Radical Enhancement, Knowledge, and Autonomous Belief

Epistemic autonomy is necessary for knowledge in ways that epistemologists have not yet fully appreciated. This chapter uses a series of thought experiments featuring (radical) forms of cognitive enhancement in order to show why; in particular, and with reference to a series of tweaks on Lehrer’s ‘TrueTemp’ case, I motivate an autonomous belief condition on propositional knowledge, a condition the satisfaction of which—it will be shown—is neither entailed by, nor entails, the satisfaction of either a belief condition or, importantly, an epistemic justification condition. This transition from a ‘JTB+X’ to a ‘JTAB+X’ template marks an important and needed update to the received thinking about what knowing involves. (Of course, the question of whether knowledge is analysable is contentious; an appendix for knowledge-firsters explains the relevance of the necessity of epistemic autonomy for knowledge for knowledge-first projects).

Internalism, Externalism, and Autonomous Belief

What must be the case for an autonomous belief condition on knowledge (motivated in Chapter 1) to be satisfied by a knower? Chapter 2 takes up this question by investigating whether or not the knowledge-relevant (viz., epistemic) autonomy of a belief is determined entirely by the subject’s present mental structure. What I’ll call ‘internalists’ about epistemically autonomous belief say ‘yes’, and externalists say ‘no.’ Internalism about epistemic autonomous belief turns out to be problematic for reasons entirely independent from those we might have for rejecting internalist approaches to epistemically justified belief. What is shown to fare much better is a kind of ‘history-sensitive’ externalist approach to epistemically autonomous belief. On the particular account I go in for, which draws from externalist thinking about attitudinal autonomy more generally (as well as from virtue epistemology), a belief lacks the kind of epistemic autonomy that’s needed for propositional knowledge if the subject comes to possess the belief in a way that (put simply) bypasses or pre-empts the subject’s cognitive abilities and is such that the subject lacks easy (enough) opportunities to competently shed that belief.

Epistemic Autonomy and Knowledge Defeat

Chapter 3 highlights an important epistemological implication of the view developed so far—which is that the inclusion of an autonomous belief condition on propositional knowledge implies that knowledge can be defeated in ways other than via the standard modes of rebutting and undercutting defeat. An account of two types of what I call ‘heteronomous defeat’ for propositional knowledge is developed and defended: one on which propositional knowledge is defeated when the subject acquires a belief that either indicates the target belief is epistemically heteronymous (i.e. Type 1) or calls into doubt the reliability of the subject’s belief-forming process as one that would (reliably enough) result in an epistemically autonomous belief (i.e. Type 2). Recognizing heteronomous defeat as a genuine form of knowledge defeat fits snugly with the wider idea that knowledge defeaters, as such, are indicators of ignorance.

Effects of trait empathy and expectation on the processing of observed actions

Recent evidence suggests that the processing of observed actions may reflect an action prediction error, with more pronounced mediofrontal negative event-related potentials (ERPs) for unexpected actions. This evidence comes from an application of a false-belief task, where unexpected correct responses elicited high ERP amplitudes. An alternative interpretation is that the ERP component reflects vicarious error processing, as objectively correct responses were errors from the observed person’s perspective. In this study, we aimed to disentangle the two possibilities by adding the factor task difficulty, which varied expectations without affecting the definition of (vicarious) errors, and to explore the role of empathy in action observation. We found that the relationship between empathy and event-related potentials (ERPs) mirrored the relationship between empathy and behavioral expectancy measures. Only in the easy task condition did higher empathy lead to stronger expectancy of correct responses in the true-belief and of errors in the false-belief condition. A compatible pattern was found for an early ERP component (150–200 ms) after the observed response, with a larger negativity for error than correct responses in the true-belief and the reverse pattern in the false-belief condition, but only in highly empathic participants. We conclude that empathy facilitates the formation of expectations regarding the actions of others. These expectations then modulate the processing of observed actions, as indicated by the ERPs in the present study.

