On Epistemic Alchemy*

McGlynn, Aidan

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199658343.003.0009

Cited by 18 publications

(14 citation statements)

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“…Wright's own diagnosis of the roots of those problems is couched in terms of the following question: “if all we have at the foundations of our belief‐forming practices is trust, even if rational trust, how can elements in the superstructure acquire an epistemic status superior to that?” (Wright, , p. 228). Other writers have also identified the source of such problems in the “assumption that entitlement is at best second‐rate” (McGlynn, , p. 187) as far as its epistemic status is concerned. Accordingly, it would be fair to conclude that it is the epistemic distance between justification and entitlement that is playing the crucial role in giving rise to those problems.…”

Section: The Epistemic Value Of Perceptual Experiencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Wright's initial reaction to this problem was to deny that evidential warrant is closed under known entailment (Wright, , p. 178). However, it has been argued that one can still derive the undesirable conclusion with the help of a weaker but highly plausible version of the closure principle (McGlynn, ). In response, Wright () now chooses to retain evidential Closure but goes on to claim that we can live with alchemy.…”

Section: Deontological Justification and Conservatism: Deontological mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, in the very same paper, Wright makes the following surprising remark which seems to suggest that he only means to deny our second‐order, not first‐order, knowledge of cornerstones: “Note: have no claim to know, not: do not know” (Wright, , p. 206, n. 23). As it turns out, however, there appears to be no escape from the problem of alchemy as a weaker but highly plausible version of Closure can still yield the same undesirable results (McGlynn, ). In any case, Wright's current position is that we can live with alchemy.…”

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Deontological Conservatism and Perceptual Justification

Vahid

2017

Theoria

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Crispin Wright has advanced a number of arguments to show that, in addition to evidential warrant, we have a species of non-evidential warrant, namely, "entitlement", which forms the basis of a particular view of the architecture of perceptual justification known as "epistemic conservatism". It is widely known, however, that Wright's conservative view is beset by a number of problems. In this article, I shall argue that the kind of warrant that emerges from Wright's account is not the standard truth-conducive justification, but what is known as the deontological conception of justification. It will be argued that the deontological justification has features that make it a better candidate for representing a conservative architecture. These results will be reinforced by showing how the deontological framework can make better sense of a recent theory of justified (reasonable) belief that takes its inspiration from Wright's conservative account. Thus understood, we may see the liberalism-conservatism controversy as actually an extension of the older debate over which conception of justification, truth-conducive or deontological, can best represent the epistemic status of our belief-forming practices.1 There is a huge debate in the philosophy of perception (e.g., Siegel, 2010) about whether perceptual experiences can represent "high-level" properties such as kinds (of objects) or merely "low-level" properties such as colour, shape, etc. For the sake of discussion, I am assuming the former, rich content, view. But my arguments can equally go through if the latter view is adopted.

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Section: The Epistemic Value Of Perceptual Experiencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Deontological Justification and Conservatism: Deontological mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Deontological Conservatism and Perceptual Justification

Vahid

2017

Theoria

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“…In this paper I criticize Wright interpreted as a supporter of (PJ). For discussion about these two alternative readings of Wright's conception of the structure perceptual justification seeMcGlynn (2017).…”

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Entitlement, Epistemic Risk, and Scepticism

Moretti

2019

Episteme

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Crispin Wright maintains that the architecture of perceptual justification is such that we can acquire justification for our perceptual beliefs only if we have antecedent justification for ruling out any sceptical alternative. Wright contends that this principle doesn't elicit scepticism, for we are non-evidentially entitled to accept the negation of any sceptical alternative. Sebastiano Moruzzi has challenged Wright's contention by arguing that since our non-evidential entitlements don't remove the epistemic risk of our perceptual beliefs, they don't actually enable us to acquire justification for these beliefs. In this paper I show that Wright's responses to Moruzzi are ineffective and that Moruzzi's argument is validated by probabilistic reasoning. I also suggest that Wright couldn't answer Moruzzi's challenge without weakening the support available for his conception of the architecture of perceptual justification.

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“…According toWright (2004: 177-8), the problem was rst raised by Stephen Schiffer, though the 'alchemy' metaphor comes fromDavis (2004). For recent discussions, seeVolpe (2012), McGlynn (2014, andWright (2014). 3 Wright does make some suggestive remarks concerning how one might resist the principle that justied belief is closed under known a priori equivalence (2014: 232), but he doesn't pursue this line in any detail, and he is explicit that his 'own inclination' now is instead to admit the legitimacy of epistemic alchemy (2014: 233).…”

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Epistemic Entitlement and the Leaching Problem

McGlynn¹

2016

Episteme

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Crispin Wright has explored and defended the proposal that we are rational in accepting certain ‘cornerstone’ propositions that play an epistemically foundational role on the basis of non-evidential warrants – entitlements – rather than on the basis of evidential justifications. One of the principal objections to this proposal, formulated by Wright himself, is the leaching problem. Put metaphorically, the problem is that it's hard to see how a superstructure of justified belief and knowledge could have something less epistemically secure lying at its foundations. In this paper I discuss how to best formulate the objection behind the metaphor, and I argue that it remains a live worry despite Wright's attempts to neutralize it. I also aim to clarify Wright's conservatism in light of some conflicting remarks he has made about whether he takes acquiring (as opposed to claiming to possess) justification or knowledge to be subject to the conservative requirement that one must have antecedent warrant for accepting the relevant cornerstone propositions. A major theme of the paper is that these two issues are intimately linked – that formulating Wright's conservatism in the most stable and motivated way leaves him without a response to the leaching problem considered in its strongest form.

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On Epistemic Alchemy*

Cited by 18 publications

References 0 publications

Deontological Conservatism and Perceptual Justification

Deontological Conservatism and Perceptual Justification

Entitlement, Epistemic Risk, and Scepticism

Epistemic Entitlement and the Leaching Problem

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