Epistemic Justification Research Articles

Beyond The ‘Null Setting’

Epistemologists of testimony have tended to construct highly stylized (so-called “null setting”) examples in support of their respective philosophical positions, the paradigmatic case being the casual request for directions from a random stranger. The present paper analyzes the use of such examples in the early controversy between reductionists and anti-reductionists about testimonial justification. The controversy concerned, on the one hand, the source of whatever epistemic justification our testimony-based beliefs might have, and, on the other hand, the phenomenology of testimonial acceptance and rejection. As it turns out, appeal to “null setting” cases did not resolve, but instead deepened, the theoretical disputes between reductionists and anti-reductionists. This, it is suggested, is because interpreters ‘fill in’ missing details in ways that reflect their own peculiarities in perspective, experience, upbringing, and philosophical outlook. In response, two remedial strategies have been pursued in recent years: First, we could invert the usual strategy and turn to formal contexts, rather than informal settings, as the paradigmatic scenarios for any prospective epistemology of testimony. Second, instead of “null setting” scenarios, we can focus on richly described cases that either include, or are embedded into, sufficient contextual information to allow for educated judgments concerning the reliability and trustworthiness of the testimony and testifiers involved. The prospects of both of these approaches are then discussed and evaluated.

Análisis del internalismo metadidáctico: una perspectiva socio-didáctica

En este artículo iniciamos una reflexión sobre los posibles pilares epistémicos de la metadidáctica. El objetivo es obtener una especie de configuración de un corpus epistémico propio para la didáctica general y para las didácticas específicas, que pueda ser compartido e identificativo de tal conocimiento. Con ello se pretende sentar los cimientos de una justificación epistémica que sirva de base a previsibles estrategias didácticas, lo más adecuadas posible, para el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje. En esta ocasión, partimos de analizar el internalismo en el ámbito de la didáctica, pero desde una perspectiva socio-didáctica. Identificaremos en qué consiste la metadidáctica como teorización sobre la didáctica, la investigación en torno a ella y las capacidades metacognitivas presentes en la episteme didáctica. Entendemos que la búsqueda de una justificación epistémica es imprescindible, y que el condicionante social no puede ser excluido del conocimiento educativo. Por tanto, hablar de condicionante social no implica necesariamente aludir a un externalismo epistémico. Tras estudiar qué tipo de justificación plantea la perspectiva del internalismo, comprobaremos si esta tiene algún tipo de viabilidad y coherencia completa o parcial en la metadidáctica. Finalmente, concluiremos que la ciencia didáctica presenta elementos internalistas. No obstante, huiremos tanto de la exclusión epistémica como de una hipertrofia teórica, que no ayudarían al desarrollo de la didactología y su aplicación.

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.

Intellectual humility and the epistemology of disagreement

It is widely accepted that one strong motivation for adopting a conciliatory stance with regard to the epistemology of peer disagreement is that the non-conciliatory alternatives are incompatible with the demands of intellectual character, and incompatible with the virtue of intellectual humility in particular. It is argued that this is a mistake, at least once we properly understand what intellectual humility involves. Given some of the inherent problems facing conciliatory proposals, it is maintained that non-conciliatory approaches to epistemic peer disagreement are thus on much stronger dialectical ground than many suppose, including some defenders of this line. In particular, non-conciliatory proposals can resist the idea that epistemic peer disagreement directly weakens one’s epistemic justification, as conciliatory views maintain. This means that the epistemic justification that our beliefs in this regard enjoy, and thus our knowledge, is more secure than conciliatory approaches to epistemic peer disagreement would suggest.

The Moral Hardness of Libertarianism

The following is a criticism designed to apply to most libertarian free will theorists. I argue that most libertarians hold three beliefs that jointly show them to be unsympathetic or hard-hearted to persons whom they hold morally responsible: that persons are morally responsible only because they make libertarian choices, that we should hold persons responsible, and that we lack epistemic justification for thinking persons make such choices. Softhearted persons who held these three beliefs would espouse hard determinism, which exonerates all persons of moral responsibility, or, at least, would not espouse libertarianism. I do not address the view held by some libertarians that we do have epistemic justification for thinking that persons make libertarian choices, a minority position that I believe cannot be sustained.

