Contemporary debates concerning warrant transmission take for granted this thesis: when warrant transmission fails the argument fails. I challenge this thesis. An argument with conclusion C, addressed to subject S, can be cogent in the sense that recognition that the premises entail (or make highly likely) C can rationally foster in S the belief in C, without the warrant for C necessarily being gained (or reinforced) by such recognition. A key idea is to accept that (...) some arguments should be understood in a way that involves the abandonment of two characteristic idealizations imposed on rational thinkers by Bayesian modelling. (shrink)

This chapter develops a novel Neo-Moorean view. The view falls squarely within the Radical Neo-Moorean camp, in that it holds that closure holds unrestrictedly, warrant transmits through Moore’s inference, and that there is nothing wrong – epistemically or dialectically – with Moore’s argument. Nevertheless, the account is superior to extant Radical Neo-Mooreanisms in explanatory power: it explains both the precise variety of epistemic failure exhibited by the sceptic, and the intuition of reasonableness when it comes to the sceptic’s resistance (...) to Moore’s argument. It does so in terms of epistemic functions and contrary-to-duty obligations. (shrink)

In the contemporary expanding literature on transmission failure and its connections with issues such as the Closure principle, the nature of perceptual warrant, Moore’s proof of an external world and the effectiveness of Humean scepticism, it has often been assumed that there is just one kind of it: the one made familiar by the writings of Crispin Wright and Martin Davies. Although it might be thought that one kind of failure is more than enough, Davies has recently challenged (...) this view: apparently, there are more ways in heaven and earth that warrant can fail to transmit across valid inference from one (set of) belief(s) to another, than have been dreamt of in philosophy so far. More specifically, Davies thinks that a second kind of transmission failure has to be countenanced. He connects each kind of failure of transmission of warrant with two different kinds of epistemic project, respectively, and with the exploration of whether the current dispute between conservatives such as Wright, and liberals such as Jim Pryor, on the nature of perceptual warrant, would have a bearing on them. I point out why Davies’s second kind of transmission failure is indeed no such thing. I then move on to canvass another kind of transmission failure, different from the one studied by both Wright and Davies, and dependent on an alternative conception of the structure of empirical warrants, which I dub “moderatism”. I then consider how this alternative notion of transmission failure fares with respect to Moore’s proof, its relationship with Wright’s kind of transmission failure and with the Closure principle. In closing, I defend it from criticisms that can be elicited from Pryor’s recent work. (shrink)

Two major arguments have been advanced for the claim that there is a transmission failure in G. E. Moore’s famous proof of an external world. The first argument, due to Crispin Wright, is based on an epistemological doctrine now known as “conservatism.” Proponents of the second argument, like Nicholas Silins, invoke probabilistic considerations, most important among them Bayes’ theorem. The aim of this essay is to defend Moore’s proof against these two arguments. It is shown, first, that Wright’s argument (...) founders because one of its premises, viz, conservatism, invites skepticism and must therefore be rejected. Then the probabilistic argument is challenged, yet not because its formal part is dubious, but rather on the grounds that it incorporates as an implicit premise an unconvincing philosophical claim. Finally, the most promising objection to dogmatism – understood here as the negation of conservatism – is repudiated. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Crispin Wright’s most recent attempt to introduce a diagnostic tool for predicting failures of warrant transmission, the so-called ‘Revised Template’. I show that the Revised Template does not, in fact, generate the predictions about warrant transmission failure that Wright thinks it does. I argue that the failure lies, in large part, with the definition of the technical notion ‘presupposition’ which the Revised Template deploys. Through a consideration of Wright’s own ‘general motivation’ (...) for the Revised Template, I extract an alternative characterization of ‘presupposition’ and use this to fuel a diagnostic tool for predicting failures of warrant transmission which, I believe, is both more faithful to Wright’s own general motivating remarks and more successful in predicting failures of warrant transmission than the Revised Template. (shrink)

