In various responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, we can observe insufficient sensitivity towards the needs and circumstances of poorer citizens. Particularly in a context of high inequality, policy makers need to engage with the wider public in debates and consultations to gain better insights in the realities of the worst-off within their jurisdiction. When consultations involve members of traditionally underrepresented groups, these are not only more inclusive, which is in itself an ethical aim, but pool ideas and observations from a (...) much more diverse array of inhabitants. Inclusivity increases the odds to identify a larger range of weak spots for health security and to design health interventions that are less burdensome on those worst-off. (shrink)

In this article, I propose to look at the organisation of reproductive labour in the ‘global North’ through a lens of epistemic ignorance. Focusing on the process of outsourcing, I argue that it creates forms of irresponsibility, and with it, epistemic ignorance. The devaluation of domestic work and the degradation of domestic workers is shaped by gendered and colonial ideologies, and Western epistemologies. These epistemologies underpin a strong subject/object split and buffer the denial of existing interdependencies. (...) I problematise those epistemologies by drawing on feminist care ethics, accounts of relational selves and relational responsibility, and alternative epistemologies. Grounding that discussion on vignettes from an in-depth study of heterosexual couples in Austrian households who outsource domestic work, I argue that the systematic failure to see what and who we are connected to in the domestic realm is shaped by gendered and racialised privilege, and driven by an epistemology of separation. My argument will unfold in two steps. First, I use the concept of the skin as an example of how the beliefs in an independent, autonomous self and a strong subject/object split disguise connectedness and relationality. This leads me to the second step, in which I explicate my notion of semipermeable membranes – a thinking together of ontological permeability and ethical responsiveness. I argue that active forms of ‘unknowing’ at work in ‘mundane,’ everyday, domestic performances have far-reaching consequences. (shrink)

It has recently been argued that a person’s moral judgments (about both their own and others’ actions) are constrained by the nature and extent of their relevant ignorance and, thus, that such judgments are determined in the first instance by the person’s epistemic circumstances. It has been argued, in other words, that the epistemic is logically prior to other normative (e.g., ethical, prudential, pecuniary) considerations in human decision-making, that these other normative considerations figure in decision-making only after (...) (logically and temporally) relevant ignorance has constrained the decision-maker’s menu of options. If this is right, then a person’s moral judgments in some set of circumstances should vary with their knowledge and ignorance of these circumstances. In this study, we test the hypothesis of the logical priority of the epistemic. We describe two experiments in which subjects’ knowledge and ignorance of relevant consequences were manipulated. In the second experiment, we also compared the effect of ignorance on moral judgments with that of personal force, a factor previously shown to influence moral judgments. We found broad empirical support for the armchair arguments that epistemic considerations are logically prior to normative considerations. (shrink)

A long line of epistemologists including Sosa (2021), Feldman (2002), and Chisholm (1977) have argued that, at least for a certain class of questions that we take up, we should (or should aim to) close inquiry iff by closing inquiry we would meet a unique epistemic standard. I argue that no epistemic norm of this general form is true: there is not a single epistemic standard that demarcates the boundary between inquiries we are forbidden and obligated to (...) close. In short, such norms are false because they are insensitive to the potentially ambitious epistemic goals that agents may permissibly bring to bear on an inquiry. Focusing particularly on knowledge-oriented versions of the norm, I argue that ignorance has a positive role to play in epistemic life by licensing prolonged inquiry into questions that we especially care about. (shrink)

It has recently been argued that a person’s moral judgments (about both their own and others’ actions) are constrained by the nature and extent of their relevant ignorance and, thus, that such judgments are determined in the first instance by the person’s epistemic circumstances. It has been argued, in other words, that the epistemic is logically prior to other normative (e.g., ethical, prudential, pecuniary) considerations in human decision-making, that these other normative considerations figure in decision-making only after (...) (logically and temporally) relevant ignorance has constrained the decision-maker’s menu of options. If this is right, then a person’s moral judgments in some set of circumstances should vary with their knowledge and ignorance of these circumstances. In this study, we test the hypothesis of the logical priority of the epistemic. We describe two experiments in which subjects’ knowledge and ignorance of relevant consequences were manipulated. In the second experiment, we also compared the effect of ignorance on moral judgments with that of personal force, a factor previously shown to influence moral judgments. We found broad empirical support for the armchair arguments that epistemic considerations are logically prior to normative considerations. (shrink)

