The Intrinsic Value of Scientific Knowledge and Understanding

2020 ◽  
pp. 47-88
Author(s):  
James S.J. Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Intrinsic Value ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Cognitive Achievement ◽  
Naturalistic Approach ◽  
Scientific Worldview

This chapter provides a detailed and epistemologically informed defense of the intrinsic value of scientific knowledge and understanding. It responds to Lars Bergström’s criticisms of the value of scientific knowledge. It then devises a naturalistic approach to intrinsic value that is used to argue that true belief (and, in turn, knowledge) is intrinsically valuable because true beliefs are valued for their own sake, and such acts of valuation help to explain the overall scientific worldview. It next considers and rejects Duncan Pritchard’s attempt to show that understanding is more epistemically valuable than true belief, arguing that Pritchard’s view of understanding as a cognitive achievement fails to include anything of epistemic value other than the epistemic value of the true beliefs which are compresent with understanding. Finally, it uses virtue-theoretic approaches to epistemic value to generate prima facie obligations to acquire scientific knowledge and understanding.

Intellectually Virtuous Inquirer and the Practical Value of Truth

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
pp. 54-59
Author(s):  
Sergei M. Levin ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Prima Facie ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Practical Reasons ◽  
Circular Reasoning ◽  
Duncan Pritchard ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The Face

Veritism is the thesis that the truth is the fundamental epistemic good. According to Duncan Pritchard, the most pressing objections to veritism are the trivial truths objection and the trivial inquiry problem. The former states that veritism entails that trivial truths are as important as deep and important truths. The latter is a problem that a veritist must prefer trivial inquiry that generates many trivial truths to the serious inquiry with the hope but no guarantee to discover some deep and important truth. Both objections arise from the inability of veritism prima facie to properly rate the different types of truths. Pritchard's solution is to approach the truth from the perspective of the intellectually virtuous inquirer who would prefer weighty truth over trivial truth. In my commentary, I criticise the proposed solution as circular reasoning. The necessary virtue for an intellectually virtuous inquirer is that they would prefer the weighty truth over the trivial one and at the same time, the weighty truth is superior because it is the goal for intellectually virtuous inquirer. I suggest another path to substantiate veritism in the face of the two sibling objections. I argue that truth is the fundamental epistemic good as it makes the epistemic realm practically valuable more than any other epistemic good. The weighty truths are preferable to the trivial ones because the practical value of the deep and important truths is usually higher. The suggested path goes away from the attempts to prove the epistemic value of truth only within the epistemic realm, yet I argue it does not compel the intellectually virtuous inquirer to seek the truth only for the sake of practical reasons.

Epistemic value

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Greco ◽  
Luis Pinto de Sa
Keyword(s):  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Value Of Knowledge ◽  
Process Reliabilism ◽  
Mere True Belief

Epistemic value is a kind of value possessed by knowledge, and perhaps other epistemic goods such as justification and understanding. The problem of explaining the value of knowledge is perennial in philosophy, going back at least as far as Plato’s Meno. One formulation of the problem is to explain why and in what sense knowledge is valuable. Another version of the problem is to explain why and in what sense knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief or opinion. This article looks at various formulations of the value problem and various accounts of the value of knowledge in ancient and modern philosophy. The article then considers some contemporary discussions of the value problem, including the charge that reliabilist accounts cannot account for the value of knowledge over mere true belief. Various virtue-theoretic accounts of epistemic value are discussed as possible improvements over process reliabilism, and the epistemic value of understanding (as compared to knowledge) is considered.

The Value of Science in Space Exploration

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
James S.J. Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Intrinsic Value ◽  
Space Exploration ◽  
Social Philosophy ◽  
Space Environment ◽  
Resource Exploitation ◽  
Extraterrestrial Life ◽  
Planetary Protection ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Space Settlement

The Value of Science in Space Exploration provides a rigorous assessment of the value of scientific knowledge and understanding in the context of contemporary space exploration. It argues that traditional spaceflight rationales are deficient, and that the strongest defense of spaceflight comes from its potential to produce intrinsically and instrumentally valuable knowledge and understanding. It engages with contemporary epistemology to articulate an account of the intrinsic value of scientific knowledge and understanding. It also parleys with recent work in science policy and social philosophy of science to characterize the instrumental value of scientific research, identifying space research as an effective generator of new knowledge and understanding. These values found an ethical obligation to engage in scientific examination of the space environment. This obligation has important implications for major space policy discussions, including debates surrounding planetary protection policies, space resource exploitation, and human space settlement. Whereas planetary protection policies are currently employed to prevent biological contamination only of sites of interest in the search for extraterrestrial life, it contends that all sites of interest to space science ought to be protected. Meanwhile, space resource exploitation and human space settlement would result in extensive disruption or destruction of pristine space environments. The overall ethical value of these environments in the production of new knowledge and understanding is greater than their value as commercial or real commodities, and thus, exploitation and settlement of space should be avoided until the scientific community adequately understands these environments.

scholarly journals Accuracy and epistemic conservatism

Analysis ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 658-669 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian Steinberger
Keyword(s):  
Utility Theory ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Epistemic Rationality ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Methodological Principle ◽  
Epistemic Risk ◽  
Epistemic Utility ◽  
Epistemic Conservatism

Abstract Epistemic utility theory (EUT) is generally coupled with veritism. Veritism is the view that truth is the sole fundamental epistemic value. Veritism, when paired with EUT, entails a methodological commitment: norms of epistemic rationality are justified only if they can be derived from considerations of accuracy alone. According to EUT, then, believing truly has epistemic value, while believing falsely has epistemic disvalue. This raises the question as to how the rational believer should balance the prospect of true belief against the risk of error. A strong intuitive case can be made for a kind of epistemic conservatism – that we should disvalue error more than we value true belief. I argue that none of the ways in which advocates of veritist EUT have sought to motivate conservatism can be squared with their methodological commitments. Short of any such justification, they must therefore either abandon their most central methodological principle or else adopt a permissive line with respect to epistemic risk.

