AS/PHL/303: ADVANCED EPISTEMOLOGY

COURSE OUTLINE

KNOWLEDGE AND THE NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE- What is Knowledge?

(i) The Tripartite Definition of KnowledgeTruth, Belief and Justification

(ii) Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? (The Gettier Problem)(iii) Responses to the Gettier Problem

KNOWLEDGE AND PERCEPTION- How we acquire Knowledge of the World- Theory of Perception

MAIN THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGE- Rationalist Theory of Knowledge- Empiricist Theory of Knowledge- Intuition as Knowledge

TRUTH AND THE THEORIES OF TRUTH- Correspondence Theory of Truth- Coherence Theory of Truth- Pragmatic Theory of Truth- Semantic Theory of Truth- Redundancy Theory of Truth

KNOWLEDGE AND JUSTIFICATION- Theories of Justification

(i) Foundationalism(ii) Coherentism(iii) Contextualism(iv) Reliablism(v) Context-dependency: The Post Modernist Approach

AFRICAN EPISTEMOLOGY- The Nature of African Epistemology- African Theory of Knowledge- Justification in Knowledge in African Epistemology

SUGGESTED FURTHER READINGAigbodioh, J. A. (1997), “Imperatives of Human Knowledge illustrated with Epistemological

Conceptions in African Thought” in Ibadan Journal of Humanistic Studies, no.7, Oct. 1997, pp. 17-34

Bewaji, J. A. (2007), An Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge, Ibadan: Hope Publications.Brown, L. M. (2004), African Philosophy: New and Traditional Perspectives, New York:

Oxford University Press.Cardinal, D.; Hayward, J.; & Jones, G. (2004), Epistemology: The Theory of Knowledge,

London: John Murray Publishers Ltd.Oladipo, O., (ed.) (2006), Core Issues in African Philosophy, Ibadan: Hope Publications.Jimoh, A. (1996) “A Critique of Rorty’s Epistemological Behaviourism”, M.A. Thesis submitted

To the Dept. of Philosophy, AAU, Ekpoma.Owolabi, K., (ed.), (2000), Issues and Problems in Philosophy, Ibadan: GROVACSAkanmidu, R., (ed.), (2005), Footprints in Philosophy, Ibadan: Hope Publications.Uduigwomen, A. F., (ed.) (1995), Footmarks on African Philosophy, Lagos: Obaroh and

Ogbinaka Publishers Ltd.

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KNOWLEDGE AND THE NATURE OF KNOWLEDGEWHAT IS KNOWLEDGE?The Ambiguous Nature of the expression “to know”: The expression “to know” is a slippery one; it is not always used in the same context all the time. Its principal uses include; Acquaintance, technical or ‘know-how’ and propositional.

Sometimes when we talk about knowing we simply mean we are acquainted with something or with somebody as the case may be. For instance, to say that “I know X”, where X refers to a person, would simply mean to say that I have met him/her before; or to say that I have heard someone talk about him/her. Knowing in this sense does not give much information or knowledge about the thing that is known as mere acquaintance does not provide the necessary justification for what we may at this point refer to as the required cognitive claim that constitutes knowledge.

Sometimes we talk about knowing how: For instance, knowing how to drive a car, knowing how to use an electric stove, etc. This is knowledge by ability. To know how to drive a car is to have the ability to drive a car. The test of this form of knowledge is whether in the appropriate situation, we can perform the activity we claim to know how to do. For instance, in the case of driving a car; that you know how to negotiate a bend, and when and how to change gears from a lower to a higher gear, vice versa. Thus, if you have a car and cannot do all or any of these, as at when required, outside other variables not applicable here and now, then your claim to know how to drive would be false.

The propositional use of the term ‘know’ is the most important and most frequent sense in which the word is used. This is the sense of ‘know’ with which the study of knowledge is primarily concerned. When the term ‘know’ is used in this sense, it is usually followed with ‘that’, for instance, “I know that …” and that is followed by a declarative sentence, which we refer to as a proposition. For example, ‘I know that right now, I am working on my computer’, ‘I know that I am at my desk at this moment.’ This is also referred to as factual knowledge.

All the senses in which the term ‘know’ is used are related. We cannot, for example be acquainted with X without knowing some things about X to be true. That is to say, we cannot be acquainted with X without knowing certain propositions about X to be true. For example, we would be able to say X is tall, light in complexion, etc. It would also be absurd to say we know how to drive a

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car without knowing certain true propositions about driving. For example, you would know when to change from one gear to another, how to negotiate a bend, etc. There are however exceptions in this relationship. For instance, you may have considerable acquaintance with X without knowing as much facts about X as someone who has simply read about X. The same applies to driving. A person may know how to drive a car without knowing as much facts about driving as an automobile engineer.

The Tripartite definition of Knowledge: Traditionally knowledge has been defined as justified true belief. This definition holds that S knows P if and only if;

i. P is trueii. S believes that P is trueiii. S’s belief that P is true is justified.

The traditional definition of knowledge as justified true belief is traceable to Plato’s Meno (1956) and Theaetetus (1987). In his dialogue, the Meno, (1956), Plato tries to work out the difference between true belief and knowledge. According to him, true belief has much in common with knowledge and both of them are useful guides to action. For as long as my beliefs are true, they are useful to me and to others as if they are knowledge. The question then arises, why we should prefer knowledge to true belief? If they are the same thing, why is knowledge so highly prized?

Socrates, who was the character expounding the views of Plato in the Meno, responds to this by contrasting the stability of knowledge with the flightiness of belief. We can easily be dissuaded from our beliefs if we have no good reasons for them; on the contrary if we have good reasons for our beliefs, they are no longer just beliefs but knowledge. So with good reasons, we no longer just believe, we now know, and if we know something, we will not easily withdraw our assent from it. Therefore, knowledge is true belief with reasons to support it.

Plato offers other considerations to support the idea that knowledge is more than just true belief in the Theaetus, (1987). According to him, we can hold true beliefs that we are reluctant to call knowledge because of the nature of evidence or reason supporting them. Take for instance, a juror can reach a correct decision when he balances the evidence presented in court. If the evidence is circumstantial and therefore not absolutely conclusive, we may be

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reluctant to call it knowledge as compared to an eyewitness account of the events in question which is more conclusive. The point here is that “the manner by which one acquires a true belief, or by which one justifies it, is important to its counting as a piece of knowledge.” (Cardinal, Hayward, and Jones, 2004). Plato therefore concludes that true belief accompanied by a rational account is knowledge. That is to say, knowledge is justified true belief.

This definition implies that three conditions are individually necessary and jointly sufficient in ascertaining knowledge. These conditions are justification, truth, and belief. The condition of belief demands that when we know that p we must believe that p. The truth condition demands that p must be true for it to be known. And the justification condition demands that there must be adequate reason, evidence or support for p to be known.

Belief: Belief is considered a necessary condition because it connotes a kind of assent to a given proposition or state of affair. It means ‘I agree’ in some sense. To argue that I know that ‘p’ but I do not believe that ‘p’ will be an absurd thing to say. When ‘p’, a variable is substituted with a specific instance, like ‘I am in this class’ the epistemic claim would be ‘I know that I am in this class but I do not believe that I am in this class.’ Common sense and reason would immediately reject this as contradictory. We can argue to the contrary that because we do not know that ‘I am in this class; I do not believe that I am in this class.’ This will be acceptable to reason and common sense but not the other way round.

Truth: The truth condition may be considered an external condition for knowledge. For a thing to be true, it does not require our assent. It is true whether we agree to it being true or not. If it is true that ‘I am in this class,’ whether I assent to it or not would not determine the truth-value of my being in this class. We therefore accept that truth is a necessary condition by itself, for knowledge.

Justification: Justification is the same as providing evidence for our belief. As a condition for knowledge, it is in reference to whether we can say we know something when we make a guess, be it a lucky guess or educated guess, that turns out to be true? Or when based on false evidence we make a claim that turns out to be true? If our guess, or claim based on false evidence turns out to be true, we cannot be said to have known that which we claim to know. For

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example, if based on white prejudice on the part of a white skinned judge that a black man accused of murder is guilty because he is black, and indeed, the black man turns out to be guilty on the basis of available evidences, the judge’s verdict of ‘guilty as charged’ is not knowledge on his part but simply irrational and bias prejudice. Though the black man is guilty, but not because of the colour of his skin. It means then that an unjustified true belief cannot be knowledge. Thus, justification is a necessary condition for knowledge. On the other hand, if you have no reason at all, just on a try your luck basis, you claim something to be so and it turns out to be so, it is mere guess and not knowledge. And if your guess is based on prior experiences, it still does not make your claim knowledge, but at best, an educated guess.

Based on these reasons most philosophers have come to agree that justification, truth, and belief are necessary conditions for knowledge. Each on its own cannot give us knowledge but none of them can be excluded from what is knowledge. The issue now would be whether they are sufficient to give us knowledge as the tripartite analysis of knowledge suggests. That is, can we claim to truly have knowledge, when we have a belief that is true and justified?

The Sources of Knowledge: According to Cardinal, Hayward, and Jones (2004), it is basically the belief of epistemologists that knowledge comes from four sources,

(i) The testimony of others. This involves learning about the past from the testimony of others, but the fact here is that the experience of the person on whose authority we rely for this sort of knowledge is a secondary source.

