Keep hanging in there . . .

Phil 102: Introduction to

Philosophy:
“Knowledge & Reality”
A sampler of questions and issues

Professor Amy M. Schmitter, Department of Philosophy

 Upcoming Events . . .
Philosophy Department Colloquium
Thursday, March 9, 3:30-5:30 (MST)
Location: hybrid: Philosophy Department seminar room (Assiniboia
Hall 2-02A) and Zoom
Everyone welcome!

Abstract: Maya Goldenberg (2022) argues that laypersons are more likely to have
epistemic trust in scientific experts when scientists and scientific institutions demonstrate
i) epistemic competency, ii) moral reliability, and iii) a commitment to the public interest.
It is often assumed that public skepticism about particular areas of science (e.g., research
on climate change or on the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 treatments and vaccines) is
the result of false beliefs about the state of scientific evidence or the epistemic
“Understanding the competency of certain methodologies. Thus, scientists and philosophers of science often
focus on defending or improving the actual or perceived epistemic competency of
Role of Non- scientific research to promote public acceptance and trust. Yet the ethical dimensions of
epistemic trust (moral reliability and a commitment to the public interest) are often
Epistemic Values in neglected and can play more significant roles in public acceptance or rejection of science.
Moral reliability and a commitment to the public interest require researchers to engage
Trusting Scientists” with stakeholders about non-epistemic values and to conduct research in ways that can
promote stakeholder wellbeing. How best to do this is considered, given complex
(Professor Intemann will present
challenges related to: 1) disagreement among stakeholders about non-epistemic values and
on Zoom, with the audience in the 2) concerns that aspects of moral reliability, such as transparency and honesty, may
Assiniboia Hall 2-02A, or on actually exacerbate unwarranted distrust amongst those whose trust in experts is already
Zoom) "fragile" (John 2018).
Speaker: Kristen Intemann is a Professor of Philosophy and Director for the Center for
Science, Technology, Ethics & Society at Montana State University in the U.S. Her Zoom
research focuses on values in science, epistemic trust, science communication, and public ID:
engagement with science. She has published in both philosophy and science journals and
her book, co-authored with Inmaculada de Melo-Martin is The Fight Against Doubt: How 920 6023 5649
to Bridge the Gap between Scientists and the Public, (Oxford University Press, 2018) Passcode:
470504

