Unit 1 - Epistemology and Metaphysics
What is epistemology?
Epistemology deals with questions of knowledge
What kinds of questions do we ask when we do epistemology?
Kinds of Knowledge
Propositional knowledge - knowledge that a proposition is true or false
The main subject matter of epistemology
Personal/acquaintance knowledge - knowledge that is held on the basis of being acquainted with the subject
Procedural knowledge - knowledge concerning how to do activities
Justified, True, Belief
The first two components of knowledge are belief and truth
If a person S knows that P is true, it must be true that (i) P is true, and (ii) S believes P
The Gettier Problem
Can you come up with your own Gettier Problem
Does there need to be one more criterion to assure knowledge?
No false premise
Causation
Knowledge cannot be broken into component pieces
Positions
The received position is that knowledge is justified true belief
Gettier counterexamples seem to show that having a justified true belief that S is true is not sufficient for knowledge that S is true
In response, some suggested that there is a fourth component of knowledge, in addition to justified true belief
Theories of Truth
Similar question to knowledge:
What is truth?
What makes then true?
Is truth discoveries or created
Three main theories
Correspondence
Coherence
Pragmatic
Correspondence Theory of Truth
Goes back to the ancient world
“What we believe or say is true if it corresponds to the way things actually are - the facts”
Facts are their own entity in the world
There are beliefs about facts
Coherence Theory of Truth
“Truth is its essential nature is that systematic coherence which is the character of a significant whole”
“ A belief is true if and only if it is part of a coherent system of beliefs
Individual statements are not true, the whole system must be true
Pragmatic Theory of Truth
“Truth is the end of inquiry” or “truth is satisfactory to believe”
Pragmatists think that correspondence theory is “transcendental” and cut out “from practical matters of experience, belief, and doubt”
Theories of truth and metaphysics
Theories of truth are metaphysically inflected
The correspondence theory “is at its core an ontological thesis: a belief is true if there exists an appropriate entity - a fact - to which it corresponds. If there is no such entity, the belief is false”
Skepticism
The rejection of some or all kinds of knowledge claims
Global/Pyrrhonian skepticism
Most extreme form that rejects any and all knowledge claims
The brain in the bat hypothesis would be a form of this kind of skepticism
Pyrrho of Elis (360-270 BCE)
The aim was to overturn other beliefs
Sextus Empircus (160-210 BCE)
Saw skepticism as a way of avoiding conflict and disagreement
Skeptics point out the fact that knowledge implies an infinite regress
Local/metaphysical skepticism
Allow
Methodological skepticism
Use skepticism as a way of generating knowledge about the world
Descartes’ evil demon
Some problems with skepticism
Our knowledge does not require absolute certainty or being beyond all reasonable doubt
Self-defeating
To claim that one cannot know anything is a claim to knowledge
The suggestion that knowledge is impossible does not make sense
Have different forms of knowledge
Empirical knowledge through experience, observation, and senses
Priori knowledge
Common sense
Skepticism and Holistic Epistemology
Cartesian dualism/ rationalism
What about virtue epistemology
Virtues such as humility, studiousness, honesty, courage, and charity produce knowledge
While vice such as despair and arrogance prevent it
Deductive and Inductive Logic
Deductive logic provides logically conclusive support
All dogs have fleas
Bowser is a dog
Bowser has fleas
This is a forms of a priori knowledge (without experience)
Deductive Logic
Deductive arguments are valid or invalid
Valid argument - if all of the premises are true, the conclusion must be true
Invalid argument - the premises could be true yet the conclusion still false
The conclusion of a valid argument is not necessarily true
If one or more of the premises are false, a valid argument can have a false conclusion
Inductive Arguments
Inductive arguments can provide probable - but unlikely deductive argument, not conclusive - support for conclusions
They use empirical or a posteriori evidence
95% of dogs have fleas
SO Bowser probably has fleas
Inductive arguments are strong or weak
The Problem of Induction
How can our experience provide us with knowledge of things we have not experienced?
We gain knowledge of the present through experience, but why do we think this translates into knowledge of the future?
Enumerative induction as an example
Hume’s Problem with Induction
Our assumption that we have future knowledge (without experience) is deductively invalid
There appears to be an unstable premise
The uniformity of nature; “if all observed Fs are G, then all Fs are G”
What as Hume (dis)proven?
