Anti-risk epistemology and negative epistemic dependence

Abstract

Support is canvassed for a new approach to epistemology called anti-risk epistemology. It is argued that this proposal is rooted in the motivations for an existing account, known as anti-luck epistemology, but is superior on a number of fronts. In particular, anti-risk epistemology is better placed than anti-luck epistemology to supply the motivation for certain theoretical moves with regard to safety-based approaches to knowledge. Moreover, anti-risk epistemology is more easily extendable to epistemological questions beyond that in play in the theory of knowledge specifically. A key advantage of the view, however, is that anti-risk epistemology fares much better than anti-luck epistemology when it comes to accounting for the phenomenon of negative epistemic dependence. In particular, anti-risk epistemology is ideally placed to explain why such epistemic dependence is incompatible with knowledge, even when the negative epistemic dependence in play is of a purely modal variety (as one finds in epistemic twin earth cases).

Disagreements as a form of knowledge: How journalists address day-to-day conflicts between sources

“…The employment of two-tiered evidential bars for adjudication that are made public or kept for themselves, corresponds with the pragmatic encroachment theory, according to which responsible epistemic actors raise the threshold of proof when they expect greater practical risk such as a libel suit, erroneous publication or damage to the users of information (Fantl and McGrath, 2007; Stanley, 2016). According to Pritchard’s (2017) anti-risk epistemology, the higher the risk of error, the less reporters’ adjudication can be considered as knowledge – unless they managed to obtain hard evidence. Hence, when human sources are leading the reporter in opposite directions, consulting yet another person might contribute less to knowledge than evidence such as documents to reduce the risk of error.…”

Close Error, Visual Perception, and Neural Phase: A Critique of the Modal Approach to Knowledge

“…. is not too modally close” (Pritchard, 2016, p. 566; see also Pritchard, 2020). Although it is unclear whether anti‐risk epistemology will ultimately command the staying power of its predecessors, it does speak to the continued status of modalized epistemology as an active, evolving research program.…”

Deepfakes, Fake Barns, and Knowledge from Videos

“…These cases are paradigm instances of environmental epistemic luck , and many epistemologists accept that knowledge is incompatible with this sort of luck. 5 At their core, they embody what Duncan Pritchard ( 2017 ) has called ‘negative epistemic dependence’: that is, despite one’s belief being formed because of cognitive ability – and hence being in the market for knowledge – environmental factors beyond one’s control curtail this possibility. 6…”

“…To alleviate this problem, Pritchard has long argued that virtue-theoretic accounts of knowledge should be supplemented with a further, sufficient safety condition ( 2012a , 2012b , 2017 , 2020 ). For many years, he advocated for what he called anti-luck virtue epistemology , which supplemented cognitive ability with an ‘anti-luck’ safety condition on knowledge that sought to remedy the apparent tension between epistemic luck and cognitive ability.…”