Todd Suomela's Library tagged epistemology →  View Popular

The point here is that in this case, and in all ordinary
cases of incredulity, the grounds for the doubt can, in principle, be
removed. As Wittgenstein would say, doubt occurs within the context of
things undoubted. If something is doubted, something else must be held
fast because doubt presupposes that there are means of removing the
doubt.^[2]
We doubt that the bird is a robin because,
at least in part, we think we know how robins typically fly and what
their typical coloration is. That is, we think our general picture of
the world is right — or right enough — so that it does
provide us with both the grounds for doubt and the means for
potentially removing the doubt. Thus, ordinary incredulity, say about
some feature of the world, occurs against a background of sequestered
beliefs about the world. We are not doubting that we have any knowledge
of the world. Far from it, we are presupposing that we do know some
things about the world. To quote Wittgenstein, “A doubt without an end
is not even a doubt” (Wittgenstein 1969, ¶ 625).

As regards the former, skeptical views typically have an epistemological form, in that they are focused on the epistemic status of certain beliefs. For example, one common variety of skepticism concerns our beliefs about the past and argues that such beliefs lack positive epistemic status – that they are not justified, or are not rational, or cannot constitute knowledge (and perhaps even all three). Where skepticism does not have this epistemological focus, then it tends to be of an ontological form in that it is directed at beliefs about the existence of some supposedly problematic entity, such as the self or God. Here the target of the skepticism is not so much one’s putative knowledge of these entities (though it may be that as well), but rather the claim that they exist at all.

As regards the latter, one can differentiate between skeptical views that are either local or radical. Local varieties of skepticism will only concern beliefs about a certain specific subject matter, such as beliefs in abstract objects or the conclusions of inductive arguments. Since ontological varieties of skepticism tend to be concerned with the existence of particular sorts of entities, they are usually (though not always) of this local form. In contrast, radical forms of skepticism afflict most of our beliefs and thus pose, at least potentially, the most pressing philosophical challenge.

Philosophical epistemology begins from a stark opposition between words (or, alternatively mental representations) on the one hand, and world, on the other hand. Like the King’s soldiers, it then wonders how it is possible to put these two sundered halves together again. It is not difficult to see how it might be possible to cook up a theory of reference for propositions such as “the cat is on the mat”, but what could adequation between word and “thing” possibly mean for propositions like “the savanna is advancing on the jungle” or “the jungle is advancing on the Savannah”? What would a mental representation or mimesis between idea and world be in such a case? What are the inscrutable markers we find in our mental representation that establish such a correspondence? What resemblance is there between this proposition or statement and the world that it depicts? Posed in this way the question seems irresolvable as we either remain a “mind-in-a-vat” with no access to anything save our own mental representations (and therefore without the means of distinguishing the marks of the true from the false in our representations), or, equivalently, a “speaker-in-a-vat” with no means of distinguishing the marks that distinguish the true and the false in our propositions.

The whole problem, Latour contends, lies in the fact that philosophers always begin too late.

In his short 1963 paper, "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?",
Edmund Gettier presented two effective counterexamples to the JTB
analysis (Gettier 1963). The second of these goes as follows. Suppose
Smith has good evidence for the false proposition






1. Jones owns a
   Ford.^[5]
   
2. Either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Boston.
3. Either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Barcelona.
4. Either Jones owns a Ford or Brown is in Brest-Litovsk.







Since (1) entails each of the propositions (2) through (4), and since
Smith recognizes these entailments, he is justified in believing each
of propositions (2)-(4). Now suppose that, by sheer coincidence, Brown
is indeed in Barcelona. Given these assumptions, we may say that
Smith, when he believes (3), holds a justified true belief. However,
is Smith's belief an instance of knowledge? Since Smith has no
evidence whatever as to Brown's whereabouts, and so believes what is
true only because of luck, the answer would have to be
‘no’. Consequently, the three conditions of the JTB
account — truth, belief, and justification — are not
sufficient for
knowledge.^[6]
How must the analysis of knowledge be modified to make it immune to
cases like the one we just considered? This is what is commonly
referred to as the "Gettier problem".

What is important is not who came up with the theory (because we know that what I will say is that the theory is emergent from the works of numerous writers) but rather what the salient points are of the theory. From the work just cited, we can identify three major points (and those who care to look will find those points repeated throughout my own writing):


1. knowledge is not an object, but a series of flows; it is a process, not a product
   
2. it is produced not in the minds of people but in the interactions between people
3. the idea of acquiring knowledge, as a series of truths, is obsolete

These point to a conception of knowledge dramatically from the Cartesian foundation or the Platonic form, a conception of knowledge that challenges even the Aristotlean categpry and the Newtonian law of nature. In particular, what seems to me to be relevant, is that the knowledge thus produced is:

1. non-propositional, that is, not sharp, definite, precise, expressible in language
2. non-discrete, that is, not located in any given place or instantiated in any particular form
3. non-objective, that is, independent of any given perspective, point of view, or experience

1) If you want to argue that governmental or institutional action has unforeseen and perverse consequences, you have to apply that insight retroactively, with rigor. Meaning, among other things, that the economic crisis of the moment from this perspective is just as much an unexpected consequence of earlier governmental actions, in this case, changes in regulatory regimes, in monetary policy, and so on, under the Bush and Clinton Administrations.

Moreover, if you want to add intellectually to that composite body of thought rather than apply it in a dull fashion, one of the possibilities to consider is that some of those thinkers on Brooks’ list were too fixated on the state as the only large institutional force in modern life whose actions can lead to unforeseen or perverse consequences. Civil institutions and large corporations ought to be looked at in the same manner, with the same skeptical eye, with the same understanding of social causality. What have companies been doing to the fabric of everyday life in America over the last two decades? What kinds of top-down changes have they imposed on people, with perverse consequences?