure moral philosophy completely cleansed of everything
that can only be empirical and appropriate to anthropology.”
He appealed to the nonsensible world of noumena as the ground of the
“commands of practical reason.” Most contemporary deontologists=
do
not follow Kant, but they are aware that a ground is needed. The deontic wa=
y is
also natural in epistemology insofar as its concerns have to do with the
validity of certain inferences and thus are essentially logical. The infere=
nces
in question are seldom deductive, and for this reason the need for grounding
them is especially evident. Much of epistemology has consisted in the search
for such a ground.
=
Resor=
ting, as
Kant did, to a nonsensible ground is uncommon in contemporary ethics and
epistemology. There the ground is more likely to be what philosophers call
“intuitions,” meaning usually just their felt inclinations about
what they would or would not say is
morally right or epistemically justified in various, usually imagined,
circumstances. Philosophers who shun the deontic way also often resort to
intuitions, to what they feel they would or would not say, and for the same
reason – to secure a ground for their claims. In both cases success
depends on the worth of the intuitions. If the appeal to them is merely a w=
ay
to avoid empirical investigation of the linguistic facts, their worth is li=
kely
to be minimal. &nbs=
p;
When combined with antirea=
lism, as
it often was, the linguistic turn had a startling implication: If the world=
is
sculpted by our cognition of it and our cognition is sculpted by our langua=
ge,
then the world is sculpted by our language. Indeed, we do find Wittgenstein sa=
ying
in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, “the limits of my language mean the
limits of my world.” We also find Heidegger writing in
“Letter on Humanism” that “language is the house of
being,” and=
in
“The Origin of the Work of Art” that language is “the
happening in which for man beings first disclose themselves to him each tim=
e as
beings.”[21] These assertions, of course, requi=
re
detailed discussion, which will be attempted later. Suffice it here to note that the
language to which Wittgenstein and Heidegger were referring presumably was =
not
cetacean, extraterrestrial, or angelic.&nb=
sp;
3. =
Antirealism
and its Varieties.
The antirealist thesis=
is not
entirely unfamiliar or even unacceptable to science or even common sense. We know that dogs can hear sounds =
we
cannot, eagles see things too small for us to see, and computers calculate =
much
faster than we can. We take for granted that things look very different to a
fly, to say nothing of how they might look to and be understood by an
extraterrestrial life-form with sense organs, concepts, and modes of reason=
ing
completely different from ours;
space scientists puzzle over what pictures or symbols to engrave on
space probes that might reach intelligent beings. Russell explained Kant’s
transcendental idealism by saying: "If you always wore blue spectacles,
you could be sure of seeing everything blue.”
Neuroscience unambiguously holds that our brain is not a tabula rasa on whi=
ch
the senses just write information.
Educated people are likely to fi=
nd the
idea that the physical world is totally unlike what physics and astronomy s=
ay
idle, if not empty. Before the insurance payout to the leaseholder of
the two World Trade Center Towers, it was necessary to decide whether their
destruction on 9/11/2001 counted as one or two events, a decision obviously=
not
dictated by any facts in the world. Our beliefs about the history of t=
he
United States depend on what history teachers have told us and what history
books we have read. The difficul=
ty,
sometimes impossibility, of faithful translation from one language to anoth=
er
is notorious, especially in the case of poetry. What
is expressed in mathematical symbolism may be inexpressible in a natural
language, and vice versa. We =
often
find a picture of a happy child’s face or of a city devastated by a
hurricane worth more than a thousand words, and a caricature sometimes tell=
s us
more than any text could. Wha=
t the
world might be “in itself,” i.e., as neither known nor knowable,
does seem to many of us, as it did to Goodman, not worth fighting for or
against.
Of course, as a philosophi=
cal
doctrine, antirealism is worthy of interest only if argued. The most impressive traditional
arguments can be found in Kant’s defense of transcendental idealism.
Arguments for antirealism are offered also in its contemporary versions, su=
ch
as Dummett’s, Goodman’s, and Putnam’s, as well as in
Heidegger’s ontology of being-in-the-world and Sartre’s
existentialism.
But tPerhaps, as Berkeley held, we cannot know the obj=
ects
we perceive unless we perceive them, but it hardly follows that they cannot
exist unperceived. as Michael Dummett argued two centur=
ies
later, a realist interpretation of a sentence requires understanding what w=
ould
count as its conclusive verification or its conclusive falsification, and s=
uch
understanding is possible in the case of few if any sentences. But this is
comprehensible only to a few professional philosophers, and even they seldom
find it persuasive. Hilary Putnam argued for a version of antirealism by sa=
ying
that it “does not require us to find mysterious and supersensible obj=
ects
behind our language games that =
we
actually play when language is working.” But even if there are objects behind our language
“games,” they need not be supersensible, and supersensible obje=
cts
need not be mysterious (love and hatred are familiar but they are not objec=
ts
of the senses, whether as events or as dispositions). specific and readily
understandable truths
The reasoning underlying t=
he
standard arguments for antirealism, in Berkeley’s, Kant’s, as w=
ell
as its recent versions, may be sketched as follows: (1) We cognize only wha=
t we
can, i.e., have the capacity to, cognize.&=
nbsp;
This is a tautology.
Therefore, (2) there is no reality, no world, that is independent of=
our
cognitive capacities. Of cour=
se,
(2) does not follow from (1). What
follows is another tautology: (3) we cannot cognize reality independently of
our cognitive capacities.
Contemporary antirealists often argue on the basis of (1) for (2), n=
ot
(3), probably because the negation of (2), namely, Kant’s view that (=
4)
there is a reality, “things-in-themselves,” that is independent=
of
our cognitive capacities, seems to them idle. But there is at least one very good
reason for (4), namely, that (2) implies an absurd sort of cosmic humanism,
perhaps human creationism, the proposition, presumably held by no one, that=
the
whole world – from the page you a=
re
reading now to the outermost known galaxies, and since the Big Bang to the farthest conceivable
future – depends for its existence and nature on the minds,
cognitive capacities, of humans,
certain inhabitants of one of its planets’ fauna. Because of their
forbidding level of abstraction, the standard arguments leave unclear both =
what
they claim and what motivates them.
I
shall not ignore these arguments, but my focus in this book will be on spec=
ific
and readily understandable truths that lead to antirealism. Arguments for antirealism f=
rom
such truths are very different from the standard arguments. They have the
following form: (1) we cognize (perceive, understand, describe) the world as
necessarily having a certain uncontroversial and familiar specific feature.=
But
it is obvious (2) that the world does not, perhaps cannot, have that featur=
e.
Therefore, (3) the world as we cognize it, as it is “for us,” is
not as it is “in itself.”
also offered arguments of this second
sort. In defense of his obscure thesis of the ideality of space, Kant point=
ed
out that we can imagine only one space, and that we can imagine it as empty=
but
not as absent. Regarding the ideality of time, he noted that all objects of
sense, outer and inner, are necessarily in time, and that time is necessari=
ly
one-dimensional. Regarding the ideality of causality, Kant argued that we
necessarily conceive of the objects of sense perception as causally related=
but
do not perceive causal relations between them.
as how we perceive, conceive, or
represent them in language or in art,
The
specific and readily understandable truths on which I shall focus in this b=
ook
are quite different and less impressionistic. The first is that, as
Wittgenstein held in the Tra=
ctatus, the world, if there is one, is the totality=
not
of things but of facts, in the robust Russellian sense of
“fact.” (Its
ordinary sense, in which many speak <=
span
class=3Dapple-converted-space>even of “false facts,” is too vag=
ue to
be of philosophical value.) as Russellian facts, and I would tooThe reason is si=
mple,
obvious, and independent of Wittgenstein’s views. If Jack admires Jill but Ji=
ll
does not admire Jack, what would distinguish the world in which this is so =
from
the world in which Jill admires Jack but Jack does not admire Jill, the wor=
ld
in which they admire each other, and the world in which neither admires the
other, if these worlds differed in no other respect? There would be no answ=
er
if we supposed that there are only individuals, properties, and relations.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Only the fact that Jack admires Jill but Jill does not admire Jack, not
their mere presence in the world, as well as the relation of admiration, wo=
uld
distinguish that world from the other three.
R
The
second truth I shall focus on is the nonexistence of “logical
objects,” in Wittgenstein’s sense of entities to which words like
“if,” “is,” or “all” correspond. (There is re=
ason,
to be explained in the next section, to count facts also as logical objects=
.) Common
sense would readily agree that there are no such entities as if or all in the world, though it would be surprised that anyone shou=
ld
think otherwise. Very few
philosophers would disagree.
The
third truth I shall focus on is the obvious absence from the world of gener=
ic
facts, that is, facts that would correspond to what linguists call generic
statements, usually of the form “Fs are G,” as contrasted with =
universal
statements, usually of the form “=
All Fs
are G.” Physicia=
ns
believe that patients with prior
strokes benefit from taking Lipitor, but they do not believe that all patie=
nts
with prior strokes benefit from taking Lipitor, nor do they confuse what th=
ey
do believe with their evidence for it, say, that in a clinical trial 265, or
11.2%, of the patients who took
Lipitor suffered a stroke over five years, while 795, or 37%, of those who =
took
a placebo did. Indeed, much o=
f what
we think we know about the world is expressed only in generic statements. But we do not need abstruse argume=
nt or
analysis to see that no distinctive facts correspond to them, even if there
were facts that correspond to the related singular and universal statements=
.
