Blind Realism: An Essay on Human Knowledge and Natural Science (Studies in Epistemology and Cognitive Theory)

BLIND REALISM An Essay on Human Knowledge and Natural Science

Robert Almeder

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CONTENTS

xi

Preface

1

Chapter One: Non-Basic Knowledge

The Weak Sense of 'Knows': Knowledge Without Correspondence 2 The Strong Sense of 'Knows': A Concept Without Instances 32 Objections to There Being Knowledge in 35 the Weak Sense of 'Knows' Definitions of Knowing Weakly and Knowing Strongly: In Each Case Knowledge Is Completely Justified True Belief 38 The Emptiness of Knowing Strongly Notes

40

41

Chapter Two: The Gettier-Type Counterexamples

51

The Attack on the Classical Definition of Knowledge: The Two Types of Gettier-Type Counterexamples 51 Causal and Reliability Analyses of Justification

60

Some Implications of Accepting Gettier-Type Counterexamples and Their Inapplicability to the Definitions Offered Earlier 92 Conclusions: The Enduring Quest for Certainty Notes

94

95

Chapter Three: Basic Knowledge Basic Views on Basic Knowledge

103

103

Defending Fallibilistic Foundationalism The Definition of Basic Knowledge

117

125

The Criterion for Basic Knowledge: The Peirce an Proposal Suitably Qualified 126 Semantic Authorization: How Items of Basic Knowledge Are True and Subject to Revision Without Needing to Satisfy an Evidence Condition 132 Notes

134

Chapter Four: Blind Realism

143

Realism and the Correspondence Theory of Truth: A Necessary Connection? 145 Proving the Existence of the External World 147 Proving That Some of Our Factual Beliefs Must Say How the External World Is 151 Saying Which Beliefs Correctly Describe the World: The Impossible Task 177 Distinguishing Blind Realism from Scientific Realism 183 Conclusion: The Virtues of Blind Realism Notes 188

187

Chapter Five: Scientific Progress and Peircean Utopian Realism

197

The Death of Revolutionary Science 200 The Indefinitely Long Future of Science 218 Notes 222

Chapter Six: Conclusion: Blind Utopian Realism

225

Human Knowledge and the Thesis of Blind Utopian Realism 225

Bibliography

227

Index

243

About the Author

249

PREFACE

This book originated in the deeply felt conviction that the widespread acceptance of Gettier-type counterexamples to the classical definition of knowledge rests in a demonstrably erroneous understanding of the nature of human knowledge. In seeking to defend that conviction, this book offers a fairly detailed and systematic picture of the nature and limits of human factual knowledge. Although the picture presented here is by no means complete, it seeks to defend a fallibilism which, when properly delineated, requires repudiating any classical correspondence theory of truth without at the same time rejecting that core of classical realism which distinguishes it from every idealism denying that we have some correct beliefs about an external world. Even so, the kind of realism presented here is also unlike any classical form of realism. I call it blind realism because it asserts that we have no reliable decision procedure for picking out, or otherwise establishing, which of our beliefs succeed in correctly describing the external world. Human knowledge is a matter of having beliefs that are fully warrantedly assertible, but the class of such beliefs indistinguishably harbors at any given time both propositions that do, and those that do not, succeed in correctly describing the external world. At least that is what I shall be arguing. Only under an impossibly idealized or strong concept of knowledge does blind realism turn out to be a form of scepticism. Moreover, there is an added utopian dimension to blind realism because it is joined with a defense of the more objectionable claim that the human mind will come to answer correctly every non-trivial empirically answerable question about the external world; but at any time we still will not be able to pick out or reliably establish, which answers are the correct xi

xii

PREFACE

answers or beliefs from those that fail to describe correctly the external world. If the addition of this utopian dimension seems a bit excessive, demonstrating how a fallibilistic epistemology must repudiate any classical correspondence theory of truth without needing to abandon either the possibility of knowledge or the classical realist's core belief in a knowable external world will still be instructive as a way of reconciling the intuitions of both realism and idealism (or non-realism). After all, philosophers generally claim that repudiating classical correspondence theories of truth will precipitate an endorsement of wholesale idealism as a result of having to adopt something like a coherence or a pragmatic theory of truth. For a fallibilist, the trick is to avoid scepticism by endorsing something like a coherence or pragmatic theory of truth (understood in terms of 'warranted assertibility') without rushing headlong into idealism. Failing at this, our theory of knowledge would begin by leaning heavily upon the intuitions of common sense only to deny them in the end. By way of methodology, there seems to be no other way of examining the nature and limits of human knowledge than to begin by defining what we mean by 'knows' as a function of the way we typically use the term in ordinary non-philosophical discourse. Naturally, this task requires an examination of our usage and a specification of the various conditions under which 'knows' is properly used. However, whether human knowledge exists as it may be defined in natural usage is arguably a question quite distinct from what we mean by 'knows'. Whether we should speak in the way we do is a legitimate question carrying with it the question of whether we should view human knowledge in the way that we do, or would expect to, in the light of what we typically mean by 'knows'. Some of the sections in this book are radical revisions of papers published elsewhere. In Chapters One and Two the pertinent papers are: "Defeasibility and Scepticism" (Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Dec. 1973); "Truth and Evidence" (Philosophical Quarterly, Oct. 1974); "Defending Gettier-type Counterexamples" (Australasian Journal of Philosophy, April 1975); "On Seeing the Truth: A Reply" (Philosophical Quarterly, May 1976); "Peircean Fallibilism" (Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, Winter 1982); "The Invalidity of Gettier-type Counterexamples" (Ph ilosophia, Sept. 1983); "On Being Completely Justified in Believing False Propositions" (Philosophia, Dec. 1985); and "Reliabilism and Goldman's Theory of Justification" (Philosophia, Spring 1989; coauthored with Franklin Hogg). In Chapters Three and Four the relevant papers are: "Basic Knowledge and Justification" (Canadian Journal of Philosophy, March 1983); "Fal-

PREFACE

xiii

libilism, Coherence and Realism" (Synthese, March 1986); "Scientific Realism and Explanation" (American Philosophical Quarterly, Oct. 1989); a much revised version of "Blind Realism" (Erkenntnis, Spring 1988); and "Vacuous Truth" (Synthese, Dec. 1990). Chapter Five is basically a revised and expanded defense of the thesis presented in "Scientific Progress and Peirce an Utopian Realism" (Erkenntnis, Spring 1983) and the latter is an outgrowth of arguments offered in "Science and Idealism" (Philosophy of Science, June 1973) and "Fallibilism and the Ultimate Irreversible Opinion" in Studies in Epistemology (American Philosophical Quarterly Monograph Series vol. 9, Jan. 1975). Finally, most of the work on this book was completed during the Fall Terms of 1984 and 1988 while I was a Senior Fellow in The Center for the Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. For providing the space, the assistance, the uninterrupted periods of reflection, and the stimulating discussions on the topics covered in this book I am deeply grateful to the center. My hope is that the contents of this book will reflect in some small measure the quality of philosophizing generally available at Pittsburgh. An equal debt of gratitude goes to the wonderful people at the Hambidge Center in Rabun Gap, Georgia. They provided many hours of the protected solitude necessary to finish this project. Although the mistakes in this book are all the author's, the better parts reflect a communal effort in critical assistance (not to be confused with approval) provided by Nicholas Rescher, Richard Gale, Milton Snoeyenbos, Bill Lycan, Paul Humphreys, Grant Luckhardt, Robert Arrington, Al Janis, and John Norton. Sonja Gardner and Franklin Hogg were incredibly helpful in the preparation of the manuscript.

CHAPTER ONE

NON-BASIC KNOWLEDGE

Propositional knowledge always involves somebody's knowing that something or other is so. As such, it is logically distinct from non-propositional knowledge, which is a matter of somebody's knowing how to do something or other. This first chapter focuses on non-basic propositional knowledge, that is, propositional knowledge produced by conscious inference from evidence consisting of other known propositions. Such knowledge we also call demonstrative knowledge. In explicating the nature of non-basic propositional knowledge, I shall urge that there is both a weak and a strong sense of 'knows', that there is a concept of knowing weakly and a concept of knowing strongly. Knowing weakly differs from knowing strongly in two basic ways. In the first place, knowing weakly does not, whereas knowing strongly does, require that the evidence condition for knowledge be satisfied by evidence that is entailing. In the second place, although knowledge cannot be false in any sense of 'knows', a proper analysis of the weak sense of 'knows' is inconsistent with adopting any correspondence theory of truth. Indeed, if the weak sense of 'knows' admits of instantiation (if, that is, there is non-basic knowledge that does not require entailing evidence), then we cannot explicate the sense in which such knowledge is true by appeal to any correspondence theory of truth. This latter conclusion, however, does not hold with regard to a proper analysis of the strong sense of 'knows'. After examining and rejecting various objections to our characterization of the weak sense of 'knows', the first chapter ends with explicit definitions of both senses of 'knows' and an argument to the effect that although there are two senses of 'knows', there is only one kind of non-basic factual knowledge, namely the kind specified by the weak sense of 'knows'. This latter

2

CHAPTER ONE

conclusion emerges because the weak sense of 'knows' does, but the strong sense does not, admit of instantiation with respect to non-basic factual knowledge claims. In this first chapter I define the weak sense of 'knows' in terms of the classical definition of knowledge, namely, completely justified true belief. Accordingly, in the next chapter we shall see that Gettier-type counterexamples to the classical definition of knowledge are unacceptable and cannot undermine the definition of the weak sense of 'knows' offered in this first chapter. More importantly, we shall also see that acceptance of Gettier-type counterexamples is the product of an unconscious endorsement of the view that we have only one sense of 'knows', namely, the strong sense. In short, analyses of non-basic knowledge that begin by accepting Gettier-type counterexamples fail ultimately because they are the progeny of only a partial analysis of 'knows'. At the end of Chapter Two we shall examine some reasons for the tendency to accept such partial analyses. THE WEAK SENSE OF 'KNOWS': KNOWLEDGE WITHOUT CORRESPONDENCE Knowing Weakly Eschews Entailing Evidence

Typically, if a person claims to know something or other on the basis of some evidence he states, and if we have no good reason to suppose that he is not in a position to know what he claims to know, then we do not dispute, deny, or otherwise question his claim to know unless, after examining his evidence, we have some specific reason for thinking that what he claims to know may actually be false. Suppose, for example, that Richard claims to know that a robin is nesting in his apple tree. Suppose further that his evidence for thinking that the bird is a robin is simply that the bird in his apple tree has a red breast. Presumably, if we have reason to believe that other similar red-breasted birds nest in the area, we would tell him that he does not know that the bird is a robin; for the presence of other kinds of red-breasted birds in the area is a specific reason for believing that what he claims to know may actually be false. Suppose, however, that our friend claims to know that a robin is nesting in his apple tree solely because the bird in question has a red breast and then, when questioned as to whether there might be other kinds of red-breasted birds in the area, proceeds to corroborate conclusively that there is only one kind of red-breasted bird in the world, namely, the robin. He presents us with a notarized telegram from the president of the International Ornithological Society, cites chapter and verse from the authoritative section on robins in the most recent edition of The World Book of

NON-BASIC KNowLEDGE

3

Birds, and submits in evidence a written statement from leading robin specialists in the world. Further, he takes us to his garden and points out what we all agree to be a red-breasted bird nesting in his apple tree. Would we now say (after conscientiously checking his evidence and finding nothing amiss) that our friend is merely justified in claiming to know but does not really know that the bird is a robin? Surely we would not. Native speakers find it puzzling and even bizarre to be told that they do not know what they claim to know (but are merely justified in claiming to know) when the person disputing their claim can offer no specific reason for believing either that what they claim to know may actually be false or that they are not in a position to know. Such puzzlement could scarcely exist in the mind of the native speaker if those disputing his claim were using 'knows' correctly in this context. 1 Nor can we be said to have a specific reason for disputing a knowledge claim if our only reason is that it is logically possible that the claim may be false. If someone were to tell us that we do not know what we claim to know because it is logically possible that the claim may be false, we could only conclude that she was recommending how we should use 'knows'. But we could scarcely say that she was describing the way we typically use the verb in contexts of the sort stated above; for we often profess to know a great deal even when we are aware that it is logically possible that our claims may turn out to be false. And who but 'the philosopher' would question us or accuse us of misuse? We all know, for example, that there are no dinosaurs on earth, even though it is logically possible that one might exist in an unexplored region of the planet. Until someone can offer a specific reason for believing that the existence of a dinosaur is more than a logical possibility, we shall not concede that we do not really know that no dinosaurs exist. If we grant that a person knows what he claims to know although the logical possibility of error is present in some way, then it follows that while it is part of the meaning of 'knows' that knowing demands the having of conclusive reasons prohibiting the possibility of error ("If I know, I can't be mistaken"), having conclusive reasons does not entail the having of reasons that preclude the logical possibility of error. Given the usage here, the locution "If I know, I can't be mistaken" means (as John Austin and others have urged) that, given all the information available, no one can in fact offer a specific reason for believing that my knowledge claim may actually be false or turn out false. 2 If having conclusive reasons means having reasons that preclude the logical possibility of error, then we would all be guilty of misuse when we grant that a person knows what he claims to know although his evidence does not preclude the logical possibility of error. But surely we are not guilty of misuse. On the con-

4

CHAPTER ONE

trary, refusing to accept a person's knowledge claim under the above conditions would constitute a case of misuse. From these considerations it follows that, as a generalization of common usage, there is a sense of 'knows' that allows that a person can know what she claims to know even though the evidence she cites in favor of her claim is not entailing evidence. More specifically, assuming that X is in a position to know, it is a generalization from common usage that TI.

If X claims to know that p at time t1, and if at time t1 (when X cites

evidence in favor of p) there is no specific and accessible reason for believing that what X claims to know may actually be false, then even though it is logically possible that p may be false on X's evidence, X knows that p at time t1.

This sense of 'knows' we can call the weak sense of 'knows'. Later we shall see that there is another distinct sense of 'knows' (the strong sense), which does require for its proper application that the evidence condition be satisfied by entailing reasons. For the moment, however, I would like to argue at length that where knowledge requires conclusive reasons, but not entailing reasons, the existence of such knowledge would be inconsistent with our accepting any correspondence theory of truth. By implication, if this argument is correct, then if there is any weak knowledge, then either it does not require truth at all or it requires truth, but not truth understood in terms of correspondence.

Knowing Weakly Without Correspondence: An Argument for Abandoning the Correspondence Theory of Truth in Cases of Knowing Weakly We can now state the argument informally and thereafter defend the force of each premise in the order of its appearance:

Pl.

The satisfaction of the evidence condition for knowledge does not require entailing evidence.

P2.

The satisfaction of the evidence condition for knowledge entails the sati~faction of the truth condition for knowledge.

Therefore, P3.

The truth condition for knowledge is satisfied by evidence that, although sufficient for knowledge, is not entailing.

P4.

If the truth condition for knowledge is satisfied by evidence that is

sufficient for knowledge but not entailing, then a person X can know that p although it is logically possible that p be false.

Therefore,

NON-BASIC KNowLEDGE

5

P5.

A person X can know that p although it is logically possible that p be false.

P6.

To assert that a person X knows that p although it is logically possible that p be false is not to assert O(Kxp ._p); rather it is to assert (Kxp·O-p).

P7.

(Kxp· O-p) can mean either (i) that X knows thatp, and p is merely a proposition whose denial is logically non-contradictory, or (ii) that X knows that p, and the truth of p consists in the fact that the assertion of p would be fully authorized by the rules of acceptance proper to our current conceptual framework, although the assertion of p may in fact not continue to be so authorized under future and more adequate conceptual frameworks.

P8.

(i) as stated in P7 is false.

Therefore, P9. PIO.

(ii) as stated in P7 is true. If (ii) as stated in P7 is true, then the truth value assigned to any

proposition is in principle subject to revision in the light of future and more adequate conceptual frameworks. Therefore, Pl1.

The truth value assigned to any proposition is subject to revision in the light of future and more adequate conceptual frameworks.

PI2.

If PII is true, then the predicate 'is true', as it warrantedly applies

to any given proposition weakly known, need not designate or describe a word-world relationship of correspondence between language and extralinguistic fact. PI3.

If the predicate 'is true', as it warrantedly applies to any given

proposition weakly known, need not describe or designate a wordworld relationship of correspondence, then the predicate 'is true' does not mean' corresponds with the facts' and hence the predicate, as it warrantedly applies to any given proposition weakly known, cannot be construed in any way consistent with the correspondence theory of truth. Therefore, The predicate 'is true' as it warrantedly applies to any given proposition weakly known cannot be construed in any way consistent with the correspondence theory of truth.

6

CHAPTER ONE

In Defense of P2: The Impossibility of Being Completely Justified in Believing a False Proposition We have already established Pl. P2 asserts that the satisfaction of the evidence condition for knowledge entails the satisfaction of the truth condition. Another way of expressing P2 consists in asserting that while knowledge requires the having of conclusive reasons (which we should not confuse with entailing reasons), one cannot have a conclusive reason for believing that p and p be false. Some philosophers have found this formulation of P2 acceptable on intuitive grounds and, like Fred Dretske, have urged that because one cannot have a conclusive reason for believing that p and p be false, having conclusive reasons is sufficient for knowledge. For Dretske, and others who accept P2, a conclusive reason turns out to be a reason that while non-entailing simply rules against all relevant accessible alternatives. Naturally, there is ample discussion on what a 'relevant' alternative is. Philosophers who have explicitly or implicitly accepted Dretske's formulation of P2 include David Sanford, William Lycan, and John Pollock. (See notes 4 and 6 of this chapter.) Even so, as we shall see, some philosophers have found P2 intuitively unacceptable for reasons we shall examine. The problem is that both sides plead their mutually exclusive intuitions by constructing counterexamples illustrating those intuitions. The question is whether there is any sound argument that would allow us to decide which counterexamples and intuitions to accept. To that end, we may now turn to four distinct arguments favoring P2. Presumably, knowledge in any sense of 'knows' cannot be false. Whatever one may mean by 'true' or 'false', "X knows that p, but p is false" makes no sense. Moreover, we can also assume that a necessary condition for the adequacy of any non-sceptical theory of knowledge is that by its employment we be able to determine whether a person knows what he claims to know. In short, if we are to avoid wholesale scepticism we must be able to determine whether our definition of knowledge is satisfied with respect to any particular knowledge claim. Suppose, however, that the satisfaction of the evidence condition for knowledge does not entail the satisfaction of the truth condition. Suppose, that is, that a person could be completely justified in believing a false proposition and still satisfy the evidence condition for any presumptively adequate definition of human propositional knowledge. And suppose also that we can determine whether the evidence a person cites in favor of his claim is indeed sufficient for knowledge. 3 How then could we determine that the truth condition for knowledge is satisfied if we do not judge it to be satisfied with the satisfaction of the evidence condition?

NON-BASIC KNowLEDGE

7

If the truth condition is not satisfied with the satisfaction of the evidence condition, then by implication, after determining that a person's evidence is sufficient for knowledge, there would remain the separate task of determining whether what she claimed to know is true. Barring divine illumination or paranormal cognition, there could be only one way (if any) of discharging this latter task, namely, directly seeing that what a person claims to know is true. But if this were the only possible way of determining the truth of what a person claims to know, then we could not have an adequate theory of knowledge; for we would have no effective way to resolve epistemological disputes over the truth of statements dealing with the nature and existence of entities or states of affairs that we cannot see. And this extends to our knowledge of the remote future, the remote past, the nature and existence of abstract entities, what might have been, what could be, and what we ought or ought not do. Besides, even if we were to grant (as in fact I do not) that in some very few cases it makes sense to say that one can directly see whether what a person claims to know is true, still, it can be argued that all epistemological disputes (which an adequate epistemology should be able to resolve in principle) are precisely what they are, namely, disputes, because we cannot simply see the truth of what is claimed. Indeed, if we could just see the truth, it would be difficult to comprehend just what purpose an evidence condition could serve. If one could just see the truth, the question "How do you know?" would seem to be pointless. In short, if we are to have an adequate epistemology, one wherein we can determine whether what people claim to know is true, then we are driven to the view that if a person's evidence is deemed sufficient for knowledge, then what he claims to know must be true. This is to say that in an adequate epistemology where an evidence condition is necessary, the satisfaction of that condition (which satisfaction does not require entailing evidence) entails the satisfaction of the truth condition. 4 Second, there is something else wrong with thinking that one needs to determine the truth of p by appeal to evidence that is distinct from the evidence rendering one completely justified in believing that p. Such a position must assume that having conclusive evidence for the belief that p is not having conclusive evidence for the truth of p. After all, if a person could have conclusive reasons for believing that p, or if a person could be completely justified in believing that p, and we could still raise the question of whether what that person claims to know is true, it would follow that the evidence for a belief is not evidence for the truth of that belief. But if evidence for a belief is not at one and the same time evidence for the truth of the belief, what is it evidence for? Thus the very

8

CHAPTER ONE

idea that one could be completely justified in believing that p and p be false assumes a very questionable premise. Third, in defense of P2, to suppose that a person's evidence could be sufficient for knowledge and yet not be sufficient to entail the truth of what he claims to know is to disregard flagrantly certain facts of usage. In the typical case misgivings about the validity of someone's knowledge claim move immediately and directly to questions about the adequacy of the evidence offered in support of the claim. Further, native speakers generally grant that if a person's evidence is judged adequate for knowledge, then ipso facto what he claims to know is true. For example, if a person claims to know that p, and there is some doubt about the validity of his claim, we do not in the first instance ask whether what he claims to know is true. Rather we ask for his evidence ("How do you know?"). If we judge his evidence adequate or sufficient for knowledge, we never say, "Well, your evidence is sufficient, but is there any reason to think that what you claim to know is true?" We do not, and cannot, sensibly ask this sort of question because (as we just saw above) there really can be no adequate way to answer it apart from determining the adequacy of one's evidence for the belief that p. Moreover, even if we asked such a question in the context at hand, the person making the knowledge claim would be at a loss to respond in any way other than to say, "If the truth of my claim does not follow from the fact that my evidence is sufficient for knowledge, how else is one to ascertain the truth of any questionable knowledge claim?" or, "By the acknowledged sufficiency of my evidence I have just shown you that what I claim to know is true. What else could be the purpose behind seeking my evidence if it is not to certify the truth of my claim?" And how could we respond to this? If we are tempted to answer that the point of seeking his evidence is simply to determine whether his belief in the truth of p is based upon sufficient or adequate evidence, then we come right back again to the problem of how we are to ascertain (independently of the evidence offered) the truth of what one is sufficiently justified in believing. 5 Finally, the fourth argument favoring P2 is this: If a person could be completely justified in believing a false proposition, then it would follow that a false proposition could serve as evidence for or against a knowledge claim. This follows from the fact that if a person is completely justified in believing a proposition, then that proposition can be used legitimately as evidence for some other belief. So, if a person could be completely justified in believing a false proposition, then a false proposition could be used legitimately as evidence. But a false proposition can never count as evidence and hence could not be used legitimately as evidence for any

NON-BASIC KNowLEDGE

9

other belief. One's evidence, whether for or against a knowledge claim, must be true if it is to be evidence at all. Let me defend this last sentence. If a false proposition could serve as evidence for or against a knowledge claim, then, where the having or the giving of evidence is a necessary condition for knowing, it would not be necessary for knowledge that one's evidence for what he claims to know be true. And if it is not necessary that one's evidence consist of only true propositions, then, for the purpose of satisfying the evidence condition, it would make no difference whether one's propositional evidence is true or false. But when it makes no difference whether one's evidence is true or false, then it is difficult to see what would count by way of satisfying or failing to satisfy the evidence condition for knowledge. Indeed, if a false proposition could be evidence, then every non-basic knowledge claim would turn out to be valid (provided it be true) because it would make no difference with respect to satisfying the evidence condition whether the propositional evidence was true or false. Such an outcome would not allow us to resolve conflicting knowledge claims because it entails the view that a knowledge claim and its denial are equally acceptable provided only that one cite some propositions, whether true or false, in favor of it. If all this were so, then there would be no point to having an evidence condition because no matter what one claimed to know, his knowledge claim would be valid provided only that he cite some relevant evidence in favor of it, regardless of the truth value of the evidence cited. So, if a false proposition could be evidence, then there would be no need for an evidence condition and knowledge would never require the giving of evidence. So put, it seems clear that an adequate epistemology will require that only true propositions can satisfy the evidence condition and hence that only true propositions can serve as evidence for or against a knowledge claim. Therefore, since a false proposition cannot count as evidence, a person could not be completely justified in believing a false proposition. 6 Incidentally, the soundness of these past four arguments should not be taken to exclude the possibility of a person's being justified in believing a false proposition. These arguments assert only that a person cannot be completely justified in believing a false proposition, because being completely justified (as opposed to merely being justified) in believing a proposition will satisfy the evidence condition for knowledge, which condition cannot be satisfied by belief in false propositions. Indeed, it seems noncontroversial that a person can be justified in believing a false proposition. But, for the arguments just offered, it is difficult to see how anyone could be completely justified in believing a false proposition. 7 Certain philosophers have offered criticisms of some of the above arguments favoring P2. Given the interesting implications of adopting P2 for

10

CHAPTER ONE

epistemology in general, we must divert briefly to examine those objections before defending the remaining premises of our argument.

Recent Objections to P2 In response to some of the arguments offered above, George Pappas and Marshall Swain have urged that people often have what would normally be regarded as excellent evidence for propositions that turn out to be false. At one time, for example, people had good evidence for believing the Ptolemaic account of the world and so had excellent evidence for the false proposition that the planets travel in circular orbits. If we suppose that their evidence was not adequate for their belief, then adequate justifications would need to be purely deductive. For Pappas and Swain, if a person could not be completely justified in believing a false proposition we would need to abandon inductive knowledge completely and hold out for purely deductive justifications; and requiring deductive justifications for knowledge is obviously too strong. If P2 is correct, then in Pappas and Swain's view "many inductive justifications would simply not qualify as justifications at all, and this surely flies in the face of accepted views about justification."8 In asserting that people have in the past had excellent evidence for believing false propositions, the objection Pappas and Swain offer simply begs the question against the force of the four arguments offered above. If those arguments are sound, it follows that nobody can be justifiably regarded as having excellent or conclusive evidence for believing in false propositions. If the arguments offered are sound, then it follows that people may have regarded themselves as completely justified in believing a proposition that turned out to be false, just as people may regard others as being completely justified in believing false propositions; but, even so, nobody could be completely justified in believing a false proposition~ Indeed, given the force of the first argument offered for P2, the denial of P2 entails scepticism. More important, Pappas and Swain assert that if a person could not be completely justified in believing a false proposition, then all justifications adequate for knowledge would need to be deductive in nature because that would be the only way to prevent a person from being completely justified in believing a false proposition. However, as R. K. Shope has noted, this last objection is basically a strawman of the thesis in question. 9 The thesis in question asserts that the satisfaction of the evidence condition entails the satisfaction of the truth condition; and the truth of this thesis does not require that the satisfaction of the evidence condition demand entailing evidence. A person can be prevented from being completely justified in believing a false proposition if the satisfaction of the

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evidence condition entails the satisfaction of the truth condition, and this is logically quite distinct from requiring entailing evidence for the satisfaction of the evidence condition. Furthermore, as long as we continue to regard 'truth' in terms of the classical correspondence theory of truth, then where justifications are non-entailing although sufficient or adequate for knowledge, there will always be the infamous logical gap between being completely justified in believing a proposition and that belief being a picture of the way the world is. But it is important to see that if the above arguments are sound, their soundness requires abandoning that conception of truth without abandoning truth as a necessary condition for knowledge. As long as truth is understood in terms of correspondence, the satisfaction of the evidence condition would not entail the satisfaction of the truth condition where evidence sufficient for knowledge need not be entailing evidence. In short, if the above arguments are sound, they rule against any counterexamples that would assume any form of the correspondence theory of truth. For this reason the claim that the only way to prevent a person from being completely justified in believing a false proposition is to require entailing evidence is persuasive if we assume some form of the correspondence theory of truth. But we undermine that assumption by the above four arguments in favor of P2. Later on we shall see other independent arguments against the correspondence theory of truth. The final objection by Pappas and Swain makes reference to a counterexample originally offered by William Hoffman. Hoffman asks us to imagine two cases. In the first case, Jones begins to wonder whether the floor at point x will hold him if he walks across it. After several hours of watching numerous people walk across point x without falling through, Jones cautiously walks across it, also without falling through. The second case is exactly like the first in every relevant detail except that it occurs at a different place and time, our man is named Smith, and when Smith begins to walk across point x, owing to some freak accident, the floor caves in. Hoffman claims that in the first case Jones clearly knows that the floor would hold him, whereas in the second case Smith clearly did not know that the floor would hold him. In the first case Jones's evidence is sufficient for knowledge. In the second case Smith had exactly the same evidence as Jones, but Smith could not have known that the floor would hold him because it was false that the floor would hold him. According to Hoffman, then, it follows that Smith had evidence sufficient for knowledge, yet this evidence does not entail truth.lO But this counterexample is invalid for a number of reasons. In the first place, notice that in the counterexample we are led to the conclusion that Jones did, whereas Smith did not, know that the floor would

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hold him because we see Jones walk successfully across the floor, and we see Smith fall through the floor. In the first argument above I urged that if the satisfaction of the evidence condition did not entail the satisfaction of the truth condition, then there could be no acceptable way to determine whether the truth condition is satisfied. l1 Hoffman replies to the contrary by giving a counterexample in which we see whether the knowledge claims are true or false independently of determining whether the evidence condition is or was satisfied by the person. But that assumption begs the question against the above arguments, all of which show that the satisfaction of the evidence condition entails the satisfaction of the truth condition. In the context at hand we all assume that the satisfaction of the evidence condition is a necessary condition for knowledge. If the above four arguments are correct, then we have no way to determine that the truth condition is satisfied unless we determine that the evidence condition is satisfied. Otherwise the evidence condition would not be a necessary condition for knowledge. In short, the above arguments urge that it is not possible that a person be completely justified in believing a false proposition; but Hoffman begins by assuming without benefit of proof that it is possible. This he asserts simply by asking us to imagine that we can see the truth or falsity of the knowledge claim without looking at the evidence offered for the claim. The above four arguments for P2 challenge precisely those intuitions that allow us to imagine that one can faultlessly see the truth of what a person may claim to know. No doubt, what takes place in the counterexample is certainly logically possible, but one cannot imagine as much unless one's intuitions proceed from both a misuse oflanguage and from a blindness of the scepticism implied by the endorsement of such intuitions. Besides, even if we grant for the sake of discussion that the Hoffman counterexample does not beg the question against the above arguments, still, his counterexample could work only in those cases where an evidence condition for knowledge is not necessary. Indeed, the necessity of the evidence condition is predicated upon the appropriateness of asking the question "How do you know?" Assuming that the person claiming to know is in a position to know, this question is appropriate to the degree that she might be mistaken and only when we simply cannot see that what the person claims to know is true. Hoffman assumes in his counterexample that we can simply see whether what a person claims to know is true; but if we can simply see whether what a person claims to know is true there is no need for an evidence condition. So, even if it makes sense to suggest that there are some few cases in which we can simply see whether what a person claims to know is true, in those cases the evidence condition would lose its rationale. Thus a person could be completely justified in believing a false proposition only if in so doing she would not be sat-

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isfying a necessary condition for knowledge. The question before us, however, is whether a person can be completely justified in believing a false proposition in the sense of satisfying what is clearly regarded as a necessary condition for knowledge and at the same time believe what is a false proposition. Granting all this, it seems hard to see how such a counterexample could be anything but self-defeating because it assumes that one can satisfy the evidence condition for knowledge and then offers a counterexample made valid only by excluding the evidence condition for human knowledge. Finally, bypassing the above objections to Hoffman's counterexample, even if we grant that there are cases in which a person could be completely justified in believing a false proposition, such cases could obtain only where we can determine simply by looking that the truth condition for knowledge is satisfied. We have already seen, however, that an adequate epistemology most often must confront just those cases where we cannot determine whether the truth condition is satisfied simply by looking at the world. Thus, an epistemology suitable for resolving epistemological conflicts would need to require that a person could never be completely justified in believing a false proposition except in the relatively few and unimportant cases, cases that, as we have just seen, do not require of knowledge the satisfaction of an evidence condition. This last objection is distinct from its immediate predecessor. The former argument asserts that counterexamples similar to Hoffman's are valid only when the evidence condition is not necessary for knowledge and therefore that such counterexamples are self-defeating in supposing the necessity of an evidence condition for knowledge while allowing that the truth condition can be determined to be satisfied simply by looking. This last argument, however, asserts that even if we accept the counterexample, still, an adequate epistemology will need to disregard the counterexample because it applies only in a limited and unimportant number of cases. In his discussion on whether a person can be completely justified in believing a false proposition, Douglas Odegard has urged that my thesis is false. He says: Almeder rejects such a contingency (i.e., that a person could be completely justified in believing a false proposition) on the Austinian grounds that we cannot legitimately say that someone lacks knowledge without having a definite reason. But all this means is that no one in the case can unconditionally say of the subject that he lacks knowledge. It does not mean that we cannot conditionally deny him knowledge on the supposition that an essential premise is false .... Almeder also claims that justification involves truth on the grounds that we normally cannot determine that a belief is true independently of determining that it is justified (or that the evidence for it is adequate). He finds

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questions like "Your belief is justified, but is it true?" absurd. His premise is correct but fails to support his conclusion. We cannot unconditionally determine that someone is in pain without determining that certain (broadly speaking) behavioral conditions obtain. But we can suppose that a belief is true without supposing it to be justified, just as we can suppose someone to be in pain without supposing the presence of such behavioral conditions. Similarly, the type of question Almeder considers makes an unconditional assessment and then asks for an unconditional response. But the possibility of a justified false belief requires the respectability of a merely conditional question, like "Supposing such and such circumstances, his belief is justified, but need it be true?"12 In point of fact, however, I did not reject the thesis that a person can be completely justified in believing a false proposition on the Austinian grounds Odegard cites. Rather the point urged in one of the four arguments cited above was that it makes no sense to suppose that a person could be completely justified in believing a false proposition because that supposition would give license to absurdities such as, "I grant that you are completely justified in your belief, but is what you claim to know true?" If a person could be completely justified in believing a false proposition, then questions such as this should be perfectly reasonable. As it is, however, they are not and so it follows that the supposition that a person can be completely justified in believing a false proposition is based upon a conceptual confusion. Roughly, that was the third argument offered above. To suggest, as Odegard does, that a person may nonetheless be completely justified in believing a false proposition misses the point of the argument and begs the question against it. For the very same reason we cannot defend the alleged respectability of questions such as, "Supposing such and such circumstances, his belief is completely justified, but need it be true?" Odegard, incidentally, criticizes only the third of the four arguments offered above. His counterexample against the third argument also begs the question against the other three. Finally, R. K. Shope has also taken exception to P2. After a few introductory comments, Shope offers various reasons why he thinks it possible that a person could be completely justified in believing a false proposition: ... and Almeder eventually explained that he only wished to stress the following principle: (AP) In cases where there is no way of directly seeing that h is true, and we must rest our judgements on evidence, then'S is justified in believing h' entails h (Almeder 1976, pp. 164-65). But this way of construing the connection between justification and knowledge is unnecessarily strong for Almeder's purposes .... Nonetheless, ... it is correct for Almeder to regard the following comment as absurd, "Your belief is

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justified, but is it true?" (Almeder 1974, p. 368). For Sl seriously to question another person S in an actual situation in this fashion is absurd to the extent that Sl is both taking account of and then setting aside evidence which Sl takes to be relevant in deciding whether the belief is true. But that admission is quite compatible with treating the question as, in G. E. Moore's terminology, an open question, that is, as an open question that is not settled in the sense that justification entails truth. Even if Almeder's principle AP is rephrased so that truth is merely said to be a justification-making characteristic, it remains subject to two objections raised by Odegard. First, Odegard offers as a counterexample to the principle a case where my discernible feelings, observations and memories confer justification on my belief that I have a (public) body, but do not entail the latter proposition (Odegard 1976, pp. 565-66). Secondly, Odegard says that there is an epistemic scale along which beliefs fall, extending from justified beliefs, near the high end, to beliefs merely more reasonable than not, near the low end. Since beliefs may be false yet still have the lower status, it is gratuitous to insist on truth for some higher status (pp. 566-67).13 In this passage Shope offers us two arguments against P2. The first argument is that the endorsement of (AP) demands too strong a connection between justification and knowledge. For Shope, although sentences such as "Your belief is completely justified, but is it true?" are absurd, still, we can treat the question as an open question, a question not settled "in the sense that justification entails truth." Second, even a rephrased (AP) will still fail to meet two major objections offered by Odegard. Let us consider these two arguments. With regard to the first argument, the principle (AP) is not a precise formulation of what was arguedY The important point, however, is that various arguments were offered from which (AP), as well as the original thesis, follows. Shope does not consider those arguments but rather dismisses them by appealing to unargued views offered by Chisholm and Ayer, views demonstrably false if the four arguments for P2 offered above are sound. Further, Shope's claim that the absurdity of "Your belief is completely justified, but is it true?" is quite compatible with treating the question as an open question, is the same kind of question-begging move made by Odegard. Shope's second argument consists in saying that even under the best reformulation of (AP), one that makes truth a justification-making characteristic, there are still two devastating objections to (AP), objections offered by Odegard. As we saw in the section quoted above, the first objection, in the form of a counterexample, argues that one's discernible feelings, observations, and so on, justify one's belief that he has a public body, but do not entail it. The second objection posits an epistemic scale of beliefs from justified beliefs down to beliefs more reasonable than not, and, since

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beliefs may be false yet still have the lower status, it is gratuitous to insist on truth for some higher status. Shope's reliance on these last two objections seems unfortunate because both of them beg the question, again, against the original arguments. With regard to the first objection, it will follow from the arguments offered above for P2 that if one is completely justified in believing that he has a body, then even though the evidence itself does not entail the truth of the conclusion (or is not entailing evidence), still, his being completely justified in the belief entails the truth of the belief. The arguments for P2 deny that one needs entailing evidence in order to know. The question, once again, is whether the above arguments offered for the view that a person cannot be completely justified in believing a false proposition are sound. Odegard has not examined those arguments and, moreover, seems to misconstrue the thesis (in a way reminiscent of the objection offered by Pappas and Swain) as one asserting (or implying) that complete justifications entail truth only if they are entailing justifications. The second objection also begs the question in simply asserting, without benefit of proof, that there is a scale of beliefs such that a particular belief can be both false and (completely) justified. More important, it is simply not gratuitous of us to insist that completely justified beliefs be true. The insistence is a function of the above arguments for P2, all of which conspire to the conclusion that there is no sense in which a person can be completely justified in believing a false proposition where being completely justified in what one claims to know is at least a necessary condition for knowledge. Even if, as Shope suggests, being completely justified meant no more than a matter of proceeding in the most rational way available, the arguments require accepting P2.15 When all is said and done, there is something very perplexing about the above efforts to refute P2 by pleading for the intuitions behind Hoffmanlike counterexamples and counterexamples of the sort suggested by Swain and Pappas. What is so perplexing is this. Suppose for the sake of discussion that such counterexamples to P2 were persuasive, and that P2, for that reason, is just false. In other words, suppose that one could be completely justified in believing that p and p be false, or that one could have a conclusive (but non-entailing) reason for believing that p and p be false. Given the four arguments we offered above for P2, would it not thereby follow that the price we pay for rejecting P2 (on the basis of Hoffmanlike arguments) is scepticism? As we urged in the first argument, if P2 is false, a necessary condition for an adequate non-sceptical epistemology cannot be satisfied, the condition being that we be able to determine whether people know what they claim to know; and we could not determine as much as long as we cannot show that the truth condition is satisfied along with the satisfaction of the evidence condition. That is why the first argument

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for P2 seems so compelling. For that reason, any successful counterexample to P2 would necessarily carry with it the kind of scepticism that is supposed to be a reductio of any argument successfully refuting P2. That is also why anybody interested in avoiding scepticism of a global sort will need to adopt P2. Either that or show that the first and third argument offered above are flawed in some fundamental way, that the scepticism indicated does not really follow from the falsity of P2 in the way the first argument indicates. Also, on the seemingly obvious assumption that if one is completely justified in believing that p on the basis of some reason, then that reason must be a conclusive reason, it seems extremely counterintuitive to suggest that one could have a conclusive reason for believing that p and p be false. Indeed, imagine someone saying "She had a conclusive reason for believing that p but p was false," or "She has a conclusive reason for believing that p but p may be false." Ask any native speaker or practicing scientist if such sentences make sense. That is why many philosophers agree that a person cannot have a conclusive reason for believing that p and p be false. If we add the non-controversial belief that a conclusive reason need not be a logically entailing reason (rather than simply one that rules out all relevant alternatives), and that the justification condition for knowledge is satisfied by one's having conclusive reasons for what one believes, then if we are to avoid the scepticism that comes with our never being able to say whether people know what they claim to know, P2 is unavoidable. The four arguments offered above for P2 are simply the arguments one would cite to defend the common intuitions behind the claim (offered by Dretske, Sanford, Pollock, Lycan, and others) that a person cannot have a conclusive reason for believing that p and p be false, and conclusive reasons need not be logically entailing reasons. Of course, the only other way to avoid the sceptical implications that flow from rejecting P2 would consist in arguing that knowledge does not require truth at all. But if the proponents of rejecting P2 were to argue in this fashion, then the alleged counterexamples offered by them against P2 would be incoherent because such counterexamples assume that a truth condition, defined in terms of the correspondence definition, is satisfied in such counterexamples and, moreover, that the satisfaction of such a condition is a necessary condition for human knowledge. Later we shall offer independent reasons for thinking the correspondence definition of truth makes no sense anyway. Those reasons will support arguments repudiating the concept of truth at the root of the usual counterexamples to P2. Even so, the point here is that the first and third arguments for P2 show that if one is to avoid scepticism, one must abandon precisely those intuitions about truth that exist unquestioned in the heart of the usual counterexamples to P2. Whatever makes P2 unacceptable would, given

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the first and third argument offered above for P2, also make it impossible to satisfy what is a necessary condition for avoiding scepticism, namely, that we be able to determine whether people know what they claim to know. In the end, of course, what is ultimately wrong with all the arguments offered against P2 is that they are counterexamples feeding on those very intuitions that the arguments offered in favor of P2 undermine if we are to avoid scepticism. By implication, because most current theories of justification deny P2, they are for that reason committed to a theory of knowledge under which it is impossible to determine whether anyone knows what they claim to know. Given the second and fourth of our arguments for P2, they are also guilty of assuming both that evidence for a belief is not evidence for the truth of a belief and that knowledge never requires an evidence condition at all. Now we can return to a defense of P3 and the remaining premises of our argument.

P3 Through P11 : The Sense in Which Knowledge Can Be False P3 asserts that the truth condition for knowledge (non-basic) is satisfied by evidence which, although sufficient for knowledge, is not entailing. And P3 follows from PI and P2. P4 asserts that if the truth condition for knowledge is satisfied by evidence that is sufficient for knowledge but not entailing, then a person X can know that p although it is logically possible that p be false. P4 follows from the fact that the truth condition is satisfied with the satisfaction of the evidence condition and the satisfaction of the evidence condition does not require entailing evidence. P5 asserts that a person X can know that p although it is logically possible that p be false. P5 follows from P3 and P4. . With regard to the truth of P5, it is often thought that sentences such as "X knows that p, but it is logically possible that p is false" are logically contradictory. Indeed they are, if what we mean by these expressions is that it is logically possible for a person to know that p and p be falsemeaning thereby OCKxp ._p). In short, the consequent of P4 (and hence P5) is contradictory if taken to mean that somehow truth is and is not a necessary condition for knowledge. However, such expressions are to be read not as O(Kxp ._p), which is admittedly contradictory, but rather as (Kxp . O-p), which is not contradictory and which consistently captures both the fact that truth is a necessary condition for knowledge and the fact that where evidence for knowledge need not be entailing evidence there is a sense in which it is logically possible that what one knows may be false. Hence P6.

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But this still does not take us far enough; for (Kxp . O-p) is ambiguous as it admits of two (and, presumably, only two) distinct interpretations. It can mean either (i) X knows that p and p is a proposition whose denial is logically non-contradictory, or (ii) X knows that p and the truth of p consists principally in the fact that the assertion of p is, or would be, fully authorized by the rules of acceptance (however specified) proper to our current conceptual framework, although p may in fact cease to be authorized under future more adequate conceptual frameworks. 16 This last sentence is what P7 asserts.17 P8 asserts that (i) in P7 is false. In justifying P8 we can note that many philosophers who readily grant that there is some sense in which what one knows may be false, although truth is a necessary condition for knowledge, will urge that expressions such as "X knows that p, but p may be false" or "I know that p, but I may be mistaken" are non-contradictory because we understand such expressions to mean simply that p is a proposition whose denial is logically non-contradictory. In different terms, they generally urge that (Kxp . O-p) is not contradictory because it means that what is known is a contingent state of affairs which could have been otherwise had the universe been relevantly different. Malcolm, for example, apparently took this route when he claimed that there is a sense of 'knows' consistent with the possibility of error. 18 His critics were quite wrong in thinking that Malcolm's proposal had the effect of denying truth as a necessary condition for knowledge. 19 In fact, Malcolm said that we have a sense of 'knows' consistent with the possibility of error-although this does not imply that what one knows might in any sense be false. More specifically, Malcolm claimed that we have a sense of 'knows' that admits of statements such as, "Although you knew that p, you might have been mistaken." This latter expression means that although you knew that p, p might have been false. Although you knew that Harry was broke, he might have been rich; as a matter of fact, Harry was broke (otherwise you would not have known it), but had the universe been different in certain relevant respects Harry might have been rich. This sort of construal of "X knows that p, but p may be false" enjoys the advantage of admitting of a sense of 'knows' consistent with the possibility of error without omitting truth as a necessary condition of knowledge. 20 Many philosophers will agree with Malcolm that this, and only this, is the proper interpretation of (Kxp . O-p). But something is wrong with this interpretation of (Kxp . O-p). To suggest that the logical possibility of error attending our knowledge (as a result of PI and P2) amounts to no more and no less than that what one knows is a contingent state of affairs involves a fundamental confusion. For if we take this suggestion to heart, then when one's evidence fails to

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entail his conclusion it can only mean that what is known is contingent, its denial being logically non-contradictory in the way Malcolm suggests. But surely one's evidence can fail to entail a conclusion that is a tautology. Consider that from a number of true premises one might inductively infer "Whatever is green is colored," although the premises do not entail but rather sustain the conclusion. For example, we could infer that "Whatever is green is colored" from the premise "In all past cases there has never been a single instance in which something was found to be green but not colored." Although true, our evidence would fail to entail our conclusion. But the conclusion is a tautology because by definition whatever is green is colored. However non-typical such inferences may be, we can conceive them. And the point at issue here is a conceptual one, namely, whether the absence of entailing evidence entails that what one knows is contingent in the sense that the proposition can be conceived to be false independently of the evidence offered for it. So, appearances to the contrary, it will not do to claim (1\ la Malcolm) that the sense in which what one knows might be false (Kxp . O-p) reflects nothing more than the fact that what one so knows is a logically contingent state of affairs. Moreover, the failure of the above construal of (Kxp . O-p) rests on confusing a lack of entailment between one's evidence and one's conclusion with the contingent nature of what is known. Admittedly, the confusion is generated because generally when one's evidence is adequate for knowledge but non-entailing (although its being adequate entails the truth of what one claims to know), what is so known is a contingent state of affairs. But this should not blind us to the fact that the possibility of error consistent with knowledge refers basically to a lack of an entailment relationship between one's evidence and one's conclusion, and not to the independent modality of the proposition known, or to the tautologous or non-tautologous nature of the conclusion independently of the grounds for its assertion as known. "I know that p but I may be mistaken" cannot be construed in the above way without missing the sense in which one may be mistaken about what one knows. So, there is a clear sense in which the above construal of (Kxp . O-p) is irrelevant; for the sense in which one might be mistaken about what one knows is rooted in the lack of an entailment relationship between one's evidence (even when adequate for knowledge) and one's conclusion and not in the contingent modality of the proposition viewed independently of any evidence offered for it as known. In sum, because (P7): (Kxp . O-p) can only mean either (i) that X knows that p, and p is a proposition whose denial is logically noncontradictory, or (ii) that X knows that p, and the truth of p consists in the fact that the assertion of p would be fully authorized by the rules of acceptance proper to our current conceptual framework, although the asser-

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tion of p may in fact not continue to be so authorized under future and more adequate conceptual frameworks; and because (PS): (i) as stated in P7 is false; then (P9): (ii) as stated in P7 is true. PIO asserts that if (ii) as stated in P7 is true, then the truth value assigned to any proposition is subject to revision in the light of future and more adequate conceptual frameworks. After all, if the truth of what one knows consists in the fact that a person would be completely justified (authorized) in asserting that p on evidence that is adequate for knowledge but not entailing, and if that authorization may be withdrawn under evidence more adequate in the future, does this not imply that the truth value assigned to a proposition is in principle subject to revision in the light of future more adequate evidence? It is hard to see how this can be denied. So, P11 follows from P9 and PIO via modus ponens. By far, however, the most important premise of our argument is P12.

In Defense of P12 and P13: Fallibilism and the Correspondence Theory of Truth PI2 asserts that if the truth value assigned to any proposition is in principle subject to revision, then the predicate 'is true' (as it applies to any given proposition weakly known) need not designate or describe a relationship of correspondence between language and non-linguistic fact. But what evidence can we adduce in favor of P12? Let us begin answering this question by asking another one. How does it come to pass that one and the same statement can be warrantedly assigned 'is true' at one time and 'is false' at a later date? Why does such truth value revision take place? Presumably, there are only two possible answers open to a correspondence theorist, that is, one who holds that the predicate 'is true', when correctly applied, must designate or describe a word-world relationship of correspondence between language and extralinguistic fact. The first is that the world changed, that what was once true ceased to be true because the state of affairs warranting the original assignment ceased to obtain in the flow of time. The second answer is that whenever truth values get reassigned in this way, it indicates that there never was any correspondence between the facts and what was asserted by the proposition originally assigned 'is true'. If the correspondence theorist chooses this second answer, she will urge that whatever their reasons may have been, people were simply mistaken in believing that the proposition originally assigned 'is true' was in fact true or in fact said the way the world was. But if our correspondence theorist opts for the first answer, she will need to maintain that whenever truth values get reassigned it is because the world changes. If this implication were acceptable, then the corre-

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spondence theorist would need to accept what he must consider the absurd view that the earth passed from being flat to being non-flat just when the truth value assigned to "the earth is flat" was dropped. Moreover, if our correspondence theorist chooses the second answer, she will find herself in the self-defeating position of having to admit that he has no grounds whatever for inferring a word-world relationship of correspondence from any particular proposition's being presently warrantedly assigned 'is true'. After all, we are inductively warranted in believing that conceptual frameworks will continue to evolve causing truth value redistribution over some statements presently warrantedly assigned 'is true'. Hence, if when a proposition originally assigned 'is true' is subsequently assigned 'is false' people were simply mistaken in thinking that there was indeed a relationship of correspondence between extralinguistic fact and the proposition originally assigned 'is true', then we are now mistaken in thinking that there must be a relationship of correspondence between extralinguistic fact and any given statement presently assigned 'is true'. For we know that some statements presently warrantedly assigned 'is true' will be reassigned 'is false' in the future. These are the propositions that do not now say the way the world is even though we are fully or robustly authorized in believing that they do. Moreover, if we cannot know (and we shall soon see that we do not) which current statements of those completely justifiably assigned 'is true' will bear different truth values in the future, then we cannot infer from any given statement assigned 'is true' that statement succeeds in correctly describing the external world because everyone of them would need to be considered subject to revision. In short, if our correspondence theorist takes the second option, she can explain the fact of truth value revision only under conditions that would make it impossible for us ever to pick out which sentences are true in the sense specified by the correspondence definition of truth. Inasmuch as any adequate definition of truth must allow us in principle to pick out those propositions in our language that are true in the sense specified by the definition, it follows that if the correspondence theorist chooses the second option he must explain the fact of truth value revision in a way that makes the correspondence theory of truth self-defeating or self-refuting. In sum, if we were to adopt the position of the correspondence theorist and argue that, in fact, the predicate 'is true', when properly applied, principally designates or describes a word-world relationship of correspondence, then there could be no grounds whatever for ever reassigning a truth value because such a procedure could occur only under conditions that render the correspondence theorist's position either absurd or self-refuting for the reasons just indicated. Under a correspondence theory it is impossible to explain the fact of truth value revision and, given that any adequate theory of truth should explain as much, we have reason to think

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the correspondence theorist's conception oftruth fails whenever truth value revision is inherent to knowledge. As an additional argument for P12, an argument whose soundness is assumed in the above reasoning, we may consider different and past views about the world, views in large measure outmoded or just plain false by current standards of assessment. For example, assume that all the ancients believed the earth flat, said the earth was flat, and assigned 'is true' to the statement "The earth is flat." We now say, naturally, that the ancients did not know that the earth was flat because the earth never was flat. If we are right in this latter assessment, then we should naturally conclude that in spite of all the reasons the ancients may have had for believing what they did, the predicate' is true', as it applies to "The earth is flat," did not designate, or describe, a word-world relationship of correspondence. The ancients may have thought that it did, but because they were wrong in what they asserted it could not have been. Now, if we possess any good grounds for thinking that at least some of our present views about the world will become as outmoded for future generations as the view of the ancients has become for us, then future generations will be obliged to characterize some of our present views in precisely the same way we now characterize some of the views of the ancients. And we can imagine an even more future generation characterizing some of the views of this future generation in the same way we now characterize some of the views of the ancients. They would say what we say of the ancients, namely, the assignment of 'is true' to some statements asserting their view did not designate, or describe, a word-world relationship of correspondence. So, if we have adequate reasons to suppose that our current conceptual framework will evolve and change in the future as much as did the framework of the ancients, then we have good reason to suppose that some of our presently completely authorized beliefs do not in fact say the way the world is, even though we are presently completely authorized in saying they do; and if we do not know which of our completely authorized beliefs will receive different truth values in the process of future conceptual change (we assume that some will not) then we do not know and cannot say reasonably which of our present beliefs in fact say the way the world is even though we are completely authorized in saying that they all do. Also, if we do not know which of our present beliefs succeed in correctly describing the world, then for any given proposition presently assigned 'is true', the predicate 'is true' need not designate or describe a relationship of correspondence between language and non-linguistic fact; it could just as easily designate or describe a proposition that we are completely justified in believing true although in fact it does not say the way the world is. And, presumably, we have adequate reasons to suppose that our current conceptual framework will evolve and

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change in the future as much as did the framework of the ancients. Further, as we shall see, we have equally strong reasons for the view that we cannot pick out, or otherwise reliably establish which beliefs presently completely authorized as true will receive different truth values in the future. Although both of the above arguments share certain features, they are quite distinct. The first purports to show that we have no way to account for the fact of conceptual change and truth value revision if we assume the correspondence theory of truth; for the correspondence theorist could only account for such truth value revision in terms that render her position either absurd or self-defeating. The second argument, whose soundness is necessary for the soundness of the first, seeks to show that because we know that our current conceptual framework will evolve and progress in the future as much as did the frameworks of the ancients, then we know that at least some of our present beliefs do not say the way the world is, even though we are fully authorized in saying that they do; and because we cannot determine which of our completely authorized beliefs succeed in some important measure in correctly describing the external world, we cannot infer from any given proposition presently assigned 'is true' that it says the way the world is, or is true in the correspondence sense of the term. This latter argument assumes, of course, that some of our completely justified beliefs do succeed in correctly describing the external world. For the moment let us accept this assumption. (Later, in Chapter Four, we will see the arguments to the effect that some of our completely justified beliefs do so succeed in describing the world.) For these reasons, the predicate 'is true', even when properly applied, need not designate a relationship of correspondence between language and the extralinguistic world. Of course, no part of this second argument asserts that any theory of truth that does not allow us to pick out, or establish, which sentences satisfy the definition of truth proposed by the theory is self-defeating. Nor does this second argument assert that the correspondence theorist can explain the fact of truth value revision only under conditions that render the correspondence theory either absurd or self-defeating. Before going on to examine P13, it may be helpful to distinguish these past two arguments from a similar, but unsound, argument one sometimes hears. The soundness of the above two arguments does not require that we believe that all the beliefs, or even many of the beliefs, held by the ancients have suffered truth value revision. We need only believe that there has been some truth value revision. On the other hand, some philosophers have argued that because many or some of the beliefs or terms of early scientific theory were in fact non-referring from the viewpoint of later theories, all the terms or assertions of earlier theories did not actually

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refer. They then urge that because our present theories are in fact earlier theories from the viewpoint of inevitable future theories, then our present theories fail to refer or say the way the world really is. 21 Certainly, this last argument is unsound if it is taken to assert that all the terms or beliefs of present theory fail to refer because some of the views of the ancients suffered truth value revision. Equally, the argument is unsound if taken to assert that all current beliefs fail to refer because, given continued scientific progress, many of the views of the ancients suffered truth-value revision. What is needed to make this last argument telling and sound is the claim that all the beliefs authorized for assertion by the ancients suffered truth value revision; and this last claim certainly overstates the amount of truth value revision that actually occurs in the history of science. Moreover, were we to urge that all the beliefs of the ancients suffered truth value revision, we would be hard-pressed to explain how the ancients managed to survive as well as they did. Surely some of their beliefs allowed them a capacity to predict and control; and how can we explain the long-term predictive and controlling power of a belief or a set of beliefs if we do not assume that the beliefs are in some basic way saying the way the world is? To suggest that this capacity to predict and control does not require as much, results, as we shall see in detail later in Chapter Four, in a failure to account for this very predictive success and controlling power of the beliefs, because nothing else could presently explain this fact. The argument we shall defend in Chapter Four establishes the view that at any time some of the claims made by science must be saying how the world is. P13 asserts that if the predicate 'is true', as it warrantedly applies to propositions weakly known, need not designate a relationship of correspondence, then the predicate 'is true' does not mean 'corresponds with the facts', and hence, as it properly applies to propositions weakly known, cannot be construed in any way consistent with the correspondence theory of truth. This conclusion results from the following argument. If the predicate' is true' meant' corresponds with the facts', then if the condition for its warranted application were satisfied and the predicate warrantedly applied, then presumably, the predicate in being warrantedly applied, would need to designate or describe a word-world relationship of correspondence. Otherwise, given the fact of truth value revision in the future, it would not be possible to pick out or otherwise establish which of the sentences we are now fully authorized in asserting as true in fact says the way the world is. In other words, we would not have a definition of truth that allows us to pick out the sentences that actually satisfy the definition. This limitation would remain no matter what one's theory of evidence may be as long as evidence adequate for knowledge need never be entailing. So, if the correspondence theorist wants to avoid offering

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a definition that cannot be known to be satisfied under any theory of evidence, she must say that, given the meaning she ascribes to the predicate 'is true', if the predicate is warrantedly applied it needs to designate or describe a relationship of correspondence between language and the world. Therefore, if the predicate 'is true' as it warrantedly applies to propositions weakly known need not designate or describe a relationship of correspondence, then the predicate 'is true' does not mean 'corresponds with the facts', and hence, as it warrantedly applies to propositions weakly known, cannot be construed in any way consistent with the correspondence theory of truth. Incidentally, as a matter of historical fact, it can be argued that correspondence theorists have generally adopted the view that the fully warranted application of the predicate 'is true' needs to designate a relationship of correspondence between language and the world. More important, however, it is the view they must adopt if they are to avoid offering a definition of truth that, under any theory of evidence, cannot be known to be satisfied with regard to any particular truth value assignment. Historically and logically, the connection between language and the world achieved through the ascription of the truth predicate, has never been viewed by correspondence theorists as a contingent connection. Consequently, if the conditions for the warranted application of the predicate 'is true' obtain, and the predicate is warrantedly applied although there is no need that the predicate, in being so applied, designate or describe a relationship of correspondence, then 'is true' does not mean 'corresponds with the facts' .22 Given the truth of Pll and P12, the consequent of P13 follows, and that is the conclusion of our argument. As such, the argument urges that a proper analysis of the weak sense of 'knows' moves us directly towards some coherence theory of truth, some coherence theory of knowledge, and all the problems attending thereunto. In the next chapter we shall see this argument repeated with regard to understanding the nature of the truth condition for basic knowledge. Before proceeding, however, we can consider a couple of likely objections to the arguments for P12 and P13.

