Epistemic Rationality Research Articles

Accuracy and epistemic conservatism

Abstract Epistemic utility theory (EUT) is generally coupled with veritism. Veritism is the view that truth is the sole fundamental epistemic value. Veritism, when paired with EUT, entails a methodological commitment: norms of epistemic rationality are justified only if they can be derived from considerations of accuracy alone. According to EUT, then, believing truly has epistemic value, while believing falsely has epistemic disvalue. This raises the question as to how the rational believer should balance the prospect of true belief against the risk of error. A strong intuitive case can be made for a kind of epistemic conservatism – that we should disvalue error more than we value true belief. I argue that none of the ways in which advocates of veritist EUT have sought to motivate conservatism can be squared with their methodological commitments. Short of any such justification, they must therefore either abandon their most central methodological principle or else adopt a permissive line with respect to epistemic risk.

Accuracy and Credal Imprecision

AbstractMany have claimed that epistemic rationality sometimes requires us to have imprecise credal states (i.e., credal states representable only by sets of credence functions) rather than precise ones (i.e., credal states representable by single credence functions). Some writers have recently argued that this claim conflicts with accuracy‐centered epistemology, i.e., the project of justifying epistemic norms by appealing solely to the overall accuracy of the doxastic states they recommend. But these arguments are far from decisive. In this essay, we prove some new results, which show that there is little hope for reconciling the rationality of credal imprecision with accuracy‐centered epistemology.

Hinges, Disagreements, and Arguments: (Rationally) Believing Hinge Propositions and Arguing across Deep Disagreements

Wittgenstein famously introduced the notion of ‘hinge propositions’: propositions that are assumptions or presuppositions of our languages, conceptual schemes, and language games, presuppositions that cannot themselves be rationally established, defended, or challenged. This idea has given rise to an epistemological approach, ‘hinge epistemology’, which itself has important (negative) implications for argumentation. In particular, it develops and provides support for Robert Fogelin’s case for deep disagreements: disagreements that cannot be rationally resolved by processes of rational argumentation. In this paper, I first examine hinge epistemology in its own right, and then explore its implications for arguments and the theory of argumentation. I argue that (1) the Wittgensteinian approach to hinge propositions is problematic, and that, suitably understood, they can be rationally challenged, defended, and evaluated; (2) there are no well-formed, coherent propositions, ‘hinge’ or otherwise, that are beyond epistemic evaluation, critical scrutiny, and argumentative support/critique; and (3) good arguments concerning hinge propositions are not only possible but common. My arguments will rely on a thoroughgoing fallibilism, a rejection of ‘privileged’ frameworks, and an insistence on the challengeability of all frameworks, both from within and from without.

Perspectival Skeptical Theism

Skeptical theists have paid insufficient attention to non-evidential components of epistemic rationality. I address this lacuna by constructing an alternative perspectivalist understanding of epistemic rationality and defeat that, when applied to skeptical theism, yields a more demanding standard for reasonably affirming the crucial premise of the evidential argument from suffering. The resulting perspectival skeptical theism entails that someone can be justified in believing that gratuitous suffering exists only if they are not subject to closure-of-inquiry defeat; that is, a type of defeat that prevents reasonable belief that p even if p is very probable on an agent’s evidence.

Рациональность и виды нормативных оснований

The paper discusses problems related to possible gaps between the requirements of rationality and normativity. It shows that the analysis of a practical action from the point of view of instrumental rationality cannot be done without supplementing the context with the requirements of epistemic rationality. Only taking into account the demands of both types of rationality gives us hope to expect that the resulting rational grounds will have normative force. It is also shown that even this normative validity doesn’t always lead to the performance of the rational action. The author analyses the promising distinction of rational grounds offered by J. Gert and notes the strong and weak points of this approach.