(ii) Through the senses, that is, empiricism. This argues that we have knowledge through all our perceptions of something concrete. Pragmatism as a philosophy is somehow based on this.

(iii) Through reason, that is, rationalism. It argues that thinking is the true source of knowledge since the mind has the ability to discover truth by itself. The argument here is that the discoveries of the senses are merely raw materials that the mind works on to get knowledge.

(iv) Through intuition. This is like direct apprehension of knowledge that is not the result of conscious reasoning or of immediate sense perception.

Is Justified True Belief Knowledge? (The Gettier Problem): Gettier addressed the issue of whether truth, belief and justification are sufficient conditions for knowledge in his work, Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?

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(1963). According to him, if we have a belief that is true and justified, we cannot say we have knowledge. This means that belief, truth, and justification are together not sufficient to provide knowledge. This has come to be known as the Gettier’s problem. Gettier’s problem is an invitation to epistemology to reconsider the traditional definition of knowledge. It is “the problem of finding a modification of, or an alternative to, the standard justified-true-belief analysis of knowledge that avoids counterexamples like Gettier’s.” (Moser and Sosa, (ed.), 1993).

According to Gettier, there are two points to be noted; first, that it is possible for a person to believe a false proposition in the sense in which the standard analysis has used the term ‘justified.’ For instance, that S’s justification in believing p is a necessary condition of S knowing that p. Secondly, that “for any proposition p, if S is justified in believing p and p entails q and S deduces q from p and accepts q as a result of this deduction, then S is justified in believing q.” (Gettier, 1963). Keeping these two points in mind, he proceeded with two examples to buttress his point.Example 1: “Suppose that Smith and Jones have applied for a certain job. And suppose that Smith has a strong evidence for the following conjunctive proposition:

(a) Jones is the man who will get the job, and Jones has ten coins in his pocket.

Smith’s evidence for (a) might be that the president of the company assured him that Jones would in the end be selected, and that he, Smith, had counted the coins in Jones’s pocket ten minutes ago. Proposition (a) entails:

(b)The man who will get the job has ten coins in his pocket.Let us suppose that Smith sees the entailment from (a) to (b) and accepts (b) on the grounds of (a), for which he has strong evidence. In this case, Smith is clearly justified in believing that (b) is true.

But imagine, further, that unknown to Smith, he himself, not Jones, will get the job. And, also, unknown to Smith, he himself has ten coins in his pocket. Proposition (b) is then true, though proposition (a), from which Smith inferred (b), is false. In this example, then, the following are true: (i) (b) is true, (ii) Smith believes that (b) is true, and (iii) Smith is justified in believing that (b) is true. But it is equally clear that Smith does not know that (b) is true; for (b) is true in virtue of the number of coins in Smith’s pocket, while Smith does not know how many coins are in Smith’s pocket, and bases his belief in (b) on a

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count of the coins in Jones’s pocket, whom he falsely believes to be the man who will get the job.Example 2: Let us suppose that Smith has a strong evidence for the following proposition:

(c) Jones owns a Ford.Smith’s evidence might be that Jones has at all times in the past within Smith’s memory owned a car, and always a Ford, and that Jones has just offered Smith a ride while driving a Ford. Let us imagine, now, that Smith has another friend, Brown, whose whereabouts he is totally ignorant. Smith selects three place names quite at random and constructs the following three propositions:

(d)Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Boston.(e) Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Barcelona.(f) Either Jones owns a Ford, or Brown is in Brest-Litovsk.

Each of these propositions is entailed by (c). Imagine that Smith realizes the entailment of each of these propositions he has constructed by (c), and proceeds to accept (d), (e), and (f) on the basis of (c). Smith has correctly inferred (d), (e), and (f) from a proposition for which he has strong evidence. Smith is therefore completely justified in believing each of these three propositions. Smith, of course, has no idea where Brown is.

But imagine now that two further conditions hold. First, Jones does not own a Ford, but is at present driving a rented car. And second, by the sheerest coincidence, and entirely unknown to Smith, the place mentioned in proposition (e) happens really to be the place where Brown is. If these two conditions hold, then Smith does not know that (e) is true, even though (i) (e) is true, (ii) Smith does believe that (e) is true, and (iii) Smith is justified in believing that (e) is true.” (Gettier in Griffiths, (ed.), 1967).

Gettier’s examples proved first and foremost that each of the three necessary conditions required by the tripartite analysis are met. Secondly, that despite the fact that these conditions are met, we cannot say there is knowledge. This is because, as his examples demonstrate, it is possible for us to be justified in believing a false proposition, which goes on to be our justification for another belief that is in fact true but not on the basis of the belief that justifies it, which he has first shown to be false itself. Thus, Gettier argues that rather than have a triangular-like definition of knowledge, that is, knowledge requiring three necessary conditions that are collectively sufficient to give us true knowledge, we may indeed require a square-like definition that requires four conditions.

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That is, in addition to the other three conditions, an extra condition may be required.

With these examples, Gettier concludes that the standard analysis definition of knowledge does not provide us with sufficient condition for one knowing any given proposition. These examples and others following this style have made it really difficult to conclusively analyze the concept of propositional knowledge. Some philosophers have argued that Gettier’s examples and others of its type are defective as they rest on the false principle that false propositions can justify beliefs in other propositions. But as Moser observes, there are examples like Gettier’s that are not dependent on the allegedly false principle. Here, he was thinking about the examples put forward by Richard Feldman (1974) and Keith Lehrer (1990).

One important lesson that the issue raised by Gettier has presented to epistemology is that, the justification condition for knowledge is important in ensuring that we do not mistakenly identify a true belief resulting from epistemic luck or educated guess for true knowledge.

Over the decades since the advent of the Gettier counterexamples, analytic philosophers have struggled either to defend the standard analysis of knowledge against Gettier’s examples or to revise the standard analysis of knowledge in the light of Gettier’s examples. The debate has largely been to revamp the necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge. To make a proper distinction between knowledge and belief; to giving a better and more comprehensive analysis of justification to see what it entails and what it does not, and how best to deduce from given propositions, and how to differentiate between first-person knowledge and third-person knowledge. There is much focus on the justification aspect of the whole issue and rightly so, since the Gettier examples themselves attack the aspect of justification. Many philosophers now accept that the definition of propositional knowledge requires a fourth condition. As it were, epistemologists have not generally accepted any specific fourth condition.

KNOWLEDGE AND PERCEPTION

HOW WE ACQUIRE KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLDAn answer to the question on how we acquire knowledge of the world

would help us examine closer whether we can be certain of our knowledge claims or whether the sceptical challenges that plague our claims are true. The question to begin with is how do we know the things around us? The obvious

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answer would be through the senses. I know, for instance that there is a computer before me now because I can see it. I know that it is cold today because I can feel it. I know that there is music playing in my room now because I can hear it. I know that the rose flower has a pleasant fragrance because I can smell it. And I know the apple I had for breakfast was sweet because I tasted it. There is a reference here to the five sense organs by which humans perceive. But there have been doubts about the reliability of these organs to provide us accurate accounts of the world. So just how accurate are the senses in indicating the way the world really is?

First and foremost, let us note that animals other than humans also have senses and some have more developed senses than humans. For instance, dogs, cats, and sheep are known to see far beyond humans can, dogs can smell and hear sounds higher than we can do. The shark has a rare ability to sense electric field created by living creatures and bats use their sense of sound rather than sight to navigate. Do these better developed senses mean that these animals have more accurate knowledge of the world than humans? Or perhaps, they do not see the world as it truly is? Would this latter question not be an imposition of human superiority complex than a statement of truth? These questions raise puzzles of all sorts about our perception, how it works, and what it can tell us about the world. Thus, we need to be cleared about what goes on in perception; this is a suggestion that we need to develop a theory of perception.

A THEORY OF PERCEPTION

It would seem that the simplest thing in life is to sense and experience the world around us. That we just open our eyes and we see, or open our ears and hear. This hardly requires any efforts. We would however soon discover that an attempt to account for the relationship between our sense experiences and the world is not that easy. The view that “we peer out through our eyes and listen through our ears and simply see and hear the world around us as it is, turned out not to hold water.” (Cardinal, Hayward and Jones, 2004). This view has been referred to as the Common Sense view of the world or naïve realism. In seeing, our eyes receive reflected light from objects, which trigger off a complex chain of events that involve the optic nerve and the visual cortex resulting in the experience we call seeing. In this process, our senses interpret the world and present us with a picture of the world. This picture may be accurate in some respect and may not be accurate in some respect. It has been viewed by some philosophers that our experiences or sense data exist only in our minds and

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therefore are representations of the world that enable us interact with the world. This view is referred to as representative realism.

Representative realism presents us with two worlds, (i) the world of our senses, that is the world as we perceive, the world of our sensations, and (ii) the world of reality, the world as it really is. Representative realism seems to have driven a wedge between our sensations and reality. It now appears there is a ‘veil of perception’ between the world and us as it is, and this veil is proving difficult to remove so far. (Cardinal, Hayward and Jones, 2004). This difficulty has prompted some philosophers to argue that the problem is our belief that there is an independent world outside of us responsible for our sensations. This is the view of idealists who want us to do away with the belief in matter. Opposed to this view is phenomenalism, an anti-realist view, which claims that physical objects are collections of actual and potential sense data.

