I am Professor at Zhejiang University (China). My main interests are in Epistemology, Ethics and Philosophy of Mind. In particular, I'm interested in the nature of belief and its relation with truth (the aim of belief) and the relations between knowledge and practical rationality.
In Normative Reasons: Between Reasoning and Explanation (2022), Arturs Logins provides a novel re... more In Normative Reasons: Between Reasoning and Explanation (2022), Arturs Logins provides a novel reductivist account of normative reasons, what he calls the Erotetic View of Reasons. In this paper, I provide three challenges to this view. The first two concern the extensional adequacy of the Erotetic View. The view may fail to count as normative reasons all and only considerations that are such. In particular, the view seems to both overgenerate and undergenerate reasons. My third concern is that the view may fail to capture the essential, practice-independent nature of reasons, as well as reasons’ constitutive and grounding role with respect to other normative properties.
Skeptical Invariantism Reconsidered. New York: Routledge Series in Epistemology., 2021
The aim of the present contribution is to defend a specific version of moderate skeptical invaria... more The aim of the present contribution is to defend a specific version of moderate skeptical invariantism, which I call Practical Skeptical Invariantism (PSI). The view is a form of skepticism to the extent that it denies knowledge of many facts that we ordinarily think or claim to know. It is moderate to the extent that it is supposed to be compatible with a quite weak, nonradical form of skepticism. According to this view, the threshold on evidential support required for knowledge should be partially fixed by the practical circumstances of the subject: someone is in a position to know a proposition p only if she would be rational to act as if p even if the practical stakes on p were maximally high. I consider and address what I take to be the most pressing problem for the view, namely, that the view can’t avoid a collapse into a radical form of skepticism. Moreover, I propose a positive argument for this view. The argument relies on the claim that judgments in high stakes are generally more reliable than in low stakes.
A minimal constraint on normative reasons seems to be that if some fact is a reason for an agent ... more A minimal constraint on normative reasons seems to be that if some fact is a reason for an agent to φ (act, believe, feel), the agent could come to know that fact. Although this constraint is intuitively plausible and is entailed by many popular views in ethics and epistemology, it is threatened by a well-known type of counterexamples. Self-effacing reasons are facts that intuitively constitute reasons for an agent to do or believe something, but that if they were to become known, they would cease to be reasons for that agent. The challenge posed by self-effacing reasons bears important structural similarities with a range of epistemic paradoxes, most notably the Knowability Paradox. In this article, we investigate the similarities and differences between the two arguments. Moreover, we assess whether some of the approaches to the Knowability Paradox could help solve the challenge posed by self-effacing reasons. We argue that at least two popular approaches to the paradox can easily be turned into promising strategies for addressing the self-effacing reasons problem. For each approach we also consider whether it is compatible with the main motivations for endorsing epistemic constraints on reasons.
Recently some epistemologists have approached the question whether epistemic justification comes ... more Recently some epistemologists have approached the question whether epistemic justification comes in degrees from a linguistic perspective. Drawing insights from linguistic analyses of gradable adjectives, they investigate whether epistemic occurrences of 'justified' are gradable and if yes what type of gradability they involve. These authors conclude that the adjective passes standard tests for gradability, but they classify it as belonging to different categories: as either an absolute or a relative gradable adjective. The aim of this paper is to further clarify the question of what kind of gradability is instantiated by epistemic uses of 'justified', and to investigate the consequences that this may have on epistemological theorizing. In particular, we challenge the alleged evidence provided by Siscoe (2021) for the relative gradability of 'justified' and we provide positive arguments for the claim that 'justified' is a specific kind of absolute gradable adjective (a totally closed scale absolute with default minimal reading). We consider some important philosophical implications of these results. We also argue that the scale type of 'justified' is ordinal, and we consider which other properties typically associated to justification possess a similar type of scale. We argue that several popular contemporary models of graded justification, such as probabilistic and reliabilist accounts and various kinds of Lockean views, do not fit well with our results about the gradability of 'justified'. Linguistic data rather favour normalcy and plausibility accounts of graded justification.