4. Logical Antirealism.
Antirealism
is not limited to metaphysics. There is also moral antirealism, aesthetic
antirealism, scientific antirealism, mathematical antirealism, and so on. Even in the case of metaphysical
antirealism, numerous qualifications, distinctions, and explanations are
needed. No metaphysical antir=
ealist
denies the reality of everything, just as no metaphysical realist asserts t=
he
reality of everything, including the Easter Bunny. The solipsist says, “Only I
exist,” not “Nothing exists.” Berkeley denied that there =
are
material objects, those “stupid material substances,” but he
insisted on the existence of minds and their ideas. According to Kant, as we saw earli=
er,
material objects are “transcendentally ideal,” dependent on our
cognitive faculties, but they are also “empirically real,” not =
just
present “in the mind” or “mere fancy.” Bertrand Russell distinguished bet=
ween
existence and subsistence: some things do not exist, yet they are not just
nothing – they subsist; for example, material objects exist but
universals only subsist. Acco=
rding
to Wittgenstein, some things cannot be “said,” i.e., represente=
d in
language, but they “show” themselves in what can be said. Among them are those that matter m=
ost in
logic, ethics, aesthetics, and religion.
When
a position unqualifiedly asserts the reality of certain items, I shall call=
it
unqualified antirealism with respect to those items, or just antirealism if=
the
context makes the adjective unnecessary.&n=
bsp;
I shall use “antirealism” as an umbrella word for all
positions that are not unqualifiedly realist, however different they may be=
in
other respects.
“Antirealism” may be too strong and perhaps misleading t=
erm
to apply to all of them, but there is no convenient alternative to it in the
current philosophical lexicon. “Nonrealism” might be such an
alternative, but it is not obviously less strong than “antirealism.&#=
8221;
Stated
briefly and crudely, the antirea=
list
thesis – that the world, at least insofar as it is known or knowable,
depends on us – would convince no one. It gains plausibility, however, if=
we
agree with Wittgenstein that “logic pervades the world,”=
that the world must have a logical, n=
ot
just spatiotemporal, physical, and causal, structure, and then agree with h=
im
also that “there are no logical objects.”
He wrote, “My fundamental idea is that the 'logical constants' are not
representatives [nicht vertreten];
that there can be no representatives of the logic of facts.” Wittgenstein meant that logical expressions, such as the sentential connectiv=
es
(“not,” “and,” “or,”
“if...then”) and the quantifiers (“all,”
“some”), which are needed for expressing the logical str=
ucture
of the world in language, stand for nothing in the world. I shall call cognition that requires=
their
use logical. Logical cognitio=
n is indispensable for any cognition beyond that of babes. It in=
cludes
but should not be confused with the sort of cognition pursued by the branch=
of
philosophy called logic. Statements expressing logical cognition usually
contain also nonlogical expressions, while those in logic contain only logi=
cal
expressions. I shall call the former logical statements and the latter stat=
ements
of logic. “All men are mortal” is a logical statement because it
includes the logical expression “all,” but it is not a statemen=
t of
logic. Few, if any, statements are not logical in this sense. Hence =
the
power of what I shall call logical antirealism.
We arrive at logical antir=
ealism
if we agree with that logical expressions stand for nothing in the world. It is a far-reaching version of
metaphysical antirealism, yet almost everyone would find it plausible. If a
realist interpretation of a true statement is one that pairs the statement =
with
a fact in the Russellian sense of “fact,̶=
1;
i.e., an entity that “makes” the statement true but is categori=
ally
different from anything mentioned in the statement, then almost everyone wo=
uld
find plausible an antirealist interpretation of general statements, whether
universal (e.g., “All men are mortal”), particular (e.g.,
“Some men are mortal,” “At least one man is mortal”=
),
or generic (e.g., “Men are mortal”), and of compound or molecul=
ar
statements, whether negative (“This page is not blue”), conditi=
onal
(“If this page is white then the next page is white”), disjunct=
ive
(“Either this page is white or it is blue”), or conjunctive
(“This page is both white and rectangular”). Few believe that t=
here
are in the world irreducibly universal, particular, generic, negative,
conditional, disjunctive, or conjunctive facts, though they may believe that
there are atomic facts, e.g., the fact to which the statement “This p=
age
is white” might correspond. Even fewer are those who believe that the=
re
are in the world entities such as a=
ll,
not, if, or, and, which would be the defining
constituents of such facts. Yet, as Sartre eloquently argued, negation play=
s an
essential role in cognition; his striking example was seeing that the person
you expected to meet at a café is not there. And Gustav Bergmann poi=
nted
out that there could be no laws of natu=
re if
generality, meaning general universal facts and the quantifier all that makes them general, were =
not in
the world: most laws of nature
are universal statements.
also too they do is a question that as such =
If facts are logical objec=
ts, then
declarative sentences themselves, not just the sentential connectives and t=
he
quantifiers, would be logical expressions. We do not learn sentences as we learn names of things, we learn to make sentences. The prelinguistic =
child
does not find facts under the Christmas tree, it finds toys, and later lear=
ns
to talk about them. Facts may be counted as logical objects
because, like the sentential connectives and the quantifiers, they are requ=
ired
by logical, not empirical, considerations. This is why Wittgenstein counted the concept of fact as f=
ormal,
like the concept of object, thus unsuited for literal application. This is why he denied that there can =
be
representation in language of the logic of facts. We may doubt the existence of such entities as
facts. But if the word=
is
the totality of facts, as Wittgenstein held, then if there no facts there is also no world.
Logical antirealism is not=
the
only species of metaphysical antirealism. There is one corresponding to each
species of cognition. The ancient and most familiar version is perceptual
antirealism. It denies that there “really” are objects
corresponding to what we seem to perceive through the senses. Berkeley̵=
7;s
“to be is to be perceived” was its brief but memorable slogan.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> But perceptual antirealism need no=
t be
so drastic and implausible. It can be limited to only some features of
perceived objects, to their “secondary qualities,” such as colo=
r,
and then it would represent the view held by contemporary science and most
educated people: we seem to see colors but in the world there are only the
light waves that initiate vision.
More innovative is the spe=
cies of
metaphysical antirealism we may call conceptual –objects, perceived or
not, depend on our understanding of
them, on the concepts we possess. Conceptual antirealism was Kant’s m=
ajor
contribution to philosophy. It can be limited to just some concepts and thus
gain greater plausibility. It can be limited to what Kant called the pure
concepts of the understanding, such as causality. It can be limited even
further to the concept of identity, which is presupposed by the acquisition=
and
application of all other concepts. The acquisition of language presupposes
possession of that concept: to learn words one must be able to recognize so=
unds
or marks. There could not be anything in the world that corresponds to the
concept of identity and provides objective standards for its application. E=
ven
if identity were a relation in the world and we were aware, perceptually or
intellectually, of that relation, we must be able to recognize it, to
“see” it as the same
again.
To function as a standard of correctness in applying a concept or word, this
relation would need to be recognized itself as identical with our original
paradigm of identity. And the=
re would
be nothing that would determine the correctness of that recognition.
The kind of conceptual ant=
irealism
that became characteristic of 20th century philosophy after it t=
ook
the linguistic turn is linguistic antirealism, according to which our cogni=
tion
of the world is dependent on language, if not on the particular characteris=
tics
of the language we speak, as Benjamin Whorf thought, then on the universal
characteristics of all languages, in Noam Chomsky’s sense. Conceptual
antirealism would entail linguistic antirealism if concepts are words or
syntactic structures, rather than “ideas in the mind.” And if
limited to logical expressions and syntactic structures, it would be also a
version of logical antirealism. But not all versions of logical antirealism
need be linguistic. We may allow, as Kant did, for the possibility of logic=
al
concepts that are purely psychological, not linguistic. This would be the c=
ase,
for example, with a logical antirealism that is limited to the concept of
identity.
Logical antirealism is the=
most
plausible version of metaphysical antirealism. Few would disagree with
Wittgenstein that there are no logical objects – no items, no fragmen=
ts
of the world, that correspond to the propositional connectives and the
quantifiers, and thus no distinctive facts that correspond to irreducibly
compound and general statements. No such items and facts belong in what can=
be
“said,” and so they could not count as ordinary denizens of
reality. But, Wittgenstein also held, they can be “shown.” Witt=
genstein’s
distinction between saying and showing thus introduced a position that is
neither unqualified logical realism, like that of Frege and Russell, nor
unqualified logical antirealism. We may call it semirealism. In chapter 4 I shall argue that the
distinction between saying and showing has a clear and noncontroversial
application to ordinary, not just “logical,” pictures, and that
Wittgenstein’s picture theory of meaning on which the distinction res=
ted
was no more than a sophisticated version of the traditional view that meani=
ng
and thought involve representations: ideas, even mental images.
Before Kant, the tautology=
on
which antirealism rests – that our knowledge of the world depends on =
our
cognitive faculties – led to skepticism. But antirealism should not be
confused with skepticism, though they are similar in some respects. Both are
rooted in the commonsense belief that “things may not really be what =
they
seem (appear) to us to be.” Both appeal to the proposition that ̶=
0;we
can never discover what things really are because any discovery is still a
discovery of what some things seem to be.” The skeptic concludes that=
we
can never know what things really are.&nbs=
p;
The antirealist concludes that there is no distinction between what
things really are and what they seem to us to be. This is why, left
unexplained, antirealism is paradoxical, while skepticism is at most
outrageous.
Antirealism is a metaphysi=
cal
view, skepticism belongs in epistemology. We shall see in chapter 2, howeve=
r,
that much of traditional epistemology can be understood really as logic, si=
nce
its chief concern has been the validity of certain inferences. Insofar as t=
he
home of skepticism is such epistemology-as-logic, it is no more anthropocen=
tric
than logic is. But in its usual formulations skepticism is overtly and
unabashedly anthropocentric. It concerns the limits of human perception and
understanding. And today the proper study of these limits belongs in psycho=
logy
and especially neuroscience. Whether certain brain states are the outcome of
external stimulation, and if they are to what extent and in what way they
represent anything external, is hardly to be determined by armchair
speculation. Moreover, if what I called cognitive socialism is accepted, the
epistemological question “What do I know?” would be replaced by=
the
question “What do we
know?” and traditional skepticism would lose much of the purchase it =
has
had. We might conclude that there are some things that, say, physics does n=
ot
know, perhaps cannot know, but our reasons would rest on certain facts about
the scientific discipline of physics and bear little resemblance to Cartesi=
an
skeptical concerns.
