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When Evidence Isn't Enough: Suspension, Evidentialism, and Knowledge-first Virtue Epistemology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2019

Lisa Miracchi
Lisa Miracchi*
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
*
*Email: miracchi@gmail.com
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Abstract

I motivate and develop a novel account of the epistemic assessability of suspension as a development of my knowledge-first, virtue-epistemological research program. First, I extend an argument of Ernest Sosa's for the claim that evidentialism cannot adequately account for the epistemic assessability of suspension. This includes a kind of knowledge-first evidentialism of the sort advocated by Timothy Williamson. I agree with Sosa that the reasons why evidentialism fails motivate a virtue-epistemological approach, but argue that my knowledge-first account is preferable to his view. According to my account, rational belief is belief that manifests proper practical respect for what it takes to know. Beliefs are the only primary bearers of epistemic evaluation since they are the only candidates for knowledge. However, suspension can manifest a derivative kind of practical respect for what it takes to know. Thus, we can explain why the same sort of assessment is applicable to both belief and suspension (epistemic rationality), and why belief has a privileged claim to these properties. Lastly, I'll look at Sosa's and Williamson's treatments of Pyrrhonian skepticism, which treats a certain kind of suspension as the epistemically superior practice, and argue that my account provides a better anti-skeptical response than either of their approaches.

Keywords

evidentialismknowledge-first epistemologyvirtue epistemologyskepticismsuspension
Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 16 , Special Issue 4: 2018 Episteme Conference in Honor of Ernest Sosa , December 2019 , pp. 413 - 437
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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