It seems that epistemically rational agents should avoid incoherent combinations of beliefs and should respond correctly to their epistemic reasons. However, some situations seem to indicate that such requirements cannot be simultaneously satisfied. In such contexts, assuming that there is no unsolvable dilemma of epistemic rationality, either (i) it could be rational that one’s higher-order attitudes do not align with one’s first-order attitudes or (ii) requirements such as responding correctly to epistemic reasons that agents have are not genuine rationality requirements. (...) This result doesn’t square well with plausible theoretical assumptions concerning epistemic rationality. So, how do we solve this puzzle? In this paper, I will suggest that an agent can always reason from infallible higher-order reasons. This provides a partial solution to the above puzzle. (shrink)

How can inferences from models to the phenomena they represent be justified when those models represent only imperfectly? Pierre Duhem considered just this problem, arguing that inferences from mathematical models of phenomena to real physical applications must also be demonstrated to be approximately correct when the assumptions of the model are only approximately true. Despite being little discussed among philosophers, this challenge was taken up by mathematicians and physicists both contemporaneous with and subsequent to Duhem, yielding a novel and rich (...) mathematical theory of stability with epistemological consequences. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophers are attracted by the Indispensability Claim, according to which emotions are indispensable in acquiring knowledge of some important values. The truth of this claim is often thought to depend on that of Emotional Dogmatism, the view that emotions justify evaluative judgements because they (seem to) make us aware of the relevant values. The aim of this paper is to show that the Indispensability Claim does not stand or fall with Emotional Dogmatism and that there is actually an attractive (...) alternative way of developing it. We first argue that the Indispensability Claim requires a deflationary account of the cognitive bases of emotions, which we call the Simple View and defend against a variety of criticisms. Armed with the Simple View, we show that the Indispensability Claim is made true by three roles of the emotions: they help us access the relevant evidence, provide a needed hook-up between evidence and judgement, and contribute to evaluative understanding. (shrink)

Crispin Wright’s entitlement theory holds that we have non-evidential justification for accepting propositions of a general type––which Wright calls “cornerstones”––that enables us to acquire justification for believing other propositions––those that we take to be true on the grounds of ordinary evidence. Entitlement theory is meant by Wright to deliver a forceful response to the sceptic who argues that we cannot justify ordinary beliefs. I initially focus on strategic entitlement, which is one of the types of entitlement that Wright has described (...) in more detail. I suggest that it is dubious that we are strategically entitled to accept cornerstones. After this, I focus on entitlement in general. I contend that, in important cases, non-evidential justification for accepting cornerstones cannot secure evidential justification for believing ordinary propositions. My argument rests on a probabilistic regimentation of the so-called “leaching problem”. (shrink)

This article offers several contributions to the interdisciplinary project of responsible research and innovation in data science and AI. First, it provides a critical analysis of current efforts to establish practical mechanisms for algorithmic auditing and assessment to identify limitations and gaps with these approaches. Second, it provides a brief introduction to the methodology of argument-based assurance and explores how it is currently being applied in the development of safety cases for autonomous and intelligent systems. Third, it generalises this method (...) to incorporate wider ethical, social, and legal considerations, in turn establishing a novel version of argument-based assurance that we call ‘ethical assurance.’ Ethical assurance is presented as a structured method for unifying the myriad practical mechanisms that have been proposed. It is built on a process-based form of project governance that enlists reflective innovation practices to operationalise normative principles, such as sustainability, accountability, transparency, fairness, and explainability. As a set of interlocutory governance mechanisms that span across the data science and AI lifecycle, ethical assurance supports inclusive and participatory ethical deliberation while also remaining grounded in social and technical realities. Finally, this article sets an agenda for ethical assurance, by detailing current challenges, open questions, and next steps, which serve as a springboard to build an active (and interdisciplinary) research programme as well as contribute to ongoing discussions in policy and governance. (shrink)