We however need to analyse first the meaning of perception before we can attempt to grasp these various views concerning our perception.

“Perception is the process by which we become aware of physical objects, including our own body.” (Cardinal, Hayward and Jones, 2004). As Audi puts it, “perception is a source of knowledge and justification mainly by virtue of yielding beliefs that constitute knowledge or are justified.” (Audi,1998). Perception is of things or facts, i.e. the use of any of the five senses – seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling – to acquire knowledge of the world around us. Through the use of these senses we explore our world and gain knowledge of it.

Usually we talk about the objects of perception because there are two aspects to the act of perceiving,

(i) The objects perceived i.e. the things we see, hear, etc.(ii) The perceiving of them i.e. the seeing, hearing, etc. of those

things. If for instance, there is a wristwatch on the table, when I look at it, the wristwatch is the thing I see, so it is an object of perception. On the other hand, my seeing it is an experience different from the object itself; it is a perceptual experience – a visual perceptual experience. All the senses have their own corresponding kind of perceptual experience, e.g. auditory (hearing), tactual (feeling), olfactory (smell), and gustatory (taste) experiences.

Other than the objects of perception, we can talk about at least, four elements in perception,

(i) The perceiver (me)

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(ii) The object perceived(iii) The sensory experience(iv) The relation between the object and subject of perception.

In addition to these elements of perception, there are three different ways that we speak of perception,

(i) We speak simply of what people perceive, e.g. what they see, smell, hear, feel, or taste

(ii) We speak of what they perceive the object of their perception to be, e.g. that they see animals in the compound, etc.

(iii) We speak of what they perceive about the object of their perception, e.g. that the animals in the compound are cows.

Using the easiest example of visual perception, let us take for instance, that I see, therefore perceive, the green field. Secondly, I see the green field looks rectangular; therefore, I say that I know that the green field looks different from the hill. Thirdly, I see that the green field is rectangular. In these three instances there are two common factors – perception and seeing, which in this case is the paradigm case of perception.

There are three cases here,(i) The case of simple perception, which is “perception taken by

itself” in which I simply see the green field, a visual parallel of hearing a sound or the tactual experience of touching a glass.

(ii) Is the case of perceiving to be, in which I see something – the green field – “to be” rectangular. This is in contrast to when I drive by it at a high speed.

(iii) Is the case of “perceiving that”, which is a case of seeing that a particular thing is so, e.g. that the green field is rectangular.

In the cases above, we see three kinds/modes of perception, perception of the simplest kind/mode like seeing but with significant differences because of their relation to knowledge and justified belief. Thus, we need to understand their relation to belief first to properly understand these modes of perception.

It has been generally argued that much of what we perceive, be they objects or facts are indirect. Perceptual knowledge is said to be indirect, dependent, and derived. The meaning of this is that the facts we come to know by perceptual means are pieces of knowledge that depend on our coming to know some other facts, in a more direct way. (Dretske, 1992). Though the same object is involved in perceptual knowledge, the facts we come to know about it

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are different from the facts that enable us to know it, so perceptual knowledge is indirect.

Thus, we can talk of perceptual knowledge, which is the knowledge acquired through the senses, this includes most of what we know. In fact, for some philosophers, it includes everything we know. For instance, I perceive that my fuel tank is empty not by seeing my fuel tank but by seeing that my fuel gauge reads ‘empty.’ Take for instance another example, we can see a rotten fruit, we can smell a rotten fruit, or we can even taste a rotten fruit, or feel a rotten fruit. But we have to note immediately that to see a rotten fruit differs from smelling, tasting, or feeling a rotten fruit, yet all the sensory experience from the various senses provide us with the same perceptual knowledge; that the fruit is rotten. The difference is therefore not in what is known, but how it is known. As it were, the knowledge has the same source i.e. the rotten fruit, but the knowledge has been delivered through different channels and coded in different experiences.

Perception is of things (objects) and of facts. We have to be careful not to confuse both, namely (a) perceptual knowledge of facts – that the fruit is rotten, for instance – with (b) perception of the objects – a rotten fruit. So, it is one thing to see a rotten fruit and another to know (either by seeing, smelling, feeling, or tasting) that the fruit is rotten. This raises the question, “what more, beyond perception, is required to know?” The question reformulated is, not how we perceive, e.g. see, smell, etc., but how we know (if we indeed do) that that is what we perceive?

To know that that is what we perceive, it would seem that we need some background assumptions. For example, that my fuel gauge would not read empty except my fuel tank is empty or at least almost completely empty. For such an assumption to provide knowledge of the fact that the fuel tank is empty, the former must itself qualify as knowledge. For if the conclusion is to be true, the premises used to reach the conclusion must be known to be true. Implicit in this statement is that there is a connecting fact between the indirect perceptual knowledge that my fuel tank is empty and the background assumption, which is the perception of the fuel gauge that reads empty.

Externalists have argued that we do not necessarily require knowledge of the connecting fact that simply believing in the connecting fact is sufficient to confer knowledge of the connected fact. That is to say, that simply believing that my fuel gauge indicates the level of fuel in my fuel tank, therefore, when it reads empty, it is sufficient to provide me with the knowledge that my fuel tank

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is empty. This suggests that knowledge can rest on or be based on lucky hunches and unsupported (even perhaps, irrational) beliefs. Internalists have argued that if we are to know on the basis of connecting facts that the connected facts are true, there should, at least be some justification for thinking that the connected fact – perceptual knowledge – is or probably is, when the connecting facts are. That is, that my fuel tank is empty, or probably empty, when my fuel gauge reads empty.

Whatever view we decide to support on this matter, the fact remains that indirect perception definitely needs some understanding, either knowledge, justification, or belief, of the general relationship between the fact we come to know and the facts that enable us to know it.

Underlining the discussion on perception is the age long debate on the distinction between appearance and reality. Much of the debate hinges on the question of how much of what we perceive is really out there in the world and how much of it is an idea in our minds. As usual the debate is along the divide between realist and anti-realist. The realist would believe that what we perceive is independent of our minds while the anti-realist would believe our perception is mind-dependent.

MAIN THEORIES OF KNOWLEDGETwo basic types of knowledge have been identified in relation to the

sources of knowledge. They are; (i) Empirical knowledge, and (ii) Rational knowledge.

Rationalist Theory of Knowledge: Traditionally rationalism as a theory of knowledge is traced to the French philosopher Rene Descartes. Descartes, rather than rely on the senses, uses reason to search for the certainties upon which he hopes to rebuild the body of knowledge and he found this in the cogito. His doctrine of “I think, therefore, I am.” But the cogito is a limited place to build a body of knowledge; he needs other truths that have the character of the cogito. What is this character of the cogito? That it is self-justifying and can be known just by reason without recourse to experience. Descartes argues that there are other truths that share this character, these he calls ‘clear and distinct ideas.’ These are ideas that are intuited by the mind through the light of reason. The knowledge provided by such ideas that are clear and distinct would resist any sceptical attack, since its truths are immediately recognized and it does not leave room for any error. For example, the fact that a triangle is three sided does not

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demand any further evidence other than understanding the terms that are involved.

Thus, for Descartes we can make the truths of reason the bedrock on which to build our human knowledge, including the knowledge of the world around us. This Cartesian argument seems to bring to an end the infinite regress of justification as his clear and distinct ideas provide a sort of foundational beliefs for other beliefs. The Cartesian clear and distinct ideas are known a priori.

Descartes was not the only rationalist of his time; others followed his footsteps by trying to establish that we can only attain true knowledge by reason. Two of such philosophers worth mentioning are Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz and Benedict Baruch de Spinoza. Both of them argued that empirical truths are necessary truths and as such can be established by reason alone.

Leibniz developed a complex and comprehensive metaphysical view of the world that can be easily misrepresented if we attempt to look at his teachings in small segments in isolation. He first of all propounded a doctrine of a necessary God that is all good, all powerful, and all knowing. This God created the best possible world since it would be impossible that such a God creates a less perfect world. Against the obvious fact that we can imagine a more perfect world without the observable evils in our present world, for example, a world without pain and stress, devoid of natural disasters like earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and dreadful diseases like HIV/AIDS and cancers, Leibniz argues that such ‘local pieces of evil’ as the examples given above are necessary to maximize the overall perfection of the world. According to him, if we have the all knowing mind of God, we would understand that what we call imperfections in the present world are necessary as they contribute to the overall perfection of the world. He cited the example of having to endure the discomfort of taking some unpleasant medicine in order to recover from an illness. The epistemological implication of this metaphysics is that “all empirical truths about the world could be worked out a priori, just by thinking about them.” (Cardinal, Hayward, and Jones, 2004).

