What is the Epistemology

etymology of the Etymology

word Epistemology? Logos – Knowledge
Episteme – Study
Doxa – True Opinion
What is the material
and formal object of Material object and Formal Object of Epistemology
epistemology?
Material Object
 That which is studied, the matter
 Subject matter
 The material object of epistemology is knowledge

Formal Object
 The specific facet of viewpoint in which the study the material object
 The formal object of Epistemology is the ultimate causes and principles
of knowledge

Definition of Epistemology
Is the branch of philosophy that determines in a general way the nature and
scope of human knowing.

Questions we answer when we identify the Nature of a Thing

 What is it?
 What sort of thing is this?
 Of what is it made of?

Questions we answer when identify the scope of a field of study?

Capacity
Extent
Limitation

The problem of the bridge

o Problem of the connection of the subjective and the objective
o How can the subjective know the objective?
o Since we interpret the world subjectively and knowledge is subjective,
how can we therefore anything?
o The problem of human knowing
o We know things through the mind but can the subjective really know the
objective.
Three kinds of knowledge
1. Object knowledge and familiarity knowledge
 S knows the P. is the President of the Philippines
2. How-to-do knowledge
 S knows how to play the Piano
3. Propositional knowledge
 S knows that it is Saturday today
 Has the quality of truth and falsity unlike the two former
examples
 A proposition has meaning if it has the quality of truth and falsity;
doubt, believe and know
 Epistemology studies propositional knowledge

Knowledge

Composition of Knowledge: Questions asked

 What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge?
 What are the necessary and sufficient conditions for us to say that S
knows P?

For any individual S and any proposition P, S knows P if and only if

1. S believes P
2. P is true
3. S is justified in believing that P

Plato’s Theory of Knowledge

1. Belief
2. Truth
3. Justification

For Plato, the conditions for the knowledge is that we should have Justified True
Belief or JTB.

Knowledge, for Plato, is Justified True Belief

The problem of bridge is a problem of Justification

Belief
 Belief is a propositional attitude.
 This attitude entails that we can either accept, reject or suspend
judgment.
 Entertain vs Consider
  Entertaining means to just put it into mind without dwelling on it.
 Considering is the active searching for truth, the desire to know
and it is characterized by a strong conviction.
 Dispositional vs Occurent
 Dispositional means when you entertain something or some idea
 Occurent means when you consider a thought or idea

 Degree of intensity of the Belief

 The belief’s intensity need not be Occurent.

Truth
 Correspondence – Truth is Truth if it coincides with reality.
 Dependent on fatcs and not the human mind
 Objective

Theories on Truth

1. Correspondence Theory of Truth

 “It is not because we think truly that you are pale, that you are pale, but
because you are pale is true because you are pale” (Aristotle)
 It cannot be both True and False

2. Pragmatic Theory
 An idea is true if it is useful

3. Coherence Theory
 Truth is found when an idea is connected, smooth and logical

Justification
 Justification basically means evidence that supports your claims and
beliefs.
 Justification entails as the possession of evidence; how the mind captured
reality accurately.

Problem of Meta-Justification
 It means justifying your grounds for justification of the idea you are
justifying.
 Justification is also relative

Different means of Justification

 Moral
 Economic
 Aesthetic
  Epistemic – this is what we are concerned about: probing and proving
what is true

Degrees of Justification
 Probability – possibility of error but high possibility of Truth
 Certainty – this has no possibility for error

Survey of Philosophers of Epistemology

Rene Descartes
Is sometimes described as the father of modern philosophy.

The kind of epistemology he tried to develop is called foundationalism

Foundationalism can be described and understood by the analogy to a building.

The building has two main parts namely: (1) a solid foundation and (2) the rest
of the building or the superstructure. Descartes wanted to show us that many if
not all of our beliefs we have about the world are cases of genuine knowledge. To
show this he divided our beliefs into two categories. There are the foundational
beliefs, which are perfectly solid. Second, there are superstructural beliefs which
count as knowledge because they rest on solid foundation.

The foundationalist view of knowledge employs the following steps. First, we

identify the foundational beliefs. These foundational beliefs have some special
property such as being absolutely certain. Secondly, we show that the rest of our
beliefs count as knowledge because they bear some special relationship with the
foundational items or beliefs.

There are two main ideas/tasks of foundationalists

1. Identification of Foundational beliefs
2. Description of the relationship between the foundational and
superstructural items that qualify it as knowledge.

Descartes Method
The goal of Descartes is to refute skepticism. He wants to show and prove that
we can really have knowledge. His first task to refute skepticism is the
identification of foundational beliefs.

The method he proposes to be used in the identification of our foundational

beliefs is the method of doubt. In this method, you ascertain whether it is possible
to set aside. If it is possible for you to doubt the proposition, you set the
proposition aside; it is not foundational. Note that the failing of doubt test does
not necessarily mean that the proposition is false, it merely means that the
proposition is not certain.

There are many beliefs that we have and it would be tedious and boring if we are
to analyze each and every one. Descartes therefore analyzed and sought for the
foundational items through not by each belief separately but by the kinds of
beliefs.

Kinds of Beliefs

A posteriori Beliefs
These beliefs are based on sense experience: sight, hearing, smell, touch and
taste.
According to Descartes, it is possible to doubt these kinds of propositions. The
reality you are experiencing right now might be an illusion and also you may be
dreaming. Ina dream and in hallucination, you might think that these beliefs are
true but in reality, you are mistaken.
Thus beliefs that are the testimony of the sense are for Descartes dubitable.

A priori Beliefs
These are propositions in mathematics.
They do not depend on sensory explanation for their justification
Descartes thinks that they also fail the doubt test. Descartes asks us to imagine
that there may be an “evil demon” that causes our faculty of reasoning to find
propositions totally obvious that are in fact totally false.