Epistemic sentence adverbs, epistemic complement-taking predicates and epistemic pragmatic markers

This study presents a formal and functional data-driven characterization of sentence adverbs. We define epistemic sentence adverbs as semantic predicates that validate the truth value of their scopes and are macrosyntactically dependent on them. We distinguish epistemic sentence adverbs on the one hand from epistemic complement-taking predicates – i. e., semantic predicates that validate the truth value of their scopes and govern them microsyntactically – and on the other hand from epistemic pragmatic markers – i. e., semantic predicates that validate the truth value of their scopes and that are syntactically independent of them. We also hypothesize that epistemic sentence adverbs have a specific functional role. Unlike (most) epistemic complement taking predicates, they express a non-addressable epistemic evaluation of the scope; unlike pragmatic markers they serve to qualify, rather than negotiate, the epistemic evaluation of the scope. We show that such a distinction is not necessarily inscribed at the lexical level: even though some words invariably behave as sentence adverbs, other words can be classified as epistemic sentence adverbs in some syntactic contexts, and as other epistemic markers in other syntactic contexts.

Superstitious Confabulations

Superstition and confabulation are extremely pervasive in our cognitive lives. Whilst both these phenomena are widely discussed in the recent psychological literature, however, the relationship between them has not been the object of much explicit attention. In this paper, I argue that this relationship is actually very close, and deserves indepth consideration. I argue that superstitious and confabulatory attitudes share several key features and are rooted in the same psychological mechanisms. Moreover, some of the key features that superstitious and confabulatory attitudes share reveal such attitudes to be non-doxastic in nature, with important implications for our assessment of their epistemic rationality. Many instances of what we call superstitious and confabulatory ‘beliefs’ are not, in fact, beliefs; hence, entertaining them may be less irrational than it prima facie seems to be.

Agency Evidentialism: Trust and Doxastic Voluntarism

In debates about trust and testimony, epistemologists have traditionally been divided into two groups: those who hold that accepting the testimony of other people should be a kind of credulity without evidence (anti-reductivism) and those who assert that we shouldn't recognize any testimony as true or justified without appropriate evidence (reductivism). I will argue in favour of the evidentialist position about trust, or the stance that epistemically responsible trust is a matter of evidence, but also in favour of the thesis that the position assumed by anti-reductivists is not necessarily an anti-evidentialist position. The crucial difference between anti-reductivism and reductivism does not pertain to the question of evidence, but to epistemic agency. Finally, I will argue against anti-reductivism and in favour of agency evidentialism, wherein it is assumed that accepting testimony is a kind of agency where our (reflective) control is strong enough to ensure that our trust is responsible. The version of agency evidentialism which I here support presumes: (i) doxastic voluntarism, or the existence of intellectual freedom in the sense that we have to be capable of certain intellectual choices or decisions, and (ii) virtue epistemology, or the normative approach according to which the target of epistemic evaluation is an epistemic agent to whom we ascribe epistemic or intellectual virtues or vices (epistemic responsibility, epistemic conscientiousness or like.)

Enkrasia or evidentialism? Learning to love mismatch

I formulate a resilient paradox about epistemic rationality, discuss and reject various solutions, and sketch a way out. The paradox exemplifies a tension between a wide range of views of epistemic justification, on the one hand, and enkratic requirements on rationality, on the other. According to the enkratic requirements, certain mismatched doxastic states are irrational, such as believing p, while believing that it is irrational for one to believe p. I focus on an evidentialist view of justification on which a doxastic state regarding a proposition p is epistemically rational or justified just in case it tracks the degree to which one’s evidence supports p. If it is possible to have certain kinds of misleading evidence (as I argue it is), then evidentialism and the enkratic requirements come into conflict. Yet, both have been defended as platitudinous. After discussing and rejecting three solutions, I sketch an account that rejects the enkratic requirements, while nevertheless explaining our sense that epistemic akrasia is a distinct kind of epistemic failure. Central to the account is distinguishing between two evaluative perspectives, one having to do with the relevant kind of success (proportioning one’s doxastic states to the evidence), the other having to do with manifesting good dispositions. The problem with akratic subjects, I argue, is that they manifest dispositions to fail to correctly respond to a special class of conclusive and conspicuous reasons.

