Category: Butchvarov

Butchvarov on Semi-Realism about Facts

This post takes up where Butchvarov Against Facts left off.  See the latter post for bibliographical data concerning the essay "Facts" which I presently have under my logical microscope.  And if you are a fan of Butch's work, all of my Butchvarov posts are collected in the aptly entitled Butchvarov category.

(The following is also highly relevant to the discussion currently in progress with the Londonistas, David Brightly and Edward the Ockhamist in the combox to this post.)

Butch's position is a nuanced one as one would expect.  He appreciates the strengths and weaknesses of both realism and anti-realism.  For the realist, there are facts.  For the anti-realist, there are no facts.  Let us briefly review why both positions are both attractive yet problematic.  We will then turn to semi-realism as to a via media between Scylla and Charybdis.

1. Take some such contingently true affirmative singular sentence as  'Al is fat.'  Surely with respect to such sentences there is more to truth than the sentences that are true.  There must be something external to the sentence that contributes to its being true, and this external something is not plausibly taken to be another sentence or the say-so of some person, or anything like that.  'Al is fat' is true because there is something in extralinguistic and extramental reality that 'makes' it true.  There is this short slacker dude, Al, and the guy weighs 250 lbs.  There is nothing linguistic or mental about that.  Here is the sound core of correspondence theories of truth.  Our sample sentence is not just true; it is true because of the way the world outside the mind and outside the sentence is configured.  The 'because' is not a causal 'because.'  The question is not the empirical-causal one as to why Al is fat.  He is fat because he eats too much.  The question concerns the ontological ground of the truth of the sentential representation, 'Al is fat.'   Since it is obvious that the sentence cannot just be true — given that it is not true in virtue of its logical form or ex vi terminorum — we must posit something external to the sentence that 'makes' it true.  I don't see how this can be avoided even though I admit that 'makes true' is not perfectly clear.

2. Now what is the nature of this external truth-maker?  It can't be Al by himself, and it can't be fatness by itself.  Nor can it be the pair of the two.  For it could be that Al exists and fatness exists, but the first does not instantiate the second.  What's needed, apparently, is the fact of Al's being fat.  So it seems we must add the category of fact to our ontology, to our categorial inventory.  Veritas sequitur esse is not enough.  It is not enough that 'Al' and 'Fat' have worldly referents; the sentence as a whole needs a worldly referent. Truth-makers cannot be 'things' or collections of same, but must be entities of a different categorial sort.  (Or at least this is so for the simple predications we are now considering.)

3. The argument I have just  sketched, the truth-maker argument for facts, is very powerful, but it gives rises to puzzles and protests.  There is the Strawsonian protest that facts are merely hypostatized sentences, shadows genuine sentences cast upon the world.  Butchvarov quotes Strawson's seminal 1950 discussion: "If you prise the sentences off the world, you prise the facts off it too. . . ." ("Facts," 73-74)  Strawson again: "The only plausible candidate for what (in the world) makes a sentence true is the fact it states; but the fact it states is not something in the world."

Why aren't facts in the world? Consider the putative fact of my table's being two inches from the wall.  Obviously, this fact is not itself two inches from the wall or in any spatial position.  The table and the wall are in space; the fact is not.  One can drive a nail into the table or into the wall, but not into the fact, etc.  Considerations such as these suggest to the anti-realist that facts are not in the world and that they are but sentences reified.  After all, to distinguish a fact from a non-fact (whether a particular or a universal) we must have recourse to a sentence: a fact is introduced as the worldly correlate of a true sentence.  If there is no access to facts except via sentences, as the correlates of true sentences, then this will suggest to those of an anti-realist bent that facts are hypostatizations of true declarative sentences.

One might also cite the unperceivability of facts as a reason to deny their existence.  I see the table, and I see the wall.  It may also be granted that I see that the desk is about two inches from the wall.  But does it follow that I see a relational fact?  Not obviously.  If I see a relational fact, then presumably I see the relation two inches from.  But I don't see this relation.  And so, Butchvarov argues (84-85), one does not see the relational fact either.  Their invisibility is a strike against them.  A careful examination of this argument would make a nice separate post.  And indeed it did.

Another of the puzzles about facts concerns how a fact is related to its constituents.  Obviously a fact is not identical to its constituents.  This is because the constituents can exist without the fact existing.  Nor can a fact be an entity in addition to its constituents, something over and above them, for the simple reason that it is composed of them.  We can put this by saying that no fact is wholly distinct from its constituents.  The fact is more than its constituents, but apart from them it is nothing.  A third possibility is that a fact is the togetherness of its constituents, where this togetherness is grounded in a a special unifying constituent.  Thus the fact of a's being F consists of a, F-ness, and a nexus of exemplification.  But this leads to Bradley's regress. 

A fact is not something over and above its constituents but their contingent unity.  This unity, however, cannot be explained by positing a special unifying constituent, on pain of Bradley's regress. which is, pace Richard Gaskin, vicious.  So if a fact has a unifier, that unifier must be external to the fact.  But what could that be?  It would have to be something like Kant's transcendental unity of apperception.  I push this notion in an onto-theological direction in my book, A Paradigm Theory of Existence: Onto-Theology Vindicated.  But by taking this line, I move away from the realism that the positing of facts was supposed to secure.  Facts are supposed to be ontological grounds, extramental and extralinguistic.  If mind or Mind is brought in in any form to secure the unity of a truth-making fact, then we end up with some form of idealism, whether transcendental or onto-theological, or what have you.

4.  So we are in an aporetic pickle.  We have good reason to be realists and we have good reason to be anti-realists.  (The arguments above on both sides were mere sketches; they are stronger than they might appear. ) Since we cannot be both realists and anti-realists, we might try to mediate the positions and achieve a synthesis.   My book was one attempt at a synthesis.  Butchvarov's semi-realism is another.  I am having a hard time, though, understanding what exactly Butchvarov's semi-realism is supposed to be.

If the realist says that there are facts, and that anti-realist says that there aren't, the semi-realist maintains that 'There are facts' is an "Improper proposition" (87) so that both asserting it and denying it are improper.

Butchvarov relies crucially on Wittgenstein's distinction between formal and material concepts and his related distinction between saying and showing.  Object is an example of a formal concept, while book is  an example of a material concept.  That there are books can be said.  That there are objects cannot be said.  Instead, it is shown by the use of names.   

