Reliabilism Olsson, Erik J
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STILL STUCK on the BACKWARD CLOCK: a REJOINDER to ADAMS, BARKER and CLARKE John N
STILL STUCK ON THE BACKWARD CLOCK: A REJOINDER TO ADAMS, BARKER AND CLARKE John N. WILLIAMS ABSTRACT: Neil Sinhababu and I presented Backward Clock, an original counterexample to Robert Nozick’s truth-tracking analysis of propositional knowledge. In their latest defence of the truth-tracking theories, “Methods Matter: Beating the Backward Clock,” Fred Adams, John A. Barker and Murray Clarke try again to defend Nozick’s and Fred Dretske’s early analysis of propositional knowledge against Backward Clock. They allege failure of truth-adherence, mistakes on my part about methods, and appeal to charity, ‘equivocation,’ reliable methods and unfair internalism. I argue that these objections all fail. They are still stuck with the fact that the tracking theories fall to Backward Clock, an even more useful test case for other analyses of knowledge than might have first appeared. KEYWORDS: sensitive belief, extra-sensitive belief, sensitive methods, truth- adherence, reliable methods, Backward Clock In a seminal paper, “Resurrecting the Tracking Theories,” Fred Adams and Murray Clarke argued persuasively and ingeniously that a number of well-known examples that appear clearly fatal to Robert Nozick and Fred Dretske’s truth- tracking analyses of knowledge are not really counterexamples at all.1 These include Ray Martin’s Racetrack, George Pappas and Marshall Swain’s Generator, and Laurence Bonjour’s Clairvoyant,2 as well as Saul Kripke’s Red Barn, his Deceased Dictator, and his Sloppy Scientist.3 So taken was I with this defence that I assumed that the truth-tracking analyses were impregnable. Until that is, Neil 1 Fred Adams and Murray Clarke, “Resurrecting the Tracking Theories,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 83, 2 (2005): 207-221. -
Reliabilism Without Epistemic Consequentialism
Reliabilism without Epistemic Consequentialism Abstract This paper argues that reliabilism can plausibly live without epistemic consequentialism, either as part of a non-consequentialist normative theory or as a non-normative account of knowledge on a par with certain accounts of the metaphysics of perception and action. It argues moreover that reliabilism should not be defended as a consequentialist theory. Its most plausible versions are not aptly dubbed ‘consequentialist’ in any sense that genuinely parallels the dominant sense in ethics. Indeed, there is no strong reason to believe reliabil- ism was ever seriously intended as a form of epistemic consequentialism. At the heart of its original motivation was a concern about the necessity of non-accidentality for knowledge, a concern quite at home in a non-consequentialist or non-normative setting. Reliabilism’s connection to epistemic consequentialism was an accretion of the ’80s, and a feature of only one of its formulations in that decade. 1 Introduction Recent literature conveys the impression that epistemic consequentialism has long been a domi- nant view about justified belief.1 One source of this impression is the prominence of reliabilism in the post-Gettier history of epistemology. While reliabilism has had many critics, it retains many adherents and remains a dominant perspective on the nature of justified belief and knowl- edge; indeed, it is arguably the leading form of externalism. Accordingly, if reliabilism were a form of epistemic consequentialism, one could reasonably conclude that the latter has been a major force in traditional epistemology since the late ’60s and early ’70s. But such thinking would be misguided. -
The Value Problem of Knowledge. Against a Reliabilist Solution
The Value Problem of Knowledge. Against a Reliabilist Solution Anne Meylan* * University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland: [email protected] Abstract. A satisfying theory of knowledge has to explain why knowledge seems to be better than mere true belief. In this paper, I try to show that the best reliabilist explanation (ERA+) is still not able to solve this problem. According to an already elaborated answer (ERA), it is better to possess knowledge that p because this makes likely that one’s future belief of a similar kind will also be true. I begin with a metaphysical comment which gives birth to ERA +, a better formulation of ERA. Then, I raise two objections against ERA+. The first objection shows that the truth of the reliabilist answer requires the conception of a specific theory of instrumental value. In the second objection, I present an example in order to show that ERA+ actually fails to explain why it is better to possess knowledge than a mere true belief. 1 Introduction: the Value Problem of Knowleddge Why is it better to know that p than to possess a mere true belief that p?1 The prob- lem of the value of knowledge constitutes one of the main issue in contemporary epistemology. The intuition2 that it is better to possess knowledge than mere true belief has an important historical precedent. It arouses Socrates’ astonishment in Plato’s Meno. As Plato notices, it is not possible to account for this intuition merely by appealing to its distinctive utility. Indeed, a true belief about the way to go to Larissa is as useful as a piece of knowledge about the way to go to Larissa. -
Should You Believe What You Hear?
