Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T13:52:41.540Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Easy Knowledge, Circularity, and the Puzzle of Reliability Knowledge

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2019

Matthias Steup
Matthias Steup*
Affiliation:
University of Colorado, Boulder, USA
*
*Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

According to externalist reliabilism and dogmatic foundationalism, it's possible to gain knowledge through a perceptual experience without being in a position to know that the experience is reliable. As a result, both of these views face the problem of making knowledge of perceptual reliability too easy, for they permit deducing perceptual reliability from particular perceptual experience without already knowing that these experiences are trustworthy. Ernest Sosa advocates a two-stage solution to the problem. At the first stage, a rich body of perceptual animal knowledge is acquired. At the second stage, perceptual knowledge becomes reflective after deducing perceptual reliability from the initial body of perceptual animal knowledge. I defend the alternative approach of rejecting both externalist reliabilism and dogmatic foundationalism. According to the alternative view, perceptual knowledge and knowledge of perceptual reliability require each other. Such a cognitive structure seems viciously circular. I propose that the appearance of vicious circularity dissipates when the relationship in question is viewed, not as one of temporal priority, but instead as synchronic mutual dependence. At a given time, one cannot have perceptual knowledge without knowledge of perceptual reliability, and vice versa. Such mutual dependence, I argue, is benign.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 16 , Special Issue 4: 2018 Episteme Conference in Honor of Ernest Sosa , December 2019 , pp. 453 - 473
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BonJour, L. (1985). The Structure of Empirical Knowledge. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Brogaard, B. (2013). ‘Phenomenal Seemings and Sensible Dogmatism.’ In Tucker, C. (ed.), Seemings and Justification: New Essays on Dogmatism and Phenomenal Conservatism, pp. 270–89. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brown, J. (2005). ‘Doubt, Circularity and the Moorean Response to the Sceptic.’ Philosophical Perspectives 19, 1–14.Google Scholar
Chisholm, R. (1980). The Foundations of Knowing. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Christensen, D. (1994). ‘Conservatism in Epistemology.’ Noûs 28, 69–89.Google Scholar
Cohen, S. (2002). ‘Basic Knowledge and the Problem of Easy Knowledge.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65, 309–29.Google Scholar
Cohen, S. (2005). ‘Why Basic Knowledge is Easy Knowledge.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 70, 417–30.Google Scholar
Cohen, S. (2010). ‘Bootstrapping, Defeasible Reasoning, and A Priori Justification.’ Philosophical Perspective 24, 142–59.Google Scholar
Davies, M. (2004). ‘Epistemic Entitlement, Warrant Transmission and Easy Knowledge.’ Aristotelian Society Suppl. Vol. 78, 213–45.Google Scholar
Feldman, R. (2003). Epistemology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.Google Scholar
Fricker, E. (1994). ‘Against Gullibility.’ In Matilal, B.K. and Chakrabarti, A. (eds), Knowing From Words, pp. 125–61. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Fumerton, R. (1995). Metaepistemology and Skepticism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Harman, G. (1986). Change in View. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Huemer, M. (2001). Skepticism and the Veil of Perception. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Lackey, J. (2008). Learning from Words. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lackey, J. and Sosa, E. (2006). The Epistemology of Testimony. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lycan, W.G. (1988). Judgement and Justification. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lycan, W.G. (2013). ‘Phenomenal Conservatism and the Principle of Credulity.’ In Tucker, C. (ed.), Seemings and Justification: New Essays on Dogmatism and Phenomenal Conservatism, pp. 293–305. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Markie, P. (2005). ‘Easy Knowledge.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 70, 406–16.Google Scholar
Neta, R. (2010). ‘Liberalism and Conservatism in the Epistemology of Perceptual Belief.’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88, 685–705.Google Scholar
Pryor, J. (2000). ‘The Skeptic and the Dogmatist.’ Noûs 34, 517–49.Google Scholar
Pryor, J. (2004). ‘What's Wrong with Moore's Argument?’ Philosophical Issues 14, 349–78.Google Scholar
Quine, W.V.O. (1951). ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism.’ Philosophical Review 60, 20–43.Google Scholar
Silins, N. (2007). ‘Basic Justification and the Moorean Response to the Skeptic.’ In Gendler, T. and Hawthorne, J. (eds), Oxford Studies in Epistemology, Vol. 2, pp. 108–42. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sosa, E. (2009). Reflective Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Steup, M. (2004). ‘Internalist Reliabilism.’ Philosophical Issues 14, 404–425.Google Scholar
Steup, M. (2018). ‘Destructive Defeat and Justificational Force: The Dialectic of Dogmatism, Conservatism, and Meta-Evidentialism.’ Synthese 197, 2907–33.Google Scholar
Steup, M. (2019). ‘Benign Infinity.’ In Fitelson, B., Borges, R. and Braden, C. (eds), Themes from Klein: Knowledge, Scepticism, and Justification, pp. 235–257. Cham: Springer.Google Scholar
Tucker, C. (2010). ‘Why Open-Minded People Should Endorse Dogmatism.’ Philosophical Perspectives 24, 529–45.Google Scholar
Vahid, H. (2004). ‘Varieties of Epistemic Conservatism.’ Synthese 141, 97–122.Google Scholar
Vogel, J. (2000). ‘Reliabilism Leveled.’ Journal of Philosophy 97, 602–23.Google Scholar
White, R. (2006). ‘Problems for Dogmatism.’ Philosophical Studies 131, 525–57.Google Scholar
Wright, C. (2004). ‘On Epistemic Entitlement: Warrant for Nothing (and Foundations for Free)?’ Aristotelian Society Supplement 78, 167–212.Google Scholar