Practical knowledge is discussed in close relation to practical expertise. For both anti-intellectualists and intellectualists, the knowledge of how to φ is widely assumed to entail the practical expertise in φ-ing. This paper refutes this assumption. I argue that non-experts can know how to φ via other experts’ knowledge of φ-ing. Know-how can be ‘outsourced’. I defend the outsourceability of know-how, and I refute the objections that reduce outsourced know-how to the knowledge of how to ask for help, of how (...) to get things done, or of external contents. Interestingly, outsourcing differs from social cooperation, collective agency, testimonial transmission, and many other notions in social-epistemological debates. Thus, outsourcing provides not only a hitherto unconsidered form of know-how but also a novel way for knowledge to be social. Furthermore, outsourcing plausibly involves a ‘social’ cognitive extension that does not rest on EMT or HEC. Given the outsourceability of know-how, we must reconsider the nature of know-how and expertise, as well as the relation between non-experts and experts. (shrink)

The paper discusses the thesis of extended belief and its implications for the possibility of extending ordinary, personal level knowledge. A common worry is that knowledge will overextend, that there will be ‘cognitive bloat’. If the subject’s standing beliefs can be realized in devices such as notebooks and smart phones, what is there to prevent the conclusion that she knows everything stored on such devices? One response to this worry is to block the move from belief to knowledge, and argue (...) that these externally stored beliefs, although reliable, do not qualify as knowledge. I argue, instead, that the fundamental problem arises at the level of belief. We prevent bloating of knowledge by preventing the bloating of belief. To do so, I argue, we need to take seriously Clark and Chalmers’ suggestion that what is distinctive of belief is its role in folk psychological explanations. Paying attention to this role shows that the usual examples, such as Otto’s notebook information, do not qualify as beliefs. To qualify, the external information would have to be much more directly connected to, and deeply integrated into, the subject’s overall system of beliefs and desires. (shrink)

It has been argued that just as, say, prejudice or wishful thinking can generate ill-founded beliefs, the same is true of experiences. The idea is that the etiology of cognitively penetrated experiences can downgrade their justificatory force. This view, known as the Downgrade Principle, seems to be compatible with both internalist and externalist conceptions of epistemic justification. An assessment of the credentials of the Downgrade Principle is particularly important in view of the fact that not all cases of cognitive penetration (...) are epistemically malignant. There are good and bad cases of cognitive penetration. I argue that a proper assessment of the Downgrade Principle will have to address two fundamental questions. I identify two general ways of responding to these questions and show why they fail. It will be maintained that an explanationist conception of justification has a better chance of accounting for the distinction between good and bad cases of cognitive penetration. The Downgrade Principle is then discussed in the context of the extended cognition thesis. In particular, I look at the sensorimotor theory of perception, as a way of broadening the scope of to include conscious perceptual experience, that sees senses as ways of exploring the environment mediated by different patterns of sensorimotor contingency. I suggest possible ways in which one could distinguish between good and bad cases of cognitive penetration on such a view compatible with the explanationist view of epistemic justification. (shrink)

Elsewhere, I have challenged virtue epistemology and argued that it doesn’t square with mundane cases of extended cognition. Kelp (forthcoming, this journal) and Greco (forthcoming) have responded to my charges, the former by questioning the force of my argument, the latter by developing a new virtue epistemology. Here I consider both responses. I show first that Kelp mischaracterizes my challenge. Subsequently, I identify two new problems for Greco’s new virtue epistemology.

There is a surge of attempts to draw out the epistemological consequences of views according to which cognition is deeply embedded, embodied and/or extended. The principal machinery used for doing so is that of analytic epistemology. Here I argue that Dewey's pragmatic epistemology may be better fit to the task. I start by pointing out the profound similarities between Dewey's view on cognition and that emerging from literature of more recent date. Crucially, the benefit of looking at Dewey is that (...) Dewey, unlike contemporary writers, also devises a corresponding epistemology. I then identify two senses in which contemporary analytic epistemology conflicts with e-cog—concluding from that the superiority of the Deweyian framework, at least as it concerns accommodating e-cog. (shrink)

The Credit Theory of Knowledge (CTK)—as expressed by such figures as John Greco, Wayne Riggs, and Ernest Sosa—holds that knowing that p implies deserving epistemic credit for truly believing that p . Opponents have presented three sorts of counterexamples to CTK: S might know that p without deserving credit in cases of (1) innate knowledge (Lackey, Kvanvig); (2) testimonial knowledge (Lackey); or (3) perceptual knowledge (Pritchard). The arguments of Lackey, Kvanvig and Pritchard, however, are effective only in so far as (...) one is willing to accept a set of controversial background assumptions (for instance, that innate knowledge exists or that doxastic voluntarism is wrong). In this paper I mount a fourth argument against CTK, that doesn’t rest on any such controversial premise, and therefore should convince a much wider audience. In particular, I show that in cases of extended cognition (very broadly conceived), the most salient feature explaining S ’s believing the truth regarding p may well be external to S , that is, it might be a feature of S ’s (non-human, artifactual) environment. If so, the cognitive achievement of knowing that p is not (or only marginally) creditable to S , and hence, CTK is false. (shrink)

