Philosophical realism—usually not treated as a position of its
own but as a stance towards other subject matters—is the view that a
certain kind of thing (ranging widely from abstract objects like numbers to moral statements to the physical world itself) has mind-independent existence, i.e. that it exists even in the absence of any mind perceiving it or that its existence is not just a mere appearance in the eye of the beholder. This includes a number of positions within epistemology and metaphysics which express that a given thing instead exists independently of knowledge, thought, or understanding. This can apply to items such as the physical world, the past and future, other minds, and the self, though may also apply less directly to things such as universals, mathematical truths, moral truths, and thought itself. However, realism may also include various positions which instead reject metaphysical treatments of reality altogether.
Realism can also be a view about the properties of reality in general, holding that reality exists independent of the mind, as opposed to non-realist views (like some forms of skepticism and solipsism) which question the certainty of anything beyond one's own mind. Philosophers who profess realism often claim that truth consists in a correspondence between cognitive representations and reality.
Realists tend to believe that whatever we believe now is only an
approximation of reality but that the accuracy and fullness of
understanding can be improved. In some contexts, realism is contrasted with idealism. Today it is more often contrasted with anti-realism, for example in the philosophy of science.
Metaphysical realism maintains that "whatever exists does so,
and has the properties and relations it does, independently of deriving
its existence or nature from being thought of or experienced." In other words, an objective reality exists (not merely one or more subjective realities).
Perceptual realism is the common sense view that tables, chairs
and cups of coffee exist independently of perceivers. Direct realists
also claim that it is with such objects that we directly engage. The
objects of perception include such familiar items as paper clips, suns
and olive oil tins. It is these things themselves that we see, smell,
touch, taste and listen to. There are, however, two versions of direct
realism: naïve direct realism and scientific direct realism. They differ
in the properties they claim the objects of perception possess when
they are not being perceived. Naïve realism claims that such objects
continue to have all the properties that we usually perceive them to
have, properties such as yellowness, warmth, and mass. Scientific
realism, however, claims that some of the properties an object is
perceived as having are dependent on the perceiver, and that unperceived
objects should not be conceived as retaining them. Such a stance has a
long history:
By convention sweet and by convention bitter, by convention hot, by
convention cold, by convention colour; in reality atoms and void.
[Democritus, c. 460-370 BCE, quoted by Sextus Empiricus in Barnes, 1987,
pp. 252-253.]
In contrast, some forms of idealism assert that no world exists apart from mind-dependent ideas and some forms of skepticism say we cannot trust our senses. The naive realist view is that objects have properties, such as texture, smell, taste and colour, that are usually perceived absolutely correctly. We perceive them as they really are.
Immanent realism is the ontological understanding which holds that universals are immanently real within particulars themselves, not in a separate realm, and not mere names. Most often associated with Aristotle and the Aristotelian tradition.
Scientific realism
is, at the most general level, the view that the world described by
science is the real world, as it is, independent of what we might take
it to be. Within philosophy of science,
it is often framed as an answer to the question "how is the success of
science to be explained?" The debate over what the success of science
involves centers primarily on the status of unobservable entities apparently talked about by scientific theories.
Generally, those who are scientific realists assert that one can make
reliable claims about unobservables (viz., that they have the same ontological status) as observables. Analytic philosophers
generally have a commitment to scientific realism, in the sense of
regarding the scientific method as a reliable guide to the nature of
reality. The main alternative to scientific realism is instrumentalism.
Scientific realism in physics
Realism in physics (especially quantum mechanics)
is the claim that the world is in some sense mind-independent: that
even if the results of a possible measurement do not pre-exist the act
of measurement, that does not require that they are the creation of the
observer (contrary to the "consciousness causes collapse" interpretation of quantum mechanics). That interpretation of quantum mechanics, on the other hand, states that the wave function
is already the full description of reality. The different possible
realities described by the wave function are equally true. The observer
collapses the wave function into their own reality. One's reality can be
mind-dependent under this interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Moral realism is the position that ethical sentences express propositions that refer to objective features of the world.
Aesthetic realism
Aesthetic realism (not to be confused with Aesthetic Realism, the philosophy developed by Eli Siegel, or "realism" in the arts) is the view that there are mind-independent aesthetic facts.
Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of Athens, a fresco by Raphael. In Plato's metaphysics, ever-unchanging Forms, or Ideas, exist apart from particular physical things, and are related to them as their prototype or exemplar. Aristotle's philosophy of reality also aims at the universal. Aristotle finds the universal, which he calls essence, in the commonalities of particular things.
Platonic realism is a radical form of realism regarding the existence of abstract objects, including universals,
which are often translated from Plato's works as "Forms". Since Plato
frames Forms as ideas that are literally real (existing even outside of
human minds), this stance is also called Platonic idealism. This should not be confused with "idealistic" in the ordinary sense of "optimistic" or with other types of philosophical idealism, as presented by philosophers such as George Berkeley. As Platonic abstractions
are not spatial, temporal, or subjectively mental, they are arguably
not compatible with the emphasis of Berkeley's idealism grounded in
mental existence. Plato's Forms include numbers and geometrical figures,
making his theory also include mathematical realism; they also include the Form of the Good, making it additionally include ethical realism.
In Aristotle's more modest view, the existence of universals
(like "blueness") is dependent on the particulars that exemplify them
(like a particular "blue bird", "blue piece of paper", "blue robe",
etc.), and those particulars exist independent of any minds: classic metaphysical realism.
