J. Adam Carter

In recent work, Mark Alfano (2012; 2014) and Jennifer Saul (2013) have put forward a similar kind of provocative sceptical challenge. Both appeal to recent literature in empirical psychology to show that our judgments across a wide range of cases are riddled with unreliable cognitive heuristics and biases. Likewise, they both conclude that we know a lot less than we have hitherto supposed, at least on standard conceptions of what knowledge involves. It is argued that even if one grants the empirical claims that Saul and Alfano make, the sceptical conclusion that they canvass might not be as dramatic as it first appears. It is further argued, however, that one can reinstate a more dramatic sceptical conclusion by targeting their argument not at knowledge but rather at the distinct (and distinctively valuable) epistemic standing of understanding.

A conspicuous oversight in recent debates about the vexed problem of the value of knowledge has been the value of knowledge-how. This would not be surprising if knowledge-how were, as Gilbert Ryle [1945; 1949] famously thought, fundamentally different from knowledge-that. However, reductive intellectualists [e.g., Stanley & Williamson 2001; Stanley 2011a; 2011b; Brogaard 2008; 2009; 2011] maintain that knowledge-how just is a kind of knowledge-that. Accordingly, reductive intellectualists must predict that the value problems facing propositional knowledge will equally apply to knowledge-how. We show, however, that this is not the case. Accordingly, we highlight a value-driven argument for thinking (contra reductive intellectualism) that knowledge-how and knowledge-that come apart.

Mainstream epistemology has typically taken for granted a traditional picture of the metaphysics of mind, according to which cognitive processes (e.g. memory storage and retrieval) play out entirely within the bounds of the skull and skin. But this simple ‘intracranial’ picture is falling in- creasingly out of step with contemporary thinking in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science. Likewise, though, proponents of active exter- nalist approaches to the mind—e.g. the hypothesis of extended cognitition (HEC)—have proceeded by and large without asking what epistemological ramifications should arise once cognition is understood as criss-crossing the bounds of brain and world. This paper aims to motivate a puzzle that arises only once these two strands of thinking are brought in contact with one another. In particular, we want to first highlight a kind of con- dition of epistemological adequacy that should be accepted by proponents of extended cognition; once this condition is motivated, the remainder of the paper demonstrates how attempts to satisfy this condition seem to inevitably devolve into a novel kind of epistemic circularity. At the end of the day, proponents of extended cognition have a novel epistemological puzzle on their hands.

One of the most important research programmes in contemporary cognitive science is that of extended cognition, whereby features of a subject's cognitive environment can in certain conditions become constituent parts of the cognitive process itself. The aim of this volume is to explore the epistemological ramifications of this idea.... The first part of the volume explores foundational issues with regard to an extended epistemology, including from a critical perspective. The second part of the volume examines the applications of extended epistemology and the new theoretical directions that it might take us. These include its ethical ramifications, its import to the epistemology of education and emerging digital technologies, and how this idea might dovetail with certain themes in Chinese philosophy.

In a series of works Sosa (in: Knowledge in perspective, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991; A virtue epistemology: apt belief and reflective knowledge, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007; Reflective knowledge: apt belief and reflective knowledge, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009; ‘How Competence Matters in Epistemology’, Philos Perspect 24(1):465–475, 2010; Knowing full well, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2011; Judgment and agency, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2015; Epistemology, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2017) has defended the view that there are two kinds or ‘grades’ of knowledge, animal and reflective. One of the most persistent critics of Sosa’s attempts to bifurcate knowledge is Kornblith (in: Greco (ed) Ernest sosa and his critics, Wiley, Hoboken, 2004; ‘Sosa in Perspective’, Philos Stud 144(1):127–136, 2009; On reflection, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012). Our aim in this paper is to outline and evaluate Kornblith’s criticisms. We will argue that, while they raise a range of difficult (exegetical and substantive) questions about Sosa’s ‘bi-level’ epistemology, Sosa has the resources to adequately respond to all of them. Thus, this paper is a (qualified) defence of Sosa’s bi-level epistemology.

