Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

Two Different Types of Certainty?

Rate this topic


Recommended Posts

If no evidence supports the proposition, the claim is arbitrary -- 0 (no) support. If 100% of the evidence points to the conclusion, the claim is certain. Between 0% and 100% there is a continuum of degrees of evidence, and perhaps when 60% of the evidence support the claim we would say that the claim is "probable". When 100% of the evidence support the conclusion and you add new evidence that also and unsurprisingly supports the conclusion, you still have the same proportion -- 100% -- even though you have have more evidence.

My problem with this view is the idea of attaching a percentage to a particular amount of evidence. I don't think of the evidentiary continuum in terms of percentages at all. As I wrote in an earlier post, I think of the evidence in relation to the standard of proof necessary to be certain of a conclusion. I am going to give more thought to the standard of proof and perhaps begin a new thread later this week, because I don't want to continue this topic on this thread, which is devoted to Betsy's view.

In an epistemology allowing only the integration of perceptually-gained fact using logic, you can't "just doubt", you have to doubt based on some fact. Start by naming that fact -- if you can't name it, then the doubt is arbitrary.

My doubt is based on the fact that I have not reached my standard of proof for that particular conclusion. It's not a matter of doubting one conclusion because I have evidence for the opposite/alternative conclusion.

This is mildly odd: it seems to me that for her to be a girlfriend, you had better have evidence regarding her moral character. With a complete stranger, it's more plausible to be ignorant as to moral character, but not with a girlfriend. I mean, assuming you've signed on to the Objectivist account of love, and not the Hot Chick theory.

Okay. Change "girlfriend" to "stranger" in my example.

What exactly is the standard of proof regarding honesty that you seek -- how do you arrive at / discover / objectively justify that standard? Let me propose an alternative question ...

This is the question I'll try to answer on another thread, later. I don't have enough time to work on it right now, but it is a good question that needs to be answered.

Edited by MisterSwig
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thus your reply does not answer my point that there are inductive principles by which to validly and with causal explanations, validly infer a conclusion of guilt such that no doubts remain, and does nothing to explain the basis of your insurmountable doubts - you know, the ones that force you to adopt an irrational standard of proof when judging others.

Far, from being "irrational," there is a good reason to judge others "beyond a reasonable doubt" but not beyond all doubt.

Don't you have greater certainty about what you know and whether you are honest than you do about what any other human being knows and whether he is honest? If so, why is that the case?

That's the reason, not for arbitrary doubt, but for qualifications on certainty when it comes to judging others.

Edited by Betsy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is only one way out that I can see and that is to:

1. Acknowledge that the conclusion is certain within the meaning of OPAR ch. 5

2. Confirm that the conclusion is based upon axiom, sense perception, or a valid, proper causal explanation.

3. Set a standard of proof of that admits of reasonable doubt, e.g. "very highly probable".

So what this would say, in effect, is: "The conclusion that Mr. X is guilty conclusively and certainly meets the standard of being very highly probable, though doubts remain."

Notwithstanding that rather bizarre construction, and setting aside that "very highly probable" is not what the criminal law actually provides, this still fails to explain what objective doubts exist (to Betsy). Hence my remarks about unspecified, unwarranted doubt. I am truly at a loss to explain that.

My position is none of the above. If you have enough evidence about a person such that you are certain beyond a reasonable doubt, you have met the appropriate standard of proof and one should never entertain or give any weight whatsoever to arbitrary and unreasonable doubts.

A proper conclusion is based on the axioms, sense perception, and a valid, proper causal inference. A causal explanation would require getting inside someone's mind to be able to directly perceive the cause. We can to that with our own minds, but we cannot directly perceive what's going on in someone else's mind, so the best we can do is infer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think my chips are falling on the side that there is (and should be) only one type of certainty. "Highly probable" does not qualify as certainty, and at best, using certainty in two such closely related ways is massively confusing. I don't see "levels" of certainty as a legitimate concept. It would be far less confusing to say "almost certain" or "nearly certain" in the case of high probability, and plain old "certain" when one is certain.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't you have greater certainty about what you know and whether you are honest than you do about what any other human being knows and whether he is honest?

