Starting from the epistemic requirements stated by the standard view of knowledge, according to which knowledge is ‘justified true belief’, this article aims to identify the reasons why substantive philosophical theories have failed to satisfy them. Accepted this view of knowledge, philosophy will hardly be able to assign cognitive status to its theories. This article also intends to show that philosophy has its cognitive credibility put in check when it constructs abstruse rhetorical exercises that speciously seek to (...) legitimize themselves as knowledge. Besides forging philosophical theories deprived of cognitive value, philosophy creates theories composed by propositions clearly meaningless. In developing theories devoid of any cognitive potential and theories whose propositions lack meaning, philosophy is liable to have its cognitivity seriously questioned. However, the final assessment of philosophy cannot be confined to its cognitive dimension since its theories have the power of providing ways of seeing reality even when they fail in their attempts to explain objects. (shrink)

How are we to distinguish epistemic justification for believing a proposition from other sorts of justification one might have for believing it? According to what I call the received view about the differentia of epistemic justification, epistemic justification is intimately connected to “the cognitive goal of arriving at truth” in a specific way no other sorts of justification can possibly be. However, I will argue that the received view is mistaken by showing that there are cases (...) in which pragmatic justification for believing a proposition is related to the cognitive goal of arriving at truth in a way epistemic justification is supposed to be. The paper will close with a brief assessment of two possible rejoinders the received view might make to my objection.Epistemik gerekçelendirmeyi diğer tür gerekçelendirmelerden nasıl ayırmalıyız? Hâkim görüş diyebileceğimiz bir fikre göre, epistemik gerekçelendirme “doğruya varma” diyebileceğimiz bilişsel hedefe diğer tür gerekçelendirmelerin olamayacağı şekilde yakın bir biçimde irtibatlıdır. Bu yazıda, hâkim görüşün yanlış olduğunu iddia edeceğim. Bu iddiam, bazı olası durumlarda pragmatik gerekçelendirmenin de doğruya varma hedefiyle olan irtibatının epistemik gerekçelendirmenin o hedefle kurduğu iddia edilen irtibatın aynısı olduğunu gösteren bir düşünce deneyine dayanıyor. Yazı, hâkim görüşün sunduğum itiraza karşı geliştirebileceği iki yanıtın kısa bir değerlendirmesi ile sonlanıyor. (shrink)

Epistemological contextualism and semantic contextualism are two distinct but closely entangled projects in contemporary philosophy. According to epistemological contextualism, our knowledge attributions are context-sensitive. That is, the truth-conditions of knowledge ascribing sentences – sentences of the form of (1) S knows that p - vary depending on the context in which they are uttered. Contextualism admits the legitimacy of several epistemic standards that vary with the context of use of (1); it might be right to claim – for the (...) same cognitive subject S and the same proposition p – that (1) is true in one context, and false in another. The epistemological contextualist thesis is grounded in a semantic claim about the context-sensitivity of the predicate “know”: the semantic thesisis that a sentence of the form (1) does not express a complete proposition. Different utterances of (1) can, in different contexts, express different propositions: we must add in information about the context in order to determine the proposition expressed by (1). Many scholars have tried to spell out the semantic contextualist thesis on which epistemological contextualism is grounded. Our general aim in this paper is to evaluate the plausibility of a project that takes the opposite starting point, that is establishing the semantic contextualist thesis on the epistemological one. According to semantic contextualism, virtually no sentences of a naturallanguage express complete propositions – meaning underdetermines truth conditions. In our paper, instead of assuming the traditional view of meaning in terms of truth conditions, we suggest that a theory of meaning as justification may shed new light on the contextualist approach. We thus show how the notion of justification can be contextualized, arguing that our attempt provides an interesting and quite straightforward way of contextualizing meaning. (shrink)

Traditional epistemology has had an overriding emphasis since Descartes upon knowing, certainty, and truth, said to be obtained through cogitation. An alternative epistemology would emphasize cognitive meaning, ambiguity, and meaninglessness within a presumptive scheme of semantiks, in contrast to the gnostic Cartesian model. Thereby cognition becomes naturalized and intelligible within the framework of biological evolution, in which species-characteristic forms of intelligence may be seen to unfold through phylogeny. Both scientific advance and pedestrian reasoning may be fruitfully interpreted by this (...) novel focus upon cognitive meaning devoid of any epistemic function professedly providing psychological or objective “certainty.” Objective rationality as a whole may be seen to emerge solely from the operations of understanding itself within individual and cultural contexts. Suggestions are given as to the structure and dynamics of comprehension that generate species-characteristic forms of cognitive meaning. (shrink)

Justification, or at least ‘justification’, bulks large in recent epistemology. The view that knowledge consists of true-justified-belief has been prominent in this century, and the justification of belief has attracted considerable attention in its own right. But it is usually not at all clear just what an epistemologist means by ‘justified’, just what concept the term is used to express. An enormous amount of energy has gone into the attempt to specify conditions under which beliefs of one or another sort (...) are justified; but relatively little has been done to explain what it is for a belief to be justified, what that is for which conditions are being sought. The most common procedure has been to proceed on the basis of a number of obvious cases of justified belief, without pausing to determine what property it is of which these cases are instances. Now even if there were some single determinate concept that all these theoriests have implicitly in mind, this procedure would be less than wholly satisfactory. For in the absence of an explicit account of the concept being applied, we lack the most fundamental basis for deciding between supposed intuitions and for evaluating proposed conditions of justification. And in any event, as philosophers we do not seek merely to speak the truth, but also to gain an explicit, reflective understanding of the matters with which we deal. We want to know not only when our beliefs are justified, but also what it is to enjoy that status. True, not every fundamental concept can be explicated, but we shall find that much can be done with this one. (shrink)

How is epistemic justification related to knowledge? Is it, as widely thought, constitutive of knowledge? Is it merely a means to knowledge, or merely a means to something else, such as truth? In a recent article in this journal, Hofmann (2005, Synthese, 146(3), 357–369) addresses these questions in attempting to defend an important argument articulated by Sartwell (1992, The Journal of Philosophy, 89(4), 167–180) and reconstructed and criticized by Le Morvan (2002, Erkenntnis: An International Journal of Analytic Philosophy, 56(2), (...) 151–168). This Sartwellian argument purported to show that, since epistemic justification is of merely instrumental value, it is not constitutive of knowledge. In this paper, I argue that Hofmann’s defense of Sartwell fails, but that its failure brings to light some important lessons concerning the nature of justification and its relationship to truth and knowledge. (shrink)

