Gordon Clark and Anthony Flood (Part 1)

I've made something of a habit of interacting with books that review the philosophy of Gordon Clark (e.g. link, link). Most recently, I came across one such book by Anthony Flood called Philosophy after Christ: Thinking God's Thoughts after Him. The author spends chapters 9 ("Gordon's Clark's Problematic Rationalism") and 10 ("What Are We Doing When We're Reading? Questions about Gordon Clark's Occasionalism") outlining and critiquing Clark's view on certain topics.

The author describes himself as having been a Clarkian in the 1980s and as having debated with John Robbins. It is hard to recall, but I think I came across a few articles of his involving Brand Blanshard and Joseph P. Farrell in the early 2010s. In any case, what follows will be a review of his ninth chapter, entitled, "Gordon's Clark's Problematic Rationalism."

The ostensible purpose of chapter 9 is to contrast Clark's apologetic to that of Van Til, Bahnsen, et al. Mr. Flood states that the "first [apologetic?] question" for Clark was, "how do you know?" Mr. Flood cites an article on John Robbins at this point, but a better background would be Clark's own thoughts on the subject. Take two examples: 

1975, In Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible. Merrill C. Tenney, ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House. Philosophy

PHILOSOPHY (φιλοσοφια, etymologically, love of wisdom). Traditionally the study of logic, the basic principles of science, metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics. In a wider sense, the general principles of any subject can be called its philosophy. Approaching a misuse of the word, the philosophy or education means merely the policy of school administration; and a “philosophy of life” designates any individual's preferences, no matter how poorly systematized. Inspired though it be, Ecclesiastes (q.v.) is an example of this popular meaning and has little to do with the subject matter of professional technical philosophy. 

The reason for these shades of meaning is that philosophizing is generalizing, and no authority can fix the degree of generalizing necessary to merit the name. 

The meaning of the word in Colossians 2:8 is hard to determine. It could possibly refer to Gnosticism or, perhaps, mean only ethics, for in the 1st cent., the Gr. Schools had sunk to their nadir and discussed little else. 

The common element in all generalizations is a claim to knowledge. Therefore the crucial question of philosophy is—How is knowledge possible? Attempts to justify knowledge are called epistemology. 

Metaphysics, the theory of being (not the beings of plants or botany, not the being of animals or zoology, no even the being of inanimate matter, but of being without qualification—being as such), is sometimes said to be the basic subject; but even Thomism, which makes such a claim, stands or falls with its theory of learning. The answer to the question—What do you know?—provokes the further question—How do you know? Beyond this, no question can be asked. Therefore, epistemology is the basis of philosophy.

1981. What is Apologetics? The Gordon-Conwell Lectures on Apologetics.

The foundation of a strategy to meet all objections against Christianity is definitely technical. It is not a matter of ordinary, everyday conversation. Let me illustrate. 

On a very superficial level, yet indeed a lively, contemporary controversy among professing Christians, is the question of speaking in tongues. One side says that those who have never had the experience cannot judge of the matter. The other side says that experience is not the criterion; we must rather judge experience by the Bible. Beyond the range of professing Christians, David Hume rejected miracles and, in particular, Christ’s resurrection on the basis of experience. Schleiermacher, early last century, initiated modernism by insisting that all doctrines must be tested by experience. 

This raises the fundamental problem of apologetics. When one says, “I believe in the resurrection” or “I believe in tongues” or even “I believe in God,” the non­-Christian will ask “how do you know?” This is true in physics and geology also. If someone asserts a law of physics or proposes a geological explanation of Yosemite, his colleagues will ask “how do you know?” They want to examine his methods. They want to see his criteria for knowledge. Theories concerning the criteria for knowledge are, in technical language, called epistemology. When a scientist or an historian asserts that he knows something, his statement is not acceptable unless he explains how he came to know it. “How do you know?” is the last question to be asked and epistemology is the first subject to be established.

With this background in mind, these examples preemptively answer a few later questions by Mr. Flood:

Clark scholar and biographer Douglas Douma writes that Clark's 'apologetic methodology flowed from his theory of knowledge.' But is that the right order? Does Scripture indicate it? One's apologetic methodology ought to comport with one's anthropology. In the Bible, I do not find and affirmation of the primacy or priority of epistemology. Insistence on the latter betrays a philosophy according to the rudiments of this world (Colossians 2:8).

Firstly, the above is a false dichotomy. One can hold that apologetics flows from one's epistemology and one's metaphysic (anthropology). Second, it is quite ironic that Mr. Flood's second question - "...is that the right order? Does Scripture indicate it?" - is precisely what Clark, a Scripturalist, would have wanted him to ask! By basically asking whether Clark can know his apologetic is "Scriptural," Mr. Flood's own apologetic against Clark unwittingly follows Clark's own procedure of grounding apologetics in epistemology. 

Mr. Flood also seems to suggest that Clark's belief that epistemology undergirds apologetics falls into the category of the sort of philosophy Paul alludes to in Colossians 2:8. But this appears to be no more than an assertion. Compare this to Clark's exegesis of Colossians 2:8 in his commentary on the book:

Note that the phrase “according to the elements of the cosmos” – better, the first principles of the cosmos – is about instruction, philosophy, traditions, and persuasive paralogisms. Later in the chapter, 2:20-23, he is more specific. These verses concern the “rudiments” – the same word “elements” – of the world. Verse 21 identifies one. It is a maxim or precept. Therefore it is better to understand these worldly elements as being the axioms, presuppositions, or even the main theorems of false religions. Paul doubtless had Judaism in mind, but the exhortation is completely general. (Colossians, 1979)

For my own part, I've explained why I believe apologetics is grounded in epistemology (link). With all of this in mind, Mr. Flood continues to describe how his views have changed over time:

I had naively assumed that it's always appropriate to ask, 'How do you know?' I now hold that 'How do you know?' presupposes answers to more basic questions, such as, 'What kind of world is it such that the quest for knowledge of the truth makes sense to an English-speaker above a certain age with the leisure and interest to ask it?'

Here, Mr. Flood is correct. Questions per se cannot be foundational to a worldview, and everyone has a worldview. That is, everyone has an actual view of the world, not just questions about the world. 

For example, people who identify as global skeptics may think they do nothing but question, but their very acts of questioning presuppose a view of the world; that is, they view the world in such a way as to be open to the legitimacy of questioning. This fact enables a Christian apologist to question, for example, how such persons know their view is legitimate. But the Christian apologist is only able to ask this question because his own worldview is able to legitimate the act of questioning the global skeptic. 

Clark too recognized that the question "How do you know?" can neither be asked nor answered ad infinitum. Implicit theorization logically precedes questioning. Hence, Clark was a foundationalist about epistemic justification (not, as some have held, a coherentist; link).

These points again show the fundamental priority epistemology has over apologetics. It also shows - in contrast to Clark - how epistemology and metaphysics are, for an apologist, mutually dependent (link). In order for one to know something, there must be some thing to know. On the other hand, an apologist will be unable to defend his metaphysic if he doesn't know anything.

Moving on, perhaps Mr. Flood's most blatant disagreement with Clark is found in the following lines:

The figures we meet in Scripture no more fret about epistemology than they do about eating or sleeping.

Knowing, like walking, eating, sleeping, and praying, is something we do spontaneously. We can reflect critically on our knowing, asking what exactly we're doing when we're doing that. To play the skeptic, however, about the deliverances of our senses risks evading responsibility for what we know.

I had to reread these lines a few times. I don't want to misrepresent Mr. Flood, but to the idea that "knowing... is something we do spontaneously" or that Scriptural figures don't "fret about epistemology," I would ask what Mr. Flood makes of the following passages:

Hosea 4:6, 6:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children... For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

John 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

2 Peter 3:18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

Colossians 1:9-10 For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;

Do none of these statements by Hosea, John, Jesus, Peter, Paul, etc. indicate epistemic concerns? If "Human knowledge does not have to meet the standard of episteme (ἐπιστήμη) as Clark held," surely there must nevertheless be a standard higher than "Adam's knowing Eve"? Do the exhortations and warnings to the audiences of these letters or prayers and desires for them express a hope for spontaneous or conscious, deliberate growth in knowledge? Or take the following passages:

Colossians 2:2-3 That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ; In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

2 Timothy 3:14-17 But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

Hebrews 6:11 And we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end:

Is full assurance possible if one does not know that of which one claims to be assured? Can one continue in, show diligence towards, or attain full assurance of understanding without knowing? Do these not suggest believers bear an epistemic responsibility? Indeed, I think a strong case can be made (link) that believers can do more than "inductively derive an epistemology from Scripture," as Mr. Flood puts it.