I am thinking Therefore I exist

In his work, Discourse of Method, Descartes identified a pair of propositions that
pass the doubt test.
I am thinking, Therefore I exist
Consider my belief that I am thinking. I cannot doubt this. I cannot construct a
story in which to believe this propostion, though it is false. For if I believe the
proposition, then I am thinking, so the proposition is true. So the attempt to
doubt the proposition proves that it is true.

Two important characteristics of the propositions “I am thinking”

1. It is important that the proposition is in the first person
2. The second feature is that it involves a psychological property

So far, we have two propositions that pass the doubt test. That is, I cannot that I
am thinking and that I exist. This is however a meager foundation. It is difficult to
set a huge supersturture on a meager and paltry foundation as such.
But there is more. Consider propositions solely in the context of your own
present sensory experiences. Such propositions describe the way things seem to
you. You now seem to see a page in front of you. Descartes thinks that all such
first-person descriptions of the way things seem are indubitable.
To understand Descartes’ point, it is essential to recognize the difference
between the following two propositions
o There is a page in front of me
o There seems to be a page in front of me

It is fairly clear that the first of these can be doubted. That’s the point about the
dreams and illusions. But Descartes maintains that the second proposition is
different. He holds that it has this peculiar property: if you believe that the
proposition is true then you cannot be mistaken. If you believe that you seem to
see a page in front of you, then you do seem to see a page in front of you. You
cannot be mistaken in your beliefs about the way things seem to you.

Introspection
Descartes put this even further. He thought that people have infallible access to
what they believe and desire.

Introspection is the method that the mind can use to accurately grasp its
contents. Though this has been disproven by psychologists such as Freud,
Descartes based this on the assumption of the incorrigibility of the mental. If you
believe that you have a belief then, then it must be true that you have that belief.
This is the same for desires.

His proposition encompasses all a persons’ subjective beliefs. He wants to

include all first-person reports of beliefs. These beliefs however only talk about
the agents experience and do not comment on any way on the world outside of
the agent. What is true is what seems to be for the agent.

Additional Foundational Item: God exists and is no deceiver

In order to bridge the gap between the subjective premises of the person and the
objective reality outside the mind, Descartes proposed that he would prove that
God exists. He believed that by proving that (1) God exists and (2) he is no
deceiver he could solve the problem of the bridge.

Descartes had the following picture in mind:

1. God created my mind and situated me in the world.
2. The mind that God created is obviously not infallible because by mind
does not reach true conclusions at every time.
3. However God would not have furnished me with a mind that leads to
 false beliefs about the world no matter how much evidence I consult. If
God had done this, then he must be a deceiver.

The conclusion of Descartes is that God created us with minds that have the
capacity to attain true beliefs about the world. We can reach true beliefs if we are
careful about how we use the minds that God has bestowed upon us.

The Criterion of Belief: Clarity and Distinctness

Descartes maintained that a clear and distinct belief must be true.
The basic idea here is carefully and make sure that they are logically clear and
unconfused, then we can be certain that they are true.
The reason that clarity and distinctness ensure that the belief is true is that God
is no deceiver. God has furnished that our minds are connected to the world in a
special way. So God is responsible for the fact that we can use the clarity and
distinctness as a criterion for truth.
Clarity and distinctness do not mean that a thing is some evidence to be true.
Ideas that are Clear and Distinct are true.

Proof for the existence of God

The proof is as follows
(1) My idea of God is an idea of a perfect being
(2) There must be at least as much perfection in the cause as there is in the
effect
(3) Hence, the cause of my idea is a perfect being – God himself

Premise 1:
This argument Descartes thinks he can know by introspection
Descartes believes this statement is indubitable

Premise 2:
This premise, Descartes thinks, is an indubitable principle about causality. It can
be broken down into two components. First, there is the idea that every event
has a cause. Second, there is the idea that the cause must be at least as perfect as
the effect.

David Hume
Justified belief and Hume’s Problem of Induction

The Differences between knowledge and justified belief

Knowledge: if S know that p, then p must be true
Justified Belief: S’s having a justified belief that p does not require that p be true
Knowledge requires Truth while Justified Belief does not.
Knowledge also requires impossibility of error while justified belief does not.
A similarity of Knowledge and Justified Belief is that they both fo not require
absolute certainty.
Impossibility of error, Certainty or Indubitability
Knowledge requires that we are absolutely certain. Justified belief however does
not require certainty. The negligible chance of your belief not being true is
severely outweighed by the enormity of the chance that your belief is true.

The problem of Descartes and Hume

The problem of Descartes is this “the way in which my present experience
justifies my belief about my present physical environment.”
The problem of Hume, which is a problem of induction, is concerned with how
the beliefs I have about my present and past physical environment justify my
beliefs about the future.
Descartes and Hume tackled two modes of the justification of our beliefs.
Descartes tackled and delved on the way that our memories and beliefs justify,
support and give credence to our present and past perceptions and memories.
Hume however took this one step further by asking: Do the beliefs and memories
I have of the past and the present justify the predictions and generalizations I
have of the future?

Hume’s Problem of Induction

We constantly make generalizations based on our past and present experiences
on what the future may or will be like. Hume asserted that the generalizations
we make are true though they are based on evidence that is not entirely
conclusive.

Common sense says that we are rational in believing the predictions and
generalizations we do, if those beliefs are based on lots of evidence. Hume claims
that this common sense idea is false and mistaken. His main thesis is that the
predictions and generalizations we believe cannot be rationally justified.

It is important to see the radicalness of Hume’s claim. It is obvious that we

cannot deduce generalizations and predictions from our past observations.
Hume is saying more than this. He is saying that our past experience provides no
rational justification for the generalizations and predictions that we believe.

(GEN)
- I observed numerous emeralds, and each has been green.

- Hence all emeralds are green.

