 Hello, everybody, and welcome to the second episode of Patterson in Pursuit. I am your host, Steve Patterson, and we officially begin the Socratic journey in upstate New York. If you've followed my work for a while, you know that I'm not the biggest fan of academia to say the least. I had a very underwhelming college experience. The reason is because nobody seemed to care about big ideas. The students didn't care, the professors didn't care, the administration didn't care. There were always some exceptions. And at Alford University, which is where I got my degree in upstate New York, one of the exceptions was a guy named Dr. Emerus Westacott. In terms of our philosophy is when I was getting my undergraduate education, Dr. Westacott's philosophy was the exact opposite of mine. He was a relativist socialist, and I was a rationalist libertarian. But we always got along great. He's always been super respectful. I've always enjoyed conversations with him. He's very well spoken. He's a great writer. And he's also got a killer British accent, which helps when you're listening to philosophy to have something that makes the experience a little bit more entertaining. And I figured it'd be perfectly appropriate to start the Socratic journey interviewing somebody who believes the opposite of you. The conversation was so good that the interview lasted over an hour. It was like a half an hour on objective truth. And then the second half hour, we talked about the philosophy of mine. But I thought, you know, I'm releasing this new series and I just don't think it's a good idea to have the first interview be this block of one hour that everybody's got to sit down and listen to. So I've split it up. Episode two, we're going to be talking about objective truth. And then the next episode, episode three is when Dr. Westacott and I talk about the philosophy of mine. So make sure once you're done with this, if you still have an appetite for more philosophy, check out that next episode. All right. So that's enough preface. I hope you enjoy my interview with Dr. Emerson Westacott, who is the professor of philosophy at Alfred University. So first of all, Dr. Westacott, thank you very much for sitting down and speaking with me today. You're welcome. This interview is going to be kind of the beginning of a series of interviews I'm going to be doing across the world. And I figured it would be most appropriate if I start at my alma mater at Alfred University. And I figured also it would be appropriate as if what we could talk about is what I consider to be a fairly central question, maybe even the central question or central starting point. And that's about the question of objective truth. So in your own worldview, in your own philosophy, do you think that there is such a thing as objective truth or in your mind is everything ultimately subjective? No, I don't think everything is ultimately subjective. I mean, if you jump out of a skyscraper, you'll plummet to your death. It's not subjective. You'll stop thinking, lose consciousness. So I do think there is such a thing as objective reality. In a sense, I do think there's such a thing as objective truth. I certainly think that the concept of objective truth is one that we pretty much can't live without. In the same way, I actually don't think we can really live without the concept of free will because people can't get through life without assuming that their actions are, to some extent, under their control. And you can't get through life without constantly exchanging information with people on the assumption that statements can be true or false. And so at the everyday level, the level of everyday discourse, is there a mug on the table? I'm sure there's a mug on the table. Are there clouds in the sky? Yes, there are clouds in the sky. At that level, I have no problem. I think my view of truth is pretty conventional and unconventional. It's just straightforward correspondence theory of truth. Statements are true when they correspond to reality, when they describe it accurately. But that's fine at the level of everyday discourse. It's not so good at a deeper philosophical level because then the philosopher asks, OK, how do we decide whether a statement corresponds to reality accurately describes it? And then you immediately have to say, well, we have certain criteria. We use epistemic norms, such as coherence with our other beliefs, the evidence of our senses, the belief that we are not dreaming, the belief that our senses are working. And even, to some extent, things like simplicity, all things being equal, simple theories are supposed to be better, that's our common's razor. Or even aesthetic criteria, even Einstein argued that sometimes the beauty of a theory might be an argument in its favor. And so we then say, OK, we work with these criteria. How do we know that the criteria we're working with are the best ones? Because there are rival criteria. For instance, I say the world is more than 6,000 years old. Some people say, no, it's not. I say, what's your evidence? They say, according to the Bible, the world is less than 6,000 years old. One of their norms, one of their epistemic norms is coherence with the Bible. If something doesn't go here with the Bible in their view, then it can't be true. But that's not one of my epistemic norms. Now, how do I argue with that person? How do I say my epistemic norms are better than yours? Ultimately, and this is where my view is probably a minority view. Ultimately, I think there's a point where your spade is turned, where you can't demonstrate with a conclusive argument that your epistemic norms are better than someone else's. And the reason you can't is because every argument requires premises. A person, you can only demonstrate something if you have agreed upon premises. I can't demonstrate to someone who's absolutely convinced that the biblical norm is the right one to use, that it's the wrong