These texts also mitigate against Mr. Flood's claim that "the quest for certainty is not biblical" but rather "a thoroughly modern enterprise." This is like claiming that the quest for righteousness is not biblical but rather a Pelagian enterprise. Others may try false paths towards becoming certain or righteous. Such should not discourage believers from the true path towards good things.

Now, Clark himself was aware of a range of biblical meanings of the word "knowledge." I've quoted the following several times in other posts: 

The various Scriptural usages of the verb know raise a problem in apologetics to which a commentary can only allude in a footnote. The common meaning is exemplified in simple sentences, such, “I know that there is a tree on the lawn,” and “I know that David was King of Israel.” But sometimes, both in Hebrew and in Greek know means believe, obey, choose, have sexual intercourse. English too uses the verb in a variety of meanings. In their opposition to the intellectual emphasis on truth, experiential, emotional, mystical, and neo-orthodox apologetes have contrasted the intellectual Greek meaning with the (sometimes) sexual Hebrew meaning. This contrast is misguided because the Hebrew verb and the Greek verb are both so used. More serious than this linguistic incompetence is a flaw or a gap in the apologetics of these apologetes. It is well enough to point out the extended meanings of the verb. The verb is indeed so used. But such information is irrelevant as an argument against intellectualism and truth. The fallacy or defect is that these apologetes fail to explain knowledge in its basic sense. To insist on extended meanings of knowledge is no substitute for a basic epistemology. Of course, omniscience is a bit hard to come by, but the first and absolutely indispensable step is the definition of terms. (The Pastoral Epistles, 1983, pg. 166)

Was, then, Clark suspect to a "rationalist paradigm of knowledge," as Mr. Flood alleges? Well, I would agree that on some topics, Clark does indeed seem to succumb to rationalistic tendencies. I believe this happened more so in the case of metaphysical subjects than epistemological ones, but as I have said that the two disciplines are mutually dependent, it is unsurprising that a rationalistic tendency on one's views in one subject would impact one's views on the other. Clark's occasionalism is a case in point.

But I can't imagine that Clark would side with the rationalists about whom Mr. Flood writes, "One problem for rationalists (but not only them) is that self-contradiction is problematic only in a completely intelligible universe - which only the believer in the God of the Bible has a warrant for affirming." On the contrary, I think Clark would have pushed Mr. Flood to consider that the believer in the God of the Bible only knows God through the Bible. This shows Clark's anti-rationalism.

Now, one might rightly criticize Clark for having missed a meaning of "knowledge" that falls within the biblical, semantic domain of the word. For example, Mr. Flood, citing Matthew 16:2-3 and Luke 12:54-56, argues that Jesus affirms one's ability to make discernments or know on the basis of inductive inference (if derived by inference, can such knowledge be said to be "spontaneous," though?). Consider the following by Clark:

1983. A Debate between Gordon H. Clark and David Hoover on epistemology (1:51:06). April 9.

...it is a truism that a inductive argument cannot yield a conclusion whose truth is formally guaranteed. That is to say there is nothing in the form of the inductive argument whereby it is logically impossible for the conclusions be false if the premises are true. Rather if the inductive arguments can be confidenced at all, they are said to contain premises which support rather than entail their validities.

I can't find a fault in Clark's reasoning here. At the same time, I allow that there is room for discussion about whether beliefs based on induction might count as "knowledge," especially if Scriptural statements give space for such an interpretation. Certain beliefs might be able to be classified as knowledge without being grounded in argumentation which formally guarantees the truth of the conclusion. 

Clark's emphasis on a "basic epistemology" is not misplaced, however, for I would and have argued that fallibilist accounts of knowledge can only be defended (apologetically) if grounded in a more "basic epistemology" - like in Scripture itself, to which Mr. Flood himself has been appealing to make his case for other kinds of knowledge (e.g. link, link).

Less relevant to the discussion, I think, is the question of whether people who follow Clark lock-step might play the skeptic to excuse their own sin. Even when I lock-step adhered to most (if not all) of what Clark wrote, I recognized that an inability to infallibly justify every belief one holds could not serve as an excuse for sin (link).

A few more comments Mr. Flood makes are worthy of response:

In human knowing, the physical and the intellectual don't happen to 'come together': they're never apart. They're seamlessly connected. We can distinguish them notionally, but why decouple them? Human insight or intellectual grasp is always into what is given in sensation or the imagination, both of which are brain functions. 

This holds for logic and mathematics as for sensory perception. We symbolically express our syllogisms and equations after conjuring them in our imagination (i.e., in our brains). 

I wonder whether Mr. Flood believes that humans can learn anything in the intermediate state between death and the parousia. The above would indicate that this is impossible. This would make Abraham's conversation with the rich man in Luke 16 either unintelligible or parabolic, for example. 

Of course, I think that when writing the above, Mr. Flood is imagining a more relatable scenario, i.e. embodied human experience. Even so, for some time now, I haven't quite understood in what sense the above or the following are supposed to pose a problem to Clark's basic epistemology (if they are meant to do so): 

...when I read the Bible, I get the clear impression that God created us to communicate linguistically, which means interacting and grappling with the world using our bodies' central nervous system and sensory organs...

...the Bible is a body of divine thoughts communicated through symbols, themselves rendered and conveyed physically and therefore temporally... 

These sorts of comments anticipate the ever common objection to Scripturalism: don't you have to read your Bible? In accepting occasionalism, I think Clark felt the force of this objection more than he would have cared to admit, tailoring his metaphysical view of causation - occasionalism, at least by the time he wrote Lord God of Truth - to support his anti-empiricism. In my mind, this illustrates Clark behaved as if metaphysics and epistemology were interdependent, even if he insisted the latter was more philosophically basic. 

I have already detailed why I think Clark should not have felt pressured by the consideration that sensation might function as secondary causes of our beliefs, for I don't see how such would have affected his "basic epistemology" that knowledge of God's word is foundational for the defense of any other beliefs:

To say some belief can’t be internally justified for no other reason than that it is caused in a certain way is a genetic fallacy. Scripturalists are (or, in my opinion, ought to be) doxastic foundationalists: in short, a belief is philosophically known only if appropriately inferred from other [internally] justified beliefs or if the belief in question is self-justified or self-evident, in which case it is foundational, a first principle, axiom, presupposition, etc. But it doesn’t matter whether such a belief was the result of secondary causation or directly mediated to our minds via divine causation. Ultimately, everything is caused by God. On internalism, the causal origin of the belief doesn’t feature into whether the axiomatic belief itself is self-justified, especially if the resultant epistemic system can provide an account of the means by which we know. (link)

Epistemology has to do with what we think is true - specifically, which thoughts do we say we know are true, and how do we know them? Now, if thoughts are immaterial, mental, or spiritual, to argue against Clark that a material, physical, or sensory process undermines his epistemology begs the question. One must, in providing such an external critique, specify his grounds for regarding a physical process as integral to epistemic justification. That is not Clark's burden of proof to discharge here. In response to, "Don't you have to read your Bible?" Clark is well within his rights to reply, "Well, do you? If so, how, and to what end?" (link)

Note that these points are only meant to pertain to Clark's "basic epistemology," not to extra-biblical beliefs which may be fallibly (and/or externally) justified (even if Clark would not have accepted the possibility of this). 

Finally, a fitting close to the review of this chapter will return to the first paragraph, in which Mr. Flood states that "one of the most instructive contrasts [when it comes to defending the Christian faith] is between the apologetical method of Cornelius Van Til... and that of Gordon Clark..." While I have not read the entirety of Mr. Flood's book, we get a sense of his view of the contrast in the following statements:

Van Til suggested discerning "the impossibility of the contrary," that is, the inability of the non-Christian to make sense of sense-making. The issue is the ground of intelligible predication, one Clark never took up. The Van Tilian transcendental argument (TA) attempts to show the exclusive power of the Christian worldview to ground intelligible predication (including that of the TA itself). It requires showing that the God-Men-World relationship in Scripture is alone adequate to that task...

Christian as such are not required to 'explain the reductio' or show how secular axioms generate self-contradiction of demonstrate that the Christian system is internally consistent. Even if justified, such a task would be reserved for above-average apologetes confronting above-average unbelievers.

I gather the first paragraph outlines Van Til's apologetic, whereas the second alludes to Clark's. I found it interesting that Mr. Flood seems to consider the first paragraph to be an apologetic methodology for the common man, as if most people know what "intelligible predication" even means. Surely we are far afield of "spontaneous" knowledge mentioned earlier in the chapter! Not that I think is wrong. Apologetic depth is a strength.

