Thursday, January 28, 2021

Epistemic Desirables

The following is taken from a conversation with a thoroughgoing evidentialist: 

Toward the goal of ensuring that our epistemic disputes do not reduce to verbal disputes over the word “knowledge,” I propose the following:

By Knowledge+ I mean: Those true-belief states that have the appropriate amount and quality of internally accessible evidence. This evidence cannot be circular. I mean to leave the word "evidence" vague.  (Or, honestly, plug in whatever definition of knowledge that you best like here.  I'm reserving this word for what you mean by it.)

But there are other epistemic desirables beyond just Knowledge+. 

Here's one:
Knowledge#: Reliable belief formation is a desirable, that is, beliefs that result from a reliable process is an epistemic desirable.  

Take Reformed Epistemology to be the following: Christian belief can be subsumed under both Knowledge+ and Knowledge#.

How valuable is Knowledge#? 

Knowledge# is that form of knowledge possessed by most laymen when it comes to their sense-perception.  If Christianity can exhibit the same form of rationality as that possessed by sense-perception, then it's in a fairly good position.

Should we require Knowledge+ of sense-perception in order for it to be rational?  Perhaps not.  Alston has devoted many pages demonstrating that sense-perception cannot be subsumed under Knowledge+, and yet we still hold that it is rational to accept sense-perception.

There are other epistemic desirables beyond just Knowledge+ and Knowledge#.  “Certainty,” for instance.  “Knowing-that-you-know” (so, a second-order knowledge) may be another. And so on.

Actually, I’d like to revise my criteria for Knowledge#.  I want to add an internal requirement, but one that isn’t capable of being shared with people via arguments.

Knowledge# Revised:  An agent A possesses Knowledge#  

(a) if that agent believes that p, 
(b) p is true, 
(c) p is a result of a reliable-process, and 
(d) the presence of the belief that p phenomenologically compels A to accept p.

(d) is the condition that is internal yet unshareable via argument.  Revised-Knowledge# (RK#) is more valuable than Unrevised-Knowledge# (UR#), as RK# produces an assurance that p.  So UR# may still be an epistemic desirable, but not as desirable as RK#.  

RK# is the sort of knowledge most laymen possess concerning their beliefs based on sense-perception.

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