Much of the recent work on epistemology of inquiry defends two related theses. First, inquiry into a question rationally prohibits believing an answer to that question. Second, knowledge is the aim of inquiry. I develop a series of cases which indicate that inquiry is not as narrow as these views suggest. These cases can be accommodated if we take a broader approach and understand inquiry as aiming at epistemic improvement, described more generally. This approach captures a wider range of inquiring (...) phenomena because it accounts for forms of epistemic improvement that fall short of, or go beyond, coming to know the answer to a question. (shrink)

A growing number of epistemologists have endorsed the Ignorance Norm for Inquiry. Roughly, this norm says that one should not inquire into a question unless one is ignorant of its answer. I argue that, in addition to ignorance, proper inquiry requires a certain kind of knowledge. Roughly, one should not inquire into a question unless one knows it has a true answer. I call this the Knowledge Norm for Inquiry. Proper inquiry walks a fine line, holding knowledge that there is (...) an answer in the left hand and ignorance of the answer in the right. (shrink)

What sort of epistemic positions are compatible with inquiries driven by interrogative attitudes like wonder and puzzlement? The ignorance norm provides a partial answer: interrogative attitudes directed at a particular question are never compatible with knowledge of the question’s answer. But some are tempted to think that interrogative attitudes are incompatible with weaker positions like belief as well. This paper defends that the ignorance norm is exhaustive. All epistemic positions weaker than knowledge directed at the answer to a question are (...) compatible with having an interrogative attitude towards that question. We offer two arguments for this conclusion. The first is based on considerations about the role of hedging in inquiry. The second is conditional on considerations related to the aim of inquiry as a goal-directed activity. (shrink)

What is the relationship between inquiry and epistemology? Are epistemic norms the norms that guide us as inquirers—as agents in the pursuit of knowledge and understanding? Recently, there has been growing support for what I, following Friedman (Philosophical Review 129(4):501–536, 2020), will call the zetetic turn in epistemology, the view that all epistemic norms are norms of inquiry. This paper investigates the prospects of an inquiry-centered approach to epistemology and develops several motivations for resisting it. First, I argue that the (...) norms of inquiry are most plausibly seen as practical, not as distinctively epistemic. Second, I argue that a zetetically-grounded epistemology is unable to properly account for the rationality of belief. It fails to account for cases where intuitively irrational beliefs promote inquiry, or where intuitively rational beliefs are zetetically useless or counterproductive to inquiry. The main upshot is this: there must be a source of epistemic normativity that isn’t ultimately zetetic. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

A puzzle arises when combining two individually plausible, yet jointly incompatible, norms of inquiry. On the one hand, it seems that one shouldn’t inquire into a question while believing an answer to that question. But, on the other hand, it seems rational to inquire into a question while believing its answer, if one is seeking confirmation. Millson (2021), who has recently identified this puzzle, suggests a possible solution, though he notes that it comes with significant costs. I offer an alternative (...) solution, which doesn’t involve these costs. The best way to resolve the puzzle is to reject the prohibition on inquiring into a question while believing an answer to it. Resolving the puzzle in this way makes salient two fruitful areas in the epistemology of inquiry which merit further investigation. The first concerns the nature of the inquiring attitudes and the second concerns the aim(s) of inquiry. (shrink)

This article provides an overview of recent work on norms of inquiry. After some preliminaries about inquiry in §1, I discuss in §2 the ignorance norm for inquiry, presenting arguments for and against, as well as some alternatives. In §3, I consider its relation to the aim of inquiry. In §4, I discuss positive norms on inquiry: norms that require having rather than lacking certain states. Finally, in §5, I look at questions about the place of norms of inquiry within (...) normative epistemology. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

Inquiry is an aim-directed activity, and as such governed by instrumental normativity. If you have reason to figure out a question, you have reason to take means to figuring it out. Beliefs are governed by epistemic normativity. On a certain pervasive understanding, this means that you are permitted – maybe required – to believe what you have sufficient evidence for. The norms of inquiry and epistemic norms both govern us as agents in pursuit of knowledge and understanding, and, on the (...) surface, they do so in harmony. Recently, however, Jane Friedman (2020) has pointed out that they are in tension with each other. In this paper, I aim to resolve this tension by showing that reasons for acts of inquiry – zetetic reasons – and epistemic reasons for belief can both be understood as flowing from the same general normative principle: the transmission principle for instrumental reasons. The resulting account is a version of epistemic instrumentalism that offers an attractive unity between zetetic and epistemic normativity. (shrink)