Regardless, I have yet to encounter an expression of Van Til's TAG which does not itself presuppose Clark's Scripturalism (link, link). I have never seen a proof, for example, that "the God-Men-World relationship in Scripture is alone adequate" without an appeal to Scripture. All this is to say that while I myself am in favor of transcendental argumentation, I agree with Clark that apologetics is grounded in epistemology - a Scripturalist epistemology, albeit with some modifications to Clark's own views.

I'll plan to review chapter 10 in a separate post.

Book Review: Scripturalism and the Senses (Part 12)

Links to all parts may be found here. This part will contain a review and evaluation of Mr. Lazar's eleventh chapter in his book, Scripturalism and the Senses.

"Neo"-Scripturalism and Worldview Tests

As perhaps the shortest chapter in Mr. Lazar's book, I suppose previous chapters are meant to bear the brunt of the apologetic load on making good on the claims herein. As I have covered previous chapters in previous reviews, where appropriate, I will simply forward the reader back to the arguments made in those reviews to substantiate my responses here:

Test of reason: since the formulations of Scripturalism with which Mr. Lazar took issue were never one's written or state by Clark himself (link), for him to state that Clark’s Scripturalism is self-referentially incoherent is premature, at the very least.

Test of Skepticism: as I pointed out in my last review (link), among others, "Neo"-Scripturalists are in no position to be aware of the presence of external, epistemic justificatory factors which Mr. Lazar would say are needed to "warrant" any given belief in any given scenario about one's having a wife... or, for that matter, about one's self-existence. On this latter subject, I'm not sure what external justificatory factors Mr. Lazar could possibly have in mind which would be needed to "warrant" self-knowledge. 

On the contrary, one who accepts Clark’s understanding of Scripturalism could deduce that extra-biblical knowledge is possible, even if 1) Clark himself never made such a deduction and 2) one wouldn't be self-aware regarding when an externally justified belief (in particular) occurs. Extra-biblical knowledge is, however, a defensible possibility when grounded in a fundamentally internalist theory of knowledge, whereas it would not be so on a purely externalist theory of knowledge (since even one could not be aware that his deduction was accompanied by the requisite external justificatory factor). If, then, "Neo"-Scripturalism holds that the epistemic justification for all knowledge-claims will depend on an external factor, I would conclude that it does fail the test of skepticism insofar as no one can have "full assurance of... knowledge" (link). 

So, to reiterate another earlier review (link), Clark was not interested in the limitations of knowledge so much as he was interested in having a certain kind of knowledge. His "basic epistemology" bears out one's ability to have (and be aware that one has) the sort of robust "knowledge" needed to defend any other, supplemental definitions of "knowledge" one might wish to apply in certain contexts. 

Explanatory power: out of all the tests he mentions, Mr. Lazar is reticent to say he passed the test of explanatory power. That’s because, as I mentioned in an earlier review, this test is mostly relative in the first place (link). The key question - which Clark saw and answered - is that the some knowledge we can have on Scripturalism is absolutely better than the none we have without it.

One comment I didn't quite understand was the following: 

I don't think there's very much that can be directly deduced from the Bible when it comes to the rest of human inquiry. You'll not be able to deduce a study of Van Gogh's The Starry Night, the cure for cancer, the history of bluegrass music, the plans for a more efficient diesel engine, or the existence of a habitable planet in a faraway solar system. Neo-Scripturalism cannot explain those things, because the Bible does not. Those are subjects you'll have to discover apart from the Bible, according to the norms and standards of those different domains of inquiry.

In what sense do extra-biblical subject have "norms" and "standards"? Is one obligated to discover extra-biblical subjects through these norms and standards and, if so, why? Mr. Lazar did link to a few books, but just as he exposited Plantinga's thought in an earlier chapter, I would have been interested in how the books he cited might have answered some of these questions, or at least an example using one of the extra-biblical subjects he mentioned in the same paragraph.

Test of hardcore common sense: Mr. Lazar refers to the "presuppositions of argumentation" as "extra-Biblical." But any valid examples of performative contradictions - and the concept itself - are just instances of logical consistency being applied to one's claims, thoughts, and practice (link). Insofar as Scripture is logical or reasonable, calls us to be reasonable, and is itself the necessary and sufficient precondition for knowledge (of the "robust" kind, link), Scripturalism is not only compatible with the "test of hardcore common sense," it is, as with any other apologetic test, the epistemic ground for it.

Separately, Mr. Lazar is right to suggest that a denial of self-knowledge is a performative contradiction (link). At one point in his life, Clark would have agreed too (link). But I do think other alleged cases of performative self-contradictions - like regarding the "existence... of other people" - are avoided if 1) one is content to remain agnostic about knowing what is true and 2) one instead acts as if his opinions are true.

Conclusion: Mr. Lazar concludes by giving his epistemology a pass after "an initial evaluation." I've said enough about how I think Neo-Scripturalism is not a significant "reformulation" of Clark's Scripturalism (link).

The most striking statement in this chapter, though, is that Mr. Lazar asks the reader to "remember what Clark’s tests were meant to establish - they weren’t meant to demonstrate that a first principle is true...” –  I find this remarkable... because it is true! Clark's tests are apologetic, and epistemology grounds apologetics, not vice versa. 

But this is precisely a conflation Mr. Lazar made in earlier chapters (link). He even cited Gordon R. Lewis's criticisms of Clark, which wrongly assumed Clark's apologetic tests grounded his epistemology rather than the reverse (link; see, particularly, point 5 under the subheading, "Miscellaneous Comments: An Intermezzo). 

If Mr. Lazar had applied what he requests in this chapter to his evaluation of Clark in earlier chapters, then he might have realized that Clark did not fail the test of skepticism et al. after all.

In the next part of my review, I will turn to chapter 12, which Mr. Lazar calls Better Answers

The Problem of the Criterion

In the process of reviewing Shawn Lazar's book, Scripturalism and the Senses, I came across the following statement:

Reformed Epistemology provides Neo-Scripturalism with a better definition of knowledge. As you may remember, Nash criticized Clark for having an idiosyncratic definition of knowledge, that it was too narrow, reducing most of what we know (or claim to know) to skepticism, such as beliefs that we are married we children. With the help of Reformed Epistemology, Neo-Scripturalism can better account for what is popularly taken as knowledge.

Whether a definition of "knowledge" Plantinga et al. have provided actually is "better" than what Clark proposed is something I will address elsewhere. My primary interest is Mr. Lazar's justification for his conclusion. He thinks the definition he outlines in his book "can better account for what is popularly taken as knowledge."

Why this interests me is that it reminds me of the "Problem of the Criterion." I first remember reading about the Problem of the Criterion in a paper by Richard Fumerton (link), my introduction to present day epistemological discussions. So this was one of the first issues that caught my attention and led to me considering Scripturalism in contemporary contexts. It has been a long time, but if I recall correctly, it was also from this paper that I was inspired to think about necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge (link, link).

At any rate, there seems to be a hidden assumption implicit in the above quote. After all, why should one care "what is popularly taken as knowledge"? Are Mr. Lazar and Nash prepared to dismiss any views that are generally unpopular... like Reformed theology itself? I doubt it. It seems to me (and I think Mr. Lazar and Nash would agree) that the important questions in the field of epistemology have little to do with adjusting a definition of "knowledge" to fit what the majority think is true.

So what did Mr. Lazar really mean? If I have misunderstood Mr. Lazar, Nash, and others, they are free to correct me on what criticism of Clark's definition is really intended. But even if that is the case, the following considerations are worthy in their own right. Assuming I am correct, I believe that what may drive Mr. Lazar, Nash, and others away from Clark on this point is the hidden assumption of epistemic particularism. Epistemic particularism is one answer to the Problem of the Criterion:

...perhaps the best way to formulate the Problem of the Criterion in its most general form is with the following pair of questions (Cling (1994) and McCain and Rowley (2014)):

(1) Which propositions are true?

(2) How can we tell which propositions are true? 

...These are not questions about the nature of truth itself. Rather, these are epistemological questions concerning which propositions we should think are true and what the correct criteria are for determining whether a proposition should be accepted as true or false. It is possible that one could have answers to these questions without possessing any particular theory of truth, or even taking a stand at all as to the correct theory of truth. Additionally, it is possible to have a well-developed theory of the nature of truth without having an answer to either (1) or (2). So, the issue at the heart of the Problem of the Criterion is how to start our epistemological theorizing in the correct way, not how to discover a theory of the nature of truth.

