Rather, both sources are saying that knowledge constitutes a a subset of ones beliefs. — Relativist
Yes, indeed - even millennia old. So why do you think that the fact/value distinction is a distinctive error of empiricism - or even an error at all?The separation of practical and theoretical reason was centuries old. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I think you are over-simplifying here. That decision was a re-configuration of the distinction between theoretical and practical reason, not, or at least not necessarily, an abandonment of the ideas of purposes and values. Oversimplifying again, final causes are not the province of science, that's all.It's precisely the assumption that there are no final causes (and perhaps, no facts about goodness) that allows for a novel move here. — Count Timothy von Icarus
It is true that the interface between fact and value, or between theoretical and practical reason, is more complicated than is usually recognized. We do not always draw a clear distinction between the two, so one can always turn an evaluative statement into a factual statement - and there are many concepts that combine the two. Yet we can also to disentangle them. "Murder" combines fact and value, but I think everyone understands how to distinguish between the two aspects. "Abortion is illegal" is, in one way, a statement of fact and not of value (unless one is arguing that one ought to obey the law). But we can also ask whether abortion ought to be illegal. We can also, I think, see the difference between "ought" of expectation and prediction ("we ought to get home in three hours") and "ought" of moral or ethical principles ("you ought to be on time for this appointment"). The factor that can create confusion is that we usually expect people to meet their moral and ethical obligations.Prior thinkers hadn't missed the difference between "ought" and "is;" yet they thought there could be descriptive statements about the good and beautiful (just as we can speak about what "ought to happen" given purely descriptive predictive models"). — Count Timothy von Icarus
Surely you can see that those two statements have very different force? One implies an instruction or command, or recommendation. The other doesn't. "`It is common for people to take a summer vacation" is an observation which does not have the force of a recommendation or instruction, while "It is good for people to take a summer vacation" does not imply that it is common and is compatible with it being rare to do so, but it does imply that one should. When the surgeon holds out his hand and calls "scalpel", it's an instruction and the surgeon expects the nurse to put one in his hand; when the nurse holds up a scalpel and asks what it is, the same word is a description - there is no expectation that the nurse will put it in his hand.You can see this in the fact that if you replace "good" in the second statement with "common" you get a straightforwardly descriptive statement: "It is common for people to be kind to their mothers." — Count Timothy von Icarus
No, a logical argument does not require that premiss. If the argument is sound, it is sound whether or not people affirm the conclusion. It is true that when we are trying to explain the force of these arguments, we try to explain that, and why, we ought to affirm the conclusion. It's a knotty problem.It seems to me to be akin to demanding that every logical argument include the additional premise that: "we ought affirm the true over the false" tacked on to it. Granted, I see no problem in adding either since they seem obviously true. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Surely you can see that those two statements have very different force? One implies an instruction or command, or recommendation. The other doesn't. "`It is common for people to take a summer vacation" is an observation which does not have the force of a recommendation or instruction, while "It is good for people to take a summer vacation" does not imply that it is common and is compatible with it being rare to do so, but it does imply that one should. When the surgeon holds out his hand and calls "scalpel", it's an instruction and the surgeon expects the nurse to put one in his hand; when the nurse holds up a scalpel and asks what it is, the same word is a description - there is no expectation that the nurse will put it in his hand.
So why do you think that the fact/value distinction is a distinctive error of empiricism - or even an error at all?
(As I remember it, Aristotle even asserts that "Reason, by itself, moves nothing". That's what motivates his construction of the practical syllogism.)
I agree that "Strong" justification, per se, is not sufficient for knowledge. But if one believes that knowledge is possible, one would then have to agree that there are SOME justifications are sufficient for knowledge. Does "my name is Fred" qualify for knowledge? It doesn't really matter, because I was simply trying to illustrate the relation between knowledge and belief.So your argument here is, "I believe X is true and I have strong justification to believe it, therefore it is true [or, therefore I know it]." But why do you think those two conditions are sufficient?
Those conditions obviously fail to generate knowledge in certain circumstances. And this idea of "strong" or "adequate" justification is not even in keeping with that broad sort of Gettier epistemology. It looks like a subset, something like probabilistic internalism. — Leontiskos
I do believe knowledge is possible (analytic truths, for example), but I also believe it is rare - because Gettier conditions are nearly always present. If one chooses to define knowledge more loosely, with somewhat less deference to Gettier conditions, then he would consider knowledge to be more common. But whether or not the term (knowledge) can be applied to some specific belief seems to me to be of no practical significance.But again, rather than falling into the rabbit hole of contemporary epistemology, my claim is that the traditional epistemic opinion is that knowledge is possible - that I can know and know that I know certain things. I don't see how you would be able to accept such a view.
I wasn’t suggesting that descriptions involving values are actually commands. I was pointing out that descriptions involving values are also commands, or, more accurately, have the force of commands, etc.I'm not denying a difference between commands and recommendations and descriptions, just the idea that so descriptions involving values are actually commands or expressions of emotion. Such theories do violence to language. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I didn’t limit that list to commands, or recommendations, but was gesturing towards a connection between certain descriptions and action (or inaction).The idea that "good" always refers to something like "thou shalt" is a product of Reformation volanturist theology, the tradition that shapes Hume. To say that all value claims are about "thou shalt" isn't to observer an ironclad law of philosophy or language. — Count Timothy von Icarus
The theological premiss may have been the first version of the idea. But, given that he does not mention it, I think we can be reasonably sure that it was not Hume’s premiss.It's just the (originally explicitly theological) premise that shaped Hume's context, i.e., "there is no intrinsic value (teloi) because intrinsic value would be a constraint on the divine will. Thus, value must be about divine command." — Count Timothy von Icarus
I’m sorry, I seem to have misled you. I was not saying that any description was synonymous with any command, in the sense that one “directly converts” to the other. I was saying that many descriptions have the force of commands, or recommendations, or (Hume’s favourite) approbations or even expressions of emotion. (I’m assuming that you are reasonably familiar with the concept of speech acts.)"This is a great car," does not mean "thou shalt drive my car," or even "I should drive my car," just as "this is good (healthy) food" does not directly convert to "thou shalt eat this food," or even "you ought to eat this food." This is even more obvious when we move to the beings that most properly possess goodness. "Peter is a good man," need not mean "thou shalt choose Peter," or "I recommend Peter." It can, but it needn't; it can be merely descriptive. — Count Timothy von Icarus
There are cases where it doesn’t make sense to describe them as “good”, such as, “This is a good disease”. I surmise that’s because their badness is built in to the concept. In other cases, like “tiger”, it may be because they have been known to kill us, and are dangerous. They are very good at hunting; the catch is that they are perfectly capable of applying those skills to hunting human beings. In yet other cases, the oddity may be because there are no criteria for evaluating them. I suspect “planet” may be such a concept; “oxygen” may be another.Centuries of war waged against intrinsic value in the language haven't been able to paper over these issues. While "that's a good tiger," might seem a bit odd in English, descriptive value statements made in a slightly different ways are still common and natural. Hence, "that tiger is a perfect specimen," or "that is a perfect tiger," is generally about the tiger as tiger, not recommending the tiger or commanding us to do anything vis-á-vis the tiger. So too, "that is a pathetic, miserable bush," isn't telling us to do anything vis-á-vis the bush, but is normally telling us something about the bush as a bush. — Count Timothy von Icarus
1) No. 2) Because “good” is an evaluation and “x is y” is a description.So let me ask a pointed question: does the descriptive statement "x is y" essentially mean "you ought to affirm that x is y is true?" If not, then why, if y is "good" would it automatically change to "you ought to do y." — Count Timothy von Icarus
