Extensive literatures exist on the epistemology of testimony, memory, and perception, but for the most part these literatures do not systematically consider the extent of the analogies between the three epistemic sources. A number of the same problems reappear in all three literatures, however. Dealing simultaneously with all three sources and making a careful accounting of the analogies and disanalogies between them should therefore avoid unnecessary duplication of effort. Other than limits on the scope of which memorially- and testimonially-based (...) beliefs should be included in the Parity Thesis, I argue that most of the disanalogies that different philosophers have proffered between the sources do not mark distinctions among the universes of possible testimonially-, memorially-, and perceptually-based beliefs regarding the explanation of those beliefs' epistemic status. I first criticize the suggestion that perception is a generative epistemic source, while testimony and memory are not; I propose and defend counterexamples in which testimony and memory produce new beliefs. Next, I criticize a variety of distinctions that have been drawn between testimony and perception, taken chiefly from the reductionist-antireductionist literature on testimony. I criticize the suggestion that the conceptualization of content and the transparency of experience affect the epistemologies of testimony and perception in different ways. Regarding memory and testimony, I advocate modeling testimony on the legal relationship of a principal and an agent, arguing that law's apparatus used to analyze such situations suggests that using others' epistemic services in testimony will supply the same epistemic benefits and burdens as if we had performed those epistemic tasks personally and then relied only on memory. I apply this analysis to the transmission of defeaters in testimony. I argue that memory does feature the epistemic equivalent of a perceptual image and that both perceptually- and memorially-based beliefs can concern either the past or the present. Finally, I construct a set of six transformations that turn individual possible instances of perceptually-, memorially-, or testimonially-based beliefs into individual possible instances of the other two types of beliefs without changing the structure of those beliefs' epistemologies. (shrink)

Many moral error theorists hold that moral facts are irreducibly normative. They also hold that irreducible normativity is metaphysically queer and conclude that there are no irreducibly normative reasons and consequently no moral facts. A popular response to moral error theory utilizes the so-called ‘companions in guilt’ strategy and argues that if moral reasons are irreducibly normative, then epistemic reasons are too. This is the Parity Premise, on the basis of which critics of moral error theory draw the (...) Parity Conclusion that if there are no irreducibly normative reasons, there are no moral reasons and no epistemic reasons. From the Parity Conclusion and Epistemic Realism (the view that there are epistemic reasons), it follows that it is false that there are no irreducibly normative reasons. In this paper, I argue that the Parity Premise and the Parity Conclusion can both plausibly be rejected. (shrink)

In Democratic Authority and the Separation of Church and State, Robert Audi addresses disagreements among equally rational persons on political matters of coercion by analysing the features of discussions between epistemic peers, and supporting a normative principle of toleration. It is possible to question the extent to which Audi’s views are consistent with the possibility of religious citizens being properly defined as epistemic peers with their non-religious counterparts, insofar as he also argues for some significant constraints on religious (...) reasons in public debates, and he advocates secular reasons being considered as equivalent to natural reasons. I shall also consider Jürgen Habermas’s criticism of Audi’s stance. One of Habermas’ main points focused on Audi’s strong division between religious and non-religious arguments that requires religious citizens to artificially split their reasons, while non-religiously affiliated citizens are not met with any similar requirement. Also, analysing the concept of epistemic parity, we can as well grasp some of the main features of the Habermasian idea of postsecularism. The difference between secular and postsecular views can be framed as hinging on what it means to be epistemic peers, thus bearing consequences on the understanding of the relationship between church and state—particularly regarding the nature of state neutrality and the different status of churches and organised secular groups. (shrink)

Because pluralism at its heart is an epistemic problem in philosophy, what is at issue in discussions of philosophical pluralism are the definitions of who counts as a knower and what counts as knowledge. In this philopoetic article, in which philosophic claims are interwoven with poetic and narrative recountings of my own experiences with racist patriarchal violence in the discipline, I argue for an epistemic approach to creating pluralism in philosophy through the satisfaction of seven conditions. These conditions (...) require, at minimum, that we consider the importance of hiring multiply-positioned persons; that we critique patriarchy and white hegemonic discourses; that we rethink assumptions about epistemic credibility; and that we dispense with “perverse dialogues.” Finally, we must encourage “true dialogue” and create a “new dialogic” in philosophy. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the phenomenon of forming one’s judgement about epistemic matters, such as whether one has some reason not to believe false propositions, on the basis of the opinion of somebody one takes to be an expert about them. The paper pursues three aims. First, it argues that some cases of expert deference about epistemic matters are suspicious. Secondly, it provides an explanation of such a suspiciousness. Thirdly, it draws the metaepistemological implications of the proposed explanation.

