scholarly journals Epistemic Value Theory and Social Epistemology

Episteme ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 177-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Fallis
Keyword(s):  
Social Epistemology ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Social World ◽  
Value Theory ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Epistemic Values ◽  
Alvin Goldman ◽  
Real People ◽  
Epistemic Value Theory ◽  
Better Than

ABSTRACTIn order to guide the decisions of real people who want to bring about good epistemic outcomes for themselves and others, we need to understand our epistemic values. In Knowledge in a Social World, Alvin Goldman has proposed an epistemic value theory that allows us to say whether one outcome is epistemically better than another. However, it has been suggested that Goldman's theory is not really an epistemic value theory at all because whether one outcome is epistemically better than another partly depends on our non-epistemic interests. In this paper, I argue that an epistemic value theory that serves the purposes of social epistemology must incorporate non-epistemic interests in much the way that Goldman's theory does. In fact, I argue that Goldman's theory does not go far enough in this direction. In particular, the epistemic value of having a particular true belief should actually be weighted by how interested we are in the topic.

Epistemic Environmentalism

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 97-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shane Ryan ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Epistemology ◽  
Value Theory ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Special Role ◽  
Normative Framework ◽  
Applied Epistemology ◽  
Epistemic Value Theory

I motivate and develop a normative framework for undertaking work in applied epistemology. I set out the framework, which I call epistemic environmentalism, explaining the role of social epistemology and epistemic value theory in the framework. Next, I explain the environmentalist terminology that is employed and its usefulness. In the second part of the paper, I make the case for a specific epistemic environmentalist proposal. I argue that dishonest testimony by experts and certain institutional testifiers should be liable to the sanction of inclusion on a register of epistemic polluters. In doing so, I explain the special role that experts and the relevant institutional testifiers play in the epistemic environment and how the proposal is justified on the basis of that special role.

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 Special Value of Experience

2021 ◽  
pp. 130-168
Author(s):  
Chris Ranalli
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Conscious Experience ◽  
Propositional Knowledge ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Special Value ◽  
Better Than

Why think that conscious experience of reality is any more epistemically valuable than testimony? I argue that conscious experience of reality is epistemically valuable because it provides cognitive contact with reality. Cognitive contact with reality is a goal of experiential inquiry which does not reduce to the goal of getting true beliefs or propositional knowledge. Such inquiry has awareness of the truth-makers of one’s true beliefs as its proper goal. As such, one reason why conscious experience of reality is more epistemically valuable than testimony about reality is that it gives us more epistemic goods than only true belief or propositional knowledge. I defend this view from two rival accounts. First, that while conscious experience of reality has greater value than testimony, its value is only eudaimonic. Second, that while it has greater epistemic value than testimony, this value is not distinctive: for it only promotes truth better than testimony.

All swamping, no problem

Analysis ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Bjelde
Keyword(s):  
True Belief ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Standard Account ◽  
Fundamental Value ◽  
Better Than

Abstract The swamping problem is to explain why knowledge is epistemically better than true belief despite being no more true, if truth is the sole fundamental epistemic value. But Carter and Jarvis (2012) argue that the swamping thesis at the heart of the problem ‘is problematic whether or not one thinks that truth is the sole epistemic good’. I offer a counterexample to this claim, in the form of a theory of epistemic value for which the swamping thesis is not problematic: evidence monism. Then I argue that another kind of response to the swamping problem given by Sylvan 2018 does not escape the problem unscathed, because it is not only instrumentalism that gives rise to the swamping problem. The upshot is that, given a standard account of fundamental value, the swamping problem favours evidence monism over truth monism.

scholarly journals Epistemic Value Theory and the Digital Divide

2011 ◽  
pp. 29-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Fallis
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Digital Divide ◽  
Knowledge Work ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Value Theory ◽  
Social Disadvantage ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Principal Value ◽  
Epistemic Value Theory

The digital divide refers to inequalities in access to information technology. Those people who do not have access to information technology are at a significant economic and social disadvantage. As with any other policy decision, in order to evaluate policies for dealing with the digital divide, we need to know exactly what our goal should be. Since the principal value of access to information technology is that it leads to knowledge, work in epistemology can help us to clarify our goal in the context of the digital divide. In this paper, I argue that epistemic value theory can help us to determine which distribution of knowledge to aim for. Epistemic value theory cannot specify a particular distribution to aim for, but it can significantly narrow down the range of possibilities. Additionally, I indicate how the exercise of applying epistemic value theory to the case of the digital divide furthers work in epistemology.

scholarly journals Epistemic Value Theory and the Digital Divide

2008 ◽  
pp. 3105-3118
Author(s):  
Don Fallis
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Digital Divide ◽  
Knowledge Work ◽  
Policy Decision ◽  
Value Theory ◽  
Social Disadvantage ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Access To Information ◽  
Principal Value ◽  
Epistemic Value Theory

The digital divide refers to inequalities in access to information technology. Those people who do not have access to information technology are at a significant economic and social disadvantage. As with any other policy decision, in order to evaluate policies for dealing with the digital divide, we need to know exactly what our goal should be. Since the principal value of access to information technology is that it leads to knowledge, work in epistemology can help us to clarify our goal in the context of the digital divide. In this paper, I argue that epistemic value theory can help us to determine which distribution of knowledge to aim for. Epistemic value theory cannot specify a particular distribution to aim for, but it can significantly narrow down the range of possibilities. Additionally, I indicate how the exercise of applying epistemic value theory to the case of the digital divide furthers work in epistemology.

scholarly journals Epistemic Value Theory and Judgment Aggregation

Episteme ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Fallis
Keyword(s):  
Value Theory ◽  
Judgment Aggregation ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
The World ◽  
Epistemic Value Theory

We frequently make judgments about the world. Juries make judgments about whether defendants are guilty. Umpires make judgments about whether pitches are strikes. Tenure committees make judgments about whether professors deserve tenure. We typically want these judgments about the world to have good epistemic properties. We would like our judgments to be true rather than false, for example. We would also like our judgments to be consistent with each other; and we would like to have good reasons for our judgments. This paper will be concerned with how we can make judgments that have such good epistemic properties.

scholarly journals Group epistemic value

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Dunn
Keyword(s):  
Peer Review ◽  
Social Epistemology ◽  
School Curriculum ◽  
Social World ◽  
Social Practices ◽  
Epistemic Value ◽  
Aggregate Level ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Epistemic Perspective ◽  
Oxford University Press

AbstractSometimes we are interested in how groups are doing epistemically in aggregate. For instance, we may want to know the epistemic impact of a change in school curriculum or the epistemic impact of abolishing peer review in the sciences. Being able to say something about how groups are doing epistemically is especially important if one is interested in pursuing a consequentialist approach to social epistemology of the sort championed by Goldman (Knowledge in a social world. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1999). According to this approach we evaluate social practices and institutions from an epistemic perspective based on how well they promote the aggregate level of epistemic value across a community. The aim of this paper is to investigate this concept of group epistemic value and defend a particular way of measuring it.

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.

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