tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-295818462024-03-14T05:12:50.993+00:00Virtue EpistemologyA forum for VE lucubrationj. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-32998250918056718042008-07-20T21:11:00.002+01:002008-07-20T21:22:00.813+01:00Knowability and 'Valuability'One reason the knowability paradox seems so paradoxical is that the principle of knowability (taken on the paradox to entail the omniscience principle) seems so darn plausible. That principle states that all truths are knowable. Suppose this modal principle were extended to evaluations. We might say then that if X has value, then it is valuable--that is, it is possible that someone, somewhere, at some time, value X. Jointly, the principle of knowability and the principle of valuability imply that if some X has value, then it's possible that one know that she values x. Problematically, though, if knowing p is more epistemically valuable than merely truly believing p, then by the principle of valuability, it is possible that one value knowledge of p to her own mere true belief that p; and by the principle of knowability, it is possible that one know that she values knowledge that p above her mere true belief that p. But given the fact that we can't know of any mere true belief we have 'that' it is a mere true belief, (i.e. given that (p & ~Kp) is not a knowable proposition), it seems as though we must reject that anyone could know THAT she values knowing p over her mere true belief that p. But given the principle of valuability, this would imply that knowledge that p isn't more valuable than mere true belief that p. But it is! It seems, then, that we've got a paradox of valuablility that runs parallel to the paradox of knowability.j. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com143tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-91380635058266352202008-06-10T06:58:00.002+01:002008-06-10T09:17:45.657+01:00Intellectual Virtue and CausationIntellectual virtue and causation is one of my favourite topics, mostly because I think it's really important. Here's why: for starters, I think that virtue-based epistemology is the right way to go. (I won't defend this here, but just trust me :) If you're on board so far, which you should be, then it should be clear that an important task will be to clarify the relationship between, on the one hand, an agent's exhibiting intellectual virtue, and on the other, her coming to form a true belief. Literature on VE and epistemic luck shows us that within a VE account, there must not be a disconnect here.<br /><br />How to block worries about a disconnect? Greco, Sosa and Zagzebski all invoke (in slightly different ways) the notion of 'causation.' The story goes something like this: S knows that p just in case S's true belief that p is because of S's exhibition of intellectual virtue. That's a general template.<br /><br />Now, all of the 'big three' seem to understand the conditions under which the relevant causal claims would be true or false as something that is either (i) intuitive, or (ii) a function of what is salient in a causal explanation. This is so because they quite frequently illustrate cases in which exhibition of intellectual virtue does or does not 'cause' the agent's having a true belief by appealing to example cases, and the example cases are ones in which it is 'intuitive' that what is salient in a causal explanation for the agent's true belief is or is not intellectually virtuous agency (in accord with their examples). For example, Sosa's ballerina example, Zagzebski's example of the judge, and Greco's example of the gambler all are intended to make these sort of 'causal' points. I don't dispute that their examples constitute helpful ways of thinking about how intellectual virtue should be connected with an agent's true belief in cases of knowing. What is problematic, though, is that none of these authors gives us much more to go on over and above the intuitive appeal to example. (Greco is an exception here)<br /><br />A general worry should be this: if, for any theory, the conditions under which one thing causes another are meant to function importantly within the theory, then the theory should be supplemented with a corresponding theory of causation. In particular, the theory should say just what the conditions are that must hold if one thing causes another.<br /><br />It is here where our leading VE'rs are somewhat bankrupt. <br /><br />I'm not sure what Zagzebski's current view is, but Sosa and Greco both rely importantly on the notion of "explanatory salience." <br />Their idea is, but crudely, that an agent's exhibiting IV causes her true belief in a way that is sufficient for her to know just in case her IV is 'salient' in a causal explanation for her coming to have a true belief.<br /><br />Greco has a nuanced view about salience--one that cashes out salience as a function of the relevant interests and purposes that frame the context in which the explanation is given. Sosa's view is less nuanced.<br /><br />Both, however, are taking--by relying on salience--a line that reduces causal relations to causal explanations. Helen Beebee, Donald Davidson and others take objection to this reduction. In particular, they reject that causal explanations entail causal relations. But this point aside, there is I think a more interesting worry: whether it be causal relations or causal explanations that are at issue in deciding whether a knower's IV is appropriately hooked up with her coming to have a true belief, we will be letting some strange causal ducks in the door once we let 'salience' be the adjudicator. <br /><br />My thought here is this: <br /><br />Salience clearly attaches to events, but also and perhaps just as frequently, to absences of events. For example, John's giving $5 to a beggar might be salient in explaining why the beggar was able to buy lunch, and similarly, Flora's failure to water her flowers might be salient in explaining why her flower's died (to cite an example from Beebee). <br /><br />It stands to reason then that both the exhibition of intellectual virtue and the absence of the exhibition of intellectual vice might each be candidates for the role of 'salient' explainers.<br /><br />Now, a venerable tradition led by Lewis and others holds that events are the sort of things that can stand in causal relations. Suppose that's right. If it is, we get a weird aporia:<br /><br />1. Whether one knows depends on whether her exhibition of IV caused her to have a true belief. (Sosa and Greco)<br />2. Whether her exhibition of IV caused her to have a true belief is a matter of whether her IV is salient (Sosa and Greco)<br />3. Both events and absences of events can be salient in explaining her true belief.<br />4. Events, but not absences of events, can be causes (Event Theory of Causation).<br /><br />One way to try to escape the aporia is to deny (4) and say that absences of events can be causes. But Beebee's "Causation and Nothingness" makes a very compelling case against taking this route. <br /><br />The better routes would be to either reject (1) or (2). Because Greco and Sosa rely importantly on salience in explaining the role of intellectual virtue in cases of knowing, I think they should reject both (1) and (2). They should first deny (2) (for the reasons Beebee gives) and deny that whether an exhibition of IV causes one to have a true belief is a matter of whether her IV is salient. And next, they should reject (1); they should say that whether one knows depends on whether her exhibition of IV is salient in explaining her true belief, rather than on her exhibition of IV 'causing' her to have a true belief. <br /><br />Rejecting (1) and (2) is needed if salience is to have an important role in explaining the role intellectual virtue has in cases of knowing, and a result of rejecting (1) and (2) is that the notion of 'causation' is made unnecessary.<br /><br />This would seem to be a bad thing if explanations just are causal explanations. But they're not. There are both causal explanations and non-causal explanations. I'm increasingly inclined to think that the leading VE theorists--insofar as they are wedded to salience--have non-causal explanations in mind. <br /><br />What is the difference?<br /><br />Suppose you ask, "Why did the 8 ball drop into the corner pocket?" My striking the cue ball into the 8 ball explains why the 8 ball dropped into the corner pocket. This is a causal explanation. <br /><br />Suppose you ask, after finding out that I am richer than my neighbor, "Why are you richer than your neighbor?" That I have a million dollars in the bank (I wish) would explain why I am richer than my neighbor, but it didn't cause me to be richer than my neighbor. My having a million dollars would be salient in explaining why I'm richer than my neighbor, but it is not a causal explanation. <br /><br />Another example of a non-causal explanation: Suppose the Cardinals beat the Cubs by the score of 5-0 against the Cubs' best picther. Without knowing the score, but knowing they beat the Cubs, you ask "how did the Cardinals not get shut out?" I could explain to you why the Cardinals didn't get shut out by pointing out that Albert Pujols hit 5 home runs. But Pujols' hitting five home runs didn't 'cause' the Cardinals to not get shut out, even though it implies that they did. After all, whatever caused the Cardinals to not get shut out caused this to happen before Pujols hit his fifth home run. <br /><br />What should be gathered, then, is this: insofar as the notion of 'salience' is meant to function importantly within a VE account for the purposes of articulating the conditions under which an agent's exhibiting IV and her coming to have a true belief are to be appropriately (in cases of knowing) connected, talk of causal relations, and perhaps even causal explanations should be dropped in favour of the notion of non-causal explanations. <br /><br />A discalimer: Perhaps salience itself should be dropped from the picture. I'm open to that possibility. But if it's given an important place, then a consequence should be that the 'causal' language that is so common in these accounts should be excised. If, on the other hand salience is excised instead, then these accounts could continue to use the causal language that they do, so long as the supplemental account of causation bolstering the theory of knowledge isn't either a "reduce causation to salience" theory or a "derive your theory of causation from the intuitiveness of these examples" theory.j. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com315tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-67693644106251871672008-06-06T03:57:00.002+01:002008-06-06T05:00:23.894+01:00Folks on board with the Value Turn in epistemology hold, as general premise, that the central aims of epistemology have been, at least up until recently, construed too narrowly. After all, the latter half of 20th Century analytic epistemology would permit us to think that the nature and scope of knowledge and justification constitute the core subject matter around which the central aims of epistemology are to be circumscribed. Value Turners reject this picture because, for one reason, it makes it far from clear why discussions of the nature and sources of epistemic value deserve a place within epistemology, properly speaking, and even less clear why they should deserve the central place within which Value Turners take such discussions to be deserving. <br /><br />In his essay "The Value Turn in Epistemology," Wayne Riggs suggests "that one think of epistemology as a normative domain of inquiry--one that is bounded largely by the values that are fundamental to it." Riggs thinks that when epistemology is thought of in this way, that "Determining these (epistemic) values is itself one of the tasks proper to value-driven epistemology."<br /><br />I think that Riggs is completely right about this. And in thinking so, I am committed to rejecting a competing picture--a picture which implies that the Riggs' suggestsions are mistaken insofar as they locate the axiology of epistemology within the central subject matter of epistemology, properly speaking. <br /><br />Who's right? Riggs, me and others sympathetic with the "Value Turn," or those who aren't? <br /><br />But how does one go about making a cogent argument in favour of a more ecumenical approach to what the subject matter should be around which the central aims of epistemology are circumscribed? One poor way to do this would be to start out with a premise that the 'bad guys' reject--the premise that the nature and sources of epistemic value (among other value-related issues) *really are* just as important as the nature and scope of knowledge and justification. This would be to start out by assuming the falsity of their conclusion. <br /><br />I think that Value Turners should be able to persuade the old guard by starting with premises the old guard endorse, and that there is a rather compelling way to do it. <br /><br />Take, as a starting point, the thought that epistemology should be concerned with whatever is epistemically important. Put another way, the subject matter around which the central aims of epistemology should be framed should be whatever is important, from an epistemic point of view.<br /><br />Next, point out that the practice of inquiry, in addition to particular epistemic standings that inquirers hold, is, from an epistemic point of view, something important. It's epistemically important to determine what sorts of practices constitute good and bad inquiry.<br /><br />Now, an old guarder might agree here that inquiry is epistemically important, but deny that evaluations of 'good' and 'bad' inquiry should be smuggled within epistemology's central tasks. "Let the value theorists sort out what inquiry is good just as they'll also sort out what people are good, what art is good, and what goodness is. Just because inquiry admits of 'goodness' and 'badness' doesn't mean that that's the sort of thing epistemologists should be studying. Inquiry is important to epistemology insofar as inquiry is the sort of practice whereby agents come to have cognitive contact with their world, and it is those states of cognitive contact that are important to epistemology."<br /><br />We may rebut the old guarder here by pointing out an idea shared by Christopher Hookway, Michael Lynch, and quite a few others: inquiry is a goal-directed practice. As such, a theory of inquiry is also a theory about whatever valuable goal governs the practice, and further, whatever goal governs the evaluations that are made within the practice. Thus, to evaluate certain standing epistemically--i.e. S knows p, S believes p--we are at the same time acknowledging some goal relative to which epistemic evaluations are to be made, and that will be whatever goal it is that inquiry aims at.<br /><br />After all, to identify one standing as knowledge and another as justified belief is to at the same time identify the former standing as having certain properties that, from an epistemic point of view, make that standing better. And one standing would be epistemically better than another only if there is some goal or value that governs epistemic practice. <br /><br />Value Turners argue about what that goal is, and therein lies the lively debate between Epistemic Value Monists and Pluralists.<br /><br />The old guard can try to block this lively debate outside of 'epistemology' only by denying that the subject matter around which the aims of epistemology are framed should be picked out by what's epistemically important, or by deying that inquiry is epistemically important. But these premises should be much less controversial than the conclusion reached by the Value Turners might appear to those who restrict what they take to be the central aims of epistemology.j. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com58tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-22687493419893354632008-05-22T16:23:00.002+01:002008-05-22T16:42:27.055+01:00What is a Truism?For some object O and proposition p, Suppose it is true that:<br /><br />(1) P is a truism about O.<br /><br />There are several ways to interpret (1). Here's a really weak way:<br /><br />[WEAK]: P is true about O.<br /><br />But this is surely too weak. Lots of propositions might be true about O and aren't such that we would say they are "truisms" about O.<br /><br />How about something stronger:<br /><br />[STRONG]: P is true about O, and is true about O in most nearby worlds in which O holds.<br /><br />Hmm... maybe? This seems plausible, but it's not obvious.<br /><br />What about something even stronger:<br /><br />[SUPERSTRONG]: P is constitutive of the concept of O.<br /><br />For example, that a bachelor is unmarried is constiutive of the concept of a bachelor, and is also surely a 'truism' about bachelors (if anything is a truism about anything.) Does "A bachelor is unmarried" just happen to be both a truism about bachelors and constitutive of the concept of bachelor? This is tricky. It seems as though it 's more than coincidence. However, we should probably be careful before endorsing 'superstrong' as something that follows from the claim that p is a truism about O. Consider that other plausible candidates for 'truisms' don't admit of such strong conceptual inferences. Consider:<br /><br />(2) "What goes up must come down" is a truism about what goes up. If you think there is such a thing as a truism, you'd be hard pressed to claim that (2) isn't a truism; at least, you'd certainly fly in the face of the folk-approved norms that govern the use of truism. <br /><br />But if (2) is a truism, then Superstrong is false. That something must come down is not constitutive of the concept of "goes up" or "ascends". <br /><br />So what the heck is a truism???j. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-37041217330577798302008-05-03T15:51:00.002+01:002008-05-03T15:53:24.514+01:00Episteme Conference at NorthwesternNorthwestern University is hosting the 2009 Episteme Conference on the Significance of Disagreement. Here's a link which includes the call for papers:<br /><br />http://epistemejournal.wordpress.com/conference/2009-northwestern/j. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com19tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-4868294888007068832008-05-02T00:55:00.002+01:002008-05-02T01:14:41.728+01:00Openmindedness and doxastic controlAlston and Michael Lynch put it nicely when they point out that, in the face of our lacking direct control over our beliefs, we nonetheless have in some important sense "indirect control." Lynch says that you can control how you go about pursuing the truth." This also seems right. For example, Sherlock Holmes will choose to go about pursuing the truth of a murder case in a certain way, and when (perhaps) he is at home and can't find a certain pair of socks, he might choose to pursue the truth of the matter (of where the socks are) with less tenacity than he chooses to exhibit on the murder trail. <br /><br />Intellectual tenacity seems like a trait we can choose to exhibit in pursuit of the truth. But what about the intellectual virtue of openmindedness. Can we choose to be openminded in our pursuit of the truth? I think we should be careful before saying "yes." <br /><br />Indeed, we talk as though we can choose to be openminded. For example, a juror can promise the judge that, if selected to the jury, she will be sure to go about the testimony openmindedly. Whether she can choose to do this though is another matter. <br /><br />Here's a reason to think we might not be able to choose to be openminded in pursuing the truth. <br /><br />Consider first the platitude that doxastic voluntarism is false. We can't choose what we believe. Indeed, this is the same claim Alston and Lynch make when pointing out that we don't have direct control over our beliefs. Why don't we have direct control over our beliefs? Plausibly, this is because our beliefs are "passive" responses to the world and the evidence it gives us. Relatedly, it is argued that beliefs are formed involuntarily. These platitudes seem to be at a tension with the thought that we could choose to be openminded. Presumably, if we could choose to be openminded, then we could choose to respond differently than we otherwise would to the world and the evidence it gives us. But this is precisely what doxastic involuntarism implies that we can't do.j. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-73405141451334859242008-05-01T21:12:00.002+01:002008-05-01T21:15:29.356+01:00Epistemology Through Thick and Thin (call for papers)Philosophical Papers is running a special edition on thick and thin concepts in epistemology. For those interested in VE, this will be an especially hot topic. The call for papers ends in late June; here's some more info.<br /><br />http://epistemicvaluestirling.blogspot.com/2007/03/ecp-epistemology-through-thick-and-thin.htmlj. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-18323280635625580662008-04-30T20:10:00.002+01:002008-04-30T20:15:03.437+01:00Pragmatic EncroachmentTrent Dougherty has been making the case against pragmatic encroachment, and I must say, I find some of his reasons compelling. It is not entirely clear to me, however, the extent to which the leading VE accounts "on the market" come pragmatically-unencroached. Additionally, I'm curious as to the plausibility of sympathising with Dougherty while at the same time endorsing the view that pragmatic interests can play a *very* small role in determining knowledge ascriptions. Put another way: I wonder the extent to which a hostility to pragmatic encroachment is an all-or-nothing position.j. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-72417609078476536982008-04-28T20:59:00.002+01:002008-04-28T21:15:06.221+01:00Back from Epistemic Agency conference in GenevaHats off to Pascal Engel, Anne Meylan and Julien Dutant for running an outstanding and instructive conference (Epistemic Agency, Geneva) this past weekend, which was preceded by (in my opinion) an equally stimulating three days of the John Greco Lectures. Greco's new book--Knowledge as True Belief Through Ability--promises to be excellent. And additionally, I think the University of Geneva and its Episteme programme (particularly because of Pascal Engel) is developing into a happening place for epistemic normativity; at least, it would be nuts to draw any other conclusion after this past week. Word of warning, however: the Swiss are very much drawn to eating (cheese) fondu. I was cautioned that if too much is consumed, it will give you a nightmare. Skeptical, I binge-dipped from the fondu pot. The result: I dreamed I was being chased by a murderer for what seemed like eternity. (Don't try this to test it).j. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-32282939037193125932008-04-21T22:30:00.002+01:002008-04-21T22:38:02.767+01:00New Papers on Virtue Epistemology, Epistemic Luck, Value of Knowledge, etc.My apologies for neglecting my blog! If it were a child, someone would have taken it away from me. I need to get back into the habit. In a feeble effort to make up for some lost time, I have gotten around finally to putting my latest work on VE, epistemic luck, and epistemic value (and other areas of epistemology) up online. You can download them from my homepage at http://jadamcarter.googlepages.com<br /><br />As most of these are works in progress, please cite only by permission. Also, I am of course very happy to have any comments/feedback on any of this. Feedback is welcome both on this blog or by e-mailing me at j.a.carter@ed.ac.uk<br /><br />In the meantime, I'm stoked to be leaving tomorrow morning for the star-studded <a href="http://www.unige.ch/lettres/philo/evenements/2008/EpistemicAgency.html">Epistemic Agency conference</a> in Geneva... <br /><br />Cheers, Adamj. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-30116243234089792352008-04-09T12:42:00.003+01:002008-04-09T12:47:08.666+01:00Exhibitions of Virtue: what are they?Suppose I want to figure out whether my true belief was because of my exhibition of intellectual virtue. A prominent recent view claims that I'd need to figure out whether my cognitive abilities are salient in explaining my cognitive success. Now I know what needs explained here-- my getting a true belief--but what exactly would be doing the explaining were it that I was a knower. The physical event that would be whatever I do to 'exhibit' intellectual virtue? Would it be a mental event-- my manifesting virtue? Would it be a combination of both?j. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-68201350621560020992008-02-12T22:01:00.000+00:002008-02-12T22:04:39.459+00:00Nenad Miscevic's new paper on a Strong VECan be found here:<br /><br />http://www.springerlink.com/content/6q602n553x56k38h/<br /><br />I hope this paper will make some waves; it is creative and draws from a wide variety of recent VE literature.j. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-33626992363166766572007-11-27T17:07:00.000+00:002007-11-27T17:23:35.354+00:00Implications of Subjectivism about valueG.E. Moore thought that claims about intrinsic value cannot be coherently endorsed by 'subjectivists' about value. Subjectivism is, generally speaking, the view that the constitutive grounds of value reside in agents and not in the objects of agents' evaluations. Toni Ronnow-Rassmussen, in his paper "Subjectivism and Objectivism" denies this. His idea is that Moore's suggestion falsely assumes that subjectivists about value must reject the "Invariance thesis," which states: "the final value of an object is invariant over possible worlds" (257). Ronnow-Rassmussen makes a convincing case for thinking that (i) subjectivist positions vary with respect to their pronouncements about constitutive grounds of value, and (ii) at least some versions of subjectivism can accomodate the invariance thesis. If Ronnow-Rasmussen is right about this, then the divide between objectivists and subjectivists is not as clearly demarcated as we would be inclined to think.<br /><br />An interesting consequence of this idea is that theses about epistemic value which make recourse to claims about the final value of (for example) knowledge or justification, might well be compatible with value subjectivism, at the very least the varieties that are compatible with the invariance thesis. Adopting subjectivism as a formal metaethical thesis, with respect to which we then assess the value of epistemic concepts, might very well open up creative new ways of addressing traditional problems about the value of knowledge--problems that have been previously discussed in a way that implicitly assumes an objectivist view of the constitutive grounds of value. At the least, this is I think an issue worth exploring.j. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-35254492423408934342007-10-25T03:56:00.000+01:002007-10-25T04:03:09.067+01:00Epistemic Value Pluralism, Aptness and (Perhaps?) A Problem for Intellectual-Virtue DelineationWhen reading Sosa’s paper “Epistemic Normativity” (an essay in his new book), I was prompted to reconsider my previously-held assumptions about the epistemic value monism/value pluralism debate, and in particular, how this debate could be approached by those who endorse (any version of) virtue epistemology. <br />As I understand it, there are two questions that motivate the epistemic value momism/pluralism (EVM/P) debate, and subsequently, there are two versions of EVM and EVP.<br /><br />Question 1: “What is the fundamental epistemic goal?”<br /><br />Note: Those addressing this question for the most part take ‘goal’ to be normative rather than descriptive. That is, the important question is not what goal do inquirers in fact adopt, but rather, what is the correct goal of inquiry (or, what is the fundamental goal inquirers ought to adopt?)<br /><br />If one says, in response to the question, “Truth and only truth!” then she is an EVMonist. If she says “Truth!” (as well as some other epistemic end), then she is an EVPluralist. Pritchard (“Recent Work on Epistemic Value”) and Riggs (“Insight, Openmindedness and Understanding”) seem to frame the dichotomy this way, focusing on that articulation of the question. <br /><br />A different articulation of the debate-framing question is: <br /><br />Question 2: “Does truth exhaust all possible sources of epistemic value?”<br /><br />As the story goes, if Y, then EVM, if N, then EVP. <br /><br />How one understands sources of value, on the one hand, and goals of inquiry, on the other, will determine whether she takes these two questions to collapse into the same question.<br /><br />However, strictly speaking, they need not. (And so, in principle, I think there can be two distinct versions of EVM/EVP, which turn on precisely what question is being answered). <br /><br />Against that background, it’s interesting to consider how a virtue epistemologist would go about delineating which traits are intellectual virtues.Here’s an (I think rather uncontroversial?) way to go about deciding this:<br /><br />X is an IV iff X promotes (in some relevant way) whatever good inquiry aims at (i.e. the epistemic ‘good’.<br /><br />(Note: some VE theorists such as Zagzebksi and Montmarquet will also build in to virtue a motivational component, and require that the trait also be appropriately ‘motivated’ toward (along with promoting) the epistemic end, to count as an IV)—so I mean to use ‘promote’ in a very wide sense here, so as to characterize the IV-delineating method in a way that most VE theorists would be on board with.<br /><br />A further side-point: Because virtues are usually understood with respect to goals rather than values, the task of virtue-delineating will turn importantly on how Question 1 is answered, rather than Question 2. Or so it seems).<br /><br />Anyway, if the ‘end’ of inquiry is ‘truth’, then trait X is an IV iff (and to the extent) that it promotes truth. This would be, I take it, the virtue-delineating method for an EVMonist. <br /><br />Importantly, though, if you are an EVPluralist (I take it of either version), the virtue-delineating method will be different. Suppose that the EVPluralist identifies two distinct epistemic ends: knowledge and understanding. Her virtue-delineating method would have to look something like this:<br /><br />X is an IV iff X promotes (in some relevant way) EITHER knowledge OR understanding (or both).<br /><br />EVPluralists, thus, will have an easier way of explaining why paradigmatic IVs that don’t obviously promote truth—such as insight and openmindedness—rightly quality as EVs. They’re IVs because they promote the end of understanding, regardless of whether they promote truth. <br />The preceding is, as it were, my “happy little picture” of how the EVP/EVM debate and virtue-delineating is supposed to work. I’m sure some of this is controversial… but regardless, it is against that background that I’m now puzzled after thinking about the Sosa paper.<br />Part of my happy little picture, which I didn’t mention, is that I had a rather narrow conception of what sorts of ends are available for an EVPluralist to adopt in conjunction with the end of truth. Kvanvig and Riggs have argued for understanding and intelligibility (respectively), and I think both of those are plausible options. I’d never had a clear idea what other ends there might be.<br />Sosa’s paper suggests that apt belief is of fundamental epistemic value. Aptness of belief is, on Sosa’s view, cognitive accuracy because of cognitive adroitness; put another way, the cognitive success of a true belief must be because of cognitive ability. This type of thinking has, as one benefit, a straightforward way of responding to the Meno Problem (i.e. the Value of Knowledge problem) because the view can explain why knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief: namely, a belief that is accurate because adroit is more valuable than a belief that is merely accurate.Sosa writes:<br /><br />One part at least of the solution to the value problem lies in a point central to virtue epistemology: namely, that<br />the value of apt belief is no less epistemically fundamental than that of true belief.1⁰ For this imports a way in which FN:10<br />epistemic virtues enter constitutively in the attainment of fundamental value, not just instrumentally. (“Epistemic Normativity” p. 18)<br /><br />A menacing question emerges: if Sosa is right about this, then presumably, Sosa will be committed to the following virtue-delineating method:<br /><br />X is an IV iff X promotes (in some relevant way) EITHER truth OR apt belief. The only way he would not be committed to this formula is if he claimed that some end can be fundamentally epistemically valuable, and at the same time, traits that promote this end need not count as epistemic virtues (even though they would count as IVs by virtue of promoting the other fundamentally valuable epistemic end, truth). And that seems arbitrary.