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.

The Epistemic Norms of Assertion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikkel Gerken
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Epistemic Norm ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Norms Of Assertion ◽  
Knowledge Norm ◽  
Conversational Context

Chapter 7 extends the discussion of epistemic norms to the linguistic realm. Again, it is argued that a Knowledge Norm of Assertion (KNAS) is inadequate and should be replaced with a Warrant-Assertive Speech Act norm (WASA). According to WASA, S must be adequately warranted in believing that p relative to her conversational context in order to meet the epistemic requirements for asserting that p. This epistemic norm is developed and extended to assertive speech acts that carry implicatures or illocutionary forces. Particular attention is given to the development of a species of WASA that accounts for assertive speech acts having a directive force, such as a recommendation. Thus, Chapter 7 contributes to the debates concerning epistemic norms of assertions.

scholarly journals Knowledge and reasoning

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mona Simion
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Drop Out ◽  
Epistemic Norm ◽  
Epistemic Normativity ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Theoretical Reasoning ◽  
Epistemic Function ◽  
In Virtue Of

AbstractThis paper develops a novel, functionalist, unified account of the epistemic normativity of reasoning. On this view, epistemic norms drop out of epistemic functions. I argue that practical reasoning serves a prudential function of generating prudentially permissible action, and the epistemic function of generating knowledge of what one ought to do. This picture, if right, goes a long way towards normatively divorcing action and practical reasoning. At the same time, it unifies reasoning epistemically: practical and theoretical reasoning will turn out to be governed by the same epistemic norm—knowledge—in virtue of serving the same epistemic function: generating knowledge of the conclusion.

scholarly journals Value and Epistemic Normativity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Owens
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Engagement ◽  
Epistemic Normativity ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Value Of Knowledge ◽  
Human Good ◽  
Good For

Many writers have sought to ground epistemic normativity in the value of knowledge or truth, or else in the value of successful agency. Here it is proposed that epistemic norms derive their authority from the fact that it is good for us to subject ourselves to such norms by forming beliefs. And being subject to the relevant norms may be good for us whether or not conformity to those norms is good for us. In particular, beliefs serve our interest in being subject to the norms that govern our emotions. Unless I believe that Tom stole my bike, I can hope or fear that he did, but I cannot be pleased or angry that he did. Having the capacity for this sort of emotional engagement with things that matter to us is a human good, even though we may suffer from the exercise of that capacity.

Cognition and Communication

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikkel Gerken
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Norms Of Assertion ◽  
Knowledge Ascriptions

Chapter 8 connects the discussion of epistemic norms of assertion to pragmatics more generally and to the pragmatics of knowledge ascriptions in particular. Some pragmatic theories and recent work in cognitive pragmatics and psycholinguistics are presented. By conjoining these accounts with the psychological considerations of Chapter 5, it is argued that knowledge ascriptions are often used as communicative heuristics, which are effective, albeit inaccurate, ways of getting complex epistemic points across. This conclusion is developed with regard to knowledge ascriptions which carry the directive force of recommending. Thus, Chapter 8 concludes Part II of the book by unifying some of its central discussions about cognitive psychology, epistemic norms, and pragmatics.

Knowing Full Well

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ernest Sosa
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Epistemic Normativity ◽  
Epistemic Circularity ◽  
Good Judgment ◽  
Epistemic Agency ◽  
First Order ◽  
Knowledge Norm ◽  
Epistemic Competence

This book explains the nature of knowledge through an approach originated by the author years ago, known as virtue epistemology. The book provides a comprehensive account of the author's views on epistemic normativity as a form of performance normativity on two levels. On a first level is found the normativity of the apt performance, whose success manifests the performer's competence. On a higher level is found the normativity of the meta-apt performance, which manifests not necessarily first-order skill or competence but rather the reflective good judgment required for proper risk assessment. The book develops this bi-level account in multiple ways, by applying it to issues much disputed in recent epistemology: epistemic agency, how knowledge is normatively related to action, the knowledge norm of assertion, and the Meno problem as to how knowledge exceeds merely true belief. A full chapter is devoted to how experience should be understood if it is to figure in the epistemic competence that must be manifest in the truth of any belief apt enough to constitute knowledge. Another takes up the epistemology of testimony from the performance–theoretic perspective. Two other chapters are dedicated to comparisons with ostensibly rival views, such as classical internalist foundationalism, a knowledge-first view, and attributor contextualism. The book concludes with a defense of the epistemic circularity inherent in meta-aptness and thereby in the full aptness of knowing full well.