...The problem yielded by the Problem of the Criterion arises because one might plausibly think that we cannot answer (1) until we have an answer to (2), but we cannot answer (2) until we have an answer to (1). So, at least initially, consideration of the Problem of the Criterion makes it seem that we cannot get our theorizing started at all. This seems to land us in a pretty extreme form of skepticism—we cannot even begin the project of trying to determine which propositions to accept as true... 

According to Chisholm, there are only three responses to the Problem of the Criterion: particularism, methodism, and skepticism. The particularist assumes an answer to (1) and then uses that to answer (2), whereas the methodist assumes an answer to (2) and then uses that to answer (1). The skeptic claims that you cannot answer (1) without first having an answer to (2) and you cannot answer (2) without first having an answer to (1), and so you cannot answer either. Chisholm claims that, unfortunately, regardless of which of these responses to the Problem of the Criterion we adopt we are forced to beg the question... (link)

I will deal with Chisholm's claim that all responses are question-begging a little later. For now, the point is that Mr. Lazar's, Nash's, and others' aversion to (or, in some cases, derision of) Clark's definition of "knowledge" seems to stem, at least in part, from Clark being unable to say that he "knew" his wife. The various arguments seems to run as follows: people intuitively find [and should very much like to think] that they "know" their wives, and so any definition of knowledge which rules such out is "too narrow" (i.e. worse than one which does not rule such out). Others likewise have such intuitions, which is why such knowledge-claims about the subject are popular. All of this sounds like epistemic particularism:

Particularism: Assume an answer to (1) (accept some set of propositions as true) that does not depend on an answer to (2) and use the answer to (1) to answer (2).

That is, one begins with what counts as "knowledge" (1) and then attempts to formulate an understanding of how he "knows" such (2). That is, since we "know" our wives (1), let's talk about how we can tell that we "know" them (2). Here is the main problem epistemic particularists must face:

...The problem with particularism is that the particularist’s starting point is an unfounded assumption. Particularism starts with a set of particular propositions and works from there. If the particularist goes beyond that set of particular propositions to provide reasons for accepting them, she abandons that particularist response and either picks a new set of particular propositions to assume (a new particularist response) or picks something other than simply a new set of only particular propositions to assume and ceases to be a particularist.

In other words, if one begins his theorizing by saying "I know my wife," one can't very well provide reasons to justify the claim. For any such attempt to justify this claim would be theory-laden, grounded in the very particularist claim about being able to know his wife in the first place. 

Thus, I could say "I know you don't have a wife" and construct a theory of "knowledge" on the basis of that [and perhaps other] particularist claim[s]. I would then be a particularist whose propositional content is in direct conflict particularists like Mr. Lazar and Nash. Since neither claim would seem to be in a better position than the other - precisely because both conflicting claims were themselves the starting points for any further theorizing about how one can tell what "knowledge" even is - it doesn't appear possible for a third party adjudicate between the conflicting claims without first appealing to a methodology.

Before deciding whether or not this argument against particularism is a strong one, let us turn to methodism, for Chisholm also describes the methodist answer to the Problem of the Criterion as question-begging:

Methodism: Assume an answer to (2) (accept some criterion to be a correct criterion of truth – one that successfully discriminates true propositions from false ones) that does not depend on an answer to (1) and use the answer to (2) to answer (1).

Since methodism begins by assuming that some criterion is a correct criterion of truth without providing any epistemic reason to prefer this response to the alternatives, it begs the question against particularism and skepticism.

The methodist would propose a criterion by which one could determine whether or not one is married. This avoids the above dilemma that conflicting particularists may face. However, does it not run into an analogous problem? What if one proposes a different criterion for knowing truth than another? How can such a conflict be any more resolvable than epistemic particularism? 

Again, before attempting to answer any of these questions, I think it is worth noting that Clark affirmed methodism:

Physicists used to say that light consisted of ether waves. Today it is generally agreed that the methods used were defective, and that light is something else (they don’t quite know what). Hence even if botany or theology is written first, it cannot be accepted by a scholar until the crucial question is answered: How do you know? In a systematic treatment, the methodology ought to come first. Instead of asking, What is a cactus? or What is light? someone asks, What is God? How can one go about answering that question? Do we consult the Koran or the Vedas? Do we study the stars? Do we send a questionnaire to a thousand college professors? A method must be chosen (or used unwittingly) before any answer is forthcoming. Henry’s method is to consult the Bible and from it deduce that God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, unchangeable. We cannot start with God; we must start with the Bible. Why not say so first and then proceed to the theology the Bible teaches. (God’s Hammer, 1995, pg. 178)

But to return to the main subject: What one learns first from the Bible and what he learns second and third varies from man to man. One person begins with Genesis; another begins with Matthew. Similarly, a man may learn several propositions about God without reflecting on the method by which he learned them. Musicians and painters usually produce good works of art before they understand the theory. Hence in temporal psychology a knowledge of God precedes a knowledge of method. But to explain this process an apologist ought to start with the methodology. For while the unreflective reader may be unaware of the methodology – he may not realize how he does what he does – he nonetheless uses the method. And for Clark and Henry the method is Scriptural. (God’s Hammer, 1995, pg. 179, 184-186)

[As an aside, Clark's statement that "a knowledge of God precedes a knowledge of method" is interesting. It seems that in this context, Clark is affirming doxastic justification as parasitic on propositional justification (link). As will be seen in a below quote, Clark is concerned 1) that a learner is made aware, by the apologist, that he has a method as well as 2) that the learner is using the "right method." 

I am tempted to relate this to my recent reflections on Clark's view of "natural knowledge" (link) in that while Clark argued that heathens could possess such - at least, on a definition of "knowledge" as "true belief" - the apologist's job is to ensure that one begins to reflect on what "knowledge of God" they have (a la Acts 17). When this is accomplished and the learner is brought to acceptance of the right method of Scripture as his rule of faith and known, by grace through the work of the Holy Spirit, one's "knowledge" can be elevated to an epistemic status that allows for full assurance. Perhaps that oversteps a historical characterization of Clark's own thought, but if so, it would be how I personally would develop Clark's epistemology.]

I imagine Clark would identify "intuition" as the implicit method of epistemic particularists. Regardless, this would also help to account for why some's concerns for being able to know their wives were of no concern to Clark:

Granted, it is unlikely that anyone should go to such extremes to substitute another woman for the wife of an unimportant theologian or philosopher. But how do you know? So long as substitution is possible, certainty is impossible. (Clark and His Critics, 2009, pg. 75)

What, then, can we say to all the worries of question-begging? My own view of the entire situation is best answered after mentioning the "last" option to the Problem of the Criterion:

Skepticism: Assume that (i) there is no independent answer to (1) or (2), and (ii) if (1) and (2) cannot be answered independently, they cannot be answered at all.

Now, recall earlier Chisholm's claim that "unfortunately, regardless of which of these responses to the Problem of the Criterion we adopt we are forced to beg the question." The careful reader will notice that out of the three options stated thus far - particularism, methodism, and skepticism - one more option has been left out. Reread the above skeptical response without (ii). 

Perhaps there is no independent answer to (1) or (2). Even so, such does not need to be viewed as problematic, because to answer (1) and (2) simultaneously is indeed, contra skepticism (which, I think, is itself a self-referentially incoherent position to take on the question), an answer.

Thus, do we construct a definition of knowledge to capture experiences that intuitively seem to belong together (particularism)? Or do we begin with a definition by which we categorize particular experiences (methodism)? This is a false dilemma. Why? Because a methodological criterion for knowledge can itself be [particularly] known. Is it not question-begging to assume otherwise?

I can imagine a few objections to this, most of which spiral out of discussing the Problem of the Criterion itself. The most relevant criticism might be if one argued that what I am proposing is little different than those who identify solely as epistemic particularists or methodists. 

In response, obvious differences between must be highlighted. Stating that "I am married" is an instance of "knowledge," not a method for arriving at other other knowledge-claims. Thus, there is no counter-apologetic available to solely epistemic particularists who encounter other solely epistemic particularists who conflictingly claim "you are not married" as an instance of "knowledge." In contrast, Scripturalists who synthesize particularism and methodism do have counter-apologetics available against copy-cat opponents, as will be demonstrated below. Similarly, starting with a method for knowing things is not to say that one knows the method itself is true. Thus, there is as big a difference between solely epistemic methodists and those who synthesize particularism and methodism as there is between epistemic positism and foundationalism. These are important distinctions that should not be overlooked.

Another, more tangential criticism might be that even with the above distinctions in mind, someone else might attempt to likewise synthesize particularism and methodism by providing a different "methodological criterion for knowledge they claim that can itself be [particularly] known by the method itself." Does affirmation of one not beg the question against the other?

