Why Should Warrant Persist in Demon Worlds?

In ‘Perceptual Entitlement’ (2003) Burge argues that a perceptual competence that is reliable in normal conditions when functioning normally confers prima facie warrant when functioning normally in any conditions, and so a normal functioning perceptual competence continues to confer warrant even when the individual is unknowingly massively deceived, such as in a brain-in-a-vat or a “demon world” scenario. This chapter critically examines Burge’s explanation. Burge’s explanation does not adequately explain why warrant should persist outside of normal conditions, and so why warrant should persist in demon worlds. The chapter distinguishes between bounded versus non-bounded normal conditions reliabilism to explain why Burge’s account falls short. According to bounded reliabilism, perceptual warrant does not persist outside of normal conditions. According to unbounded reliablism, it does. The chapter distinguishes two grades of warrant in terms of the distinction between bounded and unbounded reliabilism. With these two grades of warrant, one can then explain why warrant should persist in demon worlds.

Internalism and Entitlement to Rules and Methods

We rely on belief-forming mechanisms: modus ponens, inference to the best explanation, and the transformation rules of our perceptual system. Why are we entitled to rely on these mechanisms? This chapter criticizes Method Internalist answers. Extreme Method Internalism launches a regress. Defense Internalism also launches a regress and has other limitation. Mentalism (Mental Internalist) is motivated by demon world cases, but better (non-internalist) treatments of such cases are possible.

Epistemic Entitlement

This volume collects new work on epistemic entitlement partly motivated by Tyler Burge’s and Crispin Wright’s seemingly identical distinctions between two forms of warrant: entitlement and justification. But despite nomenclature, Burge and Wright are engaged in different projects. Recognizing that we cannot provide a non-question begging evidential reply to the sceptic, Wright seeks an a priori, non-evidential, rational right to accept and claim to know cornerstone propositions. He calls these rights epistemic entitlements. Epistemic justifications are evidential warrants, contributors to knowledge. Tyler Burge does not engage the sceptic. Instead, he assumes knowledge and investigates its structure. Burge’s two core notions are warrant and reasons. Warrants are exercises of belief-forming competences that are good routes to truth and knowledge. A reason is a proposition with a mode that contributes to an explanation of the belief-worthiness of a belief for the individual. A justification is a warrant with reasons. An entitlement is a warrant without reasons. The volume begins with a substantial chapter by Burge. Burge discusses the functional structure of epistemic norms, the case against internalism, clairvoyance and demon world cases, Moore’s anti-sceptical argument, so-called “easy-knowledge”, and Bayesianism in perceptual psychology and objections from Bayesianism to moderate foundationalism. The other chapters by leading figures in epistemology further advance our understanding and possibility of both forms of epistemic entitlement and related topics central to ongoing research in epistemology.

Reliabilism and Demon World Victims

En este trabajo se defiende el fiabilismo frente al experimento mental clásico del "genio maligno". Al hacerlo, enfatizo dos de sus supuestos clave; y después desarrollo una serie de variadas respuestas asequibles al fiabilista, mostrando que las mismas pueden ser útiles para explicar o negar las intuiciones iniciales de la propuesta del "genio maligno", de una manera consistente con el fiabilismo. Mi conclusión es que el experimento del "genio maligno" no socava la fiablidad como el sello distintivo de la justificación epistémica.