Inductive arguments from experience are not deductively valid
While philosophers tend to agree, many/most do not see a problem with the confidence in inductive arguments based upon probability
Inference to Best Explanation (IBE)
“We conclude that the best explanation of our observations is (probably) true? (pg. 165)
Inductive arguments can be considered “non-demonstrative inference” and still be a cognitive inductive argument
Basic Beliefs
The evidence objection of theistic belief
Natural theology
Reliance upon basic beliefs
What makes a belief justified?
Justification refers to evidence
Justification also refers to a duty or obligation
Basic beliefs are those that are accepted but not “on the basis of any other beliefs” (pg. 107)
Reformed theologians have posited that the belief in God is “properly basic”
Two objections
If one basis claims upon basic beliefs then those beliefs are “groundless, or gratuitous, or arbitrary” (pg. 109)
Beliefs are properly basic in certain conditions
Justified
God speaks to me so He must be real
Can’t any belief be basic in belief in God is basic
Basic beliefs still require grounds for justification
Criteria are constructed (inductively) by looking at examples
Pentecostal Epistemology
Five components of a Pentecostal worldview
A position of radical openness to God, and in particular, God doing something differently or new
An “enchanted” theology of creation and culture
A non-dualistic affirmation of embodiment and materiality
An affective, narrative epistemology
An eschatological orientation to mission and justice
The narrative of the biblical story provides a framework to make sense of one’s own struggles, triumphs, and narrative
This is that
The role of testimony
This realistic upon narrative, story, embodied experience, spirituality can carry an implicit critique of an overemphasis on rationalism and intellection
This is not anti-intellectualism or a baptism of any interpretation of one’s experience
It is a critique of
A “picture f human persons as ‘thinking things.’ autonomous rational agents, transcendental logical egos, disembodied centers of cognitive perception” (smith, 54)
Thinking cannot be reduced to calculation and deduction
Universal and “neutral” or secular reason
It affirms
Human persons as embodied creatures as a reflection of the incarnational center of Christianity
Narrative epistemology where narratives have an inherent emotional component to them
We learn through experiences in a holistic way in the same way that film impacts us other than just cognitively
Metaphysics
When we do metaphysics, what kinds of questions are we asking?
What is real?
What is the nature and structure of reality?
Is the physical world all there is?
What kinds of objects are in the world
How do they fit together
What kind of things am I?
How do i fit together?
What is the nature of time and space?
How she we explain change and identity?
The significance of metaphysics is not obvious for moderns
Modernity is driven by epistemology
Always connected
I know the truth, and he is a person
John 14:6 - “I am the way, the truth, and the life”
The Nature of Reality
Do we experience the world as beautiful, rational, enchanted, and mysterious?
Do we experience the world through a scientific lens, a disenchanted world composed of mathematical formulas, particles in motion, and blind forces?
Three dominate views:
Materialism
(Metaphysical) dualism
Idealism
Metaphysical Overview
What kinds of things exist/
Dualism
Monism
materialistic
Idealistic
Materialism
Everything that exists is material
There is only one kind of things in the world
Material, tangible things
A form of monism
Closely related to science and empiricism
Naturalism (their is no supernatural)
Strengths
Backed by science (no-one wants to be anti science)
A simple explanation that makes sense of the world
Weaknesses
It seems unable to explain important aspects of life: human person, mental lives, etc.
Its makes assumptions our epistemic claims doubtful (and is thus self-defeating)
(Metaphysical) Dualism
Two kinds of things exists in the world
The materials cosmos and then abstract no material objects
Historical versions
Plato
Descartes
Christian theism
Strengths
Makes sense of our experience of the material world
Consistent with Christian theism
Weaknesses
Causation
Ghost in machine
Idealism
The only kinds of thinks that exists are mental things: minds and ideas
Why do people hold to idealism?
Direct realism hold that we experience mind-independent reality
But is has a hard time explaining instances of illusions
Representative realism suggest we have direct and indirect awareness, which can explain the difference between our perception and reality
George Berkeley is an incredible influential idealist
He agreed with the representative realism about the direct awareness of mental items but denied mind-independent reality
Removing mind-independed items removes the threat of external world skepticism
All that exists are mind-depended items
Not a denial that the expert all world exists
Strengths
Immune of skepticism
Support form areas like quantum mechanics
Adherent claims it is consistent with Christian orthodoxy
Weaknesses
Questions of causal relations still exists
Some argue it is not consistent with Christian orthodoxy
There might be better approaches to direct realism
Mind-Body Problem
This is a “case study” in the questions of metaphysics
There appear to be things in the world that are wholly physical (even living things)
Why should we assume that we are not also wholly physical
But how do we explain mental states? Feelings? Thinking? Perceiving?
