PoodleLovinPessimist

No argument there.

RPS

Assume the following scenario (with thanks to the formal debate from which I adapted it). I hear a sound during the night, with any number of possible explanations. Based upon my experience with sounds, I believe two possibilities are break-in or my cat scratching at the door. I might be more inclined to accept the break-in hypothesis if I hear the sounds of footsteps and someone whispering. If, however, I hear my cat’s collar jingling in the general location of my back door, I might prefer the cat explanation. If I get up and walk downstairs where I observe scratch marks on the back door that were not there before and the cat is sitting by the door, whining, I may believe the cat explanation. But unless I am misunderstanding you, you don't think my belief is evidence-based since both explanations are possible. Is that really what you mean?

PoodleLovinPessimist

I would say these beliefs are indeed warranted by the evidence; they are indeed evidence-based beliefs.

In practice evidence-based beliefs never can achieve absolute impossibility. Taken precisely, we believe statements of probability (or plausibility); colloquially we treat highly improbable as (mostly) false, and highly probable as (mostly) true.

But I think probabilism is a red herring. The limiting case of probabilism is ordinary logical implication, and for ordinary propositions (rocks & trees) we're very close to the limit. On the other hand, I'm engaged in egregious handwaving here; if you want to base your argument on some weakness of probabilism, you have some room to manoever.

My contention is that we can establish probabilism with benign noncognitive metaphysical assumptions which are self-referentially coherent under phenomenalism. I'll de-jargonize this statement if you really do want to hang your argument on probabilism. If you don't, then just read the contention as "probabilism is unproblematic".

RPS

Thank you for clarifying. I don't think I've ever seen cognitive defined that way (which may be representative of my ignorance).

Indeed we do.

Further response will have to wait as work intervenes.

PoodleLovinPessimist

<shrugs> "Cognitive" has many senses, even in canonical philosophy. True/False (or truth-apt) is just one of them. It's just a word, though; so long as the underlying concept is clear (cognitive in this sense means truth-apt, noncognitive means non-truth-apt), we're ok.

Likewise. I'm debugging today, so that requires a lot of breaks.

RPS

I don't see the demarcation as being so clear. For example:

• historical evidence is true/false, but not falsifiable;
• I believe logic is true (not just useful), despite no evidence in its favor;
• some questions mix opinion and fact (e.g., "Is she right for me?"); and
• non-cognitive matters (e.g., creativity, imagination, intuition) are vital in interpreting what we observe and believe.

Again, I don't think it's so cut-and-dried. Discussions about whether Mozart or Beethoven was better are largely matters of taste, but comparisons between either and Milli Vanilli are in another category altogether.

I'm surprised at your answer (though I don't doubt you). Other big questions I find to be decidedly un-trivial include

• Is she right for me?
• What type of government is best?
• Issues of morality and ethics -- Is torturing infants wrong or just a matter of taste?

I agree.

PoodleLovinPessimist

Historical evidence (documents, artifacts, testimonies, etc.) are verifiable.

Historical hypotheses have to falsifiable by the evidence. For instance: If George Washington didn't exist, we wouldn't observe his birth certificate; since we do in fact observe his birth certificate, he did in fact exist*. We cannot, however, conclude that George Washington did or did not have a mole on his left buttock; neither the hypothesis nor its inverse is contradicted by the evidence.

I don't.

Then the fact part is truth-apt and the opinion part isn't.

Vital perhaps. I deny they're truth-apt.

I do.

Not at all. It's purely a matter of taste.

A matter of taste.

A matter of taste.

A matter of taste. I have a thread on this very topic in MF&P: Moral Subjectivism in a Nutshell


*This is, of course, an oversimplification. If you want to get into probabilism, I'll be happy to go there, but there's a bit of maths.