Abstract
Roy Sorensen introduced the concept of an epistemic blindspot in the 1980s. A proposition is an epistemic blindspot for some individual at some time if and only if that proposition is consistent but unknowable by that individual at that time. In the first half of this paper, I extend Sorensen work on blindspots by arguing that there exist blindspots that essentially involve hopes. In the second half, I show how such blindspots can contribute to and impair different pursuits of self-understanding. My arguments throughout this paper draw on Luc Bovens’s account of hope.
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Notes
Sorensen’s essays on blindspots are largely collected and expanded upon in his 1988.
For a brief overview of the application of epistemic blindspots to epistemic paradoxes, see Sorensen (2011), Sect. 5.4.
Two other hypotheses that Sorensen argues are undermined by some epistemic blindspots are “[w]hatever can be true, can be known” and “[w]hatever can be known to a person at one time, can be known to him at any other time” Sorensen (1984, p. 131).
The English noun ‘hope’ translates in Greek to ‘elpis’. So, one alternative to the term ‘hope-knowledge blindspots’ would be ‘elpisic-epistemic blindspots’. But that is a bit of a mouthful.
Just like my concept of a hope-knowledge blindspot is derived from Sorensen’s concept of an epistemic blindspot, Sorensen reports that his “concept of an epistemic blindspot was derived from Jaakko Hintikka’s concept of an anti-performatory statement” (Sorensen 1984, p. 131). See Hintikka (1962, pp. 90–91).
Like work on epistemic blindspots, work on hope-knowledge blindspots is about what propositions cannot be known by particular individuals at particular times. But one analogue of such issues of knowability is issues of hopeability—that is, of what propositions cannot be hoped by particular individuals at particular times. I will not pursue that topic in this paper, but it deserves investigation. For example, there are presumably some propositions that cannot be hoped by anyone, ever. For example, as Scott Soames points out, “[t]here are propositions ... too complex for me to entertain, as well as propositions which, if I did try to entertain them, would be too complex for me to respond to in any coherent way” (Soames 2003, p. 374). As well, the set of hopeable propositions may be so broad that it even includes, for example, self-defeating hopes. For example, suppose that Linda hopes that all her hopes are frustrated. In order for Linda’s hope that all her hopes are frustrated to be satisfied, it would have to be case that not all of her hopes are frustrated. But if not all of Linda’s hopes are frustrated, then Linda’s hope that all her hopes are frustrated is unsatisfied. So, Linda’s hope that all her hopes are frustrated is self-defeating, since a necessary condition for it being satisfied is that it is not satisfied. Even so, this does not seem to require that Linda could not have such a self-defeating hope. For example, perhaps Linda could have such a hope in some scenarios where she fails to realize the self-defeating nature of such a hope.
For example, although Martin (2014, pp. 17–34), McGeer (2008, pp. 244–246), and Walker (2006, pp. 50–53) raise objections to Bovens’s account of the nature of hope, none objects to this proposed necessary condition for hope. Similar necessary conditions to that given in (4) figure explicitly in the analyses of the nature of hope given by, for example, Martin (2014) and Pettit (2004).
As an aside, it is worth nothing that a similar necessary condition is plausibly true for mental events of deciding. For example, Stuart Hampshire and H.L.A. Hart propose that “[i]f a man is in a position of still having to decide between two or more courses of action open to him, then he must be uncertain what he will do” (Hampshire and Hart 1958, pp. 2–3). On this proposal, if, for example, Bob is deciding whether he will make a hamburger, then he must not have a confidence of 0 that he will make one and not have a confidence of 1 that he will make one.