'This is an object,' unlike 'This is white,' is a pseudo-proposition.  This is because it attempts to say what can only be shown.  'This is an object' does not say anything. "It shows the logical category to which the item belongs." (75) 

Fact, like object, is a formal concept.  It follows that 'There are facts' and 'A sentence expresses a fact' are pseudo-propositions.  They are pseudo because they attempt to say what can only be shown.   But why , exactly, does 'A sentence expresses a fact' not say or state anything?  Presumably because ". . . it presupposes what it purports to say because 'fact' is the philosophical term for what sentences express." (76)

The following  cannot be said: 'This page is white is a fact.'  It cannot be said because it is ill-formed. (88)  We can of course say, 'That this page is white is a fact.'  But 'that this page is white' is not a sentence, but a noun phrase.  We cannot use this noun phrase to refer to the fact because what we end up referring to is an object, not a fact.  Though a fact is not a sentence or a proposition, it is proposition-like:  it has astructure that mirrors the structure of a proposition. No object, however, is proposition-like.  To express the fact we must use the sentence.  Using the sentence, we show what cannot be said.

Butchvarov's discussion from p. 88 to the end of his article is extremely murky and unsatisfactory.  His semi-realism is not a clear alternative to realism and anti-realism.  Butch sees the problem with crystal clarity, but I cannot see what exactly his solution is.

He tells us that semi-realism with respect to facts  differs from anti-realism by acknowledging that there is more to the truth of true sentences than the sentences that are true.  (88) Excellent!  This is a non-negotiable 'datanic' point.  If it is true that Jack loves Jill, then there must be something in the world that makes this true, and it cannot be Jack, or Jill, or loves, or the set or sum of all three.  If these three items are what the sentence 'Jack loves Jill' are about, then the truth-maker has to be distinct from each and from the set or sum of all. (88)

But Butch also tells us that semi-realism about facts differs from realism by refusing to countenance a special category of entity, the category of fact, the members of which are the referents of declarative sentences. What bothers Butchvarov is that "facts cannot be referred to or described independently of the sentences expressing them" (88)  a consideration which renders antirealim about facts plausible and the correspondence theory of truth implausible. (88)

So what is Butch's third way?  How does he get between realism and anti-realism.  He seems to be saying that there are facts but that they cannot be said, only shown.  But of course this cannot be what he is saying if one cannot say that there are facts!

If there is something that cannot be said but only shown, and what is shown are the referents of sentences, then he is saying that there are the referents of sentences in which case he is saying that there is what he says can only be shown.

This is highly unsatisfactory and barely coherent if coherent at all.  I am tempted to say to Butch, "Look, either there are facts or there aren't. Which is it?  Bringing in Wittgenstein's saying v. showing distinction only muddies already troubled waters."

So I don't see that semi-realism about facts is a viable position.  I suggest we admit that we are stuck with a genuine aporia.

Are Facts Perceivable? An Aporetic Pentad

'The table is against the wall.'  This is a true contingent sentence.  How do I know that it is true except by seeing (or otherwise sense perceiving) that the table is against the wall?  And what is this seeing if not the seeing of a fact, where a fact is not a true proposition but the truth-maker of a true proposition?  This seeing of a fact  is not the seeing of a table (by itself), nor of a wall (by itself), nor of the pair of these two physical objects, nor of a relation (by itself).  It is the seeing of a table's standing in the relation of being against a wall.  It is the seeing of a truth-making fact.  (So it seems we must add facts to the categorial inventory.)  The relation, however, is not visible, as are the table and the wall.  So how can the fact be visible, as it apparently must be if I am to be able to see (literally, with my  eyes) that the table is against the wall? That is our problem. 

Let 'Rab' symbolize a contingent relational truth about observables such as 'The table is against the wall.'  We can then set up the problem as an aporetic pentad:

1. If one knows that Rab, then one knows this by seeing that Rab (or by otherwise sense-perceiving it).
2. To see that Rab is to see a fact.
3. To see a fact is to see all its constituents.
4. The relation R is a constituent of the fact that Rab
5. The relation R is not visible (or otherwise sense-perceivable).

The pentad is inconsistent: the conjunction of any four limbs entails the negation of the remaining one.  To solve the problem, then, we must reject one of the propositions.  But which one?

(1) is well-nigh undeniable: I sometimes know that the cat is on the mat, and I know that the cat is on the mat by seeing that she is. How else would I know that the cat is on the mat?  I could know it on the basis of the testimony of a reliable witness, but then how would the witness know it?  Sooner or later there must be an appeal to direct seeing.  (5) is also undeniable: I see the cat; I see the mat; but I don't see the relation picked out by 'x is on y.'  And it doesn't matter whether whether you assay relations as relation-instances or as universals.  Either way, no relation appears to the senses.

Butchvarov denies (2), thereby converting our pentad into an argument against facts, or rather an argument against facts about observable things.  (See his "Facts" in Javier Cumpa ed., Studies in the Ontology of Reinhardt Grossmann, Ontos Verlag 2010, pp. 71-93, esp. pp. 84-85.)  But if there are no facts about observable things, then it is reasonable to hold that there are no facts at all.

So one solution to our problem is the 'No Fact Theory.'  One problem I have with Butchvarov's denial of facts is that (1) seems to entail (2).  Now Butch grants (1).  (That is a loose way of saying that Butch says things in his "Facts' article that can be reasonably interpreted to mean that if (1) were presented to him, then would grant it.)  So why doesn't he grant (2)?  In other words, if I can see (with my eyes) that the cat is on the mat, is not that excellent evidence that I am seeing a fact and not just a cat and a mat?  If you grant me that I sometimes see that such-and-such, must you not also grant me that I sometimes see facts? 

And if there are no facts,then how do we explain the truth of contingently true sentences such as 'The cat is on the mat'? There is more to the truth of this sentence than the sentence that is true.  The sentence is not just true; it is true because of something external to it.  And what could that be?  It can't be the cat by itself, or the mat by itself, or the pair of the two.  For the pair would exist if the sentence were false.  'The cat is not on the mat' is about the cat and the mat and requires their existence just as much as 'The cat is on the mat.'  The truth-maker, then, must have a proposition-like structure, and the natural candidate is the fact of the cat''s being on the mat.  This is a powerful argument for the admission of facts into the categorial inventory.

Another theory arises by denying (3).  But this denial is not plausible.  If I see the cat and the mat, why can't I see the relation — assuming that I am seeing a fact and that a fact is composed of its constituents, one of them being a relation?  As Butch asks, rhetorically, "If you supposed that the relational fact is visible, but the relation is not, is the relation hidden?  Or too small to see?"  (85)

A third theory comes of denying (4).  One might think to deny that R is a constituent of the fact of a's standing in R to b.  But surely this theory is a nonstarter. If there are relational facts, then relations must be constituents of some facts. 

