Epistemic Principles Research Articles

Quantifying convergence and consistency.

The reproducibility crisis highlights several unresolved issues in science, including the need to develop measures that gauge both the consistency and convergence of data sets. While existing meta-analytic methods quantify the consistency of evidence, they do not quantify its convergence: the extent to which different types of empirical methods have provided evidence to support a hypothesis. To address this gap in meta-analysis, we and colleagues developed a summary metric-the cumulative evidence index (CEI)-which uses Bayesian statistics to quantify the degree of both consistency and convergence of evidence regarding causal hypotheses between two phenomena. Here, we outline the CEI's underlying model, which quantifies the extent to which studies of four types-positive intervention, negative intervention, positive non-intervention and negative non-intervention-lend credence to any of three types of causal relations: excitatory, inhibitory or no-connection. Along with p-values and other measures, the CEI can provide a more holistic perspective on a set of evidence by quantitatively expressing epistemic principles that scientists regularly employ qualitatively. The CEI can thus address the reproducibility crisis by formally demonstrating how convergent evidence across multiple study types can yield progress toward scientific consensus, even when an individual type of study fails to yield reproducible results.

Formalized soundness and completeness of epistemic and public announcement logic

Abstract I strengthen the foundations of epistemic logic by formalizing the family of normal modal logics in the proof assistant Isabelle/HOL. I define an abstract canonical model over any set of axioms and formalize completeness-via-canonicity: when the canonical model for the chosen axioms belongs to a certain class of frames, strong completeness over that class follows immediately. I instantiate the result with logics based on various epistemic principles to obtain completeness results for systems from K to S5. I then move to a family of public announcement logics (PAL) and prove abstract results for strong soundness and completeness. I lift the completeness results from epistemic logic to the setting with public announcements in a modular way. This work formulates the completeness-via-canonicity technique as a proper theorem and demonstrates its applicability. Additionally, it succinctly formalizes the requirements for lifting completeness from bare epistemic logic to the addition of public announcements.

Categorial versus naturalized epistemology

AbstractHow do we know what kinds of things constitute knowledge or justified belief? Naturalized epistemology is committed to denying a priori insight into the kinds of kinds that are and are not knowledge or justification makers. By contrast, it is argued here that knowledge of these matters is a priori knowledge of a special kind. Such knowledge may be called “categorial.” The dialectical give and take between categorial and naturalized epistemology is pursued, before endorsing an argument that breaks the standoff in favor of categorial epistemology. In particular, an argument is given for a certain kind of mathematical skepticism that is entirely a priori. The skeptical argument turns on categorial claims about actuality. Responses are considered before defending a method of categorial dumbfounding in certain circumstances. This yields a positive argument for the categoriality of fundamental epistemic principles. The categorial rationalist conclusions are embraced and some consequences noted.

More than just principles: revisiting epistemic systems

Epistemic relativism rests on the existence of a plurality of epistemic systems. There is, however, no consensus on what epistemic systems actually are. Critics argue that epistemic relativism fails because its proponents cannot convincingly show the possibility of two mutually exclusive epistemic systems. Their accounts of epistemic systems are, however, highly idealized, conceptualizing them as sets of epistemic principles exclusively. But epistemic systems are necessarily inhabited by epistemic agents who negotiate these principles. Focusing on epistemic principles exclusively thus might abstract away too much from the actual dynamics within epistemic systems. Drawing from the sociology of scientific knowledge and the distinction between sociolect and idiolect in the philosophy of language, I aim to provide a richer account of epistemic systems and show that current arguments against epistemic relativism fail because they rest on an unrealistic conceptualization of epistemic systems.

Feminist Pedagogy in Women’s Studies Classrooms: Some Critical Reflections

Based on a study of five women’s studies degree programmes, this article attempts to discuss pedagogical issues that are surfacing in higher education on account of the changing social composition of students since the implementation of reservations for Other Backward Classes in higher education. Critical pedagogy has not found much space in discussions on higher education in the Indian context. The exception has been reflections on feminist pedagogy that primarily draw on Freirian thought and the scholarship of bell hooks. Against this background, the article brings out how the epistemic principles of critical disciplines like women’s studies generate ethical expectations of the feminist teacher, particularly in relation to caste in this case. It goes on to discuss the limits imposed on these ideas of feminist pedagogy by the institutional and structural inequalities in higher education and how the dominant social composition of teachers necessarily limits possibilities of feminist pedagogy.

