Philosophy

In this talk I assess the prospects of an argument that empties the concept of knowledge of its traditional conditions (i.e., belief, truth and justification). I argue that this argument is more appealing than one might have initially thought.

This paper supports strong internalism, the extreme view saying roughly that just a subject’s currently accessed mental life matters for her present epistemic justification. I support strong internalism over other time-slice internalist theories, theories saying just a subject’s mental life at a time directly matters for her justification then. My argument pays particular attention to memory and appeals to cases involving the tip of the tongue phenomenon.

It appears impossible to prove that one’s cognitive faculties are reliable, since one would have to use those same faculties to construct any such proof, and that would make the proof circular. I discuss the famous version of this problem confronted by Descartes, but the solution I propose generalizes beyond any especially Cartesian commitments. In short, I am concerned to show how carefully distinguishing between epistemic and metaphysical modality diminishes much (but not all) of the Cartesian Circle’s bite. I introduce notation to keep these kinds of modalities distinct, propose some axioms for their interaction, and show how this machinery can be mustered to vindicate the possibility of several kinds of epistemic self-vindication.

It is a plausible theoretical assumption that epistemic rationality is just a matter of having doxastic attitudes that are the correct responses to one’s epistemic reasons, or that all requirements of epistemic rationality are requirements on doxastic attitudes. In this paper, I present three cases that problematize this assumption: cases whose protagonists (i) fail to meet any plausible requirements on belief but (ii) nevertheless appear epistemically rational. Reflecting on these cases reveals insight into the nature of epistemic rationality. One insight, I argue, is that these cases show that requirements of epistemic rationality are broader than requirements on doxastic attitudes, and that we should accordingly reject the orthodox view that epistemic rationality is belief centered, i.e., the view that epistemic rationality is just the rationality of beliefs. A second insight is that this rejection expands our understanding of epistemic rationality, for once we resist the temptation to take for granted that these requirements are always doxastic requirements, we see more robust avenues for theorizing about epistemic rationality that respect intuitions underlying existing views while also presenting fresh research programs. I conclude by offering some brief suggestions for particular ways of accommodating these lessons by emphasizing the relevance of requirements on deliberation, inquiry, and other distinctly epistemic activities that cannot be reduced to requirements on belief.

In this paper I survey recent accounts of the intellectual virtues of epistemic autonomy and intellectual humility and argue that these two virtues are mutually supporting.

This paper engages work on the epistemology of echo chambers, mainly from C. Thi Nguyen, with Plato’s Myth of the Cave. I’ll argue that such engagement gives us reason to adopt what I’ll term Possible Extreme Epistemic Pessimism. First, I draw parallels between Nguyen’s account of an echo chamber and Plato’s Cave from Republic VII. One thing we most note of those in Plato’s Cave: they don’t know they’re in one. They are meta-ignorant: they don’t know that they don’t know (the truth). Second, I show that reflecting on the myth in light of the epistemology of echo chambers (and/or vice versa) gives us reason to be more pessimistic than Nguyen about the prospects of leaving one. If we keep in mind the meta-ignorance the Cave’s prisoners, the en-chamber-ed person will likely be unaware of being in one and likely distrust anyone trying to show them the truth about being in a chamber. This makes it hard to see how one can start the process of trying to break out of the chamber from the outset. Finally, I end with some tentative ideas about escape. In particular, I suggest that Socrates’ forceful and, for him, dangerous engagement with those about their own knowledge might help others escape though, like him, this engagement comes with certain risks.

Arguments against the Given are frequently presented so as to exclude non-propositional items provided by perceptual experience from the ranks of reasons for believing observational propositions (propositions about the world that we believe as a result of our perceptual experiences). Arguments of these sorts have two primary charges: first, non-propositional items cannot stand in evidentiary relations to propositions, i.e., they cannot tell in favor of the truth of them; second, our awareness of non-propositional items does not make them cognitively salient or significant to us in such a way that they are capable of being the reasons for which we believe. These considerations lead many to think that non-propositional items are simply not the sort of things that can be reasons. I will unpack these charges and answer them in an effort to lend plausibility to the notion that non-propositional items presented to us in experience can constitute reasons for believing observational propositions.

Inference to the best explanation (IBE) holds that some explanatory inferences can justify their conclusions. Yet there are a variety of models of explanation. Does IBE depend on a model of explanation? There have been several recent articles addressing this question. In this paper, I consider these arguments and draw some conclusions. On some models of explanation, explanatory inferences do not provide any unique justification. But on other models of explanation, they may provide such justification. By getting clear on the relationship between explanatory inference and the nature of explanation, I hope to clarify several common complaints about IBE.

According to the dogmatism puzzle, if S knows that p, then she’s entitled to be dogmatic about p, and so disregard any evidence against p, for she knows that (or is in a position to know that) that evidence is misleading. But this seems clearly problematically dogmatic. The standard solution to the dogmatism puzzle involves appealing to the view that acquiring new evidence (even misleading evidence) can undermine one’s knowledge that p. That’s why one can’t rightly disregard any future evidence against p. This solution to the dogmatism puzzle has come to be called ‘the defeat solution’. Maria Lasonen-Aarnio has recently argued, however, that the defeat solution leaves unsolved a partial defeat version of the dogmatism puzzle, where some subject acquires weak misleading evidence against p, but it doesn’t rob her of knowledge that p. Lasonen-Aarnio argues that solving this partial defeat version of the dogmatism puzzle requires those who endorse the defeasibility of knowledge to either go dogmatist or reject an extremely plausible principle that she calls ‘Entitlement’ (roughly, if S knows that evidence e is misleading, then S can rightly disregard e). In this paper, however, I’ll argue that defeasibilists face no such challenge from any version of the dogmatism puzzle, since the dogmatism puzzle isn’t a genuine epistemological puzzle in either its original or partial defeat form. It’s not a genuine epistemological puzzle, I’ll argue, since it rests on a mistaken assumption. That mistaken assumption is that if S knows that p, then she knows (or is in a position to know) that any evidence against p is misleading. Much of this paper will be devoted to showing that such an assumption is clearly false.

Epistemic aims can conflict with moral principles. For instance, some claim it is morally wrong to pursue certain philosophical questions. This may be true. But we should do it anyway. Susan Wolf and Michael Slote provide grounds to think things can be admirable or valuable despite being immoral. I say some things are admirable or valuable because they are immoral. Certain kinds of humor are one example. The epistemological project of “following the argument where it leads” is another. Since philosophy and the university are both committed to this project, it is in their natures to be at least a little bit immoral. And that is part of what makes them admirable and valuable.

Catherine Elgin has recently argued that compatibility with autonomy is a criterion for the epistemic virtues. This approach mixes elements of Kantianism with virtue theory. Sasha Mudd has criticized this combination on the grounds that it weakens the structure of Kantian autonomy and undermines its resources for responding to cultural relativism. Elgin’s more recent defense of the role of autonomy has taken a distinctively Kantian turn. Here, I defend Elgin’s original claim, grounding it in a distinctively virtue theoretic account of the development of virtues. Exploring how individuals develop their epistemic virtues within a social context, I show how these virtues can be grounded in both developmental and constitutive relational autonomy.

Further, taking autonomy as a criterion supports two promising applications. First, if autonomy is the ground of the virtues, this allows us to characterize the harm of epistemic injustice as a kind of assault on one’s autonomy. Second, this grounding shows a fundamental tension in Linda Zagzebski’s work on epistemic authority. If autonomy as self-trust is our first step in developing the epistemic virtues, as Zagzebski argues, how can we then give up that self-trust in pre-empting our own reasons with those from the epistemic authority?