- n/a
J. Adam Carter
University of Glasgow, Philosophy, Faculty Member
- Epistemology, Axiology, Value Theory, Philosophy, Social Epistemology, Knowledge, and 28 moreRelativism, Virtue Epistemology, Epistemic Value, Epistemology of Disagreement, Contextualism and relativism, Cognitive Ability, Epistemic Virtue, Intellectual Virtue, Assertion, Swamping Problem, Knowledge How, Knowledge-How, Gettier Problem, Understanding, Epistemic Luck, Internalism/Externalism, Extended Mind, Extended Cognition, Epistemic Norms, Epistemic Normativity, Testimony, Philosophy Of Language, Philosophical Scepticism, Distributed Cognition, Metaphilosophy, Skepticism, Normative Epistemology, and Epistemology of Testimonyedit
- Website: http://www.jadamcarter.comedit
Research Interests:
This is a book draft on the metaphysics and epistemology of group polarization
Research Interests: Collective Behavior, Psychology, Social Psychology, Philosophy, Epistemology, and 15 moreCollective Intelligence, Collective Action, Polarization (Ideology), Epistemic Justification, Social Epistemology, Virtue Epistemology, Collective Intentionality, Moral Philosophy, Virtues and Vices, Cognitive Bias, Knowledge, Polarization, Group Polarization, Polarization Diversity, and Vice Epistemology
This is the editors' introduction to a forthcoming (2017) edited volume on the moral psychology of pride, to appear in the Moral Psychology of the Emotion series, (ed.) M. Alfano (Rowman & Littlefield). Available to order September 2017:... more
This is the editors' introduction to a forthcoming (2017) edited volume on the moral psychology of pride, to appear in the Moral Psychology of the Emotion series, (ed.) M. Alfano (Rowman & Littlefield).
Available to order September 2017: http://www.rowmaninternational.com/buy-books/product-details/?productId=3-156-796db39d-91b6-499e-ba0c-d487d0bb06bb
Available to order September 2017: http://www.rowmaninternational.com/buy-books/product-details/?productId=3-156-796db39d-91b6-499e-ba0c-d487d0bb06bb
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Is knowledge relative? Many academics across the humanities are happy to say that it is. However, those who work in mainstream epistemology, the philosophical theory of knowledge, generally take for granted that it is not.... more
Is knowledge relative? Many academics across the humanities are happy to say that it is. However, those who work in mainstream epistemology, the philosophical theory of knowledge, generally take for granted that it is not. Metaepistemology and Relativism questions whether the kind of anti-relativistic background that underlies most typical projects in mainstream epistemology can on closer inspection be vindicated. To this end, prominent and diverse argument strategies for epistemic relativism are considered and criticised. It is shown that a common weakness of more traditional argument strategies for epistemic relativism is that they fail to decisively motivate relativism over scepticism. Interestingly, though, this style of objection cannot be effectively redeployed against the new (semantic) variety of epistemic relativism—itself introduced only in the past decade. Although new (semantic) epistemic relativism constitutes an entirely different kind of challenge to mainstream epistemology than traditional forms, the new variety itself faces a dilemma. Once the dilemma is appreciated, it will be shown that the threat to mainstream epistemology that epistemic relativism is best understood as posing is in fact a very different one than we’d be originally inclined to think.
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This volume will consist of fourteen full-length articles by leading and up-and-coming philosophers on the topic of knowledge-first approaches, broadly construed, in epistemology, mind and other related areas. Knowledge-First: A... more
This volume will consist of fourteen full-length articles by leading and up-and-coming philosophers on the topic of knowledge-first approaches, broadly construed, in epistemology, mind and other related areas.
Knowledge-First: A background
“Knowledge-First” constitutes what is widely regarded as the most significant innovation in contemporary epistemology in the past twenty-five years. Knowledge-first epistemology is (in short) the idea that knowledge per se is an epistemic kind with theoretical importance that is not derivative from its relationship to other epistemic kinds such as rationality. Knowledge-first epistemology is rightly associated with Timothy Williamson in light of his influential book, Knowledge and Its Limits (KAIL). In KAIL, Williamson suggests that although knowing might be characterised as a very general kind of factive mental state, meeting the conditions for knowing is not constitutively explained by meeting the conditions for anything else, e.g. justified true belief. Accordingly, knowledge is conceptually and metaphysically prior to other cognitive and epistemic kinds. In this way, the concept KNOW is a theoretical primitive. The status of KNOW as a theoretical primitive makes it particularly suitable for using it to make substantive constitutive and causal explanations of a number of other phenomena, including the nature of belief, the nature of evidence, and the success of intentional actions.
Ways of Extending Knowledge-First
One of the principal virtues of the knowledge-first approach in epistemology is the way that it connects epistemology to other areas in philosophy. This virtue explains in part some of the wide-ranging impact the knowledge-first approach has had over the past decade or so, and it is a virtue that our proposed volume shares. Specifically, the volume will explore not merely the knowledge-first approach in epistemology, but also its ramifications for a variety of areas in philosophy, including the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, the philosophy of action, and value theory. For this reason, we think that the theme of the volume is well chosen. It is focused enough so that intellectual exchange between researchers will be productive. However, it is focused on a topic that is amenable to research in a variety of different areas in philosophy.
Knowledge-First: A background
“Knowledge-First” constitutes what is widely regarded as the most significant innovation in contemporary epistemology in the past twenty-five years. Knowledge-first epistemology is (in short) the idea that knowledge per se is an epistemic kind with theoretical importance that is not derivative from its relationship to other epistemic kinds such as rationality. Knowledge-first epistemology is rightly associated with Timothy Williamson in light of his influential book, Knowledge and Its Limits (KAIL). In KAIL, Williamson suggests that although knowing might be characterised as a very general kind of factive mental state, meeting the conditions for knowing is not constitutively explained by meeting the conditions for anything else, e.g. justified true belief. Accordingly, knowledge is conceptually and metaphysically prior to other cognitive and epistemic kinds. In this way, the concept KNOW is a theoretical primitive. The status of KNOW as a theoretical primitive makes it particularly suitable for using it to make substantive constitutive and causal explanations of a number of other phenomena, including the nature of belief, the nature of evidence, and the success of intentional actions.
Ways of Extending Knowledge-First
One of the principal virtues of the knowledge-first approach in epistemology is the way that it connects epistemology to other areas in philosophy. This virtue explains in part some of the wide-ranging impact the knowledge-first approach has had over the past decade or so, and it is a virtue that our proposed volume shares. Specifically, the volume will explore not merely the knowledge-first approach in epistemology, but also its ramifications for a variety of areas in philosophy, including the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, the philosophy of action, and value theory. For this reason, we think that the theme of the volume is well chosen. It is focused enough so that intellectual exchange between researchers will be productive. However, it is focused on a topic that is amenable to research in a variety of different areas in philosophy.
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Moore and Russell thought that perceptual knowledge of the external world is based on abductive inference from information about our experience. Sosa maintains that this 'indirect realist' strategy has no prospects of working. 1 Vogel... more
Moore and Russell thought that perceptual knowledge of the external world is based on abductive inference from information about our experience. Sosa maintains that this 'indirect realist' strategy has no prospects of working. 1 Vogel disagrees and thinks it can and does work perfectly well, and his reasoning (and variations on that reasoning) seem initially promising, moreso than other approaches. 2 My aim, however, will be to adjudicate this dispute in favor of Sosa's pessimistic answer, and in doing so, to better uncover the important role abductive inference does have in a wider theory of perceptual knowledge, even if it doesn't feature in any promising vindication of (anti-skeptical) indirect realism.
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A common objection to Sosa’s epistemology is that it countenances, in an objectionable way, unsafe knowledge. This objection, under closer inspection, turns out to be in far worse shape than Sosa’s critics have realised. Sosa and his... more
A common objection to Sosa’s epistemology is that it countenances, in an objectionable way, unsafe knowledge. This objection, under closer inspection, turns out to be in far worse shape than Sosa’s critics have realised. Sosa and his defenders have offered two central response types to the idea that allowing unsafe knowledge is problematic: one response type adverts to the animal/reflective knowledge distinction that is characteristic of bi-level virtue epistemology. The other less-discussed response type appeals to the threat of dream scepticism, and in particular, to the idea that many of our everyday perceptual beliefs are unsafe through the nearness of the dream possibility. The latter dreaming response to the safety objection to Sosa’s virtue epistemology has largely flown under the radar in contemporary discussions of safety and knowledge. We think that, suitably articulated in view of research in the philosophy and science of dreaming, it has much more going for it than has been appreciated. This paper further develops, beyond what Sosa does himself, the dreaming argument in response to those who think safety (as traditionally understood) is a condition on knowledge and who object to Sosa’s account on the grounds that it fails this condition. The payoffs of further developing this argument will be not only a better understanding of the importance of insights about dreaming against safety as a condition on knowledge, but also some reason to think a weaker safety condition, one that is relativised to SSS (i.e., skill/shape/situation) conditions for competence exercise, gets better results all things considered as an anti-luck codicil on knowledge.
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Abstract: We explore new connections between the epistemologies of mental rehearsal and suppositional reasoning to offer a novel perspective on skilled behavior and its relationship to practical knowledge. We argue that practical... more
Abstract: We explore new connections between the epistemologies of mental rehearsal and suppositional reasoning to offer a novel perspective on skilled behavior and its relationship to practical knowledge. We argue that practical knowledge is "easy" in the sense that, by manifesting one's skills, one has a priori propositional justification for certain beliefs about what one is doing as one does it. This proposal has wider consequences for debates about intentional action and knowledge: first, because agents sometimes act intentionally in epistemically hazardous environments, these justified beliefs do not always rise to the level of (practical) knowledge. Second, practical knowledge is more intimately related to basic knowledge than has been appreciated. Third, an attractive "middle way" opens between the Anscombian tradition of defending a necessary connection between intentional action and practical knowledge and the more recent tradition of explaining away substantive epistemic conditions on intentional action.
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A widespread assumption in debates about trust and trustworthiness is that the evaluative norms of principal interest on the trustor’s side of a cooperative exchange regulate trusting attitudes and performances whereas those on the... more
A widespread assumption in debates about trust and trustworthiness is that the evaluative norms of principal interest on the trustor’s side of a cooperative exchange regulate trusting attitudes and performances whereas those on the trustee’s side regulate dispositions to respond to trust. The aim here will be to highlight some unnoticed problems with this asymmetrical picture – and in particular, how it elides certain key evaluative norms on both the trustor’s and trustee’s side the satisfaction of which are critical to successful cooperative exchanges – and to show that a symmetrical, ‘achievement-first’ approach to theorising about trust and trustworthienss (and their relation to each other) has important advantages by comparison. The view I develop is guided by a structural analogy with practical reasoning. Just as practical reasoning is working as it should only when there is realisation (knowledge and action) of states (belief and intention) with reverse directions of fits (mind-to-world and world-to-mind), likewise, cooperation between trustor and trustee is functioning as it should only when there is an analogous kind of realisation on both sides of the cooperative exchange – viz., when the trustor ‘matches’ her achievement in trusting (an achievement in fitting reliance to reciprocity) with the trustee’s achievement in responding to trust (an achievement in fitting reciprocity to reliance). An upshot of viewing cooperation between trustor and trustee as exhibiting achievement-theoretic structure is that we will be better positioned to subsume trustworthiness (and its cognates on the trustee’s side), like trust, under a wider suite of evaluative norms that regulate attempts, dispositions, and achievements symmetrically on both sides of a cooperative exchange, with ‘matching achievements’ as the gold standard.
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Whereas epistemology is (broadly speaking) the philosophical theory of knowledge, its nature and scope, metaepistemology takes a step back from particular substantive debates in epistemology in order to inquire into the assumptions and... more
Whereas epistemology is (broadly speaking) the philosophical theory of knowledge, its nature and scope, metaepistemology takes a step back from particular substantive debates in epistemology in order to inquire into the assumptions and commitments made by those who engage in these debates. This entry will focus on a selection of these assumptions and commitments, including (§1) whether (or not) there are objective epistemic facts; and how to characterize (§2) the subject matter and (§3) the methodology of epistemology.
