Lecture Supplement on Barry Stroud’s “Understanding Human Knowledge In General”[1] [1989]

     Copyright © 2013 Bruce W. Hauptli

Stroud contends that while a long-standing tradition in epistemology leads to the belief that we either don’t know the sorts of things we think we know, or that we can’t quite fully see how what we take ourselves to “know” can, really, count as knowledge.  That is

308 …what we seek in epistemology [is]…to try to understand human knowledge in general, and to do so in a certain special way….I want to raise the possibility that, however much we came to learn about this or that aspect of human knowledge, thought, and perception, there might still be nothing that could satisfy us as a philosophical understanding of how human knowledge is possible. 

Of course, if this is the case, then we end up in a skeptical position!  However, we need to ask whether this is skepticism as it is traditionally construed.  If we are to understand Stroud’s argument we will need to become clear on a number of points first:

In his Meditations on First Philosophy [1641], Rene Descartes tries to conquer skepticism by beating the skeptics at their own game—he doubts everything until he finds something that is impossible to doubt (his own existence as a “thinking thing”), then he examines what it is about this knowledge claim which inures it from skepticism (its “clarity and distinctness”), and, finally, he tries to establish that all such ideas are known (because his deity guarantees them). 

Descartes’ argument is generally considered to be unsuccessful as it has to ground some knowledge claims in others, which require yet others; resulting either in a vicious regress or an arbitrary stopping point.  Neither of these, of course, leaves one really free of skepticism. 

Stroud points out that if one only wants an account of some particular sort of knowledge (e.g., knowledge of the external world, other minds, the past, etc.), such an appeal to truths of a “higher epistemic priority” will do just fine—one can rescue that kind of knowledge from skepticism by appealing to another sort of knowledge.  Given that we want a “general account of all human knowledge,” however, clearly this will not do! 

In contemporary epistemology, Descartes is considered an “internalist”—for our purposes, “...a theory of justification is internalist if and only if it requires that all the factors needed for a belief to be epistemically justified for a given person be cognitively accessible to that person, internal to his cognitive perspective; and  a theory is externalist, if it allows that at least some of the justifying factors need not be thus accessible, so that they can be external to the believer’s cognitive perspective, beyond his ken.”[2]  Many contemporary epistemologists adopt an “externalist” position contending that this will avoid Descartes’ problems.  A motivating factor in the adoption of this view is our belief that children and animals have perceptual knowledge, but are not able to engage in “Cartesian epistemological justificatory regress.”  Descartes, who believes that animals are “thoughtless brutes” (that is, that knowledge is a human and divine prerogative), could not be tempted to externalism because of a desire to show some continuity between human and animal knowledge (or perception).  Given his theology, however, and his belief that it is because specific ideas (or beliefs) are implanted in us by his deity, it may be contended that he may offer a proto-externalism wherein it is the outside source of our ideas (or beliefs) which, ultimately, guarantees the we have knowledge.  While this train of thought may be initially attractive, I believe it is ultimately incorrect because Descartes contends (as do all internalists) that the knower has a responsibility to understand the grounding of his beliefs. 

Stroud contends that externalism, not just internalism, falls prey to our epistemological desire for a “general account of all human knowledge.”  In short, were Descartes to adopt externalism (and forbear from trying to ground his appeal to higher order claims, principles, and truths) and

321 …if his theory is true [that his deity guarantees the truth of his clear and distinct ideas] he will know the things he thinks he knows.  But he is, in addition, a theorist of knowledge.  He wants to understand how he knows the things he thinks he knows.  And he cannot satisfy himself on that score unless he can see himself as having some reason to accept the theory that he…can recognize would explain his knowledge  if it were true. 

Here, Stroud suggests, we come up to the most important “dimension” of the generality which epistemologists seek (one which shows the problem whether one champions an internalism or an externalism):

316 we want an account that explains how human knowledge in general is possible, or how anyone can know anything at all in a certain specified domain.  The difficulty arises now from the fact that we as human theorists are ourselves part of the subject-matter that we theorists of human knowledge want to understand in a certain way.  If we merely study another group and draw conclusions about only them, no such difficulty presents itself.  But then our conclusions will not be completely general.  They will be known to apply only to those others, and we will be no closer to understanding how our own knowledge is possible.  We want to be able to apply what we find out about knowledge to ourselves, and so to explain how our knowledge is possible. 

Whether one takes the internalists’ first-person perspective, or the third-person perspective of the externalists, if one’s goal is to explain how anyone has knowledge; then one can not be satisfied with appeal to “higher level” knowledge or with an appeal to theories which, if true, would explain individuals’ knowledge. 