On an individualist view of testimonial justification, a subject’s belief based on testimony is justified ultimately on the basis of nontestimonial beliefs alone. The prevailing version of individualism has been inductive individualism, according to which the nontestimonial basis for a testimonial belief is an inductively based belief in the reliability of the testifier. Here I consider an alternative to inductive individualism, which I call the parity account. This is the view, endorsed in various forms by Allan Gibbard, Richard Foley (...) and Keith Lehrer, that my testimonial beliefs have epistemic standing because there is a cognitive parity between me and others. I may trust the beliefs of others because I may trust my own beliefs. I focus on an argument central to Lehrer’s account: I am worthy of my trust in what I believe; others are as worthy of my trust in what they believe as I am in what I believe; so others are worthy of my trust in what they believe. I examine whether this argument can justify my testimonial beliefs. If the parity account is to succeed, the premises of the argument need support. I criticize diverse ways of supporting the premises suggested by Lehrer and by remarks of Foley. I conclude that the parity argument cannot account for the justification of all my testimonial beliefs. It is at best an adjunct argument that depends for its force on prior justified testimonial beliefs.Author Keywords: Testimony; Justification; Parity; Trust; Individualism; Skepticism. (shrink)

Deference to experts is normal in many areas of inquiry, but suspicious in morality. This is puzzling if one thinks that morality is relevantly like those other areas of inquiry. We argue that this suspiciousness can be explained in terms of the suspiciousness of deferring to an epistemic peer. We then argue that this explanation is preferable to others in the literature, and explore some metaethical implications of this result.

Many moral error theorists reject moral realism on the grounds that moral realism implies the existence of categorical normativity, yet categorical normativity does not exist. Call this the Metaphysical Argument. In response, some moral realists have emphasized a parity between moral normativity and epistemic normativity. They argue that if one kind of normativity is rejected, then both must be rejected. Therefore, one cannot be a moral error theorist without also being an epistemic error theorist. Call this the (...) Parity Argument. In this paper, we address three possible responses to the Parity Argument from moral error theorists: (1) accept the parity but still reject epistemic error theory, (2) reject the parity, (3) accept the parity and defend epistemic error theory. We argue that there are problems with each of these responses, so the Parity Argument stands as a strong counterargument to the Metaphysical Argument. We conclude by drawing some lessons for any future challenges to the Parity Argument. (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)

Moral error theorists often respond to the epistemic companions in guilt strategy by adopting the Disparity Response: reject the putative parity between moral and epistemic reasons and claim that though the former are irreducibly normative, the latter aren’t. I argue such a response fails. Expanding on Das’ Australas J Philos 95:58–69, work I present a master argument against Disparity Responses: the arguments moral error theorists use to advance their conceptual claim apply in the epistemic domain also. (...) This prohibits the error theorist from adopting epistemic reductionism. I use Jonas Olson’s work as exemplary of moral error theory. I demonstrate that Olson’s argument that the rhetorical authority of moral claims is best explained by the error theorist’s conceptual claim applies equally in the epistemic case. Olson attempts to avoid this by claiming that epistemic claims are reducible to claims about whether our doxastic attitudes live up to their functions. There are two problems with Olson’s argument. Firstly, functional reasons are a species of a common genus – standards reasons – and since Olson’s authority argument against moral reductionism applies to standards reasons, it applies to functional reasons. Secondly, Olson’s claim that we cannot also cast moral reasons as functional is under-supported. I suggest that there is plausible evidence that we can and undermine his arguments against this claim. I do not argue that the epistemic companions in guilt strategy demonstrates the falsity of moral error theory. Rather, I argue that the Disparity Response to the epistemic companions in guilt strategy fails. (shrink)

Many moral realists have employed a strategy for arguing for moral realism by claiming that if epistemic normativity is categorical and that if this epistemic normativity exists, then categorical normativity exists. In this paper, we will discuss that argument, examine a way out, and respond to the objections people have recently raised in the literature. In the end, we conclude that the objections to our way out will do little in the way of motivating those who already do (...) not believe in categorical normativity, thereby severing the power the aforementioned parity argument is designed to possess. (shrink)

The Animal Rights Thesis (ART) entails that nonhuman animals like pigs and cows have moral rights, including rights not to be unjustly harmed. If ART is true, it appears to imply the permissibility of killing ranchers, farmers, and zookeepers in defense of animals who will otherwise be unjustly killed. This is the Militancy Objection (MO) to ART. I consider four replies to MO and reject three of them. First, MO fails because animals lack rights, or lack rights of sufficient strength (...) to justify other-defensive killing. Second, MO fails because those who unjustly threaten animals aren't liable or, if they are liable, their liability is outweighed by other considerations (e.g., a strong presumption against vigilante killing). I then argue both of these fail. Third, MO succeeds because animal militancy is permissible. Fourth, MO fails because there aren't liability justifications for defensive killing in general (i.e., pacifism is true). I argue that there's thoroughgoing epistemic parity between the Militancy View (MV) and the Pacifist View (PV), and that two considerations favor PV over MV. First, because under conditions of uncertainty, we should believe rights-bearers retain rather than lose their rights, which PV affirms and MV denies. Second, because PV is intrinsically likelier than MV to be true since PV at worst affirms wrongful letting die and MV at worst affirms wrongful killing, the latter of which is intrinsically harder to justify than the former. (shrink)

The standard bilking argument is well-known and attempts to prove the impossibility of backwards causation. In this discussion note, I identify an epistemic bilking argument, which has not received sufficient attention in the literature, and indicate how best to respond to it. This response involves a parity argument based on a forwards causation case.

