The tools of epistemology

[Spock]

All theists and atheists agree that reason in the only epistemological tool when trying to make “sense” of the physical reality. The methodology of reason is a sequence of steps we take:

In the case of a physical reality:

1. Setting up a few, unverifyable principles.
2. Observation of a phenomenon.
3. Setting up a hypothesis to explain it (attempting to reduce it to the basic principles). Also called model forming. May involve intuition.
4. Verifying if the model’s predictions conform with the observations.
5. If there is a discrepancy between the model’s prediction and the observation, go back and modify the hypothesis (or model). Go back to step 4). If there is a need, we can even go back to step 1) and modify the basic principles. It happens, but very rarely.
6. If there is no discrepancy, we have a new theory, which will be considered provisionally true, until some new observation invalidates it.

In the case of abstract sciences:

1. Setting up a few, unverifyable axioms.
2. Making a new conjecture.
3. Attempting to reduce the conjecture to the axioms.
4. If the attempt fails, discard the conjecture.
5. If the attempt succeeeds, we have a new theorem.

That is all. A very simple algorithm. The validity of this method cannot be “logically proven”, its usefulness, however, is obvious. It is proven inductively.

Theists assert that this method is only applicable to the physical world and the abstract sciences, but it is not sufficient for explaining the “whole reality” (whatever that may be). They introduce an alternate method, called “faith”. Faith in this respect means an abstract, epistemological tool, which is introduced to complement the alleged deficiencies of reason.

My question is: What is the methodology or algorithm of “faith”? How do we know that the results of this algorithm conform with the “whole reality”?

 

[fhansen]

Once I put my life on the line to protect another person. Had I used reason alone to decide whether or not to act on the love I had for this person-if I had analyzed the logic of my actions or the rationality of love, itself, for that matter, she might not be alive now. Instead love overrode reason. There is knowledge to be had that transcends reasons’ ability to grasp. I know there’s a God and that He is love and that love, in some way, lies at the foundation of this universe. He’s revealed Himself to me. While these revelations were totally subjective, realize that everything we experience is known subjectively, some of it received by the senses-others not. The only reason this is possible is because God just happens to exist. The fact that I can’t present proof to anyone who hasn’t experienced the same things in no way precludes their reality-or the reality of the supernatural. And this “theorem” can be arrived at by any who want to test it by humbling themselves before the God they’d otherwise prefer not to believe in. But like most anything else, you gotta want it.

 

[Nita]

All theists and atheists agree that reason in the only epistemological tool when trying to make “sense” of the physical reality. The methodology of reason is a sequence of steps we take:

In the case of a physical reality:

1. Setting up a few, unverifyable principles.
2. Observation of a phenomenon.
3. Setting up a hypothesis to explain it (attempting to reduce it to the basic principles). Also called model forming. May involve intuition.
4. Verifying if the model’s predictions conform with the observations.
5. If there is a discrepancy between the model’s prediction and the observation, go back and modify the hypothesis (or model). Go back to step 4). If there is a need, we can even go back to step 1) and modify the basic principles. It happens, but very rarely.
6. If there is no discrepancy, we have a new theory, which will be considered provisionally true, until some new observation invalidates it.

In the case of abstract sciences:

1. Setting up a few, unverifyable axioms.
2. Making a new conjecture.
3. Attempting to reduce the conjecture to the axioms.
4. If the attempt fails, discard the conjecture.
5. If the attempt succeeeds, we have a new theorem.

That is all. A very simple algorithm. The validity of this method cannot be “logically proven”, its usefulness, however, is obvious. It is proven inductively.

Theists assert that this method is only applicable to the physical world and the abstract sciences, but it is not sufficient for explaining the “whole reality” (whatever that may be). They introduce an alternate method, called “faith”. Faith in this respect means an abstract, epistemological tool, which is introduced to complement the alleged deficiencies of reason.