one to use. What I can do is I can try to make my point of view persuasive. I can say, for instance, if you go with my epistemic norms, you'll be able to make better predictions about the way the world works. It will be fruitful, you'll be happier, you'll live more productively. I can make these appeals, but they're not conclusive, absolute mathematical demonstrations. They're pragmatic appeals. So would you say then that you reject the idea of there being any kind of ultimate epistemological foundation that everybody can agree on and say, now these are the certain truths that are objective, and if you disagree, your epistemic foundation is just objectively flawed? I think this, that one issue is, is there a set of epistemic norms or criteria of truth that human beings might eventually all agree on? Now it's possible there is, it's possible that in several centuries time, humanity will converge on a set of epistemic norms. If that happens it would probably be pretty close to what we think of a scientific criteria of truth. In the same way we might like to think that in several centuries humanity will converge on a set of epistemic norms pretty much like something like the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights or something like that. We're obviously a long way off that at the moment. But even here's the philosophical point. Supposing it did happen, supposing humanity converged and there was among the 10 billion people on earth, there was unanimous agreement about what the correct criteria of truth were. That doesn't prove that those criteria really are giving you the truth. Now a term that you keep using is epistemic norms. And I think in phrasing it that way it kind of implies that there's, that social convention is what determines epistemic methodology or something like that. What if we change that? If I were to say well, there are certainly epistemic norms in terms of describing how people come to arrive at their conclusions. The Bible is a great example in religious communities. You could say accurately so that within religious communities they have these certain set of criteria and then that's why they believe what they do. And from my own perspective this is the case. Wouldn't you say those criteria are objectively flawed to arrive at known conclusions? So if I have a, this is an example that I'd love to give. If you have a dartboard and you put a bunch of propositions on the dartboard and the cat is sitting on, there's a cat sitting on the chair and it is raining right now and so on and then you throw a dart at the dartboard and you believe that wherever the dart lands that proposition is true. Now it might be true to say descriptively some people might have those epistemic norms but couldn't you pretty confidently say that's not a sound way to arrive at true beliefs about the world? You could and I do believe that. I mean in the sense that I tend to be on the side of science against religion. I tend to think that the scientific method is much more likely to give you for instance accurate predictions and precise descriptions than any kind of religious criteria. But the fact that I think that isn't the same as thinking that I can absolutely conclusively prove to my opponent that I'm right and they're wrong. Well so what if that's not one of the criteria that you care about is proving to the other person? What if it's just proving to your own internal knowledge? So I could say well I know that they're wrong they're never going to know that they're wrong but I'm okay with that result. Right but then what's left of your original question there when you said okay do I believe in objective truth and in a kind of mundane sense yes but then in that deeper philosophical sense I'm saying I believe that there are criteria which will lead me to beliefs which are very useful for coping with the world. There are people who don't share those criteria they're just benighted fools. But according to traditional philosophy shouldn't I, doesn't it say something if I can't actually prove my point to them if all I can say is they're fools? Well again I think I'll take the counterpoint which is my own belief that yes if that's the conclusion that there are inferior and superior ways to playing chess that you can conclusively demonstrate if you have these certain criteria that you think you understand how the game of chess works you're wrong and I can demonstrate at least to my own satisfaction if I get the person in checkmate and they don't realize they're in checkmate well that's their problem. Right, excellent example right I can work with it because one criteria for the best strategy in chess is if it leads to you checkmating the opponent it's not the only criteria you could for instance say that's a pretty Philistine kind of boorish kind of criterion what I want to see I want to see beautiful chess being played and I would much sooner lose playing beautiful chess than win with your methods. But what if they disagree on that final state the one person so there is such a position on the chess board that is checkmate and they say I'm not in it and I say you're certainly in it couldn't I then just kind of say well there is a total I guess then you have to just go to the definitions like in this case the definition of what is checkmate in chess and perhaps what we're talking about the definition of truth. So what if they agree on the definition so we have a shared definition you know your king's in check and he can't go anywhere and they look at the board and they just say no I'm not in it and you can see you certainly are in it. Then I don't know I see the point there I see the point because on the one hand your spade is definitely turned like you just have a straight disagreement and I don't see how you're going to be able to persuade them but at the same time it's impossible for you not to say at that point look I'm right and you're a fool. Yes but couldn't