Our problem seems to be insoluble.  Each limb makes a very strong claim on our acceptance.  But they cannot all be true.  

Butchvarov Against Facts

In his essay, "Facts," (Studies in the Ontology of Reinhardt Grossmann, Javier Cumpa, ed., Ontos Verlag, 2010, p. 83) Panayot Butchvarov generously cites me as a defender of realism and a proponent of facts.  He credits me with doing something William P. Alston does not do in his theory of facts, namely, specifying their mode of reality:

However, William Vallicella, also a defender of realism, does.  He argues that true propositions require "truth-making facts." And he astutely points out that facts could be truth-making only if they are "proposition-like," "structured in a proposition-like way" — only f a fact has a structure that can mirror the the structure of a proposition." (A Paradigm Theory of Existence, 13, 166-7,192-3)  Vallicella's view is firmly in the spirit of Wittgenstein's account in the Tractatus of the notions of fact and correspondence to fact, but his formulation of it may invite deflationist attacks like Strawson's.

Butchvarov, however, is firmly against adding the category of facts to our ontological inventory. This post will consider one of his arguments.  Butchvarov tells us (p. 86) that

The metaphysical notion of fact is grounded in our use of declarative sentences, and the supposition that there are facts in the world depends at least in part on the assumption that sentences must correspond to something in the world, that somehow they must be names.  But this assumption seems absurd.  Sentences are not even nouns, much less names.  They cannot serve as grammatical subjects or objects of verbs, which is the mark of nouns. [. . .] Notoriously, "p is true," if taken literally, is gibberish.  "Snow is white is true" is just ill-formed. "'Snow is white' is true" is not, but its subject-term is not a sentence — it is the name of a sentence. 

Here is what I take to be Butchvarov's argument in the above passage and surrounding text:

1. If there are facts, then some declarative sentences are names.
2. Every name can serve as the grammatical subject of a verb.
3. No declarative sentence can serve as the grammatical subject of a verb.
Therefore
4. No declarative sentence is a name. (2, 3)
Therefore
5. There are no facts. (1, 4)

The friend of facts ought to concede (1).  If there are truth-making facts, then some declarative sentences refer to them, or have them as worldly correspondents.  The realist holds that if a contingent sentence such as  'Al is fat' is true, then that is not just a matter of language, but a matter of how the extralinguistic world is arranged.  The sentence is true because of Al's being fat.  Note that Al by himself cannot be the truth-maker of the sentence, nor can fatness by itself, nor can the set, sum, or ordered pair of the two do the job.  If {Al, fatness} is the truth-maker of 'Al is fat,' then it is also the truth-maker of 'Al is not fat' — which is absurd. 

As for (2), it is unproblematic.  So if the argument is to be neutralized — I prefer to speak of 'neutralizing' rather than 'refuting' arguments — we must give reasons for not accepting (3).  So consider this argument for the negation of (3).

6. 'Snow is white' is true.
7. No name is true or false.
Therefore
8. 'Snow is white' is not a name.
9. Anything either true or false is a declarative sentence.
Therefore
10. 'Snow is white' is a declarative sentence.
Therefore
11. 'Snow is white'  serves as the grammatical subject of the verb 'is a declarative sentence.'
Therefore
12. Some declarative sentences can serve as the grammatical subjects of a verb.
Therefore
~3. It is not the case that no declarative sentence can serve as the grammatical subject of a verb.

The argument just given seems to neutralize Butchvarov's argument.

The Paradox of the Horse and 'the Paradox of Snow'

Butchvarov's view is deeply paradoxical.  He holds that 'Snow is white ' in (6) is not a sentence but the name of a sentence.  The paradox is similar to the paradox of the horse in Frege.  Frege notoriously held that the concept horse is not a concept.  Butchvarov is maintaining  that the sentence 'Snow is white' is not a sentence. 

What is Frege's reasoning?  He operates with an absolute distinction between names and predicates (concept words).  Corresponding to this linguistic distinction there is the equally absolute ontological distinction between  objects and concepts.  Objects are nameable while concepts are not.  So if you try to name a concept you willy-nilly transform it into an object.  Since 'the concept horse' is a name, its referent is an object.  Hence the concept horse is not a concept but an object.

Similarly with Butchvarov.  To refer to a sentence, I must use a name for it.  To form the name of a sentence, I enclose it in quotation marks.  Thus the sentence 'snow is white' is not a sentence, but a name for a sentence.  

Butchvarov finds it "absurd" that a sentence should name a fact.  His reason is that a sentence is not a name.  But it strikes me as even more absurd to say that the sentence 'Snow is white' is not a sentence, but  a name.   

My tentative conclusion is that while realism about facts is dubious, so is anti-realism about them.  But there is also what Butchvarov calls "semi-realism" which I ought to discuss in a separate post.

Indeterminate Yet Existent? The Aporetics of Prime Matter and Pure Consciousness

Scott Roberts e-mails in reference to my post Hylomorphic Ontological Analysis and the Puzzle of Prime Matter: 

I have also been perplexed at hylomorphism's dependence on something called [prime]  'matter', for the same reason as you give. But I think there is a way out, though perhaps not one a hylomorphist will like. You say "Something bare of determinateness is unthinkable and hence nonexistent." But I can think of three words that refer to something one might consider real yet bare of determinateness, namely mass (or energy), consciousness (considered apart from all intentional objects of consciousness), and God (of classical theism). In each case you have something that can be thought of as giving form actuality. But that leads to an inversion of hylomorphism, namely, that now it is form that is potential, and what was formally [formerly?] thought of as matter is now Pure Act.  For example, a mathematical object which is not being thought of is a potential form that consciousness gives actuality as a thought. [. . .]

The reader is right to point out that there is something dubious about my claim that "Something bare of determinateness is unthinkable and hence nonexistent." Of the three counterexamples he gives, the clearest and best is "consciousness considered apart from all intentional objects of consciousness."  Consciousness so considered is not nothing, and yet it is indeterminate since all determinations fall on the side of the objects.  Consciousness is no-thing, a Sartrean theme which is also developed by Butchvarov. 

