On the Coherence of Higher-order Beliefs

Abstract in UndeterminedLet us by first-order beliefs mean beliefs about the world, such as the belief that it will rain tomorrow, and by second-order beliefs let us mean beliefs about the reliability of first-order, belief-forming processes. In formal epistemology, coherence has been studied, with much ingenuity and precision, for sets of first-order beliefs. However, to the best of our knowledge, sets including second-order beliefs have not yet received serious attention in that literature. In informal epistemology, by contrast, sets of the latter kind play an important role in some respectable coherence theories of knowledge and justification. In this paper, we extend the formal treatment of coherence to second-order beliefs. Our main conclusion is that while extending the framework to second-order beliefs sheds doubt on the generality of the notorious impossibility results for coherentism, another problem crops up that might be no less damaging to the coherentist project: facts of coherence turn out to be epistemically accessible only to agents who have a good deal of insight into matters external to their own belief states

The ‘credibility paradox’ in China’s science communication: Views from scientific practitioners

In contrast to increasing debates on China’s rising status as a global scientific power, issues of China’s science communication remain under-explored. Based on 21 in-depth interviews in three cities, this article examines Chinese scientists’ accounts of the entangled web of influence which conditions the process of how scientific knowledge achieves (or fails to achieve) its civic authority. A main finding of this study is a ‘credibility paradox’ as a result of the over-politicisation of science and science communication in China. Respondents report that an absence of visible institutional endorsements renders them more public credibility and better communication outcomes. Thus, instead of exploiting formal channels of science communication, scientists interviewed were more keen to act as ‘informal risk communicators’ in grassroots and private events. Chinese scientists’ perspectives on how to earn public support of their research sheds light on the nature and impact of a ‘civic epistemology’ in an authoritarian state

Beyond deficit-based models of learners' cognition: Interpreting engineering students' difficulties with sense-making in terms of fine-grained epistemological and conceptual dynamics

Researchers have argued against deficit-based explanations of students' troubles with mathematical sense-making, pointing instead to factors such as epistemology: students' beliefs about knowledge and learning can hinder them from activating and integrating productive knowledge they have. In this case study of an engineering major solving problems (about content from his introductory physics course) during a clinical interview, we show that "Jim" has all the mathematical and conceptual knowledge he would need to solve a hydrostatic pressure problem that we posed to him. But he reaches and sticks with an incorrect answer that violates common sense. We argue that his lack of mathematical sense-making-specifically, translating and reconciling between mathematical and everyday/common-sense reasoning-stems in part from his epistemological views, i.e., his views about the nature of knowledge and learning. He regards mathematical equations as much more trustworthy than everyday reasoning, and he does not view mathematical equations as expressing meaning that tractably connects to common sense. For these reasons, he does not view reconciling between common sense and mathematical formalism as either necessary or plausible to accomplish. We, however, avoid a potential "deficit trap"-substituting an epistemological deficit for a concepts/skills deficit-by incorporating multiple, context-dependent epistemological stances into Jim's cognitive dynamics. We argue that Jim's epistemological stance contains productive seeds that instructors could build upon to support Jim's mathematical sense-making: He does see common-sense as connected to formalism (though not always tractably so) and in some circumstances this connection is both salient and valued.Comment: Submitted to the Journal of Engineering Educatio

Thinking Twice about Virtue and Vice: Philosophical Situationism and the Vicious Minds Hypothesis

This paper provides an empirical defense of credit theories of knowing against Mark Alfano’s challenges to them based on his theses of inferential cognitive situationism and of epistemic situationism. In order to support the claim that credit theories can treat many cases of cognitive success through heuristic cognitive strategies as credit-conferring, the paper develops the compatibility between virtue epistemologies qua credit theories, and dual-process theories in cognitive psychology. It also a response to Lauren Olin and John Doris’ “vicious minds” thesis, and their “tradeoff problem” for virtue theories. A genuine convergence between virtue epistemology and dual-process theory is called for, while acknowledging that this effort may demand new and more empirically well-informed projects on both sides of the division between Conservative virtue epistemology (including the credit theory of knowing) and Autonomous virtue epistemology (including projects for providing guidance to epistemic agents)

