Epistemic Consequences Research Articles

Tacit Belief, Semantics and Grammar

This paper explores speakers' epistemic access to the semanticand syntactic features of sentences of their language. I argue that there is evidence that ceteris paribus, the actual semantic features of sentences of a language are accessible as such by typical speakers of that language.I then explore various linguistic, cognitive, and epistemic consequences of this position.

Goldman on the Goals of Democracy

As practiced by Alvin Goldman, social epistemology addresses epistemic consequences and requirements of social practices and institutions. Since political institutions epistemic consequences and requirements, social epistemology has a great deal to offer to political philosophy. Goldman's work in this area is rich and interesting, and, in his recent book, Knowledge in a Social World,' he has much to say that deserves attention of political philosophers. I highly recommend, for example, his discussion of freedom of expression, and his critique of post-modernist views about truth. In this essay, I shall focus on Goldman's characteristically sophisticated and wellinformed discussion of epistemic requirements of democracy. I shall argue that there are instructive mistakes in Goldman's views, but in drawing attention to these mistakes, I do not want to obscure significance of Goldman's work. We value both democracy and knowledge, and, because of this, we need to pay attention to questions Goldman has raised both about requirements of democracy and about its impact on distribution of knowledge. The central task of social epistemology, Goldman says, is to determine which social practices have a comparatively favorable impact on as contrasted with error and ignorance.2 In this context, by knowledge, Goldman means true belief.3 The task, then, is to evaluate various social practices on basis of what he calls their knowledge consequences, or their consequences for true belief.4 Of course, Goldman does not deny that social institutions and practices can be evaluated on other grounds. His idea is simply that since true belief is valuable, the impact of various policies is worth determining even if that impact is trumped, in certain spheres, by other values.5 A second task for social epistemology is to determine what sorts of are required by institutions or social prac-

Reply to Commentators

Professor Kitcher worries about the theory of veritistic value (V-value) advanced in KSW. His worry is that the theory gives no fully general way of measuring (fundamental) V-value, and therefore the project of assessing candidate practices according to their generation of V-value can't get started. KSW's account of V-value makes some appeal to interest, but it does not make sufficiently extensive appeal to interests, Kitcher argues, to yield clear preferences for certain practices over others. Kitcher considers a subject who is interested in three propositions, P, Q, and R, and supposes that one practice does veritistic good with respect to P while a second does similar veritistic good with respect to Q and R. If there were a weighting of interests, one might say which of these practices is preferable to the other. But in the absence of any such weighting, it is impossible to say which is preferable. In addition, he points out, we are often interested not in the epistemic consequences for any particular individual, but in the epistemic consequences for many people. Thus, V-value should not be a function of a single person's interest but of many people's interests. What we need, then, is a collective analogue of (individual) V-value; but no such collective analogue is presented. The sorts of problems Kitcher raises did indeed worry me in writing KSW, and I agree that they were not satisfactorily resolved.' However, some of the problems are not quite as serious as Kitcher suggests. Kitcher is right that if there is no determinate way to measure fundamental V-value, the project of

Philosophy of mathematics: structure and ontology

Do numbers, sets, and so forth, exist? What do mathematical statements mean? Are they literally true or false, or do they lack truth values altogether? Addressing questions that have attracted lively debate in recent years, Stewart Shapiro contends that standard realist and antirealist accounts of mathematics are both problematic. As Benacerraf first noted, we are confronted with the following powerful dilemma. The desired continuity between mathematical and, say, scientific language suggests realism, but realism in this context suggests seemingly intractable epistemic problems. As a way out of this dilemma, Shapiro articulates a structuralist approach. On this view, the subject matter of arithmetic, for example, is not a fixed domain of numbers independent of each other, but rather is the natural number structure, the pattern common to any system of objects that has an initial and successor relation satisfying the induction principle. Using this framework, realism in mathematics can be preserved without troublesome epistemic consequences. Shapiro concludes by showing how a structuralist approach can be applied to wider philosophical questions such as the nature of an object and the Quinean nature of ontological commitment. Clear, compelling, and tautly argued, Shapiro's work, noteworthy both in its attempt to develop a full-length structuralist approach to mathematics and to trace its emergence in the history of mathematics, will be of deep interest to both philosophers and mathematicians.

The epistemic consequences of pervasive and embodied metaphor: Applications to psychotherapy.

The epistemic consequences of pervasive and embodied metaphor: Applications to psychotherapy.