Communities of Informed Judgment

The Catholic University of America Press

Contents

Acknowledgments................................................................ix1. Re-reading Newman...........................................................12. University Sermons: A Preliminary Investigation.............................143. Cultivating Personal Judgment: A Methodological Dilemma.....................484. A Social Epistemology of Informed Judgment..................................945. Shaping Communities of Theological Judgment.................................147References.....................................................................165Index..........................................................................177

Chapter One

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Under what conditions is it appropriate to think of Christian belief as rationally acceptable? Recent scholarly developments furnish new resources for tackling this important question. Such efforts do not suggest dissatisfaction with the process of human rational reflection itself, but they reveal a growing dissatisfaction with scholarly treatments of the nature and scope of human cognition. There has been a tendency, for example, to think of Christian belief either as based on canons of strictly deductive and inductive logic or as based on faith. Recent accounts of rationality, however, expand options for understanding the process of belief-formation. The aim is to carve out broader and more refined accounts of rationality that reflect the actual conditions under which Christians form and sustain beliefs.

New accounts of rationality consider various factors that shape the process of belief-formation. Some accounts, for instance, explore the role of non-rule-governed judgments in forming, evaluating, and sustaining beliefs. As Harold Brown points out, "a growing number of philosophers, including philosophers of science, have been slowly coming to the conclusion that we can not make sense of human knowledge without recognizing the role that judgement plays at key epistemic junctures." The focus on judgment recognizes that rule-governed procedures of reasoning, though important, do not capture fully the nature and scope of human cognition. Rational assessment of beliefs requires acquisition of knowledge and skills in different domains of knowledge. In practicing good cognitive habits, people of informed judgment learn how to detect key clues for evaluating evidence in concrete situations.

Part of the task involves understanding the social context in which people refine cognitive skills and cultivate informed judgment about particulars. Focus on the social dimension of reasoning recognizes both the domain-specificity of human cognition and the impact of environment on cognitive development. Reducing human cognition to what goes on in the head fails to account for social conditions under which people form and sustain beliefs. Cognitive development requires distribution of labor, not simply the activity of a brain isolated from the influence of other cognitive agents. It depends on the human capacity "to diffuse achieved knowledge and practical wisdom through complex social structures, and to reduce the loads on individual brains by locating those brains in complex webs of linguistic, social, political, and institutional constraints." By calling into question the notion of disembodied cognition, emphasis on the social nature of reasoning explores the process by which cognitive agents shape maturation of reasoning within real-world environments. People learn to reason under the tutelage of exemplars of cognitive excellence; they hone cognitive capacities in order to reason proficiently in a domain of knowledge. Proficiency in reasoning, therefore, stems from induction into a community with vibrant practices, nurtured by exemplars of skillful judgment.

In An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, John Henry Newman makes a similar point in discussing the nature, function, and scope of the illative sense. His proposal shows a strong preference for an empirical study of human cognition; a real-world environment is the context from which we evaluate cognitive performance and determine whether beliefs are rationally acceptable. The stress here is compatible with the focus on the concrete nature of human cognition. Accounts of human cognition consider constraints under which people reason within everyday events (e.g., limited time and knowledge). Consequently, cognitive success depends on the capacity to employ information effectively within real-world environments. Securing reliable channels of informed judgment plays an indispensable role in achieving epistemic goals and in refining cognitive performance.

Rethinking Judgment

Newman's notion of the illative sense paves the way for the construction of a fresh account of the rationality of Christian belief. It attempts to "steer a middle path between reducing religion to a matter of emotion or sentiment and reducing argumentation to a formal logical or deductive reasoning." Newman's project focuses on the informal and tacit dimension of reasoning, shaped by experience and personal insight. In dealing with the rationality of Christian belief, most accounts of rationality have focused their attention on determining whether a certain proposition yields rationally acceptable beliefs. Some accounts, however, have recently explored how a community context facilitates development of intellectual virtues and how these qualities contribute to the process of forming and sustaining beliefs. Newman understands such activity as the cultivation of personal judgment, which requires mastery of a concrete field of knowledge and enhancement of cognitive skills. He challenges the claim that beliefs are rationally acceptable if and only if demonstrative proof is forthcoming. Evidence can be seen from various perspectives; antecedent assumptions, training, experience, and moral disposition influence evaluation of evidence. In addition, belief-formation is a cumulative process of investigation: Christians form, evaluate, and sustain beliefs by accumulating different material (e.g., testimony, tradition, experience, and Scripture). The illative sense sifts, evaluates, and integrates various pieces of evidence into a synthetic judgment and furnishes concrete answers to specific questions.

