Certain Doubts

Call for Papers: On April 15th and 16th of 2010, the Synthese Conference will take place at Columbia University. The 2010 edition of the Synthese Conference will focus on the theme of epistemology and economics. (more…)

Vincent Hendricks, Professor of Formal Philosophy at The University of Copenhagen, is now  Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University. Congratulations, Vincent!

As part of our Northwestern Epistemology brownbag series, Juan Comesana (Arizona) was in Evanston yesterday giving a talk, and in it he raised an issue I have been wondering about as well: the nature and existence of philosophical expertise.  (I speak for myself, though much of what follows is in the spirit of Juan’s excellent discussion.)

It is uncontroversial (I think!) that philosophers as a group, and most philosophers as individuals, make a good deal of false philosophical claims.  This suggests that if there is such a thing as philosophical expertise, it is not to be understood interms of our epistemic competence w.r.t. the philosophical claims we make.  (I tried my hand at arguing for something in this vicinity in “Reliabilism in Philosophy,” Phil Studies 142: 105-117, available in pre-published form here.)

What, then, might the nature of philosophical expertise be?  I have some ideas here but, prompted by Juan to think again about this issue, I’d be interested to hear what others think.

The knowledge account of assertion (KA) says you may assert Q only if you know Q. KA’s defenders (e.g. Unger and Williamson) have frequently pointed to data on challenging assertions to support their view. For instance, when I assert Q, it’s appropriate ask ‘How do you know that?’ or ‘Do you really know that?’. KA nicely explains the relevance of these questions.

One objection to this is that it’s also appropriate to challenge an assertion by asking ‘Are you certain of that?’, even though knowledge doesn’t require certainty. KA cannot explain this. (It can if knowledge requires certainty, but this is a non-standard view.)

I have a KA-friendly story to tell about why the “certainty” challenge appears appropriate (which I won’t explain here). In addition to that, I also think KA’s proponents can and should expand the terrain of linguistic data, to take into account not just appropriate challenges to assertion, but appropriate prompts as well.

For instance, these two prompts are practically interchangeable: ‘What time does the meeting start?’, and ‘Do you know what time the meeting starts?’. We respond exactly the same way to either of these prompts, namely, either by saying what time the meeting starts, or by saying ‘I don’t know’. But these prompts aren’t interchangeable: ‘What time does the meeting start?’, and ‘Are you certain about what time the meeting starts?’. The latter is too demanding, and even somewhat alienating. Save for special circumstances, we don’t prompt assertion this way.

So whereas knowledge is closely connected to assertion both upstream and downstream, certainty is, at best, connected downstream only.

More on this and related matters here.

In case you missed it, take a look at the website for this institute here, directed by Crispin Wright and focusing on core areas, including epistemology both of the formal and more traditional varieties. Lots of interesting things happening there, and I hear from Luca Moretti that they’ll be announcing posts at different levels soon, from postdocs to professorial research fellowships.

There’s a lot of exciting work being done on epistemic norms lately, including the norms of action. What I’m about to discuss clearly relates, in one way or another, to a lot of that work. But I’m not going to make the connections explicit here — I’ll save that for another time.

The principle I’m interested in is this:

Knowledge Suffices for Action (KSA): If you know that Q, then you may act as if Q.

This is intended as a necessarily true generalization.

I think the greatest threat to KSA comes from cases where you know that Q, something important turns on whether Q, and double-checking is very easy and nearly costless. For instance, consider this case.

(VIAL) Dayna is a medical doctor called to the scene, where a snake-bite victim lies unconscious. It will soon cause the victim serious pain if she gives him the wrong antivenin. The park ranger called and told Dayna all the relevant details just minutes ago over the phone. The ranger clearly saw that it was a cobra that bit the victim. So Dayna brought the cobra antivenin. Dayna remembers that it is cobra antivenin in her pocket (she just placed it there a couple minutes ago, and there’s nothing else in her pocket). The ranger has a simple test kit, which in just one minute can be used to double-check that it is cobra antivenin. The victim was just bit, and it will take hours before any harm comes to him. Dayna kneels down to treat the victim, sees that it is a cobra bite, pulls the vial of antivenin from her pocket, and . . .

So here’s the question. Is it okay for Dayna to just administer the antivenin without double-checking? Double-checking would consist of placing a drop of the liquid into the simple, quick, perfectly reliable, and easily available test kit.

My take on this case: (A) Dayna knows that it’s the cobra antivenin (in virtue of remembering that it is), (B) it’s not okay for her to administer the antivenin without double-checking, and (C) double-checking is not a way of acting as if it is the cobra antivenin.

What do you think?

These kids don’t know, but they’re having loads of fun.  Check it out!  Link

Alison Gopnik (Berkeley) appeared on The Colbert Report last night to discuss her new book, The Philosophical Baby.

A more light-hearted post: what are the chances of a JFP significantly lighter than last year? I hereby stipulate: ‘lighter’ means 90% or less of the total number of ads for last year in the October issue. For the record, the printed version had 267 job postings. A little math shows that what I’m asking is if the number will be 240 or less. Free drink at either the pacific or central (aka ‘the cool regional meetings’) from me for the first 5 winners!

Call for Papers: Seventh Annual Formal Epistemology Workshop
Konstanz, September 2-4, 2010
Organized by Franz Huber (Konstanz) and Branden Fitelson (UC Berkeley)
Kindly funded by the Zukunftskolleg of the University of Konstanz and the German Research Foundation.
Program:
September 2, 2010: FE Meets Traditional Epistemology
Invited Speakers: Elke Brendel (Mainz), Hartry Field (NYU)
September 3, 2010: FE Meets Philosophy of Science
Invited Speakers: David Atkinson (Groningen), Peter Milne (Stirling), Jeanne Peijnenburg (Groningen)
September 4, 2010: Ernest W. Adams Memorial – FE Meets Logic and Philosophy of Language
Invited Speakers: Dorothy Edgington (Birkbeck), Hannes Leitgeb (Bristol), Vann McGee (MIT)

There will be 5-8 slots for presenting participants and 15-18 slots for non-presenting participants.

Every participant will be reimbursed for travel expenses. Presenting participants will also be reimbursed for lodging expenses. Non- presenting participants are offered accomodation from September 1-5, 2010, for a total of EUR 80.-
Presenting participants are required to submit a paper by e-mail to formal.epistemology@uni-konstanz.de
Non-presenting participants are required to submit a letter of motivation (at most 1 page) plus CV by e-mail to formal.epistemology@uni-konstanz.de
Deadlines:
Submission of papers: December 31, 2009
Notification of acceptance for presentation: February 28, 2010
Submission of letter of application plus CV: March 31, 2010
Notification of acceptance for participation: May 31, 2010