Among the important themes in Roderick Chisholm's epistemology are his commitment to internalism, his defense of the independence of epistemology from empirical science, and his assumption that we do know most of what we initially think we know. In “Roderick Chisholm and the Shaping of American Epistemology” Hilary Kornblith argues that Chisholm's views lead to a radical divorce between the factors that justify beliefs and the factors that cause beliefs, that Chisholm's views have the consequence that there is no connection (...) between justification and truth, and that Chisholm's kind of epistemology is unable to give epistemic advice. I argue that Chisholm's views do not have these consequences. (shrink)

This essay raises new objections to the two dominant approaches to understanding the justification of group beliefs—_inflationary_ views, where groups are treated as entities that can float freely from the epistemic status of their members’ beliefs, and _deflationary_ views, where justified group belief is understood as nothing more than the aggregation of the justified beliefs of the group's members. If this essay is right, we need to look in an altogether different place for an adequate account of justified group belief. (...) From these objections emerges the skeleton of the positive view that this essay goes on to develop and defend, called the _group epistemic agent account_: groups are epistemic agents in their own right, with justified beliefs that respond to both evidence and normative requirements that arise only at the group level but that are nonetheless importantly constrained by the epistemic status of the beliefs of their individual members. (shrink)

In this paper we set out a view on which internalist proper basicality is secured by sensory experience.

Roderick Chisholm had a profound effect on the shape of American epistemology. In this article, I not only give an account of the large‐scale structure of Chisholm's views but also say something about the place of Chisholmian themes in contemporary work. I thus present an understanding and an appreciation of Chisholm's contribution to epistemology by exhibiting a number of alternative developments of Chisholmian ideas that are currently under discussion.

In this chapter, we explore whether agents have an epistemic duty to eradicate implicit bias. Recent research shows that implicit biases are widespread and they have a wide variety of epistemic effects on our doxastic attitudes. First, we offer some examples and features of implicit biases. Second, we clarify what it means to have an epistemic duty, and discuss the kind of epistemic duties we might have regarding implicit bias. Third, we argue that we have an epistemic duty to eradicate (...) implicit biases that have negative epistemic impact. Finally, we defend this view against the objection that we lack the relevant control over implicit bias that’s required for such a duty. We argue that we have a kind of reflective control over the implicit biases that we are duty-bound to eradicate. And since, as we show, we have this control over a wide variety of implicit biases, there are a lot of implicit biases that we have epistemic duties to eradicate. (shrink)

In a series of papers, Adam Leite has developed a novel view of justification tied to being able to responsibly justify a belief. Leite touts his view as faithful to our ordinary practice of justifying beliefs, providing a novel response to an epistemological problem of the infinite regress, and resolving the “persistent interlocutor” problem. Though I find elements of Leite’s view of being able to justify a belief promising, I hold that there are several problems afflicting the overall picture of (...) justification. In this paper, I argue that despite its ambitions, Leite’s view fails to solve the persistent interlocutor problem and does not avoid a vicious regress. (shrink)

Reliabilism, one ofthe most significant naturalized epistemological theories, is an an attempt to justify knowledge on the basis of causal reliable procedures. This theory also seems to be the solution for the skeptic claims. However, as this paper suggests, this theory involves many problems; among others, how experiments could cause justified but false beliefs. This difficulty may reveal that naturalized epistemology cannot answer the radical question of skepticism, because it is not a scientific issue. As Quine thought, it implies a (...) metaphysical puzzle. Thus, every philosopher should face a practical decision: to admit it or to discard it as a non-sense question. (shrink)

Chisholm refuted phenomenalism as a theory of the justification of perceptual beliefs. He argued, following Thomas Reid, that some perceptual beliefs were justified in themselves, which provided a foundation for empirical knowledge. The question that remains is whether the foundational justification provided offers an adequate explanation of how justification is connected with truth. The search for a truth connection led me from foundationalism to a coherence theory of justification that, contrary to my intentions, was inspired by an observation of Chisholm (...) himself. (shrink)