The answer is no, because it is possible to test whether someone actually knows what he claims to know. For example, if someone claims to know how to fly an airplane, all he has to do to prove it is get into one and fly it to a particular destination and back. At that point I will be certain that he knows how to fly an airplane, just as I am certain that I, myself, lack that knowledge and would crash straight into the ground.

Sometimes a person's knowledge may not be sufficiently in evidence or testable, and there are many complexities in the area of induction about a person's state of mind that pose a challenge. But that does not make it categorically impossible, as you acknowledged in post #97.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Were you invoking Peikoff's authority on me, or using Peikoff to prove my argument wrong?

The latter.

If the latter, observe that modern philosophy always dismisses the tautology as inconsequential, uninteresting, and utterly devoid of intellectual and conceptual content, whereas Ayn Rand always upheld identity as one of the most important facts there are, the most fundamental, the most full of intellectual and conceptual content.

It follows that there are no grounds on which to distinguish "analytic" from "synthetic" propositions. Whether one states that "A man is a rational animal," or that "A man has only two eyes"—in both cases, the predicated characteristics are true of man and are, therefore, included in the concept "man." The meaning of the first statement is: "A certain type of entity, including all its characteristics (among which are rationality and animality) is: a rational animal." The meaning of the second is: "A certain type of entity, including all its characteristics (among which is the possession of only two eyes) has: only two eyes." Each of these statements is an instance of the Law of Identity; each is a "tautology"; to deny either is to contradict the meaning of the concept "man," and thus to endorse a self-contradiction.

A similar type of analysis is applicable to every true statement. Every truth about a given existent(s) reduces, in basic pattern, to: "X is: one or more of the things which it is." The predicate in such a case states some characteristic(s) of the subject; but since it is a characteristic of the subject, the concept(s) designating the subject in fact includes the predicate from the outset. If one wishes to use the term "tautology" in this context, then all truths are "tautological." (And, by the same reasoning, all falsehoods are self-contradictions.)

When making a statement about an existent, one has, ultimately, only two alternatives: "X (which means X, the existent, including all its characteristics) is what it is"—or: "X is not what it is." The choice between truth and falsehood is the choice between "tautology" (in the sense explained) and self-contradiction. [Emphasis added]

Observe that in the quote from Peikoff, he is saying that what modern philosophers call a tautology is really the same thing as identity and, because he upholds identity as one of the most important facts there are, that what modern philosophers call a tautology is not inconsequential, uninteresting, and utterly devoid of intellectual and conceptual content.

I agree that Peikoff was using scare quotes. Tautology is an anti-concept. It is the attempt to destroy the concept identity.

That might be what modern philosphers are trying to do with the term, but both Dr. Peikoff and I would defend tautologies as we do identity, because they are the same thing. "All truths are 'tautological.'"

Edited by Betsy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

While acknowledging that there can be degrees of certainty, I don't think this has anything to do with two (or more) concepts of certainty; but rather it has to do with the amount of information one has on the subject (not the nature of the subject, as in volitional or non-volitional).

Don't you think it is easier to obtain and directly perceive information about non-volitional entities. like rocks, that it is about volitional creatures? You don't have to infer what the rock might have chosen to do that caused it to do what it did.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't you think it is easier to obtain and directly perceive information about non-volitional entities. like rocks, that it is about volitional creatures? You don't have to infer what the rock might have chosen to do that caused it to do what it did.

What is the essential property particular to volitional causation and not found in mechanistic causation which forever closes off to cognition all knowledge (all absolute and certain knowledge) of volitional causation?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't you think it is easier to obtain and directly perceive information about non-volitional entities. like rocks, that it is about volitional creatures? You don't have to infer what the rock might have chosen to do that caused it to do what it did.

You (and implicitly some others) are trying to say that human consciousness is unfathomable; that no matter how much we know about a person, we can never know why he did what he did.

