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 SensoryEpistemology 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. The sensible response here is not skepticism but a practical-minded realism that faces the fact that in the pursuit of knowledge, as elsew7here, we have no alternative but simply to do the best we can. And this means that the processes of induc­ tive and probative reasoning that we routinely use for the substantiation of claims to know7ledge must ultimately rely for their own substantiation on practical rather than purely theoretical considerations. The remaining chapters (Chapters 7-10) examine how this pragmatic grounding of knowledge w orks itself out in a variety of contexts (specifi­ cally particular existential conditions, claims of totality, inductive gener- Introduction 3 alization, and counter factual reasoning). The aim here is to illustrate such theoretical and abstract issues in a pragmatic, unprobabilistic light. Viewed in closer detail, the road map of the book is as follows: Chap­ ter i ajgues that, since rational inquiry is a functional, goal-directed en­ terprise whose characterizing mission is that of truth estimation, the arbitrament of practice—especially in relation to issues of prediction and control—serves as a standard of adequacy here. Chapter 2 shows that, thanks to the cognitive bearing of sensory experience upon knowledge, this practicalistic dimension endow7s evolutionary considerations—as regards both natural and rational selection—with a key place in the epis- temic realm. And Chapter 3 extends this perspective from the sensory to the conceptual and in particular the categorical realm. Chapter 4 shows how the truth-estimational conception of inquiry constrains us to see cog­ nition as subject to a variety of characteristic limits and limitations. But Chapter 5 argues that skepticism must nevertheless be rejected, if only thanks to the consideration of its refusal to follow the ground rules of rational practice in the presence of risks. Chapter 6 seeks to demonstrate that a plausible theory of cognitive realism can be developed within a pragmatic rationale. Chapter 7 explains how induction can be understood and legitimated in the light of this approach. Chapter 8 shows that no sort of vicious circularity is involved in providing a rational validation of the role of reason in inquiry, since in the end practical reason is used to vali­ date theoretical reason. The following chapters illustrate how the pragmatic ground rules of effective communicative practice suffice to overcome a significant range of familiar epistcmic puzzles and paradoxes, specifically in relation to totalization fallacies (Chapter 9) and counter factual reason­ ing (Chapter 10), Finally the appendix uses the mechanisms of formalized epistemology to clarify the pervasive issue of cognitive limitations. All in all, the principal message of the book is that in matters of inquiry and cognition the interrelationship of practical and theoretical issues is both more intimate and more complex than theorists of knowl­ edge generally recognize.

ONE

Knowledge of the Truth in Pragmatic Perspective

1* Interna] Realism and Truth as (Available) Warrant

The pursuit of knowledge aims at discovering the truth of things. But if truth pivots on the idea that truths state how things actually stand, with­ out any inherent reference to our beliefs, views, and opinions—if, as mainstream tradition has it, truth is something altogether detached from human thought and ideas—then how can we possibly achieve knowledge about it? How could we ever validly claim that our thought corresponds with thought-external reality so as to get at the real truth? How can we get there from here? As Hilary Putnam puts it, a whole host of contemporary philosophers (including Putnam himself) react to this formidable challenge by adopting the seemingly heretical view that truth must be construed in terms of humanly available warrant and "that our grasp on the notion of truth must not be represented ... by a relation called 'correspondence' to something totally independent of the practices by which we decide what is and what is not true,"1 To be sure, ordinarily people (many philosophers included) would hold that the truth is something we discover, and that whereas we do indeed decide what to accept as true, since acceptance is something that we actually do, we are not ordinarily in a position to decide the actual truth o f things. But it is exactly this distinction between what "really is true" and what "we are prepared to accept as true" that philosophers of the ten­ dency Putnam endorses decline to acknowledge.

5 6 Knowledge of the Truth in Pragmatic Perspective

All the same, such a contrast rejection has its problems. After all, with "what is true" there can—by hypothesis—be no further question of cor­ rectness. But with what we (or anyone) actually accept as true, there still looms before us the ever-additional question, "Is this acceptance really warranted?" However, it is just this gap between factually actual and nor­ ma tively appropriate acceptance that these "internalist" truth theorists seek to close by injecting some element of normativity into the accep­ tances at issue. For the we /us of "we decide what is true" is, according to their approach, not the we /us of this imperfect dispensation of ours in the spatiotemporal present, but the "wrer/ of the scientific community of the eventual future—or of some other comparably idealized group of rational inquirers. Pragmatism's founding father, C. S. Peirce, initially proposed to domesticate "the truth about reality" by construing it as a matter of ulti­ mate science—that is to say, it is the "final irreversible opinion" of the sci­ entific community once its thought becomes settled and fixed. Truth, so regarded, is the opinion that science will eventually reach, being "fated" (as Peirce puts it) to be achieved ultimately by the efforts of the ongoing scientific community- And this led him to his well-known characterization of truth as "the opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to bv all who investigate [by the use of scientific methods]." On third thought, however, Peirce shifted from, what the scientific community w ill (and must) eventu­ ally realize to what it would realize if its efforts continued long enough in sufficiently favorable circumstances. With this more cautious approach in view, he held that the truth is "what any man would believe in, and be ready to act upon, if his investigations were pushed sufficiently far,"2 The subjunctive is called upon to do real work here. And along these lines Put­ nam's Representation and Reality also proposes "idealized rational accept­ ability" as a definition of truth. Nevertheless such an approach involves difficulties and faces obstacles of which Peirce himself w as perfectly aware. The idea that truth is what future science wall deliver into our hands about nature is open to a series of "what if" objections: * What if inquiry ended owning to the extinction of intelligent life? * What if inquiry came to a stop because of the indolence (fecklessness, laziness) of scientific workers? * What if inquiry were hamstrung because of human limitations: because scientists are not smart enough or imaginative enough to look Knowledge of the Truth in Pragmatic Perspective 7

upon the theories required to characterize nature's modus operandi correctly? * What if inquiry were blocked because of a lack of resource commit­ ments: science might never be able to afford the large-scale instruments and experiments needed to advance its frontiers?

In the face of "what if" concerns of this sort, a theory that equates the truth with the product of inquiry would undergo the following series of saving transformations and sophistications to the effect that the truth is:

* What science will eventually* deliver. * What science will deliver in the theoretical long run, that is, what it would deliver if it continued long enough. * What ideally able scientists (i.e., those practicing the scientific method with ideal competence) would deliver if they continued their efforts long enough. * What ideally able scientists working under ideally favorable condi­ tions (and thus without any resource constraints) would deliver if they continued their efforts long enough.

In contemplating this series, three considerations become clear:

1* The demands of plausibility force us to move along this path because otherwise these "what if" objections would render the theory of "truth = product of inquiry" untenable. 2. A continually growing amount of idealization is going on here, as we shift from simple futurity in this world eventually to reach hypotheti­ cal realizability under utterly unrealistic conditions. 3* By the end of the series, the thrill has run out of the process. For with the equation "truth = the product of idealized inquiry" we arrive at a position that is substantially emasculated, true enough but virtually trivial. Mo reasonable person could’—or surely would—question that the truth is what absolutely idealized inquiry would deliver into our hands in absolutely idealized conditions. But this result is now not so much an interesting theory about the nature of truth as a near- tautological gloss on w hat is at issue with "absolutely ideal inquiry."

The problem is that cognitive idealization is not a cost-free resource. For it is, or should be, clear that the more strongly we gerrymander that group of truth deciders into an ideal fraternity of rational inquirers pro­ ceeding in ideal and unrestrictedly optimized circumstances, the more we lose the putative advantage that initially motivated this whole approach. 8 Knowledge of the Truth in Pragmatic Perspective

After all, the theorists in view initially wanted to bring the conception of truth down from the transcendental unrealizability of a cognitively inac­ cessible "correspondence" to the realm of achievable practice. But they now succeed in this only by transposing this practice from the observable operations of an existing community of inquirers to the merely conjectural operations of an idealized community that is every bit as unmonitorable and reality-transcendent as was that transcendental "correspondence" from which we were trying to escape. We seem to be driven to a Hobson's choice between actual veracity (real truthfulness) on the one hand and cognitive availability (evidential accessibility) on the other. A dilemma looms. If truth Is to be construed in ontological terms as a matter of correspondence to authentic (thought- independent) reality, then it is not realistically accessible. On the other hand, if truth is construed in epidemic terms as a matter of evidential availability ("warranted assertability" or the like), then there is no assur­ ance that there will be no gap between our evidence and the real and actual condition of things, How can we possibly manage to unite the two factors—factual authenticity and epistemic warrant—that we would ideally like the idea of truth to fust1 together for us? If we opt for warrant as the key to truth, then how do we know that actuality is not at risk? If we opt for actuality as the key, then how can we be assured of epistemic warrant? How are these two disparates to be brought together?

2. Interdependency Problems

Can purely conceptual connections perhaps do the job for us? In Pragma­ tism: An Open Question, Putnam tells us that while he does "not think this truth can be defined in terms of verification" nevertheless he does "agree with the pragmatists that truth and verification are not simply independent and unrelated notions."3 But the now operative idea that "being true" and "being (warrantedly) thought to be true" are conceptually interdependent but nevertheless interrelated admits of diverse constructions. And this thesis is certainly questionable in its most straightforward construction, which is "We cannot (correctly) characterize what truth is without (ade­ quately) explaining how it is that people are to go about establishing this, that is: To give a (correct) explanation of the meaning of 'p is true' we must be in a position to provide a viable account of how people are to go about Knowledge of the Truth in Pragmatic Perspective 9 showing that this is so. The meaning of the claim that a thesis is true hinges on the process of verification that is at issue/' But can this evidentialist- pragmatic-verificationist vessel hold water? Consider the claim "The Rosetta Stone was in the British Museum on the day Germany invaded Poland at the outset of World War II/' No reasonably well-informed per­ son would hesitate to acknowledge the truth of this contention. But estab­ lishing it is something else again. Should we rely on the memory of some grizzled sage who claims to have seen it there that day? Should we con­ duct research into the (conceivably destroyed) records of the museum? Need we await the realization of some neo-H. G. Wellsian time machine that would enable us to go back and check? The possibilities boggle the mind. We can of course leap (figuratively) into the region of speculative pos­ sibility via the following schematic supposition: "If someone were to efind a person with a good memory who was there that day; come up with the day's inventory records; go back in time and have a look; etc.> then they would find. ..." But to take this condition a I istic line is in effect to stand the issue on its head. Those conditional claims are not true because they can (hypothetically) be verified. The actuality of it is the very reverse: they can (hypothetically) be verified because they are true. Truth and verifica­ tion are indeed "interdependent and interrelated." But this is not (as per some incautious pragmatists) because verification is the independent and truth the dependent variable here. Verification is not the tail that wags the dog of truth. The matter stands the other way around: truth is the inde­ pendent variable here and verification the dependent one. William James to the contrary notwithstanding, a true statement is verifiable because it is true; it is not true because it is verifiable. However, whereas the conceptual primacy in the truth/verification rela­ tion thus lies with truth, the matter stands very differently with epistemic primacy For (and this is the real crux of pragmatism) verification is a prac­ tical process that, although not in general determinative of truth as such, is nevertheless perfectly adequate for the probative authorization of ration­ ally appropriate truth claims. It is not that the propositions we evidentiate must ipso facto be (identical w ith) the truth but rather that evidentiation ipso facto authorizes us in rationally warranted claims to truth. (And even our best efforts can go awry here, which is why sensible pragmatists are fallibilists.) 10 Knowledge of the Truth in Pragmatic Perspective

Let us scrutinize the line of thought that is at issue here somewhat more closely. To all appearances, it roots in the consideration that we face the following aporetic situation: L The truth must agree with reality, 2. Therefore, in order to determine the truth we must determine what is really so, that is, what reality is like, 5 * We have no accessway to reality independent of what we take to be the truth about it. Here (3) says that we can get at reality only via truth but (2) says that we cannot get at truth save via reality. We seem to be trapped in a Catch-22 sit­ uation in which skepticism— inability to get at truth— is the only outcome. There are three basic alternatives for freeing ourselves from this trap. The first is the "postmodernist" response of simply abandoning the con­ ception of truth. The second alternative is to reject (1) and reconceptualize "the truth" in a way that does not ask for adequation to reality but merely calls for cognitive access under appropriate (perhaps even ideal) condi­ tions. This is the "deflationist" response of construing truth in terms of knowledge. A third possibility exists, however. For the actual fact is that (1) does not actually necessitate (2), with the result that (1) must be abandoned in the face of the "fact of life" represented by (3). Instead we can opt for the essentially pragmatic response of abandoning (2) as is, and instead re v e rs ­ in g the truth/reality relationship that it envisions. In taking this line w e would reject (2) and instead adopt:

2'. To determine what reality is like w e must seek out what the truth is (exactly fis per [3]). Reality determinations supervene upon truth assessments. The epistemic route is our only accessway to reality. Only by e stim a tin g the truth can we validate claims about the real. And it is just here that pragmatism enters in. For given this inversion of the truth/reality relationship, pragmatists can— and do— go on to insist that there is indeed a practically effective route to rational truth estima­ tion, namely the criteriological route afforded by the standard experience- based methodology of inquiry. Thus in retaining the classic construction of truth represented by (i) sensible pragmatists can— and presumably would— insist on viewing truth determination in a "realistic" light. But of course what is now' at issue is not the meaning of "truth " (for which [1] con- Knowledge of the Truth in Pragmatic Perspective ll tinues to be decisive) but rather the criteriology of truth determination by way of rational estimation. What pragmatism of this realistic sort accord­ ingly does is not abandon truth (as per postmodernist skepticism) nor yet alter its meaning in evidentialist directions (deflationism), but rather re­ focus our attention on the matter of rationally appropriate claims to truth/ thereby bringing into the foreground the issue of truth criteriology—of the methodology for making rational estimates of the truth. However, such a perspective indicates that there are two possible ver­ sions of pragmatism. One is a meaning-of-truth revisionism that abandons the idea that it is a conceptual part or consequence of the definition of "truth" that truth corresponds to reality* And the second is a truth-criteriology real­ ism that takes the line that our standard epistemological recourses are sufficient—that is, criteriologically sufficient for all sensible purposes—to enable us to decide what is true (i.e,, to settle how we can apply the adjec­ tive qualifier "is true" in concrete cases, and so to settle in actual practice the matter of truth categorization). And SO/ whereas many contemporary pragmatists take the reconceptu­ alization approach and accordingly enroll in the school of mean in g-of- truth revisionism, nevertheless a good case can be made that a more conserva­ tive (and sensible) course for pragmatists is to adopt a view of truth that is also "realistic" in this respect. It is the crux of such an approach that it sees the usual criteriology of truth estimation as good enough for "truth determination/" construed not in the sense of airtight guarantees but rather in the sense of plausible (and generally effective) evidentiation. Still the question remains: if truth does not equate to verification by definition, as it were, then what sort of relationship can we claim here? Without an account of how the ever-possible gap between evidentiation and actuality is to be overcome, the truth/verification relationship will (as Putnam rightly says) remain "occult." As far as 1 can see Putnam's own otherwise helpful discussions do not adequately address—let alone resolve—this question: "The real worry is that sentences cannot be true or false of an external reality if there are no justifactory connections between things we say in language and any aspects of that reality whatever."4 This is true enough. And Putnam accordingly insists that there must be a "justifactory connection" of some appropriate sort between the appropriateness of saying "It is OK to say *p is true'" and the fact of p's actually being true. However, Putnam rejects Davidson's 12 Knowledge of the Truth in Pragmatic Perspective thesis that the linkage here is one of common cause—that truth and veri­ fication are coordinated because the factors that operate so as to authorize us to claim verification are {largely or wholly) just the same factors that engender (or otherwise stand causally coordinate with) the state of things that is at issue in our claim. Since this causal theory has its problems (as Putnam cogently maintains),5 then how does he propose to cross that seem­ ing epistemology /ontology gap and establish the language/reality condi­ tion that is—to all appearances—critical for the achievement of truth? He certainly does not think that this can be effected by resorting to what "we" ("people in general;" or "our cultural peers/' or whatever) think.6 For him neither matters of "definition" (analyticity) nor matters of "convention" (social practice) will do the coordinating job—nor yet will the facts of the world's causal order. Then what will? Regrettably Putnam is not as clear on this matter as we might wish,7 As best I can tell, his discussion amounts to proposing a "pragmatic" solution to the effect that we should adopt the practical policy of simply ignoring this gap. According to this approach, we should not look for any sort of theoretical solution here but simply content ourselves with the experience- validated consideration that we can in practice proceed as though there were no gap and get away with it. Such an attitude of proceeding on the presumption that our episte­ mology is adequate (i.e., is truth-achieving) is eminently sensible as far as it goes. But it does not go quite far enough. It smacks too much of Pascal's policy "Allez cn avant et la foi vous viendra" (essentially; just press ahead and things will come out ail right in the end). But philosophers—and sensible people in general—will want to know the reason why. They require such a policy to have the backing of a rationale. Yet, so far as 1 can see, Putnam's pragmatism takes the line of an epistemic fideism taking comfort in the democratic consideration that this puts all of us into the same boat. And there is something deeply unsatisfactory about this. One would surely prefer a more thoroughgoing pragmatism—one that does not rest content with a neopragmatic social-practice validation in the descriptive terms of "this is what we (reasonable people) are all involved in doing" but instead opts for a hard-line pragmatism that insists on val­ idation in the normative terms of "this is the very best that can be done (by anyone) in the circumstances." Knowledge of the Truth in Pragmatic Perspective n

3* A Different Approach: Methodological Pragmatism

Deflationary epistemologists are fearful that if we take a hard objectivistic line on the meaning of truth then truth becomes transcendents 11 y inacces­ sible and skepticism looms. And they accordingly insist that we soften up our understanding of the nature of truth. But another option is perfectly open, namely to retain the classical (hard) construction of the meaning of truth as actual facticity ("correspondence to fact") and to soften matters up on the epistemological/ontological side by adopting a "realistic" view of what is criteriologically required for staking rationally appropriate truth claims. Pragmatists accordingly have the option of approaching "the truth" with a view to the methodology of evidence—of criteriology rather than definitional revisionism. The sort of truth pragmatism that moves in this (surely sensible) direction is one that does not use pragmatic considera­ tions to validate claims and theses directly, but rather uses inquiry methods (claim-validating processes) for this purpose, while validating these prac­ tices themselves not in terms of the truth of their products (a clearly cir­ cular procedure) but in terms of the capacity of their products to provide the materials for successful prediction ami effective applicative control. Accordingly the most promising position here is—as I see it—a method­ ological pragmatism rather than a thesis pragmatism. That is, it is a position that assesses thesis assertability in terms of the methodological processes of substantiation and then assesses method appropriateness in terms of the practical and applicative utility—systematically considered—of the theses for which the method vouches. Such an approach calls for a prime emphasis on the methodology of truth estimation, bringing into the fore­ front the processes of evidentiation and substantiation by which we in practice go about determining what to accept as truth. But just how reliable are the truth estimates that xve can manage to get on such a basis? This dearly is not the place to wrrite a manual on the epis­ temology of truth estimation. But three brief observations should suffice for present purposes:

l. Our confidence in the acceptability of a truth estimate varies inversely wTith its precision. We might be tempted to squabble about the claim that yonder person is 3.735 meters tall. Bid the truth of the thesis that 14 Knowledge o f the Truth in Pragmatic Perspective

his height is between i meter and 4 meters is beyond (reasonable) question. 2. This trade-off between precision and tenability means that our com­ paratively imprecise claims about everyday matters are actually more secure than the precise and highly general claims of natural science. The truth of the scientific claims at the theoretical frontier is nowhere near that of claims like "The current population of New York exceeds six million/' 3* With those complex issues at the theoretical frontier of science we are well advised to speak not of unqualified truth as such but rather of our "best estimates" of the truth as we are able to realize them with the investigative resources at out disposal. (The commonsense realism of everyday matters is thus on securer ground than a scientific realism that claims that the objects of scientific inquiry exist in exactly the descriptive manner in which present-day science conceives of them.)

The most promising approach to the problem of truth claim validation would accordingly be to focus on the epistemology of truth estimation and to leave the matter of its definition alone, allowing this to be addressed via the classic conception of truth as adaequatio ad rem, as correspondence with (mind-independent) reality. After all, no useful purpose is ever achieved by attributions of "absolute (or ultimate) truth" or "absolute (or ultimate) reality in matters of concrete detail." Where plain "truth" and "reality" will not serve, nothing will. Truth can accordingly be left to enjoy the "transcendental" construction that it has always enjoyed. To be sure, the matter of its accessibility is something else again. But this something can be resolved as practiced in scientific inquiry via the idea of truth esti­ mation as routinely conducted. Yet how can we ever determine that we are actually getting at the real truth of things? How can we tell that our truth estimates are actually good estimates? Here the pragmatically appropriate response, as I see it, goes roughly as follows: "Because they are provided by methods that yield results that work. They emerge from the use of inquiry methods whose products can be implemented successfully in practice—with success mon­ itored in the usual way of effective application and prediction." However, Putnam takes a very different line here—that of communal favor. For him, with "pragmatists, the model is a group of inquirers trying to produce good ideas and trying to test them to see which ones have value" with the Knotvledge of/be Truth in Pragmatic Perspective 15 result that "science requires the democratization of inquiry/'8 With Putnam, as with Dewey, communal acceptance is the key. This laudablyj democratic stance nevertheless still leaves us with a dilemma. For if the community is actual, then we leave too much to the vagueness of contingent arrangements, whereas if it is idealized, then we know not how to get there from here. Instead the sort of pragmatism I favor looks to cognitive methods of truth estimation that can be quality- controlled through considerations of applicative efficacy.-' (To be sure, if, by good fortune, the community at issue is actually a thoroughly rational one, then the two approaches will not be far apart because the community will then ipso facto use applicative efficacy as its standard of assessment for methodological acceptability.)

4. Validation Issues

But should we settle for the idea of estimating the truth in scientific mat­ ters? Should we not ask for certification—for categorical guarantees? Are mere estimates good enough? The characteristic genius of pragmatism lies in its insistence on being practical about things and specifically on its steadfast refusal to allow us to view the very best that we can possibly do as not being good enough. Its operative injunctions are: Approach the course of the cognitive accessi­ bility of truth by asking the classical pragmatic question: "If that is indeed how realities stand, then what would be the best sort of evidence for it that we could expect to achieve?" Realize that we have no access to mat­ ters of fact save through the mediation of evidence that is often incom­ plete and imperfect. And realize too that to say that the best evidence is not good enough is to violate Peirce's cardinal pragmatic injunction not to bar the path of inquiry. In line with this perspective, a realistic pragmatism insists upon press­ ing the question: "If A were indeed the answer to a question Q of ours, what sort of evidence could we possibly obtain for this?" And when we obtain such evidence—insofar as can reasonably be expected—then prag­ matism sees this as good enough. ("Be prepared to regard the best that can be done as good enough" is one of pragmatism's fundamental axioms.) If it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, and so on, then (so pragmatism insists) we are perfectly entitled to stake the personal 16 Knowledge of the Truth in Pragmatic Perspective claim that it is a duck—at any rate until such time as clear indications to the contrary come to light, Once the question "Well, what more could you reasonably ask for?" meets with no more than hesitant mumbling, then sen­ sible pragmatists say "Feel free to go ahead and make the claim." It is not that true means warranted assertability, or that warranted assertability entails truth, What is the case, rather, is that evidence here means "evidence for truth” and (methodologically) warranted assertability means "warrantedly assertable as tru e” After all, estimation here is a mat­ ter of truth estimation, and where the conditions for rational estimation are satisfied we are—ipso facto—rationally authorized to let that estimate stand surrogate for the truth. The very idea that the best we can do is not good enough for all relev tint reasonable purposes is—so pragmatism and common sense alike insist—simply absurd, a thing of unreasonable hyper­ bole, Whatever theoretical gap there may be between warrant and truth is something that the very nature of concepts like "evidence," "rational war­ rant," and "estimation" authorizes us to cross. And so at this point we have in hand the means for resolving the question of the connection between thought and reality that is at issue with "the truth." The mediating linkage is supplied by a methodology of inquiry. For cognition is a matter of truth estimation, and a properly effected estimate is, by its nature, an at least pro tem rationally authorized surrogate for whatever it is that it is an estimate of.

5. Being “Realistic” (in Both Senses)

That the actual truth "corresponds" with reality in that it "represents" it correctly is (according to such a view) quite right but also close to tauto­ logical and thereby unhelpful. The "representative" nature of truth—the fact that the truth of the matter characterizes what is in fact really so— does not root in or emerge from a theon/ about truth; it is a merely truistic and banal conceptual fact that roots in the very ideas ("truth," "reality") that are at issue. A claim that fails to "tell it like it is" does not deserve to be characterized as true. The matter is ultimately one of the ground rules gov­ erning the usage of the term. "It is true that p, but nevertheless p is at vari­ ance with reality and in conflict with the actual facts of the matter" is a contradiction in terms, a mere bit of unintelligible nonsense. Moreover, we have no access to reality apart from what we think to be true about it. "Tell Knowledge of the Truth in Pragmatic Perspective 17 me something about reality but do it independently of and apart from what you consider the truth of the matter: tell me what the real truth is in contradiction from what you merely think to be true" is an absurd instruc­ tion. We can realize in abstracto that some of the theses we accept as true are false, but there is no way in which we could ever, then and there, sub­ stantiate this phenomenon. It lies in the nature of things that we cannot conceivably distinguish between our putative truth and the real truth in matters of concrete detail: it would not be our putative truth if we did not regard it as the real truth. And we thus treat our perceptions as innocent until proven guilty, since the whole course of our thought and experience is such that the standing presumption is on their side. All the same, an unhappy inference confronts us when we turn from perceptual judgments to more sophisticated ones:

• The truth must be certain: it makes no sense to say "P is true, but it may possibly eventuate that P is actually not the case." • In matters at the technical frontiers of science, at any rate, there is no room for categorical certainty. We realize full well that the science of the future may amend, qualify, and correct the science of today. We cannot but acknowledge that the science of the future will regard our science as we ourselves regard the science of a hundred yTears ago.

Therefore

• We cannot characterize the frontier theories of the science of today as unqualified truths.

The premises seem inescapable here. And this means, in effect, that we cannot claim flat-out truth for our theories at the scientific frontier. Here again we have no choice but to view them not as the truth per se but merely as the best estimates of the actual truth that we are able to make at this juncture. We cannot routinely assume that science as we have it depicts nature as it actually is. To be "realistic" in one sense of this term {the colloquial) we are constrained to moderate our "realism" in another sense (the philosophical). But just what does this mean for our knowledge of reality? Scientific realism in its strongest form stands committed to the thesis that the world is as science holds it to be: that the theories of science state the literal truth about reality as it actually is, But given that we regard the science we have here and now as something corrigible—as subject to 18 Knowledge o f the Truth in Pragmatic Perspective revision in respects that we cannot as yet specify—this is a position that is ultimately indefensible. In view of this situation some theorists propose a weaker theory of convergent realism. They hold that science is not, indeed, actually right but only approximately right. And this may be all right as a figure of speech. But the trouble with invoking literal approximation is its commitment to the idea of convergence—to getting closer and closer to the real thing— which requires that the future changes of mind always be small and become ever smaller. This rules out any prospect of further scientific revolutions— of changes that, even when introduced by observation of small-scale phe­ nomena (the perihelion of Mercury), can involve massive conceptual revisions (the theory of relativity). This consequence surely precludes any endorsement of literal convergence. Alternatively, there is the theory of blind realism proposed by Robert Almeder.10 This holds that the theories of science are mostly right (though sometimes wrong) and that this transpires in such a wray that we can never say here and now, wThich are which. But the shortcoming of such a view is that it maintains that the substantial majority of our present scientific theories are right as they stand and thus exempt from future revision (even though we cannot say which ones they are). And the history of science strongly indicates that even this is an eminently dubious proposition. To arrive at a tenable version of realism we must—as I see it—look in a somewhat different direction. And here it is useful to go back to basics. Increased confidence in the correctness of our estimates can always be purchased at the price of decreased accuracy There is in general an inverse relationship between the precision of a judgment and its security: detail and prob­ ability stand in a competing relationship. We estimate the height of the tree at around 25 feet. We are quite sure that the tree is 25 ± 5 feet high. We are vir­ tually certain that its height is 25 ± to feet. But we can be completely and absolutely sure that its height is between 1 inch and 100 yards. Of this we are "completely sure" in the sense that we are "absolutely certain," "cer­ tain beyond the shadow of a doubt," "as certain as we can be of anything in the world," "so sure that we would be willing to stake our life on it," and the like. For any sort of estimate whatsoever there is always a char­ acteristic trade-off between the evidential security of the estimate, on the one hand (as determinable on the basis of its probability or degree of acceptability), and its contentual definitiveness (exactness, detail, precision) Knowledge o f the Truth in Pragmatic Perspective 19

Increasing Figure 1.1 definiteness The Trade-Off between Security and Definiteness in Estimation Note: The representation is merely descrip­ tive and phenomenological* However, given suitable ways of measuring security (s) and definitiveness {d)f the curve at issue can be Increasing supposed to be the equilateral hyperbola: security s x rf = constant.

on the other. So that a complementarity relationship of the sort depicted in Figure 1*1 obtains.11 Now this state of affairs has far-reaching consequences. It means, in particular, that no secure statement about reality can say exactly how matters stand universally, always and everywhere. To capture the truth of things by means of language we must proceed by way of “warranted approximation/' In general we can be sure of how things “usually ' are and how they "roughly" are, but never how they always and exactly are. The variety of nature's detail prevents its faithful presentation by the imper­ fect instrumentality afforded by our symbolic resources. The moral of this story is that insofar as our ignorance of the relevant issues leads us to be vague in our judgments we manage to enhance the likelihood of being right, I have forgotten that Seattle is in Washington state, and if forced to guess might well erroneously locate it in Oregon. Nevertheless my vague judgment that "Seattle is located in the north­ western United States" is correct. This state of affairs means that when the truth of our claims is critical we may be well advised to "play it safe" and make our commitments less definite and detailed. We can purchase truth at the price of imprecision. It is a fact of life of the general theory of estimation that the harder we push for certainty—for the security of our claims—the vaguer we must make these claims, the more general and imprecise we must make them. And so if we want our scientific claims to have realistic impact we must fuzz them up. Take the atomic theory. We should not—cannot—say that atoms are in every detail as the science of the day holds them to be: that 20 Knowledge of the Truth in Pragmatic Perspective the "Atomic Theory" section of our Handbook of Physics succeeds in every jot and tittle in characterizing reality as it actually is* But if we fuzz things up—if we claim merely that physical reality is granular and that atoms exist and have roughly such-and-such features—then what we say is no longer subject to (reasonable) doubt. Accordingly this line of consideration points toward a different sort of realism, one that it might be appropriate to call myopic realism* And it means that at a more broad-brush level—the level of the looser generalities of "schoolbook science"—we indeed can and should be scientific realists* However, what wre obtain on the basis of the present evidentialist approach is not an "internal realism" that sees the truth/reality connec­ tion that is operative in our thought and discourse as a closed domestic issue subject to no sorts of theory-external quality controls* "Thought- externalized" objectivity is still at our disposal* For with regard to our methodological resources of truth estimation wTe can indeed deploy a theory-external means of quality control—viz., applicative efficacy. The success of our thought-guided practice is something that lies substantially outside the range of thought itself. And so the arbitrament of practice— of efficacy in matters of application for the purposes of prediction and control (i.e.y effective active and passive involvement with nature)—can and will in the final analysis serve as a theory-external monitor over our theorizing. Theory is, in this sense, subordinated to practice, a circum­ stance that speaks loud and clear on behalf of a realistic pragmatism—a position whose orientation is at once realistic and pragmatic because sue- cessful praxis is, in the end, the best index of reality that is at our effective disposal. TWO

Epistemic Justification

1. Experience and Fact

Once the idea of sensory certainty is called into question, the way is cleared tor seeing sense-based knowledge in a practical]Stic light. Regret­ tably recent philosophers have been reluctant to see the handwriting on the wall. In a lucid and interesting article on the "Mythology of the Given" hrnest Sosa has explored the question of "the epistemic bearing of sensory experience upon our knowledge." Here the salient issue—as he sees it—is whether experiences can justify beliefs directly, that is, whether the mere fact that someone has a certain experience entitles that person to adopt certain beliefs—for example, whether "the mere fact that I have a head­ ache suffices to justify my belief that I do." And he rightly considers this problem of the epistemic bearing of experience as one of the central topics of twentieth-century analytic philosophy.1 As Sosa sees it, theoretical epistemologists generally divide into two camps: coherentists, who espouse the Davidsonian principle that beliefs can only be justified via other beliefs, and foundationalists, who accept that beliefs can appropriately be founded directly on experiential facts, without any evidential recourse to yet further beliefs. Sosa seeks a middle way between these two rival positions. As he sees it, both are committed to a common premise of evidentialism:

(E) The only way in which experience is ever able to justify a belief is by providing substantiating evidence for it.

21 22 Bpislm ic Justification

But this common premise, so Sosa maintains, is eminently questionable. Instead, he holds that there is another alternative—one that is causal rather than evidential in nature, being based on the causal principle:

(C) A perfectly practicable way in which experience is able to justify a belief is by causally producing it in an appro­ priate way.

On this basis, Sosa reaches the conclusion that to obtain epistemic justifi­ cation for a belief "it is enough that experience cause belief in some appro­ priate or standard way."2 To coherentists and foundationalists Sosa in effect says, "A plague on both your houses." To be sure, he concedes some merits to each side. To the foundationalists he grants (as against coherentists) that beliefs can be jus* tified directly on the basis of experience. To the coherentists he grants (as against foundationalists) that there can be no evidential link between non- propositional experiences and propositional beliefs, seeing that evidence must always be presented propositionally. But he regards both schools as inappropriately committed to the evidenhalism of (E). Rejecting this firmly, he advocates in its place a (Q-geared causalistic epistemology of belief as affording a suitable third way between the two rejected alternatives. Attractive though this prospect sounds, it has its problems. To gain a firm grip on the issue, it helps to draw a crucial distinction between cog­ nitive experiences (which are always personal and subjective) and objective situations (which are not). 'T take m yself to be seeing a cat on that mat" is one sort of thing, and "There actually is a cat on that mat" is something quite different. The former statement is purely person-coordinated and thereby merely autobiographical, whereas the latter claim is objective and decidedly impersonal.3 (Only in the special case of automatically self- appertaining issues such as feeling aches and pains will subjective expe­ riences authorize claims in objective territory: to feel a headache is to have a headache.) Two facts are crucial in this connection:

• Experience as such is always personal: it is always a matter of what occurs within the thought-realm of some individual. Thus all that is ever secured directly and totally by experience are claims in the order of subjectivity. Epistemic justification

* Such subjective claims are always autobiographical: they can never assure objective claims about facts regarding the "external" world without some further ado.

These facts separate experience from objectivity. With objectively world- regarding facts we always transcend experience as such. The assertoric context of an objectively factual statement {"'There is a cat there"") is something that outruns any mereiy experiential fact {""I take myself to be seeing a cat there"}- There is always an epistemic gap between subjective experience and objective fact. But how can one manage to cross this epistemic gap between subjec­ tive experience and subject-transcending reality? Here Sosa's idea is that causality provides a natural and effective bridge across the gap. Let us examine this prospect.

2, Problems of Common Cause Epistemology

Sosa's endorsement of causal epistemology pivots on the proviso that "it is enough [for epistemic justification] that the experience cause the belief in some appropriate or standard way." However, this formula makes it trans­ parently clear that epistemic justification will turn not just on causality alone but on its suitability and thereby on the way in w hich this causality operates. And this little qualification of "standard appropriateness" has to carry a big burden. Of course we cannot do without it: mere causality as such does not engender epistemic justification. (I was not epistemically justified in expecting the villain's death after being shot on stage even when the wicked prop man had substituted a real loaded pistol—unbeknownst to one and all.) And the fly in the ointment is that things become unrav­ eled when we proceed to take this idea of appropriate causation seriously. Suppose that I espouse the objective claim that "There is a cat on that mat" because 1 have a &eeing-a-cat-on-the-mat experience, that is, because I take myself to be looking at a cat on the mat. What is now required for that experience to "be caused in the appropriate way"—that is, to be appropriately produced by a cat on that mat? Clearly the only correct/ appropriate/standard mode of experience production here is one that pro­ ceeds via an actual cat on that mat. Unless one construes "experience" in a question-begging way that is not just psychologically phenomenological but also objectively authentic, experiences will not suffice for justifactory 24 Bpitiem ic Justification authentication. That is, something like the following causal story must obtain:

There really is a cat on the mat. And in the circumstances it is this situation—duly elaborated in its causal complexity by way of involving a light source, eyes looking in the right direction, photons emanating from the light source impinging on the retina, and so forth—that stimulates my cerebral cortex in such a way as to engender this cat-on-the-mat-seeing experience*

But note the difficulty here. Unless a real cat on that real mat is appropri­ ately the causal source of my taking myself to be seeing a cat on the mat, that cat-on-the-mat belief of mine is simply not "caused in an appropriate way." (If Pavlovian conditioning leads me to experience a cat conviction when confronted by any domestic quadruped, cats included, then my cat- on-the-mat belief—even when indeed caused by a cat's presence on the mat—is not caused in the right sort of way for knowledge.) Thus on any such account an appropriate production of that belief not merely assures but actually presupposes its truth. Only when one assumes an account that already supposes the truth of the belief at issue can one tell that the belief is epistemically justified. On this basis, determining the epistemic justifi­ cation of a belief does not just substantiate the truth of that belief but requires it. With such a construction of the matter, epistemic justification is available only when it is too late, because it is no longer needed. This condition of things creates big problems when it indeed is "the epistemic bearing of sensory' experience upon knowledge" that we have in view. For given that epistemic justification is our only cognitive path­ way to establishing the truth of beliefs, there is no point to a concept of justification that requires an appropriateness that is available only after this truth has already been established. If appropriateness cannot be determined independently of establishing the actual truth, then it is question-beggingly self-defeating to include it among the criteria of our truth claims. Sosa's endorsement of the idea that "it is enough [for the epistemic justification of claims to knowledge] that the experience cause the belief in some appropriate or standard way" places him squarely within the increasingly popular tradition of causal epistemology. This approach Epistemk Justification 25 looks to the following plausible-looking thesis, generally favored by causal epistemologists:

A person X knows that p is the case iff the (causal) processes that actualize p as a state of affairs (in nature) and the (causal) processes that engender X's belief that this state of affairs obtains are suitably coordinated.

Implementing this idea requires the following three elements:

1, A set [p] of causal factors engendering P's actualization via a causal relationship: [p] => p. 2, A set [X believes p] of causal factors engendering X's belief in P via a causal relationship: [X believes p] => x believes p. 3, A (duly specified) relationship of ''harmonious coordination" between the two opposite sets of causal factors [p] and [X believes p].

These three elements must all be in proper alignment with one another for a knowledge claim to qualify as appropriate. But a rocky and winding road now lies before us. For one thing/ it now becomes extremely difficult ever to attribute knowledge to others. If I know anything about history, 1 know that Edward Gibbon knew that Julius Caesar was assassinated. But I certainly do not have much of a clue about the specific causal factors that produced this belief in Gibbon. {Indeed I am not even in a position to say anything much about the causal sources of my own meta-belief.) All those now requisite causal issues are lost in a fog of unknowing.41 can plausibly conjecture that a cogent causal story can be told, but I do not have much of a clue as to what it is and would thus be hard put to evidentiate it. Moreover—and more damag- ingly yet—the sorts of claims that T could ever make about this causal story are epistemically far more problematic than my belief that Gibbon knew that Caesar was assassinated. The problem is that the causal approach to knowledge explains the obscure by reference to what is yet far more so. To establish simple knowledge claims on its basis we would need to go through a rigmarole so cumbersome in its demands for gener­ ally unavailable information as to lead sensible people to despair of the whole project. If that is what is required to substantiate claims about other people's knowledge, then skepticism on the subject offers the best option. 26 Epistemic justification

If any plausible alternatives to common-cause epistemology are available, they surely deserve our most sympathetic consideration.

3- Modes of Justification

To see how a viable alternative approach to epistemic justification might be developed it is necessary to go back to square one and begin with a closer look at the question of just what it is to "justify" a belief. Belief justification is a complex idea subject to a considerable variety of distinctions and elaborations. But for present purposes the crucial dis­ tinction is that between

* Strong epistemic justification (i.e., justification for accepting the belief as definitively true, for seeing it as meriting outright acceptance), and * Weak epistemic justification (i,e., justification for according the belief some credit, for seeing it as a plausible prospect).

With strong justification we regard the issue of acceptability as settled; with weak justification we regard it as yet substantially open, regarding whatever commitment we have to the belief as tentative, provisional, and defeasible. Now the critical considerations in the light of this distinction are (1) that we must grant foundationalists that perceptual experience pro­ vides epistemic justification, although where objective factual claims are concerned this can only be justification of a weak sort, and {2) that we must grant the coherentists that strong justification is in general not immedi­ ately experiential but is something that can only be had on a larger con­ textual and systemic basis. Consider again that cat-on-the-mat experience in which "I take myself to be seeing a cat on the mat," On its basis I would arrive quite unprob- lematically at the following contentions:

♦ It seems plausible to suppose that there is a cat on the mat. • There is presumably a cat on the mat.

In the circumstances to claim unqualified assurance that there indeed is a cat on the mat would be stretching matters too far. But the indicated pro- inclination toward the theses at issue is certainly warranted* Conclusive­ ness may be absent but plausibility is certainly there. Bpistemic justification 27

Yet how is one to get beyond such tentativeness? To step from that visual experience to an objective factual claim on the order of

• There actually is a cat there. • There actually is a mat there. • The cat is actually emplaced on the mat. is a move that can be made—but not without further ado. Let us consider what sort of “further ado" is required here. The position at issue is a “direct realism" of sorts. The step from a sen­ sory experience ("I take myself to be seeing a cat") to an objective factual claim ("There is a cat over there and T am looking at it") is operationally direct but epistemically mediated. And it is mediated not by an inference but by a policy, namely the policy of trusting one's own senses. This pol­ icy itself is based neither on wishful thinking nor on arbitrary decisions. It emerges in the school of praxis from the consideration that a long course of experience has taught us that our senses generally guide us aright: that the indications of visual experience—unlike, say, those of dream experi­ ence—generally provide reliable information that can be implemented in practice. But how would this emergence of policy validation from a body of experience work in practice? Presumption is the key that unlocks this issue.

4, The Role of Presumption

The classical theories of perception, from Descartes to the sense-datum theorists of the first half of the twentieth century, all involve a common difficulty. For all of them saw' a real and deep problem to be rooted in the question:

Under what circumstances are our actual experiences genuinely veridical? In particular: which facts about the perceptual sit­ uation validate the move from "1 {take myself to) see a cat on the mat" to "There is a cat on the mat"? How are we to monitor the appropriateness of the step from "perceptual experiences" to actual perceptions of real things in the world, seeing that experience is by its very nature something personal and subjective? 28 Bpislm ic Justification

The traditional theories of perception all face the same roadblock; how do we get from here to there, from subjective experience to warranted claims of objective fact? However, what all these theories ignore is the fact that in actual prac­ tice we operate within the setting of a concept scheme that reverses the burden of proof here: that our perceptions (and conceptions) are innocent until proven guilty. The whole course of relevant experience is such that the standing presumption is on their side. Barring indications to the con­ trary we can and do move immediately and unproblematic ally from "I take myself to be seeing a cat on the mat" to "There really is a cat on the mat and I actually see it there." But what is at issue here is not an inference (or a deriving) from determinable facts but a mere presumption (or a taking). The transition from subjectivity to objectivity is automatic, though, to be sure, always provisional—that is, subject to the proviso that all goes as it ought. For unless and until something goes amiss (i.e., unless there is a mishap of some sort) those "subjective percepts" are commonly allowed to count as "objective facts." To be sure, there is no prospect of making an inventory of the neces­ sary conditions here. Life is too complex: neither in making assertions nor in driving an automobile can one provide a comprehensive advance survey of possible accidents and list all the things that could possibly go wrong. But the key point is that the linkage between appearance and real­ ity is neither conceptual nor causal: it is the product of a pragmatic policy in the management of information, a ground ride of presumption that governs our epistemic practice. Presumptions by nature provide a provisional surrogate for the actual truth. As Lalandc's philosophical dictionary puts it: "La presomption est proprement et d'une maniere plus precise une anticipation sur ce qui rVest pas prouve/"1 Presumptions are, as it were, in tentative and provisional possession of the cognitive terrain, holding their place only until dis­ placed by something more evidentially substantial/1 A presumption is a putative fact that, although in the circumstances perhaps no more than probable or plausible, is nevertheless accepted as true provisionally— allowed to stand until such time (if ever) that concrete evidential counter­ indications come into view. Presumption is the epistemic analogue of "innocent until proven guilty" Epistemic Justification 29

The rational legitimation of a presumptively justified belief lies in the consideration that some generic mode of "suitably favorable indication" speaks on its behalf while no as yet available counterindication speaks against it. When, after a careful look, 1 am under the impression that there is a cat on the mat, I can (quite appropriately) base my acceptance of the contention "There is a cat on the mat" not on certain pre-established premises, but simply on my experience—on my visual impression. The salient consideration is that there just is no good reason why (in this case) I should not indulge my inclination to endorse a visual indication of this kind as veridical. (If there were such evidence—if, for example, I was aware of being in a wax museum—then the situation would, of course, be altered.) With presumption we take to be so what we could not otherwise derive. This idea of such presumptive "taking" is a crucial aspect of our language-deploying discursive practice. For presumptively justified beliefs are the raw materials of cognition. They represent contentions that—in the absence of pre-established counterindications—are accept­ able to us "until further notice," thus permitting us to make a start in the venture of cognitive justification without the benefit of prejustified mate­ rials. They are defeasible all right, vulnerable to being overturned, but only by something else yet more secure. They are entitled to remain in place until displaced by something better. Accordingly their impetus averts the dire consequences that would ensue if any and every cogent process of rational deliberation required inputs that themselves had to be authenti­ cated by a prior process of rational deliberation—in which case the whole process could never get under way.

5* Principles of Presumption

Of course our presumptively justified claims range beyond the indica­ tions of sensory experience. The ordinary and standard probative practice of empirical inquiry embodies a presumption in favor of such cognitive "sources" of information as the senses and memory and the declarations of others. Additionally, there are such further prospects as * Epistemic utility in terms of the sorts of things that would, if accepted, explain matters that need explanation. 50 Bjmtemic justification

♦ Analogy with what has proved acceptable in other contexts and the natural expectations based on prior experiences. * Fit through a systemic coherence with other accepted theses.

On this basis our cognitive proceedings incorporate a host of funda- mental presumptions of reliability, such as:

♦ Believe the evidence of your own senses. * Accept at face value the declarations of other people {in the absence of any counter indications and in the absence of any specific evidence undermining the generic trustworthiness of those others). * Trust in the reliability of the routinely employed cognitive aids and instruments {e.g., telescopes, calculating machines, reference works, logarithmic tables) in the absence of any specific indications to the contrary. • Accept the declarations of recognized experts and authorities within the areas of their expertise (again, in the absence of c o u nte r indications).

All such resources provide a useful and appropriate instrumentality of presumption by furnishing us with materials for answering questions.7 All in all, presumption favors the usual and the natural—its tendency is one of convenience and ease of operation in cognitive affairs. For pre­ sumption is a matter of cognitive economy—of following "the path of least resistance" to an acceptable conclusion. Its leading principle is: intro­ duce complications only when you need to, always making do with the least complex resolution of an issue. There is, of course, nothing sacro­ sanct about the result of such a procedure. The choice of the easiest way out may fail us; that which serves adequately in the first analysis may well no longer do so in the end. But it is clearly the sensible way to begin. At this elemental level of presumption we proceed by "doing what comes naturally." For present purposes, then, the salient point is that presumption pro­ vides the basis for letting appearance be our guide to reality—of accept­ ing the evidence as evidence of actual fact, by taking its indications as decisive until such time as suitably weighty counter indications come to countervail against them. What is at issue here is part of the operational code of agents who transact their cognitive business rationally. Epidemic Justification 51

6* The Validation of Presumption as a General Policy

Its indispensability is a salient part of the validation of a policy of pre­ sumption. For we cannot pursue the cognitive project—the quest for information about the world—without granting certain initial presump­ tions: they represent Kant-reminiscent "conditions under which alone"' the securing of answers to questions about the world is even possible. And prominent among them is the consideration that we can take our sub­ jectively experienced "data" about the world as evidence—that a presump­ tion of experiential veridicality is in order. In matters of sense perception, for example, we presume that mere appearances (the "data") provide an indication of how things actually stand (however imperfect this indication may ultimately prove to be). That we can use the products of our experi­ ence of the world to form at least somewhat reliable views of it is the indispensable presupposition of our cognitive endeavors. If we systemat­ ically refuse, always and everywhere, to accept seeming evidence as real evidence (at any rate until such time—if any—when it is discredited as such), then we can get nowhere in the domain of practical cognition of rational inquiry. When the skeptic rejects any and all presumptions, he automatically blocks any prospect of reasoning with him within the stan­ dard framework of discussion about the empirical facts of the world. The machinery of presumption is part and parcel of the mechanisms of cogni­ tive rationality, because abandoning it would abort the entire project of rational inquiry at the very outset. But, indispensability apart, what is it that justifies making presump­ tions, seeing that they are not established truths? The answer is that this is not so much a matter of evidentially probative considerations as of pro­ cedural^ practical ones. Presumptions arise in contexts in which we have questions and need answers. And when sufficient evidence for a conclu­ sive answer is lacking, we must, in the circumstances, settle for a more or less plausible one. It is a matter offaute de mieux, of this or nothing (or at any rate nothing better). Presumption is a thought instrumentality that so functions as to make it possible for us to do the best we can in circum­ stances in which something must be done. And so presumption affords yet another instance in which practical principles play a leading role on the stage of our cognitive and communicative practice. For presumption 32 Epistmic Justification is, in the end, a practical device whose rationale of validation lies on the order of pragmatic considerations. The obvious and evident advantage of presumption as an epistemic recourse is that it enables us to extend vastly the range of questions we are able to answer. It affords an instrument that enables us to extract a maxi­ mum of information from communicative situations. Presumption, in sum, is an ultimately pragmatic resource. To be sure, its evident disadvan­ tage is that the answers we obtain are given not in the clarion tones of knowledge and assertion but in the more hesitant and uncertain tones of presumption and probability. We thus do not get the advantages of pre­ sumption without the accompanying negativity of a certain risk of error. Here, as elsewhere, we cannot have our cake and eat it too. We proceed in cognitive contexts in much the same manner in which banks proceed in financial contexts. We extend credit to others, doing so at first to a relatively modest extent. When and as they comport themselves in a way that indicates that this credit was warranted, we extend more. By responding to trust in a "responsible" way—proceeding to amortize the credit one already has—one can increase one's credit rating in cognitive much as in financial contexts. In trusting the senses, in relying on other people, and even in being rational, we always run a risk. Whenever in life we place our faith in some­ thing, we run a risk of being let down and disappointed. Nevertheless, it seems perfectly reasonable to bet on the general trustworthiness of the senses, the general reliability of others, and the general utility of reason. In such matters, no absolute guarantees can be had. But one may as well venture, for if venturing fails the cause is lost anyhow—we have no more promising alternative to turn to. There is little choice about the matter: it is a case of "this or nothing." If we want answers to factual questions, we have no real alternative but to trust in the cognitively cooperative dispo­ sition of the natural order of things. We cannot pre-establish the appro­ priateness of this trust by somehow demonstrating, in advance of events, that it is actually warranted. Rather, its rationale is that without it we would remove the sole basis on which creatures such as ourselves can confidently live a life of effective thought and action. In such cases, prag­ matic rationality urges us to gamble on trust in reason, not because it cannot fail us, but because in so doing little is to be lost and much to be Epistemic justification 53 gained. A general policy of judicious trust is eminently cost effective in yielding good results in matters of cognition. Of course, a problem remains: utility is all very well and good, but what of validity? What sorts of considerations validate our particular pre­ sumptions as such? How is it that they become entitled to this epistemic status? The crux of the answer has already been foreshadowed. A twofold process is involved. Initially it is a matter of the generic need for answers to our questions: of being so circumstanced that if we are willing to pre­ sume we are able to get. . * anything. But ultimately we go beyond such this-or-no thing consideration, and the validity of a presumption emerges ex post facto through the utility (both cognitive and practical) of the results it yields. We advance from "this or nothing" to "this or nothing that is determinably better." Legitimation is thus available, albeit only through experiential retrovalidation, retrospective validation in the light of eventual experienced It is a matter of learning that a certain issue is more effective in meeting the needs of the situation than its available alternatives. Ini­ tially we look to promise and potential, but in the end it is applicative efficacy that counts. The fact is that our cognitive practices have a fundamentally economic rationale. They are all cost effective within the setting of the project of inquiry to which we stand committed {by our place in the world's scheme of things). Presumptions are the instrument through which we achieve a favorable balance of trade in the complex trade-offs between ignorance of fact and mistake of belief—between unknowing and error.

7. The Evolutionary Aspect of Sensory Epistemology

A presumption-based practicalistic theory of knowledge development clearly differs from a causal physicalistic account And it enjoys substan­ tial advantages. Recent philosophy of knowledge has been pervaded by a "revolt against dualism" that insists upon continuities and overlaps where earlier theorists had seen clear divisions and sharp separations. William James stressed the continuity of thought and inveighed against division and compartmentalization. A. N. Whitehead condemned bifurcation. John De^vey inveighed against all dualisms. And their successors have been 34 Episiemic Justification enthusiastic in continuing their tendency in matters of detail. W, V. Quine strives to consign the analytic /synthetic distinction to oblivion. Donald Davidson denigrates the conceptual/substantive distinction. And innu­ merable contemporary philosophers of science object to the fact/theory distinction because they regard all factual claims as "theory laden." But throughout all this turning away from division and dualism, one traditional distinction has remained sacrosanct: that between cause and reason, between efficient causation and final causation. Where the medievals tended to construe causa broadly and to group paternal and volitional "causation" together as reflecting differences in mode but not in kind, the moderns from Descartes onward have erected a Chinese wall between the two. Immanuel Kant stressed the distinction: "There are two and only two kinds of causality conceivable by us: causality is either according to nature [and is thus efficient causality] or according to free will and choices [and is thus final causality]."0 And so even Davidson, in the very midst of his polemic against the conceptual/substantive distinc­ tion, argues that we must "give up the idea that meaning or knowledge is grounded in something [external to cognition proper]. . . .N o doubt meaning and knowledge depend on experience and experience ultimately on sensation. But this is the 'depend' of causality, not that of evidence or justification." And so as Davidson (unlike Sosa) sees it, causation is one sort of thing and justification another, and never the twain shall meet in the cognitive realm. For whereas beliefs may well have causes, these do not matter in the context of justification. Causes are not reasons, since "nothing can count as a reason for holding a belief except another belief."10 All belief validation (justification) is discursive and proceeds by means of other beliefs. "Causes are rationally inert" is the motto here: they may provide the occasion for the provision of reasons, but they themselves can never provide reasons. Or so Davidson has it. But not Sosa. With causal epistemologists in general he wants to join the two hemispheres together. And rightly so. Having abandoned such other Kantian dichotomies as synthetic/analvtic, empirical/conceptual, a priori/a posteriori, we would do well to abandon this cause/reason division also. The fact is that causes and reasons can and should be seen as systemically coordinated not by a Leibnizian pre-established harmony but by a Darwinian process of evolution, Writh intelligent beings wThose modus operand! is suitably shaped by their evolutionary heritage, the step Epistemic Justification 35 from a suitable experience to a belief is at once causal and rational: we hold the belief because of the experience both in the order of efficient (causal) and in the order of final (rational) causation. With creatures such as our­ selves, experiences of certain sorts are dual-purpose: owing to their (and our) evolutionary nature their occurrence both causally engenders and rationally justifies the holding of certain beliefs through a disposition that evolution has engendered exactly because it is objectively justified to some substantial extent. If this is evolutionary reliabilism, then we are well advised to make the most of it.11 Let us examine a bit more closely what is at issue here.

