How do you know? | Dr. Andrew Moon

How do you know you’re not a brain in a vat? Is skepticism self-defeating? What are some responses to skepticism? I’m joined by Dr. Andrew Moon to discuss these questions and more. Buckle up for some juicy epistemology.
Like the show? Help it grow! Consider becoming a patron (thanks!): / majestyofreason​
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Andrew’s links:
A playlist of all Andrew’s KZbin appearances:
• Epistemology Lectures/...
PhilPapers:
philpeople.org/profiles/andre...
Andrew’s paper on skepticism and memory, downloadable here:
philpapers.org/rec/MOOSAM-3
Books mentioned in the video:
Richard Feldman’s book, “Epistemology"
www.amazon.com/Epistemology-R...
Alvin Goldman and Matthew McGrath’s book, “Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction”
global.oup.com/ushe/product/e...
Kevin McCain’s book, “Evidentialism and Epistemic Justification”
www.routledge.com/Evidentiali...
Michael Bergmann’s book, “Radical Skepticism and Epistemic Intuition"
global.oup.com/academic/produ...
Keith DeRose’s book, “The Appearance of Ignorance"
global.oup.com/academic/produ...
And the usual links:
My book: www.amazon.com/Majesty-Reason...
My website: majestyofreason.wordpress.com/

[@CapturingChristianity]

Majesty of Epistemology.

[@anthonyrowden]

I hear it covers a multitude of sins.

[@esauponce9759]

39:43 Joe, you are right. In the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the entry on (I think) Ancient Skepticism, there’s a section where they mention Augustine, his skeptical views, his evaluation of the merit of such views and his attempts to solve them. It’s awesome to know that Augustine was thinking about that long before Descartes. Augustine’s “cogito” was something like: “Even if I err, I am”.

[@manavkhatarkar9983]

Thank you for making these discussions accessible ❤

[@anthonyrowden]

Yay! Andrew is cool.

[@bman5257]

Lol, I read the title way too fast and I thought it said something like, “Skepticism, how do you know there’s a moon.” And you guys were going to talk about whether the moon was real.

[@andrewmoon1917]

This Moon is real! :D

[@scotthutson8683]

Woohoo!! Andrew Moon is a great guy and solid thinker!

[@captainstrangiato961]

35:26 maybe one of the funniest things I have heard in describing a kind of Pyrrhonean Skepticism.

[@crabking6884]

Andrew Moon is a chad. I think that the cogito can be doubted though. I think Sartre argued that Descartes failed to prove why the existence of thoughts or doubt necessitates a mind. I think it can also be argued that Descartes failed to prove that my doubt even exists.

[@CMVMic]

Yes, it can definitely be doubted as well.

[@esauponce9759]

Great! I’m gonna watch this later!

[@jacksonhoward740]

Wooooo go Andrew!!

[@carsonwall2400]

Great video! You and Andrew Moon are some of the best philosophy communicators I've come across

[@MajestyofReason]

Much love

[@andrewmoon1917]

Thanks Carson Wall! That is a kind thing to say. :)

[@reddecember02]

I gave a full view to your video. Super discussion!

[@andrewmoon1917]

Thank you for watching and listening!

[@jobinbiju6431]

Hey Joe, Have you ever requested Dr. Craig for an interview about The Kalam Cosmological arguments. As far as I know, he is amicable and open to public dialogue with the other side of the debate as evidenced by his interview with Cosmic Skeptic and his debate with Oppy in Capturing Christianity.

[@MajestyofReason]

Good question! I’ve heard he’s difficult to get ahold of given how busy and booked he is

[@jobinbiju6431]

@@MajestyofReason thanks for the reply

[@Hello-vz1md]

@@MajestyofReason you should try Request him for an interview

[@HumblyQuestioning]

I think skeptics really, deeply trigger Joe haha 🤣🤣

[@DeconvertedMan]

Skepticism! :D

[@soorajsugathan4813]

great

[@CMVMic]

lol Pyrrhonian here! Love the topic! Epistemology is way more interesting to me than metaphysics or ontology (eg. theism vs nontheism), however, if you can restrict one to Pyrrhonism in a future video that would be awesome! I was going to respond to it yest but there is so much to respond to (it's almost two hours long lol). I had to watch it more than once. I want to give my two cents on why it seems that any supposed solution or dissolution fails. The goal of diagnosis is exactly the issue, not the dialectic one. IBE, The No Miracles argument and a Moorean shift towards the Closure argument all miss the point completely. They all put the cart before the horse. Firstly, there are two types of skepticisms. Academic/Cartesian (dogmatic skepticism i.e. Global and Local) and Pyrrhonism/Regress (true philosophical skepticism). Pyrrhonists can engage in discussion and avoid self refutation and can assume epistemological positions to indirectly show problems with dogmatism. Belief is a propositional attitude so it doesnt follow that one must have a higher/second order belief that one has no beliefs, where there are many different attitudes available for a skeptic to adopt. I also want to agree that philosophy of language is essential to how one defines knowledge and what counts as instances of knowledge. Should definitions be standardised for lingusitic utility or is it personal? To that question, one can always ask why? However, the main issues that I have yet to have seen sufficiently addressed is the problem of the criterion and what makes foundationalism or coherentism non-arbitrary. All responses to the problem are question begging. Question begging may be something a dogmatist should want to avoid since it shows the arbitrariness in claiming one over the other. Contextualism and Phenomenal Conversatism are the best defenses imo. However, there is still an arbitrary leap being made to accept both of these views. Also, there are problems with personal identity so cogito ergo sum is not an indubitable logical principle. One more thing Joe, we once discussed that not claiming something is possible doesnt mean that something is impossible. Before one can even dive into the realms of modality, we should have a theory of knowledge. How can we know what is possible or impossible? This goes all the way back to the two main issues I listed earlier. I am open to discussion as I don't think there are many pyrrhonists on here who watch your videos.

[@CMVMic]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z2aQgXZ4e9qnpdU

[@esauponce9759]

Hey, I have a question: What motivated you to be a Pyrrhonian skeptic? Was it the Agrippa’s trilemma?

[@CMVMic]

@@esauponce9759 A youtuber called Carneades

[@esauponce9759]

@@CMVMic Carneades.org? I follow that channel too. I’m gonna check some of his videos regarding this topic to hear what he says.

[@CMVMic]

@@esauponce9759 He has a playlist on skepticism. I spoke with him alot on the topic. I too wanted to save my dogmatic beliefs from skepticism once upon a time. Also, look for his video on the problem of the criterion.

[@kostylin_TFA]

Dios, gracias por los subtítulos automatizados

[@anitkythera4125]

First, I love that you all got into epistemic akrasia. Second, super niggling point but around the 31 minute mark you said that the skeptic, in believing that P or not P are equally likely, is assigning a credence of .5 to each. Note that the consistent skeptic will be skeptical of their ability to even assign credence or even the intelligibility of the notion of assigning credence to propositions and their negation. Any number assigned at all would be a bridge too far thus driving all credences off a cliff.

[@anitkythera4125]

Is there virtue in using IBE vs. Bayes Theorem? It seems to me that IBE is just an informal version of Baye's Theorem. Is there more to it?

[@andrewmoon1917]

That's a good question. But how is IBE just an informal version of Bayes' Theorem?

[@andrewmoon1917]

err... or why do you think that?

[@MyMusics101]

Cool video! Regarding the IBE, specifically CS vs. ED: Joe said that ED would have many more primitives than CS and more arbitratyness in general. This seemed to be chiefly grounded in the causal network explanation available to CS exclusively. However, that seems to miss a mirror move for ED. We have various laws of nature and fundamental constants. Some way or other, they came to take on their values (thus goes in a similar direction to the fine-tuning argument). It seems that mechanism for these primitives can be mirrored quite closely in ED: 1. God created the universe this way. - - > The demon has the same preference structure as God wrt. the physical world's primitives. 2. The universe is past-eternal (with fixed primitives) and thus couldn't have failed to exist in precisely this way. --> The demon is past eternal (with fixed desires). 3. There is some "natural" (perhaps indeterministic) mechanism which brought about these physical primitives and their specific values. --> A mirrored mechanism exists which explains the specific preferences of the demon. Interestingly, the following response might be harder to mirror: "There is a vast multiverse, and we only exist in universes which allow for it." The exact mirror would be: "There is a vast multitude of pairs of demons with individual people, and we can only experience a world with an adequate physical structure." But this may not be the case. Perhaps, if a potential experiencer is present and the demon prefers to deceive them into thinking a chaotic lifeless universe exists, the demon can do so! Essentially, simulating a nothingness-experience forever. But here, I'm not so sure. Maybe experiencing nothingness feels distinctly different from not existing/experiencing at all - does the demon suppress also our individual thoughts, for example, which may exist without any external input? So, whereas the multiverse hypothesis aims to provide a (small) number of co-existing universes, the ED hypothesis apparently cannot just cut out inconvenient demon-experiencer pairs.

[@andrewmoon1917]

This is a great exploration of ideas! I was stumbling around in the video, trying to go in this direction, but didn't really get anywhere. Fortunately, we moved along before I said anything too incoherent. :)

[@andrewmoon1917]

I vaguely recall Bergmann exploring in more depth the CS vs. ED hypotheses in his book (referred to in the video). So, that would be a place to look for more exploration.

[@DeconvertedMan]

I would want to ask so many questions to Dr. Moon. For example - what makes something an a-priori? What qualifies (X) as a-priori but not (Z)? For example, some people posit that a God is an a-priori (in presup type of arguments).

[@DeconvertedMan]

how did you get him to talk to you?

[@andrewmoon1917]

@@DeconvertedMan hmm, I keep trying to respond to you, but then when I re-load the page, my comment is gone. Well, I wish we could chat too! In-person... maybe over a meal... this is my third time trying to respond...

[@DeconvertedMan]

@@andrewmoon1917 I responded on several of your videos trying to get you my email - I guess it keeps getting eatten?!

[@andrewmoon1917]

@@DeconvertedMan got your email... I hope to reply soon!

[@goldenalt3166]

I didn't catch where you defined knowledge or skepticism. Could someone with variable credences that never reach 100% be called a skeptic under you definition? Seems like such a person could still function. It's just that every action is a science experiment rather than a demonstration of knowledge.

[@Oskar1000]

I think there is an explanatory strength in positing the explanatory framework that account for fewer possibilities. An evil demon can make me think and feel almost everything. The common sense imposes a bunch of limitations on the world. My sensory experiences must be relatively similar from moment to moment (or from direct to recent memory to old memory), things do not change color arbitrarily. And it performs these limitations without actually missing some of the experience we do have. If you see someone throwing a die but you cannot see how many sizes the dice has but you can see how it lands. Let's suppose the series looks something like the following: 1,4,2,2,10,9,5,6,8,4,3,4,9 6,1,7 6 sided dice are ruled out since it doesn't explain the 7s, 8s, 9s and 10s. But how do we arbitrate between 10 sided and 20 sided. Or 1000000 sided for that matter. Or maybe when you roll the die anything happens. Well, 10 sided is better because it allows for fewer possibilities so it explains why we don't see 12s in a better way then just saying "guess they weren't rolled"

[@maxpayne3628]

Hey Joe, I was wondering if you would come to Thought Adventure Podcast, they are muslim philosphers there and I think they're really good at what they do and you're also very good at what you do.. so basically, I hope you understood 😅

[@kito-]

Woohoo

[@Mandibil]

“Probably” ... is not to be used explaining knowledge !!

[@andrewmoon1917]

you can KNOW that something is PROBABLY true! :)

[@Oskar1000]

I know you brushed aside the notion that hands are a referent to this realm whatever it is but I think it is key. Bob: Alice, do you have hands? Alice: I'm just part of a comment on youtube, of course I don't have hands since I don't exist. This interaction seems silly to me, we are expecting Alice to respond given the world she is in, not some outer realm. So when someone asks me, do you have hands I will answer "yes" since hands are a thing in my world that I have. I don't have fictional hands like Frodo and I may not have outer realm hands in the vat-world but I do have hands.

[@andrewmoon1917]

Hi Oskar, interesting thoughts! I think you still get a skeptical puzzle. The question will just be about whether you know you have "outer realm hands".

[@Oskar1000]

@@andrewmoon1917 When you ask "do you have outer realm hands" do you mean 1) In a realm outside our realm, do you have hands? Or 2) Are your hands "outest most realm" hands? Either way I feel comfortable relying on some inference to the best explanation to answer those. It's seems reasonable that they are philosophical questions requiring analysis. "Do you have hands?" feels obvious in another way. It feels as though it should be answered with a "yes, duh". Those are just my thoughts though, thanks for answering. Really good chat with Joe btw.

[@andrewmoon1917]

@@Oskar1000 Thank you for the kind remark! It WAS a good chat w/Joe; he asks really good questions and makes good points. :) I was using your phrase, so we can just mean whatever you mean by it. Either way, a skeptical argument can be formulated. I think there's not really a substantive issue there. More interestingly, I see you think IBE form of the argument could get us knowledge (or justified belief). Well, Joe and I gave a lot of criticisms of the IBE form argument in the video. I'm worried most about the memory problem. I guess you weren't convinced. But that's philosophy for ya...

[@Oskar1000]

@@andrewmoon1917 Yeah, don't take me to be saying I solved scepticism. For sure not and I do think memory is the hardest problem to tackle for sure. My main point would just be that you can think that you don't know if you are a brain in a vat etc but still know you have hands since hands aren't "framework dependent". An idealist and a materialist both think they have hands. If my memory is illusory then words like [hands, having] refer to a certain kind of illusory memory and since I have those memories I have hands. If you have "outer realm hands" is just a separate question to me on both interpretations. One that I'm much more ok being agnostic on.

