Phenomenal conservatism and dogmatism get a bad rep for allowing some cases of wishful thinking to provide prima facie justification. In this post, I argue that reliabilism has wishful thinking problems that are even worse. Contrast direct and indirect wishful … Continue reading
The Philosophy Departments at Northwestern and Notre Dame are pleased to announce the 3rd annual NU-ND Grad Epistemology conference, to take place April 13-14, 2012 on Northwestern’s campus in Evanston, Illinois. The keynote speaker is Professor Ram Neta (UNC). Details … Continue reading
The Program for this year’s workshop is now set. See: http://fitelson.org/few/schedule.html As you can see, the program is terrific, and so is the venue! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nymphenburg_Palace If you’re interested in attending, please contact the local organizers: Ole Hjortland and/or Florian Steinberger … Continue reading
I am delighted to announce that the speakers for the 6th annual Midwest Epistemology Workshop, which will take place on IU’s campus (Bloomington, Indiana) September 28-29, 2012, have been determined. Keynote speaker: Jim Pryor (NYU) Other participants: Maria Lasonen Aarnio … Continue reading
In the wake of Kvanvig’s series on pragmatic encroachment, here is an argument against the view that rests on assumptions having to do with reason-giving: Roughly, if a pragmatic encroachment theory of knowledge were true, it would be reasonable to … Continue reading
I am very interested in what is often called the “ethics of belief.” I am blamed for believing things I shouldn’t and in turn blame others for believing things they shouldn’t. I think that’s all fine. I do not, however, … Continue reading
Lots of posts on their book on fallibilism, on fallibilist purism, on optionalism, on a Chisholmian perspective on the objects of epistemic appraisal, on rational-preferring-as-if, on -preferring-as-if, and on an account of the value of knowledge. We are now done … Continue reading
Taken from Fantl/McGrath, of course: KL-justification is knowledge-level justification. Background: in Chapter 6, they use a claim about KL-justification to argue for the importance of knowledge. The claim depends on an equivalence thesis: one is justified in believing iff one … Continue reading
Can a subject’s beliefs, desires, fears, or goals causally influence the way things seem to her? Suppose that the answer is yes. That is, suppose that a subject’s mental states can penetrate the way things seem to her. What are … Continue reading
Northwestern’s Philosophy Department is pleased to announce that we will be hosting a Social Epistemology conference, on the topic of the epistemology of groups,on June 22 and 23, 2012. The invited speakers are: David Christensen (Brown University), John Greco (St. … Continue reading