<br /><br />But if he is committed to the formula, then it seems that a strange circularity problem emerges:<br /><br />Given that aptness is defined in terms of intellectual virtue on the view, we wouldn’t be able to then define intellectual virtue in terms of aptness.<br /><br />That is, we could not say: X is an intellectual virtue iff X promotes the epistemic end of cognitive success because of intellectual virtue. <br /><br />Unfortunately for me, I am sympathetic to seemingly everything that leads to this apparent circularity problem, namely:<br />1.The Sosa/Greco idea that knowledge requires in some important sense success because of intellectual virtue.<br />2. Sosa’s idea that aptness (cognitive success because of cognitive virtue) is of fundamental epistemic value, no less than truth is. (At least, now that I've thought about it after reading his paper, it seems right).<br />3. The thought that anything of fundamental epistemic value would be a proper goal of epistemic inquiry. <br />And..<br />4. The idea that a trait is an intellectual virtues insofar as the trait promotes fundamental epistemic goal/goals<br /><br />Hopefully I’ve overlooked something (or several things) that, if spotted, would make this problem disappear. <br /><br />Perhaps the most salient questions will be: (i) whether aptness is in fact of fundamental epistemic value, and (ii) whether some x can be both fundamentally epistemically valuable and such that, for any trait, were it to qualify as an intellectual virtue, it would not do so for the reason that it promotes that valuable x.) If the answer to (ii) is ‘yes’, then the circularity problem disappears… however to answer (ii) affirmatively, we would have to either widely depart from the standard way of determining which traits are intellectual virtues deny that something of fundamental epistemic value is also a proper goal of epistemic inquiry… and neither of those avenues looks especially inviting. <br /><br />I'd love to get some insight on either how to escape the dilemma, or what the error in my thinking is that's led me to think the dilemma arises... <br /><br />All the best, Adamj. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-84782197288805354122007-10-12T11:16:00.000+01:002007-10-12T11:18:39.308+01:00Last call for abstracts: Knowledge and Understanding Conference at EdinburghDon't forget: 20 October is the last day to send an abstract of 500 words toedinburghgradconference@gmail.com (or to j.a.carter@ed.ac.uk) for the "Knowledge and Understanding" graduate conference in epistemology at Edinburgh. Any questions, just e-mail me. Cheers, Adamj. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-52513447113742865672007-09-13T17:39:00.000+01:002007-09-13T18:02:58.439+01:00Value Theory and EpistemologyOne thing I've learned from thinking about the value of knowledge is that a background in value theory would be more than just helpful, but probably indespensible to doing good work. Too many epistemologists, I think, pronounce their views on value with only a superficial familiarity of the value-theory terrain. I am certainly guilty as charged on this score. In fact, if I could have done it all over, I would have studied value theory 'first' (along with epistemology) and then worked on the Meno Problem, rather than doing epistemology and then jumping head first into the Meno Problem.<br /><br />But oh well. At least I think I've caught this oversight at an early stage in my dissertation!<br /><br /><br />Anyway, toward the goal of correcting this oversight, I've been wanting to read the 'right stuff' in value theory to supplement my interest in epistemic value. <br /><br />Two papers that have been especially helpful have been Rabinowicz and Ronni-Rasmussen's paper that makes precise the distinction between intrinsic and final value. (This is helpful for those interseted in knowledge-as-achievement views such as Greco's and Sosa's). Also VERY useful toward thinking about the Meno Problem and the Swamping Problem has been Campell Brown's recent paper "Two Kinds of Value Holism."<br /><br />But that said, I want to also share what I think 'looks' like a nice little goldmine resource for epistemologists who want a better grounding in the foundations of value. I was browsing Rabinowicz's webpage looking for value wisdom and came across a value resource webpage that features some of the recent work taking place at Lund.<br /><br />http://www.fil.lu.se/research/project.asp?id=23&lang=eng<br /><br />And so, my guess is that this would be a great reading list for those interested in epistemic value! <br /><br />Also, PLEASE do share any other value theory articles here that you think would be helpful for those working in the area of epistemic value!! <br /><br />Cheers, Adamj. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-25795230865628707772007-09-05T11:47:00.000+01:002007-09-05T12:43:55.372+01:00Virtue, Credit and the Lackey CaseFirstly, sorry for the abeyance in posting.<br /><br />One benefit of virtue-theoretic approaches to epistemology is that they have unique resources for explaining what makes knowledge more valuable than mere true belief, or any proper subset of (knowledge's) parts. The unique resource can be understood first by considering that successes through exhibition of virtues are creditable to the agent exhibiting the virtue. If we grant that achievements (successes through abilities) in general are valuable, and that knowledge is a type of cognitive achievement creditable to the agent, then we appear apt to answering the Meno Problem: we say that knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief or any proper subset of its parts by virtue of having the 'final value' that accrues to achievements. As Greco points out, if an agent forms a true belief in conjunction with displaying intellectual virtue, it would not necessarily follow that the agent knows. What is also importantly needed is that the success be 'because of' or 'through' the intellectual virtue. And so, on the 'final value' response to the Meno Problem, the 'because of' is especially important. <br /><br />One of the toughtest parts of defending the 'final value' solution to the Meno Problem is the fact that the 'because of' relation is a particularly messy one to delineate. Greco rolls up his sleves to explain the 'because of'; he provides a carefully thought through account that makes recourse to the requirement that the exhibition of intellectual virtue be explanatorily salient in a causal explanation for why the agent came to form the true belief. Ernie Sosa, on the other hand, (at least, in a recent conversation) takes it that the 'because of' relation is one that, like Greco, should be understood as function of salience, but unlike Greco, Sosa takes it that what is salient should be intuitive, and so does not find it necessary to provide an account of the conditions under which the exhibition of virtue is salient in cases of knowledge.<br /><br />Any defense of the final value solution worth its salt will have to get the 'because of' relation right. That much is clear.<br /><br />But there is a separate problem for the final value solution. That problem is as follows: the Meno Problem demands that we locate the property of knowledge by virtue of which it is more valuable than mere true belief or any proper subset of its parts. As Kvanvig has recently pointed out, this assumption about the value of knowledge that we are trying to vindicate is a 'prima facie' claim. It is defeasible, and so consistent with cases in which pragmatic consequences will generate a non-epistemic value that accres to true belief of p that will make it more valuable than knowing p. (He gives for example a case in which the world will end if you know p but not if you merely truly believe p). Thus, these sort of cases should not lead us to abandon our assumption that led us to recognize the Meno Problem as legitimate. <br /><br />However, a more serious concern would arise if we solve the Meno Problem in such a way that we explain knowledge to have some special value X but then come to find out that X is not present in a wide variety of cases of everyday knowledge. That would suggest that the "X" solution is a bad solution. Jennifer Lackey has recently given a much-talked-about example that characterizes the final value solution as doomed by this sort of problem. <br /><br />The idea is that, in cases of testimonial knowledge, the knower who simply receives knowledge by listening to what someone else says, is not appropriately creditworthy. (The intution is supposed to be that the other agent who transferred the knowledge to you did the relevant epistemic work and is the one that deserves credit, not you). But, as the argument goes, we can come to have knowledge by testimony, and so because the final value solution requires that knowledge be creditable to the agent, the final value solution will be stuck either giving an account of why knowledge is valuable which can't explain this fact in cases of testimonial knowledge (a bad result) or must flat deny that testimonial knowledge is proper knowledge. <br /><br />This looks like a real dilemma, and has led some (i.e. Pritchard) to deny that creditworthiness is necessary for knowledge, a denial that would cast serious doubts upon the prospect of the final value solution as a viable one. <br /><br />I think, though, that Lackey's case doesn't quite do what it's supposed to do. In fact, there is a subtle point in the case that I think is overlooked. Uncovering this point might well lead us to doubt that this is a genuine 'credit counterexample.' <br /><br />First, suppose we ask the question this way:<br /><br />There is knowledge of (for example) p. Jared has gone out, gathered evidence and inquired in a way that has led to him coming to know p. Damon asks Jared "Is p true?" Jared says 'Yes." Damon comes to know. Who, between Damon and Jared, deserves credit for p? We would say that Jared does. And then conclude that Damon doesn't.