Switch to: References

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. The Paradox of Graded Justification.Logins Arturs - forthcoming - Episteme:1-32.
    According to a widely held view epistemic justification is a normative notion. According to another widely held assumption, epistemic justification comes in degrees. Given that gradability requires a context-sensitivity that normativity seems to lack, these two assumptions stand in tension. Giving up the assumption of gradability of justification represents a lesser theoretical cost.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Epistemic Consequentialism as a Metatheory of Inquiry.Frederik J. Andersen & Klemens Kappel - 2024 - Asian Journal of Philosophy 3 (50):1-16.
    The overall aim of this article is to reorient the contemporary debate about epistemic consequentialism. Thus far the debate has to a large extent focused on whether standard theories of epistemic justification are consequentialist in nature and therefore vulnerable to certain trade-off cases where accepting a false or unjustified belief leads to good epistemic outcomes. We claim that these trade-offs raise an important—yet somewhat neglected—issue about the epistemic demands on inquiry. We first distinguish between two different kinds of epistemic evaluation, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Higher‐order evidence and the duty to double‐check.Michele Palmira - 2024 - Noûs 58 (3):799-824.
    The paper proposes an account of the rational response to higher‐order evidence whose key claim is that whenever we acquire such evidence we ought to engage in the inquiring activity of double‐checking. Combined with a principle that establishes a connection between rational inquiry and rational belief retention, the account offers a novel explanation of the alleged impermissibility of retaining one's belief in the face of higher‐order evidence. It is argued that this explanation is superior to the main competitor view which (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • A Means-End Account of Explainable Artificial Intelligence.Oliver Buchholz - 2023 - Synthese 202 (33):1-23.
    Explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) seeks to produce explanations for those machine learning methods which are deemed opaque. However, there is considerable disagreement about what this means and how to achieve it. Authors disagree on what should be explained (topic), to whom something should be explained (stakeholder), how something should be explained (instrument), and why something should be explained (goal). In this paper, I employ insights from means-end epistemology to structure the field. According to means-end epistemology, different means ought to be (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Epistemic Normativity & Epistemic Autonomy: The True Belief Machine.Spencer Paulson - 2023 - Philosophical Studies 180 (8):2415-2433.
    Here I will re-purpose Nozick’s (1974) “Experience Machine” thought experiment against hedonism into an argument against Veritic Epistemic Consequentialism. According to VEC, the right action, epistemically speaking, is the one that results in at least as favorable a ratio of true to false belief as any other action available. A consequence of VEC is that it would be epistemically right to outsource all your cognitive endeavors to a matrix-like “True Belief Machine” that uploads true beliefs through artificial stimulation. Rather than (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Value Promotion and the Explanation of Evidential Standards.Tricia Magalotti - 2023 - Erkenntnis 88 (8):3505-3526.
    While it is commonly accepted that justified beliefs must be strongly supported by evidence and that support comes in degrees, the question of how much evidential support one needs in order to have a justified belief remains. In this paper, I consider how the question about degrees of evidential support connects with recent debates between consequentialist and deontological explanations of epistemic norms. I argue that explaining why strong, but not conclusive, evidential support is required for justification should be one explanandum (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Epistemic Consequentialism: Haters Gonna Hate.Nathaniel Sharadin - 2018 - In Christos Kyriacou & Robin McKenna (eds.), Metaepistemology: Realism & Antirealism. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 121-143.
    Epistemic consequentialism has been charged with ignoring the epistemic separateness of propositions and with (thereby) allowing trade-offs between propositions. Here, I do two things. First, I investigate the metaphor of the epistemic separateness of propositions. I argue that either (i) the metaphor is meaningfully unpacked in a way that is modeled on the moral separateness of persons, in which case it doesn’t support a ban on trade-offs or (ii) it isn’t meaningfully unpacked, in which case it really doesn’t support a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • On the epistemic rationality and significance of self-fulfilling beliefs.Chad Marxen - 2020 - Synthese 199 (1-2):4243-4260.
