Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-cphqk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-10T10:37:45.325Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

WHAT DOES “EPISTEMIC” MEAN?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 December 2016

Allan Hazlett
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this paper I consider the meaning of the term “epistemic.” I discuss the idea that “epistemic” means “of or relating to knowledge,” and consider some uses of “epistemic” that do not jibe with this characterization of its meaning. I argue that “epistemic” is ambiguous: it is sometimes used to mean “of or relating to knowledge” and sometimes to mean “of or relating to belief.” I raise some worries about this ambiguity, and sympathetically consider the prospects for eliminating “epistemic” from our philosophical lexicon.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 13 , Special Issue 4: 2015 Episteme Conference , December 2016 , pp. 539 - 547
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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

REFERENCES

Barnes, J. 1982. ‘The Beliefs of a Pyrrhonist.’ Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society (New Series), 28: 1–29.Google Scholar
Grice, H.P. 1988. ‘Aristotle on the Multiplicity of Being.’ Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 69: 175–200.Google Scholar
Fairweather, A. and Flanagan, O. 2014. Naturalizing Epistemic Virtue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Foley, R. 1987. The Theory of Epistemic Rationality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lackey, J. 2008. Learning from Words: Testimony as a Source of Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sosa, E. 2007. A Virtue Epistemology: Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stroud, S. 2006. ‘Epistemic Partiality in Friendship.’ Ethics, 116: 498–524.Google Scholar