In this course we will examine a number of questions about evidence. For example, what sort of thing is it (ontologically speaking)? One popular proposal is that all evidence is propositional. Suppose that’s right: what’s required in order for proposition e to be part of my evidence? Must I believe it? Believe it with justification? Are all evidence propositions true? Does e=k, as Timothy Williamson famously argues? It is commonly held that knowing is a binary state: for any proposition e, either I know e or I don’t. But if e=k, and knowledge doesn’t come in degrees, then the having of evidence doesn’t come in degrees either. Is that a problem for Williamson’s view? But why think that knowledge doesn’t come in degrees? New question: am I always in a position to know what my evidence is – is my evidence ‘luminous’? Or are we cognitively homeless? New new question: can evidence undermine the rational support for a belief? New new new question: are there any diachronic norms of rationality?
Notes:
- Kelly – Evidence
- Turri – Ontology of epistemic reasons
- Littlejohn – No evidence is false
- Williamson – Knowledge and its Limits
- Comensana, McGrath – Perceptual reasons
- Schroeder – What does it take to “have” a reason?
- Schroeder – Having reasons
- Joyce – Timothy Williamson on evidence and knowledge (with Williamson’s response)
- Joyce – How probabilities reflect evidence
- Morrison – Perceputal confidence
- Berker – Luminosity regained?
- Srinivasan – Are we luminous?
- Lasonen-Aarnio – Higher order evidence and the limits of defeat
- Moss – Probabilistic knowledge (selection)
- Horowitz – Epistemic Akrasia
- Hedden – Time-slice rationality
- Podogorski – A reply to the synchronist