The epistemic subject of collective scientific knowledge has been a matter of dispute in recent philosophy of science and epistemology. Following the distributed cognition framework, both collective-subject accounts (most notably by Knorr-Cetina, in _Epistemic Cultures_, Harvard University Press, 1999) as well as no-subject accounts of collective scientific knowledge (most notably by Giere, Social Epistemology 21:313–320, 2007; in Carruthers, Stich, Siegal (eds), _The Cognitive Basis of Science_, Cambridge University Press, 2002a) have been offered. Both strategies of accounting for collective knowledge are (...) problematic from the perspective of mainstream epistemology. Postulating genuinely collective epistemic subjects is a high-commitment strategy with little clear benefit. On the other hand, eliminating the epistemic subject radically severs the link between knowledge and knowers. Most importantly, both strategies lead to the undesirable outcome that in some cases of scientific knowledge there might be no individual knower that we can identify. I argue that distributed cognition offers us a fertile framework for analyzing complex socio-technical processes of contemporary scientific knowledge production, but scientific knowledge should nonetheless be located in individual knowers. I distinguish between the production and possession of knowledge, and argue that collective knowledge is collectively produced knowledge, not collectively possessed knowledge. I then propose an account of non-testimonial, expert scientific knowledge which allows for collectively produced knowledge to be known by individuals. (shrink)

An expert is commonly considered to be somebody who possesses the right kind of knowledge and skills to find out true answers for questions in a domain. However, this common conception that focuses only on an individual’s knowledge and skills is not very useful to understand the epistemically interdependent nature of contemporary scientific expertise, which becomes increasingly more relevant due to the rise of large interdisciplinary research collaborations. The typical scientific expert today relies substantially on complex scientific instruments and numerous (...) other experts in forming expert judgment. Moreover, we have research collaborations where multiple scientists interact in a way that gives rise to distributed cognitive systems, which can act as a single informant. Accordingly, our concept of scientific expertise should not consist only in individual knowledge and skills, but also accommodate epistemic dependence and collective knowledge production. To this aim, this paper proposes a reconstruction of the concept of scientific expertise as informant reliability by building on the virtue-epistemological account of epistemic competences and theories of extended and distributed cognition. Considered in reference to the social epistemic function of expertise, a scientific expert should be conceived as a reliable informant in a scientific domain, which implies that when consulted on matters in that domain they assert competently, honestly, and completely. Competent expert assertion involves the epistemic responsibility to draw on nothing but the highest degree of epistemic competence relevant to the given context. Thus, being a reliable informant may require one to draw on an extended epistemic competence that goes beyond one’s individual competence, or to form supra-individual or group-informants that manifest collectively the kind of complex epistemic competence required for the investigation of certain research questions. (shrink)

This paper engages in what might be called anticipatory virtue epistemology, as it anticipates some virtue epistemological risks related to a near-future version of brain-computer interface technology that Michael Lynch (2014) calls 'neuromedia.' I analyze how neuromedia is poised to negatively affect the intellectual character of agents, focusing specifically on the virtue of intellectual perseverance, which involves a disposition to mentally persist in the face of challenges towards the realization of one’s intellectual goals. First, I present and motivate what I (...) call ‘the cognitive offloading argument’, which holds that excessive cognitive offloading of the sort incentivized by a device like neuromedia threatens to undermine intellectual virtue development from the standpoint of the theory of virtue responsibilism. Then, I examine the cognitive offloading argument as it applies to the virtue of intellectual perseverance, arguing that neuromedia may increase cognitive efficiency at the cost of intellectual perseverance. If used in an epistemically responsible manner, however, cognitive offloading devices may not undermine intellectual perseverance but instead allow us to persevere with respect to intellectual goals that we find more valuable by freeing us from different kinds of menial intellectual labor. (shrink)

An expert is commonly considered to be somebody who possesses the right kind of knowledge and skills to find out true answers for questions in a domain. However, this common conception that focuses only on an individual’s knowledge and skills is not very useful to understand the epistemically interdependent nature of contemporary scientific expertise, which becomes increasingly more relevant due to the rise of large interdisciplinary research collaborations. The typical scientific expert today relies substantially on complex scientific instruments and numerous (...) other experts in forming expert judgment. Moreover, we have research collaborations where multiple scientists interact in a way that gives rise to distributed cognitive systems, which can act as a single informant. Accordingly, our concept of scientific expertise should not consist only in individual knowledge and skills, but also accommodate epistemic dependence and collective knowledge production. To this aim, this paper proposes a reconstruction of the concept of scientific expertise as informant reliability by building on the virtue-epistemological account of epistemic competences and theories of extended and distributed cognition. Considered in reference to the social epistemic function of expertise, a scientific expert should be conceived as a reliable informant in a scientific domain, which implies that when consulted on matters in that domain they assert competently, honestly, and completely. Competent expert assertion involves the epistemic responsibility to draw on nothing but the highest degree of epistemic competence relevant to the given context. Thus, being a reliable informant may require one to draw on an extended epistemic competence that goes beyond one’s individual competence, or to form supra-individual or group-informants that manifest collectively the kind of complex epistemic competence required for the investigation of certain research questions. (shrink)

