The Web of Belief by Quine and Ullian Article Review Self Evidence from Web of Belief by Quine and Ullian. Write a 600 – 800 word reaction/review. Discuss

The Web of Belief by Quine and Ullian Article Review Self Evidence from Web of Belief by Quine and Ullian. Write a 600 – 800 word reaction/review. Discuss to what self-evident beliefs owe their truth? In your discussion, include mention of the following concepts: logical truth, logical form, demonstrability, and logical implication. Compare and contrast logical truth and mathematical truth. Include a discussion of limiting principles as self evident truths. The Web of Belief
By W. V. Quine, J. S. Ullian
The Web of Belief
By W. V. Quine, J. S. Ullian
About
McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages; 2nd edition (February 1, 1978)
Source: Found on the internet.
Contents
About……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..2
Chapter I – INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………………………..3
Chapter II – BELIEF AND CHANGE OF BELIEF ……………………………………………………………..6
Chapter III – OBSERVATION …………………………………………………………………………………………12
Chapter IV – SELF-EVIDENCE……………………………………………………………………………………….21
Chapter V – TESTIMONY ………………………………………………………………………………………………30
Chapter VI – HYPOTHESIS…………………………………………………………………………………………….39
?hapter VII – INDUCTION, ANALOGY, AND INTUITION ……………………………………………..50
Chapter VIII – CONFIRMATION AND REFUTATION ……………………………………………………..58
Chapter IX – EXPLANATION ………………………………………………………………………………………..65
Chapter X – PERSUASION AND EVALUATION …………………………………………………………….75
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Chapter I – INTRODUCTION
Our word “science” comes from a Latin word for knowledge. Much that we know does not count as
science, but this is often less due to its subject matter than to its arrangement. For nearly any body
of knowledge that is sufficiently organized to exhibit appropriate evidential relationships among its
constituent claims has at least some call to be seen as scientific. What makes for science is system,
whatever the subject. And what makes for system is the judicious application of logic. Science is
thus a fruit of rational investigation.
The scientific community is no private club. In principle, and in the best and broadest sense of the
words, scientific inquiry can be undertaken by anyone on almost any subject matter. Practically
speaking, such inquiry often demands a vast fund of background knowledge and a sizable team of
cooperating inquirers, not to mention sophisticated equipment; this is because human knowledge
has already progressed so far. But at root what is needed for scientific inquiry is just receptivity to
data, skill in reasoning, and yearning for truth. Admittedly, ingenuity can help too.
Of course science is not the only discipline that brings enlightenment; literature and the arts teach us
too. One pities the person who derives nothing from poetry or music. It has been supposed by many
that appreciation of the arts bears little relation to knowledge as such, as if appreciation springs
from the heart while knowledge resides in the brain. But some recent writers, like Nelson
Goodman, have argued convincingly that such appreciation has a much more substantial cognitive
component than has been widely realized. “Cognitive”, we note, comes from a Latin word for
acquiring knowledge or coming to know.
But even as light is opposed by darkness, science and reason have their enemies. Superstition and
belief in magic are as old as man himself; for the intransigence of facts and our limitations in
controlling them can be powerfully hard to take. Add to this the reflection that we are in an age
when it is popular to distrust whatever is seen as the established view or the Establishment, and it is
no wonder that anti-rational attitudes and doctrines are mustering so much support. Still, we can
understand what encourages the anti-rationalist turn without losing our zeal for opposing it. A
current Continuing Education catalogue offers a course description, under the heading
“Philosophy”, that typifies the dark view at its darkest: “Children of science that we are, we have
based our cultural patterns on logic, on the cognitive, on the verifiable. But more and more there has
crept into current research and study the haunting suggestion that there are other kinds of
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knowledge unfathomable by our cognition, other ways of knowing beyond the limits of our logic,
which are deserving of our serious attention.” Now “knowledge unfathomable by our cognition” is
simply incoherent, as attention to the words makes clear. Moreover, all that creeps is not gold. One
wonders how many students enrolled.
