Reliability, Epistemic Circularity, and the Undue Partiality of Empiricist Skepticism About Intuitions

2021 ◽  
pp. 101-123
Author(s):  
Joel Pust
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Circularity

The Plain Inquirer’s Plain Evidence against the Global Skeptical Scenarios

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 208-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Leite
Keyword(s):  
Good Reason ◽  
Good Evidence ◽  
Epistemic Circularity ◽  
Evil Demon ◽  
The World ◽  
Treatment Considerations ◽  
Limited Demand ◽  
Epistemic Asymmetry ◽  
Background Context ◽  
Rule Out

Penelope Maddy claims that we can have no evidence that we are not being globally deceived by an evil demon. However, Maddy’s Plain Inquirer holds that she has good evidence for a wide variety of claims about the world and her relation to it. She rejects the broadly Cartesian idea that she can’t be entitled to these claims, or have good evidence for them, or know them, unless she can provide a defense of them that starts from nowhere. She likewise rejects the more limited demand for a defense that makes use only of considerations that do not concern the world outside of her mind. She allows that some considerations about the world can be appealed to perfectly appropriately as fully adequate evidence in favor of other considerations about the world. So why can’t the Plain Inquirer rule out global skeptical hypotheses by producing evidence against them that depends upon other considerations about the world? Is there good reason for singling out global skeptical hypotheses such as I am not being deceived by an evil demon as requiring a different kind of treatment? Considerations about epistemic asymmetry and epistemic circularity, as well as Wittgensteinian considerations about the relation between evidence and the real-world and human background context, all lead to the conclusion that there is not.

Bootstrap and rollback: generalizing epistemic circularity

Synthese ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 189 (2) ◽  
pp. 395-413 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jesper Kallestrup
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Circularity

Circularity and Stability

1998 ◽  
pp. 164-169
Author(s):  
Markus Lammenranta
Keyword(s):  
Practical Rationality ◽  
Coherence Theory ◽  
External Evaluation ◽  
Epistemic Circularity ◽  
William Alston ◽  
Internal View

William Alston argues that there is no way to show that any of our basic sources of belief is reliable without falling into epistemic circularity, i.e. relying at some point on premises that are themselves derived from the very same source. His appeal to practical rationality is an attempt to evaluate our sources of belief without relying on beliefs that are based on the sources under scrutiny and thus without just presupposing their reliability. I argue that this attempt fails and that Ernest Sosa’s appeal to the coherence theory of justification fails, too, if it is understood as an attempt to find a similar external evaluation of our sources of belief that does not just assume their reliability. I concluded that there is no alternative to taking an internal view to our own reliability and embracing epistemic circularity.

Pick Your Poison: Beg the Question or Embrace Circularity

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin McCain ◽  
William Rowley
Keyword(s):  
Reflective Equilibrium ◽  
Epistemic Circularity ◽  
Equilibrium Response ◽  
Equilibrium Approach ◽  
Fourth Way ◽  
Problem Of The Criterion

According to Roderick Chisholm, there are three ways of responding to the Problem of the Criterion and they all leave something to be desired. Michael DePaul, Paul Moser, and Earl Conee have each proposed variations of a fourth way of responding to this problem that rely on reflective equilibrium. We argue that these four options for responding to the Problem of the Criterion leave one with a tough choice: accept one of the three that Chisholm describes or DePaul’s reflective equilibrium approach and beg the question or accept a reflective equilibrium response of the sort Conee and Moser propose and embrace epistemic circularity.

Why Worry about Epistemic Circularity?

2016 ◽  
Vol 41 (9999) ◽  
pp. 33-52
Author(s):  
Michael P. Lynch ◽  
Paul Silva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Circularity

What Is Wrong with Epistemic Circularity?