that be a legitimate conclusion? Yeah it could in that case. But it falls short of being able to demonstrate to someone who That's true but what if we don't care about that so what if my interest in chess is about discovering truth on the chess board it's like I know that this is the case and if everybody on earth says no this person doesn't check me it doesn't matter they're all wrong. I'm going to agree with you possibly my agreeing with you now might be inconsistent with something I've said earlier but I think you're right there an analogy it would be a bit like about something like racism or something like that and again you come to an absolute log ahead where someone is just going to absolutely insist that some group of human we think of as human beings are subhuman and you present them with DNA evidence and they just don't budge at some point you say well I think there's no point in us arguing anymore and then you quite rightly say and does that matter I mean the fact that they they simply won't accept what you're saying and the fact that from your point of view what they're saying is kind of stupid I mean does it matter there are stupid people in the world there are people who are so dogmatic as to be blind. It's true but even then you're I think you're coming at this still from a very social perspective that part of dialogue is persuasion so what I'm trying to get at is just from the lone philosopher's point of view that can you say confidently in some circumstances regardless of my ability to persuade anybody regardless of how many people disagree with this proposition it is objectively wrong and I am objectively right I think that again in ordinary life we absolutely almost can't avoid taking that view whether I'm comfortable taking that view when it comes to the ultimate justification of a philosophical proposition I'm not sure I think a few years ago I would have sort of said no I think basically I was died in the world relativist I remember that I think I still am in a way but only in the sense that in that limited sense where I think there's you just have to accept that you can't always demonstrate to from you can't demonstrate that what you say is true is true as it were from a God's eye point of view from the standpoint of the universe or something like that can I run some propositions by you let's start with the most intuitively appealing one strictly logically airtight propositions like in no part in the universe is there a square circle could we say that is something that from a God's eye point of view what we mean by the terms means it's impossibility right I'm torn and the reason I'm torn because on the one hand you know I was thoroughly educated in analytic philosophy and analytic truth is one that's basically true by definition it's opposite to its contradiction there are no square circles it's basically analytic truth on the other hand I've also read philosophers like Willard Van Omen Quine who argues that the analytic synthetic distinction is not as absolute as people think and actually it's there's a spectrum of if you want a necessity or certainty ranging from the basic laws of logic all the way out to highly dubious propositions about sense perception and his metaphor is that this forms a kind of a web of belief like a spider's web it's very easy to jettison one of the beliefs at the periphery without affecting the web but it's very difficult to jettison one of the beliefs at the centre without tearing the whole thing apart that's why those beliefs at the centre are pretty locked in every so often in the history of science and philosophy you do get an overturning of a central belief like when Einstein overturned Newton's basic principles and the web does get torn apart a little bit so I'm torn because I sort of I see the strength of both views the spectrum view but also the just the simple how can you have a square circle so I kind of for all here's the thing from a pragmatic point of view and there's a good part of me is steeped in Rorty's pragmatism, William James's pragmatism from a pragmatic point of view absolutely you can't have a square circle but again it's pragmatism we're talking it's not Cartesian certainty or anything like that it's just that this is a belief like any other analytic or logical belief or something which is just part of the very scaffolding of our world view and it's really hard to imagine doing without it but there's a difference in saying a belief that is central in our world view versus this is a proposition that certainly describes reality a particular way so what I'm interested is in the most extreme of all these cases where we're claiming certainty a certain proposition about the nature of reality and maybe so to avoid the analytic synthetic distinction let's take another proposition which I consider to be certain that perception, the phenomena of perception is something that is certainly happening it's kind of a play on coG2 but you don't have to say well what am I what is the self? subjective experiences going on is that not absolutely and even a metaphysical point? I think so, I think it does do you think that's a claim about something that is happening in the universe not just about our world views? yeah I do like a foundationalist perspective couldn't that be the I don't know if I want to call it a foundationalist in the sense that I'm quite willing I'm absolutely I've taught intro to philosophy and Descartes often enough and I've thought about it often enough to say I just don't see any way in which you can avoid saying my subjective experience now is a reality it's happening and but that doesn't mean it's a foundation that doesn't mean that that is the foundation of a systematic edifice of knowledge couldn't it be though? wouldn't we want to choose some absolutely certain premise to go from there? I don't know because Descartes' dream was that the certainty that attaches to that the cogito