Not that soberly seeking to learn is all there should be; let there be fun and games as well. But let it
also be clear where the boundaries are. A person might have a moderately amusing time playing
with a ouija board, but if he drifts into the belief that it is a bona fide avenue to discovery then
something has gone amiss. We will not pursue the possible socio-benefits of anti-rational doctrines;
in our eyes, much better escapes from reality are available, if that’s what’s wanted. In the chapters
ahead we will be interested in the ways of acquiring and sustaining right beliefs, be they pleasant or
painful.
The avowedly anti-rational doctrines are fairly easy to spot; what can be harder is seeing which
doctrines are only masquerading as science. There has been a proliferation of masqueraders of late,
though the most renowned, astrology and numerology, have been with us since antiquity. But now
there are biorhythms and engrams to bolster a store already bulging with orgon boxes and dowsing
rods, to cite just a few pretenders. And each elaborate doctrine has or has had its swarm of devout
followers. How does this happen, if the doctrines are so wrong?
The basic reasons are fairly obvious. For one thing, much science has grown so sophisticated that
its practice is out of reach for most of us. To be a solid state physicist or nuclear biologist you need
years of training; nor do you need much less for medicine or experimental psychology. Accordingly,
what we hear from specialists in such fields is often hard for us to comprehend. It is as if they speak
a different language. But even more to the point, for all their alleged expertise and renown there are
basic questions that they are unable to answer-conspicuously on such vital subjects as disease and
emotional disorder. Ig norance on these matters can be frightening. And the response to fright is
frequently to pursue whatever course offers hope of relief from it, without pausing to examine
credentials.
And so come the cults, claiming to meet the needs that science has thus far failed to meet-and
offering the prospective inductee a place on the ground floor. Some cults may be harmless enough,
but whenever false doctrine is propagated there is some cost. Many such doctrines are dressed up as
sciences in their own right. For even though established science may be distrusted, “science” is still
a thumbs-up word for most people. So we find many of these theories borrowing liberally from
genuine science, and many more using terms that sound, to the uninitiated, like the stuff of which
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true science is made. Now many of the bogus doctrines are actually unintelligible; their seeming
content simply vanishes when closely scrutinized. But given the incomprehensibility of so much
genuine science for so many of us, that very unintelligibility can be mistaken as a sign of
authenticity. Alas, it can even inspire reverence.
Often such doctrines are accompanied by defiant attacks on the scientific establishment. Science is
said to be in the hands of vested interests. Now there have indeed been vested interests that have
blocked progress; so such attacks can strike a responsive chord. But there seems to be no end to
how far such accusations can go. Not long ago there was a pamphlet available that “proved” ? to be
expressible as a fraction. The scientific aristocracy, so it claimed, had had its purposes in
suppressing this result. But now, for a small price, the truth was out.
When it is a mathematical truth that is assailed there is likely to be a definitive way of settling the
issue; so, happily, it is with ?. For many doctrines, though, there is this protective argument: you
(pointing to the follower of the scientific establishment) can’t disprove it! And to be sure, many of
these theories that lie on or beyond the fringe of believability cannot be definitively shown to be
wrong. Indeed many of them are cast in terms that are so cloudy that it is hard to know what would
count as a refutation of them; for they are not intelligible in the first place. And here the naivete of
the believer may blend with his instinct for giant-killing. He thinks that the fact that his belief can’t
be knocked all the way over is additional ground for embracing it; and he may rejoice in finding
that all the mighty scientists can’t put him down. A victory, of sorts, over those in power.
Many theories, good and bad, do not admit of absolute proof or disproof; we will soon be stressing
some of the reasons why this is so. Sadly, it is not just false science that has wantonly traded on this.
A few years ago there were large advertisements in major newspapers in which cigaret
manufacturers proudly announced that they were about to have independent researchers prove that
there was not, after all, any causal connection between cigaret smoking and lung cancer. Evidence
amassed in support of the connection was already overwhelming, and it should have been
acknowledged as such. But, grasping at the realization that a causal connection had not been shown
to exist with absolute certainty, these advertisers were magnifying the less than reasonable residual
doubt into a proclamation of confidence in the opposite claim. Moreover, the very attitude of proper
science was perverted by what they promised; for proper science aims at truth wherever it lies,
rather than at support for a profitable industry.
