Metaepistemology

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Metaepistemology is the branch of epistemology and metaphilosophy that studies the underlying assumptions made in debates in epistemology, including those concerning the existence and authority of epistemic facts and reasons, the nature and aim of epistemology, and the methodology of epistemology. [1]

Contents

Perspectives in methodological debates include traditional epistemology which argues for the use of intuitions and for the autonomy of epistemology from science, experimental philosophy which argues against intuitions and for the use of empirical studies in epistemology, pragmatism which argues for the reconstruction of epistemic concepts to achieve practical goals, naturalism which argues that epistemology should be empirical and scientifically-informed, and feminism which criticises androcentric bias in epistemology and argues for the use of feminist method.

Terminology

Metaepistemology is a relatively modern term and probably originated at some point in the 20th century. [2] Dominique Kuenzle identifies Roderick Firth as possibly coining it in a 1959 article discussing the views of Roderick Chisholm on the ethics of belief. [3] Richard Brandt used the term in the 1967 edition of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy , defining it as a higher-order discipline, analogous to metaethics, that attempts to explain epistemic concepts and to understand the underlying logic of epistemic statements. [4] In 1978, also inspired by the work of Roderick Chisholm, William Alston released "Meta-Ethics and Meta-Epistemology", the first paper with the explicit aim of defining the distinction between metaepistemology and "substantive epistemology", in which he defined metaepistemology as the study of "the conceptual and methodological foundations of [epistemology]." [5] Whilst subsequent theorists using the term have agreed on the need for a distinction between metaepistemology and other areas of epistemology, there are substantial disagreements about how and where to draw the lines. [6]

Metaepistemology is a branch of both metaphilosophy and epistemology. [7] Some sources define it narrowly as the epistemology of epistemology, [8] including The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy which states that the role of metaepistemology is in comparing different epistemologies and analyzing epistemic concepts. [9] Others emphasise the role of metaepistemology in examining epistemology's goals, methods and criteria of adequacy. [10] Metaepistemology is also sometimes characterised as the study of epistemic statements and judgements, including their semantic, ontological and pragmatic status, [8] or as the study of epistemic facts and reasons. [11] Metaepistemology is a reflective or higher-order discipline that takes ordinary epistemology as its subject matter, which itself is a first-order or substantive discipline. [12] The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy emphasises that metaepistemology is concerned with the fundamental assumptions of epistemology. [13] Similarly, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states that metaepistemology "takes a step back from particular substantive debates in epistemology in order to inquire into the assumptions and commitments made by those who engage in these debates." [1]

Relationship to epistemology

The division between metaepistemology and the other branches of epistemology—as well as their connections with one another—are debated by metaepistemologists. [14] Some theorists, such as William Alston, characterise metaepistemology as dealing with the analysis of epistemic concepts such as knowledge. [9] Others, such as Dominique Kuenzle and Christos Kyriacou, argue that the analysis of knowledge is a paradigmatic example of a standard first-order epistemological question, not a metaepistemological one. [15] Theorists also differ on whether the debate between internalism and externalism is epistemological or metaepistemological. [16]

As well as the question of where the dividing line between metaepistemology and the rest of epistemology should be placed, there are also differing views about what branches to divide epistemology into. The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy contrasts metaepistemology with "substantive epistemology" whereas the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy states that epistemology can be divided into three branches analogously to the three branches of ethics: metaepistemology, normative epistemology and applied epistemology. [17] Richard Fumerton views the idea of a branch of normative epistemology as problematic because he views epistemic normativity as inherently different in character to moral normativity; he instead divides epistemology into metaepistemology and applied epistemology. [18]

Views about the relationship between metaepistemology and the other branches of epistemology fall into two groups: autonomy and interdependency. According to the autonomy view, metaepistemology is an entirely independent branch of epistemology that neither depends on the other branches nor entails any particular position in them. For example, according to this view, a person being an epistemic realist, anti-realist, or relativist has no implications for whether they should be a coherentist, foundationalist, or reliabilist, and vice versa. According to the interdependency view, on the other hand, there are strong theoretical interdependencies between the branches and a normative epistemological view may even be fully derivable from a metaepistemological one. [19]

