Zagzebski on Rationality

This paper examines Linda Zagzebski’s account of rationality, as set out in her rich, wide-ranging, and important book, Epistemic Authority: A Theory of Trust, Authority, and Autonomy in Belief. We briefly describe the account that she offers and then consider its plausibility. In particular, in the first section we argue that a number of Zagzebski’s claims with regard to rationality require more support than she offers for them. Moreover, in the second section, we contend that far from offering Zagzebski a quick way of dealing with radical scepticism, her account of rationality actually seems to be particularly vulnerable to this problem

Cognitive bias, scepticism and understanding

In recent work, Mark Alfano (2012; 2014) and Jennifer Saul (2013) have put forward a similar kind of provocative sceptical challenge. Both appeal to recent literature in empirical psychology to show that our judgments across a wide range of cases are riddled with unreliable cognitive heuristics and biases. Likewise, they both conclude that we know a lot less than we have hitherto supposed, at least on standard conceptions of what knowledge involves. It is argued that even if one grants the empirical claims that Saul and Alfano make, the sceptical conclusion that they canvass might not be as dramatic as it first appears. It is further argued, however, that one can reinstate a more dramatic sceptical conclusion by targeting their argument not at knowledge but rather at the distinct (and distinctively valuable) epistemic standing of understanding

Aesthetic risk

Artists often emphasize the importance of risk to their work. But this raises a puzzle, as on a standard probabilistic account of risk we are obliged to treat some of these cases as not involving genuine risk at all. It is argued that the way to resolve this puzzle is to recognize a crucial shortcoming in the probabilistic account of risk. With this shortcoming rectified, and hence with a revised modal account of risk in place, we are able to treat the relevant cases of putative aesthetic risk as entirely genuine.</jats:p

Dos concepciones del escepticismo radical

Se ha defendido que en el debate contemporáneo sobre el escepticismo radical a propósito de nuestro conocimiento perceptivo del mundo externo se pueden delinear dos formas de escepticismo radical. Si bien son similares superficialmente y puede parecer que produzcan el mismo resultado escéptico, aquí argumentamos que estos tipos de escepticismo difieren fundamentalmente en términos del desafío que plantean a la posibilidad del conocimiento perceptivo racionalmente fundamentado. Mientras que una de las formulaciones de escepticismo radical, que resulta del principio de cierre, se ocupa de la aparente transitividad de las razones, la otra formulación, que resulta del principio de indeterminación se ocupa de la aparente insularidad de las razones. Se defiende aquí que entender las diferencias entre estas dos formas de escepticismo radical es clave para reconocer cómo dos variedades muy influyentes de anti-escepticismo que a menudo se caracterizan como competidoras –debido a Wittgenstein y John McDowell- puede que deban reconsiderarse como de apoyo mutuo.It is argued that in the contemporary debate about radical scepticism regarding our perceptual knowledge of an external world one can delineate two forms of radical scepticism. While superficially similar, and generating the same sceptical upshot, it is argued that they nonetheless fundamentally differ in terms of the challenge they offer to the possibility of rationally grounded perceptual knowledge. Whereas the one formulation of radical scepticism, which turns on the closure principle, concerns the apparent transitivity of reasons, the other formulation, which turns on underdetermination principle, concerns the apparent insularity of reasons. It is argued that understanding the differences between these two forms of radical scepticism is key to recognising how two influential varieties of anti-scepticism which are often characterised as competing -due to Wittgenstein and John McDowell- might be instead reconceived as mutually-supporting

Doubt Undogmatized:Pyrrhonian Scepticism, Epistemological Externalism and the "Metaepistemological" Challenge

It has become almost a conventional wisdom to argue that Cartesian scepticism poses a far more radical sceptical threat than its classical Pyrrhonian counterpart. Such a view fails to recognise, however, that there is a species of sceptical concern that can only plausibly be regarded as captured by the Pyrrhonian strategy. For whereas Cartesian scepticism is closely tied to the contentious doctrine of epistemological internalism, it is far from obvious that Pyrrhonian scepticism bears any such theoretical commitments. It is argued here that by viewing the Pyrrhonian style of sceptical argument in terms of this contemporary epistemological externalist/internalist distinction one can gain a new insight into some of the more problematic elements of this variety of classical thought and also get a handle on certai contemporary worries that have been raised regarding the anti-sceptical efficacy of externalist theories of knowledge