Should You Believe What You Hear? Dr. Allan Hazlett Much of what we think about the world we believe on the basis of what other people say. But is this trust in other people's testimony justified? This week, we’ll investigate how this question was addressed by two great philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment, David Hume (1711 - 1776) and Thomas Reid (1710 - 1796). Hume and Reid's dispute about testimony represents a clash between two worldviews that would continue to clash for centuries: a skeptical and often secular worldview, eager to question everything (represented by Hume), and conservative and often religious worldview, keen to defend common sense (represented by Reid). Part One - Introduction: Hume on Testimony and Miracles Testimony and believing what others tell you. Enlightenment 1700-1800 Intellectual autonomy Hume – Essays on Miracles “there is no species of reasoning more common, more useful, and even necessary to human life, than that which is derived from the testimony of men” What is distinctive of "naturalistic" approaches to philosophy? (Select all that apply.) No appeal to, or reliance on, the notion of Nature. No appeal to, or reliance on, the notion of supernatural phenomena No appeal to, or reliance on, the notion of God No appeal to, or reliance on, the notion of human societies. Never believe a miracle based upon testimony Assumption of testimony: You have to have evidence that the person is speaking is likely to be right. Evidentialism – “A wise man…proportions his belief to the evidence.” Which of the following captures Hume's assumption about basing beliefs on testimony? To properly base a belief on testimony, you must have independent evidence that testimony is true. -
A Dispositional, Internalist, Evidentialist Virtue Epistemology
This is a repository copy of A Dispositional, Internalist, Evidentialist Virtue Epistemology. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/94260/ Version: Accepted Version Article: Byerly, T.R. (2014) A Dispositional, Internalist, Evidentialist Virtue Epistemology. Logos and Episteme : an International Journal of Epistemology, V (4). pp. 399-424. ISSN 2069-3052 Reuse Unless indicated otherwise, fulltext items are protected by copyright with all rights reserved. The copyright exception in section 29 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 allows the making of a single copy solely for the purpose of non-commercial research or private study within the limits of fair dealing. The publisher or other rights-holder may allow further reproduction and re-use of this version - refer to the White Rose Research Online record for this item. Where records identify the publisher as the copyright holder, users can verify any specific terms of use on the publisher’s website. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ A Dispositional Internalist Evidentialist Virtue Epistemology This paper articulates and defends a novel version of internalist evidentialism which employs dispositions to account for the relation of evidential support. In section one, I explain internalist evidentialist views generally, highlighting the way in which the relation of evidential support stands at the heart of these views. I then discuss two leading ways in which evidential support has been understood by evidentialists, and argue that an account of support which employs what I call epistemic dispositions remedies difficulties arguably faced by these two leading accounts. -
Bi-Level Evidentialism and Reformed Apologetics
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Asbury Theological Seminary Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers Volume 11 Issue 3 Article 2 7-1-1994 Bi-Level Evidentialism and Reformed Apologetics Michael L. Czapkay Sudduth Follow this and additional works at: https://place.asburyseminary.edu/faithandphilosophy Recommended Citation Sudduth, Michael L. Czapkay (1994) "Bi-Level Evidentialism and Reformed Apologetics," Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers: Vol. 11 : Iss. 3 , Article 2. Available at: https://place.asburyseminary.edu/faithandphilosophy/vol11/iss3/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at ePLACE: preserving, learning, and creative exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faith and Philosophy: Journal of the Society of Christian Philosophers by an authorized editor of ePLACE: preserving, learning, and creative exchange. BI-LEVEL EVIDENTIALISM AND REFORMED APOLOGETICS Michael L. Czapkay Sudduth In this paper I apply William Alston's "epistemic level distinctions" to the debate between evidentialist and anti-evidentialist approaches to Christian apologetics in the Reformed tradition. I first clarify the nature of this debate by showing that it rests fundamentally on a tension between the desire to have a comprehensive Christian apologetic and the belief that the Holy Spirit plays a special epistemic role in belief-formation, such that certain beliefs are formed and justified by conditions unique to Christian religious experi ence. Secondly, I argue that even if S's belief that p is immediately justified (through such privileged modes of belief-formation), (I) an evidentialist requirement can be placed on the higher-level belief that P* (p is immediately justified) and (2) apologetics can draw on the reasons which confer justifi cation on P*, thereby providing indirect support for p. -