Spinoza was inspired by the geometrical method of Euclid and started with a series of ethical definitions and axioms. He developed a complex metaphysical picture of the world in which God is one and the same with the universe. Like Leibniz, he claimed that all truths are necessary; that our lack of the powerful mind to see why everything is as it is, makes things appear to us as if they are contingent. Spinoza’s teaching was definitely pantheistic. He argued

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against the idea that some events in the world just happen to be the case. For instance, I just had breakfast of tea and dry toast. According to him, it was necessary that I had such a breakfast rather than something else, like boiled yam and fried eggs. I could not have had the latter instead of the former as a matter of necessity, but the fact that I lack the all powerful mind to recognize this fact, I think it was contingent that I had the tea and dry toast, rather than boiled yam and fried eggs for breakfast.

By claiming that truths about the world are necessary rather than contingent, both Leibniz and Spinoza avoided Hume’s criticism, but that does not make their theories foolproof. They bestowed necessity on every event in the world by virtue of the existence of a necessary God. They however were unsuccessful to satisfactorily prove the existence of this God by reason alone. Neither of their versions of the ontological argument for the existence of God is generally considered as successful. It therefore seems that rationalism, either in the Cartesian version or the versions of Leibniz and Spinoza has failed to demonstrate that through reason alone, we can arrive at substantial truths about the universe and the way it works.

Rationalism has postulated that there are rational truths that are eternal, and necessary. That we can arrive at these truths just by thinking and that these truths are self-justifying. It however fails to account for knowledge of contingent truths like empirical knowledge and knowledge of the natural sciences. Thus, it fails to convince us that relying on reason as the foundation of true human knowledge is a viable option to defeat the sceptical challenge.

Empiricist Theory of Knowledge: Empiricism as a theory of knowledge is traditionally opposed to rationalism. It argues that human knowledge is based on the foundation of sense experience. Basically, empiricism argues that we were born with a blank mind and that everything we now know has been written on our mind by our sense experiences.

Empiricists make distinction between concepts and sense experiences. Sense experiences are those things we are conscious of. For instance, that right now I am having a glass of pineapple juice, because, I can actually taste it, smell it, and see it. On the other hand concepts come from sense experiences and they enable us to form beliefs.

Empiricists traditionally teach that we can rearrange the basic elements of things we experience but we cannot invent the elements in ourselves. The elements would have to come from what we have actually experienced. They

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consider sense data or sense impressions as the basic elements that come into our minds via the senses and these we cannot break down to further smaller elements.(Cardinal, Hayward, and Jones, 2004). The mind according to them retains basic sense experiences from which it forms concepts and can think of things even when not experiencing them and recognize them when it encounters them.

Empiricists argue for the certainty of sensation namely, that our sense experiences are incorrigible. They are not subject to doubt. Based on this incorrigibility, they argue that our senses provide us with foundations for all human knowledge. What happens according to them is that we infer the existence of external objects and events from our sense experiences. For example, when we have the sensation that we feel pains, which we call headache, we infer that we have a head. If there is error, it is not in our sensation of the pains, but in our inference of the source of the pain. If we have the sense experience of barking, we can infer that there is a dog outside. The idea that there is a dog outside is a product of inference, but our sense experience of barking is not a product of inference.

Our sense experience comes to us immediately and directly, which means it leaves no room for error. Empiricists refer to sense experience as “given.” By this, they mean, our sense experiences do not require a further justification because there are no other conceivable circumstance that can make them be given up since they come to us immediately and directly without any intermediary. Thus, they argue that all knowledge is justified on the basis of what is given in experience and that the certainties of our sensations provide the foundation for true human knowledge. (Cardinal, Hayward, and Jones, 2004).

John Locke argues that all experience and all human knowledge can be analyzed into simple sense data. He opines that our minds were blank slates at birth, tabula rasa and we furnish them with ideas – concepts or beliefs through experiences. David Hume agreed with Locke that empiricism sheds light on many important issues and problems in philosophy, but disagrees that it could provide us with a true account of how we gain knowledge about the world. Hume’s account of causation, which shattered the rationalist enterprise, was not favourable to empiricism either. His idea that the concept of cause is not experiential but that what we mean and experience as cause and effect is simply a constant conjunction of events suggests that there are certain concepts or ideas which cannot be based on sense experience.

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Rationalism vis-a-vis Empiricism: Rational knowledge is knowledge based on reason. It provides us with mathematical truths like 2 + 2 = 4. This is often said to be absolutely true. Meaning that by their very definition, they are true. It is a priori; that is prior to experience. Like a mathematical equation, statements that are true a priori take the form of two equal sides. For instance, “a spinster is a female and unmarried.” They are also in the form of describing properties of a definable concept or what is sometimes called theoretical concept. For instance, “all triangles have three sides.” Apparently, we cannot say what we have said about the spinster and triangle about things we experience in the world without a prior experience of them, for example, we cannot say “all spinsters have curly hair” and know it to be true as we do of “a spinster is a female and unmarried” without experience. The source of rational truth is therefore independent of experience, but the problem is that since we know them without having to experience the world, by definition, they cannot really tell us anything about the world as we experience it.

On the other hand, empirical knowledge is knowledge acquired by experience – a posteriori; for instance, that the sun will come up tomorrow. But we also know that new experience can always disprove the old ones and thus makes old experiences unreliable sources of knowledge.

As a source of knowledge, the strength of rationalism is in the reliability and certainty it provides, which makes it easy for us to be predictable about other truths. It however lacks breadth and applicability to our world. Rationalism may have the advantage of logic but lacks the truth of the matter. For example, if we take the simple syllogism “all men are tall”, “John is a man”, “therefore, John is tall.” Logically this will be correct, but if the first two premises are false, then it will not be correct that “John is tall.” So “John is tall” will be false. Empiricism enables us to test the truths of logic. Experience provides us with utility and thus enables us to survive but it’s unable to explain the scale of human knowledge.

Given the advantages of both and their limitations as well, the key to true knowledge would seem to be the interaction of both sources of knowledge. While rationalism would be relied on to provide us with the structure of our knowledge, empiricism would provide us with the content. If A = B and B = C, then A = C. this is rationalism. If it is applied to experience, we are likely to make logical leaps. If my experience, for instance, tells me that A = B, and that B is similar to C, it would be reasonable on my part to imagine that A would also be similar to C. From the rational point of view, this may not be exactly

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correct as A, B, and C are not exactly equal but at most similar. However, I may test whether this is correct in the empirical world and learn from it. And in this way, I may use empirical knowledge and predict what other experiences might be like. The point here is that though we are using empirical knowledge, we are performing a rational operation on the empirical knowledge. What we are actually doing is to use logical extrapolation of experience to gain understanding of things prior to experiencing them.

Intuition as Knowledge: Some thinkers are resurrecting the notion that a combination of rational and empirical sources does not give us full knowledge. There is a third and important source of knowledge, which has been looked down upon. This is intuition. According to Koukl,

There’s a third way of knowing, though, that needs no such justification: intuition. In fact, this way of knowing is so foundational that justification is impossible. That’s because knowledge by intuition is not gained by following a series of facts or a line of reasoning to a conclusion. Instead, we know intuitional truth simply by the process of introspection and immediate awareness. (Koukl, Retrieved from the Internet, July, 2009).

Koukl’s argument here is based on the fact that we require justification to confirm the results of the two other sources of knowledge before we can be confident of the results they give us. He acknowledges them as true sources of knowledge but thinks beyond them, we have a third and surer source, which is intuition.

According to Mishlove (1993), intuition,For some, it is a mere – and meaningless – by-product of unconscious process. For others, it signifies a harbinger of deep truth. For yet others, it suggests a link between the processes of creativity and various forms of extrasensory perception – an interesting link that has largely been unexplored. (Mishlove, 1993).

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Intuition is to be understood from four perspectives as a source of knowledge, (i) as the awareness of the immediate data of consciousness, (ii) as a combination of past experiences and thinking, (iii) as the instinct of someone that leads him/her to the very inwardness of life, and (iv) as a mystical expression. Some thinkers like Lewis have described it as the way we start knowing everything, according to him, “if nothing is self-evident, nothing can be proved.” (Lewis, 1955). This view of Lewis is based on the thinking that certain things have to be known before we can know other things that flow from them as inferential knowledge. Such things that need to be known before we can know other things are known immediately or directly. They in turn provide us the tools by which we inferentially know other things. As Aristotle (1006a) puts it,

Some, indeed, demand to have the law proved, but this is because they lack education; for it shows lack of education not to know of what we should require proof, and of what we should not. For it is quite impossible that everything should have a proof; the process would go on to infinity, so there would be no proof.

Aristotle’s point is that certain intuitions serve as base for all other knowledge. Using the example of a syllogism, he argued that the ability to see that the conclusion naturally follows from adequate premises is a function of intuition.

Intuitional knowledge is not subject to proof. It cannot be proved because on the level of intuition, no further analysis is possible.

To know by intuition means that the truth of the proposition is (i) immediately evident, (ii) needs no further justification, and (iii) is obvious once all the facts are known.

Mishlove quotes Sorokin’s The Crisis of Our Age, where the latter wrote,… there is hardly any doubt that intuition is the real source of real knowledge, different from the role of the senses and reason. It is especially indispensable in the apprehension of those aspects of the true reality which are inaccessible to the senses and to reason. The important and often indispensable role played by intuition in the cognition of true reality explains the

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perennial fact of the immortality of religion and arts, and the domination of the truth of faith over long periods. (Mishlove, 1993).

