Epistemology SUNY series in Philosophy George R. Lucas Jr., editor Epistemology An Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge Nicholas Rescher State University of New York Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2003 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, address State University of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207 Production by Michael Haggett Marketing by Anne M. Valentine Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Rescher, Nicholas. Epistemology : an introduction to the theory of knowledge / Nicholas Rescher. p. cm. — (SUNY series in philosophy) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-5811-3 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0-7914-5812-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Knowledge, Theory of. I. Title. II. Series BD161R477 2003 121—dc21 2003057270 10987654321 Contents Preface xi Introduction xiii KNOWLEDGE AND ITS PROBLEMS Chapter 1: Modes of Knowledge 3 IS KNOWLEDGE TRUE JUSTIFIED BELIEF?3 MODES OF (PROPOSITIONAL) KNOWLEDGE 7 OTHER BASIC PRINCIPLES 10 Chapter 2: Fallibilism and Truth Estimation 15 PROBLEMSOFMETAKNOWLEDGE16 THE PREFACE PARADOX 19 THE DIALLELUS 22 AN APORY AND ITS RECONCILIATION: K-DESTABILIZATION 23 COSTS AND BENEFITS 26 MORE ON FALLIBILISM 27 THE COMPARATIVE FRAGILITY OF SCIENCE: SCIENTIFICCLAIMSASMEREESTIMATES30 FALLIBILISM AND THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN OUR (PUTATIVE) TRUTH AND THE REAL TRUTH 34 Chapter 3: Skepticism and Its Deficits 37 THE SKEPTIC’S “NO CERTAINTY”ARGUMENT 37 THE ROLE OF CERTAINTY 39 THE CERTAINTY OF LOGIC VERSUS THE CERTAINTY OF LIFE 41 v vi Contents PRAGMATIC INCONSISTENCY 42 SKEPTICISM AND RISK 45 RATIONALITY AND COGNITIVE RISK 49 THE ECONOMIC DIMENSION:COSTS AND BENEFITS 53 THE DEFICIENCY OF SKEPTICISM 56 Chapter 4: Epistemic Justification in a Functionalistic and Naturalistic Perspective 61 EXPERIENCE AND FACT 61 PROBLEMS OF COMMON-CAUSE EPISTEMOLOGY 62 MODES OF JUSTIFICATION 64 THE EVOLUTIONARY ASPECT OF SENSORY EPISTEMOLOGY 68 RATIONAL VERSUS NATURAL SELECTION 69 AGAINST “PURE”INTELLECTUALISM 74 THE PROBLEM OF ERROR 76 CONCLUSION 78 Chapter 5: Plausibility and Presumption 81 THE NEED FOR PRESUMPTIONS 81 THE ROLE OF PRESUMPTION 85 PLAUSIBILITY AND PRESUMPTION 87 PRESUMPTION AND PROBABILITY 90 PRESUMPTION AND SKEPTICISM 92 HOW PRESUMPTION WORKS:WHAT JUSTIFIES PRESUMPTIONS 96 Chapter 6: Trust and Cooperation in Pragmatic Perspective 101 THE COST EFFECTIVENESS OF SHARING AND COOPERATING IN INFORMATION ACQUISITION AND MANAGEMENT 101 THE ADVANTAGES OF COOPERATION 103 BUILDING UP TRUST:AN ECONOMIC APPROACH 104 TRUST AND PRESUMPTION 106 A COMMUNITY OF INQUIRERS 108 RATIONAL INQUIRY AND THE QUEST FOR TRUTH Chapter 7: Foundationalism and Coherentism 113 HIERARCHICAL SYSTEMIZATION:THE EUCLIDEAN MODEL OF KNOWLEDGE 113 CYCLIC SYSTEMIZATION:THE NETWORK MODEL— AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE EUCLIDEAN MODEL 118 Contents vii THE CONTRAST BETWEEN FOUNDATIONALISM AND COHERENTISM 123 PROBLEMS OF FOUNDATIONALISM 128 Chapter 8: The Pursuit of Truth: Coherentist Criteriology 131 THE