Abstract
A starting point for the sort of alethic epistemological approach that dominates both historical and contemporary western philosophy is that epistemic norms, standards, or ideals are to be characterized by appeal to some kind of substantively normative relationship between belief and truth. Accordingly, the alethic epistemologist maintains that false beliefs are necessarily defective, imperfect, or flawed, at least from the epistemic perspective. In this paper, I develop an action-oriented alternative to the alethic approach, an alternative that is inspired by and jives with the kind of thinking that underwrites promising and increasingly popular enactive or embodied research programs in cognitive science. Moreover, I argue that the proponent of an action-oriented epistemological approach ought to deny that falsity, in and of itself, necessarily constitutes a kind of epistemic imperfection in belief. The action-oriented epistemologist ought to embrace the possibility that there are epistemically flawless false beliefs.
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Notes
Ramsey (1927).
As I suggest below, I think we should resist the idea that the epistemic perspective just is, as a matter of definition or basic conceptual/analytic fact, the evaluative perspective within which truth serves as a/the fundamental aim, goal, value, or ideal. But for the reader who is unwilling to relinquish this commitment, the upshot of this paper’s discussion is that (i) an action-oriented approach exposes a coherent alternative evaluative perspective, and (ii) this alternative evaluative perspective is especially well-positioned to make sense of our ordinary, everyday, and pretheoretical doxastic evaluative practices and, as such, merits philosophical attention.
The alethic approach, although popular, is not altogether uncontroversial in contemporary epistemology. Perhaps the most salient alternative is the kind of knowledge-first approach associated with the work of Timothy Williamson, among others.
If one takes on board the assumption that the epistemic domain just is, as a matter of basic conceptual or analytic fact, the domain for which truth serves as the normatively fundamental structuring goal or value, then the epistemologist ought to be able to explain why theoretical work aimed at revealing the internal structure of an evaluative domain for which truth serves as the normatively fundamental goal, aim, or value helps us understand and/or improve our ordinary, everyday evaluations of believers, beliefs, and belief-regulation. Put differently, the epistemologist ought to be able to explain why and how the epistemic perspective (so conceived) ought to figure in our ordinary, everyday evaluative practices. And so the epistemologist still owes an explanation of why truth should serve as a fundamental norm, goal, aim, ideal, or value in our ordinary, everyday evaluations of believers, beliefs, and belief-regulation.
Although quite popular (see, e.g., those authors cited in note 6), this methodological thesis, associated with what we might call a doxastic account of the epistemic, is not wholly uncontroversial (see Hazlett (2013) for useful discussion). I won’t try to motivate, much less defend, MC in what follows. My more conservative ambition is to show that if one accepts this methodological thesis, as many epistemologists seem to, then one has good reason to embrace the kind action-oriented approach to epistemological theorizing over the currently and historically popular alethic approach.
There is no consensus among those who adopt this kind of alethic approach regarding how best to characterize this norm. Perhaps a belief ought to be true. Alternatively, perhaps a belief is correct or successful (if and) only if true. Or perhaps S ought to believe that p (if and) only if it is true that p. (See, e.g. Gibbard (2005), Shah (2003), Shah and Velleman (2005), Sosa (2009), Velleman (2000), and Wedgwood (2002, 2007, 2013), among others).
There are at least two other alternatives to alethic epistemology on offer in the literature that bear mentioning here: the so-called knowledge-first approach (see, e.g., Williamson (2000)) and what we might call the rationality-first approach (see, e.g., Gibbons (2013). I simply do not have space to give either of these alternatives the careful treatment each deserves. But note that if the knowledge-first epistemologist accepts that knowledge is factive, then she will share the alethic epistemologist’s commitment to the claim that false beliefs are always and inevitably epistemically faulty. And so if, as I argue below, empirical results pressure the action-oriented epistemologist to deny this, then it seems that the action-oriented approach stands in tension with the most prominent version of this alternative, not only at the level of epistemological theory, but also with respect to the verdicts each issues regarding the epistemic status of particular beliefs.
Engel et al. (2013).
Clark (1997).
Pezzulo (2015).
Wilson (2002).