The reader has made me see that there is a certain structural analogy between prime matter and consciousness conceived of as pure of-ness bare of all determinacy.  For one thing, both, considered in themselves, are indeterminate or formless, and necessarily so.  If consciousness were determinate, it would be an object of consciousness and not the consciousness without which there are no (intentional) objects.  And if prime matter were determinate, it would be formed matter and thus not prime matter.  Second, neither can exist apart from its other.  There is no consciousness without objects, and there is no prime matter that exists on its own in the manner of a substance.  So, while consciousness is other than every object, it cannot exist except as the consciousness of objects (objective genitive).  And while prime matter is other than every form, and in itself formless, it requires formation to be something definite and substantial.

A third point of analogy is that both consciousness and prime matter give rise to a structurally similar puzzle.   Consider a mind-independent hylomorph A whose matter (H) is prime matter and whose form (F) is composed of lowest forms.  Which is ontologically prior, A, or its ontological parts H and F?  If the parts are prior in the manner of pre-existing ontological building blocks — think (by analogy) of the way the stones in a stone wall are prior to the wall — then H could not be a 'principle' in the scholastic sense but would have to something capable of independent existence.  And that is unacceptable: surely prime matter cannot exist on its own.  If, on the other hand, A is prior to its parts, then the parts would exist only for us, or in our consideration, as aspects which we bring to A.  But that won't do either because A ex hypothesi exists extramentally and so cannot in its ontological constitution require any contribution from us.

The consciousness puzzle is similar. Is consciousness (conceived as pure diaphanous of-ness of objects in the manner of Sartre, Butchvarov, and perhaps Moore) something really existent in itself or is it rather an abstract concept that we excogitate?  In other words, when we think of consciousness transcendentally as the sheer revelation of objects, are we thinking of a really existent condition of their revelation, or is consciousness so conceived merely a concept that we bring to the data?  If consciousness really exists, then we substantialize it (reify it, hypostatize it) in a manner analogous to the way we substantialize prime matter when we think of its as something capable of independent existence.  And that is puzzling.  How can something exist that is not an object of actual or possible awareness?  If, on the other hand, consciousness is not something that exists on its own but is a concept that we excogitate, then how do we account for the real fact that things are apparent to us, that things are intentional objects for us?  Besides, if consciousness were a mere concept, then consciousness as a reality would be presupposed: concepts are logically subsequent to consciousness.

So the two puzzles are structurally similar. 

Let us see if we can abstract the common pattern.  You have a term X and a distinct term Y.  The terms are introduced to make sense of a phenomenon Z.  Z is the analysandum whose analysis into X and Y is supposed to generate understanding.   X cannot exist without Y, hence it cannot exist on its own.  The same goes for Y.  The terms cannot exist without each other on pain of (i) hypostatization of each, and (ii) consequent sundering of the unity of Z.  (The diremption of Z into X and Y gives rise to the ancient problem of the unity of a complex which no one has ever solved.)  That the terms cannot exist without each other suggests that the unitary phenomenon Z is split into X and Y only by our thoughts such that the factoring into X and Y is our contribution.  On the other hand, however, the terms or factors must be capable of some sort of existence independent of our conceptual activities if the explanation that invokes them is an explanation of a real mind-independent phenomenon.

Here is a sharper form of the common aporia.  Both prime matter and pure consciousness are real.  But they are also both unreal.  Nothing, however,  can be both real and unreal on pain of violating Non-Contradiction.  How remove the contradiction without giving rise to a problem that is just as bad?

I don't say that the aporiai are insoluble, but I suspect that any solution proffered with give rise to problems of its own . . . .

Butchvarov: Objects, Entities, and Transcendental Idealism

This entry extends and clarifies my post, Blackman Versus Butchvarov: Objects, Entities, and Modes of Existence. 

Preliminaries

For Butchvarov, all consciousness is intentional. (There are no non-intentional consciousnesses.)  And all intentionality is conscious intentionality. (There is no "physical intentionality" to use George Molnar's term.)  So, for Butchvarov, 'consciousness' and 'intentionality' are equivalent terms.  Consciousness, by its very nature, is consciousness of something, where the 'of' is an objective genitive.

Continue reading “Butchvarov: Objects, Entities, and Transcendental Idealism”

Realism and Idealism

An excerpt from an e-mail by Chris C., with responses in blue.

. . . I read your post on Butchvarov's latest paper, and you made clear your argument about the problem with the crucial step in the "idealist" position; then you closed with the assertion that realism has its own set of problems.  Granted that that's obviously true, I was wondering if you had a piece, whether a paper or a blog post, that elucidated your positions on 1) Why, although you think ultimately he is wrong, you also think Butch's position is a serious alternative to realism; and 2) Why, despite its problems, you believe realism addresses those problems adequately.

That post ended rather abruptly with the claim, "Metaphysical realism, of course, has its own set of difficulties."  I was planning to say a bit more, but decided to quit since the post was already quite long by 'blog' standards.  Brevity, after all, is the soul, not only of wit, but of blog.  I was going to add something like this:

My aim in criticizing Butchvarov and other broadly Kantian idealists/nonrealists is not  to resurrect an Aristotelian or Aristotelian-Thomistic theory of knowledge, as if those gentlemen clearly had the truth, a truth we have somehow, post Descartes, forgotten.  My aim is to throw the problems themselves into the starkest relief possible.  This is in line with my conception of philosophy as fundamentally aporetic: the problems come first, solutions second, if ever.  A philosopher cannot be true to his vocation if he is incapable of inhibiting the very strong natural tendency to want answers, solutions, definite conclusions which he can live by and which will provide 'doxastic security' and legitimation of his way of life.    You are not a philosopher if you are out for solutions at all costs.  As Leo Strauss points out near the beginning of his essay on Thucydides, and elsewhere, the unum necessarium for the philosopher, the one thing needful, is free inquiry.  Inquiry, however, uncovers problems, difficulties, questions, and some of these are reasonably viewed as insolubilia.

The philosopher, therefore, is necessarily in tension with ideologues and dogmatists who claim to be in possession of the truth.  What did Socrates claim to know?  That he didn't know.  Of course, to be in secure possession of the truth (which implies knowing that one is in secure possession of it) is a superior state to be in than in the state of forever seeking it.  Obviously, knowing is better than believing, and seeing face-to-face is better than "seeing through a glass darkly." On the other hand, to think one has the truth when one doesn't is to be in a worse state than the state of seeking it.  For example, Muhammad Atta and the boys, thinking they knew the truth, saw their way clear to murdering 3000 people.

