The Impact of Meta-Induction: From Skepticism to Optimality

In the first section, five major attempts to solve the problem of induction and their failures are discussed. In the second section, an account of meta-induction is introduced. It offers a novel solution to the problem of induction, based on mathematical theorems about the predictive optimality of attractivity-weighted meta-induction. In the third section, how the a priori justification of meta-induction provides a non-circular a posteriori justification of object-induction, based on its superior track record, is explained. In the fourth section, four important extensions and refinements of the method of meta-induction are presented. The final section, summarizes the major impacts of the program of meta-induction for epistemology, the philosophy of science and cognitive science.

Phenomenal Explanationism’s Global Ambitions

This chapter further elucidates PE by explaining how it applies to multiple domains. Though the preceding chapter already touches upon some of these, here it is cashed out how PE can account for perceptual justification, memorial justification, testimonial justification, introspective justification, and a priori justification. Exploring the contours of PE in this way reveals just how powerful and unified the theory is. Along the way, it is argued that Declan Smithies’ forceful objections to PC fail to impugn PE. Additionally, it is shown that PE has the resources to respond to each of the challenges that Smithies claims are faced by any internalist theory with “global ambitions”––any theory that purports to be a comprehensive account of epistemic justification. (These challenges for instance include the problem of forgotten evidence and the problem of stored beliefs.) The discussion in this chapter makes it clear that PE is a comprehensive account of epistemic justification that achieves its global ambitions.

The problem of justifying inductive reasoning

In this paper, the author considers the classical strategies of defense from Hume's argument against induction, and assesses the extent to which they were found to be successful. Synthetic, linguistic, a priori, pragmatic, and inductive strategies of defending induction are considered, as well as the question of the extent to which the justification of induction is a problem for grounding scientific knowledge. A new argument is introduced for the a priori justification of induction, as well as a critique of the synthetic and inductive defenses of induction by Black and Jacquette.

Boghossian on Intuition, Understanding, and the A Priori Once Again1

This chapter replies to Boghossian’s Chapter 15 and amplifies the arguments of the author’s Chapter 14. In particular, it illustrates the loss of underived dispositions with an example from learning mathematics, when the novice gradually ceases to be tempted by a certain kind of mistake. It is also explains why the argument of Chapter 14 does not assume that introspection and postulation are mutually incompatible; rather, it notes the author’s inability to introspect the non-doxastic intellectual seemings Boghossian postulates and suggests that it is not idiosyncratic. Finally, a challenge is raised for Boghossian’s view of a priori justification as coherence with intellectual seemings. What prevents bigoted beliefs being justified a priori in the way he describes by the bigoted intellectual seemings of a consistent Nazi, for example? If nothing does, what prevents the Nazi’s so-justified beliefs as to what one ought to do from justifying the corresponding actions?

Reply to Williamson on Intuition, Understanding, and the A Priori1

This paper argues that Williamson fails to produce successful counterexamples to the existence of understanding–assent links, in particular because he fails to show that the expert in his cases has lost underived dispositions to assent. The paper gives grounds for rejecting Williamson’s argument that intuitions, supposing them to exist, cannot be the source of distinctively a priori justification. Finally, it is argued that Williamson’s argument against the existence of intuitions (understood as sui generis states of intellectual seeming) flounders because it rests on a misguided and naïve dichotomy between ‘introspectable’ and ‘postulated’ mental states.

Analyticity Reconsidered1

This essay distinguishes between metaphysical and epistemological conceptions of analyticity. The former is the idea of a sentence that is ‘true purely in virtue of its meaning’ while the latter is the idea of a sentence that ‘can be justifiably believed merely on the basis of understanding its meaning’. It further argues that, while Quine may have been right to reject the metaphysical notion, the epistemological notion can be defended from his critique and put to work explaining a priori justification. Along the way, a number of further distinctions relevant to the theory of analyticity and the theory of apriority are made and their significance is explained.

Reply to Boghossian on Intuition, Understanding, and the A Priori1

This chapter is a response to Boghossian’s arguments in Chapter 13. The first part explains the failure of his objections to the author’s counterexamples to inferentialism, involving unorthodox experts who retain linguistic understanding of a term by ordinary standards while rejecting a rule associated with it by an inferentialist possession condition. The key point is that although one can retain a disposition (e.g. to accept a rule) while inhibiting it, one can also gradually lose the disposition itself. The second part argues that Boghossian’s account of intuitions fails to distinguish them adequately from conscious inclinations to believe, lacks a convincing basis in phenomenology, and will not properly serve the purposes of his account of a priori justification.

Intuition, Understanding, and the A Priori1

This essay distinguishes between Constitutive and Basis versions of understanding-based accounts of a priori justification and argues, contra Williamson, that the phenomenon of expert competent dissent doesn’t undermine either one. The argument involves revisiting Williamson’s famous expert-based recipe for generating counterexamples to any constitutive understanding–assent link. Notwithstanding, it is further argued that the theory of the a priori cannot avoid appeal to a notion of intuition or rational insight primarily because there are propositions, such as normative principles, that are synthetic a priori. It answers Williamson’s stated skepticism about the existence of intuitions and makes a start at explaining how intuitions might be able to contribute to a priori justification.

Perception, Intuition, and Apprehension

This chapter brings the theory of perception developed in Chapters 1 to 6 to bear on clarifying intuition, especially regarding abstract elements. Intuitive apprehension of these elements has much in common with perception. Such intuition is structurally parallel to perception, and it is experientially representational in a way that enables it to confer, as does perception, (prima facie) justification on beliefs. Moreover, both perception and intuitive apprehension are non-inferential, hence not premise-based. Both, given their status as embodying sensory or intuitive seemings, yield (and can explain) inclinations to believe and can explain belief-formation. Like perceptions, intuitions (in their occurrent forms) are direct responses to something one considers or otherwise experiences; they are not inferential responses to a premise. As experiential, non-inferential, and phenomenally representational, intuitions can confer justification on beliefs. This ascription of directness to intuitive apprehensions goes well with their role in explicating the self-evident—which, in certain cases, is paradigmatically intuitive—and thereby in accounting for a priori justification and knowledge.