Lecture Supplement of Alston’s The Reliability of Sense Perception Chapter 5

Lecture Supplement of Alston’s The Reliability of Sense Perception Chapter 5

Chapter 5. Where Do We Go From Here?

i. The Problem:

Here Alston covers our options before looking for a way to support SP. He will briefly discuss skepticism, coherentism, naturalized epistemology, and “rock-bottom commitments” before providing his “resolution.”

120 Alston notes that we accord high value to true belief; and, thus, it is important that we form our beliefs in reliable ways. The difficulty we have encountered in establishing the reliability of SP is, therefore, a serious problem.

Moreover, clearly, skepticism is not a viable response to the situation:

“we are unable to refrain from forming beliefs by engaging in practices we are unable to show to be reliable without epistemic circularity.”

121 In fact, he contends that our ability to form beliefs “…is definitely not under momentary voluntary control.” While we can take steps to control our propensities to form beliefs, they are difficult steps to take. The issue hinted at here is that of doxastic voluntarism—the view that our beliefs under our control. It seems as if they must be under our control to some degree if we are to be held responsible for them. Moreover, this seems a core element of the epistemological orientation—it is a normative discipline!

122 If we can’t noncircularly establish the reliability of SP, and skepticism is not an option, Alston suggests that some might contend we should consider adopting the coherentists’ orientation. Here “circularity” can’t be a problem: “within a total coherent system, the ultimate source of justification for its constituents, mutual support is the rule rather than the exception. It contributes to the coherence of a system if the totality of perceptual beliefs…supports the thesis that perception is a reliable source of belief, and the latter supports the former.”

While mutual support might support reliability, Alston contends, “…it cannot be the whole story. If it were, we would be confronted with the specter of an indefinite plurality of equally coherent but mutually incompatible beliefs systems [sic] with no way of choosing between them. Coherence cannot be the sole, even the sole ultimate contributor to positive epistemic status. The only escape from unresolved plurality of incompatible belief systems is to suppose that some beliefs have a prima facie acceptability…independent of coherence considerations.”

This, of course, is the core argument he offers against coherence theorists. If they have a response to it, then this option could look like it is deserving of more serious consideration.

122-123 If we want to avoid circularity, skepticism and coherentism, Alston contends that we could consider adopting the naturalized epistemologists’ orientation—here the circularity is embraced and one gives up on the enterprise of first philosophy. Instead of taking our task to be the “…validating of all our belief forming procedures….it should be thought of as enjoying basically the same status as the natural sciences, free to make use of anything we know (or justifiably believe) in addressing its questions.”

“…just as we can make use of sense perception, memory, reasoning, and so on, in chemistry, geology, or sociology without noncircularly establishing their reliability, so it is with epistemology. We can make use of what we have learned from DSP), along with other tings, in assessing the reliability of SP. We take our stand within SP and other doxastic practices that are firmly rooted in our lives in addressing whether questions we happen to be dealing with.”

123 The problem with this orientation, Alston points out, is that epistemology is different—its role is not to rely on our praxis but, rather, to examine its credentials.

123-124 We could, finally, just say that the reliability of SP is a rock-bottom commitment—it needs no justification (taking a leaf from Chisholm). 124: “But a totally uncritical acceptance of our customary practices, without any provision for rational rejection or modification, I find quite indefensible, provided, as I shall be arguing shortly, there is a possibility of rational criticism.”

ii. A Practical Argument for the Rationality of SP:

Alston’s argument will bear a lot of similarity to the naturalized epistemologists’ orientation. He will call his orientation the doxastic practice approach to epistemology, and says it differs from the naturalized epistemologist’s orientation in two respects:

124 “First, it provides an argument of a sort, not for the reliability of SP, but for the rationality of engaging in SP and the rationality of taking SP to be reliable. Second, it recognizes that the intrinsic prima facie rationality of taking SP to be reliable can be overridden by various considerations, and can also be strengthened by what I call ‘significant self-support’. Thus, even though every firmly established doxastic practice has a prima facie claim to be engaged in and to be regarded as rational, that claim is subject, in principle, to being disallowed by certain kinds of negative considerations and to be strengthened by others.”

