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Friedman on suspended judgment

Synthese 197 (11):5009-5026 (2020)

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  1. Being neutral: Agnosticism, inquiry and the suspension of judgment.Matthew McGrath - 2021 - Noûs 55 (2):463-484.
    Epistemologists often claim that in addition to belief and disbelief there is a third, neutral, doxastic attitude. Various terms are used: ‘suspending judgment’, ‘withholding’, ‘agnosticism’. It is also common to claim that the factors relevant to the justification of these attitudes are epistemic in the narrow sense of being factors that bear on the strength or weakness of one’s epistemic position with respect to the target proposition. This paper addresses two challenges to such traditionalism about doxastic attitudes. The first concerns (...)
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  • Coherence as Joint Satisfiability.Samuel Fullhart & Camilo Martinez - 2024 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 102 (2):312-332.
    According to many philosophers, rationality is, at least in part, a matter of one’s attitudes cohering with one another. Theorists who endorse this idea have devoted much attention to formulating various coherence requirements. Surprisingly, they have said very little about what it takes for a set of attitudes to be coherent in general. We articulate and defend a general account on which a set of attitudes is coherent just in case and because it is logically possible for the attitudes to (...)
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  • There are no epistemic norms of inquiry.David Thorstad - 2022 - Synthese 200 (5):1-24.
    Epistemic nihilism for inquiry is the claim that there are no epistemic norms of inquiry. Epistemic nihilism was once the received stance towards inquiry, and I argue that it should be taken seriously again. My argument is that the same considerations which led us away from epistemic nihilism in the case of belief not only cannot refute epistemic nihilism for inquiry, but in fact may well support it. These include the argument from non-existence that there are no non-epistemic reasons for (...)
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  • Norms of Inquiry.Eliran Haziza - 2023 - Philosophy Compass 18 (12):e12952.
    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 (...)
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  • Seeking confirmation: A puzzle for norms of inquiry.Jared Millson - 2020 - Analysis 80 (4):683-693.
    Like other epistemic activities, inquiry seems to be governed by norms. Some have argued that one such norm forbids us from believing the answer to a question and inquiring into it at the same time. But another, hither-to neglected norm seems to permit just this sort of cognitive arrangement when we seek to confirm what we currently believe. In this paper, I suggest that both norms are plausible and that the conflict between them constitutes a puzzle. Drawing on the felicity (...)
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  • Agnosticism as settled indecision.Verena Wagner - 2021 - Philosophical Studies 179 (2):671-697.
    In this paper, I spell out a descriptive account of agnosticism that captures the intuitive view that a subject enters the mental state of agnosticism via an act or event called suspension. I will argue that agnosticism is a complex mental state, and that the formation of an attitude is the relevant act or event by which a subject commits to indecision regarding some matter. I will suggest a ‘two-component analysis’ that addresses two aspects that jointly account for the settled (...)
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  • Suspending judgment the correct way.Luis Rosa - 2020 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 66 (10):2001-2023.
    In this paper I present reasons for us to accept the hypothesis that suspended judgment has correctness conditions, just like beliefs do. Roughly put, the idea is that suspended judgment about p is correct when both p and ¬p might be true in view of certain facts that characterize the subject’s situation. The reasons to accept that hypothesis are broadly theoretical ones: it adds unifying power to our epistemological theories, it delivers good and conservative consequences, and it allows us to (...)
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  • Acceptance and the ethics of belief.Laura K. Soter - 2023 - Philosophical Studies 180 (8):2213-2243.
    Various philosophers authors have argued—on the basis of powerful examples—that we can have compelling moral or practical reasons to believe, even when the evidence suggests otherwise. This paper explores an alternative story, which still aims to respect widely shared intuitions about the motivating examples. Specifically, the paper proposes that what is at stake in these cases is not belief, but rather acceptance—an attitude classically characterized as taking a proposition as a premise in practical deliberation and action. I suggest that acceptance’s (...)
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  • Inquiry, Questions, and Actions.Benoit Guilielmo - 2024 - Dialogue 63 (2):339-356.
