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Is There Non-Inferential Justification? James Pryor Princeton University Draft 9 10/13/03. Justification
- Evelyn Farmer
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1 Is There Non-Inferential Justification? James Pryor Princeton University Draft 9 10/13/03 I Justification I want to talk about a certain epistemic quality that I call justification, and inquire whether that quality can ever be had immediately or non-inferentially. Before we get into substantive issues, we need first to agree about what epistemic quality it is we ll be talking about, and then we need to clarify what it is to have that quality immediately or non-inferentially. When I say I call this epistemic quality justification, you re liable to think, Oh I know what that is. You may. But experience has taught me that different philosophers use and understand the term justification differently, even before they start spinning substantive theories about what justification amounts to. So we should proceed cautiously. You may use the term justification to describe the same epistemic quality as I do; or you may use it to describe some different status or quality. You may use some other term, or no term at all, to describe the quality I call justification. I say that you have justification to believe P iff you re in a position where it would be epistemically appropriate for you to believe P, a position where P is epistemically likely for you to be true. I intend this to be a very inclusive epistemic status. 1 Some philosophers say you can know P without having any justification for your belief. We can assume that whenever a subject knows P, she ll be in a position where it d be epistemically appropriate to believe P. So on my usage, whoever knows P has justification to believe P. (Perhaps she has that justification because she knows.) The philosophers who say otherwise are using having justification to mean something different, or more specific, than the epistemic status I am using it to mean. The same goes for philosophers who say a belief can be epistemically appropriate, and so play a role in justifying other beliefs, though you do not have any justification for it. On my usage,
2 all it means to have justification to believe something is that it s appropriate for you to believe it, and to rely on that belief in forming other beliefs. Some philosophers call this epistemic status entitlement or warrant, rather than justification. For the sake of a shared discussion, though, we need to fix on a single terminology. If there s some state or condition you re in in virtue of which you have justification to believe P, I ll it a justification-making condition, or a justificationmaker for short. This is a condition that makes it epistemically appropriate (or more appropriate) for you to believe P, rather than disbelieve P or suspend judgment. It s a truth-maker for your having justification to believe P. (Firth 1964 called these conditions warrant-increasing properties. ) We can say that conditions of this sort justify you in believing P. They are justifiers. (We will encounter a different way to understand talk of justifiers in VI, below.) In what follows, it will be useful for us to distinguish between having justification to believe P, and actually appropriately holding a belief in P. To have justification to believe P, it is not important whether you actually do believe P (nor, if you do, why you do); there just have to be things that make believing P an appropriate attitude for you to have. To appropriately believe P more is required. You need to believe P; you need to have justification to believe P; and you also need to believe P on the right grounds. You need to believe it for reasons that make you have justification to believe it; you can t believe it for other, bad reasons, or on a whim. 2 There are further conditions as well: for instance, you need to be taking proper account of any evidence you have that tells against or undercuts your grounds for believing P. I describe another further condition in Pryor forthcoming. Only when all such conditions are met will your belief in P be appropriately held. II Immediate Justification Now that we have a grip on the notion of justification, let s clarify what it means to talk about immediate justification. For some propositions, you have justification to believe them because other propositions you have justification to believe epistemically support them. For instance, 2
3 suppose you look at the gas gauge of your car, and it appears to read E. So you have justification to believe: (Gauge) The gas gauge reads E. That, together with other things you justifiedly believe about your car, gives you justification to believe: (Gas) Your car is out of gas. (It s not important for our purposes whether you actually do believe (Gauge) or (Gas). Given your evidence, you ought to believe them.) In this example, your justification to believe (Gas) comes in part from the fact that you have justification to believe (Gauge). That is, having justification to believe the latter is part of what makes you have justification to believe the former. The justification you have in this example to believe (Gauge) does not in the same way come from your having justification to believe (Gas). (One mark of this is that evidence that undercut your justification to believe (Gauge) would ipso facto undercut your justification to believe (Gas); but not vice versa.) When your justification to believe P comes in part from your having justification to believe other, supporting propositions, I ll say that those latter propositions mediate your justification to believe P. (This kind of justification is sometimes called inferential justification. We ll encounter a second way in which justification can be inferential later.) When your justification to believe P does not come from your justification to believe other propositions, I ll call it immediate. Some clarifications. 3 First, the question whether your justification to believe P is mediate or immediate is a question about what kind of epistemic support you have for P. It s not a question about how much support you have: nothing in our definition requires immediately justified beliefs to be infallible or indefeasible. Nor is it a question about what psychological processes you ve undergone. The support you have to believe P can be mediate (or inferential ) even if you didn t arrive at P by deriving or inferring it from other beliefs. Second, in order for you to have immediate justification to believe P, it s not required that your justification comes from nowhere, that there is nothing that makes you so justified. It s only required that what makes you justified doesn t include having 3
4 justification for other beliefs. 4 There are various proposals about what can make one have immediate justification. E.g., perhaps you re immediately justified in believing you feel tired because you do feel tired. Perhaps you re immediately justified in believing that tiredness is a mental state because you understand what tiredness is. And so on. It may be that there is no single correct account. Different propositions may be justified by different kinds of things. Third, the fact that you have immediate justification to believe P does not entail that no other beliefs are required for you to be able to form or entertain the belief that P. Having the concepts involved in the belief that P may require believing certain other propositions; it does not follow that any justification you have to believe P must be mediated by those other propositions. 5 Fourth, justification is usually defeasible. What a justification-maker for P gives you is provisional or prima facie justification to believe P; and that is what I m saying can be mediate or immediate. Whether it s all things considered appropriate for you to believe P will depend on what other evidence you possess, and whether it defeats the prima facie justification you have to believe P. Fifth, beliefs can be epistemically overdetermined. You can have immediate justification and independent mediate justification to believe the same thing. In some cases, your belief will be grounded on the facts that make you have immediate justification; in other cases it might be grounded on the facts that make you have mediate justification, or on both sets of facts. This shows that we should try to explain the notion of grounding in a way that permits beliefs to be both grounded and immediately justified if that s possible. (In section VII we will consider an argument that it is not possible.) III Why Believe In Immediate Justification? Now that we ve achieved some clarity about what immediate justification is, let s ask why we should believe in it. The most famous argument for immediate justification is called the Regress Argument. Really this is not one argument but several; because philosophers do not 4
