Abstract
Pritchard defends virtue epistemology from epistemic situationism by appealing to the notion of epistemic dependence: if knowledge acquisition is sometimes allowed to depend on factors outside the cognitive agency of the subject, then this modest form of virtue epistemology escapes the threat of the situationist challenge. This lowering of the threshold of cognitive agency required for knowledge raises the question of how to demarcate between acquisitions of true belief influenced by situational factors that count as knowledge, and those that do not. I fill this gap by proposing that the dependence of knowledge acquisition on external factors comes in degrees, which allows us to look for a right degree of epistemic dependence (a sort of Aristotelian mean) such that it both agrees with the situationist research and preserves the normative appeal of virtue epistemology.
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Notes
I use the nomenclature of Baehr (2006), which emphasizes the distinction between the type of intellectual virtues, rather than the position, e.g. reliabilism and responsibilism.
The phrase “epistemic dependence” was first used by Hardwig (1985) to refer to our dependence on others for testimonial knowledge. This usage has gained traction in social epistemology so I need to clarify that I am not using “epistemic dependence” in this way.
One way of addressing the situationist challenge is to undermine its empirical basis. Alfano (2018) discusses how several published papers in psychology turned out not to be replicable, which raises doubts about their reported results. Some such papers are those that epistemic situationists have used to attack VE. This might change the nature of the examples mounted against VE, but the spirit of the issue remains. If it turns out that there is better empirical evidence that non-epistemic situational factors affect our epistemic behavior and belief acquisition, then VE must still take this challenge seriously.
Pritchard uses “cognitive agency” (in Carter and Pritchard, 2017; Kallestrup and Pritchard, 2013; Pritchard, 2014) very loosely to speak about the degree of attribution of the belief-formation to one as a cognitive agent. To say that X is a factor external to S's cognitive agency is to say that if S formed a belief due to X, S would not be attributed with the belief insofar as S is a cognitive agent. The examples of such factors given earlier (amount of burden one is carrying, the color of text in which a text is printed, being in a happy mood) partially take away some degree of attribution that the cognitive agent deserves in forming a true belief. In other words, the degree of cognitive agency manifested is proportional to the degree of attribution that the subject deserves for forming a true belief. The usage of the phrase “external to one's cognitive agency”, therefore, is orthogonal to any account of what it means to be a cognitive agent (see Pritchard 2015, pp. 308–309).
It must be emphasized that “external factors” refer to situational or non-epistemic factors that are beyond one’s control, since there could be epistemic factors that are also “external to one’s cognitive agency.” Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for requesting clarification here.
I am only using the positive sense of epistemic dependence in this definition (Kallestrup & Pritchard, 2013, p. 211; Pritchard, 2014, p. 150; 2015, p. 307). There is also a negative sense of epistemic dependence, where the subject does not acquire knowledge despite a high degree of cognitive agency because of external factors. I confine my attention to positive epistemic dependence for the remainder of the paper, because it is the sense that is relevant to the situationist challenge.
As stated in an earlier footnote, it is in the context of testimony that “epistemic dependence” was first used by Hardwig (1985).
Thanks to Duncan Pritchard for this suggestion.
Carter & Pritchard (2017) similarly state that epistemic dependence allows “weak cognitive achievements,” true beliefs attained through some exercise of epistemic virtue, to “sometimes suffice for knowledge,” and that they “can be compatible with situational influences” (p. 182, my emphasis). However, the demarcation between when they do suffice for knowledge and when they do not is also left out here.
Pritchard’s (2009, 2012) account of knowledge is anti-luck virtue epistemology, which supplements modest VE with a modest account of safety. In his account, whether the safety of a belief is manifested by the exercise of cognitive agency distinguishes between situationally-influenced cases that count as knowledge and those that do not. While I do not see any problems with his account, what I plan to do for the rest of the paper is fill in the demarcation question entirely in terms of epistemic dependence, without having to use a separate safety principle like Pritchard.
Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for the helpful suggestion to explicitly differentiate between the two variants of this thesis.
Thanks to Stephen Hetherington for requesting clarification on this point.
Since VE focuses on evaluating epistemic agents rather than beliefs, it seems appropriate that we compare agents vis-à-vis their epistemic dependence, while holding the proposition and object of dependence constant. Thanks to Albert Atkin for expressing this idea.
This language is comparable to Kahneman’s (2011) use of “System 1” and “System 2” in describing different ways our minds work, rather than referring to actual entities in our brain.
For instance, DEGREES (2) talks about alternative external factors available for S to believe that p, but there needs to be a restriction on what alternatives must be considered. Consider Natasha and Wanda who knew the time with the help of W. Wanda had more alternative timepieces from which she could tell the time, but what if Natasha was more socially adept than Wanda, and she is more capable of asking strangers for the time? Must we consider those potential sources of the information count as alternative external factors? Furthermore, DEGREES (1) could be also made more precise in how to say that a certain property of X is necessary for S to believe that p. There are endless possible properties of X that we could possibly invoke, but we need to consider what is relevant to believing p and what is not. Both considerations could benefit from an assessment of possible worlds that could make the notions of which factors are necessary for and accessible to S more precise. Such a modal account of epistemic dependence deserves a more complete treatment in a separate paper.
In a similar vein, Carter (2016) rejects the dichotomy between true belief being acquired entirely due to intellectual virtue and being acquired entirely due to luck, and argues that knowledge occurs when “the correctness of S’s belief depends (sufficiently) on S’s cognitive ability” (p. 149). In what follows, I define sufficient dependence in terms of some kind of Aristotelian mean.
According to social choice theory, we could not make meaningful interpersonal comparisons of utility, e.g. comparing how much Alice likes gag reels vs. how much Natasha likes gag reels (See Arrow, 1963, especially Chapter 2). Given this, there is even less sense in comparing how much Alice likes gag reels vs. how much Natasha likes digital watches. This is roughly analogous to the cross-context incomparability of epistemic dependence that I am suggesting here. I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this illustrative analogy.
Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for requesting clarification about why I chose to use an Aristotelian mean framework, as well as about emphasizing the upper limit of epistemic dependence.
My proposal could be improved by including factors that affect the Aristotelian limit of epistemic dependence in a particular situation. One possible consideration is pragmatic encroachment, which claims that pragmatic factors affect knowledge ascription (See Fantl & McGrath, 2009). A subject whose stakes in whether a belief is true or not is higher will have a much higher threshold to attain for her to know—so the acceptable degrees of epistemic dependence in her case would be correspondingly lower—than another subject who has lower stakes. A thickening of the concept of Aristotelian limit in terms of pragmatic encroachment, along with other considerations, is a project worth considering in a separate paper.
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Albert Atkin, Stephen Hetherington, Duncan Pritchard, and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this manuscript.
Funding
This research was conducted under a doctoral degree program co-funded by the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia (United Board) and International Macquarie University Research Excellence Scholarship (CFiMQRES) [Allocation No. 2019009]. The Philippine Commission on Higher Education (CHED) shares with United Board’s contribution under the United Board–CHED Faculty Scholarship Program, in which Ateneo de Manila University is the author’s sending Higher Education Institution.
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Clemente, N.L. Degrees of epistemic dependence: an extension of Pritchard’s response to epistemic situationism. Synthese 199, 11689–11705 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03307-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-021-03307-0