My question is: What is the methodology or algorithm of “faith”? How do we know that the results of this algorithm conform with the “whole reality”?

I’m not schooled in philosophy, but just wanted to make one comment.

Your post sure makes clear how important those underlying, “unverifyable principles and axioms” are. Accept a wrong one and use it, and everything gets skewed, no matter how good the observations and subsequent reasoning.

 

[geometer]

What do setting up unverifiable principles and axioms have to do with the above methods? What could set up possibly mean?

 

[Spock]

What do setting up unverifiable principles and axioms have to do with the above methods? What could set up possibly mean?

We have to start somewhere. The word “set up” could substituted with “recognize”, or “accept” for example. The basic principles are the metaphysical foundation of the whole system in the physical world. The basic axioms play the same role in the abstract sciences. The axioms can be arbitrarily chosen, as long as they are not logically contradictory.

The algorithm described above assures that as long as the basic foundation captures the reality correctly the corollaries will also conform to reality. That is the way how reason operates.

The question I posited above is based upon the claim of theists, who say that reason is insufficient. That is why I ask to lay down the method how faith (the alternate epistemological method) is supposed to work, how does it advance from its metaphysical foundation (which contains the existence of God) how does it assure that the corollaries will also conform to reality. Quite obviously it cannot be an observation-verification cycle, since it would be reason with another name.

 

[Spock]

I’m not schooled in philosophy, but just wanted to make one comment.

Your post sure makes clear how important those underlying, “unverifyable principles and axioms” are. Accept a wrong one and use it, and everything gets skewed, no matter how good the observations and subsequent reasoning.

Correct. That is why the method includes the possible overhaul of the basic principles, even though it may be necessary very rarely. In the axiomatic (abstract) sciences like mathematics and geometry, we can choose any set of axioms we please. As long as the axioms are free from a logical contradiction, the system will be “fine”. It might not be applicable to anything, but as a logical construct it can stand on its own feet.

 

[Spock]

Once I put my life on the line to protect another person. Had I used reason alone to decide whether or not to act on the love I had for this person-if I had analyzed the logic of my actions or the rationality of love, itself, for that matter, she might not be alive now.

So you did not stop and analyze your action, you acted impulsively. Maybe you had no time to do it. That does not make your decision “free” of reason. I would guess that you had very good reason to do what you did. Loving someone is a very good reason.

Instead love overrode reason.

Now this indicates a different scenario. It suggests that you had a very good reason to allow that person to die, but you acted against that logical path. Only you know which one of these scenarios happened. Which one was it?

There is knowledge to be had that transcends reasons’ ability to grasp.

Well, this is exactly what I am looking for. How do you acquire “knowledge” - information about something - without applying the observation-verification cycle? Note: this is the only actual question I have. The other ones you can safely dismiss as rhetorical.

I know there’s a God and that He is love and that love, in some way, lies at the foundation of this universe.

I wish you would use “strongly believe” instead of “know”.

He’s revealed Himself to me. While these revelations were totally subjective, realize that everything we experience is known subjectively, some of it received by the senses-others not. The only reason this is possible is because God just happens to exist. The fact that I can’t present proof to anyone who hasn’t experienced the same things in no way precludes their reality-or the reality of the supernatural.

How do you know that the revelation you speak of is not the product of your mind?

And this “theorem” can be arrived at by any who want to test it by humbling themselves before the God they’d otherwise prefer not to believe in. But like most anything else, you gotta want it.

Please. That sounds exactly like the Uri Geller type “reasoning” that you must believe the forces of paranormal, otherwise you will not experience it.

 

[fhansen]

So you did not stop and analyze your action, you acted impulsively. Maybe you had no time to do it. That does not make your decision “free” of reason. I would guess that you had very good reason to do what you did. Loving someone is a very good reason.

