Fernando Broncano-Berrocal

In what sense do groups have beliefs? This paper provides a novel answer to this question by combining pluralism and summativism about group belief. The resulting view is called pluralistic summativism. The paper starts by critically assessing the three main debates in the literature—the disputes between monism and pluralism, summativism and non-summativism, and believism and rejectionism—and draws a general methodological lesson for the summativism/non-summativism debate—namely, that intuitions about cases alone are not enough to adjudicate between views of group belief, and that the debate would benefit from a reflective equilibrium approach. All of this serves as motivation for the novel pluralist and summative view, which has some advantages, for example, when it comes to moral evaluation.

The main lesson from Gettier cases is that while one cannot know a proposition by luck, one can hold a lucky true belief justifiedly. Possibly because the latter is taken for granted, the relationship between epistemic justification and epistemic luck has been less discussed. The paper investigates whether luck can undermine doxastic justification, and if so, how and to what extent. It is argued that, as in the case of knowledge, beliefs can fall short of justification due to luck. Moreover, it is argued that justification-undermining luck is a problem for both internalist and externalist conceptions of justification. Accordingly, it is shown that epistemic luck is a more widespread phenomenon than many in epistemology commonly assume.

Under what conditions is a group belief resulting from deliberation constitutive of group knowledge? What kinds of competences must a deliberating group manifest when settling a question so that the resulting collective belief can be considered group knowledge? In this paper, we provide an answer to the second question that helps make progress on the first question. In particular, we explain the epistemic normativity of deliberation-based group belief in terms of a truth norm and an evidential norm, introduce a virtue-reliabilist condition on deliberative group knowledge, and provide an account and a taxonomy of the types of group competences that are necessary for this type of collective knowledge. 1 Group Deliberation and Group Knowledge Deliberation is a practice or activity in which we weigh reasons to settle the question of whether p or to decide whether to φ. It can serve epistemic or non-epistemic purposes and be guided by epistemic or non-epistemic considerations (e.g., practical, moral, etc.). It can done individually or in a group. In the first case, the weighing of reasons takes place entirely (or at least substantially) in the mind of an individual. In the second case, deliberation is mediated, at least in part, by a communication process, either within a group or between groups, in which beliefs, evidence, information, arguments, etc. concerning the question of whether p or the decision whether to φ are expressed and exchanged. Accordingly, group deliberation can take the form of intra-group deliberation-i.e., communication and exchange of reasons among group members, typically with the aim of settling on a collective view on whether p or whether to φ-or it can take the form of inter-group deliberation-i.e., deliberation between different groups or their spokespersons, usually with the goal of reaching a consensus or some kind of inter-group agreement on whether p or whether to φ 1. In this paper, we are concerned with intra-group deliberation (hereafter simply 'deliberation') and not with individual or inter-group deliberation. Now consider group knowledge. The attribution of knowledge to groups is common 2 , and the idea that groups can know is prevalent in social epistemology 3. Moreover, we often deliberate in groups and form collective views on that basis, and sometimes we take such views to be group knowledge. If a medical team deliberates about whether their patient has a rare form of cancer

La influencia de Ernie Sosa en la epistemología ha sido y es tan ingente que sería imposible cuantificarla o resumirla en un simple artículo. Quien se dedique a esta disciplina filosófica sabrá que hay pocos debates en epistemología donde no haya contribuido de manera relevante y, en la mayoría de casos, decisiva. Para medir su influencia solo debemos hacernos una simple pregunta: ¿qué hubiera sido de la epistemología si Ernie se hubiera dedicado a otra cosa? Sin duda, la epistemología actual sería mucho más estéril en ideas, una gran cantidad de debates (tales como la pugna entre fundacionalismo y coherentismo) se hubieran estancado en un punto muerto, y la naturaleza del conocimiento y la justificación epistémica serían cuestiones mucho más misteriosas de lo que son ahora. La epistemología de virtudes, originalmente concebida por Ernie, se ha convertido en la actualidad en un rico marco conceptual desde donde abordar multitud de problemas epistemológicos y en el que afloran multitud de ideas. Sus teorías, no obstante, han sido y siguen siendo la semilla de la que crecen el resto. Es por ello que la mejor manera de pagar la deuda intelectual que muchos tenemos con el iluminador trabajo de Ernie es continuar ramificando su legado. Ilustrar algunas de las múltiples ramificaciones de la epistemología de virtudes, en este caso fiabilista, es precisamente el objeto de este artículo.

