We very often grant that a person can gain knowledge on the basis of epistemic artifacts such as telescopes, microscopes and so on. However, this intuition threatens to undermine virtue reliabilism according to which one knows that p if and only if one’s believing the truth that p is the product of a reliable cognitive belief-forming process; in an obvious sense epistemic artifacts are not parts of one’s overall cognitive system. This is so, unless the extended cognition hypothesis (HEC) is (...) true. According to HEC when parts of the environment become properly coupled to the agent’s brain then they too can be considered constitutive parts of the overall cognitive mechanism—i.e. cognition potentially extends to the world surrounding the agent. Interestingly, HEC and the broader framework of virtue reliabilism share some intriguing similarities, which render these two views mutually supportive. Making these similarities explicit provides a principled account of the way in which our knowledge-conducive cognitive characters may extend beyond our natural cognitive capacities by incorporating epistemic artifacts. (shrink)

This paper defends the knowledge rule of informative speech acts. It is argued that Edward Craig's insightful practical explication of the concept of knowledge can be extended to motivate the knowledge rule. A number of problem cases for the knowledge rule are addressed and accommodated.

Two different versions of epistemological disjunctivism have recently been upheld in the literature: a traditional, Justified True Belief Epistemological Disjunctivism (JTBED) and a Knowledge First Epistemological Disjunctivism (KFED). JTBED holds that factive reasons of the form “S sees that p” provide the rational support in virtue of which one has perceptual knowledge, while KFED holds that factive reasons of the form “S sees that p” just are ways of knowing that p which additionally provide justification for believing that p. We (...) argue that both accounts remain ultimately unsatisfactory. JTBED faces two formidable problems: first, it cannot account for animal knowledge, and, second, it does not offer a satisfactory account of how we access factive reasons. Although KFED can solve these two problems, it has some problems of its own. While intuitively knowledge is logically stronger than justified belief, on KFED it turns out to be weaker: knowledge does not entail justified belief, but justified belief does entail knowledge. Nevertheless, disjunctivists are right on at least a couple of points: we standardly justify our perceptual beliefs by appealing to factive reasons such as seeing that p and so factive reasons ought to play some role in our theory of justification. In addition, KFED’s account of our access to factive reasons also is spot on. Rather than going disjunctivist, these insights can be suitably incorporated into a Knowledge First Virtue Epistemology (KFVE). (shrink)

We regularly make graded normative judgements in the epistemic domain. Recent work in the literature examines degrees of justification, degrees of rationality, and degrees of assertability. This paper addresses a different dimension of the gradeability of epistemic normativity, one that has been given little attention. How should we understand degrees of epistemic criticizability? In virtue of what sorts of factors can one epistemic failing be worse than another? The paper develops a dual-factor view of degrees of epistemic criticizability. According to (...) the view, degrees of epistemic criticizability are (i) an inverse function of degrees of doxastic justification and (ii) a function of degrees of agent culpability. The paper develops an account of each factor, and explains how they should be weighted. The paper also addresses the importance of modelling degrees of epistemic criticizability in a broader context. I focus on the role that such a model can play in the ethics of epistemic criticism. (shrink)

The teleological approach to an epistemic concept investigates it by asking questions such as ‘what is the purpose of the concept?’, ‘What role has it played in the past?’, or ‘If we imagine a society without the concept, why would they feel the need to invent it?’ The idea behind the teleological approach is that examining the function of the concept illuminates the contours of the concept itself. This approach is a relatively new development in epistemology, and as yet there (...) are few works examining it. This paper aims to fill this gap and engender further understanding of the teleological method. I first contrast the teleological method with more orthodox approaches in epistemology. I then draw a three-way taxonomy of different kinds of teleological approach and provide an example of each kind. The teleological approach is often presented as antithetical to the more orthodox approaches in epistemology, and so in competition with them. I demur. I argue that the methods can be fruitfully combined in epistemological theorising; in the final section I suggest specific ways the teleological approach can be incorporated alongside more orthodox methods in a general methodological reflective equilibrium. (shrink)

In this paper, I first seek a relatively plausible formulation of the safety principle. To this end, I refute a recent form of safety by Duncan Pritchard and then defend another weaker form of safe...