Positions
Dualism
Behaviorism
The identity theory
Functionalism
Dualism
Maybe the mind if not material after all
May be the mind is mental
The idea that we are composed of different kinds of things goes back to the accident world
Plato proposed a tripartite structure: the rational part, a spirited part, and appetitive part (mind, spirit, body)
Descartes argues: we can conceive the mind without the body but not the body without the mind, so they must be different kinds of things
My essence is that of a thinking thins
“I think because I am”
I also have a body that I am conjoined with
Critiques of Dualism
Elisabeth of Bohemia
How can Descartes’s immaterial mind interact with the physical world?
Ryle critically refers to this position as “the dogma of the ghost in the machine”
Visiting the University example
Behaviorism
To have a mind, to be in such-and-such mental states, is to behave in certain ways, or to be disposed or inclines to behave in certain was
If you are shot-tempered..etc, these are behaviors to which you are disposed
This is a form of material monism
Ryle wanted to advocate for behaviorism point to a “category mistake”
Minds cannot be reduced to material but they are not immaterial
Critiques of Behaviorism
What is a being was controlled remotely by others, so he behaves as if he had a mind
What is a person exhibit no behavior, perhaps as a result of locked-in syndrome?
The Identity Theory
The property of having a brain state in a neural firing pattern W is identical to a particular mental state, such as the desire for water
It critiques behaviorism for not identifying what leads to behaviors
An adequate explanation must tell us why the mind does that it does
Critiques of the Identity Theory
Too narrow is scope as it excludes beings form obsessing mental Ives that lock the biological brains of humans
If you can imagine a life form (aliens0 that lacks brains/gray matter but are intelligent, the this theory doesn’t work
Functionalism
Mental states are identical to functional states
If identity theory is hardware, this is software
Tend to think these states are some physical form, but not tied to the gray matter as the identity theory is
So computers could have/be a mind
Provide some physical basis for dispositions (of behaviorism)
A functional state can be implemented in a variety of hardware
Searle’s Critique of Functionalism
Chinese room argument” is supposed to show that running a computer program is not a sufficient condition for having a mind
Argues that “Strong AI”
Searle supports his view through the though experiment of the Chinese Room
The person in the room will never understand Chinese
No digital computer will understand Chinese (computer will never be able to function like humans)
Consciousness
The phenomenon of consciousness poses the problem of the “explanatory gap” between that experience and the physical world
Chalmer’s zombies
If a zombie inhabited the world an acted exactly like you, would it be a perfect replacement or is something missing?
Jackson’s knowledge argument
Mary the neuroscientist experience the color red
Nagel - being like a bat
Consciousness is not a problem solved by any materialists/ physicalists
To be conscious means that there is “something it is like to be that organism”
Objective vs subjective
Experience has a subjective character to it
How then can experience be understood through the physical operations of things?
Materialism can only account for objective concept of the mind and not the subjective reality of experience/ consciousness
Are You a Sim?
Bostrom does not argue for materialism but assumes it
He argues that if you assume materialism, it’s reasonable to imagine we are all computer programs
Pentecostal Metaphysics
In the face of physicalism, what does it mean to believe in miraculous?
How do Pentecostals combine an emphasis on physical and material forms of worship alongside an openness to the transcendent?
Challenges of an open system
Metaphysical naturalism
Methodological naturalism
Reductionistic naturalism
Disenchantment par excellence
There is nothing but the physical and material
NonReductionistic naturalism
Reject reductive physical and natural but also very critical of the supernatural
They do not assume that all phenomena can be reduced to the physical
Do not want to be dualists
One adherents says, “ there are not things, qualities, or causes other than those that might be qualities of the natural world itself or agents within it” ,
Both reductive and non-reductive naturalism seem to be anti-supernatural as their chore characteristic
They want to view the world as a closed system that cannot be interrupted by God
God’s interruptions/interventions isolate the normal cause-effect aspects of the world
Enchanted naturalism or noninterventionists supernaturalism
We live in a world in which God is intimately involved
Creatio continua - God is continually engaged in creation
Creation is a gift and as creatures we participate in the life of God
Miracles are normal; they are not a disruption of the natural
Suprises of the Spirit are normal
Interventionist supernaturalism
How Pentecostals often talk about their metaphysical/ontological commitments, but does it reflect Pentecostal practices?
What are the shortcomings of this position?
It assumes, like the naturalisms and autonomous, self-sufficient ‘world’” that goes about on its own according
It poses sharp dichotomies between nature and grace, physical and spiritual