The Grammar contains the most explicit formulation of the illative sense and gives considerable attention to how personal judgment shapes the process of belief-formation. As a complex belief-producing process, the illative sense enables people to be certain about concrete matters without epistemic access to how the mind justifies knowledge. Explicit awareness of the grounds of belief is not a precondition for forming rationally acceptable beliefs. Though the illative sense connects various pieces of data, its manner of concluding does not follow strictly a rule-governed process of inquiry.

In highlighting the domain-specificity of judgment, Newman notes the difficulty of furnishing a common measure independent of cognitive practices. The personal nature of the illative sense of reasoning complicates the search for a common ground by which radically different communities can adjudicate truth claims. Though his proposal makes sense of intellectual differences, it fails to identify ways of moving beyond this methodological impasse. How, then, do communities test personal claims? How do they ensure skillful judgment of competing claims?

This problem of common measure, however, has been viewed incorrectly. A solution to the problem presupposes that reflexive awareness of how the mind justifies knowledge is indispensable to belief-formation. The problem, however, cannot be solved by reference to a common measure independent of communal instantiations of the illative sense. People cannot assume a position independent of cognitive practices to determine the reliability of a belief-forming process. Thus, the problem of trusting a belief-forming process replaces the problem of common measure. Most deem beliefs to be rationally acceptable because a reliable belief-forming process produces them. The illative sense operates on the same level, transposing the problem of common measure into the problem of trusting a belief-forming process. It is reliable if and only if it is guided by good cognitive practices and by exemplars of informed judgment and so produces a preponderance of true beliefs over false ones.

Developing a Social Epistemology of Informed Judgment

Although the Grammar hints at the social dimension of the illative sense, a personal dimension predominates in Newman's analysis. A fuller account of the social dimension of the illative sense is warranted. For this reason, I propose a social epistemology of informed judgment that merges Newman's account of the illative sense with insights from recent work in social and virtue epistemology. The proposal retains Newman's preference for the concrete nature of cognition, but it explores how the concomitant exercises of the illative sense by others, both within a communal setting and among other communities of informed judgment, enhance the personal dimension of the illative sense. Newman acknowledges that refinement of the illative sense of reasoning requires the company of informed people, that is, people who, by means of practice and experience, have acquired proficiency in a field of knowledge. Nevertheless, the Grammar lacks a fully developed discussion of social conditions under which people develop the illative sense.

A social epistemology of informed judgment connects personal and communal dimensions of the illative sense. The beginning point for dealing with the problem of common measure lies in a proper understanding of how people form and sustain beliefs within a community context. However, this preliminary understanding does not imply the inability to adjudicate claims across different communities of informed judgment. Sensitivity to the process of forming and sustaining beliefs does not rule out the possibility of assessing whether people have good reasons for believing and behaving as they do in everyday affairs of life. Fruitful exchange with others demands informed judgment, which involves integration of at least four essential elements: praiseworthy dispositions, modalities of reasoning, evidence, and wisdom. Without these elements, the illative sense remains a personal matter and exacerbates the epistemic crisis described thus far.

Philosophers of science have also discussed the concept of informed judgment. Though rule-governed procedures are important, a community of informed judgment ultimately governs the rationality of scientific investigation. Along these lines, Harold Brown develops a notion of informed judgment, retaining the stress on scientific rationality as the best example of human cognition. Scientific communities, for example, are composed of people who, by means of adequate knowledge, training, and practice, have earned the right to make informed judgments in different areas of research. Brown, in effect, argues that "rational beliefs arise out of informed judgements that have been submitted to the community of competent individuals for evaluation and criticism."

