Epistemology by Sosa Ernest

Author:Sosa, Ernest.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2016-04-15T04:00:00+00:00

E. HOW KNOWLEDGE ALSO MATTERS: A FURTHER DIMENSION

1. Finally, we shall explore a further way in which knowledge can be crucial for the proper value of much that matters most in human life. We turn to how knowledge can matter because of what it constitutes rather than because of how it is itself constituted.

Distinguish between the following two situations:

Situation 1: Paul’s favoring Mary’s enjoying life, when, as it happens, unbeknownst to Paul, she is indeed doing so.

Situation 2: Paul’s taking pleasure in Mary’s enjoyment of life.8

Clearly the second is better, significantly better. This is of a piece with Aristotle’s emphasis on full-fledged action and how it constitutes flourishing. Full-fledged passion, beyond the false passions of a Matrix scenario, is similarly important.

Wherein resides the further value? We need a further attitude beyond merely abstractly favoring M (the possible state of affairs of Mary’s enjoying life), with no idea whether M obtains (is actual) or not. Taking pleasure in goes beyond that, surely. How so? Try this:

S takes pleasure in M iff S favors M and M obtains.

No, this seems obviously inadequate. S doesn’t take pleasure in M if M is simply true without S’s having any opinion on the matter. So perhaps we should expand as follows:

S favors M, M obtains, and S believes that M obtains.

No, that still falls short. S may mistake Nancy for Mary, and only thus may he then believe that M obtains. It seems we need to go at least as far as the following:

S takes pleasure in M iff S favors M and S knows that M obtains.

But this still arguably falls short. S may know “deep down” that M obtains, although what really drives his present favoring is not that bit of knowledge but something else, maybe even his temporary mistaking of Nancy (obviously enjoying herself) for Mary. So we need something further. Perhaps the following:

S takes pleasure in M iff S favors M because S knows that M obtains.

No, this still seems wrong. S might favor M just the same even if he did not know that M obtains. So it need not be true that he favors M because he knows that it obtains.

2. That line of thought has led nowhere; let us try a different tack.

Suppose we recognize the following adverbial modifications of “believes”: believes approvingly, believes disapprovingly, believes indifferently. Whatever believes approvingly may be, it is not just the conjunction of believes and favors. One might believe that p and favor the possibility that p without putting two and two together. One believes it implicitly while forgetting at the moment, and while then favoring it, and in this case one might not believe approvingly.

And now, given that attitude, we can try this:

(PKA) S takes pleasure in M iff S knows approvingly that M obtains.

Plausibly, the value of S’s taking pleasure in M is more than the sum of the values of its components. Suppose that M has great positive value (in part because Mary is deserving). In that case, S’s taking pleasure in M will have value that derives from the value of its constituent M.

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