(PRED)
 - I have observed numerous emeralds and each has been green.

- Hence, the next emerald I observe will be green.

Hume’s thesis challenges our common sense justification that the generalization
and prediction arguments are valid. His thesis claims that there is no rational
justification whatsoever for these convictions and predictions. His thesis is not
merely a criticism against the validity of deduction, but is rather a claim that
there no rational justification for ANY belief that we have based on
generalizations and predictions.

He stated that this is merely a habit of the human mind. This habit can be stated
as the habit if the human mind to believe that the future resembles the past.
Hume believes that this belief is a belief that we should abandon.

Principle of Uniformity of Nature

The basis of Hume’s startling and radical claim is the Principle of Uniformity of
Nature or rather, his thesis that this principle is irrational and does support the
conclusion. The Principle of Uniformity of Nature believes that the future will
resemble the past.

Hume thought that this principle plays and indispensable role in every inductive
argument that we make. Why should these past events and observations or
experiences support to the generalizations and predictions of tomorrow?

So each and every inductive argument that we make presupposes PUN: we must
assume PUN if the observational premise is to support the prediction or
generalization stated in the argument’s conclusion. This means that if the
conclusion we reach is rationally defensible, then a good argument must be
found that PUN is true. If PUN cannot be defended, then anything we believe that
depends on assuming that PUN is true is likewise indefensible.

Hume’s Skeptical argument is as follows

1. Every inductive argument requires PUN as a premise
2. If the conclusion of an inductive argument is rationally justified by the
premises, then those premises must themselves be rationally justifiable
3. So, if the conclusion of an inductive argument is justified, there must be a
rational justification for PUN
4. If PUN is rationally justifiable, then there must be a good inductive
argument or a good deductive argument for PUN
5. There is no good inductive argument for PUN, since such argument will
be circular
 6. There cannot be a good deductive argument for PUN, since PUN is not a
priori true, nor does PUN deductively follow from the observations we
have made to date.
7. So, PUN is not rationally justifiable

Hence, there is no rational justification for the beliefs we have that take the form
of predictions and generalizations.

In a nutshell, Hume’s claim is that our inductive arguments on the future based
on our past and present experiences are not rationally justifiable because they
rest on a principle that is not rationally justifiable or justified.

An inductive argument defending PUN is circular because

- Nature has been uniform in my past observations
- Hence, nature in general is uniform.
- Why is nature in general uniform?
- Because nature has been uniform in my past observations

Ethics of Belief

The paper starts off with a story. A shipowner is about to seed a ship to sea. He
knows that she is old and not well-maintained. Doubt crept into him that the
boat is not seaworthy. However, despite these doubts, he convinced himself by
saying that the ship had gone through so many voyages and storms that she
could not possibly sink form those and providence would not surely abandon the
ship. As such he acquired a sincere and solid conviction that the ship was
seaworthy. He bade the ship farewell with a light heart. The ship went down
mid-ocean and the shipowner collected his insurance money.

Clifford’s thesis is about entitlement. Entitlement of us to our beliefs.

Many people say that you are entitled to your belief but Clifford states that this is
not the case. You are not entitled to any belief. The belief that you have must
meet certain conditions. He says in his statement “it is wrong always,
everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient
evidence”

This means that if you do not have evidence that sufficiently justifies your belief
then you have no right to believe in such a belief. That right is subject to scrutiny
of others.

In the paper Clifford presents the reason why belief is inseparable from action
“he who holds a belief prompts him to action or if not holds it in his heart as a
guide to future action” an evaluation of our beliefs is important for all our beliefs
are interconnected and they interact in our decision making and in our actions.

Clifford holds the need to reevaluate our beliefs. He says “no belief, however
trifling and fragmentary it may seem, is ever truly insignificant; it prepares us to
receive more of its like, conforms it resembled before and weakens others; and
so gradually it lays a stealthy train in our inmost thoughts, which may someday
explode into overt action, and leave its stamp upon our character forever”

Belief, according to Clifford, knits the working as of humanity as a whole. A single

belief can either strengthen or weaken humanity. It is our universal duty to
question all that we believe.

This has far-reaching consequences namely on opinion. People often hold that
everyone has a right to their own opinions but will Clifford will say No! The
reason for this is that you act on that opinion and those actions that you do based
on that opinion affects me.

You are entitled to your belief when it fulfills two conditions:

When it conforms to the common experience of mankind.

The belief must in principle be held by other people in similar circumstances.

The same belief in the same circumstances. It may pointing that it should be
verifiable by other people. If people cannot have the same belief in similar
circumstances then you are not entitled to that belief.

When this beliefs extend beyond experience

This discusses generalities. I am entitled to a belief that is beyond my
experience if it conforms to the principle of the uniformity of nature. If I claim
something, it conforms to my present or past experience.

Testimony of others
How entitled are we to the belief of others? This is important because a lot of our
beliefs depend on the testimony and accounts that other people make.

There are two conditions in which we may believe other people’s testimony

We know that the person is at least intending to tell the truth

Though this may seem very vague for we do not know if the person in
front of us lying to us. I think that the point of Clifford here is that some people
such as teachers and scholars do not intend to lie to you well most of time.

We know that the person has not made a mistake, that is, the person has
not violated one or both of the two conditions of when you are entitled to
your belief.
These conditions and concepts proposed by Clifford are applicable to everything.
We can apply it to ourselves, to the beliefs of others and whether we should
believe in the testimony of others. Clifford asserts that of you do not apply these
principles and you act on these beliefs, you are morally responsible for these
beliefs. We must guard against these beliefs for these beliefs stand in defiance to
our duty to mankind which is the truth.

Will to Believe by William James

In order to really understand James, we need to understand the terms that he
defines or introduces.