This paper critically assesses Sosa's normative framework for performances as well as its application to epistemology. We first develop a problem for one of Sosa's central theses in the general theory of performance normativity according to which performances attain fully desirable status if and only if they are fully apt. More specifically, we argue that given Sosa's account of full aptness according to which a performance is fully apt only if safe from failure, this thesis can't be true. We then B Christoph Kelp

This paper proposes a methodological turn for the epistemology of disagreement, away from focusing on highly idealized cases of peer disagreement and towards an increased focus on disagreement simpliciter. We propose and develop a normative framework for evaluating all cases of disagreement as to whether something is the case independently of their composition-i.e., independently of whether they are between peers or not. The upshot will be a norm of disagreement on which what one should do when faced with a disagreeing party is to improve the epistemic properties of one's doxastic attitude or, alternatively, hold steadfast.

The lottery problem is the problem of explaining why mere reflection on the long odds that one will lose the lottery does not yield knowledge that one will lose. More generally, it is the problem of explaining why true beliefs merely formed on the basis of statistical evidence do not amount to knowledge. Some have thought that the lottery problem can be solved by appeal to a violation of the safety principle for knowledge, i.e., the principle that if S knows that p, not easily would S have believed that p without p being the case. Against the standard safety‐based solution, I argue that understanding safe belief as belief that directly covaries with the truth of what is believed in a suitably defined set of possible worlds forces safety theorists to make a series of theoretical choices that ultimately prevent a satisfactory solution to the problem. In this way, I analyze several safety principles that result from such choices—the paper thus gives valuable insights into the nature of safety—and explain why none solves the lottery problem, including their inability to explain away Gettierized lottery cases. On a more positive note, I show that there is a viable solution in terms of safety if we get rid of the unquestioned assumption that safe beliefs directly track the truth. The alternative is a conception of safe belief according to which what safe beliefs directly track is the appropriateness of the circumstances and, indirectly, the truth. The resulting safety principle, I argue, explains why mere statistical evidence is not a safe source of knowledge.

A platitude in epistemology is that an individual's belief does not qualify as knowledge if it is true by luck. Individuals, however, are not the only bearers of knowledge. Many epistemologists agree that groups can also possess knowledge in a way that is genuinely collective. If groups can know, it is natural to think that, just as true individual beliefs fall short of knowledge due to individual epistemic luck, true collective beliefs may fall short of knowledge because of collective epistemic luck. This paper argues, first, that the dominant view of epistemic luck in the literature, the modal view, does not yield a satisfactory account of lucky collective beliefs. Second, it argues that collective epistemic luck is better explained in terms of groups lacking (suitably defined) forms of control over collective belief formation that are specific to the different procedures for forming collective beliefs. One of the main implications of this, we will argue, is that groups whose beliefs are formed via internal deliberation are more vulnerable to knowledge-undermining collective luck than groups that form their beliefs via non-deliberative methods, such as non-deliberative anonymous voting. The bottom line is that the greater exposure to knowledge-undermining luck that deliberation gives rise to provides a reason (not a conclusive one) for thinking that non-deliberative methods of group belief formation have greater epistemic value.

Epistemic care can be understood as a form of care that aims to meet epistemic needs. What is the relationship between epistemic care and epistemic paternalism? To what extent is epistemic care compatible with epistemic paternalism? Can some epistemically paternalistic acts be considered instances of epistemic care? After defining the notions of epistemic care and epistemic paternalism, I will argue that the two phenomena are related in the following way: an epistemically paternalistic act is justified if it is an instance of proper epistemic care.

