Causal vs. Rational Explanations (Part 1)

According to many J-externalists, a belief is only justified if it is caused in the right sort of way (for example, by a reliable process). Thus, we arrive at (J-Ext[C]):

(J-Ext[C]) For any agent S, S’s belief that p is justified IFF it is caused in the appropriate way by the fact that p.

In this post I will like to argue against this claim. I begin by distinguishing between two types of explanations of why someone might hold a certain belief—namely, causal and rational. Consider the following example:

The ‘Crazy Jack’ Counterexample:
Jack is convinced that alien creatures from a distant galaxy regularly abduct and perform bizarre experiments on him. We ask Jack’s psychiatrist why he has this belief, and the psychiatrist responds ‘because he has sush-and-such physical defect in his brain.’ There are two ways of interpreting the psychiatrist’s answer. First, we may view it as giving a causal explanation of Jack’s belief. On this interpretation, Jack need not be aware that he suffers from any such mental defect for it to count as the “reason” for his having the belief he has. It is simply a fact about jack that his belief is so caused. Alternatively, we could interpret the psychiatrist as giving Jack’s own reason for believing that he has been subjected to alien experimentation. Perhaps Jack has learned that he has a brain defect, and he takes it to be evidence that aliens have been tampering with his body. In that case, the psychiatrist’s explanation would actually be Jack’s reason for believing what he does.

Most J-externalists view justification along the lines of the first explanation. More specifically, J-externalists typically maintain that a belief is only justified if it is causally connected, in the right sort of way, to the state of affairs that makes it true. By contrast, the J-internalist insists that it is reasons, not causes, which are necessary for justification. More specifically, the J-internalist rejects the idea that the causal aetiology of a belief determines its epistemic standing. By her lights, this would be to confuse reasons and causes. Admittedly, there is some ambiguity in the term 'reasoning' itself. On the one hand, it may indicate a logical argument that, if valid, supports the truth of a belief. On the other hand, it may refer to the process of drawing a conclusion from premises. The J-internalist maintains that it is not the process but the validity that is epistemically relevant. We reason from our evaluation system to defend what we accept, and this has a causal explanation. Nonetheless, the validity of the reasoning is not to be explained causally but in terms of the inferential relation between the premises and what is concluded.

As the “crazy Jack” example illustrates, one and the same thing—namely, the physical defect in Jack’s brain—might be both the cause and evidential basis of Jack’s belief. Thus, the J-externalist points out that the mere fact that something is a causal explanation of why you believe what you do, does not entail that it cannot also be the reason for your belief. For example, in Alvin Goldman's causal account of knowledge, while it is ventured that “inference is a causal process”, all that seems to be meant by this is that, “if a chain of inferences is ‘added’ to a causal chain, then the entire chain is causal”. The J-externalist need not deny that validity cannot be explained causally. What he may claim is that when a belief is produced appropriately, the causal process by which it is produced just is the relation of evidential support. In that case, the J-internalist’s task is to show that the relation of evidential support is really distinct from whatever causal process produces a belief.

One way this may be done is by describing a case where a subject’s reasons justify her belief, even though they have no causal influence¹ on the formation and acceptance of the belief. The following example seems to fit the bill:

The ‘Fanatical Tom’ Counterexample:
Tom is a member of a religious cult that teaches that the director of the National Security Agency, Keith Alexander, is the anti-Christ. Based on this teaching, Tom comes to believe that the NSA is engaged in the illegal warrantless surveillance of US citizens. Let us assume for the sake of argument that Tom’s beliefs lack any credible evidence. However, it just so happens that the NSA really is illegally spying on US citizens. Although Tom’s belief is true, we would still deny that he has knowledge. Similarly, we would regard his belief as unjustified. In short, Tom has a true belief, but not a justified one. Now let us suppose further that Tom is determined to convert his neighbour, Fred, who is very sceptical about Tom’s claims. Tom sets out to find evidence that would convince Fred by taking apart every electronic appliance in Fred’s home. In the process, Tom discovers a mini camera in Fred’s smoke detector and a small microphone in his telephone receiver, both with NSA serial numbers. Given this newly acquired evidence we would now hold that Tom’s belief is justified and may even constitute knowledge. However, since Tom believed that the NSA was engaged in illegal surveillance even before he discovered the spyware, his belief was clearly not caused by this evidence. To wit, if Tom hadn’t discovered the spyware, he still would have the belief in question. Now the question that confronts us is this: is the questionable causal aetiology of Tom’s belief sufficient to denying that it is justified once he has acquired the new evidence? Intuitively, the answer seems to be no. We would regard Tom’s belief as justified despite its untoward causal origins. Therefore, it seems that it is the evidence one has for a belief, rather than its causal aetiology, that determines whether or not it is justified.

