The Epistemic Innocence Project

The Epistemic Innocence of Irrational Beliefs ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198863984.003.0001 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-18

Author(s):

Lisa Bortolotti

Keyword(s):

Irrational Beliefs ◽

Epistemic Rationality ◽

Epistemic Status ◽

Innocence Project ◽

New Framework ◽

Epistemic Innocence ◽

Conceptual Resources

Human agents do not simply survive but navigate their world quite successfully despite being inclined to adopt and hang onto irrational beliefs. In this introductory chapter, the author justifies the new framework of epistemic innocence as an attempt to make sense of the idea that our undesirable and at times cringeworthy irrationality may be instrumental to succeed as imperfect agents. The challenge is to create the conceptual resources for evaluating the epistemic status of beliefs that violate standards of truth, accuracy, and epistemic rationality but play an important role in supporting epistemic functionality. The notions of epistemic irrationality, epistemic functionality, and epistemic innocence are introduced and the methodological assumptions guiding the discussion in the subsequent chapters are explained.

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The Epistemic Innocence of Irrational Beliefs

10.1093/oso/9780198863984.001.0001 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Lisa Bortolotti

Keyword(s):

Irrational Beliefs ◽

Epistemic Justification ◽

Irrational Belief ◽

Relevant Information ◽

Psychological Effects ◽

Epistemic Rationality ◽

Trade Off ◽

Cognitive Capacities ◽

The Relationship ◽

Epistemic Innocence

Ideally, we would have beliefs that satisfy norms of truth and rationality, as well as fostering the acquisition, retention and use of other relevant information. In reality, we have limited cognitive capacities and are subject to motivational biases on an everyday basis, and may also experience impairments in perception, memory, learning, and reasoning in the course of our lives. Such limitations and impairments give rise to distorted memory beliefs, confabulated explanations, elaborated delusional beliefs, motivated delusional beliefs, and optimistically biased beliefs. In the book, Bortolotti argues that some irrational beliefs qualify as epistemically innocent, where the notion of epistemic innocence captures the fact that in some contexts the adoption, maintenance or reporting of the beliefs delivers significant epistemic benefits that could not be easily attained otherwise. Epistemic innocence is a weaker notion than epistemic justification, as it does not imply that the epistemic benefits of the irrational belief outweigh its epistemic costs. However, it clarifies the relationship between the epistemic and psychological effects of irrational beliefs on agency. It is misleading to assume that epistemic rationality and psychological adaptiveness always go hand-in-hand, but also that there is a straight-forward trade off between them. Rather, epistemic irrationality can lead to psychological adaptiveness and psychological adaptiveness in turn can support the attainment of epistemic goals. Recognising the circumstances in which irrational beliefs enhance or restore epistemic performance informs our mutual interactions and enables us to take measures to reduce their irrationality without undermining the conditions for epistemic success.

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Virtue Perspectivism, Normativity, and the Unity of Knowledge

Daímon ◽

10.6018/daimon/328001 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Modesto Gómez Alonso

Keyword(s):

Epistemic Rationality ◽

Epistemic Value ◽

Epistemic Status ◽

Personal Agency ◽

Binding Problem ◽

Unity Of Knowledge ◽

Epistemic Perspective

It will be argued that personal agency, far from lacking epistemic value, contributes to knowledge in a substantial way. To this end, it will be claimed that what Sosa calls an epistemic perspective is necessary to solve the binding problem in epistemology at the three junctures at which it can occur: as the Pyrrhonian question of whether one can rationally endorse one’s epistemic rationality; as the problem of the epistemic status of guessing; and as the enquiry into the contribution of the agential perspective for evading coincidental luck. Our aim has been that of elucidating and expanding Sosa’s virtue perspectivism.

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Another Look at Reflection

Erkenntnis ◽

10.1007/s10670-020-00363-9 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Martin Fischer

Keyword(s):

Truth Predicate ◽

Epistemic Status ◽

Natural Numbers ◽

Epistemological Status ◽

Central Interest ◽

Reflection Principles ◽

Conceptual Resources

AbstractReflection principles are of central interest in the development of axiomatic theories. Whereas they are independent statements they appear to have a specific epistemological status. Our trust in those principles is as warranted as our trust in the axioms of the system itself. This paper is an attempt in clarifying this special epistemic status. We provide a motivation for the adoption of uniform reflection principles by their analogy to a form of the constructive $$\omega $$ ω -rule. Additionally, we analyse the role of informal arithmetic and the conception of natural numbers as an inductive structure, also with regard to extra conceptual resources such as a primitive truth predicate.

