We should doubt all nonintuitive claims that are made in the absence of good reasons to accept them.

An intuitive claim is a claim, for example, that is supported by our senses. If we see a man sitting in a chair then that is a reason to believe the claim "A man is sitting in that chair" when someone points to the chair and makes that claim.

The fact that we believe we see a man sitting in the chair is not absolute proof that a man is sitting in the chair but it is evidence that the claim is true. We should not, then, disbelieve that claim unless we are given a good reason to believe that our interpretation of our sense impressions is mistaken.

A nonintuitive claim is a claim, for example, that is unsupported by our senses. If we see what appears to be an empty chair then that is a reason to disbelieve the claim "A man is sitting in that chair" when someone points to the chair and makes that claim.

The fact that the chair appears to us to be empty is not absolute proof that the chair is empty but it is evidence that it is. We should, then, disbelieve the claim that the chair is not empty unless we are given a good reason to believe that our interpretation of our sense impressions is mistaken.

The claim that the earth orbits the sun is a nonintuitive claim. Our senses tell us that we are stationary and that the sun is traversing our sky. However, very good reasons can be given to show that our interpretation of our sense impressions is mistaken.

As with the preceding, any interpretation of any sense impression can be mistaken. But simply because an interpretation of a sense impression can be mistaken is not a reason to believe that it is mistaken, and in the absence of good reasons to believe that it is mistaken, the assumption must be that it is reliable.

When does it become reasonable to suspend judgement (Cop would say to suspend doubt)?

That depends a lot on the situation.  In general, I think that one should suspend judgment when there appear to be equally good reasons supporting both sides of a claim.  

What triggers the response?

The need to make a judgment.    If someone tells me that you have brown hair, I would tend to believe the claim on the grounds that people generally say truthful things in a conversation and have reasonable evidence to advance a claim.  If the question is of any real consequence, then I would tend to reserve judgment until better evidence presented itself.  If someone told me that you have two heads, I would doubt the claim on the grounds that most people don't have two heads.

Do the credentials owned by people make them above scrutiny?

Nobody is above scrutiny.  People with credentials, however, should be taken more seriously than those without them.  That is because such people have studied the problem in greater depth and have a greater body of experience in the subject to draw on than non-experts.

How does one test?

That depends on the claim.  If there are no means to test a claim, then it is usually reasonable to doubt the claim.  In general, you should put your hand on your wallet or purse when someone asserts an untestable claim.

How does one come to a judgement?

By weighing the evidence pro and con as objectively as possible.

No matter how obvious these things appear to me (and I suspect to each of us from our own perspectives), I have no doubt we'll disagree   .

Do you really disagree with anything I've said here?

But not many of us believe in witches or Loch Ness monsters or Big Foots any longer.

Umm... I've always had a hard time accepting that the witches, Lochness, or bigfoots existed.  That was a great doubt of mine treasured until there was enough evidence.  So...even now, I have them great doubts... that is to say, I am a skeptic.. a big skeptic.. I suspend any belief in those until there is adaquate evidence to show otherwise.

The courts are in the business of determining truth, so their use of evidence is very apt..

So you really do believe that this thread is about juries, judges and ambulance chasers.

No, I said it was very apt.

Wow. That's too funny. I suppose I should just be thankful that you're not a salesman or else you'd think this thread is about truth in advertising.

The sales profession does not have the determination of truth as one of its primary objectives.  The legal system does.  

To determine what is true in a given situation is not to analyze "truth" as a concept; those are two different processes. Epistemology is about the latter; our legal system, the former.

You cannot analyze truth as a concept completely divorced from practical application.  See also below.  

The law is about the "truth" in the same way that medicine is about the truth. The attempt to determine what is the truth in a given situation is a tool used in many fields.

But law is unique in its broad reach in determining truth.  The legal system embraces all other fields in its in inquiry.  Science, medicine, history, and even philosophy are part of the truth determining function of the legal system.

Epistemology, however, is about the study of the tool itself.

No, I'm afraid you're wrong. This thread concerns epistemology directly -- not jurisprudence, not medical science, not advertising.

Your answer misunderstands the nature of the inquiry in the legal system.  Jurisprudence -- the study of what the law is -- is only part of that inquiry.  Medical science is a specific field of inquiry that the legal system can utilize.  And advertising is just a laughable example.

"Epistemology is the branch of philosophy which studies the nature and scope of knowledge. . . . Much of the debate in this field has focused on analyzing the nature of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth, and belief." -- Wikipedia

We are discussing what it means when we say that we 'believe' a proposition is true; we are discussing how it is that we come to believe the things that we believe; we are discussing the process that is necessary for a belief to become justified; we are discussing the relationship between 'belief' and 'truth.'