Hypothesis: Live or Dead

A hypothesis is a proposition, or idea, that’s presented to us as a possible belief.
A live hypothesis is a proposition which it is, in fact, possible for us to believe,
whereas a dead hypothesis is a proposition which it’s impossible for us to
believe.

Option: Live or Dead; Forced or Avoidable; Momentous or Trivial

An option is a decision between two hypotheses. A live option is a decision
between two live hypotheses; a dead option is a decision between two options at
least one of which is dead. A forced option is a decision between two options
which we can’t avoid making; an avoidable option is a decision between two
options which we can avoid making. A momentous option is an irrevocable
option for significant stakes; a trivial option is an option which is not irrevocable
or for significant stakes. And finally, and most importantly of all, a genuine
option is an option which is simultaneously living, forced, and momentous. 

The Psychological Necessity of Willing to Believe

James maintains that pure reason is never the final determinant of what we
believe. The non-intellectual components of our mind (for example, our emotions
and desires) partially determine what beliefs we have. We can, through will,
conjure up belief in any live hypothesis and hypotheses which are dead for us are
dead for us because we have previously exercised our will in a certain way (say,
by being influenced by the opinions of those around us).
 
The Philosophical Appropriateness of Willing to Believe
Of course, given that our beliefs are partially determined by factors other than
reason, it remains to be asked whether this should be the case.  Given that our
will does plays a role in determining our belief, should we embrace this as a fact
of psychological life, or should we struggle against it?
In addressing this question, James notes that we have two epistemic duties: 1)
the duty to believe the truth, 2) the duty to not believe the false.  These duties
sometimes conflict. In order to believe the truth, we must have beliefs and so we
risk having false beliefs.  In order to avoid having false beliefs, we may avoid
believing things and so we may risk losing true beliefs.

Clifford thinks that believing falsehoods is worse than failing to believe truths
and so he recommends believing only things which are well-justified. Someone
else might think that failing to believe truths is worse than believing falsehoods
and so would recommend believing things which aren’t so well-justified.  James
thinks that this decision is, itself, a “passional” one, motivated by non-rational
factors. 

Because some beliefs, like the belief that avoiding falsehood is more important
than attaining truth, cannot be adopted on the basis of logic alone, and because
such beliefs are central to the entire enterprise of believing anything at all,
it must be okay, sometimes, to believe things for non-rational reasons.
 
When Willing to Believe Is, and Is Not, an Acceptable Practice
Of course, to say that it’s sometimes okay to believe things for non-rational
reasons doesn’t mean that it’s always okay to do this.
James says that we shouldn’t will to believe something where the option
is avoidable and trivial. If the risks attached to believing a falsehood are greater
than the benefits incurred by believing the truth, either because the risk is very
great or because the benefit is very small, then it’s worth losing the truth in order
to increase our chances of avoiding falsehoods.  Here, we should suspend belief
until the evidence comes in.

In two kinds of cases, however, we should (or at least we may) will to believe in
the absence of rational justification. The first type of case is an option
between self-fulfilling hypotheses. Some beliefs, like the belief a particular person
likes you, or that a committee you’re on will work properly, actually help to
create the fact believed. In such cases, it would be self-defeating to refuse to
adopt the belief until you have sufficient evidence for the fact.

The second type of case is belief involving a genuine option, or an option which is
simultaneously living, forced, and momentous. “Are there moral truths or not?”
may be such an option for us. It’s forced, insofar as there’s no place to stand
outside the option. It’s momentous, insofar as it might matter very much to us,
even now, which hypothesis we adopt. And it may be living for us as well, if both
the existence and the non-existence of moral truths present themselves to us
as possible things to believe. In such a case, if the risks attached to failing to
believe the truth are greater than the benefits incurred by avoiding falsehood,
either because the risks are very great or because the benefit is very small, then
it’s worth believing falsehoods in order increase our chances of believing the
truth, and so we may will to believe one hypothesis, even in the absence of
strong evidence in its support.

It’s important to remember that James does not argue that we are permitted to

will to believe something if the evidence against it is sufficiently strong.
Presumably, if the evidence against a certain hypothesis is especially compelling,
that hypothesis will no longer be live for us and so will not be part of a genuine
option.
 
Willing to Believe and Religious Belief
James defines the Religious Hypothesis as the belief that the best things are the
eternal things, and that we will be better off right now if we believe that the best
things are the eternal things. We might define the Religious Option as “either
believe the religious hypothesis or don’t believe the religious hypothesis.”

James assumes that there is insufficient justification for either hypothesis in the
religious option, and that (partly as a result of this) the religious option is a living
one for us. James notes that the religious option is momentous: if the religious
hypothesis is true then there is substantial gain to believing it and a substantial
risk attached to failing to believe it (since part of the religious hypothesis just is
that we will win by adopting the religious hypothesis and lose by failing to adopt
it). The option is also forced, because there is no third alternative to believing or
failing to believe. Accordingly, the Religious Option is a genuine option and, as
such, it’s fair game for us to will to believe in the Religious Hypothesis. We
needn’t wait around for sufficient evidence to ground this belief; we may allow
our “passional nature” full sway.
(James also advances another argument in support of the same conclusion, an
argument based on the assumption that since we tend to think of God as a
person, belief in the Religious Hypothesis may be self-fulfilling insofar as God
may be waiting upon our belief as a sign “good faith” before entering into a
meaningful relationship with us and, in so doing, providing us with evidence for
his existence. I think that this argument is undermined by its
anthropomorphism.)

Jack Meiland

We have no special duties believe according to the evidence, but that every
epistemic state must be judged from the perspective of our moral duties.

 Against the doctrine of Evidentialism.

Case Examples:
 -Friendship of Jones and Smith
-Marriage commitment of Wife to her husband

In these circumstances, it does not seem to me right to say that Jones and the
wife should have believed Smith and the husband to be guilty just because there
was sufficient evidence to justify these beliefs. And even if the partnership and
the marriage did not last, I think Jones and the wife were not wrong on the basis
of insufficient evidence.

