Evidentialism

[FallentoReason]

That's right Clive! Time to pull through with your attempt at making some sort of point--which you never intended to made clear. I felt mentally raped/abused and it wasn't nice!

If in your opinion evidentialism simply fails, then by your own reasoning how could you have come to the conclusion that Jesus is Lord? Evidence or..?

[CliveStaples]

That's right Clive! Time to pull through with your attempt at making some sort of point--which you never intended to made clear. I felt mentally raped/abused and it wasn't nice!

This is ad hominem; you're accusing me of having bad intentions. I hope the debate isn't characterized by these kinds of fallacies--or any kind of fallacy, actually.

If you see me committing any kind of error or fallacy, I'd appreciate being called out on it.

If in your opinion evidentialism simply fails, then by your own reasoning how could you have come to the conclusion that Jesus is Lord? Evidence or..?

First, let's define what I mean when I say "evidentialism", to make sure that we're all talking about the same thing.

Evidentialism is a theory of justification. That is, evidentialism tells you exactly how and why you should come to hold certain beliefs--that is, what standards a claim/proposition must meet in order for you to believe that claim/proposition.

Specifically, Evidentialism says something like this (some people might phrase it differently, but it all basically amounts to the same thing):

(E) Belief in p is justified <=> there exists sufficient *evidence that p is true.

Here, *evidence includes things like (but not limited to): sensory data, expert consensus, logical/mathematical proof, etc.


Notation: B(X,p) means "X believes p"; B(p) will be used if the identity of the believer is clear. E(p) means "There exists sufficient *evidence that p is true."

Suppose that X thinks E ("Belief in P is justified <=> there exists sufficient *evidence that P is true") makes a lot of sense, and so X decides he's going to be an Evidentialist.

Ideally, for X, it would be true that B(p) <=> E(p). That is, if E(p), then B(p), and if ~E(p) (i.e., there isn't sufficient *evidence that p is true), then ~B(p) (that is, X doesn't believe p).

Unfortunately for X, he is a human, and is therefore fallible. For suppose that X comes to believe that E(p), but his belief is wrong. X might think that there is expert consensus, when in fact there is not; or X might think that a measurement has confirmed a hypothesis when in fact the measurement was made in error, and so forth.

So it seems that X does not form beliefs based on whether or not E(p) is true, but rather on whether X believes E(p) is true.


I'll stop here just to make sure everyone's on the same page. Any objections thus far?

[FallentoReason]

This is ad hominem; you're accusing me of having bad intentions. I hope the debate isn't characterized by these kinds of fallacies--or any kind of fallacy, actually.

If you see me committing any kind of error or fallacy, I'd appreciate being called out on it.

It was just my honest evalutation of how I perceived your debating style. Take it or leave it.. I don't care.

So, ultimately, I believe the evidence is true without ever being able to know if it's true?

[CliveStaples]

So, ultimately, I believe the evidence is true without ever being able to know if it's true?

Well, I don't know about that. I'm not making that claim.

I'm saying that when you're trying to be an evidentialist, what you're really basing your beliefs on is your beliefs about evidence, not necessarily on the evidence itself.

[FallentoReason]

So, ultimately, I believe the evidence is true without ever being able to know if it's true?

Well, I don't know about that. I'm not making that claim.

I'm saying that when you're trying to be an evidentialist, what you're really basing your beliefs on is your beliefs about evidence, not necessarily on the evidence itself.

Ah I see what you're saying. Do you see this as a problem? As in does this mean the choices we make are plausibly poorly informed? When the light is green at the intersection is there reason to believe it's not my turn to cross?