Transmission of justification across inference is a valuable and indeed ubiquitous epistemic phenomenon in everyday life and science. It is thanks to the phenomenon of epistemic transmission that inferential reasoning is a means for substantiating predictions of future events and, more generally, for expanding the sphere of our justified beliefs or reinforcing the justification of beliefs that we already entertain. However, transmission of justification is not without exceptions. As a few epistemologists have come to realise, more or (...) less trivial forms of circularity can prevent justification from transmitting from p to q even if one has justification for p and one is aware of the inferential link from p to q. In interesting cases this happens because one can acquire justification for p only if one has independent justification for q. In this case the justification for q cannot depend on the justification for p and the inferential link from p to q, as genuine transmission would require. The phenomenon of transmission failure seems to shed light on philosophical puzzles, such as Moore's proof of a material world and McKinsey's paradox, and it plays a central role in various philosophical debates. For this reason it is being granted continued and increasing attention. (shrink)

In this paper I will argue that Boghossian's explanation of how we can acquire a priori knowledge of logical principles through implicit definitions commits a transmission of warrant-failure. To this end, I will briefly outline Boghossian's account, followed by an explanation of what a transmission of warrant-failure consists in. I will also show that this charge is independent of the worry of rule-circularity which has been raised concerning the justification of logical principles and of which Boghossian (...) is fully aware. My argument comes in two steps: firstly, I will argue for the insufficiency of Boghossian's template which is meant to explain how a subject can acquire a warrant for logical principles. I will show however that this insufficiency of his template can be remedied by adopting what I call the Disquotational Step. Secondly, I will argue that incorporating this further step makes his template subject to a transmission of warrant-failure, assuming that certain rather basic and individually motivated principles hold. Thus, Boghossian's account faces a dilemma: either he adopts the Disquotational Step and subjects his account to the charge of a transmission of warrant-failure, or he drops this additional step leaving the account confronted with explaining the gap that has previously been highlighted. I will then suggest various rejoinders that Boghossian might adopt but none of which - I will argue - can resolve the dilemma. Lastly, I will raise and briefly discuss the question whether this worry generalizes to other accounts, such as Hale and Wright's that aim to explain our knowledge of logic and/or mathematics in virtue of implicit definitions. (shrink)

In my 1991 paper, AAnti-Individualism and Privileged Access,@ I argued that externalism in the philosophy of mind is incompatible with the thesis that we have privileged , nonempirical access to the contents of our own thoughts.¹ One of the most interesting responses to my argument has been that of Martin Davies (1998, 2000, and Chapter _ above) and Crispin Wright (2000 and Chapter _ above), who describe several types of cases to show that warrant for a premise does not (...) always transmit to a known deductive consequence of that premise, and who contend that this fact under-mines my argument for incompatibilism. I will try to show here that the Davies/Wright point about transmission of warrant does not adversely affect my argument. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend the compatibility of externalism and privileged access and argue that the warrant transmission succeeds in cases of armchair knowledge, but that it does not have the anti-sceptical consequences that it is typically thought to have.

Externalism about some mental property, M, is the thesis that whether a person (or other physical being) has M depends, not only on conditions inside the person.

In this paper we focus on transmission and failure of transmission of warrant. We identify three individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for transmission of warrant, and we show that their satisfaction grounds a number of interesting epistemic phenomena that have not been sufficiently appreciated in the literature. We then scrutinise Wright’s analysis of transmission failure and improve on extant readings of it. Nonetheless, we present a Bayesian counterexample that shows that Wright’s analysis is (...) partially incoherent with our analysis of warrant transmission and prima facie defective. We conclude exploring three alternative lines of reply: developing a more satisfactory account of transmission failure, which we outline; dismissing the Bayesian counterexample by rejecting some of its assumptions; reinterpreting Wright’s analysis to make it immune to the counterexample. (shrink)