For further discussion of this core commitment as a theoretical foundation for empirical research in cognitive science, see, e.g., Engel, Friston, and Kragic (eds.) (2015).
A growing number of cognitive scientists treat this line of thought as a point of departure for their empirical work, and to impressive effect. For a review of the wealth of empirical work that is inspired by and grounded on this action-oriented line of thought, see, e.g., Shapiro (2010).
By way of illustration: a consequentialist version of the action-oriented approach might maintain that norms of epistemic rationality and justification are just norms that specify patterns of belief regulation (i.e. patterns of transition from inputs to cognition—perceptual experiences, other beliefs, etc.—to cognitive output—namely, belief) instantiations of which best, most effectively, or most reliably equip believers like us with beliefs that are well-suited to fulfill their proper function. But the action-oriented epistemologist need not embrace this kind of epistemic consequentialism—it is open to the action-oriented epistemologist to embrace a non-consequentialist account of the way in which derivative epistemic norms are grounded in the fact that beliefs are praiseworthy along the most fundamental dimension of epistemic appraisal when they are well-suited to fulfill belief’s action-oriented proper function (against epistemic consequentialism, see, e.g., Berker (2013)).
One natural way to frame this hypothesis appeals to Ramsey’s metaphor: paradigmatically, at least, beliefs inform action in a similar way to the way in which a subway map informs a commuter’s efforts to navigate a city. The commuter relies on the map in order to predict, e.g., where she will end up if she takes the D train to the end of the line, whether she can expect to find a D train on the platform at the 34th Street station, or which stops the D train will make between West 4th and Columbus Circle. And, regardless of where she finds herself in the city, the predictive power of the subway map will allow the commuter to plan her subway ride so that she gets wherever she needs to go (assuming the world cooperates, of course). Similarly, our beliefs equip us with a kind of flexibly deployed predictive power. Regardless of where we happen to find ourselves, this predictive power puts our cognitive systems in a position to identify courses of action that will efficiently and effectively achieve our various ends, whatever those ends may be. Although this metaphor has virtues, the analogy it suggests is not perfect. After all, we do not always, or even typically, consult our beliefs consciously, effortfully, and explicitly in the course of coming to act in the way that the (novice) commuter consults the subway map as she plans her trip. Additionally, the representational content of a subway map appears to be (at least in part) non-propositional, but beliefs certainly can (and perhaps must) have propositional content.
This discussion brings out the action-oriented epistemologist’s commitment to the thesis that epistemic norms are norms which govern (at least in the first instance) human belief and human believers in normal worlds.
This is, of course, an (at least in part) empirical question, and so adopting the action-oriented approach involves embracing the idea that what it takes to conform with epistemic norms is to be discovered (at least in part) through empirical inquiry. Thus, for the action-oriented epistemologist, the possibility of epistemically flawless false beliefs depends on (indeed, is hostage to) empirical results. To be clear: the relevant empirical facts are far from settled. Nevertheless, I argue here that an initial survey of the relevant empirical data leaves the action-oriented epistemologist with good reason to be skeptical that false belief is inevitably and necessarily epistemically flawed.
After all, as Quine (1969) puts it, “creatures inveterately wrong in their inductions have a pathetic but praiseworthy tendency to die before reproducing their kind”.
In fact, one might be tempted to think there is an even tighter connection between accurate representation and well-suitedness to fulfill beliefs’ proper function. Indeed, it can seem that accurate representation and well-suitedness to fulfill beliefs’ action-oriented proper function amount to the same thing. And if this is so, then the action-oriented proper function of belief is just to accurately represent the facts. I suspect that a (sometimes suppressed—see Millikan 1993, sometimes explicit—see Kornblith 2002) assumption that accurate representation is just what it takes for beliefs to be well-suited to serve as predictive tools in guiding action underwrites the popular thought that beliefs constitutively aim to accurately represent the facts. But, as I argue below, this assumption runs counter to empirical evidence.
See note 23 for references. Bortolotti and Antrobus (2015) provide an admirably careful discussion (on which this discussion relies) of why, how, and to what extent current empirical work lends support to the claim about human psychological constitution under consideration here.