Objectivism is the view that how an agent ought to act depends on all kinds of facts, regardless ... more Objectivism is the view that how an agent ought to act depends on all kinds of facts, regardless of the agent's epistemic position with respect to them. One of the most important challenges to this view is constituted by certain cases involving specific conditions of uncertainty-so-called threeoptions cases. In these cases it seems overwhelmingly plausible that an agent ought to do what is recommendable given her limited perspective, even though the agent knows that this is not objectively the best course of action. The standard objectivist response to this challenge relies on a distinction between what one ought to do and what would be blameworthy or unreasonable to do. This response is affected by several problems. In this paper I introduce and defend an alternative objectivist response to the challenge. My proposal admits that in the relevant cases the agent ought to do what is recommendable given her perspective, but maintains that this diagnosis of the cases is fully compatible with objectivism. I argue that this proposal has several advantages over alternative accounts of the cases.
The paper investigates what type of motivation can be given for adopting a knowledge-based decisi... more The paper investigates what type of motivation can be given for adopting a knowledge-based decision theory (hereafter, KBDT). KBDT seems to have several advantages over competing theories of rationality. It is commonly argued that this theory would naturally fit with the intuitive idea that being rational is doing what we take to be best given what we know, an idea often supported by appeal to ordinary folk appraisals. Moreover, KBDT seems to strike a perfect balance between the problematic extremes of subjectivist and objectivist decision theory. We argue that these alleged advantages do not stand up to a closer scrutiny: KBDT inherits the same kinds of problems as alternative decision theoretic frameworks but doesn’t retain any of the respective advantages. Moreover, differently from other knowledge-action principles advanced in the literature, KBDT cannot fully explain the intuitive connections between knowledge and rational action. We conclude that the most serious challenge for knowledge-based decision theorists is to provide a substantive rationale for the adoption of such a view.
Abstract Potential perspectivism is the view that what an agent ought to do (believe, like, fear…... more Abstract Potential perspectivism is the view that what an agent ought to do (believe, like, fear…) depends primarily on facts that are potentially available to her. I consider a challenge to this view. The problem stems from the fact that potentially accessible facts do not always agglomerate over conjunction. This implies that one can fail to have relevant access to a set of facts as a whole, but have access to proper subsets of it each of which can support different incompatible responses (actions, attitudes or omissions). I argue that potential perspectivism has no unproblematic answer to the question what the agent ought to do (believe, like, fear…) in such circumstances. I consider several possible responses and argue that they are all unsatisfactory, either because incompatible with central perspectivist assumptions or because independently implausible. Potential perspectivists can avoid this polylemma only at the cost of giving up fundamental tenets of their views. The challenge may also lend indirect support to alternative views unaffected by the problem, such as objectivism and some versions of actual perspectivism.
According to the Rational Threshold View, a rational agent believes p if and only if her credence... more According to the Rational Threshold View, a rational agent believes p if and only if her credence in p is equal to or greater than a certain threshold. One of the most serious challenges for this view is the problem of statistical evidence: statistical evidence is often not sufficient to make an outright belief rational, no matter how probable the target proposition is given such evidence. This indicates that rational belief is not as sensitive to statistical evidence as rational credence. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we argue that, in addition to playing a decisive role in rationalizing outright belief, non-statistical evidence also plays a preponderant role in rationalizing credence. More precisely, when both types of evidence are present in a context, non-statistical evidence should receive a heavier weight than statistical evidence in determining rational credence. Second, based on this result, we argue that a modified version of the Rational Threshold View can avoid the problem of statistical evidence. We conclude by suggesting a possible explanation of the varying sensitivity to different types of evidence for belief and credence based on the respective aims of these attitudes.
According to a popular view in contemporary epistemology, a belief is justified if, and only if, ... more According to a popular view in contemporary epistemology, a belief is justified if, and only if, it amounts to knowledge. Upholders of this view also hold that knowledge is the fundamental norm governing belief and that conforming to this norm is both necessary and sufficient for justification. These related claims constitute the core of a broadly externalist model of epistemic normativity. The main rationale for this model relies on parallels with the use of central normative notions in other normative disciplines, in particular in the practical and legal domains, where the notion of justification is most often employed and discussed. In this paper, assuming the same general framework and methodology, I argue against the claim that mere norm conformity is sufficient for justification. Following Gardner (2007), I argue that justification requires conformity to a norm for sufficient undefeated reasons. An important consequence of this result is the rejection of the claim that conformity to the norm of belief is necessary and sufficient for epistemic justification. Furthermore, assuming that only knowledge justifies belief, if justification can require more than norm conformity, the norm of belief can be some property falling short of knowledge, such as truth. In the concluding part of the paper, I sketch how a model of epistemic normativity can be developed within this externalist normative framework assuming that truth is the norm of belief.