Bovens considers the following objection to the lower bound of the subjective probability condition: “Could I not hope for world peace in my life time and yet be confident that this will not come about?” (Bovens 1999, p. 674). His reply is: “It is notoriously difficult to make sense of utopian hopes. Either, the projected state in utopian hopes functions as a guiding ideal. But then, what I am hoping for strictly speaking is that the world will move closer toward peace in my life time and it is not true that I am confident that that will not come about. Or, utopian hopes may require a divided mind. Upon reflection, I admit that the evidence warrants confidence that world peace will not come about in my life time, but a part of me resists this confidence and this is what enables me to continue to hope” (Bovens 1999, p. 674, italics in original).
Another way to respond to the imagined psychologists would be to argue that: there is an objective probability of 0 of there being such individuals. We would be justified in believing this stronger probability claim if, for example, we were justified in believing that the best explanation for why having second-order knowledge that p puts one in excellent meta-cognitive position to be certain that p is that having such second-order knowledge entails being certain that p. But, although I am sympathetic to both this stronger probability claim and this way of arguing for it, I will not pursue these ideas further. Each is a stronger commitment than we need to take on in order to take on the conduciveness principle.
Strictly speaking, I must also demonstrate that (2) is unknowable by Bob partly in virtue of it having a sub-proposition of the form ‘S hopes that p’. But if my argument that (2) is unknowable by Bob is successful, it will be obvious that it also shows that (2) is unknowable by Bob partly in virtue of it having such a sub-proposition. It is worth asking, though: What is the exact function of the ‘partly in virtue of’ clause in my definition of hope-knowledge blindspots? To see the answer to that question, consider the following alternative definition: A proposition is a hope-knowledge blindspot for S at t iff that proposition is consistent, unknowable by S at t, and has a sub-proposition of the form ‘S hopes that p’. If we operated with that definition, then there would be no question that there exist hope-knowledge blindspots. The reason why is that if we were to simply amend (1) to be ‘(1*) It is raining, Bob does not know that it is raining, and Bob hopes that it is raining’, then Sorensen’s argument that (1) is an epistemic blindspot would generalize to show that (1*) is a hope-knowledge blindspot. But clearly the reason why (1*) is unknowable by Bob has nothing to do with it having a sub-proposition of the form ‘S hopes that p’. In contrast, because of its ‘partly in virtue of’ clause, my definition of hope-knowledge blindspots requires that such blindspots essentially involve hopes.
Before defending a very different version of the KK principle, Connor McHugh says the following about why friends of KK principles should reasonably look elsewhere than to the strong version of the KK principle that the preceding example in the main text targets: “The KK principle is sometimes formulated as a conditional from knowing p (given normal conditions) to in fact knowing that you know p ... Such a formulation seems to me to place too much emphasis on psychological facts about thinkers. ... You can always fail to take advantage of good epistemic circumstances” (McHugh 2010, p. 32, italics in original). The preceding case in the main text uses this general idea, with Bob making an error that causes him to not seize on a good opportunity for second-order knowledge. I suspect that, as Hawthorne and Magidor propose, “it is hopeless to defend the transparency of knowledge [i.e., the KK principle]” (Hawthorne and Magidor 2009, p. 387). But see Stalnaker (2009) for a number of considerations in favour of the KK principle.
Assume, for simplicity, that the material conditional (‘\(\supset \)’) is an adequate account of implication (‘\(\rightarrow \)’).
Strictly speaking, in 6. and 7. the first conjuncts of the antecedents should be, respectively, the equivalent probability claims, namely ‘\(\hbox {Pr}(\hbox {H}_\mathrm{b}\hbox {q}){=}1\)’ and ‘\(\hbox {Pr}(\hbox {K}_\mathrm{b}\hbox {K}_\mathrm{b}\hbox {q}){=}1\)’. Wagner gives the form of modus ponens for conditional probabilities as follows: “if \(0 \ge {a} \ge 1\) and \(0 < {b} \le 1\), then: \(\hbox {p}({H} {\vert } {E})={a}\) and \(\hbox {p}({E})={b} \Rightarrow ab \le \hbox {p}({H}) \le {ab}+ 1 - {b}\)” (Wagner 2004, p. 750; cf. Sobel 2009, p. 104).
