9 Dec 2011 10:00 – 16:00

Room G.06, Dugald Stewart Building, 3 Charles Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AD

Workshop

Xmas Epistemology-Fest Workshop

Sponsored by:

The annual informal workshop featuring presentations from Edinburgh postgraduates working in epistemology.

Time
10:45 – 11:15	Christopher Ranalli: "A Naive Realist Theory of Perceptual Justification?"
11:15 – 11:45	Alexander Whalen: "Ampliative Understanding"
11:45 – 12:00	Break
12:00 – 12:30	Cameron Boult: "Epistemic Principles in Sceptical Arguments: Closure and Underdetermination"
12:30 – 13:00	Robin McKenna: "Resolving the skeptical problem: Does Edward Craig's genealogy support a contextualist solution to skepticism?"
13:00 – 14:15	Lunch
14:15 – 14:45	Kyle Scott: "Disagreement and track-record arguments"
14:45 – 15:15	Jie Gao: "Social Perspective on Epistemic Valuations"
15:15 – 15:30	Break
15:30 – 16:00	John Lee Whittington: "Locating Luck in the Gettier Problem"
16:00 – 16:30	Lani Watson: "The Value of Questions: Revisited"
16:30 – 17:00	Neil Gascoigne (Univeristy of London): "Tacit Knowledge"

0131 650 3654

Abstracts

"A Naive Realist Theory of Perceptual Justification?"

What's the epistemological relationship between perceptual experience and the world around us? One answer is that perceptual experience is a source of justification for our beliefs about the world. But how does perceptual experience provide justification to those kinds of beliefs? We might think that this question turns, at least in part, on the nature of perceptual experience. According to one view, perceptual experience is a source of reasons, and what enables perceptual experience to be a source of reasons is that perceptual experience has representational content. Does this view improve upon externalist theories about the epistemological role of perceptual experience in our justification for beliefs about the world around us. I argue that it does. But I also argue that these views, like their externalist counterparts, share an epistemological hazard, one that threatens to make knowledge of the world, rather than justification, look impossible. I suggest at the end that what we need in order to avoid this hazard is a naive realist theory of perceptual justification: one which explains how we have justified beliefs about the world on the basis of external objects in the world entering into perceptual experience as constituents. But, as I'll suggest, whether such a view is even possible remains unclear.

"Ampliative Understanding"

The value turn in epistemology prompted questions on how to account for the value of knowledge - especially over that of mere true belief. Recently, understanding has taken on a role as a possible epistemic state that can answer these value questions. In what follows I offer an account of understanding, which I call ampliative understanding, that can address the value problem and places understanding where it belongs - as an epistemic state that is more valuable than true belief and knowledge. My account focuses on understanding as a cognitive achievement that allows us to acquire more true beliefs about a particular subject.

Epistemic Principles in Sceptical Arguments: Closure and Underdetermination

I examine the relationship between the underdetermination-based sceptical argument (UND) and the closure-based argument (DC). I defend the claim that UND is the more fundamental sceptical argument. I'll start by outlining a debate between Brueckner, Cohen, and Pritchard. Cohen argues contra Brueckner that any refutation of DC entails the refutation of UND, but not vice versa. Pritchard disagrees with both claims. He provides a compelling criticism of the first claim but his criticism of the second needs to be supplemented. Since this is a key issue for the anti-sceptical strategy I favour, I examine Cohen's second claim in more detail and suggest a way to respond.

"Resolving the skeptical problem: Does Edward Craig's genealogy support a contextualist solution to skepticism?"

In this talk I attempt to connect two ideas in the literature on Edward Craig's work on the genealogy of knowledge. First, some have argued that Craig's genealogy supports a version of epistemic contextualism (see, for example, Henderson, 'Motivated Contexualism'). Second, some have argued that Craig's genealogy is of use in solving the skeptical problem (see, for example, Fricker, 'Scepticism and the Genealogy of Knowledge'). I argue that Craig's genealogy does support a limited form of epistemic contextualism and that there is some reason to think that this limited form of contextualism can solve the skeptical problem. However, the solution, even if it works, isn't particularly satisfying for the reflective epistemologist, never mind the skeptic. I argue that (1) this is a problem for a number of other solutions to the skeptical problem and (2) there is an upside to this.

"Disagreement and track-record arguments"

Adam Elga has argued that one ought to endorse the Equal Weight View in the Epistemology of Disagreement because it is the only view that does not permit bootstrapping arguments. Thomas Kelly has responded to this argument by seeking to motivate the claim that bootstrapping arguments are sometimes rational, and thereby attempting to show that the Equal Weight View must be false because it does not permit bootstrapping in any circumstances. This paper will show that Kelly's response is unsatisfactory because he has not identified an instance of rational bootstrapping. There is, however, another response to Elga's argument which is to show that the conclusion of the bootstrapping argument does not follow from its premises.

"Social Perspective on Epistemic Valuations"

The 'context of discovery' implied in Craig's 'genealogy' of epistemological concepts significantly provides a clue to do epistemic valuation from the social perspective (Craig 1990). Several epistemologists have done such work from this point of view recently (e.g. Kusch 2009, Grimm 2009). My research then further highlights the essential consequences of this trend. Four aspects are mainly considered: the distinctive normative force of epistemic appraisals, the evaluations of full range of true beliefs, the value of knowledge and the intellectual virtues.

"Locating Luck in the Gettier Problem"

The Gettier problem presents a genuine problem for tripartite accounts of knowledge as the three conditions for knowledge fail to exclude cases of epistemic luck. If any account of luck is to be considered the correct account it must be able to capture how and where luck occurs in Gettier counter examples. Drawing on recent work on luck, this paper will examine whether the modal account of luck (MAL) can successfully account for the epistemic luck that occurs in Gettier counter examples. This will be achieved by analysing and locating the luck in the formally equivalent Two Generals problem. The conclusion of the paper will be that although MAL can successfully account for luck in Gettier counter examples, how and where the luck occurs is radically different from the common assumptions made about luck in the Gettier problem.

"The Value of Questions: Revisited"

Motivation for an investigation of the value of questions in epistemology arises in the context of the contemporary virtue epistemology movement. In particular, the emphasis within this movement on evaluative concerns in epistemology alongside the growing consensus for a shift away from the exclusive study of knowledge in this domain provides fertile ground for this investigation. In relation to these combined virtue epistemological aspirations, there has also emerged in recent years a growing body of literature concerning the value of understanding (e.g. Zagzebski, 2001; Kvanvig, 2003; Pritchard, 2010). I aim to highlight the close relationship between this emerging discourse and an investigation of the value of questions in epistemology and argue that the value of understanding must ultimately be derived from the role that questions play in its achievement. In particular, I argue that question-asking plays a distinctively valuable role in achieving understanding and that the ability to answer questions is a distinctively valuable feature of the cognitively successful end state. I will then briefly outline how this claim sits within the context of the wider contemporary debate.