COHERENTIST APPROACH TO INQUIRY 131 THE CENTRAL ROLE OF DATA FOR A COHERENTIST TRUTH-CRITERIOLOGY 135 ON VALIDATING THE COHERENCE APPROACH 139 IDEAL COHERENCE 145 TRUTH AS AN IDEALIZATION 147 Chapter 9: Cognitive Relativism and Contexualism 151 COGNITIVEREALISM152 WHAT’SWRONGWITHRELATIVISM154 THE CIRCUMSTANTIAL CONTEXTUALISM OF REASON 155 A FOOTHOLD OF ONE’S OWN:THE PRIMACY OF OUR OWN POSITION 159 THE ARBITRAMENT OF EXPERIENCE 161 AGAINST RELATIVISM 165 CONTEXTUALISTIC PLURALISM IS COMPATIBLE WITH COMMITMENT ON PURSUING “THE TRUTH” 168 THE ACHILLES’HEEL OF RELATIVISM 170 Chapter 10: The Pragmatic Rationale of Cognitive Objectivity 173 OBJECTIVITY AND THE CIRCUMSTANTIAL UNIVERSITY OF REASON 173 THE BASIS OF OBJECTIVITY 175 THE PROBLEM OF VALIDATING OBJECTIVITY 177 WHAT IS RIGHT WITH OBJECTIVISM 180 ABANDONING OBJECTIVITY IS PRAGMATICALLY SELF-DEFEATING 182 Chapter 11: Rationality 187 STAGE-SETTING FOR THE PROBLEM 187 OPTIMUM-INSTABILITY 188 IDEAL VERSUS PRACTICAL RATIONALITY:THE PREDICAMENT OF REASON 190 THE PROBLEM OF VALIDATING RATIONALITY 193 THE PRAGMATIC TURN:EVEN COGNITIVE RATIONALITY HAS A PRAGMATIC RATIONALE 196 viii Contents ALTERNATIVE MODES OF RATIONALITY? 198 THE SELF-RELIANCE OF RATIONALITY IS NOT VICIOUSLY CIRCULAR 203 COGNITIVE PROGRESS Chapter 12: Scientific Progress 209 THE EXPLORATION MODEL OF SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY 210 THE DEMAND FOR ENHANCEMENT 211 TECHNOLOGICAL ESCALATION:AN ARMS RACE AGAINST NATURE 212 THEORIZING AS INDUCTIVE PROJECTION 215 LATER NEED NOT BE LESSER 217 COGNITIVE COPERNICANISM 221 THE PROBLEM OF PROGRESS 223 Chapter 13: The Law of Logarithmic Returns and the Complexification of Natural Science 229 THE PRINCIPLE OF LEAST EFFORT AND THE METHODOLOGICAL STATUS OF SIMPLICITY-PREFERENCE IN SCIENCE 230 COMPLEXIFICATION 234 THE EXPANSION OF SCIENCE 239 THE LAW OF LOGARITHMIC RETURNS 240 THE RATIONALE AND IMPLICATIONS OF THE LAW OF LOGARITHMIC RETURNS 245 THE GROWTH OF KNOWLEDGE 248 THE DECELERATION OF SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS 251 PREDICTIVE IMPLICATIONS OF THE INFORMATION/ KNOWLEDGE RELATIONSHIP 253 THE CENTRALITY OF QUALITY AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 254 Chapter 14: The Imperfectability of Knowledge: Knowledge as Boundless 257 CONDITIONS OF PERFECTED SCIENCE 257 THEORETICAL ADEQUACY:ISSUES OF EROTETIC COMPLETENESS 259 PRAGMATIC COMPLETENESS 262 PREDICTIVE COMPLETENESS 264 TEMPORAL FINALITY 267 Contentsix “PERFECTED SCIENCE”ASANIDEALIZATION THAT AFFORDS A USEFUL CONTRAST CONCEPTION 271 THEDISPENSABILITYOFPERFECTION274 COGNITIVE LIMITS AND THE QUEST FOR TRUTH Chapter 15: The Rational Intelligibility of Nature 279 EXPLAINING THE POSSIBILITY OF NATURAL SCIENCE 279 “OUR”SIDE 282 NATURE’S SIDE 284 SYNTHESIS 287 IMPLICATIONS 289 Chapter 16: Human Science as Characteristically Human 293 THE POTENTIAL DIVERSITY OF “SCIENCE” 293 THE ONE WORLD,ONE SCIENCE ARGUMENT 297 A QUANTITATIVE PERSPECTIVE 299 COMPARABILITY AND JUDGMENTS OF RELATIVE ADVANCEMENT OR BACKWARDNESS 305 BASIC PRINCIPLES 308 Chapter 17: On Ignorance, Insolubilia, and the Limits of Knowledge 315 CONCRETE VERSUS GENERIC