Anonymity

I've been putting up some posts because I have a minute to breathe. It dawned on me as I was doing so that I've kept my identity anonymous in this blog. This is something that I've heard criticized (not specifically about me) by Gangadeanians. They sometimes find fault in anonymous criticisms particularly online. I suppose I get some of the sentiment behind it. We want to know something about our discussion partners. And one might worry that anonymity provides one with something like a cover to say whatever one wants to say without having to live up to the consequences. But I don't find it essential to philosophical discourse that one disclose one's identity. Further, people have different reasons for wanting to remain anonymous. At the end of the day it's the ideas and arguments that matter in a discussion and provided that there are overriding (legitimate) reasons for wanting to remain anonymous, I think it can be appropriate to do so. As I said, I have my reasons, but I'm hesitant to share them because I don't want to come off as insulting to my interlocutors or hurt the feelings of those of my friends (few as they are) that are still members of WF. Just know that my choice to remain anonymous has nothing to do with my feeling as if anything I have said is controversial or not worth standing behind. I wholeheartedly endorse everything I've said. Further, I will be willing to engage with anyone in dialogue about its contents either through this blog or via email (you can email me at reasoniidoubt at gmail dot com).

No SR from GR (Certainty and the Bible)

In a previous post I raised problems for Gangadean and Anderson's view that maximal consequences (of unbelief in God) requires maximal clarity (regarding God's existence). The thrust of that post was that there are a number of other beliefs that most Christians (including Gangadean and his kin) would accept to be essential for spiritual life (or salvation), that do not seem maximally clear. Thus, the edict that maximal consequences imply maximal clarity would seem to be in tension with Gangandean's own views (unless of course they want to argue that all that is necessary for spiritual life is maximally clear).

That the bible is the word of God (special revelation) is a central part of the Christian faith. Gangadean affirms that the bible is the word of God and further that it is infallible, wholly true, and the means by which the the holy spirit leads the church into all truth.  It isn't clear whether he thinks that there is some special portion of scripture that one must accept in order to realize spiritual life. In conversation I have heard Anderson and others speak as if spiritual life is not a binary notion, but rather something that obtains as a matter of degrees. Other times I have heard them speak of spiritual life as if some are in fact, spiritually dead (at one time all people) and then have come to be awakened by God's grace---which makes me think it might be a binary matter. Perhaps it's both binary and degreed (there's a number of propositions which you are required to know if you are going to be spiritually alive, but after that threshold, you can increase in spiritual life based on what you come to understand). Whatever the view, let's say that some part of scripture (or knowing some portion of scripture) is necessary for spiritual life. So one might think that if this is the case, and if maximal consequences implies maximal clarity, then it is going to be maximally clear that scripture is the word of God (at least some portion of it). In fact, from what I understand Gangadean makes an even stronger claim that we can come to know that the bible (as a whole) is in fact the word of God (or special revelation). This has to do with the fact that there is more than one holy book purporting to be revelation from God. Thus any thinking person will need to work through the epistemological issue of how one knows when one such book is really the word of God.

Now I want to present an argument that one cannot be absolutely certain that the bible (as a whole) is the word of God. That is to say, there is no sound deductive argument proving that the bible is actually the word of God. My point is not to call the bible into question so much as to show that Gangadean, given his idiosyncratic epistemological views, cannot affirm that he knows (as he defines it) that the bible (the canon as a whole) is the word of God. I hope that this gestures towards a reductio against those that want to affirm that it is rational to both believe the bible is the word of God and accept Gangadean's quirky epistemological views.

It will be important to keep in mind that Gangadean believes the following claims.

1) Knowing some proposition p, is equivalent to having a maximally justified, true belief in p. In short, you know something if and only if, you truly believe it and could not possibly be wrong about it.

2) A person can know (with certainty) that the bible (as a whole) is in fact, special revelation from God. This of course, means that one can know (with certainty) that the bible contains only true propositions.

Now the bible contains a plethora of claims. The bible makes mentions of kings and kingdoms, of persons that lived to be hundreds of years old, of Jonah living in the belly of a whale, of the dead rising at Jesus' command, of water turning into wine and the red sea splitting. It also includes detailed genealogies and testifies of the Christ being crucified for our sins and rising again. It also presents claims about what is yet to occur, for instance, the imminent return of Christ. In short, there are number of historical and even future claims made by scripture. The question I want to raise is, what deductive argument can be given to confirm that all of these claims are actually true?

Gangadean essentially believes that using what we know from General Revelation (those claims that we can be certain about via the use of reason alone) we can deduce a criteria for special revelation, which we can then use to determine the clear winner among the available options. I am going to argue that this is simply not enough if one is after epistemic certainty.

The problem can be seen by considering how there is nothing we can deduce from General Revelation (hence forth, GR) to a claim like, "there was once a man named King David who defeated a giant Goliath." Now as I have written before, I doubt that we can know (on Gangadean's concept of knowledge) that the God of Theism exists, but I'm willing to grant that for the sake of argument here. Further, I'm going to grant even more of Gangadean's views (again not because I think they are correct, but for the sake of the point I'm trying to make, here). You see, Ganagdean takes it that we can know (with certainty) that God is infinitely just and infinitely merciful (that is to say, that there is a deductive argument or series of arguments from "Whatever is eternal is spirit" to "the eternal spirit is at least infinitely just and infinitely merciful." Further, Gangadean takes it that there are deductive arguments for the claim that we are in sin and that we need to be redeemed. Let's grant all of this (though they are highly contentious arguments). From this it is supposed that we can come up with a criteria by which we look at the various purported holy books and determine that the Bible must be the word of God. Whatever is in fact the the word of God must be entirely consistent with what we know from GR. For instance, it should affirm that there is only one God the creator, that man is in sin (fails to seek and know the clearly knowable God), and that God is infinitely just and merciful, and crucially it should explain just how infinite justice can be fulfilled in light of sin, while God's infinite mercy is exemplified (infinite justice cannot merely be set apart, but must be fully realized). Finally, the claim is that no other purported holy book, or parchment or whatever, besides the bible is able to satisfy all these conditions. Hence, the bible must exclusively be the true word of God.

This is a terrible argument. To reiterate, this is because the bible contains so much more in addition to what we can deduce from GR. Take again the claim about King David's existence and his defeat of the giant. This is not something that is deducible from GR. So what are we to make of such claims? What are we to make of all the stories in the old and new testament that do not logically follow from the aforementioned criteria? If we reduce the bible to merely an account of God, sin (and therein good vs. evil), justice and mercy, we lose a lot. We lose all those details from the various narratives, so much of the advice that the epistles provide about how to run a church, and the lessons we draw from the lives of various figures like David, Solomon, and the prophets of old. Further, what are we to make of the book of Revelation? Remember on Gangadean's account of knowledge, we can't know any of this stuff unless it is deducible from GR.

Now curiously, Gangadean's approach is that all of these additional claims in the bible are consistent with what we know in GR.  But this won't do. Consistency is too weak a relation between propositions. At the moment, it is raining outside. It is consistent with this fact that as a result I got wet. But it is equally consistent with the fact of rain outside that I did not get wet. What this shows us is that consistency doesn't rule out much. You can't know with certainty some proposition solely on the basis of the fact that it is consistent with a known proposition. There are any number of claims that are consistent with any given set of facts, and as my lame examples shows, some of these are going to be mutually exclusive. So to say that these additional claims in the bible are consistent with what we know in GR does not make them true (that simply doesn't follow). It is perfectly consistent with all of the assumptions we started with (that there is one God the creator that is infinitely just and merciful, that there is sin, evil, the need for redemption, etc) that there once lived a King named David, that defeated a giant, but our starting assumptions are equally consistent with the claim that there was no such King. So consistency with what is known in GR is necessary but not sufficient for claims being truly the word of God.

A second worry has to do with the issue of the criteria of "the word of God". I stated earlier that on Gangadean's view, GR provides us with a certain kind of criteria by which we determine whether a book is really the word of God. One crucial issue on Gangadean's view is that whatever is in fact the word of God must present how infinite justice is satisfied by infinite mercy (on the Christian picture, this is the son of God dying for the sins of the world). Now we run into a problem here. Ask yourself, "how would I know whether some narrative explains how infinite justice is satisfied by infinite mercy?" That is, when you read the bible, how can you know (with certainty) that Jesus dying for the sins of the world actually achieves both the instantiation of God's infinite justice and his mercy? This is something like the problem of criterion in epistemology. Philosophers ask how we can know what knowledge is. How will we know when we have the right theory, without already knowing what it is? Similarly, how can we know that in fact, the bible's account is the correct account of the satisfaction of divine justice and mercy? Don't you have to already know what you're looking for in order to recognize it as such? And if you already know what it takes for divine justice to be satisfied by divine mercy, then you no longer need special revelation to show you.

In response one might argue that what we know from GR can provide us a way to deduce everything in the bible---and hence all the contents of the bible are entailed by what is known from GR. In fact, this is exactly what Gangadean needs for certainty that the bible as a whole is the word of God. Unfortunately, it's false. You simply can't deduce the kinds of empirical claims (e.g., that their existed a Jesus of Nazareth, or much of Paul's teachings that go beyond GR, or the stories that line the old and new testament). You may have good reasons to believe it, but it won't be via a deductive proof. So on Gangadean's view of knowledge, you can't know the bible as the word of God.

