An overview of the import of disjunctivism to the problem of radical scepticism is offered. In particular, the disjunctivist account of perceptual experience is set out, along with the manner in which it intersects with related positions such as naïve realism and intentionalism, and it is shown how this account can be used to a motivate an anti-sceptical proposal. In addition, a variety of disjunctivism known as epistemological disjunctivism is described, and it is explained how this proposal offers a further (...) way of responding to radical scepticism. (shrink)

Reductive intellectualists hold that knowledge-how is a kind of knowledge-that. For this thesis to hold water, it is obviously important that knowledge-how and knowledge-that have the same epistemic properties. In particular, knowledge-how ought to be compatible with epistemic luck to the same extent as knowledge-that. It is argued, contra reductive intellectualism, that knowledge-how is compatible with a species of epistemic luck which is not compatible with knowledge-that, and thus it is claimed that knowledge-how and knowledge-that come apart.

According to reductive intellectualism, knowledge-how just is a kind of propositional knowledge (e.g., Stanley & Williamson 2001; Stanley 2011a, 2011b; Brogaard, 2008a, 2008b, 2009, 2011, 2009, 2011). This proposal has proved controversial because knowledge-how and propositional knowledge do not seem to share the same epistemic properties, particularly with regard to epistemic luck. Here we aim to move the argument forward by offering a positive account of knowledge-how. In particular, we propose a new kind of anti-intellectualism. Unlike neo-Rylean anti-intellectualist views, according (...) to which the possession of knowledge-how is just a matter of possessing certain abilities, we submit that knowledge-how is a particular kind of cognitive achievement attained just when cognitive ability is connected in the right way with successful performance. (shrink)

A common epistemological assumption in contemporary bioethics held b y both proponents and critics of non-traditional forms of cognitive enhancement is that cognitive enhancement aims at the facilitation of the accumulation of human knowledge. This paper does three central things. First, drawing from recent work in epistemology, a rival account of cognitive enhancement, framed in terms of the notion of cognitive achievement rather than knowledge, is proposed. Second, we outline and respond to an axiological objection to our proposal that draws (...) from recent work by Leon Kass (2004), Michael Sandel (2009), and John Harris (2011) to the effect that ‘enhanced’ cognitive achievements are (by effectively removing obstacles to success) not worthy of pursuit, or are otherwise ‘trivial’. Third, we show how the cognitive achievement account of cognitive enhancement proposed here fits snugly with recent active externalist approaches (e.g., extended cognition) in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science. (shrink)

The recent literature has seen a burgeoning discussion of the idea that the overarching epistemic goal of education is the cultivation of the intellectual virtues. Moreover, there have been attempts to put this idea into practice, with virtue-led educational interventions in schools, universities, and even prisons. This paper explores the question of whether—and, if so, to what degree—such intellectual virtue-based approaches to education are essentially social. The focus in this regard is on the role of intellectual exemplars within this approach, (...) and in particular the extent to which direct social interaction with such exemplars is crucial to the implementation of this educational methodology. (shrink)

Response to Steven Bland’s ‘Interactionism, Debiasing, and the Division of Epistemic Labour’ (in Social Virtue Epistemology, (eds.) M. Alfano, C. Klein & J. de Ridder). Biased cognition is an obvious source of epistemic vice, but there is some controversy about whether cognitive biases generate reliabilist or responsibilist epistemic vices. Bland’s argument, in a nutshell, is that since the development of cognitive biases is due to the interplay of internal psychological processes and external (i.e., environmental) conditions, it cannot be expected that (...) a solution to the problem tackles only one of these dimensions. We argue that the complex architecture on which Bland’s coordinated approach is grounded appears to lose some stability once we analyze more closely its pillars. We shall concentrate our attention on the notion of reliabilist and responsibilist epistemic virtues that the approach should foster as well as on the educational implications of Bland’s view. (shrink)

The insightful commentaries to our contribution "Education as the Social Cultivation of Intellectual Virtue" (in 'Social Virtue Epistemology', (eds.) M. Alfano, C. Klein & J. de Ridder, Routledge 2022) offered by Alessandra Tanesini and Lani Watson highlight some important aspects of the work that philosophers, education theorists, and educators should carry out to strengthen the theoretical and practical advantages of the educational approach we have proposed. This commentary briefly addresses a few points that could set the grounds for future investigations (...) on intellectual virtue-based approaches to education and their social dimensions. (shrink)

