No Epistemic Antecedent “Pryor” to Defeat Skepticism

In this paper I will discuss a plausible response to Cartesian Skepticism under the umbrella of a modest anti-skeptical approach as articulated by James Pryor. To do this I will, first, restate the particular skeptical argument that Pryor develops to target. Then, I will discuss Pryor’s theory of dogmatic perceptual justification and explain how it counters both the skeptical argument and objections directed (more or less) toward it. Lastly, I will pursue an open question raised by the theory of dogmatic perceptual justification and consider both different remedies and their consequences.

BACKGROUND

The modest anti-skeptical approach aims to bring about our (the non skeptics) satisfaction that we can justifiably believe and know propositions (e.g. this is a table) by way of perception. The skeptic will attempt to undermine our perceptual knowledge with intuitively acceptable premises that lead to unacceptable conclusions, i.e. conclusions that such propositions as the one above are unattainable. As we need not satisfy the skeptic but merely ourselves the goal is thereby to preserve as many assumptions of perception possible (even those the skeptic may reject) that ultimately deny the skeptical outcome. With these stipulations and ultimate goal in mind Pryor constructed his version of the skeptical argument to read as follows:

1. “If you are justified in believing that you’re not being deceived by an evil demon, that justification has to rest in part on some perceptual justification you have for believing things about the external world” (Pryor, 530).
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3. (SPJ) “If you’re to have justification for believing p on the basis of certain experiences or grounds E, then for every q which is “bad” relative to E and p, you have to have antecedent justification for believing q to be false- justification which doesn’t rest on or presuppose any E-based justification you may have for believing p” (Pryor, 531).
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5. “The hypothesis that you’re being deceived by an evil demon is “bad” relative to any course of experience E and perceptual belief p” (Pryor, 528).
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Pryor modified analogous premises of other classical skeptical arguments that, when translated into an argument against perceptual justification, became “bald” claims (Pryor, 523). These bald claims were neither likely nor effective for the skeptic’s argument due to “important disanalogies between justified belief and knowledge” found in Gettier case examples (e.g. justification may not be factive) (Pryor, 523). One such bald premise may claim that, one cannot at any time be justified that he is not being deceived by an evil demon. Though it might be the case that one cannot have the corresponding knowledge of this claim, because of aforementioned disanalogies it does not follow that he cannot form a justified belief of such. With this in mind premise (1) claims that the source of my justification is my perceptual experiences. This implies that I will not be able to provide any non question begging evidence or proof for the justification of my perceptual beliefs (e.g. My perceptual experiences represent there being a table. I see a table in front of me. Therefore, that is a table.). As the skeptic will likely point out the circular implication I have made explicit she may choose not to accept this premise, yet her rejection will not impede our progress, nor will the strength of this adapted premise.

Premise (2) is what Pryor labels the “Skeptical Principle about Justification” (SPJ). This principle is derived from special features of the skeptical argument, scenarios that no experience from perception would be able to defeat. The skeptic may object that such a scenario may obtain alternatively to any perceptual based proposition. Because these alternatives can be applied to all perceptual experiences and (if they were to obtain) my justification for believing the perceptually based proposition would remain unchanged while now resulting in a skeptical conclusion, such alternatives or claims are considered “bad.” For example, let proposition, p,be “there is a table” for which my justification or evidence, E,for believing in p is my perceptual experience of that table, i.e. I see a table. The skeptic now injects the alternative, q, that I am a brain in a vat being electrochemically shocked thereby inducing representations of p for which I may continue to believe by way of E.

I have explained how the skeptical scenarios may be “bad” relative to any perceptual experience while premise (3) solidifies the issue by stating that such scenarios are “bad”. The skeptic sees the road to her conclusion and will drive it home by way of antecedent necessity. The SPJ further entails that all alternatives that are “bad” must be antecedently defeated before justification for perceptually based propositions can be obtained. This means that you must know each alternative q is false before you can justify p. To further clarify, “antecedent” is not is not to be understood in the temporal sense, it is not enough that I’m justified in believing p at a time before I know alternative q to be false; but rather “antecedent” refers to epistemic priority. My justification for believing p must come before that of knowing not-q and, further, this justification must not rest on or presuppose that not-q is the case, i.e. the evidence for the perceptually based proposition may not be a precondition that the “bad” alternative does not obtain.

With this understanding we can now complete the skeptical argument at hand. If we are to justify propositions gained by way of perception, then we must have antecedent justification that we are not being deceived by an evil demon. We cannot antecedently justify that we are not being deceived. Therefore, by modus tollens, wecannot have justification for our perceptual experiences.

MAIN THESIS

“The dogmatist about perceptual knowledge is a fallibilist”(Pryor, 520). Fallibilism is roughly the theory that in the absence of contradictory evidence you may be justified in your beliefs. In other words, fallibilists claim that beliefs may be held and justifiably so, yet this belief may later be found to be counterfactual. This means perceptual justification is defeasible and does not guarantee beliefs. The fallibilist accepts the possibility that new evidence and arguments may come about that would undermine his beliefs, though until such contradictory evidence is uncovered he may be justified in his beliefs. Note, however, that “few fallibilists are dogmatists” (Pryor, 520).

This relation results from the dogmatists’ of perceptual justification belief of how this justification comes about, what it is that is the source of perceptual justification. The source is your perceptual experiences. “When it perceptually seems to you as if p is the case, you have a kind of justification for believing p that does not presuppose or rest on your justification for anything else” (Pryor, 519). If the propositional content of my perceptual experience is there is a table, then I have a kind of justification for the belief there is a table. Further, this justification arises in virtue of having a perceptual experience. I need not even be aware of my experiences by means of introspection to gather the type of justification the dogmatist is defending. Of course, introspection or other means could potentially add distinct and relative justification to the perceptual justification gained by experience reinforcing the cummulative justification for the proposition. Similarly, contradictory evidence could also be discovered in which case the fallibilist nature of the dogmatist is revealed. The dogmatist “only claims that there is a kind of justification you have which does not rest on these things” (Pryor, 519).

