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The Theory of Knowledge in Pragmatic Perspective

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The Theory of Knowledge in Pragmatic Perspective Cognitive Pragmatism Cognitive Pragmatism The Theory of Knowledge in Pragmatic Perspective NICHOLAS RESCHER University of Pittsburgh Press Copyright © 2001, University of Pittsburgh Press AH rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Printed on acid-free paper 10 9 87654321 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Fublication Data Rescher, Nicholas * Cognitive pragmatism : the theory of knowledge in pragmatic perspective / Nicholas Rescher. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8229-4153-8 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Knowledge, Theory of. 2. Cognition 1 Title, BDj 6i R4695 2001 121— d t2i 2001002730 CONTENTS List of Figures and Displays ix Preface xi Introduction 1 one Knowledge of the Truth in Pragmatic Perspective 5 i* Internal Realism and Truth as (Available) Warrant 5 2. Interdependency Problems 8 3. A Different Approach: Methodological Pragmatism 13 4. Validation Issues 13 3. Being "Realistic" (in Both Senses) 16 two Epistemic Justification 21 1* Experience and Fact 21 2. Problems of Common Cause Epistemology 23 3. Modes of Justification 26 4. The Role of Presumption 27 5. Principles of Presumption 29 6. The Validation of Presumption as a General Policy 31 7. The Evolutionary Aspect of Sensory Epistemology 33 8. Rational versus Natural Selection 35 9. Against "Pure" Inteilectualism 40 10. Conclusion 44 three Categories: A Pragmatic Approach 46 1. Categorical Sameness 46 2. Types of Categories 48 3* Different Category Schemes 52 4* The Translation Argument and Its Flaws 34 5. The Alternatives of Conceptual Schemes 37 6* The Appraisal of Conceptual or Categorical Schemes 58 7* The Question of the Inherent Superiority of Our Own Conceptual Schemes 61 v yi Contents fo u ft On Learned Ignorance and the Limits of Knowledge 63 1, Knowledge about Ignorance 63 2, Scientific Progress: Difficulties in Predicting Future Knowledge 64 3, Question Propagation 66 4, Incompleteness 68 5, Insolubilia 73 6- Relating Knowledge to Ignorance 75 7, Lessons: Learned Ignorance 80 f 1 v f ; The Deficits of Skepticism 81 1. On Rationality and Risk 81 2. Skepticism and Risk 84 3. The Deficiency of Skepticism 88 sex Cognitive Realism: A Pragmatic Perspective on Existence and Our Knowledge of It 92 1. Existence 92 2. Being and Being Known: A Move toward Idealism 93 3. Is Man the Measure? 94 4- Realism and Incapacity 98 5. The Cognitive Inexhaustibility of Things 100 6. Cognitive Dynamics 103 7. The Conceptual Basis of Realism as a Postulate 105 8. Hidden Depths: The Impetus to Realism 109 9. The Pragmatic Foundation of Realism as a Basis for Communication arid Discourse 113 10. The Idealistic Aspect of Metaphysical Realism 119 S even Induction as Enthymematic Reasoning: A Pragmatic Perspective on Inference to the Best Systematization 122 1. Enthymemes 122 2. The Enthymematic Approach to Induction 123 3. Induction as Estimation 126 4. Difficulties with Inference to the Best Explanation 128 5. Further Problems 130 6. Best Systematization as a Viable Alternative 133 7. Induction as a Practical Resource 136 S. A Postscript 138 Contents vii EiO ttT On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation 140 1. Circular Reasoning 140 2. Iteration Processes and Infinite Regress 143 3. On the Rationale of Regressive Viciousness 147 4. Further Illustrations of Cognitive Viciousness 134 5. Thematic Homogeneity in Cognitive Regress 137 6. Harmless Circularity 139 7. Larger Pragmatic Implications 164 n 1R e Reification Fallacies and Inappropriate Totalities 166 1* Improperly Totalized Wholes and Illicit Reification 166 2. The Route to Paradox 173 3. The Root of the Problem 173 4. More on Illicit Totalities 177 5. A Russellian Digression 178 6. A Kantian Postscript 180 tem What If Things Were Different? 1 8 6 1. On Counter factual Conditionals and Nonexistent Worlds 186 2. Some Counterfactual Conditionals 190 3+ Further Examples 193 4, A Difficulty and Its Resolution 193 5* What's Wrong with Nonexistent Worlds? 196 6* Making the Actual World Do 198 a ppen d ix Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limits: Rudiments of Formalized Epistemology 201 1+ Accessible Knowledge 201 2, Actual versus Putative Knowledge 203 3+ Levels of Acceptance and ReJection 204 4* Level 1 Principles: Logicoconceptual Truths 207 5. Further Consequences 209 6. Cognitive Limitations 212 7. Summary 213 8. Observations on 216 9. Yet Further Consequences 219 10. Modal Variations 221 11. Contingent Knowledge and Level 2 Principles 223 viii Contents 12- Level 3 Principles: Plausible Truth Candidates 224 13, Knowledge of the Unknown? 