Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T21:48:13.444Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Epistemic Value Theory and Social Epistemology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2012

Don Fallis
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In order to guide the decisions of real people who want to bring about good epistemic outcomes for themselves and others, we need to understand our epistemic values. In Knowledge in a Social World, Alvin Goldman has proposed an epistemic value theory that allows us to say whether one outcome is epistemically better than another. However, it has been suggested that Goldman's theory is not really an epistemic value theory at all because whether one outcome is epistemically better than another partly depends on our non-epistemic interests. In this paper, I argue that an epistemic value theory that serves the purposes of social epistemology must incorporate non-epistemic interests in much the way that Goldman's theory does. In fact, I argue that Goldman's theory does not go far enough in this direction. In particular, the epistemic value of having a particular true belief should actually be weighted by how interested we are in the topic.

Type
Research Article
Information
Episteme , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , October 2006 , pp. 177 - 188
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2005

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

Adams, Douglas. 1981. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. London: BBC.Google Scholar
Alston, William P. 1985. “Concepts of Epistemic Justification.” Monist 68:57–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barry, Brian. 1989. “Utilitarianism and Preference Change.” Utilitas 1:278–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bishop, Michael A. and Trout, J. D.. 2005. Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broome, John. 1991. Weighing Goods. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Descartes, René. 1996. Meditations on First Philosophy. ed. Cottingham, John. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeRose, Keith. 1992. “Contextualism and Knowledge Attribution.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 52:913–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fallis, Don. 1997. “The Epistemic Status of Probabilistic Proof.” Journal of Philosophy 94:165–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fallis, Don. 2002. “Goldman on Probabilistic Inference.” Philosophical Studies 109:223–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fallis, Don. 2004. “Epistemic Value Theory and Information Ethics.” Minds and Machines 14:101–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fallis, Don. 2006. “Social Epistemology and Information Science.” Pp. 475–519 in Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, vol. 40, ed. Cronin, Blaise. Medford, New Jersey: Information Today.Google Scholar
Feldman, Richard. 2001. Review of Knowledge in a Social World by Alvin Goldman. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 52:163–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Godfrey-Smith, Peter. 1991. “Signal, Decision, Action.” Journal of Philosophy 88:709–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, Alvin. 1999. Knowledge in a Social World. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldman, Alvin. 2002. “Reply to Commentators.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64:215–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hume, David. 1977. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. ed. Steinberg, Eric. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Hume, David. 2000. A Treatise of Human Nature. eds. Norton, David F. and Norton, Mary J.. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hutchins, Edwin. 1995. Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
James, William. 1975. Pragmatism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
James, William. 1979. The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kitcher, Philip. 2002. “Veritistic Value and the Project of Social Epistemology.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64:191–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitcher, Philip. 2004. “The Ends of the Sciences.” Pp. 208–29 in The Future for Philosophy, ed. Leiter, Brian. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kvanvig, Jonathan L. 2003. The Value of Knowledge and the Pursuit of Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Latus, Andrew. 2000. “Our Epistemic Goal.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 78:28–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levi, Isaac. 1962. “On the Seriousness of Mistakes.” Philosophy of Science 29:47–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levy, Robert. 2000. Review of Knowledge in a Social World by Alvin Goldman. Teaching Philosophy 23:279–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maffie, James. 2000. “Alternative Epistemologies and the Value of Truth.” Social Epistemology 14:247–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maher, Patrick. 1993. Betting on Theories. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nozick, Robert. 1993. The Nature of Rationality. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oddie, Graham. 2001. “Axiological Atomism.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 79:313–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paterson, R. W. K. 1979. “Towards an Axiology of Knowledge.” Journal of Philosophy of Education 13:91–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plato., 1961. Collected Dialogues, eds. Hamilton, Edith and Cairns, Huntington. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Resnik, Michael D. 1987. Choices. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Riggs, Wayne D. 2003. “Balancing Our Epistemic Ends.” Nous 37:342–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riggs, Wayne D. 2006. “The Value Turn in Epistemology.” in New Waves in Epistemology, eds. Hendricks, Vincent F. and Pritchard, Duncan. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Sartwell, Crispin. 1992. “Why Knowledge Is Merely True Belief.” Journal of Philosophy 89:167–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmitt, Frederick F. 2000. “Veritistic Value.” Social Epistemology 14:259–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sen, Amartya. 1992. Inequality Reexamined. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Snowdon, Paul. 2003. “Knowing How and Knowing That: A Distinction Reconsidered.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 104:1–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sosa, Ernest. 2003. “The Place of Truth in Epistemology.” Pp. 155–79 in Intellectual Virtue, eds. DePaul, Michael and Zagzebski, Linda. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar