Anderson on Knowledge vs. knowledge

Every now and then I find myself perusing Owen Anderson's blog. I happened to do so today and encountered the following post. Anderson claims that to Know with a capital 'K' is different from knowing with a lowercase 'k.'  He claims that the former refers to having certainty and the latter is more probabilistic.

As I hope is clear by now, I think this represents a really shady approach of doing philosophy that is ubiquitous in the Gangadeanian approach.

In effect, Anderson acts as if he has something like the dictionary of the world or the dictionary according to God--i.e., that he has special access to the true definition of words. Of course, no such lexicon actually exists.   The key issue is this---why should anyone trust that Anderson has got his definitions right? Maybe he just thinks he's right about what these words (and many others) mean, but he may be mistaken. So why should we trust him? Especially since lots of people would disagree about what we mean by the verb to 'know.' Moreover, a lot of people would disagree with Anderson about the idea that there are two sense of 'know' (i.e., the upper case denoting epistemic certainty and lower case denoting something comparatively weaker).

Now I'm not against making claims about what the meaning of a word in natural language is, I just think that one needs to tread lightly and freely admit that it's a lot of guess work. We should also appeal to empirical methods when available that give us some evidence about what competent language users seem to mean when they use certain words in ordinary conversations. And I don't think we can be absolutely certain about the meaning of a word in a given language--even though we can have good reasons to form beliefs about the matter. The meaning of words is conventional. It is developed by communities of people that in some way, over time, identify a sound or series of sounds and symbols with things (in the broadest sense to include concrete and abstract entities and everything in between). But it's a communal effort and it's also dynamic. It isn't as if one person sat down and dictated a natural language for everyone else. Moreover, words change in meaning over time. You might be thinking, well can't we just turn to a dictionary? You could, but if your desire is to build a philosophical argument to prove something on the basis of definitions that you derive from a dictionary, then your theory is going to be limited---you will have to say for instance, "know's" according to this lexicon at this time means X. More importantly though, you haven't actually settled the matter about whether the word as defined in the dictionary is correct. Dictionary's aren't infallible either since they are composed by a select group of persons who are trying to figure out what a given word means. So it turns out that trying to figure out what a word like 'knows' means, is a really tricky matter. (The reader may be starting to ask, what makes something the "correct" definition in the first place? Is there even such a thing? These, I think, are important questions).

But these facts don't seem to be appreciated by Anderson and Gangadean. Both think that you can just sort of think about a word and come to have infallible access to its meaning. They simply ignore the possibility that they may be mistaken and certainly don't provide anything like an deductive argument for why they've got the right definition of their key terms. So you just sort of have to take them at their word. The idea is that we have a priori access to the meaning of words. This is highly controversial view and I think it's quite wrong.

Interestingly they do this for a number of other words. For instance the same goes for words like, 'God', 'free will', 'eternal' 'being' 'reason' etc. They just say things like, "reason is the laws of thought.' 'God is a spirit, infinite, eternal unchanging in his being...' In fact, the very next post on Anderson's blog distinguishes between what he thinks is the definition of 'reason' vs. 'reasoning.'  But same old trick. He just proclaims his definition of reason and distinguishes it from his definition of reasoning.
Likewise, 'free will' just means the ability to do what you want to do (rather than the ability to do otherwise). Again this approach is in effect assumes some infallible awareness of the meaning of a word but why should we grant that to Gangadean and Anderson?

What is worse, they build all sorts of arguments (that are supposed to provide certainty of their conclusions) on the backs of these presumed definitions. So their views are contentious from the very start, built on shaky foundations.

This is just bad philosophy for someone after absolute certainty and also for those that purport to be "rational presuppositionalists".  It's nothing more than semantic chauvinism and certainly not an instance of critically examining one's most basic beliefs for meaning. After all, any argument where they have as premises, definitions of words, presupposes answers to the various questions about how we could begin to know/verify/grasp the true meaning of a word and what it is that makes for a true definition (and even if there is such a thing). So they should address these presuppositions on pain of consistency.

Doxological focus vs. Soteriological focus?