Some things are more difficult to know than others. For example, proving the Poincaré conjecture is certainly more difficult than coming to know what does 2 + 2 equal. However, as obvious as it seems, explaining that knowledge can be difficult in familiar epistemological terms (e.g., in evidentialist or simple reliabilist terms) is less straightforward than one could initially think. The aim of the chapter is to show that virtue reliabilism (unlike virtue responsibilism) provides a promising framework for accounting for the relationship between difficulty and knowledge. However, it argues that virtue reliabilism first needs to get rid of the problematic assumption that cognitive abilities are reliable dispositions to form true beliefs in appropriate conditions. The reason is that this idea not only prevents the theory from explaining how knowledge relates to difficulty, but also renders its main tenet – the thesis that knowledge requires the manifestation of cognitive ability in appropriate conditions – false. To amend this problem, the chapter connects the virtue reliabilist framework with recent work on the notions of achievement and difficulty. It then advances a positive proposal: the view that knowledge is a special kind of challenge with varying degrees of difficulty.

(published in Analysis) An explanatorily powerful approach to the modal dimension of knowledge is Robert Nozick's idea that knowledge stands in a tracking relation to the world. However, pinning down a specific modal condition has proved elusive (e.g., there is an increasing awareness that the safety and sensitivity conditions are not necessary for knowledge). In this paper, I offer a diagnosis and a positive proposal. The root of the problem, I argue, is the unquestioned assumption that tracking is a maer of directly preserving conformity between what is believed and what is the case in certain possible worlds. My proposal is that what we track is whether the conditions for belief formation are appropriate in such worlds. Accordingly, we indirectly track the truth by ensuring that we only use our methods of belief formation in conditions that make it likely that conformity is preserved between what is believed and what is the case.

(forthcoming in the The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy and Psychology of Luck) The aim of this paper is to explore the hypothesis that luck is a risk-involving phenomenon. I start by explaining why this hypothesis is prima facie plausible in view of the parallelisms between luck and risk. I then distinguish three ways to spell it out: in probabilistic terms, in modal terms, and in terms of lack of control. Before evaluating the resulting accounts, I explain how the idea that luck involves risk is compatible with the fact that risk concerns unwanted events whereas luck can concern both wanted and unwanted events. I turn to evaluating the modal and probabilistic views and argue, firstly, that they fail to account for the connection between risk and bad luck; secondly, that they also fail to account for the connection between risk and good luck. Finally, I defend the lack of control view. In particular, I argue that it can handle the objections to the probabilistic and modal accounts and that it can explain how degrees of luck and risk covary. 4th of July of 1943, 11:07 pm. A Consolidated B-24 Liberator takes off from Gibraltar Airport. It carries Władysław Sikorski, the commander-in-chief of the Polish Army and the Prime Minister of the Polish government-in-exile. Sixteen seconds after takeoff the aircraft crashes into the sea. Sikorski dies along with ten other people. The pilot, Flight Lieutenant Eduard Prchal, survives. Later investigations of this World War II event failed to pin down the specific cause of the accident, but it is believed that the elevator system of the aircraft was jammed. Prchal's efforts to move the stick of the steering mechanism were all in vain. He could not pull up and the plane lost height quickly. Inevitably, it ended in the waters of the Strait of Gibraltar. Prchal's lucky survival and events alike suggest that there is a close connection between luck and risk. For a lot of risk is involved in taking off in an aircraft whose elevator system is jammed, and a lot of luck is involved if that risk is materialized, the aircraft crashes and yet one survives against all odds. Indeed, cases of this sort give prima facie reason to think that luck is a risk-involving phenomenon. In this paper, I aim to explore this hypothesis. Here is the plan. In §1, I will take a closer look at the luck as risk hypothesis in the light of the parallelisms between both phenomena and introduce three ways to spell it out: in probabilistic terms, in modal terms, and in terms of lack of control. In §2, I will explain how luck can be naturally understood as a risk-involving phenomenon even if luck and risk are different—especially in view of the fact that risk concerns unwanted events, whereas luck can concern both wanted and unwanted 1