Inference to the best explanation—or, IBE—tells us to infer from the available evidence to the hypothesis which would, if correct, best explain that evidence. As Peter Lipton puts it, the core idea driving IBE is that explanatory considerations are a guide to inference. But what is the epistemic status of IBE, itself? One issue of contemporary interest is whether it is possible to provide a justification for IBE itself which is non- objectionably circular. We aim to carve out some new (...) space in this debate. In particular, we suggest that the matter of whether a given rule-circular argument is objectionably circular itself depends crucially on some subtle distinctions which have been made in the recent literature on perceptual warrant. By bringing these debates together, a principled reason emerges for why some kinds of rule-circular justifications for IBE are considerably less objectionable than others. (shrink)

According to Jim Pryor’s dogmatism, if you have an experience as if P, you acquire immediate prima facie justification for believing P. Pryor contends that dogmatism validates Moore’s infamous proof of a material world. Against Pryor, I argue that if dogmatism is true, Moore’s proof turns out to be non-transmissive of justification according to one of the senses of non-transmissivity defined by Crispin Wright. This type of non-transmissivity doesn’t deprive dogmatism of its apparent antisceptical bite.

This paper considers two novel Bayesian responses to a well-known skeptical paradox. The paradox consists of three intuitions: first, given appropriate sense experience, we have justification for accepting the relevant proposition about the external world; second, we have justification for expanding the body of accepted propositions through known entailment; third, we do not have justification for accepting that we are not disembodied souls in an immaterial world deceived by an evil demon. The first response we consider rejects the third intuition (...) and proposes an explanation of why we have a faulty intuition. The second response, which we favor, accommodates all three intuitions; it reconciles the first and the third intuition by the dual component model of justification, and defends the second intuition by distinguishing two principles of epistemic closure. (shrink)

I focus on a key argument for global external world scepticism resting on the underdetermination thesis: the argument according to which we cannot know any proposition about our physical environment because sense evidence for it equally justifies some sceptical alternative (e.g. the Cartesian demon conjecture). I contend that the underdetermination argument can go through only if the controversial thesis that conceivability is per se a source of evidence for metaphysical possibility is true. I also suggest a reason to doubt that (...) conceivability is per se a source of evidence for metaphysical possibility, and thus to doubt the underdetermination argument. (shrink)

A subject S's belief that Q is well-grounded if and only if it is based on a reason of S that gives S propositional justification for Q. Depending on the nature of S's reason, the process whereby S bases her belief that Q on it can vary. If S's reason is non-doxastic––like an experience that Q or a testimony that Q––S will need to form the belief that Q as a spontaneous and immediate response to that reason. If S's reason (...) is doxastic––like a belief that P––S will need to infer her belief that Q from it. The distinction between these two ways in which S's beliefs can be based on S's reasons is widely presupposed in current epistemology but––we argue in this paper––is not exhaustive. We give examples of quite ordinary situations in which a well-grounded belief of S appears to be based on S's reasons in neither of the ways described above. To accommodate these recalcitrant cases, we introduce the notion of enthymematic inference and defend the thesis that S can base a belief that Q on doxastic reasons P1, P2, …, Pn via inferring enthymematically Q from P1, P2, …, Pn. (shrink)

Half a century later, a Dretskean stance on epistemic closure remains a minority view. Why? Mainly because critics have successfully poked holes in the epistemologies on which closure fails. However, none of the familiar pro-closure moves works against the counterexamples on display here. It is argued that these counterexamples pose the following dilemma: either accept that epistemic closure principles are false, and steal the thunder from those who attack classical logic on the basis of similarly problematic cases—specifically, relevance logicians and (...) like-minded philosophers—or stick with closure and surrender to relevantist claims of failure in truth-preservation aimed at classical rules of inference. Classicist closure advocates find the promise of a way out of the dilemma in the works of Roy Sorensen and John Hawthorne. The paper argues against their pro-closure move and renews Robert Audi’s call for a theory of closure-failure. (shrink)