Perhaps the unpropitious consequences of the ‘fanatical Tom’ counterexample might be avoided by weakening the J-externalist causal requirement. For example, Goldman and others² have suggested that a belief need not have its ‘causal origin’ in a reliable process, but only that it be ‘causally sustained’ by such a process. On this more moderate view, Tom’s belief can be seen as ‘causally sustained’ by the discovery of the spyware in the sense that if Tom were to give up his fanatical religious views, he would still continue to believe that the NSA is spying on US citizens. While it may be true that beliefs are generally ‘causally sustained’ by their evidence in this way, this need not be the case. For example, the ‘fanatical Tom’ counterexample can be adjusted so that Tom’s belief would not be ‘causally sustained’ by the spyware evidence. We may suppose that if Tom were to lose his religious conviction this would cause his entire world-view to collapse, to the extant that he would lose all his other beliefs. However, this fact does not seem to affect our intuition that Tom’s belief is justified. Thus, even the weaker requirement that a belief be ‘causally sustained’ by a reliable process does not appear to be a necessary condition for justification.³

Endnotes:

1 This argumentative strategy can be broadened to apply to other nomonological J-externalist accounts by substituting “causal aetiology” with “history of the belief” [see: Lehrer 1990, ch. 8]. The "Fanatical Tom" counterexample represents what is known as a Gypsy-Lawyer type scenario.

2 Gilbert Harmon [1970, 1973, 1986] and Marshall Swain [1981] have argued that a belief is only based on evidence if the evidence conditionally or partially explains the belief.

3 For an argument that no revision of Swain’s account can succeed, see Kvanvig 1985.

References:
Goldman, A., (1967) "A Causal Theory of Knowing," Journal of Philosophy 64 (widely reprinted).

Harman, G., (1970) ‘Knowledge, Reasons, and Causes’, Journal of Philosophy 67: 844-55

Harman, G. (1973) Thought. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Harman, G. (1986) Change in View. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Kvanvig, J. (1985) ‘Swain on the Basing Relation’, Analysis 45: 153-58.

Swain, M. (1981) Reason and Knowledge. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

What (Else) is Going On...

First, I should call everyone's attention to the most recent issue of the Philosopher's Carnival, here, which is being hosted by Trent Dougherty. I'm really liking the tone and quality of posts in the most recent Carnivals, especially the previous issue, here. Let's hope these high quality Carnivals continue.

Update: In the comments of the Carnival there is a short exchange between Trent and Clayton Littlejohn about my post, in which Clayton comes to my defence. Surprise, surprise...I happen to agree with Clayton on this one (even if I am somewhat of an 'innie').

Second, all you McDowell fans can find an interesting paper, here, by Adam who brings the theoretical apparatus of Virtue Epistemology to bear on McDowell's theory of knowledge.

Third, I owe a word of gratitude to Brian Leiter for mentioning my blog on his Leiter Reports. During the week my blog was featured I had over 900 new visitors! Hopefully this increase in blog traffic will eventually translate into more feedback. Please? Oh, and my humblest apologies to Jerry Fodor for whatever part I played in inspiring Brian's snide remark.

The Wright Objection

Following J. M. Hinton [1973], Paul Snowdon [1990] has argued that indistinguishable veridical and hallucinatory perceptual experiences belong to fundamentally different genera. Thus, veridical perceptual experiences (henceforth e1) are of one sort while hallucinatory perceptual experiences (henceforth e2) are of another fundamentally different sort, the only thing common to both being that they are introspectively indistinguishable from each other. The difference between e1 and e2 is, for Snowdon, is rooted in the fact that perceptual experiences are essentially relational.

