David Christensen

In response to the self-undermining problem for modest accounts of rational belief, some have proposed that an agent may rationally lose confidence in the truth of these accounts, while continuing to believe as the accounts prescribe. Such agents believe akratically. Many reject the possibility of rational akrasia. Others have defended it—at least in cases where an agent rationally sees her own beliefs as more accurate than rational alternatives would be. This paper argues that akrasia can be rational, but that defending rational akrasia based on an agent’s views about accuracy cannot succeed. Fortunately, however, the defense is not necessary.

The introduction by David Christensen and Jennifer Lackey briefly explains some of the main themes that have surfaced in the literature on disagreement. It sketches the distinction between “conciliatory/conformist” views and “steadfast/non-conformist” views about the extent to which disagreement with peers should undermine rational confidence in one's opinions. It raises the issue of how one is to evaluate the epistemic credentials of those with whom one disagrees (in particular, whether this needs to be done in a way independent of the relevant dispute), and indicates how this issue interacts with the debate between conciliatory and steadfast views. Finally, it gives a brief tour of the papers in the volume. It divides them into three categories: those focusing on the conciliatory/steadfast dispute, those that concentrate on disagreement about philosophy, and those that address more general theoretical issues that bear on the disagreement debate.

It has often been noticed that conciliatory views of disagreement are “self-undermining” in a certain way: advocates of such views cannot consistently maintain them when other philosophers disagree. This leads to apparent problems of instability and even inconsistency. Does self-undermining, then, show conciliationism to be untenable? If so, the untenability would extend not only to almost all views of disagreement, but to a wide range of other views supporting what one might call epistemic modesty: roughly, the idea that getting evidence that one has made an epistemic error in arriving at one's opinion may require adjusting that opinion. In this paper David Christensen argues that the phenomenon of self-undermining does not disclose any defect in views mandating epistemic modesty. Instead, it highlights an uncomfortable but natural consequence of reflecting on one's own possible epistemic imperfections, a sort of reflection that tends to cause epistemic ideals to conflict.

Hilary Kornblith has recently argued for a pair of related claims: first, that logic does not give us “laws of thought,” that have implications for a theory of justified belief; and second, that idealization in accounts of epistemic rationality—at least of the sort that figures in Bayesian accounts of rational belief—robs these accounts of their connection to the epistemic phenomena, and thereby robs them of any interest. This paper responds to the worries he raises, arguing that logic-based constraints of the sort that figure in Bayesian accounts of ideal rationality need not have the problematic implications that Kornblith wants to avoid. There is a place for theorizing about rationality using idealizations that aren’t constrained by the cognitive capacities of higher primates.

It is natural to think that rationality imposes some relationship between what a person believes, and what she believes about what she’s rational to believe. Epistemic akrasia—for example, believing P while believing that P is not rational to believe in your situation—is often seen as intrinsically irrational. This paper argues otherwise. In certain cases, akrasia is intuitively rational. Understanding why akratic beliefs in those case are indeed rational provides a deeper explanation how typical akratic beliefs are irrational—an explanation that does not flow from akrasia per se. This understanding also allows us to diagnose where general anti-akratic arguments go wrong. We can then see why even principles designed to allow only moderate akrasia fail, and also why recognizing the possibility of rational akratic beliefs does not call for finding some other epistemic defect in agents who believe akratically. Believing akratically, in itself, is nothing to apologize for.

It is natural to think that rationality imposes some relationship between what a person believes, and what she believes about what she’s rational to believe. Epistemic akrasia—for example, believing P while believing that P is not rational to believe in your situation—is often seen as intrinsically irrational. This paper argues otherwise. In certain cases, akrasia is intuitively rational. Understanding why akratic beliefs in those case are indeed rational provides a deeper explanation how typical akratic beliefs are irrational—an explanation that does not flow from akrasia per se. This understanding also allows us to diagnose where general anti-akratic arguments go wrong. We can then see why even principles designed to allow only moderate akrasia fail, and also why recognizing the possibility of rational akratic beliefs does not call for finding some other epistemic defect in agents who believe akratically. Believing akratically, in itself, is nothing to apologize for.