The people at WF often distinguish their church from others in their profession of the view that "the knowledge of God filling the earth like water to the seas." They fault other christian bodies for being so focused on getting persons into heaven (and a particular view of heaven as an Edenic paradise). Instead of getting caught up in all this talk about what a person must do to get to heaven (or what a church must do to get a lot of people into heaven--again heaven as paradise), we as believers, should be focused on what we need to do to encourage the coming of the kindgom of God, to earth--which is essentially, the knowledge of God filling the earth. What does it mean that the knowledge of God fill the earth? Well, since knowledge is intimately linked with "knowers," the knowledge of God fills the earth only when all the living inhabitants of the earth have come to know God. This knowledge of God is to share in spiritual life according to Gangadean. They site John 17:3, that eternal [perhaps more accurately, 'everlasting'] life is knowing Him (God). It isn't getting to heaven, it is knowing the creator.

One motivation for this way of thinking about matters is that it is supposed to avoid some of the major philosophical/theological problems plaguing the idea that spiritual life consists of being "saved." Worrying about how to get people "saved" is to be focused soteriology, and brings up issues about what the minimum requirements are of achieving this status. For sure, this is a difficult problem to address insofar as one gets caught up in it and I don't think anyone has a successful answer. So Gangadeanians have sometimes said that one can avoid getting into such thorny territory, by adopting their view, namely, to frame spiritual life in terms of a doxological focus. (I don't mean to say that adopting a doxological focus is motivated solely by the need to avoid the above problems, but it has been stated to me as a real one nonetheless).

Unfortunately, I've never seen how this is supposed to escape the problem that plagues a soteriological view of salvation. Notice that the same problem or at least an analogous one will arise for those that are doxologically focused. Suppose we accept that everlasting life in the per Christianity is knowing God. But then what exactly does it mean to know God? I mean clearly if one could know everything there is to know about God, then one would count as knowing God. Unfortunately, that seems out of reach presuming of course that we are finite in our capacities to know and that there are an infinite number of propositions to know about God. So that won't do. Nor does it seem right to say that I know God just in case I know one true proposition about God (say that he exists). Certainly that can't be the extent of spiritual life or salvation in any Christian sense! (The demons know that God exist and shudder at his name!) So then what counts as knowing God qua spiritual life? And more generally speaking (doxologically) what counts as the world being filled with this knowledge of God? Must I know one or a thousand propositions about God? Is the earth filled with the knowledge of God when everyone living knows at least one true proposition about God? Two? A dozen? A hundred? And which ones?  The problem at this point should be obvious. We want to know what it means to be saved and what it requires (else you might spend your whole life thinking you are living spiritually, while actually dead in your trespasses). But how can one be sure? Well, it would seem to depend in large part on what it means to be spiritually alive. But it turns out there is no non arbitrary account that is forthcoming. Note that things look even worse for Gangadean and his followers given their idiosyncratic views about knowledge, clarity and inexcusability. If one is able to know that one is spiritually alive, then one must know the conditions under which such obtains. But if one knows these conditions, one should be able to spell them out.

So it seems, that in this respect, the Gangadeanians are no better off than those that might have the issue of debating about what it takes to get to heaven on the more traditional evangelical view. My point is not that this thus favors the soteriological focus (as Gangadeans call it) over the doxological one, I just mean that avoiding the problem of vagueness can't count as a point for the view that Gangadeanians push since they too have a similar problem.

Reason and the nature of humanity.

Is reason exclusive to humans (as far as beings that have a physical presence in the world)? Gangadean, like Aristotle, Descartes and a number of others before him in an attempt to get to the essence of humankind have argued that the presence of reason or mental life (that instantiates reason) is found only in man. But what about dolphins, dogs, cats, apes, chimpanzees?  We seem so naturally to attribute to them thoughts, feelings, desires, and beliefs. A dog seems to run after a bone because it has a particular belief that there is something rather than nothing to go after and also because it wants the bone.  If such attributions are warranted then it seems likewise appropriate to attribute mentality and even reason. This would mean that reason, or mindedness isn't unique to humanity in fact, it may be in a great number of species. If so, then this threatens, to some extent, the idea that reason or the capacity to reason is what sets humans apart from other beings. This doesn't of course mean that humans aren't reasoning or essentially reasoning beings (nor does it prove that reason is essential to humans either)--it just extends the set of reasoning beings to include other animals. Importantly however, it does block any straightforward argument that seeks to figure out the good of man based on man's capacity to reason at least if the argument sets out to distinguish man from other animate beings such as dogs, penguins and crows in virtue of the essential capacity of humans to have mental life or reason. Moreover, for Gangadean, consciousness, or mindedness makes up a substance distinct from corporeal existence--- the soul is what accounts for the mindedness of humans (and God).  So there is much at stake for Gangadeanians in this current debate. They believe that other animals are not rational, fail to have mentality because they believe non human animals do not have souls and are merely material (or the explanatory direction might go the other way). If there is reason to believe that non human animals have mentality, rationality and the like, then this requires a pretty significant revision of Gangadean's views.

