Two different versions of epistemological disjunctivism have recently been upheld in the literature: a traditional, Justified True Belief Epistemological Disjunctivism (JTBED) and a Knowledge First Epistemological Disjunctivism (KFED). JTBED holds that factive reasons of the form “S sees that p” provide the rational support in virtue of which one has perceptual knowledge, while KFED holds that factive reasons of the form “S sees that p” just are ways of knowing that p which additionally provide justification for believing that p. We (...) argue that both accounts remain ultimately unsatisfactory. JTBED faces two formidable problems: first, it cannot account for animal knowledge, and, second, it does not offer a satisfactory account of how we access factive reasons. Although KFED can solve these two problems, it has some problems of its own. While intuitively knowledge is logically stronger than justified belief, on KFED it turns out to be weaker: knowledge does not entail justified belief, but justified belief does entail knowledge. Nevertheless, disjunctivists are right on at least a couple of points: we standardly justify our perceptual beliefs by appealing to factive reasons such as seeing that p and so factive reasons ought to play some role in our theory of justification. In addition, KFED’s account of our access to factive reasons also is spot on. Rather than going disjunctivist, these insights can be suitably incorporated into a Knowledge First Virtue Epistemology (KFVE). (shrink)

In a number of recent pieces, Duncan Pritchard has used cases with the structure of Goldman’s infamous fake barn case to argue against a promising virtue epistemological account of knowledge and a promising knowledge-based account of understanding. This paper aims to defend both of these views against Pritchard’s objections. More specifically, I outline two ways of resisting Pritchard’s objections. The first allows for knowledge in fake barn cases and explains the intuition of ignorance away. In contrast, the second response appeals (...) to a plausible alternative account of understanding. Each of the resulting views is shown to be epistemologically viable and preferable to the alternative Pritchard’s offers. (shrink)

The literature on the nature of understanding can be divided into two broad camps. Explanationists believe that it is knowledge of explanations that is key to understanding. In contrast, their manipulationist rivals maintain that understanding essentially involves an ability to manipulate certain representations. The aim of this paper is to provide a novel knowledge based account of understanding. More specifically, it proposes an account of maximal understanding of a given phenomenon in terms of fully comprehensive and maximally well-connected knowledge of (...) it and of degrees of understanding in terms of approximations to such knowledge. It is completed by a contextualist semantics for outright attributions of understanding according to which an attribution of understanding is true of one just in case one knows enough about it to perform some contextually determined task. It is argued that this account has an edge over both its explanationist and manipulationist competitors. (shrink)

Suppose you ask yourself whether your father's record collection includes a certain recording of The Trout and venture to find out. At that time, you embark on an inquiry into whether your father owns the relevant recording. Your inquiry is a project with a specific goal: finding out whether your father owns the recording. This fact about your inquiry generalizes: inquiry is a goal-directed enterprise. A specific inquiry can be individuated by the question it aims to answer and by who (...) aims to answer the question. Your inquiry into whether your father owns the recording differs from your inquiry into how many records your father owns because different questions are being asked. Your inquiry into whether your father owns the recording differs from my inquiry into whether he does because different people are inquiring. The goal of inquiry into a given question by an agent, α, can be characterized, neutrally, as α's having the answer to that question. I will here focus only on inquiries into whether questions and characterize the goal of inquiry into whether φ by α as α's having the answer to the question whether φ. (shrink)

Pritchard and Vaesen have recently argued that robust virtue epistemology does not square with the extended cognition thesis that has enjoyed an increasing degree of popularity in recent philosophy of mind. This paper shows that their arguments fail. The relevant cases of extended cognition pose no new problem for robust virtue epistemology. It is shown that Pritchard’s and Vaesen’s cases can be dealt with in familiar ways by a number of virtue theories of knowledge.

The Neo-Moorean Deduction (I have a hand, so I am not a brain-in-a-vat) and the Zebra Deduction (the creature is a zebra, so isn’t a cleverly disguised mule) are notorious. Crispin Wright, Martin Davies, Fred Dretske, and Brian McLaughlin, among others, argue that these deductions are instances of transmission failure. That is, they argue that these deductions cannot transmit justification to their conclusions. I contend, however, that the notoriety of these deductions is undeserved. My strategy is to clarify, attack, defend, (...) and apply. I clarify what transmission and transmission failure really are, thereby exposing two questionable but quotidian assumptions. I attack existing views of transmission failure, especially those of Crispin Wright. I defend a permissive view of transmission failure, one which holds that deductions of a certain kind fail to transmit only because of premise circularity. Finally, I apply this account to the Neo-Moorean and Zebra Deductions and show that, given my permissive view, these deductions transmit in an intuitively acceptable way—at least if either a certain type of circularity is benign or a certain view of perceptual justification is false. (shrink)

In a recent exchange, Vaesen (Synthese 181: 515–529, 2011; Erkenntnis 78:963–970, 2013) and Kelp (Erkenntnis 78:245–252, 2013a) have argued over whether cases of extended cognition pose (part of) a problem for robust virtue epistemology. This paper responds to Vaesen’s (Erkenntnis 78:963–970, 2013) most recent contribution to this exchange. I argue that Vaesen latest argument against the kind of virtue epistemology I favour fails.

