I discuss the peculiar optimism present in an influential strand of analytic philosophy, and compare it with the more morose philosophical anthropology one might naturally pick up from other fields.

According to one prominent critique of mainstream epistemology, discoveries about what it takes to know or justifiedly believe that p can’t provide the right kind of intellectual guidance. As Mark Webb puts it, “the kinds of principles that are developed in this tradition are of no use in helping people in their ordinary epistemic practices.” In this paper I defend a certain form of traditional epistemology against this “regulative” critique. Traditional epistemology can provide—and, indeed, can be essential for—intellectual guidance. The (...) reason is that, in many cases, how you should proceed intellectually depends on what you already know or justifiedly believe: how you should treat counterevidence to your beliefs, for example, can depend on whether those beliefs count as knowledge. Therefore, to get guidance on how to proceed intellectually, it will often be essential to be able to figure out what you know or justifiedly believe. And to do that it will often be helpful to try to figure out what it takes to count as knowledge or justified belief in the first place. To do this is precisely to engage in mainstream epistemology. (shrink)

AbstarctIn the first installment of Varieties of Skeptical Invariantism, we set the scene for subsequent discussion with Unger's (1975) modern classic of global skepticism and distinguished three varieties of skeptical invariantism in recent literature: traditional skeptical invariantism, fallibilist science-based skepticism and practical skepticism. We then presented fallibilist science-based skepticism, that is, the position that relaxes the stringency of the standard of knowledge but still questions parts of our everyday knowledge on the basis of scientific reasons. In particular, we presented Frances’ (...) (2005) ‘live’ skepticism and Hannon's (forthcoming) ‘hard-hitting’ skepticism. In this second installment, we present the two other varieties of skeptical invariantism we identified: traditional skepticism (high-standard and infallibilist) that respects all three commitments (intellectualism, invariantism, stringency) and practical skepticism that questions the intellectualist commitment. (shrink)

I develop one partial explanation of the origins of our fallibilist intuitions about knowledge in ordinary language fallibilism and argue that this explanation indicates that our epistemic methodology should be more impartial and theory-neutral. First, I explain why the so-called Moorean constraint (cf. Hawthorne 2005, 111) that encapsulates fallibilist intuitions is fallibilism’s cornerstone. Second, I describe a pattern of fallibilist reasoning in light of the influential dual processing and heuristics and biases approach to cognition (cf. Kahneman 2011; Thaler and Sunstein (...) 2008; Evans 2017). I suggest that this pattern of reasoning involves the question-substitution heuristic, the availability and representativeness heuristics, the focusing bias as well as framing effects, priming and the anchoring and adjusting heuristic. Third, I argue that this fallibilist pattern of reasoning is methodologically dubious because it involves a vicious circularity and briefly outline an alternative, more impartial and theory-neutral abductive methodology for the theory of knowledge. Finally, I briefly explain how this analysis sheds light on the ordinary language fallibilism of Moore (1939), Austin (1961), Wittgenstein (1969) and Chisholm (1982). (shrink)

This collection of original essays explores the topic of skeptical invariantism in theory of knowledge. It eschews historical perspectives and focuses on this traditionally underexplored, semantic characterization of skepticism. The book provides a carefully structured, state-of-the-art overview of skeptical invariantism and offers up new questions and avenues for future research. It treats this semantic form of skepticism as a serious position rather than assuming that skepticism is false and attempting to diagnose where arguments for skepticism go wrong. The essays take (...) up a wide range of different philosophical perspectives on three key questions in the debate about skeptical invariantism: whether the standards for knowledge vary, how demanding the standards for knowledge are, and whether the kind of evidence, reasons, methods, processes etc. that we can bring to bear are sufficient to meet those standards. Skeptical Invariantism Reconsidered will be of interest to scholars and advanced students in epistemology and philosophy of language. (shrink)

I review proposed skepticisms in recent literature (or skeptical invariantisms, if we understand skepticism semantically), contrast their basic commitments and highlight some of their comparative theoretical attractions and problems. To help set the scene for the discussion, I start with Unger’s (1975) modern classic of global skepticism about knowledge (and justification). I then distinguish three extant categories of skepticism in the recent literature: two non‐traditional and one more traditional. On the non‐traditional side are fallibilist science‐based skepticism (which relaxes thestringencyof the (...) standard of knowledge) and practical skepticism (which questions theintellectualcharacter of the standard of knowledge) and on the traditional side high‐standard/infallibilist. I then briefly present and discuss representatives of each category. (shrink)

Susanna Rinard aims to show that it is possible to rationally persuade an external world skeptic to reject external world skepticism. She offers an argument meant to convince a skeptic who accepts her views on “several orthogonal issues in epistemology” to give up their external world skepticism. While I agree with Rinard that it is possible to reason with a skeptic, I argue that Rinard overlooks a variety of good epistemic grounds a skeptic could appeal to in rejecting her argument (...) and its conclusion. More specifically, I argue that the external world skeptic can resist Rinard’s conclusion by (1) distinguishing between skepticism about knowledge and skepticism about justification, (2) by prioritizing obtaining accurate beliefs (maximizing true beliefs and minimizing false beliefs) over being rational, or (3) by treating suspension of judgment as the default rational doxastic attitude. (shrink)