A long line of epistemologists including Sosa (2021), Feldman (2002), and Chisholm (1977) have argued that, at least for a certain class of questions that we take up, we should (or should aim to) close inquiry iff by closing inquiry we would meet a unique epistemic standard. I argue that no epistemic norm of this general form is true: there is not a single epistemic standard that demarcates the boundary between inquiries we are forbidden and obligated to close. In short, (...) such norms are false because they are insensitive to the potentially ambitious epistemic goals that agents may permissibly bring to bear on an inquiry. Focusing particularly on knowledge-oriented versions of the norm, I argue that ignorance has a positive role to play in epistemic life by licensing prolonged inquiry into questions that we especially care about. (shrink)

It is argued that the two main accounts of ignorance in the contemporary literature—in the terms of the lack of knowledge and the lack of true belief—are lacking in key respects. A new way of thinking about ignorance is offered that can accommodate the motivations for both of the standard views, but which in the process also avoids the problems that afflict these proposals. In short, this new account of ignorance incorporates the idea that ignorance essentially involves not just the (...) absence of a certain epistemic good, but also an intellectual failing of inquiry. It is further contended that making sense of this normative dimension to ignorance requires one to situate one’s account of ignorance within a wider epistemic axiology. (shrink)

There are norms for asking questions. Inquirers should not ask questions to which they know the answer. The literature on the norms of asking has focused on such speaker-centered norms. But, as I argue, there are addressee-centered norms as well: inquirers should not ask addressees who fall short of a certain epistemic status. That epistemic status, I argue here, is knowledge.

Drawing inspiration from the notion of evocation employed in inferential erotetic logic, we defend an ‘evoked questions norm’ on inquiring attitudes. According to this norm, it is rational to have an inquiring attitude concerning a question only if that question is evoked by your background information. We offer two arguments for this norm. First, we develop an argument from convergence. Insights from several independent literatures (20th-century ordinary-language philosophy, inferential erotetic logic, inquisitive epistemic logic, and contemporary zetetic epistemology) all converge on (...) the evoked questions norm. Second, we show that suitably interpreted, the evoked questions norm correctly predicts several underappreciated kinds of bad questions. It does this, in part, by recovering versions of previously defended ignorance and knowledge norms. Some of those bad questions cannot be predicted by either norm singly, but only when corporately taken to reflect a common normative category. We identify this category as evocation. (shrink)

This paper connects two important debates in epistemology—to wit, on the goal of inquiry and on the nature of understanding—and offers a unified knowledge-based account of both.

This paper aims to develop a novel account of the normativity of assertion. Its core thesis is that assertion has an etiological epistemic function, viz. to generate knowledge in hearers. In conjunction with a general account of etiological functions and their normative import, it is argued that an assertion is epistemically good if and only if it has the disposition to generate knowledge in hearers. In addition, reason is provided to believe that it makes sense to regulate the practice of (...) assertion by a speaker rule—and, more specifically, by a knowledge rule—as so regulating assertion contributes to ensuring that assertion fulfils its etiological function reliably. (shrink)

I defend the thesis that the constitutive aim of inquiring into some question, Q, is improving one’s epistemic standing with respect to Q. Call this the epistemic-improvement view. I consider and ultimately reject two alternative accounts of the constitutive aim of inquiry—namely, the thesis that inquiry aims at knowledge and the thesis that inquiry aims at belief—and I use my criticisms as a foil for clarifying and motivating the epistemic-improvement view. I also consider and reject a pair of normative theses (...) about when inquiry goes awry or is inappropriate. The first is the normative thesis defended by Dennis Whitcomb who claims that inquiry goes awry if it culminates in a belief that falls short of knowledge and that one should not inquire into Q if one already knows the answer to Q. The second is the normative thesis defended by Jane Friedman who claims that one should not inquire into Q if one already believes some complete answer to Q. (shrink)

The current literature on norms of inquiry features two families of norms: norms that focus on an inquirer’s ignorance and norms that focus on the question’s soundness. I argue that, given a factive conception of ignorance, it’s possible to derive a soundness-style norm from a version of the ignorance norm. A crucial lemma in the argument is that just as one can only be ignorant of a proposition if the proposition is true, so one can only be ignorant with respect (...) to a question if the question is sound. (shrink)

It can be rational to inquire into what you already know, as cases of double-checking suggest. But, I argue, this is compatible with a knowledge aim of inquiry. In general, it can be rational to pursue an aim you’ve already achieved, and inquiry is no different. In particular, I argue that to double-check what you already know is to make sure you have knowledge, and that is still to aim at knowledge.

