Metaepistemology

Starting with Kant’s undeveloped proposal of a “negative science,” the author describes how philosophy may be developed and strengthened by means of a systematic approach that seeks to identify and eliminate a widespread but seldom recognized form of systemic and propagating conceptual error. ¶¶¶¶¶ -/- The paper builds upon the author’s book, CRITIQUE OF IMPURE REASON: HORIZONS OF POSSIBILITY AND MEANING (Studies in Theory and Behavior, 2021). ¶¶¶¶¶ -/- The author’s purpose is twofold: first, to enable us to recognize the (...) boundaries of what is referentially forbidden—the limits beyond which reference becomes meaningless—and second, to avoid falling victims to a certain broad class of conceptual confusions that lie at the heart of many major philosophical problems. By realizing these objectives, the boundaries of possible meaning are determined. (shrink)

This paper presents a unifying framework that conceptualizes consciousness as a second-order chaotic system, self-modifying through recursive reflexivity. Drawing from dynamical systems theory, cognitive science, and epistemological metaphysics, the author models mind as a topological field composed of attractors—local cognitive frames in a non-Euclidean epistemic space. Reflexivity is introduced as a meta-dynamic operator, enabling the restructuring of cognitive curvature and frame logic. This process mirrors gravitational behavior in cosmology, suggesting that consciousness is not embedded in the universe but constitutes a (...) cognitive universe unto itself. The model links the emergence of matter, life, and mind to successive levels of recursive curvature: stable, adaptive, and reflexive, respectively. Ultimately, the system questions its own conditions for possibility, revealing that consciousness may be the self-reflective field through which possibility becomes actual. (shrink)

The inception of modern science, in the 17th century, was accompanied by epistemological analyses that see its foundation as laid on observation and experiment — a stance often regarded as excluding (or, at least, devaluating) metaphysics, especially in the English-speaking world. Qualms about metaphysics were already noticeable in Locke’s Essay (1690), and were supposedly deepened by Hume, in the following century. For almost two hundred years, Hume’s philosophy was regarded as radically sceptical concerning metaphysics generally, but particularly about causality and (...) the very existence of an external, objective reality. In this paper, we argue, following a more recent interpretive vein in Hume's scholarship, that Hume’s scepticism about these basic metaphysical issues was effectively “mitigated” (in his own words) by his pioneering adoption of a form of naturalised realism. According to it, belief in both causal relations and in the external world is taken as resulting from the natural operations of the human mind and, in this condition, as being justified, in an epistemologically non-ordinary sense of this notion. As a consequence, epistemology was seen by him as an undertaking akin to the natural sciences, both employing similar empirical methods and metaphysical hypotheses to explore the mind, in the former case, and the physical world, in the latter. Thus, instead of interpreting Hume as one of the forerunners of the anti-metaphysical trend within empiricism, we believe that his wide-ranging project of instituting a “science of man” made some room for metaphysics, as cultivated within the same fallibilistic, naturalistic approach of empirical science itself. (shrink)

Whereas epistemology is the philosophical theory of knowledge, its nature and scope, metaepistemology takes a step back from particular substantive debates in epistemology in order to inquire into the assumptions and commitments made by those who engage in these debates. This entry will focus on a selection of these assumptions and commitments, including whether there are objective epistemic facts; and how to characterize the subject matter and the methodology of epistemology.

A Boltzmann brain is a randomly-formed configuration of matter that is conscious. According to some theories that cosmologists take seriously, the universe is so spatiotemporally large that it contains a great many Boltzmann brains that are duplicates of you. In the light of this it seems to follow that you should have significant confidence that you are a Boltzmann brain. What's worse, your situation seems to be "cognitively unstable": It seems unstable to end up confident that you are a Boltzmann (...) brain because you should then think that your apparent cosmological evidence was randomly generated and hence that your confidence was unwarranted. But it also seems unstable to end up confident that you are not a Boltzmann brain because then you should follow your cosmological evidence to the conclusion that many Boltzmann brain duplicates of you exist, and hence that you are probably a Boltzmann brain. -/- A case involving unreliable vision exhibits a similar threat of instability. A simple Bayesian model of that case, however, shows that the threat is an illusion. And a corresponding model suggests that the same goes for the threat of instability associated with Boltzmann brains. (shrink)

Linguistic data are commonly considered a defeasible source of evidence from which it is legitimate to draw philosophical hypotheses and conclusions. Traditionally epistemologists have relied almost exclusively on linguistic data from western languages, with a primary focus on contemporary English. However, in the last two decades there has been an increasing interest in cross-linguistic studies in epistemology. In this entry, we provide a brief overview of cross-linguistic data discussed by contemporary epistemologists and the philosophical debates they have generated.

