On the Autonomy of (Some) Knowledge

Theory and Research in Education, 2013

Virtue epistemologists hold that knowledge results from the display of epistemic virtues – open-mindedness, rigor, sensitivity to evidence, and the like. But epistemology cannot rest satisfied with a list of the virtues. What is wanted is a criterion for being an epistemic virtue. An extension of a formulation of Kant’s categorical imperative yields such a criterion. Epistemic agents should think of themselves as, and act as, legislating members of a realm of epistemic ends: they make the rules, devise the methods, and set the standards that bind them. The epistemic virtues are the traits of intellectual character that equip them to do so. Students then not only need to learn the standards, methods, and rules of the various disciplines, they also need to learn to think of themselves as, and how to behave as, legislating members of epistemic realms who are responsible for what they and their fellows believe. This requires teaching them to respect reasons, and to take themselves to be...

published in Philosophical Explorations, Vol. 12, No. 2, June 2009, 205–219 This article discusses the arguments against associating epistemic responsibility with the ordinary notion of agency. I examine the various " Kantian " views which lead to a distinctive conception of epistemic agency and epistemic responsibility, in particular the one proposed by Pamela Hieronymi (2007). I try to explain why we can be held responsible for our beliefs in the sense of obeying norms which regulate them without being epistemic agents

The goal of this paper is to explore and defend the epistemic dependence of knowledge⎯roughly, the dependence of one’s knowledge on factors outwith one’s cognitive agency⎯and to situate this thesis within a wider framework for thinking about knowledge, one on which knowledge demands both cognitive agency and extra-agential factors. It is argued that the epistemic dependence thesis comes in both positive (knowledge-enabling) and negative (knowledge-precluding) forms, and that properly understood it runs contrary to a number of central movements in contemporary epistemology. Despite appearances, the question of whether one’s epistemology allows for epistemic dependence runs orthogonal to the epistemic externalism/internalism distinction. Instead, it reflects a rather different dispute between epistemic individualism and epistemic anti-individualism. A narrow form of epistemic individualism is contrasted with a broader form that allows for extended cognitive processes. While our initial focus is on perceptual knowledge specifically, it is also shown that with this framework in place, the prospects for a distinctively social epistemic anti-individualism are very sound. Furthermore, it is claimed that this result is not specific to a particular social kind of knowledge, but rather reflects a point about knowledge in general. This is brought out by considering epistemic twin earth arguments that demonstrate the general epistemic dependence of knowledge. Social epistemic anti-individualism is thus motivated on more general anti- individualist grounds, reflecting the wider reach of the epistemic dependence thesis. The rationale for this thesis within a broader approach to knowledge that allows for both agential and extra-agential factors to play a role⎯what I call anti-luck virtue epistemology⎯is then explored.

Synthese, 2020

Philosophers have recently argued that self-fulfilling beliefs, because of their exceptional structure, constitute an important counter-example to the widely accepted theses that we ought not and cannot believe at will. Cases of self-fulfilling belief are thought to constitute a special class where we enjoy the epistemic freedom to permissibly believe for pragmatic reasons, because whatever we choose to believe will end up true. In this paper, I argue that this view fails to distinguish between the aim of acquiring a true belief and the aim of believing what is true. While one cannot usually fail to establish that one will acquire a true belief without establishing the truth of the believed proposition, in the case self-fulfilling belief the two can come apart. I argue that insofar as the aim of belief has to do with determining whether the believed proposition is true, it will be both impossible and impermissible to believe for pragmatic reasons.

The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 1992

There is a basic principle in epistemology which every theory attempts to articulate. But one kind of epistemological theory does not have access to this principle. Or so I shall argue in this paper. More exactly, I will argue that one important theoretician, Alvin Goldman, is prevented by the demands of his theory from giving us a version of the prin-cip1e.l If my arguments are correct, then any philosopher wanting to complete successfully the sort of project Goldman has undertaken will have to create resources lacking in Goldman's theory. Hence, concentrating on one philosopher will enable us to formulate a problem precisely in an area where fairly vague terms, such as "externalism," "naturalism, "reliabilism," and "causal theory," abound. While there is certainly a fuzziness to "the sort of project," we will be clear about what needs to be done. Let me stress at the outset that I think there is more here than the problem we will explicitly investigate. I think that the basic principle is one which theories of knowledge like Goldman',s cannot articulate within the constraints of such theories. Further, I am prepared to argue that there is a parallel problem regarding action theory which poses as serious a challenge to causal theories of action-explanations.2 However, a much more narrow focus will give us a much more sharply defined picture. Hence, my aims in this paper are restricted. I. The Inferential Justification Principle We will call the principle to be discussed the Inferential Justification Principle. We will suppose, as a terminological Anne Jaap Jacobson, associate professor at the University of Houston, has recently written and published several papers and reviews on topics at the intersection of metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind. She has also published articles on David Hume and is currently completing a chapter on Hume for British Philosophy and the Age of Enlightenment, forthcoming from Routledge.

