In this paper, I raise two questions about epistemic commitments, and thus, indirectly, about our epistemic agency. Can we rationally defend such commitments when challenged to do so? And if so, how?

We contribute to the exploration of diversity in interdisciplinary science by elaborating the notion of epistemic commitments to address researchers’ different views of knowledge that matters and how these views are embedded in research practices and networks. Based on previous science and technology studies and science-policy literature, we define epistemic commitments as reflexive commitments to regimes of relevant research. Drawing on an in-depth enquiry in the case of biodiversity studies in France, we describe four regimes of research, each (...) of them bringing together certain disciplinary approaches and technologies, certain scenarios about environmental changes and certain contributions to decision making and management. We distinguish between an environmentalist regime, a management-oriented regime, a function-based regime, and an ecoengineering regime. We give insights into how researchers’ commitments to these regimes are shaped, stabilized, and maintained over time, suggesting the coevolution of research practices, practical contributions, and environmental scenarios. We emphasize pluralism rather than hegemony of a type of knowledge over the others. Our results show that environmental research’s diversity does not result only from the complexity of reality itself but is also embedded in various views of scientific advancement, future scenarios, and useful contributions to environmental governance. (shrink)

In the Optics, Descartes claims that telescopes and microscopes lead to morally certain knowledge. It is unclear, however, that Descartes’s expressed confidence in these instruments is warranted. In this article, I show how a limited range of telescope and microscope observations could lead to morally certain knowledge for Descartes, and how observations beyond this range admit of enough reasonable doubt to undermine moral certainty. I also explain moral certainty as a form of knowledge in Descartes’s scientific practices, his epistemic (...) commitment to optical instruments, and I offer an explanation for why Descartes never used optical instruments in his scientific endeavours. -/- ---- -/- Dans la Dioptrique, Descartes prétend que les télescopes et les microscopes donnent accès à des connaissances moralement certaines. Cependant, il n’est pas certain que la confiance accordée par Descartes à ces instruments soit justifiée. Dans cet article, je montre comment une gamme limitée d’observations effectuées à l’aide d’instruments d’optique pourraient mener aux connaissances moralement certaines pour Descartes, et comment d’autres observations allant au-delà de cette gamme introduisent suffisamment de doute raisonnable pour saper cette certitude morale. Enfin, j’interprète la certitude morale comme une forme de connaissance dans l’empirisme de Descartes, j’explique son engagement épistémique envers les instruments d’optique, et j’éclaire les raisons pour lesquelles il n’a jamais employé d’instruments d’optique dans ses propres recherches scientifiques. (shrink)

Hart offers a biologically based explanation for the use of an ‘epistemic positioning strategy’ aimed by speakers/writers at the legitimization of assertions, at persuading addressees of the veracity of the propositions, as a prior condition for the discursive legitimization of actions. This article focuses on various issues addressed in Hart’s article, among them the degree of commitment invoked in speakers/writers’ choice of epistemic stance expressions as legitimization strategies, as well as the expression of subjectivity/intersubjectivity in discourse and (...) the degree to which this involves responsibility and accountability for the speaker/writer. The article also provides an alternative proposal of the categories identified by Bednarek for the conceptual domain of evidentiality. (shrink)

The epistemic form of structural realism asserts that our knowledge of the world is restricted to its structural features. Several proponents of this view assume that the world possesses non-structural features; features which, according to their view, cannot be known. In other words, they assume that there is, or, there ought to be (on the basis of normative arguments in epistemology), always a gap between our epistemological and ontological commitments. The ontic form of structural realism denies that this is, (...) or ought to be, the case. Proponents of this view argue that the perfect alignment of epistemological and ontological commitments is a highly desirable metatheoretical feature. They argue this on the basis of the prima facie sensible principle that our ontological commitments ought never to overreach our epistemic ones. Naturally the issue of alignment transcends the debate between the epistemic and the ontic structural realists. Is it in principle impossible for there to be circumstances under which we ought to subscribe to the misalignment of epistemological and ontological commitments? What do the different answers to this question entail for ontic structural realism? (shrink)

Contemporary philosophy of science tells us that scientific theories are “underdetermined” by their accompanying data in a variety of ways. Briefly put, theories are not constructed on data alone. Psychiatric classification is subject to this same kind of underdetermination. Theories may be determined by a combination of data, historical factors, practical constraints, value commitments, and other factors. While practical constraints (like user-friendliness or compatibility across diagnostic systems) are commonly admitted to be influential in shaping psychiatric classification, the idea that values (...) shape psychiatric classification is still a controversial one. This article addresses this controversy by (1) defining a particular domain or type of value commitment (epistemic values), (2) showing how they might be assumed in psychiatric classification, (3) developing a set of conceptual tools to analyze epistemic value content, and (4) applying this set of tools to concretely illustrate how this type of value is “at work” in shaping classification. A classic paper on the dispute between categorical and dimensional models for personality disorders is systematically examined to illustrate this “epistemic value” rubric. (shrink)

[This paper will be presented at the APA Eastern Division Conference in New York City, January 2024] -/- Can one reasonably doubt that one is voluntarily making a commitment, even when one is doing so? Given that one voluntarily makes a commitment if and only if one (personally) knows that one is doing so, the answer appears to be “No.” After all, knowing implies justifiably believing, and it seems impossible that one could (synchronically and from a single personal (...) perspective) reasonably doubt what one justifiably believes. Indeed, assuming that one reasonably doubts that P only if one has sufficient evidence to believe that not-P, traditional epistemologists may hold that such “epistemic ambivalence” entails one’s believing a contradiction, while some Bayesians should hold that it entails violating “probabilism” (the norm that credences must conform to the axioms of probability). However, I argue that in at least some cases of romantic commitment-making, such ambivalence may not only be epistemically permissible, but even required, and perhaps best dealt with pragmatically. (shrink)

This paper discusses virtue argumentation theory, as modeled on virtue epistemology. It argues that virtues of argumentation are interesting but parasitic on a more fundamental account of what makes arguments good. -/- *Note: this is an unpublished manuscript presented at the 2013 conference of the Ontario Society for the Study of Argumentation. An electronic copy is available in the Conference Archive, linked above.

