Abstract
AbstractIn this paper, I explore an underappreciated tension between two epistemic values: epistemic autonomy and the love of truth. On the one hand, it seems as though any healthy intellectual life includes thinking about a number of issues for oneself. On the other hand, it seems as though taking inquiry seriously requires you to take the best available route to the answer, and typically that is not thinking for yourself. For nearly any question you want to investigate, there is someone who is in a better epistemic position than you are to determine the answer. In what follows, I will first clarify our central question and sharpen this novel puzzle regarding epistemic autonomy. Having done so, I will argue that autonomous deliberation can be epistemically valuable to inquirers both when it is successful, as well as when it is unsuccessful. I conclude by gesturing at how these considerations point us toward an account of epistemic autonomy as an intellectual virtue.
Highlights
The tension here is between two epistemic values: epistemic autonomy and the love of truth. It seems as though any healthy intellectual life includes thinking about a number of issues for oneself. This is captured by the motto of the enlightenment, ‘have courage to use your own reason!’ In addition to this, developing epistemic autonomy in students is one of the primary goals of education
I conclude by gesturing at how these considerations point us toward an account of epistemic autonomy as an intellectual virtue
The intellectual virtue of epistemic autonomy. These considerations concerning the potential epistemic benefits and harms of autonomous deliberation indicate that there is an intellectual virtue in the neighborhood
Summary
For nearly any question you want to investigate, there is someone who is in a better epistemic position than you are to determine the answer For most people, their expertise does not extend far beyond their own personal lives, and even here we can sometimes find others who are more reliable. A life full of intellectual outsourcing seems defective even if it is motivated by a love for the truth – out of the desire to have true beliefs and to avoid false ones. It seems as though any healthy intellectual life includes thinking about a number of issues for oneself This is captured by the motto of the enlightenment, ‘have courage to use your own reason!’ In addition to this, developing epistemic autonomy in students is one of the primary goals of education.. I conclude by gesturing at how these considerations point us toward an account of epistemic autonomy as an intellectual virtue
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