I set out the standard view about alleged examples of failure of transmission of warrant, respond to two cases for the view, and argue that the view is false. The first argument for the view neglects the distinction between believing a proposition on the basis of a justification and merely having a justification to believe a proposition. The second argument for the view neglects the position that one's justification for believing a conclusion can be one's premise for the (...) conclusion, rather than simply one's justification for the premise. Finally, the view is false since it is inconsistent with the closure of knowledge as closure is properly understood. (shrink)

Epistemological disjunctivists make appeal to Moorean-style anti-skeptical arguments. It is often held that one problem with using Moorean-style arguments in the context of a response to skepticism is that such arguments are subject to a kind of epistemic circularity. The specific kind of epistemic failure involved has come to be known as a failure of warrant transmission. It would likely pose a problem for the anti-skeptical ambitions of the epistemological disjunctivist if his version of the Moorean-style argument failed (...) to transmit warrant; but no epistemological disjunctivist has offered an argument to show that this is not so. In this paper, I fill the gap by arguing that warrant transmits across epistemological disjunctivist Moorean-style arguments. (shrink)

Transmission views of testimony hold that a speaker's knowledge or justification can become the audience's knowledge or justification. We argue that transmission views are incompatible with the hypothesis that one's epistemic state, together with one's practical circumstances, determines what actions are rationally permissible for an agent. We argue that there are cases where, if the speaker's epistemic state were transmitted to the audience, then the audience would be warranted in acting in particular ways. Yet, the audience in these (...) cases is not so warranted, as their strength of justification does not come close to the speaker's. (shrink)

Previous assurance-theoretic treatments of testimony have not adequately explained how the transmission of warrant depends specifically on the speaker’s mode of address – making it natural to suspect that the interpersonal element is not epistemic but merely psychological or action-theoretic. I aim to fill that explanatory gap: to specify exactly how a testifier’s assurance can create genuine epistemic warrant. In doing so I explain (a) how the illocutionary norm governing the speech act proscribes not lies but a (...) species of bullshit, in an extension of Harry Frankfurt’s sense, (b) how that norm makes testimony fully second-personal, in Stephen Darwall’s sense, or bipolar, in Michael Thompson’s sense, and (c) how that species of second-personality or bipolarity is more fundamental than the practical species that Darwall and Thompson discuss. One attraction of this new Assurance View of testimony is that it allows us to reconceptualize the natures of normativity and responsibility more generally, viewing the assurance as implicating us in normative relations of recognition, and therefore of justice, that are not yet moralized with reactive attitudes. (shrink)

Within his overarching program aiming to defend an epistemic conception of analyticity, Boghossian (1996 and 1997) has offered a clear-cut explanation of how we can acquire a priori knowledge of logical truths and logical rules through implicit definition. The explanation is based on a special template or general form of argument. Ebert (2005) has argued that an enhanced version of this template is flawed because a segment of it is unable to transmit warrant from its premises to the conclusion. (...) This article aims to defend the template from this objection. We provide an accurate description of the type of non-transmissivity that Ebert attributes to the template and clarify why this is a novel type of non-transmissivity. Then, we argue that Jenkins (2008)’s response to Ebert fails because it focuses on doxastic rather than propositional warrant. Finally, we rebut Ebert’s objection on Boghossian’s behalf by showing that it rests on an unwarranted assumption and is internally incoherent. (shrink)

[full article, abstract in English; abstract in Lithuanian] Fred Dretske motivates his denial of epistemic closure by way of the thought that the warrant for the premises of a valid argument need not transfer to the argument’s conclusion. The failure-of-transfer-of-warrant strategy has also been used by advocates of epistemic closure as a foil to Michael McKinsey’s argument against the compatibility of first person authority and semantic externalism, and also to illuminate, more generally, why certain valid arguments appear ill-suited (...) for the purpose of establishing their conclusions. This paper takes re-examines some of the central attempts to explain transmission-failure, and a central line of objection to the strategy from Begging-the-Question theorists. The ultimate goal of this paper is to promote a decidedly Dretskean explanation of the unpersuasiveness of the said arguments. (shrink)

