RESPONSIBLE BELIEVING

S. Joel Garver

CHAPTER FOUR

Seeing Isn't Believing:
(And Other Thoughts on Doxastic Practices)

Section IV: Part A

On Frameworks and Intellectual Habits

So far we have seen that in respect to perceptual belief, our belief-forming habits are governed by the concepts by means of which we think and the patterns of inference and quasi-inference which they entail. Communities that share most concepts can be said largely to share a conceptual framework (such a framework will express itself in various ways, but most obviously in the way the conceptual community speaks). The patterns of (quasi-)inference associated with various concepts are best seen as only sometimes utilizing beliefs regarding their reliability in the formation of their resultant beliefs. Just as often, if not more so, these patterns function purely as habits that unconsciously govern thinking, much in the way Aristotle sees the moral life to be guided by the virtues. In respect to beliefs that are normative--those that express and are presupposed by the reliability of our patterns of (quasi-)inference--we have seen that they are not bald assumptions but are likely grounded in the very habits they validate. If such habits are, in fact, valid, then there is no reason to take the normative beliefs as anything less than justified. Even if not grounded in this way, they can be seen as reliably formed.

Hume, according to some interpreters, said something very similar (Baier 1991; Talbot 1993). According to the empiricist milieu in which Hume was writing and as he saw it, the following thesis was held regarding matters of fact (it might also have been held by Cartesians): knowledge (or justified beliefs) regarding the world must be formed by or based on the subject's grasp of some "real intelligible connexion" between two or more things (Hume, Treatise 1978:168; while Hume often speaks of "knowing" e.g., Treatise:173; Enquiry 1975:33, he also speaks of "discovering" Enquiry:23, "justly inferring" Enquiry:34, "just reasoning" Enquiry:10, 12, and the like; cf. Locke's Essay 1975:654f.). For instance, if we have a notion of there being a causal connection between two sorts of events, then that relation must be somehow grasped either by grasping some necessary relation of ideas or by the appearance of a causal connection between the things in question.

Matters of fact, however, cannot involve necessary relations of ideas, says Hume, since "the contrary of every matter of fact is still possible" (Hume, Enquiry:25). Furthermore, Hume says that many matters of fact cannot be founded on appearance either, at least not in the manner that the philosophers of Hume's era would require. For instance, though we suppose there to be causal relations between things "there are no cases where some reality can really be seen to be 'communicated' by the causal relation" (Baier 1991:74). That is to say, there are no appearances to ground our belief regarding causation. Thus, in many cases of matters of fact our beliefs concerning them go beyond what the evidence, strictly speaking, authorizes (cf. relevant passages in Hume concerning causation, especially, Treatise:73-175).

Hume, however, does not simply throw out our empirical beliefs because they fail to meet the standards of the empiricism of his day. Rather, he gives an explanation for them and asserts that they are justly held. In respect to causation he takes us to make a inference between two propositions: "I have found that such an object has always been attended with such an effect" and "I foresee, that other objects, which are in appearance similar, will be attended with similar effects" (Enquiry:34). While Hume denies that this is properly a form of "reasoning" or "argument" as that would be understood by the empiricism of his day, he also allows "that the one proposition may justly be inferred from the other" (Enquiry:34; Hume will, nevertheless, call this sort of inference a form of "reasoning" though it does not meet conventional standards). That this use of "justly inferred" is an ascription of positive epistemic warrant is clear from how he uses such terminology throughout his writings (Enquiry:8, 10, 12, 27, 89; Talbot has also discussed how the terminology was used in 18th century English and Scottish philosophy and literature including Reid, Boswell, and others).

Further on in the Enquiry Hume also writes (regarding not only reasoning from propositions about experience but also regarding reasoning from experience itself):

This step, however, is one "on which almost all knowledge depends" (notice that he calls it "knowledge"; Enquiry:41). He goes on to say that though the mind does not have any argument of the knock-down sort that the empiricism of his day required, we, nevertheless, do have "some other principle of equal weight and authority" (Enquiry:41). That principle, Hume writes, is "Custom or Habit" (Enquiry:43; for extended argument in favor of this reading of Hume see Talbot 1993, especially 261-270).

Hume's point was already urged when I earlier endorsed Millar's view that experiences have no intrinsic propositional contents, but we come to have justified beliefs about them through their interactions with our conceptual capacities, that is, with certain customs or habits we engage. I bring in Hume at this point to indicate how this line of thinking has arisen before and how it might be extended to other kinds of factual knowledge (for instance, knowledge of causation). The upshot of these points is that even regarding the most ordinary of our beliefs --everyday perceptual ones--there are certain habits, concepts, dispositions, and the like that are socially established and internal to the subject and which are necessary for large categories of belief-formation. The right sorts of habits are necessary for those kinds of knowledge. Any plausible epistemology must take stock of what is internal to the subject in belief-formation, whether that be as simple as reliable belief-forming mechanisms or as complicated as the nexus of emotion, desire, conceptual capacity, aesthetic sensibility, and systems of strong evaluation that figure into the formation of many of our beliefs (some these aspects of belief-formation will be picked up in later chapters).

This inclusion of subject-internal elements still might not leave much room for responsibility for belief, especially for perceptual ones, but it does show us where to look if we have reason to take a subject to be responsible for his or her beliefs. For instance, the man who can tell when his wife looks upset has come to possess a highly specialized belief-forming habit--a form of quasi-inference that involves fine-grained and weakly experiential concepts regarding his wife's moods, facial expressions, tone of voice and the like. There is much room here, in the formation of the habit, for taking stock of responsibility: the way the man has been attentive to his wife these many years, the way in which that attention has been suffused by concern and affection, the desire that the man has to comfort and support his wife, and so on.

The model of perceptual belief-formation that has been provided is also one that can be applied in an analogous fashion to many other kinds of doxastic practice. We will conclude this chapter by briefly noting the general shape of several doxastic practices in order to see how Millar's insights might factor into their functioning.