What is the epistemological structure of situations where many small risks amount to a large one? Lottery and preface paradoxes and puzzles about quantum-mechanical blips threaten the idea that competent deduction is a way of extending our knowledge. Seemingly, everyday knowledge involves small risks, and competently deducing the conjunction of many such truths from them yields a conclusion too risky to constitute knowledge. But the dilemma between scepticism and abandoning MPC is false. In extreme cases, objectively improbable truths are known. (...) Safety is modal, not probabilistic, in structure, with closure and factiveness conditions. It is modelled using closeness of worlds. Safety is analogous to knowledge. It suggests an interpretation of possible worlds semantics for epistemic logic. To avoid logical omniscience, a relation of epistemic counterparthood between formulas is introduced. This supports a safety conception of knowledge and formalizes how extending knowledge by deduction depends on logical competence. (shrink)

The following inquiry pursues two interlinked aims. The first is to understand Wittgenstein's idea of non-foundational certainty in the context of a reading of On Certainty that emphasizes its Pyrrhonian elements. The second is to read Wittgenstein's remarks on idealism/radical skepticism in On Certainty in parallel with the discussion of rule-following in Philosophical Investigations in order to demonstrate an underlying similarity of philosophical concerns and methods. I argue that for the later Wittgenstein, what is held certain in a given context (...) of inquiry or action is a locally transcendental condition of the inquiry or action in question. In On Certainty, Wittgenstein's analysis of the difference between knowledge and certainty forms the basis of his critique of both Moore's "Proof" and radical skepticism. This critique takes the shape of rejection of a presupposition shared by both parties, and utilizes what I identify as a Pyrrhonian-style argument against opposed dogmatic views. Wittgenstein's method in this text involves describing epistemic language-games. I demonstrate that this is consistent with the rejection of epistemological theorizing, arguing that a Wittgensteinian "picture" is not a theory, but an impressionistic description that accomplishes two things: (i) throwing into relief problems with dogmatic theories and their presuppositions, and (ii) describing the provenance of linguistic and epistemic practices in terms of norms grounded in convention. Convention, in turn, is not arbitrary, but grounded in the biological and social natures of human beings--in what Wittgenstein calls forms of life. Thus there is a kind of naturalism in the work of the later Wittgenstein. It is a naturalism that comes neatly dovetailed with Pyrrhonism--a combination of strategies traceable to Hume's work in the Treatise. I read Hume as someone who develops the Pyrrhonian method to include philosophy done "in a careless manner," and argue that Wittgenstein adopts a similar method in his later works. Finally, I explain the deference to convention in the work of both Hume and Wittgenstein by reference to a passage in Sextus' Outlines, on which I provide a gloss in the final chapter of this work. (shrink)

Resumo O Contextualismo Epistêmico é conhecido por alegar oferecer a melhor resposta para alguns dos principais problemas epistemológicos, dentre eles o problema gerado pelos paradoxos céticos e, por conseguinte, por deter o conhecimento sobre muitas coisas que ordinariamente julgávamos já conhecidas. Da mesma forma, seria uma via capaz de manter a validade do princípio de fechamento dedutivo. O presente texto pretende analisar a teoria contextualista, conforme apresentada por Stewart Cohen, mostrando como o contextualismo resolve essas questões. Na primeira parte do (...) texto apresentaremos alguns problemas (e algumas características históricas) que culminaram no surgimento do contextualismo. Na segunda parte explanaremos a teoria contextualista de Cohen. Em seguida levantamos algumas objeções comumente endereçadas ao contextualismo. Por fim, concluímos que, embora não seja completamente refutada, a teoria contextualista deve dirimir dúvidas e explicar algumas dificuldades para manter a sua plausibilidade. Palavras-Chave: Contextualismo; Ceticismo; Conhecimento; Stewart Cohen. -/- Abstract Epistemic Contextualism is known by his allegation to possess the best answer to some of the major epistemological problems, among them, the problem created by the skeptical paradoxes and therefore the claim that we can know many things we ordinarily claim to know, and also maintains the validity of the closure principle. This paper seeks to examine Contextualism, as presented by Stewart Cohen, showing how Contextualism solves these problems. In the first section of the text I will present some problems (and some historic features) that originated Contextualism. In the second section I will present the Cohen`s Contextualism. Then, we consider some objections raised against the contextualista theory. Finally, we conclude that although these objections are not able to completely refute contextualism its proponents have to give better explanations in order to maintain its plausibility. Keywords: Contextualism; Skepticism; Knowledge; Stewart Cohen. (shrink)

