Matthias Steup

This paper makes three points: First, empiricism as a stance is problematic unless criteria for evaluating the stance are provided. Second, Van Fraassen conceives of the empiricist stance as receiving its content, at least in part, from the rejection of metaphysics. But the rejection of metaphysics seems to presuppose for its justification the very empiricist doctrine Van Fraassen intends to replace with the empiricist stance. Third, while I agree with Van Fraassen’s endorsement of voluntarism, I raise doubts about the possibility of defending voluntarism without engaging in the kind of metaphysics Van Fraassen rejects.

In this book, which is as much about postmodern continental philosophy as about analytic epistemology, Alcoff argues that epistemology is in need of a reorientation away from foundationalism and metaphysical realism toward coherentism and what Alcoff calls “immanent” realism. Alcoff begins, in the book’s introduction, by making an initial case for coherentism and against dismissing epistemology altogether. She considers it a valuable postmodernist insight that philosophical theorizing reflects social, gender, and ethnic hierarchies, and thus is driven by unacknowledged elements such as desire and power. Alcoff suggests, however, that it would be a mistake for philosophers to be content with simply exposing the hidden role such forces play. Epistemology as a philosophical discipline answers to important questions and concerns. But, Alcoff urges, it must transform itself if it is to preserve the postmodernist lessons. Such a transformation, if accomplished, would end the autonomy of epistemology, for it would tear down the traditional boundaries between the philosophical and the political, the normative and the sociological.

In this book, Almeder distinguishes between three kinds of naturalism: Quine’s recommendation to replace traditional epistemology with science; the kind of reliabilism advocated in Alvin Goldman’s Epistemology and Cognition, according to which traditional epistemology should at least partially be transformed into science; and the kind Almeder himself proposes, which he calls “harmless” naturalism. The former two are examples of scientism: according to Almeder, the mistaken view that the only answerable questions are those that science can answer. Harmless naturalism is harmless because it does not succumb to scientism; it advocates neither the replacement nor the transformation of traditional epistemology. The purpose of the book is to make a case against scientism and for harmless naturalism. Accordingly, it is divided into three parts, each of which is about one of the three kinds of naturalism.

I distinguish between Old Contextualism, New Contextualism, and the Multiple Concepts Theory. I argue that Old Contextualism cannot handle the following three problems: (i) the disquotational paradox, (ii) upward pressure resistance, (iii) inability to avoid the acceptance of skeptical conclusions. New Contextualism, in contrast, can avoid these problems. However, since New Contextualism appears to be a semanticized mirror image of MCT, it remains unclear whether it is in fact a genuine version of contextualism.

Two claims are essential to foundationalist theories of knowledge. First, that there are directly evident propositions; secondly, that, in justifying a particular knowledge claim, one ultimately arrives at a directly evident proposition making another proposition evident. In this dissertation, both claims are being defended. ;In defense of the first claim, a week definition of a proposition's being directly evident is suggested. Any attack against foundationalism rejecting the first claim must show that there are no contingent directly evident propositions in the sense of this definition. According to the thesis of privileged access, what a man believes about his mental states is directly evident, or, according to different versions of this thesis, self-presenting, infallible, self-evident, indubitable, or incorrigible. Rejecting a number of objections to it, the thesis of privileged access in all of its versions is being defended. In defense of the second claim, an account of prima facie evidence is set forth, incorporating definitions of the concepts "e tends to make h evident," "i defeats the evidence e provides for h," and "e makes h prima facie evident for S." It is claimed that, if a proposition p is made prima facie evident for a person S, then there is no ground on which it is reasonable for S to doubt that p is true. ;Furthermore, two epistemic principles are being offered. The first lays down the conditions under which evidence is generated, asserting that evidence is generated in virtue of a person's being in a psychological state. The second lays down the conditions under which evidence is transmitted from a directly to an indirectly evident proposition, asserting that evidence is transmitted from a directly to an indirectly evident proposition if the former bears to the latter the relation of "e making h prima facie evident."