I think what one understands about one's own consciousness applies to others, as in an inductive motivation that one can know about another. In some cases one may well be bewildered, as in, "I don't know what the heck that guy was trying to do;" but for the most part, I just don't think it is that difficult to understand why someone did something. When evil is done to oneself for no apparent reason, one can be outraged, in some sense, simply because it is so difficult to understand evil motivations for a rational man in the sense of not having experienced that particular motivation -- i.e nihilism for the sake of nihilism. However, one can understand it intellectually, which is how we have the term "nihilism."

I don't know for sure, I'm not certain, but I would say one may not be that introspective and knowing one's own motivations explicitly if one finds it extremely difficult to figure out the motivations of others. I certainly don't go around doubting other people's motivations once I get to know them better. Strangers may be more difficult, but one can tell if they are being direct or evasive regarding the facts that one is talking with them about. People don't always have the same premises we do, so when they do something one might have the attitude that one doesn't have a clue as to what they are up to; however, if one gets to know their premises, it all falls together.

Comparing man to rocks and asking oneself to predict the actions of a man in the same way one tries to predict how a rock will fall when tossed is simply not taking into account that the man is a man and not a rock; which might be the root of your doubt. Why are you trying to predict what someone is going to be doing with that sort of innanimate matter trajectory?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can accept Rand's label for the evidentiary continuum - it's not a problem provided that everyone understands that "degrees of certainty" is an indivisible expression naming that continuum, because it doesn't affect what certainty is: the terminus wherein no doubt remains.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems as if you are using "certainty" to mean an epistemological state whose essential characteristic is the absence of doubt. This is also in line with most dictionary definitions, but it defines a negative concept: certainty as the absence of doubt. This tells you what certainty is not.

Observe that this is not Dr. Peikoff's definition of certainty (nor mine).

A conclusion is "certain" when the evidence in its favor is conclusive; i.e., when it has been logically validated. At this stage, one has gone beyond "substantial" evidence. Rather, the total of the available evidence points in a single direction, and this evidence fulfills the standard of proof.

Peikoff's definition is positive. It tells you what certainty is. If the evidence is conclusive (i.e., it fulfills the standard of proof) and has been logically validated, then it is certain.

What ARE relevant are the mistaken ideas that there is a valid role in human cognition for conclusions that are not based upon axiom, sense perception, or a valid, proper causal explanation; that we ought to have unspecified, insurmountable doubts when making inferences about other's motives; and that certainty, once achieved, can be made more certain still. None of those ideas are valid; none correspond to reality; all must be rejected.

None of these ideas bear any resemblance to mine. I hold that many, many conclusions can, and do, meet the standards of certainty, positively defined, as Dr. Peikoff defines it.

Certainty requires that the conclusion be based on axioms, sense perception, and demonstrate, or logically infer, a causal connection. In the case of some inferences or in situations where the evidence is incomplete, there may be room for some doubt (not "unspecified, insurmountable doubts"), but if there is enough of the right kind of evidence for it to be conclusive, it will meet Dr. Peikoff's standard of certainty regardless.

Edited by Betsy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why? What conclusions entail mindreading?

A persons actions are caused by his choices, his context of knowledge, his values, and other conscious content. You can read your own mind and directly perceive the relationship between the content of your mind and your own actions, but you do not have that kind of access to anyone else's mind.

Therefore you must infer the causes of another person's actions. Assuming you go only on the strict evidence you have of someone else's actions, it is still often very difficult to determine and infer what caused them. That is why, for instance, it took Roark so many years to figure out the "principle behind the Dean." That is why errors are possible. Not only that, but people are capable of deceiving themselves, and others, in order to make you come to erroneous conclusions about their motives -- e.g., Branden. That is why you can never be as certain of your inferences about what causes someone else's actions as you can be about your direct introspection of what causes your own actions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What is the essential property particular to volitional causation and not found in mechanistic causation which forever closes off to cognition all knowledge (all absolute and certain knowledge) of volitional causation?

