scholarly journals Giving Up the Enkratic Principle

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-28
Author(s):  
Claire Field ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Rationality ◽  
Epistemic Evaluation

The Enkratic Principle enjoys something of a protected status as a requirement of rationality. I argue that this status is undeserved, at least in the epistemic domain. Compliance with the principle should not be thought of as a requirement of epistemic rationality, but rather as defeasible indication of epistemic blamelessness. To show this, I present the Puzzle of Inconsistent Requirements, and argue that the best way to solve it is to distinguish two kinds of epistemic evaluation – requirement evaluations and appraisal evaluations. This allows us to solve the puzzle while accommodating traditional motivations for thinking of the Enkratic Principle as a requirement of rationality.

When Evidence Isn't Enough: Suspension, Evidentialism, and Knowledge-first Virtue Epistemology

Episteme ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 413-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Miracchi
Keyword(s):  
Research Program ◽  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Rational Belief ◽  
Epistemic Rationality ◽  
Epistemic Evaluation ◽  
Timothy Williamson ◽  
Pyrrhonian Skepticism

AbstractI motivate and develop a novel account of the epistemic assessability of suspension as a development of my knowledge-first, virtue-epistemological research program. First, I extend an argument of Ernest Sosa's for the claim that evidentialism cannot adequately account for the epistemic assessability of suspension. This includes a kind of knowledge-first evidentialism of the sort advocated by Timothy Williamson. I agree with Sosa that the reasons why evidentialism fails motivate a virtue-epistemological approach, but argue that my knowledge-first account is preferable to his view. According to my account, rational belief is belief that manifests proper practical respect for what it takes to know. Beliefs are the only primary bearers of epistemic evaluation since they are the only candidates for knowledge. However, suspension can manifest a derivative kind of practical respect for what it takes to know. Thus, we can explain why the same sort of assessment is applicable to both belief and suspension (epistemic rationality), and why belief has a privileged claim to these properties. Lastly, I'll look at Sosa's and Williamson's treatments of Pyrrhonian skepticism, which treats a certain kind of suspension as the epistemically superior practice, and argue that my account provides a better anti-skeptical response than either of their approaches.

scholarly journals Consensus as an Epistemic Norm for Group Acceptance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joëlle Proust
Keyword(s):  
Propositional Attitude ◽  
Epistemic Rationality ◽  
Epistemic Norm ◽  
Group Agency ◽  
Alternative Analysis ◽  
Epistemic Agency ◽  
Epistemic Evaluation ◽  
Plural Subjects ◽  
Group Acceptance ◽  
Extended Notion

What are the propositional attitude(s) involved in collective epistemic agency? There are two opposing camps on this question: the ascribers have defended an extended notion of belief, while the rejectionists have claimed that groups form goal-sensitive acceptances. Addressing this question, however, requires providing responses to four preliminary queries. (1) Are group attitudes reducible to the participants’ attitudes? (2) Is epistemic evaluation sensitive to instrumental considerations? (3) Does accepting that p entail believing that p? (4) Is there a unity of epistemic rationality across levels? Both “believing” and “accepting as true”, as applied to plural subjects, fail to provide satisfactory answers to these four queries. An alternative analysis for epistemic group attitude called “accepting under consensus” is proposed. This attitude is shown to reflect actual group agency, and to offer consistent and independently justified answers to the queries. On this analysis, an individualist epistemology cannot simply be transferred to collective agents.

scholarly journals Epistemic evaluation and the need for ‘impure’ epistemic standards

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikola Anna Kompa
Keyword(s):  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Epistemic Standard ◽  
Epistemic Evaluation ◽  
Knowledge Ascription ◽  
Knowledge Ascriptions ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Epistemic Standards

AbstractThat knowledge ascriptions exhibit some form of sensitivity to context is uncontroversial. How best to account for the context-sensitivity at issue, however, is the topic of heated debates. A certain version of nonindexical contextualism seems to be a promising option. Even so, it is incumbent upon any contextualist account to explain in what way and to what extent the epistemic standard operative in a particular context of epistemic evaluation is affected by non-epistemic factors (such as practical interests). In this paper, I investigate how non-epistemic factors come into play when knowledge is ascribed. I argue that knowledge ascriptions often serve the purpose of providing actionable information. This, in turn, requires that epistemic interests be balanced against non-epistemic interests. Moreover, it raises the question of whose interests matter, those of the ascriber, the addressee (of the knowledge ascription), or the subject of ascription. Eventually, an answer to the question is suggested.

scholarly journals Epistemic Rationality in Political Theory

2022 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 44-54
Author(s):  
A. A. Shevchenko
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Epistemic Rationality ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Procedural Approach ◽  
Theory Evaluation

The paper presents a brief analysis of the procedural approach towards constructing liberal political conceptions of justice and democracy. Treatment of J. Rawls’s evolution shows the negative consequences of abandoning external substantive criteria for theory evaluation, including efficiency, justification, truth. It also offers justification for the “epistemic turn” in contemporary political theory. The return of classical epistemological set of tools will help to strengthen the justification and legitimation of philosophical and political conceptions of justice and democracy by overcoming the key limitations of the procedural approach.

Conclusion

2021 ◽  
pp. 299-306
Author(s):  
William J. Talbott
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Epistemic Rationality ◽  
The Real ◽  
American Philosophy ◽  
Unreasonable Effectiveness

In this Conclusion, the author summarizes the main features of his theory of epistemic rationality and explains how his theory avoids commitment to any of the five presuppositions of the Proof Paradigm. He explains his new solution to the epistemological version of Berkeley’s puzzle. He recaps the real-world epistemological issues addressed by his theory. He concludes with some final thoughts, including a call to philosophers to reject both the presuppositions of the Proof Paradigm and the narrow scientism that characterizes so much of contemporary American philosophy. He urges us to replace that narrow scientism with a more expansive understanding of the human mind that can make sense of its “unreasonable effectiveness” in scientific and other inquiry.

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