And thanks,
Kyle
10 hours down, 110 more to go
My thoughts so far on coherentism.
It seems that from what I have read so far coherentism will ultimately be an untenable position. From the people I have read so far holding to an entirely coherentist account of justification is impossible or highly improbable because it can't adequately deal with Empirical, sensory experiences and evidence. But it also seems to be a huge problem accommodating for how sensory experience can justify propositional beliefs, making it difficult to see how a foundationalist account of experientialism can adequately be based on these experiences. Maybe some sort of cognitive faculty needs to be appealed to in order to makes such a leap. Something that takes in empirical experiences and somehow turns them into propositional phrases to be believed or not.
I would like to know if anyone has written much on this idea.
I also wonder if this really is how it works. I wonder if I really take in my perceptions and somehow come to believe propositions out of and about them. It seems strange to have perceptions causing beliefs about propositions or sentences. But it doesn't seem that strange to say that my perceptions lend some justification to any propositional beliefs that I may have. Experience and memory seem to be very non-propositionally based. I may 'think' using words and language, but I don't experience these things in words or language, unless reading or listening to someone talk. And even then its just sound or color/shapes that I have recognition of. It does seem that to formulate a propositional belief in my mind I have to apply some sort of linguistic mental faculty that sorts through my concepts and applies them to the sense-data that I have received. Thus, proposition-izing my sense experience and making it possible for me to talk about it/make and hold beliefs about it. It seems that this process is a very complicated one that the depth which of goes far beyond coherentism and foundationalism and delves into how language and real objects relate, as well as how I know what an object is propositionally/conceptually.
It seems to me maybe that cognitive processes sorting through sensory experience are much more complicated than their propositional counterparts. I feel that having sensations, memories of sensations and beliefs about them are much more complex than the simple propositional ascriptions of these beliefs and sensations. Maybe the only way we can communicate about these things is though language, but internally I see so much more involved in my pool of sense-data and belief structures than propositional logical inferences. (Such as the steady flow of experiences I have, the sheer amount of data taken in but not conceptualized or proposition-ized, etc.)
If anyone has any insight into this or suggestions on what might be helpful for me to read, I would much appreciate them.
Obviously this is a complicated issue. But I'm unsure as to what your actual thesis is or what direction you're headed in. I think some of your confusion could be solved by focusing in on exactly what problem you're trying to solve, but you probably already know that. I've just had a hard time seeing that in this post.
ReplyDeletePart of the confusion can be dispelled by being exact about these issues. Foundationalism and coherentism are both theories of justification right? So are you trying to figure out what justifies propositions or what justifies sense experiences? Or the relationship between the two? The way I generally think about the relationship between propositions and sensory information is that the one forms the other. It's almost like a cookie cutter. The dough is the data you've collected and the cookie cutter is what you push that through in order to form sentences and propositions. But justification isn't really that issue. Thought they're related.
Also remember whether you're right or not, whether you can argue for something well or not what you truly believe regardless of the "evidence" you find is what you should write this paper on. There's nothing worse than trying to defend something you don't believe simply because it seems more logical or its easier to defend. You have the rest of your life ahead of you to admit you might be wrong about your senior thesis. But in order to get through this semester you need to be motivated. I'm suggesting you write this paper on what you want to be true. If that makes any sense.
"Experience and memory seem to be very non-propositionally based."
ReplyDelete"It seems to me maybe that cognitive processes sorting through sensory experience are much more complicated than their propositional counterparts."
I think you're right about this, and this is a really interesting project to think about. Shooting from the hip; here are at least two directions you could take the thought.
One: non-linguistic propositions. If perceptual beliefs derive their justification solely on the basis of their relation to propositional attitudes (e.g., other beliefs), then one move to make is to expand our notion of a "proposition". Perhaps propositions aren't so closely tied to language as many have thought. I think a promising thought in this territory is this: propositions are representational contents. Propositions represent the world as being a particular way. Some things that have propositions as contents are rather linguistic (many paradigmatic beliefs are like this). Other representational vehicles are less linguistic (think a sensory image, an auditory experience, or a painting). A painting can represent the world as being a particular way without having any linguistic content. Maybe the representational content of that painting just is a proposition.
Two: expand coherentism. Typically, coherentism is put as something like this: a belief's justificatory status is fixed by its relations to other beliefs. To the extent that it coheres well with other beliefs, it is justified. But maybe one could tweak coherentism here to include more than just beliefs as the things with which a belief must cohere in order to be justified. Maybe a belief's coherence with sensory experiences (and intuitions and memories and...) contributes to that belief's justificatory status too.
Thanks Aaron,
ReplyDeleteI know I need to get these things more spelled out, but at the moment I am trying to figure out what road I want to go down. I want to know what it is that I want to spell out. And I agree with you, I think I am going to write about what I want to be true, as long as i can find some feasible way of defending it.
Mr. Bailey,
Thank you very much. I am definitely very interested in these suggestions. You went to Biola right? I would love to hear about your development from undergrad to grad studies. I feel that applying to Grad school is a truly ominous task before me.
Thanks again,
Kyle
Kyle,
ReplyDeleteYes, I went to Biola. Four years ago, I was scrambling to get my senior thesis ideas in order and publicly presentable. Apparently, some things never change.
Keep posting here as you develop the thesis, eh? I'm curious to see where you go with it. And feel free to email me about grad school; other members of the Biolans Doing Philosophy group on Facebook would be happy to chat with you about that too, I'd guess. =)
-Andrew