Cuneo and Shafer-Landau (2014) argued that there are moral conceptual truths that are substantive in content, what they called ‘moral fixed points’. I argue that insofar as we have some reason to postulate moral fixed points, we have equal reason to postulate epistemic fixed points (e.g. the factivity condition). To this effect, I show that the two basic reasons Cuneo and Shafer-Landau (2014) offer in support of moral fixed points naturally carry over to epistemic fixed points. In particular, (...) epistemic fixed points exhibit the four ‘marks’ of conceptual truths that they identify and can be utilized to address important challenges to epistemic realism. I conclude that insofar as we have some reason to postulate moral fixed points, we have equal reason to postulate epistemic fixed points. -/- . (shrink)

We analyze the usage of computer simulation at the LHC and derive seven jointly necessary requirements for a simulation to be considered ’trustworthy’, such that it can be used as proxy for experiments. We show that these requirements can also be applied to systems without direct experimental access and discuss their validity for properties that have not yet been probed. While being necessary, these requirements are not sufficient. Such trustworthy simulations will be analyzed for the relative epistemic statuses of (...) simulation and material measurements, from which we argue that claims of their parity are unfounded. Instead, using credibility as a measure for epistemic status, and in view of the temporal and epistemic dependence of simulation on material measurements, we argue that the latter have a higher epistemic status than the former. We further argue that suggestions to qualify the epistemic status by ’defocussing’ on the material connection to the target system of either human or natural experiments are misleading. (shrink)

Some philosophers object to moral error theory by arguing that there a parity between moral and epistemic normativity. They maintain that moral and epistemic error theory stand or fall together, that epistemic error theory falls, and that moral error theory thus falls too. This paper offers a response to this objection on behalf of moral error theorists. I defend the view that moral and epistemic error theory do not stand or fall together by arguing that (...) moral error theory can be sustained alongside epistemic expressivism. This unusual combination of theories can be underpinned by differences in the foundational norms that guide moral and epistemic inquiry. I conclude that the problem of epistemic normativity fails to show that it is compulsory for us to reject moral error theory. (shrink)

In this essay, I explore Justus Buchler’s ordinal naturalism with the goal of establishing how his phenomenological approach extends the range of human inquiry to include the many and varied traits of natural phenomena that are not “simply” the result of sensate experience or material functions. To achieve this goal I critically assess Buchler’s notion of “ontological parity”–the idea that abstract phenomena such as values, relations, ideals, and other mental contents are just as relevant as sense-data when one attempts (...) to provide an adequate description of the world in naturalistic terms. I argue that certain phenomena, subsisting within what Buchler calls the “proceptive domain,” are legitimate objects of knowledge as they are par t of a larger domain of phenomenological analysis: nature more broadly and justly understood. It is my view that in the attempt to describe the natural world Buchler’s ordinal naturalism succeeds where other forms of naturalism fail because his form of naturalism offers a more capacious view of nature that attempts to describe whatever is in any way, not just focus on what is readily apparent to speci?c forms of observation that may privilege one domain of analysis over another. I draw the conclusion that because Buchler’s ordinal naturalism contains within it a working principle of ontological parity, his approach to nature ful?lls the criteria of the phenomenological method, and so I title his ordinal naturalism an ordinal phenomenology (Corrington 1992, 1-6, 9-14). Ultimately it is my aim to bring Buchler’s thought into closer connection with continental phenomenology, as well as to illustrate a more just and open understanding of nature through an analysis of his unique variety of philosophical naturalism. (shrink)

The philosophical case for extended cognition is often made with reference to ‘extended-memory cases’ ; though, unfortunately, proponents of the hypothesis of extended cognition as well as their adversaries have failed to appreciate the kinds of epistemological problems extended-memory cases pose for mainstream thinking in the epistemology of memory. It is time to give these problems a closer look. Our plan is as follows: in §1, we argue that an epistemological theory remains compatible with HEC only if its epistemic (...) assessments do not violate what we call ‘the epistemic parity principle’. In §2, we show how the constraint of respecting the epistemic parity principle stands in what appears to be a prima facie intractable tension with mainstream thinking about cases of propositional memory. We then outline and evaluate in §3 several lines of response. (shrink)

This second of three articles outlining the development and practice of a different approach to neurotheology discusses the construction of a suitable methodology for the project based on the work of J. Wentzel van Huyssteen. It explores the origin and contours of his concept of postfoundational rationality, its potential as a locus for epistemological parity between science and religion and the distinctive and unique transversal space model for interdisciplinary dialogue which he builds on these. It then proposes a further (...) development of the model which has the potential to produce a very different type of additional and original dialogical outcome. While such “transversal” outputs may initially seem counter and strange they not only flow naturally from the models’ own inherent dynamics but also open up the possibility of a distinctively different form of neurotheology. (shrink)