Crispin Wright has given an explanation of how a first time warrant can fall short of transmitting across a known entailment. Formal epistemologists have struggled to turn Wright’s informal explanation into cogent Bayesian reasoning. In this paper, I analyse two Bayesian models of Wright’s account respectively proposed by Samir Okasha and Jake Chandler. I argue that both formalizations are unsatisfactory for different reasons, and I lay down a third Bayesian model that appears to me to capture the valid kernel (...) of Wright’s explanation. After this, I consider a recent development in Wright’s account of transmission failure. Wright suggests that his condition sufficient for transmission failure of first time warrant also suffices for transmission failure of supplementary warrant. I propose an interpretation of Wright’s suggestion that shield it from objections. I then lay down a fourth Bayesian framework that provides a simplified model of the unified explanation of transmission failure envisaged by Wright. (shrink)

Some philosophers claim that there are no genuine instances of transmission failure provided we operate with the right account of thesources of warrant-or-evidence for future reasoning. My aim in this paper is to clear the way for instances of transmission failure regardless of the account of the sources of warrant-or-evidence for future reasoning with which one operates. My aim is not to claim there are in fact genuine instances of transmission failure; merely to render it (...) possible, on all – or most – plausible accounts of the sources of warrant-or-evidence for future reasoning. (shrink)

Dretske's conclusive reasons account of knowledge is designed to explain how epistemic closure can fail when the evidence for a belief does not transmit to some of that belief's logical consequences. Critics of Dretske dispute the argument against closure while joining Dretske in writing off transmission. This paper shows that, in the most widely accepted system for counterfactual logic , conclusive reasons are governed by an informative, non-trivial, logical transmission principle. If r is a conclusive reason for believing (...) p in Dretske's sense, and if p logically implies q, and if p and q satisfy one additional condition, it follows that r is a conclusive reason for believing q. After introducing this additional condition, I explain its intuitive import and use the condition to shed new light on Dretske's response to scepticism, as well as on his distinction between the so-called ‘lightweight’ and ‘heavyweight’ implications of a piece of perceptual knowledge. (shrink)

In what follows, I appeal to Charles Babbage’s discussion of the division of mental labor to provide evidence that—at least with respect to the social acquisition, storage, retrieval, and transmission of knowledge—epistemologists have, for a broad range of phenomena of crucial importance to actual knowers in their epistemic practices in everyday life, failed adequately to appreciate the significance of socially distributed cognition. If the discussion here is successful, I will have demonstrated that a particular presumption widely held within the (...) contemporary discussion of the epistemology of testimony—a presumption that I will term the personalist requirement—fails to account for those very practices of knowers that I detail here. I will then conclude by suggesting that an alternate account of testimonial warrant, one that has heretofore been underappreciated, ought to be given more serious consideration—in particular because it is well suited to account for those actual practices of knowers that the personalist requirement leaves unrecognized. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that RadicalInterpretation (RI), taken to be a methodological doctrine regarding the conditions under which an interpretation of an utterance is both warranted and correct, has unacceptable implications for the conditions on (ascriptions of) understanding. The notion of understanding at play is that which underwrites the testimonial transmission of knowledge. After developing this notion I argue that, on the assumption of RI, hearers will fail to have such understanding in situations in which we should want (...) to maintain otherwise. The overall effect of the argument is to provide a heretofore unexamined source of motivation for anti-individualistic approaches to the semantics of utterances. (shrink)

This study provides a critical appraisal of Duncan Pritchard’s argument to the effect that ability to preserve certain eminently plausible transmission and/or closure principles for knowledge serves as a powerful adequacy test on alternative accounts of so-called Wittgensteinian certainties or hinge commitments. I argue that Pritchard fails to establish this claim—the transmission test does not favour his favourite conception over alternative conceptions premised on the idea that hinge commitments are not supportable via evidential-cognitive routes.

