Cohen (1984) Justification and Truth

Stewart Cohen, “Justification and Truth.” Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, vol. 46, no. 3, 1984, pp. 279–95.

 

1. Introduction

Epistemologists generally agree that two components of knowledge are justification and truth. If S believes that P, then S knows that P only if S is justiefied in believing that P and it is true that P. A central issue in epistemology concerns the connection between justification and truth.

The connection between justification and truth.	A	B (e.g. Descartes)
	Justification and truth are conceptually distinct components of knowledge	There is an internal connection between a belief being justified and being true.

The appeal of B	The burden of B
① knowledge does not arise when a belief merely happens to be true. The motivation for requiring that a true belief be justified in order for it to count as an instance of knowledge just is, in some sense, to provide a connection to truth.	To characterize the nature of the connection between epistemic justification and truth
② Justification is a generic notion. A belief can be epistemically, pragmatically, or morally justified. One might contend that the connection to truth is what distinguishes episternic justification from these other senses of justification.

 

2. Various theories of epistemic justification which construe the truth connection.

(1) A trivial connection: 

S is epistemically justified in believing that P only if S is epistemically justified in believing that P is true.

But this trivial connection does not distinguish epistemic justification from moral or pragmatic justification. For one is morally or pragmatically justified in believing that P just in case one is morally or pragmatically justified in believing that P is true. This is not surprising since this trivial connection seems to be more a point about belief than justification. To believe that P, just is to believe that P is true. The connection between epistemic justification and truth must amount to something beyond this trivial connection.

 

(2) The Cartesian view

It is a conceptual truth that, if conditions C [epistemically] justify belief B for subject S, then C logically entails that B is true.

(∀c)(∀p)(C ⊃ Bˢₚ .⊃. □(C ⊃ P))

① It is the strongest view because it holds that justification logically entails truth.

② The legacy of the Cartesian view is skepticism. Descartes demonstrated in the first meditation that no such connection is forthcoming (the arguments of the later meditations notwithstanding). Given any plausible specification of C for any S, it will always be logically consistent to suppose that not B. This is what the evil demon argument shows. Where, e.g., C comprises facts about sensory data, and where B is a belief about the truth of some empirical proposition, it is always logically possible that the evil demon has arranged for C to obtain where B is false.

(∀c)(∀p)~(C ⊃ Bˢₚ .⊃. □(C ⊃ P))

(∀c)(∀p)~(~(C ⊃ Bˢₚ) ∨ □(C ⊃ P))

(∀c)(∀p)((C ⊃ Bˢₚ) ∧ ~□(C ⊃ P))

(∀c)(∀p)((C ⊃ Bˢₚ) ∧ ~□(~C ∨ P))

(∀c)(∀p)((C ⊃ Bˢₚ) ∧ ◇~(~C ∨ P))

(∀c)(∀p)((C ⊃ Bˢₚ) ∧ ◇(C ∧ ~P))

(3) A fallibilist theory of justification

① Not wishing to be saddled with this skeptical result, most contemporary philosophers have rejected the Cartesian view and have opted instead for a fallibilist theory of justification.

A fallibilist theory allows that where C makes B justified for S, it is still possible that B is false. (i.e., (∀c)(∀p)((C ⊃ Bˢₚ) ∧ ◇(C ∧ ~P)) holds in a fallibilist theory of justification)

② While fallibilism does seem to avoid skepticism, one might still inquire as to what the truth connection comes to on a fallibilist view. A natural proposal would be to construe the connection as probabilistic. This tack has been taken by several philosophers (Goldman, Swain, et al.) whose theories can be grouped under the general heading of Reliabilism. For purposes of exposition, I focus on Goldman's view.

 

(4) Goldman's Reliabilism 

Goldman's brand of Reliabilism explicates the connection between justification and truth in terms of the truth-frequency of the justified belief. There is no logical guarantee that a justified belief is true on this view. What is guaranteed is that a justified belief is produced by a cognitive process that is reliable, i.e., by a cognitive process that tends to produce true beliefs. Goldman leaves it open just how reliable a cognitive process must be in order for it to confer justification on the belief it produces. However, he is explicitly a fallibilist. Since reliability is a probabilistic notion, for our purposes Goldman's position amounts to:

It is a conceptual truth that, if C justifies B for S, then C makes it probable that B is true.

(∀c)(∀p)(C ⊃ Bˢₚ .⊃. □(C ⊃ Rp))
Rp: "P is reliable (i.e., the truth functionality does not hold in Q)."

