EPISTEMIC CIRCULARITY, RELIABILISM, AND TRANSMISSION FAILURE

The Circularity of Evolutionary Reliabilism

Epistemic Circularity and Epistemic Incommensurability

If I were to believe you are trustworthy just on your say-so, my reasoning would be infected with what is called epistemic circularity. I would be supposing a source is trustworthy by relying on that very source. Generally speaking, we tend to think this is a very bad idea. It is why we don’t bother asking politicians or salesmen whether they are honest. A well-known line of reasoning stemming ...

Epistemic Principles , Epistemic Circularity and the Ultimate Epistemic Goal

In this work we investigate the feasibility of the project of showing that a certain kind of generalisations that philosophers call ‘Epistemic Principles’, which state conditions for the achievement of epistemic goods such as justifications and entitlements, fulfil general conditions for their correctness. First, we identify the veritistic commitments underlying the project; it is argued that s...

What ’ s the Matter with Epistemic Circularity ?

If the reliability of a source of testimony is open to question, it seems epistemically illegitimate to verify the source’s reliability by appealing to that source’s own testimony. Is this because it is illegitimate to trust a questionable source’s testimony on any matter whatsoever? Or is there a distinctive problem with appealing to the source’s testimony on the matter of that source’s own re...

Transmission of Warrant-failure and the Notion of Epistemic Analyticity

In this paper I will argue that Boghossian’s explanation of how we can acquire a priori knowledge of logical principles through implicit definitions commits a transmission of warrant-failure. To this end, I will briefly outline Boghossian’s account, followed by an explanation of what a transmission of warrant-failure consists in. I will also show that this charge is independent of the worry of ...