Use David Ross’s discussion of prima facie obligations and ultima-facie obligations to clarify the background here.[1]

125 “In the nature of the case, there is no appeal beyond the practices we find ourselves firmly committed to, psychologically and socially. We cannot look into any issue whatever without employing some way of forming and evaluating beliefs; that applies as much to issues concerning the reliability of doxastic practices as to any others. Hence there is no alternative to employing the practices we find to be firmly rooted in our lives, practices which we could abandon or replace only with extreme difficulty if at all.”

Critical Comment: of course the fact that we have “no alternative to employing our current practices” does not legitimate this “employment! In fact, look back at the first page of this book. He says that the question he wants to confront is: [p. 1] “…why suppose that any of the bases on which we regularly and unquestionably form beliefs are reliable, can be relied on to yield mostly true beliefs?” The “circularity problem” he discusses throughout the book is one which arises as one tries to justify the claim that SP is reliable. Will the fact that “there is no alternative to employing SP which is firmly rooted in our lives” answer the core question of the book?

125 “If we could adopt some basic way of forming beliefs about the physical environment other than SP, or some basic way of forming beliefs about the past other than memory (and it seems clear that this is not within our power), why should we. What possible rationale could there be for such a substitution?”

Critical Comment: but if there are such “alternative “Doxastic Practices,” wouldn’t the problem of “alternative doxastic practices” emerge—as the problem emerges for coherence theorists. Moreover, given the seriousness of this problem for the coherentist, why wouldn’t it be equally serious for the “Doxastic Practice” orientation?

“Hence we are not in a position to get beyond, or behind, our familiar practices and definitively determine their reliability from a deeper or more objective position. Our human cognitive situation does not permit it.”

126 “These considerations seem to me to indicate that it is eminently reasonable for us to form beliefs in the ways we standardly do….it is eminently reasonable for us to go along with our very strong, and perhaps even irresistible, inclination to form beliefs in these ways. At least these considerations yield an initial, prima facie rationality for continuance in such practices, pending sufficiently overriding considerations….”

Critical Comment: in his “Circularity and Stability,” Markus Lammenranta maintains that Alston’s argument here commits a fallacy he takes others to task for:

the problem is that if we take this to be an external evaluation of our sources of belief, all we get are hypothetical conclusions, quite similar to those that an epistemically circular reliability argument can give us. Namely, if sense perception…is reliable, then it is practically rational for us to assume that sense perception is reliable. How is this better than the conclusion that if sense perception is reliable, then we are (epistemically) justified in believing that sense perception is reliable? Alston’s shift to practical rationality offers thus no advantage compared to the arguments that are plainly circular.[2]

But maybe we shouldn’t simply adopt this perspective regarding all our doxastic practices. Perhaps we should take a stand on only some, and subject the others to critical scrutiny from their perspective.

Descartes does this with reflection (beginning with his ideas and reasoning about them as he subjects perception to criticism from the ideational/rational perspective),

Hume does this with impressions and ideas (subjecting perception and realism to criticism from the impression/idea perspective),

126-127 Thomas Reid [1710-1796] criticizes their orientations—read and discuss the citations from Reid. Note that we discussed Reid’s orientation briefly before as we discussed Chisholm’s “The Problem of the Criterion.” Chisholm says “Reid, as I interpret him was not…a “methodist.” He was a “particularist.””[3] Alston’ interpretation is likely to be different here!

Compositional Aside: in answer to the perennial question of undergraduates: “Do bibliographical references really matter?” I refer you to p. 126. As Alston introduces the citations from he says: “here are two expositions of this point by Thomas Reid (1970).” Now clearly if he died as I indicated above in 1796, it is unlikely that his work was originally published in 1970—though there could be a “typo” here, and the work cited could have been published posthumously. Looking at the Bibliography, on p. 143 we see that the work referenced is Reid’s An Inquiry into the Human Mind which is listed as published in Chicago by the University of Chicago Press in 1970, so you might well think (until you read the citations in question), that Reid is a contemporary philosopher. Now if Alston practiced proper citation practice you would be unlikely to be misled. Reid’s book was originally published in 1764, and that is the date which should b referenced on p. 126. In the Bibliography this should be the date, and the reference should read something like this:

1764 Reid, Thomas, An Inquiry Into the Human Mind, the references here are to the reprint version published by the University of Chicago Press in 1970.[4]

Reid thinks that “impressions and ideas” which Descartes and Hume take as “basic” are actually a creation of philosophical artifice. For Reid perception is basic.