It is argued that standard accounts of the epistemology of religious commitmentfail to be properly sensitive to certain important features of the nature of religious conviction. Once one takes these features of religious conviction seriously, then it becomes clear that we are not to conceive of the epistemology of religious conviction along completely rational lines.But the moral to extract from this is not fideism, or even a more moderate proposal that casts the epistemic standing of basic religious beliefs along nonrational (...) lines. Rather, one needs to recognise that in an important sense religious convictions are not beliefs at all, but that this is compatible with the idea that many other religious commitments are beliefs. This picture of the nature of religious commitment is shown to fit snugly with the Wittgensteinian account of hinge commitments, such that all rational belief essentially presupposes certain basic arational hinge commitments, along lines originally suggested by John Henry Newman. We are thus able to marshal a parity-style argument in defence of religious commitment. Although religious belief presupposes basic arational religious convictions, it is not on this score epistemically amiss since all belief presupposes basic arational convictions, or hinge commitments. The resulting view of the epistemology of religious commitment is a position I call quasi-fideism. (shrink)

Our aim is to provide a topography of the relevant philosophical terrain with regard to the possible ways in which knowledge can be conceived of as extended. We begin by charting the different types of internalist and externalist proposals within epistemology, and we critically examine the different formulations of the epistemic internalism/externalism debate they lead to. Next, we turn to the internalism/externalism distinction within philosophy of mind and cognitive science. In light of the above dividing lines, we then examine first (...) the extent to which content externalism is compatible with epistemic externalism; second, whether active externalism entails epistemic externalism; and third whether there are varieties of epistemic externalism that are better suited to accommodate active externalism. Finally, we examine whether the combination of epistemic and cognitive externalism is necessary for epistemology and we comment on the potential ramifications of this move for social epistemology and philosophy of science. (shrink)

My interest is the kind of philosophical vertigo that is a theme of Cavell’s work on scepticism. This describes the anxiety that is elicited via philosophical engagement with certain kinds of sceptical questions. There is a standing puzzle about this notion of vertigo, however, forcefully pressed, for example, by McDowell. Why should a resolution of the sceptical problem, one that putatively completely undercuts the motivation for scepticism in that domain, nonetheless generate vertigo in this sense? I aim to resolve the (...) puzzle, in a way that I believe underwrites this Cavellian notion, via consideration of Wittgenstein’s remarks on the structure of rational evaluation in his final notebooks, published as On Certainty. (shrink)

We revisit an important exchange on the problem of radical skepticism between Richard Rorty and Michael Williams. In his contribution to this exchange, Rorty defended the kind of transcendental approach to radical skepticism that is offered by Donald Davidson, in contrast to Williams’s Wittgenstein-inspired view. It is argued that the key to evaluating this debate is to understand the particular conception of the radical skeptical problem that is offered in influential work by Barry Stroud, a conception of the skeptical problem (...) which generates metaepistemological ramifications for anti-skeptical theories. In particular, we argue that, contra Williams, Rorty’s view that Davidson was offering a theoretical diagnosis of radical skepticism can be consistently maintained with his transcendental approach. (shrink)

Fumerton’s distinctive brand of metaepistemological scepticism is compared and contrasted with the related position outlined by Stroud. It is argued that there are at least three interesting points of contact between Fumerton and Stroud’s metaepistemology. The first point of contact is that both Fumerton and Stroud think that (1) externalist theories of justification permit a kind of non-inferential, perceptual justification for our beliefs about non-psychological reality, but it’s not sufficient for philosophical assurance. However, Fumerton claims, while Stroud denies, that (2) (...) direct acquaintance with facts is sufficient for philosophical assurance. And this is important because Stroud thinks that (3) we have direct perceptual access or acquaintance with facts about the external world, while Fumerton denies this. (shrink)

This paper examines Linda Zagzebski’s account of rationality, as set out in her rich, wide-ranging, and important book, Epistemic Authority: A Theory of Trust, Authority, and Autonomy in Belief. We briefly describe the account that she offers and then consider its plausibility. In particular, in the first section we argue that a number of Zagzebski’s claims with regard to rationality require more support than she offers for them. Moreover, in the second section, we contend that far from offering Zagzebski a (...) quick way of dealing with radical scepticism, her account of rationality actually seems to be particularly vulnerable to this problem. (shrink)