8. Rational versus Natural Selection

Scientifically minded epistemologists nowadays incline to consider how the workings of the "mind" can be explained in terms of the operations of the "brain."12 But this approach has its limits. Biological evolution is doubtless what accounts for the cognitive machinery whose functioning provides for our possession of intelligence, but explaining the ways in which we use it calls largely for a rather different sort of evolutionary approach, one that addresses the development of thought procedures rather than that of thought mechanisms—of "software" rather than "hard­ ware." What is at issue here is a matter of cultural-teleological evolution through a process of rational rather than Darwinian natural selection. Very different processes are accordingly at work—the one, as it were, blind, the other purposive. (In particular, biological evolution reacts only to actually realized changes in environing conditions: cultural evolution in its advanced stages can also react to merely potential changes in condition through people's capacity to think hypothetically and thereby to envision "what could happen if" certain changes occurred.) Once intelligence appears on the scene to any extent, no matter how small, it sets up pres­ sures toward the enlargement of its scope, powerfully conditioning any and all future cultural evolution through the rational selection of processes and procedures on the basts of purposive efficacy. Rationality thus emerges as a key element in the evolutionary devel­ opment of methods as distinguished from faculties. The "selective" survival of effective methods is no blind and mechanical process produced by some inexorable agency of nature; rational cagents place their bets in theory and 36 Epidemic Justification practice in line with methods that prove themselves successful; tending to follow the guidance of those that succeed and to abandon—or readjust— those that fail. Once we posit a method-using community that functions under the guidance of intelligence—itself a factor of biologically evolution­ ary advantage—only a short step separates the pragmatic issue of the appli­ cative success of its methods (of any sort) from the evolutionary issue of their historical survival. As long as these intelligent rational agents have a prudent concern for their own interests; the survival of relatively successful methods as against relatively unsuccessful ones is a foregone conclusion. Rational selection is a complex process that transpires not in a popu­ lation but in a culture. It pivots on the tendency of a community of rational agents to adopt and perpetuate,, through example and teaching; practices and modes of operation that are relatively more effective for the attainment of given ends than their available alternatives. Accordingly the historical development of methods and modes of operation within a soci­ ety of rational agents is likely to reflect a course of actual improvement. Rational agents involved in a course of trial-and-error experimentation with different processes and procedures are unlikely to prefer (for adop­ tion by themselves and transmission to their successors) practices and procedures that are ineffective or inefficient. This line of consideration does not envision a direct causal linkage be­ tween the historical survival of method users and the functional effective­ ness of their methods. Rather; the relationship is one of common causation. An intelligence that proves itself survival conducive also favors functional efficacy. In consequence, survival in actual use of a method within a com­ munity of (realistic, normal) rational agents through this very fact affords evidence for its being successful in realizing its correlative purposes.13 These deliberations regarding rational selection have to this point been altogether general in their abstract bearing upon methodologies of any shape or description. They apply to methods across the board; they hold for methods of peeling apples as much as for methods of substantiating knowledge claims. But let us now focus more restrictedly on specifically cognitive methods and consider the development of the cognitive and mate­ rial technology of intellectual production. There is certainly no need to exempt cognitive methodology from the range of rational selection in the evolution of methodologies. Quite to the contrary: there is every reason to think that the cognitive methods and Epistemic justification 37 information-engendering procedures that we deploy in forming our view of reality evolve selectively by a historic, evolutionary process of trial and error—analogous in role though different in character from the biological mutations affecting the bodily mechanisms by which we comport ourselves in the physical world. Accordingly cognitive methods develop subject to revision in response to the element of "success and failure" in terms of the teleology of the practice of rational inquiry. An inquiry procedure is an instrument for organizing our experience into a systematized view of real­ ity. And as with any tool or method or instrument, the paramount ques­ tion takes the instrumentalistic form: does it work? Does it produce the desired result? Is it successful in practice? Legitimation along these lines is found in substantial part on the fact of survival through historical vicis­ situdes in the context of this pivotal issue of "working out best," This sort of legitimation has at the basis of the cultural development of our cogni­ tive resources via the varieties and selective retention of our epistemically oriented intellectual products.11 It is clear that there are various alternative approaches to the problem of determining "how things work in the world." Such occult cognitive frameworks as those of numerology (with its benign ratios), astrology (with its astral influences), and black magic (with its mystic forces) indi­ cate that alternative explanatory frameworks exist, and that these can have very diverse degrees of merit. Now in the Western tradition the governing standards of human rationality are implicit in the goals of explanation, prediction, and preeminently control. (And thus the crucial fac­ tor is not, for example, sentimental "at-oncncss with nature"—think of the magician versus the mystic versus the sage as cultural ideals*) These stan­ dards revolve about considerations of practice and are implicit in the use of our conceptual resources in the management of our affairs* Given the reasonable agent's well-advised predilection for success in one's ventures, the fact that the cognitive methods we employ have a good record of demonstrated effectiveness in regard to explanation, prediction, and control is not surprising but only to be expected: the community of rational inquirers would have given them up long ago were they not comparatively successful. The effectiveness of our cognitive methodology is thus readily accounted for from an evolutionary perspective based on rational selection and the requirements for survival through adoption and transmission. 38 Episimik Justification

Yet people are surely not all that rational—they have their moments of aberration and self-indulgence. Might not such tendencies selectively favor the survival of the ineffective over the effective—-of the fallacious rather than the true—and slant the process of cognitive evolution in in­ appropriate directions? C. $. Peirce certainly recognized this prospect: "Logicality in regard to practical matters ... is the most useful quality an animal can possess, and might, therefore, result from the action of natural selection; but outside of these it is probably of more advantage to the animal to have his mind filled with pleasing and encouraging visions, independently of their truth; and thus, upon unpractical subjects, natural selection might occasion a fallacious tendency of thought/'15 However, the methodological orientation of our approach provides a safeguard against an unwarranted penchant for such fallacious tendencies. At the level of individual beliefs "pleasing and encouraging visions" might indeed receive a survival-favoring impetus. But this unhappy prospect is effectively removed where a systematic method of inquiry is concerned—a method that must by its very synoptic nature lie in the sphere of the pragmatically effective. The objection looms: "But how can you sav that evolutionary survival among cognitive methods is inherently rational? Hasn't astrology survived to the present day—as its continuing presence in newspaper columns attests?" The response runs as follows: Astrology has indeed survived. But not in the scientific community, that is, among people dedicated in a serious way to the understanding, explanation, and control of nature. In the Western, Faustian16 intellectual tradition of science, the ultimate arbiter of rationality is represented by the factor of knowledge wed to action, and the ultimate validation of our beliefs lies in the combination of theoretical and practical success—with "practice" construed primarily in its prag­ matic sense. All these occult procedures may have survived in some eco­ logical niche in Western culture. But in science they are long extinct. It is accordingly not difficult to give examples of the operation of evo­ lutionary processes in the cognitive domain. The intellectual landscape of human history is littered with the skeletal remains of the extinct dinosaurs of this sphere. Examples of such defunct methods for the acquisition and explanatory utilization of information include astrology, numerology, oracles, dream interpretation, the reading of tea leaves or the entrails of birds, animism, and the teleological physics of the Presocratics, No doubt Epistemic justification 39 such processes continue in issue in some human communities to this very day, but clearly not among those dedicated to serious inquiry into nature's ways—that is, scientists. There is nothing intrinsically absurd or inher­ ently contemptible about such unorthodox cognitive programs—even the most occult of them have a long and not wholly unsuccessful history. {Think, for example, of the prominent role of numerological explanation from Pythagoreanism through Platonism to the medieval Arabs down to Kepler in the Renaissance.) Distinctly different scientific methodologies and programs have been mooted: Ptolemaic "saving the phenomena" versus the hypo the tico-deductive method, Baconian collectionism versus the post-Newtonian theory of experimental science, and so on. The emergence, development, and ultimate triumph of the scientific method of inquiry and explanation invite an evolutionary account—though clearly one that involves rational rather than natural selection. The scientific approach to factual inquiry is simply one alternative among others, and it does not have an unshakable basis in the very con­ stitution of the human intellect. Rather the basis of our historically devel­ oped and entrenched cognitive tools lies in their (presumably) having established themselves in open competition with their rivals. It has come to be shown before the tribunal of bitter experience—through the histori­ cal vagaries of an evolutionary process of selection—that the accepted methods work out most effectively in actual practice in comparison to other tried alternatives. Such a legitimation is not absolute but only pre­ sumptive. It does, however, manage to give justificatory weight to the his­ torical factor of being in de facto possession of the field. The emergence of the principles of scientific understanding (simplicity, uniformity, and the like) Is thus a matter of cultural rather than biological evolution subject to rational rather than natural selection. To be sure cultural evolution is shaped and canalized by constraints that themselves are the products of biological evolution. For our instincts, inclinations, and natural dispositions are all programmed into us by evolution. The transition from a biologically advantageous economy of effective physical effort to a cognitively advantageous economy of effec­ tive intellectual efforts is a short and easy step. An individual's heritage comes from two main sources: a biological heritage derived from the parents and a cultural heritage derived from the society. However, in the development of our knowledge, this second 40 Epislemic Justification factor becomes critical. To establish and perpetuate itself in any commu­ nity of rational agents, a practice or method of procedure must prove itself in the course of experience. Not only must it be to some extent effective in realizing the pertinent aims and ends, it must prove itself to be more efficient than comparably available alternatives. With societies composed of rational agents, the pressure of means-ends efficacy is ever at work in forging a process of cultural (rather than natural) selection for replacing less cost-effective ways of achieving the group's committed ends by more cost-effective means—its cognitive ends emphatically included. Our cog­ nitive faculties are doubtless the product of biological evolution, but the processes and procedures by which we put them to work are the results of a cultural evolution that proceeds through rationally guided trial and error in circumstances of a pragmatic preference for retaining those processes and procedures that prove theorists efficient and effective. Rational people have a strong bias for what works. And progress is swift because once rationality gains an inch it wrants a mile. We know that various highly "convenient" principles of knowledge production are simply fa 1st':

* What seems to be, is. * What people say is true. * The simplest patterns that fit the data are actually correct.

W^e realize full well that such generalizations do not hold—however nice it would be if they did. Nevertheless throughout the conduct of inquiry we accept them as principles of presumption. We follow the higher-level meta-rule "In the absence of concrete indications to the contrary, proceed as though such principles were true—that is, accept what seems to be (what people say, and so on) as true," The justification of this step as a measure of practical procedure is not the factual consideration that "In proceeding in this way you will come to correct information—you will not fall into error." Rather it is the methodological justification that "In pro­ ceeding in this way you will efficiently foster the interests of the cognitive enterprise: the benefits will—on the whole—outweigh the costs."

9. Against ‘‘Pure” InteUectualism

The instrumentality of presumption accordingly provides us with a nondiscursive route to knowledge. After all, it is—or should be—dear Epistemic Justification 41 that beliefs can be justified not just by other beliefs but also by experi­ ences. My belief that the cat is on the mat need not rest on the yet differ­ ent belief that I am under the impression of seeing it there; it can rest directly and immediately on my visual experience. My reason for holding that belief of mine is not yet another belief but an experience, which both occasions and, considered from another point of view, validates and jus­ tifies that belief.17 But in point of validation the linkage of belief to experience is not direct but systemic. Contemporary theorists often see the cognitive domain as confined to the realm of verbalized belief. There is no hors de texts, says Derrida, The only reason for a belief is yet another belief, says Davidson. But this sort of postmodern cognitivistic "wisdom" is folly. The world of thought is not self-contained; it is integral to the wider world of nature, part of a realm in which events happen and experiences occur. A perfectly good reason for believing that the cat is on the mat is just that we experience (he., observe) it to be there. The acceptability of beliefs frequently roots not in other beliefs but in experience—and experience must here be understood in rather general and broadly inclusive terms. For although the productive order of causes and the explanatory order of reasons are fundamentally distinct, they melt together into a seamless whole, with rational agents whose thoughts and acts reflect the impetus of reasons. In the case of rational beings, these two factors of causality and justification come together because here informatively meaningful per­ ceptions and physical stimuli operate in coordinated unison. Since intelli­ gent agents operate in the realm of both the causality of nature and the causality of reason, it transpires that for them experiences such as a cat- on-the-mat sightings have a double aspect, able at once to engender and (in view of imprinted practical policies) to justify suitable beliefs. Accordingly such intelligent agents have dual-function experiences that at once cause their beliefs and provide them with reasons for holding such beliefs. But note the crucial difference between this position and Sosa's principle (C) discussed at the outset. Sosa in effect holds that the cat-on-the-mat belief is justified because the seeing-the-cat-on-the-mat experience is caused by the cat on the mat. However, the present account holds (i) that the cat-on-the-mat belief is occasioned by having a seerng- the-cat-on-the-mat experience, and (2) that having this experience concur­ rently justifies the belief on the basis of epistemic policy considerations. For the justifactory link of experience to belief validation is not directly 42 Epistemic Justification causal. We can—of course—construct a causal account Linking experience to belief. But what plays a justifaclory role in the rational validation of belief is not the existence of such a causal account—it is, rather, the belief (itself the product of an ample body of experience) that such an account can be constituted. Yet what sort of rationale is there for taking this line? The answer lies in the Darwinian revolution. For in its wake we can contemplate the evo­ lutionary development of intelligent beings—the emergence of intelligent creatures for whom the realization of reasons can be causally effective and, conversely, suitably operative causes can so operate as to furnish reasons. We should, in fact, proceed to see intelligence itself as a capacity that ren­ ders it possible for certain modes of experience causation concurrently to provide reasons for beliefs. It is exactly here— in explaining the modus operandi of evolutionsrily emergent rational beings—that causes and reasons must not be separated. The "experience of having a cat perception of a certain sort"—exactly because it is a cognitively significant experience—at once and concurrently constitutes the cause of someone's disposition to assent to "The cat is on the mat" and affords them with a reason for making this claim. In the cognitive experience of intelligent beings the regions of causes and of reasons are not disjoint but rather coordinated: one and the same experi­ ence can concurrently furnish the causal ground and the reason for a belief. The fact is that intelligent agency brings something new onto nature's scene. Certain sorts of eventuations are now amphibious because they are able to function both in the realm of natural causes and in the realm of rea­ sons. My perceptual experience of "seeing the cat on the mat" at once is the cause of my belief and affords my reason for holding that belief. Q: "What causally produced his belief that the cat is on the mat?" A: "He saw it there," Q: "Why—with what reason—does he claim that the cat is on the mat?" A: "He saw it there." His seeing experience is a matter of dual action. With intelligent agents, such as ourselves, experiences can do double duty as eventuations in nature and as reasons for belief. For we have an evolution- imprinted "rational disposition" to effect the transition from a subjective experience ("I take myself to be seeing a cat on the mat") to the endorse­ ment of a duly coordinated objective claim ("There is a cat on the mat"). In a way the difference between causes and reasons in the cognitive realm lies in the angle of vision, in whether those productive experiences Epistemic justification 43 arc viewed from an agent's first-person or an observer's third-person van­ tage point. What we have here is one uniform sort of process experienced in two different modes: internally to the experiencing subject as psychic and externally to the third-party observer as physical. And since a single underlying process is at issue, psychophysical coordination is assured. The perspective in question provides for an automatic response to Mark Twain's question: "When the body gets drunk, does the mind stay sober?"—and also to the reverse question: "When the mind decides to get up and leave, does the body remain behind?" What we have here is not a supranaturally pre-established harmony but an evolutionarily pro­ grammed coordination: two different ways of processing one uniform basic sort of material* The question of causal effect versus rational response is not one of primacy but rather one of coordination. An analogy: the same occurrence—sugar ingestion—engenders one result in relation to the tongue (taste) and another in relation to the nose (odor). The upshot is a cognitive theory close to the ontological "neutral monism" of Bertrand Russell or the "radical empiricism" of William James. To be sure, we must distinguish the mental (conceptual, rational) order from the physical (causal) order. But where human knowledge is concerned evolutionary processes can and do coordinate these two orders into a parallel alignment An intelligent being is by natural design one for whom certain transactions in the causal order appear (from the internal experiential standpoint) as processes in the mental order capable of rationally (i.e., in the modus operand! natural to the mental order) engendering the acceptance of verbalized responses of the type we char­ acterize as beliefs. In sum the experiential route to belief validation and the causal sorts of belief production come into coordinative fusion for such a creature by virtue of its evolutionarily designed modus operandi. Only on this basis can we validate seeing our experience-provided "rea­ sons" as authentic reasons. (After all, if beliefs alone could ever justify beliefs it is hard to see how the process of belief justification could ever get under way.) But are there not deceptive experiences—experiences that both engen­ der and "justify " erroneous beliefs? Of course there are! It is just that on the basis of evolutionary considerations they must be statistically subordi­ nate exceptions to the rule. It is the systemic course of experience itself that educates us about the rationality of various routes to belief. 44 Epistemic Justification

10* Conclusion

A whole generation of epistemologists have turned against the idea of '"the experientialiy given'" by supplementing the perfectly sound idea that "'Nothing is given in experience by way of categorical truth regarding matters of objective fact"" with the very mistaken conception that ""In epistemic contexts given must be construed as given as true." When these theses are combined, it indeed follows that there are no experiential givens. But of course the situation is drastically transformed when one acknowledges that beyond the given as true, there is also the given as plau­ sible, or as probable, or as presumption-deserving. Once this step is taken, Sosa"s question of ""the epistemic bearing of sensory experience upon our knowledge"" acquires a very different aspect* Consider the salient ques­ tion: Does the fact that I take myself to be seeing a cat on a mat—that I have a seeing-a-cat-on-a-mat experience—'"entitle" or ""suffice to justify" my belief that there actually is a cat on the mat there? This question, once raised, leads back to the underlying issues: What is at issue with belief entitlement in such a context? Does it require guaranteed correctness beyond the reach of any prospect of error—however far-fetched and remote? It is clear that the answer is: surely not! Entitlement and justification here are no more than the sort of rational assurance that it makes sense to ask for in the context at issue: a matter of reasonable evidentiation rather than categorical proof. The fundamental question, after all, is not ""Does sub­ jective experience unfailingly guarantee its objective proportions?"" but rather ""Does it appropriately evidentiate it?"" The shift from a proof-oriented '"given as true" to a presumption- oriented "given as plausible"" also has the advantage that in epistemology we are not driven outside the epistemic realm of reasons-for into that of ontologically problematic causes-of. A sensible epistemology can without difficulty remain within the epistemic realm of reasons by drawing a due distinction between reasons-for-unblinking-acceptance-as-true and rea sons-for-endorsement-as-p lausible, Accordingly the principal theses of these deliberations regarding Sosa"s question ofthe epistemic bearing of sensory experience upon our knowl­ edge" can be set out as follows:

i. There indeed are experiential givens. But these "givens"" are actually "takens." They are products not of inference (hence "givens") but of an epistemic endorsement policy or practice (hence "takens"). Epistemic justification 45

2. Most critically, those experiential givens are not "givens as categori­ cally and infallibly true" but rather "givens as merely plausible/' What is at issue is not something categorically certified but merely something presumptive. S. The move from plausibility to warranted acceptance ("justified belief") is automatic in those cases in which nihil obstat—that is, whenever there are no case-specific counterindications. 4. Although this way of proceeding does not deliver categorical guar- antees or infallible certitude, such things are just not required for the rational validation (or "epistemic justification") of belief. 5. On this basis subjective experience can—and does—validate our claims to objective factual knowledge. But the step at issue in moving across the subjectivity/objectivity divide is indeed a step—a mode of praxis. And the modus operandi at issue in this practice or policy is at once validated by experience and established through a complex process in which rational and natural selection come into concurrent operation.

From this perspective it appears that Sosa's discussion of the "Mythology of the Given" omits one very crucial validating factor—the process of evo­ lution in its relation to our cognitive hardware and software. What his account offers us is, in a way, Hamlet without the ghost. THREE

Categories: A Pragmatic Approach

1. Categorial Sameness

No issue in epistemology more clearly indicates how the theoretical issues of the field demand a recourse to pragmatic considerations than the theory of categories. Information issues from inquiry. The agenda for our cognitive busi­ ness is set by our questions. And in the forefront here lies the key domain of our factual questions regarding "the nature of things/' that is, about real beings in general and their modes of operation and also about the instru­ mentalities and processes we require for their comprehension, It is by means of categories that we structure the manifold of questions. Items belong to the same category when they provide possible answers to the same question. Here are some examples: "What is the color of that flower?" (category: colors). "How long did that process take?" (category: time spans). "What caused that rainstorm?" (category: meteorological situa­ tions). Categorial congeners are accordingly things of the same generic type in question-resolving contexts. Categories are thus coordinate with the range of answers we are prepared to contemplate as meaningful responses to our questions. When items belong to the same category with respect to a particular issue (i,e., question) there will accordingly be a manifold of question- responding statements in which one can be substituted for the other with­ out sacrificing meaningfulness. Since red and green are both colors, "The grass is red"—which, though obviously not true, is obtained from "The grass is green" by such a substitution—will nevertheless still be mean­ ingful, unlike "The grass is petulant." For "red," unlike "petulant," is still

46 Categories 47 Display 3*1 Traditional Categories

Calegory/precticahk Greek name Category? determinative question Substance Ousia What thing? Quanti ty Posen How much? Quality Poion Of what sort? i. Genus Genas ii. Species Eidoas hi. Difference Diaphora iv. Essential qualities Id ion Of what nature? —Definitive Haros —Descriptive Hypogruphe v. Accidents Symbebekota How functioning? Relation Pros Ti How related? Posture Keisthai How oriented? Place/location Pou Where? Possession Echein How composed? Action Poieht What doing? Passion Paschein What undergoing? Time Pote When? Cause Aitifi Why?

Note: The predicables of Porphyry are here blended into Aristotle's original categories.

a color attribution, and thereby a categorial congener of "green." Thus whereas terms that can be in ter substituted everywhere without a loss of L-1 truth are meaning-identical, those that can be intersubstituted everywhere without a loss of meaningfulness are category-identical* The classical categories of philosophical inquiry derived from the Aristotelian tradition are mapped out in Display 3.1*1 As indicated there, these categories are defined by certain very fundamental questions that we have about the w orld's things. Of course for the various particular kinds of things, there will be kind- correlative categories of a more specific sort. For example:

• A person: sex, age, nationality, occupation, and so forth. • A book: genre, period, cultural context, and so forth. • A feast day: training, occasion, acknowledgment ritual, and so forth.

The "deduction" of a category (to use Kant's term) is an argument that establishes its validation and appropriateness. It takes the generic form of an argument to the following effect: 48 Categories

If you are not in a position to answer this kind of question (e.g., What is its type or species?) about a certain object then you cannot possibly communicate in an adequate and satis­ factory way about an object of the kind at issue (a dog).

Even at the highest level of generality (i.e,, that of simply ''an object or item" instead of, say, "a dog" or "a tree") certain questions will arise for the sake of its adequate discussion: Is it real or fictional? Singular or plural? Animal, vegetable, or mineral? And: What is it doing? What is happening to it? These most general questions delineate the range of philosophical categories, It is in this fact of their effectively universal applicability that the legitimating "deduction" of the appropriateness of those categories is ultimately rooted.

2* types of Categories

Since categories are correlative with questions they delineate and canalize our efforts to secure information about the world. They provide the con­ ceptual frame of reference in terms of which we pose our questions about the nature of things—the cognitive scaffolding we employ in erecting our view of the world, or some sector thereof. "To think is to order," said Thomas Aquinas, and the categories we use are our conceptual ordering tools, our devices for setting out on the task of collecting, gathering, and arranging our thoughts about how things stand. The theory of categories is accordingly the study of the means we use in forming and shaping the agenda of issues that we face in our thoughts about the facts (or pur­ ported facts) of the world, Consider, for example, the issue of human actions. Here we are imme­ diately confronted with a rather extensive catalogue of questions that can arise, as set out in Display 3.2. Such a thematic inventory of questions delineates the categories of the domain. These operative categories define the range of the issues and set the terms of reference for our question- positing concerns. Questions come in strata because one question leads to another. There are the protoquestions with which inquiry begins, the elemental and ele­ mentary issues from which we start our cognitive explorations. Such questions relate to issues that are "superficial," as it were, in lying near Categories 49 Display 3*2 Characterizing Elements of an Action

Agent (Who did it?) 2. Act type (What did he di>?) 3. Modality of action (Haw did he do it?) a, Modality of manner (In what manner did he do it?) b. Modality of means (Bij what mean $ did he do it?) 4. Setting of action (J» what context did he do it?) a. Temporal aspect (When did he do it?) b, Spatial aspect (Whwte did he do it?) c Circumstantial aspect (Under what circumstances did he do it?) 3, Rationale of action (Why did he do it?) a. Causality (What caused him to do it?) b. Finality (With what aim did he do it?) 6, Effects of action (What effects or products or consequences did the action have? What reactions did it engender?) 7. Significance of action (What does it mean or show or portend?)

the surface of inquiry and themselves involving no more than trivial pre­ suppositions. But we are soon led to greater depths. The answers to our questions spawn yet further questions for which those answers furnish presuppositions. And as we proceed along this question-and-answer route we come to increasingly sophisticated questions that arise out of our answers to earlier questions, and that themselves lead to still more com­ plex issues. Categories thus arise on two levels. On one level we have the philo­ sophical protocategories that are correlative with those protoquestions we face at the outset—the most basic and rudimentary questions that initially get the process of factual inquiry under way. Such questions are inven­ toried in Display 3.3, which summarizes the most elementary basic and fundamental sorts of issues to be raised about anything in the domain of the real. The corresponding protocategories are based on the fundamental idea that any group of items with which we may deal will be identifiable objects that can be classified in some appropriate way and admit of descrip­ tion, interrelation, and the provision of some sort of rationale or explana­ tion. What we have here is thus a reprise of the philosophical categories of Display 3.1. so C ateg o ries

Display 3*3 Protocategoria] Questions

Categoriai process Paradigm questions Categoriai themes Iden titication [substance] Which one? Tilings or items Quantification [quantity] How many? Of what Measurement of tilings size or magnitude (in tlxis or that respect)? Classification [quality] Of what kind? Types or species of items Description [quality] Of what properties? Characterizing qualities, features, attributes, cha racterizab ons Affiliation [relation] Like what or which? Similarity comparisons Subordination (posture] To what or which? Pertinence relations of what or which Location (spatial-temporal) When? Where? Whence? Positioning of tilings in [space, time] Whither? frameworks of placement Composition [possession] Composed of what? Makeup and structuring of How constitu ted? things Process ch a racteri za t ion In what wav? Bv what Modus operand! (modes of [action and passion] means? manner and means of comportment) Function specification To what end? For what Purposes, aims, functions, [cause] purpose? teleological considera tions Rationalization (or Why so? How to be Causal explanations explanation) [cause] explained? By what agency?

The protocategories map out the "frame of reference" defining the conceptual issues that shape our initial, most basic efforts at posing our descriptive and explanatory questions about the world. The frame of reference of our first entry into the question/answer process is compar­ atively rudimentary because at this initial stage we have not as yet exchanged the rough-and-ready resources of everyday life for the sophis­ ticated precision of science. Nevertheless even these rudimentary, start­ ing-point questions have certain categoriai orientations, because the very "meaning" of a question is bound up with the general sort of answers toward which it looks as a possible (admissible) response to the issue it Categories 51 sets out to raise. (At every level our questions are geared to a categorial frame of reference that delineates the range of admissible answers.) The protocategories contrast with the more sophisticated S-categories (scientific categories) that are correlative with the evolved and subsidiary questions to which we are eventually driven in the pursuit of increasing adequacy. It is useful to think here of the analogy of a question/answer game, such as animal*vegetable-mineral, in which we begin with this rudimen­ tary (and, as it were, protocategorial) trichotomy, but are then driven to increasingly detailed and sophisticated taxonomic distinctions. Or con­ sider the example of a medical disability. The inquiry may well begin with the question of the source of some overt symptom as described by the patient in the crude lingua franca of ordinary aches and pains. But this sort of question (''Why does my stomach hurt and what can I do about it?") is one that, in the physician's hands, eventually leads to others within the sphere of human biology, biochemistry, and so on, ultimately giving rise to questions framed in very different and now genuinely scientific terms. Whereas the protocategories relate to the questions that set the stage of inquiry, the subsequent scientific categories provide the more devel­ oped and sophisticated issues that emerge as products of the course of inquiry. To be sure, to say that the protocategories are rudimentary and basic is by no means to say that they are only basic—that they operate only at the outset of inquiry. On the contrary, their fundamentality is further indi­ cated by their pervasiveness. The fact that protocategorial questions arise at the prescientific levei thus docs not mean that questions of the same type cannot be posed at the scientific level as well, The issues they pose (e.g., classification, composition, description) can also quite properly be raised at the more developed levels—they are recurrent leitmotivs through­ out the unfolding of inquiry. Thus all the various questions surveyed in Displays 3.1 and 3.3 can also be asked (for example) about genes and molecules and the other creatures of the world of science. Our question horizon enlarges rather than contracts with the accession of greater sophistication. But questions are now answered in very different terms. And $0 as inquiry proceeds the protocategories yield their place of promi­ nence to the more sophisticated S-categories of the scientific sphere. 52 Categories

X Different Category Schemes

The protocategories are substantially presupposition-free: they involve at most trivial presuppositions and are devoid of substantive presupposition precommitments. But the developed categories that delineate the con­ ceptual framework of our deliberations and investigations will inevitably involve substantive commitments. Accordingly the conceptual schemes they characterize hinge on the cognitive state of the art with respect to nature and its ways; they accordingly differ from age to age and from culture to culture. This line of thought leads into familiar territory. Philosophers have often said things to the effect that people whose experience of the world is substantially different from our own are bound to conceive of it in very different terms—and thereby operate by means of very different category schemes. Sociologists, anthropologists, and linguists say much the same sorts of things, and philosophers of science have recently also come to talk in this way. According to Thomas Kuhn, for example, scientists who work within different scientific traditions—and thus operate with differ­ ent descriptive and explanatory "paradigms"—actually "live in different w orlds."2 Considerations in support of this position have been advanced from very different points of view. One example is a Gedankenexperiment sug­ gested by Georg Simmei in the nineteenth century, that of envisaging an entirely different sort of cognitive being: intelligent and actively inquiring creatures (animals, say, or beings from outer space) whose experiential modes are quite different from our own,3 Their senses respond rather dif­ ferently to physical parameters: they are relatively insensitive, say, to heat and light but are substantially sensitized to various electromagnetic phe­ nomena. Such intelligent creatures, Simmei held, could plausibly be supposed to operate within a largely different framework of empirical concepts and categories; the events and objects of the world of their expe­ rience might be very different from those of our own. Their phenomeno­ logical predicates, for example, might have altogether variant descriptive domains. In a similar vein William James wrote, "Were we lobsters, or bees, it might be that our organization would have led to our using quite different modes from these [actual ones) of apprehending our experiences. It might be too (we cannot dogmatically deny this) that such categories, Categories 53 unimaginable by us to-day, would have proved on the whole as service­ able for handling our experiences mentally as those we actually use."4 Different cultures and different intellectual traditions—to say nothing of different sorts of creatures—will, so it has been widely contended/ describe and explain their experience—their world as they conceive it—in terms of concepts and categories of understanding substantially different from ours. They may, accordingly, be said to operate with different con­ ceptual schemes, with different conceptual tools used to "make sense" of experience—to characterize, describe, and explain the items that figure in the world as they view it. The taxonomic and explanatory mechanisms by means of which their cognitive business is transacted might differ so radically from ours that intellectual contact with them would be difficult or impossible. Accordingly wrc are told, for example, that one cannot secure an adequate grasp on the thought world of an animistic society if one is unable or unwilling to enter into the thought framework charac­ teristic of such an approach, adopting what the Germans would call their Denkmittel—the conceptual instruments they employ in thought about the facts {or purported facts) of the world. Recently, however, some philosophers have begun to call this doctrine of variant conceptual schemes into question. If the idea is conceived of in the standard way, as marking a potential contrast between distinct conceptual schemes—ours versus theirs—then, so they argue, the whole notion of "alternative conceptual schemes" does not make sense, be­ cause the appropriate sort of alternativeness contrast cannot be developed meaningfully,5 This position, however, cannot be taken without paying a substantial price. The notion of "alternative conceptual schemes" has its natural home primarily in four familiar disciplinary settings: (1) in descriptive sociology, to contrast the mechanisms used by different societies in the categorization and explanation of human affairs and natural phenomena; (2) in intellec­ tual history, to contrast different perspectives of understanding, different Weltanschauungen; (3} in the history of the sciences, to contrast the diverse explanatory frameworks encountered in different stages of scientific thought (e g., those of Galenic and modern biochemical medicine); and (4) in philosophical epistemology, to contrast the fundamentally different approaches of diverse systems of thought to descriptive and explanatory issues. At any rate, the conception of a "conceptual scheme" that is at 54 Categories issue in the present deliberations is one that is geared to applications of this sort. To be in a position to deal realistically with conceptual change, conceptual innovation, and conceptual diversity, we must be in a position to utilize the idea of alternative conceptual parameters that vary in cogni­ tively crucial respects. Absent the idea of "different conceptual schemes" and "different categorial frameworks" we would deprive ourselves of the means of doing justice to what those who invoke them to clarify such differences were getting at, and so incur the risk of an impoverishment in our problem horizons. Conceptual and categorial differences are unavoidable because cultures that function in different times and places envision different ranges of answers to fundamentally identical questions (e.g., by explaining diseases in terms of spirits, humor imbalance, bacilli, and other factors).

4* The Translation Argument and Its Flaws

One influential argument against the idea of alternative conceptual schemes is a line of reasoning, offered by Donald Davidson, that may be characterized as the Translation Argument. The first step of this argument is the relatively unproblematic association of conceptual schemes with languages. A "concept," after all, is not a shadowy and problematic entity of some obscure sort. Instead it is determined by the meanings of w ords and stands correlative with the communicative tasks we assign to them in the operations of language. To speak of concepts is to do no more than indicate what is inherent in the operation of words—the mission or mis­ sions we assign to them as instruments of communication. The next step is to supplement this association of conceptual schemes with languages by adopting linguistic intertranslatability as a criterion for the identity of these associated conceptual schemes. To quote Davidson: "Speakers of different languages . . . share a conceptual scheme provided there is a way of translating one language into the other. Studying the criteria of translation is therefore a way of focusing on criteria of identity for conceptual schemes."6 This leads to the only mildly problematic idea that a failure of translatability is a necessary condition for a difference in conceptual scheme. (The idea is mildly problematic because speakers of one selfsame language could perhaps adopt radically different paradigms for understanding the world—say animism and atomism—and so might Categories 55 conceivably operate with different conceptual schemes despite speaking what would generally be viewed as "the same language.") A further step in the argument is the rather more controversial con­ tention that one is entitled to call something a language only if one is pre­ pared to claim that it is possible to translate its (putative) "assertions" into one's own language. Davidson defends the position that language attri­ bution requires the access of translatability in the following way: "[To make sense of the idea of alternative conceptual schemes] we wanted to make sense of there being a language we could not translate at all. Or, to put the point differently, we were looking for a criterion of languagehood that did not depend on, or entail, translatability into a familiar idiom, * . . But whatever plurality we take experience to consist in—events like losing a button or stubbing a toe, having a sensation of warmth or hearing an oboe—we will have to individuate according to familiar principles. A lan­ guage that organizes such entities must be a language very like our own."7 There is good reason, however, to think that this focus on actual trans- lation is misguided. The key category in this area is surely not translation but interpretation. What counts for "their having a language" is not (nec­ essarily) that we can literally translate what they say into our language, but that w e be able to interpret at least some of their sayings—to make some sort of intelligible sense of them through paraphrase, explanation, or the like. This, of course, is something we must do in our own language, but it certainly does not require the sort of transposition we usually char­ acterize as "translation"—a far looser sort of interpretative reconstruction will serve. And such "interpretation" may well involve a complex process of theory building, rather than anything as comparatively cut-and-dried as what is generally understood by "translation." Paraphrase, circumlo­ cution, and all the other makeshifts of linguistic approximation can come into the picture. And often even such avenues to understanding seem too much to demand. It was clear that cuneiform inscriptions represented language writing w ell before w7e had decoded them. As any cryptanalyst knows, one can tell that a language is being used—and even a good deal about how it is being used—well short of any ability to comprehend, let alone translate. How do we know that the sounds or movements or "writings" being made by those creatures represent the use of a language at all? The rational imputation of language use is not the result of intellectual inspiration or 56 Categories mystical insight; it is an item of theory building. The closer we can push toward translation, the better, But translation is a desideratum, not a necessity. Interpretative reconstruction can serve perfectly well. Language attribution, like all empirical theorizing, is a matter of theoretical triangu­ lation from observational data. And such theoretical systematization of the data can render attributions of language use eminently reasonable, To establish that a purported "alternative language" is a genuine lan­ guage, there is certainly no need to claim intertranslatability (total or partial) with our own language. This requirement would be much too stringent. We are home safe once we are able to report intelligently and informatively about what they are saying—to interpret it. Actual translation into the verbal resources of our language is certainly too much to ask for. Observe, however, that once one makes this shift from translation to interpretation, the analogue of the scheme-countervailing contention "but where translatability obtains, there is no difference in the conceptual appa­ ratus at issue" fails to hold. For interpretabiiity is clearly not incompatible with scheme differentiation. Some interpretative explanation will obviously always be possible no matter how diverse the scheme, given devices like "a sort of X/' "something rather like V," "their so-called Z 's " and other such ways of establishing relations to our scheme without any actual embedding. Such explicit distancing devices of course do not establish an identity of schemes, but rather the very reverse. Of course, if we are going to understand their scheme then we must do it in conceptual terms that are accessible to us—that Is both true and trivial. And this triviality cer­ tainly does not mean that their concept scheme may not be very massively different from ours—so different that even the somewhat desperate devices of paraphrase and circumlocution and interpretation may give us only a rather tenuous hold on their conceptual dealings. Quite to the con­ trary; a constrained recourse to interpretation betokens rather than negates a difference in conceptual scheme. An insistence on translatabilitv into our language as a test criterion for the presence of a conceptual apparatus aborts any prospect of grasp­ ing how the differences between conceptual schemes actually work. There is and can be no literal translation where the descriptive, taxonomic, or explanatory mechanisms—the whole empirically laden paraphernalia of empirical reportage—are substantially different. Linguistic/conceptual schemes differ precisely where, and just to the extent that, the resources of Categories 57 paraphrase and circumlocution become necessary. "'The congressman appealed to his constituents for understanding regarding his opposition to the economic policies of the administration." Think of translating this into classical Latin! Or of so translating a treatise on quantum electro­ dynamics. And the same sort of thing holds when the tables are turned. Consider the reverse process of "translation" of a passage into English in the case of the Melanesian utterance whose nearest literal English rendi­ tion runs (so we are told) as follows: "We run front-wood ourselves; we paddle in place; we turn, we see behind their sea-arm Pilolu/'9 But it is obvious at a glance that there is no real translation going on here, but only a pseudo "translation"—an interpretative process that leaves various key terms inadequately accessible. Yet the matter of language use is never seriously in question. The fact is that the Translation Argument against alternative concep­ tual schemes becomes entrapped in a dilemma: If "translation" is construed literally and narrowly, then it indeed follows that language in ter tr an slat- ability is incompatible with scheme alternativeness, but it certainly does not then hold that only translation can establish the claim of another lan­ guage to qualify as bearer of a conceptual scheme. If, on the other hand, "translation" is construed broadly (to include any sort of reconstrual or interpretation), then a demonstration of scheme embodiment does indeed require such trnnslatabilitv, but this sort of "translation" no longer suffices to show that one selfsame conceptual scheme is at issue. (If merely "giv­ ing some idea of what's being talked about" is to be called for, then we could indeed "translate" a modern chemistry text into the Ionic of Thales and Anaximander,) Either w ay, the argument comes to grief. And we need not, for present dialectical purposes, enter into the details of the difference between a literal "translation" and an approximate "interpretation" (with its proliferation of expressions of the type "something like" or "somewhat analogous to"—its admitted lapses from exactitude). All that matters is assured by an informal understanding that "the same sort of thing" is at issue here in relation to the questions being addressed.

5. The Alternativeness of Conceptual Schemes

Yet if conceptual schemes do not actually conflict—if they do not disagree about the same things—then w7hy not simply conjoin them, espousing one 5H Categories alongside the others? Several things must be said (somewhat telegraphi­ cally) in reply: 1. We do in fact to some extent do this, adjoining the scheme of science to that of ordinary life, for example. Or think of the scholar's ability to move in the thought worlds of different cultures or civilizations. 2. There are, however, weighty practical reasons why the extent to which we can do this is very limited: it is enormously demanding in terms of learning, effort, and attention. Just as very few people can master more than one language well enough to "pass for a native," so only a few can achieve a conceptual repertoire that makes them fully at home within significantly diverse conceptual frameworks. 3* In general any fairly comprehensive conceptual scheme embodies a value orientation in point of specifically cognitive values. It incorpo­ rates its own characteristic schedules of what sorts of things are im­ portant, interesting, puzzling, worthy of attention, and so forth. This circumstance also produces limiting restrictions in that diverse desiderata, even if theoretically compatible, jostle one another off center stage. A concept scheme is a demanding master: it is difficult to give concurrent allegiance to more than one, 4* Most important, different concept schemes bear differentially upon praxis. The rules of chess do not conflict doctrinalhj with those of ten­ nis. But few people can play chess and tennis at the same time. And a physician is unlikely to prescribe dual treatment in line with distinct medical systems. As these considerations suggest, conceptual schemes do not conflict in the manner of mutually■f contradictory ■/ bodies of assertions. Rather thev J conflict in the manner of diverse instrumentalities, just as we cannot make effective concurrent use of hammer and saw. It is this sort of practical incom­ patibility of diverse modes of operation—distinct functional resources— that is at issue with the alternativeness of diverse conceptual schemes, rather than the theoretical incompatibility of mutual contradiction via conflicting theses.

6. The Appraisal of Conceptual or Categorial Schemes

This sort of consideration also makes it possible to address the question of the appraisal and evaluation of the relative merits of alternative concep­ tual schemes. If the situation were simply that the difference between Categories 59 schemes resided in a different distribution of the determinate truth values T and Fover fundamentally the same range of contentions/ then the assess­ ment of relative merits would be a rather simple process: we would simply ask ourselves which is right more often. And then, of course, we would have no alternative but to answer this question w ith reference to the truth commitments that emanate from our own conceptual scheme. Scheme assessment would have to be a matter of simply determining w'hich scheme has a fuller grasp on the facts as we ourselves see them— of determining which is right about more things and wrong about fewer according to our own lights (the only ones we have!). And, of necessity, it lies in the very nature of this process that our own scheme will always emerge victorious from such comparisons. Again, something of the same sort w^ould obtain if we were to com­ pare schemes on the basis of subject matter coverage (being ampler, richer, fuller, and so on). For tvliose standards as to what is a genuine enlargement and what is a pointless proliferation are going to be used here? Which scheme can appropriately be used as the arbiter? Clearly wre would here be driven back once more to a reliance on the arbitrament of our own scheme. Any such consequence is surely unacceptable. There is, as wTe have seen, no proper justification for privileging our own scheme in some absolute way. We are neither minded to see nor justified in seeing our­ selves as the center of the cognitive axis about which all else revolves. Such considerations indicate the inappropriateness of a content compari­ son approach to the issue of appraisal. They suggest—surely rightly—that comparative appraisal must be detached altogether from the sphere of semantic issues and kept away from considerations of truthfulness, subject matter coverage, or any other such consideration relating to a comparison of assertive content, For otherwise we would have little alternative but to advance our own scheme automatically into a position of primacy, thus running afoul of that intellectual modesty that is not only seemly but wise in human affairs. But how can linguistic frameworks and their correlative conceptual schemes possibly be compared on a linguistically neutral, meaning- abstractive basis? The answer lies in recognizing that the appropriate basis of comparison is pragmatic efficacy. The traditional pragmatists have put the key point well. For example, C. I. Lewds writes as follows: 60 Categories

There may be alternative conceptual systems giving rise to alternative descriptions of experience, which are equally objective and equally valid, if there be not some purely logical defect in these categorial conceptions. When this is so, choice will be determined, consciously or unconsciously, on pragmatic grounds. New facts and new categorial conceptions may cause a shifting of such grounds. When such change of interpretation takes place historically, we shall genuinely have new truth, whose new- ness represents the creative power of human thought and the ruling con­ sideration of human purposes. ... Once the categorial system, in terms of which it is to be interpreted, is fixed, and concepts have been assigned a denotation in terms of sensation and imagery, it is this given experience which determines the truths of nature. It is between these two, in the choice of conceptual system for application and in the assigning of sensuous denotation to the abstract concept, that there is a pragmatic ele­ ment in truth and knowledge. In this middle ground of trial and the continual shift and modification of conception in our effort to cope with it the drama of human interpretation and the control of nature is forever being played.10

Even as scheme eligibility (be,, counting as a conceptual scheme) is a tele­ ological matter of function equivalency, scheme merit (counting as a relatively good conceptual scheme) is a matter of functional efficacy. The operative standard is that of the question: Which scheme provides for more efficient and effective intervention in the course of events so as to conduce toward those desiderata for whose sake languages and their conceptual schemes are instituted as human resources in the context of communication and inquiry? As pragmatists (and some of the ancient Academic skeptics before them) have rightly stressed, languages and conceptual instrumentalities have been developed to facilitate effective action within our environing world. The pragmatic standard of successful praxis thus affords a natural and semantically neutral arbiter of our conceptual mechanisms. The effi­ cacy of their scheme is not a matter of the extent to which it leads to results that agree with ours, but rather of the extent to which it facilitates their attainment of their purposes. Schemes may be disjoint or incommensu­ rable on the side of issues of conceptual meaning content, but they do indeed enter into mutual relevancy on the side of praxis. Their relative superiority or inferiority is emphatically not an issue of how much of the somehow scheme-neutral truth they manage to capture (how close they come to grasping the content of God's mind), let alone of how much it Categories 61 brings them into agreement with us, Rather it hinges on the practical issue of how effectively they enable us to find our way amidst the shoals and narrows of a difficult world.11

7. The Question of the Inherent Superiority of Our Own Conceptual Schemes

Categorial schemes have often proved deficient (e.g., the animistic account of nature or the magical account of human interactions via such mechanisms as the evil eye). Yet such deficiency does not reside in any theoretical defect that would have been revealed by an armchair analysis of content. Instead it is the result of flaws—or, rather, comparative infe­ riorities—that ultimately manifested themselves on the pragmatic side. Here then we once again have a token of the primacy of practical over the­ oretical reason.12 And on this basis the question of the merits of the conceptual scheme that we ourselves employ is by no means an academic one—its victory in the comparison process is by no means a foregone conclusion. Let us explore this issue. Given that different linguistic-conceptual schemes can be evaluated along such lines, with conceptual disjointness superengrafted upon func­ tional equivalency, what can in fact be said regarding the comparative merits of our own scheme? Seeing that it provides us with the paradigm standard in whose terms we ourselves do in fact take the measure of all else—a consideration that establishes its epistemic priority (for us, at any rate)—must we not concede to it a position of theoretical primacy as well? By no means! The present position does not entail the view that we our­ selves constitute the center about which everything moves. We must resist all temptations to the egocentrism of putting ourselves and our parochial group at the center of all things. To be sure, a critic might well attempt the following line: "In choosing to transact your cognitive business within its framework, you surely commit yourself, at least implicitly, to a primacy claim. Do not your very actions betoken a preference for this scheme over others?" An emphatic denial is in order here. Our use of a scheme in no way involves us in claiming it as the best of all possible schemes. In adopting a scheme we simply "do what comes naturally" by using a tool that lies conveniently 62 Categories

to hand. We actually have little overt choice here—we simply have to go on from where we are. Neither on a cultural nor on a temporal compari­ son basis are we committed to the idea that the framework for our own thinking is inherently superior and beyond the prospect of improvement. Nothing stands in the way of a realization that ours is not inherently the best conceptual scheme—a kind of ne plus ultra. The point is that categories are thought instruments devised in the interests of action, and that this action may itself be a matter of cognitive action (i.e., inquiry). And so here—as in other cases in which the interests of action figure—the natural standard of appraisal is prospective and util­ itarian, pivoting on the question of efficacy and efficiency in realizing the objectives for whose sake those actions are undertaken* Consider how cognitive progress happens* We can admit that the sci­ entists of the future will have a better science, an ampler and more ade­ quate understanding of the natural universe, and thus a better conceptual scheme—although, admittedly, we cannot anticipate just how this is to be so. We need not take the stance that our own conceptual scheme is some­ how the last word. Our ongoing recognition that our scheme is imper­ fect—though correct and appropriate in the interests of realism—is, to be sure, of rather limited utility. A realization of the potential deficiency of our conceptual machinery unhappily affords no help toward its emen­ dation. Until and unless something goes wrong as we put it to work, we have no alternative but to presume the adequacy of our categorial scheme as a working assumption. Our commitment to our current scheme may be tentative and presumptive, but it is still a commitment—and dearly one that we are led to make on the basis of practical rather than theoretical considerations* And in fact this presumptive suboptimality of our own conceptual scheme plays a most useful role* It affords a regulative conception that pre­ empts any claim to dogmatic finality, even if not a constitutive one that puts substantively informative data at our disposal. The presumption that there are other and perhaps better conceptual schemes than ours is emi­ nently saiutory in blocking the path to the inappropriately egocentric view that we ourselves somehow stand at the cognitive center of things, occu­ pying that pivotal position about which all else revolves. FOUR

On Learned Ignorance and the Limits of Knowledge

1, Knowledge about Ignorance

One of the most problem-strewn regions of inquiry relates to knowledge about our own ignorance. It is next to impossible to get a dear fix on our own ignorance, because in order to know that there is a certain knowablc fact that we do not know, we would have to know this fact itself, which (by hypothesis) we do not. And it is even difficult to obtain a taxonomy of ignorance. For the realm of ignorance is just as vast, complex, and many- faceted as that of knowledge itself. Whatever someone can know7 that they can also be ignorant about—perhaps with a handful of Cartesian excep­ tions such as the fact that they themselves exist and can think. There is, of course, no difficulty about my knowing that there are some facts that I do not know. And there is no difficulty of principle in your knowing in detail that there ls a certain fact that I do not know. But know­ ing myself that there is a particular fact which, as such, is unknown to me is impracticable. For there is a crucial difference between the indefinite "I know that there is some fact that I do not know" and the specific "Such and such is a fact of which I knowr that I do not know it," The first is unproblematic but the second not, seeing that to know of something that it is a fact I must know it as such, so that what is at issue is effectively a contradiction in terms. I can know about my ignorance only sub rat tone gen’ eralitatis at the level of indefiniteness, but I cannot know it in concrete detail, I can meaningfully hold that 2 + 2 = 4 is a claim (or a supposed fact) that 1 do not know to be the case, but I cannot meaningfully maintain that

63 64 On Learned Ignorance and the Limits of Knowledge

2 -h 2 = 4 is an actual fact that I do not know to be the case. To acknowledge a fact as fact is to assert knowledge of it. The reality of it is that even knowledge about the extent of my igno­ rance is unavailable to me. For what is at issue here is the ratio of the manifold of what I do know to the manifold of what I do not. And it is impossible in the nature of things for me to get a clear fix on the latter. For the actual situation is not that of a crossword puzzle—or that of geo­ graphic exploration—in which the size of the terra incognita can be some­ how measured a priori in advance of the details that are going to be filled in. We can form no sensible advance estimate of the imponderable domain of wrhat can be known but is not. All we can ever manage to do is to com­ pare what one person or group knows to what some other person or group knows. Mapping the realm of what is knowable as such inevitably reaches beyond our powers. There are, of course, finite fields of knowledge. There is only so much you can know about the content of Boston's 1995 telephone directory, namely the totality of what is in its pages. But that is only the case because here "what can be known" and "wrhat is known" actually coincide. But this sort of thing is the case only in very special circumstances and never with respect to areas of knowledge, such as medicine or physics, that deal with the products of nature rather than human artifice.

2. Scientific Progress: Difficulties in Predicting Future Knowledge

Our present ignorance is indicated in a particularly vivid way in relation to future knowledge because the progressive and developmental nature of knowledge means that the knowledge of the future is substantially unavail­ able to the investigators of the present. The prospect of present knowledge about future discoveries is deeply problematic since the future of knowl­ edge is fundamentally unpredictable. The details of the cognitive future are hidden in an impenetrable fog. The splendid dictum that "the past is a different country—they do things differently there" has much to be said for it. We cannot fully com­ prehend the past in terms of the conceptions and presumptions of the present. And this is all the more emphatically true in matters of cognition. For although information about the thought world of the past is at any rate available—however difficult extracting it from the available data On Learned Ignorance and the Limits of Knowledge 65 may prove to be—it lies in the nature of things that we cannot secure any effective access to the thought world of the future, This is nowhere more decidedly the case than with respect to natural science. Making scientifically responsible predictions about die future of science itself is an impracticable project. All that we know is that it will be different in important but unforeseeable ways. The best that we can do in matters of science and technology forecasting is to look toward those developments that are "in the pipeline" by looking to the reasonable extrapolation of the character, orientation, and direction of the current state of the art—a powerful forecasting tool on the positive side of the issue. And this conservative approach has its problems. Since we cannot predict the answers to the presently open questions of natural science, we also cannot predict its future questions. For these questions will hinge upon those as yet unrealizable answers, because the questions of the future are engendered by the answers to those we have on hand. Accordingly we cannot predict science's solutions to its problems because we cannot even predict in detail just what these problems will be, And the inherent unpredictability of future scientific developments— the fact that inferences drawn from one state of science to another are generally precarious—means that present-day science cannot speak for future science. Throughout the domain of inventive production in science, technol­ ogy, and the arts we find processes of creative innovation whose features defy all prospects of predictability. The key fact in this connection is the following fundamental epistemological law: the cognitive resources of an infe­ rior (lower) state of the art cannot afford the means for foreseeing the operations of a superior (higher) one. Those who have not progressed beyond tic-tac-toe cannot foresee how chess players will resolve their problems. We know—or at any rate can safely predict— that future science will make major discoveries (both theoretical and observational/phenomeno­ logical} in the next century, but we cannot say what they are and how they will be made (since otherwise we could proceed to make them here and now). We could not possibly predict now the substantive content of our future discoveries—those that will result from our future cognitive choices. For to do so would be to transform them into present discoveries, which, by hypothesis, they just are not.1 In the context of questions about matters of scientific importance, then, we must be prepared for surprises. 66 On Learned Ignorance and the Limits of Knowledge

Illustrations of this abound in historical experience. If there was one thing of which the science of the first half of the seventeenth century was unalloyedly confident, it was that natural processes are based on contact interaction and that there could be no such thing as action at a distance. Newtonian gravitation burst upon this scene like a bombshell. Newton's supporters simply stonewalled. Roger Cotes explicitly denied there was a problem, arguing (in his preface to the second edition of Newton's Prin- cipia) that nature was generally unintelligible, so that the unintelligibility of forces acting without contact was nothing specifically worrisome. How­ ever unpalatable Cotes's position may seem as a precept for science (given that making nature's workings understandable is, after all, one of the aims of the enterprise), there is something to be said for it—not, to be sure, as science but as meta-science. For we cannot hold the science of tomorrow bound to the doctrines and dogmas of the science of today The cognitive future is inaccessible to even the ablest of present-day workers. After Pas­ teur had shown that bacteria could come only from pre-existing bacteria, Darwin wrote that "it is mere rubbish thinking of the origin of life; one might as well think of the origin of matter/'2 One might indeed!

