Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

What the Debasing Demon Teaches Us About Wisdom

  • Published:
Acta Analytica Aims and scope Submit manuscript

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Notes

  1. For accounts of wisdom that construe it in terms of knowledge see Garrett (1996), Kekes (1983), Nozick (1989), and Tiberius (2008). Although he differs from Grimm, and others, by insisting that there are two kinds of wisdom (theoretical and practical), Baehr (2012) seems to think of both of these as kinds of knowledge.

  2. Grimm does not take these three conditions to be jointly sufficient because he thinks that a further condition requiring one to apply this knowledge may be needed. That said, he does not rule out the possibility of his three conditions being jointly sufficient because he is not convinced that akrasia can hinder someone who genuinely meets these three conditions. So, Grimm allows that an appropriate application requirement may already be built into his three conditions.

  3. Ryan also presses her attack on reductionism by referencing actual people from the distant past. As she says (2017: 116), “a person who lived thousands of years ago, using the best evidence, tools, and technology of the time should not be excluded from the list of the wise just because her beliefs are later, on the basis of new evidence, shown to have been false.” I will set aside this consideration and only focus on her Cartesian skeptical argument here.

  4. I focus on Grimm’s account of wisdom throughout the remainder of the paper for three reasons. First, I take it to be the clearest and most plausible reductive account of wisdom in the literature. Second, related to the first point, his account offers the reductionist the best shot at rebuffing Ryan’s attack. Third, the claims made throughout can be adapted to other reductive accounts without difficulty, but it is helpful for the sake of clarity to focus the discussion on a particular reductive account.

  5. See Cunningham (forthcoming)

  6. See Audi (1983), Comesaña (2006, 2010), Feldman & Conee (1985), McCain (2012, 2014), and Pollock & Cruz (1999).

  7. On a view like Williamson’s (2000) E=K, Debased-Confucius and Confucius have different evidence. However, on other views of evidence, such as Feldman & Conee (1985) and McCain (2014), they have the exact same evidence.

  8. Another way to argue for the impossibility of debasing skepticism would be to argue that a proper basis is not necessary for knowledge. Given the overwhelming agreement among epistemologists that basing is required, this is not a promising approach. At the very least, if the case of Debased-Confucius forces reductionists to deny that basing is required for knowledge to save their view, a high cost of reductionism has been identified. One that is so high that most would be apt to abandon reductionism.

  9. It is worth noting that they are the only ones to go this route. Other philosophers who have argued against Schaffer’s case for debasing skepticism have all granted that such a demon is possible. See Brueckner (2011), Ballantyne & Evans (2013), and Conee (2015). For arguments against each of these attempts to respond to debasing skepticism see Cunningham (forthcoming).

  10. See Cunningham (forthcoming) for reasons to think that Bondy and Carter are mistaken.

  11. See Korcz (1997), Mittag (2002), Turri (2011), and Vahid (2009) in support of the claim that causal views of basing are standard.

  12. See Bondy & Carter (2018), Korcz (1997), and McCain (2016) for discussion.

  13. See McCain (2016), Turri (2011), and Wedgwood (2006) for several decisive criticisms of doxastic accounts of the basing relation.

  14. Fileva & Tresan (2013) may have such a view of wisdom in mind when they speak of wisdom in terms of ability. For instance, they say, “wisdom is nowhere so clearly present as in the ability to resolve conflicts” (233). And, they claim “wisdom is no more a set of justified beliefs about how to act than musical ability is a set of justified beliefs about what sounds to make and in what order” (235).

  15. Stanley (2011) and Stanley & Williamson (2001) argue that knowledge-how reduces to propositional knowledge. Adams (2009), Poston (2009), and Ryle (1949) argue that the two types of knowledge are distinct.

  16. Shane Ryan (2016) and Sharon Ryan (forthcoming) have both taken this route.

  17. See Elgin (2007), (2017), Hills (2009), (2016), Kvanvig (2003), and Pritchard (2008) for reasons to think that understanding is distinct from knowledge. See Grimm (2006), (forthcoming), Khalifa (2017), Khalifa & Sullivan (forthcoming), and Sliwa (2015) for criticism of these arguments.

  18. I am grateful to the audience at the 2019 Southeastern Epistemology Conference for helpful discussion. And, I am especially indebted to Sharon Ryan for very helpful written comments on an earlier draft.

References

  • Adams, M. P. (2009). Empirical evidence and the knowledge-that/knowledge-how distinction. Synthese, 170, 97–114.

    Google Scholar 

  • Audi, R. (1983). The causal structure of indirect justification. Journal of Philosophy, 80, 398–415.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baehr, J. (2012). Two types of wisdom. Acta Analytica, 27, 81–97.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ballantyne, N., & Evans, I. (2013). Schaffer’s demon. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 94, 552–559.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bondy, P., & Carter, J. A. (2018). The basing relation and the impossibility of the debasing demon. American Philosophical Quarterly, 55, 203–216.