    This article aims to contribute to the elucidation of the nature of inquiry. I start with some common desiderata for any theory of inquiry. I then categorize inquiry as a structured process. By focusing on its essential components, I advance a new characterization of inquiry as a combination of questioning attitudes guiding actions. Finally, I turn to the recent objection that questioning attitudes are not necessary for inquiry. I argue that inquiry is a structured process essentially constituted by questioning attitudes (...)
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  • Suspending Judgment is Something You Do.Lindsay Crawford - 2022 - Episteme 19 (4):561-577.
    What is it to suspend judgment about whether p? Much of the recent work on the nature and normative profile of suspending judgment aims to analyze it as a kind of doxastic attitude. On some of these accounts, suspending judgment about whether p partly consists in taking up a certain higher-order belief about one's deficient epistemic position with respect to whether p. On others, suspending judgment about whether p consists in taking up a sui generis attitude, one that takes the (...)
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  • Rational Suspension.Alexandra Zinke - 2021 - Theoria 87 (5):1050-1066.
    The article argues that there are different ways of justifying suspension of judgement. We suspend judgement not only privatively, that is, because we lack evidence, but also positively, that is, because there is evidence that provides reasons for suspending judgement: suspension is more than the rational fallback position in cases of insufficient evidence. The article applies the distinction to recent discussions about the role of suspension for inquiry, Turri's puzzle about withholding, and formal representations of suspension.
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  • Pyrrhonism Past and Present: Inquiry, Disagreement, Self-Knowledge, and Rationality.Diego E. Machuca - 2022 - Cham:
    This book explores the nature and significance of Pyrrhonism, the most prominent and influential form of skepticism in Western philosophy. Not only did Pyrrhonism play an important part in the philosophical scene of the Hellenistic and Imperial age, but it also had a tremendous impact on Renaissance and modern philosophy and continues to be a topic of lively discussion among both scholars of ancient philosophy and epistemologists. The focus and inspiration of the book is the brand of Pyrrhonism expounded in (...)
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  • Suspension of Judgement: Fittingness, Reasons, and Permissivism.Michael Vollmer - 2023 - Episteme 21 (4):1389-1404.
    This paper defends three theses on the normativity of the suspension of judgment. First, even if beliefs have to fit the truth and disbelief the false, suspension can still have satisfiable fittingness conditions. Second, combining this view with specific theses on the link between fittingness and normative reasons in favour of attitudes commits one to the existence of reasons to suspend judgement, which are neither reasons to believe nor reasons to disbelieve. These independent reasons, in turn, generate a form of (...)
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  • In defence of object-given reasons.Michael Vollmer - 2024 - Philosophical Studies 181 (2):485-511.
    One recurrent objection to the idea that the right kind of reasons for or against an attitude are object-given reasons for or against that attitude is that object-given reasons for or against belief and disbelief are incapable of explaining certain features of epistemic normativity. Prohibitive balancing, the behaviour of bare statistical evidence, information about future or easily available evidence, pragmatic and moral encroachment, as well as higher-order defeaters, are all said to be inexplicable in terms of those object-given reasons. In (...)
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  • Agnosticism-Involving Doxastic Inconsistency.Avery Archer - 2025 - Erkenntnis 90 (3):1159-1176.
    I argue that Sui-Generis Views are preferrable to Non-Belief and Higher-Order Belief Views because of the three dominant contemporary conceptions of agnosticism, only Sui-Generis Views leave room for the possibility of agnosticism-involving doxastic inconsistency. In order to establish that this constitutes a point in favour of Sui-Generis Views, this paper offers a sustained argument in support of the thesis that doxastic inconsistency consistency involving (dis)believing P and agnosticism towards P is possible. The paper concludes by responding to Thomas Raleigh’s argument (...)
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  • Suspension as a mood.Benoit Guilielmo & Artūrs Logins - forthcoming - Philosophical Psychology.
    Suspension of judgment is a ubiquitous phenomenon in our lives. It is also relevant for several debates in contemporary epistemology (e.g., evidentialism/pragmatism; peer-disagreement/higher-order evidence; inquiry). The goal of this paper is to arrive at a better understanding of what suspension of judgment is. We first question the popular assumption that we call the Triad view according to which there are three and only three (paradigmatic) doxastic attitudes, namely, belief, disbelief, and suspension of judgment. We elaborate a cumulative argument regarding crucial (...)