As we will see, Bovens states his proposal as being about gaining understanding, rather than as being about gaining knowledge. I will trade freely between those terms, since I doubt that any differences between those concepts are crucial in the present context. In particular, it is really self-learning that is the crucial concept for Bovens and self-learning can be described both in terms of gaining self-understanding and gaining self-knowledge. For the view that understanding is just a species of knowledge, see Grimm (2006). But see Pritchard (2009) for a defence of an opposing view.
Bovens uses an example to indicate the types of activities that he means to designate with his talk of spending “mental energy on the projected states of the world”: “Consider the following case. Sophie shows up late at some party and asks me very self-confidently whether I had been hoping that she would come. Now suppose that I did indeed believe that Sophie might come and that I consider her to be a welcome guest - i.e. I prefer her coming to the party to her not coming to the party. Still, it seems to me that it would be a lie to say that I had been hoping she would come, unless I had devoted at least some mental energy to the question whether she would or would not come to the party - e.g., I had been looking at my clock wondering whether Sophie would still come, I had been turning my head earlier to check whether Sophie was amongst some newly arrived guests, etc.” (Bovens 1999, p. 674).
Could there be cases where Bovens both knows that he wins the prize and hopes that he wins the prize, just like there are cases where Bob knows that it is raining and hopes that it is raining? Yes. One way to see this is to again draw on the plausible epistemic closure principle in (8). Suppose that Bovens knows that it is currently 12pm on June 15th, knows that he is currently receiving a phone call from 555–2222, and knows that only the prize winner will receive a phone call from 555–2222 at 12pm on June 15th. Suppose further that Bovens deduces from that set of propositions that he is the prize winner, thereby coming to believe that he is the prize winner. And suppose also that he retains knowledge of the original conjunction. It follows from (8) that Bovens knows that he wins the prize. But it is possible that in the heat of the moment Bovens falsely believes that knowledge does not transmit across his deduction. In such a case, it is intuitive that he would both know that he wins the prize and hope that he wins the prize. Such a state need not be short-lived, of course. For example, suppose that Bovens’s phone drops the call before he answers it, that Bovens does not return the call, and that it is some time before the prize-awarders call Bovens again. Note, as well, that this variation on Bovens’s example is still a case where Bovens could reflect on his hope and learn about what he takes to be meaningful. For example, the time period before the prize-awarders call back may be a fruitful occasion for Bovens to do this.
Here are two points about the epistemic value of hope that Bovens identifies that Bovens does not himself mention. First, it seems that not only reflecting on actual hopes but also reflecting on hypothetical hopes is conducive to self-understanding in much the way that Bovens identifies. For example, Derek Parfit argues that by reflecting on what we would hope in some hypothetical cases, we can learn that most of us “are biased towards the future” (Parfit 1987, p. 165). Parfit’s idea is that we can learn this by seeing that we need to posit a bias towards the future in order to explain what most people would hope in his target hypothetical cases. For Parfit’s cases and arguments, see Parfit (1987): Chapter 8, especially Section 64. Second, there may be more ways that hoping is epistemically valuable than the one that Bovens identifies. For example, it seems plausible that through reflecting on cases in which you hope, you may come to understand both what conscious experiences may well come with hoping (e.g., experiences of concern) and what cognitive vulnerabilities may well come with having such conscious experiences (e.g., a disposition to pay less attention to other matters than one ought). These gains in understanding may be put to various purposes. For example, they may help us to aid or hinder others, since they may help us to determine how others’ hopes are affecting their mental lives. I thank an anonymous referee for this journal both for the first of these points and for ideas that led me to the second point.
Walker (2006, p. 51) also explicitly accepts Bovens’s thesis about the epistemic value of hope. I know of no critics of the thesis.
The type of luck that is at work here is what, for example, Pritchard (2005) calls “veritic epistemic luck”, which occurs when “[i]t is a matter of luck that the agent’s belief is true” (p. 146).