Nature and methodology of epistemology

W. V. Quine challenged traditional epistemology with his philosophy of naturalized epistemology Willard Van Orman Quine on Bluenose II in Halifax NS harbor 1980.jpg
W. V. Quine challenged traditional epistemology with his philosophy of naturalized epistemology

Epistemology is commonly defined as the "theory of knowledge". In this sense, it investigates the nature of knowledge and how far it extends, but epistemologists also investigate other concepts such as justification, understanding and rationality. [20] To account for this diversity of interests, epistemology is sometimes characterised as two connected projects: gnoseology concerned with the theory of knowledge, and intellectual ethics concerned with guiding inquiry according to proper intellectual norms. [21] Epistemology is traditionally viewed as an a priori discipline focused on reflective thought rather than empirical evidence, and as autonomous from the results and methods of the sciences. [22] It is also generally seen as a normative discipline, evaluating beliefs as either justified or unjustified and prescribing the proper way to form beliefs. [23] As the central focus of epistemology, knowledge is generally understood in terms of determinate beliefs, but degrees of belief or credences are also important concepts, and metaepistemologists have debated which is more fundamental to epistemology. [24]

Alternatives to the traditional view of epistemology may deny some or all of these features. For example, naturalistic epistemology denies the autonomy of epistemology, holding that epistemology should be informed by either the methods or ontology of science. In its most radical form, associated in particular with the naturalized epistemology of W. V. Quine, it claims that epistemology should be replaced with empirical disciplines such as psychology or cognitive science. [25] Advocates of experimental philosophy claim that epistemology should use a posteriori methods such as experiments and empirical data, either replacing traditional philosophical methods or merely supplementing them. [26] More traditional methods include the use of intuitions about particular cases or thought experiments to support epistemological theories or ideas. [27] A prominent example in epistemology is the use of intuitions regarding Gettier cases to test theories of knowledge. [28] Intuitions are also used in the process of reflective equilibrium, in which conflicting intuitions are brought into alignment by modifying or removing intuitions until they form a coherent system of beliefs. [29]

A number of issues in the methodology of epistemology have been influenced by Gettier cases originating with Edmund Gettier Edmund L Gettier III ca 1960s umass.jpg
A number of issues in the methodology of epistemology have been influenced by Gettier cases originating with Edmund Gettier

Related to the use of intuitions is the method of analysis to clarify epistemic terms. Traditionally, analysis in epistemology has been seen as conceptual analysis, which attempts to clarify concepts such as knowledge by providing necessary and sufficient conditions for their use. [30] A similar view sees analysis as semantic or linguistic analysis, in which the way terms are actually used is tracked to try and reveal their meaning. [31] However, the problems posed to conceptual analysis of knowledge by Gettier cases have led some philosophers such as Timothy Williamson to become pessimistic about such approaches. Williamson and naturalists such as Hilary Kornblith have also argued that epistemologists should be concerned with actual epistemic phenomena and states rather than words and concepts. [32] According to an alternative viewpoint, analysis in epistemology is metaphysical analysis, which aims at understanding the nature of the thing being investigated. [33]

An alternative methodology to philosophical analysis is explication. Explication aims to clarify a term by replacing it with a more precisely defined technical term. The technical term should remain close in meaning to the original term but can deviate from intuitions to fulfil theoretical or practical goals. [34] Practical explication, also known as a function-first approach, identifies the purpose or function of a term to clarify its meaning. Proposed functions of the term knowledge, for example, include its role in identifying reliable sources of information and in marking an end-point for inquiry. [35] This approach is associated with the pragmatism of Charles Sanders Peirce and neopragmatists such as Mark Kaplan and Edward Craig. [36] Inspired by Craig, Jonathan Weinberg has proposed an explicit metaepistemology underlying this approach, resulting in a method of "analysis-by-imagined-reconstruction". [37]