Boghossian (1996) has put forward an interesting explanation of how we can acquire logical knowledge via implicit definitions that makes use of a special template. Ebert (2005) has argued that the template is unserviceable, as it doesn't transmit warrant. In this paper, we defend the template. We first suggest that Jenkins (2008)’s response to Ebert fails because it focuses on doxastic rather than propositional warrant. We then reject Ebert’s objection by showing that it depends on an implausible and (...) incoherent assumption. (shrink)

À la lumière de cas concrets impliquant des universités du Sud comme du Nord et sur la base de l'expérience d'évaluation du réseau international PRELUDE, les auteurs analysent des pratiques de constitution, de capitalisation et de partage des...

This chapter examines a problematic consequence of the popular probability-raising conception of evidential support, namely that any proposition which is evidence for some hypothesis is evidence for itself. It examines whether the defender of the probability-raising account can avoid this consequence by modifying either of the two conditions they place on a proposition p being evidence for a subject for a hypothesis h: that 1) p is part of the subject’s evidence; and, 2) p raises the probability of h. The (...) chapter defends an invariantist modification of the second condition which appeals to the notion of warrant transmission. (shrink)

It appears that there is an inconsistency in combining epistemic contextualism with a plausible closure principle for knowledge and the view that knowledge is factive. I discuss the proposal that in order to avoid inconsistency the contextualist should reject closure and retain factivity. The proposal offers an alternative to closure and an argument that warrant fails to transmit through inference in the relevant cases. I criticize both accounts. The proposed alternative to closure is not well motivated and leaves unresolved (...) the question of why standard closure should not hold. The argument that warrant does not transmit is based on an inaccurate model of warrant transmission. An important lesson that emerges is that known propositions themselves can serve as warrant for further propositions, which may be known provided they are competently deduced from the former. Indeed it is arguably the factivity of knowledge that accounts for the fact that known propositions themselves serve as warrant. Thus, the strategy of rejecting closure while retaining factivity is a bad one not merely because the proposed alternatives to standard closure are inadequate and transmission failure in relevant cases would not imply closure failure, but because factivity ensures that warrant transmission worries in the relevant cases are unfounded. (shrink)

Knowledge closure is the claim that, if an agent S knows P, recognizes that P implies Q, and believes Q because it is implied by P, then S knows Q. Closure is a pivotal epistemological principle that is widely endorsed by contemporary epistemologists. Against Knowledge Closure is the first book-length treatment of the issue and the most sustained argument for closure failure to date. Unlike most prior arguments for closure failure, Marc Alspector-Kelly's critique of closure does not presuppose any particular (...) epistemological theory; his argument is, instead, intuitively compelling and applicable to a wide variety of epistemological views. His discussion ranges over much of the epistemological landscape, including skepticism, warrant, transmission and transmission failure, fallibilism, sensitivity, safety, evidentialism, reliabilism, contextualism, entitlement, circularity and bootstrapping, justification, and justification closure. As a result, the volume will be of interest to any epistemologist or student of epistemology and related subjects. (shrink)

In Boghossian's 1997 paper, 'Analyticity' he presented an account of a prioriknowledge of basic logical principles as available by inference from knowledge of their role in determining the meaning of the logical constants by implicit definitiontogether with knowledge of the meanings so-determined that we possess through ourprivileged access to meaning. Some commentators (e.g. BonJour (1998), Glüer (2003),Jenkins (2008)) have objected that if the thesis of implicit definition on which he relieswere true, knowledge of the meaning of the constants would presuppose (...) knowledge of the very logical principles knowledge of which the account purports to explain. Aconsequence would seem to be that implicit definition is incompatible with privilegedaccess. I argue that whilst it is possible for Boghossian to defend against theseobjections the form of argument he proposes does exhibit a subtle form of questionbegging such that it exhibits a transmission of warrant-failure. (shrink)

