The Epistemology of Folk Epistemology

The question that is center stage in this chapter is: Do intuitions about knowledge vary across cultures? The chapter begins by explaining what intuitions are, how they are used in philosophy, and why the presence or absence of cultural variation in philosophical intuitions is important for both philosophy and cognitive science. The remainder of the chapter recounts a line of research aimed at determining whether or not intuitions about knowledge vary across cultures. The focus is on “Gettier intuitions.” The results reported support the core folk epistemology hypothesis that maintains that people in all cultures possess epistemic concepts that require more than justification, truth, and belief. In all cultures, an additional condition or set of conditions will be required. However, the evidence suggests that the additional condition varies both within and between cultures.

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Staging a Strict Purist Invariantist Comeback

10.1093/oso/9780198803454.003.0010 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Mikkel Gerken

Keyword(s):

Functional Role ◽

Pragmatic Encroachment ◽

Communicative Functions ◽

Positive Account ◽

Knowledge Ascriptions ◽

Intuitive Judgments ◽

Folk Epistemology

Chapter 9 responds to arguments for pragmatic encroachment that appeal to the communicative functions of knowledge ascriptions or genealogical assumptions. The methodology of such arguments is criticized by way of a dilemma—the Functional Role Dilemma. A further dilemma for pragmatic encroachment—Pandora’s Dilemma—is then raised: many factors other than stakes can have an effect on knowledge ascriptions. So, pragmatic encroachers must either accept that these factors are partial determiners of knowledge or reject this. However, both options lead to trouble. Since these dilemmas are indicative of the mistakes in our intuitive judgments, Chapter 9 serves both the purpose of compromising mistaken appeals to folk epistemology and the purpose of guiding a positive account.

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Folk Epistemology and Epistemic Closure

10.1093/oso/9780198815259.003.0004 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Tim Kraft ◽

Alex Wiegmann

Keyword(s):

Empirical Test ◽

Testable Hypothesis ◽

Epistemic Closure ◽

Folk Knowledge ◽

Knowledge Ascriptions ◽

Series Of Experiments ◽

Folk Epistemology

According to epistemic closure, if someone knows some proposition P and also knows that P entails Q, she knows Q as well. This is often defended by appealing to its intuitiveness. Only recently, however, was epistemic closure put to the empirical test: Turri ran experiments in which closure is violated in folk knowledge ascriptions surprisingly often. The chapter authors disagree with this diagnosis. It is by no means obvious which experimentally testable hypothesis proponents of epistemic closure should accept. The chapter formulates a different hypothesis and argues that it is more apt for empirically testing epistemic closure. In a series of experiments the chapter authors manipulated the strength of entailment between two propositions and found that the stronger the entailment, the lower the proportion of participants who violated closure, indicating folk knowledge ascriptions are sensitive to entailment. The chapter concludes that closure is a principle of folk epistemology after all.

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Metaepistemology

Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy ◽

10.4324/0123456789-p076-1 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Mikkel Gerken

Keyword(s):

Empirical Data ◽

Philosophical Methodology ◽

Epistemic Position ◽

First Order ◽

Objective Property ◽

Epistemological Views ◽

The Relationship ◽

Folk Epistemology

Metaepistemology may be partly characterized as the study of the nature, aims, methods and legitimacy of epistemology. Given such a characterization, most epistemological views and theories have an important metaepistemological aspect or, at least, a number of more or less explicit metaepistemological commitments. Metaepistemology is an important area of philosophy because it exemplifies that philosophy must serve as its own metadiscipline by continuously reflecting critically on its own methods and aims. Even though philosophical methodology may be regarded as a branch of epistemology, epistemology itself is as much in need of metaphilosophical examination as other core disciplines of philosophy. Moreover, metaepistemology is important because it bears significantly on first-order epistemological questions. Indeed, many of the most prominent contemporary debates in philosophy have a distinctly metaepistemological aspect. For example, the debates between rationalists and empiricists do not only concern the nature of cognition of specific areas – perception, arithmetic, logic and so forth – but also general metaepistemological questions about whether it is realistic and desirable that epistemology be naturalized. Likewise, the debates between epistemic internalists and externalists include metaepistemological debates about whether the proper focus for epistemology should be the cognizer’s rational perspective or some more objective property of the cognizer’s epistemic position. Similarly, the debates concerning the relationship between folk epistemology and epistemological theorizing include metaepistemological debates about how empirical data concerning folk epistemology should impact epistemology itself. Each of these debates provides an example of how first-order epistemological issues are deeply connected, and sometimes inseparable from, metaepistemological considerations.

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