Ignorance and Imagination advances a novel way to resolve the central philosophical problem about the mind: how it is that consciousness or experience fits into a larger naturalistic picture of the world. The correct response to the problem, Stoljar argues, is not to posit a realm of experience distinct from the physical, nor to deny the reality of phenomenal experience, nor even to rethink our understanding of consciousness and the language we use to talk about it. Instead, we should (...) view the problem itself as a consequence of our ignorance of the relevant physical facts, Stoljar shows that this change of orientation is well motivated historically, empirically, and philosophically, and that it has none of the side effects it is sometimes thought to have. The result is a philosophical perspective on the mind that has a number of far-reaching consequences: for consciousness studies, for our place in nature, and for the way we think about the relationship between philosophy and science. (shrink)

Ignorance is a neglected issue in philosophy. This is surprising for, contrary to what one might expect, it is not clear what ignorance is. Some philosophers say or assume that it is a lack of knowledge, whereas others claim or presuppose that it is an absence of true belief. What is one ignorant of when one is ignorant? What kinds of ignorance are there? This neglect is also remarkable because ignorance plays a crucial role in all (...) sorts of controversial societal issues. Ignorance is often thought to be a moral and legal excuse; it is a core concept in medical ethics and debates about privacy, and it features in religious traditions and debates about belief in God. This book does not only study an epistemic phenomenon that is interesting in itself, but also provides important tools that can be fruitfully used in debates within and beyond philosophy. (shrink)

There is no satisfactory account for the general phenomenon of confabulation, for the following reasons: (1) confabulation occurs in a number of pathological and non-pathological conditions; (2) impairments giving rise to confabulation are likely to have different neural bases; and (3) there is no unique theory explaining the aetiology of confabulations. An epistemic approach to defining confabulation could solve all of these issues, by focusing on the surface features of the phenomenon. However, existing epistemic accounts are unable to (...) offer sufficient conditions for confabulation and tend to emphasise only its epistemic disadvantages. In this paper, we argue that a satisfactory epistemic account of confabulation should also acknowledge those features which are (potentially) epistemically advantageous. For example, confabulation may allow subjects to exercise some control over their own cognitive life which is instrumental to the construction or preservation of their sense of self. (shrink)

One of the most common excuses is ignorance. Ignorance does not always excuse, however, for sometimes ignorance is culpable. One of the most natural ways to think of the difference between exculpating and culpable ignorance is in terms of justification; that is, one’s ignorance is exculpating only if it is justified and one’s ignorance is culpable only if it not justified. Rosen :591–610, 2008) explores this idea by first offering a brief account of justification, (...) and then two cases that he claims are counter examples to the justification thesis. The aim of this paper is to defend the justification thesis against Rosen’s two cases. The argument will proceed in the following way. First, I clarify a few things about the nature of culpable ignorance generally and why the justification thesis is so intuitive. I then present Rosen’s purported counterexamples. Once this is done, I argue that Rosen misses an important view of justification in the epistemology literature that I call the pragmatic view. I present a general picture of the pragmatic view, and explain how it fits naturally with our practices of criticizing people’s beliefs, including claims of culpable ignorance. Finally, I address Rosen’s cases arguing that, if the pragmatic view is right, then Rosen’s cases are not counterexamples to the justification thesis. (shrink)

In my recent paper, “The Epistemology of Meat-Eating,” I advanced an epistemological theory that explains why so many people continue to eat animals, even after they encounter anti-factory farming arguments. I began by noting that because meat-eating is seriously immoral, meat-eaters must either (1) believe that eating animals isn’t seriously immoral, or (2) believe that meat eating is seriously immoral (and thus they must be seriously immoral). I argued that standard meat-eaters don’t believe that eating animals is seriously immoral because (...) either they don’t believe that meat-eating causes serious and systematic harm to farmed animals, or they believe that meat-eating causes serious and systematic harm to farmed animals, but they don’t believe that this harm is unnecessary. In a response titled “Are Meat-Eaters Epistemically Unlucky?”, Bob Fischer presents five objections to my epistemic theory. In this paper, I offer responses to each of Fischer’s thought-provoking objections and develop his insightful suggestion that, according to my epistemic theory, animal protectionists are victims of epistemic injustice. (shrink)

