How do humans manage to keep track of a gradually changing object or person as the same persisting individual despite the fact that the extraction of information about this individual must often rely on heterogeneous information sources and heterogeneous tracking methods? The article introduces the Empirical Tracking of Individuals theory to address this problem. This theory proposes an analysis of the concept of integrated tracking, which refers to the capacity to acquire, store, and update information about the identity and location (...) of individuals in our environment. It hypothesizes that certain functions of attention are a key to explaining how the cognitive flexibility of the human mind overcomes the heterogeneity of sources and methods in integrated tracking. At least two premises lend support to this hypothesis. First, heterogeneity of tracking sources is overcome by the combination of information from multiple perceptual modalities and a phenomenon of multisensory 'transparency'. Second, heterogeneity of tracking sources and methods may also be overcome by inferences that combine information across domains to acquire reasons to believe propositions about the target's location and identity. (shrink)

Consider the following proposition: It is possible that all of our perceptual experiences are ‘delusive.’ According to Gilbert Ryle, is demonstrably absurd. In this paper I address four questions: What is Ryle’s argument against?; How persuasive is it?; What positions are ruled out if is absurd?; and How does Ryle’s position compare with contemporary work on skepticism?

Epistemological accounts that make use of a safety condition on knowledge, historically, face serious problems regarding beliefs that are necessarily true. This is because necessary truths are true in all possible worlds, so such beliefs can be safe even when the bases for the beliefs are epistemically problematic. The existence of such problematically safe beliefs would undermine a major motivation for the condition itself: the ability to evaluate how well a belief tracks the truth. In this paper, we’ll argue that (...) incorporating impossible worlds into the evaluation of beliefs solves this problem, but only if the relevant account of impossible worlds entails that many impossible worlds are incredibly similar to the actual world. Further, we’ll argue that, as a result of including impossible worlds, some philosophical beliefs are unsafe, and many more are potentially unsafe. But, we argue, even if this is the case, we can still make philosophical progress. (shrink)

The distinction between true belief and knowledge is one of the most fundamental in philosophy, and a remarkable effort has been dedicated to formulating the conditions on which true belief constitutes knowledge. For decades, much of this epistemological undertaking has been dominated by a single strategy, referred to here as the modal approach. Shared by many of the most widely influential constraints on knowledge, including the sensitivity, safety, and anti-luck/risk conditions, this approach rests on a key underlying assumption — the (...) modal profiles available to known and unknown beliefs are in some way asymmetrical. The first aim of this paper is to deconstruct this assumption, identifying its plausibility with the way in which epistemologists frequently conceptualize human perceptual systems as excluding certain varieties of close error under conditions conducive to knowledge acquisition. The second aim of this paper is to then argue that a neural phase phenomenon indicates that this conceptualization is quite likely mistaken. This argument builds on the previous introduction of this neural phase to the context of epistemology, expanding the use of neural phase cases beyond relatively narrow questions about epistemic luck to a much more expansive critique of the modal approach as a whole. (shrink)

Heightened awareness of the origins of our moral judgments pushes many in the direction of moral skepticism, in the direction of thinking we are unjustified in holding our moral judgments on a realist understanding of the moral truths. A classic debunking argument fleshes out this worry: the best explanation of our moral judgments does not appeal to their truth, so we are unjustified in holding our moral judgments. But it is unclear how to get from the explanatory premise to the (...) debunking conclusion. This paper shows how to get from here to there by way of epistemic insensitivity. First, we reconstruct Richard Joyce’s evolutionary debunking argument from insensitivity. Second, we raise epistemological difficulties for Joyce’s argument. Third, we develop and defend a new debunking argument from insensitivity. (shrink)

The global method safety account of knowledge states that an agent’s true belief that p is safe and qualifies as knowledge if and only if it is formed by method M, such that her beliefs in p and her beliefs in relevantly similar propositions formed by M in all nearby worlds are true. This paper argues that global method safety is too restrictive. First, the agent may not know relevantly similar propositions via M because the belief that p is the (...) only possible outcome of M. Second, there are cases where there is a fine-grained belief that is unsafe and a relevantly similar coarse-grained belief that is safe and where both beliefs are based on the same method M. Third, the reliability of conditional reasoning, a basic belief-forming method, seems to be sensitive to fine-grained contents, as suggested by the wide variation in success rates for thematic versions of the Wason selection task. (shrink)

In a recent paper Jacob Ross presents two ingenious objections against the safety theory of knowledge: one against the claim that safe true belief is necessary for knowledge, the other one against the claim that safe true belief is sufficient for knowledge. While the first objection seems to go through there are problems with the second one: Its core issue is due not to problems of the safety theory but to peculiarities of the proposition used in the objection. Instead of (...) showing that safety is insufficient for knowledge, Ross is really presenting an unknowable proposition. (shrink)

As teorias epistemológicas do rastreamento sustentam que o conhecimento é uma relação real entre o agente cognitivo e seu ambiente. Os estados cognitivos de um agente epistêmico fazem o rastreamento da verdade das proposições que são objeto de conhecimento ao embasarem a crença em indicadores confiáveis da verdade (evidência, razões, ou métodos de formação de crença). A novidade nessa abordagem é que se dá pouca ênfase no tipo de justificação epistêmica voltada ao fornecimento de procedimentos de decisão doxástica ou regras (...) de responsabilidade epistêmica. Este artigo oferece um pouco da história das teorias de rastreamento e, então, defende-as contra muitas objeções que se pretendem (equivocadamente) refutadoras dessas teorias. PALAVRAS – CHAVE – Teorias de rastreamento. Nozick. Dretske. Conhecimento. ABSTRACT Tracking theories of knowledge maintain that knowledge is a real relation between cognitive agent and environment. Cognitive states of a knower track the truth of known propositions by basing belief on reliable indicators of truth (evidence, reasons, or belief forming methods). The novelty of this approach is that it places little emphasis on epistemic justification of a kind that aims at guiding epistemic agents by giving doxastic decision procedures or rules of epistemic responsibility. This paper gives some of the history of tracking theories, and then defends them against many of the objections most often judged (mistakenly) to refute tracking theories. KEY WORDS – Tracking theories. Nozick. Dretske. Knowledge. (shrink)

Let Entitlement Epistemology be the theory of knowledge which says that entitlement—a special kind of unearned warrant to accept or believe—can help us successfully address a range of sceptical arguments. Prominent versions of this theory urge that epistemology should not be concerned with knowledge (and similar externalist states) but rather with justification, warrant, and entitlement (at least insofar as these are conceived of as internalist states). Knowledge does not come first, half-way, or even last in epistemological theorising—rather, it ought to (...) come nowhere. The goal in what follows is two-fold: Firstly, to assess whether this extreme internalist version of Entitlement Epistemology is at all sustainable. (We shall find that it is not.) Secondly, to articulate a version of Entitlement Epistemology which arguably does much better. On the view to be explored, knowledge does not drop out of the epistemological picture: if we allow that there can be warrant for nothing, then there can be knowledge for nothing too. (shrink)