This paper presents and defends a novel meta‐epistemological thesis, epistemic isomorphism, according to which our relations to others and to ourselves have the same pattern of relevance to our rationality. This means that correct epistemological theorizing will give formal parity to interpersonal and intrapersonal epistemic norms, such that what holds interpersonally also holds, mutatis mutandis, intrapersonally. In addition to arguing for epistemic isomorphism, the paper presents some epistemological case studies in which it is shown that the methodological (...) and argumentative strategies used by epistemologists in these case studies give expression to the idea of epistemic isomorphism as well as the argument presented here for its truth. Finally, the paper considers a possible counterexample to epistemic isomorphism based on an agent‐centered theory of justification, but it shows how to reconcile this theory with epistemic isomorphism. (shrink)

According to the evolutionary sceptic, the fact that our cognitive faculties evolved radically undermines their reliability. A number of evolutionary epistemologists have sought to refute this kind of scepticism. This paper accepts the success of these attempts, yet argues that refuting the evolutionary sceptic is not enough to put any particular domain of beliefs – notably scientific beliefs, which include belief in Darwinian evolution – on a firm footing. The paper thus sets out to contribute to this positive justificatory (...) project, underdeveloped in the literature. In contrast to a ‘wholesale’ approach, attempting to secure justification for all of our beliefs on the grounds that our belief-forming mechanisms evolved to track truth, we propose a ‘piecemeal’ approach of assessing the reliability of particular belief-forming mechanisms in particular domains. This stands in contrast to the more familiar attempt to transfer warrant obtained for one domain to another by showing how one is somehow an extension of the other. We offer a naturalist reply to the charge of circularity by appealing to reliabilist work on the problem of induction, notably Peter Lipton's distinction between self-certifying and non-self-certifying inductive arguments. We show how, for scientific beliefs, a non-self-certifying argument might be made for the reliability of our cognitive faculties in that domain. We call this strategy Humean Bootstrapping. (shrink)

In order to compare two forms of radical pragmatism, inferentialism (as developed by Robert Brandom) and constructivism (as developed by Paul Lorenzen), the paper shows how we can represent states of affairs in the world by corresponding symbols in a metaphysically harmless, though seemingly non-inferential way, why not all justifications are inferential transitions, for example those that make heavy use of constructions, and why a prosentential analysis of truth is helpful but not sufficient.

Suppose we want to take seriously the neoverificationist idea that an intuitionistic theory of meaning can be generalized in such a way as to be applicable not only to mathematical but also to empirical sentences. The paper explores some consequences of this attitude and takes some steps towards the realization of this program. The general idea is to develop a meaning theory, and consequently a formal semantics, based on the idea that knowing the meaning of a sentence is tantamount to (...) having a criterion for establishing what is a justification for it. Section 1 motivates a requirement of epistemic transparency imposed onto justifications conceived as mental states. In Section 2, the formal notion of justification for an atomic formula is defined, in terms of the notion of cognitive state. In Section 3, the definition is extended to logically complex formulas. In Section 4, the notion of truth-ground is introduced and is used to give a definition of logical validity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Perelmanian Universal Audience and the Epistemic Aspirations of ArgumentScott F. AikinIThe notion of universality in argumentation is as fecund as is it is controversial. Chaïm Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca’s notion of universal audience (UA), given their requirement that all arguments be evaluated in terms of their audiences, clearly promises a rich account of argumentative norms. It equally yields a variety of questions. For the most part, the questions (...) come in three forms: what, precisely, is the universal audience; whether it is, in the end, a coherent notion; and how its norms actually constrain argument. Many objections to the notion claim that it is either incoherent or too empty to constrain. My objective here is to provide an account of Perelman’s notion of UA that avoids these objections. I will argue that the UA can be clarified with a distinction between two functions it plays in argumentation— one pragmatic and another epistemic. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca do not explicitly disambiguate these roles themselves, though they do use the notion in two distinct ways in The New Rhetoric (TNR [1969]), and so it seems clear that although the view in the end may be Perelmanian, it is arguably not Perelman’s. No matter. The purpose of this essay is not to exhume Perelman but to resurrect and exercise his views. That is, historical work in philosophy must straddle the demands of two distinct goals— fidelity to the author in question and defensibility of the views developed. My case [End Page 238] will jointly depend on the comparative plausibility of my account as an interpretation of Perelman’s universal audience and of the view as correct regarding argumentative norms in relation to the other competing interpretations of Perelman’s UA. So if my argument for a divided universal audience is at least Perelmanian in spirit, and if it survives the objections to UA that other interpretations do not survive, it should be the philosophically preferable interpretation.IIThe first principle of Perelmanian rhetoric is that arguments are addressed to audiences for the purpose of inducing or increasing adherence to a view (TNR, 14). Consequently, the less reliant arguments are on a specific audience’s idiosyncratic commitments, the more effective the arguments will be in generating assent and resolving disagreements in wider and wider groups of people. Perelman describes the universal audience in The Realm of Rhetoric (RR [1982]) as “itself... made up of an infinite variety of particular audiences” (14). The UA is the regulative ideal of maximal intersubjective agreement. That is, we see both the relative weakness of arguments that depend on the commitments of particular audiences and “the value attached to opinions that enjoy unanimous approval” (TNR, 31). This unanimity is reached at its highest point in the universal audience. As such, UA is an agglomerative notion that functions as a criterion for how widely an argument may be given credence. Call this trajectory toward unanimity the pragmatic element of UA.However, the universal audience’s assent is used to define facts for arguments, and as such, it is a marker of the objectivity of a conclusion, not just the breadth of the effectiveness of an argument. Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca stipulate that “from the standpoint of argumentation, we are confronted with a fact only if we can postulate uncontroverted, universal agreement with respect to it” (TNR, 67). Facts and truths are defined in terms of the “agreement of the universal audience” (TNR, 67). This, of course, is not to say that arguments make facts but, instead, that their universal acceptability is a criterion for whether some purported fact is or is not the case. Agreement on this level does not play a metaphysical role of explanation but, rather, a cognitive role of justification for taking a commitment as a premise for further argument. The agreement in a universal audience, further, must be uncontroverted, which means that this UA must have some shared commitment that survives scrutiny (or at least is [End Page 239] not defeated): “The agreement of a universal audience is... a matter, not of fact, but of right” (TNR, 31). And further, this right has a very powerful normative element: “Argumentation... (shrink)

