Scottish Nous

"Undercutting" and "Rebutting" May Not Jointly Exhaust The Kinds of Defeaters!

Check out the awesome discussion of defeaters at TAR.

Using "Knew" to Mean "Strongly Falsely Believed"

On NBC News "Meet The Press"on Feb. 22, 2004,  Tim Russert asked Arnold Schwarzenegger:

What's the one thing that you knew for certain before you were elected that you now know is not the case? [transcript here]

If only Russert had asked "that you now believe is not the case" instead, Schwarzenegger's unrelated response would have counted as an admission that he has been acquiring false beliefs.  This is now my favorite example of the non-factive use of "know" confusion of "know" with "strongly believe". I think the past tense usage of "know" is too often  used when what is meant is "strongly falsely believed", and I think the "knew for certain" is just another one of those common phrases that falls victim to this confusion, as when one says "I knew for sure that Giacomo would win the 137th Belmont Stakes".  And you "knew for sure" that you'd roll snake eyes too, didn't you?  Sure you did.  [Via FBC comments.  Be warned, however, that in the course of questioning the factivity of "knows" they are actually entertaining the possible truth of propositions such as "Before Copernicus, everyone knew that the sun revolved around the Earth".]

OMG

Look at this C.V. and despair.

Presupposing One's Conclusion

Suppose, with Keynes, that the probability calculus is a logic more general than that of either induction or deduction.  This assumption, while not essential to the following argument, makes my claims just a bit more palatable.  Now define a relation of partial entailment between propositions, as Keynes did, such that the conditional probability of h given e is the degree to which h is entailed by e alone.  So where P(h|e) = x, x is the degree to which h is entailed by e.  Now let's make a plausible claim.  If one's evidence for h consisted solely of e, then it would be rational to repose a degree of belief in h equal to x.

Why not go further and let the relation of partial entailment operate not only between single propositions, but also between sets of propositions?  No problem there, of course.  So we can get a relation of partial entailment that applies to arguments.  For example, suppose we have an argument for conclusion c with two premises, p and q.  Since we're allowing that the probability calculus is a more general logic than either deduction or induction, we needn't concern ourselves with the structure of this argument.  Instead, let's just say that it's rational to repose a degree of belief in c equivalent to the degree to which c made probable by the conjunction of p and q.  That is, one should repose a degree of belief in c = P(c|p&q) = y.

Before we can get to the crux of the argument, I'm going to need to lay down a rationality constraint on updating probabilities in light of careful assesment of an argument.  Suppose one has considered the above two premise argument, and set their degree of belief in the conclusion equal to y.  Now suppose that, when one assesses the argument for cogency, one realizes that the argument contains a heretofore unnoticed presupposition r.  I want to claim that one should now update their degree of belief in c by moving from the prior probability P(c) = y to P(c|r) [or P(c|p&q&r)].  Moreover, this is, I believe, the manner in which philosophers do, in practice, adjust their degrees of belief in the conclusions of arguments.  (And if they don't, since this is a rationality constraint, they should change!)

Now let's consider the special case in which r just is c.  According to my rationality constraint, one should move to P(c|c) = 1.  But surely, at least when c is contingent, it would be unacceptable to assign it a probability of 1 on the basis of any argument whatsoever.  (Perhaps this is a meta-constraint obtained in virtue of familiarity with the probability calculus.  Only tautologies or necessarily true propositions have a probability of one.)

To the crux of the argument, then.  Alston's definition of epistemic circularity is cashed out in terms of the conclusion being presupposed (either tacitly or explicitly) in order for one to be justified in believing the premises.  That is, one can only be justified in believing p and q if one is justified in believing r, but in this case, r is identical to c.  But really, who cares what r is?  Clearly r is relevant to the truth of the conclusion, and clearly being justified in believing r is essential for the transmission of justification.  The above constraint on rationality doesn't disappear when it's the conclusion of an argument that's presupposed, does it?  So you update to P(c|p&q&c).  By stipulation, one is justified in believing that p and q are not inconsistent with c.  It just follows that you now update your belief by moving to a probability of 1.  But (at least for any contingent c) again, that's unacceptable.

I conclude that, if Alston has correctly defined epistemic circularity, then epistemic circularity is unacceptable when the argument which is epistemically circular has a contingent conclusion.  All of Alston's examples of epistemically circular arguments - inductive track record arguments for the reliability of one's perceptual faculties - do have contingent conclusions.  Therefore, if these arguments do in fact presuppose their conclusions, they are unacceptable.  QED.  (If you've noticed a bit of qualification in this last paragraph, it's because neither Bergmann nor Alston have yet convinced me that inductive track record arguments either 1) do in fact presuppose their conclusions, or 2) are epistemically circular.)

