Epistemic Point Research Articles

From methodology to theory construction: the case of the point of view in legal theory

In this paper, the methodological character of the internal point of view (IPoV) will be examined. That the IPoV is a method of legal philosophy is not disputed. What is disputed is which point of view a theorist needs to occupy in order to successfully theorise about law. However, the choice between different points of view is based on the participant the theory chooses to study. This means that the participant’s viewpoint is not a method of our theory but an epistemic point through which the object of our study becomes available. If this is the case, different theories simply aim to study different participants. Hence, the criticisms raised on methodological grounds against theories not taking the IPoV or not taking the correct IPoV lose their force. Here, to demonstrate this point, the paper will offer a definition of method from a theory-construction perspective and examine the uses of the IPoV in Hart’s theory since it is the one that introduced the notion in legal philosophy. I will argue that the IPoV cannot play a methodological role for reaching main epistemic aims, but it can be a method for identifying the object of study.

The Reproduction of Nationalism and the Nationalism of Reproduction: Putin’s Biopolitics of Defending Tradition, 2012–2021

AbstractAfter Putin’s return to the Russian presidency in 2012, a further turn toward authoritarianism has been coupled with attacks on Western secularism, multiculturalism, and alleged moral decay. At home, the Kremlin has been increasingly preoccupied with defining and addressing problems related to citizens’ bodies, linking “traditional values” to national security. Central to this discourse are issues relating to reproductive norms. This analysis uses the Foucauldian concept of “biopower” as an epistemic point of departure in an attempt to understand the central role of reproduction in the Kremlin’s identity project. Administering the bodies of a population simultaneously produces and delimits that population according to bodily criteria. Thus, this “bodily turn” in Russian nation-building may be understood as “bionationalism,” a depoliticizing style of nationalism that relies on biopolitical techniques. The analysis explicates the mechanisms of this style of nationalism: how and why this discourse functions, legitimates problematic practices, excludes “abnormals,” expands the state into the everyday lives of citizens, and marginalizes and even securitizes alternative notions of national identity. Putin’s bionationalism may be read as an existential nationalism and thereby as producing a specific mobilizational context.

Kognitive Optimierung durch KI?

Recent developments in artificial intelligence (AI) promise cognitive optimization in many areas of our lives, ranging from automated decision-making to superintelligence. In a predominant narrative, the black-box of machine learning systems is identified as one of the biggest obstacles from an epistemic point of view. The problem is expected to be solved by algorithmic counteractions emerging from the field of explainable artificial intelligence (XAI). However, deeper questions about a meaningful cognitive division of labor between AI algorithms and human actors who use these systems are vastly ignored. The article aims to replace the dominant anthropomorphizing metaphors by a reconceptualization based on philosophy of technology. The new framework allows to interpret AI technology as an epistemic tool, which co-shapes a specific milieu of reflection and which is based on an epistemic model of automated knowledge production. This re-conceptualization offers a new perspective on AI technologies, where epistemic empowerment and epistemic sovereignty are in the center.

‘Improve the Law’ as a Judicial Duty on the Borderlines of Free Speech: Judges as Responsible Epistemic Agents

This paper discusses judicial duty of improving the law on epistemic grounds and claims in that regarding this obligation, it is possible to give a place to free speech from an epistemic point of view. As a requirement of having epistemic agency, judges like other human beings have epistemological responsibility. Different from the others’ responsibility, judges’ responsibility is connected to their duty of improving the law, which is required by their job as well as the idea of the rule of law and judicial professional principles. Judges should improve the law’s capacity to guide the conduct of its citizens, who are obligated to obey the law. Improving the law also improves the delivery of justice. The ways of legal interpretation and justification are important to improve it. While applying the law, judges can find the law unclear or they may encounter some norm conflicts. In these cases, they should resolve them to keep the law ‘legally in good shape’, which should meet epistemological requirements. When fulfilling this obligation, judicial free speech on epistemic grounds should not be limited.

Environmental Stewardship: Confluence of Law and Religion?

