Over at Dangerous Idea there was a request to deal with where religious experiences fail. Now let me forthright that I think they fail if only because something can be a religious experience and not necessarily be a communication from God. Religious experience is a rather broad and general category and is usually defined by the person having it rather than by some objective sign that characterizes it as such.
Certainly within the LDS tradition there are many claims about failed religious experience. Some of these are competing authority claims. Thus one can turn to historical situations where LDS leaders say some claims are not trustworthy. For instance there was a divide in Utah in the late 19th century between a group called the Godbeites and the LDS leadership over what was authentic religious experience. The Godbeites were made up on a large number of converts from England who tended to accept various "spiritual" practices such as seances, spirit channelling and so forth that weren't accepted by most Mormons. (To be fair there were also strong political issues) By and large these were rejected.
But of course the question then becomes, for a Mormon, how does one judge spiritual experiences. I think that in practice as a practical matter Mormons embrace a kind of four point set of checks and balances. You have personal inspiration but as a check on that are the scriptures, the living prophets (LDS think there are still apostles and prophets), and then empirical evidence (science, history, and so forth). Typically if you find disagreements between them then at a minimum the personal inspiration is called into question. This doesn't necessarily mean it is fully rejected. But it certainly puts the bar of evidence higher.
An other common way LDS distinguish is over authority. That is, do I have the authority to go up to a stranger and tell them what to do? Mormons would say no, that requires authority. Thus there is a kind of hierarchal limit put in place. I can receive personal revelation on what to think but I can't necessarily tell others about it. The way the heirachy typically is seen is that one has authority with ones family but not others. A Bishop (the leader of a local congregation) has authority for that congregation but not others. And so on.
Now these checks and balances obviously don't guarantee that a revelation is correct. But they are strong indicators that one is not correct. (Obviously I see everything as a matter of degree rather than in absolute black and white terms - but some times that degree is quite high)
Of course the real question isn't how a Mormon might judge failure of religious experience. I suspect it goes without saying that a Mormon wouldn't accept a religious experience that contradicts their own. The question is how to justify that. Further for someone say who isn't a Mormon, how should they decide? After all the Mormon set of checks and balances is irrelevant for them.
I'd say that one has to put forth what I'd call a risk opportunity. That is one has to try things out and look to the consequences. One has to be prepared to fail in order to decide what is or isn't an authentic religious experience. The obvious way to do this is to look to the consequences and then see how they match up with ones expectations. Now, from a Mormon perspective, that won't be perfect. After all, for instance, an Evangelical might have a strong theoretical background such that they would judge the religious experience different from a Mormon. Thus leading to differing conclusions. However as has been the by-word in my presentation, continuing inquiry is the key ingredient in religious knowing. One can't simply stop and say one is done. One must continually be inquiring and testing.
My sense is that some are looking for fixed rules in advance for how to decipher a religious experience and judge it. However from my perspective the who point is that there is no such rules. Rather the situation is much more flayling in the dark at first, having some light, and slowly learning to interpret it through the hermeneutic circle. But to do this one has to put forth risk. That is one has to be prepared to fail and try again.
This is part of a series of post relating issues of epistemology to LDS thought. I'm primarily taking a fairly Peircean approach but will hopefully touch on many issues. There are several posts related to this topic, listed below.
Mormon Epistemology: An introduction of the problem and why it is a problem.
Mormon Epistemology 2: A brief overview of the typical critique of the LDS position. In the comments I get at checks and balances and why I think "burning in a bosom" is largely irrelevant to the question at hand.
Reasoning and Reasons Giving: An important distinction to understand for the debate.
Fixation of Belief: I introduce the Peircean approach to the problem of epistemology.
Book of Mormon Evidence: The evidence for and against including spiritual experience. A rather involve and diverse set of discussions in the comments.
What Makes a Sign?: More discussion of Peirce and why I think it undermines the argument from emotion.
Hermeneutics and Semiotics 1?: Slight aside to explain hermeneutics, semiotics and abduction. I see these as key to understanding religious knowing.
Failure of Religious Experiences: When do religious experiences fail and how do we tell?
Alma 32: Discussion of what Alma's seed analogy is discussing.
Clark: I think that in practice as a practical matter Mormons embrace a kind of four point set of checks and balances. You have personal inspiration but as a check on that are the scriptures, the living prophets (LDS think there are still apostles and prophets), and then empirical evidence (science, history, and so forth).
Epistemologically speaking, I don't find this very convincing, as you have elsewhere argued for using the religious experience as the epistemological grounding for believing in the authority of the 4 points.