Making It Evident: Evidence and Evidentness, Justification and Belief
1 Making it Evident: Evidence and Evidentness, Justification and Belief “We give the name of evidence to whatever is the ground of belief.” (Reid IP II 20, W 328a1) “A proposition is epistemically justified to someone when it is evident to that person that the proposition is true.” (Conee 1992, 252) “…a central function of evidence is to make evident that which would not be so in its absence” (Kelly 2006, §3). 1. Introduction As usually stated, evidentialism constitutes the outline of a theory: supposing that justification of the sort required for knowing is solely a function of one’s evidence,2 a well-developed evidentialist theory will tell us what sorts of things constitute one’s evidence, what it is to have evidence, what it is for evidence to support a given belief or proposition, and so on. But whether or not evidentialism is true such questions merit attention. For whether or not evidentialism is true evidence remains a central epistemological concept. Answering questions concerning evidence, however, is made more difficult by the fact that it is often asked to play roles in addition to that (/those) featured by evidentialism. And while one would like (other things equal) to provide a unified account of a given concept or phenomenon, as Thomas Kelly (2006) has documented some of the roles that evidence has been thought to play stand in apparent tension to each other; the result is that it’s not clear whether a single theory can fit everything we want to say about evidence. The present paper offers partial and tentative answers to questions like those posed above, while attempting too to move towards a resolution of the apparent tensions Kelly describes. -
Reliabilism, Intuition, and Mathematical Knowledge a View Beyond the Frontier
A VIEW BEYOND THE FRONTIER FILOZOFIA ___________________________________________________________________________Roč. 63, 2008, č. 8 RELIABILISM, INTUITION, AND MATHEMATICAL KNOWLEDGE JENNIFER W. MULNIX , University Honors Program, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, North Dartmouth, MA, USA MULNIX, J. W.: Reliabilism, Intuition, and Mathematical Knowledge FILOZOFIA 63, 2008, No 8, p. 715 It is alleged that the causal inertness of abstract objects and the causal conditions of certain naturalized epistemologies precludes the possibility of mathematical know- ledge. This paper rejects this alleged incompatibility, while also maintaining that the objects of mathematical beliefs are abstract objects, by incorporating a naturalisti- cally acceptable account of ‘rational intuition.’ On this view, rational intuition con- sists in a non-inferential belief-forming process where the entertaining of proposi- tions or certain contemplations results in true beliefs. This view is free of any condi- tions incompatible with abstract objects, for the reason that it is not necessary that S stand in some causal relation to the entities in virtue of which p is true. Mathe- matical intuition is simply one kind of reliable process type, whose inputs are not ab- stract numbers, but rather, contemplations of abstract numbers. Keywords: Reliabilism – Mathematical intuition – Rational intuition – Naturalism, knowledge – Justification epistemology Some have objected that on certain naturalized epistemologies, the possibility of mathematical knowledge is excluded. More specifically, if one maintains that the objects of our mathematical beliefs are abstract objects, and one imposes causal constraints on the conditions of knowledge, then, perhaps, knowledge of mathematics is not possible be- cause of the incompatibility between the causal inertness of abstract objects and our causal conditions on knowledge. -
Bonjour's Externalist Theories of Empirical Knowledge
The Structure of Empirical Knowledge LAURENCE BONJOUR University Press CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, AND LONDON, ENGLAND Externalist Versions of Foundationalism crucial cases will not) have any cognitive grasp of this reason, or of the relation that is the basis of it, in order for his belief to be justified; all of this may be entirely external to his subjective conception of the situ ation. Thus the justification of a basic belief need not involve any further beliefs or other cognitive states, so that no further regress of justification is generated and the fundamental foundationalist problem is neatly solved.’ The recent epistemological literature contains a number of exter nalist and quasi-externalist views. Some of these, however, are not clearly relevant to my present concerns, either because they are aimed primarily Externalist Versions at the problem, so that their implications for a foundationalist solution of the regress problem are not made clear; or because they seem, of Foundationalism on the surface at least, to involve a repudiation of the very conception of epistemic justification or reasonableness as a requirement for knowl edge. Views of the latter sort seem to me very difficult to take seriously; but they would in any case have the consequence that the regress problem in the form with which we are concerned would simply not arise, so that there would be no need for any solution, foundationalist or otherwise. My concern here is with the versions of externalism that attempt to solve the regress problem by claiming that the acceptance of beliefs satisfying the externalist conditions is epistemically justified or rational or war 3.1 The basic idea of externalism ranted. -
