Online research in philosophy

I develop an approach to action and practical deliberation according to which the degree of epistemic warrant required for practical rationality varies with practical context. In some contexts of practical deliberation, very strong warrant is called for. In others, less will do. I set forth a warrant account, (WA), that captures this idea. I develop and defend (WA) by arguing that it is more promising than a competing knowledge account of action due to John Hawthorne and Jason Stanley. I argue that cases of warranted false belief speak in favor of (WA) and against the knowledge account. Moreover, I note some problems with an “excuse maneuver” that proponents of the knowledge account frequently invoke in response to cases of warranted false belief. Finally, I argue that (WA) may provide a strict invariantist account of cases that have been thought to motivate interest-relative or subject-sensitive theories of knowledge and warrant.

In this paper I argue that warrant for Lewis' principle of recombination presupposes warrant for a combinatorial analysis of intrinsicality, which in turn presupposes warrant for the principle of recombination. This, I claim, leads to a vicious circularity: warrant for neither doctrine can get off the ground.

Plantinga examines the nature of epistemic warrant; whatever it is that when added to true belief yields knowledge. This volume surveys current contributions to the debate and paves the way for his owm positive proposal in Warrant and Proper Function.

.  Artificial Intelligence (AI) has long dealt with the issue of finding a suitable formalization for commonsense reasoning. Defeasible argumentation has proven to be a successful approach in many respects, proving to be a confluence point for many alternative logical frameworks. Different formalisms have been developed, most of them sharing the common notions of argument and warrant. In defeasible argumentation, an argument is a tentative (defeasible) proof for reaching a conclusion. An argument is warranted when it ultimately prevails over other conflicting arguments. In this context, defeasible consequence relationships for modelling argument and warrant as well as their logical properties have gained particular attention. This article analyzes two non-monotonic inference operators Carg and Cwar intended for modelling argument construction and dialectical analysis (warrant), respectively. As a basis for such analysis we will use the LDSar framework, a unifying approach to computational models of argument using Labelled Deductive Systems (LDS). In the context of this logical framework, we show how labels can be used to represent arguments as well as argument trees, facilitating the definition and study of non-monotonic inference operators, whose associated logical properties are studied and contrasted. We contend that this analysis provides useful comparison criteria that can be extended and applied to other argumentation frameworks.

Epistemologists generally think that genuine warrant that is available to anyone must be available to everyone who is exposed to the relevant causal inputs and is able and willing to properly exercise her rationality. The motivating idea behind this requirement is roughly that an objective view is one that is not bound to a particular perspective. In this paper I ask whether the aperspectivality of our warrants is a precondition for securing the objectivity of our claims. I draw upon a Sellarsian account of perception in order to argue that it is not; rather, inquirers can have contingent properties and perspectives that give them access to forms of rational warrant and objective knowledge that others do not have. The universal accessibility of reasons, on my account, is not a precondition for the legitimacy of any actual warrant, but rather a regulative ideal governing inquiry and communication.

Nowadays the traditional quest for certainty seems not only futile but pointless. Resisting skepticism no longer seems to require meeting the Cartesian demand for an unshakable foundation for knowledge. True beliefs can be less than maximally justified and still be justified enough to qualify as knowledge, even though some beliefs that are justified to the same extent are false. Yet a few philosophers suggest that there is a special sort of justification that only true beliefs can have. Call it 'full justification' or simply 'warrant.' One such philosopher is Trenton Merricks. He takes warrant to be "that, whatever precisely it is, which together with truth makes the difference between knowledge and mere true belief," and argues that only true beliefs can have it.1 In his view, then, warrant makes the difference between knowledge and mere belief. Interestingly, Merricks does not concern himself with the nature of this remarkable property. He prefers a "formal characterization" of warrant as the "gap filler" between knowledge and mere true belief. Whatever warrant is exactly, a warranted belief cannot be true accidentally, for then the belief would not qualify as knowledge.

This paper advances the debate over the question whether false beliefs may nevertheless have warrant, the property that yields knowledge when conjoined with true belief. The paper’s first main part—which spans Sections 2–4—assesses the best argument for Warrant Infallibilism, the view that only true beliefs can have warrant. I show that this argument’s key premise conflicts with an extremely plausible claim about warrant. Sections 5–6 constitute the paper’s second main part. Section 5 presents an overlooked puzzle about warrant, and uses that puzzle to generate a new argument for Warrant Fallibilism, the view that false beliefs can have warrant. Section 6 evaluates this pro-Fallibilism argument, finding ultimately that it defeats itself in a surprising way. I conclude that neither Infallibilism nor Fallibilism should now constrain theorizing about warrant.

In this companion volume to Warrant: The Current Debate, Plantinga develops an original approach to the question of epistemic warrant; that is what turns true belief into knowledge. He argues that what is crucial to warrant is the proper functioning of one's cognitive faculties in the right kind of cognitive environment.

Warrant is what fills the gap between mere true belief and knowledge. But a problem arises. Is there just one condition that satisfies this description? Suppose there isn’t: can anything interesting be said about warrant after all? Call this the uniqueness problem. In this paper, I solve the problem. I examine one plausible argument that there is no one condition filling the gap between mere true belief and knowledge. I then motivate and formulate revisions of the standard analysis of warrant. Given these revisions, I argue that there is, after all, exactly one warrant condition.

Warrant is that, whatever it is, which makes the difference between knowledge and mere true belief. In "Warrant Entails Truth" (PPR, December 1995), I argued that it is impossible that a false belief be warranted. Sharon Ryan attacked the argument of that paper in her "Does Warrant Entail Truth?" (PPR, March 1996). In "More on Warrant's Entailing Truth" I present arguments for the claim that warrant entails truth that are, I think, significantly more compelling than the arguments of my original "Warrant Entails Truth." This paper responds to Ryan's objections, but it is not merely a reply to Ryan's article. It is, rather, a free-standing defense of warrant's entailing truth that is the product of discussion and argument for over two years with many philosophers, including Ryan, over the arguments contained in my original paper.