Against Autonomy II: A Response to David Pallmann

Against Autonomy II: A Response to David Pallmann

This would be another installment in the little back-and-forth David Pallmann and I are having. He first released this video critiquing Bahnsen and Presuppositional Apologetics. 

Then I responded with this article.

Now, recently David released another video responding to his critics (including me). The video can be found here.

Preliminary Considerations

First of all I’d like to commend David. I think his response video was thoughtful and well put. I think a lot of my points in my initial response article were unclear and the details could have been fleshed out better. In any case, I still believe the heart of my points and criticisms are valid and I intend to use this post to flesh them out and respond to David’s criticisms thoroughly. David responded to other critics of his video so I would only interact with the sections devoted to me. That being said, let’s dive right into this.

Dilemma for Defenders of Circularity?

David’s first point in the video is that no response was given to the dilemma he posed for defenders of circular reasoning in his original video. In his original video, David claimed that circular arguments are incapable of justifying anything because the crucial premise in a circular argument must be justified before it can confer justification to its conclusion. The dilemma, David reiterates, is that:

If it [the crucial premise] is not justified, then the circular argument does not confer justification. If it is justified, then the circular argument is unnecessary. So far none of the responses to my video have attempted to resolve this dilemma.

But the reason no one (me, anyways) attempted to resolve this dilemma seems obvious. No presuppositionalist who has studied logic even a little would defend this kind of circularity. I personally agree with David’s dilemma. The thing is that David’s dilemma is only potent against logically circular arguments. Let us take the following example:

1. If I am in Greece, then I am in Greece.

2. I am in Greece

3. Therefore, I am in Greece.

This is a very obvious case of circular argument because a premise is just a restatement of the conclusion. This argument cannot confer justification on the conclusion because it gives us no independent reason for believing the conclusion. David’s dilemma works here because if the crucial premise (that I am in Greece) is not justified, then the conclusion isn’t  justified either (because, for one, the crucial premise and the conclusion are identical). Also, if the crucial premise is justified then we did not need the argument in the first place.  

None of this is controversial. Circular arguments cannot confer justification. But perhaps David believes his dilemma works against epistemically circular arguments as well. If that’s the case, then David’s claim ceases to be uncontroversial. He would have to show that his dilemma proves that epistemically circular arguments cannot be justificatory. It can be easily shown that his dilemma fails to establish that. Let us look at a simple epistemically circular argument to show this:

1. If my perceptual beliefs are true most of the time, then my perceptual faculties are reliable.

2. My perceptual beliefs are true most of the time.

3. Therefore, my perceptual faculties are reliable.

The above argument is epistemically circular because the object of belief (reliability of one’s perceptual faculties) is appealed to in the justification of the belief (see here). But does David’s dilemma hold? The first horn seems true. If the crucial premise (premise 2) is unjustified, the argument fails to confer justification. However, is the second horn true? If the crucial premise (premise 2) is in fact justified, does it follow that the argument is unnecessary? Clearly not! This is due to the simple fact that the argument is not trivial. There are no premises that simply restate or assume the truth of the conclusion. This seemed clear enough that I did not bother to point it out in my original response. One may offer other arguments to show that epistemically circular arguments cannot confer justification, but David’s dilemma is not one of such arguments.

The Charge of Contradiction

Next David accuses me of contradicting myself when I point out that he has misunderstood the points Van Til and Bahnsen were trying to make in the relevant quotations. He quotes from my article where I say:

Basically, David erroneously thinks that Van Til and Bahnsen were speaking about circularity of argument. Circular arguments are fallacious. But neither Van Til nor Bahnsen endorsed circular arguments. Rather, they were speaking about the circularity involved in the arguments over ultimate issues between adherents of competing worldviews.

He then goes on to say:

So according to Akande, I made an error in thinking that Bahnsen and Van Til were talking about arguments when they were actually talking about… arguments. I’m hard pressed to see how I made an error in thinking that they were referring to arguments when by Akande’s own admission they were indeed talking about arguments. Perhaps I have grossly misunderstood Akande, but it is difficult for me to see how he is not flatly contradicting himself.

