The Case for Reconstructive Neopragmatism in Normative Metaepistemology

1. The Case for Reconstructive Neopragmatism in Normative Metaepistemology Jonathan M. Weinberg Philosophy & Cognitive Science Indiana University jmweinbe@indiana.edu

2. Epistemology & Metaepistemology • Normative epistemology = how we ought to go about forming & revising our beliefs, arguing for our claims, etc. • Normative metaepistemology = how we ought to go about forming & revising our beliefs, arguing for our claims, etc. about normative epistemology • Analytic epistemology has generally used intuitions about cases as its central method. • E.g., the Gettier case; the Truetemp case • My goals here are to problematize that method; to present a means for debating the merits of various methods; and to make the case for a different method, which I will call reconstructive neopragmatism.

3. Some Troubled Presuppositions • The standard analytic intuition-based method has (at least) two major presuppositions: • Most everyone with the same basic linguistic competence will judge the cases the same way. • The judgments about the cases are insensitive to epistemologically insignificant factors. • There is growing evidence that for intuitions about cases, of the sort relied on by analytic epistemologists, neither of these presuppositions is true.

4. A Gettier Case Bob has a friend, Jill, who has driven a Buick for many years. Bob therefore thinks that Jill drives an American car. He is not aware, however, that her Buick has recently been stolen, and he is also not aware that Jill has replaced it with a Pontiac, which is a different kind of American car. Does Bob really know that Jill drives an American car, or does he only believe it? REALLY KNOWS ONLY BELIEVES

6. Sample Case from Priming Study • Here is one of the cases we asked subjects to evaluate: • One day Charles was knocked out by a falling rock; as a result his brain was “rewired” so that he is always right whenever he estimates the temperature where he is. Charles is unaware that his brain has been altered in this way. A few weeks later, this brain rewiring leads him to believe that it is 71 degrees in his room. Apart from his estimation, he has no other reasons to think that it is 71 degrees. In fact, it is 71 degrees. Does Charles really know that it is 71 degrees in the room, or does he only believe it? • Unlike the study with the Gettier case, subjects could respond along a 10-point Likert scale. • The survey had 4 such questions, and, to look out for order effects, 4 different permutations of the survey were administered. • Latin square permutation: 1-2-3-4, 2-3-4-1, 3-4-1-2, and 4-1-2-3 • We found a very significant (p<.001) order effect on the Charles case:

7. Only believes …………………Really knows

8. How to Argue about Metaepistemology • The fundamental question to ask is: what method will best serve the goals that we have in normative epistemology? • Analogously to IBE, there may be trade-offs across different factors: some accounts will work better on some, others on others • 7 primary desiderata for a method of normative epistemology • truth-conduciveness • normativity • dialectical robustness • progressivism without radicalism • interdisciplinary comportment • minimal naturalism • plausible relativism/universalism

9. Evaluating the Method of Intuitions • Truth-conduciveness: + • Or risk a failure of Reidian self-trust • Normativity: + • Interdisciplinary comportment: - • Logic & math, maybe, but not very much • Progressivism w/o radicalism: - • Intrinsically conservative • E.g., our 17th-century intuitions vs. modern science • Minimal naturalism: ? • Doesn’t have to reject it, but frequently does • Hard to give an account of why our intuitions are really about the epistemic norms themselves, and not merely about our own minds • Dialectical robustness: X • Intuitions are fundamentally subjective • If I claim to intuit p, and you claim to intuit not-p (or at least claim not to intuit p)… where do we go from there? • Plausible relativism/universalism: X • No good answer to the diversity of intuitions problem discussed earlier • Either stipulate that ‘our’ intuitions are the only ones that count, or relativize by ethnic and socio-economic background.

10. Evaluating Metaepistemic Naturalism • MN = deferring to the sciences to answer the questions of normative epistemology. E.g., Kornblith & cognitive ethology • Truth-conduciveness, interdisciplinarity, minimal naturalism, dialectical robustness: + • Plausible relativism/universalism: - • We share a great deal with chimps and plovers – but it may well be that our differences, especially with regard to language and social structure, might require that different epistemic norms apply to us • Progressivism w/o radicalism: X • Potentially too radical; what the cognitive ethologists end up calling “knowledge” in other animals might end up failing to even be truth-evaluable • Normativity: X • Can’t even begin to get an account of, e.g., the demanding and providing of reasons for beliefs

11. A new proposal:reconstructive neopragmatism • We first ask: what are our epistemic goals? • We can then ask: what norms would most facilitate our achieving those goals? • Metaphor of an ‘epistemic constitutional convention’ • Truth-conduciveness, normativity, minimal naturalism: + • Interdisciplinary comportment: + • Will need to borrow heavily from psychology, sociology, etc. • Progressivism w/o radicalism: + • Our current norms might not maximize our goals, so we may be able to improve on those norms; but it’s unlikely that they are deeply wrong • Dialectical robustness, plausible relativism/universalism: +? • Depends on whether the basic epistemic goals are universally shared • If so, then universalism is unproblematic, and we should expect no worries about dialectical robustness • If not, then the resulting relativism is unproblematic – different basic goals should yield different sets of norms. • Discussions will break down when such differences are uncovered, but the relativism option should greatly mitigate the conflict – we will expect to intractably disagree only in cases where we can agree to disagree.

12. Some Applications • Skepticism as quality control • If a set of norms are incoherent, or would be universally violated, then we can reject them as not helpful for forwarding our epistemic goals • Justification & Internalism • Should our norms of justification be internalist? I.e., should they require that an agent be aware of the sources of their own justification? • I would argue that the relevant goals for our norms of justification are diachronic reliability and dialectical robustness (the ‘DR desiderata’). So we refer the internalism question to those desiderata: • Yes, to the extent that this facilitates good epistemic resource management & promotes fruitful discussions • But: not absolutely, because it’s just beyond us to be always & everywhere aware of our sources of justification • Where to make exceptions from internalism? Where the DR desiderata can be well-served without requiring such justificatory self-awareness. • Beliefs about propositions whose truth value and evidential status are unlikely to change; and • That are universally shared in the agent’s relevant community • With such epistemically stable and universal beliefs, there is no extra advantage, with regard to the DR desiderata, in insisting on further ratiocination or introspection. • Note that epistemic stability and universality happen to typify the domain of a priori justified beliefs; e.g., claims in arithmetic. So, as a bonus, we get the beginnings of an account of the a priori in addition to an approach to questions about internalism.