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Structural analogies connect Williamson's (2000; 2017) epistemology and action theory: for example, action is the direction-of-fit mirror image of knowledge, and knowledge stands to belief as action stands to intention. These structural... more
Structural analogies connect Williamson's (2000; 2017) epistemology and action theory: for example, action is the direction-of-fit mirror image of knowledge, and knowledge stands to belief as action stands to intention. These structural analogies, for Williamson, are meant to illuminate more generally how 'mirrors' reversing direction of fit should be understood as connecting the spectrum of our cognitive and practically oriented mental states. This paper has two central aims, one negative and the other positive. The negative aim is to highlight some intractable problems with Williamson's preferred analogical picture, which links the cognitive and the practical through the nexus of direction-of-fit mirroring. The positive aim of the paper is to propose a better alternative. In particular, we show that an achievement-theoretic proposal captures what is in common across the range of attitudes that exhibit the kind of structure that knowledge-belief, action-desire/intention do, while at the same time avoiding the problems shown to face Williamson's proposed picture. Moreover, we draw attention to several key theoretical benefits of embracing our proposed achievement-theoretic picture, including some of the key benefits of the knowledge-first programme that Williamson's own analogies were designed to secure.
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We argue that any strong version of a knowledge condition on intentional action, the practical knowledge principle, on which knowledge of what I am doing (under some description: call it A-ing) is necessary for that A-ing to qualify as an... more
We argue that any strong version of a knowledge condition on intentional action, the practical knowledge principle, on which knowledge of what I am doing (under some description: call it A-ing) is necessary for that A-ing to qualify as an intentional action, is false. Our argument involves a new kind of case, one that centers the agent's control appropriately and thus improves upon Davidson's well-known carbon copier case. After discussing this case, offering an initial argument against the knowledge condition, and discussing recent treatments that cover nearby ground, we consider several objections. One we consider at some length maintains that although contemplative knowledge may be disconnected from intentional action, specifically practical knowledge of the sort Anscombe elucidated escapes our argument. We demonstrate that this is not so. Our argument illuminates an important truth, often overlooked in discussions of the knowledge-intentional action relationship: intentional action and knowledge have different levels of permissiveness regarding failure in similar circumstances.
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It is argued that trust is a performative kind and that the evaluative normativity of trust is a special case of the evaluative normativity of performances generally. The view is shown to have advantages over competitor views, e.g.,... more
It is argued that trust is a performative kind and that the evaluative normativity of trust is a special case of the evaluative normativity of performances generally. The view is shown to have advantages over competitor views, e.g., according to which good trusting is principally a matter of good believing (e.g.. Moreover, the view can be easily extended to explain good (and bad) distrust , where the latter is understood as aimed (narrow-scoped) forbear-ance from trusting. The overarching framework-which assimilates the evaluative norms of trusting (and distrusting) to performance-theoretic norms-supplies us with an entirely new lens to view traditional philosophical problems about what is involved in trusting and distrusting well and badly, and thus, places our capacity to make progress on problems in this area on a new footing
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This paper focuses on a specific kind of (epistemic) normative conflict, collateral normative conflict-viz., where cognition's working badly at the global level of general dispositions to believe is the price to be paid for its working... more
This paper focuses on a specific kind of (epistemic) normative conflict, collateral normative conflict-viz., where cognition's working badly at the global level of general dispositions to believe is the price to be paid for its working well locally. I argue that such normative conflicts are much rarer than Williamson (2021) and Lasonen-Aarnio (2010) take them to be, even though, and contra proponents of revisionary defeat (e.g., Brown 2018), knowers can, as Williamson and Lasonen-Aarnio rightly maintain, at least sometimes disregard misleading evidence from reliable sources. My rationale for the rarity of collateral epistemic conflicts draws from recent insights by Sosa (2021) on the appropriateness of aiming, in certain domains of inquiry, not just at knowledge, but at knowledge firsthand. A consequence of the rationale offered, however, is that an entirely different kind of normative conflict-what I call cross-modal normative conflict-turns out to be much more common than appreciated.
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Trust is a topic of longstanding philosophical interest. It is indispensable to every kind of coordinated human activity, from sport to scientific research. Even more, trust is necessary for the successful dissemination of knowledge, and... more
Trust is a topic of longstanding philosophical interest. It is indispensable to every kind of coordinated human activity, from sport to scientific research. Even more, trust is necessary for the successful dissemination of knowledge, and by extension, for nearly any form of practical deliberation and planning. Without trust, we could achieve few of our goals and would know very little. Despite trust’s fundamental importance in human life, there is substantial philosophical disagreement about what trust is, and further, how trusting is normatively constrained and best theorized about in relation to other things we value. This entry is divided into three sections, which explore key (and sometimes interconnected) ethical and epistemological themes in the philosophy of trust: (1) The Nature of Trust; (2) The Normativity of Trust, and (3) The Value of Trust.
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Disagreement is among the most thriving topics in mainstream and social epistemology. The research question responsible for initially launching the epistemology of disagreement as its own subfield in the early 2000s can be put very... more
Disagreement is among the most thriving topics in mainstream and social epistemology. The research question responsible for initially launching the epistemology of disagreement as its own subfield in the early 2000s can be put very simply: suppose you believe some proposition, p, is true. You come to find out that an individual whom you thought was equally likely as you are to be right about whether p is true, believes not-p. What should you do? Are you rationally required, given this new evidence, to revise your initial belief that p, or is it rationally permissible to simply ‘hold steadfast’ to your belief that p with the same degree of confidence that you did before you found out your believed-to-be epistemic peer disagreed with you? Call this the peer disagreement question. How we go about answering this question has obvious practical ramifications: we disagree with people we think are our peers often; knowing what we should do, epistemically, would be valuable guidance. But the peer disagreement question is also important for epistemologists to understand, theoretically speaking, given that it has direct ramifications for how we should understand disagreement itself as a form of evidence.
Unsurprisingly, responses to the peer disagreement question have fallen into two broadly opposing categories: those who think that discovering that an epistemic peer disagrees with you rationality requires you to some substantial kind of conciliation —perhaps even agnosticism —and those who think that it does not. Interestingly, the past ten years or so have shown that--in the close orbit of the peer disagreement question--are a range of related and interesting epistemological questions, questions that are perhaps just as epistemologically as well as practically significant.
Just consider that the peer disagreement question is individualistically framed. It is a question about what rationality requires of an individual when they disagree with another individual about some contested proposition. Gaining an answer tells us, at most, and in short, what individuals should do in the face of epistemic adversity. But we also want to know what groups should do in the face of epistemic adversity. For example: what should a group---say, a scientific committee--do if it turns out that one of the members on the committee holds a view that runs contrary to the consensus? It would be convenient if answering questions about how individuals should respond to epistemic adversity implied answers to the interesting questions about how groups should do the same. Unfortunately, though, things are not so simple. This is because, to a first approximation, the epistemic properties of groups are not, as recent collective epistemology has suggested, always simply reducible to an aggregation of the epistemic properties of its members. If we want to understand what groups should do, rationally speaking, when there is internal disagreement among members, or when there is disagreement between a group and individuals or groups external to the group, we cannot and should not expect to find the answers we need simply by looking to the results social epistemology has given us to questions individualistically framed.The topic of this volume---the epistemology of group disagreement---aims to face the complex topic of group disagreement head on; it represents the first-ever volume of papers dedicated exclusively to group disagreement and to the epistemological puzzles such disagreements raise. The volume consists of twelve new essays by leading epistemologists working in the area, and it spans a range of different key themes related to group disagreement, some established themes and others entirely new. In what follows, we offer brief summaries of these twelve chapters, drawing some connections between them where appropriate.
Unsurprisingly, responses to the peer disagreement question have fallen into two broadly opposing categories: those who think that discovering that an epistemic peer disagrees with you rationality requires you to some substantial kind of conciliation —perhaps even agnosticism —and those who think that it does not. Interestingly, the past ten years or so have shown that--in the close orbit of the peer disagreement question--are a range of related and interesting epistemological questions, questions that are perhaps just as epistemologically as well as practically significant.
Just consider that the peer disagreement question is individualistically framed. It is a question about what rationality requires of an individual when they disagree with another individual about some contested proposition. Gaining an answer tells us, at most, and in short, what individuals should do in the face of epistemic adversity. But we also want to know what groups should do in the face of epistemic adversity. For example: what should a group---say, a scientific committee--do if it turns out that one of the members on the committee holds a view that runs contrary to the consensus? It would be convenient if answering questions about how individuals should respond to epistemic adversity implied answers to the interesting questions about how groups should do the same. Unfortunately, though, things are not so simple. This is because, to a first approximation, the epistemic properties of groups are not, as recent collective epistemology has suggested, always simply reducible to an aggregation of the epistemic properties of its members. If we want to understand what groups should do, rationally speaking, when there is internal disagreement among members, or when there is disagreement between a group and individuals or groups external to the group, we cannot and should not expect to find the answers we need simply by looking to the results social epistemology has given us to questions individualistically framed.The topic of this volume---the epistemology of group disagreement---aims to face the complex topic of group disagreement head on; it represents the first-ever volume of papers dedicated exclusively to group disagreement and to the epistemological puzzles such disagreements raise. The volume consists of twelve new essays by leading epistemologists working in the area, and it spans a range of different key themes related to group disagreement, some established themes and others entirely new. In what follows, we offer brief summaries of these twelve chapters, drawing some connections between them where appropriate.
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Suppose an inquiring group wants to let a certain view stand as the group's view. But there’s a problem: the individuals in that group do not initially all agree with one another about what the correct view is. What should the group do,... more
Suppose an inquiring group wants to let a certain view stand as the group's view. But there’s a problem: the individuals in that group do not initially all agree with one another about what the correct view is. What should the group do, given that it wants to settle on a single answer, in the face of this kind of intragroup disagreement? Should the group members deliberate and exchange evidence and then take a vote? Or, given the well-known ways that evidence exchange can go wrong, e.g., by exacerbating pre-existing biases, compromising the independence of individual judgments, etc., should the group simply take a vote without deliberating at all? While this question has multiple dimensions to it—including ethical and political dimensions—we approach the question through an epistemological lens. In particular, we investigate to what extent it is epistemically advantageous and disadvantageous that groups whose members disagree over some issue use deliberation in comparison to voting as a way to reach collective agreements. Extant approaches in the literature to this ‘deliberation versus voting’ comparison typically assume there is some univocal answer as to which group strategy is best, epistemically. We think this assumption is mistaken. We approach the deliberation versus voting question from a pluralist perspective, in that we hold that a group’s collective endeavor to solve an internal dispute can be aimed at different, albeit not necessarily incompatible, epistemic goals, namely the goals of truth, evidence, understanding, and epistemic justice. Different answers to our guiding question, we show, correspond with different epistemic goals. We conclude by exploring several ways to mitigate the potential epistemic disadvantages of solving intragroup disagreement by means of deliberation in relation to each epistemic goal.
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YouTube has been implicated in the transformation of users into extremists and conspiracy theorists. The alleged mechanism for this radicalizing process is YouTube's recommender system, which is optimized to amplify and promote clips that... more
YouTube has been implicated in the transformation of users into extremists and conspiracy theorists. The alleged mechanism for this radicalizing process is YouTube's recommender system, which is optimized to amplify and promote clips that users are likely to watch through to the end. YouTube optimizes for watch-through for economic reasons: people who watch a video through to the end are likely to then watch the next recommended video as well, which means that more advertisements can be served to them. This is a seemingly innocuous design choice, but it has a troubling side-effect. Critics of YouTube have alleged that the recommender system tends to recommend extremist content and conspiracy theories, as such videos are especially likely to capture and keep users' attention. To date, the problem of radicalization via the YouTube recommender system has been a matter of speculation. The current study represents the first systematic, pre-registered attempt to establish whether and to what extent the recommender system tends to promote such content. We begin by contextualizing our study in the framework of technological seduction. Next, we explain our methodology. After that, we present our results, which are consistent with the radicalization hypothesis. Finally, we discuss our findings, as well as directions for future research and recommendations for users, industry, and policy-makers.
