14 found
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  1. Epistemic norms on evidence-gathering.Carolina Flores & Elise Woodard - 2023 - Philosophical Studies 180 (9):2547-2571.
    In this paper, we argue that there are epistemic norms on evidence-gathering and consider consequences for how to understand epistemic normativity. Though the view that there are such norms seems intuitive, it has found surprisingly little defense. Rather, many philosophers have argued that norms on evidence-gathering can only be practical or moral. On a prominent evidentialist version of this position, epistemic norms only apply to responding to the evidence one already has. Here we challenge the orthodoxy. First, we argue that (...)
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  2. The Ignorance Norm and Paradoxical Assertions.Elise Woodard - 2022 - Philosophical Topics 49 (2):321-332.
    Can agents rationally inquire into things that they know? On my view, the answer is yes. Call this view the Compatibility Thesis. One challenge to this thesis is to explain why assertions like “I know that p, but I’m wondering whether p” sound odd, if not Moore-Paradoxical. In response to this challenge, I argue that we can reject one or both premises that give rise to it. First, we can deny that inquiry requires interrogative attitudes. Second, we can deny the (...)
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  3. (1 other version)Why Double-Check?Elise Woodard - 2022 - Episteme:1-24.
    Can you rationally double-check what you already know? In this paper, I argue that you can. Agents can know that something is true and rationally double-check it at the very same time. I defend my position by considering a wide variety of cases where agents double-check their beliefs to gain epistemic improvements beyond knowledge. These include certainty, epistemic resilience, and sensitivity to error. Although this phenomenon is widespread, my proposal faces two types of challenges. First, some have defended ignorance norms, (...)
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  4. Bad Sex and Consent.Elise Woodard - 2022 - In David Boonin (ed.), Handbook of Sexual Ethics. Palgrave. pp. 301--324.
    It is widely accepted that consent is a normative power. For instance, consent can make an impermissible act permissible. In the words of Heidi Hurd, it “turns a trespass into a dinner party... an invasion of privacy into an intimate moment.” In this chapter, I argue against the assumption that consent has such robust powers for moral transformation. In particular, I argue that there is a wide range of sex that harms or wrongs victims despite being consensual. Moreover, these cases (...)
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  5. Epistemic Atonement.Elise Woodard - 2023 - In Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics Volume 18. Oxford University Press.
    When we think about agents who change a long-standing belief, we sometimes have conflicting reactions. On the one hand, such agents often epistemically improve. For example, their new belief may be better supported by the evidence or closer to the truth. On the other hand, such agents are often subject to criticism. Examples include politicians who change their minds on whether climate change is occurring or whether vaccines cause autism. What explains this criticism, and is it ever justified? To answer (...)
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  6. A puzzle about fickleness.Elise Woodard - 2020 - Noûs 56 (2):323-342.
    In this paper, I motivate a puzzle about epistemic rationality. On the one hand, there seems to be something problematic about frequently changing your mind. On the other hand, changing your mind once is often permissible. Why do one-off changes of mind seem rationally permissible, even admirable, while constant changes seem quintessentially irrational? The puzzle of fickleness is to explain this asymmetry. To solve the puzzle, I propose and defend the Ratifiable Reasoning Account. According to this solution, as agents redeliberate, (...)
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  7. On Subtweeting.Eleonore Neufeld & Elise Woodard - forthcoming - In Patrick Connolly, Sandy Goldberg & Jennifer Saul (eds.), Conversations Online. Oxford University Press.
    In paradigmatic cases of subtweeting, one Twitter user critically or mockingly tweets about another person without mentioning their username or their name. In this chapter, we give an account of the strategic aims of subtweeting and the mechanics through which it achieves them. We thereby hope to shed light on the distinctive communicative and moral texture of subtweeting while filling in a gap in the philosophical literature on strategic speech in social media. We first specify what subtweets are and identify (...)