The whole point of the distinction is that a (pure) description is not equivalent to an evaluation. But some concepts have both descriptive and evaluative components; sometimes, in specific context, a description may be treated as an evaluation.To be sure, we ought to choose the good and avoid the bad. But we also want to affirm truth and reject falsity. And yet we don't say that "x is true" becomes equivalent with "affirm x," and so "x is good" shouldn't be subject to this sort of transformation either. — Count Timothy von Icarus
OK. Would you mind explaining what the arguments are that you consider to be quite strong? I’m intrigued by the idea of appetites associated with reason.He does not take up the influential arguments for the appetites associated with reason, but simply declares they cannot exist. But I consider the phenomenological and psychological arguments made for such appetites to be quite strong, and Hume's declarations to be quite destructive, so I have no idea why we should take them seriously. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Hume’s wraps up his premiss in some rather confusing flourishes, but he realizes that no set of facts can provide a deductive proof of any statement of value and sets out to provide an alternative explanation. Are you saying that he is wrong about that?The fact/value distinction in Hume (see Book II) is justified in a circular fashion from this premise. — "Count
Hume doesn’t disagree with you. On the contrary, he argues that morality is based on our responses to those experiences – on how we feel about them. He realizes that those responses can’t be validated by deductive reasoning, but believes that, nonetheless, they are the basis of morality. I think that’s an over-simplification, but not unreasonable as part of a more comprehensive theory.We experience obscenity, depravity, cruelty, etc. — "Count
`Hume's argument, that "virtue and vice" don't show up in our "sense data" is extended into the seeming reductio claims of later empiricists and phenomenologists, that we also don't experience cats, trees, the sun, etc., — "Count
1) No. 2) Because “good” is an evaluation and “x is y” is a description.
I don’t think that “x is y”, of itself, suggests that we should affirm it or should not affirm it, except in specific contexts
Hume doesn’t disagree with you.
I think this discussion is getting too complicated. I would like to set aside the historical debate. However, I can’t resist two observations – I don’t expect you to agree with me, but I think we can make more progress by focusing on the core issues. This post is about sorting out the focus, setting aside debates, not because they are not worth while, but because one cannot deal with everything at once.I'll respond to the rest later but I wanted to point out a potential miscommunication: — Count Timothy von Icarus
It’s true that Hume was not involved in the ejection of final and formal causality from physics but that he was writing in the context of that decision. Whether that decision was made primarily on theological grounds is another question. I don’t have the expertise whether that was so or not, so I won’t argue the point.1.Likewise, one need not suppose that Hume rejects final and formal causality on theological grounds to accept that he is writing in a context where final and formal causality have already been excised from "scientific/philosophical discourse" primarily on theological grounds. — Count Timothy von Icarus
This is a regular technique for the empiricists, isn’t it? There’s always a catch. Here, it is “as long as you consider the object” – our attention is directed away from the context. Certainly Berkeley is very fond of this move, though he doesn't let it get in the way of a good argument. I don’t set much store by it. But consider the end of that section.2. I am referring to the section in Book III where he says that we never sense (touch, smell, see, etc.) vice or badness.
"Take any action allow’d to be vicious: Wilful murder, for instance. Examine it in all lights, and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real existence, which you call vice. … The vice entirely escapes you, as long as you consider the object." — Count Timothy von Icarus
That doesn’t sound like moral anti-realism to me. On the contrary, what he seems to think he has found is a foundation for virtue and vice that is consonant with his methodology. There are problems with it, of course. First, there is the let-out clause “If favourable to virtue and unfavourable to vice”. I’m sure many people would point out that our sentiments are often not particularly favourable to virtue and unfavourable to vice. In addition, there is the Euthyphro question, whether the gods love piety because it is good or whether piety is good because the gods love it. On top of that, there is Moore’s fallacy.Nothing can be more real, or concern us more, than our own sentiments of these be pleasure and uneasiness ; and if favourable to virtue, and unfavourable to vice, no more can be requisite to the regulation of our conduct and behaviour. — Hume Treatise III. 1. i.
