Confusion: A study in the theory of knowledge by Joseph Camp, Harvard University Press, 拢27.50, ISBN 0674006208
SCIENCE, if you think about it, constantly mistakes one thing for another. Or rather it does with hindsight. A long time ago weight and mass were thought to be the same thing, as more recently were 鈥渋nfective agent鈥� and 鈥減arasitic bacterium or virus鈥�, before anyone had heard of prions.
How then can we discuss the beliefs about 鈥渉eaviness鈥� held by someone who does not distinguish between weight and mass? And in 2003, how will we discuss the beliefs we held about mass today, not anticipating next year鈥檚 ground-breaking grand unification theory that will show it to be several different things?
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Joseph Camp proposes that we need to go beyond 鈥渢rue鈥� and 鈥渇alse鈥�, and use a system of logic with four values. These he calls 鈥淵鈥�, 鈥淣鈥�, 鈥淵&N鈥� and 鈥渃an鈥檛 say鈥�. That strange 鈥淵&N鈥� is the collective answer you should get, for example, by asking the question 鈥渄o all infective agents contain DNA or RNA?鈥� of a bunch of experts, some of whom deal in prions and some not.
Confusion is aimed squarely at Camp鈥檚 fellow epistemologists. From the outset you will be confused by its dense sentences. It is, however, worth pretending you are a philosopher concerned with the theory of knowledge, and ploughing through to get to the good stuff. It鈥檚 no harder than pretending you鈥檙e a statistician, which you probably should do daily. Then sit down and think for a month about all the implications, which Camp merely hints at, for the nature of this science thing. Consider a cat in a box鈥