In speaking with Anderson about these issues, he essentially argued that what is known from GR is found in the bible alone. This gives us proof that the bible, but no other text, is the word of God. He said that this was "enough" of a test. This is truly a puzzling response!

Remember we wanted a deductive proof that the bible is the word of God. That is to say, a way of being absolutely certain that the bible (as a whole) is the one and only word of God. Even if Anderson is right that the relevant details from GR are found only in the bible and not in any other texts, we still don't get a proof that the rest of the contents of the bible are true. Again consistency is not enough. Consistency is necessary but not sufficient for this task.

And it gets even worse for Anderson and company. His response requires that he first prove that there is no other holy book that gets the relevant details of GR right, but he would have to show that no other such book (that will diverge on other details form the bible) is even possible. This is an incredibly strong claim and I don't see how he can motivate it.  Putting all of these considerations together, we have an extremely idiosyncratic view of knowledge which requires epistemic certainty (ultimately, we know only those things we can deduce). But the contents of bible as a whole cannot be deduced. So we can't know that the contents of the bible as a whole are true.

The Gangadeanian culture.

An ad hominem is an informal fallacy where a person purports to debunk another's view on the basis of an irrelevant quality of the arguer. In my experience, informal fallacies (unlike formal fallacies) are often misattributed and ad hominem is probably the most commonly misattributed. The main problem with this fallacy (why it is a fallacy) is that a conclusion or argument is rejected on irrelevant grounds. That is, grounds that have no bearing on the truth of the conclusion. People often think that therefore, any personal attack is an ad hominem---but that's incorrect.

If you question the veracity of a witness in court on the basis of their poor track record as a witness, or their known compulsivity towards lying, this is not an ad hominem. It's good (albeit, inductive) reasoning. Sure they might be telling the truth. It's certainly possible, but you have strong evidence to the contrary that you should heed if you're rational.

I offer these prefatory remarks because I am going to post a criticism about the way that I have seen Gangadean and company do philosophy which gives some reason for hesitation on the conclusions they draw. I don't want to be wrongly accused of an ad hominem in doing so. If you really think I am presenting an irrelevant (to the issue at hand) personal attack, then show me where, but don't conclude that I am committing the fallacy simply because I am raising concerns about a property shared by a person or group of persons.

A second prefatory remark is that everything I will say is anecdotal. It is based on my experience (and the experience of a number of others that I have spoken with). But how else can we report things of this sort save for our own experiences? If you need good instances of the phenomena I will be speaking about, then just take a look a the works by Gangadean and Anderson.

What I want to discuss then is that Gangadean, Anderson and company do philosophy in an unusual way that I ultimately think is harmful and dishonest (whether intentionally or not).

In my previous post I mentioned the one-sided nature of Anderson's post about externalism. Again, his post is just a short blurb and so I don't stake my claim on it. I just think it's merely suggestive or reminiscent of a larger problem that I witnessed in my years of interactions with him and other Gangadean followers. In my experience, they tend to have a very narrow understanding of philosophy and keep to themselves in discussing philosophical and theological ideas (unless proselytizing).

It is a very tight knit community of people that all profess to agree on certain core principles (many of them very strong philosophical and theological positions). If you don't agree on all of the core issues, then you are not welcomed within that community and will be asked to seek fellowship elsewhere. Furthermore, they tend to be very closed off from external ideas and persons. It takes a formal invitation and a process to visit their church and during my time there, there was even an instance where a member unknowingly invited someone that was deemed "not prepared" properly and so had to go through the embarrassing ordeal of uninviting the individual. Some of these are cultural quirks that I don't necessarily have a problem with in and of themselves. However, I submit that it feeds the problematic culture of isolation that is an impediment in terms of seeking truth. Philosophy (and theology) done under Gangadean is like doing philosophy in a nuclear silo... It is done either in classrooms where students are often given very one-sided presentations of ideas or within the walls of the church where preaching is done to the choir, so to speak. It is no surprise that most of the philosophy classes taught by the associated faculty all rely heavily (if not exclusively) on Gangadean's book, Philosophical Foundation. And people at WF really love that book without recognizing just how shallow and narrow it really is.

On rare occasion Gangadean has visited public forums like talks or conferences and I think Anderson does more frequently with respect to his scholarship in religious studies and history. But I never once heard them return to report that they had learned there was a problem with their views. This always struck me as so surprising. Are you really infallible with respect to your philosophical/theological work? Indeed this is the attitude that they seem to have. Giving a talk is not about learning how you might be mistaken about your work, but rather for them, it is going into spiritual battle to disabuse others (anybody that disagrees with you) of falsities.

I have had the pleasure of working with a lot of philosophers so far in my young career. Some of them are world-renowned. Compared to Gangadean and company, most of them have a very different way of doing philosophy. There is an openness. I don't mean anything like relativism. No, they have pretty strong convictions and sometimes maintain extreme views. They argue like the best of them. The openness I am referring to is the willingness to see problems in their own thinking. In the classroom, these professors ask the students to point out problems in their work. They of course try to defend their views, but it isn't rare for them to admit that there is a serious flaw somewhere and for them to rework their own thinking in light of it. What is more, these seasoned philosophers submit their ideas to a wide audience. They don't just probe their own students (who may have something at stake in agreeing with them) or their colleagues. They travel the country and sometimes the world to present ideas to a motley bunch of philosophers that will undoubtedly raise difficult objections and counterarguments. They know ahead of time that other philosophers will disagree with them. They do this, in part, because it makes for better more thought out work that has considered a wide variety of angles. Philosophers recognize that in all probability there are serious problems with their most dearest arguments, because they are fallible beings. Moreover, they recognize that they may be too biased or otherwise close to their own work to see the issues. Finally, they recognize that submitting their work to too narrow an audience is not going to be helpful. In fact, this is part of the reason that it is nearly impossible to get a job at the institution that you graduate from. Departments have, as a whole, a way of doing things, that can sometimes get in the way of truth and introduce biases. Likewise, as graduate students, we are often encouraged to spend a semester or year at a different department. Philosophy as it is done "on the outside" is extremely different from the way that it is done by Gangadean and company.

WF continues to have strong adherents. And as long as students continue to take classes with them, they will likely continue gaining followers (though they lose followers regularly too). But in my experience, Gangadean's kin, by in large, are young philosophy enthusiasts that have an extremely narrow exposure to one way of doing philosophy--that is, the Gangadean way. During my undegrad, when I was a thoroughgoing member of WF, I shared some classes with a student that had taken all (or most) of Gangadean's classes before he moved to the University where I was already studying. He wanted to major in philosophy (at the university) because he had done quite well in Gangadean's classes and enjoyed it. I think he was shellshocked by the difference and after a few classes decided to change his major. As far as Gangadean's followers go, only a few have degrees in philosophy, and even fewer (maybe a handful) have graduate degrees in philosophy (mostly MA's)--and all from the same institution. They also make up a relatively small body as a whole--which again reiterates the kind of exposure that I find worrisome. Obviously none of what I have said necessarily implicates this group as believing falsehoods. It's certainly possible that their beliefs are correct. It's possible that having a closed off system as the one I described has proven most fruitful for them. It's possible but not plausible. We, as thinkers, all make plenty of mistakes and need constant input from others if we are going to arrive at truth. So it seems to me at any rate.

Anderson on Externalism vs. Internalism

I happened across a blog from Owen Anderson. I'm quoting it in full, below. 

In epistemology, an externalist is one who takes a third person account of knowledge.  Rather than answering the first person question "how do I know?" the externalist describes the conditions of knowledge for a knower in a kind of sociologist perspective.  

One problem that arrises [sic] in fields like sociology or for externalism is that there remains the "how do I know this account is true" problem which is an internalist question. In his book Justification Without Awareness Michael Bergmann gives an externalist account and answers various objections.  One of these is the "anything goes objection."   

This objection says that any religious fanatic can appeal to this same kind of externalist warrant.  Bergmann says "What it does mean is that we must give up on the false hope that playing by the rules of proper philosophical exchange will enable us to resolve all serious disagreement about maters such as fanatical religious views" (233). 

This made me think of two questions.  What about non-fanatical non-theistic religious views?  Suppose that the fanatic actually can't consistently rely on the kind of externalism Bergmann articulates.  It still seems to me that there are many non-theistic religions that can.  Therefore, such an account has not helped us achieve knowledge at all.  It has not and cannot settle the most basic and long lasting divisions between humans about what is real. 

Next, if this epistemology cannot help us on these basic and long lasting divisions then in what sense is it different than skepticism on this point?  The quote above seems to say that we can be satisfied in our beliefs, others can be satisfied in their beliefs, and the discussion ends there.  Which is to say we really cannot know.

This is, on my view, a very one-sided presentation. Sure blogs are prone to be and this is no peer-reviewed journal article...so I can't cut him some slack. The only reason I mention the one-sided nature of this post is that it actually marks a way of doing philosophy that I found to be common under Gangadean and Anderson. I'll leave this metaphilosophical point for my next post.

On to the first order substance then. What Anderson is arguing above is that externalism has some philosophical problems. Sadly, he doesn't bother to discuss problems of internalism (his view). Nor does he discuss any of the responses that externalists have for the objections he raises. Perhaps he just didn't have time, or perhaps he isn't aware of it, or perhaps it was merely beyond the purview of his intended post. So I want to discuss some of these.