Abstract I provide an account of the nature of seemings that explains why they are necessary for justification. The account grows out of a picture of cognition that explains what is required for epistemic agency. According to this account, epistemic agency requires (1) possessing the epistemic aims of forming true beliefs and avoiding errors, and (2) having some means of forming beliefs in order to satisfy those aims. I then argue that seeming are motives for belief characterized (...) by their role of providing us with doxastic instructions guided by our epistemic aims. Understanding the nature of seemings allows us to underwrite recent epistemological work by Michael Huemer, and shows why he was right to claim that seemings are the source of all justification. I then look at some objections both to my arguments regarding the connection between seemings and justification, and to Huemer’s related “Principle of Phenomenal Conservatism”. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-21 DOI 10.1007/s11098-011-9830-2 Authors Matthew Skene, Syracuse University, 8330 E. Quincy Ave., I-307, Denver, CO 80237, USA Journal Philosophical Studies Online ISSN 1573-0883 Print ISSN 0031-8116. (shrink)

A central issue in epistemology concerns the connection between truth and justification. The burden of our paper is to explain this connection. Reliabilism, defended by Goldman, assumes that the connection is one of reliability. We argue that this assumption is too strong. We argue that foundational theories, such as those articulated by Pollock and Chisholm fail to elucidate the connection. We consider the potentiality of coherence theories to explain the truth connection by means of higher level convictions about probabilities, which (...) we call doxastic ascent, and defend such a theory. Our defense appeals to the work of Reid and contemporary cognitive psychology in order to account for the psychological reality of higher level evaluations. (shrink)

This volume develops a theory of meaning and a semantics for both mathematical and empirical sentences inspired to Chomsky’s internalism, namely to a view of semantics as the study of the relations of language not with external reality but with internal, or mental, reality. In the first part a theoretical notion of justification for a sentence A is defined, by induction on the complexity of A; intuitively, justifications are conceived as cognitive states of a particular kind. The main source (...) of inspiration for this part is Heyting’s explanation of the intuitionistic meaning of logical constants. In the second part the theory is applied to the solution of several foundational problems in the theory of meaning and epistemology, such as Frege’s puzzle, Mates’ puzzle about synonymy, the paradox of analysis, Kripke’s puzzle about belief, the de re/de dicto distinction, the specific/non-specific distinction, Gettier’s problems, the paradox of knowability, and the characterization of truth. On a more general philosophical level, throughout the book the author develops a tight critique of the neo-verificationism of Dummett, Prawitz and Martin-Löf, and defends a mentalist interpretation of intuitionism. (shrink)

William Lycan's On Evidence in Philosophy makes noteworthy contributions to many important philosophical topics. The topics discussed here are epistemic justification by explanatory coherence, seeming truths as sources of initial justification, the extent of our philosophical ignorance, the fault in begging the question, the nature of intuitions, and the evidence that intuitions supply. For each topic, an attempt is made to employ work done in the book to advance the philosophical issues.

In this article I argue that the value of epistemic justification cannot be adequately explained as being instrumental to truth. I intend to show that false belief, which is no means to truth, can nevertheless still be of epistemic value. This in turn will make a good prima facie case that justification is valuable for its own sake. If this is right, we will have also found reason to think that truth value monism is false: assuming that true (...) belief does have value, there is more of final epistemic value than mere true belief. (shrink)

Originally published in 1990. Examining epistemic justification, truth and logic, this book works towards a holistic theory of knowledge. It discusses evidence, belief, reliability and many philosophical theories surrounding the nature of true knowledge. A thorough Preface updates the main work from when it was written in 1976 to include theories ascendant in the ‘80s.

This article combines findings from cognitive psychology on the role of processing fluency in truth judgments with epistemological theory on justification of belief. We first review evidence that repeated exposure to a statement increases the subjective ease with which that statement is processed. This increased processing fluency, in turn, increases the probability that the statement is judged to be true. The basic question discussed here is whether the use of processing fluency as a cue to truth is epistemically justified. (...) In the present analysis, based on Bayes’ Theorem, we adopt the reliable-process account of justification presented by Goldman (1986) and show that fluency is a reliable cue to truth, under the assumption that the majority of statements one has been exposed to are true. In the final section, we broaden the scope of this analysis and discuss how processing fluency as a potentially universal cue to judged truth may contribute to cultural differences in commonsense beliefs. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:What Do You Mean, Rhetoric Is Epistemic?William D. HarpineIn 1967, Robert L. Scott (1967) advocated that "rhetoric is epistemic." This concept has enriched the work of rhetorical theorists and critics. Scott's essay is founded in a concept of argumentative justification in rhetoric, viewed as an alternative to analytic logic. Other writers, including Brummett (1976), Railsback (1983), and Cherwitz and Hikins (1986), have offered variations on Scott's theme. (...) The thesis that rhetoric is epistemic has been controversial, however, and from the tone of the debate one may draw two conclusions: many rhetorical theorists feel that Scott was on to something important, and the thesis as it has been developed is flawed. Much of the dispute centers on what the thesis means. These discussions have not yet adequately clarified that issue.The philosopher's most fundamental obligation is to define terms with care. It is in precisely this respect that the rhetoric-is-epistemic theorists have fallen short. Some of the key terms in this literature include rhetoric, knowledge, certainty, and truth. In too many cases, the writers on rhetorical epistemology have not defined their key terms at all. In other cases, their definitions are inadequate or inconsistent. This essay undertakes to sort out the most important definitional problems, which center on the rhetoric-is-epistemic theorists' habit of equivocating about the meanings of "rhetoric" and "certainty." The result makes it possible to endorse the validity of Scott's essentially ethical conclusions, while dismissing a number of unnecessary complexities in the arguments made by rhetoric-as-epistemic theorists. Finally, a few alternatives that might lead to more robust foundations for the rhetoric-as-epistemic thesis are suggested.In 1978, after reviewing four distinct interpretations of the claim that rhetoric is epistemic, Leff concluded that clarification of what that claim means "deserves more disciplined treatment than it has received in the recent literature" (1978, 77). The same could still be said. After some [End Page 335] thirty years of active research and speculation on the topic, one now sees fewer publications specifically advocating that rhetoric is epistemic. The distinguished rhetorical theorist Barry Brummett (1990) has declared the thesis deceased (69-72).All the same, textbook authors treat the thesis as a given, despite their tendency to interpret it in wildly different ways. Foss, for example, puts forward a view that "in the field of communication, the idea that rhetoric creates reality is known as the notion that rhetoric is epistemic, which simply means that rhetoric creates knowledge; epistemology is the study of the origin and nature of knowledge" (1989, 122; emphasis in the original). This version of the thesis, claiming that rhetoric actually "creates reality," might be more ontological than it is epistemic.1 Herrick takes a dialectical view that "through rhetorical interaction, people come to accept some ideas as true and to reject others as false. Thus, rhetoric's epistemic function in society can be seen in some ways to be a result of its benefit of testing ideas." Herrick continues that "once an idea has been tested thoroughly by a group, community, and society, it becomes part of what these groups take to be knowledge." Herrick contrasts this with the rejected view that "knowledge is all objective in nature and comes to us by way of direct experience or education" (1997, 22). Both Herrick and Foss offer interesting theses, and both attribute their views to Scott, but their views are obviously very different. There can be no surer evidence of the failure to use terms precisely.Brummett (1990) attributes the demise of rhetoric-is-epistemic research to the failure of critics to employ the idea in rhetorical criticism. Brummett might be right to the extent that much of the rhetoric-is-epistemic literature is indeed exceptionally abstract. Specific discussions might clarify some issues. Nonetheless, some notable rhetorical critics have indeed employed a concept that rhetoric is epistemic (e.g., Scott and Klumpp 1984; Sullivan 1992). The issues remain unclear. Furthermore, rhetorical criticism per se cannot clarify the meanings of theoretical terms. More likely, one sees less and less published research about the thesis that rhetoric is epistemic precisely because the thesis has not been laid out clearly... (shrink)