Why should we bear responsibility for the degradation of the environment? A wide range of responses is on offer to this question. Common to them all is they are all rooted in one or the other ontological and epistemic point of departure or set of premises. This raises the question of the relationship between law and religion and linkages of religion with environmental concerns. What emerges, perhaps against the volition of the scientific world, is that the foundational links between environmental law and religion are significant – even where environmentalists shirk from or even denounce religion. Justification of this view is found in concise survey of the essence of law and religion. The analysis leads to the notion of stewardship, a concept steeped in, but not exclusive to religion in its diverse manifestations. Examples of ecocentric religious attitudes – ranging from the traditions of the North American Anishinabek, aboriginal Australians and indigenous African culture to Buddhism and Hinduism, Judaism and Christianity in its principal manifestations – provide a broad picture of adherence to beliefs in human responsibility to take care of the environment. This widespread conviction of stewardship endures despite awareness of the human inability to create or sovereignly determine the course of nature (here termed "the hypothesis of incompetence").

Environmental Stewardship: Confluence of Law and Religion?

Why should we bear responsibility for the degradation of the environment? A wide range of responses is on offer to this question. Common to them all is they are all rooted in one or the other ontological and epistemic point of departure or set of premises. This raises the question of the relationship between law and religion and linkages of religion with environmental concerns. What emerges, perhaps against the volition of the scientific world, is that the foundational links between environmental law and religion are significant – even where environmentalists shirk from or even denounce religion. Justification of this view is found in concise survey of the essence of law and religion. The analysis leads to the notion of stewardship, a concept steeped in, but not exclusive to religion in its diverse manifestations. Examples of ecocentric religious attitudes – ranging from the traditions of the North American Anishinabek, aboriginal Australians and indigenous African culture to Buddhism and Hinduism, Judaism and Christianity in its principal manifestations – provide a broad picture of adherence to beliefs in human responsibility to take care of the environment. This widespread conviction of stewardship endures despite awareness of the human inability to create or sovereignly determine the course of nature (here termed "the hypothesis of incompetence").

Strengthening the Epistemic Case against Epistocracy and for Democracy

ABSTRACT Is epistocracy epistemically superior to democracy? In this paper, I scrutinize some of the arguments for and against the epistemic superiority of epistocracy. Using empirical results from the literature on the epistemic benefits of diversity as well as the epistemic contributions of citizen science, I strengthen the case against epistocracy and for democracy. Disenfranchising, or otherwise discouraging anyone to participate in political life, on the basis of them not possessing a certain body of (social scientific) knowledge, is untenable also from an epistemic point of view. Rather than focussing on individual competence, we should pay attention to the social constellation through which we produce knowledge to make sure we decrease epistemic loss (by ensuring diversity and inclusion) and increase epistemic productivity (by fostering a multiplicity of perspectives interacting fruitfully). Achieving those epistemic benefits requires a more democratic approach that differs significantly from epistocracy.

Contextualization of the Classic Moral Sentimentalism

Moral sentimentalism can be defined as the philosophical theory according to which emotions are the source of our value judgements, in general, and of our moral judgements, in particular. It follows that, from a historical and conceptual point of view, moral sentimentalism has emerged and developed in opposition to moral rationalism, according to which reason allows us to formulate and understand value judgments from a psychological point of view and is also the source of our axiological knowledge from an epistemic point of view. In this article we present the theoretical issues related to the sentimentalist approach to morality and evaluative judgments, starting from the diverse theories of the classical representatives of sentimentalism, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume and Smith, and especially the three theses they defended: psychological perspective, the theory of moral sense and the theory of moral feelings. I also argue that the first moral sentimentalism emerged from the confrontation of three distinct aporia: the first aporia refers to the conceptualization of emotions and emotional states; the second deals with the possibility of axiological knowledge; and the third refers to the nature and existence of values. Finally, we are interested in the birth of sentimentalism in order to highlight a series of difficulties inherent in this theoretical approach and which we find today in contemporary moral sentimentalism. The aim is to highlight the conceptual and argumentative tensions that were at the heart of sentimentalism at its emergence.