Conservatism’s core claim is that traditions play an important, if not essential, role in the acquisition of normative knowledge. However, that thesis has never been adequately defended. Three things are missing from conservative political thought: a traditionalist account of propositional normative knowledge, an explicit and sustained positive argument for traditions’ role in the acquisition of normative knowledge, and deference to relevant work in other areas of philosophy, especially epistemology. In this thesis, I provide an argument for conservatism which remedies each (...) of these defects. I call it the Social Knowledge Argument. According to the Social Knowledge Argument, some beliefs formed out of deference to the traditions of one’s society constitute normative knowledge, since deference to the traditions of one’s society is a reliable process for normative belief formation in some societies. Deference to the traditions of one’s society is reliable in some societies because traditions are the outputs of cultural evolution and the latter tends to produce traditions that capture the demands of normative domains such as morality. The Social Knowledge Argument constitutes a traditionalist account of propositional normative knowledge, is an explicit argument for traditions’ epistemic role, and utilises intellectual resources unavailable to previous generations of conservative writers. Specifically, the Social Knowledge Argument assumes a process reliabilist theory of knowledge, and these are of recent provenance, and while conservatives have always appealed to cultural evolution, I am able to draw on fully-fledged scientific accounts of cultural evolution which were unavailable to or neglected by previous conservative writers. (shrink)

This chapter provides an overview of the issues involved in recent debates about the epistemological relevance of emotions. We first survey some key issues in epistemology and the theory of emotions that inform various assessments of emotions’ potential significance in epistemology. We then distinguish five epistemic functions that have been claimed for emotions: motivational force, salience and relevance, access to facts and beliefs, non-propositional contributions to knowledge and understanding, and epistemic efficiency. We identify two core issues in the discussions about (...) such epistemic functions of emotions: First, even though it is plausible that emotions are involved in epistemic processes, it may be doubted whether they really matter for the normative question of what counts as knowledge or justified belief. Second, some of the epistemic functions claimed for emotions in general may only be attributed to some specifically epistemic emotions, which have been present all along in traditional epistemology, albeit under different labels such as ‘intuitions’. (shrink)

Free will sceptics claim that we lack free will, i.e. the command or control of our conduct that is required for moral responsibility. There are different conceptions of free will: it is sometimes understood as having the ability to choose between real options or alternatives; and sometimes as being the original or true source of our own conduct. Whether conceived in the first or in the second way, free will is subject to strong sceptical arguments. However, free will sceptics face (...) a difficulty: doubting the existence of free will might itself be problematic, whether free will exists or not. Three main considerations are offered in support of this claim. Firstly, it is said that free will sceptics confuse contexts: even if they are right to doubt the existence of free will in the philosophy classroom, they are wrong to do so in other contexts, such as day-to-day interactions or a court of law. Secondly, it is said that free will scepticism is incompatible with inescapable and indispensable human practices such as practical deliberation or moral criticism and evaluation. For, to deliberate about what to do, we must presume that we have true options or alternatives. And to judge that some human practices are wrong, we need to assume the existence of moral responsibility. Thirdly, free will scepticism is sometimes said to be self-defeating, on the grounds that it cannot be rational to believe free will scepticism, because free will is required for rationality. This thesis critically assesses these arguments. None takes free will scepticism down, but all are instructive about how not to be a sceptic. They trace the ‘contours’ of free will scepticism by discrediting some conceptions of free will and some arguments for free will scepticism. (shrink)

Summary In chapter one I reject the thesis that a relation of partial entailment holds between probability evidence and conclusion, as also the claim that the propositions of applied geometry are synthetic a priori. By way of balance, I suggest that there may be a sense in which necessary conditions of discourse transcend the distinction between a priori and empirical. In chapter two I reject the claim that logical relations in the form of intrinsic probability enter into the no-miracles argument, (...) which I suggest is frequency-connected in its more systematic applications, so that it belongs within a system. I begin chapter three with a critique of an attempted formal probability solution to Hume’s problem, and I now suggest that inductive inference has application only within a system in which its validity is pre-supposed in its premises, a concomitant of which is that the sceptic about induction cannot stop short of global scepticism. Since my aim is to show that global scepticism is self-refuting, given that intentionality may be analysed in terms of a system, I now develop that analysis by devoting chapter four to an examination of Wittgenstein on meaning and understanding. In chapter five I reject his thesis equating meaning and understanding with use, arguing instead that they are irreducible and subject to dispositionality conditions, and in furtherance of that argument I try to solve the problem of the authoritativeness of belief avowals by showing again that there are necessary conditions of discourse. These are such that selfascribing belief, crediting oneself with understanding and with being suitably disposed, are inherent in reasoning. In chapter six I weave the threads of the previous discussion into a solution by arguing that the sceptic about induction, who is committed to global scepticism, necessarily refutes himself. In chapter seven, on the problem of other minds, I attempt a solution by modifying the arguments used against inductive scepticism. (shrink)