extends through the entire system whereas my view is that philosophers under the penitious influence of Descartes have obsessed far too much about certainty I'm pretty happy a lot of the time with philosophical truths that are mere generalizations probabilities, plausibilities that kind of thing they can still be insightful they can still be interesting they can still be useful would you agree with a claim like this again, part of my own epistemology that there are certain truths which build a kind of framework a kind of certain framework that we can start on metaphysics that might be the foundational ideas that subjective experience is happening and all the other ones are perhaps dependent but that one you know is happening and something like in logic, I view logic and logical necessity to be kind of the ultimate bedrock foundation experience couldn't be happening were it not the case that experience is happening which implies some kind of logical identity that permeates everything but those don't get you very far so you have this certain logical framework and then you kind of fill into details with less certain ideas what do you think about that idea the existence of the external world I'd say fine, but of course we're trafficking metaphors here aren't we we talk about a framework having certain beliefs constitute a foundation for the system of knowledge is one metaphor having them constitute the scaffolding or framework is another metaphor and I guess I'd have to see one would have to see how the whole thing looked in a way because I'm quite content to say something like the belief in the proposition that subjective experience is happening now that's absolutely certain and I'm inclined to say that on one hand, that's interesting on the other hand, so what when it comes to how does that affect the certainty of ordinary empirical beliefs or scientific theories if you agree with that proposition then aren't you also implying that the mind has some kind of access to a God's eye universal perspective that you're saying in the universe there is such a phenomena as subjective experience and I certainly know that it is taking place and anybody who disagrees with me is certainly wrong I mean I see what you're saying there the funny thing is that you're saying because you are a subjective experience and I'm acutely aware of the fact that you are a subjective experience having experiences you therefore when you make that claim when you state that in a sense it's a claim that is true from the standpoint of the universe what I call this I call this the objectivity of subjectivity that if something is certainly true even if it's subjective from our perspective you can still make an objective claim about it happening in the universe I mean the way I define objectivity the way I think of objectivity is generally speaking even in common parlance even at the level of ordinary empirical knowledge a belief a claim is objectively true if it's true independently of our beliefs wishes or intentions or a will if it's true independently of anything that we think so I'm quite willing to agree in a the truth of subjective experience can't be independent of subjective experience but still in a sense it is because I'm not it isn't dependent on my belief that I'm having these experiences however when it comes to again the philosophical point of view regarding knowledge in general by nature I am inclined towards a kind of anti-realist sort of pragmatist position where any description of the world that we give is going to be description using our language our concepts, our theories our belief systems and to quote William James again he says the trail of the human serpent is over everything and you can't describe the world except from a human point of view from this philosophical perspective it's the one that's pioneered really by Kant it's shared by a lot of philosophers today Hilary Putnam recently died and Richard Rorty and William James and many others it's basically saying that you can think you can form the concept of reality as it is independent of human experience but you never can actually describe a reality independent of human experience the reality we know is the one that we experience and the only way we can describe it is using our cognitive apparatus and our concepts and therefore that reality that we describe and when we describe it as we think accurately we say these statements are objectivity true they're objectivity true within a certain kind of we can't ever sort of see our relation to the world sideways on I can I think for the majority of propositions that's the case that we can't escape the framing of our own concepts but couldn't somebody say that the word experience or the word perception is a visual representation of a concept so we have the word relates to the concept of perception what I mean by that but what I mean by that concept and what I mean by that word is something that is in the world like it has an objective referent it's not that is something that is out there and I'm saying oh well that is happening you know what's the objective referent what's an example of what you're talking about the phenomena of experience or the phenomena of perception that thing is a thing that is out there and I'm just describing it with certain words and certain concepts but even if I were mute and even if I couldn't conceptualize that phenomena would still be taking place or happening yeah it would it would be you could say some things going on but I keep quoting William James that I think it's William James who says without the conceptual ordering of what comes in through the senses all we'd be having is a blooming buzzing confusion Kant says that without the conceptual ordering of the what he calls the manifold of intuition again what comes in through the senses he says it would be it would be less even than a dream it would just be a it would be without the order that the