Baron Reed
Northwestern University, Philosophy, Faculty Member
Edited volume on epistemic agency, with new essays by Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij, Selim Berker, Jessica Brown, E.J. Coffman, Pascal Engel, Miguel Ángel Fernández, Stephen Hetherington, Michael Lynch, Conor McHugh, Ram Neta, Lucy O’Brien,... more
Edited volume on epistemic agency, with new essays by Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij, Selim Berker, Jessica Brown, E.J. Coffman, Pascal Engel, Miguel Ángel Fernández, Stephen Hetherington, Michael Lynch, Conor McHugh, Ram Neta, Lucy O’Brien, Baron Reed, Mark Schroeder, Kieran Setiya, Nishi Shah, Ernest Sosa, Valerie Tiberius, Ralph Wedgwood, Sarah Wright, and Linda Zagzebski.
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It is by now well known that ancient Pyrrhonism was intended to be a way of life rather than a doctrine. Various objections to Pyrrhonism as a way of life have been raised—that it is psychologically impossible and that it makes life grind... more
It is by now well known that ancient Pyrrhonism was intended to be a way of life rather than a doctrine. Various objections to Pyrrhonism as a way of life have been raised—that it is psychologically impossible and that it makes life grind to a halt. While there are answers to those objections, I’ll argue that there are aspects of Pyrrhonism that make it nonetheless an unappealing way of life and unsuitable in modern circumstances. One crucial change from ancient times is that the Greek skeptics found themselves puzzled by disagreement, while modern philosophers have been worried by doubt. This helps to explain why skepticism is now seen as a challenge to be overcome rather than as a possible way of life. I argue, however, that a deeper understanding of the nature of doubt and its relation to knowledge will allow us to move past the current stalemate between skeptical and anti-skeptical arguments, recover a more accurate history of epistemology, and identify the best sort of epistemic lives available to us. In particular, I argue that a life lived in accordance with a Neo-Academic form of skepticism is more attractive than one guided by dogmatism.
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Introduction to a section comprising seventeen articles on skepticism in the modern world. Attention is given to historical and cultural background that shaped, and was shaped by, skepticism, including globalization, the Reformation, and... more
Introduction to a section comprising seventeen articles on skepticism in the modern world. Attention is given to historical and cultural background that shaped, and was shaped by, skepticism, including globalization, the Reformation, and the rise of modern science.
Research Interests: Epistemology, Hegel, Friedrich Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Immanuel Kant, and 15 moreBertrand Russell, Thomas Reid, George Berkeley, Baruch Spinoza, David Hume, Johann G Hamann, Philosophical skepticism, Skepticism, Descartes, Pierre Gassendi, Pierre Bayle, G E Moore, La Mothe Le Vayer, Pierre-Daniel Huet, and Simon Foucher
Overview of skepticism in contemporary epistemology, with attention given to how it intersects with internalism and externalism, fallibilism, contextualism, disjunctivism, disagreement with others, morality, and religion. Consideration of... more
Overview of skepticism in contemporary epistemology, with attention given to how it intersects with internalism and externalism, fallibilism, contextualism, disjunctivism, disagreement with others, morality, and religion. Consideration of skeptical arguments about the structure of justification, the external world, induction, the a priori, and other minds.
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Introduction to co-edited volume on skepticism.
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In this paper, I examine the relationship between the practical and the epistemic. I reject two broad ways of thinking about that relationship— pragmatic encroachment and an epistemology centered on the truth norm— before offering a new... more
In this paper, I examine the relationship between the practical and the epistemic. I reject two broad ways of thinking about that relationship— pragmatic encroachment and an epistemology centered on the truth norm— before offering a new approach, which explains epistemic normativity as arising from our practical commitment to a social practice that has arisen from our need to share information with one another. The social practice view captures the importance of knowledge and epistemic reasons to action, while preventing our practical interests from playing a disruptive role in how we arrive at our beliefs.
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I articulate the value of the epistemic and the central importance of epistemology in response to a challenge from Allan Hazlett. I argue that epistemic evaluations should not be simply absorbed into a single, all-things-considered point... more
I articulate the value of the epistemic and the central importance of epistemology in response to a challenge from Allan Hazlett. I argue that epistemic evaluations should not be simply absorbed into a single, all-things-considered point of view.
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Hilary Kornblith explores the prospects for reasons eliminationism, the view that reasons ought not to be regarded as being of central importance in epistemology. I reply by conceding that reasons may not be necessary for knowledge, in at... more
Hilary Kornblith explores the prospects for reasons eliminationism, the view that reasons ought not to be regarded as being of central importance in epistemology. I reply by conceding that reasons may not be necessary for knowledge, in at least some cases, but I argue that they are nevertheless vitally important in epistemology more broadly. Their importance stems from being necessary, not for knowledge but for us, given that we are social agents with practical concerns. In that sense, we have (social and practical) reasons for (having a practice of giving and receiving epistemic) reasons.
