Anderson's Misattributions of alleged misrepresentations.

I'm glad to see that the conversation between Spencer and Owen Anderson, on YouTube continues.  Unfortunately, Anderson's remarks are only getting worse. In his latest installment, he writes,

I don't agree with most of the claims you [Spencer] make in your post about what I supposedly think. You'd like people to be charitable about your views so do the same. I don't think that doubting p means you believe not p. Or that only deductive proof is permissible. Or that people only use the word "knowledge" to mean certainty. Or that I'm affirming an "infallibilist internalist foundationalist" view here. Or that I'm requiring "high epistemic standards" here. Or that we must prove the laws of thought. Or that we can only dialogue if you agree with me about everything. 

Much of these misrepresentations most likely trace to your original source that you quoted. Whether or not your source sometimes says something true isn't the problem. It is his regular use of insults and misrepresentations that is the problem.

Another jab at me and one that's quite unfair and mistaken (are you starting to see a pattern?) Now there are a couple of these which I have attributed to Anderson/Gangadean (and for good reason), but the majority of these are not --although they have a surface-level similarity to ways I've represented the Gangdeanian worldview.

[As a side note, I have to admit this is a rather strange phenomena we're dealing with. It's almost like a complicated (perhaps iterated) version of a Strawman. Misrepresent how my opponent represents my view, as a way of debunking his challenges].

Anderson is charging that I am responsible for misrepresentations allegedly made by Spencer in the conversation. There are two parts to this charge. First, that Spencer has misrepresented/misattributed views to Anderson. I'll let Spencer deal with those, himself. The second charge is that these alleged misrepresentations are likely my fault. In the first place, I don't control what the people who read my blog come to believe. But more importantly, if you look at the content of most of the alleged misattributions, you don't find them on this blog. The ones which you do find are attributed to Gangadean/Anderson for good reason (because of their own words)! That is to say, I have good reason to think they aren't misrepresentations.

Let's start with a list of the alleged misrepresenations for which Anderson claims I'm responsible.

A. Doubting {that we can have certainty} that P entails believing that ~P.
B. Only deductive proof is {rationally} permissible.
C. People only use the word 'knowledge' to mean "certainty".
D. Infallibilist/Foundationalist/Internalism about justification/knowledge is true.
E. Rationality requires "high epistemic standards."
F. We must prove the laws of thought.
G. Intelligible dialogue is possible only if "you agree with [Anderson] about everything."

Let's first deal with D and E.

D. Have I attributed infallibilism + foundationalism + internalism to Anderson/Gangdean? 

Short answer, no.

Longer answer: I do think Gangadean/Anderson are infallibilists and internalists, but I haven't called them foundationalists concerning knowledge/justification. They argue that to know that P, you have to be in a position to "show that P is true"--that's internalism (also see Anderson's challenges to externalism--note if you're not an externalist, then you're an internalist). They also think that knowledge requires certainty or maximal justification. To see why I have attributed this view to them first consider how it is that Gangadean argues that denying clarity at the basic level leads to skepticism (the view that knowledge is not possible). Secondly, consider his remarks about fideism/blind faith, which on his view is tantamount to "belief without proof." Unless Anderson wants to say that we can come to know things via blind faith, he's going to have to bite the bullet here and own up to his infallibilism about knowledge (i.e, the view that we can't know things by forming beliefs via fallible means). The only reason that Anderson doesn't fall into the category of "foundationalist" in terms of his *express views is that he doesn't buy into the whole idea that some beliefs are "basic" (so he claims). I think he does, without knowing that he does. But I'm willing to grant that there are some disagreements between him and many foundationalists (though I don't actually think they will turn out to be substantive).

E. Have I attributed to Anderson the view that Rationality requires high standards? 

Well, duh. But if "the need for clarity" is not a high epistemic standard, then I don't know what is.

A. Have I attributed to Anderson the view that doubting {that we can have certainty} that P entails believing that ~P. 

Short answer: Yes! That was the point of one of my memes. But I did this only because of his own words!

Long answer: Anderson in his most recent remarks is now saying that "doubting P doesn't entail believing the opposite (~P)." In other words, he's now saying that he believes the following to be consistent: a person isn't certain that the law of identity is true, and yet she believes it is true. Awesome! It's my view that these are compatible, too! But then why did Anderson originally write the following?

But if one of the persons involved isn’t sure that ‘a’ is ‘a,’ then they won’t be able to go to that next step. They wouldn’t be able to affirm if a word is a word, what they are thinking is what they are thinking, their question is a question, a word is a word, a mind is a mind, eternal is eternal, a reply is a reply, or an argument is an argument (Emphasis mine).