If you've read my recent post on theories of knowledge, then you will realize that the first problem he raises against externalism is also a problem for his view, internalism about justification/knowledge. "How can we know that the externalist theory of knowledge is true?"  Well, in my previous post, I noted that Gangadean never argues for the view that knowledge is maximally justified true belief. So if Anderson really thinks the question of "how can I know what knowledge is?" is a problem for externalism, then he owes us a theory of how we can know that knowledge = maximally justified true belief. In my experience, no such account is forthcoming.

The last two "problems" have to do with settling disputes. Anderson thinks that externalism cannot help us settle disputes. This is because (in part) there is a worry that one can get warrant for any sort of belief on externalist grounds. I don't want this problem to be exaggerated though. Externalism says that insofar as your belief is formed on the basis of some reliable or otherwise truth conducive, non chancy way, it is justified and can be the basis of knowledge. Sure people can claim to have justification in any belief by claiming that their beliefs are formed in some suitable way, but there will be a fact of the matter and it is this external fact that makes all the difference. So externalism doesn't license "anything goes" at all. It says that only those properly formed beliefs count as justified or as the basis of knowledge. Now might we have a diversity of mutually incompatible beliefs that are formed on the basis of reliable or otherwise truth conducive means? Sure. It's certainly possible. After all, our reliable methods of forming beliefs are not perfectly reliable! So this is a problem for externalism but perhaps not as serious a problem as Anderson made it out to be.

Unfortunately for Anderson, it doesn't take away similar problems plaguing internalism. For instance, internalism faces a regress problem (indeed this partially why externalism gained currency). If you have to be consciously aware of what justifies each of your beliefs (in order to be justified in having them) then you run into a regress of reasons problem. You should know that you know that you know that you know....ad infinitum...that p, if you are to actually know that p. After all, if you claim to know that birds have wings, then you are justified in believing it only if you are aware of the reasons you have for believing that birds have wings. But then it seems like you need to further justify the very reasons you have for believing that birds have wings on internalist grounds which involves another belief or self of beliefs that in turn need to be justified and so forth.

No doubt, Anderson will respond that the regress stops on self-evident, self-justifying, or self-attesting beliefs like the laws of thought to escape this issue. There are some basic foundational beliefs that don't need to be justified like all the other beliefs. But what precisely does it take for a belief to be self-justifying? Or self-attesting? This is supposed to be something very obvious but again, there is no apt analysis here. Am I supposed to just immediately know what self-attesting is? Is the notion of self-attesting, self-attesting? The worry here is that there is a lot of baggage being smuggled in. Ask yourself how do I know whether some claim is self attesting? For instance, people think that 'a is a' (the law of identity) is self-attesting or self-evident. But how do you verify that it is? You might try to say that if we don't assume that 'a is a' or don't believe it, then we can't think or talk. But per my last post, this either seems to confuse pragmatic reasons with epistemic ones or else is question begging.

Instead it seems like it is something immediately known. It just feels or seems to be true. We simply look or think about 'a is a' and then immediately get a sense of its truth or something of the sort. It does not depend on argument but is seen or directly apprehended. The problem here is that if we allow for intuitions like this, then we're back to the problem that Anderson pointed out against externalism but not for internalism. It seems like on internalism "anything goes." Why can't belief in God or belief in penguins or the reliability of my perceptual faculties just be intuitive, direct, have a feeling of truth? If intuition works for recognizing that some proposition (or sentence token) is self-evident, or further, if intuition works for figuring out what we even mean by self-attesting, then why can't it work for belief in God or whatever non-theistic belief? So now if we follow Anderson's line of thinking, internalism is powerless at resolving disagreements and leads to skepticism.

There are a number of other problems with internalism that suggest it leads to skepticism. For instance, to be consciously aware of your justification for any of your beliefs (in order to know them) is really demanding. We simply are not in a position to recall much of the reasons for a great number of beliefs and items of knowledge.

On the possibility of thought and talk.

I wanted briefly to bring up an issue that I've been thinking about that relates to my own research. This has come up in previous posts regarding the memory objection, so you might want to take a look at those (if you have a lot of time on your hands). At any rate, one common line that you hear from Gangadean and his people is that they are seeking to figure out transcendentals---which constitute something like preconditions for the possibility of thought and talk. They take this line from Kant, who thought that our minds could not help but project onto the world particular beliefs (or perhaps frameworks like time, space and causality). So Gangadeanians argue that for instance, the laws of thought are requisite for the possibility of thought and talk. The idea is that we have some insight into the very nature of thought and talk, and also that we can figure out a priori, what the requisite conditions would have to be for thought and talk to exist or be instantiated.

To me this smells like intuition mongering. I mean how could we come to be certain of what counts as thinking vs. non thinking (and what the appropriate preconditions for thinking would be) if not by way of intuition (i.e., something like an immediate awareness or sense)? I doubt that any analysis of a thought is forthcoming (try to come up with the necessary and sufficient conditions for something being a thought). Nor can you investigate the nature of thought empirically or anything, so you must be able to investigate thought by, well, thinking--- but how sure can we be about our conclusions here? To reiterate a recurrent theme of this blog,  I think philosophy doesn't get off the ground without intuitions, so such a view isn't so problematic for me as it is for Gangadean (who seems to equate believing at least some things on intuitions with fideism). The trick for him then is to provide a theory of the difference between situations where intuitions are acceptable and those where it isn't. Of course we should expect his theory to not be ad hoc or ultimately itself grounded in intuitions (on pain of circularity). But I want to mention something else, namely, that believing something (e.g., the laws of thought) on grounds that thinking would not be possible if we didn't, is a strange kind of reason to accept something. What it looks like is pragmatism about reasons for belief.

When we consider whether we should believe some proposition, (e.g., the law of non contradiction) we want evidence (or some truth conducive reason) for why it is true. Broadly speaking, there are some propositions (or sets of propositions) which in some general sense make it the case that another proposition is either guaranteed to be true (as in the case of logical entailments), or else provides some reason to think the latter is true. Here you have a relation between propositions that is epistemic. When you ask whether or not it you ought to believe that p, you are asking whether p is true and what reasons you have that indicate the truth of p.

On the other hand you might answer the question of whether or not you should believe p, from practical considerations alone. For instance, maybe believing in an afterlife will make you really happy and so you conclude that you ought to believe in an afterlife. This marks a different kind of reason to believe p, a pragmatic one which doesn't say anything about whether the proposition in question (in this case, the afterlife being real) is true or not. (Note it could make a person very happy to believe something, even if the belief isn't true).

Now returning to belief in the laws of thought, the argument given by Gangadean actually turns out to be a pragmatic one, rather than an epistemic one. The thinking seems to be that you must or ought to believe in the law of non contradiction (for example) because if you don't, then you
cannot think or talk consistently. So the justification for the belief is pragmatic rather than epistemic. It's about what is or will be possible in terms of what you can do, and doesn't tell directly about whether the proposition is actually true. So now it's starting to smell like Pascal's wager (which ironically, Gangadeanians are happy to argue against by pointing out that it confuses the pragmatic with the epistemic!).

*Now one might think that I've misunderstood the argument. Here is a way to make it not a pragmatic one: We assume that we can have certainty about things. Once that is given, then we think about what must obtain (the preconditions) for this possibility. Since giving a theory that explains how something that is taken as true (i.e., the belief that we can/do have certainty) is some indication that the theory is true, this would give an epistemic reason for believing in the laws of thought for instance via something like abductive reasoning (i.e., the fact that a theory plausibly explains an accepted phenomena is evidence that the theory is true).

Not only is this not a deductive argument (and so we're no longer after certainty), the main problem is that it isn't common ground in the first place that we can and/or do have certainty about anything (including this very statement). Indeed the way Gangadean usually wields this argument is in a context where he is trying to show that we can be certain (i.e., that some basic things are clear to reason). So the only way to make his conclusion rest on epistemic reasons is going to be by begging the question in the current context. That is to say, assume certainty is possible to argue that certainty is possible (and actual).

So Gangadean's argument is either a pragmatic one which is troubling in its own right because it says we ought to believe something for non evidential, non truth conducive reasons, or else it is question begging. If there is any interest, I will present an argument for why pragmatism of this sort is a terrible idea in a future post.

Theories, Knowledge and Intuitions

In a previous post, I presented a challenge to Gangadean and his kin regarding their view that knowledge is maximally justified true belief. The proposal is what we call a theory of knowledge--it is supposed to tell us what knowledge is (or what the necessary and sufficient conditions of knowlege are). In that post, I stated how someone wanting to either accept this theory of knowledge or convince others of it had better be in a position to (at least) provide a theory of "maximal justification." After all, to insist that knowledge is just XYZ, without supplying a legitimate theory of what XYZ is supposed to be is not to offer any illumination about the nature of knowledge. I still maintain that is an important issue and am still waiting for it to be met but also want to bring up another concern.

I've been talking about theories and proposals and this brings me to an important point. A theory of knowledge is just that, a theory. What has surprised me is that in my interactions with Gangadean and his kin, they speak as if their preferred theory of knowledge (knowledge just is maximally justified true belief) is just obviously the right one. For instance, they are apt to correct you when you say that you "know something" without having definitive proof of it. On some occasions some of Gangadean's followers have been incredulous that I would even question their theory of knowledge  as if there is no other theory out there to consider. But this is a mistaken assumption and reveals ignorance about much of the work done in epistemology.

