The Chimerical Appeal of Epistemic Externalism

Cruz, Joe; Pollock, John L.

doi:10.1515/9783110915273.125

Cited by 9 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…This kind of argument is, as 20 Maitzen points out, analogous to the argument against rule utilitarianism that it either turns into some form of rule worshipping or collapses into act utilitarianism. My argument, however, does not purport to challenge externalism as, e.g., Pollock (2004) does. I only question the motivation for accepting Truth-Relating as a necessary condition for epistemic justification; it may still be reasonable to consider certain externalist relations to truth to be sufficient conditions for epistemic justification and, hence, externalism could still be well motivated.…”

Section: Good Epistemic Justification As a Good Instrument For Truthmentioning

confidence: 81%

“…To motivate Truth Relating, however, we need to accept the conception of epistemic justification that it is nothing but an instrument for guiding us to truth by recommending beliefs to us. By arguing for a principle about instrument evaluation, I have shown that the truth targeting instrument conception of epistemic justification turns out to imply infallibilism, which is, to say 21 See Maitzen (1995) and Pollock (2004) for an argument in a similar spirit. This kind of argument is, as 20 Maitzen points out, analogous to the argument against rule utilitarianism that it either turns into some form of rule worshipping or collapses into act utilitarianism.…”

Section: Good Epistemic Justification As a Good Instrument For Truthmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Is imagination too liberal for modal epistemology?

Lam

2017

Synthese

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Appealing to imagination for modal justification is very common. But not everyone thinks that all imaginings provide modal justification. Recently, Dominic Gregory (2010) and Peter Kung (2010) have independently argued that, whereas imaginings with sensory imageries can justify modal beliefs, those without sensory imageries don't because of such imaginings' extreme liberty. In this essay, I defend the general modal epistemological relevance of imagining. I argue, first, that when the objections that target the liberal nature of non-sensory imaginings are adequately developed, those objections also threaten the sensory imaginings. So, if we think that non-sensory imaginings are too liberal for modal justification, we should say the same about sensory imaginings. I'll finish my defense by showing that, when it comes to deciding between saying that all imaginings are prima facie justificatory and saying that no imaginings are justificatory, there is an independent reason for accepting the former. 1 Justifying Modal Beliefs The goal of this essay is to defend the following Yablo-style modal epistemological policy against a particular kind of skeptical objection: For any statement S, if z can conceive that S, then z is prima facie justified in believing that S is possible. I'll call this principle Imaginative I would like to thank Ross Cameron, Brie Gertler, and Harold Langsam for commenting on multiple 1 early drafts of this paper and for their patience with my stubbornness in philosophical conversations. My gratitude also goes to Matt Duncan, Trenton Merricks, Peter Tan, and the audience in the departmental retreat of the Corcoran Department of Philosophy, University of Virginia for their valuable feedback. I must also thank Nick Rimell and Jim Darcy, who kindly offered to help me with the linguistic aspect of the paper. Finally, I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers of Synthese for their suggestions that helped make this a much better paper. ! 2 Conservatism. Following those who defend a similar view, I take conceiving and imagining to 2 be the same attitude; 'imagining' and 'conceiving' will be used interchangeably. 3 In the recent literature, two kinds of moderate skepticism have been raised against the general principle of Imaginative Conservatism. They are moderate in the sense that, instead of banishing all conceivings from modal epistemology, they argue that some but not all conceivings provide modal justification. And these moderate skeptics differ in their ways of distinguishing the 'good' from the 'bad' conceivings. The first kind of moderate skeptic distinguishes the good conceivings from the bad ones based on the subject matter of those conceivings. It says that only conceivings about mundane facts can justify beliefs about possibilities; conceivings about facts distant from our everyday life cannot. I call this Type-1 moderate skepticism (van Inwagen 1997; Hawke 2011). The second kind separates the good ones from the bad ones, roughly speaking, based not on the subject matter of the conceivings but o...

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Section: Good Epistemic Justification As a Good Instrument For Truthmentioning

confidence: 81%

Section: Good Epistemic Justification As a Good Instrument For Truthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is imagination too liberal for modal epistemology?

Lam

2017

Synthese

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“…This allows Pollock and Cruz, who take justification to be independent of whether following correct procedures actually results in mostly true beliefs, to deny that justification aims at truth. Graham, on the other hand, accepts that 3 Exceptions include Ginet (1975) and Cruz and Pollock (2004). 4 Graham 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Aim of Justification and Epistemic Difference-Making Principles

Vahid¹

2015

Acta Anal

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The idea that truth is the aim of justification is one that is often defended by theorists who uphold different views about the nature of epistemic justification. Despite its prevalence, however, it is not quite clear how one is to cash out the metaphor that justification aims at truth. Some theorists, for example, have objected that the thesis would leave no room for justified false beliefs and unjustified true beliefs. In this paper,

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“…This process would do something like purge the memory of old propositions not likely to be needed. 5 Although the process executing Clutter Avoidance is not truth-conducive on its own, when working with normal memory recall, it results in a high truth-ratio. Reliabilism, the thought goes, should be sensitive to this.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…2For a sampling of those who cite Goldman's (1986) view, and explicitly note that it is more sophisticated than Simple Reliabilism, see Casullo (1988: 208), Lammenranta (1996: 118), Chase (2004: 123–4), Cruz and Pollock (2004), and Adler (2005: 446). For Goldman's own views on this, the best source is Goldman (1988: 58).…”

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confidence: 99%

Reliabilism: Holistic or Simple?

Dunn

2012

Episteme

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Simple versions of Reliabilism about justification say that S's believing that p is justified if and only if the belief was produced by a belief-forming process that is reliable above some high threshold. Alvin Goldman, in Epistemology and Cognition, argues for a more complex version of the view according to which it is total epistemic systems that are assessed for reliability, rather than individual processes. Why prefer this more complex version of Reliabilism? Two reasons suggest themselves. First, it seems that the interaction of various processes of belief formation is often important. The more complex version appears to account for the interaction of processes. Second, one might doubt whether individual processes will have determinate truth-ratios. If not, the simple version of Reliabilism is a nonstarter. In this paper I argue that, despite these two apparent advantages, the complex version of Reliabilism is untenable. I conclude by arguing that the simple version is actually fine as it is.

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The Chimerical Appeal of Epistemic Externalism

Cited by 9 publications

References 32 publications

Is imagination too liberal for modal epistemology?

Is imagination too liberal for modal epistemology?

The Aim of Justification and Epistemic Difference-Making Principles

Reliabilism: Holistic or Simple?

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