Defenders of doxastic voluntarism accept that we can voluntarily commit ourselves to propositions, including belief-contravening propositions. Thus, defenders of doxastic voluntarism allow that we can choose to believe propositions that are negatively implicated by our evidence. In this paper it is argued that the conjunction of epistemic deontology and doxastic voluntarism as it applies to ordinary cases of belief-contravening propositional commitments is incompatible with evidentialism. In this paper ED and DV will be assumed and this negative result will be (...) used to suggest that voluntary belief-contravening commitments are not themselves beliefs and that these sorts of commitments are not governed by evidentialism. So, the apparent incompatibility of the package views noted above can be resolved without ceding evidentialism with respect to beliefs. (shrink)

This paper develops the concept of epistemic apprenticeship as a response to failures among privileged social actors to perceive the knowledge bases of unjustly marginalised groups as sources of valuable insight. Inspired by Elizabeth Spelman’s reflections on apprenticeship and intersectional feminism, an epistemic apprenticeship represents an obverse form of apprenticeship; one in which socially privileged knowers become apprentices to those who do not enjoy equivalent power and privilege. This paper critiques and extends Spelman’s account of apprenticeship by focussing (...) on how the institutional sedimentation of dominant social imaginaries works against the volitional and virtuous practice of apprenticeship, and by exploring what a commitment to epistemic apprenticeship demands at the level of institutional practice. As part of this discussion, I scrutinise the conditions under which institutionalised apprenticeships may fall short of their meliorative potential, and may obstruct rather than aid efforts to achieve greater epistemic justice. (shrink)

According to a widely held view, epistemic reasons are normative reasons for belief – much like prudential or moral reasons are normative reasons for action. In recent years, however, an increasing number of authors have questioned the assumption that epistemic reasons are normative. In this article, I discuss an important challenge for anti-normativism about epistemic reasons and present a number of arguments in support of normativism. The challenge for anti-normativism is to say what kind of reasons (...) class='Hi'>epistemic reasons are if they are not normative reasons. I discuss various answers to this challenge and find them all wanting. The arguments for normativism each stress a certain analogy between epistemic reasons and normative reasons for action. Just like normative reasons for action, epistemic reasons provide partial justification; they provide premises for correct reasoning; they constitute good bases for the responses they are reasons for; and they are reasons for which agents can show these responses without committing a mistake. In each case, I argue that the relevant condition is plausibly sufficient for the normativity of a reason, and that normativism is in any case in a much better position to explain the analogy than anti-normativism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Commentary on “Epistemic Value Commitments”Michael Luntley (bio)Keywordsvalue, classificationThe case for treating the underdetermination of psychiatric classification with just the same tools as are employed in solving the more general underdetermination of theory by data is well made by Sadler. Quite what that treatment amounts to, however, raises a number of issues that are not only central to any philosophical conception of the rationality of theory choice, but cut (...) deep into issues about the appropriate model for rational clinical practice.On the face of it, Sadler’s recommendation is plain and looks to clarify the central problems confronting the authors of DSM nosology. The central problem for the construction of DSM guidelines is that there is no algorithm for turning input data concerning observables (behavior patterns) into theoretical classification. A simple-minded positivism would have had us expect that the production of an adequate nosology by symptoms as a mechanical algorithm—plug in the data at one end and the nosology pops out the other end. The interesting philosophical issue concerns how we respond to this underdetermination. I want to note two stages to the response we make.The first stage turns on deciding between thinking (a), that with sufficient further non-observational input some sort of modified algorithm can be produced for psychiatric classification, and thinking (b), that no such modified algorithm is available and that psychiatric classification irredeemably involves an element of judgment. The second stage that I want to explore concerns whether taking option (b) at the first stage seriously undermines the rationality of psychiatric classification and theory choice in general.Sadler seems to favor option (a). He notes that some have responded to the Kuhnian diagnosis of the lack of effective decision procedure for the production of theory by impugning the possibility of any rationality to theory choice and by seeing the activity of theory choice as thoroughly soaked in value commitments that bear the hallmark of ideology rather than rationality. Sadler’s response, however, is to draw attention to a set of values that he calls “epistemic values” that are “intrinsic to the theorizing about and construction of the classification itself.” I see this as a version of what I have called option (a) because Sadler seems to treat these values as extra “bolt-ons” to the algorithm that turns observation into classification. His aim is to clarify the character of these non-observational constraints and then plot the way that their application renders tractable a current dispute in psychiatric nosology between categorical vs. dimensional classifications of personality disorders.Suppose this is the option (a) strategy. The option (a) strategy involves a universalist model [End Page 227] of rationality. What I mean by “universalist” is this: A universalist model of rationality holds that if a transition from input to theory (input to classification) is rational, it is subsumable under a typology of such transitions that issues universal guides such as: Given inputs i 1, i 2... under constraints c 1, c 2..., conclude output/theory T n. A universalist model is distinct from a generalist model, for it accommodates the thought that the permissible routes from input to theory may include routes that are heavily conditioned by all sorts of particularities in the constraints cited in the transition rule. What the universalist does require, however, is that all rational transitions are instances of such a rule, even though the rule is not generalizable to cover all eventualities but is specific to certain particular circumstances. Sadler’s account of epistemic values is then an account that locates the place of these values as constraints that, in tandem with the inputs, determine output in a rule-governed manner.There are a number of problems with this approach that I want to touch on before turning to the main philosophical moral that I would like to draw from Sadler’s paper. The universalist model is a model in which judgment plays no role in the transition from input to output. It is, however, unclear that such a model will really work on the evidence of Sadler’s investigations for a number of reasons. First, his initial definition of a “value” is that of a descriptor... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Commentary on “Epistemic Value Commitments”W. John Livesley (bio)A disquieting feature of contemporary psychiatric nosology is the tendency to adopt positions that imply that current classifications are simply statements of fact. Clinicians and researchers alike seem to assume that the DSM diagnostic concepts are factual descriptions based only on scientific analysis that reflect the essential nature of psychiatric disorders. The architects of the DSM acknowledge in various ways that (...) this is not the case. Frances et al. (1991), for example, noted the provisional and pragmatic nature of DSM-IV. Nevertheless, these cautions are largely ignored. The DSM is partly responsible. The assertion that the DSM is atheoretical with regard to etiology, although clearly incorrect, tends to generalize to other aspects of the system. Similarly, the emphasis on description that has proved so valuable in improving diagnosis is presented as if clinical description is unencumbered by values and assumptions. Moreover, the failure to state explicitly the assumptions underlying the classification encourages the conclusion that the system is free from theoretical and other influences.In fact the DSM is theory laden. Implicit theoretical models and etiological concepts lie behind many diagnoses, including adjustment, dissociative, and posttraumatic stress disorders. Assumptions about the nature of mental disorders and the way psychopathology is organized underlie the entire system (Livesley and Jackson 1992). Pragmatic and political considerations influenced the final structure. Moreover, as Dr. Sadler and others working on the same issues (Fulford 1989, 1994; Agich 1994) point out, the DSM is also value laden. It is value laden not only in the obvious sense that some diagnostic concepts are highly evaluative or biased against certain groups (Kaplan 1983), but also in the fundamental sense that values are built into the very structure of the system (Agich 1994; Russell 1994; Wakefield 1992).Value influences begin with the definition of mental disorder. As Wakefield (1992) and others have argued, the concept of disorder cannot be value free. Values are also involved in the descriptive terms adopted as diagnostic criteria (Agich 1994) and, as Dr. Sadler convincingly demonstrates, they are intrinsic to the way that the classification is constructed and evaluated—the very aspects of the classification that are generally assumed to be value free. By emphasizing this aspect, Dr. Sadler draws attention to the fact that despite being implicit and informal, these values exert a major influence. They influence kinds of information considered relevant to the classification, the way this information is weighted and evaluated, and the way it is organized into diagnostic concepts. Thus, values shape the classification and the research agenda. This point has not [End Page 223] been fully recognized, or at least not fully acknowledged, by those responsible for developing contemporary classifications. There is a tendency to assume that any values involved in the DSM are largely evaluative and incidental, as if they crept into the system inadvertently due to our limited knowledge. The implication is that their presence is merely a temporary embarrassment to be eliminated automatically as clinical description and phenomenology are refined. But this is not the case; any classification of mental disorders inevitably consists of fact plus value (Fulford 1994). Acknowledgment of the evaluative element does not detract from the achievements of the DSM. It is not a limitation but an essential component.The general failure to attend to the non-factual or non-descriptive aspects of classification means that important aspects of classifications are neglected. The impact of pragmatic considerations, political and economic factors, and ethical and epistemic values on the organization and evaluation of scientific information has not received appropriate attention given the social, clinical, and scientific consequences of contemporary psychiatric classifications. In essence, only a limited aspect of classification has been studied, and even this has been studied in isolation from its context. Under these circumstances there is much to be gained from explicit acknowledgment and analysis of the value component. We are more likely to make progress in resolving nosological issues if we take a broad perspective.For the nosologist, Dr. Sadler makes two useful contributions to understanding the broader view. First, the analysis of value is extended beyond discussion of evaluative or ethical values into a detailed analysis of the epistemic values that... (shrink)