Interreligious dialogue and conversion are two contentious foci for understanding how religion operates. An interpretation of George Lindbeck serves as a starting point for discussion in this paper. The dominant reading is that Lindbeck claims that traditions absorb the world. Religious traditions are isolated, and the one with a greater capacity to assimilate others’ concerns emerges the strongest – implying what is called exclusivism. My proposal is that a different reading of Lindbeck is possible; I am not so much questioning (...) Lindbeck as highlighting another aspect of his oeuvre. If grammar, framework and structure – and not propositional first‐order ontological contents – are given first place, dialogue and conversion appear differently. Questions must be raised, however; isn't it true that there is always some content and substance – even if hidden or disguised? (shrink)

A common strategy in philosophical debate is to limit the alternative positions available in order to increase the appeal of one's own position. Unfortunately, this has too often been true in debates regarding the justification of religious faith. Both defenders and critics of religious faith have tried to rule out agnosticism as a viable alternative in order to support their own arguments for or against religious faith. Unfortunately, this strategy only encourages what is already the problematic polarization of religious discourse. (...) My goal in writing this paper is to lessen this polarization by making space for agnosticism between atheism and religious faith. I do this by critiquing two arguments against .. (shrink)

This paper presents and defends a reappraisal of J.L. Austin’s infamous analogy between saying ‘I know’ and ‘I promise’ in ‘Other Minds.’ The paper has four sections. In §1, I contend that the standard reading of Austin’s analogy is a strawman that distorts the terms of the analogy and superimposes philosophical commitments that Austin was precisely trying to combat. In §§2 and 3, I argue that to understand the point of the analogy we must contextualize ‘Other Minds’ as a response (...) to logical positivism. I recap A.J. Ayer’s influential account of positivism, before arguing that ‘Other Minds’ and its centrepiece analogy should be read as an attack on Austin’s colleague’s organizing positivist assumptions – specifically, descriptivism and the fact/value dichotomy that it props up. My main thesis is that Austin sought to show that epistemic discourse is imbricated with ethical commitments. This reading is anticipated by Cavell, to whom I turn in §4. I bring together insights from across Cavell’s oeuvre to develop this reading of Austin’s analogy and finally to critique certain aspects of it. This paper adds to the recent resurgence in Austin scholarship and aims to get clear the philosophical and historical stakes of his historically maligned analogy. (shrink)

Jim Mackenzie; Wilson on Relativism and Teaching, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 21, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 119–130, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.

This paper argues for extreme rational permissivism—the view that agents with identical evidence can rationally believe contradictory hypotheses—and a mild version of steadfastness. Agents can rationally come to different conclusions on the basis of the same evidence because their way of weighing the theoretic virtues may differ substantially. Nevertheless, in the face of disagreement, agents face considerable pressure to reduce their confidence. Indeed, I argue that agents often ought to reduce their confidence in the higher-order propositions that they know or (...) rationally believe disputed content. I argue, however, that when the subject matter is difficult, there is more flexibility for agents to simultaneously believe that p while withholding belief about whether such belief is rational or known. This allows for modest steadfastness on hard questions in, e.g., philosophy and religion. (shrink)

It is argued that it is beneficial to view the debate regarding radical scepticism through the lens of epistemic value. In particular, it is claimed that we should regard radical scepticism as aiming to deprive us of an epistemic standing that is of special value to us, and that this methodological constraint on our dealings with radical scepticism potentially has important ramifications for how we assess the success of an anti-sceptical strategy.