David’s suspicion is right—he has grossly misunderstood me. But this is not entirely his fault. I’ll admit that my wording was less than clear. However, I did further explain and provide the context of what I was taking about in the paragraph before the one David quoted:

Van Til was also speaking of the circularity involved when reasoning or arguing about ultimate commitments. Our starting point (ultimate commitment) informs our method (epistemology) and also the kind of conclusions we draw. A naturalist who is committed to the truth of naturalism would tailor his method accordingly and the types of conclusions he draws from facts would cohere with that method and starting point. This ties back to Van Til’s point which the larger context of the quote provides: an appeal to facts cannot settle the dispute over fundamental issues between proponents of competing philosophical systems because the interpretation of facts is regimented and organized by their respective presuppositions or ultimate commitments. Circularity, on this interpretation, is merely referring to consistency within a system or worldview. This circularity is not fallacious - it cannot be - because it does not involve any direct argument. It is epistemological in nature.

I do not know why David left this portion out. It is crucial in making sense of my later statement. So even though I admit that the statement that David quoted was not clearly worded, I believe reading the entire context gives insight into what I was talking about and the distinction I was making. David’s error was in confusing circularity of argument and circularity of worldviews. Basically, he confused logical circularity and worldview circularity. Bahnsen and Van Til were talking about the latter. 

A further error on David’s part occurs when he confuses epistemic circularity and worldview (or epistemological) circularity. He quotes my article again:

Circularity, on this interpretation, is merely referring to consistency within a system or worldview. This circularity is not fallacious - it cannot be - because it does not involve any direct argument. It is epistemological in nature.

He then points out that perhaps I am ignorant of the relevant literature and points out that epistemic circularity is still an argument. 

But I agree that epistemic circularity is a type of argument. In fact, I wrote an entire article on epistemic circularity. In that article, relying on the philosophical literature, I distinguish between logical, epistemic, and worldview (or epistemological) circularity. In the above quotation, I was referring to the third kind of circularity.  With these distinctions in mind, the charge that I was contradicting myself is taken care of.

Direct Acquaintance Revisited

David then turns to defend his theory of direct acquaintance against criticisms. In this section, he interacts mainly with Dr. Chris Bolt who criticized David’s theory. In my original response, I listed three different problems for David’s use of direct acquaintance in defense of autonomous reasoning. Although David did not directly interact with them, he did address similar points in his response to Dr. Bolt so I will interact with those here. I will also present further problems for his theory.

The first problem I raised for his view was that he was taking for granted certain metaphysical assumptions that have not been shown to be defensible on the basis of autonomy. These metaphysical assumptions include that of the uniformity of perceptual experience and the correspondence of perceptions or acquaintances to a persisting subject. I wrote:

He has taken for granted things such as his own existence and the uniformity of his perceptual experience. There may be direct acquaintance with certain perceptions or experiences but why think that these perceptions and acquaintances correspond to a continuously existing subject? The most rational conclusion seems to be that some perception is occurring. However, to assume that these perceptions correspond to a subject of knowledge seems arbitrary. It seems that even the incorrigible perceptual foundations rest upon a more foundational assumption of the existence of a self or subject and the uniformity in this subject’s experiences. If David truly wants to construct an autonomous epistemology, he must not be allowed to take such things for granted.

We may grant that direct acquaintance occurs. But what is it that unites these various acquaintances? And why should it be assumed that these acquaintances correspond to a particular subject as opposed to, say, being wholly discrete? These assumptions would have to be warranted by David’s worldview. We should recall that David is attempting a defense of an autonomous worldview and so he must defend the autonomous metaphysics which his autonomous epistemology relies on. But such a defense is impossible and so David fails to escape skepticism. Without the presupposition of the Christian worldview, order and coherence can not be found in experience and the resultant state of affairs is that of pure diversity (see here and here). This first problem was not addressed by Pallmann.

It should be pointed out that Dr. Bolt raised a similar problem in his response to David. With regards to the issues about the subject of knowledge and how one justifies belief in an enduring self, David says:

These are massive topics which I will not undertake here because they are not relevant to the theory of direct acquaintance.

And herein lies, I think, a major issue in this entire discourse. David does not think these issues are relevant to his theory of direct acquaintance and so chooses not to address them. It would seem then that David is merely concerned with proposing and defending direct acquaintance as a workable theory of non-inferential justification in isolation from worldview considerations. But then the presuppositionalist is left wondering what relevance direct acquaintance has to his methodology and arguments. The presuppositionalist does not have a problem with direct acquaintance per se—his problem is with autonomous reasoning. Remember that David is attempting to refute Bahnsen’s claim that knowledge is impossible on an autonomous basis. The presuppositionalist can actually grant David his entire theory of direct acquaintance. The relevant question is not whether direct acquaintance is a cogent theory of justification but whether direct acquaintance, if true, would guarantee knowledge within the context of a non-Christian worldview. The problem I raised above, which Dr. Bolt raised as well, shows that it would not. This is because an autonomous worldview lacks the metaphysical resources necessary for a theory of direct acquaintance to work. We can grant, for argument sake, that direct acquaintance is cogent. But within the context of the non-Christian worldview, it does not yield knowledge for reasons stated above. If David wants to maintain the coherence of his autonomous worldview, he must deal with these problems.

The second problem I raised was not directed at direct acquaintance specifically but at perceptual Foundationalism. My point was basically that perceptions (which, on this model, serve as the foundations of our knowledge) without innate concepts are unintelligible. I pointed out that concepts cannot be acquired one by one and that a working theory of concept formation is essential to David’s view.David claimed in his video that I gave no reason to believe these claims and that I merely repeated Bahnsen’s point. He then goes on to say:

An empiricist account of the origin of concepts is merely a proposal. ...The literature on this topic is vast and, more importantly, the conclusion that one reaches is irrelevant to where one stands on the issue of direct acquaintance.

I’ll admit that perhaps I did not clearly flesh out my arguments against an empiricist account. But I don’t think the conclusion one reaches is irrelevant to the issue of Foundationalism or direct acquaintance. If perceptions are meant to be the foundations of knowledge, but they depend on something else for their intelligibility, then it seems we must account for that something else. Also, David’s theory of direct acquaintance relies on three distinct acquaintances, one of them being direct acquaintance with facts. But facts are complex. That is, facts are made up of objects, properties, relations, etc. Direct acquaintance, then, also relies on concepts.

If these concepts are not available prior to experience, then perceptions—and, by extension, acquaintances—would be unintelligible. Suppose that the mind is a totally blank state with no prior concepts, categories, or classification systems. Suppose that one were to come across an apple. Would an interpretation of this experience be posssible? What is this object? Is it red? No, for one has no idea what redness is. Is it sweet? No, for one has no idea what sweetness is. The raw sense data would make no sense to the observer without prior concepts. There is no way to categorize the various sense data gotten from the apple. Empiricism with respect to concepts has some merit to it; we definitely gain some concepts from experience. However, it cannot ground knowledge all the way down. There must be some prior concepts which serve as the foundation for our conceptual frameworks. It seems, then, that David is really a conceptual Foundationalist because concepts are more foundational than perceptions or acquaintances. They have to be or else David’s epistemology collapses into skepticism.

But is this really a problem? So what if concepts form the basis of his epistemology? Well the alternative does not work either. If concepts are available prior to experience then subjectivism would be the case. This brings us to the final point I raised against David’s epistemology: it falls prey to the egocentric predicament. I wrote:

Even if we grant him his perceptual foundations and a direct acquaintance with them, his autonomous epistemology is still found wanting. For perceptual foundations are internal to the subject and as such, one cannot move from subjective premises to objective conclusions. Since his epistemology begins with the subject, he cannot build a bridge from his subjective experience to any external world of facts. David admits this much when he says that an external world is not necessary for his theory. However, if this is the case, we are left wondering exactly what problem his theory of direct acquaintance is supposed to solve and how it’s supposed to support his autonomous epistemology.