We draw on recent accounts of social epistemology to present a novel account of epistemic cognition that is ‘socialised’. In developing this account we foreground the: normative and pragmatic nature of knowledge claims; functional role that ‘to know’ plays when agents say they ‘know x’; the social context in which such claims occur at a macro level, including disciplinary and cultural context; and the communicative context in which such claims occur, the ways in which individuals and small groups express and (...) construct (or co-construct) their knowledge claims. We frame prior research in terms of this new approach to provide an exemplification of its application. Practical implications for research and learning contexts are highlighted, suggesting a re-focussing of analysis on the collective level, and the ways knowledge-standards emerge from group-activity, as a communicative property of that activity. (shrink)

This paper advertises the importance of distinguishing three different foundational projects about epistemic thought and talk, which we call “systematic normative epistemology”, “metaepistemology”, and “the conceptual ethics of epistemology”. We argue that these projects can be distinguished by their contrasting constitutive success conditions. This paper is motivated by the idea that the distinctions between these three projects matter for epistemological theorizing in ways that have been underappreciated in philosophical discussion. We claim that attention to the threefold distinction we advance allows (...) us to better understand and evaluate existing views and debates in the field; identify and appreciate new or underexplored theoretical options in the field; and avoid important defects and ambiguities in our research on epistemic topics. (shrink)

It has been argued that rationality consists in responding correctly to reasons. Recent defenses of the normativity of rationality assume that this implies that we always ought to be rational. However, this follows only if the reasons rationality requires us to correctly respond to are normative reasons. Recent meta-epistemological contributions have questioned whether epistemic reasons are normative. If they were right, then epistemic rationality wouldn’t provide us with normative reasons independently of wrong-kind reasons to be epistemically rational. This paper spells (...) out this neglected challenge for the normativity of epistemic rationality by connecting the two bodies of literature. Moreover, it generalizes this challenge to the rationality of desire, intention, and emotion. The upshot is that we can only answer the normative question about rationality if we debate about blame and accountability for holding different kinds of irrational attitudes, as well as about the sources of mental normativity. (shrink)

Abstract -/- The philosophical discourse has a number of in-built values,‭ ‬norms and attitudes that create for this discipline.‭ ‬Creative-thinking and Intuition are discussed.‭ ‬Then some of the limits of the discourse are identified,‭ ‬some of them concern the methods of philosophizing.‭ ‬The positive aspects of the so-called Socratic Method and those of the Philosophical Investigations as Explorative Methods‭ (‬and metaphysics‭?) ‬are compared with those identified by Strawson as Speculative and Descriptive Metaphysics. -/- It is suggested that the future of (...) Philosophy lies in Theorizing.‭ ‬It is essential to view in the Appendix the articles concerning the Socratic Methods and the nature and processes of‭ (‬Philosophy as‭) ‬Theorizing.‭ -/- https://www.academia.edu/31692986/Intra-Philosophical_Norms_and_other_Limits. (shrink)

This paper presents the epistemic practices account, a theory about the nature of epistemic normativity. The account aims to explain how the pursuit of epistemic values such as truth and knowledge can give rise to epistemic norms. On this account, epistemic norms are the internal rules of epistemic social practices. The account explains four crucial features of epistemic normativity while dissolving some apparent tensions between them. The account also provides a unified theory of epistemic and zetetic normativity.

We debate whether permissivism is true. We start off by assuming an accuracy-oriented framework, and then discuss metaepistemological questions about how our epistemic evaluations promote accuracy.

I argue that knowledge can be seen as a quality standard that governs our sharing and storing of information. This standard satisfies certain functional needs, namely it allows us to share and store trustworthy information more easily. I argue that this makes knowledge a social kind, similar in important ways to other social kinds like money. This provides us with a way of talking about knowledge without limiting ourselves to the concept of knowledge. I also outline three ways in which (...) this view of knowledge can shed light on familiar epistemological problems: it can explain why knowledge is the norm of assertion, it can help us carve out the harm associated with testimonial injustice, and it can provide us with a clear analysis of the dangers associated with spreading misinformation. (shrink)

This presentation introduces the third issue of Mɛtascience, a journal dedicated to metascientific research. It highlights ten contributions from authors with diverse backgrounds, exploring various aspects of Mario Bunge's thought and metascientific epistemology. The issue is divided into four categories: Studies on Bunge's System, Metascientific Contributions, Applications of Bungean Thought, and Around Metascience. Key topics include the characterization of metascientific epistemology, its distinction from philosophical epistemologies, and its focus on scientific constructs and epistemic operations. The issue explores applications of Bunge's (...) systemist philosophy, conceptual modeling in information technology, and debates surrounding linguistics as an empirical science. It also addresses the relationship between epistemology, science education, and the teaching of scientific models. (shrink)

