The epistemological beliefs are justified in a way which fans back out to a broader picture of the world (eg, facts about physics or evolution may be invoked in the justification of epistemic practices).
Yes; I think any plausible theory of epistemics must hold that knowledge is “rhizomatic”: beliefs are not justified in a chain, as classic philosophers supposed, but in branching and rejoining chains with lots of structure but without any strict hierarchy or bottom, most privileged level.
The best beliefs are the most consistent set, including consistency with actual empirical observations (like I see things work this way and I hear people express these beliefs and report other empirical results.)
Edit:
despite that, circular arguments in a tightly closed loop with no reference to empirical observations seem like so little evidence that they’re almost worthless—and in most situations are actually evidence of a less-rational thinker making the arguments, which in turn makes everything they argue more suspect. That is how I think we usually take them, and it’s still correct.
Pointing out “that’s a circular argument!” is probably pointless only because you’re spending your time trying to convince an irrational person to be rational. It’s kind of like trying to wrestle your greased pig back into the pen—it seems like an exhausting waste of time until you realize that the pig likes it (or something like that—I’m gleefully misremembering that aphorism). Except that this pig doesn’t like it, and neither do you, and now you’re both covered in grease and mud and irritated with each other.
Or alternately, you’re talking to a perfectly rational person, whose beliefs are justified by such a complex rhizomatic chain that they couldn’t possibly explain them to you in a brief exchange, so they just used a circular argument to express (consciously or unconsciously) that they’re not interested in trying to justify their beliefs to you right now.
despite that, circular arguments in a tightly closed loop with no reference to empirical observations seem like so little evidence that they’re almost worthless
In such situations, “that argument seems to be unsupported by empirical evidence” seems to me like a better counterargument than “that argument is circular”.
Possible, although I think you probably reach that point much faster if you can establish that your conversational partner disagrees with the idea that arguments should be supported or at least supportable by empirical evidence.
Yes; I think any plausible theory of epistemics must hold that knowledge is “rhizomatic”: beliefs are not justified in a chain, as classic philosophers supposed, but in branching and rejoining chains with lots of structure but without any strict hierarchy or bottom, most privileged level.
The best beliefs are the most consistent set, including consistency with actual empirical observations (like I see things work this way and I hear people express these beliefs and report other empirical results.)
Edit:
despite that, circular arguments in a tightly closed loop with no reference to empirical observations seem like so little evidence that they’re almost worthless—and in most situations are actually evidence of a less-rational thinker making the arguments, which in turn makes everything they argue more suspect. That is how I think we usually take them, and it’s still correct.
Pointing out “that’s a circular argument!” is probably pointless only because you’re spending your time trying to convince an irrational person to be rational. It’s kind of like trying to wrestle your greased pig back into the pen—it seems like an exhausting waste of time until you realize that the pig likes it (or something like that—I’m gleefully misremembering that aphorism). Except that this pig doesn’t like it, and neither do you, and now you’re both covered in grease and mud and irritated with each other.
Or alternately, you’re talking to a perfectly rational person, whose beliefs are justified by such a complex rhizomatic chain that they couldn’t possibly explain them to you in a brief exchange, so they just used a circular argument to express (consciously or unconsciously) that they’re not interested in trying to justify their beliefs to you right now.
In such situations, “that argument seems to be unsupported by empirical evidence” seems to me like a better counterargument than “that argument is circular”.
They mean the same thing, “you’re not making sense”, so they’ll probably dislike it just as much.
Possible, although I think you probably reach that point much faster if you can establish that your conversational partner disagrees with the idea that arguments should be supported or at least supportable by empirical evidence.