    Some propositions are not likely to be true overall, but are likely to be true if you believe them. Appealing to the platitude that belief aims at truth, it has become increasingly popular to defend the view that such propositions are epistemically rational to believe. However, I argue that this view runs into trouble when we consider the connection between what’s epistemically rational to believe and what’s practically rational to do. I conclude by discussing how rejecting the view bears on (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Why No True Reliabilist Should Endorse Reliabilism.Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij & Jeffrey S. Dunn - 2020 - Episteme (1):1-18.
    Critics have recently argued that reliabilists face trade-off problems, forcing them to condone intuitively unjustified beliefs when they generate lots of true belief further downstream. What these critics overlook is that reliabilism entails that there areside-constraintson belief-formation, on account of which there are some things you should not believe, even if doing so would have very good epistemic consequences. However, we argue that by embracing side-constraints the reliabilist faces a dilemma: she can either hold on to reliabilism, and with it (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • The value of truth: introduction to the topical collection.Luca Moretti, Peter Hartl & Akos Gyarmathy - 2020 - Synthese 199 (1):1453-1460.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Are There Any Epistemic Consequentialists?Tsung-Hsing Ho - 2022 - Episteme 19 (2):220-230.
    Selim Berker argues that epistemic consequentialism is pervasive in epistemology and that epistemic consequentialism is structurally flawed. is incorrect, however. I distinguish between epistemic consequentialism and epistemic instrumentalism and argue that most putative consequentialists should be considered instrumentalists. I also identify the structural problem of epistemic consequentialism Berker attempts to pinpoint and show that epistemic instrumentalism does not have the consequentialist problem.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Teaching & Learning Guide for: The Relationship Between Belief and Credence.Elizabeth Jackson - 2020 - Philosophy Compass 15 (6):e12670.
    This guide accompanies the following article(s): Jackson, E., Philosophy Compass 15/6 (2020) pp. 1-13 10.1111/phc3.12668.x.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • The Relationship Between Belief and Credence.Elizabeth G. Jackson - 2020 - Philosophy Compass 15 (6):1–13.
    Sometimes epistemologists theorize about belief, a tripartite attitude on which one can believe, withhold belief, or disbelieve a proposition. In other cases, epistemologists theorize about credence, a fine-grained attitude that represents one’s subjective probability or confidence level toward a proposition. How do these two attitudes relate to each other? This article explores the relationship between belief and credence in two categories: descriptive and normative. It then explains the broader significance of the belief-credence connection and concludes with general lessons from the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   55 citations  
  • Veritism refuted? Understanding, idealization, and the facts.Tamer Nawar - 2021 - Synthese 198 (5):4295-4313.
    Elgin offers an influential and far-reaching challenge to veritism. She takes scientific understanding to be non-factive and maintains that there are epistemically useful falsehoods that figure ineliminably in scientific understanding and whose falsehood is no epistemic defect. Veritism, she argues, cannot account for these facts. This paper argues that while Elgin rightly draws attention to several features of epistemic practices frequently neglected by veritists, veritists have numerous plausible ways of responding to her arguments. In particular, it is not clear that (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  • No Commitment to the Truth.Anna-Maria A. Eder - 2021 - Synthese 198:7449-7472.
    On an evidentialist position, it is epistemically rational for us to believe propositions that are (stably) supported by our total evidence. We are epistemically permitted to believe such propositions, and perhaps even ought to do so. Epistemic rationality is normative. One popular way to explain the normativity appeals to epistemic teleology. The primary aim of this paper is to argue that appeals to epistemic teleology do not support that we ought to believe what is rational to believe, only that we (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Reliabilism without Epistemic Consequentialism.Kurt L. Sylvan - 2018 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (3):525-555.
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  • An Epistemic Non-Consequentialism.Kurt L. Sylvan - 2020 - The Philosophical Review 129 (1):1-51.
    Despite the recent backlash against epistemic consequentialism, an explicit systematic alternative has yet to emerge. This paper articulates and defends a novel alternative, Epistemic Kantianism, which rests on a requirement of respect for the truth. §1 tackles some preliminaries concerning the proper formulation of the epistemic consequentialism / non-consequentialism divide, explains where Epistemic Kantianism falls in the dialectical landscape, and shows how it can capture what seems attractive about epistemic consequentialism while yielding predictions that are harder for the latter to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   41 citations  
  • La Verdad en el Gnosticismo.Clayton Littlejohn - 2016 - Análisis. Revista de Investigación Filosófica 3:217-241.
