Hilary Kornblith

We sometimes stop to reflect on our mental states, and such reflection can lead, at times, to changing our minds. It can, as well, lead us to endorse the very attitudes which we previously held. Such reflective endorsement has been called upon to play a wide range of roles in philosophical theorizing. It has been thought to ground a distinction between two fundamentally different kinds of knowledge: reflective knowledge and mere animal knowledge. It has been thought to serve as a ground for rational change of belief. It has been called upon to explain the possibility of freedom of the will. And it has been brought into service to explain the source of normativity. This chapter argues that it can play none of these roles.

Human beings form beliefs by way of a variety of psychological processes. Some of these processes of belief acquisition are innate; others are acquired. A good deal of interesting work has been done in assessing the reliability of these processes. Any such assessment must examine not only features intrinsic to the psychological processes themselves, but also features of the environments in which those processes are exercised; a mechanism which is reliable in one sort of environment may be quite unreliable in others. This is true not only of the physical environment; it is true of the social environment as well. This has important implications for how we should think about the exercise of individual reason, as well as the interpersonal practice of giving and asking for reasons

We often find that beliefs we hold are in conflict with the beliefs of epistemic peers, individuals who are just as intelligent, just as well-informed, and just as scrupulous in forming their beliefs as we are. Is it permissible to maintain our beliefs in the face of such disagreement? It is argued here that continued belief in these circumstances is not epistemically permissible, and that this has striking consequences for the practice of philosophy: we cannot reasonably hold on to our philosophical views.