The Myth of the Given

Our knowledge of the world, it seems reasonable to suppose, is founded on causal interactions between us and the things in it. The molecules and photons impinging on our bodies produce sensations; these sensations give rise to basic beliefs - like "I am seeing red now" - which serve as evidence for higher-order propositions about the world. The tricky part of this scheme is the connection between sensation and belief. As William James wrote, "A sensation is rather like a client who has given his case to a lawyer and then has passively to listen in the court-room to whatever account of his affairs, pleasant or unpleasant, the lawyer finds it most expedient to give." The idea that a sensation can enter directly into the process of reasoning has become known as the Myth of the Given. The late philosopher Donald Davidson, whose influence in the Anglophone philosophical world was unsurpassed, put the point succiently: "Nothing can count as a reason for holding a belief except another belief."
- Jim Holt, in The New Yorker

Mr. Holt wrote the above in a review of several recently-published books on the subject of bullshit. I will admit that while I have not read the most prominent of these books, Harry Frankfurt's On Bullshit, I have read several reviews and articles on the book, but more importantly, I saw Jon Stewart interview Prof. Frankfurt on The Daily Show. I've even blogged about Frankfurt already.

The Myth of the Given, Holt continues, threatens to cut off all contact between knowledge and the world. If beliefs can be checked only against other beliefs, then the sole criterion for a set of beliefs' being true is that they form a coherent web: a picture of knowledge known as holism. And different people interacting with the causal flux that is the world might well find themselves with distinct but equally coherent webs of belief - a possibility known as incommensurability. In such circumstances, who is to say what is true and what is bullshit?

However, the argument can be made that Davidson's statement "Nothing can count as a reason for holding a belief except another belief" can't be right. After all, if John comes in and gets a good doggy whiff, doesn't he acquire a reason for believing that Rover is in the house?

Not necessarily. Sensations do not come labelled as "doggy whiffs;" such descriptions imply a good deal of prior concept formation. What gives John a reason to believe that Rover is in the house is indeed another belief: that what he is smelling falls under the category of "doggy whiff." Such beliefs arise from causal interaction with the world and not just from voices in our heads, but justifying those beliefs can be only a matter of squaring them with other beliefs.

"There are no facts, only interpretations," Nietzsche said. The Buddha saw a direct causal link between sensation and belief, primarily the belief in the self, which he considered to be conception. Sensation gives rise to craving, he taught, and craving to clinging, and clinging to the creation of an ego-self.

So in the Buddha's view, the delusion was not that John thought what he smelled was a "doggy whiff," but that John thought that he was a separate individual self apart from everything else, and could experience a sensation of some "other." And how did he come to this conclusion?, the Buddha asks. From sensation giving rise to conception.

From this perspective, there is no "John" and there is no "doggy whiff," there is only sensation.