While it is widely regarded that intellectual humility is among the intellectual virtues, there is as of yet little consensus on the matter of what possessing and exercising intellectual humility consists in, and how it should be best understood as advancing our epistemic goals. For example, does intellectual humility involve an underestimation of one’s intellectual abilities, or rather, does it require an accurate conception? Is intellectual humility a fundamentally interpersonal/social virtue, or might it be valuable to exercise in isolation? To (...) what extent does intellectual humility demand of us an appreciation of how the success of our inquiries depends on features of our social and physical environment beyond our control? These are just a few of the many questions that are crucial to getting a grip on this intellectual virtue and why we might aspire to cultivate it. Furthermore, and apart from the nature and value of humility, it is worthwhile to consider how this notion, properly understood, might have import for other philosophical debates, including those about (for example) scepticism, assertion, epistemic individualism and anti-individualism, and the philosophy of education. This special issue brings together a range of different philosophical perspectives on these and related questions to do with intellectual humility with an aim to contributing to this important and timely topic. (shrink)

My contribution to the author meets critics discussion of Pritchard's _Epistemological Disjunctivism_. In this paper, I examine some of the possible motivations for epistemological disjunctivism and look at some of the costs associated with the view. While Pritchard's view seems to be that our visual beliefs constitute knowledge because they're based on reasons, I argue that the claim that visual beliefs are based on reasons or evidence hasn't been sufficiently motivated. In the end I suggest that we'll get (...) all the benefits with none of the costs of epistemological disjunctivism if we accept E=K. (shrink)

Duncan Pritchard (2008, 2009, 2010, forthcoming) has argued for an elegant solution to what have been called the value problems for knowledge at the forefront of recent literature on epistemic value. As Pritchard sees it, these problems dissolve once it is recognized that that it is understanding-why, not knowledge, that bears the distinctive epistemic value often (mistakenly) attributed to knowledge. A key element of Pritchard’s revisionist argument is the claim that understanding-why always involves what he calls strong (...) cognitive achievement—viz., cognitive achievement that consists always in either (i) the overcoming of a significant obstacle or (ii) the exercise of a significant level of cognitive ability. After outlining Pritchard’s argument, we show (contra Pritchard) that understanding-why does not essentially involve strong cognitive achievement. Interestingly, in the cases in which understanding-why is distinctively valuable, it is (we argue) only because there is sufficiently rich objectual understanding in the background. If that’s right, then a plausible revisionist solution to the value problems must be sensitive to different kinds of understanding and what makes them valuable, respectively. (shrink)

n the first part of the paper I will present Pritchard’s approach to Wittgenstein’s notion of hinge commitments, which is essential to his solution to the closure-based sceptical arguments. And, in the second par of the paper, I will raise some concerns that I have regarding Pritchard’s non-belief reading of the hinge commitments. In the third and final part, I make some concluding remarks regarding Pritchard’s overall strategy to solve the closure-based sceptical paradox.

Duncan Pritchard has, in the years following his (2005) defence of a safety-based account of knowledge in Epistemic Luck, abjured his (2005) view that knowledge can be analysed exclusively in terms of a modal safety condition. He has since (Pritchard in Synthese 158:277–297, 2007; J Philosophic Res 34:33–45, 2009a, 2010) opted for an account according to which two distinct conditions function with equal importance and weight within an analysis of knowledge: an anti-luck condition (safety) and an ability condition-the (...) latter being a condition aimed at preserving what Pritchard now takes to be a fundamental insight about knowledge: that it arises from cognitive ability (Greco 2010; Sosa 2007, 2009). Pritchard calls his new view anti-luck virtue epistemology (ALVE). A key premise in Pritchard’s argument for ALVE is what I call the independence thesis; the thesis that satisfying neither the anti-luck condition nor the ability condition entails that the other is satisfied. Pritchard’s argument for the independence thesis relies crucially upon the case he makes for thinking that cognitive achievements are compatible with knowledge-undermining environmental luck—that is, the sort of luck widely thought to undermine knowledge in standard barn facade cases. In the first part of this paper, I outline the key steps in Pritchard’s argument for anti-luck virtue epistemology and highlight how it is that the compatibility of cognitive achievement and knowledge- undermining environmental luck is indispensible to the argument’s success. The second part of this paper aims to show that this compatibility premise crucial to Pritchard’s argument is incorrect. (shrink)