Your first question:  How can I believe that Butch's position is untenable while also considering it a serious alternative to realism?  Because I hold open the possibility that all extant (and future) positions are untenable.  In other words, I take seriously the possibility that the central problems of philosophy are genuine (contra the logical positivists, the later Wittgenstein, and such Freudian-Wittgensteinian epigoni as Morris Lazerowitz), important  — what could count as important if problems relating to God and the soul are not important? — but absolutely insoluble by us. 

Your second question:  How can I believe that metaphysical realism, despite its problems, addresses those problems adequately?  Well, I don't believe it addresses them adequately.

I would say your book is pretty much a response to those questions, but what I'm looking for is your understanding of what makes Butch's position so powerful.  What I have in mind is something like what [Stanley] Rosen does in The Elusiveness of the Ordinary, where in a couple of essays he makes clear that there is not going to be a way based on analysis or deduction to adjudicate between the Platonic and the Kantian claims – that is, the claims, respectively, that the "Forms" are external and mind-independent and that they are internal and mind-dependent.  The final two essays in the aforementioned book are Rosen's attempt to provide a way to tip the scales in favor of Plato, and I have to say I haven't really seen a better way to do it.

I haven't read Rosen's book, but I will soon get hold of it.  It will be interesting to see whether he has a compelling rational way of tipping the scales.

The point is that I was wondering if you thought, along those lines, that roughly speaking your form of realism and Butch's form of idealism form a similar sort of "fundamental alternative" in the way Rosen believes Platonism and Kantianism do.  And if so, I would be interested to see your take on what makes Butch's idealism (again roughly speaking) as something that cannot be truly defeated, but rather must be established as something of a less plausible vision of how things really stand.
 
Can any philosophical position be "truly defeated"?  I assume that we cherish the very highest standards of intellectual honesty and rigor and we are able to inhibit the extremely strong life-enhacing need for firm beliefs and tenets (etymologically from L. tenere, to hold, so that a tenet is literally something one holds onto for doxastic security and legitimation of one's modus vivendi.)  Now there are some sophomoric positions that can be definitively defeated, e.g., the relativist who maintains both that every truth is relative and that his thesis is nonrelatively true.  But in the history of philosophy has even one substantive position ever been "truly defeated," i.e., defeated to the satisfaction of all competent practioners?  (A competent practioner is one who possesses all the relevant moral and intellectual virtues, is apprised of all relevant empirical facts, understands logic, etc.)  I would say No.  But perhaps you have an example for me. 
 
Now why don't I think that I have defeated Butchvarov on any of the points we dispute?  Part of the reason is that he does not admit defeat.  If I cannot bring him to see that he is wrong about, say, nonexistent objects, then this gives me a very good reason to doubt that I am right and have truly refuted his position.  It seems to me that, unless one is an ideologue or a dogmatist, one must be impressed by the pervasive and long-standing fact of dissensus among the best and brightest.  Of course, I could be right and Butch wrong.  If he maintains that p and I maintain that not-p, then one of us is right and the other wrong.  But which one?  If I do not know that I am right, or know that he is wrong, then I haven't solved the problem that divides us.  It is not enough to be right, one must know that one is right and be able to diagnose convincingly how they other guy went wrong.
As for Platonism versus Kantianism, see my post on another latter-day Kantian, Milton Munitz, espceically the section on Platonic and Kantian intelligibility.  My Existence book avoids both Kantianism and Platonism by adopting an onto-theological idealism.  If the reality of the real traces back to divine mind, that is reality and realism enough, but it is also a form of idealism in that the real is not independent of mind as such.
 
As I've indicated in previous emails, I have always taken realism as a presumptive truth (in a general way) and I thus place the burden of truth [proof]  on idealism.  Kant impressed me, but he didn't convince me, and consequently I've never understood what it was exactly in realism that made people jump into the idealist camp.  That is, I've never understood that basic shift where someone takes idealism as presumptively true and thus places the burden of proof on realism.  What was so bad about realist arguments that made idealism so attractive as an alternative for these thinkers?
 
Well, this is a very large topic, but you can glean some idea of what motivated Kant to make his transcendental turn from his famous 1772 letter to Marcus Herz, part of which is here.  And then there is the metaphilosophical topic of burden of proof.  How does one justify a claim to the effect that the burden of proof lies on one or the other side of a dispute?  For you there is a (defeasible?) presumption in favor of realism, and that therefore the onus probandi lies on the nonrealist.  But what criteria do you employ in arriving at this judgment?

Butchvarov on Metaphysical Realism and Logical Nonrealism

This post is a  stab at a summary and evaluation of Panayot Butchvarov's "Metaphysical Realism and Logical Nonrealism" which is available both online and in R. M. Gale, ed., The Blackwell Guide to Metaphysics (Oxford: Blackwell 2002), pp. 282-302.  Page references are to the Blackwell source. The ComBox stands open if readers have some informed commentary to offer. ('Informed' means that you have read Butchvarov's paper, and my response, and you have something pertinent to contribute either in objection to or agreement with either Butchvarov or me.)

Continue reading “Butchvarov on Metaphysical Realism and Logical Nonrealism”

Blackman Versus Butchvarov: Objects, Entities, and Modes of Existence

(UPDATE: 23 March.  Butchvarov sent me some comments via e-mail the main ones of  which I insert in the text in red.)

This post assumes familiarity with Panayot Butchvarov's "protometaphysics," as he calls it.  But I will begin by sketching the distinction between objects and entities.  Then I will present an objection that occurred to me and Larry Lee Blackman independently.  That will be followed by a response that Butchvarov could make to the objection.  Finally, I will try to show that Blackman's objection, despite his disclaimers, commits him to a doctrine of modes of existence, but that this is not the bad thing he thinks it is.  This post ties in with our earlier explorations of the modes-of-existence doctrine which is dogmatically denied by a majority of analytic philosophers.  (These earlier posts are collected in the Existence category.)  There is also an obvious tie-in with earlier posts on Intentionality.

I. Entities and Objects

Entities exist while objects may or may not exist. Some objects exist and some do not. When one imagines Santa Claus or hallucinates a pink rat, an object appears, an object that doesn’t exist. When one perceives his hand, an object appears too, one that exists. The difference between an object that exists and one that does not is explicated by Butchvarov in terms of indefinite identifiability: An object exists if and only if it is indefinitely identifiable with other objects. The domain of objects is logically prior to the domain of entities. The application of the concepts of identity and existence to the domain of objects results in a "conceptual transition" from the domain of objects to the domain of entities or existents. (BQB 39) The concepts of identity and existence sort objects into the existent and the nonexistent. Identity and existence are therefore classificatory concepts.  Of the two concepts, identity is the more basic since existence is explicable in terms of it.  The identity in question is material as opposed to formal identity, the kind affirmed in true, informative identity statements like 'The morning star is the evening star.'  But although identity and existence are genuine concepts, they are only concepts: there is nothing in the world that corresponds to them.

