Two claims about epistemic propriety

Abstract

This paper has two main parts. In the first part, I argue that prominent moves in two related current debates in epistemology-viz., the debates over classical invariantism and the knowledge first movement-depend on one or the other of two claims about epistemic propriety: (1) Impropriety due to lack of a particular epistemic feature suffices for epistemic impropriety; and (2) Having justification to believe P suffices for having warrant to assert P. In the second part, I present and defend novel arguments against both claims.

Believing Things Unknown

“…Although this asymmetry has been noticed in the literature on epistemic luck (see for instance Coffman (2007) and Levy (2009)), an immediate and important consequence seems to have been almost entirely overlooked. 3 If my losing a large lottery isn't a matter of luck, neither will it be a matter of luck that my belief that my ticket has lost is true.…”

Assertion, uniqueness and epistemic hypocrisy

“…18 This may well be right, though recent work by Matthew Benton (2014) suggests that intuitions in these 15 See footnote 8 for elaboration on this point, and some qualification. 16 See, for example, along with Lackey (2012Lackey ( , 2014, Coffman (2011), McKinnon (2012, Gerken (2014), Carter and Gordon (2011), cf. Benton (2014).…”

Expert Opinion and Second‐Hand Knowledge

“…Her cases suggest that experts are plausibly held to a different epistemic standard when speaking as experts, where this standard concerns not only the quantity of an expert's epistemic support for what an expert asserts, but also the quality of that epistemic support. These cases seem to count against knowledge being sufficient for epistemically permissible assertion; and several others have followed Lackey in regarding such cases as important to adjudicating the debate over the norms of assertion and practical reasoning (Carter and Gordon , Coffman , McKinnon , Carter , Gerken , Green ).…”