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Two Shapes of Pragmatism

KRITERION – Journal of Philosophy ◽

10.1515/krt-2021-0017 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 0 (0) ◽

Author(s):

Léna Mudry

Keyword(s):

The Other ◽

Epistemic Rationality ◽

Practical Reasons ◽

Epistemic Status ◽

Ethics Of Belief ◽

Pragmatic Encroachment ◽

The Ethics Of Belief

Abstract The ethics of belief is concerned with the question of what we should believe. According to evidentialism, what one should believe is determined by evidence only. Pragmatism claims that practical considerations too can be relevant. But pragmatism comes in two shapes. According to a more traditional version, practical considerations can provide practical reasons for or against belief. According to a new brand of pragmatism, pragmatic encroachment, practical considerations can affect positive epistemic status, such as epistemic rationality or knowledge. In the literature, the distinction between the two versions of pragmatism is not always made. If it is mentioned, it is quickly put aside. Sometimes, it is simply overlooked. As evidentialists face two distinct pragmatist challenges, they must get clearer on the distinction. But it matters for pragmatists too. As I see it, if one accepts one version of pragmatism, one should reject the other. This paper’s goals are to get clearer on the distinction and argue that both pragmatisms are independent. Accepting one version does not commit one to accept the other. Moreover, even if both pragmatisms tend to be neutral toward one another, I will argue that traditional pragmatism has good reasons to reject pragmatic encroachment and vice versa.

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African youth and the rural economy: points of departure.

Youth and the rural economy in Africa: hard work and hazard ◽

10.1079/9781789245011.0001 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-22

Author(s):

James Sumberg ◽

Justin Flynn ◽

Marjoke Oosterom ◽

Thomas Yeboah ◽

Barbara Crossouard ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Rural Economy ◽

Rural Youth ◽

Sub Saharan Africa ◽

Current Interest ◽

Development Intervention ◽

Policy Narratives ◽

African Youth ◽

Sub Saharan ◽

Conceptual Resources

Abstract This introductory chapter first situates the current interest in Africa's rural youth, and the place of this book, within the broader discussion of policy narratives. It then identifies seven narratives about rural youth in sub-Saharan Africa that channel much contemporary policy and development intervention. Following this the argument that runs through the book is outlined. The key conceptual resources that the various chapters draw upon are briefly introduced in the next section. The last section provides a brief summary of each of the subsequent chapters.

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The Significance of Epistemic Innocence

The Epistemic Innocence of Irrational Beliefs ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198863984.003.0007 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 132-141

Author(s):

Lisa Bortolotti

Keyword(s):

Innocence Project ◽

Epistemic Innocence

In the concluding chapter, the author revisits the significance of the epistemic innocence framework in the light of the applications of epistemic innocence to distorted memory beliefs, confabulated explanations, elaborated delusional beliefs, motivated delusional beliefs, and optimistically biased beliefs in the preceding chapters. The somewhat counterintuitive conclusion is that some of the beliefs regarded as paradigmatic instances of epistemic irrationality can be attributed significant epistemic benefits, in the sense that they either enhance or restore epistemic functionality. The wider implications of the epistemic innocence project for research in philosophy and psychology are reviewed, and the limitations acknowledged.

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Moral Obligation and Epistemic Risk

Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics Volume 10 ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198867944.003.0005 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 81-105

Author(s):

Zoë Johnson King ◽

Boris Babic

Keyword(s):

Social Group ◽

Moral Obligation ◽

Statistical Information ◽

Epistemic Rationality ◽

Epistemic Status ◽

Epistemic Risk ◽

Political Costs ◽

Epistemic States ◽

Predictive Inferences ◽

Apparent Conflict

This chapter concernsÂ pernicious predictive inferences: taking someone to be likely to possess a socially disvalued trait based on statistical information about the prevalence of that trait within a social group to which she belongs. Some scholars have argued that pernicious predictive inferences are morally prohibited, but are sometimes epistemically required, leaving us with a tragic conflict between the requirements of epistemic rationality and those of morality. Others have responded by arguing that pernicious predictive inferences are sometimes epistemically prohibited. The present chapter takes a different approach, considering the sort of reluctance to draw pernicious predictive inferences that seems morally praiseworthy and vindicating its epistemic status. We argue that, even on a simple, orthodox Bayesian picture of the requirements of epistemic rationality, agents must consider the costs of error—including the associated moral and political costs—when forming and revising their credences. Our attitudes toward the costs of error determine how “risky” different credences are for us, and our epistemic states are justified in part by our attitudes toward epistemic risk. Thus, reluctance to draw pernicious predictive inferences need not be epistemically irrational, and the apparent conflict between morality and epistemic rationality is typically illusory.

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