Abstract
Some beliefs seem more significant than others. This paper suggests an approach to explaining this apparent fact. As there are multiple senses in which one belief may be more significant than another, multiple possible sources of such significance, and, moreover, no prima facie reason to expect a single, unified account under which all these senses and sources can be subsumed, I propose the modest approach of articulating just one feature in virtue of which a belief may fairly be called significant: that of bearing a certain relation to human flourishing, a relation that more trivial truths do not bear. From such modest projects can a complete solution to the problem (or, more accurately, problems) of significance emerge.
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Notes
It is noted in the service of a variety of arguments. To list a few examples: DePaul (2001) uses this point as a premise in an argument that truth cannot be the sole item of intrinsic epistemic value. Dennis Whitcomb (2007) extends this point to argue that none of the main epistemic value-bearers can, even as a group, be the unique items of epistemic value. Jonathan Kvanvig (2008) argues against the view that the existence of pointless truths undermines the unrestricted value of truth, knowledge, and understanding. Stephen Grimm (2008) argues that straightforwardly teleological approaches to epistemic appraisal are unable to adequately appraise beliefs on trivial matters.
I assume that DePaul’s “epistemology proper” corresponds roughly to what Sosa called “theory of knowledge”, and his “broad epistemology” corresponds roughly to what Sosa called “intellectual ethics” (Sosa 2007: 89), and William Alston called epistemology on “a very broad conception” (Alston 2005: 2–5). Even within epistemology proper, issues of the relative significance of different truths can arise. Indeed, it is a matter of some dispute whether the main epistemic goal in terms of which we account for the value of such central epistemic phenomena of knowledge and justified belief is truth per se or rather significant truth. Grimm’s (forthcoming) discussion of Goldman and Alston (e.g., p. 249) is pertinent here.
Grimm captures the absurdity nicely when he asks: “If you propose an evening memorizing the phone book for Topeka, Kansas, and I decline, have I really missed an opportunity to enrich myself, from an epistemic point of view?” (Grimm 2008: 726).
Philip Kitcher has suggested that (in the context of “the project of trying to understand nature”, at least) falsehoods can significant (Kitcher 1992: 104). In this paper I shall largely limit myself to a discussion of the significance of true beliefs, setting aside the question of whether there are significant false beliefs until the final section.
More carefully, we could say that my keys is significant in the sense that having the belief would advance some element in my subjective motivational set (since my keys might advance my interests by helping me achieve an aim I would have had, had I known that reaching this aim would help me reach some further aim of mine). See Bernard Williams (1981).
I’m assuming that the content of empirical theories can be expressed by means of some finite set of statements. My argument in this paper does not turn on this point.
That being said, the discussion of scientific significance is in many ways parallel to the discussion of epistemic significance, with analogous views being considered (e.g., the practical vs. epistemic explanations considered by Kitcher (2001, 1992)), and so we can hope the two discussions will inform one another.
To hold off objections that significance must be relative—significant ‘for someone’—I note that my ultimate account will say that significance (of the narrow sort I eventually turn to) is relative (though relative to human beings, rather than individuals).
To see this, consider that although theory is not relevant to every person (at least, not in the straightforward and non-normative sense that my keys is), it yet appears to be significant, in a way that stranger’s keys, for example, is not.
Giving an account of one of these senses of significance is a challenge, the adequate execution of which is beyond the scope of this paper. Perhaps my keys is relevant in virtue of its instrumental value to us in achieving our own ends (whatever those may be), or perhaps it is relevant in virtue of something else. Perhaps there are many features the having of which makes a belief relevant. Giving an adequate account of the kind of importance theory has is equally challenging. Both projects are worthwhile, but, as I shall explain momentarily, my aim in this paper is not to give an account of one of these senses of significance, but to give an account of a different sense of significance.
“Phonebook”, hereafter, should be taken to represent a number of beliefs that is equal to the belief (or beliefs) with which phonebook is being contrasted. When contrasted with loneliness, I take it that phonebook will be a single belief.
Again, in the sense that the belief may not advance any element in my subjective motivational set.