One established view of knowledge that is compatible with my simplifying supposition is Unger’s (1970, pp. 114–115) proposal that knowledge is non-accidental true belief. But for an account that departs widely from my simplifying supposition, see Baumann’s (2014) defense of the view that knowledge is compatible with luck.
This idea of variation across agents in learning dispositions is based on more extensive distinctions that are made in research on experiential learning in, for example, higher education. For example, David Kolb’s learning theory distinguishes four types of learning dispositions: diverging, assimilating, converging, and accommodating (see, e.g., Kolb 1984; Kolb and Kolb 2005). Ruth Fanning and David Gaba summarize these distinctions as follows: individuals “with diverging learning styles use concrete experience and reflective observation to learn. ... Individuals with this learning style prefer to work in groups, listening and receiving feedback. Individuals with assimilating learning styles prefer abstract conceptualization and reflective observation. They like reading, lectures, and analysis. Converging-styled learners use abstract conceptualization and active experimentation. They like to find practical uses for ideas and theories. In a formal learning setting, they prefer to experiment with new ideas, simulations, laboratory experiments, and practical applications. Accommodating-styled learners use concrete experience and active experimentation. People with this style learn primarily from hands-on experience. In formal learning, they prefer to work in teams, to set goals, to do fieldwork, and to test different approaches to compiling a project” (Fanning and Gaba 2007, p. 117). In terms of Kolb’s concepts, Tina could be understood as a diverging-styled learner, Gene could be understood as an accommodating-styled learner, and Louise could be understood as combining elements of both of those learning styles. Tina, Gene, and Louise are also modelled on the characters with those names in the cartoon show Bob’s Burgers.
This characterization of epistemically reckless acts is based on Jeanette Kennett and Michael Smith’s characterization of the familiar, normative type of reckless action: “An agent acts recklessly when, in forming her beliefs about what she has most normative reason to do - that is, in deciding what she would most want to do in the circumstances she faces if she were fully rational - she takes insufficient care, making a judgement she would not have made if only she had taken her time and thought about matters more carefully” (Kennett and Smith 2004, p. 70).
The type of epistemically weak-willed action that I am identifying here is different from that which is the focus of the literature on epistemic weakness of will. That literature is interested in problems about agents who believe something that they believe is unsupported by their evidence. See, for example, Horowitz (2014). In contrast, the type of epistemic weakness of will that I identify is directly akin to the familiar, normative cases of weakness of will, where an agent intentionally acts in a way that she knows to be against her best interests.
This example is based on a story told in Plutarch’s Lives about the utility of misleading evidence that an anonymous referee for this journal told me. According to Plutarch, Solon “expressed astonishment” that Thales was indifferent both to marriage and to having children, and, so, Thales wanted Solon to learn why he had this attitude. So, Thales arranged for pieces of misleading evidence to come to Solon about the well-being of Solon’s own son, to the effect of leading Solon to believe that his son had died. When Solon came to believe this, “Solon began to beat his head and to do and say everything else that betokens a transport of grief. But Thales took him by the hand and said, with a smile, ‘This it is, O Solon, which keeps me from marriage and the getting of children; it overwhelms even thee, who art the most stout-hearted of men. But be not dismayed at this story, for it is not true”’ (Plutarch’s Lives, Vol. 1, Trans. Bernadotte Perrin, Harvard University Press, p. 417–419).
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to Dave Matheson for his encouragement and comments on this paper from its early stages. Thanks to Melissa Frankel and Andy Brook for their comments when I presented an earlier version of this paper at the departmental colloquium at Carleton University. Thanks to Christa Dakin for drawing my attention to theories of learning. Thanks to the anonymous referees for this journal for their extensive comments. And thanks to Loren Bouchard (creator of Bob’s Burgers) for his cast of characters.
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Dodd, J. Hope, knowledge, and blindspots. Synthese 194, 531–543 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-015-0957-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-015-0957-0