Does the imperative that we ought to try to understand one another make any sense? Presumably not – if it is correct that there are indeed different truths, and that the quest for objectivity is appropriate only in certain cultural contexts. After carefully mapping out the epistemological and ethical terrain, with special reference to the notions of ‘outsider understanding’, ‘other ways of knowing’ and epistemic injustice, this article presents a case for outsider critique. Education for belief and commitment (...) necessarily includes education for understanding. Given our shared humanity, with many overlapping facets that make up our identities, and considering that the standard arguments against outsider understanding fail to stand up to critical scrutiny, this arguably also paves the way for the possibility of critical interrogation ‘from the outside’. Such interrogation should display virtues such as sensitivity, patience, perseverance, imagination, empathy and open-mindedness – and should be guided by an honest attempt at understanding. (shrink)

It is uncontroversial that something goes wrong with the blaming practices of hypocrites. However, it is more difficult to pinpoint exactly what is objectionable about their blaming practices. I contend that, just as epistemologists have recently done with blame, we can constructively treat hypocrisy as admitting of an epistemic species. This paper has two objectives: first, to identify the epistemic fault in epistemically hypocritical blame, and second, to explain why epistemically hypocritical blamers lose their standing to epistemically blame. (...) I tackle the first problem by appealing to an epistemic norm of consistency. I address the second by arguing that the epistemically hypocritical blamer commits to an opting-out of the set of shared epistemic standards that importantly underlies our standing to epistemically blame. I argue further that being epistemically hypocritical undermines a blamer’s standing even to judge epistemically blameworthy. (shrink)

This paper considers the possibility that ‘epistemic hypocrisy’ could be relevant to our blaming practices. It argues that agents who culpably violate an epistemic norm can lack the standing to blame other agents who culpably violate similar norms. After disentangling our criticism of epistemic hypocrites from various other fitting responses, and the different ways some norms can bear on the legitimacy of our blame, I argue that a commitment account of standing to blame allows us to (...) understand our objections to epistemic hypocrisy. Agents lack the epistemic standing to blame when they are not sufficiently committed to the epistemic norms they are blaming others for violating. This not only gives us a convincing account of epistemic standing to blame, it leaves us with a unified account of moral and epistemic standing. (shrink)

As part of recent epistemic challenges to democracy, some have endorsed the implementation of epistemic constraints on voting, institutional mechanisms that bar incompetent voters from participating in public decision-making procedures. This proposal is often considered incompatible with a commitment to political equality. In this paper, I aim to dispute the strength of this latter claim by offering a theoretical justification for epistemic constraints on voting that does not rest on antiegalitarian commitments. Call this the civic accountability (...) justification for epistemic constraints on voting. On this view, voters stand to one another in a normative relation of reciprocal accountability that requires them to uphold an epistemically responsible conduct. Modest epistemic constraints on voting are justifiable because they secure that participation in voting is conforming to this normative requirement. Thanks to its distinctive features, the civic accountability justification can overcome two problems that egalitarians commonly associate with the idea of epistemic constraints on voting: the disrespect problem and the hierarchy problem. (shrink)

