Date: Fri, 9 Feb 2001 14:20:43 -0700 (MST)
Subject: epistemic fallacy



We all are realists in the sense that we believe that there
is a world out there.  We all know that it is not just in
our heads.  Now someone who commits the epistemic fallacy
has not yet fully overcome the fallacy that "it is all in
our heads."  Because that person still holds that the world
depends on how we can know about it.  The following examples
of the epistemic fallacy make this clear.  They are taken
from Andrew Collier's book "Critical Realism: An
Introduction to Roy Bhaskar's Philosophy", Verso 1994,
pp. 76/77:

> (1) the question whether something exists gets reduced to
> the question whether we can know that it exists;

> (2) the question what *sort* of thing something is gets
> reduced to the question *how* we know about it;

> (3) the question whether A has causal/ontological primacy
> over B gets reduced to the question whether knowledge of A
> is presupposed by knowledge of B;

> (4) the question whether A is identical to B gets reduced to
> the question whether our way of knowing A is identical to
> our way of knowing B.


Here is a more concrete example.  Bhaskar remarks in RTS2,
p. 36 (in yesterday's reading) that "Ontology, it should be
stressed, does not have as its subject matter a world apart
from that investigated by science."  Those who think that
the world which we learn about by transcendental reasoning
is somehow different from the world which we learn about by
the substantive sciences fall under points (2) or (4) above,
i.e., they commit the epistemic fallacy.


Here are some study questions:


Bhaskar says that Humean empiricism commits the epistemic
fallacy: explain where it does this.

What does the epistemic fallacy have to do with the
problem of which experiences are significant?

What does the epistemic fallacy have to do with the
transitive-intransitive distinction?

Why does the epistemic fallacy involve "the denial {RTS2:40}
of the possibility of a philosophical ontology"?


-Hans.





-Hans.



     --- from list seminar-14-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---