    Hay dos supuestos sobre el valor epistémico que guían las discusiones más recientes sobre éste. El primero es que hay algo bueno con respecto a la creencia verdadera. El segundo supuesto es que es posible que dos creencias difieran en su valor incluso si ambas creencias son igualmente correctas. El veritista tiene fácil explicar el primer supuesto, pero tiene más difícil explicar el segundo. Para explicarlo, el veritista tiene que mostrar que las creencias verdaderas pueden diferir en su valor porque (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Truth, knowledge, and the standard of proof in criminal law.Clayton Littlejohn - 2020 - Synthese 197 (12):5253-5286.
    Could it be right to convict and punish defendants using only statistical evidence? In this paper, I argue that it is not and explain why it would be wrong. This is difficult to do because there is a powerful argument for thinking that we should convict and punish defendants using statistical evidence. It looks as if the relevant cases are cases of decision under risk and it seems we know what we should do in such cases (i.e., maximize expected value). (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   65 citations  
  • Vice Epistemology.Quassim Cassam - 2016 - The Monist 99 (2):159-180.
    Vice epistemology is the philosophical study of the nature, identity, and epistemological significance of intellectual vices. Such vices include gullibility, dogmatism, prejudice, closed-mindedness, and negligence. These are intellectual character vices, that is, intellectual vices that are also character traits. I ask how the notion of an intellectual character vice should be understood, whether such vices exist, and how they might be epistemologically significant. The proposal is that intellectual character vices are intellectual character traits that impede effective and responsible inquiry. I (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   158 citations  
  • On Epistemic Consequentialism and the Virtue Conflation Problem.J. Adam Carter & Ian M. Church - 2016 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 5 (3):239-248.
    Addressing the ‘virtue conflation’ problem requires the preservation of intuitive distinctions between virtue types, that is, between intellectual and moral virtues. According to one influential attempt to avoid this problem proposed by Julia Driver, moral virtues produce benefits to others—in particular, they promote the well-being of others—while the intellectual virtues, as such, produce epistemic good for the agent. We show that Driver's demarcation of intellectual virtue, by adverting to the self-/other distinction, leads to a reductio, and ultimately, that the prospects (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Another Argument Against Uniqueness.Thomas Raleigh - 2015 - Philosophical Quarterly 67 (267):327-346.
    I present an argument against the thesis of Uniqueness and in favour of Permissivism. Counterexamples to Uniqueness are provided, based on ‘Safespot’ propositions – i.e. a proposition that is guaranteed to be true provided the subject adopts a certain attitude towards it. The argument relies on a plausible principle: (roughly stated) If S knows that her believing p would be a true belief, then it is rationally permitted for S to believe p. One motivation for denying this principle – viz. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   26 citations  
  • The Truth in Gnosticism.Clayton Littlejohn - forthcoming - Análisis. Revista de Investigación Filosófica.
    The paper discusses some challenges to veritism, the view that the fundamental epistemic good is knowledge. It looks like the best way to meet these challenges might be to appeal to some of Sosa's ideas about the value of achievements, but I argue that the performance normativity framework only gives us part of what we want. What we need is a more radical break with the veritist approach. We need to embrace gnosticism, the view that knowledge is the fundamental epistemic (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Do non-philosophers think epistemic consequentialism is counterintuitive?James Andow - 2017 - Synthese 194 (7):2631-2643.
    Direct epistemic consequentialism is the idea that X is epistemically permissible iff X maximizes epistemic value. It has received lots of attention in recent years and is widely accepted by philosophers to have counterintuitive implications. There are various reasons one might suspect that the relevant intuitions will not be widely shared among non-philosophers. This paper presents an initial empirical study of ordinary intuitions. The results of two experiments demonstrate that the counterintuitiveness of epistemic consequentialism is more than a philosophers' worry---the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • Epistemically Transformative Experience.Jane Friedman - manuscript
    A discussion of L.A. Paul's 'Transformative Experience' from an Author Meets Critics session at the 2015 Pacific APA.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Who Cares What You Accurately Believe?Clayton Littlejohn - 2015 - Philosophical Perspectives 29 (1):217-248.
