The epistemic poverty objection is commonly levelled by externalists against deontological conceptions of epistemic justification. This is that an “oughts” based account of epistemic justification together with “ought” implies “can” must lead us to hold to be justified, epistemic agents who are objectively not truth-conducive cognizers. The epistemic poverty objection has led to a common response from deontologists, namely to embrace accounts of bounded rationality—subjective, practical or regulative accounts rather than objective, absolute or theoretical accounts. But the bounds deontological epistemologists (...) and their opponents entertain rarely include cultural limitations. This paper considers neo-Vygotskian arguments that we must consider such cultural limits in defending deontologism, and thus that any deontologically motivated perspectivism must be in part a cultural perspectivism. The dangers of strong relativism are flagged and an attempt is made to steer a.. (shrink)

This paper comprises a defence of Infallibilism about knowledge. In it, I articulate two arguments in favour of Infallibilism, and for each argument show that Infallibilism about knowledge does not lead to an unpalatable Scepticism if justified belief is neither necessary nor sufficient for knowledge, and if Fallibilism about justified belief is true.

I here respond to four SERRC commentators on my paper ‘Perspectivism, Deontologism and Epistemic Poverty’: Shira Elqayam, Nikolaj Nottelmann, Rik Peels and Hamid Vahid. I maintain that all accounts of epistemic justification must be constrained by two limit positions which have to be avoided. One is Conceptual Limit Panglossianism (an excessively subjective, ‘emic’, ‘bounded’ and ‘grounded’, relativistic perspectivism, whereby anything the epistemic agent takes to be justified, is). The other is Conceptual Limit meliorism (an excessively objective, ‘etic’, ‘unbounded’, ‘ungrounded’, absolutism, (...) whereby the fundamental normative-epistemic notion of justification is wholly divorced from regulative, human, capacities). Within these bounds one may offer an account of rationality or epistemic justification that is closer to Meliorism or Panglossianism. Remarked upon are my respondents’ considerations on Alston, on suggestions for a separation between a more-subjective epistemic justification and a more-objective rationality, and objections to my position based on the assumption that we must embrace a very objective and truth-conducive concept of epistemic justification. (shrink)

A basic question for virtue epistemology is whether it represents a ‘third force’ – a different source of normativity to that offered by internalism and externalism. It is argued that virtue epistemology does not offer us a distinct source of normativity. It is also argued that virtue theories offer us nothing that can unify the internalist and externalist sub-components of their preferred state of ‘virtue’. Claims that phronesis can unify a virtues-based axiology are specifically opposed.