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443Epistemic Norms as Social NormsIn M. Fricker, N. J. L. L. Pedersen, D. Henderson & P. J. Graham (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Social Epistemology, Routledge. pp. 425-436. 2019.This chapter examines how epistemic norms could be social norms, with a reliance on work on the philosophy and social science of social norms from Bicchieri (on the one hand) and Brennan, Eriksson, Goodin and Southwood (on the other hand). We explain how the social ontology of social norms can help explain the rationality of epistemic cooperation, and how one might begin to model epistemic games.
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367Risk sensitive animal knowledgePhilosophical Studies 166 (3): 599-608. 2013.A discussion of Sosa's Knowing Full Well. The authors focus on the understood place and significance of animal and reflective knowledge.
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289The A Priori Isn’t All That It Is Cracked Up to Be, But It Is SomethingPhilosophical Topics 29 (1/2): 219-250. 2001.Alvin Goldman’s contributions to contemporary epistemology are impressive—few epistemologists have provided others so many occasions for reflecting on the fundamental character of their discipline and its concepts. His work has informed the way epistemological questions have changed (and remained consistent) over the last two decades. We (the authors of this paper) can perhaps best suggest our indebtedness by noting that there is probably no paper on epistemology that either of us individually o…Read more
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275Epistemic competence and contextualist epistemology: Why contextualism is not just the poor person's coherentismJournal of Philosophy 91 (12): 627-649. 1994.
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219Monitoring and Anti-Reductionism in the Epistemology of TestimonyPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 72 (3). 2006.One of the central points of contention in the epistemology of testimony concerns the uniqueness (or not) of the justification of beliefs formed through testimony--whether such justification can be accounted for in terms of, or 'reduced to,' other familiar sort of justification, e.g. without relying on any epistemic principles unique to testimony. One influential argument for the reductionist position, found in the work of Elizabeth Fricker, argues by appeal to the need for the hearer to monitor…Read more
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201Nonconciliation in Peer Disagreement: Its Phenomenology and Its RationalityGrazer Philosophische Studien 94 (1-2): 194-225. 2017.The authors argue in favor of the “nonconciliation” (or “steadfast”) position concerning the problem of peer disagreement. Throughout the paper they place heavy emphasis on matters of phenomenology—on how things seem epistemically with respect to the net import of one’s available evidence vis-à-vis the disputed claim p, and on how such phenomenology is affected by the awareness that an interlocutor whom one initially regards as an epistemic peer disagrees with oneself about p. Central to the arg…Read more
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190Transglobal evidentialism-reliabilismActa Analytica 22 (4): 281-300. 2007.We propose an approach to epistemic justification that incorporates elements of both reliabilism and evidentialism, while also transforming these elements in significant ways. After briefly describing and motivating the non-standard version of reliabilism that Henderson and Horgan call “transglobal” reliabilism, we harness some of Henderson and Horgan’s conceptual machinery to provide a non-reliabilist account of propositional justification (i.e., evidential support). We then invoke this account…Read more
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176Common formulations of the principle of charity in translation seem to undermine attributions of irrationality in social scientific accounts that are otherwise unexceptionable. This I call the problem of irrationality. Here I resolve the problem of irrationality by developing two complementary views of the principle of charity. First, I develop the view (ill-developed in the literature at present) that the principle of charity is preparatory, being needed in the construction of provisional first…Read more
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128Explanation and rationality naturalizedPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 40 (1): 30-58. 2010.Familiar accounts have it that one explains thoughts or actions by showing them to be rational. It is common to find that the standards of rationality presupposed in these accounts are drawn from what would be thought to be aprioristic sources. I advance an argument to show this must be mistaken. But, recent work in epistemology and on rationality takes a less aprioristic approach to such standards. Does the new (psychological or cognitive scientific) realism in accounts of rationality itself si…Read more
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119What Is a Priori and What Is It Good For?Southern Journal of Philosophy 38 (S1): 51-86. 2000.The doctrine is familiar. In a sentence, a priori truths are those that are knowable on the basis of reflection alone (independent of experience) by anyone who has acquired the relevant concepts. This expresses the classical conception of the a priori. Of course, there are those who despair of finding any truths that fully meet these demands. Some of the doubters are convinced, however, that the demands, are somewhat inflated by an epistemological tradition that was nevertheless on to something …Read more
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111Winch and the Constraints on Interpretation: Versions of the Principle of CharitySouthern Journal of Philosophy 25 (2): 153-173. 2010.
