Epistemic norms: truth conducive enough

Synthese - Epistemology needs to account for the success of science. In True Enough (2017), Catherine Elgin argues that a veritist epistemology is inadequate to this task. She advocates shifting...     

The requirements of truth and of justification of premisses

Summary The article attempts to give an answer to the question: why for the acceptance of a statementz ₂ implied by another,z ₁, it is required not only thatz ₁ be true but also justified? The application in a given case of the rule allowing to accept a statement implied by another true one is not possible without establishing in an appropriate manner that the statement is true. Practically, therefore, we have to rely in the conditions for the acceptance of a statementz ₂ implied by anotherz ₁ on the manner of acceptance ofz ₁. If we require that this manner of acceptance should guarantee the truth ofz ₁, no special requirement of the truth ofz ₁ is necessary. If the acceptance ofz ₂ implied byz ₁ depends onz ₁ being accepted in a manner which does not ensure the truth ofz ₁ (e. g. by induction), then we have to give up the requirement of the truth ofz ₁. At most, we may prohibit the acceptance ofz ₂ implied byz ₁, inductively justified, if the evidence for the negation ofz ₁ is better than the inductive one forz ₁.     

Skepticism and justification

Synthese - This paper discusses the skeptical argument presented by Keith Lehrer in his paper ‘Why Not Scepticism?’. It is argued that Lehrer's argument depends on unacceptable...     

Reliability conducive measures of coherence

A measure of coherence is said to be truth conducive if and only if a higher degree of coherence (as measured) results in a higher likelihood of truth. Recent impossibility results strongly indicate that there are no (non-trivial) probabilistic coherence measures that are truth conducive. Indeed, this holds even if truth conduciveness is understood in a weak ceteris paribus sense (Bovens & Hartmann, 2003, Bayesian epistemology. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Olsson, 2005, Against coherence: Truth probability and justification. Oxford: Oxford University Press). This raises the problem of how coherence could nonetheless be an epistemically important property. Our proposal is that coherence may be linked in a certain way to reliability. We define a measure of coherence to be reliability conducive if and only if a higher degree of coherence (as measured) results in a higher probability that the information sources are reliable. Restricting ourselves to the most basic case, we investigate which coherence measures in the literature are reliability conducive. It turns out that, while a number of measures fail to be reliability conducive, except possibly in a trivial and uninteresting sense, Shogenji’s measure and several measures generated by Douven and Meijs’s recipe are notable exceptions to this rule.     

Discursive justification and skepticism

In this paper, I consider how a general epistemic norm of action that I have proposed in earlier work should be specified in order to govern certain types of acts: assertive speech acts. More specifically, I argue that the epistemic norm of assertion is structurally similar to the epistemic norm of action. First, I argue that the notion of warrant operative in the epistemic norm of a central type of assertion is an internalist one that I call ??discursive justification.?? This type of warrant is internalist insofar as it requires that the agent is capable of articulating reasons for her belief. The idea, roughly, is that when one asserts that p, one is supposed to be in a position to give reasons for believing that p. Bonjour??s reliable clairvoyant Norman, for example, is not in an epistemic position to make assertions regarding the president??s whereabouts??even if Norman knows the president??s whereabouts. In conclusion, I briefly consider whether a type of skeptical argument??often labeled Agrippa??s Trilemma??is motivated, at least in part, by the fact that responses to it violate the relevant epistemic norm of assertion.     

Infinitism and probabilistic justification

According to infinitism, beliefs can be justified by an infinite chain of reasons. So far, infinitism has rarely been taken seriously and often even dismissed as inconsistent. However, Peijnenburg and Atkinson have recently argued that beliefs can indeed be justified by an infinite chain of reasons, if justification is understood probabilistically. In the following, I will discuss the formal result that has led to this conclusion. I will then introduce three probabilistic explications of justification and examine to which extent they support Peijnenburg’s and Atkinson’s claim.