Philosophy15 Episode 48: Epicurean Epistemology

alright folks this is philosophy 15 these are short philosophical conversations between two philosophers namely myself Robert Elise and myself static oh yeah we are collectively the authors of why we argue and how we should this is now in its second expanded edition there's no material new chapters fully revised updated examples we are also the authors of this year book pragmatism pluralism and the nature of philosophy which is about what the title says it's about today that we want to pick up on the episode that we just concluded where we were using a ancient debate involving the Epicureans as a kind of model of poorly run philosophic iterated philosophical disputation and something had come out in our discussion of that as this example of a kind of poorly run debate that the Epicureans actually have a very peculiar epistemology that Scott's gonna then describe for us and I'm just going to react incredulous oh Epicurus and the Epicureans thought that it was important for you to have a criterion for truth the epicurean view is a pretty revisionary view about how to live your life so that you know that the world's just atoms and void and you shouldn't fear the gods and you shouldn't fear death those are pretty significant revisions to the things that we normally believe so you need to have a really good criterion for you to be able to say to be really sure if you're going to make those revisions don't fear the gods don't fear death you need to be really sure about those things so they needed a good criterion and the Epicureans were very famously empiricists and their empiricism was a particularly extreme stripe that they had said that the that all sense impressions are true and that seems like a surprising because it looks like it's sort of ripe for all sorts of counter examples just a quick motivation for the view as opposed to just saying hey there empiricist so they had so they said something surprising Epicurus just had thought that look the reality is that we're physical beings the way that we get information about the world is with it sort of bumping up against us and us bumping up against it and so our sensations are the way that we get information and that we that we kind of build those up into into knowledge if sensation is our only source of information about the world then all of the sensations are always going to be on the same level in terms of their imperious teamuk quality in terms of us being able to distinguish one for the other nut they all they're all on the same epistemic level at the beginning so the thought is that if that's the case and that's our only source of knowledge then the consequence is that they all have to be true because if they're one if one subset of them is is is is not not reliable and the other subset is if there's going to have knowledge we had to have sorted it but that's our only criterion for being able to sort them so they all have to be true if there's knowledge that's sometimes called the parity argument from Epicurus okay so hallucinations been sticks and water the Doppler effect I mean there all kinds of cases that are very obvious where it looks like it's it's got to be wrong to say that the sense impression well it might be wrong for other reasons this a sense impressions can be true or false rather than propositions so great let's say one thing there I ban that a sense impression can have the property of being true or not seems already is already surprised right because so yeah we would say something like since impressions and in fact this is in fact one of the strategies that they that they that they make the that is that they think is in their favor so the way that empiric Eurus argues is he says well look take for example the fact of a hallucination or a dream someone behaves a certain way because of the fact that they've got impressions that are of certain type and here's the thing it's true that they r-right why because that explains why the person who's dreaming that they're being attacked by dogs is yelling get off me Rover or whatever they yell whatever you train you're being attacked by dogs or that if or that someone who has a hallucination thinks they see a pink elephant because they report pink elephants and they act as though they've seen pink elephants that they have to be real the sense impressions have to be real in order for them to explain the behavior of the folks that undergoing them and so as a consequence the Epicureans then say look that's that's evidence for the fact that they truly are that's an equivocation I'll write that the sense impressions truly are seems to me correct yes and maybe trivial hmm right it's not a sense impression unless it is the impression of some sense that is actual right but that's different from saying what sounds to me neither trivial nor possibly true that sense impressions are themselves true got it so the objection is that we I've switched between truly are and are true right right there's a kind of scope ambiguity or something like that that and so this was in fact one of the objections that sexist empirica had made against the Epicurean good company good company and sex to see had said that it he thought that a number of other skeptics before him had made a version of this objection he reports that the the Epicureans then make another distinction so they say okay well look you're right that that be being that that you might say reality and truth are getting confused here right here's another line that the skeptics or I'm sorry the the the Epicureans and have in response to this objection the Epicureans and say well look the way that sense impressions work take for example vision is that objects have their skins or I'm sorry objects sort of have our our and then they give off skins that are perfect replicas of themselves this is how vision works that things give off these perfect replica skins that then come up and hit your eye and make an impression on you and so the consequence is that whenever you say I'm confusing reality and truth the theory of perception that drives the epicurean empiricism says yeah but that's not a confusion given the way that the theory works that we've got a theory about the fact that the impressions are coming off the things and are and are right and they're artists is in fact where there is Nisour there being is in fact a testament to their truth yeah this this sounds so confused to me tell me why so a couple reasons so even if we think that a signet ring and the