tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post6420512673015828896..comments2024-03-27T08:33:11.834-07:00Comments on There is some truth in that: Knowing about Sexual Assault, Having Enough Evidence, and the Contextualist FallacyJonathan Jenkins Ichikawahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05260245860017778409noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-22826687758153392222016-01-22T15:56:30.599-08:002016-01-22T15:56:30.599-08:00Hi Jonathan, thanks for replying, though you didn’...Hi Jonathan, thanks for replying, though you didn’t really respond to my question. I’d take your class or read that book, but I’ve got my own to teach/finish right now – you know how it is. Maybe just give me the jist of why there's a puzzle here, and not just word play?<br /><br />I don’t see my point as implausibly sceptical. But if you really know something to be true because three people told you, me and two friends have a fantastic swampland real estate opportunity to pitch to you sometime. Or maybe this goes back to that old Stephen Colbert comment about the difference between knowing something in your brain and knowing it in your gut? Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-10895115290771781372016-01-22T11:37:31.318-08:002016-01-22T11:37:31.318-08:00Again, I think that the view that I don't &quo...Again, I think that the view that I don't "really know" things like this is implausibly skeptical. This is something I go into in depth in my course on epistemology. I recommend ch. 6 of Jennifer Nagel's "Knowledge: A Very Short Introduction" for a fuller exploration of the issues.Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05260245860017778409noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-14816091013486815312016-01-21T21:11:36.757-08:002016-01-21T21:11:36.757-08:00Ha! Thanks for the quick reply. I love this stuff....Ha! Thanks for the quick reply. I love this stuff. I don't think I understand any more what the "genuine epistemological puzzle" is here yet. When you have a second, I'd love to get it cleared up.<br />But does your meeting analogy make your point? I'm not sure it does. What I mean is, you don't *know* where tomorrow's meeting is, do you? It hasn't happened yet so you can't be certain it'll happen there, the person who told you could be wrong, there could be a typo in the email, or there could be a conspiracy to keep you out of the meeting to avoid you casting your vote. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-77978319446686804462016-01-21T21:01:27.565-08:002016-01-21T21:01:27.565-08:00I think that it's implausibly skeptical to sup...I think that it's implausibly skeptical to suppose that we never know, but merely believe, things when three people tell us about them. I think I know where the meeting I'm attending tomorrow will be held, for instance, even though only one person has told me. (If someone asks, "Jonathan, do you know where the meeting is?", I don't think I should say "no" on the grounds that I'm relying on somebody else's word.)Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05260245860017778409noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-36863600571632436622016-01-21T20:58:43.744-08:002016-01-21T20:58:43.744-08:00Hi Jonathan, thanks for a fun post. It's alway...Hi Jonathan, thanks for a fun post. It's always nice to see colleagues playing out ideas in public fora like this. <br />But I'm not convinced that what you've done here isn't just word play. What I mean is, isn't a substantial part of the purported puzzle here the unreasonable equation of 'believe' and 'know'? That is, when three people tell you that they saw something, you don't know it but you likely and mostly believe it.<br />Similarly, in your set-up, it doesn't sound like you *know* that the rope bridge can hold your weight - but you mostly *believe* that it can and you figure that even if it can't, it's not a disaster because of the boardwalk. <br />What's the "genuine epistemological puzzle" here? Am I mangling the problem?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-15875759710973195312016-01-19T20:21:38.114-08:002016-01-19T20:21:38.114-08:00This is right; it's an important part of my po...This is right; it's an important part of my point. Did you mean to be disagreeing?Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05260245860017778409noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-28075622809653471822016-01-19T14:46:55.227-08:002016-01-19T14:46:55.227-08:00While I agree with the argument that this was a co...While I agree with the argument that this was a contextual fallacy, if the author went to court to testify that he "knew" the student had committed rape because of reports by other students, his testimony would be stricken or denied as a case of "hearsay." Thus, legally, he could not testify and get it accepted. Morally, that's another matter, and he might be sure of what the students told him and has reached his own moral conclusion, but legally it is not enough.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-20160632047957561832016-01-19T13:17:53.662-08:002016-01-19T13:17:53.662-08:00Sure, that's a substantive and important quest...Sure, that's a substantive and important question, and one about which there can be reasonable disagreement.Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05260245860017778409noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-74561206770508307812016-01-19T13:07:05.317-08:002016-01-19T13:07:05.317-08:00True, you haven't stipulated any of the releva...True, you haven't stipulated any of the relevant details. But I suspect that in many cases in which these disagreements come up, the difference of opinion is at least as likely to arise from a different idea of what satisfies the burden of proof *in that case or case-type* as it is to have arisen from a confusion about different epistemic contexts.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-17534777506860453782016-01-19T10:31:03.893-08:002016-01-19T10:31:03.893-08:00The first paragraph sounded good. I didn't und...The first paragraph sounded good. I didn't understand the second paragraph, though, since I thought we were talking in the abstract about there being some possible cases. How can my interlocutors disagree with me about what has occurred in these hypothetical cases? We've stipulated none of the relevant details.Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05260245860017778409noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-88916832367161405612016-01-19T06:52:13.586-08:002016-01-19T06:52:13.586-08:00I also think this distinction is useful for not ge...I also think this distinction is useful for not getting too pissed about the verdicts of certain cases. Basically, this is how I understand the Trayvon Martin case: it was (arguably) decided correctly, since there was room for reasonable doubt, even though I believe, and maybe even know, that Zimmerman was guilty. I was still pissed that that schmuck got off, but less pissed than many others. And of course there are many other cases that are just blatant miscarriages of justice. The US system is *designed* to let many guilty people go free, because we want to minimize (roughly) the number of innocent people who are convicted.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5673382.post-13595810016445361322016-01-18T22:16:49.638-08:002016-01-18T22:16:49.638-08:00Hi, Jonathan.
Interesting. But I suspect many of...Hi, Jonathan. <br /><br />Interesting. But I suspect many of these people are thinking something like the following: there are contexts (like the legal one) where a very high standard of evidence must be met, and other contexts where a less high, but still fairly high, standard must be met (e.g. the context of taking somewhat less serious action against the accused). There are some cases in which there is enough evidence to meet both standards, some cases in which there is not enough evidence for either, and some cases in which there is enough for the latter but not for the former.<br /><br />Possibly, it seems, the difference between you and some of your interlocutors is not that they fail to recognize the significance of the different context, but that you feel that, in the less serious context, the evidential burden has been met, while they think it hasn't been met for that same context.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com