5 always have the same regress in mind. Sometimes they have in mind a dialectical regress: to defend your belief that P in argument, you need to appeal to other beliefs, but then how do you defend those other beliefs? Sometimes they have in mind a grounding regress: your belief in P is grounded in such-and-such other beliefs, but then what grounds those other beliefs? Sometimes they have in mind a justification-making regress: what makes you have justification to believe P is, in part, your having justification to believe such-and-such other propositions, but then what makes you justified in believing those other propositions? Let s focus on this third, justification-making regress. There are four possible ways for the regress to play out: (i) The regress never ends. The justificatory chain goes on forever. (ii) What makes you justified in believing P is your having justification to believe other things, and what makes you justified in believing some of them is your having justification to believe P. That is, the justificatory chain includes some closed loops. (iii) Eventually we get to a proposition you believe inappropriately, without having any justification for it. Though this belief is not itself justified, it is somehow able to justify you in believing further propositions. (iv) Eventually we get to a proposition you have justification to believe, but that justification does not come from your believing, or having justification to believe, any further propositions. 6 The Foundationalist argues that options (i) and (ii) are untenable; so we have to accept (iii) or (iv). On either of those options, a subject can have justification to believe some propositions, that does not come from her having justification to believe any other propositions. 7 Though this Regress Argument is the most famous argument for immediate justification, I do not think it is the best argument. It has the same weakness as any argument by elimination: everything turns on whether the rejected options really are untenable. That s not a matter that can be quickly decided. In addition, the Regress Argument assumes that justificatory relations always have a linear, asymmetric nature; and some epistemologists deny that that s so. 5
6 So I do not think the best argument for immediate justification is this Regress Argument. I think the best argument comes from considering examples. Suppose I feel tired, or have a headache. I am justified in believing I feel those ways. And there do not seem to be any other propositions that mediate my justification for believing it. What would the other propositions be? Suppose I raise my arm. I am justified in believing that I m doing this in order to scare a fly. That is my reason for trying to raise my arm. Sometimes my reasons for acting are opaque to me and have to be carefully reconstructed. But not always. In cases like this one, my reasons can be immediately evident to me. There doesn t seem to be anything else I m justified in believing, that makes me justified in believing my reason for trying to raise my arm is to scare a fly. What would the other beliefs be? I m imagining my grandmother. The way I m imagining her is sitting in her kitchen. Or at least, I believe it is. And it seems I could be justified in that belief. Again, it s hard to see what other propositions might mediate this justification. I think about a domino and a chessboard. It s obvious to me that the only way to wholly cover two spaces on the board is to place the domino horizontally or vertically. That s something I could have derived from geometric premises. But in this case I didn t. I just immediately saw that it was true. In this case, too, my justification does not seem to be mediated by any further propositions. 8 These and many other examples provide us with good candidates to be immediate justification. What we need to do is see whether such examples stand up to critical reflection. IV The Master Argument for Coherentism The main argument against immediate justification was historically directed at the Given Theory. That was a theory that offered a specific account of what some immediate justification-makers looked like. The precise details of the Given Theory aren t important for our inquiry. 9 What is important is that the Given Theory is just one possible account among many of what gives us immediate justification. Fans of immediate justification are also free to give different accounts. The following map may be helpful: 6
7 There is immediate justification Coherence Theory Given Theory Pure Coherence Theory Foundationalism I make Foundationalism a proper subclass of the view that there is immediate justification, because Foundationalists also hold additional theses about the structure of your justification. One does not need to accept those additional theses, merely to believe that some beliefs are immediately justified. Coherentist deny that it s possible for any beliefs to be immediately justified. They say that justification always comes, at least in part, from your justification for other beliefs. I distinguish between Pure and Impure versions of Coherentism. Pure Coherentists claim that a belief can only be justified by its relations to other beliefs. Impure Coherentists are willing to give some non-beliefs, such as perceptual experiences, a justifying role. They ll just deny that those states are able to justify a belief all by themselves. They can only do so in cooperation with other justified beliefs. For instance, an Impure Coherentist might say that when it looks to you as if you have hands, and you have justification to believe that your visual experiences are reliable, those facts together can make you justified in believing that you have hands. 10 Now, as I said, the main argument against immediate justification was historically directed at the Given Theory. This argument alleged that in order to be a justifier, you need to have certain characteristics, and that having those characteristics makes you be the sort of thing that itself needs justification. Here is a sample presentation, from BonJour: The basic idea of givenness is to distinguish two aspects of ordinary cognitive states, their capacity to justify other cognitive states and their own need for justification, and then to try to find a kind of state which possesses only the former aspect and not the latter a state of immediate apprehension or intuition. But we can now see plainly that any such 7
8 attempt is fundamentally misguided and intrinsically hopeless. For it is clear on reflection that it is one and the same feature of a cognitive state, namely, its assertive or at least representational content, which both enables it to confer justification on other states and also creates the need for it to be itself justified thus making it impossible in principle to separate these two aspects. (BonJour 1985, p. 78) The characteristics BonJour cites are having assertive or representational content. (Sometimes it s claimed, in addition, that a justifier has to have conceptual content. We ll return to that idea later.) In order to have these characteristics, the Coherentist argues, a state would itself have to be a belief or at least be sufficiently like a belief that it in turn needs justifying. So we aren t going to find any immediate justifiers: conditions that are able to justify though they don t themselves need justifying. That is the core of the familiar argument against the Given Theory. Notice that this argument really doesn t have anything specifically to do with the Given Theory. If it works, it should work against any account of immediate justification. In fact, if it works, then the only things which can play any justifying role will be other beliefs (or belief-like states). So the argument threatens Impure Coherence Theories no less than it does views that countenance immediate justification. It s not really an argument against the Given Theory, then. It s more an argument for Pure Coherentism. I think of this argument as the Master Argument for Coherentism. 11 One step in this Master Argument insists that only states with propositional content can be justifiers. Let s call this: The Content Requirement In order to be a justifier, you need to have propositional content. Why should we accept that requirement? Well, if a state doesn t have propositional content, then it can t stand in logical relations to beliefs. Davidson once complained: The relation between a sensation and a belief cannot be logical, since sensations are not beliefs or other propositional attitudes. What then is the relation? The answer is, I think, obvious: the relation is causal. Sensations cause some beliefs and in this sense are the basis or ground of those 8
