Pub Date : 2022-07-29DOI: 10.5840/philtopics202149216
Sanford C. Goldberg
ABSTRACT:There are all sorts of normative expectations in epistemology—expectations about the epistemic condition of other subjects—that would appear to be relevant to epistemic assessment in ways that do not conform to epistemic standards as traditionally understood. The expectations in question include expectations of inquiries pursued or completed, expectations of certain competences, professional expectations, expectations of having consulted with experts, institutional expectations, moral expectations, expectations of friends, and so forth. My goals in this paper are two. First, I aim to highlight the prevalence of such expectations, and the range of distinct types of circumstance in which they arise. Second, I assess several responses to the allegation that normative epistemic expectations are relevant to epistemic assessment. These range from "explaining away" the appearances to trying to offer one or another positive account of their significance. The former sort of reaction comes at a greater cost than many appear to appreciate, given the prevalence of these expectations and the range of circumstances in which they arise. The latter sort of reaction comes at the cost of having to revise our account of epistemic assessment itself. My own favored view does so in terms of the doctrine of normative defeat; I present my reasons for preferring this view, though I cannot claim in this paper to vindicate it.
{"title":"Normative Expectations in Epistemology","authors":"Sanford C. Goldberg","doi":"10.5840/philtopics202149216","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/philtopics202149216","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:There are all sorts of normative expectations in epistemology—expectations about the epistemic condition of other subjects—that would appear to be relevant to epistemic assessment in ways that do not conform to epistemic standards as traditionally understood. The expectations in question include expectations of inquiries pursued or completed, expectations of certain competences, professional expectations, expectations of having consulted with experts, institutional expectations, moral expectations, expectations of friends, and so forth. My goals in this paper are two. First, I aim to highlight the prevalence of such expectations, and the range of distinct types of circumstance in which they arise. Second, I assess several responses to the allegation that normative epistemic expectations are relevant to epistemic assessment. These range from \"explaining away\" the appearances to trying to offer one or another positive account of their significance. The former sort of reaction comes at a greater cost than many appear to appreciate, given the prevalence of these expectations and the range of circumstances in which they arise. The latter sort of reaction comes at the cost of having to revise our account of epistemic assessment itself. My own favored view does so in terms of the doctrine of normative defeat; I present my reasons for preferring this view, though I cannot claim in this paper to vindicate it.","PeriodicalId":230797,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Topics","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133297967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-29DOI: 10.5840/philtopics202149222
C. Pavese
ABSTRACT:It is a platitude that when we reason, we often take things for granted, sometimes even justifiably so. Although it is a platitude that we often take things for granted when we reason—whether justifiably or not—one might think that we do not have to. In fact, it is a natural expectation that were we not pressed by time, lack of energy or focus, we could always in principle make explicit in the form of premises every single presupposition we make in the course of our reasoning. In other words, it is natural to expect it to be true that presuppositionless reasoning is possible. In this essay, I argue that it is false: presuppositionless reasoning is impossible. Indeed, I think this is one of the lessons of a long-standing paradox about inference and reasoning known as Lewis Carroll's (1985) regress of the premises. Many philosophers agree that Carroll's regress teaches us something foundational about reasoning. I part ways about what it is that it teaches us. What it teaches us is that the structure of reasoning is constitutively presuppositional.