On friendship, see Keller (2004) and Stroud (2006). On faith, see Preston-Roedder (2018). On the sort of diachronic agency involved in promising and resolving in the face of temptation without succumbing to bad faith, see Marušić (2015). It is worth noting that these authors do not argue for (and, indeed, some would be decidedly unsympathetic to) the claim that epistemic norms can or should make room for the kinds of doxastic partiality that help to constitute genuine friendship, faith, and diachronic agency. In effect, however, I argue here that this is precisely what the action-oriented approach makes possible, and perhaps even demands.
It may be that any kind of distortion in one’s belief corpus, however mild, puts the subject at risk vis-à-vis acting successfully: a distortion always has the potential (in the right circumstances) to frustrate one’s ability to realize one’s ends. Nevertheless, if the arguments above are successful, then it seems we have good reason to think that (at least in certain domains) holding beliefs that encode mild distortions into one’s belief corpus is decidedly less risky than holding their accurate counterparts would be. Although there are hypothetical circumstances in which the relevant mildly distorting beliefs play their paradigmatic role in action-production in a way that leads us to act poorly, these hypothetical circumstances are far less likely to be circumstances that we actually encounter than are circumstances in which the relevant mildly distorting beliefs play their paradigmatic role in action-production in a way that leads us to act well.
The research on positive illusions, for example, suggests that epistemically flawless false beliefs crop up in specific, fairly circumscribed, and relatively encapsulated domains (e.g. self-belief, belief about the causal history or future likelihood of positive and negative events in one’s own life and the lives of one’s friends). See references in note 23.
If believing constitutively involves taking or regarding as true (and I have no interest in denying as much), this result raises a cluster of questions about how action-oriented epistemic norms can figure in the first-person deliberative perspective. Unfortunately, I simply do have space to properly address this cluster of questions in this paper. I have made some preliminary efforts along these lines in Nolfi (2018a and b), but more remains to be said.
It is, perhaps, helpful to note that if the action-oriented epistemologist were to adopt a consequentialist approach to developing her account of epistemic norms, then the distinction between what I call straightforward pragmatism and the resulting consequentialist version of action-oriented epistemology would structurally parallel the distinction between act- and rule-consequentialism in ethics.
Assume, if you like, that Bella has no great interest in large prime numbers, and that Bella is not (and does not aspire to be) a number theorist.
Note: the straightforward pragmatist can certainly allow that an “epistemically” flawless belief might criticizable along some other, independent dimensions of evaluation (e.g. such a belief might be aesthetically, or perhaps even morally, objectionable).
It is worth noting that an action-oriented epistemology faces its own version of the generality problem here: how can/should the action-oriented epistemologist identify or pick out the belief-regulating processes that are to be evaluated for generating and sustaining, e.g., Bella’s belief? I simply do not have space here to offer a full solution to the action-oriented epistemologist’s version of the generality problem. However, I will suggest that empirical work on belief fixation from cognitive science and psychology supplies the action-oriented epistemologist with useful resources for developing a solution to the problem. Indeed, the discussion in the preceding sections of the paper foreshadows this point. If empirical work suggests that the human cognitive system is comprised of relatively encapsulated, domain-specific belief-regulating mechanisms/processes (e.g. belief-regulating mechanisms that come on-line, so to speak, in the domain of mathematics, or in the domain of self-regarding beliefs, and perhaps our beliefs about our friends and loved ones), then the action-oriented epistemologist ought to take this preliminary evidence that these relatively encapsulated, domain-specific mechanisms/processes are appropriate targets for epistemic evaluation.
I am grateful to my colleagues in the University of Vermont Philosophy Department, and to audiences at The University of Connecticut, UQÀM, the 2016 Conference on False But Useful Beliefs, the 2016 Eastern Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, and the 2015 Penn Reasons and Foundations in Epistemology Conference for their invaluable feedback on this material. I am particularly indebted to Roger White for his comments on an earlier version of this manuscript, and to Ram Neta and Susanna Rinard for many conversations that helped me develop the ideas that find voice here.
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Nolfi, K. Epistemically flawless false beliefs. Synthese 198, 11291–11309 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02787-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02787-w