Objections to P12 and P13: The Preface Paradox and Other Objections It may seem tempting to urge that the arguments for P12 and P13 involve an internal inconsistency of the sort depicted in 'The Preface Paradox'. 'The Preface Paradox' occurs when the author of a book states in the preface of her book that while she accepts as true every assertion made in the book, she also believes that some of those assertions she accepts must be false although she does not know which ones are false. In short, some of the propositions she believes to be true she also believes to be

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false. Are we not, so the objection goes, involved in the same sort of inconsistency when we claim, as we do in defense of P12 and P13, that we now know (or are fully warranted in accepting) that some of the propositions we are now fully warranted in accepting as true will in fact receive different truth values in the future although we do not know which will receive different truth values in the future? The answer is no, and the reason for this answer is simple. For when we say what we do say in defense of P12 and P13, we are by no means asserting that some of the propositions we are completely justified in believing to be true we also are completely justified in believing. Nor is that contradiction implied by what we say. Rather we are asserting that some of the propositions we are completely justified in accepting as true (and hence now believe) do not succeed in any way in correctly describing the world. Nor is this to say that one can be completely justified in believing a false proposition, although that conclusion would certainly follow if we were to define truth in terms of correspondence. One cannot be completely justified in believing a false proposition, but one can be completely justified in believing a proposition that does not succeed in correctly describing the world. Unless one assumes the correspondence theory of truth, this hardly involves asserting that some of the propositions one believes to be true one also believes to be false. It is more like saying that some of our completely justified beliefs fail to describe the external world although we do not know which ones so faiJ.23 A second objection runs as follows. Nothing at all about the correspondence definition of truth poses a problem. It captures what we all mean by 'true' and if, from time to time, we must reassign truth values, the reassignment shows merely that we do not require entailing evidence for truth value assignments in our beliefs about the world. One can never be infallible in truth value assignments, and that merely means that sometimes we will make mistakes. Making mistakes in truth value assignments is not sufficient grounds for thinking the correspondence definition of truth inadequate. Or so it will be objected. In response, this objection misses the whole point of the argument. The core of the argument asserts that because we now know that some of the propositions we are completely authorized in accepting as true do not in fact succeed in correctly describing the world, and because we have no reliable (rather than infallible) way of distinguishing between those fully authorized propositions that do, and those that do not, succeed in correctly describing the external world, we have no way of determining or otherwise reliably establishing which propositions in fact satisfy the correspondence definition of truth. This conclusion implies that we have a definition of truth that, no matter what one's theory of evidence may be, does not allow us to pick out or determine which sentences in our lan-

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guage are true. Such a definition must be inadequate, for if we can never say which of our beliefs satisfy the definition of truth proposed, we can never say whose beliefs about the world are correct, even more or less. Later, in Chapter Four (when we return to the above objection), we will see arguments to the effect that we do not even have evidence which is relevant for determining reliably (rather than infallibly) which of our beliefs succeed in correctly describing the external world. The third, and for now last, objection consists in urging that our defense of P12 and P13 assumes gratuitously that no generally reliable decision procedure exists for picking out from all the sentences that we are presently completely authorized in asserting those that say the way the world is, and so satisfy the correspondence definition of truth. Well, of course, if there is a generally reliable decision procedure or criterion for picking out which ~~!'tpnr.es satisfy the correspondence theorist's definition of truth, P12 and P13 fail. What makes it unlikely, however, that there is any such procedure is that the procedure would need to pick out those sentences completely authorized as true which in fact will never be recalled in the near or the remote future. The only way that could happen would be either to require entailing evidence for the authorization of all truth value assignments or to insist that some of the propositions are so robustly supported, fuzzy, or obvious that it is extremely unlikely that the truth value will be reassigned in the future. The first alternative is much too strong, and certainly would not apply to the truth of propositions known where evidence sufficient for knowing need not require entailing evidence. Under the second alternative some philosophers will claim that we can distinguish the propositions that are more likely to endure through all future revolutions by determining whether the propositions in question are robustly supported. Under this proposal we would be reasonably justified in picking out certain beliefs as less likely to admit of truth value revision when they are strongly supported by a rich variety of evidence in a variety of ways. According to William Wimsatt, for example, robustly supported beliefs are those derived from multiply independent perspectives using different and independent experimental procedures, models, and assumptionsY For Wimsatt, and others, propositions robustly confirmed provide sound basis for predictions and are widely regarded as criteria for the reality of those items whose existences are said to be robustly confirmed. 25 Upon reflection, however, what is problematic about this last proposal is that it is not terribly difficult to find in some outmoded theories some beliefs that were robustly supported but subsequently suffered truth value revision. During its heyday what could have been more robustly supported than Ptolemy's geocentric thesis? Other examples abound. Thus, it is difficult to see how any proposition robustly supported in the way sug-

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gested by Wimsatt could be anything more than a proposition completely authorized or warranted by appeal to a variety of kinds and sources of confirming evidence. Moreover, given that some robustly supported hypotheses in the past suffered truth value revision, we have every reason to believe that because the future will be like the past, some robustly supported propositions will suffer truth value revision in the future. Therefore, some robustly supported hypotheses do, and some do not, say the way the world is because some will, and some will not, admit of truth value revision. Because there is no logical feature of the claims that allows us to distinguish between the two, we cannot say which hypotheses succeed (among all those robustly confirmed) in correctly describing the world in some important measure. Certainly we cannot cite the evidence that makes a proposition robustly confirmed, or most probably true, as the evidence that allows us to determine which among all our robustly confirmed beliefs succeed in correctly describing (in some important measure) the external world. That would make all robustly confirmed beliefs successful descriptions of the world, and we know this is not so. In short, the anticorrespondence theorist is not asking for a decision procedure that provides entailing evidence but simply a decision procedure wherein the evidence provided for some sentence corresponding with extralinguistic fact is not the same evidence as that provided for the fully warranted or robustly confirmed nature of the sentence accepted. The evidence for the robustly confirmed nature of the belief cannot at the same time be evidence for that belief succeeding in describing the external world. Also, under the second alternative some philosophers suggest that the factual claims that will not admit of truth value revision are obvious, namely propositions we cannot imagine any evidence ever confuting. Rescher, for example, identifies a class of propositions that will not undergo truth value revision simply because they lack precision. The more precise they become the more likely they will suffer truth value revision. Sentences such as "All human beings on the planet Earth during 1985, and who were somewhere between the ages of twenty and thirty, weighed more than a pound," or "Some people voted for Mondale in the 1984 Presidential election," are examples of the sort of propositions that Rescher has in mind when he asserts that we can pretty much know which of our factual beliefs will not admit of truth value revision. 26 Others claim that less fuzzy propositions can still be immune to truth value revision simply because we find it implausible that any evidence should ever occur that would defeat the claims. Examples include "Socrates is dead"; "If Socrates had a wife, she is dead"; and "Here is a hand." This last proposal under the second alternative is questionable for several reasons. To begin with, to assert that a proposition is immune to revision because we cannot imagine any defeating evidence is to appeal to a cri-

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terion that has failed in the past, even though we cannot reasonably ask for a stronger criterion for rational acceptance. To be sure, at one time people could not imagine what sort of evidence would need to occur to undermine the belief that the earth is the center of the universe. If such a criterion has failed in the past to pick out those propositions that would not suffer truth value revision, we have good reason for thinking that it will also fail in the future. A fortiori, there is strong reason to think that appealing to it in order to single out presently completely authorized beliefs that will not suffer truth value revision will prove unsatisfactory. Nor will it help to suggest that appeal to such a criterion will provide us with highly reliable, although not certain, evidence that certain completely authorized beliefs will survive truth value revision. It will not help because the very question before us is one of determining which among all our completely justified beliefs, or extremely reliable beliefs, succeed in describing the external world; and if we cannot answer that question, we do not know which of our maximally reliable or completely justified beliefs are saying the way the world is. Nor are we even reasonably justified in selecting some over others. One's incapacity to imagine circumstances or evidence that could refute a universally acknowledged belief based upon the strongest empirical evidence is always relative to existing bodies of information. Where such bodies of information change, or can be expected to change as much in the future as they have in the past, what is imaginable will admit of alteration, and with it the truth values or propositions formerly thought irrefutable. This makes unimaginability of refutation a shaky criterion for the immunity of certain propositions to future truth value revision. In the end, fallibilism just means that any of our beliefs about the external world can go the way of phlogiston, no matter how strongly or robustly supported, and no matter how irrefutable the claim may appear. Given this defense against the objections to P12 and P13 (a defense we will review in Chapter Four) we can draw a few conclusions.

Implications of the Argument Rejecting Correspondence as a Condition for Knowing Weakly Given the strength of the preceding argument, it would appear that any revisionistic epistemology must either abandon truth as a necessary condition for knowledge or, failing that, keep truth as a necessary condition for knowledge and construe the meaning of the predicate so as to repudiate a correspondence theory of truth. If we take the first alternative and move in the direction of abandoning truth as a necessary condition for knowledge, then we would need to define knowledge in terms of some form of completely warrantedly assertible belief sans truth. 27 For differ-

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ent reasons than those here presented some philosophers take this as the best definition of knowledge and so repudiate the classical definition.28 Any repudiation of the correspondence theory of truth will have this as an option. But the option also carries with it an unwholesome drift in the direction of idealism. Alternatively, we can keep truth as a necessary condition for knowledge but reconstrue the predicate in some way such that a proposition's being known (and hence true) does not entail that the world is the way it is described to be in a true proposition. The problem with this latter position is that while it appears to salvage some of the classical definition, still, the point of insisting upon having a truth condition in the classical definition is to establish a connection between knowledge and the world, a connection guaranteeing that the world is the way we know it. But we sever this connection once we abandon the correspondence theory of truth. In short, whichever alternative our revisionistic epistemology forces us to take, the ensuing analysis will be open to the charge of idealism, or the charge that knowledge need not be supposed to tell us the way the world is. This charge will need to be met directly if revisionistic epistemology is to salvage anything like a realistic approach to knowledge. Is there any particular reason for choosing one of these alternatives over the other? For the correspondence theorist it will not appear to make very much difference whether we abandon truth as a necessary condition for knowledge or keep the truth condition and reconstrue the predicate in a way inconsistent with adopting the correspondence theory of truth. Both lead to idealism; and so, choosing one over the other is, from the viewpoint of an epistemic realist, a bit like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Even so, keeping the truth condition for knowledge and reconstruing its meaning in the direction of coherence (or warranted assertibility) theories of truth is considerably less counterintuitive than abandoning the truth condition altogether. Why? Well, no matter what one means, or could mean, by 'true' or 'knows', it will never make sense to say "Jones knows that p but p is false." An effort to preserve this intuition and render our epistemology as consistent as possible with the facts of natural usage prompts our acceptance of this second alternative. On the other hand, those who drop truth as a necessary condition for knowledge must be willing to accept sentences such as "Jones knows that p but p is false." It seems desirable to avoid this state of affairs and the only way to do it would be to keep the truth condition and reconstrue the predicate in the way suggested above. Ultimately, then, we see the virtue of keeping the truth predicate and reconstruing it so that, unlike its alternative, it harmonizes with our linguistic intuitions with regard to the ordinary usage of 'knows'. In sum, given the above analysis of the weak sense of 'knows', it would appear that the most pressing objection to be met by those who would

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insist upon truth as a necessary condition for knowledge (where the evidence condition does not require for its satisfaction entailing evidence) is that such an analysis is inevitably idealistic; that such an analysis may give us knowledge, but not knowledge that provides an understanding of a non-linguistic world. Later I hope to show that we can set this objection aside, that the above analysis is in fact consistent with a core realist's world view although it is inconsistent with a correspondence theory of truth. For the moment, however, we can turn our attention to the strong sense of 'knows'.

THE STRONG SENSE OF 'KNOWS': A CONCEPT WITHOUT INSTANCES Knowing Strongly Requires Entailing Evidence In addition to the weak sense of 'knows' characterized above, there is a strong sense of 'knows', a sense that does require for its correct application that the evidence condition be satisfied by entailing evidence. Where this is so, the predicate 'is true', as it applies to propositions strongly known, need not be construed in a way that is at variance with the correspondence theory of truth. Let us consider this. If a person claims to know that p at time t1, and if the truth value assigned to his claim is subsequently revised at time t2, even though at time t1 nobody could offer any specific and cogent reason for believing that p might in fact be false, then we say that he did not know that p at time t 1. Put somewhat differently, one sense of 'knows' implies that T2.

If X claims to know that p at time t 1, and ifhis claim is subsequently falsified (assigned the truth value 'false') at time t2 on evidence not accessible at time t 1, then even though at time t1 there was no specific and accessible reason for believing that what X claimed to know might actually be false, X did not know that p at time t1.

However, we have already shown that a sense of 'knows' sustains Tl.

If X claims to know that p at time t 1, and if at time t1 (when X cites

evidence in favor of p) there is no specific and accessible reason for believing that what X claims to know may actually be false, then even though it is logically possible that p may be false, X knows that p at time t1.

We cannot deny that both Tl and T2 are legitimate generalizations of our usage of 'knows'. But T2 negates what Tl asserts, namely, that a person knows what he claims to know if, at the time of his claim, there is no specific and accessible reason for believing that what he claims to

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know may actually be false. In short, with regard to propositional knowledge, 'knows' is ambiguous, because the incompatibility of Tl with T2 indicates that we are dealing with two distinct senses of 'knows'. Indeed, if we say that X did not know that p at time t1 even though there was no specific reason for believing at time t1 that the truth value assigned to his claim would be revised, then, obviously, we cannot be appealing to the same sense of 'knows' that we appeal to when we say that a person knows what he claims to know if nobody can offer at the time of his claim any specific reason for believing that what he claims to know may actually be false, or turn out to be false. Given this last sense of 'knows' captured by TI, the absence of a specific reason for believing that a person's claim may be subsequently assigned 'is false' is (assuming that a person believes what he claims to know) necessary and sufficient for his knowing what he claims to know;29 whereas, given the strong sense of 'knows' seen in T2, the absence of a specific reason for believing that a person's claim may be subsequently assigned 'is false' is not sufficient (although certainly necessary) for his knowing what he claims to know. Because the sense of 'knows' captured by T2 requires of 'knowing' something more than the mere absence of a specific reason for believing that a person's claim may be subsequently assigned 'is false', it is a stronger sense of 'knows' than the one reflected in Tl. More pointedly, what makes the one sense stronger than the other is that the sense captured by T2, but not by Tl, entails that a person knows what he claims to know only if it is not logically possible that the truth value assigned to his claim should be revised. For if we say that a person did not know what he claimed to know even though at the time of his claim we had no specific reason for thinking that his claim would be subsequently assigned 'is false', we thereby commit ourselves to the view that he would have known what he claimed to know if only the truth value assigned to his original claim had not been subsequently revised. And if this is so, do we not in effect say that he would have known what he claimed to know only if his evidence had been entailing, because (as we have already seen) only entailing evidence allows the possibility of the preclusion of truth value revision? In sum, given the sense of 'knows' captured in T2, the correct application of 'knows' requires that one's evidence by its nature prevent subsequent truth value revision. Because truth value revision can take place only where one has non-entailing evidence, it follows that the correct application of 'knows' as captured by T2 requires that the evidence condition for knowledge be satisfied by entailing evidence. If a person says "I know that p" in this strong sense, he would be claiming that nothing that anyone could ever present could possibly count as evidence sufficient to falsify his claim. Ignoring momentarily whether one would ever be justified in claiming to know in this strong sense, we can

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at any rate grant that these two quite distinct senses of 'knows' (respectively tagged the weak and the strong sense of 'knows') differ in that one does, whereas the other does not, require logically entailing evidence to satisfy the evidence condition for non-basic knowledge.

Knowing Strongly Allows for Correspondence But Has No Instances Perhaps the most important difference between our two different senses of 'knows' is that while both senses of the verb entail that a person knows that p only if p is true, the predicate 'is true' means something quite different in each case. As noted earlier, the predicate 'is true' as it applies to propositions weakly known means something other than 'corresponds with the facts' and is consistent with coherence theories of truth specifying the meaning of the predicate in terms of 'is warrantedly assertible'. This was seen to follow largely from the implications of the fact that where evidence adequate for knowledge need not be entailing evidence, truth value revision is in principle in order. But if evidence adequate for knowledge must be entailing evidence (as is the case with respect to knowing strongly), then knowing strongly is inconsistent, in any sense, with the logical possibility of error, and hence with the possibility of subsequent truth value revision. Where truth-value revision is not in principle in order, then we would not have the reasons we previously had for saying that 'is true' does not mean 'corresponds with the facts'. Recall that in explicating the weak sense of 'knows', we had to find some way to render consistent (Kxp . O-p) without dropping the truth condition, and this led us to reject the correspondence theory of truth as consistent with a proper analysis of the weak sense of 'knows'. But because the strong sense of 'knows' requires for its instantiation the presence of entailing evidence, we do not end up having to find some plausible way to read (Kxp . O-p); rather, we end up with a sense of 'knows' which is inconsistent with even the logical possibility of error, namely O(Kxp' O-p). If there is no conceivable sense in which one might be wrong about what he claims to know on the evidence offered, there would not be any reason for thinking that the truth of what he so knows does not correspond with, or capture, the real world as it is independently of language and thought. At least there would not be any reason independently of what it might mean for a statement to correspond with the facts. On this last point, of course, we can offer reasons for thinking that even with respect to the strong sense of 'knows' the predicate 'is true' could not mean 'corresponds with the facts'. For the moment, however, we can bypass those reasons and make a charitable concession to the contrary because we shall see shortly that the strong sense of 'knows' does not admit of instantiation anyway. So, even if we grant for the sake of argu-

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ment that 'knows' in the strong sense requires that the predicate 'is true' means 'corresponds with the facts', still we have no reason for thinking that any proposition known must be true in the correspondence sense of the term. In short, if we charitably concede that one can make sense of the claim that 'is true' means 'corresponds with the facts', nevertheless, with respect to the truth of what one knows, the truth predicate, as so construed, could only admit of instantiation under the strong sense of 'knows'; and if the strong sense of 'knows' does not admit of instantiation then neither can the predicate 'is true' when construed in terms of correspondence. Thus, if we are tempted to argue that even with regard to the strong sense of 'knows' the predicate 'is true' does not mean 'corresponds with the facts', because the latter formula cannot be disambiguated in any non-controversial way, still it would not make any difference in the end, because we shall see that there is only one sense of 'knows' which admits of instantiation, namely, the weak sense. Before defining our two senses of 'knows' we can ruminate on a few likely objections to our characterization of 'knows' in the weak sense. OBJECTIONS TO THERE BEING KNOWLEDGE IN THE WEAK SENSE OF 'KNOWS' Knowing Weakly Does Not Require Truth

The major difficulty with the preceding reflections roots in our claim that a proper analysis of the weak sense of 'knows' is inconsistent with adopting a correspondence theory of truth. In part, we were led to this conclusion by the need to clarify expressions such as "I know that p but p may be false" without dropping truth as a necessary condition for knowledge. As we saw above, however, many will object that in no way do such expressions make sense. At face value, they say, such expressions are contradictory, and any attempt to make them non-contradictory without deleting reference to the possibility of error can only result in denying the truth condition for knowledge. But this objection is wrong because, as also seen above, it assumes that expressions like "I know that p but p may be false" admit of only one explication, namely, O(Kxp ._p); and certainly, if this were the only explication we could offer, the objection is telling. We have argued, however, that these expressions reflect (Kxp . -p), which is not contradictory. Moreover, although (Kxp . O-p) cannot be construed to mean that what one so knows is simply a contingent state of affairs, it does not thereby follow that we have eschewed the truth condition as a necessary condition for knowledge. The same sort of objection can be reached by pointing to cases wherein X claims to know that p at time t1 and, although at time t1 there was no

o

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specific reason for believing that p was false, p was subsequently assigned 'is false' at time t 2. In such cases it is generally thought that we cannot say that X knew that p at time tl because, of course, p was false. If we say that X knew weakly that p at time t 1, because the conditions for knowing weakly were satisfied, then knowing weakly does not require that what one knows be true. 30 But, in response, we have already argued that a proper analysis of the weak sense of 'knows' is inconsistent with adopting a correspondence theory of truth when it comes to explicating the nature of the truth condition for knowledge. This objection asserts that a person cannot know what he claims to know (in any sense of 'knows ') unless the truth of what he knows reflects a word-world relationship of correspondence. Stated differently, if we grant that the truth of what one knows weakly need not designate a relationship of correspondence between language and the extralinguistic world, then we cannot say that a person failed to know weakly what he claimed to know simply because there was no correspondence between what he properly claimed to know and extralinguistic fact. Otherwise we beg the question against the weak sense of 'knows' by assuming that the truth of what one knows is a matter of correspondence. Furthermore, inasmuch as this last objection presupposes that for any sense of 'knows' the truth of what one knows must be a matter of correspondence, then because this concept of truth is appropriate to only the strong sense of 'knows', the objection succeeds in begging the question since, fundamentally, it simply implies that only one sense of 'knows' exists, namely, the strong sense. Also, from these considerations it by no means follows that if we say that X knew weakly that p at time t1, even though at time t2 the truth value assigned to p was revised, then knowing weakly does not require truth at all. Here again, this sort of objection would be valid only if a proper analysis of the weak sense of 'knows' were consistent with adopting the correspondence theory of truth. Finally, there are two remaining objections to our analysis. First, assume for the moment that the ancients claimed at time tl that the earth was flat. Assume also that at time tl (when the ancients offered evidence for their claim) nobody could offer any specific reason for believing that the earth was not flat. It would then follow, given our analysis, that the ancients knew weakly that the earth was flat. However, some will object strongly that the ancients could not know (in any sense of 'knows') that the earth was flat for the sufficient reason that the earth never was flat. Second, some will also object that if the ancients did know in some sense or other that the earth was flat, then we should expect this claim to be reflected in the way we ordinarily characterize their position. But, as a matter of linguistic fact, nobody ever says that the ancients knew that the earth was flat. Rather we say that the ancients thought, or were justified in believ-

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ing, that the earth was flat. Indeed, if there were any sense in which the ancients can be said to have known that the earth was flat, why then is this not visibly reflected to some extent in what we would say when asked whether the ancients knew the earth was flat? These two objections need answers. In the first place, notice that if the truth of what one knows weakly is not to be understood in terms of correspondence, then we once again beg the question against there being a weak sense of 'knows' if we insist that for every sense of 'knows' the truth of what one knows must be a matter of correspondence. This question-begging occurs when we urge that the ancients could not have known (in any sense of 'knows') that the earth was flat for the proffered reason that the earth was never flat. In the second place, the fact that native speakers are not in the least bit tempted to say things like "The ancients knew that the earth was flat" does not of itself show that there is no weak sense of 'knows' as we have described it. Indeed, it is perfectly possible that one sense of 'knows', the strong sense, has better entrenched itself in the language than has the weak sense. So, rather than see our reluctance to say things like "The ancients knew the earth was flat" as an indication that there is no weak sense of 'knows', we could always explain this reluctance by noting that although there are two senses of 'knows', the strong sense clearly dominates in the mind of the native speaker. This dominance could equally well explain why the native speaker refuses to grant that the ancients knew that the earth was flat. Certainly, Malcolm had something like this in mind when he claimed that people do not accept the weak sense of 'knows' because they have the strong sense in mind. 3! To be sure, if we grant what we have argued above, namely, that a person can know what he claims to know when the sense in which what he knows is true does not mean that it corresponds with the extralinguistic facts, what other possible explanation could we find for our not saying things like "The ancients knew that the earth was flat"? It would be interesting if we found some reason for thinking that native speakers, as a matter of fact, are inclined to say something to the effect that although the ancients knew, in some sense of 'knows', that the earth was flat, still, they did not really know. For that sort of locution would tend to establish what we have been arguing. But the fact (if it be a fact) that native speakers are not so tempted does not show that there is no weak sense of 'knows'; for we can explain this phenomenon by arguing that the strong sense is uppermost in everyone's mind.32 At any rate, the important question is whether native speakers would be inclined to want to say things like "The ancients knew, in some sense of 'knows', that the earth was flat-although they did not really know" after it has been pointed out that, as a matter of linguistic fact, we allow

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that a person can know what he claims to know even when the sense in which what he knows is true does not reflect a correspondence theory of truth. Perhaps we would now want to make just such a distinction and reject the view that, in so doing, we have contrived a distinction not reflected in our usage. Thus, our reluctance to grant that the ancients knew (in any sense of 'knows') that the earth was flat does not show that no distinction can be drawn between knowing strongly and knowing weakly; but it does show that the distinction is not as well appreciated or as well reflected as it should be. Nor should we think that this proposal is revisionary in spirit. It merely calls for a more conscious and consistent reflection of a distinction that exists in the language and that, for reasons apparently psychological in nature, does not appear in precisely those contexts where we would expect it to appear. Finally, the most obvious and pressing objection to our analysis of the weak sense of 'knows' is that it will be unacceptable because in allowing the truth condition to be satisfied independently of satisfying a correspondence definition of truth, this kind of knowledge need not be thought to tell us the way the world is. This objection is usually raised against pure coherence theories of truth or pure coherence theories of knowledge. Indeed, this objection against our analysis of the weak sense of 'knows' is strong because our analysis is consistent with a pure coherence theory of truth and a pure coherence theory of knowledge, whereas it is clearly inconsistent with a correspondence theory of truth and a correspondence theory of knowledge. Whether the objection has enough force to show that our analysis of the weak sense of 'knows' is inconsistent with adopting the view that there is a knowable independent world is quite another story, however. As against this objection, we shall see later that a realist's world view can be preserved even with a coherence theory of knowledge and truth. Right now, however, it is high time we define our two distinct senses of 'knows'. DEFINITIONS OF KNOWING WEAKLY AND KNOWING STRONGLY: IN EACH CASE KNOWLEDGE IS COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED TRUE BELIEF Assuming that for any sense of 'knows' a person cannot know that p without believing that p, and assuming that the letter 'p' stands for the proposition asserted by X when X claims to know that p, we can define our two senses of 'knows' as follows: A. The Definition of the Weak Sense: "X knows that p" if and only if

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(i) P is true (ii) X believes that p, and (iii) X is completely justified in believing that p where (a) (i) is satisfied if (but not if and only if) (iii) is satisfied, and (b) "X is completely justified in believing that p" if and only if the evidence which X cites (or could cite) in favor of p sustains p in such a way that, on all relevant evidence accessible at the time of the claim, no one can in fact offer any specific reason for believing that what X asserts (or could assert) to be the case may not in fact be the case. B. The Definition of the Strong Sense: "X knows that p" if and only if (i) P is true (ii) X believes that p, and (iii) X is completely justified in believing that p where (a) (i) is satisfied if (but not if and only if) (iii) is satisfied, and (b) "X is completely justified in believing that p" if and only if the evidence which X cites (or could cite) in favor of p entails that p in such a way as to preclude the logical possibility of p turning out false for any reason whatever. Notice that in each definition the satisfaction of (iii) entails the satisfaction of (i) and (ii). That the satisfaction of (iii) entails the satisfaction of (i) follows from the arguments previously stated on pages 6 to 18. Moreover, because these definitions do not assert an equivalence relationship between (i) and (iii), it does not follow that it is both necessary and sufficient for the truth of what X claims to know that X be completely justified in believing what he claims to know. A proposition can be true without anybody in fact knowing it or even having evidence for it. Thus (i) is not logically superfluous although, from the viewpoint of assessing knowledge claims (i) is superfluous because the truth condition is satisfied if the evidence condition is satisfied. Furthermore, neither definition seeks to show that the meaning of 'is true' differs for each sense of 'knows'. However, because the definitions imply that the truth of what one knows weakly is, whereas the truth of what one knows strongly is not, consistent with the logical possibility of error, it will follow from previously stated arguments that the concept of truth differs in the way previously specified for each sense of 'knows'. Further, given that the letter 'p' stands for the proposition asserted (or assertible) by X when X claims

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(or could claim) to know that p (and does not stand for a state of affairs), the truth condition for knowledge in both definitions is not being construed after the classical fashion and in terms of the correspondence theory of truth. If by 'true' we mean what the correspondence theorist means, then knowledge is not justified true belief. Finally, it will be obvious from the definition of justification offered for each of these senses of 'knows' that the definition appeals to interpersonalism, or the view that justification is ultimately a matter of our being able to offer or give reasons for what we claim to know (or would claim to know in the absence of special overriding causes or considerations) when it would be appropriate to ask the question "How do you know?" Later, in Chapter Two, when we offer an analysis of reliabilist theories of justification we will defend vigorously the interpersonalist thesis that justification is always and only an activity of reason-giving and our ability to give reasons for what we do or would claim to know when it would be appropriate to ask for such reasons. With this promissory note in hand, we may now conclude this chapter. THE EMPTINESS OF KNOWING STRONGLY

Whether there are two distinct kinds of non-basic propositional knowledge corresponding to the two distinct senses of 'knows' just defined is a function of whether the two senses admit of instantiation in virtue of the satisfiability of the conditions necessary for their warranted application. On this score, while it is incontrovertible that native speakers frequently use 'knows' in the strong sense specified above, it is certainly doubtful that this strong sense of 'knows' admits of instantiation with respect to non-basic factual knowledge claims. The legitimate application of the strong sense of 'knows' (and hence its instantiation) requires that its evidence condition be satisfied by entailing evidence; and it is difficult to understand how anybody could be in a position to guarantee the immunity of his own or anybody else's non-basic knowledge claim to the logical possibility of error. This difficulty seems especially poignant if we acknowledge (as we must) that our evidence is never ideally complete and that the future may, as it has in the past, provide evidence undermining our most cherished beliefs. 33 But there can be no such misgivings about the legitimate application of the weak sense of 'knows', for that sense does not require that the evidence condition for knowledge be satisfied by entailing evidence. Finally, because there is only one kind of non-basic propositional knowledge, namely, the kind captured by the weak sense of 'knows', and because the truth of what one knows weakly is demonstrably not ame-

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nable to any formulation of the correspondence theory of truth, we seem to end up with a view of non-basic knowledge that totters on the brink of implying that we need never regard knowledge as providing us with a reasonably adequate picture of the external world. Paradoxically, if no necessary connection exists between what one knows and the way the world is in any given case of knowledge, the world may not be what we know it to be. Moreover, if we end the discussion here, then for epistemological purposes the external world may well indeed be lost to factual knowledge and science. Of course, the idealism implied by all this would be at best (assuming we had no problem with believing that there is an external world) Kantian and not Hegelian. Later on, however, we shall see that although knowing weakly is inconsistent with adopting a correspondence theory of truth, the realist position is defensible because, as a matter of contingent fact, some of what we know at any given time must correctly tell us in some crucial measure the way the world is extralinguistically. But this conclusion would not amount to adopting a correspondence theory of truth. Rather, it would sustain the view that some of what is true (in virtue of being weakly known) in fact corresponds to extralinguistic fact-although we should not infer this view from what we can mean when we say that what we know is true. And that, as we shall see, will be enough to dispel idealism without endorsing a correspondence theory of truth. On this promissory note, we can turn now to other matters equally pressing. NOTES 1. Compare this with the position developed by John Austin on the grounds for disputing a knowledge claim where the claim has been questioned ("How do you know?"), and where there is no dispute about the facts submitted in evidence for the claim. Austin was considering his assertion, "There is a goldfinch in the garden": (a) If you say "That's not enough" then you must have in mind some more or less definite lack. . . . If there is no definite lack, which you are at least prepared to specify on being pressed, then it's silly (outrageous) just to go on saying, "That's not enough." (b) Enough is enough: it doesn't mean everything. Enough means enough to show that (within reason, and for present intents and purposes) it can't be anything else, there is no room for an alternative competing description of it. ("Other Minds," Aristotelian Society Supplementary, vol. 20 (Oct. 1946): p. 6)

2. That the certainty required for knowing is not the certainty that precludes the logical possibility of error has been argued by R. K. Scheer:

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Surely the occasions on which the expression 'knows' is to be used are just those in which it is not possible that 1 may be mistaken. And there is no reason to believe that its occurrence in statements about the future are any different: '1 know' is to be used just when it is not possible (actually or empirically) that 1 may be mistaken. ("Knowledge and the Future," Mind (April 1971): p. 222) Charles Peirce strenuously defended the same position when he attacked Descartes' methodical doubt. The Cartesian doubt, according to Peirce, is illegitimate because its employment basically presupposes that a knowledge claim is valid only if it is not logically possible that it should be false. Such a condition, Peirce argued, cannot be satisfied, and hence its requirement guarantees scepticism. Real doubt, unlike Cartesian doubt, cannot be purchased with the logical possibility of error without paying the price of absolute scepticism. See The Collected Papers of Charles Peirce. Edited by C. Hartshorne and P. Weiss (vols. 1-6) and A. Burks (vols. 7, 8). Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press. 1931-35, 1958: 5.416; 6.498; 5.419; 5.376; 5.392; 5.525; and 5.443. (I cite from the Collected Papers in the standard way. For example, volume 5, section 341 would be cited as 5.341.) For a similar position, see N. Goodman's "Sense and Certainty," Philosophical Review (April 1952). 3. A person's evidence will be adequate for knowledge just in case it satisfies the evidence or justification condition-however that condition is defined. Moreover, because the necessity for the evidence condition is predicated upon the assumption that we need to answer the question "How do you know?" I disagree with William Alston's view that a person can be justified without being able to give a justification. Alston denies that justification is the activity of giving reasons to answer the question "How do you know?"; rather he sees it as a state of mind in which one need not provide reasons to answer the question "How do you know?" More on this later. See W. Alston's "Self-Warrant: A Neglected Form of Privileged Access," American Philosophical Quarterly vol. 13 (Oct. 1976). 4. In a similar vein, William Lycan has recently argued that one's only evidence for believing that it is really true that p is exactly one's evidence for believing that p in the first place. He says: One has evidence that one's belief that p is really true when one has evidence that p; one need not in addition perform some spectacular feat of stepping out from behind one's perceptions and conceptual scheme and eyeballing naked reality in some humanly impossible way. ("Epistemic Value," Synthese vol. 22 (June 1986».

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Presumably, all this implies that the truth condition for knowledge cannot be shown to be satisfied independently of showing that the evidence condition for knowledge is satisfied. However, it is not at all clear that Lycan would draw from this that a person cannot be completely justified in believing a false proposition. 5. This argument for P2, as well as the first one, are somewhat revised versions of the arguments presented in my "Truth and Evidence," Philosophical Quarterly vol. 24 (October 1974): 365-68. See also W. Hoffman's "Almeder on Truth and Evidence," Philosophical Quarterly vol. 25 (January 1975): 59-61, and my reply, "On Seeing the Truth: A Reply," Philosophical Quarterly vol. 26 (April 1976): 163-65. 6. For a somewhat similar argument, see R. Richman's "Justified True Belief as Knowledge," Canadian Journal of Philosophy vol. 4 (1974-75): 435ff. The arguments here offered for both PI and P2 constitute an obvious endorsement of the thesis offered by Fred Dretske to the effect that knowledge requires conclusive reasons, conclusive reasons need not be entailing, and a person cannot have a conclusive reason for p and p be false. (See his "Conclusive Reasons,"Australasian Journal of Philosophy vol. 49 (April 1971): 1-22.) Even so, Dretske does not go on to argue that his thesis requires abandoning the correspondence theory of truth if the satisfaction of the evidence condition is to guarantee the satisfaction of the truth condition. His position, as I shall shortly argue, requires as much if it is to avoid scepticism. Incidentally, apart from Dretske, Lycan, and Richman, at least two other philosophers favor the view that a person cannot be completely justified in believing a false proposition. The first is John Pollock. In his "Reliability and Justified Belief' (Canadian Journal ofPhilosophy vol. 14 (March 1984): 105) Pollock argues, by way of resolving the lottery paradox, that a person cannot be completely justified in believing all the members of an inconsistent set when one knows that the set is inconsistent. If Pollock's claim is valid, and I believe it is, it can only be so because a person cannot be completely justified in believing a false proposition. This argument aside, however, Pollock has agreed (in correspondence) that a person cannot be objectively justified in believing a false proposition. His defense of this latter thesis appears in Contemporary Theories of Knowledge (Savage, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1986). The second is David Sanford who, in his essay "Knowledge and Relevant Alternatives: Comments on Dretske" (Philosophical Studies vol. 40 (May 1981): 379-88), accepts Dretske's claim that one cannot have a conclusive reason for believing

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that p and p be false, that conclusive reasons need not be entailing reasons, and that in the interest of having conclusive reasons sufficient for knowledge, one need rule out only relevant alternatives (p. 379). 7. By way of criticizing P2 it is interesting to note that Roderick Chisholm takes general exception to P2 for the reason that we would pay too high a price for its acceptance. On Chisholm's view, the acceptance of P2 moves us to idealism. See his Theory ofKnowledge, 2nd edition (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966) p. 63. Certainly, if we grant that the satisfaction of the evidence condition for non-basic factual knowledge does not require entailing evidence (PI), and then add that the satisfaction of the evidence condition entails the satisfaction of the truth condition, then it will, in some sense, be possible for a person to know that p and his knowledge not tell us the way things are in the extralinguistic world. Later we shall see at length that the sort of insightful objection that Chisholm raises against P2 can be met in a system that adopts PI and P2 without committing to classical idealism. For the moment, however, we need to reserve that discussion until after we examine objections to our characterization of the weak sense of 'knows'. At any rate, even if Chisholm's objection were sufficient to undermine P2, how would the proponent of the objection deal with the four arguments given above and the implication that in accepting the negation of P2 we pay the price of having an inadequate epistemology at best or of fostering scepticism at worst? 8. George Pappas and Marshall Swain, Essays on Knowledge and J ustification (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1978): 14. 9. R. K. Shope, The Analysis of Knowing: A Decade of Research (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983): 26. Also, by implication the objection seemingly implies that there are only two conceptions of justification. The first is classically Cartesian and asserts that justification logically entails truth in such a way that the evidence in the justification is entailing. In other words, for the Cartesian it is a conceptual truth that, (1) if conditions C completely justify belief B for subject S, then C logically entails that B is true. The second is non-Cartesian and asserts that, (2) where C makes B completely justified for S it is still possible that B is false. Naturally, (1) is too strong, and later I will urge that Gettier-type counterexamples will never be overcome as long as (2) is regarded as the viable concept of justification. PI and P2, however, offer a third view of justification, namely, (3) if conditions C completely justify belief B for subject S, then S's being so justified entails that B is true even though C does not logically entail B. The difference between (3) and (1) is that in (3) the evidence that completely justifies S in believing that B is true can entail that B is true even though it is not entailing evidence; and the possibility of error under (3) is quite different than the

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possibility of error in (2). Shope seems sensitive to the differences between (1), (2), and (3). However, for a recent endorsement of the view that justification must be either (1) or (2), see Stuart Cohen, "Justification and Truth," Philosophical Studies vol. 44 (April 1984): 279ff. 10. "Almeder on Truth and Evidence," Philosophical Quarterly 25 (January 1975): 59-61. 11. The same point was urged in the piece to which Hoffman was objecting. See "Truth and Evidence," Philosophical Quarterly vol. 24 (October 1974): 368. 12. Douglas Odegard, "Can a Justified Belief Be False?" Canadian Journal of Philosophy vol. 53 (May 1975): 58-60. In "Complete Justification and Truth Value" (Philosophia vol. 73 (Oct. 1987): 311-18) Odegard also offered another piece in which he seeks to show how one can show the truth condition is satisfied without showing that the evidence condition is satisfied. My response "Justification and Truth Value: A Reply" occurs in the same issue (319-22). 13. Robert Shope, Analysis of Knowing, 27-30. 14. The essay from which Shope quotes (AP) is a brief reply to the Hoffman piece, "Almeder on Truth and Evidence." My reply was limited by the need for space and in it I granted, for the sake of argument, that there are cases wherein a person can directly see the truth of what another claims to know. For reasons suggested above, I now regret that strategy. Even so, a suitable formulation of (AP) will be true because there are no cases where a person can directly see the truth of another's knowledge claim and such knowledge require the satisfaction of an evidence condition. 15. Shope also offered a third argument (Analysis of Knowing, 567) against P2. It consists in asserting, among other things, that even if P2 were sound, it would only cause us to modify slightly our description of Gettier-type cases-the point being that even if P2 were sound, the Gettier-type counterexample would still be persuasive because there would still be a sense in which it is legitimate to say that a person can be completely justified in believing a false proposition. Under the redescription he offers, he says that Feldman's version of Gettier-type counterexamples would be sound. Apart from misunderstanding my earlier reply to Feldman in "Defending Gettier-type Counterexamples" (Australasian Journal of Philosophy vol. 53 (April 1975): 58-60), Shope's argument here is puzzling. Feldman had urged that the Gettier effect can occur even when justifications do not involve an inference through a false proposition. I agreed but urged that the point was not new and, anyhow, all Gettier counterexamples (including Feldman's) assume that a person could be completely justified in believing a false proposition. Nobody, incidentally, has denied that all Gettier-type counterexamples assume the truth of the

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principle that a person can be completely justified in believing a false proposition. My point, as we will see in the next chapter, is that the assumption in question is false, the four arguments cited above show it, and that therefore no Gettier-type counterexample could be sound. But the whole point of Shope's third argument has less to do with the truth of P2 than with the effect P2 would have on all analyses of knowledge that begin by accepting Gettier-type counterexamples. 16. For the moment we will leave the concept of 'conceptual framework' unexplicated and note that, for present intents and purposes, it would make no real difference if we were to substitute 'body of available evidence' for 'conceptual framework' in (ii), although that is not to assert an equivalence. 17. That (i) and (ii) are logically distinct follows from the fact that (i) is usually taken to imply that the state of affairs X knows about might have been different in certain relevant respects; whereas (ii) asserts that how the world might have been, or the fact that it might have been different in other relevant respects, is irrelevant to the basis of possible error, the basis being that things as well as standards of evidence may in fact change in the future and for that reason cause truth value revision. 18. See the revised version of Norman Malcolm's "Knowledge and Belief," in Readings in the Theory of Knowledge, ed. John Canfield and Franklin Donnell (New York: Appleton Century Croft, 1968): 138. 19. Ibid., 138, n. 2. 20. Some philosophers persisted in thinking that Malcolm's characterization of 'knows' in the weak sense effectively denies truth as a necessary condition for knowledge. See, for example, R. Robinson's "The Concept of Knowledge," Mind vol. 21 (January 1971): 21. 21. Both Richard Rorty and Hilary Putnam have offered similar arguments. See R. Rorty, "Realism and Reference," Monist vol. 59 (April 1976): 321; and Hilary Putnam, "What Is Realism?" Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (1975-76): 177-94. Also, this argument is described and offered as one of the core arguments responsible for the attack on scientific realism in Robert Nola's fine piece, "Paradigms Lost, Or The World Regained-An Excursion into Realism and Idealism in Science," Synthese vol. 45 (April 1980): 317-50. 22. In his book, The Coherence Theory of Truth (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), Nicholas Rescher offers a different perspective when he argues that, while 'is true' means 'corresponds with the facts', the criterion of truth (the test for the correct application of the predicate 'is true' can still mean 'corresponds with the facts' even though the conditions for the correct application can be satisfied with the logical possibility remaining that the predicate as correctly applied not describe a relationship of correspon-

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dence. For a fuller discussion and updating of Rescher's position, see Chapter Four of this text. 23. This objection was offered by Clark Glymour. 24. William Wimsatt, "Robustness, Reliability and Overdetermination," in Scientific Inquiry and the Social Sciences. Edited by Marilyn Brewer and Barry Collins (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1981): 12461. For much the same view see Clark Glymour, Theory and Evidence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980). 25. William Wimsatt, "Robustness, Reliability and Overdetermination," 144-48. 26. Nicholas Rescher, Scientific Realism (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1987). 27. For an example of this, see John Dreher, "Evidence and Justified Belief," Philosophical Studies vol. 25 (October 1974): 435-39. 28. Some have taken the first alternative and, in abandoning truth as a satisfiable condition for knowledge (for the reason that there is always some chance that we may be mistaken about what we believe), simply assert scepticism and argue that the most we can achieve is reasonable belief. See, for example, K. Lehrer, "Knowledge and Scepticism," in Empirical Knowledge, edited by Roderick Chisholm and Robert Schwartz (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970). 29. This is because, as demonstrated above, the satisfaction of the evidence condition entails the satisfaction of the truth condition. 30. See, for example, G. Ezorsky, "Truth in Context," Journal ofPhilosophy vol. 60 (October 1963): 113-35. 31. Norman Malcolm, "Knowledge and Belief," 38. 32. Although we have been granting, for the sake of argument, that native speakers are not tempted to say things like "The ancients knew the earth was flat," it is not altogether clear that this is true. Many philosophers, when queried, are willing to say that knowledge is justified belief, or reasonable belief, or even completely justified belief. But then when it is pointed out to them that their view could well entail that the ancients knew that the earth was flat they tend to hesitate for fear of being committed to the view that a person can know what is false. Does this not reflect some temptation to want to say that, in some sense of 'knows', the ancients knew that the earth was flat? Moreover, would such philosophers demur so readily if they were to grant that the truth of what one knows weakly is not to be understood in terms of a correspondence theory of truth? 33. Similar misgivings about the legitimate application of the strong sense of 'knows' have been registered by Nicholas Rescher, among others, in Scepticism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980), and by Jaakko Hintikka.

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Rescher observes, in effect, that if 'knowing' requires the preclusion of the logical possibility of error (as would be required by our strong sense of 'knows') then: What we get in this case is certainly sufficient but scarcely a necessary condition for knowing. It used to be said by philosophers that only logical and mathematical truths are 'known with full certainty', that all other information we have is 'merely probable' and hence 'not fully known'. In contrast, many philosophers of more or less common sense have forcefully pointed to perfectly respectable uses of 'a knows that p' in circumstances where a's evidence does not logically (analytically) imply that p. It seems to me that, although the fascination logical and mathematical truth has immemorially exerted on philosophers is undoubtedly due to the very fact that it provides sufficient conditions of truth and that all other truths may seem subject to at least potential doubt, this amounts to a hopelessly unrealistic standard of knowing. (Scepticism, 150.) Moreover, after noting that the strong sense of 'knows' proposed by Malcolm behaves very much like his own strong sense of 'knowing', Hintikka says: The attributes which our strong sense shares with Malcolm's strengthen the impression of irrelevance of our sense to many important purposes for which we would like to use the concept of knowledge (in some sense or other). It may be important for philosophical purposes to be reminded that we do know many things in a sense so strong that our knowing them entitles us to disregard any possible counterevidence. However, these purposes are not likely to be pertinent in the search of new information (knowledge) in science or everyday life. In so far as our strong sense is shared by other philosophers-as evidence suggests that it is-these philosophers have been pursuing something not entirely unlike a chimaera. Earlier, A. D. Woozley has argued that 'knowing' isn't the one really good, one-hundred percent unassailable self-certifying thing we do, that many philosophers, as various as Plato, Descartes and Pritchard, would have us believe. ( " 'Knowing that one Knows' Reviewed," Synthese vol. 21 (June 1970): 141)

If Hintikka's reservations amount to nothing more than the view that the concept of 'knowing' strongly does not admit of any application with respect to non-basic factual knowledge claims, as would seem to be implied by the words, "However, these purposes are not likely to be pertinent to the search of new knowledge (information) in science or everyday life," then, of course, the difference between Hintikka's reservations and ours would be, at most, a matter of emphasis. But he also claims that "for philosophical purposes" the concept of 'knowing strongly' does indeed admit of

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application with respect to our knowledge of many things-which things he does not say. The view I defend here is that with respect to non-basic factual knowledge claims it is illegitimate to be reminded for any purpose whatever that we do know many things in a sense so strong that our knowing them entitles us to disregard any possible counterevidence; for nobody can ever know anything so strongly. And this view should certainly favor the views of contrite fallibilists and revisionistic epistemologists committed to the principle that the truth value assigned to any proposition is not in principle immune to revision in the light of future experience.

CHAPTER TWO

THE GETTlER-TYPE COUNTEREXAMPLES Many philosophers believe that the Gettier-type counterexamples to the classical definition of knowledge are painfully persuasive in showing that human knowledge cannot be successfully defined solely in terms of completely justified true belief. However, we will now see that these counterexamples are quite unacceptable and do not have the effect they are generally thought to have. Moreover, the definition of the weak sense of 'knows' offered in the last chapter cannot be faulted by such counterexamples although the definition offered is similar to the classical definition. Finally, the conclusion of this chapter will urge that the general tendency to accept such counterexamples is found in an unconscious commitment to the belief that there is only one sense of 'knows' that admits of instantiation, namely, the strong sense (as defined above), which, as already argued, does not admit of instantiation at all. THE ATTACK ON THE CLASSICAL DEFINITION OF KNOWLEDGE: THE TWO TYPES OF GETTlER-TYPE COUNTEREXAMPLES

Most philosophers agree that the classical definition of knowledge is defective because a person can be completely justified in believing a true proposition and yet fail to know that proposition. For example, consider the familiar type of counterexample proposed by Edmund Gettier: Assume that Smith is completely justified in believing the proposition p, and that the proposition q is a logical consequence. Seeing that p entails q, Smith infers that q must also be true. However, suppose that (unbeknownst to Smith) even though Smith is completely justified in believing that p, p is false and q is true. It would then follow that (i) q is true, (ii) 51

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Smith believes that q is true, and (iii) Smith is completely justified in believing that q. But, of course, Smith does not know that q because, even though he is completely justified in believing that q, his justification is in some sense defective.! Nor can it follow that Smith would have known that q if only his justification had not involved an inference through the false proposition p. That the classical definition of knowledge cannot be repaired by further stipulating that one's justification must involve inference through only true statements is the thrust of the second well-known type of counterexample. Consider, for example, the case proposed by Marshall Swain: Suppose that Smith has wired up a detonator box to a charge of TNT and is about to flip the switch. He has checked the wiring carefully, and he knows that the TNT is brand X and the batteries are brand Y. He has used those products many times and they have in the past always worked. On the basis of this and only this evidence he 'concludes' (inductively) that the TNT will explode when he flips the switch. When he flips the switch, the TNT does explode. However, it explodes because a hunter coincidentally fires a high-powered shell into the charge at the moment the switch is flipped. Had the hunter not done so the charge would not have exploded because in fact the battery in the detonator did not have enough power to cause the explosion. Hence Smith's justification is defective. But, we may suppose, his reasoning did not involve any false premises. Smith might have reasoned that the battery was powerful enough and hence the TNT would explode. But he did not reason in that way and his justification is still sufficiently good to render it evident for him that the TNT would explode. Even so, from the point of view of knowledge, his justification is defective. 2 And the one proposed by Alvin Goldman: Consider the following example. Henry is driving in the countryside with his son. For the boy's edification Henry identifies various objects on the landscape as they come into view. "That's a cow," says Henry, "That's a tractor," "That's a silo," "That's a barn," etc. Henry has no doubt about the identity of these objects; in particular he has no doubt that the last-mentioned object is a barn, which indeed it is. Each of the identified objects has features characteristic of its type. Moreover, each object is fully in view, Henry has excellent eyesight, and he has enough time to look at them reasonably carefully, since there is little traffic to distract him. Given this information, would we say that Henry knows that the object is a barn? Most of us would have little hesitation in saying this, so long as we were not in a certain philosophical frame of mind. Contrast our inclination here with the inclination we would have if we were given some additional information. Suppose we are told that, unknown to Henry, the district he has just entered is full of papier-mache facsimiles of barns. These facsimiles look from the road exactly like barns, but are really just facades, without back walls or interiors, quite incapable of being used as barns. They are so cleverly constructed that travelers invariably mistake them for barns. Having just entered the district, Henry has not encountered any facsimiles; the object he sees

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is a genuine barn. But if the object on that site were a facsimile, Henry would mistake it for a barn. Given this new information, we would be strongly inclined to withdraw the claim that Henry knows the object is a barn. How is this change in our assessment to be explained? Note first that the traditional justified-truebelief account of knowledge is of no help in explaining this change. In both cases Henry truly believes (indeed is certain) that the object is a barn. Moreover, Henry's "justification" or "evidence" for the proposition thatthe object is a barn is the same in both cases. Thus, Henry should either know in both cases or not know in both cases. 3

Because of similar counterexamples philosophers have argued that in addition to believing what is in fact true a person's justification must be non-defective in order that he know what he claims to know. Moreover, given these last instances of the second kind of Gettier-type counterexample, we cannot say justifiably that a justification is non-defective if the justificatory reasoning does not involve a conscious inference through a false proposition. Thus, nearly all recent analyses of knowledge have sought to characterize the concept of a non-defective justification as a fourth condition for knowledge. But they all fail.

The Invalidity of the Gettler-type Counterexamples: Two Arguments In the first place, the counterexamples obtain their effect by feeding upon the untested assumption that a person can be completely justified in believing a false proposition. Recall that in the first kind of counterexample cited above, Smith's justification is allegedly defective because it is defeated by the false statement "p is true," which Smith is completely justified in believing and which enters as a premise in Smith's reasoning. However, in the counterexamples offered by Swain and Goldman the false statements allegedly defeating the respective justifications, namely, "the battery is strong enough to cause the explosion" and "there are no barn facsimiles in the area," do not function as premises in the justificatory reasoning of Smith and Henry, respectively.4 In both cases the fact that Smith or Henry is completely justified in believing a false proposition or (because the classical thesis is also defined as evident true belief) the fact that a false statement is evident to Smith or Henry supposedly defeats their respective justifications even though that statement does not enter explicitly into each one's justificatory reasoning. At any rate, for the validity of every Gettier-type counterexample we must assume that a person could be completely justified in believing a false proposition; otherwise we could not even construct such counterexamples. In every case the subject is completely justified in believing some false proposition, and were the subject not to believe that proposition the justification would not be defeated and

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the counterexample would not have its effect. But, even though virtually all theories of justification accept the thesis, it is false that a person could be completely justified in believing a false proposition; and we can readily demonstrate this falsity by appeal to the four distinct arguments we cited earlier when defending the proposition that the satisfaction of the evidence condition for knowledge entails the satisfaction of the truth condition. Those arguments back on pages 6 to 18 show that a person cannot be completely justified in believing a false proposition or cannot satisfy the evidence condition for knowledge by belief in a false proposition. We need not repeat those arguments here. The second reason why Gettier-type counterexamples are defective is that their acceptance is consistent with accepting and offering as an analysis of knowledge only the strongest possible sense of 'knows'. Let us examine this last claim in some detail. s Accepting Gettier-type counterexamples implies that in addition to being completely justified in believing what is true, a person's justification must be non-defective if he is to know what he claims to know. Assuming then that acceptance of the counterexamples requires the added specification of a fourth condition characterizing athe concept of a non-defective justification, those seeking to characterize the concept of a non-defective justification have concluded that the reason persons in the counterexamples fail to know (even though they are completely justified in believing what is true) is that in every case there is a true proposition that defeats the justification. If the true proposition that defeats the justification were added to the person's justification he would no longer be completely justified in believing what is false. For instance, in the second of the above examples, Smith does not know that when he flips the switch the TNT will explode (even though the TNT does explode when he flips the switch) because some true statement, namely, "The batteries are not powerful enough to cause the explosion," defeats the justification, although Smith is completely justified in believing the false statement, "The batteries are strong enough to cause the explosion." Had the true statement defeating the justification been part of Smith's justificatory reasoning, then he would not have been completely justified in believing the false proposition, "The batteries are powerful enough to cause the explosion." Had Smith not been completely justified in believing the false proposition (which, of course, he would not have been if the true statement that defeats his justification had been part of his justification) his justification would not have been defective. Similarly, in Goldman's barn example, Henry supposedly does not know that the barn he in fact sees is a barn because the true statement, "There are facsimile barns in the area," defeats his justification and Henry is completely justified in believing the false statement, "There are no facsimile barns in the area."