Our train of thought, we notice, has led us to show some signs of distrust ourselves. And we have
all but pointed a finger at some vested interests! Sometimes, we admit, it is warranted. And
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sometimes, whatever their motives, even eminent persons of science turn out to have been wrong all
along. In science, as elsewhere, use of the soundest methods does not bestow a guarantee that viable
theory will accrue. Nor, it should be said, does improper method, even combined with the lowest of
motives, altogether preclude arrival at truth. But it makes it very unlikely.
In the chapters ahead we will broach many of the criteria by which reasonable belief may be
discriminated from unreasonable belief. But not only are the criteria not foolproof; they do not
always even point in a unique direction. When we meet the Virtues for assessing hypotheses we will
find that they require us to look at candidates for belief in multiple ways, to weigh together a variety
of considerations. Decisions in science, as in life, can be difficult. There is no simple touchstone for
responsible belief.
Chapter II – BELIEF AND CHANGE OF BELIEF
One’s repertoire of beliefs changes in nearly every waking moment. The merest chirp of a bird or
chug of a passing motor, when recognized as such, adds a belief to our fluctuating store. These are
trivial beliefs, quickly acquired and as quickly dropped, crowded out, forgotten. Other beliefs
endure: the belief that Hannibal crossed the Alps, the belief that Neptune is a planet. Some of one’s
beliefs are at length surrendered not through just being crowded out and forgotten, but through
being found to conflict with other beliefs, new ones perhaps, whose credentials seem superior. It is
this need to resolve conflicts that prompts us to assess the grounds of belief, and so to turn to such
reflections as will mainly occupy us in these pages.
Let us consider, to begin with, what we are up to when we believe. Just what are we doing? Nothing
in particular. For all the liveliness of fluctuation of beliefs, believing is not an activity. It is not like
scansion or long division. We may scan a verse quickly or slowly. We may perform a division
quickly or slowly. We may even be quick or clow about coming to believe something, and quick or
slow about giving a belief up. But there is nothing quick or slow about the believing itself; it is not a
job to get on with. Nor is it a fit or mood, like joy or grief or astonishment. It is not something that
we feel while it lasts. Rather, believing is a disposition that can linger latent and unobserved. It is a
disposition to respond in certain ways when the appropriate issue arises. To believe that Hannibal
crossed the Alps is to be disposed, among other things, to say “Yes” when asked. To believe that
frozen foods will thaw on the table is to be disposed, among other things, to leave such foods on the
table only when one wants them thawed.
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Inculcating a belief is like charging a battery. The battery is thenceforward disposed to give a spark
or shock, when suitably approached, as long as the charge lasts; similarly the believer is disposed to
respond in characteristic ways, when suitably approached, as long as the belief lasts. The belief, like
the charge, may last long or briefly. Some beliefs, like the one about Hannibal, we shall probably
retain while we live. Some, like our belief in the dependability of our neighborhood cobbler, we
may abandon tomorrow in the face of adverse evidence. And some, like the belief that a bird
chirped within earshot, will simply die of unimportance forthwith. The belief that the cobbler is
dependable gives way tomorrow to a contrary belief, while the belief in the bird is just forgotten. A
disposition has ceased in both cases, though in different ways.
Grammatically the verb “believes” is transitive, like “kicks” or “drives”. We say “He believes it” just
as we say “He kicks it,” “He drives it.” This circumstance could tempt one to think of belief as an
activity, which we saw it is not. But it can still raise a philosophical question as to the nature of the
objects of belief. The object kicked may be a ball or a donkey; the object driven may be ? ??r or ?
donkey; but what sort of object is believed? Something intangible, evidently; something named by
prefixing the word ‘that’ to a subordinate sentence. We believe that Hannibal crossed the Alps. We
believe that Neptune is a planet. What manner of thing is this believed thing-that Hannibal crossed
the Alps? To say that it is just the sentence itself seems mistaken. Foreign speakers, after all, are
said to share the belief that Hannibal crossed the Alps, even when they do not understand the
English sentence. We also like to attribute a belief to a dumb animal, on the strength of his
dispositions. So with the dog who wags his tail at the sound of a car in the driveway. And we
sometimes even like to distinguish two beliefs when the sentence is one; for instance, the sentence
“I am Napoleon” expresses different beliefs about Napoleon when uttered by different patients.