    This is a critical discussion of the accuracy-first approach to epistemic norms. If you think of accuracy (gradational or categorical) as the fundamental epistemic good and think of epistemic goods as things that call for promotion, you might think that we should use broadly consequentialist reasoning to determine which norms govern partial and full belief. After presenting consequentialist arguments for probabilism and the normative Lockean view, I shall argue that the consequentialist framework isn't nearly as promising as it might first (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   30 citations  
  • The Right in the Good: A Defense of Teleological Non-Consequentialism in Epistemology.Clayton Littlejohn - 2018 - In Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij & Jeff Dunn (eds.), Epistemic Consequentialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 23-47.
    There has been considerable discussion recently of consequentialist justifications of epistemic norms. In this paper, I shall argue that these justifications are not justifications. The consequentialist needs a value theory, a theory of the epistemic good. The standard theory treats accuracy as the fundamental epistemic good and assumes that it is a good that calls for promotion. Both claims are mistaken. The fundamental epistemic good involves accuracy, but it involves more than just that. The fundamental epistemic good is knowledge, not (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  • Is There a Problem With Cognitive Outsourcing?Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij - 2016 - Philosophical Issues 26 (1):7-24.
    To what extent can we rely on others for information without such reliance becoming epistemically problematic? In this paper, this question is addressed in terms of a specific form of reliance: cognitive outsourcing. Cognitive outsourcing involves handing over (outsourcing) one’s information collection and processing (the cognitive) to others. The specific question that will be asked about such outsourcing is if there is an epistemic problem about cognitive outsourcing as such. To ask if there is an epistemic problem with x for (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Exploring by Believing.Sara Aronowitz - 2021 - Philosophical Review 130 (3):339-383.
    Sometimes, we face choices between actions most likely to lead to valuable outcomes, and actions which put us in a better position to learn. These choices exemplify what is called the exploration/exploitation trade-off. In computer science and psychology, this trade-off has fruitfully been applied to modulating the way agents or systems make choices over time. This article extends the trade-off to belief. We can be torn between two ways of believing, one of which is expected to be more accurate in (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  • Stance empiricism and epistemic reason.Jonathan Reid Surovell - 2019 - Synthese 196 (2):709-733.
    Some versions of empiricism have been accused of being neither empirically confirmable nor analytically true and therefore meaningless or unknowable by their own lights. Carnap, and more recently van Fraassen, have responded to this objection by construing empiricism as a stance containing non-cognitive attitudes. The resulting stance empiricism is not subject to the norms of knowledge, and so does not self-defeat as per the objection. In response to this proposal, several philosophers have argued that if empiricism is a stance, then (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Disagreement and the division of epistemic labor.Bjørn G. Hallsson & Klemens Kappel - 2018 - Synthese 197 (7):2823-2847.
    In this article we discuss what we call the deliberative division of epistemic labor. We present evidence that the human tendency to engage in motivated reasoning in defense of our beliefs can facilitate the occurrence of divisions of epistemic labor in deliberations among people who disagree. We further present evidence that these divisions of epistemic labor tend to promote beliefs that are better supported by the evidence. We show that promotion of these epistemic benefits stands in tension with what extant (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  • How to be an Epistemic Consequentialist.Daniel J. Singer - 2018 - Philosophical Quarterly 68 (272):580-602.
    Epistemic consequentialists think that epistemic norms are about believing the truth and avoiding error. Recently, a number of authors have rejected epistemic consequentialism on the basis that it incorrectly sanctions tradeoffs of epistemic goodness. Here, I argue that epistemic consequentialists should borrow two lessons from ethical consequentialists to respond to these worries. Epistemic consequentialists should construe their view as an account of right belief, which they distinguish from other notions like rational and justified belief. Epistemic consequentialists should also make their (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   22 citations  
  • Lay intuitions about epistemic normativity.Pendaran Roberts, James Andow & Kelly Ann Schmitdtke - 2018 - Synthese 195 (7):3267-3287.
