Abstract
A key question about the value of truth in epistemology is whether the truthfulness of some proposition is (or should be) a factor in our evaluation of beliefs. The traditional view—evidenced in introductory texts (e.g., Moser et al. in The theory of knowledge. Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 77–79, 1998) and academic journals (e.g., Wedgwood in Philos Phenomenol Res 65(2):349–369, 2002, p. 350)—is that the truth of a belief should not impact our evaluations of it. Recent work has raised empirical objections to this default position of truth-insensitivity by suggesting that our ordinary belief evaluations assign considerable weight to the truth value of the believed proposition. If correct, this work grants truth a larger role in our epistemology—suggesting that it serves both as an element of our ordinary epistemic evaluations and as an intuitive norm for belief evaluation (Turri in Synthese 192(12):4009–4030, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-015-0727-z, Philos Phenomenol Res 93(2):348–367, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1111/phpr.12218). However, this position is not convincing. In this paper, I argue that this empirical work, while revelatory of some interesting features of belief evaluation, falls far short of demonstrating that belief evaluation is truth-sensitive, or that truth-sensitivity is intuitive.
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Notes
In this paper, as in Turri’s work, ‘norm’ should be understood in the social scientific sense as an accepted or endorsed principle for governing behavior, not in the stricter philosophical sense of what principles really ought to govern behavior – unless otherwise specified. As such, these empirical claims about the norms of ordinary belief evaluation are descriptions of folk normativity, but not themselves normative. We are not here concerned with, or equipped to discuss from simple empirical observations of practice, how we ought to evaluate beliefs. Instead, Turri’s claims, and my critiques of them, are directed at what practices ordinary folk believe ought to govern our belief evaluation.
A particularly dangerous possibility is that this is seen as an endorsement on the part of the experimenter. The experimenter is in a position of authority over the participant, which could amplify the socioepistemic effects of truth ascription. At the same time, we might reasonably worry that this is taken as a signal of desired behavior on the part of the participant, which would pose a serious risk of experiment bias.
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Weissglass, D.E. Is belief evaluation truth sensitive? A reply to Turri. Synthese 198, 8521–8532 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02584-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-020-02584-5