Therefore, one tends to conclude that the things believed are not the sentences themselves. What
then are they?
This, like various other philosophical questions, is better deflected than met head on. Instead of
worrying about the simple verb “believes” as relating persons to some manner of believed things,
we can retreat to the word-pair “believes true as relating men directly to sentences. We car refreat to
this without claiming that believed things are sentences; we can simply waive that claim, and the
philosophical question behind it. After all, our factual interest in what some speaker of English
believes is fully satisfied by finding out what sentences the speaker believes to be true.
And what criterion have we for saying that someone believes a sentence to be true? For most
purposes the criterion is the obvious one: he or she assents to the sen tence when asked. The
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criterion can fail if the person either does not understand our language or chooses to deceive us.
Also the criterion is inadequate to the purposes of a psychiatrist who wants to provide for some
manner of unapprehended belief or disbelief. But it is perhaps criterion enough for us.
To be quite exact, “believes true” should be seen as relating persons not to sentences but to
individual acts of sentence utterance. For, as illustrated by “I am Napoleon” or “The door is open,”
one utterance of a sentence can be true and another false. In general, however, it is easier to specify
a sentence, simply by quoting it, than to specify some individual act of utterance. So let us continue
to speak simply of sentences as true and as believed true, except where confusion threatens.
For that matter, where no confusion threatens, it will be convenient and natural to go on speaking
even in the old way of what a person believes, instead of what the person believes true. But
whenever we are threatened by the philosophical question of objects of belief, we can gratefully
retreat to the more explicit idiom which speaks of believing sentences true, or, ultimately, of
believing utterances true.
It is important to distinguish between disbelief and nonbelief-between believing a sentence false
and merely not believing it true. Disbelief is a case of belief; to believe a sentence false is to believe
the negation of the sentence true. We disbelieve that there are ghosts; we believe that there are none.
Nonbelief is the state of suspended judgment: neither believing the sentence true nor believing it
false. Such is our attitude toward there being an even number of Paul Smiths in Boston. This is still
nothing so contentious as believing the sentence to be neither true nor false; on the contrary, it is
simply the absence of opinion. English usage is perverse on the point: we say, confusingly, the
weaker “I don’t believe so” to mean the stronger “I believe not.’ But the fact is, taking is, alence at
random, that belief and disbelief are less usual than non-belief. Are there an even number of Paul
Smiths in Boston? Will it rain in Pontiac next Labor Day? English being what it is, we answer “I
don’t know,” because it would be misleading to say “I don’t believe so.” But our state is simple
nonbelief.
The flight to “I don’t know” compounds the perversity of idiom, for knowing is quite a special kind
of believing; you can believe without knowing. Believing something does not count as knowing it
unless what is believed is in fact true. And even if what is believed is true, believing it does not
count as knowing it unless the believer has firm grounds for belief. Emily knows that her name is
‘Emilly’, having had firm and abundant evidence of it over the years. We must still count her as
knowing it even though she cannot remember the evidence now. But Emily may merely believe and
not know that the mayor is corrupt, corrupt though he is; for Emily has read only the innuendoes of
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the rival candidate.
In some aberrant uses that pretend to be especially deep, the words “knowledge” and “truth”
become tinged with a mystical aura. There need be no mystery about either one of them. Truth is a
property of sentences; it is the trait shared equally by all that would be rightly affirmed. And
knowledge, in its clearest sense, is what we have of those truths if our beliefs are solidly enough
grounded. As an aspiration, knowledge is in some ways like a good golf score: each is substantially
the fruit of something else,…
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