Recent debates concerning the nature of knowledge have given rise to a dispute between Explanationism and Modalism. According to Explanationism, one knows just in case the believed fact explains one’s belief. According to Modalism, one knows just in case one truly believes in all (or most) relevant worlds. In this talk, I raise a dilemma for Bogardus and Perrin’s (2022) Explanationism: either their account leads to widespread skepticism about perceptual knowledge, or it does not explain why epistemically defective methods, such as bias or wishful thinking, do not produce knowledge. On a positive note, I formulate a Modalist alternative, Dispositional Normicism, where methods are cognitive dispositions, normality is understood in terms of proper function, and the relevant worlds are those where the subject believes via the same cognitive disposition as in the world of evaluation that are at least as normal for that disposition. Dispositional Normicism avoids skepticism about perceptual knowledge, although at the cost of denying the possibility of competent failure, and it explains why epistemically defective cognitive dispositions do not produce knowledge: because they produce false beliefs in normal worlds.
Activities > Graduate Research Seminar (GRSem) > Explanationism vs. Dispositional Normicism: On Knowing and Wishfully Believing There Is a Barn
