I offer an account of what trust is, and of what epistemic self-trust consists in. I identify five distinct arguments extracted from Chapter 2 of Zagzebski's Epistemic Authority for the rationality and epistemic legitimacy of epistemic self-trust. I take issue with the general account of human rational self-regulation on which one of her arguments rests. Zagzebski maintains that this consists in restoring harmony in the psyche by eliminating conflict and so ending ‘dissonance’. I argue that epistemic rationality is distinct from psychic mechanisms aimed at eliminating dissonance, and these two sometimes pull in opposed directions.

In this paper, I argue that, contrary to popular opinion, there is good reason to think that the qualities that make people good reasoners also make them better off. I will focus specifically on epistemic virtue: roughly, the kind of character in virtue of which one is excellently oriented towards epistemic goods. I propose that epistemic virtue is importantly implicated in the realization of some of the goods that are widely believed to be instrumental to, or even constitutive of, well-being. Here I focus on one such good: friendship.

Famously, William James held that there are two commandments that govern our epistemic life: Believe truth! Shun error! In this paper, I give a formal account of James' claim using the tools of epistemic utility theory. I begin by giving the account for categorical doxastic states – that is, full belief, full disbelief, and suspension of judgment. Then I will show how the account plays out for graded doxastic states – that is, credences. The latter part of the paper thus answers a question left open in Pettigrew (2014).

Cognitive penetration of perception is the idea that what we see (hear, taste, etc.) is influenced by such “cognitive” states as beliefs, expectations, and so on. A perceptual belief that results from cognitive penetration may be less justified than a nonpenetrated one. Inferentialism is a kind of internalist view that tries to account for this by claiming that (a) some experiences are epistemically evaluable, on the basis of why the perceiver has that experience, and (b) the familiar canons of good inference provide the appropriate standards by which experiences are evaluated. I examine recent defenses of inferentialism by Susanna Siegel, Peter Markie, and Matthew McGrath and argue that the prospects for inferentialism are dim.

The idea of ‘seeing it for oneself’ is explored. It is claimed that there is something epistemically important about acquiring one's knowledge first-hand via active perception rather than second-hand via testimony (or even via passive perception). Moreover, it is claimed that this kind of active perceptual seeing it for oneself is importantly related to the kind of understanding that is acquired when one possesses a correct and appropriately detailed explanation of how cause and effect are related. In both cases we have a kind of seeing it for oneself – perceptual, intellectual – which serves what is claimed to be a fundamental good: intellectual autonomy. It is argued that this proposal leads to a distinctive view about the goal of inquiry as often being a certain kind of knowledge rather than knowledge simpliciter. Finally, it is claimed that treating intellectual autonomy as a fundamental good is entirely compatible with granting that there is an important social dimension to our epistemic practices.

We often get evidence concerning the reliability of our own thinking about some particular matter. This “higher-order evidence” can come from the disagreement of others, or from information about our being subject to the effects of drugs, fatigue, emotional ties, implicit biases, etc. This paper examines some pros and cons of two fairly general models for accommodating higher-order evidence. The one that currently seems most promising also turns out to have the consequence that epistemic akrasia should occur more frequently than is sometimes supposed. But it also helps us see why this might not be a bad thing.

One of the key tenets of Linda Zagzebski's book Epistemic Authority: A Theory of Trust, Authority, and Autonomy in Belief (2012) is the “Preemption Thesis for epistemic authority.” It says that, when an agent realizes that an epistemic authority believes that p, the epistemically rational response for her is to adopt the authority's belief and to replace all of her previous reasons relevant to whether p by the reason that the authority believes that p. I argue that such a “Hobbesian approach” to epistemic authority yields problematic results. This becomes especially virulent when we apply Preemption to cases in which the agent and the authority share their belief (same-belief cases), or in which both have either a positive or a negative graded doxastic attitude toward a given proposition. As an alternative I propose what I call a “Socratic approach,” according to which epistemic authorities will not only motivate us to adopt their beliefs, but also provide us with higher-order reasons for re-assigning our own considerations their proper place in the web of reasons for and against the view in question, thereby fostering our overall understanding of the topic.

The main question of this paper is: how do we manage to know what our own degrees of belief are? Section 1 briefly reviews and criticizes the traditional functionalist view, a view notably associated with David Lewis and sometimes called the theory-theory. I use this criticism to motivate the approach I want to promote. Section 2, the bulk of the paper, examines and begins to develop the view that we have a special kind of introspective access to our degrees of belief. I give an initial assessment of the view by examining its compatibility with leading theories of introspection. And I identify a challenge for the view, and explain why I'm optimistic that the view can overcome it.

Should a philosophical account of perceptual knowledge accord a justificatory role to sensory experiences? This discussion raises problems for an affirmative answer and sets out an alternative account on which justified belief is conceived as well-founded belief and well-foundedness is taken to depend on knowledge. A key part of the discussion draws on a conception of perceptual-recognitional abilities to account for how perception gives rise both to perceptual knowledge and to well-founded belief.

In my comments I look at what was gained and lost in the move from the Simple Thermometer Model (STM) to the Idealized Thermometer Model (ITM). The move is motivated by the thought that there are going to be cases of disagreement for which the simple model cannot generate results. In this way, the STM is incomplete. I try to say a bit about why we might think that the ITM is incomplete in a relevantly similar way, while also taking a hit in terms of its explanatory value. The STM tells us what to believe (even if not in every case). The ITM might be able to churn out results in some cases that the STM cannot, but offers less guidance about what we ought to believe.