Now one thing to notice is that in his book Philosophical Foundation (pg. 35) Gangadean merely states (doesn't argue for) the following: "To believe the conclusion of a sound argument because the argument is seen as sound is to possess knowledge." Nevermind that he hasn't told us exactly what it means to "see an argument as sound." (Further, one must wonder how this account is supposed to work with his view that one can know what he calls 'transcendentals' since, presumably, there is no sound argument that they are true-- so then can we know them on this theory?). He then provides 3 conditions of knowledge (justification, truth and belief) and then adds, "These three conditions are said to be necessary and sufficient for knowledge." But that's it. Notice again how this is not an argument for his theory of knowledge (that is, it isn't an argument which demonstrates that his theory of knowledge is correct). On his own account of knowledge, he hasn't provided us a way for us to know that his theory of knowledge is correct (note this is related to an old problem in epistemology called the problem of criterion). Instead he has simply given us a presentation or declaration of what someone (in this case, it is often attributed to Plato) has said about the nature of knowledge and has tacitly endorsed it.

To be fair, he does defend the account against potential Gettier counterexamples (with mixed results), but defending your view against counterexamples is just to say that it avoids a certain kind or kinds of problem(s). However, this is not the same as proving that your theory is correct or even ultima facie the best theory out there (interestingly, showing that your theory is the best one out there also falls short of demonstrating it is correct).

And now we get to my point which is that there are lots of proposals (some do not even require the justification while many theories disagree about what justification consists in) about the nature of knowledge. So we need to ask ourselves, how can we be sure that Gangadean's (or Plato's) take on knowledge is correct or true? There are a lot of complex issues that we will not be able to address here, but perhaps in time we'll get to touch upon. To ask how we can verify that a theory of something like knowledge is true is an enormous question and even assumes that there is one thing out there in the world, that we denote by our usage of the word 'knowledge'. There are also meta-philosophical issues about how we could verify such matters since on the face of it, what people actually denote when they attribute knowledge seems like an empirical claim and so one wonders how a purely conceptual analysis from the armchair would be very useful. But I'm going to bracket such concerns off for the moment.

When I was a Gangadean follower, and read his account on knowledge, I just felt like it was right. It sort of captured the way that I thought of knowledge (or at least what I wanted to think knowledge was). It roughly made sense of how I attributed knowledge and the like, though, I should add, there were way more clashes. But notice, this is not to be convinced by way of a sound argument, (since no such argument is given). So what is happening here? Well, it seems to me that Gangadean is being a good analytic philosopher without perhaps being aware that he is (I say this because he often spoke disparagingly about analytic philosophy, but I don't take it that he believed he was implicating himself, too). It is common practice in analytic philosophy (and philosophy at large) to present proposals and thought experiments in order to "pump intuitions." I give you a proposal that "seems right to you." But again this is not the same as giving you an argument. In fact, one important fact that is left out of Gangadean's discussion on (pg 35 of PF) is how it is that some philosophers came to accept the theory, that knowledge is justified true belief, to begin with. Historically, the common practice of epistemologists has been to think about situations, often hypothetical stories (as in thought experiments) and consider whether they would ascribe knowledge to a character in the story or not. For instance, when philosophers encounter stories of a subject that forms a true belief by accident and without justification, they tend to judge that the subject doesn't know. These judgments are what philosophers call intuitions. They are gut reactions philosophers have had to such stories (and which they predict others will share). These intuitions/judgments are then used as data from which a theory (that supposedly captures all of these intuitions in a nice unifying account) emerges. Other times, the principles themselves (apart from hypothetical cases) may yield intuitions (but this is rarer). In fact, even the ancient philosophers (including Plato) did a whole lot of intuition pumping. For instance consider, Plato asking whether it is in accordance with justice to pay back one's debts even if this consists in returning a loaned weapon knowing that your friend is going to commit a crime with it. He is not giving you an argument as to why it isn't justice, he is rather trying to get you to have the intuition that this is not what justice consists in. One way or another, what we have in philosophy (of which epistemology is no exception) are a bunch of proposals based on intuitions.

So the justified true belief theory of knowledge is no different. It has had its prominence (as a starting point on theorizing about knowledge) because it was thought to capture a lot of our (or philosophers') intuitions about many (but not all) hypothetical cases. But again there are many different theories of knowledge to consider. Now I find it puzzling Gangadean would accept his preferred theory as correct given his rigorism about rational justification and his criticism of fideism (which he says is belief without proof). Does he not realize that the only reason the justified true belief account of knowledge gained prominence was because people found it intuitive or at least to make sense of our intuitions?

I hope by now that it is clear that Gangadean seems to rely on intuitions in presenting his theory of knowledge. Now there is nothing wrong with doing so (as I said, analytic philosophy is full of intuitions)--- but Gangadean and his followers also often speak disparagingly about the employment of intuitions (e.g., they think that to believe something in virtue of an intuition is to believe without proof and hence a case of fideism). So it seems they owe us a theory about "good uses of intuitions" vs. "bad uses of them" and this theory better not rest ultimately on intuitions. Otherwise, they need to show how the theories they accept are actually entirely free from intuitions. Neither project seems promising to me, but I'm open to hearing suggestions. So my challenge then is for Gangadean and/or his followers to either provide me a sound argument which shows that knowledge must be maximally justified true belief, or show me how there is no employment of intuitions in accepting this theory, or else admit that intuitions are being employed but that these very intuitions are somehow acceptable (and consistent with the project of coming to certainty) from other intuitions.

One last thing. If there is question about whether knowledge is maximally justified true belief (that is, if Gangadean hasn't provided a sound argument showing that it is the right theory) then this wreaks havoc for a lot of his other claims. He depends on his preferred theory of knowledge extensively in his other theories. For instance, eternal life, on his view, is knowing God. And it is the failure to know what is clear that is the basis of spiritual death. So there is much at stake here for Gangadean and his ilk.

The Debunking Gangadean page

It has come to my attention that two sites are linking my page. These include, "Debunking Gangadean" and a facebook page called, "Discussing Surrendra Gangadean..." While I'm certainly grateful for the referrals (as it appears some new readers have found my site thanks to them), I want to make it clear that I don't endorse either of those sites. I don't know the author/authors, and based on what I have gathered from a quick survey of the contents, I generally don't agree with the spirit of these sites. My blog is only about philosophical and theological content, and not about poking fun at people that I happen to disagree with nor is it about trying to promulgate details about their personal lives. It's true, I vehemently disagree with Gangadean and company, but this doesn't mean I think they are not worth being treated with respect and basic kindness.

The self as eternal?

Previously I spoke about how I think Gangadean's argument for God's existence fails on account of being predicated on a false dichotomy. But suppose he has a way of overcoming that. Even still, showing that some spirit must be eternal doesn't get one to the position that God (as conceived by theism exists). As Gangadean thinks of it, spirit is an immaterial, conscious, substance. Of course, this isn't to say very much about the nature of this eternal being. So there are steps needed to bridge the gap between some spirit must be eternal to the God of theism must necessarily exist. Moreover, the possibility seems to remain that perhaps I am eternal (provided that I am at least a spirit and also can know with certainty that I exist). In conversations, Gangadean and Anderson both argue in the following way.

1) I am a conscious/rational being (i.e., I have the capacity to use reason to come to know).  

2) If 1) and I am eternal, then I am all-knowing.  

3) It is not the case that I am all-knowing. 

4) Therefore, either not 1) or I am not eternal. 

5) Therefore, I am not eternal. 

Essentially the ideas seems to be that if a conscious being were eternal, then they would have gained all knowledge by now (since it's existed for all eternity). But since it is just obvious to us that we don't have all knowledge, it must be the case that we are not eternal. 

The main problem is that it supposes omniscience is going to be sufficiently connected to eternality (at least for a conscious/rational being). But it isn't clear why we should accept this. Now in conversation, Gangadean and Anderson will say something like, "well if you had existed as a conscious/rational being for all eternity, then you would already have come to know everything."

But this just won't do.  Presumably there are not a finite number of propositions (or true propositions) otherwise, one day, according to the Christian picture and Gangadean's theology, we could come to exhaust all knowledge which would hardly be eternal life as a rational being (we will have eventually finish our most basic pursuit to know God). But since this can't be right, there must be an infinite number of propositions. However, if there are an infinite number of propositions to be known, it means there are an inexhaustible number of propositions to be known. An infinite number of propositions cannot (by definition) be exhausted---and so regardless of how much time you have to learn, you cannot get it all. Even if you existed for all eternity, you could not "come to know" an infinite number of propositions. So premise 2) which is a conditional statement purportedy connecting eternal existence for a conscious/rational being with omniscience is false. But then the whole argument falls apart.

3 Points of Contention

This was part of a message emailed to me from Surrendra Gangadean. It is to summarize, on his view, the most fundamental portions of our disagreement. Note, I have copied and pasted this portion from the letter.

Gangdean wrote:

1. I claim full certainty concerning reason as the laws of thought: a is a; the contradiction of some s is p is no s is p. 

2. You doubt that full (100%) certain is possible given the possibility of memory lapse; and there is no way to correct this (all others can have the same memory lapse at the same time). 

3. There is no way to know what degree of certainty we do or can have: 99%, 5%, -5%. From this it follows that discussion for correction (in membership vow #4) is pointless. 

Consistently held, your view makes discussion pointless. It nullifies the meaning of one’s vow and shows that you were not ready to take vows. A person is free to leave WF at any time and seek association with those who share their basic view (in this case, your view that you cannot know anything with certainty, including the laws of thought). If you want to seek membership at WF you will need to go through the preparation needed to first attend WF as an adherent and then as a member. This preparation must take place before coming to church, not after. Those who bring you in must prepare you before you come. If you want to seek membership at WF, please do so. We will keep in touch with the three persons who brought you in to see what progress is being made.