Informed Ignorance as a Form of Epistemic Injustice

Ignorance, or the lack of knowledge, appears to be steadily spreading, despite the increasing availability of information. The notion of informed ignorance herein proposed to describe the widespread position of being exposed to an abundance of information yet lacking relevant knowledge, which is tied to the exponential growth in misinformation driven by technological developments and social media. Linked to many of societies’ most looming catastrophes, from political polarization to the climate crisis, practices related to knowledge and information are deemed some of the most imminent and daunting modern threats, evidenced by the latest report of the World Economic Forum, which has named misinformation the most severe short-term global risk. This paper’s epistemic perspective links the properties of today’s information culture and the ways in which it interacts with individual capacities and limitations in current technological and socio-political contexts. Such a position is analyzed through the lens of epistemic principles as a contemporary epistemic phenotype that emerges from an environment of ill-adapted and excessive information inputs and leads to a distinctive type of social injustice that is primarily epistemic in nature. While equity and accessibility are widely discussed as important contributing factors to epistemic discrepancies, other overlooked but fundamental issues underlying epistemic injustices are considered, such as information manipulation, cognitive limitations, and epistemic degradation. To effectively face this elusive threat, we propose an inclusive viewpoint that harnesses knowledge from cognitive science, science and technology studies, and social epistemology to inform a unifying theory of its main impacts and driving forces. By adjusting a modern epistemic framework to the described phenomena, we intend to contextually outline its trajectory and possible means of containment based on a shared responsibility to maintain ethical epistemic standards. In a time of international unrest and mounting civil acts of violence, it is pertinent to emphasize the ethical principles of knowledge systems and authorities and suggest policy adaptations to maintain a social contract based on the shared values of truth and freedom.

Meta-inductive Justification of Inductive Generalizations

AbstractThe account of meta-induction (G. Schurz, Hume’s problem solved: the optimality of meta-induction, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2019) proposes a two-step solution to the problem of induction. Step 1 consists in a mathematical a priori justification of the predictive optimality of meta-induction, upon which step 2 builds a meta-inductive a posteriori justification of object-induction based on its superior track record (Sect. 1). Sterkenburg (Br J Philos Sci, forthcoming. 10.1086/717068/) challenged this account by arguing that meta-induction can only provide a (non-circular) justification of inductive predictions for now and for the next future, but not a justification of inductive generalizations (Sect. 2). This paper develops a meta-inductive method that does provide an a posteriori justification of inductive generalizations, in the form of exchangeability conditions (Sect. 3). In Sect. 4, a limitation of the proposed method is worked out: while the method can justify weakly lawlike generalizations, the justification of strongly lawlike generalizations (claimed to hold for all eternity) requires epistemic principles going beyond meta-induction based on predictive success.

Challenging the gold standard consensus: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and their pitfalls in evidence-based education

ABSTRACT This paper seeks to raise awareness among educational researchers and practitioners of some significant weaknesses and internal contradictions of randomised control trials (RCTs). Although critiques throughout the years from education scholars have pointed to the detrimental effects of this experimental approach on education practice and values, RCTs are considered the gold standard for assessing the impact of education policies and interventions. By drawing on the approach of immanent critique, we elucidate substantial argumentative gaps between the assumptions and applications – that is, between the theory and reality – of RCTs in empirical research. This kind of analytic exercise complements existing critiques from outside the experimental discourse based on moral and epistemic principles. The present paper, in contrast, contributes to the literature by highlighting internal limitations and contradictions that can be seen by probing the logic espoused by those who are proponents of RCTs. In fleshing out our argument, we seek to encourage more informed and critical engagement by educators, policymakers, and researchers, among other stakeholders, when they are confronted with proposals for education programmes and reforms supported by findings from RCTs.

The Methodologically Flawed Discussion about Deep Disagreement

AbstractQuestions surrounding deep disagreement have gained significant attention in recent years. One of the central debates is metaphysical, focusing on the features that make a disagreement deep. Proposals for what makes disagreements deep include theories about hinge propositions and first epistemic principles. In this paper, I criticize this metaphysical discussion by arguing that it is methodologically flawed. Deep disagreement is a technical or semi-technical term, but the metaphysical discussion mistakenly treats it as a common-sense concept to be analyzed and captured by our pre-theoretical intuitions. Since the literature on deep disagreement is subject to this fundamental confusion and deep disagreement is not a helpful umbrella term either, I propose eliminating the notion of deep disagreement from the philosophical discourse. Instead of analyzing the nature of deep disagreement, we should develop theories about different forms of disagreement, including disagreement about hinge propositions and disagreement about epistemic principles, and, in particular, a theory of rationally irresolvable disagreement.