Dr. Bolt raised a similar criticism saying:

Even though Pallmann’s theory does not necessitate that facts are actual external states of affairs, it is at least possible that they are in some instances. But if we cannot step outside our thoughts to compare our thoughts to facts to the correspondence between them then we are stuck with whatever these direct acquaintances deliver.

David’s response to this point leaves much to be desired. He says:

It is not entirely clear what point Bolt is trying to make here. I offered a theory of non-inferential justification not a theory of the justification of external world beliefs. If Bolt thinks that the fact that direct acquaintances do not, by themselves, secure knowledge of the external world is an objection to the theory, then this suggests that he has not understood the theory.

This is another illustration of David’s neglect of holistic worldview considerations. Neither Dr. Bolt, nor I, are critiquing the theory of direct acquaintance in isolation from worldview considerations. Direct acquaintance is being criticized within the context of an autonomous worldview. It would seem that direct acquaintance, even if successful, would only secure justification for beliefs about internal states of affairs. There seems to be no way to move from such subjective beliefs to anything objective about the actual world. It seems we can only be directly acquainted with internal facts such as the feeling of pain or the appearance of an object. But none of these imply anything about extra mental states of affairs. If David cannot avoid subjectivism, then his defense of autonomy is unsuccessful.

A priori Analytic Justification for Logic Revisited

In my original response article, I laid out three different criticisms of David’s attempt to justify logic by appeal to analyticity and direct acquaintance. 

Firstly, I criticized the notion of the analytic/synthetic distinction, pointing out that it is obscure and poorly drawn. I noted that David’s preferred analysis of analyticity (that analytic truths are true in virtue of the meanings of the constituent terms) does not work because it lacks an account of what exactly meaning is. To this, David responds:

The proponent of analyticity isn’t committed to any particular theory of meaning. He is only committed to realism with respect to meaning and there are a wide variety of theories which count as realist theories of meaning.

But realism with respect to meaning is not sufficient to clarify the notion of analyticity. The issue is that the analytic/synthetic distinction is obscure. There doesn’t seem to be a special class of truths which we can denote as “analytic” (or as “synthetic”). It does not help to explicate and clarify a concept by appealing to something that is in just as much need of analysis and clarification. Simply maintaining realism about meaning does not help me identify which truths are analytic. So, no, realism about meaning is not sufficient to explicate the analytic/synthetic distinction. 

Secondly, I pointed out that the vast disagreement between philosophers of logic with respect to logical truths proves that direct acquaintance with the relevant concepts is insufficient to justify belief in logic. David’s response to this is two-fold. First, he says:

It should be fairly obvious that the mere fact that some people have disputed certain propositions does not count against their truth. Skeptics of logical laws and analyticity have a wide variety of reasons for their skepticism. ...But pointing to the reality of dissenters is simply a red herring which has simply no bearing on the merits of the analyticity of logic.

David has missed my point. In pointing out the disagreements regarding logic I was not giving evidence of their falsity. Rather, I was undermining the sufficiency of direct acquaintance with the relevant concepts to justify belief in logic. To claim that these dissenters were not directly acquainted with the relevant concepts seems implausible. But if they were acquainted with the concepts and yet still dispute the truths of logic, then mere acquaintance is insufficient to justify belief in logic. 

