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Externalism and the Myth of the Given

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Abstract

Section 1 of the paper reviews a family of “no good inference” arguments for skepticism about the external world, and a straightforward externalist reply. Section 2 reviews skeptical regress arguments, and another straightforward reply. Section 3 considers three objections to foundationalism that are inspired by Sellars’ critique of “the given” in “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind,” and argues that none of these is effective against the kind of “externalist foundationalism” defended in Sects. 1 and 2.

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Notes

  1. In Greco (2000) I argue for a stronger thesis: that only externalist theories can adequately reply to kinds of skeptical argument under consideration in this paper. See also Greco (2022).

  2. Sellars (1956). Sellars’ critique is widely thought to hold against foundationalism in general, with no distinction being made between internalist and externalist versions of foundationalism. Indeed, foundationalism is thought to be dead in many philosophical circles, at least partly because of Sellars-type objections alleging the Myth of the Given.

  3. The present section relies on arguments put forward in Greco (2000), especially chapter two and six.

  4. See Hume (1975).

  5. The argument reconstructed here is reminiscent of Hume’s skeptical reasoning regarding inductive knowledge. In the latter argument, Hume notes that all inductive reasoning assumes a “regularity principle” to the effect that nature is regular, or that like causes have like effects. But that assumption, Hume notes, is itself an assumption about unobserved matters of facts, and so depends on inductive reasoning from past regularity to future regularity. In other words, any such justification for the regularity principle must be viciously circular. The remainder of Hume’s argument proceeds in analogous fashion to the argument reconstructed above, now yielding the conclusion that we have no knowledge of unobserved matters of fact. See Greco (2000), especially chapter six.

  6. This point can be obscured by the fact that many cognitive scientists use the term “inference” as synonymous with information processing in general, including non-cognitive processing on the sub-personal level, for example in so-called “early vision.”

  7. Internalists can also deny that perception requires a good inference from appearance to reality, but they must employ different resources to do so. For example, some internalists invoke synthetic a priori epistemic principles that allow transitions from internally accessible appearances to justified beliefs about the world. Such principles, being synthetic a priori, are also deemed to be accessible by internalist standards. For an argument against this kind of internalist strategy, see Greco (2000), chapter 7.

  8. Wittgenstein (1969).

  9. For example, see McGinn (1989), Coliva (2010), Moyal-Sharrock (2016), and Pritchard (2016). I will return to Wittgenstein’s thinking in On Certainty below, where I will suggest an epistemic reading of at least some of Wittgenstein’s “hinge propositions.”

  10. See BonJour (1978).

  11. In fact, Sellars begins “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind” this way: “I presume that no philosopher who has attacked the philosophical idea of givenness or, to use the Hegelian term, immediacy, has intended to deny that there is a difference between inferring that something is the case and, for example, seeing it to be the case” (p. 253).

  12. This notion of procedural knowledge is developed in Greco (2021); and Greco (2020).

  13. For an extended argument to this effect, see for example, Horgan and Tienson (1996).

  14. See Greco (2021). I take the phrase “hinge commitment” from Pritchard (2016), op. cit.

  15. Wittgenstein, On Certainty, op. cit. Numbers within parentheses follow the numbering system in this work.

  16. See Baillargeon and DeVos (1991).

  17. There is some debate among researchers whether a commitment to object permanence should be considered “innate” or “learned,” but all parties agree that such a commitment emerges in the course of normal development. For examples on each side, see Johnson et al. (2003) and Spelke et al. (1992).

  18. For example, see Gelman (2003). According to Gelman, “essentialism is a pervasive, persistent reasoning bias that affects human categorization in profound ways. It is deeply ingrained in our conceptual systems, emerging at a very young age across highly varied cultural contexts. (p. 6). For an extended argument that human thinking is driven by essentialist and natural kind heuristics, see Kornblith (1993).

  19. I defend a unified virtue-theoretic account of generated, transmitted and procedural knowledge in Greco (2020).

  20. For helpful discussion, thanks to audiences at the LVI Reuniones Filosóficas at the University of Navarra, the Rocky Mountain Philosophy Conference at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and Georgetown University.

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    John Greco

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Greco, J. Externalism and the Myth of the Given. Topoi 42, 73–82 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-022-09868-0

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