Another methodological issue in epistemology is the debate between particularists and generalists. According to particularists, particular cases of knowledge need to be identified before the general principles underlying knowledge can be understood. Generalists, on the other hand, argue that the principles underlying knowledge are required to reliably identify cases. This debate is made more complicated by the fact that each question seems to depend on the other; a general theory of knowledge is needed to know if particular cases count as knowledge, but a theory of knowledge is potentially arbitrary without being tested against particular cases. This is known as the problem of the criterion. [38] Generalism was popular in modern philosophy, but by the middle of the 20th century particularism was the dominant view. In the 21st century, particularism became less dominant after a period driven by responses to Gettier cases, and epistemic methodology widened to include considerations regarding the value of knowledge and the relationships between knowledge and related concepts such as assertion. [39]

Sally Haslanger has argued that epistemic concepts should be reformulated from a feminist lens to remove androcentric bias Sally Haslanger, May 2013 (cropped).jpeg
Sally Haslanger has argued that epistemic concepts should be reformulated from a feminist lens to remove androcentric bias

According to feminist epistemology, epistemology has been historically rooted in androcentric bias. An example cited by feminist philosophers is epistemology's focus on propositional knowledge, which they argue is due to femininity being associated with emotional and practical forms of knowledge while being devalued compared to stereotypes of masculine rationality and theoreticity. [40] At the same time, feminists typically argue against a value-free of "disinterested" methodology, holding that epistemology is inherently value-laden. [41] The problem of reconciling feminist epistemology's criticism of androcentric bias and simultaneous acceptance that feminism has its own biases is called the "bias paradox". [42] Louise Antony has embraced feminist naturalised epistemology to solve this problem, arguing that feminists should try to show that feminist values produce empirically better theories. [43] Other feminist approaches to epistemology can also be viewed as in conversation with different viewpoints, and as extending criticisms of traditional epistemology from a feminist lens. [44] For example, Sally Haslanger has argued from a pragmatist feminist perspective that epistemic concepts should be reformed to remove androcentric biases so they can better serve their purposes within epistemology. [45]

Metanormativity

Epistemic language often includes sentences with a normative appearance; for example "you should believe in the evidence" or "it is good to be an open-minded researcher". This normative appearance of epistemic language gives rise to many metanormative questions such as whether epistemic semantics is truly normative, whether or not there are objective epistemic facts about what we ought to believe, how we could ever gain knowledge of such facts as well as whether or not they could fit into a naturalistic philosophy, and the relationship between epistemology and ethics as normative disciplines. [46]

As in meta-ethics, views about the semantics of epistemology can be divided into cognitivism and non-cognitivism. Epistemic cognitivism holds that epistemic judgements such as "you should believe in the evidence" express beliefs about facts about the world and so characteristically aim at the truth. Epistemic non-cognitivism, on the other hand, holds that such judgements do not express beliefs, instead expressing the desires or attitudes of the speaker, and so are not truth-apt. [47]

Likewise, views about the metaphysics of epistemology can be divided into epistemic realism and anti-realism. Epistemic realism is the view that mind-independent epistemic facts, reasons and properties exist. Epistemic realism generally also holds that epistemic facts provide categorical reasons for belief (i.e. reasons that apply to agents regardless of their desires or goals). Epistemic anti-realism denies the existence of such epistemic facts, reasons and properties, instead characterising them as mind-dependent, and argues that mind-dependent facts provide us with only with instrumental reasons (i.e. reasons that only apply to agents depending on their desires and goals). Anti-realist theories are generally thought to fit well with naturalist philosophy because they ground normative epistemic facts in descriptive natural facts such as facts about human psychology. [48] A view which seeks to find a middle ground between realism and anti-realism is constructivism (also known as constitutivism) which argues that normative truths are constructed by agents such that epistemic facts are grounded by or constitutive of facts about agents (such as facts about their desires or about the pre-conditions of their agency). [49]