Under Moore's Spell

Utilitas ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 286-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Darwall
Keyword(s):  
Intrinsic Value ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
David Wiggins

As David Wiggins points out, although Ross is best known for opposing Moore's consequentialism, Ross comes very close to capitulation to Moore when he accepts, as required by beneficence, a prima facie duty to maximize the good. I argue that what lies behind this is Ross's acceptance of Moore's doctrine of agent-neutral intrinsic value, a notion that is not required by, but is indeed is in tension with, beneficence as doing good to or for others.

Popper and Reliabilism

1995 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 31-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lipton
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Reliable Method ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Karl Popper ◽  
Deductive Inference ◽  
Inductive Support ◽  
Radical Scepticism ◽  
Analysis Of Knowledge

Karl Popper attempted to give an account of scientific research as the rational pursuit of the truth about nature without any appeal to what he took to be the fictitious notion of non-demonstrative or inductive support. Deductive inference can be seen to be inference enough for science, he claimed, once we appreciate the power of data to refute theory. Many of the standard objections to Popper's account purport to show that his deductivism actually entails a radical scepticism about the possibility of scientific knowledge. Some of these objections appear unanswerable in the context of the traditional analysis of knowledge as justified true belief; but this is neither a conception of knowledge that Popper himself accepted nor one that is currently in fashion. Reliabilism, the view that knowledge is a true belief generated by a reliable method, is now a popular replacement for the traditional analysis and one that is closer to Popper's own conception of knowledge. My aim in this essay is to consider in brief compass the prospects of a reliabilist reading of Popper's account of science. Such a reading makes it possible to turn some of the standard objections and helps to show which of Popper's views should be accepted and which rejected.

Are There Things Which We Should Not Know?

1998 ◽  
pp. 133-138
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Lekka-Kowalik
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
Intrinsic Value ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Scientific Methodology ◽  
Research Topics ◽  
Good Science ◽  
Moral Relevance ◽  
Moral Permissibility ◽  
Cognitive Values

It has been claimed that decisions concerning scientific research topics and the publication of research results are purely methodological, and that any moral considerations refer only to research methods and uses of acquired knowledge. The arguments advanced in favor of this view appeal to the moral neutrality of scientific knowledge and the intrinsic value of truth. I argue that neither is valid. Moreover, I show three cases where a scientist’s decision to begin research clearly bears moral relevance: (1) when starting an inquiry would create circumstances threatening some non-cognitive values; (2) when achieving a certain piece of knowledge would threaten the existence of the individual’s private sphere; and (3) when there are reasons to think that humankind is not prepared to accumulate some knowledge. These cases do not prove the existence of some intrinsically ‘morally forbidden topics,’ but show that the moral permissibility of any given inquiry is not a priori guaranteed but needs to be judged in the same way that its methodological soundness is judged. Judgments concerning research topics have both methodological and moral aspects and these two cannot be separated under the threat of distorting science. Making such judgments requires knowledge not only of scientific methodology, but also of its social and philosophical implications. Philosophy is necessary in order to do good science.

Knowledge, defeasibility theory of

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marshall Swain
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Gettier Cases ◽  
Ethical Concept ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Analysis Of Knowledge

Based upon an analogy with the legal and ethical concept of a defeasible, or prima facie, obligation, epistemic defeasibility was introduced into epistemology as an ingredient in one of the main strategies for dealing with Gettier cases. In these cases, an individual’s justified true belief fails to count as knowledge because the justification is defective as a source of knowledge. According to the defeasibility theory of knowledge, the defect involved can be characterized in terms of evidence that the subject does not possess which overrides, or defeats, the subject’s prima facie justification for belief. This account holds that knowledge is indefeasibly justified true belief. It has significant advantages over other attempts to modify the traditional analysis of knowledge in response to the Gettier examples. Care must be taken, however, in the definition of defeasibility.

How to Be an Epistemic Value Pluralist

Dialogue ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 391-405 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Matheson
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Value Pluralism ◽  
Epistemic Values ◽  
Value Of Knowledge ◽  
Justified Belief

ABSTRACT: In this paper I defend an epistemic value pluralism according to which true belief, justified belief, and knowledge are all fundamental epistemic values. After laying out reasons to reject epistemic value monism in its central forms, I present my pluralist alternative and show how it can adequately explain the greater epistemic value of knowledge over both true belief and justified belief, despite their fundamentality. I conclude with a sketch of how this pluralism might be generalized beyond the epistemic domain to the ethical.

The Epistemic Value of Understanding-why

Episteme ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Xingming Hu
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Know How ◽  
Strengthened Version

Abstract Some philosophers (e.g., Pritchard, Grimm, and Hills) recently have objected that veritism cannot explain the epistemic value of understanding-why. And they have proposed two anti-veritist accounts. In this paper, I first introduce their objection and argue that it fails. Next, I consider a strengthened version of their objection and argue that it also fails. After that, I suggest a new veritist account: Understanding-why entails believing the truth that what is grasped is accurate (or accurate enough), and it is this true belief, along with many other true beliefs understanding-why entails, that makes understanding-why finally epistemically valuable. Then, I explain why the two anti-veritist accounts are both false. Finally, I briefly discuss the idea that understanding involves a kind of know-how and show how veritism can explain the epistemic value of know-how in general.

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