Controversial view agnosticism (CVA) is the thesis that we are rationally obligated to withhold judgment about a large portion of our beliefs in controversial subject areas, such as philosophy, religion, morality and politics. Given that one’s social identity is in no small part a function of one’s positive commitments in controversial areas, CVA has unsurprisingly been regarded as objectionably ‘spineless.’ That said, CVA seems like an unavoidable consequence of a prominent view in the epistemology of disagreement—conformism—according to which the rational response to discovering that someone you identify as an epistemic peer or expert about p disagrees with you vis-à-vis p is to withhold judgment. This paper proposes a novel way to maintain the core conciliatory insight without devolving into an agnosticism that is objectionably spineless. The approach offered takes as a starting point the observation that–for reasons that will be made clear—the contemporary debate has bypassed the issue of the reasonableness of maintaining, rather than giving up, representational states weaker than belief in controversial areas. The new position developed and defended here explores this overlooked space; what results is a kind of controversial view.

We challenge a line of thinking at the fore of recent work on epistemic value: the line (suggested by Kvanvig in The value of knowledge and the pursuit of understanding, 2003 and others) that if the value of knowledge is “swamped” by the value of mere true belief, then we have good reason to doubt its theoretical importance in epistemology. We offer a value-driven argument for the theoretical importance of knowledge—one that stands even if the value of knowledge is “swamped” by the value of true belief. Specifically, we contend that even if knowledge itself has no special epistemic value, its relationship to other items of value—cognitive abilities—gives ample reason to locate the concept at the very core of epistemology.

The philosophical case for extended cognition is often made with reference to ‘extended-memory cases’ (e.g. Clark & Chalmers 1998); though, unfortunately, proponents of the hypothesis of extended cognition (HEC) as well as their adversaries have failed to appreciate the kinds of epistemological problems extended-memory cases pose for mainstream thinking in the epistemology of memory. It is time to give these problems a closer look. Our plan is as follows: in §1, we argue that an epistemological theory remains compatible with HEC only if its epistemic assessments do not violate what we call ‘the epistemic parity principle’. In §2, we show how the constraint of respecting the epistemic parity principle stands in what appears to be a prima facie intractable tension with mainstream thinking about cases of propositional memory. We then outline and evaluate in §3 several lines of response.

One of the deepest ideological divides in contemporary epistemology concerns the relative importance of belief versus credence. A prominent consideration in favor of credence-based epistemology is the ease with which it appears to account for rational action. In contrast, cases with risky payoff structures threaten to break the link between rational belief and rational action. This threat poses a challenge to traditional epistemology, which maintains the theoretical prominence of belief. The core problem, we suggest, is that belief may not be enough to register all aspects of a subject’s epistemic position with respect to any given proposition. We claim this problem can be solved by introducing other doxastic attitudes—genuine representations—that differ in strength from belief. The resulting alternative picture, a kind of doxastic states pluralism, retains the central features of traditional epistemology—most saliently, an emphasis on truth as a kind of objective accuracy—while adequately accounting for rational action.

Contemporary debates about epistemic luck and its relation to knowledge have traditionally proceeded against a tacit background commitment to cognitive internalism, the thesis that cognitive processes play out inside the head. In particular, safety-based approaches (e.g., Pritchard 2005; 2007; Luper-Foy 1984; Sainsbury 1997; Sosa 1999; Williamson 2000) reveal this commitment by taking for granted a traditional internalist construal of what I call the cognitive fixedness thesis—viz., the thesis that the cognitive process that is being employed in the actual world is always ‘held fixed’ when we go out to nearby possible worlds to assess whether the target belief is lucky in a way that is incompatible with knowledge. However, for those inclined to replace cognitive internalism with the extended mind thesis (e.g., Clark and Chalmers 1998), a very different, ‘active externalist’ version of the cognitive fixedness thesis becomes the relevant one for the purposes of assessing a belief’s safety. The aim here will be to develop this point in a way that draws out some of the important ramifications it has for how we think about safety, luck and knowledge.