I consider whether evolutionary explanations can debunk our moral beliefs. Most contemporary discussion in this area is centred on the question of whether debunking implications follow from our ability to explain elements of human morality in terms of natural selection, given that there has been no selection for true moral beliefs. By considering the most prominent arguments in the literature today, I offer reasons to think that debunking arguments of this kind fail. However, I argue that a successful evolutionary debunking (...) argument can be constructed by appeal to the suggestion that our moral outlook reflects arbitrary contingencies of our phylogeny, much as the horizontal orientation of the whale’s tail reflects its descent from terrestrial quadrupeds. An introductory chapter unpacks the question of whether evolutionary explanations can debunk our moral beliefs, offers a brief historical guide to the philosophical discussion surrounding it, and explains what I mean to contribute to this discussion. Thereafter follow six chapters and a conclusion. The six chapters are divided into three pairs. The first two chapters consider what contemporary scientific evidence can tell us about the evolutionary origins of morality and, in particular, to what extent the evidence speaks in favour of the claims on which debunking arguments rely. The next two chapters offer a critique of popular debunking arguments that are centred on the irrelevance of moral facts in natural selection explanations. The final chapters develop a novel argument for the claim that evolutionary explanations can undermine our moral beliefs insofar as they show that our moral outlook reflects arbitrary contingencies of our phylogeny. A conclusion summarizes my argument and sets out the key questions that arise in its wake. (shrink)

The idea that certain philosophical debates are "merely verbal" has historically been raised as a challenge against (large parts of) metaphysics. In this paper, I explore an analogous challenge to large parts of epistemology, which is motivated by recent arguments in experimental philosophy. I argue that, while this challenge may have some limited success, it cannot serve as a wedge case for wide-ranging skepticism about the substantiveness of epistemological debates; most epistemological debates are immune to the worries it raises.

Philosophers of information, according to Luciano Floridi (The philosophy of information. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2010, p 32), study how information should be “adequately created, processed, managed, and used.” A small number of epistemologists have employed the concept of information as a cornerstone of their theoretical framework. How this concept can be used to make sense of seemingly intractable epistemological problems, however, has not been widely explored. This paper examines Fred Dretske’s information-based epistemology, in particular his response to radical epistemological (...) skepticism. We discuss the relationship between information, evidence and knowledge in relation to the problem of skepticism and the options available to an information-based epistemology for dealing with it. (shrink)

Many contributors of the debate about knowledge by testimony concentrate on the problem of justification. In my paper I will stress a different point – the concept of testimony itself. As a starting point I will use the definitional proposal of Jennifer Lackey. She holds that the concept of testimony should be regarded as entailing two aspects – one corresponding to the speaker, the other one to the hearer. I will adopt the assumption that we need to deal with both (...) aspects. Nevertheless, I will show that her concept – which suggests regarding testimony as an act of communication conveying information – is too broad and, therefore, I will end up with a different twofold definition. (shrink)

It is claimed that the radical sceptical problem that is the focus of much of contemporary epistemological discussion in fact divides into two logically distinct subproblems --a formulation that turns on the closure principle, and a second formulation which turns on the underdetermination principle. The Wittgensteinian account of the structure of rational evaluation is set out, and it is shown how this proposal --at least when properly formulated--can deal with closure-based radical scepticism. It is also claimed, however, that this account (...) fails to gain any purchase on underdetermination-based radical scepticism. The antidote to this latter form of radical scepticism lies elsewhere--with, it is suggested, epistemological disjunctivism. (shrink)

Threshold models and their dynamics may be used to model the spread of ‘behaviors’ in social networks. Regarding such from a modal logical perspective, it is shown how standard update mechanisms may be emulated using action models – graphs encoding agents’ decision rules. A small class of action models capturing the possible sets of decision rules suitable for threshold models is identified, and shown to include models characterizing best-response dynamics of both coordination and anti-coordination games played on graphs. We conclude (...) with further aspects of the action model approach to threshold dynamics, including broader applicability and logical aspects. Hereby, new links between social network theory, game theory and dynamic ‘epistemic’ logic are drawn. (shrink)