From all the evidences and information gathered, Jones and the Wife chose to
believe that Smith and the husband are innocent because they want to keep the
relationship and partnership with each other.

Moreover, these beliefs do not seem to me to be unreasonable or irrational in the

least. If things do not turn out as Jones and the wife hope, then some very
precious things – a strong friendship, a good marriage – will have been preserved
by their having certain beliefs even though the evidence is insufficient.

Two Basis of Belief:

Values Belief Facts

The two bases of Belief are Values and Facts

-It seems to me that the justification of belief must depend, at least in part,
on the believer’s situation.

It has to consider the subjective side of believing to the part of the

believer.

-The Relevance of Extra-Factual Consideration in believing.

The Problem of Purely Evidential Warrant

I believe that the problem here arises from a fundamental ambiguity in the notion
of ‘purely evidential warrant,’ itself. This notion is a compound notion, and we must
separate its parts in order to understand. These parts are as follows: (1) the
evidential component (2) the warranting component.

1. Evidential Component – evidential relation or factual relation.

 2. Warranting Component – is not a factual relation. Other than
factual, i.e. extra-factual consideration.

When we talk about one or more proposition as warranting belief in another

proposition, we are talking about reasonableness, the rationality, or the
oughtness of believing that latter proposition on the basis of the former
propositions. Warranting will be different things on different occasions. On one
occasion, we may feel that one proposition may warrant belief in another in the
sense of making it reasonable or justified for a person to believe the latter. On
another occasion, we may feel that one proposition warrants belief in another
proposition in the sense that the person ought to believe the latter on the basis of
the former. But whatever warranting is on a given occasion, it always falls on the
‘value’ side of the fact-value dichotomy. It has to do with the reasonableness,
justification and oughtness.

Rationality as oughtness is not equal to factual.

Evidence itself is not enough to be the whole basis of believing because there are
extra-factual considerations such as value and situational factors which can
never be removed in the process of believing.

“Potential believer’s values, ends, and situation will have a definite bearing on
whether he or she ought to adopt a particular belief.”

Louis P. Poiman
“There is something both psychologically aberrant and conceptually incoherent
about obtaining and sustaining beliefs through acts of will.”

Volitionalism
Volit – act of of obtaining a belief directly on willing to have it.

Types of Volitionalism:

1. Direct Descriptive Volitionalism – One can acquire beliefs

directly by simply willing to believe certain propositions.

2. Indirect Descriptive Volitionalism – One can acquire beliefs

indirectly by willing to believe propositions and then taking the
necessary steps to bring it about that one believes in the
propositions.

3. Direct Prescriptive Volitionalism – One can acquire beliefs

 directly by willing to believe propositions, and one is justified in
so doing.

4. Indirect Prescriptive Volitionalism – One can acquire beliefs

indirectly by willing to believe propositions as described in thesis
2, and one is justified in purposefully bringing it about that one
acquires beliefs in this way.

Direct Volitionalism
In the standard model of belief acquisition, the judgment is not a separate act but
simply the result of the weighing process. It is as through the weighing process
exhibited the state of evidence, and then the mind simply registered the state of
the scales. In the volitional model, the judgment is a special action over and
above the weighing process. It is as through the mind recognized the state of the
scale but were allowed to choose whether to accept that state or to influence it
by putting a mental finger on one side or the other, depending on desire. The
nonvolitionalist need not deny that desire unconsciously influences our belief
acquisitions, but does resist the notion that beliefs can be formed by conscious
acts of will.

The Phenomenological Arguments Against Direct Descriptive Volitionalism

Sufficient Conditions for a minimally interesting thesis of volitionalism:

1. The acquisition is a basic act – some of our beliefs are obtained by

acts of will directly on being willed.
2. The acquisition must be done in full consciousness of what one is
doing – the paradigm cases of the acts of will are those in which the
agent deliberates over two courses of action and decides on one of
them.
3. The belief must be acquired independently of evidential
considerations – the evidence is not decisive in forming a belief.

Argument against volitionalism:

1. Phenomenologically speaking, acquiring a belief is a happening in which
the world forces itself on a subject.
2. A happening in which the world forces itself upon a subject is not a thing
the subject does (is not a basic act) or chooses. – The heart of premise.
3. Therefore, phenomenologically speaking, acquiring a belief is not
something a subject does or chooses.
 Believing is typically more passive in nature, not a doing, but a guide to
doing. The phenomenological argument shows that volitionalism is abnormal
and bizarre, but it does not rule out the possibility to volit.

Veto phenomenon – occurs by raising doubts, suspending judgment, or tabling

the proposition under focus.

This is a negative type of volition, for it does not claim that we can actually
attain beliefs by the fiat of the will, only that we can prevent some from
getting hold of us by putting up a doxastix roadblock just in the nick of time.

Nevertheless, it does not show that we actually can acquire beliefs by

voliting, but shows only that the will has a negative role to play in preventing
beliefs from fixing themselves in us.

Cartesia – The Society of Voliters

Belief come naturally as that which purports to represent the way the world is so
that our actions may have a reliable map by which we steer.

The Logic of Belief

Believing is evidential, in that to believe p is to presuppose that I have evidence
for p or that p is self-evident or evident to the senses.

Concept of Probability – we all do have a notion of degrees of belief that entails a

rough notion of subjective in the manner described. If this argument sound, the
interesting thing is that not only can we not volit a belief, but we cannot even
volit a change in the degree with which we believe a proposition.

The logic of belief argument has not ruled out the logical possibility of voliting
but simply rules out as logically odd the possibility of acquiring a belief in full
consciousness by a fiat of the will without regard to truth considerations.

Ethics of Belief
If we could believe whatever we chose to believe simply by willing to do, belief
would not be about reality but about our wants.