[@Oskar1000]

@@andrewmoon1917 Yeah, don't take me to be saying I solved scepticism. For sure not and I do think memory is the hardest problem to tackle for sure. My main point would just be that you can think that you don't know if you are a brain in a vat etc but still know you have hands since hands aren't "framework dependent". An idealist and a materialist both think they have hands. If my memory is illusory then words like [hands, having] refer to a certain kind of illusory memory and since I have those memories I have hands. If you have "outer realm hands" is just a separate question to me on both interpretations. One that I'm much more ok being agnostic on.

[@quad9363]

Your 'counter-example to the causal-theory of knowledge would only go through if you leave off justification (admittedly a likely move, given that Goldman also left it off), but, so long as you retain justification as a necessary condition, then you can say that you have knowledge if you have a justified belief due to its being true.

[@MajestyofReason]

Good point! So, first, I was responding only to Bogardus’ view, who solely says “knowledge is believing something because it’s true”. I was not aiming my counter-example to causal theories of knowledge more generally. And, second, whether your point is germane will depend on what justification consists in. Part of the motivation for causal theories is to avoid the trouble cases for more internalist views [Eg animals and babies seem to have knowledge, but they don’t seem to have any access to their grounds for belief]. And so to the extent that these accounts want to maintain externalist spirit-which seems to be their intent-then they may, after all, face a counter-example like mine (or one of its kin). But we should keep in mind, first and foremost, that I wasn’t aiming to critique such views in the first place 😁

[@vituzui9070]

Hey Joe, just a quick note. I think you have a tendency to identify too much classical theism with Thomism. Did you know that divine simplicity as understood by Aquinas is not actually dogmatic in the Catholic Church? Aquinas is in fact more strict than the dogma. The Catholic Church allows to believe that God attributes are really distinct (as in Scotism) and even allows to believe in an essence-energy distinction in God (as in Palamism, which is the preferred theology of eastern Catholicism). Yes, divine simplicity (understood as absence of composition in God) is dogmatic, but the question of whether absence of composition implies absence of multiplicity remains open. A composition implies that parts are ontologically prior to the whole, at least in some sense, because they are contingently united (as so the whole is contingent). So one could argue that there is a multiplicity in God, but also that the unity in God is ontologically prior to the multiplicity (since in this case the elements of this multiplicity are necessarily united), which could allow to keep divine simplicity (this is the reasoning more or less implied at least in Scotism).

[@bman5257]

Thanks for the info, I was under the impression that Palamism was heretical, guess I’m wrong.

[@logicalliberty132]

B A S E D

[@TheologyUnleashed]

I think actual practice for solving the BIV problem is phenomenological uniqueness. We assume that the quality of experience we have could not be produced by an evil genius. If we were BIVs then we would have experiences of a different quality. I know this requires an assumption but I think it's a reasonable assumption and it's how we actually live our lives.

[@maxpayne3628]

Hey Theology unleashed, what do you think about Tjump? Some say he destroyed Josh Rasmussen in debate( I mean his Comment section). So what do you think?

[@TheologyUnleashed]

@@maxpayne3628 no way. I didn't watch that on but that can't be true. He as some core philosophical errors such as thinking you need predictions to prove something. I think Joe Schmid destroyed him.

[@maxpayne3628]

@@TheologyUnleashed His comment section calls him Theism killer... Why is it so then? And he also likes those comments and you understand what I mean? And he has that intellectual vibe Like what are your overall thoughts about him?

[@TheologyUnleashed]

@@maxpayne3628 he speaks with confidence and sounds smart to people who already agree with him and who don't understand good philosophy.

[@TheologyUnleashed]

In every debate you find the fans of both sides go away thinking their guy won.

[@jattebaleyos116]

I thought josh was tobey maguire

[@waiandmtoj1877]

Majesty of Reason what really holds you back from theism through agnosticism? I just dont get your core reason. I have no issues about your standpoint as being agnostic, if you have a good cause for it. But from your debate with Cameron I couldnt understand your standpoint in that matter. Could you elaborate on it? I'm a Christian but don't worry I aint gonna convert you. I just seek to understand those intangible things.

[@MajestyofReason]

Thanks for the comment!❤️ I have just the video for you🥰 kzbin.info/www/bejne/j4XWhIptisqNprs

[@waiandmtoj1877]

@@MajestyofReason ❤️ Many thanks! Love your quote: "The litterature is so vast: My mind is so small". I agree completely but I take the shortcut to let the one whom I believe in being the supreme mind be my guide rather than multiples of great minds. However great minds have interesting thoughts and I respect that, and one should always be open for other views, thats how one grows in wisdom.

[@waiandmtoj1877]

When I said "I agree completely" meant my mind is small too, nothing else.

[@fanboy8026]

Do a video about moral realism vs anti realism

[@viardent8823]

why is it something is only able to be disproven if it follows your arbitrary rules for what follows what? it's like you invent football, but all i want to do is walk from one side of the field to the other. I don't need to follow your rules. your rules are bullshit.