Thursday, March 19, 2015

Perceptual Justification and the Logic of 'Because'

Here's an invalid argument form:

  1. If x is F, then that's because x is G.
  2. If x is G, then x is H. Therefore,
  3. If x is F, then that's because x is H.
This instance should make it obvious that this form is invalid, if it's not already obvious:

  1. If Laila got an A, then that's because she received a total score of 80 or higher.
  2. If Laila received a total score of 80 or higher, then she passed the course. Therefore,
  3. If Laila got an A, then that's because she passed the course.
I'm not sure just what inferences are valid in the logic of this sort of 'because', but this one isn't. If there were an appropriate 'because' in premise (2), then transitivity of 'because' would establish the validity of the inference. I'm not sure whether I think 'because' is transitive'. But it's not closed under the material conditional, or even entailment.

So I think that Eli Chudnoff is mistaken in supposing that these two arguments support the idea that perceptual and intuitive justification obtains in virtue of phenomenology:
  1. If your perceptual experience representing that p justifies you in believing that p, then it does so because in having this experience it is for you just like having a perceptual experience that puts you in a position to know that p.
  2. If in having an experience it is for you just like having a perceptual experience that puts you in a position to know that p, then it has presentational phenomenology with respect to p.
  3. So if your perceptual experience representing that p justifies you in believing that p, then it does so because it has presentational phenomenology with respect to p. (Intuition, p. 92)
  1. If your intuition experience representing that p justifies you in believing that p, then it does so because in having that experience it is for you just like having an intuition experience that puts you in a position to know that p.
  2. If in having an experience it is for you just like having an intuition experience that puts you in a position to know that p, then it has presentational phenomenology with respect to p.
  3. So if your intuition experience representing that p justifies you in believing that p, then it does so because it has presentational phenomenology with respect to p. (Intuition, p. 97)
These arguments are invalid. The validity would, I think, be debatable if each premise (2) were strengthened into a 'because' claim. Maybe that is the most charitable interpretation of Eli here?
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3 comments:

  1. Unknown4/01/2015 07:54:00 AM

    Hi Jonathan. I just bumped into this. You make a good point. I would be happy strengthening (2) to an identity claim. Maybe: having an experience that seems to put you in a position to know that p just is having an experience that has presentational phenomenology with respect to p.

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  2. Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa4/05/2015 04:51:00 PM

    Thanks Eli, that's interesting. Your suggestion would certainly make the inference more valid. But it seems now like an awfully strong premise.

    Presentational phenomenology is meant to require de re awareness of a truthmaker for the fact, doesn't it? (I don't have your book in front of me at the moment, but I seem to remember something like that.) But it seems like many experiences that don't do that could seem to put me in a position to know that p. For example, the experience of hearing someone's testimony that p.

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  3. Unknown4/12/2015 08:52:00 AM

    I think there is a difference between how perceiving that p makes it seem to you as if it puts you in a position to know that p and how receiving testimony that p makes it seem yo you as if it puts you in a position to know that p. Well, I'm not sure the experience of testimony itself really makes it seem that way. Maybe you have the experience of receiving testimony, and it does seem to you as if you are in a position to know that p, but that seeming is not part of the phenomenology of receiving testimony. I'm not sure. So let's just assume that it is for now. Still, I think there is a key difference. In the perceptual case it is as if your experience itself gives you the knowledge. I don't think one has that in the testimony case. Perhaps in the testimony case it is as if your experience gives you access to someone else's knowledge. I'm not sure how best to put this in independent terms. But I expect many would recognize some sort of felt difference between confronting the facts for oneself and getting information about the facts from another. In introducing the idea of presentational phenomenology I'm trying to give some structure to the first sort of experience. I quote Descartes earlier in the book--where he distinguishes intuition from authority and inference. The authority case is testimony. The contrast with inference also raises interesting issues I get into somewhat and am writing a bit more about now.

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