{"title":"Reasoning and Presuppositions","authors":"C. Pavese","doi":"10.5840/philtopics202149222","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/philtopics202149222","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:It is a platitude that when we reason, we often take things for granted, sometimes even justifiably so. Although it is a platitude that we often take things for granted when we reason—whether justifiably or not—one might think that we do not have to. In fact, it is a natural expectation that were we not pressed by time, lack of energy or focus, we could always in principle make explicit in the form of premises every single presupposition we make in the course of our reasoning. In other words, it is natural to expect it to be true that presuppositionless reasoning is possible. In this essay, I argue that it is false: presuppositionless reasoning is impossible. Indeed, I think this is one of the lessons of a long-standing paradox about inference and reasoning known as Lewis Carroll's (1985) regress of the premises. Many philosophers agree that Carroll's regress teaches us something foundational about reasoning. I part ways about what it is that it teaches us. What it teaches us is that the structure of reasoning is constitutively presuppositional.","PeriodicalId":230797,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Topics","volume":"21 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130793655","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-29DOI: 10.5840/philtopics202149218
J. Greco
ABSTRACT:A central theme in social epistemology is that there are important and underappreciated phenomena involving social epistemic dependence—that is, epistemic dependence on other persons and on features of the broader social environment. Epistemologies that are inconsistent with this kind of dependence are labeled "individualist" and epistemologies that accommodate it are labeled "anti-individualist." But how should the relevant notion of social epistemic dependence be understood? One important criterion for an adequate account is that it plausibly sorts epistemologies into the "individualist" and "anti-individualist" categories. For example, standard reductionism about testimonial justification and knowledge should count as individualist, and many trust theories should count as anti-individualist. This paper argues that several accounts of social epistemic dependence in the literature fail to pass this simple sorting test. An alternative account that does is proposed.
{"title":"What Is Social Epistemic Dependence?","authors":"J. Greco","doi":"10.5840/philtopics202149218","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/philtopics202149218","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:A central theme in social epistemology is that there are important and underappreciated phenomena involving social epistemic dependence—that is, epistemic dependence on other persons and on features of the broader social environment. Epistemologies that are inconsistent with this kind of dependence are labeled \"individualist\" and epistemologies that accommodate it are labeled \"anti-individualist.\" But how should the relevant notion of social epistemic dependence be understood? One important criterion for an adequate account is that it plausibly sorts epistemologies into the \"individualist\" and \"anti-individualist\" categories. For example, standard reductionism about testimonial justification and knowledge should count as individualist, and many trust theories should count as anti-individualist. This paper argues that several accounts of social epistemic dependence in the literature fail to pass this simple sorting test. An alternative account that does is proposed.","PeriodicalId":230797,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Topics","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129906759","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-29DOI: 10.5840/philtopics202149220
Errol Lord
ABSTRACT:This paper is about the epistemology of perceptual experiences that have enriched high-level content. Enriched high-level content is content about features other than shape, color, and spatial relations that has a particular etiology. Its etiology runs through states of the agent that process other perceptual content and output sensory content about high-level features. My main contention is that the justification provided by such experiences (for claims about the high-level content) is not foundational justification. This is because the justification provided by such experiences is epistemically dependent on having justification to believe certain claims about the content relevant for enrichment—claims about what I call the corresponding features.
{"title":"Enriched Perceptual Content and the Limits of Foundationalism","authors":"Errol Lord","doi":"10.5840/philtopics202149220","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/philtopics202149220","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This paper is about the epistemology of perceptual experiences that have enriched high-level content. Enriched high-level content is content about features other than shape, color, and spatial relations that has a particular etiology. Its etiology runs through states of the agent that process other perceptual content and output sensory content about high-level features. My main contention is that the justification provided by such experiences (for claims about the high-level content) is not foundational justification. This is because the justification provided by such experiences is epistemically dependent on having justification to believe certain claims about the content relevant for enrichment—claims about what I call the corresponding features.","PeriodicalId":230797,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Topics","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127336673","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-29DOI: 10.5840/philtopics202149219
Jennifer Lackey
ABSTRACT:What kind of reasons for belief are provided by the testimony of experts? In a world where we are often inundated with fake news, misinformation, and conspiracy theories, this question is more pressing than ever. A prominent view in the philosophical literature maintains that the reasons provided by experts are preemptive in that they normatively screen off, or defeat, other relevant reasons. In this paper, I raise problems for this conception of expertise, including a wholly new one that I call the Problem of the Predatory Expert, which targets both original versions of preemption as well as new, modified ones that aim to avoid some of the standard objections.
