The epistemology of evolutionary debunking

Fifteen years ago, Sharon Street and Richard Joyce advanced evolutionary debunking arguments against moral realism, which purported to show that the evolutionary history of our moral beliefs makes moral realism untenable. These arguments have since given rise to a flurry of objections; the epistemic principles Street and Joyce relied upon, in particular, have come in for a number of serious challenges. My goal in this paper is to develop a new account of evolutionary debunking which avoids the pitfalls Street and Joyce encountered and responds to the most pressing objections they faced. I begin by presenting a striking thought experiment to serve as an analogy for the evolution of morality; I then show why calibrationist views of higher-order evidence are crucial to the evolutionary debunking project; I outline a new rationale for why finding out that morality was selected to promote cooperation suggests that our moral judgments are unreliable; and I explain why evolutionary debunking arguments do not depend on our having a dedicated faculty for moral cognition. All things considered, I argue, evolutionary debunking arguments against moral realism are on relatively secure footing – provided, at least, that we accept a calibrationist account of higher-order evidence.

     

The epistemological status of a naturalized epistemology

Philosophically inclined psychologists and psychologically inclined philosophers often hold that the substantive discoveries of psychology can provide an empirical foundation for epistemology. In this paper it is argued that the ambition to found epistemology empirically faces certain unnoticed difficulties. Empirical theories concerned with knowledge‐gaining abilities have been historically associated with specific epistemological views such that the epistemology gives preferential support to the substantive theory, while the theory empirically supports the epistemology. Theories attribute to the subject just those epistemic abilities which associated epistemologies attribute to the scientist. The concept of epistemological significance is introduced as the significance a psychological theory can have for modifying the epistemological suppositions with which the theory was originally associated. Substantive psychological theories are strongly constrained by the epistemologies used in their development; the endorsement an epistemology receives from its associated theory should carry no weight. The alliance between psychology and epistemology is not progressive to the development of either field. Alternative sources of progress in epistemology and psychology are suggested.     

Shareability: The social psychology of epistemology

Psychologists and cognitive scientists interested in the nature of internal representations of human knowledge often use observable regularities or structures to infer what the innate constraints on those representations must be like. It is possible, however, that certain structures might come about only when a group of people share a knowledge domain. Furthermore, it is possible that there are analyzable constraints on knowledge structures that emerge when knowledge is being shared. Such constraints are referred to in this paper as “shareability” constraints. A number of examples of observable structures in human knowledge are discussed in terms of shareability constraints. An attempt is made to determine which sorts of structures are most shareable, and how those structures may differ from the sorts of structures that are easily represented by the individual mind but not easily shared between minds.     

Teleological epistemology

Philosophical Studies - It is typically thought that some epistemic states are valuable—knowing, truly or accurately believing, understanding (to name a few). These are states it’s...     

Decision-theoretic epistemology

In this paper, I examine the possibility of accounting for the rationality of belief-formation by utilising decision-theoretic considerations. I consider the utilities to be used by such an approach, propose to employ verisimilitude as a measure of cognitive utility, and suggest a natural way of generalising any measure of verisimilitude defined on propositions to partial belief-systems, a generalisation which may enable us to incorporate Popper's insightful notion of verisimilitude within a Bayesian framework. I examine a dilemma generated by the decision-theoretic procedure and consider an adequacy condition (immodesty) designed to ameliorate one of its horns. Finally, I argue in a sceptical vein that no adequate verisimilitude measure can be used decision-theoretically.I am grateful to Philip Percival for his very useful comments and criticism on earlier drafts. This paper was written with the support of a Scheuer fellowship, for which I am most thankful.     

The confusion about epistemology and "epistemology"--and what to do about it

The epistemology debates within the field of family therapy have become relatively infrequent in the last year or so, perhaps as a consequence of the confusion they have generated for many family therapists. This article maintains that the primary reason for the confusion is a failure to distinguish clearly between the conventional meaning of the term epistemology, which concerns the nature of knowledge, and the unconventional meaning given the term in family therapy, which concerns the nature of what we know. It is proposed that the confusion can be diminished by understanding the relationship between the two meanings, which are here distinguished as epistemology (meaning 1) and epistemology (meaning 2) respectively. Particular attention is given to the logical consequences of adopting a position on epistemology (meaning 1)—e.g, is the knower capable of knowing an independent reality, or does the act of knowing make its own reality?—or on epistemology (meaning 2)—e.g., is causality linear or nonlinear?. The relevance and implications of these problems for the theory and practice of family therapy are discussed.     

Utilitarian epistemology

Standard epistemology takes it for granted that there is a special kind of value: epistemic value. This claim does not seem to sit well with act utilitarianism, however, since it holds that only welfare is of real value. I first develop a particularly utilitarian sense of “epistemic value”, according to which it is closely analogous to the nature of financial value. I then demonstrate the promise this approach has for two current puzzles in the intersection of epistemology and value theory: first, the problem of why knowledge is better than mere true belief, and second, the relation between epistemic justification and responsibility.     

Melancholic epistemology

Too little attention has been paid by philosophers to the cognitive and epistemic dimensions of emotional disturbances such as depression, grief, and anxiety and to the possibility of justification or warrant for such conditions. The chief aim of the present paper is to help to remedy that deficiency with respect to depression. Taxonomy of depression reveals two distinct forms: depression (1) with intentionality and (2) without intentionality. Depression with intentionality can be justified or unjustified, warranted or unwarranted. I argue that the effort of Aaron Beck to show that depressive reasoning is necessarily illogical and distorted is flawed. I identify an essential characteristic of that depression which is a mental illness. Finally, I describe the potential of depression to provide credal contact with important truths.Many persons helped in writing this paper. Special thanks are owed to my wife, Patricia Sedgeman Graham, as well as to Richard Garrett and Hugh LaFollette.     

Turtle epistemology

In “Justification Without Awareness”, Michael Bergmann divides internalist epistemologies into those with a strong awareness requirement and those with a weak awareness requirement; he presents a dilemma, hoisting the “strongs” on one horn, and the “weaks” on the other. Here I reply on behalf of the strong-awareness view, presenting what I take to be a more satisfactory, and more fundamental, reply to Bergmann than I believe has been offered by his other critics, and in particular by Rogers and Matheson in their “Bergmann’s dilemma: exit strategies for internalists,” with which I am in partial agreement.     

Market epistemology

Synthese - According to Margaret Gilbert’s collective epistemology, we should take attributions of beliefs to groups seriously, rather than metaphorically or as reducible to individual...     

Interdisciplinary epistemology

In commemorating Piaget we should not remember his psychology alone. He hoped for a biologically grounded epistemology, which would require interdisciplinary effort. This paper mentions some recent research in biology, embryology, and philosophy that is consonant with Piaget's epistemological aims. The authors do not cite Piaget as a prime intellectual influence, there being no distinctive Piagetian methodology outside psychology. But they each mention him as someone whose work is relevant to theirs and whose interdisciplinary aims will be achieved only if studies like these can be integrated in the future.This paper originally appeared as a chapter in the 1983 book Jean Piaget: An Interdisciplinary Critique, edited by Sohan Modgil, Celia Modgil, and Geoffrey Brown, and published by Routledge & Kegan, Paul, London.     

Anti-luck epistemology

In this paper, I do three things. First, I offer an overview of an anti-luck epistemology, as set out in my book, Epistemic Luck (Oxford University Press, Oxford 2005). Second, I attempt to meet some of the main criticisms that one might level against the key theses that I propose in this work. And finally, third, I sketch some of the ways in which the strategy of anti-luck epistemology can be developed in new directions.