And your article in Wikipedia acknowledges a wide variety of different views within epistemology, as well as hybrid views.  Part of the problem is that the main competing theories are inadequate to the task of completely explaining how we know what we know.

I see no reason to use a word to describe your definition, as it is not relevant to epistemology.

"A perception that makes a thing evident" is NOT relevant to epistemology?  This will come as quite a surprise to people who have spent their professional lives studying the role that perception plays in belief and knowledge. I suppose they all can go and find real jobs now.

I did not say perception was irrelevant.  I said your definition of evidence was irrelevant.  Or perhaps it is just better to say your particular usage of it is archaic.  According to the Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy Evidence for the purpose of Philosophy of Law and epistemology is viewed as follows:

Originally meaning evident or obvious, the term has developed into meaning evidence for rather than self-evident.  Evidence is something or some consideration used to support or reject some claim, to confer a certain degree of probability upon a proposition, or to decrease its probability

[Take a look at the source for greater elaboration.  I'm sure you can find some stuff to like about it   ].

Are you a coherentist AND a Christian?

I won't try to label myself.  I see problems with both the traditional foundationalist and coherentist approaches.

In point of fact, there are few issues more essential to an understanding of epistemology than that of perception. All experiential knowledge is based on that which we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste. Even coherentists agree with that, though they will quickly add that our perceptions do not justify experiential knowledge.

I'd agree with your point on perception as it relates to outside of the self.  Perception of self is independent of those senses, as it would still occur even if all of those were lacking.  

Is it because your God cannot be perceived that you deny the centrality of perception to justified belief?

To say that experiential information about the outside world comes wholly through the senses is not the same as saying that one must personally experience a phenomenon to have evidence of its existence.  I cannot perceive CO, but I have plenty of evidence that it exists.  Not everything is directly perceived by the senses.

Whatever. If you insist that perceptions of our environment are not a reason for belief and that they have no role to play in the formation of our doxastic attitudes then it is true that you do not need a term to describe the perceptions that we have of the things that make up our environment.

That's not what I said.  My definition of evidence takes into account those perceptions.   But my definition is not artificially constrained in the way yours is.

I have to believe, however, that you are out on an island all alone in this respect. I doubt that anyone else on the board denies the supreme importance of the role that perception plays in the formation of belief and knowledge.

That's a strawman, since I have never denied that perception is important in playing a role in the formation of belief.  
 

cimics wrote: "I do have evidence that a monkey is not sitting on my keyboard. I look at my keyboard, and no monkey is there. My perceptions are evidence."

Cogito wrote: "Your perceptions? What perceptions? Your perceptions of nothing? How is it possible to perceive nothing?"

I perceive transparancy and the lack of solidity.  Many Big Bang theorists would say "space" is not nothing, but something that did not always exist.  But even if it were nothing, I perceive it.  If I were blind, then I would not see transparency, and if I had no nerve endings, I would not feel lack of solidity.  But I can see and touch, so I perceive both.  

cimics wrote: "I look at my keyboard and I see an empty space above it. I pass my hand in the immediate area above my keyboard and it meets no solid resistance. Since I know monkeys are solid and are not invisible, I have clearly perceived that a monkey is not on my keyboard.

Nope, you do not "perceive" a monkey not on your keyboard any more than you perceive an elephant not there or a God not there.

I also perceive that an elephant is not there.  As for God, I would not expect to see him any more than I would expect to see a molecule of CO.

What you mean is that you have no perception of anything -- which includes monkeys, elephants, Gods, and Cogito-driven vehicles, and everything else -- on your keyboard.

Oh but I do.  Some of those things are by their nature visible.  If the view of my keyboard doesn't include those things, then I perceive their absence.  On the other hand, I do not perceive the absence of CO because it is undetectable through my five senses.  It would be as if I were blind with respect to that substance.  

Since the proposition "I have no perception of anything on my keyboard" is contrary to the proposition "A monkey is on my keyboard" you must, to be rational, disbelieve the latter proposition.

But I do affirmatively perceive a transparent, non-solid space above my keyboard.  I am not blind nor do I lack the sense of touch.

Godists, in effect, do not do this. They accept both propositions when the unseen subject is God. They say "Although I perceive God nowhere, I still have faith that he's there [somewhere]."

I don't perceive argon (the third most common gas in our atmosphere) or CO anywhere, but I have evidence that they exist.

On the other hand, a single molecule of carbon monoxide might be hovering right above my keyboard. I can't refute that possibility with my eyes or my hands, so I have no evidence that it's not there. I have no evidence it is there either.

No matter how long you investigate the situation, you'll never find "evidence" (evidence: a perception that makes something evident) that it is not there. Instead, you'll either find evidence that it is there or you'll find no evidence that it is there which will be a "reason" (reason: a basis for belief) to believe that it's not there.