mind puts on it you couldn't really describe it but you could try I guess you could say something's happening yeah but even so let's take this kind of silly example which I think is the God's eye perspective I think it is this sideways perspective where we have access to the subjective and we seem to have access to the objective because we can make claims about the subjective with certainty so for example if it were impossible for us to conceptualize and use language to describe the kind of experience like imagine a world where that phenomenon was still taking place what I'm referencing now is still taking place but we can't talk about it we can't conceptualize couldn't we say like from our perspective in that alternative universe all of the beings that inhabit it though they don't understand what's going on it's still taking place so doesn't that necessarily from that from that grand perspective I mean it's inescapable well I suppose I mean except that why sort of posit some other beings that having their experiences which is what you seem to be doing you could do that with your own too but you could do it with your own because that's where you were originally and that's the indubitability of subjective experience which I kind of accept I'll sort of accept that and again it's a kind of Cartesian point in a way that I accept the indubitability of subjective experience and therefore in a sense that from the standpoint of the universe from the God's eye point of view something's going on there is something rather than nothing that's very exciting it's a start but then the question is whereas Descartes thinks he can then construct his log cabin I kind of I'm a bit more inclined to say yeah I mean there are there are claims and beliefs that we can assert with greater or lesser certainty great and here we're talking about the beliefs that we can assert with the great you know the greatest degree of certainty it doesn't follow that the whole that that certainty percolates upwards I mean so let me ask you a couple of other questions then or come make a couple more propositions something is happening we can agree that yes something is happening and even we have some kind of understanding that that something is perception or subjective experience as we reference it how about something like this that Dr. Imras Westacott what I'm referencing by that term does not know everything that there is to know in the universe there is some knowledge there's some information that you don't possess is that something that I can't know that because maybe you know everything is that something that you can know with with certainty I suppose yeah well that's step two now look we have practically a fleshed out world view well so something's going on and it's not everything yeah and well so if what I said is true then that implies that the something that's going on is something that is conceptualizing things even if inaccurately so you're still conceptualizing things and we can even have certainty in describing the knowledge that that thing possesses or doesn't possess about the world right I mean that seems like we're getting into like certain metaphysical statements so far we've only got something's going on and I don't know everything well yes but that implies well that seems like that if that's true that's certainly true that it implies something about what the mind is I think it's this it is this experiencing thing that holds beliefs certainly and if that's the case I think other thing I don't know all the implications of that that seems like that might kind of start the snowball effect of the Descartes of course you have to be careful because I mean Descartes said of course I think therefore I am and people have criticized that saying he's not entitled to use this word I for instance very controversial and even there where I sort of rather loosely said I don't know everything but really it's something's going on and there's something that's going on does not constitute knowledge of everything a bit more neutral because it is true once you start talking about selves then you know then you've got some work to do to specify exactly what you're referring to by that term I would absolutely love to talk to you about that alright so that's where we've got to end the interview for this episode we started transitioning to talk about the metaphysics of mind which is a fantastic conversation a fantastic topic and if you want to hear that conversation make sure to check out episode 3 where we complete our conversation I'm very grateful that Dr. Westcott got to speak with me I sincerely recommend a book that he co-authored it's called Thinking Through Philosophy and it's a basic introduction to philosophy that he co-authored it and you'll see what I'm saying about him being an actually clear headed clear writing philosopher which is kind of a rarity nowadays I'll have a link to it on the show notes page at steve-patterson.com slash two so if you like this interview then make sure to subscribe I'm going to be releasing a new podcast every single week and if this interview created value for you if you value it one dollar or more then I'm asking for your support to make this series last as long as possible upfront one of the beautiful things about the internet is that it keeps cutting out middlemen so producers of content can produce directly to their consumers and consumers can give back directly to the producers of content that they value and I'm working with a company called Patreon right now which allows people to automatically chip in one dollar when I post new content like this so if you want to support the show make sure to head over to patreon.com slash steve-patterson plus if you become a patron you'll also get a free copy of all the books that I've written and every book that I intend to write in the future thanks everybody for listening I hope you enjoyed this interview as much as I did