Metaphysical antirealism e=
njoys
little initial plausibility even among philosophers, but its indirect and
usually unnoticed influence on nonphilosophical thought has been enormous. A
noteworthy example is Kuhn’s important account of the history of scie=
nce
as involving relativity to “paradigms.” Less admirable are the popular, but
careless and unphilosophical, relativisms that insist that truth is relativ=
e to
era, culture, race, gender, ethnic origin, or even just personal “bel=
ief
system.” Indeed, metaphysical antirealism is a form of relativism, bu=
t it
must not be confused with any of these. It acknowledges only relativity to
being human. This is why metaphysical antirealism is not a sort of
subjectivism. What our cognitive faculties deliver can count as objective in
the straightforward sense that, in principle, it can be and often is the sa=
me
for all humans, and personal divergence from it is what counts as subjectiv=
e.
This is why metaphysical antirealism can allow a sharp distinction between
objective truth and personal opinion or fancy.
We know that there are fai=
rly
advanced nonhuman cognizers, e.g., chimpanzees and whales. There may be also
extraterrestrial cognizers who are far more advanced than humans. The world
cognized by whales is relative to cetacean cognition. The world cognized by
chimpanzees is relative to simian cognition. Only the world cognized by hum=
ans
is relative to human cognition. That relativity is biologically inescapable=
for
us. By contrast, relativity to era, culture, race, gender, ethnic origin, or
personal belief is not. We cannot literally transport ourselves to the past,
but we can and often do transcend the present by viewing what past architec=
ts
designed and past builders built, we read what past authors wrote, and we e=
ven
hear recordings of what past speakers said. We cannot change our ethnic ori=
gin
but we can transcend it by communicating, and often agreeing, with people o=
f a
different ethnic origin. We can do so because, since we belong to the same
species, we share roughly the same cognitive faculties. This is why relativ=
ity
to era, culture, race, gender, ethnic origin, or personal belief system is
quite unlike relativity to being human.
In the case of epistemolog=
y and
ethics, anthropocentrism faces only the paradox of implying that philosophe=
rs,
the spectators of all time and existence, engage in zoological investigatio=
ns.
In the case of metaphysics, it faces the paradox of implying that the world
itself is zoological. To avoid the former paradox, we need only redirect our
efforts in epistemology and ethics. To avoid the latter paradox, we must do
much more. We must understand the first-person pronouns, when used in the
formulation of antirealism, as impersonal and thus as not referring to huma=
ns.
This would require a radical rethinking of their role. When used in
philosophical contexts, like Cartesian doubt or the realism/antirealism deb=
ate,
which question the existence of the world itself, “I” and
“we” cannot be taken without question-begging to refer to parts=
of
that world. The rethinking of the role of these pronouns would thus require
also a radical rethinking of the distinction between oneself and the world.=
But I must conclude this
Introduction by pointing out that though much of epistemology and ethics
consists of inquiries that properly belong in the empirical sciences, not
philosophy, there is also much that does not, in particular, what I called
epistemology-as-logic and theories of goodness like Plato’s,
Aquinas’s, and Moore’s.
And while much of post-Kantian metaphysics has seemed committed to t=
he
prima facie absurd view that the world is dependent on humans, this is not =
true
of most metaphysical inquiries, especially those in pre-Kantian philosophy,=
to
which the realism/antirealism issue is irrelevant.
In this book, I mention and som=
etimes
discuss in detail the views of various philosophers, from Plato, Kant, and
Hegel to Moore, Wittgenstein, and Sartre. But no exegesis or exhaustive expos=
ition is
attempted for its own sake. Some readers may be surprised by the considerab=
le
attention accorded to Hegel, Moore, and the early Wittgenstein. But
Hegel’s insistence on the cognitive priority of society over the
individual suggests, when generalized, the needed radical rethinking of the
distinction between oneself and others. Moore’s ethics remains the mo=
dern
paradigm of nonanthropocentric ethics, and his account of the nature of con=
sciousness
is invaluable for the formulation of a defensible antirealism in metaphysic=
s.
Wittgenstein’s distinction between saying and showing provided=
a
strikingly original third alternative in the realism/antirealism debate. It=
has
not been appreciated sufficiently – perhaps because, like Hegel’=
;s
and Moore’s views, it is found “obscure” and
“difficult.”
Several chapters are relat=
ed to
previously published articles: “Metaphysical Realism and Logical
Antirealism,” in Richard Gale, ed., Guide
to Metaphysics (Blackwell, 2002); “Saying and Showing the
Good,” in Heather Dyke, ed., =
Time
and Ethics: Essays at the Intersection (Kluwer Academic Publishers, 200=
3);
“Ethics Dehumanized,” in Mark Timmons and Terry Horgan, eds., Metaethics After Moore (Oxford
University Press, 2006); “Bergmann and Wittgenstein on Generality,=
221;
Metaphysica, Vol. 7, No. 1, Apr=
il
2006; “Epistemology Dehumanized,” in Quentin Smith, ed., Epistemology: New Essays (Oxford
University Press, 2008);
“Facts,” in Stud=
ies in
the Ontology of Reinhardt Grossmann, Javier C. Arteseros (ed.), (Frankf=
urt:
Ontos Verlag, 2010); and “Generic Statements and Antirealism,” =
in Logos
& Episteme, I, 1 (2010).=
&=
nbsp; =
How can he who has magnificence of mind and is
the spectator of all time and exist=
ence,
think much
of human life? (Plato)=
=
Chapter Two: THREE VAR=
IETIES
OF EPISTEMOLOGY
=
1. Naturalistic Epistemology.
The
subject matter of both epistemology and ethics traditionally has been
considered human – the knowledge and the good, respectively, that hum=
ans,
not cetaceans or angels, seek and enjoy or lack. This, I have argued, is a mistake.=
Its
correction calls for drastic rethinking of both branches of philosophy, for
their dehumanization.
This
is more easily accomplished in the case of epistemology. Throughout its history, it has wre=
stled
mainly with issues concerning the validity of certain inferences, hardly a =
matter
to be settled by zoological considerations. In effect, epistemology has oft=
en
been a sort of logic. In this chapter I shall attempt to make clear how
epistemology as logic differs from naturalistic epistemology, which celebra=
tes
the primacy of zoological considerations, as well as from subjective,
Cartesian, epistemology, which is logically incompatible with zoological
considerations but thereby also lacks subject matter altogether. =
;
The
case for dehumanizing epistemology is better understood in the context of t=
he
important differences among the several varieties of epistemology. Fundamen=
tal
disagreements in epistemology, as elsewhere in philosophy, often arise from
differences of interest, not genuine conflict. It is because of such differ=
ences
that there are three main varieties of epistemology: naturalistic, subjecti=
ve
(or Cartesian), and what I shall call epistemology-as-logic. Naturalistic
epistemology is explicitly anthropocentric, humanized. To be consistent, subjective
epistemology cannot be anthropocentric, though its practitioners are seldom
aware that this is so. Epistemology-as-logic is as nonathropocentric as log=
ic.
All three have been with us at least since Socrates. My chief concern in th=
is
chapter will be with epistemology-as-logic, but I must begin with the first=
and
second, because they constitute standard epistemology.=
That epistemology should be naturalist=
ic may
seem obvious. Its name is a s=
ynonym
of “theory of knowledge,” the knowledge in question surely is t=
hat
of humans, and humans are parts of nature, of its fauna. Epistemology naturalized is thus epistemology humanized:=
it
is about humans. Not only does it ignore gods, angels, and extraterrestrial=
s,
it ignores also chimpanzees, whales, and bats. But thereby it also lacks the gene=
rality
and abstraction distinctive of philosophy. Humans already belong in the sub=
ject
matter of several special sciences that seek detailed information about such
traditional epistemological topics as perception, conceptualization, and
reasoning. This is why naturalistic epistemology is largely programmatic. T=
he
substantive work is done by biology and psychology. Quine, who took up the case for
“epistemology naturalized,” often mentioned the role in cogniti=
on
of what he called “surface irritations,” but wisely left the st=
udy
of those irritations to neuroscience. Naturalistic epistemolo=
gy
remains focused on human matters even when straying into talk about biologi=
cal
but nonhuman computational, hence nonbiological, states. The intrinsic interest of such sta=
tes is
indisputable, but the naturalistic epistemologist considers them mainly for=
the
light they may cast on the epistemic faculties and states of humans.
Naturalistic epistemology may be only
programmatic, but the pedigree of the program is impressive. Much of Aristotle’s epistemo=
logy
was naturalistic. When he des=
cribed
the parts and functions of the soul, he was doing nothing in principle
different from what biologists and psychologists do today. And the rational=
e of
the program of naturalistic epistemology is impeccable. Surely, human beings
are parts of nature, not heavenly spirits. But this is also why the
investigation of them and of their epistemic faculties and states belongs t=
oday
in the natural sciences and is empirical. Today, it would be strange to pro=
pose
to investigate any part of nature nonempirically, in an a priori and armcha=
ir
“philosophical” way. Even if the human epistemic faculties and
states were faculties and states of immortal souls, a genuine investigation=
of
them would be empirical. For a
human immortal soul is still the soul of a human being, a certain animal. Both Plato and Aquinas would have
agreed.