The Text:

Stroud maintains that:

307-308 what we seek in philosophical theory of knowledge is an account that is completely general in several respects.  We want to understand how any knowledge at all is possible—how anything we currently accept amounts to knowledge.  Or, less ambitiously, we want to understand with complete generality how we come to know anything at all in a certain specified domain. 

-308 in the case of material objects, we want to know how we know anything about these objects;

-in the case of other minds, we want to know how we know anything about these objects;

-in the case of induction, we want to know how we know anything about the future. 

311 The problem here is one of generality.  We can know what Smith thinks by asking him about his cognitive activities, but that gives us “knowledge” of another mind by presupposing knowledge of that very mind.  In short, this can not be generalized for all “other minds!” 

Descartes’ First Meditation shows us that we have too little to go on to allow us to have perceptual knowledge (similarly for knowledge of other minds). 

311 This apparent dilemma is a familiar quandary in traditional epistemology.  I think it arises from our completely general explanatory goal.  We want to explain a certain kind of knowledge, and we feel we must explain it on the basis of another, prior kind of knowledge that does not imply or presuppose any of the knowledge we are trying to explain. 

Unlike Unger, Stroud does not believe the problem is the “quest for certainty.”3  We could respond to questions about knowledge of other minds by appealing to behavior, or to questions about knowledge of objects by appealing to sense data; but when the problem is “generalized,” this strategy falls apart!  If skepticism is to be avoided we will need to know about the connections between behavior and minds, or between sense data and objects! 

312 Some epistemologists try to avoid the problem by appealing to postulates or principles.  But:

313 we would be left with the further question whether we know that that ‘principle’ is true, and if so, how.  And all the rest of the knowledge we wanted to explain would then be hanging in the balance, since it would have been shown to depend on that ‘principle.’ 

In short, here a regress arises.  Trying to talk about two sorts of “knowledge,” to avoid the problem, however, merely postpones the problem.  If the principles are independent of what depends upon them, that doesn’t explain why they are known!  Thus appeal to an a priori principle to explain a posteriori knowledge will only “help” if we can legitimate the appeal to the a priori principles. 

315 Some contemporary epistemologists think that the problem here is with the “internalist” presumption—the view that to know p, one must know that one knows p.  They offer an externalist account of knowledge holding:

315 …no independent or a priori support is needed on the part of the knower.  All that is needed is that a certain proposition should be true; the person doesn’t have to know that it is true in order to know the thing in question. 

316 [This view] explain[s] knowledge in terms of conditions that are available from an ‘external,’ third-person point of view, independent of what the knower’s own attitude towards the fulfillment of those conditions might be.  It is not all smooth sailing.  To give us what we need, it has to come up with an account of knowledge or reasonable belief that is actually correct—that distinguishes knowledge from knowledge in the right way. 

Here, Stroud suggests, we come up to the most important “dimension” of the generality which epistemologists seek:

316 we want an account that explains how human knowledge in general is possible, or how anyone can know anything at all in a certain specified domain.  The difficulty arises now from the fact that we as human theorists are ourselves part of the subject-matter that we theorists of human knowledge want to understand in a certain way.  If we merely study another group and draw conclusions about only them, no such difficulty presents itself.  But then our conclusions will not be completely general.  They will be known to apply only to those others, and we will be no closer to understanding how our own knowledge is possible.  We want to be able to apply what we find out about knowledge to ourselves, and so to explain how our knowledge is possible. 

That is, the Cartesian approach yields a “regress,” and the “externalist” approach would avoid the regress by not requiring that we “move up a level”—instead all we need to do is to be in the appropriate situation in terms of our knowledge claims.  But a Descartes who adopted externalism would be an unsuccessful epistemologist (as are all externalists, according to Stroud) because:

319 until he finds some reason to believe his theory [that his deity guarantees the truth of his clear and distinct ideas] rather than some other, he cannot be said to have explained how he knows the things he knows….if his theory is true [that his deity guarantees the truth of his clear and distinct ideas] he will know the things he thinks he knows.  But he is, in addition, a theorist of knowledge.  He wants to understand how he knows the things he thinks he knows.  And he cannot satisfy himself on that score unless he can see himself as having some reason to accept the theory that he…can recognize would explain his knowledge  if it were true. 

Stroud contends that this view also falls prey to our epistemological desire for a “general account of all human knowledge.”  In short, were Descartes to adopt externalism (and forbear from trying to ground his appeal to higher order claims, principles, and truths) and

321 …if his theory is true [that his deity guarantees the truth of his clear and distinct ideas] he will know the things he thinks he knows.  But he is, in addition, a theorist of knowledge.  He wants to understand how he knows the things he thinks he knows.  And he cannot satisfy himself on that score unless he can see himself as having some reason to accept the theory that he…can recognize would explain his knowledge  if it were true. 

322-323 Overall summary.  

Back to PHI 3300 Home Page

File revised on 09/05/2013.