In making these points, I do not mean to suggest that the sort of importance that theory has is not due, in large part, to its contribution to the believer’s picture of the natural world. I mean only to point out that loneliness does not admit of an analogous explanation. This raises the question I am interested to pursue in this paper: in virtue of what is loneliness important?
The examples that Bishop and Trout (2005) use to illustrate their account of significance suggest that they intend their account to explain both the significance of my keys and of theory. (For example, at different points they suggest that the location of a train and the discovery of the Higgs boson are both significant problems.) Whitcomb’s dissertation offers an account of significance that also seems ‘all-inclusive’ in this sense. Whitcomb takes scientific theories as a paradigmatic significant (collection of) belief(s), but places as a constraint on an adequate account of significance that it “explain the significance of non-deep facts that we care about, such as facts about phonebook numbers that we actually want to know” (Whitcomb 2007: 52).
Also pertinent are Kitcher’s arguments against a purely practical account of the cognitive value of truth (Kitcher 1992: 102–3).
The role that Goldman gives to interest in his account of veritistic value suggests the following view of epistemic significance: that the apparent triviality of phonebook is due to our lack of interest in it (Goldman 1999: 88–9), and that the major part of a question’s significance or importance for a person is her interest (occurrent, or dispositional) in that question (Goldman 1999: 95). Whitcomb, whose account of significance is more explicit and developed, places his curiosity-based approach to significance in Goldman’s tradition.
Goldman doesn’t argue that an interest-based account will necessarily have the result that theory is significant for all of us, but he does seem to suggest that including dispositional sense will make beliefs such as theory significant for the vast majority of us, either due to an intrinsic interest, a (perhaps unrecognized) relevance to matters in which we are interested, or “from recognition of the potential practical value” (Goldman 1999:95).
It is a different matter if we introduce a normative element, such as what one ought to be curious about. Yet even here, it is not curiosity as such that sets such truths apart, but their being worthy of curiosity—the explanation comes from elsewhere besides curiosity. The difficulties that Michael Brady (forthcoming) argues are faced by curiosity-based explanations of the value of truth are also faced by curiosity-based explanations of significance.
I have in mind Bishop and Trout’s account of significance, according to which “the significance of a problem for S is a function of the weight of the objective reasons S has for devoting resources to solving that problem.” (Bishop and Trout 2005:95)
Bishop and Trout recognize both practical and moral reasons as paradigmatic examples of the kind of objective reasons they have in mind, so it’s possible that in this kind of case my practical reasons outweigh my moral reasons such that the location of my keys is yet significant. This seems not to be what they have in mind, though. See e.g., their discussion on p. 97.
Alternatively, we might say that to the extent that there is an ‘ought’ attached to my keys, is an ought of simple prudence. Not so for theory.
I take my proposal here to be in the same spirit as Alston’s proposal that we do epistemology without ‘justification’ (Alston 1993, 2001, 2005). Alston argues that that epistemology’s approach to justification has obscured the point that there are a plurality of epistemic desiderata that are important to take account of in various epistemic contexts. Alston suggests that “we would do better to abandon the attempt to find the objectively necessary and sufficient conditions for a belief’s being ‘justified’” (Alston 2001:2), focusing instead on “the more fruitful task of determining what importance this and other desiderata have for the cognitive enterprise, for inquiry and the assessment of the results thereof” (Alston 2001:6). What I am proposing here is that the analogue is true of significance—or, at the very least, that no harm is done if we proceed as if the same is true of significance.
I do not mean to commit myself to the view that there is a “purely epistemic” point of view; what such a point of view could be, and whether there even is such a thing, has been a subject of much discussion at recent conferences devoted to epistemic value, including the 2009 Bled Conference. Yet I accept this way of looking at things provisionally here for simplicity’s sake, so that I can (in Sect. 6) straightforwardly address those who would dismiss my account because it fails to account for a difference in significance from the purely epistemic point of view, or wholly terms of “a purely theoretical value” (Kvanvig 2008:201).
“Necessarily” because an agent with a very different nature from human beings might yet happen to have in common with us those features that make it appropriate to value loneliness over phonebook. My point here is simply that she also might not.