John McDowell takes up Snowdon’s disjunctive conception and applies its insights to epistemological questions relating to our perceptual beliefs.¹ According to McDowell, the epistemological upshot of the disjunction between e1 and e2 is that e1 places us in a better epistemic position than e2 does. On its own, this claim hardly seems controversial. For example, a reliabilist would agree that e1 places us in a better epistemic position than e2 since veridical perceptual experiences are a reliable source of true beliefs while hallucinations are not. However, what is most striking about McDowell’s claim that e1 puts us in a better epistemic position to e2 is that he rejects (extreme) forms of epistemic externalism:

[O]ne’s epistemic standing on some question cannot intelligibly be constituted, even in part, by matters blankly external to how it is with one subjectively. For how could such matters be other than beyond one’s ken? And how could matters beyond one’s ken make any difference to one’s epistemic standing? [McDowell 1998, p. 390]

I interpret ‘how it is with one subjectively’ to mean from the subject’s point of view. However, many critics have insisted that if e1 and e2 are subjectively indistinguishable, then from the subject’s point of view e1 could not possibly put one in a better epistemic position than e2. In this post I will sketch the version of this criticism put forward by Crispin Wright [2002].

Wright presents the following challenge to McDowell’s disjunctive analysis. Suppose S came to hold the demonstrative belief that that is an F. Does S’s justification for believing that that is an F transmit to the claim that S is not merely having a hallucination of an F? According to Wright, there is a ‘strong intuition’ that it does not since we have done nothing to rule out the unpropitious possibility [2002, p. 342]. Moreover, since ex hypothesi the hallucination in question is subjectively indistinguishable from a veridical perceptual experience, there is no way for the subject, based on that experience, to know that she is not suffering from a hallucination rather than having a veridical perceptual experience.

Wright applies the above argument to disjunctivism by appealing to the following four presuppositions, which he describes as the disjunctive template [Ibid, p. 343]:

(i) that A entails B;

(ii) that my justification2 for A consists in my being in a state which is subjectively indistinguishable from a state in which the relevant C would be true;

(iii) that C depicts a situation of a general kind incompatible with the reliable operation of the cognitive capacities involved in generating the putative warrant for A; and

(iv) that C would be true if B were false.

We may fill in the details of the disjunctive template thus: Let A be the proposition that that is an F. Let B be the entailed proposition that that is not a hallucination of an F; and let C take the form of a generalisation of the negation of B: It is not the case that I am having a perfect hallucination of an F. Given the above disjunctive template the question, according to Wright, is

What…can justify me in taking it that I have a warrant for A? Why not just reserve judgement and stay with the more tentative disjunction, Either (I have a warrant for) A, or C? [Ibid].

Wright maintains that to get beyond the disjunction [A V C], we must somehow discount C. That is, we can only maintain that ‘that is an F’ if we can discount the possibility that ‘that is not an F but merely an indistinguishable hallucination of an F’. However, to be entitled to discount C I must also be entitled to discount ~B since, ex hypothesi, C is merely the generalisation of B’s negation. However, to discount ~B I must have some prior entitlement to B independent of its entailment by A. Consequently, on pain of circularity, my justification for A fails to transmit to B.

The upshot of the above analysis is that, given the possibility of there being hallucinations that are subjectively indistinguishable from veridical perceptual experiences, we cannot take ourselves to be justified (as far as our perceptual beliefs are concerned) in believing anything beyond the disjunction [A V C].

We may further unpack the Wright objection as follows: Let us presuppose an internalist conception of epistemic justification such that for S to be justified in believing that P means that S has subjective access to that which constitutes her justification for believing that P. Let [E1 … En] stand for the maximal set of subjective properties of some experience e1. If there is some experience, e2, which is subjectively indistinguishable from e1, then e2 must also possess [E1 … En], or at least so the thought goes. (I am here assuming that the circle encompassing what is introspectively accessible is coextensive with the maximal set of subjective properties of a given experience.) Given the internalist requirement that S’s justification for believing that P must be introspectively accessible, S’s justification for believing that P must be derived from [E1 … En] or some subset thereof. Since e1 and e2 share [E1 … En] in common, and given the internalist requirement that S’s justification for believing that P be derived from [E1 … En], any evidence derived from e1 in support of S’s believing that P can also be derived from e2 in support of S’s believing that P. Thus, insofar as e1 and e2 are subjectively indistinguishable, there can be no difference between what being in e1 makes S justified in believing and what being in e2 makes S justified in believing. Ergo, e1 does not put S in a better epistemic position, from an internalist perspective, than e2.