Spit on a Courtroom Floor

Is it fair to call judges "moral perverts" merely because they sit on a bench?  And what about the prosecutors trying cases where the defendant is guranteed to be punished to a degree that is clearly far and above that which the offense merited?  I'm inclined to think it is.  Indeed, I'm inclined to think that most of our judges and prosectors qualify to be counted amongst the worst sort of despicable, morally depraved, heinous fiends in society.  If this is true, should one have zero respect for a court system which exists not in the abstract, but as the collective product of a bunch of moral buffons?  Forget the legal issues and the big stick the state would hold over your head if your head if you chose to do this, but would you be morally justified in hocking a fat loogie in courtroom?  I answer in the affirmative.

Why should one have any sort of respect for people who both make their livings off of and promote a system which guarantees differential treatment of alleged offenders due to plea-bargaining, disparities of wealth among those hauled before the system, race, gender, and age (to name a few)?  If, for example, I knew that I, as a prosecutor, would, in trying a particular case, be assuring that should the defendant be found guilty, he would be punished far more than he deserved, would I not be morally obligated to refrain from prosecuting the case?  Or could I, in good conscience, tell myself that it wasn't my fault that the defendant received a sentence that could never be construed as befitting the crime, since it is the judge who is responsible for sentencing?  And supposing I'm the judge, would I be able to assuage my conscience by appealing to federal sentencing guidelines and judicial predecent?  Or may I foreswear responsibility by always blaming someone else, while I'm both promoting the continuance of the system and feeding my family off of it like a common thief?

And what if the system is doing more than dispensing differential treatment, handing down harsh sentences to those who have barely committed a violation (like booking little girls for eating french fries on the subway), offering plea bargains based on arbitrary sharp cutoffs which yield drastically reduced sentences to those lucky enough to fall on the right side of the line of demarcation, letting one criminal off for snitching in order to punish another, and handing out fixed fines which punish the poor but not the rich?  What if, in addition to the few offenses against justice just listed, the system is harming those who have not acted immorally?  (This is obviously a value distinction, and some will disagree over what counts as an immoral action.  For example, some Christians consider not proselytizing an immoral expression of hate.)  Yet I take it that there's no question that the system does make the lives of people who haven't acted immorally worse off than they otherwise would have been, and as far as I can tell, that's tantamount to, if not identical with, harming them.  These people are engaged in promoting systematic and widespread harm.  (I will not argue that this harm is widespread here, but take it as a basic datum, and  I grant that its truth is essential to my argument.  If you disagree, I suggest that's either because your system of moral value is incoherent, you're uneducated about the facts, or you're simply unintelligent.)

Why do they harm these people who haven't acted immorally?  In part because society wants them to, and therefore offers great incentives for immoral behavior.  And also because they're moral perverts who enjoy leech ing of those unfortunate enough to fall under their jurisdiction.  (After all, society didn't force them to behave like demon spawn.  Most of them wanted the job.)  By and large, the system does a good job of enforcing the wants of the majority, whether or not what the majority wants lines up with what morality dictates.  And these prosecutors and judges are rewarded for their perverse behavior.  They're paid large salaries.  They get to demand respect, and, if they don't get that respect (at least in certain settings), they can punish you for your failure to kow-tow.  And kow-tow you nevertheless must, unless you want the judge to give you a harsher sentence because you failed to show him the respect he thinks is due him in virtue of his position as depraved executor of injustice.   Exercise a little no-so-free speech in the courtroom, and they'll throw you in jail or slap more fines on you and, in general, do their best to ruin your life all in the name of good 'ol American cowboy justice.  Then, if they do this long enough, they'll get a more powerful position and a higher salary.  Society will move them up the ranks, letting them try cases before higher courts (based on their success at convicting the innocent) and sit on benches that enable them to wield even more obscene power over the average American.  If a judge is just immoral enough, she might even make it to the Supreme Court, where she can dictate a way of life to millions of people.  Show me any moral derelict, and I'll show you someone who relishes this sort of power.

