Metaepistemology
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Epistemology |
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Metaepistemology is the branch of
Perspectives in methodological debates include traditional epistemology which argues for the use of intuitions and for the autonomy of epistemology from science,
Terminology
According to philosopher Dominique Kuenzle, metaepistemology is not an established term in
Some sources define metaepistemology narrowly as the epistemology of epistemology,
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.[12] Some theorists, such as William Alston, characterise metaepistemology as dealing with the analysis of epistemic concepts such as knowledge.[7] 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.[13] Theorists also differ on whether the debate between internalism and externalism is epistemological or metaepistemological.[14]
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.[15] 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.[16]
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 the other branches. 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.[17]
Epistemological methodology
Overall, traditional accounts of epistemological methodology hold that epistemological inquiry is
The use of intuitive judgements in traditional epistemological methodology has been criticised due to empirical results coming from the field of
In response to this debate, Jonathan Weinberg has argued that one reason epistemologists have defended an intuition-driven methodology is because these results from experimental philosophy do not provide an alternative methodology to be used in its place. In order to strengthen the case against intuition-driven methodology, Weinberg proposes an alternative methodology which he calls "reconstructive neopragmatism" and compares it to intuition-driven methodology by how well they each meet up to several desirable methodological qualities including truth-conduciveness and the ability to produce normative results, the two most important qualities according to Weinberg. Weinberg argues that the biggest failures of intuition-driven methodology is that it doesn't foster successful conversations because intuitions are entirely subjective and cannot be rationally argued for or against and that it seems to imply epistemic relativism due to varying intuitions across cultures. Weinberg's reconstructive neopragmatism replaces intuitions with an “analysis-by-imagined-reconstruction” in which epistemologists continually evaluate and re-evaluate how epistemic norms and concepts should be changed to best achieve practical goals such as organising our lives. Weinberg claims that an advantage to this pragmatist methodology over intuition-driven methodology is that it allows for progressive change as epistemic circumstances change across time.[29]
Another alternative to traditional epistemological methodology in epistemology is
Metanormativity
This section needs expansion with: more information from Kyriacou n.d., Kyriacou & McKenna 2018 and McHugh, Way & Whiting 2018. You can help by adding to it. (June 2021) |
Epistemic language often includes sentences with a
As in
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.[40] 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).[41]
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
References
Citations
- ^ a b Carter & Sosa 2022.
- ^ Kuenzle 2017, p. 77. Primary source: Firth 1959.
- ^ Brandt 1967.
- ^ Kuenzle 2017, p. 78. Primary source: Alston 1978, p. 275.
- ^ Kuenzle 2017, pp. 78, 84.
- ^ a b Kuenzle 2017, pp. 84–86.
- ^ a b Bunnin & Yu 2009.
- ^ Kuenzle 2017, pp. 84–86; Gerken 2016; Moser 2015.
- ^ Kyriacou & McKenna 2018, p. 1.
- ^ Gerken 2016; Kyriacou n.d.; Moser 2015.
- ^ Moser 2015.
- ^ Kuenzle 2017, pp. 78, 84; Kyriacou n.d., §1.
- ^ Kuenzle 2017, p. 79; Kyriacou n.d., §1.
- ^ Kuenzle 2017, p. 86.
- ^ Bunnin & Yu 2009; Kyriacou n.d., §1.
- ^ Fumerton 2006, p. 33-34.
- ^ Kyriacou n.d., §1.
- ^ Rysiew 2020, §1.1.
- ^ Horvath & Koch 2020, §1.
- ^ Weinberg 2006, p. 26; Gerken 2016, §4; Rysiew 2020.
- ^ Rysiew 2020, §3.1.
- ^ Primary sources: BonJour 1998, §1.1; Bealer 1992, §2.
- ^ BonJour 1998, p. 5.
- ^ a b c Gerken 2016, §4.
- ^ a b Gerken 2016, §4; Horvath & Koch 2020, §2.
- ^ Horvath & Koch 2020, §3.
- ^ Horvath & Koch 2020, §4.
- ^ Primary sources: Deutsch 2015; Cappelen 2012.
- ^ Kuenzle 2017, pp. 82–84. Primary source: Weinberg 2006.
- ^ Rysiew 2020, §1.2.
- ^ Goldman 1994, pp. 305, 316.
- ^ Kuenzle 2017, pp. 15–16; Rysiew 2020, §§1-2. Primary source: Quine 1969.
- ^ Rysiew 2020, §§1.2, 4-5.
- ^ Kuenzle 2017, p. 22. Primary source: Kornblith 2002, pp. 1, 10–18.