I’ve never understood metaphysics and I don’t know enough about the doctrine to dissect this. But it looks as if metaphysics and logic reflect each other here and that someone who accepts the doctrine of transcendentals agrees that there is a distinction that is at least very similar to the modern fact/value distinction.The distinction follows from the metaphysics in the same way that someone who accepts the Doctrine of Transcendentals will acknowledge a distinctive logical function for One, Good, and True and their derivatives (Something, Thing, Beautiful, etc.), in that they are trans-categorical and that they are conceptual/logical (as opposed to real) distinctions that add nothing to Being but which are coextensive with it. — Count Timothy von Icarus
So I guess you don’t buy the argument. So I won't let it distract me.It would be like arguing for moral realism on the grounds that the Doctrine of Transcendentals makes a different logical distinction re "Good." — Count Timothy von Icarus
That doesn’t sound like moral anti-realism to me. — Ludwig V
I’ve never understood metaphysics and I don’t know enough about the doctrine to dissect this. But it looks as if metaphysics and logic reflect each other here and that someone who accepts the doctrine of transcendentals agrees that there is a distinction that is at least very similar to the modern fact/value distinction. — Ludwig V
OK. Would you mind explaining what the arguments are that you consider to be quite strong? I’m intrigued by the idea of appetites associated with reason.
Questioning and what’s really good
In the case of just and beautiful things, many people are content with what are believed to be so, even if they aren’t really so. [But] nobody is satisfied to acquire things that are merely believed to be good . . . everyone wants the things that really are good and disdains mere belief here. (Republic 505d)
Here Socrates is saying that regarding the things, experiences, relationships, and so forth, that we get for ourselves, we want to be sure that they really are good, rather than just being what we, or other people, think is good. We don’t want to live in a “fool’s paradise,” thinking that we’re experiencing what’s
really good, when in fact it isn’t really good.
Even if we could be sure that we would remain in this fool’s paradise for our entire lives, and never find out that we had been mistaken, we hate the thought that that might be the case—that what we take to be really good might not really be good. If that were the case, we feel, our lives would have been wasted, whether or not we ever found out that they were wasted. We can joke about how other people are “blissfully ignorant,” but I have yet to meet a person who says that she would choose to have less information about what’s really good, if by doing so she could be sure of getting lots of what she currently thinks is good. The notion of choice, itself, seems to be oriented toward finding out (if possible) what’s really good, rather than just being guided by one’s current desires or one’s current opinions about what’s good.
Robert M. Wallace - Philosophical Mysticism in Plato, Hegel, and the Present
I’ve never understood metaphysics and I don’t know enough about the doctrine to dissect this. But it looks as if metaphysics and logic reflect each other here and that someone who accepts the doctrine of transcendentals agrees that there is a distinction that is at least very similar to the modern fact/value distinction.The distinction follows from the metaphysics in the same way that someone who accepts the Doctrine of Transcendentals will acknowledge a distinctive logical function for One, Good, and True and their derivatives (Something, Thing, Beautiful, etc.), in that they are transcategorical and that they are conceptual/logical (as opposed to real) distinctions that add nothing to Being but which are coextensive with it. — Count Timothy von Icarus
So I guess you don’t buy the argument. In that case, it is irrelevant.It would be like arguing for moral realism on the grounds that the Doctrine of Transcendentals makes a different logical distinction re "Good." — Count Timothy von Icarus
I’m open to examples.As noted earlier, I don't think "good" always indicates or approves of an action. — Count Timothy von Icarus
A lot depends on the details. What is the goodness of actions parasitic on? If goodness is primarily descriptive, like theoretical statements, how come it can move us to action, as in his paradigm example, “Dry food is good”. But the key questions are 1) whether “good” is univocal, like “red” or changes its meaning according to context, like “real” or “exists” or “large” and 2) whether Aristotle (and Aristotelians) are right to posit a Single Supreme Good and 3) the role of those things (activities) that are “good in themselves” or “good for their own sakes”, like theoretical reason, music and friendship.On something like an Aristotleian account, the goodness of actions is always parasitic. Goodness is primarily descriptive there and grounded in final causes, and particularly in beings (organisms). — Count Timothy von Icarus