{"title":"Preemption and the Problem of the Predatory Expert","authors":"Jennifer Lackey","doi":"10.5840/philtopics202149219","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/philtopics202149219","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:What kind of reasons for belief are provided by the testimony of experts? In a world where we are often inundated with fake news, misinformation, and conspiracy theories, this question is more pressing than ever. A prominent view in the philosophical literature maintains that the reasons provided by experts are preemptive in that they normatively screen off, or defeat, other relevant reasons. In this paper, I raise problems for this conception of expertise, including a wholly new one that I call the Problem of the Predatory Expert, which targets both original versions of preemption as well as new, modified ones that aim to avoid some of the standard objections.","PeriodicalId":230797,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Topics","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127978402","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-29DOI: 10.5840/philtopics202149228
C. Wright
ABSTRACT:Anti-exceptionalism about logic, in its original Quinean incarnation, may be summarized as the thesis that logic is, in effect, simply a deeply entrenched part of empirical-scientific theory. It may thus be taken to involve two principal, distinguishable claims: First, Corroboration—that the epistemic good standing of logical principles is properly earned in the same way as the confirmation of all empirical scientific laws. We are justified in accepting such principles by, and only by, their participation in ongoing successful empirical-scientific theory. Second, Rejection—that, as with empirical-scientific hypotheses, logical principles are one and all in principle open to rational rejection or revision on purely empirical grounds if the system in which they are participant runs into "recalcitrant experience" and such an adjustment promises to smooth out the wrinkles. It is argued that neither claim can be sustained in full generality.
{"title":"Making Exceptions","authors":"C. Wright","doi":"10.5840/philtopics202149228","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/philtopics202149228","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Anti-exceptionalism about logic, in its original Quinean incarnation, may be summarized as the thesis that logic is, in effect, simply a deeply entrenched part of empirical-scientific theory. It may thus be taken to involve two principal, distinguishable claims: First, Corroboration—that the epistemic good standing of logical principles is properly earned in the same way as the confirmation of all empirical scientific laws. We are justified in accepting such principles by, and only by, their participation in ongoing successful empirical-scientific theory. Second, Rejection—that, as with empirical-scientific hypotheses, logical principles are one and all in principle open to rational rejection or revision on purely empirical grounds if the system in which they are participant runs into \"recalcitrant experience\" and such an adjustment promises to smooth out the wrinkles. It is argued that neither claim can be sustained in full generality.","PeriodicalId":230797,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Topics","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116177391","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-29DOI: 10.5840/philtopics202149217
A. Goldman
ABSTRACT:According to process reliabilism, a person's belief is justified just in case it is generated by a reliable belief-forming process. If somebody merely wishes that P is true, and proceeds to believe it for that reason only, the belief is not justified. Some critics of reliabilism, however, point out that each token process that causes a particular belief is of numerous different types, which can vary in reliability. So, which type must be sufficiently reliable? Process reliabilism needs to solve this "generality" problem. However, I argue that this requirement is overly stringent. As long as a target believer actually does employ a reliable belief forming process to arrive at his/her belief, that believer can rightly be credited with holding the belief justifiedly. The believer need not know what the details of the process are.
{"title":"A Different Solution to the Generality Problem for Process Reliabilism","authors":"A. Goldman","doi":"10.5840/philtopics202149217","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/philtopics202149217","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:According to process reliabilism, a person's belief is justified just in case it is generated by a reliable belief-forming process. If somebody merely wishes that P is true, and proceeds to believe it for that reason only, the belief is not justified. Some critics of reliabilism, however, point out that each token process that causes a particular belief is of numerous different types, which can vary in reliability. So, which type must be sufficiently reliable? Process reliabilism needs to solve this \"generality\" problem. However, I argue that this requirement is overly stringent. As long as a target believer actually does employ a reliable belief forming process to arrive at his/her belief, that believer can rightly be credited with holding the belief justifiedly. The believer need not know what the details of the process are.","PeriodicalId":230797,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Topics","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132427857","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-29DOI: 10.5840/philtopics202149227
Elise Woodard
ABSTRACT: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 ignorance norm, on which agents are not permitted to both know and have interrogative attitudes, such as wondering. I argue that there are compelling reasons to deny the former and reasons to question the latter. Both options pave the way for further work on further inquiry.