§1 It is not always true that recognizably valid reasoning from known, or otherwise epistemically warranted premises, can be enlisted to produce knowledge, or other epistemic warrant, for a conclusion. The counterexamples are cases that exhibit what I have elsewhere called warrant transmission-failure. It is nowadays widely accepted that there are indeed such counterexamples, though individual cases remain controversial. One such controversial case is the so-called McKinsey paradox. The paradox presents as a simple collision between three claims (...) that many would find attractive. (shrink)

What is the connection between justification and the kind of consequence relations that are studied by logic? In this essay, I shall try to provide an answer, by proposing a general conception of the kind of inference that counts as justified or rational.

How do we know what we know? In this stimulating and rigorous book, Mark McBride explores two sets of issues in contemporary epistemology: the problems that warrant transmission poses for the category of basic knowledge; and the status of conclusive reasons, sensitivity, and safety as conditions that are necessary for knowledge. To have basic knowledge is to know some proposition immediately, i.e., knowledge that doesn't depend on justification for any other proposition. This book considers several puzzles that arise (...) when you take seriously the possibility that we can have basic knowledge. McBride's analysis draws together two vital strands in contemporary epistemology that are usually treated in isolation from each other. Additionally, its innovative arguments include a new application of the safety condition to the law. This book will be of interest to epistemologists―both professionals and students. (shrink)

In this essay, Crispin Wright’s various attempts at solving the so-called McKinsey paradox are reconstructed and criticized. In the first section, I argue against Anthony Brueckner that Wright’s solution does require that there is a failure of warrant transmission in McKinsey’s argument. To this end, a variant of the McKinsey paradox for earned a priori warrant is reconstructed, and it is claimed that Wright’s putative solution of this paradox is best understood as drawing on the contention that (...) there is a transmission failure in the argument in question. In section II, I focus on Wright’s views in the second part of his pivotal article on the McKinsey paradox. It is argued that the solution to the paradox proposed there by Wright is convincing if his theory of entitlements is accepted. In the third section, however, I raise an objection against Wright’s account of entitlements. Finally, in section IV, Wright’s views in his most recent essay on the McKinsey paradox are examined. It is shown that his new solution to this problem does not work any better than his earlier attempts at solving it. (shrink)

Epistemic closure under known implication is the principle that knowledge of "p" and knowledge of "p implies q", together, imply knowledge of "q". This principle is intuitive, yet several putative counterexamples have been formulated against it. This paper addresses the question, why is epistemic closure both intuitive and prone to counterexamples? In particular, the paper examines whether probability theory can offer an answer to this question based on four strategies. The first probability-based strategy rests on the accumulation of risks. The (...) problem with this strategy is that risk accumulation cannot accommodate certain counterexamples to epistemic closure. The second strategy is based on the idea of evidential support, that is, a piece of evidence supports a proposition whenever it increases the probability of the proposition. This strategy makes progress and can accommodate certain putative counterexamples to closure. However, this strategy also gives rise to a number of counterintuitive results. Finally, there are two broadly probabilistic strategies, one based on the idea of resilient probability and the other on the idea of assumptions that are taken for granted. These strategies are promising but are prone to some of the shortcomings of the second strategy. All in all, I conclude that each strategy fails. Probability theory, then, is unlikely to offer the account we need. (shrink)

Closure principles loom large in recent internalist critiques of epistemic externalism. Cohen (Philos Phenomenol Res 65:309–329, 2002, Philos Phenomenol Res 70:417–430, 2005), Vogel (J Philos 97:602–623, 2000), and Fumerton (Meta-Epistemology and skepticism. Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, 1995) argue that, given closure, epistemic externalism is committed to the possibility of implausibly easy knowledge. By contrast, Zalabardo (Philos Rev 114:33–61, 2005) proposes that epistemic closure actually precludes the possibility of easy knowledge, and appeals to closure principles to solve the problem of easy (...) knowledge. In my view, disagreement over closure’s bearing on externalism and the problem of easy knowledge is rooted in a failure to bear in mind the familiar distinction between ex ante and ex post forms of epistemic justification and warrant. When this distinction is kept in focus, the result is clear: epistemic closure provides no relief from the problem of easy knowledge. (shrink)