The justification of cognitive claims in theology can be dealt with adequately only if the epistemological issues of metaphorical reference, experiential adequacy, and explanatory progress are seen as crucial problems for the more encompassing problem of rationality in theology. In order to guarantee any claim to reality depiction the theologian will have to argue for a plausible theory of reference on the basis of interpreted religious experience. In this discussion important analogies between the rationality of theological theorizing and the (...) rationality of science are revealed. (shrink)

The article examines Habermas’s formal‐pragmatic theory of meaning from the point of view of his attempt to defend a postmetaphysical yet context‐transcendent conception of validity. It considers his attempt to develop a pragmatic account of understanding utterances that emphasises the mediation of knowledge through socio‐cultural practices while simultaneously stressing that understanding has a cognitive dimension that is inherently context‐transcendent. It focuses on his recent “Janus‐faced” conception of truth, looking more briefly at his purely epistemic conception of moral validity. (...) It raises three objections: the first to his attempt to maintain a notion of “unconditionality” that has no otherworldly origins but is purely immanent to this world, the second to the alleged non‐arbitrary status of his conception of truth, and the third to his rejection of metaphysical thinking. It concludes that the objections, if valid, have profound implications for Habermas’s postmetaphysical enterprise and for his programme of formal pragmatics. (shrink)

Pragmatic justifications of epistemic norms tell us to observe these norms as the best means to attaining the things we value. I argue that such justifications do not work, because they harbour an irresolvable tension: their non-alethic character intrinsically conflicts with the truth-aiming character of the epistemic norms they are justifying. We should abandon, then, either epistemic norms or pragmatic justifications of these norms. I therefore argue that we should abandon pragmatic justifications.

For Plato, the crucial function of human cognition is to grasp truths. Explaining how we are able to do this is fundamental to understanding our cognitive powers. Plato addresses this topic from several different angles. In the Cratylus and Theaetetus, he attempts to identify the elemental cognitions that are the foundations of language and knowledge. He considers several candidates for this role, most notably, perception and simple meaning-bearing concepts. In the first section, we will look at Plato’s worries about (...) semantic instability and its epistemic consequences. The central role of basic cognitions in Plato’s account of knowledge in the Theaetetus will be explored in the second section. In the final section, the relevance of Plato’s conception of cognition to modern discussions in the philosophy of language and epistemology will be noted. (shrink)

Evolving signaling systems can be said to induce partitions on the space of world states as they approach equilibrium. Formalizing this claim provides a general framework for understanding what it means for language to “cut nature at its seams”. In order to avoid taking our current best science as providing the adaptive target for all evolving systems, the state space of the world must be characterized exclusively in terms of the coincidence of stimuli and payoffs that drives the evolution of (...) cognitive complexity. Cognition exploits the reliable clustering of events in this space. Using this framework to analyze our ordinary concepts of truth and justification, it appears that while justification can be a simple matter of conforming to historically entrenched strategies, truth cannot be fully specified on the basis of the system’s causal history, but requires a robust clustering in the larger world state space. (shrink)

Abstract Jürgen Habermas has proposed a tripartite classification of analytic philosophy of language into formal semantics, intentionalistic semantics, and use?theories of meaning. Here, I focus on the relationship between formal semantics and Habermas? own account of meaning and truth. I argue against his early ?consensus theory of truth?, according to which truth is defined as idealized warranted assertibility and explained by the ?discursive redemption? of validity claims. A claim is discursively redeemed if it commands rationally motivated consensus of all discursive (...) partners. I argue that this is not so much a theory of truth as of justification. As an account of truth, it is unsatisfactory because warrants can be lost in light of new arguments, and because consensus is seen as criterial for truth only if it is in principle defeasible ? hence there remains a gap between truth and even idealized warranted assertibility. In The Theory of Communicative Action, Habermas? views undergo a shift. Following Dummett, he cashes out meaning in terms of assertibility conditions. While Habermas continues to insist on an epistemically conditioned notion of truth, he no longer explicitly defines truth as idealized warranted assertibility; nor does his meaning?theoretic framework require him to do so. I argue that truth is an irreducible and ineliminable regulative idea. In particular, it can be explicated in terms of justification only indirectly. Contrary to some commentators, I do not believe that the regulative function of truth is merely negative. Fallibilism does not exhaust the meaning of truth. For we do not make truth claims provisionally, that is, with the understanding that they may turn out to be wrong. Rather, we gamble that we will not turn out to be wrong. Therefore, the concept of truth has not only a critical, but also a positive function in our discourse. (shrink)