In the paper, I distinguish the bottom-up strategy and the intentional stance strategy of analyzing group intentional states, and show that the thesis of distributed group subject of knowledge could be accommodated by either of them. Moreover, I argue that when combined with virtue reliabilism the thesis satisfactorily explains the phenomenon of group knowledge. To justify my argument, in the second part of the paper, I distinguish two accounts of justification pointing to conditions of group knowledge. The first, which I (...) call the belief-centered approach to group intentional states, determines the concept of group belief and group justificatory reason. The second, the process-centered approach represented by S. Orestis Palermos, employs the theory of virtue reliabilism and focuses on the group knowledge-conducive process. In the paper, I argue in favor of the latter as the internalism associated with the former appears to lack sufficient explanatory power. The theory of virtue epistemology runs into considerable difficulties when trying to deal with an extended epistemic subject composed of one individual and her cognitive artifact. In the two last parts of the paper, I consider the most important difficulties and argue that these obstacles are overcome once one adopts an approach combining virtue epistemology and the thesis of distributed group epistemic subject. (shrink)

The concept of an extended cognitive system is central to contemporary studies of cognition. In the paper I analyze the place of the epistemic subject within the extended cognitive system. Is it extended as well? In answering this question I focus on the differences between the first and the second wave of arguments for the extended mind thesis. I argue that the position of Cognitive Integration represented by Richard Menary is much more intuitive and fruitful in analyses of cognition and (...) knowledge than the early argument formulated by Andy Clark and David Chalmers. Cognitive Integration is compatible with virtue epistemology of John Greco’s agent reliabilism. The epistemic subject is constituted by its cognitive character composed of an integrated set of cognitive abilities and processes. Some of these processes are extended, they are a manipulation of external informational structures and, as such, they constitute epistemic practices. Epistemic practices are normative; to conduct them correctly the epistemic subject needs to obey epistemic norms embedded in the cultural context. The epistemic subject is not extended because of the casual coupling with external informational artifacts which extend his mind from inside the head and into the world. Rather, cognitive practices constitute the subject’s mind, they transform his cognitive abilities, and this is what makes the mind and epistemic subject “extended”. (shrink)

Recent work in epistemology and philosophy of science has argued that understanding is an important cognitive state that philosophers should seek to analyse. This paper offers a new perspective on understanding by looking to work in philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Understanding is normally taken to be inside the head. I argue that this view is mistaken. Often, understanding is a state that criss-crosses brain, body and world. To support this claim, I draw on extended cognition, a burgeoning framework (...) in cognitive science that stresses the crucial role played by tools, material representations and the wider environment in our cognitive processes. I defend an extended view of understanding against likely objections and argue that it has important consequences for questions concerning the nature of understanding and its relationship to explanation. (shrink)

One important debate between scientific realists and constructive empiricists concerns whether we observe things using instruments. This paper offers a new perspective on the debate over instruments by looking to recent discussion in philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Realists often speak of instruments as ‘extensions’ to our senses. I ask whether the realist may strengthen her view by drawing on the extended mind thesis. Proponents of the extended mind thesis claim that cognitive processes can sometimes extend beyond our brains (...) and bodies into the environment. I suggest that the extended mind thesis offers a way to make sense of realists’ talk of instruments as extensions to the senses and that it provides the realist with a new argument against the constructive empiricist view of instruments. (shrink)

The increasing popularity of artificial cognitive enhancements raises the issue of their impact on the agent’s personal autonomy, and issues pertaining to how the latter is to be secured. The extended mind thesis implies that mental states responsible for autonomous action can be partly constituted by the workings of cognitive artifacts themselves, and the question then arises of whether this commits one to embracing an extended agent thesis. My answer is negative. After briefly presenting the main accounts on the conditions (...) for autonomous agency, and analyzing how the latter can be protected from threats posed by the use of cognitive artifacts, I argue that autonomous agency is essentially tied to conscious experience and intentionality, which in turn can only be attributed to the human part of any extended cognitive system. I present both theoretical (conceptual) and practical arguments against recognizing the entire extended system, composed of one human and an artifact, as an autonomous agent. (shrink)

The epistemological consequences of the increasing popularity of artificial cognitive enhancements are still confined to the margins of philosophical exploration, with priority given instead to ethical problems requiring urgent practical solutions. In this paper, I examine the less popular, yet still important, problem of the threats to which the very knowledge-forming process is exposed when its subject uses artificial cognitive enhancers. The theory of knowledge I call upon is borrowed from virtue epistemologists who, together with proponents of active externalism, seek (...) to define the conditions that will protect artificially enhanced agents from a loss of epistemic agency. I invoke three such conditions, rejecting the last one. Incorporating active externalism into virtue epistemology points to the possibility of treating extended systems, composed of humans and artifacts, as extended subjects of knowledge. In the final part, however, I present two arguments against such an extension of epistemic agency. (shrink)

