Suchergebnisse

Digital epistemology: a research programme motivated -- From digital information to digital knowledge -- The nature of digital knowledge: a bi-level account -- The dark side of digital knowledge: scepticism and defeat -- A digital epistemology of machine learning -- A digital epistemology of big data.

AbstractAccording to one prominent view of exercising abilities (e.g., Millar in Acta Anal 24(4):223–236, 2009), a subject, S, counts as exercising an ability to $$ \phi $$
ϕ
if and only if S successfully $$ \phi $$
ϕ
s. Such an 'exercise-success' thesis looks initially very plausible for abilities, perhaps even obviously or analytically true. In this paper, however, I will be defending the position that one can in fact exercise an ability to do one thing by doing some entirely distinct thing, and in doing so I'll highlight various reasons (epistemological, metaphysical and linguistic) that favor the alternative approach I develop over views that hold that the exercise of an ability is a success notion in the sense Millar maintains.

Controversial view agnosticism (CVA) is the thesis that we are rationally obligated to withhold judgment about a large portion of our beliefs in controversial subject areas, such as philosophy, religion, morality and politics. Given that one's social identity is in no small part a function of one's positive commitments in controversial areas, CVA has unsurprisingly been regarded as objectionably 'spineless.' That said, CVA seems like an unavoidable consequence of a prominent view in the epistemology of disagreement—conformism—according to which the rational response to discovering that someone you identify as an epistemic peer or expert about p disagrees with you vis-à-vis p is to withhold judgment. This paper proposes a novel way to maintain the core conciliatory insight without devolving into an agnosticism that is objectionably spineless. The approach offered takes as a starting point the observation that–for reasons that will be made clear—the contemporary debate has bypassed the issue of the reasonableness of maintaining, rather than giving up, representational states weaker than belief in controversial areas. The new position developed and defended here explores this overlooked space; what results is a kind of controversial view

AbstractIn Chapter 3 of Judgment and Agency, Sosa (Judgment and Agency, 2015) explicates the concept of a fully apt performance. In the course of doing so, he draws from illustrative examples of practical performances and applies lessons drawn to the case of cognitive performances, and in particular, to the cognitive performance of judging. Sosa's examples in the practical sphere are rich and instructive. But there is, I will argue, an interesting disanalogy between the practical and cognitive examples he relies on. Ultimately, I think the source of the disanalogy is a problematic picture of the cognitive performance of guessing and its connection to knowledge and defeat. Once this critical line of argument is advanced, an alternative picture of guessing, qua cognitive performance, is articulated, one which avoids the problems discussed, and yet remains compatible with Sosa's broader framework.

"This book brings together philosophers to investigate the nature and normativity of group disagreement. Debates in the epistemology of disagreement mainly have been concerned with idealized cases of peer disagreement between individuals. However, most real-life disagreements are complex and often take place within and between groups. Ascribing views, beliefs, and judgments to groups is a common phenomenon that is well researched in the literature on the ontology and epistemology of groups. The essays in this volume seek to connect these literatures and to explore both intra- and inter- group disagreements. They apply their discussions to a range of political, religious, social, and scientific issues. The Epistemology of Group Disagreement is an important resource for students and scholars working on social and applied epistemology, disagreement, and topics at the intersection of epistemology, ethics, and politics"--

AbstractStructural analogies connect Williamson's (Knowledge and its limits, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000; Acting on knowledge. In: Carter JA, Gordon EC, Jarvis B (eds) Knowledge first: approaches in epistemology and mind, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 163–181, 2017) epistemology and action theory: for example, action is the direction-of-fit mirror image of knowledge, and knowledge stands to belief as action stands to intention. These structural analogies, for Williamson, are meant to illuminate more generally how 'mirrors' reversing direction of fit should be understood as connecting the spectrum of our cognitive and practically oriented mental states. This paper has two central aims, one negative and the other positive. The negative aim is to highlight some intractable problems with Williamson's preferred analogical picture, which links the cognitive and the practical through the nexus of direction-of-fit mirroring. The positive aim of the paper is to propose a better alternative. In particular, we show that an achievement-theoretic proposal captures what is in common across the range of attitudes that exhibit the kind of structure that knowledge-belief, action-desire/intention do, while at the same time avoiding the problems shown to face Williamson's proposed picture. Moreover, we draw attention to several key theoretical benefits of embracing our proposed achievement-theoretic picture, including some of the key benefits of the knowledge-first programme that Williamson's own analogies were designed to secure.

AbstractA vexing problem in contemporary epistemology—one with origins in Plato's Meno—concerns the value of knowledge, and in particular, whether and how the value of knowledge exceeds the value of mere (unknown) true opinion. The recent literature is deeply divided on the matter of how best to address the problem. One point, however, remains unquestioned: that if a solution is to be found, it will be at the personal level, the level at which states of subjects or agents, as such, appear. We take exception to this orthodoxy, or at least to its unquestioned status. We argue that subpersonal states play a significant—arguably, primary—role in much epistemically relevant cognition and thus constitute a domain in which we might reasonably expect to locate the "missing source" of epistemic value, beyond the value attached to mere true belief.