In this paper, I aim to develop a novel virtue reliabilist account of justified belief, which incorporates insights from both process reliabilism and extant versions of virtue reliabilism. Like extant virtue reliabilist accounts of justi- fied belief, the proposed view takes it that justified belief is a kind of competent performance and that competent performances require reliable agent abilities. However, unlike extant versions of virtue reliabilism, the view takes abilities to essentially involve reliable processes. In this way, the proposed takes (...) a leaf from process reliabilism. Finally, I will provide reason to believe that the view compares favourably with both extant versions of virtue reliabilism and process reliabilism. In particular, I will show that in taking abilities to essentially involve reliable processes, the view has an edge over extant versions of virtue reliabilism. Moreover, I will argue that the proposed view can either solve or defuse a number of classical problems of process reliabilism, including the new evil demon problem, the problem of clairvoyant cases and the generality problem. (shrink)

Mandevillian intelligence is a specific form of collective intelligence in which individual cognitive shortcomings, limitations and biases play a positive functional role in yielding various forms of collective cognitive success. When this idea is transposed to the epistemological domain, mandevillian intelligence emerges as the idea that individual forms of intellectual vice may, on occasion, support the epistemic performance of some form of multi-agent ensemble, such as a socio-epistemic system, a collective doxastic agent, or an epistemic group agent. As a specific (...) form of collective intelligence, mandevillian intelligence is relevant to a number of debates in social epistemology, especially those that seek to understand how group (or collective) knowledge arises from the interactions between a collection of individual epistemic agents. Beyond this, however, mandevillian intelligence raises issues that are relevant to the research agendas of both virtue epistemology and applied epistemology. From a virtue epistemological perspective, mandevillian intelligence encourages us to adopt a relativistic conception of intellectual vice/virtue, enabling us to see how individual forms of intellectual vice may (sometimes) be relevant to collective forms of intellectual virtue. In addition, mandevillian intelligence is relevant to the nascent sub-discipline of applied epistemology. In particular, mandevillian intelligence forces us see the potential epistemic value of (e.g., technological) interventions that create, maintain or promote individual forms of intellectual vice. (shrink)

It is commonly observed that we live in an increasingly polarised world. Strikingly, we are polarised not only about political issues, but also about scientific issues that have political implications, such as climate change. This raises two questions. First, why are we so polarised over these issues? Second, does this mean our views about these issues are all equally ir/rational? In this chapter I explore both questions. Specifically, I draw on the literature on ideologically motivated reasoning to develop an answer (...) to the first question. Put briefly, we exhibit “directional biases” in our information processing: we try to assimilate new information into our existing webs of beliefs. This means that those who are predisposed to accept the case for climate change end up accepting it, whereas those who are predisposed to reject it end up rejecting it. Based on this answer, I then address the second question. I look at some reasons for thinking that, because we all exhibit such biases in our thinking, we are all equally rational (or, as the case may be, irrational). I also suggest some ways you might try reject these reasons. (shrink)

RESUMEN D. Pritchard ha sostenido que el conocimiento requiere la satisfacción de una condición de habilidad y una anti-suerte que no guardan relación de implicación entre sí. Se sostiene que la satisfacción de una condición anti-suerte implica cumplir con la condición de habilidad, primero, porque, las características centrales del caso de D. Pritchard en contra de esta implicación son compartidas con casos en los que hay habilidad; y segundo, el caso de A. Goldman del dios benevolente es más efectivo que (...) TEMP, pero involucra un tipo de seguridad diferente a la requerida para el conocimiento. Por último, se muestra que la respuesta de D. Pritchard al problema de la generalidad bloquea la implicación de seguridad a habilidad. Se propone un contraejemplo, adaptando un caso tomado de la epistemología del testimonio. ABSTRACT D. Pritchard holds that knowledge requires the satisfaction of an ability condition and an anti-luck condition that bear no relation of implication to each other. The article argues that the satisfaction of the anti-luck condition implies satisfying the ability condition for two reasons: first, that the main characteristics of Pritchard's case against this implication are shared by cases in which there is ability; and, second, that although A. Goldman's benevolent demon case is more effective than TEMP, it involves a different type of certainty than that required for knowledge. Finally, the article shows that Pritchard's response to the generality problem blocks the implication between certainty and ability, and proposes a counterexample that draws on the epistemology of testimony. (shrink)

Are we being manipulated online? If so, is being manipulated by online technologies and algorithmic systems notably different from human forms of manipulation? And what is under threat exactly when people are manipulated online? This volume provides philosophical and conceptual depth to debates in digital ethics about online manipulation. The contributions explore the ramifications of our increasingly consequential interactions with online technologies such as online recommender systems, social media, user-friendly design, micro-targeting, default-settings, gamification, and real-time profiling. The authors in this (...) volume address four broad and interconnected themes: • What is the conceptual nature of online manipulation? And how, methodologically, should the concept be defined? • Does online manipulation threaten autonomy, freedom, and meaning in life, and if so, how? • What are the epistemic, affective, and political harms and risks associated with online manipulation? • What are legal and regulatory perspectives on online manipulation? The Philosophy of Online Manipulation brings these various considerations together to offer philosophically robust answers to critical questions concerning our online interactions with one another and with autonomous systems. It will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working in moral philosophy, digital ethics, philosophy of technology, and the ethics of manipulation. (shrink)