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Had the true statement defeating the justification been part of Henry's justification, then Henry's justification would not have been defective because his justification would not then require belief in a false proposition. So, it would appear that in order to guarantee the non-defectiveness of a justification we need only specify some fourth condition, namely, the condition of non-defectiveness, which rules against the existence of true propositions that defeat a justification. This we achieve only if we specify that X's justification is non-defective if and only if: (a) There is no true proposition S such that if S were to become part of X's justification, X would not be completely justified in believing that p.6 But this fourth condition is much too strong; it can fail to be satisfied although the failure cannot count against a person's knowing. More specifically, given (a), a person's justification will be defeated (and he wili thereby fail to know what he claims to know) if there is some true proposition such that if it were added to the person's justification he would not be completely justified in believing what he does believe. Just suppose, however, that there is indeed a true proposition that would defeat a person's justification if it were added to his justification but that only God knows that the proposition is true. Moreover, suppose that God, in his infinite wisdom and power, has effectively decreed that humans unto eternity shall never be allowed to know that this proposition is true. Humans shall come and go forever but never even suspect, or have the slightest reason for suspecting, that what they profess to know they do not know. Here then we would have a true proposition such that if it were conjoined to the justification, it would defeat it. The condition of nondefectiveness, as specified in (a), is not satisfied, and so, assuming the condition is correct, we must say in this case that the race of humans do not know what they claim to know. Notice that what defeats the justification is not simply an unknown proposition. The proposition is unknowable and not because it is unintelligible or unthinkable or even unknowable in principle; it is unknowable simply because, owing to divine decree, it will never in fact be known. As a matter of fact, however, would we say that the race of humans do not know what they profess to know if what defeats their claim could never in fact be known by humans? I think not, and the reason is simple: as long as a person claims to know that p, provides strong evidence for p, and we can never know what would defeat the claim, we must and do say that he knows. As John Austin says, it is outrageous to say that he might not know what he professes to know (for the good reasons he offers) unless we have some definite lack in mind that we are prepared to specify upon being pressed. We can't go on saying "But that's not enough"

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unless we are willing to state specifically what would be enough. 7 A knowledge claim supported by evidence cannot be defeated by an unknowable proposition. In the above example, then, the defeater can defeat the claim only if the defeater is humanly knowable, that is, only if no special reason prevents it from ever in fact being known by humans. Thus, as stated, the condition of non-defectiveness specified in (a) can fail to be satisfied and still we would want to say that knowledge obtains. The only way to save the condition would be to require that whatever defeats the justification be humanly knowable. But it will not help to incorporate this requirement into the proposed condition because (apart from the fact that our definition of knowledge would then be circular with the definiendum appearing in the definiens) there can be no unknowable defeater of a justification unless the justification is an entailing one. This conclusion does not imply that one must know that no unknowable defeater of a justification exists in order that the justification be nondefective. Rather, the question has to do with what is required of any justification if it is to guarantee that there is no unknowable defeater. And just in case the justification is non-entailing it will be logically possible that there is an unknowable defeater. As urged above, as long as it is logically possible that there be an unknowable defeater, a person's justification can be defective under the proposed condition even though it be possible that he knows what he claims to know. In order to prevent precisely this latter state of affairs we must rule against the logical possibility of an unknowable defeater; and it should now be clear that we cannot block that possibility by adding to the original condition that what defeats a justification must not be unknowable. Only entailing evidence will block the unknowable defeater. Granting, then, that acceptance of the Gettier-type counterexamples entails acceptance of (a), we can summarize our results as follows: The condition of non-defectiveness specified in (a) is deficient because it entails that a justification is defective if some true proposition exists such that if it were added to one's justification one would not be completely justified in believing what one does. It is conceivable that this condition be satisfied by a true but unknowable statement, and yet we would still want to say that the justification is adequate for knowledge because we want to say that a person's knowledge claim is not defeated by a true but unknowable proposition. The only way to remedy this deficiency in (a) would be to insist that the defeater be knowable. So stated, the revised condition could be satisfied only by a justification that is entailing; for as long as the justification is non-entailing it is logically possible that there be an unknowable defeater. And as long as it is logically possible that there be an unknowable defeater the fourth condition will be defective. 8 If, how-

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ever, a person can know that p only if the evidence he cites in favor of p is entailing evidence, then the concept of 'knows' required to sustain analyses that begin by accepting the counterexamples is the strongest possible sense of 'knows'. Although people frequently use 'knows' in this strong sense, it seems clear that this sense of 'knows' is much too strong to admit of instantiation with respect to non-basic factual knowledge claims. This explains why analyses of knowledge that begin by accepting the counterexamples entail scepticism with respect to non-basic factual knowledge claims and, hence, render the attainment of non-basic factual knowledge impossible in principle. This last claim is very strong. Before examining a couple of proposals that would seem to undermine it, we should examine some objections to this second argument against the validity of Gettiertype counterexamples.

Objections to the Second Argument: Defeating the Unknowable Defeater In his book, Certainty, Peter Klein objects to our second argument against accepting Gettier-type counterexamples. After examining the counterexample I offered, he says: To demonstrate that this recipe is unsatisfactory, consider the results of applying it in the following cases. Suppose a person S, "professed" to know something, h, on the basis of some evidence, e, where e confirms h, but where e is false. Suppose further that, owing to divine decree, it will never be known that -e. According to the recipe, we must say that S does know that h even though e is false. To make matters worse, suppose further that h is false, but confirmed by e. Again, S professes to know that h; but -h is forever hidden from human knowledge. Now, if Almeder were correct, we should say that S knows that h, if he/she professed to know that h, even though both hand e are false! Obviously something has gone wrong. It seems to me that Almeder has conflated the distinction between those occasions when we justifiably say (believe, think, affirm, etc.) something (in this case, 'S knows that h') and those occasions when what we say is true. In other words, if this recipe is to cook up counterexamples, it must produce a case in which the proposed conditions of defective justification are fulfilled and yet S does know that p. Instead, the recipe only illustrates situations in which the conditions of defective justification are fulfilled but (since we are prevented from knowing that fact) we are justified in saying that S does know that h. Almeder is correct in thinking that if the genuine initiating defeater is forever hidden from human view, it would be "outrageous" to say (believe, think, affirm) that S does not know what he/she professes to know. There would be no evidence available for such a claim. But unjustified propositions, even "outrageous" ones, are sometimes true. 9 Klein goes on to offer a second argument urging that even if the counterexample to the defeasibility analysis were sound, it would still not

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follow that defeasibility analyses could avoid the counterexample only by insisting on entailing evidence for all justifications. He says: First, it is not even true that, by making the justification entailing, we eliminate the possibility of an unknowable defeater. For, following our earlier example, suppose that e confirms h and (as per Almeder's suggestion) that e entails h. But, again, suppose that e is false. In addition, let -e be "humanly unknowable." Surel y, the true proposition, e, is a genuine initiating defeater; hence there is an unknowable defeater even though e entails h .... Almeder seems to believe (falsely) that the counterexample can be blocked only ifthe proposed conditions of knowledge eliminate the logical possibility of unknowable propositions serving as defeaters. But it is not required that the logical possibility of unknowable defeaters be removed in order to block the counterexamples. For a justification is not defective because of the mere logical possibility of genuine defeaters. Rather a justification is defective only if there actually is a genuine defeater. The mere possibility of a true, unknowable proposition would not create a situation in which S knows that h and the condition of defectiveness is fulfilled. Only an actually true, unknowable proposition would create such a situation. 10

In response to Klein's first argument against the original counterexample to defeasibility analyses, we should remember that for the reasons cited above we cannot suppose that a person could be completely justified in believing a false proposition. But that is precisely what we need to suppose if Klein's counter-reply is to have the effect he wishes it to have. Our counterexample involving the unknowable defeater does not explicitly require our assuming that a person could be completely justified in believing a false proposition; but Klein's claim that the counterexample has the disastrous implication of legitimizing knowledge of false propositions certainly does require that assumption. More fundamentally, however, in his first argument Klein begs the question against the existence of a weak sense of 'knows' by assuming that the truth of what one knows weakly is to be understood in terms of the correspondence theory of truth. Our counterexample asserts that a person knows what she claims to know when what allegedly defeats the claim could never be detected. That is to say that it is part of the meaning of 'knows' that the truth condition for knowledge is satisfied when the evidence condition is satisfied; and when that condition is satisfied, the truth of what one so knows cannot be understood as a matter of correspondence. Klein simply denies, without benefit of argument, that such a sense of 'knows' exists when he allows that the truth condition for knowledge can be satisfied independently of the satisfaction of the evidence condition. Klein's second argument seems no better than the first; for it also assumes that one can be completely justified (or otherwise satisfy the justification condition for knowledge) in believing a false proposition. He asks us,

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once again, to suppose that one's evidence is not only adequate for knowledge but also entailing, even though the evidence is false. Given the sense of 'knows' we are urging here, if a person is completely justified in believing p, and p entails q, it makes no sense to suggest that p could be false for some undetectable reason. It can only make sense if one denies that there is a weak sense of 'knows'. Finally, Klein asserts that we need not remove the logical possibility of an unknowable defeater in order to block the original counterexample to defeasibility analyses. The reason he offers for this claim is simply that a justification is not defective because of the mere logical possibility of an unknowable defeater. Certainly, this latter point is true. However, as we noted before (see note 8 of this chapter), our argument does not imply that a person's justification will be defective if it is logically possible that there is an unknowable defeater. Rather, the point is that as long as it is logically possible that there is an unknowable defeater, then the condition of non-defectiveness (as defined above) will be logically inadequate because its failure to be satisfied is logically consistent with a legitimate instance of human knowledge. We need not repeat the rest of the details of the argument in the note. It suffices to show, that the last of the objections Klein raises suggests a failure to grasp the nature of the argument. Thus, defeasibility analyses require of us, if we are to use them to block Gettier-type counterexamples, a sense of 'knows' too strong to be satisfied by factual knowledge where the evidence condition for knowledge does not require entailing evidence. In short, they entail scepticism. The Basic Problem with Gettier-type Counterexamples: Not That They Imply SceptiCism, But That They Offer Too Weak an Analysis of 'Knows' In all of the above argumentation I do not urge that Gettier-type counterexamples are defective because their acceptance entails scepticism. Rather, the basic objection says that the scepticism implied by their acceptance poignantly implies that there is only one sense of 'knows', namely, the sense that requires entailing evidence for the satisfaction of the evidence condition. For, as we just saw, acceptance of the Gettier-type counterexamples leads irrevocably to the conclusion that a justification will be nondefective (and hence adequate for knowledge) if and only if it is an entailing justification. Hence we cannot logically accept the counterexamples without being committed to the view that we have only a strong sense of 'knows'. Granting all this, then, Gettier-type counterexamples are ultimately defective because their acceptance is consistent with only a partial analysis of 'knows', an analysis that ignores the weak sense of

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'knows'. This fact explains why the counterexamples cannot be blocked short of requiring of human knowledge that the evidence, when required, be entailing. Even so, many philosophers continue to argue that, in the interest of avoiding scepticism, we can block Gettier-type counterexamples with a definition of nondefective justification that does not require of a nondefective justification that it be entailing. If they are correct, the second argument we just saw offered against the validity of Gettier-type counterexamples fails, and we would need to rest our case against the counterexamples solely on the fact that they erroneously assume a person can be completely justified in believing a false proposition. For various reasons, however, they are not correct and showing as much involves our discussing causal and reliability analyses of justification that are typically regarded as a way of overcoming the Gettier-effect while establishing a persuasive theory of justification suitable for human knowledge. So, let us turn to current theories of justification to see if they can achieve freedom from the Gettier effect, assuming that such counterexamples are valid. CAUSAL AND RELIABILITY ANALYSES OF JUSTIFICATION

A number of philosophers have thought that the Gettier-type counterexamples can be overcome if only we require that the non-defectiveness of a justification be a function of how one's belief originates. For these philosophers a person's knowing what he is completely justified in believing is a function of whether his belief is caused in certain ways or has a certain appropriate history. Such analyses fall into two categories, causal analyses and reliability analyses. Briefly, causal analyses typically assert that a person's justification will be non-defective if the chain of causes leading him to have the belief he has is non-defective. Of course the non-defectiveness of this causal chain is a function of whether it excludes the existence of some true proposition such that if it were added to one's justification he would no longer be completely justified in believing what he does believe. The basic task of such analyses is to provide a precise characterization of the features the causal chain must have if it is to produce a belief that is completely justified and non-defective in the way just specified. Perhaps Marshall Swain, in his careful proposal, gives the best known example of a causal analysis that also serves as a defeasibility analysis. l l Like all other causal analysts since Gettier, Swain believes that he has offered an analysis that succeeds in blocking the Gettier-type counterexamples without requiring of a justification that it consist of entailing evidence in order to be non-defective.

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Equally briefly, reliability analyses typically assert that a person's justification will be non-defective only if the person's completely justified true belief is the product of a reliable belief-making mechanism. Sometimes the mechanism is understood in terms of one's cognitive equipment, and at other times it is a matter of the non-cognitive processes by which one acquires one's beliefs. Typically, the reliability of one's belief-making mechanisms is a function of whether those mechanisms are generally reliable in producing true beliefs. Goldman has urged, for example, that if the process that produces a belief is reliable in the sense just specified, and if there is available to the believer no other reliable process that, if used, would have led him to not have the belief, then with respect to that particular belief the person's cognitive equipment has functioned properly; that person has a non-defective belief. If a person's belief-making mechanisms or processes generate true beliefs on some particular occasion, but not generally or usually so, then even though that belief may be true, it is defectiveY Like causal analyses, reliability analyses basically attempt to specify the logical features of reliable belief-making mechanisms that, when suitably characterized, prevent there being any true proposition such that if it were added to one's justification one would no longer be completely justified in believing what one believes. Incidentally, while both causal and reliability analyses insist that the non-defectiveness of a completely justified belief is a function of how that belief is generated, reliability analysts sometimes see themselves as offering a distinct and superior kind of causal analysis. Goldman, for example, has urged that reliability analyses of the general sort he has proposed are superior to causal analyses because they can accommodate certain Gettier-type counterexamples that causal analyses could not (such as Goldman's example involving the barn facsimiles). He also thinks that while defeasibility analyses can accommodate such examples, the problem with defeasibility analyses of the sort we have already discussed is that they are altogether too strong.B Accordingly, any alleged refutation of either causal or defeasibility analyses of the sort already discussed will, according to Goldman, not impugn the adequacy of his analysis because it is logically distinct from the other two. Before examining reliabilism, which is the most strenuously urged causal theory of justification available, it might be interesting to see why such theories of justification will need to fail independently of any further characterization of the positions involved. The Eternal Counterexample Naturally, to the degree that causal and reliability analyses are instances of defeasibility analyses, they will fail for the reasons we noted above in

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the counterexample involving the unknowable defeater. In short, if causal and reliability analyses are offered for the purpose of showing the conditions under which we can exclude the existence of some true proposition, which if added to a person's justification would defeat the justification, then, as we saw above, the analyses of justification will require of any justification that it be entailing. Otherwise we can imagine situations under which the condition of non-defectiveness can fail to be satisfied and yet we would not say the person failed to know what she claimed to know. But perhaps the proponents of causal and reliability analyses do not see their analyses as instances of defeasibility analyses. Whether or not they do so view them, however, is ultimately quite irrelevant because (and here is the first argument against such analyses) any analysis of knowledge that begins by accepting Gettier-type counterexamples cannot possibly block such counterexamples without requiring of any non-defective justification that it be an entailing justification. After all, as long as the condition of non-defectiveness, however it is defined, could be satisfied by non-entailing evidence, we can easily imagine a situation under which that condition is satisfied and yet we would not want to say that the person knows what she claims to know. In other words, as long as we accept Gettier-type counterexamples, we can always run a Gettier-type counterexample through any proposed definition of knowledge if the justification condition does not require of evidence sufficient for knowledge that it be entailing. We need only imagine the existence of a true proposition that the subject does not know about and that would defeat the subject's knowledge claim were we to add it to the subject's existing justification. Consider, for example, Goldman's early reliability analysis. Presumably, under this analysis a person will know what she claims to know if her belief is true and if her belief is the product of a reliable belief-making mechanism, process or method. Moreover, for Goldman, a person's belief-making mechanism is reliable if the mechanism generally produces true beliefs and if there is available to the believer no other reliable process which, if used, would have led her to not have the belief. Here again, we can easily imagine circumstances under which a person's belief is reliable in the sense specified but defeated by some true proposition unknown to that person even though that person's belief-making mechanism usually is reliable in excluding true propositions that defeat her claim. And we can imagine that the process that would, if used, uncover the falsity of her belief is simply not available to her. For those who accept the Gettiertype counterexamples, in such a universe we would not say that the person knew what she claimed to know. Interestingly, it appears that Goldman's example involving Henry and the barn facsimiles could be made to sat-

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isfy the condition of reliability if only we imagine that Henry does not have access to a reliable process which, if used, would have led him to not have the belief. But in such a world we would never say that Henry knew that the object he saw was a barn. Here again, if we accept the Gettier-type counterexamples, we need to say that Henry fails to know because there is a true proposition such that if it were added to his justification he would no longer be justified in believing what he does believe. As long as evidence sufficient for knowledge need not be entailing we can imagine circumstances under which the definition of knowledge is satisfied and yet we would not say that person knows what he claims to know. Somewhat later (as we shall see) in Epistemology and Cognition, Goldman added another condition to his definition of knowledge in order to prevent our always being able to run a Gettier-type counterexample through the definition. The condition added asserts that in order for a person to know what she claims to know, her belief must be true, reliable (in the sense specified above), and there must be no relevant alternative belief that could defeat the knowledge claim. But the problem with this addition is twofold. In the first place, we will not be able to determine whether anybody knows what they claim to know unless we can determine reasonably noncontroversially which alternative beliefs that could defeat a proposed knowledge claim are relevant. In the absence of providing us with a clear definition of relevant alternative, the added condition may provide us with what seems to be an adequate definition of knowledge, although we would never be able to use the definition to determine whether anybody knows what they claim to know. This result guarantees second-order scepticism, which is the view that one might have an adequate definition of knowledge but fail to be able to determine whether anybody knows anything at all; and if one cannot know whether anybody knows anything at all, it raises the serious question of whether the so-called non-controversial cases from which we generated our definition in the first place are indeed to be relied upon as legitimate cases from which to generate the definition. Second, even if we suppose that we had some reasonably adequate definition of relevant alternative, then how could we show that the condition is satisfied in any case? If the evidence we cite is not entailing, then we will be able to imagine the unknowable defeater, and, as we have already argued, unless we eliminate the logical possibility of the unknowable defeater, the definition will be inadequate. For these reasons, Goldman's attempt to block the eternal counterexample fails. Once again, the only way to block the Gettier-type counterexamples is to require of evidence sufficient for knowledge that it be entailing. Such is the effect of the unknowable defeater.

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The second major argument against causal and reliability analyses of knowledge and justification runs quite independently of any earlier considerations and involves a general discussion of reliabilism as the most persuasive form of causal theories of justification. If only to avoid the charge of offering a cavalier dismissal of reliabilism as an adequate theory of justification, a theory of justification that is allegedly more than adequate to meet the needs of countering the Gettier-type counterexamples, let us turn to a fuller discussion of reliabilism as a theory of justification. Then we will examine broader implications of accepting Gettier-type counterexamples.

Reliabilism and Goldman's Theory of Justification In the following few pages we will see that it is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for the justification of a belief that the belief be the product of a reliable belief-making mechanism, method, or process. In seeing as much, we will confront Alvin Goldman's defense of reliabilism, which, as delineated in Epistemology and Cognition, asserts that it certainly is a necessary condition for the justification of a belief that the belief be reliable, that is, the product of a reliable belief-making mechanism, method, or process. In arguing for the general thesis, however, I will urge that all the so-called counterexamples to the reliabilist theories of justification (including those asserting that it is sufficient for the justification of a belief that the belief be reliable) beg the question against Goldman's position because they all presuppose that justification is the activity of providing, or of being able to provide, suitable reasons for one's beliefs. Goldman has argued strenuously against this latter view but, to date, nobody has systematically confronted those arguments rather than simply assume their invalidity by incorporating into counterexamples just what would be false if Goldman's arguments are sound. After rejecting Goldman's arguments, and thereby validating some existing counterexamples to Goldman's reliabilism and reliabilism in general, we will then see that all other available arguments favoring Goldman's position that justification is never the activity of giving reasons are unacceptable. The bottom line of this discussion is that epistemic justification is always and only a matter of being able to provide conclusive reasons for one's belief just in case the question "How do you know?" is appropriate. Doubtless, if a person knows that p, then his belief that p is caused by a reliable belief-making mechanism, process, or method. Even so, a person's knowing that p does not require that his belief that p, in order to be justified, be caused or produced in any humanly specifiable way. By implication, for the sake of determining whether a person knows that p, the correct analy-

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sis of knowledge does not require any specification of the way in which a person's belief that p originates or is caused.

Aunt Hattie, Various Clairvoyants, and Other Counterexamples to Reliabilism Along with others, Alvin Goldman has argued that a person's belief that p is epistemically justified only if the belief is the product of a reliable belief-making mechanism, method, or cognitive process. 14 And others have argued that reliability is sufficient for justification. In response to both we have had a number of counterexamples that fall into two groups: those seeking to show that a person can be justified in a belief that is not reliably produced or generated; and those seeking to show that a person's belief that p can be reliably produced but not justified. Let us take a typical example of each. As an example of the first type, Carl Ginet offers the following: Suppose, for example, that it is a mild day in Ithaca but the weather forecast I hear on the radio says that a mass of cold air will move into the region tomorrow. As soon as I hear that, I have, we may suppose, good reason to believe that it will be colder in Ithaca tomorrow; and if I were caused to believe it by having that reason then my belief would be produced by a (relevant) reliable process. But let us suppose that I irrationally refuse to believe it until my Aunt Hattie tells me that she feels in her joints that it will be colder tomorrow. She often makes that sort of prediction and I always believe her, even if I have no other supporting evidence. She is right about as often as she is wrong. So, the (relevant) process by which my belief is actually caused is not reliable. Nevertheless, my belief is justified. I do have justification for it, namely, my justified belief as to what the Weather Bureau said. Thus I am protected from reproach for holding the belief, though I may deserve reproach for something else, namely, being moved to hold it by Aunt Hattie's prediction and not by the Weather Bureau's. I could rebut any reproach for my holding the belief by pointing out that I do have justification for it. My recognizing the evidential value of the Weather Bureau's forecast is quite compatible with my (irrationally) refusing to be moved to belief by that evidence. 15 Given this counterexample, we are led to conclude that reliability is not a necessary condition for justification. To this same end, John Pollock has offered the following: The simplest and most intuitive objection to reliabilism is that justification is a normative notion and this precludes reliability from playing any direct role in justification. Reliability cannot be a necessary condition for justification because a person can have every reason to think that his beliefs are reliable when in fact they are not. Consider the venerable brain in a vat: Suppose a person is kidnapped in his sleep and his brain is removed from his body and placed in a vat where it is stimulated artificially. If the artificial stimulation is done

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skillfully enough so that there is no apparent incoherence in his experience, surely when the victim awakes he is justified in the beliefs he has about the normality of his immediate surroundings, although such beliefs are totally unreliable. The reason he is justified is, roughly, that he could not be expected to know better. He satisfies the normative requirement of justification, and that is good enough. 16 A little later in the same paper (p. 112) Pollock straightforwardly asserts that "justification is a matter of having good reasons for beliefs," and being able to state them when challenged. As an example of the second kind of counterexample, that which seeks to show that reliability is not a sufficient condition for justification, consider Laurence Bonjour's clairvoyant: Norman, under certain circumstances that usually obtain, is a completely reliable clairvoyant with respect to certain kinds of subject matter. He possesses no evidence or reasons of any kind for or against the general possibility of such a cognitive power, or for or against the thesis that he possesses it. One day Norman comes to believe that the President is in New York City, though he has no evidence either for or against this belief. In fact, the belief is true and results from his clairvoyant power, under circumstances in which it is completely reliableP In accepting this counterexample Marshall Swain says: Thus, we must grant that the reliability of a belief is not alone sufficient for the belief to be epistemically justified .... To put the matter another way, one can be justified only if one is in a position to defend the claim that one is justified. This requirement for justification would explain why Norman's belief is unjustified, for he is by hypothesis completely unable to offer any justification whatever either for the belief that the President is in New York City or for the claim that he is justified in the belief that the President is in New York City. On the other hand, if Norman knew something about his powers, he might be able to offer some such justification. ls

The Reliabilist Response But the reliabilist need not accept any of the above counterexamples. This is so because all the above counterexamples in one way or another assume rather than prove that epistemic justification is a matter of one's being able to present suitable reasons when challenged; or, as Swain noted when commenting on Bonjour's example, to defend with reasons the claim that one is justified. Pollock explicitly claims as much, and the Aunt Hattie example works only because Ginet can, when challenged, justify his claim by giving reasons about the weather report. If he couldn't defend himself or rebut others by the citation of suitable reasons he would not be justified. All of the counterexamples in one way or another simply plead for the intuition that justification is something distinct from having

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beliefs that are reliably produced and this something distinct requires the activity of providing, or being able to provide, suitable reasons in defense of one's belief.1 9 However, Goldman, among others, has argued that epistemic justification is not an activity of providing reasons, or of being able to provide reasons, for one's beliefs. If Goldman's arguments are sound, then we are epistemically obliged to abandon the intuition that justification is a reason-giving activity rather than simply assert as much in the process of seeking to show that justification of a belief is not a matter of the reliability of the belief. If Goldman's arguments are sound, then we cannot without begging the question against reliabilism structure counterexamples that work only because in them one can assume that justification is a matter of being able to give reasons to defend one's beliefs. In short, unless we straightforwardly confront Goldman's arguments, all the above counterexamples beg the question against any form of the reliability theory of justification. So, in the interest of not so begging the question against Goldman's thesis, we may now examine his arguments to the effect that justification cannot ever be a matter of reason-giving.

Goldman's Arguments Against Interpersonalism In Epistemology and Cognition, after Goldman coins the expression Jrules to designate the rules to be followed in determining the justification of beliefs, he distinguishes between the interpersonal and the intrapersonal approaches to justification. Thereafter he says: A prime example of the interpersonal approach focuses on reason-giving as an interpersonal activity. The idea here is that justifications are things we give to other people which the latter either accept or reject. A person is justified in holding a certain belief only if he actually gives others, or could give them, acceptable reasons for the belief. This interpersonal approach is succinctly characterized by Rorty: "Justification is not a matter of a special relation between ideas (or words) and objects, but of conversation, or social practice. . . . [W]e understand knowledge when we understand the social justification of belief." As this passage indicates, the interpersonal approach may also be called a "social" approach to justification.... On an intrapersonal approach, permission conditions of J-rules would make no reference to other people. They would restrict themselves exclusively to the cognizer's own mental contents, such as prior beliefs, perceptual field, ostensible memories, cognitive operations and the like .... Most traditional epistemologies have indeed focused on such mental states; but they have not been exclusively mentalistic .... However, since they make no reference to other people, I shall classify approaches of this sort as intrapersonal, and I will even speak of them (loosely) as "mentalistic" approaches.

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There are a number of solid reasons for rejecting the social, or interpersonal approach to J-rules .... But the theory of justification-at least the theory of primary justification-does not require reference to social dimensions. 20 Goldman then embarks on giving five basic reasons why he prefers the intrapersonal approach to the social, or the interpersonal, approach. The reasons are as follows: 1. An adequate theory of justification should pertain to all propositions, including propositions about other people. A conception of justification that presupposes the existence of others leaves no room for the question of their existence-which a full theory should be capable of addressing. (p. 75)

2. Interpersonal reason-giving depends on intrapersonal reasons. "Whatever a person can legitimately say in defense of his or her beliefs must report or express mental states: his or her premise beliefs, perceptions and the like. What justifies a person is not the statements that might be uttered, but the mental states those statements would express (or describe) .... The believer's mental condition, or the mental operations he or she executes are fundamental for justifiedness. Ability to report these things is, at best, only of derivative significance." (p. 76) 3. Justified belief is necessary for knowing. "But if we are interested in the conception of justification most closely associated with knowledge, the interpersonal conception of J-rules is too stringent. One can know without being able to give a justification in the sense indicated by the interpersonal theorist. One may possess good reasons for belief without being able (fully) to state or articulate them in verbal form. Our perceptual beliefs, for example, often depend on cues of which we are not wholly conscious, or which we could not characterize in words. Many theoretical beliefs depend on a host of background assumptions that are hard, if not impossible, to bring to the surface, much less itemize exhaustively." (p. 76) 4. "It begs important questions to assume that current justificational status depends on what the cognizer can say now in support of his or her belief. Justifiedness may involve historical factors, how prior beliefs originated, that the cognizer no longer recalls, and hence could not deploy in argument with an interlocutor. Then, too, what people can say in a debate or defense depends partly on their psychological constitution: how adept they are at dealing with pressureful situations. Some people who have excellent reasons for their belief might choke or clam up. So, dispositions to say things in an interpersonal situation are not the proper measure of justifications." (p. 76)

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5. "The guiding idea behind the interpersonal conception is that cognizers are justified only if they can show to others that their view is plausible. I already gave some arguments against this in Chapter I, but there is more to say. Which other potential reason receivers are relevant? What if those persons are too stupid or stubborn to follow one's arguments or abandon prior prejudices?" (p. 77) If nobody understood Einstein, it would not follow that Einstein did not know or was not justified in believing his own theory of relativity. Response to Goldman's Arguments Against Interpersonalism To these five arguments, in the order of their appearance, the following replies are in order. The first argument offered above incorporates a strawman because it asserts that the interpersonal theory assumes the existence of some particular person whose existence may be questionable. However, were there any doubt about Smith's stated belief that a certain person fitting a particular description exists in a particular place, there are non-controversial ways of justifying his belief. Admittedly, interpersonal reason-giving primarily presupposes the existence of at least one other person in addition to the reason giver because it requires the ability to justify one's beliefs to another. But is it an inadequacy of a presumptively full theory of justification that it does not take solipsism seriously? Is it fair to say that such a theory presupposes or assumes that the institution of justification requires the existence of more than one person in the world rather than that it reflects a necessary condition for there being any human communication whatsoever? More important, why say that such a theory assumes the existence of other persons rather than that it states a condition necessary for the correct understanding and proper usage of the concept of justification? Indeed, would native speakers say that Smith is justified in his belief that p if native speakers seriously doubted Smith's claim that p, and Smith, when asked "How do you know?" could give no reason whatsoever? Hardly. Thus the facts of ordinary usage imply that the ordinary meaning of the concept of justification is tied at root to the activity of giving reasons when and only when the question "How do you know?" (asked as a request for justification and not for the causal ancestry of the belief) is appropriate. Presumably, a theory of epistemic justification, in providing a definition of the concept of justification, may stipulate what we ought to mean by expression such as "X is justified in believing that p" only when there is no clear sense of the conditions of correct employment in natural and typical usage. But simply to say it means something that is not captured in correct usage in ordinary discourse or current scientific

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practice requires some justification other than that it makes certain knowledge claims beyond rational criticism. Besides, if, as Goldman asserts, a full theory of justification must, in principle, be able to refute solipsism, how exactly does the intra personalist propose to satisfy this demand? On the one hand, if the intrapersonalist gives reasons in order to establish the falsity of solipsism then the intrapersonalist must admit that giving reasons, or being in a position to give reasons, is sometimes a necessary condition for justification. On the other hand, if the intrapersonalist does not give reasons, then he assumes the intrapersonalist theory of justification and accordingly begs the question against the interpersonalist approach. In short, even if we take seriously the question of solipsism, the intrapersonalist cannot successfully justify the falsity of solipsism. With regard to the second argument offered above, doubtless one cannot utter or give reasons unless one has in mind the reasons to give. So, in some sense, being in a certain mental state is certainly necessary or fundamental to the activity of reason-giving. But it by no means follows from this alone that what justifies a person is not the statements but the mental states those statements would express or describe. It is one thing to assert as much but quite another to prove it. Indeed, as native speakers we certainly would not say that a person was justified in his claim to know that p if there were some good reason to think that he were in error and if, when asked to justify his claim, he either fell silent, or refused, or was just not able to give reasons. This fact implies that, as a matter of ordinary discourse, "being justified" is not something we can always separate from the activity of giving, or being able to give, reasons when the question "How do you know?" is appropriately asked. Moreover, practitioners of the methods of natural science would never grant that a person was justified in his claim to know that p if, when appropriately asked "How do you know?", no reasons were given, or could be given. In short, the core problem with the intrapersonalist thesis grounding reliabilism is that it adopts the demonstrably false view that it is never a necessary condition for being justified in one's belief that one be able to give reasons for what one is said to be justified in believing. Interpersonalists and anti-reliabilists need have no difficulty in accepting the fact that there are clear cases in which it is not necessary that one be able to give reasons in order to know that something or other is so. Nevertheless, when the question "How do you know?" is appropriate to ask of someone who claims to know something or other, her failure to be able to give convincing reasons is sufficient for her not being justified in her belief. With respect to Goldman's third argument, in the first place, as we just noted, an interpersonalist can readily grant that one can know without

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being able to give a justification in the sense of interpersonal reason-giving. An interpersonalist need not hold the view that all knowledge requires justification. She might, for example, hold the view that justification is a necessary condition for knowledge only when the question "How do you know?" would be an appropriate question to ask of someone making a claim to know or to be justified. 21 However, an interpersonalist will insist that where the question "How do you know?" would be appropriate, justification in terms of reason-giving is not too stringent. Indeed, to Goldman's un argued assertion that one may possess good reasons for one's belief without being able to articulate or express them, the simple truth of the matter is that if a person were to assert that p and were not able to answer the question "How do you know?" (when it would be appropriate to ask the question), then we would never say he is justified in his belief that p. And it would be crass question-begging to urge that she might be justified even though we would never say that she is justified. After all, the meaning of the expression "X is justified in believing that p" is a generalization of the conditions under which we would typically use that expression correctly. In short, the idea that we can possess good reasons but not be able to articulate them on demand seems initially intuitively plausible; but given that we would not grant that such a person is justified when she is unable to answer the question, the belief that this could be so is an unproven assumption. Goldman's fourth argument has a number of flaws. To begin with, if X claims to know that p at time tl, and if it is appropriate to ask X the question "How do you know?", then, typically, if X fails to give reasons when asked, then nobody at time tl would ever say that X is justified in his belief. Of course, we can easily imagine circumstances under which X claims to know that p, has conclusive and statable reasons for his claim, but is not disposed at time tl to answer the question, or refuses for some very good reason to answer the question. In such cases certainly we would grant that he is justified at time tl even though he does not in fact answer the question at time t l. For example, if X failed to answer the question at time tl because somebody would harm him if he did, then if later, at time t2, when the threat of harm is absent, X answers the question, we would say that X was justified at time tl in his belief that p even though he did not in fact answer the question at time tl . In such a case, however, X's being justified at time tl consists in the fact that he can, and would, give reasons under normal circumstances in which there is no overriding reason or cause preventing him from giving reasons. So it is possible that a person be justified in his belief that p even though he does not in fact answer the appropriately asked question "How do you know?" Whenever this is so, however, his being justified consists in his ability to give rea-

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sons, and in the fact that he would give them if he were not prevented from doing so by some overriding cause or reason. Indeed, in the absence of such overriding reasons or causes, we would never grant that he is justified if he doesn't answer the question. What all this implies is that if X claims to know that p, and if X does not answer the justifiably asked question "How do you know?" then X is not justified in his claim to know that p (or in his belief that p) unless he is in a position (or is able) to give reasons but is prevented from doing so by some overriding reason or cause, the absence of which renders his failing to answer the question sufficient evidence that he is not justified in his claim or belief. To repeat, even in those cases where we would grant that X is justified in his belief that p even though he does not answer the question "How do you know?", his being justified consists in the fact that he can answer the question and would answer it if only there were no overriding reasons or circumstances preventing him from doing so. But if there is no overriding reason or cause preventing him from doing so, we would never grant or say that he is justified if he does not answer the question. Further, wherever we would grant that X is justified without his having actually given reasons, we cannot make sense of his being justified in his belief except in terms of his giving reasons either by being able to give them (when overriding causes or reasons prevent the actual giving of them) or actually giving reasons when there are no such overriding causes or reasons. Finally, if for the above-stated reasons we grant that X can be justified in his belief without actually giving reasons in response to the question "How do you know?", and if in such cases X's justification is a function of his ability to give reasons in the absence of overriding causes or reasons that prevent it, then the concept of justification at the core is ultimately a matter of giving reasons to answer the question "How do you know?" when and only when it is appropriate to ask the question. Identifying anything with dispositional properties makes no sense except in the context of understanding the occurrence of the manifest property as primary, core, or primitive. To identify, for example, a belief with a disposition to act in a certain way implies that in the absence of overriding or extraordinary circumstances, acting in that way is certainly necessary for saying that a person has that belief. By implication, the assertion that one can know that p in virtue of reasons that one has forgotten and hence cannot state when asked to justify one's claim that p, is equally problematic. 22 Suppose, for example, that George forgets at time t1 the reasons he has for believing that p, but remembers quite well that he had good reasons for believing that p. When asked "How do you know that p?", George cannot give any reasons at time t1 because he forgets them. Does George know that p at time t1? Certainly, nobody would say George is justified in his belief that p if he were not

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at some time able to give reasons. Otherwise, we would not be able to distinguish George from somebody who merely says that he knows (but does not) and claims to forget the reasons that justify the claim. Suppose, however, that George forgets at time tl the reasons that justify his claim to know that p, and then, after we refuse to grant that he is justified, he suddenly at time t2 ups and says, "Oh yes, now I remember; the reasons are such and so. I told you I knew; I merely forgot the reasons when you asked." Must we now say that George knew that p at time tl even though he forgot at time tl the reasons (and hence could not then state such reasons) that justify his belief? It seems tempting to say yes. However, we are at liberty to regard George's being justified as a function of his ability to give reasons in the absence of some overriding cause or reason such as forgetfulness. Or we might simply assert that one cannot be said to have a justifying reason, or be justified in one's belief that p, unless one can and will, in the absence of overriding conditions, give the reasons when it is appropriate to ask "How do you know?" We might equally say, "George did not know that p at time t1 because he couldn't remember the reasons for p, but knows it now because he suddenly remembered the reasons." On this construal, one cannot be said to have justifying reasons if one forgets them because as long as one forgets one is not able to answer the question "How do you know?" Finally, with respect to Goldman's last argument, if Einstein, or anybody else for that matter, presented us with a novel theory of the universe and then, when asked to prove it, gave reasons that nobody could understand, nobody would say Einstein was justified in his belief. Once again, this fact tells us what we typically mean in ordinary discourse by "X is justified in his belief that p." So, it will not do to suggest, as some have, that even though we would never say Einstein was justified in his belief, nevertheless he could still be justified in his belief. Here again, Einstein's being justified in his belief is basically a matter of whether we would grant or say that he is justified, and if we would not say he is justified (as indeed we would not if he could not ever provide suitably convincing reasons when properly challenged), then it is gratuitous to suppose that he might be justified even though we would not say that he is. Suppose the scientific community subsequently came at a later date to understand and accept Einstein's novel theory of the universe, even though when Einstein initially gave his reasons for the theory the scientific community was too dull to understand either the theory or the reasons Einstein offered as justification. Would that show that Einstein really was justified earlier when he uttered his reasons? Yes, of course. But that is not an argument against interpersonalism. Indeed, if, as we have already argued, interpersonalism does not require that one actually give reasons on any particular occasion when legitimately asked for a justification, it cannot

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coherently require that one actually give persuasive reasons on any particular occasion when properly asked for a justification. The only requirement is that one be able to give persuasive reasons and, in the absence of overriding constraints, give them sooner or later. In this Einstein example (but not in the one in the paragraph above) the reason Einstein is justified in his beliefs is that he is able to give persuasive reasons, because even though when he gives them initially nobody accepts them, the scientific community comes to accept them as persuasive; hence Einstein would be justified because the reasons he gave were persuasive since they came to be accepted by the scientific community. In short, interpersonalism requires for justification the giving of persuasive reasons in the absence of overriding constraints, but it by no means follows that one's reasons when given are persuasive only if they are accepted as persuasive by one's immediate audience. Even so, if one never gives reasons, one never gives persuasive reasons; and if one never gives reasons (when it is appropriate to ask for reasons) in the absence of ultimately discernible over-riding constraints, it is reasonable to assume that one cannot give reasons; and if one cannot give reasons for one's beliefs, one is not justified in one's belief. Second, the "guiding idea" behind interpersonalism is not that cognizers are justified only if they can show to others that their view is plausible. Although this is an implication of interpersonalism, the "guiding idea" behind it is rather that the concept of justification is not to be defined except in terms of reason-giving, or the capacity to give reasons, when the question "How do you know?" is appropriate. Admittedly, interpersonalists will need to specify just what features justifying reasons will need to have in order to succeed as good or justifying reasons. But we should not allow difficulties in the latter activity to stand as sufficient grounds for the view that reason-giving is not a necessary condition for justification, as though failing to specify just what counts for a good reason were somehow sufficient for saying that justification does not consist in the ability to give good reasons under the right circumstances. If Goldman were correct in his reasoning here, we would need to accept the core thesis of intrapersonalism, namely, that a person need never give reasons for his belief that p (even when the question "How do you know?" is appropriate) in order that he be justified in his belief that p. What makes it difficult to consider seriously the latter conception of justification is that it does not allow us to distinguish between people who think that they know and happen to be lucky in guessing the truth, and those who really know. This incapacity is one strong reason why we should reject intrapersonalism. For all the above reasons, Goldman's attack on interpersonalism fails.

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In direct response to these arguments, however, Goldman has argued that unfortunately what is wrong with the foregoing defense of interpersonalism is that it does not provide enough details to make it plausible that an interpersonal theory can work. 23 He notes that since it is obviously not a sufficient condition for justification that one be able to give some reasons or other for his belief that p, interpersonalists need to say what else is sufficient. He goes on to say: What then is sufficient? Must S be able to. give reaso.ns that will persuade, Dr satisfy a relevant audience? Which audience is relevant? Let us can an audience a justificatio.n-co.nferring audience (a "Je audience") if their dispo.sitio.n to. be persuaded, Dr satisfied by o.ffered reaso.ns is necessary and sufficient for tho.se reaso.ns to. be justifying. What properties make an audience a Je audience? So.me interlo.cutors might be extremely stubbo.rn, co.unter-suggestible, and difficult to. persuade. They might be radical sceptics like Descartes. To. include such people within the Je audience wo.uld presumably be to.o. strong a co.nditio.n o.n justified belief. Other interlo.cutors might be to.o. gullible, to.o. easy to. persuade Dr satisfy. Their inclusio.n within the Je audience wo.uld be to.o. weak a co.nditio.n o.n justified belief. Similarly, peo.ple to.o. stupid Dr ill-informed to. understand the proffered reaso.ns wo.uld be unsuitable. Are there, then, so.me so.rt o.f "ideal" agents that wo.uld fit the requirements for a Je audience? Neither Almeder and Ho.gg nor o.ther writers have sho.wn what properties such agents wo.uld have. Thus, the interperso.nal theory o.fjustificatio.n has so.me very high hurdles to. jump befo.re it beco.mes a serio.us and plausible theo.ry. ("Reply to. Almeder and Ho.gg," p. 309) Before proceeding, a few comments on this reply seem appropriate. First, as we have already noted above, the issue at hand is whether the capacity to give reasons is ever a necessary condition for justification; it is not what properties a given reason must have in order to succeed as a justifying reason. The above arguments for interpersonalism are arguments for the view that it is sometimes a necessary condition for justification that one be able to give reasons in favor of one's belief, and that is certainly a thesis quite distinct from one that seeks to specify what features of a given reason will count for its succeeding as a justifying reason. Succeeding at the latter is not necessary to refute intrapersonalism and, by implication, reliabilism, because reliabilism claims that it is never a necessary condition for justification that one give or be able to give reasons for one's belief. Goldman's response to the above arguments is, therefore, irrelevant to the question at hand. Of course, if Goldman could show that there is no possible way to coherently or successfully specify what such a feature would consist in, that would be quite a compelling reason for thinking that there must be something wrong with interpersonalism. But suggesting as much is not the same as

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showing it. Certainly, as we noted above, interpersonalists will need to say what will count as sufficient for justification, but we should not fault them for failing to provide a sufficient condition for justification when what is at issue is whether the capacity to give reasons is sometimes a necessary condition for justification. Moreover, we cannot plausibly construe Goldman's response here as accepting the capacity to give reasons as a necessary condition for justification but rejecting interpersonalism for the reason that the theory cannot succeed in specifying a suitable definition that is both necessary and sufficient. As just noted, reliabilism denies that the capacity to give reasons is ever a necessary condition for justification. Second, Goldman's claim that interpersonalism is not a serious or plausible theory because no interpersonalist has yet succeeded in specifying what is a sufficient condition for justification is also quite dubious. In short, not only is the response irrelevant, it would be unacceptable even if it were relevant. Let me explain. Goldman asserts that the viability of interpersonalism will depend on its being able to provide a sufficient condition for justification, and that the latter will consist in the ability to give reasons that will persuade or satisfy a relevant audience. He then claims that nobody has yet shown what properties make an audience a relevant audience. Just as some people may be too stubborn, countersuggestible, or sceptical, thereby rendering their inclusion in a relevant audience too strong a condition on justification, others will be too gullible, too stupid, or too easy to persuade, thereby rendering their inclusion in a relevant audience too weak a condition on justification. And so, until interpersonalists can succeed in specifying the features of a relevant audience, interpersonal ism is not plausible. Interpersonalists, however, can easily respond to Goldman's challenge. They need only appeal to Peirce's scientific community (following the methodology of the natural sciences) as the relevant audience. On this view, a justifying reason is one that would persuade the community of scientific inquirers, broadly conceived, whose methods and standards of acceptance allow us to counter the real possibility of error as a result of the stubborn, countersuggestible, sceptical, gullible, stupid or easily persuaded. As we saw in Chapter One when we defined justification for the weak sense of 'knows', a reason is a justifying reason just in case, when given, it supports the claim and just in case there is no good reason anybody (or any epistemically responsible agent) can find that undermines the subject's belief. Presumably, such a reason is persuasive because it does, or could, succeed in commanding the assent of the ongoing community of responsible inquirers. Assuming we can spell out reasonably clearly what a good reason is, why exactly would an interpersonalist need any-

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thing more by way of providing a sufficient condition for justification? Does anybody think that robustly confirmed beliefs in science are not justified beliefs? If not, the interpersonalist need only specify the features of the relevant audience in terms of the ongoing community of scientific inquirers following the methods of the natural sciences. And if that specification seems just a bit too constrictive, we can always add a disjunct extending to the community of non-scientific epistemically responsible inquirers who may not be using the methods of the natural sciences. Thus, it certainly does not seem too difficult for the interpersonalist to meet Goldman's challenge. Even so, the important point is that the interpersonalist need not respond to such a challenge because the challenge itself is irrelevant as a response to the above arguments seeking to show that it is sometimes a necessary condition for justification that one be able to give reasons in favor of one's belief. In further replying to the above arguments against Goldman's attack on interpersonalism, Goldman has offered what he describes as a different sort of example that strongly favors intrapersonalism over interpersonalism. He asks us to consider the case of Judy and Trudy, who are identical twins: Sam has just acquired an ability to tell these two twins apart on the basis of very subtle facial features, but he has no idea what these features are. All he can give by way of "reasons" is: "That just looks like Judy to me" and" That just looks like Trudy to me." Are these adequate reasons to persuade someone that it is Judy, or that it is Trudy? Presumably not. Sam could have offered similar reasons when he still lacked the ability to distinguish Judy and Trudy. At that earlier time he was not justified in holding such beliefs; at least he was not in a position to know. So these must not be adequate reasons. Since they are the only reasons Sam can give now, as well as earlier, the interpersonalist approach must say that Sam is not currently justified in his beliefs. But this is counterintuitive. It seems to me that Sam is now justified. Certainly he can know by means of his perceptual cues that it is Judy, or that it is Trudy. According to Almeder and Hogg, moreover, if Sam knows, then he must have justified belief as well. For they admit that justification is a necessary condition for knowledge as long as it is "appropriate," or makes sense, to ask for a justification. Surely, in this case it is appropriate, and does make sense, to ask for justification. ("Reply to Almeder and Hogg," p. 310) The basic problem with this example is in the first sentence where we are asked to suppose that "Sam has just acquired an ability to tell the two twins apart on the basis of very subtle facial features." Does this mean merely that Sam knows how to distinguish the identical twins, or does it mean that Sam knows that the twin he designates as Judy is Judy, or the twin he designates as Trudy is Trudy? Presumably, because we are concerned with propositional knowledge, we are not being asked to suppose merely that Sam know how to tell the twins apart. So, we are being asked

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to suppose that Sam knows that the twin he designates as Judy is Judy and the twin he designates as Trudy is Trudy. For the interpersonalist, to suppose as much implies that, if asked, Sam can or could provide persuasive reasons in justification of his claim that this one is Judy or this one is Trudy. At this point the example becomes problematic because it now asks us to suppose that the reason Sam gives to justify his claim that this one is Judy or this one is Trudy is not at all persuasive. How can a consistent interpersonalist accept simultaneously that Sam knows that p even though the reason Sam gives in justification for his belief is not persuasive? In short, when properly unpacked, the example begs the question against the interpersonalist by supposing that there is nothing incoherent about saying that a person can know that p and not need to provide persuasive reasons when the question "How do you know?" is appropriate. Indeed, asking an interpersonalist to accept the example as particularly persuasive is asking the interpersonalist to suppose for the sake of proving the falsity of interpersonalism that interpersonalism is false. By implication, the example smuggles through the back door just what needs to be proven, namely, that Sam can know that something or other is so without being able to provide persuasive reasons when his claim to know is legitimately questioned. Why is this an example strongly supportive of intrapersonalism rather than a special pleading for the very intuition that needs to be established in some other way? Moreover, there is something else wrong with this example. In the example it is inferred that if Sam were to give as justification for his claim that "this one is Judy and not Trudy" simply the reason "that just looks like Judy to me," he would not have provided an adequate reason to persuade someone that it is Judy because he could have used the same reason when he was not in a position to know, when he did not have the ability to distinguish the two. In reply, however, is it meant to be obvious that if a given reason is inadequate when one does not know what one claims to know, then is the same reason inadequate when one does know what one claims to know? It seems like the sort of claim one needs to prove. After all, might it not be the case that Sam now knows that "This one is Judy" because in a sufficient number of past cases when he was right in his identifications he gave as his reason "that just looks like Judy to me"? Certainly, that reason could now count as a persuasive reason whereas it would not count as persuasive when he first uttered it because when he first uttered it as a reason we had no grounds to think in virtue of the reason alone that he in fact knew that "This one is Judy." Early on we would have said "The fact that she looks like Judy to you is not enough to persuade us that it is Judy." In this case Sam would not know that it

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is Judy and his reason would be inadequate. But if Sam has established a long string of successful identifications followed by the stated reason "that just looks like Judy to me" or "that just looks like Trudy to me," we would justifiably come to regard his current claim that "this one is Judy" as justified just in case he stated as a reason "that just looks like Judy to me." In that case the same reason could be inadequate when he did not know what he claimed to know but be quite adequate when he did know what he claimed to know. Thus, it is hard to see how this example establishes intrapersonalism over interpersonalism. Ostensibly, there is presently only one argument against his form of reliabilism that Goldman regards as worthy of sustained discussion. In his essay "Strong and Weak Justification" he says: I want to turn immediately now to an example of central interest, the case of a cognizer in a Cartesian demon world. Focus on the perceptual beliefs of such a cognizer. These beliefs are regularly or invariably false, but they are caused by the same internal processes that cause our perceptual beliefs. In the Cartesian demon world, however, those processes are unreliable. (I assume that either there is just a lone cognizer using those processes in that world or that the demon fools enough people to render those processes insufficiently reliable.) Then according to the proposed account of strong justifiedness, the cognizer's beliefs are not justified. This sort of case is an ostensible problem for reliabilism, because there is a strong temptation to say that a cognizer in a demon world does have justified perceptual beliefs. The course of his experience, after all, may be indistinguishable from the course of your experience or mine, and we are presumably justified in holding our perceptual beliefs. So, shouldn't his beliefs be justified as well? 24 After noting that this objection to reliabilism has been raised by a number of philosophers,25 Goldman proceeds to show by way of appealing to the distinction between strong and weak justification that the victim of the demon has weak justification but not strong justification and, to be sure, reliabilism demands strong justification. Drawing this distinction is supposed to accommodate the strong tendency to grant that people really are justified when they believe blamelessly without knowing that there is a method that if used would defeat their claim ("Strong and Weak Justification," p. 59). Goldman then goes on to deal with some potential objections to this way of answering the proposed counterexample. Before examining the force of Goldman's response, however, we need to take a closer look at the counterexample because there is good reason to think that the counterexample should not be taken seriously in the first place. To begin with, in the counterexample we are asked to suppose that the beliefs of the cognizer in the Cartesian demon world are regularly or invariably false but nonetheless caused by the same internal processes that cause our perceptual beliefs. In the Cartesian demon world those processes are unreliable

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but in our world they are not. So, we are asked to suppose that one and the same set of internal processes is both reliable and unreliable. Can we coherently suppose as much? If a set of internal processes produces true beliefs in this world, but the same set fails to produce true beliefs in a Cartesian demon world, why is that not a good reason for saying that they cannot literally be the same internal processes, otherwise it would not be possible for them to generate different results? As a matter of fact, if a specific set of internal processes produces true beliefs in this world but does not produce true beliefs in the Cartesian demon world, it could only be because in the Cartesian demon world those otherwise reliable processes are changed by the demon so as to fail to produce what they otherwise ordinarily produce. Placing the internal processes that produce true beliefs in our world into the Cartesian demon world is by definition to change the nature of the processes (because they no longer produce true beliefs) and thereby render them quite different processes. In short, we cannot coherently suppose that one and the same set of internal processes could produce true beliefs in our world and yet fail to produce true beliefs in the Cartesian demon world. For the same reason we cannot coherently suppose that one and the same set of processes can fail to produce true beliefs in the Cartesian demon world and yet produce true beliefs outside the Cartesian demon world. Moreover, by definition, nobody's beliefs in the Cartesian demon world can be the product of reliable belief-making mechanisms. So nobody could be coherently tempted to think that the cognizer in the Cartesian demon world might be justified in his belief if only his beliefs were produced in a certain way (e.g., in the way our ordinary perceptual beliefs are produced outside the Cartesian world). That would no longer be a Cartesian demon world. Because of this inherent difficulty in the very statement of the counterexample, Goldman need not have taken it seriously, much less develop a distinction between weak and strong justification to diffuse its alleged force. In its very statement the counterexample is incoherent.

Goldman's Argument for Intrapersonalism More positively, however, Goldman's basic reason for intrapersonalism lay in his belief that reason-giving is appropriate only for the activity, or the behavior of, justifying a belief. On this view, reason-giving may well be appropriate for a person's being justified in believing a certain proposition, but the justification of a belief is primarily a function of the evidence that makes the belief justified rather than the person justified in believing a certain proposition. Given this thesis, the behavior or the activity of reason-giving may well serve some basic purpose properly associated

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with a person being justified in accepting a certain proposition, but the concept of justification should focus on whether the proposition accepted is justified, and this latter activity does not require the activity of reasongiving on the part of the person said to be completely justified in believing that p. So much seems to be implied when Goldman says (after denying that he assumes interpersonalism) that "A theory of justified belief will be a set of principles that specify the truth conditions for the schema 'S's belief in p at time t is justified', i.e., conditions for the satisfaction of this schema in all possible cases."26 In other words, apart from his direct attack on interpersonal ism, Goldman's argument for intrapersonalism consists in urging that the proper expression to be analyzed in explicating the concept of justification is "S's belief that p at time t is completely justified" and not "X is completely justified in believing that p." Only the latter expression would require of justification the activity of reason-giving (see p. 22 of Goldman's "What is Justified Belief?"). Moreover, according to Goldman, the latter expression captures a sense of "justified" under which a person need not have a belief at all in order to be justified in believing. In defense of this latter claim he says: There is a use of "justified" in which it is not implied or presupposed that there is a belief that is justified. For example, ifS is trying to decide whether to believe p and asks our advice, we may tell him that he is "justified" in believing it. We do not thereby imply that he has a justified belief, since we know he is still suspending judgment. What we mean roughly is that he would or could be justified ifhe were to believe p. The justificational status we ascribe here cannot be a function of the causes of S's believing that p, for there is no belief by S in p. Thus, the account of justifiedness we have given thus far cannot explicate this use of justified. ("What is Justified Belief," p. 21)

Accordingly, because what is crucial to whether a person knows a proposition is whether he has an actual belief in the proposition that is justified, the appropriate analysandum for the theory of justification is "S's belief that p at time t is completely justified" and not "X is completely justified in believing that p" since the latter expression does not require of a person said to know that he actually have a belief. But does this argument succeed in establishing intrapersonalism? It does not and the reasons why are simple. To begin with, the statement that ostensibly needs explication in the interest of analyzing the concept of justification suitable for the third condition of human knowledge is "X is completely justified in believing that p." This latter statement admittedly does not have the same meaning as "X's belief that p is completely justified." As a matter of fact, we can easily imagine circumstances under which X's belief that p is completely justified (as, for instance, in Goldman's

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example about Henry who sees a real barn rather than the facsimile of a barn) although X would not be justified in believing that p. Moreover, if all this is so, why should we accept as the linguistic unit to be explicated "X's belief that p is completely justified" rather than "X is completely justified in believing that p"? Goldman's answer is that the latter expression employs a sense of 'justified' that allows that a person could be justified in believing that p even though the person does not have the belief that p; and because it is crucial to the concept of justification that the person justified in believing that p have the belief that p, then the proper analysandum for a theory of evidence will be "X's belief that p is justified." But this last argument is unacceptable for two reasons. In the first place, the classical definition of knowledge, the definition challenged by Gettier-type counterexamples, draws the third condition of knowledge stated in terms of X's being justified (or completely justified or fully warranted) in believing what he does believe. Indeed, if the justification condition of knowledge is explicated in terms of whether the belief that p is completely justified, rather than in terms of whether the person is completely justified in believing that p, it is difficult to see how we are any longer analyzing the concept of justification as it applies to the classical concept of knowledge. So, as long as we insist that the concept of justification necessary for human knowledge is what emerges from the analysis of "X is completely justified in believing that p," we have little reason to accept Goldman's argument for intrapersonalism because the latter depends on the gratuitous assertion that the unit to be analyzed is "X's belief that p is completely justified." Therefore, for this reason it is difficult to see how Goldman's construal of the explicandum suitable for an adequate theory of justification is not a simple case of question-begging against interpersonalism in favor of intra personalism. On his own reasoning, if the explicandum were "X is completely justified in believing that p," then the activity of giving reasons would be necessary for justification under certain circumstances. Second, and more important, Goldman claims that the sense of 'justified' implied in expressions such as "X is completely justified in believing that p" allows that a person could be completely justified in believing that p and yet not have the belief that p; and thus, because it is crucial to whether a person knows that p that he actually have the belief that p, the proper analysandum for an adequate theory of justification will need to be "X's belief that p is completely justified." In response to this line of argumentation, however, it is difficult to see exactly just how the sentence "X is completely justified in believing that p" can fail to entail "X believes that p." Indeed, it seems straightforwardly contradictory to say "Smith is completely justified in believing that p, but Smith does not believe

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that p" or "Smith is justified in believing that p, but Smith does not have the belief that p."