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Full aptness is the most important concept in performance-based virtue epistemology. The structure of full aptness, in epistemology and elsewhere, is bi-levelled. At the first level, we evaluate beliefs, like performances, on the basis of... more
Full aptness is the most important concept in performance-based virtue epistemology. The structure of full aptness, in epistemology and elsewhere, is bi-levelled. At the first level, we evaluate beliefs, like performances, on the basis of whether they are successful, competent, and apt – viz., successful because competent. But the fact that aptness itself can be fragile – as it is when an apt performance could easily have been inapt – points to a higher zone of quality beyond mere aptness. To break in to this zone, one must not merely perform aptly but also in doing so safeguard in skilled ways against certain risks to inaptness. But how must this be done, exactly? This paper has two central aims. First, I challenge the credentials of mainstream thinking about full-aptness by raising some new and serious problems for the view. I then propose a novel account of full aptness – what I call de minimis normativism – which keeps all the advantages of the canonical view, avoids its problems entirely, and offers some additional payoffs.
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This is the Editor's introduction to Well-Founded Belief: New Essays on the Epistemic Basing Relation (Forthcoming, Routledge 2020)
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Recent work on the epistemology of moral deference suggests that moral knowledge must derive from a knower's own ability in a way that knowledge acquired easily through testimony need not. This paper transposes this idea to the collective... more
Recent work on the epistemology of moral deference suggests that moral knowledge must derive from a knower's own ability in a way that knowledge acquired easily through testimony need not. This paper transposes this idea to the collective level, and in doing so, shows how two leading accounts of collective knowledge, the joint acceptance account and the distributed account, would be best positioned to countenance group-level moral knowledge as knowledge creditable to group-level ability. The upshot is that we uncover some hitherto unnoticed puzzles to do with defeat in collective moral epistemology, puzzles which reveal collective moral knowledge to be surprisingly fragile vis-à-vis higher-order defeat compared to individual-level moral knowledge. A consequence of this disanalogy is that more work needs done if non-skeptical collective moral epistemology is to hold water.
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A bi-level account of trust is developed and defended, one with relevance in ethics as well as epistemology. The proposed account of trust-on which trusting is modelled within a virtue-theoretic framework as a performance-type with an... more
A bi-level account of trust is developed and defended, one with relevance in ethics as well as epistemology. The proposed account of trust-on which trusting is modelled within a virtue-theoretic framework as a performance-type with an aim-distinguishes between two distinct levels of trust, apt and convictive, that take us beyond previous assessments of its nature, value, and relationship to risk assessment. While Ernest Sosa (2009; 2015; 2017), in particular, has shown how a performance normativity model may be fruitfully applied to belief, my objective is to apply this kind of model in a novel and principled way to trust. I conclude by outlining some of the key advantages of the performance-theoretic bi-level account of trust defended over more traditional univocal proposals.
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This paper is about two topics: metaepistemological absolutism and the epistemic principles governing perceptual warrant. Our aim is to highlight – by taking the debate between dogmatists and conservativists about perceptual warrant as a... more
This paper is about two topics: metaepistemological absolutism and the epistemic principles governing perceptual warrant. Our aim is to highlight – by taking the debate between dogmatists and conservativists about perceptual warrant as a case study – a surprising and hitherto unnoticed problem with metaepistemological absolutism, at least as it has been influentially defended by Paul Boghossian (2006a) as the principal metaepistemological contrast point to relativism. What we find is that the metaepistemological commitments at play on both sides of this dogmatism/conservativism debate do not line up with epistemic relativism nor do they line up with absolutism, at least as Boghossian articulates this position. What this case study reveals is the need in metaepistemological option space for the recognition of a weaker and less tendentious form of absolutism, what we call “environment relativism”. On this view, epistemic principles are knowable, objective, and they can serve as the basis of particular epistemic evaluations, but their validity is relative to the wider global environment in which they are applied.
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According to one prominent view of exercising abilities (e.g., Millar 2009), a subject, S, counts as exercising an ability to ϕ if and only if S successfully ϕs. Such an 'exercise-success' thesis looks initially very plausible for... more
According to one prominent view of exercising abilities (e.g., Millar 2009), a subject, S, counts as exercising an ability to ϕ if and only if S successfully ϕs. Such an 'exercise-success' thesis looks initially very plausible for abilities, perhaps even obviously or analytically true. In this paper, however, I will be defending the position that one can in fact exercise an ability to do one thing by doing some entirely distinct thing, and in doing so I'll highlight various reasons (epistemological, metaphysical and linguistic) that favor the alternative approach I develop over views that hold that the exercise of an ability is a success notion in the sense Millar maintains.
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Extended cognition theorists argue that cognitive processes constitutively depend on resources that are neither organically composed, nor located inside the bodily boundaries of the agent, provided certain conditions on the integration of... more
Extended cognition theorists argue that cognitive processes constitutively depend on resources that are neither organically composed, nor located inside the bodily boundaries of the agent, provided certain conditions on the integration of those processes into the agent's cognitive architecture are met. Epistemologists, however, worry that in so far as such cognitively integrated processes are epistemically relevant, agents could thus come to enjoy an untoward explosion of knowledge. This paper develops and defends an approach to cognitive integration-cluster-model functionalism-which finds application in both domains of inquiry, and which meets the challenge posed by putative cases of cognitive or epistemic bloat.
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Recent literature suggests that intellectual humility is valuable to its possessor not only morally, but also epistemically—viz., from a point of view where (put roughly) epistemic aims such as true belief, knowledge and understanding are... more
Recent literature suggests that intellectual humility is valuable to its possessor not only morally, but also epistemically—viz., from a point of view where (put roughly) epistemic aims such as true belief, knowledge and understanding are what matters. Perhaps unsurprisingly, epistemologists working on intellectual humility have focused almost exclusively on its ramifications for how we go about forming, maintaining and evaluating our own beliefs, and by extension, ourselves as inquirers. Less explored by contrast is how intellectual humility might have implications for how we should conduct our practice of asserting. The present entry aims to rectify this oversight by connecting these two topics in a way that sharpens how it is that intellectual humility places several distinctive kinds of demands on assertion, and more generally, on how we communicate what we believe and know.
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Virtue epistemology is among the dominant influences in mainstream epistemology today. An important commitment of one strand of virtue epistemology – responsibilist virtue epistemology (e.g., Montmarquet 1993; Zagzebski 1996; Battaly... more
Virtue epistemology is among the dominant influences in mainstream epistemology today. An important commitment of one strand of virtue epistemology – responsibilist virtue epistemology (e.g., Montmarquet 1993; Zagzebski 1996; Battaly 2006; Baehr 2011) – is that it must provide regulative normative guidance for good thinking. Recently, a number of virtue epistemologists (most notably Baehr, 2013) have held that virtue epistemology not only can provide regulative normative guidance, but moreover that we should reconceive the primary epistemic aim of all education as the inculcation of the intellectual virtues. Baehr’s picture contrasts with another well-known position – that the primary aim of education is the promotion of critical thinking (Scheffler 1989; Siegel 1988; 1997; 2017). In this paper – that we hold makes a contribution to both philosophy of education and epistemology and, a fortiori, epistemology of education – we challenge this picture. We outline three criteria that any putative aim of education must meet and hold that it is the aim of critical thinking, rather than the aim of instilling intellectual virtue, that best meets these criteria. On this basis, we propose a new challenge for intellectual virtue epistemology, next to the well-known empirically-driven ‘situationist challenge’. What we call the ‘pedagogical challenge’ maintains that the intellectual virtues approach does not have available a suitably effective pedagogy to qualify the acquisition of intellectual virtue as the primary aim of education. This is because the pedagogic model of the intellectual virtues approach (borrowed largely from exemplarist thinking) is not properly action-guiding. Instead, we hold that, without much further development in virtue-based theory, logic and critical thinking must still play the primary role in the epistemology of education.
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A novel solution is offered for how emotional experiences can function as sources of immediate prima facie justification for evaluative beliefs, and in such a way that suffices to halt a justificatory regress. Key to this solution is the... more
A novel solution is offered for how emotional experiences can function as sources of immediate prima facie justification for evaluative beliefs, and in such a way that suffices to halt a justificatory regress. Key to this solution is the recognition of two distinct kinds of emotional skill (what I call generative emotional skill and doxastic emotional skill) and how these must be working in tandem when emotional experience plays such a justificatory role. The paper has two main parts, the first negative and the second positive. The negative part criticises the epistemic credentials of Epistemic Perceptualism (e.g., Tappolet 2012, 2016; Doring 2003, 2007; Elgin 2008; Roberts 2003), the view that emotional experience alone suffices to prima facie justify evaluative beliefs in a way that is analogous to how perceptual experience justifies our beliefs about the external world. The second part of the paper develops an account of emotional skill and uses this account to frame a revisionary form of Epistemic Perceptualism that succeeds where the traditional views could not. I conclude by considering some objections and replies.
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Reductive intellectualists about knowledge-how (e.g., Stanley & Williamson 2001; Stanley 2011a, 2011b; Brogaard 2008a, 2008b, 2009, 2011) hold, contra Ryle (1946, 1949), that knowing how to do something is just a kind of propositional... more
Reductive intellectualists about knowledge-how (e.g., Stanley & Williamson 2001; Stanley 2011a, 2011b; Brogaard 2008a, 2008b, 2009, 2011) hold, contra Ryle (1946, 1949), that knowing how to do something is just a kind of propositional knowledge. In a similar vein, traditional reductivists about understanding-why (e.g., Salmon 1984; Lipton 2004; Woodward 2003; Grimm 2006; Greco 2009; Kelp 2014) insist, in accordance with a tradition beginning with Aristotle, that the epistemic standing one attains when one understands why something is so is itself just a kind of propositional knowledge—viz., propositional knowledge of causes. A point that has been granted on both sides of these debates is that if these reductive proposals are right, then knowledge-how and understanding-why should be susceptible to the same extent as knowledge-that is to being undermined by epistemic luck. This paper reports experimental results that test these luck-based predictions. Interestingly, these results suggest a striking (albeit, imperfect) positive correlation between self-reported philosophical expertise and attributions of knowledge-how, understanding-why and knowledge-that which run contrary to reductive proposals. We contextualize these results by showing how they align very well with a particular kind of overarching non-reductive proposal, one that two of the authors have defended elsewhere (e.g., Carter and Pritchard 2015a; 2015b; Pritchard 2010) according to which knowledge-how and understanding-why, but not knowledge-that, essentially involve cognitive achievement (i.e., cognitive success that is primarily creditable to cognitive ability). We conclude by situating the interpretive narrative advanced within contemporary discussions about the role of expertise in philosophical judgment.
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What cognitive goods do children plausibly have a right to in an education? In attempting to answer this question, I begin with a puzzle centred around Feinberg's (2007) observation that a denial of certain cognitive goods can violate a... more
What cognitive goods do children plausibly have a right to in an education? In attempting to answer this question, I begin with a puzzle centred around Feinberg's (2007) observation that a denial of certain cognitive goods can violate a child's right to an open future. I show that propositionalist, dispositionalist and objectualist characterisations of the kinds of cognitive goods children have a right to run in to problems. A promising alternative is then proposed and defended, one that is inspired in the main by Wittgenstein's (1969) 'hinge' epistemology as developed in his posthumous On Certainty. cognitive goods and epistemic rights What cognitive goods should an education provide? There are a number of ways to approach this question, and one useful place to begin is from a rights-based perspective: an education should afford at least those cognitive goods children plausibly have a right to. What cognitive goods are these? On a first pass, it seems reasonable to say that there are certain facts children have a right to know—and accordingly, that what children have a right to is some (propo-sitional) knowledge, leaving it open exactly which specific knowledge. Extrapolating from this answer, we can call a more general position vis-à-vis the cognitive goods children plausibly have a right to 'propositionalism' , where propositionalism is the claim that the kind of cognitive goods to which children have a right in education are propositional goods.