COMPUTATIONAL TRUST MANAGEMENT IN ECONOMICS PHENOMENA RESEARCH

Economics phenomena are notably governed by dynamic, non-linear, bottom-up processes emerging from agents’ interactions. Therefore traditional top-down approaches provide a rather limited insight into these phenomena. Further, research in economics has been mostly focused on addressing tangible factors, while human agents in economic settings often do not adhere to rational reasoning, and trust is one such kind of reasoning. Thanks to recent technological advancements new approaches are enabled, and this paper proposes a novel and anticipatory research methodology for studying economics phenomena that enables inclusion of trust. The methodology, called auxiliary composite simulations, builds upon recent advancements in computational trust management. By doing so it enables bottom-up simulations of trust driven economic phenomena. The paper provides also epistemic evaluation of the methodology and ends up with an example application of the proposed apparatus.

Polarization in groups of Bayesian agents

In this paper we present the results of a simulation study of credence developments in groups of communicating Bayesian agents, as they update their beliefs about a given proposition p. Based on the empirical literature, one would assume that these groups of rational agents would converge on a view over time, or at least that they would not polarize. This paper presents and discusses surprising evidence that this is not true. Our simulation study shows that these groups of Bayesian agents show group polarization behavior under a broad range of circumstances. This is, we think, an unexpected result, that raises deeper questions about whether the kind of polarization in question is irrational. If one accepts Bayesian agency as the hallmark of epistemic rationality, then one should infer that the polarization we find is also rational. On the other hand, if we are inclined to think that there is something epistemically irrational about group polarization, then something must be off in the model employed in our simulation study. We discuss several possible interfering factors, including how epistemic trust is defined in the model. Ultimately, we propose that the notion of Bayesian agency is missing something in general, namely the ability to respond to higher-order evidence.

Virtue Perspectivism, Normativity, and the Unity of Knowledge

It will be argued that personal agency, far from lacking epistemic value, contributes to knowledge in a substantial way. To this end, it will be claimed that what Sosa calls an epistemic perspective is necessary to solve the binding problem in epistemology at the three junctures at which it can occur: as the Pyrrhonian question of whether one can rationally endorse one’s epistemic rationality; as the problem of the epistemic status of guessing; and as the enquiry into the contribution of the agential perspective for evading coincidental luck. Our aim has been that of elucidating and expanding Sosa’s virtue perspectivism.

THE IRRATIONALITY OF PLURALISTIC IGNORANCE

ABSTRACTPluralistic ignorance is a social-psychological phenomenon in which an agent believes that their attitudes, feelings, and beliefs are different from those of others, despite the fact that their public behavior is identical. I argue that agents in standard cases of pluralistic ignorance are epistemically irrational. I accomplish this, first, by rebutting a recent argument for the rationality of pluralistic ignorance. Next, I offer a defeat-based argument against the epistemic rationality of pluralistic ignorance. Third, I examine a type of case in which the pluralistically ignorant agent's belief is irrational, despite the fact that this belief lacks a defeater. Finally, I consider instances of pluralistically ignorant agents whose beliefs are not irrational, but explain why such cases are not problematic for my main thesis. This critical discussion allows me to offer an important amendment to an extant account of pluralistic ignorance.

Attention norms in Siegel’s The Rationality of Perception

AbstractCan we be responsible for our attention? Can attention be epistemically good or bad? Siegel tackles these under‐explored questions in “Selection Effects”, a pathbreaking chapter of The Rationality of Perception. In this chapter, Siegel develops one of the first philosophical accounts of attention norms. Her account is inferential: patterns of attention are often controlled by inferences and therefore subject to rational epistemic norms that govern any other form of inference. Although Siegel’s account is explanatorily powerful, it cannot capture a core attention norm in cognitive science: one should balance between exploratory and exploitative attention. For central cases of exploratory attention such as mind‐wandering, child‐like, and creative thinking are non‐inferential. Siegel’s view classifies them as “normative freebies” that are not subject to epistemic evaluation. We’re therefore left with a disjunctive conclusion: either Siegel’s inferentialist theory of attention norms is incomplete or cognitive scientists are wrong about the norms that govern attention.

