Gatekeeping, or determining membership of your group, is crucial to science: the moniker ‘scienti... more Gatekeeping, or determining membership of your group, is crucial to science: the moniker ‘scientific’ is a stamp of epistemic quality or even authority. But gatekeeping in science is fraught with dangers. Gatekeepers must exclude bad science, science fraud and pseudoscience, while including the disagreeing viewpoints on which science thrives. This is a difficult tightrope, not least because gatekeeping is a human matter and can be influenced by biases such as groupthink. After spelling out these general tensions around gatekeeping in science, we shed light on them with a case study from psychology. This concerns whether academic psychologists rightly or wrongly classify the applied-psychology framework of NLP (‘neuro-linguistic programming’) as unscientific and even pseudoscientific. This example of gatekeeping is particularly instructive because both the NLP community and the psychology community, we argue, make legitimate but also illegitimate moves. This case gives rise to several general insights about gatekeeping in science more generally.
Background: Ontologies and taxonomies are among the most important computational resources for mo... more Background: Ontologies and taxonomies are among the most important computational resources for molecular biology and bioinformatics. A series of recent papers has shown that the Gene Ontology (GO), the most prominent taxonomic resource in these fields, is marked by flaws of certain characteristic types, which flow from a failure to address basic ontological principles. As yet, no methods have been proposed which would allow ontology curators to pinpoint flawed terms or definitions in ontologies in a systematic way. Results: We present computational methods that automatically identify terms and definitions which are defined in a circular or unintelligible way. We further demonstrate the potential of these methods by applying them to isolate a subset of 6001 problematic GO terms. By automatically aligning GO with other ontologies and taxonomies we were able to propose alternative synonyms and definitions for some of these problematic terms. This allows us to demonstrate that these other resources do not contain definitions superior to those supplied by GO.
Where there is trust, there is also vulnerability, and vulnerability can be exploited. Epistemic ... more Where there is trust, there is also vulnerability, and vulnerability can be exploited. Epistemic trust is no exception. This chapter maps the phenomenon of the exploitation of epistemic trust. I start with a discussion of how trust in general can be exploited; a key observation is that trust incurs vulnerabilities not just for the party doing the trusting, but also for the trustee (after all, trust can be burdensome), so either party can exploit the other. I apply these considerations to epistemic trust, specifically in testimonial relationships. There, we standardly think of a hearer trusting a speaker. But we miss an important aspect of this relationship unless we consider too that the speaker standardly trusts the hearer. Given this mutual trust, and given that both trustees and trusters can exploit each other, we have four possibilities for exploitation in epistemic-trust relationships: a speaker exploiting a hearer (a) by accepting his trust or (b) by imposing her trust on him, and a hearer exploiting a speaker (c) by accepting her trust or (d) by imposing his trust on her. One result is that you do not need to betray someone to exploit him-you can exploit him just as easily by doing what he trusts you for.
I give an overview of the trust literature and then of six central issues concerning epistemic tr... more I give an overview of the trust literature and then of six central issues concerning epistemic trust. The survey of trust zeroes in on the kinds of expectations that trust involves, trust’s characteristic psychology, and what makes trust rational. The discussion of epistemic trust focuses on its role in testimony, the epistemic goods that we trust for, the significance of epistemic trust in contrast to reliance, what makes epistemic trust rational, and epistemic self-trust.
Religious Truth and Identity in an Age of Plurality, 2020
Some religious communities argue that public policy is best decided by their own members, on the ... more Some religious communities argue that public policy is best decided by their own members, on the grounds that collaborating with those reasoning from secular or "worldly" perspectives will only foment error about how society should be run. But I argue that epistemology instead recommends fostering disagreement among a plurality of religious and secular worldviews. Inter-worldview disagreement over public policy can challenge our unquestioned assumptions, deliver evidence we would likely have missed, and expose us to new epistemic alternatives; when done respectfully, it can also combat epistemically problematic biases and groupthink. I address two objections that members of a politically active religious community might raise: one that inter-worldview disagreement about public policy is not needed because one's own beliefs are already true, and another that it is not needed because one's own beliefforming processes are divinely guided.
