In a message dated 5/27/2015 11:16:24 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
jejunejesuit.geary2@xxxxxxxxx writes:
All this time and we still don't know anything for sure, do we?
Well, that depends on a conceptual analysis.
Of the items, "all" "this" "time" and "know" and "for" and "sure". Note
that "for" has a different usage in "I wrote this letter for Sue". In "know
for sure", "for sure" is adverbial for "surely". "Surely we don't know
anything".
"All this time" may refer, broadly, from Neanderthal to G. E. Moore, and
Moore notably claimed he KNEW things for sure. Notably that he had two hands
(and that therefore there was, against Plato, Hume, Berkeley, Schopenhauer,
and Hegel, that there was an external world).
By 'hand', Moore displayed some science-refined perception, because 'hand'
is a theoretical term in a subsidiary science, anatomy. A hand (if not
specifically Moore's hand) is defined as a prehensile, multi-fingered
extremity located at the end of an arm or forelimb of primates such as humans,
chimpanzees, monkeys, and lemurs.
A few other vertebrates such as the koala (which has two opposable thumbs
on each "hand" and fingerprints remarkably similar to human fingerprints)
are often described as having either "hands" or "paws" on their front limbs.
Moore teasingly said that if his hands proved the existence of the external
world, he also knew for sure that there was an external world for koalas
("or any other animal with hands like me").
Thanks to McEvoy for his post clarifying Popper's position towards Moore's
type of defense of common sense and realism. McEvoy was considering
Popper's implicatures regarding Moore, and cautiously writes:
"To draw "implicatures" correctly from [Popper's specific] expression of
admiration [for Moore on just one footnote of his big book], requires a
wider survey of Popper's writings. In this wider context, we might draw
several implicatures."
I take McEvoy's implicature that the admiration might get diminished by the
fact that Moore disadmired (if I may use a neologism) Moore's abilities as
an analyst (as when he called Russell's Theory of Types a paradigm of
analysis, without, Moore, caring to even MENTION what problem that theory was
supposed to solve!).
Geary speaks of 'know for sure', and this was what activated Norman Malcolm
(who later settled in Cornell, Sage, Ithaca) after reading Moore's seminal
proof of the external world in the Proceedings of the British Academy.
Malcolm felt that 'know for sure' should be narrowed in usage to IMPORTANT
discoveries (e.g. Copernicus knew for sure that Ptolemy was wrong) rather
than a Cambridge professor (as Moore was) teasing the Idealist with a
'proof of the external world' by the deictic gestures of waving both his left
and his right hand to an attentive audience. ("When I wrote "Proof of an
external world", I was having a reader rather than a looker in mind," Moore
commented).
So, is this all about an analysis of 'know for sure'. Moore famously
claimed that someone may use 'know for sure' and knowing what 'know for sure'
means without knowing an 'analysis' of 'know for sure': i.e. the necessary and
sufficient conditions for its usage). Popper claims this type of analysis
diverts the philosopher's attention for more important topics like
evolution theory and his long-standing criticism of Hegel.
It may do to revisit alternative interpretations of Moore's manoeuvre,
unless under this heading.
Malcolm then is paramount.
Given, Malcolm says, quite after Moore published his "proof", that Moore's
claim to KNOW that he has two hands (since this is a condition for a proof
to be a valid proof), merely begs the question against the sceptic --
which is precisely the point made also by Omar K. -- and Malcolm suggests we
need to interpret Moore's strategy somewhat differently to save him for
begging a question ("It is never respectable to beg." Cfr. Alice to the King:
"I
beg your pardon?". "It isn't respectable to beg," said the King. "I only
meant that I didn't understand," said Alice, implicating that Alice wasn't
just BEGGING, but the king's pardon, similarly, Moore might claim that he is
merely begging a question).
Still, Malcolm suggests that Moore is employing a Paradigm-Case Argument
against the sceptic. The PCA (for short) was invented in those days by A. G.
N. Flew. If a phrase, like 'know for sure' IS used on occasions, it must
be used, on occasion, to utter TRUE things.
Malcolm starts by saying that, since no possible evidence could assuage
the sceptic's doubt (and Popper might agree with this, since he takes Hume, I
believe, as not just an empiricist, but a sceptic at that), scepticism is
not an empirical thesis (How this fits with Hume is a different question
that someone might beg).
