tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post4733585907769284825..comments2023-10-29T10:32:36.914-04:00Comments on Philosophy, et cetera: Epistemic Conservatism and Meta-coherenceRichard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-47325387986956812342008-05-15T14:43:00.000-04:002008-05-15T14:43:00.000-04:00"The key issue is here is to understand truth as s..."<I>The key issue is here is to understand truth as something is part of human activity, and not as something that stands outside that activity</I>"<BR/><BR/>I have no idea what distinction you are trying to draw here. (Neither option you mention sounds particularly coherent. Truth does not "stand" anywhere, and it is only a "part" of human activity in the trivial sense that we have beliefs which may in turn be true or false.) But that's not the issue, anyway.<BR/><BR/>The key issue is meta-coherence, between (1) your belief that future emeralds will be green rather than grue; and (2) your meta-beliefs about the reliability of that #1 belief.<BR/><BR/>If you believe that green is no more natural than grue, and that a grue-speaker would do just as well as you when they believe that your #1 is false (and that future emeralds will instead be grue), then your beliefs are incoherent. You should give up <I>either</I> your first-order belief that future emeralds will be green, <I>or</I> your meta-belief that this first-order belief is no more likely to be true than its negation.<BR/><BR/>This is all quite consistent with working from the beliefs you have. I'm pointing out that the beliefs you have are inconsistent, so you have to get rid of one of them. Start from your 'green' belief, and conclude that green is natural. Or start from your denial of naturalness and conclude with agnosticism about the colour of future emeralds. Those are your options.<BR/><BR/>My point is simply that, insofar as you are rational, you cannot hold onto your 'green' beliefs <I>merely</I> on the grounds that you started off with them. You must further think that they are most likely <I>true</I>. But a precondition for this is that green is more projectible than grue. So you can't accept the one without the other. Conservatism isn't enough. You must think that you have real <I>grounds</I> for your beliefs.Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-82250553576192647282008-05-15T10:46:00.000-04:002008-05-15T10:46:00.000-04:00I suspect that this is where we are going to funda...I suspect that this is where we are going to fundamentally disagree.<BR/><BR/>In your final paragraph you suggest that there is a trivial sense in which we do hold on to our beliefs, but that is because we think that they are true. I agree that this is the case, but I think that this is all we have access to. In fact from this 'trivial' level I build all my ideas about what is true. In other words all of my beliefs are fallible in that they could, given enough evidence, be altered. <BR/><BR/>This does not force me into denying that some of all of beliefs are true; rather I accept those beliefs as true that have satisfied a certain amount of testing. In addition some beliefs are more useful (or expedient) to hold as true. The key issue is here is to understand truth as something is part of human activity, and not as something that stands outside that activitymusicalcolinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16965870608165665121noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-47194879506781677532008-05-15T04:00:00.000-04:002008-05-15T04:00:00.000-04:00you start with a 'should' argument in paragraph on...you start with a 'should' argument in paragraph one. In that context should one always be logical (in this sense) if you know that doing so results in useless consequences*?<BR/><BR/>"If you think that both inductive arguments are equally reasonable"<BR/><BR/>What if you think it is 'most likely they are equal' and possible they are not, and if not then X is similar to Y (maybe because it is more useful?).<BR/><BR/>*or is there is no disagreement here at all?Geniushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11624496692217466430noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-79453297276544449672008-05-14T20:42:00.000-04:002008-05-14T20:42:00.000-04:00Thanks Rachael, I've moved your comment to a new p...Thanks Rachael, I've moved your comment to a new post: <A HREF="http://www.philosophyetc.net/2008/05/natural-and-projectible-predicates.html" REL="nofollow">here</A>.Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-51606734717900085542008-05-14T19:23:00.000-04:002008-05-14T19:23:00.000-04:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Featherless Bipedhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02207055312949249371noreply@blogger.com