In recent years, Duncan Pritchard has developed a position in religious epistemology called quasi‐fideism that he claims traces back to John Henry Newman's treatment of the rationality of religious belief. In this paper, we give three reasons to think that Pritchard's reading of Newman as a quasi‐fideist is mistaken. First, Newman's parity argument does not claim that religious and non‐religious beliefs are on a par because both are groundless; instead, for Newman, they are on a par because both (...) often stem from implicit rather than explicit reasoning. Second, pace Pritchard, Newman's distinction between simple and complex assent does not map onto the Wittgensteinian distinction between groundless hinge commitments and beliefs that flow from these hinges. For Newman, simple and complex assent differ in terms of the believer's level of awareness of their grounds. Third, and finally, Newman does not reject Locke's evidentialism in toto. Instead, he argues that certitude is not restricted to beliefs stemming from intuition and demonstration but often rightly includes probabilistically supported (or fallibly evidenced) beliefs. (shrink)

Review of Duncan Pritchard's Epistemological Disjunctivism.

Many contemporary epistemologists hold that a subject S’s true belief that p counts as knowledge only if S’s belief that p is also, in some important sense, safe. I describe accounts of this safety condition from John Hawthorne, Duncan Pritchard, and Ernest Sosa. There have been three counterexamples to safety proposed in the recent literature, from Comesaña, Neta and Rohrbaugh, and Kelp. I explain why all three proposals fail: each moves fallaciously from the fact that S was at epistemic (...) risk just before forming her belief to the conclusion that S’s belief was formed unsafely. In light of lessons from their failure, I provide a new and successful counterexample to the safety condition on knowledge. It follows, then, that knowledge need not be safe. Safety at a time depends counterfactually on what would likely happen at that time or soon after in a way that knowledge does not. I close by considering one objection concerning higher-order safety. (shrink)

This is a critical commentary on Pritchard's book Epistemic Angst. In Section 2, I present the closure-based radical skeptical paradox. Then in Section 3, I sketch Pritchard’s undercutting response to this paradox. Finally, in Section 4, I put forward two concerns about Pritchard’s response and I also propose a reading of hinge commitments, the ability reading, that might put some pressure on Pritchard’s own reading of these commitments.

Duncan Pritchard has argued that luck is fundamentally a modal notion: an event is lucky when it occurs in the actual world, but does not occur in more than half of the relevant nearby possible worlds. Jennifer Lackey has provided counterexamples to accounts which, like Pritchard’s, only allow for the existence of improbable lucky events. Neil Levy has responded to Lackey by offering a modal account of luck which attempts to respect the intuition that some lucky events occur (...) in more than half of the relevant nearby possible worlds. But his account rejects that events which are as likely as those in Lackey’s examples are lucky. Instead, they are merely fortunate. I argue that Levy’s argument to this effect fails. I then offer a substitute account of the improbability condition which respects this intuition. This condition says that the relevant notion of probability for luck is epistemic. (shrink)

Duncan Pritchard recently proposed a Wittgensteinian solution to closure-based skepticism. According to Wittgenstein, all epistemic systems assume certain truths. The notions that we are not disembodied brains, that the Earth has existed for a long time and that one’s name is such-and-such all function as “hinge commitments.” Pritchard views a hinge commitment as a positive propositional attitude that is not a belief. Because closure principles concern only knowledge-apt beliefs, they do not apply to hinge commitments. Thus, from the (...) fact that a subject knows that he is sitting in a room, and the fact that the subject’s sitting in a room entails his bodily existence, it does not follow that the subject also knows that he is not an envatted brain. This paper rejects Pritchard’s non-belief reading of hinge commitments. I start by showing that the non-belief reading fails to solve the skeptical paradox because the reasons that Pritchard uses to support the non-belief reading do not exempt hinge propositions from closure principles. I then proceed to argue that the non-belief reading is false as it claims that hinge commitments, unlike ordinary beliefs, are rationally unresponsive—with the help of a scenario in which a subject’s experience is internally chaotic, we can safely conclude that the hinge commitment that one is not systematically mistaken about the world is equally responsive to one’s evidential situations. (shrink)

Sosa, Pritchard, and Vogel have all argued that there are cases in which one knows something inductively but does not believe it sensitively, and that sensitivity therefore cannot be necessary for knowledge. I defend sensitivity by showing that inductive knowledge is sensitive.

