Answer of the Day...
I previously asked.
How does the epiphenomenalist manage to give names to, and describe relations between, his epiphenomena?
It now occurs to me that I have an answer: he guesses.
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I previously asked.
How does the epiphenomenalist manage to give names to, and describe relations between, his epiphenomena?
It now occurs to me that I have an answer: he guesses.
I have been trying for some time to try and succintly explain how a nonjustificationist theory of rationality can work, and quite unsuccessfully. It occurs to me now that the problem, or at least part of the problem, can be attributed to some lingering confusion over the apparent arbitrariness of our choices, which in turn arises from a difference between the subjective and objective conceptions of knowledge. I often claim that knowledge is unjustified, possibly true, and occasionally belief, a downright bizarre claim for anyone well-versed in traditional epistemology. I then state that all knowledge is conjecture, opinion, guess, etc. and that the presuppositions of every philosophical system are unjustifiable, even if valid and true.
The problem, I am told, is that this makes the decision to adopt any position arbitrary i.e. there is no principle which can be appealed to when making a guess, thus inviting relativism. In response, I think it it would be helpful to consider the process of natural selection, which is dependent on mutations i.e. guesses. There is no principle or justification to be made when a genome mutates, and its consequent adaptive fitness would follow irrespectively. In other words, objectively, the consequences are not equal or arbitrary, even if the process of subjectively choosing the mutation, ideas, theory, etc. is arbitrary. It is necessary to learn the absolute presuppositions of knowledge too, though this may occur before we are yet able to believe anything at all.
