Cassam (2023) argued in this journal that vice-charging - the practice of charging others with epistemic vices such as gullibility and dogmatism - can itself be epistemically vicious. He focused, in particular, on charges of gullibility and dogmatism directed at parents hesitant to allow their kids to be vaccinated with the MMR vaccine. In this paper, I build on and extend his case by discussing relevant work he did not address. This includes work by Navin (2016) on parental vaccine refusal, recent empirical work concerning the link between differing moral values and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy, and recent empirical work on vaccine uptake and moral reproach. The work discussed here has important implications for public education efforts that aim to increase vaccine uptake.

Can information be false? An important debate in the philosophy of information turns on this seemingly simple question. According to veridicalism (or the veridicality thesis), truth is a necessary condition for information; by contrast, according to non-veridicalism (or the non-veridicality thesis), it is not. I argue that this debate has noteworthy implications for how we should conceive of secrecy understood in terms of concealment of information. I also argue that, since falsehoods can be secret, it is more tenable to hold that secrecy is not restricted to true information than to hold that it is.

This paper builds on two of James Baldwin's insights concerning the epistemic effects of American racism on Black Americans. I argue that he anticipated important points later raised by Jos & eacute; Medina and Charles Mills, according to which those subjected to discrimination may have an epistemic advantage over discriminators, are an advantage in terms of what Medina later called meta-lucidity. Building on another one of Baldwin's insights, I then argue that racial discrimination (and by extension other forms of discrimination) can also epistemically harm those subjected to it. In doing so, I relate this harm to the topic of epistemic injustice, and draw connections to work done on relevant alternatives in epistemology, on micro-aggressions, and on self-trust. I also consider the extent to which the epistemic advantage that may arise from being subjected to discrimination may mitigate the epistemic harm it inflicts.

Antognazza ("The Benefit to Philosophy", "The Distinction in Kind"), Dutant ("The Legend"), and I ("Knowledge Before Gettier") have argued for the historical falsity of the claim that, prior to Gettier's famous counterexamples of sixty years ago, the so-called 'traditional' conception of knowledge was the justified true belief (JTB) conception. This note addresses a related historical question that, rather surprisingly, has not yet been addressed in the philosophical literature; to wit: when did this claim first appear in this literature?

Refining and extending Cassam's important account of the vice of epistemic insouciance, I distinguish between expressive and receptive forms of it. Focusing on the latter, I discuss its perniciousness. I then delineate a virtue and a vice that have hitherto not been discussed in the literature: epistemic souciance and epistemic hypersouciance.

AbstractThis paper discusses two important emphases of epistemology – of virtue and vice epistemology in particular – one concerning agency and patiency, and the other concerning self-regard and other-regard. The paper offers, for the first time in the literature, a framework in which four types of epistemological work can be categorized according to their respective dual emphases: Type 1 (agent/self-regarding), Type 2 (agent/other-regarding), Type 3 (patient/self-regarding), and Type 4 (patient/other-regarding). The paper also shows how four ways of doing epistemology can be categorized in terms of these four types and draws particular attention to one dubbedother-centering.

According to the Ignorance Factivity Thesis, for every proposition p, one is ignorant of p only if p is a truth. By contrast, according to the Ignorance Non-Factivity Thesis, it is false that, for every proposition p, one is ignorant of p only if p is a truth. I argue that, on balance, the case for the latter thesis is stronger than the case for the former.

One of the most venerable and enduring intuitions in epistemology concerns the relationship between true belief and knowledge. Famously articulated by Socrates, it holds that true belief does not suffice for knowledge. I discuss a matching intuition about ignorance according to which true belief does not suffice for the absence of ignorance. I argue that the latter intuition undercuts the New View of Ignorance (according to which ignorance is the absence of true belief) and supports the Standard View of Ignorance (according to which ignorance is the absence of knowledge).

In this chapter, I explore some interesting similarities and differences between journalistic balance (i.e., the journalistic practice of presenting in a balanced manner different sides of an issue) and Pyrrhonian balance (i.e., the balanced presentation of the reasons for and against any given proposition p). In particular, I explore how some important criticisms of journalistic balance suggest that it has an unintended Pyrrhonic effect. I also consider some fascinating empirical work concerning how the balanced treatment of the pros and cons on matters of disagreement leads (surprisingly) to increased hardening and polarization of views, and not to a suspension of belief as one might have expected.

This chapter discusses two broad meta-sceptical stances that may be derived from Aristotle's work: the first takes challenges to knowledge to be puzzles that serve as spurs to epistemological investigation; the second takes scepticism to be a virtue when a mean between excessive and deficient doubt.

An ingenious argument - we may call it the Argument from Excuse - purports to show that the Standard View of Ignorance is false and the New View of Ignorance is true. On the former, ignorance is lack of knowledge; on the latter, ignorance is lack of true belief. I defend the Standard View by arguing that the Argument from Excuse is unsound. I also argue that an implication of my case is that Factual Ignorance Thesis (FIT) is false. According to FIT, whenever an agent A acts from factual ignorance, A is morally blameworthy (culpable) for the act only if A is morally blameworthy (culpable) for the ignorance from which A acts.

I articulate and defend a conception of skepticism inspired by Aristotle's doctrine of the mean. On it, skepticism is vicious when deficient (as in gullibility) and when excessive (as in closedmindedness). Virtuous skepticism lies as a mean between these two extremes.

ABSTRACT In this paper, I offer an account of propositional learning: namely, learning that p. I argue for what I call the “Three Transitions Thesis” or “TTT” according to which four states and three transitions between them characterize such learning. I later supplement the TTT to account for learning why p. In making my case, I discuss mathematical propositions such as Fermat's Last Theorem and the ABC Conjecture, and then generalize to other mathematical propositions and to non-mathematical propositions. I also discuss some interesting applications of the TTT, and reply to some noteworthy objections.

Perceptual Realism is the view; perception-independent physical objects are what perceivers perceive. In this chapter, I delineate Perceptual Realism's fundamental forms. In doing so, I distinguish Direct Realism from forms of Perceptual Realism such as Naïve Realism and Indirect Realism and from forms of Perceptual Anti-Realism such Idealism and Phenomenalism. I also distinguish between forms of Direct Realism such as Ur-Direct Realism, Irreducibilist Direct Realism, and Reducibilist Direct Realism. Invoking appearance-reality gaps, I distinguish as well between global and local forms of Naïve Realism and between temporal, chromatic, formal, quantitative, motional, and relational forms of perceptual naïveté. My key aim in drawing these distinctions is to show that both defenders and opponents of Perpetual Realism would be wise to clearly specify the kind of Perceptual Realism they are supporting or rejecting.

I argue that a debate in information theory concerning whether information can be false has important implications for how we should understand the nature of informational privacy. In particular, these implications bear on whether we should understand such privacy as being restricted to facts or whether it can encompass falsehoods as well. I also argue that the stand we take on the latter issue has a significant bearing on the coherence and justification of what is known as false light privacy tort in American tort law.

Searle offers an account of seeing as a conscious state not constituted by the object(s) seen. I focus in this article on his biological case for this thesis, and argue that the biological considerations he adduces neither establish his own position nor defeat a rival object-inclusive view. I show (among other things) that taking seeing to be a biological state is compatible with its being (partially) constituted by the object(s) seen.

According to a historical claim oft-repeated by contemporary epistemologists, the traditional' conception of knowledge prevailed in Western philosophy prior to the publication in 1963 of Edmund's Gettier's famous three-page article Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?'. On this conception, knowledge consists of justified true belief. In this article, I critically consider evidence for and against this historical claim, and conclude with a puzzle concerning its widespread acceptance.