The Hard-Heartedness of Some Libertarians: A Reply to John Lemos

In “The Moral Hardness of Libertarianism” (2002), I accuse libertarians of being morally unsympathetic if they hold three widely shared beliefs: that persons are morally responsible only if they make libertarian choices; that we should hold persons morally responsible; and that we lack epistemic justification for thinking persons make libertarian choices. In “Hard-Heartedness and Libertarianism” (2013), John Lemos, relying on the Kantian principle of ends, suggests a way for libertarians to accept these three beliefs while avoiding the charge of hard-heartedness. In this paper, I criticize Lemos’s rebuttal.

La justificación de la abducción en el contexto del debate sobre el realismo científico: una aproximación argumentativa

The new perspectives on the nature of justifying practices brought by the development of a non-formal and non-deductivistic argumentation theory offer us the opportunity to revisit some central issues for the Philosophy of Science and revise our analysis of the typical ways to give, ask for and critically receive reasons in the Sciences. The use of the notions and distinctions developed by this theoretical framework help us clarify the rational structure of the scientific agents’ evidentiary discourse, which includes closely interrelated both argumentative and explanatory acts. This determines the centrality of a meta-explanatory argumentative scheme such is abduction. However, there is a philosophical debate that goes beyond the identification and comprehension of these rational structures and even beyond their assessment conducted by the participants in scientific discussions. This is the debate among philosophers regarding the epistemic justification of abduction, closely related to the different stances regarding the justifying possibilities of scientific realism. This paper revises different viewpoints on the justification of abduction, exposing their argumentative import and the way they govern the comprehension of particular abductive arguments.

String theory, non-empirical theory assessment, and the context of pursuit

In this paper, I offer an analysis of the radical disagreement over the adequacy of string theory. The prominence of string theory despite its notorious lack of empirical support is sometimes explained as a troubling case of science gone awry, driven largely by sociological mechanisms such as groupthink (e.g. Smolin in The trouble with physics, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 2006). Others, such as Dawid (String theory and the scientific method, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2013), explain the controversy by positing a methodological revolution of sorts, according to which string theorists have quietly turned to non-empirical methods of theory assessment given the technological inability to directly test the theory. The appropriate response, according to Dawid, is to acknowledge this development and widen the canons of acceptable scientific methods. As I’ll argue, however, the current situation in fundamental physics does not require either of these responses. Rather, as I’ll suggest, much of the controversy stems from a failure to properly distinguish the “context of justification” from the “context of pursuit”. Both those who accuse string theorists of betraying the scientific method and those who advocate an enlarged conception of scientific methodology objectionably conflate epistemic justification with judgements of pursuit-worthiness. Once we get clear about this distinction and about the different norms governing the two contexts, the current situation in fundamental physics becomes much less puzzling. After defending this diagnosis of the controversy, I’ll show how the argument patterns that have been posited by Dawid as constituting an emergent methodological revolution in science are better off if reworked as arguments belonging to the context of pursuit.

The sufficiency and necessity of (Swinburne’s) Natural Theology

The conclusion of Swinburne’s book The existence of God is that “On our total evidence theism is more probable than not”. I will not dispute that conclusion, as others have done. I will concede that the conclusion is supported by Swinburne’s argument and that the argument is in fact “good”. I will question, however, the impact of that conclusion ”“ with the use of the argument that supports it - for the epistemological enterprise of justifying theistic belief, that is, the belief that God exists. Developing criticism given by Alvin Plantinga (2001), I will question the sufficiency and necessity of Swinburne’s probabilistic argument for the epistemic justification of a subject S’s belief that God exists, where S is a religious person, say, a Christian.

Heidegger, the Given, and the Second Nature of Entities

Abstract In this paper I draw from Martin Heidegger’s phenomenology of the 1920s to outline some basic features of his theory of intentionality that I believe have not been fully appreciated or utilized, and that allow for both novel and fruitful interventions in questions about meaning, the relationship between mind and the world, and epistemic justification, principally as they appear in John McDowell’s synoptic project in Mind and World. I argue that while elements of McDowell’s picture are ultimately unsatisfying and problematic, much of his conceptual framework can and should be put into dialogue with Heidegger’s, and that in so doing we make available powerful resources for amending the McDowellian account. Moreover, these emendations have attractive implications for his distinctive desiderata. In particular, they provide original conceptions of normativity’s place in nature, of the boundaries of the space of reasons, and of the relationship between the answerability of thought both to the world and to human beings as a rational community.

