Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2009 A Priori Justification and Experience Jamie Carlin Watson Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES A PRIORI JUSTIFICATION AND EXPERIENCE By JAMIE CARLIN WATSON A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Degree Awarded: Fall Semester 2009 1 The members of the committee approve the dissertation of Jamie Carlin Watson defended on August 7, 2009. _______________________________________ Michael A Bishop Professor Directing Dissertation _______________________________________ Philip Bowers Outside Committee Member _______________________________________ Russell Dancy Committee Member Approved: ________________________________________ Piers Rawling, Chair, Department of Philosophy The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members. ii I dedicate this to my wife, Darlena, whose support and encouragement made this project possible and my parents, Boyce and Janice Watson, whose support has been unconditional, even when they did not understand my love of philosophy. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I extend deepest gratitude to my dissertation director, Mike Bishop, who, though his sympathies run contrary to my thesis, tirelessly and graciously read numerous muddled drafts to help me express these ideas more clearly. Thanks also to my colleagues and friends, Robert Arp, Stephen Kearns, Philip Bowers, John Bowers, Joseph Long, Aron Vadakin, and Clifford Sosis, who were always available to entertain questions and quick with encouragement. And finally, thanks to the organizers and participants of the conferences where pieces of this project were presented. Your criticisms were apt and your compliments encouraging: Florida Philosophical Association Conference, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, November 9-11, 2007, especially Noel Alphonse. 1st Annual Interdisciplinary Approach to Philosophical Issues Conference, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, September 19-20, 2008, especially Jason Shepherd, Wes Anderson, and Joshua Knobe. Florida Philosophical Association Conference, Daytona Beach, FL, November 14-16, 2008, especially Peter Dalton and Aron Edidin. University of Miami Graduate Student Epistemology Conference, Miami, FL, January 15-17, 2009, especially Brian Mondy, Mark Warren, and Ari Krupnick. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ........................................................................................................................vii Abstract ..................................................................................................................................viii 1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................1 1.1 The Problem ...............................................................................................................1 1.2 Radical Empiricism ....................................................................................................3 1.3 Moderate Empiricism.................................................................................................5 1.4 Radical Empiricism Revisited....................................................................................11 1.5 Moderate Rationalism ................................................................................................14 1.6 My Project ..................................................................................................................16 1.7 Some Preliminaries ....................................................................................................16 1.8 Summary of the Dissertation .....................................................................................18 2. EXPERIENCE AND THE A PRIORI ...............................................................................23 2.1 The Problem ...............................................................................................................23 2.2 Some Options .............................................................................................................24 2.3 A Solution ..................................................................................................................31 2.4 Introspection ..............................................................................................................38 2.5 The Contingent A Priori.............................................................................................40 2.6 Hallucinations and Dreams ........................................................................................43 3. ARE A PRIORI JUSTIFICATIONS EMPIRICAL REVISABLE? ..................................48 3.1 A Modest A Priori ......................................................................................................49 3.2 The Implausibility of an Empirically Unrevisable A Priori .......................................60 4. A PRIORI JUSTIFICATION AND TESTIMONY ...........................................................70 4.1 A Priori Justification ..................................................................................................70 4.2 Testimony ..................................................................................................................76 4.2.1 Testimony is Evidence: A Reply to John Hardwig (1985) ...............................77 4.2.2 An Account of Justification by Testimony .......................................................81 4.2.3 Testimony is Experiential: A Reply to Tyler Burge (1993) .............................84 4.3 A Priori Justification and Justification by Testimony ................................................88 4.4 Expertise: Position, Access, and Disagreement .........................................................91 4.5 Well-Positioning and A Priori Justification ...............................................................97 4.6 Disagreement among Experts ....................................................................................99 4.7 An Objection ..............................................................................................................101 4.7.1 An Odd Implication .........................................................................................102 4.8 A Second Objection: A Priori Gas ................................................................................104 v 5. A PRIORI JUSTIFICATION, LONG PROOFS, AND MEMORY..................................107 5.1 The Worry about Long Proofs ..................................................................................107 5.2 Distinctions and Preliminaries ...................................................................................110 5.3 Not One Problem, But Three .....................................................................................112 5.4 The Challenge from Written Mistakes .......................................................................115 5.5 The Challenge from Memory .....................................................................................122 5.6 The Challenge from Neurological Malfunction .........................................................138 5.7 Conclusions ................................................................................................................147 6. GENERAL RELATIVITY, NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY, AND THE A PRIORI .149 6.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................149 6.2 Non-Euclidean Geometry and the A Priori ................................................................151 6.3 Upsetting the Applecart .............................................................................................159 6.4 What’s a Rationalist to Do? .......................................................................................160 6.5 What are We to Make of “Mental Construction”? .....................................................166 7. IN DEFENSE OF TRADITION: A RESPONSE TO BISHOP AND TROUT ................174 7.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................174 7.2 A Despatch from the Tradition ..................................................................................176 7.2.1..............................................................................................................................178 7.2.2..............................................................................................................................180 7.2.3..............................................................................................................................182 7.3 Better and Faster or the Old Emperor in New Clothes? ............................................190 REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................194 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .................................................................................................204 vi LIST OF FIGURES 5.1 Krupnick’s Argument ...................................................................................................120, 135 5.2 A Simplified Representation of the Baddeley & Hitch (1974) Model; From