Ancient Indian Philosophy
There
were many ancient Indian realist schools, such as the Mimamsa,
Vishishtadvaita, Dvaita, Nyaya, Yoga, Samkhya, Sauntrantika, Jain,
Vaisesika, and others. They argued for their realist positions, and
heavily criticized idealism, like that of the Yogachara, and composed refutations of the Yogacara position.
Medieval philosophy
Medieval realism developed out of debates over the problem of universals. Universals are terms or properties that can be applied to many things,
such as "red", "beauty", "five", or "dog". Realism (also known as exaggerated realism) in this context, contrasted with conceptualism and nominalism, holds that such universals really exist, independently and somehow prior to the world. Moderate realism holds that they exist, but only insofar as they are instantiated in specific things; they do not exist separately
from the specific thing. Conceptualism holds that they exist, but only
in the mind, while nominalism holds that universals do not "exist" at
all but are no more than words (flatus vocis) that describe specific objects.
In early modern philosophy, Scottish Common Sense Realism was a school of philosophy which sought to defend naive realism against philosophical paradox and scepticism, arguing that matters of common sense
are within the reach of common understanding and that common-sense
beliefs even govern the lives and thoughts of those who hold
non-commonsensical beliefs. It originated in the ideas of the most
prominent members of the Scottish School of Common Sense, Thomas Reid, Adam Ferguson and Dugald Stewart, during the 18th century Scottish Enlightenment and flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in Scotland and America.
The roots of Scottish Common Sense Realism can be found in responses to such philosophers as John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume. The approach was a response to the "ideal system" that began with Descartes' concept of the limitations of sense experience
and led Locke and Hume to a skepticism that called religion and the
evidence of the senses equally into question. The common sense realists
found skepticism to be absurd and so contrary to common experience that
it had to be rejected. They taught that ordinary experiences provide
intuitively certain assurance of the existence of the self, of real
objects that could be seen and felt and of certain "first principles"
upon which sound morality and religious beliefs could be established.
Its basic principle was enunciated by its founder and greatest figure,
Thomas Reid:
If there are certain principles, as I think there are, which the
constitution of our nature leads us to believe, and which we are under a
necessity to take for granted in the common concerns of life, without
being able to give a reason for them—these are what we call the
principles of common sense; and what is manifestly contrary to them, is
what we call absurd.
In metaphilosophy and ethics, metaethics is the study of the nature, scope, ground, and meaning of moral judgment, ethical belief, or values. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ethics (questions of how one ought to be and act) and applied ethics (practical questions of right behavior in given, usually contentious, situations).
While normative ethics addresses such questions as "What should I
do?", evaluating specific practices and principles of action,
metaethics addresses questions about the nature of goodness, how one can discriminate good from evil, and what the proper account of moral knowledge is. Similar to accounts of knowledge generally, the threat of skepticism about the possibility of moral knowledge and cognitively meaningful moral propositions often motivates positive accounts in metaethics. Another distinction is often made between the nature of questions
related to each: first-order (substantive) questions belong to the
domain of normative ethics, whereas metaethics addresses second-order
(formal) questions.
Some theorists argue that a metaphysical account of morality
is necessary for the proper evaluation of actual moral theories and for
making practical moral decisions; others reason from opposite premises
and suggest that studying moral judgments about proper actions can guide
us to a true account of the nature of morality.
Metaethical questions
According to Richard Garner and Bernard Rosen, there are three kinds of metaethical problems, or three general questions:
What is the meaning of moral terms or judgments? (moral semantics)
Asks about the meanings of such words as 'good', 'bad', 'right', and 'wrong' (see value theory)
What is the nature of moral judgments? (moral ontology)
How may moral judgments be supported or defended? (moral epistemology)
Asks such questions as how we can know if something is right or wrong, if at all.
Garner and Rosen say that answers to the three basic questions "are
not unrelated, and sometimes an answer to one will strongly suggest, or
perhaps even entail, an answer to another." A metaethical theory, unlike a normative ethical
theory, does not attempt to evaluate specific choices as being better,
worse, good, bad, or evil; although it may have profound implications as
to the validity and meaning of normative ethical claims. An answer to
any of the three example questions above would not itself be a normative
ethical statement.
Moral semantics
Moral semantics
attempts to answer the question, "What is the meaning of moral terms or
judgments?" Answers may have implications for answers to the other two
questions as well.
Cognitivist theories
Cognitivist theories hold that evaluative moral sentences express propositions (i.e., they are 'truth-apt' or 'truth bearers', capable of being true or false), as opposed to non-cognitivism.
Most forms of cognitivism hold that some such propositions are true
(including moral realism and ethical subjectivism), as opposed to error theory, which asserts that all are erroneous.
Moral realism
Moral realism (in the robust sense; see moral universalism for the minimalist sense) holds that such propositions are about robust
or mind-independent facts, that is, not facts about any person or
group's subjective opinion, but about objective features of the world.
Metaethical theories are commonly categorized as either a form of
realism or as one of three forms of "anti-realism" regarding moral facts: ethical subjectivism, error theory, or non-cognitivism. Realism comes in two main varieties:
Ethical naturalism holds that there are objective moral properties and that these properties are reducible or stand in some metaphysical relation (such as supervenience) to entirely non-ethical properties. Most ethical naturalists hold that we have empirical knowledge of moral truths. Ethical naturalism was implicitly assumed by many modern ethical theorists, particularly utilitarians.