Thus, apart from being the basis of our knowledge, intuition is also a guide to truth and the ultimate foundation for our apprehension of the beautiful and of the good.

KNOWLEDGE AND JUSTIFICATION

THEORIES OF JUSTIFICATION

Foundationalism: Epistemological foundationalism is a prominent approach to justification. In its traditional form, it holds that if any beliefs are to be justified, there must be some intuitive beliefs. Intuitive belief refers to such beliefs whose truth or credibility is not inferred from some other beliefs. They are also referred to as basic, foundational, self-evident, self-justifying, and sub-structural beliefs. These terms shall be used interchangeably in this study. It is true that some beliefs are certainly justified by reference to others. This is however only if these other beliefs are themselves established or well confirmed.

Epistemic foundationalism conceives of beliefs as constituted into a structure, like a building with foundations. The foundations, which foundationalists refer to as the substructure, are made of beliefs that cannot be doubted. These are beliefs, which justify themselves. Other beliefs referred to as the superstructure rest on these beliefs. The superstructure is secured on the substructure by virtue of the fact that the substructure guarantees their certainty and justifies their truth. In this way, foundationalists suppose that all our beliefs will be securely justified in terms of the basic beliefs. (Sturgeon in Grayling, 1995). Thus, we will have a system of beliefs free from error and unperturbed by scepticism. Foundationalists have therefore argued that “inferential justification terminates with beliefs that are immediately justified, beliefs that do not depend on any other beliefs for their justifications.” (Moser and VanderNat, 1987). Epistemic foundationalism puts emphasis on intuitive belief as the foundations of our knowledge claims.

Foundationalism talks about two kinds of justified belief. The first are the beliefs that are justified on their own while the second are beliefs that are justified because of their relationship to other beliefs. The first set of beliefs is called foundational while the second set is referred to as non-foundational. According to foundationalist therefore, S’s belief in P is justified if and only if:

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(i) S’s belief in P is a foundational belief(ii) S’s belief in P rest on foundational beliefs. (Moser and VanderNat,

1987)For Sturgeon, this would raise the following questions; what is the nature

of foundational beliefs? And how do non-foundational beliefs rest on foundational beliefs? These two questions are yet to be satisfactorily answered by foundationalist.

Foundationalism has a pressing difficulty, namely, how to discover the foundational beliefs and explain what makes them foundational in the sense foundationalists propose that they are foundational. In response to this difficulty, foundationalists are divided and this has led to the establishment of two opposing schools of thought in the 17th and 18th centuries. These schools are Rationalism and Empiricism.

Coherentism: The coherentists’ thesis is formulated in terms that deny that knowledge and justified belief rest ultimately on a foundation of non-inferential knowledge or justified belief. (Kvanvig, Retrieved from the Internet, Oct. 2009). It conceives of beliefs as justified to the extent that they fit in or cohere with other beliefs in a given system of beliefs. They maintain that justification is a function of some relationship between beliefs in contrast to the idea of privileged beliefs holding up a superstructure in the way maintained by the foundationalist. For them, “the elements of our knowledge do not stand in any sort of linear dependence on a set of self-evident basic truths about the given but hang together in a systematic mutual corroboration.” (Quinton, 1989). The better a belief fits into our already existing system of beliefs, the better that belief is justified. What we can immediately draw from this is that a belief that does not contradict our system of beliefs is justified.

The concept of coherence has its theoretical basis in the notion of a system, understood as a set whose elements stand in mutual relations of consistency and interdependence. So it is not just enough that a belief fits in or coheres with our system of beliefs or that a belief does not contradict our system of beliefs, but also that a belief is supported and explained by our system of beliefs. In this theory, consistency is a lesser demand than dependence. The requirement of dependence is more difficult to specify in a suitable manner. (Sturgeon in Grayling, 1995). For the coherentists, a set of belief is coherent if any one of them follows from all the rest. This includes also that no subset of the beliefs is logically independent of the remainder.

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Concerning the relation that must hold for a belief to be justified Lawrence BonJour gives us an objective account of coherence relation in which he cites the following five features:

(i) Logical consistency;(ii) The extent to which the system in question is probabilistically

consistent;(iii) The extent to which inferential connections exist between beliefs, both

in terms of the number of such connections and their strength;(iv) The inverse of the degree to which the system is divided into

unrelated, unconnected subsystems of belief; and(v) The inverse of the degree to which the system of belief contains

unexplained anomalies. (BonJour, 1985).Coherentists regard a priori beliefs as nearer to the centre of the web and

most resistant to revision. They do not expect such beliefs to change often, but neither do they regard them as totally beyond revision. They do not think that there are any beliefs that have such privileged epistemic status as completely beyond revision as the foundationalists do with regard to incorrigible beliefs. On the outside of the web are beliefs about our perceptions. They are regularly updated in the light of new perceptual evidences. Because they are on the edges of the web, they have lesser intimate links with our whole belief system. They feed into and are accommodated with the web as a whole. They depend largely on the rest of our beliefs, so they must necessarily fit into our system of beliefs if they are to be accepted. Coherentism does not subscribe to absolute certainty as a necessity for knowledge.

With the search for certainty leading us toward a dead end, coherentism hopes to give us a more pragmatic and workable theory of knowledge instead of what foundationalism offers. Rather than discard what is not completely certain, coherentism looks upon our already existing system of beliefs and operates with the tools of the knowledge we have already acquired. In this way, we are able to sift new beliefs and take those that cohere with our other beliefs while rejecting those that do not.

Coherentism as a theory of justification has not been able to answer certain questions to guarantee its soundness as an acceptable theory of justification. One such question is what is generally thought of as the ‘plurality objection.’ This is a problem that is related to the truth connection. It is expressed in the fact that a good piece of fiction, which displays the virtue of coherence, but obviously unlikely to be true can pass for a set of beliefs on

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which a particular belief that fits into it is justified. According to Kvanvig, (1995) it gives the idea that coherence and the likelihood of truth are so far apart, making it implausible to think of coherence as a guide to truth at all, less a lone, a singular guide of justification.

Another noticeable defect of coherentism is its neglect of the relationship between our beliefs and the way things actually are. It is essentially a theory about the relations between beliefs. It allows for justification of beliefs with no bearing to reality. But if my beliefs are to be truly justified, they must have their basis in reality. BonJour aptly states this defect when he writes:

Coherence is purely a matter of the internal relations between the components of the belief system; it depends in no way on any sort of relation between the system of beliefs and anything external to that system. Hence if, as a coherence theory claims, coherence is the sole basis for empirical justification, it follows that a system of empirical beliefs might be adequately justified, indeed might constitute empirical knowledge, in spite of being utterly out of contact with the world that it purports to describe. Nothing about any requirement of coherence dictates that a coherent system of beliefs need receive any sort of input from the world or be in any way causally influenced by the world. (Bonjour, 1985).

Contextualism: This is a standard non-sceptical reply to the perennial regress problem of justification. It evolved primarily as a response to the views that we cannot have knowledge of the world around us. In general terms, it maintains that whatever we know is relative to a context. (Black, Retrieved from the Internet, Oct. 2009). Context is seen in relation to certain features like, intentions and presuppositions of the members of a conversational situation. These features determine under what standards epistemic claims are taken to count as knowledge. Thus, there is the possibility that there are different epistemic standards according to different contexts. Contextualists do agree that standards of justifications do vary from context to context. There are some contexts with very high epistemic standards, which make it difficult, sometimes impossible to have our beliefs count as knowledge, while some other contexts

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have epistemic standards that are comparatively low which make most of our beliefs count as knowledge. (Black, Retrieved from the Internet, Oct. 2009).

Contextualists argue that the term ‘know’ is either indexical or functions very much like an indexical. To say a word or term is indexical means it’s meaning or semantic content depends on the context of its use. The words ‘here’ and ‘I’ for example are indexical. If I say for instance that “Francis is here”, what I mean by ‘here’ depends on where I am when I say it. Given that I am in the classroom, ‘here’ would simply mean ‘classroom’ and if I were in my bedroom when I say it, ‘here’ would mean ‘my bedroom.’ In the same way ‘I’ depends on the context of its use and particularly on who is using it. When Francis says, “I am in the classroom,” he means ‘Francis’ is in the classroom and this is different from when I say, “I am in the classroom,” for the latter would mean ‘Anselm’ is in the classroom. So we have two sentences, which are of the same sentence type in terms of sentence structure and token but mean two different things by virtue of the indexical ‘I’.

According to contextualists, given that ‘know’ is an indexical or functions as one, it means that its semantic content will depend on the context of its use. Following from the effect of the context on the indexical ‘know’, context will also affect the entire semantic content of complex lexical items in which ‘know’ appears. That is to say, when we claim that “Francis knows he is in the classroom” based on his statement that “I am in the classroom” the justification of our epistemic claim will be in respect of the context in which I have made the claim. According to DeRose,

The truth-conditions of knowledge ascribing and knowledge denying sentences (sentences of the form ‘S knows that P’ and ‘S doesn’t know that P’ and related variants of such sentences) vary in certain ways according to the contexts in which they are uttered. What so varies is the epistemic standards that S must meet (or, in the case of denial of knowledge, fail to meet) in order for such a statement to be true. (Retrieved from the Internet, Oct. 2009).