9 beliefs. But a causal explanation of a belief does not show how or why the belief is justified. (Davidson 1986, p. 311) Of course Davidson is right that merely learning that some sensation S caused belief B does not show that B is justified, or that S is what makes it justified. However, it would be compatible with that that S does make B justified. Davidson wants to rule that possibility out. He thinks that sensation S cannot be what justifies B. So he must think that it s only by standing in logical relations to a belief that a state can justify the belief. He may be thinking: if a state doesn t stand in logical relations to a belief, then why should it justify that belief as opposed to others? For example, let s assume that headaches don t have propositional content. (Some philosophers argue that all mental states have propositional content. For the sake of discussion, we ll assume with Davidson that they re wrong.) Why then should a headache justify me in believing I have a headache, as opposed to I don t have a headache or I am a headache or There are no such things as headaches? My headache itself wouldn t logically support any of those propositions; so it s not clear why it should justify some of them but not the others. There is then some initial plausibility to the idea that in order to play the role of a justifier, a state has to be able to stand in logical relations; which it can only do if it has propositional content. (Objection: What about a lack of defeating evidence? That s not naturally thought of as a state with propositional content; but it does seem relevant to your justification. Reply: The Content Requirement should be understood as stating a necessary condition to be a prima facie justifier. The role defeating evidence plays is in settling a further question: When does prima facie justification get to become all things considered justification?) The other step in the Master Argument insists that if a state has propositional content, then it will be a belief or epistemically like a belief: Only Beliefs Only beliefs (or other states that are epistemically like beliefs, and also require epistemic justification) have propositional content. But wait a minute! Desires have propositional content, and they re not the sort of thing which could be, nor do they need to be justified at least, not epistemically justified. 12 9
10 The Coherentist will respond: That s true, desires have propositional content and don t need any epistemic justification. So the Only Beliefs premise as it stands is false. But desires aren t capable of justifying beliefs, either! So they re not a counter-example to the conclusion we want: that only beliefs can be justifiers. They just force us to be more specific about what features it is that enable a state to be a justifier. It takes more than just having propositional content. There are some ways of representing the proposition that P that purport to be saying how the world is, and other ways that don t. When a state represents that P in the first way, we can say that the state assertively represents that P. Desires may represent that P in some sense, but they do not represent it assertively. Neither do states like imagining and entertaining. When you desire that P, or imagine that P, or entertain the thought that P, your mental state does not purport to be saying that P is (already) true. What our Master Argument should say is that, to be a justifier, a state needs to have propositional content, and it needs to represent that proposition assertively. States that don t do that aren t even purporting to say how the world is, so how could they play the role of justifiers? And in order to represent a proposition assertively, a state will have to be a belief, or else sufficiently like a belief that it needs justifying too. Let s revise the Master Argument as the Coherentist proposes: The Content Requirement (Revised) In order to be a justifier, you need to have propositional content, and you need to represent that proposition assertively. Only Beliefs (Revised) Only beliefs (or other states that are epistemically like beliefs) represent propositions assertively. \ Only beliefs (or other states that are epistemically like beliefs) can be justifiers. I want to mention two quick worries about this argument, and then dwell at length upon a third. First, even if this argument were sound, it s not clear that it would establish Coherentism. The argument says that the only things that could justify are states like belief, that require justification. A Foundationalist might agree that beliefs in some 10
11 sense always require justification, but argue that they re still sometimes able to justify other beliefs even when they re not themselves justified. (This was option (iii) in the Regress Argument.) The other beliefs that got justified in this way would count as immediately justified, as I ve defined it. Second, we might worry whether the Coherentist is himself in a position to accept the Master Argument. After all, doesn t the Coherentist want facts about coherence to play a justifying role? Yet coherence is not itself a belief or a belief-like state. Here I think the Coherentist can reply, Notice that coherence is a property of the contents of your beliefs. Any set of beliefs having the same contents would be just as coherent. So it s OK to say that it s always your beliefs that are doing the justifying. It s just that certain sets of beliefs (those whose contents cohere well) justify more than others. Talk about the justifying role of coherence is shorthand for talk about which sets of beliefs justify and which don t. This seems to me a plausible line for the Coherentist to take. There is a third worry that the Coherentist cannot so easily finesse, however. This worry once again concerns the Only Beliefs premise. The problem is that many philosophers of mind these days think of experiences as having propositional content. To say that experiences have propositional content is not to say that experiences are beliefs. It can look to you as if P without your believing that P. Experiences and beliefs just have it in common that they both represent propositions. 13 And both seem to represent propositions assertively; when they represent that P, they do so in a way that purports to say how the world is. So the Master Argument as we have it gives us no reason to exclude experiences from the ranks of justifiers. 14 Yet, unlike beliefs, experiences aren t the sort of thing which could be, nor do they need to be justified. Sure, beliefs about what experiences you have may need to be justified. But the experiences themselves do not. (If someone comes up to you and demands, How dare you have that experience? What gives you the right? what should you say?) So we see that, contrary to the Only Beliefs premise, states that assertively represent a proposition won t always themselves require justification. Where does this leave things between Foundationalists (or fans of immediate justification more generally) and proponents of the Master Argument? A Foundationalist can just stop here. He can say, Well, we ve seen that experiences are a counter-example 11
