Research Articles, XII, 2

Christopher T. BUFORD ABSTRACT: Those who endorse a knowledge-first program in epistemology claim that rather than attempting to understand knowledge in terms of more fundamental notions or relations such as belief and justification, we should instead understand knowledge as being in some sense prior to such concepts and/or relations. If we suppose that this is the correct approach to theorizing …

Filip ČUKLJEVIĆ ABSTRACT: The aim of this paper is to reexamine the importance of Rip van Winkle’s case for the problem of cognitive dynamics. First I shall present the main problem of cognitive dynamics. Then I shall explain the relevance of Rip’s case to this problem. After that I shall provide a short presentation of the main solutions to this …

Jonas KARGE ABSTRACT: How strongly an agent beliefs in a proposition can be represented by her degree of belief in that proposition. According to the orthodox Bayesian picture, an agent’s degree of belief is best represented by a single probability function. On an alternative account, an agent’s beliefs are modeled based on a set of probability functions, called imprecise probabilities. …

B.J.C. MADISON ABSTRACT: In its most basic form, Simple Reliabilism states that: a belief is justified iff it is formed as the result of a reliable belief-forming process. But so-called New Evil Demon (NED) cases have been given as counterexamples. A common response has been to complicate reliabilism from its simplest form to accommodate the basic reliabilist position, while at …

Ryan ROSS ABSTRACT: Kopec and Titelbaum collect five alleged counterexamples to Uniqueness, the thesis that it is impossible for agents who have the same total evidence to be ideally rational in having different doxastic attitudes toward the same proposition. I argue that four of the alleged counterexamples fail and that Uniqueness should be slightly modified to accommodate the fifth example. …

Michael J. SHAFFER ABSTRACT: This paper contains a critical examination of the prospects for analyses of knowledge that weaken the factivity condition so that knowledge implies only approximate truth. Download PDF

Joby VARGHESE ABSTRACT: This paper proposes a functional approach to characterize epistemic and non-epistemic values. The paper argues that epistemic values are functionally homogeneous since (i) they act as criteria to evaluate the epistemic virtues a hypothesis ought to possess, and (ii) they validate scientific knowledge claims objectively. Conversely, non-epistemic values are functionally heterogeneous since they may promote multiple and …