The idea that truth is the fundamental epistemic good is explained and defended. It is argued that this proposal has been prematurely rejected on grounds that are both independently problematic and which also turn on an implausible way of understanding the proposal. A more compelling account of what it means for truth to be the fundamental epistemic good is then developed, one that treats the intellectual virtues, and thereby virtuous inquiry, as the primary theoretical notion.

Why engage in inquiry? According to many philosophers, the goal of inquiring into some question is to come to know its answer. While this view holds considerable appeal, this paper argues that it stands in tension with another highly attractive thesis: knowledge does not require absolute certainty. Forced to choose between these two theses, I argue that we should reject the idea that inquiry aims at knowledge. I go on to develop an alternative view, according to which inquiry aims at (...) maximizing the epistemic value of our credences. This alternative view makes room for knowledge that falls shy of certainty, and it coheres nicely with a rich body of work in epistemic decision theory. I proceed to highlight the implications of this replacement for some important topics in epistemology, including the dogmatism paradox, the nature of interrogative attitudes, and the norm of practical reasoning. (shrink)

Group agents can act, and they can have knowledge. How should we understand the species of collective action which aims at knowledge? In this paper, I present an account of group inquiry. This account faces two challenges: to make sense of how large-scale distributed activities might be a kind of group action, and to make sense of the kind of division of labour involved in collective inquiry. In the first part of the paper, I argue that existing accounts of group (...) action face problems dealing with large-scale group actions, and propose a minimal alternative account. In the second part of the paper, I draw on an analogy between inquiry and conversation, arguing that work by Robert Stalnaker and Craige Roberts helps us to think about the division of labour. In the final part of the paper I put the accounts of group action and inquiry together, and consider how to think about group knowledge, deep ignorance, and the different kinds of division of labour. (shrink)

The idea of is explored. It is claimed that there is something epistemically important about acquiring one's knowledge first-hand via active perception rather than second-hand via testimony. Moreover, it is claimed that this kind of active perceptual seeing it for oneself is importantly related to the kind of understanding that is acquired when one possesses a correct and appropriately detailed explanation of how cause and effect are related. In both cases we have a kind of seeing it for oneself which (...) serves what is claimed to be a fundamental good: intellectual autonomy. It is argued that this proposal leads to a distinctive view about the goal of inquiry as often being a certain kind of knowledge rather than knowledge simpliciter. Finally, it is claimed that treating intellectual autonomy as a fundamental good is entirely compatible with granting that there is an important social dimension to our epistemic practices. (shrink)

The fact that philosophy is systematic—that philosophical issues are thoroughly interconnected—was a commonplace among nineteenth century idealists, then neglected by analytic philosophers throughout much of the twentieth century, and has now finally started to get some renewed attention. But other than calling attention to the fact, few philosophers have tried to say what it consists in, or what its implications are. -/- I argue that the systematicity of philosophy has disastrous epistemological implications. In particular, it implies philosophical skepticism: philosophers are (...) rationally prohibited from believing any philosophical thesis. The argument goes by way of a new principle that connects inquiry with what is rational to believe. I conclude with a discussion of the relationship between my argument and other, more well-trodden arguments for philosophical skepticism. (shrink)

Inquiry is an aim-directed activity, and as such governed by instrumental normativity. If you have reason to figure out a question, you have reason to take means to figuring it out. Beliefs are governed by epistemic normativity. On a certain pervasive understanding, this means that you are permitted – maybe required – to believe what you have sufficient evidence for. The norms of inquiry and epistemic norms both govern us as agents in pursuit of knowledge and understanding, and, on the (...) surface, they do so in harmony. Recently, however, Jane Friedman (2020, “The Epistemic and the Zetetic.” The Philosophical Review 129: 501–536) has pointed out that they are in tension with each other. In this paper, I aim to resolve this tension by showing that reasons for acts of inquiry – zetetic reasons – and epistemic reasons for belief can both be understood as flowing from the same general normative principle: the transmission principle for instrumental reasons. The resulting account is a version of epistemic instrumentalism that offers an attractive unity between zetetic and epistemic normativity. (shrink)

The value of knowledge has always been a central topic within epistemology. Going all the way back to Plato’s Meno, philosophers have asked, why is knowledge more valuable than mere true belief? Interest in this question has grown in recent years, with theorists proposing a range of answers. But some reject the premise of the question and claim that the value of knowledge is ‘swamped’ by the value of true belief. And others argue that statuses other than knowledge, such as (...) justification or understanding, are distinctively valuable. We will call the general question of why knowledge is valuable the value problem. (shrink)

