LEHRER ON BELIEF AND ACCEPTANCE _______________ A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of San Diego State University _______________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in Philosophy _______________ by Joshua Christian Cangelosi Summer 2016 iii Copyright © 2016 by Joshua Christian Cangelosi All Rights Reserved iv DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to Professor J. Angelo Corlett. Without his mentorship and teaching, neither this thesis nor my career in philosophy would have been possible. v “We must follow the argument wherever it leads.” –Socrates (Laws 667a) vi ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS Lehrer on Belief and Acceptance by Joshua Christian Cangelosi Master of Arts in Philosophy San Diego State University, 2016 This thesis centers on Keith Lehrer’s seminal theory of knowledge, arguing that Lehrer’s acceptance condition of knowledge should be replaced with the traditional belief condition. Chapter One argues that Lehrer lacks good reason to condition knowledge on acceptance instead of belief, while Chapter Two argues that Lehrer has good reason to condition knowledge on belief instead of acceptance. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................... viii INTRODUCTION .....................................................................................................................1 1 BELIEF VERSUS DOXASTIC ACCEPTANCE: A DISTINCTION WITHOUT A DIFFERENCE ........................................................................................2 Introduction ..............................................................................................................2 Belief Versus Doxastic Acceptance .........................................................................3 Epistemic Responsibility .......................................................................................12 Control .............................................................................................................13 Reasons-Responsiveness ..................................................................................20 Knowledge .............................................................................................................26 Conclusion of Chapter 1 ........................................................................................31 2 LEHRER ON THE REASONABLENESS OF ACCEPTANCE ................................33 Introduction ............................................................................................................33 The Reasonableness of Acceptance .......................................................................34 The Dilemma .........................................................................................................39 Conclusion of Chapter 2 ........................................................................................45 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................46 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................47 viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am very grateful to the readers on my panel for their time and comments, to the Department of Philosophy at San Diego State University for its superb philosophical training, to my mom for her unfailing support, and to my wife for her way of making life amazing. 1 INTRODUCTION In this thesis, I argue that Keith Lehrer’s acceptance condition of knowledge should be replaced with the traditional belief condition. Chapter One contends that Lehrer’s distinction between belief and doxastic acceptance is without much difference by contesting three assumptions that appear in large part to motivate this distinction: (1) the assumption that belief and doxastic acceptance are too different to be considered the same kind of mental state; (2) the assumption that because we are epistemically responsible only for the doxastic attitudes we control, we are not epistemically responsible for beliefs but only for acceptances; and (3) the assumption that acceptance, not belief, is the requisite doxastic attitude for knowledge. Absent further rational for the distinction, acceptance simply appears to be a sort of belief, and there is no reason for Lehrer to condition knowledge on acceptance instead of belief. Not only does Lehrer not have good reason to condition knowledge on acceptance instead of belief; he also has good reason to condition knowledge on belief instead of acceptance. Specifically, Chapter Two argues that Lehrer’s theory of knowledge faces the following dilemma: If acceptance entails justification, Lehrer’s justification condition of knowledge is superfluous; if acceptance does not entail justification, Lehrer’s acceptance condition superfluously replaces the traditional belief condition. Because Lehrer does not want to abandon the justification condition but maintain that acceptance does not entail justification, he has good reason to replace the acceptance condition of knowledge with the traditional belief condition. 2 CHAPTER 1 BELIEF VERSUS DOXASTIC ACCEPTANCE: A DISTINCTION WITHOUT A DIFFERENCE INTRODUCTION In this chapter, I challenge Keith Lehrer’s distinction between belief and doxastic acceptance by contesting three assumptions that appear in large part to motivate this distinction: (1) the assumption that belief and doxastic acceptance are too different to be considered the same kind of mental state; (2) the assumption that because we are epistemically responsible only for the doxastic attitudes we control, we are not epistemically responsible for beliefs but only for acceptances; and (3) the assumption that acceptance, not belief, is the requisite doxastic attitude for discursive knowledge. By challenging these assumptions, I considerably reduce, if not eliminate, the motivation for adopting Lehrer’s distinction and, thus, place the onus of justifying this distinction back on those who maintain it. For I argue that, absent further rationale, Lehrer’s distinction is, at best, without much difference and, at worst, misleading insofar as it leads us to think that special doxastic attitudes called ‘acceptances’ are distinct from beliefs and requisite for epistemic responsibility and knowledge. I propose that, instead of adopting Lehrer’s distinction, we classify all doxastic attitudes as mental states within the general class of beliefs. Others can decide if they wish to jettison the category of doxastic acceptance (as I prefer) or preserve it as a subcategory of belief. More specifically, in response to (1), I argue that belief and doxastic acceptance are much more alike than belief and non-doxastic acceptance, and that the minimal differences between these doxastic attitudes can be accommodated by the class of beliefs. In response to (2), I clarify the relevant concept of epistemic responsibility and survey problems with an account of the control condition of such responsibility in terms of alternative doxastic 3 possibilities. Then I turn to a more promising account of the control condition: Conor McHugh’s (2013) epistemic guidance control account, which insightfully adapts John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza’s (1998) guidance control condition of moral responsibility to the analysis of epistemic responsibility.1 I support McHugh’s position that we can exercise epistemic guidance control central to epistemic responsibility not only of doxastic attitudes we actively form via considered judgment (which Lehrer classifies as acceptances) but also of doxastic attitudes we passively acquire via perception (which Lehrer classifies as beliefs).2 However, I deny McHugh’s claim that exercising epistemic guidance control of the latter attitudes requires the potential exercise of doxastic agency in the form of inquiry and judgment—denial which implies the possibility of epistemic responsibility without agency or acceptance.3 In response to (3), I argue that the possibility of exercising epistemic guidance control of passively acquired beliefs weakens the motivation for singling out actively formed doxastic attitudes under the label ‘acceptance’ as necessary for knowledge. BELIEF VERSUS DOXASTIC ACCEPTANCE Most of the literature contrasting belief and acceptance focuses on non-doxastic (or pragmatic) acceptance, which aims not at truth but at utility and is, thus, “a pragmatic notion, not a cognitive or theoretical one” (Engel 1998, 146).4 Lehrer’s distinction, however, is 1 C. McHugh, “Epistemic Responsibility and Doxastic Agency,” Philosophical Issues 23, no. 1 (2013): 245-269. 2 As McHugh writes, “You are responsible for beliefs formed in this way [automatically via perception sans inquiry], just as much as those that you have formed through conscious inquiry, or indeed reflective deliberation” (Ibid., 134, my explanation). See below for the manner in which Lehrer classifies doxastic attitudes. 3 Ibid., 134-135. 4 For the distinction between belief and pragmatic acceptance, see M. E. Bratman, “Practical Reasoning and Acceptance in a Context,” Mind 101, no. 401 (1992): 9; A. Buckareff, “Acceptance and Deciding to Believe,” Journal of Philosophical Research 29, (2004): 174-179; A. Buckareff, “Acceptance Does Not Entail Belief,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 18, no. 2 (2010): 255; D. S. Clarke, “Does