Clark: My sense is that some are looking for fixed rules in advance for how to decipher a religious experience and judge it. However from my perspective the who point is that there is no such rules
I'm one of those looking for rules in advance. I don't think rules after the fact are of much help, for the reasons indicated above. I don't think they need to be "fixed" rules, but some good, solid guidelines that would help distinguish a religious experience from a non-religious experience would seem to be necessary. As I have argued elsewhere, if we don't have a good criterion for separating genuine religious experiences from spurious religious experiences, we're left either a) accepting all claims of religious experiences as genuine, or b) rejecting all claims as spurious.
Laman and Lemuel were visited by angels, surely those were valid communications with God, yet they "failed".
FWIW, I've proposed a Model of LDS Religious Experience here, with links to parts 1, 2, and 3 following. I took my main cues from non-LDS scholars of comparative religion, Ninian Smart and Ian Barbour.
http://www.meridianmagazine.com/articles/060103prayer.html
http://www.meridianmagazine.com/articles/060104Experience.html
http://www.meridianmagazine.com/articles/060215model.html
Kevin Christensen
Pittsburgh, pA
Thanks for the links Kevin (I put in the anchor tags for you). I might try commenting on those in a future post.
Michael, I'm actually surprised that someone as influenced by Derrida as you would be looking for rules in advance. That seems quite contrary to what he brings out as a philosophical reality. No complaint that this is your view, but I'm just curious as to whether you see a contradiction there.
As to general guidelines, I think it's the same as with science. I'd put up several principles although they can sometimes be in tension with each other: simplicity, predictability, future predictions, consistency with models, testability, and personal intuition. As I said you might not get all of those. But one should keep them in mind when considering interpretations. And the continuing path of inquiry is always key.
Gad, that's not the kind of failure I think we're looking at. Although that's a good point that I've not discussed. Something can be an authentic religious experience (i.e. interpretable as a communication with true content) yet not "work."
One other thought. I think one can't exclude the social aspect of knowing. This quote from Davidson that popped up in my quote of the moment on the upper right seems pertinent.
It is only in the presence of shared objects that understanding can come about.Coming to an agreement about an object and coming to understand each other's speech are not independent moments but part of the same interpersonal process of triangulating the world. (Donald Davidson)
So do you mean something like: Being "led" to tract out a house and then get the door slammed with nothing memorable about the experience?
Well that might be one example although if agency is thorough it doesn't entail one was mistaken. I'm more thinking of the stereotypical example of Freshmen who think they're inspired to mary some woman and tell her.
Clark: Michael, I'm actually surprised that someone as influenced by Derrida as you would be looking for rules in advance. That seems quite contrary to what he brings out as a philosophical reality. No complaint that this is your view, but I'm just curious as to whether you see a contradiction there.
I see what you are getting at, but I prefer to think that the arrival of this particular Other is always to-come, so we have to be speaking "in advance".
Clark: As to general guidelines, I think it's the same as with science. I'd put up several principles although they can sometimes be in tension with each other: simplicity, predictability, future predictions, consistency with models, testability, and personal intuition
This is interesting stuff, and I'd like to see how you develop them. Let's take, for example, "simplicity" as a criterion-- are we expecting that a genuine religious experience would be "simpler" than a spurious experience, or vice versa?
I felt inspired to marry my wife and told her. It worked out for us.
One of the most natural tests of spiritual experience I have found is the law of witnesses. If I get an impression, and lack confidence in it, I check it with my wife or maybe my Bishop. If we are spiritually in tune, then it gives me assurance and confirmation of the impression. If not, then I need to study it out a bit more and make a choice.
This is not a perfect scenario, but has definitely helped me.
Michael (#8), oh I agree. But it seems to me that the Peircean approach I'm taken takes knowledge as an Other that is always to-come and thus we are speaking in advance. That is, I'm completely taking a process-view rather than a static presentist view.
Regarding simplicity, I think the problems of simplicity are pretty much the same as the problem of simplicity in science. There is no "objective" simplicity. Simplicity always takes its cue from theory and our expectations.
For a good example of a "failed" spiritual experience, it would be interesting to discuss the novel Brother Brigham by Michael Martindale, which deals directly with this issue.
Hmm. I'm curious as to how I'd read it. I have to confess that Michael and I have had quite a few discussions on various topics over on AML. It's pretty rare we agree though. (grin)
Clark: {{Over at Dangerous Idea there was a request to deal with where religious experiences fail. [...] My sense is that some are looking for fixed rules _in advance_ for how to decipher a religious experience and judge it. However from my perspective the whole point is that there [are] no such rules. [...] Further for someone say who isn't a Mormon, how should they decide? After all the Mormon set of checks and balances is irrelevant for them. [...] But of course the question then becomes, for a Mormon, how does one judge spiritual experiences. I think that in practice as a practical matter Mormons embrace a kind of four point set of checks and balances. You have personal inspiration but as a check on that are the scriptures, the living prophets (LDS think there are still apostles and prophets), and then empirical evidence (science, history, and so forth). Typically if you find disagreements between them then at a minimum the personal inspiration is called into question. This doesn't necessarily mean it is fully rejected. But it certainly puts the bar of evidence higher.}}
Not that I don't appreciate the reply (and not that I can't sympathize with it personally in various ways), but I also think it's important to keep in mind the original context of the request over at DangIdea, in evaluating this reply.