Taking contexts with very high epistemic standards, which is typical when we consider and take seriously sceptical hypotheses, make knowledge difficult and almost impossible, if not out rightly impossible. Such contexts

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would usually require that we rule out the possibility that we are brains-in-a-vat, or the possibility that we are dreaming or hallucinating or under the influence of the Cartesian-like evil demon. Unfortunately, our perceptual experiences cannot afford to give us evidences to completely eliminate these possibilities.

Contextualists argue that in most contexts the epistemic standards are comparatively low. These are ordinary, everyday contexts in which we do not give serious considerations to sceptical hypotheses. Within such contexts we can have knowledge without necessarily eliminating the possibilities like being a brain-in-vat.

Without going into the rigours of their analysis, it is noteworthy to state that epistemological contextualism in its most prominent forms appear in the works of Nozick (1981) subjunctive conditionals account of knowledge and the relevant alternatives theory of knowledge associated with Dretske (1981) and Goldman. (1976)

Williams argued in favour of epistemological contextualism by dismissing scepticism as unnatural since it is dependent on essentially contentious ideas and being theoretical are not forced on our ordinary ways of epistemic thinking. As a matter of fact it is the burden of the sceptic to carry, which he unfortunately seems unable to, so we have no reason to take scepticism seriously. He argues that “independently of all (situational, disciplinary and other contextually variable factors), a proposition has no epistemic status whatsoever. There is no fact of the matter as to what kind of justification it either admits of or requires.” (Williams, 1996). This is essentially against epistemological realism that suggests that there is ‘a fact of the matter’ as to what kind of justification a belief requires in support of the doctrine of epistemic priority. This doctrine states that our beliefs must be justified by sensory experience if they are to pass as knowledge.

Reliabilism: It simply argues that a reliable method would produce a true belief and thus a belief is justified if it is produced by a reliable method rather than basing it on good reasons.

There are so many knowledge claims we have that despite our inability to provide justifiable reasons why we hold on to them we are not prepared to give them up. Many a time, we feel justified in holding a belief even before we find evidence to support the belief. In the light of this, reliabilists think the issue is to find the evidence by which we actually support our beliefs rather than the evidence that could be used to support our beliefs. They also notice that many

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of our beliefs are not supported by the beliefs we currently have and not even beliefs that we could hope to acquire.

Giving examples how we can hold beliefs which produce workable results without necessarily knowing how we come about such beliefs, for instance, the herbalist knows that certain leaves, roots, fluid from certain plants, etc. would cure a particular ailment when combined. What justifies his belief in the combination and not any other combination he may not be able to rationally articulate, but he knows that his method would and it does work. Reliabilism thinks that the issue is that the method, which produces the beliefs, is a reliable one. Thus they argue that “what justifies a belief is not that it fits with or is supported by other beliefs, which one explicitly has, but rather that it is acquired by a reliable method.” (Cardinal, Hayward, and Jones, 2004).

Justification for reliabilism may well be external to the mind; it does not matter so long the method that produces the belief is reliable. The implication of this idea of justification is that knowledge does not consist in having an explicit understanding of the justification of our beliefs but that we have reached our beliefs in an appropriate way.

Context-dependency: The Post Modernist Approach: Post modernism is a trend that cuts across almost all fields of study and not peculiar in any way to philosophy. Its brand of philosophy is viewed as eclectic and elusive criticism and analysis of Western philosophy heavily influenced by phenomenology, structuralism, and existentialism as espoused by philosophers like Nietzsche, Heidegger and to some degree, Wittgenstein. Post modernism is against anti-foundationalism as it wages an unrelenting attack on modernism.

Epistemologically, it argues against the modernist point of view that there is the possibility of objective knowledge, which assumes that such knowledge refers directly to an objective reality that should appear the same way to any and all observers. Modernist epistemology is characterised by the assumption that knowledge is a product of the activity of the mind fashioning ideas to agree or correspond with objective reality. Post modernism disagrees with this view, preferring to conceive knowledge as a special kind of relations; a text or discourse that puts words and images together in ways that is pleasing and useful to particular culture. It therefore denies objective knowledge, arguing that knowledge is made from the linguistic and other meaning making resources of a particular culture. This implies that different cultures can have different pictures of the world since they can see the world in very different ways, all of which

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“work” in their terms. It considers the belief that one particular culture’s view of the world is universally true as a politically convenient assumption that favoured Europe’s imperial ambitions of the past while lacking firm intellectual basis.

According to Grenz, (1995),[Post modernism] affirms that whatever we accept as truth and even the way we envision truth are dependent on the community in which we participate … There is no absolute truth: rather truth is relative to the community in which we participate.

Post modernist thinkers are of the view that justification cannot be context-independent. For them, the acceptance of the justification for epistemic claims is determined by standards, which belong to the same context as that to which the attempted justification that is offered belongs. Richard Rorty is cited often as the most prominent defender of post modernist philosophy in recent times. Some other prominent post modernist epistemologists include; Feyerabend and Kuhn. They subscribe to the context-dependency of justification.

Kuhn, Feyerabend and Rorty are against Methodism as formalized in foundational epistemology. Kuhn (1970) with his notion of incommensurability and Feyerabend (1975) with his idea of methodological anarchism came to the conclusion that there is no method such as the scientific method by which we conduct rational inquiry. There are various systems and each has its own standards of justification and none of them is to be considered superior to the others. Rorty (1979) takes up from here with his epistemological behaviourism. He discredits and dismisses traditional epistemology as pretentious in the sense that it gives a false notion of knowledge as accuracy of representations. He argued that the idea of the mind as a mirror provides this false notion of knowledge. With the idea of hermeneutics, he strengthens his argument against commensuration and agrees with Kuhn on incommensurability. In a purified form he takes sides with Feyerabend against Methodism while avoiding his epistemological extremity. He views knowledge with reference to social agreements, which is more like Kuhn’s idea of knowledge as a human activity. The three of them situate the justification of our epistemic claims in the society or group. This allows their work to be thought of as relativistic. They however

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do not quite approve of the latter characterization, which is usual with post-modernists.

As brave and persuasive as their efforts are, they leave behind loopholes, which critiques have explored and continue to explore. This brings to mind one characteristic of philosophy, that there is always a room to question even the most brilliant idea. The Achilles’ heel is always there to be explored.

AFRICAN EPISTEMOLOGY

THE NATURE OF AFRICAN EPISTEMOLOGYAccording to Udefi, protagonists of African epistemology want to direct

attention to the cultural embeddings of knowledge. This is against the ideological framework of European colonisation that upholds and affirms the supremacy of Western reason over non-Western peoples and cultures. (Udefi in Akanmidu (ed.) 2005). Scholars like Seghor, Anyanwu, Onyewuenyi and others have argued that there is a distinctive African way of perceiving and reacting to the world. This is what constitutes African epistemology.

African epistemology deals with what the African means and understands when he makes a knowledge claim. This consists of how the African sees and talks about reality. Concerning how the African sees or talks about reality, Asante writes, “there are several elements in the mind of Africa that govern how humans behave with regard to reality: the practicality of wholism, the prevalence of poly-consciousness, the idea of inclusiveness, the unity of worlds, and the value of personal relationships.” (Asante, 2000). These constitute the elements of the African mind, they frame the African conception of reality, and they are the basis on which cognitive claims are made by the African. This is akin to the Kantian categories of the mind. From the earliest times there was an underlining commonality in the African apprehension of the universe, environment, society, and the divine. This is because while the self remains real and the material is concrete for the African, both the self and the material however remain interwoven by custom and tradition with the latter based upon human correlativity. Thus, the African conceives reality as one large system in which personalism is expressed in concrete consubstantiation of spirit.

African theory of knowledge, like other epistemologies has its social and cultural dimensions. This does not necessarily mean it is social or cultural epistemology. Though to some extent, it is an epistemology that is deliberately situated within a particular cultural context. When we talk about a phenomenon as being within a cultural context, we are talking about bringing it within the

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rational framework of the said cultural context; in this case, African culture. According to Kaphagawani and Malherbe, “the way in which epistemic rationality and its related concepts are instantiated, ‘filled out’ as it were, the concrete content that they are given in terms of linguistic descriptions and social customs, varies a great deal from one cultural context to another.” (Kaphagawani and Malherbe in Coetzee and Roux, (ed.) 1998).

The body of knowledge – the set of established facts that are accepted as true in the society – differ from one age to another. For instance, what would count, as a good theory of knowledge, a widely accepted or a satisfactory explanation of a given phenomenon in traditional African society would differ from that which would count as a satisfactory theory of knowledge in contemporary African society. Such difference would also be noticed in the methods of acquisition of knowledge as well as the certification of knowledge – justification of knowledge.

