2021/03/25 by Jennifer Rose Carr · 90 citations
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Context (archaeology) #Epistemology #Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics #Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies #Ideal (ethics) #Meaning (existential) #Philosophy #Philosophy and Theoretical Science #Rationality #Sociology
paper · doi:10.1093/mind/fzab023
published in Mind 131(524), 1131-1162 (Oxford University Press)
openalex publication_date 2021/03/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
Abstract Ideal epistemologists investigate the nature of pure epistemic rationality, abstracting away from human cognitive limitations. Non-ideal epistemologists investigate epistemic norms that are satisfiable by most humans, most of the time. Ideal epistemology faces a number of challenges, aimed at both its substantive commitments and its philosophical worth. This paper explains the relation between ideal and non-ideal epistemology, with the aim of justifying ideal epistemology. Its approach is meta-epistemological, focusing on the meaning and purpose of epistemic evaluations. I provide an account on which the fundamental difference between ideal and non-ideal epistemic evaluations is that only the non-ideal epistemic ‘ought’ implies any substantive ‘can’. I argue that only ideal epistemic evaluations are ‘normatively robust’: they are neither conventional nor seriously context-sensitive. Non-ideal epistemic evaluations are normatively non-robust, exhibiting both conventionality and serious context-sensitivity from an interesting variety of distinct sources. For this reason, non-ideal epistemic evaluations won’t characterize the fundamental nature of epistemic rationality. Non-ideal epistemic rationality depends, not merely on what’s epistemically valuable, but also on modally contingent epistemic conventions and contextually contingent constraints on epistemic options. If we want a normatively robust theory of epistemic rationality, ideal epistemology is the only game in town.