Abstract
The author uses a series of potential counterexamples to argue against attempts by Bergmann and Plantinga to articulate a distinction between malignant and benign epistemic circularity and, more radically, to argue that epistemic circularity per se is no fallacy, and the concept of epistemic circularity plays no role in the explanation of why some instances of epistemic circularity are irrational. The author contrasts an inferential framework, in which circularity is a problem, with an equilibrium framework, in which the concept of circularity plays no useful role and argues that defeasible reasoning can only be understood in an equilibrium, not an inferential, framework. The author uses an example of reasoning about the reliability of one’s own memory to explain how seemingly malignant epistemic circularity can be rational in an equilibrium framework. The author discusses the relevance of this conclusion to two contemporary issues: (1) the cogency of Plantinga’s Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism and (2) the evolutionary naturalists’ (e.g., Street) challenges to non-naturalist moral realism—and, indeed, to all forms of non-naturalist normative realism.
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Notes
Roughly, a reliability defeater for a belief is a consideration that makes it irrational to believe that the source of the belief is reliable. I explain defeaters and reliability defeat more fully in the next section.
By taking the kinds of processes involved to be wholes, I abstract away from theoretical questions about how to delineate the cognitive processes involved. As I see it, in an ordinary case in which a subject notices, for example, that her recent memories have become less reliable, the subject simply generalizes on beliefs of a certain kind (e.g., recent memories) without having much idea what kinds of processes are involved in the formation of beliefs of that kind. In this paper, I use examples to try to elicit in the reader the recognition that s/he would reason to a certain conclusion (e.g., that her recent memories have become less reliable), without theorizing very much about the details of the reasoning by which s/he would reach that conclusion. For a more theoretical discussion of the reasoning involved, see Talbott (2016a).
Defeater neutralization is my term to cover the effect of both defeater-defeaters and defeater-deflectors (Plantinga 2011, 345–348). I introduce the term here to simplify my statement of the principles MEC-1 and MEC-2 below and my discussion of examples. To translate between the two terminologies, note that when a potential defeater is neutralized, the neutralizer is a defeater-deflector; when an actual defeater is neutralized, the neutralizer is a defeater-defeater. Since defeater neutralizers can themselves be neutralized, by neutralizers that can themselves be neutralized, etc., defeaters have a complex inductive structure. For more on the structure of defeaters, see Pollock (1990, 86–92).
Pollock explains the inductive structure of defeaters and defeater neutralizers in terms of subproperty defeaters, which, as he points out, is another way of describing a “total evidence requirement”(1990, 86). In all of my examples, the structure of defeaters and defeater neutralizers can be understood in terms of subproperty defeat or, alternatively, in terms of a total evidence requirement. In the literature, there are a variety of ways of understanding a total evidence requirement. For Levi (1980), one’s evidence is composed of propositions whose negations are not serious possibilities. For Williamson (2000), one’s evidence is everything that one knows. These are not the only possibilities. In this paper, I remain neutral among the different proposals, by discussing only examples that can be described in such a way that all of the various proposals for defining one’s total evidence can be assumed to give the same result. Thanks to an anonymous referee for prompting me to clarify this.
Here is Bergmann’s principle: “EC [epistemic circularity]-infection is malignant in situations where it either does or should give rise to a believed defeater for the belief so infected. EC-infection is benign in situations where it neither does nor should give rise to a believed defeater for the belief so infected” (2006, 200) [my addition in brackets]. A belief has EC-infection in Bergmann’s sense when its justification is epistemically circular. The most important differences between Bergmann’s principle and MEC-1 are that Bergmann’s principle applies to believed defeaters—that is, propositions that the subject believes to be a defeater, even if the belief that it is a defeater is mistaken—and Bergmann’s principle applies to believed defeaters that the agent should have, while MEC-1 is limited to potential and actual defeaters that the agent has.
The reasoning in this example illustrates the inductive structure of defeaters, which corresponds to the total evidence requirement. Zelda bases her final judgment of the reliability of her perceptual beliefs on her total relevant evidence. For more on the inductive structure of defeaters and the total evidence requirement, see note 6.
The discussion of Plantinga’s position is complicated by the fact that Plantinga himself acknowledges that he has no principle for distinguishing benign from malignant epistemic circularity (2002, 224–225). His judgments of malignancy are case by case. So my discussion of his position must also be case by case.
To rule out as a serious possibility that Mimi’s mother is mistaken about what drug she took, imagine as much additional evidence as you need that the drug she took really was 4X.
For more details, see Talbott (2016a).
Equilibrium theories of reasoning have also been criticized as versions of coherence theories of justification. Although for some authors (e.g., Dancy 1985) an equilibrium (or coherence) theory of reasoning is presented as part of a coherence theory of justification, it is possible to advocate a coherence theory of reasoning without being committed to a coherence theory of justification. To see this, note that an equilibrium (or coherence) theory of reasoning is a theory of the rational relations among the contents of beliefs (or degrees of belief). If the advocate of the equilibrium (or coherence) theory of the rational relations among the contents of beliefs (or degrees of belief) holds that those are the only rational constraints on belief (or degrees of belief), then the result is a coherence theory of justification. To avoid a coherence theory of justification, it is only necessary to add further rational constraints. For example, Susan Haack illustrates her Foundherentist account of empirical justification with the crossword puzzle analogy (1993, 81–82). In the analogy, the interlocking letters of the answers to the crossword represent the equilibrium (or coherence) relations among the contents of the beliefs. The clues represent an additional rational constraint on belief, an experiential constraint, that prevents her account from being a coherence theory of empirical justification.
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Alvin Plantinga for giving me the impetus to think about these issues in a series of interchanges between the two of us that began almost twenty years ago. I am also grateful to an anonymous referee for prompting me to clarify some unclarities in an earlier draft.
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Talbott, W.J. Is epistemic circularity a fallacy?. Philos Stud 177, 2277–2298 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-019-01310-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-019-01310-3