Formally inclined epistemologists often theorize about ideally rational agents—agents who exemplify rational ideals, such as probabilistic coherence, that human beings could never fully realize. This approach can be defended against the well-known worry that abstracting from human cognitive imperfections deprives the approach of interest. But a different worry arises when we ask what an ideal agent should believe about her own cognitive perfection (even an agent who is in fact cognitively perfect might, it would seem, be uncertain of this fact). Consideration of this question reveals an interesting feature of the structure of our epistemic ideals: for agents with limited information, our epistemic ideals turn out to conflict with one another. This suggests that we must revise the way we see ideal agents in epistemic theorizing.

This paper concentrates on a particular sort of case where it’s plausible that epistemic requirements can conflict: cases where an agent’s higher-order evidence supports doubting her reliability in reacting to her ordinary evidence. Conflicting epistemic requirements can be seen as generating epistemic dilemmas. The paper examines two ways that people have sought to recognize conflicting requirements without allowing them to generate epistemic dilemmas: separating epistemic norms into two different varieties, and positing rational indeterminacy in cases where principles conflict. It argues that these views incur costs, and that the sense in which they avoid dilemmas does not gain them an advantage over a view that simply recognizes dilemmas as a natural outgrowth of agents’ rational reflection on their own thinking.

Many writers have recently urged that the epistemic rationality of beliefs can depend on broadly pragmatic (as opposed to truth-directed) factors. Taken to an extreme, this line of thought leads to a view on which there is no such thing as a distinctive epistemic form of rationality. A series of papers by Susanna Rinard develops the view that something like our traditional notion of pragmatic rationality is all that is needed to account for the rationality of beliefs. This approach has undeniable attractions. But examining different versions of the approach uncovers problems. The problems help reveal why epistemic rationality is an indispensable part of understanding rationality—not only of beliefs, but of actions. We may or may not end up wanting to make a place, in our theories of epistemic rationality, for factors such as the practical or moral consequences of having beliefs. But a purely pragmatic notion of rationality—one that’s stripped of any component of distinctively epistemic evaluation—cannot do all the work that we need done.

Glymour's "bootstrap" account of confirmation is designed to provide an analysis of evidential relevance, which has been a serious problem for hypothetico-deductivism. As set out in Theory and Evidence, however, the "bootstrap" condition allows confirmation in clear cases of evidential irrelevance. The difficulties with Glymour's account seem to be due to a basic feature which it shares with hypothetico-deductive accounts, and which may explain why neither can give a satisfactory analysis of evidential relevance.

We often get reason to doubt the reliability of some of our own reasoning. The rational response to such evidence would seem to depend on how reliable one should estimate that reasoning to be. Independence principles constrain that reliability-assessment, to prevent question-begging reliance on the very reasoning being assessed. But this has consequences some find disturbing: can it be rational for an agent to bracket some of her reasons—which she may, after all, be assessing impeccably? So several arguments have been offered against the very idea of an Independence principle. This paper argues that looking closely at these arguments actually strengthens the case for Independence, and yields some guidance in meeting a formidable challenge for Independence-defenders: formulating the principle in an adequate way.

We often get evidence that bears on the reliability of some of our own first-order reasoning. The rational response to such “higher-order” evidence would seem to depend on a rational assessment of how reliable we can expect that reasoning to be, in light of the higher-order evidence. “Independence” principles are intended to constrain this reliability-assessment, so as to prevent question-begging reliance on the very reasoning being assessed. However, extant formulations of Independence principles tend to be vague or ambiguous, and coming up with a tolerably precise formulation turns out to be tricky. This paper aims to make some progress toward developing a more precise Independence principle, and also to highlight some of the difficulties the project entails. The hope is to take a step toward understanding how rational belief is informed by evidence bearing on agents’ cognitive reliability.

Theories of epistemic rationality that take disagreement (or other higher-order evidence) seriously tend to be “modest” in a certain sense: they say that there are circumstances in which it is rational to doubt their correctness. Modest views have been criticized on the grounds that they undermine themselves—they’re self-defeating. The standard Self-Defeat Objections depend on principles forbidding epistemically akratic beliefs; but there are good reasons to doubt these principles—even New Rational Reflection, which was designed to allow for certain special cases that are intuitively akratic. On the other hand, if we construct a Self-Defeat Objection without relying on anti-akratic principles, modest principles turn out not to undermine themselves. In the end, modesty should not be seen as a defect in a theory of rational belief.

