Christopher Hookway

Some fundamental epistemic norms govern the conduct of the activity of inquiry and the progress of theoretical deliberation. We monitor our deliberations by raising questions about how they should be conducted and about how effectively they have been carried out. Such questions ‘occur’ to us: we are often passive recipients of them. The paper discusses what determines when questions should occur to us and it investigates how far these observations can be seen as threatening our freedom of mind. These phenomena help us to see the role of states such as virtues in epistemic evaluation.

The paper questions the common assumption that rational individuals believe all propositions which they know to be logical consequences of their other beliefs: although we must acknowledge the truth of a proposition which is a deductive consequence of our beliefs, we may not genuinely believe it. This conclusion is defended by arguing that some familiar counterexamples to the claim that knowledge is justified true belief fail because they involve propositions which are not really believed. Beliefs guide conduct or issue in assertion by answering questions which arise in the course of deliberation and conversation, but the troublesome cases present propositions which do not present the agent's answer to any question. The paper concludes by sketching the conditions under which the deductive consequences of our beliefs can be believed.1.

Pragmatists challenge a sharp separation of issues of theoretical and practical rationality. This can encourage a sort of anti-realism: our classifications and theories are shaped by our interests and practical concerns. However, it need not do this. A more fundamental theme is that cognition is itself an activity, the attempt to solve problems and discover truths effectively and responsibly. Evidence has to be collected, experiments have to be devised and carried out, dialogues must be engaged in with fellow inquirers, decisions must be made about when we have scrutinized our opinions enough to trust our results. Even if our goals are “purely cognitive,” the attempt to achieve them through inquiry and deliberation is an activity. The normative standards that guide its conduct, like those governing any activity, will include standards of practical rationality. Indeed, we might suggest that a belief isjustifiedso long as it is the product of responsible, well-executed inquiry.