(forthcoming in Synthese) In a series of papers, Jesper Kallestrup and Duncan Pritchard argue that the thesis that knowledge is a cognitive success because of cognitive ability (robust virtue epistemology) is incompatible with the idea that whether or not an agent's true belief amounts to knowledge can significantly depend upon factors beyond her cognitive agency (epistemic dependence). In particular, certain purely modal facts seem to preclude knowledge, while the contribution of other agents' cognitive abilities seems to enable it. Kallestrup and Pritchard's arguments are targeted against views that hold that all it takes to manifest one's cognitive agency is to properly exercise one's belief-forming abilities. I offer an account of the notion of cognitive ability according to which our epistemic resources are not exhausted by abilities to produce true beliefs as outputs, but also include dispositions to stop belief-formation when actual or modal circumstances are not suitable for it (precautionary cognitive abilities). Knowledge, I argue, can be accordingly conceived as a cognitive success that is also due to the latter. The resulting version of robust virtue epistemology helps explain how purely modal facts as well as other agents' cognitive abilities may have a bearing on the manifestation of one's cognitive agency, which shows in turn that robust virtue epistemology and epistemic dependence are not incompatible after all.

(published in Philosophical Studies): A notorious objection to robust virtue epistemology—the view that an agent knows a proposition if and only if her cognitive success is because of her intellectual virtues—is that it fails to eliminate knowledge-undermining luck. Modest virtue epistemologists agree with robust virtue epistemologists that if someone knows, then her cognitive success must be because of her intellectual virtues, but they think that more is needed for knowledge. More specifically, they introduce independently motivated modal anti-luck principles in their accounts to amend the problem of eliminating luck—this makes their views instances of impure virtue epistemology. The aim of the paper is to argue, firstly, that such a move lacks adequate motivation; secondly, that the resulting impure accounts equally fail to handle knowledge-undermining luck. On a more positive note, these results bolster a more orthodox virtue-theoretic approach to knowledge that assigns a fundamental explanatory role to the notion of ability. In this sense, the paper also sketches an account of ability and a corresponding account of knowledge that explains how success from ability (of the right kind) is incompatible with success from luck.

(published in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society) According to Alan Millar, justified beliefs are well-founded beliefs. Millar cashes out the notion of well-foundedness in terms of having an adequate reason to believe something and believing it for that reason. To make his account of justified belief compatible with perceptual justification he appeals to the notion of recognitional ability. It is argued that, due to the fact that Millar’s is a knowledge-first view, his appeal to recognitional abilities fails to offer an explanatory account of familiar cases in the literature and, as a consequence, of the notion of perceptual justification.

(published in Synthese) What is the nature of knowledge? A popular answer to that long-standing question comes from robust virtue epistemology, whose key idea is that knowing is just a matter of succeeding cognitively—i.e., coming to believe a proposition truly— due to an exercise of cognitive ability. Versions of robust virtue epistemology further developing and systematizing this idea offer different accounts of the relation that must hold between an agent's cognitive success and the exercise of her cognitive abilities as well as of the very nature of those abilities. This paper aims to give a new robust virtue epistemological account of knowledge based on a different understanding of the nature and structure of the kind of abilities that give rise to knowledge. What is the nature of knowledge? A popular answer to that long-standing question comes from robust virtue epistemology, whose key idea is that knowing is just a matter of succeeding cognitively—i.e., coming to believe a proposition truly—due to an exercise of cognitive ability. Versions of robust virtue episte-mology further developing and systematizing this idea offer different accounts of the relation that must hold between an agent's cognitive success and the exercise of her cognitive abilities as well as accounts of the very nature of those abilities. This paper aims to give a new robust virtue epistemological account of knowledge based on a different understanding of the nature and structure of the kind of abilities that give rise to knowledge. To motivate these alternative accounts —of ability and knowledge— and to compare them with current views of the notion of cognitive ability as well as with the theories of knowledge that result from them, I will find it useful to introduce