No, I did have plenty of time to think and that made it harder-there were competing rationalizations and motives. “What’s this love stuff about? Is it real? Is it worth dying for? I could run the other way! This person’s not really worth it. They don’t love me like that so why be a fool? They’re spiraling down into darkness anyway and will probably never pull out of it due to the pain they’ve suffered in life anyway. Besides, there are plenty of other people in the world to love or worry about” Etc, etc, etc.

But none of that mattered. In my spirit, if you will, I knew I wouldn’t be stopped. I was going to enter a place where I may not come back and it mattered not enough to me if my love was unrequited-I would accomplish this goal if possible-because it was the only right thing to do even if it meant my life. And I’m not bragging because courage doesn’t come so naturally to me but this was a power I can’t deny because of what it enabled me to do. And during this particular period of time the love and presence of God was so thick I could almost touch it. And it’s a long story but the outcome of this ordeal was life-saving and life-changing, fortunately not life-ending. And I learned a whole bunch about the nature of love.**

Please. That sounds exactly like the Uri Geller type “reasoning” that you must believe the forces of paranormal, otherwise you will not experience it.

**Haven’t heard the name Uri Geller for a long time. Is he still around? Anyway, guys like him give the supernatural world a bad name-almost as bad as holy rollers and televangelists. In any case, I think he’s exploited a commonly heard truism about faith for his own ends.

To answer your question about how I can know that the revelations I mentioned were from God vs. being a product of my own mind I’ll first make the qualification that absolutely any and everything we claim to experience could conceivably be the product of our minds. But then we’d be throwing epistemology out altogether, I think.

So to move on, the reason a person can know that God is behind a revelation is simply because God makes it known. And in that sense-the sense of knowing you’re in the presence of another being who’s communicating to you-Gods’ presence is no different, and no less matter-of-factly certain, than being in the presence of anyone else. This would be impossible, of course, if there is no God, but quite simple for Him to accomplish in us if there is one.

Other than that, I probably cannot begin to do justice to explaining the nature of this phenomenon better than I have because it’s simply out of the realm of normal everyday human experience-and it’s rarely happened to me BTW, and when it has it always involved a purpose. But once it *has *occurred the question, How do you know God exists if you can’t prove it?, becomes not so different from, How do you know your wife ever existed if you can’t prove it? I’d say, I don’t need to prove it, I just saw her and we’ve been married for 13 years-I think that’s how long-you’d have to ask her to be sure. But to put it another way, if someone suggested that the experiences I speak of could be explained away as, say, a sort of psychological hallucination, I’d reply that they’re showing their ignorance–had they experienced what I’ve tried to explain they’d know otherwise.

One thing Uri Geller’s right about, although I doubt he believes this himself since I doubt he really believes anything, is that if a person is adamantly predisposed to an anti-supernatural worldview, they probably won’t be coming to faith in anything related to the supernatural.

Anyway, I’ve tried my best to explain this but it’d take a book and I really don’t know how to do it well. I’ll add this: in these experiences knowledge is directly given. This can include locutions, which are word-for-word statements intellectually known because they’re impressed directly into ones’ mind, as well as visions, as well as the direct experience of the nature of Gods’ love-by being bathed in it-and this is too awesome to even begin to express. There are many ways He communicates, some more and some less overt, depending on His purposes. For that matter, “everyday” faith is supernatural by its’ nature.

Be careful though, this is the kind of stuff that can happen if you believe too much or seek God too hard. Then even religious people might think you’re nuts-if you tell them. But somehow I don’t think you’ll be wanting to take it too seriously anyway. If you are at all interested, though, I’d challenge you to read mystics like Teresa of Avila. I’ve only had a small -but lasting -taste of what people like her had huge portions of.
**

 

[Spock]

No, I did have plenty of time to think and that made it harder-there were competing rationalizations and motives.

There is too little actual information for me to answer in depth. What I don’t see is how that pertains to the question at hand. But it was interesting reading.

 

[Spock]

I had pretty high hopes for this thread, but it does not seem to get off the ground. After all I see it all the time that “scientism” is being criticised, but when the question is presented about the alleged alternate epistemological method of faith, there seem to be no serious takers. Why is that?