What, then, is the kind of justification the dogmatist claims to be obtained through perceptual experiences? The justification may be labelled immediate, prima facie justification. Many characteristics of this type of justification are prevalent directly above because immediate justification “has to do with the source of your justification, not the strength” (Pryor, 532). Immediate justification can (again) be understood as: “you are immediately justified in believing p iff you are justified in believing p, and this justification doesn’t rest on any evidence or justification you have for believing other propositions” (Pryor, 532). But although no other justification is required it might be the case that other certain background beliefs are needed to entertain the propositional content of one’s experiences. In this manner, the perceptual justification is not to be confused with the notion of an epistemically autonomous belief, namely one in which the belief could be justified absent all other beliefs. Discerning the truth hood of a written sentence will exemplify this point. If the sentence is in Spanish, then the observer must be fluent in Spanish enough to comprehend the sentences meaning before justifiedly claiming its validity. “What’s necessary for him to entertain the belief is one matter, and what the nature of his justification for the belief is is another matter” (Pryor, 534).

Prima facie justification is more or less a reiteration of the point made by fallibilism. On the surface or as things appear to you through experience, one is justified in believing the content of this experience. This justification will become all things considered justification iff there remains absent any evidence that would destroy or undermine one’s belief. Pryor’s goal is to have prima facie justification understood in such a way that defeating evidence is “only ordinary evidence of the sort employed by the man in the street and by the working scientist … thereby a priori skeptical arguments do not standardly introduce defeating evidence of that ordinary sort” (Pryor, 534). This point further fits the category of a modest anti-skeptical approach allowing for as many possible pre theoretical assumptions of perception while denying the skeptical outcome. I, now, need to illustrate how this theory does just that.

If the theory of dogmatic perceptual justification is correct, then we may reject the Skeptical Principle about Justification. We may reject the skeptic at this point because it is entailed in the SPJ that for any proposition, p, any and all related “bad” alternative(s) to p and its respective grounds or evidence, E, must be antecedently proved to be not-q before acquiring justification for the belief p. The theory of dogmatic perceptual justification denies SPJ requirement stating rather that one is immediately, prima facie justified in p if one’s experiences present p to be the case, and that further absence of contradictory evidence will result in all things considered justification. The dogmatist has shown how antecedent justification does not hold and thereby will not render preconditions for the obtaining of justification for the propositional content of one’s experiences. This prima facie justification does defeat the SPJ but does not immediately rule out the skeptical conclusion. In a weird sense, this theory allows one to be justified in the belief that he has hands while in the same breath proclaiming his uncertainty regarding his being a brain in a vat (BIV). The perceptual justification is rather a starting point for external beliefs and after cummulation of similar justified beliefs in the absence of contradictory evidence will the dogmatist ever feel he “knows” he is not a BIV.

Crispin Wright was not willing to accept the immediate, prima facie justification that dogmatists defended. Rather Wright theorized that the problem concerning both Skepticism and the theory of Dogmatic Perceptual Justification was an error in the passing of justification, a failure of transmission resulting in a bad argument. Transmission roughly states that: “to acquire a warrant for the premises of a valid argument and to recognize its validity is thereby to acquire — perhaps for the first time — a warrant to accept the conclusion” (Jackson, LOH 16). I will discuss this theory by putting forward the argument that follows: “(I) Jones has just kicked the ball between the white posts. (II) Jones has just scored a goal. Therefore (III) A game of soccer is taking place.” (Jackson, LOH 16). Wright’s objection is that there must be already obtained justification for (III) and that this justification is a precondition for accepting the transfer from (I) to (II). He means that someone who observed (I) would not be able to infer (II) without already having known or accepted (III) to be the case. In other words, it is a precondition that (III) before one accepts (II). As justification for (III) acts as a precondition for the acceptance of (II) by inference from (I) no new genuine justification for (III) was presented. It is this transmission failure that makes this argument appear bad to Wright. The dogmatist has two possible routes he may take to defend his position against such an argument.

First, the dogmatist may claim that immediate, prima facie justification for (I) is obtained by the perceptual experience of the observer witnessing a ball roll between two white posts. This immediate justification, having not rested on any justification for believing any other propositions, is a new, distinct, and genuine type of justification from any including that justification for believing (III). For this reason, new genuine justification is transferred from (I) to (II) and then finally, amplifies the justification for (III).

Second, the dogmatist may also conclude that such an argument is bad yet his reason will be different. It is the propositional content of one’s experiences that one is justified in believing upon having perceptual experiences. The dogmatist can thereby deny that the proposition a ball rolled between two white posts is the propositional content that is justified by the perceptual experience. Perhaps the propositional content of this experience was there is a ball or there are white posts or there is a ball and white posts. The proposition that there is a ball that rolled between two posts would require further justified beliefs concerning action and spatial properties obtained by way of reason, memory, etc. In this case the dogmatist may deny that (I) was ever justified by the kind of justification he defends and thereby escapes the argument at its outset.

This second response leads in nicely to the open question of what is justified according to the theory of dogmatic perceptual justification. However, I have already approached page maxims and will not pursue this course with further written work. I will close with Pryor’s official view: “that we have immediate prima facie justification for believing those propositions that our experiences basically represent to us — whichever propositions those turn out to be” (Pryor, 539). We are left understanding the rules of chess without knowing what are the pieces.