Duncan Pritchard’s Epistemic Angst promises a novel solution to the closure-based sceptical problem that, unlike more traditional solutions, does not entail revising our fundamental epistemological commitments. In order to do this, it appeals to a Wittgensteinian account of rational evaluation, the overarching theme of which is that it neither makes sense to doubt nor to believe in our anti-sceptical hinge commitments. The purpose of this paper is to show that the argument for the claim that there can be no (...) rational basis to believe our anti-sceptical hinge commitments relies upon an implicit assumption about rational support that I label The Pritchensteinian Rational Grounds Principle. I argue that, insofar as this principle is intended to apply to closure-style inferences, it leads to irrational doxastic attitudes. I consider a seemingly plausible modification of the principle that would avoid this result but show that this modified principle faces serious problems of its own. -/- . (shrink)

Pritchard calls his epistemological disjunctivism ‘the holy grail of epistemology’. What this metaphor means is that the acceptance of this thesis puts the internalism-externalism debate to an end, thanks to satisfaction of intuitions standing behind both competing views. Simultaneously, Pritchard strongly emphasizes that the endorsement of epistemological disjunctivism does not commit one to metaphysical disjunctivism. In this paper I analyze the formulations and motivations of epistemological disjunctivism presented by Pritchard and McDowell. Then I consider the most common (...) argument for the claim that epistemological disjunctivism can be held without the support of metaphysical disjunctivism. I conclude that the plausibility of epistemological disjunctivism depends on the plausibility of metaphysical disjunctivism. If the latter is false, the former postulates a set of conditions for epistemic justification that are impossible to be fulfilled. (shrink)

According to Duncan Pritchard, there are two kinds of radical sceptical problem; the closure-based problem, and the underdetermination-based problem. He argues that distinguishing these two problems leads to a set of desiderata for an anti-sceptical response, and that the way to meet all of these desiderata is by supplementing a form of Wittgensteinian contextualism with disjunctivist views about factivity. I agree that an adequate response should meet most of the initial desiderata Pritchard puts forward, and that some version (...) of Wittgensteinian contextualism shows the most promise as a starting point for this, but I argue, contra Pritchard, that the addition of disjunctivism is unnecessary and potentially counter-productive. If we draw on lessons from Michael Williams's inferential contextualism then it is both possible, and preferable, to meet the most important of Pritchard's desiderata, undercutting both closure-based and underdetermination-based sceptical problems in a unified way, without the need to resort to disjunctivism. (shrink)

Pritchard argues that epistemological disjunctivism seems plainly false at first sight, but if it were right, it would represent the “holy grail of epistemology” (1), a view that allows us “to have our cake and eat it too” (3). This prospect motivates Pritchard to develop and defend an account that prima facie might seem simply false. It is disputable whether ED really seems plainly false at first sight or whether this intuition is based on a particular philosophical tradition. (...) However, in this paper I will not discuss whether ED is actually true. Rather, I will investigate whether, if true, it has the advantages over rival accounts that Pritchard claims. (shrink)

Some philosophers (e.g., Pritchard, Grimm, and Hills) recently have objected that veritism cannot explain the epistemic value of understanding-why. And they have proposed two anti-veritist accounts. In this paper, I first introduce their objection and argue that it fails. Next, I consider a strengthened version of their objection and argue that it also fails. After that, I suggest a new veritist account: Understanding-why entails believing the truth that what is grasped is accurate (or accurate enough), and it is this (...) true belief, along with many other true beliefs understanding-why entails, that makes understanding-why finally epistemically valuable. Then, I explain why the two anti-veritist accounts are both false. Finally, I briefly discuss the idea that understanding involves a kind of know-how and show how veritism can explain the epistemic value of know-how in general. (shrink)

