The Truth Connection

Excerpt from a recent email exchange. The question was something like this. Evidence for p indicates the truth of p. So to know that we have evidence for p, requires "getting outside" and looking to see when certain kinds of states are correlated with p's being the case.

The problem is supposed to be similar to the problem with not being able to "get outside" and tell whether one is reliable.

Here's a part of my reply:

The bottom line is that truth-indicativeness is taken in two senses. One is "external" and one is "internal" though that language is dispensable.

One has to do with objective correlations in the world, one has to do with the character of experience. Think of the grand old phrase "the testimony of the senses." I love that phrase. When someone testifies that p, we needn't be in a position to verify the testimony before the testimony counts as evidence for p.

Now there are lots of ways of explaining why it is that testimony counts as evidence. I'm not going to try to settle that debate here. I only want to point out that *whatever* the story is there, one has the option of telling a relevantly similar story about the testimony of the senses.

My preferred account has to do with the fact that our experience has the character as of revealing an external world to us, and the best explanation of this is that it is so. One is justified in believing what the balance of one's reasons supports. The basic notion of a reason is something that counts in favor. It goes in the "Pro" list and not the "Con" list. If there are no defeaters, quite moderate evidence can justify belief because the reasons for will outweigh the reasons against.

The apparently revelatory character of our experience counts in favor of its veridicality. It could be that it's mistaken, but possibilities are not reasons in the relevant sense here. When there is no reason to doubt the character of my experience, then the balance of my reasons supports believing and belief is the propositional attitude which bests fits my evidence.

That's the simple, intuitive evidentialist picture, and I've never seen much reason to doubt it. Most philosophy is sophistry or what Lycan called "philosophy crap." Someone once told me never to exchange what I'm more sure of for what I'm less sure of. It's a Moorean picture really. It's the picture I accept.