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  • What do we do when we suspend judgement?Anne Meylan - 2024 - Philosophical Issues 34 (1):253-270.
    According to a classical view, suspension of judgement is, like belief and disbelief, a cognitive state. However, as some authors (Crawford 2022; Lord 2020; McGrath 2021a, 2021b; Sosa 2019, 2021) have pointed out, to suspend judgement is also to perform a certain mental action. The main goal of this article is to defend a precise account of the action that we take when we suspend our judgement: the Preventing Account. The Preventing Account has both the advantage of (i) accounting for (...)
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  • Against zetetic encroachment.Michael Vollmer - 2024 - Synthese 203 (6):1-23.
    Proponents of zetetic encroachment claim that certain zetetic or inquiry-related considerations can have a bearing on the epistemic rationality of one’s belief formation. Since facts about the interestingness or importance of a topic can be the right kind of reasons for inquisitive attitudes, such as curiosity, and inquisitive attitudes are ways to suspend judgement, these facts also amount to reasons against believing. This mechanism is said to explain several contentious phenomena in epistemology, such as the occurrence of pragmatic encroachment. In (...)
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  • Disagreement and suspended judgement.Filippo Ferrari - 2022 - Metaphilosophy 53 (4):526-542.
    Can someone who suspends judgement about a certain proposition <p> be in a relational state of disagreement with someone who believes <p> as well as with some- one who disbelieves <p>? This paper argues for an af- firmative answer. It develops an account of the notions of suspended judgement and disagreement that explains how and why the suspender is in a relational state of disagreement with both the believer and the disbeliever about the very same proposition <p>. More specifically, the (...)
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  • Doubt and suspension: Two attitudes or one?Benoit Guilielmo - 2025 - Theoria: Revista de Teoría, Historia y Fundamentos de la Ciencia 39 (3):315-331.
    Are doubt and suspension of judgment similar attitudes? In the burgeoning literature on suspension of judgment, the notion of doubt is curiously absent. This paper aims to argue for the plausibility of an identity claim, which I term the “No-Difference View.” This view suggests that there is no substantial difference between being in doubt and suspending judgment. The argument will draw on historical and systematic considerations that support the No-Difference View as a plausible view within the logical space of positions.
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  • Propositionalism and Questions that do not have Correct Answers.Giulia Felappi - 2021 - Erkenntnis 88 (5):1-19.
    As the label suggests, according to _propositionalism_, each intentional mental state, attitude or event is or involves a relation to a proposition. In this paper, I will discuss a case that seems prima facie not to be accountable for by propositionalism. After having presented the case, I will show why it is different from others that have been discussed in the literature as able to show that propositionalism cannot be correct. I will then consider what the propositionalist can say to (...)
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  • On Interrogative Inquiries Without Suspended Judgement and Doxastic Neutrality.Leonardo Flamini - forthcoming - Dialogue.
    It is a widespread idea that suspended judgement implies a state of doxastic neutrality. Jane Friedman has recently claimed that while inquiring into a given question, one suspends one’s judgement on it. Jointly considered, the previous claims imply that one is in a state of doxastic neutrality about a given question while inquiring into it. In this article, I explore the leading cases against Friedman’s perspective, arguing that it is debatable whether they exhibit inquiries into questions without doxastic neutrality. However, (...)
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  • Suspended Judgement Rebooted.Benoit Guilielmo - 2024 - Logos and Episteme (4):445-462.
    Suspension of judgment is often viewed as a member of the doxastic club, alongside belief and disbelief. In this paper, I challenge the widespread view that suspension is a commitment-involving stance on a par with belief and disbelief. Friedman's counterexamples to the traditional view that suspended judgement merely requires considering a proposition and being in a state of non-belief are criticized. I introduce a refined conception, emphasizing that suspension involves a proximal causal link between examining a proposition and the resulting (...)
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  • Na-na, na-na, Boo-Boo, the accuracy of your philosophical beliefs is doo-doo.Mark Walker - 2022 - Manuscrito 45 (2):1-49.