Ethical non-naturalism, as put forward by G. E. Moore, holds that there are objective and irreducible moral properties (such as the property of 'goodness'), and that we sometimes have intuitive or otherwise a priori awareness of moral properties or of moral truths. Moore's open question argument against what he considered the naturalistic fallacy was largely responsible for the birth of metaethical research in contemporary analytic philosophy.
Ethical subjectivism
Ethical subjectivism
is one form of moral anti-realism. It holds that moral statements are
made true or false by the attitudes and/or conventions of people, either
those of each society, those of each individual, or those of some
particular individual. Most forms of ethical subjectivism are relativist, but there are notable forms that are universalist:
Ideal observer theory holds that what is right is determined by the attitudes that a hypothetical ideal observer
would have. An ideal observer is usually characterized as a being who
is perfectly rational, imaginative, and informed, among other things.
Though a subjectivist theory due to its reference to a particular
(albeit hypothetical) subject, Ideal Observer Theory still purports to
provide universal answers to moral questions.
Divine command theory
holds that for a thing to be right is for a unique being, God, to
approve of it, and that what is right for non-God beings is obedience to
the divine will. This view was criticized by Plato in the Euthyphro (see the Euthyphro problem) but retains some modern defenders (Robert Adams, Philip Quinn, and others). Like ideal observer theory, divine command theory purports to be universalist despite its subjectivism.
Error theory
Error theory,
another form of moral anti-realism, holds that although ethical claims
do express propositions, all such propositions are false. Thus, both the
statement "Murder is morally wrong" and the statement "Murder is
morally permissible" are false, according to error theory. J. L. Mackie is probably the best-known proponent of this view. Since error theory denies that there are moral truths, error theory entails moral nihilism and, thus, moral skepticism; however, neither moral nihilism nor moral skepticism conversely entail error theory.
Non-cognitivist theories
Non-cognitivist theories hold that ethical sentences are neither true nor false because they do not express genuine propositions. Non-cognitivism is another form of moral anti-realism. Most forms of non-cognitivism are also forms of expressivism,
however some such as Mark Timmons and Terrence Horgan distinguish the
two and allow the possibility of cognitivist forms of expressivism.
Non-cognitivism includes:
Emotivism, defended by A. J. Ayer and Charles Stevenson,
holds that ethical sentences serve merely to express emotions. Ayer
argues that ethical sentences are expressions of approval or
disapproval, not assertions. So "Killing is wrong" means something like
"Boo on killing!".
Quasi-realism, defended by Simon Blackburn,
holds that ethical statements behave linguistically like factual claims
and can be appropriately called "true" or "false", even though there
are no ethical facts for them to correspond to. Projectivism and moral fictionalism are related theories.
Universal prescriptivism, defended by R. M. Hare, holds that moral statements function like universalized imperative
sentences. So "Killing is wrong" means something like "Don't kill!"
Hare's version of prescriptivism requires that moral prescriptions be universalizable, and hence actually have objective values, in spite of failing to be indicative statements with truth-values per se.
Centralism and non-centralism
Yet another way of categorizing metaethical theories is to distinguish between centralist and non-centralist
moral theories. The debate between centralism and non-centralism
revolves around the relationship between the so-called "thin" and
"thick" concepts of morality: thin moral concepts are those such as
good, bad, right, and wrong; thick moral concepts are those such as
courageous, inequitable, just, or dishonest. While both sides agree that the thin concepts are more general and the
thick more specific, centralists hold that the thin concepts are
antecedent to the thick ones and that the latter are therefore dependent
on the former. That is, centralists argue that one must understand
words like "right" and "ought" before understanding words like "just"
and "unkind." Non-centralism rejects this view, holding that thin and
thick concepts are on par with one another and even that the thick
concepts are a sufficient starting point for understanding the thin
ones.
Non-centralism has been of particular importance to ethical
naturalists in the late 20th and early 21st centuries as part of their
argument that normativity is a non-excisable aspect of language and that
there is no way of analyzing thick moral concepts into a purely
descriptive element attached to a thin moral evaluation, thus
undermining any fundamental division between facts and norms. Allan Gibbard, R. M. Hare, and Simon Blackburn
have argued in favor of the fact/norm distinction, meanwhile, with
Gibbard going so far as to argue that, even if conventional English has
only mixed normative terms (that is, terms that are neither purely
descriptive nor purely normative), we could develop a nominally English
metalanguage that still allowed us to maintain the division between
factual descriptions and normative evaluations.
Moral ontology
Moral ontology attempts to answer the question, "What is the nature of moral judgments?"
Amongst those who believe there to be some standard(s) of morality (as opposed to moral nihilists), there are two divisions:
universalists, who hold that the same moral facts or principles apply to everyone everywhere; and
relativists, who hold that different moral facts or principles apply to different people or societies.
Moral universalism
Moral universalism (or universal morality) is the metaethical position that some system of ethics, or a universal ethic, applies universally, that is to all intelligent beings regardless of culture, race, sex, religion, nationality, sexuality, or other distinguishing feature. The source or justification of this system may be thought to be, for instance, human nature, shared vulnerability to suffering, the demands of universal reason, what is common among existing moral codes, or the common mandates of religion
(although it can be argued that the latter is not in fact moral
universalism because it may distinguish between Gods and mortals). Moral
universalism is the opposing position to various forms of moral relativism.
Value monism is the common form of universalism, which holds that all goods are commensurable on a single value scale.