Ignorance, or the lack of knowledge, appears to be steadily spreading, despite the increasing availability of information. The notion of informed ignorance herein proposed to describe the widespread position of being exposed to an abundance of information yet lacking relevant knowledge, which is tied to the exponential growth in misinformation driven by technological developments and social media. Linked to many of societies’ most looming catastrophes, from political polarization to the climate crisis, practices related to knowledge and information are (...) deemed some of the most imminent and daunting modern threats, evidenced by the latest report of the World Economic Forum, which has named misinformation the most severe short-term global risk. This paper’s epistemic perspective links the properties of today’s information culture and the ways in which it interacts with individual capacities and limitations in current technological and socio-political contexts. Such a position is analyzed through the lens of epistemic principles as a contemporary epistemic phenotype that emerges from an environment of ill-adapted and excessive information inputs and leads to a distinctive type of social injustice that is primarily epistemic in nature. While equity and accessibility are widely discussed as important contributing factors to epistemic discrepancies, other overlooked but fundamental issues underlying epistemic injustices are considered, such as information manipulation, cognitive limitations, and epistemic degradation. To effectively face this elusive threat, we propose an inclusive viewpoint that harnesses knowledge from cognitive science, science and technology studies, and social epistemology to inform a unifying theory of its main impacts and driving forces. By adjusting a modern epistemic framework to the described phenomena, we intend to contextually outline its trajectory and possible means of containment based on a shared responsibility to maintain ethical epistemic standards. In a time of international unrest and mounting civil acts of violence, it is pertinent to emphasize the ethical principles of knowledge systems and authorities and suggest policy adaptations to maintain a social contract based on the shared values of truth and freedom. (shrink)

In this paper I will evaluate whether some knowledge states that are interpretatively derived from statistical mechanical probabilities could be somehow relevant in actual practices, as famously rejected by Albert (2000). On one side, I follow Frigg (2010a) in rejecting the causal relevance of knowledge states as a mere byproduct of misinterpreting this theoretical field. On the other side, I will argue against Uffink (2011) that probability-represented epistemic states cannot be explanatorily relevant, because (i) probabilities cannot faithfully represent significant (...) epistemic states, and (ii) those states cannot satisfactorily account for why an agent should theoretically believe or expect something. (shrink)

In this article I am concerned with how relatively privileged people who wish to act in anti-oppressive ways respond to their own ignorance in ways that fall short of what is necessary for building coalitions against oppression. I consider María Lugones's sense of “world”-travel and José Medina's notion of epistemic friction-seeking as strategies for combating privileged ignorance, and assess how well they fare when put into practice by those suffering from privileged ignorance. Drawing on the resources (...) of tourism studies, I critique the political and material context that can turn these attempts to “world”-travel or seek epistemic friction into a morally and epistemically problematic epistemic tourism. Centrally, I argue that trying to learn what it's like to experience oppression is not an effective method of counteracting privileged ignorance, since the epistemic vices and cognitive distortions that created the ignorance in the first place continue to influence knowledge-creation even after they are acknowledged. Rather than attempting to understand “what it's like” to experience oppression, privileged progressives should undertake to learn about the provenance and purpose of their ignorance and the structures of oppression that facilitate and are facilitated by that ignorance. (shrink)

I distinguish between two senses in which feminists have argued that the knower is social: 1. situated or socially positioned and 2. interdependent. I argue that these two aspects of the knower work in cooperation with each other in a way that can produce willful hermeneutical ignorance, a type of epistemic injustice absent from Miranda Fricker's Epistemic Injustice. Analyzing the limitations of Fricker's analysis of the trial of Tom Robinson in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird with (...) attention to the way in which situatedness and interdependence work in tandem, I develop an understanding of willful hermeneutical ignorance, which occurs when dominantly situated knowers refuse to acknowledge epistemic tools developed from the experienced world of those situated marginally. Such refusals allow dominantly situated knowers to misunderstand, misinterpret, and/or ignore whole parts of the world. (shrink)

This paper links two domains of recent interest in science and technology studies, complexity and ignorance, in the context of knowledge practices observed among synthetic biologists. Synthetic biologists are recruiting concepts and methods from computer science and electrical engineering in order to design and construct novel organisms in the lab. Their field has taken shape amidst revised assessments of life’s complexity in the aftermath of the Human Genome Project. While this complexity is commonly taken to be an immanent property (...) of biological systems, this article presents an epistemological view of complexity according to which complexity relates to a specific scientific theory or model and refers to that which exceeds the theory or model’s explanatory power. This epistemological view allows us to narrate a particular story about the changing relationship between biology and synthetic biology in the last decade and accounts for early knowledge practices in synthetic biology that “ignored” biology. This article further argues that while the failure of ignorance to produce clear-cut results for synthetic biologists has led practitioners back to biology, the entanglements between different pragmatic orientations and ways of knowing trouble the implications of this return for assessments of the complexity of biological systems. (shrink)