What does it mean to know how to do something? This book develops a comprehensive account of know-how, a crucial epistemic goal for all who care about getting things right, not only with respect to the facts, but also with respect to practice. It proposes a novel interpretation of the seminal work of Gilbert Ryle, according to which know-how is a competence, a complex ability to do well in an activity in virtue of guidance by an understanding of what it (...) takes to do so. This idea is developed into a full-fledged account, Rylean responsibilism, which understands know-how in terms of the normative guidance and responsible control of one's acts. Within the complex current debate about know-how, this view occupies a middle ground position between the intellectualist claim that know-how just is propositional or objectual knowledge and the anti-intellectualist claim that know-how just is ability. In genuine know-how, practical ability and guiding intellect are both necessary, but essentially intertwined. (shrink)

It has been argued that an advantage of the safety account over the sensitivity account is that the safety account preserves epistemic closure, while the sensitivity account implies epistemic closure failure. However, the argument fails to take the method-relativity of the modal conditions on knowledge, viz., sensitivity and safety, into account. In this paper, I argue that the sensitivity account and the safety account are on a par with respect to epistemic closure once the method-relativity of the modal conditions is (...) taken into account. Therefore, epistemic closure is no longer an arbiter in the debate. (shrink)

Both sensitivity and safety theorists concur that their accounts should be relativized to the same method that one employs in the actual world. However, properly individuating methods has proven to be a tricky matter. In this regard, Nozick (Philosophical Explanations, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1981) proposes a Same-Experience-Same-Method Principle: if the experiences associated with two method tokens are the same, they are of the same type of method. This principle, however, has been widely rejected by recent safety and sensitivity theorists. (...) In this paper, I raise an argument in favor of Nozick: not endorsing the principle leads to some rather implausible consequences when certain skeptical scenarios are considered—i.e., scenarios in which skeptical possibilities are ‘close’. Additionally, this argument reveals some important lessons about skepticism in general and the place of modal accounts of knowledge in the internalism/externalism debate. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Helton and Nanay, 415–423, 2019) present a new argument against two modal accounts of knowledge—safety and sensitivity. Their argument is based on the phenomenon of amodal completion. According to them, amodal completion experience can ground knowledge; but in some instances, such knowledge is neither sensitive nor safe. Thus, they conclude that neither sensitivity nor safety is a necessary condition for knowledge. This paper pushes back. In particular, I defend the following three theses. First, Helton and Nanay’s (...) argument for the claim that amodal completion itself can ground knowledge is unsound. Second, their objection against sensitivity is best construed as merely another instantiation of the old objection against sensitivity regarding inductive knowledge. Thus, sensitivity theorists have nothing to worry about over and above the old objection. Third, safety theorists can plausibly defend their account, insofar as they acknowledge that one’s ‘awareness’ of error-possibilities can affect the epistemic status of one’s belief. My conclusion is that reflections on the phenomenon of amodal completion fail to generate any new objections against modal accounts of knowledge. (shrink)

According to the safety account of knowledge, one knows that p only if one’s belief could not easily have been false. An important issue for the account is whether we should only examine the target belief when evaluating whether a belief is safe or not. In this paper, it is argued that, if we should only examine the target belief, then the account fails to account for ignorance of necessary truths. But, if we should also examine beliefs in other relevant (...) propositions, then the account fails to account for knowledge from falsehood. Therefore, the safety account of knowledge is undermined by knowledge from falsehood and ignorance of necessary truths. (shrink)

Safety accounts of knowledge claim, roughly, that knowledge that p requires that one's belief that p could not have easily been false. Such accounts have been very popular in recent epistemology. However, one serious problem safety accounts have to confront is to explain why certain lottery‐related beliefs are not knowledge, without excluding obvious instances of inductive knowledge. We argue that the significance of this objection has hitherto been underappreciated by proponents of safety. We discuss Duncan Pritchard's recent solution to the (...) problem and argue that it fails. More importantly, the problem reaches deeper and poses a threat to any current safety accounts that require a belief's modal stability in close possibilities (as well as safety accounts that appeal to ‘normality’). We end by arguing that ways out of the problem require substantial reconstruction for a safety‐based account of knowledge. (shrink)

Depending on whether we are somewhat tolerant of nearby error-possibilities or not, the safety condition on knowledge is open to a strong reading and a weak reading. In this paper, it is argued that induction and conjunction introduction constitute two horns of a dilemma for the safety account of knowledge. If we opt for the strong reading, then the safety account fails to account for inductive knowledge. In contrast, if we opt for the weak reading, then the safety account fails (...) to accommodate knowledge obtained via the method of conjunction introduction. (shrink)