Ver-como y epistemología hinge

This paper aims to stablishes the sense in which propositions included under the perceptual use of ‘seeing-as’, developed by Wittgenstein in the Second Part of Philosophical Investigations, are justifiable from an epistemic point of view. To do this, first, it will be clarified the internal link between ‘visual experience’ and ‘interpretation’ for the type of mentioned cases. Second, it will be shown how the ‘seeing-as’ respects the rule-following paradox’s solution, as long as it does not presuppose any intermediary or need anyone to account for what is perceived, highlighting the notions of ‘practice’, ‘familiarity’ and ‘context’ common both in the aforementioned solution and in the ‘seeing-as’ cases. Third, the general distinction between certainties or ‘hinges’ and ‘epistemic propositions’ presented by Wittgenstein in On Certainty will be applied to cases of aspect perception as a possible field of application of the so called Hinge Epistemology, showing how, in specific cases, the perceptual certainties that shape our way of life and that are groundless, can be recontextualized and merit reasonable justification.Keywords: Wittgenstein, aspect perception, seeing-as, hinges, certainty, justification.

In Defense of Veritism

It used to be taken as a given in epistemology that the fundamental good from a purely epistemic point of view is truth. Such veritism is a given no longer, with some commentators advocating epistemic value pluralism, whereby truth is at most one of several irreducible epistemic goods, while others are attracted to an epistemic value monism that is centred on something other than truth, such as knowledge or understanding. It is claimed that it was premature to reject veritism. In particular, it is argued that the kinds of motivations that are offered for rejecting this proposal are weak on closer inspection, as they trade on a dubious reading of veritism that is independently implausible. The attraction of this implausible way of thinking about veritism lies in the difficulty of offering any coherent alternative. A solution to this conundrum is proposed, whereby we unpack the veritist proposal in terms of the explanatorily prior notion of an intellectually virtuous inquirer.

God and the Girl

Imagine you are an agnostic who wants to maximise your chances of getting the right answer to the question whether God exists. I show that theism and atheism are not on an epistemic par with one another because, under certain possible epistemically neutral conditions, the rational thing for you to do from a purely epistemic point of view would be to bet on the atheist’s judgement that God doesn’t exist rather than on the theist’s judgement that God does exist.

Epistemic conflicts and Achilles’ heels: constraints of a university and public sector partnership to research obesity in Australia

ABSTRACT This paper examines the multiple tensions arising in an Australian university and public sector collaboration that aimed to investigate an obesity intervention. A key site of conflict with the external collaborators emerged when we, the researchers, focusing on the experiences of marginalized local people, presented research findings that were at odds with the dominant understanding of obesity that framed the public health intervention. From those with a range of roles in the public sector, we received claims of misrepresentation and requests to change or not publicly release certain research findings. Drawing on the ‘policy learning framework’ of Dunlop and Radaelli, we examine these epistemic conflicts and point to the Achilles’ heels of the ‘engagement and impact’ agenda. From the perspective of government, the inherent weakness stems from the lack of control in a partnership, and from the perspective of academics, it is the danger of undermining trust in universities and the knowledge academics produce, through the process of engaging with government and being party to research that is designed to shore up a position that government has already decided upon. This case study has implications for academic and government collaborators who may benefit from explicit planning about how to negotiate discord around the processes of learning that occur in and across research, policy, and practice.

The Concepts of Self-Sacrifice and Sacredness in Postmodern Discourse: Philosophic Aspect