Mikael Stenmark identifies the model of informed judgment as a form of social evidentialism. Beliefs are rationally acceptable if and only if they are formed by people of informed judgment and if and only if they have been "exposed to or tested against the judgments of a community of relevant expertise." Stenmark, however, sees the proposal of informed judgment as an "idealized model" of cognition, since it fails to account for actual conditions under which most form beliefs. In equating judgment with expertise, the model violates an "axiom of reasonable demand," that is, it "demands of the agent more than what that creature can reasonably be demanded to do." Thus, Stenmark calls for a broader account of rationality that exhibits context-and-agent sensitivity. Standards of rationality cannot be formulated without considering the situation of cognitive agents. Within real-world environments, people reason under constraints of limited time and knowledge. Everyday believing offers a broader context from which to glean the nature and scope of rationality. It "is a paradigm case of rationality not in the sense that it is the best we humans can do, but in the sense that it is the most we do."

A social epistemology of informed judgment concurs with the focus on the contextual nature of human cognition, but it argues that informed judgment has a stronger phenomenological basis than Stenmark's comments suggest. A key element here is the phenomenon of epistemic dependence. On two levels, epistemic dependence solidifies the process by which most people form, evaluate, and sustain beliefs. On one level, some people form beliefs in everyday events without explicit awareness of the grounds for those beliefs. They rely on insights from people who, by training and practice, have earned the right to make informed judgment about particulars. On another level, epistemic dependence takes place in specialized areas of knowledge. Scholars trust that others, who possess specialized knowledge in different areas of research, are capable of supplying reliable assessments of evidence. Both levels are rationally acceptable ways of forming, sustaining, and evaluating beliefs; epistemic deference to recognized experts implies an acknowledgment of a person's competence to furnish informed judgment about relevant issues. Maintaining confidence in the trustworthiness of others is reasonable unless we discover extenuating circumstances that call into question their reliability as sources of informed judgment.

Fusing Horizons

Newman's notion of personal judgment has not been fully articulated in scholarly literature. Some scholars have tackled the illative sense of reasoning in the Grammar, but few have offered constructive suggestions on how to move beyond the methodological problem of common measure. My proposal agrees with Newman's emphasis on the concrete nature of reasoning, but my constructive move involves connecting the personal and social dimensions of the illative sense. It uncovers and develops Newman's epistemic hints, as stated in the Grammar, on the social dimension of the illative sense, paving a way for rethinking a time-honored problem of the rationality of Christian belief. In my estimation, recent work in social and virtue epistemology furnishes crucial insights for understanding conditions under which Christian belief is considered rationally acceptable.

A social epistemology of informed judgment, therefore, contributes to rethinking an important question of theological prolegomena: Under what conditions is it appropriate to consider Christian belief as rationally acceptable? The value of my proposal lies in setting forth the groundwork for theological reflection on the nature and function of the illative sense within theological communities. Chapter 5, for example, offers brief suggestions on how a social epistemology of informed judgment enhances theological judgment within Christian communities. It addresses two topics. The first topic is a discussion of the communal context in which people form theological judgments and participate in the distribution of theological labor. The second topic is an exploration of the relevance of a social epistemology of informed judgment for contemporary theology. It makes a brief foray into contemporary theology and shows what a social epistemology of informed judgment means in this arena. Both enriching theological judgment and scanning the terrain of contemporary theology are the business of a community of informed judgment.

In re-reading Newman this way, a constructive proposal of informed judgment strives to understand his thought in its own context. Only from this perspective is it conceivable to appropriate Newman's thought for a contemporary context. Hence, I focus mainly on the University Sermons (Chapter 2) as a backdrop for understanding the development of the illative sense in the Grammar (Chapter 3). The University Sermons contain a preliminary treatment of faith and reason, and the Grammar offers a mature account of rationality, concentrating on the role of judgment in the process of belief-formation. Though one may detect an implicit understanding of judgment in most of Newman's writings, these two works serve as his most explicit treatments of faith and reason.

The corpus of Newman's writings is not a systematic collection but a series of responses to particular issues. In fact, Newman understood most of his works as a response to some specific occasion: "another reason, closely connected with this, was my habit, or even nature, of not writing & publishing without a call. What I have written has been for the most part what may be called official, works done in some office I held or engagement I had made-all my Sermons are such." Development seems to be a logical outcome of studying his thought. Historical sensitivity unearths both the context of Newman's thought and the starting point for further elaboration or refinement. The goal, consequently, is to fuse both horizons into an informed understanding of how non-rule-governed judgments shape the process of forming and sustaining Christian beliefs.

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