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Duncan Pritchard on the Epistemic Value of Truth: Revision or Revolution?

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Abstract

In this paper, I assess Duncan Pritchard’s defense of the “orthodox” view on epistemic normativity. On this view, termed “epistemic value T-monism” (EVTM), only true belief has final value. Pritchard discusses three influential objections to EVTM: the swamping problem, the goal of inquiry problem, and the trivial truths problem. I primarily focus on Pritchard’s defense of the trivial truths problem: truth cannot be the only final epistemic value because we value “trivial” truths less than “significant” truths. In response, Pritchard appeals to epistemic virtue: the virtuous agent desires “substantial” truths, where “substantiality” is a matter of the non-luckiness of the true belief. Thus, what has substantial value, for Pritchard, is well-grounded true belief. Yet, I argue, this moves away from “orthodox” EVTM: this view fails to attribute final epistemic value to non-grounded, accidentally true belief. Aside from giving up EVTM altogether, I suggest this leads to either a revision or revolution. On the revision interpretation, EVTM was always imprecise: what orthodoxy always really cared about was epistemically grounded truth rather than truth simpliciter. On the revolutionary reading, what we really care about, contra orthodoxy, formation of belief in line with virtues rather than truth simpliciter.

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Notes

  1. For more on Pritchard’s views on the epistemic value of understanding, see (2008), (2009), and (2010, Ch. 4).

  2. There’s good company if Pritchard were to go this route. Sosa (2001, 51) “relativizes” our love of truth to questions we have, and David (2014, 365) restricts the “truth goal” to “important and interesting” propositions.

  3. But, as we’ve seen, Pritchard already accepts this claim anyway.

  4. Sarah Wright’s view in (2013) might fit with REVOLUTION. In that work, Wright argues, along Stoic grounds, that the real target of epistemic evaluation is not one’s believing the truth or one’s reliability but, instead, one’s virtue or skill in believing. On this view, truth has some value, but it is not the primary or final epistemic good. This view fits REVOLUTION nicely.

References

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank an anonymous referee for this journal for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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  1. Department of History, Political Science, Philosophy and American Studies, University of South Carolina Upstate, 800 University Way, Spartanburg, SC, USA

    Benjamin W. McCraw

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  1. Benjamin W. McCraw
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Correspondence to Benjamin W. McCraw.

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McCraw, B.W. Duncan Pritchard on the Epistemic Value of Truth: Revision or Revolution?. Philosophia 51, 821–833 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-022-00569-x

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