Is it possible to argue that one’s memory is reliable without using one’s memory? I argue that it is not. Since it is not, it is impossible to defend the reliability of one’s memory without employing reasoning that is epistemically circular. Hence, if epistemic circularity is vicious, it is impossible to succeed in producing a cogent argument for the reliability of one’s memory. The same applies to any other one of one’s cognitive faculties. I further argue that, if epistemic circularity is vicious, it is impossible to produce a cogent argument for the reliability of anything. For example, if epistemic circularity were vicious, a cogent argument for the reliability of one’s car would not be possible. The seeming viciousness of epistemic circularity even threatens, I propose, the possibility of justification and knowledge. Much, therefore, hangs one the question of whether epistemic circularity is indeed bad. I argue that epistemic circularity, or bootstrapping, need not be bad. When we use a crystal ball—a source perspicuously guilty of unreliability—to confirm its own reliability, bootstrapping is foolish. When we attribute reliability to a witness solely because the witness says he is reliable, bootstrapping is dogmatic. Foolish and dogmatic bootstrapping are bad. However, when a witness provides a rich body of testimony, using that testimony to gauge the witness’s reliability need not be a vicious form of circularity. When done critically, I argue, such reasoning exemplifies a form of bootstrapping that is benign.

Eleven pairs of newly commissioned essays face off on opposite sides of fundamental problems in current theories of knowledge. Brings together fresh debates on eleven of the most controversial issues in epistemology. Questions addressed include: Is knowledge contextual? Can skepticism be refuted? Can beliefs be justified through coherence alone? Is justified belief responsible belief? Lively debate format sharply defines the issues, and paves the way for further discussion. Will serve as an accessible introduction to the major topics in contemporary epistemology, whilst also capturing the imagination of professional philosophers

Epistemic deontology is the view that the concept of epistemic justification is deontological: a justified belief is, by definition, an epistemically permissible belief. I defend this view against the argument from doxastic involuntarism, according to which our doxastic attitudes are not under our voluntary control, and thus are not proper objects for deontological evaluation. I argue that, in order to assess this argument, we must distinguish between a compatibilist and a libertarian construal of the concept of voluntary control. If we endorse a compatibilist construal, it turns out that we enjoy voluntary control over our doxastic attitudes after all. If, on the other hand, we endorse a libertarian construal, the result is that, for our doxastic attitudes to be suitable objects of deontological evaluation, they need not be under our voluntary control.

According to William Alston, we lack voluntary control over our propositional attitudes because we cannot believe intentionally, and we cannot believe intentionally because our will is not causally connected to belief formation. Against Alston, I argue that we can believe intentionally because our will is causally connected to belief formation. My defense of this claim is based on examples in which agents have reasons for and against believing p, deliberate on what attitude to take towards p, and subsequently acquire an attitude A towards p because they have decided to take attitude A. From the possibility of intentional belief, two conclusions follow. First, the kind of control we have over our propositional attitudes is direct; it is possible for us to believe at will. Second, the question of whether what we believe is under our control ultimately depends on whether our will itself is under our control. It is, therefore, a question of the metaphysics of free will.

I propose a version of foundationaUsm with the following distinctive features. First, it includes in the class of basic beliefs ordinary beliefs about physical objects. This makes it unrestricted. Second, it assigns the role of ultimate justifiers to A-states: states of being appeared to in various ways. Such states have propositional content, and are justifiers if they are presumptively reliable. The beliefs A-states justify are basic if they are non-inferential. In the last three sections of the paper, I defend this version of foundationalism against Sellars's famous anti-foundationalist dilemma, according to which sense-experiential states can't be justifiers ifthey lack propositional content, and can't terminate the justificatory regress if they have propositional content. I argue that the latter of these two claims is false. A-states can play the role of justifiers because they have propositional content, and they can terminate the justificatory regress because they themselves are capable of neither being true or false, nor being justified or unjustified.