There are broadly two positions about the relationship between metaepistemology and metaethics: the parity thesis and the disparity thesis. The parity thesis holds that because metaethics and metaepistemology have important structural similarities to one another, their answers to metanormative questions such as whether there are any normative facts will be the same. For example, according to the parity thesis, if epistemic realism is true, then moral realism must also be true. The parity thesis has been used in "companions-in-guilt" arguments which aim to extend arguments for or against realism in metaepistemology to metaethics, and vice versa. For example, Terence Cuneo has argued that denying the existence of epistemic facts is self-defeating because it requires arguing that we should believe that there are no facts about what we should believe. According to this argument, there must be epistemic facts and, given the parity premise, also moral facts. Similarly utilising the parity premise, Sharon Street, Allan Gibbard and Matthew Chrisman have argued that reasons for being moral anti-realists extend to epistemic anti-realism. In contrast to the parity thesis, the disparity thesis holds that there is some important disparity between metaethics and metaepistemology which means that their answers to metanormative questions could be very different from one another. For example, Chris Heathwood argues that moral facts are irreducibly normative whilst epistemic facts are reducible to descriptive facts such as facts about evidence and probability. As a result, he thinks that we have reason to be moral realists but not necessarily epistemic realists. [50] [51]

Related Research Articles

In analytic philosophy, anti-realism is the position that the truth of a statement rests on its demonstrability through internal logic mechanisms, such as the context principle or intuitionistic logic, in direct opposition to the realist notion that the truth of a statement rests on its correspondence to an external, independent reality. In anti-realism, this external reality is hypothetical and is not assumed.

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called theory of knowledge, it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowledge in the form of skills, and knowledge by acquaintance as a familiarity through experience. Epistemologists study the concepts of belief, truth, and justification to understand the nature of knowledge. To discover how knowledge arises, they investigate sources of justification, such as perception, introspection, memory, reason, and testimony.

Foundationalism concerns philosophical theories of knowledge resting upon non-inferential justified belief, or some secure foundation of certainty such as a conclusion inferred from a basis of sound premises. The main rival of the foundationalist theory of justification is the coherence theory of justification, whereby a body of knowledge, not requiring a secure foundation, can be established by the interlocking strength of its components, like a puzzle solved without prior certainty that each small region was solved correctly.

In metaphilosophy and ethics, metaethics is the study of the nature, scope, ground, and meaning of moral judgment, ethical belief, or values. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ethics and applied ethics.

Justification is a property of beliefs that fulfill certain norms about what a person should believe. Epistemologists often identify justification as a component of knowledge distinguishing it from mere true opinion. They study the reasons why someone holds a belief. Epistemologists are concerned with various features of belief, which include the ideas of warrant, knowledge, rationality, and probability, among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knowledge</span> Awareness of facts or being competent

Knowledge is an awareness of facts, a familiarity with individuals and situations, or a practical skill. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often characterized as true belief that is distinct from opinion or guesswork by virtue of justification. While there is wide agreement among philosophers that propositional knowledge is a form of true belief, many controversies focus on justification. This includes questions like how to understand justification, whether it is needed at all, and whether something else besides it is needed. These controversies intensified in the latter half of the 20th century due to a series of thought experiments called Gettier cases that provoked alternative definitions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Applied philosophy</span> Branch of philosophy

Applied philosophy is a branch of philosophy that studies philosophical problems of practical concern. The topic covers a broad spectrum of issues in environment, medicine, science, engineering, policy, law, politics, economics and education. The term was popularised in 1982 by the founding of the Society for Applied Philosophy by Brenda Almond, and its subsequent journal publication Journal of Applied Philosophy edited by Elizabeth Brake. Methods of applied philosophy are similar to other philosophical methods including questioning, dialectic, critical discussion, rational argument, systematic presentation, thought experiments and logical argumentation.

Ethical intuitionism is a view or family of views in moral epistemology. It is foundationalism applied to moral knowledge, the thesis that some moral truths can be known non-inferentially. Such an epistemological view is by definition committed to the existence of knowledge of moral truths; therefore, ethical intuitionism implies cognitivism.

