6 - Chisholm, Particularism, and Methodism

Summary

We have seen that one criticism of the common sense tradition is that it presents no non-circular argument for the reliability of sense perception and memory. It is charged that in the absence of such an argument, one cannot know that those ways of forming beliefs are reliable. I have argued that while it is true that common sense philosophers such as Reid, Moore, and Chisholm fail to give such arguments, this does not preclude one's knowing that sense perception and memory are reliable. In this chapter, I will turn to another sort of criticism. Philosophers in the common sense tradition assume that they can pick out various instances of knowledge and use these to assess and evaluate various epistemic principles. But, according to the line of criticism I will consider, this is to put the cart before the horse. According to this criticism, knowledge of particular epistemic propositions such as “I know I have a body” is epistemically dependent on knowledge of general epistemic criteria or general epistemic principles. This objection holds that common sense philosophers incorrectly assume that they can pick out particular instances of knowledge without knowing the general epistemic criteria.

It will surprise no one that I think that the common sense philosophers are right and that this objection is mistaken. In discussing the views of Reid and Moore, for example, I have assumed that we can pick out instances of knowledge. I have assumed, for example, that small children and animals do know things.