Philosophy Seminar Series: Off Base: The Case Against Epistemic Basing Relations
Date | Thursday 23 May 2019 |
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Time | 3:10pm - 4:30pm |
Where | S.1.05 |
Presenter | Jonathan Weinberg |
Contact | Nick Munn |
Contact email | nick.munn@waikato.ac.nz |
Admission Cost | Free |
All are welcome to attend the upcoming Philosophy Seminar to be held in S.1.05 from 3:10pm to 4:30pm on Thursday, 23 May, 2019. Jonathan Weinberg (University of Arizona) will present:
“Off Base: The Case Against Epistemic Basing Relations”
Epistemologists typically take it as a given that it’s not enough for an epistemically successful agent merely to possess some evidence E for their belief that P — their belief that P must also, in some substantive way, be based upon E. I will argue against this theoretical presupposition in epistemology, and argue for the claim that there are no such substantive basing relations to be found on or among our beliefs. First, our ordinary epistemic practices do not make any substantial appeal to basing relations, so such relations cannot gain entry to our ontology that way. If they are to be said to exist at all, they must be shown to do some theoretical work for us. But I will then argue that there is in fact no such work for them to do. My main strategy will be to suggest that what while we do need an idea of basing in our theory of argumentation, nonetheless, once it does its work there, there is no further job for it as a relation between beliefs in our theories of knowledge or doxastic justification.