The groundwork has long been laid, by feminist and critical race theorists, for recognizing that a robust social epistemology must be centrally concerned with questions of epistemic injustice; it must provide an account of how inequitable social relations inflect what counts as knowledge and who is recognized as a credible knower. The cluster of papers we present here came together serendipitously and represent a striking convergence of interest in exactly these issues. In their different ways, each contributor is concerned (...) both to understand how dominant epistemic norms perpetuate ignorance and injustice and to articulate effective strategies for redressing these inequities. (shrink)

Epistemic modality concerns what is possible given a body of knowledge or evidence. Cases involving epistemic modals, present an interesting semantic challenge: in order to give a semantic treatment of epistemic modals, we must explain how informational states figure in the semantic representation of these terms. According to John MacFarlane’s (2011, 2014) view – Assessor Relativism – epistemic modal claims are assessment-sensitive in that their truth depends on what is known by the assessor at the time (...) he or she assesses the claim. Hence, truth for epistemic modal claims varies with the context of assessment. Critics of MacFarlane’s approach, such as Anthony Gillies and Kai von Fintel (2008) point to so called “ignorant assessor cases,” ones in which the assessor knows less than the speaker. They claim that such cases pose a serious problem for Assessment Relativism. I argue, however, that these cases do not uncover a flaw in the assessment relativist’s semantics. The apparent problems only seem to arise because the authors have not given adequate attention to the epistemic details of the cases. In making my argument, I present a larger methodological point about the role of epistemic data in semantic theory construction. I claim that, it is often difficult to distinguish the boundary between semantics and epistemology when discussing epistemic modals. As a result, linguists and philosophers of language sometimes fail distinguish between epistemic intuitions that are directly relevant to the semantics and those that are indirectly relevant. I conclude that we do not have to complicate the semantics of epistemic modals in order to accommodate epistemic data such as intuitions about epistemic warrant. (shrink)

Empirical psychology documents widespread evidence of bias in the ways that people select, interpret, and selectively interpret evidence in forming and revising their beliefs. These biases can function to create and perpetuate epistemologies of ignorance. I argue that virtue epistemology can help us explain what goes epistemically wrong in these cases, and can offer positive advice, orienting us toward ways to right it. In particular, I defend the virtue approach from epistemic situationist worries about the empirical plausibility of (...) individual agents' ability to develop corrective virtues. I argue that situational virtues are genuine responsibilist virtues, and are one of the tools at our disposal for overcoming epistemologies of ignorance. (shrink)

Sven Rosenkranz’s Justification as Ignorance shows how a strongly internalist conception of justification can be derived from a strongly externalist conception of knowledge, given an identification of justification with second-order ignorance and a set of structural principles concerning knowing and being in a position to know. Among these principles is an epistemic analogue of the Geach modal schema which states that one is always in a position to know that one doesn’t know p or in a position (...) to know that one doesn’t know not-p. Even suitably refined, the principle faces a range of counterexamples in which it misleadingly and persistently seems to one that one knows whether p without it seeming to one that one knows p nor that one knows not-p. These cases also threaten the book’s case for the luminosity of second-order ignorance, which is in turn central to its derivation of strongly internalist principles of justification. (shrink)

The traditional blackface character Black Pete has been at the center of an intense controversy in the Netherlands, with most black citizens denouncing the tradition as racist and most white citizens endorsing it as harmless fun. I analyze the controversy as an utter failure, on the part of white citizens, of what Alison Jaggar has called multicultural literacy. This article aims to identify both the causes of this failure of multicultural literacy and the conditions required for multicultural literacy to be (...) possible. I argue that this failure of multicultural literacy is due to hermeneutical injustice and to white ignorance. I close by considering possible avenues for fostering multicultural literacy. (shrink)

One of the most venerable and enduring intuitions in epistemology concerns the relationship between true belief and knowledge. Famously articulated by Socrates, it holds that true belief does not suffice for knowledge. I discuss a matching intuition about ignorance according to which true belief does not suffice for the absence of ignorance. I argue that the latter intuition undercuts the New View of Ignorance and supports the Standard View of Ignorance.