A few things ought to be stated in response. Firstly, the idea of question-begging is itself a concept that depends on a particular theory of knowledge. Solomon wrote, "of many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh." (Ecc. 12:12). He might as well have written, "of many questions there is no end, and much answering is a weariness of the flesh." A fool can ask more questions than a wise man can answer. But can the fool himself answer what right he has to ask questions? Let any skeptics who ask questions designed to undermine the possibility of knowledge practice their inconsistency in silence.

To add to this point, if one interprets the Problem of the Criterion as an attack on foundationalism, he must be prepared to offer a non-skeptical alternative. By definition, infinitists would never be able to offer a complete answer to the Problem of the Criterion. And traditional, circular coherentists (for other versions of coherentism are foundationalism in disguise) no less beg the question than foundationalists and also have the problem of explaining how, if a belief cannot be self-justifying (as foundationalists can hold), reasoning in a circle "back" to a belief with which one "started" in a given conversation or thought-process adds or contributes to the justification of that belief.

Aside from these rebuttals, though, a more direct response to the question of how to adjudicate between two people who take particular, contradictory methods of knowledge as foundational for knowledge turns on the difference between epistemology and apologetics (and causation, for one cannot be argued into knowing truth by brute logic).

Let's say I claim that the criterion for knowledge is divine revelation - the extant extent of which is codified in or deducible from the Bible - a criterion itself knowable as such. I do, and Clark likewise made these claims:

But if there is a revelation, there can be no criterion for it. God cannot swear by a greater; therefore he has sworn by himself. One cannot ask one’s own experience to judge God and determine whether God tells the truth or not. Consider Abraham. How could Abraham be sure that God commanded him to sacrifice Isaac? Maybe this suggestion was of the devil; maybe it was a queer auto-suggestion. There is no higher answer to this question than God himself. The final criterion is merely God’s statement. It cannot be tested by any superior truth. (Today's Evangelism: Counterfeit or Genuine, 1990, pg. 113)

How then may we know that the Bible is true? The Confession answers, “Our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority [of the Scripture] is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit.”

Faith is a gift or work of God. It is God who causes us to believe: “Blessed is the man whom thou choosest and causest to approach unto thee” (Psa. 65:4).

Logically the infallibility of the Bible is not a theorem to be deduced from some prior axiom. The infallibility of the Bible is the axiom from which several doctrines are themselves deduced as theorems. Every religion and every philosophy must be based on some first principle. And since a first principle is first, it cannot be “proved” or “demonstrated” on the basis of anything prior. As the catechism question, quoted above, says, “The Word of God is the only rule to direct us how we may glorify Him.” (What Do Presbyterians Believe? 1985, pg. 18)

Suppose another claims the same thing about the Quran. What to do? Well, one difference between this scenario - in which particularism and methodism have been synthesized - and the others mentioned above is that my foundation may also prescribe apologetic methods for refuting others, including showing that their own foundation is internally inconsistent. Indeed, this is again what Clark himself suggests: 

...if apologetics has the task of discussing secular systems, is not the apagogic method the best – the method of reductio ad absurdum? 

...apologetics must be derived from revelation. At the same time what seemed to be a lack of consistency or resoluteness led to certain proposals for improving and extending his apologetic method. The proposals submitted stressed apagogic apologetics, the unity of truth and axiomatization as the most consistent denial of a common platform with unbelief. 

...the Gospel has a point of contact, and apagogic argumentation can be extended. Not only may the apologete show the self-contradiction inherent in secular axioms, as we said above; he may now stress the inconsistency of accepting both a secular axiom and a divine truth; and he may draw out the inferences of the divine truth and show its consistency with the additional truths of revelation. (Karl Barth's Theological Method, 1997, pgs. 96, 113, 118)

In fact, Clark does an excellent job of extending meta-epistemic considerations along these lines to a defense of a unified, methodological foundationalism: 

This is one reason why methodology must be carefully considered. Is it the right method to begin with sensory experience, or with a mystic trance, and conclude with the type of God that later appears? In particular, will anything at all appear later concerning sin, atonement, resurrection, and so on? The Christian needs a method that arrives at all this. He needs a single method. Two methods produce a bifurcation that cannot be unified. Theology then would be schizophrenic. A theory of knowledge must cover all knowledge. If it does not, and if a person uses two methods he cannot answer the question, Where should the one be used, and where the other? He cannot use theory number one to define the place of theory number two, nor conversely, and hence he has no ground for choosing one rather than the other at any point. This means that he really has no theory of knowledge at all...

The method used in this book and the theology that necessarily results are Biblical. The principle is to take the Bible as a revelation from God. (link)

That being said, apologetics does have limitations. As Clark notes, "One who believes in the unity of truth may still believe that the false system entails contradictions; but to prove this is the work of omniscience" (Historiography: Secular and Religious, 1971, pg. 370). We are not omniscient. Has the Problem of the Criterion, then, remained a problem after all?

No, for fortunately, God is omniscient, God has revealed Himself to us, and His revelation is self-authenticating. While we cannot necessarily show contradictions that stem from others' foundations, then, that apologetic limitation does not prevent us from knowing they exist. Additionally, even in such situations, we can, nevertheless argue against other foundations. As Ron DiGiacomo notes:

The transcendental argument for the existence of God is an argument that has as its conclusion God exists.

Prove A: The Christian God exists.
Step 1 ~A: (Assume the opposite of what we are trying to prove): The Christian God does not exist.
Step 2 (~A--> B): If God does not exist, then there is no intelligible experience since God is the precondition of intelligibility
Step 3 (~B): There is intelligible experience (Contradiction)
Step 4 (~ ~A): It is not the case that God does not exist (Modus Tollens on 2 and 3)
Step 5 (A): --> God does exist (Law of negation.)
Q.E.D.

...So what about step 2 of the argument? We can defend the premise of step 2 deductively by appealing to the absolute authority of Scripture. Of course the unbeliever rejects that authority; nonetheless that the unbeliever is dysfunctional does not mean that an appeal to Scripture is fallacious! After all, if a skeptic rejects logic should we then argue apart from logic? Since when does the dullness of an opponent dictate which tools of argumentation may be used? Of course, given the unbeliever’s suppression of the truth the Christian does well to defend step 2 inductively by performing internal critiques of opposing worldviews, which of course can only corroborate the veracity of step 2. It would be fallacious, however, to conclude because of such condescension toward the unbeliever that the conclusion of TAG (God exists) and the justification for its step 2 (God is the precondition of intelligibility) rest upon inductive inference. By the use of induction the Christian is merely acknowledging that the unbeliever refuses to bend the knee to the self-attesting Word from which step 2 can be deduced by sound argumentation. Since unbelievers will not accept the truth claims of the Bible and, therefore, a deductive defense of step 2 the only thing the Christian can do is refute the hypothetical competitors, but that hardly implies that step 2 cannot be proved by deduction. (link)

Yes, a Muslim or others might try to copy this transcendental line of reasoning - and that is why reductio ad absurdem argumentation Clark recommends is an excellent apologetic tool that can, in certain contexts, be more persuasive than transcendental reasoning - but one who is worried about what hypothetical scenarios in which we can't perform a certain apologetic says about our ability to know the Bible is God's word rather than the Quran (or whatnot) ought to keep in mind that apologetics is subordinate to epistemology in the first place (link). What we know dictates how we argue and defend what we know, not vice versa. Those who find these apologetic defenses to be "question-begging" ought to re-examine whether they have rightly understood and distinguished the structure of epistemic justification from apologetic methods of defending of one's position (as well as the relationship between the two).

Book Review: Scripturalism and the Senses (Links to All Parts)

The following links are to the various posts in which I review Shawn Lazar's book, Scripturalism and the Senses:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 2.5

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 10.5

Part 11

Part 11.5

Part 12

Part 13

Part 14

Part 14.5

Part 15

Internalism Defended

In a recent post, I noted a few ways in which the internalist-externalist debate is relevant to Scripturalism. In this post, I will highlight a few epistemologist's reasons for thinking why internalism is, of the two, the necessary justificatory framework for an epistemological position. To begin, I will quote the whole context of Bonjour's statement from the end of my last post:

Having been reconciliatory to this extent, I still want to insist that there is a clear way in which an internalist approach, in addition to being intellectually legitimate on its own, has a fundamental kind of priority for epistemology as a whole, so that externalist views, whatever their other merits, do not constitute satisfactory responses to the general issue with which this essay is concerned: that of whether we have any good reasons to think that any of our beliefs about the world are true (and what form these reasons might take). 

