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 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.
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