Do the considerations above justify my animosity towards the good folks I've labeled as moral perverts?  I think they do, but I'd be interested in hearing why they don't.  I'd like to know why we shouldn't take the judges and prosecutors and lock them up in prison for harming people who haven't transgressed the bounds of morality.  Perhaps they've harmed enough people that they deserve even worse, say, like picking up trash for the rest of their lives.  If someone has an answer on offer, it had better be an answer which doesn't push the question back a level.  That is, stating that I've chosen to live in a country in which the people make certain rules which I've given my tacit consent to let be backed by the threat of force will not, as far as I'm concerned, legitimize harming people who have done nothing morally wrong.  It just means that society is populated by morons who are insensitive to the dictates of morality that should be governing the justice system.  (As an aside, when you're pushing so many innocent people through the justice system, it becomes much more efficient to ignore moral considerations in the name of expedience.)  But if that's the case, I still see no reason to respect the system.

Morally speaking, I'd recommend you spit on the next courtroom floor you see.  Tell the judge what a sick, disgusting moral derelict he is.  Inform the prosector that, not only do you find his tie heinous, you think that if there is a hell, his evil ways might warrant at least a brief dip into the lake of fire.  Then sit back and calmly take your beating and/or tasing.  Practically speaking, I don't suggest making such a martyr out of yourself, which is why I'll unhappily confine my protests to print.  At least I can do that much here in America.  We also need to do more than mock these people for the moral fools they are, although, I have to admit, for those within whom respect for the system has become so irrationally and deeply entrenched, mockery can be the best method of making one's point stick.  Still, they need to be castigated with love, plyed with arguments, and treated with at least that minimal level of repsect they deserve in virtue of being human persons.  None of this means they don't deserve to spend the rest of their life cleaning gutters, however.

Sunday Sermonette

Well, I was going to post Karen Armstong's opinionated reconstruction of the religious notions of Early Common Era Platonists who "needed no grotesque salvation by means of a crucified Messiah."  But I left the book with a friend last night, so that passage is out for this week at least.  To continue the tradition of offering excerpts from (gasp!) Christians, I bring you some epistemological reflections from B.B. Warfield's Counterfeit Miracles:

The essay now claiming our attention is probably the most specious plea for the credibility and reality of the whole mass of ecclesiastical miracles ever penned.  I say the whole mass, although Newman, with great apparent candor, admits that there is to be found among them every variety of miracle, of every degree of intrinsic credibility or incredibility, and supported by every degree of evidence or no evidence.  For, after he has, under the cover of this candor, concentrated attention upon what seem to him the particular miracles most deserving to be true, and supported by the most direct and weighty evidence, he subtly suggests that, on their basis, many more in themselves doubtful or distasteful may be allowed, that insufficiency of proof is not the same as disproof, and that very many things must be admitted by us to be very likely true for the truth of which we have no evidence at all - inasmuch as we must distinguish sharply between the fact and the proof of the fact, and must be prepared to admit that the failure of the latter does not carry with it the rejection of the former.

Warfield's major thesis - a defense of the cessation of the charismata - will not be of too much interest to most members of the reality-based community, but his argument for it is quite the pleasing  read.  The chain of reasoning described in the above passage is very common, and I suspect that if you think hard enough, you'll be able to come up with at least one or two instances of our prevailing government making a similar appeal: the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.  (Neither is evidence that there is evidence for p necessarily evidence for p.)

Binmore's Charity and Scholarship: The Forecast is Dim

I'll be heading up to the periodicals room today for reasons unconnected with any serious research.  Rather, I want to read Skyrms review of Ken Binmore's Natural Justice which appears in the July 8, 2005 Times Literary Supplement.  Brian Leiter pulls two bizarre quotes by Binmore out of that review.  Here's the first:

"Could it really be that his [Kant's] claim to fame as a moral philosopher is based merely on his having invented one of the fallacies of the Prisoner's Dilemma before anyone else?"

I take it this has something to do with the Categorical Imperative, up to seven formulations of which have been claimed to have been found in Kant by various philosophers.  Thus for example, we have the Kingdom of the Ends Formulation,  the Humanity (or Not Only As a Means) Formulation, the Universal Law Formulation, and the Universal Law of Nature Formulation.  (These are the four most common formulations.  Whether or not another one, two, or three versions exist is up for debate.)  The Prisoner's Dilemma, as it would be applicable to the Categorical Imperative, has to do with a game theoretic formulation of the imperative.  I suspect that most philosophers would be hesitant to agree over just which game theoretic formulation of the CI is the correct one, or, indeed, whether any particular formulation could capture all of Kant's different versions of the CI.  (But perhaps Binmore has discussed this.)  To get the general gist of it, here's a first attempt at one such possible formulation:

Adopt only that strategy which, if adopted by all players, would be in your best interests.