An epistemic virtue is a personal quality conducive to the discovery of truth, the avoidance of error, or some other intellectually valuable goal. Current work in epistemology is increasingly value-driven, but this volume presents the first collection of essays to explore whether virtue epistemology can also be naturalistic, in the philosophical definition meaning 'methodologically continuous with science'. The essays examine the empirical research in psychology on cognitive abilities and personal dispositions, meta-epistemic semantic accounts of virtue theoretic norms, (...) the role of emotion in knowledge, 'ought-implies can' constraints, empirically and metaphysically grounded accounts of 'proper functioning', and even applied virtue epistemology in relation to education. Naturalizing Epistemic Virtue addresses many core issues in contemporary epistemology, presents new opportunities for work on epistemic abilities, epistemic virtues and cognitive character, and will be of great interest to those studying virtue ethics and epistemology. (shrink)

Philosophy begins and ends in disagreement. Philosophers disagree among themselves in innumerable ways, and this pervasive and permanent dissent is a sign of their inability to solve philosophical problems and establish substantive truths. This raises the question: What should I do with my philosophical beliefs in light of philosophy's epistemic failure? In this open-access book, János Tozsér develops four possible answers into comprehensive metaphilosophical visions and argues that we cannot find peace either by committing ourselves to one of these (...) visions or by abandoning our philosophical beliefs. Tozsér calls this disheartening insight "the experience of breakdown", making the case that philosophy's truth-seeking and justificatory tools are unsuitable for establishing truths. Shedding light on the epistemic status of our philosophical beliefs, Tozsér adopts a broad approach to assess the metaphilosophical visions used by philosophers to interpret their own activity and determine their epistemic self-esteem. Open access was funded by the Research Centre for the Humanities, Hungary. (shrink)

Process reliabilists hold that in order for a belief to be justified, it must result from a reliable cognitive process. They also hold that a belief can be basically justified: justified in this manner without having any justification to believe that belief is reliably produced. Fumerton (1995), Vogel (2000), and Cohen (2002) have objected that such basic justification leads to implausible easy justification by means of either epistemic closure principles or so-called track record arguments. I argue that once (...) we carefully distinguish closure principles from transmission principles, and epistemic consequences from epistemic preconditions, neither version of this objection succeeds. (shrink)

This paper develops a formal framework to model a process in which the formation of individual opinions is embedded in a deliberative exchange with others. The paper opts for a low-resolution modeling approach and abstracts away from most of the details of the social-epistemic process. Taking a bird's eye view allows us to analyze the chances for the truth to be found and broadly accepted under conditions of cognitive division of labour combined with a social exchange process. (...) class='Hi'>Cognitive division of labour means that only some individuals are active truth seekers, possibly with different capacities. Both mathematical tools and computer simulations are used to investigate the model. As an analytical result, the Funnel Theorem states that under rather weak conditions on the social process, a consensus on the truth will be reached if all individuals possess an arbitrarily small capacity to go for the truth. The Leading the pack Theorem states that under certain conditions even a single truth seeker may lead all individuals to the truth. Systematic simulations analyze how close agents can get to the truth depending upon the frequency of truth seekers, their capacities as truth seekers, the position of the truth (more to the extreme or more in the centre of an opinion space), and the willingness to take into account the opinions of others when exchanging and updating opinions. (shrink)

In this paper, I articulate and discuss Clifford's two main arguments in favor of the norm that it is illegitimate to believe based on insufficient evidence. The first argument appeals to the instrumental value of belief, and the second one appeals to our intrinsic interest in the truth. Both arguments bring to the fore the relevance of moral and social factors to determine norms for belief. I sustain that the first argument is insufficient to establish Clifford's norm in general. Beliefs (...) that are not a mean to an action fall outside the scope of the first argument. The second argument has a wider scope. However, it can be undermined if the agent follows an intellectualized norm that aims to protect the rest of her cognitive and active life from her unjustified beliefs. It’s an empirical matter whether a human agent is able to follow this norm. I defend that Clifford’s norm should be reformulated, including some parameters that have influence on the sufficiency of evidence. Finally, prudential and moral factors can affect the legitimacy of belief. It’s legitimate to believe without sufficient evidence only in special cases, when the agent insulates the unjustified belief, or when the good that results from believing surpasses the harms yielded by credulity. (shrink)

Doxastic distinctions help us define the basis and biases in belief–formation. Empirical and extra-empirical justification play an important role in determining doxastic distinctions. When we distinguish the different types of beliefs, we understand that there are basically three kinds of beliefs, namely, verifiable, falsifiable, and unfalsifiable beliefs. Empirical justification provides the basis for establishing the veracity of verifiable and falsifiable beliefs. Extra-empirical justification provides the basis for establishing the veracity of unfalsifiable or irrefutable beliefs. Verifiable or falsifiable beliefs that are (...) reductive require the mandatory acceptance of their truth. However, unfalsifiable beliefs which are non-reductive require the volitional acceptance of their truth. Because there is both empirical and extra-empirical justification in belief-formation, we can accept beliefs with or without, against, or regardless of empirical evidence. Unfalsifiable beliefs do not mean that these beliefs are unjustifiable; it simply means that these beliefs are not empirically justifiable. Understanding the basis and biases of belief-formation is to be aware of how we come to know what we believe. As empirical basis allows us to hold beliefs based on either the principle of confirmation or falsification. Extra-empirical basis, namely phenomenological conjectures, allows us to hold beliefs founded on existential assertions. The intent of this paper is to present doxastic distinctions to help us understand the basis and biases associated with belief-formation. As long as epistemic claims are accepted, and their content is considered believable, the means used to arrive at those beliefs must also be respected. Every doxastic distinction not only provides the basis for belief-formation but also defines the role and limits of both empirical and extra-empirical justification in belief-formation. When we recognize the different types and different ways of justifying beliefs: we understand why we can accept beliefs with or without evidence; against or regardless of empirical justification, and know when to define beliefs as Plato argued as justified true belief and when to define beliefs as justified belief-decisions. Keywords: beliefs, justified true belief; justified belief-decisions, empirical and extra-empirical. (shrink)