The essential property of volitional consciousness is that it is self-caused. This does not close off to cognition "all knowledge (all absolute and certain knowledge) of volitional causation," but it definitely limits what we can know about an entity whose conscious operations are self-caused by their own minds since we don't have direct access to their minds.

Edited by Betsy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You (and implicitly some others) are trying to say that human consciousness is unfathomable; that no matter how much we know about a person, we can never know why he did what he did.

Not at all. Another person's consciousness is knowable, but by a process -- inference -- that does not give as much pertinent information, nor as much certainty, as the kind of direct awareness introspection gives us about our own minds.

I think what one understands about one's own consciousness applies to others, as in an inductive motivation that one can know about another. In some cases one may well be bewildered, as in, "I don't know what the heck that guy was trying to do;" but for the most part, I just don't think it is that difficult to understand why someone did something.

Be careful! To the degree that another person's psycho-epistemology and/or motivation is significantly different from your own, trying to understand others by projection and introspection will not work or will yield wrong answers. How would introspection help Roark understand Peter Keating?

Edited by Betsy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The essential property of volitional consciousness is that it is self-caused. This does not close off to cognition "all knowledge (all absolute and certain knowledge) of volitional causation," but it definitely limits what we can know about an entity whose conscious operations are self-caused by their own minds since we don't have direct access to their minds.

We don't have direct access to anything. For all targets of cognition, we have the tools of unaided sense-perception, the ability to devise means of aiding our sense-perception, and abstraction.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems as if you are using "certainty" to mean an epistemological state whose essential characteristic is the absence of doubt. This is also in line with most dictionary definitions, but it defines a negative concept: certainty as the absence of doubt. This tells you what certainty is not.

Observe that this is not Dr. Peikoff's definition of certainty (nor mine).

Peikoff's definition is positive. It tells you what certainty is. If the evidence is conclusive (i.e., it fulfills the standard of proof) and has been logically validated, then it is certain.

As you can see from the portion of Dr. Peikoff's explanation that you chose to omit, freedom from doubt is indeed implied by the concept of certainty:

A conclusion is "certain" when the evidence in its favor is conclusive; i.e., when it has been logically validated. At this stage, one has gone beyond "substantial" evidence. Rather, the total of the available evidence points in a single direction, and this evidence fulfills the standard of proof. In such a context, there is nothing to suggest even the possibility of another interpretation. There are, therefore, no longer any grounds for doubt.
(emphasis added)

Your concept of certainty permits doubt, so it is not surprising that you would argue that a lack of doubt is not essential to the concept of certainty. You are, of course, wrong, as the quotation above conclusively demonstrates.

Once again: You cannot have your doubt and certainty too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We don't have direct access to anything. For all targets of cognition, we have the tools of unaided sense-perception, the ability to devise means of aiding our sense-perception, and abstraction.

Unaided sense-perception gives us direct access to existence and introspection gives us direct access to own own consciousness. Do you disagree?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unaided sense-perception gives us direct access to existence and introspection gives us direct access to own own consciousness. Do you disagree?

Unaided sense-perception does not give us direct access to existence. It gives us direct access (one sense of direct access; there are two senses of the term) to some of existence. For the rest, we must use abstraction and we must devise tools.

The same applies to others' minds, because others' minds are in existence.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As you can see from the portion of Dr. Peikoff's explanation that you chose to omit, freedom from doubt is indeed implied by the concept of certainty:

(emphasis added)

Observe that the lack of doubt is an effect or consequence of the essential, defining characteristic of certainty: having conclusive evidence.

Observe also that Peikoff says " There are, therefore, no longer any grounds for doubt. That means there is no evidence that the conclusion could be otherwise -- to doubt without evidence would be arbitrary -- but he does not say that there is no longer any possibility of doubt.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unaided sense-perception does not give us direct access to existence. It gives us direct access (one sense of direct access; there are two senses of the term) to some of existence. For the rest, we must use abstraction and we must devise tools.

The same applies to others' minds, because others' minds are in existence.

