Iceberg Epistemology

Abstract

Accounts of what it is for an agent to be justified in holding a belief commonly carry commitments concerning what cognitive processes can and should be like. A concern for the plausibility of such commitments leads to a multi-faceted epistemology in which elements of traditionally conflicting epistemologies are vindicated within a single epistemological account. The accessible and articulable states that have been the exclusive focus of much epistemology must constitute only a proper subset of epistemologically relevant processing. The interaction of such states looks rather contextualist. It might also be called quasi-foundationalist. However, in attending to our epistemological tasks we must rely on processing that is sensitive to information that we could not articulate, that is not accessible in the standard internalist sense. When focusing on the full range of epistemologically important processes, the structure of what makes for justification is rather more like that envisioned by some coherentists. English usage of 'having', 'being', and 'giving' in association with 'reasons' and 'justification' is varied and nuanced. So our remarks are meant to capture some distinctions commonly marked by in these terms, and not to codify usage. 498 DAVID HENDERSON AND TERRENCE HORGAN ICEBERG EPISTEMOLOGY 499 2 Alston (1989) provides one example of such a position.

Transglobal Evidentialism-Reliabilism

“…Such automatically accommodated implicit information is called morphological content (Horgan and Tienson 1996, Potrč 1999, 2000, Henderson and Horgan 2000. Transglobal evidentialism-reliabilism gives pride of place to the notion of strong evidential support, as explicated non-reliabilistically in terms of truth in a wide range of experientially relevant possible worlds (thesis (E) above).…”

The Epistemic Relevance of Morphological Content

“…We will briefly sketch the relevant considerations, drawing upon an important, and still very influential, discussion of the matter in Fodor (1983) (for more extensive presentations see, in addition to Fodor 1983;Horgan and Tienson 1996;Henderson and Horgan 2000;Henderson and Horgan forthcoming;Fodor 2000;Horgan and Potrč 2008;and Horgan in press). 1 In the closing pages of Fodor (1983), it is argued that certain problems in classical cognitive science look to be in-principle problems, and hence that the prospects for understanding processes like belief fixation within the framework of classical cognitive science are very bleak.…”

“…We also advocate a form of experiential evidentialism concerning epistemic justificationroughly, the view that the justification-status of an agent's beliefs is fully determined by the character of the agent's conscious experience. We two authors are each on record as defending both the thesis that much belief-formation is essentially morphological (e.g., Horgan and Tienson 1996;Henderson and Horgan 2000;Potrč 2000;Horgan and Potrč 2006;Horgan and Timmons 2007;Henderson and Horgan forthcoming), and also a version of evidentialism (Henderson et al 2007). …”

Basic Beliefs and the Perceptual Learning Problem: A Substantial Challenge for Moderate Foundationalism

“…Both of these features play an important role in the literature on implicit content (e.g. Lyons 2013, Henderson and Horgan 2000, and as we shall see they make for an apt characterization of the phenomenon. In order for the response from implicit content to work however, it has to be demonstrated that these features distinguish implicit contents from explicit contents: it should be impossible for explicit contents to have both these features and impossible for implicit contents to not have these features.…”

“…Firstly, implicit contents are often said to be accommodated 'automatically' (Henderson andHorgan 2000: 516, Lyons 2013: 545). This is to say that cognitive systems act according to these contents whether we want them to or not.…”