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A variety of arguments for and against skepticism with respect to perception are presented and evaluated. The skeptical arguments are drawn from the Academics, the Pyrrhonists, and Descartes. Anti-skeptical responses considered include... more
A variety of arguments for and against skepticism with respect to perception are presented and evaluated. The skeptical arguments are drawn from the Academics, the Pyrrhonists, and Descartes. Anti-skeptical responses considered include Moorean common sense, dogmatism, and externalism.
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In this paper, I trace the significance of a common feature of action and knowledge. A successful analysis of action must capture the sense in which there is someone who is acting. Similarly, I argue, a successful analysis of knowledge... more
In this paper, I trace the significance of a common feature of action and knowledge. A successful analysis of action must capture the sense in which there is someone who is acting. Similarly, I argue, a successful analysis of knowledge must capture the sense in which there is someone who knows. Explicitly recognizing this fact helps to explain the importance of epistemic agency in understanding what knowledge is. I explore the connections between knowledge, agency, and personhood and argue that some of the most widely shared intuitions in epistemology can be grounded in the sense that knowledge belongs to persons. I comment on the way in which a claim of this sort has been taken up by virtue epistemology, as well as the difficulties we face in providing a full understanding of how knowledge can belong to persons. The paper closes with a consideration of the value of knowledge.
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I present three arguments for the view that practical matters are relevant to whether you have knowledge before giving seven objections to that view. The paper closes with a brief consideration of an alternative to pragmatism.
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Ernest Sosa’s work in epistemology has frequently progressed through careful examination of key moments in the history of philosophy. Here I examine some of the most important cases in which this is so, including his introduction of... more
Ernest Sosa’s work in epistemology has frequently progressed through careful examination of key moments in the history of philosophy. Here I examine some of the most important cases in which this is so, including his introduction of virtues into epistemology and his reason for adding the subject’s perspective to externalism. I especially focus on the way Sosa adapts the structure of Descartes’s epistemology for his own externalist, virtue theoretic answer to skepticism.
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Fallibilism is roughly the view that one can have knowledge even though one’s belief could have been mistaken. Such a view seems to be incompatible with the standard way of thinking about epistemic possibility: it is possible (for me)... more
Fallibilism is roughly the view that one can have knowledge even though one’s belief could have been mistaken. Such a view seems to be incompatible with the standard way of thinking about epistemic possibility: it is possible (for me) that p just in case I don’t know that not-p. It is also difficult to reconcile fallibilism with the thought that knowledge ought to be action-guiding, given that the margin of error built into fallibilistic knowledge can sometimes become practically relevant. In this paper, I offer a solution to both of these puzzles for fallibilism—one that relies on neither contextualism nor subject-sensitive invariantism. I conclude by offering a new invariantist account of the way we speak about knowledge and epistemic possibility.
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Ernest Sosa’s virtue perspectivism can be thought of as an attempt to capture as much as possible of the Cartesian project in epistemology while remaining within the framework of externalist fallibilism. I argue (a) that Descartes’s... more
Ernest Sosa’s virtue perspectivism can be thought of as an attempt to capture as much as possible of the Cartesian project in epistemology while remaining within the framework of externalist fallibilism. I argue (a) that Descartes’s project was motivated by a desire for intellectual stability and (b) that his project does not suffer from epistemic circularity. By contrast, Sosa’s epistemology does entail epistemic circularity and, for this reason, proves unable to secure the sort of intellectual stability Descartes wanted. I then argue that this leaves Sosa’s epistemology vulnerable to an important kind of skepticism.
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I provide several objections to the thesis of pragmatic encroachment, which is the claim that, if you know that p, you should be able to act as if p (or use the proposition that p in practical reasoning).
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Although recent epistemology has been marked by several prominent disagreements – e.g., between foundationalists and coherentists, internalists and externalists – there has been widespread agreement that some form of fallibilism must be... more
Although recent epistemology has been marked by several prominent disagreements – e.g., between foundationalists and coherentists, internalists and externalists – there has been widespread agreement that some form of fallibilism must be correct. According to a rough formulation of this view, it is possible for a subject to have knowledge even in cases where the justification or grounding for the knowledge is compatible with the subject’s being mistaken. In this paper, I examine the motivation for fallibilism before providing a fully general account of the view. I conclude by looking at the two major difficulties for fallibilism: the Gettier problem and the lottery paradox.