Butchvarov’s Meinongian commitment to nonexistent objects is a direct consequence of his Sartrean view of consciousness as exhausting itself in its objects. For on this view consciousness harbors no representations or other intermediary contents that could serve as surrogate objects when we think about what does not exist. Imagination of a mermaid is not consciousness of a mental image or other content of consciousness but precisely consciousness of a mermaid. Consciousness of a mermaid is just as outer-directed and revelatory of a material item as consciousness of a dolphin. But mermaids do not exist. Therefore, some objects do not exist. To take intentionality at phenomenological face-value, as Butchvarov does, is to accept nonexistent objects. Phenomenologically, consciousness is just the revealing of objects, only some of which are indefinitely identifiable. (THIS SECTION STATES MY VIEWS BETTER THAN I HAVE EVER DONE  MYSELF!)

II. An Objection

There is a strong temptation to suppose that if there are nonexistent objects, as Meinongians maintain, then they must have some ontological status despite their not existing.  After all, they are not nothing.   And so one might suppose that they must have the status of merely intentional objects.  By 'merely intentional object' I mean an accusative of consciousness that does not exist in reality but does exist as, and only as, an accusative of consciousness.  (We will have to ask whether one who accepts merely intentional objects must also accept modes of existence.)  (I AM UNEASY ABOUT YOUR USE OF ‘ACCUSATIVE.’ IT IS A GRAMMATICAL TERM. WHAT YOU MEAN BY IT IS ‘OBJECT,’ BUT THEN YOUR PHRASE “MERELY INTENTIONAL OBJECTS” JUST MEANS “OBJECTS THAT DO NOT EXIST BUT SOMEONE IS CONSCIOUS OF THEM.) But for Butchvarov, the class of nonexistent objects does not have the same extension as that of merely intentional objects.   For he tells us that there is "no contradiction in supposing that there are objects that are not perceived, or imagined, or thought by anyone." (BQB 62, quoted in Larry Lee Blackman, "Mind as Intentionality Alone," Metaphysica, vol. 3, no. 2 December 2002,p. 45)  If there are such nonexistent objects, then of course it cannot be true that x is a nonexistent object iff x is a merely intentional object.

Furthermore, what I am calling merely intentional objects are mind-dependent: they exist as, and only as, accusatives of mind.  No mind, no merely intentional objects.  But Butchvarov's nonexistent objects are neither mind-dependent nor mind-independent, whether logically or causally.  Only what exists is either mind-dependent or mind-independent.  It follows that none of his nonexistent objects are what I am calling merely intentional objects. 

Blackman's worry, and mine too, is expressed by Blackman when he writes, "He [Butchvarov] denies that nonexistent objects are mind-dependent, but in an obvious sense they are, since, in a world without minds, there would be no perceivings of golden mountains, no imaginings of centaurs, etc." (Blackman, 55)  Now Butchvarov denies on phenomenological grounds that there are individual mental subjects and mental acts as well.  So Butchvarov might respond that of course there are no imaginings of centaurs, if imaginings are mental acts.  So we need to put Blackman's objection more precisely.  The objection needn't presuppose that there are individual minds or mental acts.  The essence of the objection is that in a world without mind (consciousness)  there are no perceptual or imaginal objects.  (THIS IS AMBIGUOUS, THOUGH THE FAULT IS MINE BECAUSE I USE ‘PERCEPTUAL’ AND ‘IMAGINAL’ FOR THE NONRELATIONAL PROPERTIES IN QUESTION. BUT THEY ARE EXPLICITLY INTENDED TO EXCLUDE REFERENCE TO A CONSCIOUSNESS.) Denying as he does that there are minds and mental acts,  Butchvarov must deny that imagining, perceiving, remembering, etc. are types of mental acts or properties of mental acts.  Act-differences are displaced onto the object as monadic (nonrelational) properties of objects. Thus it is a nonrelational, and hence intrinsic, property of centaurs that they are imaginal objects.  This being understood, Blackman's objection can be put by saying that in a world without consciousness there would be no perceptual or imaginal or memorial objects, and that therefore, in a world without consciousness, there would be no such nonexistent objects.  Blackman is of course assuming that there could be a world without consciousness.  If Butchvarov were to claim that there could not be, then his theory of objects would have idealism as a consequence.

The problem can be set forth as an aporetic triad:

1. Only what exists is either mind-dependent or mind-independent. (MY POINT IS THAT CAUSAL RELATIONS HOLD ONLY BETWEEN EXISTENT OBJECTS. IF THERE IS AN EXISTENT SUCH AS MIND, THEN DEPENDENCE ON IT WOULD BE SUCH A RELATION.)

2. There are objects that do not exist.
3. Both the distinction between objects and entities, and the related distinction between existent and nonexistent objects, are  mind-involving in the sense that in a world without mind these distinctions would not obtain. (THE TERM ‘MIND’ HERE IS AMBIGUOUS. IF IT MEANS ‘CONSCIOUSNESS’ THEN MIND IS NOT THE SORT OF THING ON WHICH ANYTHING CAN DEPEND OR NOT DEPEND.)

The limbs of this triad are individually plausible but jointly inconsistent.  For example, (1) and (2) taken together entail the negation of (3).  Indeed, any two limbs, taken together, entail the negation of the remaining one.  Since Butch is committed to both (1) and (2), he will solve the problem by denying (3).  Unfortunately, (3) is at least as plausible as (1) and (2).  Blackman, if I have understood him, will go further and say that (3) is more plausible than (1).  Accordingly, Blackman will solve the problem by denying (1). 

There is of course the possibility that the inconsistent triad is a genuine aporia, a conceptual impasse, and thus insoluble on the plane of the discursive intellect, which of course is where philosophy must operate.  I can't prove that it is a genuine aporia, but all three limbs, though jointly inconsistent, make a strong claim on our acceptance.  It is therefore not unreasonable to hold that we have no rational ground to prefer the rejection of one limb rather than another.  Of course, there is no way to stop people from being dogmatic.  Thus some will quickly reject (2) while ignoring the phenomenological and dialectical considerations Butch adduces in support of it.

My point, then is that Butchvarov's position, which requires the acceptance of (1) and (2), and the rejection of (3), is not compelling and is rationally rejectable.   