A philosopher that is working within the framework of societies and their characteristics would be interested in the habits and customs, the religions, languages, belief systems, values, interests and preferred occupations of the people. Thus, the epistemologist who deliberately situates epistemic claims within the context of culture is concerned with the rational practices, values, institutions, etc. of that culture. (Kaphagawani and Malherbe, 1998). According to Kaphagawani and Malherbe, these rational practices consist in,

i. The well-established general beliefs, concepts and theories of any particular people, in various fields such as medical science, religion, child-rearing, agriculture, psychology, education, etc.

i. The favoured ways usually institutionalised in the society, of acquiring new knowledge and evaluating accepted fact, science being a prime example of such an institution.

ii. The accumulated wisdom that is passed on to the youth in the form of proverbs, revered traditions, myths and folktales.

iii. The language of an ethnic group, the single most important repository of a society’s accumulated knowledge.

iv. Customs and practices in the areas of religion and judicial procedure.

v. The accepted authorities (whether people, institutions or texts) in matters of knowledge and belief.

These constitute the epistemic filaments in the fabric of a culture. So the question is how does African epistemology assess the beliefs and theories of

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traditional and contemporary African cultures? This may be reformulated as how do we decide what is rational in the context of African culture? This question is an inquiry into the application of the principles of rationality in the African context.

African epistemology is essentially and necessarily rooted in African ontology. The epistemological view of the traditional African is consonant with his metaphysics. It is within this context we have a clearer understanding of Placid Temples’ idea that true wisdom, which is knowledge is to be found in ontological knowledge. Ontological knowledge is the intelligence of forces in their hierarchy, their cohesion and interaction. (Tempels, 1969).

Epistemology is generally, (though not exclusively) about the claims we make concerning the facts of our experience and these facts are always interpreted within certain assumptions, concepts, theories, and worldviews. This goes further to explain the necessity of the relationship between ontology and epistemology; ontology provides the ground for epistemology to recognize, understand, and authenticate our cognitive claims. Anyanwu puts this very lucidly when he writes,

We must know the basic assumptions, concepts, theories and worldview in terms of which the owners of the culture interpret the facts of experience. Without the knowledge of the African mind process and the worldview into which the facts of experience are to be fitted both the African and European researchers would merely impute emotive appeals to cultural forms and behaviour suggested by some unknown mind. (Ruch and Anyanwu, 1984).

Since African ontology postulates a unitary world, traditional African epistemology does not attend to the problem of knowledge by dividing its domain into the rational, the empirical, and the mystical. The three constitute a single mode of knowing in both the intellectual and concrete divisions of reality. (Nasseem, Retrieved from the Internet, July, 2009). Thus, while Western scientific paradigm is laden with methodological and mathematical formulations, the traditional African paradigm goes beyond the outer reaches of formal logic. It goes beyond logic and acknowledges the irreducible mystery of the transcendent.

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Traditional African epistemology concieves man and nature as one inseparable continuum, accordingly, “man and nature are not two separate independent and opposing realities but the one inseparable continuum of a hierarchical order.” (Ruch and Anyanwu, 1984). While we may accuse Western philosophy of intellectual dogmatism that permits a dualism of the subject and object, and Asian philosophy of monism in attempting to deny the reality of the material, African philosophy tries to avoid the embarrassment of both concepts by seeking a central position for the ego (subject) in the cosmic scheme. In this way, subjectivism and objectivism do not constitute a problem to African epistemology. They are both subsumed in the unity of existence. In this unity; the subject gets to know the object. This will not be the case if they were detached. (Ruch and Anyanwu, 1984).

African epistemology does not demarcate between the epistemic subject and the epistemic object. The epistemic subject, which experiences the epistemic object and the epistemic object which is experienced are joined together such that the epistemic subject experiences the epistemic object in a sensuous, emotive, and intuitive understanding, rather than through abstraction as it is the case in Western epistemology.

AN AFRICAN THEORY OF KNOWLEDGEConcerning the issue of knowledge in African epistemology, Aja has

argued that “the problem of knowledge in traditional African thought is that of ascertaining whether or not what is claimed as knowledge is actually knowledge rather than mistaken opinion on the one hand, and the means or source of acquiring the knowledge on the other.” (Aja, 1993). The point here is that there is confusion between knowledge and the source of knowledge in African epistemology. Ruch and Anyanwu however seems to capture better the idea of knowledge in African epistemology. According to them,

Knowledge, therefore, comes from the co-operation of all human faculties and experiences. He sees, feels, imagines, reasons or thinks and intuits all at the same time. Only through this method does he claim to have the knowledge of the other. So, the method through which the African arrives at trustworthy knowledge of reality … is intuitive and personal experience. (Ruch and Anyanwu, 1984).

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Knowledge comes from “the co-operation of all human faculties and experiences (as man) sees, feels, imagines, reasons, or thinks and intuits all at the same time.” (Ruch and Anyanwu, 1994). There cannot be knowledge of reality if man detaches himself from reality. So the subject is always involved, seeing and thinking, as well as experiencing and discovering reality. This implies that experience is vital for the cognitive process. As Nasseem puts it, “the cognitive process is not complete without the experiential.” (Nasseem, Retrieved from the Internet, July, 2009). The self of the subject and the objective world outside the self are united as one in a relationship in which the self of the subject vivifies and animates the objective world.

In the scheme of traditional African thought, the active self is dominant. And theoretical and practical philosophy are not considered as autonomous, but logically and metaphysically joined together in a single epistemological system. This means that the self or ego that theorizes and the world in which this theory takes practice are bound together in a unitary worldview. There is no sharp distinction between the ego and the world, or the subject and the object. Where there is a conflict, the self takes pride of place.

There have been changes in contemporary times in the epistemological tradition of African thought. These changes have basically been in two modes,

(i) Those due to the internal dynamics of the thought-system and only accentuated by elements of acculturationand

(ii) Changes brought about by the introduction of a paradigm alien to the ontological base of the African worldview. (Nasseem, Retrieved from the Internet July, 2004).

It is also necessary to note that contemporary African philosophy or scholarship generally is characterized by,

(i) A continuous recession of the traditional into the distant past.(ii) A present characterized by lack of clarity.(iii) A future devoid of logical predictability.(iv) Absence of the certainty of the mystical.(v) The authority of the oracle. (Nasseem, Retrieved from the

Internet, July, 2009).The spatial change that has occurred has opened up African traditional

thought to a wider world of learning. This has activated the epistemological

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crisis as the movement of new methods of learning from one cultural area to the other introduced two profound phenomena,

(i) psychological violence, and

(ii) literary revolution. The literary revolution has affected the cognitive content and structure of

the African mind. Literacy demands that the African acquired a new way through which he perceives other worlds as well as his own world. The impact of this on African epistemology is that the African lost his concept of continuum between the subject and the object, while acquiring the other person’s subjectivity. The other person here is the new way through which he is forced to perceive. Thus, the African lost his concept of the “universe” and acquired a concept of a “multi-verse.” Unfortunately, this new concept, which he has adopted from the external, has no roots in his own ontological and contingent constitution.

The African achieves knowing through imagination, intuition, and feelings, thus he utilizes the oral traditions of music, folklores, myths, proverbs, and etc. With the literary revolution, the Western tradition dominated with analytical, discursive, and rigorous logic helped to open the African thought system to a scientific system. This opening was however betrayed by those who became scientifically exclusive and therefore arrogantly banished revelation i.e. intuition, as an epistemic medium.

Bodunrin, maintained that any argument in favour of African epistemology must be convincing with regard to a method of testing knowledge claims, which are basically African. In contrast to this, Uduigwomen argues that experimentation is not the only solution to disagreements regarding epistemic claims, especially in relation to perceptual knowledge. The traditional African would rather ask for the testimony of a third party to settle the difference. The important point here is that much more than the difference between belief and knowledge as one of the main preoccupation in Western epistemology, the African epistemologist is more interested in the truth or falsity of the epistemic claim.

The concern of the African when a claim to knowledge is made is mostly, whether it is true or false. As Sogolo (1993) records, talking about truth and falsity, Winch quoting Jarvie, argues that,

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Whether a statement is true or false will depend upon what it means. What it means … will depend upon how it is being used; how it functions as part of the form of life it belongs to. The notion then, of translating one form of life into the terms, concepts, preconceptions of another, does not make much sense. The way belief operates in a form of life is peculiar to that form of life. In particular, there is no reason to suppose that a statement true-to-them is translatable into a statement true-to-us but if it is translatable into a statement true-to-us that does not show that it is false-to-them. One way or another, it makes no sense to talk of true or false tout court.

There is a form of relativism in Winch’s argument that proposes that truth or falsity is culture-dependent. This is to say that what is true or false depends on the paradigms, which include the linguistic convention, of the given culture in which the claim is made. Thus, there is a denial by this argument of an extra-linguistic and universal concept of truth or falsity. Winch actually regards the latter as “the ‘senselessness’ of trying to translate the truth propositions of one culture from the standpoint of another.” (Sogolo, 1972).

To further the argument of Winch, let us use the Azande claim to the existence of witchcraft, which incidentally is common to most, if not all, African cultures. According to Winch, the proof of truth or falsity of this claim can only be established within the context of the Azande culture. This will involve the application of the Azande conception of truth and what they mean when they say a statement is true. This implies that there are no independent standards or criteria of truth applicable to all cultures. This does not include the thinking that no standard is applied; it simply means that the standard or standards applied by the Azande are non-comparable with those of other cultures.

The above argument of Winch considers it an erroneous assumption to think that the Azande claim to the existence of witchcraft can be established to be true or false through experimentation and scientific reasoning. It is an

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erroneous assumption because in the first place, the claim itself is neither a scientific hypothesis nor is it parasitic on scientific principles.