Epistemic instrumentalists seek to understand the normativity of epistemic norms on the model practical instrumental norms governing the relation between aims and means. Non-instrumentalists often object that this commits instrumentalists to implausible epistemic assessments. I argue that this objection presupposes an implausibly strong interpretation of epistemic norms. Once we realize that epistemic norms should be understood in terms of permissibility rather than obligation, and that evidence only occasionally provide normative reasons for belief, an instrumentalist account (...) becomes available that delivers the correct epistemic verdicts. On this account, epistemic permissibility can be understood on the model of the wide-scope instrumental norm for instrumental rationality, while normative evidential reasons for belief can be understood in terms of instrumental transmission. (shrink)

In this book Zagzebski gives an extended argument that the self-reflective person is committed to belief on authority. Epistemic authority is compatible with autonomy, but epistemic self-reliance is incoherent. She argues that epistemic and emotional self-trust are rational and inescapable, that consistent self-trust commits us to trust in others, and that among those we are committed to trusting are some whom we ought to treat as epistemic authorities, modeled on the well-known principles of authority of Joseph (...) Raz. These principles apply to authority in the moral and religious domains. (shrink)

The debate between scientific realists and anti-realists is now a classic debate in the Philosophy of Science. Van Fraassen (2002) has suggested that the positions that take part in the debate involve not only different doxastic attitudes regarding some propositions, but different epistemic stances, that is, different sets of commitments, values and epistemic strategies. The formulation of this debate in terms of epistemic stances and the voluntarist epistemology it motivates make it plausible to think of it as (...) a deep disagreement. This kind of disagreements cannot be settled by reason alone because they lack the conditions that are necessary for arguments to work. I argue, however, that the attempts to use arguments can have an epistemic value in these contexts, as they can help reveal intuitions. I adopt the view on intuitions put forward by Chudnoff (2014), according to which they are mental states capable of motivating epistemic action. I claim that, while the attempt to utter an argument cannot convince an opponent of changing her mind, it can make her perform some epistemic actions and, thus, bring out some of her intuitions. To show how arguments can work in this way, I take as a study case one of the main realist arguments: the No Miracles Argument. (shrink)

Recently Robert B. Talisse has put forth a socio-epistemic justification of liberal democracy that he believes qualifies as a public justification in that it purportedly can be endorsed by all reasonable individuals. In avoiding narrow restraints on reasonableness, Talisse argues that he has in fact proposed a justification that crosses the boundaries of a wide range of religious, philosophical and moral worldviews and in this way the justification is sufficiently pluralistic to overcome the challenges of reasonable pluralism familiar from (...) Rawls. The fascinating argument that Talisse furthers is that when cognitively functional individuals reflect on some of their most basic epistemic commitments they will come to see that, in virtue of these commitments, they are also committed to endorsing key liberal democratic institutions. We argue that the socio-epistemic justification can be reasonably rejected on its own terms and thus fails as a public justification approach. This point is made by illustrating the significance of deep epistemic disagreements in liberal democracies. (shrink)

Subjectivist permissivism is a prima facie attractive view. That is, it's plausible to think that what's rational for people to believe on the basis of their evidence can vary if they have different frameworks or sets of epistemic standards. In this paper, I introduce an epistemic existentialist form of subjectivist permissivism, which I argue can better address “the arbitrariness objection” to subjectivist permissivism in general. According to the epistemic existentialist, it's not just that what's rational to believe (...) on the basis of evidence can vary according to agents’ frameworks, understood as passive aspects of individuals’ psychologies. Rather, what's rational to believe on the basis of evidence is sensitive to agents’ choices and active commitments. Here I draw on Chang's work on commitment and voluntarist reasons. The epistemic existentialist maintains that what's rational for us to believe on the basis of evidence is, at least in part, up to us. It can vary not only across individuals but for a single individual, over time, as she makes differing epistemic commitments. (shrink)

Secular bioethicists do not speak from a place of distinction, but from within particular culturally, socially, and historically conditioned standpoints. As partisans of moral and ideological agendas, they bring their own biases, prejudices, and worldviews to their roles as ethical consultants, social advocates, and academics, attempting rhetorically to sway others and shift policy to a preferred point of view. Their pronouncements represent just one voice among others, even when delivered with strident rhetoric, in an educated and knowing tone, from within (...) institutional positions of power. This essay argues that, given the hegemony of progressive secular bioethics, traditional Christians routinely face epistemic injustice within medicine. That is, Christian knowledge regarding moral reality is all too often demeaned or dismissed, unless such norms can be translated into and defended within a secular ethos. Given such systemic bias, I argue, Christians also experience significant moral distress: they are fully aware of their moral obligations and what they ought to do, but institutionalized power structures make it nearly impossible to so act. But, Christian physicians are not mere technicians, obliged to provide whatever patients request from the list of legally available treatments. That antireligious critics seek to remove the rights of Christian physicians to limit how they practice medicine, where they do not offer or refer for abortion, euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, and other inappropriate forms of care, is unjustified and prejudicial, singling out Christians, and other religious groups, for singular treatment. Regardless of what the law requires or institutional policy demands, however, Christians are obliged to submit to God in all things. As a result, they may at times find themselves required to engage in acts of civil disobedience. (shrink)

I shall first briefly revisit the broad idea of ‘epistemic injustice’, explaining how it can take either distributive or discriminatory form, in order to put the concepts of ‘testimonial injustice’ and ‘hermeneutical injustice’ in place. In previous work I have explored how the wrong of both kinds of epistemic injustice has both an ethical and an epistemic significance—someone is wronged in their capacity as a knower. But my present aim is to show that this wrong can also (...) have a political significance in relation to non-domination, and so to freedom. While it is only the republican conception of political freedom that presents nondomination as constitutive of freedom, I shall argue that non-domination is best understood as a thoroughly generic liberal ideal of freedom to which even negative libertarians are implicitly committed, for non-domination is negative liberty as of right—secured non-interference. Crucially on this conception, non-domination requires that the citizen can contest interferences. Pettit specifies three conditions of contestation, each of which protects against a salient risk of the would-be contester not getting a ‘proper hearing’. But I shall argue that missing from this list is anything to protect against a fourth salient threat: the threat that either kind of epistemic injustice might disable contestation by way of an unjust deflation of either credibility or intelligibility. Thus we see that both testimonial and hermeneutical injustice can render a would-be contester dominated. Epistemic justice is thereby revealed as a constitutive condition of non-domination, and thus of a central liberal political ideal of freedom. (shrink)