Other Arguments in Favor of Intrapersonalism William Alston also argues for the distinction between being justified and showing that one is justified. For Alston, what is necessary for knowledge is that one be justified in one's belief, but being justified in one's belief does not require that one show, or be able to show, that one is justified by the activity of giving reasons. 27 In defending this distinction and intrapersonalism against interpersonalism, Alston submits the following arguments not already implied by the arguments offered by Goldman and discussed in the last section: 1. It is a truism in epistemology that one can be justified in believing that p, even on the basis of reasons, without having argued from those reasons top, and thus without having engaged in the activity of justifying the belief. Since we do not often engage in such activities we would have precious few justified beliefs if this were not the case .... It even seems possible to be justified, on the basis of reasons, in believing that p without so much as being able to produce an argument from those reasons to p. It may be that the reasons are too complex, too subtle or otherwise too deeply hidden (or the subject too inarticulate) for the subject to recover and wield those reasons .... 28 2. If one had to justify one's beliefs by engaging in the activity of justifying one's beliefs we would not be able to avoid logical circularity in our beliefs. 29 3. There is no "remotely plausible argument for the thesis that I can be justified in believing that p only if I have justified that belief."30 4. Justification as an activity of giving reasons is not necessary because it presupposes that belief-formation is voluntary.3! 5. It seems clear that children and animals know certain things, and yet it is incongruous to even apply the concept of justification as reason-giving to them. Thus, it appears that there are clear cases of knowledge that do not require justification as a reason-giving activity.32 Finally, there is an argument offered by Marshall Swain, and it reflects David Armstrong's view. This argument asserts that it is quite conceivable that a person make very reliable knowledge claims, provide no justification for the claims, and not even believe that his beliefs are reliable; and yet we would still say he knows-and thus must be justified in his belief.3 3 This argument feeds on examples such as "The Rocking Horse Winner" and Ginet's clairvoyant weather forecaster, the latter of whom is always right when she asserts what the temperature Celsius is in Sydney, Australia; but she does not know, or have any reason to believe, that her beliefs are reliably produced. 34 Swain and Armstrong think that even if she did not know or believe that her beliefs are reliably produced, some-

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one else who does know as much can rely on her beliefs as a good guide to the facts about the current temperature in Sydney. In short, one can use her beliefs as detectors of these facts. The clairvoyant's beliefs convey information to us in the way that a properly functioning thermometer conveys information; if they are capable of providing us with knowledge, then the clairvoyant's claims should be considered as items of knowledge, because her claims are completely reliable signs of the truth of the propositions believed. Therefore, the giving of reasons need never be a necessary condition for human knowledge. Let us consider these six arguments. Alston's first argument asserts that it is simply a truism that one can be justified in one's belief without having engaged in the activity of justifying the belief. True enough, but from this it by no means follows that one need never give, or be able to give, persuasive reasons in order to be justified in one's belief. After all, given all we have argued above, when asking the question "How do you know?" is appropriate, then such a person will not be said to be justified in his claim to know unless he is at least able to provide persuasive reasons for the claim, and actually succeeds in doing so in the absence of overriding constraints. 35 Thus the interpersonalist will require the activity of justification as a necessary condition for knowledge only when the question "How do you know?" is appropriate. If for any reason the question is not appropriate, then one is faced with the phenomenon of knowledge without justification, because justification is primarily a matter of providing reasons, or being able to provide them, when it is fitting to ask the question "How do you know?" Moreover, it is difficult to see how we would have only very few justified beliefs if being justified is a matter of giving, or being able to give, reasons when the question "How do you know?" is appropriate. And even if that were the case, that would not be a strong enough reason to support the claim that justification need never be a matter of providing or being able to provide reasons. Alston's second objection to interpersonalism is that if one needed to justify one's beliefs by appeal to reasons, then he would not be able to avoid logical circularity. On the contrary, however, it seems that such a predicament could occur only if one must always justify the reasons one gives to justify one's claim to know. But the interpersonalist need not adopt such a view. He may say that there are times when the question "How do you know?" is totally inappropriate, and thus the idea of providing a justification in terms of stated reasons is not necessary with regard to every knowledge claim. Alston's third argument simply asserts that there is no remotely plausible argument for the thesis that I can be justified in my belief that p only

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if I have justified that belief. Here again, however, the argument is that, as a matter of both scientific practice and ordinary usage, we will not grant that a person knows what she claims to know if she fails in the absence of overriding causes or conditions to provide reasons for her claim when it makes sense to ask her the question "How do you know?" Further, if the interpersonalist asserts that there are conditions under which the question "How do you know?" does not make sense, it does not thereby follow that there are cases of knowledge wherein justification occurs without reason-giving. What follows instead is that if there is any knowledge at all, there is some knowledge without justification, because justification is the act of providing, or being able to provide, reasons for one's beliefs when it is sensible to ask for evidence for such beliefs. Alston's fourth argument is that interpersonalism is false because such a view presupposes the false proposition that belief formation is a voluntary act. But the problem with this argument is, apart from the fact that it certainly seems that some of our beliefs are deliberately chosen on the basis of evidence (a point noted by Carl Ginet), that the interpersonalist position requires only that some of our beliefs be capable of voluntary formation. Also, when one asserts that somebody or other is justified or not in his belief we are asserting only that if he voluntarily were to adopt the belief, then that belief would be either justified or not depending on the reasons that could be given. Besides, it is disturbing to see a theory of justification based upon an assertion to the effect that nobody ever voluntary believes anything. What is disturbing about it is (apart from the fact that it makes the theory of justification wagged by the tail of the freewill controversy-which, ex hypothesi, one could never justify) that it asserts what really needs to be proven, namely, that all belief is involuntary. Thus, even if interpersonalism did presuppose that some beliefs are voluntarily formed by the agent, how could anybody refute that without establishing the general thesis of determinism?36 The last reason Alston offers (and that we have not already discussed when examining Goldman's position) is that children and animals clearly seem to know certain things, but because it would be silly to think that they could give reasons for their claims it follows that there is some knowledge that is justified but that cannot be justified by appeal to the activity of giving, or being able to give, reasons. There are two replies to this objection. First, it is gratuitous to assert that animals have propositional knowledge. Doubtless, most animals know how to do many things, but the very fact that they cannot either claim to know that p or answer questions such as "How do you know?" raises legitimate questions as to whether it makes any sense to say that they can know or believe that something or other is so. Similarly, young children, like animals, surely know how to do vari-

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ous things, but why need we say they have any propositional beliefs? Moreover, if animals and children did have propositional beliefs, and even if they were to assert them in certain ways, how could we grant that such beliefs are justified if they could not give reasons for their beliefs when legitimately asked? In short, unless we can reduce non-propositional knowledge to propositional knowledge by arguing that all propositional knowledge is no more than dispositions to believe in ways that are biologically adaptive, it is by no means obvious that animals and children have justified propositional beliefs. Second, Carl Ginet has observed that even if it is incongruous to apply the concept of justification to very young children and animals (because they lack the very notion of justification), it does not follow that the concept of justification by appeal to reasons is generally irrelevant. Ginet is willing to admit (as many are not) that animals and children do counter the claim that no belief is knowledge unless it is justified. Even so, he goes on to say: But they do not counter the claim I subscribed to above, that no unjustified belief can be knowledge, nor the claim that the concept of knowledge does require justification in its primary application, namely to those who do have a notion of a belief's being justified or not. In the natural extension of the concept to others who have beliefs, this requirement must be dropped. 37 What seems forceful about Ginet's response is that insofar as the primary application of the concept of knowledge would obtain in contexts where the question "How do you know?" could be appropriate, the concept of knowledge in its general and typical application is meant to apply or be relevant primarily in those cases where it could make sense to say of the subject that she or he is justified. Thus, counterexamples that work only because the concept of justification is irrelevant, because incongruous, would reflect very non-typical usage. The interpersonalist need not adopt Ginet's view that all propositional knowledge requires justification, but only that where justification is necessary, justification is always a matter of the subject's ability to give reasons. 38 The last objection noted above is the one offered by Swain to the effect that a person's belief that p counts as knowledge only if his belief is a reliable indicator of the facts. Here again, by way of response, suppose, for example, we approached Ginet's psychic weather forecaster who believes at time t1 that the temperature Celsius in Sydney is 15 at time t1. Suppose that her belief about the temperature Celsius in Sydney is always correct when she utters it, but she does not know or believe that her beliefs are reliable (and hence cannot ever answer the question "How do you know?" asked on any particular occasion by someone who does not know that her beliefs are reliable). Supposing all this, we would never say that she is justified in her belief or knows that the temperature in Sydney is

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such and such. We would only need to say that for some inexplicable reason she knows how to provide the correct temperature reading in Sydney at any time. Naturally, if she were to say that she knew what the temperature Celsius was because whenever in the past she felt it was a certain figure, she was always right, then, and only then, would we say that she knows that the temperature is such and such. In arguing against Swain and Armstrong's position on this matter, one can readily agree with Ginet that All sorts of things other than true beliefs can be reliable indicators and therefore

bases or enablers of knowledge; and being a basis or enabler of knowledge must be distinguished from being knowledge, in true beliefs as in all other things. A certain category of a person's sheer guesses or a certain category of her false beliefs might be reliable indicators of a certain category of facts, but those guesses or false beliefs would not thereby be knowledge. I do not see why true beliefs should be any different in this respect. 39 This position implies that what is needed for knowledge in addition to true beliefs reliably produced is the capacity to answer the question "How do you know?" should the question become relevant; and for all the reasons indicated above, his criticism seems quite accurate. We may summarize our results to this point. In refuting Goldman's arguments, as well as the other available arguments, to the effect that justification is not the activity of giving reasons, and in arguing that both the facts of ordinary discourse and the canons of scientific practice sustain a definition of justification in terms of the capacity to provide suitable reasons when the question "How do you know?" is appropriate, we have rescued the earlier anti-reliabilist counterexamples (offered earlier in this chapter) from the charge of begging the question against the intrapersonalist and in favor of the interpersonalist. In so doing we sustain those counterexamples, demonstrating that reliability is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for justification. Thus, not only does Goldman's reliabilism fail, reliabilism in general fails both because there are no satisfactory arguments in favor of the intrapersonalist theory of justification and because there are no satisfactory arguments refuting the arguments offered above for interpersonalism. By general implication, how one's beliefs originate is irrelevant to their epistemic status as justified. There are many conceivable circumstances in which we would readily grant that a person knows that p where his being completely justified is a matter of his giving conclusive reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with how the belief originates or is produced. In the interest of completeness, however, and in the interest of developing the strongest possible case against reliabilism in general, we may now turn to other objections.

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Other Objections to Reliabilism There are at least five other major objections to reliabilism, whether we regard it as a theory of justification or simply as a theory of knowledge wherein justification is not regarded as a necessary condition of knowledge. These objections are (a) the circularity argument, (b) the ambiguity argument, (c) the Gettier argument, (d) the standard practice argument, and lastly, (e) the reliabilism-guarantees-scepticism argument. The circularity argument This objection asserts that if it is either necessary or sufficient, or both necessary and sufficient, for a person's being justified in believing that p that her belief be reliable and hence produced by a reliable belief-making mechanism, method, or process, then in the interest of determining whether she is justified in her belief we must be able to determine when a particular belief is reliably produced. But, so the objection goes, this cannot be done because any argument that would seek to do so would need to be viciously circular. Suppose, for example, that Jones claims to know that Sarah is in town and, when asked by someone who has good reason to think Sarah may not be in town "How do you know?" he answers "Because I saw her not five minutes ago." To determine whether he in fact knows what he claims to know (the capacity for such determination being a necessary condition for any reasonably adequate theory of knowledge), we must determine whether his belief is the product of a reliable belief-making mechanism, method, or process. In short, we need to determine whether the mechanism that produces simple perceptual claims such as "I saw her" is reliable in general, and then whether it is reliable in this specific case. To do so, however, we would ultimately need to rely on someone's claim that Sarah is indeed in town because they saw her or because they saw something or other. But it is exactly these sorts of claims that need to be shown to be reliable, rather than assumed to be reliable, if we are to establish that Smith knows what he claims to know. Thus reliabilism implies an unconscionable vicious circularity, a circularity that is epistemically vicious because in crucial cases it does not allow us any non-circular way of determining whether a person knows what she claims to know. Of course, by way of response, one might argue, as has William Alston, that because one can be justified without giving reasons for one's belief, a logically circular argument given for a particular claim need not undermine the claim or a person's knowing what he claims to know. 40 This response, however, feeds on the intrapersonalist theory of justification and the view that one need never give reasons for one's belief in order to be justified in one's belief. But we have already seen that interpersonalism, and not intrapersonalism, is the correct theory of justification. The only

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other response that seems appropriate to this last objection to the reliabilist theory of justification is to urge that being justified, as opposed to showing that one is justified in one's beliefs, is not always necessary for propositional knowledge. But such a response, would seem to entail abandoning reliabilism as a general theory of justification asserting that it is a necessary condition for X's knowledge that p, that X's belief that p be the product of a reliable belief-making mechanism. So, there is no blocking the inference that there is no non-circular way to establish the reliability of any particular belief-making mechanism or process. The ambiguity argument According to this objection, reliabilism is unacceptable because the concept of a reliable belief-making mechanism, method, or process is unclear. Must the method be generally reliable, meaning that over a long period of time it tends to produce more true than false beliefs, but on any given day could produce nothing but undetectably false beliefs? Would we call a method reliable if it produced nothing but false beliefs for three years and then nothing but true beliefs for the next five years? Would we call a method reliable if, in the long run, it produced true beliefs 51 percent of the time rather than 80 percent of the time? How much reliability will be necessary for a truth-conducive account of justification, and will that be determined arbitrarily? Also, suppose that some methodology works in some places but not in others, or for some people but not for everyone. For example, suppose Smith is a psychic gambler who has amassed a fortune because he gambles on the number that comes into his head just before each horse race he attends. Suppose, further, that Smith has never been mistaken in his belief about what horse will win the next race in the last 7,000 consecutive races, and that when you ask Smith which horse will win in the next race he says "number seven." Finally, suppose you ask Smith after all this "How do you know?" and he answers "I know because I've never been mistaken in the last 7,000 consecutive races and that sort of success cannot be a matter of chance." Supposing all this, would we say that Smith knows that the next winning horse is number seven? It seems obvious that his getting the correct number so frequently cannot be explained as a matter of luck, chance, cosmic coincidence, or blind accident; and, moreover, his defense of his claim to know on the basis of his own past record is strong. Indeed, it seems obvious that he knows that the next winner will be number seven. Even so, reliabilists have been known to reject the claim that the psychic gambler knows that the next horse to win is number seven and they often do so because, as they say, the mechanism or method that produces the psychic gambler's beliefs is not suitably reliable. But why exactly is the method or mechanism that produces Smith's beliefs not reliable? After all, it has more than satisfied the requirement of

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tending most of the time to produce true beliefs? Why exactly must a method be globally reliable and universally accessible in order for it to generate true beliefs? Some of these sorts of questions have also been raised by others, but until more answers are forthcoming, the concept of reliability is much too ambiguous. 41

The Gettier argument According to this objection, the reliabilist's attempt to specify a definition of human knowledge in terms of true belief that is the product of a reliable belief-making mechanism cannot provide us with an adequate definition of knowledge. We can easily produce the Gettier effect as long as reliability is understood in terms of a method that is reliable just insofar as it tends to produce more true than false beliefs most of the time. For example, recall Swain's example about Smith who is inductively justified in believing (hence in possession of a reliably produced belief) that the charge of TNT wired to the detonator box will explode when he flips the switch. As things are imagined, when he flips the switch the TNT does explode but only because some hunter coincidentally fires a high-powered shell into the charge at the moment Smith flips it; otherwise the TNT would not have exploded because, although Smith is strongly inductively justified in believing that the equipment is trustworthy, it is not. Accordingly, Smith's justified true belief is not an item of knowledge. If a reliabilist accepts Swain's counterexample to the justified true belief definition of knowledge, then insofar as a strong inductive inference is the product of a reliable belief-making mechanism, the reliabilist should also accept Swain's (and others') counterexample as equally powerful against the reliabilist's definition of knowledge or of justification. For somebody like Goldman, of course, the definition of knowledge is more than simply reliably produced true belief. As we have already noted, he also insists on the condition that there be no relevant alternative belief that could defeat the knowledge claim.42 The fact that the definition of relevance is problematic, and that there are serious problems associated with the possibility of ever showing that the latter condition is satisfied, raises questions indicated earlier and that we will not examine here. So, the Gettier argument is an objection leveled against all reliabilists who do not add something like the Goldman condition to their definition of knowledge as reliably produced true belief. Of course, even if they do add the other condition, the definition would be problematic for other reasons.

The standard practice argument This objection asserts that as a matter of common scientific practice, how one's beliefs about the world originate is totally irrelevant to the question of their justification. When one asserts a particular claim about

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the physical world, the justification of that claim is a function of whether we have reasons to believe that what it virtually predicts at the sensory level does, or would, occur sufficiently frequently to warrant that claim as true. In short, as we saw earlier, our common empirical practice indicates that when it comes to a question of whether a person is justified in his beliefs, we seek to confirm the belief; and the activity of confirmation in no way regards the way in which the belief is produced as an indicator of its truth. Whether the claim is justified is solely a function of whether the belief is confirmed by the occurrence of sensory experiences that we would expect under certain circumstances if indeed the claim were true. Thus, because the practice indicates what we mean by 'justification', the origin of one's belief is totally irrelevant to the practice of empirical confirmation, which is the activity of seeking to justify or falsify claims about the factual world. Doubtless, the reliabilist will reply that in the act of justifying or confirming a belief we are more or less successful only because our beliefs are the products of reliable belief-making mechanisms such as induction. But even so, his being justified in his belief has nothing to do with how he got his belief. Moreover, as is evident from our earlier discussion of the psychic gambler, there are clear cases in which we would be willing to say "He knows that p" no matter how he acquired his belief, and even if we did not have the foggiest idea as to how he acquired his beliefs. The reliabilism-guarantees-scepticism argument

In some ways this last objection is the most important because it asserts that reliabilism as a particular theory guarantees scepticism. The objection assumes that all reliabilists adopt the correspondence theory of truth, and that reliability is the product of a method that need not on any particular occasion produce a true belief. Given this, the objection is that the reliabilist will never be able to determine whether the truth condition for knowledge is satisfied in any particular case because one has no way of determining whether a particular claim is true or not if its truth is not established by the satisfaction of the justification or reliability condition. The fact that the reliability condition could be satisfied by a belief that is the product of a reliable belief-making mechanism and that belief be false, once again, raises the question as to how we know that some person's claim to know that p is true. Because we cannot establish as much simply by showing that the belief is reliable, and because we have no direct way of seeing that the proposition correctly describes the world, reliabilism guarantees a kind of scepticism that makes it impossible for us to ever determine whether anybody in fact knows what they claim to know. Earlier I argued that this sort of scepticism applies whenever the satisfaction of the justification condition for knowledge fails to carry with it the satisfac-

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tion of the truth condition and hence, in the interest of avoiding such scepticism, one must avoid correspondence theories of truth when specifying the nature of the truth condition for human knowledge. Because the reliability condition, at least as specified by all reliabilists to date, need only be truth conducive, the question of how one is to determine which of one's reliable beliefs is true seems insurmountable especially because it involves being able to make some sort of direct comparison between the way things are and a sentence asserting the way things are. If one's justified beliefs need not be true, how one determines how one's reliably produced beliefs are true is as mysterious as it is necessary to avoid scepticism. There are other objections to reliabilism both as a theory of justification and as a theory of knowledge, objections for which there is no space here. Even so, if what has just been argued is correct, not only has Goldman failed to establish his thesis, the general thesis cannot be plausibly argued by appeal to other considerations he in fact did not, but might have, considered. Consequently, by way of the far-reaching implications of the thesis, the distinction between epistemology and psychology remains firmly entrenched, and we cannot just yet consign the business of epistemology to the descriptive or the cognitive psychologist. However fascinating the study of the ways in which our beliefs originate, and the degree to which they are subjective constructs, the question of their justification and truth is primarily another matter. At any rate, and for all the reasons mentioned above, even if we were to grant some validity to Gettier-type counterexamples, reliability analyses do not seem to have the power to block the Gettier effect and the consequent scepticism implied by that effect. SOME IMPLICATIONS OF ACCEPTING GETTlER-TYPE COUNTEREXAMPLES AND THEIR INAPPLICABILITY TO THE DEFINITIONS OFFERED EARLIER

From the above reflections we can conclude that Gettier-type counterexamples to the classical definition of knowledge are defective because, (1) their endorsement implies accepting the false proposition that a person can be completely justified in believing a false proposition; and (2) their acceptance is consistent with only a partial analysis of 'knows', an analysis that clearly overlooks the weak sense of 'knows' .43 Moreover, it seems tolerably clear that both kinds of Gettier-type counterexamples feed upon the extent to which the classical definition of knowledge is underinterpreted. In both counterexamples it is naturally

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assumed that, on all readings of the classical definition, a person can be completely justified, or sufficiently justified, in believing a false proposition if he cites some evidence (how much is never said) in favor of his claim. Because the counterexamples assume that on any reading of the classical definition a person can be completely justified in believing a false proposition, proponents of the counterexamples are guilty of imposing upon the classical definition an interpretation of the third condition and then faulting the definition for that very interpretation. At this point someone might object that even if the counterexamples are not valid against the classical definition, still, they might be valid against the weak sense of 'knows' defined as a variation of the classical definition. A moment's reflection, however, should disabuse us of this temptation; for we have seen that the effectiveness of these counterexamples requires acceptance of the false proposition that a person can be completely justified in believing a false proposition. Whatever our definition of knowledge may be, these counterexamples will not fault it. Besides, assume for the sake of argument that the two kinds of counterexamples cited above are counterexamples to our definition of 'knows' in the weak sense. In both counterexamples, the proponents claim that the reason the persons in the counterexamples fail to know what they claim to know is because their justification is in some sense defective. But in neither counterexample is the justification defective from the viewpoint of 'knowing' in the weak sense. From this viewpoint a justification is defective if and only if at the time of the knowledge claim one can cite some specific and accessible reason that can in fact be cited for believing the claim to be false. In none of the Gettier-type counterexamples cited is it clear that the evidence that allegedly defeats the justification is evidence that is accessible to anyone at the time of the claim. If it is, then the definition of 'knows' in the weak sense is not satisfied, and hence the counterexamples could not be valid; if it is not, then it is a valid knowledge claim in the only sense in which a knowledge claim could be valid, namely, the weak sense. Furthermore, our definition of 'knows' in the weak sense does not admit of counterexamples at all for the following reason: the definition of 'knows' in the weak sense can be countered by constructing a case where we would say of X that he knows that p even though at the time when X claims to know that p (and cites his evidence for it) there is some specific and accessible reason that someone might cite for believing that p might actually be false. Otherwise, the only remaining way to counter the definition consists in constructing a case in which one would say of X that he does not know that p even though at the time of X's claim (when he cites evidence in favor of p) there is no specific and accessible reason that anyone can in

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fact cite for believing that p may actually be false. In the first case, however, nobody would say of X that he knows that p (in the weak sense of 'knows') if at the time X claims to know that p there is some specific and accessible reason that one could in fact cite for believing that p may actually be false. In the second case, we have also seen that it is equally linguistically perverse to suggest that X does not know that p at time t1 if at the time of X's claim there is no specific reason that anyone can offer for believing that p may actually be false. Thus, our definition of 'knows' in the weak sense cannot be countered. CONCLUSION: THE ENDURING QUEST FOR CERTAINTY

Why have so many philosophers accepted Gettier-type counterexamples to the classical definition of knowledge? Inasmuch as acceptance of Gettiertype counterexamples is inconsistent with accepting anything but the strong sense of 'knows' as the only sense of 'knows', one can only assume that such philosophers are unconsciously committed to the strong sense of 'knows' as the only sense of 'knows'. As urged above, this unconscious commitment results from the fact that the strong sense of 'knows' is more fully entrenched in our language than is the weak sense. Further, it is tempting to suggest that this difference in entrenchment, resulting in the dominance of the strong sense of 'knows', reflects our enduring quest for certainty, logical certainty. The search for certainty is nothing new even on the part of those who profess to have abandoned the search. It is the perennial defense mechanism designed to offset the disappointment of being fallible in a world sometimes frighteningly contingent. At any rate, whatever the reason for the fact that the strong sense of 'knows' is uppermost in our minds, we have no justification for continuing to neglect the weak sense of 'knows' and for failing to forge ahead on intuitions consistent with it in the hope that eventually the weak sense will come to be uppermost in our minds. One last point. As a result of endorsing Gettier-type counterexamples, philosophers have shown a strong tendency in the literature to argue that the concept of knowledge is an impossibly idealized concept, and that therefore scepticism is true. 44 This tendency in turn fuels the thesis that epistemology, as traditionally conceived, is dead and that epistemology should be reconstrued as the study of the conditions of reasonable belief-and not knowledge. Even where this view is not explicitly held, one can argue that such a view is logically implied by the acceptance of Gettiertype counterexamples. However, if, as we have seen, the endorsement of Gettier-type counterexamples is consistent with only a partial analysis of

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'knows', and if a fuller explication of 'knows' reveals a sense of 'knows' that admits of instantiation and is not subject to counterexamples, then we need not subscribe to wholesale scepticism or redefine the nature of epistemology. NOTES

1. Edmund Gettier, "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?" Analysis vol. 23 no. 6 (April 1963): 121-23. Incidentally, Bertrand Russell fashioned the same sort of counterexample a good deal earlier in The Problems of Philosophy (London: Oxford University Press, 1912): 121. 2. Marshall Swain, "An Analysis of Knowledge," Synthese vol. 23 (March 1972): 429-30. For a similar example, see Keith Lehrer, "A Fourth Condition of Knowledge: A Defense," Review ofMetaphysics (Sept. 1970): 125. 3. Alvin Goldman, "Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge," Journal of Philosophy vol. 73 no. 20 (Sept. 1976): 771-91; reprinted in Essays on Knowledge and Justification, eds. George Pappas and Marshall Swain (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1978): 121-22. 4. Certainly, however, these propositions are assumed true by the reasoners although the propositions do not enter explicitly as premises in their reasoning. Interestingly enough, it is difficult to see how assuming the truth of these propositions is not part of their respective justifications. After all, were they to assume these propositions as false, they would no longer be justified in believing what they do and the counterexamples would not work. 5. The following argument is a revised version of my "Defeasibility and Scepticism," Australasian Journal ofPhilosophy vol. 51 (Dec. 1973): 238-44. 6. Or, since the classical thesis is also defined as evident true belief, (b) There is no true proposition S such that if S were to become evident to X, then p would no longer be evident to X. Consider instances of (b): (1) "There is no true proposition such that if it became evident to S at time t 1, P would no longer be evident to S." P. Klein, "A Proposed Definition of Propositional Knowledge," Journal of Philosophy vol. 68 no. 16 (Aug. 1971): 475; (2) "There is no true statement q such that q in conjunction with S's evidence E fails to render p evident for S .... " M. Swain, "Knowledge, Causality and Justification," Journal of Philosophy (June 1972): 272; (3) "There is no true statement d such that if it were to become part of X's justificatory reasoning, X would not be completely justified in believing that p." Keith Lehrer, "A Fourth Condition of Knowl-

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edge: A Defense," Review of Metaphysics (Sept. 1970) 125-27. Lehrer's definition of the fourth condition differs in wording, but not in meaning, from the statement in (3). Also, Swain's definition of the fourth condition is a conjunctive statement and I have deleted the second member of the conjunct. Regardless of what is added to the first member of the conjunct, the conjunct as stated will be satisfiable only if both members of the conjunct are satisfiable, and I propose to show that the first member is not. For another interesting formulation of the same condition, see Risto Hilpinen, "Knowledge and Justification," Ajatus vol. 33 no. 1 (April 1971): 7-39. 7. John Austin, "Other Minds," Aristotelian Society Supplementary vol. 20 (1946): 3-17. 8. I am not arguing that a person's justification will be defeated if it is logically possible that there is an unknowable defeater. Rather, I am arguing that as long as it is logically possible that there is an unknowable defeater, then the condition of non-defectiveness as stated in (a) will be logically inadequate because its failure to be satisfied is logically consistent with a legitimate instance of knowledge (and not merely a valid knowledge claim). In other words, if a person's justification fails to satisfy (a), it will not follow logically that that person does not know what he claims to know-which indeed it should if (a) were logically adequate. Accordingly, the only way to overcome the logical inadequacy of (a) is to provide a restatement of (a) which rules against the logical possibility of an unknowable defeater. And this, I submit, is to require of a non-defective justification that it be an entailing justification because anything short of this would leave open the logical possibility of there being the unknowable defeater. In short, if we accept the counterexamples, we must accept (a); but (a) will not be a logically adequate condition (sufficient to block the counterexamples and allow for knowledge) unless we reformulate (a) to imply that a person's justification will be non-defective if and only if it is an entailing justification. In sum, if we accept the counterexamples, then we will not be able to block them short of insisting that a person's evidence will be non-defective (and hence adequate for knowledge) if and only if it is entailing evidence. 9. Peter Klein, Certainty (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981) 169. 10. Ibid., 170. 11. See Marshall Swain, Reasons and Knowledge (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1981). See also Alvin Goldman's earlier paper, "A Causal Theory of Knowing," Journal of Philosophy vol. 64 no. 12 (April 1967): 355-72. 12. See Alvin Goldman, "Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge," in Essays on Knowledge and Justification, edited by George Pappas and

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Marshall Swain (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1978) 120ff; and "What is Justified Belief?," in Justification and Knowledge, edited by George Pappas (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1979) 1-23; and more recently in Goldman's, "The Relation Between Epistemology and Psychology," Synthese vol. 64 (July 1985): 29ff. 13. In addition to the analyses offered by Goldman, other recent reliability analyses include: Marshall Swain, "Justification and Reliable Belief," Philosophical Studies vol. 40 (1981): 389-407; John Barker, "What You Don't Know Won't Hurt You," American Philosophical Quarterly vol. 13 (April 1976): 1-3; D. M. Armstrong, Belief, Truth and Knowledge (London: Cambridge Press, 1973) 182; Roderick Firth, "Are Epistemic Concepts Reducible to Ethical Ones?" in Values and Morals, eds. Alvin Goldman and Jagwon Kim (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1978) 215-29; L. Bonjour, "Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge," in Midwest Studies in Epistemology, vol. 5, eds. Peter French et al. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980): 1-40; Frederick Schmitt, "Reliability, Objectivity and the Background of Justification," Australasian Journal of Philosophy vol. 62 (March 1984): 1-15; Hilary Kornblith, "Beyond Foundationalism and the Coherence Theory," Journal of Philosophy vol. 77 (Sept. 1980): 597-610; and William Alston, "What's Wrong With Immediate Knowledge?" Synthese vol. 55 (April 1983): 73-96. Alston, incidentally, does not offer his reliabilism as an account of justification. For Alston (unlike Goldman) a person need not have justification for a belief in order for it to be an item of knowledge; it need only be the product of a reliable belief-making process. For a critique of Alston's vision see Carl Ginet, "Contra Reliabilism," Monist vol. 68 (April 1985): 175-S7. Non-justificationist views of reliability will be examined in the next chapter where it will be argued that such analyses cannot plausibly be regarded as non-justificationist unless one erroneously believes that justification is not an activity of providing answers to the question "How do you know?" 14. Alvin Goldman, Epistemology and Cognition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985) 57. 15. Carl Ginet, "Contra Reliabilism," Monist (Oct. 1984): 180. For other examples similar to the Aunt Hattie example see bibliographical items under Richard Foley, Richard Feldman, Fred Dretske, and Hilary Putnam. 16. John Pollock, "Reliability and Justified Belief," Canadian Journal of Philosophy vol. 14 (March 1984): 104. 17. Laurence Bonjour, "Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge," in Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol 5. eds. P. French, T. E. Uehling Jr., and H. K. Wettstein (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980), 53-73.

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18. Marshall Swain, "Justification, Reasons and Reliability," Synthese 64 (July 1985): 89. 19. The only philosopher who seems to have felt this problem is William Alston, who, in examining Bonjour's counterexample, says: "Next he (Bonjour) more boldly argues that in the case in which the subject has no reasons for or against the reliability of her powers or the truth of the belief (whether or not she believes that the powers are reliable), she is not justified in holding the beliefs, however reliable her clairvoyant powers are in fact. However, these 'arguments' simply consist in Bonjour displaying his intuitions in opposition to those of his opponent." (See "Internalism and Externalism in Epistemology," Philosophical Topics vol. 14 (1986): 189-90.) 20. Alvin Goldman, Epistemology and Cognition (Princeton, N.J.; Princeton University Press, 1987) 75-77. 21. See R. Almeder, "Basic Knowledge," Canadian Journal of Philosophy vol. 13 (1983): 115-27. 22. For a similar argument, see George Pappas, "Lost Justification," Midwest Studies in Philosophy vol. 5 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980). 23. Alvin Goldman, "Reply to Almeder and Hogg," Philosophia vol. 19 nos. 2-3 (Oct. 1989) 309-11. 24. Alvin Goldman, "Strong and Weak Justification" Philosophical Perspectives vol. 2 (June 1988) 59. 25. Goldman notes that this objection has been raised by a number of writers, including John Pollock in "Reliability and Justified Belief," Canadian Journal of Philosophy vol. 14 (March 1984): 103-14; Stuart Cohen in "Justification and Truth," (Philosophical Studies vol. 44 (April 1984): 27995; Lehrer and Cohen in "Justification, Truth and Coherence," Synthese vol. 55 (1983): 191-207; Carl Ginet in "Contra Reliabilism," (Monist, vol. 68 (June 1985): 175-87; Richard Foley in "What's Wrong with Reliabilism" Monist vol. 68 (June 1985) 175-87); and Steven Luper-Foy in "The Reliabilist Theory of Rational Belief," Monist vol. 68 (June 1985) 203-25. 26. "What is Justified Belief?" in Justification and Knowledge, ed. George Pappas (Dordrecht, Holland: Reidel Publishing Company, 1979), 3. 27. See William Alston, "Epistemic Circularity," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research vol. 47 (Sept. 1986): 16. See also Alston, "Internalism and Externalism," 194 and 217. 28. William Alston, "Internalism and Externalism," 191. 29. William Alston, "Epistemic Circularity," 16 and Alston, "An Internalist Externalism," Epistemic Justification (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990).

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30. See Alston, "Internalism and Externalism," 190. 31. Ibid., 196. 32. Ibid., 217, n.45. See also Alston, "What's Wrong with Immediate Knowledge?" Synthese vol. 55 (April 1983): 73-96. 33. See Marshall Swain, "Justification, Reasons and Reliability," 76 and D. Armstrong, Belief, Truth and Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 166. 34. Carl Ginet, "Contra Reliabilism," 181. 35. When criticizing Alston's reliabilism, Marshall Swain, in his paper "Internalistic Externalism" (Philosophical Perspectives 2, Epistemology (June 1988» offers as a counterexample to Alston's definition of justification the mystic who manages to satisfy Alston's definition. He then says: Why are we inclined to deny justification for the mystic's belief even though (as we have imagined) the grounds are objectively reliable? A plausible explanation is that the mystic is defective in an important way as a belief-forming mechanism. The mystic is unable to provide even the slightest proof, or any shred of evidence, of the adequacy of his grounds for belief in a supreme being. And yet the mystic is prepared to believe on the basis ofthose grounds. A subj ect who is so disposed is (I submit) defective as a cognizer. If consistently followed, the strategy of believing on the basis of grounds for which you have no indication of reliability would not be truth conducive. The objective reliability of the mystic's grounds is overridden by his tendency to believe on the basis of evidence whose truth-conduciveness is completely unestablished. (p. 471)

Presumably, Alston will regard Swain's counterexample as a blatant questionbegging move based on the assumption that justification sometimes requires providing reasons or a proof that one's beliefs are reliable, truth conducive, or otherwise rationally justified. Indeed, Alston would claim that if everything he has said about justification, and especially about the non-necessity of showing that one is justified in one's beliefs, is correct, what follows is that the mystic's beliefs certainly can be justified. As a matter of fact, that is precisely the point of Alston's paper "Perceiving God" (Journal of Philosophy, vol. 48 (Oct. 1986) 655-66). It is difficult to see how Swain can succeed in his repudiation of the justifiedness of mystical claims without first establishing more fully the view that it is at least sometimes necessary and sufficient for justification that one be able to give persuasive reasons for what one believes. At that point, however, it would be difficult to see how Swain could any longer be a reliabilist. 36. In arguing against this particular objection, Ginet simply argues that belief-formation certainly can be formed by extrinsic motivation forces. The basic point here, of course, is that if anybody is to attack successfully the interpersonalist position for the reason that nobody ever forms a belief

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in such a way that he or she is responsible, then the argument they give will need to establish the general thesis that determinism is true. But arguing for such a thesis makes no sense unless one assumes that justification is normative and, by implication, that one has it in one's power either to accept or not accept the thesis. Otherwise, it isn't an argument. See Ginet, "Contra Reliabilism," 182. 37. Ibid., 181. 38. For a defense of the view that there is some knowledge that is not justified, see my "Basic Knowledge and Justification," Canadian Journal of Philosophy vol. 13 (March 1983): 115-27; and Ernest Sosa, "The Virtue of Coherence and the Coherence of Virtue," Synthese vol. 64 (July 1985); I've also omitted discussing an argument offered by Alston to show that one can know without being justified; the argument is criticized by Ginet in "Contra ReliabiIism," 181. 39. Ginet, "Contra Reliabilism," 181. 40. See Alston, "Epistemic Circularity," 16ff. 41. See, for example, Richard Foley, "Epistemic Luck and the Purely Epistemic," American Philosophical Quarterly vol. 21 (April 1984): 123, n.1. 42. Goldman, Epistemology and Cognition, 55. 43. For other arguments purporting to show that the classical definition is not invalidated by Gettier-type counterexamples see, for example, I. Thalberg,"ln Defense of Justified True Belief," Journal of Philosophy vol. 66 (May 1969): 794-803; see also David Coder's reply "Thalberg's Defense of Justified True Belief," Journal of Philosophy vol. 67, no. 12 (Oct. 1970): 424-25; Irving Thalberg, "Is Justification Transmissible Through Deduction?" Philosphical Studies vol. 25 (March 1974): 347-56; John Dreher, "Evidence and Justified Belief," Philosophical Studies vol. 25 (April 1974): 435-39; Charles Pailthorpe, "Knowledge as Justified True Belief," Review of Metaphysics (Sept. 1969): 1-18; Fred Dretske, "Conclusive Reasons,"Australasian Journal of Philosophy (May 1971): 1-22; and W. W. Rozeboom, "Why I Know So Much More Than You Do," American Philosophical Quarterly vol. 4 (1967): 281-90. Also R. K. Shope, in "Knowledge and Falsity," Philosphical Studies vol. 40 (Nov. 1979): 37-46, urges that justifications will be adequate for knowledge if false propositions cannot be justified. That conclusion would undermine the grounds for accepting the counterexamples, however; and Shope does accept the counterexamples. 44. For an interesting discussion and attack on this development, see Nicholas Rescher, Scepticism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980). One of Rescher's theses is that the sceptic should be faulted for adopting the impossibly

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idealized concept of knowledge (the strong sense of 'knows') and ignoring the less than idealized concept (the 'weak' sense of 'knows') which is perfectly suitable for human purposes. For Rescher, the sceptic feeds on that concept of knowledge which has no real instances in this world and ignores the concept of knowledge that does have instances in this world.

CHAPTER THREE

BASIC KNOWLEDGE

In this chapter I shall define the concept of basic knowledge and propose a criterion for it. The view defended here is that basic knowledge exists and is nothing more than a species of true belief, a species that does not require the satisfaction of any evidence condition. There would be little value in arguing this last point if it were not for the fact that most, if not all, current analyses of basic knowledge insist that basic knowledge, like all knowledge, requires the satisfaction of some evidence condition. Indeed, this latter view is something of an indefensible epistemological dogma. Moreover, in seeking to defend what amounts to a moderate foundationalism, or a fallibilistic understanding of basic knowledge, we will confront the question of how a basic proposition can be both basically known and fallible. Others, such as Peirce and Austin, have argued for a moderate foundationalism, a foundationalism that admits the existence of basic knowledge (rather than basic non-inferential beliefs), denies the necessity of an evidence condition, and hesitates to characterize the propositions basically known in terms of propositions whose truth values are in principle immune to revision. They failed, however, to show how propositions so known can also be fallible. BASIC VIEWS ON BASIC KNOWLEDGE Aristotle's Argument and the Denial of an Evidence Condition or Basic Knowledge

The distinction between basic knowledge and non-basic knowledge goes back as far as Aristotle who, in Book I of Posterior Analytics, argued that 103

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because we do have demonstrative knowledge, knowledge produced by inference from other known premises, we must also have non-demonstrative knowledge, knowledge not produced by inference from other known premises. Aristotle reasoned that this must be the case because if one is to know the conclusion of a demonstration he must first know the premises of the demonstration. If the premises of any demonstration are knowable only if always demonstrable by appeal to other known propositions as evidence, then knowing the conclusion of any demonstration would require passing through an infinite series of demonstrable premises. So, because we cannot pass through an infinite series, and because we do have demonstrable knowledge, there must be some knowledge which is not demonstrable by appeal to other known premises. 1 This argument is sound. Also, because the justification of all demonstrative knowledge must ultimately rest on evidence statements that are known but which cannot be consciously inferred from other known premises, basic knowledge may properly be called 'foundational'. It provides the evidential base without which there could be no non-basic knowledge and from which we generate the known evidence requisite for all demonstrative knowledge. At the outset, two considerations should attend any discussion of Aristotle's argument. First, contemporary philosophers who accept Aristotle's argument seldom take it to imply a repudiation of the necessity for an evidence condition for basic knowledge. Rather they take it as a repudiation of a specific kind of evidence condition. Basic knowledge, they say, like all knowledge, requires the satisfaction of some evidence condition or some justification condition; but the satisfaction is not to be sought by way of demonstration from other known propositions as premises. So, they urge, these basically known propositions satisfy their evidence condition when they are properly described under any of the following locutions: immediately justified, self-justified, directly justified, non-inferentially justified, immediately evident, self-evident, directly evident, immediately warranted, self-warranted, directly warranted, or non-inferentially warranted. 2 But not all those who insist on the satisfaction of some evidence condition would so characterize their position. Some would urge that basic knowledge satisfies its evidence condition only when it is warranted as the product of a reliable belief-making mechanism. 3 Others would argue that the condition is satisfied only when what we assert as known is fully authorized (or evidentially warranted) as reliable by some regulative principle of the language, a principle that is itself evidentially justified on pragmatic or other grounds. 4 Whichever of these proposals one may favor, each requires that basic knowledge, or basic propositions not inferred from other known propositions, must satisfy some evidence or justification condition in addition to being true and believed. Oddly enough, even those who, like Alston, Sellars, Armstrong, and Goldman, hold out for a non-justi-

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ficationist view of knowledge by ostensibly rejecting a justification condition and requiring instead some evidence of reliability, do not in fact reject an evidence condition. They reject only a certain kind of evidence or justification condition, namely, the kind that an appeal to other known propositions as evidence satisfies. Indeed, if they did not insist upon some evidence condition, what would be the point behind insisting that basic knowledge claims be authorized as reliable for the purpose of being rationally worthy of acceptance? All such views notwithstanding, we have good reason to think that Aristotle's argument (whether he intended it or not) should be taken to imply that basic knowledge differs from non-basic knowledge in that the latter does, whereas the former does not, require the satisfaction of an evidence condition. Naturally, this claim requires some defending. Basic knowledge does not require the satisfaction of any evidence condition because we need an evidence condition only when the question "How do you know?" (understood as a request for justification and not as a request for the causes of one's belief) makes sense. This latter question makes sense only when some real (and not merely logical) possibility of error or deceit attends the knowledge claim. Where no real possibility of error exists, where doubting a person's knowledge claim would be unintelligible, we have no need to determine whether the knowledge claim is a valid one. Hence we have no need to provide a condition the satisfaction of which would provide an acceptable answer to the question "How do you know?" In other words, the general need for an evidence condition is predicated upon the assumption that the question "How do you know?" would always be a reasonable question to ask of someone who claimed to know something or other, and that if a person could not always answer that question his knowledge claim would not be valid. 5 But if the question "How do you know?" should turn out to be an unreasonable question to ask of someone who claims to know something or other, then we would have no need for an evidence condition at all. John Austin, among others, made this last point when he pointed to the oddity (absurdity) of my asking someone how he knows that he sees a pig when the pig is standing slap before the both of us. 6 On Austin's view, we only ask for evidence, and it only makes sense to ask for evidence, when some reasonable grounds for doubting a person's knowledge claim present themselves. Without such real doubt on the part of the questioner, the question "How do you know?" would be totally unjustified. It would reflect a misuse of language, hence a misunderstanding of the concept of evidence and knowledge. The connection between Austin and Aristotle now becomes clear. Aristotle's argument sustains the view that asking the question "How do

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you know?" must come to an end and when it does, given Austin's reflections, so also does the need for an evidence condition of any kind. To this same end we could readily bypass Austin and appeal to an argument offered by Charles Peirce. He argued that the question "How do you know?" cannot be asked indefinitely and that sooner or later the questioning must stop with the answer "I know but 1 cannot say how 1 know" or "This mode of inference, or proposition, 1 cannot honestly doubt" (6.498; 5.419).7 Peirce's argument implies that if we are to avoid the infinite regress of justifications we must come to some knowledge without justification. These items of knowledge render meaningless the question "How do you know?" because they are at present, and in the context at hand, beyond all real and honest doubt. Justifications and evidence bearing must stop with propositions free of all real doubt and such propositions are perfectly acceptable in any line of inference that we call a demonstration (6.498). Thus, even if Austin had not made the point that he did, Peirce's view would show that in order to avoid the infinite regress we must come to a kind of knowledge that makes unnecessary the satisfaction of an evidence condition, because the question "How do you know?" at that point becomes meaningless. In short, Peirce adopted Aristotle's argument for the existence of basic knowledge and understood it to repudiate any evidence condition and not simply an evidence condition satisfiable by appeal to other known propositions. 8 Before confronting some objections it will be helpful to state in propositional form, and to defend briefly, the two arguments emerging from this present discussion urging that basic knowledge does not require the satisfaction of any evidence condition. The first argument is this. PI. Aristotle's argument establishes the existence of a class of propositions that are known but not demonstrable by appeal to other known propositions as evidence. P2. If a person knows that p, and p is not demonstrable by appeal to other known propositions as evidence, then that person's assertion that p does not reasonably admit of the response "How do you know?" P3. If a person knows that p, and that person's assertion that p does not reasonabl y admit of the response "How do you know?", then propositions exist that we know but that do not satisfy any evidence or justification condition at all. Therefore, Propositions exist that we know but that do not satisfy any evidence or justification condition at all.

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Aristotle's argument itself counts as evidence for PI. As evidence for P2 we observe that if a proposition is both known and indemonstrable by appeal to other known propositions, then the question "How do you know?" asked of that proposition is pointless because it cannot be answered. The evidence for P3 consists in the truth of the claim that the evidence condition (or the justification condition) for knowledge exists for the sole purpose of answering the question "How do you know?" We would not require of valid knowledge claims that they satisfy an evidence condition (or a justification condition) unless there were some reasonable grounds for asking the question "How do you know?" Thus, where such reasonable grounds are absent (as indeed they would be if there were no reasonable grounds to doubt a claim, or if the question could not be answered), we have no need to satisfy an evidence condition. Peirce's argument that in any line of justification the questioner must come to an end by accepting propositions for which there is not real doubt, as well as Austin's example about the pig, supports the claim that a person can know that p even though we possess no reasonable grounds to ask "How do you know?" The second argument is this. PI. A valid claim to know that p must satisfy an evidence (or justification) condition only if the question "How do you know?" would make sense if asked of the person claiming to know that p. P2. It would make sense to ask the question "How do you know that p?" of someone claiming to know that p only if there were some real (and not merely logical) possibility that the person making the claim could be in error with respect to the claim that p. P3. There is some real possibility of error with respect to the claim that p only if there is some reasonable grounds for doubting that p. P4. Hence, a valid claim to know that p must satisfy an evidence (or justification) condition only if there is some reasonable grounds for doubting that p. PS. But some knowledge claims are such that under certain conditions there are no reasonable grounds to doubt them. Therefore,

Some valid claims to know that p need not satisfy an evidence (or justification) condition.

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The evidence for PI in this argument is, once again, the fact that the evidence (ot justification) condition exists solely for the purpose of answering the question "How do you know?" Similarly, with regard to the evidence for P2, it would make no sense to ask that question if there were no real possibility that the person claiming to know that p could be in error with respect to the claim that P3 is obvious and P4 follows trivially. Evidence for P5 can be seen in Austin's example about the pig. 9 Finally, those who believe that Aristotle's argument does not rule against an evidence condition for basic knowledge but rather rules against a specific kind of evidence condition (the one satisfiable by appeal to other known propositions as evidence), generally either specify their evidence condition in such a way that it amounts to a denial of an evidence condition or specify it in such a way that it implies the existence of the very kind of evidence condition they ex professo reject. For example, we noted above that analyses rejecting an evidence condition satisfiable in terms of other known propositions frequently talk about basically known propositions as 'self-evident', or 'self-warranted', or 'self-justified'. But the problem with all such locutions is that, if they mean anything at all, they seem to indicate that propositions so characterized are known immediately, that is, known without benefit of evidence. An evidence condition is not satisfied by something being self-evident because, as Austin tells us, if it is selfevident it does not need evidence to be known. Surely if some proposition were self-evident, nobody would ask "How do you know?" If anyone did, then the proposition would not be self-evident. And, surely, an evidence condition so specified amounts to a de facto denial of an evidence condition while appearing to retain one. On the other hand, those analyses that retain an evidence condition, but are not defective for the reasons just stated, usually insist on an evidence condition, the satisfaction of which will confer reliability, and hence validity, on the basic knowledge claim. Armstrong, for example, insists that there must be a law-like connection between a person's believing that p and that which makes p true in order that one's true belief that p be an instance of basic knowledge (Belief, Truth and Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973) 168). Alvin Goldman (along with others) insists on a form of non-inferential justification such that, in addition to being true and believed, one's claim to know is an instance of basic knowledge just in case a reliable beliefmaking mechanism generates the belief.!O However, these latter proposals function in a problematic way by attempting to provide evidence to answer the question "How do you know?" As such, the concern to be able to provide evidence for distinguishing between valid basic knowledge claims and invalid ones generates them; hence they serve to provide an answer for the question "How do you know?" And does not this concern presuppose just what Aristotle, in effect, argued against, namely,

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that basic knowledge claims must be able to provide an answer to the "How do you know?" question if they are to be valid instances of knowledge? As a matter of fact, it is difficult to see how anybody could consistently accept Aristotle's argument for the existence of basic knowledge and then define basic knowledge in such a way that a basic knowledge claim, in order to be a valid one, must (in addition to being true and believed) be capable of being evidentially vindicated or warranted by appeal to some reliability test or rule. Basic knowledge is basic just because it does not admit of evidential validation by appeal to any rule, principle, or proposition providing a suitable answer to the question "How do you know?" Indeed, the core point of Aristotle's argument is that basic knowledge is just the kind of knowledge for which the question "How do you know?" makes no sense in the context at hand, and thus is the kind of knowledge for which the specification of an evidence condition would be inconsistent. Incidentally, it seems indubitable that the primary motivation behind analyses of basic knowledge that require some evidence condition is the premise that true belief is just not enough for knowledge. To be sure, true belief is not enough for knowledge-provided the question "How do you know?" makes sense. However, Austin, Peirce, and Aristotle make the point that if there is to be any demonstrative knowledge at all, we cannot assume, and should not assume, that the question always makes sense; and where it does not, we have no need of an evidence condition. Some philosophers, moreover, have argued that we open ourselves to the irrationality of sheer dogmatism if we allow that a knowledge claim could be valid without its having to satisfy an evidence condition. l l However, as long as we insist on the existence of demonstrative knowledge, and that this knowledge is distinct from reasonable belief (which does not require truth), all such objections simply beg the question against Aristotle's argument. Aristotle, like Peirce and Austin, was arguing by implication that one of the requirements for rationality consists in recognizing that the giving of reasons for what one claims to know must come to an end in simple true beliefs for which the question "How do you know?" has no answer because, given the context at hand, it is not really doubtful. In spite of its currency, then, characterizing this position as sheer dogmatism requires some proof, and failure to provide it renders the characterization a question-begging move. Later we shall again discuss the problems attending a definition of knowledge that does not require the specification of an evidence condition. For now, however, and for the reasons just stated, the validity of Aristotle's argument for the existence of basic knowledge does not require and does not allow that basic knowledge be defined in a way that includes the specification of an evidence condition in addition to the truth and the belief conditions. Non-inferential knowledge, basic

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knowledge, does not require any justification validation or vindication by appeal to any principle, rule, or proposition satisfying an evidence condition. At this point it is question-begging to urge that in adopting such a definition we are open to the objection of being irrational or dogmatic. The Wlttgensteln and Dewey ReJoinder: Basic Beliefs Are Privileged But Not Known

The second consideration that should attend any discussion of Aristotle's argument is that some philosophers erroneously deny a crucial premise in the argument and, as a result, end up with a privileged (or foundational) class of propositions while denying the existence of basic knowledge. Wittgenstein and Dewey, for example, both held to the view that there is a class of propositions the doubting of which would be unintelligible and, furthermore, that these propositions function legitimately as premises or evidence in demonstrations. But they both deny, for different reasons in each case, that these propositions are known. For Wittgenstein, saying "I know" just means that 1 could, if pressed, give reasons for what 1 claim to know, and if 1 could not answer the question "How do you know?" it is meaningless to say that 1 know: One says 'I know' when one is ready to give compelling grounds. 'I know'relates to a possibility of demonstrating the truth. Whether someone knows something can come to light, assuming that he is convinced of it. (On Certainty, 32e) On this reasoning, those propositions that need to serve as evidence in a demonstration, but which themselves are not capable of being demonstrated by appeal to any other known propositions, are privileged in being beyond doubt. But, for that very reason it would be a misuse of language (and hence false) to characterize such propositions as either known or not knownP Dewey, of course, would allow such propositions to serve as evidence in a demonstration but not allow that such propositions be known. He does so because he stipulatively defines as a requirement of rationality that knowledge be restricted to what is demonstrable by appeal to evidence or to what is the product of inquiry.13 Whatever their reasons, both Wittgenstein and Dewey are committed to the view that where the question "How do you know?" is not proper, or cannot be answered by appeal to other known propositions, then knowledge cannot be present. They both accept some species of the regress argument terminating in basic beliefs which serve as evidence for demonstrative conclusions. Those basic propositions for which one cannot give evidence are not known but serve as evidence for what is known. Hence Dewey and Wittgenstein deny Aristotle's premise that one must know the premises of a demonstration in order to know the demonstrated conclusion. As a result, they end up

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with a class of propositions that are privileged but not known. By way of criticizing this view, it simply will not do to say that this position erroneously assumes that the question "How do you know?" is always a proper response to a knowledge claim. It will not do because if one were to claim to know that p, and also claim that his knowledge did not require the giving of evidence, then the predictable Wittgensteinian response would be that the person certainly did not know what he claimed to know, that he is misusing language and thereby deceiving himself into thinking that he knows something when in fact he does not. Nor is it likely that Dewey would take kindly to the idea that his position assumes that all knowledge is demonstrative. He would claim that such a requirement is a necessary condition for human rationality and for avoiding dogmatism. Critique of the Wittgenstein and Dewey Thesis

Ultimately, however, Wittgenstein and Dewey err by denying what Aristotle asserts when he says that in order to know the conclusion of a demonstration one must know the premises. On Wittgenstein's and Dewey's view, the class of propositions that are privileged in being beyond doubt, but not known, can and do serve as premises in demonstrations. And the mistake in denying what Aristotle asserts here is that if these privileged propositions could serve as evidence, then what is allegedly demonstrated by them could not be known if they are not knowl1 but only true and believed. This occurs because if a person claims to know that p on the basis of his belief that q, then q must be known if p is to be known, otherwise we allow that knowledge can be generated from true belief; and this would undermine the logical difference between knowledge and belief. In other words, if Wittgenstein and Dewey were right, then a person could be said to know that p on the basis of his evidence that q, but he would not be required to know that his evidence is true. It would be enough for him to believe that q. If Wittgenstein and Dewey were right about this, then demonstrative knowledge would not, indeed could not, exist because there would be something in the conclusion (knowledge) that is not in the premises. How could a demonstrative conclusion be known on the basis of premises only believed? If p represents my sole reason for thinking that q, then I cannot know that q unless I know that p. So, if demonstrative knowledge exists, the premises upon which it is based must be known. 14 Hence, it is difficult to see how the Wittgensteinian and Deweyan view is consistent with the existence of any knowledge at all. We can avoid this sceptical conclusion only by arguing that demonstrative knowledge is not logically distinct from true belief; for only on that ground could it be denied that there is something in the conclusion of a demonstration that is not in the premises when the premises are not known but only believed and true. However, it is unlikely that Wittgensteinians

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(or Deweyans, for that matter) would be comfortable with the position that no real distinction exists between demonstrative knowledge and true belief. Against this line of reasoning, however, Wittgensteinians usually argue that one does not need to know the premises of a demonstration in order to know the conclusion. After all, why can we not say that demonstrative knowledge is simply the product of conscious inference from reasons or beliefs that are beyond doubt? We can properly reply to this objection by asserting that if we construed demonstrative knowledge as the product of inference from propositions beyond doubt (but not known), then our belief that what is demonstrated by these propositions is knowledge would be arbitrary because it could equally well be argued that what is demonstrated by these propositions is what is beyond doubt but not known. In short, if we took this objection seriously, we would have no reason for thinking that what is demonstrated from premises beyond doubt is knowledge rather than simply what is beyond doubt. We might of course call it knowledge, but the point is that we would be no more justified in calling it that than in calling it belief beyond doubt. Indeed, unless the premises of a demonstration are known we would have no reason for thinking that the conclusion demonstrated is known. Of course, some people think that we can know the conclusion of a demonstration without knowing the premises because the very act of demonstrating the conclusion provides it with something not in the premises, namely, certainty. Presumably, if we were to accept this explanation, we would also need to accept the view that the very act of drawing an inference or demonstrating a conclusion confers evidential certainty on the inference drawn or on the conclusion demonstrated. But what reason do we have for thinking that a demonstration adds the note of certainty to the conclusion drawn from the premises rather than merely expresses what is implicit in the premises? Traditionally, and for various persuasive reasons, philosophers have viewed the act of successfully demonstrating a conclusion as the act of rendering explicit what is implied by the premises. If we are to ignore that view in the interest of endorsing the Wittgensteinian and the Deweyan position, some reason needs to be given for setting aside the traditional view favoring the belief that the act of demonstrating a conclusion adds nothing to the conclusion not implied in the premises. Neither Wittgenstein nor Dewey offered such a reason, and it is hard to see what the reason might be. Another objection to Aristotle's premise to the effect that one must know the premises of a demonstration in order to know the conclusion would consist in urging that Aristotle equivocates on 'knows' in the premise. On this objection, if Aristotle's argument is sound, then 'knows' means

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something quite different when it applies to a conclusion demonstrated from previously known premises than it does when it refers to premises known but not demonstrated. In the former case, it is part of the meaning of 'knows', that knowledge be evidence-based or justified; whereas in the latter case it is part of the meaning of 'knows' that knowledge not be evidence-based or justified. Thus, so the objection goes, Aristotle's argument for the existence of basic knowledge is sound only if he equivocates in one of the premises. IS This objection, of course, could not arise unless one construed basic knowledge as a kind of knowledge that does not require the satisfaction of an evidence condition. However, among the reasons indicating that this last is not a telling objection, it should suffice to note that Aristotle would be guilty of the suggested equivocation only if his argument for the existence of basic knowledge established that in every case where one knows the premise of an argument, that knowledge is not evidence-based. But Aristotle's argument does not imply as much. It only establishes that if there is any demonstrative knowledge at all, there must be some premises that are known without evidence. So, rather than say that Aristotle's argument establishes an equivocation on the sense of 'knows' in one of his premises, it appears that the argument establishes that the sense in which one knows the conclusion of a demonstration differs from the sense in which one knows a premise that is not a conclusion. Given the above considerations, then, it would appear that Aristotle's argument establishes the existence of a kind of knowledge, basic or nondemonstrative knowledge, the definition of which does not require the specification of any evidence condition. Further, that the propositions so established by the argument could be privileged, but not known, for the reason that there is no evidence condition for them, would entail wholesale scepticism or would undermine the basic distinction between knowledge and belief. Moreover, one removes the charge of dogmatism as soon as one sees that the charge itself begs the question against Aristotle's argument, which entails that rationality requires that there be knowledge without evidence.