Metascientific epistemology differs from any philosophical epistemologies in its aims, objects and methods. Through an examination of Mario Bunge’s epistemology, we will show that the main objective of metascientific epistemology is the development of a unified representation of the epistemic transformations of scientific knowledge through the study of the epistemic operations necessary for its acquisition, creation and validation, that its objects of study are scientific con-structs, and that its methods do not differ from those expected to be found in any (...) rational activity. Metascientific epistemology is therefore not transcendent, since it takes for granted that the sciences study concrete objects with the help of natural faculties, and that it itself studies scientific constructs with the help of natural faculties, and therefore does not resort to special faculties or methods to carry out its research. (shrink)

What should we believe when epistemic and practical reasons pull in opposite directions? The traditional view states that there is something that we ought epistemically to believe and something that we ought practically to (cause ourselves to) believe, period. More recent accounts challenge this view, either by arguing that there is something that we ought simpliciter to believe, all epistemic and practical reasons considered (the weighing view), or by denying the normativity of epistemic reasons altogether (epistemic anti‐normativism). I argue against (...) both accounts and defend the traditional view. An agent can be blameworthy in doxastic dilemmas for complying with their practical but not their epistemic reasons. This reveals how epistemic reasons are normative: the concept of epistemic blame helps us track epistemic normativity. (shrink)

The Scientific Realism Debate (SRD) has been accused of going around in circles without reaching a consensus, so that several scholars have advocated its dissolution in favor of reformed projects that are eliminativist towards the distinctively philosophical aims and methods. In this paper, after outlining the project that SRD-participants have been involved in for some time now—which we call the Received View—we discuss two dissolution-proposals: sociological externalism and localism. We argue that these projects are incomplete and that, even when judged (...) in themselves, they cannot flourish without the ‘traditional’ philosophical reflection they wish to get rid of. However, although not substitutes for the Received View, those projects have some insightful features. These are assigned their proper place in the dialectics of SRD, which is shown to be an instance of the method of reflective equilibrium (MRE). Lastly—based on Michael DePaul’s work—we provide a response to the well-known concern that MRE is epistemically circular, by claiming that MRE is the only rational method of inquiry. Overall, our goal is ‘therapeutic’: we try to mitigate the anxiety caused by simultaneously believing that SRD is circular and suspecting that there is a good way out of the circle that we just haven’t found yet. For, having dismissed the suspicion that there might be a good trick to dissolve the circle, one may learn to live in it and be more calm in carrying on with what one has. (shrink)

Zetetic norms govern our acts of inquiry. Epistemic norms govern our beliefs and acts of belief formation. Recently, Jane Friedman (2020) has defended that we should think of these norms as conforming a single normative domain: epistemology should take a zetetic turn. Though this unification project implies a substantive re-elaboration of our traditional epistemic norms, Friedman argues that the reasons supporting the turn are robust enough to warrant its revisionary implications. In this paper, I suggest we should read Friedman’s proposal (...) as a dilemma. Either we believe the zetetic turn is well-motivated and undertake the task of looking for the proper revision of our traditional epistemic norms, or we take the revisionary implications of the turn to be unacceptable, in which case our challenge is to show why a zetetic epistemology is not a well-motivated project after all. After presenting this dilemma, I make a case for endorsing its second horn by presenting a two-pronged argument against Friedman’s project. First, I show that the revisionary implications of the zetetic turn are more far-reaching than expected. Second, I defend that the most persuasive reasons for endorsing the turn are not strong enough to support it. Taken together, these considerations speak against accepting the zetetic turn and the revisionary implications that come with it. (shrink)

Many philosophers have adopted epistemic expressivism in recent years. The core commitment of epistemic expressivism is that epistemic claims express conative states. This paper assesses the plausibility of this commitment. First, we raise a new type of problem for epistemic expressivism, the epistemic motivation problem. The problem arises because epistemic expressivists must provide an account of the motivational force of epistemic judgment (the mental state expressed by an epistemic claim), yet various features of our mental economy seem to show that (...) they can’t do so. Second, we develop what we take to be the most promising response to that problem for expressivists. We end by noting that this response faces an important challenge pertaining to the psychology of epistemic criticism and praise. (shrink)

In this paper, I outline and defend a traditional yet controversial view of conceptual analysis, particularly as it is used in epistemology. I will defend the view against a number of objections, all of which focus on the idea that conceptual analysis relies upon linguistic intuitions. Rather than trying to deny this claim, I will seek to vindicate the use of conceptual analysis within epistemology even given its reliance on linguistic intuitions. To do so, I first outline the view of (...) conceptual analysis I have in mind and then respond to three broad objections from Quill Kukla, Allan Hazlett and Stephen Stich. (shrink)