way a signet ring works is that it is an accurate representation of some signature that somebody is put on a piece of paper such that the signet ring gets dipped in wax and embosses or impresses itself on some other piece of paper and is this how significant even know if the system [Laughter] works like a stamp not in the ancient world oddly I know who wrote Waverly so you know okay the signet ring is a representation of a person's signature it imposes an image of that signature on whatever it presses up against it still seems to me to just be a kind of category error to say that the signet ring is therefore true it's got it so this is a is one different way what do the what is it that the Epicureans call the property that belongs to certain sentences that we non Epicureans want to identify as the property if it is a property of truth it looks to me like if we're using the word true in this way that the impressions are this the skins are these exact copies and they are so they're being is their truth we say something like that then it looks like okay now we just need a name for this other thing that sentences can have or fail to have right that others are just calling truth and falsity but now you've used the word true it's not clear what what could possibly be false by the way on this epicurean view we're using the word true for this other category of thing well okay what do they say when when when the epicurean reports his view and says that it's worthy of being believed right what is that worthy of being believed miss property right so the first point is that again in some ways you saying that that given the way that the Epicureans have defined the situation it makes it's impossible that any of the impressions could be false and the epicurean says your objection is just beautifully stating our view right yes you think right if you think that the predicate this is it has to have a contrast dude yeah but has it contrasted but it's always going to be with beliefs so since impressions are always true it's only with beliefs that you end up with with a misrepresentation of what's of what it is that you have a sense impression that's always going to be representing what is and it is what is it can't come from what's false it can't come from what's not right that's that it's a kind of ex nihilo kind of principle and as a consequence all of your sense impressions are going to be registers of what is and so as a consequence they can't help but be that right and so given given what sense impressions are they will always be registers of what's true what where falsity comes in is that whenever you start making inferences from that that are not representative of what's true so it's in opinion that the in an in opinion that goes beyond what's supported by the empirical evidence so again the Koreans want to say look we are we're the real empiricists here we're the ones who says look it where's for where's falsity and where you go beyond what the experiences tell you so falsity doesn't falsity doesn't obtained in impressions falsity only obtains in police or in opinions right there's a there's a way to make that a perfectly respectable empiricist view yes when you say oh well all the all the Epicureans mean by saying well sense impressions are true is that when you are giving a first personal avowal said here now yeah I am in pain that looks Apple ish to me then you're incorrigible right and that's that looks like a sort of garden-variety empiricists kind of like here's a way to be infallible just always just always always in debt always index to first personal avowal stuff first personal reportage and if you're sticking to actually the the actual content of the first personal phenomena you're always right and and falsity comes in when you avow something that stretches beyond what's contained in the first personal what it's like yes and you've nailed the third objection you've nailed the third skeptical objection which is that the skeptics then said hola sexist Americas so you're still in good company sexist empirica said fine I'll give you that but now you don't get to say every now you don't get to say with certainty that everything's just atoms and void good you don't have you like your fundamental ontology just fell out empiricist right now you're just a phenomenal estate and so the consequence is that and notice by the way that the whole way that the empiric uriens had justified their empiricism was on the basis of their fundamental ontology right right and so the so sexist empirica says you've just evacuated your view and peer Epicureans we've come full circle we've got three possibilities for this view and these objections all don't know anyone objection doesn't nail any one of the three right the objections are sort of to each one instance of the view but the objections just push them around in this in this case and it looks like and sexist empirical just pulls back and says once we've seen this we've seen that the Epicurean has just evacuated their fundamental ontology that was supposed to be the justification for the view there's no reason for them to be the empiricists that they say they are because now that now they don't have the theory of human nature they don't have the fury of what is that's supposed to make them empiricist why are they what they are they don't have any justification for even accepting this as the criterion right it's sort of philosophical wacom all yes that's good Cicero by the way was whenever he reviewed a version of this he said the empiric URIs parried a parried one blow to only make himself available to a much heavier one and that's by the way is a sort of a good reason why again this sort of philosophical whack Amole is that what the reason why it happens is because of the fact that if you're not keeping track of where the positions are right you can you can answer an objection that's here now and something like that but if you don't value you might say the progressive the thinking of ascent in dialectics as a cent right being able to see dialectics as making progress as opposed to just merely self-defense against somebody saying it's naesang then you end up with this sort of wacky put getting pushed around philosophical whack-a-mole as you said philosophy 15 folks thanks for tuning in right on

Channel: Philosophy15

Views: 169

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Epistemology, Epicurus, Empiricism

Id: KPalQOxB-LI

Length: 15min 12sec (912 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 28 2018