(Note incidentally that Popper expands his reflections on realism to
include Russell's attempt to provide an alternative way of proving the sceptic
wrong via a 'transcendental argument' alla Kant -- which is something that
Popper himself seems to do when he uses so comfortably the adjective
'critical' to define his position).
But back to the day, Malcolm (in a exercise of what we may call 'ordinary
language philosophy' -- Malcolm had Oxonian associations) interpreted Moore
as making a "semantic ascent" and interpreting the sceptic not as
primarily saying that we can never have knowledge about the external world,
but
that, verbatim:
"the phrase 'know for certain' is not properly applied to material-thing
statements."
His emphasis was on "properly", which was all the vogue in Oxford at that
time (recall Austin's querying Warnock as to the distinction between
playing cricket properly and playing cricket correctly). Malcolm might be
having
in mind Waissmann's language-stratum theory and Oxonian attempts (like
Isaiah Berlin in "Mind" to define a statement about a material thing -- a
physicalist sentence -- in terms of sense data, or rather, as equivalent to a
conditional sentence regarding sense data -- a phenomenalist sentence -- and
Popper I think makes a passing reference to this in his treatment of
Schlick whom he knew well, and who was an infamous phenomenalist).
This might be where McEvoy would suggest that the polemic turns, in a non
profitable way, towards a subjective view of knowledge qua justified true
belief, as opposed to the approach to 'objective' knowledge propounded by
Popper. Popper seems to be saying that we don't need a conceptual analysis of
'know for sure' (or 'know' simpliciter) in terms of necessary and
sufficient conditions, but rather an evolutionary approach to it as whatever
takes
to solve a problem. He adds 'objective' to this type of 'knowlege' to
distinguish it from whatever psychological element he perceived in idealist
theories of knowledge. "It is a known fact...", for Popper, does not seem to
make a reference to a POPULATION, even of scientists -- _directly_ -- but may
be interpreted in a more abstract way as an item in what he calls the
'third world' or 'realm' ("dritte Reich").
Moore then, Malcolm goes on to suggest, manages to 'refute' the sceptic
NOT by appeal to a COMMON-SENSE belief (as he thinks he is doing) but by a
prescriptive linguistic maneuvre (using an expression INAPPROPRIATELY without
caring about this), and, on top of it, and worse in Malcolm's eyes (since
he did not particularly liked Flew's concoction of a
paradigm-case-argument) drawing on paradigm-cases of an alleged correct usage
of an epistemic
concepts ("I know for certain that here's a hand, i.e. a prehensile,
multi-fingered extremity located at the end of an arm or forelimb in primates
such
as humans, chimpanzees, monkeys, and lemurs" -- Moore would expand this to
refine his common sense with what science has to offer -- he could allow his
realism be refined that way).
Such cases of epistemic contexts (for the use of 'know for sure') will
involve material things of which we have an unobstructed view in standard
lighting conditions, like "here is one hand", as said by a lemur (Witters
disagreed: "If a lemur could speak, would we understand her?").
In other words, Malcolm's Moore is saying that the "grammar" (in Witters's
sense of the term) of "knows" and "with certainty" are constituted by such
examples -- but Malcolm disagrees and thinks that 'know' should be
restricted to scenarios where an 'inquiry is under way' (as in what Niels Bohr
knew, after his serious experiments with stuff, or Heisenberg FAILED to know,
after his failed experiments).
Malcom is thus criticising Moore for claiming to know for sure *a priori*
that the DENIAL of the existence of material things (as per, say Hegel and
your common or garden idealist -- my favourite: Bradley), or of our
knowledge of them, cannot be coherently asserted.
Malcolm's critique was criticised, and he does not address Popper's and
Russell's point that what we need is some sort of 'transcendental argument',
but it got philosophers thinking into how wrong Witters was in thinking
that meaning is use, so that when we wonder about what 'know' means we must
observe people (like Moore and Malcolm) and hypothesise as to how they use
it, rather than as to what *they* mean -- a world of a difference.
Cheers,
Speranza
Malcolm, "Criticising common sense"
Malcolm, "Moore and ordinary language".
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