Proponents of the extended mind have suggested that phenomenal transparency may be important to the way we evaluate putative cases of cognitive extension. In particular, it has been suggested that in order for a bio-external resource to count as part of the machinery of the mind, it must qualify as a form of transparent equipment or transparent technology. The present paper challenges this claim. It also challenges the idea that phenomenological properties can be used to settle disputes regarding the constitutional (...) status of bio-external resources in episodes of extended cognizing. Rather than regard phenomenal transparency as a criterion for cognitive extension, we suggest that transparency is a feature of situations that support the ascription of certain cognitive/mental dispositional properties to both ourselves and others. By directing attention to the forces and factors that motivate disposition ascriptions, we arrive at a clearer picture of the role of transparency in arguments for extended cognition and the extended mind. As it turns out, transparency is neither necessary nor sufficient for cognitive extension, but this does not mean that it is entirely irrelevant to our understanding of the circumstances in which episodes of extended cognizing are apt to arise. (shrink)

Examples of extended cognition typically involve the use of technologically low-grade bio-external resources (e.g., the use of pen and paper to solve long multiplication problems). The present paper describes a putative case of extended cognizing based around a technologically advanced mixed reality device, namely, the Microsoft HoloLens. The case is evaluated from the standpoint of a mechanistic perspective. In particular, it is suggested that a combination of organismic (e.g., the human individual) and extra-organismic (e.g., the HoloLens) resources form part of (...) a common mechanism that realizes a bona fide cognitive routine. In addition to demonstrating how the theoretical resources of neo-mechanical philosophy might be used to evaluate extended cognitive systems, the present paper illustrates one of the ways in which mixed reality devices, virtual objects (i.e., holograms), and online (Internet-accessible) computational routines might be incorporated into human cognitive processes. This, it is suggested, speaks to the recent interest in mixed/virtual reality technologies across a number of disciplines. It also introduces us to issues that cross-cut disparate fields of philosophical research, such as the philosophy of science and the philosophy of technology. (shrink)

The Internet is an important focus of attention for those concerned with issues of extended cognition. In particular, the application of active externalist theorizing to the Internet gives rise to the notion of Internet-extended cognition: the idea that the Internet can form part of an integrated nexus of material elements that serves as the realization base for human mental states and processes. The current review attempts to survey a range of issues and controversies that arise in respect of the notion (...) of Internet-extended cognition. These include the issue of whether the Internet, as a technological system, is able to support real-world cases of cognitive extension. It also includes issues concerning the cognitive and epistemic impacts of the Internet. Finally, the review highlights a range of issues and concerns that have not been the focus of previous philosophical attention. These include issues of ‘network-extended cognitive bloat’, ‘conjoined minds’, and an entirely new form of cognitive extension that goes under the heading of ‘human-extended machine cognition’. Together, these issues serve to highlight the value and importance of Internet-extended cognition to contemporary philosophical debates about the extended mind. In particular, the notion of Internet-extended cognition has the potential to highlight points of philosophical progress that are not easily revealed by the kind of technologically low-grade cases that tend to animate the majority of philosophical discussions in this area. (shrink)

You don’t know that p unless it’s on account of your cognitive abilities that you believe truly that p. Virtue epistemologists think there’s some such ability constraint on knowledge. This looks to be in considerable tension, though, with putative faith- based knowledge. For it can easily seem that when you believe something truly on the basis of faith this isn't because of anything you're competent to do. Rather faith-based beliefs are a product of divine agency. Appearances notwithstanding, I argue in (...) this paper that there’s no deep tension between faith-based knowledge and virtue epistemology. Not if we learn to conceive of faith as a kind of extended knowledge. (shrink)

Muitos chamam a era em que atualmente vivemos como a Era da Informação. Isso porque vivemos em um mundo altamente conectado onde o fluxo de informação é constante. Uma das principais fontes de informação nos dias de hoje é a Internet, seja através de pesquisas no Google, seja através do testemunho de nossos amigos ou empresas em que confiamos, através das redes sociais. Este artigo visa realizar uma análise desde um ponto de vista da epistemologia social e de uma epistemologia (...) dos vícios para se responder uma pergunta que vem sendo feita em diversas pesquisas de psicologia experimental: O uso da Internet nos torna intelectualmente viciosos? A conclusão a que chego é a de que sim, em determinados contextos, o uso da Internet nos torna intelectualmente viciosos. Para chegar a esta conclusão, analiso um experimento realizado em uma pesquisa de psicologia experimental que afirma que a Internet nos torna intelectualmente arrogantes e uma resposta desde um ponto de vista da epistemologia que defende que este uso pode promover talvez mais virtudes. Em seguida considero a arquitetura da internet dentro de um contexto informacional específico para poder chegar à conclusão de que a internet, em determinados contextos, nos torna sim intelectualmente viciosos. (shrink)

The hypothesis of extended cognition holds that mental states and processes need not be wholly contained within biological confines. Yet the theory is plausible, and informative, only when it can set principled outer limits upon cognitive extension: it should not permit unrestricted expansion of the mental into the material environment. I argue that true cognitive extension occurs only when the subject takes responsibility for the contribution made by a non-neural resource, in a manner that can be illuminated by appeal to (...) theoretical resources from contemporary virtue epistemology. (shrink)

