Nathan J. Fox

Human intuitive certainty and doubt systematically depart from purely epistemic norms in value-sensitive ways. Non-epistemic valuations of decision outcomes—practical stakes, identity concerns, emotional costs, and social consequences—are associated with upward or downward pressures on the evidentiary thresholds for ordinary certainty (the absence of doubt). A signal-detection lens applied to the phenomena addressed by diverse epistemological and psychological accounts reveals Wittgensteinian family resemblances centered on this association and yields two comparative spectra: the unopposed-pressure spectrum and the entrenchment spectrum (opposing pressures that systematically favor a belief). The framework identifies a third, theoretically central spectrum of pressure attenuation. When significant opposing pressures act on a single proposition, the stronger is attenuated by the weaker; the residual bias is milder, more variable, and sensitive to individual differences in value weighting. Because most real-world propositions carry mixed costs of false positives and false negatives, opposing pressures and subtle attenuation biases should be common. The same pressures continue to operate under reflective processes, sometimes producing rational acceptance: doubt leading agents to accept a proposition only for a limited range of actions. These considerations indicate that value-associated standards are not confined to the conspicuous phenomena addressed by the diverse accounts, nor solely to intuitive bias, but function as an ongoing feature of dual-process epistemic life. Viewing phenomena along the three spectra helps gauge bias depth, anticipate divergences in certainty, and foresee social friction. The framework yields modest implications for Bayesian updating, reliabilism, and coherentism, and supports more constructive dialogue in personal and institutional contexts.

Over the last hundred years, competing and incompatible positions in relation to basic problems of knowledge and the use of the verb ‘to know’ have multiplied; and the prospect of a consensus solution emerging with respect to any of the problems has not seemed particularly good. We have a Gordian knot. Even so, I suggest that we also have a way to cut it. This will involve identifying why the cognitive mechanism that produces our intuitions of knowing evolved and was maintained (by natural selection), i.e., identifying the ‘teleonomic function’ of that cognitive mechanism. Also, it will involve predicting, on the basis of this teleonomic function, the triggering-conditions of these natural knowledge intuitions. In this thesis, I develop a general theory of the origin, function and triggering-conditions of knowledge intuitions that will allow us to cut that knot. That theory follows basic biological theory (including that which pertains to natural altruism) and also signal detection theory. My theory identifies a number of different circumstances under which the triggering-conditions of knowledge intuitions are different. Strikingly, these different circumstances (and their associated triggering-conditions) map onto the different competing and incompatible epistemological positions to which I referred. This suggests that these positions are all correct within the boundaries of one of the circumstances that my theory identifies; and that the Gordian knot is largely the result of epistemologists claiming universal applicability of a theory that in fact only applies under particular circumstances. We cut the knot by specifying the different circumstances under which each of the different epistemological positions will hold, and the reason we should expect it to hold in just these circumstances, in light of the teleonomic function of knowledge intuitions.

Error Management Theory (EMT) suggests that cognitive adaptations evolve to minimize the cost of false negative and false positive errors in detections of consequential environmental conditions. These adaptations manifest as biases tailored to specific environmental conditions. This paper proposes that the same selection pressure fostered the evolution of a self-biasing ability, allowing us to minimize such costs based on experience and culturally transmitted information. The research indicates that this ability specifically applies to productions of belief or doubt about the existence of an environmental condition that is not adequately perceptible to the senses, e.g., doubt that the man is being honest. A model of this self-biasing process, rooted in signal detection theory, is developed and its explanatory reach is demonstrated through many diverse examples from epistemological and social psychological literatures. These examples feature an evidentiary standard for belief that appears too high or low, or seems to have modulated. This study aims to correct and to significantly enhance EMT by introducing this evolved self-biasing ability.