Although believing itself is not an act, our acts determine the sorts of beliefs we
end up with. It is primarily because we judge that our beliefs are to some
significant degree the indirect results of our actions that we speak of being
responsible for them.

The only “ought” regarding belief acquisition is a prudential ought.

 -Libertarian view of doxastic responsibility – It affirms that believing is purely
private matter.

This doctrine sells the truth.

I conclude that voliting seems both psychologically aberrant and conceptually

confused. It is psychologically problematic because the feature of demanding full
consciousness attaches to acts of will. It is conceptually confused because it
neglects the evidential aspect of conscious belief acquisition and sustainment.

JUSTIFICATION IS BOTH EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL

INTRODUCTION

The debate between externalism and internalism has a very rich literature in
epistemological discourse. Perhaps, one would argue that there is no definite
way to elaborate the issue of this debate in a single presentation because the
richness of debate has tackled a variety of views. Consequently, externalism, in
its broadest sense, cannot be understood in a single concept only, so is
internalism. However I tried to delimit the vagueness of each view and of the
issue at hand regarding this raging dispute between externalism and internalism
through reading some available significant literatures about this matter, and
through careful reflection. As a result, I arrived to an understanding about this
debate and have found a facet in this debate that somehow captures a very
important issue about this argument between externalism and internalism ---
their non-agreement about the nature of epistemic justification. 1 In this aspect, I
will focus my discussion in this paper. I believe that the debate between
externalism and internalism is about the justification of one’s belief and whether
the justification of one’s belief is dependent or not on the person’s availability of
one’s evidence. I will try to determine which side is likely to have a greater value
regarding the theory of justification, if there is really one. At the latter part of the
paper, I will suggest that the main goal of this debate is the acquisition of
knowledge.

INTERNALIST VERSUS EXTERNALIST VIEW OF JUSTIFICATION

True belief differs from knowledge. True beliefs acquired from lucky guesses
cannot account as knowledge. A very important inquiry in epistemology is this:
What is necessary for a mere true belief to be knowledge? 2 This question bore a
1
2
 variety of answers from several epistemologists. Differing views try to address
the question posted above. For conciseness, let us classify two important
positions about this issue. We shall call them internalism and externalism (which
each view will be elaborated in the succeeding paragraphs of this section).

Traditional epistemology has set the standard in order for a true belief to
account as knowledge, that is, one must be justified regarding his belief as being
true. In connection, a person must possess some available evidences for him to
be entitled that “he knows.” Evidence is a rudimentary requirement for one can
say that he knows.

It seems to me that this view is, indeed, correct. In our daily course of our lives, it
seems that this requirement is really necessary before one can claim that he
knows. Here are some examples:

(a) If a student is asked why he knows that 1+1=2, he would

probably say that, as far as he can remember, it is the answer that
his teacher has taught him or that he read it from a Mathematics
book that they used in class.

(b) In the legal court, in order for a judge to say that X knows that Y
killed Z, X must present some evidences that Y killed Z. The best
evidence is that X saw by his naked eyes that Y killed Z beyond
unreasonable doubt.

(c) If a person is asked why he knows that the fire is hot, a normal
person will answer that he has experienced to be burnt already
or that somebody whom he knows told him that the fire is hot,
that is why, he knows that the fire is hot.

In the following examples enumerated above, the availability of one’s evidences

for one’s belief is necessary for that belief to be justified as true.

Internalism captures this traditional view of justification. Richard Feldman and

Earl Conee give a comprehensive view about internalism from different
perspective of different epistemologists. 3 They (Feldman and Conee) presented
two distinct but closely related characteristics of internalism out of these
different interpretations of internalism. One characterization is what they
termed as accessibilism and the other one, is what they coined as mentalism.

3
 Accesibilism holds that the epistemic justification of a person's belief is
determined by things to which the person has some special sort of access. On the
other hand, mentalism is the view that a person's beliefs are justified only by
things that are internal to the person's mental life.4 Though there’s a difference
between the two characterizations, they are still connected in the view that what
justify one’s belief is internal to the person. I believe that this is a quite
comprehensive understanding about what internalism is all about and I deem to
adopt this understanding in my use of internalism in this paper.

On the other hand, externalism is a concept that opposes the traditional view of
the nature of justification mentioned above. For the externalists, in order for one
to say that “S knows p”, it is not required for the believer to be aware of the
evidences that can justify his belief. There are also two considerations that can
be made about the variety of interpretations of externalism. First is the causal
connection to the fact that the belief is all about. The other one is what we call,
reliabilism. The former argues that what requires for a true belief to be
considered as knowledge is the fact that one’s belief is causally connected in
some state of affairs which the belief is all about. David Armstrong is one of the
renowned proponents of this view. He said that the difference between
knowledge and true belief is that knowledge involved “a law-like connection
between the state of affairs (of a subject’s believing that p) and the state of affairs
of (the subject’s believing that p), it must be the case that p. 5 The latter is a view
that a belief is justified as long as it is produced by a belief-forming process
which is reliable to form true beliefs even though the believer has no ground to
believe the reliability of the belief-forming mechanism. 6 Again, though the two
are likely to be different from one another, they are connected in their belief that
what justifies a belief is something that is external to the believer.

EXTERNALISM AND INTERNALISM: COMPROMISED

There’s really a strong contradiction about the concept of the nature of

justification among the internalists and externalists. Can still there be a
possibility to have a middle ground between the two opposing views?

In this section, I will argue that there is still a possibility to somehow settle the
dispute between the externalists and internalists. I believe that this debate can
be solved by accepting that both views (externalism and internalism) are
necessary requirement for justifying one’s belief.

Perhaps, both internalists and externalists will raise their eyebrows about this

4
5
6
assertion. Internalists will react that justification is a wholly an internal matter,
while externalists will argue that justification is wholly an external matter.
However, is it true that what justifies a belief is purely internal to a person? On
the other hand, is justification purely external to a person?

