Southern California Epistemology Network (SCEN)
Meeting Nov. 4th, 2023
Workshop venue: Humanities Instructional Building (HIB) 55, UCI Campus.
Parking: Mesa Parking Structure
11:00 - 11:50 Ralph Wedgwood (USC), Pricean Ignorance
11:50 - 12:40 Alexandra Newton (UCR), Kant vs. Frege on the Authority of Truth
12:40 - 1:20 lunch break
1:20 - 2:10 Tanuj Raut (UCI), Two Structural Problems for Etiological Challenges
2:10 - 3:00 Justin Greenberg (UCI), How Epistemically Direct is Post-Causal Memory?
3:00 - 3:50 Margaret Gilbert (UCI), Towards a General Epistemology
Ralph Wedgwood (USC), Pricean Ignorance
Richard Price’s moral epistemology provides a distinctive account, not only of the sources of our moral knowledge, but also of its limits – that is, of the moral truths that we do not and even cannot know. According to this moral epistemology, the fundamental moral truths are necessary rather than contingent; if they are knowable at all, they are knowable a priori; and, in general, fundamental moral truths are closely akin to mathematical truths. Specifically, on this view, these necessary moral truths are grounded in the essences of act-types, which are knowable through “intuition” if they are knowable at all. However, Price firmly rejects utilitarianism, recognizing several different “branches of virtue”, which can conflict with each other. As he argues, we cannot know the truth about act-types that exemplify such conflicting branches of virtue if the competing considerations are too finely balanced. This moral epistemology is compared with W. D. Ross’s idea of “prima facie duties”. It is argued that Price has a more unified view than Ross: for Price, all moral knowledge flows from a priori intuition, but this is compatible with our being ignorant of many of the fine details of the fundamental truths of morality.
Alexandra Newton (UCR), Kant vs. Frege on the Authority of Truth
Kant’s most significant contribution to epistemology arguably consists in his recognition of the importance of the capacity for knowledge [Erkenntnisvermögen] for understanding its self-conscious exercises in acts of knowing [Erkennen]. One dimension of the importance of the capacity that is frequently overlooked consists in its role as the source of the truth of its acts. Ever since Frege’s attack on psychologism, we have become accustomed to distinguishing the logical concern for truth and the psychological concern for the capacities that are exercised in judging or acknowledging what is true. In this paper I will argue that it is only by drawing a close connection between truth and the capacity for knowledge – and by showing that the capacity is of significance for logic - that it is possible to think of ‘truth’ as an authority.
Tanuj Raut (UCI), Two Structural Problems for Etiological Challenges
When one attempts to undermine the epistemic status of an agent's judgment by appealing to its causal history, one offers an 'etiological challenge'. This paper deals with two prominent *structural* problems for etiological challenges: i) the argument by Amia Srinivasan (2015) that etiological challenges are necessarily self-defeating on epistemic grounds, and ii) the argument that such challenges involve the genetic fallacy. I argue that the first problem is not as pervasive as it seems because it only concerns global etiological challenges (that is, those which challenge all our judgments). Then, I discuss and problematize a recent attempt by Matthieu Queloz (2021) to solve the problem of genetic fallacy.
Justin Greenberg (UCI), How Epistemically Direct is Post-Causal Memory?
Abstract: According to the causal theory of memory (CTM), a necessary condition on genuine remembering is a causal connection — by way of a memory trace — between a subject’s representation of a past event and her previous experience of it. One of the primary motivations for CTM is that it captures an intuitive sense in which memory gives us privileged epistemic access to the past. That is, to remember an event, such as that of having gone swimming in the ocean as a child, is a more epistemically direct way of accessing the event than if somebody were to have merely told me about it. In this respect, there is an asymmetry between memory and testimony. The structure of this talk is twofold. First, I’ll discuss what the epistemic directness of memory amounts to, beyond the metaphor. I’ll argue that memory is particularly epistemically direct by virtue of its unique form of content preservation. Memory, unlike testimony, preserves the subject’s first-hand perspective on the past. Secondly, I’ll discuss a significant challenge to this view. Recent developments from the psychology of memory suggest that remembering is a constructive process; memory does not function to preserve the contents of experience. Instead, memory draws on information from various sources (other than the remembered experience) to form plausible hypotheses, or episodic simulations, of what occurred. These psychological developments have led many theorists to reject CTM and endorse post-causal theories of memory, which reject the necessity of a causal connection for genuine remembering. As a result, many theorists have abandoned the common-sense conception of memory on which the epistemic directness of memory seems to depend. I’ll argue, however, that post-causal theories are able to account for the epistemic directness of memory. The intuitive sense in which memory is epistemically direct is not the preserve of CTM. This reconciliatory project, however, requires that we reconsider the role of causation for post-causal theories of memory.
Margaret Gilbert (UCI), Towards a General Epistemology
The theory of individual (human) belief is a well-developed---and contentious---part of a discipline in which I am no expert. Let's call that discipline individual epistemology. As I have argued elsewhere, there is room for a distinct discipline that I have called collective epistemology. We say such things as "Tom, Jack, and Ming believe that p", without meaning that each of them believes that p, but meaning, … something else. Determining what that something is, is within the domain of collective epistemology. Now, one would think that the findings of individual epistemology would have some bearing on collective epistemology, but what bearing exactly? As I argued in a paper co-authored with Daniel Pilchman, one cannot assume at the outset that all of the points and distinctions developed in discussion of the individual case apply to the collective case. This point is evidently worth making: several individual epistemologists have responded to my own account of collective belief with "But...." alluding to a standard assumption about features of belief in the individual case that did not seem to hold for collective belief on my account. It is not obvious, however, that it should hold in the collective case. The point should not be taken too far, however. In a recent conversation with an epistemologist who had read the paper just cited, I had to explain that we did not mean to claim that none of the standard assumptions about the individual case held for the collective case. In this paper, referencing my own account of collective belief, I shall review some assumptions that seem to be true of both cases, and some that don't, a discussion which I would place within the domain of general epistemology which concerns itself with features of belief shared by, at a minimum, human individuals and human groups.