This paper focuses on the relation between epistemic reasons and the subject's epistemic perspect... more This paper focuses on the relation between epistemic reasons and the subject's epistemic perspective. It tackles the questions of whether epistemic reasons are dependent on the perspective of the subject they are reasons for, and if so, whether they are dependent on the actual or the potential perspective. It is argued that epistemic reasons are either independent or minimally dependent on the subject's epistemic perspective. In particular, I provide three arguments supporting the conclusion that epistemic reasons are not dependent on the subject's actual perspective. Furthermore, I show that variants of these arguments apply against popular views holding that epistemic reasons depend on the subject's potential perspective, such as the view that epistemic reasons are facts that one is in a position to know.
An increasingly popular view in contemporary epistemology holds that the most fundamental norm go... more An increasingly popular view in contemporary epistemology holds that the most fundamental norm governing belief is knowledge. According to this norm one shouldn’t believe what one doesn’t know. A prominent argument for the knowledge norm appeals to the claim that knowledge is the most general condition of epistemic assessment of belief, one entailing all other conditions under which we epistemically assess beliefs (truth, evidence, reliability…). This norm would provide an easy and straightforward explanation of why we assess beliefs along all these various epistemic dimensions. This article argues that this line of argument is ultimately unsuccessful. I show that the main premise of the argument actually supports the opposite conclusion: the norm of belief requires a condition weaker than knowledge. Furthermore, I argue that if we hold on to the assumption that knowledge is the most general condition of belief’s epistemic assessment, the fundamental norm of belief is factive: one is not permitted to believe a proposition p if it is not true that p.
I introduce and defend a view about knowledge that I call Moderate Skeptical Invariantism. Accord... more I introduce and defend a view about knowledge that I call Moderate Skeptical Invariantism. According to this view, a subject knows p only if she is practically certain that p, where practical certainty is defined as the confidence a rational subject would have to have for her to believe that p and act on p no matter the stakes. I do not provide a definitive case for this view, but I argue that it has several explanatory advantages over alternative views and I show how it can avoid two pressing problems commonly attributed to similar approaches.
Benjamin Kiesewetter has recently provided an argument to the effect that necessarily, if one has... more Benjamin Kiesewetter has recently provided an argument to the effect that necessarily, if one has decisive reason to φ, then one has sufficient reason to believe that she herself has decisive reason to φ. If sound, this argument has important implications for several debates in contemporary normative philosophy. I argue that the main premise in the argument is problematic and should be rejected. According to this premise (PRR), necessarily, one can respond correctly to all the decisive reasons one has. I show that PRR is confronted with counterexamples and presupposes an implausible commensurability of all kinds of reasons. If so, the conclusion in Kiesewetter's argument doesn't follow. I also discuss further implications of my objections to PRR for a specific family of 'ought' implies 'can' principles and ability constraints on reasons, and the consequences that these could have for a number of contemporary debates in normative philosophy.
A recent view in contemporary epistemology holds that practical reasoning is governed by an epist... more A recent view in contemporary epistemology holds that practical reasoning is governed by an epistemic norm. Evidence for the existence of this norm is provided by the ways in which we assess (justify, judge and criticize) our actions and reasoning on the basis of whether certain epistemic conditions are satisfied. Philosophers disagree on what this norm is – whether it is knowledge, justified belief or something else. Nobody however challenges the claim that practical reasoning is governed by such a norm. I argue that assuming the existence of an epistemic norm of practical reasoning is neither the only nor the best way to accommodate the available data. I introduce and defend an alternative account that avoids the assumption. According to this account, the relevant epistemic assessments of action and reasoning are instrumental assessments relative to the regulation conditions of a non-epistemic norm.