Fred Dretske notoriously claimed that knowledge closure sometimes fails. Crispin Wright agrees that warrant does not transmit in the relevant cases, but only because the agent must already be warranted in believing the conclusion in order to acquire her warrant for the premise. So the agent ends up being warranted in believing, and so knowing, the conclusion in those cases too: closure is preserved. Wright's argument requires that the conclusion's having to be warranted beforehand explains transmission failure. (...) I argue that it doesn't, and that the correct explanation does not imply that the agent will end up warranted in believing the conclusion when transmission fails. Those who agree that transmission does fail in those cases, therefore, might as well follow Dretske in denying knowledge closure too. (shrink)

Extended Rationality: A Hinge Epistemology provides a novel account of the structure of epistemic justification. Its central claim builds upon Wittgenstein's idea in On Certainty that epistemic justifications hinge on some basic assumptions and that epistemic rationality extends to these very hinges. It exploits these ideas to address major problems in epistemology, such as the nature of perceptual justifications, external world skepticism, epistemic relativism, the epistemic status of basic logical laws, of the Principle of the Uniformity of Nature, of our (...) belief in the existence of the past and of other minds, and the nature of testimonial justification. Along the way, further technical issues, such as the scope of the Principle of Closure of epistemic operators under known entailment, the notion of transmission failure, and the existence of entitlements are addressed in new and illuminating ways. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 7, Issue 4, pp 217 - 234 The paper presents the key themes of my _Extended Rationality: A Hinge Epistemology_. It focuses, in particular, on the moderate account of perceptual justification, the constitutive response put forward against Humean skepticism, epistemic relativism, the closure principle, the transmission of warrant principle, as well as on the applications of the extended rationality view to the case of the principle of the uniformity of nature, testimony, and the justification of (...) basic laws of inference. (shrink)

Crispin Wright is widely known for having introduced epistemic entitlement, a species of non‐evidential warrant, as a response to certain skeptical challenges. This paper investigates a fundamental issue concerning entitlement: it appears to be quite generous, as it appears to apply indiscriminately to anti‐skepticial hypotheses as well as a range of radically different—indeed, even incompatible—propositions. It argues that the generosity of entitlement is reflective of an underlying commitment to a form of epistemic relativism. In addition, the paper presents an (...) axiology that helps entitlement theorists to address the pressing issue of how, given the absence of evidence, there can be anything epistemically good about acceptance of anti‐skeptical hypotheses and other cornerstones for inquiry. Lastly, the paper argues that the issues of generosity and epistemic relativism are rather deeply rooted: they surface at the level of value. It explains why. (shrink)

[Crispin Wright] Two kinds of epistemological sceptical paradox are reviewed and a shared assumption, that warrant to accept a proposition has to be the same thing as having evidence for its truth, is noted. 'Entitlement', as used here, denotes a kind of rational warrant that counter-exemplifies that identification. The paper pursues the thought that there are various kinds of entitlement and explores the possibility that the sceptical paradoxes might receive a uniform solution if entitlement can be made to (...) reach sufficiently far. Three kinds of entitlement are characterised and given prima facie support, and a fourth is canvassed. Certain foreseeable limitations of the suggested anti-sceptical strategy are noted. The discussion is grounded, overall, in a conception of the sceptical paradoxes not as directly challenging our having any warrant for large classes of our beliefs but as crises of intellectual conscience for one who wants to claim that we do. /// [ Martin Davies] Wright's account of sceptical arguments and his use of the idea of epistemic entitlement are reviewed. His notion of non-transmission of epistemic warrant is explained and a concern about his notion of entitlement is developed. An epistemological framework different from Wright's is described and several notions of entitlement are introduced. One of these, negative entitlement, is selected for more detailed comparison with Wright's notion. Thereafter, the paper shows how the two notions of entitlement have contrasting consequences for non-transmission of warrant and how they go naturally with two conceptions of the presuppositions of epistemic projects. Problems for negative entitlement are explained and solutions are proposed. (shrink)