This thought experiment raises the important issue of what the relevant or appropriate cognitive ideal is. Contrast the cognitive ideal Kvanvig (2008) suggests—an omniscient being of unspecified nature—with the intellectually virtuous (human) agent Roberts and Wood (2007) devote much of their book to describing. (See especially Roberts and Wood 155–164, 168–180.) In terms of what the agent knows, the former seems superior, but in terms of what knowledge the agent values, is interested in, or desires to know, the latter does. Perhaps different ideals are appropriate for different contexts. A fuller discussion is outside the scope of this paper.
By ‘eudaimonism’, I shall hereafter mean the neo-Aristotelian eudaimonism that I favor.
It is worth noting that, to offer an account of worthiness in terms of human flourishing, one needn’t even think that human flourishing is of great importance; one’s purpose might be to show that worthy beliefs do not have the status that we normally take them to have.
The claim that the flourishing human being will recognize any genuine norms there may be (e.g., moral or aesthetic norms) is one of the points that distinguishes this sort of eudaimonist account from a purely subjective notion of the human good. According to eudaimonism, a human’s flourishing is not merely a matter of mood or feeling; rather, a human does well, as a human, when she recognizes what really is of value (whether or not this increases her life’s hedonic value).
Roberts and Wood’s remarks are brief. They write: “Propositional knowledge, understanding, and insight are important, not taken in abstraction, but in connection with their bearing on human flourishing and the intrinsic importance of their objects” (Roberts and Wood 2007: 157–8). Bishop and Trout (2005) consider their account of significance to be based in human flourishing as well. As noted above, they allege that “The significance of a problem for S is a function of the weight of the objective reasons S has for devoting resources to solving that problem” (Bishop and Trout 2005:95). They also allege that significance is, on their view, non-accidentally related to human well-being; the extent to which this is true, I take it, depends on the relation between our ‘objective reasons for acting’ and human well-being.
I say “worthy of being” an end in itself, to distinguish my point from the claim that such beliefs either are, as a matter of fact, taken by the believer to be ends in themselves, or that they must be taken as ends in themselves on pain of irrationality. What sets the worthy beliefs apart is that they are appropriate to pursue as ends in themselves (whether the person who has that belief regards them that way or not).
It is this I shall mean when I say that such believings are “valuable in themselves”, not that they are intrinsically valuable, in the sense of being valuable for their intrinsic properties. For discussion see Korsgaard (1983), Tannenbaum (forthcoming).
Stated so generally, this sentiment—which I take to provide some small amount of intuitive support for my more specific account of worthiness—is not uncommon among epistemologists. See e.g., Ram Neta, who writes: “Knowledge and other positive epistemic statuses are worthy of pursuit by inquisitive creatures not (or not just) because they are instrumentally valuable…What makes them worthy of pursuit for inquisitive creatures like ourselves is that, like health, friendship, and love, their attainment is partly constitutive of our well-being” (Neta 2008: 352).
This does not imply that all understandings are worthy. Just as there can be worthy beliefs, such as loneliness, that do not count as understandings, so can there be non-worthy understandings, such as an understanding of the Klingon language or Pokémon evolution.
Alternatively, we could say that the paradigmatically worthy beliefs are those that are finally valuable in almost any kind of life. That such a belief would be finally valuable in virtually all lives, excepting only very unusual ones, would still explain the existence of apparent paradigms. I shall return to this point below.
This is not to say that the reasons to pursue such beliefs are always overriding. The worthiness of an aesthetic insight will (at least typically) give us a reason to pursue it, but there may be reasons that override or even undercut that reason (e.g., if having a certain aesthetic insight would require one to do something morally monstrous). An account of worthiness (my target in this paper) does not imply an all-things-considered account of the beliefs we ought to pursue or be interested in. I will return to this point in Sect. 5.
It does have some indirect normative implications. It has a hypothetical normative implication: had the swimming instructor chosen instead a doctor’s life, it would have been the case that she should have exposed herself to such beliefs. It also implies that the swimming instructor should recognize the special status this belief has for the doctor, even while she recognizes that this belief does not have a special status as part of her own life.