129 “…we will follow the lead of Thomas Reid in taking all our established doxastic practices to be acceptable as such, as innocent until proven guilty. They all deserve to be regarded as prima facie rationally engaged in (or “acceptable’ as we shall say), pending a consideration of possible reasons for disqualification, reasons we shall go into directly.”

Alston’s footnote to this passage is important! He here says we have an appeal to coherence, but he finds this appropriate. Why is coherence positive for him when talking about doxastic practices, while it is not when talking about beliefs?

In his “Prima Facie Reasons,” Jonathan Dancy maintains that there are two senses of prima facie reasons in epistemology:

the first is familiar from the law. For someone to be committed to stand trial, a prima facie case has to be made against them. A case of this sort is one which is strong enough to need an answer….Such a case may collapse completely under further scrutiny.

The second notion of prima facie is a technical use that derives from the moral philosophy of W.D. Ross. He introduced a notion of a prima facie duty in the following way: we have a prima facie duty to keep our promises if every act of promise-keeping is to that extent right—if all actions of promise-keeping are better for it. An action may be a prima facie duty (in virtue of some property it has) in this sense even though it is wrong overall, and so not a ‘duty proper’, in Ross’s terms.

Those who speak of prima facie reasons may do so in either of the above senses, but they should be clear which they intend since the two senses are so different. The main difference is that reasons of the first sort may collapse completely under scrutiny so that something that seemed to be a reason (was a prima facie reason) ceases to be so on further enquiry; those of the second sort always remain as reasons, though they may be over-ridden by stronger prima facie reasons on the other side.[5]

Now Alston is talking about doxastic practices not “reasons,” but it seems to me the point is relevant here. A practice, say that of requiring that a prima facie case be made that a defendant is guilty for a criminal suit to proceed, may be acceptable in either of these senses—it might seem to be acceptable on the face of it, but counter evidence could show it to be unacceptable; or it could always be prima facie acceptable, though over-ridden by stronger considerations on the other side. Clearly (whether talking about reasons, duties, or practices) the “first sense” is much weaker that the “second one.” Which sense is at work here, and what does it take for a practice (or a reason or a duty) to be claimed to be “acceptable” in this stronger sense? Ross provides an argument for duties (and the promise-keeping case seems well established in the stronger sense).

Well, what does Alston appeal to here to “legitimate” his claim that “our established doxastic practices are prima facie acceptable? We seem to have the following:

The argument on pp. 125-126: (1) we can’t investigate the acceptability of a basic practice without accepting some practice, “hence there is no alternative to employing the practices we find to be firmly rooted in our lives, practices we could abandon or replace only with extreme difficulty if at all.” (2) If we could adopt alternative practices, “what possible rationale could there be for such a substitution?” (3) “Hence we are not in a position to get beyond, or behind, our familiar practices and definitively determine their reliability from a deeper or more objective position.” Thus (4) “These considerations seem to me to indicate that it is eminently reasonable for us to form beliefs in the ways we standardly do….At least these considerations yield an initial, prima facie rationality for continuance in such practices, pending sufficient overriding considerations….”

129 “Thus we will follow the lead of Thomas Reid in taking all our established doxastic practices to be acceptable as such, as innocent until proven guilty. They all deserve to be regarded as prima facie rationally engaged in (or ‘acceptable’, as we shall say), pending a consideration of possible reasons for disqualification, reasons we shall go into shortly.”

Here, clearly, it is the second (“stronger”) sense he has in mind!

129-130 This seems clearly reminiscent of Wittgenstein’s orientation discussed in the prior chapter. But whereas Wittgenstein contends that we cannot subject a practice to rational criticism, [130] “though…I insist that we cannot give an adequate noncircular demonstration of the reliability of basic doxastic practices, I do not take that to render them immune from all rational criticism….”

iii Practical Rationality and Reliability:

So far we have half of his argument: that it is practically rational for us to employ our basic doxastic practices such as SP. This is to provide a non-circular justification, of sorts, for the employment of the practice, but it doesn’t speak to the issue of the reliability of the practice. This “half” of the argument is the topic of this section.

