Abstract
We propound in this paper a Long Run Consistency Theory according to which the long run ostensible consistency of the system of beliefs of a rational cognitive agent constitutes the ultimate truth conducive standard of (epistemic) justification, as well as the criterion of empirical knowledge.
I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Ernest Sosa, Prof. Douglas Huff, Ali Karatay and David Grünberg for various helpful criticisms and valuable suggestions.
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Notes
Cf. K. Lehrer, `Self-Profile’ in R. Bogdan (ed.), Keith Lehrer (Reidel Pub. Co., 1981), p. 79–80. We adopt Lehrer’s distinction between acceptance and believing,but we use `belief’ both for an accepted proposition as well as for a believed one.
The first kind of beliefs are object-level or first-order beliefs, whereas the second kind of beliefs are metabeliefs or `epistemic beliefs’. Cf. M. Williams, `Coherence, Justification, and Truth’, Review of Metaphysics 34 (1980), p. 248. In so far that the system of beliefs includes metabeliefs (i.e., beliefs about beliefs) it is `perspectival’ in the sense of E. Sosa, `The Coherence of Virtue and the Virtue of Coherence: Justification in Epistemology’, Synthese 64 (1985). The methodological rules of acceptance are referring to concrete psychological processes as well as to abstract methods. These rules constitute a regulative normative scheme in the sense of A.I. Goldman, Epistemology and Cognition (Harvard U.P., 1986), p. 26.
Our conception of the cognitive accessibility to beliefs, in contradistinction to the opposite conception in L. BonJour, The Structure of Empirical Knowledge (Harvard U.P., 1985), pp. 101–106 does not give rise to regress or circularity, and therefore, does not need recourse to the `doxastic presumption’.
A time t refers here to a finite period of time which is so short that the agent cannot change his beliefs during the whole of the period. The set of all beliefs which are accepted by the agent during the time period t constitutes the state of Sa at t,or Sa,t for short. A recognized contradiction at time t pertains to the state S. Note that `recognized’ means here detected by, and therefore, cognitively accessible to, the agent a. Cf. G. Harman, Change in View (MIT Press, 1986), p. 18. It seems reasonable to admit that the presence of a recognized contradiction between a pair of beliefs in S a ,t presupposes that Sa,t contains the agent’s metabelief in the existence of the contradiction which he recognizes between the given beliefs. Then we can say that the agent has also a metabelief to the effect that he accepts the pair of beliefs in question. But, as indicated in n. 3 above, this is not the case for all beliefs belonging to S.,t.
A rational agent a may tolerate the presence in Sa,t of some recognized contradictions provided that they are indeed isolated in the sense that only a very small part of Sa,t is inconsistent, the remaining large part being free of recognized contradictions. Cf. E. Sosa, op.cit.,p. 16. In such a case the agent should infer new propositions only from premises which do not involve a recognized contradiction, or else to replace classical logic by paraconsistent logic. Note that our notion of “recognized approximate consistency” is a comparative concept.
Cf. Harman’s metaprinciple of `Clutter Avoidance’ according to which the principles of belief revision “must be such that they discourage a person from cluttering up either long-term memory or short-term processing capacity with trivialities” in G. Harman, op. cit.,pp. 12–15.
Our Principle of Expansion (1) implies as a special case Harman’s `Principle of Conservatism’ in G. Harman, op. cit.,p. 46. It follows also from (1) that the SOL-consistency of the system of beliefs of a rational cognitive agent at a given time t is Stable in the sense that up to time t the former states of the system are included, for the most part, in the next states.
For the notions of `expansion’ and `contraction’, see I. Levi, The Enterprise of Knowledge (MIT Press, 1980), pp. 34–73; and P. Gärdenfors, Knowledge in Flux (MIT Press, 1988), pp. 47–74. Our (2) is analogous to the `Principle of Positive Undermining’, in G. Harman, op. cit.,p. 39.
Experiential beliefs are analogous to the `cognitively spontaneous beliefs’ in L. BonJour, op. cit.,p. 117. Both experiential beliefs and those acquired via testimony give rise to what is called `routine expansion’ in L. Levi, op. cit.,35–41. Levi notes that “routine expansion is capable of injecting contradiction into a [system of beliefs]”, ibid.,p. 41. The openness to testimony of others has cardinal importance. Indeed such an openness may contribute (through communication, learning and consensus) to expand ultimately the system of beliefs of any rational agent to such a degree as to identify it virtually with the consensual system of beliefs of Humanity as a whole.
The first type of rules are called `generation principles’ and the second type ‘transmission principles’ in J.Van Cleve, `Epistemic Supervenience and the Circle of Beliefs’, The Monist 68 (1988), p. 100. Also see M. Williams, op. cit.,p. 249.