<br /><br />The dialectic in the previous example expresses the way that I think most persuaded by the Lackey case have gone about thinking about it. <br /><br />Notice that this way of thining about the problem depends on the thought that there is an item of knowledge, p, and then we make a contrastivist comparison between two agents, a comparison that leads us to pick the 'more creditworthy' knower as deserving as such, and deny credit to the other. <br /><br />There are a few mistakes though in this line of thinking. <br /><br />Firstly, we shouldn't think of knowledge in this case as exhausted by one token, against which we then assess which of the two agents, the informer or receiver, best deserves credit relative to that one token. <br /><br />Because we grant that the receiver can know through testimonial knowledge, there are two tokens:<br /><br />(1) The informer's knowledge that p.<br />(2) The receiver's knowledge that p.<br /><br />The informer is clearly creditworthy for his knowledge of p.<br /><br />A separate question would be: is the receiver creditworthy for her knowledge of p?<br /><br />Notice that the 'contrastivist' framework with which the question was set up in the previous example would make a legitimate qustion (i.e. is the receiver creditworthy for her knowledge of p) appear illegitimate, for the reason that we've already awarded the credit to the informer. But once we think of the knowledge as two tokens and abandon the contrastivist framing of the question, it makes perfect sense to ask whether the receiver is creditworthy for p. <br /><br />Now for a further point, suppose that the content of p is that the capitol building is on Queen street. If the receiver had looked this up in a book, would we be so quick to say that she doesn't deserve credit for knowing? No. It seems that we can get credit for knowing facts we look up in books. And if we get credit for looking them up in books, we would get credit for reading them on signs. And if we get credit for visually reading them on signs, we get credit for auditorily hearing them in the mouths of the informers. Any other conclusion would bias one sense in favor of the other. <br /><br />If I am right about this, then Lackey's problem shouldn't be so troubling. Learning through testimonial knowledge would gain S credit for p in a way know different than S would receive credit for p if she looked it up in a book. And this fact is not threatened by the fact that the informer would also get credit for her knowledge of p.j. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-23507275783864944172007-08-11T18:17:00.000+01:002007-08-11T18:23:43.831+01:00Graduate Conference in Epistemology at EdinburghGreetings! I am helping to organize--along with Duncan Pritchard--a graduate conference in epistemology at the University of Edinburgh, scheduled for 13 November, 2007. The title of the conference is "Knowledge and Understanding," and we are excited that Ernest Sosa of Rutgers University will be the keynote speaker, with Duncan as the respondent.<br /><br />Call for papers: Please send an abstract of approx. 500 words to:<br /><br />Edinburghgradconference@gmail.com by 20 October.<br /><br />If you have any questions, please e-mail:<br /><br />J. Adam Carter: s0787306@sms.ed.ac.uk<br />Duncan Pritchard: duncan.pritchard@ed.ac.ukj. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-69158464728034845382007-05-04T16:29:00.000+01:002007-05-04T16:30:27.865+01:00Troubleshoot Your Swamping Solution: Some Test CasesIt is widely assumed that knowledge is valuable, and additionally, that it is more valuable than any proper subset of its parts. It’s not clear that this fact can be explained in terms of the instrumental value of knowledge, for the reason that knowing p has many (if not all) of the practical benefits of truly believing p. And so, to the extent that we want to preserve our pre-theoretical intuitions about the value of knowledge, we must find some way to explain why knowledge is more valuable than its subparts, and in a way that appeals to the non-instrumental value of knowledge.<br /><br />Process reliabilism has undergone a barrage of criticism for the reason that it does not appear to have the theoretical apparatus to explain this fact.<br />According to process reliabilism: S knows p iff (i) S truly believes p, and (ii) S’s belief that p was produced by a reliable belief forming process.<br />We think that ‘being produced by a reliable belief forming process’ is a valuable property for a belief because it means that the belief is more likely to be true than if it were produced by an unreliable process. So far, so good. The twist is this: If ‘being produced by a reliable process’ is valuable for the reason that ‘being likely to be true’ is valuable, then how can we explain why the property of ‘being likely to be true’ adds any valuable to a true belief?<br />As Jon Kvanvig (2003) puts it, the property of ‘being likely to be true’ is swamped by the property of ‘being true.’ And, thus, the indictment of reliabilism is that it defines knowledge in such a way that knowledge is equally as valuable as mere true belief—and this contradicts the platitude that knowledge is more valuable than true belief.<br /><br />The reliabilist appears to have two escape routes:<br /><br />First escape route: Admit that being produced by a reliable process is valuable for a belief to have for the reason that ‘being likely to be true’ is a valuable property for a belief to have, and then deny that the property of ‘being likely to be true’ is swamped by the value of a true belief. (I don’t know of any who have taken this route).<br /><br />Second escape route: Deny that being produced by a reliable process is a property for a belief such that is value is exhausted by whatever value ‘being likely to be true’ accrues to a belief. Of course, this second escape route will require that the reliabilist locate what it is about ‘being produced by a reliable process’ that gives it value over and above the value it would confer to a belief by making it likely to be true. Goldman and Olsson (forthcoming) and Kristofer Ahlstrom (forthcoming) have taken this route.<br /><br />Both Goldman and Olsson and Ahlstrom, in taking the second escape route, try this approach: they say that being produced by a reliable belief forming process makes it more likely that you will have future true beliefs. And so, ‘being produced by a reliable process’ is valuable not only because it makes the belief likely to be true, but also because it raises the conditional probability that future beliefs will be true.<br /><br />I will not comment here on these projects, but rather, want to mention a different type of reliabilist response, which I think offers a more appealing response.<br />Consider the difference between:<br /><br />S’s true belief is a result of a reliable belief forming process.<br />S’s came to believe p truly because of her reliable belief forming process.<br /><br />The second of these two articulations has promise where the first does not. This is because the second articulation requires that there be an important connection between the cognitive success and the cognitive process that brought it about, a connection with we shall see can be valuable in a way that a cognitive success merely produced by such a process is not. <br /><br />To bring what’s valuable in this connection into focus, we begin by amending the locution of ‘belief forming process’ in a such a way that makes possible normative evaluation. We, thus, revise the proposal in (something like) the following way:<br />…believes p truly because of S’s cognitive ability.<br /><br />Success because of ability amounts to an achievement. Reaching the truth because of exhibiting cognitive ability is something we take to be more valuable than reaching the truth as (for example) True Temp does. We are inclined to say that success through ability deserves credit, and is as such valuable.<br />This is the idea being advanced in recent projects by Ernest Sosa (forthcoming), John Greco (forthcoming) and Duncan Pritchard.<br /><br />But in order to escape the initial dilemma, it must be that the success through ability is such that it is valuable in a way that is not ‘swamped’ by the value of truth. That is, our new condition must confer on a true belief value that is something other and above the value that ‘being likely to be true’ would confer to a belief.<br /><br />On the ‘success through ability’ proposal, the idea is captured in two theses:<br /><br />1. Achievements are valuable for their own sake.<br />2. The supervenience base of achievements lies in their relational (non-intrinsic) properties.<br /><br />The first thesis is the first step out of the ‘swamp.’ That is, by principle, anything valuable for its own sake is going to be such that it is not going to be ‘swamped’ by the value of something else. Achievements, then, are not merely instrumentally valuable, as ‘being likely to be true’ is instrumentally valuable.<br />The second thesis is the second step out of the swamp. It is a vindication of (1). I’ll explain how this vindication works by example. Suppose we have two guitars. One was used by Neil Young to record his album Harvest (suppose further that everyone thinks—(quite reasonably)--that this is a great album!). The second guitar has all the same intrinsic properties as the first, but was not used by Neil but rather stored in a warehouse in New Jersey. Suppose that only you know the first was used by Neil and that no one would believe you if you told them. (This is meant to prevent us from thinking that the first is of more instrumental value than the second). We would still find the first more valuable than the second. The explanation for this cannot be that the first is more valuable because of its intrinsic properties, given that both guitars have the same intrinsic properties. We should say, then, that the guitar is valuable for its own sake (not instrumentally), and that is value lies in its relational properties.<br /><br />This is the idea that the ‘success through ability’ theorist has in mind when explaining the value of knowledge. A true belief that is a result of a cognitive achievement is valuable for its own sake, and because of its relational properties, in a way that a true belief not a result of an achievement is not. This sort of value that achievements have is final value, and if knowledge requires achievement, then knowledge has final value which isn’t shared by mere true beliefs. Thus, the ‘success through ability’ theorist has a coherent and persuasive way to vindicate our assumption that knowledge is distinctively valuable.<br />Despite the promise this proposal has as a path out of the swamp, there are nonetheless challenges that face the account. I think that there are two central problems that rise to the forefront.<br /><br />(1) Objection to ‘success through ability’ as a sufficient condition for knowledge: There seem to be cases in which an agent meets this condition but does not know. These cases are (usually) ones in which the achievement occurs in a case in which malignant luck undermines knowledge.