The Absurdity of Denying the Existence of Both Basic and Non-Basic Knowledge Notice also that rejecting the distinction between basic and non-basic knowledge entails that either all knowledge is basic or all knowledge is non-basic. But if all knowledge were basic (and not in need of justification by appeal to evidence), then we would have no way to adjudicate epistemological differences where there is some real doubt about whether a person knows what she claims to know. After all, if all knowledge were

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basic, then where there is real doubt about what a person claims to know, the question "How do you know?" could admit of only one kind of answer, namely, "Why, I see that it is so." And, for the person asking the question, this provides no answer at all because his doubt is presumably predicated on the fact that he cannot simply see the truth, and hence his doubt is not likely to be allayed or even touched by such an answer. Indeed, if all knowledge were basic, then there would be no way to resolve epistemological differences and thus avoid the conclusion that, when in doubt, any claim is as good (or as bad) as another. On the other hand, if, for any reason at all, we were to conclude that all knowledge is non-basic, as is asserted in the Wittgensteinian and Deweyan thesis discussed above, then because one must know the premises of a demonstration in order to know the conclusion, one would need to pass through an infinite series of demonstrable premises to know anything at all. In short, rejecting the distinction between basic and non-basic knowledge entails scepticism. If possible, scepticism should be avoided. The Basic Positions on Basic Knowledge: Wholesale Rejection, Qualified Acceptance Without the Distinction Between Basic and Non-Basic Knowledge, and Fallibilistic Foundationalism

But, independently of the reasons offered by such philosophers as Wittgenstein and Dewey, the distinction has been attacked and, in some quarters, rejected outright because of the difficulties involved in characterizing the status of the propositions basically known. Following Aristotle's lead, many have urged that the unique feature of basically known propositions is their certainty-meaning thereby that the truth value assigned to these propositions is in principle immune to revision for any reason whatever. But, for various reasons, a number of philosophers have come to reject the view that there are propositions that are certain in the sense just noted. In so doing, these latter philosophers (revisionistic epistemologists) have usually felt warranted in abandoning the belief that basic knowledge exists-as though the existence of basic knowledge essentially depends on its being uniquely characterized in terms of propositions that are in principle immune to truth value revision. Wilfrid Sellars, for example, has argued that "empirical knowledge, like its sophisticated extension, science, is rational not because it has a foundation but because it is a selfcorrecting enterprise which can put any claim in jeopardy though not all at once."16 This constitutes a wholesale rejection of basic knowledge or any classical foundational view of knowledge. The prime reason for the rejection apparently derives from the conviction that, if we are to avoid

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dogmatism and foster a fallibilistic or revisionistic epistemology, then there cannot be any propositions that are unimpeachable in principle. Others, like Popper and Price, urge that there is basic knowledge, that knowledge does have a foundation, but take exception to the view that the distinguishing characteristic of basic knowledge is its certainty. On their view, foundational knowledge is foundational not because it consists of certain propositions but because it consists of propositions logically first in any line of conscious inference and that do not admit of justification in terms of other known propositions as evidence. Popper has called these foundational propositions 'conventions' that are to be accepted as long as we have no good reason to call them into doubt. I7 If nothing else, this position has the merit of not confusing the argument for the existence of basic knowledge with an argument for characterizing the basically known propositions as certain. Rejecting the latter argument does not require rejecting the former. Rejecting the First Two Views on Basic Knowledge

But even if we grant that no certain propositions exist, still, serious problems attend both the position adopted by Sellars and the position adopted by people such as Popper and Price. On the one hand, if we opt for the Sellarsian approach, we can no longer endorse the distinction between basic and non-basic knowledge, and where we reject this distinction we cannot avoid the previously noted sceptical implications. IS On the other hand, if, with someone such as Popper, we hold that knowledge does have foundations but that the foundations represent only impeachable conventions, we are still at a loss to preserve the distinction between basic and non-basic knowledge because, presumably, a convention is more like an inference ticket than a true proposition; and if basic knowledge is knowledge in any sense of 'knows', it must be of propositions that are true. Put slightly differently, if our granting that there are no certain propositions requires our acceptance of either what I shall call the Sellarsian or the Popperian position, then we shall have thrown out the baby of knowledge along with the bathwater of certainty. Accordingly, in the interest of keeping the baby, I shall here offer and defend a third position that rejects the view that there are certain propositions and yet avoids rejecting the distinction between basic and non-basic knowledge. Fallibillstic Foundationalism: Its Nature and the Blueprint for Its Defense

This third position is more like Popper's than Sellars's because it asserts that knowledge does have foundations, although the foundational

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beliefs are fallible and subject to revision. The sense in which they are foundational is only the sense in which they are logically first in any line of conscious inference and, as such, do not admit of justification in terms of other known propositions. Unlike Popper's view, however, this third position asserts that although these foundational beliefs are fallible and subject to revision, they are nonetheless true (in a sense to be specified) and not mere conventions. Other philosophers, such as Peirce and Austin, have argued for a species of moderate foundationalism, a foundationalism that while admitting the existence of basic knowledge, eschews Cartesian certainty (logical certainty) along with the necessity for any evidence condition. While I seek to defend this same position, it requires defending three theses. First, Aristotle's argument for the existence of basic knowledge is sound. Second, defining basic knowledge without the inclusion of an evidence condition is not open to the common objection that knowledge is more than true belief. Both of these theses have already been established above. Third, basic knowledge is fallible but does not require the satisfaction of an evidence condition. This last thesis needs defending because, given what we have already argued above, fallibilism minimally extends to the thesis that for any basically known proposition the truth value assigned to that proposition is subject to revision in the light of changes in the nature or amount of future evidence. The problem here rests on the difficulty in seeing how a proposition can be basically known without the satisfaction of an evidence condition and yet be subject to recall as an item of knowledge because of some change in the nature and amount of some body of evidence. How, after all, could a valid basic knowledge claim be fallible if it is not falsifiable, which it apparently could not be if basic knowledge does not require the satisfaction of any evidence condition in addition to being true and believed? Anyone who would avoid scepticism and hold to a revisionist epistemology must answer this question. Because, as we shall see, this last question can be fully answered only after a more general consideration of how a basically known proposition can be both true and fallible, we can embark upon this latter discussion first. Thereafter I will offer a definition of basic knowledge, provide a criterion for it, and seek to answer potential objections to the form of foundationalism here developed. In the end, if I can defend this third position (as thus far described) it would have the virtue of showing us how to avoid the scepticism that results from denying the distinction between basic and nonbasic knowledge without espousing the view that basic knowledge is to be described in terms of foundational beliefs of Cartesian certainty. Those contemporary analytic epistemologists who eschew Cartesian foundations in the name of rationality and revisionistic (fallibilistic) epistemology have

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also consistently assumed that basic knowledge requires the satisfaction of some evidence condition in addition to true belief; and thus, as we have seen, they need to deny the distinction between basic and non-basic knowledge. Denying that distinction makes scepticism easy; but one cannot justify the denial if Aristotle's argument, as urged above, is sound. DEFENDING FALLIBILISTIC FOUNDATIONALISM How Can Basic Knowledge Be True But Fallibly Known?: A Rationale for the Question

How then can a proposition which is basically known be both true and fallibly known? This may seem an uninteresting question because it seemingly admits of a fairly quick answer, namely, a basically known proposition is both true and fallibly known inasmuch as the truth value assigned to it is subject to revision for some reason or other. This, however, would be a facile answer. We generally grant that in any non-jocular sense of 'knows', the expression "I know that p" cannot be coupled consistently with "but I may be mistaken" because saying "I know that p" offers a guarantee, which saying "but I may be mistaken" withdraws. Even more fundamentally, in saying "I know that p" I assert that p is true, that what p describes is the case. The addition of "but I may be mistaken" withdraws this assertion and amounts to saying simultaneously that p is true but possibly not true. But the statement p is either true or false; it cannot be both true and possibly false for the reason that the state of affairs described by p either is or is not the case-it cannot straightforwardly be both the case and possibly not the case. If this line of reasoning is correct, then, given what we usually mean by 'knows', the fallibilist would appear to be committed to a contradiction. As we saw in our last chapter, to save fallibilism the fallibilist must find some way to read sentences such as "I know that p, but I may be mistaken" without contradiction and without abandoning truth as a necessary condition for knowledge. If what is fallibly known is nonetheless knowledge, it must be true; and if what is fallibly known is liable to error, the liability to error must be explained in some way consistent with keeping the truth condition. Can a fallibilist who believes that we have knowledge and that all knowledge is true find some way of specifying the way in which knowledge is liable to error, without at the same time abandoning truth as a necessary condition for knowledge? In short, how can basic knowledge be both true and fallibly known? At first glance, one may be tempted to think that the sense in which one may be mistaken about what one basically knows amounts to nothing

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more than that the proposition so known is one whose denial is logically non-contradictory. Alternatively stated, one's liability to error is simply a function of the contingent modality of what is known. On this view, the fallibilist needs to say that sentences such as "X knows that p, but X may be mistaken" mean "While X knows that p (implying that p is true), p is a proposition whose denial is logically conceivable in some universe of discourse." It is important to see, however, that if the fallibilist were to take this option of locating the liability to error in the contingent modality of what is known, then he would need to deny that we have knowledge of mathematical and logical truths or deny fallibility for one's knowledge of mathematical and logical truths. The first alternative seems a bit too drastic and the second trivializes fallibilism by restricting it to a knowledge of contingent propositions. If fallibilism is a view about the nature of all knowledge, and if there is mathematical and logical knowledge, the latter kind of knowledge must be liable to error too; but this could not obtain if the liability to error were to be located in the contingent modality of what is known. Peirce, for example, rejected fallibilism as the view that one's liability to error is rooted in the contingency of the propositions known; and he did this because he extended the liability to error to all knowledge, including mathematics and logic. 19 Moreover, even if we assume that all propositions are in some sense contingent, still, locating the liability to error in the contingent nature of what is known tends to misconstrue the fallibilist's claim. When the fallibilist says "I know that p, but I may be mistaken," she does not make a statement about the nature of what she knows, nor even about the content of what she knows. Rather, she makes a statement about the nature of her knowledge and its inherent liability to error even under the best of circumstances, the inherent liability to error being a matter of the inherent potentiality for truth value revision. She may even argue that the potential for wholesale truth value revision requires that all propositions known be in some sense contingent. But, still, that would not amount to identifying the contingent modality of what one knows with the possibility of being mistaken about what one knows. In short, if one were to locate the fallibilist's espousal of universal potentiality for error in the contingent modality of what is known, rather than in the potential for truth value revision (which may indeed be parasitic upon the contingent nature of what is known), one would be misconstruing fallibilism as making an assertion about the contingent nature of what one knows rather than an assertion about the nature of one's knowledge. The fallibilist, like Peirce, wants to say that even if all propositions were in some sense necessary, still, one's knowledge of such propositions is liable to error if these necessary propo-

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sitions admit of truth value revision for any reason whatever. So, it would appear that if we are to provide a non-controversial explication of "X knows that p, but X may be mistaken" without abandoning truth as a necessary condition for knowledge, it cannot be provided in the way just considered without misconstruing the nature of fallibilism. In order to provide such an explanation, let us now consider a few assumptions which, if acceptable, will provide the necessary explication. Later on we will establish the assumptions. But before stating the assumptions, a few considerations on the nature of a conceptual scheme, or framework, are in order because our assumptions will lean on a rudimentary understanding of it. Background for the Answer: Conceptual Frameworks and Three Necessary Assumptions

A conceptual framework is not, I submit, the basic linguistic apparatus utilized in forming the procedural rules of definition and the canons of acceptance for sentences asserted in one's language. In other words, a conceptual framework is not simply the set of syntactic or semantic rules (or conventions) that, when followed, ultimately authorizes a set of statements constituting a full-blown world view. Such rules seem to be more like necessary conditions for there being any conceptual framework at all. Nor should we confuse a conceptual framework with the set of statements constituting one's world view; for that set of statements is generated from the framework. Rather, as I shall henceforth use the term, a conceptual framework is simply a set of physical axioms or postulates (such as "the earth is flat" or "every event has a cause") whose meaning is specified by the basic syntactic and semantic rules of the language for the acceptance of sentences proposed for inclusion; it provides a further set of principles and beliefs about the world. The conceptual framework consists of both the physical axioms and the rules for generation and acceptance. The rules in the framework allow for the inscription and acceptance of sentences. The rules authorize the inclusion of new items as well as what we shall take as a basic physical axiom. There are inductive and deductive rules that allow us to generate acceptable sentences from the basic physical axioms or postulates. And there are rules that authorize our selection of the basic axioms or postulates. Unlike the inductive and deductive rules, these latter rules, while authorizing rules, are not evidential rules, are not generation rules; they are more like conventions. So, whenever any sentence is authorized for acceptance by virtue of appeal to some rule in the language, I shall henceforth say that that sentence is semantically authorized under the rules of acceptance embedded in the conceptual framework.

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Moreover, the physical axioms or postulates are such that the set of theorems or statements derivable from them cannot all be derived from any other set ofaxioms. 20 One's world-view changes to the degree that, under the rules of one's language and a changing body of evidence, various sentences are added to, or dropped from, the corpus of statements variously generated from the basic axioms or postulates. One's conceptual framework changes, however, when either the rules for acceptance change, or when the basic axioms or postulates utilized in deriving a world view change. Presumably, for example, the passage from the Newtonian world view to the Einsteinian world view signaled not merely a change in world view, but, more dramatically, a change in the conceptual framework, a change which precipitated the change in world view; for the basic axioms or postulates of the Newtonian world view were altered. Of course, a great deal more can be said about conceptual frameworks: how they specifically originate, how they change, the way they change, and the reasons why they change. The essential point here is that a conceptual framework should be viewed as a set of basic physical axioms or postulates plus a set of acceptance rules, some of which would serve as generation rules (like deductive and inductive canons), and others of which would serve as non-evidential rules authorizing certain sentences as axiomatic. For present purposes, this admittedly rough and ready characterization of a conceptual framework will, I hope, suffice. 21 What, then, are the assumptions we now need to make? Assume the following: (A) The predicate 'is true', as it applies to any given assertion, need designate only a word-world relationship of semantic authorization under the rules of acceptance embedded in our current conceptual framework; (B) Conceptual frameworks progressively evolve through ever more adequate systematizations of the universe in such a way that whatever proposition is authorized as true under one conceptual framework need not continue to be so authorized under subsequent and more adequate conceptual frameworks; and

(C) We have not attained to any final conceptual framework systematizing the universe better than any conceivable alternative. What do these assumptions mean? To begin with, (A) declares that an assertion's being true principally consists in its being authorized for acceptance by some rule of acceptance embedded in our current conceptual framework. The point behind calling the relationship designated by 'is true' a word-world relationship a/semantic

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authorization is simply to emphasize that an assertion's being true consists in its being authorized for acceptance in virtue of some other statement or rule in one's language, and that its being true does not legitimize any inference to the effect that there is some nonlinguistic state of affairs uniquely described by, and corresponding to, what is asserted by the true statement. Any inference of the latter sort would require that the specified relationship designated by 'is true' be principally a word-world relationship of correspondence rather than a word-world relationship of semantic authorization. 22 Under (A), 'is true' is used to make a statement about the relationship between one statement, an assertion, and other statements; and that the latter, in virtue of their role in the language, authorize the inscription and acceptance of the former as an accurate statement of non-linguistic fact. How the authorizing is achieved can be left unspecified at the moment. But assertions can be semantically authorized for acceptance without being inductively or deductively justified by way of appeal to other known propositions. Whether we can accept (A) and what it implies for a theory of knowledge is beside the point right now. Here we ask only what (A) means. Later we shall discuss the implications of the meaning of (A). (B) makes two distinct assertions. First of all, saying that conceptual frameworks progressively evolve through ever more adequate systematizations of the universe (which we assert in the first part of (B», means that conceptual frameworks change in such a way that the systematizing power of any given conceptual framework gets subsumed (and thereby extended rather than supplanted) under successively more adequate conceptual frameworks. Each successive framework is progressively more adequate than its predecessor because while it explains everything explained by the preceding framework, it also explains, or systematizes, data not accommodated by the preceding framework, or it explains it better. Second, the last part of (B) asserts that the evolutionary progress of conceptual frameworks is achieved in such a way that whatever is authorized as true under one conceptual framework need not continue to be so authorized under subsequent and more adequate conceptual frameworks. This means that we should not construe the progressive and evolutionary changes of conceptual frameworks simply in terms of a process whereby the basic axioms of a given conceptual framework are merely supplemented with more and different axioms allowing the derivation of more and different statements (theorems) to be added to the original corpus of axioms and statements derived therefrom. This latter process would be more like expanding a given conceptual framework (and the world view deriving from it) than changing it; and if conceptual frameworks progressively evolve this way, it would follow that whatever is authorized as true under a given

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conceptual framework would need to continue to be so authorized under all subsequent frameworks. Progress would then consist only in the addition of more statements derivable solely from the new axioms added to the axioms of the original conceptual framework. Alternatively stated, because we should not understand the evolutionary progress accompanying conceptual change in terms of mere incremental additions to a set of axioms, it will follow that a progressive evolutionary change in conceptual frameworks is signaled by an alteration or rejection of at least some of the basic axioms of a conceptual framework. When this occurs, what is authorized as true under a given conceptual framework need not continue to be so authorized under subsequent and more adequate conceptual frameworks. Finally, in asserting that we have not yet attained to any final conceptual framework systematizing the world better than any conceivable other, I hope there is no doubt as to what (C) means. The Question Answered

Given this explication of the above assumptions, saying that an assertion basically known is both true and fallibly known means no more than that the rules of acceptance present in our current conceptual framework fully authorize the acceptance of that assertion, although that assertion may not continue to be so authorized under future and more adequate conceptual frameworks. 23 Thus, if the above assumptions (as explicated) can be established, it will follow that propositions basically known are both true and fallibly known-which is precisely what we need to establish fallibilistic foundationalism-provided that, in being true, such propositions do not secure their authorization evidentially, that is, by appeal to some other known propositions as either inductive or deductive evidence. Later we shall see how such propositions are authorized without being evidentially authorized. For the moment, however, let us seek to establish the above assumptions beginning with (B), progressing to (C), and ending with the most difficult of the assumptions, (A). Establishing the Three Necessary Assumptions tor the Answer

Revolutionary changes in scientific theories are instances of changes in conceptual frameworks; and (B) is simply an inductive generalization from the history of science. The history of science will demonstrate that the scientific enterprise has been one long process characterized not merely by a steady accumulation of information, but more properly by the successive replacement of one theory by another that either explained the data better or explained more data not met by the previous theory. Moreover,

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the progress accompanied by the successive replacement of one theory by another is not merely cumulative or incremental. Rather it is revolutionary because it occurs in such a way that what is authorized as true under one conceptual framework need not continue to retain its authorization under future frameworks. Indeed, conviction in the progressive nature of science has led many people, such as Sir Karl Popper, to view the progressive and revolutionary nature of science as its most distinguishing characteristic. 24 Bypassing the proposals of Feyerabend and Kuhn, belief in the progressive nature of science, a belief inductively established from the history of science itself, is part and parcel of the standard view of science; and it is a view that I shall not here question. 25 These considerations render (B) acceptable. (C) is obviously acceptable. If we inductively generalize from the history of science, we have every reason to believe that science will continue to be as progressive in the future as it has been in the past. We have no reason whatever to suppose that our present conceptual framework is final and not subject to future replacement. As a matter of fact, the only evidence that one could offer for thinking that our present conceptual framework is final would be evidence to the effect that rational life as we know it will end tomorrow, or in the very near future. But we do not have that kind of evidence and, in its absence, we can only conclude that the future is indefinite, and that conceptual frameworks will evolve in the future just as they have in the past. What about the last of our assumptions, namely, (A)? The First Assumption Rules Against the Correspondence Theory of Truth An argument for the acceptability of (A) is this. As rational agents we cannot hope to do more than satisfy the standards of rationality, or the rules of acceptance delineated above and embedded in our current conceptual framework. When these standards, or canonical rules, are satisfied, we do and should consider what is authorized under them as true and known. However, if what is rationally acceptable as true under our current conceptual framework is subject to revision in the light of possible future and more adequate conceptual frameworks, then it would follow that the truth value assigned to any given statement must be considered subject to future withdrawal. And if the truth value assigned to any given proposition is so subject to revision, then it can be argued that the predicate 'is true', as it warrantedly applies to any given assertion, can principally designate only a word-world relationship of semantic authorization relative to the rules of acceptance embedded in our current conceptual framework. 26 Certainly, under these conditions the predicate 'is true', as it applies to any given assertion, need not principally designate (or accu-

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rately describe) a word-world relationship of correspondence; for if the correct assignment of 'is true' to any given proposition is consistent with the same proposition being subsequently assigned 'is false', then we can not infer from a proposition's being true (being assigned 'is true' under the rules of our language) that there is a non-linguistic state of affairs uniquely described by, and corresponding to, that proposition. This follows from the same arguments for P12 in Chapter One when we were examining the evidence for P12. Indeed, the very same arguments that establish P12 also establish (A). When we manage to see that the predicate 'is true' as it applies to any given proposition about the world need not designate or describe a relationship of correspondence between language and the extralinguistic world (P12), it follows straightforwardly that the same predicate, as it applies to any given assertion about the world, need designate only a word-world relationship of semantic authorization under the rules of acceptance embedded in our current conceptual framework. We need not repeat the arguments offered in Chapter One for P12. Similarly, from the acceptability of (A) it will follow, for the very same reasons that P13 follows from P12 (see p. 43ff), that the predicate 'is true' does not mean 'corresponds with the facts'; and, hence, as it applies to propositions basically known, cannot be construed successfully in any way consistent with the correspondence theory of truth. Accordingly, a proper analysis of basic knowledge, a fallibilistic analysis, moves us directly towards some form of a coherence, or warranted assertibility, theory of truth for the very same reasons we were moved towards it when we offered our analysis of non-basic factual knowledge.

The Idealistic Rejoinder to Fallibilistic Foundationalism Given this last argument, it seems that any revisionistic view of basic knowledge must either abandon truth as a necessary condition for basic knowledge or, failing that, keep truth as a necessary condition and construe the meaning of the predicate so as to repudiate a correspondence theory of truth. Whichever alternative we adopt, in the end, our fallibilism moves us directly to the charge of idealism. Before defining basic knowledge, let us consider this objection to our fallibilism. Specifically, the objection is this. On the assumption that a world of extralinguistic fact exists, the acceptance of (A) leads inexorably to the view that we cannot infer that there is an extralinguistic state of affairs described by, and corresponding to, what is basically known in any given case. Hence, if we can accept our fallibilistic foundationalism only if we can accept (A), then basic knowledge need not be thought to tell us anything about the way the world is extralinguistically. This objection urges that the acceptance of (A) precipitates a commitment to some radical form

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of linguistic monism that is at once idealistic and inconsistent with epistemological realism. But the objection misses the mark; for we can certainly argue (as we shall in Chapter Four) that under our present conceptual framework we are fully authorized in believing that there is a world of extralinguistic fact and, as a matter of fact, some of the statements authorized in our current conceptual framework must correspond to, or mirror, extralinguistic fact, although in doing that they are not thereby justifiably said to be true in any way that would satisfy the correspondence theory of truth. That some of the statements in our framework will in fact describe the extralinguistic world follows, as we shall see in the next chapter, from our continuing predictive control over the forces of nature. So, the most that we can establish with the acceptability of (A) is that we cannot infer that there is an extralinguistic state of affairs uniquely described by p from the simple fact that somebody basically knows that p.27 But from this it hardly follows that the world of extralinguistic fact is not, as a contingent matter of fact, the way it is asserted to be in what is basically known. In other words, the present analysis of basic knowledge is logically perfectly neutral with respect to the question of realism versus idealism. Whether the extralinguistic world is, as a contingent matter offact, the way it is basically known in any given case (and how, if at all, this is to be determined) is an open question that we need not discuss right now. Certainly, however, this perspicuous objection has the merit of making it clear that unless this open question can be answered in some satisfactory way, the case for classical realism remains doubtful, whereas the case for idealism would seem considerably stronger. For the moment, however, let us define basic knowledge. THE DEFINITION OF BASIC KNOWLEDGE

From the foregoing reflections it appears that any adequate definition of basic knowledge must minimally reflect that (a) basic knowledge, like all knowledge, must be true, and (b) basic knowledge must be composed of propositions that cannot, on all available information, be justified or falsified by appeal to other known propositions as evidence. Such propositions are not the product of conscious inference, either deductive or inductive. Certainly, we shall also want to insist that (c) a person cannot basically know that p and fail to believe that p. In other words, assuming that p is a proposition that cannot, on all available information, be justified or falsified by appeal to other known propositions as evidence, "X basically knows that p" if and only if (i) p is true, and (ii) X believes that p where:

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X's belief that p is not consciously inferred, either inductively or deductively, from other known propositions as evidence; and

(b) "p is true" if and only if "X is semantically authorized in his belief that p, and the authorization derives from the rules of acceptance in our current conceptual framework." Where it is understood that conceptual frameworks progressively evolve in such a way that what is authorized as true under a current conceptual framework need not continue to be so authorized under future and more adequate conceptual frameworks, then we should have little difficulty seeing how propositions basically known are both true and fallibly known. But what precisely does it mean for a person to be semantically authorized in his belief that p when in the nature of the case it cannot mean either deductively or inductively justified by appeal to other known propositions as evidence? A proper answer to this question requires the specification of the criterion for basic knowledge.

THE CRITERION FOR BASIC KNOWLEDGE: THE PEIRCEAN PROPOSAL SUITABLY QUALIFIED It is one thing to define a concept, but quite another to determine whether the definition is satisfied in any given case. It is one thing to know what it would mean for Harry to have basic knowledge that p, but it is quite another matter to determine whether Harry in fact has basic knowledge that p. There would be no point to defining concepts such as 'true' and 'knows' if one had no way to certify which statements of the language are true or which knowledge claims are in fact valid knowledge claims. It would also be impossible. Accordingly, we need a criterion to determine whether a person basically knows what he claims to know. In one of his more quotable moments, Charles Peirce managed to propose a criterion for basic knowledge. The proposal emerges in the following passage:

if, with St. Augustine, we draw the inference "I think, therefore, 1am," but, when asked how we justify this inference, can only say that we are compelled to think that, since we think we are, this uncritical inference ought not to be called reasoning, which at the very least conceives its inference to be one of a general class of possible inferences on the same model, and all equally valid. But one must go back and criticize the premises and the principles that guide the drawing ofthe conclusion. If it could be made out that all the ultimate (or first) premises were percepts, and that all the ultimate logical principles were as clear as the principle of contradiction, then one might say that one's conclusion was perfectly rational. Strictly speaking, it would not be quite so, because it is quite possible for perception itself to deceive us, and it is more possible for us to be

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mistaken about the indubitableness oflogical principles. But as a matter of fact, as far as logicians have hitherto been able to push their analyses, we have in no single case, concerning a matter of fact, as distinguished from a matter of mathematical conditional possibility, been able to reach this point. We are in every case either forced by the inexorable critic, sooner or later, to declare "such and such a proposition or mode of inference I cannot doubt! It seems perfectly clear that it is so, but I can't say why," or else the critic himselftires before the criticism has been pushed to its very end. If you absolutely cannot doubt a proposition-cannot bring yourself, upon deliberation, to entertain the least suspicion of the truth of it, it is plain that there is no room to desire anything more. (ColiectedPapers,6.498) Certainly Peirce is talking about basic knowledge in this passage; and it seems clear that his proposed criterion for basic knowledge is the agent's inability, upon deliberation, to entertain the slightest suspicion, or real doubt, about what he asserts or believes. This criterion, suitably qualified, is demonstrably correct, the usual reasons for thinking otherwise are not at all acceptable and, in the end, the proposal indicates quite nicely what it means for an agent to be semantically authorized in his belief that p when it cannot mean either deductively or inductively justified. Hopefully, too, this proposal, when properly qualified, will show us how basic knowledge can be fallible without its having to satisfy an evidence condition. Obviously, Peirce's proposed criterion applies only to basic propositions, propositions that on all available evidence are neither falsifiable nor verifiable, deductively or inductively, by appeal to other known propositions as evidence. Moreover, let us add the qualification that a proposition will fail to be basic if it is per se doubtful, and it will be per se doubtful if its being true is no more plausible than its negation or any statement implying its negation. As soon as a proposition is per se doubtful, it cannot be known unless verified by appeal to other known propositions as evidence; and this is to say that the proposition cannot be basic, cannot be a candidate for basic knowledge. With these two qualifications in mind, namely, that Peirce's proposed criterion can apply only with respect to basic propositions, and that propositions per se doubtful cannot be basic propositions, let us consider two forthright objections to the proposed criterion.

Two Objections to the Peircean Proposal: It Does Not Exclude False Beliefs The first objection asserts that it can never follow that p is true from the simple fact that a person cannot bring himself or herself, upon serious deliberation, to doubt that p. Put slightly differently, because basic knowledge must be true, and because a person's inability to really doubt that p can

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never entail the truth of p, it follows that the proposed criterion will be inadequate because its satisfaction does not entail the satisfaction of the truth condition for basic knowledge. The second objection urges that the proposed criterion is deficient because it is quite conceivable that two different persons could end up asserting mutually inconsistent propositions and yet each person be totally incapable of really doubting what he asserts. The Objections Rejected

The first of these objections is not acceptable. Admittedly, from the fact that a person cannot bring herself to really doubt that p, it never follows logically that what we assert by p uniquely describes or corresponds to a non-linguistic state of affairs. But it by no means follows from such a concession that the proposed criterion is inadequate for the proffered reason that its satisfaction does not entail the truth of p. This is because, as we have seen above, p's being true does not require the satisfaction of a wordworld relationship of correspondence. If, as argued earlier, the predicate 'is true' does not mean 'corresponds with the facts' (as the adoption of (A) requires), then we cannot fault any proposed criterion for the alleged reason that its satisfaction does not guarantee a relationship of correspondence between what is basically known and the way the world is extralinguistically. To be sure, believing that p, even to the point of not being able to imagine grounds for ever really doubting that p, does not entail that p is true in the correspondence sense of the term; but the mistake is in thinking that any proposed criterion can be adequate only if it guarantees correspondence between what is basically known and extralinguistic fact. Indeed, as soon as we note the sense in which what one basically knows is true, it becomes clear that the above objection fails because it begs the question against what has already been argued above when we argued for (A). The second objection fares no better than the first. Undeniably, we can conceive of two different persons asserting mutually inconsistent propositions and yet each person being incapable of honestly really doubting what he himself asserts. But imagine what we would say if such a state of affairs were to occur. Being reasonable, of course, we would say that because both claims cannot be true, because, that is, neither claim is more plausible than the other, both claims are doubtful and hence cannot be basic. Is this not sufficient to indicate that if such a state of affairs were to occur it would count less for undermining the proposed criterion for basic knowledge than it would for indicating that neither claim in question could be basic? A person's inability to doubt what he asserts is sufficient for his basically knowing what he asserts only if what he asserts is basic; and propositions per se doubtful are not basic.

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Basic Knowledge and Freedom from Real Doubt: Further Reflections and Three More Objections Rejected Furthermore, it is even more interesting that if anybody were to really doubt what I claim to know, then I could not basically know what I claim to know. Similarly, you cannot basically know that p if anybody else really doubts, or can really doubt, that p. The reason for this is simple enough. After all, a person cannot really doubt what I claim to basically know without tacitly asserting either the negation, or some statement implying the negation, of what I claim to basically know. Here again, both claims cannot be true and, since the question "How do you know?" is now reasonable to ask, both claims are per se doubtful and hence cannot be basic. Viewed in this light, basic knowledge includes only propositions that none of us doubt, or can really doubt, on all available information. In the end, basic knowledge constitutes the corpus of those shared beliefs that we all regard as primitive or unquestionable on all available evidence. 28 Basically known propositions are basically known because doubting them would be unintelligible. The question "How do you know?" makes no sense when asked of them. Basic knowledge is a set of shared beliefs without which disagreement is impossible; for without shared beliefs we could not ground any reasonable doubt whatever. Real doubt cannot exist in an epistemological vacuum-belief comes first, the power to doubt only later. But this characterization of basic knowledge and its criterion admits of the following further objections. For one thing, it will surely be suggested that the proposed criterion cannot be satisfied because its satisfaction depends on there being some propositions which, on all available evidence, nobody really doubts or could really doubt. But the problem with this is that some people honestly profess to really doubt everything. An even larger number will want to assert that while they do not, as a matter of fact, doubt everything, still, on available evidence, they could really doubt any proposition. Finally, if the vast majority of persons are unable to really doubt a basic proposition why should their claim to basic knowledge be rejected simply because one person does, or can, really doubt what they assert? What can be said of these three objections? To begin with, we cannot deny that some people honestly profess to doubt everything. To suggest, however, that there are honest people who really doubt everything (even their own existence) is simply too incredible to warrant refutation here. A person with no beliefs is a contradiction in terms; and the hypothesis that there could be such a person is incomprehensible. Second, what reason can be given for supposing that, on all available evidence, any proposition can be really doubted although in fact it may

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not be? The only visible reason seems to be that it is always logically possible that we are mistaken in what we believe; and so, while we may not really doubt certain basic propositions, we could always bring ourselves to doubt them simply because they carry with them the logical possibility of error. In reply, however, it is simply not true that any proposition can be really doubted solely because the proposition is attended with the logical possibility of error. I do not really doubt, and cannot bring myself to doubt, that I have a hand although it is logically possible that I am hallucinating or sleeping and only dreaming that I have a hand. In the absence of any sound reason for thinking that I really am hallucinating or dreaming that I have a hand, I neither do, nor can, really doubt that I have a hand. Not only does the logical possibility of error fail to entitle us to really doubt, it can also fail to render a person capable of really doubting. 29 Certainly a good deal more could, and perhaps should, be said about the logic of real doubt. But, hopefully, it will not be necessary to establish the point that the logical possibility of error attending a basic knowledge claim need not be thought sufficient for enabling a person to really doubt. Finally, the thrust of the third objection noted above is fairly straightforward. I have urged that if anybody really doubts, or can really doubt, what the vast majority of people profess to basically know, then the vast majority cannot basically know what they profess to know because, under these circumstances, what the vast majority professes to basically know is per se doubtful and hence cannot be a basic proposition. The objection at issue raises the question as to why, if at all, one person's ability to really doubt what the majority of humans cannot doubt should be sufficient to show that the majority do not basically know what they profess to know. In reply, however, this objection misses the point that a person's ability to doubt what the majority of people assert should not, and indeed will not, be counted as a real doubt unless she can offer a good reason for thinking the majority view wrong. In short, the majority does not fail to basically know what it claims to know simply because somebody cannot bring herself to believe along with the majority. There will always be somebody who cannot bring herself to believe what the majority believes, but her doubt cannot, and will not, be considered a real doubt unless she can give a good reason for her doubt. And, as soon as she can give a good reason, her doubt is a real doubt and should be construed as asserting a contrary belief as plausible as the majority belief. When this occurs, both claims become per se doubtful, thus rendering neither claim basic but rather non-basic and so subject to justification. Incidentally, one might also object that if basic knowledge consists of propositions that none of us really do or can doubt, the very idea of providing a criterion for basic knowledge would not seem to make any sense.

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A criterion for basic knowledge is presumably a test for determining whether some person basically knows what he claims to know; and appealing to a criterion only makes sense when there is some real doubt about whether a person knows what he claims to know. But if, as we have been arguing, a basic knowledge claim is no longer basic when it is really doubted, then there could not be a criterion for basic knowledge because basic knowledge claims cannot be doubted and still remain basic. Or so one might object. In response to this objection we can grant, for the reasons mentioned in the objection, that there is a sense in which basic knowledge could not have a criterion. Certainly, if a criterion for basic knowledge is viewed as a device for providing evidence for doubtful claims, then, basic knowledge, by definition could not have a criterion. And surely the force of this last objection is rooted in that particular concept of a criterion. However, it seems equally valid to note that in providing a criterion for basic knowledge, we are not offering a way of gathering evidence to confirm or falsify initially doubtful knowledge claims. Rather we are merely specifying a unique characteristic of basic knowledge, a characteristic that, when present, is sufficient to distinguish valid basic knowledge claims from all others. In short, our criterion is not a criterion for determining whether some doubtful claim is in fact a valid basic knowledge claim. On the contrary, it is a criterion for determining whether any claim is a valid basic knowledge claim. This is not the same as providing a test for determining whether some doubtful knowledge claim is in fact a valid basic knowledge claim. A Final Argument for the Proposed Criterion: No Other Likely Candidate Available Reviewing all the above objections to our proposed criterion, a more positive case can be made for the proposal on the grounds that there must indeed be a criterion for basic knowledge; otherwise we could not distinguish between propositions that are basically known and those that are falsely asserted to be basically known. But there does not seem to be any other likely candidate in view other than the one we have offered. If the only reason for objecting to our proposed criterion reduces to any of the objections just noted, there would not seem to be any good reason for rejecting the proposed criterion. As such, it tells us something about the nature of the belief required for basic knowledge, namely, that as soon as it is, or could be, really doubted, it .is no longer basic knowledge. Notice, finally, that on this analysis of basic knowledge, whether a proposition is basically known has nothing to do with the content per se of the proposition basically known. Some basically known propositions will fall into the class of propositions traditionally designated analytic,

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and some will not; it all depends on just what it is that we all cannot really doubt on the available information in the context at hand. 30 SEMANTIC AUTHORIZATION: HOW ITEMS OF BASIC KNOWLEDGE ARE TRUE AND SUBJECT TO REVISION WITHOUT NEEDING TO SATISFY AN EVIDENCE CONDITION The Rule for Basic Knowledge

Earlier we saw that the predicate 'is true' principally designates, or describes, a word-world relationship of semantic authorization relative to the canons of acceptance embedded in our current conceptual framework. We also saw that the satisfaction of the truth condition for basic knowledge requires that the basically known proposition be authorized by some non-evidential rule because what is basically known cannot be justified inductively or deductively by appeal to other known propositions as evidence. Until now it was not possible to state that rule and hence was not possible to explicate the concept of semantic authorization when it could not amount to justification, either deductive or inductive. I suggested earlier that the desired explication would follow upon the specification of the criterion for basic knowledge, and we can now state the rule that authorizes, but not inductively or deductively, basic knowledge claims. Assuming p is a basic proposition, the rule is this: If, on the basis of all available evidence, you do not and cannot really doubt that p, then write down p and accept p as a statement to be included in the corpus of statements constituting your world view.

This is a rule in our language and it is a canon of acceptance embedded in our current conceptual framework. That this is a rule in our language follows from the fact that there is basic knowledge and that the only possible criterion for basic knowledge lay in the agent's inability to really doubt, on the basis of all available evidence, what he asserts. This of course is simply to justify the belief in the existence of such a rule. The rule itself is not justified or semantically authorized by appeal to any other rule, statement or known proposition. Rather it is grounded in, and expressive of, the mental state of feeling absolutely certain on all the available information. Mental states, however conceived ontologically, are neither true nor false; nor are they semantically authorized. They just are. And the rules of our language are as inescapably as they are mysteriously tied at root level to our mental states, which ground and find their immediate expression in those rules. One can never go outside one's language, but neither does one's language exist isolated in space. In sum, making and

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following our basic rule, in a phrase reminiscent of Wittgenstein, is simply what we do as thinking creatures. No amount of argumentation will alter the fact that we shall continue to call following this rule a matter of basically knowing. Finally, we noted earlier that one of the pressing objections to a fallibilistic view of basic knowledge is that such a view cannot explain how what is basically known can also be fallibly known (i.e., known and subject to revision) if basic knowledge does not require the satisfaction of any evidence condition. This objection emerges because some philosophers think that if some knowledge did not require the satisfaction of an evidence condition, then that knowledge would not be falsifiable and hence, by implication, would not be revisable. In short, if any knowledge could be evidentially independent, then that knowledge would need to be incorrigible; and that would return us to an unacceptable Cartesian form of foundationalism that is both inconsistent with revisionistic epistemology and supportive of radical scepticism. Indeed, this objection seems to constitute a prominent reason why anyone committed to revisionistic epistemology balks at the suggestion that basic knowledge could obtain in the absence of its having to satisfy some evidence condition. 31 At any rate, we can set aside this objection as long as the criterion for basic knowledge is understood in terms of what we are not able to really doubt on all the available evidence; for truth value revision will occur when the proposition loses its semantic authorization (when the criterion is not satisfied), which happens when what one formerly could not doubt becomes doubtful. What we cannot really doubt today, cannot bring ourselves to doubt on all the available evidence, we must consider to be an item of basic knowledge. But what we cannot doubt today we may come to doubt tomorrow. When such doubt occurs, what was formerly authorized as basically known, because it was not then capable of being really doubted, now becomes doubtful and hence is no longer an item of basic knowledge because the question "How do you know?" now makes sense. So, basically known propositions are subject to withdrawal even in the absence of an evidence condition because their source of non-evidential authorization may be withdrawn in the light of changing events. We can now turn our attention to the idealistic objection that this analysis of basic knowledge, as well as the analysis of non-basic knowledge set out in the first chapter, is inherently idealistic because in each case the analysis forces an endorsement of a theory of truth inconsistent with adopting any form of the correspondence theory of truth. In confronting this objection in the next chapter, our basic task will be to show that we are fully authorized in believing that there is a world of fact independent of our making and that the body of our factual knowledge, both scientific and

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otherwise, must in some important measure inform us about the world, even though we cannot say which sentences succeed in describing such a world. This is the thesis of Blind Realism. In the fifth and last chapter I shall urge that, given the progressive nature of scientific knowledge, science will come to answer any non-trivial empirically answerable question. Demonstration of this latter view will carry with it the thesis that not only is our knowledge about a world independent of our making, but also, and more importantly, the nature of that world will ultimately come to be adequately described in the set of propositions that we will come to adopt. As suggested earlier, however, it will not be because our beliefs are true that they will succeed in describing the way the world is. NOTES 1. Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Book I, Chapters 1-3 in The Oxford Translation of Aristotle (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978). 2. Examples of such analyses are to be found in Roderick Chisholm's "Comments and Replies," Philosophia vol. 7 (July 1978): 598; and his Theory of Knowledge (Englewood Cliffs N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966): 2437; William Alston's "Two Types of Foundationalism," Journal of Philosophy vol. 13 (April 1976); his "Has Foundationalism Been Refuted?" Philosophical Studies vol. 29 (April 1976): 287-305; and his "Self-Warrant: A Neglected Form of Privileged Access,"American Philosophical Quarterly vol. 13 (March 1976): 260ff; Mark Pastin's "Modest Foundationalism and Self-Warrant," American Philosophical Quarterly Monograph Series (Studies in Epistemology, no. 9, 1975): 141-49; Keith Lehrer's "The Knowledge Cycle," Nous vol. 11 (April 1977): 24; and also in Knowledge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974): 143-44; Lawrence Bonjour's "Can Empirical Knowledge Have a Foundation?" American Philosophical Quarterly vol. 15 (January 1978): 1-13; James Van Cleve "Foundationalism, Epistemic Principles and the Cartesian Circle," Philosophical Review (January 1979): 55-91; Nicholas Rescher's "Foundationalism, Coherentism and the Idea of Cognitive Systematization," Journal of Philosophy vol. 71 (November 1974): 695-708; and Scepticism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980); Ernest Sosa's "How Do You Know?" American Philosophical Quarterly vol. 11 (April 1974): 113-22; and George Pappas's "Noninferential Knowledge," Philosophia vol. 12 (Fall 1982). Incidentally, in a more recent essay entitled "The Coherence of Virtue and the Virtue of Coherence: Justification in Epistemology" (Synthese vol. 64 (July 1985», Ernest Sosa has come to the view that some beliefs are sound without validation by the believer or anyone else (p. 21). It is difficult to see how Sosa's position is not an endorsement of the view that

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there is some knowledge that does not satisfy an evidence condition. Moreover, given Sosa's trenchant critique of reliabilism (pp. 7-10), it is also difficult to see how Sosa's position could end up being consistent with reliabilism as a non-foundationalist view of knowledge. To the extent that Sosa's view asserts that there is some knowledge that does not satisfy any evidence or justification condition, it represents an interesting (and welcome) thesis. But his arguments are quite different than mine. I will offer arguments for the view that basic knowledge satisfies no evidence or justification condition. 3. See David M. Armstrong, Belief, Truth and Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973): 166ff.; Alvin Goldman, "A Causal Theory of Knowing," Journal of Philosophy vol. 64 (Sept. 1967): 35772; and his "The Internalist Conception of Justification," Studies in Epistemology, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol. 5, eds. French, Uehling, and Wettstein (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980): 2751; Brian Skyrms, "The Explication of 'X knows that p' ," Journal of Philosophy vol. 64 (Dec. 1967): 373-89; Peter Unger's "An Analysis of Factual Knowledge," Journal of Philosophy vol. 65 (Oct. 1968); and Fred Dretske's "Conclusive Reasons," Australasian Journal of Philosophy 49 (Oct. 1971): 1-22. For recent persuasive criticisms of reliabilism both as an account of justification and as an explanation of knowledge without justification see Ernest Sosa's "Coherence of Virtue," 7-10; Carl Ginet, "Contra Reliabilism," Monist vol. 68 (April 1985): 175-87; and John Pollock, "Reliability and Justified Belief," Canadian Journal of Philosophy vol. 14 (March 1984): 103-14. 4. Wilfrid Sellars, for example, accepts the regress argument as establishing a class of propositions as basic and hence not to be justified by appeal to other known propositions. Although such propositions are not directly apprehended or self-justifying, their authority-which must be present for knowledge-derives from the fact that one has learned to use the relevant words in the perceptual situation. In other words, even for Sellars, basic propositions need to be authorized or certified as reliable by being non-inferentially justified, and this is proximately a matter of their being licensed by certain constitutive principles of our conceptual framework and ultimately a matter of the acceptability of the framework as a whole. For reasons that will become clear, however, I would not view Sellars's position as an acceptance of Aristotle's argument rather than an acceptance of a certain qualified form of the regress argument. See Wilfrid Sellars, "The Structure of Knowledge" in Action, Knowledge and Reality: Essays in Honor of Wilfrid Sellars, ed. H. Castaneda (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1975): 327ff; and his "Givenness and Explanatory Coherence," Journal of Philosophy, vol. 70 (Oct. 1973): 617. See also C. F.

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Delaney's "Basic Propositions, Empiricism and Science" in Philosophy of Wilfrid Sellars: Queries and Extensions, ed. J. C. Pitt (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1978): 41-55. 5. For an illuminating discussion of the various senses of the expression "How do you know?" and their bearing on the process of justification, see Richard Garner's "Chisholm on Socratic Interrogation," Philosophia vol. 8 (July 1978): 441-60. Doubtless, the question "How do you know?" does not always have the sense of requesting a justification. Dr. Watson, for example, often asked Sherlock Holmes how Holmes knew that soand-so was the killer when the point of the question was less a matter of pressing Holmes for his justification than it was a matter of curiosity as to how Holmes reached the conclusion. However, bypassing the various senses of "How do you know?" my point is that the need for an evidence condition for knowledge is predicated on the need to answer the question "How do you know?" when the question has the sense of requesting or demanding a justification. Also, Alston, in "Self-Warrant" and elsewhere, distinguishes between one's being justified and one's showing that one is justified. On Alston's view, knowledge (both basic and non-basic) requires the former but not the latter; for a person can be adequately justified in his true belief (and hence know what he claims to know) without being able to say or show how he is justified. However, given that the purpose behind having an evidence condition is that the person claiming to know be able to answer the question "How do you know?", then Alston (and others) would be wrong in thinking a person could be justified, or satisfy the evidence condition for knowledge, without being able to show how he is justified. In short, given the purpose for having a justification condition, one could not satisfy the justification condition for knowledge without being able to show that one is justified. 6. John Austin, Sense and Sensibilia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962): 115ff. 7. Charles S. Peirce, The Collected Papers of Charles S. Peirce, eds. C. Hartshorne and P. Weiss (vols. 1-6) and A. Burks (vols. 7, 8), (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1931-35, 1958). I conform to the usual method of citing from Peirce's works. Thus, for example, vol. 1, paragraph 355, would read: (1.355) 8. Peirce endorsed Aristotle's argument for the existence of basic knowledge in 2.07; MS 425 and in MS 736 (p. 7). See also MS 425 (log. 87); MS 473 (pp. 8 and 24); MS 628 (p. 5). However, for Peirce, the basically known propositions are the product of inference (5.213ff.), and hence basically fallible. They are basic in that these are the propositions for which the question "How do you know?" will not admit of an answer in any line of conscious inference. For a fuller discussion of Peirce's position on basic

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knowledge see my The Philosophy of Charles Peirce: A Critical Introduction (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980). 9. In "On Basic Knowledge Without Justification" (Canadian Journal of Philosophy 15 (June 1985): 305-10), Paul Moser attacks P5 when he argues that it is always reasonable, or there is always some reason, to doubt a person's knowledge claim. He urges that the typical perceiver, "having fallen into error with numerous physical-object beliefs, has at least some reason, albeit minimal perhaps, to doubt his current physicalobject beliefs" (308). In short, we always have some reasonable grounds for doubting any physical-object statement, and hence, for any physicalobject statement the question "How do you know?" will always be proper. In response, I submit that the line of argument Moser advances cannot succeed without entailing global scepticism. After all, Aristotle's argument for the existence of basic knowledge minimally establishes that if there is any demonstrative knowledge at all, there must be some propositions that are known but not demonstrable by appeal to other known propositions as evidence. Propositions that are so known but not demonstrable by appeal to other known propositions are just those for which the question "How do you know?" would make no sense because the question by definition cannot be answered and the propositions still be non-demonstrable. So, there must be some propositions for which the question "How do you know?"-understood as a request for justification-makes no sense. Otherwise global scepticism is true. By implication, if we are to avoid global scepticism, there must be some knowledge claims that we have no reasonable grounds to doubt, otherwise the question "How do you know" would always be proper. Second, apart from the linguistic perversity involved (and duly noted by Austin) in claiming some proposition to be doubtful when nobody doubts it or can offer a specific reason (other than that people have erred in uttering these kinds of claims in the past) for doubting it, Moser's argument contains an elementary flaw. The flaw is that the reasoning is no sounder or different than that available in the inference that simply because typical airplanes have crashed often in the past, it is doubtful that any future flights anywhere will arrive without crashing. The same strikingly illegitimate inference is present in the inference that because the typical perceiver has erred frequently in his past physical-object beliefs, then any physical-object belief is legitimately doubtful. 10. Alvin Goldman, see note 3 above. 11. See, for example, Bruce Aune, Knowledge, Mind and Nature (New York: Random House, 1967): 43; and William Alston, "Two Types of Foundationalism," 168; Larry Bonjour,"Can Empirical Knowledge Have a Foundation?", 5; Keith Lehrer, "The Knowledge Cycle," 24; James Van

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Cleve, "Foundationalism, Epistemic Principles and Cartesian Circle," 88; Frederick Will, Induction and Justification (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1974). 12. Basically, this is the reason why Wittgenstein rejected Moore's claim that he (Moore) knew he had a hand. For a discussion showing that Wittgenstein was correct in thinking that Moore was wrong because he had misused 'I know' see Norman Malcolm, "Moore and Wittgenstein on the Sense of 'I Know'," in Thought and Knowledge (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977): 170-99; e.G. Luckhardt "Beyond Knowledge: Paradigms in Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (December 1978): 240-52; and John Canfield "'I Know That I Am in Pain' Is Senseless," in Analysis and Metaphysics, ed. Keith Lehrer (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1975). 13. John Dewey, Experience and Nature (New York: Dover Publications, 1958): 108 and 154; and Logic: The Theory of Inquiry (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1938): 139-58. 14. Aristotle did not explicitly argue that the premises of a demonstration must be known if the conclusion demonstrated by them is to be known; but he did assert as much in the regress argument and elsewhere. Moreover, if we grant that Aristotle saw the distinction between knowledge and belief, and that belief is a weaker epistemic state than knowledge, then he would need to conclude that one must know the premises of a demonstration in order to know what is demonstrated by them, because he held the view that the inference can be no stronger than the weakest premise. 15. This objection was raised by James Humber in private discussion. 16. Wilfrid Sellars, Science, Perception and Reality (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963): 170. 17. Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (New York: Harper and Row, 1959), ch. 5; and H. H. Price, Truth and Corrigibility (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936). 18. Sellars makes no attempt to avoid the skeptical implications of rejecting the distinction. For Sellars, epistemology has for its subject matter not knowledge but rather belief, reasonable belief. But this reconstrual of the nature of epistemology is only as good as the proffered reasons for rejecting the distinction between basic and non-basic knowledge. 19. The sort of fallibilism defended here is thoroughly Peircean, and some of the other implications of Peirce's doctrine are discussed in my The Philosophy of Charles Peirce: A Critical Introduction, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980). In Susan Haack, "Fallibilism and Necessity" Synthese vol. 41 (June 1979) she characterized (correctly, I believe) Peirce's fallibilism as a thesis about the liability to error and not as a thesis about the modal status of what is known. So characterized, fallibilism extends to mathematical knowledge even though mathematical knowledge can be char-

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acterized as necessary. But an adequate defense of this position requires explaining how the possibility of error is present along with the truth. 20. If all and only the theorems derivable from one set of axioms could be derived from another distinct set of axioms we would have, I submit, not two different conceptual frameworks but rather two different ways of expressing one conceptual framework. Different conceptual frameworks are different because some of the theorems derivable from them are different. Consequently, conceptual frameworks are different to the extent that the theorems derivable from them are different and thereby constituting different world views. 21. Present scarcity of space prohibits any detailed defense of this characterization of the nature of conceptual frameworks. However, it should be noted that this characterization differs from Davidson's view that a conceptual schema (framework) is a language and that the criteria for distinct conceptual schemas is basically a matter of failure (in whole or in part) of intertranslatability between languages. See Davidson's "The Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association vol. 47 (April 1974). 22. The distinction between a word-word relationship of semantic authorization and a word-world relationship of correspondence I borrow, with some differences, from the works of Wilfrid Sellars. 23. Given this, "I know that p" would not offer a guarantee that saying "but I may be mistaken" withdraws. It would merely tell us what sort of a guarantee is being offered by "I know that p," namely, that p is true and that p's being true consists in the fact that the assertion of the inscription of p is fully authorized by the rules of acceptance in our present conceptual framework, which can be replaced by a future framework in which the inscription of p may not be authorized. The value of endorsing (A), (B), and (C) is that it allows the fallibilist to say "I know that p, but I may be mistaken" without inconsistently implying that p is true and possibly not true. 24. Sir Karl Popper, "Truth, Rationality and the Growth of Scientific Knowledge," in Conjecture and Refutation (New York: Basic Books, 1962): 125. 25. See Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962); and Paul Feyerabend "Explanation, Reduction and Empiricism," in Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 3, eds. Herbert Feigl and Grover Maxwell (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1962). For a critical account of the Feyerabend-Kuhn thesis, see I. Scheffler's Science and Subjectivity (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1967); and Richard Hall's "Kuhn and the Copernican Revolution," British Journal for the Philosophy of Science vol. 21 (Oct. 1970).

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26. On the grounds that we could not otherwise know what would count for getting results, we can agree with Nelson Goodman that the one exception to the principle of global truth value revision is the principle of contradiction. 27. Whenever truth value revision is in order, and this will be seen to hold for basic as well as non-basic knowledge, we must accommodate the implications for truth value revision and argue that the truth predicate must be considered as principally designating a word-word relationship of semantic authorization although, as a matter of fact, in any given case it may also designate a word -world relationship of correspondence. Further, it seems clear the we can be fully authorized in believing that some of the statements we are authorized in believing do, for the most part, correspond to extralinguistic fact-although we are not authorized in asserting this of any particular knowledge claim. In other words, construing 'is true' as principally designating a word-word relationship of semantic authorization is an attitude we must adopt with respect to any particular knowledge claim if we are to accommodate ourselves to the implications of truth value revision. But it is not an attitude we can extend carte blanche to the whole body of our beliefs under any particular framework. Once we acknowledge that all truth values are revisable, we must admit that knowing is a matter of being suitably authorized in believing and that, in any given case, the authorization for a knowledge claim may be withdrawn. Nor, as a result, need we fear falling hopelessly into the pit of denying that knowledge tells us anything at all about the world of extralinguistic fact, for, as just noted, we can be fully authorized in believing that some of our beliefs about the world inform us about the way things really are. And if it be again urged that, on our analysis, there is no entailment relationship between what one is fully authorized in believing and the way things are extra-linguistically, then we shall grant asmuch-aIthough in the nature of the case, the admission is not very damaging since we do not have anything else to go on. More on this later. 28. For the defense of a basically similar position, see John Kekes, "A New Defense of Common Sense," American Philosophical Quarterly vol. 16 (April 1979): 115ff. 29. Keith Lehrer has argued that for any contingent proposition there is always some real probability greater than zero that the proposition is false or that one is wrong in believing it to be true. But even if we grant that there is always some probability that one is wrong in believing any contingent proposition to be true, still, it would not thereby follow that any contingent proposition can be really doubted, or even that we do not know for certain that any contingent proposition is true. For example, I neither do nor can doubt that I have a hand. The fact (if it be a fact) that

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there is some probability greater than zero that the contingent proposition "I have a hand" is false does not constitute sufficient grounds for my doubting that I have a hand. Rather, it merely highlights a common feature of those contingent propositions that I know, namely, that they carry with them some probability of error. In other words, there is a perfectly straightforward sense of 'knows' that allows that a person can know that p although there is some probability that p is false. So, if it were the case that there is some probability greater than zero that any contingent proposition is false, it need not be thought that this alone constitutes sufficient grounds for really doubting any contingent proposition. In sum, if it were legitimate to doubt any contingent proposition for the alleged reason that all contingent propositions are attended with some probability of falsity greater than zero, then one could never know that he had a hand, even if he had a hand. Moreover, even if one were justified in coming to doubt any contingent proposition for the reason urged by Lehrer, nevertheless, it would by no means follow that he would actually doubt propositions he would be justified in coming to doubt. See "Scepticism and Conceptual Change," in Empirical Knowledge, ed. Roderick Chisholm and Robert Swartz (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973): 47ff. 30. For a similar conclusion see George Pappas's "Non-Inferential Knowledge," Philosophia vol. 12. (Fall 1982). 31. See Frederick Will,Induction andJusti/ication (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1974).