  • Brueckner, A. (2011). Debasing scepticism. Analysis, 71, 295–297.

    Google Scholar 

  • Comesaña, J. (2006). A well-founded solution to the generality problem. Philosophical Studies, 129, 27–47.

    Google Scholar 

  • Comesaña, J. (2010). Evidentialist reliabilism. Nous, 44, 571–600.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conee, E. (2015). Debasing skepticism refuted. Episteme, 12, 1–11.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cunningham, J. J. Forthcoming. The basis of debasing scepticism. Erkenntnis.

  • Elgin, C. (2007). Understanding and the facts. Philosophical Studies, 132, 33–42.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elgin, C. (2017). True enough. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Feldman, R., & Conee, E. (1985) Evidentialism. Philosophical Studies, 45, 15–34.

  • Fileva, I., & Tresan, J. (2013). Wisdom beyond rationality: a reply to Ryan. Acta Analytica, 28, 229–235.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garrett, R. (1996). Three definitions of wisdom. In K. Lehrer, B. J. Lum, B. A. Slichta, & N. D. Smith (Eds.), Knowledge, teaching, and wisdom (pp. 221–232). Dordrecht: Kluwer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grimm, S. (2006). Is understanding a species of knowledge? British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 57, 515–535.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grimm, S. (2015). Wisdom. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 93, 139–154.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grimm, S. (2017). Wisdom in theology. In W. Abraham & F. Aquino (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of the epistemology of theology (pp. 190–202). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grimm, S. (Forthcoming). Transmitting understanding and know-how. In S. Hetherington & N. Smith (Eds.), What the Ancients Offer to Contemporary Epistemology. New York: Routledge.

  • Schaffer, J. (2010). The debasing demon. Analysis, 70, 228–237.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hills, A. (2009). Moral testimony and moral epistemology. Ethics, 120, 94–127.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hills, A. (2016). Understanding why. Noûs, 50, 661–688.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kekes, J. (1983). Wisdom. American Philosophical Quarterly, 20, 277–286.

    Google Scholar 

  • Khalifa, K. (2017). Understanding, Explanation, and Scientific Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Khalifa, K., & Sullivan, E. (Forthcoming). Idealizations and understanding: much ado about nothing? Australasian Journal of Philosophy.

  • Korcz, K. (1997). Recent work on the basing relation. American Philosophical Quarterly, 34, 171–191.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kvanvig, J. (2003). The value of knowledge and the pursuit of understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCain, K. (2012). The interventionist account of causation and the basing relation. Philosophical Studies, 159, 357–382.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCain, K. (2014). Evidentialism and epistemic justification. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCain, K. (2016). The nature of scientific knowledge: an explanatory approach. Cham: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mittag, D. (2002). On the causal-doxastic theory of the basing relation. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 32, 543–560.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nozick, R. (1989). The examined life. New York: Touchstone Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pollock, J., & Cruz, J. (1999). Contemporary theories of knowledge (2nd ed.). Lanham: Rowman& Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Poston, T. (2009). Know-how to be Gettiered? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 79, 743–747.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pritchard, D. (2008). Knowing the answer, understanding and epistemic value. Grazer Philosophische Studien, 77, 325–339.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ryan, S. (2016). Wisdom: understanding and the good life. Acta Analytica, 31, 235–251.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ryan, S. (2012). Wisdom, knowledge, and rationality. Acta Analytica, 27, 99–112.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ryan, S. (2017). A deeper defense of the deep rationality theory of wisdom: a reply to Fileva and Tresan. Acta Analytica, 32, 115–123.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ryan, S. (Forthcoming). Wisdom, open-mindedness, and epistemic duty. In K. McCain & S. Stapleford (Eds.), Epistemic duty: new arguments/new angles. New York: Routledge.

  • Ryle, G. (1949). The concept of mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sliwa, P. (2015). Understanding and knowledge. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 115, 57–74.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stanley, J. (2011). Know how. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stanley, J., & Williamson, T. (2001). Knowing how. Journal of Philosophy, 98, 411–444.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tiberius, V. (2008). The reflective life: living wisely with our limits. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turri, J. (2011). Believing for a reason. Erkenntnis, 74, 383–397.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vahid, H. (2009). The epistemology of belief. New York: Palgrave-MacMillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wedgwood, R. (2006). The normative force of reasoning. Nous, 40, 660–686.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williamson, T. (2000). Knowledge and its limits. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Alabama at Birmingham, University Hall, 5th Floor, 1402 10th Avenue South, Birmingham, AL, 35294-1241, USA

    Kevin McCain

Authors
  1. Kevin McCain
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kevin McCain.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

McCain, K. What the Debasing Demon Teaches Us About Wisdom. Acta Anal 35, 521–530 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-019-00420-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-019-00420-1

Keywords

Search

Navigation