225 14, Conclusion 229 Postscript: Collective Knowledge 230 Notes 233 Bibliography 245 Name Index 249 FIGURES AND DISPLAYS Figures 1*1 The Trade-Off between Security and Definiteness in Estimation 19 4.1 A Diagram for Statistical Fluctuation 78 5.1 Risk Acceptance and Misfortunes: A Phenomenological Perspective 87 Display's 3-1 Traditional Categories 47 3.2 Characterizing Elements of an Action 49 3*3 Pro toe a teg or ial Questions 50 5*1 Approaches to Risk 85 ix PREFACE This book was written in Pittsburgh during the 1999-2000 academic year. However, it brings together ideas and doctrines regarding pragmatism developed over a long period, beginning with my 1973 book on The Pri­ macy of Practice (Oxford: Blackwell). The proximate cause of the book was the coincidence of two invitations to contribute to celebratory volumes in honor of colleagues Hilary Putnam and Ernest Sosa, The material prepared for these occasions constitutes the substance of the first two chapters. Three further chapters (Chapters 4, 5, and 9) arc based on earlier publica­ tions, the details of which are given in the endnotes to those chapters. I am grateful to Estelle Burris for her competence and patience in pro­ ducing the final word-processed draft of the manuscript. Cognitive Pragmatism INTRODUCT Knowledge development is a practice that we humans pursue because we have a need for its products. The cognitive project is accordingly a deeply p ra c tic a l endeavor, irrespective of whatever purely theoretical interest may attach to its results. Knowledge brings great benefits. The relief of ignorance is foremost among them. We have evolved within nature to fill the ecological niche of an intelligent being. In consequence,, the need for understanding, for "knowing one's way about/' is one of the most fundamental demands of the human condition. Man is Homo quaerens♦ The need for knowledge is part and parcel to our nature. A deeply rooted demand for information and understanding presses in upon us, and we have little choice but to satisfy it. Once the ball is set rolling it keeps on going under its own momentum— far beyond the limits of strictly practical necessity. The great Norwegian polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen put it well. What drives men to explore the polar regions, he said, is the power of tire unknown over the human spirit. As ideas have cleared with the ages, so has this power extended its might, and driven Man willy-nilly onwards along the path of progress. It drives us in to Nature's hidden powers and secrets, down to the immeasurably little world of the microscopic, and out into the imp robed expanses of the Universe. it gives us no peace until we know this planet on which we live, from the greatest depth of the ocean to the highest layers of the atmosphere. This Power runs like a strand through the whole history of polar exploration. In spite of all declarations of possible profit in one way or another, it was that which, in our hearts, has always driven us back there again, despite all setbacks and suffering.1 The discomfort of unknowing is a natural aspect of human sensibility. To be ignorant of what goes on about us is almost physically painful for us— no doubt because it is so dangerous from an evolutionary point of view. It is a situational imperative for humans to acquire information about the world. Homo sapiens is a creature that must, by its very nature, 1 2 Introduction feel cognitively at home in the world. The requirement for information; for cognitive orientation within our environment; is as pressing a human need as that for food itself. The basic human urge to make sense of things is a characteristic aspect of our makeup—we cannot live a satisfactory life in an environment we do not understand. For us intelligent creatures, cognitive orientation is itself a practical need: cognitive disorientation is physically stressful and distressing. As William James observed, "It is of the utmost practical importance to an animal that he should have pre­ vision of the qualities of the obJects that surround him."2 Not only is knowledge indispensably useful for our practice, the reverse is true as well. Knowledge development is itself a practice, and various practical processes and perspectives are correspondingly useful— or even necessary—to the way in which we go about constituting and validating our knowledge. Examining these praxis-oriented approaches to knowledge development is one of the prime tasks of this book. Its prin­ cipal thesis is that we have not only the (trivial) circumstance that knowl­ edge is required for effective practice, but also the reverse, that practical and pragmatic considerations are crucially at work in the way in which human knowledge comes to be secured. The book unites ideas and arguments that I have worked out over many years. It thus seeks to give a systematic and synoptic presentation of the cognitive pragmatism that characterizes all of my work in this domain. The first half of the book (Chapters 1-6) deals with the nature of our knowledge and the rationale of knowledge claims. The deliberations at work here issue from the consideration that inquiry, like any other human proJect, involves the risk of failure because the pursuit of knowledge is indissolubly bound up with the possibility of error.
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