CHAPTER FOUR

BLIND REALISM

We have seen that an adequate analysis of factual knowledge, both basic and non-basic, requires a fallibilism which, when properly understood, is inconsistent with the adoption of any correspondence theory of truth. Consequently, many philosophers will view the espousal of fallibilism as incompatible with the simultaneous espousal of a classical realism that demands a distinction between minds and objects existing causally independently of minds, objects in some measure represented or mirrored when one's mental episode is that of 'knowing' something about them. Indeed, it may well be that the general reluctance among some (but by no means all) philosophers to accept coherence theories of truth or coherence theories of knowledge originates in the conviction that rejecting every form of the correspondence theory of truth entails repudiating the realist's belief in the existence of a knowable external world. In short, the general sentiment seems to be that the realist's position requires a commitment to a correspondence theory of truth; and where that commitment is not capable of philosophical defense we are forever 'cut off' from the knowable external world and any philosophical justification for believing in the existence of such a world. Notice that if this sentiment were acceptable, then adopting coherence theories of truth would undermine the traditional, but by no means the currently received, view on the nature of scientific knowledge, a view asserting that knowledge is of mind-independent states of affairs and that laws of nature are not created by human minds. In this chapter we shall examine this sentiment about the implications of adopting coherence (or 'warranted assertibility') theories of knowledge. In so doing, I hope to redeem the promissory note offered in Chapters One and Three. That note claims that rejecting any correspondence theory 143

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of truth, and viewing knowledge as in some way consistent with coherence theories of truth, does not require rejecting belief in the existence of an external world about which some of our knowledge sometimes correctly informs us. Here again, I shall understand classical realism to imply no less than that there is an external world, and that some of our completely authorized (or justified) beliefs succeed in some measure in correctly describing that world. If we regard the core of classical realism (or any realism) as requiring the further condition that we be able to say, justifiably pick out, or otherwise establish which of our completely authorized beliefs succeed as correct descriptions, then, as we shall see, classical realism (or any realism) is dead. This chapter seeks to establish Blind Realism which asserts: Tl. Even if we abandon the correspondence theory of truth, we would still know, that is, be completely authorized in believing, that there is an external world, a world of objects whose existence is neither logically nor causally dependent on the existence of any number of human minds or knowers; T2. At any given time, some of our presently completely authorized beliefs about the external world, including our theoretical beliefs about unobservable entities, must as a contingent matter of fact, and in some important measure, correctly describe the external world; and T3. We cannot justifiably say,justifiably pick out, or otherwise establish by appeal to any reliable decision procedure, which of our presently completely authorized beliefs do correctly describe the external world. So characterized, blind realism certainly reflects the basic posture of classical realism because in asserting both Tl and T2, it asserts that there is a knowable external world, that is, an external world that some of our completely authorized beliefs correctly describe. But in asserting both Tl and T3, blind realism fundamentally denies classical realism, which not only insists that human knowledge satisfy a truth condition specified in terms of the correspondence definition of truth, but also insists that the knowability of the external world requires that we be able to pick out, justifiably say, or otherwise determine which of our completely authorized beliefs correctly describe the world. Blind realism is also a species of scientific realism because it asserts that some of our completely authorized theoretical beliefs are privileged in that they succeed in some important measure in correctly describing the external world. But in asserting T3, blind realism repudiates classical scientific realism, which minimally asserts that we can be reasonably justified

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in saying, or determining by appeal to some reliable decision procedure, which theoretical beliefs about unobservable entities succeed in describing correctly the external world. Blind realism has other distinguishing features. It is the only form of realism consistent with a proper understanding of the fallibilism characteristic of inductive knowledge. Also, because the thrust of blind realism consists in asserting that we have no reliable decision procedure for determining which of all our completely authorized beliefs in fact correctly describe the external world, blind realism will follow inescapably even if we insist on adopting the correspondence definition of truth. So regarded, blind realism does not require us to reject the correspondence definition of truth. Moreover, blind realism, as we shall see, enables us to reject the strongest arguments for anti-realism and for the subjectivism reminiscent of both a Hegelian-like idealism in ontology and a resurgent nominalism in philosophy of science. But let us turn to examining and defending the three theses that fully define blind realism. In the next chapter we shall see that whatever features of the world are not causally dependent upon mind will, in large measure, come to be fully described in what we know, although, once again, the correspondence between what we know and the structure of the world is not a function of the truth of what one knows. Before turning to the establishment of Tl and T2, however, a few observations are in order regarding the implications of rejecting correspondence theories of truth. These observations will highlight the extent to which contemporary philosophers are keen to abandon classical realism as a result of setting aside the correspondence theory of truth in favor of views consistent with coherence or pragmatic theories of truth. REALISM AND THE CORRESPONDENCE THEORY OF TRUTH: A NECESSARY CONNECTION? Recent Rejections of Realism: Rorty, Goodman, et al.

Consider Richard Rorty's recent eulogy for philosophy as a critical science. In Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Rorty joins ranks with many recent philosophers (including Strawson, Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Dewey, Sellars, Quine, Kuhn, Davidson, Peyerabend, and others) in abandoning any form of the correspondence theory of truth.! As Rorty sees it, there are many reasons for rejecting the classical correspondence theory oftruth.2 The most important reason, however, is that the distinction between what is mind and what is not mind is arbitrary and reflects a decision to use words in a particular way, there being no philosophical justification

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for the decision. 3 So, Rorty argues that the metaphor of the mind of man as the mirror of nature crumbles, and with it, the only justification for viewing philosophy as a critical science and for viewing epistemology as having some special job to do in examining the human mind as something distinct from the world of physical objects. Classically, the mirror metaphor carried with it the assumption that the human mind, in order to achieve its highest destiny in representing the world, would need, through the good graces of epistemology, adjusting or polishing. It was philosophy's job to polish the mirror and to make sure that only the privileged representations were regarded as knowledge. 4 Regardless of the many reasons we often give, Rorty wants to show that there are good grounds to reject the correspondence theory of truth and, with that rejection, knowledge no longer has the task of mirroring something' out there'. In short, abandoning the correspondence theory of truth, because it rests on an arbitrary distinction between what is mind and what is not mind, carries with it the consequence that human knowledge is nothing like a picture of the external world; hence there is no justification for classical realism and common sense intuitions about the distinction between minds and external objects (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, 278 ft). On Rorty's view, then, no form of classical realism is viable as long as we can justifiably reject the correspondence theory of truth. Most other philosophers who reject any correspondence theory of truth will likewise set aside the realist's belief in a knowable external world as a belief reflecting something of an obsolete and dispensable world view, good only as long as one's epistemology is tied at the root to a correspondence theory of truth and whatever distinctions are necessary for it. Nelson Goodman, for example, has argued for much the same position in his wonderful book, Ways ofWorldmaking. 5 As Goodman sees it, the world we see is always the structured product of our descriptions, and all the features of the world are built descriptively and not found in a world existing independently of our descriptions. No world could exist independently of our descriptions of it, for in examining different versions of the world we could never compare a given version with a world undescribed. "We cannot test a version by comparing it with a world undescribed ... all we learn about the world is contained in right versions of it; and while the underlying world, bereft of these versions need not be denied to those who love it, it is perhaps on the whole a world well lost" (p. 4). Certainly, many philosophers will agree that in comparing various theories with experience, we compare one or another version with the version we take to be 'experience' in the given context, and it is not a comparison with some un conceptualized reality.6 Hence, by implication, for Goodman, and for those who agree with him, the truth of a theory cannot be a function of any correspondence between language and any nonlinguistic fea-

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ture of the world. Hence, also, no justification exists for believing that there are features of the world that theories must somehow mirror in order to be true. Clearly, Goodman seems to be moving from something very much like a coherence theory of truth (and a coherence theory of knowledge) to a denial of the classical realist's belief in the existence of an external world. 7 It is not necessary to continue detailing the various recent philosophers who, in rejecting correspondence theories of truth, have felt obliged thereby to jettison the realist's world view. It suffices to note that the thesis is quite widespread, and even if it were not, we would still need to show, as we shall now do, that repudiating correspondence theories of truth should not carry with it a rejection of classical realism as we defined it at the outset. s PROVING THE EXISTENCE OF THE EXTERNAL WORLD Peirce's Harvard Experiment

In arguing for Tl, that is, in arguing that even if an adequate analysis of human knowledge were to require our rejecting correspondence theories of truth we would have excellent reason for believing that some of our knowledge is sometimes about objects that exist causally independently of minds, we may recall Peirce's famous Harvard Experiment. In the 1903 Lowell lectures at Harvard, Peirce proposed to show conclusively, by way of experiment, that laws of nature are indeed real and not mere figments of the mind. The argument is an explicit attempt to demonstrate the existence of objects whose existence is causally independent of mind or the creative effort of the mind. In arguing for the reality of laws, Peirce asserted that he was defending the doctrine of scholastic realism, or the view that general principles are really operative in nature and are not mere figments of the mind. To that end he began by urging that the activity of certain objects (a falling stone, for example) is predictable just because it is regular. The fact that we all know a stone will fall from a person's hand when the stone is released shows, says Peirce, that the activity of the stone is rule-governed or lawlike. Indeed, that we do know that the stone will fall when released is evidenced in the fact that nobody would be so foolish as to bet against its falling when released. In short, we could not know that stones when released fall toward the earth if the activity of such objects were not rule-governed. Stones released never "fall" up. More importantly, that the law (or rule) governing the behavior of the stone is real, and not merely the product of some mental habit (as Peirce correctly charges the nominalist with

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asserting) is a function of the fact that we have no mental control over the fall of the stone when once released. Peirce's experiment consisted in dropping a stone after predicting that it would fall when released and after noting that nobody would bet against its falling when released. For Peirce, the fact that nobody would bet against the stone's falling when released is compelling evidence of our knowing of the mind-independent nature of the law governing the fall of the stone when released. 9 Peirce thought that the difference between a fiction and an external fact (real fact) is that the former, and not the latter, is subject to voluntary mental control. Hence it is the compUlsiveness, so to speak, of the stone's behavior or activity that shows that the law-like behavior is not mental in origin but rather real and external. lO In short, that we find our opinions constrained by the force of experience, that there are features of the described world over which we have no mental control, warrants our believing that our minds cannot build all the features of our experience. For Peirce, there must be something there that is not the product of creative intelligence; otherwise we would expect the world as experienced to conform in large measure to our creative wishes; and the fact that it does not so conform to our creative wishes shows that there are limits to our versionmaking of the world. While one might be tempted to quibble over the claim that Peirce thus established experimentally and conclusively the existence of an external world, still, it is noteworthy that the only factual evidence we could possibly take for the mind-independent existence of objects is our collective inability to alter the nature and existence of such objects by an effort of the mind. After all, in the nature of the case, if what we mean by an external object (or physical object) is an object the existence of which is not caused by any acts of the mind, then the only possible evidence for the existence of such a world is confrontation with objects that cannot be altered or dismissed by the collective mental effort of the scientific community over time. Doubtless, it is to Peirce's everlasting credit that he confronted the question empirically and thus sought to demonstrate as much by simply dropping a stone and showing, by our collective reluctance to bet on the stone not falling, that there are real laws or states of affairs not caused by mental action alone. l l Incidentally, Peirce elsewhere offered a second argument for belief in the existence of the external world. That argument consists in asserting that if there were no external world, then inquiry under the scientific method would be pointless or impossible. For Peirce, we must inquire about the nature of the phenomena around us if only to maintain biological adequacy, but all inquiry proceeds on the assumption that for any answerable question there must be a correct answer, and that thinking something or other is so does not make it so. Otherwise we would not make any inquiries.

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If, however, there were no external world, then thinking something or other is so makes it so. If there were no external world, then all so-called versions of the world would be equally acceptable if only we make them interesting enough. But if all versions of the world are equally acceptable, there can be no predictive control. In other words, for Peirce, if we did not believe in the existence of an external world we would deprive ourselves of a necessary condition for conducting inquiries and hence for what is necessary for human survival. We would have no justification for conducting any inquiries whatever if we were to dispose of the belief in the existence of an external world. 12 This second argument is quite distinct from the first, and while very few philosophers have offered anything like it as a defense of the belief in an external world,13 there is still a good deal to be said for the argument. Of course, it is quite likely (and indeed predictable) that those who would deny the existence of the external world would also deny as an implication of their position that we have any justification for conducting any inquiries about the world. For them, if we take Peirce's second argument as a reductio we do so only by begging the question against their position because they are only too willing to endorse the conclusion that inquiries based upon the assumption that there are objective answers are purely illusory. For them, we have no justification for conducting inquiries with the assumptions we have; and there is no reason for thinking that human survival requires conducting inquiries on such assumptions. Whether this response is adequate, or whether it constitutes a reductio of idealism as an arguable position, is certainly a topic for a fuller discussion than is presently necessary here. At any rate, we can agree with Goodman, and others, that we cannot compare our version of the world with a world undescribed. Even so, that is no reason for thinking that there is no world of fact, or states of affairs over which the mind has no control. The root empirical character of scientific theories is the stubbornness of fact, the experience that there are forces over which we have no control. This stubbornness is evidenced in the failure of predictions to come out always in conformity with our most cherished version or picture of the world. In seeking to deal with this last point, Goodman dismisses the so-called stubbornness of fact by saying "Some of the felt stubbornness of fact is the grip of habit" (Ways of Worldmaking, 97). But is it only a habit of thought that makes us think that the stone when released will fall to earth? Can anyone plausibly think that by changing one's habit of thinking or viewing the world one could make the stone 'fall' upward when released? However intriguing it is to think that the powers of the human mind may be able to command the forces of nature rather than submit to them, the brutal fact is that there is

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no compelling evidence that this can be done with sufficient frequency and force to warrant accepting Goodman's position. In sum, our ordinary and scientific experience fully warrant us in believing that there are states of affairs, or features of experience, over which we have no control, states of affairs that cannot be altered at will. Some of our knowledge, some of what we are fully authorized in believing, is sometimes and in some way about such objects or states of affairs. This is not to say, per se, that some of our beliefs are accurate descriptions of such objects or states of affairs; rather, it is to say that some of our beliefs purport to be adequate descriptions of such objects or states of affairs. Whether they succeed in anything more than this is something we will consider soon when we seek to establish T2. Regardless of how strongly we might wish it otherwise, stones when released will fall to earth, and we know that they will. Any version of the world that does not submit to this fact will fail for lack of predictive power. The fact that not all versions of the world have the same predictive power is proof positive that there are forces or states of affairs causally independent of the creative powers of the mind. If there were no external world, or world of facts, the only criterion for choosing between different versions of the world would be systemic simplicity or some form of pure coherence. Either that or all versions of the world would be equally good, barring entertainment value. That all versions of the world are equally defensible, or conventional, seems to imply that a world in which one believes that bricks when released "fall upward" is just as good as a world in which one believes that bricks when released fall downward. Surely, however, the world in which one would adopt the former version of the world would be a world in which predictive control would not be operative; and in that world one could only wonder whether one's version of the world is scientific. 14 Accordingly, although an adequate analysis of human factual knowledge requires (as we have seen) a rejection of the correspondence theory of truth, still, we have excellent reason to believe that some of our knowledge is sometimes in some way about objects that exist causally independently of minds. For we have excellent reason to think that there is a world of such objects about which we are fully authorized in making various claims. There are, of course, other interesting arguments seeking to show that denying the existence of a knowable external world is in some basic sense incoherent. IS Even though these latter arguments may be compelling in various ways, what is striking about Peirce's argument is its simplicity and force. As a matter of fact, given what we would take as evidence for the existence of an external world, it is noteworthy that Peirce's argument has received so little attention. Presumably, if there is nothing we would take as evidence for the realist's belief in the existence of an

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external world, then our rejection of that belief would be purely dogmatic. Let us now turn our attention to T2, which is the view that although our knowledge of the world need not tell us how things really are (this follows from our rejection of the correspondence theory of truth), we have compelling reasons to believe that, at any given time, some of what we know (including our theoretical beliefs about unobservables) must, as a contingent matter of fact, succeed in saying correctly how the world is. After we establish this claim we will confront more fully the logical features and virtues of blind realism. PROVING THAT SOME OF OUR FACTUAL BELIEFS MUST SAY HOW THE WORLD IS The General Strategy Involved in the Proof

The general strategy we shall now pursue in seeking to establish T2 consists in urging that we need to explain why some scientific theories succeed by way of allowing for predictions that consistently come out over a long period of time. The point here will be that the best available explanation for the success of such scientific theories as predictive devices is that the hypotheses upon which their predictions are based contain, or assume, or imply statements that, in some important measure, are saying correctly just how the external world is. Indeed, I shall urge the stronger point that there is available no other plausible explanation for the predictive success of scientific theories. This general strategy is inspired by J. J. C. Smart's well-known argument for scientific realism. For Smart, the question of scientific realism is the question of whether we are suitably justified in believing in the existence of theoretical or unobservable entities when predictively successful scientific theories assert the existence of such entities. Smart's answer is yes. To succeed in our strategy, however, we will need to examine Smart's main argument, confront the critics of the main argument, and then offer a reformulation of the argument-a compelling reformulation that captures the intuitive force of the original without succumbing to the pointed criticisms the original argument prompts. In doing all this, we shall see how the reformulated argument sustains T2 while providing for a form of scientific realism, blind scientific realism, which is the only defensible form of scientific realism left. Smart's Argument for Scientific Realism

In Between Science and Philosophy, J. J. C. Smart defends scientific realism on the grounds that only it can explain the fact of scientific success. 16 He regards as instrumentalist any view locating the importance of

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theories in their use only; the instrumentalist requires of scientific theories empirical adequacy only, and not truth. Smart's main argument involves asking the instrumentalist to explain how theories are useful. What, for example, could explain the accuracy of predictions based upon Copernican astronomy? Smart then proceeds to offer what we can take to be his main argument for scientific realism and against instrumentalism or any form of anti-realism that may not reduce to instrumentalism. He argues as follows. Suppose that we have a theory T that postulates micro-structures directly and macro-structures indirectly. The statistical and approximate laws about macroscopic phenomena are only partially spelled out perhaps, and in any case derive from the precise (deterministic or statistical) laws about the basic entities. We now consider theory T', which is part of T and says only what T says about the macroscopic phenomena. Smart then says: I would suggestthat the realist could (say) ... thatthe success ofT' is explained by the fact that the original theory T is true ofthe things that itis ostensibly about; in other words by the fact that there really are electrons, or whatever is postulated by theory T. If there were no such things, and if T were not true in a realist way would not the success of T' be quite inexplicable? One would have to suppose that there were innumerable lucky accidents about the behavior mentioned in the observational vocabulary, so that they behaved miraculously as if they were brought about by the non-existent things ostensibly talked about in the theoretical vocabulary Y

In short, if scientific realism is not correct, then in our search for an explanation for the predictive success of theories we are left with explanations that seek to explain such phenomena by appeal to innumerable lucky accidents and coincidences on a cosmic scale. However, for Smart, such explanations fail, and thus render the fact of scientific success inexplicable on non-realist grounds because there is presumably no other possible explanation left to which the non-realist may appeal. For Smart, scientific realism apparently offers the only possible explanation for the fact of such scientific success. Van Fraassen's Criticisms of Smart's Argument The strongest criticisms of Smart's argument for scientific realism come from Bas van Fraassen who, in defending a form of instrumentalism that he calls "constructive empiricism," offers no less than three major criticisms of the argument just offered above. The first two criticisms emerge in the following passage: I submit that if the demand for explanation implicit in these passages were precisely formulated, it would at once lead to absurdity. For if the mere fact of

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postulating regularities, without explanation, makes T' a poor theory, T will do no better. If, on the other hand, there is some precise limitation on what sorts of regularities can be postulated as basic, the context of the argument provides no reason to think that T' must automatically fare worse than T. In any case, it seems to me that it is illegitimate to equate being a lucky accident, or a coincidence, with having no explanation. It was by coincidence that I met my friend in the market-but I can explain why I was there, and he can explain why he came, so together we can explain how this meeting happened. We call it a coincidence not because the occurrence was inexplicable, but because we did not severally go to the market in order to meet. There cannot be a requirement upon science to provide a theoretical elimination of coincidences, or accidental correlations in general, for that does not even make sense. There is nothing here to motivate the demand for explanation, only a restatement in persuasive terms. IS In developing the argument in the first paragraph, van Fraassen says: Arguing against Smart, I said that if the demand for explanation implicit in his arguments were precisely formulated, it would lead to absurdity. I shall now look at a precise formulation of the demand for explanation: Reichenbach's principle of the common cause. As Salmon has recently pointed out, if this principle is imposed as a demand on our account of what there is in the world, then we are led to postulate the existence of unobservable events and processes. 19 Van Fraassen's strategy in this first argument is to urge that Smart's argument is committed to Reichenbach's principle of the common cause. So, van Fraassen attacks Reichenbach's principle of a common cause requirement for adequate scientific explanations. He does this by arguing that the principle of common cause is inappropriate for twentieth-century science because it represents too strong a demand for deterministic theories of the world. He says, after explicating Reichenbach's principle: This principle of the common cause is at once precise and persuasive. It may be regarded as a formulation of the conviction that lies behind such arguments as that of Smart, requiring the elimination of 'cosmic coincidence' by science. But it is not a principle that guides twentieth-century science, because it is too close to the demand for deterministic theories of the world that Reichenbach wanted to reject. 20 Inasmuch as van Fraassen sees Smart's argument as an attempt to provide a scientific explanation of the fact of scientific success, he offers a third argument against Smart's position when he later confronts Putnam's argument. Putnam, following Boyd's lead, said: The positive argument for realism is that it is the only philosophy that doesn't make the success of science a miracle. That terms in mature scientific theory typically refer (this formulation is due to Richard Boyd), that the theories accepted in a mature science are typically approximately true, that the same terms can refer to the same thing even when it occurs in different theories-these

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statements are viewed by the scientific realist not as necessary truths but as parts of the onl y scientific explanation of the success of science, and hence as part of any adequate scientific description of science and its relations to its objects. 21

And van Fraassen reads Putnam, as well as Smart, as requiring of science that it explain its own success. For, after quoting this section from Putnam, van Fraassen continues: Science, apparently, is required to explain its own success. There is this regularity in the world, that scientific predictions are regularly fulfilled; and this regularity, too, needs an explanation. Once that is supplied, we may perhaps hope to have reached the terminus de jure? . . Well, let us accept for now this demand for a scientific explanation of the success of science. Let us also resist construing it as merely a restatement of Smart's' cosmic coincidence' argument, and view it instead as the question wh y we have successful scientific theories at all. Will this realistic explanation with the Scholastic look be a scientifically acceptable answer? I would like to point out that science is a biological phenomenon, an activity by one kind of organism which facilitates its interaction with the environment. And this makes me think that a very different kind of scientific explanation is required. I can best make the point by contrasting two accounts of the mouse who runs from its enemy, the cat. St. Augustine already remarked on this phenomenon, and provided an intensional explanation: the mouse perceives that the cat is its enemy, hence the mouse runs. What is postulated here is the' adequacy' of the mouse's thought to the order of nature: the relation of enmity is correctly reflected in his mind. But the Darwinist says: Do not ask why the mouse runs from its enemy. Species which do not cope with their natural enemies no longer exist. That is why there are only ones who do. Injust the same way, I claim that the success of current scientific theories is no miracle. It is not even surprising to the scientific (Darwinist) mind. For any scientific theory is born into a life of fierce competition, a jungle red in tooth and claw. Only the successful theories survive-the ones which in fact latched onto actual regularities in nature. 22

Given this passage, van Fraassen apparently regards the realism of Putnam, as well as that of Smart, as a response to the question "Why do we have successful scientific theories at all?" When the question is posed in this way, van Fraassen claims that the answer is fairly direct and does not require any commitment to a scientific realism. The answer is that evolution requires as much. Thus the demand that science provide something more or different by way of providing an explanation for the success of science, a demand that generates the realistic response for Smart, Putnam, and others, is a demand that dissolves because it is unnecessary when the question for which realism is supposed to provide a correct answer is properly posed. Before examining other actual and potential objections to the realist's

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thesis, let us assess the strength of van Fraassen' s critique of Smart's main argument. Response to Van Fraassen's First Objection: Scientific Realism Is Not a Scientific Thesis

Van Fraassen's first reply to Smart's main argument is unsound because it miscontrues the position Smart advances. Van Fraassen claims that Smart's argument makes an implicit demand that is too strong for any proposed scientific explanation. But the point is that even if Reichenbach's common cause requirement is inappropriate for explanations suitable in twentieth-century science, we need not think Smart is offering scientific realism as a scientific explanation for the predictive success of scientific theories. Hence, in offering his argument for scientific realism he cannot be faulted for requiring of scientific explanations that they accommodate Reichenbach's common cause requirement for adequate scientific explanations. Properly interpreted, Smart is not offering scientific realism as a scientific explanation for the success of some scientific theories. Indeed, regardless of what Smart may have thought he was offering, there is no experimental procedure or observational data that could possibly show that Smart's account for the predictive success of some theories is either more or less acceptable than the instrumentalist (or the anti-realist) account. Because there is no experimental procedure or experimental fact that could plausibly adjudicate the conflict over whether the fact of scientific success requires that some of the theoretical sentences of science be true, we have fairly strong evidence that the issue between the instrumentalist (or anti-realist) and the scientific realist is purely philosophical, and that therefore the explanation offered by Smart is ill-described as a scientific explanation. Let us examine and defend more fully the core of this last argument. Scientific explanations, however conceived, are scientific just because they have test implications in terms of public observational data that either count for or against the claims made in the explanations. There are no such test implications, however, that would allow us to adjudicate the conflict between the realistic view of scientific theories and the instrumentalist (or non-realistic) view of scientific theories. After all, what would it take to confirm empirically the realistic explanation for the predictive success of some scientific theories? Put somewhat differently, what are the test implications for the claim that the best available explanation for the predictive success of a theory is that some of the theoretical claims made by the theory are true? There are none. Consequently, if we take scientific realism as asserting that some theoretical entities of a certain

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sort must exist if the theories asserting their existence are predictively successful, it becomes clear that the thesis of scientific realism itself is not testable, and hence that scientific realism does not offer a scientific explanation for the success of scientific theories. If all this is so, why have so many philosophers regarded scientific realism as a scientific thesis? Presumably, it is because they see scientific realism as a thesis to the effect that belief in the existence of theoretical entities is justified because we have good empirical evidence for the belief. In other words, they do not see scientific realism as a hypothesis seeking to explain the predictive success of scientific theories. Rather they see it as a hypothesis asserting the existence of unobservable entities and, as such, a hypothesis for which there is abundant empirical evidence. But the problem with viewing scientific realism in this way is that the evidence favoring belief in the existence of unobservables consists in the fact that hypotheses based upon the assumed truth of the theoretical claims lead to predictions that are satisfied so frequently that their occurrence could not be explained in any other way than to assume that the theoretical claims made by the theory are true. Stated differently, if we regard scientific realism as nothing more than the view that we have strong empirical evidence for the belief in the existence of theoretical entities, the evidence itself, namely, the regular occurrence of what one would expect if the theoretical claims were true, counts as evidence only because we could not explain the regular occurrence of such satisfied predictions in any other way than to assume that the theoretical claims upon which the predictions are based are true. So, regarding scientific realism as nothing more than the view that we have good empirical evidence for belief in the existence of unobservable entities (and hence that it is a scientific hypothesis) overlooks the fact that the evidence is evidence only because were we not to take it as such we would have no explanation for the predictive success of the theoretical claims asserting the existence of the unobservable entities. Thus, belief in theoretical or unobservable entities is ultimately justified, if justified at all, because it provides us with the best available explanation for the predictive success of theories asserting the existence of such entities. Accordingly, only if we fail to regard scientific realism as an explanation for the predictive success of scientific theories can we regard scientific realism as a scientific thesis. But because we must regard scientific realism as an explanation for the predictive success of some theories (otherwise, nothing could count as empirical evidence for belief in unobservable entities), we must regard it as a scientific hypothesis only if the explanation is testable; but because it is not testable, it is not a scientific hypothesis. 23

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For these reasons, we need not view Smart as offering a scientific explanation for the success of scientific theories, and hence we need not fault him for adopting Reichenbach's common cause requirement which is presumably a requirement for the adequacy of any proposed scientific explanation. Smart merely seeks to provide a good reason to explain why some scientific theories succeed as predictive devices. Providing a good reason for that fact may well be a causal explanation, but it is certainly not a causal explanation in the way that scientific explanations can be causal explanations; for the latter are testable. But causal explanations of the former type are purely philosophical and not testable except insofar as they provide the best non-scientific explanation. Admittedly, philosophers disagree over what counts as an adequate philosophical explanation. But that does not prevent us from distinguishing clearly between empirically testable explanations and those that are not empirically testable. For our purposes it is enough to note that scientific realism is not an empirically testable explanation, and that it falls into the class of philosophical explanations. We need not specify what constitutes a philosophical explanation in order to establish that scientific realism is not a scientific thesis. Of course, it is tempting to assert that any adequate explanation of the fact of scientific success would need to be a scientific explanation because any purported explanation of some empirical fact (such as the observed success of some scientific theories) will need to be a scientific explanation. Even here, however, the fact that the realistic hypothesis as an explanation is not empirically testable should more properly prompt the criticism that Smart's proposed explanation is not an explanation at all, rather than one that makes an inappropriate demand on the nature of scientific explanation. But to criticize Smart's argument for this reason is, as we shall see again later on, to require that all explanations of fact be scientific explanations; and this thesis begs the question against there being adequate explanations that do not serve the purpose of prediction and control. Insisting that all explanations of fact be scientific explanations assumes without reflection that for all purposes only scientific explanations will be adequate. Furthermore, if we assume that it is legitimate to ask for a scientific explanation for the predictive success of some scientific theories or for the success of some scientific explanations, such a request will sooner or later either be honored with a successful scientific explanation or not. If not, the request is illegitimate because it is incapable of being satisfied. But if the request is honored with a successful scientific explanation, then on the supposition that it is legitimate to ask for a scientific explanation for successful scientific explanations, then it is legitimate to ask for a

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scientific explanation for the scientific explanation for the success of some scientific explanations. And so on ad infinitum. But it cannot be legitimate to ask in this way for an infinite number of scientific explanations; for that would imply that it would always be legitimate to ask for evidence for what one claims to know. Put differently, if scientific explanations are viewed as a species of justification, the legitimacy of always being able to ask for a scientific explanation for an existing scientific explanation amounts to the thesis that it is always permissible to ask for evidence. But if we are to avoid scepticism, we must, as we argued along with Aristotle at the beginning of the last chapter, admit that there are some valid knowledge claims for which it is not legitimate to ask for evidence or justification. In sum (and to return to the issue at hand), van Fraassen's first argument against Smart's thesis seems unacceptable either because it erroneously regards Smart's argument as offering a scientific explanation, or because it tacitly assumes that all explanations of fact must, if they are to be adequate for any purpose whatsoever, be scientific explanations. As it is, however, van Fraassen's first objection seems most pointedly to err by misconstruing Smart's argument as one that is offering a scientific explanation. The only objection that one could then raise against Smart would be that he ought to have provided a scientific, or testable explanation. But this latter objection, as we have seen, begs the question in favor of the view that, for all purposes, the only suitable explanations of fact are scientific or empirically testable explanations. 24 Van Fraassen's Remaining Objections Van Fraassen's second objection to Smart's thesis is that it ~quates illegitimately something's being a lucky accident, or a coincidence, with having no explanation at all. Here again, however, this criticism seems to misconstrue Smart's argument. We may plausibly regard Smart's position as claiming that unless we can accept his explanation for the predictive success of some scientific theories, the only alternative explanation would assert that such success is either purely coincidental or miraculous-neither of which we can accept. Admittedly, Smart's own words urge that the predictive success of some theory would be inexplicable if we were to appeal to coincidence or miracles as an explanation. However, the most plausible and charitable interpretation of what his argument asserts is that an explanation that would account for the predictive success of a theory by appeal to coincidence or miracle is maximally implausible. This is because the regularity of the success of a theory as a predictive device defies explanation in terms of coincidence or the miraculous. In short, because we believe that appealing to coincidence or miracle is purely arbitrary when there is a less miraculous

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alternative (such as the explanation provided by realism) that would explain the data as well, we tend to regard explanations by appeal to miracles or the coincidental as no explanations at all. They offer only some logically possible alternative to the hypothesis in question. Perhaps Putnam expressed best Smart's point when he urged that realism is the only hypothesis that does not make scientific success a miracle. 2s For the same reason, presumably, we would not accept an explanation for the success of science in terms of pure coincidence because the kind of coincidence involved would defy explanation in terms of pure chance. Van Fraassen's third objection to Smart's argument is that one particular variation of Smart's argument (namely, Putnam's), one that requires that science explain its own success, is actually a response to the question "Why do we have successful theories at all?" Given this construal of the question that Smart's argument (as well as Putnam's) seeks to answer, van Fraassen urges that the answer to the question is simply that evolution requires it. Thus, for van Fraassen, one can answer the question for which Smart's realism is an answer without having to embrace Smart's realism. In response to this objection, it seems that van Fraassen misconstrues the question for which Smart's realism purports to provide an answer. The question that Smart seeks to answer is not "Why do we have successful theories at all?" but rather "Given that we do have successful theories, why are some theories successful and some not?" Surely Smart can grant that we have successful theories because they allow us to survive or because evolution requires as much. But granting as much would not be to provide an answer to the question "Given that some theories are successful, can we explain the fact of their success (thus furthering the ends of evolution) without assuming that those unobservable entities really exist that the theory says exist?" or, more simply, "Given that some theories are successful, why are they successful?" There is a big difference between asking these two questions and asking why we have successful theories at all. The latter can be answered in the way van Fraassen suggests, but the former surely cannot. Accordingly, van Fraassen's third argument against Smart's thesis seems unsound. The Defect In Smart's Argument

Even when we regard Smart's argument as offering a philosophical explanation for the predictive success of scientific theories, it is unsound. It cannot counter the plausible suggestion that the predictive success of the theory could just as easily be a function of the truth of the non-theoretical claims made by the theory. Indeed, why couldn't the predictive success of certain theoretical claims made by a theory be a function of various auxiliary hypotheses (both theoretical and observational) or other

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non-theoretical claims made by the theory? Holism implies as much. This is not to suggest that we should be able to eliminate all the theoretical claims of a theory and still retain the deductive and inductive implications of the theory. Rather it is to say that the occurrence of the sensory phenomena that we would expect if the designated theoretical claims were true might just as easily be the result of other theoretical or non-theoretical claims made in the theory, claims that serve as auxiliary hypotheses or simple observational claims, while the designated theoretical claims are literally false. This hypothesis, for example, would constitute one plausible way to explain the predictive success of Ptolemaic astronomy. While the designated theoretical claims of Ptolemy's astronomy can be viewed as literally false, the predictive success of such claims would need to be a function of other true claims made in the theory. To avoid explanation by appeal to the miraculous or the coincidental, then, we need not assume the truth of the theoretical claims of the theory. We need only assume that some of the claims in the theory are true (or say the way the world is). If this is so, then Smart's argument, even when understood as a philosophical explanation, requires of us only that we believe that some of the claims made by the theory say the way the world is. It does not follow that those claims will be the designated theoretical claims, because in urging that the predictive success of the theory may well be borne by the non-theoretical claims (or unsuspected theoretical claims) assumed or implied by the theory we are not appealing to the purely coincidental or to the miraculous. Thus, Smart's argument does not establish scientific realism as classically stated. At best, the argument establishes only that some of our beliefs about the world must be saying how the world is. Even then, unlike classical scientific realism, we are left with the problem of saying which sentences are saying how the world is. In the end, however, Smart's argument, suitably reformulated, will provide us with a defensible version of the core components of classical realism minus one central feature that is customarily identified as necessary to classical realism, both scientific and non-scientific. Let us then turn to reformulating the argument and in the process defend T2 while providing for the only form of scientific realism consistent with fallibilism, namely, blind realism. Smart's Argument Recast

Accordingly, without caring to discuss further Smart's stated argument, let us reformulate the argument in a way that allows for T2. The reformulation comes in the form of a question, and assumes that Smart's original argument has some initial plausibility. The question is this:

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On the assumption that there must be a reason why some scientific theories or hypotheses are successful as predictive instruments, what could be a better, or equally strong, explanation or reason for the fact of such success than that the successful theories or hypotheses are successful because at least some of the assertions explicitly made by the theories or hypotheses either say in some important measure how the world is, or assume, or imply, statements that say in some important measure just how the world is? So reformulated, Smart's argument seeks to establish a scientific realism insofar as it establishes T2; but it certainly does not establish the scientific realism Smart originally intended to establish because the argument no longer asserts that the best explanation for the predictive success of scientific theories is the truth of the specifiable theoretical claims made by the theory. Moreover, the scientific realism indicated in Smart's reformulated argument does not assert, imply, or assume any of the following claims: 1. The success of science in general can be explained by the truth or the approximate truth of the appropriate theoretical claims asserted in scientific theory. 2. The only possible explanation for the success of science (or for the success of some scientific theories or hypotheses) is the truth or the approximate truth of some of the claims made in the theories. 3. The best explanation for the predictive success of some scientific theories or hypotheses is the truth or the approximate truth of some of the theoretical claims asserted in the theories or hypotheses in question. 4. The best or the most plausible explanation for the predictive success of science, or of scientific theories, is the truth or the approximate truth of some of the sentences (either theoretical or observational) asserted, implied or assumed by the theories. 5. Presently, there is no more plausible explanation for the predictive success of some scientific theories or hypotheses than that some of the sentences in the theory are true or approximately true. In short, scientific realism, as just defined, does not mention the words 'true' or 'truth' or 'approximate truth'; nor, unless one erroneously assumes a definition of truth in terms of correspondence, does the explanation it offers tacitly commit us to an explanation in terms of the truth of claims made in the theory. Also, as explanations go, it does not claim to be the best possible or the only possible explanation. Moreover, the explanation it offers does not profess to explain the general success of science or the success of science in general, just as it does not seek to explain the predictive success in question as a function of the appropriate

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theoretical claims made in the theory. Finally, it does not assert, or otherwise imply, that anyone can reliably pick out, or establish, the sentences that succeed in so describing the external world. Anti-realist Alternative Explanations for the Long-Term Predictive Success of Scientific Theories If we grant that there is some minimal plausibility to the realist position as just described, then the anti-realist needs to provide at least an equally plausible alternative explanation or reason for the predictive success of some scientific theories or hypotheses. Failing that, the anti-realist can prevail only if he argues that the success in question does not need an explanation or, if it does, the explanation or reason offered by our realist is either no explanation at all (it's a pseudo-explanation or a pseudoreason), is too weak for rational acceptance, or is unacceptable for some other reason. At the outset, let us assume only that there is some intuitive plausibility to the realist's assertion captured in our reformulation of Smart's argument, and then let us examine the available anti-realist alternative explanations for the long-term predictive success of some scientific theories or hypotheses. Thereafter we will examine other anti-realist responses. Briefly, the total list of such available responses includes:

a. The predictive success in question is due merely to the instrumental ability of the theory or of the hypothesis in question. b. The predictive success in question is miraculous, or cosmically coincidental, or a matter of pure chance. c. The predictive success in question is due to the fact that some of the claims (especially the theoretical claims) asserted, implied or assumed by the hypotheses or theories are nearly true or approximately true, or come close to correctly describing the external world. d. The realist's explanation begs the question against the anti-realist because the realist's argument assumes the validity of abductive inference. e. The realist's explanation is a pseudo-explanation because it is logically circular. f. The realist's explanation is not an explanation at all because it is not empirically confirmable. g. The realist's explanation begs the question against anti-realism because it assumes the existence of an external world.

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h. There is no need to accept the realist's explanation because there is no need to explain the predictive success of some scientific theories or hypotheses. We will now examine each of these anti-realist alternatives to, and arguments against, realism. We will see that none is acceptable. Instrumental reliability

In offering an alternative to the realist's explanation some philosophers may urge that we can explain the predictive success of some scientific hypotheses or theories simply by appealing to the instrumental reliability of the theories or hypotheses in question. Arthur Fine, for example, has said: Similarly, if it is the instrumental success of science that we think wants explaining, then it seems that we require nothing more than the instrumental reliability of science in order to carry the explanation off. Indeed, an ything more than that would be doing no explanatory work. Thus the explanationist strategy for defending realism does not seem to pull all the way to realism itself. What it does pull us to, ironically again, is another of the enemies of realism, namely, instrumentalism ....26

And a little later in the same piece he says: Where the realist says that the structure is approximately true, read that instead as affirming, by and large, that the structure can be reliably employed .... Hence overall reliability functions well enough, in place of truth, to explain the ability of a structure to "extend beyond itself." Indeed, one can see that truth would work in an explanatory way only via the intermediary of reliability. (p. 7)

But the problem with this sort of reply is that it is viciously circular. After all, when we ask why some scientific hypotheses as a rule are predictively successful, we are in fact asking nothing more than why the hypotheses or theories in question are reliable as devices or instruments for predicting events that fall under their scope. Thus, seeking to account for the long-term predictive success of scientific theories or hypotheses does not differ from seeking to account for their instrumental reliability. So, appealing to the instrumental reliability of theories or hypotheses to account for the long-term predictive success of the theory is as viciously circular and question-begging as seeking to answer the question "Why do some people have freedom of choice?" with "Because some people always have it within their power to refrain from doing what they do and do something else instead." Miracles, cosmic coincidence, and chance

Perhaps, as Mary Hesse has suggested, long-term predictive success can be explained by appeal to the miraculous. She asserts that scientific

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realism is not "entailed by scientific success because science might, after all, be a miracle."27 Minimally, however, appealing to the miraculous is no explanation at all unless one has rejected for compelling reasons all plausible alternative explanations. Moreover, as an alternative hypothesis to the realist's position, it is hardly as plausible, because we believe that appealing to the miraculous is purely arbitrary when there is a less miraculous alternative. Besides, what is a miracle anyway? Is it not an event that cannot plausibly be explained except to say that God caused it? If so, then before we appeal to the miraculous to explain the fact of scientific success, we must show on independent grounds that the realist's explanation is not plausible; and that is by no means established by simply asserting as an equally plausible explanation an alternative appeal to the miraculous. Similarly, some philosophers, such as Bas van Fraassen, allow an appeal to cosmic coincidence or pure chance as a way of explaining the predictive success of some scientific theories or hypotheses. 28 And others (such as Bertrand Russell) are quick to point to cases of long-term predictive success that seem capable of explanation only by appeal to coincidence. For example, the inhabitants of Changsha, over thousands of years, firmly believed that the practice of beating on gongs during lunar eclipses frightened the heavenly dog whose attempt to swallow the moon is the cause of the eclipse. Their belief that the heavenly dog attempts to swallow the moon but is diverted when frightened by noise led to certain predictions that never failed: every eclipse will come to an end after sufficient prolongation of the din. So their belief that the heavenly dog's attempt to swallow the moon will fail if the din is sufficiently prolonged led to a hypothesis that was predictively successful over the long term. 29 Surely, it will be urged, the long-term predictive success of their belief that the heavenly dog is the cause of the lunar eclipse and that the eclipse will end when the dog is frightened after a period of prolonged noise-making seems to be more a matter of coincidence than anything else. Nobody seems inclined to say that the predictive success of their belief is a function of the explanatory statements succeeding in describing the way the world is. Accordingly, it seems quite reasonable to argue that long-term predictive success could just as easily be a function of coincidence as anything else. And, so the objection goes, we have no good grounds allowing us to eliminate coincidence as an explanation. In response to this sort of anti-realist objection, it may seem tempting to suggest that, for various reasons, the belief offered by the inhabitants of Changsha is not a scientific hypothesis, and that the realist's claim was intended only for scientific hypotheses. Such a response, however, seems

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beside the point because the realist thesis in question here is that the longterm predictive success of any empirical hypothesis cannot be explained unless we assume that some of the sentences succeed in correctly describing the external world. Indeed, the proper response to this objection is that even though the causal claim made by the inhabitants of Changsha is literally false, still, the long-term predictive success of their belief is a function of certain sentences implied by the hypothesis. For example, their belief implies the statement "After the inhabitants of Changsha bang strenuously on drums for a certain amount of time, the lunar eclipse ends." So, while they fail to explain correctly the cause of the lunar eclipse, we may plausibly regard the long-term predictive success of their belief as a function of sentences deductively implied by the literally false hypothesis. Certainly, this account seems more persuasive as a reasoned explanation of the long-term predictive success of the hypothesis than the explanation offered in terms of coincidence. Further, in the context at hand, explanation offered in terms of coincidence is not an explanation. After all, if a woman in Atlanta wins the national lottery three times in a row, we might well explain it by appeal to coincidence; but as soon as she starts winning sufficiently frequently to warrant a responsible prediction that she will win the next lottery (as would occur, for example, if she won 1,000 times consecutively) then nobody would accept as even minimally plausible an appeal to coincidence as an explanation. So also with the inhabitants of Changsha; the fact that their predictions never fail over two thousand years, makes their predictive success by appeal to coincidence or chance maximally implausible. Verisimilitude

The third anti-realist alternative explanation consists in urging that in order to account for the long-term predictive success of some scientific hypotheses or theories we need only suppose that some of the sentences asserted, implied, or assumed by the theories or hypotheses come close to, or approximate, correctly describing in some important measure the external world. Obviously, if one were to define truth in terms of correspondence and then define scientific realism in terms of the truth or the near-truth of certain sentences in the successful hypotheses or theories, this particular objection to realism would end up looking like the traditional verisimilitudinist position, which is a realist and not an anti-realist position. But the realism we defend here makes no claim about truth and, for reasons mentioned earlier, should not be regarded as making such a claim. Moreover, the core thesis of realism as we are defending it here does not assert or imply that we have an answer to the question the realist seeks to answer when we respond that some of the sentences of a success-

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ful theory or hypothesis approximate or come close to describing correctly the external world. At first glance, however, this alternative explanation is unclear. It is as difficult to say precisely what it means for a theoretical claim or a theory or a hypothesis to come close to saying in some important measure just how the world is as it is to say that a theory or a statement is approximately true. As Laudan has pointed out, nobody has successfully defined what it means for a statement to be "approximately true," and so it is difficult to see just how a theory could be predictively successful as a result of its claims being strictly or literally false but approximately true. 30 Similarly, if we drop all references to truth and seek to account for the predictive success of theories by claiming that the statements of the theory, or the statements assumed or implied by the theory, need only come close to saying in some important measure just how the world is, we are no better off than if we had said that the theory need only be approximately true. There is of course a certain amount of initial credibility in the belief that if only our hypotheses are approximately true, or come reasonably close to saying just how the world really is, we can explain the predictive success of such hypotheses. But the issue, as Laudan has also noted ("A Confutation of Convergent Realism," 31ff), is not whether the concept of coming close to saying how the world is or whether the concept of approximate truth is plausible or philosophically rigorous, but whether it is even clear enough for us to ascertain whether it entails what it purportedly explains. For the verisimilitudinist, the predictive success of a rejected theory can be explained only by claiming that either (a) the whole theory was approximately true or (b) certain statements in the theory were approximately true. But, holistic considerations notwithstanding, the whole theory (Le., all the claims made by the theory) could not have been approximately true. Surely it was not even approximately true that the earth was the center of the universe, that phlogiston had certain properties, and that space-time was not curved. So, the verisimilitudinist can explain the rejected theory's predictive success only by appeal to (b), and presumably he will claim that it is the approximate truth of the theoretical claims that carry the theory's predictive success. But when exactly is a theoretical claim approximately true? A theoretical claim asserts the existence of a certain unobservable object having certain properties that, under certain specifiable conditions, produce expected sensory stimuli, the occurrence of which confirms belief in the existence of the unobservable object having the properties in question. As defined, the object in question either exists or it does not. What makes it difficult to understand what it means to say that a theoretical

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statement is approximately true is that we have difficulty saying precisely what follows from the approximate truth of a theoretical claim. Shall we say that the entity or entities asserted to exist in a theoretical statement approximately exist if the statement is approximately true? Presumably, quarks either exist or they do not. It makes no sense to say they approximately exist. But if the approximate existence of an unobservable entity is not what follows from the approximate truth of a theoretical claim asserting its existence, what does follow? Seemingly, there are only two other ways to make sense of the verisimilitudinist's claim. The first consists in offering the following sort of explication: When we say that the predictive success of a theory or a hypothesis does not require that the sentences asserting the existence of theoretical entities (like genes, quarks or molecules) succeed in saying correctly in some important measure just how the world is, we mean to assert that even though a theoretical claim may be literally false because, for example, the entity in question did not exist or (if it did) did not have all the properties (as precisely defined) ascribed to it, still, some of the properties asserted to exist were correct assertions-even if they were properties subsequently ascribed to other objects. The problem with this explication, however, is that it actually accounts for the predictive success of the theory or hypothesis in terms of those sentences or property ascriptions that do succeed in correctly describing the theoretical object in some important measure-and that is to assert, rather than deny, just what the realist as defined above asserts. The second way to make sense of the verisimilitudinist claim is to assert that a statement asserting the existence of a theoretical entity may be strictly literally false but approximately true, not because some of the implicit property ascriptions are correct, but just because the properties ascribed to the theoretical entities are very much like real properties that do exist. Verisimilitudinists typically argue something like this in order to carry their general point. Here again, however, if the theoretical sentences are literally false but have predictive power because the statements come close to saying how it is, and if coming close to saying how it is is not a matter of literally false sentences either assuming or implying sentences that do succeed in saying in some measure how it is, then, arguably, we still do not know what it means to say of a sentence that it comes close to saying correctly in some important measure just how the world is. Indeed, when is a property that does not exist very much like a property that does exist? In spite of this response, however, one particular defense of the verisimilitudinist position (which is also a response to Laudan's claim that nobody has yet successfully defined 'approximate truth') deserves attention because it asserts that we can plausibly regard central theoretical claims that fail to refer in any way as approximately true, just as it also seeks to

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explain how literally false sentences about outmoded theoretical entities are approximately true. In their article "In Defense of Convergent Realism" (Philosophy of Science vol. 49 (June 1982): 604-15), Clyde Hardin and Alexander Rosenberg argue interestingly that a theory is approximately true even when its central theoretical terms fail to refer. Mendel's 1866 theory, for example, "is often credited with approximate truth and still taught because of its simplicity and the ease with which it can be complicated in the direction of presumably more accurate and more complete genetic theories. Yet it may plausibly be reported by a realist that there is nothing like genes, or phenotypes, as Mendel or his immediate successors construed them" (p. 606). What makes Mendelian genetics approximately true, even though there was nothing like the gene as Mendel originally envisaged it, is that "all of the functions indicative of the Mendelian gene are now credited to widely different amounts, highly complex combinations, and incredibly diverse sequences of DNA" (606-7); and "the causal role Mendel accorded to genes is parceled out to other entities" (p. 607). Bypassing this sort of explanation, Hardin and Rosenberg go on to urge the further point that, even so, changes in genetic theory in the last century can be understood to support the view that the central theoretical terms of Mendel's theory do successfully refer because "they may be taken

to refer to configurations of DNA and their polypeptide products, even though, of course, neither Mendel nor any other geneticist before the 1950s realized that it was these sorts of things to which the terms refer" (emphasis added)(p.607). For Hardin and Rosenberg, the realist can accept either of the above accounts: "If he accepts the first he must be (and is) able to trace out the relations between Mendel's theoretical claims and currently accepted ones in a way that shows why his laws were approximately correct, even though they failed to secure reference. If the realist accepts the second construction of what happened in the history of genetics he must buy into a somewhat different account of reference at least for the moment. Since no theory of reference is as yet fixed in the philosophy of science, the realist may avail himself of several alterative accounts of the referential success of particular theories, and can demand that his claims about these theories' referential successes be judged on a case by case basis and not in the light of a univocal account of reference that he must establish and justify ab initio. Similarly, he is in a position to credit theories with approximate truth even where he considers it more accurate to say that the theories did not secure reference to what, with hindsight, we now hold to constitute the fundamental ontology of their domains." (p. 608)

In response to Hardin and Rosenberg, however, the realist's acceptance of the first of the above accounts makes sense only if we construe the claim that the original functions of the gene are credited to various properties of the DNA to mean that while the central claims of Mendelian

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genetics were literally false (and hence did not refer) the predictive success of the theory was a function of certain sentences in the theory that did succeed in correctly describing the world in some important measure, namely those sentences that asserted certain causal functions later ascribed to various properties of DNA. But if this is what is implied by the first account, the account offered is not a matter of explaining the predictive success of the theory by appeal to approximate truth. Rather it is a matter of explaining the predictive success by appeal to the truth (or descriptive adequacy) of some of the sentences asserted or implied by the theory, although not the core theoretical ones that were asserted by the theory. Similarly, suppose the realist takes the second account offered by Hardin and Rosenberg. On this account, the basic core terms, such as gene, really did refer because the basic theoretical terms may be taken to refer to configurations of DNA and their polypeptide products, even though neither Mendel nor any other geneticist before the 1950s realized that it was these sorts of things to which the terms refer. Hence, on this account we explain the predictive success of Mendelian genetics by appeal to the approximate truth of the core theoretical assertions; and the approximate truth of the core theoretical assertions is a function of their actually referring not to what is explicitly asserted to exist by the sentences in the theory, but rather to what is implicitly asserted to exist, and which is explicitly asserted to exist by sentences in a later theory. But if this is what is implied by the second account, it is difficult to see how it differs very much from the first. In both cases the account offered is not a matter of explaining the predictive success of the theory by appeal to approximate truth. It is, once again, a matter of explaining predictive success by appeal to the truth (or descriptive adequacy) of some sentences implied by the theory and rendered explicit in subsequent theoretical assertions. Thus the predictive success of past theories, such as Mendelian genetics, can be explained only by appeal to the truth (or descriptive adequacy) of certain statements implied by literally false theoretical claims. As Mendel conceived of it, the gene does not exist, but some of the properties he ascribed to the gene do exist as properties of something else; the sentences asserting the existence of those properties, and hence implied by Mendelian genetics, do succeed, in some important measure, in correctly describing the world, and for that reason, Mendelian genetics was and is predictively successful. Thus we can account for the predictive success of outmoded theories (and theories whose theoretical claims are straightforwardly false) without appealing to approximate truth. Of course, if theoretical claims were relevantly like certain arithmetical claims, we could make clear sense of the suggestion that they are approximately true. Adding 8 and 3 and concluding that the sum is 12 is offering a statement literally false but approximately true; it is only one

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digit away. Moreover, from such a literally false belief we can easily imagine someone drawing conclusions that would provide us with predictive success. Believing that one needed 12 gallons of gasoline to fly to Boston (rather than 11) may certainly be as successful as believing that one needs 11 gallons when 11 gallons is the correct number. But statements asserting the existence of unobservable entities are very unlike arithmetical claims. The former are not approximately true because we do not know what follows from the approximate truth of such statements; whereas the latter can be approximately true because we can provide some clear sense of how a statement of this sort can be literally false but approximately true. Arithmetical statements can be approximately true just because the concept of approximation (like the concept of approaching something) is defined for numbers, metrics, and inferences about them. One can approximate the right number when one comes close to the right number. But it is nonsense to talk about its being approximately true (or nearly right) when one is asserting the existence of unobservable entities. They either exist or they do not. In response to this last argument, however, some philosophers still suggest that even when our theoretical claims are literally false, the truth is very much like what turns out to be literally false. On this view, once again, if it is literally false that there are quarks as described in current physics, even so, something very much like quarks as defined has been discovered; and that in itself accounts for the predictive success of any theory asserting the existence of quarks. As science progresses we come to know more and more what the real properties are of the entities we initially discovered but literally failed to describe successfully in precise terms. Given this verisimilitudinist view (which does not noticeably differ from the earlier noted proposal made by Hardin and Rosenberg), a scientific discovery is like a geographical discovery: we may discover a continent and yet know virtually nothing about it other than that it exists; but the discovery itself accounts for the predictive success of our beliefs about it although the beliefs are literally false. 31 In addition to what we have already noted, the problem with this response is that asserting the existence of theoretical entities such as phlogiston is less like discovering a continent that one has misdescribed than it is like saying that one has discovered something when in fact one has discovered nothing at all. There may of course be some cases wherein the analogy between scientific discovery and geographical discovery would be appropriate, but those are not typically the cases in which one is asserting the existence of a theoretical entity. Besides, accepting the analogy suggested tends to support the conclusion that a scientific discovery (that is, a robustly supported belief) that consists in asserting the existence of a theoretical entity can never be wrong; one's scientific mistakes

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occur only in describing existing entities. But surely there must be something wrong with the view that no alleged scientific discovery asserting the existence of some theoretical entity is ever false, although statements describing it could be literally false. In sum, while it may make sense to say that it is approximately true that the sum of 8 and 3 is 12, it makes no more sense to say that it is approximately true that there are quarks, or that there are atoms, than it makes sense to say that it is approximately true that God exists. Whatever the reason might be for thinking that theoretical claims could be approximately true while literally false (and the reason seems to involve confusing and conflating statements asserting numerical properties, statements that may approximate the truth, with statements asserting the existence of unobservable entities, statements that may not approximate the truth), it does not provide the kind of strength needed for the verisimilitudinist's response .. Realism begs the question against anti-realism Apart from the above anti-realist alternative explanations, anti-realists sometimes accuse realists of begging the question against anti-realists by assuming the validity of abductive inference. Arthur Fine is responsible for this basic objection. He says of anti-realists: While they appreciate the systematization and coherence brought about by scientific explanation, they question whether acceptable explanations need to be true and, hence, whether the entities mentioned in explanatory principles need to exist. Suppose they are right. Suppose, that is, that the usual explanationinferring devices in scientific practice do not lead to principles that are reliably true (or nearly so), nor to entities whose existence (or near-existence) is reliable. In that case the usual abductive methods that lead us to good explanations (even to "the best explanation") cannot be counted on to yield results even approximately true. But the strategy that leads to realism, as I have indicated, is just such an ordinary sort of abductive inference. Hence, if the non-realist were correct in his doubts, then such an inference to realism as the best explanation (or the like), while possible, would be of no significance-exactly as in the case of a consistency proof using the methods of an inconsistent system. It seems then that Hilbert's maxim applies to the debate overrealism: to argue forrealism one must employ methods more stringent than those in ordinary scientific practice. In particular one must not beg the very question as to the significance of explanatory hypotheses by assuming that they carry truth as well as explanatory efficacy.32

Elsewhere, clarifying this objection, Fine says: What the literature seems to have settled on is a form of abductive inference, namely, inference to the best explanation, which yields the explanationist defense ofrealism. This defense begins by calling attention to the instrumental