The article presents an analysis of the ways in which knowledge is displayed, contested and renegotiated in the 2007 French presidential debate between Ségolène Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy. Knowledge displays can be achieved through a series of ‘neutral’ resources, such as informing, explanation or comment, or through face-damaging resources, such as questioning an unknowledgeable interlocutor to prove his inferior epistemic status and boost one’s own. The article focuses on this latter type of knowledge display where a knowledgeable participant engages (...) in question–answer sequences with an unknowledgeable respondent in front of a third party. The article also undertakes an analysis of the multimodal strategies employed by the participant to discredit the opponent. The article intends to contribute to the existent literature on epistemic stance by offering a prototypical example of incongruence between the epistemic status of the questioner and the epistemic stance he adopts. (shrink)

In this paper the phenomenon of pluralistic ignorance is discussed and it is argued why it is of relevance for epistemic logic and social psychology. Roughly put, pluralistic ignorance is the case when a group of interacting agents all experience a discrepancy between their private opinions and the perceived opinions of the others. After introducing the phenomenon, numerous features of pluralistic ignorance that are of interest for epistemic logic and social epistemology, are discussed. This discussion (...) serves two purposes: It recaps the existing research on pluralistic ignorance within epistemic logic and social epistemology, while at the same time stating open problems for social epistemology and epistemic logic that pertains to the study of pluralistic ignorance. Finally, it is argued that the features of pluralistic ignorance of interest to epistemic logic and social epistemology relate to general features of information dynamics in situations of social interaction. (shrink)

Knowledge is good, ignorance is bad. So it seems, anyway. But in this dissertation, I argue that some ignorance is epistemically valuable. Sometimes, we should suspend judgment even though by believing we would achieve knowledge. In this apology for ignorance (ignorance, that is, of a certain kind), I defend the following four theses: 1) Sometimes, we should continue inquiry in ignorance, even though we are in a position to know the answer, in order to achieve (...) more than mere knowledge (e.g. understanding) while minimizing the effects of confirmation bias. 2) It’s false that we should believe every proposition such that we are guaranteed to be right about it (and even such that we are guaranteed to know it) if we believe it. 3) Being in a position to know is the norm of assertion: importantly, this does not require belief or (thereby) knowledge, and so proper assertion can survive speaker-ignorance. 4) It can be permissible and conversationally useful to tell audiences things that it is logically impossible for them to come to know: Proper assertion can survive (necessary) audience-side ignorance. Cumulatively, this project suggests that, properly understood, ignorance has an important role to play in the good epistemic life. (shrink)

The Fukushima nuclear accident from 2011 provided an occasion for the public display of radiation maps generated using decision-support systems for nuclear emergency management. Such systems rely on computer models for simulating the atmospheric dispersion of radioactive materials and estimating potential doses in the event of a radioactive release from a nuclear reactor. In Germany, as in Japan, such systems are part of the national emergency response apparatus and, in case of accidents, they can be used by emergency task forces (...) for planning radioprotection countermeasures. In this context, the paper addresses the epistemology of dose projections by critically analyzing some of the sources of epistemic opacity and non-knowledge affecting them, and the different methods and practices used by German radioprotection experts to improve their trustworthiness and reliability. It will be argued that dose projections are part of an entire radioprotection regime or assemblage built around the belief that the effects of nuclear accidents can be effectively mitigated thanks to the simulation technologies underlying different protocols and practices of nuclear preparedness. And, as the Fukushima experience showed, some of these expectations will not be met in real emergencies due to the inherent uncertainties entailed by the use of dose projections when planning protective countermeasures. (shrink)

This paper argues that ignorance, rather than being a result or representation of false beliefs or misinformation, is a compensatory epistemic adaptation of complex rhetoric systems. A rhetoric system is here defined as a set of interconnected rhetorical elements that cohere into a self-organized system that is thoroughly “about” its contexts—meaning that its own boundaries and relations are both constrained and enabled by the contexts in which it exists. Ignorance, as described here, is epistemic management that (...) preserves the boundaries and relations of a rhetoric system, and is a way of dealing with information that runs counter to one’s beliefs. Ignorance is also productive, in that it produces new knowledge that works to make rhetoric systems more resistant to potential destabilization. To elaborate these points, the paper examines discourse about the phenomenon of global climate change, which illustrates how individuals productively counter information as a way of preserving beliefs. As the paper argues, ignorance is neither a cognitive nor epistemological failure, but rather is a result of the dynamic and continuous process of enforcing epistemic and rhetorical boundaries. (shrink)