Carter and Pritchard (2016) and Pritchard (2010, 2012, 2016) have tried to reconcile the intuition that perceptual knowledge requires only limited discriminatory abilities with the closure principle. To this end, they have introduced two theoretical innovations: a contrast between two ways of introducing error-possibilities and a distinction between discriminating and favoring evidence. I argue that their solution faces the “sufficiency problem”: it is unclear whether the evidence that is normally available to adult humans is sufficient to retain knowledge (...) of the entailing proposition and come to know the entailed proposition. I submit that, on either infallibilist or fallibilist views of evidence, Carter and Pritchard have set the bar for deductive knowledge too low. At the end, I offer an alternative solution. I suggest that the knowledge-retention condition of the closure principle is not satisfied in zebra-like scenarios. (shrink)

Based on Pritchard's distinction between favoring and discriminating epistemic grounds, and on how those grounds bear on the elimination of skeptical possibilities, I present the dream argument as a moderate skeptical possibility that can be reasonably motivated. In order to block the dream argument skeptical conclusion, I present a version of phenomenological disjunctivism based on Noë's actionist account of perceptual consciousness. This suggests that perceptual knowledge is rationally grounded because it is a form of embodied achievement - what I (...) call embodied rationality -, which offers a way of dissolving the pseudo-problem of epistemic immodesty, namely, the seemingly counterintuitive thesis that one can acquire rationally grounded knowledge that one is not in a radical skeptical scenario. (shrink)

Based on Pritchard’s distinction (2012, 2016) between favoring and discriminating epistemic grounds, and on how those grounds bear on the elimination of skeptical possibilities, I present the dream argument as a moderate skeptical possibility that can be reasonably motivated. In order to block the dream argument skeptical conclusion, I present a version of phenomenological disjunctivism based on Noë’s actionist account of perceptual consciousness (2012). This suggests that perceptual knowledge is rationally grounded because it is a form of embodied achievement (...) – what I call embodied rationality –, which offers a way of dissolving the pseudo-problem of epistemic immodesty, namely, the seemingly counterintuitive thesis that one can acquire rationally grounded knowledge that one is not in a radical skeptical scenario. (shrink)

This essay defends a novel form of virtue epistemology: Modal Virtue Epistemology. It borrows from traditional virtue epistemology the idea that knowledge is a type of skillful performance. But it goes on to understand skillfulness in purely modal terms — that is, in terms of success across a range of counterfactual scenarios. We argue that this approach offers a promising way of synthesizing virtue epistemology with a modal account of knowledge, according to which knowledge is safe belief. In particular, we (...) argue that the modal elements of the view offer important advantages over traditional virtue epistemology, which assigns a central explanatory role to aptness. At the same time, the virtue epistemological elements of the theory reveal new avenues for overcoming obstacles to traditional modal accounts of knowledge. Finally, we highlight the advantages of Modal Virtue Epistemology over alternative syntheses, such as Pritchard's (2012) hybrid approach. (shrink)

I argue that a standard formulation of hinge epistemology is host to epistemic relativism and show that two leading hinge approaches (Coliva’s acceptance account and Pritchard’s nondoxastic account) are vulnerable to a form of incommensurability that leads to relativism. Building on both accounts, I introduce a new, minimally epistemic conception of hinges that avoids epistemic relativism and rationally resolves hinge disagreements. According to my proposed account, putative cases of epistemic incommensurability are rationally resolvable: hinges are propositions that are the (...) objects of our belief-like attitudes and are rationally revisable in virtue of our overarching commitment to avoid systematic deception in our epistemic practices. (shrink)

Epistemologists understand radical skepticism as arising from two principles: Closure and Underdetermination. Both possess intuitive prima facie support for their endorsement. Understanding how they engender skepticism is crucial for any reasonable anti-skeptical attempt. The contemporary discussion has focused on elucidating the relationship between them to ascertain whether they establish distinct skeptical questions and which of the two constitutes the ultimately fundamental threat. Major contributions to this debate are due to Brueckner, Cohen, and Pritchard. This contribution aims at defending Brueckner’s (...) contention that underdetermination expresses the fundamental skeptical threat and that the closure-based argument can ultimately be reduced to it, at least concerning skeptical contexts. This will be achieved by undermining Cohen’s objections to Brueckner on both counts. Cohen’s argument endorses a picture of evidential underdetermination, which, while apt for non-skeptical contexts, cannot be applied to radical skepticism. A comparison with a case of scientific underdetermination is developed to argue for this idea. Our argument is then applied to the principle equivalence issue and to objections against it. It is then shown how this analysis possesses a distinctive effect on our understanding of the skeptical threat and the assessment of successful anti-skeptical strategies. (shrink)