3* Question Propagation

Cognitive progress is commonly thought of in terms of the discovery of new facts—new information about things. But the situation is more com­ plicated, because not only knowledge but also questions must come into consideration* For progress on the side of questions is a crucial mode of cognitive progress, correlative with—and every bit as important as—pro­ gress on the side of information. The questions opened up for our con­ sideration are as crucial and definitive a facet of a body of knowledge as the theses that it endorses. And frequently the questions of the future are engendered by the answers to those we have on hand. Accordingly we cannot predict science's solutions to its problems because we cannot even predict in detail just what these problems will be. Change in knowledge carries change in questions in its wake, so the state of questioning changes no less drastically than the state of knowl­ edge. Any alterations in the membership of our body of knowledge will afford new presuppositions for further questions that were not available before. The question solved in one era could well not even have been On Learned Ignorance and the Limits of Knowledge 67 posed in another* Aristotle could not have wondered whether plutonium is radioactive. It is not just that he did not know what the correct answer to the question happens to be; the very question not only did not but actu­ ally could not have occurred to him, because the cognitive framework of the then-existing state of knowledge did not afford the conceptual instru­ ments with which this question could be posed. Moreover, questions can even disappear from the agenda. The reality of it is that we can discover

1. New (i.e., different) answers to old questions. 2. NewT questions. 3. The impropriety or illegitimacy of our old questions, in that they were based on erroneous or untenable presuppositions (i.e., once-purported "facts" that are no longer viewed as acceptable).

With (i ) we discover errors in our former question-answering endeavors. With (2) we discover that there are certain questions that have not hereto­ fore been posed at alt; we uncover an "error of omission" in the context of our former question-asking endeavors. Finally with (3) we find that one has asked the wrong question altogether: we uncover an "error of com­ mission" in the context of our former question-asking endeavors. Such improper questions rest on incorrect presuppositions, and are thus gener­ ally bound up with type (1) discoveries. If we abandon the luminiferous aether as a vehicle for electromagnetic radiation, then we lose at one stroke the whole host of questions about its composition, structure, mode of operation, and origin. As further lines of questioning unfold, our old answers can come to be seen as untenable and in need of correction or replacement. The course of change with respect to questions is no less dramatic than that with respect to cognitive change itself, seeing that the questions we pose at every stage will have to be based on the presuppositions of the existing state of the art. And it lies in the nature of this developmental process that our knowledge is incom­ plete at any stage— irrespective of the date on the calendar. The second of these modes of question-oriented discovery is particu­ larly interesting. The phenomenon of the ever-continuing "birth" of new questions was first emphasized by Immanuel Kant, who described it in terms of a continually evolving cycle of questions and answers: "Who can satisfy himself with mere empirical knowledge in all the cosmological 68 On Learned Ignorance and the Limits of Knowledge questions of the duration and of the magnitude of the world, of freedom or of natural necessity, since every answer given on principles of experience begets afresh question, which likewise requires its answer and thereby clearly shows the insufficiency of all physical modes of explanation to satisfy reason/'3 The line of thought set out in the italicized passage suggests the following:

Principle of question propagation (Kant's principle): The solution of any factual (scientific) question gives rise to yet further unsolved questions.

This principle of question proliferation in empirical inquiry indicates a fact of importance for the theory of scientific progress, One need not claim longevity—let alone immortality—for any of the current problems to ensure that there will be problems ten or one hundred generations hence. (As im­ mortal individuals are not needed to assure the immortality of the race, so immortal problems are not needed to assure the immortality of problems.)

4. Incompleteness

Could we ever bring natural science to a state of completeness? This issue dissolves into a plurality of questions:

L Could we ever be in a position to answer ah our scientific questions? (Erotetic completeness.) 2. Could we ever be in a position to claim that we can predict everything that will occur? (Predictive completeness.) 3* Could we ever be in a position to claim that we know all the laws of nature? (Nomie completeness.) 4. Could we ever be in a position to claim that we can explain everything that occurs? (Explanatory completeness.)

A, Erotetic Completeness Could we ever actually achieve erotetic completeness ((^-completeness)— the condition of being able to resolve, in principle, all of our (legitimately posable) questions about the world? Could we ever find ourselves in this position?4 In theory, yes. A body of science certainly could be such as to provide answers to all those questions it allows to arise. But just how meaningful would this mode of completeness be? On Learned Ignorance and the Limits of Knowledge 69

Tt is sobering to realize that the erotetic completeness of a state of science does not necessarily betoken its comprehensiveness or sufficiency. It might reflect the paucity of the range of questions we are prepared to contemplate—a deficiency of imagination, so to speak. When the range of our knowledge is sufficiently restricted, then its question-resolving com­ pleteness will reflect merely this impoverishment rather than its intrinsic adequacy. Conceivably (if improbably) science might reach a purely for* tuitous equilibrium between problems and solutions. It could eventually be "completed" in the narrow erotetic sense—providing an answer to every question that arises in the then-existing (albeit still imperfect) state of knowledge—without thereby being completed in the larger sense of answering the questions that would arise If only one could probe nature just a bit more deeply Our corpus of scientific knowledge could be erotetically complete and yet fundamentally inadequate. Thus, even if realized, this erotetic mode of completeness would not be particularly meaningful. (To be sure, this discussion proceeds at the level of suppo­ sition contrary to fact. The exfoliation of new questions from old in the course of scientific inquiry that is at issue in Kant's principle of question propagation spells the infeasibility of ever attaining completeness in ques­ tion resolution.)

B. Predictive Completeness Predictive completeness rests on the idea of being able to predict everything that occurs. It represents a forlorn hope. For predictors are—of necessity!— bound to fail even in much simpler self-predictive matters. Consider con­ fronting a predictor with the problem posed by the question

P,: When next you answer a question, will the answer be negative?

This is a question that—for reasons of general principle—no predictor can ever answer satisfactorily.5 Consider the available possibilities:

Answer given Actually correct answer? Agreement? Yes No No No Yes No Cannot say No No

On this question, there is just no way in which a predictor's response could possibly agree with the actual fact of the matter. Even the seemingly 70 On Learned ignorance and the Limits of Knowledge plausible response "J cannot say" automatically constitutes a self-falsifying answer, since in giving this answer the predictor would automatically make "No" into the response called for by the proprieties of the situation. Of course the problem poses a perfectly meaningful question to which another predictor could give a putatively correct answer by saying "No, that predictor cannot answer this question at ail; the question condemns him to baffled silence." But there are other questions that indeed are pre- dictive insolubilia. One of them is

P3: What is an example of a predictive question that no predictor will ever state?

In answering this question the predictor would have to stake a claim of the form "Q is an example of a predictive question that no predictor will ever state." And in the very making of this claim the predictor would falsify it. What we thus have in P2 is an example of an in-principle solvable—and thus "meaningful"—question that, as a matter of necessity in the logical scheme of things, no predictor can ever resolve satisfactorily

C. Nomic Completeness

But what about completeness in discovering nature's laws? Even a system that is finitely complex both in its physical makeup and in its functional laws might nevertheless be infinitely complex in the phenomena that it manifests over time. For the operations of a structurally and lawfully finite system can yet exhibit an infinite intricacy in productive complexity, mani­ festing this limitless diversity in the working out of its processes rather than as regards its spatiostructural composition or the nomic comport­ ment of its basic components. Even if the number of constituents of nature were small, the ways in which they could be combined to yield phenomena in space-time might yet be infinite. Think here of the examples of letters, syllables, words, sentences, paragraphs, books, book series, libraries, and library systems. Even a finite nature can, like a typewriter with its simple keyboard, yield an endlessly varied text. It can produce a steady stream of new products—"new" not necessarily in kind but in their functional inter­ relationships and thus in their theoretical implications. On this basis our knowledge of nature's workings can be endlessly enhanced and deepened by contemplating an unending proliferation of phenomena. On Learned Ignorance and the Limits of Knowledge 71

There is no need to assume a ceiling to such a sequence of levels of integrative complexity of phenomenal diversity. Each of the different levels exhibits an order of its own. The phenomena we attain at the nth level can have features whose investigation takes us to the (n + i)th level. New phe- nomena and new laws presumably arise at every level of integrative order. The diverse facets of nature can generate conceptually new strata of oper­ ation that yield a potentially unending sequence of levels, each giving rise to its own characteristic principles of organization, quite unpredictable from the standpoint of the other levels. In this way, even a world with relatively simple basic operations can come to have an effectively infinite cognitive depth, once the notion of a natural phenomenon is broadened to include not just the processes themselves and the products they produce but also the relationship among them. Consider, for example, some repeatedly exemplified physical feature and contemplate the sequence of os and is projected according to the rule that the ith entry in the sequence is i if this feature is exemplified on occa­ sion i and o if not. Whenever two such feature concepts, say C and C', gen­ erate such sequences in the manner of

C: oioonoioo . . .

C l 10010X1010... we can introduce the corresponding matching sequence for C and C'f 0010010001 . . . , which is such that its fth position is i if the two base sequences agree at their respective fth positions and o if they disagree. Such matching sequences will have a life of their own. For example, even if two base sequences are random, their matching sequences need not be— for example when those base sequences simply exchange os and is. (Even random phenomena can be related by laws of coordination.)

I). Explanatory Completeness Could we manage to explain everything? Clearly not. For example, certain occurrences—for example, why a certain atom of an unstable transuranic element decays at the exact time it does—are going to be respectable in principle in a stochastic universe. The best science can do—and the most we can ever respectably ask of it—is to explain everything that is explain­ able. And here, on this issue of what is explainable, science itself must be 72 On Learned Ignorance and the Urn Us of Knowledge out source of information. It alone can be allowed to determine the legit­ imacy of explanatory questions* But this circumstance poses an obvious problem in the present con­ text. For to determine that science, or indeed to resolve every appropriate explanatory question, we must first manage to have a completed and per­ fected science in hand to provide a ruling on this issue of appropriateness*

E. Lessons Scientists from time to time indulge in eschatological mu sings and tell us that the scientific venture is approaching its end.6 And it is, of course, entirely conceivable that natural science will come to a stop, not in conse­ quence of a cessation of intelligent life but in C S. Peirce's more interest­ ing sense of completion of the project: of eventually reaching a condition after which even indefinitely ongoing inquiry will not—and indeed in the very nature of things cannot—produce any significant change, because inquiry has come to the end of the road. The situation would be analogous to that envisaged by the apocryphal story, in vogue during the middle 1800s, of the commissioner of the U.S. Patent Office who resigned his post because there was nothing left to invent.7 Such a position is in theory possible. But the fact is that we can never determine that it is actual. For there is no practicable way in which the claim that science has achieved temporal finality can be validated. The question "Is the current state of science, S, final and altogether fixed?" is one for which we can never legitimate an affirmative answer. For the prospect of future changes in S can never be precluded. One cannot plau­ sibly move beyond "We have (in 5 ) no good reason to think that 5 will ever change" to obtain "We have (in S) good reason to think that S will never change/' To take this posture toward S is to presuppose its completeness* It is not simply to take the natural and relatively unproblematic stance that that for which S vouches is to be taken as true, but to go beyond this to insist that whatever is true finds a rationalization within 5. This argument accordingly embeds finality in completeness, and in doing so jumps from the frying pan into the fire. Were science ever to come to a seeming stop, we could never be sure that it had done so not because it is at the end of the road but because we are at the end of our tether. We can never ascertain that science has attained the S condition of final completion, since from our point of view On Learned Ignorance and the Limits of Knowledge 75 the possibility of further change lying just around the corner can never be ruled out finally and decisively The reality of natural science is such that our knowledge of nature must ever be presumed to be incomplete. We have no alternative but to proceed on the assumption that the era of innovation is not over—that future science can and will prove to be different science.

5. Insolubilia

One regard in which the question-resolving capacity of our knowledge might be limited is via the mode of limitation described in the following thesis:

Weak limitation (the permanence of unsolved questions): There are always, at every temporal stage/ questions to which no answer is in hand. At every juncture of cognitive history there exist then-unanswerable questions for whose resolution science is inadequate (yet which may well be answerable at some later state).

Given Kant's principle of question propagation, such a situation of the permanence of unsolved questions is at once assured. For if every state of knowledge generates further new and yet unanswered questions, then we will never reach a position at which all questions are resolved* However, this condition of weak limitation is perfectly compatible with the circumstance that every question able to be raised at any given stage w ill eventually be answered at such a future juncture. And so a contrasting way in which the question-resolving capacity of our knowledge may be limited can envisage the following, more drastic, situation:

Strong limitation (the existence of insolubilia): There will (as of some juncture) be then-posable questions for which we will never obtain an answer. These will be meaningful questions whose resolution lies beyond the reach of science altogether— questions that will remain ever unsolved on the cognitive agenda.

Weak limitation envisages the immortality of questions; strong limitation envisages the existence of immortal questions—permanently unanswerable questions (insolubilia). This stronger thesis has it that there are immortal 74 On Learned Ignorance and the Limits of Knowledge problems, questions that transgress beyond the limits of our explanatory powers in toto, admitting of no resolution within any cognitive corpus we are able to bring to realization. One can also move beyond the two preceding theses to the yet- stronger principle of

UypeiUmitation (the existence of identifiable insolubilia): Our present-day cognitive agenda includes certain here-and-now specifiable and scientifically meaningful questions whose resolution lies beyond the reach of science altogether.

Now for there to be insolubilia it is certainly not necessary that anything be said about the current availability of the insoluble question. The prospect of its actual identification at this or indeed any other particular prespeci­ fied juncture is wholly untouched. The thesis of hyper limitation thus makes a very strong claim—and one that is rather problematic. However, even a position that holds that there indeed are insolubilia certainly need not regard them as being identifiable at the current stage of scientific development. The distinction between these various types of Limits thus carries the important lesson—already drawn by Kant—that even the resolution of all our scientific problems would not necessarily mean that science as such is finite or computable. And even if there are scientific insolubilia, we may not be able to identify them as such—now or at any other particular stage of the development of natural science. Any claim to identify insolubilia by pinpointing questions that future inquiry will never resolve is bound to be problematic—indeed, extremely farfetched. The conception of identifiable insolubilia runs into deep theo- retical difficulties. C. S. Peirce has put the key point trenchantly:

For my part, 1 cannot admit the proposition of Kant—that there are cer­ tain impassable bounds to human knowledge.. .. The history of science affords illustrations enough of the folly of saying that this, that, or the other can never be found out. Auguste Comte said that it was clearly impossible for man ever to learn anything of the chemical constitution of the fixed stars, but before his book had reached its readers the discovery which he had announced as impossible had been made. Legendre said of a certain proposition in the theory of numbers that, while it appeared to be true, it was most likely beyond the powers of the human mind to prove On Learned Ignorance and the Limits of Knowledge 75

it; yet the next writer on the subject gave six independent demonstrations of the theorem.9

To identify an insoluble problem, we would have to show that a certain inherently appropriate question is such that its resolution lies beyond every {possible or imaginable) state of future science. This is clearly a very tall order—particularly so in view of our inevitably deficient grasp of future science. After all, how could we possibly establish that a question Q will con­ tinue to be raisable and unanswerable in every future state of science, seeing that we cannot now circumscribe the changes that science might undergo in the future? We would have to argue that the answer to Q lies "in prin­ ciple" beyond the reach of science. And this would gravely compromise the legitimacy of the question as a genuinely scientific one. For if the question is such that its resolution lies in principle beyond the powers of science, it is difficult to see how we could maintain it to be an authentic scientific question. The long and short of it, then, is that the very unpre­ dictability of future knowledge renders the identification of insolubilia impracticable. In this regard it is effectively a bit of good fortune that we are ignorant about the lineaments of our ignorance.

6, Relating Knowledge to Ignorance

The fact that we can never resolve all of our questions decisively means that we must come to terms with the unavoidability of ignorance. Just how serious a liability is this? »• Although ignorance lies at the core of the present discussion, this is not an exercise in radical skepticism. It will not take the pessimistic line of a cognitive negativism to the effect that knowledge about the world—and indeed every rational, well-founded belief about it—is unachievable. On the contrary, the present approach is one of cautious optimism, arguing that, although reliable information is often not as easy to achieve as people are inclined to think, the cognitive enterprise can successfully come to terms with this fact. Evolutionary considerations afford us good reason to think that we live in a "user-friendly" world in which we do not need to be right about things for our opinion-guided action to be successful. And indeed 76 On Learned Ignorance and the Limits of Knowledge even in cognitive matters we can—strange to say—manage to extract truth from error. Accordingly one fundamental feature of inquiry is represented by the following observation:

Thesis 1: Insofar as our thinking is vague, truth is accessible even in the face of error

Consider the situation in which you correctly accept P-or-Q, But—so let it be supposed—the truth of this disjunction roots entirely in that of P while Q is quite false. However, you accept P-or-Q only because you are convinced of the truth of Q; it so happens that P is something you actually disbelieve. Yet, despite your error, your belief is entirely true.10 Consider a concrete instance. You believe that Smith bought some furniture because he bought a table. However, it was in fact a chair that he bought, some­ thing you would flatly reject. Nevertheless your belief that he bought some furniture is unquestionably correct. The error in which you are involved, although real, is not so grave as to destabilize the truth of your belief. Ignorance is reflected in an inability to answer questions. But one has to be careful in this regard. Answering a question informatively is not just a matter of offering a correct answer but also a matter of offering an exact answer. Thus consider the question "What is the population of Shanghai?" If I respond "More than ten and less than ten billion," I have provided a cor­ rect answer, but one that is not particularly helpful. This example illustrates a more far-reaching point:

Thesis z: There is in general an inverse relationship between the precision or definiteness of a judgment and its security: detail and. probability stand in a competing interconnection. (Compare pp. 18-19 above.)

Consider, for example, so simple and colloquial a statement as "The servant declared that he could no longer do his master's bidding." This statement is pervaded by a magisterial vagueness. It conveys very little about what went on in the exchange between servant and master. We are told virtually nothing about what either of them actually said. What the object of their discussion was, what form of words they used, the manner of their discourse (did the master order or request, was the servant speak- On Learned Ignorance and the Limits of Knowledge 77 ing from rueful incapacity or from belligerent defiance)—all these are questions we cannot begin to answer. Even the relationship at issue (whether owner/slave or employer/employee) is left in total obscurity. In sum there is a vast range of indeterminacy here—a great multitude of very different scenarios would fit perfectly well the description of events which that individual statement puts before us. And this vagueness clearly provides a protective shell to guard that statement against a charge of fal­ sity. Irrespective of how matters might actually stand within a vast range of alternative circumstances and conditions, the statement remains secure, its truth unaffected by which possibility is realized. In practical matters, in particular, such rough guidance is often altogether enough. We need not know just how much rain there will be to make it sensible for us to take an umbrella. However, to act with more knowledge is not necessarily to act more effectively. Herbert Spencer is said to have quipped that Thomas Buckle's idea of a tragedy was an elegant theory kilted off by a recalcitrant fact, And it is cleaT that any generalization, no matter how amply confirmed, can be destroyed by an unexpected encounter with an inconveniently noncon­ forming fact. A single black swan refutes the thesis that "All swans are white." Nevertheless, one of the deepest ironies of the epistemic realm is represented by

Thesis 5: It would be an error to think that a conclusion based on fuller information is necessarily an improvement, presenting us with a result that cannot be false if its "inferior" predecessor was already true.

If the contention at issue were true, then as more information were added an outcome's probability would increasingly move in the same direction, and it could not oscillate between increases and decreases. But this is dearly not so. Consider the following example, based on the question "What will John do to occupy himself on the trip?" Suppose we require an answer to this question. But suppose further that the following data become succes­ sively available: 78 On Learned ignorance and the Limits of Knowledge

1. He loves doing crossword puzzles. 2. He loves reading mysteries even more. 3. He did not take any books along.

It is clear that we are led to and fro. Initially, at stage (i) of information access, we incline to the answer that he will be doing crossword puzzles. At the next stage, when item (2) arrives, we change our minds and incline to the answer that he will be reading. At stage (3) we abandon this idea and return to our initial view. And of course a subsequent stage—say one at which we have

4. One of this fellow passengers lends him a book.

—can nevertheless reverse the situation and return matters to step {2). And who knows what step (5) will bring? The crucial point is that additional information need not serve to settle matters by bringing us closer to the truth. Consider a somewhat more general example. Suppose we have a se- quence of successive discoveries of ever-Larger regions of /1-type terms in which the statistical relations of the As to the Bs arc as given in Figure 4.1. Consider a series of ever-increasing regions, R, R y R ,, . . . . And con­ sider the distinction of A s and Us to be as given in Figure 4.1. This sort of

^ IN OH-Li S ^ 1 ' !5S P

c

1 j ? A i Region 1 tIs

Region 2 / is

Flegion 3 > Region 4 As

Figure 4.1 A Diagram for Statistical Fluctuation Note: Most of the Region 1 As are Bs. Most of the yet-larger Region 2. As are non-Bs. Most of the yet-larger Region 3 As are Bs. Most of the yet-larger Region 4 As are iton-Bs. And so on. On Learned ignorance and the Limits of Knowledge 79 example suffices to demolish the idea that a conclusion based on fuller knowledge is thereby the more likely to be correct. The fact is that, throughout the realm of inductive or plausible rea­ soning/ a larger conjunctive fact F & G can always point to a conclusion at odds with that indicated by F alone: the circumstance that fact F ren­ ders X highly probable is wholly compatible with the existence of another fact G of such a sort that F & G renders X highly improbable. And yet what G undermines here can always be restored by some further addi­ tional fact. Exactly because additional information always has the potential of constraining a change of mind—rather than merely providing additional substantiation for a fixed result—we have no assurance that further infor­ mation produces "a closer approximation to the truth." Conclusions based on additional information may in some sense be comparatively "better" or "securer;" but they certainly need not be "truer" or "more accurate." {There are no degrees here: true is true.) When we are dealing with assured truths, additional information cannot unravel or destabilize what we have. For truths must be compatible with one another and new truths cannot come into logical conflict with old ones. Truths, once we have them, are money in the bank. But likely truths—plausible or probable truths—are something else again. Consider the case of the "lottery paradox." A million tickets are out there. It is highly likely that No. 1 will not be drawn. And the same with No. 2—and with No. 3, and so on. And yet by the time we reach one million times, we know that we have falsehood on our hands if we move from probability to fact. The realitv of it is that additional evidence can unravel old conclusions* P can be probable relative to Q and yet improbable relative to Q & ft. Inductive conclusions are never money in the bank. It is an ever-present prospect that we will have to revisit and reassess them in the light of new7 information. When what we accept is deductively derived from truths it is secure. Here what we do not know can do no damage to the knowledge we have. But when what we accept is inductively derived from probabilities and plausibilities it is vulnerable to unraveling. Here what wfe do not know can do great damage. With deductions from truths ignorance may be bliss, but w'ith inductions from plausibilities and probabilities it poses ominous threats. 80 On Learned ignorance and the Limits of Knowledge

7* Lessons: team ed Ignorance

And so we return to the point made at the very outset; the ironic (although in some ways fortunate) fact is that one of the things about which we are most decidedly ignorant is our ignorance itself. Learned ignorance is as a matter of being learned about our ignorance—of having a well-informed view about the prospects for knowledge and the inevitability of ignorance. It takes a sagacious person to form a reasonably realistic appreciation of the extent and nature of his or her own ignorance—and to know what to do about it. For it is clear that the sensible management of ignorance is something that requires us to operate in the realm of practical considera­ tions exactly because the knowledge required for theoretical adequacy is— by hypothesis—not at our disposal* Wc have no rational alternative but to proceed, here as elsewhere, subject to the basic pragmatic principle of having to accept the best that we can do as good enough. FIVE

The Deficits of Skepticism

1. On Rationality and Risk

Authentic knowledge of the detailed truth of things is by nature something of an idealization: it is what emerges from appropriate inquiry appropri­ ately conducted. As such there is nothing relative about it: the real truth is the same for one as for another; what is true for X is true for Y (unlike what people think to be true), However, this world of ours is such that we unfortunately do not operate in ideal circumstances. After all, our circum­ stances differ in point of experience and evidence. And so what we do get— and in fact a l! that we can get—are our best estimates of the truth. It lies in the very nature of rational estimates as such that we are entitled to cast them in the role of the items of which they are estimates. They would not be our best estimates if we were not entitled to view them as appropriate operational surrogates for the estimation targets at issue. There is nothing specifically relative about "'my truth"'—it would not be what it is if I did not take it to be the truth. Of course we can go wrong in matters of truth estimation. Here, as elsewhere in this imperfect world, there are no categorical guarantees. But although guarantees are lacking, there are two powerfully assuring con­ siderations. The first is that if any extensive success at goal attainment in cognitive matters is realizable at all, then this is the way to achieve it. The second is that in so proceeding we manage—as best we can tell—to pro­ ceed successfully in matters of goal attainment; that this is the best prospect that we have. And so the crucial point is that, in doing the best one can, one proceeds appropriately through doing the most that anyone—

81 82 'the Deficits of Skepticism ourselves included—can reasonably ask of us, ("Ultra posse nemo oblig­ ator/' as the Roman jurisconsults had it) Alt the same, we must acknow ledge that even our best available esti­ mates are no more than that—no more than mere estimates. Altogether true information that comes to light in the course of inquiry can prove to be counterproductive and misleading. And additional information can serve to skew yet further an already biased picture. It can—all too easily— point perfectly sensible and rational people to the wrong conclusion even when proceeding by perfectly sensible and rational lines of reasoning. Accordingly there are bound to be many sorts of situations in which people would actually be better off without various items of knowledge—better off in ignorance, so to speak. Given the way in which evidence works, and given that the evidence we have provides our only cognitive pathway to knowledge about reality, it can transpire that authentic knowledge of truth can actually give us a very mistaken picture of reality. Truth is supposed to be "correspondence with reality," but the fact is that the truth can he misleading. This is brought out vividly in John Godfrey Saxe's poem about "The Blind Men and the Elephant/' which tells the story of certain blind sages, those

Six men of Indostan To learning much inclined, Who went to see the elephant (Though all of them were blind)

One sage touched the elephant's "broad and sturdy side" and declared the beast to be "very like a wall." The second, who had felt its tusk, announced the elephant to resemble a spear. The third, who had taken the elephant's squirming trunk in his hands, compared it to a snake; the fourth, who had touched the elephant's knee, was sure that the animal resembled a tree. A flapping ear convinced another that the elephant had the form of a fan, while the sixth blind man thought that it had the form of a rope, since he had taken hold of the tail.

And so these men of Indostan Disputed loud and long, Each in his own opinion Exceeding stiff and strong, Though each was partly in the right, And all were in the wrong! The Deficits of Skepticism 83

None of those blind sages was altogether in error; it is just that the truth at their disposal was partial in a way that gave them a biased and mis­ leading picture of reality. It is not that they did not know truth, but rather that an altogether plausible inference from the truth they knew propelled them into error. And such misguidance is a prospect whenever the information at our disposal is incomplete, which is to say virtually always. Conclusions based on incomplete information—and how often is it that our information is ever actually complete?—are always vulnerable, always in a condition in which things can go wrong. And merely increasing the amount of infor­ mation need not improve matters, seeing that "bigger" generally stops well short of "complete." In a world of almost inevitably incomplete informa­ tion we unavoidably face the prospect that the additional information we have managed to obtain simply leads us farther down the primrose path toward an erroneous conclusion. There is a natural tendency—among educated people in particular— to think of knowledge as invariably a good thing, Ironically, however, the awkward fact that additional knowledge can be counterproductive and misleading is something that one just cannot ignore.1 In this imperfect world, we are not in general in a position to proceed in our operations from the absolute best as such, but only from the visible best that is at our disposal—"the best available (or discernible) reason." We must content ourselves with doing "the apparently best thing"—the best that we can manage in the prevailing circumstances. But the fact remains that what is rationally optimal need not be correct. Things can all too easily go wrong here. The problem with doing the rational thing—doing that which we sensibly suppose to be supported by the best reasons—is that we realize full well that our information, inevitably incomplete, may well point us in the wrong direction. We can never secure advance assurance that what we do not know makes no difference. Facing this "predicament of reason"—that reason itself may well lead us astray—the problem remains: why should we act on the most promis­ ing visible alternative when visibility is restricted to the limited horizons of our own potentially inadequate vantage point? The fact is that, like the drowning man, we clutch at the best avail­ able prospect. We recognize full well that even the most rationally laid scheme can misfire. Reality is not always and inevitably on the side of the 84 The Deficits of Skepticism strongest arguments. Reason affords no guarantee of success, but only the reassurance of having made the best rational bet—of having done as well as one could in the circumstances of the case. After all, in this imper­ fect, sublunary dispensation probability is, as Bishop Butler said, “the guide of life." The rational person is, by definition, someone who uses intelligence to maximize the probability—that is, the responsibly formed subjective probability—that matters will eventuate favorably for the pro­ motion of his real interests. It is just this that makes following the path of rationality the rational course. Rationality calls for adopting the overall best (visible) alternative—the best that is, in practice, available to us in the circumstances. Unfortunately, however, this is still not quite the end of it. For the problem remains: just exactly what are the probabilities with which we are operating? Of course we intend them to be objective, real-world likelihoods; this is what we would ideally like to have. But in fact they too are, of course, no more than our considered estimates of such likelihoods, as best we can shape them in the light of the available information. And this means that we are once again in the presence of rational resolutions effected on the basis of the available data. We are here confronted with an instant, local replay of the global problem being addressed. Striving to escape the predicament of reason, it mocks us by Leaping ahead to bar our way. For we here confront once more the familiar and vexing issue of the actual optimality of apparent optima. And there is nothing we can do to escape this awkward circumstance—we must simply take it in our stride.

2. Skepticism and Risk

To get a cogent grip on the problem of skepticism, it is useful to consider the issue of cognitive rationality in the light of a quintessentially cognitive perspective, namely that of risk taking. There are three very different sorts of approaches to risk and three very different sorts of “personality" cor­ responding to these approaches. The general situation is summarized in Display 5.1. The Type 1 (risk-avoidance) approach calls for risk aversion and eva­ sion. Its adherents have little or no tolerance for risk and gambling. Their approach to risk is altogether negative. Their mottos are “Take no chances," "Play it safe," "Always expect the worst." The Deficits of Skepticism 85 Display 5*1 Approaches to Risk

Type 1: Risk avoiders Type 2: Risk calculators 1. Cautious 2. D a r in g Type 3: Risk seekers

The Type 2 (risk-calculating) approach is more "realistic/' It is a guarded, middle-of-the-road approach to risk, based on due care and calculation. It comes in two varieties. The Type 2.1 (cautiously calculating) approach sees risk taking as subject to a negative anti-presumption that can, however, be defeated by suitably large benefits. Us line is "Avoid risks unless it is relatively clear that a suitably large gain beckons at sufficiently auspicious odds/' It reflects the path of prudence and caution. The Type 2.2 (daringly calculating) approach sees risk taking as sub­ ject to a positive pro-presumption that can be defeated by suitably large negativities. Its line is "Take risks unless it is relatively clear that an unac­ ceptably large loss threatens at sufficiently inauspicious odds/' It reflects the path of optimism and hopefulness. The Type 3 (risk-seeking) approach calls for the courting of risks. Its adherents close their eyes to the dangers and take a rosy view of risk sit­ uations. The mind of the risk seeker is intent on the delightful consequences of a favorable issue of events: the sweet savor of success is already in his nostrils. Risk seekers are chance takers and go-for-broke gamblers. They react to risk the way an old war horse responds to the sound of musketry: with eager anticipation and positive relish for the fray. Their motto is "Things will work out." In the conduct of practical affairs the risk avoiders are hypercautious; with no stomach for uncertainty, they insist on playing it absolutely safe. In any potentially risky situation, the mind of the risk a voider is given to imagining the myriad things that could go wrong. The risk calculators proceed with care; they take due safeguards but still run risks when the situation looks sufficiently favorable. The risk seekers, on the other hand, leap first and look later, apparently counting on a benign fate to ensure 86 The Deficits of Skepticism that all will be well; they dwell in the heady atmosphere of "nothing can go wrong/' The three types of approach to risk correspond to three fundamentally diverse attitudes: pessimism, realism, and (over)optimism, respectively. Such tendencies characterize people's attitudes or personalities in a way that is relatively stable over time. To be sure, armchair psychology teaches us that they are also predictably changeable within one's life span: as small children we tend to be risk avoiders; in youth we welcome risk; with maturity we become more calculating; in old age we incline to be risk aversive once more. (Actually, the situation is even more complex. For one and the same person will at any stage of the game differ in his approach to different kinds of risk—for example, in being prepared to take chances in investments but not in interpersonal relationships.) These general deliberations about risk apply in the cognitive domain as well. And in matters of inquiry risk avoidance leads straightaway to skepticism. The skeptic's line is "Run no risks of error; take no chances; accept nothing that does not come with iron-dad guarantees." (And the proviso here is largely academic, seeing that little if anything in this world comes with iron-clad guarantees.) The daring syncretist stands at the other end of the spectrum. Like radical Popperians such as P. K. Feyer- abend, the syncretist is inclined to think that anything goes. Such a thinker is "gullible," as it were, and stands ready to endorse everything and see good on all sides. Evidentialists, by contrast, conduct their cogni­ tive business with care and caution, regarding various sorts of claims as perfectly acceptable, provided that the evidential circumstances are duly favorable. The skeptic will accept nothing; the evidentialist will accept only "the chosen few"; the syncretist inclines favorably toward virtually everything. It is important to recognize that two fundamentally different sorts of misfortunes are possible in situations in which risks are run and chances taken:

Misfortunes of the first kind: Omission errors. We reject some­ thing that, as it turns out, we should have accepted. We decline to take the chance and avoid running the risk at issue, but things turn out favorably after ail, and we lose the gamble.

Misfortunes of the second kind: Commission errors. We accept something that, as it turns out, we should have rejected. We do The Deficits of Skepticism 87

take the chance and run the risk at issue, but things go wrong, and we lose the gamble.

If we are risk seekers, we will incur few misfortunes of the first kind, but—things being what they are—relatively many of the second kind will befall us. Conversely if we are risk avoiders, we shall suffer few misfor­ tunes of the second kind but inevitably incur relatively many of the first. The overall situation is depicted in the phenomenological sketch of Fig­ ure 5,1.2 This view of the situation indicates that, if our aim is to minimize the totality of misfortunes, then it is evident that both Type 1 and Type 3 approaches will in general fail to be rationally optimal. Both approaches engender too many misfortunes for comfort. Instead the sensible thing is to adopt the middle-of-the-road policy of risk calculation, acting as best we can to balance the positive risks of outright loss against the negative ones of lost opportunity. The path of reason accordingly calls for sensible calculation and prudent management: it routinely enjoins us to follow the

0% 50% 100% increasing risk acceptance (in percentage of situations) ------►

Type I Type 2 Type 3 Type 2.2 (risk (cautious (risk (daring avoiders) calculators) seekers) calculators) Figure 5.1 Risk Acceptance and Misfortunes: A Phenomenological Perspective 88 The Deficits of Skepticism

Aristotelian "'golden mean"" between the extremes of risk avoidance and risk seeking. Rationality thus counterindicates approaches of Type 1 and Type 3. Its line is ""Neither avoid nor court risks, but manage them pru­ dently in the search for an overall minimization of misfortunes/" and it insists on proceeding by way of carefully calculated risks. After all, what we want in inquiry—the object of the whole enterprise—is information. What we seek is the very best overall balance between answers to our questions and ignorance or misinformation. To be sure, the skeptic succeeds splendidly in averting misfortunes of the second kind. By accepting nothing, he accepts nothing false. But of course he loses out on the opportunity to obtain any sort of information. The skeptic thus errs on the side of safety, even as the syncretist errs on that of gullibility. The project of inquiry affords us with a trade-off. Are we prepared to run a greater risk of error to secure the potential benefits of greater under­ standing? The judicious cognitivist is a risk calculator who recognizes the value of understanding and is prepared to gamble for its potential bene­ fits. H. H. Price has put the salient point well:

""Safety first"" is not a good motto, however tempting it may be to some philosophers. The end we seek to achieve is to acquire as many correct beliefs as possible on as many subjects as possible. No one of us is likely to achieve this end if he resolves to reject the evidence of testimony and contents himself with what he can know, or have reason to believe, on the evidence of his own firsthand experience alone. It cannot be denied that if someone follows the policy of accepting the testimony of others unless or until he has specific reason for doubting it, the results will not be all that he might wish. Some of the beliefs which he will thereby acquire will be totally incorrect, and others partly incorrect. In this sense, the policy is certainly a risky one . . . but it is reasonable to take this risk, and unrea­ sonable not to take it. If we refuse to take it, we have no prospect of get­ ting answers, not even the most tentative ones, for many of the questions which interest us.3

3. The Deficiency of Skepticism

In ""playing the game"" of making assertions, accepting beliefs, and laying claims to credence, we mav well lose; our contentions mav well turn out to be mistaken. But in a refusal to play this game at all we face not just the The Deficits of Skepticism 89 possibility but the certainty of losing the prize—we abandon any chance to realize our cognitive objectives, A skeptical policy of systematic avoid­ ance of acceptance is fundamentally irrationalf because it blocks from the very outset any prospect of realizing the inherent goals of the enterprise of factual inquiry. In cognition, as in other sectors of life, there are no guarantees, no ways of averting risk altogether, no option that is totally safe and secure. The best and most we can do is to make optimal use of the resources at our disposal to "manage" the inevitable risks as best we can. To decline to do this by refusing to run any sort of risk is to become immobilized. The skeptic thus pays a great price for the comfort of safety and security. If we want information—if we deem ignorance no less a negativity than error—then we must be prepared to take the gamble by answering our questions in ways that risk some possibility of error. A middle-of-the-road evidentialism emerges as the most sensible approach. Perhaps no other objection to radical skepticism in the factual domain is as impressive as the fact that, for the all-out skeptic, any and all assertions about the world's objective facts must lie on the same cognitive plane. No contention—no matter how bizarre—is any better off than any other in its legitimative credentials. For the thoroughgoing skeptic there just is no rationality-relevant difference between "More than three people are currently living in China" and "There are at present fewer than three auto­ mobiles in North America." As far as the cognitive venture goes, it stands committed to the view that there is "nothing to choose" in point of warrant between one factual claim and another. Radical skepticism is an H-bomb that levels everything in the cognitive domain. The all-out skeptic writes off at the very outset a prospect whose aban­ donment would be rationally defensible only at the very end. As C. S, Peirce never tired of maintaining, inquiry has a point only if we accept from the outset that there is some prospect that it may terminate in a sat­ isfactory answer to our questions. He indicated the appropriate stance with trenchant cogency: "The first question, then, which 1 have to ask is: Sup­ posing such a thing to be true, what is the kind of proof which 1 ought to demand to satisfy me of its truth?"4 A general epistemic policy that would as a matter of principle make it impossible for us to discover something which is ex hypothesi the case is clearly irrational. And the skeptical proscrip­ tion of all acceptance is obviously such a policy—one that abrogates the project of inquiry at the very outset, without according it the benefit of 90 the Deficits of Skepticism a fair trial. A presumption in favor of rationality—cognitive rationality included—is rationally inescapable. It could, to be sure, eventuate at the end of the day that adequate knowledge of physical reality is unachiev­ able. But, until the end of that proverbial day arrives, we can and should proceed on the idea that this possibility is not in prospect. ("Never bar the path of inquiry," Peirce rightly insisted.) The trouble with skepticism is that it aborts inquiry at the start without the benefit of a fair trial. The skeptic's favored approach is geared to the level of individual contentions (propositions). He insists on addressing the issue of rational acceptance at the level of particular theses: are we really in a position to accept this or that p or not? And he then finds various seemingly plausible grounds for not doing so. But the real issue is methodological and relates to our general procedure for acceptance. The skeptic's mistake is one of omission: he fails to see that the fundamental issue we face is not just that of particular acceptances, but that of a choice between large-scale policies of acceptance that will then carry individual acceptances in their wake. The question "Is this or that particular claim justified in the prevailing circumstances?" is best approached indirectly* The sensible move is to step back and begin with the question "What are the best processes (methods, standards, criteria) available to us for acceptability determination?" Once this issue is resolved, we then have in hand the instruments for deciding the justificatory status of claims. To deal effectively with skepticism we had best begin by dealing with methods (standards, criteria) rather than partic­ ular theses.5 Our basic concern is—and should be—with the state of things at the level of cognitive policies. We clearly require some policy of acceptance, some general stance on the issue that views particular claims in the light of general principles. And whatever policy we adopt is one that we must be prepared to justify through validating it vis-a-vis its rivals by the sort of systemic consider­ ations that we have canvassed—that is, bv minimizing, as much as pos­ sible, the overall extent to which one runs into problems and difficulties. (In the end this will doubtless be the policy of a cautiously managed eviden- lialism of just the sort at issue in scientific method.) But, of course, once we have an acceptance policy in place, the issue of propositional accept­ ance—acceptance in those particular cases against which the skeptic rails— is now settled for us. Our hands are tied: what it is appropriate to accept is now something that the policy we adopt prescribes, because that is The Deficits of Skepticism 91 exactly the sort of policy it is—an acceptable policy* At this point, having a general policy in place, the option of skepticism lies behind us-—on the far side of a point of no return. Such a '"refutation" of skepticism does not proceed at the item level of showing that the skeptic's view of the matter is untenable in this or that particular case. Rather it proceeds at the policy level, showing the prag­ matic superiority of adopting a line of approach at variance with the skeptic's. Viewing the issue in this pragmatic light, we see that the skep­ tic's risk-avoidance policy is simply not one that it is rational to adopt. It must be recognized that any systematic cognitive policy that we could possibly implement in the real world is bound to allow some errors to arise. Given that errors can be of the two kinds we have been considering, there simply is no way of averting errors altogether Now the skeptic's problem is that his preferred stance represents a particular policy choice ("Accept nothing!") that is not only not mistake-proof but rather a mistake- inviting, definite commitment of procedure—even though its only mistakes are those of the first kind. Viewed from the systemic vantage point as representing a particular policy alternative, the skeptic's difficulty is that he avoids mistakes of one kind only at the price of maximizing those of another. Ultimately his failing is not one of information alone, but one of practical sagacity. S I X

Cognitive Realism A Pragmatic Perspective on Existence and Our Knowledge of It

1. Existence

To exist (irt the broadest sense of this term) is to function as a constituent of a realm, to play a roie in a domain of interrelated items of some sort* In principle there are thus as many modes of existence as there are types of interrelated items, and to exist is to exist as an item of its correlative kind* There are physical existence in space and time, mathematical existence in the realm of quantities or structures, fictional existence in novels or other productions, sensory existence in the spectrum of colors or the catalogue of odors, and so on. To exist is to be part of any such realm of such com sideration-admitting objects, and there are as many ways of being as there are such realms. This means that existence is realm-correlative and thus contextualized* Strictly considered, we should not speak of existence cat­ egorically and without qualifications. It is always a matter of existence-as: as a physical object, as a number, as a character in a Shakespeare play, or the like* Existence is accordingly not homogenous but categorically differ­ entiated: different kinds of existing things exist in their own characteristic way. To attribute to numbers the same kind of existence that colors or mammals have is to commit a serious category mistake. Various generalizations can be made about existence collectively—for example, our initial contention that to exist is to function as an element of some realm of interrelated items. But there is virtually nothing general that can be said about all existence distributive^—that will be true about

92 Cognitive Realism n all of the things that exist The variety of different ways in which some­ thing can correctly be said to '"exist" means that no substantively content­ ful remark can be attributed to existing things at large. (It is preeminently this point that is traditionally made by contending that "existence is not a predicate/') All the same, when philosophers talk of existence they generally mean physical existence in the natural world. And here the term admits both a narrower and a broader construction. In its narrower construction to exist physically is to be an object in space and time: to occupy a place here in the manner in which cats and trees and water molecules do. And to exist physically in the broader sense of the term is to play a role in the causal commerce of such things—to exist in the manner in which trees and head­ aches or human desires do, and thereby to figure as part of the world's processual development. It is such actual, real-ivortd existence that is our principal object of concern here. And the effective list of existences can be specified in an essentially recursive manner as follows:

1. The things we experience with our internal and external senses exist. 2. The things wTtose existence we need to postulate to realize an ade­ quate causal explanation of the things that exist also exist.

Accordingly "to exist" (pure and simple) is to feature as a component or aspect of the causal commerce of the real world. And some expression such as "to subsist" needs to be coined for contextualized existence within a framework of supposition at issue with fictions or hypotheses. Thus merely possible objects—or possibility, for short—are those things whose "existence" consists of figuring in the hypothetical setting of a fictional make-believe domain.

2. Being and Being Known: A Move toward Idealism

To be is one thing and to be known another. However, our only access to things is by way of our knowledge of them. To be sure, it is far from being the case that what we do not know about does not exist. It is just that it does not exist for us as cognitively directed agents: there is nothing that we can say or think about it—and nothing that we can do with it. (Of course one can do things to it, even as one can step on an ant of whose existence one is oblivious.) We can certainly interact causally with things of whose 94 Cognitive Realism existence we are wholly unaware: many is the individual killed by a germ or bullet that he never saw, But specifically cognitive interaction is some­ thing else again. In metaphysics, as elsewhere/ we can only think about the things that we happen to know about. The objects of our knowledge are doubtless not the limits of our physical world, but they indeed are the limits of our cognitive world. For us humans thought is generally a matter of mental discourse, of "a conversation with oneself/' But be it with others or with ourselves, we communicate by language—a public instrumentality. And the existents on which we can get a communicative grip are those with which intelli­ gent, language-using beings can come to terms within the realm of thought and discourse. However, there is a crucial contrast between "things as we conceive of them here and now" and "things as we would conceive of them if we managed to perfect the cognitive project." People sometimes identify the latter generieally with "things as they really are": but in the very nature of the case this is not something we actually manage to discern—now or ever. It is, at most and at best, a very useful contrast conception whose job is entirely negative, in preventing us from claiming for what we have a finality that it does not deserve. On the other hand, in identifying "things as they really are" with "things as they would come to be known if (certain conditions prevailed)" we connect reality with knowledge in a way that takes a big step in the direction of idealism through rendering reality thought-correlative. Just what does this portend? And, in particular, does such a stance establish us humans as the definitive arbiters of reality?

3* Is Man the Measure?

In considering the question of what existence in the world is all about we have taken the approach of a causal realism, a theory maintaining that to be a real existent is to be part of the world's causal commerce. Such a def­ inition is essentially recursive—ordinary material objects are existentially real, and so is anything whatsoever that is bound up with them by linkages of cause and effect. But just exactly how is reality, so construed, related to knowledge? Cognitive Realism 95

Whatever can be known by ns humans to be real must of course, for that very reason, actually be real* But does the converse hold? Is the real for that very reason also automatically knowable? Is it appropriate to join C. S. Peirce, who, in rejecting "incognizables," insisted that whatever is real must be accessible to cognition—and indeed must ultimately become known? Is humanly cognizable reality the only sort of reality there is? Some philosophers certainly say so, maintaining that there actually is a fact of the matter only when "we [humans] could in finite time bring ourselves into a position in which we were justified either in asserting or in denying [it]."1 According to such a view ail reality is inevitably our reality. What we humans are not in a position to domesticate cognitively—what cannot be brought home to us by (finite!) cognitive effort—simply does not exist as a part of reality at all. Where we have no cognitive access, there just is nothing to be accessed. From such a perspective we are led back to the homo mensura doctrine of Protagoras: "Man is the measure of all things, of what is, that it is, of what is not, that it is not" However, in reflecting on the issue in a modest mood, one is tempted to ask: "Just who has appointed us to this exalted role? How is it that we humans qualify as the ultimate arbiters of reality as such?" Regarding this doctrine that what is real must be knowable, tradi­ tional realism takes an appropriately modest line. It insists on preserving, insofar as possible, a boundary line between ontology and epistemology, between fact and knowledge of fact, between truth status possession and truth status decidability with respect to propositions, and between entity and observability with respect to individual things. As the realist sees it, reality can safely be presumed to have depths that cognition may well be unable to plumb. To be sure, it is possible to reduce the gap between fact and cognition by liberalizing the idea of what is at issue with cognizers. Consider the following series of metaphysical theses: For something to he real in the mode of cognitive accessibility it is necessary for it to be exponent iable by

* Oneself. * Otie's contemporary (human) fellow inquirers. * Us humans (at large and in the long run). 96 Cognitive Realism

* Some actual species of intelligent creatures. * Some physically realizable (although not necessarily actual) type of intelli­ gent being— creatures conceivably endowed with cognitive resources far beyond our feeble human powers. * An omniscient being (/.e.f God).

This ladder of potential knowers is critically important for our present deliberations regarding the idea that to be is to be knowable. For here the question "By whom?" cannot really be evaded. The idea of an experiential idealism that equates reality with expert- entiality is one that can accordingly be operated on rather different levels. Specifically the "/th-levcl" idealist maintains—and the "/th-level" realist denies—such a thesis at stage / of the preceding six-entry series. According to this approach, the idealist emerges as the exponent of an experientia- bility theory of reality, equating truth and reality with what is experientially accessible by "us"—with different, and potentially increasingly liberal, constructions of just who is to figure in that "us group" of qualified cog- nizers. But of course no sensible idealist maintains a position as strong as the egocentrism of the first entry on the list. And it is presumably the case that no sensible realist denies a position as weak as the deocentrism of the last. The salient question is just where to draw the line in determining what is a viable "realistic/idealistic" position. Let us focus for a time upon the third entry on the list, the "man is the measure," homo mensura doctrine. By this standard, both Peirce and the Dummett are clearly homo mensura realists, for both confine the real to what we humans can come to know. But this is strong stuff. Of course, what people can know to be real constitutes (ex hypothesi) a part or aspect of reality-at-large. That much is not in question. But the bone of contention between homo mensura realism and a sensible idealism is the question of a surplus—of whether reality may have parts or aspects that outrun alto­ gether the reach of human cognition. And on this basis the homo mensura doctrine is implausible. For in the end, what we humans can know is not and cannot be decisive for what can (unqualifiedly) be known. Undoubtedly a mind that evolves in the world via natural selection has a link to reality sufficiently close to enable it to secure some knowledge of the real. But the converse is eminently problematic. It is a dubious proposition that the linkage should be so close that only what is knowable Cognitive Realism 97 for some actual being should be real—that reality has no hidden reserves of fact that are not domesticable within the cognitive resources of existing creatures (let alone one particular species thereof!). Accordingly it seems sensible to adopt the "idealistic" line only at the penultimate level of the foregoing list and to be a realist short of that. Essentially this is the posi­ tion of the causal commerce realism espoused at the outset of this chapter. As such a position sees it, the most plausible form of idealism is geared to that next-to-last position which takes the line that "to be real is to be causally active—to be a part of the world's causal commerce." And since one can always hypothesize a creature that detects a given sort of causal process, we need not hesitate to equate reality with experientiabilitv in principle. We thus arrive at an idealism that achieves its viability and plausibility through its comparative weakness in operating at the next- to-last level, while at all of the earlier, more substantive levels our position is effectively realistic. The result is a compromise position that combines an idealism of sorts with a realism of sorts. A conservative idealism of this description holds that what is so as a "matter of fact" is not necessarily cognizable by "us" no matter how far— short of God!—we extend the boundaries of that "us community" of inquir­ ing intelligences. On the other hand, one cannot make plausible sense of "such-and-such a feature of nature is real but no possible sort of intelli­ gent being could possibly discern it," To be real is to be in a position to make an impact somewhere on something of such a sort that a suitably equipped, mind-endowed intelligent creature could detect it. What is real in the world must make some difference to it, a difference that is in prin­ ciple detectable. Existence in this world is coordinated with perceivability in principle. And so, at this point, there is a concession to idealism—albeit one that is relatively weak. But in any case traditional homo mensitra realism is untenable. There is no good reason to resort to a hubris that sees our human reality as defin­ itive on the grounds of being the only one there is. Neither astronomically nor otherwise are we the center around which all things revolve. After all, humans have the capacity not only for knowledge but also for imagina­ tion. And it is simply too easy for us to imagine a realm of things and states of things of which we can obtain no knowledge because "we have no way to get there from here," lacking the essential means for securing informa­ tion in such a case. 98 Cognitive Realism

Nevertheless an important point remains to be made in light of the aforementioned hierarchy of potential knowers- Since to be physically real is to be part of the world's causal commerce, it is always in principle pos­ sible for an intelligent, sentient being of a suitable sort to enter into this causal situation so as to be able to monitor what is going on. Accordingly being and being knowable in principle can plausibly be identified. The cru­ cial contrast thus is not that between existence and know ability but rather that between what is knowable by us and what is knowabie in principle, all parochialism aside.

4* Realism and Incapacity

C S. Peirce and others located the impetus to realism in the limitations of human will-—in the fact that we can exert no control over our experience and, try as we will, cannot affect what we see and sense. Peirce's cele­ brated "Harvard experiment" of the Lowell Lectures of 1903 makes the point forcibly:

I know that this stone will fall if it is let go, because experience has con­ vinced me that objects of this kind always do fall; and if anyone has any doubt on the subject, I should be happy to try the experiEYient, and 1 w ill bet him a hundred to one on the result . . . [I know this because of an unshakable conviction that] the uniformity with which stones have fallen has been due to some active general principle [of nature]. * . ♦ Of course, every sane man will adopt the latter hypothesis. If he could doubt it in the case of the stone—which he can't—and I may as well drop the stone once and for all—I told you sol—if anybody doubt this still, a thousand other such inductive predictions are getting verified every day, and he will have to suppose every one of them to be merely fortuitous in order rea­ sonably to escape the conclusion that general principles are really operative in nature. That is the doctrine of scholastic realism.2

In this context, however, it is important to distinguish between mental dependency and mental control. Peirce is clearly right in saying that we can­ not control our conviction that the stone will fail—that, do what we will, it will remain. Nevertheless this circumstance could conceivably still be something that depends on us—exactly as with the fearsomeness of heights for the man with vertigo. If the unconscious sphere of mind actually dic­ tates how I must "see" something (as, for example, in an optical illusion of the Mueller-Lyer variety), then I evidently have no control. But that does Cognitive Realism 99 not in itself refute mind d ependency—even of a very strong sort. There is always the prospect that we are deluding ourselves in these matters—that the limitations at issue appertain only to our conscious powers, and not to our mental powers as such/ This prospect blocks Peirce's argument in the way already foreseen by Descartes in the Meditations:

1 found by experience that these [sensory] ideas presented themselves to me without my consent being requisite, so that l could not perceive any object, however desirous I might be, unless it were present. . . , But although the ideas which I receive by the senses do not depend on my will I do not think that one should for that reason conclude that they proceed from things different from myself, since possibly some facility might be discovered in me—though different from those yet known to me—which produced them.1*

We may simply delude ourselves about the range of the mind's powers: lack of control notwithstanding, dependency may yet lie with the "uncon­ scious" sector of the mind. The traditional case for realism based on the limits of causal control thus fails to provide a really powerful argument for mind independence. However, a far more effective impetus to realism lies in the limitations of man's intellect, pivoting on the circumstances that the features of real things inevitably outrun our cognitive reach. In placing some crucial aspects of the real together outside the effective range of mind, it speaks for a position that sees mind independence as a salient feature of the real. The very fact of failibilism and limitedness—of our absolute confidence that our putative knowledge docs not do full justice to the real truth of what reality is actually like—is surely one of the best arguments for a realism that turns on the basic idea that there is more to reality than we humans do or can know. Traditional scientific realists see the basis for realism in the substantive knowledge of the sciences; the present metaphysical realism, by contrast, sees its basis in our realization of the inevitable shortcomings of our knowledge—scientific knowledge included. This epistemic approach accordingly preempts the preceding sort of objection. If we are mistaken about the reach of our cognitive powers— if they do not adequately grasp "the way things really are"—then this very circumstance clearly bolsters the case for the sort of realism now at issue. The cognitive intractability of things is something about which, in 100 Cognitive Realism principle, we cannot delude ourselves altogether, since such delusion would illustrate rather than abrogate the fact of a reality independent of ourselves. The very inadequacy of our knowledge is one of the most salient tokens there is of a reality out there that lies beyond the inadequate grop- ings of the mind. It is the very limitation of our knowledge of things— our recognition that reality extends beyond the horizons of what we can possibly know or even conjecture about it—that betokens the mind inde­ pendence of the real. But a qualification is in order here. One must be careful about what the presently contemplated sort of argument for realism actually manages to establish. For it does not establish outright that a stone—be it Peirce's or Dr. Johnson's or the geologist's—is something mind-independently real. Rather what it shows is that our conception of a "stone"—indeed our conception of any physical object—is the conception of something that is mind-independently real, possessed of a nature extending beyond the realm of our minds. And so the realism underwritten by these deliberations is not in fact a squarely ontological doctrine, but a realism nevertheless geared to our conceptual scheme for thinking about things. As indicated earlier, the present position is a compromise: a metaphysical realism that is unproblematically compatible with an idealism of sorts.

