There are no epistemic norms of inquiry

Epistemic nihilism for inquiry is the claim that there are no epistemic norms of inquiry. Epistemic nihilism was once the received stance towards inquiry, and I argue that it should be taken seriously again. My argument is that the same considerations which led us away from epistemic nihilism in the...

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Main Author: Thorstad, D
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: Springer Nature 2022
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author Thorstad, D
author_facet Thorstad, D
author_sort Thorstad, D
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description Epistemic nihilism for inquiry is the claim that there are no epistemic norms of inquiry. Epistemic nihilism was once the received stance towards inquiry, and I argue that it should be taken seriously again. My argument is that the same considerations which led us away from epistemic nihilism in the case of belief not only cannot refute epistemic nihilism for inquiry, but in fact may well support it. These include the argument from non-existence that there are no non-epistemic reasons for belief; the linguistic argument that epistemic norms of belief are needed to capture the semantics of ordinary epistemic talk; and the argument from theoretical roles that epistemic norms are needed to play key theoretical roles for rational belief. I conclude by sketching an alternative Gibbardian picture on which norms of inquiry are all-things-considered norms governing action.
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spelling oxford-uuid:a5d36ec7-d51e-4343-8b72-0b96f7386cf62023-01-20T15:26:33ZThere are no epistemic norms of inquiryJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:a5d36ec7-d51e-4343-8b72-0b96f7386cf6EnglishSymplectic ElementsSpringer Nature2022Thorstad, DEpistemic nihilism for inquiry is the claim that there are no epistemic norms of inquiry. Epistemic nihilism was once the received stance towards inquiry, and I argue that it should be taken seriously again. My argument is that the same considerations which led us away from epistemic nihilism in the case of belief not only cannot refute epistemic nihilism for inquiry, but in fact may well support it. These include the argument from non-existence that there are no non-epistemic reasons for belief; the linguistic argument that epistemic norms of belief are needed to capture the semantics of ordinary epistemic talk; and the argument from theoretical roles that epistemic norms are needed to play key theoretical roles for rational belief. I conclude by sketching an alternative Gibbardian picture on which norms of inquiry are all-things-considered norms governing action.
spellingShingle Thorstad, D
There are no epistemic norms of inquiry
title There are no epistemic norms of inquiry
title_full There are no epistemic norms of inquiry
title_fullStr There are no epistemic norms of inquiry
title_full_unstemmed There are no epistemic norms of inquiry
title_short There are no epistemic norms of inquiry
title_sort there are no epistemic norms of inquiry
work_keys_str_mv AT thorstadd therearenoepistemicnormsofinquiry