I will answer that it is unlikely to assume that what justifies a belief is purely
internal or purely external to a person. I will argue that the justifier of a certain
belief is a combination of both internal and external factors. This is an attempt to
give a middle ground between internalism and externalism. I believe that in
order for this attempt to succeed, I must be able to point out the insufficiency
that needs to be addressed about externalism and internalism. I believe that the
reconciliation of the two opposing views is possible when one party accepts that
their view is incomplete without the other.

Let us now try to examine first what insufficiency we can find in the externalist
view about epistemic justification.

Externalists assumed that a belief is justified even a person is not aware of the
evidence for his belief. As long as his belief is causally connected to the state of
affairs to which his belief is all about or whether his belief is caused by a reliable
process of belief formation that assumed to produce more truth than possible
error even the person is not aware of the evidence for the reliability of that
belief-forming mechanism. What matters is that the belief is caused in a reliable
way. At best, matters of justification are purely external to the believer in
externalist’s concept of justification.

Talking about the availability of evidence, I believe that externalists also accept
some sort of evidences for one’s belief to be justified. We can say that that this
evidence can be a proof that one’s the belief is causally connected to the state of
affairs which the belief is all about and/or a reliable process that forms more
true beliefs than errors. However, this evidence is not required to the awareness
of the believer but it can be that this evidence is in the awareness of a person
outside the believer. Therefore, the justifying evidence is in the third person
rather than in the believer.

For example, a 3-year old child believes that what he sees in front of him is a red
apple without any evidence for believing in it. However, externalist will assert
that he is justified in his belief because may be his mother (or some other person
who observes a child) is aware of the evidences that what her child sees is
indeed a red apple. The objective fit that the child really sees a red apple suffices
that his belief be justified as observed by an objective spectator other than the
believer.
This seems to be plausible. However, are we ready to accept that what justifies a
belief is purely external to a person?

My answer is that even the matter of justification is external to the believer; a

sort of internalist requirement is still needed for the justification of the child’s
belief. A person who is aware of the reasons for justification of the child’s belief
is still necessary.

Let us assume that nobody is watching the child and he believes that he sees a
red apple in front of him without being aware of any reasons of his belief. Can we
still say that he is justified in his belief that he sees a red apple in front of him?

Externalist will say that his belief is still justified as long as his belief is causally
connected to the state of affairs of which his belief is all about or that it is formed
in a reliable way. However, I argue that it makes no sense to say that it is
justified, unless there is a person who is aware of the reasons for the justification
of the child’s belief (that he sees a red apple). This person could be the believer
himself or any person other than the believer.

At best, it is an excess to conclude that justification is entirely an external matter

because externalism cannot completely satisfy the requirements for epistemic
justification. Justification still needs a sort of awareness from a subject though it
might be an awareness of the subject itself or a subject other than the believer.

Therefore, justification is still a process that happens internally to a certain

subject.
It might be argued that this view is still external in nature. Therefore, there’s
nothing new added to the externalist’s view that justification is external to a
person. However, I still remain with my position that as long as an “aware
subject” is needed for justification one cannot conclude that the justification is
wholly external. The justifying evidence can be outside the believer but still the
justifying factor is internally available to a certain person. I may call this view as
external internalism.

-----
On the other hand, let us now examine what we can see as insufficient to the
view of the internalists.

Internalists, as opposed to the externalists, argue that in order for a belief to be

justified, a person must have some awareness to the evidence that justifies one’s
belief. Some would term it as a special sort of access to the evidence for one’s
belief either by reflection or introspection. Internalists insist that only matters
that are in the person’s mind will qualify as justifiers for one’s belief. At best, only
things that internal to a person’s mind can justify one’s belief.
 The plausibility of this view is that it affirms our traditional view that we are
justified in our belief if we have an access to the evidence that justifies our beliefs
to be true. This view suggests that the justification of beliefs is purely a matter of
internal factors. How can this view be tenable?

It could be that one’s beliefs are justified by one’s other beliefs. Justification then
can be the appropriate coherence of one’s belief to the person’s other belief.
However, some problems can arise from this process. A person can have
coherent beliefs but it does not mean that these beliefs are true, it can be that
these beliefs that are cohering with one another are false. In order to solve this
problem, a belief that justifies a belief must again be justified by another belief,
and the belief that justifies the belief that justifies another belief must again be
justified by another belief, and so on. This results to an infinite regress where no
justification happens after all. John Greco puts this as something like this:
That is, if S can know that there is a bird in the tree only if she
knows that her evidence for this is reliable, and if she can know
that her evidence is reliable only if both (a) she has evidence for
this, and (b) she has evidence that this new evidence is reliable,
then there would seem to be no end to this sort of problem. For
presumably S’s belief that her new evidence is reliable will
reuwire further evidence, and it will now be necessary that S
know that this evidence is reliable, and so on. 7

The problem is very simple: internalists seem not to account the objective
reality about the world out there which cannot be subjective to a person yet a
very important factor for the justification of one’s belief as true. All of our beliefs
are beliefs about the world which is external to us. Consequently, all our beliefs
are relative to the world that is outside of us. Even we are internally justified,
that is our beliefs perfectly coheres with one another or we have good reasons
for our beliefs to be true, there is still a necessity for us to check whether these
beliefs that we have are appropriately related to the external world from which
our beliefs are all about. In sum, it is an excess therefore to say that what justifies
our beliefs is purely internal to a person’s perspective because something
external is necessary for the justification of beliefs.

---------
I believe that I have elaborated the two views sufficiently which is enough to
show the possible significant insufficiency of each concept about the nature of
epistemic justification. We can infer then that each separate concept of the
internalists and externalists is lacking in terms of justifying one’s belief. If this is
so, no concept of justification independent from the other can fully account for a
complete theory of justification of a belief.