So, for example, if the belief "There is something red before me" is justified in virtue of its being produced by a perceptual process, then the fact that the belief was so produced makes it probable that it is true.

 

(5) An Objection to Goldman's Reliabilism: the evil demon hypothesis

① It is clear that Reliabilism avoids the skepticism of the Cartesian conception of the truth connection. For the evil demon hypothesis only demonstrates the possibility that there are belief forming processes which are not reliable. The fact that this is consistent with their actual reliability obviates any skeptical conclusion.

② But skepticism aside, I think the evil demon hypothesis (or its contemporary neurophysiologist version) uncovers a defect in the Reliabilist position. We can see this by supposing the hypothesis to be true.

(a) Imagine that unbeknown to us, our cognitive processes (e.g., perception memory, inference) are not reliable owing to the machinations of the malevolent demon. It follows on a Reliabilist view that the beliefs generated by those processes are never justified: ~□(C ⊃ Rp) .⊃. ~(C ⊃ Bˢₚ)

(b) Is this a tenable result? I maintain that it is not.

(c) Of course, we are not here supposing that we know that the demon hypothesis is true. Certainly if we were to know that our cognitive processes are unreliable then the beliefs they generate would not be justified.

(d) What we want to suppose is the mere truth of the demon hypothesis. Now part of what the hypothesis entails is that our experience is just as it would be if our cognitive processes were reliable.

(e) Thus, on the demon hypothesis, we would have every reason for holding our beliefs, that we have in the actual world.

(f) Moreover since we actually have reason to believe that our cognitive processes are reliable, it follows that in the demon world we would have every reason to believe that our cognitive processes were in fact reliable. We might even imagine that a brilliant philosopher had seemingly demonstrated (d la Descartes of the later meditations) the falsity of the demon hypotheses, to the extent that anyone who could follow the reasoning was (intuitively) justified in accepting the conclusion.

(g) It strikes me as clearly false to deny that under these circumstances our beliefs could be justified. If we have every reason to believe e.g., perception, is a reliable process, the mere fact that unbeknown to us it is not reliable should not affect it's justification - conferring status (a fortiori if we have good reason to belief that the conditions which in fact make perception unreliable do not obtain.

③ My argument hinges on viewing justification as a normative notion. Intuitively, if S's belief is appropriate to the available evidence, he is not to be held responsible for circumstances beyond his ken. Goldman can be viewed as having illustrated this when he discusses a possible counter example to his analysis. He considers whether wishful-thinking would be a justification - conferring process in world W, if it were a reliable process in W. In a footnote he points out that "if people in world W learn inductively that wishfulthinking is reliable, and regularly base their beliefs on this inductive inference, it is quite unproblematic and straightforward that their beliefs are justified". Goldman's point is that in this case, the inductively inferred reliability of wishful thinking can be sufficient for beliefs produced by wishful-thinking to be justified in W. But if this is true, the picture should not change if wishfulthinking turns out, contrary to the inductive evidence, to be unreliable in W.

④ Now Goldman might contend that inductive inference is itself a reliable belief-forming process and that this fact explains the justifiedness of the beliefs in question. But again, I fail to see how the picture changes epistemically if as a result of infelicitious [inappropriate] circumstances, beliefs produced in accordance with the canons of inductive inference turn out to be inscrutably false most of the time.

An entrenched Reliabilists may be unmoved by this appeal to the normative character of epistemic justification. One might insist that a world where the evil demon hypothesis is true is a world where there are no justified beliefs. I will argue that a theory with this consequence fails to capture a central, perhaps the central distinction in epistemology. Moreover, I think it will be clear that the distinction is most plausibly construed as marking the difference between justified and unjustified belief.

When Goldman is marshalling data for his theory, he lists certain beliefforming processes whose outputs we would consider to be unjustified. He gives these examples: confused reasoning, reliance on emotional attachment, mere hunch or guesswork and hasty generalization. Goldman notes that these processes all share the feature of unreliability. He contrasts these with processes that intuitively issue in justified belief, e.g., standard perceptual processes, remembering, good reasoning, and introspection. Noting that these latter process all have reliability as a common feature, Goldman goes on to suggest, "the justificational status of a belief is a function of the reliability of the process or processes that cause it" (p. 10).

I have argued that the evil demon case shows that reliability is not necessary for justification. This claim can be bolstered by considering the contrast between the two categories of belief-forming processes Goldman lists.