I defend two collapsing or reductionist arguments against Weak Pro-Natalism (WPN), the view that procreation is generally merely permissible. In particular, I argue that WPN collapses into Strong Pro-Natalism (SPN), the view that procreation is generally obligatory. Because SPN conflicts with the dominant view that procreation is never obligatory, demonstrating that WPN collapses into or entails SPN establishes epistemic parity (at least as concerns reproductive liberty) between WPN and Anti-Natalism (AN), the view that procreation is always impermissible. First, (...) I distinguish between two moral goods: the good of procreation itself and the good of procreative potential. Second, I contend that the average moral agent is obligated to assist needy children via adoption, fostering, or other financial or interpersonal support. Third, I present the first collapsing argument: If an agent’s justification for not assisting needy children is preservation of their resources (financial or interpersonal) for their actual future offspring, that justification is preserved only if they eventually and actually procreate. Thus, their eventual procreation is morally obligatory, and SPN follows. Fourth, I present the second collapsing argument, which assumes procreative potential as the relevant good: If an agent’s justification for not assisting needy children is preservation of their resources for their potential future offspring, that justification holds only if (a) the objective or subjective valuation of the opportunity is of the relevant type and valence to justify not assisting needy children and (b) the agent sincerely values the opportunity. Fifth, I argue that (a) is unsatisfied and that while (b) is satisfied in most cases, it entails that most agents are obligated to desire or be behaviorally disposed to pursue procreation for themselves (i.e., SPN). Thus, I conclude that both actual procreation and procreative potential are either insufficient justifications for not assisting needy children or that they entail obligatory pro-reproductive attitudes or behaviors. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore Larry Laudan's and Jarrett Leplin's recent claim that empirically equivalent theories may be differentially confirmed. I show that their attempt to prise apart empirical equivalence and epistemic parity commits them to two principles of confirmation that Hempel demonstrated to be incompatible.

In this paper I lay out, argue for, and defend ethical Mooreanism. In essence, the view says that some moral propositions are Moorean propositions and thus are epistemically superior to the conjunctions of the premises of skeptical arguments to the contrary. In Sect. 1 I explain Mooreanism and then ethical Mooreanism. In Sect. 2 I argue for ethical Mooreanism by noting a number of important epistemic parities that hold between certain moral truths and standard Moorean facts. In Sect. 3 (...) I defend ethical Mooreanism against the objection that moral propositions are too epistemically dissimilar to standard Moorean facts to count as Moorean truths. (shrink)

By drawing mainly, but not only, on the work of Jürgen Habermas and Charles Taylor, I suggest that the postsecular turn provides a more substantial and insightful contribution to the understanding of religious pluralism in contexts of late secularization thanks to its focus on how the self-understanding of religious and secular actors is affected by their co-implication within the same discursive space. The ensuing attention for the processes of self-critique and reciprocal learning allows for a fairer distribution of the burdens (...) of participation, consistently with standards of parity which can be properly, but not exclusively, understood within an egalitarian liberal outlook. The participation to a shared conversation about the primary goods is seen, here, as a primary good in itself. I argue that it is possible to move away from this problem while still retaining the distinct awareness that the postsecular stance articulates about the role played by self-critical understandings of religious and secular views when it comes to the cooperative effort necessary to realize conditions of genuine epistemic parity and equal access to public discourse. To this purpose, I suggest that three further steps should be taken: the boundary between the religious and the secular should be more decisively conceived as a shifting and porous border, the resources of public discourse shouldn’t be too rigidly divided between argumentative and non-argumentative, and the presence of stoppers and enablers of public conversation should be acknowledged both in the religious and in the secular domain. The resulting kind of postsecular perspective will turn out to be relevant at two levels: that of the relationships between individuals who actively engage in public discourse and that of the relationships between religious and secular institutions. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to analyze the tale of Heracles at the Crossroads, attributed to Prodicus by Socrates in Xenophon’s Memorabilia, through the notion of antilogy. The apologue has got an antilogic structure that is immediately outlined in the description of the situation in which the young Heracles finds himself. But the text, seemingly antilogic, does not develop itself according to one of the most important rules of antilogies, i.e., the epistemic parity of two speeches, since (...) it appears to be completely in favor of just one of the theses. Prodicus would have had no interest in writing a text that did not demonstrate his rhetorical and linguistic abilities. According to this perspective, Xenophon’s version of Heracles at the Crossroads does not seem to be the original version by Prodicus, as can be seen by analyzing its structure and properties. (shrink)

There is an ancient, yet still lively, debate in moral epistemology about the epistemic significance of disagreement. One of the important questions in that debate is whether, and to what extent, the prevalence and persistence of disagreement between our moral intuitions causes problems for those who seek to rely on intuitions in order to make moral decisions, issue moral judgments, and craft moral theories. Meanwhile, in general epistemology, there is a relatively young, and very lively, debate about the (...) class='Hi'>epistemic significance of disagreement. A central question in that debate concerns peer disagreement: When I am confronted with an epistemic peer with whom I disagree, how should my confidence in my beliefs change (if at all)? The disagreement debate in moral epistemology has not been brought into much contact with the disagreement debate in general epistemology (though McGrath [2007] is an important exception). A purpose of this paper is to increase the area of contact between these two debates. In Section 1, I try to clarify the question I want to ask in this paper – this is the question whether we have any reasons to believe what I shall call “anti-intuitivism.” In Section 2, I argue that anti-intuitivism cannot be supported solely by investigating the mechanisms that produce our intuitions. In Section 3, I discuss an anti-intuitivist argument from disagreement which relies on the so-called “Equal Weight View.” In Section 4, I pause to clarify the notion of epistemic parity and to explain how it ought to be understood in the epistemology of moral intuition. In Section 5, I return to the anti-intuitivist argument from disagreement and explain how an apparently-vulnerable premise of that argument may be quite resilient. In Section 6, I introduce a novel objection against the Equal Weight View in order to show how I think we can successfully resist the anti-intuitivist argument from disagreement. (shrink)