Why can testimony alone be enough for findings of liability? Why statistical evidence alone can’t? These questions underpin the “Proof Paradox” (Redmayne 2008, Enoch et al. 2012). Many epistemologists have attempted to explain this paradox from a purely epistemic perspective. I call it the “Epistemic Project”. In this paper, I take a step back from this recent trend. Stemming from considerations about the nature and role of standards of proof, I define three requirements that any successful account in line with (...) the Epistemic Project should meet. I then consider three recent epistemic accounts on which the standard is met when the evidence rules out modal risk (Pritchard 2018), normic risk (Ebert et al. 2020), or relevant alternatives (Gardiner 2019 2020). I argue that none of these accounts meets all the requirements. Finally, I offer reasons to be pessimistic about the prospects of having a successful epistemic explanation of the paradox. I suggest the discussion on the proof paradox would benefit from undergoing a ‘value-turn’. (shrink)

One of the most widely recognised intuitions about knowledge is that knowing precludes believing truly as a matter of luck. On Pritchard’s highly influential modal account of epistemic luck, luckily true beliefs are, roughly, those for which there are many close possible worlds in which the same belief formed in the same way is false. My aim is to introduce a new challenge to this account. Starting from the observation—as documented by a number of recent EEG studies—that our capacity (...) to detect visual stimuli fluctuates with the phase of our neural oscillations, I argue that there can be very close possible worlds in which an actual-world detectable stimulus is undetectable. However, this doesn’t diminish our willingness to attribute knowledge in the case that the stimulus is detectable, even when undetectability would result in the same belief formed in the same way being false. As I will argue at length, the modal account appears unable to accommodate this result. (shrink)

According to virtue epistemology, the main aim of education is the development of the cognitive character of students (Pritchard, 2014, 2016). Given the proliferation of technological tools such as ChatGPT and other LLMs for solving cognitive tasks, how should educational practices incorporate the use of such tools without undermining the cognitive character of students? Pritchard (2014, 2016) argues that it is possible to properly solve this ‘technology-education tension’ (TET) by combining the virtue epistemology framework with the theory of (...) extended cognition (EXT) (Clark and Chalmers, 1998). He argues that EXT enables us to consider tools as constitutive parts of the students’ cognitive system, thus preserving their cognitive character from technologically induced cognitive diminishment. The first aim of this paper is to show that this solution is not sufficient to solve the TET. Second, I aim to offer a complementary and more encompassing framework of tool-use to address the TET. Then, I apply it to the educational uses of ChatGPT as the most notable example of LLM, although my arguments can be extended to other generative AI systems. To do so, in Sect. 1.1, I present Pritchard’s framework of cognitive character and virtue epistemology applied in education, to which I am committed in this treatment. In Sects. 2 and 3, I respectively illustrate Pritchard’s (2014) solution to the TET, and I highlight the general limitations of his proposal. Thus, in Sect. 4.1 I characterize ChatGPT as a computational cognitive artifact using Fasoli’s (2017, 2018) taxonomy of cognitive artifacts. In Sect. 4.2, I introduce my proposal, which combines Pritchard’s account of virtue epistemology with Fasoli’s (2017, 2018) taxonomy of cognitive artifacts to address the TET. Finally, in Sect. 5.1, I present some epistemically virtuous uses of ChatGPT in educational contexts. To conclude, I argue in favor of a multidisciplinary approach for analyzing educational activities involving AI technologies such as ChatGPT. (shrink)

An interesting aspect of Ernest Sosa’s (2017) recent thinking is that enhanced performances (e.g., the performance of an athlete under the influence of a performance-enhancing drug) fall short of aptness, and this is because such enhanced performances do not issue from genuine competences on the part of the agent. In this paper, I explore in some detail the implications of such thinking in Sosa’s wider virtue epistemology, with a focus on cases of cognitive enhancement. A certain puzzle is then highlighted, (...) and the solution proposed draws from both the recent moral responsibility literature on guidance control (e.g., Fischer and Ravizza 1998; Fischer 2012) as well as from work on cognitive integration in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science (e.g., Clark and Chalmers 1998; Clark 2008; Pritchard 2010; Palermos 2014; Carter 2017). (shrink)