5. The Cognitive Inexhaustibility of Things

As the preceding deliberations indicate, one of the most fundamental aspects of our concept of a real thing is that our knowledge of it is inevitably imperfect—that reality is presumably such as to transcend what we can know of it. The number of true descriptive remarks that can be made about a thing—about any actual physical object—is theoretically inexhaustible. For example, take a stone. Consider its physical features, such as its shape, its surface texture, and its chemistry. Then consider its causal background: its subsequent genesis and history. Then consider its functional aspects as relevant to its uses by the stonemason or the architect or the landscape gardener. There is, in principle, no theoretical limit to the different lines of consideration available for articulating descriptive information about a thing, so that the totality of potentially available facts about a thing—about any real thing whatever—is in prin­ ciple inexhaustible. Cognitive Realism 101

Our thought about the real things of this world pushes them beyond any finite limits. From finitely many axioms, reason can generate a poten­ tial infinity of theorems; from finitely many words, thought can exfoliate a potential infinity of sentences; from finitely many data, reflection can extract a potential infinity of items of information. Even with respect to a world of finitely many objects, the process of reflecting upon these objects can, in principle, go on unendingly. One can inquire about their features, the features of these features, and so on. Or again, one can consider their relations, the relations among those relations, and so on. Thought—abstraction, reflection, analysis—is an inherently ampliative process. As physical mirror images can reflect one another indefinitely, so mental reflection can go on and on* Given a start, however modest, thought can advance ad indefinitum into new conceptual domains. The circumstance of its starting out from a finite basis does not mean that it need ever run out of impetus (as the example of Shakespearean scholar­ ship seems to illustrate). It is helpful to introduce a distinction at this stage. Based on anything like the standard conception of the matter, a "truth'" is something to be understood in linguistic terms—the representation of a fact through its statement in some actual language. Any correct statement in some actual language formulates a truth. (And the converse obtains as well: a truth must be encapsulated into a statement and cannot exist without linguistic embodiment.) A fact, on the other hand, is not a linguistic entity at all, but an actual circumstance or state of affairs. Anything that is correctly stat­ able in some possible language will present a fact.5 Every truth must state a fact, but in principle it is possible that there will be facts that cannot be stated in any actually available language and that thus fail to be captured as truths. Facts afford potential truths whose actualization as such hinges on there being a linguistic formulation. Truths involve a one-parameter possibilization: they include whatever can be stated truly in some actual language. Facts, on the other hand, involve a two-parameter possibilization—they include whatever can be stated truly in some possible language. Truths are actualisticalk/ language-correlative, whereas facts are posstbilistically language-correlative.'Accordingly it must be presumed that there are facts that will never be formulated as truths, although it will obviously be impossible to give concrete examples of this phenomenon.7 102 Cognitive Realism

Now propositional knowledge regarding matters of actual fact—and even belief and conjecture regarding supposed fact—is always a matter of truth recognition and thereby of linguistically formidable information. But we have no alternative to supposing that the realm of facts regarding this world is larger than the attainable body of knowledge about them— regardless of whether that "we"' is construed distributively or collectively. And it is not very difficult to see why this is and must be so. As long as we are concerned with information formulated in lan­ guages of the standard (recursively developed) sort, the number of actu­ ally articulated items of information (truths or purported truths) about a thing is always, at any historical juncture, finite. And it remains denumer- ably infinite even over a theoretically endless long run.® The domain of truth is therefore enumerable, but that of fact is not comparably manage­ able because no finite list of truths about a real object exhausts the totality of true facts about it, since old facts always combine to give rise to new ones. ft is worthwhile to examine more closelv the considerations that in- dicate the inherent imperfection of our knowledge of things.1' To begin with, it is clear that, as we ordinarily think about things within the conceptual framework of our fact-oriented thought and discourse, any real physical object has more facets than it will ever actually manifest in experience. For every objective property of a real thing has consequences of a dispositional character, and these are never survey able in toto because the dispositions that particular concrete things inevitably have endow them with an infinitistic aspect that cannot be comprehended within experience.10 My desk, for example, has a limitless manifold of phenomenal features of the type "having a certain appearance from a particular point of view." It is perfectly dear that most of these will never be actualized in experience. Moreover, a thing is what it can do: entity and lawfulness are coordinated correlates—a good Kantian point. And this fact that things demand lawful comportment means that the finitude of experience precludes any prospect of the exhaustive manifestation of the descriptive facets of any real things.11 And physical things not only have more properties than they ever will overtly manifest, they have more than they can possibly ever actually manifest. This is so because the dispositional properties of things always involve what might be characterized as mutually preemptive conditions of realization. A cube of sugar, for example, has the dispositional property Cognitive Realism 103 of reacting in a particular way if subjected to a temperature of 10,000° and of reacting in a certain way if emplaced for a hundred hours in a large, turbulent body of water But if either of these conditions is ever realized, it will destroy the lump of sugar as a lump of sugar and thus block the prospect of its ever bringing the other property to manifestation. The per­ fectly possible realization of various dispositions may fail to be mutually compossible, and so the dispositional properties of a thing cannot ever be manifested completely—not just in practice, but in principle. Our objective claims about real things always commit us to more than we can actually ever determine about them.

6, Cognitive Dynamics

The preceding considerations related to the limits of knowledge that can be rationalized on a fixed and given conceptual basis—a fully formed, devel­ oped language. But in real life languages are never fully formed and a conceptual basis is never "'fixed and given/" Even with such familiar things as birds, trees, and clouds, we am involved in a constant reconceptualiza­ tion in the course of progress in the study of genetics, evolutionary theory, and thermodynamics. Our conceptions of what things are and how they function always present a moving rather than a fixed object of scrutiny, and this historical dimension must also be reckoned with. The prospect of substantive change can never be eliminated in this domain. The properties of any real thing are literally open-ended: we can always discover more of them. Even if we were (surely mistakenly) to view the world as inherently finitistic—espousing a Keynesian principle of "limited variety" to the effect that nature can be portrayed descriptively with the materials of a finite taxonomic scheme—there will still be no a pri­ ori guarantee that the progress of science will not lead ad indefinitum to changes of mind regarding this finite register of descriptive materials. And this conforms exactly to our expectation in these matters. For as far as the real things of the world are concerned, not only do we expect to learn more about them in the course of scientific inquiry, we expect to have to change our minds about their nature and modes of comportment. Be the items at issue elm trees or volcanoes or quarks, we have every expectation that in the course of future scientific progress people will come to think about their origin and their properties differently from the way we do at this juncture. 104 Cognitive Realism

The existence of this latent (hidden, occult) sector is a crucial element of our conception of a real thing. Neither in fact nor in thought can we ever simply put it away. To say of the apple that its only features are those it actually manifests is to rim afoul of our conception of an apple. To deny— or even merely to refuse to be committed to the claim— that it would man- ifest particular features if certain conditions came about (for example, that it would have such-and-such a taste if eaten) is to be driven to withdraw­ ing the claim that it is an apple. The process of corroborating the implicit contents of our objective factual claims about something real is potentially endless, and such judgments are thus "nonterminating" in C. L Lewis's sense.12 This cognitive depth of our objective factual claims, inherent in the fact that their substantive content will always outrun the evidence we have for making them, means that the endorsement of any such claim always involves some element of evidence-transcending conjecture. In this regard, however, real things differ in an interesting and impor­ tant way from fictive ones. To make this difference plain, it is useful to distinguish between two types of information about a thing, namely that which is generic and that which is not. Generic information tells about those features of a thing that it has in common with everything else of its natural kind or type. For example, a particular snowflake will share with all others certain facts about its structure, its hexagonal form, its chemical composition, its melting point, and so forth. On the other hand, it will also have various properties that it does not share with other members of its own "lowest species" in the dassificatory order—its particular shape, for example, or the angular momentum of its descent. These are its non­ generic features. Now a key about fictional particulars is that they are of finite cognitive depth. In discoursing about them we shall ultimately run out of steam as regards their nongcneric features. A point will always be reached when one cannot say anything further that is characteristically new about them— presenting nongeneric information that is not inferentiallv implicit in what has already been said.1 ■ New generic information can, of course, always be forthcoming through the progress of science. When we learn more about coal in general, then we know more about the coal in Sherlock Holmes's grate. But the finiteness of their cognitive depth means that the presenta­ tion of amptiatively novel nongeneric information must by the very nature of the case come to a stop when fictional things are at issue. Cognitive Realism 105

With real things, on the other hand, there is no reason of principle why the provision of nongenerically idiosyncratic information need ever be terminated. On the contrary, we have every reason to presume these things to be cognitively inexhaustible. The prospect of discovery is open-ended here. A precommitment to description-transcending features—no matter how far description is pushed—is essential to our conception of a real thing. Something whose character w as exhaustible by linguistic characterization would thereby be marked as fictional rather than real.14 This cognitive opacity of real things means that we are not—and will never be—in a position to evade or abolish the contrast between " things as we think them to be" and ' things as they actually and truly are." Its susceptibility to further elaborate detail—and to changes of mind regard­ ing this further detail—is built into our very conception of a "real thing." To be a real thing is to be something regarding which we can always, in principle, acquire further new information—information that may not only supplement but even correct that which has previously been acquired. Further inquiry can always, in theory, lead us to recognize the error of our earlier ways of thinking about things—even when thoroughly familiar things are at issue, it is, after all, a fact of life that scientific progress gen­ erally entails fundamental changes of mind about how things work in the world. And of course what is true of us will be true of all other finite knowers as well.

7. The Conceptual Basis of Realism as a Postulate

Metaphysical realism is the doctrine that the world exists in a way that is substantially independent of the thinking beings it contains that can inquire into it, and that its nature—its having whatever characteristics it does actually have—is also comparably knowledge-transcending. In say­ ing of something that it is "a real thing," an object existing as part of the world's furniture, we commit ourselves to various (obviously interrelated) points:

1, Self-subsistence. Being a "something" (an entity or process) with its own unity of being. Having an enduring identity of its own. 2, Physical ity or reality. Existing within the causal order of things. Having a place on the world's physical scene as a participant of some sort. 106 Cognitive Realism

3. Publicity or accessibility. Admitting universality of access. Being some­ thing that different investigators proceeding from different points of departure can get hold of. 4. Autonomy or independence. Being independent of mind. Being some­ thing that observers find rather than create and learn about rather than define in the course of their cognitive endeavors.

The fundamental idea of realism is that the existence and nature of the world are matters distinct from anyone's thinking about it: that—minds themselves and their works aside—the world is what it is without any reference to our cognitive endeavors and that the constituents of nature are themselves impervious, as it were, to the state of our knowledge or belief regarding them. As one expositor puts it, "Even if there were no human thought, even if there were no human beings, whatever there is other than human thought (and what depends on that, causally or logi­ cally) would still he just what it actually i s " 15 Such a realism is based upon a commitment to the notion that human inquiry addresses itself to what really and truly is the condition of things whose existence and char­ acter are altogether independent of our cognitive activities. Reality is not subordinate to the operations of the human mind; on the contrary, the mind and its dealings are but a minuscule part of reality. The nature of things reaches beyond what we—or any other sort of finite being—happen to know or think. This "objectivity" in the sense of mind transcendence is pivotal for realism. A fact is objective in this mode through obtaining independently of whatever thinkers may think about relevant issues, so that changes in merely what is thought by the world's intelligences would leave it unaffected. With objective facts (unlike those that are merely a matter of inter subjective agreement), what thinkers think is never something deter­ minative: they are thought invariant or thought insensitive. Realism accordingly has two indispensable and inseparable con­ stituents—the one existential and ontological, and the other cognitive and epistemic. The former maintains that there indeed is a real world— a realm of thought-transcendent objective physical reality- The latter maintains that we can to some extent secure adequate descriptive infor­ mation about this mind-independent realm. This second contention obvi­ ously presupposes the first. But how can that first, ontological thesis be secured? Cognitive Realism 107

Metaphysical realism is dearly not an inductive inference secured through the scientific systematization of our observations. Rather it rep­ resents a regulative presupposition that makes science possible in the first place. If we did not assume from the very outset that our sensations some­ how relate to an extramental reality, we could clearly make no use of them to draw any inference whatever about ''the real world." The realm of mind- independent reality is something we cannot discover—we do not learn that it exists as a result of inquiry and investigation. How could we ever learn from our observations that our mental experience is itself largely the causal product of the machinations of a mind-independent matrix, that all those phenomenal appearances are causally rooted in a physical reality? This is obviously something we have to suppose from the very outset. What is at issue is, all too clearly, a precondition for empirical inquiry—a presup­ position for the usability of observational data as sources of objective information. That experience is indeed objective, that what we take to be evidence is evidence, that our sensations yield information about an order of existence outside the experiential realm itself, and that this experience constitutes not just a mere phenomenon but an appearance of something extra mental belonging to an objectively self-subsisting order—all this is something that we must always presuppose in using experiential data as "evidence" for how things stand in the world. The fact is that we do not learn or discover that there is a mind- independent physical reality; we have no alternative but to presume or pos­ tulate it. Objectivity represents a postulation made on functional (rather than evidential) grounds: we endorse it in order to be in a position to learn by experience at all. As Kant clearly saw, objective experience is possible only if the existence of such a real, objective world is presupposed from the out­ set rather than being seen as a matter of ex post facto discovery about the nature of things.16 To be sure, once we have made a start by accepting an objective reality and its concomitant causal aspect, more or less by sheer postulation, then principles of inductive systematization, of explanatory economy, and of common-cause consilience can work wonders in exploiting the phenomena of experience to provide the basis for plausible claims about the nature of the real. But we indispensably need that initial existential presupposition to make a start. Without a commitment from the very outset to a reality to serve as ground and object of our experience, its cognitive import will be 108 Cognitive Realism lost. Only on this basis can we proceed evidentially with the exploration of the interpersonahy public and objective domain of a physical world order that we share in common. Of course that second/ descriptive (epistemic) component of realism stands on a very different footing. Unlike its existence, reality's nature is something about which we can only make warranted claims through exam­ ining it. Substantive information must come through inquiry—through evidential validation. Once we are w illing to credit our observational data with objectivity, and thus writh evidential bearing, then we can, of course, make use of them to inform ourselves as to the nature of the real. But that initial presumption has to be there from the start. Let us consider this basic reality postulate somewhat more closely. Our standard conception of inquiry involves recognition of the following facts:

L The world {the realm of physical existence) has a nature whose charac­ terization in point of description, explanation, and prediction is the object of empirical inquiry, 2. The real nature of the world is in the main independent of the process of inquiry that the real world canalizes or conditions. 3. By virtue of these considerations, we can stake neither total nor final claims for our purported knowledge of reality. Our knowledge of the world must be presumed incomplete/ incorrect, and imperfect, with the consequence that "our reality" must be considered to afford an inadequate characterization of "reality itself,"

Our commitment to realism thus centers on a certain practical modus operand!, encapsulated in the precept "Proceed in matters of inquiry and communication on the basis that you are dealing with an objective realm, existing quite independently of the doings and dealings of minds," Accord­ ingly we usually operate on the basis of the "presumption of objectivity" reflected in the guiding precept "Unless you have good reason to think otherwise (that isf as long as nihil obstat), treat the materials of inquiry and communication as veridical—as representing the nature of the real." The ideal of objective reality is the focus of a family of effectively indispensable regulative principles—a functionally useful instrumentality that enables us to transact our cognitive business in the most satisfactory and effective way. The foundations of objectivity are thus not provided by the findings of science. They precede and underlie science, which would itself not be Cognitive Realism 109 possible without a precommitment to the capacity of our senses to war­ rant claims about an objective world order. Mind transcendence is not a product of inquiry; we must precommit ourselves to it to make inquiry as we understand it possible. It is a necessary (a priori) input into the cog­ nitive project and not a contingent (a posteriori) output thereof. The objec­ tive bearing of experience is not something we can pre-establish; it is something we must presuppose in the interest of honoring Peirce's pivotal injunction never to bar the path of inquiry. What we learn from science is not that an unobservable order of phys­ ical existence causally undergirds nature as we observe it but rather what these underlying structures are like. Science does not (cannot) teach us that the observable order is explicable in terms of underlying causes and that the phenomena of observation are signs or symptoms of this extra- and sub phenomenal order of existence; we must acknowledge this prior to any venture in developing an empirical science. It is something we must accept a priori to hold of any world in which observation as we understand it can transpire. (After all, observations are, by their very nature, results of intentions.) What science does teach us (and metaphysics cannot) is what the descriptive character of this extraphenomenal order can reasonably be supposed to be in the light of our experience of it.

8. Hidden Depths: Hie Impetus to Realism

The fact that we do and should alwrays think of real things as having hid­ den depths inaccessible to us finite knowers—that they are always cogni­ tively opaque to us to some extent—has important ramifications that reach to the very heart of the theory of communication. Any particular thing—the moon, for example—is such that two related but critically different versions can be contemplated:

1. The moon, the actual moon as it "really" is. 2> The moon as somebody (you or I or the Babylonians) conceives of it.

The crucial fact to note in this connection is that it is virtually always the former item—the thing itself—that we intend to communicate or think (= self-communicate) about, the thing £?s it is and not the thing as somebody conceives of it. Yet we cannot but recognize the justice of Kant's teaching that the "I think" (I maintain, assert, and so on) is an ever-present implicit 110 Cognitive Realism accompaniment of every claim or contention that we make* This factor of attributability dogs our every assertion and opens up the unavoidable prospect of "getting it wrong.'' However, this fundamental objectivity intent—the determination to discuss "the moon itself" (the real moon) regardless of how untenable one's own ideas about it may eventually prove to be—is a basic precondition of the very possibility of communication. It is crucial to the communicative enterprise to take the egocentrism-avoiding stance of an epistemological Copernicanism that rejects all claims to a privileged status for our own con­ ception of things. Such a conviction roots in the fact that we are prepared to "discount any misconceptions" (our own included) about things over a very wide range indeed—that we are committed to the stance that factual disagreements as to the character of things are communicatively irrelevant within enormously broad limits* We are able to say something about the (real) Sphinx thanks to our subscription to a fundamental communicative convention or "social con­ tract" to the effect that we intend ("mean") to talk about it—the very thing itself as it "really" is—our own private conception of it notwithstanding. We arrive at the standard policy that prevails with respect to all commu­ nicative convention or "social contract" to the effect that we intend ("mean") to talk about it—the very thing itself as it "really" is—our own private conception of it notwithstanding. We arrive at the standard policy that prevails with respect to all communicative discourse, that of letting "the language we use"—rather than whatever specific informative aims we may actually "have in mind" on particular occasions—be the decisive fac­ tor with regard to the things at issue in our discourse. When I speak about the Sphinx—even though I do so on the basis of my own conception of what is involved here—1 will nevertheless be taken to be discussing "the real Sphinx" by virtue of the basic conventionalized intention at issue with regard to the operation of referring terms. The phenomena that we portray by means of our distinctions (e.g., that acids turn blue litmus paper red) are certainly not mind dependent. And the categories themselves but partially so. Initially, to be sure, we project them on our own account. But whether or not they are then able to do any useful work in information development and transmission does not lie in our power. The development of descriptive and taxonomic schemes by a rational being who is concerned for matters of effectiveness and elfi- Cognitive Realism ill cacy in the cognitive realm is not a matter of free invention but of a complex negotiation with nature in which the contributions of both sides are nec­ essary and indispensable- So the point is not that the job is done entirely by mind but that it cannot be accomplished without mind-supplied con­ ceptual resources.17 Communication requires not only common concepts but also common topics—shared items of discussion, a common world of self-subsistently real an sick objects basic to shared experience. The factor of objectivity reflects our basic commitment to a shared world as the common property of communicators. Such a commitment involves more than merely de facto in ter subjective agreement. For such agreement is a matter of a posteriori discovery, whereas our view of the nature of things puts "the real world" on a necessary and a priori basis. This stance roots in the fundamental convention of a socially shared insistence on communicating—the commit­ ment to an objective world of real things affording the crucially requisite common focus needed for any genuine communication. Any pretensions to the predominance, let alone the correctness, of our own potentially idiosyncratic conceptions about things must be put aside in the context of communication. The fundamental intention to deal with the objective order of this "real world" is crucial. If our assertoric com­ mitments did not transcend the information we ourselves have on hand, we would never be able to "get in touch" with others about a shared objec­ tive world. No claim is made for the primacy of our conceptions, or for the correctness of our conceptions, or even for the mere agreement of our con­ ceptions with those of others. The fundamental intention to discuss "the thing itself" predominates and overrides any mere dealing with the thing as we ourselves conceive of it. To be sure, someone might object as follows; "But surely we can get by on the basis of personal conceptions alone, without invoking the notion of 'a thing itself/ My conception of a thing is something I can convey to you, given enough time. Cannot communication proceed by correlating and matching personal conceptions, without appeal to the intermediation of The thing itself'?" But think here of the concrete practicalities. What is "enough time"? When is the match "sufficient" to underwrite an adequate identification? The cash value of our commitment to the thing itself is that it enables us to make this identification straightaway by imputation, by fiat on the basis of modest indicators, rather than on the basis of an appeal 112 Cognitive Realism to the inductive weight of a body of evidence that is always bound to be problematic. Communication is something we set out to do, not something we ultimately discern, with the wisdom of eventual hindsight, to have accomplished retrospectively. The objectifying imputation at issue here lies at the very heart of our cognitive stance that we live and operate in a world of real and objective things. This commitment to the idea of a shared real world is crucial for communication. Its status is a priori: its existence is not something we learn of through experience. As Kant clearly saw, objective experience is pos­ sible only if the existence of such a real, objective world is presupposed at the onset rather than seen as a matter of ex post facto discovery about the nature of things. The information that we may have about a thing—be it real or pre­ sumptive information—is always just that: information that we lay claim to. We cannot but recognize that it is person-relative and in general person- differentiated. Our attempts at communication and inquiry are thus undergirded by an information-transcending stance—the stance that we communally inhabit a shared world of objectively existing things—a world of "real things" among which we live and into which we inquire but about which we do and must presume ourselves to have only imper­ fect information at any and every particular stage of the cognitive ven­ ture. This is not something we learn. The "facts of experience" can never reveal it to us. It is something we postulate or presuppose to be able to put experience to cognitive use. Its epistemic status is not that of an empirical discovery, but that of a presupposition that is a product of a transcen­ dental argument for the very possibility of communication or inquiry as we typically conceive of them. And so what is at issue here is not a matter of discovery but one of imputation. The element of community, of identity of focus, is not a matter of ex post facto learning from experience but of an a priori predetermina­ tion inherent in our approach to language use. We do not infer things as being real and objective from our phenomenal data but establish our per­ ception as authentic perception of genuine objects through the fact that these objects are given—or rather taken—as real and objectively existing things from the first. Objectivity is not deduced but imputed. We do, no doubt, purport our conceptions to be objectively correct, but whether this is indeed so is something we cannot tell with assurance until all the returns Cognitive Realism 113 arc in—that is, never. This fact renders it critically important that (and understandable why) conceptions are communicatively irrelevant. Our dis­ course reflects our conceptions and perhaps conveys them, but it is not in general substantively about them but rather about the things on which they actually or supposedly hear. We thus reach an important conjuncture of ideas. The ontological independence of things—their objectivity and autonomy of the machina­ tions of the mind—is a crucial aspect of realism. And the fact that it lies at the very core of our conception of a real thing that such items project beyond the cognitive reach of mind betokens a conceptual scheme funda­ mentally committed to objectivity The only plausible sort of ontology is one that contemplates a realm of reality that outruns the range of knowl­ edge (and indeed even of language), adopting the stance that character goes beyond the Limits of characterization. It is a salient aspect of the mind-independent status of the objectively real that the features of some­ thing real always transcend what we know about it. Indeed further or dif­ ferent facts concerning a real thing can always come to light, and all that we do say about it does not exhaust all that can and should be said about it. In this Light, objectivity is crucial to realism, and the cognitive in­ exhaustibility of things is a certain token of their objectivity.

9. The Pragmatic Foundation of Realism as a Basis for Communication and Discourse

But what is it—brute necessityJ aside—that validates those communicative presuppositions and postulations of ours? The prime factor at work here is simply our commitment to utility. Given that the existence of an objec­ tive domain of impersonally real existence is not a product of but a pre­ condition for empirical inquiry, its acceptance must be validated in the manner appropriate for postulates and prejudgments of any sort—namely in terms of its ultimate utility. Bearing this pragmatic perspective in mind, let us take a closer look at this issue of utility and ask: "What can this postulation of a mind-independent reality actually do for us?" The answer is straightforward. The assumption of a mind-independent reality is essential to the whole of our standard conceptual scheme relating to inquiry and communications. Without it both the actual conduct and the rational legitimation of our communicative and investigative (evidential) 114 Cognitive Realism

practice would be destroyed. Nothing that we do in this cognitive domain would make sense if we did not subscribe to the conception of a mind- independent reality. To begin with, we indispensably require the notion of reality to oper­ ate the classical concept of truth as "agreement with reality" (adaeqmtio ad rem). Once we abandon the concept of reality, the idea that in accepting a factual claim as true we become committed to how matters actually stand— "how it really is"—would also go by the board. The very semantics of our discourse constrain its commitment to realism; we have no alternative but to regard as real those states of affairs claimed by the contentions we are prepared to accept. Once we put a contention forward by way of serious assertion, we must view as real the states of affairs it purports, and we must sec its claims as facts. We need the notion of reality to operate the conception of truth. A factual statement on the order of "There are pi mesons" is true if and only if the world is such that pi mesons exist within it. By virtue of their very nature as truths, true statements must state facts; they state what really is so, which is exactly what it is to "characterize reality." The conceptions of truth and of reality come together in the notion of adaequatio ad rent— the venerable principle that to speak truly is to say how matters stand in reality, in that things actually are as we have said them to be. In the second place, the nihilistic denial that there is such a thing as reality would destroy once and for all the crucial Parmenidean divide between appearance and reality. And this would exact a fearful price from us: we would be reduced to talking only of what we (I, you, many of us) think to be so. The crucial contrast notion of the real truth would no longer be available: we would only be able to contrast our putative truths with those of others and could no longer operate the classical distinction between the putative and the actual, between what people merely think to be so and what actually is so. We could not take the stance that, as the Aristotelian commentator Themistius put it, "that which exists does not conform to various opinions, but rather the correct opinions conform to that which exists."1* The third point is the issue of cognitive coordination. Communication and inquiry, as we actually carry them on, are predicated on the funda­ mental idea of a real world of objective things, existing and functioning "in themselves," without specific dependence on us and so equally accessible Cognitive Realism 115 to others, Intersubjectively valid communication can only be based on common access to an objective order of things. The whole communicative project is predicated on a commitment to the idea that there is a realm of shared objects about which we as a community share questions and beliefs/ and about which we ourselves as individuals presumably have only- imperfect information that can be criticized and augmented by the efforts of others. This points to a fourth important consideration. Only through refer- ence to the real world as a common object and shared focus of our diverse and imperfect epistemic strivings are we able to effect communicative contact with one another. Inquiry and communication alike are geared to the conception of an objective world: a communally shared realm of things that exist strictly "on their own/' making up an enduring and independent realm within which—and, more importantly, with reference to which— inquiry proceeds. We could not proceed on the basis of the notion that inquiry estimates the character of the real if wre were not prepared to presume or postulate a reality for these estimates to be estimates oh It would clearly be pointless to devise our characterizations of reality if we did not stand committed to the proposition that there is a reality to be characterized. The fifth item is a recourse to mind-independent reality that makes possible a "realistic" view of our knowledge as potentially flawed. A rejection of this commitment to reality an sick (or to the actual truth about it) would exact an unacceptable price. For in abandoning this commitment we would also lose those regulative contrasts that canalize and condition our view of the nature of inquiry (and indeed shape our conception of this process as it stands within the framework of our conceptual scheme). We could no longer assert: "What we have there is good enough as far as it goes, hut it is presumably not The whole, real truth' of the matter/' The very conception of inquiry as we conceive it would have to be abandoned if the contract conceptions of "actual reality" and "the real truth" were no longer available. Without the conception of reality we could not think of our knowledge in the fallibilistic mode we actually use—as having provi­ sional, tentative, improvable features that constitute a crucial part of the conceptual scheme within whose orbit we operate our concept of inquiry. Reality (according to the traditional metaphysicians' construction of the concept) is the condition of things answering to "the real truth"; it is 116 Cognitive Realism the realm of what really is as it really is. The pivotal contrast is between "mere appearance" and "reality as such," between "our picture of reality" and "reality itself/' between what actually is and what we merely think (believe/ suppose) to be. Our allegiance to the conception of reality, and to this contrast that pivots upon it, root in the fallibilistic recognition that, at the level of the detailed specifics of scientific theory, anything we presently hold to be the case may well turn out otherwise—indeed, that it certainly will do so if past experience gives any auguries for the future. Our commitment to the mind-independent reality of "the real world" stands together with our acknowledgment that, in principle, any or all of our present scientific ideas as to how things work in the world, at any present, may well prove to be untenable. Our conviction in a reality that lies beyond our imperfect understanding of it (in all the various senses of "lying beyond") roots in our sense of the imperfections of our scientific world picture—its tentatively and potential fallibility. In abandoning our commitment to a mind-independent reality, we would lose the impetus of inquiry. Sixth and finally, we need the conception of reality in order to operate the causal model of inquiry about the real world. Our standard picture of our place in the scheme of things is predicated on the fundamental idea that there is a real world (however imperfectly our inquiry may characterize it) whose causal operations produce inter alia causal impacts upon us, pro­ viding the basis for our world picture. Reality is viewed as the causal source and basis of the appearances, the originator and determiner of the phe- nomena of our cognitively relevant experience. "The real world" is seen as causally operative both in serving as the external molder of thought and as constituting the ultimate arbiter of the adequacy of our theorizing, (Think here again of C S. Peirce's "Harvard experiment.") In summary, then, we need that postulate of an objective order of mind- independent reality for at Least six important reasons:

1. To preserve the distinction between true and false with respect to fac­ tual matters and to operate the idea of truth as agreement with reality. 2. To preserve the distinction between appearance and reality, between our picture of reality and reality itself. 3* To serve as a basis for in ter subjective communication. 4. To furnish the basis for a shared project of communal inquiry. Cognitive Realism in

5. To provide for the faJlibilistic view of human knowledge. 6* To sustain the causal mode of learning and inquiry and to serve as the basis for the objectivity of experience.

The conception of a mind-independent reality accordingly plays a cen­ tral and indispensable role in our thinking about communication and cog­ nition. In both areas alike we seek to offer answers to our questions about how matters stand in this "objective reaim/' and the contrast between "the real" and its "merely phenomenal" appearances is crucial here. Moreover, this is also seen as the target and telos of the truth estimation process at issue in inquiry providing for a common focus in communication and communal inquiry. "The real world" thus constitutes the "object" of our cognitive endeavors in both senses of this term—the objective at which they are directed and the purpose for which they are exerted. And reality is seen as pivotal here, affording the existential matrix within which we move and have our being, and whose impact upon us is the prime mover for our cognitive efforts. All of these facets of the concept of reality are integrated and unified in the classical doctrine of truth as it corresponds to fact (iadaequatio ad rent), a doctrine that only makes sense within the setting of a commitment to mind-independent reality. Accordingly the justification for this fundamental presupposition of objectivity is not evidential at all; postulates are not based on evidence. Rather it is functional. We need this postulate to operate our conceptual scheme. The justification of this postulate accordingly lies in its utility. We could not form our existing conceptions of truth, fact, inquiry, and com­ munication without presupposing the independent reality of an external world. We simply could not think of experience and inquiry as we do. (What we have here is a "transcendental argument" of sorts from the character of our conceptual scheme to the acceptability of its inherent pre­ suppositions,) The primary validation of that crucial objectivity postulate lies in its basic functional utility in relation to our cognitive aims. It is worthwhile to explore the implications of this circumstance more fully. The commitment to an objective reality that lies behind the data that people secure is indispensably demanded by any step into that domain of publicly accessible objects that is essential to communal inquiry and inter­ personal communication about a shared world. We do—and must—adopt 118 Cognitive Realism

the standard policy that prevails with respect to all communicative dis­ course of letting the language we use, rather than whatever specific informative aims we may actually have in mind on particular occasions, be the decisive factor with regard to the things at issue in our discourse. For if we were to set up our own conception of things as somehow definitive and decisive, we would at once erect a barrier not only to further inquiry but also—no less important—to the prospect of successful communication with one another. The factor of objectivity reflects our basic commitment to a communally available world as the common property of communi­ cators. What links my discourse with that of my interlocutor is our common subscription to the governing presumption (a defensible presumption, to be sure) that we arc both talking about the shared thing, our owm pos­ sible misconceptions of it notwithstanding. This means that no matter how extensively we may change our minds about the nature of a thing or type of thing, w e are still dealing with exactly the same thing or sort of thing. Accordingly, the presumption is required to assure efficient reiden­ tification across discordant theories and belief systems. And so an important lesson emerges. The rationale for a commitment to ontological objectivity is in the final analysis functionally or pragmati­ cally driven. Without a presuppositional commitment to objectivity, w'ith its acceptance of a real wwld independent of ourselves that w*e share in com­ mon, interpersonal communication would become impracticable. Objec­ tivity is an integral part of the sine qua non presuppositional basis for the project of meaningful communication. To reemphasize, if our own subjec­ tive conceptions of things were to be determinative, informative commu­ nication about a world of shared objects and processes would be rendered unachievable. Our concept of a real thing is such that it provides a fixed point, a stable center around which communication revolves, an invariant focus of potentially diverse conceptions. What is to be determinative, decisive, definitive of the things at issue in my discourse is not my conception, or yours, or indeed anyone's conception at all. The conventionalized intention discussed means that a coordination of conceptions is not decisive for the possibility of communication. Your statements about a thing may well con­ vey something to me even if my conception of it is altogether different from yours. To communicate we need not take ourselves to share views of the world, but only take the stance that w e share the world being discussed. Cognitive Realism m

This commitment to an objective reality that underlies the data at hand is indispensably demanded by any step into the domain of the publicly acces­ sible objects essential to communal inquiry and interpersonal communica­ tion about a shared world. We could not establish communicative contact about a common objective item of discussion if our discourse were geared to the substance of our own idiosyncratic ideas and conceptions.

10. The Idealistic Aspect of Metaphysical Realism

Realism, then, is a position to w'hich we are constrained not by the push of evidence but by the pull of purpose. Initially, at any rate, a commitment to realism is an input into our investigation of nature rather than an output thereof. At bottom, it does not represent a discovered fact, but a method­ ological presupposition of our praxis of inquiry; its status is not constitu­ tive (fact-descriptive) but regulative (praxis-facilitating). Realism is not a factual discovery but a practical postulate justified by its utility or service­ ability in the context of our aims and purposes, seeing that if we did not take our experience to serve as an indication of facts about an objective order we would not be able to validate any objective claims whatsoever. (To be sure, what we can—and do—ultimately discover is that by taking this real­ istic stance we are able to develop a praxis of inquiry and communication that proves effective in the conduct of our affairs.) The ontological thesis that there is a mind-independent physical reality to which our inquiries address themselves more or less adequately—and always imperfectly—is the key contention of realism. But on the telling of the presenting analysis, this basic thesis has the epistemic status of a pre- suppositional postulate that is initially validated by its pragmatic utility and ultimately retro validated by the satisfactory results of its implemen­ tation (in both practical and theoretical respects). Our commitment to realism is, on this account, initially not a product of our inquiries about the world; rather it reflects a facet of how we conceive the world. The sort of realism contemplated here is accordingly one that pivots on the fact that we think of reals in a certain sort of way, and that in fact the very concep­ tion of the real is something we employ because doing so serves our ends and purposes. Now insofar as realism ultimately rests on a pragmatic basis, it is not based on considerations of independent substantiating evidence about how7 120 Cognitive Realism things actually stand in the worlds but rather on considering, as a matter of practical reasoning, how we do {and must) think about the world within the context of the projects to which we stand committed. In this way the commitment to a mind-independent reality plays an essentially utilitarian role, providing a functional requisite for our intellectual resources (specif­ ically for our conceptual scheme in relation to communication and inquiry). Realism thus harks back to the salient contention of classical idealism that values and purposes play a pivotal role in our understanding of the nature of things. And we return also to the characteristic theme of idealism—the active role of the knower not only in the constituting but also in the com stitution of what is known. To be sure, this sort of idealism is not substantive hut methodological. It is not a rejection of real objects that exist independently of mind and as such arc causally responsible for our objective experience; quite the reverse, it is designed to facilitate their acceptance. But it insists that the justifica­ tory rationale for this acceptance lies within a framework of mind-suppiied purpose. For our commitment to a mind-independent reality is seen to arise not from experience but for it—for the sake of putting us into a posi­ tion to exploit our experience as a basis for validating inquiry and commu­ nication with respect to the objectively real. "Reality as such" is no doubt independent of our beliefs and desires, but what can alone concern us is reality as we view it. And the only view of reality that is available to us is one that is devised by us under the aegis of principles of acceptability that we subscribe to because doing so serves our purposes. A position of this sort is in business as a realism all right. But seeing that it pivots on the character of our concepts and their modus operand!, it transpires that the business premises it occupies are actually mortgaged to idealism. The fact that objectivity is the fruit of communicative purpose allows idealism to infiltrate into the realist's domain. And the idealism at issue cuts deeper yet No doubt we are firmly and irrevocably committed to the idea that there is a physical realm out there that al! scientific inquirers inhabit and examine alike. We hold to a single, uniform physical reality, insisting that all investigations exist within and investigate it: this one single, shared realism, this one single manifold of physical objects and laws. But this very idea of a single, uniform domain of physical objects and laws represents just exactly that— an idea of ours. Cognitive Realism 121

And the idea is itself a matter of how we find it convenient and efficient to think about things: it is no more—although also no less—than the pro­ jection of a theory devised to sort out the needs and conveniences of our intellectual situation. This approach endorses an object-level realism that rests on a presup- positional idealism at the justificatory infralevel. We arrive, paradoxical as it may seem, at a realism that is founded, initially at least, on a fundamen­ tally idealistic basis—a realism whose ultimate justificatory basis is ideal. A meaningful realism can exist only in a state of tension. For the only reality worth having is one that is in some degree knowable. And so it is the very limitation of our knowledge—our recognition that there is more to reality than what we do and can know or ever conjecture about it—that speaks for the mind independence of the real. It is important to stress against the skeptic that the human mind is sufficiently well attuned to reality that some knowledge of it is possible. But it is no less important to join with realists in stressing the independent character of reality, acknowl­ edging that reality has a depth and complexity of makeup that outruns the reach of mind. SEVEN

Induction as Enthymematic Reasoning A Pragmatic Perspective on Inference to the Best Systematization

1. Euthymemes

Enthymematic reasoning is one of the inferential resources most commonly encountered in cognitive practice* What is involved is an exercise in infor­ mational gap filling: an enthymeme is an argument with missing premises. We are given some of the premises and know or conjecture the conclusion, but we understand that other needed premises are missing. Without loss of generality one might as well take the stance that only one single premise is missing in an enthymeme* For if several were, we could reduce this plurality to one by the device of conjunction. The problem of identifying this missing enthymematic premise becomes more definite and tractable if we adopt the convention that the missing premise is to be the weakest nondisjunctive proposition that enables the speci­ fied conclusion to be derived from the given premises♦ Thus consider the following enthymemes, in which X represents the missing premise: .r is an integer p F(a) x > 3 (i) X____ (2) X_____ (3) X______p & q (V.r )Fx x > 5

On the indicated approach, the missing enthymematic premises in these three cases are qr (V.r)(r - Fx), and (x ± 4) & (x * 5), respectively.

122 Induction as Enthymematic Reasoning 123

The reason for the italicized nondisjunctiveness condition is readily exhibited in connection with argument (1). It is clear that since X = q does the job here, so will X = q v ~pf which is clearly not what is wanted. The fact that the enthymematic premise X is to be the weakest addi­ tional (nondisjunctive) statement capable of yielding the conclusion means that the conclusion must entail X. For if this were not so, then X would have an excess of information over and above what is required. Accordingly the inference from the premises to the conclusion is enthymematic when the following conditions obtain:

1. Not: Premises b Conclusion (where b represents deductive entailment) 2* But indeed: Premises + X h Conclusion 3. And further: Conclusion b X 4. However, not: X h Conclusion 5. Moreover, for any 2 , if Premises + Zh Conclusion, then X b Z

Note that we have it by (2) that Premises b X z> Conclusion, and by (3) that b Conclusion n X. We therefore have it that

Premises b X = Conclusion.

Thus, in the presence of the given premises, the conclusion itself is mate­ rially (he., truthwise) equivalent with the enthymematic premise. However, because it is specifically material equivalence that is at issue this result is harmless. Specifically it does not mean that enthymemes are trivial in that the conclusion itself will serve as the missing enthymematic premise. Identifying that missing enthymematic premise need not be a trivial task.

2. The Enthymematic Approach to Induction

The term induction is derived from the Latin rendering of Aristotle's epagoge the process for moving to a generalization from its specific instances.1 Gradually extended over an increasingly wider range, it has ultimately come to embrace all nondemonstrative argumentation in which the prem­ ises do (or are purported to) build up a case of good supportive reasons for drawing the conclusion while still falling short of yielding it with the demonstrative force of logical deduction (seeing that it always remains log­ ically possible with inductive arguments to admit the premises and deny the conclusion).2 124 Induction as Enihymwuitic Reasoning

This informational shortfall reflects a crucial facet of the matter. It means that an inductive inference can always be looked upon as an aspir­ ing but failed deductive inference, in short an enthymeme: an argument in whose formulation some crucially necessary premise is lacking, so that a larger conclusion is based on lesser premises. This is exemplified by such cases as the following arguments, in which the enthymematically tacit premises needed to make the argument deductively cogent has been bracketed:

Spaniels eat meat Schnauzers eat meat Corgis eat meat ______/.All dogs eat meat There is smoke yonder ______.-. There is fire yonder Two-thirds of the items in the sample are defective ______Two-thirds of the items in the whole population are defective

This enthymematic approach takes the step of transforming an induc­ tive argument into a deductive one by injecting the idea of a missing or suppressed premise that is required to make the argument fully (i.e., deductively) cogent. Viewed in deductive perspective, induction is a mat­ ter of assuming or presuming something that is not actually an item of available knowledge, We must at any rate accept the burden of Hume's critique of induction to this extent, that we take inductive arguments as normally presented to be deductively incomplete and thus—in requiring the addition of further premises—must accept that they fail as they stand to present a deductively cogent process of reasoning. What is at issue with this enthymematic perspective on induction is accordingly a complex maneuver that takes the following form. We begin with a certain question: What will all breeds of dogs eat? What does yon­ der smoke portend? Within the setting afforded by the body K of reliable information that is already in hand, we then look to that possible answer to our question whose enthymematic derivation from the available infor­ mation involves the best-evidentiated supplementation. Induction as Enthym&nalic Reasoning 125

On this basis the salient inductive task is to determine which one of the possible answers to the question at issue involves that enthymematic addendum which is, relative to the given data of K, the evidentially optimal (or minimally implausible) alternative at our disposal. For the sake of a concrete illustration of this abstract formulation, consider the following situation. Several observers have seen a three-letter scrawl inscribed almost illegibly (in an English-language setting). They agree that they could make out all of the letters except fo r the first one, thus yielding the result that the word in question is of the pattern (?)AN. Only three of the observers thought they could make out the first letter. One interpreted it to be a G, another made it out as a C, and a third saw it as an O, What conclusion can be drawn from these data as to the identity of the uncertain letter? Note first of all that the data authorize no decisive answer to the question of the problematic letter. No definite conclusion can be drawn from them by deductive means. We must proceed inductively, since the body of explicitly given information does not suffice to determine (deduc­ tively entail) any one of the possible answers to our question as correct. As we begin with our conjectural canvassing of feasible alternatives for the missing letter, a plurality of (incompatible) possibilities confront us. Given that an English-language context is at issue, this letter could be anything from A to Z. Accordingly the process of alternative elimination must be initiated. Here we may treat the thesis that "An ordinary English word is at issue" as a fixed constraint (Le., a maximally plausible thesis that we would only abandon in extremis). And so—supposing that names can be ruled out—it emerges that the more limited list BAN, CANr FAN, M AN , PAN, RAN,. ♦ * encompasses the possibilities (i,e., all are proper English words). The specified consideration of plausibility thus still leaves before us a sizable (but nevertheless limited) spectrum of alternative feasible answers to our question. But note further that ail of the usable reports agree on one point: the letter in question has a C-shaped left-hand side. Thus just four of the theoretically possible alternatives, the letters from A to Z—namely C, Gf O, and Q—have a higher plausibility than the rest. Since only one of these alternatives, C, also meets the preceding condition of yielding an ordinary English word, we accept it as yielding the appropriate solution. On this basis, our reductive analysis will result in CAN as the inductively appropriate result that affords our best estimate of the word at issue.3 126 Induction as Enthymematic Reasoning

3, Induction as Estimation

Conceived of along the foregoing lines, induction is not so much a process of inference as one of estimation—its conclusion is not so much extracted (or derived) from data as suggested (or indicated) by them. It involves filling a gap in our information. And clearly we want to accomplish this gap­ filling step in the least risky, minimally problematic wav, as determined by plausibilistic best-fit considerations. Induction accordingly leaps to its conclusion instead of literally deriving it from the given premises by drawing the conclusion from them through some extractive process. Whewell put the point nicely. "Deduction/' he wrote, "descends steadily and methodically, step by step: Induction mounts by a leap which is out of the reach of method [or, at any rate, mechanical routine]. She bounds to the top of the stairs at once/'4 We cannot pass by any sort of inference or cognitive calculation from the "premises" of an inductive "argument" to its "conclusion" because (ex hypothesi) this would be a deductive non sequitur—the conclusion (in the very nature of the case) asserts something regarding which its premises are altogether silent.5 Clearly the paradigm mode of inference—of actually deriving a conclusion from the premises—is actual deduction f and this paradigm does not fit induction smoothly. As one writer has felicitously put Lt, our inductive "conclusions" are "not derived from the observed facts, but invented in order to account for them."7 It has been a common tendency among recent cognitive theorists to think of induction as a process of inference—a matter of characteristic modes of ampliative inference for drawing larger conclusions from informatively lesser premises. The present approach is very different in its orientation. It sees induction not as a characteristic mode of drawing conclusions but as an estimation technique, a methodology for obtaining answers to our factual questions through optimal exploitation of the information at our disposal. Thus regarded, induction is at bottom an erotettc (question- answering) rather than an inferential (conclusion-deriving) procedure. In view of the information transcendence at issue in such truth esti­ mation, we know that induction does not guarantee the truth of its product. Indeed if the history of science has taught us any one thing, it is that the best estimate of the truth that we can make at any stage of the cognitive game is generally to be seen, with the wisdom of hindsight, as being far induction as Entbymcmaiic Reasoning 127 off the mark* Nevertheless the fact remains that the inductively indicated answer does in fact afford our best available estimate of the true answer— in the sense of that one for whose acceptance as true the optimal overall case can be constructed with the instruments at hand. We are not—and presumably will never be—in a position to stake a totally secure and unblinkingly final claim to the truth in matters of scien­ tific interest. But we certainly can make our best estimate of the truth of the matter. And inductive systematization in the context of the available background information is nothing other than the process for making out this rationally best case, In the enthymematic circumstances of the case we have and can have no logically airtight guarantee that the "inductively appropriate" answer is true. The inductively appropriate answer is the correct one, not categorically but by way of estimation—"as best we can determine it,"s Induction is and remains an estimation procedure. The fact that we have an inductively warranted answer in hand can never be taken as a basis for shutting the door to further inquiry. Since a process of truth estimation is at issue, inductive cogency as such cannot provide a theoretically fail-safe basis for answering our questions about how things stand in the world. Indeed the history of our cognitive endeavors shows the fallibility of induction only too clearly. There is no justification—and no need—for maintaining that induction is an inherently idyllic mode of truth estimation; all that need be argued is that it is the best one we have. The accuracy or "validity" (as it is generally called) of an estimation process—its capacity in general to yield estimates that arc close to the true value—cannot in the present case be assessed directly since we have no inquiry-independent way of getting at the truth of things. Such a view of induction as a procedure for truth estimation contrasts importantly with certain alternative approaches. For one thing it rejects the notion that induction is a theory about the constitution of nature. (How, save inductively, could such a theory ever be substantiated?) Moreover it denies that induction is a rule of inference that moves ampliatively from lesser premises to larger conclusions. For the legitimation of such a rule would have to involve some sort of rule-warranting thesis whose status would be vitiatingly problematic. Its avoidance of such difficulties yields important advantages for the estimative approach to induction from the standpoint of justificatory argumentation. Here we can—and should—rest content with the plausible resource of faute de rnieux argumentation. 128 Induction as Entbymematic Reasoning

4, Difficulties with inference to the Best Explanation

In recent decades "inference to the best explanation" (1TBE) has become a very fashionable mode of reasoning in epistemology and philosophy of science, as well as other areas of philosophy9 But although the idea of ITBE seems very appealing at first, it rims into difficulty when one looks more closely into the details. One salient problem with ITBE is posed by the question of just what "best" is to mean here. Is it the best possible or the best available? If the former, the theory is trivialized. For the best possible explana­ tion of a fact is of course the actual explanation of that fact—the real, true, authentic explanation of its obtaining. That this explanation is true is no problem. But of course the fact that the best possible explanation is bound to be the true one is of no help whatever in a situation of inquiry. It is just this that w e are trying to find. On the other hand, if that "best" explanation is the best one available— the best within the range of our current contemplation—then we confront the potentially embarrassing question of whether the best among the currently contemplated alternatives is really good enough. What assurance have we for accepting it as the actual truth of the matter? Consider an example. A plane crashes. The investigative committee issues its report. Its bottom line is that the evidence is indecisive, and it therefore leaves open several potential explanations: mechanical failure with a probability of 45 percent, human error with a probability of 35 per­ cent, and other possibilities with an aggregate probability of 20 percent. On this basis mechanical failure appears to be the best explanation. Yet we would surely do well to hesitate to accept it as the truth considering that it is more likely false than not.KI Suppose it to be known only that someone won a prize for good work in language study at an American girls school early in the present century. The question arises: What sort of prize was she awarded? Given the cir­ cumstances, the inductively indicated answer is dearly a book, consider­ ing the predominant popularity of books for this sort of purpose. Yet there is no ITBE operative here. For what is being explained? That she was given a book? But this is the very item in question and not a given fact in need of explanation. That she won a prize? Surely the best explanation of this is that she did superior work. Although the model of ITBE works induction as Enthymmatic Reasoning m splendidly in some inductive contexts (e.g., the move from the smoke to the fire), it simply does not work in general.11 Therefore induction is, according to our approach, seen as a matter of inference to the best systematization rather than one of inference to (or, strictly speaking, conjecture of) the best explanation*ni After all, what does the idea of a "best explanation" involve? And explanation of what? The sensible reading of what it is whose explanation is to be at issue is "the actual facts," We usually have some fact or other in view and are concerned with (1) looking for its possible explanations and then (2) accept­ ing as actual that one among the available (i,e,, knowledge-consonant) possibilities that could best explain it—that is, would (if true) do better at evidentiating or probabilifying the fact than would its competitors. Thus if we want to explain why it is that the light went out, then among the available explanations we have the following: "someone turned it off," or "there was a power failure," or "some other appliance blew the fuse," and so on. Presumably the first of these alternatives is the best available expla­ nation in the circumstance, and so the 1TBE principle at issue would have it that this is the explanation to infer. But there are big problems here. For one thing, no considerations of general principle can assure the best available explanation of fact A compatible with the best available explanation of fact B, A small mammal flits across the field. X claims it is a ferret; Y claims it is a lynx. The best explanation of X's claim is that it is in fact a ferret. The best explanation of Y's claim is that it is in fact a lynx. But wc cannot have it both ways, (Ironically it was in actuality a cat— which is dearly something that scarcely qualifies as the best explanation of the facts at hand.) Following the guidance of ITBE could easily embroil us in inconsistency. What really follows from "The proposition p forms part of our cur­ rently best available explanation of the fact/"? Certainly not that p is actu­ ally true (we have just seen that). And it does not even follow that "it is reasonable to believe that p." For the given premise does nothing to assure that not-p might not be part of the best available explanation of some other fact. Thus let it be that we are concerned with the contention "The butler did it," Then although this may indeed be part of the best available expla­ nation of one fact (Sir Reginald's being poisoned)—seeing that the butler had ample opportunity and motive—nevertheless its negation might well 150 Induction as Enlbymmalic Reasoning

be part of the best available explanation of some other fact (say that the butler had also taken a swig from the whiskey bottle into which the poi­ son had been put). The inference from explanatory optimality of truth is impeded by the consideration that explanatory optimality is generally a local phenomenon whereas truth is by nature global and context independ­ ent. In terms of the practical politics of the matter, optimal systematization is the best we can do.

5. Further Problems

As though all this were not bad enough, there is yet another substantial difficulty with the realistic construa! of optimal explanations. For how is the merit at issue with optimality to be construed? The crucial fact is that explanations arc the sort of thing in which various different criteria of merit come into play, including the truth (or probable truth) of the prem­ ises, the tightness with which these premises entail the conclusion, and the specificity of that conclusion. Now the trouble with situations of multicriterial merit is that they dis­ assemble the idea of "the best" and leave it suspended in a deconstructive limbo. Consider an analogy. I commission you to go forth and buy "the best car" for me. At once you are faced with a proliferation of criteria of merit: purchase economy, operating economy, crash safety, breakdown frequency, acceleration, road performance, stability, comfort—all these fac­ tors, and more, enter into the decision. And these play off against one another in potential conflict. No sensible person wants a car that is super­ safe but has a top speed of 5 miles per hour; virtually nobody wants a car that is the last word in passenger comfort but spends much of its time in the repair shop getting all those springs refitted and cushions readjusted. In general, when criteria of merit play off against each other in this way, you cannot maximize them all at once but must instead pay for an increase in one at the price of decreases in others. The very idea of categorical optimality thus runs into problems here. And this is certainly so with respect to explanation as well, because the idea of "the best explanation" is caught up in exactly this bind of possibility-conflicting desiderata.1 Many distinct and different parameters of merit dearly come into play with explanations: Induction as EnthymemaHc Reasoning 151

1. The here-and-now availability of all the information that the explana­ tion requires. 2. The simplicity and elegance of the explanatory account. 3* The probability of the evidential premises. 4. The probability of the explanatory conclusion relative to the explana­ tory premises. 5. The extent to which the evidential premises render the evidential conclusion more probable than it otherwise would be. 6. The definiteness of the explanatory conclusion relative to possible alternatives. 7. The overall extent of relevant evidence that is taken into account.

The fly■** in the ointment is that these desiderata can come into conflict. Consider, for example, criterion (4), which stipulates that pr(c/p) is high, that is, close to 1. (Here c is the explanatory conclusion and p the conjunc­ tion of the explanatory premises.) This means that

pr(c & p) pr(c/p) ~ ------= 1 so that pr(p) = pr(c & p). pr(p)

But now consider criterion (5). It asks that pr(c/p) be a good deal greater than pr(c)f so that

pr(c/p) » pr(c).

However, this relationship, that

pr{c & p) pr(c/p) = ------— » pr(c), pr(p) in its turn means that

pr(c & p) » pr(c.) x pr(p).