12 to the Only Beliefs premise; so even if we accept the Content Requirement, that poses no obstacle to letting experiences play the role of justifiers. They might play that role in cooperation with other beliefs, as the Impure Coherentist allows, or they might do it all by themselves. We ve seen no good reason yet to think they can t. (See e.g. Martin 1993 and Steup 2001.) Some Foundationalists do stop there. They re happy to accept the Content Requirement. But that is a pretty demanding constraint to put on what can be a justifier. And in fact, if you think about it, the Content Requirement will be well-motivated only if an even more demanding constraint is. Let me explain. The Coherentist denies that the mere presence of a headache or a desire can justify you in believing anything, because these states don t assertively represent anything. They can t even justify you in believing that you have those states. But then neither should the mere presence of a belief or an experience justify you in believing you have them, either. For although beliefs and experiences do have propositional contents that they assertively represent, those contents are playing no role in the justificatory relation here envisaged. It seems just an unfair prejudice to allow states that assertively represent propositions to justify the belief that you re in those states, but deny the same ability to other states. We should either allow this justifying relation in every case, or prohibit it in every case. The Coherentist will try to prohibit it. They ll say, Look it s not just that the justifying state needs to have a content. The content needs to be in some sense what does the justifying. What that means, I guess, is that the content of the justifying state needs to imply, or inductively or abductively support, or stand in some other suitable evidential relation to the content it justifies. Let s give this idea a name: Premise Principle The only things that can justify a belief that P are other states that assertively represent propositions, and those propositions have to be ones that could be used as premises in an argument for P. They have to stand in some kind of inferential relation to P: they have to imply it or inductively support it or something like that. 12
13 The contents of your beliefs and experiences will ordinarily not imply that you re in those states; so this Principle will prevent your beliefs and experiences from directly justifying the belief that you re in them. 15 I think this Premise Principle is the real intuitive force behind the Coherentist s Content Requirement. Recall the Davidson quote from earlier. He was saying that to be a justifier, you have to stand in logical relations to the beliefs you justify. I think this is what he really had in mind. Here are some other authors also giving voice to the Premise Principle. We cannot really understand the relations in virtue of which a judgment is warranted except as relations within the space of concepts: relations such as implication or probabilification, which hold between potential exercises of conceptual capacities. (McDowell 1994, p. 7) [A reason for S s believing that P is] a fact about that person which makes her believing that thing intelligible from the point of view of rationality. If this is to happen then the selected fact about S must be somehow related to (her) believing that P. And since this relation is to make her believing that P intelligible from the point of view of rationality, it is necessarily a relation which obtains in virtue of the correctness of some kind of reasoning. That is to say, successfully giving such a reason makes essential reference to the premise of an inference of some kind, whose conclusion is appropriately related, most likely by identity, to the content of the belief for which the reason is being given. (Brewer 1999, p. 154; see also pp ) The Premise Principle says that all justifying relations between states hold in virtue of inferential relations between their contents. We have to be sure we understand this properly. First, the Premise Principle states a constraint on what can give you justification to believe things; it does not concern your actual beliefs or reasoning processes. It can allow that we often form beliefs that are supported by inferential relations without engaging in any inference. 13
14 It can also respect the difference that Harman 1986 emphasized between logic and reasoning. Harman said that just because you believe some premises that together imply P, it doesn t follow that it d be reasonable for you to infer P. It might, e.g., be more reasonable to give up your belief in some of the premises. The Premise Principle can allow this. It s only trying to explicate the nature of prima facie justificatory relations. According to the Premise Principle, those always consist in inferential relations between contents. If your beliefs in some premises together imply P, and you have prima facie justification for those beliefs, then you have prima facie justification to believe P. But it might be unreasonable for you to infer P on those grounds, e.g. if you also have other evidence that tells against P, or that undercuts some of your prima facie justification for the premises. Although there s a sense in which the Premise Principle claims all prima facie justificatory relations are inferential, this is not the same as saying that all justification is inferential in the sense of being mediated. The Coherentists would like to argue from the Premise Principle to that conclusion. But the Premise Principle by itself doesn t say it. Without supplementation, the Premise Principle would allow experiences to justify beliefs. For instance, an experience as of your having hands could justify the belief that you have hands. And justification of this sort would count as immediate. It s just that, according to the Premise Principle, the experience is able to justify that belief because of the inferential relations its content stands in to the content of the belief. (In this case, the inferential relation is straightforward: the experience s content is the same as the content of the belief.) So the Premise Principle doesn t imply what people usually have in mind when they say that our perceptual justification is inferential or mediated. That is a view according to which we re in the first place justified in believing we have certain experiences, and then that justification for beliefs about our experiences is an essential part of what justifies our beliefs about the external world. The Premise Principle doesn t imply that; it would allow our merely having experiences with the right sorts of contents to justify beliefs about the external world. Nor is the Premise Principle implied by the view that perceptual justification is mediated. For the latter view says nothing about what justifies our beliefs about our 14
15 experiences. Perhaps, contra the Premise Principle, we re justified in those beliefs merely by virtue of having the experiences. So there s no straightforward relation between the Premise Principle and the question whether perceptual justification is mediated or immediate. The relation between the Premise Principle and Foundationalism more generally is also complicated. As I said before, some Foundationalists are happy to accept the Coherentist s Content Requirement, and the Premise Principle that motivates it. They just argue that there can be justifiers that satisfy the Premise Principle but aren t beliefs. Those arguments interact in interesting ways with the question whether experiences have conceptual content. Some philosophers combine the Premise Principle with the view that you can only have the required type of inferential relation when both relata have conceptual content. That seems to be the view of Sellars (1956), McDowell (1994 Lectures 1 and 3; 1998), 16 and Brewer (1999 Ch. 5). The Coherentists will go on to argue that experiences don t have conceptual content and so cannot be justifiers. McDowell and Brewer, on the other hand, think that experiences are justifiers; so they argue that experiences do have conceptual content after all. Others have argued that experiences can stand in the inferential relations the Premise Principle requires even if their content is not conceptual (see e.g. Heck 2000 and Peacocke 2001). 17 Personally, I m not really sure what conceptual content is; so I won t enter into this debate. I just wanted to call attention to the role the Premise Principle plays in it. We ve been looking at the Master Argument for Coherentism, and considering whether it succeeds in ruling out the possibility of immediate justification. I said that even if the Master Argument were sound, it might still be possible for unjustified beliefs to do some justifying; and that would be a kind of immediate justification. We ve also seen that one can accept the Premise Principle and still say that experiences justify; that will be another kind of immediate justification. So one does not need to reject the Premise Principle, to believe in immediate justification. Nonetheless, many Foundationalists will want to reject the Premise Principle. It doesn t exclude the very possibility of immediate justification; but it does impose quite a demanding constraint on what can be an immediate justifier. Many Foundationalists 15