An increasingly popular objection to anti-intellectualism about know-how is that there are clear cases where an agent having the dispositional ability to φ does not suffice for her knowing how to φ. Recently, Adam Carter has argued that anti-intellectualism can only rise to meet this sufficiency objection if it imposes additional constraints on know-how. He develops a revisionary anti-intellectualism, on which knowing how to φ not only entails that the agent possesses a reliable ability to φ, but also that she (...) is equipped with certain kind of intellectual grasp of the method by which she is able to reliably φ. This paper argues that Carter's revisionary know-how does not constitute an improvement over the more standard version of anti-intellectualism. Moreover, it is argued that Carter's additional demands concede too much to the intellectualist, and, as a result, commit his revised anti-intellectualism to familiar problems facing the intellectualist account of know-how. In other words, his attempts to respond to the sufficiency objection constitutes a dangerous compromise to the intellectualist. The paper finishes with a final analysis that suggests, in the end, there are still reasons to prefer standard anti-intellectualism over intellectualism. (shrink)

How should one attribute epistemic credit to an agent, and hence, knowledge, when cognitive processes include an extensive use of human or mechanical enhancers, informational tools, and devices which allow one to complement or modify one's own cognitive system? The concept of integration of a cognitive system has been used to address this question. For true belief to be creditable to a person's ability, it is claimed, the relevant informational processes must be or become part of the cognitive character of (...) the agent, as a result of a process of enculturation. We argue that this view does not capture the role of sensitivity to epistemic norms in forming true beliefs. An analysis of epistemic actions, basic and extended, is proposed as offering an appropriate framework for crediting an agent with knowledge. (shrink)

This paper explores the implications of a technological revolution that many in the industry think is likely soon to come to pass: neuromedia. In particular, the paper is interested in how this will constitute an especially persuasive kind of extended cognition, and thereby will facilitate extended epistemic states. This will in turn have ramifications for how we understand the epistemic goals of education. The paper argues that the challenges posed by neuromedia remind us that the overarching epistemic goal of education (...) is not orientated towards facilitating a body of knowledge (or the development of mere cognitive skills) but rather is concerned with the development of intellectual character, where this in turn essentially involves the cultivation of intellectual virtues, character traits that are not amenable to extended cognition. (shrink)

What does it take to convert the deliverances of an extended cognitive process into knowledge? It is argued that virtue epistemology, at least of an epistemic externalist kind, offers the resources to satisfactorily answer this question, provided that one rids the view of its implicit commitment to epistemic individualism. Nonetheless, it is also claimed that while virtue reliabilism can accommodate extended cognition, there are limits to the extent to which virtuous epistemic standings can be extended. In particular, it is argued (...) that it is in the nature of intellectual virtue to be directed at non-extended epistemic standings. This point has important implications for an extended virtue epistemology, as is illustrated by considering how this point plays out in the context of the contemporary debate regarding the epistemology of education. (shrink)

Adam Carter has recently presented a novel puzzle about extended knowledge – i.e. knowledge that results from extended cognitive processes. He argues that allowing for this kind of knowledge on the face of it entails that there could be instances of knowledge that are simply ‘engineered’ into the subject. The problem is that such engineered knowledge does not look genuine given that it results from processes that bypass the cognitive agency of the subject. Carter’s solution is to argue that we (...) need to impose an additional autonomy condition on knowledge that excludes such cases of non-autonomous knowledge. In response, two points of criticism are offered. First, that when extended knowledge is properly understood, virtue-theoretic accounts of knowledge can already exclude non-autonomous knowledge without the need of an additional epistemic condition. Second, that the cases that Carter offers of putatively non-autonomous knowledge involve the inclusive folk notion of belief rather than the more restrictive notion of belief that is relevant to epistemology (K-apt belief). Once it is recognized that the belief condition on knowledge concerns this more restrictive notion, then we already have the means to exclude cases of non-autonomous knowledge (regardless of which theory of knowledge one favors). (shrink)

Assistive technology is widely used in contemporary special needs education. Our interest is in the extent to which we can conceive of certain uses of AT in this educational context as a form of extended cognition. It is argued that what is critical to answering this question is that the relationship between the student and the AT is more than just that of subject-and-instrument, but instead incorporates a fluidity and spontaneity that puts it on a functional par with their use (...) of the student’s biological cognitive traits. It is claimed that AT use in special needs education offers an especially plausible case of extended cognition for just this reason. It is further maintained that understanding AT in this fashion has some important philosophical and practical ramifications, including how we should conceive of mainstream education, given that this is increasingly conducted within highly technologically-embedded environments. (shrink)

Here I will re-purpose Nozick’s (1974) “Experience Machine” thought experiment against hedonism into an argument against Veritic Epistemic Consequentialism. According to VEC, the right action, epistemically speaking, is the one that results in at least as favorable a ratio of true to false belief as any other action available. A consequence of VEC is that it would be epistemically right to outsource all your cognitive endeavors to a matrix-like “True Belief Machine” that uploads true beliefs through artificial stimulation. Rather than (...) reflecting, inferring or inquiring, all of your beliefs would be the product of updates coming from the machine. This implication of VEC is counter intuitive. I will spend much of the paper considering defensive maneuvers and showing them to be lacking. The problem with going in for the True Belief Machine seems to be that the subject forfeits her autonomy. There has been much work lately on the virtue of intellectual autonomy and some of it has the potential to explain what is epistemically amiss about plugging into the machine. However, I will argue that the proponent of VEC cannot appeal to it without abandoning her preferred order of explanation. (shrink)