This thesis offers a fresh interpretation and defense of epistemological disjunctivism about perceptual knowledge. I adopt a multilevel approach according to which perceptual knowledge on one level can enjoy factive rational support provided by perceptual knowledge of the same proposition on a different level. Here I invoke a distinction Ernest Sosa draws between ‘judgmental’ and ‘merely functional’ belief to articulate what I call the bifurcated conception of perceptual knowledge. The view that results is a form of epistemological disjunctivism about perceptual (...) knowledge specifically at the higher judgmental level, layered over a straightforward externalism about perceptual knowledge at the lower merely functional level. The first chapter orients the reader to epistemological disjunctivism— with particular emphasis on the ‘reflective epistemological disjunctivism’ defended by Duncan Pritchard with inspiration from John McDowell. Here I review the arguments for thinking such a proposal true, as well as highlight some problems and three emerging challenges for the view: what I call the internalist challenge, the new access challenge, and the ‘new evil genius’ challenge. These challenges largely inspire the chapters to follow. In the second chapter I present the positive proposal: a fresh interpretation of epistemological disjunctivism in terms of perceptual knowledge at the specifically judgmental level. I argue that this is a modification that epistemological disjunctivists should adopt since it inoculates their view against the internalist challenge: the challenge of explaining why perception should provide one with knowledge by providing one with motivating reasons for belief. In the third chapter I motivate the view further in connection with the more familiar ‘basis problem’ for epistemological disjunctivism. I argue that this approach supports a unique strategy for solving that problem: one that is consistent both with what is known as ‘the entailment’ thesis and the thought that we can reduce perceptual knowledge to a kind of rationally supported belief. In the fourth chapter I move to playing defense. I defend the proposal against the so-called ‘new evil genius’ challenge. This is the challenge to explain why subjects in pairs of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ cases can seem equally justified for sustaining their perceptual beliefs. I argue that what we are being sensitive to here, rather, is the fact that both subjects can be equally epistemically responsible and/or reasonable for believing what they do. Before concluding this chapter I also offer an error theory. In the fifth chapter I defend the proposal against the new access challenges raised in chapter one. These alleged challenges for epistemological disjunctivism arise specifically for versions of reflective epistemological disjunctivism that hold that one’s rational support for perceptual beliefs is not only factive but reflectively accessible as well. Rather than address the challenges head on, I try to dislodge the thought they depend upon—viz., that one’s factive rational support for perceptual beliefs is reflectively accessible to the subject. Here I argue that the reflective accessibility of one’s factive rational support is actually a wheel turning idly in the debate with the underdetermination-based radical sceptic—so that we can simply drop it without consequence. The result is an epistemological disjunctivism that is immune to access problems. I then offer a final summary and conclude. At the end of this thesis I have attached an appendix, which is an excursion into religious epistemology and an exploration of a form of religious epistemological disjunctivism. Here I apply the epistemological disjunctivist insight to the case of religious perception in order to defend the idea that one can offer independent rational support for theistic belief by appealing to religious beliefs that are justified on the basis of religious experiences. This appendix chapter is in keeping with the general spirit of the thesis insofar as it seeks to developed epistemological disjunctivism in new and fruitful directions. (shrink)

Moral metasemantic theories explain how our moral thought and talk are about certain properties. Given the connection between what our moral terms are about and which moral claims are true, it might be thought that metasemantic theorising can justify first-order ethical conclusions, thus providing a novel way of doing moral epistemology. In this paper, we spell out one kind of argument from metasemantic theories to normative ethical conclusions, and argue that it fails to transmit justification from premises to conclusion. We (...) give three reasons for this transmission failure, which together pose a serious challenge to such metasemantic arguments. (shrink)

In this paper, I’ll survey a number of closure principles of epistemic justification and find them all wanting. However, it’ll be my contention that there’s a novel closure principle of epistemic justification that has the virtues of its close cousin closure principles, without their vices. This closure principle of epistemic justification can be happily thought of as a multi-premise closure principle and it cannot be used in Cartesian skeptical arguments that employ a closure principle of epistemic justification. In this way, (...) then, it represents marked improvement over other contemporary closure principles of epistemic justification that require both sacrificing multi-premise closure and forcing anti-Cartesian skeptics who reject the closure principle employed in certain Cartesian skeptical arguments to cast aside justification closure. (shrink)

In this chapter I investigate epistemological consequences of the fact that seeming-based justification is elusive, in the sense that the subject can lose this justification simply by reflecting on her seemings. I argue that since seeming-based justification is elusive, the antisceptical bite of phenomenal conservatism is importantly limited. I also contend that since seeming-based justification has this feature, phenomenal conservatism isn’t actually afflicted by easy justification problems.

