Knowledge and Other Norms for Assertion, Action, and Belief: A Teleological Account

Abstract

Here I advance a unified account of the structure of the epistemic normativity of assertion, action, and belief. According to my Teleological Account, all of these are epistemically successful just in case they fulfill the primary aim of knowledgeability, an aim which in turn generates a host of secondary epistemic norms. The central features of the Teleological Account are these: it is compact in its reliance on a single central explanatory posit, knowledge‐centered in its insistence that knowledge sets the fundamental epistemic norm, and yet fiercely pluralistic in its acknowledgment of the legitimacy and value of a rich range of epistemic norms distinct from knowledge. Largely in virtue of this pluralist character, I argue, the Teleological Account is far superior to extant knowledge‐centered accounts.

Should I say that? An experimental investigation of the norm of assertion

“…There is an alternative approach that would preserve a strong connection between knowledge and assertion: to rethink what we mean by "norm". We may revise our hypothesis, and redefine the 'norm of assertion' as a norm that sets a standard for what is optimal to assert, rather than what is permissible to assert (Jackson, 2012;Mehta, 2016;Turri, 2014a) 20 . This would offer a neat explanation for our findings: participants judge that unlucky assertions "should not" be made in the teleological sense (because unknown assertions are not optimal) but not in the deontological sense (because unknown assertions are nonetheless permissible).…”

Unifying Group Rationality

“…An anonymous referee has rightly encouraged me to flag the fact that the term 'teleological' is sometimes used to refer to a broader range of normative accounts that have goal-oriented aspects, including some views that don't define normativity so as to sanction the attitudes or acts that are conducive to attaining the relevant goal. For example, in epistemology, Littlejohn (2018) and Mehta (2016) both propose knowledge-oriented teleological accounts that are not conducivist in the way that my view is. (Some, like Littlejohn himself, refer to these views as non-consequentialist teleological accounts.)…”

The knowledge norm of apt practical reasoning

“…2 Current variations of the knowledge norm of practical reasoning Williamson (2005), Hawthorne and Stanley (2008), Jackson (2012) and Mehta (2016) have argued that there is an important normative connection between knowledge and practical reasoning. I will quickly introduce these different proposals for a knowledge norm of practical reasoning and give reasons to doubt them.…”