130 “…the rationality of a practice does not entail its reliability.”

131 “Nevertheless, I believe that in showing it to be rational to engage in SP, I have thereby, not shown SP to be reliable, but shown it to be rational to suppose SP to be reliable….

“In judging SP to be rational I am thereby committing myself to the rationality of judging SP to be reliable.”

131-132 This is because we are dealing with belief-forming practices—“with many sorts of practices I can take it to be rational to engage in them without supposing them to enjoy the kind of success appropriate to them….to engage in a doxastic practice [however] is to form beliefs in a certain way. And to believe that p is to be committed to its being true….It is irrational to engage in SP, to form beliefs in the ways constitutive of that practice, and to refrain from acknowledging them as true—and hence to refrain from acknowledging the practice as reliable….”

Critical Comment: there is one critical point which is suggested by this passage, however. Here Alston’s argument rests upon the claim that doxastic practices (at least the one of belief-formation) are concerned with truth.[6] It is only thus that he will get the connection to reliability. Now there are two possible critical responses: (a) if we are concerned with truth, then reliability is not enough; and (b) we might be interested in beliefs to attain something other than truth (predictive success, explanations, adaptation to our environment, survival, economic success, etc.).

In a footnote, Alston calls his argument on here one of pragmatic implication and that footnote should be read along with the text which says:

132-133 “But then if I have shown, by my practical argument, that it is rational to engage in SP, I have thereby shown that it is rational to take SP to be reliable. For since the acknowledgement of the rationality of the practice commits one to the rationality of supposing it to be reliable, to provide an adequate argument for the former will be to provide an adequate argument for the latter. Hence our argument from practical rationality, though it does not show that SP is reliable, does show that it is rational to take it to be reliable.”

133 Alston notes that the strength of this argument depends on the options that are available to us. If there are no nonquestion-begging arguments for the reliability of our doxastic practices, then this sort of argument may be the best we can provide!

This does not establish, however, that it is strong enough! If you are interested in high returns, it may be practically rational to believe that your investments in a financial scheme are safe, and practically rational to persuade friends to join in your investment. If it is a “ponzi” scheme, however, it is clear that such “rational plan” is not a reliable one!

Now a lot depend on a variety of factors: clearly the “longness of the run,” and the degree of the reliability all make a difference to the “acceptability” of the practice. Another factor may well be that the “available alternatives” need not be a static set—we might come to encounter new cultures, societies, practices, etc. Moreover, of course, the possible “defeaters” and “enhancers” (see the next two sections) clearly make a difference here. Moreover, as the choice of an “investment practice” should suggest, a lot may depend on one’s tolerance for risk! Should such considerations be relevant in the case of doxastic practices?

iv. Overriders of Prima Facie Rationality:

On p. 124 Alston claims that his argument from practical reason “…recognizes that the intrinsic prima facie rationality of taking SP to be reliable can be overridden by various considerations, and can also be strengthened by what I call ‘significant self-support’. Thus, even though every firmly established doxastic practice has a prima facie claim to be engaged in and to be regarded as rational, that claim is subject, in principle, to being disallowed by certain kinds of negative considerations and to be strengthened by others.” In this section he discusses the overriders, and in the next one he discusses the notion of “self-support.” Together these discussions clarify how the core argument from practical rationality can be weakened or strengthened.

134 “…the most decisive way of nullifying the prima facie rationality of a socially established practice is to show it to be unreliable.”

To demonstrate the unreliability of SP, we would have to appeal to some reliable practice, and this does not look like a possible line of reasoning.

134-135 internal inconsistency would point to a problem regarding reliability—it would suggest that the practice countenances opposite results, and this would certainly tell against the propensity to engender truths. If it is to tell against this prevalent and unavoidable practice, however, the inconsistency is going to have to be massive and persistent. While SP does generate contradictory beliefs, [135] “…I doubt that any of our most basic doxastic practices yield enough mutually contradictory pairs to be disqualified as a rational way of forming beliefs. It is only on a fantastically rigoristic epistemology that one would be deemed irrational in holding perceptual beliefs on the grounds that our ways of forming perceptual beliefs sometimes yield mutually contradictory beliefs.”