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The skeptical tradition originated in the Hellenistic period of ancient philosophy. After mostly lying dormant through much of the medieval era, it was revived and—to some extent—transformed in early modern philosophy. Determining to what... more
The skeptical tradition originated in the Hellenistic period of ancient philosophy. After mostly lying dormant through much of the medieval era, it was revived and—to some extent—transformed in early modern philosophy. Determining to what extent there is a single view shared across the different periods is complicated by the fact that at least some of the main figures in the tradition said quite explicitly that they did not have any view at all. But if there are no theoretical commitments binding all of the different skeptics together, then what allows us to say that there is in fact a single tradition? There are at least two relevant considerations. The first is that the later figures in the tradition make use of many of the arguments originally formulated by the ancient skeptics—and, indeed, given their centrality to epistemology, those arguments are likely to be an enduring legacy of the skeptical tradition. The second consideration is that many of the later skeptics—Hume is a good example—arrived at their philosophical outlook through profound reflection on the earlier figures in the tradition. It is a matter of controversy whether key aspects of ancient skepticism have been retained or lost—for example, some scholars of ancient philosophy have argued that modern skepticism is in certain ways a watered down version of its ancient predecessor, given that the ancient skeptics focused on what we ought to believe and the modern skeptics focus, supposedly, only on whether we have knowledge. But, whether or not this is true, it has become increasingly clear that there is much to be learned about skepticism through study of the tradition as a whole. Given that so much of philosophy has been shaped by both skepticism and anti-skeptical responses to it, the importance of the history of skepticism cannot be overstated.
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I argue on behalf of an account of knowledge that is invariantist—i.e., the semantic value of knowledge attributions does not vary from context to context—and stable, in that it does not take knowledge to be affected by practical... more
I argue on behalf of an account of knowledge that is invariantist—i.e., the semantic value of knowledge attributions does not vary from context to context—and stable, in that it does not take knowledge to be affected by practical considerations. I show how a view of this sort, using nothing but the basic resources of fallibilism, can provide both a resolution to the lottery paradox and a satisfying explanation for the appeal of skepticism.
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There have been several recent attempts to account for the special authority of self-knowledge by grounding it in a constitutive relation between an agent’s intentional states and her judgments about those intentional states. This... more
There have been several recent attempts to account for the special authority of self-knowledge by grounding it in a constitutive relation between an agent’s intentional states and her judgments about those intentional states. This constitutive relation is said to hold in virtue of the rationality of the subject. I argue, however, that there are two ways in which we have self-knowledge without there being such a constitutive relation between first-order intentional states and the second-order judgments about them. Recognition of this fact thus represents a significant challenge to the rational agency view.
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The traditional argument for skepticism relies on a comparison between a normal subject and a subject in a skeptical scenario: because there is no relevant difference between them, neither has knowledge. Externalists respond by arguing... more
The traditional argument for skepticism relies on a comparison between a normal subject and a subject in a skeptical scenario: because there is no relevant difference between them, neither has knowledge. Externalists respond by arguing that there is in fact a relevant difference—the normal subject is properly situated in her environment. I argue, however, that there is another sort of comparison available—one between a normal subject and a subject with a belief that is accidentally true—that makes possible a new argument for skepticism. Unlike the traditional form of skeptical argument, this new argument applies equally well to both internalist and externalist theories of knowledge.
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Virtually every epistemological theory that is currently a live option is committed to two theses: fallibilism and attributabilism. A new argument for skepticism is advanced, which is grounded in the incompatibility of these two theses.... more
Virtually every epistemological theory that is currently a live option is committed to two theses: fallibilism and attributabilism. A new argument for skepticism is advanced, which is grounded in the incompatibility of these two theses. It is then argued that the main responses to traditional skepticism—epistemic externalism, contextualism, and Moorean common sense—are ineffective with respect to this new type of skepticism.
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Epistemic circularity occurs when a subject forms the belief that a faculty F is reliable through the use of F. Although this is often thought to be vicious, externalist theories generally don't rule it out. For some philosophers, this is... more
Epistemic circularity occurs when a subject forms the belief that a faculty F is reliable through the use of F. Although this is often thought to be vicious, externalist theories generally don't rule it out. For some philosophers, this is a reason to reject externalism. However, Michael Bergmann defends externalism by drawing on the tradition of common sense in two ways. First, he concedes that epistemically circular beliefs cannot answer a subject's doubts about her cognitive faculties. But, he argues, subjects don't have such doubts, so epistemically circular beliefs are rarely called upon to play this role. Second, following Thomas Reid, Bergmann argues that we have noninferential, though epistemically circular, knowledge that our faculties are reliable. I argue, however, that Bergmann's view is undermined by doubts a subject should have and that there is no plausible explanation for how we can have noninferential knowledge that our faculties are reliable.
