Intellectual Norms and Epistemic Normativity

2019 ◽  
pp. 99-165
Author(s):  
Andrea Robitzsch
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Normativity

Why Only Evidential Considerations Can Justify Belief

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Nolfi
Keyword(s):  
Alternative Explanation ◽  
Justify Belief ◽  
Epistemic Normativity ◽  
Epistemic Reasons ◽  
Aim Of Belief ◽  
The Way

At least when we restrict our attention to the epistemic domain, it seems clear that only considerations which bear on whether p can render a subject’s belief that p epistemically justified, by constituting the reasons on the basis of which she believes that p. And we ought to expect any account of epistemic normativity to explain why this is so. Extant accounts generally appeal to the idea that belief aims at truth, in an effort to explain why there is a kind of evidential constraint on the sorts of considerations that can be epistemic reasons. However, there are grounds for doubting that belief, in fact, aims at truth in the way that these accounts propose. This chapter develops an alternative explanation of why it is that non-evidential considerations cannot be epistemic reasons by taking seriously the idea that the constitutive aim of belief is fundamentally action-oriented.

The Epistemic Norms of Action

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikkel Gerken
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Epistemic Norm ◽  
Epistemic Normativity ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Knowledge Norm ◽  
Knowledge Ascriptions ◽  
Epistemological Principle ◽  
Knowledge Norms

Chapter 6 concerns the normative relationship between action and knowledge ascriptions. Arguments are provided against a Knowledge Norm of Action (KNAC) and in favor of the Warrant-Action norm (WA). According to WA, S must be adequately warranted in believing that p relative to her deliberative context to meet the epistemic requirements for acting on p. WA is developed by specifying the deliberative context and by arguing that its explanatory power exceeds that of knowledge norms. A general conclusion is that the knowledge norm is an important example of a folk epistemological principle that does not pass muster as an epistemological principle. More generally, Chapter 6 introduces the debates about epistemic normativity and develops a specific epistemic norm of action.

Metaepistemology

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Systematic Investigation ◽  
Epistemic Normativity ◽  
Present Volume

Epistemology, like ethics, is normative. Just as ethics addresses questions about how we ought to act, so epistemology addresses questions about how we ought to believe and enquire. We can also ask metanormative questions, like: What does it mean to claim that someone ought to do or believe something? Do such claims express beliefs about independently existing facts, or only attitudes of approval and disapproval towards certain pieces of conduct? How do putative facts about what people ought to do or believe fit in to the natural world? In the case of ethics, such questions have been subject to extensive and systematic investigation, yielding the thriving subdiscipline of metaethics. Yet the corresponding questions have had far less attention in epistemology. The present volume focuses on these questions and thus aims to promote the subdiscipline of metaepistemology. It brings together a collection of new essays drawing on the sophisticated theories and frameworks that have been developed in metaethics concerning practical normativity, and examining whether they can be applied to epistemic normativity, and what this might tell us about both.

The Place of Reasons in Epistemology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kurt Sylvan ◽  
Ernest Sosa
Keyword(s):  
Building Block ◽  
Epistemic Normativity ◽  
Epistemic Reasons ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Theoretic Property ◽  
Propositional Justification ◽  
Doxastic Justification ◽  
The Road ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient

This chapter defends a middle ground between two extremes in the literature on the place of reasons in epistemology. Against members of the “reasons first” movement, we argue that reasons are not the sole grounds of epistemic normativity. We suggest that the virtue-theoretic property of competence is rather the key building block. To support this approach, we note that reasons must be possessed to ground central epistemic properties, and argue that possession is grounded in competence. But while we here diverge with reasons-firsters, we also distance ourselves from those who deem reasons unimportant. Indeed, we hold that having sufficient epistemic reasons is necessary and sufficient for propositional justification, and that proper basing on them yields doxastic justification. But since possession and proper basing are grounded in competence, reasons are not the end of the road: competence enables them to do their work, putting them—and us—in the middle.

Epistemic Normativity

2014 ◽  
pp. 71-87
Author(s):  
Hilary Kornblith
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Normativity

From Psychology to Philosophy

Prejudice ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 43-60
Author(s):  
Endre Begby
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Theoretical Development ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
One Dimension ◽  
Epistemic Normativity ◽  
Philosophical Discourse ◽  
Capacity Limitations ◽  
Ideal Approach

Calls to develop a framework for ‘non-ideal epistemology’ have recently gained traction in philosophical discourse, but little detail has yet been offered as to what this might involve. This chapter aims to remedy this shortcoming, both as a broader theoretical development and with specific view toward the epistemology of prejudice. Specifically,this chapter develops the notion of non-ideal epistemology along two dimensions. Along one dimension, constraints arising from distinctive capacity limitations of the human mind (“endogenous non-ideality”) are considered. In another dimension, constraints arising from specific limitations on the information environments that epistemic agents are forced to operate within (“exogenous non-ideality”) are considered. Taking a non-ideal approach to epistemology does not, however, mean giving up on epistemic normativity altogether: to the contrary, this chapter argues that non-ideal epistemology provides the only way for such norms to provide a genuine critical grip on human cognition at all.

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