<br /><br />(2) Objection to ‘success through ability’ as a necessary condition for knowledge: There seem to be cases in which an agent knows, but is not such that her believing p truly constitutes an achievement.<br /><br />Both of these objections, if not properly addressed, threaten the ‘success through ability’ approach as a viable solution to the value problem it is meant to assuage. If the first objection is not met, then what makes knowledge distinctively valuable, on the proposal, would also make states that fall short of knowledge distinctively valuable. Thus, the idea that knowledge is more valuable than that which falls short is threatened.<br /><br />The second objection, if not met, would cast the stone from the other side: there would be cases of knowledge that, by virtue of not requiring an achievement, would be bereft of an explanation for why they are more valuable than that which falls short.<br /><br />I’ll turn now to what I think might be some challenging cases for the ‘success through ability’ proposal. Some of these cases will challenge the idea that achievement is necessary for knowledge, others will challenge the idea that achievement is sufficient for knowledge.<br /><br />Case 1: Flowers for Algernon<br />Flowers for Algernon is a novel by Daniel Keyes in which the protagonist, Charlie Gordon, is a mentally retarded janitor. He is chosen for a unique experiment, which is to undergo an experimental brain surgery that would raise his IQ. As it turns out, the experiment works (and ultimately, to his demise). Suppose that such a procedure were possible: I think that an initial response would be that an agent who comes to know things he would not have known had it not been for the experiment, is not properly creditworthy, as his cognitive success might be more appropriately attributable to the scientists, than to his agency. This seems to suggest that perhaps creditworthiness is not required for knowledge. But add this twist: Suppose that scientists are able to perform this procedure, but because it is so expensive, only one person will be the lucky recipient. To determine who gets to have the procedure done, the scientists have an intellectual contest to determine who is most worthy. Albert E., who is naturally very clever, prepares tenaciously for the contest and wins. Albert undergoes the experiment, and his IQ is raised to an even higher level. Suppose that Albert comes to learn X, Y and Z in such a way that he would not have had these true beliefs had it not been for the surgery. (Suppose that X, Y, and Z) are facts about theoretical physics too complex for even the greatest geniuses. Albert’s cognitive successes are ‘because of’ his surgery. Interestingly, that he had his surgery is ‘because of’ his cognitive abilities.<br />(1) Does Albert know X,Y and Z?<br />(2) Does Albert’s coming to believe X, Y and Z truly constitute a cognitive achievement?<br /><br />Case 2: Math Exam<br />Suppose that Peter is a mathematical whiz, who has become bored with school and has elected not to attend class or lecture for weeks. Finally, on threat of expulsion, he shows up for the final exam, unprepared. The teacher passes out a handout that includes five versions of the quadratic formula, four of which are false and one correct. The exam consists of applying the formula to 10 problems. Peter is discouraged because he knows he is clever and that, if given the right formula, he would have no trouble executing its application to a tee. With a sigh, he finally picks one at random (the correct one) and solves all ten problems correctly. Suppose that, had he chosen any different formula, he would have solved them all incorrectly (albeit, in accordance with the false formula). As it turns out, Peter gets the highest grade in the class. Even those who memorized which formula was correct struggled to apply it correctly to the 10 problems—a task which was easy for Peter. <br />(1) Does Peter know the answers to the 10 problems?<br />(2) Do Peter’s correct answers to the 10 problems constitute cognitive achievements?<br /><br />Case 3: Spellbound<br />Little Susie Speller is obsessed with winning first place in the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee. Her overbearing parents provide her with the latest OED dictionary and hire the finest spelling tutors to assist her in her quest. Susie immerses herself in Latin and Greek word roots, linguistic etiology and after a year and a half, has learned to spell almost every word in the dictionary. A week before the spelling bee, Susie Speller is hit by a drunk driver (or, to avoid a sentimentalist response, suppose she is so stressed that she gets drunk and causes a wreck). In any event, her memory is badly affected, and seems to come in spurts. During the week before the Bee, she finds herself going through intervals where she spells words (even the toughest ones) perfectly for about a half an hour, and then lapses into a subsequent thirty minutes in which she has trouble spelling any of the words. Nonetheless, Susie shows up to the Spelling Bee, and luckily for her, the rotations are such that everytime she is called to spell a word, she is operating in one of her lucid intervals. (And, of course, when she sits down between turns, she goes blank). Susie ends up winning the Spelling Bee. Clearly, she would not have won had it not been for her spelling ability. Had she not studied, then car wreck or not, she would have no chance. However, had she drawn a different rotation number, she would have been given a word during her blank periods and would have lost.<br /><br />(1) Did Susie know the words she spelled?<br />(2) Was Susie’s success at the Bee an achievement?j. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-22326148807656028412007-04-30T22:22:00.000+01:002007-04-30T22:26:24.960+01:00Goldman and Olsson's 'Conditional Probability Solution' to the Swamping ProblemGoldman and Olsson (forthcoming) in “Reliabilism and the Value of Knowledge” offer several insightful responses to the ‘swamping problem.’ I think that the ‘conditional probability’ solution that they offer is the most interesting; evaluating this solution requires attention to some important, and sometimes unnoticed, aspects of the problem.<br /><br />The swamping problem has been articulated a variety of ways, and unfortunately, different versions of the problem have been referred to under the same label.<br /><br />Here’s a general and (hopefully) uncontroversial formulation of the problem, as presented by Goldman and Olsson:<br /><br /><em>Template Swamping Argument</em><br /><br />(S1) Knowledge equals reliably produced true belief (simple reliabilism)<br />(S2) If a given belief is true, its value will not be raised by the fact that it was reliably produced.<br />(S3) Hence: knowledge is no more valuable than unreliably produced true belief. (reductio)<br /><br />(S2) of the argument expresses what has been called the ‘swamping premise.’ Of course, (S3) is counterintuitive, and so the idea is to either reject the swamping premise, or to reject simple reliabilism (S1).<br /><br />The swamping premise expresses a conditional claim. Those who want to save reliabilism are burdened, as it were, to show how a reliably produced true belief is more valuable than an unreliably produced true belief.<br /><br />Kvanvig (2003) throws down the gauntlet at this point and suggests that we can, in principle, rule out a rejection of (S2).<br /><br />His suggestion is that reliability is a valuable property for a belief to have insofar as it is valuable for a belief to be ‘objectively likely to be true.’ He argues that for a reliabilist to suppose that reliability is a valuable property for a belief to have for reasons other than its being likely to be true (i.e. say, because the “normative dimension that accompanies the right kind of objective likelihood of truth introduces a new valuational element distinct from the value of objective likelihood” (Kvanvig 2003b, p. 51) would seem magical, he says, “like pulling a rabbit from a hat” (51).<br /><br />He argues further that being ‘objectively likely to be true’ isn’t a property that, when added to a true belief, increases its value, and thus, (S2) is true.<br /><br />Goldman and Olsson take issue with Kvanvig’s reasoning here for a couple of reasons. First is what I’ll call the ‘entailment’ objection. Goldman and Olsson think that Kvanvig overlooks the fact that although being reliabily formed entails being likely to be true, being likely to be true doesn’t entail being reliably formed. They say:<br /><br />John may have acquired his belief that he will contract lung cancer from reading tea leaves, an unrealiable process, and yet if John is a heavy smoker, his belief may well be likely to be true” (Goldman and Olsson, p. 8)<br /><br /> Goldman and Olsson overstate what they take to be the crime here. This example would damage Kvanvig’s view only if Kvanvig actually defended that the entailment goes both ways, that is, that (as Goldman and Olsson attribute to him) “Being produced by a process that normally produces true belief just means being likely to be true” (Goldman and Olsson 8). Kvanvig says nothing to pin him to such a biconditional. His view is, rather, that the extent to which being produced by a reliable process is a valuable property for a belief to have is exhausted by the extent to which being likely to be true is a valuable property for a belief to have. And so, an objection to Kvanvig’s claim here should take the form, rather, of pointing out some feature of being produced by a reliable belief forming process that is valuable for a belief to have in a way that is not reducible to the value that a belief would have qua being objectively likely to be true.<br /> This is, indeed, the route they go in their ‘conditional probability’ repsonse. They argue that being produced by a reliable belief forming process can be valuable for a belief in a way that merely being objectively likely to be true isn’t valuable, and further, that its value is such that when combined with a true belief, yields a collectively more valuable whole. They write:<br /><br /><blockquote>“Knowing that p is more valuable than truly believing that p. What is this extra valuable property that distinguishes knowledge from true belief? It is the property of making it likely that one’s future beliefs of a similar kind will also be true. More precisely, under reliabilism, the probability of having more true belief (of a similar kind) in the future is greater conditional on S’s knowing that p than conditional on S’s merely truly believing that p. (p. 16)</blockquote><br /><br /> This claim, if correct, would amount to a counterexample to the swamping premise, which recall, says:<br /><br />(S2) If a given belief is true, its value will not be raised by the fact that it was reliably produced.