The prior context was explicitly, and has continuously been, directed toward the question of spiritual experience _in becoming a Mormon at all_.
This reply, as thoughtful as it is, simply disconnects from the original context of the question. Or, put another way, by the terms of this reply no Mormon should be or even could be responsibly expected to be a Mormon now.
In advance of becoming a Mormon, by what criteria is someone supposed to evaluate a 'religious experience' occuring while praying over the Book of Mormon (even leaving aside the question of trumping objections thereby)? Because such experiences _are_ being proffered as data for reasonably _becoming_ Mormons.
This is why you have a sense that some are looking for rules in advance for how to decipher a religious experience and judge it. It's because the topical context seems to require (or even tacitly presumes) such a thing.
The "whole point" of your reply to Victor (and others, including myself), then, on this topic, would seem to be: there are no such rules for evaluating the religious experience that is being recommended to seek as grounds for becoming a Mormon, and even what criteria might exist for such a thing only obtains once someone is _already_ a Mormon. The Mormon set of checks and balances is irrelevant to a non-Mormon who is being encouraged (and even expected) to seek a religious experience as help to being convinced of specifically Mormon truth claims.
But this would seem to be highly problematic to the legitimacy of spiritual experience as an evangelical appeal, especially when it is also recognized that a 'religious experience' per se doesn't necessarily entail a communication from God (or even one that has been properly understood in content).
(Or, perhaps you haven't actually addressed an answer to the question yet, the appearance of your introduction notwithstanding, but are only prepping for it, first by discussing this in distinction for sake of comparison and contrast?)
Jason Pratt
Jason: I submit that a person who has the experience has an immediate awareness of knowing, of being in relation to the divine that is basic -- and because it is basic asking for something more basic to ascertain it is a mistake. We cannot substitute rules that are less compelling and knowledge-bearing than the experience itself. To do so is to move away from the very ground of the knowledge in the experience in the first place. All that one can do is invite another to seek by praye and pondering in authenticity.
Jason
I also think it's important to keep in mind the original context of the request over at DangIdea, in evaluating this reply. The prior context was explicitly, and has continuously been, directed toward the question of spiritual experience _in becoming a Mormon at all_.
I think the issue of a false inspiration could have as content anything. After all one could by the same measure think one had a reason to believe in God when one didn't. So I think by handling the broader case first one does better.
But of course some of the social checks and balances I mentioned wouldn't be relevant in that case, as I mentioned in the post above. (So I wasn't neglecting the issue) Rather as I said one has to slowly develop vague reasons and make them more determinate over time. That is one has a process rather than a fully fleshed out reason at any moment. There then has to be an element of "risk." I don't mean that in the negative sense, more the sense that say Herbert Dreyfus uses it.
Blake, while I agree with you and think that can be sufficient to lead to action I'm not sure it is sufficient for knowledge. So I think we have to keep in mind the difference between what justifies knowledge and what justifies action and perhaps maybe that distinction is the problem Jason sees.
I think I mentioned in this thread or the other one that the feeling of knowing is obviously not the same as knowing. I believe Rich talked about this from a neurological perspective. As I said Peirce criticized this approach as well. However the feeling of knowing can obviously strengthen belief and belief is what provides action.
Clark: There isn't any knowledge more basic than basic knowledge. What more could you want? Anything that we referred to in order to support our assertion of basic knowledge would be less basic and thus less of a support for our knowledge. Whether we call it knowledge or not; it is as close as mortal can come to knowledge because there is nothing more sure or basic to refer to.
What is basic knowledge and why assume that the "awareness of knowledge" (by which I suppose you mean the phenomenology of the experience of knowing) is the same as knowing?
Clark: It is not an assumption -- it is a matter of knowing without being able to give any other more basic reason for that knowing. What I suggest may fall short of certainty from the third party perspective; but it is knowledge from the first person perspective. Giving reasons and arguments for the belief that I have knowledge is mistaken because I would inevitably appeal to something less basic and not consituting knowledge. The knowledge thus can only be asserted from a first person perspective. However, such an assertion does not count as a reason compelling another to accept it as knowledge.