In: "Metaethical Problems in the Epistemic Domain", McHugh C., Way J., Whiting D. (eds.), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2018
While buck-passing accounts are widely discussed in the literature, there have been surprisingly ... more While buck-passing accounts are widely discussed in the literature, there have been surprisingly few attempts to apply buck-passing analyses to specific normative domains such as aesthetics and epistemology. In particular, there have been very few works which have tried to provide complete and detailed buck-passing analyses of epistemic values and norms. These analyses are, however, both interesting and important. On the one hand, they can bring to the surface the advantages and difficulties of extending the buck-passing account to specific normative spheres, either providing further support for the approach or highlighting substantive difficulties. On the other hand, epistemic buck-passing analyses can be beneficial for normative epistemology, providing new perspectives on traditional epistemological problems, and possibly providing fresh approaches to such problems. This paper aims at partially filling this gap.
Some philosophers have argued that a standard of correctness is constitutive of the concept or th... more Some philosophers have argued that a standard of correctness is constitutive of the concept or the essence of belief. By this claim they mean, roughly, that a mental state is a belief partially in virtue of being correct if and only if its content is true. In this paper I provide a new argument in support of the constitutivity of the correctness standard for belief. I first argue that the standard expresses a conceptual necessity. Then I argue that, since conceptual necessities are such in virtue of some concept, the standard must also be necessary in virtue of some concept. Finally, I provide an argument by exclusion to the effect that the standard is necessary in virtue of the concept of belief.
In Normative Reasons: Between Reasoning and Explanation (2022), Arturs Logins provides a novel re... more In Normative Reasons: Between Reasoning and Explanation (2022), Arturs Logins provides a novel reductivist account of normative reasons, what he calls the Erotetic View of Reasons. In this paper, I provide three challenges to this view. The first two concern the extensional adequacy of the Erotetic View. The view may fail to count as normative reasons all and only considerations that are such. In particular, the view seems to both overgenerate and undergenerate reasons. My third concern is that the view may fail to capture the essential, practice-independent nature of reasons, as well as reasons’ constitutive and grounding role with respect to other normative properties.
Skeptical Invariantism Reconsidered. New York: Routledge Series in Epistemology., 2021
The aim of the present contribution is to defend a specific version of moderate skeptical invaria... more The aim of the present contribution is to defend a specific version of moderate skeptical invariantism, which I call Practical Skeptical Invariantism (PSI). The view is a form of skepticism to the extent that it denies knowledge of many facts that we ordinarily think or claim to know. It is moderate to the extent that it is supposed to be compatible with a quite weak, nonradical form of skepticism. According to this view, the threshold on evidential support required for knowledge should be partially fixed by the practical circumstances of the subject: someone is in a position to know a proposition p only if she would be rational to act as if p even if the practical stakes on p were maximally high. I consider and address what I take to be the most pressing problem for the view, namely, that the view can’t avoid a collapse into a radical form of skepticism. Moreover, I propose a positive argument for this view. The argument relies on the claim that judgments in high stakes are generally more reliable than in low stakes.
A minimal constraint on normative reasons seems to be that if some fact is a reason for an agent ... more A minimal constraint on normative reasons seems to be that if some fact is a reason for an agent to φ (act, believe, feel), the agent could come to know that fact. Although this constraint is intuitively plausible and is entailed by many popular views in ethics and epistemology, it is threatened by a well-known type of counterexamples. Self-effacing reasons are facts that intuitively constitute reasons for an agent to do or believe something, but that if they were to become known, they would cease to be reasons for that agent. The challenge posed by self-effacing reasons bears important structural similarities with a range of epistemic paradoxes, most notably the Knowability Paradox. In this article, we investigate the similarities and differences between the two arguments. Moreover, we assess whether some of the approaches to the Knowability Paradox could help solve the challenge posed by self-effacing reasons. We argue that at least two popular approaches to the paradox can easily be turned into promising strategies for addressing the self-effacing reasons problem. For each approach we also consider whether it is compatible with the main motivations for endorsing epistemic constraints on reasons.
Recently some epistemologists have approached the question whether epistemic justification comes ... more Recently some epistemologists have approached the question whether epistemic justification comes in degrees from a linguistic perspective. Drawing insights from linguistic analyses of gradable adjectives, they investigate whether epistemic occurrences of 'justified' are gradable and if yes what type of gradability they involve. These authors conclude that the adjective passes standard tests for gradability, but they classify it as belonging to different categories: as either an absolute or a relative gradable adjective. The aim of this paper is to further clarify the question of what kind of gradability is instantiated by epistemic uses of 'justified', and to investigate the consequences that this may have on epistemological theorizing. In particular, we challenge the alleged evidence provided by Siscoe (2021) for the relative gradability of 'justified' and we provide positive arguments for the claim that 'justified' is a specific kind of absolute gradable adjective (a totally closed scale absolute with default minimal reading). We consider some important philosophical implications of these results. We also argue that the scale type of 'justified' is ordinal, and we consider which other properties typically associated to justification possess a similar type of scale. We argue that several popular contemporary models of graded justification, such as probabilistic and reliabilist accounts and various kinds of Lockean views, do not fit well with our results about the gradability of 'justified'. Linguistic data rather favour normalcy and plausibility accounts of graded justification.
Objectivism is the view that how an agent ought to act depends on all kinds of facts, regardless ... more Objectivism is the view that how an agent ought to act depends on all kinds of facts, regardless of the agent's epistemic position with respect to them. One of the most important challenges to this view is constituted by certain cases involving specific conditions of uncertainty-so-called threeoptions cases. In these cases it seems overwhelmingly plausible that an agent ought to do what is recommendable given her limited perspective, even though the agent knows that this is not objectively the best course of action. The standard objectivist response to this challenge relies on a distinction between what one ought to do and what would be blameworthy or unreasonable to do. This response is affected by several problems. In this paper I introduce and defend an alternative objectivist response to the challenge. My proposal admits that in the relevant cases the agent ought to do what is recommendable given her perspective, but maintains that this diagnosis of the cases is fully compatible with objectivism. I argue that this proposal has several advantages over alternative accounts of the cases.
The paper investigates what type of motivation can be given for adopting a knowledge-based decisi... more The paper investigates what type of motivation can be given for adopting a knowledge-based decision theory (hereafter, KBDT). KBDT seems to have several advantages over competing theories of rationality. It is commonly argued that this theory would naturally fit with the intuitive idea that being rational is doing what we take to be best given what we know, an idea often supported by appeal to ordinary folk appraisals. Moreover, KBDT seems to strike a perfect balance between the problematic extremes of subjectivist and objectivist decision theory. We argue that these alleged advantages do not stand up to a closer scrutiny: KBDT inherits the same kinds of problems as alternative decision theoretic frameworks but doesn’t retain any of the respective advantages. Moreover, differently from other knowledge-action principles advanced in the literature, KBDT cannot fully explain the intuitive connections between knowledge and rational action. We conclude that the most serious challenge for knowledge-based decision theorists is to provide a substantive rationale for the adoption of such a view.
Abstract Potential perspectivism is the view that what an agent ought to do (believe, like, fear…... more Abstract Potential perspectivism is the view that what an agent ought to do (believe, like, fear…) depends primarily on facts that are potentially available to her. I consider a challenge to this view. The problem stems from the fact that potentially accessible facts do not always agglomerate over conjunction. This implies that one can fail to have relevant access to a set of facts as a whole, but have access to proper subsets of it each of which can support different incompatible responses (actions, attitudes or omissions). I argue that potential perspectivism has no unproblematic answer to the question what the agent ought to do (believe, like, fear…) in such circumstances. I consider several possible responses and argue that they are all unsatisfactory, either because incompatible with central perspectivist assumptions or because independently implausible. Potential perspectivists can avoid this polylemma only at the cost of giving up fundamental tenets of their views. The challenge may also lend indirect support to alternative views unaffected by the problem, such as objectivism and some versions of actual perspectivism.
According to the Rational Threshold View, a rational agent believes p if and only if her credence... more According to the Rational Threshold View, a rational agent believes p if and only if her credence in p is equal to or greater than a certain threshold. One of the most serious challenges for this view is the problem of statistical evidence: statistical evidence is often not sufficient to make an outright belief rational, no matter how probable the target proposition is given such evidence. This indicates that rational belief is not as sensitive to statistical evidence as rational credence. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we argue that, in addition to playing a decisive role in rationalizing outright belief, non-statistical evidence also plays a preponderant role in rationalizing credence. More precisely, when both types of evidence are present in a context, non-statistical evidence should receive a heavier weight than statistical evidence in determining rational credence. Second, based on this result, we argue that a modified version of the Rational Threshold View can avoid the problem of statistical evidence. We conclude by suggesting a possible explanation of the varying sensitivity to different types of evidence for belief and credence based on the respective aims of these attitudes.
According to a popular view in contemporary epistemology, a belief is justified if, and only if, ... more According to a popular view in contemporary epistemology, a belief is justified if, and only if, it amounts to knowledge. Upholders of this view also hold that knowledge is the fundamental norm governing belief and that conforming to this norm is both necessary and sufficient for justification. These related claims constitute the core of a broadly externalist model of epistemic normativity. The main rationale for this model relies on parallels with the use of central normative notions in other normative disciplines, in particular in the practical and legal domains, where the notion of justification is most often employed and discussed. In this paper, assuming the same general framework and methodology, I argue against the claim that mere norm conformity is sufficient for justification. Following Gardner (2007), I argue that justification requires conformity to a norm for sufficient undefeated reasons. An important consequence of this result is the rejection of the claim that conformity to the norm of belief is necessary and sufficient for epistemic justification. Furthermore, assuming that only knowledge justifies belief, if justification can require more than norm conformity, the norm of belief can be some property falling short of knowledge, such as truth. In the concluding part of the paper, I sketch how a model of epistemic normativity can be developed within this externalist normative framework assuming that truth is the norm of belief.
This paper focuses on the relation between epistemic reasons and the subject's epistemic perspect... more This paper focuses on the relation between epistemic reasons and the subject's epistemic perspective. It tackles the questions of whether epistemic reasons are dependent on the perspective of the subject they are reasons for, and if so, whether they are dependent on the actual or the potential perspective. It is argued that epistemic reasons are either independent or minimally dependent on the subject's epistemic perspective. In particular, I provide three arguments supporting the conclusion that epistemic reasons are not dependent on the subject's actual perspective. Furthermore, I show that variants of these arguments apply against popular views holding that epistemic reasons depend on the subject's potential perspective, such as the view that epistemic reasons are facts that one is in a position to know.
An increasingly popular view in contemporary epistemology holds that the most fundamental norm go... more An increasingly popular view in contemporary epistemology holds that the most fundamental norm governing belief is knowledge. According to this norm one shouldn’t believe what one doesn’t know. A prominent argument for the knowledge norm appeals to the claim that knowledge is the most general condition of epistemic assessment of belief, one entailing all other conditions under which we epistemically assess beliefs (truth, evidence, reliability…). This norm would provide an easy and straightforward explanation of why we assess beliefs along all these various epistemic dimensions. This article argues that this line of argument is ultimately unsuccessful. I show that the main premise of the argument actually supports the opposite conclusion: the norm of belief requires a condition weaker than knowledge. Furthermore, I argue that if we hold on to the assumption that knowledge is the most general condition of belief’s epistemic assessment, the fundamental norm of belief is factive: one is not permitted to believe a proposition p if it is not true that p.
I introduce and defend a view about knowledge that I call Moderate Skeptical Invariantism. Accord... more I introduce and defend a view about knowledge that I call Moderate Skeptical Invariantism. According to this view, a subject knows p only if she is practically certain that p, where practical certainty is defined as the confidence a rational subject would have to have for her to believe that p and act on p no matter the stakes. I do not provide a definitive case for this view, but I argue that it has several explanatory advantages over alternative views and I show how it can avoid two pressing problems commonly attributed to similar approaches.
Benjamin Kiesewetter has recently provided an argument to the effect that necessarily, if one has... more Benjamin Kiesewetter has recently provided an argument to the effect that necessarily, if one has decisive reason to φ, then one has sufficient reason to believe that she herself has decisive reason to φ. If sound, this argument has important implications for several debates in contemporary normative philosophy. I argue that the main premise in the argument is problematic and should be rejected. According to this premise (PRR), necessarily, one can respond correctly to all the decisive reasons one has. I show that PRR is confronted with counterexamples and presupposes an implausible commensurability of all kinds of reasons. If so, the conclusion in Kiesewetter's argument doesn't follow. I also discuss further implications of my objections to PRR for a specific family of 'ought' implies 'can' principles and ability constraints on reasons, and the consequences that these could have for a number of contemporary debates in normative philosophy.