An orthodox sceptical hypothesis claims that one’s belief that “I am not a brain-in-a-vat (BIV)” (or any other ordinary anti-sceptical belief) is insensitive. A form of sensitivity-based scepticism, can thus be constructed by combining this orthodox hypothesis with the sensitivity principle and the closure principle. Unlike traditional solutions to the sensitivity-based sceptical problem, this paper will propose a new solution—one which does not reject either closure or sensitivity. Instead, I argue that sceptics’ assumption that one’s ordinary anti-sceptical beliefs are insensitive (...) will give rise to self-contradiction. The orthodox sceptical hypothesis is thus revealed to be incoherent and arbitrary. Given that there is no coherent reason to presuppose our ordinary anti-sceptical beliefs to be insensitive, the argument for sensitivity-based scepticism can thus be blocked at a lower epistemological cost. (shrink)

How should we understand the relationship between the contents of our color, causal, modal, and evaluative beliefs, on the one hand, and color, causal, modal, and evaluative properties, on the other? According to Barry Stroud (2011), because of the nature of the contents of those types of beliefs, we should also think that what he calls a “negative metaphysical verdict” on the latter is not one that we could consistently maintain. The metaphysical project aims to arrive at an improved conception (...) of ourselves and our relation the world, no matter if that conception is positive or negative. But if Stroud is right that we cannot consistently arrive at the view that all of our causal, modal, and evaluative beliefs are systematically false, we will see that we cannot consistently reach the negative verdict. But failure to reach the negative verdict doesn’t mean that we have reached the positive verdict. Stroud calls this philosophical failure “metaphysical dissatisfaction”. In this paper, I argue that we can appropriate a metaepistemological response to the problem of the external world which shares its core features with Stroud’s (2000, 2011) arguments, but which nevertheless leaves us with a distinctive kind of epistemological dissatisfaction. (shrink)

I argue that to know that a proposition is true one must have justification for being certain that the proposition is true. That is, one must have infallible epistemic justification for believing the proposition. It is widely accepted among epistemologists that we rarely, if ever, have such strong justification for our beliefs. It follows that there is precious little that we know. That conclusion is unacceptable to many philosophers. I argue that the positions that lead to the skeptical conclusion are (...) well-motivated and that the skeptical conclusion is implicitly accepted by ordinary speakers. My dissertation has three main components: a metaphilosophical position, an epistemological position, and an error theory. First, the metaphilosophical position. One very important part of philosophy is the analysis of our ordinary concepts. Analysis of our concepts begins with reflecting on what we are inclined to say about various actual and possible cases when considered under specific descriptions. This traditional method has recently come under attack, due in part to the rise of semantic externalism. I agree with externalists that if ‘meaning is reference’ then there is little reason to think reflecting on our concepts from the armchair will provide insight to the nature of the concepts we investigate. I defend a version of semantic internalism which grounds meaning in factors with which subjects are directly acquainted. That view supports the traditional methodology. Furthermore, as the goal of philosophical analysis is to accurately describe concepts of philosophical interest, the only kind of objection that could be decisive against a proposed analysis is that it does not correctly describe our concept. That opens the door to a skeptical analysis of knowledge. Second, the epistemological position. I argue that the unacceptability of sentences of the form “S knows that p but it is possible for S that not-p” is best explained by the hypothesis that our concept of knowledge requires having justification for being certain that what one believes is true. I offer as a criterion of justified certainty the idea that when one knows a proposition is true, one is in a position to decisively answer questions about one’s knowledge of that proposition. I survey a number of competing theories of knowledge and show that they allow for the possibility of knowledge when one fails my criterion of decisive answerability. Those views fail my criterion because according to those views there is nothing the subject is aware of that guarantees for the subject that the allegedly known proposition is true. On that basis, I contend that knowledge is direct awareness of the factors that constitute the truth of the proposition one believes. Third, the error theory. Of course, we rarely have direct awareness of the factors that constitute the truth of the propositions we believe. So, our knowledge attributions are generally false. Yet, they are overwhelmingly natural to make. I argue that competent speakers are often quick to recognize knowledge attributions as a kind of ‘loose talk’ akin to the way we loosely ascribe geometric properties to ordinary objects. We regularly call objects ‘square’ that are not even close to being square, and we are quick to recognize this when challenged. I argue that we do this because we are so accustomed to communicating using strict language to make false claims that we often do not attend to the literal falsity of what we are saying. While we accept very demanding standards for knowledge, the phenomenon of recognizing that our knowledge claims are regularly false is as pervasive as our use of loose speech. (shrink)