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One notable line of argument for epistemic relativism appeals to considerations to do with non-neutrality: in certain dialectical contexts—take for instance the famous dispute between Galileo and Cardinal Bellarmine concerning... more
One notable line of argument for epistemic relativism appeals to considerations to do with non-neutrality: in certain dialectical contexts—take for instance the famous dispute between Galileo and Cardinal Bellarmine concerning geocentrism—it seems as though a lack of suitably neutral epistemic standards that either side could appeal to in order to (non-question-beggingly) resolve their first-order dispute is itself—as Rorty (1979) influentially thought—evidence for epistemic relativism. In this essay, my aim is first to present a more charitable reformulation of this line of reasoning, one that is framed not merely in terms of the availability of epistemic norms that are suitably neutral between interlocutors, but in terms of the availability of what I call Archimedean metanorms. Once this more charitable line of argument is developed, I show how, even though it avoids problems that face 'non-neutrality' versions of the argument, it nonetheless runs into various other problems that appear ultimately intractable and, further, that the strategy in question gives us no decisive reason to draw the relativist's conclusion rather than the Pyrrhonian sceptic's.
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If we want our intellectual lives to go as well as possible, should we be 'delegating' as many information-gobbling tasks to our gadgets as we can? If not, then how much cognitive outsourcing is too much, and relatedly, what kinds of... more
If we want our intellectual lives to go as well as possible, should we be 'delegating' as many information-gobbling tasks to our gadgets as we can? If not, then how much cognitive outsourcing is too much, and relatedly, what kinds of considerations are relevant to determining this? I submit that one particular dimension of intellectual flourishing that will be helpful for the purpose of exploring such questions is that of intellectual autonomy, and in particular, what I'll describe as the value of one's freedom to achieve. Several related conclusions are drawn and then applied to recent discussions in the philosophy of education concerning education's epistemic aims.
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This is a short essay on the philosophy of virtual reality forthcoming in The Philosopher's Magazine.
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Controversial view agnosticism (CVA) is the thesis that we are rationally obligated to withhold judgment about a large portion of our beliefs in controversial subject areas, such as philosophy, religion , morality and politics. Given that... more
Controversial view agnosticism (CVA) is the thesis that we are rationally obligated to withhold judgment about a large portion of our beliefs in controversial subject areas, such as philosophy, religion , morality and politics. Given that one's social identity is in no small part a function of one's positive commitments in controversial areas, CVA has unsurprisingly been regarded as objectionably 'spineless.' That said, CVA seems like an unavoidable consequence of a prominent view in the epistemology of disagreement—conformism—according to which the rational response to discovering that someone you identify as an epistemic peer or expert about p disagrees with you vis-à-vis p is to withhold judgment. This paper proposes a novel way to maintain the core conciliatory insight without devolving into an agnosticism that is objectionably spineless. The approach offered takes as a starting point the observation that–for reasons that will be made clear—the contemporary debate has bypassed the issue of the reasonableness of maintaining, rather than giving up, represen-tational states weaker than belief in controversial areas. The new position developed and defended here explores this overlooked space; what results is a kind of controversial view agnosticism that is compatible with the kinds of commitments that are integral to social identity.
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The value of knowledge has always been a central topic within epistemology. Going all the way back to Plato’s Meno, philosophers have asked, why is knowledge more valuable than mere true belief? Interest in this question has grown in... more
The value of knowledge has always been a central topic within epistemology. Going all the way back to Plato’s Meno, philosophers have asked, why is knowledge more valuable than mere true belief? Interest in this question has grown in recent years, with theorists proposing a range of answers. But some reject the premise of the question and claim that the value of knowledge is ‘swamped’ by the value of true belief. And others argue that statuses other than knowledge, such as justification or understanding, are distinctively valuable. We will call the general question of why knowledge is valuable the value problem.
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Contemporary debates about epistemic luck and its relation to knowledge have traditionally proceeded against a tacit background commitment to cognitive internalism, the thesis that cognitive processes play out inside the head. In... more
Contemporary debates about epistemic luck and its relation to knowledge have traditionally proceeded against a tacit background commitment to cognitive internalism, the thesis that cognitive processes play out inside the head. In particular, safety-based approaches (e.g., reveal this commitment by taking for granted a traditional internalist construal of what I call the cognitive fixedness thesis—viz., the thesis that the cognitive process that is being employed in the actual world is always 'held fixed' when we go out to nearby possible worlds to assess whether the target belief is lucky in a way that is incompatible with knowledge. However, for those inclined to replace cognitive internalism with the extended mind thesis (e.g., Clark and Chalmers 1998), a very different, 'active externalist' version of the cognitive fixedness thesis becomes the relevant one for the purposes of assessing a belief's safety. The aim here will be to develop this point in a way that draws out some of the important ramifications it has for how we think about safety, luck and knowledge.
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Reductive intellectualists (e.) hold that knowledge-how is a kind of knowledge-that. If this thesis is correct, then we should expect the defeasibility conditions for knowledge-how and knowledge-that to be uniform—viz., that the... more
Reductive intellectualists (e.) hold that knowledge-how is a kind of knowledge-that. If this thesis is correct, then we should expect the defeasibility conditions for knowledge-how and knowledge-that to be uniform—viz., that the mechanisms of epistemic defeat which undermine propositional knowledge will be equally capable of imperilling knowledge-how. The goal of this paper is twofold: first, against intellectualism, we will show that knowledge-how is in fact resilient to being undermined by the very kinds of traditional (propositional) epistemic defeaters which clearly defeat the items of propositional knowledge which intellectualists identify with knowledge-how. Second, we aim to fill an important lacuna in the contemporary debate, which is to develop an alternative way in which epistemic defeat for knowledge-how could be modelled within an anti-intellectualist framework.
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Note: This is a general-audience-level textbook chapter, to appear in _Philosophy, Science and Religion for Everyone_, (eds.) M. Harris & D. H. Pritchard, (Routledge, forthcoming).
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Recent work in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science (e.g., Clark and Chalmers 1998; Clark 2010a; Clark 2010b; Palermos 2014) can help to explain why certain kinds of assertions— made on the basis of information stored in our... more
Recent work in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science (e.g., Clark and Chalmers 1998; Clark 2010a; Clark 2010b; Palermos 2014) can help to explain why certain kinds of assertions— made on the basis of information stored in our gadgets rather than in biological memory—are properly criticisable in light of misleading implicatures, while others are not.
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First, we provide a theoretical background to the volume's topic, extended epistemology, by outlining briefly its cross-disciplinary theoretical lineage and some key themes. In particular, it is shown how and why the emergence of recent... more
First, we provide a theoretical background to the volume's topic, extended epistemology, by outlining briefly its cross-disciplinary theoretical lineage and some key themes. In particular, it is shown how and why the emergence of recent and more egalitarian thinking about the nature of human cognizing and its bounds has important and interesting ramifications in epistemology. Second, we provide an overview of the papers included in the volume. The 16 contributions are divided (broadly) into two categories: those which engage with foundational issues to do with extended epistemology, and those which pursue applications of extended epistemology to new areas of research.
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Anti-intellectualists about knowledge-how insist that, when an agent S knows how to φ, it is in virtue of some ability, rather than in virtue of any propositional attitudes, S has. Recently, a popular strategy for attacking the... more
Anti-intellectualists about knowledge-how insist that, when an agent S knows how to φ, it is in virtue of some ability, rather than in virtue of any propositional attitudes, S has. Recently, a popular strategy for attacking the anti-intellectualist position proceeds by appealing to cases where an agent is claimed to possess a reliable ability to φ while nonetheless intuitively lacking knowledge-how to φ. John Bengson & Marc Moffett (2009; 2011a; 2011b) and Carlotta Pavese (2015a; 2015b) have embraced precisely this strategy and have thus claimed, for different reasons, that anti-intellectualism is defective on the grounds that possessing the ability to φ is not sufficient for knowing how to φ. We investigate this strategy of argument-by-counterexample to the anti-intellectualist's sufficiency thesis and show that, at the end of the day, anti-intellectualism remains unscathed.
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The possibility of extended cognition invites the possibility extended knowledge. We examine what is minimally required for such forms of technologically extended (and distributed) knowledge to arise and whether existing and future... more
The possibility of extended cognition invites the possibility extended knowledge. We examine what is minimally required for such forms of technologically extended (and distributed) knowledge to arise and whether existing and future technologies can allow for such forms of epistemic extension. Answering in the positive, we explore some of the ensuing transformations in the ethical obligations and personal rights of the resulting 'new humans.'
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Philosophy of mind and cognitive science (e.g., Clark and Chalmers 1998; Clark 2010; Palermos 2014) have recently become increasingly receptive to the hypothesis of extended cognition, according to which external artifacts such as our... more
Philosophy of mind and cognitive science (e.g., Clark and Chalmers 1998; Clark 2010; Palermos 2014) have recently become increasingly receptive to the hypothesis of extended cognition, according to which external artifacts such as our laptops and smartphones can—under appropriate circumstances—feature as material realisers of a person's cognitive processes. We argue that, to the extent that the hypothesis of extended cognition is correct, our legal and ethical theorising and practice must be updated, by broadening our conception of personal assault so as to include intentional harm towards gadgets that have been appropriately integrated. We next situate the theoretical case for extended personal assault within the context of some recent ethical and legal cases and close with some critical discussion.
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Addressing the 'virtue conflation' problem requires the preservation of intuitive distinctions between virtue types, i.e., between intellectual and moral virtues. According to one influential attempt to avoid this problem proposed by... more
Addressing the 'virtue conflation' problem requires the preservation of intuitive distinctions between virtue types, i.e., between intellectual and moral virtues. According to one influential attempt to avoid this problem proposed by Julia Driver (2003), moral virtues produce benefits to others—in particular, they promote the well-being of others—while the intellectual virtues, as such, produce epistemic good for the agent. We show that Driver's demarcation of intellectual virtue, by adverting to the self/other distinction, leads to a reductio, and ultimately, that the prospects for resolving the virtue conflation problem look dim within an epistemic consequentialist approach to the epistemic right and the epistemic good.
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Insight often strikes us blind; when we aren't expecting it, we suddenly see a connection that previously eluded us—a kind of 'Aha!' experience. People with a propensity to such experiences are regarded as insightful, and insightfulness... more
Insight often strikes us blind; when we aren't expecting it, we suddenly see a connection that previously eluded us—a kind of 'Aha!' experience. People with a propensity to such experiences are regarded as insightful, and insightfulness is a paradigmatic intellectual virtue. What's not clear, however, is just what it is in virtue of which being such that these experiences tend to happen to one renders one intellectually virtuous. This paper draws from both virtue epistemology as well as empirical work on the psychology of problem solving and creativity to make some inroads in accounting for insightfulness as an intellectual virtue. Important to the view advanced is that virtuously insightful individuals manifest certain skills which both cultivate insight experiences (even if not by directly bringing them about) and enable such individuals to move in an epistemically responsible way from insight experience to epistemic endorsement.