This is not to say that there are no norms we would share in common in virtue of being epistemic agents. Perhaps, for all epistemic agents, there are some limited features of beliefs, like fecundity, that will give us some reason to pursue these beliefs rather than others.
Or, alternatively, we might say ‘virtually any’—see footnote 37.
I will consider whether a false belief can be worthy in the next section.
The objections I discuss in this section were raised by an anonymous referee, to whom I am grateful for raising and encouraging me to consider them.
And also because flourishing is not only a matter of having worthy beliefs! Worthy beliefs are only a small part of a full, flourishing human life.
Nor would I suggest that one choose one career path over another just for the exposure to worthy beliefs that it offers. We must choose our careers on a number of factors, and the ‘worth’ of the beliefs we’ll be exposed to in this line of work seemingly is among the least of these. In a balanced, flourishing human life, one will find opportunities for worthy beliefs outside one’s career. One shouldn’t try to ‘kill two birds with one stone’ by picking a career that exposes one to worthy beliefs, nor does one get more flourishing the more worthy beliefs one gets. Indeed, making this one’s sole or dominating aim would surely have a negative impact on one’s life.
Just as it was difficult to see that theory was worthy, in my sense, because it is virtually always instrumentally valuable as well, so too can we expect it to be difficult to see that beliefs about relationships and lifestyle are worthy, in my sense: such beliefs are virtually always of great instrumental value, and so they will not be helpful examples when we’re trying to give an account of worthiness.
The same is true of people who are unable to engage in normal practical reasoning, or to have an understanding of human relationships (though as I noted above, it is harder to see that such abilities and beliefs have worth, in my sense, since such abilities and beliefs have a great deal of instrumental value for the person).
If, alternatively, I say that the paradigmatically worthy beliefs are those that are finally valuable in virtually any flourishing human life (see footnote 37), I can say accordingly that these claims about human flourishing are true of virtually all human beings, with only rare exceptions. My account of what makes some beliefs paradigmatically worthy does not depend on the preceding account of human flourishing holding for all humans without exception.
For further discussion, see Zagzebski (2009) chapter entitled “Epistemic Good and the Good Life,” as well as Roberts and Wood’s (2007) in-depth description of the epistemic virtues, which explains throughout how the epistemic virtues are important for the living of a good human life. Zagzebski, Roberts and Wood, and I have the epistemic character virtues in mind, but the case could also be made for the kinds of traits reliabilists have in mind.
Indeed, in the same paragraph quoted above, Grimm describes the problem of significance as “the problem of offering an account of what it is that makes some questions important and others unimportant, from a purely epistemic (as opposed to practical) point of view”. (Grimm forthcoming: 261, emphasis added.) Other discussions of the apparent fact of significance do not say that a solution to the problem must come “from a purely epistemic point of view”, but only that some sets of beliefs seem more epistemically better, or more significant, than others. DePaul writes, of the contrasts with which I began this paper: “I suspect that most of us would want to say that the first set of beliefs is better, epistemically better, than the second set” (DePaul 2001: 173). Whitcomb too discusses “epistemic significance”, rather than significance from a “purely” epistemic point of view, focusing on the apparent fact that “some true propositions are epistemically more significant than others” (2007: 23).
I thank an anonymous referee for raising, and encouraging me to consider, this objection.
I am staying neutral on whether a trivial belief has some small amount of value simply in virtue of being true.
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Acknowledgements
I am especially grateful to Julia Annas, Stephen Biggs, Michael Bukoski, Jacob Caton, David Glick, Terry Horgan, Rachana Kamtekar, Wayne Riggs, and Frans Svensson; to the participants in the Arizona Conference Preparation Workshop and the 2009 Bled Philosophical Conference; and to the University of Arizona Philosophy Department, the University of Oklahoma Philosophy Department, the organizers of the 2009 Bled Philosophical Conference and the Slovenian Research Agency.
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Baril, A. A Eudaimonist Approach to the Problem of Significance. Acta Anal 25, 215–241 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-010-0093-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-010-0093-x