Belief and Rational Cognition in Aristotle

195 Pages·2011·2.01 MB·English

by  Ian Flora

Belief and Rational Cognition in Aristotle
by
Ian C. McCready-Flora
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
(Philosophy)
in the University of Michigan
2011
Doctoral Committee:
Professor Victor Caston, Chair
Emeritus Professor Edwin Curley
Professor Bruce Frier
Professor Kendall Walton
Assistant Professor Matthew Evans, New York University
© Ian C. McCready-Flora
_____________________________________________
2011
For my mother, who got me going
For Rachel, who keeps me going
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Acknowledgements
I would like, first and foremost, to thank my wife, Rachel McCready-Flora, for her love
and support.
Myacademicadvisor,VictorCaston,hasbeenanidealmentorfromtheverystart:
supportive, intellectually demanding, and extremely generous with his time. He has my
thanks. My thanks also to the rest of my dissertation committee, whose feedback
continues to shape this material as it ambles toward publication.
Were it not for the diligence of the Philosophy department staff, my life would
have been infinitely more difficult. My thanks to Linda Shultes, Judith Beck, Kelly
Coveleski and Maureen Lopez for always knowing where to go and what to sign. anks
also to Molly Mahony, librarian at Tanner Philosophical Library. However confused my
recollection of a title or author, she could always put the book in my hand.
IhadthegoodfortunetoresideattheGammaAlphagraduatestudentco-opfrom
August 2006 to May 2009. I met some of my best friends there, and that fun, supportive,
socially-conscious and diverse community is something I will remember fondly. May it
stand forever, and make life affordable on grad student wages.
My thanks to the UM Graduate Employees Organization (AFT Local 3550). It was
an honor to serve as vice-president. “Oh you can’t scare me, I’m sticking to the union!”
Much of the material in this book has benefited from public presentation and the
attention and engagement of commentators. I would like to thank Travis Butler, Matthew
Evans, Eduardo Garcia-Ramirez, Maria Jayasekera, Emily Katz, Jeremy Kirby, Greg
Salmieri, and Christopher Shields for their comments and criticism.
MyfellowgraduatestudentsattheUniversityofMichiganaresomeofthesharpest
people I ever hope to meet. I cannot record or recall every lunchtime conversation or
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casual encounter that led, serendipitously, to an improvement in the final product, so I
hope they all accept my sincere thanks for these six edifying years. eyhave my undying
admiration and respect.
Substantial portions of this work were completed under the auspices of fellowship
funding, made possible by the University of Michigan Philosophy department and the
Horace Rackham School of Graduate Studies. I can only hope that my labor does justice
to their generosity.
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Table of Contents
Dedication……………………………………………………………………ii
Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………iii
Abstract……………………………………………………………………..vii
Introduction…………..……………………………………………………...1
Chapter 1 Credence and Belief…….………………………………………13
1. Introduction………………………………………………………………13
2. e Argument…………………………………………………………….16
3. Pistis as Credence: A Mental State that Varies by Degree……………….18
4. Interlude: Credence and Truth…………………………………………...30
5. How Belief Depends On Credence………………………………………34
6. Conclusion………………………………………………………………..46
7. Appendix: Other Uses of Pistis…………………………………………..48
Chapter 2 Evidence and Rationality…….…………………………………50
1. Introduction……………………………………………………………...50
2. Persuasion and Distortion……………………………………………….55
3. Evidence and Epistemic Evaluation……………………………………..62
4. A Radical Alternative?…………………………………………………...69
Chapter 3 e Normativity of Belief………………………………………80
1. Introduction……………………………………………………………...80
2. e Argument, and Two Crucial Assumptions…………………………81
3. Dismantling the Second Assumption: Truth-Apt…………………….…82
4. Replacing the Second Assumption: Truth Matters……………………...91
5. Dismantling the First Assumption: Causal Control…………………...100
6. Replacing the Second Assumption: As You Please…………………….109
7. Concluding Remarks: How Belief is Normative……………………….116
8. Appendix: Text and Translation of 427b16-21…..……………………..123
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Chapter 4 Response and Restraint……………………………………….128
1. Introduction……………………………………………………………128
2. Fitting Affections and Causal Connections…………………………...129
3. Imagining Scary ings………………………………………………..142
4. e Difference: What “Immediately” Amounts To……………………148
5. Reason and Restraint…………………………………………………..157
Conclusion………….……………………………………………………..166
Bibliography……………………………………………………………….175
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Abstract
Belief and Rational Cognition in Aristotle
by
Ian C. McCready-Flora
Chair: Victor Caston
Aristotle’s view of rational thought is understudied and little understood. Scholarly energy
focuses on his deductive theory of science, knowledge and grasp of first principles, all of
which involve certainty and necessary truth. Aristotle also, however, pays systematic
attention to bounded rationality and reasoning about contingent matters.
Belief, for Aristotle, is about the contingent. It ranks below scientific knowledge, but still
above any cognition animals are capable of: only rational animals believe. Aristotle’s
theory of belief, then, provides data for his broader theory of reasoning and human
rationality.Ithereforeorganizethedissertationaroundthreeargumentswhichdistinguish
belief from other forms of mental representation that we share with animals.
(1) Belief requires credence, which depends upon the ability to represent matters as more
or less likely, and therefore the ability to see facts as evidence for other facts. ese two
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abilities require reason and are partially constitutive of rational thought. Animals can be
conditioned to act in certain ways given certain inputs, but this ability differs from the
weighing of evidence.
(2) We cannot form beliefs as we please, while we can do so with other forms of mental
representation, such as imagining. Belief is out of our hands in this way because it has a
normative connection to truth. It is supposed to be true, and must therefore submit to
normative evaluation with respect to truth. is accountability to norms is partially
constitutive of rational thought.
(3) Belief causes affectiveresponse in ways that other mental states, such as imagining, do
not. Imagining can cause emotional response, but does not necessitate it in the way belief
does. e ability to entertain mental content without committing to it is peculiar to
rational creatures, and therefore partially constitutive of rational thought. Rationality
confers the ability to question, test and be open to doubt.
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Introduction
In this dissertation I examine two topics in Aristotle’s epistemology and philosophy of
mind: belief (doxa in Greek) and rational cognition. e former is the means to
investigate the latter. is is because, for Aristotle, believing is something only rational
creaturescando.Howevernon-rationalanimalsgetaroundintheworld(andhumans,for
Aristotle, are the only rational animals), whatever mental states constitute their
representation of that world, they do not have anything Aristotle is willing to call belief.
e sense of “rational” I have in mind is not the normative sense according to
which we evaluate a certain course of action or belief as rational or irrational. Humans do
not contrast with other animals because humans are rational and animals are irrational.
is normative distinction presupposes a further metaphysical distinction between the
rational and the non-rational (as opposed to irrational). Call the first phenomenon
“normative rationality” and the second “constitutive rationality,” because it is meant to
capture a difference in the way that creatures exist, a difference in what kinds of cognitive
subjects they are. is is the distinction Aristotle means to draw when he says that belief
requires “reason” (logos), so animals cannot form beliefs.1 It is not that animals are too
stupid to form beliefs; they simply lack those kinds of cognitive states. Nor are they for
that reason open to criticism; a subject cannot qualify as irrational in the normative sense
without qualifying as rational in the constitutive sense. Rational cognition, therefore, is a
specialbrandofcognitionthatonlycertainkindsofcreaturesareabletoundertake.Itwill
turn out, on Aristotle’s view, that to be a constitutively rational subject is in part to be
1.For the details of this argument, see Chapters 1 and 2.
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