KNOWLEDGE AND IGNORANCE316 EROTETIC INCAPACITY 317 DIVINE VERSUS MUNDANE KNOWLEDGE 318 ISSUES OF TEMPORALIZED KNOWLEDGE 319 KANT’S PRINCIPLE OF QUESTION EXFOLIATION 321 COGNITIVE INCAPACITY 323 INSOLUBILIA THEN AND NOW 324 COGNITIVE INCAPACITY 325 IDENTIFYING INSOLUBILIA 327 RELATING KNOWLEDGE TO IGNORANCE 329 POSTSCRIPT:A COGNITIVELY INDETERMINATE UNIVERSE 330 Chapter 18: Cognitive Realism 333 EXISTENCE334 ISMANTHEMEASURE?335 REALISMANDINCAPACITY337 x Contents THE COGNITIVE OPACITY OF REAL THINGS 339 THE COGNITIVE INEXHAUSTIBILITY OF THINGS 341 THE CORRIGIBILITY OF CONCEPTIONS 343 THE COGNITIVE INEXHAUSTIBILITY OF THINGS 344 COGNITIVE DYNAMICS 345 CONCEPTUAL BASIS OF REALISM AS A POSTULATE 347 HIDDEN DEPTHS:THE IMPETUS TO REALISM 352 THE PRAGMATIC FOUNDATION OF REALISM AS A BASIS FOR COMMUNICATION AND DISCOURSE 355 THE IDEALISTIC ASPECT OF METAPHYSICAL REALISM 360 SCIENCE AND REALITY 361 Notes 369 Index 403 PREFACE This book is based on work in epistemology extending over several decades. It combines into a systematic whole ideas, arguments, and doctrines evolved in various earlier investigations. The time has at last seemed right to combine these deliberations into a single systematic whole and this book is the result. Philosophers are sometimes heard to say that the present is a post-episte- mological era and that epistemology is dead. But this is rubbish. If the time ever came when people ceased to care for epistemological questions—as illus- trated by the topics treated in the present book—it would not be just episte- mology that has expired but human curiosity itself. I am grateful to Estelle Burris for her competence and patience in putting this material into a form where it can meet the printer’s needs. Nicholas Rescher Pittsburgh March 2002 xi Introduction The mission of epistemology, the theory of knowledge, is to clarify what the conception of knowledge involves, how it is applied, and to explain why it has the features it does. And the idea of knowledge at issue here must, in the first in- stance at least, be construed in its modest sense to include also belief, conjecture, and the like. For it is misleading to call cognitive theory at large “epistemology” or “the theory of knowledge.” Its range of concern includes not only knowledge proper but also rational belief, probability, plausibility, evidentiation and—addi- tionally but not least—erotetics, the business of raising and resolving questions. It is this last area—the theory of rational inquiry with its local concern for ques- tions and their management—that constitutes the focus of the present book. Its aim is to maintain and substantiate the utility of approaching epistemological is- sues from the angle of questions. As Aristotle already indicated, human inquiry is grounded in wonder. When matters are running along in their accustomed way, we generally do not puzzle about it and stop to ask questions. But when things are in any way out of the ordinary we puzzle over the reason why and seek for an explanation. And gradually our horizons expand. With increasing sophis- tication, we learn to be surprised by virtually