16 believe in justification-making facts that violate that constraint. For instance, many Foundationalists want to allow facts about what sensations you re having, or facts about what mental activities you re engaging in, to count as justifiers. Some want to allow facts about what s required to possess certain concepts to play a justifying role. Some say facts about how reliable you are, or facts about whether your cognitive faculties are functioning properly, or facts about what beliefs are irresistible, can play a justifying role. And so on. Each of these facts concerns matters that go beyond what assertive states you re in; so the Premise Principle would exclude them all from being justifiers. I think, then, that it d be valuable to consider whether the Premise Principle is really well-motivated. The rest of this paper will consider some arguments on its behalf. There is one type of argument that I won t consider. Those are arguments from the trenches : arguments of the form Theory So-and-So gives the correct substantive account of justification; and that theory only postulates justifiers of the sort the Premise Principle permits. Assessing any argument of that type would require examining the pros and cons of different theories of justification, and determining whether Theory Soand-So really is an adequate theory. That s well beyond the scope of this paper. Instead, I will look at arguments that try to establish the Premise Principle from on high, before we ve decided upon a substantive theory of justification. I m going to argue that no argument of that sort succeeds. Hence, I think we have no reason to give the Premise Principle any authority when we re choosing among competing theories of justification. If I m right, that will clear the way for the many Foundationalist theories that postulate immediate justifiers that violate the Premise Principle. 18 V Avoiding Arbitrariness Our first argument for the Premise Principle is one that I ve already mentioned. Consider a state without propositional content, like your headache. Since it has no propositional content, this state can t stand in logical relations to any beliefs. So why should it justify any one belief as opposed to others? Why should it justify the belief I have a headache, as opposed to I don t have a headache, or any other belief? What can the Foundationalist say to make the justifying relations he postulates non-arbitrary? 16
17 Chisholm provides a nice example of what s being objected to here. His view was that having an experience would give one prima facie justification for (or tend to make evident ) certain beliefs (see, e.g., Chisholm 1989). The justifying relations Chisholm postulated struck many philosophers as ad hoc. That impression was particularly forceful because of the model of experience Chisholm worked with. When we describe an experience as one of sensing or being-appeared-to squarely, that s supposed to be a description of the experience s intrinsic phenomenal quality. We might naturally take such an experience to be one in which we re perceiving an external square; but beingappeared-to squarely isn t a description of what external objects we seem to be perceiving. It doesn t mean having an experience that represents that there is a square. Chisholm didn t think experiences had representational content. Hence, the justifying relations he postulated seemed to lack any principled motivation. Why should sensing squarely justify beliefs about squares, rather than beliefs about squirrels? Many think Chisholm had no adequate answer to this question; so his position seems arbitrary and unsatisfying. I certainly agree that epistemologists should give principled, non-arbitrary rationales for the justifying relations they postulate. However, I see no reason to think that they ll have to appeal to propositional contents to do it. A Foundationalist might attribute other kinds of structure to some of his justifiers. On certain theories of events, for example, events have something like a logical structure. The event of my having a headache has a logical structure akin to the structure of the proposition that I have a headache. Wouldn t these structures be enough to enable the Foundationalist to avoid the charge of arbitrariness? 19 This is just one option for a Foundationalist to pursue. It s hard to draw any general assessment, until we see how the details work out. But the idea that only the Premise Principle can save us from arbitrariness seems unwarranted to me. VI Evidence and Reasons Where I ve been talking about justification-makers or justifiers, some other philosophers will talk about evidence or reasons ; and there are several arguments that 17
18 the latter notions have to conform to the Premise Principle. This might be thought to show that justification-makers also have to conform to the Premise Principle. Recall that a justification-maker is defined to be whatever makes it epistemic appropriate for you to believe some propositions rather than others. We should be open to the possibility that terms like evidence and reasons do not express exactly that notion. They may express different, or more specific notions. For instance, some philosophers argue that reasons and evidence have to be the sort of thing that can probabilify a hypothesis, and hence, that the hypothesis can have a probability conditional on. Hypotheses also have to be able to explain our evidence, be inconsistent with our evidence, and so on. All of these roles require evidence to have propositional content. So how could states without propositional content justify or be evidence? (See Williamson 2000, pp , and Plantinga 2001, p. 62.) In response, I say: Let s not assume too quickly that evidence and justifier are perfect synonyms. Consider that we sometimes use the terms belief and desire to refer to propositions that one believes and desires, rather than to one s states of believing or desiring them. Similarly, I think, sometimes we use evidence to refer to propositions that are evident to one, rather than to the states that make them evident. In other words, we use evidence to refer, not to our justification-makers, but rather to the propositions that they (most directly) justify. We call those propositions our evidence because they can serve as evidence for further reasoning. This diagnosis would permit things like headaches, that do not themselves have propositional content, to be justificationmakers so long as what they give one justification to believe is a proposition. A second argument says that we ordinarily understand justifications for a belief to be arguments that support the belief. If you have reasons for your belief, they should be considerations you could in principle cite, or give, to someone who doubted or challenged the belief. You can t give someone else a non-propositional state like a headache (at least, not in the relevant sense); you can only give them premises and arguments that inferentially support your belief. This seems to show that justifications and reasons are limited to things permitted by the Premise Principle. (See for example McDowell 1994, pp ) 18
