Video Transcript: Epistemology - Can We Really Know Anything?

Henry Reyenga - Hi, Henry Reyenga again with Dr. Roy Clouser. I remember  when I took philosophy and the next section was epistemology. First of all, I  thought, epistemology, that's a strange word I've ever heard. So what are the  epistemology  

Dr. Clouser – It is strange comes from the Greek word epistēmē , which means  knowledge.  

Henry Reyenga 0:21 Okay, knowledge to know, knowing I mean, what does it  mean to know?  

Dr. Clouser - Well, the way Plato set this up in his famous dialog called the  Theaetetus, he sets it up so that the question being asked is, under what  conditions are we entitled to say we're sure of something rather than that it's  merely opinion? Okay. So it's my, it may be my opinion that this coming summer  is going to be unusually hot. But I don't really claim to know that for sure. Right.  But there are other things we do think we know for sure like to , are things equal  to the same thing? So not every knowing is of the same nature of knowing,  that's right. So how do we distinguish the things we're really sure of? What are  we entitled to be sure of? That's the way he set that up? That's been very  influential ever since. And so in epistemology when they say, We want to  account for knowledge, the question is, what can we know for sure? And what  makes it sure?  

Henry Reyenga - And this really becomes a huge question throughout the  history of philosophy.  

Dr. Clouser - Some of the early answers that are given by the ancient Greeks  were that the only things we could be sure of are logic and mathematics. That's  it. Everything else, everything else. Sense perception, we know, is sometimes  unreliable. And then when you come to the modern era, Descartes poses the  problem, how do we? How can we be sure we're not dreaming? Right? How do  we tell whether we're awake or asleep? And he comes to the strange  conclusion, in my view, that we can't, we can't tell whether it's nonsense, but  Right. But, okay, that's the way this stuff gets posed. And again, he's still working with what can we be sure of? It's not sense perception. But that's the thing.  Everybody all day everyday takes as sure. Yeah. Is there any traffic coming? No. How do you know, I looked up the street, and there's nothing coming. That's how we know. So the fact that every once in a while we can be fooled by a sense  perception is a different question. Not whether it says normal sense perception  ever yields, knowledge seems to me, but whether it's infallible, right. No, it's not  infallible, right. That's not the same thing. So I think it's a big mistake to rule out 

normal sense perception. But many philosophers have, Oh, they have in that  tradition that they're called rationalism, right, where they have their bias toward  the laws of rationality, the mathematical and logical laws.  

Henry Reyenga - They're biased toward the mean, that's all you can know that.  Logically, you're  

Dr. Clouser - so for Aristotle, principles of logic and mathematics and a few  metaphysical axioms are the only things that can be self evident.  

Henry Reyenga – So like something like God that cannot be known in their  minds.  

Dr. Clouser – Ah but, a lot of them made those things divine, so they're self  evident truths to them to them that those were the divine principles, because  they were changeless. And nothing could alter them. And they ruled everything  else.  

Henry Reyenga – So I know the creator in my heart and relate to the creator.  There's my self evident knowledge. It's a faith based knowledge. I mean, I  cannot prove it, I just know it.  

Dr. Clouser - But nobody can prove any self evident truths. That's the point. I  say, the law of non-contradiction can't be proven. You have to use it to prove  anything. So I think the New Testament writers actually speak of faith, of belief in God that God is real. As as a self evident truth. In Ephesians 1, Paul says to the  Christians, in the church of Ephesus, in the times past, you were without God  without hope, and you didn't know the truth. And now you see the truth with the  eyes of your heart. And those visual metaphors, right have long been used for  self evident truth. So you just see it you see that one and one is two. You don't  with your eyes right but with your mind, and that's the way he phrased that.  interesting.  

Henry Reyenga - So so it's think about self evident truth and epistemology. Is  epistemology. First or is knowledge first or is self evidency first?  