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A common epistemological assumption in contemporary bioethics held by both proponents and critics of non-traditional forms of cognitive enhancement is that cognitive enhancement aims at the facilitation of the accumulation of human... more
A common epistemological assumption in contemporary bioethics held by both proponents and critics of non-traditional forms of cognitive enhancement is that cognitive enhancement aims at the facilitation of the accumulation of human knowledge. This paper does three central things. First, drawing from recent work in epistemology, a rival account of cognitive enhancement, framed in terms of the notion of cognitive achievement rather than knowledge, is proposed. Second, we outline and respond to an axiological objection to our proposal that draws from recent work by Leon Kass (2004), Michael Sandel (2009), and John Harris (2011) to the effect that 'enhanced' cognitive achievements are (by effectively removing obstacles to success) not worthy of pursuit, or are otherwise 'trivial'. Third, we show how the cognitive achievement account of cognitive enhancement proposed here fits snugly with recent active externalist approaches (e.g., extended cognition) in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science. 1. COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT AND KNOWLEDGE One of the most provocative and pressing topics in recent bioethics concerns human enhancement. 1 The latest science and medicine makes it increasingly possible to improve human functioning along several different dimensions: physical, cognitive and (arguably) even moral. 2 On the assumption that such improvements are available, there is a pro tanto instrumental reason to pursue them. After all, to the extent that we are able to function more effectively by being enhanced, we can better achieve our adopted ends. But as critics of human enhancement suggest, the overall balance of reasons may nonetheless speak against human enhancement. That is, all things considered, it may be that we're better off not improving certain dimensions of our functioning, at least in certain ways. The variety of improvements to human functioning that will be of interest in what follows will be specifically cognitive improvements—viz., improvements in aspects of human intelligence, such as memory, reasoning, computation and decision making, 3 as opposed to (for example) improvements in the affective (i.e., emotional) or conative (volitional) states or
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We aim to move the externalism and self-knowledge debate forward by exploring two novel sceptical challenges to the prospects of self-knowledge of a paradigmatic sort, both of which result from ways in which our thought content, cognitive... more
We aim to move the externalism and self-knowledge debate forward by exploring two novel sceptical challenges to the prospects of self-knowledge of a paradigmatic sort, both of which result from ways in which our thought content, cognitive processes and cognitive successes depend crucially on our external environments. In particular, it is shown how arguments from pose hitherto unexplored challenges to the prospects of self-knowledge as it is traditionally conceived. It is shown, however, that, suitably understood, these apparent challenges in fact only demonstrate two ways in which our cognitive lives can be dependent on our environment. As such, rather than undermining our prospects for attaining self-knowledge, they instead illustrate how self-knowledge can be extended and expanded.
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We offer an editorial introduction to the forthcoming edited volume *Knowledge-First: Approaches in Epistemology and Mind*, (Oxford, OUP).
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According to the canonical formulation of the modal account of luck (e.g. Pritchard (2005, 128)), an event is lucky just when that event occurs in the actual world but not in a wide class of the nearest possible worlds where the relevant... more
According to the canonical formulation of the modal account of luck (e.g. Pritchard (2005, 128)), an event is lucky just when that event occurs in the actual world but not in a wide class of the nearest possible worlds where the relevant conditions for that event are the same as in the actual world. This paper argues, with reference to a novel variety of counterexample, that it is a mistake to focus, when assessing a given event for luckiness, on events distributed over just the nearest possible worlds. More specifically, our objection to the canonical formulation of the modal account of luck reveals that whether an event is lucky depends crucially on events distributed over all possible worlds–viz., across the modal universe. It is shown that an amended modal account of luck which respects this point has the additional virtue of avoiding a notable kind of counterexample to modal accounts of luck proposed by Lackey (2008).
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Descartes' demon is a deceiver: the demon makes things appear to you other than as they really are. However, as Descartes famously pointed out in the Second Meditation, not all knowledge is imperilled by this kind of deception. You still... more
Descartes' demon is a deceiver: the demon makes things appear to you other than as they really are. However, as Descartes famously pointed out in the Second Meditation, not all knowledge is imperilled by this kind of deception. You still know you are a thinking thing. Perhaps, though, there is a more virulent demon in epistemic hell, one from which none of our knowledge is safe. Jonathan Schaffer (2010) thinks so. The " Debasing Demon " he imagines threatens knowledge not via the truth condition on knowledge, but via the basing condition. This demon can cause any belief to seem like it's held on a good basis, when it's really held on a bad basis. Several recent critics (Brueckner (2011), Conee (2015), Ballantyne & Evans (2013)) grant Schaffer the possibility of such a debasing demon, and argue that the skeptical conclusion doesn't follow. By contrast, we argue that on any plausible account of the epistemic basing relation, the " debasing demon " is impossible. Our argument for why this is so gestures, more generally, to the importance of avoiding common traps by embracing mistaken assumptions about what it takes for a belief to be based on a reason.
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Within contemporary philosophy of mind, it is taken for granted that externalist accounts of meaning and mental content are, in principle, orthogonal to the matter of whether cognition itself is bound within the biological brain or... more
Within contemporary philosophy of mind, it is taken for granted that externalist accounts of meaning and mental content are, in principle, orthogonal to the matter of whether cognition itself is bound within the biological brain or whether it can constitutively include parts of the world. Accordingly, Clark and Chalmers (1998) distinguish these varieties of externalism as ‘passive’ and ‘active’ respectively. The aim here is to suggest that we should resist the received way of thinking about these dividing lines. With reference to Brandom’s (1994; 2000; 2008) broad semantic inferentialism, we show that a theory of meaning can be at the same time a variety of active externalism. While we grant that supporters of other varieties of content externalism (e.g., Putnam 1975 and Burge 1986) can deny active externalism, this is not an option for semantic inferentialists: On this latter view, the role of the environment (both in its social and natural form) is not ‘passive’ in the sense assumed by the alternative approaches to content externalism.
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Our aim is to provide a topography of the relevant philosophical terrain with regard to the possible ways in which knowledge can be conceived of as extended. We begin by charting the different types of internalist and externalist... more
Our aim is to provide a topography of the relevant philosophical terrain with regard to the possible ways in which knowledge can be conceived of as extended. We begin by charting the different types of internalist and externalist proposals within epistemology, and we critically examine the different formulations of the epistemic internalism/externalism debate they lead to. Next, we turn to the internalism/externalism distinction within philosophy of mind and cognitive science. In light of the above dividing lines, we then examine first the extent to which content externalism is compatible with epistemic externalism; second, whether active externalism entails epistemic externalism; and third whether there are varieties of epistemic externalism that are better suited to accommodate active externalism. Finally, we examine whether the combination of epistemic and cognitive externalism is necessary for epistemology and we comment on the potential ramifications of this move for social epistemology and philosophy of science.
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November 2021. Draft version. For Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, 3rd Edition, (eds.) E. Sosa, M. Steup, J. Turri, & B. Roeber, (Wiley-Blackwell, forthcoming).
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Research questions in mainstream epistemology often take for granted a cognitive internalist picture of the mind. Perhaps this is unsurprising, given the seemingly safe presumptions that (i) knowledge entails belief (viz., the entailment... more
Research questions in mainstream epistemology often take for granted a cognitive internalist picture of the mind. Perhaps this is unsurprising, given the seemingly safe presumptions that (i) knowledge entails belief (viz., the entailment thesis); and that (ii) the kind of belief that knowledge entails supervenes exclusively on brainbound cognition. It will be argued here that (contra orthodoxy) the most plausible version of the entailment thesis holds just that knowledge entails dispositional belief. However, regardless of whether occurrent belief supervenes only as the cognitive internalist permits, we should reject the idea that dispositional belief supervenes only in cognitive internalist-friendly ways. These observations, taken together, reveal two things: first, that a cognitive internalist picture of the mind is much more dispensable in epistemology than has been assumed; and second, that pursuing questions in extended epistemology needn't involve any radical departure from the commitments of more traditional epistemological projects.
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Moore and Russell thought that perceptual knowledge of the external world is based on abductive inference from information about our experience. Sosa maintains that this 'indirect realist' strategy has no prospects of working. Vogel... more
Moore and Russell thought that perceptual knowledge of the external world is based on abductive inference from information about our experience. Sosa maintains that this 'indirect realist' strategy has no prospects of working. Vogel disagrees and thinks it can and does work perfectly well, and his reasoning (and variations on that reasoning) seem initially promising, moreso than other approaches. My aim, however, will be to adjudicate this dispute in favor of Sosa's pessimistic answer, and in doing so, to better uncover the important role abductive inference does have in a wider theory of perceptual knowledge, even if it doesn't feature in any promising vindication of (anti-skeptical) indirect realism.
Research Interests: Philosophy, Epistemology, Philosophy of Science, Scepticism, Epistemic Justification, and 10 moreExplanation, Virtue Epistemology, Inference, Internalism/Externalism, Skepticism, Foundationalism & Antifoundationalism, Abduction, Ernest Sosa, Inference to the Best Explanation, and Perceptual Knowledge
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This chapter critically discusses the significance of trust and its theoretical cognates-distrust , trustworthiness and distrustworthiness-in social epistemology. Special focus is given to the following issues: (i) knowledge on trust;... more
This chapter critically discusses the significance of trust and its theoretical cognates-distrust , trustworthiness and distrustworthiness-in social epistemology. Special focus is given to the following issues: (i) knowledge on trust; (ii) the entitlement to expect to be presumed trustworthy; (iii) the normativity of trusting; and the role of defective trust and distrust in cases of (iv) epistemic injustice; and (v) the uptake and spread of conspiracy theories.
Research Interests: Philosophy, Applied Philosophy, Epistemology, Testimony, Social Philosophy, and 12 moreTrust, Conspiracy Theories, Epistemic Justification, Social Epistemology, Virtue Epistemology, Social Trust, Knowledge, Epistemology of Testimony, Epistemic Trust, Ernest Sosa, Trust and Trustworthiness, and Epistemic Injustice
A new way to transpose the virtue epistemologist's 'knowledge = apt belief ' template to the collective level, as a thesis about group knowledge, is developed. In particular, it is shown how specifically judgmental belief can be realised... more
A new way to transpose the virtue epistemologist's 'knowledge = apt belief ' template to the collective level, as a thesis about group knowledge, is developed. In particular, it is shown how specifically judgmental belief can be realised at the collective level in a way that is structurally analogous, on a telic theory of epistemic normativity (e.g., Sosa 2020), to how it is realised at the individual level-viz., through a (collective) intentional attempt to get it right aptly (whether p) by alethically affirming that p. An advantage of the proposal developed is that it is shown to be compatible with competing views-viz., joint acceptance accounts and social-distributive accounts-of how group members must interact in order to materially realise a group belief. I conclude by showing how the proposed judgment-focused collective (telic) virtue epistemology has important advantages over a rival version of collective virtue epistemology defended in recent work by Jesper Kallestrup (2016).
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This essay investigates an underappreciated way in which trust and testimonial injustice are closely connected. Credibility deficit and credibility excess cases both (in their own distinctive ways) contribute to a speaker's being harmed... more
This essay investigates an underappreciated way in which trust and testimonial injustice are closely connected. Credibility deficit and credibility excess cases both (in their own distinctive ways) contribute to a speaker's being harmed in her capacity a knower. But moreover, as we will show-by using the tools of a performance-theoretic framework (e.g., Sosa 2015; 2017; 2016; Carter 2019; forthcoming)-both credibility deficit and credibility excess cases also feature incompetent trusting on the part of the hearer. That is, credibility deficit and excess cases are shown to manifest qualities of thinkers that are inconducive to trust's being reliably fulfilled. What this implies is an interesting result about testimonial injustice: to the extent that we want to mitigate against testimonial injustice-one promising way to do so will be to target incompetent trusting of the sort that underlies it. We conclude by outlining and defending what we take to be a promising substantive version of such a mitigation strategy, one which is centred around the cultivation of higher-order trusting competences.
