David A. Jensen and Dr. K. Codell Carter, Philosophy,
Stephen Stich argues in the Fragmentation of Reason for a pragmatic account of cognition; that is, our processes of how we acquire knowledge should be evaluated, he maintains, not on how well they produce true beliefs, but on how well they produce beliefs relevant to some pragmatic value (survival, happiness, and so forth). To put forth his pragmatic account, Stich first must debunk at least two mainstays of epistemology: charity and truth.
The principle of charity maintains that in interpreting another’s speech or linguistic behavior, we must maximize agreement between ourselves and the person that we are interpreting. In other words, when I interpret others, I must assume that they are using their words in the same way that I am. I must also assume a certain amount of consistency in their beliefs, desires, and actions. That is, I must assume that they will generally act in accordance with their beliefs and desires just as I do. Only with this background of agreement can I then make sense of difference.
Stich attacks the principle of charity because, he thinks, it denies cognitive diversity. That is, it implies that people must reason in the same manner. And, Stich thinks, there exists much empirical evidence which shows that people reason in diverse and poor manners. On the other hand, these studies conform to Stich’s pragmatic account of cognition. Thus, he wishes to dismiss the principle of charity because it conceptually denies what his pragmatic account of cognition hopes to explain.
Stich’s attack on charity, as I argue, fails for at least two reasons. First, the attack is misdirected. Stich argues that charity denies the possibility of poor reasoning. What Stich means by reasoning, however, is different than what those who defend the principle of charity mean. Stich refers to one’s ability to do problem solving and cites a host of empirical studies which show that people often perform poorly with various cognitive and probabilistic puzzles. But those who defend charity do not assert that it denies the possibility of being dumb; rather, they maintain that it denies radical inconsistency in beliefs, desires, and actions. In fact, in interpreting others’ speech and behavior, we must take stupidity into account. Thus Stich’s attack is misdirected as charity does not deny the conclusions of his empirical studies.
The second problem with Stich’s attack on charity is that it fails to take the principle to its proper conclusions. Charity maintains that one must use his or her own system of interpretation in understanding another. That is, 1, for example, must assume that others are like myself whether or not they actually are. As Donald Davidson states, “Charity is not an option”. Stich argues, then, that the principle is uninteresting because others may very well be different from me. This is true. But the point of the principle, when taken to its proper conclusion, is that even if others are radically different from me, I would still have no way of recognizing them as “people” as “rational.” So, Stich is right that there may be people out there with radically different cognitive systems, but I, who am stuck in my own system, would never know that. Hence, for all practical purposes, such radically different systems do not exist.
In addition to the principle of charity, Stich attacks the notion of truth. Again, Stich’s attack on truth in part stems from his recognition of (possible) cognitive diversity. If different cultures produce different processes for obtaining knowledge, then how do we evaluate which processes are best? Stich notes that the dominant answer in contemporary philosophy has been to compare the results of these processes with our linguistically imbedded intuitions. The problem, Stich notes, is that these linguistic intuitions are as culturally bound as our cognitive processes. Hence, they provide no possibility of crosscultural comparison. Again, Stich thinks that his pragmatic account of cognitive evaluation will solve this problem. Yet, truth may also solve the problem—hence Stich’s attack on truth—as the ability of various processes to produce true beliefs would then serve as a standard for cross-cultural comparisons.
Stich’s main attack on truth is simple. True beliefs may be valuable, he states, but in relation to what, false beliefs? While true beliefs are better than false beliefs, they are not necessarily better than true*, or true**, or true*** beliefs. In other words, there may be other truth systems which are more useful than our truth system, hence, it cannot serve as a standard.
Stich’s entire argument against truth is flawed in two ways, both which come down to the same problem discussed earlier in terms of charity. First, even if our criteria is embedded in our linguistic intuitions, who is to say that these necessarily differ from one culture to another? Stich merely assumes that they will differ, without giving any argument. In fact, as charity maintains, they cannot differ radically. If they did, then we would eliminate the personhood of those who embraced such radical intuitions (we would eliminate any similarity and hence communication between ourselves and them). And this same problem refutes Stich’s argument against different truth systems. The idea of a different truth system is the idea of a radically different cognitive system; though they may exist, we have no way of interacting with them.
Stich wants his pragmatic account of cognition to produce beliefs directly applicable to our various values. For example, a certain process might produce survival beliefs (rather than true beliefs). These beliefs would then facilitate our survival. But this is what our system of true beliefs does already. That is, we recognize that certain processes yield true beliefs relevant to one value better than another process. Hence, a process will produce true beliefs relevant to our survival. Thus, not only has Stich failed to dismiss two current tenants of epistemology necessary to his project of pragmatic evaluation—charity and truth—but also his project does not differ significantly from what we already do in our truth-based evaluations.
References
- Davidson, Donald. Truth and Interpretation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984: 197.