To avoid the problem of regress, externalists have put forward defeaters-based accounts of justification. The paper argues that existing proposals face two serious concerns: (i) They fail to accommodate related counterexamples such as Norman the clairvoyant, and, more worryingly, (ii) they fail to explain how one can be epistemically responsible in holding basic beliefs—i.e., they fail to explain how basic beliefs can avoid being arbitrary from the agent’s point of view. To solve both of these problems, a new, externalist, defeaters-based (...) account of justification is offered—viz., System Reliabilism. The core message of the view—and the way it deals with both (i) and (ii)—is the claim that the justificatory status of justified basic beliefs originates from being the undefeated outputs of a reliable, cognitively integrated system that is capable of defeating them. Simply put, to be candidates for being justified, basic beliefs must be epistemically responsible and to be so they must be undefeated while being defeasible. The paper also offers a detailed, naturalistic analysis of the notion of cognitive integration. This long-due, mechanistic account of cognitive integration is then used to argue that an additional advantage of System Reliabilism is its unique position to account for the as yet unexplained intuition that responsible beliefs are also likely to be true. (shrink)

Mainstream epistemologists have recently made a few isolated attempts to demonstrate the particular ways, in which specific types of knowledge are partly social. Two promising cases in point are Lackey’s dualism in the epistemology of testimony and Goldberg’s process reliabilist treatment of testimonial and coverage-support justification. What seems to be missing from the literature, however, is a general approach to knowledge that could reveal the partly social nature of the latter anytime this may be the case. Indicatively, even though Lackey (...) :345–361, 2007) has recently launched an attack against the Credit Account of Knowledge on the basis of testimony, she has not classified her view of testimonial knowledge into any of the alternative, general approaches to knowledge. Similarly, even if Goldberg’s attempt to provide a process reliabilist explanation of the social nature of testimonial knowledge is deemed satisfactory, his attempt to do the same in the case of coverage-support justification does not deliver the requisite result. This paper demonstrates that CAK can in fact provide, pace Lackey’s renunciation of the view, a promising account of the social nature of both testimonial and coverage-supported knowledge. Additionally, however, it can display further explanatory power by also revealing the social nature of knowledge produced on the basis of epistemic artifacts. Despite their disparities, all these types of knowledge count as partly social in nature, because in all these cases, according to CAK, the epistemic credit for the individual agent’s true belief must spread between the individual agent and certain parts of her epistemic community. Accordingly, CAK is a promising candidate for providing a unified approach to several and, perhaps all possible, instances of what we may call ‘weak epistemic anti-individualism’ within mainstream epistemology: i.e., the claim that the nature of knowledge can occasionally be both social and individual at the same time. (shrink)

In Weaving the Web, Berners-Lee defines Social Machines as biotechnologically hybrid Web-processes on the basis of which, “high-level activities, which have occurred just within one human’s brain, will occur among even larger more interconnected groups of people acting as if the shared a larger intuitive brain”. The analysis and design of Social Machines has already started attracting considerable attention both within the industry and academia. Web science, however, is still missing a clear definition of what a Social Machine is, which (...) has in turn resulted in several calls for a “philosophical engineering” ; Halpin et al. 2010). This paper is a first attempt to respond to this call, by combining contemporary philosophy of mind and cognitive science with epistemology. The idea of philosophical engineering implies that a sufficiently good conception of Social Machines should be of both theoretical and practical advantage. To demonstrate how the present approach can satisfy both objectives it will be used in order to address one of Wikipedia’s most worrying concerns—i.e., the current and ongoing decline in the number of its active contributors. (shrink)

Cognitive integration is a defining yet overlooked feature of our intellect that may nevertheless have substantial effects on the process of knowledge-acquisition. To bring those effects to the fore, I explore the topic of cognitive integration both from the perspective of virtue reliabilism within externalist epistemology and the perspective of extended cognition within externalist philosophy of mind and cognitive science. On the basis of this interdisciplinary focus, I argue that cognitive integration can provide a minimalist yet adequate epistemic norm of (...) subjective justification: so long as the agent’s belief-forming process has been integrated in his cognitive character, the agent can be justified in holding the resulting beliefs merely by lacking any doubts there was something wrong in the way he arrived at them. Moreover, since both externalist philosophy of mind and externalist epistemology treat the process of cognitive integration in the same way, we can claim that epistemic cognitive characters may extend beyond our organismic cognitive capacities to the artifacts we employ or even to other agents we interact with. This move is not only necessary for accounting for advanced cases of knowledge that is the product of the operation of epistemic artifacts or the interactive activity of research teams, but it can further lead to interesting ramifications both for social epistemology and philosophy of science. (shrink)