Dr. Clouser - Well, you If I'm right about self evidence, and it's just seeing that  something is prima facie true, or having that belief just produced in you, okay,  spirit, okay? Okay. Quick example, I may want it to be a nice day tomorrow  when I get when I pull the curtains out it's pouring rain. I don't choose what to  believe. Right? Right. I see it's pouring rain. It's prima facie true. It produces in  me the belief it's raining, it's not going to be the day you hoped for. Right? 

Okay? If that's right, and the restrictions put on it in the history of philosophy are  not, okay, then what we do is say we experience things to be self evidently true  all the time. Everybody does it all day, every day, that there's a chair over here  and a lamp over here. This is a road there, if there's a bus coming don't step out. And so on. Normal sense perceptions, the classic example of self evident truth,  then the axioms of math and logic, I'm not dismissing yes, they appear to be we  know them because they're self evident. But that's not the only thing. There are  other things. Memory beliefs are self evident, right? I know my name and  address and telephone number. If you if you side with the rationalist. And say it's only the principles of logic and mathematics that can be derived, then then you  don't really know your name, address and telephone. It's a pretty weird thing to  say. Sure, I do. And I know other facts about myself by introspection, right? I'm  slightly my right toe or something, right.  

Henry Reyenga - So what you're saying is, is that there's lots of streams of  knowledge that come through, I liked the concept that I remember from your  Christian philosophy class that I hope many of you eventually get to take. It's  this kind of like, okay, so in, in God, we can sort of see like, Okay, so the  daytime. Well, how we know it's day? Well, the sun's out, well, how do I know?  That's really day? Well, the sun is warm. Okay. Well, the sun gives me a  sunburn. So, ultimately, it's not just day, it's irresistibly day.  

Dr. Clouser - Yes. I don't know if it's all say that but great men, the vast majority  of our self evident beliefs are also initially irresistible. That's what I meant by  saying I see the rain and it just produced in me the belief, it's raining.  

Henry Reyenga - Outside, it's wet, it gets more and more wet.  

Dr. Clouser - It is possible after accepting the truth, because it's self evident, to  come to doubt it. That's not incompatible. Right? The truth? The fact is, for a  long time, skeptics have argued there is no genuine knowledge, right? There is  nothing we can be sure of because whatever can be doubted can't be certain. In my mind, this is a gross mistake. That's category mistake. The fact that I can  doubt something says nothing about whether it is really doubtful. I can make a  mistake about anything.  

Henry Reyenga – Right. In fact, doubting is a good test that we should have in  our lives in general, I should doubt whether I see correctly then car's not coming  that good called defensive driving, yes. Yeah.  

Dr. Clouser – So I check again. Kelvin is someone who knows this. I'm  impressed by him. He says, We hold things for certain and doubt them at the 

same time, right? They're not they're not mutually incompatible. The opposite of  knowing for certain is disbelief not doubt. Complete real disbelief, rejection.  That's incompatible. So it's not doubt. And he says, the life of the believer is a  constant struggle with doubt, right? We, we are never so well, in the  development of our faith, that we are immune from doubt.  

Henry Reyenga - So many implications of ministry, everybody. You face lives,  things happen, the problem of evil comes in there. You're, you're proclaiming  Christ. And I know it's true for myself, like, I could be preaching on a Sunday.  And then something happens, the death of a child of one of my parishioners.  

And then all of a sudden I'm checking, like, is this real? Those thoughts come  into your mind. So instead of like, so they ask, then I must not to be a believer.  It's more like saying, Hey, I am constantly checking, you know, and then the  mercies of God come to me. There fresh every morning, then I see there's  purposes. I see. There's things and then again, it's checked. I have doubts, but I  also see the faithfulness of God I experienced the faithfulness of God. You  know, there's a moment when, when God is working in a way that's so obvious.  So instead of becoming the cynic, even, you know, God's irresistibly presences,  even there in difficult times, which is what he promised that That's right. But he's not promising all the perfections. And if something bad happened there, you  know, again, that is such a common understanding, isn't it? We're talking about  knowledge here, see your philosophy, you know, the problem of evil the  problem, God, but in the end, it comes down to our thinking, too. So our belief  so like, Descartes had a famous phrase, I think, therefore, I am.  