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109Iceberg EpistemologyPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 61 (3): 497-535. 2000.Accounts of what it is for an agent to be justified in holding a belief commonly carry commitments concerning what cognitive processes can and should be like. A concern for the plausibility of such commitments leads to a multi-faceted epistemology in which elements of traditionally conflicting epistemologies are vindicated within a single epistemological account. The accessible and articulable states that have been the exclusive focus of much epistemology must constitute only a proper subset of …Read more
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107Motivated contextualismPhilosophical Studies 142 (1). 2009.The concept of knowledge is used to certify epistemic agents as good sources (on a certain point or subject matter) for an understood audience. Attributions of knowledge and denials of knowledge are used in a kind of epistemic gate keeping for (epistemic or practical) communities with which the attributor and interlocutors are associated. When combined with reflection on kinds of practical and epistemic communities, and their situated epistemic needs for gate keeping, this simple observation reg…Read more
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94Epistemic Norms and the "Epistemic Game" They Regulate: The Basic Structured Epistemic Costs and BenefitsAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 54 (4): 367-382. 2017.This paper is a beginning—an initial attempt to think of the function and character of epistemic norms as a kind of social norm. We draw on social scientific thinking about social norms and the social games to which they respond. Assume that people individually follow epistemic norms for the sake of acquiring a stock of true beliefs. When they live in groups and share information with each other, they will in turn produce a shared store of true beliefs, an epistemic public good. True beliefs, pr…Read more
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85Practicing safe epistemologyPhilosophical Studies 102 (3). 2001.Reliablists have argued that the important evaluative epistemic concept of being justified in holding a belief, at least to the extent that that concept is associated with knowledge, is best understood as concerned with the objective appropriateness of the processes by which a given belief is generated and sustained. In particular, they hold that a belief is justified only when it is fostered by processes that are reliable (at least minimally so) in the believer’s actual world.[1] Of course, rel…Read more
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83Are Epistemic Norms Fundamentally Social Norms?Episteme 17 (3): 281-300. 2020.People develop and deploy epistemic norms – normative sensibilities in light of which they regulate both their individual and community epistemic practice. There is a similarity to folk's epistemic normative sensibilities – and it is by virtue of this that folk commonly can rely on each other, and even work jointly to produce systems of true beliefs – a kind of epistemic common good. Agents not only regulate their belief forming practices in light of these sensitivities, but they make clear to o…Read more
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81The importance of explanation in Quine's principle of charity in translationPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 18 (3): 355-369. 1988.
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80Norms, normative principles, and explanation: On not getting is from oughtPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 32 (3): 329-364. 2002.It seems that hope springs eternal for the cherished idea that norms (or normativeprinciples) explain actions or regularities in actions. But it also seems thatthere are many ways of going wrong when taking norms and normative principlesas explanatory. The author argues that neither norms nor normative principlesinsofar as they are the sort of things with normative forceis explanatoryof what is done. He considers the matter using both erotetic and ontic models ofexplanation. He further conside…Read more
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75The Epistemological Spectrum: At the Interface of Cognitive Science and Conceptual AnalysisOxford University Press. 2011.Henderson and Horgan set out a broad new approach to epistemology. They defend the roles of the a priori and conceptual analysis, but with an essential empirical dimension. 'Transglobal reliability' is the key to epistemic justification. The question of which cognitive processes are reliable depends on contingent facts about human capacities.