A recent view in contemporary epistemology holds that practical reasoning is governed by an epist... more A recent view in contemporary epistemology holds that practical reasoning is governed by an epistemic norm. Evidence for the existence of this norm is provided by the ways in which we assess (justify, judge and criticize) our actions and reasoning on the basis of whether certain epistemic conditions are satisfied. Philosophers disagree on what this norm is – whether it is knowledge, justified belief or something else. Nobody however challenges the claim that practical reasoning is governed by such a norm. I argue that assuming the existence of an epistemic norm of practical reasoning is neither the only nor the best way to accommodate the available data. I introduce and defend an alternative account that avoids the assumption. According to this account, the relevant epistemic assessments of action and reasoning are instrumental assessments relative to the regulation conditions of a non-epistemic norm.
In: "Metaethical Problems in the Epistemic Domain", McHugh C., Way J., Whiting D. (eds.), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2018
While buck-passing accounts are widely discussed in the literature, there have been surprisingly ... more While buck-passing accounts are widely discussed in the literature, there have been surprisingly few attempts to apply buck-passing analyses to specific normative domains such as aesthetics and epistemology. In particular, there have been very few works which have tried to provide complete and detailed buck-passing analyses of epistemic values and norms. These analyses are, however, both interesting and important. On the one hand, they can bring to the surface the advantages and difficulties of extending the buck-passing account to specific normative spheres, either providing further support for the approach or highlighting substantive difficulties. On the other hand, epistemic buck-passing analyses can be beneficial for normative epistemology, providing new perspectives on traditional epistemological problems, and possibly providing fresh approaches to such problems. This paper aims at partially filling this gap.
Some philosophers have argued that a standard of correctness is constitutive of the concept or th... more Some philosophers have argued that a standard of correctness is constitutive of the concept or the essence of belief. By this claim they mean, roughly, that a mental state is a belief partially in virtue of being correct if and only if its content is true. In this paper I provide a new argument in support of the constitutivity of the correctness standard for belief. I first argue that the standard expresses a conceptual necessity. Then I argue that, since conceptual necessities are such in virtue of some concept, the standard must also be necessary in virtue of some concept. Finally, I provide an argument by exclusion to the effect that the standard is necessary in virtue of the concept of belief.
The aim of the present contribution is to defend a specific version of moderate skeptical invaria... more The aim of the present contribution is to defend a specific version of moderate skeptical invariantism, which I call Practical Skeptical Invariantism (PSI). The view is a form of skepticism to the extent that it denies knowledge of many facts that we ordinarily think or claim to know. It is moderate to the extent that it is supposed to be compatible with a quite weak, non-radical form of skepticism. According to this view, the threshold on evidential support required for knowledge should be partially fixed by the practical circumstances of the subject: someone is in a position to know a proposition p only if she would be rational to act as if p even if the practical stakes on p were maximally high. I consider and address what I take to be the most pressing problem for the view, namely, that the view can’t avoid a collapse into a radical form of skepticism. Moreover, I propose a positive argument for this view. The argument relies on the claim that judgments in high stakes are generally more reliable than in low stakes.
A volume of more than fifty papers on various topics edited on the occasion of Pascal Engel's six... more A volume of more than fifty papers on various topics edited on the occasion of Pascal Engel's sixtieth birthday.
Some philosophers have recently argued that a normative relation obtains between assertion and kn... more Some philosophers have recently argued that a normative relation obtains between assertion and knowledge. According to this view, the practice of assertion is constitutively governed by a knowledge-norm which commits an asserter to assert only what she knows. The aim of this article is to suggest an alternative interpretation of the relation between assertion and knowledge. I suggest interpreting such a relation in instrumental rather than normative terms. According to such an interpretation, an asserter must assert only what she knows not because of a norm constitutively regulating the practice of assertion, but because asserting only what is known is a necessary means by which assertion fulfils its intrinsic aim of communicating information. I also consider one of the most straightforward arguments advanced in support of the normativist account of assertion, namely the ability of explaining certain conversational patterns of ordinary language. I argue that the instrumental interpretation is able to explain the same linguistic intuitions considered by the argument, and to account for other linguistic intuitions not settled by the normativist interpretation.
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Papers by Davide Fassio
Link to the open-access published article: http://revue-klesis.org/pdf/klesis-45-Engel-05-Davide-Fassio-correction-doxastique-comme-ideal-de-la-raison.pdf.
Link to the open-access published article: http://revue-klesis.org/pdf/klesis-45-Engel-05-Davide-Fassio-correction-doxastique-comme-ideal-de-la-raison.pdf.