Discussion of the role which religious experience can play in warranting theistic belief has received a great deal of attention within contemporary philosophy of religion. By contrast, the relationship between experience and atheistic belief has received relatively little focus. Our aim in this paper is to begin to remedy that neglect. In particular, we focus on the hitherto under-discussed question of whether experiences of God’s absence can provide positive epistemic status for a belief in God’s nonexistence. We argue that (...) there is good reason to accept an epistemic parity between experiences of God’s presence and experiences of God’s absence. (shrink)

Martin Ebeling argues that a popular theory in the epistemology of disagreement--conciliationism--supports an egalitarian approach to politics. This view is mistaken for two reasons. First, even if political parties have the epistemic value that Ebeling claims, voters should not regard each other as epistemic peers--which conciliationism requires that they do. The American electorate is strikingly heterogeneous in both its knowledgeability and its rationality, and so the necessary epistemic parity relation does not hold. Second, for technical reasons, (...) the beliefs that a rational voter arrives at after conciliating with his peers do not, in general, accord with the results of egalitarian decision procedures. As its theory currently stands, the epistemology of disagreement does not support egalitarian politics. (shrink)

An overview and critical evaluation of personal testimonies and arguments by some contemporary atheist philosophers. Feldman’s case that epistemic parity (where equally intelligent persons adopt incompatible beliefs) should lead to agnosticism is examined and found to be self-refuting.

Moral realism of a paradigmatic sort -- Defending the parallel -- The parity premise -- Epistemic nihilism -- Epistemic expressivism : traditional views -- Epistemic expressivism : nontraditional views -- Epistemic reductionism -- Three objections to the core argument.

In this paper, I argue for a conditional parity thesis: if we are agents with respect to our intentions, we are agents with respect to our beliefs. In the final section, I motivate a categorical version of the parity thesis: we are agents with respect to belief and intention. My aim in this paper is to show that there is no unique challenge facing epistemic agency that is not also facing agency with respect to intention. My thesis (...) is ambitious on two fronts. First, the parity thesis is a substantive thesis about the nature of belief and intention. I argue that there is a structural parity of belief and intention; the status of whether they are agential stands and falls together. Second, the parity thesis illuminates the nature of agency. It constrains what counts as a satisfactory account of agency: either we must accept agency of both belief and intention, or we must reject both. In the final section, I argue that we have prima facie reason to accept agency of belief and intention. Finally, I diagnose why there has been such resistance to epistemic agency. Epistemic agency is problematic, but its problems are problems with agency, not problems with epistemic agency. (shrink)

The Swamping Argument – highlighted by Kvanvig (2003; 2010) – purports to show that the epistemic value of truth will always swamp the epistemic value of any non-factive epistemic properties (e.g. justification) so that these properties can never add any epistemic value to an already-true belief. Consequently (and counter-intuitively), knowledge is never more epistemically valuable than mere true belief. We show that the Swamping Argument fails. Parity of reasoning yields the disastrous conclusion that nonfactive (...) class='Hi'>epistemic properties – mostly saliently justification – are never epistemically valuable properties of a belief. We close by diagnosing why philosophers have been mistakenly attracted to the argument. (shrink)

Virtue reliabilism provides an account of epistemic integration that explains how a reliable-belief forming process can become a knowledge-conducive ability of one’s cognitive character. The univocal view suggests that this epistemic integration can also explain how an external process can extend one’s cognition into the environment. Andy Clark finds a problem with the univocal view. He claims that cognitive extension is a wholly subpersonal affair, whereas the epistemic integration that virtue reliabilism puts forward requires personal-level agential involvement. (...) To adjust the univocal view, Clark recommends a subpersonal epistemic integration account that also paves way for a wholly subpersonal epistemology. Accordingly, an epistemic agent can take responsibility for her reliable belief-forming process by way of entirely subpersonal mechanisms. The aim of this thesis is to argue against a subpersonal epistemology and the need for it. First, I bring into question the conditions that motivate extended cognition: the so-called ‘glue and trust’ requirements and the functional parity principle. Neither of these conditions demands that extension should be understood in entirely subpersonal terms. On the contrary, the glue and trust conditions suggest that agents should personally and actively engage with their external vehicles to extend cognition. Further, I consider an important disparity between the two kinds of integration. Integration that prompts extension can happen immediately, but the integration that makes a reliable belief-forming process knowledge-conducive is almost always a slow process. In light of this and other similar inconsistencies between the two integration accounts, I conclude that a type of univocal view is difficult to defend. And, since that type of univocal view is the main reason for a subpersonal epistemology, the need for it does not arise. Next, I locate Clark’s main motivation for his subpersonal epistemology in his account of the predictive brain. While the predictive brain provides useful insight into how an external process might extend one’s cognition, I show it runs into problems when it tries to account for epistemic integration. Then, I explore how the concept of epistemic defeaters informs epistemic integration. Agents have to meet a specific no-defeater condition to be sensitive to the reliability of their belief-forming processes and to employ them responsibly. In an entirely subpersonal epistemology, defeasibility theory has no means to explain how an agent is rendered sensitive to the reliability of her process. Subpersonal mechanisms can become sensitive to the new process, but that does not allow the agent to employ said process responsibly. Finally, I use an AI case, based on Amazon Alexa, to argue that all accounts of epistemic integration ought to explicitly describe how one’s subpersonal mechanisms link to one’s whole person, even if the link is weak and indirect. Without this connection between one’s subpersonal mechanisms and one’s person, it can become difficult to ascribe beliefs to the agent. This becomes apparent when Alexa leads to ever-increasing layers of cognitive, mental, and agential extension. (shrink)