If human beings, including their epist=
emic
faculties and states, belong in the subject matter of disciplines other than
philosophy, the obvious question is what room is left for naturalistic
epistemology. We saw in the
Introduction that concern over this question may explain the shift to a
conception of philosophy as just “conceptual,” not
“factual” – neither about natural facts nor about nonnatu=
ral
facts, but about concepts or words. Hence its preoccupation with
“definitions,” “analyses,” and
“elucidations” of the “workings of our language.” But if concepts and words are in n=
ature
– presumably in human brains or languages – they, too, lie outs=
ide
philosophers’ professional competence: there is neuroscience, as well=
as
linguistics and lexicography. If
concepts are not in nature, e.g., if they are Platonic Forms, then they sho=
uld
be of no concern to an epistemology that claims to be naturalistic. The investigati=
on of
brain-states and words calls not for “definitions,” tested by
subjective “intuitions,” but for meticulous empirical descripti=
ons
and fruitful hypotheses, to be tested by standard scientific methods. The very idea of aiming at definit=
ions
of brain-states is foreign to neuroscience. It may offer some occasionally,=
but
its interest obviously is elsewhere. As to words, more than half a
century ago Wittgenstein pointed out that they are not used in accordance w=
ith
necessary and sufficient conditions, and thus their uses cann=
ot
be captured in definitions. <=
/span>
Perhaps the most familiar project in rece=
nt
epistemology was the search for a definition of knowledge, which preoccupie=
d it
from the 1960s through the 1980s. It
was born in the late 1950s, when A. J. Ayer’s Problem of Knowledge and R. M. Chisholm’s Perceiving appeared. But the proje=
ct was
out-of-date even at its birth. Thirty years earlier Wittgenstein had writte=
n:
“If I was asked what knowledge is, I would list items of
knowledge and add ‘and suchlike.’ There is no common eleme=
nt
to be found in all of them, because there isn’t one.” Linguists and lexicoghraphers of c=
ourse
agreed. A famous paper by Edmund Gettier, a stude=
nt of
Wittgenstein’s disciple Norman Malcolm, argued the point in the early
60s. But few of those who wrote the thousands of pages devoted to discussio=
n of
his paper seemed aware that, whatever its author’s intentions might h=
ave
been, it called not for greater diligence, sophistication, or imagination in
the project of defining knowledge but for its abandonment.
Epistemology is the theory of knowledg=
e, but
the word “knowledge” stands either for a disciplinary, essentia=
lly
social achievement, such as grammar (Aristotle’s favorite example), a=
stronomy,
and arithmetic, or for a personal achievement. The study of knowledge as a social
achievement belongs in the history of science and the sociology of knowledg=
e.
Investigation of it would be, of course, naturalistic, essentially historic=
al
and sociological. But epistemologists usually have been interest in knowled=
ge
only as a personal achievement.
This interest may assume one of two ve=
ry
different forms. I may ask whether, how, and what knowledge is possible for=
me
a human being, taking into account also what knowledge is possible for your=
or
Jack. If so, my epistemological endeavor would remain explicitly
anthropocentric and therefore would count as naturalistic.
It would be objective, e=
ven if
rather narrow in subject matter.
But I may ask instead whether, how, and what knowledge is possible f=
or me in abstraction from the fact th=
at I
am human and thus ignoring what knowledge is possible for your or Jack. This
would be the question that the philosophical skeptic who respects consisten=
cy
would ask, especially if it concerns the philosophical topic of knowledge of
the existence of an “external” world, things “outside,=
221;
among which would be rocks, trees, stars, but also human bodies, such as yo=
urs,
Jack’s, and mine. We may
properly describe an epistemology limited to this question and to such conc=
erns
as subjective.
&=
nbsp; &nbs=
p; &=
nbsp; 2. Subjective Epistemo=
logy
While
naturalistic epistemology lacks sufficient generality to be philosophical,
subjective epistemology initially seems to lack generality altogether. It seems to be baldly and bleakly =
about
only one person, myself, which is hardly a topic of scientific or philosoph=
ical
interest, whoever and whatever I might be.=
But it cannot presuppose, explicitly or implicitly, my humanity,
including the existence of my body, my language, and my place on earth or in
history, for then it would be naturalistic, though also rather narcissistic
one. It would not be subjecti=
ve. The subjectivity of subjective
epistemology does not consist in its being about a solitary human being.
The term “subjective” is
ambiguous. It should not be
understood as a synonym of “mental” or
“mentalistic.” If=
minds
are immaterial, your mind would be no less objective than would mine. And if I could refer to my brain o=
nly as
my brain, my brain would be som=
ething
subjective. Quine’s rej=
ection
of Cartesian epistemology on naturalistic grounds was both too narrow and t=
oo
wide. It was too narrow becau=
se
what was characteristic of Descartes’ epistemology was not its subject
matter, presumably a “thinking thing,” but the exclusive use of
first-person indexicals in its defining initial stages. In his argument “I think,
therefore I am” Descartes did not argue for the existence of Descarte=
s, a
Frenchman who of course possessed a material body even if also an immaterial
soul. To be consistent, he could only use “I,” as of course he =
did.
And one need not be naturalistically, “scientifically,” minded =
in
order to reject a theory that is dependent on the exclusive use of first-pe=
rson
indexicals. Quine’s rej=
ection
of Cartesian epistemology was also too wide because, as R. M. Chisholm poin=
ted
out, in its initial stages, including the proof of “I exist,”
Cartesian epistemology was consistent with a naturalistic, even materialist=
ontology. For all Descartes knew when statin=
g the
proof, the pronoun “I” in it might have referred to a material,=
not
a “thinking,” thing.
The truth is that, pace
Descartes and almost all other philosophers, his cogito had no ontological content at all.
Subjective epistemology is not a capri=
cious
narrowing of the subject matter of naturalistic epistemology from all human=
s to
just one. If it were, it woul=
d be
of no philosophical interest and also would not be subjective. It arose, most notably with Descar=
tes,
Berkeley, and Hume, as a distinct variety of epistemology in order to face =
the
skeptical challenge. The skep=
tic
cannot assume that he or she is human, since being human involves having a
body, which is a part of the material world the existence of which the skep=
tic
doubts. Therefore, the subjec=
tive
epistemologist also cannot make this assumption, at least when pursuing the
Cartesian project of answering the skeptic. Subjective epistemologists cann=
ot
consistently write, as the greatest of them did, books titled “An Ess=
ay
Concerning Human Understanding,” “A Treatise Concerning the
Principles of Human Knowledge,” or “A Treatise of Human
Nature.” If true to the=
ir
titles, such books would beg the question against the skeptic.
Subjective epistemology is essentially=
Cartesian,
though it was anticipated by the Greek skeptics, especially Sextus
Empiricus. Its raison d’être was the project of answering the
skeptic. Had it succeeded, its
mission would have been accomplished, and there would have been room left o=
nly
for naturalistic epistemology and epistemology-as-logic.
Naturalistic epistemology does not beg=
the
question against the skeptic by taking its subject matter to be humans beca=
use
it is not concerned with the skeptic’s question. Indeed, though a “theory of =
knowledge,”
it need have little concern with knowledge itself. It is best taken to be
concerned with cognition, as this is understood in cognitive psychology and=
the
other cognitive sciences, i.e., as the faculty the successful employment of
which leads to knowledge. That
faculty is of interest even when not employed successfully, when it leads to
false belief – sense perception, imagination, memory, and intelligence
are worthy of investigation for their own sake. For subjective epistemology, howev=
er,
only success counts, since as an attempt to answer the skeptic its concern =
is
with the veridicality of cognitive states.=
Its focus, therefore, must be on knowledge. Alleged cognitive states
such as rational, justified, probable, or warranted belief or opinion are at
best images of knowledge, and are sought only as a consolation prize. We seek them when knowledge is abs=
ent or
impossible, in the hope of finding something still worth having. Let us
consider these topics in greater detail.
As used in epistemology, “ration=
al,”
“justified,” “probable,” and “warranted”
are technical terms, often explicitly introduced as primitive, of obscure
meaning and uncertain reference.
For example, in everyday usage “justified” is a deontic
term, and thus “justified belief,” the central phrase in recent
epistemological discussion, is a solecism. Actions that are justified or
unjustified, and beliefs are not actions.&=
nbsp;
If told that the phrase stands for belief resulting from “reli=
able
processes,” this would be merely a verbal stipulation, far removed fr=
om
common usage, and appealing to yet another technical term,
“reliable,” which promptly required extensive explanation.
Indeed, even the word “belief,&#=
8221;
whether or not adorned by adjectives like“justified,” is seldom
used in epistemology with clear sense and reference. If we adopt behaviorism, belief wo=
uld be
a behavioral disposition, moreover a multi-track one, i.e., it manifests it=
self
in a great variety of events, e.g., what one says, what one does to oneself=
, or
to one’s spouse, children, colleagues, friends, or strangers, what one
buys, sells, or reads, what one eats or drinks, etc. A translation then of
“S believes that p” into logical notation would include all sor=
ts
of counterfactuals (which neither Russell nor Quine allowed) and would be so
cumbersome in other respects that no one would bother to attempt it. It
certainly would have neither the form “B(S,p)” nor the form
“B(S,x,y…, R)” where x, y, and R stand for constituents o=
f p. If we take belief to be a brain st=
ate,
process, or condition, then the translation of “S believes that pR=
21;
into logical notation would need to be provided by neurologists, though they
have little use for such a vague sentence. And if we took belief to be an
irreducibly mental state or condition, plain respect for the phenomenologic=
al
facts would tell us that beliefs are as rare as experiences of faith or str=
ong
conviction. For example, it would be absurd for me to say that I believe,
justifiedly or not, that I am typing now.&=
nbsp;
The truth is that in ordinary discourse
“S believes that p” (e.g., “S believes that Jones owns a
Ford,” when uttered as a contribution to office chatter) functions
roughly as a synonym of the colloquial “S thinks that p,” and i=
s no
more enlightening or needed in philosophy and psychology than is the latter=
. It
is not used to express religious faith or some other commitment that may ha=
ve
psychological reality and thus desrve the interest of psychology and, perha=
ps,
philosophy. To say that I am justif=
ied
in believing that I am typing now would therefore be grossly misleading.
The word “justified,” whet=
her
applied to such a phantom belief or to the sentences, statements, assertion=
s,
judgments, hypotheses, etc., supposedly expressing it, is often prefaced by=
the
adverb “epistemically.”
But this renders the use of “believe” even less clear
because the noun corresponding to that adverb in Greek is episteme and in English “knowledge,” exactly the wo=
rd
that the phrase “justified true belief” is usually intended in
current epistemology to replace.
