Certain Doubts

One of the interesting things the stat package tells me about is search terms used that get a visitor to this site.

Here’s one for today: “unable to pick up social cues”

Maybe…

Kyle Stanford from UC-Irvine was here for a visit this past weekend, and talked about his novel argument against scientific realism. I thought there was a problem with the argument, but I now think maybe not.

Realism, here, is the epistemic thesis that we have good reason to think that the our present theories in the more mature sciences are true (or, at least, that the terms for unobservables in such theories succeed in referring). Kyle’s concern about this thesis derives from the fact that scientists are not that good at conceiving of all the alternatives to the theories that they propose.

On one level, this point is obvious: Newton didn’t, and in some interesting way, couldn’t conceive of quantum mechanics. The realist has a rejoinder that Kyle was willing to grant: exceptionalism. The exceptionalism response says that we now have a mature science and that the explanatory successes are sufficient to undermine the inductive argument from past failures to conceive of alternatives. In short, our situation is different from the situation of past great scientists, and so the induction fails.

Kyle’s response is to consider what he calls “close call” situations–cases where the alternative theories are readily available and well-confirmed by the evidence. So what he’s looking for are historical cases where a famous theorist seems incapable of formulating an alternative to their present approach to a problem.

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Special Issue of Studia Logica
on FORMAL EPISTEMOLOGY

Studia Logica is changing its scope. The journal is moving more toward “Formal Philosophy” (i.e., the applications of various formal methods to philosophical problems and issues), and away from its more traditional purely formal-logical roots. To mark this change, the journal is planning to do several special issues. One of these will be in the area of Formal Epistemology. This is to be construed broadly to include applications of logical, probabilistic, game-theoretic, and other formal methods to problems and issues in epistemology (including epistemologically oriented philosophy of science).

The editor of this special issue is Branden Fitelson (branden@fitelson.org). Anyone interested in submitting a paper for this special issue should contact Branden by email. We would like to have all paper submissions in by the end of the year, and we plan to publish the issue sometime in 2006. We prefer submissions to be in LaTeX, using the Studia Logica LaTeX style files. Specific submission information for authors can be found on the journal’s webpage at http://www.studialogica.org/authorsinfo.html.

MOVED TO THE TOP BECAUSE THE LINK TO THE CONFERENCE SITE NOW WORKS:

Filling out the acronym, the subtitle for the conference is as follows.
Experimental Reasoning, Reliability, Objectivity, and Rationality: Induction, Statistics, and Modeling
June 2-5, 2006
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia

The website is here, but since it is not up yet, I’ll include a bit of a blurb below the fold. Invited speakers of interest to me at least include Peter Achinstein, Clark Glymour, Henry Kyburg, Larry Laudan, and Alan Musgrave.

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Here’s a new paper by Adam, entitled Knowing What to Think About: When Epistemology Meets the Theory of Choice. Adam is the most recent addition to our list of contributors as well, and the paper, on my first cursory glance, appears to be about the issues involved in refusing to bracket desires and values when doing epistemology and refusing to bracket beliefs when doing decision theory. The essay is slated to appear in a new volume published by Oxford entitled Epistemology Futures, edited by Stephen Hetherington.

UPDATE: I’ve unlinked the paper temporarily; Adam is going to send a different version and would like it linked instead. I’ll note it when the new version is in place.

UPDATE: The new version is now in place, so the link works again.

Since much of philosophy of religion is of interest to, and relies on the work of, epistemologists, I have an announcement:

In association with the Annual Philosophy of Religion Conference at the University of Missouri for which I am the organizer and which begins this academic year, I’m working with Peter Momtchiloff on an inaugural volume for a new Oxford series in the Philosophy of Religion. I’d appreciate any help in spreading the word about this new venture.

In addition, since many of the contributors and readers of this blog have either worked in philosophy of religion in the past or might be interested in pursuing side interests in the area in the future, please consider the possibility of writing for the series. If interested, please send me email.

Here’s an immodest proposal: there aren’t any true epistemic obligation principles. Not even when the antecedent includes everything involved in the complete true theory of justification.

An epistemic obligation principle cites certain conditions in its antecedent, and has as consequent the claim that believing a certain proposition is required or obligatory. My claim above is not meant as expressing some doubt about the coherence or possibility of epistemic obligations, as one finds in criticisms of deontologism. Instead, my proposal is meant to grant deontologists their conception of justification, claiming that even given this conception, there aren’t any epistemic obligation principles.

To argue against such a claim, one might try to take Chisholmian principles and turn them into principles of obligation. For example, Chisholm holds that if you are appeared to F’ly with no grounds for doubt concerning the claim that something is F, then it is acceptable to believe that something is F (where acceptability is, if I remember correctly, the condition where believing is more reasonable than withholding). Then, if this belief is congruent with other things you believe, believing it can rise to the level of the evident. Finally, if nothing is more evident, it will be certain as well.

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I’m off to the beautiful nature state, Arkansas, to the Old Main Bldg. to talk to the department tomorrow. To the most magnificent chair’s office I’ve ever seen–nice enough almost to get anyone to take the job! Besides the natural beauty and fun drive down, I get to hang out with CD-er’s Tom and Jack, among other nice folk. I’m tempted to suggest skipping the talk and going straight to the bar–the conversations there are always the best part of a trip!

I will try to convince them that there is no problem of justified inconsistent beliefs for coherentists.

Hey, here’s a draft of my article on foundationalism & coherentism for the next Blackwell Companion:
Foundations & Coherence
Comments are welcome, including comments about what important things I’ve omitted (especially if I’ve omitted reference to an important work of yours!).

Chase Wrenn has started a new blog here that looks pretty interesting. This post, about refereeing papers in philosophy, is quite funny, in part because it is a bit too close to the truth, I’m afraid.