Leontiskos wrote: ↑May 5th, 2022, 9:05 pm
GE Morton wrote: ↑April 29th, 2022, 9:14 pm
Leontiskos wrote: ↑April 6th, 2022, 4:48 pm
GE Morton wrote: ↑April 4th, 2022, 10:54 pm
No, we don't make that assumption before we witness the behavior. We begin that witnessing at birth, though childhood, before we ever embark upon philosophical inquiries into the nature of what we are witnessing.
The a priori assumption is made when we begin to construct theories to explain the phenomena we've experienced for years by that time; it is the starting point for those theories, but not the starting point of knowledge. Experience precedes theories; it is after all, what we are trying to explain with those theories.
Then I think you would do better to talk about inductive inference, as you were doing earlier in the thread. The premises you are thinking of are simply not
a priori vis-a-vis the behavioral observations I am referencing.
That would be a very weak inductive inference, based on a single confirmed case.
Even the statement that you made shows this to be false. "The
a priori assumption is made when we begin to construct theories to explain the phenomena we've experienced for years by that time;" Clearly this is not based on a single case, for you speak of phenomena in the plural over a matter of years.
The "phenomena we've experienced for years" is, 1) our own subjective experience, and 2) behavior we've observed by ourselves and others. The only confirmed case of a correlation between those two is our own case.
Further, you are clearly not talking about an a priori assumption if it is a conclusion based on, or presupposing, the theories we construct to explain phenomena we've experienced over a matter of years. In that case it is a posteriori, and it is inductive, as I noted.
The
a priori assumption is not a "conclusion based on theories." It is an assumption upon which those theories rest and from which they proceed. That's what "
a priori" means. We can't (rationally)
infer that others have minds based on the single confirmed case. But in order to explain the behavior we do observe, we assume,
a priori and without evidence, that they do. If we didn't we'd be left with solipsism.
GE Morton wrote: ↑April 29th, 2022, 9:14 pmWe make two metaphysical assumptions
a priori, before we undertake to explain our own existence and the phenomena we experience: 1) that there is an external world, and 2) that at least some other creatures/entities are also conscious. Without those assumptions we're trapped in solipsism. The question of just which creatures/entities those are is answered by inference from their behavior. Note that we make those assumptions even before we begin to philosophize ("naive realism"). Everyone makes them. Philosophers make them explicitly, and acknowledge that they are hypotheses, not "facts."
Maybe you make those assumptions, but I don't. I am an empiricist and my epistemology does not float two feet above the ground. I believe there is an external world and other creatures because I have evidence for those conclusions (which as you rightly note, are
hypotheses and not assumptions).
Well, no, you don't have empirical evidence for the existence of other minds. You have evidence for your own case only. And the only "evidence" you have for an external world are phenomenal impressions in your mind. That they are produced by entities or events in an external world is an assumption on your part. There is no difference, BTW, between an assumption and a "working hypothesis."
A note about "evidence": E serves as evidence for X IFF there is known relationship between E and X. An alien from Betelgeuse crash lands his saucer in northern Canada. Exiting the damaged craft, he observes a line of narrow depressions in the snow, running out of sight in both directions --- caribou tracks. For an Inuit hunter, those depressions would be evidence a caribou had recently passed that way. For the alien, who knows nothing animal life on Earth, they are evidence of nothing.
GE Morton wrote: ↑April 29th, 2022, 9:14 pm
Well, that is itself begging the question (by assuming a behavior reveals intentions and perceptions). We can only infer intentions (and other conscious phenomena) from behavior if we've
already assumed there is such a relationship in the cases of certain behaviors --- an assumption we make
a priori.
No, and now you're committing foundational logical errors. We don't have categories like 'intention' and 'behavior' in hand
a priori before we experience the world. It is only after experiencing the world that we come to understand such concepts. You are making the common mistake of assuming that all reasoning must be deductive or compositional (which is actually impossible). The simple, atomic elements which deductive and compositional logic manipulate and presuppose are known without deductive or compositional reasoning.
It is you who is begging the question, by assuming we "experience the world." We have experiences; that they are induced/produced by an external world is an
assumption. The "simple, atomic elements" of reasoning are those experiences --- which are all subjective, internal phenonema. But if we wish to explain them we're forced to
postulate an external world.
You also seem to be confusing knowledge with reasoning. Reasoning presupposes knowledge, which may be gained by experience (Russell's "knowledge by acquaintance"), by description, or by inference from the first two. Both deductive and inductive reasoning proceed from premises --- information already in one's possession.
So the reason we know that a human differs from an earthworm in the manner of intentionality is by observing humans and earthworms. God doesn't magically grant us a conception of intentionality and behavior before we ever experience intentionality or behavior (i.e. we do not know such things a priori). You are an anti-religious thinker and yet you are falling into what would be thought of as naive religious reasoning (such as the attribution of substantive a priori concepts - a sort of naive Platonism).
The term "intention" denotes that a given behavior was goal-directed, with attaining that goal the "intent" of the actor. But the only intentionality we experience is our own. For all other creatures (including other humans) we infer it from their behavior ---
provided we've assumed
a priori that correlation holds, given sufficient similarities between their behaviors and our own.
I'm also not sure you understand what is meant by an
a priori assumption. It has nothing to do with religion or anything transcendental or Platonic. It simply denotes the axioms we take as givens, in order to get explanation underway, off the ground, so to speak. Those assumptions are, at bottom, pragmatic.
I would claim that the inductive inference about the existence of other minds is grounded in the inductive inference about concretely existing minds, or more properly,
persons. The first logical step in the child's understanding of the existence of other minds is its understanding that its mother or father exist as other persons (and as other human beings).
I agree; it is what I said above. The child is automatically a "naive realist." But that is an assumption on his part, though he doesn't recognize it as such.
Well, no. Above you said that we make
a priori assumptions, not inductive inferences.
Correct. The child is
not making any inductive inference, and if he was, it would be a very weak one. He is assuming,
a priori, that other persons have minds. The only difference between the naive child's assumption and the philosopher's is that the latter recognizes it as such, while the child does not --- he sees it as "fact," or "truth." Questioning it does not occur to him.
Noted disagreements notwithstanding, those "other minds" you speak of cannot be thought to equally subsist in "humans, or snakes, or caterpillars, or pencils," and this is precisely why your conclusion about the subjective equivalence of humans and animals is false. There is an inductive rationale for why we attribute different natures to humans and animals, and your attempt to ignore that inductive rationale in favor of some sort of a priori equivalence just doesn't make sense.
You seem not to be grasping that argument. First, no one has suggested that the minds of humans, snakes, etc., are "equal," and certainly not that pencils might have minds. Nor do the authors contend that there is a "subjective equivalence" of animal and human consciousness. They only argue that many of the behaviors we take as evidence of consciousness in humans are also presented by some animals --- which is quite obvious. That leads to questions regarding the moral status of those creatures.
And you maintain that the behavioral evidence does not allow us to make traditional distinctions between humans and (non-human) animals?
It certainly allows us to make some distinctions, but not the distinctions we'd need to dismiss them all as creatures with moral status. Cruelty to animals is already nearly universally considered to be immoral, and is prohibited by law in most jurisdictions. The authors only suggest that status reaches a bit further into the animal kingdom than we currently assume.