David’s second response is to reject the premise that logical truths have been disputed throughout the history of philosophy. He points out that even today,  views like dialetheism are a minority among philosophers. But David’s claim is untrue. As Dr. Bahnsen points out:

For instance, intuitionist logicians are suspicious of the law of double negation and the law of excluded middle. The law of excluded middle has been rejected by the ancient Epicureans (in arguing with Stoic logicians), some medieval scholastics (in dealing with the question of statements which express future contingencies), and modern physicists (who concern themselves with the philosophical aspects of quantum mechanics). It is subject to challenge on the basis of some metaphysical positions, such as an element of Aristotle's philosophy (viz., a thing can be both potentially red and potentially not-red) and of Hegel's philosophy (viz., defining things in terms of their negations). Further, there is the whole question of many-valued logics; for instance, three-valued logic (true, false, indeterminate) turns out true to form, yet rejecting classical negation and excluded middle (bivalence). Then again, we can note that ontological interest attaches to deviations in standard quantification theory (as in the intuitionists). 

David’s proposed justification for logic leads to underdetermination. Someone else can appeal to direct acquaintance to justify belief in an entirely different set of logical truths. David responds to a criticism similar to this in this original video. He says:

People will frequently claim to see things they have never really seen or to have heard things that they never really heard. The fact some may abuse these avenues of knowledge does not mean that we cannot gain knowledge by means of visual and audible perceptions. The same point applies to a priori knowledge: the mere fact that someone can abuse this avenue of knowledge does not in any way mean that those of us who have genuine a priori insights are any less justified. This observation serves to demonstrate the truly first-person nature of epistemology. An analytic proposition will be justified only for those who are actually acquainted with the relevant concepts and who actually understand the meanings of the terms involved.

David’s response here reeks of special pleading and highlights just how ludicrous the analytic/synthetic distinction is. What David is essentially saying here is that those who reject his preferred system of logic and who may appeal to analyticity and direct acquaintance to justify their alternative system are “abusing” these avenues of knowledge. He is also claiming that those that disagree are not acquainted with the relevant concepts and don’t actually understand the meanings of the terms involved. But, as I pointed out already, this just seems implausible. It just seems arbitrary to claim that one can only disagree with certain truths due to a failure of understanding. David’s purported justification leaves us with no non-arbitrary way of adjudicating between competing claims. We just have his word for it and anyone who disagrees does not understand the meaning of words and does not have “genuine a priori insight”.

The third and final issue I raised for David’s justification of logic was that even if we grant the analytic a priori nature of logic, what we would have would be purely formal, abstract principles that have nothing to do with the contingent realm of experience. To this, David says:

I wonder if Akande just missed this entire portion of my video since I addressed this exact question there. I pointed out that my understanding of analyticity depends upon concepts. When the concepts are instantiated in the physical world, the concepts apply to the physical world.

In my original response, I pointed out that David missed Bahnsen’s point. To see this, let’s revisit his response to Bahnsen in his original video. He said:

Remember that my understanding of analyticity depends on concepts. Concepts are, for the most part, gained by experience. My concept of a bachelor, for example, is derived from my experience. If this concept is gained on the basis of a referent in the physical world, then it is instantiated in the physical world. Therefore the analytic truth that “all bachelors are unmarried men” applies to the physical world.

But Bahnsen was not criticizing analyticity but rather an a priori justification for logical truths. David claims that his justification for logic is a priori and based on analyticity. Let’s grant that. However, if logic is justified a priori why think that it applies to contingent experience? In short, this particular problem for David’s justification of logic is not the analytic part but the a priori part. An a priori justification for logic renders logic wholly divorced from the facts which it is meant to apply to. David says that when the relevant concepts are instabtiated in the physical world, then logic applies to the physical world. But the question is why think that the relevant concepts are ever instantiated in the physical world given that these concepts are acquired wholly apart from experience? Is David going to claim that the relevant concepts required for justifying logical truths are gained by experience? If so, then his justification is not a priori. I pointed out problems for an a posteriori justification for logic and it is to this I now turn.

Abductive Justification for Logic Revisited

David proposed an indirect way of justifying logic based on abductive reasoning (inference to the best explanation). His justification is basically that the best explanation for one’s repeated and uniform experience of non-contradictory perceptions is that there is a law of non-contradiction. I raised four objections to this purported justification.