Contextualism, also known as epistemic contextualism, is a family of views in philosophy which emphasize the context in which an action, utterance, or expression occurs. Proponents of contextualism argue that, in some important respect, the action, utterance, or expression can only be understood relative to that context. Contextualist views hold that philosophically controversial concepts, such as "meaning P", "knowing that P", "having a reason to A", and possibly even "being true" or "being right" only have meaning relative to a specified context. Other philosophers contend that context-dependence leads to complete relativism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virtue epistemology</span> Philosophical approach

Virtue epistemology is a current philosophical approach to epistemology that stresses the importance of intellectual and specifically epistemic virtues. Virtue epistemology evaluates knowledge according to the properties of the persons who hold beliefs in addition to or instead of the properties of the propositions and beliefs. Some advocates of virtue epistemology also adhere to theories of virtue ethics, while others see only loose analogy between virtue in ethics and virtue in epistemology.

Naturalized epistemology is a collection of philosophic views about the theory of knowledge that emphasize the role of natural scientific methods. This shared emphasis on scientific methods of studying knowledge shifts the focus of epistemology away from many traditional philosophical questions, and towards the empirical processes of knowledge acquisition. There are noteworthy distinctions within naturalized epistemology. Replacement naturalism maintains that we should abandon traditional epistemology and replace it with the methodologies of the natural sciences. The general thesis of cooperative naturalism is that traditional epistemology can benefit in its inquiry by using the knowledge we have gained from cognitive sciences. Substantive naturalism focuses on an asserted equality of facts of knowledge and natural facts.

Laurence BonJour is an American philosopher and Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Washington.

Keith Lehrer is Emeritus Regent's Professor of philosophy at the University of Arizona and a research professor of philosophy at the University of Miami, where he spends half of each academic year.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to epistemology:

Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope (limitations) of knowledge. It addresses the questions "What is knowledge?", "How is knowledge acquired?", "What do people know?", "How do we know what we know?", and "Why do we know what we know?". Much of the debate in this field has focused on analyzing the nature of knowledge and how it relates to similar notions such as truth, belief, and justification. It also deals with the means of production of knowledge, as well as skepticism about different knowledge claims.

Feminist epistemology is an examination of epistemology from a feminist standpoint.

Formative epistemology is a collection of philosophic views concerned with the theory of knowledge that emphasize the role of natural scientific methods. According to formative epistemology, knowledge is gained through the imputation of thoughts from one human being to another in the societal setting. Humans are born without intrinsic knowledge and through their evolutionary and developmental processes gain knowledge from other human beings. Thus, according to formative epistemology, all knowledge is completely subjective and truth does not exist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennifer Lackey</span> American philosopher

Jennifer Lackey is an American academic; she is the Wayne and Elizabeth Jones Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University. Lackey is known for her research in epistemology, especially on testimony, disagreement, memory, the norms of assertion, and virtue epistemology. She is the author of Learning from Words: Testimony as a Source of Knowledge and of numerous articles and book chapters. She is also co-editor of The Epistemology of Testimony and The Epistemology of Disagreement: New Essays.

Richard Anthony Fumerton is a Canadian American philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of Iowa with research interests in epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and value theory. He has been cited as an influential expert on the position of "metaepistemological scepticism". He received his B.A. in philosophy from the University of Toronto in 1971 and his M.A. and PhD from Brown University in 1973 and 1974, respectively. He has been the F. Wendell Miller Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa since 2003.

Applied epistemology refers to the study that determines whether the systems of investigation that seek the truth lead to true beliefs about the world. A specific conceptualization cites that it attempts to reveal whether these systems contribute to epistemic aims. It is applied in practices outside of philosophy like science and mathematics.

