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Theories of Synchronic Justification Absolutely everybody wants to know more than he knows. In order to do this he tries to obtain new knowledge from the sources or other people who really have it. Why is it so, why knowledge is so important for us? Lets imagine that we are present in the court where a case is considering. Mrs. Black says that Mr.
White stole the money in her flat. The lawyer asks her if she is sure about it and she answered: I know that he stole the money, I saw him take the money. But it was dark in the flat and another witness says that he saw Mr. Braun who looks like Mr. White, near Mrs. Blacks flat that night.
The judge is to decide if he can believe Mrs. Blacks testimonial or not. This case raises a lot of questions: what knowledge really is, if it is important to have it and if we are able to get any? We can answer these questions only with the help of epistemology. It is a branch of philosophy that studies knowledge. It helps to answer the basic questions concerning knowledge: how we can distinguish the true knowledge from false, what theory or model of knowledge is the best.
It also forms one part of the new sciences of cognition, based on the psychological method of information, and on the artificial intelligence, as an attempt to develop computer programs with human intellectual abilities. The main idea of epistemological theories is the avoiding of skepticism by means of adopting a foundation alist approach. Studying the history of epistemology we cant but notice that in spite of the great number of contradictory positions, this science has one direction and develops logically. While the first theories of knowledge defined its absolute, permanent character as the most important and were based on it, the later theories consider its relativity or situation-dependence to be the most important, making the stress on its continuous development or evolution, and its dynamic interference with the subjects and objects of the world. The knowledge has one developing trend that is going from a passive view of knowledge towards more active one. The knowledge and certainty are not the same.
In order to obtain a certainty we need to gain experience and it is not easy, because we know that experience is invaluable. In comparison with certainty knowledge seems too easy to be obtained. However, if we assume that knowledge should be absolutely authentic, knowledge seems precious. Then we risk becoming skeptic, thinking that we know nothing and scientists know everything and everything that they know is dogmas. But the real meaning of the knowledge can be understood only on the way to it.
There are many methods of knowledge acquiring: perception, inference, testimony of others etc. We are to define the best and explain why it is the best. The theory and practice of knowledge are very much alike, because the question how we can acquire the knowledge is identical to the question what knowledge is. Of course, we cant read all the material, devoted to this question, because epistemology is very developed science and hundreds of authors wrote essays about it.
That is why I chose the book Epistemic Justification by Richard Swinburne. Richard Swinburne's Epistemic Justification is a very important work that is considered as a culmination of a distinguished scholarship in epistemology. This book is not a simple collection of essays, it is a logically composed book, that contains the authors views on the foundationalizm. From the book Epistemic Justification by Richard Swinburne the reader can learn about the domestic foundational ists understanding of the epistemic justification. Their understanding consisted in the view that some justified beliefs are basic, i.
e. , not grounded on or based on other beliefs. Some foundational ists assume that main ideas can be proved if they are based on experience. But domestic foundational ism states that all the proved believes are ones we are justified in holding without their needing other beliefs or other mental states as grounds, in the sense that intrinsically or merely in virtue of our having them, they are probably true (p. 26). Actually some people say about the Swinburne's book that it gives just a glimpse without defending of the ideas. It is not so sensu strict, but the character of the book is explanatory and appeasing, not polemic. His goal was to acquaint us with his own epistemological views, he didnt try to disprove all the previous ideas, and he didnt show the objections to the positions of the other scientists.
He was not going to consider the opposite views at all. But he thinks that opposing views on justification and knowledge are examining various theories about the use of the words justified and knowledge (p. 2). Swinburne does not see the large discrepancy between the internals and externals foundational ists; he considers the question how much justification and knowledge we should have. According to the writer, most of the different kinds of justification and knowledge (externals and internals) are worth-having, but the objective internals justification is the most important. But If the justification and knowledge are externalistic, then justified true belief and knowledge are no more worth having than mere true belief. The book can be essentially divided into two parts.
Chapter 1 - 5 are explaining the definitions that we will meet in the second half of the book. In the second part the author compares various theories of knowledge and justification. Chapter 1 is devoted to the study of the theories of synchronic justification and in Chapter 6 the author discussed the synchronic justification as well. This is the sort of justification that has to do only with the subjects reply to the existing facts). Swinburne's own views are mostly internals, and he pushes the generalization problem hard in opposition to reliability Richard Swinburne states that even if a belief formed by a extremely unfailing system has by Less Principal Principle, high rational probability, it is not essentially more commendable for having been thus shaped while a belief having internals synchronic objective justification, by which he intends a belief that really is provided rationally possible by the proof a subject has for it, is essentially commendable (158 - 64). On the other hand, he supports a open-minded pluralism with regard to different conceptions of knowledge on the basics that they will generally agree.
The Principle of Credulity is the productive epistemic principle in Swinburne's foundational ism: Every proposition that a subject believes or is inclined to believe has (in so far as it is basic) in his noetic structure a probability corresponding to the strength of the belief or semi-belief or inclination to believe (141); things are probably as they seem to be (142). According to Swinburne's the rational person is the one who considers everything to be write until he gets a reason not to do so. Swinburne considers probability to be the most important concept. He admits that in the seventeenth century, two main kinds of probability were identified: probability as a feature of the physical world, which the author calls externals probability, and probability on evidence that something was the case in the physical world, which he calls inductive probability. Swinburne recognizes Hacking's thesis from The Emergence of Probability that ancient, medieval and early modern philosophers had no wide-ranging concept of evidential support in the sense of making probable (6). This has been resolutely upturned by James Franklins work The Science of Conjecture.
Swinburne defines three differences of the externals probability. They are statistical, hypothetical statistical and physical. He also defines three varieties of inductive probability: logical, epistemic and subjective. Swinburne created a new idea about the logical probability.
He considers the idea of simplicity to be the most important. On the whole his thought is that other things being equal, a simpler hypothesis is more probably true and so the simplest hypothesis is the one most probably true (p. 82). This idea was not new, but Swinburne developed it much further than other philosophers did. Somebody calls Swinburne's redefinition of rationality a short work of skepticism. Maybe the most important characteristic of Swinburne's method of studying epistemological questions is the absence of concern as regards skeptical problems. To give an account of justification is, by his lights, to give an account that captures ordinary language (or at any rate a great deal of it) in which the term justification appears; and epistemological theories that fare poorly by this standard are stillborn (20).
In this aspect of his positive program he resembles Chisholm; the book is replete with appeals to the criteria that we do in fact take to be indicative of truth, or to the beliefs that we do in fact consider to constitute instances of knowledge. His brisk common-sense attitude allows him to cover a great deal of ground. But it also makes it difficult to determine the extent to which Swinburne's preferred criteria of evidence and justification can be used to give a robust defense of realism (global or scientific) in the face of skeptical arguments. For better understanding of Richard Swinburne, it is essential to consider another works related to justification. I prefer to take Robert Audi and his book Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge, because it is one of the most respected and studied works now. Also regarding the skepticism, I would like to say some words about David Hume as about the outstanding adherent of skepticism.
The epistemological project that Robert Audi presents in his writing is different from the project of other epistemologists. As against other philosophers he devoted his book mostly to the source of knowledge. Audi's style of writing is a bit difficult to read but still the book is full of useful information supported by examples. The text of the book is divided into three parts: - "Sources of knowledge, justification, and truth, " Audi devotes this chapter to perception, memory, consciousness, reason, and testimony. - "The structure and growth of justification and knowledge, " In this part Audi discussed the nature of inference. - "The...
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