Firstly, I question the idea that we perceive logical properties. I pointed out:

When one perceives a red car, all one perceives are the various sensible qualities of that object. One does not perceive any logical properties such as non-contradiction. The notion that one’s perception of the red car is non-contradictory is as a result of one’s interpretation of the perception based on prior logical categories…

To this, David responds that:

Akande appears to be contradicting himself on this point. He affirms both that one does perceive determinate qualities and yet that one does not perceive logical properties. But this is incoherent. In order for a perception to be determinate it cannot both have a property and not have that same property. A perception of a red car is not a perception of a blue bird. Perceptions are non-contradictory, they possess logical properties which can, in principle, be derived from the particular perceptions.

I simply do not see the incoherence David is referring to. If David is defining “determinate qualities” as “non-contradictory qualities”, then I did not affirm that one perceives determinate qualities. I affirmed that one can perceive various sensible qualities such as the redness of a car. But amongst these various sensible qualities, one does not directly perceive logical properties such as negation or non-contradiction. The idea that one’s perceptions are determinate is as a result of an interpretation of one’s perceptions—an interpretation which relies on logical categories which are brought to bear on one’s perceptual experiences. David seems to reverse the order of dependence: he says that logical properties and categories are derived from determinate perceptions when, in fact, perceptions are only conceived of as determinate if one already possesses logical categories. If one does not already possess logical categories, there is no reason to think that one’s perceptions are determinate.

Secondly, in line with the above point, I objected that David’s justification is circular since it relies on logical categories in order to justify belief in logic. To this, David responds:

But remember that Bahnsen challenged the autonomous thinker to provide a justification for belief in laws of logic. Bahnsen did not ask for a justification for belief in logical categories. So if Akande thinks that I was trying to give a justification for logical categories rather than logical laws, he is sadly mistaken.

I do not see any relevant difference here. Logical laws are based on logical categories and concepts. If an abductive justification for logic derives logical laws (which presuppose logical categories) from logical categories, then it is circular. David attempts to avoid circularity by pointing out that he has independent justification for belief in logical categories. If so, then we would have to ask what the purpose of positing an abductive justification was.

My third objection was that the utter complexity and unusual nature of various logical laws make it implausible that one has perceived their instances in experience. This objection was unaddressed by David.

My fourth and final objection was that even if we grant this justification, it follows that logic becomes contextualized to the narrow domain of human experience. Logic loses and universality and its applicability to domains outside human experience. David responds saying:

There is a grain of truth to this criticism. If an abductive argument was the best we could offer for logical laws, itwould indeed preclude our having certainty of their truth. But it does not follow from this that one can no longer apply logic to the future or the past.

David has missed my point. I was not merely pointing out that this justification would preclude certainty regarding the truth of logic (even though this is true), I was pointing out that such a justification strips logic of its universality. This much should be obvious. If our justification for logic is based on experience, then logic cannot be universal since no human being has universal experience. If logic is not universal, then there is no basis for applying it to domains beyond human experience.

However, we can even argue for a more radical conclusion. If logic is justified through experience, then logic ceases to be universal. And if logic is not universal, there is no basis for applying it even to the domain of human experience. Why? This is because the domains outside the scope of human experience (which are utterly mysterious to us) may contain factors relevant to the adequacy of the logical truths which we have accepted. We would not know the effect these factors have on the truth and adequacy of our logical truths and as such our application of them even to our experience is arbitrary. Bahnsen captures this point well:

If there is a segment of reality that he is not aware of and cannot account for or understand (and who could know how extensive it is?), then he cannot be sure that there are not factors that are relevant to, or would interfere with, the adequacy of the explanations he has offered for what he experiences. If his explanatory principles cannot be thought of as universal, but are subject to possible qualification, he cannot say in any particular case that it is appropriate to use those principles or that he is not being arbitrary or shortsighted.