<br /><br /> Goldman and Olsson, thus, think that a true belief will be more valuable if produced by a reliable process because, as such, it contributes to the diachronic goal of having more true beliefs (of a similar kind) in the future. I want to turn to an example that helps illustrate their idea; it is the espresso example Zagzebski uses to support the swamping premise. Goldman and Olsson write:<br /><br /><blockquote>If a good cup of espresso is produced by a reliable espresso machine, and this machine remains at one’s disposal, then the probability that one’s next cup of espresso will be good is greater than the probability that the next cup of espresso will be good given that the first good cup was just luckily produced by an unrealiable machine. If a reliable coffee machine produces good espresso for you today, and it remains at your disposal, it can normally produce a good espresso for you tomorrow. The reliable production of one good cup of espresso may or may not stand in the singular-causation relation to any subsequent good cup of espresso. But the reliable production of a good cup of espresso does raise or enhance the probability of a subsequent good cup of espresso. This probability enhancement is a valuable property to have (p. 16)</blockquote><br /> This attempted assault on the espresso analogy scores a victory at the expense of betraying a deeper, and perhaps untractable, defect in the ‘conditional probability’ response. The victory, in short, is that it gives an explanation for why two equally good cups of espresso might be such that one is more valuable than the other; this explanation rejects an assumption that Zagzebski seemed to make in the analogy, which is that ‘taste is all that matters’ for espresso (as she thought, ‘being true’ is what matters for a belief).<br /> This sword cuts two ways, though. Consider that True Temp is a reliable belief former, and so the conditional probability of his future beliefs (of a similar kind) being true is greater given that they are formed from a reliable process (i.e. a reliable thermometer, perhaps purchased at the same store as you’d find a reliable espresso maker), than it would be had his beliefs been merely true, but unreliably produced. But, we should object, True Temp is not a knower, and so whatever makes his state valuable should not be as valuable as it would be if he were a knower. However, the conditional probability view has no way to explain this. In sum, the conditional probability response to the swamping argument works only if True Temp knows. But he doesn’t. So it doesn’t work. (Or so my objection goes…)<br /><br />Here’s a second objection:<br /><br />Suppose I have cancer and am in the hospital, and my 12 year old boy (I don’t really have one) is playing baseball in the little league world series. He has been practicing every day from sun up till sun down in hopes of making it to the world series and hitting a homerun. It is the ninth inning of the game, and my son (little Johnny) is up to bat. I am watching the television screen with intensity as he shouts (this one is for you, Dad!). The pitch is on the way, and then……<br /><br />(Option A): The television suddenly blacks out. Knowing I might die any minute, I decide that Johnny has practiced hard and probably hit a home run, and so I believe that he did, although sadly, I realize I will never know. (And then I die, my last thoughts being ones of curiosity).<br /><br />(Option B): The television does not black out, and I get to see Johnny hit the home run on TV. In fact, (for even more evidence) my hospital is close to the baseball field, and the ball comes through the window and lands on my bed. I know that Johnny hit the home run, and then I die (in peace).<br /><br />On the conditional probability view, my true belief in Option B (in which I form my belief from reliable processes, i.e. watching a previously non-deceptive TV broadcast, which doesn’t display phantom images) is more valuable state than my true belief in Option A in so far as the true belief in B was produced by a reliable process, and as such, raises the probability that future beliefs (of a similar kind) will be true. However, as I know I am dying, I have no interest in future beliefs, as I am aware I am in my last throes. (And, in fact, I don’t form any more future beliefs of a similar kind). The conditional probability approach, then, seems committed to claiming that my true belief in B is no more valuable than my true belief in A. But surely that’s not true!<br /><br />Okay, those are my worries. I’d love to hear any thoughts!j. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com26tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-91709092516177075532007-04-24T15:22:00.000+01:002007-04-24T15:24:41.991+01:00Challenging the Swamping PremiseThe ‘swamping’ argument against reliabilism has been advanced on several occasions (i.e. Kvanvig 2003, Swinburne 1999, Zagzebski 2004, W. Jones 1997, and others), and is, at least prima facie, quite persuasive.<br /><br />The crucial premise in the argument is, as Kristoffer Ahlstrom (whose formalization I am using) calls it, the swamping premise.<br /><br />(1) V (SB R,T that p) = V (SBT that p).<br /><br />The swamping premise has been defended a variety of ways. Zagzebski (2004), for example, defends (1) with her ‘espresso analogy.’ She argues that good espresso from an unreliable espresso machine is just as valuable as good espresso from a reliable espresso machine. Analogously, she thinks, for beliefs. Being produced from a reliable process doesn’t add value to a true belief. And, thus, (1).<br /><br />Kvanvig (2003) defends the premise with his ‘two lists’ argument; if you want to know where you can get chocolate, and you are given a list telling you where chocolate is sold, and another list telling you where chocolate is ‘likely’ to be sold, then a conjunction of the two lists is no more valuable than the first list. The value of the second list is ‘swamped’ by the value of the first. So to, he thinks, for beliefs. If a reliably produced belief is valuable because it is ‘likely to be true’, then adding this property to a belief already stipulated as true does not increase its value.<br /><br />The next premise is:<br /><br />(2) V (SK that p) > V(SBT that P)<br /><br />But because reliabilists just define knowledge as (SB R,T that p), we derive:<br /><br />(3) V (SK that p) > V (SB R,T that p). Therefore:<br /><br />(4) SK that p df. SB R,T that p<br /><br />(Note: the move from (3) to (4) relies on an implicit premise that: a difference in value between x and y entails that x y. This assumption, as a side note, lurks in the background as Meno is reasoning to his conclusion that knowledge just is true belief).<br /><br />If the ‘swamping premise’ (i.e. P1) can be adequately defended, it is not difficult to show how further premises will lead to a conclusion that process reliabilism is a false theory of knowledge.<br /><br />There exist some recent attempts to vitiate the swamping argument. I am interested to know whether any succeeds.<br /><br />First attempt: Kristoffer Ahlstrom and the diachronic goal.<br /><br />Ahlstrom argues that the swamping premise is true only if our cognitive coal is conceived of synchronically; that is, only if the value relative to which other epistemic states are valuable by virtue of promoting that value, is having true beliefs now. He argues in favour of a reconstrual of our cognitive goal as diachronic—as having true beliefs not only now, but also later. Under such a framework, he thinks, a reliably formed belief is more valuable than a mere true belief. Here’s Ahlstrom:<br /><br />To be (or have been) reliably formed is such a component since being (or having been) reliably formed implies something about the etiology of the belief in question—an etiology that, if repeatedly instantiated, will promote our diachronic goal to attain and maintain true beliefs through tracking the truth. To believe truly, however, is no such diachronic component since it carries no promise to the effect that the belief was formed in response to the way the world is rather than as a result of mere luck. This is why the presence of truth cannot make the epistemic value of believing reliably otiose”. (Ahlstrom, “An Argument Concerning Swamping”)<br /><br />I agree with Ahlstrom that a ‘synchronic’ conception of our cognitive goal is unhelpfully narrow, however I am not convinced that stipulating a ‘diachronic’ goal gets us the result he wants. My worry is this: the property of a belief that best promotes a diachronic goal is ‘permanence’ of a belief (i.e. see Williamson’s cross-temporal explanation of the value of knowledge in his 2000b), however, permanence attaches to a belief not by virtue of its etiology, but by virtue of the extent to which we hold conviction with regard to the belief. Maybe I’m missing something here.<br /><br />Second try: Goldman and Olsson No. 1<br /><br /> Goldman and Olsson in “Reliabilism and the Value of Knowledge” bring up an interesting case which, they admit, is not at the crux of their argument, but is nonetheless worth mentioning here. They suggest that in at least some deployments of the word ‘know’, we mean nothing other than ‘truly believes.’ Therefore, in at least some cases, it is no more valuable to know than to truly believe. The example they cite is one from Hawthorne (2004) who imagines that a classroom is asked ‘Who knows the capital of Austria?” The idea here is that: whomever says ‘Vienna’ is credited as knowing, and ipso facto, knowledge in such cases just is true belief. <br /> Two problems here. Firstly, I think that it is more likely that in the classroom case, we just ‘misuse’ the word know (in the same way that we might use ‘deny’ sloppily rather than ‘refute’). But that aside, even if the case were legitimate, and we infer from that that some cases of knowing aren’t more valuable than their true-belief counterparts, it wouldn’t establish anything that we haven’t already learned from Sosa’s sand on the beach case. There are some propositions such that knowing them isn’t more valuable than truly believing them.<br /><br />Second try: Goldman and Olsson No. 2<br /><br /> This case is the interesting case. It is an attack of Kvanvig’s two lists’ argument. Goldman and Olsson think that Kvanvig’s two lists argument relies on allegedly spurious thesis of ‘property parasitism’:<br /><br />Property Parasitism: If the value of property P* is parasitic on the value of property P, then the value of P and P* together does not exceed the value of P. (Goldman and Olsson, p. 10)<br /><br />Goldman and Olsson think property parasitism is false by way of counterexample: Suppose, they argue, that you have a ticket worth $1000 and another ticket that has a 10% chance of winning $1000. Clearly you would want both the $1000 and the ticket more than you would want merely the $1000. But, they think, if property parasitism is true, then the $1000 ‘swamps’ the value of the ticket, and thus, you should not prefer the conjunction of the two over the $1000.