Wir leben in einem Zeitalter der religiösen Vielfalt. Es gibt viele unterschiedliche und scheinba... more Wir leben in einem Zeitalter der religiösen Vielfalt. Es gibt viele unterschiedliche und scheinbar inkompatible religiöse und säkulare Glaubensformen, die einander mit einer erstaunlichen Intensität und Geschwindigkeit dank Globalisierung und sozialen Medien begegnen. Damit wächst die Einsicht, dass das eigene Überzeugungssystem nicht mehr einfach als gegeben und plausibel anzunehmen ist. Aufgrund dieser neuen Entwicklungen haben sich in den letzten Jahren intensive philosophische Diskussionen ergeben.
What is epistemic self-trust? There is a tension in the way in which prominent accounts answer th... more What is epistemic self-trust? There is a tension in the way in which prominent accounts answer this question. Many construe epistemic trust in oneself as no more than reliance on our sub-personal cognitive faculties. Yet many accountsoften the same onesconstrue epistemic trust in others as a normatively laden attitude directed at persons whom we expect to care about our epistemic needs. Is epistemic self-trust really so different from epistemic trust in others? I argue that it is not. We certainly do rely on our cognitive faculties to achieve epistemic ends; but I argue that we also have the normatively rich sort of epistemic trust in ourselves. Moreover, there is a theoretical need for this normatively rich notion of epistemic self-trust: positing it yields the best account of how we secure important epistemic goods, including knowledge and recognition as knowers. I argue this by giving an account of epistemic trust in others and showing that it can be generalized to epistemic trust in oneself.
The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Humility, 2020
Epistemic trust helps secure knowledge, and so does intellectual humility. They do so independent... more Epistemic trust helps secure knowledge, and so does intellectual humility. They do so independently; but they can also support each other, and this chapter discusses how. Epistemic trust, at least the form discussed here, is trust in oneself or another person for knowledge. It involves a norm-governed relationship with positive affective and volitional attitudes, and is effective at securing knowledge when directed toward a trustworthy person. Intellectual humility is a character virtue that involves caring about epistemic ends and promotes accurate insight into those of one's own cognitive, affective, and volitional faculties that are relevant to acquiring knowledge. Intellectual humility, I argue, promotes effective epistemic trust in oneself and in others. It promotes effective epistemic self-trust by yielding insight into one's own epistemic trustworthiness, and by ensuring that one is motivated to epistemically self-improve if necessary. It promotes effective epistemic trust in others, at least in the context of testimony, by helping a hearer assess whether he needs outside epistemic assistance, and how apt he is at selecting trustworthy testifiers; and by helping a speaker be epistemically trustworthy.
Religious disagreement, like disagreement in science, stands to deliver important epistemic benef... more Religious disagreement, like disagreement in science, stands to deliver important epistemic benefits. But religious communities tend to frown on it. A salient reason is that, whereas scientists should be neutral toward the topics they discuss, religious believers should be loyal to God; and religious disagreement, they argue, is disloyal. For it often involves discussion with people who believe more negatively about God than you do, putting you at risk of forming negative beliefs yourself. And forming negative beliefs about someone, or even being open to doing so, is disloyal. A loyal person, says the objector, should instead exhibit doxastic partiality, doing her best to believe positively about the other party even at the cost of accuracy. I discuss two arguments from doxastic partiality that aim to show that religious disagreement is typically disloyal. I argue that even given doxastic partiality, religious disagreement is not typically disloyal, and can in fact be loyal. But then I argue that doxastic partiality is false. A superior form of loyalty is epistemically oriented: concerned with knowing the other party as she really is. This opens up new ways in which religious disagreement for the sake of learning about God can be loyal to him.
If you love someone, is it good to believe better of her than epistemic norms allow? The partiali... more If you love someone, is it good to believe better of her than epistemic norms allow? The partiality view says that it is: love, on this view, issues norms of belief that clash with epistemic norms. The partiality view is supposedly supported by an analogy between beliefs and actions, by the phenomenology of love, and by the idea that love commits us to the loved one's good character. I argue that the partiality view is false, and defend what I call the epistemic view. On the epistemic view, love also issues norms of belief. But these say simply (and perhaps surprisingly) that you should adhere to epistemic norms in forming and maintaining beliefs about loved ones. I offer two arguments for the epistemic view. The first appeals to the emotional responses of love, which, when sensitive to what the loved one is really like, can make love great and be morally transformative. The second is a new argument for why caring for a loved one requires true beliefs about him. We see that there may be some boundaries, such as stuffy traditions, that love is right to defy, but that epistemic boundaries are not among them.