In Social Epistemology and Epistemic Agency: De-Centralizing Epistemic Agency, (ed.) P. Reider, (Rowman & Littlefield)

In this volume, Goldberg (Chapter 1) defines his socio-epistemological research programme by noting that “the pursuit of social epistemology is the attempt to come to terms with the epistemic significance of other minds” (Chapter 1, section 1, p. 8)—and especially the ‘epistemic sensibility’ they exhibit when they operate in common epistemic environments. Goldberg of course has in mind the epistemic sensibility of individual epistemic agents, but he does not want to exclude the possibility of epistemically sensible collective epistemic agents either. The problem, however, is that Goldberg seems to systematically place at the hard core of his programme the assumption that epistemic agents are exclusively individuals and this forces him to leave the question of epistemically sensible collective epistemic agents unaddressed. The aim of the present chapter is to extend Goldberg’s programme to also account for this possibility. To do so, we elaborate on the idea of extended knowledge (Pritchard 2010b; Palermos & Pritchard 2013; Palermos 2011; Palermos 2014b), according to which knowledge-conducive cognitive abilities can be occasionally extended to the artifacts we interact with or they may be even distributed between several individuals at the same time. On the basis of this approach we demonstrate that collective epistemic subjects can qualify as epistemic agents on the basis of being able to collectively exhibit an appropriate form of epistemic sensibility.

2011

One of the great strengths of dialogical self theory (DST) is that it is not just a theory of the self, since even in being a theory of the self, it is also a theory of the social other. The chapters gathered together in this volume demonstrate in great detail, across a number of issues, how DST is able to explain the self only in relation to the other, whether that other be a different person or a set of persons, or a different position that stands, in some degree, as other to self, and yet, as Chaudhary (Chapter 9) suggests, an 'otherness in the self'.

2014

Oxford University Press eBooks, 2006

A reference point in philosophical investigation of knowledge from testimony is the ideal of the 'autonomous knower'. This ideal type relies on no one else for any of her knowledge. Thus she takes no one else's word for anything, but accepts only what she has found out for herself, relying only on her own cognitive faculties and investigative and inferential powers. Descartes explicitly espoused this ideal, and method, in his Meditations (Descartes 1641). Locke equally rejected 'other men's opinions floating in one's brain' as not constituting knowledge (Locke 1690). The wholly autonomous knower will not accept any proposition, unless she herself possesses the evidence establishing it. Thus she will not accept anything on the basis of another's word for it, even when she has evidence of their trustworthiness on the topic in question. Such extreme purism restricts how much one can come to know very severely. We humans are essentially social creatures, and it is not clear that we do or could possess any knowledge at all which is not in some way, perhaps obliquely, dependent on testimony. How exactly does the system of empirical beliefhopefully knowledge-of each of us depend on others' testimony? There is certainly massive causal reliance on testimony in the process by which each of us develops into a language-user and thinker, 'grows into possession of a world'.¹ The initial stages of language acquisition by a child inevitably occur through a Earlier versions of this paper were given at a workshop on 'Testimony, Trust and Action' in King's College Cambridge in September 2003, at a conference on 'Moral Testimony' in the Philosophy Department at Birmingham University in March 2004, and at a conference at the Inter-University Centre in Dbrovnik, Croatia, in May 2005. I received very useful comments from audiences at these events, in light of which I corrected various errors. I am also very grateful to both John Hawthorne and Stephen Schiffer for valuable comments and discussion on an earlier draft. The research for this paper was done between January and June 2002, during a period of leave funded by my employers, Magdalen College and Oxford University, and by a Fellowship from the Mind Association. My thanks for their support.