Now this formulation manifestly does not capture the CI, but maybe something like it does.  The best method of approaching the Prisoner's Dilemma (in so far as your best interests are concerned) does not  involve always adopting the strategy that, if everyone adopted it, would serve your interests best, for that strategy would be to always cooperate with the other person.  But, since the other person will not always cooperate, you would end up getting screwed an awful lot.  Of course, what your best interests have to do with morality isn't at all clear, so I'm not sure what the relevance of the game theoretic approach is supposed to be.  Yet perhaps Binmore explains.   

I expect some serious scholarship from Binmore which includes a detailed discussion of the various formulations of the CI, their respective game theoretic analogs, and what one's best interests have to do with moral value.  This would, of course, go only so far as substantiating Binmore's criticism of Kant in game theoretic terms, but we'd next need to see a discussion of the possibility of the deriviation of universal moral propositions from reason alone.  This attempt also has much, if not everything, to do with Kant's primary claim to fame in the Groundwork.  Binmore should also have at the very least carefully read The Critique of Practial Reason and The Metaphysics of Morals to make sure that Kant said absolutely nothing of worth there.  After all, the only reason anybody reads Kant with morality in mind is because he "fucked up royally" in the Groundwork.  Yeah.  Leiter implies that the adjective "prissy" applies to Binmore, though I don't think it's the best choice.  There's nothing "proper" about Binmore's snide carping, unless it's tossed in solely to liven up a book otherwise lacking in humor.  This isn't to say that Binmore may have nothing philosophically interesting to say, but I'd like to see if he even makes an attempt to substantiate the petty insults he throws in Kant's direction.  Plato doesn't fare much better:

"...a fascist [Plato] who thought that we all so need a leader that nobody should even 'get up, move, or wash, or take his meals' without permission!  If philosophical scholarship could convert such adolescent authoritarianism into a model of civilised debate, might it not have done the same for Kant's attempts to evade the rules of deductive reasoning?"

Let's start with Kant.  Binmore may or may not be aware that philosophers generally recognize justification conferring patterns of reasoning that are not deductively valid.  For example, Binmore may have learned that there is a name for the justification conferring practice he engages in more than any other, to wit, induction.  Perhaps Binmore has also heard of abduction, and it's even possible that he has considered the arguments of some philosophers to the effect that induction is just a subspecies of abduction.  Would using induction count as evading the rules of deduction?  Without more information, I'm not sure what Binmore has in mind, but one more suggestion might be that he's bothered by transcendental arguments (i.e., arguments that proceed to their conclusions by establishing them as necessary preconditions for the obtaining of unique states of affairs).  I'm not optimistic that we'll find something very insightful about transcendental arguments in this book, however, since that's a subject that requires several books in its own right.  (For one book on the subject, see Robert Stern's link in my sidebar.)  Maybe the only way to figure out if Binmore actually argues cogently for this strange attribution would be to read his book.

Finally, what's this nonsense about Plato?  Since when did Plato mention anything about nobody being able to "'get up, move, wash or take his meals' without permission"?  (And since when has The Republic considered a model of civilized debate?)  First, the principle seems, on the face of it, absurd.  Did Plato also think that people should defecate on a time table with the permission of their leaders?  And should they consult their commanders as to their daily choice of wardrobe?  Perhaps.  But the correct reading of a text such as The Republic is, at least so I contend, the best (and therefore most charitable) reading.  This is a normative principle of textual criticism that I will simply assert applies to Plato's works.  Binmore runs afoul of it.  In fact, Binmore runs afoul of any plausible principle of interpretation.  Here's what Binmore quoted (probably from Popper) set in context:

Now for expeditions of war much consideration and many laws are required; the great principle of all is that no one of either sex should be without a commander; nor should the mind of any one be accustomed to do anything, either in jest or earnest, of his own motion, but in war and in peace he should look to and follow his leader, even in the least things being under his guidance; for example, he should stand or move, or exercise, or wash, or take his meals, or get up in the night to keep guard and deliver messages when he is bidden; and in the hour of danger he should not pursue and not retreat except by order of his superior; and in a word, not teach the soul or accustom her to know or understand how to do anything apart from others. Of all soldiers the life should be always and in all things as far as possible in common and together; there neither is nor ever will be a higher, or better, or more scientific principle than this for the attainment of salvation and victory in war. And we ought in time of peace from youth upwards to practise this habit of commanding others, and of being commanded by others; anarchy should have no place in the life of man or of the beasts who are subject to man. I may add that all dances ought to be performed with view to military excellence; and agility and ease should be cultivated for the same object, and also endurance of the want of meats and drinks, and of winter cold and summer heat, and of hard couches; and, above all, care should be taken not to destroy the peculiar qualities of the head and the feet by surrounding them with extraneous coverings, and so hindering their natural growth of hair and soles. -Plato, The Republic, Laws, Book VII