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Our understanding of what exactly needs protected against in order to safeguard a plausible construal of our 'freedom of thought' is changing. And this is because the recent influx of cogni-tive offloading and outsourcing-and the... more
Our understanding of what exactly needs protected against in order to safeguard a plausible construal of our 'freedom of thought' is changing. And this is because the recent influx of cogni-tive offloading and outsourcing-and the fast-evolving technologies that enable this-generate radical new possibilities for freedom-of-thought violating thought manipulation. This paper does three main things. First, I briefly overview how recent thinking in the philosophy of mind and cogni-tive science recognises-contrary to traditional Cartesian 'internalist' assumptions-ways in which our cognitive faculties, and even our beliefs, can be materially realised by as well as stored non-biologically and extracranially. Second, and taking brain-computer interface technologies (BCIs) and the associated possibility of 'extended' beliefs as a reference point, I propose and defend a sufficient condition on freedom-of-thought violating (extended) thought manipulation. On the view proposed, the right not to have one's thoughts or opinions manipulated is violated if one is (i) caused to acquire non-autonomous propositional attitudes (acquisition manipulation) or (ii) caused to have otherwise autonomous propositional attitudes non-autonomously eradicated (eradication manipulation). The implications of this view are then illustrated through four thought experiments, which map on to four distinct ways-what I call Type 1-Type 4 manipulation-in which, and with reference to the view defended, one's freedom of thought is plausibly violated.
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This paper develops and defends a new account of therapeutic trust, its nature and its constitutive norms. Central to the view advanced is a distinction between two kinds of therapeutic trust-default therapeutic trust and overriding... more
This paper develops and defends a new account of therapeutic trust, its nature and its constitutive norms. Central to the view advanced is a distinction between two kinds of therapeutic trust-default therapeutic trust and overriding therapeutic trust-each which derives from a distinct kind of trusting competence. The new view is shown to have advantages over extant accounts of therapeutic trust, and its relation to standard (non-therapeutic) trust, as defended
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The philosophical significance of attitudinal autonomy -- viz., the autonomy of attitudes such as beliefs -- is widely discussed in the literature on moral responsibility and free will. Within this literature, a key debate centres around... more
The philosophical significance of attitudinal autonomy -- viz., the autonomy of attitudes such as beliefs -- is widely discussed in the literature on moral responsibility and free will. Within this literature, a key debate centres around the following question: is the kind of attitudinal autonomy that's relevant to moral responsibility at a given time determined entirely by a sub-ject's present mental structure at that time? Internalists say 'yes', externalists say 'no'. In this essay, I motivate a kind of distinctly epistemic attitudinal autonomy, attitudinal autonomy that is relevant to knowledge. I argue that regardless of whether we are externalists or internalists about the kind of attitudinal autonomy that is relevant for moral responsibility, we should be externalists about the kind of autonomy that a belief must have to qualify as knowledge.
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This is a draft of a book about epistemic autonomy and radical cognitive enhancement.
Research Interests: Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Epistemology, Philosophy of Technology, Bioethics, and 14 moreAxiology, Medical Ethics, Value Theory, Social Epistemology, Autonomy, Virtue Epistemology, Human Enhancement, Free Will and Moral Responsibility, Knowledge-How, Knowledge, Reliabilism, Ernest Sosa, Cognitive Enhancement, and Cognitive Ability
This chapter critically discusses the relationship between political disagreements and political relativism, roughly, the idea that both parties to (at least some) political disagreements are right relative to their own perspective. Two... more
This chapter critically discusses the relationship between political disagreements and political relativism, roughly, the idea that both parties to (at least some) political disagreements are right relative to their own perspective. Two key strands of argument that take a substantive stand on this relationship are considered. The first -- which is the primary focus of the chapter -- reasons from political disagreement to political relativism through premises about epistemic circularity. The second kind of argument diagnoses some political disagreements as 'faultless' on the basis of semantic considerations. As we'll see, considerations in favour of accepting or rejecting either variety of political relativism do not carry over as considerations for accepting or rejecting the other, and so these forms of political relativism -- despite some superficial similarities -- do not stand or fall together.
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A vexing problem in contemporary epistemology-one with origins in Plato's Meno-concerns the value of knowledge, and in particular, whether and how the value of knowledge exceeds the value of mere (unknown) true opinion. The recent... more
A vexing problem in contemporary epistemology-one with origins in Plato's Meno-concerns the value of knowledge, and in particular, whether and how the value of knowledge exceeds the value of mere (unknown) true opinion. The recent literature is deeply divided on the matter of how best to address the problem. One point, however, remains unquestioned: that if a solution is to be found, it will be at the personal level, the level at which states of subjects or agents, as such, appear. We take exception to this orthodoxy, or at least to its unquestioned status. We argue that subpersonal states play a significant-arguably, primary-role in much epistemically relevant cognition and thus constitute a domain in which we might reasonably expect to locate the "missing source" of epistemic value, beyond the value attached to mere true belief.
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The goal of this paper is twofold. First, we argue that the understanding one has of a proposition or a propositional content of a representational vehicle is a species of what contemporary epis-temologists characterise as objectual... more
The goal of this paper is twofold. First, we argue that the understanding one has of a proposition or a propositional content of a representational vehicle is a species of what contemporary epis-temologists characterise as objectual understanding. Second, we demonstrate that even though this type of understanding differs from linguistic understanding, in many instances of successful communication , these two types of understanding jointly contribute to understanding a communicated thought.
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This paper offers a novel account of how know-how improves to expertise in a way that is structurally analogous to how propositional knowledge improves to understanding. A payoff of developing this analogy is a better grip not only of how... more
This paper offers a novel account of how know-how improves to expertise in a way that is structurally analogous to how propositional knowledge improves to understanding. A payoff of developing this analogy is a better grip not only of how know-how and expertise differ, but also of why it is that this difference is important.
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The lack of knowledge—as Timothy Williamson (2000) famously maintains—is ignorance. Radical sceptical arguments, at least in the tradition of Descartes, threaten universal ignorance. They do so by attempting to establish that we lack any... more
The lack of knowledge—as Timothy Williamson (2000) famously maintains—is ignorance. Radical sceptical arguments, at least in the tradition of Descartes, threaten universal ignorance. They do so by attempting to establish that we lack any knowledge, even if we can retain other kinds of epistemic standings, like epistemically justified belief. If understanding is a species of knowledge, then radical sceptical arguments threaten to rob us categorically of knowledge and understanding in one fell swoop by implying universal ignorance. If, however, understanding is not a species of knowledge, then three questions arise: (i) is ignorance the lack of understanding, even if understanding
is not a species of knowledge? (ii) If not, what kind of state of intellectual impoverishment
best describes a lack of understanding? (iii) What would a radical sceptical argument look like that threatened that kind of intellectual impoverishment, even if not threatening ignorance? This paper answers each of these questions in turn. I conclude by showing how the answers developed to (i-iii) interface in an interesting way with Virtue Perspectivism as an anti-sceptical strategy.
is not a species of knowledge? (ii) If not, what kind of state of intellectual impoverishment
best describes a lack of understanding? (iii) What would a radical sceptical argument look like that threatened that kind of intellectual impoverishment, even if not threatening ignorance? This paper answers each of these questions in turn. I conclude by showing how the answers developed to (i-iii) interface in an interesting way with Virtue Perspectivism as an anti-sceptical strategy.
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Internalists in epistemology think that whether one possesses epistemic statuses such as knowledge or justification depends on factors that are internal to one; externalists think that whether one possesses these statuses can depend on... more
Internalists in epistemology think that whether one possesses epistemic statuses such as knowledge or justification depends on factors that are internal to one; externalists think that whether one possesses these statuses can depend on factors that are external to one. In this chapter we focus on the relationship between externalism and epistemic relativism. It is clear that, by itself, the question of whether we should be internalists or externalists has no immediate consequences for the debate around epistemic relativism. But, as we'll see, it is very common to hold that key externalist insights block or undermine some standard arguments for epistemic relativism. Our aim in this chapter is to give a broad overview of why externalism poses a problem for standard arguments for relativism. But we also want to discuss some-admittedly less developed-ways in which some externalist ideas might actually provide support for certain forms of epistemic relativism.
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In Lehrer’s case of the superstitious lawyer, a lawyer possesses conclusive evidence for his client’s innocence, and he appreciates that the evidence is conclusive, but the evidence is causally inert with respect to his belief in his... more
In Lehrer’s case of the superstitious lawyer, a lawyer possesses conclusive evidence for his client’s innocence, and he appreciates that the evidence is conclusive, but the evidence is causally inert with respect to his belief in his client’s innocence. This case has divided epistemologists ever since Lehrer originally proposed it in his argument against causal analyses of knowledge. Some have taken the claim that the lawyer bases his belief on the evidence as a data point for our theories to accommodate, while others have denied that the lawyer has knowledge, or that he bases his belief on the evidence.
In this paper, we move the dialectic forward by way of arguing that the superstitious lawyer genuinely infers his client’s innocence from the evidence. To show that the lawyer’s inference is genuine, we argue in defense of a version of a doxastic construal of the ‘taking’ condition on inference. We also provide a pared-down superstitious lawyer-style case, which displays the key features of the original case without including its complicated and distracting features. But interestingly, although we argue that the lawyer’s belief is based on his good evidence, and is also plausibly doxastically justified, we do not argue that the lawyer knows that his client is innocent.
In this paper, we move the dialectic forward by way of arguing that the superstitious lawyer genuinely infers his client’s innocence from the evidence. To show that the lawyer’s inference is genuine, we argue in defense of a version of a doxastic construal of the ‘taking’ condition on inference. We also provide a pared-down superstitious lawyer-style case, which displays the key features of the original case without including its complicated and distracting features. But interestingly, although we argue that the lawyer’s belief is based on his good evidence, and is also plausibly doxastically justified, we do not argue that the lawyer knows that his client is innocent.
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Virtue perspectivism (e.g., Sosa 2007, 2009) is a bi-level epistemology according to which there are two grades of knowledge, animal and reflective. The exercise of reliable competences suffices to give us animal knowledge; but we can... more
Virtue perspectivism (e.g., Sosa 2007, 2009) is a bi-level epistemology according to
which there are two grades of knowledge, animal and reflective. The exercise of reliable
competences suffices to give us animal knowledge; but we can then use these
same competences to gain a second-order assuring perspective, one through which we
may appreciate those faculties as reliable and in doing so place our first-order (animal)
knowledge in a competent second-order perspective. Virtue perspectivism has
considerable theoretical power, especially when it comes to vindicating our external
world knowledge against threats of scepticism and regress. Prominent criticisms,
however, doubt whether the view ultimately hangs together without succumbing to
vicious circularity. In this paper, I am going to focus on circularity-based criticisms
of virtue perspectivism raised in various places by Barry Stroud (2004), Baron Reed
(2012) and Richard Fumerton (2004), and I will argue that virtue perspectivism can
ultimately withstand each of them.
which there are two grades of knowledge, animal and reflective. The exercise of reliable
competences suffices to give us animal knowledge; but we can then use these
same competences to gain a second-order assuring perspective, one through which we
may appreciate those faculties as reliable and in doing so place our first-order (animal)
knowledge in a competent second-order perspective. Virtue perspectivism has
considerable theoretical power, especially when it comes to vindicating our external
world knowledge against threats of scepticism and regress. Prominent criticisms,
however, doubt whether the view ultimately hangs together without succumbing to
vicious circularity. In this paper, I am going to focus on circularity-based criticisms
of virtue perspectivism raised in various places by Barry Stroud (2004), Baron Reed
(2012) and Richard Fumerton (2004), and I will argue that virtue perspectivism can
ultimately withstand each of them.
Research Interests:
A vexing problem in contemporary epistemology—one with origins in Plato's Meno—concerns the value of knowledge, and in particular, whether and how the value of knowledge exceeds the value of mere (unknown) true opinion. The recent... more
A vexing problem in contemporary epistemology—one with origins in Plato's Meno—concerns the value of knowledge, and in particular, whether and how the value of knowledge exceeds the value of mere (unknown) true opinion. The recent literature is deeply divided on the matter of how best to address the problem. One point, however, remains unquestioned: that if a solution is to be found, it will be at the personal level, the level at which states of whole persons, as such, appear. We take exception to this orthodoxy, or at least to its unquestioned status. We argue that subpersonal states play a significant – arguably, primary – role in much epistemically relevant cognition and thus constitute a domain in which we might reasonably expect to locate the " missing source " of epistemic value, beyond the value attached to mere true belief. Building upon this idea, various subpersonal approaches to the value problem are canvassed and shown to have unappreciated advantages over competing personal-level accounts. The emerging picture suggests that the solution to the problem of epistemic value may well lie a level below the surface traditionally explored and opens up a range of possibilities hitherto underexplored.