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

An overview is presented of what I take to be the role of the intellectual virtues within the epistemological enterprise. Traditionally, the theory of knowledge has been thought to be central to the epistemological project, but since, as I explain, the intellectual virtues aren’t required for knowledge, this might suggest that they have only a marginal role to play in epistemological debates. I argue against this suggestion by showing how the intellectual virtues are in fact crucial to several core epistemological (...) topics, including the nature of inquiry, epistemic axiology and our understanding of ignorance. (shrink)

The lottery paradox shows that the following three individually highly plausible theses are jointly incompatible: highly probable propositions are justifiably believable, justified believability is closed under conjunction introduction, known contradictions are not justifiably believable. This paper argues that a satisfactory solution to the lottery paradox must reject as versions of the paradox can be generated without appeal to either or and proposes a new solution to the paradox in terms of a novel account of justified believability.

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 (...) theories in epistemology take rationality to require in cases of disagreement. We argue that the epistemic benefits that result from the deliberative division of epistemic labor can provide epistemic reason to maintain confidence in cases of disagreement. We then show that the deliberative division of epistemic labor constitutes a distinct kind of epistemic dependence. (shrink)

My interest is in an apparent tension between two epistemological theses. The first is veritism, which is roughly the claim that truth is the fundamental epistemic good. The second is the idea that understanding is the proper goal of inquiry. The two theses seem to be in tension because the former seems to imply that the proper goal of inquiry should be truth rather than understanding. And yet there is a strong prima facie case to be made for thinking that (...) properly conducted inquiry aims at an elevated epistemic standing like understanding rather than merely true belief. I suggest that this putative tension is one of the reasons why veritism is these days not widely endorsed. As I show, however, there is in fact no tension between these two claims, at least once they are each properly understood. Indeed, I will be suggesting that there is a plausible conception of veritism which would explain why intellectual exemplars seek out understanding in inquiry. (shrink)

We examine two leading theories of rational belief, the Lockean view and the explanationist view. The first is appealing because it fits with some independently plausible claims about the ways that rational persons pursue their aims. The second is appealing because it seems to account for intuitions that cause trouble for the Lockean view. While fitting the intuitive data is desirable, we are troubled that the explanationist view seems to clash with our theoretical beliefs about what rationality must be like. (...) We think that upon further examination, the intuitive appeal of the explanationist view starts to diminish. We also think that these further intuitions that spell trouble for the explanationist spell trouble for any theory that is not expectationist. We propose a novel expectationist theory of rational belief that improves upon the Lockean and the explanationist views. We think that recent defences of the Lockean view contain an important insight. A substantive theory of rational response should be based on a suitable theory of prizes and a suitable theory of how we should pursue prizes in the face of uncertainty. Most theories of rational belief typically take for granted a truth-centred picture of epistemic prizes (e.g., that epistemic desirability and undesirability can be fully understood in terms of accuracy) and then differ in terms of how they recommend pursuing prizes so understood. We think the Lockeans embrace plausible principles of how prizes should be pursued. We trace the difficulties that this view faces to veritistic assumptions about prizes. We suggest that some prizes are epistemically loaded in that a complete description of the prize will itself make reference to our epistemic states or standards. We argue that knowledge matters to rational belief and choice because in the epistemic domain, knowledge is the prize. We see this in practical domains, too. In some choice settings, what's desired is desired, in part, because it involves a kind of connection to reality only knowledge provides. (shrink)

Many philosophers have recently challenged the monistic idea that knowledge is the sole aim of our inquiries into questions. Specifically, by giving examples, they argue that we can factually and legitimately inquire into questions to achieve states different from the mere knowledge of the correct and complete answer. Given this, they end up with a pluralistic stance about the aim of our inquiries into questions. In this paper, I will show that the pluralists’ cases do not seriously threaten knowledge monism. (...) First, I will describe how a knowledge monist can slightly revise her position and motivate the following claim: The aim of our inquiries into questions is not the mere knowledge but the occurrent knowledge of the correct and complete answer – a type of knowledge that is operative in our actions and cognition. Second, I will show how the monist can defend this position from the cases the pluralists offer by highlighting how our inquiries come in a variety and are bound to contextual aspects. Finally, by analysing the monist’s strategy further, I will end up with a new theory of inquiry: A theory that is contextualist, pluralist about the variety of inquiries, but monistic about their specific aims. (shrink)