For the distinction of local and global justification, see I. Levi, Gambling with Truth,A. A. Knopf, 1976, pp. 3–6; and L. BonJour, op. cit.,pp. 91–93.
Our PLOC is analogous to BonJour’s thesis MJ in L. BonJour, op. cit., pp. 1701. However, the two theses differ with respect to three points. First, PLOC involves mere logical consistency in place of BonJour’s complicated coherence. Second, PLOC requires only ostensible consistency, whereas BonJour postulates the cognitive accessibility of coherence by his “doxastic presumption”. Third, PLOC requires only the rationality of the cognitive agent, and a condition analogous to BonJour’s observation requirement is derived from this rationality, whereas BonJour postulates directly the “observation requirement”.
We may construe `truthfulness’ or `approximate truth’ as referring not only to the actual world but to all cognitively relevant alternatives. Then the probabilistic implication used in PLOC would involve a propensity, or modal frequency, interpretation of probability based on the cognitively relevant alternatives to the actual world. Hence our cognitively relevant alternatives would be analogous to the set of possible worlds, very close to the actual one, used by Goldman for assessing the reliability of a system of justificational rules. See A.I. Goldman, `Strong and Weak Justification’, in Philosophical Perspectives, 2 Epistemology 1988,ed. J.F. Tomberlin (Ridgeway Pub. Co., 1988) p. 63.
The standards of justification (3) and (5) are both `regulative’ (in so far that they may be used by the agent for regulating his cognitive behavior) and `nonregulative’ (when used by the agent for assessing objectively the reliability of his methodological rules of acceptance), Cf. n. 2 above.
The justification of (3), (4), (5) and of the assumption that our system of beliefs has presently LOA-consistency presupposes the identification of our system of beliefs with the system S of a rational cognitive agent a which has LOA-consistency at the present time t. Now the above-mentioned four propositions are referring to the system of beliefs of any rational cognitive agent, hence to S too, but as the result of their justification, these propositions will be accepted by S. Hence S construed as the set of all beliefs belonging to S at some moment of time will have elements referring to S itself. Furthermore a belief may be represented by a set theoretical construct involving as constituents the entities referred to by the belief. Hence the set S violates the axiom of foundation, it is indeed not an ordinary set, but rather a so-called `hyperset’ satisfying the antifoundation axiom AFA. Cf. P. Aczel, Non-Well Founded Sets, CSLI, 1988. Hypersets are used in `Situation Semantics’ for the purpose of allowing the existence of self-referring beliefs. Cf. J. Barwise and J. Etchemendy. The Liar: An Essay on Truth and Circularity (Oxford U.P., 1988) and J. Barwise, The Situation in Logic ( CSLI, 1989 ). It seems that consistency, and more generally, coherence theories of justification, may considerably benefit from recourse to situation semantics.
This first argument is analogous to BonJour’s metajustificatory argument in L. BonJour, op. cit.,pp. 171–188.
Analogous views are maintained in F. H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality,2nd ed. (Oxford U. P., 1897 (1969)), p. 113; E.B. Holt and al., The New Realism,(Macmillan 1912), p. 5; and M. Williams, op. cit.,p. 250.
Cf. S. Stich, `Reflective Equilibrium, Analytic Epistemology, and the Problem of Cognitive Diversity’, Synthese 74 (1988),391–413.
Our argument for the truthfulness of Sa does not commit us to maintain also the uniqueness of Sa. Indeed the underdeterminacy of theory by experience shows that, though based on the experiential beliefs of a Sa cannot be uniquely determined by them. Cf. T.S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,2nd ed. (University of Chicago Press, 1970), p. 4.
For the ‘bootsrap method’ see C. Glymour, Theory and Evidence (Princeton U. P., 1980). Glymour reminds (op. cit.,p. 50) that according to H. Weyl concordance of the values yielded by different determinations of the same quantity (i.e., absence of recognized contradictions) is the requirement for the correctness of a scientific theory.
Thus the aptness of beliefs based on a reliable faculty as well as the `reliability’ of belief sources can be justified in the framework of the Long Run Consistency Theory by the LOA-consistency of one’s present system of beliefs. Cf.E. Sosa, op. cit.
Cf. H. Kornblith, ‘The Unattainability of Coherence’, The Current State of the Coherence Theory, op. cit.,pp. 208–210, in which this inaccessibility is vigorously argued as an essential objection to BonJour’s internalist coherentism.
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Grünberg, T. (1995). Long Run Consistency of Beliefs as Criterion of Empirical Knowledge. In: Kuçuradi, I., Cohen, R.S. (eds) The Concept of Knowledge. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 170. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-3263-5_12
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