Yeah, that part was the crux of the matter. And yes, various kinds of coherentist views would certainly allow for the possibility of change regarding norms of reasoning and principles of logic. But that isn't what the main issue is, at least from my perspective. It's rather that the change is being linked to something silly like the having of more babies. As I see it, this is really just getting at the underlying problem with epistemology naturalized in general, which is that it kills normativity. You end up having to say silly things in order to try to hold onto such.

@@Philosophy_Overdose But, if we replaced “people having happier lives and more babies” with something less silly, like _“eudaimonia,”_ would that not sound reasonable enough?

@@JonSebastianF Well, it certainly sounds better, but I don't think we would want to say that if engaging in some pattern of reasoning tends to lead to more happiness or eudaimonia, then that pattern of reasoning would not be fallacious (or would cease to be fallacious over time via natural selection or whatever). Insofar as evolution and psychology are merely descriptive, I don't see how they are able to get us anything normative. At best, they could explain why people _do_ value certain things, but not why they _should_ do so. Also, isn't eudaimonia itself normative? Not only is it something good, but it has been taken throughout history to be _the_ good (the final end, that for the sake of which everything else is a mere means). And that's the thing, you have to presuppose normativity or smuggle it back in. It isn't something that you're going to get to from evolutionary or psychological processes.

@@Philosophy_Overdose Thank you for clarifying!

@@Philosophy_Overdose Well, I don't see why a naturalized epistemology and, for that matter, an eventually naturalized ethics should kill normativity. For instance, the study of the biological basis of common presuppositions may help to understand what do we value more in the construction of an explanation, whether simplicity, wide application, accurate prediction or others. This approach may lead to the recognition of arbitrary norms in the way of scientific progress, I grant you that. But it might as well lead to the realization that the normative character of reasoning is key to produce welfare at good pace. (I take that naturalizing the normative notions of welfare and efficiency is unproblematic because in the end they can be reduced to energy expenditure, survival, reproduction, etc). I mean, even if there are arbitrary choices of norms, the fact that we choose norms at all may not be arbitrary. We can conceive of beasts that try different stuff unsystematically every time they are presented with an intellectual problem. How much do we operate as such beasts if at all, is something that I guess may be settled by a naturalized epistemology. In any case, I would be much more comfortable with such an approach than with the one advocated by Feyerabend. The normativity of reasoning does not seem to me to present much problems, in the latter view. However shocking is the pragmatism that Quine displayed when confronted with assessment of a fallacy under different normative background, I am prepared to accept it.

If strings of bad luck are possible, what would preclude the possibility of strings of good luck? The problem is not if there will be a string of good luck but when will there be a string of good luck. The gambler is trying to figure out when it will come not if it will come.

I agree nothing in fact does preclude strings of good or bad luck, and we can't expect to use the gambler's fallacy effectively if the events we gamble on are truly random, but I think there could be a universe where instead of real randomness there is a certain kind of pseudo randomness where the more misses you get, the more likely a hit becomes. Certain video games are programmed like that--whether you hit your opponent with a sword is pseudorandom, as you miss your chance of hitting goes up--because real randomness is too frustrating. So here's how I understand Quine's point (maybe overly charitable): we could empirically discover that events we thought were random, which we are gambling on, are in fact pseudo random in the way some video game mechanics are. Maybe we are actually living in a simulation that uses pseudo randomness in a way that would make gambler's 'fallacy' inferences reasonably good, or better than we thought. what do you think@@alexgonzo5508 ?

This seems fascinating. Do you have anything I could read up about this, especially the idea that all languages derive from a single oriental language? I've always thought that all languages must have a common ancestor, and that it would be quite highly structured and logical like how semitic languages are.

Well, the unreasonable thing to think would be that Quine's naturalism forces you into a dilemma like this: either you believe in e.g. the gambler's fallacy as sound reasoning because it is shown to lead to a happier life, or you hold onto the fallacious diagnosis although it would lead you to an unhappier life. Quine chooses the first horn of the dilemma. Don't you see how strange this is?

@@JonSebastianF Oh, my bad, I'm sorry. I didn't catch the silly argument. And indeed, I agree it is very strange to say that the fallacious character of an argument is dependent upon whether it leads to happier or unhappier lives.

@@JonSebastianF Please, check up my replies to your thread with Philosophy Overdose. I would like to keep debating with you about it. I don't concur with the reading you are making of Quine's. One can be much more indulgent. The issue can be posed as following: instead of saying that the fallacy status can change upon the realization of conflict or inconsistency with some biological value or another, one can say that he points out that the fact that we can dismantle a fallacious argument is contingent. It could be contingent because of our biology, culture and history. So, I take that in the last remark he is saying that under different biological constraints and different mathematical history we might not arrive to the point in which the fallacy is recognized.

@@Gabriel-pt3ci So I gather you'd say - in accord with your last sentence - that if my cat doesn't realize that 2 plus 5 is 7 but still happily purrs away and brings forth little kittens, all I need to do is forget about my fancy epistemic habit of knowing that 2 plus 5 remains 7 in every possible corner of the Universe? I'm afraid the Truth remains the Truth, and it doesn't seem wise to 'place the cart before the horse', or in other words; to rely on coherence alone.

@@evinnra2779 I never said that you must or even that you can forget about your fancy epistemic habit. I just pointed out that what we are able to recognize as truth is not independent from our epistemic presuppositions which are not in turn independent from our genetic endowment, the accidents in the history of our species, civilization, etc. For all we know, we might be making right now wrong assessment of some obvious truths such as the ones your cat is not able to figure out. This doesn't mean that you should throw away the corpus of results you've collected under your epistemic habits, or even that you must change your epistemic habits. It just shows that progress in science and even in mathematics might be partially influenced by certain biological constraints. I don't take issue with the ontological status of Truth. I am just stressing that our epistemic access to it is imperfect, contingent and sensitive to our background.