(published in Theoria) In a recent article in this journal, Wolfgang Freitag argues that Gettier-style cases that are based on the notion of " distant " epistemic luck cannot be ruled out as cases of knowledge by modal conditions such as safety or sensitivity. I argue that (1) safety and sensitivity can be easily fixed and that (2) Freitag provides no convincing reason for the existence of " distant " epistemic luck.

(published in The Philosophy of Luck) This essay explains the notion of luck in terms of risk. It starts by distinguishing two senses of risk, the risk that an event has of occurring and the risk at which an agent is with respect to an event. It cashes out the former in modal terms (rather than probabilistic) and the latter in terms of lack of control. It then argues that the presence or absence of event-relative risk marks a distinction between two types of luck or fortune commonly overlooked in ordinary usage of the terms “luck” and “fortune.” After offering a detailed account of the notion of control, the essay advances a new version of the so-called lack of control account of luck: lucky events are events with respect to which one is at risk and hence events over which one lacks control in the specified way. Finally, it argues that its account steers clear of counterexamples to the lack of control account of luck.

(published in Metaphilosophy) This essay explains the notion of luck in terms of risk. It starts by distinguishing two senses of risk, the risk that an event has of occurring and the risk at which an agent is with respect to an event. It cashes out the former in modal terms (rather than probabilistic) and the latter in terms of lack of control. It then argues that the presence or absence of event-relative risk marks a distinction between two types of luck or fortune commonly overlooked in ordinary usage of the terms “luck” and “fortune.” After offering a detailed account of the notion of control, the essay advances a new version of the so-called lack of control account of luck: lucky events are events with respect to which one is at risk and hence events over which one lacks control in the specified way. Finally, it argues that its account steers clear of counterexamples to the lack of control account of luck.

(published in Philosophia) In “Knowledge Under Threat” (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 2012), Tomas Bogardus proposes a counterexample to the safety condition for knowledge. Bogardus argues that the case demonstrates that unsafe knowledge is possible. I argue that the case just corroborates the well-known requirement that modal conditions like safety must be relativized to methods of belief formation. I explore several ways of relativizing safety to belief-forming methods and I argue that none is adequate: if methods were individuated in those ways, safety would fail to explain several much-discussed cases. I then propose a plausible externalist principle of method individuation. On the one hand, relativizing safety to belief-forming methods in the way suggested allows the defender of safety to account for the cases. On the other hand, it shows that the target known belief of Bogardus’s example is safe. Finally, I offer a diagnosis of a common error about the kind of cases that are typically considered potential counterexamples to the necessity of the epistemic condition: proponents of the alleged counterexamples mistake a strong condition that I call super-safety for safety.

(published in Erkenntnis) I argue that Duncan Pritchard’s anti-luck virtue epistemology is insufficient for knowledge. I show that Pritchard fails to achieve the aim that motivates his adoption of a virtue-theoretic condition in the first place: to guarantee the appropriate direction of fit that known beliefs have. Finally, I examine whether other virtue-theoretic accounts are able to explain what I call the direction of fit problem.

(published in Logos and Episteme) The traditional view of lying says that lying is a matter of intending to deceive others by making statements that one believes to be false. Jennifer Lackey has recently defended the following version of that view: A lies to B just in case (i) A states that p to B, (ii) A believes that p is false and (iii) A intends to be deceptive to B in stating that p. I argue that, despite all the virtues that Lackey ascribes to her view, conditions (i), (ii) and (iii) are not sufficient for lying.