19 There may be a notion of a reason that these remarks properly articulate. We can call it the dialectical notion of a reason. I want to emphasize, though, that that notion is different from the notion of a justification-maker that I ve been employing in this paper, and that the Premise Principle is meant to be formulated in terms of. It s useful here to distinguish two construals of the verb justify. On the first construal, justifying a belief in P is a matter of proving or showing the belief to be just (or reasonable or credible). This is something that a person does, by giving some argument in support of that belief. (Here we can include both arguments whose conclusion is P, and arguments whose conclusion is that your belief in P is epistemically appropriate, or is likely to be true.) By extension, we can also talk about things justifying beliefs; in this extended sense, a thing counts as justifying a belief if it s something you re in a position to use to prove or show your belief to be just. Such things would be reasons in the dialectical sense articulated above. To be explicit, let s call these things justification-showers. There s also a second way to construe the verb justify, which sees it as akin to the verbs beautify and electrify. When a combination of light and color beautifies a room, it s not proving that the room is beautiful; rather, it s making the room beautiful. Similarly, on this understanding, justifying a belief is a matter of making a belief just or reasonable, rather than a matter of showing the belief to be just. That s how I understand the notion of a justification-maker. 20 No doubt there are some interesting connections between justification-making and justification-showing. But they are two different notions; so we should not assume that their extensions will coincide. It needs argument to show that nothing is eligible to be a justification-maker unless it can also be a justification-shower. Until we have such an argument, the fact that justification-showers always conform to the Premise Principle should not persuade us that justification-makers must do so as well. Even if we manage to separate the notion of a justification-maker from the dialectical notion of a reason, I expect proponents of the Premise Principle will still insist there s enough of a connection between justification and reasons for constraints on the latter to support some restrictions on the former. 19
20 For instance, they can observe that there s a difference between reasons there are to believe P where these include reasons not now available to you and reasons you have to believe P. For example, one reason there is to believe you ll soon be sick is the fact that you just drank poison. But if you re unaware of that fact, then it s not a reason you have. For something to be a reason you have, for it to justify you in believing P, it has to be in some sense epistemically available to you. It has to be the sort of thing you could take as a reason. When it s not available to you e.g., when you re not in a state that assertively represents it, and so not in a position to appeal to it in arguing for P then it may be a reason to believe P, but it won t be a reason you have. For anyone with internalist sympathies, these reflections should apply to justifiers just as much as they do to reasons. 21 I think it s right to distinguish between things such that you would be justified in believing P, if you were aware of them, and things that do justify you in believing P. I think it s also right that if something justifies you, then it has to be in some sense available to you. But I think it d be wrong to assume that this kind of availability requires you to be in representational states. As I understand the notion of availability, it s correlative to the notion of a ground. A justifier is available to you at a given time it will be something you can take as a reason if it s something that could then ground a belief of yours. If the Foundationalist can make sense of beliefs being grounded on nonrepresentational justifiers like headaches, then he can make sense of those justifiers being sufficiently available to you. Our next argument for the Premise Principle will question whether the Foundationalist can make sense of the grounding relation, without appeal to beliefs or other representational states. VII Grounding and Being Guided By Norms We introduced the notion of a ground to distinguish between cases where you believe P for good reasons, or on grounds that justify you in believing P, and cases where you believe P on bad grounds, ones that do not justify that belief. What does it take for 20
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A generator for translators of certain problem oriented languages1 edition - first published in 1967
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It had been three days since Eoghan had set out and he had finally come to the place marked on the map, he put the map back in his pack and looked around finally spotting what seemed to be an old house in a clearing. He was somewhat confused because all of the stories he heard of high mages had said that they liked to live somewhat lavishly.
"Am I really at the right place?" He thought and consulted the map again, it was marked exactly where the house was. Shaking his head he headed towards Brion's home.
Eoghan hesitated when he got to the door, from what he had heard most mages didn't like being disturbed and he would hate it if he interrupted Brion during some important work.
He was about to knock when the door opened, and that it; is how he met Brion.
"I saw you standing at the door, is there something you need?" Brion asked. He was clothed in a simple workman's tunic and pants, his hair held up in a high ponytail with blue eye staring at him intensely "definitely not how a mage should look" thought Eoghan.
Eoghan gave a short bow "my apologies for disturbing you sir mage, it's just that I am in grave need of your help"
"I see" Brion said looking Eoghan up and down "very well come in" he held open the door and motioned for Eoghan to come in. While Eoghan was getting settled Brion went around and picked up a few things lying around and shooed what looked a small dragon? snake? Away from the fire.
"So then what does a king need with the likes of me?" Brion asked and Eoghan started 'How did you-" "the way you hold yourself, you walk with the stride of someone used to ruling over others.
Not to mention there has been word that the king of Báisteach has gone missing due to the vampires" Brion shrugged and idly petted the small dragon that had decided to wind itself around his arm.
Eoghan subconsciously flinched when the dragon turned its head to face him, "ah does Tine frighten you? My apologies" Brion said lips quirking upward.
"It's not that it's just that I've never seen a dragon before" Eoghan said hesitantly reaching out to touch the small dragon, his eyes widening in surprise when the dragon nudged his head against hand, almost like a cat.
"He likes you" Brion said a small smile on his face which was soon replaced by a blank mask "But enough of that you said you have need of me?" he asked.
"Yes I need you to help me fight off the vampires and take back my country" "Oh? And what do I get out of it? Brion asked examing his nails.
"As you know I am the king so I could give you anything, money, power, stature, whatever you wish" Eoghan said. "Hmmm what if I wanted to become your advisor or court mage would you allow that?" Brion asked.
"Yes" Eoghan said without hesitating, "how odd you are surprisingly honest for a king, not mention I think that you would in fact hand me that position. You are a very strange man" Brion murmered.
"Really have all the people you've dealt with been that corrupt?" Eoghan asked surprised.
Yes, that's one of the reasons I tried to isolate myself you see, if people can't find me they can't use me."
"That plan failed though" "only because you found me" 'Indeed" Eoghan said and let out a small laugh.
"It's odd" Brion thought "I should be on my guard but something about this man says that he won't use me, how very strange" Brion shook his head.
"So we have a deal then? I help you and you let me be your court mage?" he asked.
"Yes, I look forward to traveling with you Master of Fire," Eoghan said grasping Brion's hand and smiling brightly.
Brion coughed and looked away "how did he even find out about that title anyways".
It was just in time too, they both had heard them when they were talking, the vampires had arrived.
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Echoes at Dawn (A KGI Novel) (edition 2012)
by Maya Banks
Work details
Echoes at Dawn by Maya Banks
No current Talk conversations about this book.
Rio Rio Rio... I really like Rio :)
Rio is the team leader of one of the groups that work for the Kelly's. We've seen him in past books be the tough as nails leader of his group that was always at odds with the other team leader Steele that also works for the Kelly. At the end of Whispers in the Dark we saw him have a reaction to seeing Shea's sister Grace on a video tape and vow to go and get her bring her back to Shea.
Grace has just escaped from a group of men that had been making her use her abilities over and over until she was to the point of wanting to just give up and die. Rio and his team manage to find her after she falls off a cliff trying to escape the bad guys that had found her again.