March 16 – a colloquium talk in political philosophy

March 23 – Annual Public Lecture
March 24 – Roundtable on the history of philosophy
March 30 – Honours Workshop
March 31 – a colloquium talk in epistemology and epistemics
 Your 3rd Assignment is coming
up . . .
Ø Asks you to think about the (significant) similarities and differences
between 2 philosophers;
Ø Let me see if I can clarify one point of comparison (and contrast)
between Sextus and Descartes:
• Consider how they each contrast waking and dreaming
experience – what Sextus would consider appearances when
awake and appearances when asleep.
• Descartes’s hyperbolic dreaming doubt holds that we cannot be
certain (“there are no sure signs”) which state we are in,
• And therefore, we cannot be certain whether our experience is
reliable . . .
• But that assumes that waking experience is reliable (or at least it
doesn’t question it).
v That is different from what Sextus says about “the fourth mode.”
ü Any questions about the assignment?
 Plan for this week
´ This week we will cover some more skeptical doubts – but of a different
kind:
´ Concerning cause and effect
´ And whether we (ultimately) can find the connection between them.
´ Both al-Ghazali & Hume raise serious doubts about our ability to
do so.
Hume is ´ Causation is an important topic in philosophy:
particularly ´ In metaphysics – the “nature” of causation
concerned ´ Al-Ghazali suggests a fairly extreme view about the nature of
with causation.
testimony
(particularly ´ In epistemology – the importance of causal “reasoning.”
written ´ Which Hume both stresses and gives a “skeptical” account of.
reports) of ´ We will also talk (briefly!) about causation and its (possible) relation to
miracles another source of knowledge:
(understood
´ Testimony -- meaning what people say (assert)
as breaches in
usual causal ´ A very important source of beliefs
patterns). ´ And sometimes of knowledge?
´ Hume and Lackey raise the question about how to interpret beliefs and
knowledge derived from testimony
 Some biographical & historical stuff
´ Abū Hāmid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazālī (c.1056–1111)
´ Born in Tabarān-Tūs (in present-day Iran);
´ Particularly important for Sunni philosophy and religion.
´ Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahāfut al-falāsifa) (c. 1095 on)
´ critique of 20 positions of “falsafa” (accepting, rejecting modifying)
´ That is, a tradition of Aristotelian (and some neo-Platonist)
philosophy, practiced by pagan, Islamic, Christian and Jewish
thinkers – including Ibn-Sīnā (Avicenna) (c. 970–1037)
´ Influenced many later philosophers (including Jewish and Christian
ones), e.g., Ibn Rushd – Averroës – who wrote The Incoherence of the
Incoherence (Tahâfut al-tahâfut))
´ David Hume (1711-1776)
´ Great Britain’s favorite philosopher!
´ Born, lived and worked in Edinburgh; spent some formative years in France.
´ Philosopher, historian, social scientist, essayist, town planner, etc.
´ A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–1740)
´ Enquiry concerning Human Understanding (1748) and Enquiry
concerning the Principles of Morals (1751)
v Fun fact! Al-Ghazālī wanted to support the possibility of miracles, while Hume
wanted to argue that there can be no justification for believing them.
 Causation
´ What are some examples of cause-and-effect relations?

´ “quenching thirst and drinking, satisfying hunger and eating, burning and
contact with fire, light and sunrise, death and decapitation, healing and
drinking medicine, relaxing the bowels and taking a purgative and so forth for
all the things which are observed to be connected in medicine, astronomy, the
arts, and the crafts” (Al-Ghazali, p. 278).
´ What is the relation between the “cause” and the “effect”?
´ The cause produces the effect
. . . brings about . . .
. . . makes happen . . .
. . . is a condition for . . .
´ How?
´ Some sort of power or agency in the cause?
´ Physical forces, such as combustion, gravity
´ But there’s also
´ Mental causation (sense-perception, intentional action)
´ Divine causation (at least as a concept)
 Causal Reasoning
´ Even if we don’t know what makes causal connections, we can track causal
relations
´ And infer (make a reasoning move) about what will happen, what did
happen, or what is happening now on the basis of causal relations.
IF . . . Then . . .

or

´ “All reasonings concerning matter of fact seem to be founded on the relation

of Cause and Effect. By means of that relation alone we can go beyond the
evidence of our memory and senses” (Hume, ECHU, sec. iv)
´ Inferring from cause to effect or effect to cause is crucial and indispensable to
our understanding of the world (and our ability to make our way through it).
´ Causal relations are the glue that allow us to connect experiences, objects, and
of events together to build up a picture of the world.
 Al-Ghazālī’s challenge to the
necessity of causality
´ Al-Ghazali does not deny that causal relations are very important to
our understanding of the world:
“If we could not rely on familiar causal connections, then “I do not
know what is now in my house. The only thing I know is that I left a
book in my house, but perhaps by now it has turned into a horse which
dirties my library with its urine and excrement, and I have left in my
house a jar of water which, perhaps, has changed into an apple tree.”
´ (Note that he attributes these words to his opponent, but concedes
the point.)
´ But he denies that there is any necessary connection between cause
and effect:
“The connection between what is customarily believed to be a cause and
what is believed to be an effect is not necessary, according to our
opinion; but each of the two [namely, cause and effect] is independent of
the other.”
 Al-Ghazālī’s challenge to the
epistemology of causality