Subject to a showing that I arrived at my state of knowing by some ill-functioning means or there are defeaters for my knowing, I am perfectly within my cognitive rights to accept my state of knowing as what it appears to me to be. That doesn't entail that I must give an argument that convinces you that I know anything.
Blake, I think the Peircean approach I outlined give a better approach to knowledge. I think that if one construed knowledge in terms of "present reasons" then what you say would make sense except that the reasons in this case don't appear terribly strong. Simply because we often feel we know when we don't know. Thus the importance of continuing inquiry.
Clark: "Simply because we often feel we know when we don't know." What is the evidence for that that is more basic than the knowing? Moreover, that is the role of reviewing whether the beliefs are formed with functioning means -- every instance you could point to of being wrong about knowing would simply adopt the criteria I have already laid out -- either you will give a defeater or you will point to faculties to form beliefs that we have good reason to believe are faulty. So here is the challenge, give me a basic demonstration that we have faulty beliefs that we know something (e.g., like there are other minds, or "God is speaking to me") where yo don't simply adopt the criteria I have already adopted in your actual practice of demonstrating what you claim. You see, pragmatically what I suggest is just how we go about assessing claims of states of knowledge -- I believe.
Bit of a long comment, but that's because I'm answering Blake and Clark both. (I would break them out separately, but I have reasons for calling attention to Blake's replies in my reply to Clark.)
Blake: {{I submit that a person who has the experience has an immediate awareness of knowing, of being in relation to the divine that is basic -- and because it is basic asking for something more basic to ascertain it is a mistake.}}
A position not greatly dissimilar to Alvin Plantinga's work on the question of theism (per se) being a basic belief. Except, that this obviously introduces competing 'basic belief' truth claims. (Between theist and atheist, if not between Plantinga's theism and Mormon theism, whatever those distinctions actually are.)
Insofar as Plantinga (or anyone else) wants to contend that someone holding to a 'properly basic belief' is being rational to do so, I have no objection--on the contrary, in one way I might be propounding that position more strongly! (I don't believe, at this time, that there is such a thing as a basic belief apart from basic inferential actions, even if these are non-perceived as such from the perspective of the agent in question; and 'basic belief' proponents have a tendency to deny such inferential actions exist at that level. Be that as it may.)
That being said, and considering that there are people who report a different result from Mormon doctrine at the 'basic belief' level, I don't see how you're going to avoid a corollary claim (popular among Reformation presuppositionalists, perhaps not-incidentally, though not with Plantinga, if I recall correctly) that those people are only pretending to have an experience with different 'basic' content.
In any case, once appeal is made to a position as being noetically basic, dialogue between and with opponents in regard to that position is basically (pun intended {g}) over. It has come down to sheer assertion/counter-assertion.
Worse, there isn't any way to avoid the charge that a belief just comes down to 'I feel like this is true'--including as an escape hatch to avoid logical criticism. And anyone can take that escape without penalty.
Except that, as a matter of normal experience, we routinely judge such escapes as being a loss.
But perhaps we shouldn't? If an elderly orthodox trinitarian gets confused by the logical tactics of anyone (Mormon, atheist, Buddhist, whomever), and so retreats back to "Well. I just believe it's true anyway."--should the other person go, "Oh, snap... I guess her position _is_ just as good as mine after all. Good thing I have my own feeling that she's wrong--which is more reliable! Because... ack, no wait, there is no because. It's just my basic feeling. Go me! Too bad she couldn't have had my right feeling instead of hers... {shrug}"
It looks like the route to epistemic relativism--whatever feels true for me is just as good as whatever anyone else can come up with. It may not in fact be true, in correspondence with the actual facts (whatever they are), but it's mine and it's all I've got and no one can do any better (much less have any real right to claim they're doing better than my basic feeling.)
If someone decides to try poking holes in the coherency of the idea that a single entity can be three distinct persons--what reason do I have to not even waste my time replying to him with anything other than, "Well, I look inside my heart, and find a feeling in there that this is true anyway. It must be from God, too--because it feels like it is. So, bye now!--off to go spend my time doing something else!"
(Not that I myself could honestly do that, since I don't have much feeling in my own heart about the matter one way or another. {s} And the few dreams I've had that involve feeling like God is talking to me, don't cover doctrine of that kind. But I have to figure someone else could honestly do that. If I call in some kind of 'scriptural authority' to nix the idea that anyone could honestly do that--why am I believing that to be both properly authoritative and the right interpretation of the scripture? Because a feeling inside me says so?!)
Clark, meanwhile, replies: {{I think the issue of a false inspiration could have as content anything.}}
True enough. Leaving absolutely no way to tell that it was a false inspiration, either, even in principle--not if we're appealing to noetically basic status for the experience.