This work investigates intuitions' nature, demonstrating how philosophers can best use them in epistemology. First, the author considers several paradigmatic thought experiments in epistemology that depict the appeal to intuition. He then argues that the nature of thought experiment-generated intuitions is not best explained by an a priori Platonism. Second, the book instead develops and argues for a thin conception of epistemic intuitions. The account maintains that intuition is neither a priori nor a posteriori but multi-dimensional. It is an intentional (...) but non-propositional mental state that is also non-conceptual and non-phenomenal in nature. Moreover, this state is individuated by its progenitor, namely, the relevant thought experiment. Third, the author provides an argument for the evidential status of intuitions based on the correct account of the nature of epistemic intuition. The suggestion is the fitting-ness approach: intuition alone has no epistemic status. Rather, intuition has evidentiary value as long as it fits well with other pieces into a whole, namely, the pertinent thought experiment. Finally, the book addresses the key challenges raised by supporters of anti-centrality, according to which philosophers do not regard intuition as central evidence in philosophy. To that end, the author responds to them, showing that they fail to affect the account of intuition developed in this book. This text appeals to students and researchers working in epistemology. (shrink)

Since Nietzsche, the term “perspectivism” has been used as the name for an ill-defined epistemological position. Some have tried to find an adequate meaning for the word “perspectivism,” tacitly investing it with a set of different predicates, such as “the dependence of cognition on position,” “pluralism,” “anti-universalism,” “epistemic humility,” etc. This approach is related to two contestable attitudes: the monolateral linguistic paradigm and the metaepistemological position of multiplicity of incompatible epistemological programs. The monolateral linguistic paradigm proceeds from the assumption that (...) there is no obligatory connection between word and meaning. This makes it possible to denote logical content by any possible sign, and to explicate the sign in any number of ways. The metaepistemological position of multiplicity of incompatible epistemological programs encourages the support of artificial antagonism in the theory of cognition and the creation of “new” positions with different denotations. These attitudes can be contrasted with the method of empirical “originalist” analysis within the bilateral paradigm, as well as the theory of one epistemology and universal epistemic language. The content of the term “perspectivism” can be reconstructed by analyzing the original meanings of its individual constituent morphemes and their combination. The extremely precise and empirically provable definition of the word “perspectivism” is “the tendency to act by seeing through something”. This points to the problem of the impossibility of analytically deducing from it “the dependence of cognition on position,” “pluralism,” and other predicates. The same problem of inconsistency between the name of the epistemological position and its content is also encountered, for example, in the literature on relativism. It freely attributes a set of doctrinal beliefs to the term “relativism” without explicit linguistic signification of the predicates and blurs the difference between perspectivism and relativism. This points to the inexpediency of constructing epistemological positions on the basis of words denoting one of all possible interrelated cognitive actions, and the need to rethink epistemological practice. (shrink)

This paper defends a conception of epistemic value that I call the “Simpliciter Conception.” On it, epistemic value is a kind of value simpliciter and being of epistemic value implies being of value simpliciter. I defend this conception by criticizing two others, what I call the Formal Conception and the Hybrid Conception. While those conceptions may be popular among epistemologists, I argue that they fail to explain why anyone should care that things are of epistemic value and naturally undercuts disputes (...) about what is of epistemic value. I end by sketching and locating my conception within some increasingly popular views in meta-normativity. (shrink)

The epistemological debate about radical skepticism has focused on whether our beliefs in apparently obvious claims, such as the claim that we have hands, amount to knowledge. Arguably, however, our concept of knowledge is only one of many knowledge-like concepts that there are. If this is correct, it follows that even if our beliefs satisfy our concept of knowledge, there are many other relevantly similar concepts that they fail to satisfy. And this might give us pause. After all, we might (...) wonder: What is so great about the concept of knowledge that we happen to have? Might it be more important, epistemically speaking, to investigate whether our beliefs satisfy some other relevantly similar concept instead? And how should questions such as these even be understood? This paper discusses the epistemological significance of these issues. In particular, a novel skeptical stance called ‘meta-skepticism’ is introduced, which is a kind of skepticism about the idea that some knowledge-like concepts are epistemically more important than others. It suggested that it is unclear whether this form of skepticism can be avoided. (shrink)

Public life abounds with examples of people whose beliefs—especially political beliefs—seem suspiciously convenient: consider, for example, the billionaire who believes that all taxation is unjust, or the Supreme Court Justice whose interpretations of what the law says reliably line up with her personal political convictions. After presenting what I take to be the best argument for the epistemological relevance of suspicious convenience, I diagnose how attempts to resist this argument rest on a kind of epistemological ideal theory, in a sense (...) to be made precise. And I argue that the ways in which this ideal theory can be deployed in defense of suspiciously convenient beliefs brings out the pernicious and distorting nature of such ideal theory in epistemology. (shrink)