In this dissertation I attempt to develop a better understanding of knowledge and belief. In Chapter 1 I offer an analysis of knowledge-wh . I argue that knowledge-wh ascriptions express that a subject stands in the knowledge relation to a question--where to stand in this knowledge relation to a question is to know an answer to the question. Additionally I adopt a contextualist picture of knowledge- wh . I raise some problems for invariantism about knowledge- wh and I argue that (...) contextualism about knowledge-wh fits nicely with a very natural understanding of the semantics of interrogatives, and the nature of questions. In Chapter 2 consider whether knowledge-how is importantly different from knowledge-wh . I argue that 'knows how' is ambiguous, but on one sense knowledge-how ascriptions should be treated just like the other knowledge ascriptions with interrogative complements. Hence this type of knowledge-how is not fundamentally distinct from knowledge-wh . In Chapter 3 I reconsider various theories about knowledge and knowledge- that ascriptions in light of our conclusions about knowledge- wh ascriptions. It seems that doing so can help adjudicate between contextualism and invariantism about knowledge-that and may help determine which form of contextualism about knowledge-that is the most plausible. In Chapter 4 I consider whether there is some fact about the nature of the attitudes that determines the verb's complement selection. Some have suggested that the embedding behavior of attitude verbs is correlated with the factivity of the attitude verb. I evaluate this suggestion and the possible explanations for the embedding behavior of the various attitude verbs. I attempt to determine the extent to which the factivity of verbs is correlated with their embedding behavior and I attempt to explain why factivity plays such an important role. I argue that these facts can provide important insights into the nature of the attitudes. In Chapter 5 I explore the way in which knowledge and action are related in an important way. I consider the claim that it is appropriate to treat the proposition that p as a reason for action if and only if you know that p . I first present and explain the principle. Next I consider some objections to the proposal, and I argue that none of these objections is successful. I claim that the contrastivist, in particular, has several moves available in the face of the alleged problems with this Reason-Knowledge principle. (shrink)

This dissertation examines some of ways of evaluating beliefs, relevant to epistemology and to metaphysics. Some problems in normative epistemology are solved by properly relating justified belief, rational belief, and knowledge. Chapter 1 uses this strategy to defend externalism about justified belief. Chapters 3 and 4 defend the view that knowledge is the epistemic standard we aim for our beliefs to meet. Chapter 2 investigates which beliefs are improper because formed in an objectionably circular way. The findings support the Moorean (...) response to Brain-In-a-Vat skepticism, by rebutting the objection from ‘easy knowledge’. The theory of justified belief developed in chapter 1 underwrites the Moorean reply. Chapters 5 and 6 make a non-epistemic way of evaluating beliefs central to metaphysics. To understand relativity or vagueness in a subject-matter, we must hold that being true or false is not the metaphysically serious evaluation of how a belief answers to reality. Either verdict on a borderline case is ‘acceptable’ in the metaphysically serious sense. For a matter to be relative is for the ‘acceptability’ of affirming the proposition to vary between judges. Chapters 5 and 6 sketch an approach to metaphysics built from the notion of ‘metaphysically acceptable judgment’, with chapter 6 concentrating on vagueness, and chapter 5 focusing on relativism about knowledge. Chapter 5 argues that the lottery and preface puzzles manifest central features of our concept of knowledge. The proposed version of relativism about knowledge is the only theory to respect those features. The view of knowledge presented in chapter 5 is not an isolated metaphysical extravagance, as the same framework is needed for the right metaphysics of everything that’s vague. It is worth noting that my solution to the lottery puzzle is metaphysical relativism about knowledge, but my rebuttal of Brain-In-a-Vat skepticism concerns epistemic circularity and belongs to normative epistemology. Much recent work incorrectly assumes that the two puzzles receive the same treatment. (shrink)