I argue that faith is a type of trust. It is also part of a relationship in which both parties ar... more I argue that faith is a type of trust. It is also part of a relationship in which both parties are called on to be faithful, where faithfulness is a type of trustworthiness. What distinguishes faith relationships from trust relationships is that both parties value the faith relationship intrinsically. I discuss how faith on this account can, and cannot, be rational when it goes beyond a person's evidence. It turns out that faith has the same rationality conditions as trust, differing from it only in the cases that fix our intuitions.
A prominent view in religious epistemology, which I call divine-help epistemology, says that peop... more A prominent view in religious epistemology, which I call divine-help epistemology, says that people of faith are epistemically gifted by God, whereas non-believers are subject to the noetic effects of a fallen world. This view aims to show how religious beliefs for people of faith can be epistemically justified. But I argue that it makes such people prone to a cluster of epistemic vices that I call epistemic phariseeism. Divine-help epistemology is especially apt to promote these vices because its normativity is not just epistemic, but also religious and moral. I suggest an alternative epistemological view that is better suited to religious faith.
The Cambridge Handbook of Religious Epistemology, 2023
Religious disagreement describes the fact that religious and secular beliefs exhibit massive vari... more Religious disagreement describes the fact that religious and secular beliefs exhibit massive variety, and cannot all be perfectly accurate. It yields a problem and an opportunity. The problem is that, especially given the apparent epistemic parity of many who hold other beliefs, you cannot suppose that your beliefs are accurate. This arguably puts pressure on you to weaken or abandon your beliefs. Responses include denying the parity of those who disagree, or denying that religious disagreement speaks strongly against your beliefs. I criticize these, defending an alternative epistemology to those employed by both the problem and the responses. My epistemological view finds a middle-ground between them, and positions us to benefit from the opportunity that religious disagreement offers to improve our beliefs. I address the objections that the opportunity mentality is unnecessary if God supports our beliefs, that it risks our (true) beliefs, and that it is disloyal to God.
Gatekeeping, or determining membership of your group, is crucial to science: the moniker ‘scienti... more Gatekeeping, or determining membership of your group, is crucial to science: the moniker ‘scientific’ is a stamp of epistemic quality or even authority. But gatekeeping in science is fraught with dangers. Gatekeepers must exclude bad science, science fraud and pseudoscience, while including the disagreeing viewpoints on which science thrives. This is a difficult tightrope, not least because gatekeeping is a human matter and can be influenced by biases such as groupthink. After spelling out these general tensions around gatekeeping in science, we shed light on them with a case study from psychology. This concerns whether academic psychologists rightly or wrongly classify the applied-psychology framework of NLP (‘neuro-linguistic programming’) as unscientific and even pseudoscientific. This example of gatekeeping is particularly instructive because both the NLP community and the psychology community, we argue, make legitimate but also illegitimate moves. This case gives rise to several general insights about gatekeeping in science more generally.
Background: Ontologies and taxonomies are among the most important computational resources for mo... more Background: Ontologies and taxonomies are among the most important computational resources for molecular biology and bioinformatics. A series of recent papers has shown that the Gene Ontology (GO), the most prominent taxonomic resource in these fields, is marked by flaws of certain characteristic types, which flow from a failure to address basic ontological principles. As yet, no methods have been proposed which would allow ontology curators to pinpoint flawed terms or definitions in ontologies in a systematic way. Results: We present computational methods that automatically identify terms and definitions which are defined in a circular or unintelligible way. We further demonstrate the potential of these methods by applying them to isolate a subset of 6001 problematic GO terms. By automatically aligning GO with other ontologies and taxonomies we were able to propose alternative synonyms and definitions for some of these problematic terms. This allows us to demonstrate that these other resources do not contain definitions superior to those supplied by GO.