In this paper, I consider the so-called Access Problem for Duncan Pritchard’s Epistemological Disjunctivism (2012). After reconstructing Pritchard’s own response to the Access Problem, I argue that in order to assess whether Pritchard’s response is a satisfying one, we first need an account of the notion of ‘Reflective Access’ that underpins Pritchard’s Epistemological Disjunctivism. I provide three interpretations of the notion of Reflective Access: a metaphysical interpretation, a folk interpretation, and an epistemic interpretation. I argue that (...) none of these three interpretations comes without problems. I conclude that, until we have a clear and unproblematic account of Reflective Access, the Access Problem remains a challenge for Pritchard’s Epistemological Disjunctivism. (shrink)

Looking out the window, I see that it's raining outside. Do I know that it’s raining outside? According to proponents of the Entailment Thesis, I do. If I see that p, I know that p. In general, the Entailment Thesis is the thesis that if S perceives that p, S knows that p. But recently, some philosophers (McDowell 2002, Turri 2010, Pritchard 2011, 2012) have argued that the Entailment Thesis is false. On their view, we can see p and (...) not know that p. In this paper, I argue that their arguments are unsuccessful. (shrink)

According to the canonical formulation of the modal account of luck [e.g. Pritchard (2005)], an event is lucky just when that event occurs in the actual world but not in a wide class of the nearest possible worlds where the relevant conditions for that event are the same as in the actual world. This paper argues, with reference to a novel variety of counterexample, that it is a mistake to focus, when assessing a given event for luckiness, on events (...) distributed over just the nearest possible worlds. More specifically, our objection to the canonical formulation of the modal account of luck reveals that whether an event is lucky depends crucially on events distributed over all possible worlds–viz., across the modal universe. It is shown that an amended modal account of luck which respects this point has the additional virtue of avoiding a notable kind of counterexample to modal accounts of luck proposed by Lackey (2008). (shrink)

In the General Psychopathology Jaspers famously draws a distinction between the understandable and explainable. Meaningful connections between psychic events, he argues, can only be understood empathetically and cannot be explained causally. The idea behind this distinction, according to some interpreters at least, seems to be that psychic events do not fall under any general causal rules whereas ordinary events do fall under such rules. Also Jaspers distinguishes empathetic understanding of the connection between two psychic events from a mere interpretation of (...) it, which may turn out to be false. Hence, understanding seems to be able to give us the truth about the connection and is factive as well as self-evident in nature. Contemporary epistemologists, such as Linda Zagzebsky, Duncan Pritchard, and Jonathan Kvanvig, for example, distinguish three varieties: propositional, objectual or holistic, and atomistic understanding. They do not agree on factivity and transparency of understanding. What then is the difference between their views and that of Jaspers? This essay compares recent epistemological views of understanding with those of Jaspers and critiques his claims about empathetic understanding as being both factive and self-evident or transparent; to show that empathetic understanding of connections between psychic events needs a public criterion for its individuation. (shrink)

The claim of this paper is that the everyday functions of knowledge make most sense if we see knowledge as contrastive. That is, we can best understand how the concept does what it does by thinking in terms of a relation “a knows that p rather than q.” There is always a contrast with an alternative. Contrastive interpretations of knowledge, and objections to them, have become fairly common in recent philosophy. The version defended here is fairly mild in that there (...) is no suggestion that we cannot think in terms of a simpler not explicitly contrastive relation “a knows that p.” Some, for instance Schaffer (2005) and Karjalainen and Morton (2003), have hinted that this stronger possibility may be right. But all that I am arguing now is that facts that are easily expressed in contrastive terms are vital to understanding why we need the concept of knowledge. In a piece that is in some ways a companion to this one ("Contrastivism" in Duncan Pritchard and Sven Bernecker, eds. The Routledge Companion to Epistemology. Routledge 2010, 513-522), I give a general survey of theories of contrastive knowledge and the differences between them. (shrink)