References

Citations

  1. 1 2 Carter & Sosa 2022.
  2. ↑ Kyriacou 2016, Historical Background.
  3. ↑ Kuenzle 2017, p. 77. Primary source: Firth 1959.
  4. ↑ Brandt 1967.
  5. ↑ Kuenzle 2017, p. 78. Primary source: Alston 1978, p. 275.
  6. ↑ Kuenzle 2017, pp. 78, 84.
  7. ↑ Moser 2015; Kyriacou n.d..
  8. 1 2 Kuenzle 2017, pp. 84–86.
  9. 1 2 Bunnin & Yu 2009.
  10. ↑ Kuenzle 2017, pp. 84–86; Gerken 2018; Moser 2015.
  11. ↑ Kyriacou & McKenna 2018, p. 1.
  12. ↑ Gerken 2018; Kyriacou n.d.; Moser 2015.
  13. ↑ Moser 2015.
  14. ↑ Kuenzle 2017, pp. 78, 84; Kyriacou n.d., §1.
  15. ↑ Kuenzle 2017, p. 79; Kyriacou n.d., §1.
  16. ↑ Kuenzle 2017, p. 86.
  17. ↑ Bunnin & Yu 2009; Kyriacou n.d., §1.
  18. ↑ Fumerton 2006, p. 33-34.
  19. ↑ Kyriacou n.d., §1.
  20. ↑ Carter & Sosa 2022, §2.1; Blaauw & Pritchard 2005, p. 49.
  21. ↑ Carter & Sosa 2022, §2.1.
  22. ↑ Kappel 2011, pp. 836–837; Rysiew 2020, §1.1.
  23. ↑ Crumley 2009, p. 16; Rysiew 2020, §1.1.
  24. ↑ Carter & Sosa 2022, §2.2.
  25. ↑ Kappel 2011, pp. 836–837; Rysiew 2020, §1.2.
  26. ↑ Gerken 2018, §4; Weinberg 2011, pp. 827–828; Pritchard 2012, pp. 101–102.
  27. ↑ Lycan 2011, p. 813; Pritchard 2012, p. 91; Alexander & Weinberg 2007, p. 56.
  28. ↑ Pritchard 2012, pp. 91–92; Alexander & Weinberg 2007, pp. 56–57.
  29. ↑ Lycan 2011, pp. 818–819; Pritchard 2012.
  30. ↑ Kuenzle 2017, pp. 9–10; Carter & Sosa 2022, §3.2.
  31. ↑ Gardiner 2015, pp. 33–34; Carter & Sosa 2022, §3.2.
  32. ↑ Carter & Sosa 2022, §3.2; Hannon 2019, pp. 27–28.
  33. ↑ Carter & Sosa 2022, §3.2.
  34. ↑ Kuenzle 2017, pp. 11–12.
  35. ↑ Carter 2016, pp. 226–228; Gardiner 2015, pp. 36–37; Hannon 2019, pp. 12–15.
  36. ↑ Kuenzle 2017, pp. 44–48; Misak 2011, p. 862.
  37. ↑ Kuenzle 2017, pp. 50–52.
  38. ↑ Carter & Sosa 2022, §3.1; Greco 2021, §1.
  39. ↑ Greco 2021, §§1–2.
  40. ↑ Tanesini 2011, pp. 885–888; Rooney 2011, pp. 10–12.
  41. ↑ Tanesini 2011, pp. 889–890; Rooney 2011, pp. 15–16.
  42. ↑ Kuenzle 2017, p. 59; Tanesini 2011, p. 890.
  43. ↑ Kuenzle 2017, pp. 59–60.
  44. ↑ Kuenzle 2017, p. 56; Rooney 2011, p. 17.
  45. ↑ Kuenzle 2017, pp. 63–66.
  46. ↑ Kyriacou n.d., §2; McHugh, Way & Whiting 2018, pp. 1–3.
  47. ↑ Kyriacou n.d., §3; McHugh, Way & Whiting 2018, pp. 4–5.
  48. ↑ Kyriacou n.d., §3; McHugh, Way & Whiting 2018, pp. 5–6; Kyriacou & McKenna 2018, pp. 1–2.
  49. ↑ McHugh, Way & Whiting 2018, pp. 67–68; Kyriacou & McKenna 2018, p. 3.
  50. ↑ Kyriacou n.d., §1; Kyriacou & McKenna 2018, pp. 4–5; McHugh, Way & Whiting 2018, p. 6.
  51. ↑ Primary sources: Cuneo 2007; Street 2009; Gibbard 2003; Chrisman 2007; Heathwood 2018.

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