Gettier Beliefs and Serious Beliefs

In a recent exchange in the pages of this journal, John Biro responds to Gabor Forrai’s argument against Biro’s argument that in most, if not all, Gettier cases the belief condition, contra popular opinion, isn’t satisfied. In this note, I’ll argue that Biro’s response to Forrai satisfactorily resolves the first of Forrai’s two central objections to Biro’s argument that the belief condition isn’t satisfied in most, if not all, Gettier cases. But Biro’s response leaves mostly unaddressed the most plausible way of construing Forrai’s second objection. I’ll take up the mantle of successfully defending Biro’s argument from this more plausible construal of Forrai’s second objection. However, even though I’ll argue that Biro’s argument is in good shape with respect to Forrai’s objections, I’ll show that the definition of serious belief that Biro offers us is mistaken.

Reply to Forrai: No Reprieve for Gettier “Beliefs”

In a recent paper in this journal, Gabor Forrai offers ways to resist my argument that in so-called Gettier cases the belief condition is not, as is commonly assumed, satisfied. He argues that I am mistaken in taking someone's reluctance to assert a proposition he knows follows from a justified belief on finding the latter false as evidence that he does not believe it, as such reluctance may be explained in other ways. While this may be true, I show that it does not affect my central claim which does not turn on considerations special to assertion.

Perceptual Knowledge and Gettier Cases

Chapter 9 exploits the consequences of capacitism for a view of perceptual knowledge. It argues that while factive evidence is sufficient evidence for knowledge, phenomenal evidence is not. In perceptual Gettier cases, it is standardly thought that the subject has sufficient evidence for knowledge, but fails to know for some other reason. Once we recognize the distinction between phenomenal evidence and factive evidence, we can say that in perceptual Gettier cases, the subject has mere phenomenal evidence; but since she does not have factive evidence, she fails to have sufficient evidence for knowledge. In this way, capacitism analyzes perceptual Gettier cases without appeal to any factor beyond that of sufficient evidence. Capacitism posits no belief condition on knowledge and it substantiates the idea that knowledge is a mental state. Moreover, it shows how perception yields knowledge even though one does not necessarily know that one knows.

Knowing the Good and Knowing What One Is Doing

Most contemporary action theorists accept – or at least find plausible – a belief condition on intention (especially on intention in action) and a knowledge condition on intentional action. The belief condition says that I can only intend to ɸ if I believe that I will ɸ or am ɸ-ing, and the knowledge condition says that I am only intentionally ɸ-ing if I know that I am ɸ-ing. The belief condition in intention and the knowledge condition in action go hand in hand. After all, if intending implies belief, and if ɸ-ing intentionally implies intending to ɸ, then in ɸ-ing, I intend to be ɸ-ing, and, by the belief condition, I believe that I am ɸ-ing, and if this belief is justified, and we are not in a Gettier situation, etc., then, I will also satisfy the knowledge condition. Moreover, the claim that when intentions properly result in action, the corresponding belief constitutes knowledge is a relatively safe assumption, at least as an assumption about what it is generally the case.

Effects of a Brief Intervention Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior on Leisure-Time Physical Activity Participation

Two persuasive communications were developed to assess the utility of an intervention based on the Theory of Planned Behavior in promoting physical activity attitudes, intentions, and behavior. One persuasive communication targeted modal salient behavioral beliefs (salient belief condition) while the other persuasive communication targeted nonsalient behavioral beliefs (nonsalient belief condition). Results of an intervention study conducted on young people (N = 83, mean age 14.60 yrs, SD = .47) indicated that participants who were presented with the persuasive message targeting modal salient behavioral beliefs reported more positive attitudes (p < .05) and stronger intentions (p = .059) than those presented with the message targeting nonsalient behavioral beliefs. However, neither communication influenced physical activity participation (p > .05). Path analysis also indicated that the effects of the persuasive communication on intentions were mediated by attitudes and not by perceived behavioral control or subjective norms.