Value pluralism
contends that there are two or more genuine scales of value, knowable
as such, yet incommensurable, so that any prioritization of these values
is either non-cognitive or subjective. A value pluralist might, for
example, contend that both a life as a nun and a life as a mother
realize genuine values (in a universalist sense), yet they are
incompatible (nuns may not have children), and there is no purely
rational way to measure which is preferable. A notable proponent of this
view is Isaiah Berlin.
Moral relativism
Moral relativism
maintains that all moral judgments have their origins either in
societal or in individual standards, and that no single standard exists
by which one can objectively assess the truth of a moral proposition.
Metaethical relativists, in general, believe that the descriptive
properties of terms such as "good", "bad", "right", and "wrong" do not
stand subject to universaltruth
conditions, but only to societal convention and personal preference.
Given the same set of verifiable facts, some societies or individuals
will have a fundamental disagreement about what one ought to do based on societal or individual norms,
and one cannot adjudicate these using some independent standard of
evaluation. The latter standard will always be societal or personal and
not universal, unlike, for example, the scientific standards for
assessing temperature or for determining mathematical truths. Some philosophers maintain that moral relativism entails non-cognitivism, while others consider it a form of cognitivism. Some but not all relativist theories are forms of moral subjectivism, although not all subjectivist theories are relativistic.
Moral nihilism
Moral nihilism,
also known as ethical nihilism, is the metaethical view that nothing
has intrinsic moral value. For example, a moral nihilist would say that
killing someone, for whatever reason, is intrinsically neither morally
right nor morally wrong. Moral nihilism must be distinguished from moral relativism,
which does allow for moral statements to be intrinsically true or false
in a non-universal sense, but does not assign any static truth-values
to moral statements. Insofar as only true statements can be known, moral
nihilists are moral skeptics. Most forms of moral nihilism are non-cognitivist and vice versa, though there are notable exceptions such as universal prescriptivism (which is semantically non-cognitive but substantially universal).
Moral epistemology
Moral epistemology is the study of moral knowledge. It
attempts to answer such questions as, "How may moral judgments be
supported or defended?" and "Is moral knowledge possible?"
If one presupposes a cognitivist interpretation of moral
sentences, morality is justified by the moralist's knowledge of moral
facts, and the theories to justify moral judgements are epistemological
theories. Most moral epistemologies posit that moral knowledge is
somehow possible (including empiricism and moral rationalism), as
opposed to moral skepticism.
Amongst them, there are those who hold that moral knowledge is gained
inferentially on the basis of some sort of non-moral epistemic process,
as opposed to ethical intuitionism.
Moral knowledge gained by inference
Empiricism
Empiricism
is the doctrine that knowledge is gained primarily through observation
and experience. Metaethical theories that imply an empirical
epistemology include:
ethical naturalism, which holds moral facts to be reducible to non-moral facts and thus knowable in the same ways; and
most common forms of ethical subjectivism,
which hold that moral facts reduce to facts about individual opinions
or cultural conventions and thus are knowable by observation of those
conventions.
There are exceptions within subjectivism however, such as ideal observer theory, which implies that moral facts may be known through a rational process, and individualist ethical subjectivism,
which holds that moral facts are merely personal opinions and so may be
known only through introspection. Empirical arguments for ethics run
into the is-ought problem, which asserts that the way the world is cannot alone instruct people how they ought to act.
Moral rationalism
Moral rationalism,
also called ethical rationalism, is the view according to which moral
truths (or at least general moral principles) are knowable a priori, by reason alone. Plato and Immanuel Kant, prominent figures in the history of philosophy, defended moral rationalism. David Hume and Friedrich Nietzsche are two figures in the history of philosophy who have rejected moral rationalism.
Ethical intuitionism is the view according to which some moral truths can be known without inference. That is, the view is at its core a foundationalism
about moral beliefs. Such an epistemological view implies that there
are moral beliefs with propositional contents; so it implies cognitivism. Ethical intuitionism commonly suggests moral realism, the view that there are objective facts of morality and, to be more specific, ethical non-naturalism,
the view that these evaluative facts cannot be reduced to natural fact.
However, neither moral realism nor ethical non-naturalism are essential
to the view; most ethical intuitionists simply happen to hold those
views as well. Ethical intuitionism comes in both a "rationalist"
variety, and a more "empiricist" variety known as moral sense theory.
Moral skepticism
Moral skepticism is the class
of metaethical theories all members of which entail that no one has any
moral knowledge. Many moral skeptics also make the stronger, modal, claim that moral knowledge is impossible. Forms of moral skepticism include, but are not limited to, error theory and most but not all forms of non-cognitivism.
Metaepistemology is the study of the underlying assumptions of epistemology.
As the "theory of knowledge", epistemology is concerned with questions
about what knowledge is and how much people can know. Metaepistemology,
by contrast, investigates what the aims and methods of epistemology should be, whether there are objective facts about what people know, and related issues.
Epistemology is typically viewed as a normative field focused on reflective thought rather than empirical evidence. It is usually seen as methodologically distinct from the sciences, with methods including the use of intuitions, thought experiments, conceptual analysis, and explication. Other views include naturalism, which holds that epistemology should be scientifically-informed; experimental philosophy, which argues against intuitions and for the use of empirical studies; pragmatism, which argues for the reconstruction of epistemic concepts to achieve practical goals; and feminism, which criticises gendered bias in epistemology.
