Epistemology with a Broad and Long View

Abstract

Abstract Epistemology with a Broad and Long View is an original and provocative challenge to standard epistemologies which assume that the reasonability of beliefs is wholly a function of considerations indicating their current likelihood. The book argues that this view, although widely accepted, is excessively narrow. It’s preoccupied with beliefs, degrees of confidence, the current moment, and truth-related considerations. A less constricted epistemology acknowledges that in addition to beliefs and degrees of confidence, intellectual commitments play a vital role in our intellectual lives, that the key issue in overseeing all these attitudes is whether it’s appropriate to revise or add to them for purposes going forward, and that a mixture of practical, ethical, political, social, and intellectual considerations beyond the current moment determine what’s appropriate. On this view, there is no purely epistemic notion of reasonability. There are truth-related considerations, but except in those rare cases where there is complete certainty, they don’t determine the reasonability of our belief-like attitudes. They do so only in partnership with a broad and long range of non-truth-related considerations. A failure to recognize these partnerships results in theoretical confusion, and also impedes our ability to understand and deal with dogmatists who have unlikely and toxic views. The book’s overriding theme is that a broad and long view is as necessary for making sense of the reasonableness or unreasonableness of our opinions as it is for other aspects of our lives.