A fascinating recent turn in epistemology focuses on inquiring attitudes like wondering and being curious. Many have argued that these attitudes are governed by norms similar to those that govern our doxastic attitudes. Yet, to date, this work has only considered norms that might prohibit having certain inquiring attitudes (“norms of restriction”), while ignoring those that might require having them (“norms of expansion”). We aim to address that omission by offering a framework that generates norms of expansion for inquiring attitudes. (...) The framework draws on inferential erotetic logic, which we explain and augment with some theorems. We explore several of the norms that it yields—some sympathetically, others unsympathetically. (shrink)

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 contributes to the calculization of evocation and erotetic implication as defined by Inferential Erotetic Logic (IEL). There is a straightforward approach to calculizing (propositional) erotetic implication which cannot be applied to evocation. First-order evocation is proven to be uncalculizable, i.e. there is no proof system, say FOE, such that for all X, Q: X evokes Q iff there is an FOE-proof for the evocation of Q by X. These results suggest a critique of the represented approaches to calculizing (...) IEL. This critique is expanded into a programmatic reconsideration of the IEL-definitions of evocation and erotetic implication. From a different point of view these definitions should be seen as desiderata that may or may not play the role of a point of orientation when setting up "rules of asking". (shrink)

This chapter explores perspectivism in the American Pragmatist tradition. On the one hand, the thematization of perspectivism in contemporary epistemology and philosophy of science can benefit from resources in the American Pragmatist philosophical tradition. On the other hand, the Pragmatists have interesting and innovative, pluralistic views that can be illuminated through the lens of perspectivism. I pursue this inquiry primarily through examining relevant sources from the Pragmatist tradition. I will illustrate productive engagements between pragmatism and perspectivism in three areas: in (...) the pragmatists’ fallibilistic theories of inquiry and truth, in their pluralistic metaphysics, and in their views on cultural pluralism. While there are some potential sticking points between pragmatism and perspectivism, particularly around the visual metaphor of perspective, these philosophical approaches nonetheless have much to learn from each other. Perspectivism is in danger of falling between the horns of pernicious relativism and a platitudinous view of the limits of human perception and cognition. The pragmatists accounts of truth and reality open the possibility of a more thoroughgoing perspectivism. I will follow this thread through Charles S. Peirce’s, William James’, and John Dewey’s theories of inquiry and truth, Peirce’s evolutionary metaphysics, James’ radical pluralism, Dewey’s cultural naturalism, Richard Rorty’s anti-essentialism, Jane Addams’ standpoint epistemology, W.E.B. Du Bois’ theory of race consciousness, Horace Kallen’s and Alain LeRoy Locke’s cultural pluralism, and Mary Parker Follett’s account of pluralistic integration. (shrink)

It’s commonly thought that, in conversation, speakers accept and reject propositions that have been asserted by others. Do speakers accept and reject questions as well? Intuitively, it seems that they do. But what does it mean to accept or reject a question? What is the relationship between these acts and those of asking and answering questions? Are there clear and distinct classes of reasons that speakers have for acceptance and rejection of questions? This chapter seeks to address these issues. Beyond (...) their intrinsic interest to those working on the nature of questions, solutions to these problems may aid the extension of inferentialist approaches to logic and language. Inferentialists who think that inferences should be conceived in terms of the norms we are subject to in virtue of both the sentences we accept or assert as well as those we reject or deny are known as bilateralists. A coherent account of accepting and rejecting questions raises the prospects for a bilateralism that interprets question-involving or erotetic inferences according to these additional primitives. While a full-blown bilateralism for erotetic inferences and ultimately for question-forming operators themselves far exceeds this chapter’s scope, the work presented here does sketch the first steps in that direction. (shrink)