Reliabilism, scepticism, and evidentia in Ockham

ABSTRACTThe aim of this paper is to challenge the reliabilist interpretation of William Ockham (ca. 1287–1347)'s epistemology. The discussion proceeds as follows. First, I analyse the reliabilist interpretation into two theses: (1) a negative thesis I call the Anti-Internalism Thesis, according to which, for Ockham, epistemic justification does not depend on any internal factors that are accessible by reflection; (2) a positive thesis I call the Reliability Thesis, according to which epistemic justification in Ockham depends on the reliability of a causal process through which a given judgment is produced. Secondly, I argue that the Anti-Internalism Thesis fails since Ockham's notion of evidentness (evidentia), which is at the heart of his theory of justification, strongly suggests that he posits an indispensable, internalist element of justification. Lastly, I argue that the Reliability Thesis also fails since not only can there be a reliable but inevident judgment in Ockham's framework, his emphasis on causality is best read not as talk of reliability, but as his emphasis on the relation between reason (or evidence) and what is based on reason.

On the nature and systematic role of evidence: Husserl as a proponent of mentalist evidentialism?

AbstractIn this paper, I shall show that for Husserl, (a) evidence determines epistemic justification and (b) evidence is linked to originary givenness in the sense that one's ultimate evidence consists of one's originary presentive intuitions. This means that in contemporary analytic terminology, Husserl is a proponent of evidentialism and mentalism. Evidentialism and mentalism have been introduced into current debates by Earl Conee and Richard Feldman. Finally, I shall highlight that there is one significant difference between Husserl and Earl Conee and Richard Feldman. Although Conee and Feldman argue that the fundamental principles of epistemology are principles of best explanation, Husserl opts for phenomenological principles as the most fundamental epistemic principles. The main difference is that for Husserl, experiences gain their justificatory force by virtue of their phenomenal character, namely, their originary givenness.

Call of Duty at the Frontier of Research: Normative Epistemology for High-Risk/High-Gain Studies of Deep Brain Stimulation.

Research participants are entitled to many rights that may easily come into conflict. The most important ones are that researchers respect their autonomy as persons and act on the principles of beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. Since 2014, research subjects from numerous states in the United States of America also have a legal "right to try" that allows them, under certain circumstances, to receive experimental (i.e., preliminarily tested) interventions, including medical devices, before official approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration. In the context of experimental interventions, such as deep brain stimulation (DBS) for Alzheimer's disease, this article argues that research participants ought never to have a legal "right to try" without a corresponding "right to be sure." The latter refers to external epistemic justification construed in terms of reliance on reliable evidence. This article demonstrates that the mere complexity of intervention ensembles, as in the case of DBS for Alzheimer's disease which serves as a paradigm example, illustrate how unanswered and/or unasked open questions give rise to a "combinatorial explosion" of uncertainties that require epistemic responses that no single research team alone is likely able to provide. From this assessment, several epistemic asymmetrical relations between researchers and participants are developed. By elucidating these epistemic asymmetries, this article unravels the reasons why open science, transparent exhaustive data reporting, preregistration, and continued constant critical appraisal via pre- and postpublication peer review are not scientific virtues of moral excellence but rather ordinary obligations of the scientific work routine required to increase reliability and strength of evidence.

Epistemic Justification and Methodological Luck in Inflationary Cosmology.

I present a recent historical case from cosmology—the story of inflationary cosmology—and on its basis argue that solving explanatory problems is a reliable method for making progress in science. In particular, I claim that the success of inflationary theory at solving its predecessor’s explanatory problems justified the theory epistemically, even in advance of the development of novel predictions from the theory and the later confirmation of those predictions. 1Introduction2A Portrait of the Argument as a Short Précis3A Brief History of Inflationary Theory4Empiricist Interpretations of Inflationary Case5A Confutation of Empiricist Interpretations6Explanationist Interpretation of Inflationary Case7Concluding Remarks

Normalcy, justification, and the easy-defeat problem

Recent years have seen the rise of a new family of non-probabilistic accounts of epistemic justification. According to these views—we may call them Normalcy Views—a belief in P is justified only if, given the evidence, there exists no normal world in which S falsely beliefs that P. This paper aims to raise some trouble for this new approach to justification by arguing that Normalcy Views, while initially attractive, give rise to problematic accounts of epistemic defeat. As we will see, on Normalcy Views seemingly insignificant pieces of evidence turn out to have considerable defeating powers. This problem—I will call it the Easy-Defeat Problem—gives rise to a two-pronged challenge. First, it shows that the Normalcy View has counterintuitive implications and, second, it opens the door to an uncomfortable skeptical threat.