136 The Continental Rationalists (and other philosophers) have recommended relying upon reason rather than sense perception—they have even claimed that it is more rational to rely upon rational intuition than upon sense perception. Alston contends that their argument might be epistemically circular however.

136-137 If we are trying to choose between different practices he recommends that we adhere to a “…conservative principle that one should give preference to the more firmly established practice.”

137 Where there are conflicts amongst practices (for example: memory and sense perception), we don’t usually conclude either is wholly unreliable!

137 Doxastic practices can fall into disuse, however—especially if they conflict which more established practices (magic, divination, etc.).

v. Significant Self-Support:

Where we are dealing with prima facie rationality, defeaters can be deadly, but such rationality may also be enhanced!

138 Alston claims that SP supports its own claims by:

making predictions which turn out to be true, and

by allowing us to develop an overall scientific account which explains how the senses operate and indicates why SP is reliable.

Other practices, like crystal-ball gazing don’t have such support.

139 Alston claims that memory, introspection, rational intuition, and various kinds of reasoning are all doxastic practices which can claim similar self-support. Of course, if we are careful, we see that these practices are intertwined—we can’t talk of predictive success if we confine ourselves to SP, we need memory as well! Moreover, we will probably also need at least some species of reasoning! Here, again, we have circularity, so Alston does not take the support being offered here as in any way independent!

Critical Comment: of course the fact that our common doxastic practices “intertwine and support one another” only provides a sort of “coherence justification”—it doesn’t by itself tell in favor of their reliability. Here, again, then the question of why coherence is to be positive for practices while not being positive for beliefs arises.

139-140 Summary.

(end of text)

Overall Assessment:

To do an appropriate assessment, we first need to be clear on the goals. Three passages are important here:

p. 1: why suppose that any of the bases on which we regularly and unquestionably form beliefs are reliable, can be relied on to yield mostly true beliefs? The fact that we continually form beliefs in these ways with the utmost confidence shows that we are strongly disposed to believe that these familiar sources are reliable. But do we, or can we, have any solid reason for this assurance? Is it a groundless faith, an “animal faith”….

16: on my view, a belief is justified if and only if it is based on an adequate ground; that is,, it is necessary only that the ground be adequate, not that the subject know or justifiably believe this, much less that the subject know or justifiably believe that all requirements of justification are satisfied….SP must be reliable if I am to be justified in holding perceptual beliefs, but I don’t have to be justified in supposing this to be the case.

17: …if sense perception is reliable, a track record argument will suffice to show that it is. Epistemic circularity does not in and of itself disqualify the argument. But even granting that point, the [epistemically circular] argument will not do its job unless we are justified in accepting its premises; and that is the case only if sense perception is in fact reliable. This is to offer stone instead of bread….We can just as well say of crystal ball gazing that if it is reliable, we can use a track record argument to show it is reliable. But when we ask whether ore or another source of belief is reliable, we are interested in discriminating those that can reasonably be trusted from those that cannot. Hence merely showing that if a given source is reliable it can be shown by its record to be reliable, does nothing to indicate that the source belongs with the sheep rather than with the goats….Hence I shall disqualify epistemically circular arguments on the grounds that they do not serve to discriminate between reliable and unreliable doxastic practices.

As an externalist, he doesn’t need to write the book—all he needs is for SP to be reliable!

But, what he offers is not that it is such—instead he offers the claim that it is practically rational to employ the practice, and that it is practically rational to believe that the practice reliably causes beliefs. In short, his claim amounts to it being practically rational to believe that SP is reliable. But this not enough! If one wants reliability, one can’t settle for beliefs produced by practices which are basic for us, which have no alternative, and which it is practically rational for us to believe to be reliable!

As an internalist, he can’t settle for an argument which is epistemically circular, and can’t settle for “stone” rather than “bread.” Instead he needs a solid reason for his assurance that SP is reliable.

But does “the fact that it is practically reasonable to believe SP is reliable” provide a sufficiently strong reason for “believing it is reliable?” It doesn’t seem so.