- ^ Rysiew 2020, §5.1. Primary source: Goldman 1994, p. 306.
- ^ Kuenzle 2017, §1.5.
- ^ Primary sources: Haslanger 1999; Antony 1993; Anderson 1995.
- ^ Kyriacou n.d., §2; McHugh, Way & Whiting 2018, pp. 1–3.
- ^ Kyriacou n.d., §3; McHugh, Way & Whiting 2018, pp. 4–5.
- ^ Kyriacou n.d., §3; McHugh, Way & Whiting 2018, pp. 5–6; Kyriacou & McKenna 2018, pp. 1–2.
- ^ McHugh, Way & Whiting 2018, pp. 67–68; Kyriacou & McKenna 2018, p. 3.
- ^ Kyriacou n.d., §1; Kyriacou & McKenna 2018, pp. 4–5; McHugh, Way & Whiting 2018, p. 6.
- ^ Primary sources: Cuneo 2007; Street 2009; Gibbard 2003; Chrisman 2007; Heathwood 2018.
Sources
- Alston, William P. (1978). "Meta-Ethics and Meta-Epistemology" (PDF). In Goldman, Alvin; Kim, Jaegwon (eds.). Values and Morals. D. Reidel. pp. 275–297.
- S2CID 144518287.
- ISBN 978-0-429-50268-2.
- Bealer, George (1992). "The Incoherence of Empiricism" (PDF). Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume. 66 (1): 99–138. .
- ISBN 978-0-521-59745-6.
- Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Vol. 3. Macmillan – via encyclopedia.com.
- Bunnin, Nicholas; Yu, Jiyuan (2009). "Meta-epistemology". The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy. ISBN 978-1-4051-9112-8.
- ISBN 978-0-19-173902-6.
- Carter, J. Adam (2016). Metaepistemology and Relativism. Palgrave Innovations in Philosophy. ISBN 9781137336644.
- Carter, J. Adam; Sosa, Ernest (2022). "Metaepistemology". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2022 ed.).
- Chrisman, Matthew (2007). "From Epistemic Contextualism to Epistemic Expressivism". Philosophical Studies. 135 (2): 225–254. S2CID 170920601.
- Cuneo, Terence (2007). The Normative Web: An Argument for Moral Realism. ISBN 978-0-19-921883-7.
- Deutsch, Max (2015). The Myth of the Intuitive: Experimental Philosophy and Philosophical Method. ISBN 978-0-262-32737-4.
- JSTOR 2182493.
- ISBN 9780847681068.*
- Fumerton, Richard (2006). Epistemology. Blackwell's First Books in Philosophy. ISBN 9781405125673.
- Fumerton, Richard (2017). "Epistemology and Science: Some Metaphilosophical Reflections". Philosophical Topics. 45 (1): 1–16. S2CID 171850411.
- Gerken, Mikkel (2016). "Metaepistemology". ISBN 978-0-415-25069-6.
- ISBN 9780674011670.
- .
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- Heathwood, Chris (2018). "Epistemic Reductionism and the Moral-Epistemic Disparity" (PDF). In Kyriacou & McKenna 2018. pp. 45–70.
- Horvath, Joachim; Koch, Steffen (2020). "Experimental philosophy and the method of cases". Philosophy Compass. 16 (1): e12716. .
- ISBN 978-0-19-924631-1.
- Kuenzle, Dominique (2017). Refurbishing Epistemology: A Meta-Epistemological Framework. Epistemic Studies: Philosophy of Science, Cognition and Mind. Vol. 35. ISBN 9783110525458.
- Kyriacou, Christos (n.d.). "Metaepistemology". ISSN 2161-0002. Archived from the originalon 5 August 2023. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
- Kyriacou, Christos; McKenna, Robin, eds. (2018). Metaepistemology: Realism and Anti-Realism. Palgrave Innovations in Philosophy. ISBN 9783319933696.
- McHugh, Conor; Way, Jonathan; Whiting, Daniel, eds. (2018). Metaepistemology. ISBN 9780198805366.
- ISBN 9781439503508.
- ISBN 9780231083577.
- Rysiew, Patrick (2020). "Naturalism in Epistemology". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2020 ed.). Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University.
- S2CID 170353256.
- Weinberg, Jonathan (2006). "What's Epistemology for? The Case for Neopragmatism in Normative Metaepistemology". In ISBN 978-0-19-927331-7.
External links
- Metaepistemology at PhilPapers
- Kyriacou, Christos (28 April 2016). "Metaepistemology". ISBN 978-0-19-539657-7.
- Ranalli, Chris (27 April 2017). "Meta-epistemological Skepticism". Oxford Bibliographies Online. .