7
Is their a possibility to fill this gap? How can we fill this gap?

I believe that a complete theory of justification entails the combination of the

strengths of both internalism and externalism. The strength of internalism can
fill the insufficiency of externalism, and vice versa. In this method, we can arrive
in presenting a stronger theory of epistemic justification which will fill the gap of
both internalism and externalism. Let us now consider then what strengths can
we find in both externalism and internalism.

Straightforwardly, I believe that the strength of externalism is that it considers

the objective fit of one’s belief to the state of affair about the world to which the
belief is all about. What must be external to a person, that is, inaccessible to a
subject, is the epistemological fact that is outside of the mind of the person which
gives an objective fit to one’s belief about the world out there.

On the other hand, the strength of internalism is that it considers the awareness
of the evidence that might affirm the objective fit of one’s belief to the state of
affairs about the world to which the belief is all about. What must be internal,
that is, accessible to a subject, is the evidence that affirms the objective fit of
one’s belief to the state of affair to which the belief is all about.

At best, I argue that the complete theory of justification is the

combination of both internalism and externalism. A belief is justified if a belief
objectively fits the state of affairs about the world to which the belief is all about
and if a subject (this subject may be the believer or any person other than the
believer) is aware of the evidences why the belief objectively fits the state of affairs
about the world to which the belief is all about.

DEGREE OF JUSTIFICATION

I admit that the theory of justification that I suggested seemed to be still external
in nature. However, I remain with my position (as I mentioned above) that when
a subject (even this subject may be other than the believer) who is aware of the
evidences of the truth of a belief is still needed for any belief to be justified, the
justification still requires internal factors. Thus, my argument still stands firm
that justification is not wholly external or internal but the combination of both.

Nevertheless, I admit that the theory of justification that I presented above is the
lowest possible degree of justification of one’s belief. In this section I suggest a
degree of justification. This degree of justification depends on the awareness of
evidence for one’s belief to be true. One’s belief is justified if a third spectator is
aware of the evidences for one’s belief to be true. However, one’s belief is more
justified if the believer himself is aware of the evidences for his belief to be true.

This degree of justification seems to coincide with the distinction between the
propositions “S knows that P” and “S knows that he knows that P”. The
justification on the first proposition can only be from a person othe than the
believer. On the other hand, the justification on the second proposition can be
from a person other than the believer or from the believer himself. Both are
justified, however, the latter is more justified than the former due to the degree
of the awareness of evidence that can prove that one’s belief objectively fits the
state of affair to which the belief is all about.

KNOWLEDGE AS DESIRABLE AND USEFUL

On this last section of my paper, I argue that ultimate goal of this dispute among
the externalists and internalists is the acquisition of knowledge. Though, some
might argue that the debate is really about the nature of epistemic justification.
My reply is that the clarification of the nature of justification is still a means
towards the acquisition of knowledge.

Aristotle, one great philosopher of the ancient Greece, pronounced that all men
by nature desire to know. The acquisition of knowledge is indeed something that
is essential in one’s being. We human beings are made to know many things
about the world and to contradict this nature is something that it is impossible
for us to do. We might say that “I do not want to know” but in the end we will live
in contradiction for we will always be forced to know for us to have a meaningful
existence as human persons. Consequently, knowledge then must be something
that is desirable and useful in one’s life. That is why many people pursue it.
However, it takes also an effort in our part to acquire knowledge. It maybe
possible to acquire knowledge by merely “taking a look” to something such as
our basic knowledge about things; however, our multifaceted world is not all
about this very basic knowledge. Elaborate knowledge, that is knowledge about
complex matters, is what mainly constitutes this present world brought about by
the influence of the advancement of technology. And this is what kind of
knowledge I would to talk about in this section.

Knowledge is power as they say. It can create and it can also destroy. Many
dramatic changes happened in this world because of human person’s pursuit of
knowledge. Human artifice has been possible through the knowledge of the
human person, which objectively fits some truths in this world.
What I am pointing at here is that knowledge is something desirable and,
consequently, useful in one’s life. A person who does not know the reason why
he knows cannot savor the knowledge that he has. Unless, a person knows that
he knows, he cannot make good use of his knowledge. I believe that knowledge is
a precious gift endowed to the human person. Who might be the giver of this the
gift is not the aim of this paper.

What is the relevance of this assertion to my previous assertion that the

acquisition of knowledge is both external and internal? I only have a very simple
answer: Knowledge can only be useful by the combination of externalists and
internalists conception of justification, that is, if one’s belief objectively fits the
state of affair about the world (external in nature) and if one is aware about the
reasons of his belief which constitutes a belief to account for as knowledge
(internal in nature). For example, man was able to invent the airplane because
his beliefs objectively fit some truth about the world and because man became
aware of the evidences of his belief to be true. And the same reasoning applies to
other great discoveries that we can find in our present complex world.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, I argue that the debate about externalism and internalism can be
solved by accepting that both views (externalism and internalism) are both
needed for justifying one’s belief. Epistemic justification cannot be wholly
“internal” or “external”. At best, the justification of a belief depends on the
combination of both views (externalism and internalism). I also suggest a Degree
of Justification which proposes that one’s belief has more epistemic quality if
one’s belief does not only objectively fit the state of affairs to which the belief is
all about but if one can have an “access” for the evidences that make one’s belief
objectively fits the state of affairs about the world to which his beliefs is all
about. I argue that one knows more if one has an access to the evidences for the
truth of his belief. In the end, I contend that the aim of this debate about
justification is the acquisition of knowledge, which is something that is desirable
and useful, that is why, many people pursue it. In addition, knowledge can only
be useful if it fits the objectively reality about the world and if the knower is
aware of the evidences for his belief to be true.