This is so because externalist justification simply does not speak to this global and essentially first-person issue. One way to see this is to note that if an epistemologist claims that a certain belief or set of beliefs, whether his own or someone else’s, has been arrived at in a reliable way, but says this on the basis of cognitive processes of his own whose reliability is for him merely an external fact to which he has no first-person, internalist access, then the proper conclusion is merely that the belief or beliefs originally in question are reliably arrived at (and perhaps thereby are justified or constitute knowledge in externalist senses) if the epistemologist’s own cognitive processes are reliable in the way that he believes them to be. Of course there might be a whole series of hypothetical results of this sort: cognitive process A is reliable if cognitive process B is reliable, cognitive process B is reliable if cognitive process C is reliable, and so forth. But the only apparent way to arrive at a result that is not ultimately hypothetical in this way is for the reliability of at least some processes to be establishable on the basis of what the epistemologist can know directly or immediately from his first-person, internalist epistemic perspective… 

The basic question (which each person must in the end ask for himself or herself) is whether I have good reasons for thinking that my beliefs are true (and, if so, what form those reasons take). And the reason that this leads to an internalist view is that the reasons in question are supposed to be reasons that I have, not in the impossible sense of having them explicitly in mind at every moment, but in the sense of their being more or less immediately available or accessible. (Epistemic Justification, pgs. 39, 174)

I recall reading Alvin Plantinga say that as an externalist, he doesn’t really see why “a main concern of epistemology is replying to the skeptic” (A Companion to Epistemology, 2^nd edition, pg. 173). And in a way, he’s right. Skeptics don’t know what knowledge means or can mean, so there is no reason skeptics should dictate the terms of what a knower needs in order to know. But then again, one can ask himself the same questions a skeptic would.

[One might instead ask why we need to regard skepticism as a main concern in epistemology. An extended reply would take me to far afield of the present post, but in short, the question suggests its own ironic answer: "why do I need an answer to this question in order for this to be true or known to be true?"]

With the skeptical concern in mind, I turn to this excellent passage by Michael Williams, to which I have nothing further to add at this time:

The essential feature of Agrippan skepticism is that it is universal. The Agrippan Argument applies to any arbitrary belief or claim. This is why it is available for indefinite reiteration. The skeptic’s challenge is to explain how it is possible for us to know (or be justified in believing) anything whatsoever (Stroud, 1989). 

The skeptic’s question is peculiar. If I tell a child about dinosaurs, she may ask me how it is possible to know anything whatsoever about them. After all, they went extinct thousands of years ago, so no one has ever seen a dinosaur. I will reply by telling her about the fossil record and how it gives us clues to what different kinds of dinosaur there were, their different structures in turn giving clues to how they lived. But of course, in giving an explanation like this, I am only explaining how it is possible to know some things on the basis of others. What the skeptic wants – and what the traditional epistemologist means to provide – is an explanation of the possibility of knowledge in general. An explanation of the possibility of knowledge that takes certain facts for granted – treats them as if they were known – will lack the requisite generality. The skeptic imposes – and the traditional epistemologist accepts – a Totality Condition on a properly philosophical understanding of knowledge and justification (Williams, 1992). 

The Totality Condition creates pressure to accept a further constraint: internalism, or full epistemic self-awareness. Internalism is the view that, to be justified in holding a belief, we must have “cognitive access” to its “justification-makers.” So-called “externalist” theories of knowledge and justification, by contrast, allow epistemically appropriate believing to result from factors of which we are not aware. For example, an externalist may say that a belief of mine is epistemically appropriate if it is formed by a method that is in fact highly reliable, whether or not I know about the reliability of the method I used. For externalists, such reliability-knowledge is relevant to the quite different question of whether I know, or am justified in believing, that my original belief is justified. One can have beliefs that are epistemically appropriate without understanding why. Presumably, the “knowledge” we attribute to animals is like this. According to externalists, human knowledge is not essentially different (Kornblith, 2002). 

Prima facie, internalism is not particularly plausible, at least if it is taken as a fully general view of ordinary justification (Goldman, 2001). Everyday justification often seems to work as externalists say it does, as, for example, when it flows from the unselfconscious exercise of dependable recognitional abilities (Fogelin, 1994, chapter 3). We do not always require people to have reflected systematically on their abilities at large, or even on their performance in the situation at hand. However, in the peculiar context of the skeptical challenge, it is easy to persuade oneself that externalism is not an option. 

An explanation of how knowledge or justification is possible has to do more than show that knowledge or justification is logically possible: that there is a way of thinking about knowledge that does not involve a contradiction. Externalists can surely manage this. They can sketch a consistent picture of the world in which we credit ourselves with reliable faculties and so, by externalist lights, with epistemically appropriate beliefs. But are we justified in believing that our faculties are reliable? Is that belief epistemically appropriate? If not, then for all we know, we have no justified beliefs. This is a significant concession to skepticism. We want a reply not just to the claim that we know nothing, but also to the meta-skeptical claim that for all we know we know nothing. We want to know that we know. This too pushes us towards internalism. 

Admittedly, committed externalists can resist this line of thought. They can say that our epistemic beliefs (meta-beliefs about the reliability of our faculties) may indeed be epistemically appropriate – by externalist standards! But how do they know that? Well, they believe it: appropriately, too, if this meta-epistemic belief is formed in some suitably reliable way. And so on. But that is the problem. More traditionally minded theorists will surely feel that externalists who go down this route are either accepting infinitism or simply turning their backs on the sceptical problem. The traditionalist thought is that the epistemic self-understanding we seek can be attained only if the epistemic appropriateness of our beliefs at large can be made in some way evident. This is an internalist demand. 

This pressure to adopt internalism gets further reinforcement from the thought that the context of philosophical inquiry is inherently reflective. In doing philosophy, we step back from all particular practical engagements in order to make explicit presuppositions that we normally take for granted without formulating in a precise way. But once such presuppositions are made explicit, the question of their epistemic appropriateness cannot be avoided. In philosophy, we want to get clear about what, at the deepest level, we are committed to and whether we are entitled to those commitments. 

To understand philosophical reflection this way is to link such reflection with a particular ideal of self-understanding. It is because it adopts this ideal that traditional epistemological reflection is conducted from a first-person standpoint. By contrast, externalist approaches to knowledge and justification are elaborated from a third-person point of view. Accordingly, to the traditionalist, externalist epistemologies embody an attitude that we might take to someone else: we see that he is a reliable informant about this or that, and so we take his beliefs in that area to be epistemically appropriate, not worrying about what, if anything, he knows about his own reliability. But it is not clear what would even be meant by proposing to take such an attitude towards oneself. Again, the very character of traditional epistemology, as a quest for total epistemic self-understanding, pushes us to adopt internalism. 

Externalist epistemologies seem plausible, the skeptic will suggest, because they accord with what we already believe. Our common-sense–scientific picture of the world suggests that, within limits, our basic cognitive faculties – perception, memory, and so on – are fairly reliable, so that beliefs formed with the aid of those faculties tend to be epistemically appropriate. But in taking the common-sense picture of the world for granted, we are not explaining how it is possible to know anything whatsoever. (Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, pgs. 207-208)

Scripturalism and Plausibility

Plausibility is fickle. What sounds right to one person can sound ridiculous to another. I would say the most plausible explanation for this is that while people want to be [or at least appear to be] consistent, they vary in respect to certain beliefs. How well some proposition coheres with beliefs about which one is relatively inflexible will influence how disposed one will be to accept it.

Now, psychology doesn't really interest me. If I make a good argument, I shouldn't feel responsible for how a person responds to that argument. And, in general, I don't. Then again, there's not much point to making an argument in the first place if I have no hope that it will succeed in convincing the listener. I may better convince myself, but in any case, it is natural to want something more. 

What I am getting at is that while arguing for Scripturalism is fine, to convince more people, it seems that some time should be spent in making it more plausible. Who, after all, would admit to believing what he thinks is implausible? 

But how would one go about making something more plausible? Is there an exact science to it? I don't think so. In fact, my advice here is based on intuition and experience, but that should be fine since the goal is not to explain how to erect a sound argument but rather how to take a sound argument, the conclusion of which you think a person opposes, and make the conclusion more plausible. There's room for generalizations, allowances for context, etc., here. So most of what follows will be rather informal.