Looking out the window, I see that it's raining outside. Do I know that it’s raining outside? According to proponents of the Entailment Thesis, I do. If I see that p, I know that p. In general, the Entailment Thesis is the thesis that if S perceives that p, S knows that p. But recently, some philosophers (McDowell 2002, Turri 2010, Pritchard 2011, 2012) have argued that the Entailment Thesis is false. On their view, we can see p and not (...) know that p. In this paper, I argue that their arguments are unsuccessful. (shrink)

This paper develops an account of trustworthy AI. Its central idea is that whether AIs are trustworthy is a matter of whether they live up to their function-based obligations. We argue that this account serves to advance the literature in a couple of important ways. First, it serves to provide a rationale for why a range of properties that are widely assumed in the scientific literature, as well as in policy, to be required of trustworthy AI, such as safety, justice, (...) and explainability, are properties (often) instantiated by trustworthy AI. Second, we connect the discussion on trustworthy AI in policy, industry, and the sciences with the philosophical discussion of trustworthiness. We argue that extant accounts of trustworthiness in the philosophy literature cannot make proper sense of trustworthy AI and that our account compares favourably with its competitors on this front. (shrink)

The metaphor of weighing reasons brings to mind a single (double-pan balance) scale. The reasons for φ go in one pan and the reasons for ~φ go in the other. The relative weights, as indicated by the relative heights of the two pans of the scale, determine the deontic status of φ. This model is simple and intuitive, but it cannot capture what it is to weigh reasons correctly. A reason pushes the φ pan down toward permissibility (has justifying weight) (...) only insofar as it pushes the ~φ pan up toward impermissibility (has requiring weight). Thus, Single Scale is committed to Single Proportion (first pass): all reasons have the same proportion of justifying and requiring weight. Many normative theories reject Single Proportion, and they are not thereby confused about how to weigh reasons. One can be mistaken about the weight of a reason without being confused about how reasons are to be weighed. Single Scale is problematic, not because it appeals to the image of a scale, but because it appeals to the image of a single scale. We need two scales to capture what it is to weigh reasons correctly. (shrink)

Starting from two observations regarding nursing ethics research in the past two decades, namely, the dominant influence of both the empirical methods and the principles approach, we present the cornerstones of a foundational argument-based nursing ethics framework. First, we briefly outline the general philosophical–ethical background from which we develop our framework. This is based on three aspects: lived experience, interpretative dialogue, and normative standard. Against this background, we identify and explore three key concepts—vulnerability, care, and dignity—that must be observed in (...) an ethical approach to nursing. Based on these concepts, we argue that the ethical essence of nursing is the provision of care in response to the vulnerability of a human being in order to maintain, protect, and promote his or her dignity as much as possible. (shrink)

A common presupposition in epistemology is that the processes contributing to the generation of knowledge do not extend beyond the knower's skin. This paper challenges this presupposition. I adduce a novel kind case that causes trouble for a number of even the most promising accounts of knowledge in current literature (virtue epistemological and modal accounts), at least so long as the presupposition is in place. I then look at a couple of recent accounts of knowledge that drop the presupposition and (...) expressly allow the relevant processes to extended beyond the knower's skin. While these accounts can handle the problem case, they encounter difficulties elsewhere: extension occurs too easily and so the accounts predict knowledge where they ought not. Finally, I offer a novel way of extending epistemology and argue that it can steer clear of the problems on both sides. (shrink)

States claim the right to choose who can come to their country. They put up barriers and expose migrants to deadly journeys. Those who survive are labelled ‘illegal’ and find themselves vulnerable and unrepresented. The international state system advantages the lucky few born in rich countries and locks others into poor and often repressive ones. In this book, Christopher Bertram skilfully weaves a lucid exposition of the debates in political philosophy with original insights to argue that migration controls must be (...) justifiable to everyone, including would-be and actual immigrants. Until justice prevails, states have no credible right to exclude and no-one is obliged to obey their immigration rules. Bertram’s analysis powerfully cuts through the fog of political rhetoric that obscures this controversial topic. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in the politics and ethics of migration. (shrink)