As Grace is in a very weakened state Rio decides he needs to get her to his secret home in Balize where she can rest and heal herself and he can decide what he is going to do now that he knows Titan is after Grace. Titan is a highly classified military black ops group that doesn't "exist". There success rate is 100% and Rio knows this because he used to be one of them.
While on the island Grace and Rio become very close. I really liked watching these two open up to each other both showing there vulnerable sides and in turn falling in love with each other. As Grace had been on the run most of her life and knew she was different she didn't have any experience in the sex department. There is a scene that is both amusing and sexy on where Rio teaches Grace the art of giving a BJ :)
Once they leave the island the action picks back up and Grace is taken again but this time she refuses to be a victim and stands up to her abductors.
I have to say I really liked this book better than Nathan's and Shea's book. The next book is Cole and PJ's. I have been waiting for their book since we first met them so long ago in the first KGI book.
From the first second the hero saw her, he knew she was destined to be his. He fell in love with her right there on the spot. And he made a vow to find her and keep her safe no matter what. He tracks her down and finds her alone and scared in the woods after escaping a research facility. She's badly wounded, broken in both body and mind and she pleads with him to left her die. But there's no way in hell he's ever letting her go. It's there that he realizes the woman he loves is full of courage and a single minded determination to survive. He may already be in love with her but her bravery in the face of so much pain earns her his respect. They badly make it out the jungle alive but once he sweeps her off his secluded home south of the border, she's truly given the chance to heal. The heroine an heal others of any ailment but in doing to she takes the sickness or injury onto herself and as such risks her own life in the process. She's been forced to heal so many people that her body is weak, frail and she's physically wasting away. He mind is tired as well and she's heartbroken over the idea that she's permanently lost her telepathic connection to her sister. But the hero quickly becomes her rock. He's a man she can lean on, someone who can bring her own of her world of suffering and into a chance of happiness. Though he's protective and strong, he knows that the battle is up to her. He forces her to gain the courage and the confidence that was stolen from her and that's exactly what she needs. Slowly, he fixes her body and mind and in the process she helps him with his guilt over the death of his sister and loss of his family. He was a great man because he knew the balance of when to protect her and when to let her protect herself. He was possessive but it truly came from a place of love and you never once doubted the hero's feelings. He was all about the heroine from start to finish and his loyalty was never questioned. They made such a special couple and I loved every second of it. The hero was such an amazing character. He was alpha male to the 10th degree but he was chef, and kept a lovely home as his retreat. His love and determination made the heroine realize just how special she was and he made her take her life back. The chemistry was off the chain between the two and the soul deep love they felt for each other was real and stunningly heartwarming. This book was so lovely. The journey the heroine took from a beaten down wounded creature into the confident woman was inspiring. The freaking sex scene was hot!! I'm talking scorching. I really like this author and look forward to reading more from her in future.
Sorry, no time for a review. Have to reread this straightaway :)
A good story with lots of exciting action and it deals with an interesting moral issue. The hero has been popular in this series and he shows the same dedication to the heroine as he has with his job. Rio and his team are sent in to rescue and protect Grace who was kidnapped for her healing ability.
Overall Rating: 4.45
Action: 4.0 / Emotion: 3.5 / Romance: 5.0 / Sensuous: 3.0 / Suspense: 3.5 // Laughter: 3 / Giggle: 2 // Tears: 0 / Teary: 1
Echoes At Dawn: 4.45:
A totally enjoyable, exciting, one-sitting read. This book was full of romance and sensuality, had some great adventurous action scenes, included some clever twists, and had the reader intrigued, wondering what was going to happen next. What it did not include, however, was a lot of interaction featuring the Kelly brothers and their families.
Hero: 4.5:
Eduardo Bezerra, known to everyone as Rio: a hunky, tough, handsome, hero, who revealed the tender side of his personality. A multi-dimensional hero who felt real because Banks gave him a background story.
Heroine: 4.5:
Grace Peterson: it was easy to warm up to Grace as she went from being a battered, bruised, ready to give up heroine, to one who was strong enough to face down two overwhelmingly strong-willed, determined men.
Story Line: 4.0:
Banks seems to follow the same formula in this series of books. First, she opens the books with an exciting action scene to draw one into the story. Second, she takes the hero and heroine off someplace quiet and safe so they can spend time together. Third, she includes an unexpected twist in the story to surprise readers. Fourth, she includes an action-packed finale featuring the KGI teams. Then fifth, she closes with lackluster details about how the characters are going to eventually end up with their happily-ever-after.
Action: 4.0:
Banks included several exciting, adventurous, daring action scenes. The kind of action scenes that should be present in a Military Romantic Suspense book.
Emotion: 3.5:
It was easier to develop a bit of an emotional connection to Rio and Grace because they were developed to a degree that made them feel real. Banks succeeded in causing one to burst out in laughter and experience some throat-tightening moments.
Romance: 5.0:
Banks wrote some wonderful passages that described the deep romantic connection that developed between Rio and Grace.
Sensuous: 3.0:
As expected, Rio and Grace make love in the hot, spicy, graphic way that Banks favors.
Suspense: 3.5:
Although not extremely edgy, a degree of suspense kept the reader turning the pages to see what was going to happen next.
Secondary Characters: 3.5
Banks included some new secondary characters (and an entity) that really drew great interest: {1} Gordon Farnsworth, {2} Elizabeth Farnsworth, {3} Hancock and {4} Titan. The inclusion of previously-introduced secondary characters added a richer flavor to the story: {1} Terrence, {2} Mitch Browning, {3} Diego, {4} Decker, {5} Alton, {6} Sam Kelly, {7} Nathan Kelly, and {8} Adam Resnick. Brief appearances of several recurring characters were included in the book: {1} Garrett Kelly, {2} Donovan Kelly, {3} Joe Kelly, {4} Swanny, {5} Steele, {6} P.J. Rutherford, {7} [David] "Cole" [Coltrane], and {8} Kyle Phillips. The rest of the Kelly family was trotted out in the last chapter of the book to be introduced to Grace.
A more in-depth, detailed, spoiler-ridden review of Echoes At Dawn appears at Wolf Bear Does Books (http://goo.gl/pSzB2o).