Much the same can be said about the adjectives “rational,̶=
1;
“probable,” and “warranted.” We resort to them when
aware that we have no knowledge but also hope that we are not entirely
ignorant. But none is the nat=
ural
and traditional word for describing what we might have in such cases. It is=
the
word “evidence” that is the natural and traditional word for th=
at
– in science, courts of law, and careful everyday discourse. <=
/span>
The root of “evidence,” ho=
wever,
is the same as that of “evident.” And to be evident is to be seen or
at least to be readily visible,
whether literally or metaphorically, and therefore to be true if what is evident is a proposition or a state of affairs.
“Seeing is believing,” the saying goes, but what it usually mea=
ns
is that seeing is knowing. Hence, the traditional account of
knowledge as apprehension, intuition, awareness, or acquaintance, and the
existence of the so-called strong sense of “know,” roughly that=
of
certaionty. But for our prese=
nt
purposes it suffices that being evident entails being known in some sense of
“know,” and we can bracket the question whether being known in =
that
sense entails being evident. There is also the so-called weak sense of
“know,” roughly that of true belief that is merely
“justified,” and of course there are still other senses.=
A proposition is sometimes evident bec=
ause
it is “seen” to be true by itself, i.e., to be self-evident. More often, however, it is evident
because it not only follows but also is seen
to follow from one more other propositions that are evident. We seldom say, however, that the l=
atter
propositions are evidence<=
/span>
for the former. We seldom call the premises of a valid deductive argument
evidence for its conclusion, even if the premises are evident and the valid=
ity
of the argument is itself evident, as it would be if its form were as simpl=
e as, say, that of modus ponens. Rather, we speak of evidence when =
what
we want to know is neither self-evident nor seen to follow from anything
evident, yet we think or hope that something else “supports” the
proposition in some other manner.
J. L Austin wrote, “The situatio=
n in
which I would properly be said to have evidence for the statement that some animal is a pig =
is
that, for example, in which the beast itself is not actually on view, but I=
can
see plenty of pig-like marks on the ground outside its retreat. If I find a few buckets of pig-foo=
d,
that’s more evidence, and the noises and the smell may provide better
evidence still. But if the an=
imal
then emerges and stands there plainly in view, there is no longer any quest=
ion
of collecting evidence; its com=
ing
into view doesn't provide me with more evidence that it’s a pig, I can
now just see that it is, the question is settled.” Many might have think, however, th=
at
when the animal comes in view another event also occurs, that it becomes evident that the animal is a pig.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> They might even add that it is eve=
n self-evident, since it would not o=
we its
being evident to something else that is evident. Taken literally, of course,
the term “self-evident” is a pleonasm, as “self-seen̶=
1;
and “self-visible” would be.&n=
bsp;
But the term does serve to mark the important difference between wha=
t is
evident in virtue of being seen to be true by itself and what is evident in
virtue of being seen to follow from one or more other propositions that are
seen to be true in themselves. Even
in a modus ponens argument with
self-evident premises, the conclusion would not be evident unless seen to follow from the premises, =
i.e.,
unless the validity of the argument is self-evident. The conclusion would be evident on=
ly if
its relation to the premises were evident.
Skepticism begins by noting that usual=
ly
what we want to know is neither self-evident nor made evident by anything t=
hat
is self-evident. And subjective epistemology usually tries to avoid the
disconcerting implications of this fact by appealing to something else we h=
ope
is relevant to what we want to know.
We may call it “evidence,” although, even if itself
self-evident, it does not make what we want to know evident. This is how Austin used
“evidence” in his example.&nbs=
p;
Religion and the law are the noteworthy home of such uses of the wor=
d,
which are often exquisitely circumspect.&n=
bsp;
They are also common, even if less circumspect, in the lab and the s=
treet. The notion they express is a degen=
erate
offspring of the notion of the evident.&nb=
sp;
But, though degenerate, it is usually understandable and also harmle=
ss.
We may need to know, not merely=
believe, even in the proper sense =
of
faith, that God exists, yet we may be aware that we do not. So we look for
“evidences” of his existence. In the courtroom, a verdict of gu=
ilt
or innocence is mandatory, thou=
gh
neither guilt nor innocence is self-evident or made evident by anything tha=
t is
self-evident. So we look for something else we hope is relevant to guilt or
innocence, and call it “evidence,” whether “beyond reason=
able
doubt” or not, and whether just “circumstantial” or not. =
If we think that such degenerate evide=
nce is
“strong” enough, we may even say that we know that for which we take it to be evidence. Saying this would make explicit the
reason we appealed to it in the first place, i.e., our desire for truth, and
may seem to anoint the appeal. How
strong the evidence must be to justify the anointment, however, is never ma=
de
clear because, given the sort of reasons that lead us to employ that notion=
of
evidence, it cannot be made clear.
As cognitive beings, we seek knowledge because it is truth we want, =
not
such “evidence,” even if we were to dress it up with phrases li=
ke
“epistemic probability” and “epistemic
justification.” The ide=
a that
evidence comes in degrees and that possession of it yields an approximation=
to
knowledge, something worth having even though knowledge is absent or
impossible, may suggest to some that there can be such a thing as an
approximation also of truth. =
But
while truth may be incomplete, irrelevant, or misleading, there cannot be
two-thirds or 86% truth.
Nonetheless, though as cognitive being=
s it
is truth and therefore knowledge that we seek, we are not purely cognitive
beings. The degenerate uses of
“evidence” and “know” in religion and the courts of=
law
are defensible. They are often
needed even in the lab and the
street. To go about our business we may, perhaps must, think of certain
judgments as final, settled, ev=
en if
we soon revisit them. There a=
re
practical reasons in religion, the court of law, the lab, or the street for
resorting to a degenerate notion of evidence. But no such reasons exist in
epistemology, which is neither a religion or courtroom nor a lab or the street.=
Our concerns in it are purely cogn=
itive.
This is why the degenerate notion of evidence is not harmless in epistemolo=
gy.
It gives rise to the illusion that knowledge is relatively easy to achieve,=
or at
best that what knowledge requires is merely the limit, perhaps only ideal, =
of a
range of degrees of “evidence,” of “epistemic
probability,” or of “epistemic justification,” and that w=
hat
falls short of that limit would nonetheless suffice. But it is never made clear for wha=
t it
might “suffice,” given that it does not suffice for truth, since
practical considerations are now irrelevant. Unsurprisingly, it has not suffice=
d for
the skeptic.
In everyday life and thought, the dege=
nerate
notion of evidence provides a way of clearing our epistemic conscience. It is analogous in this respect to=
the
degenerate notion in ethics of “subjective duty,” which provide=
s a
way of clearing our moral conscience.
The weak sense of “know” is analogous to the weak sense =
of
“ought” introduced by the notion of subjective duty. If ignorant, as we often are, of o=
ur
objective duty, of what we ought to do, we may settle for our subjective du=
ty,
for doing what we think, perhap=
s just
feel, we ought to do. We may ev=
en
insist that one always ought to do what one thinks or feels one ought to do.
However, just as our real concern as cognitive beings is with truth and
therefore knowledge, our real concern as moral beings is with doing what we
really ought to do and therefore with objective duty. The weak senses of “knowR=
21;
and “ought” are natural, in view of the scarcity of cases in wh=
ich
we can use “know” and “ought” in their proper, stro=
ng
senses. There is no need for legislation against them. But we are deeply aw=
are
of the difference between the weak and the strong sense when facing importa=
nt
matters, and then we stay faithful to the strong senses. We do not say we k=
now
we will be alive tomorrow and thus that we need no life insurance today,
regardless of how healthy and safe we think or feel we are today. And we do=
not
say that our children ought to sacrifice their lives whenever they think or
feel they ought to do it.
Neither the weak nor the strong=
sense
of “knowledge” is clear. The attempts in the 1960s and 1970s to
define the weak sense were notoriously unsuccessful. A definition of the strong sense w=
as not
even attempted, perhaps because of the widespread opinion that all knowledg=
e is
fallible. Nonetheless, the
difference between, say, knowing that Jones owns a Ford and knowing that 2 =
+ 2
=3D 4 is obvious and readily
acknowledged by common sense, just as is the difference between knowing tha=
t if
one wants to be trusted one ought to tell the truth and knowing that one ou=
ght
to tell the truth. We don’t need formal definitions to see the
difference.
=
We can now understand why the strong s=
ense
of “know,” which requires that what we say we know is self-evid=
ent
or seen to follow from something self-evident, has been central in subjecti=
ve
epistemology. Self-evidence a=
nd
what it makes evident are the core of what we have in mind when seeking
knowledge about important matters.
The attraction of religion is that it promises certainty about matte=
rs
of ultimate concern, not mere probability. The attraction of subjective
epistemology is similar. Its main topic is also a matter of ultimate concer=
n,
namely, whether material things – the earth and the sun, your body and
mine – really exist. The
existence of other minds, another of its topics, is also a matter of ultima=
te
concern, though it is somewhat recherché. So are the validity of induction a=
nd the
reliability of memory. The fo=
cus on
epistemic probability or epistemic justification, rather than knowledge, ca=
me
about when it became obvious that we cannot have genuine knowledge of such
matters, yet we remain unwilling to accept skepticism. The epistemological works of Roder=
ick M.
Chisholm were influential in this shift of focus because they exemplified t=
hat
motivation especially clearly.
I have briefly dwelt on the concept of
knowledge because it plays a central role in subjective epistemology. But
Descartes’s principal question was not “What is
knowledge?” This questi=
on had
been asked before and usually answered, briefly and informally but
sufficiently, in the same way – knowledge is seeing, apprehension,
grasping, getting hold of the truth and then steadfastly holding on to it.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> The Cartesian question that inaugu=
rated
subjective epistemology was rather whether we have knowledge of anything, e=
specially
of an external material world. Cartesian
epistemology began by taking skepticism seriously, hoping to refute it. And for this reason it was essenti=
al
that it ask whether I ,
that is, to employ an indexical, the first-person pronoun “I,”
rather than a name like “Descartes” or a definite description l=
ike
“the author of the Meditation=
s.” For had it done the latter, the sk=
eptic
would have accused it it of question begging. The skeptic, who questions the exi=
stence
of the external material world, questions also the existence of human being=
s,
including Descartes or the author of the Meditations,
since they, or at least their bodies, are parts of the material world.