{{After all one could by the same measure think one had a reason to believe in God when one didn't.}}
True, as an experience that's entirely possible. But it's also at least possible in principle that the person in question might discover the error someday and do something responsibly right about it. If the belief is appealed to as being noetically basic, though--then the only one who can change the belief is God. The person is right out of it; he's only fluorescing to whatever color God has chosen for him. (I did mention that this position is similar to Reformation theology, right? {s} The hardline Calvinists would say you are pre-damned by God to have the wrong feeling about what is right to believe about God--and if He never decides to change it, then too bad for you. I'm sure you feel differently, but... {s} Fwiw, I disagree with hardline Calvinism. Though not by being an open theist instead, in case the question is raised.)
{{Rather as I said one has to slowly develop vague reasons and make them more determinate over time. That is one has a process rather than a fully fleshed out reason at any moment.}}
I certainly agree with that; but that isn't the same as appealing to an experience as a noetic base.
We ask, by what criteria is someone supposed to evaluate a 'religious experience' occuring while (to take the paradigmatic if also somewhat stereotypical example) praying over the Book of Mormon.
In one answer you say that there is no such criteria, apart from already believing Mormon propositions to be true. (Except you weren't referencing _that topic specifically_, i.e. about becoming a Mormon. But you say your answer included that topic in principle, so by extrapolation...)
In another answer, though, you say that one has to slowly develop vague reasons and make them more determinate over time as a process. Okay--so, back to the question then {g}: by what criteria are you slowly developing vague reasons to accept Mormon propositions to be true?
Obviously, if you tell me after _this_ that there is no such criteria, and kind of suggest we're doing the wrong thing by asking for it--then I'm going to start muttering things like 'convenient circularity'. {g}
{{I think I mentioned in this thread or the other one that the feeling of knowing is obviously not the same as knowing.}}
Except that if we appeal to the experience as being noetically basic, the distinction _basically_ (pun intended again) disappears.
The reason Blake answered me (and later you) the way he did, is precisely because you invited the topic of appeal to Mormon doctrine (at some level specific to uniquely Mormon propositions) as noetically basic knowledge when you answered us (from over at DangIdea) by saying things like, "My sense is that some are looking for fixed rules _in advance_ for how to decipher a religious experience and judge it. However from my perspective the whole point is that there [are] no such rules."
I guarantee, Blake is going to avoid the charge of convenient circularity by putting the belief in question up as being noetically basic. And, strictly speaking, he _can_ avoid charges of convenient circularity that way. Not all presuppositionalism has to be circular presup.
But it _does_ also mean that there can be no effective dispute with him in regard to his belief, either--even if he happens to be wrong as to facts. _You and I_ can sit around debating whether what he believes makes sense, but Blake is shut out of that kind of disputation: his noetic belief, by default, has to be the presumed ground on which he himself will be doing any disputation. If he disputes _that_, then at best he'll be applying to "rules that are less compelling and knowledge-bearing than [his own] experience itself".
Out of all this, I suggest that what is required for debate _between_ two persons, is to find a presumption with which both persons agree, and without which _neither_ person can proceed in argumentation (on any topic) without tacitly affirming the truth of the presumption.
Jason Pratt
Blake,
I have some questions concerning your use of basic beliefs as a source for belief in God.
1) In virtue of what is such a basic belief justified?
2) How do we acquire such a basic belief?
3) If I remember correctly, you argue against evidentialism, but aren't basic beliefs a part of evidentialist theories of knowledege?
4) How do you respond to Bonjour's powerful argument that no belief can be basic?
(For those who are not aware of Bonjour's argument, here it is:
1. "For any proposition p that S believes, either S has a Truth Indicative Feature (TIF) argument for it or S doesn't.
2. "If S has a TIF argument for it, then S's belief in p is supported by that argument and is not a justified basic belief.
3. "If S does not have a TIF argument for it, then S's belief in p is not justified and thus is not a justified basic belief.
----------
4. "S's belief in p is not a justified basic belief." (Richard Feldman in Epistemology)
Jeff: I assume that you have read the literature. You questions suggest that you haven't.
1. Basic beliefs are not justified by anything -- they are basic. They arise from experience and the experiencer is within his/her epistemic rights to accept the experience as experienced unless there are defeaters.
2. Basic beliefs are acquired through experience, argument and congruence.
3. No, basic beliefs aren't justified by evidence or some foundationalist agenda.
4. I reject it. Premise 1 assumes that there needs to be an argument to justify a basic belief. That is false. A "justified basic belief" is a contradiction because it relies on an argument for its justification -- but if the belief is basic then relying on something like an argument that is less basic is to simply misunderstand basic beliefs.