Toward a Lockean Unification of Formal and Traditional Epistemology

Can there be knowledge and rational belief in the absence of a rational degree of confidence? Yes, and cases of "mistuned knowledge" demonstrate this. In this paper we leverage this normative possibility in support of advancing our understanding of the metaphysical relation between belief and credence. It is generally assumed that a Lockean metaphysics of belief that reduces outright belief to degrees of confidence would immediately effect a unification of coarse-grained epistemology of belief with fine-grained epistemology of confidence. Scott Sturgeon has suggested that the unification is effected by understanding the relation between outright belief and confidence as an instance of the determinable-determinate relation. But determination of belief by confidence would not by itself yield the result that norms for confidence carry over to norms for outright belief unless belief and high confidence are token identical. We argue that this token-identity thesis is incompatible with the neglected phenomenon of “mistuned knowledge”—knowledge and rational belief in the absence of rational confidence. We contend that there are genuine cases of mistuned knowledge and that, therefore, epistemological unification must forego token identity of belief and high confidence. We show how partial epistemological unification can be secured given determination of outright belief by degrees of confidence even without token-identity. Finally, we suggest a direction for the pursuit of thoroughgoing epistemological unification

Rethinking university assessment

Developments in globalisation and new technologies are making significant impacts in higher education. Universities in a global market are increasingly concerned to reorient their degree programmes to meet the vocational needs of the Knowledge Economy. A growing adoption of technology enhanced learning, through blended and networked learning, has the potential to transform higher education practice – but assessment methods have been slow to change. This paper argues the case for universities to align assessment methods to meet the needs of 21st Century knowledge workers. It identifies skills and dispositions associated with graduate occupations in the Knowledge Economy, informing a new conceptual model for assessment. Radical recommendations are made to faculty staff and university policymakers: instead of centring assessment on the personal, academic achievements of individuals at the end of a degree course, the focus should instead be on the quality of the collective, applied achievements of students operating in project teams

The Epistemology of “Epistemology Naturalized”

Quine's “Epistemology Naturalized” has become part of the canon in epistemology and excited a widespread revival of interest in naturalism. Yet the status accorded the essay is ironic, since both friends and foes of philosophical naturalism deny that Quine makes a plausible case that the methods of naturalism can accommodate the problems of epistemology

Educating for Intellectual Virtue: a critique from action guidance

Virtue epistemology is among the dominant influences in mainstream epistemology today. An important commitment of one strand of virtue epistemology – responsibilist virtue epistemology (e.g., Montmarquet 1993; Zagzebski 1996; Battaly 2006; Baehr 2011) – is that it must provide regulative normative guidance for good thinking. Recently, a number of virtue epistemologists (most notably Baehr, 2013) have held that virtue epistemology not only can provide regulative normative guidance, but moreover that we should reconceive the primary epistemic aim of all education as the inculcation of the intellectual virtues. Baehr’s picture contrasts with another well-known position – that the primary aim of education is the promotion of critical thinking (Scheffler 1989; Siegel 1988; 1997; 2017). In this paper – that we hold makes a contribution to both philosophy of education and epistemology and, a fortiori, epistemology of education – we challenge this picture. We outline three criteria that any putative aim of education must meet and hold that it is the aim of critical thinking, rather than the aim of instilling intellectual virtue, that best meets these criteria. On this basis, we propose a new challenge for intellectual virtue epistemology, next to the well-known empirically-driven ‘situationist challenge’. What we call the ‘pedagogical challenge’ maintains that the intellectual virtues approach does not have available a suitably effective pedagogy to qualify the acquisition of intellectual virtue as the primary aim of education. This is because the pedagogic model of the intellectual virtues approach (borrowed largely from exemplarist thinking) is not properly action-guiding. Instead, we hold that, without much further development in virtue-based theory, logic and critical thinking must still play the primary role in the epistemology of education

On the Polish Roots of the Analytic Philosophy of Religion

Philosophers of religion of the Cracow Circle (1934-1944) are the principal precursors of what is now called the analytic philosophy of religion. The widespread claim that the analytic philosophy of religion was from the beginning an Anglo-American affair is an ill-informed one. It is demonstrable that the enterprise, although not the label "analytic philosophy of religion," appeared in Poland in the 1930’s. Józef Bochenski’s postwar work is a development of the Cracow Circle’s prewar work in the analytic philosophy of religion, or at least of important elements of that earlier work. Bochenski’s approach in his ’Logic of Religion’ is quite original and might still be profitably studied and discussed by philosophers of religion of the analytic persuasio

Introduction—What is Epistemic Contextualism?

Introduces contextualism about knowledge ascriptions, and provides a brief summary of the contributions to the Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Contextualism