What are the consequences of evolutionary theory for the epistemic standing of our beliefs? Evolutionary considerations can be used to either justify or debunk a variety of beliefs. This paper argues that evolutionary approaches to human cognition must at least allow for approximately reliable cognitive capacities. Approaches that portray human cognition as so deeply biased and deficient that no knowledge is possible are internally incoherent and self-defeating. As evolutionary theory offers the current best hope for a naturalistic epistemology, evolutionary (...) approaches to epistemic justification seem to be committed to the view that our sensory systems and belief-formation processes are at least approximately accurate. However, for that reason they are vulnerable to the charge of circularity, and their success seems to be limited to commonsense beliefs. This paper offers an extension of evolutionary arguments by considering the use of external media in human cognitive processes: we suggest that the way humans supplement their evolved cognitive capacities with external tools may provide an effective way to increase the reliability of their beliefs and to counter evolved cognitive biases. (shrink)

The present paper argues that there are at least two equally plausible yet mutually incompatible answers to the question of what is of non-instrumental epistemic value. The hypothesis invoked to explain how this can be so—moderate epistemic expressivism—holds that (a) claims about epistemic value express nothing but commitments to particular goals of inquiry, and (b) there are at least two viable conceptions of those goals. It is shown that such expressivism survives recent arguments against a more radical (...) form of epistemic expressivism, as well as two further arguments, framed in terms of the two most promising attempts to ground claims about epistemic value in something other than commitments to particular conceptions of inquiry. While this does not establish that moderate epistemic expressivism is true, its ability to explain a significant but puzzling axiological datum, as well as withstand strong counterarguments, makes clear that it is a theory to be reckoned with. (shrink)

Although there have been a number of recent discussions about the emotions that we bring with us to our epistemic endeavors, there has been little, if any, discussion of the emotions we bring with us to epistemic appraisal. This paper focuses on a particular set of emotions, the reactive attitudes. As Peter F. Strawson and others have argued, our reactive attitudes reveal something deep about our moral commitments. A similar argument can be made within the domain of epistemology. (...) Our "epistemic reactive attitudes" reveal our epistemic commitments. Reflection on the role they play in our practice of epistemic appraisal can contribute to a number of different debates in contemporary epistemology, including the nature of epistemic norms and epistemic responsibility. (shrink)

This book concerns the foundations of epistemic modality and hyperintensionality and their applications to the philosophy of mathematics. I examine the nature of epistemic modality, when the modal operator is interpreted as concerning both apriority and conceivability, as well as states of knowledge and belief. The book demonstrates how epistemic modality and hyperintensionality relate to the computational theory of mind; metaphysical modality and hyperintensionality; the types of mathematical modality and hyperintensionality; to the epistemic status of large (...) cardinal axioms, undecidable propositions, and abstraction principles in the philosophy of mathematics; to the modal and hyperintensional profiles of the logic of rational intuition; and to the types of intention, when the latter is interpreted as a hyperintensional mental state. Chapter 2 argues for a novel type of expressivism based on the duality between the categories of coalgebras and algebras, and argues that the duality permits of the reconciliation between modal cognitivism and modal expressivism. I also develop a novel topic-sensitive truthmaker semantics for dynamic epistemic logic, and develop a novel dynamic epistemic two-dimensional hyperintensional semantics. Chapter 3 provides an abstraction principle for epistemic (hyper-)intensions. Chapter 4 advances a topic-sensitive two-dimensional truthmaker semantics, and provides three novel interpretations of the framework along with the epistemic and metasemantic. Chapter 5 applies the fixed points of the modal μ-calculus in order to account for the iteration of epistemic states in a single agent, by contrast to availing of modal axiom 4 (i.e. the KK principle). The fixed point operators in the modal μ-calculus are rendered hyperintensional, which yields the first hyperintensional construal of the modal μ-calculus in the literature and the first application of the calculus to the iteration of epistemic states in a single agent instead of the common knowledge of a group of agents. Chapter 6 advances a solution to the Julius Caesar problem based on Fine's `criterial' identity conditions which incorporate conditions on essentiality and grounding. Chapter 7 provides a ground-theoretic regimentation of the proposals in the metaphysics of consciousness and examines its bearing on the two-dimensional conceivability argument against physicalism. The topic-sensitive epistemic two-dimensional truthmaker semantics developed in chapters 2 and 4 are availed of in order for epistemic states to be a guide to metaphysical states in the hyperintensional setting. -/- Chapters 8-12 provide cases demonstrating how the two-dimensional hyperintensions of hyperintensional, i.e. topic-sensitive epistemic two-dimensional truthmaker, semantics, solve the access problem in the epistemology of mathematics. Chapter 8 examines the interaction between my hyperintensional semantics and the axioms of epistemic set theory, large cardinal axioms, the Epistemic Church-Turing Thesis, the modal axioms governing the modal profile of Ω-logic, Orey sentences such as the Generalized Continuum Hypothesis, and absolute decidability. These results yield inter alia the first hyperintensional Epistemic Church-Turing Thesis and hyperintensional epistemic set theories in the literature. Chapter 9 examines the modal and hyperintensional commitments of abstractionism, in particular necessitism, and epistemic hyperintensionality, epistemic utility theory, and the epistemology of abstraction. I countenance a hyperintensional semantics for novel epistemic abstractionist modalities. I suggest, too, that observational type theory can be applied to first-order abstraction principles in order to make first-order abstraction principles recursively enumerable, i.e. Turing machine computable, and that the truth of the first-order abstraction principle for hyperintensions is grounded in its being possibly recursively enumerable and the machine being physically implementable. Chapter 10 examines the philosophical significance of hyperintensional Ω-logic in set theory and discusses the hyperintensionality of metamathematics. Chapter 11 provides a modal logic for rational intuition and provides a hyperintensional semantics. Chapter 12 avails of modal coalgebras to interpret the defining properties of indefinite extensibility, and avails of hyperintensional epistemic two-dimensional semantics in order to account for the interaction between the interpretational and objective modalities and truthmakers thereof. This yields the first hyperintensional category theory in the literature. I invent a new mathematical trick in which first order structures are treated as categories, and Vopenka's principle can be satisfied because of the elementary embeddings between the categories and generate Vopenka cardinals while bypassing the category of Set in category theory. Chapter 13 examines modal responses to the alethic paradoxes. Chapter 14 examines, finally, the modal and hyperintensional semantics for the different types of intention and the relation of the latter to evidential decision theory. (shrink)