The paper addresses the phenomenology of inference. It proposes that the conscious character of conscious inferences is partly constituted by a sense of meaning; specifically, a sense of what Grice called ‘natural meaning’. In consciously drawing the (outright, categorical) conclusion that Q from a presumed fact that P, one senses the presumed fact that P as meaning that Q, where ‘meaning that’ expresses natural meaning. This sense of natural meaning is phenomenologically analogous, I suggest, to our sense of what is (...) said in fluently comprehending everyday utterances in our first language. The proposal that conscious inference involves a sense of natural meaning is compared with views according to which conscious inference involves taking the premises (i) to be good reasons for the conclusion (as defended by Thomson and Grice), (ii) to support it (as argued by Audi and, recently, Boghossian), or (iii) to imply it (as lately contended by Broome). I argue our proposal can explain certain phenomena handled by alternatives (i) and (ii), but that some further phenomena is handled by our account but not these alternatives. In relation to alternative (iii), I argue that, in so far as implicational and natural-meaning relations come apart, the latter are a better fit for what we sense or take to be so in conscious inference. (shrink)

I explore the possibility that propositional attitudes are not basic in folk psychology, and that what we really ascribe to people are relations to individuals, those that the apparently propositional contents of beliefs, desires, and other states concern. In particular, the relation between a state and the individuals that it tracks shows how ascription of propositional attitudes could grow out of ascription of relations between people and objects.

The general principle of epistemic closure stipulates that epistemic properties are transmissible through logical means. According to this principle, an epistemic operator, say ε, should satisfy any valid scheme of inference, such as: if ε(p entails q), then ε(p) entails ε(q). The principle of epistemic closure under known entailment (ECKE), a particular instance of epistemic closure, has received a good deal of attention since the last thirty years or so. ECKE states that: if one knows that p entails q, and (...) she knows that p, then she knows that q. It is widely accepted that ECKE constitutes an important piece of the skeptical argument, but the acceptance of an unrestricted version of ECKE is still a matter of debate. On the side of the defenders of ECKE, one finds Stine (1976), Brueckner (1985), Vogel (1990), and Feldman (1995). Others proposed a refutation or a limitation of the principle, like Dretske (1970), Nozick (1981), Hales (1995), Williams (1996), and Sosa (1999). As it turns out, the relevant alternatives view (RAV) elaborated by Dretske, which restricts the scope of ECKE, has been discussed extensively and acknowledged as one of the most important contributions. There is nonetheless a major unsolved difficulty pertaining to Dretske-RAV: the notion of relevant alternatives is defined in such a way that it is bounded by counterfactual possibilities. This ontological import leaves open the door to the skeptic. Some have tried to give more precision to this notion, like Stine (1976), who appealed to a Gricean approach to define relevant alternatives in conversational contexts. My proposal is in accordance with the gist of Dretske’s strategy, i.e. to restrict the validity of ECKE, and I claim that in order to escape the difficulties inherent to RAV one has to introduce a more robust notion, the notion of epistemic context. Epistemic contexts are a subclass of propositional contexts. In that perspective, the closure property is expressed in terms of a property of a relation between epistemic contexts. ECKE holds when and only when either the epistemic context of the premisses is the same as the epistemic context of the conclusion, or the epistemic context change between the premisses and the conclusion is permissible. Permissibility of epistemic context change is a function of consistency. By means of this epistemic context approach, I will show that: (1) epistemic contexts are defined by basic propositions (unchallenged justified beliefs), (2) ECKE holds only under very specific constraints, and (3) the skeptical argument involves a non-permissible change of epistemic context and, by the same token, cannot rely upon ECKE. (shrink)

In my 1991 paper, AAnti-Individualism and Privileged Access,@ I argued that externalism in the philosophy of mind is incompatible with the thesis that we have privileged , nonempirical access to the contents of our own thoughts.¹ One of the most interesting responses to my argument has been that of Martin Davies (1998, 2000, and Chapter _ above) and Crispin Wright (2000 and Chapter _ above), who describe several types of cases to show that warrant for a premise does not always (...) transmit to a known deductive consequence of that premise, and who contend that this fact under-mines my argument for incompatibilism. I will try to show here that the Davies/Wright point about transmission of warrant does not adversely affect my argument. (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)

Contrastivism about knowledge is the view that one does not just know some proposition. It is more adequate to say that one knows something rather than something else: I know that I am looking at a tree rather than a bush but I do not know that I am looking at a tree rather than a cleverly done tree imitation. Knowledge is a three-place relation between a subject, a proposition and a contrast set of propositions. There are several advantages of (...) a contrastivist view but also certain problems with it. (shrink)

