Evidentialism and its Discontents

MrFrankZito

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What do you think of the following argument against evidentialism (the notion that beliefs are worth only as much as their evidence):

"Evidentialism, in itself, cannot be substantiated by way of evidence."
 
"Cakes, in themselves, cannot be substantiated by way of eating them."
 
MrFrankZito said:
What do you think of the following argument against evidentialism (the notion that beliefs are worth only as much as their evidence):

"Evidentialism, in itself, cannot be substantiated by way of evidence."
Click to expand...
Blatantly false.

There's plenty of evidence that relying on evidence to form conclusions helps us to form conclusions that are more likely to be correct.

Johny looks at a burner, sees that it's red and says, "that wouldn't hurt if I put my hand on it."
Katey looks at it and says, "I wonder if would hurt if I put my hand on it. Let me find out." and places a kettle on it. When the kettle boils, she concludes that the burner was very hot and thus would hurt her hand.

Ten minutes later Johny decides to put his hand on the still red burner. He is then confronted with the evidence that basing your conclusions on evidence is a wise thing to do.
 
Perhaps, to avoid philosophical parsing, the best response is this:

"The best way to discover truth about material phenomena in the natural world is through evidence."

After all, that statement doesn't fall under the heading of material phenomena, and thus the statement cannot be construed as self-refuting.
 
"If you aren't basing your beliefs in facts, then what ARE you basing them on. If a fact cannot be checked, then how do you know it's a fact?"

That's what I would say, anyway.


Wait, I just did!

Kewl.
 
Is "evidentialism" a coherent philosophy, or a natural response that's been labeled "-ism?"
 
clarsct,

That, actually, is an excellent response:

Evidence is nothing more than facts which support your given conclusion. If not facts, on what is your conclusion based?
 
MrFrankZito said:
What do you think of the following argument against evidentialism (the notion that beliefs are worth only as much as their evidence):

"Evidentialism, in itself, cannot be substantiated by way of evidence."
Click to expand...
Let me see. I have some evidence -- but not enough to say prove -- that Mr Frank Zito exists. I believe that he exists, but it's only a working premise based on a few shreds of evidence, nothing more.

Many of your and my beliefs are exactly like that; based on insufficient evidence to constitute proof, adopted as working premises.

Now look at it from the other side: advances in science would not be possible with strict evidentialism. Strict evidentialism would bar adopting hypotheses as working premises, and adopting working premises even in the absence of conclusive evidence is how science actually in practice proceeds most of the time.

And finally: the quote you cite is a truism. No system of philosophy, including any materialist approach, can be conclusively justified in the end by itself, since that would form a mere circular argument.

I would have thought the circular argument problem was rather obvious.

There are even bigger problems waiting in the wings; any POV carries with it the problem of altering the perceived evidence according to its inbuilt biases. No POV is without biases.
 
Valid evidence is based upon a number of assumtions, isotropy being the main one.

Then there is the idea od reduction, that one can reduce a situation to consituent parts. Science is the idea that all parts being equal then one change one part and obtain eviudence about the role of the part in the web or reality.

What constitures valid evidence is another issue.
 
What do you think of the following argument against evidentialism (the notion that beliefs are worth only as much as their evidence):

"Evidentialism, in itself, cannot be substantiated by way of evidence."
Click to expand...

It shows the underlying basic assumption. You cannot use evidentialism to prove evidentialism; but that does not refute it. It means that we make an assumption. We should always be wary of our assumptions and question them, but we needn't discard a very useful premise simply because it relies on an assumption. Show me a way to avoid assumptions as a starting point, and I'll change my mind.

ETA

The true self-refuting statement would be that only true beliefs depend on evidence. That cannot be substantiated and is necessarily false. There are possibly other beliefs that do not depend on evidence -- the premise of evidentialsim, for one.
 
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clarsct said:
"If you aren't basing your beliefs in facts, then what ARE you basing them on. If a fact cannot be checked, then how do you know it's a fact?"
Click to expand...
I mostly agree, but I'd substitute "conclusions" for "facts" because the word "fact" sounds so final.

Even given this, it is not just the evidence that one bases their beliefs on, it is often other beliefs, such as the belief on how evidence should be evaluated. All data is evidence, but evidence of what? Depends on how you interpret it. For example, ask a Christian what evidence there is of God and they may say something like, "Just look at a tree! How could that be without God?" Well, there is no doubt that a tree is evidence of something (many many things actually), but is it evidence of God? It depends on how you interpret that evidence.

And what is the best way to evaluate evidence and reach a conclusion? Some people say, "It is what you feel in your heart", which is utter BS if you ask me, but that is still their belief and it would satisfy the definition of evidentialism, as it is given above. Objective, verifiable and (if possible) repeatable evaluation of evidence is what I prefer, because that is what I find leads to the most reliable conclusions which have predictive value.

In short, the term "evidentialsm" is not very useful because unless it also includes skepticism and the scientific method for evaluation of evidence, the mere existence of evidence is insufficient on which to base beliefs.
 
Looking at Wikipedia's article on Evidentialism, I think people are misinterpreting what it means. Evidentialism is not meant merely to be a part of scientific skepticism, the stance that beliefs should only be held if there is a substantial amount of evidence ever, but also as an opposition to philosophical skepticism, the stance that we can't know anything ever. Thus, to say "Well, what else are you going to base your conclusions on?" is to beg the question, since whether or not conclusions can be based on anything solid is part of the question being asked.

You cannot support evidentialism through evidence, for the obvious reason that the act of using evidence to support something assumes that evidence is valid.
 
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