Dr. Clouser - yeah, he too set up this mode as the quest for certainty. What are  we entitled to be certain of? And he too dismissed his sense perception. Okay,  because he says we can't be sure whether we're awake or asleep? I think no.  And he gives, He gives us the proof of that, that sometimes we have realistic  dreams. Right. And I've had them maybe 30 in my life where I, I really thought it  wasn't a dream. I thought that was really happening and then I woke up. Okay.  But that doesn't show that when we're when we're awake. We don't know we're  awake. When we're asleep, or we can't be sure we're asleep when he when he  needs the other way round. And he doesn't have it. Right. So anyway, yeah, he  sends up the same way. And then he came up with the only thing you can be  sure of was in self, that he was aware of things. That's what he means by I think, if I think if I must exist.  

Henry Reyenga - So that I'm a thinking person. I thinking thing. Because I'm a  thinking thing. I exist.

Dr. Clouser – Right. Because you'd have to exist in order to do the act of  thinking.  

Henry Reyenga -Is that where that whole the tree falls in the forest?  

Dr. Clouser - That's a play on the word hear, Oh, if a tree falls in the forest does  it make a noise. play on the word noise or one, In one sense. It doesn't make a  noise. If it's not heard. That's that's a heard noise. Right. What doesn't make  that. But does it make the usual fuss? In reality with the airwaves? That would  be noise if someone were there to hear it? Yes, of course. So it just is, is a  clever way of equivocating on the term there.  

Henry Reyenga - Okay, so in the world of the theory of knowledge, just as  epistemology or begins study, there are those who say, all we really can do is  just name things. So there not even real they there. We attribute some that we  give something a name. Oh, yeah. nominalism. So how does nominalism see  epistemology, the theory of knowledge?  

Dr. Clouser - People had trouble with a realistic theory of universals so that they  fled to nominalism. But nobody can be a complete nominalist. Really, it's not  possible. If we see things not only as entities that we perceive, but as kinds of  things. Okay, this kind of thing is a cherry this kind of thing is a rock, this is a  flower. And for that to be, so they have to have a certain combination of  properties. Right? Right. And nominalism the same? No, no, we just divide  reality up anyway we feal like it. So  

Henry Reyenga - we, we might call this a table. But your I might call it a table,  you might call it something else.  

Dr. Clouser - But it doesn't matter what I call it. If I have the same concept of it. I  can call it Okay, Mason, table, doesn't matter the word we use, what concept  does it signify the same concept or we couldn't talk to each other? We couldn't  communicate. So that shows that nominalism is the light red. Okay, I gotta know  if it's red or green.  

Henry Reyenga – And I know post, post modernism, sort of, in many places in  which we're going to learn in philosophy along the way. There's modernism.  Now modernism, basically, in epistemology says what?  

Dr. Clouser - Well, the modern period in philosophy was 1600 to1800. Descartes to Kant, right. And that's the enlightenment. Yes. All right. What's called  postmodern really grows out of pragmatism that originated in the US. We can all

hang our heads in shame. Yeah. But that's our major contribution. And in the  21st century, it's, it's come full blown. The end of the 20th 21st as postmodern,  and that is, there is no certainly, right of anything. So self evidence is nothing but you've been conditioned in a certain way. There are no arguments to prove this  or that we hold any beliefs that we hold, because it makes us happier than we'd  otherwise be. That's quote from Richard Rorty. And all this stuff, is everything is  loosey goosey, and it's all up for grabs. It's whatever you want to think is true.  Right? I think that is the most complete nonsense I've ever had anybody  

Henry Reyenga - forget that we're in epistemology knowing so it goes from the  Greeks, who basically we can only know logic, okay, that it sort of, you know,  there's a Christian period of middle evil periods, where they're sort of synthesis,  you know, the perfections. In medieval we can know, the perfections and the  perfections are knowable and their god, okay, then we go into the Enlightenment period, where I am a thinking person, therefore, I'm thinking thing, therefore, I  can know because I know that I'm thinking about to be sure, sure, right. So then  then, you know, 1801, Immanuel Kant passes away, and I have this you know,  so the modernism is really saying that the certainty is you know Immanuel Kant.  we can here he defined certainty so obviously he  