Collocations are recurrent combinations of words where one lexical item occurs near another lexical item with a frequency far greater than chance. Collocations can be used to study meaning. I argue that the collocational phrase ‘really know’, in conjunction with some reasonable interpretive conclusions, provides us with evidence that the verb ‘know’ has an infallibilist sense. I make my case, first, by arguing that ‘really’ when part of the phrase ‘really know’ is best understood as synonymous with ‘truly’. I then (...) argue that there are two plausible interpretations of the function that ‘really’ plays in the phrase ‘really know’. On the first interpretation, ‘really’ helps distinguish claims about genuine infallibilist knowing from loose talk about ‘knowing’. On the second interpretation, ‘really’ is often used to disambiguate an infallibilist sense of ‘know’ from a fallibilist sense of ‘know’. On either interpretation, there is an infallibilist sense of ‘know’. (shrink)

In this paper, I challenge a traditional assumption concerning the nature and aims of education. According to epistemic infallibilism, propositional knowledge requires epistemic certainty. Though some philosophers accept infallibilism, others consider it implausible because it does not recognize ordinary cases of supposed knowledge. On this objection, we possess many items of propositional knowledge, notwithstanding the fallibleness of these items. Infallibilism is inconsistent with such items and thus considered unwarranted. I articulate this kind of objection to infallibilism as it concerns education. (...) I then offer a cumulative case defense of infallibilism and evaluate that defense. This examination suggests that much of what we commonly consider as education does not provide knowledge, and therefore that the traditional assumption is incorrect. My paper has interdisciplinary interests with respect to epistemology, philosophy of education, philosophy of science, and pedagogical practice. (shrink)

I develop a challenge to reductive views of knowing that φ that appeal to what I call a gradable property. Such appeal allows for properties that are intrinsically very similar to the property of knowing that φ, but differ significantly in their normative significance. This violates the independently plausible claim Pautz (2017) labels the small difference principle.

Some recent epistemologists propose that certainty is the norm of action and assertion. This proposal is subject to skeptical worries. If, as is usually supposed, certainty is very hard to come by, legitimate action and assertion will be rare. To remedy this, some have conjoined their certainty-norms with a context-sensitive semantics for ‘certainty’. For a proposition to be certain for you, you only need to be able to exclude relevant alternatives. I argue that, depending on what makes an alternative relevant, (...) this kind of view is disingenuous. In particular, if an alternative can be made relevant by being relevant to rational action, it allows an escape from the skeptical consequences only by licensing David Lewis-style utterances of the form, “You know that p only if there is no probability, no matter how small, that not-p—Psst!—Unless that probability is really small.” While there are legitimate ways to exclude some possibilities from relevance, it is disingenuous, I argue, to exclude possibilities from relevance on the basis of the very characteristic—low but nonzero probability—that is claimed to be incompatible with certainty. (shrink)

Talking about knowing is very useful to us. But, is any of this talk true? Numerous skeptical arguments proposed throughout the history of philosophy suggest that it might not be. Moreover, in recent years, it has also proved difficult to account for numerous kinds of variability in the ways we use knowledge-attributing sentences, including kinds of variability suggested by cases such as DeRose’s “bank cases,” Cohen’s “airport cases,” lottery problems, and more—all of which can be interpreted as pushing us in (...) at least one skeptical direction or another. If we are to take seriously (as many theorists about metaphysics, morality, and mind have regarding discourse in those domains), the possibility that knowledge-talk is not (typically) literally true, we might wonder whether epistemologists have similar options, as well as what such options could look like for them. This paper aims to explore (given space constraints) just three forms of epistemic fictionalism. In Section 1, it briefly surveys and critically examines three approaches that an epistemic fictionalist, or perhaps more accurately, non-literalist, might pursue: exaggeration, approximation, and metaphor. It then discusses and dispatches three species of objections to these approaches in Section 2. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that fallibilistic justification is insufficient for propositional knowledge if veritic luck is involved. I provide a thought experiment to demonstrate that even very strong non-factive evidence is insufficient for knowledge if veritic luck is present. I then distinguish between precise justification, which I suggest is required for knowledge in cases of veritic luck, and loose justification, which is sufficient for practical cases in which beliefs are reasonable to hold even if they fall short of being (...) items of knowledge. In addition, I provide a reason for holding that PJ is required for all items of propositional knowledge, and not only for cases of veritic luck. Lastly, I propose that Gettier-style cases pertain to an ambiguity between PJ and LJ. (shrink)

According to purpose theory (PT), God’s existence, telic creation of human beings, and human libertarian free will are necessary conditions for human life to be objectively meaningful. In this paper, I raise and respond to four objections to PT: two concerning insufficiencies and two regarding ambiguities in the theory. I conclude that PT-advocates have relatively effective replies to the second insufficiency objection and to both ambiguity objections, but that PT is vulnerable to the first insufficiency objection.

This is a critical notice of Christos Kyriacou and Kevin Wallbridge (eds.), Skeptical Invariantism Reconsidered. New York and London: Routledge, 2021. Pp. x + 324. ISBN 978-0-367-37018-3. It discusses in some detail contributions by Nevin Climenhaga, Christos Kyriacou, Michael Hannon, Kevin Wallbridge, Annalisa Coliva, and Genia Schönbaumsfeld.