According to the foundationalist picture, shared by many rationalists and positivist empiricists, science makes cognitive progress by accumulating justified truths. Fallibilists, who point out that complete certainty cannot be achieved in empirical science, can still argue that even successions of false theories may progress toward the truth. This proposal was supported by Karl Popper with his notion of truthlikeness or verisimilitude. Popper’s own technical definition failed, but the idea that scientific progress means increasing truthlikeness can be expressed by defining (...) degrees of truthlikeness in terms of similarities between states of affairs. This paper defends the verisimilitude approach against Alexander Bird who argues that the “semantic” definition is not sufficient to define progress, but the “epistemic” definition referring to justification and knowledge is more adequate. Here Bird ignores the crucial distinction between real progress and estimated progress, explicated by the difference between absolute degrees of truthlikeness and their evidence-relative expected values. Further, it is argued that Bird’s idea of returning to the cumulative model of growth requires an implausible trick of transforming past false theories into true ones. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the feminist claim that non-epistemic values ought to play a role in scientific inquiry. I examine four holist arguments that non-epistemic values ought to play a role not only in the external aspects of scientific inquiry such as problem selection and the ethics of experimentation but also in its internal aspects, those that have to do with epistemic justification. In supporting their conclusion, I argue that they establish that the traditional external/internal distinction (...) has served as a marker for more fundamental distinctions between non-epistemic and epistemic values and between the means by which each are pursued. However, I also contend that these arguments do nothing to deny these distinctions between epistemic and non-epistemic values. Maintaining these distinctions, I argue for an epistemic holism suggesting ways in which both substantive claims about non-epistemic values and reliable processes/methods for the legitimization of non-epistemic values may also be truth-conducive, thereby serving the epistemic ends of scientific inquiry. (shrink)

Building on previous work, I continue the arguments for scientific realism in the presence of a natural level structure of science. That structure results from a cognitive antireductionism that calls for the retention of mature theories even though they have been "superseded". The level structure is based on "scientific truth" characterized by a theory's validity domain and the confirming empirical data. Reductionism (including fundamentalism) fails cognitively because of qualitative differences in the ontology and semantics of successive theories. This (...) class='Hi'>cognitive failure exists in spite of the mathematical success of theory reduction. The claim for scientific realism is strongly based on theory coherence between theories on adjacent levels. Level coherence consists of mathematical relations between levels, as well as of reductive explanations. The latter refers to questions that can be posed (but not answered) on a superseded level, but which can be answered (explained) on the superseding level. In view of the pluralism generated by cognitive antireductionism, theory coherence is claimed to be so compelling that it provides strong epistemic justification for a pluralistic scientific realism. (shrink)

The background of this paper (section 1) consists in a new account to foundation‐theoretic epistemology characterized by two features: (i) All beliefs are to be justified by deductive, inductive or abductive inferences from a minimalistic class of unproblematic (introspective or analytic) basic beliefs. (ii) Higher‐order justifications for these inferences are given by means of the novel method of optimality justifications. Optimality justifications are a new tool for epistemology (section 2). An optimality justification does not attempt todemonstratethat a cognitive method (...) is reliable (which is impossible), but pursues the more modest goal of demonstrating that the method isoptimalamong all accessible alternative methods for the given epistemic goal. The reasoning from the established optimality of a method to the acceptability of a particular belief generated by the method is accomplished by so‐called optimality principles. In sections 3–5, the method of optimality justifications is carried out in detail for three fundamental problems: justifying induction, logic, and theory‐generating abduction. (shrink)

The problem of epistemic luck arises when a person has a true belief that is only true by luck. Before Gettier, it was believed that the element of justification would be sufficient for knowledge; but he showed that it is possible to have a justified true belief that is not an example of knowledge because of the intrusion of luck. Duncan Pritchard has examined epistemic luck in an extensive and detailed manner. He offers a modal account of luck (...) based on two elements: a possible-worlds analysis of counterfactual conditions and a significance condition for the factors that make the truth of the belief lucky. Pritchard argues for the superiority of this account to those that focus on whether the truth of the belief is “accidental” and on whether the believer has sufficient control over the belief. Epistemic luck may be “reflective” or “veritic”. Both undermine knowledge claims, although Pritchard gives the central role to veritic luck in his anti-luck epistemology, which is based on two elements: a safety principle and a condition to ensure that the cognitive faculties of the agent are not impaired. In this article, we will describe, analyze, and subsequently, evaluate the viewpoint of Pritchard. In addition to the critiques offered by others, ambiguities in his counterfactual account of luck and other components of his theory detract from his theory. (shrink)

Charles S. Peirce attempted to develop his semiotic theory of cognitive signs interpretation, which are originated in our basic perceptual operations that quasi-prove the truth of perceptual judgment representing reality. The essential problem was to explain how, by a cognitive interpretation of the sequence of perceptual signs, we can represent external physical reality and reflectively represent our cognitive mind’s operations of signs. With his phaneroscopy introspection, Peirce shows how, without going outside our cognitions, we can represent external (...) reality. Hence Peirce can avoid the Berkeleyian, Humean, and Kantian phenomenologies, as well as the modern analytic philosophy and hermeneutic phenomenology. Peirce showed that with the trio of semiotic interpretation – abductive logic of discovery of hypotheses, deductive logic of necessary inference, and inductive logic of evaluation – we can reach a complete proof of the true representation of reality. This semiotic logic of reasoning is the epistemic logic representing human confrontation in reality, with which we can achieve knowledge and conduct our behavior. However, Peirce did not complete his realistic revolution to eliminate previously accepted nominalistic and idealistic epistemologies of formal logic and pure mathematics. Here, I inquire why Peirce did not complete his historical realist epistemological revolution and following that inquiry I attempt to reconstruct it. (shrink)

In her book Democracy and Truth: The Conflict between Political and Epistemic Virtues, Snjezana Prijic Samarzija advocates that a purely procedural justification which defines the authority and legitimacy of democracy only in relation to the fairness of the procedure itself is not enough for a full justification of democracy. Some epistemic values should also be included. This epistemic quality of democracy depends on the quality of the decisions that the democratic procedures produce. In that sense, the author (...) is advocating a hybrid theory that secures harmony between political and epistemic values, favoring deliberative procedure for this purpose, and thus promotes equal respect for both democratic values. In doing so, she is advocating the specific type of division of epistemic labor that I will attempt to critically re-examine here, as well as to bring into question the privileged role of the experts in democratic decision-making. (shrink)