Where there is trust, there is also vulnerability, and vulnerability can be exploited. Epistemic ... more Where there is trust, there is also vulnerability, and vulnerability can be exploited. Epistemic trust is no exception. This chapter maps the phenomenon of the exploitation of epistemic trust. I start with a discussion of how trust in general can be exploited; a key observation is that trust incurs vulnerabilities not just for the party doing the trusting, but also for the trustee (after all, trust can be burdensome), so either party can exploit the other. I apply these considerations to epistemic trust, specifically in testimonial relationships. There, we standardly think of a hearer trusting a speaker. But we miss an important aspect of this relationship unless we consider too that the speaker standardly trusts the hearer. Given this mutual trust, and given that both trustees and trusters can exploit each other, we have four possibilities for exploitation in epistemic-trust relationships: a speaker exploiting a hearer (a) by accepting his trust or (b) by imposing her trust on him, and a hearer exploiting a speaker (c) by accepting her trust or (d) by imposing his trust on her. One result is that you do not need to betray someone to exploit him-you can exploit him just as easily by doing what he trusts you for.
I give an overview of the trust literature and then of six central issues concerning epistemic tr... more I give an overview of the trust literature and then of six central issues concerning epistemic trust. The survey of trust zeroes in on the kinds of expectations that trust involves, trust’s characteristic psychology, and what makes trust rational. The discussion of epistemic trust focuses on its role in testimony, the epistemic goods that we trust for, the significance of epistemic trust in contrast to reliance, what makes epistemic trust rational, and epistemic self-trust.
Religious Truth and Identity in an Age of Plurality, 2020
Some religious communities argue that public policy is best decided by their own members, on the ... more Some religious communities argue that public policy is best decided by their own members, on the grounds that collaborating with those reasoning from secular or "worldly" perspectives will only foment error about how society should be run. But I argue that epistemology instead recommends fostering disagreement among a plurality of religious and secular worldviews. Inter-worldview disagreement over public policy can challenge our unquestioned assumptions, deliver evidence we would likely have missed, and expose us to new epistemic alternatives; when done respectfully, it can also combat epistemically problematic biases and groupthink. I address two objections that members of a politically active religious community might raise: one that inter-worldview disagreement about public policy is not needed because one's own beliefs are already true, and another that it is not needed because one's own beliefforming processes are divinely guided.
Wir leben in einem Zeitalter der religiösen Vielfalt. Es gibt viele unterschiedliche und scheinba... more Wir leben in einem Zeitalter der religiösen Vielfalt. Es gibt viele unterschiedliche und scheinbar inkompatible religiöse und säkulare Glaubensformen, die einander mit einer erstaunlichen Intensität und Geschwindigkeit dank Globalisierung und sozialen Medien begegnen. Damit wächst die Einsicht, dass das eigene Überzeugungssystem nicht mehr einfach als gegeben und plausibel anzunehmen ist. Aufgrund dieser neuen Entwicklungen haben sich in den letzten Jahren intensive philosophische Diskussionen ergeben.
What is epistemic self-trust? There is a tension in the way in which prominent accounts answer th... more What is epistemic self-trust? There is a tension in the way in which prominent accounts answer this question. Many construe epistemic trust in oneself as no more than reliance on our sub-personal cognitive faculties. Yet many accountsoften the same onesconstrue epistemic trust in others as a normatively laden attitude directed at persons whom we expect to care about our epistemic needs. Is epistemic self-trust really so different from epistemic trust in others? I argue that it is not. We certainly do rely on our cognitive faculties to achieve epistemic ends; but I argue that we also have the normatively rich sort of epistemic trust in ourselves. Moreover, there is a theoretical need for this normatively rich notion of epistemic self-trust: positing it yields the best account of how we secure important epistemic goods, including knowledge and recognition as knowers. I argue this by giving an account of epistemic trust in others and showing that it can be generalized to epistemic trust in oneself.
The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Humility, 2020
Epistemic trust helps secure knowledge, and so does intellectual humility. They do so independent... more Epistemic trust helps secure knowledge, and so does intellectual humility. They do so independently; but they can also support each other, and this chapter discusses how. Epistemic trust, at least the form discussed here, is trust in oneself or another person for knowledge. It involves a norm-governed relationship with positive affective and volitional attitudes, and is effective at securing knowledge when directed toward a trustworthy person. Intellectual humility is a character virtue that involves caring about epistemic ends and promotes accurate insight into those of one's own cognitive, affective, and volitional faculties that are relevant to acquiring knowledge. Intellectual humility, I argue, promotes effective epistemic trust in oneself and in others. It promotes effective epistemic self-trust by yielding insight into one's own epistemic trustworthiness, and by ensuring that one is motivated to epistemically self-improve if necessary. It promotes effective epistemic trust in others, at least in the context of testimony, by helping a hearer assess whether he needs outside epistemic assistance, and how apt he is at selecting trustworthy testifiers; and by helping a speaker be epistemically trustworthy.