In the First Meditation, Descartes cou=
ld not
have used “I” to refer to the Frenchman named Descartes, since =
that
Frenchman had a body, part of the material world the existence of which
Descartes was to prove later, in the Second Meditation. In the First Meditation, where he
employed the argument “I think, therefore I am,” Descartes could
not have been referring even to the “thinking thing” that in the
Second Meditation he concluded he was, or had. He could not have said he was refe=
rring
to his thinking thing, for how =
would
he have answered the question, whic=
h
thinking thing that was, whose
thinking thing was it? Louis =
XIII
also was, or had, a thinking thing, but Descartes did not think he was prov=
ing
the existence of that thinking =
thing
and thus of Louis XIII. Nor could Descartes infer from “I think”
only “There is a thinking,” as some have suggested. Which thinking would that be?
Descartes’s or Louis XIII’s? If it is no one’s, there mig=
ht
be thousands of such orphaned thinkings. The existence of which one would
Descartes be inferring?
Epistemological ventures seldom benefit from ontological adventures.=
To confront the skeptic without beggin=
g the
question Descartes needed to begin his inquiry by renouncing claims to any
subject matter. He could refe=
r to nothing when using “I.”=
; Subjective epistemology must lay c=
laim
to no subject matter at all when facing skepticism.
Descartes probably did not see that he=
faced
these difficulties because all along he thought he was “directly
aware” of a thinking thing and its states. But even if we ignore the question=
about
which thinking thing or states =
those
were, “his” or Louis XIII’s, yet another question, also
fundamental but ignored by Descartes, can be asked. If a necessary condition of awaren=
ess is
that its object exist, then the skeptic would ask whether Descartes was really aware of a thinking thing o=
r its
states, just as the skeptic asks whether we really perceive bodies when we
think we perceive them. On the
other hand, if the existence of its object is not a necessary condition of
awareness, then the skeptic would question the cogency of any inference from
the occurrence of the awareness to the existence of the thinking thing or i=
ts
states. Descartes thought he =
might
be deceived by God or an evil demon regarding 3+2=3D5, but did not see that=
if
this is so then he might be deceived also about being aware of something, a=
bout
what he thought he was aware of, or “found,” in his mind.
This, we may note, vitiates also
Descartes’ several inferences from the existence of his idea of God to
God’s existence.
Couldn’t God, or an evil demon, deceive him into thinking that=
he
had that idea? Perhaps he did=
not
really have it. The failure t=
o see
that in this way the skeptic could question an appeal to awareness vitiates
also the familiar appeals in post-Cartesian subjective epistemology to
“intuition,” “immediate experience,” or “dire=
ct
acquaintance.” Plato pointed out the poverty of such appeals in the Theatetus, and so did Hegel,
but they remain common in philosophy.
At most the subjective epistemologist could reply that it is impossi=
ble
to be mistaken, whether due to Divine deception or not, about what one is
directly aware of, or is acquainted with.&=
nbsp;
But this would be a technical philosophical answer to a technical
philosophical question. No wonder Descartes did not appeal to it when
considering what was the first truth he could know.
While naturalistic epistemology has a
subject matter too limited to be philosophical, subjective epistemology thus
appears to have no subject matter at all.&=
nbsp;
Its raison d’êtr=
e
is to meet the challenge of skepticism. Otherwise, there would be no ration=
ale
for distinguishing it from naturalistic epistemology, albeit it could be a
naturalistic epistemology concerned, inexplicably, with just one natural
object, only one human being – oneself . To remain subjective, subjective
epistemology must refer to the “self” only by means of indexical
expressions such as “I.”
To both have a subject matter and not beg the question against the
skeptic, it must be satisfied with a subject matter that is an entity that =
can
be referred to only with indexicals like “I.” And it must allow for the possibility that only that entity
exists. But would anything be=
an
entity if it could be referred to only with an indexical, if as Frege might
have said it could present itself in only one mode and thus be referred to =
through
only one Fregean sense? To su=
ppose
that there could be thinkers who are only Is
borders on incoherence, just as to suppose that there could be times and pl=
aces
that are only nows and heres borders on incoherence. Even to say this has required use =
of the
grammatical monstrosities “I<=
/i>s,”
“nows” and “heres.”
Before his optimistic inferences to the
existence of God, Descartes seemed to have only himself, to be in a state of
absolute solitude. But in fac=
t he
did not have even himself, whether as the writer of the Meditations or just as a certain thinking thing. He had nothing. Subjective epistemology is essenti=
ally a
search for an answer to the skeptic.
It must not presuppose that the indexicals it employs have reference
because doing so would beg the question against the skeptic. It is like a geography of here or a history of now that in principle are unable t=
o say where here is or when is now.
=
;
Subjective epistemology is thus depend=
ent on
the use of “I” as a dangling pronoun, a pronoun without an ante=
cedent
noun. This is why it is often
described as epistemology from the first-person perspective. There are no such entities as first
persons, second persons, or third persons, but there are first-person,
second-person, and third-person pronouns.&=
nbsp;
The vague and much abused term “perspective” can be
misleading, but it is helpful because there are no obvious alternatives to =
the
adjective “perspectival.”
There is an alternative to the noun “perspective,” howev=
er,
which is less pretentious, namely, “view,” as long as we unders=
tand
this term not in the optical but in its ordinary broad sense. So understood, “view” =
would
be a synonym of “cognition.”&n=
bsp;
The first person, we may then say, is only a perspective in the sense that it is only a view, a cognition. It is =
in
this sense that subjective epistemology is only perspectival. There is no entity
that is just the first person, =
and so
the subject matter of subjective epistemology is not that privileged entity=
.&nbs=
p;
The first person is not a person.&nbs=
p;
There is only a view, a cognition. I shall have much more to say on t=
his
topic in chapter 11.
Nonetheless, though subjective epistem=
ology
is only perspectival and thus lacks a subject matter, the rationale for the
perspective is impeccable. Lack of subject matter does not imply
unimportance. The idea of a
geography of here or a history =
of now that are unable to say where here is or when is now does seem absurd.&=
nbsp;
But the idea of traveling somewhere without being able to say where =
or
when does not. The first-pers=
on
pronoun is indispensable, not because of what it refers to but because of t=
he
role it serves. It is essenti=
al to
all talk and thought, and thus to all inquiry. Subjective epistemology may =
be
an epistemology of pronouns without nouns, but to get nouns we must, so to
speak, begin with pronouns. Of course, it is not the word “I” t=
hat
is essential, but rather its use, to which other expressions can be put. In
some languages, first-person reference is achieved with a form of the verb,=
not
a separate word. Sometimes, ordinary nouns or other words that are destined=
to
be nouns serve the purpose of achieving it. Baby might not yet be able to s=
ay
“I cry,” Baby might just say “Baby cries,” but
“Baby” then would not function as it does in “Baby
cries” when later said by Baby about another baby.
In normal contexts, to heedfully asser=
t a
sentence p one must be willing to assert “It is true that p.” But to heedfully assert “It =
is
true that p,” one must be willing to assert “I know that p̶=
1;
(rather than the very different “I think that p” or even “=
;It
is probably true that p”).
Indeed, one must be willing to assert ‘‘I know that
p’’ in order to heedfully assert ‘‘He (she, Jack, t=
he
expert) knows that p.” I can say that Jack knows when the train will leave even if I
cannot say that I know, but I cannot say he knows that it will leave at 5 p.m. if I cannot say that I also know
this. In any inquiry, one must
begin with the first-person view, with the use, however implicit, of
“I,” even if only in judgments, implicit or not, such as
“I’ll look for it in the bush,” “I’ll ask
Jill,” or “I’ll check the dictionary.” This is a proposition neither of p=
hysics
nor of metaphysics. It’=
s like
“Every journey must begin somewhere,” not like “Every jou=
rney
must begin in Iowa City.” Yet
the proposition enjoys the abstraction characteristic of philosophy and
bequeaths it to subjective epistemology.&n=
bsp;
“I think” must be able to accompany all of our
representations, Kant held, even though, as Sartre later argued, it seldom
actually does. Russell wrote,
“When you are considering any sort of theory of knowledge, you are mo=
re
or less tied to a certain unavoidable subjectivity, because you are not
concerned simply with the question what is true of the world, but ‘Wh=
at
can I know of the world?’…You cannot go outside yourself and
consider abstractly whether the things that appear to you to be true are
true.” Russell may have been wrong in thi=
nking
that there is an “inside” to be contrasted with an
“outside,” but his grasp of the rationale for subjective episte=
mology
was firm. Unless one opens
one’s eyes and looks, one does not see. Unless there is a view, nothi=
ng
is seen.
This is why the allure of the subjecti=
ve
turn that led to Cartesian epistemology is ever-present. It would be sad if subjective epis=
temology
were all there is to epistemology, but outrageous to deny its essential pla=
ce
in thought. As a theory it is
futile and usually misguided, yet it is as indispensable and unavoidable as
one’s awareness that to get anywhere one must start somewhere and tha=
t to
see anything one must look. The mistake is to suppose that
subjective epistemology is about me=
,
even if there is such an entity as me, whether a human being or a mere thin=
king
thing. It is the mistake of
supposing that subjective epistemology has a subject matter and thus that i=
t is
a cognitive discipline, a theory of something, presumably knowledge or
cognition, when in fact it only draws attention to the necessary entry into=
any
subject matter and serves as the prelude to any discipline. Subjective epistemology must use
“I,” or a synonym of it, yet it can refer with it to nothing, neither to Descartes nor =
to a
thinking thing, not because there is nothing to refer to or because of the
ordinary semantics of “I,” but because of the very nature of its
project. That project was not a mistake. Sometimes only “I” (or=
a
synonym of it) can be used, even though its use cannot be captured by
mentioning what it refers to.