Jason said: But it _does_ also mean that there can be no effective dispute with him in regard to his belief, either--even if he happens to be wrong as to facts. _You and I_ can sit around debating whether what he believes makes sense, but Blake is shut out of that kind of disputation: his noetic belief, by default, has to be the presumed ground on which he himself will be doing any disputation. If he disputes _that_, then at best he'll be applying to "rules that are less compelling and knowledge-bearing than [his own] experience itself".
Jason, this is false. One's noetic structure may shift such that what was once basic is no longer basic. Further, if there are defeaters of the basic experience as experienced, then you could argue with me. For instance, you could argue that people have experiences all the time that are drug induced that are just like mine and evidence somewhere suggests that religious experience are generated by naturally occurring opiates (dopamine for instance) in the brain and so the belief arises out of a naturalistically explained anomoly. There is no such evidence presently, but such evidence would suggest that the experience is not caused by God but by the chemical states of my brain resembling opiate-like effects.
You could argue that what I assert is just incoherent or that there are powerful reasons to believe that my experience is just not what I claimed for some other reason. So a noetically basic belief doesn't entail that we cannot discuss the merits or meaning of my belief system; but it does mean that until you have some good defeater to suggest what I have experienced as God speaking to me, the knowledge of truth radiating with me, and so forth, I am epistemically entitled to regard my experience as what I experienced it to be.
Blake,
I have read some of the literature. Having read some of it, I disagree with you on a number of issues.
1) It is my understanding that basic belief are not justified by other beliefs, but they are justified in virtue of something. For instance, Descartes saw basic beliefs as being justified by their infallibility.
3) I wasn't saying that basic beliefs were justified by anything in particular. Rather, I was saying that basic beliefs ARE foundational beliefs, and foundationalism is a form of evidentialism. Thus, it seems odd to me to speak against evidentialism while endorsing basic beliefs. (I am unaware of any other form of foundationalism.)
4) I don't think you are really engaging premise 1. Basic beliefs are justified, but not by other beliefs. Thus, the question is how we can distinguish justified foundational beliefs (basic beliefs) from unjustified foundational beliefs. There must be something, some TIF by which such a judgment is made.
Jeff -- but couldn't you be an externalist and also a foundationalist? A belief could just be justified because it has the right causal relationship to its contents...
That's why I added the part about me not knowing about non-foundationalist basic beliefs.
I remember that Blake spoke favorably about Plantinga, so I do imagine that he adopts something like that. Thus, while I suppose Plantinga doesn't need some kind of TIF, he still has to answer the question "In virtue of what are basic beliefs justified?"
You guys: Belief requires faith,or at least will lead on to it, faith leads to knowledge. Knowledge leads one to be an expert witness. Testing a belief system will lead to justifying it as "right or wrong" which testing is the act of faith in the principle. It is closely related to the scientific principles on which the great philosophers of the universe have based their wisdom......
Jeff: As I previously said, basic beliefs arise from but are not justified by experiences of the type -- I am seeing a sock across the room. "I am experiencing God talking to me", or "I am experiencing a flow of pure knowledge", are also such experiences. So I have the belief that I have had spiritual experiences because I have had spiritual experiences. Why do I believe that my experience was spiritual or caused by God? Because that is how I experienced it. That is basic and I cannot justify my belief by pointing to something more basic or more convincing -- neither does it stand in need of some justification as it is.
Moreover the approach I adopt self-consciously rejects foundationalism. The experiences don't act as an argument or evidence to justify the beleif that one is having that experience. You could also adopt a Wittgensteinian view that what is basic is where explanation must cease. You believe that there is a sock across the room, why? I see it across the room. Why do you believe that you are seeing a sock across the room? I just do. When we get to rock-bottom in the explanation of why we believe, we have a basic belief.
That doesn't entail that you must believe I am seeing a blue sock -- perhap you have good reasons to doubt it that I don't have. Perhaps you have reason to believe that I am schizophrenic and I hallucinate. That is a reason. Perhaps you have reason to know that the idea is being implanted in my brainf for a scientific experiment on perception -- in which case you have reason to believe precisely that I am experiencing seeing a sock across the room but there is in fact no sock. If there are defeaters then perhaps my belief stands in need of of an explanation of why the defeaters are not defeaters such as: "Yes, in fact scientists are doing an experiment and they have implanted in my brain the neural data of experiencing a sock across the room; but there are eight others here who are not part of the experiment and they see the same thing. And so goes the argument.
Blake --
Is it possible for someone to deny that the type of appearing you are experiencing is really a type of appearing?
Hmmm...this would seem to get into the question of conceptual content: the rub is that, whereas no one can say you are having an appearing, many very well may deny that the appearing you are having has the content which you have ascribed to it. This question about the possible contents of appearings, furthermore, might very well be the province of natural science -- and if so, W. won't help you here.