My interest is in how shifting from an anti-luck epistemology to an anti-risk epistemology can enable us to make sense of some important epistemic phenomena. After rehearsing the more general arguments for preferring anti-risk epistemology over its anti-luck cousin, I argue that a further advantage of this transition lies in how it puts us in a better position to understand certain trade-offs with regard to epistemic risk. In particular, there can be ways of forming beliefs that are epistemically low risk (...) along one axis of evaluation while being epistemically high risk along another axis of evaluation. I further show how this idea plays out in terms of collaborative inquiries, where the framework provided by anti-risk epistemology enables us to understand how epistemic risk can be distributed across such a collective enterprise and thereby effectively managed. (shrink)

Knowledge is good, ignorance is bad. So it seems, anyway. But in this dissertation, I argue that some ignorance is epistemically valuable. Sometimes, we should suspend judgment even though by believing we would achieve knowledge. In this apology for ignorance (ignorance, that is, of a certain kind), I defend the following four theses: 1) Sometimes, we should continue inquiry in ignorance, even though we are in a position to know the answer, in order to achieve more than mere knowledge (e.g. (...) understanding) while minimizing the effects of confirmation bias. 2) It’s false that we should believe every proposition such that we are guaranteed to be right about it (and even such that we are guaranteed to know it) if we believe it. 3) Being in a position to know is the norm of assertion: importantly, this does not require belief or (thereby) knowledge, and so proper assertion can survive speaker-ignorance. 4) It can be permissible and conversationally useful to tell audiences things that it is logically impossible for them to come to know: Proper assertion can survive (necessary) audience-side ignorance. Cumulatively, this project suggests that, properly understood, ignorance has an important role to play in the good epistemic life. (shrink)

This paper develops a novel, functionalist, unified account of the epistemic normativity of reasoning. On this view, epistemic norms drop out of epistemic functions. I argue that practical reasoning serves a prudential function of generating prudentially permissible action, and the epistemic function of generating knowledge of what one ought to do. This picture, if right, goes a long way towards normatively divorcing action and practical reasoning. At the same time, it unifies reasoning epistemically: practical and theoretical reasoning will turn out (...) to be governed by the same epistemic norm—knowledge—in virtue of serving the same epistemic function: generating knowledge of the conclusion. (shrink)

In this paper, we propose a general constraint on theories of knowledge that we call ‘normalism’. Normalism is a view about the epistemic threshold that separates knowledge from mere true belief; its basic claim is that one knows only if one has at least a normal amount of epistemic support for one’s belief. We argue that something like normalism is required to do full justice to the normative role of knowledge in many key everyday practices, such as assertion, inquiry, and (...) testimony. The view of normality we employ to flesh out this claim is inspired by experimental work on the folk notion of normality, which suggests that folk judgments of what is ‘normal’ are based upon both statistical averages as well as normative ideals within the relevant target domain. Adopting this notion of normality to set the threshold for knowledge results in a view upon which knowledge is routinely available on an everyday basis without being a merely trivial achievement. We explore several interesting consequences of this view, including the implication that the threshold for knowing may change as, e.g., the ease of availability of information in an epistemic community changes over time. The result is a ‘shifty’ view of knowledge which nonetheless retains more stability than standard contextualist or pragmatic encroachment approaches. (shrink)

DeRose famously argued that, given that assertability varies with practical context, we cannot combine a biconditional knowledge norm of assertion with classical invariantism. The first aim of this paper is to show that De Rose's argument is ultimately unsuccessful. Second, I develop a view, entitled Assertion Functionalism, which combines the knowledge norm with classical invariantism and at the same time offers an appealing account of the intuitive variability of proper assertion.

In his recent book, Knowing and Checking, Guido Melchior argues that, when we attempt to check whether p, we tend to think that we do not know p. Melchior then uses this assumption to explain a number of puzzles about knowledge. One outstanding question for Melchior's account, however, is why this tendency exists. After all, Melchior himself argues that checking is not necessary for knowing, so why would we think that we fail to know that p when we are in (...) the midst of checking that p? I will explore one such suggestion for why this occurs, arguing that the connection between checking and inquiry can shed light on the impact that checking has on knowing. (shrink)