´ And he thinks that we don’t really understand any ties between

Actually, cause and effect:
Al-Ghazali
thinks that ´ Take the “burning of cotton when it is in contact with fire.”
we can ´ Anybody who thinks there is something in the fire that is the acting
even have cause
knowledge “has no other proof except the observation that burning occurs
that the
when there is contact with fire. However, observation only proves
usual
causes will that one occurs together with the other, but it does not prove that
be one occurs through [the agency of] the other.”
followed ´ It is possible “that there should be contact between the two without
by the
burning and . . . that cotton should be turned into ashes without
usual
effects [having] contact with fire.”
because ´ But possible here simply means conceivable – not that we believe
of God this.
and habit.
 Al-Ghazālī’s metaphysics of Causality:
Occasionalism
´ “we say that it is God Who, either through the intermediation of angels or
without any intermediation, is the acting cause of burning by creating
blackness in the cotton, dividing it into its parts, making it burn, or
[turning it into] ashes. Fire, however, is inanimate and does not have any
action.” (p. 280, my emphasis)
Ø This introduces the worry that all (causal) bets are off, and anything
could happen . . .
´ “If the existence of the possible [implies] that no knowledge of its
Possibility non-existence is possible, “these absurdities will necessarily follow.”.
does not ´ “But we are not in doubt about the cases that you have described.
imply Indeed, God has created within us knowledge that he will not bring
actuality. about everything that is possible, and we do not assert that
everything possible will necessarily come to be. . . .
´ On the contrary, [we have asserted that] they are possible [whereby
we mean that] they may happen or they may not happen. . . .
contingency
´ But if something happens habitually time after time, its [habitual]
course will be firmly rooted in our minds in accordance with the
Knowledge habitual past occurrence in such a way that it cannot be removed
of from [the mind].”
contingent ´ Al Ghazālī’s position: God actively causes all events (God is the only
actualities active cause) on the occasion of certain events in the world,
´ Which is the basis for familiar causal patterns or laws.
 Back to Al-Ghazālī’s challenge to
the epistemology of causality
´ Take the “burning of cotton when it is in contact with fire.”
´ Anybody who thinks there is something in the fire that is
the acting cause
“has no other proof except the observation that burning
occurs when there is contact with fire. However,
observation only proves that one occurs together with
the other, but it does not prove that one occurs through
[the agency of] the other.”
´ We can imagine “that there should be contact between the two
without burning and . . . that cotton should be turned into
ashes without [having] contact with fire.”
´ (. . . even if we do not believe this will happen.)
´ Both al-Ghazali and Hume argue that we do not see any
But post hoc
power that connects the cause to the effect. does not
´ All we see is one thing following another (“conjunction”). entail
propter hoc!
 Hume’s similar challenge to the
epistemology of causality
Ø It is possible and conceivable that familiar causal relations do not
hold:
“The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible; because it can
never imply a contradiction, and is conceived by the mind with the
same facility and distinctness, as if ever so conformable to reality.
That the sun will not rise to-morrow is no less intelligible a
proposition, and implies no more contradiction than the
affirmation, that it will rise” (ECHU 4.2).
´ And the reasoning is very similar . . . It is because we can find no
necessary connection between cause and effect.
Instead, “the effect is totally different from the cause, and
consequently can never be discovered in it” (ECHU 4.9).
´ This is true even of the simplest and most basic causal connection:
“Motion in the second Billiard-ball is a quite distinct event from
motion in the first; nor is there anything in the one to suggest the
smallest hint of the other. . . .
“Motion in the second Billiard-ball is a quite distinct event from motion in the
first; nor is there anything in the one to suggest the smallest hint of the other. . . .
´When I see, for instance, a Billiard-ball
moving in a straight line towards
another; even suppose motion in the
second ball should by accident be
suggested to me, as the result of their
contact or impulse; may I not conceive,
that a hundred different events might as
well follow from that cause? May not
both these balls remain at absolute rest?
May not the first ball return in a straight
line, or leap off from the second in any
line or direction? All these suppositions
are consistent and conceivable. (ECHU
4.9-10).

