Abstract
When we evaluate the outcomes of investigative actions as justified or unjustified, good or bad, rational or irrational, we make, in a broad sense of the term, evaluative judgments about them. We look at operational accuracy as a desirable and evaluable quality of the outcomes and explore how the concepts of accuracy and precision, on the basis of insights borrowed from pragmatics and measurement theory, can be seen to do useful work in epistemology. Operational accuracy (but not metaphysical accuracy!) focuses on how a statement fits an explicit or implicit standard set by participants involved in a shared project. While truth can remain a thin semantic property of propositions, operational accuracy, as a quality of an outcome of inquiry and typically attached to a statement, a model, a diagram or a representation is an evaluation based on the non-epistemic goals set by the goal of inquiry (which every inquiry has), and a substantial evaluative notion. The goals, often made explicit by relevant questions in a context of inquiry, act as a filter, with truths a reliable epistemic method has access to functioning as input, and accurate representations as its output. Responsible inquiry seeks pragmatic equilibrium between what reliable knowledge on the one hand and degrees of accuracy required by the goal of inquiry.
The goal of inquiry is substantial, significant, illuminating truth.
(Haack 1994, p. 203)
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Notes
- 1.
We would like to thank Marcel Boumans, Carlo Martini, Chris Kelp and participants at the Bayreuth Conference for valuable suggestions.
- 2.
The as such/not for its own sake- qualification precludes the reduction of truth to some other value (the value we attach to the sake itself).
- 3.
Ernest Sosa holds that belief aims at truth and that we want correct answers (Sosa 2011, p. 56).
- 4.
If, as Grimm (2008) points out, “we think that pursuing the truth is intrinsically valuable, then why are we unapologetically indifferent to so many truths? If you propose an evening memorizing the phone book for Topeka, Kansas and I decline, have I really missed an opportunity to enrich myself, from an epistemic point of view? If the truth is always intrinsically worth pursuing, then it seems that I have. And yet that conclusion seems ridiculous” (Grimm 2008, pp. 725–26). Talk of pursuing the truth is highly misleading, as Hookway (2007) points out: “We seek answers to our questions which are relevant, illuminating and useful, so truth is, at most, one among a set of standards that we use in evaluating inquiries” (Hookway 2007, p. 2).
- 5.
Minimalists can hold that the descriptive element in the concept of accuracy is simply truth; a theory of what counts as accurate explores the evaluative aspect of accuracy. The extension of a thick concept cannot be determined without sharing or imaginatively entering the insider’s evaluative point of view. The insider’s point of view in the case of accuracy is recognition of the project one needs accurate information for.
- 6.
According to G.L. Hallett, “[i]t is in general desirable for tables, maps, statistics and descriptions to be accurate, as it is for statements to be true. Accuracy is usually a virtue, as truth is, and to say that something is accurate is generally to praise it” (Hallett 1988, p. 83).
- 7.
- 8.
An error theory about flatness was famously developed in Unger (1975).
- 9.
Teller (2009) connects precision, accuracy and truth as follows: “The way we talk, and even more strikingly, the way we think about our subject matters, all seems to operate in terms of determinate truths, unqualified in any way by either imprecision or inaccuracy. How can this be if, as I claim, inexactness is ubiquitous?” (Teller 2009, p. 15). See http://maleficent.ucdavis.edu:8080/paul/manuscripts-and-talks/T-F%20In%20Science (consulted July 2013). In the same paper, Teller holds that “A representation is inaccurate insofar as there are discrepancies between the representation’s target and the way the representation represents the target as being. If the true value of a quantity is 6, characterizing that value as 5.9 is precise, but inaccurate” (Teller 2009, p. 2). If (public) representations are seen as models, it should be obvious (hence not a disqualifying feature) that they will be imprecise, incomplete, not without assumptions, etc. Is the well-known model of London’s subway map accurate? Yes – for the purposes of the visitor.
- 10.
Braun and Sider (2007) defend an error theory about truth: “Truth is an impossible standard that we never achieve. […] (I)t would be pointlessly fussy to enforce this standard to the letter, requiring the (exact) truth, … nor would it be desirable to try, for the difference between the legitimate disambiguations of our sentences are rarely significant to us” (Braun and Sider 2006, p. 135).
- 11.
Tal’s definitions are inspired by the International Vocabulary of Metrology (VIM).
- 12.
Another argument against a purely veritistic characterization of experts is that, paradoxically, laymen run a lesser risk of having false beliefs because they have fewer beliefs about a domain or subject matter.
- 13.
Pragmatists would define the true answer with the one that satisfies our non-epistemic purposes. This cannot be correct, for false beliefs also help us realize extra-epistemic goals. There are useful falsehoods and useless truths.
- 14.
See Hempel 1965, p. 333 for a defense of a purely intellectual interest in truth.
- 15.
J.L. Austin famously held that “true” and “false” indicate “a general dimension of being a right or proper thing to say, as opposed to a wrong thing, in these circumstances” (Austin 1962, p. 145).
- 16.
Frege held that “[t]ruth is not a quality that corresponds with a particular kind of sense-impression…. That the sun has risen is seen to be true on the basis of sense-impressions. But being true is not a material, perceptible property” (Frege 1918/1999, p. 88).
- 17.
“In principle”, because we may not yet have designed or developed the instruments or measurement tools that yield results accurate enough for our purposes, and it may be impossible to design tools that will work sufficiently accurately to realize our non-epistemic goals. Thanks to Chris Kelp for help here.
- 18.
It is impossible to make a perfectly precise measurement (see footnote 3).
- 19.
Repeatability and reproducibility can be given an intra-world reading or an inter-world reading.
- 20.
Goldman (1986, p. 98) holds that “truth acquisition is often desired for its own sake, not for ulterior ends”. But we are not interested in every truth: it is a subject matter that elicits curiosity but even then only accurate truths will interest us.
- 21.
When stakes are high or become more complex, negotiating the relevant standards will take on a more formal character. Standardization has become a thriving industry.
- 22.
Reliability looks at the informant’s competence to provide true information in a range of possible worlds, one of which is the actual one.
- 23.
A good informant is not just someone who is sufficiently likely to be right about the issue (as Craig suggests) but also sufficiently accurate. Indicator properties of good informants need to indicate not just reliability but also their accuracy.
- 24.
Goldman (2009) seems to identify both values when he describes Sosa’s view: “Like an archer’s shot at a target, a belief can be accurate, it can manifest epistemic virtue or competent (roughly, reliability).” See http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reliabilism/ (last consulted March 1, 2011).
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Buekens, F., Truyen, F. (2014). The Truth About Accuracy. In: Martini, C., Boumans, M. (eds) Experts and Consensus in Social Science. Ethical Economy, vol 50. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08551-7_11
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