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 379-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frederick F. Schmitt
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Circularity

In Defense of Epistemic Circularity

2010 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-241 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Alexander
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Circularity

scholarly journals Virtudes epidémicas reflexivas. El conocimiento como una cuestión de confianza

2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 243
Author(s):  
Manuel Liz
Keyword(s):  
Animal Knowledge ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Epistemic Circularity ◽  
Ernest Sosa ◽  
De Re ◽  
Epistemic Virtues ◽  
Sources Of Knowledge ◽  
Palabras Clave ◽  
Epistemic Perspective

Resumen De acuerdo a Ernest Sosa, el conocimiento re exivo debería ser capaz de integrar al- gunas circularidades epistémicas como fuentes virtuosas de conocimiento. Argumen- taremos que tal conocimiento re exivo tiene que estar basado en ciertas capacidades para delegar y aplazar de manera adecuada la justi cación de nuestras creencias de primer orden. También argumentaremos que entender esas capacidades comunitarias y temporales como constituyendo virtudes epistémicas re exivas nos conduce fuera de cualquier concepción criterial del conocimiento. Para estas concepciones, conocer siempre requiere saber que se han satisfecho determinados criterios. Si el conoci- miento propiamente humano inevitablemente necesita alguna dosis de re exión, y si nuestro conocimiento re exivo necesariamente depende del ejercicio virtuoso de ciertas capacidades para delegar y aplazar la justi cación, entonces en último término el conocimiento no puede ser criterial. El conocimiento humano es más bien una cuestión de con anza Palabras clave: Conocimiento; criterios; perspectiva epistémica; circularidad epistémica; conocimiento animal; conocimiento re exivo; ascenso epistémico; virtu- des epistémicas re exivas; delegación de la justi cación; aplazamiento de la justicación. AbstractAccording to Ernest Sosa, re ective knowledge would have to be able to integrate some epistemic circularities as virtuous sources of knowledge. We will argue that such re ective knowledge has to be based on some capacities for delegating and relegating in adequate ways the justi cation of our rst-order beliefs. Also, we will argue that to understand those communitarian and temporal capacities as constituting re ective epistemic virtues leads us outside any criterial conception of knowledge. For these conceptions, knowing always requires to know that certain criteria are ful lled. If human knowledge worth of the name unavoidably needs some amount of re ection, and if our re ective knowledge necessarily depends on virtuous delegation and deferring, then at the end of the day knowledge cannot be criterial. Human knowledge is rather a matter of trust.Keywords: Knowledge; criteria; epistemic perspective; epistemic circularity; animal knowledge; re ective knowledge; epistemic ascent; re ective epistemic virtues; delegation of justi cation; deferring of justication.  

Philosophy as a Private Language

2012 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 54-73
Author(s):  
Ben Gibran ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Black Box ◽  
Private Language ◽  
Epistemic Circularity ◽  
Program Of Study ◽  
Self Study ◽  
Extensive Program ◽  
Necessary Truths

Philosophy (and its corollaries in the human sciences such as literary, social and political theory) is distinguished from other disciplines by a more thoroughgoing emphasis on the a priori. Philosophy makes no claims to predictive power; nor does it aim to conform to popular opinion (beyond ordinary intuitions as recorded by ‘thought experiments’). Many philosophers view the discipline’s self-exemption from ‘real world’ empirical testing as a non-issue or even an advantage, in allowing philosophy to focus on universal and necessary truths. This article argues otherwise. The non-instrumentality of philosophical discourse renders it into a collective private language, impairing the discipline’s ability to judge the quality of its own output. The natural sciences and other technical disciplines offer the non-expert ‘windows of scrutiny’ into their respective methodologies, through numerous findings that can be easily and independently tested by amateurs. Such outside scrutiny provides a mechanism of external quality control, mitigating the internal effects of cognitive bias and institutionalised conformity upon the discourses of technical disciplines. In contrast, the conclusions of philosophy are not testable without in-depth knowledge of the methods by which they are arrived at; knowledge which can apparently only be gained through an extensive program of study, in philosophy. This epistemic circularity renders the program (even one of self-study) into a ‘black box’ in which the internal influence of cognitive biases and conformity effects cannot be independently assessed. The black box of philosophy is, in all relevant respects, analogous to the black box of the Cartesian mind that is the subject of Wittgenstein’s private language argument.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document