Epistemic Principles and Performance of Physics among Secondary School Students

Epistemic Principles and Performance of Physics among Secondary School Students

Prefaces, Knowledge, and Questions

The Preface Paradox is often discussed for its implications for rational belief. Much less discussed is a variant of the Preface Paradox for knowledge. In this paper, I argue that the most plausible closure-friendly resolution to the Preface Paradox for Knowledge is to say that in any given context, we do not know much. I call this view “Socraticism”. I argue that Socraticism is the most plausible view on two accounts—(1) this view is compatible with the claim that most of our knowledge ascriptions are true, and (2) provided that (1) is true, the costs of accepting Socraticism are much less than the costs of accepting any other resolution to the Paradox. I argue for (1) in Section 2 by developing a question-sensitive contextualist model for knowledge that shows how Socraticism is compatible with the claim that most of our knowledge ascriptions are true. I also argue how this contextualist model can achieve this result where other contextualist models fail. I then consider other closure-friendly solutions to the paradox in Section 3 and show how accepting those solutions forces us to give up a number of plausible epistemic principles.

Motivating (Underdetermination) Scepticism

The aim of this paper is to analyse and develop how scepticism becomes an intelligible question starting from requirements that epistemologists themselves aim to endorse. We argue for and defend the idea that the root of scepticism is the underdetermination principle by articulating its specificity as a respectable epistemic principle and by defending it against objections in current literature. This engagement offers a novel understanding of underdetermination-based scepticism. While most anti-sceptical approaches challenge scepticism by understanding it as postulating uneliminated scenarios of mass deception, or as endorsing unnatural epistemic requirements, we argue here that both contentions are mistaken. Underdetermination-based scepticism targets our beliefs by issuing a genuine question about the rational support they enjoy. If we cannot establish that the sources of our beliefs provide them the required epistemic merit and authority, they lack non-arbitrary grounds. This has a sizable impact on what constitutes a satisfactory anti-sceptical strategy. Strategies that merely focus on the scenario-based aspect of scepticism, or on the truth-functional evaluation of our beliefs, are shown to miss the mark of the sceptical threat. The proposed analysis ultimately provides a shift in perspective concerning the character and reach of philosophical doubt.

Towards a Politicized Anatomy of Fundamental Disagreement

ABSTRACT Fundamental disagreement is at the core of many debates surrounding epistemic relativism. Proponents of epistemic relativism argue that certain disagreements are irresolvable because proponents base their views on fundamentally different epistemic principles and, thus, fundamentally different epistemic systems. Critics of epistemic relativism argue that this analysis is wrong since the particular epistemic principles in question are most of the time derived from or instances of the same, more basic, epistemic principle. With regard to the individuation of epistemic systems, there is, thus, an impasse within the epistemic relativism literature. It is the aim of this article to employ the recently developed notion of ‘situated judgments’ as well as the concepts of ‘world-traveling’ and ‘epistemic friction’ to provide an epistemic agent-based, dynamic account of disagreeing and thereby also contribute to the question of how to individuate an epistemic system.

Hidden Depths: Testimonial Injustice, Deep Disagreement, and Democratic Deliberation

ABSTRACT Deep disagreements are those involving a disagreement about (relatively) fundamental epistemic principles. This paper considers the bearing of testimonial injustice, in Miranda Fricker’s sense, on the depth of disagreements, and what this can teach us about the nature and significance of deep disagreements. I start by re-evaluating T. J. Lagewaard’s recent argument that disagreements about the nature, scope, and impact of oppression will often be deepened by testimonial injustice, since the people best placed to offer relevant testimony will be subject to testimonial injustice, pushing the disagreement into one about the bearing of certain epistemic sources on the original debate. I take issue with this last step, but I build on the argument to bring attention to unappreciated and worrying ways in which prejudices can make a disagreement deep in ways that can be hidden from one or more of the participants and from observers. Finally, I revisit some of the ways that deep disagreement has been thought to be problematic for the proper functioning of a democracy, and I examine whether the kinds of hidden deep disagreements I argue for in the paper make these problems any worse, concluding that they likely do.

