For Aristotle science is demonstration from first principles. But how does one arrive
at these first principles? We observe particular instances and record those observations
in memory. This material generates a logos, a meaning. (1)
This is the process of epagoge which frames or formulates the archai. We
recognize that archai are true, we come to believe them, by the operation of nous.
Through nous we come to recognize the explanatory power of archai. In
recognizing this, that the archai are true to the facts, we recognize their truth.
Particular experiences suggest a certain arche. But nous lets us see that
this arche "is the way in which the facts can be understood." (2)
But, as Randall emphasizes, nous does not intuit the explanatory power of these archai
independently of, or in abstraction from, the facts they explain. "Nous does
not `see' the truth of archai by holding them up, in isolation ..., and just
staring at them; it `sees' their truth in the subject matter." (3)
Does intellectual intuition generate basic beliefs? Experience suggests archai; nous
grasps their truth by seeing that they explain certain facts. Are these archai then
inferred beliefs, inferred from the facts they allegedly explain? Are they conclusions of
arguments whose premises describe these facts? Aristotle views science as deductive
system. The arche of that science would not be deduced from more basic first
principles. The rest of the science would be deduced from them. But this does not mean
that these first principles are not inferred, on a wider view of inference. Can we arrive
at any beliefs through intellectual intuition which are not the result of a conscious
process of inference, which are intuitively recognized basic beliefs?
Let us consider the two components of intellectual intuition, epagoge and nous.
Does Aristotle conceive of epagoge as an inferential operation? "Out of
sense-perception comes to be what we call memory, and out of frequently repeated memories
of the same thing develops experience;...the universal now stabilized in its entirety
within the soul." (4) But clearly our memories are not
inferred from our sense perceptions; perceptual beliefs are not the premises of memory
beliefs. We are thus not constrained to understand the development of experience as an
inferential development or a mode or type of inference. Experience suggests the implicit
universal which becomes explicit or evident through repetition. Epagoge then is a
faculty of being appeared to suggestively and of our framing statements of connection on
this basis. Viewed in this way, epagoge is not an inferential mechanism, but an
intuitive mechanism, apprehending connections in the light of which the world is
intelligible or meaningful.
But nous leads us to see the truth of the archai apprehended through epagoge,
converting these suggestions into beliefs. What nous is doing here is to recognize
that certain facts are subsumed under the archai as laws. This indeed is something
which Wesley Salmon recognizes as basic to all scientific explanation. (5)
But what does subsumption under law mean and how is it recognized? Is it an essentially
inferential process? One who holds the inferential conception of scientific explanation
might claim that nous recognizes certain inferential relationships between the archai
and the phenomena or occurrences they explain. Nous recognizes that the phenomena
can be inferred, either deductively or statistically, from the archai together with
statements of other facts such as initial conditions. On this view, subsumption under law
or universal statement just is this inferential relationship. Hence nous is a
special employment of reason.
As Salmon points out, however, the inferential conception seriously misconstrues the
nature of subsumption under laws. (6) It is too narrow,
excluding certain bona fide causal explanations. If we explain why someone has
contracted leukemia "by citing the fact that he was...2 kilometers from the
hypocenter at the time of [an atomic] explosion," (7)
one is appealing to a statistically relevant relation to make the explanation. However,
from this statistically relevant information we cannot infer that the person will
contract leukemia. The probability that such a person will contract leukemia is much less
than one-half. However, for a correct statistical inference, the inductive
probability would have to be at least over one-half.
What is involved in subsuming this person's contracting leukemia under law is
recognizing the statistical relevance of the distance to contracting the disease, that the
probability of one's contracting leukemia is significantly higher for those 2 kilometers
from the hypocenter of an atomic blast than the probability of contracting the disease in
the general population. This involves recognizing that one probability is distinctly
higher than another. But this is to recognize that one mathematical quantity is higher
than another — a substantive mathematical statement.
We can now appreciate the division of labor between epagoge and nous in
rational intuition. Epagoge intuits a connection. Recognition of the connectedness
is the contribution of intuition. Recognizing that a particular occurrence can be subsumed
under a connection discovered by intuition is the work of nous. By virtue of
recognizing this subsumption, an intuition becomes a rational intuition, rational
in the sense of being recognizably connected to a body of evidence, the occurrences
subsumed under the regularity.