Well, of course, our senses give us direct access to some of existence. I was not implying that our senses give us omniscience. When we use abstraction and tools, we abstract from direct perception and use direct perception to apply and read the tools and other instruments we haved devised.

Edited by Betsy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, of course, our senses give us direct access to some of existence. I was not implying that our senses give us omniscience. When we use abstraction and tools, we abstract from direct perception and use direct perception to apply and read the tools and other instruments we haved devised.

I was not implying that either. In fact, I was merely using your words.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Observe also that Peikoff says " There are, therefore, no longer any grounds for doubt. That means there is no evidence that the conclusion could be otherwise -- to doubt without evidence would be arbitrary -- but he does not say that there is no longer any possibility of doubt.

"Possible", in Objectivist epistemology, demands evidence, i.e. grounds. Perhaps you could explain what you mean by "possibility" in this context and how it differs from the Objectivist concept of possible, although I'm a bit worried you'll say that there are two kinds of possibility (one requiring evidence and one not, which, I guess we could say, is not equally possible or constitute the same possibility), and we'll need a new thread to hash that out.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If no evidence supports the proposition, the claim is arbitrary -- 0 (no) support. If 100% of the evidence points to the conclusion, the claim is certain. Between 0% and 100% there is a continuum of degrees of evidence, and perhaps when 60% of the evidence support the claim we would say that the claim is "probable".

I don't think this is what Dr. Peikoff in saying in Chapter 5 of OPAR. There he is talking about conclusive evidence that meets a standard of proof, not degrees or percentages of evidence.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Possible", in Objectivist epistemology, demands evidence, i.e. grounds. Perhaps you could explain what you mean by "possibility" in this context and how it differs from the Objectivist concept of possible, although I'm a bit worried you'll say that there are two kinds of possibility (one requiring evidence and one not, which, I guess we could say, is not equally possible or constitute the same possibility), and we'll need a new thread to hash that out.

Actually there are two kinds of possibility and they both require evidence. They are metaphysical possibility and epistemological possibility.

Something is metaphysically possible when the nature of an entity allows for and does not contradict something being true. Thus, it is possible for an acorn to become an oak tree but not to become Hillary Clinton.

Something is epistemologically possible when we have some evidence for it being true and no evidence that it is false, but that the evidence we have is not conclusive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Something is metaphysically possible when the nature of an entity allows for and does not contradict something being true. Thus, it is possible for an acorn to become an oak tree but not to become Hillary Clinton.

Something is epistemologically possible when we have some evidence for it being true and no evidence that it is false, but that the evidence we have is not conclusive.

I think that this distinction is thoroughly opposed to Objectivist epistemology. Nowhere in OPAR is such a distinction raised. For an assertion to be metaphysically possible means that it is epistemologically possible. What Betsy is urging is that there exists a standard of omniscience by which to judge metaphysical possibility. Otherwise, all she is doing is saying the same thing two different ways, i.e. for the nature of an entity to allow for and not contradict something being true means exactly that we have some evidence for it being true and no evidence that it is false, and that the evidence we have is not conclusive. Either way, the distinction is invalid.

Edited by Seeker
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think that this distinction is thoroughly opposed to Objectivist epistemology. Nowhere in OPAR is such a distinction raised. For an assertion to be metaphysically possible means that it is epistemologically possible. What Betsy is urging is that there exists a standard of omniscience by which to judge metaphysical possibility. Otherwise, all she is doing is saying the same thing two different ways, i.e. for the nature of an entity to allow for and not contradict something being true means exactly that we have some evidence for it being true and no evidence that it is false, and that the evidence we have is not conclusive. Either way, the distinction is invalid.

I would actually support the distinction, with the identification that the "metaphysically possible" is precisely the Aristotelian potential. The "epistemologically possible" is drawn from the potentials of things regarding which we do not yet have full knowledge. When one does have full knowledge of some particular fact, the epistemologically possible is the metaphysically possible.

I would support the distinction because we do actually use "possible" in those two senses, equally validly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...