References to this work on external resources.
Wikipedia in English
Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0425250865, Mass Market Paperback)Grace Peterson is desperate, in hiding, and on the run after escaping a shadowy group determined to exploit her extraordinary ability to heal others. Her only lifeline--an unerring telepathic ability she shares with her sister--has been severed, leaving her alone and vulnerable. And time is fast running out...
Enlisted to bring Grace home is Rio, relentless member of the KGI. He's unprepared for his reaction to this wounded, damaged woman, and he's fiercely determined to protect her from those who nearly destroyed her. In Rio, she finds a safe haven, and for the first time...hope. But the mission is far from over. The danger Grace has eluded is fast closing in. And now it's pitching two lovers toward an unfamiliar horizon, with no place left to hide.
(retrieved from Amazon Thu, 12 Mar 2015 18:23:24 -0400)
"Grace Peterson is desperate, in hiding, and on the run after escaping a shadowy group determined to exploit her extraordinary ability to heal others. Her only lifeline--an unerring telepathic ability she shares with her sister--has been severed, leaving her alone and vulnerable. And time is running out... Enlisted to bring Grace home is Rio, relentless member of the KGI. He's unprepared for his reaction to this wounded, damaged woman, and he's fiercely determined to protect her from those who nearly destroyed her. In Rio, she finds a safe haven, and for the first time...hope. But the mission is far from over. The danger Grace has eluded is fast closing in. And now it's pitching two lovers toward an unfamiliar horizon, with no place left to hide."--Publisher.… (more)
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Grant King
- Sportmans report Fishing the many creeks of Sonoma Countythecommunityvoice.com
- Energy 'crisis' predictable, says former Origin Energy boss Grant Kingwatoday.com.au
- BCA president Grant King offers some grim fairytales for corporate tax rebelsSydney Morning Herald
- 10 reasons why the company tax cut is a really bad idea | Kristina KeneallyThe Guardian
- Origin Energy ignores coal seam gas well leaks, whistleblower saysThe Guardian
- Markets Live: Nessuna problemaSydney Morning HeraldEurope , Canterbury , New Zealand , Perth , Calabria
- AOrigin Energy to spin off oil and gas business and seek listing on ASXafr.comCanterbury , New Zealand , Perth , Australia , Calabria
- DIt's a bonanza for Sydney's lower north shore home owners across the boarddomain.com.au
- Origin suffers shareholder backlash over bonus to outgoing CEO Grant KingSydney Morning Herald
- DNorthbridge's record smashing $15.5 million trophy sale to Chinese buyerdomain.com.au
- ECB, banks drag ASX down for fourth consecutive weekSydney Morning HeraldChina , North Korea , South Korea , Japan , Europe
- Origin Energy restructure on the cards as Frank Calabria replaces Grant King as CEOSydney Morning HeraldChile , Australia , Pacific Ocean , Asia , Calabria
- CRison, Dumas Scrimmage Under Sloppy Conditionsclevelandcountyherald.com
- Business and academic leaders urge new conversation about coal-free futureThe Guardian
- G'Gas is dead' without carbon capture: economistgympietimes.com.au
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Limited processor sharing queues and multi-server queues
Zhang, Jiheng
MetadataShow full item record
We study two classes of stochastic systems, the limited processor sharing system and the multi-server system. They share the common feature that multiple jobs/customers are being processed simultaneously, which makes the study of them intrinsically difficult. In the limited processor sharing system, a limited number of jobs can equally share a single server, and the excess ones wait in a first-in-first-out buffer. The model is mainly motivated by computer related applications, such as database servers and packet transmission over the Internet. This model is studied in the first part of the thesis. The multi-server queue is mainly motivated by call centers, where each customer is handled by an agent. The number of customers being served at any time is limited by number of agents employed. Customers who can not be served upon arrival wait in a first-in-first-out buffer. This model is studied in the second part of the thesis.


text:
University of Connecticut, Departments of Bioengineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering, Storrs, Connecticut 06269
New York Medical College, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Valhalla, New York 10595
SibTech, Inc., 115A Commerce Drive, Brookfield, Connecticut 06804
To develop an indocyanine green (ICG) tracer with slower clearance kinetics, we explored ICG-encapsulating liposomes (Lip) in three different formulations: untargeted (Lip/ICG), targeted to vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) receptors (scVEGF-Lip/ICG) by the receptor-binding moiety single-chain VEGF (scVEGF), or decorated with inactivated scVEGF (inactive-Lip/ICG) that does not bind to VEGF receptors. Experiments were conducted with tumor-bearing mice that were placed in a scattering medium with tumors located at imaging depths of either 1.5 or 2.0 cm. Near-infrared fluorescence diffuse optical tomography that provides depth-resolved spatial distributions of fluorescence in tumor was used for the detection of postinjection fluorescent signals. All liposome-based tracers, as well as free ICG, were injected intravenously into mice in the amounts corresponding to 5 nmol of ICG/mouse, and the kinetics of increase and decrease of fluorescent signals in tumors were monitored. A signal from free ICG reached maximum at 15-min postinjection and then rapidly declined with t1/2 of ∼20 min. The signals from untargeted Lip/ICG and inactive-Lip/ICG also reached maximum at 15-min postinjection, however, declined somewhat slower than free ICG with t1/2 of ∼30 min. By contrast, a signal from targeted scVEGF-Lip/ICG grew slower than that of all other tracers, reaching maximum at 30-min postinjection and declined much slower than that of other tracers with t1/2 of ∼90 min, providing a more extended observation window. Higher scVEGF-Lip/ICG tumor accumulation was further confirmed by the analysis of fluorescence on cryosections of tumors that were harvested from animals at 400 min after injection with different tracers.
Saeid Zanganeh ; Yan Xu ; Carl V. Hamby ; Marina V. Backer ; Joseph M. Backer, et al."Enhanced fluorescence diffuse optical tomography with indocyanine green-encapsulating liposomes targeted to receptors for vascular endothelial growth factor in tumor vasculature", J. Biomed. Opt. 18(12), 126014 (Dec 17, 2013). ; http://dx.doi.org/10.1117/1.JBO.18.12.126014
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