Rather, both sources are saying that knowledge constitutes a a subset of ones beliefs. — Relativist

Well that's a rather different claim, isn't it? "X is Y" is not the same as "Some X is Y." Philosophical discussion requires linguistic precision. That sort of conflation, over and over, is unphilosophical.

The separation of practical and theoretical reason was centuries old. — Count Timothy von Icarus

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?
(As I remember it, Aristotle even asserts that "Reason, by itself, moves nothing". That's what motivates his construction of the practical syllogism.)

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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."

"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.

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.


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." 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.

On the same point, "ought" is often taken to imply duty, and I think this is the same sort of deficient theological extension. "This food is good, you ought to try it," and "she likes you, you should ask her out," do not imply "you have a duty to eat this food," or "you have a duty to ask her out."

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'm pretty sure we've discussed this before. Hume's variant would be something like saying only the animal (sensible) and vegetative soul ever move the body. The rational soul (or at least a fractured part of it) is acknowledged, but powerless. Hume doesn't argue for this position in Book II though, he just stipulates this as a definition. 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.

The fact/value distinction in Hume (see Book II) is justified in a circular fashion from this premise. Reason only ever deals with facts. It can never motivate action (stipulated, not argued). Value must motivate action. Therefore, value is not a fact. He will use this in Book III to claim that when we investigate "vice" (disvalue) or presumably "virtue," we can never actually experience them anywhere. I can only say here that this seems obviously false and that millennia of thinkers disagreed. We live in a world shot through with value. We experience obscenity, depravity, cruelty, etc.

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., but only an inchoate sense stream, and so that these too are less real abstractions. If the one argument from abstraction is valid, I don't see why the other isn't, although the conclusions seem absurd. They suppose that the healthy man is surrounded by unreal abstractions and that the person having a stroke and the infant "see reality as it is" by experiencing it in an inchoate fashion. The sage is most deluded and the infant and victim of brain damage lifted up, just as the earlier argument makes the psychopath, the damaged and malformed soul, into the measure of the moral truth of the world. But as Hegel points out in the chapter on sense certainty in the Phenomenology, this process bottoms out in the completely contentless.

Here's a classic syllogism in philosophy:
1. All men are moral
2. Socrates is a man
3. Therefore Socrates is mortal

The conclusion does not establish an equivalence between Socrates and being mortal. Neither does the statement "knowledge is belief" entail an equivalence between knowledge and belief. Regardless, it appears we've gotten through this misunderstanding.

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 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.

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 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.

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, but that doesn't mean we should treat all inferences as equally credible. Conspiracy theorists draw inferences from data, but they tend to cherry pick data to fit a prior prejudice, while ignoring or rationalizing data that is inconsistent with the theory. They are not applying good epistemological practices.

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 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.

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

I didn’t limit that list to commands, or recommendations, but was gesturing towards a connection between certain descriptions and action (or inaction).

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

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.

"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

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.)

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

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.
Let’s think about dog shows. The rules for these competitions include descriptions of the various breeds. The rules for a Shih Tzu and for an Old English Sheep Dog are different, but they specify what makes one competitor better than another in each class. To evaluate a Shih Tzu by the criteria for an Old English sheep dog is a solecism or a misunderstanding or nonsense.
The project here is to specify criteria for the evaluation of each competitor. Identifying a dog as a Shih Tzu tells us that specimen conforms to the criteria, to a greater or lesser extent, and so justifies the classification; but the rules also justify evaluating specimen as better or worse than another. It is essential to the project that description and evaluation are distinct activities, linked by the rules. This is a formalization of a conceptual structure that is very common in our language, and which presupposes that description and evaluation are distinct. Another field with a similar, but different, structure is the legal definition of a crime – murder, say, or theft.

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

1) No. 2) Because “good” is an evaluation and “x is y” is a description.

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

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.
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. Sometimes we should and sometimes we should not. (Cf. Kant on truth-telling)

More later…

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

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.

