Epistemologists spend a great deal of time thinking about how we should respond to our evidence. They spend far less time thinking about the ways that evidence can be acquired in the first place. This is an oversight. Some ways of acquiring evidence are better than others. Many normative epistemologies struggle to accommodate this fact. In this article I develop one that can and does. I identify a phenomenon – epistemic feedback loops – in which evidence acquisition has gone awry, (...) with the result that even beliefs based on the evidence are irrational. Examples include evidence acquired under the influence of confirmation bias and evidence acquired under the influence of cognitively penetrated experiences caused by implicit bias. I then develop a theoretical framework which enables us to understand why beliefs that are the outputs of epistemic feedback loops are irrational. Finally, I argue that many popular approaches to epistemic normativity may need to be abandoned on the grounds that they cannot comfortably explain feedback loops. The scope of this last claim is broad: it includes almost all contemporary theories of justified/rational belief and of the epistemology of cognitive penetration. (shrink)

Our main question in this paper is as follow: (Q) What are the epistemic norms governing our responses in the face of disagreement? In order to answer it, we begin with some clarification. First, following McHugh (2012), if we employ a useful distinction in normativity theory between evaluative and prescriptive norms, there are two readings of (Q)––we explore such distinction in section 2. And secondly, we accept gnosticism, that is, the account that the fundamental epistemic good is knowledge. It is (...) with this assumption that we want to answer (Q). So, if gnosticism is true, what is the plausible answer to (Q)? In section 3 we argue for gnostic disagreement norms as response to (Q) and in section 4 we apply such norms to particular cases of disagreement. (shrink)

According to Humean theories of objective chance, the chances reduce to patterns in the history of occurrent events, such as frequencies. According to non-Humean accounts, the chances are metaphysically fundamental, existing independently of the "Humean Mosaic" of actually-occurring events. It is therefore possible, by the lights of non-Humeanism, for the chances and the frequencies to diverge wildly. Humeans often allege that this undermines the ability of non-Humean accounts of chance to rationalize adherence to David Lewis' Principal Principle (PP), which states (...) that an agent's degrees of belief should match what they take to be the objective chances. In this paper, I propose two approaches to justifying (PP) for non-Humean chance, hence defusing the Humean objection. The first approach justifies (PP) via the role it plays in informing outright beliefs about long-run frequencies. The second approach justifies (PP) by showing that adherence to (PP), even for non-Humean chance, maximizes expected epistemic utility according to the actual objective chance function. I then address an objection to this approach, concerning the alleged circularity of the derivations. (shrink)

I consider a number of reasons one might think we should only accept epistemic dilemmas in our normative epistemology as a last resort and argue that none of them is compelling.

Daniel Greco (forthcoming) argues that there cannot be epistemic dilemmas. I argue that he is wrong. I then look in detail at a would-be epistemic dilemma and argue that no non-dilemmic approach to it can be made to work. Along the way, there is discussion of octopuses, lobsters, and other ‘inscrutable cognizers’; the relationship between evaluative and prescriptive norms; a failed attempt to steal a Brueghel; epistemic and moral blame and residue; an unbearable guy who thinks he’s God’s gift to (...) women; excuses; stupid games involving hats; radical permissivism; how I’ll never be able to afford to buy a house in Hampstead; and many other exciting topics. (shrink)