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.

On Folk Epistemology

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikkel Gerken
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Pragmatic Encroachment ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Knowledge Ascriptions ◽  
Intuitive Judgments ◽  
Folk Epistemology ◽  
Central Claim ◽  
Do So

On Folk Epistemology is a book about how we ascribe knowledge to ourselves and others. Empirical evidence suggests that we do so early and often in thought as well as in talk. Since such knowledge ascriptions are central to how we navigate social life, it is important to understand our basis for making them. A central claim of the book is that factors that have nothing to do with knowledge may lead to systematic mistakes in everyday ascriptions of knowledge. These mistakes are explained by an empirically informed account of how ordinary knowledge ascriptions are the product of cognitive heuristics that are associated with biases. In developing this account, the book presents work in cognitive psychology and pragmatics. But it also contributes to epistemology proper. For example, it develops positive epistemic norms of action and assertion. Moreover, it critically assesses contextualism, knowledge-first methodology, pragmatic encroachment theories, and more. Many of these approaches are argued to overestimate the epistemological significance of folk epistemology. In contrast, the book develops an equilibristic methodology according to which intuitive judgments about knowledge cannot straightforwardly play a role as data for epistemological theorizing. Rather, epistemological theorizing is required to interpret empirical findings. Consequently, On Folk Epistemology helps to lay the foundation for an emerging subfield that intersects philosophy and the cognitive sciences: the empirical study of folk epistemology.

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.

Beyond semantics

2019 ◽  
pp. 177-196
Author(s):  
Alexis Wellwood
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Cognitive Development ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Formal Analysis ◽  
Formal Theory ◽  
General Concept ◽  
Formal Semantic

The preceding chapters of the book focused on the traditional sorts of data motivating formal semantic treatments of comparatives: productive patterns of inference, judgments of truth/falsity in context, etc. In this concluding chapter, the book connects the formal analysis with recent work in language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and cognitive science more broadly. Considering a number of observations in linguistics, cognitive psychology, and cognitive development, the chapter considers how the formal theory can (or cannot) be leveraged in order to predict or explain such observations. The chapter argues that, even given the same foundational assumptions about how the formal theory relates to conceptualization, the uniform compositional theory of comparatives offered in the book provides the tools for better explanations of such data than its competitors. In the end, the chapter considers the prospects for resolving the indeterminacy of MUCH in terms of a domain-general concept of measurement.

scholarly journals TESTIMONIAL ENTITLEMENT, NORMS OF ASSERTION AND PRIVACY

Episteme ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip J. Nickel
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Norms Of Assertion ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Testimonial Belief ◽  
The Right ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Normative Status

AbstractAccording to assurance views of testimonial justification, in virtue of the act of testifying a speaker provides an assurance of the truth of what she asserts to the addressee. This assurance provides a special justificatory force and a distinctive normative status to the addressee. It is thought to explain certain asymmetries between addressees and other unintended hearers (bystanders and eavesdroppers), such as the phenomenon that the addressee has a right to blame the speaker for conveying a falsehood but unintended hearers do not, and the phenomenon that the addressee may deflect challenges to his testimonial belief to the speaker but unintended hearers may not. Here I argue that we can do a better job explaining the normative statuses associated with testimony by reference to epistemic norms of assertion and privacy norms. Following Sanford Goldberg, I argue that epistemic norms of assertion, according to which sincere assertion is appropriate only when the asserter possesses certain epistemic goods, can be ‘put to work’ to explain the normative statuses associated with testimony. When these norms are violated, they give hearers the right to blame the speaker, and they also explain why the speaker takes responsibility for the justification of the statement asserted. Norms of privacy, on the other hand, directly exclude eavesdroppers and bystanders from an informational exchange, implying that they have no standing to do many of the things, such as issue challenges or questions to the speaker, that would be normal for conversational participants. This explains asymmetries of normative status associated with testimony in a way logically independent of speaker assurance.

scholarly journals Epistemic Norms of Assertion and Action

2019 ◽  
pp. 681-706
Author(s):  
Mikkel Gerken ◽  
Esben Nedenskov Petersen
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Practical Deliberation ◽  
Norms Of Assertion

This chapter surveys the work on epistemic norms of action, practical deliberation, and assertion. In doing so, it is considered how these norms are interrelated. If there are important similarities between the epistemic norms of action and assertion, these may have important ramifications for how we should think about asserting. Thus, the chapter indicates how thinking about assertions as a speech act might benefit from a broader action theoretic setting. In consequence, we begin by considering the epistemic norms of action and practical deliberation on the market. On this basis we proceed to considering the epistemic norms of assertion. Finally, we consider their interrelation and wider ramifications.

scholarly journals Promises to keep: speech acts and the value of reflective knowledge

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Turri
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Reflective Knowledge ◽  
Epistemic Norms

This paper offers a new account of reflective knowledge’s value, building on recent work on the epistemic norms of speech acts. Reflective knowledge is valuable because it licenses us to make guarantees and promises.

scholarly journals Resisting Structural Epistemic Injustice

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Doan
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Critical Appraisal ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Epistemic Injustice ◽  
Epistemic Norms ◽  
Political Struggles ◽  
Critical Feminist

What form must a theory of epistemic injustice take in order to successfully illuminate the epistemic dimensions of struggles that are primarily political? How can such struggles be understood as involving collective struggles for epistemic recognition and self-determination that seek to improve practices of knowledge production and make lives more liveable? In this paper, I argue that currently dominant, Fricker-inspired approaches to theorizing epistemic wrongs and remedies make it difficult, if not impossible, to understand the epistemic dimensions of historic and ongoing political struggles. Recent work in the theory of recognition—particularly the work of critical, feminist, and decolonial theorists—can help to identify and correct the shortcomings of these approaches. I offer a critical appraisal of recent conversation concerning epistemic injustice, focusing on three characteristics of Frickerian frameworks that obscure the epistemic dimensions of political struggles. I propose that a theory of epistemic injustice can better illuminate the epistemic dimensions of such struggles by acknowledging and centering the agency of victims in abusive epistemic relations, by conceptualizing the harms and wrongs of epistemic injustice relationally, and by explaining epistemic injustice as rooted in the oppressive and dysfunctional epistemic norms undergirding actual communities and institutions.

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.

Anaphora in Popular Stories: Implications for Narrative Theory

1988 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara A. Fox
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Computer Science ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Narrative Theory ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Story Grammar ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Conceptual Dependency

Recent work in a variety of fields, including literary criticism, linguistics, cognitive psychology, and computer science, has been rife with theories of narrative, in particular narrative structure. The goal of this article is to evaluate, by exploring data on anaphora in narratives, two specific models of narrative structure, Story Grammar and Conceptual Dependency, whose underlying assumptions are shared by a wide range of theorists and to comment in general on re-visioning narrative theory.

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