 

[davidv]

All theists and atheists agree that reason in the only epistemological tool when trying to make “sense” of the physical reality.
{snip}

I have a problem with this statement.

One, I don’t know what other “epistemological tools” exist. How would I know if others might also apply? Take your word for it? Why?

Two, you seem to have tried to slip an axiom into the discussion without getting agreement on it. Why are we limiting the discussion only the “physical”?

 

[Spock]

I have a problem with this statement.

One, I don’t know what other “epistemological tools” exist. How would I know if others might also apply? Take your word for it? Why?

An epistemological tool is just a method to separate true and false statements about anything. It does not have to be a question about physical reality.

As a non-serious example, let’s suppose that you present many yes-no type of questions to me. I give you an answer for each question and about 50% of the time I am right, the rest is wrong. Unbeknownst to you I am completely ignorant about the questions, however, I flipped a coin every time and when it showed “heads” I responded with “yes”, when the coin showed “tails” I responded with a “no”.

Since I arrived at a correct answer about 50% of the time, would that result justify me to call flipping a coin an epistemological tool? I would not think so.

We use reason and its built-in self-correcting feedback loop to set up hypotheses and verify their accuracy. Reason is “an” epistemological tool, and very correct at that.

As far as I am concerned, reason is the one and only epistemological tool in the “toolbox”. However, theists dispute that. They say that some facets of “reality” are unaccessable to reason, and they wish to introduce faith as a supplement. That is fine in principle. If they can show that faith can access some parts of reality, which are closed to reason, I will be happy to “expand” the toolbox.

But I want to see just how does faith operate? What are the sub-methods it uses? How does it verify its results?

Any epistemological tool (unlike the coin-flipping) is supposed to have some mechanism which is used to separate true statements from false ones. Reason uses observation, hypothesis forming, verification (which is also observation), and modification (or abandonment) of the hypothesis. What is the mechanism for faith?

Two, you seem to have tried to slip an axiom into the discussion without getting agreement on it. Why are we limiting the discussion only the “physical”?

I did not stipulate that at all, not even implictly. On the contrary I explictly referred to the “whole reality” (whatever that may be).

 

[davidv]

An epistemological tool is just a method to separate true and false statements about anything. It does not have to be a question about physical reality.

As a non-serious example, let’s suppose that you present many yes-no type of questions to me. I give you an answer for each question and about 50% of the time I am right, the rest is wrong. Unbeknownst to you I am completely ignorant about the questions, however, I flipped a coin every time and when it showed “heads” I responded with “yes”, when the coin showed “tails” I responded with a “no”.

Since I arrived at a correct answer about 50% of the time, would that result justify me to call flipping a coin an epistemological tool? I would not think so.

We use reason and its built-in self-correcting feedback loop to set up hypotheses and verify their accuracy. Reason is “an” epistemological tool, and very correct at that.

As far as I am concerned, reason is the one and only epistemological tool in the “toolbox”. However, theists dispute that. They say that some facets of “reality” are unaccessable to reason, and they wish to introduce faith as a supplement. That is fine in principle. If they can show that faith can access some parts of reality, which are closed to reason, I will be happy to “expand” the toolbox.

But I want to see just how does faith operate? What are the sub-methods it uses? How does it verify its results?

Any epistemological tool (unlike the coin-flipping) is supposed to have some mechanism which is used to separate true statements from false ones. Reason uses observation, hypothesis forming, verification (which is also observation), and modification (or abandonment) of the hypothesis. What is the mechanism for faith?

None this addresses my concern. Please refer to my original questions.

I did not stipulate that at all, not even implictly. On the contrary I explictly referred to the “whole reality” (whatever that may be).

Then why did the OP begin with (my bolding):

Spock:

All theists and atheists agree that reason in the only epistemological tool when trying to make “sense” of the physical reality.