    Recent empirical work on non-philosophers’ intuitions about epistemic normativity reveals patterns that cannot be fully accounted for by direct epistemic consequentialism. On the basis of these results, one might picture participants as “epistemic deontologists.” We present the results of two new experiments that support a more nuanced picture. We examine intuitions about guesses and hypotheses, and about beliefs. Our results suggest a two-factor model of intuitions, wherein both consequentialist and non-consequentialist considerations affect participants’ judgments about epistemic permissibility.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • Epistemic consequentialism, truth fairies and worse fairies.James Andow - 2017 - Philosophia 45 (3):987-993.
    Direct Epistemic Consequentialism faces the Truth Fairy. Indirect Epistemic Consequentialism promises to avoid this issue. But there are worse fairies than the Truth Fairy. There is the Worse Fairy. The case of the Worse Fairy helps demonstrate that epistemic consequentialists who would solve problems like the Truth Fairy by ‘going indirect’ face a dilemma.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Is reliabilism a form of consequentialism?Jeffrey Dunn & Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij - 2017 - American Philosophical Quarterly 54 (2):183-194.
    Reliabilism—the view that a belief is justified iff it is produced by a reliable process—is often characterized as a form of consequentialism. Recently, critics of reliabilism have suggested that since it is a form of consequentialism, reliabilism condones a variety of problematic trade-offs involving cases where someone forms an epistemically deficient belief now that will lead her to more epistemic value later. In the present paper, we argue that the relevant argument against reliabilism fails because it equivocates. While there is (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   13 citations  
  • A pluralistic account of epistemic rationality.Matthew Kopec - 2018 - Synthese 195 (8):3571-3596.
    In this essay, I aim to motivate and defend a pluralistic view of epistemic rationality. At the core of the view is the notion that epistemic rationality is essentially a species of practical rationality put in the service of various epistemic goals. I begin by sketching some closely related views that have appeared in the literature. I then present my preferred version of the view and sketch some of its benefits. Thomas Kelly has raised challenging objections to a part of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • On what we should believe (and when (and why) we should believe what we know we should not believe).Clayton Littlejohn - 2020 - In Scott Stapleford & Kevin McCain (eds.), Epistemic Duties: New Arguments, New Angles. New York: Routledge.
    A theory of what we should believe should include a theory of what we should believe when we are uncertain about what we should believe and/or uncertain about the factors that determine what we should believe. In this paper, I present a novel theory of what we should believe that gives normative externalists a way of responding to a suite of objections having to do with various kinds of error, ignorance, and uncertainty. This theory is inspired by recent work in (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Teleological epistemology.Jane Friedman - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (3):673-691.
    It is typically thought that some epistemic states are valuable—knowing, truly or accurately believing, understanding. These are states it’s thought good to be in and it’s also said that we aim or want to be in them. It is then sometimes claimed that these sorts of thoughts about epistemic goods or values ground or explain our epistemic norms. For instance, we think subjects should follow their evidence when they form their beliefs. But why should they? Why not believe against the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   12 citations  
  • Permissible Epistemic Trade-Offs.Daniel J. Singer - 2019 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 97 (2):281-293.
    ABSTRACTRecent rejections of epistemic consequentialism, like those from Firth, Jenkins, Berker, and Greaves, have argued that consequentialism is committed to objectionable trade-offs and suggest...
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • Demoting promoting objections to epistemic consequentialism.Daniel J. Singer - 2019 - Philosophical Issues 29 (1):268-280.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • The Paradox of Graded Justification.Artūrs Logins - 2024 - Episteme 21 (3):920-948.
    According to a widely held view epistemic justification is a normative notion. According to another widely held assumption, epistemic justification comes in degrees. Given that gradability requires a context-sensitivity that normativity seems to lack, these two assumptions stand in tension. Giving up the assumption of gradability of justification represents a lesser theoretical cost.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij and Jeffrey Dunn (Eds.), 2018, Epistemic Consequentialism: Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018, 335 pages, $77.00.Peter Hartl - 2020 - Philosophia 48 (3):1273-1281.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark