Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T19:42:06.442Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Hope, Worry, and Suspension of Judgment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 May 2022

James Fritz
James Fritz*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper, I defend an epistemic requirement on fitting hopes and worries: it is fitting to hope or to worry that p only if one’s epistemic position makes it rational to suspend judgment as to whether p. This view, unlike prominent alternatives, is ecumenical; it retains its plausibility against a variety of different background views of epistemology. It also has other important theoretical virtues: it is illuminating, elegant, and extensionally adequate. Fallibilists about knowledge have special reason to be friendly to my view; it can help them explain why it can be unfitting to hold on to hope and worry in the face of overwhelming evidence, and it can also help them explain the sense in which knowledge that p and hope that –p are in tension with one another.

Keywords

Hopeworrysuspension of judgmentfittingnessepistemic possibilityfallibilisminfallibilism
Type
Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 51 , Issue 8 , November 2021 , pp. 573 - 587
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Canadian Journal of Philosophy

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Benton, Matthew. 2018. “Knowledge, Hope, and Fallibilism.” Synthese 2018: 1–17.Google Scholar
Bovens, Luc. 1999. “The Value of Hope.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 59: 667–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Jessica. 2008. “Subject-Sensitive Invariantism and the Knowledge Norm for Practical Reasoning.” Noûs 42 (2): 167–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchak, Lara. 2014. “Belief, Credence, and Norms.” Philosophical Studies 169 (2): 285–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chalmers, David. 2011. “The Nature of Epistemic Space.” In Epistemic Modality, edited by Egan, Andy and Weatherson, Brian, 60–107. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chappell, Richard Yetter. 2012. “Fittingness: The Sole Normative Primitive.” Philosophical Quarterly 62 (159): 684–704.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chignell, Andrew. 2013. “Rational Hope, Moral Order, and the Revolution of the Will.” In The Divine Order, Human Order, and the Order of Nature, edited by Watkins, Eric, 197–218. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chignell, Andrew. 2014. “Rational Hope, Possibility, and Divine Action.” In Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason: A Critical Guide, edited by Michalson, Gordon E., 98–117. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Stewart. 1988. “How to Be a Fallibilist.” Philosophical Perspectives 2: 91–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D’Arms, Justin, and Jacobson, Daniel. 2000. “The Moralistic Fallacy: On the ‘Appropriateness’ of Emotions.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 61 (1): 65–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
D’Arms, Justin, and Jacobson, Daniel. 2003. “The Significance of Recalcitrant Emotion (Or Anti-Quasijudgmentalism).” Philosophy Supp. 52: 127–45.Google Scholar
Day, J. P. 1969. “Hope.” American Philosophical Quarterly 6 (2): 89–102.Google Scholar
Downie, R. S. 1963. “Hope.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 24 (2): 248–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dutant, Julien. 2016. “How to Be an Infallibilist.” Philosophical Issues 26 (1): 148–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enoch, David, Spectre, Levi, and Fisher, Talia. 2012. “Statistical Evidence, Sensitivity, and the Value of Knowledge.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 40 (3): 197–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enoch, David, and Spectre, Levi. 2021. “Statistical Resentment.” Synthese 199: 5687–718.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, Jane. 2013. “Rational Agnosticism and Degrees of Belief.” In Oxford Studies in Epistemology Vol. 4, edited by Gendler, Tamar and Hawthorne, John, 57–81. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, Jane. 2017. “Why Suspend Judging?” Noûs 51 (2): 302–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fritz, James. 2021. “Fitting Anxiety and Prudent Anxiety.” Synthese 199: 8555–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fritz, James. Manuscript a. “Encroachment on Emotion.”Google Scholar
Fritz, James. Manuscript b. “Unfitting Absent Emotion.”Google Scholar
Gertken, Jan, and Kiesewetter, Benjamin. 2017. “The Right and the Wrong Kinds of Reasons.” Philosophy Compass 12 (5): e12412.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gordon, R. M. 1969. “Emotions and Knowledge.” Journal of Philosophy 66: 408–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grzankowski, Alex. 2020. “Navigating Recalcitrant Emotions.” The Journal of Philosophy 117 (9): 501–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hannon, Michael. 2020. “Why Purists Should Be Infallibilists.” Philosophical Studies 177: 689–704.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hieronymi, Pamela. 2005. “The Wrong Kind of Reason.” The Journal of Philosophy 102 (9): 437–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howard, Christopher. 2018. “Fittingness.” Philosophy Compass 13 (11): e125542.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huemer, Michael. 2007. “Epistemic Possibility.” Synthese 156: 119–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, Elizabeth. 2020. “Belief, Credence, and Evidence.” Synthese 197: 5073–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. 1997. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated and edited by Guyer, Paul and Wood, Allen W., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kurth, Charlie. 2015. “Moral Anxiety and Moral Agency.” In Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics Vol. 5, edited by Timmons, Mark, 171–95. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lasonen-Aarnio, . 2014. “Higher-Order Evidence and the Limits of Defeat.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 88 (2): 314–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, Adrienne. 2014. How We Hope: A Moral Psychology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
McCormick, Miriam Schleifer. 2017. “Rational Hope.” Philosophical Explorations 20 (s1): 127–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McGrath, Matthew. 2021. “Being Neutral: Agnosticism, Inquiry, and the Suspension of Judgment.” Noûs 55 (2): 463–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meirav, Ariel. 2009. “The Nature of Hope.” Ratio 22: 216–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelkin, Dana. 2000. “The Lottery Paradox, Knowledge, and Rationality.” Philosophical Review 109 (3): 373–409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reed, Baron. 2012. “Fallibilism.” Philosophy Compass 7 (9): 585–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosa, Luis. 2021. “Rational Requirements for Suspended Judgment.” Philosophical Studies 178: 385–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, Jacob, and Schroeder, Mark. 2014. “Belief, Credence, and Pragmatic Encroachment.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 88 (2): 259–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scarantino, Andrea, and de Sousa, Ronald. 2018. "Emotion.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2018 Edition) edited by Zalta, Edward N.. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/emotion/.Google Scholar
Schoenfield, Miriam. 2012. “Chilling Out on Epistemic Rationality.” Philosophical Studies 158: 197–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schroeder, Mark. 2012. “The Ubiquity of State‐Given Reasons.” Ethics 122 (3): 457–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siegel, Harvey. 1997. Rationality Redeemed? New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Smith, Michael. 2010. “What Else Justification Could Be.” Noûs 44 (1): 10–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Michael. 2016. Between Probability and Certainty: What Justifies Belief. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smithies, Declan. 2015. “Ideal Rationality and Logical Omniscience.” Synthese 192: 2769–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smithies, Declan. 2019. The Epistemic Role of Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Staffel, Julia. 2015. “Beliefs, Buses, and Lotteries: Why Rational Belief Can’t Be Stably High Credence.” Philosophical Studies 173 (7): 1721–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Staffel, Julia. 2019. “How Beliefs Simplify Reasoning.” Noûs 53 (4): 937–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Way, Jonathan. 2012. “Transmission and the Wrong Kind of Reason.” Ethics 122 (3): 489–515.CrossRefGoogle Scholar