A new kind of skepticism about philosophy is articulated and argued for. The key premise is the claim that many of us are well aware that in the past we failed to have good responses to substantive objections to our philosophical beliefs. The conclusion is disjunctive: either we are irrational in sticking with our philosophical beliefs, or we commit some other epistemic sin in having those beliefs.

In this paper I summarize my book, Epistemic Authority: A Theory of Trust, Authority, and Autonomy in Belief (Oxford University Press, 2012) and then comment and reply to the papers by Christoph Jäger and Elizabeth Fricker.

In recent literature, several authors attempt to naturalize epistemic normativity by employing an etiological account of functions. The thought is that epistemic entitlement consists in the normal functioning of our belief-acquisition systems, where the latter acquire the function to reliably deliver true beliefs through a history of biological benefit.

This paper's aim is twofold. First, it puts pressure on the main proper functionalist claim; it is argued that a history of positive biological feedback is neither necessary nor sufficient for epistemic justification. Second, I suggest that this problem is sourced in a defect of application of functionalist accounts to epistemic normativity, and I offer a fix.

In Epistemic Injustice (2007), Miranda Fricker has insightfully introduced the notion of a hermeneutical injustice, where historic conditions of marginalisation serve to deprive individuals of the appropriate hermeneutical resources with which to render significant patches of their experience fully intelligible to themselves and others. In this paper I draw attention to a shortcoming in Fricker's account: that the only hermeneutical resource she acknowledges is a shared conceptual framework. Consequently, Fricker creates the impression that hermeneutical injustice manifests itself almost exclusively in the form of a conceptual lacuna. Considering the negative hermeneutical impact of certain societal taboos, however, suggests that there can be cases of hermeneutical injustice even when an agent's conceptual repertoire is perfectly adequate. I argue that this observation highlights the need to expand Fricker's account to accommodate a wider range of hermeneutical resources and, in turn, a broader taxonomy of hermeneutical injustice. Specifically, my central case of a societal taboo presses the need to recognize as a valuable hermeneutical resource an expressively free environment, in which individuals can put their conceptual-interpretative resources to good hermeneutical effect.

I consider the structural differences between reasons to believe and reasons to act. I argue that Mark Schroeder's project of providing a unified account of reasons to believe and reasons to act faces serious difficulties. I also investigate the difference between rational requirement and rational permission. While the difference between these notions in the case of action is a matter of the strength of one's reasons, I argue that in the case of belief, the difference depends on what one is attending to.

My aim in this paper is to propose a way to resolve a supposed dilemma currently troubling the debate about rational belief formation in cases of peer disagreement. In section 1, I will introduce the general debate in question as well as the kind of view figuring in the supposed dilemma. In section 2, I will describe how the supposed dilemma arises. In section 3, I will consider the replies that have hitherto been offered and explain in how far these replies should be regarded as unsatisfying. Finally, in sections 4 and 5, I will propose and defend a new reply to the supposed dilemma. This reply consists in rejecting the intuitively appealing view that one should be conciliatory in the relevant kind of case, and in endorsing a more careful position, which respects the intuitions behind conciliationism and which, in contrast to the latter, does not give rise to the kind of dilemma in question.

In “Reasons to Believe and Reasons to Act,” Stewart Cohen argues that balance of reasons accounts of rational action get the wrong results when applied to doxastic attitudes, and that there are therefore important differences between reasons to believe and reasons to act. In this paper, I argue that balance of reasons accounts of rational action get the right results when applied to the cases that Cohen considers, and that these results highlight interesting similarities between reasons to believe and reasons to act. I also consider an argument for Cohen's conclusion based on the principle that Adler, Moran, Shah, Velleman and others call “transparency.” I resist this argument by explaining why transparency is itself doubtful.

This paper deals with the question whether, and to what extent, perceptions can provide a justification for our empirical beliefs. In particular, it addresses the issue of whether they need to be conceptualized by a subject in order to play a justificatory role. It is argued that the conditions under which a subject can have perceptual representational contents and those under which those representational contents can play a justificatory role differ. The upshot is that perception can provide justification only for the beliefs of those creatures who have a conceptual apparatus and are therefore in a position passively to exercise it in perception, even though also creatures devoid of concepts can and often do have perceptual representations.

This paper argues for a virtue-based account of questioning. First, it delineates the unreflective yet rational aspects of questioning and demonstrates that “good” questions – that is, properly focused, pertinent questions – can be obtained not only in reflective but also in unreflective processes. This paper then argues that the unreflective yet rational mode of inquirers in questioning can be characterized by an automatic response to good questions and cues for relevant doubt and further questions, the active and standby modes of responsiveness, and emotional stress on cues for relevant doubt and further questions. Finally, this article outlines how these features can fully be explicated in terms of exercising a sensitivity to good questions as a virtue.

John Hardwig has championed the thesis (NE) that evidence that an expert EXP has evidence for a proposition P, constituted by EXP's testimony that P, is not evidence for P itself, where evidence for P is generally characterized as anything that counts towards establishing the truth of P. In this paper, I first show that (NE) yields tensions within Hardwig's overall view of epistemic reliance on experts and makes it imply unpalatable consequences. Then, I use Shogenji-Roche's theorem of transitivity of incremental confirmation to show that (NE) is false if a natural Bayesian formalization of the above notion of evidence is implemented. I concede that Hardwig could resist my Bayesian objection if he interpreted (NE) as a more precise thesis that only applies to community-focused evidence. I argue, however, that this precisification, while diminishing the philosophical relevance of (NE), wouldn't settle tensions internal to Hardwig's views.