Dr. Clouser - he defined table for what the certain was the whatever the  categories of the understanding imposed upon our sense perception, and what  the categories impose or logical concept logical or mathematical order, okay?  space, space time are already imposed. But that would count as knowledge.  these knowledge that will be scientific knowledge, okay? What can be proven  comes down on the rational side. Okay, but Kant also puts forward his notion of  ideas of the reason, okay, this means that any rational being, thinking about the  world, around him or herself, and their place in the world, is bound to come up  with the idea with such ideas as freedom. I'm free to act Right, and I'm  responsible for what I do, is bound to come up with the idea. There are objects  out there that are independent of me, to come up with the idea, there's the most  real being is God. okay. And these ideas of the reason can't be proven. They  can't be proven false, they can't be proven true, right? The idea that the  categories of the understanding are not applied to them, they're applied to  sensations, right. So there's no way to establish the truth of any of these. But  there are practical necessities. People need these in order to get along in life.  And that's exactly what pragmatists picks up. In effect, it says, all our concepts  and beliefs are like Kant's ideas of reason. the third thing says none of the  others are even logic, even logic and science. It's all just some stories we tell  ourselves, and they're all in the category of ideas that can't be proven or  disproven 

Henry Reyenga - now, where the existential is in that mix, how do they  acknowledge Terminology, you don't get a lot of theories of knowledge from  essentially, they're just pushing back.  

Dr. Clouser - They're more concerned with ontology and they're concerned with  the place of the human being, in reality, okay. And the rest of reality,  

Henry Reyenga – So they're not even dealing with questions of epistemology.  They're dealing with questions of ontology and our relationship to ontology and  okay,  

Dr. Clouser - and of course, and they differ so radically, it's hard to characterize  them, okay. So, if you talk about John Paul Sartre is concerned is about humans and human freedom. So, his, his position is that this is rather strange. When  When human being comes into existence, when humans are first born, they are  completely free. And with every decision with every choice they make, they box  themselves into a particular nature, or habit of thought. And so they are literally  self made. When they when they're first born, they're nothing. They have no  nature. They create their own nature. That's, that's the meaning of being and  nothingness is being interpreted. Nothingness is free. So now they make choice  after choice after choice, and they become less and less and less free and more determined as to what they'll do next. So he says we're doomed to Be free.  Okay, and we can't get rid of it. But there it is. So as far as the existence of God  all  

Henry Reyenga - this, so that would be an ontology question because it's really  the person and relationship  

Dr. Clouser - ontology of human beings. Heidegger has another view, of course,  not that humans determine their own nature, but that they're just thrown into the  world, they find themselves surrounded by all this mess. And he sends off and  so on. You get very different thinker, Jaspers yes, first, was closer to Christian  belief. Or Kierkegaard was a Christian. He's often called the first existentialist  but not because he did this kind of crazy stuff. Right, what he was really after  affirming, wasn't there are humans and they are responsible before God. And  we do have freedom. And he wanted to assert all that against Hegelian  philosophy. He's a progenitor, but of going in a different direction, but he's not  really in the class for the rest of us.  

Henry Reyenga - So to wrap up the epistemologies discussion, let's go back to  Dooyeweerd, Christian philosopher, Herman Dooyeweerd that Dr. Clouser 

studied. And he was actually the last living person as of 2019, who studied with  him. And it was fascinating. How would he look in epistemology?  