It is argued that standard accounts of the epistemology of religious commitmentfail to be properly sensitive to certain important features of the nature of religious conviction. Once one takes these features of religious conviction seriously, then it becomes clear that we are not to conceive of the epistemology of religious conviction along completely rational lines.But the moral to extract from this is not fideism, or even a more moderate proposal that casts the epistemic standing of basic religious beliefs along (...) nonrational lines. Rather, one needs to recognise that in an important sense religious convictions are not beliefs at all, but that this is compatible with the idea that many other religious commitments are beliefs. This picture of the nature of religious commitment is shown to fit snugly with the Wittgensteinian account of hinge commitments, such that all rational belief essentially presupposes certain basic arational hinge commitments, along lines originally suggested by John Henry Newman. We are thus able to marshal a parity-style argument in defence of religious commitment. Although religious belief presupposes basic arational religious convictions, it is not on this score epistemically amiss since all belief presupposes basic arational convictions, or hinge commitments. The resulting view of the epistemology of religious commitment is a position I call quasi-fideism. (shrink)

This book asks whether there any limits to the sorts of religious considerations that can be raised in public debates, and if there are, by whom they are to be identified. Its starting point is the work of Richard Rorty, whose pragmatic pluralism leads him to argue for a politically motivated anticlericalism rather than an epistemologically driven atheism. Rather than defend Rorty’s position directly, Gascoigne argues for an epistemological stance he calls ‘Pragmatist Fideism’. The starting point for this exercise in (...) what Rorty calls ‘Cultural Politics’ is an acknowledgement that one must appeal to both secularists and those with religious commitments. In recent years ‘reformed’ epistemologists have aimed to establish a parity of epistemic esteem between religious and perceptual beliefs by exploiting an analogy in respect of their mutual vulnerability to sceptical challenges. Through an examination of this analogy, and in light of Wittgenstein’s On Certainty, this book argues that understood correctly the ‘parity’ argument in fact lends epistemological support to the argument that religious considerations should not be raised in public debate. The political price paid—paying the price of politics—is worth it: the religious thinker is provided with a good reason for maintaining that their practices and beliefs are not undermined by other forms of religious life. (shrink)

It is widely held in philosophy that knowing is not a state of mind. On this view, rather than knowledge itself constituting a mental state, when we know, we occupy a belief state that exhibits some additional non-mental characteristics. Fascinatingly, however, new empirical findings from cognitive neuroscience and experimental philosophy now offer direct, converging evidence that the brain can—and often does—treat knowledge as if it is a mental state in its own right. While some might be tempted to keep the (...) metaphysics of epistemic states separate from the neurocognitive mechanics of our judgements about them, here I will argue that these empirical findings give us sufficient reason to conclude that knowledge is at least sometimes a mental state. The basis of this argument is the epistemological principle of neurocognitive parity—roughly, if the contents of a given judgement reflect the structure of knowledge, so do the neurocognitive mechanics that produced them. This principle, which I defend here, straightforwardly supports the inference from the empirical observation that the brain sometimes treats knowledge like a mental state to the epistemological conclusion that knowledge is at least sometimes a mental state. All told, the composite, belief-centric metaphysics of knowledge widely assumed in epistemology is almost certainly mistaken. (shrink)

In “The Virtual and the Real,” David Chalmers argues that there is an epistemic and ontological parity between VR and ordinary reality. My argument here is that, whatever the plausibility of these claims, they provide no basis for supposing that there is a similar parity of value. Careful reflection upon certain aspects of the transition that individuals make from interacting with real-world, physical environments to interacting with VR provides a basis for thinking that, to the extent that (...) there are good reasons to deny the reality of virtual objects, there are also reasons to place a correspondingly higher value upon the experience of interacting with a VR environment. Chalmers’ assumption to the contrary arises from a subtle misrepresentation of how the phenomenon of cognitive penetration works in the perception of virtual objects, and from an unwillingness to acknowledge how our attitudes toward virtual environments are conditioned by the values we adopt when engaged in gameplay. (shrink)

