Fact Checking the Gangadeanians on Twitter.

My ventures into twitter have been interesting. So far, Anderson and Burton while refusing to talk to me (which would require actually doing philosophy) have opted to talk about me by way of ridicule and to dismiss me as a troll.

I guess, by their lights, this is a suitable way for professors and professing Christians to behave. I'd rather spend my time on substantive issues. 

What I find striking and what I hope you see is how they have misrepresented my views. I suspect that the Gangadeanians by in large are ignorant of what my views actually are because they are likely instructed by Gangadean not to read my blog. Instead I suspect they receive the "cliffs notes" version from the likes of Burton and Anderson. Given how Burton and Anderson are in the business of creating caricatures of my views, this is a sad state of affairs. 

Fact Check:

Anderson tweets that I deny that we can know that a is a (i.e., a triviality). That's wrong. I know that a is a. I think you do, too. I think we know lots and lots of things. Where Anderson and I differ is on what counts as knowing. He assumes (without argument) that knowing something requires that you are able to show that the opposite is not even possible. That is to say, for you to count as knowing that you have hands, you need to be able to rehearse, among other things, Gangadean's proof of the external world. Anybody that isn't able to do so won't count as knowing they have hands. I say, there are things you know which you aren't able to prove in that manner. That doesn't entail that I deny knowledge. Instead quite the opposite is true. I affirm that we know all kinds of things--in fact, much more than Anderson allows. I just think that Anderson's theory of knowledge is a bad one and at the very least something he needs to prove as correct.

Anderson's, "incorrigible memory lapses" comment is meant to be a jab at me, as is Burton's statement that she can't remember. Again this is predicated on a misrepresentation of my views. I once argued that the possibility that our memory isn't reliable is not something we can rule out by way of any proof. We needn't bother ourselves with the details. What matters is what I took to be the moral of that argument. I wasn't saying that skepticism wins just because it's remotely possible that our memory (which we depend on in evaluating an argument to store content) is unreliable. Instead, my claim was that the rational response is to rely on our memory presumptively--that is, to suppose that it is innocent until proven guilty. And I was trying to show Gangadean that he, too relied on such a presumption unless he could somehow prove all the occasions in which his memory couldn't possibly fail him. In turn the point was to see if such a presumption was compatible with his views concerning what it takes to know things (clearly).

Burton tweets that I don't think proofs are possible. Wrong again. I think that many of the arguments which the Gangadeanians claim to be proofs are unsound. But that's not the same as saying no proof is possible. Does Burton think that Gangadeanian "proofs" are the only "proofs" that there are so that if their arguments fail, no arguments can possibly succeed? Burton needs to mind her quantifiers. The claim that some purported proofs fail is not the same as saying that all purported proofs must fail. Again, this is a very simple distinction that a professor who purports to be retrieving knowledge and renewing philosophy should be able to keep straight.

Anderson also represents my view as positively believing that we can't have certainty that 'a is a'. That's sort of a half truth. It's correct only if by 'certain' we mean just what the Gangadeanians mean by it. It's wrong if by 'certain' he means what the rest of us mean by it. So Anderson is trading on an ambiguity which they themselves have created. I'm certain that 'a is a,' but I don't pretend to be able to prove that a is a or to be able to show that the opposite is impossible. I don't think you can (or even need to) prove such trivialities. More importantly, I argue that the Gangadeanian's have offered no such proof.

Finally, what is this bit about "Ad populum"? Anderson seems to be claiming that I have appealed to the fact that philosophers disagree with them about something and that that was proof that the Gangadeanians were wrong. My best guess is that he's referring to my challenge to his theory of knowledge. I have said many times before that most philosophers disagree with their account of what counts as knowing. But that's not an ad populum if you understand the upshot of my observation. I'm not arguing, "because the majority of philosophers disagree with Anderson's theory of knowledge, therefore, it is wrong." Instead I'm merely pointing out that there is disagreement over which theory of knowledge is correct and so the Gangadeanians can't just take for granted that they have a monopoly on the concept or term. Since the Gangadeanians claim that Rational Presuppositionalism can settle all disputes, they had better explain how they can settle this dispute about what is the nature of knowledge.