There are a number of debates that are relevant to questions concerning objectivity in science. One of the eldest, and still one of the most intensely fought, is the debate over epistemic relativism. —All forms of epistemic relativism commit themselves to the view that it is impossible to show in a neutral, non-question-begging, way that one “epistemic system”, that is, one interconnected set of epistemic standards, is epistemically superior to others. I shall call this view “No-metajustification”. (...) No-metajustification is commonly taken to deny the objectivity of standards. In this paper I shall discuss two currently popular attempts to attack “No-metajustification”. The first attempt attacks no-metajustification by challenging a particular strategy of arguing in its defence: this strategy involves the ancient Pyrrhonian “Problem of the Criterion”. The second attempt to refute No-metajustification targets its metaphysical underpinning: to wit, the claim that there are, or could be, several fundamentally different and irreconcilable epistemic systems. I shall call this assumption “Pluralism”. I shall address three questions with respect to these attempts to refute epistemic relativism by attacking no-metajustification: Can the epistemic relativist rely on the Problem of the Criterion in support of No-metajustification? Is a combination of Chisholmian “particularism” and epistemic naturalism an effective weapon against No-metajustification? And is Pluralism a defensible assumption? (shrink)

Expressivist views of an area of discourse encourage us to ask not about the nature of the relevant kinds of values but rather about the nature of the relevant kind of evaluations. Their answer to the latter question typically claims some interesting disanalogy between those kinds of evaluations and descriptions of the world. It does so in hope of providing traction against naturalism-inspired ontological and epistemological worries threatening more ‘realist’ positions. This is a familiar position regarding ethical discourse; however, some (...) authors have recently defended a similar view regarding epistemic discourse. Others have argued that epistemic expressivism faces special problems, not necessarily attaching to expressivism about other areas. Their arguments differ in interesting ways, but the common strategy is an attempt to show that the very sort of meta-epistemological theorizing needed to articulate and establish epistemic expressivism involves the epistemic expressivist in some sort of internal incoherence or self-defeat. That is, they think that articulating or defending the position requires implicit commitment to the negation of one of the positions core tenets. This paper responds to those arguments on behalf of epistemic expressivism, suggesting that they each misunderstand what is crucial to epistemic expressivism. By responding to these arguments, we hope to achieve more clarity about what epistemic expressivism is and why one might want to endorse it in a meta-epistemology. (shrink)

My starting point is what I call the Normative Authority Conception of justification, where S is justified in their belief that p at t (to some degree n) if and only if their believing that p at t is not ruled out by epistemic norms that have normative authority over S at t. With this in mind, this paper develops an account of doxastic justification by first developing an account of the normative authority of epistemic norms. Drawing from (...) work in political philosophy, I argue that (a) the cognitive and evaluative commitments and concerns behind our actual practices of holding each other and ourselves accountable for our beliefs reveal which epistemic norms we have consented to be under, and that (b) it is because we have consented to be under the authority of these norms – by actually holding ourselves and others accountable to them – that they in turn have normative authority over us. By connecting the authority of epistemic norms to the authority we have over ourselves in this way, the resulting account of doxastic justification (i) explains why it can be appropriate to criticize, resent, or sanction someone for having unjustified beliefs, (ii) avoids the phenomena of normative alienation and normative parochialism, and (iii) respects the social and collective nature of epistemic justification. (shrink)

On an evidentialist position, it is epistemically rational for us to believe propositions that are (stably) supported by our total evidence. We are epistemically permitted to believe such propositions, and perhaps even ought to do so. Epistemic rationality is normative. One popular way to explain the normativity appeals to epistemic teleology. The primary aim of this paper is to argue that appeals to epistemic teleology do not support that we ought to believe what is rational to believe, (...) only that we are permitted to do so. In arguing for that, I defend an epistemic teleological position that is radical in nature. It involves no commitment to aiming at the truth. I conclude by dispelling some worries that have been raised about my position. (shrink)

We present a new account of perceptual consciousness, one which gives due weight to the epistemic commitment of normal perception in familiar circumstances. The account is given in terms of a higher-order attitude for which the subject has an immediate perceptual epistemic warrant in the form of an appropriate first-order perception. We develop our account in contrast to Rosenthal's higher-order account, rejecting his view of consciousness in virtue of so-called ‘targetless’ higher-order states. We explain the key notion (...) of an immediate perceptual warrant and show both that it requires the content of the higher-order attitude to match that of the first-order perception, and also that it gives a new perspective on the intimate relationship, rightly emphasised by Rosenthal, between consciousness and a subject's testimony as to ‘how it is with her’. (shrink)

The necessity of origin suggests that a person’s identity is determined by the particular pair of gametes from which the person originated. An implication is that speculative scenarios concerning how we might otherwise have been had our gametic origins been different are dismissed as being metaphysically impossible. Given, however, that many of these speculations are intelligible and commonplace in the discourses of competent speakers, it is overhasty to dismiss them as mistakes. This paper offers a way of understanding these speculations (...) that does not commit them to incoherence but aims to make the best sense of what they are expressing. Using the philosophical framework of two‐dimensional semantics, it proposes that the speculative scenarios are best analysed as epistemic possibilities, rather than as metaphysical possibilities. It then explores some implications of this analysis for the ethical challenges associated with the non‐identity problem. (shrink)

To lead an environmentally virtuous life requires information—about morality, environmental issues, the impacts of our actions and commitments, our options for alternatives, and so on. On the other hand, we are finite beings with limited time and resources. We cannot feasibly investigate all of our options, and all environmental issues (let alone moral issues, more broadly). In this paper I attempt to provide initial steps towards addressing the epistemic demands of environmental virtue. In the first half of the paper (...) I provide rules of thumb with respect to (1) how to prioritize our investigations into various issues, and (2) what kinds of information we should seek with respect to these issues, and the levels of epistemic justification we ought to attain. In the second half of the paper, I turn to a modified virtue ethics, appealing to the attitudes of virtuous ideal observers to provide characterizations of morally justified and morally non-culpable actions. I then apply these latter concepts in assessing agents, their actions and projects (with respect to environmental virtue), in light of their investigative efforts, and given their particular circumstances. (shrink)