The paper challenges William Alston’s argument against doxastic deontology, the view that we have epistemic duties concerning our beliefs. The core of the argument is that doxastic deontology requires voluntary control over our beliefs, which we do not have. The idea that doxastic deontology requires voluntary control is supposed to follow from the principle that ought implies can. The paper argues that this is wrong: in the OIC principle which regulates our doxastic duties the “can” does not stand for (...) the ability to shape our beliefs voluntarily. As an examination of everyday examples shows, it stands for cognitive competence, the reliable ability to acquire beliefs in compliance with the epistemic norms. The doxastic OIC principle asserts, in brief, that one is only obliged to believe something if one’s cognitive capacities are sufficiently strong. It is also explained why the doxastic duties do not require voluntary control as opposed to moral duties. This understanding of doxastic duties saves our everyday doxastic deontic judgments from Alston’s argument, but does not help the deontological conception of justification, which understands justification as not violating one’s epistemic duties. It actually provides another argument against the deontological conception: if the OIC regulating our doxastic duties is construed as suggested, the deontological conception of justification implies that one’s doxastic duties and, consequently, whether one’s belief is justified depend on one’s cognitive competence. Since cognitive competence varies from person to person, justification will not matter to truth and knowledge in the way epistemic justification is supposed to do. (shrink)

Suppose we are prepared to conceive the meaning of a sentence as a classification criterion which enables us to establish whether something is or is not a justification to believe that sentence. Which properties of the intuitive notion of justification are, from this point of view, essential for believing a sentence? And how might a theoretical notion of justification for a sentence be defined? In Sections 2-5 some properties are suggested as essential, in particular Intentionality (a justification is always a (...) justification for a sentence), Defeasibility (a justification for a sentence A can cease to be a justification for A as new information is received), and Epistemic transparency (a justification for A is not a justification for A unless it is recognized as such by an idealized knowing subject). In Section 6 a sketch of definition is proposed, according to which a justification for a sentence A is a cognitive state in which the subject has at his disposal a certain amount of information, and the hypothesis that A is the best explanation of that information. Section 7 shows how the notion defined escapes a crucial objection to defeasible justifications recently stated by P. Casalegno. (shrink)

The impossibility results of Bovens and Hartmann (2003, Bayesian epistemology. Oxford: Clarendon Press) and Olsson (2005, Against coherence: Truth, probability and justification. Oxford: Oxford University Press.) show that the link between coherence and probability is not as strong as some have supposed. This paper is an attempt to bring out a way in which coherence reasoning nevertheless can be justified, based on the idea that, even if it does not provide an infallible guide to probability, it can give us an (...) indication thereof. It is further shown that this actually is the case, for several of the coherence measures discussed in the literature so far. We also discuss how this affects the possibility to use coherence as a means of epistemic justification. (shrink)

Sanford C. Goldberg argues that a proper account of the communication of knowledge through speech has anti-individualistic implications for both epistemology and the philosophy of mind and language. In Part I he offers a novel argument for anti-individualism about mind and language, the view that the contents of one's thoughts and the meanings of one's words depend for their individuation on one's social and natural environment. In Part II he discusses the epistemic dimension of knowledge communication, arguing that the (...) epistemic characteristics of communication-based beliefs depend on features of the cognitive and linguistic acts of the subject's social peers. In acknowledging an ineliminable social dimension to mind, language, and the epistemic categories of knowledge, justification, and rationality, his book develops fundamental links between externalism in the philosophy of mind and language, on the one hand, and externalism is epistemology, on the other. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THOMAS, THOMISMS, AND TRUTH BRUCE D. MARSHALL Saint Olaf College Northfield, Minnesota I HE GREAT, as Hegel's dictum has it, condemn the rest f us to the task of understanding them. We take our evenge upon the great, especialy upon great thinkers, by enlisting them for our own purposes, as our supporters and defenders in conflicts perhaps quite different from those in which they themselves were engaged. Thomas Aquinas (...) was a master, virtually without peer, at the intellectual enlistment of the great, and he himself has been perhaps as widely and variously recruited as any of those to whom he devoted his own attentions. When we enlist Thomas for our own purposes with some consistency and success, the result is a " Thomism," of which there have been many, sometimes quite conflicting varieties. My article " Aquinas as Postliberal Theologian " does not propose anything so developed as a Thomism, but perhaps at most a fragment of one.1 In their responses to it, Frederick J. Crosson and Louis 1 The Thomist 53 (1989) : 353-402. The interpretation of Thomas proposed there bears a family resemblance to that of some recent Thomisms and so is not wholly without precedent. Cf. Michel Corbin, Le chemin de la theologie chez Thomas D'Aquin (Paris: Beauchesne, 1974); Otto Herman Pesch, Die Theologie der Rechtfertigung bei Martin Luther und Thomas von Aquin (Mainz: Matthias-Grunewald-Verlag, 1967) ; idem, Thomas von Aquin: Grenze und Grosse mittelalterlichen Theologie, 2nd ed. (Mainz: MatthiasGrunewald -Verlag, 1989); Gerhard Ludwig Muller, "Hebt das Sola-FidePrinzip die Moglichkeit einer naturlichen Theologie auf? Eine Ruckfrage bei Thomas von Aquin," Catholica 40 (1986) : 59-96; Victor Preller, Divine Science and the Science of God (Princeton: University Press, 1967). Reference to these Thomisms should not, of course, be taken to constitute agreement with any particular claim one of them may make. 499 500 BRUCE D. MARSHALL Roy, O.P., argue that as a piece of Thomism-as the enlistment of Thomas in defense and support of a particular contemporary view of truth, meaning, and epistemic justification-it is at best unpromising. In so doing, they indicate, at least in part, what views on these matters they think Thomas can plausibly be enlisted to support, that is, the sort of Thomism they find more convincing. Great thinkers are not, however, defenseless against our efforts to recruit them for our ends. Especially in the case of one whose thought is as ramified, precise, and historically distant as is that of Thomas Aquinas, these efforts are likely to meet with some resistance. (Indeed, we will be inclined to distrust them if they claim not to.) We may even find ourselves compelled to refashion our own ends in order not to forgo plausible appeal to his precedent and support. Sometimes different Thomisms will no doubt include purposes distant enough from Thomas's own (as best we can grasp them) that it may be impossible to adjudicate conflicts between them by appeal to his texts. But in many cases it ought to be possible to decide reasonably between competing Thomisms (that is, to decide which more plausibly enlists Thomas for its own purposes) by assessing the amount and type of resistance each meets from the text of Thomas (of course this includes the possibility that competition between Thomisms reflects unresolved conflict within Thomas's own thought). In the present case the prospect of reasonable adjudication seems much increased by the fact that the large issues with which it is concerned -truth, meaning, and justification-tend to coalesce around what seems to be a straightforward matter of fact: whether Thomas taught that persons without Christian faith, and especially pre-Christian philosophers, knew, or were even able to know, God. Crosson and Roy both argue that the implausibility of my interpretation of Aquinas on these larger issues-the linking of a comprehensively coherentist account of justification an~ a contextualist account of meaning to Thomas's correspondence notion of truth-is especially clear in its attribution to Thomas of a posi- THOMA$, THOMISMS, AND TRUTH 501 tion he manifestly rejects: that a pre-Christian philosopher like Aristotle did not, and indeed could not, know God. This seems obvious to most modern Thomisms, which, however... (shrink)

