Epistemic Relevance5
Epistemic Relevance
Matjaž Potrč
Epistemological spectrum distinguishes itself from standard epistemologies in that it introduces low-grade a priori and naturalized epistemology, together with their interaction. Standard epistemologies on the contrary stick to the high-grade a priori, avoiding the recognition of cognition shaped naturalistic ingredients in justification. These approaches may be told apart through the underlying relevance question, as it is shaped by spatial and temporal considerations. Standard approach is restricted in respect to the expanded spatial and temporal options of the epistemic spectrum. It is generalist in opposition to the more promising particularist mode. The real relevance however comes through inclusive disjunction. Standard epistemology tends to stay with the environment of local justification. The epistemological spectrum on the other hand expands the involved space up to the transglobal environment, following the relevance which is shaped according to the inclusive disjunction. As standard approach cannot embark upon this path because of its sticking to its restricted spatial engagement it gets entangled into inconsistencies which epistemological spectrum helps to solve. On the temporal dimension side, standard epistemology embraces the eternity mode, whereas epistemological spectrum approach aims towards the moment that counts as relevant for attaining knowledge. Relevance according to the inclusive disjunction disciplines the eternity mode's exceptionless generalities into tendencies that proceed according to the particular momentary patterns.
1.Epistemological spectrum and standard epistemologies.
Epistemology is a philosophical enterprise with numerous elaborated proposals, whose aim is to deliver an answer to the question “What can I know?”[1]. This amounts to a search for knowledge which gets usually defined as the justified true belief. One important epistemological attitude from the very start is the realization that there is a possibility for knowledge not to be attained at all, in principle. This genuine skeptical concern that actually cannot be dismissed is taken as being opposed to knowledge, with the proclaimed need for it to be avoided if knowledge is the goal. This is also a first overall generic attitude proper to a broad number of attempts to tackle the question of knowledge which may be called the attitude of standard epistemologies (SE). Another presupposition of standard epistemologies is that the richness of their proposal comes in the form of exclusive choices. Here is a couple of examples. The justification of true belief may be attained through reliable procedures, or in an evidential manner. Again, knowledge rests upon some basic beliefs as foundationalism claims, or the whole rational system of beliefs is precondition for knowledge, as this is proposed by coherentism. Let us single out the just mentioned two presuppositions as the ones to which standard epistemologies (SE) subscribe:
(SE 1)The search for knowledge needs to exclude skeptical challenge.
(SE 2) The search for justification needs to be decided by choosing one of the opposed positions that come as exclusive choices.
One may notice that (SE 1) is actually just a sub-case of (SE 2). But it is singled out because it is taken as a precondition which needs to be sorted out before the further (SE 2) work can be embarked upon.[2]
These presuppositions of standard epistemology are countered by the approach of epistemological spectrum (ES), as it may be called, which subscribes to theses that are opposed to the former ones:
(ES 1)The search for knowledge needs to appropriate skeptical challenge.
(ES 2) The search for justification needs to embrace both positions which at first sight appear as exclusive choices.
Notice that there is no organic link between SE points in their (SE 1) and (SE 2) appropriated positions. On the other hand the (ES 2) comes intertwined with (ES 1) by sorting it out as its precondition.
Also, ES, contrary to SE, is more inclined to take justified belief and not exclusively knowledge as its epistemic goal.
Laying out some theses that characterize SE and ES, their differences and relations, we can now turn to a brief presentation of ES as a new proposal upon the epistemological scene. It will be followed by a short specification of SE in respect to this.
1. Epistemological spectrum (ES) distinguishes itself from standard epistemologies in that it introduces low-grade a priori and epistemology naturalized, besides to their interaction.
The epistemological spectrum (ES) approach (Henderson and Horgan, in press) proposes two highlights. On the one hand this is the low-grade a priori. It is the view that a priori reasoning is involved into the search for belief justification and knowledge. But this a priori as conceptual investigation of scenarios that appear in the process of search for the epistemic goal of justified belief is recognized as empirically based in the capacity of judgment. Abductive methodology is proposed for treatment of the mentioned scenarios. Abduction involves explanatory hypotheses which are not of deductive kind but have the possibility of their improvement essentially built into them. Once as an abductive hypothesis gets formed it is confronted by empirical data that typically trigger the alteration of that hypothesis and its eventual substitution. These changes however are not arbitrary or without conclusion, for they are directed towards the proposed epistemic goal. In search for an appropriate account of justification, several counterexamples are proposed. In order to confront and answer these one needs to consult one's intuitions while one builds judgment about them. Now, judgments of this kind are a priori in the sense that they deal with the evaluation of conceptual possibilities. But this armchair methodology depends upon the empirical psychological constitution of the one that judges. In this sense it is a case of low-grade a priori.