Various philosophers have recently defended norms of inquiry which forbid inquiry into questions which lack true answers. I argue that these norms are overly restrictive, and that they fail to capture an important relationship between inquiry and our position as non-ideal epistemic agents. I defend a more flexible and forgiving norm: Epistemic Improvement. According to this norm, inquiry into a question is permissible only if it’s not rational for one to be sure that by inquiring one won’t improve epistemically upon (...) the question. This norm illuminates the significant role that inquiry plays in our lives, given our epistemic nonideality, and it also motivates a robust understanding of the value of inquiry, as encompassing epistemic improvements which go beyond figuring out the answers to questions. (shrink)

The value of knowledge has always been a central topic within epistemology. Going all the way back to Plato’s Meno, philosophers have asked, why is knowledge more valuable than mere true belief? Interest in this question has grown in recent years, with theorists proposing a range of answers. But some reject the premise of the question and claim that the value of knowledge is ‘swamped’ by the value of true belief. And others argue that statuses other than knowledge, such as (...) justification or understanding, are distinctively valuable. We will call the general question of why knowledge is valuable the value problem. (shrink)

Recent philosophical work on inquiry yields important results about when it is appropriate to inquire and to what extent norms on inquiry are compatible with other epistemic norms. However, philosophers have been remarkably silent on the matter of what questions we ought to take up in the first place. In this paper, I take up this question, and argue that moral considerations constitute fit-related, right-kind reasons to adopt interrogative attitudes towards, and so inquire about, particular questions. This is a conclusion (...) of more general interest, because – as I explain – we might think that moral considerations are at best wrong-kind reasons for attitudes. If my contentions are right, then there is at least one kind of attitude – namely interrogative attitudes – of which this is not true. (shrink)

Suppose an inquiring group wants to let a certain view stand as the group's view. But there’s a problem: the individuals in that group do not initially all agree with one another about what the correct view is. What should the group do, given that it wants to settle on a single answer, in the face of this kind of intragroup disagreement? Should the group members deliberate and exchange evidence and then take a vote? Or, given the well-known ways that (...) evidence exchange can go wrong, e.g., by exacerbating pre-existing biases, compromising the independence of individual judgments, etc., should the group simply take a vote without deliberating at all? While this question has multiple dimensions to it—including ethical and political dimensions—we approach the question through an epistemological lens. In particular, we investigate to what extent it is epistemically advantageous and disadvantageous that groups whose members disagree over some issue use deliberation in comparison to voting as a way to reach collective agreements. Extant approaches in the literature to this ‘deliberation versus voting’ comparison typically assume there is some univocal answer as to which group strategy is best, epistemically. We think this assumption is mistaken. We approach the deliberation versus voting question from a pluralist perspective, in that we hold that a group’s collective endeavor to solve an internal dispute can be aimed at different, albeit not necessarily incompatible, epistemic goals, namely the goals of truth, evidence, understanding, and epistemic justice. Different answers to our guiding question, we show, correspond with different epistemic goals. We conclude by exploring several ways to mitigate the potential epistemic disadvantages of solving intragroup disagreement by means of deliberation in relation to each epistemic goal. (shrink)

Este texto tem como objetivo apresentar a principal motivação filosófica para se defender uma teoria causal da memória, que é explicar como pode um evento que se deu no passado estar relacionado a uma experiência mnêmica que se dá no presente. Para tanto, iniciaremos apresentando a noção de memória de maneira informal e geral, para depois apresentar elementos mais detalhados. Finalizamos apresentando uma teoria causal da memória que se beneficia da noção de veritação (truthmaking).

Fassio and Gao (2021) object to a knowledge-based decision theory on the ground that it cannot deal with unsuccessful inquiry. One way for inquiry to fail is not to know what one should know. If one’s inquiry fails in this way, is a subsequent choice in any way wrong when based on one’s limited actual knowledge? This paper discusses two strategies for dealing with this problem. On a first strategy, there is nothing wrong with such a choice (but something went (...) wrong prior to one’s choice). On a second strategy, there is something wrong with one’s choice and a knowledge-based decision theory should require that one’s decisions be based on the knowledge one should have, not merely on the knowledge one actually has. (shrink)

Tyler Burge notably offers a truth‐first account of perceptual entitlement in terms of a priori necessary representational functions and norms: on his account, epistemic normativity turns on natural norms, which turn on representational functions. This paper has two aims: first, it criticises Tyler Burge's truth‐first a priori derivation on functionalist and value‐theoretic grounds. Second, it develops a novel, knowledge‐first a priori derivation of perceptual entitlement. According to the view developed here, it is a priori that we are entitled to believe (...) the deliverances of our perceptual belief formation system, in virtue of the latter's constitutive function of generating knowledge. (shrink)