My objective in this paper is to defend the possibility of epistemological justification against Richard Rorty’s pragmatic, “postphilosophical critique of traditional philosophy.” By epistemological justification I mean the establishment of reasons for holding beliefs extralinguistically true. My inclination is to understand truth and justification in a Davidsonian holistic coherentist way, as opposed to the traditional correspondist way. But for my present purpose the coherentist/correspondist issue is deferrable. I am, nonetheless, concerned with objective epistemic justification, as opposed to “subjective” justification (...) or warrantedness. I shall proceed by discussing justification and Rorty’s challenge to it, and then attribute to Rorty a conception of imagination which I think undermines that challenge. (shrink)

Some series can go on indefinitely, others cannot, and epistemologists want to know in which class to place epistemic chains. Is it sensible or nonsensical to speak of a proposition or belief that is justified by another proposition or belief, ad infinitum? In large part the answer depends on what we mean by “justification.” Epistemologists have failed to find a definition on which everybody agrees, and some have even advised us to stop looking altogether. In spite of this, the (...) present essay submits a few candidate definitions. It argues that, although not giving the final word, these candidates tell us something about the possibility of infinite epistemic chains. And it shows that they can short-circuit a debate about doxastic justification. (shrink)

A popular account of epistemic justification holds that justification, in essence, aims at truth. An influential objection against this account points out that it is committed to holding that only true beliefs could be justified, which most epistemologists regard as sufficient reason to reject the account. In this paper I defend the view that epistemic justification aims at truth, not by denying that it is committed to epistemic justification being factive, but by showing that, when we focus (...) on the relevant sense of ‘justification’, it isn’t in fact possible for a belief to be at once justified and false. To this end, I consider and reject three popular intuitions speaking in favor of the possibility of justified false beliefs, and show that a factive account of epistemic justification is less detrimental to our normal belief forming practices than often supposed. (shrink)

Devoted to an explicit exploration of the relationships between knowledge and truth. Opens with a critique of reliabilist externalist views of epistemic justification and defends the characteristically pragmatist conclusion that truth cannot function as the goal of enquiry. What is arguably wanted is not truth but objectivity, and C. S. Peirce's appeal to the ‘abductive’ method of science, as a fallible and inter‐subjective means of fixing beliefs, yields a useful analysis of the latter notion.

Statements containing epistemic modals (e.g., “by spring 2023 most European countries may have the Covid-19 pandemic under control”) are common expressions of epistemic uncertainty. In this paper, previous published findings (Knobe & Yalcin, 2014; Khoo & Phillips, 2018) on the opposition between Contextualism and Relativism for epistemic modals are re-examined. It is found that these findings contain a substantial degree of individual variation. To investigate whether participants differ in their interpretation of epistemic modals, an experiment with (...) multiple phases and sessions is used to classify participants according to the three semantic theories of Relativism, Contextualism, and Objectivism. Through this study, some of the first empirical evidence for the kind of truth-value shifts postulated by semantic Relativism is presented. It is furthermore found that participants’ disagreement judgments match their truth evaluations and that participants are capable of distinguishing between truth and justification. In a second experimental session, it is investigated whether participants thus classified follow the norm of retraction which Relativism uses to account for argumentation with epistemic modals. Here the results are less favorable for Relativism. In a second experiment, these results are replicated and the normative beliefs of participants concerning the norm of retraction are investigated following work on measuring norms by Bicchieri (2017). Again, it is found that on average participants show no strong preferences concerning the norm of retraction for epistemic modals. Yet, it was found that participants who had committed to Objectivism and had training in logics applied the norm of retraction to might-statements. These results present a substantial challenge to the account of argumentation with epistemic modals presented in MacFarlane (2014), as discussed. Keywords: Epistemic Modals, Relativism, Norm Conflicts, Retraction, Semantics, Truth Conditions, Argumentation. (shrink)

There are two broad views in the epistemology of testimony, conservatism and liberalism. The two views disagree over a particular necessary condition on testimonial justification: the positive reasons requirement (PRR). Perhaps the most prominent objection levelled at liberalism from the conservative camp stems from gullibility; without PRR, the thought goes, an objectionable form of gullibility looms large for liberals. In this paper I aim to make two main contributions: to introduce a new metric for adjudicating this debate; and to argue (...) that, from the perspective of this new metric, the liberal view is stronger than has been appreciated. Drawing on work from James (The Will to believe and other essays in Popular Philosophy, Harvard University Press, 1896), Goldman (Epistemology and Cognition, Harvard University Press, 1986), and Kelp et al. (Synthese 197:5187–5202, 2020), I firstly countenance the distinction between positive and negative epistemic measures. Positive measures concern, roughly, the acquisition of truths, whereas negative measures concern the avoidance of falsehoods. Both, it is argued, are relevant to epistemic justification, but this debate has proceeded in such a way as to overemphasise the importance of the latter over the former. Once this distinction is made, new conceptual terrain opens for the liberal. Rather than being resigned to a predominantly defensive role—of mitigating worries about negative measures—the liberal can go on the offensive, and explore the independent epistemic strengths of their position. The upshot is that liberals have a new way to dispel their most prominent objection. (shrink)