The topic of epistemic normativity has come to the fore of recent work in epistemology, and so naturally, theories of knowledge, truth and justification have been increasingly held accountable to preserving normative epistemological platitudes. Central to discussions of epistemic normativity are questions about epistemic agency and epistemic value. Here, our aim is to take up some of these issues as they come to bear on the rather unconventional brand of epistemology that was defended by Richard Rorty. Our purpose is to explore whether Rorty’s epistemology—or perhaps his replacement for epistemology—can preserve these normative platitudes about epistemic agency, responsibility, achievement, and the value of knowledge. Our conclusion is a negative one: that Rorty’s commitments leave him firmly at odds with some of the most plausible assumptions about epistemic agency and epistemic value

While it is widely regarded that intellectual humility is among the intellectual virtues, there is as of yet little consensus on the matter of what possessing and exercising intellectual humility consists in, and how it should be best understood as advancing our epistemic goals. For example, does intellectual humility involve an underestimation of one’s intellectual abilities, or rather, does it require an accurate conception? Is intellectual humility a fundamentally interpersonal/social virtue, or might it be valuable to exercise in isolation? To what extent does intellectual humility demand of us an appreciation of how the success of our inquiries depends on features of our social and physical environment beyond our control? These are just a few of the many questions that are crucial to getting a grip on this intellectual virtue and why we might aspire to cultivate it. Furthermore, and apart from the nature and value of humility, it is worthwhile to consider how this notion, properly understood, might have import for other philosophical debates, including those about (for example) scepticism, assertion, epistemic individualism and anti-individualism, and the philosophy of education. This special issue brings together a range of different philosophical perspectives on these and related questions to do with intellectual humility with an aim to contributing to this important and timely topic.

Philosophy of mind and cognitive science (e.g., Clark and Chalmers 1998; Clark 2010; Palermos 2014) have recently become increasingly receptive tothe hypothesis of extended cognition, according to which external artifacts such as our laptops and smartphones can—under appropriate circumstances—feature as material realisers of a person’s cognitive processes. We argue that, to the extent that the hypothesis of extended cognition is correct, our legal and ethical theorising and practice must be updated, by broadening our conception of personal assault so as to include intentional harm towards gadgets that have been appropriately integrated. We next situate the theoretical case for extended personal assault within the context of some recent ethical and legal cases and close with some critical discussion.

Jennifer Lackey’s case “Creationist Teacher,” in which students acquire knowledge of evolutionary theory from a teacher who does not herself believe the theory, has been discussed widely as a counterexample to so-called transmission theories of testimonial knowledge and justification. The case purports to show that a speaker need not herself have knowledge or justification in order to enable listeners to acquire knowledge or justification from her assertion. The original case has been criticized on the ground that it does not really refute the transmission theory, because there is still somebody in a chain of testifiers—the person from whom the creationist teacher acquired what she testifies—who knows the truth of the testified statements. In this paper, we provide a kind of pattern for generating counterexample cases, one that avoids objections discussed by Peter Graham and others in relation to such cases.

Robust Virtue Epistemology maintains that knowledge is achieved just when an agent gets to the truth through, or because of, the manifestation of intellectual virtue or ability. A notorious objection to the view is that the satisfaction of the virtue condition will be insufficient to ensure the safety of the target belief; that is, RVE is no anti-luck epistemology. Some of the most promising recent attempts to get around this problem are considered and shown to ultimately fail. Finally, a new proposal for defending RVE as a kind of anti-luck epistemology is defended. The view developed here turns importantly on the idea that knowledge depends on ability and luck in a way that is gradient, not rigid, and that we know just when our cognitive success depends on ability not rather, but more so, than luck.

Two arguments against the compatibility of epistemic internalism and content externalism are considered. Both arguments are shown to fail, because they equivocate on the concept of justification involved in their premises. To spell out the involved equivocation, a distinction between subjective and objective justification is introduced, which can also be independently motivated on the basis of a wide range of thought experiments to be found in the mainstream literature on epistemology. The subjective/objective justification distinction is also ideally suited for providing new insights with respect to central issues within epistemology, including the internalism/externalism debate and the New Evil Demon intuition.

In Chapter 3 of Judgment and Agency, Sosa (Judgment and Agency, 2015) explicates the concept of a fully apt performance. In the course of doing so, he draws from illustrative examples of practical performances and applies lessons drawn to the case of cognitive performances, and in particular, to the cognitive performance of judging. Sosa’s examples in the practical sphere are rich and instructive. But there is, I will argue, an interesting disanalogy between the practical and cognitive examples he relies on. Ultimately, I think the source of the disanalogy is a problematic picture of the cognitive performance of guessing and its connection to knowledge and defeat. Once this critical line of argument is advanced, an alternative picture of guessing, qua cognitive performance, is articulated, one which avoids the problems discussed, and yet remains compatible with Sosa’s broader framework.