It is plausible that the universe exists: a thing such that absolutely everything is a part of it. It is also plausible that singular, structured propositions exist: propositions that literally have individuals as parts. Furthermore, it is plausible that for each thing, there is a singular, structured proposition that has it as a part. Finally, it is plausible that parthood is a partial ordering: reflexive, transitive, and anti-symmetric. These plausible claims cannot all be correct. We canvass some costs of denying (...) each claim and conclude that parthood is not a partial ordering. Provided that the relevant entities exist, parthood is not anti-symmetric and proper parthood is neither asymmetric nor transitive. (shrink)

Just as theory of representation is deficient if it can’t explain how misrepresentation is possible, a theory of computation is deficient if it can’t explain how miscomputation is possible. Nonetheless, philosophers have generally ignored miscomputation. My primary goal in this paper is to clarify both what miscomputation is and how to adequately explain it. Miscomputation is a special kind of malfunction: a system miscomputes when it computes in a way that it shouldn’t. To explain miscomputation, you must provide accounts of (...) computational behavior, computational norms, and how computational behavior can deviate from computational norms. A secondary goal of this paper is to defend an (quasi-)individualist, mechanistic theory of miscomputation. Computational behavior is narrowly individuated. Computational norms are widely individuated. A system miscomputes when its behavior manifests a narrow computational structure that the widely individuated norms say that it should not have. (shrink)

While fidelity is a crucial aspect of Jacques Derrida’s thinking as it pertains to issues of faith, ethics, and responsibility, this key position in deconstructionist discourse has hardly yet been brought to light. Less still have the biopolitical resonances of Derrida’s work, with its careful attention to the terms and stakes of life particularly in his later writing, been considered as a deconstructionist practice of fidelity and infidelity in its own right. In pursuing these threads, this essay argues that thinking (...) a deconstructionist ethics through fidelity and biopolitics makes possible the crafting of a new philosophical weave for catching our responsibilities to others – to the very otherness of life itself – that Derridean hospitality opens up. Taken together in this way, a deconstructionist fidelity to life otherwise, to a biopolitics to come, makes possible an infidelity to political order as we know it that explodes the limitations of biopolitical theory. In squinting, blinking, tearing up, and listening, the borders of life are blurred in an ambivalent ethics of a transness within which life itself is made to waver and arrive anew. (shrink)

This chapter explores whether and when experience can be evidence. It argues that experiences can be evidence, and that this claim is compatible with just about any epistemological theory. It evaluates the most promising argument for the conclusion that certain experiences (e.g., seeming to see) are always evidence for believing what the experiences represent. While the argument is very promising, one premise needs further defense. The argument also depends on a certain connection between reasonable belief and the first person perspective.

This study takes inquiry as the starting point for epistemological theorising. It uses this idea to develop new and systematic answers to some of the most fundamental questions in epistemology, including about the nature of core epistemic phenomena as well as their value and the extent to which we possess them.

Annotation Up-to-date and accessible examination of scientific thinking about the nature of consciousness. Chris Nunn sets out the most exciting theoretical and experimental advances in this fast developing and controversial area.

In this incisive study of the biological and cultural origins of the human self, the author challenges readers to re-think ideas about the self and consciousness as being exclusive to humans. In their place, he expounds a metatheoretical approach to the self as a purposeful system of extended cognition common to animal life: the invisible medium maintaining mind, body and environment as an integrated 'field of being'. Supported by recent research in evolutionary and developmental studies together with related discoveries in (...) animal behavior and the neurosciences, the author examines the factors that have shaped the evolution of the animal self across widely different species and times, through to the modern, technologically enmeshed human self; the differences between which are presented as relations of degree rather than absolute differences. Much like our primitive ancestors, he contends, routine human behaviour is governed more by unconscious instinct than self-conscious rationality, and is generally resistant to any major changes in customary habits of life, until compelled in time to do so. However, in extreme and rapidly evolving circumstances, as with climate change, tardy responses may become so detached from reality as to constitute an actual threat to survival. (shrink)

Igor Douven has recently developed a challenge for accounts of justification according to which beliefs about lottery losers are never justified. This article argues that champions of such accounts can rise to Douven's challenge and, what's more, that they can turn Douven's argument around in the sense that they can legitimately take it to provide a vindication of their preferred view.

Igor Douven has recently developed a challenge for accounts of justification according to which beliefs about lottery losers are never justified. This article argues that champions of such accounts can rise to Douven's challenge and, what's more, that they can turn Douven's argument around in the sense that they can legitimately take it to provide a vindication of their preferred view.