Endnotes:

1 It should be borne in mind that there are a number of significant differences between Snowdon’s and McDowell’s formulation of disjunctivism. For example, Snowdon focuses on locutions of object-perception, ‘S sees o’, while McDowell is interested in locutions of fact-perception, ‘S sees that p.’ Following McDowell, I will be using a version of fact-perception statements, ‘S sees that that is an F’.

2 Wright uses the word ‘warrant’.

References:
Hinton, J.M. [1973]. Experiences. Clarendon Press: Oxford.

McDowell, J. [1998], ‘Criteria, Defeasibility, and Knowledge’, Meaning, Knowledge, and Reality, 369-94, London: Harvard University Press.

Snowdon, P. F. [1990], “The Objects of Perceptual Experience” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 64: 121–150.

Wright, C. [2002].‘(Anti-)Sceptics Simple and Subtle: G.E. Moore and John McDowell’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65: 330 – 48.

Moore On Sense Data

One of the central questions in the philosophy of perception is: what are the objects of perception? One way to interpret the locution ‘objects of perception’ is in terms of what it is that we are immediately aware of in the act of perceiving. In the early 20th century the traditional answer to this question was ‘sense data’ (henceforth SD). Thus, Moore defines SD as that which we ‘directly apprehend’ in perception [p. 46 ff*]. A striking feature of Moore’s account of SD is that he appears to remain open to the possibility that SD are mind-independent [p. 31, 43-5]. For example, Moore opines that SD may continue to exist even when we do not perceive them [p. 31], in which case their existence would not be dependent on the mind of the perceiver. In this regard, Moore’s conception of SD differs slightly from that of most contemporary philosophers who view mind-dependence as a fundamental feature of SD (a fact which Moore [p. 40-3] himself acknowledges).

Moore points out that when we combine (1) the assumption that in perceptual experience we only directly apprehend SD, with (2) the standard view of SD as mind-dependent, we appear to quickly run into epistemological difficulty [p. 48]. The former claim makes SD the basis for our perceptual beliefs while the latter allows for the possibility that SD only exist in the mind of the perceiver without any corresponding physical objects. Together, they appear to invite scepticism regarding our belief in the existence of physical objects since said belief is based on something that is compatible with there being no physical object. Significantly, the above line of reasoning rests on the equating of mind-dependence with object-independence (and by ‘object-independence’ I mean the thesis that SD (can) exists independently of any corresponding physical object). However, it is conceivable that SD could be simultaneously mind-dependent and object-dependent (for example, we may conceive of SD as arising out of some type of interaction between the mind and object). Moore seems to conflate mind-dependence and object-independence [p. 48], though he does avoid making the inverse mistake of assuming that mind-independence equals object-dependence (more on the latter claim below).

At times Moore seems to lean toward the view that SD may actually be identical to the physical surfaces of objects, but at no point does he ever endorse this view. Such reluctance on the part of Moore seems warranted since identifying SD with the surfaces of objects falls prey to one of the challenges that led philosophers to posit SD in the first place—namely, the problem of hallucinations. Since in the case of hallucinations, unlike illusions, there is no object present at all, there is nothing for SD to adhere to. Thus, even if he were to concede that SD are mind-independent, if he is to account for hallucinations, Moore must maintain that SD are object-independent (as he does in fact do). Another question that Moore appears to remain neutral on is whether SD are physical or non-physical entities. If the former, then Moore seems forced to identify them with the surfaces of objects (a prospect we have already deemed unattractive). However, if he regards them as non-physical then Moore seems faced with the difficulties of explaining what exactly they are and how could they interact causally (if at all) with our sensory faculties. In sum, it remains unclear whether Moore regarded SD as mind-dependent or mind-independent, or physical or non-physical. But this much seems clear: whatever they are, SD must (by Moore’s lights) be object-independent [p. 50].

Question: Does Moore ever come to a final position on whether (1) are SD mind-independent or mind-dependent or (2) are SD physical or non-physical?

*All citations refer to the first chapter of Moore’s Some Main Problems of Philosophy.

