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.