Metaepistemology investigates epistemic facts, for example, facts about what people know. According to epistemic realists, facts about knowledge are objective and depend on the way the world is rather than subjective opinion. Anti-realists deny the existence of such facts. Error theorists deny the existence of epistemic facts altogether while instrumentalists and relativists simply deny that they are objective. Expressivism
argues that statements about knowledge do not aim to represent facts in
the first place, but instead express attitudes like "this belief is
good enough". Views such as quasi-realism and constitutivism
attempt to derive some of the benefits of realism without accepting the
existence of objective epistemic facts. Constitutivism, for example,
explains epistemic facts in terms of the nature of belief. Within the
epistemology of epistemology, views include epistemic internalism and externalism as well as metaepistemological scepticism.
A number of questions arise from the normativity of epistemology.
For example, metaepistemologists investigate whether people have
obligations to hold the right beliefs and if this implies that they have
voluntary control over what they believe. Other questions include what
the source of epistemic normativity is or how to characterise epistemic value. The connection between normative judgements and epistemic motivation is another line of investigation. As a twin metanormative discipline, metaepistemology's relationship with metaethics
is a matter of debate. Some theorists view the disciplines as strictly
analogous whilst others see important distinctions between the two.
Background
Terminology
Metaepistemology is the branch of epistemology focused on the fundamental assumptions of epistemology. As a form of metaphilosophy,
it is a reflective or higher-order discipline that takes ordinary
epistemology as its subject matter, which itself is a first-order or
substantive discipline. Although there is a general agreement that metaepistemology reflects on
epistemology in some sense, its exact definition is contested. Some sources define it narrowly as the epistemology of epistemology, including The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy which states that the role of metaepistemology is in comparing different epistemologies and analysing epistemic concepts.Others emphasise the role of metaepistemology in examining epistemology's goals, methods and criteria of adequacy. Metaepistemology is also sometimes characterised as the study of epistemic statements and judgements, including their semantic, ontological and pragmatic status, or as the study of epistemic facts and reasons.
Metaepistemology is a relatively modern term and probably originated at some point in the 20th century. Dominique Kuenzle identifies its first use as a 1959 article by Roderick Firth discussing the views of Roderick Chisholm on the ethics of belief. Richard Brandt used the term in the 1967 edition of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, defining it as a higher-order discipline, analogous to metaethics, that attempts to explain epistemic concepts and to understand the underlying logic of epistemic statements. In 1978, also inspired by the work of Roderick Chisholm, William Alston
released "Meta-Ethics and Meta-Epistemology", the first paper with the
explicit aim of defining the distinction between metaepistemology and
substantive epistemology, in which he defined metaepistemology as the
study of "the conceptual and methodological foundations of
[epistemology]." Kuenzle notes only a few uses prior to 2017, but Christos Kyriacou and Robin McKenna state that increasing interest
in the field arose around the beginning of the 21st century due to a
growing recognition that epistemology is a normative field like ethics.
Relationship between epistemology and metaepistemology
The
division between metaepistemology and the other branches of
epistemology—as well as their connections with one another—is debated by
metaepistemologists. For example, the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy divides epistemology into three branches analogously to the three branches of ethics: metaepistemology, normative epistemology and applied epistemology. Richard Fumerton
instead divides epistemology into metaepistemology and applied
epistemology. According to Fumerton, the idea of a branch of normative
epistemology is problematic because, in his view, epistemic normativity
is inherently different in character to moral normativity.
Views about the relationship between metaepistemology and the
other branches of epistemology fall into two groups: autonomy and
interdependency. According to the autonomy view, metaepistemology is an
entirely independent branch of epistemology that neither depends on the
other branches nor entails any particular position in them. For example,
according to this view, a person being an epistemic realist, anti-realist, or relativist has no implications for whether they should be a coherentist, foundationalist, or reliabilist,
and vice versa. According to the interdependency view, on the other
hand, there are strong theoretical interdependencies between the
branches and a normative epistemological view may even be fully
derivable from a metaepistemological one. Furthermore, according to the
latter view, metaepistemology may have relevance to issues of practical
importance like climate change scepticism.
Nature and methodology of epistemology
W. V. Quine challenged traditional epistemology with his philosophy of naturalised epistemology.
Epistemology is commonly defined as the "theory of knowledge". In
this sense, it investigates the nature of knowledge and how far it
extends, but epistemologists also investigate other concepts such as justification, understanding and rationality. To account for this diversity of interests, epistemology is sometimes characterised as two connected projects: gnoseology concerned with the theory of knowledge, and intellectual ethics concerned with guiding inquiry according to proper intellectual norms. Epistemology is traditionally viewed as an a priori discipline focused on reflective thought rather than empirical evidence, and as autonomous from the results and methods of the sciences. It is also generally seen as a normative discipline, evaluating beliefs as either justified or unjustified and prescribing the proper way to form beliefs. As the central focus of epistemology, knowledge is generally understood in terms of determinate beliefs, but degrees of belief or credences are also important concepts, and metaepistemologists have debated which is more fundamental to epistemology.
Alternative views of epistemology may deny some or all of the
traditional features of epistemology. For example, naturalistic
epistemology denies the autonomy of epistemology, holding that
epistemology should be informed by either the methods or ontology of science. In its most radical form, associated in particular with the naturalised epistemology of W. V. Quine, it claims that epistemology should be replaced with empirical disciplines such as psychology or cognitive science. Advocates of experimental philosophy claim that epistemology should use a posteriori
methods such as experiments and empirical data, either replacing
traditional philosophical methods or merely supplementing them. More traditional methods include the use of intuitions about particular cases or thought experiments to support epistemological theories or ideas. A prominent example in epistemology is the use of intuitions regarding Gettier cases
to test theories of knowledge. These are hypothetical cases in which
candidate conditions for knowledge are met but intuitively do not appear
to count as knowledge due to luck being involved. Intuitions are also used in the process of reflective equilibrium,
in which conflicting intuitions are brought into alignment by modifying
or removing intuitions until they form a coherent system of beliefs.