In defending NOA against some contemporary antirealisms I distinguish two antirealist camps: the epistemology inflaters, who come to their antirealism by filling up inquiry and belief formation with various warrants and principles of justification, and the semantic inflaters, or truthmongers, who come to their antirealism by exchanging truth for some epistemic notion, like ideal rational acceptablility. In parity with arguments against the correspondence theory of truth, which I see at the heart of various realisms, I argue against antirealist (...) truthmongering in two ways. One is inductive and hortative. I point to the history of failures of all past attempts at theories of truth, and try to suggest better things for philosophy to do instead. The other way is deconstructive. I examine the attempted explications of truth in the terms set by their own discourses, and try to show that they cannot actually stand on their own there. Lily Knezevich looks at this deconstructive work in her ‘Truthmongering‘ and finds it flawed by what I will call ‘Knezevich’s fallacy.’. (shrink)

Many philosophers claim that interesting forms of epistemic evaluation are insensitive to truth in a very specific way. Suppose that two possible agents believe the same proposition based on the same evidence. Either both are justified or neither is; either both have good evidence for holding the belief or neither does. This does not change if, on this particular occasion, it turns out that only one of the two agents has a true belief. Epitomizing this line of thought are (...) thought experiments about radically deceived “brains in vats.” It is widely and uncritically assumed that such a brain is equally justified as its normally embodied human “twin.” This “parity” intuition is the heart of truth-insensitive theories of core epistemological properties such as justification and rationality. Rejecting the parity intuition is considered radical and revisionist. In this paper, I show that exactly the opposite is true. The parity intuition is idiosyncratic and widely rejected. A brain in a vat is not justified and has worse evidence than its normally embodied counterpart. On nearly every ordinary way of evaluating beliefs, a false belief is significantly inferior to a true belief. Of all the evaluations studied here, only blamelessness is truth-insensitive. (shrink)

In my paper , I noted that Fitch's argument, which purports to show that if all truths are knowable then all truths are known, can be blocked by typing knowledge. If there is not one knowledge predicate, ‘ K’, but infinitely many, ‘ K 1’, ‘ K 2’, … , then the type rules prevent application of the predicate ‘ K i’ to sentences containing ‘ K i’ such as ‘ p ∧¬ K i⌜ p⌝’. This provides a motivated response (...) to Fitch's argument so long as knowledge typing is itself motivated. It was the burden of my paper to explore the case that knowledge typing is as motivated as truth typing by drawing on the parallels between epistemic paradoxes generated by sentences of the kind ‘this sentence is unknown’ and semantic paradoxes generated by sentences such as ‘this sentence is untrue’. Given that typing truth is one of the acknowledged options for solving semantic paradoxes, if the parity argument succeeds it follows that epistemic typing is as well-motivated as truth typing and that the typing response to Fitch's argument is correspondingly strong.Halbach presents an apparent problem for this argument. Let ‘ N’ and ‘ P’, respectively, denote the necessity and possibility predicates, ‘ K 1’ the knowledge predicate of first type, and let ‘γ’ be a K-free sentence such that γ ↔¬ P⌜ K 1⌜γ⌝⌝; we know such a ‘γ’ exists by a standard diagonalization argument. If we assume that γ is knowable at the next knowledge type, that is, at type 1, and that the possibility typing does not interfere with the knowledge typing, a contradiction quickly ensues. Formally: γ ↔¬ P⌜ …. (shrink)

What is it for a car, a piece of art or a person to be good, bad or better than another? In this first book-length introduction to value theory, Francesco Orsi explores the nature of evaluative concepts used in everyday thinking and speech and in contemporary philosophical discourse. The various dimensions, structures and connections that value concepts express are interrogated with clarity and incision. -/- Orsi provides a systematic survey of both classic texts including Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Moore and Ross (...) and an array of contemporary theorists. The reader is guided through the moral maze of value theory with everyday examples and thought experiments. Rare stamps, Napoleon's hat, evil demons, and Kant's good will are all considered in order to probe our intuitions, question our own and philosophers' assumptions about value, and, ultimately, understand better what we want to say when we talk about value. -/- 1. Value and Normativity 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Which Evaluations? 1.3 The Idea of Value Theory 1.4 Value and Normativity 1.5 Overview 1.6 Meta-ethical Neutrality 1.7 Value Theory: The Questions -/- 2. Meet the Values: Intrinsic, Final & Co. 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Final and Unconditional Value: Some Philosophical Examples 2.3 Intrinsic Value and Final Value 2.4 The Reduction to Facts 2.5 Intrinsic and Conditional Value 2.6 Elimination of Extrinsic Value? 2.7 Summary -/- 3. The Challenge against Absolute Value 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Geach and Attributive Goodness 3.3 Foot and the Virtues 3.4 Thomson and Goodness in a Way 3.5 Zimmerman's Ethical Goodness 3.6 A Better Reply: Absolute Value and Fitting Attitudes 3.7 Summary -/- 4. Personal Value 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Moore on Good and Good For 4.3 Good For and Fitting Attitudes 4.4 Moore Strikes Back? 4.5 Agent-relative Value 4.6 Impersonal/Personal and Agent-neutral/Agent-relative 4.7 Summary -/- 5. The Chemistry of Value 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Supervenience and Other Relations 5.3 Organic Unities 5.4 Alternatives to Organic Unities: Virtual Value 5.5 Alternatives to Organic Unities: Conditional Value 5.6 Holism and Particularism 5.7 Summary -/- 6. Value Relations 6.1 Introduction 6.2 The Trichotomy Thesis and Incomparability 6.3 A Fitting Attitude Argument for Incomparability 6.4 Against Incomparability: Epistemic Limitations 6.5 Against Incomparability: Parity 6.6 Parity and Choice 6.7 Parity and Incomparability 6.8 Summary -/- 7. How Do I Favour Thee? 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Three Dimensions of Favouring 7.3 Responses to Value: Maximizing 7.4 Two Concepts of Intrinsic Value? 7.5 Summary -/- 8. Value and the Wrong Kind of Reasons 8.1 Introduction 8.2 The Fitting Attitude Account and its Rivals 8.3 The Wrong Kind of Reasons Problem 8.4 The Structure of the Problem and an Initial Response 8.5 Reasons for What? 8.6 Characteristic Concerns and Shared Reasons 8.7 Circular Path: No-Priority 8.8 Summary . (shrink)