 

[Spock]

Then why did the OP begin with (my bolding):

Because I wanted to emphasize that both atheists and theists agree on the usage and validity of reason when it comes to the physical reality. Why is that important?

 

[fhansen]

I think one problem is that faith, like love, is an individual experience that cannot, due to its’ nature, be proven to exist. A person can’t even prove that they’ve ever experienced physical pain for that matter because pain is a totally subjective experience. Except possibly by the effects they have on a person none of these can be demonstrated. They can only be attested to.

 

[Spock]

I think one problem is that faith, like love, is an individual experience that cannot, due to its’ nature, be proven to exist.

It depends on what you mean by “prove”. I prove to my wife that I love her, and she proves to me every day. Also, I am not talking about faith as an experience, rather as a different method to differentiate between a true and false proposition.

Remember, it is not my concoction that faith is declared to be a valid way to obtain information, or a method for justifying a belief. When I see time and time again that “scientism” is decried as fallacy, and that faith is presented as a valid way to to justify a belief, I must wonder about the ways and means of substantiating that claim. I was hoping that those who denigrate “scientism” will chip in and give me some reason why their opinion is to be entertained as a realistic method.

A person can’t even prove that they’ve ever experienced physical pain for that matter because pain is a totally subjective experience.

Well, not exactly. The pain perceptors are biological organs, the nerves that carry the information when the pain perceptors are “excited” can be tested for transmitting the impulses. So, yes we can objectively measure if someone experiences pain or not. We cannot directly experience someone else’s pain, that is true. But direct experience is not necessary to find out if someone feels pain or not.

 

[davidv]

One, I don’t know what other “epistemological tools” exist. How would I know if others might also apply? Take your word for it? Why?

Can I expect a response to this?

Besides “reason” what are some of the other “tools”?

 

[Spock]

Can I expect a response to this?

Besides “reason” what are some of the other “tools”?

I already answered that in the section that you marked as irrelevant. Here is the quote:

As far as I am concerned, reason is the one and only epistemological tool in the “toolbox”. However, theists dispute that. They say that some facets of “reality” are unaccessable to reason, and they wish to introduce faith as a supplement. That is fine in principle. If they can show that faith can access some parts of reality, which are closed to reason, I will be happy to “expand” the toolbox.

But to repeat: Reason is the only tool. If you think otherwise, let me know. That is the whole point of the thread.

 

[cpayne]

Well, reason is the only tool for inferring rational truths. But there’s more to life than inferring rational truths. Most of us take sense experience as an axiomatic form of knowledge. (The reason I sense my shirt as grey is because it is grey.) Most of us also take incorrigible truths as beyond reason. (If I feel hungry, no one can reason me into thinking I don’t feel hungry.) There are also types of knowledge based on relationships, as you’ve already discussed. You can’t reason your way into falling in love, for example.

About faith: Faith can certainly have rational underpinnings; in fact, most of us here think it does. But faith as such also requires a volitional commitment, not just a cognitive recognition. Knowing that there is a God is not the same thing as having faith in God. In this sense, the knowledge granted by faith is similar to the knowledge granted by a relationship. It may have rational underpinnings, but cannot be completely explained rationally.

Since you indicated in the OP that you accept enumerative induction as legitimate, I would argue that this type of faith relationship with God also has induction on its side. Let’s have a number of people line up here and talk about how they needed God to save them, called out to Him, and He did. By what rational means could all of us be convinced we are all mistaken? This isn’t an appeal to the authority of the masses, either; it is just another form of inductive certainty. As I said, faith has rational undergirding.

 

[davidv]

I already answered that in the section that you marked as irrelevant. Here is the quote:
But to repeat: Reason is the only tool. If you think otherwise, let me know. That is the whole point of the thread.

My apologies I responded too quickly. I would still object to your premise that reason is not the only way we “know” things, based on the infomation provided by cpayne, in his post above.