Program

Mar 2

9:00-910 Opening Remark

9:10-10:10 Masashi Kasaki (Hiroshima University)

Title: Defeating a Normative Status? Which One?

Abstract: Many agree that a puzzle about higher-order evidence is generated by certain plausible principles. One of the principles behind the puzzle about higher-order evidence is the following: (Doxastic Akratic Irrationality) It is irrational for one to (believe that p and believe that it is irrational to believe that p), for any p. Some philosophers argue against Doxastic Akratic irrationality. Suppose that you have the belief that p, and then you acquire higher-order evidence that it is irrational for you to believe that p. You need some time to process the higher-order evidence and make up your mind about p. While you do these things, it is rational for you to believe both that p and that it is irrational to believe that p. Even if this case provides a motivation against Doxastic Akratic irrationality, the question remains how one is rational in this case. In this talk, I attempt to answer this question by analyzing what it is to suspend judgment on p.

10:20-11:20  Nikolaj Jang Lee Linding Pedersen (Yonsei University)

Title: Axiological Non-evidentialism

Abstract: Non-evidentialist anti-sceptics maintain that acceptance of anti-sceptical hypotheses can be epistemically warranted without evidence. Critics find it unclear how this can be so. The underlying issue, I argue, is axiological: it is unclear how acceptance of anti-sceptical hypotheses can be epistemically warranted without evidence because it is unclear how such acceptance can be epistemically good. I introduce a pluralist axiology to address this issue. There are several fundamental epistemic goods—some externalist in nature, others internalist. Combined with epistemic consequentialism this pluralist axiology can be used to provide a non-evidentialist account of value and warrant for acceptance of anti-sceptical hypotheses.

11:30-12:30 Kunimasa Sato (Ibaraki University)

Title: Normative Ignorance and Epistemic Injustice

Abstract: This paper expands the normative conception of ignorance by describing the notion of epistemic injustice as another source of normativity of ignorance. First, I articulate the contextualist nature of normative ignorance and propose two norms: evidentialist and vice epistemological ones. Second, I expand normative ignorance in terms of its connection to epistemic injustice: hindering other inquirers from conducting their own inquiries in the epistemic community, including ignorance that undermines the value of truth or knowledge that is in other inquirers’ interests. This brings into view the socialized conception of normative ignorance. Finally, I portray the ethics of ignorance, including non-culpable epistemic responsibility.

12:30-13:30 Lunch Break

13:30-14:30 Kok Yong Lee (National Chung Cheng University)

Title: The Skeptical Argument from Underdetermination Reconsidered

Abstract: The paper scrutinizes the argument from underdetermination, which is one of the most widely-discussed skeptical arguments in recent literature. This argument consists of two central components: the underdetermination thesis, which posits that empirical propositions such as “One has hands” are undetermined by one's sensory experiences; and the principle of underdetermination, which states that such underdetermination results in a lack of knowledge of empirical propositions. Discussions surrounding this argument have primarily focused on the viability of the principle of underdetermination. The underdetermination thesis, however, has been largely taken for granted. This paper endeavors to challenge this assumption. The problem is that the concept of underdetermination is by no means clear and that different interpretations give rise to different versions of the thesis. Upon close examination, however, all prominent versions are found to be flawed. This paper contests the widely-held belief that the argument from underdetermination constitutes a serious threat to ordinary knowledge.

Graduate Session

14:40-15:40  Shun Iizuka (University of Tokyo)

Title: Implications for the Reductionism/Anti-Reductionism Debate on Testimonial Justification from Psychological Studies of Selective Trust:

Scope and Limitations

Abstract: The Child objection is a major challenge for reductionism, which requires hearers to have positive reasons for testimonial justification. However, it has been pointed out that anti-reductionism, which requires only the absence of negative reasons, or defeaters, suffers from the same kind of problem. The child objection presupposes the empirical thesis that “children do not have the capacity to consider reasons”, but the plausibility of this assumption may be revealed by developmental psychology research on selective trust. This paper uses recent epistemological studies as a guide to narrow down the types of defeaters that children are required to consider, and then clarifies what kind of reasons various experiments can be said to test the ability to consider, and in what sense children who pass the test can be said to be “considering” reasons. In doing so, we clarify the scope and limits of the implications that selective trust studies can have for reductionism and anti-reductionism. We then suggest what future psychological research is desired from an epistemological interest to go beyond the current limitations.