Is the recognition by nous of the explanatory power of the intuited causal
connection recognizing a justifying reason for believing or accepting that the connection
holds? If so, then the beliefs intellectual intuition generates will be inferred
beliefs, beliefs inferred from or founded upon the confirmatory material nous
recognizes. Suppose we witnessed several explosions of various sorts and in each case
debris was scattered outward from the point of the explosion. Surely our combined
experience of these interactions, our experience constituted by our perceiving and
remembering these events, suggests a causal connection between the explosion and the
scattering of the debris. But we can also see not only for each individual case of our
experience but synthetically for all of them together that the explosion causes the
scattering of the debris, that the scattering phenomena can be subsumed under this
regularity. We recognize in one synthetic insight the explanatory power of the causal
regularity we have intuited. But this synthetic insight is not an inference. We are not
constructing an inductive argument from descriptions of instances of the causal regularity
as premises to the nomic generalization as conclusion. Rather we are seeing the
explanatory power of this regularity as evident in these instances. But if this belief
results from viewing our experience through some synthetic intuitive insight, it is a
basic and not an inferred belief.
Is such a belief properly basic? Would we be justified in accepting such a belief as we
ordinarily would be justified in accepting a perceptual belief? Recent work in naturalized
epistemology is relevant to assessing the reliability of intellectual intuition. This
involves the concept of a natural kind. Clearly, humans see the world divided not just
into sets of objects sharing some common property, but into natural kinds. Hilary
Kornblith points out in Inductive Inference and Its Natural Ground that recent
empirical work shows that children do not acquire this belief at some stage of
development, but hold it "from the beginning." That the world divides itself
into natural kinds seems to be a basic belief. Kornblith argues that we may find genuine
natural kinds in nature, involving clusters of properties — properties which tend to
occur together in nature and which the causal structure of the world impels to occur
together. Only some combinations of properties are causally possible or causally stable.
By virtue of these causal constraints, certain properties cluster together constituting a
natural kind.
How do we come to recognize these common properties of a natural kind? In many
instances, this may involve rational explanatory inference as opposed to rational
intuition. We observe "that certain observable properties tend to be found together.
...Unobservables are then postulated to explain the constant conjunction of observable
properties....Thus, we come to know of the existence of unobservables by way of an
inference to an explanation." (8) But not all the
beliefs we form in connection with our ability to recognize natural kinds need be
inferred. Kornblith argues that humans have "a sensitivity to those features in
objects which tend to reside in homeostatic clusters; and a tendency to project those
characteristics which are indeed essential to the real kinds in nature." (9)
To be sensitive to homeostatic property clusters, we must be sensitive to properties which
tend to occur together in nature. This is called co-variation. Clearly we can come to form
beliefs about co-variation without forming hypotheses concerning underlying causal
structure. Such claims of co-variation may be candidates for basic beliefs generated by
rational intuition.
What is involved in detecting co-variation? We may see here the epagoge-nous
sequence of rational intuition. We perceive a number of instances of a particular pattern
of co-variation. From this we become able to project that when a thing instantiates
certain properties, it will instantiate others also. This disposition to make this
projection is a habit of thought. But surely it bespeaks awareness of a universal or
general connection between two sets of properties — the work of epagoge —
and the fact that such projections can be made, that particulars can be subsumed under
this generalization — the work of nous.
Why should we regard this pattern of inferences, more generally our co-variation
detection mechanism, as reliable? A challenger might question its reliability due to the
problem of small numbers. Clearly our evidence for our projections constitutes a sample of
co-variation instances. On witnessing a certain number of instances, we make projections.
But is our sample too small? Are we flying in the face of principles of good statistical
inference? Notice that we might raise this as a problem for Aristotle's intellectual
intuition in general. On the basis of our experience, epagog_ recognizes the
emergent universal. But is our experience is extensive enough for the "true"
universal to have emerged?
Kornblith replies by questioning whether projections or inferences made through
recognizing co-variation are statistical. Are they properly subject to the canons of
statistical inference? Suggesting that after viewing a certain sample, we are disposed to
project any property common to the members of the sample as a property of the population
in general greatly oversimplifies our co-variation detecting mechanism. We do not
project just any property. If a population is an animal species, it will be uniform in the
way it bears its young but not in whether its members are confined in zoos. If a
population is uniform with respect to a certain property, then we can reliably make a
projection to the entire population on the basis of a small sample. Hence if we can
discriminate those properties in which a population is uniform from those properties in
which a population need not be uniform, and we project just from the uniform properties,
then our projections will be reliable. (10)
Now if there are real kinds in nature which involve certain properties as essential,
then there will be populations involving uniform properties. If furthermore we intuitively
grasp these real kinds in nature, intuitively discern which properties are essential, and
project those properties, our projections will be reliable. But there are real kinds in
nature, delimited by homeostatic property clusters which also determine the essential
properties of the kind. It is an empirical fact that humans do recognize the world as
divided into natural kinds. The question now is whether the natural kinds that humans
recognize, the kinds into which they divide nature, converge with the actual natural
kinds. One must thus establish that humans have "a sensitivity to those features in
objects which tend to reside in homeostatic clusters," (11)
and then show that it is these features, essential to real natural kinds, which humans do
project.