<br /><br />This is quite clever. I’m afraid, though, that there is a subtle disanalogy between what Kvanvig is trying to do with the two lists argument (about wanting chocolate) and with the money case. In Kvanvig’s case, you goal is a true belief. You can’t get ‘truer than true’ and so once you have a true belief, then adding the property that it is ‘likely to be true’ doesn’t add to the value. On the Goldman/Olson case, though, it remains possible that your conjunction (i.e. of the $1000 and the ticket) could amount to something ‘more valuable than $1000), and for that reason, it seems to be relevantly disanalogous to what takes place when we adopt truth as a goal.<br /><br />There are other ways to go about saving reliabilism form the swamp (i.e. Pritchard’s ‘final value’ discussion of reliable processes, as well as Greco’s ‘intrinsic value of success through ability’ defense of virtue reliabilism), but I’ll stop the discussion here and see if anyone thinks that any of the first three examples are legitimate reasons to deny the swamping premise.j. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-32305196699654166132007-03-05T22:59:00.000+00:002007-03-06T00:43:47.118+00:00The Value Turn in EpistemologyIn his very interesting paper "The Value Turn in Epistemology," Wayne Riggs uses this locution (Value Turn) to characterize a relatively recent trend in epistemology. The 'Value Turn', as he puts it, has consisted in both a widening of the scope of epistemically interesting concepts as well as a methodological change of guard. Both the widening in scope and change in epistemic method reflect an increasing interest in normative features of epistemic inquiry.<br /><br />I think it is safe to say that the 'Value Turn' has been, in no small way, kick-started by the rise of virtue-theoretic approaches to epistemic evaluation that have emerged in the latter half of the past century. As Zagzebski has put it: the virtue-theoretic approach seeks to define epistemic concepts by examining properties of persons, rather than properties of beliefs.<br /><br />The virtue-theoretic project encompasses both the shifts in scope and methodology that Riggs mentions. Consider, first, methodology: When attempting to determine whether S's belief that p is justified, the virtue-theoretic approach prescribes that we must first ask whether the agent came to form the belief in the right kind of way. Rather, then, to ask questions such as: "Is the belief appropriately causally connected to the fact that p" or "was the belief produced in a reliable manner"-- the virtue-epistemologist asks questions such as, "Was the agent epistemically responsible in forming the belief p", "Did her belief arise out of acts of intellectual virtue", etc.<br /><br />This change in methodological evaluation results in a widened scope of epistemically interesting concepts. <br /><br />For example: One way to answer whether an agent's belief has resulted from intellectually virtuous believing will be to first stipulate some epistemic value that constitutes 'epistemic flourishing' and then to identify what traits constitute intellectual virtues by considering the extent to which they promote this value.<br /><br />Some VE theorists identify 'true belief' as the end value, and define the virtues as those traits that are truth-conducive. (Note: also interesting to some VE theorists is not just whether the agent's trait leads her to reliably produce true beliefs, but also, whether the agent is appropriately motivated to reach this end).<br /><br />Other VE theorists, such as Riggs, do not limit 'true belief' as the epistemic end relative to which virtues are definable, but rather, allow other non-alethic epistemic values (such as intelligibility) to count as epistemic goals.<br /><br />One thing that can be learned from these varying approaches within VE is that the virtue-theoretic method of epistemic evaluation opens the door to normative features of inquiry that had in the past been, by and large, considered out of the scope of what is crucial to evaluate central epistemic concepts such as justification and knowledge. <br /><br />Aside from the method and scope sea change, there are two other auguries that (I shall propose) characterize the 'Value Turn.' <br /><br />The first feature has to do with luck. The VE project in its infancy arose as a new strategy for dealing with Gettier problems. The idea is that Gettier problems feature cases in which knowledge is undermined (in some relevant way) by luck; combine this fact with the idea that success through luck appears at odds with success through ability, and you get the makings for an anti-luck strategy that doesn't focus solely on properties of beliefs--a strategy that post-Gettier literature shows has failed.<br /><br />The history of the Gettier problem is a testament to its importance, and the Value Turn has provided us with promising strategies for meeting the problem that were previously overlooked. (Greco's credit-based response to the Gettier problem is an example of this type of anti-luck approach).<br /><br />Thirdly, I don't think we can do justice to the idea of a Value Turn in epistemology without granting that it is characterized, in part, by a resurgance of interest in the Meno problem--which have been given much attention recently thanks to Jon Kvanvig's (2003) book on the value of knowledge. Apart from the case he makes for the value of 'understanding' as importantly distinct from the value of knowledge, he offers some convincing arguments for the idea that an adequate account of the nature of knowledge must be amenable to a corresponding account of the value of knowledge. Put another way, if an account can't explain why knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief, then this account is a failure even if it is a counterexample-free account of the nature of knowledge.<br /><br />To sum up what I've suggested: VE has been an impetus to the 'Value Turn' in epistemology (in part, at least) for the reason that it takes normative evaluation to be indespensible to the task of defining central epistemic concepts; Ability-based responses to the Gettier problem motivate the idea that an adequate anti-luck account of the nature of knowledge cannot ignore the idea the importance of normative features of inquiry such as ability and creditworthiness; the resurgance of the Meno problem instigated by Kvanvig's book (and the responses to it) motiates not only interest in epistemic axiology, but also the idea that an account of the nature of knowledge, independent of a corresponding account of the value of knowledge, is incomplete.<br /><br />Now comes a plea for addition:<br /><br />I'm curious as to what other facets of the 'Value Turn' I am leaving out. It is quite clear that normative epistemology is getting a great deal more attention than it used to... I'm very interested as to how others would go about characterizing this movement. <br /><br />Additionally, an interesting question would be: What books and journal articles best represent the 'Value Turn'?<br /><br />Please do share any thoughts!j. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com63tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-46683034580542545152007-02-26T20:45:00.000+00:002007-02-26T20:57:17.529+00:00History of Epistemic ValueI am working on scrounging together some resources on the history of epistemic value, and have my hat in my hand for suggestions.<br /><br />As most know, Plato's Meno is the paragon starting point for discussion of quesitons related to the value of knowledge. I am hoping to locate other important detours in the history of philosophy in which this sort of discussion takes place.<br /><br />Important quesitons include (for example): in virtue of what is knowledge valuable? Why is having knowledge better than having than mere true opinion? <br /><br />As an aside:<br /><br />I've put up links to drafts of some of my papers on VE and EV on my website; as always, comments are welcome!<br /><br />http://staff.stir.ac.uk/adam.carter<br /><br />Cheers,<br /><br />Adamj. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-88446605451917618422007-02-15T14:13:00.000+00:002007-02-15T14:19:54.649+00:00Social Epistemology Conference at StirlingFor those not aware, I wanted to post this: <br /><br />There is a major international conference on Social Epistemology here at Stirling August 31 - September 2, 2007. The speakers and commentators comprise quite the redoubtable list of names, indeed!<br /><br />Here is a link:<br /><br />http://www.philosophy.stir.ac.uk/postgraduate/SocialEpistemologyConference.php<br /><br />Also, for more information on this check out Stirling's Epistemic Value Blog:<br /><br />http://epistemicvaluestirling.blogspot.com<br /><br />There is also info on the value blog regarding two other upcoming epistemology conferences at Stirling: one on Action and Knowledge, and the other on John McDowell, both taking place later this year.j. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29581846.post-28995838032366371392007-02-14T18:04:00.000+00:002007-02-14T18:18:08.461+00:00New Draft: Luck and Credit in the Space of ReasonsGreetings: Below is a link to a rough draft of a paper I've recently written on McDowell's epistemology; the paper charges his account with failing two anti-luck desiderata.<br /><br /><br />Warning: I am not entirely satisfied with this paper; thanks to some recent suggestions, I am aware that my section on perceptual-recognitional abilities needs amended. (Also, I need to re-think some other claims I make). I've decided to post it nonetheless, in case others wish to consider the nascent arguments and/or or provide any comments.<br /><br />Here is the abstract, and below is a link to the paper:<br /><br />ABSTRACT: This essay will advance the view that the McDowellian theory of knowledge fails to satisfy the requirements of an adequate anti-luck epistemology. Section 1 presents two twin anti-luck desiderata that, I shall argue, an account must accomodate: (i) If S knows p, then S could not have easily been wrong that p; (ii) If S knows p, then S is credit-worthy for her true belief that p. In Section 2, I outline the salient differences between McDowell’s iconoclastic anti-luck strategy and traditional strategies. Section 3 offers reasons for thinking that McDowell fails to satisfy what I have presented as the first anti-luck desideratum; section 4 offers reasons for thinking that McDowell fails the second desideratum.<br /><br /><br />http://staff.stir.ac.uk/adam.carter/documents/luckandcreditWednesdayevening14feb.pdfj. adam carterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06380526663530225079noreply@blogger.com2