Faith and Doubt in Epistemology

Abstract

Abstract Epistemic anxiety is a felt epistemic dissatisfaction, which tends to make someone feel the need to seek out more evidence before closing a question. As Jennifer Nagel has emphasized, epistemic anxiety often plays beneficial roles in helping us recognize when to think more slowly and deliberately. But like any psychological tendency, it can misfire. When it does, it further contributes to the negative bias in epistemology. This chapter highlights the importance of epistemic faith. This need not contrast with evidence-based thinking; sometimes following the evidence is itself an act of faith. When one is employing a proper epistemic method but feels an understandable anxiety about whether one is doing so, it is sometimes proper—epistemically, as well as morally—to put faith in one’s judgments, despite feelings of epistemic anxiety. Central case studies discussed in this chapter include basic perception, the epistemology of logic, induction, trust in the scientific community, recognizing racism, and standpoint theory.