III.  A Possible Butchvarov Response

Suppose we reject (1) as I am inclined to do.  We would then be maintaining that an item can be mind-dependent without existing in reality. ('Exist' when used without qualification just means 'exist in reality.')  An imagined centaur would then exist-in consciousness without existing in reality.  And so we would have to distinguish between two distinct modes of existence, existence simpliciter (existence in reality) and intentional existence (existence in consciousness as a mere intentional object).  A scholastic philosopher would speak of esse reale and esse intentionale.  At this point Butch would probably object by saying that talk of modes of existence involves an intolerable equivocation on 'exists.'  If one adheres strictly to the univocity of 'exists' and cognates, then one cannot sensibly speak of modes of existence (as opposed to categories of existent).  So one can imagine Butchvarov arguing:  (a) To reject (1) is to embrace a doctrine of modes of existence which entails the  thesis that 'exist(s)' is equivocal.  (b) But this equivocity thesis is unacceptable.  So (c) (1) ought to be accepted.  (d) Given the phenomenological evidence for nonexistent objects, (3) ought to be rejected.  On the equivocity of 'exist(s)' see the work by the Butchvarov student, Dennis E. Bradford, The Concept of Existence: A Study of Nonexistent Particulars (University Press of America, 1980), pp. 37 ff.

IV.  Blackman's Attempt to Avoid Equivocity

Blackman agrees with me that in a world without mind there are no nonexistent objects.  But Blackman doesn't agree with me that holding this commits him to modes of existence:  ". . . to assert that gargoyles exist as the objects of our awarenesses is not to employ the term 'exists' equivocally, as Butchvarov might allege." (Blackman, 55)  Why not?

To say that gargoyles exist as the objects of my imaginings and that penguins exist as the the objects of my (veridical) perceptions is no more to use the term 'exists' equivocally than it is to to claim that the word 'exists' is used equivocally in the locutions, 'I exist as a father' and 'I exist as a husband.'  In neither case are we supposing different 'modes' of existence. (Ibid.)

The comparison is faulty.  I grant that there is no equivocation on 'exists' as between 'I exist as a father' and 'I exist as a husband.'  The first is equivalent to 'I exist and I am a father' while the second is equivalent to 'I exist and I am a husband.'   No equivocation!  But then  'Gargoyles exist as the objects of my imaginings' is equivalent to 'Gargoyles exist and gargoyles are objects of my imaginings' and 'Penguins exist as the objects of my (veridical) perceptions' is equivalent to 'Penguins exist and penguins are the objects of my (veridical) perceptions.'  Here there is equivocation! From this one can see that the comparison is flawed.  For while it is true that penguins exist and are the objects of my (veridical) perceptions, it is false that gargoyles exist and are the objects of my imaginings when 'exists' is employed univocally.  Penguins exist but gargoyles do not.

Blackman is trying to have it both ways: he is trying avoid the doctrine of modes of existence (modes of being) while maintaining that nonexistent objects are mind-dependent.  But this is impossible.  If nonexistent objects are mind-dependent, then they must exist in some way or mode.  This is because ontological dependence/independence obtains only between items that have some mode of existence.  An item that has no being or existence whatsoever cannot be said to be independent or dependent on mind or on anything else.  This is the core insight embodied in (1).  On the other hand, if there are no modes of being or existence,  then nonexistent objects cannot be said to be mind-dependent.

Although Blackman is on very solid ground in claiming that nonexistent objects are mind-dependent, he falls into incoherence because of his adherence to the analytic dogma that there cannot be modes of existence.  Further proof of the incoherence is in evidence when Blackman states that  "We might say that nonexistent objects, like the existent ones, belong to something larger called 'reality,' but the claim that nonexistent objects are in a sense 'real' is innocuous, as long as it understood that their 'reality' consists merely in their being the (strictly mental) intentions of certain awarenesses. (55-56)  It seems to me that the first independent clause in this sentence contradicts the second.  If reality is common to existent and nonexistent objects, then surely the reality of an object (whether existent or nonexistent) cannot consist in its being the strictly mental intention (i.e., intentum, intentional object) of certain awarenesses.

I claim that the widespread analytic view that there cannot be modes of existence is but a dogma.  In earlier posts collected in the Existence category I try to show that typical arguments against the doctrine fail and that there is a way between the horns of univocity and sheer equivocity of the river bank/financial bank sort (which I grant is intolerable).  If I am right about this, the insights of both Blackman and Butchvarov can be accommodated.  Blackman is right to insist that nonexistent objects are mind-dependent.  And Butchvarov is right to think that only what exists can stand in relations of dependence or independence.  But Butchvarov is wrong to think that only what exists in reality exists.  What exists in the mode of esse intentionale also exists but not in reality, only in consciousness.

Knowledge as Absolute Impossibility of Mistake

I incline towards Panayot Butchvarov's notion of knowledge as involving the absolute impossibility of mistake. In The Concept of Knowledge (Northwestern  UP, 1970), Butchvarov writes that "an epistemic judgment of the form 'I know that p' can be regarded as having the same content as one of the form 'It is absolutely impossible that I am mistaken in believing that p'." (p. 51)

One way to motivate this view is by seeing it as the solution to a certain lottery puzzle.

Suppose Socrates Jones has just secured a teaching job at Whatsamatta U. for the 2011-2012 academic year. Suppose you ask Jones, "Do you know what you will be doing next year?" He replies, "Yes I know; I'll be teaching philosophy." But Jones doesn't like teaching; he prefers the life of the independent scholar. So he plays the lottery, hoping to win big. If you ask Jones whether he knows he isn't going to win, he of course answers in the negative. He doesn't know that he will win, but he doesn't know that won't either. Jones also knows that if he wins the lottery, then he won't work next year at a job he does not  like.

On the one hand, Jones claims to know what he will be doing next year, but on the other he also claims to know that if he wins the lottery, then he won't be doing what he claims to know he will be
doing. But there is a contradiction here, which can be set forth as follows.

Let 'K' abbreviate 'knows,' 'a' the name of a person, and 'p' and 'q' propositions. We then have:

   1. Kap: Jones knows that he will be teaching philosophy next year.
   2. Ka(q –>~p): Jones knows that if he wins the lottery, then he will
   not be teaching philosophy next year.
   3. ~Ka~q: Jones does not know that he does not win the lottery.
   Therefore
   4. Ka~q: Jones knows that he does not win the lottery. (From 1 and 2)
   But
   5. (3) and (4) are contradictories.
   Therefore
   6. Either (1) or (2) or (3) is false.