Religious disagreement, like disagreement in science, stands to deliver important epistemic benef... more Religious disagreement, like disagreement in science, stands to deliver important epistemic benefits. But religious communities tend to frown on it. A salient reason is that, whereas scientists should be neutral toward the topics they discuss, religious believers should be loyal to God; and religious disagreement, they argue, is disloyal. For it often involves discussion with people who believe more negatively about God than you do, putting you at risk of forming negative beliefs yourself. And forming negative beliefs about someone, or even being open to doing so, is disloyal. A loyal person, says the objector, should instead exhibit doxastic partiality, doing her best to believe positively about the other party even at the cost of accuracy. I discuss two arguments from doxastic partiality that aim to show that religious disagreement is typically disloyal. I argue that even given doxastic partiality, religious disagreement is not typically disloyal, and can in fact be loyal. But then I argue that doxastic partiality is false. A superior form of loyalty is epistemically oriented: concerned with knowing the other party as she really is. This opens up new ways in which religious disagreement for the sake of learning about God can be loyal to him.
If you love someone, is it good to believe better of her than epistemic norms allow? The partiali... more If you love someone, is it good to believe better of her than epistemic norms allow? The partiality view says that it is: love, on this view, issues norms of belief that clash with epistemic norms. The partiality view is supposedly supported by an analogy between beliefs and actions, by the phenomenology of love, and by the idea that love commits us to the loved one's good character. I argue that the partiality view is false, and defend what I call the epistemic view. On the epistemic view, love also issues norms of belief. But these say simply (and perhaps surprisingly) that you should adhere to epistemic norms in forming and maintaining beliefs about loved ones. I offer two arguments for the epistemic view. The first appeals to the emotional responses of love, which, when sensitive to what the loved one is really like, can make love great and be morally transformative. The second is a new argument for why caring for a loved one requires true beliefs about him. We see that there may be some boundaries, such as stuffy traditions, that love is right to defy, but that epistemic boundaries are not among them.
I argue that faith is a type of trust. It is also part of a relationship in which both parties ar... more I argue that faith is a type of trust. It is also part of a relationship in which both parties are called on to be faithful, where faithfulness is a type of trustworthiness. What distinguishes faith relationships from trust relationships is that both parties value the faith relationship intrinsically. I discuss how faith on this account can, and cannot, be rational when it goes beyond a person's evidence. It turns out that faith has the same rationality conditions as trust, differing from it only in the cases that fix our intuitions.
A prominent view in religious epistemology, which I call divine-help epistemology, says that peop... more A prominent view in religious epistemology, which I call divine-help epistemology, says that people of faith are epistemically gifted by God, whereas non-believers are subject to the noetic effects of a fallen world. This view aims to show how religious beliefs for people of faith can be epistemically justified. But I argue that it makes such people prone to a cluster of epistemic vices that I call epistemic phariseeism. Divine-help epistemology is especially apt to promote these vices because its normativity is not just epistemic, but also religious and moral. I suggest an alternative epistemological view that is better suited to religious faith.
The Cambridge Handbook of Religious Epistemology, 2023
Religious disagreement describes the fact that religious and secular beliefs exhibit massive vari... more Religious disagreement describes the fact that religious and secular beliefs exhibit massive variety, and cannot all be perfectly accurate. It yields a problem and an opportunity. The problem is that, especially given the apparent epistemic parity of many who hold other beliefs, you cannot suppose that your beliefs are accurate. This arguably puts pressure on you to weaken or abandon your beliefs. Responses include denying the parity of those who disagree, or denying that religious disagreement speaks strongly against your beliefs. I criticize these, defending an alternative epistemology to those employed by both the problem and the responses. My epistemological view finds a middle-ground between them, and positions us to benefit from the opportunity that religious disagreement offers to improve our beliefs. I address the objections that the opportunity mentality is unnecessary if God supports our beliefs, that it risks our (true) beliefs, and that it is disloyal to God.