This paper presents and defends a novel meta‐epistemological thesis, epistemic isomorphism, according to which our relations to others and to ourselves have the same pattern of relevance to our rationality. This means that correct epistemological theorizing will give formal parity to interpersonal and intrapersonal epistemic norms, such that what holds interpersonally also holds, mutatis mutandis, intrapersonally. In addition to arguing for epistemic isomorphism, the paper presents some epistemological case studies in which it is shown that the methodological and argumentative strategies (...) used by epistemologists in these case studies give expression to the idea of epistemic isomorphism as well as the argument presented here for its truth. Finally, the paper considers a possible counterexample to epistemic isomorphism based on an agent‐centered theory of justification, but it shows how to reconcile this theory with epistemic isomorphism. (shrink)

This article compares and contrasts a western post-Enlightenment theory of knowledge with a Qur’anic epistemology. It first analyzes the development of post-Enlightenment epistemology, which resulted in the disappearance of established meaning and the implanting of doubt. Thereafter, western epistemology began to deal with such questions as “What can I know?” and “How can I distinguish between those things that I am justified in believing over those things that I am not justified in believing?” Eventually, this developed into the two dominant (...) and diverging paths that persist until today: “We might be able to know the truth” or “We are unable to know anything”. What makes this so important is its eventual influence upon the Muslim world with the advent of colonialism, European preeminence, and globalization. That influence, it is argued, has been disastrous because of its ability to uproot the indigenous Islamic epistemic tradition. Therefore this article, by focusing on various Qur’anic verses, shares insights for an alternative epistemology that would begin to rectify this dissonance. It does so by discussing the features of a Qur’anic epistemology, one that begins with the affirmation or certainty of “God knowing” with the potential for “human knowing.” In other words, it establishes an optimistic attitude toward “true” knowledge being possible and the potentiality of certainty being ever-present. (shrink)

Convergindo para uma existência em si irredutível às condições histórico-culturais e aos seus limites, ao ser humano em sua infância enquanto arquétipo refém do sonho e senhor da solidão se impõe o devaneio que envolve o transcendente como telos em uma experiência de “iluminação” cujo caráter dizível, na rememoração enquanto vivência do fenômeno primordial, somente se torna possível nas fronteiras mítico-poéticas e na correspondência dialética envolvendo memória e imaginação em uma construção epistêmico-simbólico-existencial que encerra como fundamento a concepção baseada na (...) perspectiva de Gaston Bachelard de que “um excesso de infância é um germe de poema”. Implicando o transcendente como telos na autoafirmação que perpassa desde o outrora até o “por-vir”, o devaneio constitui o locus da consciência da liberdade em um movimento de auto-expressão que guarda raízes no fundo da memória e na inata beleza da infância enquanto impulso vital que se sobrepõe ao paradoxo da existência enquanto acontecimento passível de produção volitiva e domínio intelectual, convergindo para a experiência epistêmico-simbólico-existencial envolvendo a condição humana de habitat de uma infância enquanto infância potencial em um processo irredutível a sua realidade concreta histórico-cultural que no onírico como modus essendi dialoga com o tópos autobiográfico e mítico-poético, guardando-se no “entre” que acena com as fronteiras do intra-histórico e intra-lendário. Nesta perspectiva, baseado na noção envolvendo infância potencial em um movimento epistêmico-simbólico-existencial que converge para as fronteiras que encerram como paradigma hermenêutico o Começo Primordial, Munguengue se torna o nome do devaneio na construção mítico-poética do Professor-Pesquisador Luiz Carlos Mariano Da Rosa em um processo irredutível a sua realidade concreta histórico-cultural que envolve o transcendente como telos na autoafirmação que perpassa desde o outrora até o “por-vir”. Implicando a iluminação enquanto instante de existência mítico-poética, Munguengue se sobrepõe ás idealizações das recordações da infância e à relação de causa e efeito do processo, encerrando um núcleo de infância que perdura na alma enquanto fenômeno que escapa às fronteiras da hermenêutica lógico-racional da realidade prático-objetiva e converge para a realidade subjetivo-existencial e o seu caráter vital de um animus indômito em um movimento que dialoga com o tópos autobiográfico e mítico-poético, guardando-se no “entre” que acena com as fronteiras do intra-histórico e intra-lendário. (shrink)

I discuss three understandings of the idea of “Knowledge First Epistemology”, i.e. Timothy Williamson’s suggestion that we should take knowledge as a starting point, rather than trying to analyze it. Some have taken this to be a suggestion about the role of the concept of knowledge, but Williamson also seems to be concerned with intuition-based metaphysics. As an alternative, I develop the idea that knowledge may be a social kind that can be understood through a functional analysis in the tradition (...) of Edward Craig. (shrink)

