RESEARCH ARTICLES IX

Umut BAYSAN ABSTRACT: Mnemonic confabulation is an epistemic failure that involves memory error. In this paper, I examine an account of mnemonic confabulation offered by Sarah Robins in a number of works. In Robins’ framework, mnemonic cognitive states in general (e.g., remembering, misremembering) are individuated by three conditions: existence of the target event, matching of the representation and the target event, …

John BIRO, Fabio LAMPERT ABSTRACT: What the rational thing to do in the face of disagreement by an epistemic peer is has been much discussed recently. Those who think that a peer’s disagreement is itself evidence against one’s belief, as many do, are committed to a special form of epistemic dependence. If such disagreement is really evidence, it seems reasonable to …

Miguel LÓPEZ-ASTORGA ABSTRACT:Although written long before, in 2012 a work by Prior presenting a system that was able to demonstrate Hintikka’s theorem was published. Maybe one of the most relevant elements of that system is an axiom that clearly relates necessity, and hence modal logic, to obligation, and hence deontic logic. This paper analyzes that axiom based upon Carnap’s method …

P.D. MAGNUS ABSTRACT: It is now commonly held that values play a role in scientific judgment, but many arguments for that conclusion are limited. First, many arguments do not show that values are, strictly speaking, indispensable. The role of values could in principle be filled by a random or arbitrary decision. Second, many arguments concern scientific theories and concepts which …

Timothy PERRINE ABSTRACT: Evidentialism has shown itself to be an important research program in contemporary epistemology, with evidentialists giving theories of virtually every important topic in epistemology. Nevertheless, at the heart of evidentialism is a handful of concepts, namely evidence, evidence possession, and evidential fit. If evidentialists cannot give us a plausible account of these concepts, then their research program, …

Mattias SKIPPER ABSTRACT: Many epistemologists have endorsed a version of the view that rational belief is sensitive to higher-order defeat. That is to say, even a fully rational belief state can be defeated by (sufficiently strong) misleading higher-order evidence, which indicates that the belief state is irrational. In a recent paper, however, Maria Lasonen-Aarnio calls this view into doubt. Her …

Jacques-Henri VOLLET ABSTRACT:Many philosophers agree that there is an epistemic norm governing action. However, they disagree on what this norm is. It has been observed that the word ‘know’ is prominent in ordinary epistemic evaluations of actions. Any opponent of the knowledge norm must provide an explanation of this fact. Gerken has recently proposed the most developed explanation. It invokes …