Blake,
Actually, I think that my own views are not terribly different than yours, although this is getting at the reasons for why I am deeply suspicious of epistemology in general.
First of all, I simply have not idea of what a belief really is. Must is be conscious? Must it be actually propositional or merely potentially so in nature?
Second, I do not see our most basic beliefs as being justified. Justification is the result of a process which we rarely apply to most of our beliefs, namely actively bringing them to our attention and calling them into question. It is only after a belief has been called into question that it is justified.
I instead adopt a rather weak form of external justification. I suggest not that basic beliefs are justified without our knowing it, but rather that some basic beliefs are justifiable without our knowing it. Whether a belief actually is justified or not can only be known by bringing the individual belief to our attention and calling it into question.
Thus, beliefs are not simply justified or not. Indeed, I do not even see it as a matter of degrees between the two. Justification of beliefs is not only a matter of degrees in either direction, but also a matter of being actually or merely potentially applied to a belief at all.
Thus, while I allow that beliefs derived from religious experiences as you portray them to possibly be justifiable, I do not see them as being justified at all.
Furthermore, I do not see your account as offering any way of distinguishing between experiencing something caused by God and experiencing something caused by some other source. I simply don't see the cause of an experience as necessarily, or even usually being part of that which is experienced.
As for cleggsan's comment,
I see it as being very difficult for a person to test or evaluate an entire system of belief for a number of reasons:
1) It is difficult to define what exactly is meant by "system of beliefs".
2) If we assume that a system of beliefs encompasses at least most beliefs, then to test such a system in terms of coherence is doomed to self-reinforcement. Since coherence is defined in how well a belief or set of beliefs fit with a system of beliefs, it is trivial to see how well ones system of beliefs fits with their system of beliefs. Accordingly, I see coherence as being almost entirely useless as an arbiter between atheism and theism.
3) The other source for testing something is evidence. Unfortunately, however, something only counts as evidence for anything at all in virtue of the interpretation which a tester applies to it. Thus, the tester's system of beliefs is playing too large of a role again, a role which I believe to be self-reinforcing as well. (In this I am following a conception very similar to Quine's web of beliefs.)
Of course I don't think that it is impossible to test systems of beliefs against each other. I do see it as being very difficult though.
Lots of comments. Let me address a few over the next while and then hopefully some of the rest in future posts.
Blake: (#16) I'm definitely not a foundationalist, if that's what you're getting at. If that's not what you're getting at then I'd simply point out that knowing is a process and just because we think we know it doesn't follow that we shouldn't try to falsify our beliefs. I think that the "stability" of belief of what you outline (feeling we know) is fairly weak. More is necessary if we want our beliefs to survive future events.
I'll hold off saying more on that for a future post. Since it's rather key to my thought and I think what you bring up is worth a post of its own. I'll simply say that the approach you take of making knowing basic seems to Cartesian too me. I'll admit I've entertained such notions myself in the past. (Most recently after reading Williamson) But I just don't buy it ultimately.
Jason: (#19) I think your complaint vis a vis Plantinga and Blake is well made. It's been a while since I last read Plantinga and his form of externalism. If I recall though there is no way to make a comparison in his epistemology. Which I agree can be problematic. That is there is "warrant" but this warrant might not be open to access. To me this is why I find Plantinga and Alston's work so problematic. It seems to discard what is so essential in the question about knowledge.
This is one reason why in my first post on religious epistemology I pretty well discounted the reliabilist approach out of hand. At one time it seemed interesting to me and I can see why, from an apologetic perspective, some would find it attractive. But to me it seems to miss the essential question at hand. It ends up cutting off inquiry rather than opening it up.
Interestingly though Dennis Potter has a paper in the latest issue of Element has a paper addressing just this question. How to deal with competing religious claims given a reliabilist epistemology. I didn't really find his arguments for pluralism convincing. But perhaps I should put up a post summarizing his arguments.
Jason: (#19) Leaving absolutely no way to tell that it was a false inspiration, either, even in principle--not if we're appealing to noetically basic status for the experience.
Purely in terms of the qualia of the experience, certainly you are right. But note that I've never argued for this and in most of my posts have argued against anything like this being possible. Rather my position is that it can act as a sign with the sign being constructed through abduction (basically forming a testable hypothesis) and then being tested. Through this process one can establish a relationship between the experience and consequences, thus creating a type-token relationship which entails a determined meaning to the experience.
To me saying that a single experience can establish anything is silly. If nothing else we always encounter new experiences in terms of our previous experiences thus giving them meaning.
What you say above is to me the idea of a transcendent signified and I just don't believe such things exist.
Jason: (#19) But it's also at least possible in principle that the person in question might discover the error someday and do something responsibly right about it. If the belief is appealed to as being noetically basic, though--then the only one who can change the belief is God.