But if, as already stated, pr(p) ~ pr(c & p), this means that

1 » pr{ c).

In other words, pr(c) must be very small. On this basis, really good expla­ nations can never be supplied for facts that are a priori probable. But this is a clearly anomalous result. It is often precisely because a phenomenon is deemed probable (its being very likely, for example, that the sun will rise 132 Induction as Entbymematic Reasoning

tomorrow or that a high temperature will melt the ice) that a good expla­ nation is readily available for it. The fact of the matter is that, exactly as with the automobile case cited earlier, it simply makes no sense to ask for the concurrent all-at-once satis­ faction of all those various criteria of evidential merit. For with simplicity, plausibility, comprehensiveness, consilience, and analogy we confront a condition of potential tension and conflict.14 The salient problem here can be put in a nutshell. The theory of induc­ tive ITBE is predicated on the idea that there generally or usually is such a thing as "the best explanation" in inductive situations. And this is surely not the case because generic optimality evades us here. One explanation may well be better than another in this or that respect, but there will not, in general, be one that is the absolute best in every relevant respect. More problematic yet is the question of whether better explanations thereby qualify as better prospects for truths. Let us look at the situation in the light of probabilistic considerations. Let /be a fact, or fact complex, and let it be that the explanatory hypothesis hl affords a better (i.e., more probable) explanation of this fact than does some rival hypothesis Does this enable us to infer that, relative to this fact complex, h{ is more likely than h2? Suppose that hypothesis probabilities the fact f to a greater extent than /in does:

i . prif/hj > pr(f/h )

Let us now ask what further conditions (if any) h] and K must satisfy to enable us to infer that

2- pr(h^/f) > pr(h2/f).

Observe that by virtue of the definition of conditional probability (1) is tan­ tamount to

pr(f & /r,) pr( f & > ' d. pr(h,) pr(h2) or equivalently Induction as Entbymematic Reasoning 133

Now dividing both sides here by pr(f) we have

pr(f& /),) pr(/;,) pr(/&/i,) pr(f) pr(h2) pr(f) or equivalently

) P’Vi, /})> — —— x pr(hjf). Pr(h2)

On this basis (1) enables us to infer (2) just exactly when

pHh,) P>ih2) or equivalently

< pr(K).

That is, to make this desired inference securely we must have it that It,-4m is a priori more likely than hy And so our envisioned inference from (i) to {2) will work out exactly if the explanatory hypothesis h, is (uncondition­ ally) more probable than in other words, the probabilistically better explanation is thereby the comparatively more acceptable only if it is also a priori less likely- But this clearly goes against the grain, seeing that it is implausible to make such a demand for explanatory shots in the dark. It follows from such considerations that ITBE argumentation cannot deliver the sorts of results that this mode of reasoning is actually intended and designed to achieve. Best-exp la nation reasoning is not all that it is cracked up to be.

6. Best Systematization as a Viable Alternative

On the other hand, a recourse to the idea of best systematization offers a distinctly more promising alternative to that of best explanation.^ A propo­ sition that is part of our best available systematization of all the relevant facts is not thereby necessarily true, but it indeed is thereby qualified to count as our best available estimate of the truth. To be sure, the present conjecture of a "best-systematization" approach to induction does indeed bear some points of kinship to the more familiar ITBE approach, seeing that in many cases the route to the best answer is 134 Induction as ErUhymematic Reasoning

bound to proceed via the best explanation.16 However, the two approaches are by no means identical, and the advantages lie with the former. Thus suppose, for example, that we want to know "Is p the case or not?" in a circumstance in which Smith, a generally reliable source, reports that p (and wrhere no other significant information regarding the truth status of p is otherwise available). Our present, enthymematic-plausibilistic approach would lead us to maintain that p is true—which is clearly the inductively appropriate answer to the question at hand. Its reasoning would run roughly along the lines of the following enthymeme:

Smith generally speaks the truth [ex hypothesi] ______a Smith speaks the truth in this case (In this case) Smith says that p [ex hypothesil ,m.p is true

The enthymematic premise at issue ("This case conforms to the general run") is clearly more plausible than the available alternatives in the cir­ cumstances here being assumed including the absence of counterindica­ tions of any sort. And so, given the conditions of the problem, the argument runs a smooth course to the desired conclusion. By contrast, how- ever, an ITBE approach would not enable us to get past "Smith believes that p "—which is, after all, a vastly better explanation of Smith's saying that p than p's actually being the case would be.17 Systematization is a resource of cognitive validation that is signifi­ cantly different from explanation. Explanation is a retail commodity: one generally explains facts one at a time. But systematization is a wholesale commodity. It will, by the very idea of the thing itself, be boundlessly syn­ optic. And so the many-factors objective to a "best explanation" is not operative with regard to a best systematization. For whereas an explana­ tion can be better or worse in this or must comprehend and balance out all relevant facts concurrently and overall, we cannot appropriately "infer" the best explanation E1 of a fact f\ precisely because there may be some other fact f1 whose best explanation is incompatible with the aforemen­ tioned E v But with systematization the matter stands differently. By its very nature, systematization must be coherent overall. We must not, however, speak or think of inference to the best system­ atization, for there is no question here of inference. Systematization is not induction as Enthymeimtic Reasoning 135 a matter of conclusion drawing but of construction: we do not infer a system from the data but construct it on that basis. What we can infer here, and all we can "infer'7 on the basis of the general adequacy of the system, is acceptability as such. That is to say we have good reason for accepting the best overall account we can provide as thereby true—or at any rate as affording us the best estimate of the truth that is available in the circumstances. To be sure, it has been objected against an epistemic acceptance crite- riology based on explanatory coherence that "two systems of belief may each have a maximum of explanatory coherence and yet be inconsistent with each other."1* But this objection does not hold against an explanatory systematization epistemology. For systematization requires both coherence and a maximum of achievable comprehensiveness. And the worry that a coherent set of beliefs 5 , may endorse P while another set endorses not-P vanishes in the face of the consideration that what matters is where 5 , + $2 stands.19 Issue resolution via optimal systematization is clearly the sensible direction for developing a coherentist epistemology. It is ironic that what some writers see as instances of best-explanation argumentation on closer inspection actually turn out to be nothing other than best-systematization projection. For example, one recent author claims that the following question "shows that Darwin's argument in The Origin of Species consists in showing that his [evolutionary] theory provides the best explanation": "It can hardly be supposed that a false theory would explain, in so satisfactory a manner as does the theory of natural selection, the several large classes of facts above specified. It has recently been objected that this is an unsafe method of arguing; but it is a method used in judging of the common events of life, and has often been used by the greatest natural philosophers/'20 But, as Darwin's emphasis on "the sev­ eral large classes of facts" at issue makes all too clear, it is not with explain­ ing this or that fact but rather with explanatory systematization overall that he is concerned.31 But does this idea of optimal systematization not run into a difficulty analogous to that encountered previously—a problem of potentially dis­ cordant criteria of merit for systems? The answer is negative. For although systems can indeed display various sorts of merits or defects, these are not involved in a potential conflict or tension. For all of them are subordinate to one single uniform governing desideratum: the overall efficacy and 136 induction as Enlbymmatic Reasoning economy of intellectual effort. Economy of cognitive operation is the bot­ tom line for systematization. And it provides for an across-the-board basis of comparison. With systematization the critical factor of merit is that of economy overall, and from the angle of economic costs we can indeed compare apples and oranges. As the previous deliberations indicate, a thesis that forms part of the best (available) explanation of a fact need certainly not thereby be true or indeed even probable (unlike one that forms part of the only explanation of a fact). But any thesis—explanatory ones included—that forms part of the optimal systematization of the facts in general must for that very reason square with our best understanding of the overall situation. And on this ground alone we can plausibly view it as endowed with a natural warrant for acceptance, seeing that systematization to all appearances affords the best route to truth estimation that is at our disposal.

7. Induction ns a Practical Resource

With these deliberations about systematization in mind, we can profitably return to the question of how induction is to be justified. What is it that rationally validates our enthymematic leap beyond the information at hand? The answer lies in the very fact of its essentially pivotal role. Ideally we would, of course, hope and prefer to substantiate all our beliefs and our actions on the basis of confirming evidence. But a very different, nonevidential mode of validation has also been contemplated, namely the so-called demonstration by utility (demonstratio ab utili). Over the centuries, philosophers from Pascal to Kant and William James have both used and defended argumentation of this kind. Utility-based argumentation takes both a theoretical and a practical form. In the theoretical mode the reasoning at issue has the following format:

♦ We require an answer to question Q. ♦ In the prevailing state of knowledge we cannot obtain an answer to Q if (but only if) we accept the supposition S. ♦ In consequence we are rationally entitled to accept the supposition S, provided it does not conflict with facts that are firmly evidentiated on other grounds. induction as Enthymematic Reasoning 137

By contrast the practical form of utility-based argumentation has the fol­ lowing format;

* Problem P {an essentially practical problem of decision) must be resolved if we are to achieve an inherently appropriate objective that we deem essential. * In the prevailing circumstances we cannot resolve P unless we pro­ ceed via the performatory process A. * Then we are rationally entitled to proceed A-vvise provided this does not conflict with the realization of higher-priority needs and obligations.

Consider the following examples:

* Only by assuming that an illegible word is actually tree can one make sense of the text under consideration. * Only by assuming that the text before us was written with informative (fact-presenting) intent (rather than, say, as an orthographic or gram­ matical exercise) can we secure the information we require. * Only by assuming that the train is running somewhat late can wtc pos­ sibly keep our appointment. (And we can only assume this; we cannot get to know it until after we have arrived at the station.)

What we are dealing with throughout is not a matter of evidentiated fact determination but one of a pragmatically justifiable assumption. Of course the proposition that is at issue in these cases—"The missing word is tree," "The text is factual/' "The train is a few minutes late"— is in each case a factual contention. The difference is one of epistemic status, as between a contention that is validated evidentially and one that is validated by prag­ matic considerations, Rationality, that is to say, is a two-track process that can proceed by way of either evidential or pragmatic considerations. Admittedly induction's enthymematic character invokes what is decid­ edly a move beyond the evidence at hand. By hypothesis, such an evidence- transcending leap cannot be made on evidential grounds. And so, as this perspective indicates, induction is not so much a theoretical as a practical resource. Its validation does not consist in the fact that it cannot lead us astray but rather in the dual considerations that (1) it serves to provide us answers to questions we need to resolve, and (2) it does this in the most promising available way. Seeing that induction always rests on the use of an enthymematic prem­ ise that—by hypothesis—runs beyond the information we have at hand, 138 Induction as Entbymemaiic Reasoning we cannot expect to validate it evidentially. Validation by the pragmatic route of demonstrate ad utili is our only available resource. But of course what we so validate is not the specific thesis at issue but the general induc­ tive method by which it is arrived at. And note that here the difference between theoretical and practical reason becomes critical. For whereas (as insisted previously) the best available explanation of a truth need cer­ tainly not itself be true, the best available way of proceeding toward a rationally appropriate end is ipso facto the rationally optimal course of action.

8. A Postscript

A cynosure in the eyes of ITBE theorists is the employment of this device in the context of ontological issues regarding actual existence. Their hope is to deploy their theory within the debate about realism and what actu­ ally exists in nature—specifically in regard to the theoretical entities of physics. But there are big problems here, For one thing, the issue of explanation virtually always arises in the context of alternative possibilities. We get up in the morning and find a radial configuration of cracks in a living room windowpane. What has caused this? Perhaps a bird flew into the window. Perhaps the neighbor's mischievous boy was shooting buckeyes with his slingshot. Or perhaps some young hooligans were throwing rocks about. It may well be that the last is the best explanation or offer, seeing that the neighborhood has seen a good deal of vandalism lately* But does this consideration entitle us to see those cracks as an instance of vandals at work? Again, consider the issue from another perspective* We seek to explain some fact /* Now in all of the realistic cases that arise when "the best explanation" is an issue there will be alternative potential explanations of /, even if only just two, say E1 and Er And so, by the normal standards of explanatory merit (probability of premises, security of transition from premises to conclusion), the disjunctive explanation E1-or-£2 is in better shape than either alternative. (Think here again of the airplane crash example: mechanical failure or human error is explanatorily more secure than either alternative alone.) The less definite and committed an explana­ tion, the more secure it is. But of course reality is not, in general, disjunc­ tive (quantum contexts apart): it makes up its mind one way or the other* Induction as Enthymmnatic Reasoning 139

And so it lies in the nature of things that, although disjunctive explana­ tions will be less vulnerable to falsification, nevertheless they are bound to be disconnected from the categorical reality of things. ITBH theoreticians see their program as the way stage to a rationali­ zation of scientific realism. This overall program is based on the follow ing argumentation:

1* The theses that constitute part of the best explanation of a truth are ipso facto true themselves. (The ITBP principle*) 2, Those tilings that figure in truths are ipso facto real (that is, they actually exist).

Putting these two premises together, they arrive at the following con­ clusion:

The things at issue in the theses that constitute parts of the best expla­ nation of a truth are ipso facto real, actual existents.

What we have here, then, is a way of moving from the explanatory utility of theses to the existential reality of things. The upshot is what might be called a doctrine of best-explanation realism. What needs to be recognized, however, is that even if premise (i) is granted—which is just what we have been arguing against—the conclu­ sion would nevertheless still not follow if premise (2) were to prove unten­ able. And this is assuredly the case. There are authentic truths about infinitesimals or infinite sets, but such things need not actually "exist" in any sense that goes beyond being objects of discussion. And the same is true with the economist's "average consumer" or the physicist's "per­ fectly elastic bodies." Truths about such fictional objects do not provide a basis for any existential claims. Pragmatic utility is no adequate basis for shaking existential claims. To think otherwise is to deny the undeniable phenomenon of useful fictions. The North Pole and the equator are useful resources for geography and for navigation. That does not mean, however, that they are actually exist­ ing objects. EIGHT

On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation

Vicious regress and vitiating circularity in reasoning seem to be interlocked in an inescapable dilemma. As one probes backward to substantiate the substantiating considerations that one uses in justificatory reasoning, either one continues to have recourse to ever newer materials (in which case there is an unending and thereby vitiating regress) or one eventually has justi­ ficatory recourse to previously employed materials (in which case there is a vicious circularity). To all superficial appearances we are caught on the horns of a dilemma. But here, as elsewhere, superficial appearances can be deceiving. For neither circularity nor infinite regress is always harmful in rational argu­ mentation, Let us examine the considerations that show how this is so.

1. Circular Reasoning

In general circularity is a grave flaw and fallacy in matters of reasoning, A circular demonstration—one that somehow smuggles the very conclusion to be established in among the premises—commits the classic fallacy of "begging the question" (petit io principii). The demonstration is, no doubt, valid in the logically formal sense that the conclusion must be true if the premises are. But it is dialectically pointless because it presumes the very fact that is to be established. Such reasoning neither brings new facts to light nor throws new light upon old ones. It is informatively useless.1 Similarly a circular definition or explanation—one that makes substan­ tive use of the very term or concept that is supposedly being defined or

140 On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation 141 explained—is comparably defective. In using as an input into such a cog­ nitive process the very item that is supposed to be its output, this way of proceeding in matters of definition or explanation is automatically unable to realize the cognitive aim of the enterprise. Against this background it may seem surprising that the matter stands very differently as regards circularity when the validation of arguments rather than theses is at issue. For where argument validation is concerned, circularity is not necessarily vicious or vitiating. The following considera­ tions are designed show how this is so. Suppose that we have a group of modes of argumentation at our dis­ posal: A v A v ..., A tr And let it be that our assigned task is to justify their use—to validate them, in short, by some process of reasoning. Now to validate A{ we must, of course, use some argumentation. And if circular reasoning is proscribed and self-employment accordingly prohibited, then we must use only some of the remaining A. here. That is, now wTe have at most n — 1 modes of argumentation at our disposal. For the sake of con­ venience let it be that A 2 is one of them. And now let us ask about the validation of A r Both A 2 itself and A} are now ineligible on grounds of circularity. We thus have at most n — 2 arguments at our disposal for val­ idating A,,. And now the handwriting is on the wall. By the time it comes down to validating A n we have at most n - n - o modes of argumentation at our disposal. There is now nothing to be done. The lesson is crystal clear. If "circularity" is altogether proscribed in the validation of modes of argu­ ment—if a given mode of argumentation is never to be used, directly or indirectly, in the course of its own validation—then it will be impossible to validate the entire manifold of arguments that we employ. To be sure there is one seeming exception here, The preceding line of reasoning supposes (naturally enough) that the manifold of argumenta­ tion modes at issue is finite. Clearly if this were not so, and if the argu­ mentation modes at our disposal were an endless series A t, A v A y . . . , then every argument mode could be validated in terms of others yet further down the line. Circularity—direct or indirect—could readily be averted. i t v But of course this is a process that w'e could never actually carry all the way through. The project of validating all of our modes of argumenta­ tion—which, after all, was the aim of the enterprise—has now' become a lost cause. Validation thereby becomes a Sisyphus-like project that one could always pursue but never complete. After all, we are finite creatures 142 On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation who have only limited resources of time and information at our disposal* To be of any use to us the processes of validation must come to an end— they too must be finite* In this justificatory context a process that we cannot bring to a successful conclusion is a process that cannot achieve its goal. This line of thought goes to show that we cannot forego the circularity of self-involvement in the context of validating the modes of argumenta­ tion that we use. In various other contexts of reasoning (demonstration, explanation, definition) circularity is doubtless vicious and vitiating. But in the realm of argument validation it is inevitable and indispensable. But is it also legitimate? The basic point is dear enough. Validation involves argumentation. Herc, as elsewhere, rationality requires the provision of reasons. To vali­ date anything—modes of argumentation included—we must make use of arguments (i.e., processes of articulated reasoning). However—and this is the crucial point—the circularity at issue is not only inevitable but also not really vicious. In using a mode of argumentation we do not explicitly maintain its validity but rather implicitly suppose or presume it. At this stage the status of the argument mode is presy sterna tic. The difference is akin to that between speaking grammatically (tacitly conforming one's speech to rules of grammar that initially are grasped merely inductively and perhaps only subconsciously) and overtly framing one's discourse by means of explic­ itly formulated grammatical rules. It is a matter of systematically revisiting a presystematically spoken text and now dealing with it from an entirely different vantage point* And just this sort of thing can and does happen with argumentation as well. When we explicitly develop a logical organon (a logic# docens) we do and must use for this process an informal logical apparatus (a logic# utens).2 We now formally articulate and systemically validate the pro­ cesses manifested in our presystematic practice. Now although we might speculate that these could be very different from their formalized con­ geners, nevertheless we would ultimately expect, and indeed demand, closure here. For ideally the logic we use in formally validating our pre­ systematic logical apparatus should ultimately turn out to be the same logic that we manage to validate as we proceed with the process of sys­ tematization. The presystematic processes that we employ in the course On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation 143 of systematization should—lo and behold!—turn out to be identical or isomorphic with the systematic processes that we validate—or at least a part thereof* The justificatory procedure at issue is then indeed circular—the vali­ dated logic we achieve in the end should ideally turn out to encompass the very logic of which we have been making presystematic use. But there is nothing vicious or vitiating at work here; it is a matter of retrospective wisdom-of-hindsight reassessment, of revisiting something familiar to reconsider it from a different point of view7. When we develop a system of inferential procedure this should ultimately retrovalidate our presystem­ atic, informal practice. But the '"circularity" at issue here is not vicious but virtuous. For it would be a serious flaw and failing if matters stood other­ wise. If the Logic wre used informally in developing our formal logic were not in essence underwritten by the logic that we succeeded in validating formally, this lack of closure would show that something was seriously amiss. In this way the validation of the inodes of argumentation that con­ stitute our logic is a process that is—to reemphasize—virtuously circular. We would not—should not—want it otherwise. Circularity in this domain is not just unavoidable but actually desirable. If we want a defense of rea­ son, it is clearly a rational defense that we require. If we want a validation of our logic, it is clearly a logical validation of it that we require. In this regard the rational domain, and the logical domain with it, are autonomous and closed. They are not something that can—or should—be justified from without; to be meaningful justification must come from within. If this condition of things is something circular, we have no choice but to make the best and the most of it. In the validation of modes of argumen­ tation, circularity is not something vicious or vitiating: it is a rational sine qua non.

2. Iteration Processes and Infinite Regress

To be sure, the validation of theses is something else again. Here rational substantiation cannot proceed by demonstration alone. If everything had to be demonstrated in this domain—including all of the premises of every demonstration—then (short of circularity) processes of demonstrative regress would never stop. As Aristotle has already stressed, there must 144 On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation ultimately be a nondemon strati ve source of premises for demonstrative inference. This source or resource he thought to find in "experience." To be sure, how this operates in providing us with undemonstrated demon­ strators—the "first principles" of demonstration—is something Aristotle explained in rather obscure terms.3 But never mind—the salient issue for the present is not how we obtain appropriately validated yet undemon- strated inputs into our processes of demonstration, but that we can and must be able to do so. It deserves note that Aristotle and the skeptics both set out from a shared acknowledgment that the following trio is aporetic (i.e., collectively inconsistent):

1. All knowledge requires demonstration. 2. It is impossible to provide a demonstration of every knowledge claim. 3* Knowledge is achievable.

However, Aristotle here reasoned from (2) and (3) to not-(i), whereas the skeptics reasoned from (1) and (2) to not-(3).4 Both parties alike accepted (2}—and for the same reason, namely that its rejection leads to an imprac­ ticable regress. However, the fact that an infinite demonstrative regress is not practi­ cable does not preclude the prospect of an infinite justifactory regress that is not demonstrative in nature. To see how this is so, it helps to take a closer look at the whole matter of infinite regress—beginning with the basics. An iteration process is one that has the following generic structure:

1* Begin with a given object x. 2. Perform the operation Q upon it, so as to arrive at the O-effected object Ox. 3* Return to step i, taking that "object x” as what is now at hand.

Diagrammatically we have

Perform the operation A given object 0 < upon the object at hand

Here the right-hand side represents the iteration process at issue and the left-hand side the object to which it is applied. What we have here overall On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation 145 is not simply a repetition, since while the operation being performed is ever the same, nevertheless the object upon which it functions, being the prod­ uct of the prior iteration, is something that is in general ever changing. Thus one can generate the entire series of positive integers by begin­ ning with i and proceeding with the interactive operation "Add x to the number at hand." Or one can represent the process of "walking to one's destination" along a certain route as a procedure of the following format:

1. Take the position you presently occupy. 2. Make one step in the direction of your destination. 3. Return to step i .

This situation process is encapsulated in the formula "Keep on taking a step in the direction of your goal." Mathematical series are a fertile source of examples of such processes. Thus "Keep on dividing by 2" when applied to 1 yields i, %, %r . . . , or "Keep on multiplying by 3/' when applied to 5, yields 5,15, 45,135, Several important distinctions must be taken into account at this point. One of them is the distinction between terminating and jion termi­ nating processes. Clearly an iteration process can be such that it either terminates after a finite number of steps or does not. Thus the generation of integers by successive addition of 1 is a non terminating process, whereas that of walking to one's destination is (in general) a terminating process that does not continue indefinitely. And neither does "Keep on stirring the lump of sugar in your teacup"; it can be carried on only until the lump dissolves. The lump cannot be stirred when it no longer exists. Moreover, a terminating process is antecedently delimited when we can specify in advance a number N such that no more than N iterations of the process are required to achieve termination. It is emphatically not the case that all terminating processes have this feature. For example, if we toss a random coin we can say with assurance that sooner or later a series of 100 heads will appear, but we cannot antecedently specify how long one must continue tossing in order to reach this goal. At this point the difference between progress and regress becomes important.5 Figuratively speaking, progressive iterations take us "onward and upward" whereas regressive iterations take us "backward and down­ ward." Thus physical processes can be considered either in a temporally forward-looking (progressive) manner, as wThen we look from events to 146 On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation

their effects, or in a temporally backward-looking (regressive) manner, as when we look from events to their causes. And analogously with mathe­ matical processes, in which we can move forward to larger or backward to smaller quantities. Thus the arithmetical process "Keep on adding i," which yields i, 2, 3, 4,..., is progressive, whereas the arithmetical itera­ tion process of repeatedly dividing in half, which yields 1, is regressive. (With the first the result of the (/ + i)st iteration is greater than that of the ith, whereas with the second the reverse is the case.) Cogni­ tive processes too can be either regressive (looking to preconditions and antecedent requirements) or progressive (looking to consequences and implications). The former case proceeds with respect to preconditions (regress us in antecedent ia); the latter proceeds with respect to conse­ quences (regressus in consequent ia).6 On this basis the analogy among the three principal process types is far-reaching. Consider causal processes of the format

Whenever C (cause) then E (effect).

If we iterate on the antecedent side ("Whenever C3 then C," "Whenever C, then C1," and so on) we are involved in a regressive iteration, whereas if we do so on the consequent side ("Whenever £ then E v " "Whenever E] then E," and so on) we are involved in a progressive iteration.7 And the same situation holds for cognitive processes of such a format in the premise- conclusion relation of conditional necessitation:

If P obtains then C must obtain.

If we iterate on the side of the condition we regress, whereas if we iterate on the side of the conditioned we progress (in the logical sense of these terms), There is, of course, such a thing as an infinite progression as well as an infinite regress. Just as an event can have causes and causes of causes, so it can have effects and effects of effects. And just as a true proposition can regressively have reasons and reasons for those reasons, so it can pro­ gressively evidentiate other theses, which evidentiate yet further ones.s Now' there is nothing inherently harmful about progressive infinitude as such. For there is, in general, no need to see such an infinitude as closed or terminating. In this regard progression is very different from regress. For a regress must, by its very nature, terminate in the present—in the par- On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation 147 ticular item in question that provides the starting point of the regress and thereby represents the position that has actually been arrived at as an accom­ plished fact. The difference at issue here is illustrated when a progression carries us to items that are in effect also presuppositions for their prede­ cessors. Consider for example the disjunctively expansive progression

p ,p v qv p ^ v ^ p v ^ v ih vqy ....

Here each successive item can be inferred from its predecessor (irrespec­ tive of the nature of the q). But in point of truth each is a precondition for its predecessor(s). Progressively there need be no termination here. But regressivelv the series has a stop.1' Yet just why is it that some regresses are unproblematic and harmless and others vicious?

3- On the Rationale of Regressive Viciousness

A regress is generated when an item has a unique immediate predecessor relative to some regressive relationship; this predecessor in turn may then itself have a predecessor of the same sort. And item x is then a regressive antecedent of y (symbolically x < y) when it belongs to the regressive ances­ try of y, that is, either y's immediate predecessor, or else the immediate predecessor of this predecessor, or else the immediate predecessor of that predecessor, and so forth. Such a regress may be characterized as sequential if its antecedence relationship (<) is both transitive and asymmetrical, that is, if we know7 both that x < y and ij < z entail x < zf and that * < y entails that not y < x. It is readily seen that (i) such a regress cannot include cycles that loop back upon themselves, and therefore (2) if every regress member has a regressive antecedent (i.e., if the regress is non terminating) then all regress elements must be distinct and their overall manifold must thereby be infinite. A sequential regress is vicious iff

1, It is non terminating in that every member of the regress itself has a regressive antecedent (mntermination) and nevertheless

2, the operative antecedence condition (<) is such that it cannot obtain unless the regress terminates (antecedence completeness). 148 On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation

An illustration of (2) would be the example of an infinite chain suspended in infinite space with each of its links supported by its two neighbors, with­ out there being any ultimate "anchorage" for the chain.11- Another instance of this sort of infeasible regress is inherent in the injunction "Whenever two alternatives are completely indifferent, make a random selection between them." This sensible-sounding instruction cannot ever actually be implemented. For suppose that alternatives No. 1 and No. 2 are altogether indifferent choices—for example, which of two players A or B is to make the opening move of a game. "Let's just toss a coin," w^e say in implementing that instruction: "Heads the one goes first, and tails the other." But now the choice of who is to get which is totally indifferent: is it to be heads for A and tails for B, or the reverse? But if this indifferent choice is now to be settled randomly (say by drawing a short or long straw) wre simply confront yet another indifferent choice position. (Short for No. 1 and long for No. z, or the reverse?) And so on. The infi­ nite choice we now confront means that the matter could never be settled on the principle at issue.11 Various Thomistic philosophers accordingly distinguished between a "horizontal" series (e.g., of moments or numbers), which can in theory be harmlessly infinite, and a "vertical" hierarchy (e.g., of reasons or preconditions), which must terminate12 because for such a hierarchy—be it purposive or qualitative—to make sense, it must be bounded.13 The viciousness of a relationship of sequential antecedence accord­ ingly requires both nontermination and antecedence completeness.™ Accord­ ingly an infinitely regressive process is vicious (or vitiating) whenever its non termination would prevent realization of the end product that is putatively at issue. For example, an infinite definitional regress would be vicious seeing that the fixation of meaning at issue in definitions is unachievable in situations that involve further definitions continuing on without end. (The meaning of some terms must therefore be fixed non- definitionaliy.) Again a rational regress of logical grounding (rationes cognoscenti) or conceptual specifications will have to be finite. Here non­ termination spells disaster, so that, for example, an unending regress in specification or in definition would engender no specification or defini­ tion at all. However, an ontological regress—of efficient causes, temporal predecessors (rationes essendi), or the like—can in principle be harmlessly infinite.15 On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation 149

G. E. Moore observed that infinite regresses lurk in circular definitions. For example,, we cannot define "is good" as "is judged to be good," since only if "the good" is already independently defined can we make sense of something's being judged to be so. And this is betokened by what happens when we substitute their definitions for the terms we are defining/ for then we get that the good is that which "is judged to be judged to be g o o d /' so that a vitiating regress is in progress.16 In this matter of regressive viciousness particular importance attaches to the distinction between preconditions or presuppositions that are in­ dispensable and those that are merely facilitative. The indispensable pre­ requisites are sine qua non requirements/ even as there are no paragraphs without sentences and no sentences without words. Here it is a binary matter of presence or absence/ of yes or no; the question of degree is not at issue. (For a mother to bear a child she must be pregnant/ and there is no more or less about it: one cannot manage to be a little bit pregnant.) And here a regressive ordering must be finite.17 The facilitating requisites/ by contrast/ are a matter of degree. Here i t is not a sine qua non, all or noth­ ing/ that is at issue, but rather a sine qua minus diminution. (Practice/ for example, may not be an indispensable requisite for successful performance, but it generally helps.) Very different sorts of processes can be at issue with regresses. Here the distinction between mathematical and physical processes on the one hand and cognitive processes on the other is particularly important for present purposes. For one of the leading ideas of this whole domain of deliberations is encapsulated in the pivotal contention that:

When we are dealing with an iterative regress of essentia], sine qua non prerequisites in contexts of production—cognitive productions (such as the realization of knowledge, under­ standing, explanation, and definition) included—then the process must be a terminating one if our aims are to be realized. Cognitive sine qua non preconditions must be finite. Or, putting the matter the other w ay around, in the realm of human production a nonterminating sine qua non regress is automatically vicious.

The unacceptability of such regressive viciousness in the realm of human artifact can be explained as follows: Humans are finite creatures. Anything they can accomplish, be it physical or cognitive, must be the iso On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation

product of a finite process that has a beginning, a middle, and an end* Accordingly, a sine qua non regress within the realm of human production must ultimately terminate simply because it cannot go on indefinitely thanks to an insufficiency of time for accomplishing the task at issue. We can make the components of a machine or a building or a cake, and then make the components of these components, but this productive regress must terminate at some point in ingredients that are natural and unmade by human artifice. And this is just as true in cases in which cognitive products, rather than those of physical artifice, are at issue. With all such processes of pro* duction there must be an end: we reach the anagke stenai that Aristotle rightly deemed essential in the production of knowledge.18 Take rational belief* For if it is held that a rational belief is one that is acceptable for good reasons, and then maintained that reasons only qualify as good when they themselves are rationally believed, then we clearly embark on an infinite regress that has the upshot that no belief is ever held rationally* Here too a productive regress must ultimately terminate in something that is provided by nature rather than actually produced by us. For the fact of it is that—as Aristotle insisted—the "stuff" that is ultimate in the realm of factual knowledge is experience. In the final analysis the requisites at which a productive regress in this cognitive domain terminates—alike in matters of definition, explanation, interpretation, and cognition—are items that are themselves not the parts of productive processes operated by our* selves, but the products of the experiential impact of natural processes upon ourselves*19 Given this situation, if can be seen that in the realm of physical nature the situation is quite different from that in the cognitive realm* With phys­ ical and causal prerequisites, a regress can go on and on endlessly without problem. The result R can causally require the requisite which in turn can causally require the requisite Rv and so on. And there is nothing impracticable about an infinite causal or physical regress. Such an onto* logical regress of causes can in principle go on ad indefinitum. Indeed there is even no reason of principle why a causal regress ad infinitum can* not be accommodated within the limited time span offered by a temporally finite universe. For the condition of something at t = o can be explained causally in terms of that prevailing at time t = -v 2, and this in turn in terms of that prevailing at t = - v4, and that in terms of the situation at t - and On Circularity ami Regress in Rational Validation 151 so on with successive values of - 1 + (1/2")—a process that can never take us past Since causation is in principle infinitely compressible (unlike any explicitly cognitive process), there is no reason why a universe that has a finite past cannot accommodate infinite causal regresses. In theory every event can have a cause as per the principle of causality: there is nothing insuperably problematic here. Let us consider the matter somewhat more fully. Two sorts of circum­ stances can render a mathematical regress harmless. One is the avail­ ability of infinite "space," as with the regress . .. -4, -3, “ 2, -1, o. There is no limit to the furtherance of a numerical regress here. The other pathway to harmlessness is the prospect of convergence thanks to an endless diminution, as with the regress *. . n*, % \ \ i- Here convergence atones for the limitation of finitude. And with physical regresses the same two avenues to harmlessness— infinitude and convergence—can also come into operation. Thus, in the case of physical causality, the regress will be harmless if past time is infinite, or again if the operation of earlier causes can be squeezed into an ongo- ingly smaller time span so that convergence can result. For the purposes of illustration, consider the Zeno-derived paradox of motion discussed by Aristotle.:tl It involves the following line of thought:

An object can never move from one position to another. For if it starts at A and is to move to B then it w ill have to reach the halfw ay point between these, say Br But to reach this point it will first have to reach the halfway point to it, namely B2. And so on. Since there are always prior movements to be accomplished—and indeed even an infinity of them—'the object will never be able to get a motion under way at all. Hence all objects are im­ movable and motion is impossible.

It is clear, however, that for reasons already indicated this argumenta­ tion from inevitable termination with respect to physical regression is profoundly wrong. An infinity of antecedents need involve no anomaly. As these examples indicate, there are two routes to harmless regression: the infinitistic and the convergentistic. But with sine qua non regresses in the cognitive domain neither of these routes is available. Neither can cognitive regress be redeemed here through an actual infinitude of available prerequisites of a more than nontrivial magnitude, nor can the specifically cognitive prerequisites of the sine qua non variety be compressed to triviality, reduced to ever-diminishing units. 152 On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation

Cognitive accomplishments on the order of acts of awareness, recogni­ tion, or realization, or states of mind such as worry or rejoicing, are never instantaneous- Epistemk accomplishments are grounded in processes that are never instantaneous. And human consciousness is not so much a continuous stream as a chain of interlocked units of discrete jumps and starts—units whose temporal duration may be brief but never infinitesi­ mal. And when regressive steps cannot be compressed below some finite time span, however minuscule—which is certainly the case with cognitive acts of comprehension—then a correlative temporal regress will be vicious when unending. This means that a viable version of the principle of suffi­ cient reason is not that every fact has discursive reason for being so, but that every fact that admits of such a reason docs so. Another lesson that results from these deliberations about regressive viciousness is that whereas physical causality can indeed proceed regres­ sive ly ad infinitum, the cognition process of the causal explanation of occur­ rences is something that must terminate if viciousness is to be averted. If infinity is to come into causal explanation, this must be done by an inductive leap to a unified, collectively infinitistic principle that proceeds collectively and not by an infinite series of distributively infinitistic steps. A good illustration of the impracticability of infinite cognitive regresses is provided by etymology—the explanation of word meanings in terms of changes in the meanings established at an earlier stage of word-usage customs. Here we cannot proceed ad infinitum because the establishment of a particular word-usage custom is something that requires a substantial period of time and cannot be compressed into a diminutively small time interval. Again, consider the classic skeptical argument against the availability of an adequate general criterion of truth, which runs as follows:

You say that C is an adequate general criterion of truth. But how do you propose to establish the truth of this claim? If you use C itself, then your legitimization is inadequate on grounds of question-begging circularity. But if you use some other criterial standard C, then we simply return to the starting point of the problem and need to validate this criterion itself. You will now be driven back to dependence on yet another supportive criterion Cj, and this is merely the start of an infinite regress, which is bound to be vitiating in this justifactory context.

This argumentation is certainly cogent as far as it goes. But what it estab­ lishes is not the impossibility of adequate truth criteria but merely the On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation 153 unavailability of a universal criterion that works at once for the usual run- of-the-mill contentions and for such higher-level claims as are at issue with criteria as such. Consider moreover/ the example afforded those probabilistic episte- mologists who hold (i) that we are never entitled to make categorical judgments but only judgments of probability; and (2) that as regards prob­ ability-assessments we can only evaluate conditional probabilities because absolute evaluations of probability are impracticable. Here too we are embarked on an infinite cognitive regress. We are put in the posi­ tion that we can only evaluate p's probability relative to q; we cannot determine q s probability as such but only its probability relative to qv whose own philosophy in turn we can only evaluate relative to q and so on. In consequence we are launched upon an infinite cognitive regress whose viciousness invalidates the whole enterprise, Aristotle holds that the regress engendered by the characterization "X is desired for the sake of Y" must have an end because if the process were to go on to infinity this would mean that the initial desire would be left without viable means of support. And it is clear that regress must indeed terminate here because there is no viable infinite regress at all with such perform!tory processes, as we have seen. The critical difference between a physical and a cognitive regress can be instanced via the (conceivably mythical) Hindu cosmology that envi­ sions that earth's position in the cosmic void in terms of its being emplaced on the back of an elephant, which stands on the back of a tortoise, which stands on the back of an alligator, which, ♦ . . {Perhaps from there on in it is a matter of "Alligators all the way down/") What is to say that such an infinite support regress is in principle impossible? But it certainly affords no explanation of the earth's seemingly stable position in the cosmos. For a cognitive regress—unlike a physical one—is vitiated if it cannot be brought to a satisfactory termination. The example deserv es somewhat fuller analysis. Let it be that we have a Huclidean three-space pervaded by an Epicurean gravity that functions in a determinate downward direction. And let us suppose that in this framework the earth is emplaced on alligators "all the way down." Then the question "What supports the earth?" has an answer: an alligator. And the question "What supports this alligator?" also has an answer: another alligator. And by mathematical induction we now have it that the earth indeed is supported by alligators "all the way down," But all of this is 154 On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation description not explanation, The explanatory question ''What is the earth's ultimate support?" has no answer. For the question dissolves into inappropriateness, exactly as with the question "What force keeps the moon and the sun circulating about the earth?" in Aristotelian cosmology or the question "What force keeps the billiard ball moving after it loses touch with the cue?" On the basis of the operative theory, such questions are illegitimate because they rest on what the theory dismisses as erroneous suppositions. The question simply dissolves. And so, although from the angle of cosmological description an infinite regress of alligators is pos­ sible, this provides no ultimate explanation of the earth's stable position in the cosmos. An infinite ontological regress might be viable. But an infi­ nitely extended explanatory regress emphatically would not be so. In sum there is nothing inherently impossible about an alligator-on-alligator-etc. cosmology, but an alligator-on-alligator-etc, explanation is impracticable. Again consider classification. To classify something as a beagle pre­ supposes already locating it within the larger category of dogs. And to put it there presupposes already locating it within the larger category of mam­ mals, and so on. Now if then? were not a "topmost" category (say of real things in the world) but an infinite ascent of ever-ampler groupings, then the classificatory regress of taxonomic emplacement would be (epistemi- cally) vicious because it would be endless. Figuratively put, there would be no groirnd floor where items could even initially get on board. By con­ trast an infinite mereoiogical (and thus ontological) regress would be harm­ less. The idea that (again speaking figuratively) "fleas have ever smaller fleas to bite them" is in principle unproblematic. The crucial point here is that the cognitive and the ontological cases differ significantly with regard to the viciousness of infinite regress,

4* Further Illustrations of Cognitive Vicioitsness

The impracticability of infinite cognitive regresses also turns crucially on the distinction between indispensable sine qua non requisites and facilitative sine qua minus facilitators. Some examples will help clarify the situation.

A. The Case of a Clariflcatory Cognitive Regress (Definition versus Explanation or Interpretation) Let us begin with clarifies tor y cognitive regresses. There are two different modes of clarification: the definitional and the nondefinitional. However, On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation 155 the two sorts of cases at issue here differ crucially even as an infinite regress would be vicious in the case of definition but not in that of expla­ nation or interpretation, For definitions involve indispensable, sine qua non requisites whereas explanation, interpretation, and their congeners are merely facilitative. And this difference plays itself out in a way that bears importantly on the viability of endless regress. An explanation or inter­ pretation can always be extended a bit more fully without compromising its status. The crux is thus as follows: an improvable explanation still qualifies as an explanation, and the same with an improvable interpretation; a definition that is improvable is thereby inadequate and really unacceptable as proper defi­ nition. We can keep on explaining the materials of our explanation and interpreting the materials of our interpretations. But in view of the object of the enterprise a definitional regress must ultimately come to a stop in terms whose meaning is fixed nondefinitionally Where we have to keep on defining the materials of our definitions ad infinitum we do not define at a1l.2J The viriousness of definitional regresses is illustrated by self-involving specified propositions, such as that at issue with the self-falsifying thesis

(L) L is false.

What we have here is an inappropriate and unavailing introduction of the statement L For its identification here as "the statement that says of itself that it is false" (or for that matter true!) dearly requires that "it" have a prior specification if that anaphoric back-reference is to take hold of any­ thing, Accordingly the trouble with (L) or with "This sentence is false" is that this crucial principle is violated. To be meaningful, the claim "L is false" presupposes that L is already available for consideration, and we can­ not embark upon a purportedly identifying introduction that presupposes this. And this flaw obtains equally with the seemingly harmless statement

(L) L is true.

For the real problem in this context is not self-falsification as such but def­ initional self-characterization in a way that vitiates the sort of identifica­ tion required for access to a meaningful referent. The definitional regress at issue in such self-involving specifications is thus vicious. Quite in general, use of the anaphoric phrase "this sentence" presup­ poses that the sentence at issue has already been identified in a prior spec­ ification. Indeed any self-referential statement introduction of the format 156 On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation

(L) L is such-and-such ("L is the sentence of which it holds that this sentence is such-and-such") is inappropriate, seeing that the standard process of substituting their definitions for defined terms here embarks us on an infinite regress:

* (L is such and such) is such and such. ♦ ({L is such and such) is such and such) is such and such- and so on. That supposed definition does not enable us to take anything stably meaningful into view. Here a statement that is (putatively) being introduced definition ally as a (purportedly) meaningful assertion simply does not qualify as such. No such meaningful statement exists.

B. The Case of a Substantiativc Cognitive Regress (Demonstration versus Evidentiation or Confirmation) Let us now turn to substantiativc cognitive regresses. Again there are two importantly different modes of substantiation: demonstration (which is supposedly conclusive) and evidentiation (which is merely supportive and confirmatory). They too differ crucially. For a regress of demonstra­ tions—like one of definitions—must ultimately come to a stop with terms that themselves no longer require the benefit of this particular cognitive process itself. Here the regress cannot go on endlessly but must eventu­ ally find its footing on solid ground by terminating in undemonstrated demonstrators (axioms).22 As Aristotle put it, "it is impossible that there should be demonstration of absolutely everything, so then there would have to be an infinite regress, so that there would still be no demonstra­ tion."23 For, once again, an incomplete "demonstration" (like an incomplete "definition") is no demonstration (or definition) at all It is noteworthy, however, that w ith evidentiation and substantiation the situation is quite different from what it is with demonstration. For whereas an infinite regress will be vicious in the case of demonstration (which is a matter of all or nothing) this will not be the case with eviden­ tiation or confirmation (wrhich are matters of degree). Evidentiations and confirmations (like interpretations) are always capable of being improved.24 Imperfect or incomplete evidence is still evidence. This situation can also be clarified from a variant perspective. Observe that there are two importantly different types of process. Type 1 is illustrated by the following instances: On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation 157

* Causing all of the causes that serve to produce a given effect suffices for causing that given effect itself. * Defining all of the terms that serve to define a given term suffices for defining that given term itself, * Demonstrating all of the theses that serve to demonstrate a given thesis suffices for demonstrating that given thesis itself.

Type 2, by contrast, is illustrated by the following instances:

* Explaining all of the statements that explain a given statement is not always enough for explaining that given statement itself. * Interpreting all of the texts that interpret a given text is not always enough for interpreting that given text itself. * Evidentiating all of the theses that evidentiate a given thesis is not always enough for evidentiating that given thesis itself.

Type i processes may thus be said to be transitive and Type 2 processes intransitive. The question here is whether regressively accommodating all of the components of the immediate regressive antecedents of an item in the cog­ nitive mode at issue in the regress will thereby suffice to accommodate the item itself With causation, definition, and demonstration, regression suf­ fices to guarantee the starting point, But this is not so with explanation, interpretation, and evidentiation, in which additional interactive issues are at stake. To achieve the regressive preliminaries here is not necessarily to guarantee the ultimate result because slippage can occur along the way. The reality of it is that Type 1 processes leave no room for "slippage" because sine qua non requisites are involved. But with Type 2 processes there can be slippage since only sine qua minus requisites are involved. Here transitivity fails because an ongoing iteration of those merely facili­ tating requisites may simply result in too little facilitation. With mere facil­ itation, there may be too much degradation along the way as the regressive process proceeds, so that the regressive stages do not guarantee the outcome.

5. Thematic Homogeneity in Cognitive Regress

The consideration of cognitive regresses leads back to the issue of cir­ cularity as discussed in the opening sections. The processes at issue with 158 On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation cognitive regress breed true to type, as it were, even as the correct defini­ tion of a musical or archeological term must involve musical or archeolog­ ical conceptions. In particular, it is a pivotal epistemic principle that—in both demonstrative and nondemonstrative inference—a cogent cognitive regress must be thematically homogeneous: the clarificatory or justifactory account for a claim must always incorporate at least some commitments of the same thematic type as those at issue in the claim itself. Thus a cogent reason for a factual claim must itself be factual in the sense of involving at least some factual commitments, and exactly the same is true of evaluative and practical claims. Such cognitive regresses have to stay within the same topical arena: a cognitive item's regressive antecedents must always be of the same basic type as the item itself. The situation is very different, however, when we turn from cognitive to noncognitive regresses, such as causation. Causal production is by no means thematically homogeneous: life can come from nonlife, solids from gases. But with cognitive regresses there is no such thing as an origin of species; things must run true to type across the successive regressive stages. Thus rationality is in this regard decisively different from causality, in which (as Darwin taught) new species can readily emerge. In matters of cognitive substantiation the filiation of thematic connection between con­ tention and reason must always be preserved. In the cognitive realm— unlike the physical—the ancient Greek principle that "like can only come from like" obtains. And it should be noted that rational evaluation too is a form of cog­ nition, seeing that what is at issue is knowledge about matters of value rather than about matters of fact.2"1 So here too justification is subject to the aforementioned principle of thematic homogeneity Evaluative conclusions can be substantiated only via premises that are—somewhere along the line—evaluative in their bearing. Even as factual theses can be substan­ tiated only through premises of which at least some are themselves fac­ tual, so evaluative conclusions are substantiable only by means of premises of which some are evaluative. There is, however, an important difference between factual and eval­ uative substantiation. This can be brought to light as follows: The circum­ stance that one must always use (some) facts to substantiate facts does not lead to circularity because one can in principle always use different facts, seeing that the factual domain is not finite. However, one must also use On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation 159 values to substantiate values. And the evaluative domain is finite since the value spectrum, though large, is nevertheless limited. So here the sit­ uation is substantially analogous to that of the thesis that "You must use arguments to validate arguments/' which was discussed at the outset. In consequence, value validation, like argument validation, is in a wray self­ involving; one must use materials of the sort at issue in the course of val­ idating such materials. So here too there will be a "circularity" of sorts since the regress cannot continue into ever-new terrain. But we arrive once more at the instructive conclusion that in such situations of the­ matic homogeneity "circular" (or at any rate cyclic) reasoning becomes inescapable. The sort of "circularity" at issue with thematic homogeneity is not a matter of viciousness but rather of rational cogency seeing that in these cognitive contexts the principle ex nihilo nihil obtains.

6* Harmless Circularity

The fact of the matter is that we cannot prove that rationality pays—that acting rationally in the particular case at hand will actually pay off—nor can we even claim with unalloyed assurance that it will probably do so (with real likelihood rather than subjective probability at issue). We can only say that, as best we can judge the matter, it represents the most promising course at our disposal. To reemphasize: we have no guarantees. There is, however, one consoling thought here. Granted, our knowl­ edge is always conditioned by ignorance: the questions we can answer are surrounded by ones that we cannot. But often this just does not matter as much as one might think. Often—and indeed even generally—the sort of information we can get is good enough for the practical purposes that confront us. Were this not so we would not be here, thanks to evolution, to be able to tell the tale. So just where does this leave us? Actually it leaves us without any real choice—without any rationally viable alternative. For there is nothing that we can reasonably do save follow the guidance of reason. But is this not to appoint reason as judge and jury in its own case? Yes—actually it is. But we would not—or should not!—want it any other way. For if we want any sort of guidance as to what to do, it is clearly rational guidance—guidance based on good reasons—that we do (and should) want. 160 On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation

This practical line of argumentation may still seem to leave the situa­ tion in an unsatisfactory state. It says (roughly): "You should be rational in resolving your choices because it is rational to believe that the best avail­ able prospects of optimality attainment are effectively realized in this way." To be sure, one might deem it preferable that that italicized clause be wholly suppressed. Skeptic X is bound to press the following objection: "The pro­ posed practicalistic legitimation of reason conforms to the pattern: 'You should be rational just because that is the rational thing to do!' And this is dearly circular." It might perhaps seem questionable to establish the juris­ diction of reason by appealing to the judgment of reason itself. But in fact, of course, this circularity is not really vicious at all. Vicious circularity stultifies by begging the question; virtuous circularity merely coordinates related elements in their mutual in ter Link age. The former presupposes what is to be proved; the latter simply shows how things are connected together in a well-coordinated and mutually supportive interrelationship. The self- reliance of rationality merely exemplifies this latter circumstance of an inherent harmonization among the components of its universe. Admittedly the reasoning at issue has an appearance of vitiating cir­ cularity because the force of the argument itself rests on an appeal to rationality: "If you are going to be rational in your beliefs, then you must also act rationally because it is rational to believe that rational action is optimal in goal attainment." But this sort of question begging is simply unavoidable in the circumstances. It is exactly what we want and need. Where else should we look for rational validation rationality but to reason itself! The only reasons for being rational that it makes sense to ask for are rational reasons. In this epistemic dispensation, you have no way of get­ ting at the facts directly without the epistemic detour of securing grounds and reasons for them. And it is, of course, rationally cogent grounds and reasons that we want and need. The overall justification for rationality must be reflexive and self-referential. To provide a rationale for rationality is to show that rationality stands in appropriate alignment with the prin­ ciples of rationality. From the angle of justification, rationality is a cyclic process that closes in on itself, not a linear process that ultimately rests on something outside itself. There is accordingly no basis for any rational discontent, no room for any dissatisfaction or complaint regarding a "circular" justification of rationality. We would not (should not) want it otherwise. If we bother to On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation l6l want an answer to the question "Why be rational?" at all, it is clearly a rational answer that vve require. The only sort of justification for anything— rationality included—that is worth having is a rational one. That pre­ supposition of rationality is not vitiating, not viciously circular, but essential—an unavoidable consequence of the self-sufficiency of cognitive reason. There is simply no satisfactory alternative to using reason in its own defense. Already embarked on the sea of rationality, we want such assurance that we have done the right thing as can now be made avail­ able. And such reassurance can indeed be given—exactly along the lines just indicated. Given the very nature of the justificatory enterprise at issue, one just cannot avoid letting rationality sit in judgment on itself. (What is being asked for, after all, is a rational argument for rational action: a basis for rational conviction, and not persuasion by something probatively irrelevant like threats of force majcure.) One would expect—nay demand— that rationality be seif-substantiating in this way—that it must emerge as the best policy on its own telling. From the justificatory point of view, rationality is and must be auton­ omous. It can be subject to no external authority. Rationality in general is a matter of systematization. And the justification of rationality is cor­ respondingly a matter of systemic self-sufficiency. Rather than indicating the defect of vicious circularity, the self-referential character of a justifica­ tion of rationality is a precondition for its adequacy! It is only a rational legitimation of rationality that we would want: any other sort would avail us nothing. And if such a rational validation were not forthcoming, this would indicate a grave defect. To be sure, some theorists see rationality as heteronomous—as subject to some sort of external authority such as "feeling" or "the will." Thus one contemporary philosopher projects the idea that "underlying each . . . judgment there is a choice that the agent has made—a type of choice in which the individual is at the most fundamental level unconstrained by good reasons, precisely because his or her choice expresses a decision as to what is to count as a good reason for him or her."26 Such a view sees rational justification as linear and regressive—and thus as ultimately having to rest on an unrationalized nick bottom that itself lies quite outside the domain of reason. But any such view is pro­ foundly mistaken. For rational validation is not linear and regressive, but rather cyclical and systemically self-contained. We need not—must not!— 162 On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation subscribe to the rock-bottom fallacy. There is no way of grounding good reasons in arbitrary or otherwise unrat ion alizable decisions. {"'Deciding as to what is to count as a good reason" forsooth! Not even God is in a posi­ tion to do that!)27 No one decides what sorts of things are to count as good reasons. In general we only learn in the school of bitter experience what qualifies as such. A certain irrationalism is astir in the world that respects the quest for rationally validated reasons and advocates a freewheeling "anything goes" approach—even in the cognitive sphere of empirical inquiry.28 But of course any sensible person not already committed to such a position would want to know if there is any good reason for taking it. And then we are at once back within the sphere of rationality and good reasons. Thus the predicament of reason gives no comfort to skepticism or irrationalism and yields no grounds for abandoning reason—or, worse yet, for turning against her. This self-supportive legitimation of rational­ ity is the only cogent sort of validation that we are going to get. But in the final analysis it is the only sort that it makes sense to ask for, seeing that rationality itself enjoins us to view the best we can possibly get as good enough.-J A desperate objection yet remains: "So rationality speaks on its own behalf. Well and good. But why should I care for rationality? Why should I set myself to do the intelligent and appropriate thing?" At this point there is little more to be said. If I want a reason at all, I must want a rational reason. If I care about reasons at all, I am already within the project of rationality. But once I am within the project, there is nothing further external to reason that can or need be said to validate it At that stage rationality is already at hand to provide its own support—it wears Us justification on its sleeve. (The project of trying to reason with someone who stands outside the range of rationality to convince them to come into its fold is clearly an exercise in pointlessness and futility.) One may of course quite appropriately ask questions like "Why should I cultivate the truth: why should I cultivate my best (or true) interests?" But in the very act of posing these questions I am asking for reasons—that is, I am evincing my commitment to the project of rationality. Caring for the truth and for one's best interests is simply part and parcel of this com­ mitment. If I do not care for these things, then there is really no point in On Circularity' and Regress in Rational Validation 16$ raising these questions. For in this event I have already taken my place out­ side the precincts of rationality, beyond the reach of reason* Irrationality—wishful thinking and self-deception—may be conven­ ient, and even to some degree psychologically comforting. But it is not cognitively satisfactory. If it is a viable defense of a position that we want, it is bound to be a rational one. The only validation of rationality that can reasonably be asked for—and the only one worth having—must lie in considerations of the systemic self-sufficiency of reason. In the final analysis, "Why be rational?" must be answered with the only rationally appropriate response: "Because rationality itself obliges us to be so." In providing a rational justification of rationality—and what other kind would we want?—the best we can do is to follow the essentially circular (but non- viciously circular!) line of establishing that reason herself endorses taking this course, Reason's self-recommendation is an important and necessary aspect of the legitimation of this enterprise. Still this is not quite the end of the matter. Of course reason is self- recommending. The most rational course before us is to rely on reason. That goes without saying. But one further important thing can be said. For it is not just reason that speaks for reason, but experience as well. For experience teaches us that in these cognitive matters reason is our best available guide. In the end we thus return full circle to the point offered in passing at the outset: that evolutionary considerations endorse our being reasonably confident that we live in a world where the guidance of reason serves us rational beings well* Of course in doing so we run the risk of error, but, rational caution being what it is, on the whole we do so in a way that keeps the odds on our side* After all, if rational comportment did not by and large pay off in terms of successful results then we would not be here as the (frequently) rational beings that we are* If rationality were not generally productive rather than counterproductive then the selective pressures of evolutionary survival would not have seen the emergence of rational creatures upon nature's stage. Of course one may somehow prefer not to be rational. With belief, I may prefer congeniality to truth. With action, I may prefer convenience to optimality. With value, I may prefer the pleasingly base to the more austerely better* On all sides, I may willfully opt for "what I simply like," rather than for that w^hich is normatively appropriate. But if I do this I lose 164 On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation sight of the actual ends of the cognitive, practical, and evaluative enter­ prises, to the detriment of my real (as opposed to my apparent) interests, ft lies in the nature of things that reason is on the side of rationality. Admit­ tedly the goddess of reason offers us no guarantees. Yet if we forsake her there is nowhere better that we can (rationally) turn. In the end reason and pragmatism enter into a symbiotic cooperation here.