That an epistemic authority believes that p is often a good reason to believe it yourself. But th... more That an epistemic authority believes that p is often a good reason to believe it yourself. But the preemption view goes farther: it claims that the optimal way of responding to epistemic authority is to “replace” certain reasons of your own with the reason given by the fact that the authority believes that p. I argue that there are three salient types of epistemically authoritative situation for which preempting is either inappropriate or inapplicable. The first arises when you have an independent reason for the authority’s belief, the second when you have a reason for it which depends on the authority for its status as a reason. The third arises – perhaps most surprisingly – when you have reasons against the authority’s belief. I provide an alternative account on which the epistemically best response is to make use of all of your reasons, including but not limited to the fact that the authority believes that p.
Accounts of paradigm testimonial justication face a trilemma. They will either be too weak, open... more Accounts of paradigm testimonial justication face a trilemma. They will either be too weak, opening us up to speakers' inadvertent biases; too strong, preventing us from
gaining testimonial knowledge that corrects our own biases; or they will be just the right strength but will make testimonial knowledge much harder to achieve than our heavy reliance on testimony suggests. The third horn is the correct one. The lesson is that we must broaden our social-epistemological focus away from paradigm testimony. I argue
that paradigm testimonial believing is only one of a variety of epistemically relational ways of gaining knowledge from others. Many other ways are much less susceptible to
the worries articulated in the trilemma. I discuss belief on the basis of other forms of linguistic communication, including non-literal and ctional communication, as well as
non-linguistic communication.
Epistemically transformative updates are updates in which the agent's posterior credence is one s... more Epistemically transformative updates are updates in which the agent's posterior credence is one she could never have imagined holding, either because she could not grasp the proposition in question before receiving it as evidence, or because that proposition was epistemically impossible for her. Bayesian probabilism has trouble modeling epistemically transformative updates. I propose a minor tweak to Bayesianism. My account is more flexible than Bayesianism, because it can model epistemically transformative updates; and it is simpler, because it assumes less than Bayesianism.
The theory-ladenness of observation -- the view that an agent's conceptual framework influences ... more The theory-ladenness of observation -- the view that an agent's conceptual framework influences what she perceives -- is a staple in the philosophy of science. Recent psychological evidence suggests that not only are our perceptual experiences subject to significant top-down cognitive influence, but they are also subject to top-down affective influence, and so are our memories and other beliefs. As a result, this threefold arsenal which many philosophers call our "evidence" is prone to bias in favor of what we already believe, desire, or expect and is hence at times significantly less truth-conducive than we might think. The \textit{threat of epistemic solipsism} amounts to a confirmation bias which is particularly pernicious because it pertains not to the way we interpret evidence but to the content of our evidence itself. This threat looms over beliefs of every stripe, but beliefs which rely on large conglomerations of evidence -- including many of the beliefs which we hold dearest, such as moral, religious, and political beliefs -- are most susceptible. I'll explore the implications of this problem for mainstream epistemologies, including evidentialism, reliabilism, and safety accounts, which ascribe normative significance to truth-conduciveness.
Ontology is the philosophical discipline which aims to understand how things in the world are div... more Ontology is the philosophical discipline which aims to understand how things in the world are divided into categories and how these categories are related together. This is exactly what information scientists aim for in creating structured, automated representations, called 'ontologies,' for managing information in fields such as science, government, industry, and healthcare. Currently, these systems are designed in a variety of different ways, so they cannot share data with one another. They are often idiosyncratically structured, accessible only to those who created them, and unable to serve as inputs for automated reasoning. This volume shows, in a nontechnical way and using examples from medicine and biology, how the rigorous application of theories and insights from philosophical ontology can improve the ontologies upon which information management depends.
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gaining testimonial knowledge that corrects our own biases; or they will be just the right strength but will make testimonial knowledge much harder to achieve than our heavy reliance on testimony suggests. The third horn is the correct one. The lesson is that we must broaden our social-epistemological focus away from paradigm testimony. I argue
that paradigm testimonial believing is only one of a variety of epistemically relational ways of gaining knowledge from others. Many other ways are much less susceptible to
the worries articulated in the trilemma. I discuss belief on the basis of other forms of linguistic communication, including non-literal and ctional communication, as well as
non-linguistic communication.