This paper defends the view that philosophical propositions are merely relatively true, i.e. true relative to a doxastic perspective defined at least in part by a non-inferential belief-acquiring method. Here is the strategy: first, the primary way that contemporary philosophers defend their views is through the use of rational intuition, and this method delivers non-inferential, basic beliefs which are then systematized and brought into reflective equilibrium. Second, Christian theologians use exactly the same methodology, only replacing intuition with revelation. Third, intuition (...) and revelation yield frequently inconsistent output beliefs. Fourth, there is no defensible reason to prefer the dictates of intuition to those of Christian revelation. Fifth, the resulting dilemma means that there are true philosophical propositions, but we can't know them (scepticism), or there are no philosophical propositions and the naturalists are right (nihilism), or relativism is true. I suggest that relativism is the most palatable of these alternatives. (shrink)

In Weaving the Web, Berners-Lee defines Social Machines as biotechnologically hybrid Web-processes on the basis of which, “high-level activities, which have occurred just within one human’s brain, will occur among even larger more interconnected groups of people acting as if the shared a larger intuitive brain”. The analysis and design of Social Machines has already started attracting considerable attention both within the industry and academia. Web science, however, is still missing a clear definition of what a Social Machine is, which (...) has in turn resulted in several calls for a “philosophical engineering” ; Halpin et al. 2010). This paper is a first attempt to respond to this call, by combining contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive science with epistemology. The idea of philosophical engineering implies that a sufficiently good conception of Social Machines should be of both theoretical and practical advantage. To demonstrate how the present approach can satisfy both objectives it will be used in order to address one of Wikipedia’s most worrying concerns—i.e., the current and ongoing decline in the number of its active contributors. (shrink)

One of the first difficulties in interpreting Hume’s epistemological writings concerns precisely the meaning of the words ‘knowledge’ and ‘belief’. In this article it is shown, initially, how, from a humean point of view, the traditional epistemic criterion to define ‘knowledge’ and ‘belief’ appears very restrictive. Hume’s theory of causal belief is then briefly reviewed in the light of epistemological naturalism of the Michael J. Costa and Louis E. Loeb. Finally, it is submitted that the examination of all these topics (...) lends support to the Hume’s naturalistic theory of justification of beliefs. (shrink)

In his 1973 paper ?The Justification of Education? R.S. Peters aspired to give a non-instrumental justification of education. Ever since, his so-called ?transcendental argument? has been under attack and most critics conclude that it does not work. They have, however, thrown the baby away with the bathwater, when they furthermore concluded that Peters? justificatory project itself is futile. This article takes another look at Peters? justificatory project. As against a Kantian interpretation, it proposes an axiological-perfectionist interpretation to bring out the (...) permanent importance of this project and suggests some possible strategies for its successful execution. (shrink)

Following David Hitchcock and Stephen Toulmin, this paper takes warrants to be material inference rules. It offers an account of the form such rules should take that is designed (a) to implement the idea that an argument/inference is valid only if it is entitlement preserving and (b) to support a qualitative version of evidence proportionalism. It attempts to capture what gives warrants their normative force by elaborating a concept of reliability tailored to its account of the form such rules should (...) take. (shrink)

Roderick Chisholm famously held that our knowledge of the world is supported entirely by a foundation of self‐justifying statements, none of which logically implies the existence of any physical object in that world. The only contingent statements to be found in the foundation, he maintained, are those that are “about our own psychological states and the ways we are ‘appeared to’.” It is a view that, as Chisholm was well aware, tallies poorly with our ordinary practice of justifying statements. We (...) are typically happy to justify statements by ultimate appeal to what we have seen or heard; that is, by ultimate appeal to statements that logically imply that certain things in the world are as we take them to be. This essay examines how Chisholm sought to explain away this apparent disconfirmation of foundationalism by ordinary practice—in effect, how Chisholm responded to one of the chief criticisms of foundationalism launched by J. L. Austin. My suggestion will be that, when the dust clears, it is Austin who comes out ahead. (shrink)

The standard definition of knowledge and the concept of objective knowledge, as they were described in the epistemology sprung from the Vienna Circle, are too restricted in comparison with our natural disposal to admit different beliefs as reliable. The main guilt for this state of arts in epistemology belongs to the so- called, in Wolterstorff’s terms, “doxastic ideal”, namely, the traditional picture of the ideally formed beliefs. Locke’s view of entitlement was the modern expression of this ideal and Hume’s analysis (...) of beliefs about future was its first powerful criticism. If we succeed in rejecting this ideal, then it become possible to extend the epistemological analysis over other sorts of beliefs, religious beliefs included. (shrink)