Argument mapping assignment 1

Note: an answer key is now available here.

Due at the end of the day on Sunday 28 November.

Consider the following passage from Williamson’s “Knowledge and Evidence” (1997), pp. 725–26:

Consider inference to the best explanation (Lipton 1991). We often choose between hypotheses by asking which of them best explains our evidence—which of them, if true, would explain the evidence better than any other one would, if true. Fossil evidence enables us to answer questions about terrestrial life in this way. Even if inference to the best explanation is not legitimate in all theoretical contexts, what matters for present purposes is that, where evidence does enable us to answer a question, a central way for it to do so is by inference to its best explanation. Thus evidence is the kind of thing which hypotheses explain. But the kind of thing which hypotheses explain is propositional. Therefore evidence is propositional.

The kind of thing which hypotheses explain is propositional. Inference to the best explanation concerns why-explanations, which can be put in the form “— because …”. which is ungrammatical unless declarative sentences, complements for “that”, replace the blanks. […]

One can use an hypothesis to explain why — only if one grasps the proposition that —. Thus only propositions which one grasps can function as evidence in one’s inferences to the best explanation. By this standard, only propositions one grasps count as part of one’s evidence.

Use MindMup to create an argument map for Williamson’s argument in this passage. (Note: I have deleted part of the second paragraph in this passage. You don’t need to use any of the deleted material in your map.)

Remember to use the “Create on Google Drive” option, and don’t forget to save your work! You may want to turn on the Autosave function.

You’re encouraged to work with your classmates, but each student must submit the assignment separately. If you do work with others, please list your collaborators in the appropriate place in the below submission form.

Reminder: it need not be the case that every sentence is a part of Williamson’s argument. Some sentences may simply be explanations, clarifications, transitions, etc. Remember also that there may be implicit premises: claims that are not explicitly stated but that are nevertheless required in order for the argument to work. If you notice any of these, you can include them in your map and indicate that they are implicit using the “Toggle implicit claim” button in the MindMup toolbar.

Click here to submit your completed assignment.

Argument mapping assignment 2

Note: an answer key is now available here.

Due at the start of class on Wednesday 12 January.

Consider the passage from Vogel’s “Reliabilism Leveled” (2000) that begins near the bottom of p. 616 with “Suppose we set this scruple aside” and runs through the end of p. 617. Add the argument in this passage to this map of Vogel’s larger bootstrapping argument. (Note: the argument in the relevant passage is offered in support of one of the claims that appears as a premise in the map I’ve provided. You just need to add Vogel’s argument for that premise.)

Begin by saving a copy of the map to your own Google Drive, then do your work on that copy. Don’t forget to save your work! You may want to turn on the Autosave function.

We’ll begin working on the assignment in small groups in class on 22 December. (Please don’t complete it before then.) But note that each student must submit the assignment separately. Please list your collaborators in the appropriate place in the below submission form.

Reminder: it need not be the case that every sentence is a part of Vogel’s argument. Some sentences may simply be explanations, clarifications, transitions, etc. Remember also that there may be implicit premises: claims that are not explicitly stated but that are nevertheless required in order for the argument to work. If you notice any of these, you can include them in your map and indicate that they are implicit using the “Toggle implicit claim” button in the MindMup toolbar.

Click here to submit your completed assignment.

Midterm paper

Due at the start of class on Wednesday 19 January, via email.

The assignment

Think of this as a way of writing a draft of your final paper, one that you’ll revise and expand based on my feedback. (Your final paper won’t be required to be a revised and expanded version of your midterm paper – you can write an entirely new paper if you like. But you will be allowed to submit a revised and expanded version of your midterm paper as your final paper.)

You have two options:

  1. Develop an argument on a topic of your own choosing (though see the below caveats), and present that argument in a paper of 1000–1500 words. (If you need to make the paper longer in order to present your argument adequately, that’s fine. But remember: the final version, which you’ll submit at the end of February, must be no more than 2000 words.)
    • Caveat 1: your argument must be responsive to at least one of the readings from the course, and you must, in the course of your argument, demonstrate your understanding of some argument from that reading. (You might, for instance, give your own argument against a thesis that’s relied on by some author, but if you do so, you must also explain what role, exactly, that thesis plays in the theorist’s own argument.)
    • Caveat 2: if you do decide to work on a topic of your choosing, you should run it by me first – you can send me an email, or we can set up a short meeting via Webex.
  2. Below you’ll find a selection of passages from some of the papers we’ve read. Choose one of these passages and explain as best you can, in a paper of 1000–1500 words, what’s going on in it.
    • You should explain just what the author is saying in the quoted passage (taking care to explain any unfamiliar or technical terminology) and why they say it, including what role the passage is playing in the author’s larger argument. (You do not yet need to evaluate the author’s argument, though you may spend some time doing so if you like. I will ask you to do so later, in the expanded version that will serve as your final paper.)
    • If, in order to make sense of a passage, you need to introduce or refer to other aspects of the author’s position, or to some aspect of the position the author is criticizing, then you should do so. You should also raise critical questions about the author’s position, insofar as your need to do so to defend or motivate aspects of your interpretation. But you should not attempt to introduce or explain aspects of the author’s position that don’t bear upon the interpretation of the passage – all such discussion is irrelevant to the task you’re being asked to carry out.

Regardless of which of these two options you choose, you should feel free to make use of the course notes, etc., to help you make sense of the material you’re discussing.

The passages

  • A crippling problem emerges for internalism. If epistemic principles are not knowable by all naive agents, no such principles can qualify as justifiers under the KJ constraint. If no epistemic principles so qualify, no proposition can be justifiably believed by any agent. Wholesale skepticism follows. (Goldman, “Internalism exposed”, p. 288)
  • There is a sense in which p’s support for q is a “justifier.” It is part of an explanation of the fact that the person’s belief in q is justified. But this does not imply that internalists are committed to the view that there must be some internal representation of this fact. It may be that a person’s being in the state described by (i) is sufficient for the belief that q to be justified. If so, then all individuals mentally alike in that they share that state are justified in believing q. The fact in (ii) may help to account for the justification without the person making any mental use of that fact. (Feldman & Conee, “Internalism defended”, p. 12)
  • No-foundations and special foundations theories require that all or most beliefs be associated with non-trivial justificatory arguments, if they are to be justified. Consider the implication of such a requirement for things one came to believe for reasons one has now forgotten. One no longer associates reasons or justificatory arguments with such beliefs. The requirement that such beliefs be associated with justificatory arguments if they are to be justified implies that such beliefs are not justified. Given the normative aspect of justification, one ought to give up any such belief and one is at fault for continuing to believe it. (Harman, “Skepticism and foundations”, p. 6)
  • Such a view could perhaps appeal to experiential causation to identify genuinely perceptual or observational beliefs, including even beliefs about the content of experience itself. But the justification of these beliefs would involve no further appeal to experience and so could apparently only derive from something like coherence among themselves and with further, non-perceptual beliefs. Such a position would resemble rather closely my own earlier view, with the important difference that there would be no question as to whether the perceptual beliefs were genuinely caused by the world. This would avoid the alternative coherent systems objection, but whether the content of such beliefs would constitute input from the world in the full sense that empirical knowledge seems to demand now seems to me substantially more doubtful. (BonJour, “Hack on justification and experience”, p. 22)
  • But evidentialism as such is not enough to thwart bootstrapping. An evidentialist view will also permit bootstrapping, just so long as it says there are sources that confer knowledge or justification without any requirement that the reliability of the source be known. … In fact, in order for the bootstrapper to get off the ground, all we need allow is that perception is a source of knowledge independent of knowledge of its own reliability, and similarly for introspection, memory and induction. (Van Cleve, “Is knowledge easy – or impossible? Externalism as the only alternative to skepticism”, p. 48)

Final paper

Due at 23:59 on Monday 28 February, via email. (If you’d like more time than this, get in touch with me and we’ll make arrangements.)

The assignment

You have two options:

  1. Develop an argument on a topic of your own choosing (though see the below caveats), and present that argument in a paper of 1500–2000 words.
    • Caveat 1: your argument must be responsive to at least one of the readings from the course, and you must, in the course of your argument, demonstrate your understanding of some argument from that reading. (You might, for instance, give your own argument against a thesis that’s relied on by some author, but if you do so, you must also explain what role, exactly, that thesis plays in the theorist’s own argument.)
    • Caveat 2: if you do decide to work on a topic of your choosing, you should run it by me first – you can send me an email, or we can set up a short meeting via Webex.
  2. Below you’ll find a selection of passages from some of the papers we’ve read during the term. Choose one of these passages and explain as best you can, in a paper of 1500–2000 words, what’s going on in it. (Most of these are just the passages from the midterm paper assignment, but I’ve also included a new passage from Putnam’s “Brains in a vat”.)
    • You should explain just what the author is saying in the quoted passage (taking care to explain any unfamiliar or technical terminology) and why they say it, including what role the passage is playing in the author’s larger argument. You should also spend at least some time evaluating the author’s argment as you’ve laid it out. (Note: you were not asked to do this in the midterm paper; this is a new requirement.)
    • If, in order to make sense of a passage, you need to introduce or refer to other aspects of the author’s position, or to some aspect of the position the author is criticizing, then you should do so. You should also raise critical questions about the author’s position, insofar as your need to do so to defend or motivate aspects of your interpretation. But you should not attempt to introduce or explain aspects of the author’s position that don’t bear upon the interpretation of the passage – all such discussion is irrelevant to the task you’re being asked to carry out.

If you like, you may complete this assignment by revising and expanding your midterm paper, taking into account my feedback. But you also have the option of writing an entirely new paper.

Regardless of which option you choose, you should feel free to make use of the course notes, etc., to help you make sense of the material you’re discussing.

The passages

  • A crippling problem emerges for internalism. If epistemic principles are not knowable by all naive agents, no such principles can qualify as justifiers under the KJ constraint. If no epistemic principles so qualify, no proposition can be justifiably believed by any agent. Wholesale skepticism follows. (Goldman, “Internalism exposed”, p. 288)
  • There is a sense in which p’s support for q is a “justifier.” It is part of an explanation of the fact that the person’s belief in q is justified. But this does not imply that internalists are committed to the view that there must be some internal representation of this fact. It may be that a person’s being in the state described by (i) is sufficient for the belief that q to be justified. If so, then all individuals mentally alike in that they share that state are justified in believing q. The fact in (ii) may help to account for the justification without the person making any mental use of that fact. (Feldman & Conee, “Internalism defended”, p. 12)
  • No-foundations and special foundations theories require that all or most beliefs be associated with non-trivial justificatory arguments, if they are to be justified. Consider the implication of such a requirement for things one came to believe for reasons one has now forgotten. One no longer associates reasons or justificatory arguments with such beliefs. The requirement that such beliefs be associated with justificatory arguments if they are to be justified implies that such beliefs are not justified. Given the normative aspect of justification, one ought to give up any such belief and one is at fault for continuing to believe it. (Harman, “Skepticism and foundations”, p. 6)
  • Such a view could perhaps appeal to experiential causation to identify genuinely perceptual or observational beliefs, including even beliefs about the content of experience itself. But the justification of these beliefs would involve no further appeal to experience and so could apparently only derive from something like coherence among themselves and with further, non-perceptual beliefs. Such a position would resemble rather closely my own earlier view, with the important difference that there would be no question as to whether the perceptual beliefs were genuinely caused by the world. This would avoid the alternative coherent systems objection, but whether the content of such beliefs would constitute input from the world in the full sense that empirical knowledge seems to demand now seems to me substantially more doubtful. (BonJour, “Hack on justification and experience”, p. 22)
  • But evidentialism as such is not enough to thwart bootstrapping. An evidentialist view will also permit bootstrapping, just so long as it says there are sources that confer knowledge or justification without any requirement that the reliability of the source be known. … In fact, in order for the bootstrapper to get off the ground, all we need allow is that perception is a source of knowledge independent of knowledge of its own reliability, and similarly for introspection, memory and induction. (Van Cleve, “Is knowledge easy – or impossible? Externalism as the only alternative to skepticism”, p. 48)
  • If these brains think about, refer to, represent trees (real trees, outside the vat), then it must be because of the way the ‘program’ connects the system of language to non-verbal inputs and outputs. There are indeed such non-verbal inputs and outputs in the Brain-in-a-Vat world (those efferent and afferent nerve endings again!), but we also saw that the ‘sense-data’ produced by the automatic machinery do not represent trees (or anything external) even when they resemble our tree-images exactly. … How can the fact that, in the case of the brains in a vat, the language is connected by the program with sensory inputs which do not intrinsically or extrinsically represent trees (or anything external) possibly bring it about that the whole system of representation, the language-in-use, does refer to or represent trees or anything external? (Putnam, “Brains in a vat”, p. 13)