There have been two major approaches to Nishida’s logical thought, one is logical analysis using formal logic, the other is historical elucidation that mostly draws on dialectical logic. These have previously been considered to be completely incompatible in Nishida studies. Here I explore the complementary relation between the two camps and focus on the way Nishida pursues meanings of language with his theory of self-awareness. I elucidate how the concept of bidirectionality, formerly not considered relevant to logic, gives foundation to (...) his so-called logic of place. This result, substantially different from the previous ones, suggests the invalidity of the previous two approaches. (shrink)

Methodological naturalists regard scientific method as the only effective way of acquiring knowledge. Quite the contrary, traditional analytic philosophers reject employing scientific method in philosophy as illegitimate unless it is justified by the traditional methods. One of their attacks on methodological naturalism is the objection that it is either incoherent or viciously circular: any argument that may be offered for methodological naturalism either employs a priori methods or involves a vicious circle that ensues from employing the very method that the (...) argument is aimed to show its credentials. The charge of circularity has also been brought against the naturalistic arguments for specific scientific methods; like the inductive argument for induction and the abductive argument for the inference to the best explanation. In this paper, I respond to the charge of circularity using a meta-methodological rule that I call ‘reflexivity requirement.’ Giving two examples of philosophical works, I illustrate how the requirement has already been considered to be necessary for self-referential theories. At the end, I put forward a meta-philosophical explanation of the naturalism-traditionalism debate over the legitimate method of philosophy. (shrink)

Ideal epistemologists investigate the nature of pure epistemic rationality, abstracting away from human cognitive limitations. Non-ideal epistemologists investigate epistemic norms that are satisfiable by most humans, most of the time. Ideal epistemology faces a number of challenges, aimed at both its substantive commitments and its philosophical worth. This paper explains the relation between ideal and non-ideal epistemology, with the aim of justifying ideal epistemology. Its approach is meta-epistemological, focusing on the meaning and purpose of epistemic evaluations. I provide an account (...) on which the fundamental difference between ideal and non-ideal epistemic evaluations is that only the non-ideal epistemic ‘ought’ implies any substantive ‘can’. I argue that only ideal epistemic evaluations are ‘normatively robust’: they are neither conventional nor seriously context-sensitive. Non-ideal epistemic evaluations are normatively non-robust, exhibiting both conventionality and serious context-sensitivity from an interesting variety of distinct sources. For this reason, non-ideal epistemic evaluations won’t characterize the fundamental nature of epistemic rationality. Non-ideal epistemic rationality depends, not merely on what’s epistemically valuable, but also on modally contingent epistemic conventions and contextually contingent constraints on epistemic options. If we want a normatively robust theory of epistemic rationality, ideal epistemology is the only game in town. (shrink)

The tools employed might appear appropriate, the reasoning sound and argumentation valid, but the subject-matter, well one wonders what that has to do with philosophy, if anything at all? Viewing some of the topics one really wonders of the notion of philosophy is not stretched too far? So much that is passed off as philosophy itself or some kind of so-called interdisciplinary issues really appear as irrelevant. Topics from the grievance studies especially fall under this. It seems as if individuals (...) have personal issues, obsessions and psychological, social and cultural problems that they attempt to interpret, perceive and treat as if they are philosophical and/or philosophically related. I wish to suggest that those issues are treated as disciplines or subjects in their own right, for example racism, feminism and gender studies, but not as if they have anything to do with philosophy or should be treated in a philosophical manner. As if they inform us about profound philosophical issues or concerns. Perhaps aspects of them can be dealt with as psychological, anthropological, sociological, biological, political, etc, but dealing with them as if they provide us with some kind of profound philosophical ideas and insights might be stretching the notion of philosophy a bit too far. I’ve wondered about the seeming dichotomy of materialism/physicalism and panpsychism and if they are really the only possible consciousness explanatory positions? How about biologism? That is as if all living biological matter or organisms are conscious, as well as that consciousness (the many types of it) can be explained best by the nature of those phenomena. A biologically restricted form or modification of pan-psychism? Part II What is Philosophy by Philosophers a Compilation. (shrink)

We call systematic disputes that are particularly hard to resolve deep disagreements. We can divide most theories of deep disagreements in analytic epistemology into two camps: the Wittgensteinian view and the fundamental epistemic principles view. This essay analyzes how both views deal with two of the most pressing issues a theory of deep disagreement must address: their source and their resolution. After concluding that the paradigmatic theory of each camp struggles on both fronts, the essay proceeds to show that, despite (...) their differences, these theories share some core assumptions and think of deep disagreements similarly: as grounded in fundamental epistemic differences between the parties. This underlying conception of deep disagreements the author calls “the fundamental model.” The essay provides reasons to be wary of this conception, and hence, mainstream epistemologists’ treatment of the issue. (shrink)

