Radical Enhancement, Knowledge, and Autonomous Belief

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
J. Adam Carter
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Justification ◽  
Cognitive Enhancement ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Propositional Knowledge ◽  
Belief Condition ◽  
Justification Condition ◽  
Radical Enhancement

Epistemic autonomy is necessary for knowledge in ways that epistemologists have not yet fully appreciated. This chapter uses a series of thought experiments featuring (radical) forms of cognitive enhancement in order to show why; in particular, and with reference to a series of tweaks on Lehrer’s ‘TrueTemp’ case, I motivate an autonomous belief condition on propositional knowledge, a condition the satisfaction of which—it will be shown—is neither entailed by, nor entails, the satisfaction of either a belief condition or, importantly, an epistemic justification condition. This transition from a ‘JTB+X’ to a ‘JTAB+X’ template marks an important and needed update to the received thinking about what knowing involves. (Of course, the question of whether knowledge is analysable is contentious; an appendix for knowledge-firsters explains the relevance of the necessity of epistemic autonomy for knowledge for knowledge-first projects).

Internalism and Externalism in Epistemology

Philosophy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mylan Engel
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Justification ◽  
Truth Condition ◽  
Evil Demon ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Externalist Theory ◽  
Process Reliabilism ◽  
Justification Condition ◽  
Internal States ◽  
New Evil Demon Problem ◽  
The Gettier Problem

The internalism/externalism distinction in epistemology applies to both theories of justification and theories of knowledge. The distinction is most clearly defined for theories of justification. An internalist theory of epistemic justification is any theory that maintains that epistemic justifiedness is exclusively a function of states internal to the cognizer. Externalism is the denial of internalism. Thus, an externalist theory is any theory that maintains that epistemic justifiedness is at least partly a function of states or factors external to the cognizer, i.e., states or factors outside the cognizer’s ken. There is no unified agreement among internalists as to which internal states are epistemically relevant, and different internalisms emerge based on the subset of internal states deemed relevant. (See Internalism and Justification for details.) Internalists typically maintain that justification is a normative notion in the belief-guiding/regulative sense. Internalists also typically maintain that one can tell whether one is justified in believing p simply by reflecting on one’s internal evidence for p. The central internalist intuition, as highlighted by the New Evil Demon Problem is this: There can be no difference in justification without a difference in epistemically relevant internal states. Externalism is motivated by the intuition that epistemic justification must be conceptually connected to truth such that the conditions that make a belief justified also make it objectively probable. Externalists are also typically motivated by the view that children and animals can form justified beliefs, while failing to satisfy the internalist’s intellectualist requirements for justification. The dominant externalist theory of justification is process reliabilism, a simplified version of which holds that a belief is justified iff it’s produced by a reliable process. There is less canonical agreement when it comes to applying the internalist/externalist distinction to theories of knowledge. In one sense, every plausible epistemology is an externalist theory because every plausible epistemology requires an externalist truth condition and an externalist Gettier-blocking fillip. However, in another widely used sense, “externalist” theories of knowledge are theories that replace the internalist justification condition with either an externalist justification condition or some other externalist constraint (such as a causal or modal constraint); while “internalist” theories of knowledge hold that internalist justification is necessary for knowledge and also typically hold that no other kind of justification is needed for knowledge, though they do incorporate some sort of externalist constraint to handle the Gettier problem.

scholarly journals Pharmacological Cognitive Enhancement and Cheapened Achievement: A New Dilemma

Neuroethics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma C. Gordon ◽  
Lucy Dunn
Keyword(s):  
San Francisco ◽  
Cognitive Enhancement ◽  
Cognitive Architecture ◽  
Significant Risk ◽  
Harvard University ◽  
Cognitive Integration ◽  
London 2012 ◽  
Radical Enhancement ◽  
Pharmacological Cognitive Enhancement ◽  
Do So

Abstract Recent discussions of cognitive enhancement often note that drugs and technologies that improve cognitive performance may do so at the risk of “cheapening” our resulting cognitive achievements (e.g., Kass, Life, liberty and the defense of dignity: the challenge for bioethics, Encounter Books, San Francisco, 2004; Agar, Humanity’s end: why we should reject radical enhancement, MIT Press, Cambridge, 2010; Sandel, The case against perfection. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2007; Sandel, The case against perfection: what’s wrong with designer children, bionic athletes, and genetic engineering?”. In: Holland (ed) Arguing about bioethics, Routledge, London, 2012; Harris in Bioethics 25:102–111, 2011). While there are several possible responses to this worry, we will highlight what we take to be one of the most promising—one which draws on a recent strand of thinking in social and virtue epistemology to construct an integrationist defence of cognitive enhancement. (e.g., Pritchard in Synthese 175:133–151, 2010; Palermos in Synthese 192:2955–2286, 2015; Clark in Synthese 192:3757–3375, 2015). According to such a line, there is—despite initial appearances to the contrary—no genuine tension between using enhancements to attain our goals and achieving these goals in a valuable way provided the relevant enhancement is appropriately integrated into the agent’s cognitive architecture (in some suitably specified way). In this paper, however, we show that the kind of integration recommended by such views will likely come at a high cost. More specifically, we highlight a dilemma for users of pharmacological cognitive enhancement: they can (1) meet the conditions for cognitive integration (and on this basis attain valuable achievements) at the significant risk of dangerous dependency, or (2) remain free of such dependency while foregoing integration and the valuable achievements that such integration enables. After motivating and clarifying the import of this dilemma, we offer recommendations for how future cognitive enhancement research may offer potential routes for navigating past it.