Evidentialism and the Great Pumpkin Objection
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 8/8/2011, SPi 7 Evidentialism and the Great Pumpkin Objection Michael Bergmann Evidentialism, as understood by its chief contemporary proponents (i.e. Richard Feldman and Earl Conee), is the view that epistemic justification supervenes on the evidence one has1—whether that evidence is other beliefs or experiences or feelings. Earl Conee argues that, unlike other views, evidentialism has a response to skepticism about the external world that escapes what can be called ‘the Great Pumpkin Objection’.2 That objection says, of a response to skepticism, that those endorsing a silly view—such as the view that the gift-delivering Great Pumpkin rises each Halloween over the most sincere pumpkin patch—can offer exactly parallel responses to those who are skeptical of their Great Pumpkin beliefs.3 The obvious suggestion is that if one’s response to skepticism about the external world can be mimicked by those defending such a silly view, then that response to skepticism is inadequate. There are two main ways to respond to the Great Pumpkin Objection when it is applied to your favored response to some sort of skepticism. You could say that the allegedly parallel response offered by those defending belief in a silly view does not successfully mimic your favored response to skepticism. Or you could admit that it does successfully mimic your favored response to skepticism and yet deny that this implies 1 Conee and Feldman (2004: 1). Note that this use of the term ‘evidentialism’ is different from the way it is sometimes used in philosophy of religion to refer to the view that belief in God can be made rational or justified only on the basis of propositional evidence. -
Bootstrapping in General∗ Jonathan Weisberg University of Toronto
Bootstrapping in General∗ Jonathan Weisberg University of Toronto 1 Introduction The following procedure seems epistemically defective. Suppose I have no reason to think the gas gauge in my car is reliable, and I attempt to establish its reliability as follows. I read the gauge on many occasions, concluding each time that the tank is as the gauge says. When the gauge reads ‘full’, I conclude that the tank is full, similarly for ‘empty’, etc. Eventually I conclude by induction that the gauge is reliable, since it was correct each time. Even if my beliefs in this chain of reasoning are all true, I have done nothing to establish that the gauge is reliable: I do not know that it is reliable, nor am I justified in believing that it is. Call this sort of defective procedure bootstrapping.1 Our focus here is: what is defective about this sort of reasoning, and what epistemological lessons can we learn from its defectiveness? Vogel (2000) argues that bootstrapping presents a problem for reliabilist theo- ries of knowledge. According to Vogel, reliabilism says that I can use the reasoning just outlined to come to know that my gauge is reliable. Cohen (2002; 2005), Van Cleve (2003), and others argue that bootstrapping actually poses a more general problem, afflicting any view that allows for basic knowledge, i.e. any view that allows one to gain knowledge from a source without prior knowledge that the source is reliable.2 Thus bootstrapping is also a problem for foundationalists I am grateful to David Christensen, Phil Kremer, Jennifer Nagel, Adam Sennet, and Jonathan ∗ Vogel for much patient discussion and invaluable feedback. -
A Rationalist Argument for Libertarian Free Will
A rationalist argument for libertarian free will Stylianos Panagiotou PhD University of York Philosophy August 2020 Abstract In this thesis, I give an a priori argument in defense of libertarian free will. I conclude that given certain presuppositions, the ability to do otherwise is a necessary requirement for substantive rationality; the ability to think and act in light of reasons. ‘Transcendental’ arguments to the effect that determinism is inconsistent with rationality are predominantly forwarded in a Kantian manner. Their incorporation into the framework of critical philosophy renders the ontological status of their claims problematic; rather than being claims about how the world really is, they end up being claims about how the mind must conceive of it. To make their ontological status more secure, I provide a rationalist framework that turns them from claims about how the mind must view the world into claims about the ontology of rational agents. In the first chapter, I make some preliminary remarks about reason, reasons and rationality and argue that an agent’s access to alternative possibilities is a necessary condition for being under the scope of normative reasons. In the second chapter, I motivate rationalism about a priori justification. In the third chapter, I present the rationalist argument for libertarian free will and defend it against objections. Several objections rest on a compatibilist understanding of an agent’s abilities. To undercut them, I devote the fourth chapter, in which I give a new argument for incompatibilism between free will and determinism, which I call the situatedness argument for incompatibilism. If the presuppositions of the thesis are granted and the situatedness argument works, then we may be justified in thinking that to the extent that we are substantively rational, we are free in the libertarian sense.