Now it seems to me that there is good reason to believe that other animals are minded. They exhibit behaviors consistent with having a rich mental life. I take this to be an obvious point. Just observe how animals live. They seem to communicate with one another, exhibit behavior as if they are sometimes depressed, bored, happy or scared. Some animals even exhibit rather advanced problem solving skills, the making of tools (see Primates and Crows) to get at rewards. It's really an incredible claim to say that animals do not have mentality.

In response, Gangadean et al. will argue that our attributions of mentality to animals are at best inductive or abductive. Behavior of mentality doesn't indubitably indicate mentality. Just like acting as if one is in pain doesn't actually mean one is experiencing pain. So while animals appear to act in ways that would make sense if they were minded beings, it doesn't necessarily follow that they in fact instantiate reason, or mentality. Similarly, though computers can act as if they are minded, we wouldn't grant that they are reasoning beings (so the argument goes). This is the main argument I have heard repeatedly from Gangadean and his followers. I want to start by saying they are impeccably correct. To be sure, concluding that a being is minded just because it acts as if it is, is to commit a formal fallacy (affirming the consequent). Now this doesn't mean that there isn't good reason to believe that non human animals are minded---it just means that we don't have definitive proof. In fact, abductive arguments (common to science and philosophy) are just that, affirming the consequent. I've spoken often about how this requirement of proof for belief or knowledge is a bad one that actually causes major issues for Gangadean. So here's another instance of the kind. Suppose that Gangadean is right that we need to have proof that animals are minded in order to rationally belief (or know) that animals are minded. The problem is that I don't have definitive proof that Gangadean, or anyone else for that matter is minded. This is but a token of a type of problem traditionally called the problem of other minds.

How do I know that I am minded?  Well, I have a kind of first-person access to my own mental life, and the occurrent mental states that constitue my mentality. I know it like I know that I have perceptions; I know it immediately or non-inferentially. The problem of other minds arises because I don't have this same epistemic status vis-a -vis other presumed human persons. Other bodies that look a lot like mine (though also different in important ways no doubt) communicate with me and exhibit behaviors that are consistent with having minds, but these are mere indications or evidences, rather than proof of mindedness. But this is just what was the objection presented by Gangadean to deny mentality to "lower" animals (or at least to argue that we shouldn't believe that animals have mentality). So if this lack of first-person access is thought to show that we aren't rationally entitled to attribute minds to animals, then it also follows that we lack that entitlement to attribute minds to other (presumed people).

Recognizing this problem, Gangadean's response is that we can know other humans qua humans in virtue of a shared language which consists of the communication involving concepts, judgements and arguments. Two humans from distinctly different backgrounds (the argument goes), without a common language would over time develop a way to communicate that is, develop a shared language. But though we have coexisted with other animals (presumably since the beginning of human history) we have no such language in common with them.  But notice this appeal to the phenomena of language (which can be found in both Descartes and Locke) is appealing to merely one more behavioral/observational phenomena. That is to say, it is merely one more indication that a purported human does indeed have a special kind of mentality such that they rightfully belong to the set of all humans (as defined by reasoning and physically embodied beings), but it certainly doesn't prove it. Likewise it fails to prove that animals, and other beings lack minds too. Just as it is the case that the presence of mere behaviors consistent with having reason, fails to demonstrate genuine mentality, so it is that the absence of behaviors (including communicating concepts) consistent with mentality cannot prove the absence of mentality.