Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Duration: 2019 - 2020

Code: JIN (RTI2018-096225-J-100)

Principal Investigator

Michele Palmira (michelepalmira@gmail.com)

Summary

We constantly judge the world being a certain way rather than other, and we usually evaluate, either positively or negatively, our opinions on what the world is like. Epistemic evaluation is one of the hallmarks of our ability to assess and improve ourselves qua thinkers.

According to a prominent strand of thought, truth – together with properties that entail truth, such as knowledge, or that are somehow conducive to it, such as evidence or epistemic warrant – plays a central role in the epistemic evaluation of our doxastic attitudes. The intuitive thought is that our doxastic attitudes are geared towards truth-tracking, and can therefore be evaluated positively if they are true (or conducive to the truth), and negatively if they are not. This strand of thought can be called Alethic-Oriented Epistemology.

Despite its historical prominence, in recent times Alethic-Oriented Epistemology has started to receive negative press. Some philosophers have argued that a proper solution to various epistemological puzzles, such as those stemming from Cartesian sceptical scenarios and disagreement, requires making room for new types of epistemic evaluations and doxastic attitudes. This raises a Scope Problem: How to evaluate the multifaceted nature of our doxastic life from a squarely epistemic viewpoint?

On the one hand, denying the existence of a Scope Problem in epistemology may result in an overly dogmatic stance. On the other hand, however, allowing too much freedom in evaluating our opinions may give rise to an unpalatable form of relativism.

The guiding research hypothesis of Towards an Enquiry-Based Pluralist Epistemology (TEBAPE) is that a third-way approach of integration between alethic- and non-alethic-based evaluations can solve the Scope Problem and countenance a plurality of epistemic evaluations of the whole doxastic realm without committing us to dogmatism or relativism.

The strategy proposed by TEBAPE hinges on two main conjectures:

(CC1) TEBAPE will explore a new way of type-individuating doxastic attitudes by focusing on the role that they play at different stages of enquiry. TEBAPE will therefore depart from purely functionalist and normativist approaches to the type-individuation of doxastic attitudes by exploring the conjecture that the best way to draw a map of the whole doxastic realm is by focusing on four key stages of enquiry: beginning, advancement, end, and limit.

(CC2) TEBAPE will explore the prospects for a pluralist picture of epistemic normativity in which different types of norms and reasons are available for different types of doxastic attitudes, none of which is more fundamental than any other. TEBAPE will therefore depart from the standard monist approach endorsed by Alethic-Oriented Epistemology to the effect that there is only one type of norm, e.g. truth, or knowledge, and one type of epistemic reason, e.g. evidence, which plays a fundamental role in our epistemic evaluations.

On these grounds, TEBAPE will articulate an Enquiry-Based Epistemic Pluralism which will be deployed to pursue the following two main research aims:

(RA1) To solve the Scope Problem without falling prey to dogmatism or relativism.

(RA2) To explore the wide-ranging implications of the new pluralist framework for contemporary debates about scepticism, disagreement, and the relation between evidence and rationality.