Recalibrating evolutionary debunking

AbstractEvolutionary debunking arguments purport to show that, if moral realism is true, all of our moral beliefs are unjustified. In this paper, I respond to two of the most enduring objections that have been raised against these arguments. The first objection claims that evolutionary debunking arguments are self‐undermining, because they cannot be formulated without invoking epistemic principles, and epistemic principles are just as vulnerable to debunking as our moral beliefs. I argue that this objection suffers from several defects, the most serious of which is that it has the unpalatable consequence that we should never revise our moral beliefs in response to evidence that our capacity for normative cognition is globally impaired. The second objection, which comes to us from Katia Vavova, claims that evolutionary debunking arguments are doomed to fail, because they attempt to show that our moral beliefs are unreliable without making any assumptions about the nature of morality, and this is impossible. I argue, to the contrary, that the etiological higher‐order evidence cited by debunking arguments can give us good reason to think that our moral beliefs are unreliable, even if we make no assumptions about what morality is like.

Teacher perception of language differences: challenging the normative futurity and native speakerism

ABSTRACT While teachers value cultural and linguistic diversity, they see the benefits of speaking different languages in the future tense, feeling it hard to specify how language differences positively impact students’ learning in the present. This study explores teachers’ temporal perceptions of language differences, specifically focusing on how teacher perceptions of language differences as "future assets" are intertwined with native speakerism in the present. It draws on multi-year interviews that unveil how teachers prioritise monolingualism as the norm of classroom discourse and juxtaposes teachers' accounts with an immigrant child’s navigation of cultural-linguistic assets to speak Korean and English in non-school contexts. Through this, we argue that, whereas teachers see the potential benefits of speaking different languages that seek to pluralise the educational futures, they continue to hold the normative view on language differences by not being offered the epistemic tools to question whose future and whose language are imagined as the desired endpoints of language education. Approaching teachers’ statements as the outcome of the limited epistemic principles of normative futurity, this study calls for disrupting the continuity of native speakerism to support culturally and linguistically diverse students through the non-linear, reparative, and multiple relations to the futures in language education.

Rationally irresolvable disagreement

The discussion about deep disagreement has gained significant momentum in the last several years. This discussion often relies on the intuition that deep disagreement is, in some sense, rationally irresolvable. In this paper, I will provide a theory of rationally irresolvable disagreement. Such a theory is interesting in its own right, since it conflicts with the view that rational attitudes and procedures are paradigmatic tools for resolving disagreement. Moreover, I will suggest replacing discussions about deep disagreement with an analysis of rationally irresolvable disagreement, since this notion can be more clearly defined than deep disagreement and captures the basic intuitions underlying deep disagreement. I will first motivate this project by critically assessing the current debate about deep disagreement. I then detail the notions of rationality and resolvable disagreement which are crucial for a suitable theory of rationally irresolvable disagreement before sketching various instances of rationally irresolvable disagreement. Finally, I argue for replacing theories of deep disagreement with theories of rationally irresolvable disagreement, an approach that has significant advantages over existing theories of deep disagreement which focus on hinge propositions or fundamental epistemic principles.

Evidential Variety and Mixed-Methods Research in Social Science

AbstractMixed-methods research (MMR)—the combination of qualitative and quantitative data within the same design to strengthen causal inference—is gaining prominence in the social sciences but its benefits are contested. There remains confusion over which methods to mix and what is the point of mixing them. We argue that variety of evidence is what matters, not of data or methods, and that distinct epistemic principles underlie its added value for causal inference. The centrality of evidential variety also implies that strong causal pluralism is untenable as a foundation for MMR.

Deep Rhetoricity as Methodological Grounds for Unsettling the Settled

So often left unquestioned is the very place in and from which scholarly ethos and praxis are being proposed. The goal of this essay is to call for and work towards establishing a foundation to explore such questions vis-à-vis deep rhetoricity. Deep rhetoricity invites and demands of us all returns, careful reckonings, and enduring tasks. We illustrate possibilities of deep rhetoricity across these three epistemic principles. Ultimately, we argue for deep rhetoricity both as an intervention into rhetorical practices and as a praxis of invention.

Deep Disagreement (Part 1): Theories of Deep Disagreement.

Some disagreements concern our most fundamental beliefs, principles, values, or worldviews, such as those about the existence of God, society and politics, or the trustworthiness of science. These are 'deep disagreements'. But what exactly are deep disagreements? This paper critically overviews theories of deep disagreement. It does three things. First, it explains the differences between deep and other kinds of disagreement, including peer, persistent, and widespread disagreement. Second, it critically overviews two mainstream theories of deep disagreement, the Wittgensteinian account and the Fundamental Epistemic Principle account, before introducing a Hybrid account. Finally, it explores the notion that deep disagreements can be deeper than others.