7. Larger Pragmatic Implications

With intransitive cognitive processes, a regress can always be extended further. Our explanations, interpretations, and substantiations can always be elaborated more fully. However, although this can indeed be done there is not always a real need to do so. For when we carry out these processes adequately, after a while enough is enough. Even with such facilitative req­ uisites the process of regress will come to an end in practice—not because it has to terminate as such, but simply because there is no point in going further. A point of sufficiency has been reached. The explanation is "suf­ ficiently clear," the interpretation "adequately cogent/' the evidentiation "sufficiently convincing." When such a point is reached, one can indeed go further, but the circumstance of diminishing returns indicates that there is no point in doing so. With these nonvicioi*s cognitive regresses termi­ nation is a matter not of necessity but of sufficiency—of sensible practice rather than of inexorable principle {as it is with sine qua non regresses). What counts is doing enough "for practical purposes." And in fact those practical purposes of the situation often bring a potentially unending regress to an end fairly quickly. You are thinking of reading a certain book or seeing a certain film. This being so, you would be well advised to look up some reviews. And when you have them at hand you would even be well advised to seek out some reviews of the work of those reviewers. And when you find these you might even want to go to the length of seeking out reviews of the work of the relevant review' reviewers. But although this process can in theory be extended indefi­ nitely, you would in practice be well advised (and sensibly inclined) to call it a day at this stage. We are here brought to one of the key ideas of the philosophy of Kant, who insisted that it lies in the nature of rationality to stake a demand for the completion of the regressive series of reasons. Reason, that is to say, On Circularity and Regress in Rational Validation 165 wants everything demonstrated, and in these demonstrative matters (the­ oretical) "reason demands completeness on the side of conditions/'30 But at the same time—and this is to Kant's mind the irony of it—reason acknowledges that a finite creature cannot accomplish this task: regres­ sive completeness is beyond its capacity. Accordingly our knowledge cannot be validated demonstratively "all the way through" (so to speak), and its substantiation must always ultimately come to a stop in a non­ demonstrative resource, namely experience. (Here Kant was in agreement with Aristotle.) With finite creatures, cognitive validation is thus achieved not when everything has been done to achieve the deductive regress ideally necessary to rational systematization, but when enough has been done for the purposes at hand/1 Since we cannot achieve totality we must settle for sufficiency, and this is ultimately a practical rather than a purely theoreti­ cal matter. Thus with Kant the ultimate lesson of the unrealizability of an infinite regress in cognitive matters is that the prioritizing of practical over theoretical reason is an inescapable aspect of the human condition. To be sure, the situation can also be regarded in a rather un-Kantian way by simply rejecting the idea that "reason demands demonstrative completeness." The approach now at issue sees it as outright unreason­ able to demand something that is just not to be had. Contrary to Kant, reason would accordingly come to be viewed in a more modest light, sub­ ject to the idea that even theoretical reason can recognize and acknowledge its unavoidable limitations and settle for cogent substantiation rather than always and everywhere requiring categorical demonstration. Reason too is a practical resource. In the end what matters for rational substantiation is not theoretical completeness but pragmatic sufficiency Clearly such a view has substantial attractions, if only because its alternatives cannot be made to work. NINE

Reification Fallacies and Inappropriate Totalities

1. Improperly Totalized Wholes and Illicit Reification

Some of the problems and difficulties in reasoning that logicians and cognitive theorists generally seek to overcome by elaborate formal devices such as the logical theory of types can be averted by using some of the straightforward informal devices of communicative practice—specifically the rejection of inappropriate anaphora, the mistake committed in com­ munication when a back-reference treats an item yet to be specified as already identified. It helps to return to fundamentals here. The circumstance that ques­ tions can rest on inappropriate suppositions has far-reaching implications. In particular it means that there are—or can be—items of discussion that are no more than pseudo realities that fail to give rise to meaningful ques­ tions and do not qualify as a viable subject of further inquiry. And it is noteworthy that various sorts of putative totalities constitute a case in point. Let us consider how this comes about. In order to provide for os tensive identification one always needs some­ thing descriptive, namely a sortal classifier, I do not identify anything by simply "this (pointing)" without adding "table," or "tablecloth," or "dark speck on the tablecloth," or the like, And there is, in principle, no limit to the number of sortal elaborations that can be added to specify what is at issue with an ostensive act of "this (pointing)." Now a physical particular, as Aristotle rightly insisted, is something specifiable as a this, a tode ti, the possible target for a "this thing (point-

166 Reification Fallacies ami inappropriate Totalities 167 mg)." But we cannot count what we cannot identify* Hence we cannot count what is an altogether nondescript and otherwise unspecified par­ ticular, thing, object, item, or similar indefinite, ft makes sense to ask how many books or apples are in the room but not how may things or items are in the room. To count particulars, we must first serialize them in order to make identification possible. To introduce something into deliberation or discussion as a meaning­ ful item of consideration we must proceed by way of expository defini­ tions or explanatory specifications that employ only discursive materials that themselves have already been introduced—at any rate apart from whatever may qualify as a primitive on the basis of being so self-evident as to require no further introduction. And, above all, the identification of something can be achieved satisfactorily only through reference to items that have already been identified themselves. It does us little good to be told that something we seek is sited next to something else whose location wTe do not know. Thus consider the following identification-purporting specifications:

* The individual in question is the first child of the mother who is this person's female parent. * The position in question is the one to the left of that position which is to its immediate right. * The woman in question is the wife of the man who is her husband.

Although there is some description going on in all such cases, there is cer­ tainly no question of any effective introductory identification. And when God responded to Moses' question "Who are you?" with the statement "I am the one that J am" he was not being particularly helpful—although this very fact gave an appropriate response by indirection: "There is really nothing I can say in your language or convey by your concepts that would be adequate in answering your question." On this basis the identifying specification

Z = The item that bears such-and-such a relationship to Z (or "is involved in such-and-such a way with Z) is identificatoriiy unavailing. In all cases of this sort the formula's anaphoric back-reference to the item in question itself is a factor that sup­ poses an already effected identification. Although in one way or another 168 Reification Fallacies and Inappropriate TbtaliHes descriptive, all of these formulations fail as identifications because they require a prior item identification that (by hypothesis) is unavailable in view of the identification processes that are being embarked upon. In each case the purported identification manifestly presupposes a yet-unavailable answer to the identificatory question that is being addressed. Here, as elsewhere, what the answer is depends on just exactly what the question at issue happens to be. And if the question is one of intro­ ductory individuation—of identificatory specification—then referential self-involvement is inappropriate because the "seif" at issue is not yet in hand. On the other hand, when it is only a matter of the description or characterization of some preidentified item, then self-involvement is harmless because the "self" at issue has already been specified. As long as the self-reference at issue is merely a matter of dealing with something that is already specified there is no problem. But whenever we are dealing wTith the introduction of items by wray of an initial specification or definition, then it is clear that the availability of these items cannot be appropriately assumed at this stage.' Self-referential item specifications and identifica­ tions are by their very nature ineffectual because until the item supposedly at issue has been properly identified there is nothing to discuss. Now what holds here of identification also holds of any meaningful totalization* For what we cannot count we cannot totalize either. There is no total for objects (items, things, particulars, and individuals) in the abstract. We can have totals only where we can count, and thus again only where we have to do with descriptive kinds of things. To do meaningful totalization we require meaningful identification, and this in turn means that we require descriptive sortalization. Moreover, the facts that we cannot totalize what we cannot count and that we cannot count what we cannot identify mean that the items at issue in a totalization must have an identity that is accessible to us independently of and prior ft) the process of total­ ization itself. Totalization as such is harmless enough. The totality of Xs is the puta­ tive item that includes all of the Xs—that is, contains or embraces them in whatever way is appropriate to the sort of thing at issue. Thus the totality of letters of the alphabet is the alphabet as such, the totality of colors is the entire color spectrum, or the totality of plants is the entire kingdom of flora. However, self-referential totalization is by nature an illicit process because identification or specification of a totality is meaningfully practica- Reification Fallacies and Inappropriate Total Hies 169 ble only when the item being totalized has already been identified ante­ cedently to the totalization process itself. Thus to define a certain something (Z) by way of a formula of the format

Z = The total of a group of items including Z itself is also unavailing. It is one thing—and harmless—to be given a total and thereupon to learn that it is duly self-inclusive—a "fractal" rectangular pat­ tern, say within each of whose four quadrants this very pattern is repeated all over again. But it is something very different—and altogether vitiating— to attempt to introduce (define, identify specify) a totality in a way that demands or presupposes that this putative item is already available through previous introduction. Meaningful totalizations cannot involve an anaphoric back-refcrenee that is seif-referential; such reference must proceed in terms of items that have an antecedently specified identity2 And we therefore cannot appro­ priately effect a totalization whenever its purported product is itself a candidate for inclusion among the items being totalized. Only when its constituents are already identified can we have a meaningfully defined totality that is to comprise "them." And we are certainly not entitled to presuppose the prior specification of a (totalized) item whose specification is only now in progress. It is clearly inappropriate to attend the specification of a total based on the supposition that the very item at issue in this specification has already been specified. Just as the object of a meaningful item specification must have a pre-established identity independent of that specification itse lf so also with objects that are being gathered together in an item totalization♦ But when the totality supposedly at issue is homogenous with the items being totalized/ then of course we would have to have it that the totaliza­ tion at issue is vitiated. For meaningful (proper) identification we cannot presuppose the availability as input into the identification process the very item that is itself supposed to be the output of that process. The illegiti­ macy of self*involving specifications roots in the fact that self-reference presupposes that the item in question is already available as a meaningful unit of discussion.1 Perplexity is thus bo Lind to arise when there is homogenous totalization, that is, when the items being totalized are of the same sortal type {thing 170 Reification Fallacies and Inappropriate Totalities kind) as the totality that is supposedly at issue, In consequence there is a decisive difference between the identifycatory specification of "The set of all sets that include fewer than five members" (which is innocuous since this set certainly cannot include itself) and the specification of "The set of all sets that include more than five members" (which, were it to exist, would have to include itself). The homogeneous totalization at issue accordingly envisions a putative item that the formula at issue fails to specify in a meaningful way. Self-referential identifications are by nature inappropriate, and we must accordingly place a conceptual embargo on self-inclusivelv characterized totalities. This occurs in cases such as those in which the totality of sets is sup­ posed to be a set that includes all sets, the totality of regions is supposed to be a region that includes all regions, or the totality of time spans is supposed to be a time span that includes all time spans. All such attempts at identification are uniformly unsuccessful because no meaningful item introduction is effected when the totality that is being introduced is itself one of the items being totalized—when it is, so to speak, one of its own members (elements, constituents, components, or the like). For then it is implicitly supposed (via the presence of that "all") that the total being introduced is itself already available as an item for potential inclusion in something. And the difficulty that arises with homogenous totalization is clearly the problem of self-inclusion. The membership of a meaningfully identified totality must have a pre-established identity: those envisioned members must be identified prior to and thereby independently of the totalization that is in progress. There can, of course, be comprehensive totals, and they can be com­ prehensive in rather different ways. A whole is T-maximal in the sense of Nicholas of Cusa if it itself has T-parts but is itself a T-part of nothing fur­ ther (be,, of nothing other than possibly itself),4 Thus a human body is biologically maximal since it has biological parts (e g,, cells) but is not itself a biological part of some larger organism. A book, on the other hand, is not literally maximal for, although it has literary parts (chapters), it is itself a literary part of something larger (a series or even a library). Again the cosmos as a whole is (obviously) physically maximal. But comprehen­ sive totalities of this sort totalize preidentified items—and indeed are them­ selves preidentified. No problem here. But when totalization is a means for introducing something new into the arena of discussion things stand vervj differently,j Reification Fallacies and Inappropriate Totalities 171

Let us adopt the notation to abbreviate "the totality that embraces (that is, C-relevantly 'embraces') all of the C-type items/' Thus, for example, if C(x) = “ x is a letter of the (Roman) alphabet/' then is the totality of letters of the (Roman) alphabet, which is to say it is that alphabet itself. If C(x) = "x is a cat/' then is the totality of cats, the entire genus Felix that includes all the felines there are. Or again, if C(.v) - "x is a color" then is the totality of colors, which is to say it is the whole color spectrum. On the basis of the preceding deliberations it is clear that whenever the totality that is presumably being defined is "itself" seen as something that meets condition C so that C{) obtains— which is emphatically not the case with any of the preceding examples— then the totalization process in question goes awry since it is now unable to realize a well-defined result. A purported item that lacks a discussion- introducing identification in terms of reference independent of itself has simply not been introduced meaningfully into the discussion at all* Examples of putatively totalized wholes that violate the proscription of self-presupposition include the following pseudo totalities:

• The supertruth understood as the truth that conjoins all truths/ • The cosmic fact about the world understood as a fact that encompasses all facts about the world. • The megaset understood as the set that includes all sets. • Eternitif understood as the time span that contains all time spans. • The panexplanation understood as the explanation that encompasses all explanations (that explains everything). • The protocause understood as the cause that causes all causes. • The megastory understood as the story that encompasses all stories. • The superadjective understood as the adjective that applies to all adjectives. • The world-all (Weltall) understood as the physical region that includes all physical regions. • The omnicause understood as the cause that causes literally everything that is real.

In each case we have a putative item that is identified by means of a common format: "The C-type item that 'embraces' all C-type items." And this clearly presupposes not only that there indeed is (a unique) something that "embraces" all C-type items, but also that this something is itself of type C, Throughout the proscription of self-involving totalization is thus 172 Reification Fallacies and Inappropriate TolaUtm violated* The boundaries of that purported total at issue are not some­ thing that can be settled unproblematically until we have determined the viability of that total itself as an item of its purported kind* There yet remains the prospect of objecting "But if it is defined as an X, if its X-hood is something that is explicitly specified in its definition, then surely it's got to be an X!” This plausible protest does not, however, hold water. As the long-stand mg critique of the ontological argument shows, substantive questions cannot be settled by definitional fiat. (This is a car­ dinal principle of rational inquiry.) Calling something an X does not mean that it is actually going to be an X. Thus "the integer that is larger than any other" is a formula that purports to specify an integer but actually fails to do so, seeing that there is no integer larger than all others* And similarly to call a super truth a truth or a megaset a set does not mean that this is actually so—that there really is a truth or a set that answers to the speci­ fication at issue. Tor that item may simply not exist as such. The assump­ tion that something exists under a certain description—for example, as the set of all sets that do not include themselves—may well be false. Any­ thing that answers to this description—whatever it might be—cannot be a set. That supposed specification simply fails to identify. To be sure, hypostatization (item introduction) is one thing and mere description (of a preidentified item) something else again* Once we have an item at hand (say 2 as "the smallest prime") one can describe it in self- inclusive terms (as 'The prime that is not undersized by any prime what­ soever"). But we cannot properly introduce it in this way until the issue of existence has been (independently) resolved* There is thus a crucial dis- analogy between identifying something on the one hand and describing it on the other* We can consider "the thing identified" only once some "iden­ tification of the thing" has been given: any possible entertainment of the former (the thing identified) is contingent upon the latter (the identifica­ tion of the thing). By contrast, nothing whatever about the describability of something rests upon the description of this thing. The hypothetical removal of its identification creates problems for discourse about some­ thing in view in a way that the hypothetical removal of its description would not. Accordingly there is no problem about (say) characterizing a preiden­ tified being (i.e., God) as that which is "the ultimate reason of all being" or again as that which "self-caused—causa sui—the cause of itself." Describ- Reification Fallacies and Inappropriate Totalities m ing an already individuated God by such formulas could in theory qual­ ify as perfectly meaningful. But we nevertheless cannot identify God by a decision-introducing characterization as "'the reason for being of all reasons for being" or as "that being which is the cause of all being, itself included." For when seen as operative in an identifying specification self­ reference must be rejected as counterproductively vitiating. We can cer­ tainly say—truly and meaningfully—of some preidentified item that "it is the result of the cause that produced it." But we cannot use this sort of formula when the initial introducing identification of the item is at issue {"the item that is to be at issue is the product of its cause"). For here noth­ ing is as yet available to serve as referential for that ultimate anaphoric back-reference, Unlike inappropriately described items, inappropriately introduced items are no more than illusions. A significant Lesson emerges. Not only are there pseudo questions like "Have you stopped beating your wife?" that should not be asked (because they rest on inappropriate suppositions), but there are pseudo identifica­ tions that should not be considered (investigated, taken seriously) because their very conception is flawed in that it rests on the erroneous presuppo­ sition of a particular answer to an inappropriate question. For success­ ful identification requires and presupposes an affirmative answer to the question "Have all the items being referred to already been identified effectively?" Let us be somewhat more explicit about the ramifications of this state of affairs,

2. The Route to Paradox

All contexts of rational assertion and deliberation are governed by an at least tacit supposition that their terms of reference are meaningful. Should this presupposition prove to be unwarranted, the chasm of paradox yawns wide open before us. This is illustrated by a conundrum that has received much attention: the barber paradox.6 It is based on the following riddle: A certain village has a barber whose practice it is to shave all the adult male villagers who do not shave themselves. He himself, of course, is an adult male who lives in the village. Does he or does he not shave himself? The evident paradox here is that if he is a self-shaver, then (by hypothesis) our barber does not shave himself, whereas if he is not a self-shaver, then (by 174 Reification Fallacies and Inappropriate Totalities hypothesis) he does shave himself. Either way we are in difficulty. It is clear that consistency is beyond our reach here. The following theses constitute the aporetically inconsistent cluster that defines the paradox:

1. There is—or can be—a barber who answers to the specifications of the narrative. 2, This barber at issue in the narrative (like any other) either does or does not shave himself, but not both, 3* If the barber shaves himself then, by the narrative's stipulation, he is not someone who shaves himself. 4, If the barber does not shave himself then, by the narrative's stipula­ tion, he does shave himself. 5, Thus cither way a contradiction ensues.

The optimal point at which to break the chain of inconsistency here is clearly at its very start, with that hypothetical barber himself. For there is not and cannot be a barber who answers to the specified conditions. The barber paradox is thus vitiated from the very outset, by being predicated on the supposition of a barber who cannot possibly be. That purported introduction of a barber upon the stage of discussion misfires—it fails to introduce. And what holds for inappropriate identifications also holds for inap­ propriate totalizations. With such self-encompassment in view we can now project. Specifically, consider what might be characterized as the X-total- ization of self-nonencompassing Xs as per:

The X of all those Xs that do not X-wise encompass themselves (the set of all those sets that do not set-include themselves, the shaver of ail these shavers who do not shave themselves, or the like).

It is clear that any such totalization is always paradoxical. Thus consider the container (set) of all containers (sets) that do not contain (set-include) themselves, the list of all lists that do not list themselves, the picture of all pictures that do not depict themselves, and so forth. In each case we have a totality Z of such a sort that

ZcncXiff ~(Xenc X).

But now whenever Z itself belongs to the range of the Xs at issue we shall arrive at the upshot: Reification Fallacies ami Inappropriate Totalities 175

Z one 2 iff ~(Z one Z)

And now we confront the question; Does this totalitarian X-item Z encom­ pass itself X-wise or not: does that set include itself, that list list itself that picture picture itself, and so forth. And paradox occurs immediately because in virtue of its very■r* definition that totality of self-exclusive Xs is itself an X that neither can nor cannot encompass itself. The problem, of course, is that the presupposition that such a negatively totalitarian Z does or can exist is simply false. The item purported to be an instance of the kind at issue (a set, a list, and so on) just does not exist at all: to call it such does not make it such. The preceding difficulties relate to the misidentification of items pur­ ported to be of a type to which they could not possibly belong in view of the way in which that identification is presented. Throughout this range of cases, we have a paradox of inappropriate presupposition that incor­ rectly assumes that something is appropriately identified by a specification that actually does not and cannot succeed. Any body of reasoning or argu­ mentation presumes, explicitly or tacitly, that its propositions are mean­ ingful and thus that its relevant terms aTe well defined, and, when such terms become unraveled on the basis of an inappropriate totalitarian self­ involvement, this crucial presupposition is falsified. Whatever paradox arose is now dissolved. When the charge of illicit totalization can be made to stick, it is thus a highly effective paradox-buster.

3. The Root of the Problem

Recall that the identification operator (u)Px—read "the x such that P x" — so functions that { i ) this object is undefined unless there is just exactly one specifiable item that has the property P, and (2) when there is just exactly one such item, then (x)Px is (identical with) that item. And here saying that (1 x)Px is properly defined—symbolically E!(ix)Px— is to say that it represents a unique member of the range of our universal quantifier V. Thus understood, (\x)Px w ill be defined only when P plainly and unequivocally applies to a single object. And it remains undefined whenever

1. P is uninstantiated. For it then applies to nothing at all (Rr is always false). 2. P is multiply instantiated. For it then applies to several distinct objects

(P .r is true for several values of a ). 176 Reification Fallacies and Inappropriate Totalities

3. P is problematic in that its range of application must be fixed. For it then is unclear where it applies (Px is not clearly determinable for some potential values of x). Now let p represent membership in a collectivity of some (i.e., any) sort. Then we may define totalization in terms of identification via the formula

(T) (xx)Px = df (ly)Vx(xjj-v = Px), where x indicates totalization of Ps w ith respect to |i. And this of course means that (xx)Px will be undefined when P is an "unsuitable" predicate—say, because it is equivocal or ill defined. On this basis a properly defined total exists whenever—but only whenever—the individuals that have the property at issue constitute a unique, well-defined set. The unfeasibility of totalization in unsuitable conditions is now not a distinctive and characteristic phenomenon but simply a natural conse­ quence of the definitional specification of x in terms of i Accordingly the principle envisioned in the present approach is a lim­ itation on the introduction (or specification or definition) of totalities. It reads as follows:

Illicit totalization principle: The attempted specification of a total of items of a certain type is not meaningful when it itself is purported to be of the type at issue unless the question of its self-membership has been resolved unproblematically in its favor. To be m eaningfully and viably introduced into the discussion—that is, to be adequately specified, identified, or defined—a totality {collection or whole) must not be purported in its introducing definition to Include itself.

If this principle is violated, then we certainly run the risk of paradox. For note that this principle so functions as to preclude all of the following item specifications:

* The set of all sets (including that set itself) (Cantor's paradox). * The set of all sets satisfying a certain condition whose satisfaction by the set itself is unresolved (Curry's paradox)*

Given the inappropriateness of the item specification at issue, no separate mechanism need be adopted to avert those associated paradoxes. The issue of identification legitimacy is a powerful tool that suffices to serve our needs here. No separate, more elaborate, mechanism is required to avert paradox in these cases. (And this holds also when facts instead of sets are at issue.) Reification Fallacies and Inappropriate Totalities 177

And so, given definition (T), it follows theorematicaliy that totalization hinges on the nature of the factor at issue: unsuitable predicates demon­ strably do not totalize. Accordingly no burdensome special mechanism along the lines of a type theory of sets need be adopted to resolve the paradoxes posed by "illicit totalities": those paradoxes simply do not arise because those problematic totalities are not defined.

4. More on Illicit Totalities

There is no problem about the idea of a list of lists or a bibliography of bibliographies; such things exist in plenty and are altogether unproblem­ atic. In principle we can even contemplate a list of all lists or a bibliography of all bibliographies: a complete list of lists or a complete bibliography of bibliographies. But what of the idea of

* A complete list of all incomplete lists. * A complete bibliography of all incomplete bibliographies.

If such a work includes itself, then it is ipso facto ineligible for self-inclu­ sion. But if it does not include itself, then it is eligible for self-inclusion and for that very reason fails to answer to its own specification. What this clearly means is that the very idea of such works is self-contradictory, and the work supposedly at issue cannot possibly exist. A list of incomplete lists or a bibliography of incomplete bibliographies represents a practical idea, but totalization is inherently impracticable here. For what we have here is a fallacy of erroneous presupposition analogous to the erroneous presuppositional "loading" at issue in the question "Have you stopped beating your wife?" For the fact of the matter is that not every otherwise plausible item specification can be totalized. Consider such specifications as

* A list of self-omitting lists. * A bibliography of self-omitting bibliographies. * An inventory of self-omitting inventories. * A set of seif-omitting sets. * A discussion of self-ignoring discussions.

So far, so good. However, otherwise meaningful item specifications can­ not be totalized. The very idea of a complete list of all self-omitting lists (or 178 Reification Fallacies and Inappropriate Totalities

bibliographies, and so on) is absurd. What we have here is throughout a problem of one uniform phenomenon: the illicit totalization of the item at issue. Observe that the illicit totalization principle is not one that governs the membership of totalities—let alone their existence as such—but one that merely addresses the proprieties of how totalities can meaningfully be intro­ duced upon the stage of discussion and consideration, It deals with issues of communicative procedure, not issues of existence as such, and is accord­ ingly a principle of logical grammar rather than one of ontology.7 The principal lesson of this discussion, however, is that recourse to elaborate formal devices for paradox evasion, such as the theory of set types, can in various cases be averted by the employment of a very straightfor­ ward and far less elaborate informal device, namely the eminently plausible proscription of identificatory self-reference.

5. A Russellian Digression

What is at issue here is akin to, yet not identical with, a principle that Bertrand Russell took over from the French mathematician Henri Poincare and which, following him, Russell characterized as the

Vicious circle principle: No collection (whole or totality) can contain members that are defined in terms of itself; specifically, no collection can ever be a constitutive part of itself

As it stands this is clearly a limitation upon the constitution of totalities— and a very strong limitation at that To quote Russell: "'Whatever involves all of a collection must not itself be one of the collection/"8 And in saying that such a so-called collection "has no total" Russell has it that it does not exist as a collection. Thus what we have here is a restriction on the sorts of collections that can exist—that is, upon how authentic collections can possibly be constituted. However, Russell's approach has serious drawbacks. For example, as he saw it, we must never stake claims about "all propositions" or about "all properties" because such locutions involve violations of his vicious circle principle.-' He was so intent on barring illicit self-involvement that he insisted on barring self-involvement in general. And so, in seeking to eliminate paradox, Russell also dismissed a great deal of innocuous stuff Reification Fallacies and Inappropriate Totalities 179 as well—including such tautologically harmless universalizations as "All meaningful propositions make an assertion of some sort/' or "All proper­ ties are attributes of some sort of object/' or "All objects can be members of collections." Someone prepared to subject logic to the requirements of common sense might well see this consequence alone as invalidating his version of the vicious circle principle on grounds of throwing out the baby with the bath water. Whereas the Russellian vicious circle principle is ontological in its nature, the presently contemplated illicit totalization principle is merely communicative or semantical; it deals only with the expository proprieties of how items of discussion can meaningfully be placed upon the agenda of consideration. The one principle deals with matters of actual existence, the other merely with matters of appropriate specification. For our present analy­ sis pivots upon showing that various putatively identifactory specifications will not succeed in placing a certain supposedly real item upon the stage of consideration. And the rationale for this is simply that a particular indi- viduative presupposition is violated by the use of such an expression, thereby failing to enable the expression in question to establish its intended reference successfully. An instructive lesson thus emerges. Russell sought an existence- negating rationale for rejecting certain totalities. And he thought to find a suitable basis for dismissing existence claims in a complex theory of types. But in fact a much simpler route to problem resolution is available. It lies in construing totalization (t ) in terms of definite description (i) as per definition (T) above. For then the fact that definite descriptions fail to identify in certain conditions automatically provides a rationale for seeing totalization in the same light. What is now at issue with improper totals is a problem of identification rather than one of being or existence—an epis- temic rather than an ontological failing. Accordingly the present approach is decidedly less drastic than Rus­ sell's. What is wrong with the "set of all sets that do not contain themselves" is—according to the present account—not its excessive inclusiveness as a presumptive set but rather the anaphorically self-invoking back-reference— via the expression "themselves"—that is at work in its formulation. In short, what the present approach proscribes is not self-referential impred- icativity in general, but only its presence in identificatory contexts. (With sensible liberality, it sees nothing wrong with a descriptive report along 180 Reification Fallacies and Inappropriate Totalities the lines that some preidentified set "is a set that does [or does not] con­ tain itself" as such.) And in taking this line in the present context we place a restriction not on existing totalities as such, but on the sorts of predications that can meaningfully be employed in the course of identifying totalities so as to introduce them into the discussion. And this approach makes it possible to take a more narrowly targeted procedure that is not committed to wholesale object dismissal in the manner of Russell's approach. We need not proscribe all talk about "all sets" or "all propositions" but rather must merely be careful about what we endeavor to accomplish with these locutions.10 Specifically we need to embargo impredicative characterizations only in identificatory, defini­ tional, and similarly item-introductory contexts. Russell's wholesale rejection of self-inclusion—dismissing, for example, the self-inclusive con­ tention "All propositions are either true or not" as meaningless—simply slays the innocent along with the guilty. The salient lesson of these deliberations is that the pragmatic ground rules of effective communicative practice suffice to sideline a significant range of familiar epistemic puzzles and paradoxes. A resort to cumber­ some and complex logical mechanisms can generally be avoided by such rudimentary devices.

6. A Kantian Postscript

Immanuel Kant deserves recognition as the philosopher wrho, in his Critique of Pure Reason, first objected to illicit totalization. And he took this step as a means of freeing himself from what he regarded as problematic and the­ oretically unwelcome entities. For, as Kant saw it, such ideas as that of "an ultimate component of spatial regions" or "the ultimate cause of events" represent the products of illicit totalization. He rejects totalities that are not as it were closed and thereby impossible to survey in to to, since he held that experience is our only pathway to knowledge about existence, and of course we almost never experientially survey certain totalities as such. Thus, as Kant saw' it, a fundamental fallacy is involved in such totali­ tarian conceptions: "The concept of totality is in this case [of the world as a w hole] simply the representation of the completed synthesis of its parts; for we cannot obtain the concept from the apprehension of the wThole— that being in this case impossible."11 For Kant, such closure-defying, unsur- Reification Fallacies and Inappropriate Totalities 181 veyable conceptions as that of the world as a whole, whose content goes beyond the range of that which could ever be given in experience, are ill defined and thereby inappropriate. Only experiential interaction can assure actual existence—description alone can never do the job:

[It is inappropriate to suppose] an absolute totality of a series that has no beginning or end [such as would be at issue with "the terminus of all successive divisions of a region" or "the initiation of all the causes of an event"]* In its empirical meaning, the term "whole" is always only com­ parative. The absolute whole of quantity (the universe), the whole division [of a line segment], or of [causal] origination or of the condition of exis­ tence in general . . . along with all questions as to whether this whole is brought about through finite synthesis or through a synthesis requiring infinite extension , * * [are something altogether inappropriate).12

Wherever experiential totalization is unachievable, we can never appro­ priately reify such a totalitarian conception into that of an object that has a well-defined identity of its own. For Kant such improperly totalized items as "the physical world as a whole" represent an inherently fallacious conception that leads to inconsistency:

[As a sum total of existence] the world does not exist in itself, independ­ ently of the regressive series of my representations, it exists in itself neither as an infinite whole nor as a finite whole. It exists only in the empirical regress of the series of appearances, and is not to be met with as something in itself. If, then, this series is always conditioned, and therefore can never be given as complete, "the world" is not an unconditioned whole and does not exist as such a whole, either of infinite or of finite magnitude*15

Kant has it that the endorsement of such unsurveyably unbounded total­ izations will result in untenable concepts that engender logical self- contradictions, His four classic "antinomies" in the Critique of Pure Reason exemplify the difficulty at issue. These Kantian antinomies run as follows:

I. The totality of physical existence (= the world or the universe as a whole) * is limited in the physical manifold of space and time. * is unlimited in the physical manifold of space and time, II. The ultimate components of nature, the absolutely atomic, totally inde­ composable units of physical substance, * are pervasive throughout all of physical reality. * are excluded from physical reality (i.e., do not exist as such). 182 Reification Fallacies and Inappropriate Totalities

IIL The totality' of natural occurrence (= the aggregate of events in physical realm) * is of necessity determined by physical law. * is free from determination by physical law, IV, An absolutely necessary, self-engendering being—one that itself encompasses the totality of its own cause— • is physically or causally active in the natural world. • is physically and causally excluded from the natural world.

In each case there is at issue an extraordinary, somehow totalitarian (that is, ultimate or absolute) object of consideration regarding which some far- reaching feature is both flatly affirmed and categorically denied. What is being claimed throughout is (structurally speaking) that a certain putative object (A) both docs and does not have a certain physically geared feature (F). Conflicting predications arise:'JA is F" and 71 is not-F" And, so Kant maintained, equally good arguments can be constructed either way, so that both the thesis and the antithesis can be rendered plausible and con­ tradiction results, On this basis Kant's antinomies are seen by him as engendering a par­ adox along the following general structural lines:

!, Item A (e.g., physical existence as a whole) is a legitimate object of prediction.

2* There are cogent reasons for saying that item A (e.g., physical exis­ tence) is F (e.g,, limited) (a substantiable fact grounded in argumenta­ tion that Kant presents in some detail), 3. There are cogent reasons for saying that item A (e.g., physical exis­ tence) is not-F (e.g., unlimited) (another substantiable fact rooted in presented argumentation). 4. (i ) and (2) are logically incompatible if (and whenever) A exists as a legitimate object of predication (a fact of logic). 5. Therefore, by (2)^(3) item A does not exist because it is a fact of logic that no legitimate object of predication can have incompatible predicates. 6. (5) contradicts (1).

As Kant saw it, the natural place to break this chain of inconsistency is at thesis (1), which—so he maintains—is the w'eak spot of the antinomy. For him the proper lesson to be drawn is that identifiable particulars can exist Reification Fallacies and Inappropriate Totalities 18$ as proper objects of predication whereas abstract totalities are vitiatingly problematic in this regard. The four Kantian antinomies arise from a series of corresponding questions of a common format:

Is the ultimate unit of [/] limited or unlimited in point of [ii]?

Where the four cases stand as follows:

111 M l L Physical existence Spatiotemporal distribution 2. Physical divisibility Physical diffusion Natural occurrence Lawful determination 4. Existential self-sufficiency Causal participation in nature

And all of these questions make the common supposition that that ulti­ mate item at issue in [i] actually exists—something that Kant emphatically denies. Kant thus argues that, in case the resolution of the antinomy consists in rectifying a mistaken presupposition, that putatively ultimate item at issue is a bona fide (physical) existent that is capable of being a proper bearer of {physically oriented) predicates such as spatiotemporal extent, physical existence, lawful determination, or causal efficacy. Such ultimates do not qualify as items of natural existence of which physical features can appropriately be predicated, even though they can serve as communica­ tive devices for thought and expression. (This is why the second, negative side of the antinomies always comes closer to the mark.) Kant's position is not so much that of Nicholas of Cusa, that certain totalities are beyond human comprehension, as that they are not defined as identified individ­ uals, upon which the machinery of subject /predicate logic can get a pur­ chase hold. Kant's position here is certainly discussible. One could, for example, contend that those supposed "cogent reasons" at issue in the aporetic theses (^)—(3) of the basic argument constitute the vulnerable presupposi­ tion of the argument rather than thesis {1). Or again one could try to dissolve the contradictions on grounds of equivocation, arguing (for example) that the sense in which the physical world is limited in space- time is different from the sense in which it is not so limited. 184 Reification Fallacies and Inappropriate Totalities

All the same, Kant's idea of rejecting certain totalities as illicit is not all that implausible. No painting of a painting can represent all of its detail. And even so no thought or theory can encompass the entire reality to which it itself belongs. The hypothetical projection of such an item envisions a totality that is incapable of realization—one whose acceptance conflicts with the things we know about the nature of human knowledge. As Kant saw it, the synoptic (totalitarian) purview of the claims of classical meta­ physics is simply unavailable to us humans. We are limited creatures who have to operate within the world and therefore from a particular (specifi­ cally human) perspective. We have no cognition-external Archimedean ful­ crum outside the realm of our specifically human cognition from which to move the entire domain of thought as a whole. And this Kantian perspective relates to the relationship between inner and outer. We humans arc emplaced within nature and by this very fact arc limited as to the sort of information we can obtain about nature. All of our observation-based judgments are partial and thereby incomplete in scope. Every observer has a body of information whose limitedness precludes anything like an all-inclusive view of things. As far as actual knowledge goes, totalities are off limits—be they the totality of actual experience (the self) or of its objects (the world) or of its rationale (ultimate purpose or God).11 Such ideas represent useful mind contrivances for the development of actual knowledge but do not—cannot—themselves constitute actual objects of knowledge. As Kant saw it, they are not entities at all, but only practical resources, instrumentalities of cognitive procedure useful only for contrasting what we actually have with what we would ideally like. Those improperly totalized items simply do not exist as actual objects, (Their sta­ tus is akin to that of the equator or the North Pole.) However, another aspect of the matter must be noted. Kant thought that by representing such totalitarian items as "the all-encompassing world" or "the all-creating deity" as illicit totalizations he could eliminate the salient issues of traditional ("precritieat") metaphysics, in particular, his critique of inappropriate totalization was an integral part of his dis­ missal of the cosmological argument for the existence of an all-creative God to serve as producer of the world. As he saw it, if there is no such thing as "reality-at-large" or "the world as a whole," then the issue of its causal origination is rendered moot, subject to the plausible principle that only an item that is already known to exist needs to have its existence explained. Reification Fallacies and Inappropriate Totalities 185

Nevertheless, there are problems here. The proscription of world totalization may blank "Why does the world as a whole exist?" But it does not affect—let alone invalidate—the ontological question in the form originally envisioned by Leibniz: "Why is there something rather than nothing?" And this condition of affairs prevails more widely. Those meta­ physical issues that Kant sought to eliminate by rejecting totalized objects can generally be reconstituted—wholly or partially—in ways that avert the illicit reification that is supposedly at issue. TEN

What If Things Were Different?

1. On Counterfactual Conditionals and Nonexistent Worlds

We have seen how pragmatic principle can serve to good effect in relation to knowledge of matters of fact. But it is also worthwhile to consider how such principles can render useful service in conjectural situations of counterfactual reasoning, Surely things might have been very different- Caesar might not have crossed the Rubicon, Napoleon might never have left Elba. Surely we can reason sensibly from such contrary-to-fact assumptions so as to obtain instructive knowledge about unrealized possibilities. But is this really so? There is, in fact, reason to think that reasoning from fact-contravening suppositions is far more problematic than it appears at first sight A "counterfactual conditional" along the lines of "If Napoleon, had stayed on Elba, then the battle of Waterloo would not have been fought" is, in effect, a conditional that elicits a consequence from an antecedent that repre­ sents a belief-con travelling hypothesis? And the reality of it is that in the context of other prevailing beliefs counterfactual hypotheses are always paradoxical2 The substantive interim kage of our beliefs is such that belief-con tra­ velling suppositions always function within a wider setting of accepted beliefs B,, B., * . . , B,, of such a sort that, when one of them for simplicity say must be abandoned in the wake of a hypothetical endorsement of its negation, nevertheless the resulting group -B^ B2, ..., Bn still remains collectively inconsistent. The reason for this lies in the principle of the sys­ temic integrity of fact. For suppose that we accept B1. Then let B2 be some

186 Wlmi If Things Were Different? 187 other claim that we flatly reject—one that is such that we unhesitatingly accept ~B2. N o w since (by hypothesis) we accept we will certainly also accept v Bv But now consider the group of accepted theses: B]r B1 v B2, ~Br When we drop B., here and insert in its place we obtain ~BT, B1 v B2, ~B2. And this group is still inconsistent. Facts engender a dense structure, as the mathematicians use this term in relation to real numbers. That is, every determinable fact is so drasti­ cally hemmed in by others that, even when we erase it, it can always be restored on the basis of what remains even as B1 can be derived from B1 v B, and in the preceding example. The fabric of fact is woven tight. But suppose that we make only a very small alteration in the descriptive composition of the real, say by adding one pebble to the riverbank- But just which pebble? Where are we to get it and what are we to put in its place? And where are we to put the air or the water that this new pebble displaces? And when we put that material in a new spot, just how are we to make room for it? And how are we to make room for the materia! thus displaced? Moreover, the region within six inches of the new pebble used to hold N pebbles. It now holds presumably N + 1. But whence did we take that extra pebble? Of which region are we to say that it now holds N — 1? And if it is that region yonder, then how did the pebble get here from there? By a miraculous instantaneous trans­ port? By a little boy picking it up and throwing it? But then which little boy? And how did he get there? And if he threw it, then what happened to the air that his throw displaced, which would otherwise have gone undisturbed? And what about the structure of the environing electromag­ netic, thermal, and gravitational fields? Just how arc these to be preserved as they were, given the removal and/or shift of the pebbles? How is mat­ ter to be readjusted to preserve consistency here? Or are we to do so by changing the fundamental laws of physics? The long and the short of it is that hypothetical perturbations of real­ ity confront us with problems without end. Every hypothetical change in the physical makeup of the real sets in motion a vast cascade of physical changes either in the physical makeup of the real or in the laws of nature or both. We cannot make hypothetical redistributions in the makeup of the real world without thereby raising an unending series of questions. And not only do redistributions raise problems but even mere erasures— mere cancellations—do so as well because, reality being as is, they require 188 What If Things Were Different? redistributions to follow in their wake. If by hypothesis we zap that book on the shelf out of existence, then what is it that supports the others? And at what stage of its production did it first disappear? And if it just van­ ished a moment ago then what of the law of the conservation of matter? And whence the material that is now in that book-denuded space? Once more we embark upon an endless journey. Their density means that facts are so closely intermeshed with each other as to form a connected network. Any change anywhere has reverberations everywhere. This condition of things is old news. In his influential Treatise on Oblig­ ations the medieval scholastic philosopher Walter Burley (ca. 1275-ca. 1345) laid down the following rule: " when a false contingent proposition is posited/ one can prove any false proposition that is compatible with it,"* His reasoning was as follows. Let the facts be that

(P) You arc not in Rome, (j£>) You are not a bishop.

And now, of course, also:

(R) You are not in Rome or you are a bishop. (P or not-Q)

All of these, so we suppose, are true. Let us now posit by w7ay of a (contin­ gently false) supposition that

Not-(jP) You are in Rome,

Obviously (P) must now7 be abandoned—"by hypothesis," How?ever from (R) and (not-P) we also obtain

You are a bishop. (Not-Q)

And in view of thesis (Q) this is, of course, false. We have thus obtained (not-Q) as a consequence of our supposition where Q is an arbitrary true proposition. Thus Burley's principle is established: any logically compatible proposition can be made to follow from a contingently false proposition. It is clear that this situation obtains in general. For let p and q be any tw7o (arbitrary but nonequivalent) facts. Then all of the following facts w7ill What If Things Were Different? 189 also of course obtain: p & q, p v qf p v ~q v r, ~p v q, ~(~p & q), and so on. Let us focus upon just three of these available facts:

L p 2. £j 3. ~(~p & q) or equivalently p v -q

Now let it be that you are going to suppose (not-p). Then of course you must remove (i) from the list of accepted facts and substitute

1' -p

But there is now no stopping. For together with (3) this new item at once yields ~qf contrary to (2). Thus that supposition of ours that runs contrary to accepted fact viz, (not-p), has the direct consequence that any other arbi­ trary truth must also be abandoned, Burley's principle thus has far-reaching implications. For it means that we must come to terms with the inescapability of ontological holism. As far as the logic of the situation is concerned, you cannot change anything in the domain of fact without endangering everything. Once you embark on a contrary do-fact assumption, then all bets are off. Nothing is safe any more. To maintain consistency you must revamp the entire fabric of fact, which is to say that you confront a task of Sisyphian proportions. This is something that people who talk glibly about other possible worlds all too easily forget. The fact is that, across the board, in every sort of setting or situation, the validation of counterfactuals and the assessment of their appropri­ ateness is not a matter of anything as far-reachingly metaphysical and demanding as an ontology of possible worlds. It is, rather, a mere matter of precedence and priority among the relevant beliefs that are at work in the setting of particular questions. What is needed is a localized micro­ process and not a globalized macroprocess. For when we make belief- contravening suppositions in ordinary workday situations we are not shifting the frame of reference to the world at large let alone having recourse toother possible worlds—but merely testing the comparative solidity and staying power of our actual claims within their contextual neighborhood. As with an Agatha Christie detective story, a closer scrutiny of the proxi­ mate suspects immediately involved in the context at issue is happily 1SH> What j f Things Were Different? always sufficient to resolve the mystery. This general circumstance is readily illustrated by a few concrete examples.

2, Some Counterfactual Conditionals

Consider the conditional "If this stick were made of copper, it would conduct electricity." The situation is as follows:

i. This stick is made of wood. 2* This stick is not made of copper. 3* Wood does not conduct electricity mf 4. Copper does conduct electricity. 5. This stick does not conduct electricity.

And now let us introduce the (l)-modifying assumption:

6* This stick is made of copper.

How is consistency now to be restored? Note that our initial givens fall into two groups: general laws—(3) and (4)—and particular facts—(1), (2), and (3). Now when (6) is introduced as an issue-definitive hypothesis we of course must abandon (1) and (2) in the wake of this assumption. But that still does not restore consistency since (6) and (4) still yield (not-3). However, the standard epistemic pol­ icy of prioritizing more genera] principles such as laws over particular facts in counterfactual contexts means that it is {5} rather than (4) that should now be abandoned. We thus arrive at the natural (5)-rejecting counterfactual conditional:

A. If this stick were made of copper, then it would conduct electricity (since copper conducts electricity).

This is in place of the "unnatural/' (4)-rejeeting counterfactual conditional:

B. If this stick were made of copper, then copper would not conduct electricity (since this stick does not conduct electricity).

Suppose, however, that for the sake of contrast we take the radical step of altering the fabric of natural law by contemplating the following assumption:

6'. Wood conducts electricity. f-l'to // Things Were Different? 191

We would now of course have to abandon (3) in the wake of this issue- definitive hypothesis. But again this is not enough; seeing that {6") and (i) will again yield {not-5). At this point, however, we must resort to the following principle: in counterf actual context*, particular mode-of-composition statements take priority over particular mode-of-behavicr-statements* And this means that it is once more (5) that should be abandoned. We thus arrive at the following “natural" counterfactual:

* If wood conducted electricity, then this stick would conduct electricity (since it is made of wood). in place of the following “unnatural" counter factual:

• If wood conducted electricity, then this stick would not be made of wood (since it does not conduct electricity).

Since alternative outcomes are always possible in such cases, a logical analysis of the situation will not of itself be sufficient to eliminate the basic indeterminacy inherent in counter factual situations. We once again require a principle of precedence and priority to indicate w7hat must give way in case of a clash of assumptions. To deal effectively writh counterfactual conditionals we must be in a position to distinguish, within the group of logically eligible alternatives, between more and less “natural" ways of reconciling a belief-contravening hypothesis with the entire set of residual beliefs that continue to be collec­ tively inconsistent with it. Thus observe that the previous choice between (A) and (B) offers us an option between abandoning a law of nature (“Cop­ per conducts electricity") and readjusting the features of a particular object, that wooden stick. Following the policy of minimizing the scope of environmental changes in the wake of hypotheses we will obviously opt for the second alternative. For the sake of another illustration consider the counterfactual "If Puerto Rico were a state of the union, the United States would have fifty- one states." Here the following three propositions may be taken as rele­ vantly know n givens:

1. Puerto Rico is not a state of the union. 2. There are fifty7 states. 3. The list of the states includes all the following: Alabama, Arizona,... 4. The list of the states includes only the following: Alabama, Arizona,. .. 192 What if Things Were Different?

Now consider introducing the following fact-contravening supposition: suppose that (not-i), that is, suppose Puerto Rico to be a state* In embarking on this assumption we must obviously now jettison (i) and (4) and replace them by their negation. But this is dearly not enough. The set ((not-i), (a), (3)} still constitutes an inconsistent trio. To keep w ithin the limits of consistency we must also abandon either (2) or (3}. Of course we have a choice between these two. And with it we arrive at a choice between two alternative counter fa ctua Is:

A* If Puerto Rico were a state, then there would be fifty-onew* states since all of the following are states: Alabama, Arizona, ... Here wrc retain (3) and abandon {2). B. If Puerto Rico wrere a state, then one of the present states would have departed, since there are just fifty states* Here we retain {2) and aban­ don (3).

Now it is clear that the first of these is plausible and the second dis­ tinctly less so. The question comes down to a matter of priority and prece­ dence* And the answer here is (3) before (2), its justifying rationale being as follows: The number of states has repeatedly changed throughout U S. his­ tory as new states were added to the union. But no state has ever dropped out—and the attempt on the part of some to do so proved a disastrous fail­ ure. The generalization "'States can enter the union'" is an evidentially far more tenable contention than "States can leave the union," The crux is that in these counter factual contexts (unlike the fictional case), well-established generalizations take precedence over particular facts, Hence (3) is dis­ tinctly more tenable than (2), and the first of the indicated counterfactuals is accordingly more eligible then the second. The example therefore illustrates a general situation. Counterfactuals arise when assumptions that conflict with some of the factual beliefs at our disposal are introduced into the wider setting of other accepted beliefs. And the process of consistency restoration via plausibility that is effec­ tive with other paradoxes also applies straightforwardly and construc­ tively in this present case subject, however, to the crucial considerations that (1) hypotheses and their logico-conceptual consequences now assume a position of prime priority and (2) that the usual principle of specificity prioritization familiar from factual contexts is now reversed seeing that well-established generalizations will take precedence here. What If Wrings Were Different? m

A significant lesson emerges. To reason satisfactorily under the condi­ tionals generated by counter factual assumptions we need not resort to nonexistent worlds. It suffices entirely to prioritize in a suitable way the factual statements to which we stand committed with respect to this actual world.

3* Further Examples

Consider the counter factual contention "If the Eiffel Tower were in Man­ hattan, then it would be in New York State." This conditional introduces a fact-contravening hypothesis:

The Eiffel Tower is in Manhattan into a context in which the following statements are in place as accepted truths:

1. The Eiffel Tower is in Paris, France. 2. The Eiffel Tower is not in Manhattan. 3. Manhattan is in New York State.

As usual, the result of a thesis by its counter factual negation still leaves an obviously inconsistent situation. How is this inconsistency to be overcome? We are now confronted by the need to choose between (i) and (3), Here (3) will have the upper hand as long as general geographic facts such as (3) are granted priority over the location of specific structures such as the sort at issue with {1). Accord­ ingly (1) would have to be abandoned as well* And we would thus arrive at the conditional "If the Eiffel Tower were in Manhattan, then it would not be in France but in New York State." In theory, to be sure, our counterfactual hypothesis leaves two alter­ natives open, namely the more natural "If the Eiffel Tower were in Man­ hattan then it would be in Newr York State" and its anomalous reverse: "If the Eiffel Tower were in Manhattan then Manhattan Island would be in Paris (just like the Isle de la Cite)." In the former case we would leave Man­ hattan Island in New York State, whereas in the latter we would have to shift it to Paris. We have a choice between moving an individual structure and moving a whole island. Subject to the policy of minimizing change by 194 1X%at if Things Were Different? granting precedence to that which is more general and fundamental, we keep that island in place. The preferred resolution here is underwritten by a definite priority order: hypotheses take precedence, and beyond this systemic fundamen­ tally is our guide. And this policy enables us both to validate counter- factual conditionals and to explain how it is that some counterfactuals are natural and acceptable and others unnatural and unacceptable. This distinction between "natural" and "unnatural" counterfactuals is crucial. For the sake of a further illustration consider the following example due to David Lewis. The case at issue is by stipulation one in which we are taken to know7:

L John F. Kennedy was assassinated. 2. Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated Kennedy 3* No one other than Oswald assassinated Kennedy.

Suppose now7 that wre are instructed to suppose (not-z) and assume that Kennedy w as not killed by Oswald. Then wre clearly cannot retain both (i ) and {3), since in the presence of (not-2) (3) entails that no one assassinated Kennedy, which contradicts (1). Either (i) or (3) must go—one must be subordinated to the other. And now the very way in w'hich a counterfac- tual is formulated instructs us as to the appropriate resolutions:

A* If Oswald did not assassinate Kennedy then someone else did. Subor- dinates (3) to (1). B, If Oswald had not assassinated Kennedy, then Kennedy would not have been assassinated at all. Subordinates (1) to (3).

However, if wre w7cre to supplement our beliefs (1M 3) w7ith a conspiracy theory by way of adopting

4* Kennedy was the victim of a successful assassination conspiracy,

then we w'ould also arrive at

C* If Oswrald had not assassinated Kennedy, then someone else would have. Subordinates (3) to (4).

The very way in which these conditionals are formulated informs us about (and corresponds to) the sorts of subordination relationships that are at work among those "factual" items that we take ourselves to know within the information context of the counterfactual at issue. What If Wrings Were Different? 195

The fact of it is that in the analysis of counterfactuals there is simply no need to look beyond the duster of propositions immediately relevant to the particular counter factual at issue. We certainly have no need to become involved in anything as grandiose as a possible world: a very modest sec­ tor of reality suffices for all our needs.