Again, you are using an artificially narrow definition of evidence.  I can have evidence of the presence CO even if what I have only shows the probability that CO is present.  The detecting method need not be infallible, but to produce strong evidence it ought to be generally reliable.

If you find no evidence that the molecule is there then you have no more reason to believe that a single molecule of carbon monoxide hovers in that location than you have to believe that an invisible monkey or your invisible God hovers there. . . well, OK, maybe slightly more reason if you accept the conclusions of science to be generally reliable, but still not enough to justify a suspension of disbelief.

That would just have to depend.  Science indicates that CO is produced by insufficient burning of fuel.  So, if there is no burning of fuel in the vicinity, then I would agree that I could disbelieve the existence of CO simply because I have no evidence of CO.   I think my CO detector not going off, however, would be some evidence that there is no CO, since a CO detector is supposed to detect CO.  

But suppose fuel is burning (a gas log fireplace for example).  A CO detector could be considered an "investigation."  Do we say, "I don't perceive any CO here, there is no need for a CO detector."?  

Again, mere possibility of existence is trivial. You seem to think it's important. You're wrong.

Again, I do not rely upon a "mere possibility."  Your attempt to characterize my view as such is a strawman.

I perceive a transparent, non-solid space.

Describe that space to me.

I did that already.

What is the difference between a transparent, non-solid space and what in general parlance is usually called "nothing"?

When you look at your keyboard and perceive "no thing" (which is what you are saying) to remain rational either you must then have a good reason to deny your lack of perception or you must deny the proposition that says "A monkey is sitting on my keyboard."

But it is not merely a lack of perception.  I perceive the transparent, non-solid space.  That allows me to deny that there is something non-transparent or solid in that place.  It does not allow me to deny something that is transparent and non-solid.

Close, but no cigar. Actually, you have no perceptions of a monkey and therefore you assume that no monkey is present just as you should assume no god is present when you have no perceptions of a god.

I do not perceive a monkey, but I perceive a transparent non-solid space.  A monkey is solid and non-transparent.  CO, argon, and God are not.

Your epistemology is screwy. Although in your defense it probably has to be that way in order for you to maintain the illusion that unless you "perceive" a thing's nonexistence, the thing exists!

Strawman.  I never said that I must perceive a thing's nonexistence to disbelieve its existence.

According to your reasoning, since you do not perceive your God's nonexistence, your God exists.

No, I believe in God's existence because of evidence that affirmatively points to His existence.  I can have evidence without being able to perceive God directly with my five senses, just as I have evidence of CO, even though I cannot perceive CO through my five senses.

No, I can use at least two of my senses to show that the monkey is not there. Sight and Touch.

But why should the mere fact that you don't see or feel something lead you, of all people, to the conclusion that it doesn't exist? Maybe it moves too fast for you to see. Maybe it changes color to blend in seamlessly with its surroundings and you just cannot distinguish it.

We were talking about a monkey here.  Let's assume for a moment that what we are talking about is the ordinary visible, substantial monkey.  Your alleged criticism would not apply in that event.

Now you suggest that there might be an invisible, insubstantial monkey out there.  I am not aware of anyone believing that there exist invisible, insubstantial monkeys.  But lots of people believe in the existence of God.

There are lots of possible reasons that might explain why you don't see a monkey sitting on your keyboard -- and since there are, to be consistent with your beliefs, you should suspend disbelief in the proposition "A monkey is sitting on my keyboard." If you're going to be silly then you should at least strive to be consistently silly.

No, you miss the point of my argument on lots of people believing God exists.  That raises the issue for consideration.  

It's not as if a thing's having the traits of visibility and tactility are exactly necessary to your belief that a thing exists. You don't see or feel a god there either, yet you believe that a god is there.

I don't see or feel CO or argon either.

BTW, how is it that you can see a monkey's nonexistence? What does it look like? Does a monkey's nonexistence look a whole heckuva lot like God's nonexistence? No? Well, then what's the difference?

You make it sound like I'm investigating a particular monkey, Semos perhaps, and saying he doesn't exist.  That's not what I'm saying.  I see transparent space.  I feel through that space and it is non-solid.  Two confirming pieces of evidence that there is no monkey present.

In point of fact, you 'see' nothing on your keyboard which leads to the conclusion that no thing is there, which rules out the existence of monkeys, elephants, etc., on your keyboard and should also rule out the existence of God on your keyboard, but, for you, doesn't.

That assumes God is seeable.  There are lots of things that are not seeable that you believe exist, if you are even slightly rational.

Certainly could be. But 'could be' is no reason to suspend disbelief in a nonintuitive, physical-law-defying claim.

Non-intuitive is your subjective opinion -- one that is not shared by many, many others.  As for physical-law-defying -- you are just begging the question.