Antirealism is a metaphysical, not
epistemological, theory, but it shares with subjective epistemology the
peculiar feature we have just described.&n=
bsp;
Its thesis is that the world, at least insofar as it is perceived and
understood, depends on our powers of perception and conceptualization=
.&nbs=
p;
This
is not a zoological proposition, however, it is not about humans even though we are humans. We can now see better how <=
/span>it should be
understood. Indeed, the
proposition is
not about humans, but neither is it about nonhumans. It is not about entities at all. R=
ather,
it is about the necessary conditions of all thought, talk, and inquiry about
entities. As such, it is inti=
mately
related to subjective epistemology, as intimately as Kant’s philosophy
was related to Hume’s, and can cast further light on it. That Hume’s skepticism led to
Kant’s transcendental idealism was not just an event in Kant’s
life. It manifested a turning=
-point
in the history of philosophy, just as more than a century earlier
Descartes’ epistemology had manifested its turn to epistemology. But Hegel’s absolute idealism
manifested a third turning-point.
The subjective epistemologist makes essential use of the first-perso=
n singular pronoun, “I,”=
but
Hegel saw that it is the first-person plural
pronoun, “we,” that is essential to full-fledged cognition. The self-centered focus on the
conditions that my cognition an=
d my
heedful talk, thought, and inquiry must satisfy was broadened as well as
deepened by Hegel as a focus on the conditions that our cognition and our heedful talk, thought, and inquiry must
satisfy, somewhat as youth broadens and deepens into adulthood. Nevertheless, adulthood is not a
substitute for youth. To
heedfully assert p, one must still be willing to assert “I know that
p.” We can now see this,
however, =
as
a prelude to full-fledged cognition, not as the barrier to cognition that the subject=
ive
epistemologist feared and the skeptic exploited.
=
=
&=
nbsp; &nbs=
p; &=
nbsp; 3. Epistemology-as-Logic.
Subjective
epistemology has no subject matter.
Naturalistic epistemology does, but its subject matter is human and =
thus
lacking the abstraction and generality needed to be philosophical. The third variety of epistemology,
epistemology-as-logic, has a subject matter that exceeds the bounds of the
special sciences. Like formal
logic, it is unambiguously “dehumanized” and belongs in
philosophy. All three varieti=
es of
epistemology, however, are defensible within the limits of their very diffe=
rent
yet not incompatible concerns.
Their differences call for mindful distinctions, not mindless quarre=
l.
In the Introduction I noted that in et=
hics
some have eschewed the need for empirical investigation by taking “the
deontic way,” focusing on what we ought to or at least are morally
permitted to do. Some have ta=
ken
the deontic way also in epistemology, by focusing on what we ought to or at=
least
are justified in believing. T=
hey
have thus avoided competing with the empirical sciences. Whatever its merits in ethics, the
deontic way is natural in epistemology insofar as its concerns have to do w=
ith
the validity of certain inferences and thus are essentially logical. Logic, the “art of
reasoning,” is commonly said to tell us what may and what must not to=
be
inferred. The inferences of
interest in epistemology are seldom deductive, and for this reason the need=
for
grounding them is especially evident.
Much of epistemological research has consisted in the search for such
grounds.
Contrary to what textbooks sometimes s=
ay,
formal logic is concerned not with inferences as activities, presumably hum=
an
and thus properly studied by psychology, but with their formal validity, the
relation of the truth-value of the premises to the truth-value of the
conclusion, in particular, the formal consistency of the conjunction of the
former and the negation of the latter.&nbs=
p;
Its general subject matter thus consists of alethic relations, in the
broad and etymologically proper sense of relations between propositions with
respect to truth-value. If so=
me
propositions, or at least sentences, are neither true nor false, as a conse=
quence
of the truth-value of other propositions or sentences, this fact too would
belong in its subject matter.
Formal logic exemplifies the generality and abstraction definitory of
philosophy to the highest and purest degree. This is why Aristotle assigned
“the principles of the syllogism,” especially that of
noncontradiction, to “the science of being qua being.” This is =
why
Frege wrote, “Just as ‘beautiful’ points the way for
aesthetics and ‘good’ for ethics, so do words like
‘true’ for logic...[I]t falls to logic to discern the laws of t=
ruth...The
Bedeutung [reference, meaning] =
of the
word ‘true’ is spelled out in the laws of truth.”<=
/span> Elsewhere, Frege explained: “=
;What
is distinctive about my conception of logic is that I begin by giving pride=
of
place to the content of the word ‘true’ ....” If metaphysics is the science of b=
eing
qua being, logic may be said to be the science of being qua truth, ethics of
being qua goodness, and aesthetics of being qua beauty. Indeed, all four belonged among wh=
at the
medievals called transcendentalia.
=
Epistemology-as-logic differs from for=
mal
logic by focusing on the validity – legitimacy, cogency, worth –=
; of
certain nonformal inferences, b=
ut its
subject matter, like that of formal logic, consists of alethic relations, in
particular, the relation of the truth-value of the premises of the nonformal
inference to the truth-value of its conclusion. It enjoys the level of generality =
and
abstraction characteristic of philosophy. Like formal logic, it is concerned
not with inferences as human activities but with the alethic relations they
exemplify. Unlike subjective
epistemology, it does not lack subject matter, it is not just
perspectival. And unlike
naturalistic epistemology, which does have a subject matter, it is not just
programmatic. Of course, epis=
temology-as-logic
does apply to human matters, just as formal logic does. But it is not about them. There is nothing puzzling about th=
is. Arithmetic is applicable to humans=
, as
well as to bats and to stars, but it is not about humans nor about bats and
stars. It is about numbers. <=
/span>
In attempting to answer the skeptic,
subjective epistemology hoped to find cogent inferences, formal or nonforma=
l,
from premises it deemed known to be true, even if as minimal as “I
think.” Epistemology-as=
-logic,
however, does not ask whether the premises of such an inference are true, n=
or
does it agonize if the inference is not deductive. It is free from obsession with
skepticism, just as naturalistic epistemology enjoys such freedom. In this =
it
follows the lead of its older and more mature sibling, formal logic. In
evaluating a deductive argument, formal logic is not concerned with the tru=
th
of its premises. And, we may note in passing, it also does not fret that, e=
ven
if they are true, the formal validity of the argument might not suffice for=
the
truth of its conclusion because God might deceive us about logic just as he
might deceive us about arithmetic, a possibility Descartes did worry about.=
Epistemology-as-logic may aim at a gen=
eral
theory of the alethic relations exemplified in nonformal inferences. But it began by examining particul=
ar
kinds of such inference, just as formal logic began with the examination of
Aristotelian syllogisms and only later, mainly through Frege’s work,
offered a general theory of the alethic relations they exemplify. Inferences involving probability,
induction, and abduction are standard topics in subjective epistemology. They would also be topics in epist=
emology-as-logic,
though in abstraction from possible use against skepticism, which was the
reason for subjective epistemologists’ interest in them. Appeals to probability, of course,
failed to answer the skeptic, who either denied that mere probability suffi=
ces
(would a religious person be satisfied if told that God only probably exist=
s,
and would anyone be satisfied if told that other people only probably exist=
?),
or questioned the truth of one or more premises (does the universe really
display design? does other people’s behavior really display thought or
feeling?) Nonetheless, the ca=
lculus
of probability remains an established discipline of some distinction. Appeals to induction and abduction,
notoriously, also have failed to answer the skeptic. But they remain standard topics in=
the
philosophy of science, which seldom strays into Cartesian doubts.
Of special interest to epistemology-as=
-logic
would be relations of nonformal
entailment. That there ar=
e such
relations is usually acknowledged independently of epistemological
concerns. A standard example =
is the
entailment of being colored by being red, and anyone who, like Kant, regards
mathematical truths as necessary but “synthetic,” i.e., not
reducible to logical truths, allows also for nonformal entailments in
mathematics. Neither mathemat=
icians
nor philosophers of mathematics worry that God might be deceiving us about
3+2=3D5.
An inventory, much less detailed discu=
ssion,
of all nonformal alethic relations is neither possible nor needed here. I shall limit myself to an especia=
lly
important one: the relation of presupposition. Bringing to light and focusing on =
that
relation was the turning-point in the development of epistemology beyond its
subjective stage. If we call
subjective epistemology Cartesian, then epistemology-as-logic, insofar it
focuses on the relation of presupposition, may be called Kantian. Hence the application of Kant̵=
7;s
term “transcendental” to recent arguments from presupposition.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Instead of “presupposition&#=
8221;
Kant’s term was “condition,” and his project in the Critique of Pure Reason can be des=
cribed
as discovering the conditions that the several levels of cognition must
satisfy. But epistemology-as-=
logic
need not adopt Kant’s essentially mentalistic approach to epistemolog=
y or
any of his specific doctrines. It is not what Kant meant by transcendental
logic.
The relation of presupposition became a
major topic in 20th century philosophy because of Strawson’=
;s
criticism of Russell’s theory of descriptions. Strawson gave as examples the
presupposition of “There is a king of France” by “The kin=
g of
France is wise,” and the presupposition of “He is not dead̶=
1;
by “He cares about it.” A proposition p presupposes a
proposition q, according to Strawson, when both “If p then q” and “If not-p th=
en
q” are true, in other words, when q is a necessary condition of both =
the
truth and the falsity of p, thus of p’s being a coherent proposition =
at
all, though p does not formally entail q and not-p does not formally entail=
q. In
the example of the king of France, the presupposition manifests itself in o=
ur
dismissing as confused, not as inconsistent, both anyone who said that the =
king
of France is wise but denied that France has a king and anyone who said that
the king of France is not wise but denied that France has a king. Our judgm=
ent
of anyone who said, “He cares about it but he is dead,” would be
similar.