Infallibilism is the claim that knowledge requires that one satisfies some infallibility condition. I spell out three distinct such conditions: epistemic, evidential and modal infallibility. Epistemic infallibility turns out to be simply a consequence of epistemic closure, and is not infallibilist in any relevant sense. Evidential infallibilism i s unwarranted but it is not an satisfactory characterization of the infallibilist intuition. Modal infallibility, by contrast, captures the core infallibilist intuition, and I argue that it is required to solve the Gettier (...) problem and account for lottery cases. Finally, I discuss whether modal infallibilism has sceptical consequences and argue that it is an open question whose answer depends on one’s account of alethic possibility. (shrink)

Let Entitlement Epistemology be the theory of knowledge which says that entitlement—a special kind of unearned warrant to accept or believe—can help us successfully address a range of sceptical arguments. Prominent versions of this theory urge that epistemology should not be concerned with knowledge (and similar externalist states) but rather with justification, warrant, and entitlement (at least insofar as these are conceived of as internalist states). Knowledge does not come first, half-way, or even last in epistemological theorising—rather, it ought to (...) come nowhere. The goal in what follows is two-fold: Firstly, to assess whether this extreme internalist version of Entitlement Epistemology is at all sustainable. (We shall find that it is not.) Secondly, to articulate a version of Entitlement Epistemology which arguably does much better. On the view to be explored, knowledge does not drop out of the epistemological picture: if we allow that there can be warrant for nothing, then there can be knowledge for nothing too. (shrink)

This paper focuses on a combination of the antiskeptical strategies offered by semantic externalism and the inference to the best explanation. I argue that the most difficult problems of the two strategies can be solved, if the strategies are combined: The strategy offered by semantic externalism is successful against standard skeptical brain-in-a-vat arguments. But the strategy is ineffective, if the skeptical argument is referring to the recent-envatment scenario. However, by focusing on the scenario of recent envatment the most difficult problems (...) of the antiskeptical strategy posed by the inference to the best explanation can be solved. The most difficult problems with this strategy are: Why is an explanation of our experience offered by the skeptical hypothesis more complex than our standard explanation? Why is the more complex explanation less likely to be true? By focussing on the recent envatment hypothesis both questions can be answered satisfactorily. Therefore, the combination of semantic externalism and the inference to the best explanation yields a powerful antiskeptical argument. (shrink)

Our knowledge forms a highly interconnected and dynamically changing body of propositions. One obviously important way that knowledge changes is via rational inference, based either upon new insight into the content of what we already know or upon new knowledge provided by the senses. The most obvious codification of the acceptability of inference driven knowledge growth is the so-called known entailment closure principle, the principle that if S knows that p and knows that p implies q then S knows that (...) q, or, more formally. (shrink)

I am concerned with epistemic closure—the phenomenon in which some knowledge requires other knowledge. In particular, I defend a version of the closure principle in terms of analyticity; if an agent S knows that p is true, then S knows that all analytic parts of p are true as well. After targeting the relevant notion of analyticity, I argue that this principle accommodates intuitive cases and possesses the theoretical resources to avoid the preface paradox. I close by arguing that contextualists (...) who maintain that knowledge attributions are closed within—but not between—linguistic contexts are tacitly committed to this principle’s truth. (shrink)

Empirical examinations about cross-cultural variability of intuitions, the well-known publication of Stich and his colleagues criticiz-ing thought-experiments and intuitions in philosophical debates, is still a challenge that faces analytical philosophers, as any systematic investigation of the methodology of philosophy must give answers to these basic questions: What is intuition? What role should intuitions play in philosophy? I present and examine the sceptical argument of experimental philosophers, and claim that experimental philosophers misunderstand the role of evidence in philosophy. My argument will (...) utilize Goldman’s view, according to which intuitions give reliable evidence about a person’s concepts, and this knowledge is valuable for further philosophical research as well. I will argue that the sceptical conclusions of experimental philosophers are harmless against this conception of philosophy, because even from a naturalist perspective certain kind of intuitive judgments about our concepts can be warranted, and this grants the specific epistemic status of intuitions. Of course, the reliability of introspection can be challenged. However, denying self-knowledge about my internal mental states is disputable – as I will show – both from a philosophical and a scientific point of view. (shrink)