I want to offer some comments about the above. Firstly, I don't deny the trivial claim that "a is a." This is a metaphysical claim that, simply, a thing is what it is.

I affirm "a is a." In fact, I think that I assume it all of the time in my theorizing and indeed in my raising objections. I assume it. Or presume it (so far as I can tell). But this is not the same as saying that I have absolute certainty regarding "a is a." And this is just what Gangadean wanted me to verbally affirm.

Notice in his point 1 he is not merely saying "a is a" or "necessarily, a is a" which is an identity claim, broadly considered to be a metaphysical one. Instead he is making the higher order claim about the metaphysical claim. He is not merely saying "a is a", but is actually talking about his epistemic position with respect to "a is a," namely, that he has absolute certainty that a is a. 

Now while I accept that "a is a" because it is intuitive and because it appears to me that it is assumed in all of my theorizing, I could not get myself to assent to this further claim about my epistemic position regarding it. For one thing, I wasn't sure at the time (nor am I still) all of what that might commit me to (it's not like he could provide me with an exhaustive list of everything entailed by this commitment). I simply don't know what claiming my certainty about "a is a" will imply about other future beliefs---indeed, beliefs that I may one day have that I haven't yet even considered. In such a place, withholding assent seems to be the rational stance---but this was unacceptable to Gangadean. He wanted a definite commitment (he wanted me to affirm that I was certain that a is a, among other things) which I was unwilling to give.

Now I must say I am curious about what it means for someone to be absolutely certain of some claim like "a is a." How does one know when one has achieved absolute certainty? It can't be merely a very strong sense of confidence since this is (on its own) a psychological fact and such confidence fools us from time to time (haven't you ever felt very sure of something only to later learn you were wrong?). So I think it fair for me to ask Gangadean for some satisfying account of what it means for someone to be absolutely certain and also, relatedly, the test that determines this and distinguishes it from merely thinking you are absolutely certain. How can one know that one is certain that a is a?

Secondly, Gangadean states that he is absolutely certain that reason is the laws of thought. Thus I am curious how Gangadean knows what "reason"is to begin with?

Ask yourself the following questions.

1) What is reason?
2) How would I come to learn what reason is (i.e, what is the decision process I would use or the litmus test I would use to figure out what the true or right account of reason is)?
3) What if someone disagrees with what I think reason is? How can I ensure that I have the "right" account of reason?
4) What do I mean when I say that something is the right account of reason?
5) How does Gangadean know what reason is?

Relatedly, I am curious what Gangadean even means when he says "reason is the laws of thought." Does he intend that he looked up the definition of 'reason' in a lexicon somewhere and found it to be "reason is the laws of thought?" Of course, not. No such book, in virtue of being a dictionary, would provide the right kind of account.

Perhaps then he means that he took comprehensive surveys of how people use the concept "reason" in their mental lives and found that every single one of them agreed that this concept was defined as "the laws of thought" or "a is a." But he has done no such surveys (and so I don't think this is his claim).

Maybe he is saying that he just knows a priori what is universally the concept of reason, shared by all humanity. But this is too crazy to be something I could charitably attribute to Gangadean, so this can't be it either. It is an empirical claim about the concepts people use and couldn't be verified a priori.

Instead, I suspect that he means that there is something "out there" which we call 'reason' and that he somehow has apprehended it's nature or something of the sort (perhaps even through direct apprehension, although I don't think he is a Platonist). And while others might have their own versions of what they take reason to be, he, and those who agree with him, are ultimately right.

Now I'm not relativist about truth, so I'm fine with some being right and others being wrong, but I want justification here. Why should we trust that Gangadean is right about his notion of reason as the laws of thought? Where is the argument?

Point 2: "You doubt that full (100%) certain is possible given the possibility of memory lapse; and there is no way to correct this (all others can have the same memory lapse at the same time)."

He is right, I have doubts that absolute certainty is ever achieved or possible for us. Notice this is not the same as saying I know for certain, that absolute certainty is not possible (that would be self undercutting). As my last two posts are designed to highlight, we do not seem to have full fledged justification to trust our memories on any given occasion (except perhaps when we're thinking through the memory objection). I think that we have to (if we are going to theorize) merely presume that our memories are reliable on any given occasion, but that is just, that, a presumption, a defeasible presumption. This is why absolute certainty seems beyond our reach. When it seems to us that we have been confronted by a conclusion of a sound argument, we should preface our claims with: "So far as my memory (and perhaps, reasoning faculties) is being reliable on this very occasion, I am sure that p." It seems to me that Gangadean wants to skip this qualification, but as my previous two posts noted, this is a dubious position. Still, I am open to hearing a theory about why, despite our memory being not fully reliable, we can in fact trust our memories to be reliable on any given occasion (as in when we work through an inference diachronically).

Point 3: "There is no way to know what degree of certainty we do or can have: 99%, 5%, -5%. From this it follows that discussion for correction (in membership vow #4) is pointless."

But this is far too quick. Just because someone doubts absolute certainty regarding any inferred proposition, it doesn't follow that they are committed to the view that we cannot know even what degree of certainty we do or can have. It doesn't necessarily call into question any of our knowledge claims. Here Gangadean (whether intentionally or inadvertently) has smuggled in his favored notion of "know." That is, his reasoning above only follows if one presupposes infallibilism about knowledge (that is, his preferred theory of knowledge).

But as I've addressed in my previous posts, there are different accounts of knowledge and his is but one option. For instance, one might side with the vast majority of professional philosophers today and take it that we can know things even if we are not maximally justified in believing them. Or one might be an externalist about knowledge such that justification doesn't even require someone have or be aware of certain "reasons" for the beliefs that they know (note, one can be a fallibilist and an externalist or an internalist regarding justification). One might even think that knowledge is a primitive, unanalyzable concept/phenomenon (this is a view that has been gaining a lot of currency lately). My point is, Gangadean has his own theory of what knowledge is and this is but one view among many about the nature of knowledge.

Thus only after he has established/proven that his theory of knowledge is the correct one can he use the reasoning in Point 3 to show me that my position is inconsistent with the act of furthering discussion and correction. He should also give us a theory about how infallible knowledge and discussion/correction are connected to constitute the rule that he presupposes (that there is grounds for discussion and correction only if, one can infallibly know what level/degree of certainty one is currently faced with). In short, it simply doesn't follow that discussion for correction is pointless just because I don't confirm to have absolute certainty about reason as the laws of thought or about my epistemic relation to "a is a."

Furthermore, in the quote presented at the start of this post, Gangadean writes of me, "your view that you cannot know anything with certainty, including the laws of thought."

However, I want to avoid some potential confusion on this point. The fact is, once again, I don't maintain with absolute certainty that we cannot be absolutely certain (that would be self-refuting). I've said this explicitly in my previous post regarding the "memory objection." I doubt that we can have absolute certainty---but doubting that we can have such certainty amounts to something like, being unsure of, or not being convinced that absolute certainty is likely or perhaps even possible. I need to be convinced (and so should anyone else maintaing this position) that we can have absolute certainty.  In other words, my official position is that Gangadean has not presented (and owes us) an account of how absolute certainty is possible in light of things like the memory objection. Moreover, since he's an internalist about justification, I think he owes us an explanation of how one can be sure that one is sure of some proposition (that is, the higher order awareness that he claimed to have in point # 1).

An Argument Against The Memory Objection?

Last time, I discussed an articulation of the memory objection against the absolute certainty thesis (the view that we can know propositions like "God exists" with absolute certainty).  These are propositions that are the conclusion of arguments and so their assessment depends significantly on the faculty of memory to be reliable. Here's is the most prominent response by my interlocutors.  Note, this is my reconstruction and extrapolation of the argument rather than a verbatim recounting of it.

1) The memory objection is true (i.e., we cannot know with absolute certainty that our memory is reliable either in general or on any given instance). 

2) If 1), then we must doubt the reliability of all instances of memory (to be consistent).   

3) But assessing the argument (and related considerations) for the memory objection itself depends on memory (i.e., to see if the memory objection is a good one, I need to employ my memory). 

4) If so, then I cannot be absolutely certain that my memory is reliable in assessing the goodness of the memory objection. 

5)This is self-referentially absurd and thus by reductio ad absurdum, the memory objection is not true.   

This seems to be a kind of transcendental argument.  I think it doesn't help at all and only causes more problems for its advocates.  I discuss some issues below. 

First, a person of my bent is not opposed to the view that absolute certainty is not possible.  This alone seriously takes the bite out of this argument.  In fact, unless absolute certainty is possible, the conclusion simply doesn't follow from the premises.  Why not?  Because the above argument depends on showing an absurdity. Premise 4) is where this is made explicit.  The thinking seems to be, that if we cannot trust our memory to be reliable (i.e., memory objection is sound), then we cannot be absolutely certain that the memory objection itself is sound.  But notice, this presents a problem only for those after absolute certainty (or arguing for the thesis that absolute certainty is possible) to begin with. But I am trying to argue that we cannot have absolute certainty, so if my argument does just that, I've succeeded at my aim.  Importantly, I am not arguing that we can be absolutely certain that we cannot be absolutely certain.  In this way, the above response fails to make any headway for my opponent.  