Yes, but don't confuse Blake's position with my own. I find Blake on this matter as very problematic. Apparently for many of the same reasons you do.
Jason: (#19) In one answer you say that there is no such criteria, apart from already believing Mormon propositions to be true. . . .
In another answer, though, you say that one has to slowly develop vague reasons and make them more determinate over time as a process. Okay--so, back to the question then {g}: by what criteria are you slowly developing vague reasons to accept Mormon propositions to be true?
What I think you are searching for doesn't exist. That is you are trying to put my position within a framework there there is some permanent, present and ideal rule by which to adjudicate all experience. I don't think any such thing exists. So when you ask for criteria I can but point out principles we ought consider as we engage in the hermeneutic circle. But these principles are typically in tension with each other.
So to me the question is very much like the question of by what criteria do we judge a scientific theory to be correct and scientific. (The latter, the so called demarcation problem, actually being the more difficult of the two) There is no criteria though. At best we have principles such as simplicity, explanatory power, predictions of new unknown phenomena, social status, and so forth.
I'd add that just as science is very much a social process with the community being essential so to is the community of religious seekers essential for placing religious experience. (On both sides, since clearly there is conflict there - just as there often is in science)
Jason: (#19) if you tell me after _this_ that there is no such criteria, and kind of suggest we're doing the wrong thing by asking for it--then I'm going to start muttering things like 'convenient circularity'.
Oh, I wouldn't call it convenient. Accurate, yes. Convenient, no. I think having a priori criteria is much more convenient which is why so many people probably demand such things. So it's not convenient circularity but rather a hermeneutic circle. One is always already in the circle and one can never escape the circle. One must simply proceed around the circle with due diligence and honesty.
Jeff: (#20) Like Blake in the following comment, I think your questions belay an ignorance of reliabilism. You said you aren't interesting in epistemology so perhaps that might be a reason to not read them. (grin) Probably Plantinga's Warranted Christian Belief is the place to start. I actually find Alston's form of reliabilism much better than Plantinga's (as does Dennis Potter). But ultimately unconvincing. All my Alston I read at the library so I don't have something off hand to suggest there. Probably his Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience. As I said though I don't ultimately find reliabilsim convincing. Especially not of the form of Alston and Plantinga which I find guided too much by apologetics. The SEP unfortunately doesn't have an entry on reliabilism although its entry on knowledge analysis has a section on it. They discuss it a bit in religious epistemology as well.
As I said, I hope to have a more organized response to Blake's position (reliabilism) in a future post.
Alex: (#24) I suspect one could call Williamson an externalist foundationalist. I find his book terribly problematic even if quite engrossing. It's one of those books one ought read if only to see what's wrong with it. As one of my quotes in the upper right mentioned, error produces more enlightenment than confusion. (grin)
Cleggsan: (#26) Religious faith of the sort we normally discuss seems to be more than just belief in my view. How to take faith is itself a complex issue I think. I know some are persuaded by Kierkegaard in all this. I'm not in the least and think evidence is necessary for faith. (Somewhat in keeping with Lectures on Faith in the LDS tradition I think)
Jeff: (#30) I think we're pretty close. I'm an externalist ultimately as well, although for reasons quite different from Blake although I'm fairly sympathetic to the ultimate issue in epistemology that leads folks to internalism. That is there seems to be some requirement for being able to provide reasons for a belief to count as knowledge. That "reasons-giving" seems a kind of duty we owe ourselves and others ethically. The danger in too many forms of externalism is that this "reasons-giving" is cut off.
Certainly Blake's right in that some beliefs we can't justify. I don't dispute that although I dispute how this relates to knowledge. But that then takes us to the question of the relevance of talking about knowledge at all. As I said in the other post we have to distinguish between what justifies a belief as knowledge and what justifies a belief as a ground for action. They are separate questions that I fear get conflated too much.
I'm also deeply influenced by Quine in all this. I think you'll note that my tendency to bring science into all this is a very Quinean move since he disputed there were ultimately different methods between science and non-science.
Man, I'm catching some serious flak for #20, and rightfully so. I have, since that comment, realized how naive it was and feel that I fully understand Blake's position. This is assuming, however, that his position is basically that of Planting which is basically a subset of reliabilism.
"Certainly Blake's right in that some beliefs we can't justify."
This is exactly where I take issue. Isn't there a difference between us justifying a belief, and a belief being justified? What is it about some beliefs which makes it impossible to justify them?
Jeff, if there is a subconscious then the justifications are simply hidden. Now this is perhaps a practical matter. In theory a suitable neuropsychology combined with high tech might make it possible to justify our beliefs but I don't think that's really what is at question.
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