The aim of this dissertation is to show that, if one is committed to the scientific worldview, one is thereby committed to ethical non-naturalism. In the first chapter I offer the reader an outline of the three primary domains of ethical inquiry: normative ethics, applied ethics, and meta-ethics. I commit myself to a meta-ethical thesis--ethical non-naturalism--and contrast ethical non-naturalism with its competitors. In the second chapter I offer a cursory defense of the moral realist's semantic thesis. I offer reason to (...) think the realist has the correct semantic account and argue against the semantic accounts offered by the realist's primary opponents. In the third chapter of the dissertation I argue that commitment to the scientific worldview requires that one think that the methods of the sciences provide privileged access to facts about the external world and I offer a brief sketch of inference to the best explanation--the primary method I will employ in offering a defense of ethical non-naturalism. In the fourth chapter I develop a method for identifying non-natural properties. The method relies heavily on the predictive power that can be gained by the accurate application of predicates. In the fifth chapter I apply the method developed in the previous chapter. The results are mixed. The method fails to demonstrate that there are non-natural moral facts; however, it does demonstrate that there are non-natural normative facts. Using this result as a lemma, I identify a hypothesis--"[H]"--that, if true, would vindicate ethical non-naturalism. In the sixth chapter I rely on [H] to respond to evolutionary criticisms of ethical non-naturalism and argue that, if morality evolved, we have good reason to believe [H]. In the final chapter, I defend the view I have developed from objections arising from the existence of moral disagreement and I argue that [H] provides the best explanation of the existence of actual moral disagreement. (shrink)

The problem of philosophical skepticism relates to the difficulty involved in underwriting the claim that we know anything of spatio-temporal reality. It is often claimed, in fact, that proper philosophical scrutiny reveals quite the opposite from what common sense suggests. Knowledge of external reality is thought to be even quite obviously denied to us as a result of the alleged fact that we all fail to know that certain skeptical scenarios do not obtain. A skeptical scenario is one in which (...) we have neurological occurrences just like any normal situation in which we actually perceive spatio-temporal objects, but where we are deceived in some sense as a result of the manipulation of our brains from some outside source. In this work I attempt to address the problem of philosophical skepticism by claiming that most of us are able to come to know plenty about external reality, since we can come to realize that a certain philosophical theory of perception is correct. The theory I have in mind is what I call a non-cognitive theory of perception. According to this view, perceptual experience is defined by continuous, sensitive behavioral interaction with spatio-temporal objects of the appropriate size, shape, hardness, speed, etc. Knowing that this theory of perception is correct is equivalent to knowing that we know plenty about external reality. This is ultimately because by knowing that a non-cognitive theory of perception is true, we know that any skeptical scenario must fail to obtain. The structure of the work proceeds by first discussing the significance of the problem of philosophical skepticism in some detail. Chapter 1 lays out how the problem does indeed forcefully arise if it is conceded that we fail to know that the skeptical scenarios fail to obtain. Chapter 2 develops the sort of view of our epistemological situation that falls out of accepting without qualification that the problem exists. Chapter 3 examines and criticizes certain popular responses to the skeptical problem. The main goal of these first three preliminary chapters is to indicate that once it is admitted that we fail to know that the skeptical scenarios fail to obtain, the problem of philosophical skepticism forcefully presents itself. Chapter 4, however, attacks the idea that we fail to know that the skeptical scenarios fail to obtain. In this chapter I argue that this idea is wedded to the position that a certain theory of perception is correct. The theory in question is what I call a conjunctive theory of veridical experience. According to this view, normal experience of spatio-temporal objects occurs when a subject has a certain perceptual experience, and that experience also happens to match up with and/or be satisfied by what is really the case. Only when a theory of this sort is assumed, I argue, is the claim that we fail to know that the skeptical scenarios fail to obtain found to be obvious. In chapter 5 I argue that, in fact, a non-cognitive theory, rather than a conjunctive theory, is the correct view to maintain. In the final chapter 6 I develop the epistemological position that falls out of accepting a non-cognitive theory. (shrink)

U ovom radu analizira se rešenje skeptičkog paradoksa koje pruža teorija relevantnih alternativa. Ispituju se i upoređuju dve verzije ovog rešenja: nekontekstualistič- ka čiji je tvorac i zastupnik Fred Drecke, i kontekstualistička koju zastupaju autori poput Kita Dirouza i Stjuarta Koena. Uporednom analizom nekontekstualističkog i kontekstuali- stičkog rešenja, dolazi se do zaključka da, iako oba rešenja imaju i povoljne i nepovoljne implikacije, Dreckeova teorija relevantnih alternativa nudi uverljivije objašnjenje, a zatim i rešenje skeptičkog paradoksa.