4. A Difficulty and Its Resolution

However, a difficulty seemingly looms up in the way of the present approach. Two of the main theses of this discussion are as follows: 1. The Burley's principle idea that, once a contingently fact-contravening assumption is accepted, any false proposition can be made to follow. 2* An account that makes sense of contrary-to-fact conditionals through holding that some things do and others do not follow from a contrary- to-fact assumption. To reconcile these considerations we must back up to reconsider some fun­ damentals. The argumentation that supports thesis (i ) was based on the problematic principle that when a false supposition is made the remaining truths— those nonequivalent with that supposition itself—continue to be avail­ able for our reasoning. Specifically if p is true but not-p assumed, then p-or- [an arbitrary proposition] will continue to be true, so that that arbitrary proposition can be inferred for it subject to our assumption of not-p. In these circumstances, that false assumption will automatically lead to con­ tradiction. Something has gone badly wrong here. The fact of it is that that problematic principle italicized previously must of course be abandoned if a viable theory of counterfactual reason­ ing is to be devised. The issue of truth discrimination of deciding which truths do and which do not continue to be acceptable in the face of a con- trary-to-fact assumption must be reconsidered. A mechanism of precedence and priority must be introduced to make it possible to discriminate between those relevant "old truths" that can be retained and those which must be abandoned in the face of that false assumption. In sum an extralogical mechanism that of priority must be resorted to in order to avert the logical clash that would otherwise arise. And the various examples just consid­ ered show how this mechanism in fact operates. After all, when p is the case, so is p v q and p v And so when we "revise" the register of accepted truths by putting ~p in place of p we will 1% U%/ if Things Were Different? at once obtain the contradictory result that both q and not-

5. Whafs Wrong with Nonexistent Worlds?

The shortcoming of the currently fashionable possible-worlds approach to semantics lies in its being predicated on some distinctly problematic presumptions. For possible-world semanticists proceed as though pos­ sible worlds were somehow given, as available instrumentalities wTe have at hand to work with. But where these worlds are to come tom —how we can actually get there from here—is a question they simply ignore. Gen­ erally they see possible worlds as defined by vast propositional sets. But how those sets are to be constituted is something they never tell us about, being sensibly reluctant to follow the medievals into disputes about the language of God. They never tell us how we are to arrive at possible worlds given our de facto starting point in this one. They proceed as though one could obtain by mere fiat that which would have to bo the work of honest toil* The beauty of an ordinary mechanism—a typewriter, say, or a com­ puter—is that its functioning is deterministic. Its modus operandi is fixed: when one provides particular inputs it responds in certain definite ways. It is accordingly supposition-definite: if you suppose certain things to be done, it will respond in definite and (in principle) predictable ways. But, of course, not all systems are like that: people presumably are not, for example, and the world as a whole is certainly not. Here you simply can­ not, in general, say "what would happen if"—and not just because you lack available information but because the system has not as yet made up its mind how to respond. One thus has no clue as to what possible worlds we associate with certain hypothetical changes in this actual one. There is What If Wrings Were Different? 197 simply no workable way of constructing alternative possible worlds—even only in hypothesis. " But surely it's not all that difficult. A variant world could, for example, be just like this one except for Caesar's deciding not to cross the Rubicon on that fateful occasion/' Very well. But now just exactly what does happen in such a world? Does Caesar change his mind a nanosecond later and pro­ ceed as before with just a minor delay? Is he carried across by force majeure and does he then decide to carry on as was? And if he does not cross, then exactly what does he do? And what will all those who interacted with him afterwards be doing instead? The resulting list of questions is endless. The idea of identifying a possible world in some descriptive way or other is simply infeasible. Even this actual world is not adequately describable by us—although fortunately we can, thanks to our emplacement within it, individuate it ostensibly as "this actual world of ours." But once we depart from the convenient availability of the actual we are inevitably "all at sea" w here the specification of nonexistent particular worlds is concerned* But wThat of the alternative possible world that is just like this one except for springing into existence on 1 January 1900? Surely it is descrip­ tively unproblematic since w'hat exists in it and w*hat is to happen to these items is determinately fixed* But the matter is not so straightforward, for while the things and events of that "w orld" are now substantially deter­ mined, its laws are not. Clearly they cannot be the same as those of our world, where chickens come from eggs and do not spring into existence ex nihilo. But just exactly what are the laws operative here in this Johnny- come-latelyJ world? The answer is far from determinate. As W. V, Quine forcefully emphasized over fifty years ago,5 it must be acknowledged that nonexistent possible worlds are something of a philo­ sophical enormity if taken sufficiently seriously to be seen as somehow existing in their own right, To be sure, there is nothing particularly problematic about the idea of scenarios viewed merely as oversimplified conceptual thought artifacts answering to thoroughly incomplete world descriptions.6 But alternative possible worlds are something else again. Semantical theorists wrho pontificate about other possible w'orlds have the audacity to lay claims to entities of a sort of w'hich they are unable to pro­ vide even a single identifiable example.7 The decisive drawback of the possible-worlds approach to counter- factuals that is so popular among contemporary semanticists lies in its 198 What if Things Were Different?

inherent intractability. This becomes apparent through such examples as "If four were greater than five, then arithmetic would be involved in a contradiction." We clearly cannot handle this by contemplating the situa­ tion in those possible worlds where four is greater than five, since there obviously are none. Nevertheless no one would have any difficulty mak­ ing sense of that counterfactual, and in fact the present aporetic analysis validates it straightforwardly.8 But there is no (sensible) question here of any■w recourse to "nonexistent worlds."

6. Making the Actual World Do

Even when viewed epistemically as mere methodological thought tools, unrealized possible worlds are deeply problematic. Once we start fiddling with the law structure of the world we do not really have a clue how to proceed. If electromagnetic radiation propagated at the speed of sound howT would we have to readjust cosmology? Heaven only knows! (Leibniz had the right idea here.) We can certainly sometimes say what particular con­ sequences would follow from a fact-contravening law hypothesis. (If the law of gravitation were an inverse cube law, their significantly lesser weight would permit the evolution of larger dinosaurs.) But we could not redesign the entire world—too many issues would have to be Left unresolved. In a well-designed system of geometry, the axioms are independent—each can be changed without affecting the rest. But we have little if any knowledge about the interdependence of natural laws, and if we adopt a hypothesis to change one of them we cannot concretely determine what impact this will have on the rest. The design of alternative possible worlds—let alone the assessment of their overall similarity to our real world"-—is an utterly impracticable task. (Ts a world with two-headed cats closer to or more remote from ours than one with two-headed dogs?) Possible worlds are both a philosophical oddity and a philosophical superfluity deserving to be seen in an Occamist perspective as items multiplied beyond necessity. It is accordingly fortunate that a recourse to entire alternative worlds is simply not required for the rational management of counterf actuals. Logic apart, all that we ever require here is a handful of precedence deter­ minations to settle matters of conflict resolution—of "right of way" in a clash of aporetic inconsistency among the immediately involved proposi­ tions, And to operate in this way we do not need any global device of the What If Things Were Different? m sort at issue with possible worlds; all we ever need is a local device for assessing (in context!) the relative priority of a contention. Seen in this light, counterfactuals are not a semantical device that pivots on issues of truth, but a pragmatic device that pivots on the purposive teleology of particular contexts of deliberation. To resort to a genetically structured manifold of possible worlds to settle the questions of the assertability of counterfac* tuals would be like using a sledgehammer to squash a gnat. The basic lesson is clear: to validate counterfactuals as informatively productive and appropriate assertions we need not go so far as to under­ take conjectural global forays into otherworldly domains. It suffices to take note of the relevant local ground rules about the prioritization of claims in the setting of this actual one. Counter factual reasoning is a cognitively crucial device that does not stand in need of an outlandish metaphysics of other possible worlds. We can indeed generally say "what would happen if." We know per­ fectly well that, for example, "If Hitlerite Germany had developed an atomic bomb by 1943, the war would have taken a very different course." But what makes this conditional acceptable is simply an understanding of conditions in this world, and not a hypothetical transit into some fully fie shed-out alternative reality. To be sure, there are various expository and heuristic purposes for which nonexistent possible worlds provide an eminently useful device. But this does emphatically not mean that they should be taken seriously in a substantive way as ontologically meaningful. They are no more than a hypothetical thought contrivance on the side of parallels of latitude thought artifacts that must not be accorded a recognition that they in no way deserve* But if we abandon recourse to other, nonexistent possible worlds and treat counterfactuals by means of tbis-world machinery are we not trapped in the necessitarianism of a block universe? Do we not require a meta­ physics of other possible worlds to make room for contingency? By no means. Contingency requires no more than other possibilities for this world. There is a crucial difference between the theses: * There are other possible worlds (distinct from this one) where certain conditions obtain that are not realized in this world* * There are other possibilities for this world: this world might have had properties different from those that it has in fact. 200 \Xl)at if Things Were Different?

To express the first idea we must quantify over (possible) worlds. For we would then have to say something like this:

(3

However, to say that something could be different in this world it suffices to say something like

(3b)[bTf-* & p °ss Only alternative possibilities/ur this world are now at issue, and not alter­ native possibilities to this world. That is, we would only have to talk about this-world alternative possibilities and would not have to tell about alter­ native worlds at all. Insofar as ''To be is to be the value of a variable" we would thus realize a metaphysical simplification of immense proportions. The fact is that wre cannot really come to satisfactory cognitive grips with "other possible worlds." We can indeed reason quite well from coun- terfactual suppositions but simply cannot manage to get a firm cognitive grip on the makeup of other, nonexistent possible worlds. A recourse to the epistemic priorities that govern our commitments regarding our claims about the world is quite sufficient to deal satisfactorily with counterfac- tuals. We need not look outside this world of ours to other possible w orlds but need only look inside to the epistemic priority status of our cognitive commitments. Rhetoric or practical principles of priority and precedence are quite sufficient for the work at hand. There is, fortunately, no need to enter into the problematic contemplation of the actuality of other, non­ existent worlds of which—if the preceding arguments hold good—we cannot really make proper sense. Practical devices of prioritization attuned to the commonplace practices of mundane communication suffice to meet all our needs in these hypothetical situations. Once again the pragmatic principles of practical reasoning serve us to excellent advantage. APPENDIX

Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limits Rudiments of Formalized Epistemology

1* Accessible Knowledge

An epistemic principle is an instructive generalization regarding the nature/ scope, and limits of knowledge—generally one that delineates some characteristic feature of how information can be obtained, established, or interrelated. The object of the present discussion is to elucidate some of the principles of meta-knowledge, our information about matters of knowl­ edge themselves* Our knowledge of course generally provides the premises for our reasoning, and we are accordingly well accustomed to reasoning from knowledge. But reasoning about knowledge is something else again. And in addressing this rather more difficult issue, the first thing that has to be decided is just exactly how the idea of knowledge is to be understood. The conception of "knowledge" clearly represents a flexible and inter­ nally diversified idea. In general terms it relates to the way in which people can be said to have access to information. This can, of course, come about in rather different ways:

• Occurrent knowledge. This is a matter of actively paying heed or attention to accepted information. A person can say: "I am (at this very moment) considering or attending to or otherwise taking note of the fact that hydrogen is the lightest element." The present evidence of our senses—"I see a cat on the mat"—is an example of this sort of thing. • Dispositional knowledge. This is a matter of what people would say or think if the occasion arose—of what, for example, they would say if

201 202 Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limits

asked. Even when X is reading Hamlet or, for that matter, sleeping, we would say that this individual knows (in the presently relevant dispo­ sitional manner) that Tokyo is the capital of Japan. ♦ Accessible knowledge. This is a matter not of what a person would say if asked (= dispositional knowledge) but of what one could say if he was sufficiently clever about using the information that is at one's disposal occurrently or dispositionally. In other words it is what is implied by or inferable from the facts he already knows in any of these senses.

As we propose to understand it here, knowledge will be construed recursively in that third sense of what is inferentiaUy accessible from one's own information,1 The focus is upon available rather than occurrent knowl­ edge. Accordingly a person knows something

1, If this is known to him occurrently, or 2. If this is known to him dispositionally, or 3* If this can be derived by logical deduction or by other secure inferen­ tial means from information that is (already) known to him.

It is this recursive conception of knowledge that will concern us here, the relationship Kxp, for "x knows that p " being understood in the specified manner of "being in a position to know."2 On this basis we immediately secure such relationships as the inferen­ tial accessibility principle3

Kxp & [(p -> *?)] -> Kxq as well as the knowledge compilation (or cortj it activity) principle:

(Kxp & Kxq) -> Kx(p & q).

Our knowers can systematically draw "appropriate conclusions" and "put two and two together." The controlling consideration here is not that they are "inferentialIy omniscient" but rather that the availability-oriented conception of knowledge that is at issue here provides for such inferential projection. Admittedly, to construe knowing in terms of inferentially accessible knowledge is to interpret the idea in a particularly generous sense. How- ever, this approach is amply justified by the aims of the present enterprise since our particular interest here is in the issue of limits of knowledge. For insofar as limits and limitations arise even with this generous construction of knowing, they will have to apply a fortiori to any more demandinglv "realistic" interpretations of the matter. Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limits 203

Given this very inclusive and generous sense of knowing, it should be noted that if p is a thesis demonstrable on logico-conceptual grounds alone, then p wilt be universally available since it can be deductively derived from any thesis whatsoever so that Kxp can be held to obtain for any knower x. Accordingly, given the presently operative inferential availability reading of K, we have

Np -> (Vx)Kxp subject to the convention that N and P represent logico-conceptual neces­ sity and possibility, respectively.4 [Note that the preceding thesis is equiv­ alent to (3x)-K x~p —» Pp.] Only actually possible propositions can be true "for aught that someone knows" in the present generous sense of the term. Moreover, via the substitution P p/p the preceding thesis yields NPp -» (Vx)KxPp, which in turn yields Pp —* (V.r)KrPpT And the same goes for necessity as well: Np -> (Vx)KxNp. AH this is an aspect of our governing supposition that logico-conceptual matters are universally accessible. Inferential prowess notwithstanding, the "knowers" at issue in this discussion are finite knowers. Thus whereas we have it that Every knower knows something some truths, and specifically all necessary ones), and thus (Vx)(3p)Kxp, we also have it that Every knower is ignorant of some truth: {V.r)( 3p)(p & -K xp), Moreover, any truth is a candidate for being known: whenever p is true, then P(3x)Kxp. As these remarks indicate, the present discussion will move beyond quantified modal logic to articulate principles of a qualified modal epis- temic logic.

2. Actual versus Putative Knowledge

In taking "our own putative knowledge" to be true—that is, viewing it as actual knowledge—we accept the principle

Kip p (where / should be construed as "I myself" and/or "we ourselves").

Moreover, in epistemic matters we routinely operate a principle of generos­ ity that credits others with the same privileges and liabilities that we claim for ourselves. Accordingly we generalize the preceding principle to:

Kxp —> p 204 Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limits

We routinely see actual knowledge as inherently veridical. On this basis, Kxp & — "x knows that p but it is not so"—is to all intents and purposes a self-contradiction. We would not say that someone knows something if we thought that this were not so, but we would instead have to say some­ thing like "he merely thinks he knows that p.“ 5 Moreover, to attribute knowledge of a particular fact to another is also to claim it for oneself. To be sure, the generic (3p)(Kxp & -K ip )—that is, "x knows something I do not"—is a perfectly plausible proposition. It is just that one cannot concretize it to the level of specifics. Existential instan­ tiation becomes impracticable here: one cannot sensibly say "X knows that p is the case but I do not." The principle KiKxp —> Kip obtains. And this by the aforementioned principle of generosity generalizes to

KxKyp - » Kvp.

I can indeed realize that you know what the answer to a certain question is without myself claiming to know it. But this only holds at the level of abstract generality: one cannot proceed comparably with regard to specifics because I cannot say that you know that the answer to the question is such-and-such without thereby (implicitly) claiming this as an item of my own knowledge. (See principle K 3J later in this appendix.) The crux is that when we acknowledge the knowledge of others in detail we do not thereby extend our knowledge but only reconfigure it. Knowledge cannot be achieved at second hand but only by individual mastery. To acquire your knowledge I must learn not only that you know but also what you know. Accordingly we have it that

x knows that y knows a certain fact (say, the number of people in the room) does not entail the consequence

x knows the certain fact that y (also) knows.

Knowledge can indeed arise by way of cooptation and appropriation, but only via the rocky road of actual mastery.

Levels of Acceptance and Rejection In articulating epistemological "principles" we must come to terms with the fact that one can distinguish three different levels or bases of asserta- bility on which such principles can be affirmed: Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limits 205

1. Conceptual truth: A thesis that holds good on logico-conceptual goals of meaning and usage alone; its denial involves one in saying things that, although perhaps understandable, are acceptable only subject to elabo­ rate explanations and qualification and which, in their absence, are effectively paradoxical* 2. Contingent truth: A thesis whose acceptability cannot be substantiated by any amount of merely conceptual or verbal elucidation but whose validity roots in the cognitively discernible contingent features of the real world, 3. Plausible truth candidates: A thesis not clearly spoken for by the avail­ able facts but for whose substantiation cogent considerations of plau­ sibility can be adduced and which therefore merits at least qualified endorsement and provisional acceptance.

Each of these defines a level of tenability or assertability that may be char­ acterized as Level i , a, or 3, respectively. (The lower the tenability level of a principle, the more unproblematic and probatively secure it will be.) Let h Z indicate (as usual) that Z is an assertion of the system we are engaged in formulating. Then with respect to Level 1 principles we have:

• If J“1 Z then NZ—and therefore also, as wre have seen, N(Vv)K.rZ.

Since all the principles of our system are to be seen as matters of logico- conceptual necessity, the unqualified prefix h is to be construed as br In being matters of logico-conceptual necessity, all Level 1 principles are accordingly universally available in the inferential accessibility mode of knowledge. With respect to Level 2 principles, by contrast, we merely have

• If K Z then K iZ and thus also (but merely) (3x)KxZ (whence also Z).

Since i = us ourselves, we here see Z as representing something that we really know to be true. Finally with respect to Level 3 principles we merely have

• If h3 Z then Z.

Here we do indeed regard the thesis in question as being true but without claiming actual knowledge of the matter. For in general the propositions we ourselves see as eminently plausible are accepted by us as true, (In theory something viewed as highly plausible can in fact be false, but we are of course incapable of giving a current firsthand example. "I see p as meriting 206 Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limits acceptance but it is false" comes close to being a contradiction in terms. Illustrations from the past or those involving others are, of course, another matter.) Here at Level 3 we claim truth in a tentative and provisional way that fails short of actual knowledge. Accordingly the inference

h3 Z then (3x)KxZ

is inappropriate—and thus a fortiori also the inference to Kiz. On the con­ trary, we have it that if f 3 Z then ~(3x)KxZ. Nobody knows a Level 3 prin­ ciple (ourselves included): every assertion at Level 3 has to be seen as a truth that is accepted but not actually knoum. Such theses may be sur­ mised or presumed, but even at best they are plausible truths that nobody knozvs to be such—as was the case with the thesis "There arc mountains on the far side of the moon" in the cognitive state of the art of the ninetenth century. The existence of the third level of assertion is a reminder that episte­ mology is broader than the theory of knowledge. For matters of presump­ tion, conjecture, reasonable belief, and warranted assertability also dearly fall within its purview. On this basis, then, all three of these modes of "assertion" do indeed convey a commitment—an assertion. A claim that Z is the case obtains in every instance, but with different assertoric modalities—conjuncture, plau­ sible suppositions, or the like. The latter sort of thing is indeed being claimed as true, but in a substantially less firm and confident tone of voice. However, the tenability of Level 3 principles is at odds with acknowledging that someone knows the contrary. For note that when (V.r)~fCr~Z is false, so that ~{Vx)~Kx~Z obtains, then of course we will have {3x)Kx~Z. This means that ~Z would have to obtain (at least at Level 2), so that Z would not be a Level 3 assertion after all—contrary to our initial stipulation. Despite the generic acceptability of (3p)(p & ~(3x)Kxp)— "There is a truth nobody knows"—as an assertion at Level 2 (as per K^), no particular proposition of the form p0 & ~(3x)Kxp0 is ever assertable at Levels 1 and 2. For asserting this at Level 1 would commit one to accepting Np.y which is at odds with -( 3x)Kxp.v And asserting it at Level 2 would involve a com­ mitment to Kipu, which is also at odds with ~(3x)KxpQ. (As regards Level 3, however, the situation is different, as will become clear in Section 12.) One can, of course, use some epistemic theses to deduce others; here, as elsewhere, inference from givens is a cognitively viable project. And the Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive limits 207 epistemic level of a conclusion derived from premises cannot be greater than the highest index level of the premises required for its derivation. In point of cognitive tenability or assertability, the status of a derived claim cannot be weaker, so to speak, than the weakest link among the premises from which it derives.6 Theses that entail the negation (denial) of an assertion must themselves be denied (at the appropriate level). We shall employ the symbol -l to indi­ cate denial/rejection. This should be subscripted to indicate the appropri­ ate level, subject to the convention that HZ obtains at a level iff h~Z does.

4. Level 1 Principles: Logico-conceptual Truths

Let us consider some examples of cognitive principles at each assertion level, beginning with the first: those that inhere in the very nature of our logico-conceptual construction of "knowledge" as inferentially accessible knowledge. The following seven basic principles represent cases in point:

k, Knower capacity (Vx)(3p)Kxp and even more strongly (Vx){3p)[Kxp & ~Np],7 Kz Ki lower fin i t ude (ix)(3t)~Kxt or equivalently ~(3,v)( VfJKxf, where t ranges specifically over truths. K , Knowledge a a then ticity ~(30(3x)l£r-f or equivalently (V0(V.Y)“fCv~L K. Inferential accessibility (p —■> 1> (Kxp Kxq). K, Conjtmctmty (Kxp & Kxq)-> Kx(p & q)> Reflexivity Kxp -> KxKxp. K, Truth availability (yt)P(3x)Kxt or equivalently ~(3f)N(V.t)~K,tf.

Here —> is strong (logico-conceptual) implication and N and P represent logico-conceptual necessity and possibility, respectively. The variables f, K t", and so on will serve to range over truths. And throughout, free vari­ ables are to be taken as tacitly bound to initial universal quantifiers. 208 Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limitsr

Each of these principles merits a brief explanation: * Kj (Vx)(3p)(Kxp & ~Np) simply asserts: every knower knows something— and indeed some contingent (i.e., nonnecessary) truth or other. This obtains simply by virtue of the fact that we are supposed to be talking about knowers. • K, (Vx)(3f)~fCrf reflects the fact that we are dealing with finite know* ers. In the present context of discussion, no knower is omniscient; none knows of all truths that they are true—not even in the present generously undemanding construal of knowledge. [Since t ranges specifically over truths we have it that, for example, (3t)K.rf comes to (3p)(p tk Kxp).] * (Vt)('tfx)~Kx^t asserts: only true propositions can be blown. This thesis roots in the very nature of “knowledge" as this concept is generally understood. For it makes no sense to say that knows that p, but p is not true/' Of course, someone may think or believe that he knows something that is false. But to say that he actually knows it is to acknowledge its truth.

Let us further adopt the abbreviation Up for ~(3x)Kxp or equivalently (tfx)-Kxp— that is, for "p is unknown." Then the just-stated finding means that (Vt)LI(“ f). No one knows something that is false, that is: nobody knows an untruth to be the case.

* K4 —> q) —> (Kxp —* Kxq). Knowers automatically know the things that follow from what they know. This obtains because it is the tacit or implicit sense of "knowledge" as inferentially accessible information that is at issue in our discussion.

Since by virtue of K i our knowers know all necessary propositions, we of course have it that every knower knows that any given p is true or false: (Vx)Kx(p v ~p) or equivalently ~(3x)~Kx(p v ~p). But in view of Kn there certainly can be knowers who do not know whether p is true or is false (3x)(~Kxp & ~Kx~p).

♦ (Kxp & Kxq) -» Kx(p & q). Knowers know conjointly and collectively anything they know distributively. This too obtains by virtue of the gen* erous accessibility-oriented sense of “knowledge" that concerns us here, which supposes that knowers “can put two and two together." • K6 Kxp —> KxKxp. When knowers know something, this very fact is cogni­ tively accessible to them. This again follows from the presently operative accessibility-geared sense of knowledge. For clearly when knowledge is construed as available knowledge—that is, in terms of what can be Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limits m

inferred on the basis of what is known—then Kxp will carry KxKxp in its wake. When a certain fact is known to someone, they are in a position to infer that this is so. (Observe that K6 yields K x-p —» KxKx~p, which is quite different from and emphatically does not imply - Kxp -> Kx-Kxp.) • K7 (Vf)P(3r)/6T. Any actual truth is (in principle) knowable: - { 3t)N(\fx)-Kxt. Such potential availability also inheres in our understanding of the relationship of knowers to knowledge. (Note that this principle is equivalent to -( 3f)NU(f): no truths are necessarily unknown, no facts inherently inaccessible.

K7 stipulates that any truth is a candidate for knowledge. This reflects our present understanding of N and P as logico-conceptual necessity / pos­ sibility rather than as physical necessity/possibility. It is certainly con­ ceivable that some region of physical reality is such that its facts are inaccessible to intelligent creatures* However, (Vt)F(3x)Kxt does not mean that any truth is knowable by some actual existent (Vf)(Ex)PKjct. The know- ability at issue looks not to actual but to merely possible knowers. K7 cannot be strengthened to (Vf)(3.r)Krf* For, as will soon become apparent, the prospect of de facto unknown truths must be accepted* Could K7 be strengthened to (Vf)P(V*)Krf? This would preclude the prospect of "blind spots"—bits of self-knowledge inherently unavailable to the subject himself.s This certainly seems unacceptable. It does, how­ ever, seem feasible to strengthen K7 from p —» F(3x)Kxp to

K7* Pp F(3x)Kxp.

This is ecjuivalent to N(Vx)Krp —> Np* And if we suppose the S5 principle that Np -» NNp, then K M will yield the converse: Np N(Vx)fCvp. On this basis the necessity of a proposition becomes tantamount to its necessary universal cognizance (in the presently operative cognitive-accessibility sense of knowledge)*

5. Further Consequences

Given the principles K -Kr formulated previously, one can proceed to derive various further epistemic principles by purely logical means:

Conjunctivity Kx(p & q) (Kxp & Kxq) 210 Meta -Knowledge and Cognitive Limits

Knowledge of a conjunction is tantamount to knowledge of its conpincts. This follows from K r and K-. ly. Substitutivity q) “ > (Kxp

______This follows from K.j ______and K~5______K12 Self-limitation (Vx)Kx(3 t)~Kxt By K: we have (V.r)(3 f)~.Ka:L And since this is a Level i principle we will also have (Vy)Ky{Vx)(3t)~Kxt. This entails (Vy)Ky(3 t)-Kyt, Not only are individuals not omniscient but they all know it.

fn accepting that somebody else knows a certain particular fact one is thereby effectively claiming that fact as part of one's own knowledge. And so, to know that another person knows some specific fact one must know this fact oneself. We thus have

Kl3 Knowledge cooptation KxKyp Kxp To know that someone actually knows some particular fact to be so one must know this fad oneself

This principle can be derived from the preceding considerations by the following argument:

1* \Kxp & (p - » tj)] Kxq From K: 2♦ [KxKyp & (K\/p^p)\ —> Kxp From (l) by substituting Kyp/p and p/q

3* Kyp p From u. 4, KxKyp —> Kxp From (2) and {3). Q.E.D. Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limits 211

This means that the specifically acknoivledged knowledge of others is also knowledge, (Of course it will not be the case for unacknowledged knowl­ edge* We certainly do not have K x p — > Ki/p.) The knowledge cooptation at issue in K1.. has far-reaching ramifica­ tions, Let it be that x is a more powerful mind than y when x knows every­ thing that 1/ does: (V p)Kyp — » Kxp, but not inversely. The function of the inverse means that there will be some truth f such that Kxt & -K y t. And by KJV ~K yt means that -K y K x t. We arrive at one of the most fundamen­ tal theses of epistemology: the fact that less powerful intellects cannot say exactly what more powerful intellects can and cannot know— that a mind that can just barely get a grip on tie-tac-toe cannot comprehend what is or is not possible for a chess master* Note further that we have the principle

K, 4 Necessity cognition Np —> (Vx)K.xp Logico-conceptual truths are cognitive}y available toalL

This principle pivots on K4 via the following proof:

1. For any x : K x q for some suitable q ByK. 2. Whenever Np, then q —> p t for any q Bv mere logic. 3. Whenever Np, then K x p From (i) and (2) by Kr 4. (Vp)(Np Kxp) From ( 1M 3). 5. (Vp)(Np -> (Vx)Kxp) From (4) since X is a free variable, Q.H.D.

(Note, however, that the converse of KL1 does n ot hold: some merely con­ tingent fact might well be known universally.) Via the substitution Np / p K14 yields

K j s Necessity recog nit ion Np —> (\fx)KxNp Knowledge of necessity is universal. This principle represents a salient feature of inferentially accessible knowledge.

Kj has it that every knower knows some truth, (V.r)(3f)K.vt. By virtue of we have the stronger thesis that there are truths that everyone knows, 212 Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limits

(53£}(Vx}/Ctf. This is clear given our construction of K since any necessary truth clearly fills the bill here. Moreover, via the substitution Vp/p, K 14 entails

K 16 Possibility recognition Fp —» (\fx)KxFp Knowledge of possibility is universal.

Thus possibility recognition is also universal when knowledge is construed as inferential accessibility. K14 also has the following further consequence:

k i7 Possibility accession (3x)~Kx~p —> Pp if something obtains for aught that somebody knows (in our present inferential accessibility sense of knowledge), then this is in fact possible, or again only genuinely possible propositions can obtain for aught that somebody knows.

Combining Kle and K 17 yields (3x)~Kx~p —» (Vx)KxPp. This has the con­ sequence (3x)~Kx~Np —> (Vx)Kxp. Only if p is a universally known propo­ sition can it be that p is necessarily true for aught that somebody knows. We have it that in general

K1H (3p)Kxf(p) -> Kx(3p)f(p).

That is, if there is something of which x knows that if /s, then x knows in the mode of inferential accessibility that something/s.

h (3p)Kxf(p) By hypothesis. 2* Kxf(qX for some suitable q From (l). 3- f(q) -> (3p)f(p) By existential generalization. 4. Kx(3p)f(p) From (2) and (3) by Kr But of course the converse of KJ& does not hold. If x knows that some cat or other is on the mat then there need not be any cat of which x knows that it—this particular cat—is on the mat.

6. Cognitive Limitations

What follows regarding p from (V,r)~Kxp or equivalently U(p)? Certainly not not-p. For if we had (V,v)~Kvp ~p then it would follow that p -» Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limits 213

(3x)Kxp, which must of course be rejected* On the other hand, poss(not-p), that is P~p, must indeed be held to follow* For consider (Vx)~Kxp —> P~p, which is equivalent to Np (3_v)K.tp. In view of K14 this must be accepted on the presently operative construction of knowledge. Let us investigate the prospect of principles of the form if f(p), then (Vx)Kxf(p). Note that

f(p) ^(Vx)Kxf(p) holds when f(p ) = Np by virtue of Ky. But when f(p) = p we will certainly not have p —»(V.r)Kh:p. On the other hand,f{p) ~ (Vx)Kxp leads to

KI9 (Vx)Kxp (Vy)Ky(Vx)Kxp.______

The presently operative construction of K understands it in terms of acces­ sible knowledge. Now if (Vx)Kxp obtains, this means that P is universally available—even to those who otherwise know virtually nothing (outside the inevitable realm of the necessary)* This pretty well confines p to being so obvious and trivial that its universal accessibility is universally accessible. Under what conditions on f would we have it as a general principle that/(p) entails Uf(p)? Note that this would mean that/(p) ~(3x)Kxf(p) or equivalently (3 x)Kxf(p) -» ~/(p)* Since has it that the antecedent yields/(p), it follows that there can be no principle of the indicated format as long as f(p) is self-consistent. No significant feature of p is automati­ cally unknowable. A further important epistemic principle is represented by the thesis

1^ Cognitive myopia ~(3p)(3x)Kx(~Kxp & p) or equivalently (Vx){Vp)-Kx(p & -Kxp) Nobody ever knows of a proposition thatr white they do not know it, is nevertheless true*

The proof is as follows:

1. Kx~Kxp ~Kxp From K,. 2. -(Kx-Kxp & Kxp) From (i ). 3* ~Kx{~Kxp & p) From (2) and K14, Q,E.D,

It is important to observe that the thesis at issue here—or equivalently {Vjr)~(3p)Kr(p & -Kxp)—differs significantly from {\fx)~Kx(3p)(p & -Kxp) or equivalently (V:v)~K*{3£)~Ktf or (Vx)~Kx~(Vt)Kxt, "Nobody knows that 214 Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limits

they do not know all truths/' or again "For aught that anyone knows they know it all/' This latter contention is emphatically unacceptable. We have insisted that our knowers are finite, and there is no reason for supposing that they must fail to recognize their finitude. After all, we ourselves have maintained via the "knower finitude" principle that (k/x)(3 t)~Kxt. Therefore (3y)i£y(Vjr)(3t)~KxL But this entails (3y)JCy{3t)-Ka:f, which in turn entails (3x)JCr(3f)^h'L which invalidates the above-indicated thesis (V.r) ~Kv( 3 0 ~ A pivotal fact of the cognitive domain is

k ,( Knowledge limitation ~(V0(3x)£jrf or equivalently (3t)(Vx)~Kxt or {3t)~(3x)Kxt or (3 t)Ut. There are altogether unknown truths: it is not the case that all truths are known.

This is readily established on the basis of the prior stipulations. For since K2 assures that we are, by hypothesis, dealing with finite knowers, it tran­ spires that for each knower x. there is some truth that this knower does not know: (Vjr)(3f)~Kxt. Now let t* be the conjunction of all these truths t. over our (obviously finite) collection of knowers. Then by virtue of K p no knower knows t*. It follows that (3 t)(Vx)~Kxt or equivalently (3t)L/(f). Of course any such unknown truth will have to be nonnecessary, and thus contingent given the presently operative inferential accessibility sense of knowledge, (A different route to the same destination is that any Level 3 thesis represents what must be regarded as an unknown truth. This will be amplified in Section 12,) !n general one cannot, of course, make the transition from (Vx)(3f)/(x, 0 to (3f)(V,t)/(x, t). (Thus "For any integer there exists another that is greater" does not entail "There exists an integer that is greater than any other integer.") However, in the special case of/(x, t) = ~Kxt this inference is valid, as the preceding argumentation for K2] shows. A community of finite knowers is thus subject to substantial limitations. One might be tempted to object to the just-indicated implication the­ sis, (Vx)(3f)~Kt£ —» (3 t)(Vx)~Kxt, along the following lines: "What if one divided the realm of truth T into two disjoint parts Tf and T, such that xt knows all (but only) T1 truths and x2 knows all (but only) T2 truths? Then clearly (Va)(3t)~Kxt but not (3f)(V.r)~Kvf/' However, this objection is flawed. Meta -Knowledge and Cognitive Limits 215

For the hypothesis that it projects cannot be realized in the circumstances of our discussion, in which knowledge is inferentiahy transmissible in that

[Kxp & (p —> q)] Kxq. Thus consider a truth f 1 v f n for which f1 e and t2 e Tr By inferential transmission this must be a known commonality for xx and x2, so that the disjointness condition cannot be met. The contem­ plated hypothesis of truth division clearly runs afoul of our implicit avail- ability construction of knowledge. On first thought, it might seem to be a plausible thesis that

For aught that anyone actually knows, every truth is known (by someone or other): ~{B*)fCr~(Vf)(3y)Kyf-

But this contention is not in fact tenable. For it entails the equivalent refor­ mulation ~{zLY)K\'(3f)~(3y)Kyt, and thus Lf(3f)L/f. However, K 2l means that we have it as a demonstrable Level i thesis that (3f)UL And this means that JG'(3t)Uf and consequently (3x)Kr(3f)lif or equivalently ~(i(3t)L/£. To be sure, K,., assures only the existence of unknown truth. To this point, we have not claimed to provide an example. (That awaits the dis­ cussion of Level 3 principles in Section 12.) It is also of interest to ask what sort of knowledge follows from igno­ rance. Consider a thesis of the format -Kxp Kxf(p). Since -Kxp always obtains wrhen p is false, this means that Kxf(p) will always obtain wrhen p is false. And therefore f(p) must—like -p itself—hold for all false p. Accord­ ingly nothing of any real interest regarding someone's knowledge follows on gen­ eral principles from his ignorance of a given fact.

7. Summary

The general situation with regard to quantified knowledge claims can be summarized as follows:

Thesis Status 1. (3*)(3t)Krf h via {2) 2. (V*)(3f)k;A'* h by K2 and 3. (3x)(Vt)Kxt HbyK, 4. (Vx)(Vt)Kxt H via (3) 5. (3 t)(3 x)Kxt I- via (1) 6. (Vt)(3x)Kxt H by K 21 216 Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limits

7. (3t)(Vx)Kxt h by K1S 8. (Vf)(V*)Krf H via (4 ) 9* (3x)(3f)-Kv7 or ~(V*)(Vf)Krt h via (4) 10. (Vx)(3t)~Kxt or ~(3x)(Vt)Kxt h via( 3 ) 1 1 . (3.v)(Vf)~Krf or ~(Vx)(3t)Kxt H via (2) 12 . (Vx)(Vf)-^Cvf or -(3x)(3t)Kxt H via (0 13. (3t)(3x)~Kxt or ~(Vt)(\/x)Kxt h via (8) 14. (Vt)(3x)~Krt or ~(3f)(V*)J£rf H via (7 ) 15. (3f)(V*)~Krt or ~(Vf)(3x)JCrf h via (6) 16. (Vt)(\/x)~Kxt or ~(3 f)(3 x)Kvf H via (5 ) Furthermore it is dear that accepted principles provide automatically for principles of rejection at the level of assertion that is at issue. Any the­ sis that entails a H-status proposition— or, equivalently, the negation of a b-statusone— must itself be rejected. For example, consider (3.r)~#Ctp -> This is equivalent to p —> (\fx)Kxp and thus with The unaccept- ability of this thesis per (8 ) entails that of the initial contention as well.

8 . Observations on

It may be observed that ~K x~p represents a characteristic conception in its own right. As has in fact been our practice throughout, it can and should be read "p is true for aught that x knows." Consider the thesis "p is compatible with everything that x knows": ~ {3q)[K xq & (<7 ~p)]. Note that this is tantamount to *'s not knowing not-p:

Ki3 - K x - p ^ -(3q)[K xq & (q -p)\,______which in turn is equivalent to Kxp ^ (3q)[Kxq & (q — > p)]. And here the implication in each direction is readily verified. The K'transmissibility relation \Kxp & (p — » q)] —> Kxq also extends to ~K~:

KJ3 [~Kx~p & (p -> q)) -* ~Rx~q.______

This follows straightforwardly from K4. Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limits 217

Although Kxp -> ~Kx~p holds, per KJiy we do not have its converse, (~Kx~p) —> p. For if this were so, then p — ► Kxp would follow, and this is absurd. We do, however, have

Ki4 {3x)~Kx-p -> Pp.______

To see that this obtains, recall that Klh asserts Np —> (Vx)ICrp. (This result is, of course, decisively dependent on our inferential accessibility construc­ tion of knowledge.) There will certainly be matters about which some knower is ignorant one way or the other, so that there is an x0 and a p0 such that -K x QpD & ~Kx0~p0. This circumstance precludes -Kxp -> Kx~p or equivalently ~Kx~p — » Kxp, as a general epistemic principle. Accordingly we have

-lf -Kxp —¥ Kx-p or equivalently ~Kx~p —> Kxp.

The fact that p obtains 'Tor aught that x knows" certainly does not mean that x knows that p obtains. (However, the converse of this thesis obvi­ ously holds, per Km.) Note, moreover, that p's being true for aught that someone (x) knows does not mean that there will be no one else (y) who knows better. For we have neither

-K x-p -> ~(3y)Kyp nor ~Kx~p -» ~(3if)Ky~p. The former is equivalent to

(3x)~Kx-p — » ~(3y)Kyp or equivalently (3y)Kyp —¥ {Vx)Kx~p which is clearly absurd. And the latter equivalent to (3.t)~iCt-p ~(3y)Ky~p or equivalently (3y)Ky~p (Vx)Kx^p which is also patently untenable. Moreover, -K x-p is without any bearing on p's truth status. We have neither -K x-p p nor -K x -p — > -p. The former is equivalent to ( 3x)-K x-p — > p or equivalently p — » (Vx)Kxp, which is untenable. And the latter comes to the equally unacceptable {3 x)~Kx~p — > ~p or equivalently p -> ('Vx)Kx-p, 218 Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive limits

To say that something "is true for aught that anyone knows" (Vx)~Kv~p or equivalently ~(3x)Kx~p doubtless qualifies as a (very weak) sort of endorsement of a proposition. Us decided weakness is shown by the fact that this stance may be appropriate toward both a proposition and its negation. For when p states something about which people simply have no definite knowledge one way or the other, then ~(3x)Kx*p and ~(3x)Kxp— or equivalently — will both be true. An "endorse­ ment" of a claim that does not rationally preclude its negation is obvi­ ously a very weak sort of backing. Let us inquire about the nature and status of principles of the format

(Vp)(f{p) p). Note first of all that any such principle is equivalent to any one of the following:

(Vp) ~p)

(Vp)(~p -► ~f(p))

(Vp)(p ~/(~p)) (VW(/B0 -+ -/

~p -> (Vx)~Kxp

p ~(Vx)~Kx~p (an old friend from Section 6)

(3x)Kx~p -> (V x)-Kxp or equivalently (3x)Kxp -> (y x )-K x -p [as a consequence of (3x)Kx~p —> ~p plus ~p — »(V£)~J£rp] (3:t)?Gtp ->(Vx)-*Kx~p (from the preceding) The first of these principles immediately yields

K* P -» ~K x-p.______

[The converse, of course, fails: (Vjr)-Xx~p — > p is unacceptable, seeing that it is equivalent to p -> (3jr)J0tp.) And so knowledge authenticity specifically means that we have Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limits 219

Truth robustness Ntyt)(Vx)~Kx~t Necessarily every truth obtains for aught that anyone knows.

We have it by K17 (through the substitution Np /p ) that

Kj, (3x)~Kx~Np -* Np.

Given the inferential accessibility construction of knowledge, it follows that when a proposition is necessary for aught that somebody knows, then this proposition must be flat-out necessary* Another salient principle is

K ,k N(Vx)~Kx~p Np.

This follows straightaway from K£. It means that only with necessary propositions will it be necessary that they are true for aught that anyone knows.

9* Yet Further Consequences

We have the principle

Necessity limitation N(3x)Kxp —» N p or equivalently P/? —> P(Vx)~Kx~;? Only necessary propositions are necessarily known.

This follows at once from (3 x)K xp — > p by our modal logic. It should be noted that entails N{3x)Kxp — > ~Cp, where C p = “p is contingent" = -N p fa ~NAnd this in turn entails Cp —> P(Vx)~Kxp. Accordingly w^e have it that (Vx)P(Vx) ~ K xt or equivalently (Vt)PU(t), with x ranging over the specifically contingent truths. It is, in principle, possible for any given contingent truth to be altogether unknown. (And of course given the presently operative construction of K this is possible only for contingent truths.) Since Np -» N (V x)K xp, K7l> yields

Necess ity generality {of kno wledge) N(3x)Kxp -> N(Vx)Kxp. 220 Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limits

Necessary knowledge, is universal: whatever is necessarily known to one is necessarily known to all. (This might be called the Three Musketeers principle of knowledge, relative to the presently operative inferential accessibility sense of that term-)

However, this generalization principle does not carry over from necessary to possible knowledge- We do not have

P(3x)Kxp P(V.r)Krp or N(3x)-Kxp -> N(Vx)~Kxp or N(3x)~Kx~p -»N0fx)~Kx~p.

Since by K7 we have N(Vy )~K;v~p —> p, this would mean that N (3x)~Kx~p p or equivalently p —> P(Vx)Kxpr And this overly strong cousin of K7 is unavailable- (Compare the discussion of K/ in Section 4 -) Let us examine a few further modal relationships. Observe that by virtue of N(p — > q) -> (Np— >Nq) and N[(3x)Kxp —> p] we have N(3x)Kxp — » Np. By quantified model logic this entails

Kit Necessity exclusiveness (3x)NKxp -► Np Only with necessary truths will there be someone who necessarily knows them.

Since Np — » N(Vr)Krp, which yields Np (V.y)Nap, we now also have

K3i Passibility generality (of ignorance) (3x)NKxp co (V.v)NKxp or equivalently {Vx)F-'Kxp co (3x)F~Kxp. Anything possibly unknown to one is possibly unknown to all

Given a thesis of the form (Vp)(p ->/(p))y quantificational logic author­ izes various equivalent reformulations: (Vp)bp -»/(-?)]

(Vp)[-/(p) ~p] (Vp)[~/(~p) -> p]

Recall that K7 stipulates that (Vp)[p —> F(3x)Kxp]. Accordingly we obtain a principle of the indicated form, w ith/(p) = Y (3x)K xp. In conse­ quence we secure ad of the following theses:

m P (B x )K x t tMeta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limits 221

N(Vx)~Kx~p —t p

N(Vx)~Kxp -> F(3x)Kx~p

N{Vji)~Kx~p -> F(3x) Kxp

Under what circumstances would we have a principle of the form Uf{p) —> Pp? This comes to ~(3 x)Kxf(p) —» Pp or equivalently ~Pp —¥ (3x)Kxf( p) or again Np (3x)Kr/(~p). Clearly/(p) = ~p would do the trick, as would N~P,

10* Modal Variations

Let us now systematically investigate principles of possibility regarding the comportment of knowledge:

1. Any thesis of the form (Qrv}{Qd)PfCxf will always be true- (Note: Here Q. can be either a universal or an existential quantifier, V or 3.) Proof: If Q, - 3, then the thesis at issue will be true thanks to Kr And if Q2 = V, then even the strongest patterned-conformal version of the thesis, namely the principle (V.\)(Vi)PK*f, will in fact obtain thanks to Kyi— albeit only at Level 3, 2. A thesis of the form (Q}x)F(Qj)Kxt will always be false when Qa = V and true otherwise, Proof; Only the indicated exceptions commit us to a thesis of the form (3*)P(Vf)Ka± Otherwise the strongest pattern- conformal version is (Vx)P(3f)Krb which is obviously true by Kr 3. A thesis of the form P(Qrr)(Q:f)Kvt will always be true unless Q2 - V. Proof: Only the indicated exception envisions the unacceptable p rospect of an x such that (tft)Kxt. Otherwise the strongest pat tern - conformal version is P{Vx)(3f)Kvf, which holds by virtue of Kr 4* A thesis of the form (Q^)(Q^c)FKxt will always be true. Proof The strongest pattern-conformal version is {Vf)(Vx)PfCtf, whose accept­ ability has already been maintained in the discussion of (1). This assures the principle in question throughout its various versions, 5. A thesis of the form (Qjf)P{Qpt:)Kxf will be true in any event, Proof: The strongest pattern-conformal version is (Vt)F(Vx}Kxtf and it was shown in Section 5 that this is untenable. However, all the other versions do obtain. 6. A thesis of the form P(Q1f)(Q,jr)i<.vf: will always be true unless Q, = Q: = V. Proof: In the specified case alone will we have a thesis, namely F(tft)(Vx)Kxt, that contemplates the unacceptable prospect of an x such that (yt)Kxt. Otherwise we have two cases to consider, 222 Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Urn its

and P(3f)(V*v)Kx£. As regards the first, although the thesis whose possi­ bility is at issue may well be false, its possible realization is undeniable* And as regards the second, this is assured by Ki r

Let us now turn to similar cognitive principles that look to ignorance (~Kxt) in place of knowledge (Kxt):

7* A thesis of the form (Qrr)(Qd)P-Kxt will always be false if Qn = V. For even the weakest such thesis, namely {3x)(Vf)P'~K.rf', will be false in the event that t is necessary. (However, even the strongest such thesis, namely (Va)(Vf)P~Krf, is true when we confine our vision to contin­ gent truths,) On the other hand, when Qn = 3, then even the strongest pattern-conformal thesis—namely (Vjf){3t)P -^ t—is true, being assured by 1C,. 8* A thesis of the form {Qrr)P(Qj)~Kxt will always be false if Q2 = V, For even the weakest of these, namely (3;c)F(Vf)~Krf, will be false in the event that t is necessary. (If we limit ourselves to contingent truths, the principle is still false, for even the weaker ( 3 x )F(V t)~K xt is false.) If Q 2 = 3, on the other hand, the principle will have to obtain, 9- A thesis of the form P(Qrv)(Q2f)~Kxf will always be true if Q2 = 3 {by Kz) and false otherwise (by K,). 10. A thesis of the form (Qrr)(Qp;)P™Kvf will always be false when G 1 = V, seeing that even its weakest versions (Vt)(3x)V~Kxt is falseful by neces­ sary truths. (However, if we limit ourselves to contingent truths, then the principle will be true, since even its strongest version, viz. (Vf)(V.t)P~fCt£, is true,) When G, = 3, the principle will be true by virtue of K2. 11. A thesis of the form (Q,t)P(Gp:)~K:if will always be true when Qt = 3, the principle is always false when = V, as is clear with regard to necessary truths. However, when we replace f by t and look only to specifically contingent truths then the principle is always true, 12. A thesis of the form P(Q1i)(Qrv)-Krt Is again false whenever G } = V. (Again this holds unless we recast t as t, in which case the principle will always be true.) However, when Q1 = 3, the principle is assured by fC r i r l

This completes our survey of permutations involving possibility. As regards necessity, the situation can be extracted from the preceding via the principle that N = Moreover, it is clear that the inevitable contingency of claims to contingent knowledge renders unacceptable any positive claims to necessitation where contingent truths are at issue. Meta -Kno wledge and Cognitive lim its 223

The foregoing survey accordingly serves to clarify the overall lay of the land of the basic thesis in quantified modal epistemic logic.

11. Contingent Knowledge and Level 2 Principles

The epistemic principles to which we now turn reflect the contingent facts of life regarding the ways and means of our knowledge of things. We shall continue to use the variables t, x'f x" and so on to range over the limited propositional subdomain of specifically contingent truths, with the vari­ ables t, t\ t", and so on ranging over truths in general. An elemental principle relevant to our present deliberation is

(3t)(3„v) ~Kx% or equivalently ~{Vx)(V.r)Kn. There are contingent truths that not everyone knows.

This follows from K, in view of the fact that necessary truths are auto­ matically known to all (by K J. (So here we still have a Level l principle.) A rather more positive principle ls

(Vx )(3x )Kx t or equivalently -(3x)(\fx)-Kxx. No knower is an utter ignoramus: every knower knows some contingent truth or other.

This principle projects K, into the contingent domain. It is a more or less natural supposition regarding of the sort of knowers we have taken into view. However, this new principle will obtain at Level a; it does not fol­ low from anything that precedes. The following important principle obtains:

K„ (Vx)P(3x)~/Crx or equivalently ~(3 x)N(Vx)Kxr, and also (Vx)P(3.t)Krc or equivalently ~(3x)N(V,T)~Krx. Wherever x is a contingent truth, then Kxx is also contingent: contingent truth is by nature cognitively contingent,

The first of the two indicated contentions holds because its denial (3t)N(V.y)Kvt runs afoul of the fact that it is only for necessary truths t that N (Vx)Kxt, seeing that N (Vx)Kxp —> Np follows from (3x)Kxp —> p. And the second follows from (Vt)P(3 x)Kxt—the potential availability of truth stip­ ulated by fC. And so for any contingent truth x we have it that P(3y)±Kyx. Equivalently for no x do we have N(Vy )±Kyt: neither (V.v)JCyt nor (Vx)~Kxx 224 Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limits

is ever necessary in the case of contingent truths. Indeed even (3x)±Kxx is always contingent for contingent x. We have to look at four cases; ~N(3,t)Krcy ~N~(3 x)Kxx, -N ( 3x)~Kxx, and ~N~(3x)~Kxx, or equivalently P(V.t)~fCrc, F(3x)Kxz, V(Vx)Kxx, and P(3#)~Kjct. These four cases are cov­ ered by two: ?(\fx)Kxx and F(Vx)-Kxx. The former is assured by (10) of Section 10, and the latter is provided for by (11). Moreover, it is easy to see that the same holds for ±(3x)Kxx? That someone does {or does not) know a given contingent fact is always itself contingent.

12. Level 3 Principles: Plausible Truth Candidates

It will be recalled from the discussion in Section 4 that any Level 3 prin­ ciple instantiates the idea of an unknown truth, seeing that, if actual knowledge were being claimed, then the assertion in question would have to be made at a lower (deeper) assertion level. Accordingly the epistemic thesis now at issue has the standing of mere plausibility in contrast to knowability as such, Every' knower knows something. And we can actually even lay claim to a rather stronger Level 3 principle;

(3x)(\fx)Kxx There are (contingent) truths that everyone knows.

K36 means that we cannot accept it as a principle that only necessary truths are universally known. Thus, although we have endorsed its con­ verse (per Kh), we must reject -\(Sfx)Kxp —> Np< From (Vx)Kxp—and indeed even from (3x)Kxp—we can infer that p is true, but certainly not that it is necessary. Another instance of a Level 3 principle is as follows:

K„ (Va)(V]/)[.v Tyzo (3x)(Kxx & ~Kyx) v (~Krr & Ki/x)] The (contingent) knowledge of any two distinct knowers will differ in some respects. Differently put: Every knower'$ overall body of (contingent) knowledge is unique to that knozver: no two knowers share exactly the same information overall.

Even more strongly, we may plausibly suppose that Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limits 225

(Vx)(3p)\Kxp & (Vy)(i/ ~Kyp)] Eueri/ fcruwer /ms a secret—a truth known to himself atoned

This thesis is a substantially strengthened cousin to K37. Again, we may also take ourselves to have the following principle:

S * In-principle accessibility of truth (V/)(V*)PfCvf or equivalently (V/?>(y zj (Vi)PKy?) The possibility of knowing any given truth h open to every individual

This principle is the epistemic equivalent of the legal principle of equality before the law. It envisions a kind of epistemic democracy that provides for an equality of opportunity. Note that the denial of this thesis, namely {3f){3j)N~JCrf, is palpably implausible, seeing that such a claim to the effect that some particular truth necessarily lies beyond some given knower's cognitive reach is clearly problematic.11 To reemphasize: The generalizations of this section are not matters of "abstract general principle/' Their validity roots in the contingent reality of things. Their standing is comparable to that of such contentions as "People cannot keep a confidence; any truth known to two is known to many/7

13. Knowledge of the Unknown?

Consider the contention "I know that f0 is an unknown truth,7' symboli­ cally Ki(t0 & L/y, In view of this amounts to Kit0 & K iiU ff. But K/Lf(f0) comes to Ki~(3x)Kxt(y This entails ~-(3x)Kxti)f which in turn entails ~Kit0. And this yields a contradiction. There is an instructive lesson here, and it is this. We cannot concretize (3 t)Ut in the mode of knowledge: that is, wre can­ not instantiate this thesis by adducing a particular truth t(] that at one and the same time we claim to know to be true and also characterize as an unknown. It is perfectly true that "There are truths I do not know," but I cannot possibly produce any examples in the mode of categorical cogni­ tion. Accordingly the reality of it is that we can only instantiate (3f)lit in the mode of surmise or conjecture, which is to say at the third level of assertion. 226 Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive limits

Clearly, whenever we assert a theses Z at this third level, so that

b,Z we can indeed move on to the claim that Z is true (which, after all, is why we assert it) but must nevertheless acknowledge that nobody—ourselves included—actually knows this to be so. Accordingly we must ourselves refrain from claiming actuai knowledge here. For if this were known, so that (3v)_fCr Z, then Z would obtain at the second level of assertion: 1% Z. And (by hypothesis) this is not the case. It should be noted, moreover, that the unknown truth at issue in one's subscription to a version of p & ~Kip need not be substantive but could well relate to the meta-level. It is, of course, exactly this which is the case with the Level 3 principles that wTe instanced previously. "But how can you possibly maintain something that you do not actu­ ally know to be true?" The appropriate answer, dearly, is: cautiously and tentatively, in the decidedly guarded and hesitant tone of voice of mere conjecture. In other words, at Level 3. Under what condition on fw ill we have it that/{p) —> Up or equiva­ lently f(p ) —> -'(ELr)Kxp? Clearly only when (3x)Krp —> ~/(p). This will obviously obtain when f(p) = ~p. The unknowabiiity of falsehoods has already been noted, so that (Vf)U(~f)- But this is not very interesting. What is of interest is the matter of unknown truths. And here we may note that the implication in question w ill also obtain when f(p ) ~ “p is a proposition belonging to assertion Level 3." Accordingly let us look to epistemic principles that have the follow­ ing modes of format:

W ______(B) U(Qt)f(t)______

(C) (Ot)Uf(t)______

Note that LffK.^) exemplifies pattern A (K>t> being a Level 3 thesis), and that " (3f)LlY exemplifies pattern C (at Level 1). But what about pattern B? It should be observed that is not only a Level 3 thesis that is ipso facto not knoivn to be true, but also a thesis of the format (Vf)/(f). Hence it fills the bill. Meta-Rnowkdge and Cognitive Limits 227

(3 t)Ut was established in Section 8. And we also—quite obviously— will have (3f)U(~f)+ But what about truths whose status is not actually known, one way or the other? Here we have r j

KiH) (3f)(LTf & u~t) or equivalently (3f)|~{3x)Kvf & ~ (ELr)Kx-f)]. There are cognitively undecided truths: true theses with regard to which nobody knows ‘whether or not they are true.