This a priori take which is involved into the search for epistemic goal is supplemented by naturalized epistemology. As the primary epistemic goal is justified belief, empirical data about belief formation come into the center of attention. It turns out that belief formation is influenced not just by directly and perhaps introspectively accessible data, but by the widely conceived cognitive background that colors the targeted content, and also has role in its epistemic support. This cognitive background may be called morphological content, because it essentially consists of the form proper to the multi-dimensional space that is not directly introspectively accessible to the cognizer. So, my formation of belief that this is a cat is possible because of my former dispositionally present knowledge involving such things as what the cat is like, that it has four legs, is a mammal, eats milk and catches mice. While I form an explicit belief targeting the cat that I am aware of, this belief could not have been formed[3] if there would not be this background knowledge of morphological content already waiting in the wings. Obviously, if I would not believe any of the facts, such as that the cat is mammal, that it eats milk and catches mice[4], I could not have formed cat-related belief at all, at least not in a rational way. So the cognitive background is tantamount to the presupposition of belief formation and of the possibility for the belief being evidentially present before one's mind.[5] We singled out morphological content as one part of the empirical cognitive outfit that is not envisioned by SE, but is specific for ES. This does not deny the appropriation though by ES of all these empirical and psychology, cognitive science related features to which the naturalized epistemological side of the SE subscribes, claiming that epistemology is in continuum with psychology, besides to other science supported trials of achieving knowledge. Yet we chose morphological content in as far as it is not envisioned by SE, because of that approach presuppositions. One of these presuppositions is embracing of the high-grade a priori, which we will start laying out in next subsection.
The very expression epistemological spectrum (ES) denotes a whole line of features that are important for achieving the epistemic goal of justified belief or of knowledge. They stretch from the low-grade a priori methodologies on the one side of the spectrum, to the naturalized epistemology methodologies and characteristics on the other side. The idea now is that these various methodologies interact in the process towards achieving the envisioned epistemic goal. This interaction turns out to be substantial, in direction of the overall goal of the knowledge that matters. An interaction between two sides of the spectrum, of the low-grade a priori and naturalized epistemology, delivers a justified belief that is supported both by reasoning and by the overall rationality of the epistemic cognizer, as well as by empirical cognitive means which that cognizer has in his hands in order to achieve the envisioned goal. These means are not perfect, but just right for the human epistemic task. They are not themselves evidentially present, but in the last resort they enable the formation of the evidential belief. In this way ES honors limitations of human rational and cognitive abilities which exactly make them relevant for the to be achieved epistemic goal. The basis of the proposed relevance is in the mutual support of two sides of the spectrum, following the (ES 2). Our rationality and our empirical cognitive outfit both mutually support epistemic query. As we may say, interaction between the two parts of the spectrum is necessary for the ES proposal to come through, so that the relevance according to inclusive disjunction is finally achieved. In more SE familiar terms, one may perhaps claim that coherent rationality and preconditions of evidential belief formation that consist in non-evidential support of the iceberg epistemology attuned morphological side come together in search of epistemic relevance which, just as Descartes presumed, is punctual and disappearing. The ES knowledge is directed towards the moment that counts, with several forces as tendencies leading towards it in unison. This may be achieved by the inclusive disjunction approach to justification.
Notice that on the low-grade a priori side of the spectrum there is the capacity of judgment where several scenarios on the path towards the epistemic goal are tackled. And judgmental ability comes together with the phenomenology that is included into it. The spatial side of the epistemic goal, according to ES, consists in the transglobal environment that we will specify later on. This is an evidentialist proposal that also involves phenomenology. Spatial considerations have at least partial roots in the nature of cognition and in its limitations. Given that morphological content figures as cognitive support of evidential belief formation, it is related to phenomenology. Phenomenology thus appears on both sides of the spectrum, and it may therefore be their link, and thereby the link towards the epistemic relevance.
2. Standard epistemologies (SE) on the contrary stick to the high-grade a priori, avoiding the recognition of cognition shaped naturalistic ingredients in justification.
Standard epistemologies (SE) are opposed to the ES proposal. In fact, the assessment of the ES proposal novelty may be understood by being compared to the manner in which SE tackles the same issues.
SE opposes low-grade a priori by building upon the high-grade a priori, where there is no impact of the empirical involved into the purely conceptual investigation. This may be seen in the basic account of knowledge which typically is attempted by the usage of definition. Knowledge as it is well known is usually defined as justified true belief. The inquiry into conditions of knowledge is taken to be the conceptual analysis that proceeds by the high-grade a priori, a kind of a priori that does not allow for any real weight of psychological processes underpinning the epistemological judgment. Problems with laying out and straightening the definition of knowledge are admitted to exist, for otherwise the epistemological enterprise would not be there at all, as in this case the definition would be fool-proof. Because this just envisioned idealized state of the real high-grade a priori as tied to the definition of knowledge is not empirically possible at all, this is one point where the ES positive program may be accepted, in opposition to the SE. Just as an example, SE proposes an additional condition besides the justified true belief so that knowledge may be achieved as the definition gets confronted to the Gettier cases. This shows that in fact, SE admits the need for improvement of definitory data and thereby the need to overcome high-grade a priori. But in fact again, SE denies any explicit endorsing of this step despite of its practical endorsement in its many-dimensional straightening-up work concerning the definition of knowledge. Also, the definition of knowledge, as proposed by SE is deductive a priori stuff, and it does not tackle any abductive procedures, where definition would be admitted with the possibility of being eventually improved under the weight of empirical data, just as Quine has suggested for epistemology naturalized. It is thus not the case that SE would not recognize low-grade a priori in a practical manner while performing its job of straightening up the high-grade a priori definition. Despite this being the case, SE stick to the high-grade a priori, in their basic definitory account of knowledge. Also, in opposition to ES, the SE approach, all in recognizing the counterexamples at various levels of investigation, has a tendency to straightforwardly dismiss and to exclude these counterexamples in order to straighten up the definitory task that it assumes. ES, to the contrary, takes these counterexamples to be an integral part of the search for epistemic goal, and it recognizes the need for them being substantially integrated into this path.