Strong epistemic anti-individualism—i.e., the claim that knowledge can be irreducibly social—is increasingly debated within mainstream and social epistemology. Most existing approaches attempt to argue for the view on the basis of aggregative analyses, which focus on the way certain groups aggregate the epistemic attitudes of their members. Such approaches are well motivated, given that many groups to which we often ascribe group knowledge—such as juries and committees—operate in this way. Yet another way that group knowledge can be generated is on (...) the basis of epistemic collaborations, such as scientific research teams and Transactive Memory Systems. To produce knowledge, epistemic collaborations rely heavily on the mutual interactions of their group members. This is a distinctive feature of epistemic collaborations that renders them resistant to aggregative analyses. To accommodate this kind of group knowledge, the paper combines virtue reliabilism with the hypothesis of distributed cognition in order to introduce the hybrid approach of distributed virtue reliabilism. On this view, beliefs produced by epistemic collaborations entertain positive epistemic standing in virtue of the mutual interactions of their group members; this positive epistemic standing is a collective property; epistemic collaborations qualify as epistemic group agents; collaborative knowledge is a special kind of group knowledge, motivating strong epistemic anti-individualism in a distinctive way. (shrink)

Strong epistemic anti-individualism—i.e., the claim that knowledge can be irreducibly social—is increasingly debated within mainstream and social epistemology. Most existing approaches attempt to argue for the view on the basis of aggregative analyses, which focus on the way certain groups aggregate the epistemic attitudes of their members. Such approaches are well motivated, given that many groups to which we often ascribe group knowledge—such as juries and committees—operate in this way. Yet another way that group knowledge can be generated is on (...) the basis of epistemic collaborations, such as scientific research teams and Transactive Memory Systems. To produce knowledge, epistemic collaborations rely heavily on the mutual interactions of their group members. This is a distinctive feature of epistemic collaborations that renders them resistant to aggregative analyses. To accommodate this kind of group knowledge, the paper combines virtue reliabilism with the hypothesis of distributed cognition in order to introduce the hybrid approach of distributed virtue reliabilism. On this view, beliefs produced by epistemic collaborations entertain positive epistemic standing in virtue of the mutual interactions of their group members; this positive epistemic standing is a collective property; epistemic collaborations qualify as epistemic group agents; collaborative knowledge is a special kind of group knowledge, motivating strong epistemic anti-individualism in a distinctive way. (shrink)

Dualism in the Epistemology of Testimony and the Ability Intuition Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11406-010-9291-4 Authors Spyridon Orestis Palermos, Department of Philosophy, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences (PPLS), The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK Journal Philosophia Online ISSN 1574-9274 Print ISSN 0048-3893.

The aim of the present paper is to argue that robust virtue epistemology is correct. That is, a complete account of knowledge is not in need for an additional modal criterion in order to account for knowledge-undermining epistemic luck. I begin by presenting the problems facing robust virtue epistemology by examining two prominent counterexamples—the Barney and ‘epistemic twin earth’ cases. After proposing a way in which virtue epistemology can explain away these two problematic cases, thereby, implying that cognitive abilities are (...) also safe, I offer a naturalistic explanation in support of this last claim, inspired by evolutionary epistemology. Finally, I argue that naturalized epistemology should not be thought of as being exclusively descriptive. On the contrary, the evolutionary story I offer in support of the claim that reliability implies safety can provide us with a plausible epistemic norm. (shrink)

Combining active externalism in the form of the extended and distributed cognition hypotheses with virtue reliabilism can provide the long sought after link between mainstream epistemology and philosophy of science. Specifically, by reading virtue reliabilism along the lines suggested by the hypothesis of extended cognition, we can account for scientific knowledge produced on the basis of both hardware and software scientific artifacts. Additionally, by bringing the distributed cognition hypothesis within the picture, we can introduce the notion of epistemic group agents, (...) in order to further account for collective knowledge produced on the basis of scientific research teams. (shrink)

Virtue reliabilists argue that an agent can only gain knowledge if she responsibly employs a reliable belief-forming process. This in turn demands that she is either aware that her process is reliable or is sensitive to her process’s reliability in some other way. According to a recent argument in the philosophy of mind, sometimes a cognitive mechanism (i.e. precision estimation) can ensure that a belief-forming process is only employed when it’s reliable. If this is correct, epistemic responsibility can sometimes be (...) explained entirely on the subpersonal level. In this paper, I argue that the mechanism of precision estimation–the alleged new variety of epistemic responsibility–is a more ubiquitous phenomenon than epistemic responsibility. I show that precision estimation operates at levels that are not always concerned with the epistemic domain. Lastly, I broaden this argument to explain how all subpersonal epistemologies are likely to fall prey to the problem of demarcating cognitive agency and the problem of attributing beliefs. (shrink)

Recently, a cottage industry has formed with the expressed intent of analyzing the nature of personal-level reasoning and inference. The dominant position in the extant philosophical literature is that reasoning consists in rule-governed operations over propositional attitudes. In addition, it is widely assumed that our attitude updating procedures are purely cognitive. Any non-cognitive activity performed in service of updating our attitudes is external to the updating process—at least in terms of rational evaluation. In this paper, I argue that whether one (...) has rationally updated one’s attitudes and whether the resultant attitudes are rational can (at least partially) depend on one’s interactions with one’s environment and body to scaffold one’s ability to arrive at attitudes that are rationally appropriate given one’s evidence. (shrink)

