5K Run/Walk to Fight AIDS in Africa

Our website is now up: http://www.aid2aids.org/.

There you can register for the race and/or donate to the cause.

Please partner with us in this very worthwhile cause.

The Karis Kiss Miss

Piper on Retirement

Here is a rather biting little bit from John Piper's Don't Waste Your Life:

"I will tell you what a real tragedy is. I will show you how to waste your life. Consider this story from the February 1998 Reader's Digest: A couple 'took early retirement from their jobs int he Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, wher they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball and collect shells'. Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgment: 'Look, Lord. See my shells.' That is a tragedy."

The End of Summer: A Lament

I wish summer wasn't over.

O South Carolina!

This clip is not meant to imply anything about Gamecockers, and I am writing this of my own free will (click, click)

Which Democrat or Republican Shares your views?

This is a cite that I was directed to. It surveys your views on key issues, including how important they are to you, and gives points to candidates that agree with you. The outcome ranks candidates by their compatibility with your survey. The survey is quick and easy, and the results can be surprising.

The survey is based on http://www.2decide.com/table.htm which is also worth some time.

Bills Camp

Yesterday I got to take in the glory of the Buffalo Bills training camp at St. John Fischer College. All of the 'stars' where there: Rian Lindell, Brian Moorman, J.P. Lossman, Marshawn Lynch, and Paul Posluzny (all pictured below). Notice how Moorman is seemingly kicking a teamate right in the head. Price of admission ended up being $1 for the shuttle (the same price as the Bully Hill wine tasting -- call this the summer of value).

Weekend Fun

We just got back from our Second Annual Taylor Reunion Camping Trip. This year featured Keuka Lake State Park and a trip to Bully Hill Vineyards for a wine tasting.

Other than some rain the first evening it was perfect weather. Karis and Thomas did well, though they were exhausted by the end of the weekend (Karis slept 13 hours last night and then had a 3 hour nap today).

2 New Things

Two new things:

1. Thomas has started to smile

2. Our new jogging stroller to run the kids around.

Back From SC

We have returned from South Carolina after enduring a week where the heat index was constantly above 115 and there were 2 shark attacks within 2 blocks of the beach house. As you can see, the plane trip was not nearly as bad as we thought, and Karis enjoyed the ocean view . . . though not the ocean itself.

5K Run/Walk to Fight AIDS in Africa

I am part of a group that has been trying to figure out how our church can get involved in the AIDS crisis, particularly regarding Africa.

Here are some startling statistics regarding Africa:
* Africa has 10% of the world’s population but bears 64% of the burden of AIDS
* 9 out of 10 children infected with AIDS live in Africa
* Over 24.5 million people are infected in sub-Saharan Africa
* Over 2 million people have already died from AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa

We have been reading The AIDS Crisis: What we Can Do by Deborah Dortzbach and Meredith Long. This book is well worth the read and tackles a number of the hard questions regarding this issue. Particularly biting was a quote from an African pastor who was asked if he thought that Africa had such serious problems regarding AIDS due to the lax attitude toward sexual sin. He replied, "Every culture has sins it is more accepting of. Fortunately for America, materialism doesn't give you AIDS."

Our groups first event will be a 5K Run/Walk to raise money for the Bongolo Evangelical Hospital's construction of an AIDS clinic in Gabon, Africa. This is a quick video.

Our website will soon be up: aid2aids.org

Please consider donating to this cause and/or sponsoring me in the race (both can be done via the website).

Jon and the J-Dubs

So I was visited last week by the Jehovah's Witnesses and turned the questions around on them for a change. In particular I was defending the claim that Jesus is God. After a lengthy discussion of the first chapter of John, 'proof' that Jesus was created was brought to my attention.

Collosians 1:15 states of Jesus, "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation."

So, forget the first part of that verse that seems to help out my side. The claim was Jesus is the firstborn of creation, so he is created.

Hmmm. Interestingly Paul clarifies in the next verse what he means by "the firstborn over all creation".

Collosians 1:16, "For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him."

I stated that the phrase 'firstborn over creation' may be confusing, but luckily Paul tells us exactly what he means, and what he means is *not* that Jesus is created. This led to a long debate over how the word 'for' was being used and I then was accused of twisting the words of the text (I was actually using the JW translation).

After the encounter I checked out Grudem's Systematic Theology to see all the references to the deity of Jesus that I had forgotten. One passage that I thought would be particularly useful in future conversations is John 20:28-30.

In this passage Thomas confronts the wounds of Jesus and reacts, "My Lord and my God." This is a clear claim that Jesus is God. So, if you accept that the Bible is a source of truth and that Jesus was sinless (both claims accepted by JWs) then this is strong evidence that Jesus is God. For Jesus to be sinless he would have to correct such an attribution when made to him if it were false; but far from this Jesus responds, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." So, on the shared assumptions that the Bible is true and Jesus is sinless there is in this passage direct evidence that he is God.

2 Good Newses

1. I got one of my papers (on the relata of the causal relation) accepted to present at the University of Calgary Philosophy Graduate Conference in the fall.