The second point, namely that the SE approach avoids the recognition of cognition shaped naturalistic ingredients in justification may be disputed. It may be admitted though if high-grade a priori is the mark of SE, for a priori does not allow for any theoretical need of integrating the empirical into the epistemic inquiry. But still, it may be claimed, SE has epistemology naturalized well entrenched as a part of its repertoire. So it seems that SE is at least in part, in a quite substantial part that is, comfortable with naturalistic ingredients entering into the process of justification. We have two points to affirm at this juncture. The first is that SE does not integrate into its approach non-evidential empirical data such as these pertaining to the morphological content. Morphological content, as the non-evidential background which is a precondition of the evidential occurrent total cognitive state in need of epistemic evaluation, is a part of empirical naturalistic cognition which is not recognized by SE in any direct manner. This is why we singled out cognitive background of morphological content being important as a distinguishing characteristic of ES approach.
But there is more. Our opponent may simply claim that SE has the ability to recognize well the role of cognition shaped naturalistic ingredients in justification, besides to the need of conceptual analysis, all in direction of securing the epistemic goal. A case in point is Goldman's Epistemology and Cognition (1986) where the first part provides conceptual and definitory shaped approach to knowledge, and where the second part explicitly proposes a number of empirical psychological cognitive processes, such as memory and perception, that underlie accuracy and speed, besides to other factors entering into justification. What may be claimed in respect to this? Our claim is that the just mentioned kind of SE, despite that it may integrate big parts of cognition into justificatory process – all in not being attentive at the morphological content though – does not establish any tight substantial link between the a priori and the empirical cognition stuff. ES is different here because it includes the empirically supported low-grade a priori and empirical cognition in a dialectics leading to the relevant epistemic goal. It does this in the manner of bringing the two poles of the spectrum together, in an inclusivist setting, much tighter as this is the case with the approach proper to Goldman's book. In other words, SE oppose embracing of naturalized epistemology, in the sense that psychological/conceptual processes would be directly involved into the epistemic goal directed inquiry. So, it is important that there is a dialectical interaction between the two parts of the spectrum. Such an interaction which is shaped according to the inclusive disjunction is excluded by SE. Although SE may recognize the existence of cognition shaped naturalistic ingredients in the epistemic query, the appropriate epistemic relevance is not the good that it is after.
2.Relevance: spatial and temporal dimensions.
SE embrace definitory approach towards knowledge, whose aim is that of providing its characterization following the defense of necessary and sufficient conditions, in all of their variations and counterexamples which introduce a very rich ongoing discussion, involving coherentism and foundationalism, virtue and context, and whatnot. So the relevance aimed by SE happens to be tailored according to the requirements that are proper to definition. These requirements aim at a general exceptionless account of knowledge that would be immune to counterexamples. And they presuppose very restricted rigid spatial and temporal considerations which are there in support of such account. It is to these that we now turn.
1. ES and standard epistemologies may be distinguished through the underlying relevance question, shaped by spatial and temporal considerations.
The question of relevance is important in many philosophical and other discussions and yet it is not always singled out in the manner in which it deserves to be. Standard approaches in philosophy and in close areas many times presuppose, without explicitly spelling this out, that relevance is generalist, coming with general exceptionless rules, supported by an atomistic and tractably ordered basis. In artificial intelligence and in cognitive science the frame problem, or the problem how exactly to delimit the set of data which should be taken into account for determining of a certain fact or direction of an action, has shown though that holistic and dynamic considerations may have their priority in an approach to relevance. Relevance may also be tackled by the question of the involved spatial and temporal dimensions, as we will try to spell it out in a short manner in what follows. For SE, the space which is involved into the epistemic enterprise tends to be very much restricted indeed. An externalist would typically consider a reliable link between a given situation in the world, and between the belief being formed in respect to that situation. One may call such a space the local external space. On the other hand, an internalist would seem to deal with even more restricted space, namely restricted to what goes on in his mind while he estimates justification of his cat directed belief. As far as the temporal dimension is concerned, SE subscribes to the dimension of eternity, which fits to its definitory approach to knowledge. Namely, definition comes in a generality supporting manner, and this one is then exclusive in respect to the momentary assessment of knowledge, or of justified belief. Particularity is thereby excluded. SE thus takes relevance as restricted in spatial and temporal dimensions, in that the considered space of epistemic evaluation is local or even private. On the other hand it appropriates the eternity temporal mode, with just generalist quality, excluding other possible qualities, especially phenomenology involving ones. This is what SE take as relevant for the search of knowledge.