Virtue epistemological accounts of knowledge claim that knowledge is a species of a broader normative category, to wit of success from ability. Fake Barn cases pose a difficult problem for such accounts. In structurally analogous but non-epistemic cases, the agents attain the relevant success from ability. If knowledge is just another form of success from ability, the pressure is on to treat Fake Barn cases as cases of knowledge. The challenge virtue epistemology faces is to explain the intuitive lack of (...) knowledge in Fake Barn cases, whilst holding on to the core claim that knowledge is success from ability. Ernest Sosa's version of virtue epistemology promises to rise to this challenge. Sosa distinguishes two types of knowledge, animal knowledge and reflective knowledge. He argues that while animal knowledge is present in Fake Barn cases, reflective knowledge is absent and ventures to explain the intuition of ignorance by the absence of reflective knowledge. This paper argues that Sosa's treatment of Fake Barn cases fails as it commits Sosa to a number of highly counterintuitive results elsewhere in epistemology. (shrink)

International Political Theory focuses on the point where two fields of study meet - International Relations and Political Theory. It takes from the former a central concern with the 'international' broadly defined; from the latter it takes a broadly normative identity. IPT studies the 'ought' questions that have been ignored or side-lined by the modern study of International Relations and the 'international' dimension that Political Theory has in the past neglected. A central proposition of IPT is that the 'domestic' and (...) the 'international' cannot be treated as self-contained spheres, although this does not preclude states and the states-system from being regarded by some practitioners of IPT as central points of reference. This Handbook provides an authoritative account of the issues, debates, and perspectives in the field, guided by two basic questions concerning its purposes and methods of inquiry. First, how does IPT connect with real world politics? In particular, how does it engage with real world problems, and position itself in relation to the practices of real world politics? And second, following on from this, what is the relationship between IPT and empirical research in international relations? This Handbook showcases the distinctive and valuable contribution of normative inquiry not just for its own sake but also in addressing real world problems. The Oxford Handbooks of International Relations is a twelve-volume set of reference books offering authoritative and innovative engagements with the principal sub-fields of International Relations. The series as a whole is under the General Editorship of Christian Reus-Smith of the University of Queensland and Duncan Snidal of the University of Oxford, with each volume edited by a distinguished pair of specialists in their respective fields. The series both surveys the broad terrain of International Relations scholarship and reshapes it, pushing each sub-field in challenging new directions. Following the example of the original Reus-Smit and Snidal The Oxford Handbook of International Relations, each volume is organized around a strong central thematic by a pair of scholars drawn from alternative perspectives, reading its sub-field in an entirely new way, and pushing scholarship in challenging new directions. (shrink)

Assertion is the central vehicle for the sharing of knowledge. Whether knowledge is shared successfully often depends on the quality of assertions: good assertions lead to successful knowledge sharing, while bad ones don't. In Sharing Knowledge, Christoph Kelp and Mona Simion investigate the relation between knowledge sharing and assertion, and develop an account of what it is to assert well. More specifically, they argue that the function of assertion is to share knowledge with others. It is this function that (...) supports a central norm of assertion according to which a good assertion is one that has the disposition to generate knowledge in others. The book uses this functionalist approach to motivate further norms of assertion on both the speaker and the hearer side and investigates ramifications of this view for other questions about assertion. (shrink)

The authors survey some debates about the nature and structure of physical theories and about the connections between our physical theories and naturalized metaphysics. The discussion is organized around an “ideal view” of physical theories and criticisms that can be raised against it. This view includes controversial commitments regarding the best analysis of physical modalities and intertheory relations. The authors consider the case in favor of taking laws as the primary modal notion, discussing objections related to alleged violations of the (...) laws, the apparent need to appeal to causality, and the status of probability. The “ideal view” includes a commitment that fundamental physical theories are explanatorily sufficient. The authors discuss several challenges to recovering the manifest image from fundamental physics, along with a distinct challenge to reductionism based on acknowledging the contributions of less fundamental theories in physical explanations. (shrink)

A timely, well-grounded analysis that reveals an inconvenient truth: we can't save capitalism and save the planet.