A number of issues in the methodology of epistemology have been influenced by Gettier cases originating with Edmund Gettier.
Related to the use of intuitions is the method of analysis to clarify
epistemic terms. Traditionally, analysis in epistemology has been seen
as conceptual analysis, which attempts to clarify concepts such as knowledge by providing necessary and sufficient conditions for their use. A similar view sees analysis as semantic or linguistic analysis, in which the way terms are actually used is tracked to try and reveal their meaning. However, the problems posed to the conceptual analysis of knowledge by Gettier cases have led some philosophers including Timothy Williamson to become pessimistic about such approaches. Williamson and naturalists like Hilary Kornblith
have also argued that epistemologists should be concerned with actual
epistemic phenomena and states rather than words and concepts. According to an alternative viewpoint, analysis in epistemology is
metaphysical analysis, which aims at understanding the nature of the
thing being investigated.
An alternative methodology to philosophical analysis is explication.
Explication aims to clarify a term by replacing it with a more
precisely defined technical term. The technical term should remain close
in meaning to the original term but can deviate from intuitions to
fulfil theoretical or practical goals. For example, the scientific term
"fish" excludes whales to better capture the facts of biology, even if
whales may be included in the colloquial or pre-scientific meaning of
the word. Practical explication, also known as a function-first approach,
identifies the purpose or function of a term to clarify its meaning.
Proposed functions of the term knowledge, for example, include its role
in identifying reliable sources of information and in marking an
end-point for inquiry. This approach is associated with the pragmatism of Charles Sanders Peirce and neopragmatists such as Mark Kaplan and Edward Craig. Inspired by Craig, Jonathan Weinberg has proposed an explicitly
metaepistemological pragmatism that allows epistemic concepts to be
redesigned to fulfil practical goals, resulting in a method of
"analysis-by-imagined-reconstruction".
Another methodological issue in epistemology is the debate between particularists and generalists.
According to particularists, particular cases of knowledge need to be
identified before the general principles underlying knowledge can be
understood. Generalists, on the other hand, argue that the principles
underlying knowledge are required to reliably identify cases. This
debate is made more complicated by the fact that each question seems to
depend on the other; a general theory of knowledge is needed to know if
particular cases count as knowledge, but a theory of knowledge is
potentially arbitrary without being tested against particular cases.
This is known as the problem of the criterion. Generalism was popular in modern philosophy,
but by the middle of the 20th century, particularism was the dominant
view. In the 21st century, particularism became less dominant after a
period driven by responses to Gettier cases, and epistemic methodology
widened to include considerations regarding the value of knowledge and the relationships between knowledge and related concepts such as assertion.
Sally Haslanger has argued that epistemic concepts should be reformulated from a feminist lens to remove androcentric bias.
According to feminist epistemology, epistemology has been historically rooted in androcentric bias. An example cited by some feminist philosophers is epistemology's focus on propositional knowledge, which they argue is due to femininity being associated with emotional and practical forms of knowledge while being devalued compared to stereotypes of masculine rationality and theoreticity. At the same time, feminists typically argue against a value-free or
"disinterested" methodology, holding that epistemology is inherently
value-laden. The problem of reconciling feminist epistemology's criticism of
androcentric bias and simultaneous acceptance that feminism has its own
biases is called the "bias paradox". Louise Antony
has embraced feminist naturalised epistemology to solve this problem,
arguing that feminists should try to show that feminist values produce
empirically better theories. Other feminist approaches to epistemology can also be viewed as in
conversation with different viewpoints, and as extending criticisms of
traditional epistemology from a feminist lens. For example, Sally Haslanger
has argued from a pragmatist feminist perspective that epistemic
concepts should be reformed to remove androcentric biases so they can
better serve their purposes within epistemology.
Epistemic realism and anti-realism
As in metaethics, views about the metaphysics of epistemology can be divided into epistemic realism and anti-realism.
In its most minimal form, epistemic realism claims that there are
mind-independent epistemic facts. This means that statements about what a
person knows, for example, are objectively true or false, and their
truth or falsity depends on the way the world is rather than personal
opinion or cultural consensus. Epistemic realism generally takes these epistemic facts to be normative and to provide categorical
reasons for belief. In other words, these facts have authority over
what a person should believe, regardless of their goals or desires. Epistemic realists can be divided into reductionists, who believe that
epistemic facts can be reduced to descriptive or natural facts, and
antireductionists, who believe that epistemic facts are irreducibly
normative.
Epistemic reductionists are generally naturalist realists while antireductionists tend to be non-naturalists.
That is, reductionists tend to believe that epistemic facts can be
identified with natural facts while antireductionists take them to be a sui generis type of fact. Reductionists can be further divided into analytic reductionists, who
accept conceptual analysis, and synthetic reductionists, who think that
epistemic reductions can only be found empirically. For example, Hilary Kornblith argues that knowledge is a natural kind and should therefore be investigated empirically, akin to other natural kinds like gold. An argument for non-naturalism and against analytic reductionism is G. E. Moore's open question argument in metaethics, which has been adapted for epistemology. It claims that statements such as "this belief is reliably produced,
but is it knowledge?" are open questions, which shows that knowledge is
not identical in meaning to any natural property.