Detour: one objection to what has just been discussed is to respond with: "well then thought and talk are not possible" or "there is no point in talking or thinking if we cannot be absolutely certain about anything".  But how does that follow?  I don't see it. The person wielding this approach presupposes that thought and talk require absolute certainty, but where does this rule come from?  How does one know that this is absolutely true?  How can one justify it?  From what I have seen one must appeal to intuitions here.  But I certainly welcome an argument. So my first point in summation is that if my memory objection logically entails that the absolute certainty thesis is false, then this only furthers my aim.  Further, the persons pointing out that the memory objection implies that we cannot have absolute epistemic certainty may voice this as a problem with the memory objection but they first need to show why we should want or need absolute certainty for this to be an actual problem.

A second issue with the purportedly reductio argument above is that one can avoid it simply by affirming that memory is reliable when (and only when) the memory objection is being considered.  Admittedly, this is a strange result.  So if my employing the memory objection undermines the memory objection, then we can just affirm that memory is reliable but only when we assess the memory objection.  This means there is no self-undercutting going on since I am saying I can know that my memory is reliable if and only if I am presenting/assessing the memory objection.  By doing this we no longer have a self-referential absurdity which again is to tame my opponent's response.  In other words, all we can gather from the above argument is that whenever I think about or assess the memory objection, my memory is reliable (or I can know that my memory is reliable) as it pertains to my appraisal of the argument. (Note: it doesn't follow from this that memory is generally reliable or reliable on any other occasions). If so, then (granting my interlocutor a great deal) perhaps what the argument under question shows is that we can know (perhaps with certainty) the soundness or unsoundness of the memory objection (but nothing else).  

Third, we should proceed with caution here in trying to employ a transcendental or psuedo-transcendental argument.  When one argues that necessarily, 'a is a', we seem to be dealing with a necessary truth.  Further, we cannot even conceive of the denial of 'a is a'.  In fact, it is thought that 'a is a' is something of a precondition of philosophical inquiry.  If one is thinking, one cannot help but instantiate that 'a is a' (so this line of thinking goes).  But notice a significant difference with regards to the objection to the memory objection.  We should hope not to get a conclusion via this transcendental argument that necessarily, memory is reliable.  After all, we can conceive of our memories as being unreliable (indeed with think it a fact that our memories are not impeccable). If we somehow get the result that our memory is necessarily reliable, we've done something terribly wrong. After all, how can the reliability of memory be a necessary truth, when memory is a contingently reliable faculty?

If it can't be that our memory must (necessarily) be reliable, then what is the objection to the memory objection supposed to show?  Again transcendental arguments seem to give us some strong necessary  precondition to the phenomena we are dealing with.  So somewhere there must be a claim about what must be the case.  I actually think that the argument is a confused one.  This is because I think what the proponents of the objection to the memory objection are arguing for is something like this: "we must presume memory is reliable if absolute certainty is to be possible".  So the desired conclusion formulated using 'necessity' seems to be: we necessarily, presume memory reliability, if absolute certainty is to be possible.  But it's important to note the scope of the 'necessity' operator here.  As we've already seen it would be ridiculous to state that necessarily, memory is reliable (this would mean memory could not possibly fail, ever).  Instead, on the view considered, what seems to be the desired conclusion is that our presumption that memory is reliable is what is necessary.  But now, how is this supposed to assure us that we can know things on the basis of memory with absolute certainty?  How does the necessity of a epistemic presumption do this? Consider the following coherent state of affairs:

a) Bob's memory is actually fooling him right now (so that what he thinks he recalls, did not actually happen).
b) Bob has no indication that his memory is failing him right now.
c) Bob must necessarily presume his memory is reliable if he can know anything with certainty.
d) Thus, Bob is fooled by his memory, but does not know it.

I think that a)-d) describe an undesirable epistemic situation, at least if Bob is after absolute certainty.  He must, out of necessity, presuppose that his memory is working, but because he has no reasons to question the reliability, he goes on believing a falsehood.  How do we rule this possibility out in our own lives with the presumption?  Again we can't say that memory is necessarily reliable.  All we can say is that we must presume that it is.  This seems to be no achievement, but rather a sad state to be in (again if one is after absolute certainty). I don't see how this supports the absolute certainty thesis (as it regards those propositions known in virtue of memory). Once again, this seems only to lend support to the memory objection that I have suggested.

Memory and Knowledge

Some time ago I suggested a challenge to persons I have encountered that maintain the controvesial thesis that we can know some propositions (e.g., that the God of Theism exists) with absolute certainty. Call this the absolute certainty thesis. I find this an extremely contentious view and raised a particular objection depending on considerations about memory.  I want to take a first pass at summarizing the objection first by briefly mentioning the considerations that lead me to it.

Memory like perception, induction and testimony is a vital source of belief formation and knowledge.  So much of what we take ourselves to know depends in part on memory. Memory among other things, preserves for us propositional content.  It sort of works like an internal testifier, it saves certain beliefs to be used by its holder at a later time (this is so at least when speaking of factual memory, rather than episodic memory). Consider answering these questions: How long have you lived in Arizona?  What is your name? What is the pythagorean theorem?  Where is New Jersey in relation to California? How old are you? What did you eat for lunch?  What is your blood type?  When did you become a Christian? Who are your parents?

Your answers will undoubtedly depend importantly on your memory reporting certain facts, accurately.  If we had no memories, our lives would be severely impoverished as instanced by persons who suffer severe memory loss. What may not be as obvious is that the faculty of memory plays an essential role in our assessing the merits of an argument.  Is an argument valid?  Is it sound?  To answer these inquiries we need to employ inter alia, the faculty of memory.  Consider the following fallacious argument:

1) All men are mortal.
2) Jones is not a man
3) Therefore, Jones is not mortal.

Notice that you have to work through the steps one by one.  By the time you get to the conclusion you have to recall what premises preceded it to know whether the conclusion actually follows from the former. Moreover, you have to understand, recall and correctly employ basic rules of inference i.e., I must determine what logically follows from what and what doesn't,  to make this judgment call. Notice that the longer the argument (viz., the more steps involved) the more difficult the task. Imagine if the argument had 20 pages of premises like some elaborate mathematical proof.  Of course, you can keep referring back to the previous steps, but this doesn't avoid introducing memory. It seems an inalienable fact that our minds can focus only on one proposition at a time. So when I understand the conclusion, and then refer back to the first premise, to see if one relates to the other in the right sort of way, I have to remember the propositions being compared as well as the rules of inference governing arguments.  And this is where the doubts creep in.  What if as I appraise an argument, my memory only appears to me to be reliable but is in fact failing me?  Note I am making a distinction between appearance or a seeming and the actuality or fact of the matter.  Sometimes I swear I remember something that happened, only to be corrected by more reliable sources like written records.  My memory does fail me.  Details slip and change over time.

More fundamentally, memory qua faculty of preserving propositional content, seems to be contingently reliable.  That is to say, it isn't a necessary truth that our memory is reliable either in general or on any given occasion.  If this is right, there are really two interrelated problems here.  The possibility of global memory failure: we cannot be sure that our memory is generally reliable and the possibility of local memory failure: on any given occasion where I employ my memory I cannot be sure that it is reliable.  If it were a necessary truth that our memory was reliable in general, then we would never forget things.  But as aforementioned, this seems contrary to our experience.  We forget things all the time. Alternatively, if it were reliable on a particular occasion, necessarily (while not in general) then there must be some fact that makes this so.  But I wonder what that could be.  The question remains, how would we know that our memory was behaving on such an occasion rather than only appearing to us as so? It's important to keep in mind that this issue seems to show a problem with internalist theories of justification and knowledge. Internalists like Gangadean require that I be able to definitively determine that my methods of knowing are veridical. The very objective fact that my memory is correctly working on a given occasion can't ever lead to me knowing or having justification for my beliefs which are a result of this memorial process--I need further to be able to determine that my memory is actually working.

Here's a first pass at my objection against the possibility of knowledge with certainty (Gangadean's account of knowledge) from considerations of memory reliability:

1) If memory is contingently reliable, then on any given occasion where I employ my memory it is possible that my memory is failing me (i.e., not correctly reporting some fact).
2) Memory is contingently reliable.
3) Hence, on any given occasion where I employ my memory it is possible that my memory is failing me (i.e, not correctly reporting some fact).
4) Assessing the merits of any argument requires that I depend on my memory.
5) If 1),  2), 3) and 4), then any time I assess an argument, my memory could be failing me.
6) If 5) then we cannot be absolutely certain that any conclusion follows any argument.

It is a valid argument since it just consists of a series of Modus Ponens. Moreover, I think that argument is sound in that the premises seem uncontroversial.  Of course, I'm not saying I know all of this with absolute certainty or anything like that.  So there is no self-undermining going on in the above argument. If I were arguing that 6) follows with absolute certainty from 1) - 5), then I would be committing some intellectual indecency.  But I do no such thing. I don't know with absolute certainty, that absolute certainty is not possible.  I just think there are strong reasons to believe that absolute certainty is not possible.

We need proponents of the absolute certainty thesis to give us a persuasive argument that does not admit to any problems. My objection here is meant to show one problem against that thesis.  If we cannot come up with a solution to the memory objection, then we cannot with propriety say we know anything with absolute certainty that depends on our memory to preserve facts for us.  In subsequent posts I will consider some objections that were raised against my objection.

S knows that p if and only if...

Picking up from my last post. The people of WF accept a traditional analysis of knowledge.

S knows that p if and only if :

1) S believes that p.