As long as believing something is a way of affirming it, his latest comment is simply contradicting this passage. He can't have it both ways. Now I admitted last time that there was wiggle room, but it comes at a cost. Much hangs on what Anderson originally meant by 'affirm'. Maybe to affirm something on his view is to be certain of it. That does violence to English, but whatever. He can use the expression however he chooses (as long as he's not claiming that's what it means in English). But as I've already argued, if we replace 'affirm' with 'being certain,' the cost for Anderson is that the above passage fails to raise any problem for someone like me who questions whether we can (rationally) be certain of things like law of identity. In other words, all the above passage says when we swap out the relevant expressions is that someone who isn't certain, in the Gangadeanian sense, that the law of identity is true, likewise can't be certain (again in the Gangadeanian sense) that "a word is a word..." And as I said last time, so what? Who cares? Nothing important follows from that. So Anderson can pick his poison. Either he did commit himself to conflating, "doubting that we can be certain that P, with believing the opposite" or his remarks have no bite as a criticism against my position.

Note, for good measure he also wrote the following which is further evidence that he actually was conflating "doubting that P (or doubting that we can have certainty about P)" with "believing not-P".

Many have told me they are surprised to see that a skeptic will go so far as to think 'a' is 'a' is fallible. We can watch and see if a skeptic can also have integrity with that profession. What would it look like to be consistent with saying each word in my sentence or question does not mean what it means? (Emphasis mine).

Moving on to the others.

B. Have I attributed to Anderson the view that only deductive proof is [rationally] permissible? 

Nope. Again, I have said that Gangadean claims (in his book) that belief without proof = fideism. And insofar as fideism is (rationally) impermissible, it seems to follow that on Gangadean's view, deductive proof (as a way of coming to form beliefs) is the only rationally permissible way. But I have also noted, numerous times, that Gangadean also appeals to "self-attesting" or "self-evident" truths--which he thinks we can know with certainty (so presumably, believe rationally). These aren't arrived at via deductive proof, on the Gangadeanian worldview. So B. is not an error that can be traced back to me even though there's a hint of something in the neighborhood in my blogs.


C. Have I ever said that the Gangadeanians (or Anderson), believes that people only use the word 'knowledge' to mean certainty? 

Not at all. I've suggested that the Gangadeanians simply don't care how most people use the word 'knowledge'. Instead, they come up with their own definition or concept. And I've been waiting for them to explain why anybody should care about attaining some gerrymandered thing (which Gangadean calls 'knowledge') that was cooked up from Gangadean's armchair. Shame on Anderson for trying to peg this equally cooked up misrepresentation on me.

F. Have I argued that Anderson believes we must prove the laws of thought? 

Note quite. I've said that the Gangadeanian view is that the laws of thought are clear to reason. And that things that are clear to reason are either provable or "self-evident/self-attesting." That's a disjunction--with two parts.

G. Have I said that Anderson requires agreement about everything as a requisite for [intelligible] dialogue?

The hyperbole is what gets this one in trouble. Yes, I have claimed that Gangadean requires (full) agreement on *basic* things, if intelligible discussion is to continue. I know this because he told me it, first hand. Now, is that the same as saying, "Gangadean believes that we must agree on *everything*, if dialogue is to continue?" Hardly. Again, shame on Anderson for trying to attribute this alleged misrepresentation to me. He's grasping at straws... and it's just starting to get a bit sad.

Finally, Anderson also adds,

"Like clarifying "bachelor," once we do this with "eternal" the contradiction is there, but it was there the whole time. If someone says "I don't see how a married bachelor is a contradiction, the burden is on you, all your work is ahead of you," or they say "I don't see why eternal means not temporal, the burden is on you, all your work is ahead of you," they haven't understood the words being used."

As I've noted before, what's missing here is any sort of reason given for why we should think Anderson and other Gangadeanians have got the definition of 'eternal' (or even 'bachelor') correct. But to understand this challenge and why it only threatens the Gangadeanian worldview you have to get the following distinctions in mind.

1. Asking how someone that is after clarity/certainty can consistently claim to know (with certainty) that a word in a given language has a particular definition. 

2. Asking whether we can know (on a non-Gangadeanian definition) what the definition of any word is. 

3. Asking whether a particular definition of a word is correct.

I'm pressing Anderson on 1. but not 2, nor 3. On my view we can depend on commonsense, empirical observations of how people use words in conversation, and appeal to intuitions to figure out what a word means in a given language. We can even just begin with tentative (in principle, revisable) assumptive or presumptive definitions. None of this gives you certainty of the Gangadeanian sort, but that's alright for me, because I don't demand anything like clarity at the basic level (or at any level) to begin with. But these options are simply not open to the Gangadeanians like Anderson.

Here's what's at stake with this issue. For Anderson to be able to say to an objector "if you don't see that eternal means not temporal, you have to show otherwise" we have to presume Anderson's belief about what the words (in a given language) mean are true. More importantly, that he's in a position to know (with certainty) what they mean. That's because this isn't an argument or rational defense of a claim, it's basically table pounding combined with burden-shifting. And if Anderson is permitted to do this in this context, he needs to tell us why it's unacceptable in other contexts. For instance, why isn't it acceptable for a theist to respond to an atheist asking for a reason to believe that God exists with, "look, if you don't believe that God exists, then you need to prove that he doesn't." True, one claim is about the definition of words and the other is about what exists, but the bottom line is that they are both claims, nonetheless. It's possible to be mistaken about what exists and it's likewise possible to be mistaken about what a word means.