RELIABILISM, VERITISM, AND EPISTEMIC CONSEQUENTIALISM

Episteme ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alvin I. Goldman
Keyword(s):  
Process Reliabilism ◽  
Epistemic Consequentialism ◽  
Contemporary Epistemology

ABSTRACTAccording to Selim Berker the prevalence of consequentialism in contemporary epistemology rivals its prevalence in contemporary ethics. Similarly, and more to the point, Berker finds epistemic consequentialism, epitomized by process reliabilism, to be as misguided and problematic as ethical consequentialism. This paper shows how Berker misconstrues process reliabilism and fails to pinpoint any new or substantial defects in it.

When Is True Belief Knowledge?

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Foley
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Central Problem ◽  
Significant Aspect ◽  
Coming To Know ◽  
Contemporary Epistemology ◽  
What Matters

A woman glances at a broken clock and comes to believe it is a quarter past seven. Yet, despite the broken clock, it really does happen to be a quarter past seven. Her belief is true, but it isn't knowledge. This is a classic illustration of a central problem in epistemology: determining what knowledge requires in addition to true belief. This book finds a new solution to the problem in the observation that whenever someone has a true belief but not knowledge, there is some significant aspect of the situation about which she lacks true beliefs—something important that she doesn't quite “get.” This may seem a modest point but, as the book shows, it has the potential to reorient the theory of knowledge. Whether a true belief counts as knowledge depends on the importance of the information one does or doesn't have. This means that questions of knowledge cannot be separated from questions about human concerns and values. It also means that, contrary to what is often thought, there is no privileged way of coming to know. Knowledge is a mutt. Proper pedigree is not required. What matters is that one doesn't lack important nearby information. Challenging some of the central assumptions of contemporary epistemology, this is an original and important account of knowledge.

Is all knowledge prepositional?

2005 ◽  
Vol 48 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 7-19
Author(s):  
Miroslava Andjelkovic
Keyword(s):  
Propositional Knowledge ◽  
The Other ◽  
Infinite Regress ◽  
Important Distinction ◽  
Knowing How ◽  
The Asymmetry ◽  
Contemporary Epistemology

This paper deals with a criticism of Ryle's claim that the so called Intellectualist legend leads to an infinite regress. Critics have attempted to show that Ryle's argument cannot even get off the ground since its two basic premises cannot be true at the same time. In the paper I argue that this objection is based on a misinterpretation of Ryle's argumentation, which is complex and consists of two arguments, not of a single one as it is claimed. One of Ryle's argument attacks the thesis that an intelligent act is an indirect result of propositional knowledge, while the other, which I call the Asymmetry argument, claims that not every manifestation of knowledge that is accompanied with the manifestation of knowing how. In the paper I argue that both Ryle's arguments are valid and resistant to recent critique so it can be said that Ryle's distinction between knowledge that and knowing how is still an important distinction within contemporary epistemology.

Good Reasoning and Evidence-Based Epistemology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
J.D. Trout
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Reasoning Strategies ◽  
Good Reasoning ◽  
Naturalistic Theory ◽  
Normative Standards ◽  
Contemporary Epistemology

In early epistemology, philosophers set standards on how to reason and on what counts as knowledge. These normative standards still form a core of work in contemporary epistemology, but much objectively excellent reasoning still doesn’t meet these epistemological standards, and sometimes these standards lead reasoning astray. Improving decisions about health and happiness may require developing even better reasoning strategies than are now available through contemporary epistemology. One naturalistic theory of good reasoning—Strategic Reliabilism—holds that excellent reasoning efficiently allocates cognitive resources to robustly reliable reasoning strategies, all applied to significant problems. This contrasts with the traditional normative theories in epistemology that drew their inspiration from intuitions.

Explaining Knowledge

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
State Of The Art ◽  
The State ◽  
Methodological Aspect ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Contemporary Epistemology ◽  
The Gettier Problem

This is an edited collection of twenty-three new papers on the Gettier Problem and the issues connected with it. The set of authors includes many of the major figures in contemporary epistemology who have developed some of the well-known responses to the problem, and it also contains some younger epistemologists who bring new perspectives to the issues raised in the literature. Together, they cover the state of the art on virtually every epistemological and methodological aspect of the Gettier Problem. The volume also includes some skeptical voices according to which the Gettier Problem is not deeply problematic or some of the problems it raises are not genuine philosophical problems.