2) P is true.

3) S is maximally justified in believing that p. 

(Note 'S' is a variable that stands in for any potential subject/knower and 'p' stands in for any proposition).

Call this the MJTB (maximally justified true belief) account of knowledge. It is supposed to be an analysis of knowledge---that is by understanding the components (1-3) we have an informative account of what knowledge is (or when an S knows that p statement/proposition/locution is true). Further, an analysis is going to provide you the necessary and jointly sufficient conditions of the analysandum (the thing being analyzed). In other words, anything fulfilling conditions 1) - 3) will necessarily count as knowledge, and anything lacking any of the 3 conditions, will, necessarily, fail to be knowledge. 

Gangadean spends a short time in his book speaking about a couple of Gettier cases. He takes it that he has solved the problems that Gettier has raised against the MJTB account. However, he ignores the plethora of Gettier cases that have been raised since the time that Gettier published his short piece (some 40 years ago). Some, if not many, of these new versions escape Gangadean's criticisms altogether. For instance, in the "Sheep on a hill" Gettier case, there is no shifting of senses going on whatsoever. Likewise, the stopped clock examples do not depend on the sort of ambiguity that Gangadean faults the original Gettier cases with. Now Gangadean, no doubt, will have something to say about these new cases. He is an infallibilist about knowledge and so he requires maximal justification for knowledge. Most of the new Gettier style cases suppose that knowledge does not require maximal justification and so Gangadean can exploit this to maintain his commitment to the traditional MJTB account. When I see what appears to be a sheep on the hill (but it is actually a sheep shaped rock hiding a real sheep behind it) and form the belief that there is a sheep on the hill, I form a belief based on my perception, which by Gangadean's lights does not provide maximal justification/certainty for my belief (that there is a sheep on the hill). This is likely what Gangadean would say about why there is no knowledge in such a case. S has a true belief in p, but condition 3) has not been fulfilled. 

I imagine that I will have a lot more to say about the traditional analysis of knowledge (and the Gangadean take on it/MJTB). I hinted in my previous post about how such a strong justification condition on knowledge will actually lead to skepticism about knowledge. I hope to address this in more detail in future posts. But for now, I want to raise a more basic challenge. If you follow Gangadean in requiring certainty for knowledge, and subscribe to the above analysis of knowledge (i.e, the MJTB account), then here is a set of requirements that arise from your own view.

Essentially, you will need to provide a sufficient analysis of the more basic concepts used in your analysis of knowledge. These include answers to the following questions.

a) What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for S believing that p? 

b) What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for p being maximally justified, per se? 

c) What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for p being maximally justified for S? 

d) What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for S believing that p on the basis of/in virtue of reasons r? Hint: you might want to check this site out which highlights some of the debates concerning this apparently elusive relation.

I think you should start to feel a bit overwhelmed. Analyses are notorious for being unsuccessful among professional philosophers working in the last 40 years. But of course, I won't say they are impossible. So if you follow the Gangadean line, please give me a) -d). 

Until you have provided an impeccable analysis (one that admits to no counterexamples) of these more basic concepts which constitute your analysis of knowledge, it's hard to see why someone would be inclined to accept your view that knowledge is maximally justified true belief. It would be like trying to convince someone that your analysis that Red = XYZ is true, without explaining what XYZ is in the first place.

Moreover, suppose you follow Gangadean in affirming that knowledge is MJTB, but you also accept what he says about meaning being more basic than truth. Further you accept his view that if you know something then you should be able to show it (this is related to his internalist theory of knowledge which requires that you have access to any of the relevant reasons for why you believe something that is a piece of knowledge for you). Putting these commitments together, one way to characterize what is going on is that you don't actually know what MJTB even means. In other words, you don't really know what knowledge is or at the very least you don't know that the MTJB is the correct analysis of knowledge.

So rationality (and integrity) would call you to withhold belief.  

Claims to Certainty and Scrutiny

Since I've put up a few posts, I thought it might be important to mention one of my fundamental disagreements with Gangadean, Anderson and WF which might remind the reader of why I raising some of the objections that I am raising.

If you will look at my posts, you will see that I try to show how their proofs fail. I might bring up remote possibilities against some of their arguments/premises. Of course, it is undoubtedly going to make me seem like a skeptic in general. In fact, I am a fallibilist about knowledge, that is to say, I think we can know propositions even if we are not maximally justified regarding them and so skepticism doesn't actually suit me that well.

However, Gangadean and company are infallibilists about knowledge. They maintain that S knows that p if and only if, S has a justified true belief about p. However, they have an extreme view on what counts as justification. Roughly, S is justified in believing that p if and only if, S has ruled out all not-p possibilities. So you're only justified in believing something like, "God exists" if you have been able to rule out every other possibility that is mutually inconsistent with the proposition (that God exists). Sometimes the proponents speak about being able to "show" a proof--- but I think this brings about difficulties --for instance, what does it precisely mean to be able to show a proof? Nevertheless, I have heard the followers of WF speak of being able to show that God exists---this is part and parcel of knowing that God exists. And what it means to show that God exists is to be able to (at least) rehearse a sound argument which demonstrates that it is simply metaphysically impossible that God does not exist.

I think that such a view invariably leads to skepticism about knowledge. It would mean we know very little, if anything. We don't know things like, "I have hands," "I have a body," "I was born in July," "My wife is a conscious being," etc.

So when Gangadean and company claim that to know things like that God exists, Jesus is the son of God, the bible is the word of God, etc, then they are claiming that they have absolute proof of the veracity of these claims. Moreover, they believe that if a person is unable to rule out any and all alternative possibilities to, for instance, the proposition that God exists, then such a person does not know that God exists. This is why, in my posts, I may be extra-scrutinizing.  I hope to speak at more length (and hopefully depth) about my epistemological issues, in future posts, so stay tuned.

Proper Function vs. Proper Desire

Part I

I've been thinking about Owen Anderson's article found here, where he raises some objections against Plantinga.  He rehearses much of these considerations in his book, The Clarity of God's Existence.

Briefly, Plantinga's view is that unbelief in God might be due to improper functioning of one's belief forming apparatuses which are the result of the fall.  We don't see what we otherwise might (including God's glory) because we are negatively affected (in particular, with respect to our cognition) by our sin. Anderson's main focus in the article is to show that if the Plantingan picture is correct (i.e., unbelief in God is the result of improper functioning), then the unbeliever cannot be held inexcusable/responsible for their unbelief.  That is to say, the unbeliever, who lacks belief in God on the basis of improper functioning, has an excuse.

There is something initially plausible about this picture.  I mean how can a just God condemn persons for failing to do something that they cannot possibly do?  Now I have my doubts about understanding notions of divine justice, but I will table those and related concerns for the moment.  Anderson's main objections to Plantinga trade centrally on the old "ought-implies-can" principle of responsibility.  Stated simply, if I ought to do something, then it must be the case that I can, call this OIC.

Now many philosophers have rejected OIC despite it's initially, intuitive appeal. Indeed there are a number of counterexamples to the principle both in the realm of morality and in epistemology. I won't have time to speak of those here.

So grant (for the purposes of discussion) that OIC is true in all cases. What I want to focus on is how even Anderson's view seems to violate the principle at one level.  This is because Anderson is also a compatibilist about free will and determinism.  Moreover he is reformed in his theology and accepts the calvinistic notion of total depravity which is the view that man cannot possibly seek God save a change in his mind/heart.  This change is not self-caused but rather must come from without and so is external to the agent.  That is to say, the nonbeliever on this view simply will not (and cannot) seek God left to herself.

Now suppose all of this is correct, again, for the sake of discussion. One might ask how the unbeliever can be thought to be without excuse?  After all, if ought implies can, but man is born totally depraved such that they cannot seek God (save a change instituted from without), then in what sense ought man to know God?

Perhaps aware of this problem Anderson takes liberties to revise the OIC principle in the following way:

                   OIC-R: if person S wants to seek the Lord, then S can.

So on this picture, the problem with the unbeliever is that he desires not to seek God and if and only if he wanted to seek God, then he could. This is meant to preserve the ought-implies-can principle of seeking/knowing God, but again, it is a revised form of OIC so we''ll refer to Anderson's principle as OIC-R from here on out.

The first problem is a question about philosophical motivation. Why should we accept this as a legitimate move? He is basically coming up with a principle that serves his thesis, but that excludes Plantinga's. Indeed Plantinga cannot use the same exact maneuver since even if person P wanted to know, if person P had a jacked up belief forming apparatus, he still couldn't know God.

But now Anderson's principle (the revision of the original OIC) seems self-serving and ad hoc and  Just because it helps his theory doesn't mean that it is the correct theory.

Relatedly, why can't Plantinga make a similar manuever?  In light of Anderson's criticisms Plantinga could come up with his own revision of the ought-implies-can principle.  He might for example argue that while it's true that man in sin has their belief forming apparatuses all messed up (so as not to believe in God), the following conditional is true:

"If God delivers person X and restores their apparatus then they can know God".

So on this revision, it's consistent to insist that all men should know God, even though man knowing God depends on some act of God.