Like in most other African cultures, the Azande belief in the existence of witchcraft is tied to a whole form of life. Therefore, it cannot be considered, analyzed, or disputed outside the context of the form of life of which it is a part. Thus, if the part of the form of life to which a knowledge claim is made is to be judged true or false, it is to be done within the context of the whole form, to which the given claim is a part. The culture is to appraise the truth or falsity of its own part. Anthropologically, this may be true, but philosophy is universal and goes beyond individual cultures. Thus, the epistemologist can and should investigate to find the truth or falsity of such a claim relying on critical methods of inquiry at his disposal.

This argument of Winch does not go without criticisms; but as Sogolo affirms, “all in all, the various critics of Winch seem to concede to him as much as they reject in his thesis.” (Sogolo, 1993). Sogolo agreed also that “one thing, however, stands obvious, namely: that Winch’s most violent critics are adherents of the correspondence theory of truth…” So far, the correspondence theory of truth has failed to stand up to the massive attacks from rival theories like the coherence theory of truth.

The argument of Winch portrays an epistemological theory that is applicable to the thought system of most, if not all, African cultures. It conceives knowledge more as a product of societal convention rather than an objectivistic phenomenon. Thus, justification of knowledge claims is to be within the context of the culture within which the knowledge is made. Attempts to find justification for a claim made in one cultural context in another, would not only be senseless, but also, would not yield results, as the standards of both contexts may be incomparable.

The problem of scepticism is not a pronounced one in African epistemology; it is not an issue of contention. Given however that African epistemology rests its justification of knowledge claims within the context in which the claims are made, it would also have the problems that have confronted the various context-dependent theories in Western epistemology.

The reason why scepticism is not an issue of contention in African epistemology is the very fact that African epistemology is based on the African ontological conception that makes no sharp distinction between the subject and the object. Such a unitary conception of reality affords the African the luxury of

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combining a representative realist view of the world with the common sense argument against scepticism.

THE JUSTIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE IN AFRICAN EPISTEMOLOGY

Justification is the property ascribed to a belief in virtue of the belief satisfying certain evaluative norms, with regard to what a person ought to believe. The norms play the role of measuring the “correctness” of a belief, in relation to epistemic goals. These goals include attaining truth and avoiding error.

The justification of human knowledge is pitched against the doubts that we can attain the kind of certainty that is traditionally taken to be involved in knowledge. This is the same as asking whether it is possible to guarantee our knowledge claims against scepticism. Various theories of justification have evolved in the history of epistemology, they include, Foundationalism, Coherentism, Contextualism, Reliabilism, and Context-dependency theories.

African epistemology tends towards the view that Human and social-cultural factors necessarily interfere with human understanding thus, help, define rational certainty. Some authors have argued that, “given that traditional epistemology is mistaken in seeking to establish fixed and unshakeable criteria or foundations for evaluating the genuineness of knowledge claims in terms which are remotely impersonal and indifferent to the socio-cultural milieu where such claims are derived, we must return to a critical reconsideration of those primitive factors of human nature and his environment which we regard as ultimate grounds and justifiers of human knowledge claims.” (Aigbodioh, 1997) These factors are (i) linguistic-conceptual scheme, (ii) human nature, (iii) socio-cultural values and interests and (iv) customs and habit. They do not determine the truth or falsity of our epistemic claims since they are conditions of our human existence, but they are the human additions to our claims and “they work together in every culture to instil in the human mind the confident feeling that one knows.” (Aigbodioh, 1997).

Linguistic-Conceptual Scheme: According to Sapir as quoted in Hollis and Lukes (1983),

The “real world” is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the group. The worlds in which

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different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached. We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.

This implies that whether specific knowledge claims are true or false depends on what the human society allows us to say through the linguistic-conceptual medium of communication. This notion is built on the observation that both the language and the modes of conception that enables a given society to comprehend the reality around her ultimately determine the society’s perceptual experience of reality. Winch expressed this fact when he argued, as stated above, that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined by what the statement means, and what a statement means in turn is determined by how it is used as part of the form of life to which it belongs. By implication, language determines how we construe our experience and it is the means by which we comprehend and evaluate truth and reality. It means therefore that our linguistic conventions and thought-forms condition our understanding of truth and reality. (Sogolo, 1993). It means then that what is real and unreal depends on the paradigms and the linguistic convention of the culture that uses the concepts.

Within the African traditional set-up, for example, we talk about witches and different types of spirits. With particular reference to the people of Igarra, in the northern part of Edo State in Nigeria, for instance “ori” which translates into spirit-force. We have different types depending their places of abode. For instance, some are associated with rocks, others with water, and still others with specific forests and trees. These witches and spirits are said to exist and feature prominently in the people’s understanding of reality. The belief in the existence of witches and spirit is therefore an epistemic claim, which is tied to a whole form of life, and cannot be understood in isolation of the totality of the form of which they are part and parcel. Thus, we cannot start to speak about, understand and grasp the meaning of ori outside the form of life or context that is alien to the people of Igarra and expect them to understand and appreciate or even accept as true, our epistemic claims.

The truth and falsity of claims to the existence of metaphysical beings, such as witches and spirits among the Africans, cannot be verified verified by

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subjecting the claims to standards of justification other than that in which the claims have been made. This means that we cannot deny nor affirm the truth or falsity of such a claim by analysing the claim from the point of view of Western scientific procedures, such as observation, experimentation and generalization.

On this note the truth-condition of a knowledge claim is contingent to a large extent, on the prevalent manner of speaking in a cultural setting, for instance, on what the linguistic conventions are in a socio-cultural milieu. (Aigbodioh, 1997).

Human Nature: By “human nature” we mean those personal characteristics of man, which differentiate him from other animals. They may not be physically visible, yet remain an essential part of him. It consists of one’s emotions, likes, dislikes and persuasions. Thus we say that human nature entails that which is specifically peculiar about man.

Human nature plays a very important role in the construction of any viable theory of knowledge and has a conditioning influence on the extent to which man holds on to most of his entrenched beliefs. Personal human factors reinforce in man the conviction of the truth of our epistemic claims. Thus Godwin Sogolo argues that human beings are endowed with emotional attitude that allows them not to question the acceptance of certain kinds of beliefs. These are beliefs that are either assimilated from their cultures or based on the association of ideas. This acceptance is reinforced by the psychological reaction of the individual to his personal experiences. It is however not a psychological deficiency, it is part of what makes the man human and such inescapable human factors like emotions give our beliefs a certainty that it is justified.

Interest, Habits and Socio-Cultural Values: According to Aigbodioh, values and interests are understood within socio-cultural contexts and they play a vital role in our epistemic claims. This is with particular reference to the way we attribute truth-values to various propositions.

Among traditional Africans for instance, the appreciation of good health could and does influence their epistemic concept of health. The Traditional African has a holistic conception of health, which includes the physical and socio-psychological states and dispositions of a person. For the traditional Africa, to be healthy is to be in total harmony with all the forces that have effects in the well being of man. These forces include the various spirits identified above, among the Igarra’s. On the other hand, to be ill for the

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traditional African is to be hungry, unemployed, lazy, etc. Thus, Sogolo concludes that the conception of health is socio-culturally determined as a healthy person is one who is in total harmony with his environment and the forces surrounding him. This implies that the truth or falsity of certain notions and concepts are largely influenced by the socio-cultural conceptions of such notions and concepts. Therefore, when you say someone is healthy, the African would understand that such a person is free of physical and psychological disorder as well as in total harmony with the natural and supernatural forces around him. This is contrary to the Western conception of health as absence of physical or psychological disorder alone, which excludes the socio-cultural dimension.

Knowledge claims among traditional Africans are not validated in objectivist terms like the rationalist and the empiricist have often argued but with regards to habits and customs of the people. (Aigbodioh, 1997). As human beings we are naturally inclined to follow tradition and whenever we do, the tradition is reinforced in us such that we develop the habit of always following it. This implies that neither a-priori nor a-posteriori reasons alone suffice in the justification of human knowledge. In addition to a-priori and a-posteriori reasons, the justification of our epistemic or knowledge claims find support in the customs and habits that convince us of the truth and falsity of such claims.

African epistemology situates the justification of knowledge claims within the given context in which the epistemic claim is made. This is an inclination to the post-modernist idea of justification of knowledge as context-dependent. Following from Aigbodioh’s argument above, our understanding of the truth or falsity of our epistemic claims as conditioned by some factors that are human, social and cultural which play important role in the way the African understands and views reality suggests that African epistemologists should consider and take serious note of the role played by man as a human person and the society in which he lives, in establishing our knowledge claims. His argument is that there are no epistemic claims whose justification rest only on the prescribed objectivist terms of the rationalist and empiricist as we have it in traditional epistemology. If the justification of our knowledge claims is situated within social context and practices, we would no longer think of knowledge, truth and rational certainty in absolutely abstract terms alone. This would afford us a more comprehensive understanding of the concepts of knowledge, truth and rational certainty. Thus, there would not be the need to study these concepts

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independent of the factors he has alleged as necessary conditions for human knowledge.

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