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success of science, i.e., to the sort of practical success one can observe in our everyday lives and culture. We are then asked to account for this, and are told that only realism can give a good explanation for why the conscientious practice of science leads to such instrumental success. 33 So, Fine equates abductive inference with inference to the best explanation and with the view that inference to the best explanation carries with it truth understood in terms of correspondence; and because it is the core of the anti-realist position to deny that inference to the best explanation need carry truth rather than explanatory efficacy, the realist simply assumes what needs to be defended against the anti-realist arguments, namely, that inference to the best explanation produces truth. Minimally, there are two major reasons for rejecting Fine's argument against realism. The first is that even as an attack on classical realism, the argument itself begs the question against realism. If anti-realism were true, and if the truth of anti-realism rendered illegitimate ordinary abductive inferences, then to the extent that the realist's argument employed such abductive inference realists would beg the question against anti-realists. However, accusing the realist of begging the question against the antirealist by employing ordinary abductive inference begs the question against the realist unless one has already established the truth of anti-realism. 34 In short, the realist does not beg the question against the anti-realist in the way Fine suggests unless we assume the truth of anti-realism, and that is precisely what we cannot do without begging the question against the realist. Second, the realism for which we here argue does not assume that inference to the best explanation carries truth understood as correspondence; nor does it assert as much. Realism, as defined at the outset of this chapter, assumes only that if there is no equally plausible alternative explanation or reason for the long-term predictive success of some scientific hypotheses or theories, then the realist explanation as described above is the most reasonable one to adopt at present. And realism, as described above, does not require acceptance of the correspondence definition or theory of truth. So, the realism here in question is not the product of a simple abductive inference, if by the latter we are committed to the correspondence theory of truth. The realist we defend need not say that realism is true simply because it is an inference to the best explanation; the realist need only say that realism is the most reasonable thesis to adopt at the moment because there is no equally plausible alternative explanation or reason or answer to the original question. The realist explanation is a pseudo-explanation In different places Richard Rorty has argued that the explanation the realist offers for scientific success is a pseudo-explanation. He claims that, as explanations go, the realist explanation is not much better off than

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the infamous medieval explanation to the effect that "Opium has a soporific effect because it has a dormitive power."35 But surely there is a world of difference between the two explanations. What makes the "dormitive power" explanation a pseudo-explanation is that when we ask why opium has a soporific effect we are in fact asking why opium has a dormitive power; and so, answering our question with "because it has a dormitive power" is not to offer any explanation at all because the alleged explanans is simply a restatement of the explanandum in a way that falsely suggests that it is a legitimate explanans. This circularity is not present, however, in the realist's explanation for scientific success; for when we ask "Why is it that some scientific theories or hypotheses are predictively successful in the long-term?" we are certainly not asking "Why is it that some of the sentences asserted, implied, or assumed by the hypothesis or theory succeed in correctly describing in some important measure the external world?" Clearly, these are two distinct questions. Thus, trying to assimilate the realist's explanation to an instance of the 'dormitive power' model of explanation fails. Moreover, some critics suggest that the realist's explanation is a pseudoexplanation because particular instrumental successes are normally explained by appealing to the relevant scientific theory. For example, so the objection goes, thermodynamics explains why some heat engines are more efficient than others. It adds no further explanatory force to say that some of the sentences in these theories correctly describe the world in some important measure. By way of response to the objection, however, it is important to note that the question the realist seeks to answer is not "What sorts of properties or events are successfully predicted by the theory?", but rather "How could any theory, such as thermodynamics, explain why some heat engines are more efficient than others if some of the sentences asserted, implied, or assumed by thermodynamics do not succeed in correctly describing in some important measure the external world?" Thus, this last objection to the realist's explanation or answer seemingly misconstrues the nature of the question the realist seeks to answer by confusing it with the totally different question as to how one explains the occurrence of particular events or properties that are implied by the predictively successful theory. As a matter of fact, the realist's answer is not supposed to be an answer to such questions as, "Why are some engines more efficient than others?" The realist's question is rather "Why is it that theories such as thermodynamics succeed in correctly predicting events in the external world?" Scientific realists are not offering scientific explanations in the same way the theories do. They merely claim that the best explanation or reason available for the fact that some theories do succeed in this regard is that some of the sentences implied, asserted, or

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assumed by such theories must succeed in some important measure in correctly describing the external world. The realist's explanation is no explanation because it is not empirically confirmable Bypassing a catalogue of those philosophers who have adopted, or would adopt, this objection, it should be clear from what we have already said that if we make it a necessary condition for the adequacy of any explanation that it be empirically confirmable, then we blatantly beg the question against philosophical explanations and, by implication, philosophy as an enterprise in general. Moreover, if we insist on empirical confirmability in the interest of furthering the cause of anti-realism, then we reduce antirealism to incoherence because it, as one explanation of scientific success, does not admit of empirical confirmation. Besides, if the point of insisting on such a requirement is to overcome the classical scandal of philosophy, the achievement would be illusory because the alleged objectivity achieved by some robustly confirmed hypotheses need not suggest any permanency of truth-value assignment. Why insist on science if, by way of achieving truth and objectivity, scientific explanations are no better than philosophical explanations? Thus, if we are to avoid question-begging against philosophy itself, and if anti-realism is to avoid incoherence we cannot fault the realist explanation for the reason that the explanation is not empirically confirmable in some basic sense indicated in the logic of the natural sciences. The realist explanation begs the question against anti-realism because it assumes the existence of an external world Certainly, for various reasons, the best available explanation may not be good enough to warrant rational adoption. But if that charge is to weigh against the above-described realist position, then the anti-realist will need to say just what it is about the realist's explanation or answer that renders it unreasonable to adopt, even though it may be the best presently available. One such anti-realist response would consist in objecting that the realist's explanation begs the question against anti-realism because it assumes the existence of the external world. Admittedly, if there were no external world, the realism defined above would fail even if it were the best available explanation for long-term predictive success. Earlier, however, we saw at length that even if we abandon the correspondence theory of truth, we would still know (Le., be completely justified in believing) that there is an external world and that some of our beliefs purport to be reasonably adequate descriptions of it. In the interest of avoiding needless duplication, I submit that that argu-

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ment is sound; if it is not sound, then of course the realism we here defend will fail. Similarly, one might object that although the realist argument, as here construed and defended, does not make explicit mention of 'truth' or 'true' or 'approximate truth', still, by arguing that the best available explanation or reason for predictive success entails that some statements must succeed in correctly describing the external world in some important measure, the argument tacitly assumes the correspondence theory of truth, which is precisely what the anti-realist questions. In response, however, as we noted a few pages back, this objection would be sound only if 'true' or 'is true' means some variant of 'corresponds with the facts' or 'says how the world is'. But advocates of the sort of realism here defined and defended will presumably argue against such a view. They will assert instead that while some sentences may well succeed in describing the external world, it would be a serious mistake to regard them for that very reason as 'true'. Accordingly, defenders of the above sort ofrealism need not, and for many other reasons (some of which we have already seen) should not, espouse the correspondence definition of truth rather than, say, some basic variant of the pragmatic definition offered in terms of 'warranted assertibilities'. For such realists (not to be confused with classical realists, of course) it makes perfectly good sense to assert that some true statements will, and some will not, succeed in correctly describing the external world. It will also make sense to argue that we have no effective decision procedure to pick out from all those true (Le., warrantedly assertible or robustly confirmable) beliefs those that actually succeed in correctly describing the external world. Success in arguing this latter point would make such a realist a blind realist. For present purposes, at any rate, it suffices to note that belief in the existence of statements that succeed in correctly describing the external world does not a correspondence theorist make. Nor, as we shall see, does belief in the existence of such statements entail that anyone can provide a reliable decision procedure to pick out, or otherwise establish, those statements from all those that are equally robustly confirmed (or fully warrantedly assertible) but do not so succeed in correctly describing the external world. There is no need to accept the realist's explanation because there is no need to explain the predictive success of some scientific theories or hypotheses

Finally, some philosophers tend to object that there is no need to adopt any form of scientific realism because there is no need to explain the sort of predictive success for which any realism purportedly provides a commanding explanation. On this view, since it is not necessary to explain

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such success there is consequently no need to accept scientific realism because it is only on the assumption that such success needs an explanation that any realism of the sort here defended can compel our assent. 36 But there is a lot wrong with this objection. Doubtless, there is a sense in which we no more need to explain the long-term predictive success of some scientific theories than we do the fact that some men are bald. We may choose to ignore such facts and seek instead to explain others we find more interesting. Even so, when the scientific realist asserts that we need to explain the long-term predictive success of some scientific theories or hypotheses, she is asserting that we have a basic epistemic obligation to try to answer all legitimate questions if anything significant hangs on answering such questions. The realist then proceeds to urge that the question "Why are some scientific theories or hypotheses predictively successful in the long run?" is as legitimate as "Why are some men bald?" Why we seek to answer such questions is quite irrelevant. The point is that this kind of question is legitimate precisely because there must be a reason why some, but not all, members of a given class have a given property. Otherwise they would all have the property, or none would. So, given that there must be a reason why some, but not all, scientific theories or hypotheses succeed in the long run as predictive devices, it is as legitimate to ask why this is so as it is to ask why some, but not all, men are bald. The realist's response is that the most plausible reason or explanation available for this phenomenon is what the realist asserts when she asserts realism. In the end, if the anti-realist is to succeed in ignoring realism, he cannot succeed in so doing by urging that we need not provide an explanation for the long-term predictive success of some scientific theories or hypotheses. Rather, he needs to show that the question for which realism (as here defined) purportedly provides an answer is an illegitimate or pointless question. But if this latter question is illegitimate or pointless, then so too would be any question of the general form "Why do some Xs, but not all Xs, have the property Y?" Presumably, eliminating all such questions as illegitimate is both indefensible and much too costly. Of course, the anti-realist might well grant that such questions are legitimate but simply deny that we have any responsibility to answer legitimate questions. But surely this latter posture would lead the anti-realist to the awkward position that we do not need to accept any answers to any questions of the form "Why do some Xs, but not all Xs, have the property Y?" This latter conclusion would render all such questions illegitimate. Moreover, it will be urged that while the question may be legitimate in some sense, nonetheless it is a pointless or unilluminating question. But why exactly would it be pointless or unilluminating to ask such a

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question? The only available reply seems to be that the question does not admit of any empirically confirmable answer or because any answer would be vacuous by way of providing an explanation for particular instrumentalities. For reasons already noted, however, such a reply here is unacceptable. SAYING WHICH BELIEFS CORRECTLY DESCRIBE THE WORLD: THE IMPOSSIBLE TASK

Given T2, we are completely authorized in believing that some of the claims made, implied, or assumed by past successful theories succeeded in some important measure in correctly describing the external world. We are also equally authorized in believing that some of the claims made, implied, or assumed by past successful theories failed to describe correctly the external world. Ptolemaic astronomy, for example, was predictively successful in certain ways; but of course the earth was not (and is not) the center of the universe any more than Newtonian views about absolute space and time were (or are) correct even though those views were also predictively successful in certain ways. In short, we are completely justified in believing that past successful scientific theories contained some propositions that correctly described the external world, and contained some that did not; and all the propositions asserted by the theories were completely authorized relative to the then current bodies of evidence and rules for interpreting the evidence. Further, as we noted in Chapter One, we have very good reason to believe that scientific theories will continue to change and evolve as much in the future as they have in the past. Consequently, present scientific theory will be to future scientific theory what past and outmoded scientific theories are to present theory. Just as we must say of past successful scientific theories that some of their completely authorized or warranted claims did, and some did not, say how the external world is, so too we are completely justified in believing (because future theories will change and evolve as much in the future as they have in the past) that future theories will serve to criticize present theories in the same way we criticize past theories. If the future is like the past, future critics will be completely justified in saying of present theories just what we say of past theories, namely, that some of the claims contained therein did, and some did not, succeed in saying how the external world is. Thus, because present theory will be to future theory what past theory is to present theory, some of the claims made by present theory do, and some do not, succeed in describing the external world even though they may all be completely authorized for

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acceptance. Those completely authorized claims that fail to describe successfully the external world fail to refer, or to say the way the world is. Therefore, we are completely authorized in believing that some of our completely authorized or justified beliefs about the external world do not say the way the world is or succeed in correctly describing it at all. The interesting question is: which of our completely authorized beliefs about the external world succeed in correctly describing it? The answer is simple: those that will not go the way of phlogiston, Ptolemy's geocentric thesis, or Newton's absolute time and space. In short, those propositions that will not suffer truth value revision in the future are the ones that we can feel sure correctly describe the external world. At this point the blind realist asserts T3, namely, that we cannot justifiably say, pick out, or otherwise establish by appeal to any reliable decision procedure which of our currently completely authorized beliefs are the ones that succeed in describing the external world correctly. This is because we have no reliable way of determining which of our currently completely authorized beliefs will suffer truth value revision in the future. What makes the blind realist's position so plausible here is that unless we require of complete justifications that they be entailing, we can only know which propositions will suffer truth value revision by knowing what evidence the future will bring; but because we can only know what evidence the future will bring by being able to see into the future, there really is no way of determining which truth value assignments will suffer eclipse. More important, we cannot allow the evidence that counts for a belief's being completely authorized to serve simultaneously as sufficient evidence for the descriptive adequacy of the belief, or even as sufficient evidence for the strong likelihood of descriptive adequacy, because we would then have no way to establish which of our completely authorized beliefs are descriptively adequate and which are not. After all, if we know (as we do) that some of our completely authorized beliefs succeed in correctly describing the external world and that some of them do not, we cannot let the completely authorized nature of our beliefs count as sufficient evidence for their descriptive success because that would thereby render all the propositions in the class of completely authorized beliefs descriptively successful-and we know for reasons already mentioned that that cannot be so. Indeed, the very question "Which of our completely authorized beliefs succeed in correctly describing the external world?" makes no sense if one were to suppose that a proposition's being completely authorized counted in any way for the descriptive success, or the strong likelihood of such success, of the proposition. No doubt, we in fact regard completely authorized propositions as descriptively successful; but that, per se, will not provide us with a reliable decision procedure to pick out or

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establish which ones do and which ones do not so succeed. So, in order to establish reliably which among our completely authorized beliefs are true and which are not, we must appeal to some reliable decision procedure or principle of evidence, which excludes as evidence for the descriptive success of the proposition in question the evidence for the fully authorized nature of the proposition in question. Further, given that the adequacy of any proposed answer to our question could not be empirically confirmable, we are left in the dark as to what decision procedure would be workable. At the risk of tedious repetition of arguments seen in Chapter One, let us reexamine the arguments against T3. Objections to Adopting T3 Robustly supported propositions will do Against T3, some philosophers claim that we can distinguish the propositions that are more likely to endure all future revolutions by determining whether the propositions in question are robustly supported. Under this proposal we would be reasonably justified in picking out certain beliefs as less likely to admit of truth value revision when they are strongly supported by a rich variety of evidence in a variety of ways. According to William Wimsatt, as we also noted in Chapter One, robustly supported beliefs are those derived from multiply independent perspectives using different and independent experimental procedures, models and assumptions. For Wimsatt and others, propositions robustly confirmed provide a sounder basis for predictions and are widely regarded as criteria for the reality of those things the existence of which are said to be robustly confirmed. 37 Upon reflection, however, this last proposal is disturbing because it is not difficult to find in some outmoded theories some beliefs that were robustly supported but subsequently suffered truth value revision. During its heyday, for example, what could have been more robustly supported than Ptolemy's geocentric thesis or the phlogiston theory of combustion? Thus, it is difficult to see how any proposition robustly supported in the way suggested by Wimsatt could be anything more than a proposition completely authorized or warranted by appeal to a variety of kinds and sources of confirming evidence. Furthermore, given that some robustly supported hypotheses in the past suffered truth-value revision, we have very good reason to believe that, because the future will be like the past, some robustly supported propositions will suffer truth-value revision in the future. So, it seems that some robustly supported hypotheses do, and some do not, say the way the world is because some will, and some will not, admit of truth value revision. Because there is no logical feature of the claims that would allow us to distinguish between the two, we cannot

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say which hypotheses succeed (among all those robustly confirmed) in correctly describing the world in some important measure. In the class of robustly confirmed beliefs, it is by no means clear or obvious which items will survive. Finally, for all the reasons noted above when we argued that the evidence that completely authorizes a belief cannot simultaneously count for the belief succeeding in describing the external world, we cannot allow the evidence that robustly supports a belief to serve simultaneously as sufficient (or even relevant) for the belief successfully describing the external world. The 'preface paradox' In further objecting to T3, some philosophers will object that the endorsement of T3 is actually an instance of the 'Preface Paradox'. The 'Preface Paradox' (as we noted in Chapter One) occurs when the author of a book states in her preface that while she accepts as true every assertion made in the book, she also believes that some of the assertions she accepts must be false, although she does not know which ones are false. In short, some of the propositions she believes to be true she also believes to be false. Are we not, so the objection goes, in precisely the same position when we assert T3, that is, when we assert that of all our presently completely authorized beliefs we know that some do not succeed in saying the way the world is, although we cannot say which?38 Even if we were to accept the 'Preface Paradox' as implying some sort of contradiction (and there is good reason not to), the answer is no. For when we assert T3 we are hardly asserting that some of the propositions we now believe to be true we also now believe to be false. Nor is that contradiction implied by T3. Rather we are saying that some of the propositions that we are completely authorized or warranted in accepting as true (and hence now believe) are not in fact true. Accepting some proposition as true is quite consistent with that proposition's being in fact false; and believing that some proposition we accept as true is in fact false is by no means a matter of asserting that some of the propositions one believes to be true one also believes to be false. It is, as we noted in Chapter One, more like saying that some of our beliefs must fail to describe successfully the external world although we do not know which ones so fail. The unimaginability of truth-value revision Others will also urge that we can successfully choose which of our currently robustly confirmed beliefs are more likely to suffer truth-value revision by appeal to simple common sense. On this suggestion, it seems more likely that sentences such as "Fire burns" will endure than sentences such as "The distance between the Earth and the Sun is some 93 million light years." Indeed, some robustly confirmed beliefs seem so obviously

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true because we cannot honestly imagine them being false except in some logically possible universe by no means close to the one we inhabit. In response to this objection, however, it would appear that such a decision procedure assumes rather than proves that some robustly confirmed beliefs are more robustly confirmed than others. Otherwise there would be no justification for choosing one over the other as more likely to endure. But the assumption is overruled by the fact that the class of robustly confirmed beliefs, by definition, contains propositions that are all equally robustly confirmed and hence epistemically indistinguishable. Among equally robustly confirmed beliefs it is by no means obvious just which items are more likely to avoid truth-value revision. Besides, beliefs selected under the appeal to obviousness do not differ in kind from many beliefs held in the past but subsequently rejected as false. Recall, once again, the infamous flat-world hypothesis, or even the geocentric hypothesis. Such beliefs, no matter how firmly entrenched, are no different in kind than any belief about the physical world-they are all subject to refutation and truth-value revision in the light of future evidence. So, appeal to obviousness as a way of determining which among our robustly confirmed beliefs will not suffer truth-value revision will fail, because as among equally robustly confirmed beliefs, it is by no means obvious which ones will go the way of phlogiston and which ones will not. Moreover, as an additional response to the proposal in question, it seems fair to say that if it were obvious which robustly confirmed beliefs will endure and which will not, then the very question we asked, namely, "Which among our robustly confirmed beliefs will go the way of phlogiston?" would be silly because there would be no need to ask it. Finally, if it were obvious which robustly confirmed beliefs will not go the way of phlogiston, then there should be no difficulty in paring the current corpus of robustly confirmed beliefs down to a set of beliefs that we know will not be set aside in the future, whatever evidence will emerge. Surely, however, we cannot say that no matter what evidence the future brings it will never falsify what we all currently regard as true. In a somewhat similar but more intriguing vein, one philosopher, Nicholas Rescher, has recently suggested that to the degree that we make our empirical claims non-specific, we will succeed in providing empirical beliefs that cannot be refuted and hence will be true. He offers sentences such as "Somebody lived on the planet Earth during the nineteenth century," or "At least one person voted for Reagan in 1984," or "Dogs bark," or "The coast of England is longer than the coast of Rhode Island."39 Surely, so the claim goes, these sentences are true and not to be overthrown by future evidence. Rescher's objection differs from the one we examined above

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because he is willing to grant that among robustly confirmed beliefs we have no effective decision procedure to determine which ones will not go the way of phlogiston. But our failure here is not a failure in principle for the correspondence theorist because the failure holds only with respect to claims made in theoretical science where we seek precision and specificity, and it is precisely for that reason that scientific claims, or robustly confirmed beliefs, cannot be sorted into those that will and those that will not go the way of phlogiston. In short, if we limit our claims to common sense beliefs that are maximally non-specific we will have no problem determining which empirical beliefs will not go the way of phlogiston. Although persuasive, this last objection seems questionable for several reasons. To begin with, asserting that a proposition is immune to revision because we cannot imagine any defeating evidence is to appeal to a criterion that has failed in the past, even though we cannot reasonably ask for a stronger criterion for rational acceptance. To be sure, at one time people could not imagine what sort of evidence would need to occur to undermine the belief that the earth is the center of the universe. If such a criterion has failed in the past to pick out those propositions that would not suffer truth value revision, there is good reason for thinking that it will also fail in the future. Therefore, there is strong reason to think that appealing to it in order to single out presently completely authorized beliefs that will not suffer truth value revision will fail. Finally, what makes unimaginability of refutation such a frail criterion for immunity to future truth-value revision is that one's incapacity to imagine circumstances or evidence that could refute a universally acknowledged belief based upon the strongest empirical evidence is always relative to existing bodies of information. Where such bodies of information change, or can be expected to change as much in the future as they have in the past, what is imaginable will admit of alteration, and with it the truth values of propositions formerly thought to be irrefutable. In the end, fallibilism just means that any of our beliefs about the external world can go the way of phlogiston, no matter how strongly or robustly supported, and no matter how irrefutable the claim may appear. The Cartesian objection Fourth, some philosophers will argue that we can easily, but of course not infallibly, determine which among our currently confirmed beliefs will not suffer truth value revision simply by accepting all the robustly confirmed beliefs as true. Admittedly, so this objection goes, this procedure does not provide us with certainty that robustly confirmed beliefs will not go the way of phlogiston. But then again, one can never achieve anything more than rational belief with a high degree of likelihood or probability of truth; and, by definition, robustly confirmed beliefs are very likely to

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endure without truth value revision. To ask for anything more, which T3 seems to be doing, is a blatant Cartesian demand for a decision procedure that logically entails that the sentences selected out under it do not admit of truth value revision. Such a requirement is much too strong. In response to this sort of objection, we may note that the acceptabiity of T3 does not require of an effective decision procedure for determining which robustly confirmed beliefs will endure that the procedure provide entailing evidence or be logically entailing. Rather it requires only that any decision procedure be sufficient or adequate to pick out or establish which propositions will endure; in itself this requires only that the decision procedure be generally reliable, that is, that it more often than not be successful in occasionally picking out or establishing which beliefs will not go the way of phlogiston. The point of the arguments offered above is simply that as long as we cannot coherently appeal to the evidence that establishes beliefs as robustly confirmed as a way of determining which robustly confirmed beliefs are enduring, or even likely to endure, and as long as we cannot appeal to obviousness or common sense, we have no method or decision procedure at all, much less one that is sometimes reliable, to establish or determine which sentences will not go the way of phlogiston. Thus the proponent ofT3 is not asking for a decision procedure that provides entailing evidence but simply a reliable decision procedure wherein the evidence provided is not the same evidence as the evidence provided for the fully warranted or robustly confirmed nature of the propositions accepted. As we have already seen, the evidence for the robustly confirmed nature of a belief cannot at the same time be evidence for that belief succeeding in describing the external world. Otherwise, not only would all robustly confirmed beliefs in the past never admit of truth value revision (and we know that that is not so), but also the question "Which among our robustly confirmed beliefs will not go the way of phlogiston?" would make no sense. DISTINGUISHING BLIND REALISM FROM SCIENTIFIC REALISM

We can now distinguish blind realism from classical scientific realism. As it is usually understood, scientific realism asserts that we can have knowledge of the existence of unobservable entities; and what this assertion implies, according to the classical scientific realist, is that we can pick out which theoretical claims, among those we are fully authorized in asserting, say how the world really is. For the classical scientific realist, knowing that certain unobservable entities exist entails that we can say which unobservable entities exist. Blind realism, on the other hand, admits that the world is knowable (that we have fully authorized beliefs

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about the world) but denies that we can pick out (or otherwise be justified in saying) which of all our completely authorized beliefs succeed in saying how the world is. The blind realist does not infer the existence of specific unobservables from the authorization of statements asserting their existence. Accordingly, regarding the existence of unobservables, which Salmon calls the key problem of empiricism,40 the blind realist asserts that insofar as we can draw no hard distinctions between a theory's observational and theoretical components, there is as much likelihood that those beliefs that succeed in saying how the world is are asserting the existence ofunobservables as it is that they are not. Blind realism does not deny the existence of unobservables; it asserts their existence but cannot say what they are. Undoubtedly, we have very strong empirical evidence that there are unobservable entities such as atoms, quarks, and muons. 41 So we are fully warranted in believing in the existence of such entities, and that is to say that we know that such entities exist. Even so, the question still remains: which of our presently completely warranted beliefs (which items o/present knowledge) will continue to retain their robust empirical support indefinitely and which will go the way of phlogiston? As long as we cannot be even reasonably justified in saying which ones will and which ones will not, we cannot say which of our present completely authorized beliefs asserting the existence of unobservables are correct or are saying how the world is. Might it even be the case that none of our completely empirically warranted beliefs about unobservable entities succeed in any way in saying how the world is? Assuming we can isolate observational from theory-laden components, our answer is that it depends on whether the predictive success of any theory can be explained solely by appeal to the purely observational components of the theory. Ramsey and Craig notwithstanding, nobody has yet shown as much, and so it seems likely that at least some of our theoretical beliefs about unobservable entities must be saying how the world really is. Here again, however, our inability to pick out these beliefs makes the scientific realism that falls out of blind realism equally blind. The Core Difference Between Blind Realism and Classical SCientific Realism What is the core difference between blind realism and classical scientific realism as it is usually understood? While both admit that the external world is knowable, the scientific realist adopts the correspondence theory of truth as a way of explicating the truth condition for knowledge and then regards the truth condition as satisfied when the evidence condition is satisfied. Thus, for the classical scientific realist it is only natural to suppose that the world is the way we assert it to be in our valid

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knowledge claims, and hence that if the external world is knowable at all, then we should be able to say how it is simply by picking out those propositions that we are fully inductively authorized in asserting. Thus, for the classical scientific realist, the knowability of the external world entails that we be able to pick out the propositions that succeed in describing the world. In contrast, the blind realist denies that the satisfaction of the evidence conditions for knowledge carries with it the satisfaction of the truth condition when the truth condition is specified in terms of correspondence. In order to support this position the blind realist need only deny that we have an adequate criterion for picking out those statements that say how the world is. So, the case for blind realism as against classical scientific realism rests on the question of whether we can pick out those of our warranted beliefs that succeed in describing the external world. Once again, the blind realist does not deny that there is knowledge but only that the truth condition for knowledge is not satisfiable as long as it is understood in terms of correspondence. In short, the core difference between the blind realist and the classical scientific realist is that while both grant that the external world is knowable, the blind realist defines knowledge in such a way that the truth condition can be satisfied without our having to provide a criterion for picking out which of our fully authorized beliefs succeed in describing the way the external world is. For the blind realist, knowledge can never be more than a matter of what we are completely justified or authorized in believing, but that of itself does not provide us with any criterion for picking out which of our completely justified beliefs are saying the way the world is. Classical Scientific Realism: An Autopsy Report The crucial error of scientific realism consists in believing that evidence sufficient for knowledge satisfies a correspondence definition of truth. The flaw in this sort of reasoning is not that the satisfaction of the evidence condition carries with it the satisfaction of the truth condition. That thesis, as we saw in Chapter One, seems quite acceptable. Rather the error is in thinking that the truth condition for factual knowledge can be specified in terms of the correspondence theory of truth and be satisfied by non-entailing evidence. As we saw earlier, where the evidence sufficient for knowledge need not be entailing, then the truth of what one so knows cannot be a matter of correspondence. For this reason, the basic failure of classical realism is that its adherents do not see the inconsistency involved in asserting both that evidence sufficient for knowledge need not be entailing and that the truth condition for factual knowledge

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can be satisfiable while specified in terms of the correspondence theory of truth. In sum, the classical scientific realist fails to see that a commitment to fallibilism is simply inconsistent with adopting a satisfiable truth condition specified in terms of the correspondence theory of truth. Adopting fallibilism is inconsistent with adopting a correspondence truth condition for knowledge; and as soon as we abandon a correspondence theory of truth for a definition of truth that does admit of satisfaction under the appropriate evidence condition, blind realism is the only form of realism left. Perhaps the deepest problem with classical scientific realism is that in failing to abandon the correspondence definition of truth, and in insisting that the truth condition is satisfied with the satisfaction of the evidence condition, it urges a thesis that could be sound only under the strong sense of 'knows', because only where evidence sufficient for knowledge is entailing could the correspondence definition of truth be satisfied-if it could be satisfied at all. Whether the logical connection between scientific realism and classical realism is consciously rooted in a commitment to the strongest sense of 'knows' is not the point here. The point is that classical scientific realism will not be defensible unless one adopts the strong sense of 'knows', because only then could the truth condition specified in terms of correspondence be satisfied with the satisfaction of the evidence condition. Although much more needs to be said on why scientific realism is committed to the view that we can say which of our completely warranted beliefs succeed in describing the external world, for present purposes enough has been said. Blind Realism, Idealism, and Instrumentalism

Because blind realism repudiates what is traditionally regarded as a necessary condition for both scientific and non-scientific realism, namely, that the external world be knowable in a way that allows us to pick out which sentences succeed in describing the external world, some may regard blind realism as a species of idealism. Like classical idealism, blind realism denies that the external world is knowable in the sense that traditional realism asserts, and it shares with classical idealism the view that each item of our knowledge need not be viewed as providing a picture of the external world. Moreover, because the blind realist cannot justifiably regard any particular well-confirmed belief as anything more than an instrument for prediction and control, blind realism is also a form of scientific instrumentalism. But it is not mere instrumentalism. After all, the blind realist quickly notes that the external world is knowable because we have many fully warranted beliefs about such a world, and moreover, we know that some of these warranted beliefs accurately describe it. This form of

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idealism (or instrumentalism) is a far cry from classical idealism or even Kantian idealism. CONCLUSION: THE VIRTUES OF BLIND REALISM

The major virtue of blind realism is that it successfully confronts the strongest available non-realist argument, which infers the falsity of realism from the fact that we cannot pick out those propositions among all those we are completely authorized in asserting that in fact say in some important measure how the world is. Indeed, if it is a necessary condition for realism (both scientific and non-scientific) that we be able to pick out those of our fully authorized beliefs that in fact say how the world is, then realism is dead. Moreover, it seems fair to say that classical realism (both scientific and non-scientific) was, and is, committed to construing the knowability of the external world in such a way that its knowability depends on our being able to say which of all our fully authorized beliefs succeed in saying how the world is. Hence, it is very difficult to see how classical realism (both scientific and non-scientific) can survive the antirealist assault. But blind realism asserts that the failure of classical realism is not the failure of realism per se. We are distinguished from Kant by claiming that the knowability of the external world means that some of the beliefs we are fully authorized in asserting about the world either assert, imply or assume, statements that say in some important measure just how the external world really is-even if we cannot pick them out. For such reasons, blind realism can feel the force of the anti-realist argument without rejecting realism rather than classical realism. Also, for the blind realist, science is still an epistemically privileged enterprise because even though he cannot pick out from all those beliefs warranted for acceptance those that refer, still, he knows that ifhe accepts current scientific theory, some of the beliefs implied, assumed, or asserted therein must be saying how the world is. For the blind realist, the body of scientific beliefs currently authorized is very much like a large bag of pills, some of which are placebos and some of which are nourishing or necessary for one's health. Refusal to swallow all the pills for fear of securing no nourishment from some would seem to be ill advised. Similarly, we have no option but to accept or swallow all the claims fully authorized for acceptance under the methods of science even though we know that some of them do not say how the world is. Although we cannot say which of our beliefs get it right, so to speak, we know that some of them will have it right. On the other hand, we do not know that any of our beliefs authorized outside of the method of science will deliver any

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ontological nourishment. Indeed, the realist's argument applies only where we are dealing with the predictive success of theories. The realist's thesis need not hold, indeed does not hold, except where we need to explain the long-term predictive success of theories. For the blind realist, scientific method is still the privileged method for understanding the world because only under it is there some guarantee that some of our beliefs must be saying how the world is. Furthermore, only under that method are we likely to increase the number of such beliefs. Finally, although privileged in the sense just indicated, science is certainly no high road to ontology. Blind realism just means that in the end we cannot say what the real world is really like. The most we can say is what we are fully authorized to say about it-but that need not enable us to say what it is really like. When it comes to ontology, that is, to saying what the real external world is like, we need to pick out which of our beliefs successfully describe the world; but since we cannot do that, we cannot say how the world really is. As realists, we are onto logically blind. But that is far from being ontologically relativistic. Let us now turn to the issue of scientific progress and to the question of whether science pursued indefinitely will come to some final theory in which the basic beliefs fully authorized for acceptance will not suffer further truth-value revision and hence can be regarded as providing us with a completed picture of the world, a picture in which everything we are fully authorized in asserting will as a matter of fact succeed in saying how the world is. In arguing for the affirmative to this last question, I hope to provide for a robust form of realism (indeed, a utopian form of realism) that goes considerably beyond the thesis of blind realism. In the next chapter we shall see that the number of fully warranted beliefs that succeed in describing the world is continually growing, and that the number of non-trivial empirically answerable questions for which our successful beliefs provide answers is finite. If this is so, then there is reason to think that science as a revolutionary enterprise will come to an end in a set of fully warranted beliefs that happen as a matter of fact to succeed in saying how the external world is. In short, in the next chapter we shall argue for a form of utopian realism that is also consistent with blind realism. How a realism can be both utopian and blind will be the focus of our concluding remarks. NOTES

1. Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979): 170 ff ; 179 n.12 ; 278 ff. See

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also 308 ffwhere Rorty argues that the line between a belief's being justified and its being true is very thin. 2. Ibid., 170 ff; 278 ff; and 308 ff. 3. Ibid., 170 ff; and 308 ff. 4. Ibid., 2-11. See also Rorty's explicit rejection of the correspondence theory of truth in The Consequences of Pragmatism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982): p. xix. 5. Nelson Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking (New York: Hackett Publishing Co., 1979). 6. Ibid., 124-25. See also Hilary Putnam, "Reflections on Goodman's Ways of Worldmaking," Journal of Philosophy vol. 42 (Nov. 1979): 60318. For pointed criticisms of Goodman's views see Carl Hempel, "Comments on Goodman's Ways of Worldmaking, " Synthese vol. 45 (Oct. 1980): 193-99; and I. Scheffler, "The Wonderful Worlds of Goodman," Synthese vol. 45 (Oct. 1980): 201-9. 7. This same point Putnam emphasizes ("Reflections on Goodman," 616). 8. Among those philosophers who have rejected realism, as here characterized, because they rejected the correspondence theory of truth, we will also find Hilary Putnam, Mind, Language and Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975): 236 ff; "Why There Isn't A Readymade World," Synthese vol. 51 (April 1982) and Reason, Truth and History (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980): 55. A somewhat less developed defense of T1 occurs in my "Fallibilism, Coherence and Realism," Synthese vol. 68 (Spring 1986): 213-23. 9. Although somewhat lengthy (and a bit indirect), this argument is sufficiently important to warrant quoting before offering an assessment of it. Peirce said: I proceed to argue that Thirdness is operative in Nature. Suppose we attack the question experimentally. Here is a stone. Now I place that stone where there will be no obstacle between it and the floor, and I will predict with confidence that as soon as I let go my hold upon the stone it will fall to the floor. I will prove that I can make a correct prediction by actual trial if you like. But I see in your faces that you all think it will be a very silly experiment. Why so? Because you all know very well that I can predict what will happen, and that the fact will verify my prediction. But how can I know what is going to happen? . . . I know that this stone will fall if it is let go, because experience has convinced me that objects of this kind always do fall; and if anyone present has any doubt on the subject, I should be happy to try the experiment, and I will bet him a hundred to one on the result .... If I were to predict on my letting go of the stone it would fly up in the air, that would be mere fiction, and the proof that it is so would be

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obtained by simply trying the experiment. That is clear. On the other hand, and by the same token, the fact that 1 know that this stone will fall to the floor when 1 let it go, as you all must confess, if you are not blinded by theory, that 1 do know-and none of you care to take up my bet, 1 notice-is the proof that the formula, or uniformity, as furnishing a safe basis of prediction, is, or if you like it better, corresponds to, a reality. . . . But when 1 say that really to be is different from being represented, 1 mean that what really is, ultimately consists in what shall be forced upon us in experience, that there is an element of brute compulsion in fact and fact is not a mere question of reasonableness. Thus, if! say, "I shall wind up my watch every day as long as 1 live," 1 never can have the positive experience which certainly covers all that is here promised, because 1 shall never know for certain that my last day has come. But what the real fact will be does not depend upon what I represent, but upon what the experiential reactions shall be. My assertion that 1 shall wind up my watch every day of my life may turn out to accord with facts, even though 1 be the most irregular of persons, by my dying before nightfall. If we call that being true by chance, here is a case of a general proposition being entirely true in all its generality by chance. But if 1 see a man who is very regular in his habits and am led to offer to wager that that man will not miss winding his watch for the next month, you have your choice between two alternative hypotheses only: (1) You may suppose that some principle or cause is really operative to make him wind up his watch daily, which active principle may have more or less strength; (2) You may suppose that it is mere chance that his actions have hitherto been regular; and in that case, the regularity in the past affords you not the slightest reason for expecting its continuance in the future, any more than, if he had thrown sixes three times running, that event would render it either more or less likely that his next throw would show sixes. It is the same with the operations of nature. With overwhelming uniformity, in our past experience, direct and indirect, stones left free to fall have fallen. Thereupon two hypotheses only are open to us. Either: (1) the uniformity with which those stones have fallen has been due to mere chance and affords no ground whatever, not the slightest, for any expectation that the next stone that shall be let go will fall; or (2) the uniformity with which stones have fallen has been due to some active general principle, in which case it would be a strange coincidence that it should cease to act at the moment my prediction was based upon it. ... 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 this stone once and for all-I told you sol-if anybody doubts this still, a thousand other such inductive predictions are getting verified every day, and he will have to suppose everyone of them to be merely fortuitous in order reasonably to escape the conclusion that general principles are really operative in nature.

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That is the doctrine of scholastic realism. (Collected Papers 5.64-67) See also MS 309 (p. 3); MS 309 (p. 18); MS 1 (DM 49). 10. Even were we to grant the phenomena of telekenesis or psychokenesis, still, we would not have enough evidence to warrant the conclusion that any and all physical states of affairs are mind-dependent. There could yet be very many states of affairs not subject to alteration by the power of the mind. 11. A similar argument is offered by R. Bhaskar in A Realist Theory of Science (London: Humanities Press, 1975) and cited approvingly by Paul Humphreys in "Causal, Structural and Experimental Realisms," Midwest Studies, vol. 12. ed. French, Uehling and Wettstein. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987). 12. See Collected Papers, 2.135 ff; 5.384 ff; and my The Philosophy of Charles S. Peirce (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980): 109 ff. 13. An interesting variant of this second argument appears in Nicholas Rescher's The Limits of Science (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), where Rescher argues that belief in the existence of an external world is more like a postulate validated because it allows us to go forward in our scientific inquiries without which we could not acquire the information we need to survive as a species. See also his Empirical Inquiry (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1982): 246 ff. 14. In repudiating any firm boundary between science and non-science, Goodman would reject this objection. Moreover, although Quine, unlike Goodman, sometimes insists that one's choice between competing alternative views of the world should be as between scientific versions only (see Putnam, "Reflections on Goodman," p. 617), his recent rejection of 'facts' makes it difficult to see how this insistence has any logical foundation that would render his position any better, or any different, than Goodman's. Both men deny the existence of facts, and with the denial there is no privileged version of the world. See also Mary Hesse, Revolutions and Reconstructions in the Philosophy of Science (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980), 235 ff for the same view. 15. See, for example, Jay Rosenberg, One World and Our Knowledge of It (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1980), 64-86; and William Alston, "Yes, Virginia, There is a Real World," Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association vol. 52 (April 1979): 779-808. 16. J. J. C. Smart, Between Science and Philosophy (New York: Random House, 1969): 148 ff. Ernan McMullin offers a similar argument when he says that we have no way to explain the long term predictive success of scientific theories unless we suppose that the theories reflect the causal structures of the world. He goes on to add, however, that we

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must not regard the theoretical claims made by successful scientific theories as literally true rather than as metaphors that are approximately true, or close to the truth of what the real causal structures of the world are ("A Case for Scientific Realism," in Scientific Realism, ed. Jarrett Leplin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984): 8-40). 17. J. J. C. Smart, Between Science and Philosophy, (New York: Random House, 1969): 150. 18. Bas van Fraassen, The Scientific Image (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980): 25 19. Ibid.,25. The reference to Salmon's earlier work on the common cause argument for scientific realism is "Why Ask Why?" Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association vol. 51 (June 1978): 683-705. As Salmon points out more recently, the "principle of the common cause states, roughly, that when apparent coincidences occur that are too improbable to be attributed to chance, they can be explained by reference to a common causal antecedent." (684). For a fuller discussion of the principle and for his compelling argument for scientific realism as a generalized instance of the requirement for common cause explanations in the face of improbable coincidences, see Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984): chs. 6-8. 20. Ibid., 28. 21. Hilary Putnam, Mathematics, Matter and Method (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975): 73 n. 29. 22. Ibid., 39-40. 23. For an interesting discussion of the evidence that convinced scientists of the existence of unobservables and why the evidence should be viewed as an instance of the common cause requirement for scientific explanations, see Salmon's Scientific Explanation, ch. 8. Moreover, for an interesting argument to the effect that appealing to the truth of scientific theories to explain the predictive success of science is not to offer a scientific explanation for the success of scientific theories, see Michael Levin, "What Kind of Explanation is Truth?" in Essays in Scientific Realism,124-39. Interestingly enough, however, Levin's argument is against scientific realism rather than against the view that scientific realism is scientific thesis. 24. For example, Hesse, in Revolutions and Reconstructions, asserts that the explanation offered in Smart's argument (and subsequently refurbished by Putnam) is too metaphysical because it is not empirically falsifiable (p. 154).

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25. For a full discussion of Putnam's claim, see Larry Laudan, "A Confutation of Convergent Realism," Philosophy of Science vol. 48 (June 1981); and Eman McMullin, "A Case for Scientific Realism," p. 22 ff. 26. Arthur Fine, "Unnatural Attitudes: Realist and Instrumentalist Attachments to Science," Mind vol. 95 (Sept. 1986): 5. 27. Mary Hesse, Revolutions and Reconstructions, p. 154. 28. Bas van Fraassen, Image, p. 25. 29. Bertrand Russell, "Dewey's New Logic," in The Philosophy ofJohn Dewey, ed. Paul Schilp (New York: Tudor Press, 1939): 149. 30. Laurence Laudan, "A Confutation of Convergent Realism," 29 ff; and "Explaining the Success of Science," in Science and Reality: Recent Work in the Philosophy of Science (South Bend: Notre Dame Press, 1984): 96 ff. Also, Ilkka Niinilouto seeks to provide a definition of truthlikeness, a definition that would successfully counter Laudan's criticism. Ultimately, he defines the truthlikeness of a theory in terms of the degree to which it is probable that the theory is true: The stronger the probability that it is true, the more truthlike it is ("Truthlikeness, Realism, and Progressive Theory Change," in Change and Progress in Modern Science, ed. J. Pitt (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1984): 235-65). Unfortunately, this latter thesis assumes the very dubious point that we can assign probability values for the truth of theories. For other discussions on the problems in defining verisimilitude, see Roger Rosenkrantz, "Measuring Truthlikeness," Synthese vol. 45 (1980): 463-88; Michael Gardner, "Realism and Instrumentalism in Pre-Newtonian Astronomy," in Testing Scientific Theories, vol. 10, of Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, ed. John Earman (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983): 259 ff; and Ronald Giere, "Testing Theoretical Hypotheses," in Testing Scientific Theories, 293-96. 31. See, for example, Paul Humphreys, "Causal, Structural and Experimental Realisms," in Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol. 12, eds. P. French, T. Uehling, and H. Wettstein (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987): 54-74. For others who believe that the predictive success of some scientific theories should be explained by appeal to approximate truth, see Richard Boyd, "Lex Orandi est Lex Credendi," in Images of Science: Essays on Realism and Empiricism, eds. Paul Churchland and Clifford Hooker (Chicago: Univeristy of Chicago Press, 1985): 233. For an interesting variation on the verisimilitudinist position, see Giere, "Constructive Realism," in Images of Science, 80 ff; van Fraassen's reply in the same volume, 289 ff; and Clifford Hooker, "Surface Dazzle, Ghostly Depths: An Exposition and Critical Evaluation of van Fraassen's Vindication of Empiricism Against Realism," also in the same volume, 182 ff.

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32. Arthur Fine, "The Natural Ontological Attitude," in Scientific Realism, 85-86. 33. Arthur Fine, "Unnatural Attitudes," 4. 34. That Fine's argument itself begs the question against the scientific realist was first pointed out to me by Paul Humphreys. Incidentally, in discussing Fine's objection, Richard Boyd offers an argument for the realist to the effect that if abductive inference were not allowed then there would be nothing left to the methodology of the students of science. If abductive inference were abandoned, philosophers and historians would not have any methodology left. Second, for Boyd, it has been established that the choice of inductive generalizations that are seriously advanced and the assessment of evidence for or against them rest upon theoretical inferences that manifest, or depend upon, the sort of abductive inference to which the empiricist objects ("On the Current Status of the Issue of Scientific Realism," Erkenntnis vol. 19 (1983): 74). Presumably, the antirealist would not object to the students of science not having any legitimate methodology, at least insofar as that methodology is supposed to lead to truth understood in terms of correspondence. Also, the anti-realist will simply deny that abductive inferences of the sort he denies, namely, non-testable ones, are not assumed or implied by the practice of induction. 35. See, for example, Richard Rorty, "Back to the Demarcation Problem" (a paper presented at a conference on scientific realism at the University of Virginia, May 1986): 18. 36. See, for example, Rorty's reply to Putnam and Boyd in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, 284. Rorty responds to Putnam and Boyd's argument that realism explains the success of theories by seeming to claim that scientific success needs no explanation. He says: "The fact that new theories often go wrong just where the old ones say they might is not something that requires an explanation." Also, Fine attacks realism because he sees it as based upon the false belief that science, all science, is successful. For Fine, because it is simply false that all science is successful, we do not need realism to explain the success of science ("The Natutal Ontological Attitude," 104 n. 8). Fine's objection, however, is a strawman of the realist position, which does not seek to explain the success of all scientific theories or hypotheses rather than those that have been, or are, predictively successful in the long run. 37. William Wimsatt, "Robustness, Reliability and Overdetermination," in Scientific Inquiry and the Social Sciences, ed. Marilyn Brewer and Barry Collins (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1981): 124-61, esp. 14448. For much the same view, see also Clark Glymour, Theory and Evidence (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980).

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38. Clark Glymour first brought this objection to my attention. 39. Nicholas Rescher, Scientific Realism, Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1987. 40. Wesley Salmon, Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World, ch. 8. 41. Ibid. See also Kristin Shrader-Freschette, "High-Energy Models and the Ontological Status of Quark," Synthese vol. 42 (1979): 173-89.

CHAPTER FIVE

SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS AND PEIRCEAN UTOPIAN REALISM

For those who believe that science is both revolutionary and progressive, few philosophical dogmas seem more entrenched than the view that scientific progress will continue forever. And, judging by the lack of response to his piece "Scientific Revolutions Forever?", William Kneale's attack On the dogma has gone largely unnoticed.! Even at that, however, Kneale's argument is somewhat conservative. He argues only that there is no good reason to think that science, as a revolutionary enterprise, will be progressive unto eternity. Pursuant to Kneale's effort, I shall defend the stronger view that any non-trivial question answerable by the use of the scientific method will be answered. 2 In short, science, as a revolutionary enterprise, will come to an end because all non-trivial empirically answerable questions will be answered. More specifically, I shall argue that (1) if scientific progress, construed in revolutionary terms, were to continue indefinitely, then any non-trivial question answerable by the use of the scientific method would in fact be answered in a way that would allow for further refinement without undermining the essential correctness of the answer; and (2) it is reasonable to believe that scientific progress, construed in revolutionary terms, will continue indefinitely. The establishment of (1) and (2) entails that any non-trivial empirically answerable question will be answered in a way that allows for further indefinite refinement without undermining the essential correctness of the answer. Although consistent with a certain kind of eternal progress in science, namely, non-revolutionary progress, the establishment of (1) and (2) will undermine the ontological relativity or scepticism inherent in the commonly held view that unto eternity there will be competing alternative scientific theories with differing ontological commitments. Science could 197

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never tell us what the real world is like if different theories, with differing ontological commitments, could offer equally valid answers, or systematizations of experience, unto eternity. In short, if there is a world of objects whose properties are in large measure mind-independent, science could not be privileged by way of informing us of the nature of those properties as long as scientific progress can be viewed as the eternal replacement of one theory by another no better in principle as an answer to our questions about the nature of the physical universe. Indeed, in the absence of being able to provide us with reasonably non-controversial answers over an indefinite amount of time, it is difficult to see how the questions science seeks to answer can be viewed as empirically answerable. So, the establishment of (1) and (2) will sustain the view that, by way of the limits of human knowledge, science is ontologically privileged or even epistemologically privileged. So much for the implications and the motivation behind this venture. Before moving into the argument, however, a few more introductory remarks are in order. Traditionally, the claim that science is progressive is usually taken to mean that in spite of the apparent flux of changing scientific belief, there is a steady growth in empirical understanding. If the history of science is any indication at all, it would appear that the scientific enterprise has been one long process characterized not only by a steady accumulation of information, but also, and more importantly, by the successive replacement of one theory by another that either explained the facts better or explained more facts than did its predecessor. As we have seen, however, there are many contemporary philosophers who urge that a close examination of the nature and history of science reveals that science is not at all progressive in the traditional sense. Feyerabend, Kuhn, Lakatos, Laudan, Quine, van Fraassen, Rorty, Goodman, and Hesse, for example, have all urged that scientific progress as traditionally understood does not exist. 3 On their view, the history of science may well be the history of successive and revolutionary replacement of one theory by another, but this process is not attended by a cumulative increase in our knowledge of the physical world. Theories come and theories go, but the replacing theories do not explain better or more than the theories they replace. Science may well allow us to forge theories that are increasingly more efficient as tools or instruments for prediction and control, but there is no logical connection between our developing better instruments for prediction and control and our having more and more beliefs that succeed in correctly describing the way the real independent world is. It is curious that none of these contemporary philosophers deny that we grow, and continue to grow, in our ability to predict and control the natural forces around us. And this is indeed curious because it is our

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fairly apparent and ever-increasing ability to predict and control the forces of nature that provides compelling evidence for the traditional view of scientific progress. As a matter of fact, how can we account for our everincreasing ability to predict and control the forces of nature if we do not explain it as a result of a corresponding and steady increase in correct descriptions generated by the persistent use of the scientific method? Presumably, for all the reasons discussed in the last chapter, appeals to chance, cosmic coincidence, miracles, or verisimilitude will not work. If we cannot account for this ability without appealing to a steady increase in the number of correct descriptions, how could we defend the view that the successive and revolutionary replacement of one theory by another is not attended by a cumulative increase in beliefs that correctly describe the world? Surely, it is in virtue of these successively replacing theories that we acquire the increasing predictive and controlling power over nature. By implication, it seems unlikely that our ever-expanding power to answer more and more questions can be explained without countenancing the view that science, in the successive replacement of one theory by another, is progressive in the sense traditionally indicated. At any rate, I shall not here argue any more for the view that science is progressive in the traditional sense. My argument is with the traditional realist who thinks that scientific progress construed in revolutionary terms could continue forever. Given these preliminary considerations on the progressive nature of science, the basic question is this. Could science as a revolutionary activity progress indefinitely without answering every non-trivial question answerable by the use of the scientific method? The answer to this question depends on whether the number of such questions is finite. On the one hand, if the number of such questions is finite, then, given an indefinite amount of time in which science would progress in the way indicated above, all such questions would be answered. On the other hand, if the number of such questions is infinite or indefinitely many, then even if scientific progress were to continue indefinitely, some non-trivial empirically answerable questions would not be answered. So much seems clear. But is there any satisfactory way to determine whether the number of such questions is finite? Most philosophers think not. One way of determining whether the number of such questions is finite is by determining whether scientific progress is either, (A) a matter of approximating a final goal, which given an indefinitely long process, will be attained, or (-A) a matter of expanding a body of knowledge such that, given an indefinitely long process, the body of funded knowledge expands ad infinitum without ever reaching a final goal. We can note that (A) and (-A) are mutually exclusive because arguing successfully for the latter will establish the view that the number of answerable questions is infi-

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nite, while arguing successfully for the former will establish the view that the number of such questions is finite. The overriding question, of course, is whether we can establish either (A) or (-A) without assuming an answer to the question of whether the number of non-trivial empirically answerable questions is finite. The blueprint for this chapter, then, is as follows. In the first section, I shall argue for (1), which, as we noted at the outset, is simply the view that revolutionary science could not progress indefinitely without answering every non-trivial question answerable by the use of the scientific method. In order to establish (1), I shall offer an argument favoring (A) and call it The Argument for the Affirmative. This argument consists in both faulting likely objections to (A) and proposing direct arguments for (A). In the same section I shall also argue that it is sufficient for the truth of (A) that we be able to reject all arguments favoring (-A). Thereafter, I shall offer an argument against (-A) and call it The Argument Against the Negative. This argument consists in examining and rejecting all available arguments favoring (-A). Later, in the third section, we shall see why it is reasonable to believe (2), which, as we also noted at the outset, is simply the view that scientific progress will continue indefinitely. THE DEATH OF REVOLUTIONARY SCIENCE The Argument for the Affirmative Faulty objections to (AJ It is certainly logically possible that scientific inquiry continue indefi-

nitely long without answering every empirically answerable question, just as it is logically possible that scientific inference lead to falsity never to be reversed or detected. For it is certainly conceivable that science will cease to be progressive. Accordingly, any ultimate triumph of science by way of answering every non-trivial empirically answerable question is by no means a logical necessity. At best, the kind of necessity involved here would be inductive necessity, the sort of necessity accruing to a statement because it has a probability of 1 attached to it. 4 Of course, inductively necessary propositions are still factually contingent propositions, because the premises authorizing the probability assignments are based upon warranted inductive generalizations. However, it will surely also be objected that even were we to grant the progressive nature of science along with the grand assumption that scientific progress will continue indefinitely, still, there is no inductive necessity of any sort that science will answer every non-trivial answerable question. After all, it makes perfectly good sense to say that scientific progress is

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ultimately a matter of expanding our inventory of funded knowledge, such that, given an indefinitely long process of inquiry, the fund expands ad infinitum without attaining or approaching any final goal, such as answering all non-trivial scientifically answerable questions. And if it makes sense to say as much, then we cannot simply assert that unlimited scientific progress inductively implies the existence of some ultimate goal (such as answering all non-trivial empirically answerable questions) that the scientific process progressively approaches and which it will reach if only scientific progress goes on indefinitely. Claiming as much would be as specious as claiming that we cannot understand the concept of 'better' without appealing to the concept of 'best'. In short, this objection is an argument to the effect that there is nothing in the nature of our understanding of scientific progress that precludes the real possibility that the number of unanswered non-trivial answerable questions is infinite or indefinitely large, and hence that they are not all answerable even given an infinite amount of scientific progress. But is this objection as strong as it seems? Admittedly, nothing in the ordinary logic of the verb "to progress" entails that science progresses if and only if it successively approximates some goal and that it will attain that goal if allowed to proceed indefinitely. For, as the objection notes, we can conceive of science as progressing ad infinitum without approximating a final goal. Even so, the point here is that if we are to understand the sense in which science is progressive, we can only mean one of two things: Either (A) science progresses in the sense of approximating a goal that, given an indefinitely long process, would be attained, or (-A) it is not the case that science progresses in the way indicated in (A). Presumably, the sole hypothesis captured by (-A) is the view that science progresses simply in the sense of expanding a body of funded knowledge, such that, given an indefinitely long process, the body of funded knowledge expands ad infinitum. It is this last view of scientific progress that must be true if the above objection is to have any force against (A). Moreover, assuming that science is progressive, the disjunct here cannot be truth-value neutral, otherwise it would make no sense to say that science is progressive. The disjunct «A) or (-A» must be true. But, as we shall now see, (-A) is not true. To show that (-A) is true we would need to show that either (a) the universe is infinitely complex, and an infinitely complex universe admits of an infinite number of empirically answerable questions incapable of being answered even in an indefinite amount of time, or (b) there is some other evidence that science needs an infinite number of explanatory models or levels of explanation. In the next part of this section, however, we shall see that even if the universe is infinitely complex, such complexity counts in favor of perpetual revolution in science (or there always being unanswered but answerable questions) only by begging the question against

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science reaching a final goal of answering all empirically answerable questions. Moreover, we shall also see that there is no convincing reason for believing that science is committed to an infinite number of explanatory models or levels of explanation. s Because the establishment of either (a) or (b) is necessary for the establishment of (-A), and because neither (a) nor (b) has been established (as we will see later on pp. 209-18), there is no reason to accept (-A) as likely. And if there is no reason to accept (-A) as likely, then, even though we can imagine science progressing unto eternity without ever answering all the non-trivial answerable questions, there is no reason to think it likely that science in fact progresses in that fashion. But if there is no reason to think science progresses in that way, then the above objection fails. Proponents of (-A) may still be tempted to object that (A) is not established by our showing that (-A) is not true. After all, they may argue, we might just as easily have begun with (A) or (-A), urged that there is no reason to think that (A) is true, and then conclude that therefore (-A) must be true. On this objection, the establishment of (A) would require some positive evidence favoring (A) in addition to showing that (-A) is not true. But surely this objection overlooks the crucial fact that, given a choice between (A) and (-A), (-A) is considerably more counterintuitive than (A). At the level of untutored intuition, it is not difficult to imagine there being a finite number of objects or questions, but it is notably difficult to imagine there being so large a number of objects or questions that even to eternity they could not be counted. Indeed, given the choice here, it is the latter and not the former that needs to be justified. If the latter cannot be justified, the former need not be. In short, owing to the intuitive difference between (A) and (-A), a difference that allows the presumption of truth to favor (A), anyone given the disjunct «A) or (-A», and who would establish (-A), must show that (-A) is true; but anyone who would establish (A) would need to show only that there is no good reason to think (-A) is true. To this last line of reasoning, however, some will undoubtedly object that (-A) seems quite natural (or even more natural that (A» because we can generate an infinite number of empirically answerable questions simply by taking the sentence form "Are the number of Xs Y?" and substitute any of the natural numbers for Y.6 Apart from the fact that it abandons the realm of untutored intuition, the problem with this objection is that, for the purpose of determining whether revolutionary scientific progress could continue indefinitely, the questions so generated are sufficiently trivial or uninteresting to warrant being excluded from the class of empirically answerable questions. Mter all, were these the only kind of questions asked in science, then answers to such questions would of themselves provide only for incremental but not for revolutionary progress in science. Such