According to the safety principle, if one knows that p, one's belief that p could not easily have been false. One problem besetting this principle is the lottery problem – that of explaining why one does not seem to know that one will lose the lottery purely based on probabilistic considerations, prior to the announcement of the lottery result. As Greco points out, it is difficult for a safety theorist to solve this problem, without paying a heavy price. In this (...) paper, I first reject three existing safety-based solutions to the lottery problem, due to Pritchard, Sosa, and Broncano-Berrocal. Failure of these accounts reveals that there is something crucial missing in the safety principle. By way of remedying this, I propose to integrate a safety principle with a condition regarding one's own awareness of (nearby) error-possibilities. The resulting account, as I argue, enjoys a number of theoretical advantages, including its capacity to handle the lottery problem. (shrink)

According to the safety account of knowledge, one knows that p only if one's belief could not easily have been false. An important issue for the account is whether we should only examine the belief in the target proposition when evaluating whether a belief is safe or not. In this paper, it is argued that if we only examine the belief in the target proposition, then the account fails to account for why beliefs in necessary truths could fall short of (...) knowledge. But, if we also examine beliefs in other relevant propositions, then the account fails to preserve epistemic closure. Therefore, the safety account cannot find a safe path between epistemic closure and necessary truths. (shrink)

According to the safety principle, if one knows that p, then one’s belief in p could not easily have been false. In this paper, I pose a dilemma for safety theorists by asking the following question: In evaluating whether or not a belief is safe, must we only examine the error-possibilities of the same belief as formed in the actual world? If ‘yes’, safety meets a familiar objection regarding necessary truths and the objection also extends to contingent propositions. If ‘no’, (...) however, there is no necessity of safety for knowledge. It is argued that this dilemma poses a threat for a number of safety principles from the recent literature. In the end, I draw implications of my arguments for the debate between robust and anti-luck virtue epistemologies. The result is that anti-luck virtue epistemology suffers from the difficulty with the safety principle whereas the robust variant remains intact. (shrink)

The safety condition is supposed to be a necessary condition on knowledge which helps to eliminate epistemic luck. It has been argued that the condition should be globalized to a set of propositions rather than the target proposition believed to account for why not all beliefs in necessary truths are safe. A remaining issue is which propositions are relevant when evaluating whether the target belief is safe or not. In the literature, solutions have been proposed to determine the relevance of (...) propositions. This paper examines a case of luckily true belief—thus a case of ignorance—and a case of knowledge. It argues that no solution in the literature offers a correct verdict in either case. Therefore, the strategy to globalize safety remains unsatisfactory. (shrink)

Neil Sinhababu and I presented Backward Clock, an original counterexample to Robert Nozick’s truth-tracking analysis of propositional knowledge. Fred Adams, John Barker and Murray Clarke argue that Backward Clock is no such counterexample. Their argument fails to nullify Backward Clock which also shows that other tracking analyses, such as Dretske’s and one that Adams et al. may well have in mind, are inadequate.

In “The Backward Clock, Truth-Tracking, and Safety”, Neil Sinhababu and I gave Backward Clock, a counterexample to Robert Nozick’s truth-tracking analysis of knowledge. In “Knowledge as Fact-Tracking True Belief”, Fred Adams, John Barker and Murray Clarke propose that a true belief constitutes knowledge if and only if it is based on reasons that are sensitive to the fact that makes it true, that is, reasons that wouldn’t obtain if the belief weren’t true. They argue that their analysis evades Backward Clock. (...) Here I show that it doesn’t. Backward Clock likewise shows their analysis to be too weak. The broader lesson seems to be that Backward Clock tells us the time is up for purely modal analyses of knowledge. (shrink)

One of the most pressing challenges facing virtue theorists is the conflation problem. This problem concerns the difficulty of explaining the distinction between different types of virtue, such as the distinction between moral virtues and intellectual virtues. Julia Driver has argued that only an outcomes-based understanding of virtue can provide an adequate solution to the conflation problem. In this paper, I argue against Driver’s outcomes-based account, and propose an alternative motivations-based solution. According to this proposal, intellectual virtues can be identified (...) by the shared motivation for cognitive contact with reality, while moral virtues are identified by appeal to the characteristic motivations of kindness and justice. I defend the proposal by demonstrating that it produces plausible verdicts concerning the virtue status of candidate moral and intellectual virtues. (shrink)