In this dissertation, I study the strategy of giving semantical replies to skeptical puzzles. I concentrate on a very simple kind of puzzle, which seems to invite--and perhaps even require--semantical responses. Skeptical problems of this kind, which I call "switched-words" problems, are based on alternative hypotheses about the world which are structurally very similar to our standard hypotheses; for example, it has been asked how we can justify choosing our standard physical theory over an alternative hypothesis formulated by taking the standard theory and intersubstituting 'electron' and 'molecule' at every occurrence. Switched-words skeptical puzzles are peculiarly resistant to anti-skeptical arguments based on non-semantical considerations such as simplicity, ontological economy, or explanatory power; however, they leave one feeling that there must be some easy semantical way of answering the skeptic. Thus they offer a way to isolate and study semantical anti-skepticism in an environment where it should thrive. In the first Chapter, I examine, and reject, the classical semantical response of saying that the alternative theory simply restates the standard theory in a different notation. The second Chapter is devoted to a more precise statement of the switched-words problems, and involves a methodological analysis of just what anti-skeptical premises a skeptic must accept. In Chapter Three, I examine another recent semantical answer to switched-words skepticism, finding a modified version of it to be applicable, though in a limited number of cases. In the fourth Chapter, I develop a general form for giving semantical answers to switched-words skeptics, which has the last-studied answer as a special case. This general strategy is independent of any particular semantical theory; it explains the general failure of switched-words skepticism by reference to a general feature of any plausible semantical theory. It also explains why, in certain cases, the switched-words skeptic is correct. Studying this strategy in Chapter Five reveals that while it is important--even necessary--in replying to certain kinds of skepticism, it cannot offer us an anti-skeptical panacea.

A certain skeptical strategy involves a skeptical hypothesis that closely mirrors the structure of our standard theory of the world; this strategy insulates the skeptical argument from attacks based on standard criteria of theory choice. A standard reply to this strategy is to claim that proffered alternative is just the standard theory expressed in a different notation. But this reply does not succeed, given plausible assumptions about semantics. However, there is an alternative strategy--also semantical--which can deal with the problem, at least in those cases where, intuitively, the skeptic's challenge should fail.

One of the most salient features of forming beliefs in a social context is that people end up disagreeing with one another. This is not just an obvious fact about belief-formation; it raises interesting normative questions, especially when people become aware of the opinions of others. How should my beliefs be affected by the knowledge that others hold contrary beliefs? In some cases, the answer seems easy. If I have reason to think that my friend is much better informed than I am, her dissent will often require substantial revision in my belief. If I have reason to think she's mentally deranged, her dissent may require no revision at all. But other cases are more difficult. For example, how confident should I be about my views in epistemology, knowing that they are denied by philosophers at least as intelligent, sane, knowledgeable, diligent and honest as I am?

We often get evidence concerning the reliability of our own thinking about some particular matter. This “higher-order evidence” can come from the disagreement of others, or from information about our being subject to the effects of drugs, fatigue, emotional ties, implicit biases, etc. This paper examines some pros and cons of two fairly general models for accommodating higher-order evidence. The one that currently seems most promising also turns out to have the consequence that epistemic akrasia should occur more frequently than is sometimes supposed. But it also helps us see why this might not be a bad thing.

It is commonly acknowledged that, in order to test a theoretical hypothesis, one must, in Duhem' s phrase, rely on a "theoretical scaffolding" to connect the hypothesis with something measurable. Hypothesis-confirmation, on this view, becomes a three-place relation: evidence E will confirm hypothesis H only relative to some such scaffolding B. Thus the two leading logical approaches to qualitative confirmation--the hypothetico-deductive (H-D) account and Clark Glymour' s bootstrap account--analyze confirmation in relative terms. But this raises questions about the philosophical interpretation of the technical conditions these accounts describe. What does it mean to say that E confirms H "relative to B"? How should we interpret the relation we are trying to analyze?