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questions could not all be empirically significant or non-trivial, because if we had only these kinds of questions, science, in answering such questions, would be reduced to measurings and computations in deriving information from existing laws and theories. In such a world revolutionary progress in science would end because scientific progress would become a matter of adding more and more bits of information to the corpus of scientific knowledge. Consequently, unless we are willing to view scientific progress under the incremental model rather than under the revolutionary model, there could not be infinitely many empirically non-trivial answerable questions generated in the way suggested. Doubtless, some of the questions so generated need not be trivial for some purpose or other, because information offered to answer them may serve to confirm or falsify some existing theory. The basic point, however, is that there could not be infinitely many of them and they all be non-trivial without our being forced to accept the incremental model as the only model of scientific progress. Certainly for the remainder of this chapter it should be understood that when we speak of empirically answerable questions, we mean to designate empirically answerable questions that are not trivially answerable by such computational procedures. Nor, incidentally, can we plead successfully for the intuitive plausibility of (-A) by urging that we could easily generate an infinite number of empirically answerable questions simply by employing the Law of Addition. For example, it might be thought that as a result of the Law of Addition, we need only ask for each disjunct added to a sentence whether the whole disjunct is true: "Is it true that either p or q?"; "Is it true that either p or q or r?"; "Is it true that either p or q or r or s?" and so on ad infinitum. Once again, apart from the fact that this objection moves away from the level of untutored intuition, it seems that we could generate infinitely many answerable questions in this manner only if we sooner or later incorporate an appeal to the number series in one of the disjuncts. For example, in order to generate infinitely many questions in this way, we will need to end up with such sentences as "Is it true that either p or q or the number of Xs is Y?" where again we substitute any of the natural numbers for Y. As with the earlier objection favoring the intuitive clarity of (-A), however, this way of generating infinitely many empirical questions obviously makes the questions so generated trivial or uninteresting for the very same reasons just offered to show why infinitely many empirical questions generated from sentences such as "Is the number of XS Y?" are trivial or uninteresting. Later on we shall say more about the idea of generating infinitely many empirically answerable questions by appeal to infinities based on mathematical intuitions. For the moment, however, I think we can conclude that these considerations undermine the

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above objections to the effect that (-A) is at least as intuitively plausible as (A). I submit, then, that in the absence of evidence clearly establishing the falsity of (A), it is sufficient for asserting the truth of (A) that we be able to reject all existing arguments favoring (-A). In the next part of this section we will see that (A) is true because nothing has established (-A) and the best explanation for that failure is the falsity of (-A). Moreover, we shall have another argument for (A) if we can provide, as we shall shortly, direct evidence supportive of (A) rather than indirect evidence supportive of (A). Another distinct objection to (A) goes as follows. Even if we grant both the goal-orientedness of the progressive nature of science, and the assumption that science will continue unto eternity, there is still no inductive necessity that all scientifically answerable questions would be answered; for we could conceive of scientific progress as a matter of indefinitely approximating that stage by way of approaching a final theory or set of answers as a mathematical limit. In short, we need only postulate the goal of answering all answerable questions as an ideal theoretical limit approached (but never reached) by the scientific process and we will have a view of science as progressing towards a goal but never quite reaching it. This objection, however, must counter the rejoinder of Professor Quine, who has criticized this view on the grounds that the notion of "limit" is defined for numbers and not for theories and hence, by implication, not for answers to answerable questions. On Quine's view, to speak of the limit of theories embodies a faulty use of a numerical analogy;7 and it seems clear that he would, for the same reason, object to speaking of the mathematical limit of answerable questions. Furthermore, even if one could dispose of Quine's rejoinder, still, what makes this objection implausible is the supposition that we can in practice approach final answers as a limit without embracing them in practice. There is, ostensibly, no practical difference between endorsing a final answer (or theory) and approaching it by a margin of error infinitely small. If being separated from the final answer to the answerable question by a margin of error infinitely small is not sufficient both for rejecting alternative or competing answers and for accepting that answer, then we are insisting upon conditions of acceptance that are altogether unrealistic and for which we have no inductive grounds in the history of science. We do not and should not demand of our answers (like our theories) freedom from a margin of error infinitely small. Thus, even if Quine's criticism is not acceptable, construing the final answer(s) as an ideal limit would not be justified. Furthermore, this sort of objection would be forceful only if we had some good reason to think that science in fact progresses asymptotically toward

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an ideal goal as a mathematical limit. Establishing that science progresses in this manner, however, would require showing just what is at issue, namely, that the number of non-trivial empirically answerable questions is infinite; for only if the number of these questions is infinite could inquiry continue progressively forever without actually answering every answerable question. So, even if Quine's criticism were not acceptable, construing the answering of all answerable questions as an ideal limit, as something forever approached but never to be reached, would be indefensible short of showing that there are in fact an infinite number of non-trivial empirically answerable questions. Three direct arguments for (A)

Given the above considerations urged against the last objection to (A), we can now offer three arguments for (A) by appealing to the logic of the traditional concept of scientific progress where it is assumed that the process of inquiry goes on indefinitely. The first argument is this. The traditional concept of revolutionary progress in science demands for its intelligibility reference to a goal that is more or less approximated by the scientific process. That goal can be understood either as an end that will in fact be reached and in which all non-trivial empirically answerable questions are basically answered, or as a state that will be approached as a limit such that the goal of answering all non-trivial empirically answerable questions is never quite reached. There is no third alternative. But, as we noted earlier, the view that the goal of answering all such questions can be approached as a limit either amounts in practice to the actual attainment of the goal or is wrong for all the reasons noted in the preceding paragraph. Incidentally, the most pointed objection to the argument just offered consists in urging that the argument feeds on a false dilemma because the goal of science can be alternatively understood as a matter of simply acquiring more and more information by answering more and more questions. 8 Such a goal is not approached as a limit and, in being reached, does not imply the answering of all non-trivial empirically answerable questions. How persuasive is this objection? Well, to begin with, this objection amounts to no more than asserting (-A), which proposes that science progresses in such a way that, given an indefinite amount of time, the body of scientific knowledge expands ad infinitum without ever coming to some final goal of answering all nontrivial empirically answerable questions. Moreover, when all is said and done, the basic problem with this objection is that there is no good reason to think it likely that (-A) is true, or that science in fact progresses in the alternative way indicated both in (-A) and in the objection to our first direct argument for (A). This is not to deny that science provides more

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and more information by way of answering more and more questions. Rather it is to say that if we assume (as we presently do) that science will continue indefinitely in this activity, then the goal of basically answering all non-trivial empirically answerable questions can fail to be reached only if we assume that the number of such questions is infinite. But, as we shall see shortly when we examine all the arguments for (-A), there is no good argument for thinking it likely that the number of such questions is infinite. So, even if we grant that the goal of science can be intelligibly construed simply in terms of providing more and more information by answering more and more questions, there is no good reason to think science can progress in this way indefinitely without coming to answer every nontrivial empirically answerable question. Consequently, even if the alternative goal suggested both in (-A) and in the objection is intelligible, it can be eliminated as a viable way of characterizing the goal of science because, given an indefinitely long process, this way of construing the goal of science will allow progress to go forward without reaching an answer to every non-trivial question only if we assume that the number of such questions is infinite; and, as we shall see, there is no good reason to think it likely that the number of such questions is infinite. Our second direct argument for (A) is the following. It is not merely that there is no good reason to think it likely that science progresses in the way indicated in (-A) (and in the alternative proposed in the objection just discussed). There is a good reason for thinking it unlikely that (-A) is true; and the reason is simply that all the arguments ever proposed (as we shall see soon) for thinking that science in fact progresses in the way specified in (-A) are defective in some crucial way. And what would be a better explanation for the conspicuous failure of all such arguments than to suppose that what they seek to establish just is not so? Accordingly, if there is good reason to think it unlikely that science progresses in the way suggested in (-A), then there is good reason to think (-A) false. On the other hand, even if we were to grant that there is no good reason for thinking that science progresses in the way indicated in (A), still, there is no good reason to think it unlikely that science progresses in the way indicated in A. After all, no arguments in favor of (A) are demonstrably flawed. Even if the argument to the effect that (A) is more intuitively plausible than (-A) (because it does not commit us to imagining real infinities) is not conclusive, it is certainly not demonstrably defective. Thus, to summarize our second direct argument for (A), given that we must choose between (A) or (-A), and given that there is good reason for thinking that (-A) is false (what would be a better explanation for the long-term and persistent failure of all arguments for (-A)?) while there is no good reason to think that (A) is false, it follows that science progresses in the way indicated in (A). This argument, of course, depends on our

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showing (as we presently will) that all available arguments in favor of (-A) are demonstrably defective. Finally, we can gain further support for the eventual triumph of science (and hence for (A» by appealing to an argument proposed by Peirce. The argument can be constructed as follows: Premise 1. It is inconceivable that inductive inference should fail as a source of knowledge in any universe of discourse. (5.345ff.) Premise 2. Ail inductive inference is probable inference. (2.783; 2.685; 8.3) Premise 3. With respect to inductive inference, probable inference is to be understood in terms of the frequency theory of probability. Hence, probable inference is a matter of statistical generalization. (7.117; 2.673; 2.650; 2.268) Premise 4. The frequency theory of probability assumes that the probability value assigned to a proposition converges to a definite limit as the members of the class of phenomena (in which the frequency of the predesignated characteristic is found) approaches infinity. (7.22; 7.13; 2.776; 7.208; 2.769) Therefore: It is a necessary condition for the validity of inductive inference (which is everywhere valid), that the truth-value assigned to a proposition converge to a definite limit. (2.650; 7.210) This third argument assumes that determining the truth value of a proposition is nothing other than a matter of assigning to that proposition a probability value sufficiently high to warrant acceptance of the proposition. By way of assessment, we can note that the first three premises of this argument are relatively non-problematic. Peirce argued for the first premise on the grounds that the only universe in which inductive inference could conceivably fail as a legitimate source of knowledge would be that universe in which there would be no regularities at all; but in such a universe the absence of such regularities would itself constitute a regularity. In defense of the second premise, Peirce argued that all inductive inference is reasoning from part to whole, that is, from the properties of the examined members of the class to the properties of the unexamined members of that class. The characterization of inductive inference as inference from part to whole leads naturally to the claim that inductive generalization represents nothing more than the generalization of the relative frequency of the occurrence of some predesignated characteristic among the examined members of a class to the remaining unexamined members of that class. Finally, the fourth premise is just another way of stating Bernoulli's

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Law. Bernoulli's Law states that the ratio of the frequency of the occurrence of some predesignated characteristic is less subject to revision as the number of the members of the class examined approaches infinity. This argument is an explicit attempt to sustain Peirce's familiar claim that the inductive method is essentially self-corrective, and this claim could not be true were we not to assume that in the long run inquiry would converge to a final answer for any question answerable by the scientific method. 9 Importantly enough, however, we must supplement this argument with our previous arguments against regarding science as progressing indefinitely toward a goal construed as an ideal limit. Given that supplement, however, it seems clear that the nature of inductive reasoning itself dictates that (given eternity) science will answer any question answerable by the use of the scientific method. Here again, this argument, like the preceding argument, does depend on our refuting all arguments supportive of (-A). In sum, the strongest argument against (A) seems to be that we can imagine science progressing in such a way that there is no goal to be reached either because there is no goal or because the goal is to be approached as an ideal limit. While we can certainly imagine the goal as an ideal limit, there is no good reason to think that this is the way science progresses. That science can be progressive without having a goal, or that the goal of science could be approached as an ideal limit, assumes (as we shall see) what needs to be proven, namely, the existence of an infinite number of questions answerable by the scientific method. Assuming that we can show (as we shall in the next section) that there is no sound argument for (-A), the seemingly strongest argument against (A) can be dismissed. Although, for reasons already mentioned, it is sufficient for the establishment of (A) that there be no sound argument for (.A), I have provided three arguments directly supportive of (A). The first appeals to scientific progress as a goal-oriented process and argues that, given an indefinitely long process, the goal cannot be approached as a limit because that would either involve a faulty use of numerical analogy or commit us to an unrealistic standard of acceptance for which we have no justification in the history of science. The second argument asserts that because there is good reason for thinking that (-A) is false, while there is no equally strong reason for thinking (A) is false, we are forced to accept (A). The third argument appeals to Peirce's defense of the self-correcting nature of science and argues that, given an indefinitely long process, the goal of science cannot be approached as an ideal limit. All three direct arguments for (A) require for their soundness that we refute all available arguments for (-A). We can now turn to all available arguments for (-A). In doing this we shall see further support for (A) while redeeming the

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promissory notes made earlier when we confronted certain objections to (A).

The Arguments Against the Negative At present, there are no less and, I suggest, no more than seven arguments supportive of (-A) or the view that revolutionary progress in science could not come to an end. We can now examine those arguments. The first argument often cited is that science by its very nature is progressively revolutionary, and hence, to suppose that it could come to finally answer all answerable questions would undermine a defining characteristic of science, and thereby repudiate its rational character. This view is strongly suggested by Sir Karl Popper: I assert that continued growth is essential to the rational and empirical character of scientific knowledge; that if science ceases to grow it must lose that character. It is the way of its growth that makes science rational and empirical; the way, that is, in which scientists discriminate between available theories and choose the better one or (in the absence of a satisfactory theory) the way they give reasons for rejecting all the available theories thereby suggesting some of the conditions with which a satisfactory theory should comply. You will have noticed from this formulation that it is not the accumulation of observations which I have in mind when I speak of the growth of scientific knowledge, but the repeated overthrow of scientific theories, and their replacement by better or more satisfactory ones. 10 This argument asserts that because science has progressed in revolutionary ways in the past, it will continue to do so forever in the future, even if we assume an indefinite amount of time in which science so progresses. But surely the soundness of this sort of argument requires the further assumption that the number of non-trivial empirically answerable questions is infinite. After all, were we to suppose that revolutionary progress consists in answering more and more non-trivial empirically answerable questions, then if the number of such questions were finite and if science were to so progress indefinitely, revolutionary progress in science would need to end. Thus the soundness of Popper's argument, and any similar argument to the effect that the rationality of science consists in revolutionary progress even to eternity, presupposes and requires the truth of the claim that the number of non-trivial empirically answerable questions is infinite. Moreover, because there is no good evidence for thinking the number of such questions is infinite, arguments like Popper's simply assume rather than prove that the defining characteristic of science is its revolutionary nature, which will continue unto eternity. Of course, we may, if we like, define science in terms of revolutionary progress simply because science has always been revolutionary and progressive; but that by no means implies that science will continue in its progressive

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and revolutionary ways forever. What we need to validate this latter inference is proof to the effect that the number of non-trivial empirically answerable questions is infinite. Lacking that proof, Popper's claim that revolutionary science will continue forever is unsound. A second argument favoring perpetual revolution is based upon the premise of the infinite complexity of the universe. Thereafter the conclusion drawn is that no single theoretical framework can ever in principle succeed in systematizing such a universe. Commenting on this argument, William Kneale urges that the doctrine of the infinite complexity of the universe, if true, is the strongest justification for the program of perpetual revolution. He cites David Bohm and Jean Paul Vigier as proponents of this view. As Bohm would have it: The main point of science is not so much to make a summary of those things one knows, but rather to find those laws which are essential and which therefore hold in new domains and predict new facts .... Generally speaking, by finding the unity behind the diversity, one will get laws which contain more than the original facts. And here the infinity of nature comes in: The whole scientific method implies that no theory is final. It is always possible that there is something one has missed. At least as a working hypothesis, science assumes the infinity of nature; and this assumption fits the facts much better than any other point ofview that we know.u

In a similar vein Jean Paul Vigier says: We would prefer to say that at all levels of Nature you have a mixture of causal and statistical laws (which come from deeper or external processes). As you progress from one level to another you get new qualitative laws. Causal laws at one level can result from averages of statistical behavior at a deeper level, which in tum can be explained by deeper causal behavior, and so on ad infinitum. If you then admit that nature is infinitely complex and that as a consequence no final state of knowledge can be reached, you see that at any stage of scientific knowledge causal and probability laws are necessary to describe the behavior of any phenomenon, and that any phenomenon is a combination of causal and random properties inextricably woven with one another. 12 Kneale claims that the problem with this argument for perpetual revolution is that there seems to be no sense in which nature can be said to be so complex as to require perpetual revolution: For ifby 'the infinite complexity of nature , is meant only the infinite complexity of the particulars it contains, that is no bar to final success in theory making, since theories are not concerned with particulars as such. So, too, if what is meant is only the infinite variety of natural phenomena, since that may be comprehended in a unitary theory, just as infinitely many different mechanical phenomena are covered by Newton's law of gravitation.

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If, however, what is meant is precisely what Bohm and Vigier state as a consequence of the principle, namely that there cannot be a finally satisfactory theory, there is no point in trying to approach such a theory, either by scientific reforms or by scientific revolutions. For if there is no truth there cannot be any approximation to truth, and the whole enterprise of theory making is futile. Nor does it help to say that there is indeed a true explanatory theory in some Platonic heaven but that it is infinitely complex and so not to be comprehended by men. For if there can be an infinitely complex proposition, it will certainly not be a single explanatory theory in any ordinary sense of that phrase, but at best an infinite conjunction of explanatory theories. Perhaps we can produce successive approximations to such a conjunction, if there is nothing else to work for, but in that case our best hope of success will be by steady accumulation of the separate items, rather than by perpetual revolution. 13

We should expect of course that proponents of perpetual revolution would reply to Kneale by simply refusing to describe the scientific enterprise as one that approximates truth in the sense of approximating a final goal. In that case, the proponents of perpetual revolution beg the question against final success because they certainly have not established, by appealing to the infinite complexity of the universe, that science progresses in the way that it would need to in order to sustain their view. Moreover, commenting further on the Bohm-Vigier model, Kneale says: What Bohm and Vigier say about the present state of theoretical physics is attractive, and may be true, for all I know. But extrapolation ad infinitum from two revolutions, one of which has not yet got beyond the manifesto stage, does not carry conviction to an inductivist like myself, and I doubt whether it makes sense to one who works with ordinary logic as opposed to dialectics. For although the special form of their infinite regress of explanations has the apparent merit of making it seem possible for scientific research to have a direction without having a goal, it does not remove the fundamental difficulty of the principle of infinite complexity, namely that, if the principle excludes all hope of final theory, it does so by excluding all determinate structure such as scientists might wish to present in a final theory. On the contrary, it puts the difficulty in the bright light of paradox, since it implies that nature is indeterminate even with respect to the contradictory opposition of determinism and indeterminism. ( "Scientific Revolutions Forever," 37-38)

If Kneale's observations are sound, then the program of perpetual revolution in science cannot be justified by appealing to the infinite complexity of the universe without either begging the question against final success or extrapolating explanatory models ad infinitum on insufficient inductive grounds. These considerations justify our earlier claim that while it is logically possible to define scientific progress without reference to an ultimate goal, there is no good reason why we should, and the reason why

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we should not is that there is no other way to explicate the concept of progress if we grant scientific progress an indefinitely long run. Also, given the failure of appealing to the infinite complexity of the universe to justify the program of perpetual revolution in science, Kneale is quite confident that a scientist may someday formulate a comprehensive theory that is wholly true and therefore incapable of refutation. He does not wish to say this will happen, because he believes that the human race may cease to conduct research. Even less does he wish to say that if we produce the final theory we can also be sure that we have done so. For in order to attain such certitude, we should need to know everything about the universe including the fact that we knew everything about the universe-and that he believes is impossible in principle (p. 38). The third argument favoring perpetual revolution in science consists in attempting to throw the burden of proof on the opposition. Here it is urged that there is simply no reason to suppose that revolutionary science could come to some final theory or answer all answerable questions. Professor Quine takes this approach when he says: And even if we bypass such troubles by identifying truth somewhat fancifully with the ideal result of applying the scientific method outright to the whole future totality of surface irritations, still there is trouble in the imputation of uniqueness ("the ideal result"). For, as urged a few pages back, we have no reason to suppose that man's surface irritations even unto eternity admit of any systematization that is scientifically better or simpler than all possible others. It seems likelier, if only on account of symmetries or dualities that countless

alternative theories would be tied for first place. 14 (emphasis mine) Clearly, however, the considerations offered a few pages back should suffice to counter this argument. Indeed, apart from the three direct arguments there offered for (A), given the counterintuitivity of (-A), failure to establish the existence of an infinite number of empirically answerable questions is sufficient for asserting (A). Consideration of the present seven arguments professes to show that no argument has yet established the existence of an infinite number of questions answerable by the scientific method. Certainly, too, Quine's claim that, given the eternity of science "It seems likelier, if only on account of symmetries or dualities, that countless alternative theories would be tied for first place" requires further explication if it is to count as an argument against (A). Moreover, even if Quine's claim could be explicated properly, it is difficult to see how the explication could count against final success without simultaneously denying the standard view of science as both progressive and epistemologically privileged. Fourth, one might argue for perpetual revolution by appealing to the thesis that for any given set of experimental data, there are an infinite number of hypotheses that could explain the data equally well. This view

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derives from the fact that for any finite set of data represented as points on a coordinate system, we can always draw an infinite number of lines representing theories through the points. Thus according to this argument, our choice of one theory to explain the data cannot in principle show that the theory chosen is better than any other conceivable theory; no matter how much data we have, it is legitimate to suppose that we would still have an infinite number of equally acceptable alternative hypotheses. So, it will always be legitimate to believe that there is some other theory that could explain the facts as well as any theory finally chosen. By way of response to this argument, however, the fact that an infinite number of lines can be drawn through any set of empirical data does not entail that there is a corresponding number of hypotheses (or theories) that actually explain that data. Even if for any given successful theory we could always construct a more complex one, it would not follow that we could construct infinitely many theories to explain the data. The most that could be shown is that any set of data licenses an infinite number of projections. But how could we show that of all the projections licensed by the data an infinite number of them actually explain the data? This would seem to be a matter of actually testing the hypotheses, which, because they are infinite in number, cannot be done. Hence this argument does not further the ends of perpetual revolution in science. Fifth, it might be suggested that the overall motivation behind the proposal for perpetual revolution in science is the fear that if science were able to accommodate some final theory, or answer all questions answerable by the scientific method, then people would naturally come to regard the final theory (or set of answers) as a corpus of a priori truths, thereby repressing the stimulus to further inquiry. In reply to this reasoning, however, it is not clear why we should fear such results. Certainly, were we to reach the point at which all answerable questions are in fact answered, then if we knew we had reached that point there would be a decline in critical inquiry. But reaching that point would not entail a nonrational view of the world. For, as Kneale has observed, after success it would still be necessary to convey the achievements of science by teaching, and a great deal would depend on how this was done (p. 41). Moreover, reaching the final answer to any empirically answerable question by no means precludes our needing to refine those answers to ever more sophisticated degrees. We can say, for example, that the value of Pi is 3.14, but that is not to say that the answer cannot be further refined-unto eternity if it would serve any purpose. All our answers are more or less rough approximations that can be indefinitely refined, but, as we saw earlier, that is not to generate an infinite number of non-trivial questions answerable by the scientific method. IS In addition, we may provide a safeguard against complacency by studying the history of science, and also by ac-

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knowledging that in no case could we ever know that we had attained the final theory or set of final answers. This latter point is important because reaching a final theory does not entail that those who reach it would also know that they had reached it. As Kneale suggests, reaching a final theory is perfectly consistent with not knowing that the theory is final (p. 38). We may have already reached the final theory. We do not know that we have reached such a theory, and we cannot assume that we have reached it because, given the possibility of an indefinite future, we cannot preclude the possibility of future and more adequate theories. And every person who will exist shall be obliged to think the same if he takes seriously the evolutionary and progressive character of science. Consequently, endorsement of the standard view of science would still keep us inquiring and oblige us to refrain from regarding any proposition eternally necessary even if we had attained to such a set of propositions. Sixth, Nicholas Rescher has recently argued that although scientific progress must enter into a state of progressive deceleration, still, scientific progress will never stop.I6 Rescher's view implies that there never will be a time when all non-trivial answerable questions will in fact be answered. Interestingly enough, Rescher also argues that the position he defends is quite distinctively Peirce an because it is strongly suggested as a consequence of Peirce's basic and much neglected views on the economy of research-plus a few other points Peirce did not consider. 17 Rescher's intriguing and forceful argument is as follows. Given Planck's principle that every advance in science makes the next advance more difficult and requires a corresponding increase in effort, ever-larger demands are made of the researchers in science as it progresses. If we combine this conclusion with the thesis that real qualitative progress in science is parasitic upon advances in technology, and that these advances in technology are in turn ever more costly, then we shall need to conclude that scientific progress will get slower and slower because experiments will be harder to make, they will be increasingly more expensive in a world of diminishing resources, and there will be fewer people to do them. So, if we factor into our understanding of scientific progress the cold hard economic fact of increasing costs for technology and decreasing resources, then a logarithmic retardation in scientific progress is inevitable. On this view, while major discoveries will never come to a stop, the time between significant discoveries grows larger with the passage of time. By way of analogy, Rescher asks us to consider such progress similar to a person's entering a Borgesian infinite library but with a card that entitles the bearer to take out one book the first week, one for the second two weeks, and so on, with increasingly long periods of delay. On this model our ever-expanding knowledge grows at an ever-decreasing

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rate. Scientific revolutions will go on forever, but the time gap between them moves toward infinity and carries with it a substantial slowdown in science as an activity. In discussing the economics of deceleration, Rescher examines the possibility that, as technology develops, the cost of progress will become less expensive rather than more expensive. He argues that while this prospect is feasible, it is not realized in practice; and hence an exponential cost increase is required to maintain a constant pace of progress in science. Further, that there could not be a finite number of empirically answerable questions follows, Rescher argues in the same place (p. 245), from what he terms the 'Kant-Proliferation Effect'. This is to say, along with Kant, that unending progressiveness follows from the very real phenomenon that in the course of answering old questions we constantly come to pose new ones. For this reason, no matter how far science progresses, there will still be questions that need to be answered, and by implication there will be questions that we will never be able to answer. Moreover, even in the infinite long run, these questions will remain unanswered because answering them depends on a greater concurrent commitment of resources than will ever be marshalled at anyone time in a zero-growth world: "They involve interactions with nature on a scale so vast that the resources needed for their realization remain outside our economic reach in a world of finite resource-availability." (p. 250) By way of criticism, we can note that however enticing Rescher's argument for perpetual revolution may be, scientific progress as a revolutionary activity could proceed indefinitely long, whatever the cost, only if the number of non-trivial questions answerable by the scientific method is infinite. The only evidence that Rescher gives that the number of such questions is infinite consists in his appeal to the 'Kant-Proliferation Effect', or the belief that in the course of answering old questions we constantly come to pose new ones. Surely, however, this appeal to the 'KantProliferation Effect' to guarantee unending revolution in science seems problematic because it seems to assert just what needs proof, namely, that there will always be non-trivial questions to be answered. Indeed, it seems to beg the question against final success in science by supposing that science can progress in a revolutionary fashion ad infinitum without ever reaching any final goal. As we saw earlier, however, what is needed to justify this conception of science has not been forthcoming. IS Certainly, in the process of answering some questions, we pose new ones. But where is the evidence that for each and every question answered by science there will be at least one non-trivial empirically answerable question that is raised as a result of answering each question? What is seductive about Rescher's position is that if we inductively generalize

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from past cases, we seem more than justified in asserting that in the future every answer will typically generate another question. But that inference is sound only if we assume (without inductive proof) that the number of such questions is not limited. 19 This latter assumption is precisely what needs proving if appeal to the Kantian principle is to have the effect Rescher ascribes to it. Incidentally, too, there is some reason to think that, in spite of what he said about the economy of research, Peirce's views on the economy of research do not imply the position Rescher adopts and indirectly attributes to Peirce. For one thing, although Rescher is quite right in noting the extent to which Peirce's views on the economy of research have been sadly neglected, it is somewhat doubtful that these views imply that there are some true propositions that will never be known. Indeed, for various reasons, Peirce never tired of asserting that the unknowable does not exist. What Peirce was driving at in his views on the economy of research is that there comes a point in the testing of hypotheses where the cost of testing one hypothesis, rather than another, is too high in the light of the likelihood of any significant advance. In that case, economic constraints require that we move in the direction of testing those hypotheses where there is more likelihood of theoretical advance (Collected Papers, 7.159; MS 678, p. 28). On this reading, which cannot be fully argued here, scientific progress can hardly be viewed as a process wherein the magnitude of the advance decreases in such a way that the final answer to any answerable question cannot be reached. 20 Seventh, some people seem to think that because there is an infinite number of things in the world, there must be an infinite number of nontrivial questions answerable by the scientific method. These same people typically assert that there is an infinite number of things in the world because mathematics tells us the way the world is, and mathematics must assume the existence of infinite series. In other words, these proponents of (-A) assume a realistic view of mathematics. Such a view is easy enough to assume because classical mathematics, with its allegedly Platonistic commitments, allows for extensive predictive control that would be difficult to explain without assuming that classical mathematics (with all its transfinite series) captures the nature of the real world. Given this view about mathematics, it is easy to conclude that there must be an infinite number of objects in the world and, of course, at least one question for each object. This sort of argument for (-A) assumes the questionable position that because of our success in utilizing classical mathematics in science, we must believe that mathematical statements, when accurate, are literally true of the world. But many philosophers, including Philip Kitcher, have argued that we can employ classical mathematics successfully without

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having to countenance the ontology ofthe Platonist. Very briefly, Kitcher's argument is that we need not construe mathematics as being about the world at al1. 21 Rather, we can, if we like, construe mathematics as being about a set of operations. Seemingly, Kitcher's proposal does not differ in kind from an instrumentalist view of mathematics. Whether that view of mathematics is correct need not detain us here because it seems patent that the assumption essential to the above objection is controversial and by no means clearly true, if true at all. Moreover, other philosophers, such as Hartry Field, have strenuously argued that scientific success does not require belief in the existence of mathematical infinities. 22 Besides, even if we were forced to adopt a realistic view of classical mathematics and argue, as a result, that there must be infinitely many objects in the world, it still would not follow that (-A) is true. Even if there were infinitely many physical objects, it would not follow that there are infinitely many non-trivial empirically answerable questions about those objects. Of course, if there were infinitely many kinds of objects, there might well be infinitely many non-trivial empirically answerable questions, but surely the most realistic construal of classical mathematics does not commit us to belief in the existence of an infinite number of kinds of things. Finally, although this is not an argument supportive of (-A), it might be thought that the whole issue of whether science could answer all questions answerable by the use of the scientific method depends on just how science progresses. There are, after all, different views on how science progresses, even among those who hold the traditional view of the objectivity of science. Consequently, it might be reasonable to believe that the way one construes the nature of scientific progress reflects strongly on whether science could answer all non-trivial questions answerable by the use of the scientific method. On this item, some have argued that revolutionary science progresses cumulatively because replacing theories better explain the questions explained by the previous theories, and they explain more. Therefore the replacing theory answers all the questions answered by the previous theory plus some more questions not answered by the previous theory. However, this latter view has been severely criticized (whether justifiably so is not at issue here) for failing to capture the sense in which science has in fact progressed. 23 Larry Laudan has argued, for example, that science has progressed not because replacing theories have answered all the questions answered by its rival (or earlier theory) plus some more questions not answered by the previous theory, but rather because the replacing theory answers more questions although it may not answer all the questions answered by the previous theory.24 At any rate, this debate is irrelevant to the question at hand because all that is required for science to answer every non-trivial empirically answerable question is that the

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number of questions be finite and that science answer more and more questions in the course of unlimited time. So, it makes little difference where we stand on how science progresses as long as we ultimately construe the revolutionary progress of science in terms of answering more and more questions in the course of time. Before proceeding to the next section, it might be useful to summarize our results to this point. There is no reason for thinking that (-A) is true because all existing objections to (A) are inadequate, and because there is no available argument establishing (-A). Combine this result with the basic counterintuitivity of (-A) (and by implication the presumption of truth favoring (A», and we shall then have strong indirect evidence for the truth of (A). Moreover, if we now add the other three independent arguments for (A) (and summarized on pp. 208-9 above) we seem strongly justified in believing that if scientific progress were to continue indefinitely, science would come to answer every non-trivial question answerable by the use of the scientific method. But will scientific progress continue indefinitely? THE INDEFINITELY LONG FUTURE OF SCIENCE

The Jamesian Principle At first blush, it might appear that if there is no good evidence for thinking that there could be an infinite number of non-trivial questions answerable by the scientific method, then by the same token and for the same reasons, there should be no good reason for thinking that there could be an indefinite number of temporal instants that would be requisite for science to continue indefinitely. In other words, it might appear inconsistent to both suggest that science could progress indefinitely and at the same time to argue that there could not be an infinite number of nontrivial empirically answerable questions. But this is only an apparent inconsistency because there is the enduring question of whether it makes any sense to construe the nature of real time in terms of discrete numerical units. This is not the place, of course, to enter into a protracted discussion on the nature of time and whether it makes any sense to think of an indefinitely long future in terms of indefinitely many, or even infinitely many, temporal instants. It should be clear, however, that believing in the indefinitely long future of scientific progress does not commit us to belief in the existence of infinitely many temporal instants. More generally, opposition to the idea that science could progress indefinitely is rooted in the awareness that scientific progress is contingent upon human effort and depletable natural resources. Certainly, however, nobody can show that the human species will be destroyed or cease con-

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ducting research for reasons of torpor, stupidity, existential malaise, merrymaking, or what have you. No doubt, apostles of doom will be quick to note that our sun is burning up, that all matter is very unstable, and that it is only a matter of time until we all fall into everlasting stillness. But this argument does not establish that the human race will be destroyed and hence, by implication, that science will stop short of answering all its answerable questions. All it shows is that rational life on our planet will probably cease. It does not show that the human species will cease to exist. As a matter of fact, we have good reason to think that we are now at the threshold of interstellar travel, and therefore that the death of our sun does not imply the extinction of rational human life. By the same token, some philosophers will suggest that there is no way of showing that the human race will not be destroyed, just as there is no way of showing that it will not cease conducting research. Consequently, we seem forced to settle for the view that if scientific inquiry were to continue indefinitely, then revolutionary progress in science would come to an end in answering every non-trivial question answerable by the scientific method. But that inquiry will continue indefinitely is at best a fond hope. Or so it may be suggested. However, we should not uncritically accept this suggestion because it is demonstrable that we have a right to believe that inquiry will continue indefinitely, whereas we do not have the right to believe that it will not. The right to believe that inquiry will continue indefinitely can be secured by appealing to a principle offered by William James. The principle is this. If a proposition recommends itself to our belief, and if it is a proposition for which there is no systematic evidence one way or the other, then we have a right to believe that proposition if in so believing it we are better able to create some moral value that would not otherwise obtain. Appealing to this principle will allow us belief in the indefinitely long future of science. For there is at least one notable advantage accruing to this belief, an advantage that does not accrue to the belief that inquiry will not continue indefinitely long; namely, in believing that inquiry will so continue we provide for the unlimited hope in the perfectibility of the species. Without such hope it seems unlikely that the species will strive for moral and social improvement as strenuously as if it were to be deprived of such a hope. Indeed, the alternative would seem to be not necessarily moral despair, but rather a self-conscious turning to some version of "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die." This latter attitude, however, would appear to be inconsistent with the attainment of the highest standards of morality where those standards are ultimately cashed-in for the happiness of the group. Presumably, the happiness of the group is not a moral value to be gainsaid willy-nilly. Thus believing that science will continue indefinitely is more apt to provide the

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hope and optimism required for a strenuous moral enterprise, whereas the lack of such hope and optimism is less likely to provide such beneficial results. It will be objected, of course, that the most we can demonstrate by appeal to the Jamesian principle is that it is probably best for us to believe that science will continue indefinitely. But, so the objection continues, there is a world of difference between what it is best for us to believe and what is the truth. Short of trotting out James and his detractors all over again, the only reply to this last objection is that it is not difficult to construct examples showing that even in science what is true would be undeniably a matter of what it is morally best for us to believe. This would occur, for example, when the confirmation of an hypothesis would depend upon testing procedures we could not employ because of the moral risk involved. A good example of the proper hypothesis would be the hypothesis that we have constructed a bomb capable of destroying the planet Earth, but the only testing procedure available for confirming the hypothesis consists in dropping the bomb. The claim that the hypothesis is unacceptable because it is not confirmed (or confirmable) would be true. The moral risk involved in testing the hypothesis is too high, and so the epistemological status of the hypothesis is ultimately a matter of what it is morally best for us to believe. Under these circumstances, alluding to the distinction between what is true and what is morally best for us to believe seems vacuous if the point of the allusion is to suggest that we are rejecting an hypothesis that may be true; for, presumably, because the hypothesis cannot be tested, the sense in which it might be true amounts to nothing more than a mere logical possibility. As a matter of fact, it is true that the hypothesis would be unacceptable. Only a perverse human being, willing to destroy the planet for the truth of it all, would argue that the hypothesis is unacceptable only if it is tested and falsified. These reflections do not differ significantly from the view of Richard Rudner, who argued that a rational decision to accept an hypothesis in science requires reference to the utilities likely to obtain in either accepting or rejecting the hypothesis when it is true and when it is false. 25 Thus the acceptance of an hypothesis ultimately demands reference to values. Similarly, we can argue that the concept of rational acceptability in science cannot be totally divorced from what it is morally best for us to believe. My view differs from Rudner's only in the contention that we have a right to believe an hypothesis (and say it is true) when there is no evidence against it, and when the only evidence in favor of it is the likelihood of its acceptance to generate a non-controversial value that would not otherwise obtain.

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If these considerations fail to convince anybody that, ceteris paribus, that hypothesis should be chosen which is best for us to believe, then at least it will not be denied that, ceteris paribus, we have a right to believe that hypothesis which is more likely to provide for the implementation of moral values that would not otherwise obtain. Accordingly, the hypothesis that scientific inquiry will continue indefinitely is an hypothesis that we have a right to believe, whereas we do not have the right to believe its denial. Moreover, we do not have the right to suspend judgment on the matter either, for in this case the right to suspend judgment obtains only where there is no forced option. And a strenuous pursuit of moral betterment (which pursuit is more likely to take place given the belief in the indefinite perfectibility of persons) is not something we can turn our backs to-even if only temporarily. In sum, because it is certainly reasonable to believe that science will continue indefinitely, it is also reasonable to suppose (for all the reasons mentioned earlier) that the process of science will come to answer every non-trivial question answerable by the scientific method, and in so doing generate the demise of science as a revolutionary progressive enterprise. Nothing argued here entails the Platonic existence of a real but unknown set of final non-trivial answers that we are successively approaching as an attainable goal. Such Platonism is not necessary to account for the concept of revolutionary progress given an indefinitely long process. After all, the sense in which we are approaching a final goal (if we have not already reached it) is the sense in which the process of revolutionary science will itself generate that final goal in its own demise. Should it be urged that the concept of real progress requires the concept of a real goal, then we can note that the sense in which the goal is real is the sense in which whatever will occur is real; and that is simply the sense in which a statement about the future is true. That there is a sense in which future possibilities are real but not actual will be surprising only to those who forget that the real is what is described in a true proposition, and that there are true propositions about the future. Finally, I have not argued, nor even suggested, that the only meaningful questions are those answerable by the use of the scientific method. It may well be that there are a number of questions not answerable by the use of the scientific method for the very good reason that they are not scientific questions. If so, then questions of refinement aside, there will still be a great deal to think about after revolutionary science has come to an end.

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NOTES 1. William Kneale, "Scientific Revolutions Forever?" British Journal for the Philosophy of Science vol. 19 (June 1967): 36-49. 2. This chapter seeks to defend, develop, and rejuvenate certain themes offered in my "Fallibilism and the Ultimate Irreversible Opinion," Studies in Epistemology (American Philosophical Quarterly Monograph Series, vol. 9, 1975) 32-54; and in my "Science and Idealism," Philosophy of Science vol. 40, no. 2, (June 1973): 242-54; and in my "Scientific Progress and Peirce an Utopian Realism," Erkenntnis vol. 20 (May 1983): 253-80. 3. See Paul Feyerabend, Against Method (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1975); Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962); and "Reflections on My Critics" in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, eds. I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970); I. Lakatos, "The Methodology of Scientific Research Programs" in Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge, eds. I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave, 91-195; W. V. Quine, Word and Object (New York: M.I.T. Press, 1960); and L. Laudan, Progress and its Problems (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978). 4. This seems to be what Peirce had in mind when he claimed that the sense in which it is necessary that any answerable question be answered is the sense in which a pair of dice thrown often enough, will be sure to turn up sixes some time, although there is no logical necessity that it should. When talking about this kind of necessity he said: "I take it that anything may fairly be said to be destined which is sure to come about although there is no necessitating reason for it. Thus, a pair of dice, thrown often enough, will be sure to turn up sixes some time, although there is no necessity that they should. The probability that they will is 1: that is all. Fate is that special kind of destiny by which events are supposed to be brought about under definite circumstances which involve no necessitating cause for those occurrences." (4.547 note 1. date: 1906). (The Collected Papers of Charles S. Peirce, vols. 1-6, eds. Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Univ. Press, 1936; vols. 7 and 8, ed. Arthur Burks, Cambridge, Mass: 1958.) I follow the standard method of citing from The Collected Papers. For example, 4.78 would refer to the fourth volume, section 78. See also 5.407. 5. See pp. 209-18 of this text. 6. This sort of objection was brought to my attention by Ilkka Niiniluoto. 7. Willard V. Quine, Word and Object (New York: M.I.T. Press, 1960): 23. 8. This objection was offered by Al Janis in the course of a stimulating discussion.

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9. For an interesting defense of a weak version of Peirce's view on the self-correcting nature of science see Nicholas Rescher's Peirce's Philosophy of Science (Notre Dame, Ind.: Notre Dame Press, 1978): 1-18. See Larry Laudan, "Peirce and the Trivialization of the Self-Correcting Thesis" in Foundations of Scientific Method in the 19th Century, ed. R. Giere (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1973) and Isaac Levi, "Induction as Self-Correcting According to Peirce," in Essays in Honor of R. B. Braithwaite, ed. by D. H. Mellor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980). 10. Karl Popper, "Truth, Rationality and the Growth of Scientific Knowledge," in his Conjecture and Refutation (New York: Basic Books, 1962): 125. 11. David Bohm, Causality and Chance in Modern Physics (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1957): 192, as cited by S. Korner, (ed.), Observation and Interpretation (New York: Academic Press, 1957): 56. 12. J. P. Vigier, "The Concept of Probability in the Frame of the Probabilistic and Causal Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics," cited by S. Korner (ed.), Observation and Interpretation (New York: Academic Press, 1957): 77. See also Steven Hawkins, "Is The End In Sight For Theoretical Physics," Physics Bulletin, vol. 32, (Spring 1981). 13. William Kneale, "Scientific Revolutions Forever?" British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, vol. 19 (June 1967): 36-37. 14. Willard V. Quine, Word and Object, 23. 15. It might appear a counterexample to our thesis that for any value of Pi, it could always be asked, "What is the next decimal of Pi?", and that would lead to an infinite number of answerable questions assuming that the value of Pi could be computed to the nth decimal place. But the analogy is wrong. Answering questions answerable by the scientific method is not at all like computing the value of Pi. The answer does not require the use of the scientific method. If it did, then for the reasons mentioned earlier, the infinite number of questions generated would be trivial. 16. Scientific Progress (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978). The same thesis is updated and defended in his book Scientific Realism (Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel, 1987.) 17. Rescher develops this argument in his Peirce's Philosophy of Science (Notre Dame, Ind.: Notre Dame Press, 1978). 18. Kant never proved it either; for he made his point in terms of a rhetorical question. He never established that there will always be questions to be answered. See his Prolegomena To Any Future Metaphysics (1783) section 57. 19. It should be noted that appeal to the 'Kant-Proliferation Effect' could sustain eternal revolutions in science if no less than one non-trivial question were raised with every non-trivial questioned answered.

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20. In his book Peirce's Philosophy of Science (Notre Dame, Ind.: Notre Dame Press, 1978) 25 ff, and in other publications, Rescher criticized Peirce for adopting the mistaken view that scientific progress proceeds by way of cumulative acceleration -like the growth of a coral reef. I would urge, however, that while Peirce claimed that science progresses steadily by feeding on previous lessons (7.88; 7.51), this should not be construed as a process of cumulative accretion similar to the growth of a coral reef. Indeed, Peirce claimed that thought advances and grows by violent breakup of habits (7.267; 2.159; 1.174; 2.770; 6.311; 7.77; 7.88) and that science advances by great revolutions (5.587; 1.107; 1.122; 6.311; 2.770; 2.769; 2.157; 2.97; 2.150; MS 953 (p. 5 and 6». Peirce even spent a certain amount of time refuting the incremental view Rescher attributes to Peirce (questionably citing 2.157 as supporting evidence). On this last point see 6.311; 2.159; 6.313; 1.138; 1.174; 2.664; 5.376 no. 2 note 2; MS 427 (p. 46 Logic II) MS 956 (p. 2); MS 959 (p. 19). For a fuller discussion of Peirce's views, see my The Philosophy of Charles S. Peirce: A Critical Introduction (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980). 21. Philip Kitcher, "The Plight of the Platonist," Nous (May 1978). See also, Kitcher's recent Nature of Mathematical Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984). 22. Hartry Field, Science Without Numbers (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980). 23. See, for example, Adolf Grunbaum's "Can a Theory Answer More Questions Than One of its Rivals," British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, vol. 27 (June 1976): 1-22. 24. Larry Laudan, "Two Dogmas of Methodology," Philosophy of Science, vol. 43 (June 1976): 585-97. 25. Richard Rudner, "The Scientist Qua Scientist Makes Value Judgments," Philosophy of Science, vol. 20 (June 1953).

CHAPTER SIX

CONCLUSION: BLIND UTOPIAN REALISM

HUMAN KNOWLEDGE AND THE THESIS OF BLIND UTOPIAN REALISM

Blind Utopian Realism is the combination of both the blind realism offered back in Chapter Four and the Peirce an utopian realism defended in the last chapter. As such, blind utopian realism embraces the following essential tenets: (a)

even if we abandon the correspondence theory of truth, we would still know, that is, be completely authorized in believing, that there is an external world, a world of objects whose existence is neither logically nor causally dependent upon the existence of any number of human minds or knowers;

(b)

at any given time some of our currently completely authorized beliefs about the external world, including our theoretical beliefs about unobservable entities, must, as a contingent matter of fact, and in some important measure, correctly describe the external world;

(c)

at any given time we cannot justifiably say, determine or otherwise pick out, which of our presently completely authorized beliefs do correctly describe the external world; and finally

(d)

the number of empirical beliefs that succeed in correctly describing the external world will continue to increase in such a way that revolutionary progress in science will come to an end in answering essentially all non-trivial empirically answerable questions. 225

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(a) through (c) are the core components of the blind realism urged in Chapter Four, and (d) is the component that falls out of the defense of Peircean utopian realism offered in the last chapter. In short, even though we can never justifiably say or determine which of our currently fully authorized beliefs (including our theoretical beliefs about unobservable entities) succeed in correctly describing the external world, still, we know that some do and, moreover, that someday the body of our current beliefs will contain the essentially correct answers to all non-trivial empirically answerable questions. However, even when our beliefs will embrace all the essentially correct answers to all the non-trivial empirically answerable questions, we will still not be able justifiably to say which of our current beliefs succeed in correctly describing the external world. This incapacity endures because at any given time we will not be able to say how the external world is unless we find some acceptable decision procedure for sorting out those beliefs that do from those that do not correctly describe the external world. In Chapter Four, when we argued for (c), we saw that there is no specifiable decision procedure for the kind of sorting necessary for passing from blind realism to some traditional form of classical realism in which we can pick out the beliefs that correctly describe the way the world really is. Consequently, we have no good reason to think that we shall pass from the realm of blind utopian realism to a realm in which we can justifiably say which of our completely justified beliefs succeed in correctly describing the external world.

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INDEX

Abductive inference, 172 Alston, William, 19, 42, 83-90, 9899,134 Analytic, 131 Approximate truth and realism, 16570 Aristotle, 103, 105, 106, 109; on basic or non-demonstrative knowledge, 103ff; on demonstrative knowledge and scepticism, 104 Armstrong, David, 83, 87, 135 Austin, John, 3, 41, 96, 103, 105 Basic propositional knowledge, 10341; and Austin, John, 55; and Dewey, John, 110-15, 138; and evidence, 103-13, 125; and foundationalism, 104-11; and infallibility, 105, 114, 133; and nondemonstrative knowledge, 104-8, 110-15; and real doubt, 127-29; and reliability, 105ff; and scepticism, 105-7, 114-15, 133-38; and Sellars, Wilfrid, 114, 138; and semantic authorization, 119-21, 138; and the Peircean proposal, 106ff, 126-32; and the regress argument, 135; and truth, 121, 124; and Wittgenstein, Ludwig,

110-15, 138; arguments for the existence of, 104-12, 133; as incorrigibly true, 133; as knowledge without justification, 104-8; as true and fallible, 103, 117-22, 133; criterion for, 126; definition of, 125; the rule for, 132; three basic positions on, 103, 114-17; without a justification condition, 104-10 Belief: as justified (see Justification); completely justified and false, 616; not needing justification, 11735; robustly supported, 27, 28; theories of justified, 51-95 Blind realism, 143-97; and classical realism, 143-44; and idealism, 133-34, 144, 186-87; and ontology, 188; and scientific realism, 144; as a form of scientific instrumentalism, 186; as distinct from classical scientific realism, 183; defense of, 143-89; definition of, 144; distinguishing features, 145; objections to, 178-84; virtues of, 146ff Blind utopian realism, 225-26 Bonjour, Laurence, 66 Boyd, Richard, 193, 194 243

244

INDEX

Cartesian: certainty, 116, 133; demon, 79-80; justification, 44; objection to blind realism, 18283; Causal realism, 191, 194 Causal theory of knowing, 60-74; counterexamples to, 70-92 Certainty, 112, 116; and entailing evidence, 6-16; and justification, 112; and knowing strongly, 34, 40; and knowing weakly, 6-16; and the possibility of error in knowledge, 18-21; two kinds of, 6-9 Chisholm, Roderick, 134 Churchland, Paul, 193 Coherence theory of truth, 40ff; and idealism, 39-40; and pragmatism, 40ft Common sense: and basic knowledge, 128; and foundationalism, 128; and justification, 132ff; and realism, 181; as a criterion for non-revisability of truth value, 181-82 Completely justified belief, 6-16, 138-40 Conceptual frameworks, 121ff; and basic knowledge, 126ff Conclusive reasons, 6-18, 134; and entailing reasons, 4, 6; for false propositions, 6-43 Contingent truth, 20 Cosmic coincidence and predictive success in science, 164 Counterexamples: to classical definition of knowledge, 56-90; to reliabilism and causalism, 65-69 Criterion for basic knowledge, 126ff

Death of revolutionary science, 200222 Demonstrative knowledge. See Knowledge Dewey, John, 110-15

Doubt, 117-25; and basic knowledge, 126-27; real and fictive, 127-29 Dretske, Fred, 6, 16, 135 Empirical adequacy as the end of natural science, 152 Epistemic justification. See Justification Epistemology; and psychology, 8892; the death of, 138-39 Eternal counterexample, the, 61 Eternal progress in science, 200-222 Evidence: adequate for knowledge but not entailing, 6-16, 20-21; and basic knowledge, 117-24; condition of knowledge, 4; criterion for the necessity of, 104-10; definition of, 110; entailing, 6-16, 18, 20; entailing and which entails, 4, 6-16, 56, 96; highly reliable and truth, 61 Explanations: and scientific realism, 151, 159-61; empirically testable and non-testable, 160; scientific and philosophical, 159-61 External world: and Peirce's Harvard Experiment, 147; arguments against the existence of, 144-46; objections to belief in the existence of, 144-46, 159-64; proof for the existence of, 147-53; proof of knowledge of, 151-77 Fallibilism, 21, 117-19; and basic knowledge, 115-20, 122; and idealism, 17-31, 125, 140; and realism, 21-40; and truth, 21, 22-30, 124; arguments for, 21-30; definition of, 21, 30, 182; objections to, 27-29 Fine, Arthur, 171-72, 194 Foley, Richard, 98 Foundationalism: and basic knowledge, 114ff; and logical certainty, 115; and truth, 132ff; fallibilistic, 111-16, 117-26; modest, 115ff

INDEX

Gale, Richard, 182-83 Gettier-type examples, 51-93; critique of, 53-60 Giere, Ronald, 193 Ginet, Carl, 69, 85-86, 97, 100 Glymour, Clark, 46, 195 Goldman, Alvin, 52, 61, 63, 67, 7475, 95, 97, 98 Goodman, Nelson, 146-47, 191 Haack, Susan, 138 Hardin, Clyde, 168-69 Hawkins, Steven, 223 Hesse, Mary, 164, 192 Hilpinen, Risto, 96 Hintikka, Jaakko, 47, 48 Humber, James, 138 Humphreys, Paul, 191, 194 Idealism, 124, 186; and instrumentalism, 145, 186; and the rejection of correspondence theory of truth, 124-25, 145, 186; Kantian, 187 Indefinite future of natural science, 219 Inductive necessity, 200 Interpersonalism, 40, 68-83; Alston's defense of, 83-88; and intrapersonalism, 68-88; response to arguments against, 69 James, William: and rational belief, 219-20; and the argument for blind utopian realism, 218-21; and the end of revolutionary science, 218-21; on systemic evidence and justification, 219 Jamesian argument for the indefinite future of science, 219-20 Justification: and basic knowledge, 117-25; and conclusive reasons, 3; and entailing reasons, 4; and the unknowable defeater, 55ff; and truth, 6-16, 91-92; as reasongiving, 60-83; as reason-having, 60-83; causal theory of, 60-83,

245

88; defeasibility theories of, 5259; definitions of, 38, 125; having versus giving, 83-90; infinite regress of, 104, 106, 138; interpersonal and intrapersonal theories of, 40, 67-83; non-defective, 5457, 60; of belief versus believing that, 82; reliability theory of, 40, 60-83, 88

Kantian realism, 215; as distinct from classical realism, 216 Kline, Peter, 95, 96 Kneale, William, 210-13 Knowing. See Knowledge Knowing strongly, 38-39; and correspondence, 34; and entailing evidence, 40, 59; and scepticism, 59; the emptiness of, 34-36, 40-41 Knowing weakly, 6-16, 35-39; and idealism, 41; eschews correspondence, 4ff, 35; objections to, 2630, 35-40, 179-81 Knowledge: and certainty, 3; and conclusive reasons, 3-4; and evidence, 6-16, 105-30; and justification, 1-48; and the correspondence theory of truth, 6-35; and truth as correspondence, 4, 33, 35, 38; and warranted assertibility, 34; as robustly confirmed belief, 28-30, 179-83; basic propositional, 103-34; classical definition of, 51ff; counterexamples to classical definition of, 53-59; definition of strong sense, 38-39; definition of weak sense, 38-39; fallible, 5-16; infallible, 3, 34; non-basic propositional, 1-48; non-propositional, 1; of the external world, 41, 14351; strong and empty, 35, 40; strong and weak non-basic, 3839; strong sense of, and entailing evidence, 1, 32-35; weak and non-empty, 34; weak sense of,

246

INDEX

and entailing evidence, 1, 2-32, 58, 93, 96; without justification, 117-25 Kuhn, Thomas, 123 Laudan, Larry, 193, 217 Lehrer, Keith, 47, 95, 134 Lottery paradox, solution of, 43 Lycan, William, 6, 17,43 Malcolm, Norman, 19, 46 Mathematical knowledge, 216, 217 McMullin, Ernan, 191-92 Moser, Paul, 137 Necessary truths, 200 Nola, Robert, 46 Odegard, Douglas, 13-15, 45 Pappas, George, 10, 16, 44, 95, 141 Peirce, Charles S., 103, 106, 127, 136, 189, 207, 222 Pollock, John, 43, 69 Popper, Karl, 43, 115, 123, 138, 209 Preface paradox, 26, 181 Probability and truth, 222 Progress, 198, 202ff; and revolutionary science, 121-29, 198, 200203, 209; and the death of revolutionary science, 197-221; scientific and Peirce an utopian realism, 121, 197-221; scientific-eternal and without convergence, 218-21 Putnam, H., 46, 153, 189 Quine, Willard Van Orman, 191, 204,212 Realism: and anti-realism, 162, 164, 171-73,175-76; and blind utopian realism, 188, 197-221; and instrumentalism, 152, 163; and non-realism, 171-72, 194; and pseudo-explanations, 172; and sci-

entific realism, 151-54, 159-62; and the death of revolutionary science, 200-221; and truth, 143-46, 147, 178, 180; blind arguments for, 143-95 classical, 144, 172; classical scientific and non-scientific, 143-47, 151, 159-62 Reason-giving as justification, 60-92 Reason-having as justification, 60-92 Reasons, conclusive, 6-18 Reliabilism and justification, 64-94 Rescher, Nicholas, 29, 46, 47, 101, 134, 191, 215-24 Revolutionary science, 211 Robustly supported belief and truth, 28, 29, 183; criterion for, 29, 178-81 Rorty, Richard, 46, 145-46, 188-89, 194 Rosenberg, Jay, 190 Salmon, Wesley, 153, 184, 192 Sanford, David, 43 Science: as revolutionary in character, 204-11; indefinite future of, 218-21 Scientific realism: and approximate truth, 165-70; and causal structural realism, 191; and empirical adequacy, 152ff; and instrumentalism, 151, 163, 186; and scientific progress, 197-221; and the predictive success of scientific theories, 152-64, 166-73, 175, 194; and truth of theories, 156, 161; as a scientific thesis, 154-59, 174; as distinct from blind realism, 145, 175, 183-85; classical definition of, 151, 160, 183, 185; failure of, 159-61; Fine's attack on, 163-65; Humphreys's defense of, 191; objections to, by Goodman and Rorty, 144-46; problems with, 159; proposed refutations of, 15659, 169-77, 194; Putnam's defense of, 153; Rescher's defense

INDEX

of, 191; Smart's defense of, 15152, 155-57; the death of, 185-87; van Fraassen's attack on, 152-59 Sellars, Wilfrid, 135, 138-39 Shope, Robert, 10, 14, 44, 45 Smart, J. J. c., 151-59, 191; argument for scientific realism, 15159 Sosa, Ernest, 134 Swain, Marshall, 52, 60, 83, 87, 95, 96,99 Truth: and blind realism, 143, 17785; and idealism, 30-31, 206ff; and probability, 207-9; and robustlyconfirmed belief, 25, 29; and the failure of correspondence, 21-30, 143; approximate, 166ff; as coherence, 136ff; as correspondence, 4, 5, 21, 30, 31, 133, 146; as the ultimate irreversible opinion, 200-221; as warranted assertibility, 23, 30, 124, 143ff; defense of Peircean conception of, 200-

247

221; defense of pragmatic theory of, 6-16, 103-32; in the Peirce an limit, 203-5 Truth-value revision and the failure of correspondence, 6-30 Unknowable defeaters, 55-59; and entailing evidence, 63 Value, moral (as evidence), 219-21 Van Fraassen, Bas, 152-56, 192 Verisimilitude, 193; and arguments against it, 169-70; and scientific realism, 165-71; and truth, 16572 Warranted assertibility as truth, 2835, 126-34 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 24, 28, 11015, 138 Word-word relationship of semantic authorization,S, 120-26 Word-world relationship of correspondence, 5, 22-23, 36, 121