In a recent set of publications Ballantyne :485–503, 2011, Synthese 185:319–334, 2012, Synthese 91:1391–1407, 2013) argues that luck does not have a significant role in understanding the concept of knowledge. The problem, Ballantyne argues, lies in what is commonly thought to be a necessary condition for luck—a significance or value condition :385–398, 2007; Lackey, in Austral J Philos 86:255–267, 2008, Ballantyne, in Can J Philos 41:485–503, 2011). For an event, like forming a true belief, to be lucky then it must (...) be of some significance or value to an agent. Yet, if significance, as it has also been commonly thought, plays a role in determining the degree of luck :485–503, 2011), then this leads to a result similar to an absurd form of pragmatic encroachment. If this problem cannot be avoided, then anti-luck epistemology should be abandoned. However, this paper will argue that with proper considerations about the nature of luck according to at least one theory, no such problem arises. (shrink)

An influential proposal is that knowledge involves safe belief. A belief is safe, in the relevant sense, just in case it is true in nearby metaphysically possible worlds. In this paper, I introduce a distinct but complementary notion of safety, understood in terms of epistemically possible worlds. The main aim, in doing so, is to add to the epistemologist’s tool-kit. To demonstrate the usefulness of the tool, I use it to advance and assess substantive proposals concerning knowledge and justification.

Some experimental philosophers have criticized the standard intuition-based methodology in philosophy. One worry about this criticism is that it is just another version of the general skepticism toward the evidential efficacy of intuition, and is thereby subject to the same difficulties. In response, Weinberg provides a more nuanced version of the criticism by targeting merely the philosophical use of intuition. I contend that, though Weinberg’s approach differs from general skepticism about intuition, its focus on philosophical practices gives rise to a (...) new difficulty. Most extant experimental surveys investigate intuitions about particular cases through vignettes giving little contextual information. However, philosophical practices crucially depend on intuitions about general claims and typically provide more contextual background. I argue that, due to these two differences between surveys’ and philosophers’ appeals to intuition, Weinberg’s critique lacks enough support from current experimental data. I conclude that experimental philosophers who engage in the negative program should pay more attention on testing philosophers’ use of general intuitions and context-rich intuitions. (shrink)

There is a debate on the nature of ignorance in contemporary epistemology. The standard view holds that ignorance is the lack of knowledge, while the new view contends that ignorance is the lack of true belief. Rather than taking a side in this dispute, Pritchard recently offers a new proposal according to which ignorance essentially involves not just the absence of a certain epistemic good, but also an intellectual failing of inquiry. We argue that Pritchard’s new proposal advances the discussion (...) of ignorance by incorporating insight from virtue epistemology, and hence the normative dimension of ignorance is properly noticed. Crucially, ignorance is no longer a mere static cognitive state, but also reflects the quality of inquiry and inquirers’ obligations. However, the new proposal faces two problems. First, current formulation is incomplete so that it cannot ground the epistemic blame that Pritchard requires. More details must be filled in. Second, his view would label all ignorance as normatively negative, and therefore locutions such as virtuous ignorance, blameless ignorance and the positive value of ignorance would be wrong. (shrink)

Resumen El objetivo de este trabajo es determinar la relevancia de la teoría informacional del conocimiento para el problema de la suerte epistémica. Argumento que el clásico enfoque de Dretske es equivalente a la condición de seguridad de Pritchard. Sin embargo, considero que esta manera de eludir la suerte epistémica exige lidiar con el llamado "problema de la generalidad". Argumento que una respuesta a este problema requiere una noción de seguridad diferente y propongo un enfoque informacional equivalente a esta versión (...) del requisito. Concluyo que este enfoque es preferible a la condición de seguridad propuesta porque desvela relaciones conceptuales entre los elementos que constituyen el conocimiento.The aim of this paper is to determine the relevance of an informational theory of knowledge to address recently discussed epistemic problems. I argue that Dretske's classical approach is equivalent to the safety condition proposed by Pritchard to avoid epistemic luck. However, I claim that Pritchard's condition has to be modified to avoid the so-called "generality problem" for reliabilism. I propose an alternative version of the requirement to deal with these problems and provide an equivalent informational condition. I conclude that this informational version is preferable since it reveals conceptual relationships between the constituents of knowledge. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAchievements are among the things that make a life good. Assessing the plausibility of this intuitive claim requires an account of the nature of achievements. One necessary condition for achievement appears to be that the achieving agent acted competently, i.e. was not just lucky. I begin by critically assessing existing accounts of anti-luck conditions for achievements in both the ethics and epistemology literature. My own proposal is that a goal is reached competently, only if the actions of the would-be-achiever make (...) success likely, and that this is the reason why she acts that way. (shrink)