Epistemic anti-realists deny the existence of mind-independent epistemic facts. Epistemic error theorists
agree with realists that the truth or falsity of epistemic statements
depend on epistemic facts. But they argue that there are no epistemic
facts, so all epistemic statements are false. Some forms of anti-realism accept the existence of epistemic facts, but deny they are independent of human desires or customs. For example, epistemic instrumentalism takes epistemic facts to depend
on goals or desires—such as the desire to only believe the truth—and
hence denies categorical reasons for belief in favour of hypothetical or
instrumental reasons. Epistemic relativism holds that epistemic truths are relative to some other factor such as culture.
Some epistemologists view epistemic contextualism
as a form of relativism. It asserts that the accuracy of knowledge
claims can vary depending on the context in which they are used. In
other words, it is possible for a knowledge claim to be true in a
scenario with low standards but false in one with high standards, even
if the evidence is the same. For example, according to contextualism, whether someone knows that a flight has a connection
in a certain city depends not just on their evidence but also on the
context. So, a person might know about the connection on the basis of an
overheard conversation if it has no practical importance to them. But
if they need to know whether there is a connection—if they urgently need
to meet someone in that city say—then they would need to do further
checks before they can confidently say they know one way or the other. A view sometimes called new age relativism goes even further by claiming that knowledge claims can be assessed in many different ways, even if the standards are the same. In opposition to all forms of contextualism and relativism is
invariantism. It states that knowledge claims are absolutely true or
false and do not change from context to context.
Another view is expressivism.
It denies the existence of epistemic facts, like error theory, but also
denies that epistemic statements have any representational content. In
other words, it denies that epistemic statements even attempt to
accurately describe facts. It follows from this that epistemic statements cannot be true or false,
since they do not represent the world as being a particular way. This
denial that epistemic statements have a representational content capable
of being true or false is called epistemic non-cognitivism. It constitutes a major departure from the realist's semantic framework of cognitivism,
which claims that epistemic statements attempt to accurately represent
facts. According to non-cognitivist semantics, epistemic statements are
instead used to express desires or attitudes like approval or
disapproval. For example, some expressivists interpret knowledge claims as expressing the attitude that one's belief is "good enough".
One form of expressivism is called quasi-realism. It attempts to recover aspects of realism from within an expressivist framework. In particular, it adopts minimal or deflationary
views about truth, facts and properties. According to this approach,
truth and facthood are linguistic devices; to say "it is a fact that S
knows that p" is not to assert there are facts, it is just to emphasise
one's confidence that "S knows that p". In this way, quasi-realists
attempt to recover the language of realism without accepting realist
metaphysics. A view that seeks to find a middle ground between realism and anti-realism is constitutivism, sometimes called constructivism. It argues that normative facts are grounded by facts about agents, such as facts about their desires or about the pre-conditions of their agency. Within metaepistemology, this view generally argues that it is a
constitutive part of the concept of belief that it aims at the truth. Proponents argue this view retains some benefits of both realism and
anti-realism; it generates epistemic objectivity and categorical reasons
for belief without the metaphysical costs of realism.
The debate between realism and anti-realism includes a number of
different arguments. Epistemic realism has been the default
presupposition of mainstream epistemology and so has not received many
explicit defences. Those that exist generally focus on the alleged
incoherence of anti-realism. For instance, some realists argue error theory is self-defeating since
it entails that there are no reasons for belief, and therefore no
reasons to believe error theory. A similar argument against expressivism
states that it depends on taking a perspective external to epistemic
inquiry, but to argue for expressivism requires engaging in epistemic
inquiry. Realism has its own challenges though. For example, evolutionary debunking arguments due to Sharon Street claim that people's epistemic attitudes can be explained by Darwinian evolution and that evolution has no reason to track epistemic facts. Some philosophers also argue that epistemic realism cannot account for widespread disagreement about epistemology.
Epistemology of epistemology
The epistemology of epistemology asks how there is knowledge about epistemic facts and reasons. An important distinction related to this question is between epistemic internalism and externalism.According to a common characterisation, internalism is the view that
justification consists in having cognitively accessible reasons for a
belief. Another internalist view, called mentalism, claims that
justification depends on mental states;
for example, an agent must have a mental state that counts as evidence
for a belief for it to be justified. Externalism is the denial of
internalism. It holds that justification does not always need
cognitively accessible reasons and may not always depend on mental
states. A common externalist view is reliabilism, which views justification as a question of whether a belief was formed through a reliable process.
Since internalism explains epistemic reasons as reflectively
accessible mental states, it entails that epistemic facts can in
principle be known through reflection. Externalism rejects this focus on
reasons and reflection as an overly intellectualised account of
everyday knowledge. It usually holds that access to reasons is not
required for knowledge and places focus instead on reliable cognitive
processes. However, the rejection of reasons as central to knowledge is
sometimes seen as a dismissal of epistemic normativity altogether. Some
externalist accounts such as Ernest Sosa's
take a more moderate approach by supplementing a basic form of
reliabilist knowledge with a reflective knowledge concerned with reasons
and the coherence of beliefs.
Also related to the internalism–externalism debate is the
position of metaepistemological scepticism, defended most prominently by
Richard Fumerton and Barry Stroud. Metaepistemological scepticism claims that it is impossible to form a satisfying response to the problem of scepticism. It claims that whilst externalism provides an account of how we could
have knowledge, it is not a philosophically satisfying account. For
Fumerton, this is because it allows people to know things even if they
do not have direct cognitive access to them. However, metaepistemological sceptics also view direct acquaintance as a
problematic answer to scepticism. In particular, they find such
responses problematically circular or think that it is impossible to
have direct acquaintance with the external world. So for metaepistemological scepticism, all possible responses fail to solve the problem of scepticism. Opponents of metaepistemological scepticism include Michael Williams, who argues that the questions raised by metaepistemological sceptics are ill-formed or unnatural in some way.
Another issue relevant to the epistemology of epistemology is the
reliability of intuitions about epistemic facts. Some philosophers
argue that intuitions can be unreliable and often differ from person to
person. For example, some empirical studies from experimental philosophers have
indicated that intuitions are unstable and are influenced by
philosophically irrelevant factors such as personality or cultural background, although these results are disputed. According to more traditional epistemologists, scepticism of intuitions
is self-defeating since it leaves no way to evaluate the strength of
arguments or evidence.
Normativity and reasons for belief
Epistemology is widely agreed to be a normative discipline. It investigates what ought to be believed and when beliefs are justified or unjustified. A common way to understand justification is in terms of deontic concepts like permission and obligation. For example, some epistemologists hold that there is an obligation to only form beliefs based on evidence. Opponents of a deontic understanding of justification such as William Alston argue that there is no voluntary control over belief, so it is inappropriate to apply concepts like ought or obligation to it. Proponents of a deontic conception have responded in a number of ways.
Some argue that at least some beliefs are under direct voluntary control
while others argue that indirect influence is enough to support deontic
concepts.
Deeply related to the notion of normativity are reasons. Epistemic reasons are usually identified as reasons for belief as opposed to reasons for actions, which are in the domain of practical reason. Furthermore, epistemic reasons are reasons for belief from an epistemic
point of view – that is, reasons deriving from an epistemic aim like
knowledge rather than a purely pragmatic aim like self-enrichment. Normative reasons are generally distinguished from explanatory reasons,
which explain why somebody holds a belief. They are also distinguished
from motivational reasons, which are the subjective reasons that moved a
person to have a certain belief. Normative reasons are concerned not
with why a person holds a belief, but the things that favour that belief
over another and make it the correct thing to believe.
One question in metaepistemology concerns what the source of epistemic normativity is. According to instrumentalists, epistemic reasons depend on agents'
goals or desires and are hence instrumental reasons. Intrinsicalists, by
contrast, hold that epistemic reasons are brutely or intrinsically normative and on this basis generally accept categorical reasons for belief. One challenge to instrumentalism is the problem of accounting for
evidence of trivial or counterproductive beliefs. For example, if a
person learns the ending to a movie that they had hoped to watch without
foreknowledge of the plot, they have good reasons to believe how it
will end despite not having a corresponding goal or desire.
Instrumentalists have responded to this challenge by arguing that
gaining true beliefs always serves some epistemic interest or that the
reasons in such cases are not truly normative reasons.
T. M. Scanlon argues for a "buck-passing" account of value.
Another question is what it means for something to be epistemically valuable. Some philosophers like T. M. Scanlon think that value
can be defined in terms of properties that elicit pro- or
con-attitudes. So-called "buck-passing accounts" deny the view that some
properties are intrinsically valuable, instead "passing the buck" to more basic attitude-providing properties. In particular, the buck-passing account of epistemic value claims that
something is epistemically valuable if it has properties that provide
reasons to believe it. One objection to buck-passing accounts is the "wrong kind of reasons"
problem. According to this problem, there can be reasons to have an
attitude towards something that is unrelated to its value. For example,
somebody may have reason to believe something because they find it
comforting, but this is unrelated to its epistemic value.
The connection between normativity and motivation in metaepistemology is debated. Judgement internalists argue that normative epistemic judgements (like "p is justified") always involve motivation (like being motivated to believe that p), while externalists believe they can sometimes fail to motivate beliefs.
However, most agree there is usually a connection, which requires an
explanation. Some theorists explain epistemic motivation in terms of moral or
pragmatic concerns, while others see it as intrinsic to belief itself. The issue also intersects with the debate between cognitivism and
non-cognitivism. Non-cognitivists view epistemic statements as
expressions of desires, which are inherently motivational, whereas
cognitivists see them merely as representations. Hence, cognitivists
face a challenge of explaining how epistemic facts can motivate beliefs.
With the increasing focus on normativity in epistemology,
philosophers have come to question how deep the connections are between
metaepistemology and other metanormative disciplines such as metaethics.
According to the parity thesis, metaethics and metaepistemology are
structurally equivalent to one another so that any positions taken in
one should carry over to the other. Normative realists like Terence
Cuneo have used this idea as part of "companions in guilt" arguments to
extend arguments for epistemic realism to moral realism. Meanwhile,
anti-realists like Sharon Street, Allan Gibbard
and Matthew Chrisman have taken the reverse approach, extending
arguments for moral anti-realism to epistemic anti-realism. In
opposition to the parity thesis is the disparity thesis, which claims
that there are important disanalogies between metaethics and
metaepistemology. For example, philosophers such as Chris Heathwood,
Jonas Olson, and James Lenman have argued that moral facts are irreducibly normative while epistemic facts are reducible to descriptive facts.
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