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An interesting aspect of Ernest Sosa's (2017) recent thinking is that enhanced performances (e.g., the performance of an athlete under the influence of a performance-enhancing drug) fall short of aptness, and this is because such enhanced... more
An interesting aspect of Ernest Sosa's (2017) recent thinking is that enhanced performances (e.g., the performance of an athlete under the influence of a performance-enhancing drug) fall short of aptness, and this is because such enhanced performances do not issue from genuine competences on the part of the agent. In this paper, I explore in some detail the implications of such thinking in Sosa's wider virtue epistemology, with a focus on cases of cognitive enhancement. A certain puzzle is then highlighted, and the solution proposed draws from both the recent moral responsibility literature on guidance control (e.g., Fischer and Ravizza 2000; Fischer 2012) as well as from work on cognitive integration in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science (e.g., Clark and Chalmers 1998; Clark 2008; Pritchard 2010; Palermos 2014; Carter 2017).
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Many scholars agree that the Internet plays a pivotal role in self-radicalization, which can lead to behaviours ranging from lone-wolf terrorism to participation in white nationalist rallies to mundane bigotry and voting for extremist... more
Many scholars agree that the Internet plays a pivotal role in self-radicalization, which can lead to behaviours ranging from lone-wolf terrorism to participation in white nationalist rallies to mundane bigotry and voting for extremist candidates. However, the mechanisms by which the Internet facilitates self-radicalization are disputed; some fault the individuals who end up self-radicalized, while others lay the blame on the technology itself. In this paper, we explore the role played by technological design decisions in online self-radicalization in its myriad guises, encompassing extreme as well as more mundane forms. We begin by characterizing the phenomenon of technological seduction. Next, we distinguish between top-down seduction and bottom-up seduction. We then situate both forms of technological seduction within the theoretical model of dynamical systems theory. We conclude by articulating strategies for combatting online self-radicalization.
Research Interests: Human Computer Interaction, Information Technology, Philosophy, Epistemology, Applied Ethics, and 11 moreTerrorism, Radicalization, Social Epistemology, Philosophy of Cognitive Science, Virtue Epistemology, Cognitive Bias, Applied Epistemology, Moral and Political Philosophy, Intellectual Virtue, Heuristics and Biases, and Intellectual vices
Note: This is draft of a review of Ernest Sosa's 2017 book _Epistemology_ for Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. Comments welcome.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In a recent and provocative paper, Matthew Fisher, Mariel Goddu, and Frank Keil (2015) have argued, on the basis of experimental evidence, that 'searching the Internet leads people to conflate information that can be found online with... more
In a recent and provocative paper, Matthew Fisher, Mariel Goddu, and Frank Keil (2015) have argued, on the basis of experimental evidence, that 'searching the Internet leads people to conflate information that can be found online with knowledge " in the head " ' (2015, 675), specifically, by inclining us to conflate mere access to information for personal knowledge (2015, 674). This paper has three central aims. First, we briefly detail Fisher et al.'s results and show how, on the basis of recent work in virtue epistemology (e.g., Tiberius and Walker 1998; Roberts and Wood 2007; Tanesini 2016), their interpretation of the data supports the thesis that searching the Internet is conducive to the vice of intellectual arrogance. Second, we argue that this arrogance interpretation of the data rests on an implicit commitment to cognitive internalism. Thirdly, we show how the data can be given a very different explanation in light of the hypothesis of extended cognition (e.g., Clark and Chalmers 1998; Clark 2008)—one which challenges the extent to which Fisher et al. are entitled to insist that subjects are actually conflating access to knowledge for personal knowledge in the first place. We conclude by suggesting how, against the background of extended cognition rather than cognitive internalism, we have some reason to think that searching the Internet might actually foster (in certain circumstances) virtuous intellectual humility.
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Intellectualism—viz., the thesis that knowledge-how is a species of knowledge-that—bears straightforward relevance in epistemology and has received rigorous development in recent years (e.g., Stanley and Williamson 2001; Brogaard 2008,... more
Intellectualism—viz., the thesis that knowledge-how is a species of knowledge-that—bears straightforward relevance in epistemology and has received rigorous development in recent years (e.g., Stanley and Williamson 2001; Brogaard 2008, 2009, 2011; Stanley 2011; Pavese 2015, 2017). By contrast, anti-intellectualism—construed as a positive theory of knowledge-how—is hardly in a more developed state today than Ryle left it in the middle of the 20th century. We hope to change this trend, and to prepare the ground for a positive anti-intellectualist epistemology of knowledge-how, one that goes beyond the inchoate suggestion that knowledge-how is, or involves, abilities or dispositions. Our primary goal is to propose a tripartite analysis of knowledge-how that is broadly analogous to the JTB analysis of knowledge-that in that it offers a parallel set of conditions related to agents’ powers and capacities (mastery, success and ability). This objective is principally programmatic; we do not try here to solve but to map in a novel way a range of new epistemological problems such an analysis would raise, and to show thereby that anti-intellectualist epistemology could be as fruitful, engaging, and interestingly controversial as the epistemology of knowledge-that, even if it preserves the core Rylean idea that knowledge-how is non-representational, non-truth-directed and non-propositional.
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According to Paul Boghossian (2006, 73) a core tenet of epistemic relativism is what he calls epistemic pluralism, according to which (i) 'there are many fundamentally different, genuinely alternative epistemic systems' , but (ii) 'no... more
According to Paul Boghossian (2006, 73) a core tenet of epistemic relativism is what he calls epistemic pluralism, according to which (i) 'there are many fundamentally different, genuinely alternative epistemic systems' , but (ii) 'no facts by virtue of which one of these systems is more correct than any of the others'. Embracing the former claim is more or less uncontroversial– viz., a descriptive fact about epistemic diversity. The latter claim by contrast is very controversial. Interestingly, the Wittgenstenian 'hinge' epistemologist, in virtue of maintaining that rational evaluation is essentially local, will (arguably, at least) be committed to the more controversial leg of the epistemic pluralist thesis, simply in virtue of countenancing the descriptive leg. This paper does three central things. First, it is shown that this 'relativistic' reading of Wittgenstein's epis-temology is plausible only if the locality of rational evaluation (in conjunction with a reasonable appreciation of epistemic diversity) commits the Wittgenstenian to a further epistemic incom-mensurability thesis. Next, Duncan Pritchard's (e.g., 2009; 2015) novel attempt to save the hinge epistemologist from a commitment to epistemic incommensurability is canvassed and critiqued. Finally, it is suggested how, regardless of whether Pritchard's strategy is successful, there might be another very different way—drawing from recent work by John MacFarlane (2014)—for the hinge epistemologist to embrace epistemic pluralism while steering clear of epistemic relativism, understood in a very specific way.
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The primary aim of this paper is to expose a hitherto unnoticed metaepistemological mistake which features in various prominent arguments for epistemic relativism. In particular, I show that—at a crucial juncture—several popular strands... more
The primary aim of this paper is to expose a hitherto unnoticed metaepistemological mistake which features in various prominent arguments for epistemic relativism. In particular, I show that—at a crucial juncture—several popular strands of argument for epistemic relativism trade indispensably on a special instance of the naturalistic fallacy. Once this point is highlighted and sharpened, it will be shown that the would-be epistemic relativist faces a dilemma: either embrace the naturalistic fallacy (and all that this entails) or accept that, without committing this fallacy, the relativist's own argument ultimately supports relativism no more than scepticism.
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Diversity abounds, and typically, disagreement is not far behind. Unsurprisingly, when initial starting points are far enough apart (take for example, the famous 17th century dispute between Galileo and Cardinal Bellarmine) the ensuing... more
Diversity abounds, and typically, disagreement is not far behind. Unsurprisingly, when initial starting points are far enough apart (take for example, the famous 17th century dispute between Galileo and Cardinal Bellarmine) the ensuing disagreements can appear rationally irreconcilable. Some philosophers such as Richard Rorty (1979) have taken the presence of such disagreements as evidence for epistemic relativism. The present aim will be to canvass this general argument strategy, which moves from diversity to disagreement to epistemic relativism. In the course of doing so, objections will be raised to various forms that this argument has taken, and, finally, I'll contrast traditional forms of the diversity-disagreement-relativism sequence with a more contemporary, linguistically driven variant that has been defended in recent work by John MacFarlane (e.g., 2007; 2014).
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Epistemology is, roughly, the philosophical theory of knowledge, its nature and scope. What is the status of epistemological claims? Relativists regard the status of (at least some kinds of) epistemological claims as, in some way,... more
Epistemology is, roughly, the philosophical theory of knowledge, its nature and scope. What is the status of epistemological claims? Relativists regard the status of (at least some kinds of) epistemological claims as, in some way, relative--viz., that the truths which (some kinds of) epistemological claims aspire to are relative truths. Self-described relativists vary, sometimes dramatically, in how they think about relative truth and what a commitment to it involves. Section 1 outlines some of these key differences and distinguishes between broadly two kinds of approaches to epistemic relativism. Proposals under the description of traditional epistemic relativism are the focus of Sections 2-4. These are, (i) arguments that appeal in some way to the Pyrrhonian problematic; (ii) arguments that appeal to apparently irreconcilable disagreements (e.g., as in the famous dispute between Galileo versus Bellarmine); and (iii) arguments that appeal to the alleged incommensurability of epistemic systems or frameworks. New (semantic) epistemic relativism, a linguistically motivated form of epistemic relativism defended in the most sophistication by John MacFarlane (e.g., 2014), is the focus of Sections 5-6. According MacFarlane’s brand of epistemic relativism, whether a given knowledge-ascribing sentence is true depends on the epistemic standards at play in what he calls the context of assessment, which is the context in which the knowledge ascription (e.g., ‘Galileo knows the earth revolves around the sun’) is being assessed for truth or falsity. Because the very same knowledge ascription can be assessed for truth or falsity from indefinitely many perspectives, knowledge-ascribing sentences do not get their truth values absolutely, but only relatively. The entry concludes by canvassing some of the potential ramifications this more contemporary form of epistemic relativism has for projects in mainstream epistemology.
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In most any domain of endeavor, successes can be attained through skill, but also by dumb luck. An archer's wildest shots occasionally hit the target. Against enormous odds, some fair lottery tickets happen to win. The same goes in the... more
In most any domain of endeavor, successes can be attained through skill, but also by dumb luck. An archer's wildest shots occasionally hit the target. Against enormous odds, some fair lottery tickets happen to win. The same goes in the case of purely cognitive or intellectual endeavours. As inquirers, we characteristically aim to believe truly rather than falsely, and to attain such standings as knowledge and understanding. Sometimes such aims are attained with commendable competence, but of course, not always. Epistemic luck is a species of luck which features in circumstances where a given cognitive success—in the broadest sense, some form of cognitive contact with reality—is attained in a manner that is (in some to-be-specified sense) interestingly lucky—viz., chancy, accidental or beyond our control. In the paradigmatic case, this involves the formation of a belief that is luckily true, and where the subject plausibly deserves little credit for having gotten things right. Although the literature on epistemic luck has focused predominantly on the relationship between luck and propositional knowledge—which is widely taken to (in some sense) exclude luck— epistemologists are increasingly exploring the compatibility of epistemic luck with other kinds of epistemic standings, such as knowledge-how and understanding.