One diagnosis of Fitch’s paradox of knowability is that it hinges on the factivity of knowledge: that which is known is true. Yet the apparent role of factivity and non-factive analogues in related paradoxes of justified belief can be shown to depend on familiar consistency and positive introspection principles. Rejecting arguments that the paradox hangs on an implausible consistency principle, this paper argues instead that the Fitch phenomenon is generated both in epistemic logic and logics of justification by the interaction (...) of analogues of the knowability principle and positive introspection theses that are characteristic of, even if not entailed by, epistemic internalism. (shrink)

Within his overarching program aiming to defend an epistemic conception of analyticity, Boghossian (1996 and 1997) has offered a clear-cut explanation of how we can acquire a priori knowledge of logical truths and logical rules through implicit definition. The explanation is based on a special template or general form of argument. Ebert (2005) has argued that an enhanced version of this template is flawed because a segment of it is unable to transmit warrant from its premises to the conclusion. This (...) article aims to defend the template from this objection. We provide an accurate description of the type of non-transmissivity that Ebert attributes to the template and clarify why this is a novel type of non-transmissivity. Then, we argue that Jenkins (2008)’s response to Ebert fails because it focuses on doxastic rather than propositional warrant. Finally, we rebut Ebert’s objection on Boghossian’s behalf by showing that it rests on an unwarranted assumption and is internally incoherent. (shrink)

Epistemological disjunctivists make appeal to Moorean-style anti-skeptical arguments. It is often held that one problem with using Moorean-style arguments in the context of a response to skepticism is that such arguments are subject to a kind of epistemic circularity. The specific kind of epistemic failure involved has come to be known as a failure of warrant transmission. It would likely pose a problem for the anti-skeptical ambitions of the epistemological disjunctivist if his version of the Moorean-style argument failed to transmit (...) warrant; but no epistemological disjunctivist has offered an argument to show that this is not so. In this paper, I fill the gap by arguing that warrant transmits across epistemological disjunctivist Moorean-style arguments. (shrink)

Boghossian (1996) has put forward an interesting explanation of how we can acquire logical knowledge via implicit definitions that makes use of a special template. Ebert (2005) has argued that the template is unserviceable, as it doesn't transmit warrant. In this paper, we defend the template. We first suggest that Jenkins (2008)’s response to Ebert fails because it focuses on doxastic rather than propositional warrant. We then reject Ebert’s objection by showing that it depends on an implausible and incoherent assumption.

In this paper, I defend Moorean Dogmatism against a novel objection raised by Adam Leite. Leite locates the defectiveness of the Moorean reasoning explicitly not in the failure of the Moorean argument to transmit warrant from its premises to its conclusion but rather in the failure of an epistemic agent to satisfy certain epistemic responsibilities that arise in the course of conscious and deliberate reasoning. I will first show that there exist cases of Moorean reasoning that are not put into (...) jeopardy by the considerations that Leite presents. Second, I will argue that certain commitments of Leite’s concerning the notion of warrant are in tension with his verdict that the Moorean reasoning is defective. (shrink)