[Crispin Wright] Two kinds of epistemological sceptical paradox are reviewed and a shared assumption, that warrant to accept a proposition has to be the same thing as having evidence for its truth, is noted. 'Entitlement', as used here, denotes a kind of rational warrant that counter-exemplifies that identification. The paper pursues the thought that there are various kinds of entitlement and explores the possibility that the sceptical paradoxes might receive a uniform solution if entitlement can be made to (...) reach sufficiently far. Three kinds of entitlement are characterised and given prima facie support, and a fourth is canvassed. Certain foreseeable limitations of the suggested anti-sceptical strategy are noted. The discussion is grounded, overall, in a conception of the sceptical paradoxes not as directly challenging our having any warrant for large classes of our beliefs but as crises of intellectual conscience for one who wants to claim that we do. /// [Martin Davies] Wright's account of sceptical arguments and his use of the idea of epistemic entitlement are reviewed. His notion of non-transmission of epistemic warrant is explained and a concern about his notion of entitlement is developed. An epistemological framework different from Wright's is described and several notions of entitlement are introduced. One of these, negative entitlement, is selected for more detailed comparison with Wright's notion. Thereafter, the paper shows how the two notions of entitlement have contrasting consequences for non-transmission of warrant and how they go naturally with two conceptions of the presuppositions of epistemic projects. Problems for negative entitlement are explained and solutions are proposed. (shrink)

Human connection is universally important, particularly in the context of serious illness and at the end of life. The presence of close family and friends has many benefits when death is close. Hospital visitation restrictions during the Coronavirus pandemic therefore warrant careful consideration to ensure equity, proportionality, and the minimization of harm. The Australian and New Zealand Society for Palliative Medicine COVID-19 Special Interest Group utilized the relevant ethical and public health principles, together with the existing disease outbreak literature (...) and evolving COVID-19 knowledge, to generate a practical framework of visiting restrictions for inpatients receiving palliative and end-of-life care. Expert advice from an Infectious Diseases physician ensured relevance to community transmission dynamics. Three graded levels of visitor restrictions for inpatient settings are proposed, defining an appropriate level of minimum access. These depend upon the level of community transmission of COVID-19, the demand on health services, the potential COVID-19 status of the patient and visitors, and the imminence of the patient’s death. This framework represents a cohesive, considered, proportionate, and ethically robust approach to improve equity and consistency for inpatients receiving palliative care during the COVID-19 pandemic and may serve as a template for future disease outbreaks. (shrink)

Drawing on work by philosophers CAJ Coady and David Coady on the epistemology of rumours, I develop a theory which exploits the distinction between rumouring and rumour-mongering for the purpose of explaining why we should treat rumours as a species of justified belief. -/- Whilst it is true that rumour-mongering, the act of passing on a rumour maliciously, presents a pathology of the normally reliable transmission of rumours, I will argue that rumours themselves have a generally reliable transmission (...) process, that of rumouring, and should be considered to be examples of warranted beliefs. -/- My argument will also touch on the association of rumours with another class of beliefs that are usually considered to be suspect, conspiracy theories. I will argue that whilst rumours are reliable (as a mechanism for the transmission of justified beliefs) the analysis of the transmission of conspiracy theories requires us to realise they are different to rumours in some important respects. (shrink)

My focus will be on two questions about Moore’s justification to believe the premises and the conclusion of the argument above. At stake is what makes it possible for our experiences to justify our beliefs, and what makes it possible for us to be justified in disbelieving skeptical..