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

We can often permissibly choose a worse self-interested option over a better altruistic alternative. For example, it is permissible to eat out rather than donate the money to feed five hungry children for a single meal. If we eat out, we do something permissibly partial toward ourselves. If we donate, we go beyond the call of moral duty and do something supererogatory. Such phenomena aren’t easy to explain, and they rule out otherwise promising moral theories. Incommensurability and Ruth Chang’s notion (...) of parity can explain certain small improvement puzzles, but they can’t explain permissible partiality and supererogation. On the other hand, Josh Gert’s distinction between justifying and requiring weight can explain all three phenomena: permissible partiality, supererogation, and the relevant small improvement puzzle. Indeed, this chapter provides a reason to endorse the justifying/requiring weight distinction by showing that it provides the only extant explanation of all three phenomena. (shrink)

Public arguments can be good or bad not only as a matter of logic, but also in the sense that speakers can do good or bad things with arguments. For example, hate speakers use public arguments to contribute to the subordination of their targets. But how can ordinary speakers acquire the authority to perform subordinating speech acts? This is the ‘Authority Problem’. This paper defends a solution inspired by McGowan’s (Australas J Philos 87:389–407, 2009) analysis of oppressive speech, including against (...) concerns raised by McGowan (Just words: On speech and hidden harm, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2019) herself. A deflated kind of authority can be gained from the hate speaker’s standing in a norm-governed ‘activity of oppression’. We should be wary about engaging with such speakers in public argument. Even if we counter their arguments, we may still elevate their standing within that activity and so enable them to perform more pernicious speech acts than was previously possible. (shrink)

This paper aims to develop a novel account of the normativity of assertion. Its core thesis is that assertion has an etiological epistemic function, viz. to generate knowledge in hearers. In conjunction with a general account of etiological functions and their normative import, it is argued that an assertion is epistemically good if and only if it has the disposition to generate knowledge in hearers. In addition, reason is provided to believe that it makes sense to regulate the practice of (...) assertion by a speaker rule—and, more specifically, by a knowledge rule—as so regulating assertion contributes to ensuring that assertion fulfils its etiological function reliably. (shrink)

This paper highlights some connections between work on truth approximation and work in social epistemology, in particular work on peer disagreement. In some of the literature on truth approximation, questions have been addressed concerning the efficiency of research strategies for approximating the truth. So far, social aspects of research strategies have not received any attention in this context. Recent findings in the field of opinion dynamics suggest that this is a mistake. How scientists exchange and take into account information about (...) each others’ beliefs may greatly influence the accuracy and speed with which the scientific community as a whole approximates the truth. On the other hand, social epistemologists concerned with peer disagreement have so far neglected the question of how practices of responding to disagreements with peers fare with respect to the goal of approximating the truth. Again, work on opinion dynamics shows that this may be a mistake, and that how we ought to respond to disagreements with our peers may depend on the specific purposes of our investigations. (shrink)

This paper connects two important debates in epistemology—to wit, on the goal of inquiry and on the nature of understanding—and offers a unified knowledge-based account of both.

According to a much discussed argument, reliabilism is defective for making knowledge too easy to come by. In a recent paper, Weisberg aims to show that this argument relies on a type of reasoning that is rejectable on independent grounds. We argue that the blanket rejection that Weisberg recommends of this type of reasoning is both unwarranted and unwelcome. Drawing on an older discussion in the philosophy of science, we show that placing some relatively modest restrictions on the said type (...) of reasoning suffices to block the anti-reliabilist argument. (shrink)

"Feminism, Theory and the Politics of Difference" looks at the question of difference across the full spectrum of feminist theory from liberal, radical, lesbian ...

In this paper, we develop a general normative framework for criticisability, blamelessness and blameworthiness in action. We then turn to the debate on norms of assertion. We show that an application of this framework enables champions of the so-called knowledge rule of assertion to offer a theoretically motivated response to a number of putative counterexamples in terms of blamelessness. Finally, we argue that, on closer inspection, the putative counterexamples serve to confirm the knowledge rule and disconfirm rival views.

Process reliabilism -- Virtue reliabilism: justified belief -- Virtue reliabilism: knowledge -- Knowledge first virtue reliabilism -- The competition -- The safety dilemma -- Lottery cases.

This paper develops a novel, bifocal account of trustworthiness according to which both trustworthinesssimpliciter(as in ‘Ann is trustworthy’) and trustworthiness tophi(as in ‘Ann is trustworthy when it comes to keeping your secrets’) are analysed in terms of dispositions to fulfil one's obligations. We also offer a systematic account of the relation between the two types of trustworthiness, an account of degrees of trustworthiness and comparative trustworthiness, as well as a view of permissible trustworthiness attribution.

Recent knowledge first epistemology features a number of different accounts of justified belief, including a knowledge first reductionism according to which to believe justifiably is to know Sutton, Littlejohn, Williamson, a knowledge first version of accessibilism Millar and a knowledge first version of mentalism Bird. This paper offers a knowledge first version of virtue epistemology and argues that it is preferable to its knowledge first epistemological rivals: only knowledge first virtue epistemology manages to steer clear of a number of problems (...) that its competition encounters. (shrink)