Now surely (3) is true, so this leaves (1) and (2). One of these must be rejected to relieve the logical   tension. Isn't it obvious that (1) is the stinker, or that it is more of a stinker that (2)? The inference from (1) and (2) to (4) is an instance of the principle that knowledge is closed under known implication: if you know a proposition and you know that it entails some other proposition, then you know that other proposition. This seems right, doesn't it? So why not make the obvious move of rejecting (1)?

Surely Jones does not KNOW that he will be teaching philosophy next year. How could he KNOW such a thing? The poor guy doesn't even KNOW that he will be alive tomorrow let alone have his wits sufficiently about him to conduct philosophy classes. He doesn't KNOW these things since, if we are serious, knowledge implies the impossibility of mistake, and our man can easily be mistaken about what will happen in the future.

Of course, I realize that there is much more to be said on this topic.  
  

Posits or Inventions? Geach and Butchvarov on Intentionality

One philosopher's necessary explanatory posit is another's mere invention.

In his rich and fascinating article "Direct Realism Without Materialism" (Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 1994), Panayot Butchvarov rejects  epistemic intermediaries as "philosophical inventions." Thus he rejects  sense data, sensations, ways of being appeared to, sense experiences, mental representations, ideas, images, looks, seemings, appearances, and the like. (1)  Curiously enough, however, Butch goes on to posit nonexistent or unreal objects very much in the manner of Meinong!  Actually, 'posit'  is not a word he would use since Butch claims that we are directly acquainted with unreal objects.  (13) Either way, unreal objects such as the proverbial hallucinated pink rat  are not, on Butchvarov's view, philosophical inventions.

But now consider the following  1961 passage from Anscombe and Geach's Three Philosophers, a passage that is as if directed against the Butchvarovian view:

But saying this  has obvious difficulties. [Saying that all there is to a sensation or thought of X is its being of X.] It seems to make the whole being of a sensation or thought consist in a relation to something else:  it is as if someone said he had a picture of a cat that was not painted on any background or in any medium, there being nothing to it except that it was a picture of a cat.  This is hard enough: to make matters worse, the terminus of the supposed relation may not exist — a drunkard's 'seeing' snakes is not related to any real snake, nor my thought of a phoenix to any real phoenix.  Philosophers have sought a way out of this difficulty by inventing chimerical entities like 'snakish sense-data' or 'real but nonexistent phoenixes' as termini of the cognitive relation. (95, emphasis added)

Butchvarov would not call a nonexistent phoenix or nonexistent pink rat real, but that it just a matter of terminology.  What is striking here is that the items Geach considers chimerical inventions Butchvarov considers not only reasonably posited, but phenomenologically evident!

Ain't philosophy grand?  One philosopher's chimerical invention is another's phenomenological given. 

What is also striking about the above  passage is that the position that Geach rejects via the 'picture of a cat' analogy is almost exactly the position that Butch maintains. Let's think about this a bit.

Surely Anscombe and Geach are right when it comes to pictures and other physical representations.  There is a clear sense in which a picture (whether painting, photograph, etc.) of a cat is of a cat. The intentionality here cannot however be original; it must be derivative, derivative from the original intentionality of one who takes the picture to be of a cat.   Surely no physical representation represents anything on its own, by its own power.  And it is also quite clear that a picture of X is not exhausted by its being of X.  There is more to a picture than its depicting something; the depicting function needs realization in some medium.

The question, however, is whether original intentionality also needs  realization in some medium.  It is not obvious that it does need such realization, whether in brain-stuff or in mind-stuff.  Why can't consciousness of a cat  be nothing more than consciousness of a cat?  Why can't consciousness be exhausted in its being by its revelation of objects? 

Bewusstsein als bewusst-sein.  Get it?

But this is not the place to examine Butchvarov's direct realist conception of consciousness, a conception he finds in Moore, Wittgenstein, Heidegger and Sartre, and contrasts with a mental- contents conception.

 

Knowledge, Certainty, and Exaggeration

As I explained the other day, I am inclined to accept Butchvarov's view of knowledge as the impossibility of error. If I know that p, then it is not enough that I have a justified true belief that p; I must have a true belief whose justification rules out the possibility of error. Anything short of this is just not knowledge. But then what are we to say about the knowledge claims that people routinely make, claims that that don't come near satisfying this exacting requirement? We won't say that they are mere beliefs, for many of them will be rationally held beliefs. For example, an air traveler who claims to know that he will be in New York tomorrow has a rational belief that will in all probability turn out to be true; but by Butchvarov's lights, a true belief for which one has reasons does not amount to knowledge unless the reasons entail the belief's truth. Since the air traveler's reasons for believing he will be in New York tomorrow do not entail his being there tomorrow, his belief, though rational, is not a case of knowledge. How then do we explain his use of the word 'know'? Should we say that there is a weak sense of 'know' as rational true belief short of certainty?

One idea, also from Butchvarov (The Concept of Knowledge, pp. 54-61), is that the various loose claims of knowledge can be understood as cases of exaggeration. But I'll try to develop this idea in my own way.

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Butchvarov: Knowledge as Requiring Certainty

Butch We begin with an example from Panayot Butchvarov's The Concept of Knowledge, Northwestern University Press, 1970, p. 47. [CK is the red volume on the topmost visible shelf.  Immediately to its right is Butch's Being Qua Being.  Is Butch showing without saying that epistemology is prior to metaphysics?] There is a bag containing 99 white marbles and one black marble. I put my hand in the bag and without looking select a marble. Of course, I believe sight unseen that the marble I have selected is white. Suppose it is. Then I have a justified true belief that a white marble has been selected. My belief is justified because of the fact that only one of the 100 marbles is black.  My belief is true because I happened to pick a white marble.  But surely I don't know that I have selected a white marble.  The justification, though very good, is not good enough for knowledge. I have justified true belief but not knowledge.

Knowledge, says Butchvarov, entails the impossibility of mistake. This seems right. The mere fact that people will use the word 'know' in a case like the one described cuts no ice.  Ordinary usage proves nothing.  People say the damndest things.  They are exaggerating, as a subsequent post may show.  'Know' can be used in non-epistemic ways — think of carnal knowledge for example — but used epistemically it can be used correctly in only one way: to mean absolute impossibility of mistake.  Or as least that is Butchvarov's view, a view I find attractive.

Continue reading “Butchvarov: Knowledge as Requiring Certainty”