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Intellectual autonomy has long been identified as an epistemic virtue, one that has been championed influentially by (among others) Kant, Hume and Emerson. Manifesting intellectual autonomy, at least, in a virtuous way, does not require... more
Intellectual autonomy has long been identified as an epistemic virtue, one that has been championed influentially by (among others) Kant, Hume and Emerson. Manifesting intellectual autonomy, at least, in a virtuous way, does not require that we form our beliefs in cognitive isolation. Rather, as Roberts and Wood (2007, 259–60) note, intellectually virtuous autonomy involves reliance and outsourcing (e.g., on other individuals, technology, medicine, etc.) to an appropriate extent, while at the same time maintaining intellectual self-direction. In this essay, I want to investigate the ramifications for intellectual autonomy of a particular kind of epistemic dependence: cognitive enhancement. Cognitive enhancements (as opposed to therapeutic cogni-tive improvements) involve the use of technology and medicine to improve cognitive capacities in healthy individuals, through mechanisms ranging from smart drugs to brain-computer interfaces. With reference to case studies in bioethics, as well as the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, it is shown that epistemic dependence, in this extreme form, poses a prima facie threat to the retention of intellectual autonomy, specifically, by threatening to undermine our intellectual self-direction. My aim will be to show why certain kinds of cognitive enhancements are subject to this objection from self-direction, while others are not. Once this is established, we'll see that even some extreme kinds of cognitive enhancement might be not merely compatible with, but constitutive of, virtuous intellectual autonomy.
Research Interests: Cognitive Psychology, Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Epistemology, Applied Ethics, and 15 moreBioethics, Virtue Ethics, Virtues (Moral Psychology), Neuroethics, Medical Ethics, Personal and Moral Autonomy, Extended Mind, Social Epistemology, Autonomy, Virtue Epistemology, Human Enhancement, Cognitive Bias, Extended Cognition, Neuroethics, Bioethics, and Cognitive Enhancement
An account of meta-epistemic defeaters—distinct from traditional (first-order) epistemic defeaters—is motivated and defended, drawing from case studies involving epistemic error-theory (e.g., Olson 2011; cf., Streumer 2012) and epistemic... more
An account of meta-epistemic defeaters—distinct from traditional (first-order) epistemic defeaters—is motivated and defended, drawing from case studies involving epistemic error-theory (e.g., Olson 2011; cf., Streumer 2012) and epistemic relativism (e.g., MacFarlane 2005; 2011; 2014). Mechanisms of traditional epistemic defeat and meta-epistemic defeat are compared and contrasted, and some new puzzles are introduced.
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Virtue epistemology—no less than mainstream epistemology more generally—has by and large taken for granted the traditional intracranial picture of the mind, according to which the skull and skin mark the bounds of human cognizing. It is... more
Virtue epistemology—no less than mainstream epistemology more generally—has by and large taken for granted the traditional intracranial picture of the mind, according to which the skull and skin mark the bounds of human cognizing. It is only natural then that intellectual virtues themselves have typically been understood as seated firmly within the biological agent. Recent work in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science (e.g., Clark 2008; Clark and Chalmers 1998), however, challenges this traditional account of the mind by suggesting that cognitive processes can criss-cross the boundaries of brain, body and world, so as to include certain parts of the world which we regularly interact with. But if cognition can extend in such a way that physical, extra-organismic artifacts (e.g., iPhones, smartwatches, tactile-visual substitution systems, etc.) can feature in cognitive processes such as memory, perception and the like, what does this mean for virtue epistemology? The aim here will be to attempt to answer this broad question in two parts. First I outline how the extended cognition thesis interfaces with the virtue reliabilist (e.g., Greco 2010; 2012; Sosa 2009; 2015) and virtue responsibilist (e.g., Baehr 2011; Battaly 2015; Montmarquet 1993) programmes in contemporary virtue epistemology, respectively. Next, I propose and briefly develop what I take to be four of the most important new research questions which arise for virtue epistemologists who welcome aboard the possibility of ‘extended’ intellectual virtues—viz., (i) the parity problem, (ii) the achievement problem, (iii) the cognitive integration problem, and (iv) the autonomy problem.
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In Chapter 3 of Judgment and Agency, Ernest Sosa (2015) explicates the concept of a fully apt performance. In the course of doing so, he draws from illustrative examples of practical performances and applies lessons drawn to the case of... more
In Chapter 3 of Judgment and Agency, Ernest Sosa (2015) explicates the concept of a fully apt performance. In the course of doing so, he draws from illustrative examples of practical performances and applies lessons drawn to the case of cognitive performances, and in particular, to the cognitive performance of judging. Sosa's examples in the practical sphere are rich and instructive. But there is, I will argue, an important disanalogy between the practical and cognitive examples he relies on. The disanalogy turns on a problematic picture of the cognitive performance of guessing and its connection to aptness, knowledge and defeat. Once this critical line of argument is advanced, an alternative picture of guessing, qua cognitive performance, is articulated, one which avoids the problems discussed.
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This is a blog post for the Forum for European Philosophy's blog, the Forum http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/theforum/blog/. In this post, we offer a precis of our co-authored article 'Epistemic Internalism and Active Externalism' (Erkenntnis, 2015).
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This paper has two central aims. First, we motivate a puzzle. The puzzle features four independently plausible but jointly inconsistent claims. One of the four claims is the sufficiency leg of the knowledge norm of assertion (KNA-S),... more
This paper has two central aims. First, we motivate a puzzle. The puzzle features four independently plausible but jointly inconsistent claims. One of the four claims is the sufficiency leg of the knowledge norm of assertion (KNA-S), according to which one is properly epistemically positioned to assert that p if one knows that p. We propose that rejecting (KNA-S) is the best way out of the puzzle. Our argument to this end appeals to the epistemic value of intellectual humility in social-epistemic practice.
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Addressing the ‘virtue conflation’ problem requires the preservation of intuitive distinctions between virtue types, i.e, between intellectual and moral virtues. According to one influential attempt to avoid this problem proposed by Julia... more
Addressing the ‘virtue conflation’ problem requires the preservation of intuitive distinctions between virtue types, i.e, between intellectual and moral virtues. According to one influential attempt to avoid this problem proposed by Julia Driver (2003), moral virtues produce benefits to others—in particular, they promote the well-being of others—while the intellectual virtues, as such, produce epistemic good for the agent. We show that Driver’s demarcation of intellectual virtue, by adverting to the self/other distinction, leads to a reductio, and ultimately, that the prospects for resolving the virtue conflation problem look dim within an epistemic consequentialist axiology.
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Relativists about knowledge ascriptions think that whether a particular use of a knowledge-ascribing sentence, e.g., “Keith knows that the bank is open” is true depends on the epistemic standards at play in the assessor’s context—viz.,... more
Relativists about knowledge ascriptions think that whether a particular use of a knowledge-ascribing sentence, e.g., “Keith knows that the bank is open” is true depends on the epistemic standards at play in the assessor’s context—viz., the context in which the knowledge ascription is being assessed for truth or falsity. Given that the very same knowledge-ascription can be assessed for truth or falsity from indefinitely many perspectives, relativism has a striking consequence. When I ascribe knowledge to someone (e.g., when I say that, at a particular time, “Keith knows that the bank is open”), what I’ve said does not get a truth-value absolutely, but only relatively. If this semantic thesis about the word “knows” and its cognates is true, what implications would this have for epistemology, the philosophical theory of knowledge? The present aim will be to engage with this mostly unexplored question, and then to consider how the epistemological conclusions drawn might bear on the plausibility of a relativist semantics for “knows”.
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Inference to the best explanation—or, IBE—tells us to infer from the available evidence to the hypothesis which would, if correct, best explain that evidence. As Peter Lipton (2000, 184) puts it, the core idea driving IBE is that... more
Inference to the best explanation—or, IBE—tells us to infer from the available evidence to the hypothesis which would, if correct, best explain that evidence. As Peter Lipton (2000, 184) puts it, the core idea driving IBE is that explanatory considerations
are a guide to inference. But what is the epistemic status of IBE, itself? One issue of contemporary interest (e.g., Boyd 1985; Psillos 1999; Boghossian 2001; Enoch & Schechter 2008) is whether it is possible to provide a justification for IBE itself which is non-objectionably circular. We aim to carve out some new space in this debate. In particular, we suggest that the matter of whether a given rule-circular argument is objectionably circular itself depends crucially on some subtle distinctions which have been made in the recent literature on perceptual warrant. By bringing these debates together, a principled reason emerges for why some kinds of rule-circular justifications for IBE are considerably less objectionable than others.
are a guide to inference. But what is the epistemic status of IBE, itself? One issue of contemporary interest (e.g., Boyd 1985; Psillos 1999; Boghossian 2001; Enoch & Schechter 2008) is whether it is possible to provide a justification for IBE itself which is non-objectionably circular. We aim to carve out some new space in this debate. In particular, we suggest that the matter of whether a given rule-circular argument is objectionably circular itself depends crucially on some subtle distinctions which have been made in the recent literature on perceptual warrant. By bringing these debates together, a principled reason emerges for why some kinds of rule-circular justifications for IBE are considerably less objectionable than others.
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In recent work, Mark Alfano (2012; 2014) and Jennifer Saul (2013) have put forward a similar kind of provocative sceptical challenge. Both appeal to recent literature in empirical psychology to show that our judgments across a wide range... more
In recent work, Mark Alfano (2012; 2014) and Jennifer Saul (2013) have put forward a similar kind of provocative sceptical challenge. Both appeal to recent literature in empirical psychology to show that our judgments across a wide range of cases are riddled with unreliable cognitive heuristics and biases. Likewise, they both conclude that we know a lot less than we have hitherto supposed, at least on standard conceptions of what knowledge involves. It is argued that even if one grants the empirical claims that Saul and Alfano make, the sceptical conclusion that they canvass might not be as dramatic as it first appears. It is further argued, however, that one can reinstate a more dramatic sceptical conclusion by targeting their argument not at knowledge but rather at the distinct (and distinctively valuable) epistemic standing of understanding.
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Knowledge, like other things of value, can be faked. According to Hawley (2011), knowhow is harder to fake than knowledge-that, given that merely apparent propositional knowledge is in general more resilient to our attempts at successful... more
Knowledge, like other things of value, can be faked. According to Hawley (2011), knowhow is harder to fake than knowledge-that, given that merely apparent propositional knowledge is in general more resilient to our attempts at successful detection than are corresponding attempts to fake know-how. While Hawley's reasoning for a kind of detection resilience asymmetry between know-how and know-that looks initially plausible, it should ultimately be resisted. In showing why, we outline different ways in which knowhow can be faked even when a given performance is successful; and in doing so, we distinguish how know-how can be faked (no less than know-that) via upstream and downstream indicators of its presence, and within each of these categories, we'll distinguish (in connection with detection resilience) both faking symptoms and (various kinds of) criteria. The unappreciated resilience of faked knowledge-how to successful detection highlights a largely overlooked dimension of social-epistemic risk-risk we face not just in our capacity as recipients of testimony, but in our capacity as both (would-be) apprentices and clients of knowledge-how.
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Memory technologies are cultural artifacts that scaffold, transform, and are interwoven with human biological memory systems. The goal of this article is to provide a systematic and integrative survey of their philosophical dimensions,... more
Memory technologies are cultural artifacts that scaffold, transform, and are interwoven with human biological memory systems. The goal of this article is to provide a systematic and integrative survey of their philosophical dimensions, including their metaphysical, epistemological and ethical dimensions, drawing together debates across the humanities, cognitive sciences, and social sciences. Metaphysical dimensions of memory technologies include their function, the nature of their informational properties, ways of classifying them, and their ontological status. Epistemological dimensions include the truth-conduciveness of external memory, the conditions under which external memory counts as knowledge, and the metacognitive monitoring of external memory processes. And lastly, ethical and normative dimensions include the desirability of the effects memory technologies have on biological memory, their effects on self and culture, and their moral status. Whilst the focus in the article is largely philosophical and conceptual, empirical issues such as the way we interact with memory technologies in various contexts are also discussed. We thus take a naturalistic approach in which philosophical and empirical concepts and approaches are seen as continuous.