In defending NOA against some contemporary antirealisms I distinguish two antirealist camps: the epistemology inflaters, who come to their antirealism by filling up inquiry and belief formation with various warrants and principles of justification, and the semantic inflaters, or truthmongers, who come to their antirealism by exchanging truth for some epistemic notion, like ideal rational acceptablility. In parity with arguments against the correspondence theory of truth, which I see at the heart of various realisms, I argue against antirealist (...) truthmongering in two ways. One is inductive and hortative. I point to the history of failures of all past attempts at theories of truth, and try to suggest better things for philosophy to do instead. The other way is deconstructive. I examine the attempted explications of truth in the terms set by their own discourses, and try to show that they cannot actually stand on their own there. Lily Knezevich looks at this deconstructive work in her ‘Truthmongering‘ and finds it flawed by what I will call ‘Knezevich’s fallacy.’. (shrink)

The main goal of this chapter is to argue that accessibilism in epistemology is incompatible with vehicle externalism in philosophy of mind. As we shall see, however, there are strong arguments for both of these positions. On the one hand, there is a compelling argument for vehicle externalism: the parity argument from Clark and Chalmers 1998. On the other hand, there is a compelling argument for accessibilism: the Moorean argument from Smithies 2012. If accessibilism is incompatible with vehicle externalism, (...) then both arguments cannot be sound. I resolve the tension by arguing that while the Moorean argument succeeds, the parity argument fails, and so vehicle externalism should be rejected on broadly epistemological grounds. (shrink)

Sceptical arguments, it is commonly claimed, may succeed in disarming some powerful objections to religious belief, but they do nothing more than establish a state of parity between the believer and the objector. For this reason, they make no positive contribution to the justification of religious belief and therefore are of value only to the fideist who insists that religious beliefs do not have and do not need rational support. However, while this opinion is widely held by philosophers of (...) religion, it ignores the fact that sceptical arguments have given rise to a constructive tradition in epistemology: what is often referred to as naturalism. In what follows I shall develop a suggestion from this tradition, and that is that sceptical arguments lead not to an abandonment of claims to justified belief but to a revision and contextualization of our epistemic standards. Though this suggestion can be found in a number of philosophers in this tradition, my inspiration for it comes from Pascal, who made an important place for scepticism in the evidentialist argument for Christianity which we find in the Pensées. To develop this suggestion, I shall first sketch a position inspired by Pascal and then argue that the possibilities it suggests have been insufficiently considered in a number of recent discussions of the importance of sceptical arguments in the epistemology of religious belief. (shrink)

The contemporary philosophical debate on free will and moral responsibility is rife with appeal to a variety of allegedly intuitive cases and principles. As a result, some have argued that many strands of this debate end in “dialectical stalemates,” boiling down to bedrock, seemingly intractable disagreements about intuition . Here I attempt to carve out a middle ground between conventional reliance on appeal to intuition and intuitional skepticism in regards to the philosophical discussion of moral responsibility in particular. The main (...) goal of this paper is to propose and defend a new methodological assumption that I argue responsibility theorists can and should accept, one that serves to preserve a general skepticism about the proper role of intuition in our responsibility theorizing while marking a particular class of our responsibility judgments as having a privileged epistemic status such that they can play a role in constraining our responsibility theorizing. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that the best way to explain the normative framework of science is to adopt a model inspired in the democratic characterization of a public sphere. This model assumes and develops some deliberative democratic principles about the inclusiveness of the concerned, the parity of the reasons and the general interest of the subjects. In contrast to both bargaining models and to power-inspired models of the scientific activities, the model of scientific public sphere proposes to account (...) for the self-legislative capacity of science, the public nature of the scientific results and the epistemic virtues of scientific research in terms of the deliberative process carried out by individuals who are engaging in the public use of reason. This perspective provides new insights into the normative conditions of a democratic science. (shrink)