Four Ways in Which Theories of Belief Revision Could Benefit from Theories of Epistemic Justification

Belief revision theories aim to model the dynamics of epistemic states. Besides beliefs, epistemic states comprise most importantly justificational structures. Typically, belief revision theories, however, model the dynamics of beliefs while neglecting justificational structures over and above logical relations. Despite some awareness that this approach is problematic, how devastating the consequences of this neglect are has not yet been fully grasped. In this paper, I argue that taking justificational structures into account could solve four well-known problems of belief revision.

The epistemology of modality and the problem of modal epistemic friction

There are three theories in the epistemology of modality that have received sustained attention over the past 20 years (1998–2018): conceivability-theory, counterfactual-theory, and deduction-theory. In this paper we argue that all three face what we call the problem of modal epistemic friction (PMEF). One consequence of the problem is that for any of the three accounts to yield modal knowledge, the account must provide an epistemology of essence. We discuss an attempt to fend off the problem within the context of the internalism versus externalism debate about epistemic justification. We then investigate the effects that the PMEF has on reductive and non-reductive theories of the relation between essence and modality.

Concept networks of students\u2019 knowledge of relationships between physics concepts: finding key concepts and their epistemic support

Concept maps, which are network-like visualisations of the inter-linkages between concepts, are used in teaching and learning as representations of students’ understanding of conceptual knowledge and its relational structure. In science education, research on the uses of concept maps has focused much attention on finding methods to identify key concepts that are of the most importance either in supporting or being supported by other concepts in the network. Here we propose a method based on network analysis to examine students’ representations of the relational structure of physics concepts in the form of concept maps. We suggest how the key concepts and their epistemic support can be identified through focusing on the pathways along which the information is passed from one node to another. Towards this end, concept maps are analysed as directed and weighted networks, where nodes are concepts and links represent different types of connections between concepts, and where each link is assumed to provide epistemic support to the node it is connected to. The notion of key concept can then be operationalised through the directed flow of information from one node to another in terms of communicability between the nodes, separately for out-going and in-coming weighted links. Here we analyse a collated concept network based on a sample of 12 original concept maps constructed by university students. We show that communicability is a simple and reliable way to identify the key concepts and examine their epistemic justification within the collated network. The communicabilities of the key nodes in the collated network are compared with communicabilities averaged over the set of 12 individual concept maps. The comparison shows the collated network contains an extensive set of key concepts with good epistemic support. Every individual networks contain a sub-set of these key concepts but with a limited overlap of the sub-sets with other individual networks. The epistemically well substantiated knowledge is thus sparsely distributed over the 12 individual networks.

PHENOMENAL CONSERVATISM AND THE PROBLEM OF REFLECTIVE AWARENESS

Abstract This paper criticizes phenomenal conservatism—the view according to which a subject S’s seeming that P provides S with defeasible justification for believing P. It argues that phenomenal conservatism, if true at all, has a significant limitation: seeming-based justification is elusive because S can easily lose it by just reflecting on her seemings and speculating about their causes. The paper also argues that because of this limitation, phenomenal conservatism doesn’t have all the epistemic merits attributed to it by its advocates. If true, phenomenal conservatism constitutes a unified theory of epistemic justification capable of giving everyday epistemic practices a rationale, but it doesn’t afford us the means of an effective response to the skeptic. Furthermore, phenomenal conservatism doesn’t form the general basis for foundationalism.

A Validation Study of the Internet-Specific Epistemic Justification Inventory With Norwegian Preservice Teachers

The purpose of this study was to validate a new inventory designed to measure epistemic beliefs concerning the justification of knowledge claims encountered on the Internet. Confirmatory factor analysis of the scores of 394 preservice teachers showed that a three-factor model including justification by authority, justification by multiple sources, and personal justification fit the data well. Moreover, latent variable structural equation modeling showed that these three types of justification beliefs differentially predicted aspects of Internet-specific reading motivation and engagement. Taken together, these results provide evidence for the construct validity of the inventory and lay the foundation for further validation work. The theoretical and educational significance of the study is discussed, and directions for future research are suggested.