Epistemic responsibility involves at least two central ideas. (V) To be epistemically responsible is to display the virtue(s) epistemic internalists take to be central to justification (e.g., coherence, having good reasons, fitting the evidence). (C) In normal (non-skeptical)circumstances and in thelong run, epistemic responsibility is strongly positively correlated with reliability. Sections 1 and 2 review evidence showing that for a wide range of real-world problems, the most reliable, tractable reasoning strategies audaciously flout the internalist''s epistemic virtues. (...) In Section 3, I argue that these results force us to give up either (V), our current conception of what it is to be epistemically responsible, or (C) the responsibility-reliability connection. I will argue that we should relinquish (V). This is likely to reshape our epistemic practices. It will force us to alter our epistemic judgments about certain instances of reasoning, to endorse some counterintuitive epistemic prescriptions, and to rethink what it is for cognitive agents to be epistemically responsible. (shrink)

Centering Epistemic Injustice asks what it means for accounts of epistemic injustice to take seriously the lives and perspectives of socially marginalized knowers and the strategies that marginalized knowers use to circumvent persistent testimonial injustice.

This paper addresses whether the often-bemoaned loss of unity of knowledge about humans, which results from the disciplinary fragmentation of science, is something to be overcome. The fragmentation of being human rests on a couple of distinctions, such as the nature-culture divide. Since antiquity the distinction between nature (roughly, what we inherit biologically) and culture (roughly, what is acquired by social interaction) has been a commonplace in science and society. Recently, the nature/culture divide has come under attack in various ways, (...) in philosophy as well as in cultural anthropology. Regarding the latter, for instance, the divide was quintessential in its beginnings as an academic dis-cipline, when Alfred L. Kroeber, one of the first professional anthropologists in the US, rallied for (what I call) the right to ignore—in his case, human nature—by adopting a separationist epistemic stance. A separationist stance will be understood as an epistemic research heuristic that defends the right to ignore a specif-ic phenomenon (e.g., human nature) or a specific causal factor in an explanation typical for a disciplinary field. I will use Kroeber’s case as an example for making a general point against a bias towards integration (synthesis bias, as I call it) that is exemplified, for instance, by defenders of evolutionary psychology. I will claim that, in principle, a separationist stance is as good as an integrationist stance since both can be equally fruitful. With this argument from fruitful sepa-ration in place, not just the separationist stance but also the nature/culture di-vide can be defended against its critics. (shrink)

It has been suggested, by Michael Bishop, that empirical evidence on human reasoning poses a threat to the internalist account of epistemic responsibility, which he takes to associate being epistemically responsible with coherence, evidence-fitting and reasons-responsiveness. Bishop claims that the empirical data challenges the importance of meeting these criteria by emphasising how it is possible to obtain true beliefs by diverging from them. He suggests that the internalist conception of responsibility should be replaced by one that properly reflects how (...) we can reliably obtain true beliefs. In this paper I defend the internalist account by arguing that Bishop has misinterpreted the relevance of the empirical evidence to the philosophical theory. I argue that the empirical data actually provides support for the idea that, if we want to obtain true beliefs by being responsible, we should aim to meet the criteria that internalists associate with epistemic responsibility. (shrink)

Humans are prone to producing morally suboptimal and even disastrous outcomes out of ignorance. Ignorance is generally thought to excuse agents from wrongdoing, but little attention has been paid to group-based ignorance as the reason for some of our collective failings. I distinguish between different types of first-order and higher order group-based ignorance and examine how these can variously lead to problematic inaction. I will make two suggestions regarding our epistemic obligations vis-a-vis collective (in)action problems: (...) (1) that our epistemic obligations concern not just our own knowledge and beliefs but those of others, too and (2) that our epistemic obligations can be held collectively where the epistemic tasks cannot be performed by individuals acting in isolation, for example, when we are required to produce joint epistemic goods. (shrink)

Epistemic exploitation occurs when privileged persons compel marginalized persons to educate them about the nature of their oppression. I argue that epistemic exploitation is marked by unrecognized, uncompensated, emotionally taxing, coerced epistemic labor. The coercive and exploitative aspects of the phenomenon are exemplified by the unpaid nature of the educational labor and its associated opportunity costs, the double bind that marginalized persons must navigate when faced with the demand to educate, and the need for additional labor created (...) by the default skepticism of the privileged. I explore the connections between epistemic exploitation and the two varieties of epistemic injustice that Fricker (2007) identifies, testimonial and hermeneutical injustice. I situate epistemic exploitation within Dotson’s (2012; 2014) framework of epistemic oppression, and I address the role that epistemic exploitation plays in maintaining active ignorance and upholding dominant epistemic frameworks. (shrink)