One is sensitive to the features in objects residing in homeostatic clusters only if
one is sensitive to co-variation. (12) Kornblith points out,
however, that empirical researchers have found distinct evidence that the human
co-variation recognition mechanism is unreliable. It appears that we "see"
co-variation where we expect to see it. Conversely, if there is no theory to lead us to
expect co-variation, or if our theory would lead us not to expect co-variation, "even
powerful empirical relationships are apt not to be detected or to be radically
underestimated." (13) Only if the degree of
co-variation is very high will humans detect co-variation.
However, Kornblith points out, there are problems with determining what these empirical
studies mean for our cognitive abilities. In the studies done on detecting co-variation in
the absence of antecedent theory, the co-variation was between a single pair of variables.
But with natural kinds, a large number of properties co-vary together. This multiple
co-variation may provide convergent evidence upon which to recognize co-variation. Indeed,
empirical studies give evidence that we can reliably detect co-variation, when clusters of
variables or properties covary together. But these are precisely the patterns of
covariation which natural kinds display. Hence, when our covariation recognizing mechanism
functions in the environment for which it was designed, there appears to be good evidence
that it is reliable. It is only when it is placed in the wrong environment that its
reliability becomes questionable.
What may we say to the objection that we tend to see co-variations which are not
present based on antecedent expectations? Kornblith believes we should see this in the
wider context of the human tendency for belief perseverance. Humans tend to hold onto
their beliefs when once formed. Although this might lead one to retain mistaken beliefs in
certain contexts, it can also lead to insight in others, in particular those involving
co-variation within natural kinds. So again in an environment presenting us with natural
kinds, even if our mechanism for recognizing co-variation builds in antecedent
expectations of co-variation, these may be insightful and so our mechanism reliable.
Do we project the right features of natural kinds, the essential properties of the
kind? Humans believe that natural kinds are understood through underlying structure. Hence
they are already looking in the right direction. Insofar as we correctly identify what
those underlying properties are, we shall make correct projections. But insofar as we are
sensitive to co-variation, our knowledge of the essence will be accurate. But we have
already argued that our sensitivity to co-variation is presumptively reliable. Hence there
is a presumption that we do project the right features of natural kinds, "we
typically project the properties of natural kinds which are universally shared by their
members." (14) Hence we may conclude that this
projection mechanism is presumptively reliable.
What import does this have for assessing the presumptive reliability of rational
intuition as a mechanism for generating basic beliefs? Kornblith argues for the
reliability of certain inductive inferences. How we may apply these considerations on the
reliability of inference to the question of the presumptive reliability of rational
intuition as a basic belief-generating mechanism? By rational intuition we
apprehend the connection between something's being of a certain kind and its possessing
certain properties. By apprehending this connection, we make the inference from
something's being of a certain kind or its possessing certain properties in the
homeostatic property cluster to its possessing these further properties. But, as Peirce
has pointed out, our inferences are guided by habits of thought. When expressed
propositionally, these habits of thought are the leading principles of our inferences. (15)
Because we can reliably detect co-variation and project accordingly our inference is
reliable. Hence the habit of thought instanced by this inference is verisimilitudinous.
The mechanism generating the belief in the leading principle of this inference makes
explicit this inference habit. So if our projection of co-variation is reliable, our
belief-generating mechanism should be reliable also. The belief it generates is the
propositional formulation of a reliable inference habit. So our rational intuition is
reliable in the generation of beliefs which are leading principles of inferences
instancing projection of co-variation.
Our argument shows something more general. We have seen that the clustering of
properties aids in detecting co-variation. But we have also seen that if in fact there is
a very high objective correlation (near perfect) between two variables, we may reliably
detect it. This indicates that we can generalize beyond the context of natural kinds and
co-variation occurring within that context. But furthermore, our discussion of
psychological essentialism indicates that we may distinguish in general between accidental
and nomic universality. If we can distinguish between surface and deeper properties, we
can also distinguish between accidental or surface co-variation and deeper, essential, or
nomic co-variation. Now if on the basis of observing a sample — in general small
— of some class and on that basis intuiting a nomic connection between certain
properties exhibited by the members of that class, we may call the subjunctive conditional
expressing or supported by the nomic generalization stating this connection an empirical
subjunctive conditional. What we believe our argument shows is that rational intuition is
presumptively reliable in generating certain basic beliefs properly expressed as empirical
subjunctive conditionals. This includes the class of subjunctive conditionals expressing
connections involved with natural kinds, but it clearly may be a wider class.
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