Abstract
As has been seen in the previous chapter (section 1.3), many of those who attempt to dethrone the critical tradition do so by rejecting the very idea of knowledge and of scientific knowledge based in method. Further attempts by sociologists of scientific knowledge, Foucault and Nietzsche along these lines are critically reviewed in Parts II to IV. In contrast, in this chapter and the next the task is more positive. They sketch some of the expectations we have concerning theories of knowledge and method, and how we might defend certain conceptions of these against attacks mounted upon them. This chapter outlines some of the issues that arise in epistemology in an attempt to spell out a satisfactory conception of knowledge, and its impact on various conceptions of scientific knowledge. As will be seen subsequently, some of the dethroners of our critical tradition have given up on the goal of knowledge and have either embraced scepticism about our ever knowing anything, or have fallen into an easy relativism.
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Notes
Though there is a suggestion of a theory of knowledge as justified true belief in the Meno, in the much later Theaetetus Plato refines what he means by this and raises difficulties for any justification understood as an account (logos) of the true belief where the account can be interpreted as empirical foundations for knowledge (Theaetetus 201C-210D). The justified-true-belief theory of knowledge is no longer accepted largely because of Gettier’s counterexamples to it, first published in 1963. The literature that has flowed from them is reviewed in Shope (1983), particularly in chapter 1. This is not considered here.
In his 1929 paper ‘General Propositions and Causality’ (Ramsey (1990), p. 146) Ramsey says; A belief … is a map of neighbouring space by which we steer’. Ramsey’s view is usefully developed in Armstrong (1973), especially chapter 1. I follow both here in the general understanding of what a belief is.
Following the standard usage of logicians, letters such as ‘p’, ‘q’, etc, will be used to stand for propositions, statements or sentences (no distinction need be drawn between these here). For the various places where Moore discusses his ‘paradox’ and responses by commentators, see Hintikka (1962), chapter 4.5, especially p. 64.
Some see in the passages cited above from the Meno an embryonic account of a reliabilist theory of knowledge, e.g., Armstrong (1973), p. 159. A case can be made for theories of knowledge from Aristotle to Descartes being externalist and having elements of reliabilism about them. And even Descartes can be viewed as a reliabilist, albeit a supernatural reliabilist, since God is not a deceiver. In the history of epistemology only in the last few centuries have internalist accounts of knowledge been in the ascendancy.
Standard commentaries on Meno 98A such as Bluck (1961), pp. 412-3, suggest a range of possible ways in which aitias logismos can be understood. See also Nehamas, ‘Meno’s Paradox and Socrates as Teacher’ in Day (ed.) (1994), especially Part V, pp. 240-5.
For an account of Gettier’s objection to knowledge as justified true belief, see Gettier (1963) and the many theories of knowledge that have been developed in response to it discussed in Shope (1983). For both Gettier’s and Agrippa’s objections to epistemology see Fogelin (1994), Part I and Part II, and M. Williams (2001), chapter 5.
For a brief discussion of Agrippa’s problems for knowledge and the way it has resurfaced in modern epistemology see Fogelin (1994), chapter 6. See also Armstrong (1973) chapter 11 for another display of how Agrippa’s problem can resurface unknowingly in discussions of the infinite regress of reasons that arises for the justification or evidence condition for knowledge. Aspects of Agrippa’s problem also lie behind Popper’s discussion of what he calls ‘Fries’ Trilemma’ in chapter V of Popper (1959). See also M. Williams (2001), chapter 5.
That a true belief that p is not knowledge that p is the import of Plato’s Meno, as we have seen, and Theaetetus 187A-201C. Most epistemology textbooks reiterate these points.
Some of the differences are noted in M. Williams (2001), particularly chapters 13 and 16.
Of the many critiques of such foundationalism in incorrigible belief see Armstrong (1968), chapter 6 section X), and in a different vein Sellars (1963) chapters 1 to 4 and his criticism of what he calls ‘the myth of the given’.
A succinct presentation of this programme in epistemology is given in ‘Epistemology Naturalized’ in Quine (1969), pp. 71-9.
My views in this and subsection have been influenced by David Papineau ‘Does the Sociology of Science Discredit Science?’ in Nola (ed.) (1988).
Descartes’ ethics of belief is set out in the fourth of his Meditations. For an excellent account of the requirements of an ethic of belief in Descartes and Locke, and Hume’s opposed view, see Wolterstorff (1996).
For a range of theories which make a response to the regress problem for knowledge and which rival the foundationalist model set out in the text, see the diagram in Armstrong (1973), p. 160.
In a 1967 paper entitled ‘A Causal Theory of Knowing’ (reprinted in Goldman (1992), chapter 4) we find a version of the causal theory set out as follows: ‘A knows that p if and only if the fact that p is causally connected in an “appropriate” way with A’s believing p’ (ibid., p. 80). In the paper more is said about causal chains and when they are appropriate.