2. I ran 5 miles, in a row, without passing out, and without anyone chasing me. 44:14 for the record.

A Priori Knowledge

Central to views regarding a priori knowledge is how such beliefs gain their epistemic justification independent of experience. Central to Alvin Plantinga’s account of what it takes for one to have a priori justification is for one to see the truth of the proposition in question. According to Plantinga, to see that a proposition is true is to believe that it is true, and necessarily true, to form this belief immediately (not on the basis of other beliefs, memory, or testimony), to form this belief with a particular, hard to describe, phenomenology, and to do so while not malfunctioning. One can also gain a priori justification for a proposition by seeing that it follows from a proposition that one sees to be true. When one sees that a proposition is true or that it follows from a proposition that one sees to be true, and the proposition is true, then one has a priori knowledge of it.

There are a couple of problems with Plantinga’s account. First, it seems that Plantinga has not accurately captured what it is for one to see that a proposition is true. Plantinga claims that believing a proposition is a necessary condition for seeing that it is true, but this does not seem right. Propositions can be seen to be true to me even though I do not believe them (such as that the top line in the Muller-Lyer illusion is longer, or Frege’s Axiom V). Similarly, one can believe a proposition without it seeing that it is true, such as when one has seen a mathematical derivation for a theorem that is too complicated to seem true. Beliefs are typically formed on the basis of seeing that a proposition is true, but the seeing and the believing are distinct relationships one has to the proposition. As such, Plantinga gets the nature of seeing the truth.

A second problem with Plantinga’s analysis concerns the modal requirements for gaining a priori justification. Plantinga claims that to see that a proposition is true one must not just believe it, but believe that it is necessarily true. It seems that one can come to know a proposition in an a priori fashion while at the same time being ignorant of modal concepts like necessity or having mistaken views regarding necessity according to which the proposition in question is not necessary (I am assuming here, with Plantinga, that all propositions that are known a priori are necessary). For instance, I could justifiably believe that mathematical propositions, like 2+2=4, do not have their truth values necessarily. Even though I am mistaken in this regard, it still seems that I can see the truth of 2+2=4 and/or that I can know that 2+2=4 a priori. In addition, Plantinga’s appeal to believing that the proposition in question is a necessary truth threatens an infinite regress. Presumably, the belief that the proposition in question is necessarily true is one that must have a priori justification (if not, then it is hard to see how it could contribute to the a priori justification of the proposition in question). If so, however, then this belief too must be seen to be true but in order to see that it is true one must also believe that it is necessarily true. The ‘necessarily’ modifiers will quickly compound leading to an infinite regress and to propositions that are plausibly too complicated to be believed by human minds. This reveals another flaw in Plantinga’s account.

George Bealer relies on intuitions, or intellectual seemings, to provide the a priori justification required for a priori knowledge. For S to have an intuition that P is for it to seem to S that P. Thus, intuitions are conscious episodes. Bealer distinguishes intuitions from beliefs for the reasons mentioned above so he avoids one problem that encountered Plantinga. However, Bealer believes that it is rational intuitions that do the work for a priori justification, and according to Bealer, a rational intuition presents a proposition as necessary – it must seem to S that P must be true. Worries arise here, like above, since it seems as though one can have a priori justification without the modal concepts Bealer appeals to or if one had a mistaken view of the relevant modal concepts (as described above).

Another contemporary proposal claims that the requirements of concept possession can provide the needed a priori justification. Paul Boghossian claims that in order to possess certain concepts one must be disposed to reason in certain ways. For instance, in order to possess the concept ‘conditional’ one must be disposed to reason according to modus ponens. The claim is that such inferences are thus justified in virtue of their being requisite for the possession of certain concepts. Propositions can then be known in an a priori fashion when they are the conclusions of such justified inferences.

Several problems are apparent with this account. First, it seems doubtful that one must be disposed to reason in certain ways in order to possess certain concepts. There does not appear to be anything incoherent with the idea of a wholly passive mind that possessed concepts but was unable to do any mental acts such as infer. So, it is doubtful that having such dispositions to reason is indeed requisite for the possession of concepts.

Second, even if such dispositions were requisite, this fact does not epistemically justify their use. Doing the work in order to possess certain concepts may be rational in a means/ends sense, but it does nothing to epistemically justify or entitle one to make such inferences. We could imagine a case where S is offered some epistemically valuable end if S performs the inference from P or Q to P and Q. Performing such an inference would be beneficial for S, but this fact in no way epistemically justifies S in performing the inference.

Finally, even if the inferences were justified a significant problem remains for Boghossian’s account. If the conclusions of such justified inferences are supposed to be justified a priori, then we need to have premises that are justified a priori. All that Boghossian’s account even attempts to do is to justify the inferences, but this is inadequate to the task at hand – the task of accounting for a priori knowledge.

DEREK BOOGAARD COMPILATION

Fight Club: Regina Chapter

As you can see from the picture a couple of posts ago, Thomas is only a few years away from attending his first hockey fight camp. (thanks to Trent for the story)

After all, this guy seems to be the guy to learn from. It's only fitting that a prarie boy would throw so many haymakers! (see post above)

I've Been SImpsonized!