The fact/value distinction in Hume (see Book II) is justified in a circular fashion from this premise. — "Count

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?

We experience obscenity, depravity, cruelty, etc. — "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.
The biggest weakness in his argument, in my view, is that he seems to think of experience and our reactions to it as something given. He doesn’t distinguish between what our experience is and how we have learnt to interpret it. That knocks a big hole in the idea that experience is the foundation of knowledge – and, indeed, or morality. That doesn’t rule it out as a contribution to or a factor in our knowledge and morality.

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

`
Yes. Actually, it was Berkeley that first articulated that argument and critics made the same criticism. It didn’t impress Berkeley and it doesn’t seem to impress modern idealists either. I don’t know why Hume is not also subjected to it.

I'll respond to the rest later but I wanted to point out a potential miscommunication:

1) No. 2) Because “good” is an evaluation and “x is y” is a description.

Right, I am aware of the distinction. But it isn't a "logical distinction" in the sense that it is something that is discovered about how logic works or syntax works. It is a distinction made based on a certain metaphysical theory (generally, anti-realism). It's akin to how emotivism claims that the logical function of "good" is equivalent to "hooray for." 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.

Now, certainly that distinction is very helpful, if you accept the metaphysics. But it's the metaphysics driving the recognition of the logical distinction (in each case).

As noted earlier, I don't think "good" always indicates or approves of an action. 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). Even in common language today though, "good" often seems to be used in strictly descriptive ways. Nor do I think that what makes a claim "evaluative" is generally clear.

"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.

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. It would be like arguing for moral realism on the grounds that the Doctrine of Transcendentals makes a different logical distinction re "Good."

Note that the move to subjectivize value here could just as well he made for all descriptions. We could reinterpret all descriptive claims to the effect that "x is y" as "I believe/feel that x is y" (indeed, some have recommended this). This would, IMO, do violence to natural language in the same way that it does violence to natural language to assume that if "y = good" a claim always ceases to be a fact claim, or to assume that if "y = good" the *real* meaning is "hooray for x." 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.

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

Sure, there isn't always assertoric force. But in every language I am aware of, assertoric force is the default. 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?

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. I am not convinced that this doesn't result in nihilism and misology if taken to its logical conclusion however. 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.

Hume doesn’t disagree with you.

I might have been unclear. 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."


This is very similar to his claim that we never sense causes. But, prima facie, a valid response is to say that when one sees a ball smash a window one has just seen a ball cause a window to shatter. I am not sure what Hume expects a cause or badness to "look like" or "feel like" or whatever. We certainly do directly experience the appetites (pain, revulsion/nausea, beauty, craving) and on many accounts of goodness it is being qua desirable. Under that view, this division seems bizarre. The appetites are part of sensous experience and relate to what is sensed directly and immediately. I am aware that Hume's empiricism denies this by claiming all of these are "impressions of reflection," and thus, by definition, internal, private, and subjective. But this is another case of an argument from mere stipulation. In reality, touch is continuous with pain, we don't cross a threshold that neatly divides them for instance.

Obviously, Hume is writing to his own context. In that context, morality tended to be thought of in terms of rules (which shows up in all the examples he uses). When I say Hume is being influenced by theology, I don't mean that Hume adopts this framing because of his personal theology. He might have been an atheist. I mean that he is going with the ideas dominant in the Reformed/Calvinists context he lived in. I bring it up because if one rejects that source for the framing, one might question if it is worth sticking with its categories. 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.

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. Obviously, athiests sometimes defend mechanistic causality with religious zeal, but they often do so because they see it as a historical product of science. My only point is that it wasn't. It's a genealogical argument. Of course mechanism might be justified on other grounds; this only attacks the claim that it is primarily "scientific." There weren't experiments run to "rule out final causes" (indeed, biology, medicine, the social sciences, all still rely on them); it was a theological/philosophical position to exclude them from consideration. This sort of thing still comes up in stuff like the Libet experiments.