Epistemological Disjunctivism is the view that rational support for paradigm cases of perceptual knowledge that P comes from seeing that P – a state that is both factive and reflectively accessible. ED has the consequence that if I see that there is a barn before me, I can thereby be in a position to know that I am not in fake barn country. It is argued that this is a problem. The problem is distinct from familiar complaints about Neo-Mooreanism and (...) easy knowledge. Potential ways of avoiding this problem are proposed. It is argued that they do not succeed. There is a way out of ED's fake barn problem but many will likely find it inhospitable. (shrink)

Safety purports to explain why cases of accidentally true belief are not knowledge, addressing Gettier cases and cases of belief based on statistical evidence. However, problems arise for using safety as a condition on knowledge: safety is not necessary for knowledge and cannot always explain the Gettier cases and cases of statistical evidence it is meant to address. In this paper, I argue for a new modal condition designed to capture the non-accidental relationship between facts and evidence required for knowledge: (...) causal safety. I argue that possible errors in belief can be captured by accounting for deviations in causal relationships and that there is a natural way to characterize which causal errors are relevant in an epistemic situation. Using this, I develop a causal analogue to safety, where one’s belief in p is causally safe if it is true in all causally relevant worlds where one believes p. Causal safety, I argue, can better explain the cases safety is meant to address and can avoid the arguments raised against the necessity of safety. (shrink)

Recent epistemology has seen a striking rise in interest in the notion of normality, including in the analysis of justified belief, defeasible reasoning, and knowledge. In the analysis of knowledge in particular, normality has been used to support modal analyses of knowledge, according to which knowledge is safely true belief. In this paper, I sound a note of caution regarding this proposal. As I will argue, the counterexamples that originally seemed to threaten the safety analysis of knowledge in its more (...) traditional formulations have natural counterparts that continue to threaten the newer, normality-based formulations. Moreover, these reformulated counterexamples seem to exploit structural features of the notion of normality itself, rather than one or another particular conception of normality. (shrink)

According to a thesis famously associated with Anscombe'sIntention, knowledge is a necessary condition of intentional action: when acting intentionally, we know what we are doing. Call this the Agential Knowledge thesis. The Agential Knowledge thesis remains, of course, controversial. Furthermore, as even some of its proponents acknowledge, it can appear puzzling: Why should acting intentionally require knowing what you are doing? My aim in this paper is to propose an explanation and defence of the Agential Knowledge thesis, based on the (...) idea that acting intentionally is exercising control, in a relevant sense. My argument rests on two things: first, articulating a modal conception of the relevant sense of control, and, secondly, arguing that agential knowledge is distinctively practical. As I explain, the truth of the Agential Knowledge thesis opens promising paths for future work in the philosophy of action. (shrink)

I raise some questions about differentiations between methods, checking methods, and appropriate methods in terms of their modal profiles. Melchior argues that there can be sensitive checking methods which are not safe. I try to show that such methods are epistemically deficient. I introduce restricted sensitivity (RS) and investigate its checking profile. RS with respect to a proposition _p_ requires that we consider more non-p worlds (not just the closest ones) but not those which are irrelevant (outside a sphere of (...) seriously possible worlds). Restrictedly sensitive methods (vacuously sensitive and strongly safe) based on the appropriate type of Bayesian reasoning might be sufficient for some kind of “modest” checking. Melchior defends a uniform account of checking based on insensitivity even in the case of necessary true propositions and he introduces the apparatus of impossible worlds. I argue that an unsatisfactory method for checking a necessary true proposition is a way of reaching a belief in the target proposition (different from the original one) which might easily not have delivered a true one. I also indicate some limitations of the idea that checking (and knowing) is essentially modal in character. (shrink)

I report two experiments studying the relationship among explicit judgments about what people see, know, and should assert. When an object of interest was surrounded by visibly similar items, it diminished people’s willingness to judge that an agent sees, knows, and should tell others that it is present. This supports the claim, made by many philosophers, that inhabiting a misleading environment intuitively decreases our willingness to attribute perception and knowledge. However, contrary to stronger claims made by some philosophers, inhabiting a (...) misleading environment does not lead to the opposite pattern whereby people deny perception and knowledge. Causal modeling suggests a specific psychological model of how explicit judgments about perception, knowledge, and assertability are made: knowledge attributions cause perception attributions, which in turn cause assertability attributions. These findings advance understanding of how these three important judgments are made, provide new evidence that knowledge is the norm of assertion, and highlight some important subtleties in folk epistemology. (shrink)

