322 Chapter 13
uttersthatsentence,thereis thisdeeper,implicitmeaningbehindit: “I am sayingthis
sentence,and I stubbornlyholdthe sentenceas true.But this stubbornnessis not basedon
any seriouscommitmentto adducingempiricalobservationsandinducingopen-ended-
yet-consistentprinciplestherefrom.”
WhenTeacher2 uttersthat sentence,thereis this deeper,implicitmeaningbehindit:
I haveconfidencein thissentencebasedon inductivereason.It is the consequenceof
observingrealityand inducingconclusionstherefrom.A conclusionbeingbasedon em-
piricalobservationsrendersit a contextualcertainty.Theconclusionbeinga contextual
certaintydoesnot entailit beinga “closed” conclusion.Concepts—includingconcepts
deemedcertainby repeatedempiricalobservation—are open-ended.Furtherobserva-
tionswill be incorporatedintothe concept,expandingit. Nuancesand exceptionswill be
observed,andsuchqualificationsandrevisionswillbe integratedintothe increasingly
complexconcept.Suchconceptualrevisionsdo not underminethe observeddatathat
havealreadybeenpriorlyvalidated.WhenI do not engagein observationsmyself,first-
hand,I relyuponothersources.Nevertheless,my relianceon thoseothersourcesis
contingentupontherebeingevidencethat thoseothersourceshavea solidrecordbehind
them—a recordof adducingreliableobservationsandtheninducingcoherentexplana-
tionsfromthem,as I havedone.
Teacher 2 ’s approachis the one I findvalid.Of course,whenI wasa verysmallboy,my
parentstoldme that caterpillarspupateand metamorphoseinto butterflies.I immediately
believedthem,priorto havingseenthis myself.Thatis fine,as theyhadalreadyestab-
lisheda recordof reliabilityin tellingme truthsthatI did havethe chanceto test first-
hand.At somepointI did observecaterpillarsin terrariumsmyself.It is perfectlyvalid
thatone truststhe judgmentsof otherpeople,in the absenceof first-handobservations,
undertheseconditions.
- Onekeepsin mindthe limitsof one’s knowledgeaboutthe othersources’ reliabil-
ity. - Whenit comesto convictionsbasedon others’ observations—convictionsstrongly
held—thoseotherinformationsourceshaveshowna recordof adequatereliability
in adheringto the epistemologicalmethodof observationalrationality. - Oneallowsthe conceptsto be open-ended,as newdataproveit possiblefor the
conceptsto be expandedand revised.Thoserevisionsdo not destroythe certainty
or absolutenessof the alreadyinductivelyvalidateddata;the revisions simply
revealadditionalfacetsto the data.
The conceptthat a personholds—the conclusionto whichthat personarrives—implicitly
subsumesall of this.Thus,whenTeacher 1 says,“A caterpillarwillspina chrysalisand
lateremergefromthe chrysalisas a wingedcreaturecalleda butterfly,” the conceptual
contentsof Teacher 1 sayingthatare dissimilarfromthe intellectualcontentsof what
Teacher 2 meanswhenutteringthatsentence.Naturally,if Teacher 1 tellsme thatcater-
pillarsmetamorphoseinto butterflies,that considerationshouldnot immediatelyleadme
to conclude,in blindrebellion,that caterpillarsneverchangeintobutterflies.The rational
approachis to realizethat the conceptsthat Teacher 1 explicatesare cognitivelymeaning-
less.Independentof Teacher 1 ’s assertions,I am to searchfor the truthaboutbutterflies
fromsourcesthat do respectthe inductivemethodof knowledgeacquisition.
As one mightdismissthe scenarioof the two teachersas far-fetchedfantasy,I shallcite
a scenariofromhistory.DemocritusandotherancientGreekphilosophersarbitrarily
speculatedthateverybit of matterwascomprisedof microscopic,indivisibleunitsthat
theycalledatoms. For this reason,somereadersmightbe underthe misapprehensionthat
Democritusandtheseotherphilosophershadconjuredup modernatomictheoryin the
absenceof evidence. Thatis a falsenotionthatconflatessemanticswithevidentiary