Abstract
In light of the findings of earlier chapters that anti-sceptical responses to epistemic relativism are unsuccessful, this chapter outlines other strategies of addressing the threat of relativism. Following Boghossian, Seidel attacks the relativist’s doctrine of epistemic pluralism. In doing so, he engages in a foundational analysis into the relations of justificational dependence between epistemic methods. This chapter argues that this is the wrong tool for the job; instead, epistemic relativism should be addressed by analyses that uncover relations of presuppositional dependence. Using this tool, we find that non-naturalistic methods depend on basic naturalistic methods for their application, and therefore, the former can be no more truth-conducive than the latter. We also find that the basic empirical and non-empirical methods that naturalists use depend on one another for their application, such that neither can be more truth-conducive than the other. Together, these findings constitute definitive grounds in favour of the absolutist and naturalist presumptions, though they do nothing to address the threat of Pyrrhonian scepticism.
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Notes
- 1.
Everything Boghossian says about Bellarmine is applicable to the more dogmatic Papal Qualifiers who should be his critical target—see Sect. 2.3.b.
- 2.
Here, as elsewhere, I make no distinction between epistemic methods and norms.
- 3.
- 4.
There are also relations of weak dependence between propositions and methods, as is the case with Wittgenstein’s hinge propositions. An epistemic method weakly depends on a proposition when the method cannot be competently used to yield results unless we presuppose that the proposition is true. So, for example, Wittgenstein argues that Moore cannot competently use his perceptions to justify beliefs about the external world unless he recognizes that he has two hands.
- 5.
The other necessary conditions on phenomenal objects are presented in the Analytic of Principles.
- 6.
This follows from Quine’s ‘maxim of minimum mutilation’ (Quine 1970, 7).
- 7.
Friedman appreciates this problem and its significance: “What is controversial, rather, is the further idea that the scientific enterprise thereby counts as a privileged model or exemplar of rational knowledge of – rational inquiry into – nature” (ibid., 53). However, he does not clearly distinguish this problem from the problem of scientific rationality, and therefore, he does not address the fact that his answer to the latter problem is not an answer to the former problem.
- 8.
The qualifier ‘generally’ is important here. We can argue that perception is unreliable under certain circumstances on the basis of its poor past performance in those circumstances, but this is because we can arrive at this knowledge in more favourable conditions. For example, we can determine that our vision in dense fog is unreliable by comparing it with our vision in fair weather. One cannot argue that perception is unreliable under all conditions because the argument must appeal to perceptions made in some circumstances. The negative arguments ruled out by the no doubt constraint , then, are those that seek to establish unconditional claims about the unreliability of a method.
- 9.
More specifically, because Bellarmine is not making an unconditional claim about the unreliability of Galileo’s naturalistic methods, he cannot be accused of violating the no doubt constraint (see n. 8 above).
- 10.
Here I should make an important distinction between a source of information and our use of a source. Biblical scripture is a source of information, but it must be used—read, recalled, and interpreted—in order to justify beliefs. When I talk about epistemic methods, and their truth-conduciveness, I am talking about their use, not about the sources themselves. So, as I explain in the coming paragraphs, our use of scripture to generate and justify beliefs can be no more truth-conducive than the methods that we rely on in the process, regardless of the accuracy of what the Bible actually says. I am indebted to Emerson Doyle for encouraging me to make this distinction explicit.
- 11.
It can, however, be used to rationally resolve Galileo’s disagreement with the Papal Qualifiers who were less sophisticated and scientifically literate than Cardinal Bellarmine—see Chapter 2.
- 12.
See Lynch (2010).
- 13.
Of course, some creationists claim to do so, but such objections quickly prove to be naive and ill informed.
- 14.
This assumes that conditions (i) (ii), and (iii) do not obtain. I see no reason to think that they do.
- 15.
As such, I agree with Sankey ’s naturalistic particularism as a way of evaluating rival epistemic systems , but I’ve given it a non-question begging rationale that he does not.
- 16.
On this point, see Kusch (2017, 4699).
- 17.
“All alterations take place in conformity with the law of the connection of cause and effect” (B232).
- 18.
Frege then draws the further rationalist conclusion, on which I reserve judgement, that arithmetic must be justified non-empirically, and proceeds to mount the case for his central thesis that its justification must come from logic alone.
- 19.
Gupta calls this the multiple-factorizability of experience (ibid., §1B).
- 20.
Gupta claims that views that fail to converge in this way, such as scepticism and solipsism, are inadmissible for straightforwardly demonstrable reasons (ibid., §§5E and 6A).
- 21.
This reason, however, will be plausible only to those who already accept the main tenets of empiricism. Radical rationalists and fundamentalist theologians will disagree, since they do not regard experience as a basic source of information.
- 22.
This is persuasively argued for in Ray (2012).
- 23.
- 24.
- 25.
On this point, Descartes is right and the empiricists are wrong; not every meaningful concept has a corresponding sensory impression (see Sect. 2.3.a).
- 26.
Consider, for example, Sosa’s account of animal knowledge , according to which my dog knows that he’s going to be fed as long as his belief was produced by a reliable cognitive faculty (see Sect. 5.1). My dog can possess this knowledge in the absence of a theory or concept of justification.
- 27.
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Bland, S. (2018). A Dialectical Strategy. In: Epistemic Relativism and Scepticism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94673-3_9
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