Presupposition is neither entailment, =
formal
or nonformal, nor a probabilistic, inductive, or abductive relation. This is why appeals to it have see=
med to
provide answers to skepticism that are entirely different from the usual an=
swers. The latter are almost certainly ei=
ther
formally invalid or contain premises the skeptic finds to be as questionabl=
e as
the conclusion. The anti-skep=
tic’s
predicament has been that to answer the skeptic one must assume more than t=
he
skeptic would allow, but if one assumes less then the answer does not
follow. In appeals to
presupposition, however, the consequence of denying the presupposed proposi=
tion
is not the falsity but the incoherence of the proposition that presupposes =
it,
whether a trifling incoherence as in the example of the king of France, or a
deep one as in the examples I shall give shortly.
Some have said that presupposition is merely a feature of language, j=
ust
“internal” or “pragmatic,” not “logical”=
; or
“semantic,” as if pervasive features of language are ever merely
features of language. Aristot=
le
defended the principle of noncontradiction not by trying to infer it from
“more certain” propositions, but by showing that it is presuppo=
sed
even by reasoning intended to cast doubt on that very same principle. Russell repeatedly pointed out tha=
t the
proposition “what follows from a true proposition is true” is
primitive and presupposed by all deductive reasoning. The complaint that presupposit=
ion
has no place in logic is not just false, it shows misunderstanding of the v=
ery
nature of logic. Of course, t=
hat
the natural sciences are rife with presuppositions has always been
evident. Physics presupposes,=
does
not discover, the existence of a spatiotemporal world. Psychiatrists presuppose, do not
discover, that it is not evil spirits that cause mental illness. The examples from Strawson that=
I
have mentioned may be of little intrinsic interest. This cannot be said of
those in his major metaphysical work, Individuals,
or his book on Kant, The Bounds of =
Sense.
Certainly, it cannot be said of the examples in Kant’s own works. Kant
defended important but controversial philosophical propositions on the grou=
nd
that they are presupposed by other propositions that are not controversial.=
A
simple example is the presupposition that the objects of sense perception
(“outer sense”) are in space. “This page is white”
would not be true if this page were not in space, but neither would “=
This
page is not white” be true if this page were not in space. Kant’s argument that morality
presupposes freedom is another, more familiar example. Freedom seems to be presupposed by=
all
genuine actions, moral, immoral, or nonmoral. It is what seems to distingui=
sh
actions from mere movements. =
A no
less famous but more difficult example is Kant’s argument that object=
ive
order in time presupposes causal necessity. It is complex and not to be dealt =
with
lightly, whether in agreement or disagreement, but we need not go into its
details to get a glimpse of it. If
we ask whether Jack met Jill before or after she moved to town, the answer
would depend in part on reasoning about when and where he could have met her. If
we ask whether Jack studied history with Jill at Yale, the answer would be =
that
he did not because he left Yale before Jill began teaching at Yale. =
When such questions and their answers really matter
(as they often do in courts of law), it would be foolhardy to rely on memory
impressions, what Kant called a subjective play of fancy. As these examples show, what is
presupposed need not be a single proposition, just as a deductive proof
ordinarily does not rest on a single premise. It might even be a system of propositions, and what presupposes it might itself be
such a system. This is why the
philosophically interesting examples of presupposition seldom have the simp=
le
structure of the examples about the present king of France and the man who =
is
dead. Here are three other
examples.
The first is a presupposition especial=
ly
relevant to traditional epistemology: the existence of a material world. It assumes many forms, and is neit=
her
simple nor obvious. In doubti=
ng the
existence of the material world, Descartes presupposed its existence by
presupposing the existence of certain of its parts. Therefore, his doubt was incoheren=
t,
like doubting that France has a king both when asserting and when that the =
king
of France is wise. As G. E. M=
oore
noted, in doubting the existence of the material world Descartes would have=
had
to doubt the existence of other philosophers, past and present, including t=
hose
he had read, heard, argued with, and whose works and views were the context=
of
his doubt, whether through agreement or disagreement. But philosophers are human beings,
therefore inhabitants, parts, of the material world. The history of philosophy is no mo=
re a
history of philosopher-angels than of philosopher-kings. Descartes could not have taken his=
doubt
seriously as a philosophical do=
ubt if
he had considered the implications of the doubt, the details about what he
doubted, what would be the case with respect to his own doubt if there were=
not
a material world. Philosophical skepticism about the material world questio=
ns
its own existence. Let me explain this further.
The philosophical context of philosoph=
ical
thinking, such as Descartes’ doubt, is essential to it, however original the thinking may be. It is essential to it even more
obviously than, as contemporary essentialists have argued, the biological
origin of an organism is essential, “metaphysically necessary,”=
to
that organism. The
“historicity” of a philosophical view is no more a contingent f=
act
than the historicity of a political event.=
Both bear necessary relations to their past. Neither Cartesian epistemology, nor
Democratic or Republican politics in the 21st century, would be
comprehensible if stripped of those relations. The skeptic therefore questi=
ons
what makes it possible for skepticism to be the philosophical view it is: i=
ts
roots in what some other philosophers have held. It would not exist if those philos=
ophers
had not existed. and thus if the material world did not exist. Descartes’ methodological do=
ubt
would not have occurred if the proposition the truth of which he doubted had
not been true.
Indeed, the very language in which Des=
cartes
developed and explained his doubt would not have existed. Surely, employment of language is
essential to philosophical thought, even if rudimentary thoughts are possib=
le
without language. Philosophic=
al
thought, whether superior or mediocre, involves argumentation, good or bad,
which has a fairly complex structure, distinct premises and conclusions, ea=
ch
with its own structure, and logical connections rooted directly or indirect=
ly
in that structure. The terms =
employed
in the argumentation are chosen, usually with deliberation and discretion, =
from
a fairly extensive and often highly technical lexicon. But any language actually employed=
in
philosophy, say, Descartes’ French or Latin, involves phonemes and in=
scriptions,
and has been shaped by a human community.&=
nbsp;
All three – phonemes, inscriptions, and the human community
– are parts of the material world.
Could the argumentation be stated and
explained in a private language=
, at
least in the minimal, not necessarily Wittgenstein’s, sense of a lang=
uage
created by the philosopher alone without reliance (as in devising a secret
code) on a public language? S=
urely
such a private language, even if possible, would be too primitive for
epistemology and philosophy generally.&nbs=
p;
The reader is invited to attempt constructing a fragment of the lang=
uage
and then translating into it a page from Descartes’ Meditations. Writing philosophy is not like recording one’=
;s
sensations. A private language for the latter might be possible, perhaps
invented by hypochondriacs, but to say that the sort of rich and sophistica=
ted
language that the philosophical skeptic’s argument requires could be =
such
as language would be mere posturing. Might the argument take place just in =
the
skeptic’s thought, without use of language, public or private? Even if
some thought without language, e.g., recalling an unusual sensation, were
possible, to suppose that philosophical thought might be such thought would=
be
like supposing that we can understand differential equations, or what it is=
for
a car to travel at 59, rather than 58, miles an hour, without using
symbols. The skepticism consi=
dered
in Descartes’ first meditation was not a tipsy sailor’s
declaration, “Maybe I know nothing.” It was a professional, serious and
informed, philosophical view. This
is why we still take it seriously.
Of course, that philosophical skepticism about the material world
questions its own existence does not entail that it is false. It does not make it
self-contradictory. But it do=
es
make it deeply incoherent. If=
the
material world did not exist, then philosophical skepticism about it would =
not
exist.
My second example of philosophically
interesting presupposition is
Sartre’s strikingly ori=
ginal
defense of the existence of other minds.&n=
bsp;
One’s acceptance of the “Other” is not discursive,=
he
pointed out. It is presuppose=
d by
various psychological states of oneself, it is essential to them. Sartre dwelt at length on the expe=
rience
of shame, say, when looking through a keyhole. It is “an immediate shudder =
that
runs through me from head to foot without any discursive
preparation.” But it is
“shame of oneself before the =
Other,”
even if I know that no one is actually looking at me. To say that what is presupposed he=
re is
only the possibility of being t=
he
object of another’s look would be to deny that the experience is genu=
ine
shame. There is that possibil=
ity
almost always, At any rate, the interesting sort of skepticism about the
existence of other minds, which is not just a trivial consequence of skepti=
cism
about the existence of other human bodies, questions even its possibility.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> It questions the very intelligibil=
ity of
there being anyone “other than myself.” It resembles the sort of skepticism
about the existence of bodies that denies, as Berkeley did, that we can even
“conceive” of unperceived bodies.
My third example of presupposition bel=
ongs
to an even deeper level. We m=
ay
call it conceptual presupposition.
What is presupposed is a particular understanding of a certain conce=
pt,
not some proposition. All dis=
cussions,
skeptical and anti-skeptical, of the existence of bodies, other minds, the
past, etc., presuppose a particular understanding of the concept of existence. Therefore, to ask whether bodies e=
xist
presupposes some answer to the question of what it is for a body to exist, =
and
ultimately of what it is for something to exist. Is existence a property? If it is not, then what are skepti=
cism
and anti-skepticism about? Would it be intelligible to speak =
of the
truth or falsity of any sentences asserting or denying existence, and thus =
of
knowledge or ignorance of their truth?&nbs=
p;
Would such sentences express genuine propositions?
Standard epistemology, whether natural=
istic
or subjective, provides little guidance on these questions. It usually takes for granted Kant&=
#8217;s
view that existence is not a real
predicate, meaning that it is not a property, a “determination,”=
; of
a thing, res, but fails to cons=
ider
the epistemological implications of the view. Kant wrote that the existence of a=
thing
has to do “only with the question whether [the] thing is given to us =
in
such a way that the perception of it could in any case precede the
concept.” This was not Berkeley’s R=
20;to
be is to be perceived.” Nor
was it Mill’s “matter is a permanent possibility of
sensations,” though it resembled it.=
Kant held that to be actual (wirklich)
a thing must “stand…in accordance with the laws of empirical
progression.”