    The paper argues that adopting a form of skepticism, Skeptical-Dogmatism, that recommends disbelieving each philosophical position in many multi-proposition disputes- disputes where there are three or more contrary philosophical views-leads to a higher ratio of true to false beliefs than the ratio of the “average philosopher”. Hence, Skeptical-Dogmatists have more accurate beliefs than the average philosopher. As a corollary, most philosophers would improve the accuracy of their beliefs if they adopted Skeptical-Dogmatism.
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  • (1 other version)The Varieties of Russellianism.Philip Atkins - forthcoming - Erkentnnis.
    Russellianism is the view that the meaning of a proper name is the individual designated by the name. Together with other plausible assumptions, Russellianism entails the following: Sentences containing proper names express Russellian propositions, which involve the individual designated by the name as a direct constituent, and which can be represented as sets of individuals and properties. Moreover, as they occur in ordinary belief reports, ‘that’-clauses designate Russellian propositions. Such belief reports are true if and only if the subject of (...)
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  • Enquête, questions et actions.Benoit Guilielmo - 2024 - Dialogue 63 (2):319-338.
    Cet article vise à élucider la nature de l'enquête. Je présente tout d'abord les desiderata communs à toute théorie de l'enquête. Je catégorise ensuite l'enquête comme un processus structuré en me concentrant sur ses composantes essentielles : des attitudes de questionnement guidant des actions. Enfin, je me penche sur l'objection récente selon laquelle les attitudes de questionnement ne sont pas nécessaires à l'enquête. Je défends la thèse selon laquelle l'enquête est un processus structuré essentiellement constitué d'attitudes de questionnement ayant deux (...)
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  • Is Suspension of Judgment a Question-Directed Attitude? No, not Really (3rd edition).Matthew McGrath - 2013 - In Matthias Steup & John Turri, Contemporary Debates in Epistemology. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: pp. 55-65.
    In what follows, I’ll discuss several approaches to suspension. As we’ll see, the issue of whether and in what sense(s) suspension is *question-directed* is important to developing an adequate account. I will argue that suspension isn’t question-directed in the way that curiosity, wondering, and inquiry are. The most promising approach, in my view, takes suspension to be an agential matter; it involves the will. As we’ll see, this view makes sense of a lot of familiar facts about suspension, and it (...)
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  • Does agnosticism have positive evidence?Nesim Aslantatar - forthcoming - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion:1-25.
    Alexandra Zinke argues that there are different ways of justifying suspension of judgment. In Zinke (Theoria 87:1050–1066, 2021), she claims that one suspends judgment not only as a result of a lack of evidence (_privatively_) but also _positively_, that is because there is evidence that provides reasons for suspending judgment. Zinke’s argument suggests that suspension goes beyond being a rational default in cases of insufficient evidence. I align with Zinke’s perspective on affirming that agnosticism is not simply a fallback position. (...)
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  • Sextus and the Nature of Suspension.Robb Dunphy - 2023 - Philosophia 51 (4):2241-2259.
    This article is an investigation of the nature of suspension of judgement as it is conceived by Sextus Empiricus. I carry out this investigation by examining what I take to be Sextus’ most pertinent remarks on the topic and by considering them in the context of contemporary philosophical work on the nature of suspension. Against the more frequently encountered idea that Sextus is operating with a privative conception of suspension, I argue that Sextus instead has a metacognitive account of suspension, (...)
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  • Revision, endorsement and the analysis of meaning.Paul-Mikhail Catapang Podosky & Kai Tanter - 2020 - Analysis 80 (4):693-704.
    Recently there has been much philosophical interest in the analysis of concepts to determine whether they should be removed, revised, or replaced. Enquiry of this kind is referred to as conceptual engineering or conceptual ethics. We will call it revisionary conceptual analysis (RCA). It standardly involves describing the meaning of a concept, evaluating whether it serves its purposes, and prescribing what it should mean. However, this stands in tension with prescriptivism, a metasemantic view which holds that all meaning claims are (...)
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  • The Ethics of Suspension of Judgement.Léna Mudry - 2025 - Dissertation, University of Zürich
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