While, prima facie, virtue/credit approaches in epistemology would appear to be in tension with distributed/extended approaches in cognitive science, Pritchard () has recently argued that the tension here is only apparent, at least given a weak version of distributed cognition, which claims merely that external resources often make critical contributions to the formation of true belief, and a weak virtue theory, which claims merely that, whenever a subject achieves knowledge, his cognitive agency makes a significant contribution to the formation of (...) a true belief. But the significance of the role played by the subject's cognitive agency in distributed cognitive systems is in fact highly variable: at one extreme, formation of a true belief seems clearly to be significantly creditable to the subject's agency; at the other extreme, however, the subject's agency plays such a peripheral role that it is at best unclear whether it should receive significant credit for formation of a true belief. The compatibility of distributed cognition and virtue epistemology thus turns on what it takes for a contribution to the formation of true belief to count as significant. This article argues that the inevitable vagueness of this notion suggests retreating from virtue epistemology to a form of process reliabilism and explores the prospects for a distributed reliabilist epistemology designed to fit smoothly with distributed cognition. In effect, distributed reliabilism radicalizes Goldberg's recent extended reliabilist view by allowing the process the reliability of which determines the epistemic status of a subject's belief to extend to include not only processing performed by other subjects but also processing performed by non-human technological resources. (shrink)

The argument of this paper is that we should think of the extension of cognitive abilities and cognitive character in integrationist terms. Cognitive abilities are extended by acquired practices of creating and manipulating information that is stored in a publicly accessible environment. I call these cognitive practices (2007). In contrast to Pritchard (2010) I argue that such processes are integrated into our cognitive characters rather than artefacts; such as notebooks. There are two routes to cognitive extension that I contrast in (...) the paper, the first I call artefact extension which is the now classic position of the causal coupling of an agent with an artefact. This approach needs to overcome the objection from cognitive outsourcing: that we simply get an artefact or tool to do the cognitive processing for us without extending our cognitive abilities. Enculturated cognition, by contrast, does not claim that artefacts themselves extend our cognitive abilities, but rather that the acquired practices for manipulating artefacts and the information stored in them extend our cognitive abilities (by augmenting and transforming them). In the rest of the paper I provide a series of arguments and cases which demonstrate that an enculturated approach works better for both epistemic and cognitive cases of the extension of ability and character. (shrink)

This paper is ambitious: it begins with mixing externalism in philosophy of mind with internalism in epistemology, and it ends with instructive insights from social and feminist thought. In the first stage, I argue that one can consistently combine two theses that appear, at first glance, incompatible: cognitive externalism—the thesis that one’s mental states/processing can extend past one’s biological boundaries—and mentalism in epistemology—i.e., that epistemic justification supervenes on one’s mental states. This yields the perhaps startling or strange view that the (...) loci of epistemic justification are both mental states and located externally to one’s skull and skin. This motivates the second stage: I aim to ease that strangeness by suggesting that most discussions of cognitive externalism and epistemology too often focus exclusively on extending epistemically reliable abilities, faculties, dispositions, etc. to artifacts in one’s environment. Instead, we should think of this combination as informed by feminist epistemologists’ insistence of our thinking’s irreducible and radical sociality. Epistemic communities shape and are shaped by our cognition—echoing the dynamic, interactive integration at the heart of cognitive externalism. Thus, just as I am part of an epistemic community, it is also a part of me. Thus, I think with others: not merely as an artifact but as constituent elements of my cognition itself; resulting in a robust socially extended internalism. (shrink)

Debate rages in virtue epistemology between virtue reliabilists and responsibilists. Here, I develop and argue for a new kind of responsibilism that is more conciliar to reliabilism. First, I argue that competence-based virtue reliabilism cannot adequately ground epistemic credit. Then, with this problem in hand, I show how Aristotle’s virtue theory is motivated by analogous worries. Yet, incorporating too many details of Aristotelian moral theory leads to problems, notably the problem of unmotivated belief. As a result, I suggest a re-turn (...) to Aristotle to develop a distinctively epistemological virtue theory that does not require any motive or affect for epistemic virtue. Nevertheless, my theory affirms that virtues are acquired, agent-expressive traits. The result is a conciliar responsibilism that leans closer to reliabilism. I end by arguing that my virtue responsibilism can solve worries facing both reliabilism and responsibilism. (shrink)

El objetivo del presente trabajo consiste en presentar la noción de virtud extendida considerando tres aspectos fundamentales de éxito cognitivo el carácter dinámico de la recolección y evaluación de evidencias; la fiabilidad de los procesos de predicción; la aptitud para tratar con un contexto dado, donde las capacidades extendidas se integran con las no extendidas. En este sentido, el éxito cognitivo es producto de una función entre la recolección de evidencias y su costo en tiempo y esfuerzo. La virtud extendida (...) tiene como fin reducir dicho costo. (shrink)