The passage starts by Plato making reference to the laws pertaining to "expeditions of war".  The "great principle" referred to is the principle that, in war, men should have commanders (as well as when, in peacetime, they are training for war).  I am not, myself, a big fan of the military, but if we must have one, I suspect that it should have commanders.  It is not our best and brightest that are fighting on the front lines, and anarchy would well prevail within the ranks if we let everyone run rampant without any leadership.  Plato points this out, but perhaps Binmore thinks otherwise.  There is, in fact, no possible way to interpret this passage such that it applies to everybody.  Nothing could be more clear than that this passage has to do with the military, and, in fact, is a pretty accurate description of how we run our military today.  Of course, Binmore's claim that the passage applied to everybody was self-refuting on the face of it since one might wonder who is commanding the commander, but even this obvious flaw in the principle Binmore falsely attributed to Plato didn't stop him from so attributing it.  You might think an academic would have a little more respect for a historical genius who was far more intelligent than Binmore will ever be (this is not mean to be disparaging towards Binmore), but then, in Binmore's case, it seems you'd be disappointed.

Skyrms says the book is good, though the blurb on the OUP site is full of nothing-meaning words and might be construed as that form of deleterious conversational implicature akin to stating in a letter of recommendation that one's student is a hard worker with impeccable penmanship who gives philosophy his all.  It also might onlybe  meant for the lay reader, who will, unfortunately, be exposed to what are likely unjustified falsehoods concerning some of the greatest philosophers ever.  In order to find out, I'll have to head up to the periodicals room to pick up the Times Literary Supplement and sink my teeth into Brian's review.

A Definition of Epistemic Circularity?

I'm going to attempt to offer a definition of epistemic circularity here which has not, to my knowledge, appeared anywhere in the literature (though it bears some similarity to the accounts of William Alston and Larry Sanger).  I formulated this about five minutes ago, but so far,  I'm pleased with how it sorts various arguments:

An argument is epistemically circular for a cognizer if and only if the cognizer bears any relation to the premises or mode of inference necessary for being justified in believing the conclusion such that the bearing of that relation itself guarantees the truth of the conclusion.

I know some of you love coming up with counterexamples, so please, fire away at it.  Later, I'll post some examples of arguments that do and do not come out epistemically circular on various definitions of epistemic circularity.  At the moment, I'm optimistic that my definition fares better at rightly classifying these arguments.  But five minutes of reflection may be too hasty.

Hu? What?

Hype or not?  You decide.  Hu Wenliang is offering close to 17K USD if you can decode the novel he has claimed to have written using as characters only fourteen unique punctuation marks.  Now you can express quite a bit with fourteen punctuation marks (think of all the smilies you can make!), but claiming to have written a novel is a different story.  I call !@_!!$++!^.  Interpretations of the five chapter titles, roughly reproduced below, are welcome in the comments.  See here for the story.

:  ?
:  !
"'... ...'"
(,   ) * ((,  ))
: -- --

Update:  Actually, I think I have reproduced the entire "novel" above.  In other words, those marks may not just be the chapter headings.   But I can't be sure, since the linked article is poorly written and short on relevant information.

Mixed Metaphors

Geoffrey Pullum critizices popular author Dan Brown at Language Log.  Some of the criticism is a bit harsh.  For example:

An intelligence director has eyes "which despite having gazed upon the country's deepest secrets, appeared as two shallow pools" (do some people's eyes change depth after viewing a few classified memos?)

I take it that Geoffrey is peeved that Brown here used the preposition "despite", which may, to a  pedant, not only suggest but also demand the existence of a causal connection between the two linked clauses.  Personally, I wouldn't have complained.  But there are gems:

But the acme of inexpertly crunched metaphors in Deception Point is on page 27 (and I swear I'm not making this up): he uses the expression "learning the ropes in the trenches".  Think about that for a while.  The ropes metaphor is navy; being in the trenches is army.  You can't be in both services at once — hauling up sails on a clipper while dug in behind barbed wire on the western front.