The problem of unwelcome epistemic company refers to the problem of encountering agreement with your beliefs from an unwelcome source, such as someone who is known to form unreliable beliefs or have values you reject. Blanchard (2023) and Levy (2023) argue that when we encounter unwelcome agreement, we may have reason to reduce our confidence in our matching beliefs. I argue that unwelcome epistemic company rarely provides reasons to reduce our confidence, and apparent successes at improving our beliefs (...) using unwelcome company are explained by extraneous factors. Seeing why unwelcome agents are rarely evidence our belief is false requires making a distinction between two kinds of agents who regularly form false beliefs: unreliable agents and anti-reliable agents. While unreliable agents are common, they are uninformative. While anti-reliable agents would be informative, they are incredibly rare. Unwelcome agents are also rarely evidence that we have formed our own beliefs via an unreliable process, unless we have independent evidence that we are relevantly similar to them. This is hard to obtain given that unwelcome agents, by definition, have values and methods of forming beliefs that we do not find appealing. Moreover, attempts to use unwelcome company to improve our beliefs are likely to make our beliefs worse off in a number of ways. I argue we should adopt a policy of ignoring unwelcome company, letting them have little impact on our confidence in our beliefs. (shrink)

The plain man thinks that material objects must certainly exist, since they are evident to the senses. Whatever else may be doubted, it is certain that anything you can bump into must be real; this is the plain man’s metaphysic. This is all very well, but the physicist comes along and shows that you never bump into anything: even when you run your hand along a stone wall, you do not really touch it. When you think you touch a thing, (...) there are certain electrons and protons, forming part of your body, which are attracted and repelled by certain electrons and protons in the thing you think you are touching, but there is no actual contact. … The electrons and protons themselves, however, are only crude first approximations, a way of collecting into a bundle either trains of waves or the statistical probabilities of various different kinds of events. Thus matter has become altogether too ghostly to be used as an adequate stick with which to beat the mind. —Bertrand Russell, “What is the Soul?” 193.. (shrink)

A plausible view in the literature on the epistemic condition of blameworthiness is the Reasonable Expectation View (RE). According to RE, whether ignorance excuses an agent from deserving blame is a matter of whether the agent could have reasonably been expected to have avoided or corrected the ignorance. This paper does not take up the task of defending this view, but instead examines what it implies for an interesting type of ignorance: moral or political ignorance (...) rooted in myside bias. With the prevalence of increasing political polarization, it is worth examining what a plausible view like RE implies about when, if ever, myside bias-based ignorance excuses the agent from blame—from deserving resentment or indignation. To assess this issue, the paper examines the empirical literature on what it takes to mitigate myside bias and then takes the United States as a case study to examine what RE implies for the actual non-ideal circumstances many agents are in. The paper argues that RE has two revisionary implications for our practice of blame. First, the paper argues that RE implies that political or moral ignorance rooted in myside bias is currently an excuse in a surprising number of cases. Second, our epistemic position to know whether a given instance of political or moral ignorance is excusing is often inadequate. (shrink)

This paper is motivated by the need to respond to the spread of influential misinformation and manufactured ignorance, which places pressure on the work of experts in various sectors. To meet this need, the paper discusses the conditions required for expert testimony to evolve a reconceptualisation of negative capability as a new form of epistemic humility. In this regard, professional knowledge formation is not considered to be separate from the institutional and social processes and values that uphold its (...) production. Drawing attention to the structural and relational aspects of ignorance, as opposed to the individualistic and internal aspects, we rely on the sociology of knowledge, the social epistemologies and the feminist epistemologies that have played a fundamental role in the development of the investigation of ignorance. First, we analyse the criteria for epistemic humility based on prior theoretical discussions concerning negative knowledge as a form of reflective practice. Then, we seek to determine what kinds of strategies, virtues and skills experts need to have so as to ‘manage ignorance’ in socially complex situations. Finally, we suggest the reformulation of negative expertise as a phronetic skill for navigating through situations of ignorance and uncertainty in an epistemically and socially responsible manner. (shrink)