15:50-16:50 Chiharu Yoshikawa (Kyoto University)

Title: Testimonial Injustice, Coherentism, and Defeat

Abstract: It is usual to explain epistemic injustice in association with virtue epistemology, but I examine testimonial injustice through a lens of coherentism in this presentation. Virtue epistemology has some difficulty in explaining why there are cases where a hearer gives a low credibility to a speaker (i.e. cases of testimonial injustice), even if the hearer has motivation to obtain the truth and thus wants to have epistemic virtue to reliably reach the truth. The reason can be explained by coherentism: it is because the hearer and the speaker have different belief systems and thus what is a reliable way to reach the truth seems different for them. The hearer has beliefs which are so deep-embedded in his/her belief system that the testimony cannot defeat them. Additionally, in order to sort out how testimonial injustice harms the society and the speaker, I use a model of coherentism with a structure where everyone's own belief systems and also a community's belief system support each other.

17:00-18:00 Shohei Matsumoto (University of Tokyo)

Title: Defaults for Speakers and Hearers: A Critique of Strong Social Anti-reductionism

Abstract: Strong anti-reductionists argue that hearers are entitled by default to hold testimony-based beliefs without needing to do anything further if they properly comprehend what is told, as long as there are no defeaters for them. Mona Simion recently presented a new argument for this view. She suggests that the knowledge norm of assertion is a social norm that encourages truthfulness and makes it rational for speakers to tell the truth by default, and on the basis of this she supports strong anti-reductionism. In this paper, I will argue against her argument by challenging an implicit premise that the hearers’ default entitlement stems from the speakers’ default truthfulness. Additionally, I will propose a more moderate anti-reductionist view, according to which we are sometimes, but not always, prima facie entitled by default to hold testimony-based beliefs.

Mar 3

13:00-14:00  Weng Hong Tang (National University of Singapore)

Title: Ramsey on Induction

Abstract: Frank Ramsey offers a solution to the problem of induction that's both pragmatist and reliabilist in nature. But commentators, when discussing Ramsey's solution, tend to focus only on one aspect of it. I'll argue, however, that we should attend to both aspects. Neglecting or downplaying the reliabilist aspect obscures a historical link between Ramsey's reliabilism and contemporary reliabilist approaches to the problem of induction. Neglecting or downplaying the pragmatist aspect obscures pragmatism's influence on these contemporary approaches. Further, attending to both aspects helps us appreciate certain philosophical merits of Ramsey's solution.

14:10-15:10 Ryo Tanaka (JSPS/University of Tokyo)

Title: Semantic Competence and Reliable Consumption of Testimony

Abstract: How should we characterize the kind of semantic competence required for reliable consumption of testimony? In this paper, I offer a novel approach to the question by sketching what I call the ‘dynamic’ account of semantic competence. The guiding idea of the approach is that one should not try to specify some fixed body of knowledge about the meaning of a term ‘t,’ the possession of which is generally sufficient for reliable consumption of testimonies that involve the use of ‘t.’ I argue that pursuing the matter in this way is unproductive, because exactly what a hearer should know about the meanings of terms used in a speaker’s testimony can vary from context to context (cf. Pollock 2021). This suggests that the required kind of general semantic competence is best characterized in terms of higher-order abilities instead of first-order knowledge. Specifically, I will propose two requirements. First, it is required that one should be sensitive to various ways in which one’s semantic incompetence can undermine one’s warrant for accepting testimony. Second, it is required that one should possess and properly exercise abilities to react to the consequences of one’s semantic incompetence, in either of the following ways: (a) repair the compromised warrant by counteracting the effects of one’s semantic incompetence in context (cf. Drożdżowicz 2022), or (b) suspend one’s commitment to testimony-based belief. Lastly, I will explore how one can develop the dynamic model further within Sosa’s bi-level virtue reliabilist framework (Sosa 2011).

15:20-16:20 Shin Sakuragi (Shibaura Institute of Technology)

Title: Ways of 'Remembering' and Epistemic Theory of Propositional Memory

Abstract: In “Memory and the Past,” Malcolm cites a scenario originally suggested by Hintikka, in which someone appears to “remember” something, but cannot be described in terms of a grammatical form of “remembering.” Malcolm defines the concept of propositional memory and introduce the famous epistemic theory of propositional memory. In this presentation, I will examine the concept of propositional memory and epistemic theory in light of how we use “remember,” and seek for a solution to the puzzle.

16:30-17:30 Jay Jian (Academia Sinica)

Title: Can Epistemic Defects Provide Practical Defeaters?

Abstract: On subjectivism about value and normative reasons for action, an agent’s evaluative attitude in favor of an option O can make O good for her and give her a normative reason to pursue O. However, can an evaluative attitude still have such good-making and reason-giving power if it turns out to be based on epistemic defects such as misinformation and cognitive error? 

I approach this practical defeater question by first exposing how one type of evaluative attitude— preference—is more vulnerable to a specific sort of epistemic defect. I then examine three potential answers to the practical defeater question. The first view takes epistemic defect to defeat an evaluative attitude’s good-making and reason-giving power, while the second view denies this. The third view takes epistemic defect to alter the object which an evaluative attitude speaks in favor of with its good-making and reason-giving power.

17:30-17:40 Concluding Remark