Recent literature has seen a surging interest in the modal principle involved in the Gettier-style thought experiments. According to the necessitation thesis, the modal principle underlying the Gettier-style thought experiments takes the form of a principle of necessitation. It is widely agreed that the necessitation thesis is seriously threatened by the problem of deviant realizations. Based on the Gricean pragmatic theory of communication, I defend the necessitation thesis against the problem of deviant realizations. The present account bears some significant similarities (...) to Pierre Saint-Germier’s account. After comparing and contrasting these two accounts, I argue that the differences between them actually speak in favor of the present account over Saint-Germier’s one. (shrink)

Evidential Uniqueness is the thesis that, for any batch of evidence, there’s a unique doxastic state that a subject with that evidence should have. One of the most common kinds of objections to views that violate Evidential Uniqueness are arbitrariness objections – objections to the effect that views that don’t satisfy Evidential Uniqueness lead to unacceptable arbitrariness. The goal of this paper is to examine a variety of arbitrariness objections that have appeared in the literature, and to assess the extent (...) to which these objections bolster the case for Evidential Uniqueness. After examining a number of different arbitrariness objections, I’ll conclude that, by and large, these objections do little to bolster the case for Evidential Uniqueness. (shrink)

I argue that a standard formulation of hinge epistemology is host to epistemic relativism and show that two leading hinge approaches (Coliva’s acceptance account and Pritchard’s nondoxastic account) are vulnerable to a form of incommensurability that leads to relativism. Building on both accounts, I introduce a new, minimally epistemic conception of hinges that avoids epistemic relativism and rationally resolves hinge disagreements. According to my proposed account, putative cases of epistemic incommensurability are rationally resolvable: hinges are propositions that are the objects (...) of our belief-like attitudes and are rationally revisable in virtue of our overarching commitment to avoid systematic deception in our epistemic practices. (shrink)

The aim of this dissertation is to build a concept of epistemic responsibility that takes seriously insights from feminist epistemology, addiction studies, and disability theory. I use John Greco’s knowledge-as-achievement account as a starting point, and demonstrate how an ability-centred account such as Greco’s can be undergirded with these insights to create a concept of epistemic responsibility that better captures the complex social and political nature of our epistemic practices. I begin in Chapter 1 by outlining the contours of the (...) project and making an argument for the importance of projects that create porousness between feminist epistemology and mainstream epistemology. In Chapter 2 I outline five key insights in feminist epistemology that I use both in assessing Greco’s theory and in guiding reconstruction. I argue that accommodating these insights will require, at a minimum, a thoroughly social/non-individualistic concept of epistemic responsibility. The strategy that I take to build such a concept is threefold. First, in Chapter 3, I provide a theoretical background of currently existing social/non-individualistic concepts of responsibility that serve to lay a groundwork for my notion of epistemic responsibility. The goal is not to provide a comprehensive survey of the work on responsibility, but rather to draw out tools and frameworks that are helpful in thinking through epistemic responsibility. Second, in Chapter 4, I develop an extended analysis of a concrete phenomenon that I take to be a thoroughly social/non-individualistic context of responsibility ascription: responsibility for addiction, or rather for the harms associated with drug use. And finally, in Chapter 5, taking all of the insights and tools that I have gathered in Chapters 2-4, I embark on the project of theory reconstruction. I begin by outlining the strengths and weaknesses in Greco’s theory with respect to the insights I have highlighted. I then bring in disability theory in order to shore up the notion of ability operative in Greco’s account which I argue allows us to better account for the social and political complexities of epistemic practice. (shrink)

Is there a distinctively epistemic kind of blame? It has become commonplace for epistemologists to talk about epistemic blame, and to rely on this notion for theoretical purposes. But not everyone is convinced. Some of the most compelling reasons for skepticism about epistemic blame focus on disanologies, or asymmetries, between the moral and epistemic domains. In this paper, I defend the idea that there is a distinctively epistemic kind of blame. I do so primarily by developing an account of the (...) nature of epistemic blame. My account draws on a prominent line of theorizing in moral philosophy that ties blame to our relationships with one another. I argue that with my account of epistemic blame on hand, the most compelling worries about epistemic blame can be deflated. There is a distinctively epistemic kind of blame. (shrink)

Is there an epistemic analogue of moral motivational internalism? The answer to this question has implications for our understanding of the nature of epistemic normativity. For example, some philosophers have argued from claims that epistemic judgement is not necessarily motivating to the view that epistemic judgement is not normative. This paper examines the options for spelling out an epistemic analogue of moral motivational internalism. It is argued that the most promising approach connects epistemic judgements to doxastic dispositions, which are related (...) to motivation in a fairly tenuous sense. It is also argued that this approach currently lacks a plausible and informative account of the nature and workings of these doxastic dispositions, and, hence, an explanation of the range of phenomena internalist theses typically set out to explain. The most promising route for developing such an account, based on recent expressivist work, is investigated and found inadequate for the task. (shrink)

