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Similarity and acquaintance: a dilemma

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Abstract

There is an interesting and instructive problem with Richard Fumerton’s acquaintance theory of noninferential justification. Fumerton’s explicit account requires acquaintance with the truth-maker of one’s belief and yet he admits that one can have noninferential justification when one is not acquainted with the truth-maker of one’s belief but instead acquainted with a very similar truth-maker. On the face of it this problem calls for clarification. However, there are skeptical issues lurking in the background. This paper explores these issues by developing a dilemma for an acquaintance theory.

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Notes

  1. Fumerton (1995, p. 75).

  2. Ibid. Both Ernest Sosa and Michael Bergmann interpret Fumerton’s account as including this necessary condition. See Bergmann (2006, pp. 29–30) and Sosa in BonJour and Sosa (2003, p. 130).

  3. Fumerton (2001a, p. 14).

  4. Fumerton (2005, p. 88).

  5. Fumerton (1995, p. 77).

  6. Ibid, p. 186.

  7. Fumerton (2001b, p. 74).

  8. Fumerton (2006, p. 189).

  9. Ibid.

  10. Fumerton (2005, p. 122).

  11. For instance, a version of phenomenal conservatism according to which seemings confer noninferential justification on beliefs about aspects of the external world (see Huemer (2001)).

  12. Dennett (2002).

  13. The issue here does not depend on the irrationality of the belief that one may easily mistake itches for pains. An undergraduate may have good reasons for thinking that Dennett’s conclusion is true even though the conclusion may be logically impossible.

  14. Nelson Goodman makes a similar point in his (somewhat neglected) contribution to the famed Lewis-Reichenbach debate. See Goodman (1952, p. 161).

  15. Fumerton (2005, p. 122).

  16. See Fumerton’s discussion of this point in (2006, p. 182).

  17. Fumerton (2002, p. 517).

  18. See Fumerton (1995, p. 186). See also p. 3 of this article.

  19. Fumerton (2005, p. 121).

  20. Fumerton (1995, p. 79).

  21. See Fumerton (1995, p. 184).

  22. Ibid.

  23. Evan Fales develops a version of the acquaintance theory that explicitly allows for noninferentially justified false beliefs (See Fales (1996, p. 173)). Fales claims that the probabilistic character of fallible noninferential beliefs is given (Ibid., p. 175). Fales’ view, though, seems subject to the following argument. If a noninferential belief has a chance of being wrong then there’s a class of skeptical scenarios apropos that belief that one’s evidence does not rule out. Consequently one has no non-question begging reason for thinking that one of those skeptical scenarios fails to obtain. Therefore, one has not ended the regress of reasons. Hardcore fallibilists about non-inferential justification are likely to complain that this argument assumes a very strong defeater elimination principle. I assume, however, that an acquaintance view requires a strong defeater elimination principle; apart from some such principle the appeals to transparency and gaining philosophical assurance are rather mysterious. The fallible acquaintance theory I consider in this section avoids this argument by talking about the luminosity of approximate truth.

  24. See Dretske (1981), Chapter 6 for the distinction between digital and analog representation.

  25. Lewis (1952).

  26. See Lewis (1952, p. 172). Lewis’s argument bears a striking resemblance to that of Hume’s in “Of scepticism in regard to reason.” A Treatise of Human Nature 1.4.1 (see Hume (2000)).

  27. See Reichenbach (1952).

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Kevin Meeker and Nathan Ballantyne for helpful comments. I am grateful for Evan Fales’s valuable remarks on a previous draft of this paper at the 2008 Pacific Division Meeting of the APA. I owe a special debt of gratitude to Richard Fumerton for illuminating conversations on the issues discussed in this paper.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, 36688, USA

    Ted Poston

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Poston, T. Similarity and acquaintance: a dilemma. Philos Stud 147, 369–378 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-008-9290-5

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