The article provides a critical conceptual analysis of the theological approach to consideration of relationship of the sacral and secular as well as postmodern interpretation of “sacrificial” and “sacral” concepts. The article gives the characteristic of the subject of postmodern “reflection beyond logocentricity” from the perspective of the logocentrically conducted classical Hegelian concretism of truth. Moreover, the postmodern subject appears incomplete from the epistemic point of view, with domination of subjectively varying logic of interpretation of the considered phenomenon. The study was undertaken in a manner of critical analyticity conducted in a systematic and dialectic way. It is meaningfully revealed in the historical and culturological relationship and is concretized in a substantial way. It supposes the achievement of such logic of consideration that appears to be aimed at the achievement of conceptual completeness of the concerned matters. Accordingly, importance is being increasingly attached to the methodological provision about conceptual and contextual diversity of the supposed meanings of the terms. Therefore, their interpretation overcomes the single attachment to the fixed type of discourse. The main findings of the undertaken study concern the peculiarity of discursive practice of theological and postmodern forms of thinking. There is shown that difficulty of true foundation of concepts of the religious discourse in its own frames does not overcome in efficiently conceptual way. The article stresses the absence of a mandatory link between sacral limits and their religious interpretation. There is highlighted the provision on the reactualization of rudimentary naturalistic religious ideas, which occurs as a result of the general crisis of ideologies and scientific form of consciousness. The author justifies the conclusion about the incomplete correctness of Eliade’s interpretation of the religious ritual as a process that eliminates historical time. The historical role of ritual practice lies in the formation and development of sacralized topos of value tracks of emerging sociality. The article shows that postmodern interpretation of concepts of self-sacrifice (victim) and sacredness takes place in an emphasized non-historical manner of psychologized narrative description.

Locke and Holenmerism

Locke’s conception of God’s manner of being present everywhere is unclear. As Jasper Reid noted in The Metaphysics of Henry More, Locke seemed to agree with the Cambridge Platonist Henry More that God, like spirits, is substantially present in space (a conception which More labelled “anti-Nullibism”); however, it is not clear whether he endorsed More’s idea of God as an infinitely extended being, filling space with His amplitude of presence, or rather the alternative, scholastic conception, which More named “holenmerism” and which affirmed that God is present everywhere as a whole in the whole and a whole in the parts. The paper attempts to explore this question in detail by focusing on an episode in Locke’s later correspondence, which suggests that he voluntarily maintained an ambiguous attitude towards holenmerism. The episode focuses on the dispute which Locke had with Johannes Hudde in 1697 on how to prove God’s uniqueness; the “physical” proof he provided to settle the dispute could support both holenmerism and anti-holenmerism. However, Locke’s proof relied heavily on the analogy between spirits and bodies which he had drawn in the Essay, when he had defined their identity over time in the same way; the paper suggests that this and other evidence coming from the Essay, involving Locke’s reading of Newton’s De gravitatione, seems to indicate that he conceived of anti-holenmerism as the hypothesis to be preferred from an epistemic point of view.

Outer approximating coherent lower probabilities with belief functions

From an epistemic point of view, coherent lower probabilities allow us to model the imprecise information about a partially unknown probability. However, there are some issues that hinder their use in practice. Since belief functions are easier to deal with, we propose to approximate the coherent lower probability by a belief function that is at the same time as close as possible to the initial coherent lower probability while not including additional information. We show that this problem can be tackled by means of linear programming, and investigate the features of the set of optimal solutions. Moreover, we emphasize the differences with the outer approximations by 2-monotone lower probabilities. We also study the problem for two particular cases of belief functions that are computationally easier to handle: necessity measures and probability boxes.

Struktury uzasadniania. Część III. Kontekstualizm

This paper is the last part of a series of three articles concerning the structure of justification. The author discusses contextualism regarding the structure of justification in the versions put forward by David Annis and Michael Williams. Williams explicitly contrasts his view with both foundationalist and coherentist theories. He gives a novel and valuable account of the system of beliefs and the structure of justification. Still, one can have doubts as to its normative dimension, i.e. as to whether it correctly shows what the structure of justification should be like from the epistemic point of view.