You can see it here. I can't figure out how to download the picture though, so if you can help me there, let me know.

UPDATE: ok, I just went to the link and that is totally not the picture it showed me before! This site has totally frustrated me after offerring me so much.

Kapow!

Thomas, 'Tank', teaches Adeline a little lesson in respect! And that's just his left hand. Notice his 'matter-of-fact' buisiness face and his seeming lack of remorse.

Duck-Rabbit

I've spent the last few minutes in a Homer Simpsonesque ('lights go on, lights go off') way going, "it's a duck, it's a rabbit, it's a duck, . . .".

Virtue Epistemology

Virtue epistemology utilizes virtues in addressing the prominent problems in epistemology. A distinction is made between moral virtues and epistemic or cognitive virtues. Within the virtue epistemology camp, there is a divide between reliabilist and responsibilist understandings of epistemic virtues. I will focus here on a reliabilist account. Roughly put, an epistemic virtue is stable disposition to achieve certain results (true beliefs) in certain circumstances. More precisely, a mechanism M for generating or maintaining beliefs is an epistemic virtue if and only if M is an ability to believe true propositions and avoid believing false ones within a field of propositions F when one is in a set of circumstances C.

The virtue epistemologist’s claim, then, is that a proposition p is epistemically justified for S if and only if S’s believing p is the result of an epistemic virtue of S. Understood as such, virtue epistemology is a type of process reliabilism. By specifying which type of processes can produce an epistemically justified belief, virtue epistemologists attempt to provide an account of epistemic justification (and often knowledge) that avoids the problems of ‘simple’ reliabilism.

The New Evil Demon Problem was a problem for reliabilism since in a world where one is massively deceived it seems as though one can nonetheless have justified beliefs despite the unreliability of the processes that produce them. This appears to be a problem for the virtue epistemologist as well, since one can believe propositions on the basis of what seems to us to be epistemic virtues (and seem to be epistemically justified in those beliefs), but believing in such a way does not lead to true beliefs in the evil demon world.

Ernest Sosa’s response as a virtue epistemologist is to relativize epistemic justification to an environment. In other words, the individual in the demon world is epistemically justified in her belief since she utilized cognitive faculties that are epistemic virtues in our environment. Since coming to beliefs in such a way would be reliable in our environment, and would be the result of an epistemic virtue, we consider the demon worlder to be justified. Epistemic justification is thus relativized to the actual world.

The above response is unsatisfactory, however. Sosa’s response does not account for all of our intuitions here. To see this we can imagine that we are being deceived by an evil demon as well. In such a scenario, coming to beliefs by way of seeming epistemic virtues is not a reliable way to come to beliefs. According to Sosa, our beliefs are not justified in such a scenario, but we still think that they are. Our intuitions are that such beliefs are epistemically justified regardless of whether one is in a demon world, even if the actual world is a demon world. This problem remains for virtue epistemologists.

A second problem for reliabilism concerns reliable belief forming processes at work in an individual that has reason to doubt that his processes are reliable. In such a scenario reliabilism has it that he is justified in the beliefs produced by the reliable process, but is seems as though the evidence that he has regarding the unreliability of these processes renders the resultant beliefs unjustified. This problem too seems to remain for the virtue epistemology response. A belief could be the product of an epistemic virtue, yet one have evidence against it being the product of such a virtue. Can virtue epistemology get the right result that the resultant belief is unjustified?

Sosa attempts to get this result by making a distinction between animal knowledge and reflective knowledge. This is itself a cost, since it seems that we have only one concept of knowledge. Positing two such concepts seems to be a last resort. According to Sosa, to have animal knowledge, one must believe out of epistemic virtue which makes the resultant belief apt, but to have reflective knowledge one must believe out of epistemic virtue and be aware of so doing which makes the belief justified (ie. one must also believe out of epistemic virtue that her [first-order] belief was produced in an epistemic virtue). To be justified, one must recognize regarding her belief that p that it was produced by an epistemic virtue (ie. she must recognize (i) that p falls into the relevant range of propositions, and (ii) that she is in one of the relevant circumstances for her belief producing mechanism to be reliable).

Applied to the case where one has misleading evidence regarding the reliability of the belief producing process, on this account one has animal knowledge (the belief is apt), but lacks reflective knowledge (the belief is not justified). Although this account gets the right result regarding the case of misleading evidence, it has problematic consequences. The problem is that very few people have any beliefs about their beliefs such as that there belief was formed from epistemic virtue. Whereas people may recognize that there belief was formed on the basis of perception, they do not believe that the relevant proposition falls within a certain range of propositions or that they are in a circumstance among a set of acceptable circumstances such that perception is reliable for such propositions in such circumstances. Such propositions are not typically believed, even dispositionally. As a result, Sosa’s account implies that all such individuals (most individuals) are not epistemically justified in their beliefs. There beliefs may be apt, but they are not justified. However, it seems that most individuals are epistemically justified in at least a good number of beliefs, or minimally, that their epistemic standing to such propositions is better than the aptness required for animal knowledge. Such meta-beliefs simply do not appear to be required for epistemic justification.