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One of the main strands of the Cartesian tradition is the view that the mental realm is cognitively accessible to us in a special way: whenever one is in a mental state of a certain sort, one can know it just by considering the matter. In... more
One of the main strands of the Cartesian tradition is the view that the mental realm is cognitively accessible to us in a special way: whenever one is in a mental state of a certain sort, one can know it just by considering the matter. In that sense, the mental realm is thought to be a cognitive home for us, and the mental states it comprises are luminous. Recently, however, Timothy Williamson has argued that we are cognitively homeless: no mental state is in fact luminous. But his argument depends on an excessively strong account of luminosity. I formulate a weaker conception of luminosity that is unaffected by Williamson’s argument and yet is substantial enough to satisfy those who wish to retain this part of the Cartesian tradition.
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Knowledge is standardly taken to be belief that is both true and justified (and perhaps meets other conditions as well). Timothy Williamson rejects the standard epistemology for its inability to solve the Gettier problem. the moral of... more
Knowledge is standardly taken to be belief that is both true and justified (and perhaps meets other conditions as well). Timothy Williamson rejects the standard epistemology for its inability to solve the Gettier problem. the moral of this failure, he argues, is that knowledge does not factor into a combination that includes a mental state (belief) and an external condition (truth), but is itself a type of mental state. Knowledge is, according to his preferred account, the most general factive mental state. I argue, however, that Gettier cases pose a serious problem for Williamson's epistemology: in these cases, the subject may have a factive mental state that fails to be cognitive. Hence, knowledge cannot be the most general factive mental state.
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I examine the Stoics' initial account of the cognitive (cataleptic, apprehensive) impression and the response they made to the Academics' objections to it. First, I take up a weak interpretation of the Stoics' response, which holds that... more
I examine the Stoics' initial account of the cognitive (cataleptic, apprehensive) impression and the response they made to the Academics' objections to it. First, I take up a weak interpretation of the Stoics' response, which holds that they were not modifying their initial account but merely clarifying it. Next, I consider a strong interpretation, which holds that the Stoics were in fact modifying their account and came to hold a form of epistemic externalism. I argue that both interpretations are inadequate because they fail to provide a charitable reading of the debate between the Stoics and the Academics. I then suggest that, in responding to the Academics' objections, the Stoics came to hold a view that is similar to a modern version of direct realism known as disjunctivism.
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Almost every contemporary theory of knowledge is a version of fallibilism, yet an adequate statement of fallibilism has not yet been provided. Standard definitions cannot account for fallibilistic knowledge of necessary truths. I consider... more
Almost every contemporary theory of knowledge is a version of fallibilism, yet an adequate statement of fallibilism has not yet been provided. Standard definitions cannot account for fallibilistic knowledge of necessary truths. I consider and reject several attempts to resolve this difficulty before arguing that a belief is an instance of fallibilistic knowledge when it could have failed to be knowledge. This is a fully general account of fallibilism that applies to knowledge of necessary truths. Moreover, it reveals, not only the connection between fallibility and error, but the connection between fallibility and accidental truth as well.
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Taking a cue from Aristotle’s writings on ethics, an epistemology centered on the intellectual virtues has become popular recently. This type of virtue epistemology is motivated at least in part by its ability to account for epistemic... more
Taking a cue from Aristotle’s writings on ethics, an epistemology centered on the intellectual virtues has become popular recently. This type of virtue epistemology is motivated at least in part by its ability to account for epistemic agency (the capacities and practices involved in the pursuit of knowledge), so in the first section of this paper it is broadly sketched how such a view compares to the resources some other positions have for explaining agency. Section II takes up the relation of the virtues to other basic epistemological concepts (knowledge, most importantly). A schematic principle connecting the virtues to knowledge will be presented. Such a principle may be taken either as a criterion for knowledge or as an analysis of knowledge. In the third section, several problem cases will be posed that force amendments to the basic principle. In the fourth section, I will argue that, when amended to deal with these cases, an account based on the virtues becomes inadequate as an analysis of knowledge and of limited use as a criterion for knowledge. Finally, in section V the framework of a more complete theory of agency is outlined, as well as the implications of such a theory for the analysis of knowledge. Although the account is not entirely centered on them, the intellectual virtues may still be shown to play a vital role in our epistemic lives.
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The presence of accidentality in a subject's holding a belief is generally thought to be incompatible with that belief's being an instance of knowledge. Epistemologists have tended to focus on the accidentality of the truth of a belief. I... more
The presence of accidentality in a subject's holding a belief is generally thought to be incompatible with that belief's being an instance of knowledge. Epistemologists have tended to focus on the accidentality of the truth of a belief. I argue (a) that it is also possible that there be accidentality in the justification of a belief, and (b) that the consequences of this type of accidentality are potentially much more harmful than accidentality only in the truth of a belief.
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This is a brief overview of how philosophers think of knowledge, including reflections on what happens when a commitment to the disinterested pursuit of knowledge is abandoned. Published in Turkey.