In general, for example, I wouldn't recommend stating the conclusion first. People don't like to backtrack, so instead of immediately provoking them into disagreement with a conclusion and, by extension, one of the as-yet unstated but underlying premises of a valid argument, it would seem better to state those premises which you believe are both agreeable and integral to the conclusion, and then show why they entail the conclusion. Take the following, well-written statement by Fred Dretske:

If your reasons for believing P are such that you might have them when P is false, then they aren't good enough to know that P is true. You need something more. That is why you can't know you are going to lose a lottery just because your chances of losing are 99.99 percent. Even with those odds, you still might win (someone with those odds against him will win). That is why you can't learn - can't come to know - that P is true if all you have to go on is the word of a person who might lie about whether or not P is so. This is just another way of saying that knowledge requires reasons or evidence (in this case, testimony) you wouldn't have if what you end up believing were false. You can learn things from people, yes, but only from people who wouldn't say it unless it were true. (Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, pgs. 43-44)

This is what I would call a plausible argument. You can't know a proposition if it is false, so you can't know a proposition if there is, for all you know, a chance that it is false. A simple, common-sense argument for infallibilism buttressed by an example of how his argument applies to something like the lottery. Examples are good tools when trying to make an argument plausible.

For the purposes of Scripturalism, Dretske cites an even more useful illustration: the possibility of learning from people, where learning implies knowledge-acquisition. Dretske acknowledges it is possible to learn from people, but only from people who wouldn't lie. An excellent deduction from his previous remarks. But would Dretske agree that only one who cannot lie - say, God - satisfies? How else could Dretske be in a position to know who would and wouldn't lie? He may have a suspicion or opinion one way or another, but the real question is would he infallibilistically know? Since we've come this far in agreement, could Dretske really just go back and forget his own arguments? [I don't know how Dretske would respond to any of these questions, of course.]

Or take the following by Richard Fumerton:

We will agree here, therefore, that we cannot avoid knowledge skepticism with respect to the physical world if we understand knowledge as requiring justification so strong that it eliminates the possibility of error.  

Of course, the moral most contemporary epistemologists draw is that we should reject Cartesian standards from knowledge. Our only hope of avoiding skepticism with respect to knowledge of the external world (the past, the future, other minds, and so on) is to accept more relaxed standards for knowledge. (Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, pg. 86)

That one contemporary epistemologist admits there can be no empirical "knowledge" in the strong sense in which Dretske, another contemporary epistemologist, intends above is quite a concession. While this doesn't show that empirical knowledge is impossible - again, a sound argument can do that even without a so-called plausible presentation - what it does do is show a willingness to respectfully engage and even heartily agree with acknowledged top minds of a given field.

We can even allow for discussion as to more relaxed standards for a colloquial understanding of "knowledge" so long as we in turn can push the point that everyone implicitly holds some beliefs must adhere to the stricter standards (infallibilism, cf. here). I am not aware of any Scripturalist who would necessarily deny we can "know" about an "external world" in a loose sense, but that's because, as I pointed out in my last post (link), Scripturalists are more interested in defeating skepticism. That is, they are more interested in "knowledge" in the "strong" sense outlined by Dretske and alluded to by Fumerton. Focusing a discussion on a few, key points and agreeing with peripheral issues when appropriate will be more conducive when attempting to explain why Scripturalism is true, because at the same time you alleviate concerns that it doesn't cohere with pre-established beliefs.

Clark on Self-Knowledge

I spent some time a few months ago trying to explain why I thought self-knowledge was compatible - necessarily so, in fact - with Clark's philosophy (see here, for example). So I won't repeat those arguments. But while I've already noted that Clark wrote things which support the idea he himself thought self-knowledge was Scripturally supportable (see here), I acknowledge he does appear to make statements to the contrary elsewhere (e.g. Modern Philosophy, 2008, pgs. 273-274). So I believe it will be useful to provide further support that Clark believed self-knowledge is attainable. Firstly, from Thales to Dewey, 2000, pgs. 178-179:

Certainly no one can be happy if he does not have what he wants. The seeker for truth professes to want truth. The skeptic, therefore, cannot be happy; he cannot accomplish the aim of his life. Nor can his useless search provide any guidance for day-to-day living. The skeptics wish to act on what is probable; but if “probable” means only what seems good to a person at the moment, a man might commit the worst crime without blame, provided he thought it was probably good. But probability may mean something more. It may mean “approximating the truth.” The skeptics call propositions false, doubtful, probable, and plausible. Their basic principle, however, does not in consistency permit them to use any of these terms. A false proposition is one opposite to the truth. How then can one say that a proposition is false, unless one knows the truth? A doubtful proposition is one that might possibly be true; a probable or plausible proposition resembles or approximates the truth. But it is impossible to apply these terms without knowing the truth by which they are determined. One might well ask, Is it true that a foredoomed search for truth is wisdom? The skeptic would have to reply that he did not know. Is it probable that such a search is wisdom? Or with respect to everyday living, is it probable or doubtful that eating lunch today is wise? Again the skeptic could not know. A theory of probability must itself be based on truth, for if the method of determining the probable wisdom of eating lunch is false, the conclusion that it is safe to eat lunch could not be known to be probable. Without the possession of the truth, therefore, it is impossible to act rationally even in the most ordinary situations. 

Now, fortunately, truth is not only possible to attain, it is impossible to miss. There are some truths indubitably certain. Even sensation is not uniformly deceptive, and, more to the point, thought is not altogether dependent on sensation. For example, complete disjunctions, such as, either you are awake or asleep, and implications based on them, such as, if there are only four elements, there are not five, are unquestionably true. Similarly, the law of contradiction, which underlies all logical forms, cannot be disputed; and at this point it might be well to review Aristotle’s pertinent remarks. Furthermore, the propositions of mathematics cannot be doubted; nor is this science any more than logic based on sensory experience. Even if it were possible to sense a given number, such as three, ratios, divisions, and the other operations cannot be perceived. Things perceived by sense, rivers and trees, do not long endure; but that the sum of three and seven is ten endures forever. There never was a time when three and seven did not add up to ten, nor will there ever be a time. Such inviolable, eternal truths cannot be abstracted from a mutable matric. Nor can the given numbers themselves be so abstracted. Three – or, better, one, since the number series depends on one – cannot be perceived by sense, for every object of sensation is many, not one. Bodies have parts innumerable; at least they have three dimensions, a center and a surface, a right and left side; and therefore no body can be one. If, therefore, unity pure and simple is not an attribute of body, unity cannot be abstracted from body; for we cannot abstract what is not there. The truths of mathematics, accordingly, are grasped, not by sense, but by reason or intellectual intuition. And these truths are indubitable. But the most crushing refutation of skepticism comes when Augustine asks his opponent, Do you know that you exist? If he so much as hears the question, there can be no doubt about the answer. No one can be in doubt as to his own existence. “We both have a being, know it, and love both our being and knowledge. And in these three no false appearance can ever deceive us. For we do not discern them as things visible, by sense…. I fear not the Academic arguments on these truths that say, ‘What if you err?’ If I err, I am. For he that has no being cannot err, and therefore my error proves my being.” Thus in the immediate certainty of self-consciousness a thinker has contact with being, life, mind, and truth. 

Twelve hundred years later Descartes repeated the argument, Cogito, ergo sum; only Descartes, in order to appear original, altered its form and spoiled its force. Further, Descartes made this proposition the premise from which all other truths were to be derived. Augustine indeed derived many other truths, possibly too man, from this original certainty, but it was not the only original certainty. It is one case, a particularly obvious case, of intellectual intuition.

Self-knowledge is an epistemic necessity. It is an intellectual intuition, a concept which Clark elsewhere equates with "innate ideas" (Ibid., pgs. 127-128) or "indubitable truths" which "the human mind as such necessarily possesses" (pgs. 182-184). All of this falls in quite nicely with the argument that self-knowledge is a necessary yet insufficient condition for knowledge.

Clark also grappled with the "immensely difficult" subject of self-knowledge in his commentary on 1 John. Note his resolution to it:

Here is the difficulty Hodge does not face. How can one know that his assurance is not a delusion?

But where there is true faith, the want of assurance is to be referred either to the weakness of faith or to erroneous views of the plan of salvation. Many sincere believers are too introspective. They look too exclusively within, so that their hope is graduated by the degree of evidence of regeneration which they find in their own experience…. We may examine our hearts with all the microscopic care prescribed by President Edwards…. And never be satisfied that we have eliminated every ground of misgiving and doubt.