In a single-iteration fake barn case, the agent correctly identifies an object of interest on the first try, despite the presence of nearby lookalikes that could have mislead her. In a multiple-iteration fake barn case, the agent first encounters several fakes, misidentifies each of them, and then encounters and correctly identifies a genuine item of interest. Prior work has established that people tend to attribute knowledge in single-iteration fake barn cases, but multiple-iteration cases have not been tested. However, some theorists (...) contend that multiple-iteration cases are more important and will elicit a strong tendency to deny knowledge. Here I report a behavioural experiment investigating knowledge judgments in multiple-iteration fake barn cases. The main finding is that people tend to attribute knowledge in these cases too. Ironically, the results indicate that the presence of fakes could prevent iterated errors from lowering knowledge attributions. The results also provide evidence that ordinary knowledge attributions are based on attributions of cognitive ability. (shrink)

What exactly do we need in order to enjoy the cognitive benefit that is supposed to be provided by an explanation? Some philosophers :15–37, 2012, Episteme 10:1–17, 2013, Eur J Philos Sci 5:377–385, 2015, Understanding, explanation, and scientific knowledge, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2017) would say that all that we need is to know the explanation. Others :1–26, 2012; Strevens in Stud Hist Philos Sci Part A 44:510–515, 2013) would say that achieving understanding with the help of an explanation requires (...) more than that, that it requires a grasping or an understanding of the explanation. My aim in this paper is to come up with a new answer to this problem by exploring the shortcomings of the received view of understanding. In my view, besides having testimonial knowledge of an explanation, obtaining explanatory understanding requires full cognitive access to the explanation. (shrink)

Reliabilism about knowledge states that a belief-forming process generates knowledge only if its likelihood of generating true belief exceeds 50 percent. Despite the prominence of reliabilism today, there are very few if any explicit arguments for reliabilism in the literature. In this essay, I address this lacuna by formulating a new independent argument for reliabilism. As I explain, reliabilism can be derived from certain key knowledge-closure principles. Furthermore, I show how this argument can withstand John Turri’s two recent objections to (...) reliabilism: the argument from explanatory inference and the argument from achievements. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

Judgment and Agency contains Sosa’s latest effort to explain how higher epistemic value of the sort missing from an unwitting clairvoyant’s beliefs might be a special case of performance normativity, with its superior value following from truisms about performance value. This paper argues that the new effort rests on mistaken assumptions about performance normativity. Once these mistaken assumptions are exposed, it becomes clear that higher epistemic value cannot be a mere special case of performance normativity, and its superiority cannot be (...) guaranteed just by truisms about performance value. Sections 1 and 2 set the stage, clarifying the thesis and the relevant features of Sosa’s strategy, and explaining why the strategy requires the mistaken assumptions. Section 3 presents a dilemma for the new account of higher epistemic value. Section 4 deepens the case for one of the horns. Section 5 takes stock and draws some broader morals. (shrink)

Externalists about epistemic justification have long emphasized the connection between truth and justification, with this coupling finding explicit expression in process reliabilism. Process reliabilism, however, faces a number of severe difficulties, leading disenchanted process reliabilists to find a new theoretical home. The conceptual flag under which such epistemologists have preferred to gather is that of dispositions. Just as reliabilism is determined by the frequency of a particular outcome, making it possible to characterize justification in terms of a particular relationship to (...) truth, dispositions are accompanied by concrete, worldly manifestations. By taking true beliefs as the result, not of certain processes but of particular dispositions, these epistemologists have attempted to respond to the numerous obstacles to reliabilism. Yet all this work has proceeded without regard to the wealth of contemporary work on the metaphysics of dispositions, making the new hope premature at best, ill-founded at worst. Combining contemporary dispositional accounts of justification with extant analyses of dispositions reveals that the latter is the case. The structural differences between epistemic justification and dispositions make it clear that not only should process reliabilism be abandoned, but the subsequent appeal to dispositions along with it. (shrink)

We present Backward Clock, an original counterexample to Robert Nozick’s truth-tracking analysis of propositional knowledge, which works differently from other putative counterexamples and avoids objections to which they are vulnerable. We then argue that four ways of analysing knowledge in terms of safety, including Duncan Pritchard’s, cannot withstand Backward Clock either.

