You said:
It seems that a terminating judgment in C. I. Lewis can be about a pain in the following case: if this is a fire and you stick your hand in it, you will feel pain.
ChatGPT said:
You’re highlighting a fascinating aspect of C.I. Lewis’s epistemology, particularly his theory of the terminating judgment, which relates to his broader pragmatic conception of knowledge and justification. Let’s break this down:
Lewis on Terminating Judgments
- Definition:
- For C.I. Lewis, a terminating judgment is an empirical judgment whose truth is directly verified by sense experience or immediate awareness. These judgments are the “end points” of verification—they do not require further justification because they are grounded in direct experience.
- Pain as a Terminating Judgment:
- In your example, the statement, “If this is a fire and you stick your hand in it, you will feel pain,” connects a counterfactual conditional with an immediate experiential outcome: the feeling of pain. This aligns with Lewis’s idea that empirical knowledge involves both direct sensory awareness and inferential frameworks.
- The judgment about the pain is terminating because, in the hypothetical scenario, the experience of pain would directly verify the claim. Pain is a paradigmatic case of something immediately apprehended—it requires no intermediary steps to establish its occurrence.
The Role of Conceptual Frameworks
However, this example also illustrates Lewis’s key insight that:
- Immediate apprehension (like feeling pain) does not occur in isolation but within a conceptual framework. The conditional, “If this is a fire and you stick your hand in it,” presupposes a broader conceptual structure involving the nature of fire, causation, and human physiology.
This framework connects to Lewis’s distinction between:
- Sensory given: The raw, uninterpreted experience (e.g., the sensation of pain).
- Interpretation of the given: The conceptual apparatus through which we understand and articulate the given (e.g., recognizing the pain as caused by fire).
Epistemological Implications
- Empirical Verification: The terminating judgment about the pain is epistemically significant because it could serve as a direct test of the conditional. If the fire and action produce pain, the judgment is verified in a Lewisian sense.
- Connection to Pragmatism: This reflects Lewis’s pragmatism—knowledge is a dynamic interplay between immediate experience and the broader inferential or conceptual systems we use to anticipate and make sense of those experiences.
Comparison with Foundationalism
- Chisholm’s Foundationalism: Chisholm might align with the idea that pain, as directly apprehended, could serve as a foundational belief.
- Sellars’s Critique: Sellars would likely argue that even the apprehension of pain presupposes conceptual training and thus cannot function as an independent epistemic foundation.
Your Insight:
The example effectively illustrates a synthesis of immediate, terminative judgment (pain) with broader conditional reasoning. It resonates with Lewis’s broader epistemological framework, which seeks to reconcile the immediacy of sensory experience with the mediated, conceptual nature of judgment.
Would you like to explore how Lewis’s concept of terminating judgment interacts with other pragmatist thinkers, like James or Dewey? Or perhaps delve into its relevance to contemporary epistemology?
4o
You said:
As to Sellars, my rebuttal would be that conceptual dependence does not preclude epistemic independence.
ChatGPT said:
ChatGPT
Your rebuttal to Sellars—that conceptual dependence does not preclude epistemic independence—is a strong and nuanced point. It effectively challenges Sellars’s holistic critique of the “Myth of the Given” by drawing a distinction between the nature of conceptual access to experience and the justificatory structure of belief. Let’s break this down further:
Sellars’s Position: The “Myth of the Given”
- Conceptual Dependence:
- Sellars argued that all cognitive episodes, including seemingly “basic” reports of immediate experience (like “I see red”), are shaped by and embedded within a conceptual framework.
- This means that even the simplest perceptual report presupposes a background of linguistic and conceptual competence—there is no pure, pre-conceptual “given” that could serve as a foundation for knowledge.
- Epistemic Holism:
- For Sellars, justification is holistic: beliefs are justified not in isolation but within the web of interrelated beliefs and inferential practices.
- Consequently, Sellars rejected the idea that any belief could be epistemically independent, even if it is conceptually dependent.
Your Rebuttal: Conceptual Dependence ≠ Epistemic Dependence
- Immediate Awareness as Epistemically Independent:
- You could argue that epistemic independence pertains to the justificatory status of a belief or judgment: certain judgments (e.g., “I feel pain”) are justified directly by immediate experience, not by reference to other beliefs.
- While these judgments might rely on conceptual resources to articulate or classify the experience (e.g., the concept of “pain”), their justification does not stem from the broader conceptual framework but from the immediate experiential encounter.
- Two Levels of Dependence:
- Conceptual dependence concerns the formation or articulation of the belief: we need concepts to express what we experience (e.g., “pain”).
- Epistemic dependence concerns the source of justification: some beliefs (like “I feel pain”) are justified independently of other beliefs or inferences, even if they rely on a conceptual framework for articulation.
- Therefore, conceptual dependence does not entail epistemic dependence.
- Experiential Basis and Justification:
- In line with thinkers like Chisholm or C.I. Lewis, you could maintain that certain experiences (e.g., pain) provide a direct, non-inferential justificatory ground, even if their articulation presupposes a conceptual apparatus.
- This supports a moderate foundationalism: immediate experiences are epistemically foundational without being pre-conceptual.
Sellarsian Counter-Replies and Your Potential Responses
- Sellars’s Reply: If concepts shape all experiences, even immediate awareness is mediated by the conceptual framework, so no judgment is epistemically independent.
Your Response: While conceptual mediation shapes the content of experience, the justificatory role of the experience itself (as grounding certain judgments) remains immediate and non-inferential. - Sellars’s Reply: Judgments like “I feel pain” are always inferential because they rely on prior training in using concepts like “pain.”
Your Response: Inferential training in conceptual use is a condition for forming judgments but does not necessarily make the justification of every judgment inferential. For instance, the felt quality of pain provides direct epistemic support for the judgment.
Strength of Your Position
Your distinction helps clarify why conceptual holism does not collapse into epistemic holism:
- Conceptual holism acknowledges the role of frameworks in shaping experience and judgments.
- Epistemic foundationalism (moderate) maintains that some beliefs, grounded in direct experience, have non-inferential justificatory status.
This position retains the insight of Sellars’s critique while preserving the epistemic role of immediate experience, striking a balance between foundationalism and coherentism. Would you like to explore how this aligns with specific figures, such as McDowell or Brandom, who engage with Sellars’s legacy?