Is Epistemic Normativity Value-Based?

Dialogue ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-430 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHARLES CÔTÉ-BOUCHARD
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Normativity ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Normative Authority ◽  
In Virtue Of

What is the source of epistemic normativity? In virtue of what do epistemic norms have categorical normative authority? According to epistemic teleologism, epistemic normativity comes from value. Epistemic norms have categorical authority because conforming to them is necessarily good in some relevant sense. In this article, I argue that epistemic teleologism should be rejected. The problem, I argue, is that there is no relevant sense in which it is necessarily good to believe in accordance with epistemic norms, including in cases where the matter at hand is completely trivial. Therefore, if epistemology is normative, its normativity won’t come from value.

No Special Treatment for the Epistemic Normativity of Telling

2021 ◽  
pp. 131-140
Author(s):  
Mona Simion
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Special Treatment ◽  
Epistemic Norm ◽  
Epistemic Normativity ◽  
Vast Amount ◽  
Normative Constraints

While recent years have featured a vast amount of literature concerned with the epistemic norm for assertion, comparatively little attention has been paid to the corresponding norm governing acts of telling. One plausible explanation of this is that people have generally taken assertion and telling to fall under the same normative constraints. Recent work, however, ventures to show (i) that this assumption is false and (ii) that the epistemic propriety of instances of telling partly depends on what’s at stake for the hearer. This chapter argues that the case against normative commonality for assertion and telling fails due to speech act-theoretic and value-theoretic inaccuracies. In a nutshell, the chapter argues that there’s nothing special about the epistemic normativity of telling.

Epistemic Consequentialism

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Expected Utility ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Formal Epistemology ◽  
Epistemic Normativity ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Rule Consequentialism ◽  
Epistemic Utility ◽  
Traditional Epistemology ◽  
Epistemic Consequentialism ◽  
In Virtue Of

An important issue in epistemology concerns the source of epistemic normativity. Epistemic consequentialism maintains that epistemic norms are genuine norms in virtue of the way in which they are conducive to epistemic value, whatever epistemic value may be. So, for example, the epistemic consequentialist might say that it is a norm that beliefs should be consistent in virtue of the fact that holding consistent beliefs is the best way to achieve the epistemic value of accuracy. Thus epistemic consequentialism is structurally similar to the familiar family of consequentialist views in ethics. Recently, philosophers from both formal epistemology and traditional epistemology have shown interest in such a view. In formal epistemology, there has been particular interest in thinking of epistemology as a kind of decision theory where instead of maximizing expected utility one maximizes expected epistemic utility. In traditional epistemology, there has been particular interest in various forms of reliabilism about justification and whether such views are analogous to—and so face similar problems to—versions of rule consequentialism in ethics. This volume presents some of the most recent work on these topics as well as others related to epistemic consequentialism, by authors that are sympathetic to the view and those who are critical of it.

Diagnosing Practical Factor Effects

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikkel Gerken
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Epistemic Norm ◽  
Communicative Function ◽  
Knowledge Ascription ◽  
Knowledge Ascriptions ◽  
Directive Speech Acts ◽  
Directive Speech

Chapter 12 deals with the practical factor effects by arguing that in the cases where practical factor effects are generated, the focus is on some pertinent action. In the cases where the knowledge ascription is merely mental, it is argued to serve as a heuristic proxy for a more complex judgment about epistemic actionability. Linguistic knowledge ascriptions are argued to serve a directive communicative function in the relevant cases. Therefore, the “shifty” judgments about the knowledge ascriptions reflect whether they meet or violate the epistemic norm governing directive speech acts—specifically the speech act of recommending. Thus, Chapter 12 combines psychological and linguistic considerations to account for the puzzling patterns of knowledge ascriptions constituting practical factor effects.

Belief

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa
Keyword(s):  
Relevant Alternatives ◽  
Knowledge Norm ◽  
Knowledge Ascriptions ◽  
Belief Ascriptions

This chapter develops and defends a relevant-alternatives contextualist semantics for belief ascriptions, similar to that proposed in the book for knowledge ascriptions. The view is a metasemantic generalization from Roger Clarke's infallibilist approach to belief. The result explains the sense in which belief is a kind of full commitment, consistent with humans' possession of many beliefs. It is also, in the context of the book's broader approach to knowledge, able to explain and predict the sense in which there is a knowledge norm of belief.

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