• Because "every effect is a distinct event from its cause,” we can think of the cause
(or the effect) separately from the effect (or cause),
• Nor can we find anything in the cause to connect it to the effect (or vice-versa).
• Instead, it takes experience to make the connection.
 Hume’s New Challenge
for causal reasoning
´ Hume raises a new question in Part II of Section 4:
´ Reasonings about matter of fact à relations of cause &
effect.
This is ´ Reasonings about causal relations à Experience.
sometimes Ø But . . . what is the foundation of conclusions from
called experience?
“inductive Ø In other words, what justifies our reliance on past
inference” experience to reason (infer, predict) about causal relations
now and in the future?
v That requires an inference from “I have found that such
an object has always been attended with such an effect,
[to . . . ] I foresee, that other objects, which are, in
appearance, similar, will be attended with similar
effects” (p. 34).
v So, what reason could we have for thinking that past
experience is a guide or standard for the future?
 A distinction in reason (“Hume’s Fork”)
´ Two kinds of reasoning:
1. Demonstrative (based on “relations of ideas”)
´ Can be known a priori:
“That the square of the hypothenuse is equal to the square of
the two sides, is a proposition which expresses a relation
between these figures. . . . Propositions of this kind are
discoverable by the mere operation of thought, without
dependence on what is anywhere existent in the universe.”
(ECHU 4.1)
´ The contrary is inconceivable because it would be contradictory
(and thus impossible).
2. Matter-of-fact or “moral” (based on cause-and-effect):
“knowledge of this relation is not, in any instance, attained by
Which reasonings a priori; but arises entirely from experience, when we
doesn’t find that any particular objects are constantly conjoined with
mean that each other.” (ECHU 4.6)
they are ´ Hume’s skeptical arguments show that the reliance on experience
irrational . . . cannot be justified by either kind of reasoning.
´ And so there is no rational basis for causal inferences: “our conclusions
from . . . experience are not founded on reasoning, or any process of
the understanding.” (EHCU 4.15)
The skeptical argument 1: no basis in
demonstrative reason . . .

´ Reasoning must be either demonstrative or matter-of-fact:

´ There can be no demonstration (proof) that the future will
conform to the past:
“That there are no demonstrative arguments in the case
seems evident; since it implies no contradiction that the
course of nature may change, and that an object,
seemingly like those which we have experienced, may be
attended with different or contrary effects” (ECHU 4.18)
ü We can even imagine such changes.

´ What about matter-of-fact (causal) arguments?

´ These are arguments about what is likely . . .
´ Somebody might say ‘well, I have always found that my
experience of causal relations serves me well in new
situations . . . ’
´ Or perhaps, ‘we have always found that people who learn
from experience do better than those who don’t.’
 The skeptical argument 2: no basis in
matter-of-fact reason
´ These are arguments that rely on past experience and assume that the
future will resemble the past.
´ So too does: ‘In all past experience, the future has resembled the
past, therefore the future will continue to resemble the past.”
´ This assumes that nature will remain uniform (with the future
resembling the past).
• “all inferences from experience suppose, as their foundation, that
the future will resemble the past, and that similar powers will be
Indeed, conjoined with similar sensible qualities.
this would • If there be any suspicion that the course of nature may change,
be the and that the past may be no rule for the future, all experience
fallacy of becomes useless, and can give rise to no inference or conclusion.
“begging
• It is impossible, therefore, that any arguments from experience
the
can prove this resemblance of the past to the future; since all these
question”
arguments are founded on the supposition of that resemblance.”
(assuming (ECHU 4.19).
what you
seek to ´ Trying to use them to justify relying on experience for the future is
prove). circular.
Next time:

´ Hume’s skeptical solution to his skeptical problem

about the basis for our causal reasoning
´ Hume on why it’s not rational to believe in miracles
´ As a matter of the credence we put into
“testimony”
´ A few pointers from Jennifer Lackey about how to
understand testimony and the importance of learning
from others to have a picture of the world.