{"title":"The Ignorance Norm and Paradoxical Assertions","authors":"Elise Woodard","doi":"10.5840/philtopics202149227","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/philtopics202149227","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT: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 ignorance norm, on which agents are not permitted to both know and have interrogative attitudes, such as wondering. I argue that there are compelling reasons to deny the former and reasons to question the latter. Both options pave the way for further work on further inquiry.","PeriodicalId":230797,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Topics","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130756927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-29DOI: 10.5840/philtopics202149229
Jaako Hirvelä, Maria Lasonen-Aarnio
ABSTRACT:The notion of credit plays a central role in virtue epistemology and in the literature on moral worth. While virtue epistemologists and ethicists have devoted a significant amount of work to providing an account of creditable success, a unified theory of credit applicable to both epistemology and ethics, as well as a discussion of the general form it should take, are largely missing from the literature. Our goal is to lay out a theory of credit that seems to underlie much of the discussion in virtue epistemology, which we dub the Cake Theory. We argue that given the goals that virtue epistemologists and ethicists who discuss moral worth have, this theory is problematic, for it makes credit depend on the wrong facts.
{"title":"The Cake Theory of Credit","authors":"Jaako Hirvelä, Maria Lasonen-Aarnio","doi":"10.5840/philtopics202149229","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/philtopics202149229","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:The notion of credit plays a central role in virtue epistemology and in the literature on moral worth. While virtue epistemologists and ethicists have devoted a significant amount of work to providing an account of creditable success, a unified theory of credit applicable to both epistemology and ethics, as well as a discussion of the general form it should take, are largely missing from the literature. Our goal is to lay out a theory of credit that seems to underlie much of the discussion in virtue epistemology, which we dub the Cake Theory. We argue that given the goals that virtue epistemologists and ethicists who discuss moral worth have, this theory is problematic, for it makes credit depend on the wrong facts.","PeriodicalId":230797,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Topics","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115053796","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-29DOI: 10.5840/philtopics202149221
M. McGrath
ABSTRACT:Although belief formation is sometimes automatic, there are occasions in which we have the power to put it off, to wait on belief-formation. Waiting in this sense seems assessable by epistemic norms. This paper explores what form such norms might take: the nature and their content. A key question is how these norms relate to epistemic norms on belief-formation: could we have cases in which one ought to believe that p but also ought to wait on forming a belief on whether p? Plausibly not. But if not, how can we explain this impossibility? I suggest that the best resolution is to view the traditional core norms on belief as themselves conditional in a certain sense, one that I think has independent plausibility. The results of this investigation may also tell us something about epistemic norms on suspension, on the assumption, which I defend elsewhere, that suspension is waiting.
{"title":"Epistemic Norms for Waiting (and Suspension)","authors":"M. McGrath","doi":"10.5840/philtopics202149221","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/philtopics202149221","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Although belief formation is sometimes automatic, there are occasions in which we have the power to put it off, to wait on belief-formation. Waiting in this sense seems assessable by epistemic norms. This paper explores what form such norms might take: the nature and their content. A key question is how these norms relate to epistemic norms on belief-formation: could we have cases in which one ought to believe that p but also ought to wait on forming a belief on whether p? Plausibly not. But if not, how can we explain this impossibility? I suggest that the best resolution is to view the traditional core norms on belief as themselves conditional in a certain sense, one that I think has independent plausibility. The results of this investigation may also tell us something about epistemic norms on suspension, on the assumption, which I defend elsewhere, that suspension is waiting.","PeriodicalId":230797,"journal":{"name":"Philosophical Topics","volume":"118 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114811701","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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