Emotion in the Appreciation of Fiction

Abstract Why is it that we respond emotionally to plays, movies, and novels and feel moved by characters and situations that we know do not exist? This question, which constitutes the kernel of the debate on »the paradox of fiction«, speaks to the perennial themes of philosophy, and remains of interest to this day. But does this question entail a paradox? A significant group of analytic philosophers have indeed thought so. Since the publication of Colin Radford’s celebrated paper »How Can We Be Moved by the Fate of Anna Karenina?« (1975), the number of proposals to solve, explain, reformulate, dismiss or even revitalize this apparent paradox has continued to proliferate. In line with recent developments in the philosophy of emotion, in this paper I will argue against the sustainability of the paradox, claiming that the only reasonable way to continue our discussions about it consists in using it as a heuristic tool to shed light on problems regarding our involvement with fiction. Against this background, I will then focus on one of the problems related to how our emotional responses to fiction contribute to our appreciation of it. The paper is divided into three main sections. The first section shows the parallel evolution of the paradox of fiction and the analytic philosophy of emotion. Here I claim that, although the paradox is epistemically flawed, since one of its premises is rooted in a limited view on the emotions typical of early cognitivism, the discussions it provokes are still epistemically useful. As Robert Stecker (2011, 295), among others, has pointed out, the paradox was formulated during the heyday of cognitive theories of the emotions in which emotion necessarily requires belief. Today, however, only few authors would endorse this premise. If emotion does not always require belief (as the majority of authors in the contemporary debate admit), let alone belief about the existence of the object towards which it is directed, then there is no reason to speak of a paradox. From this first conclusion, however, it does not follow that the paradox is completely without use from the epistemic point of view. A glimpse at the topics touched on during the discussions about how to solve, reformulate, or negate the paradox reveals their value in shedding light on the interrelation between emotion and fiction. The second section elaborates a phenomenologically inspired cognitive account of the emotions by focusing on their cognitive bases, their influence on cognitions, and their cognitive function. In this model, emotions are responsible for indicating values, for showing what matters to us, and for being appropriate to their objects. My claim is that this view applies not only to reality, but also to our involvement with fiction. In the final section I draw on this account to focus on one kind of appreciation of fiction which necessarily requires our emotional involvement. Following an idea put forward by Susan Feagin (1996, 1), I employ the concept of »appreciation« to refer to a set of abilities exercised with the aim of extracting value from the work. There is a long tradition in aesthetics that condemns any focus on the emotions in the appreciation of art and fiction, and defends the necessity of aesthetic appreciation without emotional influence. To refer to this negative attitude towards the emotions, I will borrow an expression coined by Susan Feagin (2013, 636), who refers to »the intellectualized view of appreciation«. Against this widespread view, I will argue that some aspects of the fiction can only be appreciated with the help of our emotions. The cognitive approach developed in the previous section can explain how the emotions might in fact play a significant role in the appreciation of art and fiction. Attention will be paid to three activities involved in appreciation, for all of which emotion is crucial: processing relevant information about the fictional world, understanding aspects of it, and becoming acquainted with the values it presents. My aim here is to argue that there are particular aspects of the fictional world that can only be appreciated if recipients have the appropriate emotions.

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.

The extraordinary in decision-making: myth, apology or opportunity?

Robustness, resilience and anticipation are essential aspects of a system’s first line of defence against exceptional hazards and high-impact unexpected events. This paper questions both the principles and the need of digging too deep into the often intangible world of high-consequence low-probability events that have the potential to impact systems and society as a whole. The engineering community has recently taken to referring to certain events as black swans, perfect storms or events caused by a priori unknowable unknowns, as if such appellation would constitute an apology for their sudden occurrence. We show that many of these metaphoric notions are either conceptually inappropriate, mostly from an epistemic point of view; or else, that they have little operational bearing on our knowledge base and on best practice rational decision-making. The case studies illustrate their conceptual and metaphorical role in a world of interconnected networks of everything.

From fuzzy regression to gradual regression: Interval-based analysis and extensions

This paper proposes an analysis of parametric interval-based regression methodologies according to ontic and epistemic visions of intervals. When assuming an epistemic point of view, a new interpretation of fuzzy regression through the notion of gradual intervals is developed, which leads to gradual regression. Gradual regression is viewed as an extension of the imprecise interval-based regression, which is obtained by integrating an uncertain dimension. Gradual intervals can yield improved specificity compared to conventional intervals and jointly consider the concepts of imprecision and uncertainty through a single and coherent formalism. The formulation of the gradual regression problem, its resolution and the propagation of the information through the obtained regressive models are carried out via gradual interval arithmetic. The proposed method allows not only the extension of the interval vision to the gradual case but also interesting interpretations according to non-additive confidence measure theories (possibility and belief functions).