It can be easy to assume that since the “theist in the street” is unaware of any of the traditional arguments for theism, he or she is not in position to offer independent rational support for believing that God exists. I argue that that is false if we accept with William Alston that “manifestation beliefs” can enjoy rational support on the basis of suitable religious experiences. I make my case by defending the viability of a Moorean-style proof for theism—a proof (...) for the existence of God that parallels in structure G. E. Moore’s famous proof for the existence of the external world. I argue that this shows that even if the theist in the street has nothing to offer for helping to convince the religious sceptic, this needn’t entail that she cannot offer independent rational support in defense of her theistic belief. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that two claims usually included in any minimally detailed presentation of the epistemic closure principle are inconsistent, namely, that closure explains how we extend our knowledge through deduction and that it is different from another epistemic principle, to wit, transmission. The attempt to offer a correct diagnosis of reasonings such as the one involved in Dretke’s zebra case is an instance of a discussion in which the distinction takes part. My argument has the following structure. (...) First, I introduce the distinction between closure and transmission following the standard presentation. Second, I introduce the main motivations behind the principles; in particular, I establish that the main motivation behind closure consists in explaining the phenomenon of the advancement of knowledge through deductive reasoning. Third, based on the identification of a restriction on any plausible formulation of closure capable of explaining the phenomenon aforementioned, I cast doubts on the distinction between this principle and transmission. I conclude that any formulation of the epistemic principle of closure which satisfies its main motivation collapses into the epistemic principle of transmission. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Crispin Wright’s most recent attempt to introduce a diagnostic tool for predicting failures of warrant transmission, the so-called ‘Revised Template’. I show that the Revised Template does not, in fact, generate the predictions about warrant transmission failure that Wright thinks it does. I argue that the failure lies, in large part, with the definition of the technical notion ‘presupposition’ which the Revised Template deploys. Through a consideration of Wright’s own ‘general motivation’ for the Revised Template, (...) I extract an alternative characterization of ‘presupposition’ and use this to fuel a diagnostic tool for predicting failures of warrant transmission which, I believe, is both more faithful to Wright’s own general motivating remarks and more successful in predicting failures of warrant transmission than the Revised Template. (shrink)

El objeto de este artículo es analizar el problema de la justificación del conocimiento básico y ofrecer una solución basada en un tipo de justificación deflacionaria no-evidencialista a partir de la noción de habilitación de T. Burge y la de _garantía racional_ de C. Wright. El problema, en el caso del conocimiento básico lógico, es que justificar las reglas lógicas inferencialmente supone utilizar principios lógicos, con lo cual se genera un círculo vicioso. Examinamos la viabilidad del enfoque no-inferencialista de Wright (...) y sostendremos que una garantía racional es una respuesta viable para el problema de la justificación del conocimiento lógico básico. (shrink)

The paper aims at the rehabilitation of deductive reasoning. As a paradigm of reliable reasoning, it should be applicable in every confirmation context. In particular, it should transmit inductive justification, so that if D justifies a hypothesis H, then D also justifies all deductive conclusions from H. Nevertheless, most current philosophers of science reject such a transmission principle as false. They argue against it by providing apparent counter-examples and also by showing that it is incompatible with common confirmation theories such (...) as HD-confirmation and Bayesianism. I argue in the opposite direction that we should stick to the transmission principle and revise instead our justification theories towards more cautious justification procedures that respect the transmission principle. This will avoid further paradoxes of these theories and, in particular, will enable us to apply our confirmed hypotheses to new situations in a well-founded way. (shrink)

Within this paper, we argue that Audi’s transmission principle for testimony-based knowledge is untenable, while proposing an alternative route for him to take. We will first set out the core tenets of Audi’s general epistemology before we examine his account of testimony more specifically. Then, we proceed by showing that Audi’s transmission principle for testimony-based knowledge falls prey to a number of prominent counterexamples discussed in the recent literature. In reaction to this, we will put forward the thesis that in (...) cases of testimonial knowledge propositional justification, in contrast to knowledge, is being transmitted. Finally, we conclude that Audi loses sight of this option due to his overly strict classification of knowledge in externalist and justification in internalist terms. (shrink)

Along with what McDowell has called the disjunctive conception of experience (DCE), and against a venerable tradition, the veridical experience that P and the subjectively indistinguishable hallucination that P are not type-identical mental states. According to McDowell, a powerful motivation for DCE is that it makes available the sole internalistically acceptable way out of a sceptical argument targeting the possibility of perceptual knowledge. In this paper I state in explicit terms the sceptical argument McDowell worries about, and show that DCE (...) has not the epistemological merits that McDowell ascribes to it. To begin with, I join a series of commentators in arguing that the way out of the sceptical argument made available by DCE is not internalistically acceptable, and so argue that it is not a way out that an internalist about epistemic justification would have any special reason to prefer to a parallel externalist way out that does not commit to DCE. Secondly, I show that the internalist can resist the sceptical argument by denying a different premise of it that McDowell takes for granted. I conclude by maintaining that McDowell's epistemological motivation for DCE is undercut. (shrink)