See the 1979 paper ‘What is Justified Belief?’ reprinted in Goldman (1992) as chapter 6. The notion Goldman defines is justified belief rather than knowledge, though the kind of justification so defined is a necessary condition for knowledge. The attempt to define ‘justifies’ in non-normative terms is set out in ibid., section I, pp. 107-12. Much of this section is indebted to Goldman’s account of reliabilism set out in his 1979 paper, and further developed in Goldman (1986), Part I, especially chapters 1 and 3. The paper ‘Epistemic Folkways and Scientific Knowledge’ (Goldman (1992), chapter 9) develops reliabilism in the direction of a theory about beliefs obtained through the exercise of intellectual virtues.
The power of our BFPs is discussed in Goldman (1986) section 1.4 and chapter 6.
See Lewis (1986a) section 2.5, and the discussion of induction in deceptive and undeceptive worlds. Note that reliabilism can be employed to give a justification for induction; see, for example, the arguments in Papineau (1993), chapter 5 especially sections 5.9 to 5.15.
One classic work which shows how unreliable we are as reasoners, especially in the case of probabilistic inference, see Kahneman, Slovic and Tversky (eds.) (1982). For a recent survey of literature in the area see Samuels, Stich and Tremoulet (1999).
The example is taken from Leaky (1981), p. 39 where he describes the extraordinary skill of those in his various expeditions, such as Kamoya Kimeu, who could visually sight fossils (as distinct from other rocks) from a considerable distance and then say from what part of what animal they came.
See ‘Insights and Blindspots of Reliabilism’ in Brandom (2000), chapter 3, especially part II. This section (and others) is indebted to Brandom’s discussion of reliabilism, some of the difficulties it faces and their resolution.
The response given above concerning the nervous reliabilist is, hopefully, consistent with that found in Brandom (2000), chapter 3, part II, and Papineau (1993), chapter 5.4. Brandom does endorse the kind of response given in the text only for cases of local nervousness of some believers but not for global nervousness for all believers. For his solution to the problems raised by this, which ultimately appeal to a modified reliabilism, see Brandom (2000), chapter 3 parts III to VI.
For philosophical works which attempt to clear up the non-objectivism and relativism that arises out of so much talk about social constructivism, see at least Devitt (1991) chapter 13, Hacking(1999), Kukla (2000) and Searle (1995).
The following, along with related points, has been influenced by the papers, collected in Schmitt (ed.) (1994), by Gilbert ‘Remarks on Collective Belief’ (pp. 235-256) and Schmitt ‘The Justification of Group Belief’ (pp. 257-87). Though their examples are developed for the case of belief, they apply equally well to knowledge. A much more thoroughgoing analysis of these issues can be found in Gilbert (1989), chapter 5.
The debate about a social condition on knowing is an old one within epistemology that predates more recent attempts to found a social epistemology. Sosa’s social account of knowledge appeared first in a 1964 paper and is further developed in a 1974 paper (from which the quotation above is taken). These papers are reprinted as chapters 1 and 2 of Sosa (1991) from which citations are made. The assassination example cited by Sosa is given in Harman (1968), section VIII, and is used in support of the view that definitions of knowledge do need some social condition. A not unrelated role for social aspects of knowing can be found in Shope (1983), especially in chapter 7 section 5 ‘Rationality, Science and Social Aspects of Knowledge’ pp. 222-235. Shope takes on board Sosa’s points about knowledge being relative to epistemic communities to solve, in a different way, some of the objections made to common definitions of knowledge based upon some well known counterexample, such as the one cited.
Communist leaders, it is often alleged, were replaced by doubles on many occasions. There is also a film by Kurosawa, Kagemusha, which is based on an historical incident in which a warlord who has been killed is replaced by a double so that the dead leader’s regime may continue in its confrontation against its enemies.
For a brief historical sketch of the claims and counterclaims concerning social epistemology, especially in respect of testimony, from Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Reid, Hume and others, see the introductory essay to Schmitt (ed.) (1994), pp. 1-27 and the bibliography under ‘Historical Sources’ pp. 289-91. See also Coady (1992).
This view of Reid is mentioned in Sosa (1991), p. 220, in a chapter 12 entitled ‘Testimony and Coherence’.
The collected papers in Schmitt (ed.) (1994) with its extensive bibliography is one source of recent philosophical work on the social in epistemology. Another recent work is Goldman (1999) on testimony, the sociality of science, law and education, and so on. However for radical advocates of SSK these works would be regarded as adopting a rather conservative approach to the whole matter.
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Nola, R. (2003). The Problem of Knowledge. In: Rescuing Reason. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 230. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0289-9_3
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