A familiar anti-sceptical response (à la Sosa) to radical sceptical scenarios employs the safety of knowledge. Radical sceptical scenarios are purported to be too modally remote to really threaten knowledge of ordinary propositions. Why? Because knowledge requires safety, and safety requires the target belief to be true in all nearby possible worlds, but radical sceptical scenarios purportedly take place at distant possible worlds. Hence, the safety theorist claims that radical sceptical scenarios don’t challenge our knowledge of ordinary propositions. But it's (...) alleged by Sosa and others that there's one radical sceptical scenario that can’t be dismissed so easily: the dream scenario. After all, unlike evil demons and brains in vats, ‘dreaming is a daily part of our lives…it is too close for comfort’. In this paper, I sketch an argument to the effect that there's good reason to think that the dream of dream scepticism describes a modally remote possibility, in which case I argue that if the safety-based anti-sceptical response is successful against the evil demon sceptical scenario, the brain in a vat sceptical scenario, and other Cartesian sceptical scenarios in this mould, then it's successful against the dream sceptical scenario as well. (shrink)

In this paper, I develop a serious new dilemma involving necessary truths for safety-based theories of knowledge, a dilemma that I argue safety theorists cannot resolve or avoid by relativizing safety to either the subject’s basis or method of belief formation in close worlds or to a set of related or sufficiently similar propositions. I develop this dilemma primarily in conversation with Duncan Pritchard’s well-known, oft-modeled safety-based theories of knowledge. I show that Pritchard’s well-regarded anti-luck virtue theory of knowledge and (...) his recently proposed (allegedly superior) anti-risk virtue theory of knowledge clearly succumb to the dilemma, and so they are inadequate as they stand. If Pritchard’s safety-based theories of knowledge are shown to be inadequate by the dilemma that is developed in this paper, then a number of other safety-based theories of knowledge (e.g., Beddor and Pavese’s, Luper’s, Dutant’s, early Pritchard’s, and others) look to be in jeopardy in this connection as well. (shrink)

[Significantly updated in Chapter 6 of Awareness and the Substructure of Knowledge] In order for a reason to justify an action or attitude it must be one that is possessed by an agent. Knowledge-centric views of possession ground our possession of reasons, at least partially, either in our knowledge of them or in our being in a position to know them. On virtually all accounts, knowing P is some kind of non-accidental true belief that P. This entails that knowing P (...) is a kind of non-accidental true representation that P. I outline a novel theory of the epistemic requirement on possession in terms of this more general state of non-accidental true representation. It is just as well placed to explain the motivations behind knowledge-centric views of possession, and it is also better placed to explain the extent of the reasons we possess in certain cases of deductive belief-updates and cases involving environmental luck. I conclude with three reflections. First, I indicate how my arguments generate a dilemma for Errol Lord’s view that possessing reasons is just a matter of being in a position to manifest one’s knowledge how to use them. Second, I explain how my view can simultaneously manage cases of environmental luck without falling prey to lottery cases. Finally, I sketch the direction for a further range of counterexamples to knowledge-centric theories of possession. (shrink)

[Significantly updated in Chapter 7 of Awareness and the Substructure of Knowledge] Many have found it plausible that knowledge is a constitutively normative state, i.e. a state that is grounded in the possession of reasons. Many have also found it plausible that certain cases of proprioceptive knowledge, memorial knowledge, and self-evident knowledge are cases of knowledge that are not grounded in the possession of reasons. I refer to these as cases of basic knowledge. The existence of basic knowledge forms a (...) primary objection to the idea that knowledge is a constitutively normative state. In what follows I offer a way through the apparent dilemma of having to choose between either basic knowledge or the normativity of knowledge. The solution involves homing in on a state of awareness (≈non-accidental true representation) that is distinct from knowledge and which in turn grounds the normativity of knowledge in a way that is fully consistent with the existence of basic knowledge. An upshot of this is that externalist theories of knowledge turn out to be fully compatible with the thesis that knowledgeable beliefs are always beliefs that are justified by the reasons one possesses. (shrink)

This article starts by defining instrumentalized knowledge (IK) as the practice of selectively valuing some set of reliable beliefs for the promotion of a more generally false or unreliable worldview. IK is typically exploited by conspiratorial echo chambers, which display systematic distrust and opposition towards mainstream epistemic authorities. We argue that IK is problematic in that it violates core epistemic virtues, and this gives rise to clear and present harms when abused by said echo chambers. Yet, we contend, mainstream epistemic (...) authorities (MEAs) are also complicit in practices resembling IK; we refer to these practices as instrumentalized knowledge* (IK*). IK* differs from IK in that the selective valuing of beliefs corresponds to a ”reliable” worldview, namely, one independently verified by the relevant epistemic experts. We argue that IK*, despite its apparent veracity, is also problematic, as it violates the same epistemic virtues as IK despite its aim of promoting true beliefs. This, we argue, leads it to being counterproductive in its goal of producing knowledge for the sake of the pursuit of truth, thereby raising the question of what distinguishes virtuous from nonvirtuous practices of instrumentalized knowledge. In an attempt to avoid this violation and to distinguish IK* from IK, we investigate whether and how IK* could still be epistemically virtuous. We conclude that IK* can be virtuous if its goal is to produce understanding as opposed to mere knowledge. (shrink)