The demonstration goes as follows: We have it that ( 3 f ) U h Let ta be such an unknown truth. Then Ufr And since t0 is true, ~f0 is false. This means that we also have ~ ( 3 ; t ) K , Y ~ f 0, so that t i ( ~ f 0). Thus both l f f n and £ J ( ~ f 0) , and the thesis at issue follows as a Level i principle. It is clear, moreover, that whenever Ut obtains, t must be a specifically contingent truth, since if it were necessary it could not be unknown (given the present generous mode of knowledge geared to inferential accessi­ bility). Accordingly any such unknown truth must be contingent. This means that all Level 3 principles must be seen as merely contingent truths. (If we were to join Immanuel Kant and the mainstream philosophical tra­ dition In insisting that "principles" must be necessary truths, then these would have to be seen as "principles" in name only.) The fact that we have as a Level 1 principle means that N (3 t)Ut. But note that we do not have (3f)Nlib This thesis or equivalently {3f)N~(3.v)K,Yf is equivalent to ~(Vf)P(3jr)Krf, which contradicts K7. Arc there knowably unknown facts? Is there ever a truth (it would, of course, have to be a contingent truth) of which it can be known that no one knows it? Do we have

(3t)(3x)Kx-{’3y)Kyt or ( 3 t)(3x)KxUt or (3f)~U(L/#)?

This would hold only if for some (contingent) truth f0 we were to have: {3 x)Kx(Vy)- Ki/tir For this to be true, we would need to have it that (Vy)“ Kyfo—or equivalently ~(3y)Kyto—must be an item of knowledge, which is to sav that it must obtain at Level 2 of assertion. But we have already noted that truths of the format ±(3x)Kxt can obtain only at Level 3 of assertion when t is a contingent truth. Accordingly it follows that we do not and cannot have (3f)~U(Lft) or equivalently ~(Vt)U(Ut). The foregoing thesis to the effect that there is a knowably unknown truth is accordingly untenable. 228 Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limits

On this basis, what we do have (at Level 3) is the denial of this contention:

Kit (kft)U(Ut) or equivalently ot (Vt)(Vx)~Kx~(3y)KyL Any contingent truth is, for aught that anyone actually knows, such that there is someone who knows it,

Note, however, that whereas K4J assures it by no means assures that "No one knows that there are unknown truths": L/{df)UL This thesis is not tenable seeing that it was shown that (3f)L/f obtains (at Level 1) so that Ki{3t)Uf, whence also (3x)Kx(3 t)Ut or equivalently K41'$ contention that "Nobody knows of any truth that it is altogether unknown"—is of particular interest in the light of K2r This latter principle has it that there indeed are truths that nobody knows. But we now see that their identification must remain a matter of mere conjecture. Let us look at this from another point of view. K4C confronts us with a seeming paradox. For in its wake we maintain

1. Every Level 3 principle is true. 2. Nobody knozvs of any Level 3 principle that it is true. (Its truth is not something cognitively definitive but only plausible or conjectural.) 3. If any proposition is true, then, by K w, for aught that anyone knows, somebody knows it to be true: p id (Vx)- Kx-(3y)Ki/p or equivalently ~(3*)K*Up or (Vf)U(Uf). Are these contentions consistent? Let Z be a Level 3 principle, Then according to the three preceding claims we have

a* Z or equivalently: Z is true. b, ~(3x)KxZ or equivalently l/Z. c. ~(3x)KxUZ or Qx)~KxUZ or U(UZ).

We are thus committed to claiming both that UZ and that nobody knows this: ~(3x)KxUZ or U(UZ). However, there is no actual inconsistency here—as long as we ourselves do not claim (b) as an item of knowledge so that KiUZ and thereby {3 x)KxlIZr contrary to (c). True to our own posi­ tion, we must regard Level 3 principles as unknozvn truths—truths w'e claim as such without maintaining that either we ourselves or anybody else actually■* knows that it is so.i2 Meta-Knowkdge and Cognitive Limits 229

The salient point is this: By we do indeed rule out a contention of the form p & ~Kip as an item of knowledge: ~Ki(p & -Kip), But, as previously observed, this does not rule out such a contention as tenable by way of plausible conjecture or supposition.

14. Conclusion

This survey of the principles of meta-knowledge has not issued in one big culminating result but rather in a diversified mosaic of smaller ones. Yet in the aggregate this complex provides a unified overall picture of the epistemic situation from which some significant overall lessons emerge. Perhaps the most important of these is that wc must operate a two-tier epistemology—one that looks not just to knowledge alone but also to the lesser level of epistemic commitment represented by plausible conjecture or supposition. Another lesson is that a systematic rational account of the cognitive situation is possible with "knowledge" understood in the sense of inferentially accessible information. Last but not least, we have seen that, even under this most liberal and generous of constructions, our "knowledge" is such that we must recog­ nize the existence of a whole spectrum of cognitive limitations. For even as "knowledge" in the mode of inferential accessibility is logically seif- ampliating in that we have

If and p q, then Kxq, so also is ignorance, since we analogously have

If -Kxp and q —» pt then -Kxq,

Both of these principles are two sides of the same coin. And the price we pay for the knowledge amplification assured by the former principle is that ignorance-proliferation assured by its equivalent counterpart. In a world of finite beings even the most generous construction of "knowledge" leaves ample scope for ignorance. And one of the ironic aspects of this topic of meta-knowledge is that the very fact that our knowledge is limited inhibits our capacity to be specific about the matter by going on to specify just exactly what those limits are. Among the most difficult sorts of knowledge to achieve is detailed information about the nature of our ignorance.13 230 Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limits

Postscript: Collective Knowledge

The situation that obtains in the logic of knowledge changes substan­ tially when one shifts from individual to collective knowers. Knowers (like sportsmen) can join groups and make up teams. From the epistemic standpoint a team of individuals, say , must be treated as a new, different entity in its own right. And this brings some new issues to light. Suppose that two individuals are being asked about an array of six letters, and that their knowledge of the matter is as follows:

x: A _ A _ A _

y: _ B _ B _ B

Neither individual has a due that another letter is at issue, different from the one he happens to know about. And neither has an inkling that what is at issue is a trio of AB pairs: ABABAB. Neither can foresee what will arise when his own information is pooled with or supplemented by that of another. And neither is in a position to say anything definitive about what the collaborative "team" consisting of the two of them knows, other than that it will encompass all of the knowledge they themselves possess: Kxp —> Kp* If x} knows p] but not p2 and x2 knows p2 but not p]f then no single indi­ vidual in the group knows px & pv although of course the composite indi­ vidual consisting of the "team" or "community" < x} + x2> that encompasses both x] and certainly does know this. That compound individual will (or can) of course know everything that follows when #,'s knowledge and x2's knowledge are conjoined and thus will of course know p1 & pr And so this complex individual will know not only everything that at least one indi­ vidual knows but also a great deal besides, namely everything that follows when the conjunction of all of these separate bits and pieces of knowledge is duly exploited. Knowledge pooling is ampliative: the synergy of collaboration comes into play here. We emphatically do not have

Kp -y (Kxp v Kyp).

We must be careful when taking the present approach not to say that x him- self knows (or appropriates) the things that he actually knows only in collaboration with others. In the bookkeeping of knowledge we must dis- Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limits 231 tinguish between x's personal and his collaborative knowledge, between Kxp and Kp. For if we took the line that x's collaborative knowl­ edge were thereby automatically his own and endorsed Kc.r + y>p Kxp, then any idea that people augmented their knowledge by collaboration with others would go by the board. Not only would the untoward result ensue that

K< x + y>p Kxp but in consequence so would the even more problematic

Kxp ^ Kyp.

We would arrive at the absurdity that people have nothing to learn from others. Let us contemplate the idea of "the community" as a knower with c - "the community" as a whole. We now have

(C) (3x)Kxp Kcp.

Thus c is quasi omniscient: it knows everything that is known to any member of the group—and a good deal else besides. Of course, even our very generous inferential sense of "knowledge" stops well short of envi­ sioning actual omniscience: (3*){V0 (Krf). But although c does not know everything, it knows everything that is known:

(Tt)(Vp)[(3y)% > -> Kxp]

Thus since the community as a whole is a finite knower—one to whom something is unknown—then it follows that every knower is a finite one. And if the community as a whole is ignorant of something, then so is every one of its constituent individuals. With individuals only at issue we certainly do not have a principle of trans-subjective conjunctivity:

(T) (Kxp & Kyq) -> {3z)Kz(p & q).

However, once we introduce the community c as knower subject to (C) above then (T) will obtain. Communal knowledge—in the present cog­ nitive-availability sense of the term—reflects the idea of "what is know- able in a certain state of the art," that is, by combining and inferentiaily 232 Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limits exploiting the bits and pieces of knowledge possessed by individuals at the time. Accordingly in interpreting the idea of "the community" we must introduce the tacit qualification at the time. For time brings cognitive progress in its wake and in a temporal setting knowledge pooling and teamw ork can prove impracticable. Present knowers cannot possibly enlist the collaborative cooperation of future ones. And so even when collective collaborations are taken into view, there can be no single knower who can speak for all the rest. Thesis (C) holds only synchronously; it is not a transtemporal principle. The salient point is that collective/collaborative knowers are new and distinct entities who enjoy a certain cognitive superiority. And their entry into the sphere of considerations has substantial implications for the way in which an "epistemic logic" can appropriately function. NOTES

introduction

1. Fridtjof Nansen as quoted in Roland Huntford, The Last Place on Earth (New York; Athene uni, 1985), p. 200, 2. William James,, "The Sentiment of Rationality/' in The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (New York: Longmans Green, 1897), pp. 78-79,

One — Knowledge of the Truth in Pragmatic Perspective

This chapter was written as a contribution to a (yet-unpublished) festschrift for Hilary Putnam. 1. Hilary Putnam, Pragmatism: An Open Question (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), p. 11. 2. C, S. Peirce, Collected Papers, vol. 8, ed. A. W. Burks (Cambridge, Mass,; Harvard Uni­ versity Press, 1958), sect, 8.4 [1885]. 3. Compare Putnam, Pragmatism, pp. 11-12 . 4. Ibid., p. 65. 5. The next chapter deals with this issue in detail. 6. Hilary Putnam, Realism with a Human Face (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), pp, 21-26. 7. This may well be deliberately so. As his 1994 Dewey lectures indicate, he regards clear solutions as a "quick fix" to philosophical problems and inclines to tire idea that real problems admit of no such fixes. "Sense, Nonsense, and the Senses/' Journal of Philosophy, vol, yj (1994), p, 457- 8. Putnam, Pragmatism, pp, 71, 73, 9. Tills position is set out in greater detail in my Methodological Pragmatism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1977). 10. Robert A Imeder, Blind Realism (Savage, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1992). 11. This circumstance did not elude Niels Bohr himself, the father of complementarity theory in physics: "In iater years Bohr emphasized the importance of complementarity for matters far removed from physics. There is a story that Bohr was once asked in German what is the quality that is complementary to truth (Wahrheit). After some thought he answered clarity {Klarheit)" Stephen Weinberg, Dmims of a Final Theory (Newr York: Pan­ theon, 1992), p. 74, n. 10. On the ideas at issue here see Chapter 3 of my Cognitive Economy (Pittsburgh; University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989).

T\vo — Epistemic Justification

This chapter was written as a contribution to a (yet-unpublished) festschrift for my oid student and good friend Ernest Sosa, I am grateful to Join) Greco and Alexander Pruss for constructive criticism. The epistemological program this chapter sketches out combines ideas set out in considerable detail in several of my previous publications: The Coherence Theonj of Truth (Oxford: Clarendon, 1973), Plausible Reasoning (Assen, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1976), Scepticism: A Critical Reappraisal (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980), Human Knowledge in Idealistic Perspective (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991), and A Useful Inheritance (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994). 1. Ernest Sosa, "Mythology of the Given," History of Philosophy Quarterly, vol. 14 (1997), pp. 275, 277. To be sure, there is an oddity in Sosa's focusing on the example of a headache,

233 ■ m Notes to Pages 22-41 seeing that aches, pains, and feelings of dizziness and the like are "bodily sensations" rather than "sensory experiences" in the ordinary sense. Tire pivotal question concerns what Bertrand Russell called "our knowledge of the external world," that is, whether my sensory experiences when I take myself to be seeing a cat on a mat constitute adequate warrant for my belief that there indeed is a cat emplaced on a mat over there, 2. Ibid., p, 284, 3. As commonly used, the claim "I see a cat" is amphibious and moves in both regions, seeing that it conjoins the subjective "1 take myself to be seeing a cat" with the objective "There is a cat there that 1 actually see." 4. In theory we can certainly have Kr (3/) (/ is a causal factor of an epistemically appro­ priate sort) without having (3f )K.\ {f is a causal factor of an epistemically appropriate sort). It is just that in matters of concrete fact there is no epistemically effective way to get at the former unless it be via the latter. 3. A, Lalande, Vocabulaire de la philosophic, 9th ed. (Paris: Presses University ires de France, 1962), s.v. "presumption." 6. The modern philosophical literature on presumption is not extensive* When 1 wrote Dialectics (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1977) there was little apart from Roland Hall's "Presuming," Philosophical Quarterly, vol. i i (1961), pp* 10-22. More recently there is Edna Ullmann-Margalit, "On Presumption," Journal of Philosophy, vol. 80 (1983), pp. 143-63. A most useful recent overview is Douglas N. Walton, Argumentation: Schemes for Presumptive Reasoning (Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1996), which does, however, overlook our presently central theme of probability* I am also grateful to Sigmund Bonk for sending me his unpublished study "Vbm Vorurteil zum Vorausurteil." 7. This is why adherence to custom is a cardinal principle of cognitive as well as prac­ tical rationality* Cf- William James, "The Sentiment of Rationality*" 8. See my Methodological Pragmatism for a fuller development of this line of thought. 9. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, pp. A532-B56G. 30* Donald Davidson, "A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge" in E* I .a Pone, ed., Truth and Interpretation: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson (Oxford: Black- well, 1986), pp. 313-14, 310, ii. To rely on evolution in this way is not to turn epistemology into an empirical science of contingent fact. For the point here is not that "what a good reason is" is contingent, but that "what is a good reason" may be contingent and depend on the empirically deter­ minable conditions. (That "something bad for you should be avoided" is conceptual and noncontingent, but that "smoking is bad for you and should therefore be avoided" is contingent.) 12- See, for example, Paul M. Churchland, Matter and Consciousness (Cambridge, Mass*: MIT Press, 1984) and Patricia Smith Churchland, Neuro philosophy: Toward- a Unified Science for the Mind-Brain (Cambridge, Mass,: MIT Press, 1986), 33- No recent writer lias stressed more emphatically than F* A- Hayek the deep inherent rationality of historical processes in contrast to the shallower machinations of a calculating intelligence that restricts its view to the agenda of the recent day. See especially his book, The Political Order of a Free People (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979). 34. The French school of sociology of knowledge already envisioned a competition among natural and rational selection of culturally diverse modes of procedure in account­ ing for the evolution of logical and scientific thought. Cf* Louis Rougier, Trait e de la Con- naissance (Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1955), esp. pp. 426-28, 15. C. S, Peirce, Collected Papers, vol. 5, ed. C Haitshome and P Weiss (Cambridge, Mass,: Harvard University Press, 1934), sect* 5.366* 16. "Im An fang war die Tat," as Goethe's Faust puts it. 17. The position maintained here is closely akin to John McDowell's argumentation against Hilary Putnam, as discussed in Putnam's Pragmatism, pp. 67-78, McDowell holds that "Once we think of [obviously mental achievements such as] hearing and seeing as accessing information from the environment—something with hill right to be regarded as a rational accomplishment—there is no reason to accept the dictum that a perception can only cause (and not justify) a verbalized thought." But my position was arrived at inde­ pendently of McDowell. Already in my 1971 Oxford lectures I argued at length against "an Notes to Pages 47-61 235 essentially linear mode) of understanding" and insisted on this coordinate synthesis of the causal and the rational order within the cognitive sphere, maintaining dial "these two orders must be grasped together in their systematic unity." On the character and inter­ relationship of the mental and physical orders of concepts, see my Conceptual Idealism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1973), especially pp. 184-86; the quote is from pp. 191-92. Based on lectures given in Oxford iii the winter term of 1971, these deliberations antedate David­ son's John Locke lectures, let alone McDowell's response to Davidson in Mind and World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994).

Three — Categories; A Pragmatic Approach

Some of the issues of this discussion are also addressed in my Empirical Inquiry (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1982). 1. On the historical issues see Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg, Geschichte der Kategorienlehre (Berlin: Bethge, 1846)* 2. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), pp, 170-71, 3. Georg Simmel, "Ueber eine Beziehung der Selektionslehre ?,ur Erkenntnistheorie/' Archivfur systematische Philosophic und Soziobgie, vol. 1 (1895), pp. 34-45, esp. pp. 40-41. 4. Pragmatism (New York: Longmans Green, 1907), p. 171. The basic line of thought goes back to the ancient skeptics. See Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, L54, 59-60, 97. 5. See, for example, Barry Stroud, "Conventionalism and the Indeterminacy of Transla­ tion," in Donald Davidson and Jaakko Hintikka feds.}, Words and Objections: Essays on the Work of W. V. Quine (Dordrecht; Reidel, 1969); Richard Rortv, "The World Well Lost," journal of Philosophy, vol. 69 (1972), pp. 649-65; and Donald Davidson, "The Very Idea of a Con­ ceptual Scheme," Proceedings amt Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, vol. 47 ( >973- 7+), PP- 5-20. 6. Davidson, "The Very Idea," pp. 7-8. 7. Ibid, 8. Moreover, overt and explicit theorizing, as carried on from an external vantage point, need not ever come into it. Language attribution can be based simply on the understand­ ing gained by learning from within. As one recent writer helpfully puts it, "While trans- la lability of Galactic into English is not a requirement for Galactic's being a language, leamability of Galactic by English-speakers is. What will be the case, of course, is that Galactic cannot be learned as one typically learns a second language, that is, by learning to translate Galactic locutions into our native tongue. Rather, Galactic must be leamable by us as it is learned by if? native speakers, as a (second, in our case) native language.. .. Only if one implicitly espouses a view which equates language-learning with translation of the target language into a (perhaps innate) language already possessed will the non-leamabil- ity of Galactic by English-speakers be thought of as a consequence of Lhe non-translatability of Galactic into English/' jay F, Rosenberg, Linguistic Representation (Dordrecht: Roidel, *974)' P- 140. 9. Bronislawr Malinowrski, "Supplementary Essay," in C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards, The Meaning of Meaning, 4th rev. ed, (London: Kegan Paul, 1936), pp. 300-301. As Mali­ nowski correctly observes, "Instead of translating, of inserting simply an English word for a native one, we are faced by a long and not altogether simple process of describing wide fields of customs, of social psychology and of tribal organization w'liich correspond to one term or another " (pp. 301-2). Compare the discussion of these issues in John Dewey, Recon­ struction in Philosophy (New York: Holt, 1920), chapter 6. 10. C. I. Lewis, Mind and the Work] Order (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929), pp. 271-72. 11. It is, of course, possible that the appeal to praxis may prove indecisive—that in respect of certain ranges of purpose one scheme is superior and that in respect of other purposes other schemes are superior. Indeed this seems to be the case with respect to the schemes of natural science and of ordinary life, in which evolution has equipped us writh a highly effective organon for social interaction. 236 Notes to Pages 61 S 3

12- These themes are developed more fully in my The Primacy of Practice and Method­ ological Prog mat ism.

Four — On Learned Ignorance and ihe Limits of Knowledge

This chapter is a substantially expanded revision of a paper of the same title that appeared in The Southern Journal of Philosophyf vot. 37 (1999), pp. 479-93. 1. As one commentator lias wisely written: "But prediction in the field of pure science is another matter* The scientist sets forth over an unchartered sea and the scribe, left behind on the dock, is asked what he may find at the other side of the waters. If the scribe knew, the scientist would not have to make his voyage"; Anonymous, "Tire Future as Suggested by Developments of the Fast Seventy-Five Years," Scientific American, vol. 123 {1920), p. 321. The role of unforeseeable innovations in science forms a key part of Pop­ per's case against the unpredictability of man's social affairs—given that new science engenders new technologies, which in turn make for new modes of social organization* See K. R. Popper, The Poverty of Histor icism (London: Rout ledge & Keg an Paul, 1957). The unpredictability of revolutionary changes in science also figures centrally in W. B. Gallic's "The Limits of Prediction," in Stephan Koerner, ed<, Observation and Interpretation (New York: Academic Press, 1957). Gallie's argumentation is weakened, however, by a failure to distinguish between the generic fact of future discovery in a certain domain and its specific nature. See also Peter Urbach, "Is Any of Popper's Argument against Historirism Valid?" British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, vol. 29 (1978), pp. 117-30, esp. pp. 128-29, whose deliberations seem (to me) to skirt the key issues. A judicious and sympathetic treatment is given in Alex Rosenberg, "Scientific Innovation and the Limits of Social Scientific Pre­ diction," Synthese, vol. 97 (1993), pp. 161-81. On the present issue Rosenberg cites the instructive anecdote of the musician who answered the question "Where is jaz2 heading?" with the response: "If I knew that, Td be there already" £p* 167). 2. Quoted in Philip Handler, ed., Biology and the future of Man (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), p. 165. 3. Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic, sect* 57; italics added. 4. Note that this is independent of the question "Would we ever want to do so?" Do we ever want to answer all those predictive questions about ourselves and our environment, or are we more comfortable in the condition in which "ignorance is bliss"? 3. As stated, this question involves a bit of anthropomorphism in its use of "you." But this is so only for reasons of stylistic vivacity* That "you" is, of course, only shorthand for "computer number such-and-such*" 6. This sentiment was abroad among fin de siecle physicists, and such sentiments are coming back into fashion today. See Lawrence Bedash, "The Completeness of Nineteenth- Century Science," Isis, vol* 63 (1972), pp* 48-58; and Steven W* Hawking, "Is the End in Sight for Theoretical Physics?" Physics Bulletin, vol. 32 (1981), pp. 15-27. 7* See Jeffrey Eber, "Nothing Left to Invent," Journal of the Patent Office Society, vol. 22 (July 1940), pp. 479-81. 8. C>r, perhaps alternatively: always after a certain time—at every stage subsequent to a certain juncture. 9* C. S* Peirce, Collected Papers, vol* 6, ed. Charles Hartshome, Paul Weiss, and Arthur Burks (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1929), sect. 6.556. 10. Examples of this sort indicate why philosophers are unwilling to identify knowledge with true belief

Five — The Deficits of Skepticism

This chapter is a revised version of a paper of the same title that appeared in the Revista Patagonica de Filosofta, vol* 1 (1999). pp* 1-30* 1. The present deliberations have a deep kinship with the doctrines of Nicholas of Cusa. His classic De Docta Ignorantia (Of Learned Ignorance) pioneered the idea that knowledge Notes to Pages 87-102 237 can—and to some extent must—take root in ignorance* His doctrine of the "coincidence of opposites" also comes into the picture. However, "coincidence" must here be understood not as total agreement (sameness) but in the sense of coming together, of being in contact or touch. It is not the same thing to travel clockwise or counterclockwise in a circle, but eventually you will reach the same point by either route. Knowledge and ignorance are different things, but in many cases one of them can be achieved through the mediation of its opposite. 2. For further detail regarding the ideas at issue here see my Scepticism: A Critical Reappraisal, 3* H* H, Price, Belief (London: Allen & Unwin, 1969), p. 12B. 4. Charles Sanders Peirce, Collected Papers, vol. 2, ed. Charles Hartshome and Paul Weiss (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1931), sect. 2.112. 5, This position is developed at length in my Methodological Pragmatism,

Six — Cognitive Realism

1. Michael Dummett, "Truth," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. 59 (1958-59), p. 160. 2. C. $. Peirce, Collected Papers, vol. 5, ed. Charles Hartshome and Paul Weiss (Cam­ bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1934), sect. 5.64-67. 3* On the other hand, there is also the fact that we can control the content and the out­ come of our dreams as little as we can those of conscious experience. 4. Rent* Descartes, Meditations, No, 6, in Philosophical Works, vol. 1, ed. E. S. Haldane and G. R* T. Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911), pp* 187-89. 5. Our position thus takes no issue with P. F. Strawson's precept that "facts are what statements (when true) state." (Difficulty would ensue only if an "only" were inserted.) "Truth," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, suppk voh 24 O950), pp* 129-56; see p* 136. 6. But can any sense be made of the idea of merely possible (i.e., possible but nonactual) languages? Of course it can! Once we have a generalized conception (or definition) of a certain kind of thing—be it a language or a caterpillar—then we are inevitably in a position to suppose the theoretical prospect of items that meet these conditions are over and above those that actually do so. The prospect of supposing the existence of certain "mere" pos­ sibilities cannot be denied; that, after all, is just what possibilities are all about 7. Note, however, that if a Davidsonian translation argument to the effect that "if it is say able at all, then it is say able in our language" were to succeed (which it does not), then the matter would stand on a very different footing. For it would then follow that any pos­ sible language can state no more than what can be stated hi our own (actual) language. And then the realm of facts (i.e., what is [correctly] statable in some possible language) and that of truths (i.e*, what is [correctly I statable in some actual language) would necessarily coincide. Accordingly our thesis that the range of facts is larger than that of truths hinges crucially upon a failure of such a translation argument. See Davidson, "The Very Idea," and also the critique of his position in Chapter 2 of my Empirical Inquiry, 8. See Philip Hugtey and Charles Sayward, "Can a Language Have Indenumerably Many Expressions?" History ami Philosophy of Logic, vol. 4 (1983), pp. 182--94, 9. For a useful survey of philosophical issues in this general area, see Vincent Julian Fecher, Error, Deception, and Incomplete Truth (Rome: Officium Libri Catholic!, 1975). 10. To be sure, abstract things, such as colors or numbers, will not have dispositional properties. For being divisible by four is not a disposition of sixteen* Plalo got the matter right in Book 7 of the Republic, in the malm of abstracta, such as those of mathematics, there are not genuine processes—and process is a requisite of dispositions. Of course, there may be dispositional truths in which numbers (or colors, and so forth) figure that do not issue in any dispositional properties of these numbers (or colors) themselves—a truth, for example, such as my predilection for odd numbers. But if a truth (or supposed truth) does no more than convey how someone thinks about a thing, then it does not indicate any property of the tiling itself. In any case, however, the subsequent discussion will focus on realm in contrast to fictional in and concreta in contrast to abstracta. (Fictional things, 238 Notes to Pages 102-126 however, can have dispositions: Sherlock Holmes was addicted to cocaine, for example* Their difference from realia is dealt with later in this chapter.) 11. This aspect of objectivity was justly stressed in die "Second Analogy7' of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, although his discussion rests on ideas already contemplated by Leib­ niz, Philosophische Schriften, voL 7, ed. C. 1. Gerhardt (Berlin: Weidmann, 1890), pp. 319-22. 12. C. I. Lewis, Art Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation (La Salle, 111.: Open Court, 1962), pp. 180-81, 13. To deny inferentially implicit information the title of novelty is not, of course, to say that it cannot surprise us in view of the limitations of our own deductive powers. 14- This also explains why the dispute over mathematical realism (Platonism) has little bearing on the issue of physical realism. Mathematical entities are akin to ficitonal entities in this—tliat we can only say about them what we can extract by deductive means from what we have explicitly put into their defining characterization. These abstract entities do not have nongeneric properties since each is a "lowest species" unto itself. 15. William P. Alston, "Yes, Virginia, There Is a Real World," Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, vol* 52 (1979), pp. 779-808, see p. 779, Cf. "The world is composed of particulars [individual existing things or processes] which have intrinsic characteiistics—i.e*, properties they have or relationships they enter into with other partic­ ulars independently of how anybody characterizes, conceptualizes, or conceives of them"; Frederick Suppe, "Facts and Empirical Truth," Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 3 (1973)/ pp, 197-212, see p, 200, 16. Kant held that we cannot experientialiy learn though perception about the objectiv­ ity of outer things, because we can recognize our perceptions as perceptions (i.e., represen­ tations of outer things) only if these outer things are supposed as such from the first (rather than being learned or inferred). As he summarizes in the "Refutation of Idealism," "Idealism assumed that the only immediate experience is inner experience, and that from it we can only infer outer things—and this, moreover, only in an untrustworthy manner. * * ♦ But in the above proof it has been shown that outer experience is really immediate"; Critique of Pure Reason, B276. 17. Ian Hacking writes that "the fact that we cut up the world into various possibly incommensurable categories does not in itself imply that all such categories are mind- dependent"; Representing and Intervening (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p, 93, The crucial point, however, is that this matter is not one of all or nothing. 18* Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed, tr* M* Friedlander (London: Routledge, 1904), L71, 96a,

Seven — Induction as Enthymematic Reasoning

1. W. D, Ross, Aristotle's Prior and Posterior Analytics (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949), PP‘ 47~5I- 2. See the excellent article on "Induction" by Max Black in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 4, ed. Paul Edwards (New York: Macmillan, 1967), pp* 169-81* 3. Some of the ideas of th is section are further developed in my Induction (Oxford: Black- well, 1980). 4. William Whewell, Novum Organon Renovation (London: l W* Parker and Son, 1858), p. 114. 5. The force of Dickinson Miller's principle must be acknowledged: "There are no inter­ mediate degrees between following from premises and not following from them* There is no such tiring as half-following or quarter-following"; Dickinson 5. Miller, "Professor Don­ ald Williams vs. Hume," Journal of Philosophy, vol, 44 (1947), PP1 673-84; see p. 684, 6. Tins perspective supports Francis Herbert Bradley in his critique of John Stuart Mill's view of induction on the basis that inference as such is important to accomplish the move from particulars to universals: that it is only legitimate to argue from some to all if it is premised that the particulars at issue share some universal character. 7. Carl G. Hem pel, Philosophy of Natural Science (Englewood Cliffs, N.J*: Prentice Hall, 1966), p. 15. Notes to Pages 127-140 239

8. Of all writers on induction, it is I fans Reichenbach who has come closest to taking this line: "The inductive inference is a procedure which is to furnish us the best presumption concerning the future. If we do not know the truth about the future, there may be nonethe­ less a best assumption about it he,, a best assumption relative to what we know"; Experi­ ence and Prediction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1937), pp. 348-49. 9. The idea was launched on its career in this particular terminological guise by Gilbert Harman in "The Inference to the Best Explanation," Philosophical Review, vol. 74 (1965), pp. 88-93, and further developed in his book Thought (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1973). It was criticized in Keith Lehrer, Knowledge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974). Its philosophy of science applications were discussed in Paul Thagard, "The Best Explana­ tion: Criteria for Theory Choice," Journal of Philosophy, vol. 75 (1978), pp. 76-92. A general survey of the terrain is Peter Lopton, Inference to the Best Explanation (London: Routledge, 1991), jo . For criticisms of ITBE in the mode of "inference to the likeliest cause" see Lopton, pp, 48-51. See also Nancy Cartwright, Hole the Laws of Physics Lie (Oxford: Oxford Univer­ sity Press, 1983), pp. 89-91. 11. We have no alternative but to construe "the host explanation" as "the best of the available explanations"—the best within our range of vision. And we should—and do— realize full well that to represent the best of the currently available explanations as the correct one is distinctly problematic. 12. For a more detailed account of what is at issue throughout the plausibilistic delib­ erations of this chapter, see my Plausible Reasoning. 13. Lopton, pp, 61-64 et passim, frames this objection by contrasting the loveliness of explanations with their likelihood: wliich is to be paramount in determining "the best"? 14. See Lehrer, p. 165, and Thagard, p. 77. 15. This is a line of thought 1 initially urged in a series of publications during the 1970s: The Coherence Theory of Truth, Methodological Pragmatism, and Cognitive Systematization (Oxford: Blackwell, 1979). 16. This approach was formulated by Max Black as a (mis?)interpretation of Popped- anism: "Those who agree [with Popper] would rewrite putatively inductive inferences to make them appear explicitly as [optimal] hypothetical explanations of given facts"; "Induc­ tion," in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 4, ed. Paul Edwards (New York: Macmillan, 1967), P' 173* Its rationale is given fuller articulation by Gilbert Harman, "The Inference to the Best Explanation," Philosophical Review, voL 63 (1966), pp. 241-47; and also "Knowledge, Inference, and Explanation," American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 5 (1968), pp. 164-73. 17. To be sure, p's being the case may well in its turn form part (but only part) of die best explanation of Smith's believing that p. But that is another matter. 18. Lehrer, p, 181. 19. If these sets are inconsistent, then we obviously have a deficient systematicity (in point of consistency). If they are consistent but indecisive on P} versus Pr then dearly we have another sort of deficient systematicity (in point of comprehensiveness). 20. Thagard, p. 77; Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (New York: Collier, 1962), p* 476- 21. Thagard defended ITBE against its critics by bringing the factors of explanatory con- silence and analogy into the foreground. But the way in which he proposes to do this indi­ cates that he engaged in changing the topic from the explanations offered for particular facts to explanatory systematization in general. His deliberations put him well en route toward the position of the present deliberations.

Eight — On Circularity anti Regress in Rational Validation

1. For an instructive survey of the relevant issues see Douglas N. Walton, Begging the Question1 Circular Reasoning as a Tactic of Argumentation (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991), It is among the merits of Walton's book that it recognizes and emphasizes that cir­ cularity in argumentation is not necessarily vicious. 240 Notes to Pages 142-149

2. The distinction at issue was stressed by C 5. Peirce by use of the indicated terminol­ ogy. C $. Peirce, Collected Papers, vol. I, ed. Charles Hartshome and Paul Weiss (Cam­ bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1931)- sect. 1.417. 3. The principal discussion here is in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, p* h y but see also p. 11:19 and compare Metaphysics, p. A i. On Aristotle's treatment of infinite regress in general see Herbert Stekla, "Der regressus ad infinitum bei Aristoteles/' Zeitschrift fiir philosophische Forschung supplement 22 (1958). 4. See Sextus Empiricus, Old/bit’s of Pyrrhonism, 1:164-68 and Ihzo. 5. The progress/regress distinction does not antedate Kant. Previously philosophers spoke simply of a progress us in infinitum. And in a somewhat different context Aquinas and other scholastics spoke also of a&census/decensus in reasoning. See the article "Regressus/progressus in infinitum," in Joachim Ritter, ed., Historisches W&rterbuch der Philosophic, vol. 8 (Dasel: Schwa be, 1971), cols. 487-89. 6. Cf. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A4H. 7. Cf, ibid., A409, 8. Sometimes progresses and regresses are coordinated* Thus consider Leibniz's argu­ ment that the perfection ordei' of possibilities must have an all-dominant apex and cannot just go on and on without end. For if in the order of perfection one alternative is better than another then in the order of motivation based on the preferences of a creator-deitv the preferable lies deeper And so if the manifold of possibilities did not have an apex in the order of perfection then it will not have a firm footing in the order of motivation to creation. The regress of axiological depth would be never-ending, and no possible world could therefore be actualized. 9. hi addition to progresses (and regresses) that are finite and infinite, there are also those that are indefinite because they fade out in a fog of indeterminacy* if we "keep on increasing the magnifying power of our lenses" or "keep on elaborating the details of our explanations" matters become clearer only up to a point. Or—to borrow an example from David FT Sanford, "Infinite Regress Arguments;" in James H* Fetzer, ed., Principles of Philo­ sophical Reasoning (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1984), p, 148—^6—the regressive relationship of purely maternal antecedence (mother, mother's mother, mother's mother's mother, and so on) will ultimately fade out as biological history moves into an era of reproduction prior to the emergence of sexuality. The instruction "keep on identifying the mother" ultimately outruns the limits of practicability, unlike, say, "keep on identifying the seller [of a parcel of real estate]," which is bound to reach a definite terminus. 10. Cf. R. P. Phillips, "Modem Thomistic Philosophy/' in his Metaphysics, vol. II (West­ minster, Md.: Newman Press, 1954), p. 278. See also Maurice de Wulf, The System of Thomas Aquinas (New York: Dover, 1959)* l am indebted to an unpublished paper by Montague Ryan entitled "Infinite Regress Revisited" for these references to Thomistic philosophers. 11. On these matters see "Choice without Preference," in my Essays hi Philosophical Analysis (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1969), pp* 111-57 . 12. Frederick Copies ton, Aquinas (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1903), p. 118. 13. For Aristotle, hierarchies reflect matters of degree, and where there are degrees there must—so he insists—be something of highest degree; see Metaphysics II:i, 9931^23-25. 14. An instructive discussion of relevant issues is Sanford. 15. However, with final causes that involve reasons regression must terminate. And this seems to be the crux of Aristotle's treatment of the issue in Metaphysics II. 16. See G. E. Moore, Commonplace Book (London: Allen & Unwin, 1962), p. 109. Moore is quite wrong, however, in adding that "vicious infinite regresses are those only which arise from a circular definition" There are certainly real things or vicious regresses that are not definitional, but probative or presuppositional. 17. The need for insisting on indispensable (toesensnotwendig) prerequisites in the context of regress finitization was stressed in P Padficus Borgmann, "Die Unmoglichkeit des Regressus in infinitum in jeder wesensnotwendigen Stufenordnimg," Franziskamschc Stu- dien, vol. 25 (1938), pp, 1--27, In commenting on the idea of zvesensnotwendigkeit, Borgmann observes (p. 5) that Duns Scotus had already emphasized this in his formula: lnfinitas essentialiter ordinatorum est impossihilis. In other words, an ordo essentialis dependentiae must be finite. Notes to Pages 150-173 241

18. Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, p. 72^219-22. However neither did Aristotle formulate this principle in its full generality, nor do modern Aristotelians state it with sufficient care about the requisite qualifications. See, for example, Akos von Pauler, Grundlagen der Philosophic (Berlin: W. de Cruvter, 1925), pp. 31-38 et passim; as well as his Aristoteles (Paderborn: Vieweg, 1933), pp. 20, 43-48, and 118-25; an<^ his Logik: Versuch finer Theorie der Wahr he it {Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1929), pp. 46-49 and 269- 76. 19. Hie vitiating nature of specifically productive regresses (Handhtngsreihen) is empha- sized in Hugo Dingier, "Zum Problem des Regressus in infinitum/' in F. J. von Riutelen, ed,, Philosophic Perennis, vol. 2 (Regensburg: J. Habbel, 1930), pp, 571-86, 20. Physics, 23959-19. 21. Even as demonstration must have an end because we cannot (as Aristotle rightly insists) demonstrate every proposition, so definition must have an end because we cannot define every term. This principle goes back at least to Blaise Pascal's classic De l'esprit geometrique [ca. 1655] (Basel: Schwabe, 3974). 22. Or at any rate this must be so where tire epistemic dealings of finite creatures are concerned. The intellect of an omniscient God may be able to bring the non terminating process of justifactory regress to completion in the manner envisioned in Leibniz's theory of the infinite analyticity of contingent truth. On this matter see "The Theory of Contin- gence” in my The Philosophy of Leibniz (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1967), pp. 35-46. 23. Metaphysics, joo6a8-io. Compare Posterior Analytics, 1:3. 24. To be sure, the fact that farilitative regresses in cognitive matters can go on ad infini­ tum does not mean that they must be extended in this way. 25. On this theme see my The Validity of Values, vol. 2 of A System of Pragmatic Idealism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993). 26- Alasdair MacIntyre, in MacIntyre and Stanley Haverwas, eds., Revisions ( Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), p. 9. 27. On this point see Leibniz's correspondence with Amauld regarding the Discourse on Metaphysics. 28. See, for example, Pant K. Feyerabend, Against Method (London: Humanities Press, 1978). 29. Esf ridiculum quaerere quae habere non possumus, as Cicero wisely observed (Pro Archia, iv.8). 30. Critique of Pure Reason, A409. 31. Hegel thought he was arguing tins point against Kant, but (as I read him) Kant actu­ ally inclined to this position in his more cautious moods.

Nine — Reification Fallacies and Inappropriate Totalities This chapter is a revised version of a paper of the same title that appeared in Informal Logic, vol. 20 (2000), pp. 43-60.1 am grateful to Alexander Pruss for constructive comments. 1. To be sure, where the matter is one of picking out items from a pre-established group, there need be no difficulty. 2. On problems of self-reference in general see R. M. Sainsbury, Paradoxes, 2d ed, (Cam­ bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 121-22. 3. Wliat is at stake here is 0 flaw different from the more familiar identification defect that arises where there is vagueness—a penumbrally "fuzzy" whole where one cannot tell exactly what is within and what is not. For in our present case the very item at Issue is not defined as a meaningful unit because it itself is presupposed by its mode of identification or specification. Accordingly it is not the purported totality's membership but its very identity that is questionable. 4. Nicholas of Cusa, DI:i. 5. Throughout these formulations, "all" is to be construed as "all but only/' Accordingly a supertruth (for example) would lie said to be a truth that conjoins all members of {p: p is true}, the set of all propositions p such that p is true. 6. Tills paradox—often called the barber of Seville paradox—is an informal variant of Russell's paradox in set theory, which will be discussed later in this chapter; see T. S. Champlin, Reflexive Paradoxes (London: Rout lodge, 1988), esp. pp. 172-74, 242 Notes to Pages 178-191

7. This illicit totalization principle might well be grounded in a broader principle to the effect that, in order to achieve successful identification, the items being referred to in the course of the process must themselves have already been identified. This approach, in effect, seems to have formed the basis for Henri Poincare's treatment of the paradoxes, a strategy whose decided difference from Russell's neither he nor Russell seems to have appreciated sufficiently. See the lucid discussion of all these matters in Charles S. Chi- ha ra's Ontology and the Vicious Circle Principle (Ithaca, MY.: Cornell University Press, 1973), esp. pp. 138-40. 8. Bertrand Russell and A, N, Whitehead, Principia Mathematical vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cam­ bridge University Press, 1910), pp. 31, 36, 37. Elsewhere Russell puts it as follows: "If pro­ vided a certain collection has a total, it would have members only definable in terms of that total, then the said collection has no total," He goes on to explain that "When I say that a collection has no total, 1 mean that statements about all its members are nonsense"; "Mathematical Logic as Based on die Theory of Types," American Journal of Mathematics, vol. 30 (1908), pp. 222-62; see pp. 227, 240, He appears to think, however, that the culprit here is "all" instead of "it"! The phrase "only definable " helps matters but also introduces problems of its own because that "only" is somewhere between difficult and inappropriate to cash in. 9. Thus it is necessary, if we are not to sin against the above negative principle, to con­ struct our logic without mentioning such things as "all propositions" or "all properties"— and without ever having to say that we are excluding such things. The exclusion must result naturally and inevitably from our positive doctrines, which must make it plain that "all propositions" and "all properties" are meaningless phrases; "Mathematical Logic," p, 277. 10. We thus need not follow Russell in rejecting an ontology of classes and adopting a "110-class theory" on grounds that statements about "all classes" are meaningless. There lies open the option of holding, with Code], that classes can be abstract objects that "exist independently of our definitions and constructions." For we can merely hold that certain ways of trying to refer to classes are flawed and cannot succeed in effecting such reference. See Kurt GOdel, "Russell's Mathematical Logic/' in P. Schlipp, ed,, The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell (New York: Tudor, 1969), pp. 123-53. 11. Critique of Pure Reason, B456. 12. Critique of Pure Reason, A483-84 (= B511-12), ty Critique of Pure Reason, A503-5 (= B531-33). 14. See die discussion of these ideas in Critique of Pure Reason, A680-B708 (= A689-B717).

Ten — What If Things Were Different?

1. Sometimes what looks like a counter factual conditional is only so in appearance. Consider "If Napoleon and Alexander the Great were fused into a single individual, what a great general that would be!" What is at issue here is not really a counterfactual based on the weird hypothesis of a fusion of two people into one. Rather what we have is merely a rhetorically striking reformulation of the truism that "Anybody with all of the military talents of Napoleon and of Alexander combined is certainly a great general." 2. Compare Roderick M. Chisholm, "Law Statements and CounterfActual Inferences/' Analysis, vol. 15 (1955), pp. 97-103; see esp. pp. 102-5. 3. Translated in part in Norman Kretzman and Eleanore Stump, The Cambridge Trans Lit ion of Medieval Philosophical Texts, vol. I: togic and Philosophy of Language (Cambridge: Cam­ bridge University Press, 1988), pp. 389-412, 4. But why should thing-type characterizations be taken as more fundamental than mode-of~behavior characterizations? The answer lies in the processual perspective that to be an X is to behave as Xs do: that to be wooden is to behave as wooden things do. Since such systemic comportment encompasses the whole range of relevant lawful behavior, it is inherently more general than a specific item—and one particular mode of behavior. The prioritization at issue is thus provided for by the standard policy of giving precedence to what is more general, pervasive, and fundamental. Notes to Pages 197-203 245

5. W* V. Quine, "On What There Is/' Review of Metaphysics, voL 2 {1948), pp. 21-38; reprinted in his Prom a Logical Point of Viexo (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1953)- PP- 1_ 19‘ 6. Just this was the approach of my A Theory of Possibility (Oxford: Blackwell, 1975)* To question the appropriateness of possible worlds is not automatically to gainsay the seman­ tical utility of scenarios in semantical analysis (i.e., fictions that characterize possible courses of events in ways that are fragmentary and incomplete in their overall bearing)* Compare, for example, the analysis of imperatives in my The Logic of Commands (London: Routledge, 1969). Moreover, such scenarios could, in theory, be coordinated with descrip­ tively incomplete worlds along the lines of the theory of inconsistent and incomplete pos­ sible world semantics expounded in Nicholas Reseller and Robert Brandom, The Logic of Inconsistency (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980)* Such an approach would have to trade on the important contrast-distinction between a complete picture of an incomplete world and an incomplete picture of a complete world. The point of the foregoing critique is thaL com­ plete pictures of complete worlds are unav ailable, so that explanatory recourse to standard possible worlds is thus vitiated* 7. Leibniz, to be sure, was entitled to compare with alternative possible worlds because they were, for him theoretical resources as instances God's entia rationis. Were one to ask him where possible worlds are to come from, he would answer "Only God knows*" As that is exactly correct—only God does so. We feeble humans have no way to get there from here. 8* In the setting of our present approach, we have the following accepted propositions: 1. Four is not greater than five* 2. The consistency of arithmetic (as we know it) entails (1). 3* Arithmetic is—and ought to be—consistent. If (not-i) were to be assumed, then we would be forced into an abandonment of either (2) or (3), seeing that the trio {(not-i), (2), (3)! is logically inconsistent. Since there is no viable way around (2), this means that we would have to give up (3) and see arithmetic as involved in contradiction. And this validates the counter factual under consideration. 9. The most widely adopted approaches to possible-world semantics are predicated on such similarity determinations; see David Lewis, Counterfactmls (Cambridge, Mass*: Har­ vard University Press, 1973).

Appendix — Meta-Knowledge and Cognitive Limits

f am grateful to Alexander Truss for constructive comments on a draft of this appendix* 1. Its commitment to this construction of "knowledge" endows the present with certain characteristic features. Other treatments of epis tonic logic can—and do—envision different interpretative constructions* The rationale for the present interpretation is explained in the next paragraph. 2. The range of the propositional variables should be subject to one or another of the well-known devices (such as proscription of self-reference) that are needed to avert incon­ sistency. 3. In all such formulas, apparently free variables are to be thought of as bound by initial universal quantifiers. 4. We suppose that our basic quantified modal logic is such that all of the following obtain: * If HZ, then NZ* * If Z =?■ X, then Z —> X, where ^ represents inferential derivability. * NZ iff -P~Z (and therefore PZ iff ~N~Z). ■ If p q, then N(p => g). * If p —* q, then Np to Nqt but not conversely. * If p to q, then Pp to Pq, but not conversely. (Tins follows from the preceding principle.} * Np to NNp (and therefore PPp to Pp). * Pp to NPp (and therefore PNp to Np). 244 Notes to Pages 204-228

• N (4x)f{x) —> (Vjc)N f(x)f but not conversely [This principle yields ( l t ) P /( v ) —> P(iv)/(.r). J • P ( ix ) f{ x ) —> (V.v)Pf(y) [or equivalently (ELr)N/{.v) -> N(3x)f(x).] In effect what we have here is a quantified version of the modal system S5 of C L Lewis, 5. The thesis Kxp —¥ p also means that no knower ever knows that he is mistaken about something concrete that he takes himself to know. This was a commonplace among medieval logicians, who held that Nihil scire potest nisi verum; see Ivan Boh, Epistemic Logic in the Later M iddle Ages (London: Ron tied ge, 1993), p, 48. The diesis Kxp & Kx{~Kxp) is thereby self-contradictory since its second conjunct entails the denial of what the first conjunct affirms. The idea at issue here is not new; it was also a commonplace among medieval logicians. Thus Albert of Saxony (ca. 1325-1390) argued in his treatise on In sai­ n t ilia that "Socrates knows that he is mistaken in believing A" is a self-contradictory con­ tention; see Kretzman and Stump, pp. 363-64, 6. On the details of this sort of plausibility grounding see my Plausible Reasoning. 7. Adoption of this principle betokens that "being a knower" is seen as a (conditionally) necessary property of the individual that constitutes the range of our (4x) quantifier. 8. On blind spots see Roy A. Sorensen, Biindspots (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988). 9. Again four theses need to be established: ~N(3x)KxJ, ~N~(ilr)Kr/, ~N~(3x)Kx], and (3x)KxJ< These come to P(V.r)-KvJ, V(3x)Kx], ?(3x)KxJ, and P(VPv)~KvJ, which boils down to two theses: V(3x)Kxf and F(Vx)~Kx}. And both of these have already been established. 10. Thomas Merton says somewhere that one is only a person insofar as one has a secret. 11. It does not, however, seem plausible to strengthen KJ9 to (Vf)P(V.v)KvL (On this see the discussion of Kr in Section 5.) 12. The distinction between actual knowledge and a weaker mode of cognitive com­ mitment, accepting as true (furwahrhalten) is central to the position of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. See my discussion of this issue in Kant and the Reach o f Reason (Cam­ bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 137-43. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Albert of Saxony, 244/15 Dingier, Hugo, 241/719 Almeder, Robert, 233010 Dummett, Michael, 96, 237ni Alston, William R, 238m 5 Anaximander, 57 Aquinas, Thomas, 48, 24005 Eber, Jeffrey, 236717 Aristotle, 47, 67, 123,144,150-51,153,156, 165-66,24003, 2407713, 2407115, 241 ni8, 2417121 Fecher, Vincent Julian, 237/19 Amauld, Antoine, 241/127 Feyerabend, Paul Kv 86, 2417/28

Badash, Lawrence, 236116 Gallie, W. B., 236m Black, Max, 238112, 2391117) Gibbon, Edward, 25 Boh, Ivan, 244715 Godel, Kurt, 2427110 Bohr, Niels, 2337711 Goethe, Wolfgang von, 234/116 Bonk, Sigmund, 234716 Greco, John, 233 Borgmann, P. Paci ficus, 2407117 Bradley, Francis Herbert, 238116 Brandom, Robert, 243/16 Hackering, Ian, 238/117 Buckle, Thomas, 77 Hall, Roland, 234/16 Burley, Walter, 188-89 Harman, Gilbert, 239719, 239/116 Butler, Bishop, 84 Haw kills, Steven W., 236/16 Hegel, G. W. F, 241/131 Hein pel, Carl G., 2381/7 Cantor, Georg 1761 Heyek, F. A,, 2347113 Cartwright, Nancy, 2397710 Hugley, Philip, 237tiS Champ lin, T. S., 241176 Hume, David, 124 Chihara, Charles S,, 242117 Huntford, Roland, 233711 Chisholm, Roderick M., 2427/2 Church!and, Patricia Smith, 234/212 Church!and, Paul M., 234/712 James, William, 9,33, 52,136, 233m, 234/17 Cicero, 241/229 Johnson, Samuel, 100 Comte, Auguste, 74 Copleston, Frederick, 240/77.2 Cotes, Roger, 66 Kant, Immanuel, 34,47,67-69, 73-74, 107, Curry, H, B., 176 109,112,136,164-65,180-85, 227, 234/19, 236/13, 238/1x1, 238/126, 240/15,240/16, 241/131, 2447112 Darwin, Charles, 66,135,158, 239/720 Kepler, Johannas, 39 Davidson, Donald, 11, 34,41, 54-55, 2347110, Kretzman, Norman, 242/13, 244/25 235775, 235716, 235/117, 237/17 Kuhn, Thomas, 52, 235712 de Wulf, Maurice, 240/110 Derrida, Jacques, 41 Descartes, Ren£, 27, 34,99, 237/14 Lalande, An dr£, 28,234/15 Dewey, John, 15,33, 2337/7, 235719 Legendre, 74

249 250 Name Index

Lehrer, Keith, 239tig, 1391114, 2391118 Reichenbach, Hans, 239/18 Leibniz, 185, 198, 238*2 ti, 240118,. 2411122, Richards, 1. A., 235/19 241**27, 243ny Rorty, Richard, 2351/5 Lewis, C I., 59,104, 235/710, 238*712 Rosenberg, Alex, 236/12 L ew is, David, 194, 243219 Rosenberg, Jay F., 235*7# Lop ton, Peter, 2392*9, 239*710, 2391113 Ross, W. D,, 238**1 Rougier, Louis, 234/114 Russell, Bertrand, 43,178-80, 2417*6, 242**7, MacIntyre, Alasdair, 241*126 242*7#, 2421/20 Maimonides, 238/118 Ryan, Montague, 240/110 Malinowski, Bronislaw, 235*19 McDowell, John, 234/117,235*117 Merton, Thomas, 244/110 Sainsbury, R. M., 241**2 Mill, John Stuart, 238**6 Sanford, David, H,, 240*79, 240//24 Miiler, Dickinson, 238*15 Saxe, John Godfrey, 82 Moore, G. E-, 149, 240*126 Sayward, Charles, 237/1# Scotus, Duns, 240*127 Sextus Empiricus, 235/14,2407*4 Simmel, Georg, 52, 235/13 Nansen, Fridtjof, 233*11 Sorensen, Roy A., 244*/# Newton, Isaac, 66 Sosa, Ernest, 21-24, 34- 4 b 44-45- 233, 233/11 Nicholas of Cuss, 170,183, 236/11, 241*14 Spencer, Herbert, 77 Slekla, Herbert, 240**3 Strawson, R E, 2371*5 Ogden, C. K,, 235/19 Stroud, Barry, 235/15 Stump, Eleanoie, 242/13, 244*;^ Suppe, Frederick, 238**15 Pascal, Blaise, 12,136, 241*121 Pasteur, Louis, 66 Thagard, Paul, 239*19, 239**14, 239*720, 239/121 Peirce, Charles Sanders, 6,15, 38,72, 74, Thales, 57 89-yo, 96, 98-99, ioo, 109,116, 233/12, Trendelenburg, Friedrich Adolf, 235*11 234/115,236*79, 237**4, 237*12, 240/12 Twain, Mark, 43 Phillips, R. R, 2401/10 Plato, 237*/10 Poincare, Henri, 178, 242/77 Ullinann-Margalit, Edna, 234*16 Popper, K. R„ 2361/1, 2391/16 Urbach, Peter, 236/1/ Porphyry’, 47 Price, H. R , 88,237**3 Protogoras, 95 von Pauler, Akos, 241/11# Pmss, Alexander, 233, 241, 243 Putnam, Hilary, 5-7, i t -12,14-15, 233, 233/11, 233*13, 233/16, 233*78, 234 in 7 Walton, Douglas Nv 234/16, 239**1 Weinberg, Stephen, 2331/11 Whew ell, William, 126, 238/14 Quine, W. V. Q, 34,197,, 243/15 Whitehead, A, N., 33, 242*1#