Talk:Epistemology/Archive 8

The new paragraph on Descartes
Some arguments used in the contemporary externalist/internalist debate in philosophy of mind refer to the relation between mind and body that Descartes introduced in the early modern period. Descartes' answers to epistemological questions are not so easily related to contemporary justificatory views in naturalized epistemology and in the epistemological counterpart of this debate in particular,  but both debates have been related and constitute together a fundamental part of contemporary epistemology and of key contemporary epistemological concepts such as virtue epistemology. Descartes is well known for his dualism, but he is mostly known for his skeptical approach. He used this approach, not to deny that the objects of sensory experiences follow precise laws that can be known, but to gain certainty in the mind side, in the cogito, and he used this as a platform to get to other truths. In that respect,  Descartes was influenced by Plato. However, Descartes argued for a different kind of dualism. The new aspect of Cartesian dualism, with no counterpart in Plato's dualism, is the existence of a real physical world behind the sensory experiences with its own laws and a real mental substance behind our mental experiences and a causal relation between these two worlds. The part of this view, which says that "the external world is real but known to us only indirectly, is called indirect realism". In that sense, Descartes was the father of modern realism and, for realists, of modern philosophy as well. Descartes's interactionism (interaction between the physical reality and the substance of the mind) was abandoned in the nineteenth century because of the growing popularity of philosophical mechanism. Realism itself was not abandoned, only the coexistence of an independent substance behind the mind was abandoned.

References specific to notes
Dominic Mayers (talk) 18:36, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Relevancy
The time and effort you have invested in this section are inspiring and your recent adjustments solve the problem of the initial version. As the text in the paragraph suggests, the way the topic of the paragraph is related to epistemology seems to be rather complicated and indirect. Let's see if I can get it straight: It seems that this chain of connection is not made in a single source that is cited but several sources need to be combined to sketch out this path. Are you sure that this rather distant relation justifies adding a full paragraph to a wide overview article like this one (see WP:PROPORTION)? This issue could be avoided by instead adding this discussion to an article that has the internal-external debate in philosophy of mind as a main topic. Phlsph7 (talk) 08:56, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) Contemporary epistemology is part of epistemology
 * 2) The internal-external debate in epistemology belongs to contemporary epistemology
 * 3) The internal-external debate in epistemology is not the same as the internal-external debate in philosophy of mind but there are relations between them
 * 4) Various arguments are used in the internal-external debate in philosophy of mind
 * 5) Some of these argument refer to Descartes' dualism


 * Descartes is such an important figure that I do not see a need to prove the relevancy of a paragraph on Descartes in that section about how contemporary epistemology is historically informed. At the same time, claiming that Descartes had epistemological questions or finding contemporary epistemological concepts in Descartes' philosophy is something else. It is, in Barry Stroud's terminology, a "historically 'oriented' contemporary epistemology", a very different and controversial subject: many say that it is incorrect to use past philosophies in that manner. I am not saying that we should not present all pertinent view points on this, but it should be covered elsewhere, not in that section. This section is different. It must consider Descartes' philosophy as standardly seen by historians and present sources that discuss how this could inform, if at all, contemporary epistemology.  I am not trying to infer that Descartes' dualism informed contemporary epistemology. On the contrary, contemporary epistemology is centred around justification and there are sources that say that Descartes was far away from contemporary justification concerns. So, the paragraph is just being plain direct about it. There is no OR at all, but I know that is not your concern. It is relevancy. In view of the importance of Descartes, the question whether it has informed contemporary epistemology is relevant.  Let me add that I looked at Descartes' skepticism to see if it could have informed contemporary epistemology. Sources such as Popkin explain that Descartes used skepticism in a very special manner, not to deny knowledge of the laws of transitory external phenomena, but to gain certainty in the mind side. It is paradoxical to use skepticism to gain certainty, but that is what sources say.  Descartes' argument is that God gave us a priori knowledge and skepticism is a systematic way to unveil this gift of God. No source explains how this part of Descartes' view might have informed contemporary epistemology or even philosophy of mind and I guess it did not.It is not that sources completely ignore this. For example, Robert Audi wrote "... Descartes’s well-known denial that God would allow such a world, but I cannot pursue it here." On the other hand, we have sources that explain how Descartes' dualism informed the internalist/internalist debate. The more I think about it, the content of that paragraph is not that Descartes has informed contemporary epistemology, but that he has not, except indirectly through the externalist/internalist debate in philosophy of mind. This is clearly relevant in that section and interesting.  Dominic Mayers (talk) 10:37, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree with again. And this whole new excursus here is nothing more than WP:OR in my view. Descartes was no skeptic at all. He recognized the challenge of Skepticism (which is an ever present challenge which Epistemology cannot avoid), and tried to provide paths for the achievement of knowledge and certainty, which are the goals of Epistemology. I went through the Britannica entry on Epistemology again, and it is overall much better that what we have here, in my view. There is no mention in it whatsoever of  the internal-external debate in so-called "comtemporary epistemology" as far as I can see. Thank you, warshy (¥¥)  19:51, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
 * The part about Descartes' skepticism is from Popkin, which you suggested. Moreover, the paragraph, referring to Popkin, says what you say: Descartes found his base for certainty in the cogito. You further say that Descartes had the same goal as epistemology, but if by "epistemology" here you mean contemporary epistemology, this is controversial and requires attribution and it's not the subject of that section anyway. This section is not about whether or not contemporary epistemological questions or concepts can be located in past philosophies. Dominic Mayers (talk) 20:47, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Yep, it is a big mess, in my view, nothing else unfortunately. Simple misunderstandings. warshy (¥¥) 21:02, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
 * In any case, I am going to take into account what was said here. The paragraph seems to fight in a weak manner (by referring to philosophy of mind) to say that Descartes informed contemporary epistemology. I think that Phlsph7 correctly noticed that. There is something interesting to be said about the question how Descartes informed contemporary epistemology, but that one thing (the indirect connection through philosophy of mind) is only a part of it and not the first thing to be said: though I still think it is very interesting and relevant, it must be given its just place.  Kornblith's view point that it did not inform naturalized epistemology is also interesting on its own. Note that he did not say that Descartes did not inform contemporary epistemology at large, because that would be a very big statement to make: there might be contemporary epistemologists that take a metaphysical view similar to Descartes' view based on apriori given to us by God (renamed as Nature). Dominic Mayers (talk) 22:40, 18 November 2023 (UTC)