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  8. The Construction of Epistemic Normativity.Michael Hannon & Elise Woodard - manuscript
    This paper aims to solve a puzzle for instrumental conceptions of epistemic normativity. The puzzle is this: if the usefulness of epistemic norms explains their normative grip on us, why does it seem improper to violate these norms even when doing so would benefit us? To solve this puzzle, we argue that epistemic instrumentalists must adopt a more social approach to normativity. In particular, they should not account for the nature of epistemic normativity by appealing to the goals of individual (...)
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  9. What's Wrong with Partisan Deference?Elise Woodard - forthcoming - In Tamar Szabó Gendler, John Hawthorne, Julianne Chung & Alex Worsnip (eds.), Oxford Studies in Epistemology, Vol. 8. Oxford University Press.
    Deference in politics is often necessary. To answer questions like, “Should the government increase the federal minimum wage?” and “Should the state introduce a vaccine mandate?”, we need to know relevant scientific and economic facts, make complex value judgments, and answer questions about incentives and implementation. Lay citizens typically lack the time, resources, and competence to answer these questions on their own. Hence, they must defer to others. But to whom should they defer? A common answer is that they should—or (...)
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  10.  49
    IMAGE, LANGUAGE: the other dialectic.Laura Katherine Smith, Stijn De Cauwer, Jorge Rodriguez Solorzano, Elise Woodard & Georges Didi-Huberman - 2018 - Angelaki 23 (4):19-24.
    In this text, Georges Didi-Huberman responds, in letter-form, to the critical reflections about his work formulated by Jacques Rancière in “Images Re-read: Georges Didi-Huberman’s Method.” Didi-Huberman disagrees with Rancière’s analysis that images are “passive” and that the words which accompany them are “active.” Instead, he agrees with Merleau-Ponty’s view, which postulates that any analysis of images that seeks to disentangle its elements will render the image unintelligible. In opposition to Rancière’s presentation of his work, Didi-Huberman argues that his method is (...)
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  11.  88
    IMAGES RE-READ: the method of georges didi-huberman.Laura Katherine Smith, Stijn De Cauwer, Jorge Rodriguez Solorzano, Elise Woodard & Jacques Rancière - 2018 - Angelaki 23 (4):11-18.
    In this text, Jacques Rancière critically discusses the work of Georges Didi-Huberman on images. He disagrees with various claims seemingly made by Didi-Huberman about images, such as that they can “take position” or that they are “active.” Rancière argues that Didi-Huberman adds another form of dialectics to the simpler form of dialectics adopted by Bertolt Brecht and Harun Farocki in their works, namely one that also involves a layering of different temporalities. However, both in Brecht’s War Primer and in Didi-Huberman’s (...)
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  12. Inquiring Further: Essays on Epistemic Normativity.Elise Woodard - 2022 - Dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
    My dissertation defends the importance of epistemic norms on what I call ‘inquiring further.’ Inquiring further is a familiar practice we engage in when we redeliberate, gather more evidence, or double-check our beliefs. Nonetheless, many philosophers have argued that norms governing further inquiry are at most practical or moral norms. Against this, I argue that norms on inquiring further are central to our understanding of responsible epistemic agency. I do this by appealing to both the roles of epistemic evaluations and (...)
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  13.  44
    Standing Vigil for the Day to Come.Elise Woodard & Robert Harvey - 2015 - Foucault Studies 19:217-223.
    Michel Foucault’s “Standing Vigil for the Day to Come” was a review of Roger Laporte’s novel, La Veille, published by Gallimard earlier that year. Although Laporte’s work never received the wide readership it deserved, Foucault held it in high esteem, praising it in his assessment as one of the “most original” and “most difficult” of his time and, subsequently, urging Derrida to read it. This article is most appropriately situated in the series of literary reviews Foucault composed between 1961 and (...)
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  14. Review of Tom Dougherty: The Scope of Consent[REVIEW]Elise Woodard - 2024 - Ethics 134 (3):402-407.