In light of these criticisms, an abductive justification of logic cannot work.

Justification for Induction Revisited

I raised two objections to David’s proposed solution to the problem of induction. David’s solution relies on a combination of direct inference and Bernoulli’s Theorem. This theorem roughly states that a sufficiently large sample approximates the entire population. A direct inference dictates that our degree of confidence that a is a G (given that a is a F) is equal to the frequency f of observed Fs that are Gs. Treating our experience as a sample, we can have a high degree of confidence that it approximates the total population. Hence, if we have observed a certain frequency of Fs that are Gs we can have a high degree of confidence that the next F will be a G.

The first problem I raised for this solution is that it assumes the uniformity of nature. I wrote:

Firstly, by treating experience like a sample and the entire universe as a population, David has taken for granted the interrelatedness of the facts. Once again we must remember that David is attempting a defense of autonomy and as such must not be allowed any freebies. He has assumed that his various experiences are not wholly discrete and disjointed. If every fact was unrelated to every other, and every experience was so distinct as to have nothing to do with the next experience, then the facts and experiences cannot be treated as samples of wider populations since this assumes a relation between them. The whole point of the problem of induction is that there is no reason to move beyond the present testimony of our senses. However, calling the experienced a sample and the unexperienced a population already assumes a relation between the two that allows us to move beyond particular experiences!

This objection was left unaddressed by David.

The second problem I raised for David’s solution was gotten from Marc Lange. The objection is basically that a direct inference requires us to assign an equal subjective probability to all possible large samples. But such an equal-confidence assignment does not seem warranted in the absence of further information. To this, David responds:

Akande and Lange are trying to put an external factor of objective randomness into the equation. Because that factor lies beyond our ascertaining, they conclude that the direct inference does not succeed in justifying inductive inferences.

However, this is the opposite of what Lange and I are arguing. Perhaps my wording was a bit unclear, but Lange’s was quite clear. The problem is not that we cannot ascertain the objective randomness of the selection. Rather, the problem is that the assignment of equal subjective probability—or, equal confidence—to all possible large samples is unwarranted in the absence of further information. The intuition seems, as Lange points out, to be that “when we have no reason to assign any of these samples greater subjective probability than any other, we ought to assign them equal subjective probabilities. To do otherwise would be irrational.” Timothy and Lydia McGrew (whom David refers to in response to this objection) seem to agree with this intuition when they write:

What is required instead is the condition that, relative to what we know, there be nothing about this sample that make it less likely to be typical of the population than any other sample of the same size. This is the heart of the concept of epistemic randomness.

However, as Lange points out:

But perhaps, in the absence of any relevant information about them, we have no reason to assign any subjective probabilities to any of them.

I’ll put this response to rest with a quote from Marc Lange:

Finally, is there any reason to believe that statistical syllogisms will lead us to place high confidence in truths more often than in falsehoods (or, at least, that they have a high objective chance of doing so)? If, in fact, our samples are unrepresentative in most cases where we have no other relevant information, then statistical syllogisms will lead us to place high confidence in falsehoods more often than in truths. That we have no good reason to think that a sample is unrepresentative does not show that we are likely to reach the truth if we presume it to be representative unless we believe that if it were unrepresentative, we would probably have a good reason to suspect so. But why should we believe that we would be so well-informed?

Conclusion

Once again, I would like to commend David for his study of these issues and his thoughtful comments. However, his criticisms fail to hit the mark. This is because he has opted to defend certain epistemological  theories in isolation from worldview considerations. As such, his videos seem more like a defense of direct acquaintance theory rather than a critique of Presuppositionalism. I understand that his aim was to show that knowledge is possible on an autonomous basis. However, he has not achieved this aim precisely because he neglected the role of worldviews. The presuppositionalist’s arguments are worldview-directed. They are not directed at isolated epistemological theories. Until David realizes this and takes the Van Tilian up on his transcendental challenge, his critiques would not phase the presuppositionalist.