An explanation of what you mean by “in strictly descriptive ways”, possible including examples would help enormously.Even in common language today though, "good" often seems to be used in strictly descriptive ways. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I agree with you. We’ve been using both “descriptive” and “evaluative”, not to mention “fact” and “value” and “is” and “ought” on the assumption that we have a common understanding. Which may well not be true. But the context of our discussion is morality and ethics, so that kind of evaluation is obviously the focus. That should help a bit.Nor do I think that what makes a claim "evaluative" is generally clear. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Yes, this is difficult. One could well say that the difference between description and evaluation is the use made by sentences in a context. Then we would need to say that descriptive statements are statements whose use in standard contexts is descriptive and similarly for evaluative statements."That's hot" can be a claim recommending action. It can also be merely descriptive. "That's too big," is often a claim recommending action, but it can also be descriptive. Context determines if it is taken to recommend action or not. But more to the point, no one thinks that because "that's too big," or "that will break it" might recommend action, that they are not also, and often simultaneously fact claims and descriptions. Their being evaluative in one context doesn't remove their descriptive nature. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I thought I was trying to articulate a logical distinction. What is the general fact/value distinction as distinct from the logical fact/value distinction?Anyhow, perhaps I interpreted this wrong, but you seemed to be supporting the general fact/value distinction in light of the logical distinction. If so, I would say this argument is circular. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Maybe so, but that’s a different issue, isn’t it?Note that the move to subjectivize value here could just as well he made for all descriptions. — Count Timothy von Icarus
There are certainly important differences between the two. But if they cut across the fact/value distinction, how are they helpful?Some people make a differentiation between first person declarative and third person informational statements. I find this distinction more useful, but it cuts across claims of value and "facts" and does not presuppose the two are exclusive. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Well, if x is y, then you do well to answer the question “Is x y?” in the affirmative. But asserting that x is y just because you believe it is, well, a bit odd. Am I supposed to assert everything I believe. How often? What happens if I don’t?In any case, there obviously often is assertoric force. If there is, then "x is y" is equivalent with "it is true that x is y." Now, we might not believe that "x is y," but surely if it is really true we ought to affirm it, right? — Count Timothy von Icarus
Oh, I see, this is about the rational appetites. Well, I’ll acknowledge a desire for truth. But I don’t think there is anything special about that desire. Like others, it can be excessive or deficient. Like others, it has to take its place among our other desires and values. A being that was devoted to truth and nothing else would not last long in this world; I don’t think I could recognize it as a human being.Although, I suppose it's true that for the values anti-realist "y is true" never implies "affirm y," and the move to affirm y must always come from irrational, inchoate sentiment. …. Whereas the counter to the effect that we have a "sentimental" desire for truth qua truth ("all men desire to know") is just reintroducing the rational appetites with the adjective "sentimental" tacked on. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Perhaps so, but how is it relevant?This is very similar to his claim that we never sense causes. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Perhaps so. But I think we should evaluate the idea for its own sake, in our context, rather than anyone else’s. Rejecting an idea just because of it’s original context seems a bit like prejudice to me. Actually, what I was trying to say was something vaguer, more like statements of value can be major premisses in a practical syllogism – or statements of value (and so of desire) explain the motivations for action in a way that statements of fact do not.The idea that "good" involves something like "thou shalt" or that "ought" primarily denotes duty or obligation (or even action), is a product of that context. — Count Timothy von Icarus
What is of practical siginficance (IMO) is the importance of making an effort to seek truth through good epistemological practices. What I've been arguing is that inference to best explanation (IBE) is usually the best we can do. I doubt that any IBEs can constitute knowledge, — Relativist
but that doesn't mean we should treat all inferences as equally credible. — Relativist
The idea that "good" always refers to something like "thou shalt" is a product of Reformation volanturist theology, the tradition that shapes Hume. To say that all value claims are about "thou shalt" isn't to observer an ironclad law of philosophy or language. It's just the (originally explicitly theological) premise that shaped Hume's context, i.e., "there is no intrinsic value (teloi) because intrinsic value would be a constraint on the divine will. Thus, value must be about divine command." — Count Timothy von Icarus