scholarly journals Thought Experiments and Novels

Studia Humana ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Milligan
Keyword(s):  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Propositional Knowledge ◽  
The Other ◽  
Knowing That ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Epistemic Role

Abstract Novels and thought experiments can be pathways to different kinds of knowledge. We may, however, be hard pressed to say exactly what can be learned from novels but not from thought experiments. Headway on this matter can be made by spelling out their respective conditions for epistemic failure. Thought experiments fail in their epistemic role when they neither yield propositional knowledge nor contribute to an argument. They are largely in the business of ‘knowing that’. Novels, on the other hand can be an epistemic success by yielding ‘knowledge how’. They can help us to improve our competences.

Internalism, Externalism, and Autonomous Belief

2021 ◽  
pp. 26-59
Author(s):  
J. Adam Carter
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Propositional Knowledge ◽  
Belief Condition ◽  
Justified Belief ◽  
Mental Structure ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Externalist Approach

What must be the case for an autonomous belief condition on knowledge (motivated in Chapter 1) to be satisfied by a knower? Chapter 2 takes up this question by investigating whether or not the knowledge-relevant (viz., epistemic) autonomy of a belief is determined entirely by the subject’s present mental structure. What I’ll call ‘internalists’ about epistemically autonomous belief say ‘yes’, and externalists say ‘no.’ Internalism about epistemic autonomous belief turns out to be problematic for reasons entirely independent from those we might have for rejecting internalist approaches to epistemically justified belief. What is shown to fare much better is a kind of ‘history-sensitive’ externalist approach to epistemically autonomous belief. On the particular account I go in for, which draws from externalist thinking about attitudinal autonomy more generally (as well as from virtue epistemology), a belief lacks the kind of epistemic autonomy that’s needed for propositional knowledge if the subject comes to possess the belief in a way that (put simply) bypasses or pre-empts the subject’s cognitive abilities and is such that the subject lacks easy (enough) opportunities to competently shed that belief.

A Definição Tradicional do Conhecimento

2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (36) ◽  
pp. 127-148
Author(s):  
Luís Estevinha ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Justification ◽  
Propositional Knowledge ◽  
Historical Events ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Gettier Problem ◽  
Traditional Definition ◽  
Correct Definition ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Definition Of

The search for a correct definition of propositional knowledge took place in the second half of the last Century. In this paper, I wish to submit an introduction to the topic. I start by offering basic notions of belief, truth and epistemic justification. Then I use those basic notions to shed some light over the nature of the so called Traditional Definition of Knowledge (TDC). I do that by focusing on those which, by my own lights, seem to be the most salient historical events and philosophical views canvassing the issue of the TDC on that period of time; crucially, I pay close attention to the arguments submitted by Edmund Gettier against the sufficiency of the TDC, keeping in mind that nowadays almost everybody concurs that those arguments falsify it. The article also offers a brief taxonomy of the possible answers to the so-called Gettier Problem and describes the most recent developments on this debate.

Epistemic Autonomy and Knowledge Defeat

2021 ◽  
pp. 60-82
Author(s):  
J. Adam Carter
Keyword(s):  
Propositional Knowledge ◽  
Forming Process ◽  
Belief Condition ◽  
The Subject

Chapter 3 highlights an important epistemological implication of the view developed so far—which is that the inclusion of an autonomous belief condition on propositional knowledge implies that knowledge can be defeated in ways other than via the standard modes of rebutting and undercutting defeat. An account of two types of what I call ‘heteronomous defeat’ for propositional knowledge is developed and defended: one on which propositional knowledge is defeated when the subject acquires a belief that either indicates the target belief is epistemically heteronymous (i.e. Type 1) or calls into doubt the reliability of the subject’s belief-forming process as one that would (reliably enough) result in an epistemically autonomous belief (i.e. Type 2). Recognizing heteronomous defeat as a genuine form of knowledge defeat fits snugly with the wider idea that knowledge defeaters, as such, are indicators of ignorance.

Epistemological Status of Models and Thought Experiments in Economics

2015 ◽  
pp. 123-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. Koshovets ◽  
T. Varkhotov
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Theoretical Modeling ◽  
Epistemological Status ◽  
Epistemological Analysis ◽  
Field Of Inquiry

The paper considers the analogy of theoretical modeling and thought experiment in economics. The authors provide historical and epistemological analysis of thought experiments and their relations to the material experiments in natural science. They conclude that thought experiments as instruments are used both in physics and in economics, but in radically different ways. In the natural science, a thought experiment is tightly connected to the material experimentation, while in economics it is used in isolation. Material experiments serve as a means to demonstrate the reality, while thought experiments cannot be a full-fledged instrument of studying the reality. Rather, they constitute the instrument of structuring the field of inquiry.

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