Multiple epistemological programs make use of intuitive judgments pertaining to an individual’s ability to gain knowledge from exclusively probabilistic/statistical information. This paper argues that these judgments likely form without deference to such information, instead being a function of the degree to which having knowledge is representative of an agent. Thus, these judgments fit the pattern of formation via a representativeness heuristic, like that famously described by Kahneman and Tversky to explain similar probabilistic judgments. Given this broad insensitivity to probabilistic/statistical information, (...) it directly follows that these epistemic judgments are insensitive to a given agent’s epistemic status. From this, the paper concludes that, breaking with common epistemological practice, we cannot assume that such judgments are reliable. (shrink)

Several studies have found a robust effect of truth on epistemic evaluation of belief, decision, action and assertion. Thus, truth has a significant effect on normative participant evaluations. Some theorists take this truth effect to motivate factive epistemic norms of belief, action, assertion etc. In contrast, I argue that the truth effect is best understood as an epistemic instance of the familiar and ubiquitous phenomenon of outcome bias. I support this diagnosis from three interrelating perspectives: (1) by epistemological theorizing, (2) (...) by considerations from cognitive psychology and (3) by methodological reflections on the relationship between folk epistemology and epistemological theorizing. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose a general constraint on theories of knowledge that we call ‘normalism’. Normalism is a view about the epistemic threshold that separates knowledge from mere true belief; its basic claim is that one knows only if one has at least a normal amount of epistemic support for one’s belief. We argue that something like normalism is required to do full justice to the normative role of knowledge in many key everyday practices, such as assertion, inquiry, and (...) testimony. The view of normality we employ to flesh out this claim is inspired by experimental work on the folk notion of normality, which suggests that folk judgments of what is ‘normal’ are based upon both statistical averages as well as normative ideals within the relevant target domain. Adopting this notion of normality to set the threshold for knowledge results in a view upon which knowledge is routinely available on an everyday basis without being a merely trivial achievement. We explore several interesting consequences of this view, including the implication that the threshold for knowing may change as, e.g., the ease of availability of information in an epistemic community changes over time. The result is a ‘shifty’ view of knowledge which nonetheless retains more stability than standard contextualist or pragmatic encroachment approaches. (shrink)

This article will address the views of Kazimierz Ajdukiewicz - the leading representative of the Lvov-Warsaw School. I will present arguments proving that the Polish philosopher could have anticipated contemporary metaontological discussions. -/- In the first part, I will provide a profile of Ajdukiewicz as a representative of the Lvov-Warsaw School. I will outline the assumptions of his metaepistemological projects: radical conventionalism and semantic epistemology. In the second part, I will argue that the former project resulted in views on existence (...) similar to Hilary Putnam’s and Eli Hirsch’s, whereas the outcomes of the other project are views similar to those of Amie Thomasson and her easy ontology project. (shrink)

by Carl Stumpf. [467] ii When Zeller, iii in the lecture “On the meaning and mission of epistemology”, iv called for a renewed fostering of this science, he designated as its mission the study of t...

Anti-representationalism is the hallmark of Richard Rorty's critique of the epistemological tradition. According to it, knowledge does not "mirror" reality and the human mind is not a representational device. Anti-representationalism is a family of philosophical theses, respectively dealing with the notion of "representation" in different ways. Though prima facie one may feel entitled to think about anti-representationalism as a kind of uniform philosophical movement, things stand quite differently. In fact, among many anti-representationalist options, we can identify two main versions: a (...) global anti-representationalism that entirely rejects the philosophical uses of the notion of "representation", and a local version that just removes the notion of "representation" from the explanatory toolbox. In this chapter I try to compare Rorty's global anti-representationalism and Robert Brandom's local version, exploiting a recent discussion by Brandom and a famous exchange between Rorty and Bjørn Ramberg about Donald Davidson's take on the special role of the intentional vocabulary. (shrink)

The investigation of epistemic virtues, such as curiosity, open-mindedness, intellectual courage and intellectual humility is a growing trend in epistemology. An underexplored question in this context is: what is the relationship between these virtues and other types of virtue, such as moral or prudential virtue? This paper argues that, although there is an intuitive sense in which virtues such as intellectual courage and open-mindedness have something to do with the epistemic domain, on closer inspection it is not clear to what (...) extent they should be understood as genuine epistemic virtues. We draw a distinction between epistemic virtues and virtues with epistemic content and provide reason to believe that the aforementioned virtues are moral virtues with epistemic content rather than bona fide epistemic virtues. The upshot is that there are far fewer epistemic virtues out there than commonly assumed. (shrink)

It is well known that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the Brentano school interacted fruitfully with early analytic philosophy: the Russell-Meinong debate is a paradigm example...