"Internalising" McDowell

In my previous post, I addressed the main methodological objection to my claim that McDowell is a J-internalist. In this post, I will attempt to address what I take to be the primary theoretical objection to this proposal.

But first, what textual evidence do I have for holding that McDowell is a J-internalist? Two of the more suggestive passages are as follows:

I agree…that we lose the point of invoking the space of reasons if we allow someone to possess a justification even if it is outside his reflective reach. [McDowell 1998b, p. 418]

And:

[O]ne’s epistemic standing on some question cannot intelligibly be constituted, even in part, by matters blankly external to how it is with one subjectively. For how could such matters be other than beyond one’s ken? And how could matters beyond one’s ken make any difference to one’s epistemic standing? ([McDowell 1998a] p. 390)

I interpret the locution ‘how it is with one subjectively’, as an umbrella term for the sorts of things that are typically taken to be internally available to one, such as one’s thoughts, beliefs etc. By McDowell’s lights the circle delineating what is subjectively available to one exhausts that which may serve as a justifier for one’s beliefs. When this idea is restated in the argot of possible worlds, we arrive at McDowellian J-internalism, (M-Int):

(M-Int) For all agents S1 and S2 and worlds W1 and W2, if S1 in W1 and S2 in W2 are identical in terms of how things are with them subjectively, then S1 and S2 are identical in all respects relevant to the justification of their beliefs.

Now the main theoretical objection to my proposal can be put as follows: McDowell could not possibly be a J-internalist since he subscribes to a type of content externalism (henceforth, C-externalism) and C-externalism entails the falsehood of J-internalism. This objection hardly seems surprising when we juxtapose the popular construal of J-internalism and C-externalism:

(J-Int) For all subjects S1 and S2 and worlds W1 and W2, if S1 in W1 and S2 in W2 are identical in the intrinsic properties on which their thoughts supervene, then S1 and S2 are identical in all respects relevant to the justification of their beliefs.

(C-Ext) There are subjects S1 and S2 and worlds W1 and W2, such that S1 in W1 and S2 in W2 have the same intrinsic properties but differ in the content of their thoughts.

There is a conflict between (J-Int) and (C-Ext) since the former requires all subjects who are identical in terms of their intrinsic properties to have the same justificatory properties, while the latter allows subjects with identical intrinsic properties to differ with regards to the justificatory properties of their beliefs. For example, consider two subjects, S1 and S2, who are identical in terms of their intrinsic properties, but occupy different external environments, W1 and W2, respectively. Suppose S1 and S2 both performed the following valid deduction:

(A) Water is a liquid.
(B) Water is potable.
(C) Therefore, water is a potable liquid.

According to (C-Ext), the thoughts expressed by sentences (A)—(C) are different for S1 and S2. This is because S1’s thoughts are individuated in terms of water while S2’s thoughts are individuated in terms of twater. The distinct pairs of thought that S1 and S2 express by (A) and (B) are relevant to the justification of the pair of beliefs they respectively express by (C). Consequently, S1 and S2 satisfy the antecedent of (J-Int), since ex hypothesi they are identical in terms of their intrinsic properties, but fail to satisfy the consequent—to wit, they differ in some respects relevant to the justification of their beliefs. Thus, if (C-Ext) is true, then (J-Int) must be false.

There is a strong temptation to assume that this line of argument also impugns (M-Int). But if we take seriously McDowell’s notion of object-dependent thought there is no obvious inconsistency between (M-Int) and (C-Ext). According to McDowell, how it is with one subjectively is in part constituted by objects in one’s environment. For instance, in the Twin Earth examples generated by (C-Ext), the object-dependent thoughts expressed by (A) and (B) in the foregoing deductive inference are different for S1 and S2. Hence, by McDowell’s lights, S1 and S2 fail to satisfy the antecedent of (M-Int) since S1 and S2 are not identical with regards to how things are with them subjectively. Thus, McDowell can, without contradiction, continue to hold to (M-Int) while subscribing to (C-Ext).


References:

McDowell, J. (1998a), ‘Criteria, Defeasibility, and Knowledge’, Meaning, Knowledge, and Reality, 369-94, London: Harvard University Press.

McDowell, J. (1998), ‘Knowledge By Hearsay’, Meaning, Knowledge, and Reality, 414-43, London: Harvard University Press.