Hodge continues by listing five grounds of assurance – external, not internal grounds. But the reader must judge for himself whether or not Hodge has eliminated every ground of misgiving and doubt. In fact, while Hodge’s external grounds are exceedingly important, and usually underemphasized, ignored, or even explicitly denied in contemporary pietism, our text in John’s Epistle certainly seems to depend on internal factors and our mental ability to arrive at a correct psychological analysis of them. Does regeneration guarantee competence in psychology? It must be admitted, therefore, that these apparently simple verses are in truth immensely difficult. (First John, 1980, pg. 107) 

With some diffidence and reserve because of the complex difficulties, I suggest the following: By loving in deed and truth we shall know that we are of the truth. (Ibid., pg. 113) 

Assurance of eternal life can be deduced from a knowledge that one is a believer. Of course, as the negro spiritual says, “Everybody talking about heaven ain’t going there.” With constant frequency people are assured of many things untrue. Indeed certainty increases in direct proportion to ignorance. The less educated a man is, the more things of which he is certain. If this obvious truth disturbs anyone, he should also realize that assurance is not essential to salvation. Different people have different mentalities. John Bunyan was so morbid he could hardly have had much assurance. With others more careless, doubts never arise. But if one knows, if one has a clear intellectual understanding that he believes, he should have legitimate assurance. (Ibid., pg. 161)

So not only is self-knowledge an intellectual necessity, it is a practical necessity. Here Clark argues - as I have - that self-knowledge is necessary for assurance of salvation. Assurance is a deduction, and as a theorem deduced is only as certain as the premise from which it is deduced, a knowledge or clear intellectual understanding of one's belief is requisite in order to function as legitimate grounds for assurance.

Epistemic Neutrality

A while ago, I wrote a post in which I attempted to show why it is not possible for a thinker to suspend judgment about each and every proposition. He will take for granted that certain words mean certain things, that he doesn't need to act a certain way, etc. This is just another way of saying that everyone makes knowledge claims - implicitly or explicitly. When this is acknowledged, the ordeal of worldview comparisons can begin.

This much is clear. But there are people who seem to think - for whatever reason - that it's good to be epistemically neutral... as if just by their say-so it is true and somehow makes them appear objective? I'm not quite sure what the underlying reasoning is. At any rate, the persons I have in mind don't deny that knowledge is ideal but also continually give the impression that true epistemic humility consists in always learning yet never being able to come to a knowledge of the truth (2 Timothy 3:7).

The idea that a sort of wiped-clean, blank epistemic slate - "doubt everything," "build from nothing," or whatever other form this idea may take - is a necessary step in order to achieve knowledge is bizarre. In spite of the above considerations, suppose one could suspend judgment on all matters. But if one were ever truly thoroughly epistemically neutral, there would be by definition no criterial basis on which he could ever move to non-neutrality. The first step toward knowledge is not neutrality, it's committing to some criteria by which one can allegedly distinguish what is and isn't knowable.

On Clark's system, for example, I need to know another's first principle in order to show it to be self-defeating on its own grounds. But apagogic argumentation itself presupposes I hold to a worldview from which I am able to operate. To know how to undermine skepticism, for instance, I must first be able to know what skepticism is. But how? Certainly not on skeptical grounds, for skepticism is self-defeating. You can't really criticize another's worldview until you have - or, at least, think you have - one of your own. But then is it is clear that one can't criticize from a self-pronounced position of epistemic neutrality, for one cannot operate from a position whose sole requirement just is to abstain from all positions, including criteria for knowledge. That itself is self-defeating. 

More likely than not, the problem is that people don't mean what they say. They don't actually advocate suspending judgment on absolutely everything. But then so much for their arm-chair objectivity.

Thoughts on Contemporary Epistemology

I recently received Contemporary Debates in Epistemology as a birthday present. I was curious was the hot topics are among the epistemologists of today and figured that sooner or later I should branch out my reading if I seriously intend to pursue a degree in philosophy. Anyway, there are eleven topics debated in this book. I won’t go through all of them, not the least reason for which is that I don’t feel I have an adequate grasp of all of them. But among these topics are closure, skepticism [with respect to the external world], contextualism, and infinitism. With so many opinions, it’s hard not to find someone to [dis]agree with. It’s a mixing and matching. You have to read critically, i.e. you can’t just cross someone off for making one point with which you disagree. I disagreed with Dretske regarding closure, yet I think he makes a good argument against contextualism. The same goes for my readers. I’m sure I made bad points. Hopefully, I made some good ones too, and I hope further these points are not overridden by my bad ones. Now then, with respect to this book, you’ll have to get it to read specifics one way or the other, as I’m just going to comment on a few points that were of interest to me:

Closure

Closure is the idea that “If S knows p and knows that p implies q, then S is in a position to know that q” (pg. 2). On the face of it, this seems obviously true. Another author, Richard Fumerton – whose helpful distinction between necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge I have quoted on this blog before (link) and whose books Epistemology and Metaepistemology and Skepticism would seem to be worth a look – remarked in a footnote of an essay on a different subject that “the bottom line is that if a philosopher advances a view that forces us to reject closure, that should be taken as a reduction of that philosopher’s view” (pg. 96). A very well made and succinct point.

The reasons why one would reject closure, however, make it a worthwhile discussion. One reason to reject closure is that it allegedly makes possible “ordinary knowledge.” If we reject closure, we could in principle know, for example, that “John ate all the cookies” without having to know “There are physical objects,” “There are other minds,” or “The past is real” (pg. 3). “John ate all the cookies” may implies these propositions, but we don’t have to know these propositions to know “John ate all the cookies” if closure is rejected. Likewise, we wouldn’t have to worry so much about Descartes’ demon, solipsism, and recently spontaneously generated universes.

Of course, we could accept closure, these “heavyweight implications” of so-called ordinary knowledge, and on these accounts reject ordinary knowledge as infallibilistic. In fact, as a Scripturalist, that seems highly preferable. Much of what we say or do are not based on beliefs which can’t be mistaken. Clark was right to throw the objection that he couldn’t know his wife back in the faces of his critics. So what if our knowledge of such isn’t infallible? The more interesting question is what knowledge is infallible.

Skepticism

This brings me to the issue of skepticism with respect to the – or perhaps “an” would be less question-begging - external world. Surprisingly – pleasantly surprisingly – the two authors seemed to agree that “we cannot avoid knowledge skepticism with respect to the physical world if we understand knowledge as requiring justification so strong that it eliminates the possibility of error” (pg. 86). [This too was written by Richard Fumerton.] His reference to a sort of justification which would preclude the possibility of error is another allusion to infallibilism, which I wrote about here a few months ago. Scripturalists will do well, I think, to focus on metaepistemology – the definitions of knowledge, epistemic justification, truth, and the like. It may turn out there is more agreement to be had with the scholastic paragons of contemporary epistemology than one could hope for.

Contextualism

If I understand contextualism correctly, it rests either on an equivocation of the meaning of “knowledge” or is a flat contradiction, neither of which is particularly useful. It basically says (pg. 45):

…whether S knows something – that she has two hands, for instance – depends on the context of the person who is saying S knows it. If I, a philosopher, worried about brains in vats and Cartesian demons, say it, then S doesn’t know she has two hands… But if S, an ordinary person on the street, someone without the least tincture of philosophy, says she knows that she has two hands, what she says is true. She attributes knowledge to herself in an ordinary, practical, context, in which demons and handless-brains-in-vats are not relevant possibilities… 

So who, according to contextualism, is right? Am I, a philosopher, right when I (given my context) say that nobody knows they have hands. Or is S right? We are, I’m afraid, both right. And that is where my low opinion of contextualism comes from.

If there is an equivocation – if what S means by “knowing” she has two hands is different from what the philosopher means when he says S [does not] “know” she has two hands – then rather than preserving knowledge of having two hands, it just highlights that S is probably not squarely facing the skeptic’s challenges (cf. the “heavyweight implications” in the section on Closure above).

Infinitism

Of all the debates I skimmed, this and perhaps the debate on a priori knowledge seemed to arouse the most incredulity from any of the debaters. The ideas that infinitism could be true or that there is no a priori knowledge are, thankfully, seemingly minority positions. With respect to infinitism in particular, the closing paragraphs from the detractor will close out this post (pg. 155):

In my essay I said that the (to my mind) most severe difficulty with Klein’s infinitism is that it is committed to the thesis that inference alone can create justification. Here Klein seems to embrace this commitment wholeheartedly, holding that the longer the chain of inferential justification for a given belief the greater the justification created, and that, if the chain is long enough (but still finite), the justification can “increase to the degree required for knowledge.” This seems to give us the result that knowledge does not require infinitely long chains of inferential justification after all: infinitism gives way to inferentialism. Worse yet, given Klein’s thesis that inferential justification is the only sort of justification there can be, we seem to get the result that one could start with a belief (or set of beliefs) that is totally unjustified, because it lacks any inferential justification, and by spinning out a long enough chain of inference from it reach a belief that has the degree of justification required for knowledge. 

These results are so counterintuitive that I hesitate to attribute them to Klein. But how else are we to interpret the quoted remarks?