Epistemic Authority: Preemption or Proper Basing?

Dormandy, Katherine

doi:10.1007/s10670-017-9913-3

“…Philosophers' interest in cognitive expertise and epistemic authority has recently matured to the point that this topic has become one of the main themes in social epistemology. Current discussion involves several alternative definitions of an expert in the epistemic domain, competing views of the most rational attitude laypeople should adopt in evaluating an epistemic authority's belief or testimony, and further work on how to disentangle cases of disagreement between experts and laypeople as well as between expert peers (see, e.g., Coady 2012;Croce 2018aCroce , 2019Dormandy 2018;Goldman 2001Goldman , 2018Constantin and Grundmann 2018;Jäger 2016;Lackey 2018;Zagzebski 2012).…”

Section: The Need Of Collective Epistemic Authoritymentioning

confidence: 99%

For A Service Conception of Epistemic Authority: A Collective Approach

Croce¹

2022

Questioning Experts and Expertise

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This paper attempts to provide a remedy to a surprising lacuna in the current discussion in the epistemology of expertise, namely the lack of a theory accounting for the epistemic authority of collective agents. After introducing a service conception of epistemic authority based on Alvin Goldman's account of a cognitive expert, I argue that this service conception is well suited to account for the epistemic authority of collective bodies on a non-summativist perspective, and I show in detail how the defining requirements of an expert can apply to epistemic groups.

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“…Keren (2007) and Zagzabski (2012) talk of preemption as the mark of epistemic authority: we take the beliefs of those whom we recognize as our epistemic authorities on a certain matter as preemptive with respect to our own reasons on that matter. This notion has been a subject of debate and criticism (Keren 2014 a ; Jäger 2016; Dormandy 2018), not least because it seems better suited to describing an epistemic vice than a virtue (Wright 2016). I agree with the criticism, and indeed, in my view, preempting is what prejudices typically do: they preempt evidence against them 13 .…”

Section: The Hinge Account Unpackedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prejudice in Testimonial Justification: A Hinge Account

Boncompagni

¹

2021

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Although research on epistemic injustice has focused on the effects of prejudice in epistemic exchanges, the account of prejudice that emerges in Fricker's (2007) view is not completely clear. In particular, I claim that the epistemic role of prejudice in the structure of testimonial justification is still in need of a satisfactory explanation. What special epistemic power does prejudice exercise that prevents the speaker's words from constituting evidence for the hearer's belief? By clarifying this point, it will be possible to address two more general issues concerning the nature of prejudice: its resistance to counterevidence and the steps involved in overcoming prejudice. I propose a hinge account of prejudice, based on the recent perspective of hinge epistemology, to help clarify these aspects. According to the hinge account, prejudices share a fundamental feature with hinges: they work as norms of evidential significance, and as such, they determine what can and cannot count as evidence for belief.

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“…Philosophers' interest in cognitive expertise and epistemic authority has recently matured to the point that this topic has become one of the main themes in social epistemology. Current discussion involves several alternative definitions of an expert in the epistemic domain, competing views of the most rational attitude laypeople should adopt in evaluating an epistemic authority's belief or testimony, and further work on how to disentangle cases of disagreement between experts and laypeople as well as between expert peers (see, e.g., Coady 2012;Croce 2018aCroce , 2019Dormandy 2018;Goldman 2001Goldman , 2018Constantin and Grundmann 2018;Jäger 2016;Lackey 2018;Zagzebski 2012).…”

Section: The Need Of Collective Epistemic Authoritymentioning

confidence: 99%

For A Service Conception of Epistemic Authority: A Collective Approach

Croce

¹

2019

Social Epistemology

4

0

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This paper attempts to provide a remedy to a surprising lacuna in the current discussion in the epistemology of expertise, namely the lack of a theory accounting for the epistemic authority of collective agents. After introducing a service conception of epistemic authority based on Alvin Goldman's account of a cognitive expert, I argue that this service conception is well suited to account for the epistemic authority of collective bodies on a non-summativist perspective, and I show in detail how the defining requirements of an expert can apply to epistemic groups.

show abstract

Epistemic Authority: Preemption or Proper Basing?

Cited by 15 publications

References 20 publications

For A Service Conception of Epistemic Authority: A Collective Approach

For A Service Conception of Epistemic Authority: A Collective Approach

Prejudice in Testimonial Justification: A Hinge Account

For A Service Conception of Epistemic Authority: A Collective Approach

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