According to Epistemic Two-Dimensional Semantics (E2D), expressions have a counterfactual intension and an epistemic intension. Epistemic intensions reflect cognitive significance such that sentences with necessary epistemic intensions are a priori. We defend E2D against an influential line of criticism: arguments from epistemic misclassification. We focus in particular on the arguments of Speaks [2010] and Schroeter [2005]. Such arguments conclude that E2D is mistaken from (i) the claim that E2D is committed to classifying certain sentences as (...) a priori, and (ii) the claim that such sentences are a posteriori. We aim to show that these arguments are unsuccessful as (i) and (ii) undercut each other. One must distinguish the general framework of E2D from a specific implementation of it. The framework is flexible enough to avoid commitment to the apriority of any particular sentence; only specific implementations are so committed. Arguments from epistemic misclassification are therefore better understood as arguments for favouring one implementation of E2D over another, rather than as refutations of E2D. (shrink)

How should we understand validity? A standard way to characterize validity is in terms of the preservation of truth (or truth in a model). But there are several problems facing such characterizations. An alternative approach is to characterize validity epistemically, for instance in terms of the preservation of an epistemic status. In this paper, I raise a problem for such views. First, I argue that if the relevant epistemic status is factive, such as being in a position to (...) know or having conclusive evidence for, then the account runs into trouble if we endorse certain familiar logical principles. Second, I argue that if the relevant epistemic status is non-factive, such as is rationally committed to or has justification for believing, then a similar problem arises if we endorse the logical principles as well as a sufficiently strong epistemic “level-bridging” principle. Finally, I argue that an analogous problem arises for the most natural characterization of validity in terms of rational credence. (shrink)

Contemporary debates about epistemic luck and its relation to knowledge have traditionally proceeded against a tacit background commitment to cognitive internalism, the thesis that cognitive processes play out inside the head. In particular, safety-based approaches (e.g., Pritchard 2005; 2007; Luper-Foy 1984; Sainsbury 1997; Sosa 1999; Williamson 2000) reveal this commitment by taking for granted a traditional internalist construal of what I call the cognitive fixedness thesis—viz., the thesis that the cognitive process that is being employed in the (...) actual world is always ‘held fixed’ when we go out to nearby possible worlds to assess whether the target belief is lucky in a way that is incompatible with knowledge. However, for those inclined to replace cognitive internalism with the extended mind thesis (e.g., Clark and Chalmers 1998), a very different, ‘active externalist’ version of the cognitive fixedness thesis becomes the relevant one for the purposes of assessing a belief’s safety. The aim here will be to develop this point in a way that draws out some of the important ramifications it has for how we think about safety, luck and knowledge. (shrink)

It has been alleged that the demands of friendship conflict with the norms of epistemology—in particular, that there are cases in which the moral demands of friendship would require one to give a friend the benefit of the doubt, and thereby come to believe something in violation of ordinary epistemic standards on justified or responsible belief :329–351, 2004; Stroud in Ethics 116:498–524, 2006; Hazlett in A luxury of the understanding: on the value of true belief, Oxford University Press, Oxford, (...) 2013). The burden of this paper is to explain these appearances away. I contend that the impression of epistemic partiality in friendship dissipates once we acknowledge the sorts of practical and epistemic reasons that are generated by our values: value-reflecting reasons. The present proposal has several virtues: it requires fewer substantial commitments than other proposals seeking to resist the case for epistemic partiality ; it is independently motivated, as it cites a phenomenon—value-reflecting reasons—we have independent reasons to accept; it provides a single, unified account of how various features of friendship bear on belief-formation; and makes clear how it is the very value we place on friendship itself that ensures against epistemic partiality. (shrink)

ABSTRACTRecent rejections of epistemic consequentialism, like those from Firth, Jenkins, Berker, and Greaves, have argued that consequentialism is committed to objectionable trade-offs and suggest...

We are often, as agents, responsible for the things we do and say. This responsibility can come in a number of different forms: here I propose and defend a view of how we are epistemically responsible for our actions and assertions. In other normative areas, we can be responsible for our actions when those actions violate a norm (for example, we can be morally responsible when we violate some moral norm). I argue that we can similarly be epistemically responsible when (...) we violate a norm of assertion or action, norms that tell us how epistemically well-positioned we need to be towards a proposition in order to assert it or treat it as a reason for acting. I first defend a structure of epistemic norms that allows for the possibility of epistemic responsibility, and then propose a notion of epistemic responsibility itself. -/- We can, and do, evaluate actions and assertions in a specifically epistemic way: we judge that someone should not have acted on the basis of unreliable information, that someone should not have asserted something they knew was false, etc. These kinds of evaluations lead us to believe that proper action and assertion have some basic epistemic requirements, what are called norms of assertion and action. In order to defend a notion of epistemic responsibility, I first establish a general claim about the ways that we make epistemic evaluations in relation to these norms. Many who argue for a particular epistemic norm of action or assertion endorse what I call epistemic monism, the view that all epistemic evaluations of actions or assertions must be explained solely in terms of whether they have adhered to their respective norm. I argue that epistemic monism is false. Instead, I defend epistemic separability, the view that we make two different kinds of epistemic evaluations: one that pertains to whether one has adhered to an epistemic norm, and one that pertains to whether one has reason to think they are adhering to or violating the relevant norm. In my defense of epistemic separability I appeal to arguments from luminosity failure – the claim that for any given epistemic relationship we can have with a proposition we can have good reason to believe that we fail to be in it – and empirical arguments that show that we only have fallible access to our own mental states. These arguments show that we can violate an epistemic norm while having good reason to think otherwise and, in turn, shows that we can be evaluated not only in terms of whether we have adhered to or violated that norm, but also in terms of whether we are responsible for doing so. I argue that whether one’s action is epistemically responsible depends on whether one fulfils the epistemic commitments one makes in performing that action. These commitments consist in being able to provide reasons to believe that one has adhered to the norm governing the action one performs, according to a standard imposed by the situation in which one acts. Thus in more epistemically demanding situations – those in which there are high expectations that we be able to show that we have adhered to the relevant epistemic norm – it will be more difficult to act in an epistemically responsible way. Accepting a notion of epistemic responsibility (and, with it, rejecting epistemic monism) has significant consequences for a number of current debates in epistemology. The first pertains to the debate concerning the correct epistemic norm of assertion and practical reasoning. Many proposed norms are argued to be inadequate on the basis of an inability to explain intuitive epistemic evaluations solely in terms of the conditions set forth in the norms. Epistemic separability, however, implies that the structure of this dialectic is misguided, as we can perhaps accommodate problematic judgments in terms of evaluations of responsibility. The second consequence pertains to arguments for contemporary theories of knowledge. Again, such theories are judged by their ability to accommodate intuitive attributions of knowledge. However, I argue that many of the evaluations that serve as the basis for such theories are better interpreted not as judgments about whether one has knowledge, but as judgments about whether one is acting in an epistemically responsible way. Recognizing a notion of epistemically responsible action thus calls into question both the plausibility of a number of contemporary theories of knowledge, as well as the way in which we go about doing epistemology in general. (shrink)