Of course, one might think there is still an important difference between Anderson's and the proposed Plantingan revision of the ought-implies-can.  Anderson's seems not to deal with the unbelievers reasoning faculties, but rather the unbelievers desire to seek/know God while Plantinga's involves the belief forming processes. But the crucial question is whether we should think this is a relevant difference to the matter of the inexcusability of unbelief. I don't see how it could be. I mean, what should it matter of the precise mechanism that keeps an unbeliever from seeking/knowing God?  Whether it's because unbeliever A lacks the desire to seek God, or whether A doesn't have the properly functioning abilities to know God, if both necessarily keep person A from knowing/seeking what is clear (and both are ultimately up to God not A), then why think this difference is salient to the matter at hand?  This gives rise to a further issue with Anderson's account.

We can criticize Anderson's account as not making sense of OIC regarding the desire to seek the Lord. That is to contend that Anderson's account actually violates OIC (just at a different level).

Just as Anderson faults Plantinga's view for not respecting the OIC regarding belief in God, we can, by parity, fault Anderson's view for failing to maintain OIC regarding man's fundamental desire to seek.

For example, consider the following, "If I ought to desire to seek God, then it must be the case that I can".  

Anderson's reformed theological views and compatibilism violate this principle.  Since man is born into total depravity, the nonbeliever fundamentally desires not to seek God save an act of God.  So the unbeliever cannot know God, because the unbeliever cannot make it so that the necessary requisite states of affairs (e.g., desiring to seek) obtain.

If OIC is categorically true (as Anderson wants to insist), then how can it be true of the unbeliever that she ought to know God and thus that unbelief is inexcusable? Notice, if the unbeliever can be excused for her failing to have the desire to seek, then this also would get her off the hook for her unbelief.

The point is, it seems to me that whatever move is open to Anderson, a parallel manuever will be available to Plantinga. What is more, we can revise the OIC regarding inexcusability of unbelief with all kinds of antecedent clauses.  For instance, one might insist that God can only be known via special revelation and then adjust the OIC accordingly: "Look,  God can be known by anyone and all that that means is, 'if one has special revelation, then one can know him.'  The question is whether this move or Anderson's move is a legitimate one.

---------------------------------
Part II

Anderson, in his article, also considers how it must be clear to reason that God exists, if man is to be held responsible for unbelief.  But now suppose that it is knowable to reason as Anderson wants to argue (that is, suppose that "if person A wants to know then they can"), but add that it is not up to the unbeliever whether she will desire to know or not.  As noted previously, desiring to know is thought to be at least necessary in order to know on Anderson's view.

But then what good is it that it is clear to reason (as he conceives it) if people are still prevented from knowing God due to reasons beyond their ultimate control?  Perhaps to Anderson this is perfectly consistent with the inexcusability of unbelief, but I just don't see it.  That is, the nonbeliever despite not being able to determine whether they have one of the necessary conditions for knowing God, is still inexcusable in their unbelief.  In fact in conversations Anderson often cites that you will never find a case where a person in unbelief will sincerely say, "well I want to know God, but I can't."  I've never been sure what this is meant to show.  Nevermind what these persons can legitimately say.  We as appraisers of the situation can on their behalf say that they never had a shot at knowing God (in fact, they were necessarily prevented from belief) and think that this is unfair or isn't consistent with the legitimacy of the inexcusability thesis.

On the other hand, Anderson seems to find the inexcusability of unbelief to be obviously inconsistent with the thesis that God's existence is "unclear."  But why does he find this inconsistent but not the above?  Perhaps it's just intuitive to him.  Say it's not clear to person B that God exists because despite there being evidence for God's existence, B does not cognitively function properly.  But then it also seems true that we would never find such a person who can properly assert, "I want to know God, but I can't".  Why? Because they wouldn't know what they were missing (namely, knowing God) since they don't have a proper function to get that far.  So again it appears that Anderson's view and Plantinga's view merely differ on certain details of mechanics but I don't see the philosophical importance of these differences. I contend that whatever can be a form of criticism for Plantinga's view can with little work be construed as one for Owen's.

Maximal Consequences and Maximal Clarity: Between a Rock and a Hard Place.

Shifting gears a bit, I want to raise, what I think is a serious issue that arises from the dictum often presented by Gangadean and Anderson and company. The line is, "maximal consequences requires maximal clarity."

Anderson and Gangadean are two theists who argue that the God of Christianity is knowable with absolute certainty.  They argue that it is central to Christianity that unbelief in this God is inexcusable and if so, God's existence must be "maximally clear."  Why must it be maximally clear? Because Anderson asserts (but doesn't argue) that maximal consequences imply maximal clarity.

First off, it isn't obvious that inexcusability is central to Christianity at least in the way that they have in mind. Anderson for instance will cite Romans 1:20 as a sort of proof text for this notion.  Paul does say that man (in unbelief) is without excuse because God's eternal power and divine nature are clearly seen by what is made. As a side note, it seems that unbelief, not the lack of knowledge is inexcusable, but I think that Andreson and Surrendra require of the believer and unbeliever, knowledge of God (further they take knowledge to entail Cartesian certainty).

Anyway, as I've mentioned before, there are various intelligible meanings to "clear" and "without excuse."  Indeed we use "clear" or "clarity" often in our expressions without intending to mean absolute certainty.  For instance, it's clear that I am in Arizona at the moment (this is in fact, true). It's evident by everything I see. And you might say there is no excuse for me believing that I was in Canada dreaming that I am in Arizona. Suppose that it is somehow a crime for me to be in Arizona at the moment (maybe I am an illegal immigrant from Canada). Now it's remotely possible, that I only think I am in Arizona right now (that is, my evidence doesn't perfectly rule out the possibility that I'm in Canada right now, but subject to an extremely convincing hallucination that I am in Arizona at the moment). So suppose I actually believe that I am not in Arizona right now. Now suppose that I am arrested and charged with being in Arizona illegally. It's no excuse for me to cite the fact that I wasn't absolutely certain that I was in Arizona. If I told the authorities that I thought it a possible that I was actually in Canada right now, but merely hallucinating that I was in Arizona, they wouldn't (with good reason) excuse my illegal residence. So I have no excuse for failing to believe that I am in Arizona right now, even though it isn't absolutely clear or certain that I am in Arizona. These seem to be perfectly accessible ways of using the words 'clear' and 'inexcusable' that depart from the way that Anderson wants to privilege. So it seems to me that Anderson, if he depends on Paul's writing to support his intentions of the terms "clear" and "inexcusable" needs to give us an indubitable reason to accept that Paul was using the words in the way that he, (Anderson) is using them. Otherwise, it's just a case of semantic bullying.

As we noted above, Anderson and Gangadean argue that God's existence must be maximally clear. But why? Because unbelief (either according to scripture or reason) in God leads to maximal consequences i.e., spiritual death.  One of the corollaries of this line of thinking is that whenever failure to know a proposition leads to maximal consequences (spiritual death), that proposition must be maximally clear. More formally:

Max Consequences Requires Max Clarity Equivalence (MCRME):  

Where P = any proposition and S = any subject (potential knower). 

If unbelief in P entails maximal consequences for S, then P must be maximally clear to S. 

Now supposing that belief in God is requisite for one to avoid the maximal consequences, the question to ask is whether there are other beliefs that are also necessary to avoid the them?  In other words, given the above MCRME, we should be asking whether are there any other beliefs that per Christianity (or even Surrendra and Owen's favored theology) that failing to have leads to maximal consequences?

Take the belief in the life, death and the resurrection of Jesus (as a means of atonement for our sins). We'll call this "the set of beliefs about Jesus." I think a Christian would be hard pressed to deny the fact that belief in Jesus of this sort is required in order to avoid maximal consequences (eternal separation from God, hell, spiritual death, or whatever). So combining this with MCRME, we can conclude that the set of beliefs associated with Jesus' redemptive work must be maximally clear.

That is, if maximal consequences implies maximal clarity, and unbelief in Jesus implies maximal consequences, then it must be maximally clear that Jesus lived and died, was the messiah, and also actually took the sins of the world. But this causes problems for Gangadean.

As I see it, Gangadean et al. are now faced with 3 unsavory options.

1) Agree that there must be (and is) maximal clarity of the set of beliefs associated with Jesus' redemptive work.

2) Deny that such beliefs are required for (or part of realizing) spiritual life/salvation.

3) Deny that maximal consequences requires maximal clarity.

Unfortunately, I find none of these options palatable for Gangadean and Anderson and discuss why below.

1) The set of beliefs about Jesus are maximally clear: The problem here is that we can't even in principle have absolute certainty about such matters. Don't we, today, believe in the life and work of Jesus based on testimonial evidence (e.g., the scriptures, purported historical records)?  Moreover, at best, the early believers had empirical evidence (i.e., they observed the life, teaching, death of the risen Christ). How can one have absolute certainty of any of this since one's senses or how one interprets one's sense experiences may fail to correspond to reality.

A second difficulty of this route is that one needs to demarcate those propositions about Jesus that are necessary for avoiding the maximal consequences from those that are not-- of course it shouldn't be an arbitrary matter.

2) The set of beliefs about Jesus are not required for spiritual life: If having certain beliefs about Jesus is not necessary to avoid the maximal consequences (spiritual death), then even granting MCRME, those beliefs need not be maximally clear. Unfortunately, this is to allow that Theists that do not accept any beliefs about Jesus (indeed they may even believe that Jesus never existed) are avoiding the maximal consequences.  I take this to be hardly inviting for reformed believers like Gangadean and Anderson.

3) Maximal Consequences do not imply Maximal Clarity: Perhaps maximal consequences does not require maximal clarity (MCRME is false). But then, why are Gangadean and Anderson pressing this point about the maximal clarity of God's existence as requisite for maximal consequences as it pertains to unbelief about God?