Dr. Clouser - Dooyeweerd developed an ontology, and he never developed a  corresponding epistemology. Okay, so he did write a section, in which he said,  here's the prospects for how epistemology ought to go, if this ontology is correct. And it seems to me that the epistemology that I propose in my third book is in  accord with that, okay, so briefly, he doesn't violate it. Well, I think a great many  more of our beliefs are self evident, has been given credit for in the tradition,  that way, all the way back to Plato and Aristotle's time, they allowed self evident  beliefs to count as knowledge, but they put three restrictions on them. Okay.  They said to be a really genuine self evident belief. It can't just be this prima  facie true and resistible and it has to be accepted by everybody. Okay, one  everybody now, Aristotle says, All the experts in the fields in which the belief  arises, or Descartes says anyone who is in least degree rational, he  democratizes it. Number two, it has to be a law. Okay. Only laws can be self  evident, necessary truths. So, in other words, that there's a chair over there, or I  know my name, address and telephone number. I don't know them. And third, if  if all the experts or everybody does agree, and it's a law, it's self evident, it's  infallible can't be wrong. Oh, infallible. Okay, so they put those restrictions on.  Now, when it comes down to, say, the 20th and 21st century, our time? Yeah. It's the being self evident to everyone that they take to be the hallmark of a self  evident truth. Oh, they picked that one that because democracy always talked  about is well, if it's obvious to everybody, the 51% Agree or sorry, weird. Politics,  epistemology, how then would you ever tell for any truth whatsoever, that  everybody agreed it's self evident? Everybody doesn't mean all the people alive  now. It means all the people that ever did live, and all the people that ever will.  How are you going to canvass the dead and the unborn? There's no way to find  out whether everybody regards this, or even all the experts again, right? How  about the dead experts and the unborn experts? There's no way to check this at  all. Are you going to say that this, that this restriction is itself self evident? Well,  it's not to me, no. And therefore, it's not,  

Henry Reyenga - Oh, there's the logical fallacy. You would believe in that  Christian philosophy world by not creating an idol, even out of the  democratization of certainty. So in a sense, is that that's what this would be. It  would be, you know, the, the item would be democracy of certainty.  

Dr. Clouser - Yeah. Things or if something is self evident to a person and it  passes the checks. Right now, that's another thing that I've tried to do. That I  don't try and emphasize by anyone else. Right. When we do experience  something is self evident. That's not the end of it. We check on it. All right. So 

we've already given the examples looking up the street, and there's nothing  there. But I look again to make sure. For memory beliefs, I check against  photographs, somebody are going to somebody else. How do you remember  that? Right? We don't check with other people on our internal states,  introspection, but we do have memories, and so on. And even the so called  Rational truths, laws of logic and mathematics. Those we checked by seeing if  they are consistent with one another for a consistent set. The axioms are  consistent. But there are a lot more truths that we know intuitively. We know in  the same manner in which we know rational truths that aren't just rational truths.  I don't like calling them that. Right. For example, everybody who's born,  acquires instantly the beliefs on other people have minds, right? Not because  they see the other person's mind. Right. It's in our experience to become self  evident. Everybody who born no matter where they are, they all believe that they act freely, that they're responsible for their choices. When other people do rotten things that was really rotten, they've experienced that there are moral truths that  are independent themselves. So all that stuff, I think is self evident if it's properly defined, the restrictions are nonsense, using polite right, to restrict, take in the  new book, I take each of the restrictions and show that they're self defeating,  unjustified and inconsistent with one another.  

Henry Reyenga - So really, then, you know, you think of God's word is His  revealed Word and creation, the laws and we know spiritually a word from the  word of God, the Bible, we have been given the gift of the history of the  experience of other humans, a lot of philosophy a lot in the fact that I know the  human brain right here, and that I self evidently acknowledged that it I have one  in me, that Decartes thinker thing that we feel when  

Dr. Clouser - we're cutting each others heads open and see the brain potentially  the mind. Right. We believe other people have minds. Everybody believes it  naturally, this self evident beliefs.  

Henry Reyenga - So here you are, you're in epistemology. Enjoy it. You've we've raised some questions in I never went and. Dr. Clouser has said in previous  session that raising the questions is a lot of it. And as you study it, study for  yourself and see how you can see the nature of creation and see how the  beauty of God's revelation so Anyway, until next time, we'll talk to you later.