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73Gate-Keeping ContextualismEpisteme 8 (1): 83-98. 2011.This paper explores a position that combines contextualism regarding knowledge with the idea that the central point or purpose of the concept of knowledge is to feature in attributions that keep epistemic gate for contextually salient communities. After highlighting the main outlines and virtues of the suggested gate-keeping contextualism, two issues are pursued. First, the motivation for the view is clarified in a discussion of the relation between evaluative concepts and the purposes they serv…Read more
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71What does it take to be a true believer? Against the opulent ideology of eliminative materialismIn Christina E. Erneling & D. Johnson (eds.), Mind As a Scientific Object, Oxford University Press. 2005.
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68Let’s Be Flexible: Our Interpretive/Explanatory Toolbox, or In Praise of Using a Range of ToolsJournal of the Philosophy of History 5 (2): 261-299. 2011.This paper explores the role and limits of cognitive simulation in understanding or explaining others. In simulation, one puts one's own cognitive processes to work on pretend input similar to that one supposes that the other plausibly had. Such a process is highly useful. However, it is also limited in important ways. Several limitations fall out from the various forms of cognitive diversity. Some of this diversity results from cultural differences, or from differences in individuals' cognitive…Read more
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67Entitlement in Gutting's Epistemology of Philosophy: Comments on What Philosophers KnowSouthern Journal of Philosophy 51 (1): 121-132. 2013.In What Philosophers Know, Gary Gutting provides an epistemology of philosophical reflection. This paper focuses on the roles that various intuitive inputs are said to play in philosophical thought. Gutting argues that philosophers are defeasibly entitled to believe some of these, prior to the outcome of the philosophical reflection, and that they then rightly serve as significant (again defeasible) anchors on reflection. This paper develops a view of epistemic entitlement and applies it to argu…Read more
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62On the testability of psychological generalizations (psychological testability)Philosophy of Science (December) 586 (December): 586-606. 1991.Rosenberg argues that intentional generalizations in the human sciences cannot be law-like because they are not amenable to significant empirical refinement. This irrefinability is said to result from the principle that supposedly controls in intentional explanation also serving as the standard for successful interpretation. The only credible evidence bearing on such a principle would then need conform to it. I argue that psychological generalizations are refinable and can be nomic. I show how e…Read more
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59Account for macro-level causationSynthese 101 (2): 129-156. 1994.By a macro-level feature, I understand any feature that supervenes on, and is thus realized in, lower-level features. Recent discussions by Kim have suggested that such features cannot be causally relevant insofar as they are not classically reducible to lower-level features. This seems to render macro-level features causally irrelevant. I defend the causal relevance of some such features. Such features have been thought causally relevant in many examples that have underpinned philosophical work…Read more
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58An empirical basis for charity in interpretationErkenntnis 32 (1). 1990.In codifying the methods of translation, several writers have formulated maxims that would constrain interpreters to construe their subjects as (more or less) rational speakers of the truth. Such maxims have come to be known as versions of the principle of charity. W. V. O. Quine suggests an empirical, not purely methodological, basis for his version of that principle. Recently, Stephen Stich has criticized Quine's attempt to found the principle of charity in translation on information about the…Read more
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54A Refined Account of the "Epistemic Game": Epistemic Norms, Temptations, and Epistemic CoorperationAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 54 (4): 383-396. 2017.In "Epistemic Norms and the 'Epistemic Game' They Regulate", we advance a general case for the idea that epistemic norms regulating the production of beliefs might usefully be understood as social norms. There, we drew on the influential account of social norms developed by Cristina Bicchieri, and we managed to give a crude recognizable picture of important elements of what are recognizable as central epistemic norms. Here, we consider much needed elaboration, suggesting models that help one thi…Read more
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University of Nebraska, LincolnDepartment of PhilosophyRobert R. Chambers Distinguished Professorship of Philosophy and the Moral Sciences
Lincoln, Nebraska, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Social Science |
Philosophy of Physical Science |