After some deliberation I have decided on a project for my thesis. I have chosen to write about Coherentism with special attention on the Isolation Objection and responses to it. This was my original idea for a topic and I thought maybe I would branch out but I think this will be the best bet. With this topic I can focus on one thing and really hit it home, hopefully. I am glad to have been able to read a little bit off topic however, and I think I will be doing a lot more research on epistemic theories of justification in the future. At the moment I am planning on taking a serious look at BonJour's and Lehrer's responses to the isolation objection and I would much appreciate any further suggestions.
I am also beginning to think about the structure of the paper as I begin to write. I will definitely be sketching a basic coherence theory and a basic isolation objection. At the moment I am trying to figure out how I will be beginning the paper. My initial idea is to discuss theories of epistemic justification, namely foundationalism, and then to explain some reasons for rejecting earlier theories. I will sketch the Sellarsian dilemma of the Myth of the Given as a main objection to Foundationalism and then give reasons for trying to find other theories to answer the skeptical argument for the regress of justification. From here I will give Coherence theories as the best option and sketch out what I take to be a basic theory of Coherentism. That is all so far.
I am still out on deciding what I take to be the best possibility for a theory of epistemic justification. Susan Haack's foundherentism seems to be a great idea bringing together both foundationalist tendencies and coherence as a main constituent, yet it seems that this theory must fall into either of the two categories it is trying to combine. And thus it succumbs to the objections of its parentage.
New-Old Fashioned Foundationalism like that of Fumerton and BonJour are both very interesting, but I worry that direct acquaintance has as many definitional issues as coherence. Also I feel that BonJour's constituative apperception of the content of sensual beliefs seems a bit tacked on or ad hoc. I am not sure of this, but I feel that if his theory were to be true then it wouldn't be provable by any means.
Externalism like that of Pollock and Plantinga seems plausible as well, but again here I feel that both may turn out to be unprovable. Pollock's theory will simply be subject to probability ratings if it escapes the problems of reliablism, and Plantinga's design plans will only be proven if Christ returns or if one finds themselves dead and in the afterlife (which is not much help to us here).
So again I am brought back to coherence and I am not exactly sure what to do. Hopefully in my investigations of the isolation objection I will be drawn to one way of answering the problem. If I can find a way to explain input (especially sense input) into a coherentist system, then a coherence theory would probably be the most defensible.
As always, any suggestions or questions are welcome
Kyle
Hey Kyle!
ReplyDeleteI might think of more to say later but a quick thought I had on the structure of your paper is this: I know it's tempting if you want to defend a view (e.g., coherentism) to explain its motivation, to show why competing views fail, and so on and so forth - but you'll find that, in philosophy, you don't necessarily have to do all of that. And, if you do, maybe that ought to be a book and not a paper. This is a lesson I had to be taught over and over again. Interestingly, in a paper (as opposed to a book) you won't even have to say that you prefer coherentism to competing views; a paper that merely argues for
p: coherentism survives the isolation objection
is fully legitimate, regardless of whether you're a coherentist or not. It's funny, but papers, in order to be deep and penetrating, often must be this focused. (This isn't to say anything about your paper in particular, it's mostly just an example.)
So, feel free to not say stuff in order to free up space to say penetrating things about the one thing your paper is about. E.g., your whole paper could be summed up in straight forward steps with not too much elaboration besides what's necessary for clarity: (a) coherentism is the thesis that (blah blah blah), (b) philosophers x and y raise the isolation objection, which is the worry that (blah blah blah), (c) but coherentism survives, because the coherentist can respond as follows (blah blah blah).
The last (blah blah blah) is the whole point of the paper and if you're simple in your structure you'll have space to develop this important point that you want to make. (I.e., to clarify, then maybe even to raise worries about your own point and then respond to them - this is penetration, specially if the point you're making hasn't yet been made.)
But I haven't necessarily been talking about your paper, just passing on a hard lesson I've had to learn and relearn about staying focused.
Michael
Thanks Mike,
ReplyDeleteAfter talking with Gregg and Tom I think I have decided to write much more along the lines you just laid out. Now I just need to really dig into the isolation objection and figure out the nuance of responses to it.