We argue that the so-called ‘Primary’ and ‘Secondary’ Value Problems for knowledge are more easily solved than is widely appreciated. Pritchard, for instance, has suggested that only virtue-theoretic accounts have any hopes of adequately addressing these problems. By contrast, we argue that accounts of knowledge that are sensitive to the Gettier problem are able to overcome these challenges. To first approximation, the Primary Value Problem is a problem of understanding how the property of being knowledge confers more epistemic value on a belief than the property of being true. The Secondary Value is a problem of understanding how, for instance, property of being knowledge confers more epistemic value on a belief than the property of being jointly true and justified. We argue that attending to the fact that beliefs are ongoing states reveals that there is no difficulty in appreciating how knowledge might ordinarily have more epistemic value than mere true belief or mere justified true belief. We also explore in what ways ordinary cases of knowledge might be of distinctive epistemic value. In the end, our proposal resembles the original Platonic suggestion in the Meno that knowledge is valuable because knowledge is somehow tied to the good of truth.

A very natural view about perceptual knowledge is articulated, one on which perceptual knowledge is closely related to perceptual discrimination, and which fits well with a relevant alternatives account of knowledge. It is shown that this kind of proposal faces a problem (the closure problem), and various options for resolving this difficulty are explored. In light of this discussion, a two-tiered relevant alternatives account of perceptual knowledge is offered which avoids the closure problem. It is further shown how this proposal can: (1) accommodate our intuitions about perceptual knowledge and perceptual discrimination in terms of the notion of primary relevance, (2) give an account of how alternatives can be rationally excluded without appeal to perceptual discrimination in terms of the notion of secondary relevance, and (3) deal with the problem posed by inverted Gettier cases, and hence explain what it means to rationally exclude alternatives which are of secondary relevance.

Duncan Pritchard has, in the years following his (2005) defence of a safety-based account of knowledge in Epistemic Luck, abjured his (2005) view that knowledge can be analysed exclusively in terms of a modal safety condition. He has since (2007; 2009; 2010) opted for an account accord- ing to which two distinct conditions function with equal importance and weight within an analysis of knowledge: an anti-luck condition (safety) and an ability condition-the latter being a condition aimed at preserving what Pritchard now takes to be a fundamental insight about knowledge: that it arises from cognitive ability (Greco (2010); Sosa (2007; 2009). Pritchard calls his new view anti-luck virtue epistemology (ALVE). A key premise in Pritchard’s argument for ALVE is what I call the independence thesis; the thesis that satisfying neither the anti-luck condition nor the ability condition entails that the other is satisfied. Pritchard’s argument for the independence thesis relies crucially upon the case he makes for thinking that cognitive achievements are compatible with knowledge-undermining environmen- tal luck–that is, the sort of luck widely thought to undermine knowledge in standard barn facade cases. In the first part of this paper, I outline the key steps in Pritchard’s argument for anti-luck virtue epistemology and highlight how it is that the compatibility of cognitive achievement and knowledge- undermining environmental luck is indispensible to the argument’s suc- cess. The second part of this paper aims to show that this compatibility premise crucial to Pritchard’s argument is incorrect.

This paper has two central aims. First, we motivate a puzzle. The puzzle features four independently plausible but jointly inconsistent claims. One of the four claims is the sufficiency leg of the knowledge norm of assertion (KNA-S), according to which one is properly epistemically positioned to assert that p if one knows that p. Second, we propose that rejecting (KNA-S) is the best way out of the puzzle. Our argument to this end appeals to the epistemic value of intellectual humility in social-epistemic practice.

Insight often strikes us blind; when we aren’t expecting it, we suddenly see a connection that previously eluded us—a kind of ‘Aha!’ experience. People with a propensity to such experiences are regarded as insightful, and insightfulness is a paradigmatic intellectual virtue. What’s not clear, however, is just what it is in virtue of which being such that these experiences tend to happen to one renders one intellectually virtuous. This paper draws from both virtue epistemology as well as empirical work on the psychology of problem solving and creativity to make some inroads in accounting for insightfulness as an intellectual virtue. Important to the view advanced is that virtuously insightful individuals manifest certain skills which both cultivate insight experiences (even if not by directly bringing them about) and enable such individuals to move in an epistemically responsible way from insight experience to epistemic endorsement.