Epistemically circular arguments have been receiving quite a bit of attention in the literature for the past decade or so. Often the goal is to determine whether reliabilists (or other foundationalists) are committed to the legitimacy of epistemically circular arguments. It is often assumed that epistemic circularity is objectionable, though sometimes reliabilists accept that their position entails the legitimacy of some epistemically circular arguments, and then go on to affirm that such arguments really are good ones. My goal in (...) this paper is to argue against the legitimacy of epistemically circular arguments. My strategy is to give a direct argument against the legitimacy of epistemically circular arguments, which rests on a principle of basis-relative safety, and then to argue that reliabilists do not have the resources to resist the argument. I argue that even if the premises of an epistemically circular argument enjoy reliabilist justification, the argument does not transmit that justification to its conclusion. The main goal of my argument is to show that epistemic circularity is always a bad thing, but it also has the positive consequence that reliabilists are freed from an awkward commitment to the legitimacy of some intuitively bad arguments. (shrink)

Standpoint epistemology is committed to a cluster of views that pays special attention to the role of social identity in knowledge‐acquisition. Of particular interest here is the situated knowledge thesis. This thesis holds that for certain propositions p, whether an epistemic agent is in a position to know that p depends on some nonepistemic facts related to the epistemic agent's social identity. In this article, I examine two possible ways to interpret this thesis. My first goal here is (...) to clarify existing interpretations of this thesis that appear in the literature but that are undeveloped and often mistakenly conflated. In so doing, I aim to make clear the different versions of standpoint epistemology that one might accept and defend.This project is of significance, I argue, because standpoint epistemology provides helpful tools for understanding a phenomenon of recent interest: epistemic oppression. My second goal is to provide an analysis that makes clear how each of the readings I put forth can be used to illuminate forms of epistemic oppression. (shrink)

On the dominant contemporary accounts of how practical considerations affect what we ought to believe, practical considerations either encroach on epistemic rationality by affecting whether a belief is epistemically justified, or constitute distinctively practical reasons for belief which can only affect what we ought to believe by conflicting with epistemic rationality. This paper shows that a promising alternative view can be found in a surprising source: the writings of Søren Kierkegaard. I argue that in light of two of (...) his central epistemological commitments—belief-credence dualism and epistemic permissivism about outright belief—Kierkegaard holds that practical considerations can affect what we ought to believe without either encroaching on or (necessarily) conflicting with epistemic rationality. The central idea is that practical considerations can determine which among the epistemically permitted outright doxastic attitudes one should all-things-considered adopt. In addition to constituting a novel, systematic interpretation of Kierkegaard’s account of how practical considerations affect what we ought to believe, this suggests that Kierkegaard holds a distinctive and underexplored view that constitutes a serious philosophical rival to dominant contemporary views. (shrink)

The standard view says that epistemic normativity is normativity of belief. If you’re an evidentialist, for example, you’ll think that all epistemic reasons are reasons to believe what your evidence supports. Here we present a line of argument that pushes back against this standard view. If the argument is right, there are epistemic reasons for things other than belief. The argument starts with evidentialist commitments and proceeds by a series of cases, each containing a reason. As the (...) cases progress, the reasons change from counting in favor of things like having a belief to things like performing ordinary actions. We argue that each of those reasons is epistemic. If the argument succeeds, we should think there are epistemic reasons to consider hypotheses, conduct thought and physical experiments, extend one’s evidence, and perform mundane tasks like eating a sandwich, just as there are epistemic reasons to believe what one’s evidence supports. (shrink)

At least some of your beliefs are commitments. When you believe that P as a commitment, your stance on P is such that you believe it on the basis of your considered judgement. Sometimes, you also believe that you believe P. Such self‐beliefs can also be commissive in a sense, as when they are reflective endorsements of your lower‐order commissive beliefs. In this paper I argue that one's commissive self‐beliefs ontologically constitute one's lower‐order commissive beliefs because one's commissive self‐beliefs (...) instantiate the same inferential dispositions that are constitutive of one's lower‐order commissive beliefs. Constitutive relations between commissive self‐beliefs and first‐order commissive beliefs are maximally epistemically secure because they do not result from any epistemic procedure by which one must try (and possibly fail) to detect one's first‐order commissive beliefs. This maximal epistemic security suffices to warrant one's commissive self‐beliefs, such that one possesses commissive self‐knowledge of an especially privileged sort. (shrink)

Epistemic utility theory is generally coupled with veritism. Veritism is the view that truth is the sole fundamental epistemic value. Veritism, when paired with EUT, entails a methodological commitment: norms of epistemic rationality are justified only if they can be derived from considerations of accuracy alone. According to EUT, then, believing truly has epistemic value, while believing falsely has epistemic disvalue. This raises the question as to how the rational believer should balance the prospect (...) of true belief against the risk of error. A strong intuitive case can be made for a kind of epistemic conservatism – that we should disvalue error more than we value true belief. I argue that none of the ways in which advocates of veritist EUT have sought to motivate conservatism can be squared with their methodological commitments. Short of any such justification, they must therefore either abandon their most central methodological principle or else adopt a permissive line with respect to epistemic risk. (shrink)