Making Things Right

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Pettigrew
Keyword(s):  
Error Theory ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Healthy Patient ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Epistemic Consequentialism ◽  
Wrong Action

Pettigrew focuses on trade-off objections to epistemic consequentialism. Such objections are similar to familiar objections from ethics where an intuitively wrong action (e.g., killing a healthy patient) leads to a net gain in value (e.g., saving five other patients). The objection to the epistemic consequentialist concerns cases where adopting an intuitively wrong belief leads to a net gain in epistemic value. Pettigrew defends the epistemic consequentialist against such objections by accepting that the unintuitive verdicts of consequentialism are unintuitive, but offering an error theory for why these intuitions do not show the view to be false.

Epistemic Teleology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Wedgwood
Keyword(s):  
Belief State ◽  
Epistemic Consequentialism ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Belief States ◽  
Epistemic Teleology

Wedgwood focuses his discussion around two evaluative concepts: correctness and rationality. Wedgwood proposes that these two concepts are related in the following way: one belief state is more rational than another if and only if the first has less expected inaccuracy than the former. He argues, however, that this view should not be understood as a form of consequentialism since it is not the total consequences of a belief state that determine its rationality. The view is rather a version of epistemic teleology. Wedgwood deploys this view to illuminate the difference between synchronic and diachronic evaluation of belief states as well as to disarm objections that have been leveled against epistemic consequentialism.

Core Criteria II

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanford C. Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Propositional Content ◽  
Epistemic Responsibility ◽  
Process Reliabilism ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Explicit Criteria

This chapter completes the account of the explicit criteria for epistemically proper belief. Given a belief formed through a process or processes on which the subject enjoyed a default permission to rely, the belief is epistemically proper just in case it satisfies a version of Process Reliabilism which the author calls Coherence-Infused Reliabilism (CIR). CIR requires that (i) beliefs be formed and sustained through processes that were reliable (or conditionally reliable), and (ii) the propositional content of the belief, as well as the hypothesis asserting the reliability of the processes as used on this occasion, cohere with the subject’s background beliefs. After arguing that such a view is well motivated, the author suggests that condition (ii) amounts to the exemplification of a minimal kind of epistemic responsibility, and goes on to generalize the account to cover all beliefs (not just basic ones).

Demoting promoting objections to epistemic consequentialism

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 268-280
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Singer
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Consequentialism

Reliabilism’s Memory Loss

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Frise
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Justification ◽  
Memory Loss ◽  
Extreme Form ◽  
Process Reliabilism

Abstract Generativism about memory justification is the view that memory can generate epistemic justification. Generativism is gaining popularity, but process reliabilists tend to resist it. Process reliabilism explains the justification of beliefs by way of the reliability of the processes they result from. Some advocates of reliabilism deny various forms of generativism. Other reliabilists reject or remain neutral about only the more extreme forms. I argue that an extreme form of generativism follows from reliabilism. This result weakens a long-standing argument for reliabilism.

A Pragmatic Phenomenalist Account of Knowledge

Dialogue ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 47 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 565-582 ◽  
Author(s):  
Byeong D. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Practice Model ◽  
Robert Brandom ◽  
Contemporary Epistemology ◽  
The Gettier Problem

ABSTRACTRobert Brandom argues for a “pragmatic phenomenalist account” of knowledge. On this account, we should understand our notion of justification in accordance with a Sellarsian social practice model, and there is nothing more to the phenomenon of knowledge than the proprieties of takings-as-knowing. I agree with these two claims. But Brandom's proposal is so sketchy that it is unclear how it can deal with a number of much-discussed problems in contemporary epistemology. The main purpose of this article is to develop and defend a pragmatic phenomenalist account of knowledge by resolving those problems. I argue, in particular, that this account can accommodate both the lesson of the Gettier problem and the lesson of reliabilism simultaneously.

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