IS EPISTEMIC PERMISSIVISM INTUITIVE?

Abstract In recent debates over permissivism and uniqueness—two theses concerning the relationship between evidence and epistemic rationality—some philosophers have claimed that permissivism has an intuitive advantage over uniqueness. I examine the cases alleged to intuitively motivate permissivism and suggest they do not provide prima facie support for permissivism. I conclude by explaining how my discussion bears on whether permissivism can defeat skeptical arguments based on recognized peer disagreement and the historical contingency of our beliefs.

The explanatory role of consistency requirements

Is epistemic inconsistency a mere symptom of having violated other requirements of rationality—notably, reasons-responsiveness requirements? Or is inconsistency irrational on its own? This question has important implications for the debate on the normativity of epistemic rationality. In this paper, I defend a new account of the explanatory role of the requirement of epistemic consistency. Roughly, I will argue that, in cases where an epistemically rational agent is permitted to believe P and also permitted to disbelieve P (relative to a body of epistemic reasons), the consistency requirement plays a distinct explanatory role. I will also argue that such a type of permissiveness is a live possibility when it comes to rational epistemic standards.

The Level-Splitting View and the Non-Akrasia Constraint

Some philosophers have defended the idea that in cases of all-things-considered misleading higher-order evidence it is rational to take divergent doxastic attitudes to p and E supports p. In a recent paper, Sophie Horowitz has argued that such “Level-Splitting views” are implausible since they violate a rational requirement she calls the Non-Akrasia Constraint. In this paper, I argue that Horowitz’s objection is misguided since it conflates two distinct notions of epistemic rationality.

Remarks on the Epistemic Interpretation of Paraconsistency Logic

In a recent work, Walter Carnielli and Abilio Rodrigues present an epistemically motivated interpretation of paraconsistent logic. In their view, when there is conflicting evidence with regard to a proposition A (i.e. when there is both evidence in favor of A and evidence in favor of ￢A) both A and ￢A should be accepted without thereby accepting any proposition B whatsoever. Hence, reasoning within their system intends to mirror, and thus, should be constrained by, the way in which we reason about evidence. In this article we will thoroughly discuss their position and suggest some ways in which this project can be further developed. The aim of the paper is twofold. On the one hand, we will present some philosophical critiques to the specific epistemic interpretation of paraconsistent logic proposed by Carnielli & Rodrigues. First, we will contend that Carnielli & Rodrigues’s interpretation implies a thesis about what evidence rationally justifies to accept or believe, called Extreme Permissivism, which is controversial among epistemologists. Second, we will argue that what agents should do, from an epistemic point of view, when faced with conflicting evidence, is to suspend judgment. On the other hand, despite these criticisms we do not believe that the epistemological motivation put forward by Carnielli & Rodrigues is entirely wrong. In the last section, we offer an alternative way in which one might account for the epistemic rationality of accepting contradictions and, thus, for an epistemic understanding of paraconsistency, which leads us to discuss the notion of diachronic epistemic rationality.

Belief, credence, and faith

AbstractIn this article, I argue that faith's going beyond the evidence need not compromise faith's epistemic rationality. First, I explain how some of the recent literature on belief and credence points to a distinction between what I call B-evidence and C-evidence. Then, I apply this distinction to rational faith. I argue that if faith is more sensitive to B-evidence than to C-evidence, faith can go beyond the evidence and still be epistemically rational.

Truth‐Sensitivity and Folk Epistemology

Several studies have found a robust effect of truth on epistemic evaluation of belief, decision, action and assertion. Thus, truth has a significant effect on normative participant evaluations. Some theorists take this truth effect to motivate factive epistemic norms of belief, action, assertion etc. In contrast, I argue that the truth effect is best understood as an epistemic instance of the familiar and ubiquitous phenomenon of outcome bias. I support this diagnosis from three interrelating perspectives: (1) by epistemological theorizing, (2) by considerations from cognitive psychology and (3) by methodological reflections on the relationship between folk epistemology and epistemological theorizing.