There are philosophers who go farther, and teach, not only a general, but an invariable, and inviolable, and necessary uniformity in the action of the laws of nature, holding that every thing is the result of some law or laws, and that exceptions are impossible; but I do not see on what ground of experience or reason they take up this position. Our experience rather is adverse to such a doctrine, for what concrete fact or phenomenon exactly repeats itself? Some abstract conception of it, more perfect than the recurrent phenomenon itself, is necessary, before we are able to say that it has happened even twice, and the variations which accompany the repetition are of the nature of exceptions. The earth, for instance, never moves exactly in the same orbit year by year, but is in perpetual vacillation. It will, indeed, be replied that this arises from the interaction of one law with another, of which the actual orbit is only the accidental issue, that the earth is under the influence of a variety of attractions from cosmical bodies, and that, if it is subject to continual aberrations in its course, these are accounted for accurately or sufficiently by the presence of those extraordinary and variable attractions:—science, then, by its analytical processes sets right the primâ facie confusion. Of course; still let us not by our words imply that we are appealing to experience, when really we are only accounting, and that by hypothesis, for the absence of experience. The confusion is a fact, the reasoning processes are not {71} facts. The extraordinary attractions assigned to account for our experience of that confusion are not themselves experienced phenomenal facts, but more or less probable hypotheses, argued out by means of an assumed analogy between the cosmical bodies to which those attractions are referred and falling bodies on the earth. I say "assumed," because that analogy (in other words, the unfailing uniformity of nature) is the very point which has to be proved. It is true, that we can make experiment of the law of attraction in the case of bodies on the earth; but, I repeat, to assume from analogy that, as stones do fall to the earth, so Jupiter, if let alone, would fall upon the earth and the earth upon Jupiter, and with certain peculiarities of velocity on either side, is to have recourse to an explanation which is not necessarily valid, unless nature is necessarily uniform. Nor, indeed, has it yet been proved, nor ought it to be assumed, even that the law of velocity of falling bodies on the earth is invariable in its operation; for that again is only an instance of the general proposition, which is the very thesis in debate. It seems safer then to hold that the order of nature is not necessary, but general in its manifestations.
But, it may be urged, if a thing happens once, it must happen always; for what is to hinder it? Nay, on the contrary, why, because one particle of matter has a certain property, should all particles have the same? Why, because particles have instanced the property a thousand times, should the thousand and first instance it also? It is primâ facie unaccountable that an accident should happen twice, not to speak of its happening always. If {72} we expect a thing to happen twice, it is because we think it is not an accident, but has a cause. What has brought about a thing once, may bring it about twice. What is to hinder its happening? rather, What is to make it happen? Here we are thrown back from the question of Order to that of Causation. A law is not a cause, but a fact; but when we come to the question of cause, then, as I have said, we have no experience of any cause but Will. If, then, I must answer the question, What is to alter the order of nature? I reply, That which willed it;—That which willed it, can unwill it; and the invariableness of law depends on the unchangeableness of that Will.
And here I am led to observe that, as a cause implies a will, so order implies a purpose. Did we see flint celts, in their various receptacles all over Europe, scored always with certain special and characteristic marks, even though those marks had no assignable meaning or final cause whatever, we should take that very repetition, which indeed is the principle of order, to be a proof of intelligence. The agency then which has kept up and keeps up the general laws of nature, energizing at once in Sirius and on the earth, and on the earth in its primary period as well as in the nineteenth century, must be Mind, and nothing else, and Mind at least as wide and as enduring in its living action, as the immeasurable ages and spaces of the universe on which that agency has left its traces.
In these remarks I have digressed from my immediate subject, but they have some bearing on points which will subsequently come into discussion. — Newman, Grammar of Assent, Chapter 4
Thank you for that quotation.Part of what Newman is doing here is arguing that, in the more primary epistemic sense, law has to do with will and not with nature. He is turning Hume on his head, and will continue to do so. — Leontiskos
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